Modeling can be murder

Posted on June 9, 2020 by Daniel

It’s a double feature of pretty women falling victim to psychotic, artistic men as I take on Playgirl Killer and Double Exposure.

PLAYGIRL KILLER (1967)

I had to revisit this one because it was an oldie I watched on TV with my mom in the 1970s and remembered only two things about it—Neil Sedaka’s small role that includes performing an entire song, and the big body reveal scene.

 

Watching again I see why I didn’t remember much. It’s fairly boring until the macabre final act, and it also doesn’t have a main girl.

It’s one of those films in which the protagonist is the killer, making it hard to be scared for the poor women he murders since we know what’s about to happen each time and exactly when it’s going to happen.

The killer is an artist inspired by a dream he’s trying to recreate on a canvas.

But every damn woman that models for him moves while posing, ruining his work and pushing him to kill his subject.

Conveniently he takes a job as a handyman for a rich woman, and easy women just keep showing up at her door for him to seduce and kill.

The kills are tame, and the jazzy score is horribly 1960s. But the last few scenes deliver some good horror moments (for its day), and the zinger ending is delicious.

I do think this could easily have been compressed into a 30-minute episode of Tales from the Crypt and been better paced and more effective. The mere fact that there are two more full songs performed by other artists tells you all you need to know about the excess padding to make this an 85-minute movie.

DOUBLE EXPOSURE (1982)

Double Exposure is like The Eyes of Laura Mars with a male lead (The Eyes of Larry Mars?). It opens with a streetwalker being followed by killer POV (ah, the innocence of 80s horror) before being stabbed. There’s even a little surprise at the end of the scene.

Our main photographer is oddly intimate with his brother, who is missing a couple of limbs…

And yet, they make derogatory comments towards a gay guy that enters his trailer home.

Not surprisingly, considering the year the movie came out, this gay guy isn’t treated well by anyone. But he self-identifies as a perfectly normal gay person and comes right back at the homophobes. Awesome.

The film has some nice and sleazy kills with female nudity as the photographer has one nightmare after another about killing sexy women, often in unique ways. But it’s not all just in his dreamland, because women are actually getting killed and there are detectives on the case.

There’s also an exploitative scene in which the brother mud wrestles with a woman in a bikini at a Chippendales type club. Again…ah, the innocence of 80s horror.

And I do believe that’s Nick the Dick from Bachelor Party…

Unfortunately, the movie begins to drag for a while before we finally discover if the photographer is just dreaming or if he’s really a killer.

 

 

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The War of the Worlds vs. War of the Worlds

Posted on June 8, 2020 by Daniel

The H.G. Wells novel that grew to infamy thanks to an Orson Welles radio broadcast was made into a movie in 1953, and again by the one and only Steven Spielberg in 2005. The big question is, in a world so divided and hateful today, would we even be able to come together to fight aliens to save our own planet? Probably not considering a good chunk of us isn’t even interested in saving our planet as it quickly dies already. Anyway, time to take on this double feature.

THE WAR OF THE WORLDS (1953)

A long narration opens the film, filling us in as to why the Martians have come to earth. So awesome that this is so old school they call them Martians. Then we meet locals in a town as they witness something streaking down to earth nearby.

In this predominantly Caucasian movie, the one poor Latino guy gets zapped because he makes the mistake of sticking around with two dumb white guys that just stand and watch as something hatches from the large object. A sort of telescope space ship comes out and shoots its lasers at them, turning them to dust. Great way to start a film.

And then in comes the military. Blah. So much of this film focuses on the military, making much of it boring. However, it should be noted that a priest with a God complex approaches the alien while holding up a Bible like he’s the man (foreshadowing Trump over 60 years ago), but all that dipshit manages to do is piss off an alien ship, so it zaps him and then the all the alien ships rise up and open fire on everyone. How poetic…religion started the war.

In the one truly fantastic scene, the leading man and woman hide out in a house only to have the aliens come in looking for them. After some great use of shadow, we get to see a freaky looking alien.

Time flashes forward, there’s an arrogantly American plot point about the White House and DC being the only places still immune from the alien invasion, and then everyone gathers in church to pray away the aliens. Ugh. How 1953.

Despite God getting credit for the ridiculously easy way the aliens are conquered, they suddenly just drop dead because they can’t handle our planet’s bacteria. That’s science, not God.

WAR OF THE WORLDS (2005)

Only someone like Steven Spielberg would have the power to fix everything wrong with the original and create a suspenseful two-hour film that is virtually a chase scene from beginning to end.

