Beware what’s on either side of the skyline…

Posted on January 8, 2019 by Daniel

Looking for a “safe” movie I could enjoy with the hubba hubba over the weekend that would still give me some horror thrills, I stumbled upon Beyond Skyline, not even knowing it was a sequel. After it was over, we were hyped to see the first film. I’m actually glad we saw the second film first, because they are very different films.

SKYLINE (2010)

Skyline is an intense alien invasion flick for a good portion of its run time.

It stars Eric Balfour, Donald Faison, Brittany Daniel of Club Dread, and even Crystal Reed of Teen Wolf.

A group of friends falls asleep after a party and is awoken by a blinding blue light beaming through the apartment window…that sucks you away if you look at it!

The light is coming from huge, cockroach-like spaceships…that harbor bug-like aliens with tentacles.

This group of friends also has to avoid giant, 2-legged aliens that can somehow spot them wherever they hide in the giant apartment building.

The most suspenseful and scary scenes are the ones in which the group is chased when trying to escape the building. This is actually a pretty frightening film about what would happen if super powerful aliens came to snatch us all and whisk us away to their ship. Eek!

But as the movie reaches its climax, it does detour into a wild ride of alien battling action, with military planes swooping in for a sky chase and the survivors putting up a battle to the death with the aliens. This last minute shift in tone is the perfect segue into the very different sequel.

BEYOND SKYLINE (2017)

I think if I had seen Beyond Skyline first I would have been a bit disappointed in the over-the-top action tone this follow-up takes, so I can see why people might be hard on it and unwilling to just go with it and enjoy it for the fun flick it is. Horror hottie Frank Grillo of The Purge movies (I so want to get all up in his Grillo) stars as the action hero in this epic alien action sequel. It’s like the original Cloverfield meets Pacific Rim.

When the alien invasion hits, Grillo and a small group of people escape through a subway tunnel, where some of them meet an awesomely gruesome ending at the tentacles and the giant vajayjay-like orifice of the smaller walking aliens. The alien models definitely look a bit different despite the simultaneous timeline…the films are supposed to be happening concurrently.

The “sequel” part really hits when the survivors get beamed up into the massive spaceship! Awesome. There’s a very cool crossover with the first film here, but sadly, even though their appearance is brief, the characters from the original film were recast for the sequel.

A suspenseful segment of the film takes place on the ship, but this massive alien outing crash lands back on earth…in Asia! Grillo and friends then team up to fight the aliens in a wild ride of nonstop melee battles and martial arts fights with the smaller aliens.

And it all leads up to the major battles between the giant aliens, which we learn are actually just shells controlled by the smaller aliens inside.

The silly sci-fi fun that ensues is as visually stunning as some of the much more popular sci-fi flicks that come out these days.

 

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STREAM QUEEN double feature: the ghosts of Halloween

Posted on January 7, 2019 by Daniel

Halloween is a few months behind us, and yet two Halloween films snuck their way onto Prime. So is it worth putting these on your list of flicks to watch 10 months from now?

DYSMORPHIA (2014)

This is an odd title for a Halloween anthology. It’s also odd that only the wraparound and one tale take place during the holiday. None of that even matters though, because this is really a bit of a mess.

A guy and girl find a box full of videotapes while digging out the Halloween decorations. Yeah, that’s nothing new for an anthology wraparound, but honestly, the most entertaining part of this film is the guy in it.

He’s naturally funny and deserves to be in a much better movie. As for the “stories”, they all feel very amateur and sloppy…

1st story – a weird, arsty rape/revenge short of sex and violence with mind-numbing editing, filters, etc.

2nd story – indie king Shawn C. Phillips and another dude accept a dare to live together in a bathroom. Silly stuff with a horrorish ending.

3rd story – This is a gross out video about a religious chick going door-to-door to force her beliefs on people. She gets into a twisted, perverse standoff with one dude.

