Holiday horror in August!

Posted on August 9, 2024 by Daniel

It’s never too early to start preparing for the holiday horror season, and I’ll be adding most of these to the holiday horror page, but should they be added to your must-see list? Let’s find out.

SANTASTEIN (2023)

Much like Lisa Frankenstein, Santastein is a really well-made, light teen horror flick that somehow felt to me like it was lacking something.

I love the plot. As a young boy, our main kid set up a booby trap to catch Santa to prove he was real. Unfortunately, things went horribly wrong and he killed Santa instead.

As a teenager, he’s a science geek and manages to bring a rat back to life while doing a school project, so he decides to right his wrong by resurrecting Santa.

He plants Santa’s brain into another man’s corpse and uses the classic streak of lightning technique to bring him to life. Of course Santa isn’t exactly the jolly old man he used to be and sets off on a killing spree.

The movie attempts to be quirky and humorous, but the tone doesn’t quite hit the mark. Plus, despite much of the movie revolving around a teen party, which just begs for a major massacre of teens by Santastein, he instead sort of goes off and kills a whole bunch of other people instead. Huh?

There also happens to be a closeted gay character, and when he is caught in bed with another guy, not only is the moment cloaked in darkness like something dirty that dare not be seen, but the character that catches them has a rather homophobic reaction, laughing mockingly and relishing the chance to run and tell everyone what she’s seen. Even though her reaction is in part because the closeted dude was a douche to her previously, the idea that she has the power to ruin his life by revealing he’s gay seems quite dated. Even so, the gay dude’s sexuality is never addressed again, and he does become part of the final group of survivors that must stop Santastein once and for all, therefore, I’m adding this one to the does the gay guy die? page.

There are some meta moments as well. For instance, Santastein says “naughty!” before killing his victims, as Santa does in Silent Night, Deadly Night. Plus, the best kill in an otherwise lackluster series of death scenes is a nod to the tongue to the pole scene from A Christmas Story. Awesome.

CHRISTMAS CRAFT FAIR MASSACRE (2022)

It’s not often I say this, but I would advise avoiding this one. It’s just not worth the time. The acting and dialogue together are a recipe for low budget disaster, because the whole story is told through the characters in a cult discussing their plans to sacrifice a pure soul at a Christmas craft fair at a local high school.

The movie runs 71 minutes, yet there isn’t a sign of Christmas until 40 minutes in.

There are kills by a masked goon that works for the cult leader, but there’s no gore, just blood splashes and cheap plastic and rubber body parts you’d find in a Halloween shop.

I will give the creators props for somehow managing to insert a few flashes of genuinely effective horror visuals that, when used as screen grabs, make it look like you might actually be getting something worthwhile here. Don’t be fooled. Just skip it.

GRANNY KRAMPUS (2024)

Another one to add to the list of indie Krampus movies that have followed in the wake of the main Krampus movie from 2015. It’s been nearly a decade, and I think Krampus’s day has come and gone, but we’re still getting Krampus films. This time around it’s Granny Krampus!

Granny Krampus looks pretty cool despite clearly being a mask, which might explain why we rarely ever get to see her in this film. Personally, I’d rather have had more low budget Granny Krampus face than barely any face at all, because with barely any Granny Krampus face, there’s barely any horror action.

She even gets a great characteristic…she walks with a cane, so her boots and cane clunk on the floor as she stalks victims. If only that highlight hadn’t been presented just one damn time in the whole movie.

Instead of oodles of horror, we become entrenched in the melodrama of a family that has been estranged and is coming together for the holidays at granny’s house (real granny, not Granny Krampus).

The heavy focus on family relations drags on too much, but the whole point of it all is to amaze us with the twist at the end. I feel we still could have been shocked by the twist with more Granny Krampus and less gabbing.

Strangely enough, while this isn’t in any way connected to any of the other low budget Krampus movies, it actually uses some footage from Mother Krampus (2017) as part of its Granny Krampus lore. What the hell?

FINAL GIRL: HALLOWEEN (2024)

I have a feeling this movie added two minor references to Halloween into the final edit so the holiday could be included in the title to drum up more interest. It really is not a holiday horror movie, and therefore I won’t be adding it to the holiday horror page.

The opener is a goodie, with a masked, hooded killer taking out a bunch of kids at a cabin in the woods at a rapid pace. It’s like a whole slasher jammed into ten minutes.

The final girl survives, there’s talk of Johnny Baxter, a guy who went on a rampage in the 70s when his girlfriend cheated on him, and everyone at school starts mocking and taunting the main girl, even dressing up like the killer and terrorizing her in school. It’s all very Scream.

