STREAM QUEEN: slashing, sucking, and summoning the supernatural for laughs

Posted on August 11, 2021 by Daniel

My latest streaming marathon consisted of four humorous horror flicks, so let’s see how that worked out for me.

KILLER CONCEPT (2021)

Killer Concept has an apropos title because it’s a clever idea, but it does get a little bogged down by dialogue, despite being a slim 80 minutes long.

The opening scene is old school slasher stalking POV perfection.

Then we meet two guys and a girl that decide to formulate a movie idea based on murders taking place in their town.

There is some humorous meta fun, especially from one guy who totally wants to go for an all-out slasher.

Now here’s the catch. One of the three is much closer to the murders than the other two realize and it begins to affect the working relationship, because the…um…guilty party starts to take suggestions about the killer in their movie very personally.

The letdown here is that we simply don’t get much of the killer in action or an unfolding of events that has the other two catching on slowly to the predicament they are actually in.

The film instead leans heavily on the trio hashing out their ideas, and then the truth simply coming out all at once in the final scene.

There is a nice twist, but just when the climax feels like it’s really going somewhere, the film ends.

HAWK & REV: VAMPIRE SLAYERS (2020)

If you’re a fan of loser buddies turned monster slayers horror comedies, chances are you’ll have some fun with this one even if it doesn’t make it to the top of your list of faves.

This is one of those cases in which the director, writer, and star are all one and the same. However, it’s not one of those situations in which he makes it all about him and doesn’t allow any other character in the film to have any fun (cough…The Wolf of Snow Hollow…cough).

So our leading man is obsessed with vampires being real, and is kicked out of the army and his parents’ house after trying to stake a fellow military man.

That doesn’t stop him from continuing his hunt for vampires…like a kind of queer, gothic, S&M trio he spots in an alley. He enlists the help of his only buddy who believes him, and together they meet a variety of oddball characters, make plenty of pop culture references, crack adolescent jokes, and naturally get themselves into situations that flirt with homosexual innuendo.

On top of that, there’s even some good blood and gore, especially closer to the end, even though it’s contained within the silly tone of the film.

MANDAO OF THE DEAD (2018)

Mandao of the Dead is a quirky little supernatural “buddy” comedy in which the buddies are a white guy and his Asian uncle, who look to be about the same age. I can’t explain it, so don’t ask. The Asian guy, Scott Dunn, is also the writer and director.

He allows his deadbeat nephew to come live with him and soon reveals that he has wild dreams in which he can see his own body. His nephew predicts that he’s actually astral projecting.

After a Halloween party, that ability comes in handy when the pair discovers a dead body and the ghost of the dead man starts communicating with the uncle.

The ghost wants him to use his astral ability to travel back in time to stop the murder.

It’s not a total laughfest, but it’s cute and enjoyable with a likable cast and a fun, spooky feel. Plus, its only 70 minutes long, it takes place at Halloween time, and it prepares us for the Christmas time sequel…

MANDAO RETURNS (2020)

The “series”, if that’s what it’s going to be, really finds its footing in the sequel. The characters are further developed, the actors are more on their game and in tune with each other, and the humor and horror elements are both stronger.

It’s now the Christmas season, and the pair’s landlord, who is also a bogus medium, asks the uncle to use his astral powers to bring some authenticity to psychic readings with clients.

Things take an unexpected turn when the guys find themselves drawn into what seems to be an accidental overdose of a famous actress….

In order to find out what really happened, the medium has a plan that involves nephew and uncle swapping bodies when they astral project into the past.

The twists and turns are more complex in this one, plus there’s a masked figure with a knife to spice up the slasher feel. This one totally had me hankering for another installment.

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Satanism and slashing in the 1960s and 1970s

Posted on August 9, 2021 by Daniel

I can never have enough of either in my horror collection, so here’s a look at four flicks I’ve recently added to my shelves that come from back in the day.

CHAMBER OF HORRORS (1966)

House of Wax is the movie concept that just goes on and on. Chamber of Horrors, recently released on Blu-ray, was originally intended as a pilot for a House of Wax television series, but it was considered too disturbing for home viewing, so it was released to theaters instead. They even added a William Castle gimmick…a narrator at the beginning informs viewers there will be a Fear Flasher and Horror Horn warnings right before anything terrifying happens so you can look away.

You know what you see if you don’t look away? NOTHING. The gruesome scenes are literally cutaways. For instance, killer raises a cleaver to chop up victim aaaaand…cut away. Yawn.

However, there are what could be considered some pretty damn disturbing concepts for the time, beginning with a man marrying a dead woman and then keeping her body in his bed for the rest of the movie. Sure, everything is implied, and she doesn’t rot for us (he even sees her as beautiful and alive), but it’s still implying necrophilia back in 1966.

The killer is caught with the help of wannabe detectives that run the House of Wax in town. The killer escapes his handcuffs by hacking off his hand, replaces it with a hook, and then comes back for revenge.

Most of the time, he lurks in alleys like Jack the Ripper, and he occasionally kills someone.

The wax bust of him made for the museum also bears an uncanny resemblance to Vincent Price, which I can only assume is a wink to Price having starred in the 1953 version of House of Wax.

The absolute best scene of the film involves the killer faking out one of the detectives with his hook hand. The absolute oddest thing about the film is that it has little to do with the wax museum…until the final frame, which feels very much like it’s a cliffhanger setting us up for the TV show that never happened.

THE BROTHERHOOD OF SATAN (1971)

This one is like Rosemary’s Baby meets Children of the Corn right from the opening scene of children behaving badly, complete with some good scary kid music.

A man, woman, and child passing through a town become trapped there with a few locals—sheriff, doctor, priest—that are trying to figure out why there have been a series of murders and where all the missing children have gone.

Meanwhile, all the old people in town are in a cult and drawing the children their way. This movie really should have been called Adulthood vs. Childhood of Satan…

In true drug trippy 1970s horror fashion, this is one bizarre movie with creepy but often illogical scenes (like a knight on a horse suddenly galloping into the picture to behead someone).

The priest is the first to predict that witchcraft and the supernatural are to blame, and he’s also kind of pretty.

It’s not super suspenseful or gory, but The Brotherhood of Satan is unnerving and unsettling, with some genuinely eerie atmosphere and disturbing occult aspects.