Naturally, Morgan Freeman is the narrator in this one. But he’s not God.

In a blue collar neighborhood ripe with symbols of American patriotism, Tom Cruise is spending the weekend with his two kids when lightning strikes the earth in various places, causing huge jellyfish spaceships to rise from the ground and begin frying the fuck out of fleeing people. They also destroy a church. I’d say God bless the aliens, but, you know, aliens are our god, we just haven’t figured it out yet.

So begins the chase with Tom, his teen son, and little Dakota Fanning as his daughter. The goal is to get to the house of his ex-wife’s parents (played by the leading man and lady from the original!).

One great scene after another unfolds as they hide from aliens and fight off desperate humans that are also trying to survive. But it wouldn’t be Spielberg if every dangerous situation didn’t conveniently work in the favor of his lead family.

Along with a load of new sequences in which Tom, not the military, kicks alien ass, Spielberg brings us a tight update of the home invasion scene. But I have to say…the aliens in the original movie are freakier!

 

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Ghosts and gays in Savannah

Posted on June 5, 2020 by Daniel


If you’re a fan of haunted house stories and scary movies and are looking for a gothic read with a gay protagonist, the upcoming short novel 324 Abercorn by Mark Allan Gunnells checks every box.

The story focuses on Brad, a horror author who moves into a house in Savannah, Georgia, which is where the true crime story behind Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil is set (so naturally the novel and its famous drag queen are mentioned).

Soon after his arrival, Brad meets Bias, a haunted locations tour guide, and they soon begin dating in a bit of a May/December situation, which is handled playfully.

This is very much a romance with the ghost story as the backdrop. The novel also paints a modest picture of the historic city and some of its gay nightlife. Yet with all its attention to detail, it surprisingly features the protagonist and his black female friend going specifically to a Paula Deen restaurant without making any references to her problematic, racist comments! What can I say—these are sensitive times, so I had to point that out.

As for the ghostly aspects, the novel gives nods to plenty of classic horror films, both with name dropping by the characters and in the supernatural occurrences the characters experience. For instance, the house was built on a burial ground, there are the sounds of footsteps, moving items, mysterious noises, a visit from paranormal researchers, and even a cat scare! So dare I say horror fans will feel right at home?

As with Gunnells’ other novels I’ve read and covered on Boys, Bears & Scares, 324 Abercorn is a light, easy read, ideal for a day at the beach…if the beaches actually open this season. Check out Mark’s photographic journey through the setting of the book on his site.

Check out my blogs about Mark’s other fiction as well:

I interview him here.

I cover his novella Fort here.

I look at his slasher novel Sequel here.

And I cover his zombie novella Asylum here.

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Zombies that go for the brain…and heart

Posted on June 4, 2020 by Daniel

It’s been a while since I sunk my teeth into a really juicy zombie film with the hubby, so it was time to feast on these two features. Turns out both Redcon-1 and Blood Quantum deliver munching, meaning, a message, emotion, and men that are non- white as heroes. Let’s take a look.

REDCON-1 (2018)

Running a whopping two hours long, Redcon-1 goes from an action-packed military mission movie that plays out like a video game to a character-driven social commentary that is eerily timely, reflecting much of what is going on in this country right now.

The plot is familiar—military team is sent into a quarantined zone to rescue a scientist believed to be able to cure the virus.

As the team kicks zombie ass to a rockin’ soundtrack, there’s plenty of blood, cognitive zombies, and man bods on display. Quite a hunky cast.

The battles are fantastically choreographed and visually thrilling, but it does all become a bit repetitive, so of course I’ll say that the film could have been shortened. However, just when things begin to lose steam…

The focus shifts to the black leader of the team and the little white girl he forms a bond with and swears to protect until the bitter end, all while contending with turncoats on his own team and rogue gangs fighting over the territory they’ve claimed.

The finale echoes the current state of affairs in the U.S.—there’s infection everywhere, but the real threat to society is the white man in power. And that’s when the revolt begins.

BLOOD QUANTUM (2019)

 

Blood Quantum is another socially conscious film that has a lot going on—maybe too much.

We meet major players on an Indian reservation, including a sheriff and his sons, who begin to discover something is very wrong.

Members of the community are starting to get attacked and bitten by people that have turned into zombies!