So, what are the hints that it’s Halloween? There’s a voiceover news report mentioning it’s Halloween, and then we see a few Halloween decorations in the office of the final girl’s therapist. The holiday is never mentioned again, and the next time she goes to the therapist the Halloween decor is gone.

People start getting killed off and…well…that’s about it. It’s a pretty simple, traditional slasher. It’s not the most memorable one you’ll ever see, but it does a pretty decent job of ticking off all the right slasher boxes. The conclusion even takes place at a “Johnny Baxter stabathon”. The weakest part of the movie is the killer motivation.

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Three times the rust!

Posted on August 6, 2024 by Daniel

I’ve covered several of director Joe Lujan’s films, so I thought I’d check out a trilogy of slashers he has made over the course of ten years. Even though he clearly had a good sense of horror right from the first film, it’s cool to see how he tightened up his talent as the series progressed.

RUST (2014)

There are apparently several cuts of the first Rust movie, including longer and shorter edits. The one I watched is somewhere in the middle, running 53 minutes long, which is just long enough to get to the point, especially when you’re dealing with an indie slasher.

It begins with a kid who appears to work in his abusive father’s haunted attraction from what I can tell. Perhaps inspired by what his father is selling, he reaches a breaking point and makes daddy’s face into a mask. Eek!

Years later the haunted attraction has been abandoned, and we can only assume the boy never left and has grown into an adult killer. His name in the series is Travis, but I prefer to call him Rust considering that’s the name of the franchise.

Naturally a few friends decide to check out the old place and begin getting killed off rather quickly thanks to the short run time. It’s a fairly cliché and simple slasher, so you won’t hear me complaining!

The style and vibe of classic slashers is definitely there as Rust hunts his prey, so I found this to be a satisfying quickie.

RUST 2 (2016)

This 67-minute long sequel could easily (and more logically) have been edited down along with the first film to make one longer movie instead of two installments.

This time around, the cops take one of the final girls from the first film back to the haunted attraction because she believes her other friend is still alive.

That’s the plot. It’s as basic as it gets, and as usual, demands that you just go with the absurd idea that a survivor from a previous film would agree to return to the scene of the horror. Of note is that while the killer is Black in this series and all his victims are white girls, race is never mentioned.

Rust is surprisingly maskless in the opening scene, and he’s sexy scary. He’s also holding a bunch of girls hostage and even sexually assaults them. Yeah, this one adds some old school, sadistic misogyny to the mix.

The characters spend the whole time searching the haunted attraction and getting killed off one by one. Rust’s presence is much more effective this time around, but the film takes a weird turn at the end, and it’s not Rust but a feral woman who chases our main girls.

Despite this odd decision to veer away from the ominous killer he created, Lujan doesn’t pretend it never happened for the next film, making sure to address the feral woman’s presence very briefly.

RUST 3 (2024)

Eek! From hour long installments to a 108-minute full-length feature? It might seem like a bad idea, but the good news is that this one looks much more like a major motion picture, reminding us that the first two films were clearly low budget productions.

It’s years later, and the attraction is reopening, but Rust was never captured. The final girl has written a book about her experience, and she’s doing the ribbon cutting ceremony at the opening. Really? She hasn’t learned?

This one really delivers on the atmosphere, suspense, and kill scenes, and even includes a gay couple sneaking off for some sex instead of a straight couple. Awesome, and it lands this one on the does the gay guy die? page.

As well-crafted as the film is, it still runs too long, in part because it doesn’t take place all in one night. That really causes the pacing to stumble at times.

Even so, there are a lot of classic horror elements here. There are fun faux scares since this takes place at a haunted attraction. There’s a mini found footage style segment. There’s one scene between the two main girls from the previous installments that delivers more character development than the first two movies combined. Rust solidifies himself as a pretty terrifying and iconic presence. There’s a slow mo kill scene reminiscent of Annie’s tragic death in Rob Zombie’s Halloween 2. And there’s a satisfying final chase scene.

Although I welcome another sequel, the last scene promising one is kind of ridiculous—big, burly mass murderer Rust is being transported in a basic squad car with no partition glass. Escaping has never been so easy. Such a lazy setup.

 

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PRIME TIME: a trio of horror anthologies

Posted on August 1, 2024 by Daniel

So many tales in this trio of flicks, so little variety.

