Three from 1977 that get filed under C

Posted on April 18, 2024 by Daniel

Looking for some retro action, I dug up several flicks from the 1970s to watch. Coincidentally, they all come from 1977 with titles that get alphabetized under the letter C.

CATHY’S CURSE (1977)

If The Bad Seed met Audrey Rose and was made into a terrible 1970s possessed little girl movie…actually, it was. Cathy’s Curse is that very disaster.

The opening scene is camptastic. A dad comes home to find his daughter alone. She says the mom took off with her brother. Dad calls mom a bitch and they drive off then get killed in a car accident because the daughter grabs the wheel to save a bunny in the road. Camp.tas.tic.

Decades later the son returns to the family home with his depressed wife and his daughter Cathy, who, as in most of these scary little girl movies, is already creepy. Where do they get these young actresses?

Cathy finds a doll and sees a portrait of her father’s sister (that sometimes gets glowing green eyes), which triggers her to become a bad seed. Conveniently, one of the neighbors is a medium, which also helps ignite the paranormal events.

Basically Cathy is possessed by her doll. She clings to it each time she magically terrorizes people. She tosses an old woman out a window. She immobilizes an old drunk dude and infests him with snakes, spiders, and rats. She causes blood to run from her mother’s tub and covers her mom’s back in leeches. The raucous score is the only thing that adds any weight to the horror.

For the big finale Cathy chases her mother rather violently, which leads them to the portrait for the lackluster conclusion. This really feels like a made-for-TV movie.

THE CHILD (1977)

It’s another scary girl movie, but this one has a nice twist. It also has that classic warped 70s horror vibe that makes you feel like you’re tripping, with a melodramatic horror score, whirling camera angles, and distorted zooms. If I have to watch a horror movie from the 1970s that isn’t a classic, this is the kind I prefer to get sucked into.

The gothic opening in a cemetery involving a kitten, a tombstone, and a monstrous hand feels very old school, like a Hammer Films flick of that era, but we’re quickly, brought into a more contemporary situation.

A young woman comes to a house to be the nanny to a girl who looks way too old to need a nanny. The girl is weird, but so is everyone in the home.

The first juicy horror is delivered when monster POV terrorizes the old lady neighbor, who ends up getting a gory facelift…

Meanwhile, the nanny begins noticing the girl’s odd behavior, including her slipping out of the house at night to visit the cemetery.

Things get eerie on Halloween. There’s apparently a party outside, but all we get to see is the girl in a witch costume and a jack-o’-lantern she leaves behind, which haunts the nanny a bit.

It’s a slow burn, but finally people start getting killed off in the last half hour. With 20 minutes remaining we finally learn who the girl has been visiting in the cemetery!

It’s a very unique direction to take and leads to a very cool, Night of the Living Dead kind of final act. You’ll either appreciate the mixed genre approach or be disappointed that the plot didn’t choose one direction and stick with it.

THE CHOSEN (1977)

I might have appreciated this one more if I’d seen it back in the day since “child of Satan” films were all the rage back then. This modern society meets ancient evil flick dragged for me.

Kirk Douglas plays an industrialist planning to build a nuclear power plant in the Middle East against the wishes of those who live there.

He soon makes some shocking discoveries. First, his adult son is the spawn of Satan. Second, the structure he is building bears a striking resemblance to a mythical beast predicted in the Bible. Ugh. Religious horror. Wouldn’t you know the son needs the dad’s power plant to facilitate bringing on the apocalypse.

A few people in positions of power fall victim to tragedy (there’s a cool death by helicopter propeller moment), and Douglas suffers from symbolic dreams, but this is generally a boring melodrama. However, a scene near the end in a padded cell is psychotic and saves this one from being forgettable.

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The ghosts of 2023

Posted on April 17, 2024 by Daniel

It’s a trio of flicks from 2023 that feature protagonists dealing with varying levels of paranormal activity, but there was only one winner here for me.

BAGHEAD (2023)

It is so satisfying to be getting some fresh approaches to horror in the sea of generic flicks coming out these days. Baghead is sort of like a different take on the Talk To Me concept, where talking to the dead becomes a deadly addiction.

A young woman inherits a pub…that looks like a fricking castle to me. Didn’t quite get that part.

However, this flick doesn’t waste any time in getting to the good stuff. It turns out her now deceased father was keeping a “woman” called Baghead locked away in the basement. This ghoul has the ability to let you speak to a dead person of your choice, but there are conditions.

You can’t speak to the dead person for more than two minutes. Baghead comes out of a hole in the wall when you call on her, and you are never to follow her back into the hole (my gay ass is safe because I’d never follow any woman into any hole). You need to take off her bag to speak to the dead person, and then you need to cover her head back up to cut off communication. And finally, you are to never let her leave the basement, so you must strap her to a chair to keep her from getting away.

It’s actually a cruel story, the idea being that you literally have this woman imprisoned in a dungeon and use her for your own selfish needs. Of course that’s why it’s so delicious when she starts creeping into your mind, leading you down a slippery slope where she becomes stronger and you become…doomed!

The film manages to stay focused thanks to a minimal number of characters. There’s the main girl, her friend, and some dude who is willing to pay money to get a little alone time with Baghead. Eventually, the film does start to become a bit repetitive, and the pacing falters as the trio gets ensnared in Baghead’s web, but there are really some great twists in the plot right through to the end. The only part that was a bit hokey for me was the presentation of a ghost that gives a ridiculous monologue to one of the characters as a device to provide exposition on Baghead’s origins to the audience.