It’s a tight little zombie outbreak film, with crazed zombies, loads of great gore, suspense, and scares. And then…

We jump ahead 6 months. Now the zinger plot point comes forth. The outbreak has spread, and for unknown reasons the Native Americans on the reserve are immune to it.

They make their land a fortress to keep threats out (including the white man), and they have to decide whether or not they should risk allowing those seeking refuge to come in.

It’s a refreshing, thought-provoking plot, but it’s barely established when they leave their community to scavenge for supplies, making a long stretch of this film feel like many of the other zombie films out there.

However, there are plenty of other aspects to the film, for it juggles exploration of family issues, moral dilemmas, some oddly Tarantino-esque flashbacks, and even animated moments.

The pacing was a little slow to me, and I felt the goal of addressing serious subjects concerning Native American life got lost in the zombie shuffle for a while before the ending brought back the humanity at the heart of the story.

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STREAM QUEEN: there are boys and bears, but are these horror comedies funny?

Posted on June 3, 2020 by Daniel

They all have some man meat and at least a couple of laughs, but three of these horror comedies dragged on with plodding dialogue, while the fourth one was nonstop action and humor. Let’s take a look.

CORPSE (2019)

Based on clips on the internet, I thought this black and white, 70-minute movie might be a campy queer film about a gathering of gays that gets drunk and wakes up to find a dead body on the floor.

Now that would have been a movie. Unfortunately, these guys gather after one of them breaks up with his girlfriend. Ugh! They’re straight. If they hadn’t referenced girls I would not really have known.

Sooooo…this is not a horror comedy. These guys sit around and talk about relationships for about half the film, then wake up, find a dead body on the floor…and talk about that for the second half of the film.

The guys are cute and some of their reactions are funny at times, but mostly nothing happens and there’s not enough humor. And while the music is reminiscent of sixties horror movie scores, It always seems to be poorly implemented both in timing and intensity.

SUBFERATU (2020)

If you’re going to make a horror comedy that is virtually all dialogue (which you shouldn’t), it has to be funny dialogue. Sitting through one lackluster script was bad enough, but Subferatu was like watching Corpse all over again.

A group of boaters not unlike the cast of Gilligan’s Island ends up on a Nazi ship from the past when their boat sinks, and eventually discovers there’s a vampire on board. Again—sounds like a plot ripe for comedy.

Instead, the two captains have a verbal standoff…and then everyone talks and talks and talks.

One guy discovers the vampire on the ship and is apparently bitten, because in between all the talking he pops up as a vamp for a split second (53 minutes into the movie) but is immediately taken down by the crew.

There’s another scene that’s visually thrilling of a guy being approached by the vampire, and eventually everyone stops talking long enough to splash holy water on a vampire.

That’s it. That’s all the vampire action you get in this one. The cast does what it can with the material to make us laugh, but the material doesn’t support them back.

PSYCHO-THERAPY (2020)

Only the final 20 minutes save this 70-minute movie from being another all talk, no action or laughs horror comedy.

I can’t imagine why the last twenty minutes wasn’t used as the plot for the entire movie. Hey, I get character development, but for 50 minutes we listen to a variety of patients speaking with their therapist: a wife beater, a throuple, a guy afraid of a clown, a lesbian and her sexually confused girlfriend, etc.

Finally, the therapist takes the patients on a group therapy retreat. Within minutes all hell breaks loose. Yay! And this crazy bitch totally steals the show.

She reminds me of funny actress Edie McClurg, who was in Elvira: Mistress of the Dark and played Nurse DeFarge on an episode of The Golden Girls.

There’s an absolute bloodbath as the patients start hacking each other to pieces. I really can’t imagine how the writer overlooked the potential of weaving their mental backstories into the group therapy sessions at the retreat house—which would have created interpersonal tensions to serve as a catalyst to a full-length slasher.

There are also some beefy boys, and yes, the clown does show up, but his minuscule appearance doesn’t support his use on the poster art.

GIRLS WITH BALLS (2018)

I’ve saved the best for last. If you’re looking for a bloody good backwoods time with plenty of humor, Girls With Balls is a the perfect choice, and it’s available on Netflix both in French and very well dubbed in English.

This campy girl power film isn’t, however, much of a “horror” film. A female volleyball team and its beary coach stop at a lodge for the night and immediately have a bad encounter with the skeevy dude running it.

They leave and park in their RV for the night, but when they wake up, the lodge dude and his group of masked rednecks is waiting to chase them down through the woods…using guns.

