Back to the days of survival horror inspired by J-horror movies

Posted on August 20, 2024 by Daniel

Kuon is reminiscent of Fatal Frame, with a female character wandering Asian architectural structures while being attacked by ghosts and other creepy, angry entities, but instead of fighting with a camera, you use magic and a melee weapon. The game is also a bit more cartoonish looking, and therefore more reminiscent of games from the PS1 era.

Most notable is that you play through the entire game by completing three different phases, each with a different character, with none of your inventory carrying over to the next character, and with only slightly different experiences. For the most part it’s pretty typical survival horror—fight enemies, collect items, read notes, solve puzzles, run back and forth a lot, etc.

YIN PHASE

The magic adds something a little different, with magic cards you gather serving as your “ammo”, and the different cards providing unique attacks. Some of the magic options are animals you conjure and just unleash on your enemies instead of fighting them yourself. Such an odd game. You also have the option of using melee weapons for one button and cards for the other. During the Yin phase you have various knife options for melee. Unfortunately, the magic combat is not very responsive and it doesn’t auto aim. You’ll find yourself throwing weapons such as fireballs in what you assume is a targeted line only to see the fire pass right by the enemy, plus each magic spell usage is prefaced with animation of your character igniting the magic, so instead of instantaneous attacks, there’s a delay when you try strike the enemy!

There are healing items, but you also can simply meditate by pressing R1, which totally chills you out. Note this also takes a moment of action from the character and you can be struck by enemies while in the process of meditating. You collect little boats to use for saves, which are a sort of stone/fire conglomeration by the edge of the water—it’s very calming when you watch your save boat float away. You actually can gather more of these save boats as well as health when you fight the most common enemy—an annoying little bald bugger that gloms onto you in between you taking swipes at him. If you kill any enemies with a final blow (hit them melee style while they’re down on the ground), they leave behind a little bonus item. Yay!

While not as atmospheric and suspenseful as Fatal Frame, the game does deliver some great jump scares, including hot spots of dark energy that give you a jolt. You can’t avoid them because you can’t see them, and they can also lead you to getting “vertigo”, causing everything to go fuzzy. You can’t use magic when you’re experiencing vertigo, but you can shake it off by meditating.

Opening doors requires using cloths designated with the symbols on those doors, which means tracking down the clothes before you can enter certain places to progress.

The problem with the enemies in this game is that most of them are just an annoyance, not scary. Whereas the ghosts in Fatal Frame are unique and freaky, these enemies are cheaply designed and have obnoxious attack patterns. As for bosses, they take tons of magic cards to kill.

Once you get to the underground tunnels in the later part of this phase, the game becomes more creepy and atmospheric. There’s even a frustrating segment in which you are plagued by a hallucinatory state, and everything is blurry and shaky.

After doing some other exploring and fighting back above ground, including a boss, you end up down below again in a maze of tunnels. And get this. You’d have no way of knowing this without a walkthrough, but while you’re busy following bloodstained floors on purpose, which are intended to steer you in the right direction, at one point you enter a room with a tiny puddle of blood in the middle, and if you step on it you get sucked in and it’s game over. WTF?

Soon after a little more exploring, there’s a very anti-climactic ending to this first part, with no boss battle. Just the way I like it.

YANG PHASE

Once you finish the first phase, it’s not as if you continue the game automatically. You completely finish the game and can then choose to play the Yang Phase as a new game.

With the second character, instead of knives, you have a hand fan as your melee weapon. I know it sounds ridiculous, but it does slice and dice enemies like the knife.

However, while this second playthrough is different in the order in which you do things, much of it features the same exact scenarios and puzzles in the same locations, mostly with only unique cut scenes as the major difference in the storyline for this phase. Even so, you seriously have to use a walkthrough, because there is rarely any clue as to what you’re supposed to do next. Many times you’ll be running from one end of the map to another even with the walkthrough.