DEAR DAVID (2023)

It’s irrelevant to me, but this movie is apparently based on some actual social media story. What drew me in was that it is an evil ghost kid movie where the main protagonist is a gay guy, which lands this one on the homo horror movies page.

We go all the way back to 1996 to start the story with a boy being bullied online. Damn. 1996 is like ancient history when it comes to being online. Seriously, barely anyone had a home computer at that time, let alone the internet at their fingertips on a phone.

In the present day we meet Adam, who works for Buzzfeed, which is run by Justin Long. Adam’s articles aren’t doing so well, but his luck changes—for better and for worse—when he begins having sleep paralysis, during which a little ghost boy appears on a rocking chair in the corner of his bedroom. Those encounters become his new online serialized story.

Things start off strong, with a classic ghostly death scene when two boys are bullying someone else online. The concept of the little boy from the beginning getting revenge on modern day cyber bullies is awesome, and Adam ends up being targeted because he chooses to feed the trolls with nasty vitriol rather than ignoring them.

Terrorized by the ghost kid, Adam starts investigating what led to the kid turning into a vindictive ghost that connects with victims through social media threads. It’s all very The Ring without the videotape. There’s also a catch presented at the beginning that doesn’t get much needed exploitation—you’re supposed to only be able to ask “Dear David” two questions or else. Even David’s backstory is pretty cool and very dark. The problem is the film focuses solely on Adam, so we’re just constantly bombarded by nightmare-like sequences that have no payoff beyond Adam waking up sweating. Sure they’re creepy clips, but you never feel a sense of dread while watching them because you know Adam is going to survive to carry us to the conclusion of this tale.

There are no other victims here after the first bully dies, making that death scene seem out of place. Adam has friends and a boyfriend, and it would have been nice if they also got drawn into the horror (and them dying would have been even better). It also would have been great if there had been a clearer parallel between Adam being gay and the boy being bullied. It’s hinted at—I think—but never fully realized, making Adam’s sexuality virtually irrelevant. Instead it feels like the whole point of the movie is for Adam to recognize that he doesn’t open up to those closest to him. At the same time, the movie is also making a statement about our fixation on social media, how anonymous likes and followers are more important than having actual people in our lives, and how it has overtaken our ability to interact in the real world.

THE HANGED GIRL (2023)

This one was a huge disappointment for me as a horror hound. Things start off promising, with nuns hanging a girl as a witch in the 1800s.

In the present day, a white man and his Muslim fiancé are going on vacation with his friends and his sister to a beautiful guesthouse in the country.

I should have known this one was going to skimp on the horror when an elaborate run-in with a cult in red robes and masks proves to be a nothing burger. Ugh.

And we just get more helpings of nothing burgers after that. The Muslim fiancé keeps having visions and dreams of ghostly apparitions. However, that’s the least of her problems. She begins getting treated like shit by everyone else because she’s Muslim. The bullying becomes the central theme of most of the movie.

And you can forget about a hanged ghost girl being the real threat. This is one of those movies that pulls the rug out from under your feet before all is said and done. Even the mid-end credits scene is a letdown.

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Murder time at a cabin, on a movie set, and at a haunted attraction

Posted on April 11, 2024 by Daniel

I’m always up for body count flicks, but does this trio of films deliver? Let’s find out.

DEATH CAMP (2022)

This movie probably should have just been shelved if all the roadblocks it came up against during filming as mentioned on IMDb are true: shooting was hampered by the COVID pandemic, the director almost killed most of the cast and there was legal action taken, in an effort to release the unfinished film they just scraped together whatever footage they had and edited it into some semblance of a movie. I definitely believe that last part. There is a generally simple, supernatural slasher plot, but that eventually gets lost in the shuffle as random elements are forced into the mix to pad the running time.

Horror king Bill Oberst Jr. plays an ex-military man who snapped, holed himself up in a cabin, and thrived on conspiracy theories, like believing children were being led from innocence into evil. He killed a load of kids twenty years ago at his cabin, kept one girl captive, and then shot himself when the cops came for him.

In the present day, a group of teens comes to the cabin for one last high school bash. In other words, this isn’t a death camp so much as it is a death cabin. I did really like the early 2000s teen slasher vibe the movie gives off, but it most definitely falls apart fast. The main girl fancies herself a witch, so she gets everyone to do a séance in the basement, where they also find a body part, troublesome letters, and a fricking VHS tape with video of the murders. Apparently the cops from 20 years ago really sucked at gathering evidence.

It seems the kids unleash Oberst’s evil spirit, and in between supernatural kills we get some backstory via interspersed scenes of him interacting with the girl he was holding captive 20 years before. In other words, Oberst isn’t in the film all that much.

Kills include impalement on a tree branch, death by vines, a swarming insect attack that leads to an asthma attack, and a girl being levitated then dropped. It’s all fine enough for a supernatural slasher, but then a bunch of random plot points are tossed in that completely confuse matters, like some sleazy redneck dude with a knife forcing one girl to show him her tits…after which she roundhouse kicks him then finds a can of beer on the ground, shrugs, and opens it and drinks it. It suddenly felt like I was watching a totally different movie. Not to mention…the ending is abrupt and kind of explains a final act instead of actually giving us one.