TRIAPHILIA (2021)

This is just a cheap trio of shorts with a curio shop as the wraparound. It’s only 69 minutes long, but it looks and feels low budget, and the stories aren’t all that exciting. On the upside, each one offers something a little different, which I can’t say for the other two films I watched for this post.

1st story – a straight couple buys a mirror from the store before the female takes her boyfriend to meet her parents, including her douche bag dad (racist, gun lover—you know the type).

Eventually the mirror unleashes a demon, and although it doesn’t get a lot of screen time, it’s fun and it kills a hot pizza delivery guy.

2nd story – a group of girls buys an urn that has the ashes of a serial killer in it…and then his psycho wife comes looking for it.

3rd story – two girls come in to buy a trunk and give it to a woman who lost her son. Soon a killer doll from inside the trunk is after them.

THE RED NIGHTMARE (2021)

I actually thought this anthology was just a collection of shorts from all different filmmakers, which would explain why virtually every single one of the 13 tales is a near cookie cutter copy of the others. However, once the credits began to role, I discovered all stories come from the same director.

While a few of the clips might at first seem effective and to the point with suspense and jump scares, before long you feel like you’re watching the same exact clip over and over just with different actors.

Essentially this is a series of shorts that get all their inspiration from The Grudge, The Ring, and Lights Out. In each case, someone is home alone and keeps seeing flashes of an entity (usually a ghost girl), but in the blink of an eye the entity is gone.

There’s not much more I can say about this, because it really is just a repetitive series of clips, although most of the entities are creepy. The standout for me was one that takes place on Christmas, because it has a child being terrorized by a scary Santa. I never get tired of children being terrorized by Santa.

THE HEIRESS (2023)

After a quick, satisfying opener about a dude who brings home a babe to bang only to find out she’s a demon, this anthology of four longer tales suffers from the same problem as The Red Nightmare—each tale is essentially the same concept and same style done over and over, just with different entities.

In the wraparound, an “heiress” (played by a man) is keeping evil entities locked up in different chambers in her house. And she begins to tell her little henchman about each one…

1st story – a guy trapped in his car during a snowstorm is visited by a ghost girl. He follows her out into the snow and eventually comes face to face with her. The end.

2nd story – a young woman moves into a new apartment and says Bloody Mary in the mirror three times. The entity then continuously pops up behind her as she roams around the apartment, until eventually she comes face to face with it. The end.

3rd story – a young woman is haunted in her home by a veiled woman who eventually crawls out of the tub like Samara from the well.

4th story – a girl trying to cope with nightmares about the death of her baby sister is terrorized in her home by the tooth fairy and is then confronted by her. This final segment has the best, creepiest evil entity of all of them.

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PRIME TIME: killers and crazies

Posted on July 30, 2024 by Daniel

It wasn’t on purpose, but the titles of the three latest flicks I picked from my Prime watchlist for a movie marathon happen to begin with the letters L, M, and N. I had a favorite of the trio, so let’s find out which one.

THE LEGEND OF LAKE HOLLOW (2024)

This cabin in the woods flick sends a message about respecting Native American lore and land. The delivery is a bit clunky, but overall I thought it succeeded in delivering eerie atmosphere and a complex and somewhat confusing story until all is explained at the end.

A group of friends comes to a cabin in the woods, and rather than first enjoying some fun at the lake or indulging in slo-mo party montages, they are quickly experiencing odd situations—cries and growls in the woods, apparitions appearing on trail cameras attached to trees around the cabin, and suspicious characters stopping by, like the weird caretaker of the cabin (of course).

Things escalate quickly, and the friends discover someone is targeting them. The phones don’t work, their cars are pushed into the lake, people in the woods seem to be harassing them, they find disturbing video tapes…there’s a lot going on here.

As viewers try to figure out what horror subgenre we’re dealing with, the group spends a lot of time running in and out of the cabin and the woods, slowly peeling off layers of the mystery, including seeing dead people, hearing Native American tribal rituals in the distance, and learning about the legend of an infamous mythological creature.

The most glaring problem with the movie for me was that none of the clues ever come together for the characters, so suddenly at the end, the creepy cool entity that finally makes its appearance has to explain everything in a lengthy monologue.

MISTER SLEEP (2024)

This little indie slasher effort has plenty of glaring, rookie mistakes, but overall it’s a fairly comprehensible plot that goes a bit above the usual storyline to aim for something more lofty. At times that can unnecessarily complicate matters, like an underdeveloped reference to the killer tattooing Viking symbols on the faces of victims, but you kind of just have to go with it if you want to get some slasher satisfaction.