Yes, a majority of the gore revolves around people getting body parts shot off. The very funny interactions of the girls and the macabre humor rock, however, the girls do eventually have to resort to melee weapons to do damage.

The film is fast-paced, there’s a “Greek chorus” cowboy dude singing ditties about the action taking place, a hilarious scene in which “YMCA” ignites gay passion (landing this one on my does the gay guy die? page), and a slapstick dog vs. man fight that shouldn’t even bother the most sensitive dog lovers because it’s so goofy and over the top.

The film doesn’t even try to explain the motivations of the baddies, although they do appear to be some sort of religious cult, but it doesn’t even matter, because it’s more about the girls as they step up their game to kick ass…with the help of their beary coach, who totally rox.

To put these four films into perspective, this film is actually the longest of the bunch, yet it felt like it flew by.

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A foursome of Asian horror flicks

Posted on May 29, 2020 by Daniel

There’s a variety of monster insanity to be found in this quadruple feature of Asian horror films. So let’s get a little glimpse at what you can expect if you dare to check them out.

MONSTRUM (2018)

Monstrum was getting some hype on social, and I’m always looking for a good monster movie my horror-lite  hubba hubba can appreciate as well, so I gave this one a try.

He liked it better than I did.

Mostly because I didn’t like it.

It takes 35 minutes of talk for a group to organize a hunt for a giant monster that is supposedly infecting people in the kingdom. Even some slapstick comedy couldn’t keep me engaged.

The monster finally attacks 49 minutes in, and I’ve seen better cutscenes in a video game.

It’s just sad that this form of special effects is the norm these days and people think it’s cool. The monster looks absurd, tossed bodies look like cartoons, and as always, the programmers can’t manage to keep the size of the creature consistent. I guess on the bright side it looks cool when it’s not moving.

The battle with the beast at the end is definitely action-packed and entertaining. It would have to be since that’s really all this movie with a thin plot and basic characters is going for.

MON MON MON MONSTERS (2017)

Either this film is terribly mismarketed or I totally misread the marketing. I got the impression it was going to be one of those fun and campy Asian teen horror flicks.

Instead, it’s quite reminiscent of the repulsive concept of the film Deadgirl. After we’re introduced to a pair of cannibalistic humanoid underground girls (CHUGs?) we meet our main boy, who is terribly bullied by his shitty classmates while his teacher stands by and does nothing about it…until she forces him to spend time alone with them to learn how to get along.

After terrorizing the elderly, they see one of the girl humanoids get hit by a car, so they abduct her and then continuously torture her.

Sure the movie might be trying to show us that humans are the real monsters, but there is no redeeming value to any character here. It’s no fun when your moral compass is forced to choose between man-eating monsters and sadistic adolescents.

It’s unfortunate, because the CHUGs are terrifying. Yet…I sided with them in the end. It was just so satisfying when the free one comes to save the captured one and slaughters a school bus full of kids while she’s at it.

INHUMAN KISS (2019)

Asian horror film Inhuman Kiss will remind those who lived through the 1980s immediately of Mystics in Bali, because both films are about floating female heads.

However, most of the good head here is packed into the final act. This film runs a whopping 121 minutes (way too) long. Much of the movie is spent building a sort of love triangle along with the mythology of the Krasue, as these female heads are called.

A young woman who experienced something terrifying as a child is now working as a medic in a small town. She has a boyfriend and a close male friend who pines for her. Personally, I’d go for the pine scent…

Meanwhile, there is rumor of a Krasue running loose in the town and eating cattle. Hunters come to the town and offer to help hunt her down.

Because of what the main girl experienced as a child, she and her two male friends become drawn into the terror that is gripping the town, and both boys are determined to do anything they can to keep her safe. It really is a love story at…um…heart.

We see very little of the Krasue for most of the film, but the mythology gets even more complex at the end with insane mythological male monsters suddenly appear on the scene. They’re sort of flying demon creatures and they’re awesome, delivering some wild monster wars in the sky.

But be warned. This is a heartbreaking love story in the end, giving it more depth than your usual horror flick.

O.O MHz (2020)

Blend teen horror with Asian hair horror like The Ring and possession films like The Exorcist, and you have this time waster. To me it also brought to mind the Fatal Frame survival horror video games.

There’s absolutely nothing new here, but if you’re itching for some Asian horror and can’t get enough of ghost and/or possession films, you’ll probably enjoy it.

A ghost hunting group of kids called 0.0 MHz goes to an abandoned village where a girl was killed in a house…and then an exorcist was killed in the house.

