Gator goodness…or a croc of shit?

Posted on June 21, 2022 by Daniel

After tapping into some shark horror at the beginning of the weekend, I ended the weekend with a triple feature focusing gators and crocs. Eek!

FRESHWATER (2016)

When a killer alligator movie…becomes a slasher? Well, that’s one way to make your lame, low budget alligator movie different.

Zoe Bell, powerhouse stuntwoman who starred in Death Proof, plays an alligator expert that comes to town when people start dying off. The first kill is a lame red blood spurt in the water, basically preparing us for all the letdowns to come.

Meanwhile, a bunch of college kids heads to a cabin on one of the islands in the area. Two of them are killed (more red blood spurts in the water) and then the rest of the kids spend the majority of the film doing nothing but wondering how they’re going to get off the island. The highlight is the campy scream queen performance of one actress.

The few times we see the alligator, it’s a cheesy CGI thing that’s totally gray with red eyes. I would have taken more of this and tons of bad CGI gore attacks over the nothing we get.

The sudden twist in the final act has more people becoming victims of a psycho than the gator. If only the psycho had come out to play earlier, this may been a little more thrilling, because the gator was a total bore.

ALLIGATOR X (aka: Jurassic Predator: Xtinction) (2014)

Somehow I really blew it with my gator selections here…finding not one but two gator movies that are more about the evil humans than the actual damn gator attacks.

At least the terrible CGI gator in this film is a prehistoric creature, so it’s a little more interesting to look at in between all the human drama, which involves a woman giving a boat tour to a couple after refusing to sell her land to her ex-husband, played by Supernatural frenemy Crowley.

While out on the tour they get abducted by a couple of baddies with a sinister plan that is slooooowly revealed. So much time is focused on banter between the abductors and the abductees that it’s easy to forget you’re watching a gator movie for a while.

Cutie Lochlyn Munro, known mostly for playing a sheriff in horror movies, plays…the sheriff. I wonder if he just holds onto the same sheriff costume and pulls it out of his closet every time he’s cast in a new role.

This film is just as underwhelming as Freshwater, but at least the funny CGI gator face delivers a couple of laughs at the end.

CROC (2007)

Considering this one came from 2007, gives Michael Madsen top billing, and is identified as a made-for-TV movie on IMDb, I was assuming it would be just another super hokey CGI SyFy flick.

Would you believe the combo of real croc footage, CGI croc, and model croc mouth along with some great editing makes for some kick-ass kills? If nothing else, this one most definitely delivers on the cheap thrills.

The plot is the usual throwaway. This time some young American dude making money off tourists in Thailand is targeted by all kinds of ethical and unethical organizations. However, when people start turning up dead, he teams up with expert croc hunter Michael Madsen to hunt it down and save the day.

The croc attacks are a blast, including scenes of the croc getting a feisty couple in the water and gulping down a bratty kid, and even a fantastic sequence that gives the infamous pool scene from Alligator a run for its money.

And although the climax is annoying because it stems from the fact that the croc drags one of the main characters to its lair rather than just killing her, a nightmarish situation that involves being stuck in the croc’s mouth makes for a pretty damn good suspenseful finale.

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TUBI TERRORS: a trio of shark flicks

Posted on June 20, 2022 by Daniel

It was another sharkathon with the hubby to usher in the summer season. Let’s see how it went with this trio we checked out on Tubi.

BULL SHARK (2022)

This is an astoundingly boring shark movie that doesn’t even try to go for the hokey SyFy feel. Instead, it takes itself seriously and focuses in agonizing detail on the personal life of a game warden—his divorce, his thirteen year-old son, his alcoholism. Yawn. At least the warden is sexy.

To bore us even more, there’s a barely developed side plot about the mayor that cares more about his political career than any shark. Shocker.

So a redneck in Texas captures a dead shark, the game warden tells him to get rid of it before anyone sees it and thinks there’s a shark in the lake, so…he throws it in the lake.

Turns out the dead shark was pregnant.

That’s right. The killer in this one is a baby shark.

You can keep singing that shit that’s now stuck in your head as you read on.

The few death scenes are merely comprised of simple CGI shark clips underwater and a really bad fake shark fin above water.

Eventually there’s a laughable scene of the game warden saving his son from the shark with a knife.

Right after that there’s a ridiculous scene of the ex-wife joining him in the water—she throws an explosive thermos to the shark, it eats it, boom. Or in this case, bomb. A total bomb.