There is one cool but really hard centipede lady boss in the Yang phase that isn’t in the Yin phase, and late in the game you encounter both an invincible ghost woman you just have to run away from and a gorilla creature that is very strong.

Soon after that there’s a terrifying moment when you have to look through the window of a hut, watch a huge Yeti beast until he leaves it, then run inside quickly and grab three items before he comes back. Unfortunately, seconds later he chases you in the woods! Eek! It is ridiculous how hard this game suddenly gets. He’s fast, he kicks your ass in seconds, and there’s limited space to run around him. You’ll need lots of health and lots of magic cards to take him down.

You end up underground again, and if you walk too far into one of the final rooms, which has a save in a door just to the right, you trigger a cutscene and then can’t access the save after it anymore! WTF? Moments later you encounter the invincible ghost again and must get around her to reach a door that ends this phase.

KUON PHASE

This is an extremely short phase just to tie up the loose ends of the story. With this character you simply cover some old sites again and eventually get to the tough final boss. Only thing I’ll say about this phase is that you get very few of those save boats, so make sure to hold onto one for the final save before the boss…which you’ll only find if you follow a walkthrough.

 

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Supernatural slayers

Posted on August 19, 2024 by Daniel

It’s a Jack in the box, the Djinn, and the boogeyman in this trio of indie horror flicks that had some cool killers.

THE JACK IN THE BOX RISES (2024)

Jack is back in this third installment of the Jack in the Box movies. He’s as creepy as ever and there are satisfying kills, and isn’t that all that really matters by the third film in an indie franchise?

This time around a young woman owes a lot of money and is offered a chance to make that debt go away in exchange for one thing…she has to find the Jack in the box.

Turns out it’s in an estate that has been turned into an all-girls school. So she goes undercover as a student so she can go on a Jack hunt in between classes. She immediately makes friends…and bullies.

It’s a pretty predictable plot as students and staff begin encountering Jack and getting killed.

Eventually the girls figure out what’s going on and have to come up with a plan to stop Jack. There’s a bit of a twist at the end to change things up rather than just have old Jack stalking everyone in another generic sequel. In general, this isn’t a series that needs to continue, but with such a cool killer I’d always come back for more.

STUPID GAMES (2024)

This simple little film is sort of predictable yet keeps you intrigued, has a spooky entity that creeps in slowly and promises some real scares later on, and even has a fresh, unique looking cast that stands out in the crowd of forgettable faces in the endless stream forgettable indie horror flicks that are pumped out these day. It definitely kept my interest, and it almost works. Almost.

Three girls invite three guys over for a dinner gathering. The girls insist there must be three guy, but one can’t make it, so the other two guys bring along the geeky handyman from their apartment building.

There are weird tensions between those in the group, and it quickly becomes obvious that something is up, so we watch events unfold in hopes of understanding why the girls invited these guys over. There are even a few early signs of something ominous in the apartment. Eek!

Then the group starts to play a board game that is a mix of all different games, from Truth or Dare to Fuck, Marry, Kill. This is where the movie slows down. The board game goes on and on until the evil is finally unleashed an hour in! Eventually it’s referred to as the Djinn in passing, almost like an afterthought.

And then comes the part in which a looooong video supernaturally plays on the television exposing what led up to this party in order to give viewers an understanding of the plot. It’s unrealistic how long the group just stands there watching the video without having any reaction to what is taking place on screen. A very awkward sequence.

Finally the creepy entity begins lurking in the shadows and coming for the characters as they are forced to continue the game, and it is briefly accompanied by a fantastic 80s style synth score. That should have been the vibe of the whole movie, which just ends up slightly missing the mark—and concludes with a very odd final moment that is not in keeping with the tone of the rest of the film at all. It felt to me like the plan was to make the geeky handyman the unlikely hero, sort of like an Evil Dead Bruce Campbell character, but that idea was scratched…except in that final frame.

BEWARE THE BOOGEYMAN (2024)

Despite running 110 minutes long, this film went by pretty fast, in part because the main entity in every story is the same ghoulish boogeyman, and he’s always surrounded by very 80s horror lighting and fog machines.