However, even that satisfaction is mostly not too satisfying. For me, the over the top look of the killer was the highlight. He wears a scarecrow mask that is quite a contrast to his hardware-covered leather coat, but the ensemble definitely gives him a presence and makes a statement.

The general plot is that our main girl—a hot mess with agoraphobia and insomnia—is part of an online therapy support group, and pretty soon an executed serial killer seems to be back from the dead and targeting each member of the group for reasons that eventually become clear as the film progresses. I’d say the twist is the most refreshing aspect of the movie, but I did figure it out pretty early on.

The kills are predominantly a letdown, with the killer basically wielding a weapon at his captured victim and then stepping in front of the camera so we can’t see the execution! Every.Time. Sigh.

Thrown into the mix is a silly romance that buds between the main girl and an old friend who keeps stopping by to visit her. It just feels too quaint and forced and serves only to ensure she’s not alone during the final battle when the killer shows up at her house.

NIGHT EXPLORERS: THE ASYLUM (2023)

This film really took me by surprise because it starts off sooooo typical. A bogus “ghost hunting” group with an internet show makes the risky decision to try to garner more interest by attempting to go legit. They choose an old, abandoned mental institution to explore in hopes of capturing some paranormal activity on camera. We’ve seen this plot a million times. Or so it seems…

At first things feel slow and drawn out, sort of like the first part of a found footage film, although this is not found footage.

The group does a lot of talking, there are a couple of partying montages, they reach the mental institution, they settle in, and they start having silly little experiences as they explore the building.

That’s all I can really say, because this film takes a turn that you don’t see coming. Things get violent, gnarly, suspenseful, and claustrophobic. The characters are actually well-developed, providing some familiar archetypes while not being ridiculously cliché.

Notable is when the characters get badly hurt, they don’t just manage to go on with life like they haven’t been turned into a piece of Swiss cheese. Their injuries seriously hinder their ability to escape danger.

To top it all off, the ending is deliciously bleak and drives home the point that this group really made the unfortunate mistake of stumbling into something they never could have foreseen.

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TUBI TERRORS: backwoods horror, Lovecraft creatures, and sex and violence at a frat house

Posted on July 26, 2024 by Daniel

This is one chaotic trio of films, but they sure did hold my attention. Let’s get right into them.

THE CAMP HOST (2024)

This little film is so odd that I found it quite entertaining. It at first seems to be taking itself seriously, but just when shit gets really serious these quirky little hints of humor come forward, making for a rather confusing ride.

The film starts off just the way I like it—quick and to the point (of the knife!). A couple having sex in a tent gets hacked up. Yay!

Next, a straight couple is on a road trip. At a campsite they are greeted by the “camp host”, a woman so blatantly witchy and weird that you have to wonder why the couple didn’t immediately drive away.

The plot is somewhat messy. We meet a couple of other guys staying at the camp site, and there’s an attempt to give them all some character development, but it doesn’t really matter. The fact is that the crazy camp host is sort of like Angela from Sleepaway Camp 2 and 3; everyone in camp needs to follow the rules…or else.

The highlights include a nasty outhouse scene (I don’t understand why the male partner decides to go sit on a disgusting outhouse toilet bowl seat without dropping his pants to actually use the bowl), the camp host running super fast while chasing an RV, which suggests she’s somehow supernatural, and the main girl telling her man straight up she will dump his ass if they don’t return to the camp to rescue her dog. Love it.

It’s a truly weird movie, but I was never bored and it was refreshingly different than everything else out there these days. Just note that it leaves you with a lot of questions, including vague aspects concerning Native American lore and the camp host’s mystique (is she supernatural or just crazy?).

THE OLD ONES (2024)

I’m a fan of horror flicks from Chad Ferrin (Someone’s Knocking at the Door, Exorcism at 60,000 Feet), so I was excited to find another of his movies in my watchlist. This time he takes on Lovecraft, and it’s just as confusing and hard to follow as Lovecraft always is.

Basically a man from a century ago is found in the water by a father fishing with his adult son. He was possessed by a monster and did some horrible things for a cult back in the day, so now he intends to make up for it by taking down the cult. But the cult is on to him and comes back to destroy him in a myriad of monstrous forms.

Ferrin really goes for that old school, 1980s practical effects monster vibe, and I was so there for it. Modern viewers might find the lack of CGI-rendered monsters cheesy, but this is the kind of stuff I devoured on HBO and VHS back in the day.