DAM SHARKS! (2016)

Thankfully there are old SyFy shark movies all over the streaming world to make up for sitting through disasters like Bull Shark.

The hubby and I were so relieved when this one began with CGI fins swimming downriver and then a CGI shark snatching a girl right out of the air as she dives off a cliff for a swim.

The premise is a blast…sharks are using human body parts to build a dam to create a contained habitat.

This is how you do a cheesy shark flick right. There isn’t a dull moment. There’s a retreat of about ten people out in the wilderness for the weekend, with fun characters that eventually decide to have a rafting race.

At the same time, the game warden and an awesome and funny older fisherman go on a rescue mission to save anyone who is on the river.

There are loads of vicious, exciting, and ridiculous CGI shark attacks with plenty of red water, hilarious snatches of victims right off boats, and awesome perspectives of CGI sharks gracefully diving out of and back into the water to eat their victims.

On top of that, there are great, hokey battles with the sharks using oars and a bow and explosive arrows. This is how you do a silly summer fun shark flick.

SHARK SEASON (2020)

Finally, it’s your typical Open Water plot. This is mostly a generic film that rarely sees the main characters in any harrowing situations. Good news is it starts with an awesome, violent attack of a surfer.

The main girl is the daughter of Michael Madsen, who works for air patrol. Despite that, his entire role is literally phoned in…he simply talks to his daughter on a phone throughout her experience.

The daughter goes kayaking with a female friend and a guy friend with a hot bod.

They decide to check out a rock formation that was uncovered during a recent hurricane.

Very quickly, sharks appear in the water. The friends realize the rock formation is going to go under at high tide so they try to kayak to another mini island.

That’s it. They’re on the kayaks the whole time being surrounded by sharks and occasionally in communication with Madsen while they wait for a rescue team to come for them. The only really good scene is when they finally end up in the water right at the end and the daughter has to take on one shark with an oar.

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PRIME TIME: severing those family ties

Posted on June 15, 2022 by Daniel

It’s an evil embryo, a sinister sister, and a freaky family in my latest triple feature.

BLOOD BORN (2021)

This is an entertaining little film, but it really feels like it would have worked better as a 30-minute short in an anthology film.

A couple is dealing with infertility. A friend tells them about an organization that does wonders in helping people with such troubles.

The organization proves to be one mystical woman who comes to their house and puts them through all kinds of magical rituals to get them pregnant. This takes up the bulk of the film, so it really begins to feel like padding after a while.

Eventually the wife gets pregnant and becomes hungry for blood. But this isn’t a body count movie. She doesn’t go on a killing spree.

It’s all about the zinger ending, which is why it deserves the Tales From the Crypt treatment more than a full-length feature.

THE LAST EXORCIST (2020)

While not the most well-planned plot or high-budget film, I have to give this indie props for a unique (and at times odd) approach to the exorcism subgenre.

I was definitely drawn in by the exorcism of a bloody shirtless guy with 666 carved in his chest.

Then we meet two girls who take it quite badly when they learn on the news that basically all the exorcists in the Catholic religion have been killed in what appears to have been a terrorist attack.

The siblings spend a whole lot of time at a bar drowning in their sorrows as we see through flashbacks that their childhood was tarnished by possession and exorcism.

Now, one of the sisters believes the other sister is the target of another demonic possession. But who’s going to save her?

Who else? The demon-free sister! How? With the help of Danny Trejo, she becomes an honorary priest before the final act. WTF?

Hey, at least there are a bunch of random scenes of different people in a possessed state to carry us through the movie.

HONEYDEW (2020)

By sending just one lone couple into a backwoods family situation, you already put major limitations on how much horror you can deliver in your movie. To then drag that movie out to an hour and forty-five minutes is a bad move. To make the dynamics of the relationship between that couple contradictory and confusing, causing them to be totally unlikable, makes matters even worse.

So there’s this straight couple on a road trip. They get along when they have sex in a tent, but other than that, they seem to be at odds with each other. The guy especially seems to be a total douche who doesn’t give a shit about falling deeper and deeper into dangerous territory.

In fact, that’s one of the biggest problems with this film. I’m sorry, but there has to come a moment in life when you say to yourself, “we’re about to be in a horror movie so we need to tread very carefully here.”

