BOUGHT ON BLU: The 40s, the 60s, the 80s

Posted on June 22, 2023 by Daniel

My latest trio of purchases all happen to come from decades that were 20 years apart, and it was a satisfying shopping spree.

CAT PEOPLE (1942)

Believe it or not, I had never seen the original Cat People, but now that I have it makes me appreciate the sleazy 1982 version I grew up with more. This is a plot that needed an R rating, nudity, blood…and Lynn Lowry picking up a chunk of panther cum. The original is sterile with the sexual themes and more heavy on the religion.

Running only 73 minutes long, it is a tightly paced flick that relies heavily on making you use your imagination to fill in the scary blanks.

A Serbian artist drawing a black panther at the zoo meets a handsome man. They date, they marry…and then she refuses to have sex with him for fear doing so will ignite her family’s cat people curse.

The husband tries to be patient, even sends her to a psychiatrist, but she seems to become more and more convinced she’s going to turn into a pretty kitty.

That’s when a coworker of the husband, who admits she’s in love with him, begins being terrorized by something lurking in the shadows and snarling. This is the best part of the film, from a scene of the coworker walking to a bus stop at night to a scene in which she is surrounded by shadows and growls of a panther while alone in an indoor public pool at night.

And that is what makes this film work. The frightening scenes use light, sound, and editing to great effect. Even so, by the final attack scene, you start to feel like you’re being humored with shadow puppets.

If you want full nastiness or gruesome black panther attacks, you’ll need to stick with the remake, but this is a fascinating watch to compare how different a sexually-themed horror plot was handled twenty years apart.

THE STRANGLER (1964)

In the wake of Psycho, mama’s boy killers carved out an entire horror subgenre, and The Strangler isn’t subtle about it at all. Victor Buono plays the perfect creep in this one. He’s quiet, unassuming, and obsessed with spying on half-naked women, choking them to death, and leaving a baby doll as his calling card.

While there are slasher elements here (including some great killer POV), this is mostly one of those portrait of a serial killer films. What we don’t learn about Buono from the police investigation (he hates women), we learn from his overbearing, bed-ridden mother (she hates him).

Mother doesn’t hold back, and she’s worse than Mrs. Bates. She tells Buono he’s fat, ugly, poor, and will never land a woman and that she’s the only woman who will ever love him.

Which begs the question…why doesn’t he just kill her?

The spooky 60s-style horror music is perfect, but as with all movies that are mostly presented from the killer’s perspective, this isn’t particularly scary. However, many elements were most definitely used as a template for horror films that came after this one, and I’m sure it was unnerving to audiences back in 64 because it’s inspired by the true serial crimes of The Boston Strangler.

SILENT RAGE (1982)

The director of horror spoof National Lampoon’s Class Reunion brings us a movie that could have been a better horror flick than it is. All he had to do was cut out about twenty minutes of Chuck Norris as a sheriff who, along with his goofy deputy, waste a lot of time bickering with a biker gang.

That’s what causes this otherwise intense film to be totally inconsistent. So let’s virtually ignore Norris and get to the good stuff.

In the opening scene, a mentally ill man hacks up a couple in their home. Actor Brian Libby, who has been in various horror movies and Stephen King adaptations over the years, is perfectly freaky as the killer.

Norris’s men end up shooting the killer, but pretty soon some mad doctors use an experimental drug on him that revives him and makes him indestructible.

If only we didn’t have to wait 50 minutes for him to go on his killing spree. However, when he does, we get some super atmospheric and suspenseful chase scenes and body reveals, all of which give us great performances by late actor Ron Silver (as a doctor) and veteran actress Toni Kalem (as Ron’s sister and Chuck’s love interest).

Not to mention, the horror score and music cues are tight.

And speaking of music, Katey Sagal is the singer of the love theme that plays during a Norris sex scene.

And speaking of Norris even though I wish I didn’t have to, he finally gets involved with the actual storyline in the last act for a satisfyingly lengthy chase and fight scene with the killer.

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When bachelor parties go wrong

Posted on June 21, 2023 by Daniel

One is a straight bachelor party, the other a gay bachelor party. Let’s find out if either of these bashes was a blast.

PARTY BUS (2022)

 

Imagine the Saw confessional killing subgenre on a bus and you get Party Bus.

It all begins at a club, where the bachelor’s ex comes seeking closure, only to get swept up on his party bus before she can talk to him.

But before the bus action begins, there’s a gory massacre at the club during the opening credits. I think a drug is causing people to go psycho, but I’m not sure. This murder montage feels disconnected from the rest of the film. Even so, I wasn’t disappointed that it’s included.