4th story – this is the most tightly plotted and clever of these low budget shorts. A woman makes all her man’s wishes come true on his birthday…whether he meant them or not.

5th story – saturated color and tinted shaky footage make this one hard to watch. On Halloween, two dudes film their work as they go around killing people. None of that did anything for me. However, there are some underlying gay themes (homophobia, drag), and I appreciate that it takes place on Halloween, plus I enjoyed the odd scene of this cutie in a G-string.

6th story – geeks make a program that brings whatever they create on their computer into the real world. What do they conjure up? A goofy bad CGI monster! This feels like a student film you would find on YouTube.

At least there’s some silly demon payoff in the conclusion of the wraparound.

HALLOWEEN AT AUNT ETHEL’S (2018)

I was feeling the title of this one, and the classic pumpkin intro credits got me even more in the Halloween spirit.

That feeling just continues with a good old “couple parked in the dark” setup that leads to a suspenseful kill scene with all the right camera angles, creepy atmosphere, a chase, and the first appearance of Aunt Ethel!

Then we’re informed that we’re in Florida! Ugh. What a way to kill the Halloween mood!

But I’ll forgive, because Aunt Ethel—a witchy weird neighbor rumored to turn trick or treaters into Halloween candy—is a hoot. She’s reminiscent of the campy slasher killers of the 90s, like Ice Cream Man, The Dentist, and Dr. Giggles.

The main kids are just as much fun as Aunt Ethel as they have relationship drama, break out their slow-mo dance moves during a Halloween party montage, and get into all kinds of sexual hi-jinx.

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Good hair and good fuck face.

As a Gen-Xer who grew up on 80s teen flix and slashers, I can’t tell you how satisfying it is to see some teen sexploitation humor, which is so lacking in modern film.

Most importantly, the kids hatch a plan to spy on Aunt Ethel for kicks. And the surprise twist is delicious.

The big problem with this smart and entertaining indie film is that it only runs about 65 minutes long! When the kids get to Aunt Ethel’s house, everything unfolds way too fast.

A slasher comedy this competent needed more victims—there was a fricking party full of potential pretty people to hack up. Aunt Ethel is just getting going when it all comes to an end. Man, was I sad.

But do stick around after the credits roll, because there’s an Aunt Ethel rap video and bloopers. Aunt Ethel really needs to come back for some Halloween sequels. I know her Blu-ray is already on order and on its way to my house.

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Taking zombies to a whole new level in the 90s

Posted on January 4, 2019 by Daniel

Before the traditional zombie film revival that began in the mid-2000s and still won’t go away, one of the few good things the 90s brought the horror genre is two of the most over-the-top zombie gorefests we could worship…that I would say are both hugely inspired by Evil Dead.

DEAD ALIVE (1992)

Peter Jackson made a major leap forward going from the crapfest Bad Taste to one of the most icky, awesome zomcoms ever. Production value alone makes all the difference here, but his equally wacky yet more coherent plot demonstrates how much he grew as a horror director in a few years.

Our main man is a reminder of just how much of an archetype Hitchcock created with Norman Bates and his relationship with his mother. He starts dating a young woman who works at a local store, but when they go on a date to the zoo, mother shows up…and gets bit by an exotic rat-like creature that is cheesy stop motion perfection.

Before long, mother’s skin starts to fall off in one of the most disgusting dinner scenes ever, with some putrid closeups of mouths eating more than just food.

Because the main guy tries to hide the rotting problem instead of immediately calling for medical help, it is quickly established that this is a farcical film.

It’s also an ooey gooey, bloody good time. Along with awesome undead, there’s a campy ninja priest battle, grave robbers, plenty of zombies drenched in neon light, a goofy zombie baby, gut munching as well as reanimated guts, and the most awesome lawnmower zombie splatterfest scene ever.


The lawnmower scene.

Indeed, when our main man goes on a zombie killing rampage, he is intent on one-upping Bruce Campbell’s blood soaked battle against Deadites in Evil Dead 2.