Their plan is to do an experiment involving the interaction between dreams and ghosts, so they perform a ritual with dolls to channel the ghost. What they get is a ghost girl that drags them underground with her CGI hair. The hair effects are really cheesy.

The one refreshing twist is that when it’s time for an exorcism, which includes levitation, puking, and head spins (the usual), not only is one of the girls possessed, but so is the exorcist! Nice.

There are also some bad CGI ghouls, like a weird demon bird and a witchy floating face, but this film is mostly just a retread of classic Asian horror from two decades ago.

 

 

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SHUDDER & SHRIEK: four sleek and stylized slashers

Posted on May 27, 2020 by Daniel

From throwbacks to thought-provoking, this Shudder selection hit my watchlist just when I was really in need of a good slasher fix. So which ones did the trick?

PARTY HARD, DIE YOUNG (2020)

This German language film is available in an English dubbed version on Shudder if you don’t feel like reading.

The director of Attack of the Lederhosen Zombies brings us a slasher with a post-Scream era feel that’s loaded with horror lighting, pretty people, some man butt, and dance music (including a cover of the Gigi D’Agostino classic “I’ll Fly With You”). It’s also so derivative that even one of the kids references their dilemma as an I Know What You Did Last Summer situation.

A group of friends is away at a party island when a masked killer begins picking them off one by one. As the friends wonder where their missing friends are, the main girl keeps getting texted pics of the missing friends with an X through their faces.

There are a couple of suspenseful scenes and some brutal gore, but there aren’t actually many kills before the killer faces off against all the survivors, so this really doesn’t satisfy much as a slasher.

It’s not even much of a whodunit, even though it tries to throw numerous red herring into the mix. Plus, there are way too many details glossed over that demand way too much suspension of disbelief.

There is some gay stuff. Early on it’s derogatory “fag” slinging, but right before the end there’s a pointless coming out that isn’t even used as a plot device during the film, not even to shine suspicion on the character. Leave it up to the gay to make the slasher all about him at the last second. It does land this one on my does the gay guy die? page.

***WARNING SPOILERS*** There is also a non-explicit, double anal rape with a bottle.

RUIN ME (2017)

Ruin Me had me right up until the end. A couple joins a “slasher sleepout weekend” in the woods. A small group of people is dumped in the middle of nowhere after signing a waiver and then gets to experience living (or dying) in a backwoods slasher. The final guy or girl takes all.

The group includes a big geek, a goth couple, and a bearded cute guy. Of course everyone has issues, including the main girl, but they mostly work cooperatively at first. There are some tits, furry man chest, and some cheap masked killer scares. My kind of movie.

But then the main girl starts to believe they’re really being chased and killed off. Of course no one believes her…until it’s too late. Shit gets crazy for a while with some good slashing action, and even goes into Saw style, self-serving decision dilemmas.

I can’t say which movie, but as the film nears the end it did what I feared it was going to do—it uses the twist from an absolute classic 1980s slasher. And because any slasher fan will see it coming from a mile away, it tries to undo the twist, but that effort falls totally flat, making for a bland denouement. Even so, the fun part was super fun while it lasted, which was almost until the end…

THE FURIES (2019)

This movie is an example of why I usually like my slashers to be mindless, simplistic fun. They can be clever and have some twists (for instance here, where each girl is being chased by a different killer), but when they try too hard to be totally unique or more complex than the usual, I just get a headache.

The good—a bunch of girls is dumped in the woods to be chased by a load of freaky-assed killers, and the practical gore effects are bloody awesome. The entire movie dares to take place in full daylight with that washed out look where only very few colors—like blood red—stand out in contrast to the bright whites and dark blacks.

Also, the girls don’t fuck around as they go from working with each other to turning on each other—whatever it takes to kill their killers.

The plot is the nightmare. I don’t want to give too much away, but what is so annoying to me is how ridiculously capable the main girl is of figuring out exactly what is going on and how to take down the powers that put her and the other innocent women in this position to begin with. Hell, she figures it out better than I did, because I was left with plenty of questions when it was all over.

LAKE BODOM (2016)

Inspired by actual killings of teens in a tent in 1960, this one initially sounds like it’s going for a basic Friday the 13th plot. But there’s no masked killer, and it quickly becomes more complicated when it focuses on only 2 guys and 2 girls camping at the scene of the crime, with the boys determined to recreate how the original murders could have happened.

