October 13: Where It All Began: Horror Prequels
111. Children of the Corn: Genesis (2011)
112. Retro Puppet Master (1999)
113. Leatherface (2017)
Prequels are a tricky business. On one hand, they may offer fan service to delight long-time followers of a franchise and enrich the back story of a certain character. On the other hand, they often fall flat for someone unfamiliar with the follow-ups with foreshadowing and references to later films. Plus sometimes they just aren’t very satisfying, failing to capture the spirit of what is to come. This group is a little bit of a mix of both I’m afraid.
First up is Children of the Corn: Genesis. I mean, to be honest, this prequel didn’t exactly have a lot to live up to. While a couple of the Children of the Corn films might be decent, I don’t think any of them are really classics of the genre. Despite that, it’s just a mess of a movie. The only positive thing I can think to say about it is in regards to Billy Drago being his usual sinister-as-fuck self as a creepy cult leader preacher. Honestly it wouldn’t surprise me if it turned out this wasn’t originally even a Children of the Corn movie and they tacked on the name to get more watches. Just avoid it unless you are in love in Billy Drago.
Before watching this, I had forgotten than Greg Sestero played Toulous in Retro Puppet Master before going on to greater fame (infamy?) in The Room. And here’s the thing, while I don’t think he’s a great actor, he definitely does a better job here than in The Room which just reinforces the willful awfulness of Tommy Wiseau’s vision. Also as far as the movie itself goes, it honestly isn’t as bad as I expected. The effects are not great (and I watched the blu-ray of it that included remastered effects so I can’t imagine how bad the original looked) but the story is actually fairly well-thought out for a Puppet Master movie. They really seemed to want to tell a real origin story for the puppets. The puppets themselves also get less polished designs (in keeping with the idea that this is their origin) that feel reasonable for an early version of what they’d evolve into. For some reason this one doesn’t seem to be embraced by a lot of fans. The only thing I can think of is that it isn’t as violent and kill-crazy and some of the other entries with more heightened fantasy elements. Still, it’s not bad.
Leatherface gives us an origin to that big lovable skin-wearing, chainsaw-dancing oaf we all know and love courtesy of directors Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury (who brought us the ridiculously violent, disturbing French extremity film Inside). They definitely bring that same sense of chaos and gore to the proceedings that gives us a setup for the Texas Chainsaw family. It does have a few winks and nods to the original and other films in the series but spends much of its time showing how Leatherface developed his skin mask fetish with some red herrings along the way. It’s not awful but other than the mystery of which of the characters actually becomes Leatherface, it’s pretty much a feature-length kill spree with little character development. Still, if you just wanna watch a bunch of people get murdered in gruesome ways with some big Hollywood polish, this’ll do.
October 13: Punch. Kick. It’s All In The Mind: Asian Action Horror
114. Chin gei bin a.k.a. Vampire Effect (2003)
115. Tôkyô ribingu deddo aidoru a.k.a. Tokyo Living Dead Idol (2018)
116. Dead Mine (2012)
Going back to the Shaw bros. kung fu horror of the late ’70s/early ’80s (and really even before with Japan fusing elements of the supernatural into samurai films) Asia has a pretty long history with mixing well-choreographed fight sequences with ghosts, ghouls and other fiends from the beyond.
Vampire Effect is a fun, fairly light Hong Kong action horror comedy starring two girls (who are apparently a pop group in China) who get mixed up with a vampire hunter’s battle with the undead. It has a supporting role from Jackie Chan as well, and while his character is kind of superfluous, he’s still a lot of fun to watch. It’s not often you see Chan fighting vampires. This one also stands out with its fight choreography in general. Given that it’s from Ringo Lam with Donnie Yen doing second unit (I would guess on fight sequences if I had to wager), it isn’t surprising how good the action is, even from non-professionals like the girls. For some random reason I watched the “sequel” earlier this year without having seen this one, and it’s both totally skippable and really only a sequel in name. It seems to have a totally different plot in a different time period and really only shares some of the same actors. In summary, check out Vampire Effect but avoid the sequel.
Tokyo Living Dead Idol is one of those mega-cheap direct-to-video Japanese horror flicks that seemed to flood the market in the wake of Versus. Of the ones I’ve seen, I think this one actually fares better than many of them, mostly due to its well-done fight choreography. The premise is pretty straightforward. An idol is bitten by a zombie and has limited time to scramble to find a cure before she transforms while also avoiding zombie hunters. Some of the acting feels pretty stilted, although the lead that plays Miku the idol is endearing. Where the budget hurts it the most is in effects with cheesy CG blood and bargain bin zombie makeup. but like I said, the action does actually elevate it somewhat and make it a reasonably fun movie to watch for a quick burst of entertainment, not unlike Versus actually.
