The horrors of Diego Boneta

Posted on September 1, 2019 by Daniel

Cutie Diego Boneta was pretty high profile for a hot minute, starring in Rock Of Ages and the first season of Scream Queens. He also appeared in the kick ass horror flick Summer Camp, one of my faves in recent years. So when I watched Monster Party and discovered he was in it, I checked to see what other horror he may have been in that I’d missed, which left me with just City of Dead Men. So how were these two?

MONSTER PARTY (2018)

This is a darkly odd and gory party for horror fans with a great cast. The family throwing the party includes main witch Sarah from The Craft, Cole from Charmed, main hero girl Starlight from The Boys, and YouTube star turned actor Kian Lawley (The Chosen).

Two guys and a girl work as servers at a dinner party for the rich family, where they plan to rob the place during the festivities. Little do they know the gathering of snooty wealthy people is sort of like an AA party…for serial killers.

As the celebration gets underway, there’s some good tension created, with the slow burn promising something crazy will happen. It does with full force, and it’s quite unexpected. Blood and body parts fly as the thieves attempt to escape while avoiding all the white collar killers after the house goes into lockdown.

It is loads of fun as the egotistical serial killers don’t only go after the threesome, but begin to turn on each other. Chaos ensues, massacres abound, and there’s even a gruesome surprise waiting in the bowels of the house.

So how does Diego Boneta play into all this? He is a guest, and while it’s fun to see him as one of the bad guys for a change, his role is minor.

CITY OF DEAD MEN (2014)

Well, Diego is the star of this film, but it’s unbearable to watch despite several promising plot points and cool horror color tones.

He plays an American traveling through South America. Having run out of money, he accepts an invitation to meet a group of guys living in an abandoned asylum.

Like some sort of bad boy cult, they have raves, take hallucinogens to connect with the spirit world and face their personal demons, and delve into extreme challenges to explore their mortality—like skateboarding down winding roads wearing masks and playing chicken with motorcycles.

Meanwhile, the asylum has a tragic history in which there was a mass suicide of children, and Diego has guilt involving the death of his brother. After his first initiation with his new buddies, he is soon imagining horrific things (like a snake slithering from his mouth), and encountering a little boy with a creepy mask…who he is convinced is his brother.

Oh how good it all sounds. Instead, it is agonizingly boring and disjointed, offering little in the way of horror scares or shocks. It mostly just feels like a movie about a bunch of homeless kids throwing raves in an abandoned building, doing drugs, and occasionally taking group dares.

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DIRECT TO STREAM: the demons of Ursula Dabrowsky

Posted on August 31, 2019 by Daniel

These two films from writer/director Ursula Dabrowsky both have “demon” in the title, but they are not related in any way. They’re also not cookie cutter horror films, so if you like something with a unique narrative, you might want to check these two out.

FAMILY DEMONS (2009)

In the end, Family Demons is a film about child abuse and alcoholism, but I’ve seen it criticized as not being a horror film, which is just one of the infinite number of stupid things people say on the internet. It is totally framed within the context of a horror premise and only horror fans could appreciate what goes on. So yes, it’s a horror movie.

A teen girl abused by her drunken mother (and her sleazy boyfriend) eventually fights back, landing her mother in the hospital. Back home alone, she’s horrified to find that she is soon being somehow terrorized by her mother once more.

It takes a while for the ghostly aspect to begin, but once it does, it has some eerie and effective moments. It does become a bit of a one trick pony though; the same effective styles are overused. For instance: close-up of main girl’s face with focus on her eyes darting to the side as mother’s form passes in the background.

There are some very odd moments near the end—like the girl running from the house, hiding behind a random bush for a moment, then walking back home—but the final twist and how it ties into the themes of the film is pretty good.

It’s way better than most first efforts of horror directors, and I imagine Ursula herself would see the issues when watching it back now that she’s made another film.

INNER DEMON (2014)

The title clues you in to what this film is eventually about, but it’s at least a different take on what someone does with their “inner demon”, and it’s most definitely not your usual horror film plot.