When the bachelor’s brother crashes his celebration, things quickly turn dark and violent. The brother does some drugs and then demands the guests reveal their darkest secrets otherwise he will slaughter them.

And slaughter them he does—beginning with a nasty scene involving an unborn baby. This is a crass, nasty film that should satisfy exploitation fans.

The only thing that hinders the severity of the brutality is an odd audio issue. It felt to me like sound effects are missing, creating pockets of silence whenever any frenetic action takes place. For instance, someone will fall to the floor, but there’s no impact sound. Even so, the gratuitous violence and torturous kills deliver.

SUMMONING SYLVIA (2023)

Here’s one for the homo horror movies page. The humor in this gay ghost comedy may have been “cute” like twenty years ago, but for me most of it felt so cringe in its attempt at camp. This style of cliché gay shtick has been done to death, and even the name-dropping of gay icons is embarrassingly outdated. Some of the comedy works perfectly, but I found it gets drowned out by loads of predictable, over-the-top silliness.

Imagine a gay bachelor party where Ariana Grande’s brother Frankie Grande is one of the guests and the other three gays all think they’re equally as fierce and fabulous as him. Without any nuanced differentiation between characters, it gets…shrill to say the least. This vacation house film full of flamboyant gay men who all want to be the center of attention lacks any sense of balance. Instead of always being turned up to full volume frenetic, the comedy would have worked better with varying levels of tone and delivery.

Frankie and friends have a séance to summon a woman who was accused of murdering her son with an axe in the house years before. Yay!

Then the straight military brother of one of the grooms shows up. When lights begin flickering and there are mysterious bumps in the night, the gays run around screaming, squealing, and clinging to each other, while the straight guy stomps around unfazed and stony-faced. Sigh. This is why there are only gays in my Comfort Cove series of books, and all of them, from pretty boys to bears to drag queens, are always prepared to stand up to the creatures of the night.

There are a few twists, and horror fans may feel a little bamboozled when all is said and done. I know I did. I came looking for a gay horror comedy, not an episode of Scooby Doo.

Some of the gay happenings in the film include Frankie in an energetic sex scene, a dance montage, the straight guy making an accusation about predatory gay behavior (sigh), the queens singing Smashmouth’s “All Star” a cappella, and a grand finale featuring an extravagant and jarringly out of place drag performance.

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HULU HORRORS: they want female bodies…and what’s inside them

Posted on June 20, 2023 by Daniel

I cleared out my Hulu watchlist with this trio of films that all revolve around women and their bodies. Let’s get right into them.

Clock (2023)

The problem with so much elevated horror, aka: trauma porn, aka: stuff that’s usually found exclusively on Shudder but somehow found its way onto Hulu this time, is that in its effort to be smart and thought-provoking, often it completely loses focus. Of course the other issue is that it’s rarely worthy of the horror genre.

This feminist film perfectly captures the horror of being a woman pressured by everyone around her to have a baby even when she’s totally fulfilled without one. But in the end it’s just a confusing Stepford Wives/Rosemary’s Baby concept with a bogus boogey woman, a nod to the movie Teeth, lots of spider imagery, and some nasty birthing and fetus visuals.

Quinn from Glee plays the happy motherless wife, but she eventually caves and does everything she can to get her biological clock ticking. Adding to her mental state is the pressure from her father, a man of Jewish faith.

Quinn decides to voluntarily check into an unorthodox pregnancy clinic that is supposed to have great success with breaking through stubborn uteruses.

And that’s when Quinn begins pretty much losing her mind and living in a stress-induced world of delusions. Sure there’s plenty of disturbing body horror that will most likely traumatize females specifically, but the film makes sure to give males reason to grab their crotches protectively as well.

SHE WILL (2021)

Watching this movie is like taking a women’s studies class with a Wiccan lesson thrown in for good measure. It’s all about female empowerment, bodily autonomy, and Mother Earth…and it makes little use of the familiar names in the cast.

Horror queen Alice Krige plays an aging actress who has had a double mastectomy. She goes on a country retreat with her nurse, who she treats horribly.

The retreat is run by Rupert Everett, but his presence is irrelevant.

Alice starts having dreams of dancing around fires in the woods with other women. She acquires the power to harm shitty men. In an underdeveloped plot line, she seeks revenge on Malcolm McDowell, a famous director who had a questionable relationship with her when she was a child actress. The decision to make this storyline understated could be so as not to feed into the energy of it, which would take the control away from the female perspective. Did that assessment make me sound smart?

We get repeated witchy imagery in the woods, a few more men get harmed, Alice makes amends with her nurse, demonstrating that women need to lift each other up, Alice comes to accept her flawed body, and Alice finally goes to finish what she started with Malcolm—who is essentially playing the slime ball his Dr. Loomis character became in Rob Zombie’s Halloween II.