The wraparound features a doctor at a psychiatric hospital learning of the shared delusion of five patients. That delusion is the boogeyman, and it’s a good thing he’s creepy, because essentially each story is simple and similar.

The first story probably should have been the third story in order to break up the cookie cutter concept, because there’s a bit of a twist when the main girl brings a guy home to sleep with her because she’s afraid of the boogeyman in her closet.

The second story should have been the first story, because it’s basically just a warm-up and is also a shorter tale. A woman starts taking a new medication, and soon the boogeyman is haunting her paintings and her house.

The third story has a good horror vibe. After a robbery gone wrong, two brothers hide out in their deceased father’s house, and the one that feels really guilty about what they did is terrorized by the boogeyman.

The fourth story is my absolute favorite. A young woman meets up with a guy thinking they’re are going to be doing a ghost hunting show. Instead, he takes her to his home, where he wants to find proof that the boogeyman killed his wife. This is the longest tale, and if it had been a standalone story without us having been introduced to the boogeyman three times already, it would have made even more of an impact. If the filmmakers had opted to just do a full-length feature rather than an anthology, this story would have worked perfectly.

In the fifth story, a struggling drug addict is told by his mother that if he’s not good the boogeyman will get him. She should have kept her mouth shut. This was another goodie.

And finally, the wraparound offers a little twist of its own. I had fun with all three of these films, but I’d say this was my fave.

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PRIME TIME: I’ve been down these horror roads before

Posted on August 16, 2024 by Daniel

There was nothing new or original to see with my latest movie marathon, but there is some popcorn movie fun plus cheap thrills to be had with this trio.

DESERT SHADOWS (2022)

This odd little film is a creature feature with a hint of mystery, plenty of icky humanoid monster action, and an odd touch of campy horror now and then. If SyFy was still in the business of branding films as originals for its network, this could have been one of the better flicks in its roster.

A man in a desert wilderness enters a cave and is attacked by a giant creature that looks half alien and half praying mantis. Sure, it’s CGI, but it’s still also pretty cool.

That, however, is what makes this movie kind of confusing. This insectoid creature isn’t really the focus of the horror, gets very little screen time, and convolutes the actual plot.

The man from the desert gets away from the creature and believes it is what took his missing brother. He enlists the help of a college professor, who offers all kinds of conspiracy theories as to what the creature is.

As they investigate the mystery of the missing brother, they soon become embroiled with some freaky humanoid monsters.

Despite the film attempting to keep the truth of the matter mysterious and intriguing, this is a very predictable story. That doesn’t matter much, because the creatures, the kills, and the camp make this a good one for movie night with some friends.

BAG OF LIES (2024)

Despite being totally derivative, this is a fun little creepier if you just need some cheap horror filler between bigger titles.

This cute dude’s wife is dying, so he consults some witch doctor guy who tells him how to save her…using a ritual involving a big bag with something in it. But…you can’t look in, talk to, or touch the bag after the ritual is done. Eek!

The cute dude has a hot friend, and I so wished the wife would just die and that the guys would get together. Unfortunately, I didn’t write the script.

Instead, the hot friend kind of screws up because he doesn’t know the rules.

Pretty soon our husband is being terrorized by young women that just keep appearing around his house and going all Smile on his ass. Creepy. You could say the movie brings a whole new meaning to the term bag lady.

Much of the running time involves the husband being terrorized by these women. It sort of becomes a cat and mouse game. Cheap scares are high, body count is low.

Meanwhile, the sick wife starts getting weird, and this becomes somewhat of a metaphor for the struggle of caring for the dying and how death permeates every corner of your life, which is kind of sad.

As in all these types of movies, the main goal becomes for the husband to figure out how to stop these hauntings once and for all.

SÉANCE GAMES: METAXU (2024)

I liked the nostalgic feel of this one—it gives off 2001-2002 direct-to-DVD horror vibes. It feels like one of those cheap supernatural knockoffs of wider theatrical releases of the time.

