October 9: GODFREY HO-DOWN!!!
75. Zombie vs. Ninja (1989)
76, Daai se wong a.k.a. Thunder of Gigantic Serpent (1988)
77. Crocodile Fury (1988)
I just don’t know if I can go a month without watching some Godfrey Ho. His sheer volume of output and consistency of awfulness is a site to behold. First up we have Zombie vs. Ninja in which Ho cut ‘n’ pastes a movie about an undertaker taking on an apprentice who discovers that part of the job is combating the undead in the night with random ninja inserts that seem to have even less to do with the narrative than usual. It’s a mildly entertaining movie but is played up for laughs too much to generate any real thrills.
Thunder of Gigantic Serpent starts out more as an E.T.-esque plot of a little girl finding a secret formula that causes animals to expand to giant size which she gives to her pet snake. This makes her a target by a shadowy agency (who employ ninjas to do their bidding of course) who are after the formula. This one starts out on the slow side but the last 30 minutes is about the closest Godfrey Ho gets to making a full-blown kaiju movie with the giant snake rampaging through the city (the bargain basement effects are astounding).
Crocodile Fury is the best of the bunch for my money. I honestly can’t even summarize the plot because it had been chopped and screwed so much it was borderline incomprehensible. What we do get are hopping vampires, zombies, witches who turn into crocodiles and of course ninjas all thrown together in a heady brew that is pretty much never boring and seems to have about three climaxes. This one is definitely one of the more entertaining Ho movies I’ve seen.
October 9: #DeadFolks: Social Media Scares
78. Friend Request (2016)
79. Cry_Wolf (2005)
80. Host (2020)
Horror movies that utilize social media to generate scares have started cropping up more and more over the last few years, so I thought I’d catch up on a few. First we have Friend Request, a movie about a girl who unfriends someone on Facebook which causes them to kill themselves. As one can imagine, as her friend count begins to dwindle from people blaming her for the death, her friends begins to get killed off by some mysterious force. Is it GHOSTLY REVENGE!?!?! Meh. This was a pretty bland and easily predictable film. It was obvious the filmmakers thought so too as there are several fake jump scares thrown in just to liven things up.
Cry_wolf is perhaps one of the first horror films that used social media as a plot device. Basically it seems to be pitched as a slasher revival version of The Boy Who Cried Wolf, about a group of friends who create a fake rumor about a masked killer blamed for a recent death that they use AOL Instant Messenger to spread. They detail the fake victims of this fake killer modeled after themselves, but when the friends start disappearing, could it be the KILLER IS REAL!?!? BUT WHO WILL BELIEVE THEM!?!? The idea isn’t a bad one, and the execution isn’t bad either even though it feels dated. Still, there’s a certain predictability to the proceedings once the stage is set, and it’s just a matter of watching a group of mostly unlikable people killed off until we find out what’s going on.
It was only a matter of time with the current COVID shenanigans going on that we would see a movie entirely on Zoom, and the Host has graciously agreed to be that movie. Basically the setup is a group of internationally remote friends put together a virtual séance. They are warned to respect the spirits. Suffice it to say, they don’t and bad things happen. While the setup is different than 2016’s Unfriended, it definitely has a similar feel to it, using mostly webcams and phone cameras via Zoom to scope out the eerie noises and bumps in the night that plague our group in the wake of a séance gone wrong. It isn’t bad and people who have a higher tolerance for found footage-style movies will find it easier to go down than others, but it does have some of the same annoying tropes often seen in the genre, particularly continuing to film for no reason and carrying the phone around in unnatural ways for optimal shooting angles. Still, it’s only an hour long so it might be worth a watch if you want a quick fix.
October 9: It Was A Dark And Stormy Night: Anthologies Told By People Trying to Scare Each Other
81. Campfire Tales (1997)
82. The Willies (1990)
83. Screams of a Winter Night (1979)
The framing devices of folks telling scary stories to each other in the dark, often around a campfire, is a well-worn anthology horror trope. Here we have three films that utilize this mechanism to setup their segments.