Bottom line—this is essentially an art house film with witchcraft subtext.

THE OFFERING (2022)

As basic and filled with cheap scares as this one is, it’s totally horror with an awesome demon, and it’s my favorite of this bunch. In other words, I liked it because it’s basic and filled with cheap scares.

The focus is on a man and his pregnant wife coming to stay with his Hasidic father, who runs and lives in a Jewish funeral home.

After the father and son work together on a corpse that comes in, the wife begins experiencing unnerving situations in the house.

Unfortunately, the scares begin with a dream sequence. Ugh. You need to prepare for those types of cheap scares, because they are what you get here.

Which is why the freaky demon is so satisfying…it’s more substantial than the predictably timed noises and orchestral stingers that bombard us.

It’s a classic template as the couple delves into the strange occurrences, which are all steeped in Jewish occult themes. And of course the goal is to save their unborn child. It might be predictable, but the battle with the beast is loads of fun, and there’s even a scene reminiscent of the Elm Street 4 looping moment.

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BOUGHT ON BLU: vengeful ghost children of the past

Posted on June 19, 2023 by Daniel

It’s been decades since I’ve seen the latest additions to my collection. Conveniently, they make a perfect double feature because the plots are similar, and they remind us that angry ghost children have been haunting horror for years.

THE HAUNTING OF JULIA (1977)

Based on an early Peter Straub novel, this film starring Mia Farrow is disappointing–it’s disjointed, uneventful, and open-ended with nothing in the way of scares or even bone-chilling atmosphere. The “haunting” could almost be seen as more of a metaphor about guilt rather than an actual haunting. It’s up to the viewer’s interpretation.

Mia’s daughter dies in a tragic accident. It almost seems like Mia tries to take matters in her own hands to save her daughter before help can arrive, but we are left not knowing what really happened, and we never find out.

In the aftermath, Mia literally just runs away from her husband (the actor who played Peter in the original Black Christmas) and moves into a house on her own.

Mia soon starts catching glimpses of her daughter wherever she goes. She hears noises in the house. She makes a gruesome and random discovery in a park. She participates in a seance.

Mia decides to delve into the house’s history and visits various people connected to its past. The best part of the movie is a disturbing backstory of girl who grew up there, but unfortunately it’s only presented in a monologue by a character Mia chats with, not through flashbacks.

The trippy final scene is meant to be haunting…but is it real or just in Mia’s messed up mind? We’ll never know.

THE CHANGELING (1980)

Revisiting this slow burn for the first time since watching it on HBO back in the early 80s, I braced myself for the agonizing overacting that George C. Scott brings to his performances–the kind that made Exorcist III even more laughable than it already was.

Imagine my surprise to find his performance here is actually understated and realistic. In fact, this whole movie, with its classic bump in the night ghost story vibe, was the more enjoyable of these two similar features.

After a tragic accident kills his wife and daughter, Scott, who plays a composer, moves into an empty old house to work through his grief.

Along with lots of atmospheric panning shots of the house, we get banging at night, a door opening on its own, running water, weird noises, lights flickering, a ball rolling around the house, and a padlocked door Scott can’t resist opening. This kicks off an investigation into the house’s history. And considering it’s 1980, that means microfiche! And naturally, a seance is also obligatory.

Best of all, this film has a body in a well/ghostly revenge plot that predated Ringu/The Ring by two decades–minus a terrifying, angry spirit we can actually see. This one uses the classic notion that “it’s what you can’t see that’s scariest”.

The backstory behind the haunting is a goodie that takes us to places that still seem original over 40 years later, and the creepy highlight is a chase scene involving a wheelchair. Eek!

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TUBI TERRORS: shark movies

Posted on June 16, 2023 by Daniel

I just can’t wait until shark week to indulge in bad shark movies. However, I’m running out of options, so this trio is definitely a deep, desperate dive.

SHARK WATERS (2022)

This is a shark movie that should be all over the Harry Potter network…uh…I mean…SyFy. If you’re stuck inside on a hot day with the AC cranking and nothing to do, check this one out for the bad CGI, cute shark faces that look like something out of an animated movie, and the laughable shark attacks, battles with sharks, and scenes of people falling off a boat.

Following a couple on a jet ski getting attacked during the opener, we meet a young woman charting a boat for some fishing with a few other people.

This movie plot is almost identical to another shark movie I watched in the past year in which the lead girl has to depend on her father to come save her when the attacks are at their worst.

So, anyway, she’s on this boat with some people, and there’s a brief attempt to develop characters before about half of them quickly get knocked off the boat and eaten.

Then the film slows down drastically as the survivors get stuck on a sandbar and battle the sharks until daddy arrives…in a lifeboat. Hilarious.