SATAN’S CHEERLEADERS (1977)

Greydon Clark, director of Wacko, Uninvited, and Without Warning, took his first stab at horror with this goofy film in the 1970s. I admire him for not calling it quits after this disaster, which can at least be enjoyed now as the campy mess that it is.

It all begins with cheerleaders practicing on a beach to horrendous disco music. Don’t get me wrong, I was already a little disco queen when this film came out the same year as Saturday Night Fever, but this is horrendous disco.

They then take a shower and do a ridiculous dance and slap their asses while a bearish janitor peeps at them. After they leave, he goes and sniffs around their lockers. And when the girls have car trouble, wouldn’t you know the janitor shows up, throws them all in his truck, cops a few feels, drives them into the woods, and tries to sacrifice one to…the door knocker from Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol?

Before you know it, the cheerleaders are being chased through the woods by a zany cult, including the janitor, the sheriff, a farmer with a pitchfork, and a satanic monk, who is by far the funniest, most campy part of the film (and I think it’s actually intentional). Yet what’s funnier is when the sheriff rips open one girl’s blouse as he prepares to rape her, and her response is, “I’ll tell your wife.”

Lilly Munster is the sheriff’s wife, and she spends some time sitting around looking stunned at how bad the dialogue is and how bad the girls’ acting is before siccing her dogs on them.

While running away, one of the girls even has a run-in with John Carradine as a self-proclaimed crazy old bum.

Yes, Yvonne De Carlo and John Carradine both got suckered into doing this film. For a film called Satan’s Cheerleaders featuring two big names forever tied to the horror genre, it’s astounding that there’s no gore, little nudity, and no exploitation. That rape never even happens, so I guess the “I’ll tell your wife” line worked like a charm.

In the end, the cult is in for a big surprise, because one of the cheerleaders has some magic tricks up her sleeve.

KILLER’S DELIGHT (aka: The Sport Killer) (1978)

I sort of got bamboozled into buying this one because it was part of one of Vinegar Syndrome’s new release packaged deals. I could have sworn when I preordered I opted not to take the whole package because this one didn’t strike me as horror, but when my order eventually arrived, there it was.

This isn’t really much of a horror movie. However, there are some scenes that sure do leave an impression, including the opener of a man throwing a woman’s naked body off a cliff, and another woman’s body being found with her crying dog snuggled up against it.

The few kills are okay, and very disturbing in a 1970s vulnerable female panic way (you had to be there), and there is a pretty sadistic scene of the killer snapping limbs of a woman he’s holding captive. We know who the killer is all along (John Karlen of Dark Shadows), and he wears disguises so cheesy that a guy even rags on one of his looks to the main detective. This is definitely not about scares or suspense. Much of the film focuses on the detective following up after each body is found. Yawn.

Then the film just veers in a new direction, with Susan Sullivan, who only lasted one season on It’s a Living, stepping in to help out the detective and becoming the focus of the killer. There’s even a forced, cliché profiling of the killer tossed in during the final scene…by the killer! The killer literally self-diagnosis himself as a mamma’s boy. Ugh.

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NEW ACQUISITIONS: from 88 through 07

Posted on August 6, 2021 by Daniel

My collection just keeps growing, and my Dan cave just seems to keep getting smaller as a result. But the good news is it gives me more movies to blog about, so let’s get into these four.

THROUGH THE FIRE (1988)

Also known as The Gates of Hell Part II: Dead Awakening in order to be considered the sequel to Lucio Fulci’s City of the Living Dead wherever it was known as The Gates of Hell (confused yet?), this film deserves a life of its own, because it is as perfectly U.S. 80s as a low budget horror movie can get.

After her sister goes missing, a woman gets drunk, gets kicked out of a bar, gets picked up by a hot cop, and then asks him the next morning to help her find her sister.

I’m convinced the director of this film had the hots for the cop, because the camera sure makes love to him.

Anyway, there’s this seedy cult trying to conjure a beast, the cop and the main woman enlist the help of a professor who knows about this kind of thing, the cult pursues them, they pursue the cult right back, there’s a funny scene involving a cat in a freezer (the reactions of the characters are funny, not the cat in the freezer), and then the main characters track the cult to their secret hideaway, where they seem to turn into some sort of zombies or demons.

In other words, most of the horror is packed into the last half hour, and it is so totally 80s VHS rental material.

THE SANDMAN (1995)

J.R. Bookwalter, the director of The Dead Next Door and Witchouse 2 and 3, brings us a low budget, direct-to-video trailer park horror film that feels like an 80s film, and therefore has a quite a bit of charm.

Gary is a romance writer who can’t sleep at night, He’s also an everyday kind of dude, which makes him a really likable character. He starts to see red flashing eyes at his window at night, and becomes convinced there’s something coming for the residence of the trailer park…especially after the first death.

A bunch of oddball characters add to the fun, including his weird cousin, who is written into the film as crashing in his trailer at the beginning and then quickly forgotten completely for the rest of it. But at least he sticks around long enough to call someone an ass wipe. Ah, those were the days.

There’s also a crazy Vietnam vet, who babbles on and on about “The Sandman”…which of course proves to be real. The Sandman looks like a cross between the Grim Reaper and a big Jawa surrounded by fog machines, and has a demonic voice. Cheesy awesome. He sneaks into the trailers of sleeping people, sticks a tentacle with a suction cup to their heads, and makes them have horrible nightmares before killing them with his scythe.

I don’t know that younger horror fans would like this one, but it gave me all the feels because it’s so old school. What it did need was a bit more humor throughout, because there are some funny moments at the end, including the entire battle, in which Gary and the Vietnam vet have a shootout with The Sandman in a trailer home.

SKINNED DEEP (2004)

There are plenty of enticing horror elements in this backwoods horror indie that should appeal to fans of Texas Chainsaw and House of 1000 Corpses (that would be me), but there’s also so much messy absurdity that it could also really spoil the horror for the same fans (that would also be me).

The opener feels like this is going to be a genuine throwback to disturbing 80s direct-to-video horror, with an old redneck being terrorized by a masked killer driving next to him on a truck at night…with a hook on a chain. Eek!

What makes things a little odd are the flashes of a flexing muscle man body in between the horror sequence…

Then we are introduced to a family on a road trip. They meet a couple of strange locals, have car trouble, accept an invite for dinner from a creepy old lady working at a diner, go to her house, which is more of a freak show than the Texas Chainsaw family’s humble abode…and yet don’t seem to bat an eye until the masked killer pops out and starts hacking them up.