An old hick comes in the middle of the night to tell them they’re camping on his property. These two show themselves to be nothing but white privileged assholes when they behave like they’ve been inconvenienced by this fact.

They go to leave and their car won’t start.

They have no cell service.

They go to the only house they come upon in the middle of the woods. The old lady that invites them in never removes the psycho grin from her face, and instead of letting them use the phone, she calls her “neighbor” in the middle of the night to come help them with their car. While they wait, she becomes frighteningly annoyed when they both rudely make it clear that they won’t eat the meat she’s preparing for them.

She brings out her grown son, who doesn’t talk, doesn’t respond to any stimulation, has his head wrapped in bandages, and has periodic seizures.

Like, do I need to go any further? You’re in a fucking horror movie! Get the fuck out of there!

Instead, the couple lets the old lady set them up in a nasty old room, it appears the guy jerks off in a shower (who the fuck would feel the need to jerk off under these circumstances?), and he then leaves the girlfriend alone in the room.

At this point, what felt like a suspenseful slow burn turns into a whole lot of nothing. And predictable nothing at that.

If there’s cannibalism here, it’s never clarified. This is the smallest backwoods family ever. They manage to tie up the couple. They have a limbless Lena Dunham living in a box.

They make a habit of giving visitors lobotomies and making them new members of the family. When it appears the couple is going to be saved by the arrival of police, we never see the police, we don’t know why the police showed up, we don’t know if the police were in on it, we don’t know if the family did something to the police.

There are no scares. There’s no suspense. There’s no gore. There’s no body count. The presentation of the usual unthinkable possibilities of what could be going on behind closed doors in the middle of redneck America isn’t enough to make this a frightening experience.

There does seem to be a commentary on this privileged white couple having unhealthy relationships with food, but even that isn’t illustrated clearly enough to tie it into their punishment at the hands of this family with food issues that also aren’t specified.

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PRIME TIME: an exorcism, an anthology, and a big bug

Posted on June 10, 2022 by Daniel

I’m nearing the end of my Prime watchlist, so let’s get right into the three I just crossed off it.

WHILE WE SLEEP (2021)

If you need an exorcism itch to be scratched, you might get a hint of relief for a few minutes near the end of this film. But what you’ll mostly get is a whole lot of character and plot development (all the stuff that happened while I slept…).

How does the little girl get possessed? As far as I can tell, she inhales a demon from a birthday cake while blowing out her candles. I’m not even kidding.

After that she starts acting different. Her parents bring her for tests. Eventually they invite a sleep specialist to the house to monitor her. This specialist seems to want to hook up with the husband and also secretly uses questionable techniques to help the girl.

Eventually the wife kicks her out of the house and the possessed girl does a bunch of CGI gymnastics around the house.

Meanwhile, the sleep specialist teams up with some other dude who thinks he has all the answers to saving the girl.

That’s in the last half hour and the point where I couldn’t make much sense of the film anymore.

And no, there’s no Linda Blair demon face or pea soup.

8 DAYS TO HELL (2022)

This anthology doesn’t even bother to ease us in with a wraparound. It goes directly to DAY 1, and each story counts us down until we eventually reach hell. It’s a fun concept, especially since the stories are linked together by shared characters (mostly killers). It’s also a load of indie fun reminiscent of episodes of 80s anthology shows, but personally I found that the longer stories, which come at the end, kill the momentum the quicker early stories so perfectly build. Here’s the breakdown of tales.

Day 1 – Eric Roberts is holding auditions. When he tells an actor he isn’t convincing as a mobster, the guy comes back to prove how convincing he can be. Eh. Not exactly a horror story.

2nd story – now this is horror, and it even draws us into the Halloween holiday season. A guy hooks up with a horny woman who pulls out a surprise in the bedroom that really bugs him out.

3rd story – a woman leaving a Halloween party finds herself the center of a satanic ritual…

4th story – a killer goes to confessional.

5th story – this one was unexpected. A killer is confronted with a zombie situation!

6th story – my favorite story because it features some camptastic werewolf moments.

7th story – tooooo long of a story about a book in which the drawings bring the dead back to life.

8th story – this is where it was all heading…straight to hell when an idiot sells his soul to the devil.

It’s just plain silly horror fun with a variety of subgenres and some Halloween spirit. I liked it.

THE ARBORS (2020)

This film is a fairly compelling creature feature with a sad underlying plot, but the fact that it runs a staggering 2 hours long and becomes highly repetitive really does it a disservice.