Weirdness and quirkiness abound, including the son of the fisherman just immediately going along with the man from the past to help him take on freaky creatures, Kelli Maroney of Night of the Comet as a rotten lady monster, a nude woman showing bush (talk about retro), a gender-bending dude dressed as a waitress, and even some throwback elements that reminded me of From Beyond and other Lovecraft adaptations from the 80s. There’s a lot going on here and much of it doesn’t make sense, but it is one visually satisfying monster ride.

GUYS AT PARTIES LIKE IT (2024)

This dark sexploitation film manages to delve into sex and violence on the surface while actually making a whole lot of statements about frat culture, misogyny, rape culture, toxic masculinity, male white privilege, homophobia juxtaposed with homoeroticism in fraternities, and much more. If you hate “woke shit”, there’s good news. You probably won’t even realize it’s being presented to you since it comes sneakily in the form of offensive, sexual entertainment geared towards straight male sensibilities.

A frat is throwing a hazing party. The goal for the pledges is to lose their virginity. So one guy is sent upstairs with a girl to sacrifice his innocence, but before long, the attempt at scoring spirals out of control, and people begin dying and being murdered from all angles.

It’s a pretty clever way to have all hell break loose, and the movie is never boring, even if it isn’t exactly a horror movie. The kills are predominantly caused by a series of accidents until the very end, when intentional violence moves to the forefront.

Considering the film includes one gay guy who will delight those who like very queer representation and will piss off those who resent over-the-top gay stereotypes, it definitely scores a place on the does the gay guy die? page.

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TUBI TERRORS: a gay supernatural slasher, an all-nighter in the morgue, and the ghost of Manson

Posted on July 22, 2024 by Daniel

It’s the latest trio of films I checked out on Tubi, and it includes one with a gay male couple as the leads!

MY LITTLE NIGHTMARE (2024)

When I saw this move was 2 hours and 13 minutes long, I was dreading even starting it and planned immediately to view it as a two night miniseries. But then the first scene started with a cute Spanish gay couple in bed.

They kiss, they cuddle, there’s a little love spank. The portrayal of this couple is so genuine and charming, and they are literally the leading characters, so the movie earns a spot on the homo horror movies page.

That doesn’t negate the fact that this movie should have been at least 40 minutes shorter. There’s no excuse for this runtime. This is a pretty basic plot—it’s I Know What You Did Last Summer with a ghost child instead of a fisherman. Difference is the movie sort of goes in reverse. The cast gets stalked and killed off by this supernatural specter before we eventually get flashbacks showing why they keep saying “sorry” to the ghostly killer when they are about to die.

It’s nothing new, but the death scenes are fun enough, with frequent cheap scares as the ghost flashes across the screen (there even seems to be a nod to the infamous Exorcist III scene).

Honestly, I don’t even know how the film manages to drag out all the time between kills. There are plenty of attempts to give us character development, but it really doesn’t enrich the movie much and just kills the pacing.

Oddest of all is that it isn’t simply a dead child getting revenge. There’s some sort of evil entity involved, and I didn’t quite get why there was a need to complicate a simple plot line. Even so, I would highly recommend this one for the gay representation.

PLAY DEAD (2022)

Jerry O’Connell and familiar faces from TV shows Pretty Little Liars and Love, Victor are the stars of this morbid thriller with a sort of out there plot.

When two dudes try to commit a robbery, one is shot, so the other leaves him behind. He goes to his female friend and tells her everything, including the fact that the phone on his dead friend will lead police right back to him. Sooooo…brace yourself. The girl decides to play dead so she’ll get sent to the morgue and can then get the phone.

Once in place, she finds herself trapped inside the morgue with a crazy coroner, played by Jerry. She finds out he’s up to criminal shit in the morgue, and she needs to get out or she’s dead. For real this time.

It’s suspenseful with some macabre moments, but it’s also just beyond silly, and not only is she soon playing a cat and mouse game with Jerry….she’s playing cat and mouse with a dog. Sigh. I probably would have enjoyed the film a little better if it had been shorter. At 107 minutes, the absurdity of it all started to really get on my nerves.

THE RESURRECTION OF CHARLES MANSON (2023)

This is really such a silly little movie. It simply takes a major real-life horror to create a lifeless fictional continuation based on the infamous mastermind behind the Manson Family.

So this straight couple goes to an Airbnb in the desert to edit a documentary on Manson. Someone is clearly lurking around the house. The boyfriend also encounters an odd fellow while he’s out and about.

Not much happens at all, but eventually we find out there’s a cult that wants to resurrect Manson, and they need a sacrifice.

There’s a twist that doesn’t have the impact it could have if the movie had been a stronger thriller (it’s really flat), and the final ritual scene feels like something from a made-for-TV movie.