A teen girl is babysitting when a couple breaks into the house and abducts her. She manages to escape them on a deserted road and finds a house to hide in…which turns out to be their home.

That long, suspenseful opening act definitely draws you in. What happens next keeps you watching, but your attention might soon begin to wander. The main girl spends a while lot of time hidden in a closet listening to the couple and watching them through a crack.

In fact, even when it’s time to fight back in the third act, she doesn’t leave the closet. Something supernatural steps in to take care of things.

I can’t say that it totally makes sense, and what really transpires might be up for interpretation. It’s also not exactly terrifying, although it does give you a film with a twist to think about.

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Girls in the woods with demons and a psycho killer

Posted on August 30, 2019 by Daniel

It’s a double dose of female trouble when groups of girls go off the beaten path in these two—one in the tradition of Evil Dead, the other a remake of a 1982 slasher.

HAUNTING AT FOSTER CABIN (aka: Demon Legacy) (2014)

For a majority of its running time, Haunting at Foster Cabin is totally my kind of Evil Dead clone. This time it’s a group of girls heading to a cabin in the woods, and the darkest of the bunch has no problem pointing out the possibilities of an Evil Dead situation.

It’s fun fun fun as they have some secret lesbian encounters, play truth or dare, find a Ouija board, squeeze in a girl punk partying montage, and awaken something in the creepy basement.

These are my kind of demon bitches.

They cackle, they taunt, they do some axe hacking, they fricking run and crawl through the woods in jerky, quick cut motion. There’s gore, some cheesy effects, a hint of humor, and a jump scare that totally got me.

Then the film does something so ridiculous I can’t even comprehend it. During the heat of the horror, veteran actor John Savage is thrown into the film as a hick dude living in a trailer in the woods.

It’s a slap in the face to the final girl as he essentially becomes the “hero” of the film. And yet he completely fails to steal the show or give us a reason to enjoy his unexpected arrival. What a bummer.

UNHINGED (2017)

This remake is just a skeleton of the original 1982 film in terms of plot; so many details have been changed that if it’s been ages since you watched the original, you might not even realize it’s a remake.

A bride to be and her girlfriends are driving to a wedding, have a super frightening encounter on a deserted road, go to extreme lengths to get away, and end up at the house of an odd lady when their car runs out of gas.

Unlike the original, one of the girls conveniently has a freaky mask in her bag, and the girls begin getting stalked and killed by someone wearing the mask and a wedding dress.

I appreciate how many changes there are here, because it offers something different, but the film lacks the superb grit and sense of dread the original delivered—such as the killer POV and constant sound of heavy, pervy breathing. There are plenty of chase scenes, but most of the time the girls just seem to get caught with little thrills or suspense when they easily could have gotten away.

There are even attempts to update the kills—most notably a mean little scene in which the killer ties up one of the girls and mind fucks her by threatening to kill her in a variety of ways.

Since it’s another all-girl movie, there’s lesbian action. I love how all-male getaway movies never have any gay stuff even though men are the ones who can’t keep it in their pants.

There are conveniently placed newspaper clippings to fill in the blanks, the killer inexplicably speaks like a demon (half the time you can’t understand what’s being said), and in a laughable moment, the bride-to-be comes upon the killer in the attic after seeing all her friends killed, and all she can say is, “Is that my dress?”

Most important to note—the remake completely scraps the gender-bending twist from the original.

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PRIME TIME: Dolled to death

Posted on August 26, 2019 by Daniel

I believe I’ve reached the end of the line of scary doll movies I hadn’t yet seen on Prime with these four. Was I being smart putting them off for so long or are any of them worth a watch?

HEIDI (2014)

Like most found footage films these days, it appears the creators watched lots of them and simply mimicked what they’ve seen.

The premise: two teenage boys known for their prank videos find a doll in a neighbor’s attic and then can’t get rid of it. Basically, they constantly walk around filming and there’s the doll, just sitting there over and over. Oooooooh…scary! UGH.