First we have Campfire Tales. The premise here seems to be to take the classic urban legends of stuff like the hook hand on the car mirror and mix into graphic sex and violence to bring them up to date. At the end of the day, the stories it modernizes are so familiar that it really doesn’t drum up much suspense since you know what’s coming. Honestly Urban Legend isn’t a great movie but it does use a similar idea in a slightly more original way.
The Willies is kinda neat for a couple of reasons. One is that I liked seeing all these child actors from classic movies of my childhood like The Goonies and Stand By Me which bakes in a little nostalgia for it that I really shouldn’t have since I never saw this when I was a kid. The other thing I appreciate about this two-story plus framing device anthology is that, like the recent Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark movie, it is a legit horror movie targeted to kids that isn’t afraid to show genuinely creepy imagery. With blood spray and severed limbs, it’s definitely a step up from the likes of the Goosebumps TV series or Are You Afraid of the Dark.
With Screams of a Winter Night, I watched the recently unearthed director’s cut of the film that re-added a fourth segment about a witch thought to be lost. While the four segments vary from a little dull to decent, in a rare outlier for an anthology movie, the framing story is actually the best of the bunch with a really good build up and ending.
October 9: KIDDIE KORNER!
84. Scooby-Doo! and the Monster of Mexico (2003)
Scooby Doo’s always a fairly reliable stand-by that can distract the kids while also being at least decently entertaining. Monster of Mexico feels a little like a missed opportunity to be honest. Scooby Doo in Mexico on the Day of the Dead being pursued by a Chupacabra should be more interesting than this. The production doesn’t really take much advantage of the iconography of the Day of the Dead and instead spends too much time on a failed theme park idea. This definitely felt like a lesser Scooby Doo movie (although still better than the ’80s movies with Scrappy Doo).
October 10: Worship the Snake or Incur It’s Wrath: Movies with Snake Gods and Goddesses
85. Nagin (1976)
86. Hisss (2010)
87. Il dio serpente a.k.a. The Snake God (1970)
In India, the story of a snake lady seeking revenge for a past wrong is a surprisingly common theme. Nagin (1976) is one of the more well-known of these types of films (and for about the most comprehensive overview you can get, check out Tim Paxton’s very long article on them in Weng’s Chop #3). When a female snake who can transform into a woman has her mate killed by a hunting party, she proceeds to seek revenge on the six men responsible. It has its moments like the transformation sequences’ delightfully old school approach (which Hisss actually pays homage to) but like many Indian films, it is entirely too long and could’ve been much more effective if trimmed down under two hours.
Speaking of Hisss, this is a bit of a curio as it is very much an Indian snake lady film but directed by Jennifer Lynch (daughter of noted weirdo David Lynch). Lynch certainly seems to know her history with this genre though with a decidedly bloody take on the legend of the wronged snake lady. While it does have some weak CG in places, it also uses some pretty solid practical effects as well. Stylistically, the film seems to revel in grotesque imagery that so many other nagin films only hint at like the scene of the unhinging of her jaw to swallow a person and the later scene of her half human/half snake body bulging out in an almost cartoonish manner because of the person still digesting inside. It definitely seems to be trying to push the limits of India’s standards board on both the violence and sex quotients. Honestly, while it isn’t an amazing film, it was actually pretty entertaining. Also the idea of setting the opening sequence on Holi is a good one I haven’t seen used much.
The Snake God is quite different in theme to the previous two films. The titular snake god in this one is actually the central figure in a bizarre voodoo cult that a woman seeks solace in from a crumbling marriage. After the sudden inexplicable death of her husband, will she give herself over completely to the snake god? This is a strange one that seems to revel in the exotic rituals and unbridled lust of the cult. Much of the film is more of an internal character journey of the lead and how far she will immerse herself in these mysterious customs. It’s an interesting film and worth a look for fans of Mondo Macabro’s other output but not one that will give you visceral thrills necessarily.