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TUBI TERRORS: fairytale horror, occultist home invasion, and a modern Frankenstein

Posted on July 19, 2024 by Daniel

It’s three more films from Tubi, the only place where I have a substantial watchlist, and this is a total smorgasbord of subgenres.

ALICE IN TERRORLAND (2023)

Trauma porn meets fairytale horror in a film that relies mostly on a series of nightmare sequences to deliver any sense of horror. Blah.

Running about 75 minutes long, which was more than enough bogus scares for me, the movie follows Alice, who goes to live with her aunt after her family dies in a fire.

Racked with guilt and grief, Alice begins getting terrorized by various specters culled from the pages of the Lewis Carroll classic, including takes on the White Rabbit (a guy in a rabbit mask), and the Queen of Hearts.

It’s pretty obvious from the start that there’s something suspicious about the aunt, who warns Alice to stay out of the woods when she explores the sprawling grounds of her property.

That’s really about all I can offer. There are some nicely dark nods to the children’s classic, but there isn’t much of a horror story to sink your teeth into, and as I said, all the scares are bogus dream sequences.

NIGHT OF THE BASTARD (2022)

This is another take on the home invasion/cult surrounding the house genre. The only way I see anyone getting any thrills from it is if they’ve never seen a movie like this before.

The opening scene is one of the best parts, with a couple encountering the cult when they’re headed for a party at a house in the desert.

40 years later we meet a recluse living at a house in the desert. He boots some kids partying on his land. When they leave, they encounter a cult, but one girl gets away.

She ends up at the recluse’s house, and together they must fend off cult members that try to invade the house…in between a lot of talking with nothing in the way of scares or suspense.

On the bright side, the eventual cult ritual has sexual, satanic elements, one cult member is awesomely witchy, there’s some violence and gore, and there’s a pervy little twist added to the otherwise simple plot right near the end. I was definitely feeling the final act.

LAS VEGAS FRANKENSTEIN (2023)

Las Vegas is a lofty goal to use as the setting for a low budget movie, which becomes glaring when this larger than life destination is represented by a few cheap sets, in this case mostly a basement dressing room, a small performance space, and a little occult store.

It’s also a shame that this movie about a hypnotist that decides to enliven his show by making a Frankenstein monster waits until the last half hour to actually do something focusing on the premise. We spend most of the time watching the shirtless, rocker-looking hypnotist talk to his girlfriend and his slow assistant dude.

Seriously, nothing really happens, and a majority of the film is pointless banter with no humor, despite the quirky vibe that the movie tries to establish. With thirty minutes to go, the plot that should have carried the whole film kicks in.

The hypnotist has his assistant lure men into the basement so he can kill them off to gather parts to make his monster (including a hot baldy).

This movie would have been so much more interesting if it had explored a gay angle that is just hinted at—the slow assistant dude could have been luring men to the basement for sex, and after he used their bodies, he could hand them off to the hypnotist to repurpose.  

Things get super bloody in the final act, with practical effects, and the monster looks quite gnarly. Unfortunately, his screen time is short-lived. He runs off and walks through the crowds in Vegas as hypnotist and friends hunt him down. The finale is very anticlimactic.

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Are these three horror flicks something to laugh at?

Posted on July 16, 2024 by Daniel

I bought two on Blu, and thankfully I just watched the third on Tubi. They each have varying levels of humor, but did they all give me a giggle?

ABIGAIL (2024)

This is one of my favorite blind purchases in a while. This is exactly my kind of horror flick. Campy gore, humor, thrills and action, and a great cast.

It’s a familiar scenario. Baddies commit a crime, get trapped in a mansion, and soon discover they’re not alone.

Melissa Barrera of Scream 5 and 6 is the main girl, horror hunk Kevin Durand is the comic relief, Dan Stevens is pretty as always, Kathryn Newton of Lisa Frankenstein is the quirky girl, and young Alisha Weir of Matilda: The Musical kills it as the evil little vampire girl who terrorizes the cast.

The simplicty is what makes it so effective. The group is locked inside the mansion and targeted one by one and then turned into vampires, and it’s total fun all the way through. Definitely a good horror party movie.

DEER CAMP 86 (2022)

This little supernatural slasher is a fun ride with some light humor, a likable cast of guys, and a pretty cool killer. It’s only real flaw is that it suffers from major plot holes—not much of what transpires makes sense in the end. I won’t get into details because that would just lead to spoilers.

It’s a backwoods buddy movie about a group of guys that goes to a cabin in the woods where Native American girls have gone missing.