As we get the sense someone is watching them in the woods, we learn the main girl went through something traumatic, so she seriously has trust issues. She begins to think all three of her friends are up to no good.

And then the killing begins. With so few characters it’s hard to imagine how the movie is going to fill the time. So naturally, it has to go off the rails! Just when you think shit is going in a High Tension direction, it takes another completely exhausting turn. There are definitely a lot of detours in order for this film to avoid being a straightforward slasher…which it would be without all the turns since it circles right back to where it was originally heading! Does that make any sense?

While there’s excessive exposition, there’s not much in the way of gore, and not much in the way of scares or suspense, yet Lake Bodom is still atmospheric and entertaining. Not entertaining enough that I’d ever feel the need to watch it again, though.

Yes, I know. I have mixed emotions about this one.

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Aliens, demons, clowns, and killers

Posted on May 26, 2020 by Daniel

This foursome of films has a little bit of everything, from 80s throwback vibes to sequels. So let’s get into my impressions of Rim of the World, Prey, Hell House LLC 3, and Cry Havoc.

RIM OF THE WORLD (2019)

The director of The Babysitter nails the 1980s Steven Spielberg vibe of kids vs. aliens with this gem.

A young boy is dropped off at summer camp, meets the funny and raunchy counselors, including a mullet muscle head who makes his tits bounce, and then has a run-in with a quiet Asian girl, a pretty white boy, and a funny black kid in the woods.

And that is when all he’ll breaks loose. There are explosions, an air battle, and the kids end up with the key to saving the planet. They set out on a journey to bring it to a scientist as they are relentlessly chased by a couple of cool alien creatures.

It’s thrilling, suspenseful, funny, has cool effects, and all the kids are excellent. The soundtrack includes Devo, Ginuwine, and Nelly, and the sweeping score is right out of 80s Spielberg. There are even what appear to be homages to Jurassic Park, The Breakfast Club, and other faves of the 80s and 90s.

And while the film has an E.T. style family feel and an uplifting ending, there’s plenty of dirty humor to satisfy dirty adults.

PREY (2019)

The director of P2, Maniac remake, and Amityville: The Awakening brings us what feels somewhat like a white male version of that Netflix movie Sweetheart about a black female trapped on an island with a killer creature.

After his father is murdered, the jerk friend from the gay film Love, Simon is sent on a therapeutic retreat. He’s dumped off on an uninhabited island by himself to reflect. WTF?

Problems start right away…for viewers. He has nightmares about the masked guys who killed his dad, which should be impossible since he wasn’t there when his dad was murdered and wouldn’t know it was masked guys. Argh.

There’s an early accident involving him being cut by a mask underwater that seems like it will play a major part in the plot, but it’s never referenced again.

Instead, nothing happens for a majority of the film beyond him exploring the island and meeting a girl who is also trapped on the island.

67 minutes in we finally see what is pursuing him. The story of its origin is unique, and the battle in the final act at last delivers some fun, but this is mostly a disappointing film. Although, the final jump scare is cheesy good.

HELL HOUSE LLC III: LAKE OF FIRE (2019)

Bummer. In trying to sum up the story of this found footage franchise, this installment becomes a convoluted mess dealing with religion and the afterlife, while padding even promising scary scenes with flashes of similar moments in the previous films.

This time a rich guy buys the hotel before it can be demolished and wants to do a production of Faust in it.

As the group rehearses and sets up for the October 1st opening, a ghost hunting show team is also on hand. There’s also a gay crew member, the most significant inclusion of a gay character in the series yet, so this one lands on my does the gay guy die? page.

The clown is back for old times’ sake in one creepy scene. Other than that, the cast is terrorized by ghosts of people from the previous films.

Even the ending is just a rehash of the panicked emergency evacuation from the first film. There are very few moments that cause the kind of fear and anxiety the first two films do.

CRY HAVOC (2020)

Cry Havoc is the fourth movie in the Playing with Dolls series, which was later renamed as Metalface. I am a big fan of the series, which was loaded with jump scares and extreme practical gore effects.

This installment is very different. Usually, Richard Tyson lures celebrity wannabes to a house on his isolated complex under the guise of appearing on a reality show. They are really there to be hunted down by a Jason type killer.

Each film has an abrupt, inconclusive ending, yet the next sequel never picks up where the last one left off. The same goes here, so I imagine this isn’t the final film in the franchise.