October 10: Long Dark Trip into the Soul: Struggles with Perception of Identity
88. I’m Thinking of Ending Things (2020)
89. Los Parecidos a.k.a. The Similars (2015)
90. Always Shine (2016)
The dissolution of self is a theme that crops up pretty regularly in horror. Hitchcock’s Psycho alone is responsible for influencing many of these. It’s always been an interesting theme to me, so I had to work in some for this challenge. I’m Thinking of Ending Things is certainly one of the more obtuse examples of this, and while I wasn’t sure when I started it that it would really qualify as horror, I can say for sure now that it definitely does. It is relentlessly eerie and unsettling with a continuous uncomfortable and befuddling atmosphere that Kaufman just continues to layer and layer until it reaches a fever pitch at the school. The ending, while tonally at odds with the rest of the movie, seems to serve as a kind of release, both as a pseudo-explanation of what has transpired and the lead character’s acceptance of a life only lived in dreams. I think I have a pretty good idea what was going on here but don’t want to really discuss it to avoid spoilers.
The Similars is, right out of the gate, full-throttle manic in a more literal representation of losing one’s identity, striking a balance somewhere between The Twilight Zone and Alex de la Iglesia as we find a group of strangers stranded in a bus station during a rainstorm. Impatience gives way to unhinged panic when one-by-one their facial features start transforming into the same bearded face. Paranoia and hysteria are set loose as they scramble to figure out what the hell is happening. I had a lot of fun with this one. The pace is near relentless with accusations flying and turns in the story leading to even more preposterous narrative reveals. Definitely recommended for those who like their movies on the bizarre, crazy side of things.
Always Shine follows two actresses, one who seems more reserved and passive but more successful and the other, overbearing, pushy and with a struggling career. They are long-time friends who agree to go on vacation together in an aunt’s remote house in the woods in order to reconnect after growing apart over the years. Before long, deep rooted jealousies and revelations of their true feelings for one another start to come out, resulting in a series of events that shifts the nature of how they are perceived. It’s a decent film with excellent acting from the two leads that owes a HUGE debt to Bergman’s Persona. At times it does drag a little and the events of the third act felt a little predictable to me. Although I did like how the director used shifts in time to juxtapose certain events.
October 10: KIDDIE KORNER!
91. The Little Vampire (2000)
From the director of hard-hitting, gritty dramas like Christiane F. and Last Exit to Brooklyn (Uli Edel) comes this whimsical romp about a kid (played by Jonathan Lipnicki) who befriends a vampire and proceeds to get into various shenanigans. As one can imagine, this doesn’t have quite the gravitas of some of Edel’s other films. As far as how my family reacted to it, their attention seemed to wander quite a bit. Although my daughter definitely perked up at the vampiric flying cows at the end. Still, I was at least glad to see Richard E. Grant (as the vampire kid’s father) continuing to get work even if it is in some low-rent family Halloween flick like this. Also it did have a couple of funny lines in it as well, so it wasn’t a total waste.
October 11: Make Em Laugh. Make Em Die: Killer Klowns That Aren’t From Outer Space
92. Clown (2014)
93. 31 (2016)
94. Dark Carnival (1993)
Clowns are naturally damned creepy. I have no idea who thought they were ever fun to watch. With the massive success of the two IT movies, scary clowns are prominently in the public consciousness right now. Honestly though I’m surprised that like half of all horror movies don’t have evil clowns in them. First up is the Eli Roth-produced Clown. This is the completely ridiculous story of what is essentially a were-clown. A family man scrambles to find a clown costume after a last-minute cancellation for his son’s birthday party and discovers a dusty old clown suit in the basement of a house he’s selling. The problem is that the suit doesn’t come off. See, it’s the skin of an infamous clown murderer or something. As the clown suit slowly transforms him into a monster, the clown’s bloodlust increases. I honestly don’t even know how to comment on a movie like this. It’s such a grim and serious take on a completely fucking silly idea. If you want some weird body horror and gore to go with your clown horror, then the predictable script probably won’t deter you from watching this.