Before they even arrive at the cabin, they get into a bar fight…and then someone who intervened in the fight gets murdered, giving us a bit of a whodunit element. The murder also releases some sort of supernatural force.

The guys have a run-in with a sheriff, whose role in the proceedings remains unclear right until the end…as do the reports of missing girls.

That’s why you just have to go with it and don’t go looking to make sense of it all. In the end this is simply a movie about a group of guys being terrorized by someone or something in an animal skull mask. There’s a nasty nutsack scene, some suspense, supernatural happenings, blood and gore, humor, and intense chase and fight scenes. Not to mention the location shots in the woods are visually stunning (lots of fall foliage), and the overall vibe of the setting is very reminiscent of Evil Dead.

HANKY PANKY (2023)

I really just don’t have the patience for absurd horror comedies like I used to. And if you go into this because Seth Green’s name is in the cast, forget it. He simply voices a talking handkerchief, and he puts on a voice instead of using his own voice.

This one goes on the holiday horror page because it’s about a group of friend that celebrates the holiday at a cabin on the snowy countryside.

One guy has this hanky he talks to.

One girl is single and likes him. Another pair is brother and sister. And the final pair is a boyfriend and girlfriend who just want to get away from each other. Then there’s a neighbor who stops by to welcome them.

There’s a lot of talk, and I found very little funny about any of it.

41 minutes in one of them is killed. The best part of this movie is a witchy woman who makes for better horror than talking inanimate objects ever could.

After that we learn there’s also a talking alien hat. The alien hat starts killing everyone, and eventually battles the talking hanky. I just can’t with this movie.

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BOUGHT ON BLU: conjuring up supernatural killers

Posted on July 15, 2024 by Daniel

It’s back to the late 80s and early 90s for the latest trio of films I bought on Blu-ray.

DEADLY LOVE (1987)

The director of Moonstalker manages to make that film seem like a better movie considering it’s a follow-up to this weak flick.

 

Deadly Love opens with a biker and his chick planning to run away from their dead-end town to elope. Before they can, the local rednecks kill and bury him.

Years later, she’s looking like trailer trash…living in a house. She also bares a resemblance to Britney Spears in her darkest days.

I don’t know why it took her decades, but she finally uses black magic to resurrect her lover. Awesome. A zombie biker slasher movie? If only.

The soap opera continues. She’s harassed by local teens, she commits suicide, her niece comes to live in her house, finds her diary, and reads it, bombarding us with cheesy flashbacks to her love story with the biker.

The teenage thugs return to harass the niece and in the last 23 minutes are offed by the biker (fully helmeted with a face shield) in bland ways with no blood. At least there’s beefcake.

The final moments of this movie are the only sign of horror and actual “back from the dead” vibes with some blood.

I can’t imagine why the filmmaker decided to save this kind of cheesy fun until the final frame.

WITCH STORY (1989)

So excited to score yet another 80s horror flick I’d never seen back in my video store clerk days. I noticed some reviews on IMDb saying how bad this movie is and how basic the plot is: witch executed in the past, kids in the present go to an old house, kids get killed off one by one. Um…I take it these reviewers didn’t grow up in the 80s? Because that’s all we needed back then, and horror ruled.

I’d say this is basically the Night of the Demons formula with witch possession instead of demons. The witch is burned in the past, and in the present two siblings inherit a house…her house. Uh-oh.

They come with their friends to check out and stay at the place. There’s great 80s pop music that sounds more 1985 than 1989, classic 80s musical cues during horror scenes, and the kids partying while eating KFC. One dude even has a Heart concert shirt on. Awesome.

There are a few dream and illusion scenes that deliver some blood, a ghost girl in white makes appearances, the group uses tarot cards, one girl has psychic visions, and then, for no explicable reason other than us having to assume the witch is possessing them, two girls in the group start growling and killing off their friends. It would have been nice if there was some ghoulish makeup thrown into the mix, which is where this one falls short, but at least the death scenes are violent and bloody.

There are definitely some odd moments, like one of the evil girls somehow rising out of a pool with a chainsaw (huh?), and the disjointed moving of the action from the house to an abandoned building for the final act, but familiar tropes of this type of film abound, like all the dead friends sort of coming back to deliver a bit more horror.

The fight with the possessed girls is satisfying, but the final battle is between a priest and the witch from the past, and it’s both bland and irritating, with the little ghost girl shrieking while the priest and witch hurl prayers and incantations at each other, respectively. There’s even a cheesy final frame scene.

