Film Review: THE KIN (2004) (Short Film)

THE KIN ** Finland 2004 Dir: Lauri Haukkamaa 33 mins

This horror short was co-written by Mr. Lordi and starred himself and the band line up from The Monsterican Dream era in fact this film originally was only released on the special edition of said album, but I did manage to find it on YouTube. It is the story of a writer, Anna, who is trying to get her book on monsters published and following a tragic accident in  her family, sees monsters (played by the band), similar to the ones in her book start to materialise and cause mayhem and havoc by murdering and maiming seemingly innocent people.
Shot in a way very reminiscent of your typical horror B movie, almost Lovecraftian in places. It features drawings courtesy of Mr. Lordi and the score also has his input but it doesn’t feature any Lordi songs.  It is rather over indulgent on setting the scene, I find the acting below average, it drags a bit and to be honest there is no where near enough Lordi monster action for my liking but when they are there they look great, there are some very good effects, gore and skull slicing. It’s definitely something you would expect from a band like Lordi to create and feature as a bonus DVD. An acceptable offering but if I am to agree with some other reviews of this short it would appear I need to watch this a few times to fully understand it. Unfortunately I can think of plenty of other things I could do to occupy myself for 33 mins to bother giving it another go…. sorry guys.

Review by Sarah Budd