The teen daughter ends up in an underground lair right out of House of 1000 Corpses and spends the rest of the movie trying to escape the psycho family as we are subjected to trippy footage and edits, disorienting muted sound, and gory practical effects just for the hell of it. I was particularly offended when the daughter stumbled upon her father’s body and puked. I would never puke at the sight of a dad bod.

It really feels like there’s no actual script or plot, just a director filming a bunch of random ideas, editing them together, and calling it a movie.

There are a lot of weird characters, particularly the family. The masked killer could be so damn scary if it wasn’t for the rest of them. The maternal head of household is the funniest and quite creepy thanks to her odd performance. Another guy has a big deformed brain on his head and daydreams about running naked through New York City (kudos to him for going full Monty when they filmed it).

And Warwick Davis’s character is obsessed with throwing plates, yet he seems to keep forgetting he’s not actually starring in yet another Leprechaun sequel.

And finally, there’s the hunky, muscle bod flexing in the underground lab…without a head.

I don’t get this movie. I don’t get it at all. And I dare you to try to sit through the closing credits, which are accompanied by continuous, irritating, agonizing screams.

CLOSURE (aka: Straightheads) (2007)

This rape/revenge flick isn’t the type of film I’d usually watch or blog about, but it was included on a triple feature Blu-ray I purchased and stars horror cutie Danny Dyer, so I’m having a go at it.

Gillian Anderson of The X-files is a successful businesswoman who needs a date to a party…so she asks Danny Dyer, the guy installing her security system in her home that day.

They go, they have sex in the car after, they have a run-in with a vehicle on a dark, desolate road, they hit a deer, and then the vehicle catches up with them…

This isn’t one of those exploitative rape scenes that goes on way too long, and it’s not graphic. More disturbing is what becomes of Dyer and Anderson after. He is totally emasculated and can’t perform sexually, and she becomes hyper aggressive and hell-bent on revenge.

The film mostly explores how the two of them deal with PTSD, until they finally close in on getting their revenge on the men who victimized them. They focus mainly on one man, and there are some very disturbing elements here, including a dog killing and them focusing on the man’s daughter, which causes great conflict in their minds.

There are some unexpected twists at the end, and the most brutal part involves their revenge on the main guy. Let’s just say his hole will never be the same.

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Dinosaurs, aliens, and presidential zombies

Posted on July 28, 2021 by Daniel

It’s another mish-mosh of subgenres in my latest movie marathon. Let’s see if any of these flicks is worth a watch.

TRIASSIC HUNT (2021)

If only SyFy were half the bad monster movie channel it used to be, this dinosaur flick would constantly be part of an all-day Saturday dinosaur marathon. But since SyFy has no fun anymore, you have to search out these types of films on streaming.

Are you really trying to pull a Chris Pratt?

A small team is brought in by Linnea Quigley to hunt down lab-created Allosauruses that have escaped from a military facility, while Michael Pare monitors what’s going on from off site because they needed a scream queen for horror fans and a name that would appeal to GenXers…

These are some of the better looking CGI dinos you’re likely to see in an indie Jurassic craze cash-in, but it’s still all basic cheesy monster movie action, with the usual stereotypical characters and evil villains.

And of course the well-meaning good guys do their best to make everything right as they get chomped down by smart dinos genetically modified for war.

In the end it’s all about a dinosaur egg, and it’s all hokey, laughable fun.

COSMIC SIN (2021)

The writer of Breach, a zombies in space movie starring Bruce Willis that I just blogged about recently, writes and directs a movie that almost seems like it’s going to be the same exact movie…also starring Bruce Willis.

In hindsight, I kind of wish it had been, because this movie is a cosmic mess.

Some sort of “first encounter” is made on a military base, so a team comes to investigate, and it appears the people at the base have been turned into zombies or have been possessed or something.

So it’s decided an alien force is trying to attack earth and the only way to preempt the strike is to go to their planet and take them down first.

Bruce and team slip into big spacesuits…that let them just rocket through space like superheroes. Seriously, it looks like they’re flying right through the battle to destroy the Death Star. I can’t with this movie.

Then they land on a planet…that looks oddly like the woods of earth…or Endor.

And then…I don’t even know. I couldn’t focus on this film at all. If it helps, there were a lot of laser gun battles with baddies in Battlestar Galactica uniforms, along with some deeper meaning behind the invasion.

RE-ELECTED (2020)

Here’s a zomcom to add to your annual Independence Day watchlist, and naturally it’s being added to the holiday horror page here on my site.

The film is about a group of friends that goes to a cabin in the woods to celebrate the Fourth of July and has to do battle with the resurrected versions of former presidents.

If it sounds familiar, well, that’s because the zomcom Presidents Day exists, and I blogged about it ages ago.

While the two films are similar, one thing Re-elected is missing that Presidents Day had is a major gay storyline. No gay stuff here at all, but the main guy sure is a cutie.

If you check this one out, I highly suggested you stick with it. The beginning of the film feels like it’s really not going to work. The humor as written is not funny, the actors try too hard to make it work, and it often feels like they’re just spouting one-liners in hopes of hitting a good joke rather than the humor naturally flowing with the action.

However…

It’s almost like the movie was filmed in sequence—as if the actors just needed time to warm up and get into their grooves, because all of a sudden when they get their first taste of zombie president attacks in the woods, the comedy just totally clicks. The actors deliver lines and reactions with perfect timing, and the writing just feels more natural. Very odd.

The film pokes fun at false patriotism and ignorance about the actual specifics of American history, and it does a good job of remaining fairly neutral with the humor, never really taking political sides—unless you consider a jab at slavery to be divisive or liberal propaganda, in which case a) It’s obvious how you vote, and b) you’re what’s wrong with this country. See, that’s an example of humor that’s not impartial at all, and you don’t really find any of that in Re-elected.

This is goofy, slapstick horror comedy, with campy patriotic music and talking president zombies that bicker with the characters, so don’t expect anything frightening or for the zombie makeup to be gnarly. This film is purely for the fun of it.

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Three trips to the Witchouse

Posted on July 27, 2021 by Daniel

I’m so desperate to be anywhere but in this moment in history that now it’s not just the 80s that serve as a getaway. So when I saw the Witchouse DVDs on sale on the Full Moon website, I immediately made an impulse buy, happy to go back to the innocent days of the post-Scream era with some low budget Full Moon movies. They were just what I needed.