31 is a gritty, violent grindhouse murder game flick from Rob Zombie that seems to take a certain sick pleasure in its sadistic kill spree. A bunch of carnies are kidnapped and thrown into a grimey warehouse where bets are placed by snooty aristocrats wearing powdered wigs as to who will survive the night as they are attacked by crazed, perverse clowns with a variety of quirks and weaponry. It’s brutal and twisted but laced with the kind of dark humor that Rob Zombie has brought to previous films. There’s really not much to it beyond the basic setup, so you will either like it or you won’t.
Dark Carnival is about a bunch of teens who stage a haunted house at a carnival populated with science gone wrong, tentacle birth scenes, creepy clowns popping out and other strangely elaborate setups for a bunch of high schoolers to have put together. Of course, something happens and a malevolence starts coursing through the haunted house, wreaking havoc on the denizens within. This one is pretty low budget and from the early ’90s, so adjust expectations accordingly. Frankly it wasn’t very good, but it also probably wasn’t the worst thing I’ve seen this month. I actually kinda wanted to visit the haunted house they made at the beginning.
October 11: Like A Live Wire: The Exciting World Of Indonesian Horror
95. Modus Anomali a.k.a. Ritual (2012)
96. Sebelum Iblis Menjemput a.k.a. May the Devil Take You (2018)
97. Pengabdi setan a.k.a. Satan’s Slave (1982)
Indonesia seems to have developed a reputation back in the ’80s for making crazy movies like Mystics in Bali and Lady Terminator, so I felt like I needed to dip my toes in that nutty Kool Aid at least once this month. Ritual is an earlier film from director Joko Anwar (responsible for the Satan’s Slave remake and Impetigore) and is an interesting, engaging, twisty and almost too clever thriller. A man wakes up in a shallow grave in the middle of the woods with no memory and a bloody scene in a cabin nearby where he discovers his family to be in danger. This kicks off a mad scramble to recover his identity and his family from the unseen murderer leaving a path of destruction in his wake. I actually dug this one even though it has some rather preposterous leaps of logic in a couple of places and is probably a little too clever for its own good (don’t try to think too hard about all the coincidences that would need to line up to make it all work the way it does).
May the Devil Take You finds a girl and her stepsister at the bed of her graven ill father, discovering that he may have dabbled in things he shouldn’t have that puts his whole family in jeopardy. Ok, well… I’m really of two minds on this one. On one hand, I could see this being pretty effective watching it in a theater with a large group as it really just goes for it, you know? I also dug some of the over-the-top ridiculous, Sam Raimi-esque effects. I wasn’t sure if they were supposed to be funny, but I laughed regardless. The thing is, at nearly two hours with little in the way of respite from the near constant jump scares, screaming, menacing, vomiting and all other manner of kitchen sink creep this movie can dig up, it is just straight up exhausting to watch. Some of the really obvious jump scares are just groan-inducing too. So I guess, if you are looking for a relentless jump scare ride of a film, this will probably do for a fix. If you want something more nuanced or subtle with a less convoluted manic plot, look elsewhere.
I actually watched the Satan’s Slave remake last year but never got around to seeing the original. While there are a handful of similarities about a family coping with the death of the mother in both, there are also HUGE differences as well. This version seems to focus much more on this mysterious housekeeper character rather than the Faustian bargain in the remake. I think the remake also does a better job with pacing than this one which honestly feels too slow with little going on in the first hour. The last thirty minutes though is sufficiently nutty and entertaining to watch. It just takes a long time getting there.
October 11: KIDDIE KORNER!
98-99. Tales from the Cryptkeeper S2E1-6 (1994)
So I absolutely love Tales from the Crypt. It’s easily one of my favorite TV series of all time. Since I don’t really want to show my kids that (at the risk of having child services called on me), this animated and sanitized spin-off will have to do in the meantime. Honestly some of the stories really do kind of work in the same twisted morality tale vein as the original series. Others though fall really flat and don’t work at all (but I mean, it’s not like the original series was nothing but bangers either, especially in the last couple of seasons). Really the biggest negative to this show is the animation quality which ranges from bland to actively terrible. My daughter actually liked this show quite a bit, so that was cool.