And taking it an even more to the extreme, there’s the unforgettable return of…mother.

CEMETERY MAN (1994)

When Cemetery Man first hit the shelves back in the early 90s while I was working in the video store, it was a refreshing break from all the American crap being released and absolutely ruining the horror genre.

it’s no surprise this comes to us from the director of The Church, The Sect, and StageFright, because it definitely has that quirky, surreal Euro horror tone and style. Watching it again reminded me of how quickly it made me an immediate fan of Rupert Everett, who is sizzling hot here. This film is basically also where that fandom stopped once he transitioned into mainstream Hollywood films.

What surprises me is that Cemetery Man never got slapped with an Evil Dead 4 title in any markets around the world. I simply can’t watch this movie without thinking it could easily be an alternate timeline in the Ash saga in which he becomes guardian of the dead, living in a cabin in the cemetery and re-killing Deadites as they are resurrected after seven days. Hell, first time I saw the film, Everett totally gave me young Bruce vibes.

A visually gothic and macabre treat, the film begins right in the cemetery in the heat of Everett’s ghastly job of returning the dead to the grave…in only a towel. He has a corpulent sidekick who doesn’t speak, and local rumor is that Everett is impotent.

This really is a weird movie, especially because it’s essentially entirely about necrophilia. Everett falls in love with a grieving widow and they have sex on her husband’s grave. The dead hubby comes back to teach his bitch a lesson. Then she comes back to resume her fuck session with Everett.

Meanwhile, his assistant is off falling in love with a disembodied head he digs up. And…another woman awaits the return of her man, who died in a splatastic motorcycle accident.

it’s gory, campy, and keeps going more and more off the deep end as it progresses, but I definitely prefer the first half of the film over the second half. Making it even more odd (and confusing) is that Everett ends up falling for two other women before the film is over…and the same actress plays all three girls.

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STREAM QUEEN: slashers, zombies, and an experiment in torture

Posted on January 2, 2019 by Daniel

For a change, I managed to do a long weekend of streaming that didn’t include the worst of the worst horror that streaming services have to offer. Okay, I have to admit—there was a sixth film that was supposed to be included, but I really am trying to save myself precious time and completely avoid movies I know are going to be the absolute worst right from the start, so I opted not to finish watching that z-grade movie, which left me with these five.

THE ROW (2018)

There’s a difference between wanting to make a movie in the style of the slashers you grew up on and basically remaking them without bringing anything new to the mix.

I guess The Row would be original if you didn’t live through 80s slashers and the slasher revival of the late 90s. But if you did, The Row is essentially Pieces meets the Sorority Row remake.

Girl goes to college. Girl’s overprotective hot detective dad is Randy Couture of The Expendables movies and Range 15. There are parties, and girls start getting hacked up in sleek, goreless PG-13 post-Scream fashion by a killer in a hoodie and weird mask.

The bodies are found left and right, each with a part missing (so we know more than the stumped police how this is going to end), girls just keep partying despite all their friends dying, and overprotective dad detective doesn’t bother to yank his girl out of school.

As soon as the killer enters the story, we totally know this person is the killer. The only shocking thing about it is the incomprehensible matter of the age discrepancies between certain characters.

The other non-surprise—you know in the end the hot dad is going to finally feel vindicated for something that happened to his partner that he believes was his fault.

As for the kill scenes, although they’re mostly underwhelming, the best for me was a double whammy shower scene. Yet my favorite moment is the Jawbreaker slo-mo mean girls walk.

THE HIVE (2015)

This film tries to be a lot more complicated than it needs to be, especially when you strip it down to its most basic premise…the Evil Dead remake with a love story.

A cute young guy awakes in a bunker not sure how he got there or why he looks like a zombie.

There’s a dead zombie girl nearby, so the truth slowly comes back to him.