Dead Mine is an Indonesian action horror with a more international cast involving some treasure hunters who head into a lost bunker in search of gold and find mutant samurai to kill them off instead. The movie plays the ridiculous premise pretty straight (it reminds me of an Asylum movie in this way) but does have decent production values and effects for what it is. It’s not terribly deep but the back story tying it into the Japanese torture camps was interesting even if it didn’t really do a lot with it.
October 13: KIDDIE KORNER!
117. Under Wraps (1997)
Some kids befriend a mummy that they accidentally release from his tomb and must get him back before midnight so he can be together with his long-lost love. This one has a lot of fish-out-of-water comedy elements to it as well as really wringing out the ‘hide the mummy from authority figures’ trope. It does touch on some fairly serious issues like divorce for what’s basically a light-heartened Disney movie. Still, it’s pretty forgettable. My daughter did like the mummy though despite it not holding her attention the whole time (but I mean, not a lot does).
October 14: Fangs for the Memories: Vampiric Comedy
118. Vamps (2012)
119. Summer of Blood (2014)
120. Kyûketsu Shôjo tai Shôjo Furanken a.k.a. Vampire Girl vs Frankenstein Girl (2009)
I thought it’d be good to sink my teeth into some tasty nocturnal morsels of joviality, so this trio of films looked like they’d do the trick. First up we have Amy Heckerling’s Vamps. I liked this one. It had some legitimately funny stuff in it and Silverstone and Ritter had good chemistry together as a pair of vampiric friends who enjoy a nice night out on the town when they aren’t being beckoned by their master (Sigourney Weaver who looks like she’s having a lot of fun with her part) to perform some kind of grunt work for her. Wallace Shawn also shows up as the father of her boyfriend, who also happens to be the descendant of the famous vampire hunter Van Helsing. Much of this movie actually feels sort of like Heckerling’s and Silverstone’s Clueless but with vampires. It does start to peter out some in the third act as it devolves into some rom-com cliches but still left me fairly satisfied as a light popcorn movie.
Summer of Blood is about a lazy, whiny asshole who is dumped by his far too tolerate girlfriend and is bitten by a vampire. He then becomes one and goes on a blood-drinking sex-filled romp as a kind of escapism from what he perceives to be an unsatisfying life. So ok… This one is sort of hard to form a solid opinion on. The movie has some genuinely funny dialogue and situations and certainly wasn’t a chore to sit through or anything. BUT geez, the lead actor Onur Tukel (who also wrote and directed it) is such a huge dick through this entire movie that it left a little rudderless in terms of who I was actually supposed to sympathize with. I dunno… It was funny at times but in a very cringe-y “this guy is a huge racist, sexist, xenophobe unlikable jackass” way.
Vampire Girl vs Frankenstein Girl comes from a sort of Japanese film movement that features insane, over-the-top action/horror/gore sequences populated with off-the-wall characters and ludicrous plotlines that seems as if they took the crazy spontaneity of Takashi Miike, the dissonant cyberpunk body horror of Shin’ya Tsukamoto and the excess and imagination of manga and anime and threw it all into a half broken blender that chopped, screwed and spat out the Frankenstein concepts into generally fun, ridiculous but ultimately fairly shallow premises. This loose movement of manic chaos would come together in the form of the Sushi Typhoon production collective eventually. That brings us to VGvFG made just prior to the forming of Sushi Typhoon by one of its most prominent directors, Yoshihiro Nishimura. It has vampires, frankenstein-ian undead monsters, a woman who drills a severed arm into her head to use as a helicopter propeller and all kinds of other things that seem specifically targeted to have its audience yell ‘what the fuck is happening’ on a regular cadence. Suffice it to say, I turned my brain off and enjoyed it for what it was.
October 14: I’m Gonna Die Here: Struggles for Survival
121. A Perfect Getaway (2009)
122. Buried (2010)
123. A Lonely Place to Die (2011)
A person’s will to live can be pretty strong, especially if it seems if they are in exotic locations like Hawaii, Iraq or Scotland. A Perfect Getaway is from David Twohy, probably most well-known for his sci-fi outings like the Riddick movies and The Arrival. I honestly wish he would do suspense-driven films more though. Between this one, Pitch Black and Below, I think he executes them rather well. A Perfect Getaway is quite a clever movie but a movie can’t work off of cleverness alone. It is also anchored by some very good performances for the most part, particularly Mr. Olyphant, Steve Zahn and Kiele Sanchez. Milla Jovovich’s character arc didn’t quite work for me, particularly in one area at the end, but overall I found the movie very satisfying.