They do film the doll in time lapse overnight, and eventually it changes position, but don’t ever expect to see it running around killing people. We know it kills people by the occasional blood trail.

As they investigate the issues, they do mention Annabelle, Robert, and even Chucky. They also go to a psychic medium. Pretty standard stuff, but what I do like about the film is that it takes an unexpected turn. Not to mention, the final act, in which they attempt to destroy the doll in any way possible, has some ridiculous yet unique surprises. And for a tiny doll we never see moving, it’s amazing how Heidi can tie people up, sew their mouths shut, and dump then in a pool.

Meanwhile, every time it feels like the movie has wrapped up, it keeps going! And the final frame is so bizarre and freaky. We finally see the doll in a different way that would be even creepier if the movie were just better than it is.

But…the final frame isn’t the final frame. Little time is wasted on closing credits; we get another scene. Which means…beware, there might be a sequel.

MANDY THE HAUNTED DOLL (2018)

Things start off with some cute shirtless guy action and killer doll action, so that’s a plus.


See anything you like?

Then we meet two girls and a guy (the hottie from Bride of Scarecrow).

They plan to rob a woman’s house, so one girl takes a job babysitting for her. Left alone, she soon discovers that she’s not sitting a child, but a doll! She lets her other friends in to start cleaning out the house and, well, you know what happens next.

The doll does a lot of talking, and she sounds like the little British girl from Umbrella in the Resident Evil movies with a delay effect on her voice to make it eerie. We see the doll move in stop motion, which is better than nothing, but we don’t actually see her doing the killings. There’s eventually a corpse dinner party (never gets old), the mother of the house returns, and, well…”never send a doll to do a human’s work” could be the mantra for this movie.

It’s short and to the point, and if you like doll movies, I’d say it’s somewhat better than many of the low budget ones out there. Oddly, there’s a final scene that could be a short film of its own, having nothing to do with the characters from the bulk of the movie. And naturally it establishes the possibility of a sequel.

ANNE (2018)

I was excited to learn this one is from the director of Halloween at Aunt Ethel’s, one of my recent faves. Plus, it stars the kick ass actress that played Aunt Ethel.

The film does a great job of making us feel the isolation, loneliness, and instability of a mentally ill woman with insomnia.

She watches TV, stares at walls, treats her collection of dolls like humans, and creates an all-around creepy atmosphere in her own home.

Unfortunately, that’s all she does for the entire movie. It simply goes nowhere until the very end, and it’s really not about the dolls. The woman’s son, played by gay horror director Michael Kenneth Fahr (Victimized), does stop in from time to time.

The problem is, he plays a pivotal role in the twist at the end, yet it really makes little sense since the entire movie is from her perspective and he’s barely in it. I think this would have worked better as a short film.

CURSE OF THE WITCH’S DOLL (2018)

I was all about this movie until it completely went off the rails. I can’t even comprehend why anyone thought it was a good idea to branch off the way it does.

This woman and her daughter come to live in an old house in the woods. Things immediately get old school British gothic. The mother hears things. The daughter finds the freakiest doll I’ve ever seen in a doll movie. And as this thing begins playing its games, the mother begins to have run-ins with a freaky looking witch. I was so there.

Then…everything changes. The movie shifts focus to a diabolical doctor at a mental institution. It doesn’t even feel like the same movie anymore, and the doll is all but forgotten.

Then the story changes again. I wouldn’t be surprised if the final act was tacked on by orders of a producer or studio exec to bring back the doll and give the audience what it expects from a doll movie. It jumps 75 years ahead. A young couple breaks into the abandoned asylum to shoot some video, and needless to say, the doll is still around. But she’s lost all her mystique at this point, and we get a totally generic killer doll horror short.

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PRIME TIME: Don’t go in the woods four times. Maybe just once.

Posted on August 23, 2019 by Daniel

A variety of horror flicks that take place in the woods. So which one of these would I recommend?

THE DAWN (2006)

I guess you could say this indie loaded with college students of color going on a field trip with their handsome professor could be considered an urban horror…in the woods? There is an agonizing hip hop instrumental that plays relentlessly throughout the film, not only during montages, but even during horror moments. Ugh!