On the one hand, he has these major flashbacks that make him think he is a young scientist, but it’s best just ignoring those because they tend to muddle the story until we finally get an explanation near the end as to why they happen.

Take this as a movie about four young people trapped in a bunker slowly going all Evil Dead remake infected/demon on each other and you’ll be able to enjoy it for what it is and not the epic apocalyptic movie it deceivingly portends to be.

DATE OF THE DEAD (2015)

If you’re going to make a cheesy low budget horror movie, try to at least give it some charm, originality, and silly entertainment value…and watch Date of the Dead for an example of what I’m talking about. This goofy little anthology gave me a lot to enjoy from the very first date gone wrong gore opener.

The wraparound, which is a story on its own, is about a guy and girl staying at home for their first date. Little do they know their friends are plotting a home invasion prank.

Since there’s a lot of horror memorabilia around the house and the couple makes references to horror movies we love left and right, they start telling scary stories.

1st story – Just like the wraparound couple, the couple in this story is on a date in a house, but the creepers outside their doors are zombies! But when he realizes it, the guy tries to keep it a secret from the girl. There’s also a secret about his dating history that he’s trying to keep from her as well…

2nd story – This is a simple but really clever satirical take on the “I know what you did” plot. A year after they humiliated the high school geek by tricking him into kissing a boy, a bunch of mean cheerleaders hardly remembers what they did and has a slumber party.

For slasher fiends, Date of the Dead is worth watching for this tale alone.

EXTREMITY (2018)

Anthony DiBlasi, director of Cassadaga, Last Shift, Dread, and Most Likely To Die, uses the haunted attraction theme for something other than a Halloween slasher.

Delving into extreme haunts (the types that require you to sign a release form because you get manhandled and experience sexual situations), this is a film about a woman who needs to confront her unspoken fear and decides an extreme haunt is the cure.

Her horror journey finds her teamed up with a cute young man.

In a barrage of red and neon light, we watch them experience all kinds of terror we know isn’t going to actually hurt them at the hands of people in skull masks. At one point someone even takes off the mask and checks on her when she has a panic attack.

In other words, a majority of the movie does little to create scares or suspense because we know it’s all fake. But we do get flashbacks of her troubled relationship with her girlfriend, so there are hints that this is all going to lead to something…

I’m just going to say, if you’ve seen Catacombs or The Houses October Built 2, you’ve seen a similar plot. If you haven’t seen any of these three, I would recommend you just watch Catacombs.

THE END? (2017)

Now this is my kind of unique take on zombie films, rather than the usual The Walking Dead rip-off that is all the rage in indie living dead flix these days.

Like the movie Stalled, this Italian film is about one guy trapped in a confined space during the zombie outbreak. Rather than a bathroom stall at an office, it’s an elevator stuck between floors, with the doors slightly opened…just enough for zombies to poke their heads through.

Although he’s cute, the main guy is actually a bit of a douche. But the zombies are fricking awesome. Great makeup.

The film smartly tells its story all from within the elevator, and anything we learn about what’s going on beyond the elevator is through what little contact the main guy makes with the outside world.

And just when you think things might get boring and repetitive, a hot bear cop shows up to help him out of his predicament. Good stuff.

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Four flix from horror kings of the 90s

Posted on December 30, 2018 by Daniel

John Carpenter, Peter Jackson, Robert Rodriguez, Kevin Williamson. It was a nostalgic trip back to the 90s for me when I revisited these four flicks in my collection. So which ones are my faves?

IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS (1994)

 

John Carpenter’s light was starting to dim in the 90s. The second half was really bad, but the first part was okay with Body Bags segments, the Village of the Damned remake, and In the Mouth of Madness.

 

I can appreciate why people like this one, but personally, I’ve never been a huge fan beyond some super creepy visuals. It’s one of those Lovecraft-esque messes comprised of nightmares, dreams within dreams, horrific visions, things that are there then aren’t there, etc. You are simply bombarded by “stuff” instead of a concrete plot.