SHARK LAKE (2015)

I imagine this mess was a SyFy original 8 years ago, but I never saw it.

It’s not even worth getting into it too much. Horrible CGI sharks and CGI gore are sprinkled throughout a weak story involving Dolph Lundgren as some sort of criminal.

This literally feels like a separate movie than the one about the shark until Dolph finally gets incorporated into the shark action in the final act.

Meanwhile, the cop who put him away is dealing with her sleepy lakeside town being terrorized by something in the lake…a lake that inexplicably has a sand bottom.

The most thrilling twist is that there are multiple sharks in the lake. The funniest part is when Dolph fights a shark off with his fists.

SWAMP SHARK (2011)

The only downside to this CGI shark extravaganza is that it stars right wing loon Kristy Swanson. However, she’s right at home playing rifle-wielding white trash that lives by a swamp.

The hilarious premise has animal smugglers accidentally allowing their big truck’s cargo tank to roll down a hill and into the swamp.

Worse, it’s almost time for a big gator fest event, so the locals have all crawled out of their trailer homes to prepare for the thrill of their lifetime.

The most glaring aspect of this film is that in a small redneck town holding a gator fest, at least half the victims of the shark are Black men. WTF?

There are plenty of goofy good CGI shark attacks, DB Sweeney has a starring role, and the finale involves a rescue mission to save Kristy’s sister and her friends, followed by a battle to the death with the shark at the gator fest.

Despite Kristy Swanson’s presence, this is the best of this bunch.

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TUBI TERRORS: not so terrifying zombie flicks

Posted on June 15, 2023 by Daniel

It’s one lowbrow flick from the end of the 90s and some newer indies from the 2000s. Let’s see how this movie marathon worked out for me.

HOT WAX ZOMBIES ON WHEELS (1999)

When this low budget indie first began, I had high hopes because it felt like it was going to be a raunchy little throwback to the direct-to-video days of the 80s. Even the rockin’ theme song fit the bill.

The plot is also perfect 80s throwback trash. In a small town, a leather biker woman opens a waxing salon…with wax that turns people into horny zombies.

You’d never know they are zombies though. There’s no zombie makeup whatsoever. If there isn’t going to be any zombie action, you need to make sure you lay it on thick with the gratuitous sex and camp, and this film just doesn’t quite deliver enough of either.

There are some flirtations with gay humor and gay sexual situations, but not even that is enough to make this film worthy of b-movie goodness.

STRAIN 100 (2020)

All I can do these days is watch zombie movies hoping for some good living dead action, because the plots have all been done to death and are all the same.

This indie is clearly COVID inspired, beginning with a montage of virus and vaccine controversy, CDC talk, and news clips.

Then we jump right into the outbreak scenario. Kids are camping in the woods, one turns zombie, everyone gets attacked, and our main girl escapes. She is one of the highlights here…actress Jemma Dallender definitely kills it as a final girl.

She ends up on a journey with a small group of survivors, and that’s when all the plot elements become cliché. Survivors trapped in a diner. A jerky alpha male. An attempt to escape. Someone keeping it secret that they’ve been bit. The group hoping to get to the CDC for help, but ending up at a farm being terrorized by zombies instead. We’ve seen it all before.

However, aside from CGI blood splatters, the zombie action is fun. The zombies look great, the nighttime scenes are effective, and the gut munching totally delivers with practical effects. There are no scares to be had, and the plot in between the zombie scenes is derivative, but I have to give the makers credit for capturing a classic zombie movie vibe.

5G ZOMBIES (2020)

I’m going to guess this movie was created during COVID lockdown considering it’s comprised of snippets of individuals conversing with their cameras rather than interacting with other people. And yes, COVID is referenced briefly.

It’s 100 agonizing minutes of people talking and coughing as the virus takes hold.

We are bombarded by short vignettes of people describing what they’re going through…and discussing conspiracy theories about the government using phones to turn everyone into zombies. Remember when Stephen King wrote a whole book with this plot?

There’s no makeup on the rare zombies we see, just people bleeding from…an inch below their eyes. Definitely a no budget feature.

STORM OF THE DEAD (2006)

I thought this was a full-fledged zombie flick based on the title, but instead it’s a low budget voodoo flick with no horror excitement at all.

After a Florida militia group shoots a looter in the swamps, his grandmother uses voodoo to turn herself into a young chick with big tits.

Instead of getting revenge on the militia, it seems like she just passes herself around and lets them squeeze her boobs.

She does shoot one guy near the end. Also, there is one zombie in the final frame of this film—which seemed to think it was going to get a sequel.

