Welcome to Reviews from the Horror Chamber. I am your chamber keeper, Anthony Thurber. I’m back with the second part of 2007 of this week’s edition. Sorry for not having it up yesterday; wasn’t feeling well.

While reviewing my half of the After Dark Horrorfest I saw a certain trailer that brought back some bad memories from earlier this year. Yes, if you paying attention to the trailers, it did seem like Liongate were lazy in putting together its trailer package because why did I have to see the trailer to The Eye? It was not only in front of one Horrorfest movie but four Horrorfest movies (Five if your count Wristcutters: A Love Story). No offense, but it brought back some bad memories of the film. I do not need to re-live Jessica Alba’s shitty acting or the movie’s inability to develop any of its characters. Sorry. I know you guys need to promote the DVD release but why are you promoting it now when the DVD doesn’t come out in June? Aren’t there any other films that you guys can promote, like Frontier(s), which is coming out on DVD on May 13th? Enough with my ranting, now on to the reviews.

Mulberry Street
Year: 2008
Directors: Jim Mickle
Stars: Nick Damici, Kim Blair, Ron Brice
MPAA Rating: R
Studio: After Dark Films / Belladonna Productions
Running Time: 84 Mins
Review Rating: 5 Stars
Official Website: http://www.mulberrystreetmovie.com/



Mulberry Street has had the honor to be part some of the top festivals out there such as South by Southwest, the Tribeca Film Festival, and the Toronto After Dark festival where it won the Sprit Award for Best Independent Feature.

The film is about a group of residents who were recently evicted from their apartments in Manhattan. They are forced to protect their building when a deadly virus starts turning people into vicious rat-like creatures. As the situation gets worse, the residents must protect themselves from these creatures and hope to stay alive until sunrise.

Mulberry Street is this generation’s Night of the Living Dead (1968). Writer/director Jim Mickles creates this in-your-face virus horror film by shooting the action with the same style as in 28 Days/Weeks After films. I know a lot of people don’t like the shakey-cam, but it very effective for these types of films. It makes the action fast and intense. The acting was very good here. Mickles does a great job making sure his actors are really acting intense to the situation around them which the film more entertaining.

The screenplay for Mulberry Street was well developed unlike in Unearthed, which I’ll get to after this review. Mickles along with screenwriter Nick Damici (who also stars in the film) made the film very intense. They succeed by developing the characters. I liked, how Mickle and Damici spend the first half of the film getting to know that characters. I got to know them and their surroundings too. The writers of Mulberry Street do that so when everything goes to hell in the second and third acts, you care about them and want them to survive this ordeal. It also helped the film became intense and scary towards the end. Mickles and Damici also focus on issues like corporations driving the poor into the streets, the media handling of crises and local and national government neglecting its responsibly towards its citizens when a disastrous situation happens like Katrina. It’s such powerful issues that works in films of this genre like Mulberry Street, if done right. The reason I made that statement in the beginning of my review was mostly based on the ending of the film. What makes some horror films classics is the ending. Without going detail of the ending, the last five minutes of the film made me speechless. That’s all I’ll say, as I want you to rent or buy this film. This is how an effective horror film is made, even though some the studio-heads might disagree with yours truly on that thought.

Mulberry Street is by far the best film in the After Dark Horrorfest. I urge to run to your local video store to check this film out, as I’ll say it again, Mulberry Street is this generation’s Night of the Living Dead.

DVD Extras:

Storyboards
Deleted Scenes
Outtakes
Behind the Scenes
Makeup Test
Visual Effects Test
Miss Horrorfest Webisodes

Unearthed
Year: 2008
Directors: Matthew Leutwyler
Stars: Emmanuelle Vaughn, Luke Goss, Tonantzin Carmelo
MPAA Rating: R
Studio: After Dark Films / Cold Iron Pictures
Running Time: 93 Mins
Review Rating: 1 Star
Official Website: http://www.unearthedthemovie.com/

(Please take this review, as a Public Service Announcement)

Unearthed is the follow-up to Matthew Leutwyler cult hit, Dead and Breakfast back in 2004. The film is about a group of Archaeologists, who are digging in the middle of a deserted New Mexico town. During their digging they accidentally let loose a very violent creature that has been tapped underneath the surface for 900 years. Soon the creature is loose on the small town and it’s up to local sheriff (Emmanuelle Vaughn) and a group of stranded people to fend off this creature and find a way to destroy the creature destroys kills them all.

Unearthed should also be known as Uneventful. Man, this was a fucking boring film that should have had its premiere on the Sci-Fi Channel, not in theaters. The running time of the film felt like 3 hours, not 93 Minutes.

Writer/Director Matthew Leutwyler didn’t do a good job writing and directing this film. Leutwyler direction of the action sequences was dull and confusing at times. Some of the reasons for that were, the film was just dull and boring to watch. Another thing that Leutwyler does wrong is to let the actors make their characters dull and lifeless, because they almost put me to sleep literally. I really didn’t care for any of these characters.

The screenplay was even worse. Leutwyler never spends any time trying to fully develop the main characters in the film. The characters just seemed uninteresting to me and also there were too many of them, for this type of film. I thought there was a chance to do something with Emmanuelle Vaughn’s character but Leutwyler decides to just drop hints and not reveal much until the ending of the film. The film also has many gaps in which the action and the story just seemed boring and nothing eventful really happens.

Unearthed would have just better if it played on the Sci-Fi Channel where I would never see this film, but instead it’s one of the Eight Films to Die For according to After Dark Films.

DVD Extras:

Miss Horrorfest Webisodes


I recently reviewed a couple of horror films for FilmArcade.net. To read any of my reviews, just click on the title.

13 Hours in a Warehouse
Horrors of War

Also if you missed part one in which I reviewed, The Deaths of Ian Stone and Nightmare Man. You click here to read the reviews.

If you’re a filmmaker and interested in having your horror film reviewed in the horror chamber, you can reach the Chamber Keeper himself at Anthonythurber@filmarcade.net or if you have any film in any genres that you want Film Arcade to review, send us an email at screeners@filmarcade.net.

Also, don’t forget to add the official MySpace home of Reviews From the Horror Chamber at http://www.myspace.com/reviewsfromthehorchamber.

Well that’s it for my look at the 2007 After Dark Horrorfest. I’ll be back at a special day next Tuesday, as I have reviews of three films that are coming out on DVD that same day including Cruel World starring Edward Furlong and Jamie Presley and The Cellar Door. Until then, have a frightening week.