Okay, there’s a plot. Sam Neill is an insurance investigator that Charlton Heston (blech) puts on the case of a famous horror author who is causing quite a controversial stir. Neill is partnered with the female vampire from the original Fright Night 2, and together they travel to a fictional town from the author’s books because…people who read them somehow become part of a living version of the stories.

Cool plot, but then there’s that whole Lovecraft angle—an onslaught of monsters and surreal situations. I’m a huge fan of particular moments—my favorites being the old man on the bike on a dark road, a spider crawl scene, and grotesque children—but I have little patience for movies that never let us know when we’re actually in reality and not just in someone’s head.

Eventually Neill is dragged into some sort of hellish dimension and chased by freaky monsters, so to me this feels like Carpenter trying to reinvent himself…by totally mimicking Stuart Gordon’s style.

THE FRIGHTENERS (1996)

If you read my blog regularly, you know I twitch trying to watch long movies, and I’ve never been a huge fan of The Frighteners, yet…I own the two plus hour director’s cut.

Before becoming a huge Hollywood director, Peter Jackson made a “trilogy” of horror movies. Bad Taste was his low budget, stupid shlockfest, Dead Alive was his more polished shlock/gorefest, and The Frighteners was his sleek, mainstream horror comedy.

Dead Alive is my favorite Peter Jackson film.

Despite having a great cast and some super cartoonish CGI fun, The Frighteners is, in typical Peter Jackson horror fashion, a nonstop roller coaster ride of sloppiness. It’s Ghostbusters on speed. Confession: I was never a fan of Ghostbusters. Another confession: I’m a huge fan of the all-female remake.

The Frighteners has Michael J. Fox, Dee Wallace, Jeffrey Combs, Peter Dobson, and Jake Busey. Fox is a ghostbuster who uses his goofy ghost friends to scam people into calling him for his services after the ghosts scare them.

Dee Wallace is a woman held captive in her mother’s house ever since she fell in love with serial killer Jake Busey when she was 15. Peter Dobson is the husband of a doctor put on Dee’s case. Jeffrey Combs is a weird FBI agent set on exposing Fox as a fraud.

A good chunk of the film is about a Fox trying to protect the doctor from a grim reaper hellbent on getting her. The second part of the film is about Jake Busey’s ghost coming back to terrorize Dee’s home.

The nonstop frantic action feels to me like being on the Haunted Mansion ride at Disney. It’s mostly just a series of ghostly scenes strung together to keep you entertained until you get to the end of the ride…which is a cover of “Don’t Fear the Reaper” during the closing credits in this case.

THE FACULTY (1998)

The Faculty is one of my favorite films from the post-Scream/pretty WB actors splashed across the poster art era. Directed by Robert Rodriguez with a script so obviously tweaked by Kevin Williamson (it’s very meta), this is an homage to many of the sci-fi horror body takeover flix from the 60s through the 80s. I’d say it most closely resembles Invaders From Mars.

What’s amazing about the film is that it manages to keep all the action revolving around the high school. In a fantastic first scene, the takeover begins with…the faculty, of course.

The cast of teachers includes the likes of Jon Stewart, Famke Janssen, Salma Hayek, Piper Laurie, Bebe Neuwirth, and Robert Patrick.

We meet our group of teens with name card freeze-frames while a cover of Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall” plays. And this cast is just as great as the teachers, with clear clique types as outlined in The Breakfast Club: Elijah Wood (Anthony Michael Hall), Jordana Brewster (Molly Ringwald), Clea DuVall (Ally Sheedy), Josh Hartnett (Judd Nelson), and Shawn Hatosy (Emilio Estevez). Even young Usher makes a minor appearance but, you know, there were no black people in The Breakfast Club. Also keep an eye out for a brief scene with Danny Masterson just before he hit it big on That ‘70s Show.

This is classic body snatching fun, with loads of great tentacle creepers, action, suspense, scares, a “who can you trust?” scene right out of The Thing, and a kick ass final boss.