This installment tries to finally explain some stuff. A reporter comes to interview Tyson because he is one of the FBI’s most wanted. Their conversation is loaded with flashbacks to previous kills in the series, which is more horror than you actually get from this entry, although there are a few jaw-dropping kills…

This film focuses on Charles Bronson lookalike JD Angstadt as the hero, which makes this feel more like…well, a Charles Bronson movie. There’s a lot of shootouts in the woods between Angstadt and the guards on the complex. There are also a lot of females tied up to trees with their tits exposed, but it just doesn’t deliver much of a plot.

While the series is hard to get in physical format (only the first is available on disc in the U.S.), I would buy this one if they were all released just to complete the collection, but I do hope there’s another film to redeem the series.

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Holiday horror buffet

Posted on May 22, 2020 by Daniel

Mother’s Day, Halloween, Christmas, New Year’s Eve. Most of them land on my holiday horror movies page, but do any of these four films do the holiday horror genre justice? Let’s take a look.

DELIVERED (2020)

Like man installments of Hulu’s Into The Dark horror movie series, Delivered isn’t specifically about a holiday. It’s simply the May 2020 “Mother’s Day” installment because it’s about a pregnant woman. Sigh.

Instead of Delivered it should have been called Derivative. If you’ve never seen a thriller about a woman trying to steal another woman’s baby or a film about a lunatic holding someone captive, you might be enthralled by this one. It’s Misery meets The Hand That Rocks The Cradle.

The only element of interest is that a black pregnant woman is abducted by a white woman and kept on a chain, which indirectly touches upon race issues.

As if the film realizes how uninspired it is and how badly it lacks suspense, it is riddled with “scary” dream sequences. Yawn. There’s even newspaper clippings to explain everything. Double yawn.

And in case you’re wondering, yes, there is a hobbling scene.

EXTRACURRICULAR (2019)

Somehow this dark thriller manages to be utterly boring for almost an hour before delivering a devious, violent final act.

The opener with a cabin in the woods and masked figures sets a suspenseful tone…and then we meet the teenagers responsible for the murder and watch them spend almost an hour just plotting their next kill.

Luke Goss plays the sheriff on the case, and while he looks great in uniform, his investigation slows the film down even more. I mean, we know who the killers are, so he’s not discovering anything of interest to us!

Even the kids announcing they will do the next kill on Halloween night is not used to the film’s advantage.

Other than them picking out masks to wear and a barely noticeable pumpkin on a shelf at one point, there is no Halloween atmosphere whatsoever.

Movies like this always bug me because it’s impossible to be scared for characters we only get to know as victims as they’re terrorized by people we’ve gotten to know as the totally unlikable protagonists.

However, once The Strangers style home invasion begins, things quickly spiral out of control, making the final act an unexpected thrill ride. If only the first hour of the film had been even half as compelling.

DEADLY GAMES (1989)

This French Christmas film from the end of the 80s is the gift that keeps giving. It’s like Spielberg fused Silver Spoons and Home Alone into a Christmas horror movie.

As an “Eye of the Tiger” rip-off plays, we meet a little survivalist/computer whiz kid who lives in a winter wonderland of a mansion, dresses like Rambo, and creates booby traps to catch his dog for fun.

His mother is a hugely successful retail business woman. She leaves him alone with his feeble grandfather during the Christmas rush at the mall. But when she fires a man dressed as a mall Santa, he seeks revenge…by going to her mansion to terrorize her kid.

Amazing set pieces and visual style make this an oddly magical horror thriller.

But despite the focus being on a kid, the film is notably vicious…beginning with a horrible scene when the home invading Santa meets the dog.

This full-length home invasion/cat and mouse chase flick is filled with suspense and Christmas spirit. It’s also amazing how the kid’s usage of his computer and message boards was so cutting edge at the time, making that aspect of the film virtually contemporary if you overlook the 1980s style computer screen.

As an added bonus, this classic features a battle prep montage set to a fricking Bonnie Tyler Christmas song.

 

THE NIGHT OF THE VIRGIN (2016)

It takes a long time for this Spanish New Year’s Eve dark horror gross out comedy to get going. Losing at least 15 of its 100-minute length could have fixed the pacing problem. That said, the unfolding events are wonderfully unique and challenge everything we’ve learned about gender roles in horror films.

A geeky dude at a New Year’s Eve party (where there’s some awesome new wave playing, btw) is determined to lose his virginity. So when he meets an older woman, he goes home with her.