It doesn’t really matter, because I wouldn’t recommend checking this one out even if you have prime. A few promising moments don’t deliver, we’re left with what is predominantly filler dialogue and way too long montages of driving, hiking, and screaming.

 

Of note? There are open lesbians in the group. The one guy they all don’t like is a cutie with a gorgeous nose. He’s could massage my prostate with that big honker all night long.

The kids find one friend strapped up in the woods and it’s a gory mess.

And the best scene—that goes disappointingly nowhere—has the teacher shirtless in the downward position, having some sort of spastic voodoo attack.

HELL GIRL (2019)

I don’t know why I sit through all these movies. I guess it could be argued that this is slightly different than all the other ghost hunter movies out there. But the unique part is a forehead slapper.

Ghost hunters go to help Tom Sizemore cleanse his house in the woods of ghosts.

They occasionally get terrorized by a girl ghost. A seductive woman keeps showing up and saying mysterious things.

And when it all comes down to it, there’s a battle between family members who have been dead since the 1800s but are still around, some of them ghosts, some alive, one of them a twin of the ghost girl from the 1800s. I seriously did not understand this film.

SMILE (2009)

Friends on a road trip lose their camera. Not wanting to miss a moment of the fun, they accept a free Polaroid camera from shopkeeper Armand Assante.

I would say I don’t know what year this is supposed to be because they don’t have phones with cameras, but they do eventually use a tablet to look up Assante on the Internet. They learn of all his evil doings, which makes you wonder why he’s still roaming free with his story and his pictures all over the web.

They go into the woods, they start dying, they discover anyone who has a photo taken with the camera dies, and they continue dying.

I guess this is a supernatural slasher, because at one point a rogue shovel floats through the air to kill someone.

There’s really nothing here that you haven’t seen in better movies.

BETWEEN THE TREES (2018)

This is one of those movies you watch and ponder what the hell actually went on. At the same time you could predict most of the major aspects of the film—you’ll know who is bad from the start, you’ll know who’s going to survive, and you’ll even know what’s about to happen in the final frame—yet you’re oddly satisfied by what it delivers.

It’s a glorious 73 minutes long, yet still burns slowly in a good, tension-building way.

Sausage fest time! A bunch of guys goes to hang at a cabin in the woods (that mysteriously has strings of lights on the porch when they get there, yet no one question why).

Things begin immediately with a gay joke during the ride, some gay panic comments, and the guys taking jabs at each other’s masculinity. Is this seriously what straight guys do when they’re around each other? Derogatory attacks on their friends’ manliness to make themselves feel more like a man? I was hoping they actually give each other blowjobs and have circle jerks. Imagine how much more civil and less obsessed with guns men would be if they relieved stress by busting each other’s nuts when they can’t get any from females…

The guys hunt, they play poker, they hear screams in the woods, then the weird shit hits.

Somehow, the movie confusingly becomes a hybrid of Wrong Turn and an average men find their savage sides in the woods movie. But the most unexpected part is the sudden humorous moment at the very last second.

I’d definitely check this one out if you’re looking for something a little different.

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Don’t go in the house…or the apartment building

Posted on August 21, 2019 by Daniel

Well, I got my hopes up for these two films, both sort of horror comedies for completely different reasons. Each had its moments, but also left me wanting more than I got….

RING RING (2019)

Ring Ring is almost a fun little darkly comic Halloween horror film, but with a 72-minute running time, I feel like it is missing a “chapter.” And that chapter should have filled in all the gaps, delivered more horror, and provided more Halloween spirit.

 A bunch of telemarketers gets laid off by their boss…Lou Ferrigno! Awesome, except…he’s barely in the movie.

We meet various characters catching an Uber ride with a weirdo, and we can only guess what becomes of them.

Unfortunately, there’s a gay couple that I was hoping would be lead characters, but they were gone in a flash.

In fact, the movie quickly whittles down to having only two characters!