All I can say is that the filmmakers should have called it a loss instead of trying to piece together the disjointed end result to market to an audience. I do wonder how the actual finished product would have turned out, because there was promise here.

EVERYBODY DIES BY THE END (2022)

This is a mockumentary style flick about a film crew documenting the making of a promised “masterpiece” by a famed horror director. Bill Oberst Jr. appears in this one as well, but he gets only one scene in the beginning as an interviewer questioning the director.

The interview doesn’t go well, so the director decides to hire the documentary crew to create hype. The director is played by Vinny Curran, who should have a bigger indie horror career because he’s both a good actor and nice to look at.

He kind of has to carry the movie, because it’s not much of a horror film—it’s really a mockumentary in which the cast and crew get interviewed and the documentary team films the director’s antics as he makes his movie. It’s made pretty clear from the start that the director is a nut, so you kind of know where this is all going (the title says it all).

The director goes to some unconventional lengths to get the performances he wants out of the actors, and eventually some of them start to revolt, which is when the killing starts. But this isn’t a slasher. It’s more like the director is making a snuff film, for the actors die while filming so that the director can get the most realistic footage. This all happens in the final act, with no suspense, scares, or gore.

Even a prop mask is introduced early on, so you would think it would play an integral part in the murder proceedings. But alas, it’s just not what this film was going for. So you have to decide whether you want to watch a fairly predictable plot with the horror theme being merely a backdrop for the events that unfold.

TEDDY TOLD ME TO (2023)

What a relief! A Halloween haunted attraction movie that just goes for that good old midnight movie feel with loads of practical gore, tits, and more!

Two friends decide to resurrect a haunted attraction that has been closed since the 90s. Halloween is never specifically mentioned, but there are fall leaves, mention of being in business until November, and jack-o’-lanterns galore at the attraction, so this one earns a spot on the complete holiday horror page.

The two main characters buy the place from a realtor, played by Lisa Wilcox of Elm Street 4 and 5. The caretaker is CJ Graham, who played Jason in Friday the 13th 6. He’s one hot daddy.

There’s a montage of the leads holding auditions, including one guy who does his best Tarman impression. There’s also a haunted attraction set up montage to a cover of Loverboy’s “Working for the Weekend” with rewritten lyrics about haunting. Awesome.

The attraction’s newly hired crew comes together to sit around a fire, which is when we get the story of murders that occurred years before, when a crazy dude in a bear mask slaughtered a bunch of people. Shown as flashbacks, it features Felissa Rose as the killer’s mom, Trent Haaga, who played Killjoy after he went white, as the dad, and delivers grindhouse fun and gore.

Once the attraction doors open, we get a haunt montage and then the killing begins.

My only complaint is that it’s always choppy edits, flashing lights, and shaky cam, but it’s definitely a splatterfest, and the body count is stacked! There’s even a chainsaw fight, and one character was as excited about it as I was. This one is the winner for me in this trio of films.

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BOUGHT ON BLU: an 80s Italian horror double feature

Posted on April 10, 2024 by Daniel

It’s a double disc release of 2 horror movies from Italian director Marcelo Avallone, neither of which I had ever seen before purchasing the set. Both of them have enough whacky 80s Euro horror elements to leave me satisfied and offered plenty of nostalgic vibes, but they’re not really good movies overall.

SPECTERS (1987)

In this one, Donald Pleasence plays an archaeologist working at a mausoleum location in Rome. A wall caves in and unleashes a demonic entity.

There are random characters killed in random places, and each time there is a death scene, we mostly see just a monstrous hand and some blood.

There’s a rat attack scene when a group takes a tour of catacombs, a guy dies gruesomely at a restaurant, a guy gets attacked in his bathtub, a woman gets dragged into her mattress…

None of it makes sense, but when the main couple gets chased by the demon in the catacombs in the final act, which is when we finally get to see the full monster Monty, it provides some last minute horror fun.

As a bonus, the final frame is as cheesy as you’d expect and hope for from an 80s horror movie.

MAYA (1989)

Ages ago a wizard king learned how to slip between the worlds of the living and dead. An archaeologist knows he can bring the king back if he sacrifices himself at the bridge to the two worlds, so he does just that.

His daughter then comes to town to find out why her father died. She gets some help from the leading man, a total fox who is often shirtless and is also a total man whore. Awesome.

In fact, there are plenty of classic sleazy, sweaty dudes in tank tops and bandanas. Ah, the 80s.

As with Specters, random people get killed, this time supernaturally.

There’s a tribal exorcism scene in which a dude pukes up little snakes (so nasty), a girl gets brutally killed in her tub, and a woman gets killed by fishing poles.

It’s another hot mess, but unfortunately, the ending fails to deliver the horror party that Specters gave us.

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Women take the Writing and Directing Wheel!

Posted on April 9, 2024 by Daniel

It’s all about the girls in this trio of light horror flicks that are all written and/or directed by women and rely on hot pink to make their poster art pop…

LISA FRANKENSTEIN (2024)

I kept my hopes for this one low because it was getting way more hype on social media than most movies end up deserving. I was definitely excited that it is written by Diablo Cody of Jennifer’s Body fame (one of my hundreds of favorite horror movies), and I was also looking forward to a movie immersed in the 80s (the film takes place in 1989). Unfortunately, despite its dark theme, Lisa Frankenstein feels more like a cutesy Frankenstein with an Edward Scissorhands vibe than a horror movie.