It’s the story of man who has a strained relationship with his brother. His loneliness in contrast to the life as a married father his brother is living is the focus of the character development.

Meanwhile, when he comes across a dead deer in the road, the lonely main guy stumbles upon a weird, bug-like creature and captures it.

Pretty soon it escapes, starts killing off people in his town, and begins growing much bigger quite fast. The bug scenes are by far the highlight here.

The main guy attempts to keep the creature’s existence a secret while keeping himself from falling under suspicion as the killer. At the same time he uses the tragedies as a way to mend his relationship with his brother and recapture the happiness of their youth.

Unfortunately, this results in a moody film that drags on and on and feels like there’s just no end in sight, with our main man lurking around making paranoid faces for a majority of the film. I really liked the film, I just think it needed to be trimmed down by at least fifteen minutes.

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PRIME TIME: evil ladies

Posted on June 8, 2022 by Daniel

Beware the wicked women in this triple feature—The Widow, Medusa, and Lilith!

THE WIDOW (2020)

This Russian film dubbed in English on Prime sort of follows the basic premise of The Blair Witch Project, but it isn’t found footage.

Interviews reveal that people have gone missing in a certain area of the woods for years and occasionally the dead bodies are found naked. The locals believe that the victims were taken by a lost soul known as “the widow”.

When a teen goes missing, a search group heads into the woods. They find a woman who is not in good shape and is soon babbling about “the widow”.

And then…

This becomes just about as dull a movie as The Blair Witch Project. In other words, the story of the legend delivers plenty of hype that is never delivered on as the cast runs through the woods reacting to a whole lot of nothing. Someone eventually sees a dude standing facing a corner, but not much else.

MEDUSA (2020)

Considering the Snakehead installment of my Comfort Cove gay horror series is inspired by the legend of Medusa, I’ll always watch horror movies in which she is the antagonist (there are so few of them).

This is an interesting and trashy take on the queen of the snakes. A druggy girl returns to her job as a trailer park whore. As she creates bonds with other prostitutes, she is bit by a snake during a lap dance and then begins to change…

Almost like a black widow or praying mantis concept, this is a female empowerment film as she takes down all the douche bag men that cross her or the other prostitutes.

There’s neon lighting to create atmosphere, and while our main girl sees signs of a snake transformation to provide some body horror moments, she never goes fully into creature mode.

But perhaps the bigger disappointment is that she turns into “Medusa” just for the final frame, which consists of the actress remaining still while CGI snakes rise up from behind her head like something out of a SyFy original circa 2011. Bummer.

LILITH (2018)

The director of For Jennifer brings us a fun little low budget indie horror anthology involving the many faces of the demon Lilith as she wreaks havoc on people’s lives in four different stories.

In the wraparound, indie horror queen Felissa Rose is a blast as the true form of Lilith—basically a snarky, dominatrix demon—as a detective and a priest plan to perform an exorcism on her.

1st story – this one has a unique twist. After a high school girl is knocked up by her teacher, who totally dismisses her, her friends decide to get revenge, but things don’t exactly turn out as they expect (when their friend is expecting).

2nd story – this is a basic and underwhelming tale. Lilith becomes the caretaker for a sickly man who can’t get past the fact that she looks just like his late wife.

3rd story – this is a satisfying, sexy scary tale of a cheating hunk who calls in a hooker while his girl is away at a religious retreat. The hooker just happens to be Lilith.

4th story – this is the sleazy, gritty tale of the bunch, about a man who abducts, tortures, and kills women. That is until he faces off against Lilith.

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PRIME TIME: slashing in different styles

Posted on June 6, 2022 by Daniel

My latest marathon on Prime was definitely an interesting selection, so let’s get right into them.

BURIAL GROUND MASSACRE (2021)

If you were around in 1996, you’ll remember there were loads of cheap, copycat slashers released in the wake of Scream. Burial Ground Massacre feels very much like one of those.

While focused entirely on a bunch of college kids partying in a house built on a Native American burial ground, this film flips the finger at contemporary verbiage, so the word Indian is used instead of Native American. On top of that, the whole film is based on appropriation more than an actual “Indian curse”. The killer runs around in a fricking tribal mask and a hoodie.

The kids become oddly interested in researching Indian legends while they should be partying and having sex. As a result, they end up in possession of an artifact the killer has been hunting for.