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HORROR PRIDE 2023: movies and more

Posted on June 11, 2023 by Daniel

I rounded up some gay features to cover just in time for queer pride 2023 (most of which land on the homo horror movies page).

BOB (2017)

This silly, supernatural, 25-minute short is produced, written, and directed by the couple that stars in it. For me it is a too cutesy outing with absolutely no meat on its bones.

A thin, white gay couple moves into a new apartment, and almost immediately a photo falls off a shelf, lights flicker, the couple uses an app to contact “Bob”, and then they call in their fruit fly, who is a medium. Would you believe she is a full-bodied woman with color streaks in her hair? I’ve been pretty much out of the concentrated gay community for years, but I guess nothing has changed….

Anyway, they perform a séance, we see in flashbacks that Bob is the gay guy from the Kirstie Alley sitcom Veronica’s Closet, and we learn he was involved with a self-loathing sleaze ball.

There’s really not much more to it than that, such as an explanation of how Bob became a ghost.

There’s barely any haunting, and the most ominous character present doesn’t even serve as a supernatural antagonist. Huge missed opportunity.

OUT OF BODY (2020)

Directed by and co-written by the leading man, this independent supernatural romantic comedy entertains and puts a smile on your face as two gay guys find themselves with a ghostly conundrum.

On Halloween night, Henry has friends over, and they end up dabbling in the occult.

Henry’s friend Malcolm, with whom he is secretly in love, decides to crash on the couch after the others leave.

The next morning, Henry wakes to find Malcolm is missing. Only, he isn’t. He’s a ghost, and he’s in the house. He has no idea how he died, where his body is, or how to let Henry know he’s there.

Slowly but surely, Malcolm makes contact with Henry and they begin trying to piece together what happened to him, why he’s still hanging around, and how he can cross over.

The film is funny, charming, and keeps us wondering what really happened to Malcolm on Halloween night. And therein lies the film’s one minor issue—it’s too long. With a running time of 104 minutes, it’s comprised of varying segments, most of which could easily have gotten their point across sooner—Malcolm realizing he’s a ghost, Malcolm trying to get Henry to realize he’s there, Malcolm and Henry using a magic book to determine how to help Malcolm’s ghost, Malcolm teaching Henry how to score a date with his hot neighbor, Henry having the date with his neighbor, etc. Some editing could have trimmed the film to a better paced 90 minutes.

In the end, while this mostly feels like a quaint ghostly love story, the final act brings us the resolution we need by delving back into the supernatural, and it’s kind of like watching an episode of Charmed. Pure, cheesy, sexy fun.

FIRE ISLAND (2023)

Breaking from what you’d expect of the usual gay slasher, Fire Island is not campy, not sexually charged, and doesn’t focus solely on overloading us with shirtless white hunks (although there are some in the background briefly).

Unfortunately, it also isn’t very inspired as far as slashers go. The plot and death scenes are bland and generic, most kills are essentially off screen, and there’s little in the way of suspense. It’s as forgettable as the myriad of straight-to-DVD, low budget slashers that followed in the wake of the Scream trilogy in the early 2000s, when everyone thought they could make a slasher.

There’s an opening kill, and then our mixed group of friends (gay male, lesbian, straight) heads to Fire Island. It’s May, which is the beginning of the tourist destination’s season, so it’s not a busy time of year. On top of that, this takes place during the pandemic, so the island is even more isolated.

There is, however, an old man that appears right on cue to warn the kids away. In this case, he’s more of a hot silver daddy, as it should be in a gay horror flick. He’s also one of many plot points that is left dangling. He speaks with an Irish accent, but we have no idea why. We have no idea what he’s talking about when he warns our main guy of danger, and it’s never clarified. He also just disappears from the film. Usually, these well-meaning weirdos are eventually murdered to up the body count. This guy must have just hopped on the next ferry back to the mainland and called it a day. Perhaps he’s seen more slashers than the makers of this film.

In a refreshing twist, there’s an older gay couple that gives us all the gay displays of affection, but the only sex scene involves a straight couple! However, they end up paying for it. Yay!

The killer wears a horned deer mask and often pops up in the shadows behind the characters. Scratch that. The killer constantly pops up behind characters. It’s like this is the one thing the filmmakers learned from watching slashers, so it is the go-to scare element here.

All the talk, bland kills, low energy drag host during a bar scene, and a pointless acoustic song performance fill the time unto we reach our final boy’s chase scene. There are definitely some effective camera angles and use of light during this segment, and it culminates in a body reveal party (yay!). However, the killer motivation is as uninspired as everything else, and the killer essentially comes out of nowhere. On top of that, would you believe COVID is the catalyst for all of the murderous happenings? Sigh.

And finally, for sticklers who know their Fire Island, the film fails to differentiate between Cherry Grove and The Pines and the landmarks that distinguish one community from the other.