On Halloween, a guy and a girl who stole the client list after they got fired to bring to their next job discover that they’ve lost the phone on which it was stored.

They track the phone to a house, break in…and are trapped in the basement by the druggy who lives there.

It sounds so more fun than it is. There are a few funny parts and eventually some vicious fighting, but the whole situation barely has any serious incidents to ramp up suspense or terror. The crazy guy isn’t even all that scary or threatening. Plus, the film takes place mostly during the day, so the Halloween holiday isn’t at the forefront.

THE MOLEMAN OF BELMONT AVENUE (2011)

Silly looking horror comedies can go either way, and this one directed by its two leads is a buddy horror comedy that is a bit too self-indulgent. The guys simply are not as funny as they think they are in terms of the writing–the humor comes off like it is trying way too hard to convince us it’s funny.

It also detracts from the best part; the “moleman” living in the vents of their apartment building could have been absolutely terrifying if the film had been able to strike a balance between comedy and horror. Instead, it mostly feels like a forced sex/stoner comedy.

Completely underutilized as tenants are both Robert Englund and Dana DeLorenzo of Ash vs. Evil Dead.

If only the guys had known then how awesome she would be playing against Bruce Campbell and Ray Santiago, they probably would have upgrade her to their comic female third wheel.

Anyway, the guys hang at a bar with their friends, lament the lost days of their punk band, try to keep the Moleman secret from their tenants when he starts taking their pets (they do a good job considering we barely see him)…

…and eventually head into the vents to hunt down him down—my favorite part. Still, so much opportunity was missed here.

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ROBERT is a true patriot—hates Nazis and Russians

Posted on August 19, 2019 by Daniel

To think that in just a few years, Robert spawned nearly as many sequels as it took Chucky 4 decades to star in.

ROBERT (2015)

The first film begins with title cards telling us this is based on true events. Very Annabelle.

Robert is quite creepy—kind of a mix between the Magic dummy and Chucky’s trans son. The atmosphere is pretty dang good, but overall, a killer doll movie doesn’t get any more generic than this. It’s definitely serviceable for fans of this subgenre who don’t mind endless clichés, and at times the tone and style actually remind me of Alice, Sweet Alice, but the body count and gore are minimal. Plus, Robert isn’t very animated. It’s one of those cases of show the doll, show the weapon, show the victim reacting.

Plot: a family fires their maid, who gives Robert to the young son as a parting gift. The boy starts blaming all the strange occurrences that begin happening on the doll. Mom becomes convinced the doll is evil. Everyone thinks she’s crazy. People begin dying. Mom learns the truth about the doll from a previous family that suffered the consequences of having it in their house.

The big “battle” with Robert is so anticlimactic it’s virtually nonexistent, and the final frame is right out of Halloween IV.

THE CURSE OF ROBERT THE DOLL (2016)

This was the first Robert film I saw, and I blogged about it previously. I originally said I wasn’t going to get OCD and force myself to watch all the Robert movies. Obviously I was lying to you and me, because here we are. So I’m moving the blog about this one here to join the rest of the Robert party.

This is the hack & slash trash blast I want from my killer doll movies.

Yep, truth is not better than fiction. Robert now ends up in a museum at the same time as a young woman who comes to work the nightshift. While she’s busy falling for the cute security guard…

Whoops! I mean…

…creepy Robert begins to leave signs that he isn’t exactly sitting still in his display case.

If you’ve devoured every Chucky movie, just spare yourself any criticism and watch this shit. Robert lurks in dark shadows and fucks people up good. That’s all that matters in a fucking killer doll movie. That and some good jump scares, which Robert delivers the second time around.

ROBERT AND THE TOYMAKER (2017)

What would possess a killer doll franchise to do the whole Nazi prequel backstory??? This shit was done with the Puppet Master movies and it ruined the franchise.

After the ridiculous slasher fun of part 2, trying to be this serious with a period piece just bites. The whole first part of the film feels like Inglorious Bastards as Nazis mind fuck a family harboring a man who is trying to keep an occult book out of the Nazis’ hands.