I’ll start off by saying the 80s soundtrack is great, going for deeper cuts rather than the obvious, including tracks by When In Rome, Blue Peter, The Chameleons, The Jesus & Mary Chain, Echo and the Bunnymen, The Flatmates, The Pixies, Galaxie 500, Jeffrey Osborne, and even the main character covering REO Speedwagon. Visually it looks like the end of the 80s because it mimics Tim Burton’s Edward Scissorhands style and colors.

We meet Lisa, who hangs out in a cemetery and is drawn to a grave statue of a young man who died ages ago. She’s trying to cope with her life turning upside down after the death of her mother. Her dad remarried, her stepmother hates her, and she doesn’t fit in at school.

However, her stepsister treats her kindly and takes her to a party…at which she is basically roofied. Lisa stumbles home using the cemetery as a shortcut. There’s no logical explanation for what happens next beyond Lisa having been shocked by a faulty tanning bed, Lisa making a wish, and lightning striking. As a result, the young man whose statue she adores in the cemetery returns from the dead and follows her home.

From there, the film really drags as Lisa gets to know him while keeping him hidden. This is sort of like one of those monster romance flicks from the late 80s/early 90s (My Demon Lover, My Boyfriend’s Back, etc.), but Lisa is pretty self-centered. She finds her rotting friend gross most of the time, she talks to him about the guy in school that she likes and wants to have sex with, and she uses the monster to get revenge on people that wronged her—although in return it scores him some of the body parts he’s missing. He even gives her a makeover as well, turning her into Madonna circa 1984, which you would think would make her more popular at school, but that plot point doesn’t really go anywhere beyond making her act even weirder than she already was.

Despite the gothic, morbid theme and great performances by everyone, the movie is incredibly flat. It runs way too long, takes forever to get to the moment when the monster actually kills someone, is pretty sterile in presenting its more gruesome aspects, and is a little bit too charming in its humor, making it feel more like a tween comedy than a horror comedy. Even the “dirty” parts feel quaint rather than raunchy.

COURTNEY GETS POSSESSED (2022)

This is one of those horror comedies that has a really fun premise, but the writing doesn’t completely rise to the occasion. The talented cast does the best they can to create a vibe, but inevitably there’s just a special spark missing.

Courtney is about to get married, but still has unresolved issues with her sister (played by the co-writer and co-director of the film), who always used to steal her boyfriends. Even so, the sis is in the wedding party, and the girls gather together in a house for one last hoorah…which involves Courtney asking them to do a chant with candles. Uh-oh.

There’s a knock on the door, and it’s one of Courtney’s exes. It also turns out he’s the devil and isn’t willing to give her up. Awesome.

So much potential here. Courtney gets possessed, they tie her to the bed, the men of the wedding party show up, they call in a priest…so much fun to be had, but the movie never quit gets there despite having its moments.

Like I said, the cast is excellent and gives the movie all its charm. Plus, there are some nice twists in the final act.

FESTIVAL OF THE LIVING DEAD (2024)

Although this zombie film is directed by the Soska Sisters, don’t expect anything as dark or twisted as their usual output. They didn’t write this film, and I’m guessing they were just hired for name recognition to direct a Tubi original.

The interesting aspect is that this is supposed to be a sequel to the original Night of the Living Dead. It takes place 55 years later, when kids are going to a festival celebrating the original outbreak…including a young woman who is a relative of original NOTLD hero Ben.

However, don’t expect much explanation as to how the original outbreak ended or why a new one begins. You just have to go with it.

There’s nothing very original here, and it comes off feeling like another cash grab based on a classic—think the Return of the Living Dead sequels that were SyFy originals in the early 2000s (which most people hated, but I am a fan of).

We get a group of teens, some good zombie makeup, plenty of gut munching, and other zombie movie tropes. Of note is that most of the heroes in this one are the girls.

The focal point in the final act is a big burning man monument that comes into play as the group of teens attempts to fend off all the zombies attacking an outdoor concert. Despite the derivative nature of everything that unfolds, it does give you a sense of nostalgia for simple zombie flicks from two decades ago.

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TUBI TERRORS: zombies, ghosts, and an exorcism

Posted on April 5, 2024 by Daniel

I watched this assortment of indie horror flicks so you don’t have to…unless you like what you hear.

SHIFTED (2022)

I did not know what to expect going into this film that at first felt like it was going to be strictly about a group of neighbors all trapped in one house while a zombie outbreak we never witness is going on outside. I thought I was in for some torturous Pontypool shit, but although this is a slow burn, it succeeds in making you more interested in what’s going on inside with the characters than outside. And yet it even manages to actually deliver some intense zombie action.

We are thrown into the middle of an outbreak during the wintery, snowy time of year. I’m a sucker for zombie outbreak movies that take place during the day while it’s snowing.

Anyway, this group of neighbors is struggling to survive with limited resources. We slowly learn what each of them experienced before arriving at the house. They also welcome new people to their safe haven, but they do tend to treat them with suspicion and interrogate them.