Therefore, the guy in the hoodie has to start killing them off. The film is way too long at 100 minutes, the kill scenes are bland, there’s little in the way of tension or scares, there’s too much filler of the kids just hanging out, the kids are not distinct or memorable (except the shirtless cutie below, of course), and the attempt at surprises and twists in the final act just weigh down the pacing with tons of exposition through dialogue.

And finally, considering horror veteran Michael Madsen is listed in the credits and we never see him throughout the film, the ending is essentially spoiled.

PSYCHOPATHS (2017)

There is very little I can say about this movie. It is horror eye candy with little in the way of a discernible plot.

I’ll put it to you this way. Imagine Dario Argento making The Purge, and you get Psychopaths.

It’s simply a series of stunningly shot and gruesome and violent death scenes as people in masks go nuts and torture and kill other people during the course of one particular night.

Footage goes from bright Argento neon to black and white, we get split screen, there’s some narration, there is a quirky musical performance, there are cringe-worthy visuals, and there’s no making sense of any of it.

EVIL EVERYWHERE (2019)

Running only 64 minutes long, this throwback film is more about getting the early 80s direct-to-video feel right than delivering a plot of any substance.

We are informed briefly that two years ago in 1985, members of a senior class were killed off alphabetically, and a young man and a mysterious girl tracked down the demonic killer then went into hiding.

Now the evil force is back and the main guy has to hunt it down once more. A grind house filter and several cool now wave tracks set the tone, and there are plenty of supernatural kills, as well as an occasional appearance of a demon in a hood, but there’s not much story or character development to speak of.

In the end the main kid and some friends have to go to an old mansion to exorcise the demon in an array of bad 80s-style special effects that look mostly like sparklers on the Fourth of July.

If you’re really itching for some throwback horror, you might as well check this one out, because it definitely gives you the vibes and is only an hour long.

 

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PRIME TIME: I really blew it when I added these three to my watchlist

Posted on June 3, 2022 by Daniel

Slashers, witches, Satanism, ghosts…I really thought there would be something to like here. But this triple feature was a disappointment.

SATAN’S SERVANT (2021)

This film is touted as being made by high school students, so if you’re going into it, keep that firmly in mind.

Overall it’s a silly little film filled with way too much exposition in the first hour. At least it finally pays off in the last half hour with some low budget slasher action…all wrapped up in a satanic ritual plot.

After a high school girl disappears in an opening home invasion scene, four friends become convinced she’s been kidnapped as part of a satanic sacrifice plot in their own neighborhood.

The whole film revolves around them trying to break her free from a house while being chased by a guy in a ski mask.

This definitely feels like an amateur production. You decide if it’s worth it for the fairly entertaining hack ‘n’ slash sequence at the end.

THE DEMENTED (2021)

This movie is just so not my thing. The general concept is interesting for a horror movie—women lured into a sex trafficking/snuff film ring get revenge from beyond the grave.

Unfortunately, a majority of this film involves one man in a mask tormenting one woman tied up and squirming in a bed while begging for her life.

Other elements of the film include horror queen Felissa Rose as a detective doing some interrogation, and the “ghosts” of the previous victims communicating with the current victim.

Problem for me was that the exploitation of the one woman by the man takes away all sense of this being a movie; it starts to feel like nothing more than jerk-off material for right wing incel nutbags.

A DEADLY LEGEND (2020)

This is how you top off a bad Prime marathon. Not even appearances by Judd Hirsch, Corbin Bernsen, and Lori Petty can help this sloppy mess of a witchcraft/ghost story/slasher mashup.

There’s land with a cursed past that has been sold. Judd Hirsch is the crazy old man warning everyone that developing on it is a mistake.

Corbin Bernsen runs a new age shop and also has a vested interest in what becomes of the land. Lori Petty works with a construction crew digging on the property.

Beyond that, I had no idea what was going on. There were a whole lot of people staying at a place on the land, but I wasn’t quite sure who they all were or how they all knew each other.

Apparently a bunch of girls unleash something by having a séance. The construction workers also seem to unleash something while digging. The ghost girl roams around trying to be scary. One of the main girls seems to get possessed by a warrior witch.

One of the construction workers gets possessed and stalks everyone with a pick axe.  This kind of disjointed nonsense works in 80s euro horror, but it didn’t work here. This is an uninspired, scare-free, gore-free disaster with no clear plot.