BROOKLYN 45 (2023)

Brooklyn 45 comes from the director of We Are Still Here, but unlike the horror thrill ride that film is, this is more of a paranormal-tinged, wartime drama that unfolds like a dialogue-driven play. It’s just one of many movies Shudder seems interested in offering in their library these days that I call “trauma porn”.

As someone who isn’t a fan of period pieces, military themes, or films that are reflective of the horrible times we are living in politically (which is taking a toll on me and is something I try to escape from by watching horror movies), I personally couldn’t get into this one. But don’t let that scare you away, because it might just be your cup of tea, and it does offer some great performances from the likes of horror veteran Larry Fessenden, Jamie’s sister Lisa from Mad About You, and horror queen Kristina Klebe of Rob Zombie’s Halloween.

It’s Christmas time in 1945, and several military vets come to Larry’s house for a visit soon after his wife commits suicide. They quickly find out why he gathered them together—he wants to have a séance to help get closure after his loss.

Following an initial ghostly visit that really psyches you up for a supernatural experience, this instead becomes a character study about people who are fucked up due to “doing it for their country”. We learn about the awful things they did in war under the guise of patriotism. However, just like in our modern day climate, their “love of country” is actually nationalism; anyone not just like them is the enemy (aka: immigrants), and they use “just following orders” as their excuse for their evil actions. We also get some witch hunt torture, discussion about mental illness breeding nationalism, and citizens who pride themselves on their patriotism turning against their own people (as I said, all ripped from today’s headlines).

It’s not until the 65-minute mark of this 93-minute movie that supernatural and horror elements come back into play, and while they offer some of the fearful fun we’ve been waiting for, they are basically a metaphor for a committing atrocities is “just following orders” theme.

The film earns a place on the does the gay guy die? page because there is a gay character whose presence is reflective of the times—1945. Everyone knows he’s gay, and he brazenly flames out a bit in the presence of “friends”, but no one dare openly embrace his identity beyond throwing some slurs at him that he just brushes off. Oh. And playing right into the hate being aimed at queers today, wouldn’t you know it’s the gay character whose despicable actions involved children? Sigh.

ON TO THE HORROR TEASE…I MEAN, TEES

Not only is it pride month, but I just realized that May marked 10 years since I started Boys, Bears & Scares! So I thought I’d give you a look at my newest horror T-shirts.

I scored most of them on Amazon—but some of them are already gone from the site! I guess you really have to stay on top of what shirts they have to offer and order them as soon as you see them.

It’s Angela, a delicious vampire, centerfold Jason, and more. See them all in action in this quick video montage I put together. Happy Pride!

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HULU HORRORS: ghosts, bloodsuckers, and a home invasion

Posted on May 26, 2023 by Daniel

It’s a buffet of subgenres I picked from my Hulu watchlist, so let’s get right into them.

GHOST TEAM (2016)

This supposedly satirical comedy about ghost hunting shows succeeds in doing one thing—reminding us of how charismatic Justin Long is on screen, even when he has absolutely nothing to work with.

If the goal here was to poke fun at how ghost hunting shows are total bullshit and there are never actually any ghost sightings, then I guess this film succeeds. Other than a ghost hunting theme, this is absolutely in no way a ghost movie when all is said and done.

Napoleon Dynamite gathers together a motley crew of people to go ghosting hunting on a farm in hopes of scoring a coveted spot on a popular ghost hunting show (there are appearances by actual members of the real Ghost Hunters show).

After a chunk of time is spent assembling the team, Napoleon and his group head to the farm. What follows is a whole lot of boring footage of them walking around, goofing off, and reacting to nonexistent scares, just like a real ghost hunter show.

There’s a twist that makes this not a horror movie, and the only two highlights are Justin Long wielding a paintball gun and the group singing Gary Wright’s “Dreamweaver” in the final moments of the film.

BLOOD (2022)

Combine Cujo, Let The Right One In, and Misery, and you get this predictable but still entertaining film from the director of Session 9.

A single nurse moves to a family farmhouse with her teen daughter, young son, and their dog. The dog runs off into the woods one night, and when it returns with glowing eyes it bites the son.

And then the son begins to change.

Soon the mom discovers the son needs blood to survive. So she starts stealing blood from the hospital where she works. But it isn’t enough. Soooooo…she’ll have to resort to an involuntary “donor”.

If you’ve never seen anything like this movie, I guess you’ll find it pretty damn awesome. But I’ve already seen everything it has to offer. Even so, suspense scenes are good, Skeet Ulrich plays the dad, and the inevitable finale is satisfying, so I’d say it’s worth a watch even for veteran horror fans.