The budget for Buried must’ve been like 95% Ryan Reynolds’ salary. This movie taking place pretty much entirely with Reynolds trapped underground in a rickety box is pretty much a claustrophobe’s nightmare (watch this, Shin’ya Tsukamoto’s Haze and Marshall’s The Descent for a great “I Hate Tight Spaces” Triple Feature). The whole movie relies solely on Reynolds to carry the burden of the film with no cuts to external locations or flashbacks. It is essentially in near real time with Reynolds figuring out where he is, who put him there and his attempts to escape. Surprisingly Reynolds does an admirable job here, playing the role very convincingly without any of his usual snark or winks to the camera and the movie manages to stay pretty engaging for the entire runtime which is no small feat in and of itself.
A Lonely Place to Die is the story of a group of hikers who, while on a backcountry hiking trip, come across a little girl buried in a shallow hole who has obviously been kidnapped. They help her escape but are then caught in a deadly pursuit with the kidnappers who happen to also be cold-blooded murderers. Man, this movie feels overstuffed. It basically has three separate overlapping plotlines that it juggles: 1) the hikers and the dangers they face out in the woods (like crossing rapids, a repelling incident that requires a free solo climb down a cliffside, etc.), 2) the kidnappers and the ruthlessness in tracking down the girl and killing anyone that gets in their way, and 3) some private mercenaries hired by the family of the kidnapped girl who are after the kidnappers. At times, the movie generates some real suspense and almost seems more interested in the building the characters of the kidnappers and bounty hunters than the hikers and girl. The problem is that while trying to juggle all these plots, it basically loses it’s narrative thrust in the third act and just kind of peters out randomly. Still, it isn’t bad. Just probably one plotline too many.
October 14: A Bottle of Karo Syrup, A Black Hood and a Dream: The Early Films of Tim Ritter
124. Day of the Reaper (1984)
125. Twisted Illusions (1985)
126. Truth or Dare?: A Critical Madness (1986)
127. Killing Spree (1987)
Tim Ritter is something of a wunderkind when it comes to embracing the can-do, “Make Your Own Damn Movie” mentality. By the time he graduated high school, he had three nationally distributed movies under his belt (the first three movies watched for this) with his fourth released shortly thereafter. Are these movies works of art? Of course not. But honestly considering the budget and the inexperience of everyone involved, the effort is still admirable.
Day of the Reaper was made when Ritter was I think around 16 years old. Shot on Super 8 with a $1K budget, it is pretty much the antithesis of a polished professional production. Despite that, Ritter shows a certain ingenuity with the way he works the camera and edits the film that has flashes of promise. Honestly, it isn’t a boring movie and it feels a step up from a typical home movie, so in those regards I think Ritter succeeded in what he was trying to accomplish. And hey, we have a hi-def blu-ray of this and are still waiting on a blu-ray of James Cameron’s The Abyss, so he must be doing something right.
Twisted Illusions is a ramshackle anthology film comprised of seven shorts made around the same time as Day of the Ripper and shot on video. Some but not all of the segments were done by Ritter (with the remaining done by Joel Wynkoop who has worked with Ritter multiple times in various capacities like producing Killing Spree and Creep). Really almost all of the segments, whether Wynkoop or Ritter, are pretty bad. The best of the bunch of probably the last one, and Ritter himself recognized as much, extending it to feature length for his follow-up Truth or Dare.
Speaking of… Truth or Dare definitely feels like a step up in quality from Day of the Reaper and Twisted Illusions and is surprisingly a lot of fun if you can get over the super low budget trappings. There’s a lot of variety to the kills with a dark humor to the whole thing (when he pulls out an old school medieval mace to thwomp one annoying old woman, I cracked up). John Brace as the lead crazy guy definitely is playing to the balcony and having a good time with it. Sometimes when Bleeding Skull recommends stuff, I kinda take it with a grain of salt, but with this one, I think they were on the money.
And with Killing Spree, Ritter continues his off-kilter filmmaking evolution. Everything is just a slight step up from Truth or Dare with much of the same inventiveness displayed in that one intact but with even more outlandish things thrown into the mix. Another big plus on this one is the soundtrack which sounds like Ted Nugent suffering from massive head trauma and fits the tone of the movie very well. With these kind of extremely low budget ’80s movies, my main gauge of interest is in whether I get bored with it, and really the only one I got bored with here was Twisted Illusions, so I think there’s something here worth a look if you dig lo-fi horror.
October 14: KIDDIE KORNER!
128. Mystery Monsters a.k.a. Goobers! (1997)
Oh God… How does Full Moon manage to make even creepier puppets for their kids movies than their legit adult horror movies? Honestly despite the excruciatingly creepy (unintentionally maybe? I hope?) creature designs, there’s not really much to recommend here. The acting is all pretty bad, and most of the characters are obnoxious for one reason or another. About the only notable thing about this one is that there was a Futurama episode with a very similar premise (episode “Yo Leela Leela” for anyone curious). I find it hard to believe that the writers of Futurama saw this movie and thought “JACKPOT!” though. Oh and also my kids got bored with this faster than I think anything else I’ve watched this month. Honestly I think sitting and watching this alone while the rest of my family played games on their electronics might be the most 2020 thing I’ve done all year.