October 12: Hurts So Good: Slasher Parodies from 1982
00. Wacko (1982)
101. Pandemonium (1982)
102. National Lampoon’s Class Reunion (1982)
1982 must have been a boffo year for making fun of slashers. When I usually think of the golden age of the horror comedy, the mid to late ’80s come to mind more often as slasher fatigue started to set in, although with these three (as well as Student Bodies and Saturday the 14th from the previous year), we have spoofs being churned out at the height of the slasher boom (and yes, I know Saturday the 14th is more a parody of classic monster movies rather than slashers). Really though in a lot of ways, these aren’t much different than the newer tossed off, lowest common denominator crapfests of Friedberg/Seltzer (Epic Movie, Meet the Spartans, etc.) that throw out cheap lazy jokes in the most obvious ways. Still, I think there may be more talent scattered around here than on the <genre> Movie parody movies.
Mrs. Doctor Graves: Poor Daddy’s been under such a strain recently.
Mary Graves: If you ask me, he’s acting like he just killed someone.
Mrs. Doctor Graves: Mary! Your father’s a doctor… He kills people every day.
First up is Wacko, from noted sclockmeister Greydon Clark (Without Warning, Final Justice, Black Shampoo) who definitely has a familiarity with the material he’s spoofing, directing several horror movies both before and after this. Perhaps as a result, some of the jokes here actually seem to land better than many in the other movies just because there’s seems to be a certain specificity to them that goes for something a little more clever or less obvious. Also this may be the best Joe Don Baker has ever been. I had a lot of fun watching his off-kilter reckless cop routine that seems like he’s parodying himself. Still, Wacko does have its fair share of stupid stuff too, so you know, you’ve gotta take the good with the bad.
Salt: You are frightened of the night?
Randy: Baloney!
Salt: You are frightened of baloney?
While Pandemonium has the more well-known cast populated with the likes of Tom Smothers, Carol Kane, Paul Reubens, Judge Reinhold…even a cameo from Phil Hartman in an early role, a vast majority of the jokes just fall flat. Many of them are about as subtle as a sledgehammer to the face and the plot itself is a complete mess. This one, more than the other two I watched, feels more like the Friedberg/Seltzer movies in how painfully unfunny and lazy the jokes are.
Chip Hendrix: What Carl Jung was trying to say is that trapped inside of each of us, there is a woman that comes out when we fuck up real bad.
Carl Clapton: You mean, there’s a woman trapped inside of me?
Chip Hendrix: Yeah.
Carl Clapton: A black woman or a white woman?
Chip Hendrix: A Jewish woman
Class Reunion seems to lean into the raunchiness more than the other two with a lot more crude sex humor (which honestly I kind of expect with National Lampoon). Otherwise, it’s probably of a similar hit-or-miss quality as Wacko and definitely a step up from Pandemonium. Plus hey, it was written by none other than John Hughes! That alone is probably enough to get some to seek it out as a curio if nothing else.
October 12: The Killer Stalks At Midnight While Under Suspicion: Neo-Giallo for the New Millennium
103. Francesca (2015)
104. Ubaldo Terzani Horror Show (2010)
105. Mad in Italy (2011)
I decided to check in on Italy and see how things are going nowadays and whether their current horror offerings measure up to the giallos of the ’70s and ’80s. first up is Francesca, which not only takes up the themes of the classic giallo (red gloved killer incorporating a baby doll into their crimes) but also the visual aesthetic. The image has an intentionally grainy, faded vintage look to it, intended to hearken back to those thrillers of old. From a plot and pacing standpoint, it’s on par with about a mid-tier giallo from back in the day but certainly not as good as the best of the genre. Also while the aesthetic served a dual purpose of also attempting to hide the low budget origins, it still couldn’t help but look cheap in places.