Several social medial influencers are part of an online contest—they have to go to a haunted location and live stream a séance.

They arrive at an old hotel and discover the only person there is some hippie chick manager who doesn’t even know what the internet is.

A combination of geometric video graphics and black smoke serve as hints of a supernatural presence as they explore the place, telling you exactly the level of special effects you’re getting here.

They do a séance and a holographic ghost woman rises from the table. Then one of the girls sees the ghost of a friend who claims she was murdered and the murderer is in the hotel.

So this becomes a mystery ghost story with a little possession element thrown in for good measure. Eric Roberts appears in a flashback story about the ghosts, which should also tell you the level of quality you’re in for.

With 20 minutes left, the group has another séance, which is when the cheap, made-for-TV ghostly madness goes full throttle. Silly fun, but nothing you haven’t seen before.

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Lesbian, trans, and gay horror, oh my!

Posted on August 12, 2024 by Daniel

I’m always excited to stumble upon enough queer horror movies to fill one post, and it appeared I’d hit the lottery this time around. However, by the time I finished this triple feature, I was reminded that horror is in the eye of the beholder.

A SAVANNAH HAUNTING (2021)

Somehow, a movie touted as being based on a haunting the writer/director experienced in his own home in Savannah, Georgia turns partially into a lesbian teen sexual romance ghost story, so I’m guessing there were major liberties taken in telling the true story. Delicious.

Anyway, the writer/director also plays a sleazy sexy bigoted redneck handyman in the film, and the guy playing the husband of the main straight couple is a cutie too, so bonus for gay guys watching the film.

The couple and their teen daughter and pre-adolescent son move into a new home in Georgia. The mother is not coping well with the drowning of their younger daughter. She soon begins to experience classic signs of a haunting…things falling down stairs, a creepy doll that just won’t stay in the trash, her young son talking to an imaginary friend, etc.

Meanwhile, the troubled teen daughter begins having sexual encounters with a lesbian ghost who I believe is from the past but dresses like a modern day slut and uses cellphones.

And of course there’s a character who tries to warn the couple that they are in danger—a Black voodoo priestess who informs them the land was once a plantation and something dark and sinister happened involving slaves.

There’s a lot to work with there, but all we get is the slutty lesbian ghost and the ghost of the dead daughter. It’s like there are all these elements presented to tell a richer story, but they never pan out—or come together.

Even so, the film captures the feeling of everything from 1970s and 1980s haunted house movies to more modern ghost movies like The Conjuring and Paranormal Activity, so I was entertained. I just wish filmmakers would stop defaulting to “Mockingbird” as the song mothers sing to their children. No modern day mother sings “Mockingbird” to their children. Hell, even 30 years ago, Ross and Rachel sang “Baby Got Back” to Emma, not “Mockingbird”.

I SAW THE TV GLOW (2024)

As much promotion as this was getting as a trans horror film, I personally found it to be merely a horror adjacent film and more an allegory on trans identity. One of the main characters is trans in real life, but their trans identity is never discussed in the movie.

Artsy and beautifully drenched in vibrant neon colors, the film is about a young teen boy named Owen who meets a slightly older teen girl named Maddy (she is addressed with female pronouns in the movie) who is totally into this supernatural show called The Pink Opaque. Maddy begins to draw Owen into the show.

Weird horror visuals are presented through the characters’ viewings of the show—there are no horror elements in the actual movie.

There are also some nods to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, including one of the characters in the TV show being named Tara, and Amber Benson, who played lesbian character Tara on Buffy, in a fleeting cameo. Pretty clever.

The whole concept of The Pink Opaque show is about two girls discovering an underworld of monsters. Maddy often talks about reality and the show becoming blurred for her. Owen more than once runs away from her when she tries to invite him into the underworld, in essence her other world. See where this is going? She questions his sexuality (not gender identity), and he admits that he doesn’t really know, that he’s only into the TV show. It seems as if Owen is fascinated by, confused by, and scared of Maddy trying to show him who she really is—perhaps because he sees himself in her and what she’s going through. But again, this is all metaphorical, never a gender identity story that proudly comes out of the closet.