October 15: Another Stopover In Flavor Country: More Horror Anime
129-130a. Ghost Talker’s Daydream E1-4 (2004)
130b. Muramasa (1987)
130c. Kiseichuu no Ichiya a.k.a. The Midnight Parasites (1972)
130d. Nidoto mezamenu komoriuta a.k.a. The Death Lullaby (1985)
131. Psycho Diver: Masei Rakuryu a.k.a. Soul Siren (1997)
132-134. Sazan aizu seima densetsu a.k.a. 3×3 Eyes OVA 2: Legend of the Divine Demon E1-3 (1995)
Here’s another block of horror anime I decided to work in just cuz I like anime. Anyway, first up is Ghost Talker’s Daydream, the story of a constantly weary and agitated spirit medium who works a side gig as a dominatrix. This one definitely has the feel of a manga that has been overly truncated with characters introduced into the mix rather quickly before moving on to the next story beat. The show seems to look for reasons to be pervy for no reason and the character models look off at random which seems to indicate rushed or cheap animation. Overall, it’s just not very good. The only positive is that the main character’s bitter personality is an interesting one if it had been developed out more. We get flashes of her back story but never enough to really completely flesh out the character.
Short-short summaries:
Muramasa: From Osamu Tezuka, creator of Astroboy, Phoenix, etc. the animation here is very choppy which is too bad. The story of a samurai driven mad by the magical power of a supernatural sword is an interesting one. I’d like to see this expanded out and updated.
The Midnight Parasites: A barrage of bizarre, surreal nightmarish imagery. Dismemberments. Things eating things. Grotesqueries on parade. I dunno. It was interesting to watch though.
The Death Lullaby: Juxtaposing the bullying of a kid with a large tooth jutting out of his lower lip with the industrialization of the planet and it’s ravaging of the environment, it posits how antagonism leads to mutually assured destruction. I thought this one was quite good. It uses a variety of experimental animation techniques and features some horrific imagery to convey the inner psyche of the bullied kid.
Psycho Diver: Soul Siren had potential but the plot was just too muddled to be good. Some may complain about the dated animation (although it came out in 1997, it looks like it could’ve been straight out of the ’80s), although I actually kinda liked that aspect of it.
I thought while I was at it, I’d go ahead and watch the follow-up series of 3×3 Eyes which extends the running time of each episode from 24 to 45 minutes and I think works to its advantage. This one finds Pai with her memories missing as Yakumo has been searching for her for several years. I would put this one on-par if not slightly above the first one, particularly in delivering genuine horror imagery. The episode about the demonic puppets is legit pretty creepy.
October 15: C’est Quoi ce Bordel?: French Splatter Trash from the ’80s
135. Mad Mutilator (1983)
136. Folies Meurtrières (1984)
137. Il était une fois le diable – Devil Story (1985)
So I know nothing about these three films beyond the fact that they are all French, from the ’80s, VERY low budget, VERY terrible, awash in synth and they all shamble along imbued with some kind of surreal dream logic where things happen for no reason and scenes exist to confound.
Mad Mutilator is almost certainly the most well-known of this bunch, being profiled in bad movie compendiums like The Bad Movie Bible and being shown as a featured screening at the Alamo Drafthouse by Bleeding Skull. The movie itself is a kind of slow motion trainwreck. Ogroff kills a bunch of people. Then some zombies and a vampire show up and kidnap Ogroff’s girlfriend. The movie makes the confusing decision to them shift to Ogroff as the protagonist… Everything about this movie is awful from the laughable effects to the confusing, nonsensical script to the horrible direction and editing that makes the movie borderline incoherent at times. All this adds up of course to midnight movie classic status. Get enough drunk friends in a room together, and this is probably deliriously entertaining to watch. although watching it by myself, it gave me the feeling of swimming in a pool of molasses with bees stinging my insides.
Folies Meurtrières is definitely in good company with our buddy Ogroff. This movie has even less dialogue (almost none actually) and has the same ‘crazy guy murders people for no reason’ plot which then segues into a much more bizarre second half. There’s not much else to really say here. It’s somehow possibly even more low budget than Ogroff but has an otherworldliness to it, especially in the back half, that makes it more genuinely creepy.