Remember that episode of Friends when Ross was dating that girl with a filthy apartment? This is ten times worse, beginning immediately with the cockroaches. I can’t imagine any guy would be horny enough to overlook cockroaches…or the bathroom that looks like something out of Saw.

A long stretch of the film establishes that she’s weird and into feminist mythology, and that he is a desperate virgin who will put up with some crazy and disgusting shit to get laid.

When a guy comes knocking at the apartment door, the trouble really starts for our poor, awkward geek. I was reminded of the French film Inside…if it were a skanky, sleazy exploitation horror comedy told from the perspective of a guy.

There’s some nasty shit going on here as everything spins out of control, and as if the visual ick isn’t enough, the squishy sound effects amplify the yuck.

I was really entertained by the final act, from the gay guys fucking a floor above (who call the main guy a faggot–and also land this one on my does the gay guy die? page) to a sequence that will make every guy’s dick go into hiding. And make sure to look for the tag scene halfway through the end credits.

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Black magic, the occult, and pentagrams

Posted on May 19, 2020 by Daniel

If you’re in the mood for some dark, demonic horror and spell casting scares, you might find what you’re looking for in a couple of films in this foursome: Antrum: The Deadliest Film Ever Made, Pentagram, Black Magic, and Red Handed. Here’s what you can expect from each of them.

ANTRUM: THE DEADLIEST FILM EVER MADE (2019)

This one creates its own legend of infamy in the first few minutes, which plays out as a mockumentary delving into the mythology of the film Antrum—it was a film made in the 1970s, but was pulled from theaters because anyone who viewed it met a horrible fate.

At last it has been unearthed, and we are warned ahead of time that those releasing it refuse to take any responsibility for anything that happens to us after we view it.

Built in novelty paranoia aside, I found the film to be quite creepy and disturbingly relatable.

It’s about a boy whose dog is put to sleep, leading to him having nightmares about a horned beast.

He’s convinced his dog’s soul has gone to hell, so his older sister treks into the woods with him to do a ritual that involves digging a hole to release the dog’s soul.

While the film is a slow burn, the atmosphere is quite unnerving, with the pair experiencing frightening occurrences in the woods—like demons stalking them.

It really captures that occult eeriness of 1970s horror, feeling almost like a drug trip at times, and psyching us out with grainy footage of a devil just staring at the camera and pentagrams flashing on the screen periodically.

Most importantly, the little boy is very reminiscent of the unforgettable bowl cut boy from Euro horror flicks of the 80s like The House by the Cemetery and Manhattan Baby.

PENTAGRAM (2019)

Thieves hide out in a house where they become trapped in a pentagram. If they step out of the circle, an overlaid clip of a burning demon comes to slice them open with a scythe. This same scenario plays out twice in the movie and that’s the only horror we get.

Other than that, the four thieves spend their time using belts and clothes to fetch essential items outside the circle.

Remember when the Brady Bunch got stuck in an old prison cell and had to fish for the key on a peg across the room? Yeah, it’s that.

Shirtless guy aside, I would just advise skipping this one. It’s quite boring and rather annoying because every time someone is booted from the pentagram, they just wait for the demon to come get them. I simply don’t understand why they don’t just jump back into the damn pentagram.

BLACK MAGIC (2018)

If you like Asian horror like The Ring and contemporary haunting films like The Conjuring, this witchcraft movie is a tight blend of both.

A man takes his family to see his sick and delusional mother.

After some effective supernatural incidents with grandma terrifying the kids, she ends up in the hospital, and the wife begins having spells in which she sees or is attacked by a witchy ghost woman.

Soon the daughters are also experiencing the horror, and the family members begin turning on each other as the witchy ghost woman amps up her reign of terror.

It was all a little too basic tween horror for me, but it does have some great atmosphere and “scary” stuff to make those who are more jumpy…well…jump.

RED HANDED (2019)

Michael Biehn and Michael Madsen may get top billing, but this movie is about three hot brothers who come to a small town after their father’s death. The gym bunny brother even shows off his T&A within the first few minutes.

Hey, I could watch these hunky men for 90 minutes straight without a problem, but damn is this movie boring. Like….Midsommar boring.

There’s lots of talking and introductions to odd locals, including redneck dudes and women who like to wear flowing white dresses. We just wait and wait for something to happen. Finally, the young son of one of the brothers is kidnapped and the hunt is on at about 55 minutes into the film.

Naturally the hunt leads to a sacrificial occult ritual. I found nothing exciting or scary about this indie take on the Midsommar/Wicker Man concept.

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