WITCHOUSE (1999)

While David DeCoteau was making his transition to soft core homoerotic horror, he was still spitting out some silly fun video rental flicks, and Witchouse is a perfect example.

Essentially a Night of the Demons knock-off, it has a goth chick assemble all her college friends in her creepy old family house to celebrate Mayday, which includes sitting around a pentagram and reminiscing about her family’s past with witchcraft.

The kids split up to explore the house, a classic decrepit witch is conjured, she levitates vertically like Angela in Night of the Demons, and the kids start turning into sexy demons, especially the guy in his undies. Classic DeCoteau.

It’s not scary, but it has perfect Full Moon horror atmosphere, a pretty cast, a nice short running time of 72 minutes, and a satisfying traditional witch.

WITCHOUSE II: BLOOD COVEN (2000)

The director of The Dead Next Door steps in for the two sequels, and starts things off by jumping on The Blair Witch Project bandwagon, the big horror hit at the turn of the millennium.

After an initial bloody found footage kill in the woods where legend has it that witches were buried, we meet a college professor assigned to go investigate the area with her students…and she’s the evil resurrected witch from the first movie!

They do their research at a creepy witch house that I assume is supposed to be the same one from the first movie, they interview locals about the witches on camera (some funny stuff), and eventually, the professor goes all witchy and starts making demon minions again.

There’s some campy fun here. She tries to seduce one dude, who breaks it to her that he’s gay, but that doesn’t stop her.

She has a catty bitch fest with the main girl, whose character name is Stephanie Zinone! There is no way this isn’t an intentional nod to Michelle Pfeiffer in Grease 2.

And the final battle features more found footage POV, red-eyed demons, shadowy lighting, mist machines, and the witch going totally gnarly faced.

WITCHOUSE 3: DEMON FIRE (2001)

Getting b-movie scream queens Debbie Rochon, Tina Krause, and Brinke Stevens to appear in the third film in the trilogy was the nail in its coffin.

This movie feels like a cheap direct-to-video release and lacks the Full Moon feel of the first two.

An abused woman goes to hang with her two friends at a beach house, and they dabble in witchcraft using a book supposedly 300 years old. They get spooked by some occurrences during the ritual and throw the book in the ocean.

The next morning, one of the women says Bloody Mary into a mirror for the hell of it. Little does she know Brinke Stevens has taken over the role of the witch from the first two films, and although her name is Lilith, calling Bloody Mary works. Ugh.

The three women run around the house acting scared when there’s really not enough to be scared of. The lighting is old school creepy, and Brinke’s witch makeup is cool, but she’s not in the film enough, she’s usually cloaked behind shadows, glass, or veils, and she doesn’t call upon any minion demons. She’s more of an influence than the actual threat in this plot.

But at least we get a glimpse of some furry man ta-tas.

 

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PRIME TIME: taking a bite out of some zombie flicks

Posted on July 26, 2021 by Daniel

It felt like I hadn’t done a zombie marathon in a while, so I dug through my Prime list and plucked out all the zombie films to bring you a zomblog of five flicks to feast on. I even added one of them to my own horror film collection after watching it.

WORMWOOD’S END: DEAD LIFE (2021)

This film appears to have gone through title changes and perhaps different versions and been rereleased over the past decade, but this is the iteration in which I’ve seen it.

It’s a low budget, semi-comedy take on The Walking Dead zombie apocalypse plot, and while it’s fairly cliché and has its indie movie issues, there’s something oddly charming about it.

Specifically, the main characters work quite well off each other and are likable and funny.

The zombie makeup is silly fun. It’s perhaps a little over the top, in part because the film predominantly takes place in bright daylight, but the exaggerated hideousness of the faces works perfectly with the tone of the film.

The events that unfold are perhaps a little meandering, and there’s nothing suspenseful or frightening here. The three main characters are just trying to survive in the apocalypse when they are drawn into a less than moral group community.

They basically spend the film trying to figure out how to get away from the larger group while dealing with zombie encounters. The pacing plods along a bit, but the final act packs in plenty of action, gut-munching gore, and even a fisting scene!

THE DAY OF THE LIVING DEAD (2014)

This is such an odd and quirky little zombie indie, and I couldn’t get into the overarching plot, but I was totally into its unique aspects.

It takes place in 1957 Hollywood and is basically making a statement about the evils of capitalism. A bunch of employees from a big cigarette company get sick, get fired, and go missing…and so does the insurance investigator on the case.

Rather than making sense of the convoluted storytelling, it’s easier to see this as a series of really cool zombie vignettes showing us what happened to each of the players in the plot.

The scenes are presented in black and white to capture the spirit of old 1950s movies, but they switch to full color for the really gory moments, which is very cool.

The zombie makeup and gore use practical effects, there are several indie horror actors, including James Duval, Jeff Dylan Graham, and Fright Night‘s Stephen Geoffreys, and I found some of the short zombie segments to be deliciously creepy nods to the original Night of the Living Dead.

INMATE ZERO (2020)

This is the film in the bunch that immediately got added to my personal collection as soon as it ended, and even the hubby was totally into it.

I’ve seen my fair share of zombie prison outbreak films, but this is one of my faves so far…even though it takes place in a women’s prison. Heh heh.

The female inmate lead is fantastic, and the script manages to clearly define each character (inmates and prison staff) without trying too hard and without slowing down the pace.

Our main woman is offered the opportunity to escape death row if she agrees to permit herself to be used for medical experiments.

When she lands in the infirmary after a fight, it becomes clear pretty fast that it’s a good thing she didn’t agree to the offer.

A phenomenal first zombie scene sets a frightening tone, creates an unnerving, dark and shadowy atmosphere, and presents us with freaky zombies that jitter, shake, and contort. Eek!

The action kicks in immediately, forcing inmates and staff to team up to stay alive and find their way out of the prison. And don’t you know the most likable characters are the prisoners. There’s even a gay guy, which we know because he first appears wearing a wig and lipstick and he’s called a faggot by some prisoner dyke (hey, she started it by calling us faggot first). He lands this one on the does the gay guy die? page.

The performances are quite good, and there are plenty of great scenes, including one reminiscent of the nurses from Silent Hill and several involving an electric chair.

And you just know that all the characters that deserve payback are going to get it good. There is a surprising lull suddenly in the middle of the film, but it picks right back up for the final act.