Devil Story, the third in our tres merde trilogy, is the most talkative in the trilogy and is somehow even more disjointed and random than the previous two. It seems like the main plot is that of a deformed fellow in a Nazi uniform rampaging about and massaging the intestines out of folks’ bodies with some gentle foot-prodding. but it has really random interludes which have nothing to do with anything like a mummy that shows up, a flying cat attack and a scene with a guy that insists on shooting a horse than goes on FOREVER (you will never want to hear a horse neigh again). What I’m trying to say is that this is pretty much the perfect capper to this triumvirate of tripe.
October 15: KIDDIE KORNER!
138. Twitches (2005)
Well, my daughter likes witches, so I figured, ‘hey it’s worth a try”. The plot is basically Sister, Sister BUT WITCHES. Seriously. When I told my wife what it was about she started choking she was laughing so hard at the laziness of it. The whole thing is also almost distractingly predictable. They made it so obvious who the evil usurper was that I kept suspecting others just because I was seeing misdirection that wasn’t there. but yea, I mean, I applaud Disney Channel for being one of the few to even attempt to make Halloween movies for younger audiences anymore but geez, they’re just so consistently mediocre to bad.
October 16: The Power of Christ Compels You!: Exorcism in Film
139. Deliver Us from Evil (2014)
140. American Guinea Pig: The Song of Solomon (2017)
141. The Rite (2011)
142. Anomaly (2016)
While demon possession films have been around a long time, it was really The Exorcist that kick-started the sub-genre back in the ’70s, creating a deluge of rip-offs in its wake. Ever since then, we’ve gotten a steady stream of exorcism films that prey on people’s spiritual fears.
First up in this bunch is Deliver Us From Evil from director Scott Derrickson (Exorcism of Emily Rose, Marvel’s Doctor Strange). It’s a demon possession flick by way of gritty crime procedural with Eric Bana as a cop investigating a series of mysterious deaths that seem to hint at something beyond the earthly realm being involved. With a weird priest in tow, he sets out to figure out who (OR WHAT!) is responsible. I’m actually not the biggest fan of possession films (they all seem to end up fairly generic, playing out very similar to The Exorcist ultimately), so when one comes along that offers a little bit different of a take on it, I’m appreciative. While this one certainly isn’t without its flaws (it is definitely too false jump scare happy at times and the plot feels like it could use tightening), I didn’t mind it too much even though it did devolve into some common tropes in the end.
The Song of Solomon, as you’d guess from the American Guinea Pig tagging, is basically a really gory, over-the-top take on exorcism. The plot is pretty typical but I’m sure what draws people to it is the promise of disgustingness. Honestly though, it seems to show more restraint as compared to many of these kinds of films. That is, until the last 30 minutes where it goes into gross overdrive with limbs twisting as bones protrude and the priest rapes the demon girl which results in a really graphic and rather unnatural C-section. I would think you’d know from this description whether you’d care about watching this or not. I just don’t get much enjoyment from this kind of thing.
Those who love their good ol’ Catholic exorcism romps will find a veritable buffet of delights with The Rite. A young priest is struggling with his faith and is sent to Italy to go to exorcism school (is this seriously a thing?). The regular course just isn’t doing the trick so they have him shadow a hardcore Jesuit who specializes in exorcisms (Anthony Hopkins in optimal scenery-chewing mode). As one may surmise, directly forthwith we are treated to multiple demon possession sessions. So the idea of basically doing an Exorcist-like story but from the perspective of a skeptic who is losing his faith is actually a pretty good one. Unfortunately, the movie seems to be almost at war with itself. The first hour may interest those who come into it with a more vested interest in a character study of a priest struggling with his beliefs but get turned off by the showboating exorcisms in the back half while hardcore horror buffs may get bored with it long before it gets to the razzmatazz. Overall, it’s not a bad movie but could’ve used some more thoughtful editing to give it more tonal consistency.
Anomaly is very low budget with a pretty mediocre, straightforward demon possession/exorcism plot. It’s shot competently but the acting is just awful and the plot meanders in the first half too much. Just avoid this one.
October 16: Demons in the Bushes: The Pinoy Slowburn
143. Pangarap ng puso a.k.a. Demons (2000)
144. Haplos a.k.a. Caress (1982)
145. Kinatay a.k.a. The Execution of P (2009)
My history with horror from the Philippines has been limited to the trashy grindhouse horror from the likes of Eddie Romero and Cirio Santiago, so watching these three more character-driven methodically paced films was a nice change.
Demons was an interesting one. Despite the title and the horror tag, it’s as much if not more a character study following a girl through the years, hearing stories of demons in the jungle while political strife wages around her. As she grows older, she falls in love with a young man where both the socio-economic and more literal demons seek to destroy what they have together. I’m not that familiar with the political turmoil in the Philippines in the ‘80s, so some of the subtext of this one may have been lost on me. Still, it has some narrative elements that interested me nonetheless. The pacing and magical realist symbolism reminded me of the films of Apichatpong Weerasethakul although filmed in a more flat, muted palette.