TEACHING MRS. TINGLE (1999)

It confounds me that other than the love for Scream, Kevin Williamson movies seem to get a lot of hate. He practically defined youth culture films of the late 90s the way John Hughes did in the 80s, with the added bonus of doing it through some super fun horror and thrillers.

Just as I’ve heard about Cursed, supposedly there’s a version of this movie’s script or different cut of the film or something that makes it much better. And once again I consider the actual released version of the film perfect as is.

Starring Katie Holmes, 7th Heaven hottie Barry Watson, and Marisa Coughlin, who should have been a much bigger star, Teaching Mrs. Tingle also has a great adult cast.

Lesley Ann Warren plays Katie’s mom, and just like The Faculty, the school staff is a who’s who, including Vivica A. Fox, Michael McKean, Molly Ringwald, and Jeffrey Tambor. And most importantly there’s Helen Mirren, who is amazing as the over-the-top villainous Mrs. Tingle.

Poor Katie just wants to be valedictorian so she can get out of her small town, but when Mrs. Tingle finds a way to totally ruin her chances, Katie and her two friends plan to stop her. They make Mrs. Tingle a prisoner in her own home, tying her to her bed until they can figure out what to do about her.

Things go horribly wrong and escalate, with the trio just digging themselves a deeper hole while devious Mrs. Tingle messes with their minds and turns them against one another.

It’s pure campy teen thriller fun, Barry Watson gets an unexpected gay kiss, and Marisa Coughlin does an unforgettable Linda Blair impression.

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Masked killers, a satanic cult, and some crazy bitches

Posted on December 30, 2018 by Daniel

With time to kill on the long New Year’s weekend, I lined up movies old and new…so here’s a look at four newer films I’d never seen before…including a New Year’s Eve flick to add to the holiday horror page!

TRIANGLE (2009)

Christopher Smith, the director of Severance and Creep, brings us a very different film with Triangle. Although there’s a killer wearing a sack, this isn’t merely a slasher. This is a major psychological thriller.

There are some slasher elements here—a group’s boat capsizes and they board what appears to be an abandoned cruise ship.

But someone is watching in the shadows, and pretty soon they’re being picked off one by one…mostly by a shotgun!

Disappointingly, the fast pace causes the intriguing premise to be revealed rather quickly, so we know what’s going on all along as one of the friends—horror queen Melissa George—is caught in a sort of Groundhog’s Day. Not that we understand why, which is what keeps us watching.

Problem is, continuing to watch just makes matters worse. A bunch of new stuff is suddenly thrown at us at the very end of the movie and it just left me scratching my head.

#SCREAMERS (2016)

This found footage film was a freebie on the Blu-ray of The Monster Project, so it wasn’t a film I sought out. On the bright side, it does have gay character, so I can add another one to the die, gay guy, die! page.

However, this is one of those found footage films in which absolutely nothing happens for the first hour. In fact it reminds me of To Jennifer, in that they’re both about a guy who drags his friends on a road trip to find a girl.

Here, two guys who run an Internet business become obsessed with finding out the origins of those cheap shocker videos that lull you into a false sense of security before scaring you with a screaming face. They also have a gay black dude filming the whole thing, most of which involves them watching more videos and following up on leads.

One guy narrows it down to trying to track down a girl walking through a peaceful cemetery in one of the videos. Wouldn’t you know it leads them to a seemingly abandoned house in the middle of nowhere.

You can basically predict exactly how it’s all going to go down in the last twenty minutes. There are okay moments of creepy atmosphere and jump scares, and I do like the twist on how those videos come to be. My big issue with the film is a scene in which one guy tells the cameraman to stay in a creepy room while he goes to check on something…and the cameraman waits! I’m sorry, but no black and/or gay guy would be dumb enough to do that.