There are a few fleeting struggles with some seriously nasty looking zombies outside, but things get complicated inside the house when one of the survivors is found murdered in the bathroom!

Trapped with each other, the group has to deal with the fact that there’s a killer among them, which of course leads to heightened tensions, distrust, and eventually survivors turning on each other.

It’s all quite compelling, and there are some unnerving moments when zombies infiltrate the house. Plus, there’s a hunky as hell zombie. I’d eat him before he could get his teeth on me.

However, one thing really kills the whole mystery behind the plot: ***SPOILER*** the opening scene shows one of the main characters murdering someone before coming to the house. I kept telling myself this person couldn’t possibly be the killer of the victim in the house, too, because it would defeat the point of the mystery, but alas that person is indeed the killer! WTF? That first murder scene is completely unnecessary, and I don’t understand why the creators of the movie didn’t choose to remove it other than the fact that they wanted to open with something shocking and bloody. As if there weren’t some other kind of horrific opener they could have come up with in a movie about a zombie outbreak…

THE HEADMISTRESS (2023)

One thing about this derivative ghost movie saved it for me…a gay couple that lands this one on the does the gay guy die? page.

Ghost movies in general don’t particularly scare me, so all the tropes we get here had no effect on me. After a woman in serious debt inherits an inn in the woods from her father, she takes a small group of interested buyers to see it. We have a misogynistic douche, two different female characters that are pretty indistinguishable other than their hair color, and the cute gay couple that proudly owns a pizza shop.

Once in the house, the group splits up to explore. One woman sees a ghost girl in the basement and “help me” written on a closet wall. The other woman sees a dark figure moving closer to her every time she lifts her old school camera to take a picture. There are fleeting glimpses of ghosts in the shadows, there are some jump scares, ghosts start messing with everyone’s minds, and the ghosts appear to start manifesting in the flesh.

The group slowly begins piecing together the history of the large house, which involves an old boarding school and children being tortured. One thing that definitely has a lot of embellishment here is the backstory.

There is a final confrontation between the main girl and the ghosts, but that just gives us one cool appearance of a demonic looking main ghost.

The gay guys are the most interesting of the bunch. One of them dreams of buying the place to make it into a haunted hotel, so he’s also the most prepared to deal with the ghostly insanity. Best of all, the gay guys get the last line, and it reminds us of just how adorable they are together.

THE DEMONS WITHIN (2023)

I watched this movie for one reason—80s sweetheart Deborah Foreman of Valley Girl and April Fool’s Day was listed in the cast. Turns out she has about a 20-second appearance as a nurse and is not a good reason to sit through the movie.

I’m not going to spend much time on this. For me, the fact that a movie like The Exorcist exists makes it barely worth it for major studios to throw money at inferior exorcism films, let alone for low budget indies to go there.

So this girl Izzy doesn’t get along with her parents. She goes to a therapist where it appears demons are transferred into her phone. Ah, a comment on phones taking over our lives in modern society.

This kicks off cheap versions of typical exorcism movie tropes. With 20 minutes left, the parents, who are atheists, cave to organized religion and call in a priest, who performs an exorcism on the living room floor, because family TV time is surely the most important part of the day.

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These slashers are the stuff of children’s nightmares

Posted on April 2, 2024 by Daniel

British directors are pumping out slashers almost faster than I can find them on streaming services to devour and then cover on my site. The latest trio I binged takes on classic children’s nursery rhymes and beloved stories. Each one also happens to feature a British scream queen named May Kelly, but I’ve decided to anoint her as Lindsay Clonehan because she is a total Lindsay Lohan clone, right down to the vocal fry. She’s racked up roles in movies like Nutcracker Massacre, The Killing Tree, Easter Bunny Massacre, Curse of Humpty Dumpty 2, and Sky Monster.

MARY HAD A LITTLE LAMB (2023)

This British nursery rhyme slasher is as templated as a backwoods family horror film can be, but it mostly does a good job of creating atmosphere, plus it has a great killer—my favorite of killer of this bunch.

Lindsay Clonehan stars as a true crime podcaster about to be out of a job because she’s not garnering enough listeners. So she decides to take her team to an area where people go missing all the time for a real juicy story.

They discover a house in the middle of nowhere…and a bunch of fog machines that seem to only work intermittently, leaving us with an inconsistent, patchy, foggy setting for the rest of the movie.

An older woman named Mary lives in the house. She says her son is upstairs. The group convinces her to let them stay for the night (so they can do some podcast investigating). Being true crime experts, they literally suspect this whole situation with this woman and her unseen son is bizarre in a place where people have gone missing, and yet…well, we know what happens next.

Slowly but surely they split up and start getting killed off by the “son”. You may think he’s wearing a lamb head as a mask, but this dude has an actual lamb head and growls like a bear. Therein lies the big problem with this film. There would be only one acceptable backstory for this lamb man…the mother was fucked by a sheep. How they could pass up this twisted opportunity is beyond me, but they do.

There are some great chase scenes and tension (the fricking lamb man runs really fast!), but the kills fail to make contact…meaning you can always tell the actors are not actually getting struck by the weapons being used against them. It’s a glaring issue in an otherwise tightly made flick. It packs in all the clichés we love–murders, chase scenes, the crazy mom, a gruesome dinner party, and…a Texas Chainsaw copycat conclusion that brings the film to an abrupt end that feels very unfinished. I sense a sequel. Maybe then we’ll get the sheep fucking angle?