Eventually, after loads of talking, the book ends up with a toymaker. He reads spells from it and all his dolls come to life, including Robert.

The Nazis then abduct him, and for the last 20 minutes, they torture him until the dolls come to save him. When will filmmakers realize that Nazis being terrorized and slaughtered is not scary? That’s like trying to convince me that Antifas are the bad guys when they beat up inbred mommy’s basement dwelling incels that march in the streets with weapons and torches to spread messages of hate and white supremacy.

THE REVENGE OF ROBERT (2018)

I cannot fathom why they would continue the damn Nazi story. Nazis still looking for the book. Toymaker gets on train to escape them and gives a girl ghost his whole life story in flashbacks. WTF? We don’t need a prequel about the guy who brought Robert to life!

Not to mention, the meat of the plot only begins after forty fucking minutes of other characters talking. Finally, with 14 minutes left, Robert kills approximately one Nazi. WTF?

The only reason this installment matters? The maid from the first movie has a confrontation with the toymaker in 2012, and he’s the exact same old man he was in the 1940s…

Gotta give some credit to the creepy Robert theme song sung by children.

ROBERT REBORN (2019)

Someone make it stop. Time to accept that you’ve run out of ideas for your franchise when you essentially remake your last sequel, moving it from the 1940s to the 1950s, from Nazis to Russians, and from a train to a plane.

The Russians want the book from the toymaker because they believe it can be used to save Stalin after he falls ill. Again, about forty minutes of mostly talk before we even get on the plane.

Just like Puppet Master, there are a few new fun dolls introduced, but it’s the usual—doll wields weapon, blood splatters on wall, we see victim on floor dying.

And again, just like Nazis, I don’t give a shit if Republicans—uhm…Russians—are terrorized and hacked up by killer dolls.

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PRIME TIME: crazed killers, ghosts, demons, and a real home invasion

Posted on August 17, 2019 by Daniel

Only one of these four films got some notoriety in horror news…because it’s about the Manson family. But does that make it most worth the watch? Let’s take a look.

TWELVE POLE MANOR (2017)

     

Twelve Pole Manor begins with a gritty and realistic hanging and suicide, then focuses on some beary hicks that buy a derelict house to renovate and flip.

The very indie feel and look of the old house and the totally 80s music cues had me hoping for something along the lines of Dead Dudes in the House.

Unfortunately, despite some early promise, Twelve Pole Manor takes some odd turns and doesn’t deliver any demons or monsters.

The first early kill seems supernatural, then the next kill seems like straight up slasher, with a whole lot of guts, a creepy killer silhouette and fog machines in the woods, and an awesome one-handed axe hacking.

There’s what seems to be more supernatural stuff happening in the house, including an eerie scene of something or someone standing behind a guy in the shadows. However, the suspense is hampered by an overload of jump scare music stingers.

The dialogue is somewhat lost in the sound mix, which becomes a problem when a good chunk of the film drags with all talk between the characters as they work on the house!  Blah.

We are made to believe there is some sort of possession in the works, but instead of any demon fun, the guys eventually just begin turning on each other in a murderous free-for-all. I was kind of disappointed by the lack of any classic scary stuff, but the gore definitely picks back up in the final act.

PURGATORY ROAD (2017)

Purgatory Road is not your ordinary horror film. This isn’t a cheap scares flick or even an atmospheric chiller. It’s a sort of macabre and morbid tale of two brothers—one of them a priest—who kill very specific types of sinners.

As children, the pair watched their dad shoot himself after a robbery. The priest brother is all kinds of fucked up. They drive around in an RV in which he hears people’s confessions. If the person is a thief, the priest brutally kills them!

Other than that, sins are okay—including a gay bear that spy cams on his neighbor!

I guess it’s easy to overlook butt sex when you’re a priest with necrophilia issues.

Meanwhile, somehow dad, who blew his brains out, is still alive! And for reasons unknown, he’s turned into a sort of basement-dwelling monster!