Overall, this is entertaining enough with a good dose of 80s horror nostalgia, but it doesn’t live up to the fun of similar movies like Night of the Demons and Dead Dudes in the House.

DREAM STALKER (1991)

 

This shot-on-video flick from 1991 literally starts with motorcycle race footage that looks like genuine home video. The footage is so raw you can’t even hear the dialogue between characters over the wind and roar of the bikes.

Unfortunately, the sound doesn’t get much better after that. The audio is terrible, and the video is just as bad—there’s not much that a jump to Blu could do for this.

Indicative of the early 90s, the fashions look like the late 80s. A bike rider with a mullet is madly in love with his girl. He gives her a creepy music box and insists she promise that they’ll be together forever. And then…he dies.

She starts having nightmares over the next few years. She fiddles with the nightmarish music box, which shoots out same cheesy electrical special effects, and then the boyfriend is back, all rotten-faced. He kind of reminds me of the heavy metal killer from the 1986 flick Trick or Treat. His makeup and a spooky melody that plays incessantly as the film’s score are the highlights of the whole movie.

Well, not exactly true. The laughable aspects of the film are also the highlight. The boyfriend ghoul visits her in bed and slips on a condom for sex…but it breaks.

She has numerous nightmares. She goes to stay at a cabin in the woods and gets into a fight with a group of mostly white girls dancing to hip hop that sounds like it’s from 1981, not 1991.

The boyfriend starts killing people in the main girl’s life, as well as people who wrong her—like two guys that plan to rape her in the woods. Yeah, this movie is all over the place, and often in nightmare sequences.

Not to mention, the low budget but entertaining kills don’t start until twenty minutes before the movie ends. I’m not thrilled that I blind bought this on Blu-ray, but if I had originally seen it in the 90s when it hit VHS, I probably would have bought it for nostalgic reasons anyway.

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TUBI TERRORS: girls with guts

Posted on July 12, 2024 by Daniel

We all love horror flicks with damsels in distress, but does this trio of films deliver? Let’s find out.

THEY TURNED US INTO KILLERS (2024)

This is actually a sequel to the revenge film Room 9. I didn’t at first remember Room 9 enough to figure out how it ties into this film, but it quickly came back to me (thanks to flashback clips).

This is another revenge flick and stars Scout Taylor-Compton, who showed up at the end of Room 9. Here she is getting revenge for her friend who died after a night of partying with some guys.

At the same time, a hate crime from the first film is revisited as the Black guy who saw his mom killed by white men as a child recalls getting his revenge. Now he wants to team up with Scout.

It’s mostly all talk until there’s finally some torture at the end. There’s simply not a lot to cling to here.

THE DEVIL’S WORK (2024)

This is one of those films that appears to have been shot with one camera that follows all the action, and at first that perspective creates some great tension.

However, it isn’t long before the repetitive nature of the threat constantly appearing in the background to the sound of an ominous musical cue gets stale.

This sort of feels like a take on The Strangers home invasion concept. A couple vacations at a house, and within minutes a creepy looking woman begins lurking outside in the shadows.

38 minutes later, the woman finally starts doing some chasing.

The couple knows the woman, who is painted as mentally unstable, so the only thing that keeps you watching is the need to find what the backstory is between these three. Unfortunately, even that isn’t interesting enough to create momentum.

In the end I was left not understanding what the movie was trying to tell us…and I wasn’t sure if there was some sort of supernatural angle or just a visual manifestation of mental illness I was seeing.

GUTS ON THE CHAINSAW (2023)

This backwoods horror flick definitely has a vibe, even throwing in some documentary style flashbacks of hikers that have gone missing over the years, but it relies more on style than substance—and the style gets annoying after a while, with excessive slow motion sequences set to melodramatic music.

The paper thin plot introduces a young woman who was in rehab and a mental institution after what she believed was a real experience being chased by a psycho in the woods, but which she is being gaslighted into thinking was just a nightmare.

Sooooo…as part of her therapy she goes into the woods alone to hike. Sigh.

She meets some people along the way, from a weird hillbilly to a nice hiker dude who chats with her for a while.

Eventually she is chased by a psycho wearing a sack over his head, comes upon a house where she encounters a dude in drag, and then has a final battle with a big creep. This guy is like a freaky skin mask hillbilly and the highlight of the film. Eek! I loved him.

Unfortunately, the final battle is corny and involves hand grenades and some really bad CGI explosions, not to mention the main girl getting stabbed in the back at least a dozen times yet still having the strength to start a chainsaw.

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