THE DEMONOLOGIST (2018)

Oh boy. It kills me that, well, Brian Krause of the original Charmed is even in this one. Imagine the lamest and cheesiest of SyFy occult series…and it’s probably still better than this film.

I guess Krause’s name in the cast is what scored The Demonologist a distribution deal. There’s just nothing fresh, unique, or scary here.

It’s hard to take it seriously because the satanic cult he’s up against as a detective isn’t even slightly ominous (their scenes feel like something from a no budget, straight-to-video flick of the 90s).

The cult infiltrates Krause’s dreams and his life, but we’ve seen it before. He ends up in some cheesy CGI fire situations.

There’s is a pretty cool demon, and perhaps if there were more of him—and if the film was shorter—I would have been a bit more entertained.

Although this part held my attention.

I really think that only the performances of Krause and the guy playing his partner make this feel somewhat elevated above the level it comes in on. Unfortunately, the uninspired dialogue they are given takes it right back down.  

INTO THE DARK: NEW YEAR, NEW YOU (2018)

The latest installment of the Into the Dark series on Hulu is like the Mean Girls of New Year’s Eve thrillers.

A small group of female friends is gathering to ring in the New Year together, and while things seem fun at first—revelations about their successes and failures, talks about sex, partying, dancing—as soon as they start playing “Never Have I Ever,” the claws come out.

In fact, once the overly long girl talk ends (although it does clearly establish the deal with each girl), this turns into a nonstop, suspenseful catfight…with sharp objects.

Shit gets out of hand, the lights go out, and the girls turn on each other in a battle to the death. My kind of New Year’s Eve party, and probably one of the more entertaining episodes of the series so far.

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Horror directors doing horror writers in the 90s

Posted on December 25, 2018 by Daniel

It  feels like the close of the millennium was the end of the era of horror movies based on iconic authors (although Stephen King has made a big comeback lately). So I thought I’d take a look back at a handful of them in my collection. And they all happen to be from veteran horror directors.

LORD OF ILLUSIONS (1995)

Clive Barker writes and directs this one, which I watched in its 2-hour director’s cut Blu-Ray edition. That’s 3 strikes for me. I don’t know why I simply can’t appreciate the works of Clive Barker, either book or film. They are never scary to me, I can never connect with the protagonist, they are way too fantastical and out there, and they are all over the place.

This one begins in 1982 in the desert. An occult magician and his cult terrorize a girl they plan to kill (a baboon is involved). An illusionist comes in and defeats him.

13 years later, cutie Scott Bakula is an investigator who dabbles in the investigating the supernatural. He attends the illusionist’s show.

He falls for the illusionist’s wife, played by horror queen Famke Janssen. He investigates the illusionist and sees a lot of monsters that aren’t actually there but just illusionist holograms. He keeps having encounters with some androgynous baddies (I appreciate that this is probably Barker’s only film with some noticeable queer and homoerotic content).

This goes on and on and on, until finally everyone ends up in the desert to battle it out with the occult magician.

He’s all corpse-like and there are other hellish creature moments, but this segment is also overblown and over-indulgent. The special effects range from pretty cool to early CGI cheesy, and I’d say they’re the best part of the film.

PHANTOMS (1998)

The director of The Curse of Michael Myers brings us a sci-fi religious creature feature written by Dean Koontz. Blech. File Phantoms under my list of “why can I never remember anything about this one no matter how many times I see it?” movies.

As is always the case with these types of movies, I forced myself to pay attention so I could blog about it. Starts off pretty good. Rose McGowan and her sister return to their hometown to find it deserted…except for all the dead bodies. Some great creepy and gruesome moments.

Then they meet up with sheriff Ben Affleck and deputy Liev Schreiber.

More creepy body reveals and then mutant creatures attack that are not unlike what we’d eventually see in The Mist. And then…the military is called in. The movie turns immediately to shit. It’s like a The Thing knockoff (complete with dog and snow), but thrown into the mix is way too much science and religion when Peter O’Toole comes in to get a paycheck as he clings to a career.