REPUBLIC Z (2018)

The least run-of-the-mill thing about this zombie film is that it appears to be a Russian film starring Asian actors.

It has a cold, bleak color palette, and the settings are bland and rundown to give us the sense that it’s the zombie apocalypse. The zombies at first seem gruesome and gnarly, but that effect wears off when you soon realize they all kind of look alike because it appears that the makeup is mostly similar prosthetic masks.

We meet two dudes just trying to survive a zombie apocalypse by staying in cabins they come across. One guy is a bit of a geek and brings slapstick humor to the film, including some odd fart and shit sound humor early on. None of it seems to fit the overall tone of the film, which isn’t a zomcom.

Then a girl joins them, and pretty soon the three are on a journey to find a guy who supposedly has the vaccine. That’s pretty much it.

There are the usual zombie encounters, shootouts, people getting bitten, and the added element of zombies freezing temporarily in the cold weather, and it mostly takes place during the day.

There aren’t loads of zombies, so this is definitely a predictable and low key zombie excursion that you might watch just because you’ve seen all the other zombie flicks out there.

ZOMBLIES (2010)

This little bonus is just a zombie action quickie running 47 minutes long.

It’s a simple military rescue mission in the woods, so there’s a lot of running, shooting, and fast zombies that look pretty gnarly and make squealing noises.

It feels like watching a video game, so if you’re just in the mood for a brief zombie fix, this should do.

It has a gritty look and feel, some CGI blood splatter, a cool first-person POV zombie transformation, and a kick ass zombie chase scene on a motorcycle.

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Journeying through the 80s era…and stopping at a gay bar along the way

Posted on July 20, 2021 by Daniel

It’s a foursome of flicks I’ve just added to my collection from the best decade of my existence, and even includes some gay stuff, so let’s get into them.

NIGHT OF DEATH (1980)

It’s so odd to find movies still being released just on DVD, but this French film is one of them. Night of Death has a familiar plot—a young woman comes to work at an isolated house, in this case a retirement home. Everyone is weird, from employees to residents. And slowly but surely, our main girl uncovers the horrors that are really going on in the house.

The atmosphere is great, with moody, shadowy lighting, the horror score is great, with lilting female vocal tones and dramatic orchestral horror music, and the gore is great as well.

The problem with Night of Death is that there’s absolutely no mystery for the audience. We are shown early in the film exactly what is going on, and so we just sit around for most of the movie waiting for the main girl to catch up with us.

It’s all terrifying to her as it unfolds, but so much of the terror is simply robbed from us because we know too much.

That said, it still gets under your skin in the final act, and it’s a good one to watch if you are a fan of movies like Next of Kin, The Legacy, and Suspiria.

SIEGE (1983)

Sort of like a rape/revenge exploitation flick without the rape or the victim getting revenge, Siege is shockingly ahead of its time in taking on gay subject matter while sending a bunch of mixed signals at the same time.

After being introduced to a handful of straight people, we are suddenly thrust into a gay bar where everyone is impressively coupled up, yet they all look like a bunch of weirdos. Of course that could just be because they’re 80s clubbers…

We don’t get to know any of the gay characters, for seconds later a bunch of thugs comes in with weapons to terrorize them. Here’s the eerie part. Aside from the usual derogatory terms and predictable anti-gay comments, these bashers call themselves the “new order”, claim that while everyone else these days (1983) feels they have to sound liberal (I was there, no they didn’t), they have the guts to say what no one else will…queers are not normal, against the laws of nature, intent on corrupting people, etc., and the new order won’t just sit by and let it happen.

And then…the bartender pulls out a gun and calls the new order a bunch of fascists! Holy shit this movie feels like it was scripted in 2020.

Awesomely, the queers all cheer for the bartender to shoot the new order. Annoyingly, none of them seems to notice the bad guy so obviously about to knock the gun from his hand. Naturally there’s a moment that has the new order intending to sodomize a queer, but this film doesn’t go there. Instead, the new order quickly executes everyone in the bar.

But one gay gets away. Yay! There’s a chase scene, and eventually the gay guy begs for help at the apartment of the straight people we met at the beginning. The group ends up trapped in the apartment fighting back against the new order in basic action/thriller home invasion style with a whole variety of weapons and explosives.

So here’s the thing. At first the people in the apartment question whether they should even help the gay guy or kick him out. Surprisingly, they quickly determine they have to help him, which is very cool. Unfortunately, this makes it sort of like the gay guy brought all his troubles into the normal everyday life of innocent straight people.

And what’s worse is the gay guy fucking hides for the whole movie while they do all the fighting and dying, and only comes out near the end and apologizes, saying he was scared. Ugh.

THE BRIDE (1985)

As both an 80s whore and horror whore, I’m ashamed to say I’ve only just added The Bride to my movie collection now. It was one of those films I just could never get into when it was on cable back in the day despite the allure of Sting, Jennifer Beals, and a monster.

Of course, it doesn’t take place in the 1980s, so there was that…

However, revisiting it as an adult over 30 years later I can see why I didn’t appreciate it then. It’s more a gothic romance than a horror film. And I can appreciate it much more now for a variety of reasons.

The opening scene fantastically jumps right into the doctor’s lab, which is stunningly brought to life on this film’s set, especially in high definition. And it’s hard not to read some submissive sexual dungeon vibes into the way the bride is first presented, entirely bound in bandages and strung up spread eagle in the air.

It was always an eye roller for me that the monster looks like a monster, but when the doctor unwraps the bride, she is virtually a model before even taking a comb to her high, wild hair (the most anachronistic 80s thing about the film other than Sting and Jennifer Beals).

But in actuality, her being flawless makes sense because a) the doctor has better perfected his skills after creating one human, and b) naturally he’s going to be shallow about the physical appearance of his female creation and pick hotter body parts (ew). And it’s even more important in this film considering he is immediately enthralled by her beauty and casts out the monster so it won’t be able to have her.

That’s where this film splits in two, and as a guy who loathes the excessive forcing of gay interpretations onto every damn horror movie that ever existed these days, even I’m shocked this one hasn’t been given any analysis (stress on the anal), because it’s kinda gay.

On the one hand we have Sting falling in love with Jennifer Beals as he grooms her and makes her into a high society woman. There’s one scene in which she slips and acts slightly monstrous, but that’s it. Otherwise, she’s just lovely and demure and longs to know who she is and where she came from, and he tries his best to keep the truth from her.