Haplos at first seems more like a more standard romantic drama that sets itself up as a sort of love triangle. But as things go on, something darker and more haunted starts to creep into the narrative, granting it a rather eerie, mysterious third act. I certainly liked things about it, particularly the way it’s filmed toward the end, but it could’ve used some tightening up in the first half.
Kinatay is a VERY slow burn, but one that has a rather shocking conclusion. The first hour plus of the film follows a newly married low income couple traveling around the city running errands before and after their wedding (which they seem almost casually indifferent to). Eventually the man goes to a strip club where a violent act kicks off a very dark, disturbing evening for him. This actually reminds me of a more bleak, more succinct (although still entirely too drawn out) version of something like Jeanne Dielman. Honestly this one is something of a hard sell. I can’t say I enjoyed it, and the shaky, dark camera work (which does suit the general tone of the film) makes it hard to really get into the characters themselves in a meaningful way.
October 16: KIDDIE KORNER!
146. Scooby-Doo and the Ghoul School (1988)
I knew this one wasn’t going to be great the second I saw Scrappy Doo. Like The Reluctant Werewolf, this one mainly involves just Scooby & Shaggy who ends up at a school for monsters, helping the monster kids win at volleyball for some reason. There’s also an evil entity trying to corrupt the school in the third act mainly. In general this one feels even more episodic than many Scooby Doo movies with the last thirty minutes just sort of sputtering on without much purpose. I’m sensing a pattern of pretty much every Scooby movie before Zombie Island being crappy….
October 17: Stranger Than Fiction: Based on a True Story?
147. Winchester (2018)
148-149. Haunted Lives: True Ghost Stories E2-3 (1991)
150. The Quiet Ones (2014)
These all have in common the premise that they are all supposedly based on true events with some of them using the term “based on” in the most ridiculously loose way possible. Winchester in particular is about 98% fabrication. Yes, there is house in San Jose, CA once built by the widow Winchester who kept building onto the house in an effort to appease what she claimed were the spirits of those killed by Winchester rifles. And that’s pretty much it. Everything else including all the characters other than the widow and all the extraneous plot points are made up out of nothing. Which makes this even more frustrating that it is so dull and uninspired. The house itself is a great location, a maze of nonsense that I actually toured at night on Halloween (and I would easily recommend checking out instead of this boring ass movie despite it’s fairly steep entry fee). I mean, if you’re going to just make up a plot that happens to take place at the location, go nuts with it.
A couple of months ago, I had watched the first episode of Haunted Lives because it was directed by Tobe Hooper (I was…not impressed). I figured I might as well circle around and finish off the rest of it. Sadly the rest of it isn’t really any better, comprised of mostly hokey looking dramatizations made with cheap effects bookended with interviews from the people involved. It’s obvious what the people claim they saw versus what the show portrayed in the re-enactments was very embellished in places. I’d probably only suggest this one if you are just a hardcore nut for these kinds of shows.
The Quiet Ones, like Winchester, has very little to do with the events it was inspired by. Basically pretty much the only thing they have in common is that both the real and fictional premise involves an experiment conducted to determine if what people are poltergeists and other spiritual manifestations are actually a telekinetic reaction of the human psyche. The real study wasn’t conducted at a university, did not spiral out of control like the events in the film, had no one get killed or really have much of anything actually happen besides the table moving a little and some lights dimming during the seances. Anyway, as far as the movie on its own merits goes, it’s ok at best. The directing is actually pretty decent with a solid sense of atmosphere at times that makes the Hammer Productions link make sense. The problem is, it’s pretty predictable and too long.
October 17: Weird Science: Mad Doctors of Boris Karloff
151. The Climax (1944)
152. Juggernaut (1936)
153. House of Evil (1968)
Boris Karloff, like Vincent Price, is one of the great actors synonymous with horror. In addition to playing the legendary role of Frankenstein in the 1931 film, Karloff also developed something of a reputation for playing mad scientists and evil doctors (probably due to a combination of his ability to project menace and his British heritage to give the production a touch of class).
In The Climax, he plays a sinister doctor who had murdered his wife ten years previous and now becomes fixated on a young diva who’s voice reminds him so much of his former love’s. I have to say, this one is dull. Like really dull. It seriously felt like 2/3 of this movie is just boring dialogue unrelated to the plot interspersed with opera performances. It’s too bad because it looks like Universal put a lot of money into this one.
Juggernaut finds Karloff playing, naturally, an evil doctor who has his funding cut on his experiments and is recruited by a young gold digger to murder her elderly husband. There isn’t a lot to this one in general. Karloff acquits himself the best, playing the doctor as if this whole murder scheme is a sort of inconvenience he needs to get through so he can just get on with his work. The old man’s nurse is pretty grating in particular though, overacting like she’s still in a silent film.