ALONE AT NIGHT (2022)

 

I’m kind of tired of everything this movie is offering a social commentary on—live sex cam workers, reality shows, COVID isolation…. The highlight for me was the portrayal of a young woman who is in complete command of her sexuality and sexual desires.

Ashley Benson of Pretty Little Liars stars as a young woman who goes to stay at her friend’s isolated cabin (friend played by Sky Ferreira in a disappointingly small role).

It’s Halloween, but it’s cold so there’s some snow, and Ashley decorates the cabin in a blend of Halloween and Christmas décor. However, I’m going to stick this one with the Halloween movies on the holiday horror page because it’s officially Halloween time in the movie.

In between doing her job as a live sex cam worker, Ashley is put in unnerving situations with a myriad of visitors—food delivery guy, cable guy, neighbor, her friend’s cousin, a sheriff played by Pamela Anderson—and we just sit there wishing that one of them, any one of them, will be the killer and make this movie worth watching.

Instead, this is mostly a movie about being paranoid about everyone who shows up at your cabin door in the middle of nowhere…and yet welcoming every one of these strangers inside. Sigh.

Over an hour into the film, we finally meet the real home invader, and we get some fairly typical cat and mouse action. There’s just not a lot of horror meat to this movie. And making it worse are absolutely pointless scenes of a sort of Surreal Life celebrity reality show hosted by Paris Hilton.

 

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I just can’t get away from zombies

Posted on May 23, 2023 by Daniel

No matter how played out zombie movies get, inevitably I’m going to dive into more of them. So let’s get right into this trio of indie flicks.

THE MANSON BROTHERS MIDNIGHT ZOMBIE MASSACRE (2021)

This is a wrestling buddy action zomcom, so go into it for the mindless zombie fun–and all the unfiltered gay subtext that comes with sausagefest movies.

You’ve gotta love that there’s a review on IMDb praising this movie for not being woke…when in fact it’s loaded with sexually-tinged man-on-man stuff. It’s a perfect example of how straight men are fine with homosexual content as long as it’s masked by “butch” dudes in male dominated arenas like the wrestling ring. For instance, Midnight Zombie Massacre makes sure to squash straight male fears of the homoerotic nature of the locker room by infusing a shower scene with elements that remind us that males are “gross”, not sexual…sure they may be showering together, but only feet away, a dude is sitting on the toilet in a stall with the door open talking to the men in the shower as he takes a noisy dump.

Gay dudes will most likely see things through a different lens. The showering guys, men hanging around the locker room in only towels, a dude feeling up another dude’s belly, one wrestler giving another wrestler an atomic wedgie, our main characters donned in leather uniforms that scream “hurt me, daddy”…

Anyway, I’m sure the majority of men in this cast are real wrestlers. I recognized a couple and had no interest in checking to see if the rest of them are. Real actors or not, they make this movie work. They all seem quite comfortable and familiar with each other, and they are clearly having a good time together. They even deliver on the humorous tone the movie is going for. The only handicap is that the material isn’t funny enough. The actors and their interactions actually rise above the weak writing.

What works best here is the zombie action. The zombies look great, there’s loads of practical gore effects, and because these are wrestlers, they deliver on the zombie fight choreography. The bulk of the action comes in the last half hour, so the early silliness and filler definitely leads to payoff.

Other things to note:

  • The movie revolves around a steel cage match event on Halloween, and the holiday is mentioned several times, yet there is simply no holiday vibe here. I’ll add the film to the holiday horror page, but it’s not a film that’s going to get you into the Halloween spirit.
  • DB Sweeney appears in the film as a wrestling manager.

  • The film attempts some “representation”: a beefy Black wrestler appears to be given one scene so the filmmakers can claim they had a diverse cast, and a gun-toting little person is relegated to the usual campy role.

  • The first pre-zombie wrestling scene goes for the retro vibe with an 80s-style rock song playing in the background.

  • As another reminder that these are tough, masculine dudes with nothing gay going on between them, one guy disses another guy by telling him to go binge The Golden Girls.

  • When the full zombie action hits, some electronic suspense music kicks in that is very reminiscent of the awesome score in the Dying Light video game.

SCAVENGERS (2022)

The title of this “zombie” film is very telling. We’ve all been overloaded with Z Nation, The Walking Dead and its spin-offs, and various one-season zombie shows that feature survivor communities, so we’re all familiar with the teams responsible for going out to get supplies. That’s what this film is about…the lives of the scavengers that hunt and gather. And it’s handled with a low budget, agonizing melodrama, a hokey score, and endless dialogue.

This feels like a home-brewed production. Following the outbreak of an infectious disease, the whole “community” ends up partying in a nice suburban backyard with rich green grass, a crystal clear in-ground pool, a trampoline, and even red Solo cups.