 

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It came to Blu-ray in 2022, and I bought it

Posted on June 2, 2022 by Daniel

It’s the three latest new releases I’ve added to my collection—a sequel forty years in the making, a new one from Ti West, and the Foo Fighters horror comedy.

DARK NIGHT OF THE SCARECROW 2 (2022)

The writer of the original made-for-TV hit from October of 1981 has decided to treat us to a sequel over forty years later, which he both writes and directs. So, was it worth the wait…for those of us who’ve been around long enough to wait?

Here’s the bright side. The low-key death scenes have some good atmosphere and feel just as effective as something you would have seen in a 1981 made-for-TV movie, so it definitely captures the spirit of the original in that sense. There was even one jump scare that got me.

Also, it’s a supernatural slasher. Bubba has been resurrected in a scarecrow to kill again—there’s mention of the mysterious deaths years before, someone visits his grave, and a white flower is left behind several times (in the original film, Bubba was in a field picking white flowers with the little girl he was wrongly accused of killing).

While the 1981 film aired right before Halloween, it wasn’t a Halloween film. The sequel skirts the issue, too. No one mentions Halloween, yet one (and only one) character has her house adorned with Halloween decorations and jack-o’-lanterns. Weird.

Other than all that, it’s not a very good movie. The story is what I’d call desperate. A woman and her son move to town just as a farmer is murdered, and his farmhand goes on the run because the police think he did it (a plot that sort of mimics a key element of the original film).

But like I said, he didn’t do it. It’s the supernatural scarecrow. As we work our way through victims to find out who resurrected Bubba and why, there’s a silly side story involving the new woman in town being embroiled in testifying against someone who now wants revenge. Ugh. It makes for a goofy final act in the cornfield that feels like something from a soap opera. It’s most definitely not a worthy follow-up to the classic from 81, and there’s no one to blame but the very man who created the original story to begin with.

X (2022)

The wait is finally over for fans of Ti West and his throwback film-making style. This time he goes for the backwoods slasher subgenre, and while X may not be the best of his films, it most definitely manages to be a love letter to Tobe Hooper’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre while giving us a notably unique slasher motivation.

From the moment the cast and crew of a porno film gets in a van in 1979 and heads to an isolated farmhouse, to all the camera angles and perspectives of the location, there’s no doubt that TCM is being given a big hug here.

Hell, there are even a few random moments involving a gator that I’m guessing are a nod to Hooper’s follow-up film Eaten Alive, but West manages to make his gator a much more captivating on screen spectacle while somehow keeping it incredibly understated.

The porn makers include the likes of Kid Cudi as the studly star…

…and Jenna Ortega of Scream 5 as the main girl…

Martin Henderson of The Ring still looks good almost two decades later and runs around in tightly whities…

…and Brittany Snow plays the porn queen. “Titanium” may have been her lady jam in Pitch Perfect, but she is introduced with man jam on her back in X…Kid Cudi’s man jam to be exact. And not to forget her singing past, she does an acoustic cover of Fleetwood Mac’s “Landslide” in the film.

And then there’s the plot. As with all West films, this is a slow burn, but once the shit hits the fan late in the film, it comes at you fast and furious. And it is a deliciously icky backwoods concept that also makes a statement about the sex drives and sex lives of aging couples.

See, the filmmakers are renting a guest space on the farm of an elderly couple, and the movie they’re making, which they’re trying to do in secret, doesn’t stay secret for long…and it really gets some rusty geriatric gears going. And we all know when they can’t get laid in slashers, killers gonna kill…

STUDIO 666 (2022)

The Foo Fighters enlisted the director of Hatchet 3 to bring us this demonic hard rock horror comedy that does the basic “rock band dabbles in Satanism” premise right.

Simply enough, the Foo Fighters are sent to an empty mansion to record a new album, but Dave Grohl is having songwriter’s block. That is until he finds signs of occult rituals in the basement, along with a reel-to-reel tape with a partially complete, kick ass rocker on it that he is obsessed with finishing.

Or should I say…possessed with finishing.

The band members manage to quite naturally act better than many “actors” in so many of the indie films made these days, which helps a lot. Adding to that, they get help from Jeff Garlin (recently given the boot from The Goldbergs) as their agent, and Whitney Cummings as the neighbor who is trying to warn them of the dangers of the mansion, along with other familiar faces.