That’s the meat of the plot. It’s dark, dreary, and satisfyingly icky, and the religious BS is handled in a nice and nasty way that kept me from groaning, “UGH! Religious horror!” I can’t say I loved the film or would ever watch it again, but it was definitely engrossing and just sleazy and offensive enough to satisfy my horror tastes.

ROSA LEIGH (2018)

This is a short full-length film…that feels like it should have been a much shorter film. It presents one form of scare and then just smacks us over the head with it non-stop for the entire film.

The plot is familiar—a group sneaks into an abandoned school with a dark past to investigate. That’s about as deep as it gets.

They walk around with cameras acting scared, and we are absolutely bombarded by quick flashes of ghostly apparitions (even though the characters aren’t seeing them) as musical stingers blast in our ears to scare us.

The ghostly clips then get shocked by static because that’s the one cool effect the editor appears to have learned on a computer.

THE HAUNTING OF SHARON TATE (2019)

It never seemed like a good idea to make the real-life massacre of Sharon Tate and friends by the Manson family into a horror movie, but that is exactly what this film does.

Sharon, played by Hilary Duff, begins having terrible nightmares as soon as Roman Polanski moves them into their new house and then leaves her alone. Her “dreams” are brutal reenactments of the family killing everyone.

Every time she wakes up, she tries to warn the friends staying with her that something is very wrong and they need to leave the house. So the movie presents the murders of Sharon Tate as premonitions that could have saved her friends, her, and her unborn baby if only they had listened to her.

It plays out like a suspenseful home invasion film in the end. However, they could have just made a fictional home invasion film about a pregnant woman who has premonitions so as not to make entertainment out of a real-life massacre. But, I mean, is it hypocritical to judge when we’ve all, for instance, watched about fifty movies or so based on the murder spree of Ed Gein?

Most shocking to me is how many almost naked guys Sharon had running around her house…

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ReQueered Tales brings us something scary and steamy

Posted on August 16, 2019 by Daniel

Originally published in 1991, Steam by Jay B. Laws is a gay horror novel that was timely in its day, could be read today as a throwback by horror fans who were around back then, and would probably have to be consumed as a time capsule by horror fans born post-80s.

Gay horror author Hal Bodner writes the new intro, in which he references several times that the book might be foreign to modern readers because it deals with AIDS and bathhouses. On top of that, it regularly drops the names of seventies disco songs and is comfortingly retro for Gen-Xers like me, because characters don’t have the convenience of cellphones and even experience the horrors of phone booths. Eek! But seriously, it shouldn’t be considered “foreign” to modern readers—it should be looked at as an entertaining fictional horror story that offers a view of our gay past to a new generation of gay men, who should know where we came from to know where we could be heading.

Steam has to be read carefully because it jumps from one seemingly unconnected character and story to the other. The trick is to realize there are two different “realities” occurring. David, the main character, is dealing with a friend dying of AIDS in 1980s San Francisco when he begins to experience inexplicable, supernatural occurrences. Meanwhile, happily partnered Mick is being terrorized by an obscene phone caller, and a chain of events leads him to believe the caller has infected him with some sort of disease.

As David and Mick are haunted by nightmarish men and monsters, their connection becomes clear—in a twist right out of Stephen King, one of the two men has spawned from the creative mind of the other. The two realities must come together to conquer the hideous sexual predator that is drawing men into its bathhouse of horrors.

Along with similarities to Stephen King, Steam delivers surreal “other realms” and hellish, psychosexual situations in an openly gay context that should appeal to fans of Clive Barker as well.

Steam by Jay B. Laws is now available in paperback and ebook format from ReQueered Tales.

Posted in Everyday I Read the Book: Literary Thoughts, Johnny You ARE Queer - Gay Thoughts, The Evil of the Thriller - Everything Horror | Tagged , | Comments Off on ReQueered Tales brings us something scary and steamy

DIRECT TO DVD and Streaming: the horror of Michael Crum

Posted on August 15, 2019 by Daniel

A while back I blogged about Michael Crum’s film Lake Fear. I also covered Lake Fear 2, but it was not a true sequel, and Crum had nothing to do with it. But when I stumbled upon part 3, his official sequel, as well as his demonic doll movie Anna and his exorcism movie Fall of Grace, I just had to check them out. And I can definitely say I am a huge fan of his style…and the fact that he sure knows how to cast sexy guys.