THREE BLIND MICE (2023)

The opening scene of Three Blind Mice is a goodie, but it also ensures there’s no mystery in this movie. A girl and a dude in the woods end up in an abandoned underground lab where they are attacked by three mice men, which we get to see in their full glory immediately.

Lindsay Clonehan is our lead once again. She plays a druggy, and her family and friends take her to a house in the woods for an intervention.

Soon, the mice men are killing her friends and family left and right. The film definitely delivers on the gore, but it’s not quite scary and there isn’t much suspense, although there are several cat and mouse chase scenes…where, ironically, the mice men are the cat.

The first time Clonehan gets abducted and taken to the lab lair she gets away and goes back to the cabin. The mice men invade the house, leading to more of her friends and family becoming victims, and then she ends up back in the lab lair for the final act. It all becomes quite boring for a while, but she does conveniently find a video to watch that explains how the mice men came to be. Not to mention, she deserves the title of scream queen, because her screams rock.

The biggest disappointment for me is that none of the mice men have their tales cut off with a carving knife. Weren’t nursery rhymes just so cute?

WINNIE THE POOH: BLOOD AND HONEY (2023)

Rhys Frake-Waterfield, the director of this more commercially successful childhood horror flick, has directed numerous other indie slashers I’ve covered on my site (including The Killing Tree and Sky Monster starring Lindsay Clonehan), so I’m happy for him finally getting a higher profile release. Although this is the most popular of the three flicks I cover here, it suffers from the same mid-movie slowdown the other two do.

We first get a dark animated backstory involving the famous Winnie the Pooh characters. Basically, human boy Christopher Robin deserted his furry friends to go to college, causing them to turn into blood-thirsty murderers. Robin comes back when he’s older and ends up getting abducted by Pooh and Piglet. Pooh is quite a sadist. He keeps Robin chained up and whips him.

Meanwhile, a bunch of girls heads to a cabin in the woods. Here’s the bummer. Lindsay Clonehan gets lost on the way and becomes the first victim. Blah. What a waste of final girl material. However, she gets a good chase scene and a gruesome death.

Pooh and Piglet kill a minimal number of victims before the remainder of girls work together to try to stay alive. The movie really slows down for a while once Pooh and Piglet invade their home.

However, the final act is a blast. A group of rednecks shows up on the scene to try to help the girls, making the body count skyrocket instantly. Awesome. The majority of the blood (and honey) is definitely saved for the last 20 minutes or so.

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A double feature of killer bunny Easter slashers!

Posted on March 27, 2024 by Daniel

It’s two more killer bunny flicks to add to the complete holiday horror page. There’s even a drag queen in each movie, landing them both on the does the gay guy die? page as well. But are these two movies a basket full of fun?

EASTER EVIL (2024)

Be warned, this is a loooooow budget film intentionally filmed with a 1970s campy trash quality…while looking like it takes place in the 1960s.

A hooker named bunny and her erotic dancer friend Trinity (played by a drag queen) hang out in a hotel room for a majority of this 72-minute film. Their dialogue about their jobs, aspirations, and men fail to bring any humor, so it’s not entertaining at all. Bunny does have one dream about a guy in a bunny costume to break up the monotony.

Eventually the girls go out to get Easter eggs. While they’re gone, a pervy room service guy comes into the room and is killed by the bunny man.

The girls return for some more filler—exercise, dance, and pillow fight montages. Eventually they discover the bunny man is in their room and some fighting ensues.

No body count, no comedy, no scares…not even the kind of crass material you might expect from a movie about a hooker and a drag queen erotic dancer in a sleazy hotel. The simple premise just begs for over-the-top absurdity, but we don’t even get that.

EASTER BLOODY EASTER (2024)

This big killer bunny has little red-eyed minion bunnies and is trying to take out a town full of churchgoers. Yay!

Our leading lady and director of the film is Diane Foster, who was the star of The Orphan Killer and its sequel. As the town prepares for its big Easterpalooza celebration, her husband goes missing and people start turning up dead.

One redneck who seems like a conspiracy theorist is actually right…it’s the work of supernatural entity Jackalope, first conjured by a woman decades before when she merely wanted her kids to experience a visit from the Easter bunny.

As the main girl and her friends put the pieces together and try to hunt down the bunny, Easterpalooza goes on. The big dance starts with a Bunny Hop montage led by the town’s gay boy dressed in Playboy bunny drag. In fact, this little redneck town is shockingly colorful and diverse…

The rest of the segment at the dance slows the otherwise fast-paced film down for a while, as do some dream sequences the main girl has. The film didn’t need to be 103 minutes long. But things pick up when an Easter egg hunt turns into a massacre! The big bunny looks awesomely evil, and his minions are good for a chuckle (they give off Critters vibes).

All the main characters end up battling bunnies in the woods in the final act, but then the film drags on for a bit too long after it, with nothing really happening. Not sure what they were trying to accomplish with the few final drawn out scenes. Even so, this is mostly a good one to watch if you’re doing a killer bunny movie marathon on Easter weekend.

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TUBI TERRORS with a side of laughs?

Posted on March 26, 2024 by Daniel

This trio of indies vacillated between trying to be funny but not delivering, and trying not to be funny but making me laugh.