House of Evil finds Karloff toward the end of his career in one of the four US/Mexican co-productions produced by AIP and co-directed by Jack Hill and Juan Ibanez. It’s probably marginally better than Isle of the Snake People, but that isn’t saying much. It is still padded heavily with Karloff obviously on a totally different set from the rest of the cast. Karloff plays an ailing inventor responsible for creating murderous toys that wreak havoc in an old gothic castle. By virtue of its location, this one does produce some better atmosphere in places than Karloff’s other Mexican films, but it’s a far cry from the likes of Nightmare Castle or Long Hair of Death or any of Karloff’s own gothic horror efforts like The Black Cat for that matter.
October 17: Ch-ch-ch-Changes: Diabolical Transformations
154. Relic (2020)
155. The Wasp Woman (1995)
156. Gasu ningen dai 1 gô a.k.a. The Human Vapor (1960)
I’ve seen a couple different references to Relic as being influenced by Hereditary, although I think a much more accurate comparison is The Babadook. They both are Australian and both have a muted color palette to ground the film in the tragedy of the situation. Most tellingly both use monstrous creations to act as metaphors for grief as a coping mechanism. In the case of The Babadook, it was the death of the lead’s husband while in Relic, it represents the mental and physical deterioration of an aging mother and grandmother. Relic certainly has some creepy moments, particularly in the last 20 minutes or so, and is generally well-acted with nice cinematography but feels like it’s ultimately lacking something I can’t quite put my finger on.
The Wasp Woman remake from schlockmeister Jim Wynorski is about a model past her prime who results to using an experimental drug for anti-aging that ends up transforming her into a giant, murderous wasp. Obviously, it would be unwise to be in the shoes of the woman she thinks is cheating with her boyfriend. The effects are incredibly silly looking with acting and dialogue that feels right out of an early ’90s erotic thriller. It’s all pretty bad, but you might get some entertainment of it if you happen to be in the mood for bargain bin garbage.
The Human Vapor from Gojira director Ishiro Honda is an interesting one. It tells the story of a man who is transformed into the titular human vapor by a freak science experiment and starts stealing and killing to help his girlfriend. What sounds like a lurid, trashy flick actually plays out with a lot more class and dignity than it seems. You can feel the burden of the condition and the acts he commits because of it weighing on his conscience. It also uses the presence of traditional kabuki theatre performances in an effective way. The effect of the man turning to mist is a little cheesy looking but that can be forgiven considering the time period. I would give this one a recommendation.
October 17: KIDDIE KORNER!
157a. Garfield in Disguise a.k.a. Garfield’s Halloween Adventure (1985)
157b. The Devil and Daniel Mouse (1978)
157c. Haunted Lighthouse (2003)
My wife wanted to watch something Halloween-themed with the kids, so we dug out Garfield’s Halloween Adventure as a perennial classic that has a decent balance of silly and spooky the kids can handle. The kids didn’t really seem to be feeling it at the time though. They got antsy and wandered off. The ghosts at the end did catch the attention of my daughter though.
The Devil and Daniel Mouse is a Faustian tale that was apparently the inspiration for the feature film Rock & Rule. A couple of mice aren’t going anywhere in their music career as a folk duo. Naturally along comes a Mr. Beelzebub, record producer who offers the female member of the duo fame and money in exchange for her soul. She of course goes for it and her stardom skyrockets. But eventually that devil’s gonna come to collect. This was a pretty solid albeit very straightforward version of The Devil & Daniel Webster with the biggest draw being the surprisingly solidly written songs. My kids got bored with it pretty fast though.
Haunted Lighthouse was originally produced as a 4D experience and shown at several Busch-owned theme parks (SeaWorld, Busch Gardens, etc.). Directed by Joe Dante with a delightful performance from Christopher Lloyd, it’s not bad but falls into the very unscary hole that many kiddie horror flicks fall into of coming across too goofy at times. Still, the effects are decent and I could see this being fun to watch in a theater with water spray and whatnot going on. I just watched it on youtube, so the experience was definitely not as fun. I couldn’t even get the kids to sit down for this one until toward the end. My daughter liked the dancing pirate ship and the 3D effects.
October 18: I Can’t Believe It’s a Clip Show!