Lionel Richie makes a comedic cameo, John Carpenter makes a brief appearance, and Jenna Ortega, who is building her horror resume mighty fast, gets the honor of appearing in the opening death scene.

And speaking of death scenes, as Dave turns demonic, the kills get increasingly gory, gooey, and satisfying—definitely reminiscent of Hatchet level mutilations, with a chainsaw kill being the highlight in terms of doing something deliciously different visually with a death scene involving a predictable weapon.

The guys are funny, it’s bittersweet seeing the late Taylor Hawkins having fun starring in a horror movie, and there’s even a quick notable comment on the state of rock music in this day and age. If I have any complaint about the movie, it’s merely that at an hour and 45 minutes, it does start to feel a little long before the final act is through, but luckily there’s plenty of horror action packed into that final act.

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PRIME TIME: home invasion horror and a Lovecraft creature

Posted on June 1, 2022 by Daniel

Yay! It was a triple feature marathon of movies from my Prime list, and I had a good time with all three of them…and one even features a gay couple.

BABYSITTER MUST DIE (2020)

The deceiving cover and title make this one seem like it’s going to be a low budget, hack ‘n’ slash horror comedy. Turns out it’s mostly a serious home invasion suspense flick with a nice deviation from the norms.

For starters, it takes place at Christmas time, so I’m adding it to the holiday horror page. Second, while it takes a while for the truth to come out, the reason for the invaders infiltrating this house actually has a paranormal angle to it. And finally, the coolest part of all is that the only one who can save the family that is being terrorized is their babysitter, who manages to hide before the home invaders can see her.

The home invasion elements offer pretty typical thriller sequences, but what kind of feels out of place here is that the babysitter uses her skills gained as a sort of girl scout when she was a kid to take on the invaders.

She wears all her merit badges as a belt, so every time she applies one of her acquired skills, that particular badge magnifies on screen for a temporary freeze frame of the babysitter in action. It’s a silly little novelty that doesn’t seem to fit the tone of the film.

Also important to note is that while I appreciate the paranormal plot device, the film doesn’t delve into it visually—I can only assume because they didn’t have the budget for it and it would just complicate matters. That said, the lack of any kind of supernatural special effects or focus on the supernatural threat didn’t hinder the overall flow of the film at all for me.

And finally, just note that the babysitter doesn’t look much like a teenager (if that’s what she’s supposed to be). In fact, she bears a striking resemblance to former White House press secretary Jen Psaki.

HP LOVECRAFT’s THE DEEP ONES (2020)

Chad Ferris has been making indie horror films for over two decades—Unspeakable, The Ghouls, Easter Bunny Kill Kill, Someone’s Knocking at the Door, Exorcism at 60,000 Feet, The Chair—and I have a majority of them in my collection. In fact, I immediately ordered The Deep Ones on DVD after watching it. It has that 80s-esque Lovecraftian adaptation vibe; it’s sexual, sleazy, drenched in red light, and even has classic, eerie whistling sci-fi style music.

After a recent miscarriage, a pretty couple comes to stay in a seaside community with a very welcoming and accommodating couple…that is also part of some sort of cult that basically wants to summon the Dagon so it can impregnate women.

It’s good old simple horror—how is this couple going to escape the clutches of this psychotic cult and avoid being fish fucked?

There are plenty of great scenes involving nasty tentacles coming out from between the legs of females, and the ridiculously handsome husband even gets deep throated by one. Sexy.

And the good news is it’s all practical effects, including the awesome creature that eventually rises from the surf for some sexy times. Plus, we get 80s horror fave Kelli Maroney of Night of the Comet in a fairly substantial role as the “crazy lady” trying to warn the couple of the danger they’re in.

Also of note is that one older woman is actually played by a man in drag.

I’ve seen plenty of Lovecraft adaptations in the past few years that are just dull and lifeless, and because they’re indies they don’t even deliver on any of the creature goodness we get here. Not to mention, director Chad Ferris doesn’t try to follow the rules of sterile, generic Hollywood horror films, so there’s always some fun subversion reminiscent of the nasties of the direct-to-VHS days.

KNIFECORP (2021)

While watching this film, I was astounded to see how many bad reviews it has on IMDb. Scratch that. I shouldn’t have been astounded, because everyone is a horrible horror critic these days. This shit is a little indie comedy horror treat.