There are approximately four zombies throughout the course of the film, several infiltrate the community 53 minutes in, and near the end the main guy points out what he calls a “huge horde” of zombies, which is approximately 15 people shuffling along a deserted road.

Why watch this cheap attempt at an indie when you can just watch one of the numerous zombie TV shows out there and get better storytelling, better acting, better production value, and more zombies?

PANDEMIC UNDEAD (2022)

I’ll never understand this type of note in the trivia for certain movies on IMDb, but this film is described as being edited from the 2007 film Zombie Farm. I’ve never seen that film, but this has the same exact cast, the same exact director/writer, and the same exact running time, so I have no idea if there’s actually any difference between the two cuts.

Either way, this movie has a little too much going on for an indie. We have FBI agents investigating the poisoning of a small town’s water supply. There are terrorists. There are rednecks on a farm.

There’s a foursome of horny young people heading to the farm to deliver an eviction notice. And there’s a hunky military guy who believes in government conspiracies and is totally ready to be a survivalist.

Taking place entirely during the day, this is a low budget zombie outing, and includes both practical gore effects and some funny CGI effects, but it all works to make for an oddly entertaining experience. The film does, however, take itself a bit too seriously instead of going for all-out zombie action fun.

For me personally, the best part is the four young people dealing with the zombie outbreak on the farm.

One cute douchebag gives good pit and eventually teams up with the military hunk to survive, and quite frankly, I wish the bulk of the movie had focused on them, because they make a cool zombie-fighting duo.

Yeah, that’s what I was hoping for. The two hotties wasting their time fighting zombies together when all they have in the world is each other and they look like this…

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TUBI TERRORS: a backwoods slasher, witchy woods, and a desert horror

Posted on May 17, 2023 by Daniel

Each of these three flicks had a slow burn element to them, and two of them turned the heat up higher after the burn. Let’s find out which ones.

THE HOOT OWL (2022)

Running only 71-minutes long, this is a backwoods slasher with an Evil Dead vibe, but the decision to start killing people 52 minutes in hurts the pacing.

A movie that’s just a bit over an hour should not take almost an hour to get to the good stuff.

The plot is simple. A group of friends comes to stay at a house in the woods.

They discuss music (Billy Joel vs. Elton John), they drink from red Solo cups, they have conversations by the fire, they fish, there’s sex with boobs, the girls put on a fashion show montage, there’s pregnancy drama, and there’s a tale told about violence that befell a family that lived in the house.

Yet with all that, there’s not much character development to make us feel anything for these characters when a killer in an owl mask shows up with only 20 minutes left to go.

Even so, the practical effects gore is awesome, the Evil Dead feel of the camera work is like coming home, and the cast is killed off quite quickly. It all leads to some heinous visuals involving pregnancy. Ew. However, since the character development isn’t all that, the final actions of the lone survivor seem quite extreme.

Meanwhile, this daddy stole the show for me just by being on camera.

THE WINTER WITCH (2022)

The Winter Witch is as slow and dull as The Blair Witch Project, with one upside…we get to actually see the witch. Twice.

A journalist is sent by her boss back to her hometown to explore a rash of child deaths blamed on “the winter witch”.

There’s an estranged grandmother who believes their family is cursed, there’s a detective lurking around because he’s on the case, and there are some locals that believe the journalist has brought the curse upon them by returning.

Almost an hour in, we get the first witch appearance. It’s brief but delivers a satisfying jump scare. The second appearance is also fleeting near the end, in one of the most anticlimactic final battles ever.

BURY THE BRIDE (2023)

Directed by Spider One, who is the brother of Rob Zombie, lead singer of Powerman 5000, and the director of Allegoria, Bury the Bride is a Tubi original and the absolute winner in this bunch. I don’t want to give much away, so I’ll make this brief and sort of vague.

Scout Taylor-Compton, her sister, and her friends go on a trip for her bachelorette party to a cabin in…the desert? It’s a nice change from the usual cabin location.

Keep an eye out for the friend in glasses who looks exactly like the late Penny Marshall.

There’s a bit of a slow burn as the girls party and get spooked by a few faux scares.

Also of note is a dance montage set to the now wave goodie “Your Addiction” by Night Club.

The party is crashed by some unexpected guests…Scout’s white trash redneck fiancé and his buddies (proving white people can be two colors at once).

The film soon does what horror should…it makes you very uncomfortable. It feels like the guys have something very nefarious planned, and I feared this was just going to be some exploitative rape/revenge flick. I was psyched to discover it isn’t—it heads into classic horror territory. Plus, our final girl kicks ass. And that’s all I’m going to say. I’d highly recommend this one.

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