References on The Pink Opaque show include the line “they can’t hurt you, don’t think about them”, and the idea of being buried alive and suffocating, both quite applicable, I imagine, to feelings trans people experience.

The mere fact that Maddy gets lost in a TV show to escape her reality is something many queer people admit to, and very often in the horror/sci-fi/fantasy realms. In the end, I Saw the TV Glow comes across as a rather tragic story about how Maddy finds herself and tries to assist Owen in finding himself as well, but he simply can’t accept who he is.

GANYMEDE (2024)

As I Saw the TV Glow reminds us, for many queer people horror is a form of escape. And as I’ve said in recent times in movies I’ve covered in this age of trauma porn horror films, there’s a subset of queer trauma porn horror films that explore the horrors of being gay, and for many viewers it’s anything but an escape and hits too close to home. In other words, those types of horror movies, and this is one of them, need trigger warnings for queers because they are disturbing and upsetting. It’s the very reason my Comfort Cove horror series is about the joys of being gay in an all-gay city in which the monsters are actual supernatural entities.

Ganymede, which lands on the homo horror movies page, is about a star high school wrestler from a conservative Christian family who starts to fall for an openly gay kid.

As he starts to recognize his feelings, he is haunted by his own demons because his parents and reverend force hatred of queers on him.

The metaphorical demon parts are spooky and fleeting moments in what is otherwise an unsettling family drama. It’s beautifully written and acted, but this is not the kind of movie you watch for frightening fun. Also, if you’re queer, chances are you know how this story goes and/or have lived it. And if you’re not gay and/or anti-gay, it’s likely a story you won’t want to see. Be warned—there’s familial and religious abuse, self-loathing, and gay bashing.

The demon terrorizing the main kid is so awesome I wish it had been real, and I have to give it up for the fabulous gay ghost corpse that appears late in the film—in an odd segment that clashes with the tone of the rest of the film. It’s sort of that moment of levity we need in the midst of all the sadness and also a pivotal tool to segue away from the extremely heavy journey we’ve been on. There is a revelatory outcome if you watch the film to the end, and for some it should be very cathartic.

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Holiday horror in August!

Posted on August 9, 2024 by Daniel

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

SANTASTEIN (2023)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHRISTMAS CRAFT FAIR MASSACRE (2022)

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

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

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

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

GRANNY KRAMPUS (2024)

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

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

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

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

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

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

FINAL GIRL: HALLOWEEN (2024)

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

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

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

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

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

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Three times the rust!

Posted on August 6, 2024 by Daniel

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

RUST (2014)

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

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

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

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

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

RUST 2 (2016)

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

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

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

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

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

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

RUST 3 (2024)

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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PRIME TIME: a trio of horror anthologies

Posted on August 1, 2024 by Daniel

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

TRIAPHILIA (2021)

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

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

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

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

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

THE RED NIGHTMARE (2021)

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

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

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

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

THE HEIRESS (2023)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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PRIME TIME: killers and crazies

Posted on July 30, 2024 by Daniel

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

THE LEGEND OF LAKE HOLLOW (2024)

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

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

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

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

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

MISTER SLEEP (2024)

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

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

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

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

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

NIGHT EXPLORERS: THE ASYLUM (2023)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Posted on July 26, 2024 by Daniel

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

THE CAMP HOST (2024)

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

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

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

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

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

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

THE OLD ONES (2024)

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

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

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

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

GUYS AT PARTIES LIKE IT (2024)

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

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

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

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

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

Posted on July 22, 2024 by Daniel

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

MY LITTLE NIGHTMARE (2024)

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

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

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

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

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

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

PLAY DEAD (2022)

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

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

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

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

THE RESURRECTION OF CHARLES MANSON (2023)

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

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

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

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

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