On the other hand, the monster, played by horror veteran Clancy Brown, teams up with a little man to run away. These two traveling “misfits” grow incredibly close, with the monster always carrying the little man on his shoulder, and they eventually take a job performing as a pair of “fools” in a circus. Many of their scenes capture that tone, bringing a light, humorous charm to their chemistry. Seriously, their relationship is more loving than that of Sting and Jennifer. I mean, just look where the monster has his hand as they walk past this shirtless juggler…

In the end, a male/male relationship simply cannot be, and the monster must come home to battle the doctor for his bride (bah!), and there’s something curiously symbolic about this scene…

The one plot point that seems to get dropped after it is barely presented is a telepathic link between the monster and the bride. There’s a blatant moment when the monster experiences the same exact thing the bride is from far away, but the concept is never revisited, which is sort of a huge plot hole.

LUCIFER (aka: Goodnight God Bless) (1987)

Released on DVD as Goodnight God Bless, Lucifer is a totally lost film for me. I’d never seen it, making it so satisfying because it really hit my 80s spot good. This is one I would have watched numerous times on cable had it been on HBO in heavy rotation back then.

The opening is a haunting look at our future as a mysterious figure in black approaches a playground…and goes on a shooting rampage, killing one kid after another. The only thing we can determine is that the killer is a priest. (Un)holy shit!

The detective on the case meets with a surviving girl and her mother, and then becomes involved with them. In the meantime, the priest continues his murder spree, switching his weapon to a carving knife. How very 80s.

Each time he approaches a victim (we never see him) he drops his rosary at their feet before killing them.

There are some cheap but surprisingly effective jump scares (I’m embarrassed to admit they totally worked on me even though I could see them coming from a mile away), some excellent suspense moments, and a great body reveal sequence at the end.

There’s also a totally uncool dog kill (says the guy who was virtually cheering when the priest was shooting children).

This is actually a supernatural, satanic slasher as made evident by the spoiler movie art, yet we don’t get the visual payoff until the final frame! This was my favorite addition to my collection of this four, and I wish it would have gotten a Blu-ray release.

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Another round of slashers…sort of…

Posted on July 19, 2021 by Daniel

Each of the films in my latest marathon of movies has some slasher elements, but they don’t follow the most obvious formula. Let’s take a look.

FEAR STREET PART 3: 1666 (2021)

The trilogy comes to a close with the longest film in the bunch, which is also partially a period piece, so I assumed on two counts that I was going to like it the least. This fricking installment ended up being my favorite because unlike the first two, it remained focused on the plot.

The film begins in the 1600s to give us the witch backstory, with many of the actors from the first two installments in roles in the past. Take my opinion about horror movies from where it’s coming—I’ve been watching this shit for five decades, so the fact that this segment borrows generously from The Crucible and the actual witch hysteria in Salem in 1692 adds to the been there done that feeling I was getting.

However, the plot shines when it takes on its own twist as the 1600s plot concludes in order to take us back to 1994. At last, the kids in the 1990s have a grasp on what they need to do, making for a fantastic final act with the kids and the killers in the mall. And the nod to Fear Street books at the end totally rocks.

Not to mention, it becomes clear this funny dude should have had a larger role in the first film…

As I could have predicted from the very first film when we were introduced in flashes to various killers from over the years, I do feel the trilogy blew a golden opportunity to make the first two installments slasher anthologies instead of excessively long single story slashers. Considering each killer seems so cool, I want to know more about their backstories (think the Thir13en Ghosts remake). I would have loved to have had part 1 and part 2 each feature three short tales focusing on one of the killer’s stories and time period in a trajectory that takes us from 1666 to 1994. Especially since I personally found the other killers much more compelling than the two generic killers we contended with for nearly two hours each. Come on. A skeleton mask and yet another sack head killer? Really?

Like I said, five decades…

THE EMPTY MAN (2020)

When The Empty Man showed up on HBO, I didn’t even know it existed, so I was all excited to have a surprise horror flick tossed my way on a Saturday night. I was, however, horrified that it was 2 hours and 20 minutes long.

The intro sequence is totally awesome, but honestly, after 140 minutes, I have no idea how it was supposed to relate in any way to the rest of the film. It involves a handful of young people mountain climbing, finding an empty house for shelter after one of them is hurt, and then experiencing some really creepy supernatural shit.

Then we meet our main man, a sexy ex-detective turned security salesman. There are signs he is grieving from a loss, and he has a special relationship with a woman and her teenage daughter. Then the daughter goes missing and a message from The Empty Man is left behind…

The main man begins an investigation into The Empty Man legend, and for a while this feels like an early 2000s supernatural slasher, with a group of kids finding a bottle on a bridge (that I’m pretty sure is the same bridge the kid gets chased on in My Soul to Take), blowing on it, and then summoning The Empty Man. Wouldn’t it be easier to just look in a mirror and call Bloody Mary or Candyman instead? Plus, who the fuck wants to get COVID from blowing into a used bottle right before The Empty Man gets them?

Sure, the kids die off, but this isn’t about them. It’s about the main man’s investigation, and the way it unfolds reminds me very much of The Ring. However, in that film we’re drawn into layers of Samara’s backstory as Naomi Watts investigates, but The Empty Man details just don’t come as fast nor are they as intriguing for a majority of this film.

That being said, what does work here are the suspense and scare scenes. In between the uninspired investigation, there are some fantastically eerie and atmospheric horror sequences the main man gets drawn into. If there had only been a way to tighten up all those failed exposition scenes, this would have been a total winner. There are definitely shadows of other films sprinkled throughout, but none are glaring enough to make this feel like a copycat of any one movie, and the conclusion definitely breaks from typical expectations. That’s a nice surprise for sure, but it leaves us with more questions than answers.

BLOOD PI (2020)

Blood Pi is the low budget slasher of this bunch, and it grabbed my attention because the description references it taking place at Halloween. I’ll give it a spot on the holiday horror page since the plot has college kids going from one costume party to another during football season with orange lights strung around, but the holiday doesn’t get any kind of recognition or love here, and there isn’t a pumpkin in sight.

After an opening kill scene, we meet our main college girls and their gay BFF—who in his initial appearance seems like an extreme caricature.

This isn’t your usual slasher, for we know who the killer is all along—a redhead girl at odds with the popular sorority while also Single White Femaling a nerdy girl.