Crum is the type of talent I would want to bring the script of my gay slasher novella Scream, Queen! to celluloid if he ever wanted to dabble in gay horror. Are there any gay Michael Crum’s out there looking to make a good slasher?

I wasn’t even through with this marathon of his films before I jumped on Amazon to order all his movies on DVD.

ANNA (2017)

I think this is why I keep coming back for more Michael Crum films. He takes chances and doesn’t give you the mere rip-offs of better-known titles you expect. For instance, Anna might be the first part of Annabelle, and it might be another indie movie with a creepy doll on the poster, but this is a weird blend of trippy, Silent Hill type visual horror combined with a comedy duo film.

I actually was not feeling it at first. As our two paranormal investigators try to steal a doll from a museum and then hype its horror history, the humor wasn’t quite there for me, and nothing was really happening.

Then suddenly everything clicked for me…once the cute guys got naked. Pure coincidence, I swear.

Okay, it started a little before that, but the naked scene was the springboard for the meat of the movie, and lands this film on my stud stalking page. One of the leads is Gerald Crum, Michael’s brother—who also works on many of the behind the scenes aspects of the films (like special effects and writing!), so they are truly a horror duo.

A paranormal medium makes the guys get naked to do a ritual on the doll. The guys become increasingly funnier…and sexier, although there’s only the one butt shot after which our naked boys are always carefully hidden behind props.

At the same time, the surreal horror aspects become freakier!

It’s odd and disjointed (a Crum staple), and there might be a bit of jump scare overkill, but I just love the Crum style. They have a true grasp of nightmarish visuals—the looks of the hellish creatures, the eerie set designs, and the overall creepiness create the kind of horror atmosphere I love. Not to mention…I dare say they are both sCRUMptious…

LAKE FEAR 3 (2018)

This film picks up where the first film left off. The hero from the cabin is now on the run from demons that have chased him, so things start off with some grotesque demon fun.

Meanwhile, a girl and her friend are on the hunt for her missing sister. They ask a popular psychic at a convention for help. This guy is super sexy in just a vest and tight pants he wears so well.

Oh. He’s also really funny.

Once the trio meets the main hero, the demon insanity kicks in and never lets up.

So much of it is in slow motion and there’s very little dialogue. This is what I call a monster movie. We are bombarded by non-stop demons and other hideous and weird creatures that are so Crum.

The conclusion leaves us hanging for another sequel…plus an Anna tie-in if you stick around for the end credits. Awesome. 

FALL OF GRACE (2017)

Compared to Crum’s humor-laden films, Fall Of Grace is sadistic and dark. And despite a news reporter comparing the situation in the movie to The Amityville Horror at the beginning, once again this film follows its own unique course, making it hard to compare it to other films.

When it begins, a wife is home with her shirtless, full-lipped lover.

Her daughter is upstairs speaking with a demon in the closet and her husband—the leading man from Lake Fear—is out at some sort of fight club. He finally shows us his beef, getting shirtless while fighting the hot guy from Lake Fear 3!

The daughter gets taken to hell, and the father delves into the occult to capture a demon to use as a bargaining chip to get her back.

The demon that hangs around the house is similar to the Jackal in the box in the Thir13en Ghosts remake. Eek!

As with Crum’s other films, dialogue is minimal, there’s loads of shaky cam and freaky editing, the color palette is minimal and horror classic, the monsters are hellish, the gore is created with practical effects that are effectively nasty, and everything feels trippy and surreal. Plus, Gerald Crum from Anna is back.

Posted in Movie Times & Television Schedules - Staying Entertained, Scared Silly - Horror Comedy, The Evil of the Thriller - Everything Horror | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on DIRECT TO DVD and Streaming: the horror of Michael Crum