MURDERCISE (2023)

The first few minutes of a Murdercise bombard us with 80s neon, spandex, leg warmers, a synth score, and an aerobics class.

A few minutes later, a woman is killed in her home before we get to the focus of the plot…the making of an exercise video with a bunch of slutty babes and one uptight girl, our leading lady.

Murdercise is intentionally cheesy in its effort to give off an 80s female exploitation slasher vibe, but it doesn’t quite hit with its attempts at humor. The highlight is one bimbo with huge boobs. She absolutely steals the show when she throws a tantrum because horror bear Drew Marvick (sporting Daisy Dukes and a crop top) won’t look at or touch her tits. The rest of the movie really needed to live up to this level of silly comedy.

As for the slashing, it’s not your usual format. The goody-goody girl, becoming more and more furious at how sexualized the video shoot is, starts to kill off all the skanky girls. Unfortunately, there aren’t many kills, they aren’t designed to be scary, and only one delivers on some good gore, with practical effects!

However, the film has a side story—there have already been a series of murders around town, and the cops are on the beat. When they show up at the studio, shit suddenly gets wild, with the girls working together to take down the other killer. Practical gore effects abound, and a chainsaw even gets in on the action. We even get an appearance by adult film royalty Ginger Lynn, plus some phobic jabs at the masculinity and heterosexuality of the cops, bringing old warm and fuzzy feelings of being a gay teen in the 80s flooding back.

But seriously, the final act rox, and I just wish the whole film had delivered this kind of midnight movie horror vibe.

SUMMERHOUSE SLAUGHTER (2023)

This cheerleader camp slasher film runs only an hour long yet still fails to fully develop the presence of its killer. Basically, “furry” slashers are all the rage these days, so this killer jumps on the bandwagon and puts on a panda suit. It has absolutely nothing to do with a mascot costume, which would make sense. And brace yourself…this is touted as a sequel to the 1988 classic Cheerleader Camp. Sigh.

The film sets us up for the perfect campy/sleazy slasher plot—after a sprinkler acid accident takes out a whole cheerleading team (it’s rather funny watching them all drop at once), a new team comes to cheerleading camp, and soon someone in a panda suit is killing them off. We even get the original young Jason Voorhees Ari Lehman as a pervy caretaker.

And yet, the pervy caretaker is barely in the movie and his red herring role isn’t exploited to give us peeps at showering cheerleaders or topless pillow fights. There’s also a young shirtless pretty boy on-site who makes a bizarre yet enticing entrance…and is then never seen again. WTF?

No nudity, no sexploitation, and as with many low budget indie films, it’s hard to tell if the movie is trying to be funny and mostly failing…or if the few scenes that give you a laugh were even meant to.

There are kills, and some of them are satisfying for a low budget film. For instance, there’s a nice killer POV moment leading up to an eye gouging scene, and a death by plunger scene in a tight shot in a tub with no score to fill  the sound void is actually effective. But the kills stop rather quickly when the girls realize a killer is out there. And then…the movie comes to a screeching halt as the girls just sit around trying to figure out what they should do to survive. The pacing is also hurt by totally pointless interruptions by a horror hostess. Sigh.

The final girl gets a chase scene, but as is always the case, setting a horror scene to metal music kills any sense of tension or atmosphere. But the final fight with the panda gave me a chuckle. However, like I said above, I don’t know if that was the intent.

SLAUGHTER BEACH (2022)

I know what movie you watched last summer…and then used as inspiration to make an indie killer fisherman comedy duo movie.

The problem with the movie? The comedy duo. It was refreshing to see the two leads were a Black guy and an Asian dude, but somewhere along the line something went wrong. This pair has no charisma, there’s no chemistry between them, there’s no comedic talent on display. There’s not even any funny material for them to work with.

The real star here is the fisherman. He’s not hidden from view—we see his face right from the start. He also delivers one-liners like some sort of late 80s/early 90s slasher killer as he slices and dices up victims on the boardwalk.

Which leads to the other star of the film: the death scenes. This is all bloody, violent fun with practical effects. The fisherman even goes on a rampage during a murder montage at one point…set to rock music. Sigh. But I can overlook the choice of rock music because the kills…rock.

It’s unfortunate that our two main guys, a couple of jobless friends who decide they are going to protect the boardwalk from the killer and solve the case, play such an insignificant role in bolstering the fun of this movie.

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TUBI TERRORS: who or what is killing queers?

Posted on March 25, 2024 by Daniel

Vampires, an infamous serial killer, and a masked psycho—it’s a trio of movies for the homo horror movies page!

SLAY (2024)

Slay could easily have been titled In Drag Til Dawn. This queer vampire flick is somewhat of a love letter to From Dusk Til Dawn, even referencing the film in its meta banter. I was expecting a cheesy, low budget, campy drag queen movie that looked like it was shot on video, but this is a genuine vampire flick despite budget constraints. For instance, there’s some CGI blood during gun fights, and even a scene poking fun at how the film couldn’t afford to show us all the action—very clever, but not even an apology that’s needed, because it’s clear a load of talent and creativity went into this one. I’ve yet to see a Tubi original come to physical media, but I hope Slay does so I can add it to my gay horror collection.