She’s a damn psycho who indiscriminately starts killing people as she hits up one party after another like everyone else, and the actress rules in the role.

The first part of the film has plenty of your standard cheesy partying, socializing, and dancing scenes as the conflicts of the main characters are established, but later on, the psycho girl gets things going with some nice and gory kills, teaching sleazy guys some serious lessons.

She really amps things up with an axe in the final act, and the gay guy comes back on the scene in a major way and vindicates himself with some quite humorous moments.

Naturally, that lands this one on the does the gay guy die? page.

THE DARK MILITARY (2019)

It’s another Halloween horror movie without a pumpkin in sight. This one is about a group that calls themselves “the dark military”, and they’re doing a live streaming show on Halloween in which the contestants think they are just contestants…

I was so feeling the beginning of the movie as a group of fun-loving, likable characters is introduced, waiting to get on a bus to be whisked a way to an undisclosed location. It had a total late 90s/early 2000s teen horror vibe.

Once they’re dropped off in a field, guys and a few women dressed in black and wearing black masks start hacking and slashing! The contestants run into the woods and the chase is on. At the same time, scenes of viewers and the cops watching the footage are interspersed, and even grown up Andy from the Child’s Play series has a cameo.

The film repeatedly sets up scenes promising torture and gore, but is surprisingly tame, and most of the masked baddies aren’t all that menacing, because they tend to get into wars of words with the feisty contestants. There are some funny moments, but nothing is particularly suspenseful or frightening here. And in the end, it turns into a death match as the baddies and the contestants get into a melee battle.

It had its moments, but The Dark Military isn’t thrilling enough to stand out from similar films. It also makes the massive mistake of lapsing into a moment of anti-gay shit. The baddies catch a couple, their leader calls the guy a faggot, one of the female baddies lures the girl into kissing her with the promise of sparing her (of course the guys take a break from killing to watch), and then the female baddie starts beating her to a pulp while furiously calling her a dyke. When are filmmakers going to learn that this stupidity can isolate a segment of the horror audience? Sure it can be argued that these types of immoral people would say shit like that in real life, but a) if these types of people would say shit like this about gay people, chances are they would also make racist remarks towards the non-white contestants, and that doesn’t happen, and b) when making art, you can either lead the conversation or follow—you don’t have to put anti-gay shit in your movie at all. It does nothing to further your plot.

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Masked killers, retro vibes, 2 kinds of camp, and a double dose of gays

Posted on July 15, 2021 by Daniel

I’m always up for a slasher fix, and this foursome delivered in a variety of ways, so let’s take a look.

THE BONE GARDEN (2016)

The Bone Garden is a novelty horror flick that goes for the meta vibes with all the characters named after those in 80s horror movies. On top of that, it brings together original actors from several of the Friday the 13th movies, most notably the leading couple, played by Tracie Savage and Norman Hardy of Friday the 13th Part 3. Norman is a daddy now, but he’s still rockin’ the bod enough to get a shirtless workout montage. Nice.

Anyway, this film has a Rear Window plot. Tracie and Norman are married, but their relationship is on shaky ground. He’s a two-timer, she’s bored. That is until she spies her new neighbor carrying what looks like a body and dropping it into the lake.

She decides to investigate on her own with a little help from her best friend…who is a hoot and totally steals the show.

It’s an okay thriller for a low budget film, and Tracie even starts cozying up to a hottie she meets while walking her dog.

Thing is, the plot mostly feels cliché…until the final act, which is the part it seems that most reviewers on Amazon Prime criticize.

I, on the other hand, think the movie is given new, wacky life once it seems Tracie is near to cracking the case. In fact, this is the part when the movie really turns into a horror movie, complete with gore, body reveals, and a seemingly manic indecision by the writer on how to end the film. Awesome.

DREAMCATCHER (2021)

Remember when there were a whole bunch of sleek, really bad slashers coming out for a decade following the Scream craze at the turn of the millennium? Dreamcatcher feels like it came right from that era. It mostly reminds me of the weak Prom Night remake, with a touch of David DeCoteau’s stabs at the genre, like Final Stab and The Frightening.

Two newly reconnected sisters go to a club with their friends to see a sizzling hot DJ spin.

When a tragic event occurs (after various drug trips that deliver an attempt at artsy visuals—and yes, a dreamcatcher does come into play), the friends get an offer they can’t refuse from the DJ’s agent…who makes plenty of snide remarks with a political bent, including a goodie about Mitch McConnell.

Anyway, the friends begin getting killed off brutally by someone in the same mask the DJ wears. I thought maybe it was Marshmello, pissed the movie was stealing his shtick.

I guess the kills are okay, but this film just lags and goes on and on. There are no likable characters and their numerous side stories do nothing to hold the viewers interest since most of these kids are assholes.

There are a couple of hot boy bods (yay) and a gay reveal with a promise of a gay kiss…that cuts away to another scene. WTF? Anyway, it still lands a spot on the does the gay guy die? page.

As the film finally crawls into its final act, it becomes one of those headache inducing denouements with too many talking points and characters just going off the rails in order to convince us there are multiples twists.

And if you stick around until after the credits begin to roll, you’ll get to see an unnecessary reminder that the gay guy doesn’t stand a chance in a horror movie…even if it means bringing him back after the credits start rolling…

FEAR STREET PART 2: 1978 (2021)

Part 2 picks up right where part 1 left off (in 1994) with the surviving friends determined to figure out how to stop the witch from turning others into killers.

So they track down a survivor of the 1978 massacre to ask for help, and she tells them what happened at summer camp in 1978…

As a result, the movie is loaded with music from the 1970s, such as:

Captain & Tennille “Love Will Keep Us Together”

The Runaways “Cherry Bomb”

Cat Stevens “The First Cut is the Deepest”

Blue Oyster Cult ” Don’t Fear the Reaper”

Kansas “Carry On My Wayward Son”

Buzzcocks “Ever Fallen in Love”

Thelma Houston “Don’t Leave Me This Way”

So yay! It’s a summer camp slasher. But first we establish who the bullies are at the camp, who their victims are, and how they use their belief in the witch against each other. When someone at camp goes a little too psycho, the kids start poking into the witch legend, find an underground lair in the woods, and unleash another killer…

This film starts off so much more streamlined than the first messy plot, and when the kills start, they totally rock the gore. And then…

…because the film is 110 minutes long it does exactly what the first film did; it becomes chaotic, with too many characters and unnecessary side stories to fill the time. I can’t fathom why they would want to keep drawing us away from the core witch story and slasher structure, but that’s what we get once again. Good news is there are sex scenes that include some man butt, and the death scenes really do rock.