A young man named Wally and his young coworkers head into a community to sell knives door to door. Wally is invited in by horror king Kane Hodder, who is so perfect in his role as a seemingly chill but stern dude…who turns out to be a psycho with some family issues.

When Wally leaves Kane’s house without selling a knife, he forgets the knife at the house. So, like an idiot, Wally and his friends decide to sneak into the house to get the knife back.

It’s reverse home invasion as the kids become trapped inside with crazy Kane stalking and killing them. The cast is fun and funny with great comic timing, the humor is subtle and successful, and there’s a notable gay couple who has a very natural exchange expressing their feelings for each other…including a kiss that lands this one on the does the gay guy die? page.

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A different kind of demon, a pandemic gone wild, and a bloodthirsty vigilante

Posted on May 31, 2022 by Daniel

It’s a trio of flicks featuring less-than-human terrors, with a demon, the infected, and an anti-hero.

DEMONIC (2021)

The director of District 9 goes a completely different route and gives us a possession movie that plays out like a horror video game, often looks like a video game, and features a demon that goes rogue instead of remaining strapped to a bed. Cool…and…weird.

For sure the plot is kind of out there. A woman is asked to be part of a sort of virtual reality experiment involving a coma patient…her mother! They want her to go inside the mother’s mind to see what’s up.

Seems mother and daughter became estranged when the mother killed a whole lot of people. But, like an idiot, the daughter agrees to go along with the research.

And that’s where we get into Silent Hill territory. Scenes inside her mom’s brain get a video game graphics filter, with the daughter exploring creepy locations and seeing frightening forms in the shadows.

What’s odd is that while there’s loads of atmosphere, this movie is never really scary…except one part, which totally kicks ass and doesn’t even take place in the mother’s mind. It’s a sequence that involves her friend coming over to visit her in the middle of the night to see how she’s doing, and it’s chilling.

I do think this is a refreshing break from the usual rip-off of The Exorcist, but the main girl’s infuriating choices to continuously run directly towards danger made this even more like a video game, because they are the kinds of decisions you’d only make in a horror video game. In other words, totally against your will just to finish the damn game if you’re anything like me.

THE SADNESS (2021)

You know you’re old and have seen way too many horror movies over the decades when a movie getting loads of buzz on social media for being mind-blowingly vicious and gory feels totally cliché to you…and even bores you at points.

Summing it up, I would say The Sadness from Taiwan is like I Am a Hero meets 28 Weeks Later with more gore and perversion…but still way less than the gross out levels of Dead Alive.

I will give it credit for having some visually arresting setup shots and several fantastic sequences, but overall, this is just extremely derivative. It’s also clearly a commentary on the whole societal response to COVID.

There was a pandemic, and now the country has decided to move past it despite scientists trying to warn that mutations are inevitable and it’s not just scare tactics because there’s an election coming up.

A cute young guy and his girlfriend venture out into the city and go their separate ways for the day. Before long, everyone around them is turning into The Crazies, gleefully smiling as they stab, beat, eat, and rape people.

The film starts off strong with plenty of horror action and blood gushing as we follow the two on their personal journeys through the insanity. Yet the most perverse and disgusting elements are very often implied rather than shown (for instance, a horny infected dude plucking out a girl’s eye then fucking the socket).

There is also major slowdown in the center of the film before the his and her stories eventually merge together as the couple comes closer to finding one another in the final act. Honestly, her horror adventure is more interesting, with her being chased by the horny infected dude, who is determined to make her his.

SHE NEVER DIED (2019)

This sequel to He Never Died comes from the director of Berkshire County, one of my Halloween horror faves, and it’s a standalone film that focuses on a totally different man-eating crime fighter…this time a Black woman instead of Henry Rollins.

She lives on the street and is in the midst of hunting down a brother/sister sex trafficking team when a detective that has gone rogue to capture them figures out She is following the same trail he is. So he enlists her “services” in killing people and getting rid of the bodies to help take down the sex traffickers.

To complicate matters, a feisty girl She rescues from the sex traffickers becomes enamored with her and serves as an unlikely and unwelcome sidekick (that She has urges to eat).

A basic vigilante film with some okay gore, a few good violent fight scenes, and some understated humor, this is fairly entertaining, but not enthralling enough for multiple viewings. A brief but action-packed massacre at a party near the end is most definitely the highlight.

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