Ubaldo Terzani Horror Show was an interesting one. When a greenhorn script writer is sent to co-write a screenplay with a well-known horror author (the Ubaldo Terzani of the title), at first things seem fine, but as the young writer is exposed to more and more of Terzani’s personality and secrets, he begins to suspect something sinister going on within Terzani’s walls. This was actually pretty good for about the first half of the film, setting up a methodically paced but engaging story that certainly gives the mysterious vibe of a classic giallo. Then it takes a turn into over-the-top gore and mutilation that clashes wildly with the tone of the rest of the film. I mean, the gore is well-done but I felt like the movie could’ve been something more.
Mad In Italy is a sort of hybrid of cinema verite docudrama and modern giallo and primarily involves a serial killer holding a woman captive. It’s a bleak film and certainly isn’t one I’d consider a “fun” watch but is actually fairly well executed. It blends the shockingly mundane day-to-day with short bursts of brutal cruelty not unlike films like The Snowtown Murders. I think it’s also a smart move to put a big focus on the peril of the woman which makes certain events more impactful as a result. It does have some pacing issues in places but overall I think it accomplishes what it sets out to do.
October 12: You Only Think You Know Me: Disturbed Individuals
106. Alyce Kills (2011)
107. The Gift (2015)
108. The House That Jack Built (2018)
Crazy folks be trippin’. Amiright? Hey, doing all these write-ups are exhausting….
Alyce Kills is an interesting one. It basically involves a woman wracked by guilt who is driven slowly mad as a result. Of course, it’s more complicated than that. I’ve seen a couple of different things that have compared it to Polanski’s Repulsion which I can kind of see in certain ways for sure. But really, I think this movie is also its own thing. It clearly has a pretty low budget but uses the lo-fi camerawork to its advantage to mirror the fracturing of her mind. I know I’m being vague, but it’s hard to talk about this one without spoilers.
The Gift is very much a slow-burn but with a very good payoff and some excellent performances from all the leads. Jason Bateman plays a well-to-do white collar office worker who has a lovely wife, a good job and a bright future. He runs into an old acquaintance from high school who begins to insinuate himself into their lives, at first with a certain amiable generosity manifest as gift-giving. But events begin to transpire that may imply that not everything is as it seems. This is another one I want to avoid spoilers on. I will say though that this in some ways reminds me of the uncomfortable psychodramas of Michael Haneke, François Ozon and Kim Ki-Duk but with a little more of a polished Hollywood veneer while also owing a large debt to Hitchcock himself.
The House That Jack Built is Lars Von Trier’s latest joint, a sprawling over 2.5 hour film that recounts the various escapades of an incredibly intelligent and unquestionably monstrous serial killer played very well by Matt Dillon. The way that Dillon plays Jack as a reflection of the situations he finds himself in and increasingly growing more obsessive and reckless as his dissatisfaction with normal murder grows is done in such a way that you stay engaged with the character even as Von Trier engages in masturbatory exercises that serve no narrative purpose. Yes, the film is incredibly brutal and disturbing in places (it was notoriously yet another Von Trier film with walk outs at Cannes), but like Von Trier’s best films, it’s also darkly comical as well. Von Trier gives more of a wink and nod to his trollish tendencies here than in some of his other more serious films that keeps The House That Jack Built from becoming one of his films that leaves you hating humanity (not that there isn’t some of that here too…). Von Trier can’t help himself though with a third act overindulgence that makes for a strange and protracted ending that feels somewhat at odds with the rest of the picture. Also with its massive length, it could have definitely stood to some editing down. Despite that, I still found this to be an easier watch than some of his other films.
October 12: KIDDIE KORNER!
109a. The Munsters: Family Portrait (1964)
109b. The Canterville Ghost (1988)
Well, I tried one more time with the Munsters and my kids just couldn’t get into it at all, so it looks like the Munsters are gonna be a no-go with them. After they abandoned that show, I threw on some random animated short adaptation of The Canterville Ghost since my daughter was demanding a ghost show. It held her attention a little while but the animation was pretty clunky and outdated, and she wandered off before it ended.