The bad news—at least for me—is that the third installment is going to be a period piece (blech) that takes place in the 1600s.

SLASHENING: THE FINAL BEGINNING (2021)

As a huge fan of director Brandon Bassham’s slasher comedy The Slashening, I was ecstatic when the sequel came my way. Now that I’ve seen it, I simply must have a hard copy for my collection, so I hope it gets a disc release.

As much a spoof as it is slasher (poking fun at the cat scare, mask POV, dumb victim, etc.), the sequel begins with a group of friends gathered in a house discussing the events of the first movie, and then getting hilariously killed off within the first ten minutes while going off to have sex. Wahoo!

Even better…one couple is two gay guys, and let’s just say the scene is a funny delight that involves a sex act that pretty much never even gets any recognition in gay porn.

Next, we meet a support group in which there is a character that makes for one of the best links ever created for a sequel—it’s the daughter of a man who couldn’t live with himself due to his part in a running joke from the first movie.

The film is smartly a short and streamlined 80 minutes long, the performances of the quirky members of the support group bring on the humor, there’s some gross out humor (and it involves a guy who has, um, performance issues), the killer is campy, and the main girl is a blast…especially when she fights real dirty at the end.

This is most definitely the winner for me in this bunch. It’s hitting film festivals at the moment, but let’s hope it get distribution soon.

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PRIME TIME: there’s something alien in the air

Posted on July 13, 2021 by Daniel

It started with an accidental alien addition to my watchlist that just seemed like a good sci-fi movie to watch with the hubby but ended up having a whole lot of horror in it. It only grew from there as I took Amazon recommendations for other films like that first flick. So which were the best in this bunch?

BREACH (2020)

If you miss the days of cable and video store Alien rip-off movies of the late 80s and early 90s, Breach will make you feel all kinds of nostalgic.

A space ship is carrying a team of people to a new planet to colonize it. As is always the case with these movies, we meet them all as they’re eating in the slop hall and exchanging jabs.

There’s a cute stowaway who reminded me of a young Treat Williams. Thomas Jane is the admiral of the ship. Bruce Willis is fucking awful as one of the team members—why he doesn’t just retire since he can’t seem to be bothered to act anymore is beyond me. And finally, horror hottie Johnny Messner is another team member.

Pretty quickly things get gory, someone turns into an “infected”, there’s an autopsy scene, team members begin to fear each other…. Nothing new here, but it’s got some gore, and the infected are fast runners and jumpers.

In essence, it’s mostly a cheesy, fast zombies in space movie with a boss battle at the end (think the video game Dead Space). It’s a good popcorn movie (I literally decided to make popcorn while watching it), especially since some scenes were unintentionally laughable, like a sudden, all-out brawl between humans and infected.

The final scene, while not top notch Hollywood budget stuff, adds an unexpected surprise to the otherwise formulaic plot.

ENCOUNTER (2018)

Early on, this film reminds me of Altered, an indie alien fave of mine. Hemsworth brother Luke plays a dude in a wheelchair who is out in the woods with his buddies when they see something crash to earth. They investigate and find a little pod smoking in a hole. So…they bring it home to his garage.

The film starts off pretty exciting. A tentacle comes out of the pod when Hemsworth is alone, and soon his whole outlook on life is changing, so he feels the need to get everyone in his life to befriend the pod.

Meanwhile, his buddies go to ask an old college professor for help…horror icon Tom Atkins. And…the government is coming to look for the pod.

I wish the movie remained as good as it sounds. It falls into a cycle of Hemsworth convincing people to befriend the pod to see what he experienced and them all becoming fans. The pod and tentacle effects are cool, there some other effects that are not, and the conclusion is a little bizarre and open for interpretation if you’re into that sort of thing.

BEYOND THE SKY (2018)

I could see an alien movie blog post formulating as I found this one as a recommend on the page for Encounter, and when I saw Dee Wallace listed in the cast, I knew I had to add it to my watchlist immediately.

I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised that Dee is only in it for about three minutes so we could all say, “Hey, it’s E.T.’s mom in an alien movie!”

Beyond the Sky kind of feels like someone watched all the classic alien abduction films (Communion, The Fourth Kind, Fire in the Sky, etc.) and hit all the same plot points, with the difference being the focus in this film is on a guy making a movie with his friend to prove alien abduction is fake.

They go to the Roswell area. They interview supposed abductees. They go to a support group for abductees. They go to a convention for believers, which is where they meet Dee. They team up with a girl to do their investigating.

And finally, they go into the desert at night and things start to get weird for them. Still, most of this film’s time is spent on inexplicable lost time (self-fulfilling anyone?).

Good news is there is an abduction, a trip to a spaceship, and an encounter with aliens before all is said and done. But oddly, it almost feels out of place considering the rest of the movie is so grounded in…well, what’s happening on the ground.

INTERPRETERS (2019)

How is this for dedication? I saw that the running time for this film was two hours and I still watched it. Of course that might be because it meant an unnecessary extra half hour of movie but a totally necessary 30 more minutes of horror hunk Ace Marrero.

Ace is a special agent that discovers a massacre of some military men while in the desert…and is then told by his leaders that he made the whole thing up. So he moves to a small town to get away from life…but murder follows him.

Interpreters plays out sort of like a slasher mystery, with a guy in black and what we at first assume is a creepy mask slowly killing off people in the community. The sheriff suspects Ace since he’s the new guy in town, so Ace has to do some investigating to find out the truth, all while experiencing weird visions or flashbacks.

There are signs that there’s something more sinister, more government conspiracy, and perhaps more alien than what’s happening on the surface. The problem is Interpreters has an interesting concept that simply isn’t presented concisely enough—everything drags on and just muddies the waters while filling in the time between the limited number of kills. Truly, the film would have benefited from some editing.

Not to mention, although the final act is a fun, chaotic gun battle out in the dark at night, basically the film does nothing to expose us enough to the whole rather cool point, which is simply explained by an “alien” within five minutes near the end. I say alien in quotes because we can only assume this is an alien situation because it’s never quite clearly defined as such. Honestly, I found this film very hard to follow.

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