Before I even begin discussing the movie, I have to confess that I only know it stars several RuPaul’s Drag Race contestants because the friends we watched it with watch the show…Ink Master and Top Chef are more my and the hubby’s speed. I don’t know where the queens in this cast placed in Ru’s competition, but they all do a great job in this movie.

They arrive at a bar full of rednecks/hillbillies in the middle of nowhere. Turns out there was a mix up in the booking, but the owner lets them perform anyway. They aren’t welcomed at first…and neither are the vampires that show up. Awesome.

A freaky master vampire’s first bite starts a chain reaction of bar patrons turning vamp. Now it’s up to the queens and rednecks to band together to fight off the fangs.

This is such a great flick to watch with a group on movie night. The vampire action is a blast, and the cast is absolutely lovable. And of course there’s a mild message of acceptance and tolerance, intertwined with the idea of becoming a vampire.

The look of those who become vampires is good enough to distinguish them from the mortals (although their red eyes are CGI), but the vampire who absolutely delivers as far as performances go is this dude.

He plays a vampire like nobody’s business, and he gets an intense scene in a vent. Eek!

I will say that at 98 minutes long, the film—um—drags a bit in the middle, but once it picks back up for the final act, it’s party time. I was also impressed that the filmmakers were able to secure the rights for the drag queens to perform to Cardi B’s “WAP”.

As for the comedy, I felt that it was the straight cis characters that got most of the funny lines. I can’t believe I have to give more credit to hillbillies than homos in a queer horror movie, but unfortunately, the queens are predominantly relegated to the usual tired, cliché drag queen humor. I can’t even count the amount of times the sexual innuendo of “suck” is used for jokes in which queens are referencing the vampires. This has long been the type of humor associated with and expected from drag queens, but it is just way too obvious and simple for my taste—it’s the kind of shtick that has been used to pander to drag show audiences, mostly straight, for decades.

GACY: SERIAL KILLER NEXT DOOR (2024)

Like Fright Night and Disturbia, this is a movie about a teenage boy who realizes there’s a monster living next door. In this case, it’s John Wayne Gacy.

There was no need to use Gacy as the threat next door in this derivative film, because it easily could have just been about a teen boy who realizes his neighbor is a gay serial killer. Sadly, Gacy’s name is a money maker, plus, using a notorious real life gay serial killer as the subject helps avoid backlash from making a movie about a fictional gay serial killer who picks up and kills tricks.

That is what might disappoint those who are tantalized by the graphic details of killers such as Gacy. This film does not exploit the truth at all. The most we see is Gacy handcuffing, chocking, and stabbing victims, and even that is pretty tame. There is no suggestion of the horrific sexual assaults he committed on his victims.

While this is a predictable flick, what is notable is that it speaks to the idea that young people are never believed. The main kid is afraid to tell any adults what he witnessed through his bedroom window, and when he tells his parents, they make him out to look like the problem. Also highlighted is the idea that we refuse to accept the horror that can be perpetrated by the upstanding neighbor next door. Gacy is a beloved member of the community, dresses as Pogo the clown at kids’ parties, and even works for the Democratic Party…because, you know, democrats are never criminals!

The film could have been so much more than it is if it had written the lead teenage boy as gay or questioning—there’s so much that could have been explored about the fears and conflicts about coming out when you realize the boy-loving man next door is a monster. I’d say the most exciting parts of this fictional horror movie based on reality include the main kid sneaking into Gacy’s crawlspace to take photos of the dead bodies and Gacy making his way into the kid’s house to abduct him…while he’s showering. Eek!

REUNION FROM HELL 2 (2022)

A gay slasher gets a gay Christmas slasher sequel. Yay!

I have to admit, I didn’t find the first film compelling enough to warrant a sequel, and the main character Riley, played by the writer/director of both movies, comes across as totally unlikable and self-centered in the second film.

This time around, Riley gathers a new set of friends together (since the first ones are all dead) to go to a cabin in the woods for Christmas. He’s trying to avoid an aggressive reporter, played by Elm Street 2‘s Mark Patton.

This could be considered a “reunion” movie, because when they arrive at the cabin they are greeted by Riley’s mother (Lisa Wilcox of Elm Street 4 and 5), who has a trio of surprises—Riley’s uncle, the hot sheriff from the first film, and Riley’s ex-boyfriend are all there to celebrate Christmas.

While this is a bit more polished than the first film, there are still awkward filler scenes of the friends just sitting around and talking, adding nothing to the progression of the story. Editing some of those sequences out would have streamlined the movie and helped with pacing. The main focus beyond all the white noise is that Riley is still traumatized by the events of the first film, has cool, gory nightmares, and is also dealing with tension between his ex and the new guy he has been dating.

Mark Patton lurks around trying to get some dirt for his story, there’s a gay sex scene, and there’s one death scene involving deep throating a little fake Christmas tree.

The killer mask is pretty cool, but the body count is low. Basically the whole cast finds out at once that there’s a killer on the loose, and they all band together to fight to the death. For me, the highlight of all the chaos that ensues is a character getting hysterical and then being slapped.

Over all, this feels exactly like what it is—a rough, low budget indie slasher sequel. The gay storyline is perhaps the main reason you might want to give it a try since we don’t get a lot of gay slashers, with the added bonus of it being a Christmas flick that lands it on the holiday horror page.

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