158. Creepy Clips (1995)
159. Last Night a DJ Took My Life (2019)
160. Trashsploitation (2018)
161. Boogeymen: The Killer Compilation (2001)
162. Gameral Special (1991)
Nothing like a Sunday afternoon to veg out on clip and trailer compilations… Creepy Clips is mostly pre-1970 public domain footage that’s thematically grouped into sections with monsters, mad doctors, etc. It’s a decent albeit kinda brief compilation with varying quality of the clips. Last Night A DJ Took My Life was actually a very cool one. It’s basically remixes themes from various giallo mixed against various scenes from the equivalent film into a kind of cool best-of giallo video mixtape. Trashsploitation is wall-to-wall nonsense, as you would guess from the title. It’s basically a trailer compilation from SRS Studios who brought us such gems to blu-ray as the Tim Ritter films I reviewed previously, along with gutter fare like the Polonia Brothers, Donald Farmer, etc. With the right people, this one is pretty fun to watch. Boogeymen is probably the weakest in the bunch (or the strongest depending on how narrow your horror canon goes) featuring mostly just popular kills from heavy hitters like Jason, Freddy, Michael Myers, Chucky, etc. It does have a few random ones thrown in (probably for marketing reasons) like The Ugly and The Guardian. Gamera Special is a neat one-hour compilation of fights from the early Gamera movies along with some behind-the-scenes footage that ends with trailers for each of them. I almost put this one in the kiddie korner because my daughter seemed to enjoy it more than most of the movies I’ve intentionally shown them.
October 18: Mothers of Invention: We Got Baby Problems
163. The Baby of Mâcon (1993)
164. Antibirth (2016)
165. The Unborn (2003)
Man, babies can be a pain, amiright? Constantly crying, puking, pooping…creating miracles that get you raped 300 times, destroying your body as they emerge fully grown, causing bizarre hallucinations and wreaking the ire of pissed off grandmothers……. Maybe these movies aren’t the most accurate portrayals of the experience of giving birth and caring for a child though…
So The Baby of Macon comes to us from austere and well-regarded artsy director Peter Greenaway. Greenaway is no stranger to controversy with The Cook, The Thief the Wife & His Lover being one of the first films to receive an NC-17 rating. But The Baby of Macon takes his boundary-pushing to a whole other level. Coming off like an immaculately staged mish-mash of Von Trier’s Dogville and Aronofsky’s mother! It’s about a woman who claims to have given birth to a miracle child despite stating she’s a virgin. She also takes a shine to Ralph Fiennes a handsome young priest. So when I first saw that this was on a couple of horror lists, I was a bit skeptical given the several Greenaway films I had seen before. I mean, sure they’re usually strange, but horror? Having now watched this one, I question why it isn’t on more horror lists actually. This is a severely fucked up movie, particularly the third act. I can only assume that the combination of its relative obscurity compared to several of Greenaway’s other films and its perception as an “art” film keep it more under-exposed to rubberneckers looking for a fucked up fix. Having said that, it paints an absolutely gorgeous tableau which makes the shocking events toward the end even more appalling.
Antibirth is 100% the Natasha Lyonne show. The directing feels kinda hacky and not really that well done, particularly when stuff goes nuts toward the end. But Lyonne has such a natural charisma that I could watch her in pretty much anything and she’d find a way to make it entertaining. Give her a role like this where’s she’s a walking dumpster fire, and no amount of bad editing or weird nonsense makes it unwatchable. Also speaking of that ending…. WTF?!
The Unborn comes to us from Thailand and is I’d actually say somewhat of a step up from the last bunch I watched. Mind you, it isn’t fantastic or anything, but the pacing is solid and the narrative has a very bleak tone that goes places I didn’t expect. I won’t go into the plot too much other than to say it starts with a drug addict who wakes up in a hospital pregnant and starts seeing weird stuff going on. Having said that, it does have some cheesy story beats and cheap-looking camerawork that bring it down as well as an exposition dump in the third act that feels a little awkwardly handled. Still, I have definitely seen worse Thai films this month.
October 18: KIDDIE KORNER!
166. Little Monsters (1989)
So this is one I had some nostalgia for having watched it as a kid (I pretty much watched anything with Fred Savage in it back then). It was kinda nice to see a kids movie again that had a healthy dose of swearing and weirdness in it (see also stuff like The Goonies and Monster Squad). It seems like so many kids films nowadays are mega sanitized and filtered through a corporate branding model… Anyway, as for the movie itself, it’s kind of a mixed bag. Howie Mandel seems to be doing a Michael Keaton-as-Beetlejuice impression most of the movie with a premise that seems almost ripped off wholesale by Monsters, Inc. in places. The production design is odd with primary saturated lighting and sets that looks almost like a perception of how a kid would interpret this weird dream dimension full of monsters, somewhat imaginative but also sort of intentionally cheap. Some of the makeup effects work was pretty solid as well. The story line is a pretty predictable one involving Fred Savage seeking escapism as a coping mechanism for his parents’ separation. It’s really not a bad movie actually although I feel like it wanted to go darker than it did. Also my kids didn’t seem into it at all. The family drama on the front end lost their attention long before any monsters showed up.