The monsters are cool and there’s some of that spastic head shake effect that was all the rage back then, but none of that can save this one.

And you have to wonder why the military would allow Rose and sister to just be in the heat of the action instead of tucked away somewhere safe.

SLEEPY HOLLOW (1999)

I remember just thinking this one okay when it was first released, but I have to say upon a fresh viewing, it’s my favorite Tim Burton film! It’s a great blend of gory, campy, scary, and atmospheric, and visually and stylistically Burton is at the top of his game. It’s beautifully gothic and macabre, with a color palate right out of Corpse Bride.

Considering this is based on one of my all-time favorite stories, I’m surprisingly okay with and enjoyed the rewrite that turns the tale into a supernatural murder mystery. They had to do something to drag it out to a 105-minute movie.

Burton makes this a series of delicious horror vignettes beginning with the opener, in which he calls in a favor from Martin Landau, who appears briefly in a classic scarecrow scene. Christopher Lee appears as the judge who assigns Ichabod Crane to the case. Casper Van Dien plays the suave jerk Brom (although Crane is rather pretty for a change as well), and Christina Ricci is love interest Katrina.

While the movie doesn’t take place on Halloween, which is common for adaptations of Washington Irving’s original non-Halloween tale, Burton includes a great covered bridge/Jack o’ lantern chase that is clearly a nod to the classic Disney animated version.

All the Headless Horseman attack and chase scenes are outstanding, heads roll galore, there’s a great creepy witch that totally pulls a Beetlejuice (awesome), and witchcraft and the occult are smoothly folded into the story of the legendary figure.

To top it all off, Johnny Depp is perfect as the subtly comical Crane, who is no brave hero (he can’t even handle the sight of blood), and the icing on the cake is the totally unexpected appearance by Christopher Walken.

DAGON (2001)

I would say this late entry in his Lovecraft adaptations is one of my favorite of Stuart Gordon’s films. Unlike most of his over the top, campy gore fests, this one is truly chilling at times.

Two couples are out on a boat when a storm hits, causing them to crash on the rocks. One couple takes a lifeboat to a nearby fishing village to get help…and discovers it’s actually a fish village! It is totally unnerving as the couple starts to realize the people in the village are part fish.

Once the truth is out, this becomes one long, suspenseful and scary chase scene with the whole town doing the chasing! But it goes deeper than that, with themes of rituals, sacrifices, and a sea creature god. However, the film doesn’t let the more Lovecraftian complexities of the plot bog down the pacing or pure thrilling horror aspects. As a major non-fan of Lovecraft, this is a huge bonus for me.

Meanwhile, the lead is adorable, and I’m shocked he has very little acting credits beyond this movie.

There’s also some great, gruesome gore, the fish people are creepy as hell, and the big final ceremony scene is very reminiscent of Lair of the White Worm.

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Two crazy couplings…and it’s the straight one that delivers the man flesh

Posted on December 23, 2018 by Daniel

This was a fun little pairing of gay and straight indie thrillers, and what the gay film lacks in man meat, the straight film more than makes up for.

DEVIL’S PATH (2018)

Devil’s Path does something you don’t see every day in gay horror or thrillers; it focuses entirely on gay characters. In particular, two men who chat each other up in a cruisy wooded area of a forest.

The slow burning plot presents us with just a bare bones framework. Men have gone missing in the park.

One of the two main characters has a curious personality, while the other guy is aloof.

Yet both men seem mysterious and secretive, so there’s no telling who can be trusted when they’re forced to team up to escape a couple of tough looking guys that begin pursuing them through the woods.

That dangerous tension between them becomes the focal point of this film. It is not about jumps, chase scenes, or scares, and most of the suspense is dependent on the slowly unfolding reveals about each man.

There’s also some sexual tension, but it’s minor. This is not an erotic gay film in any way. It’s also not a blood and guts film. It’s purely a psychological thriller that builds intrigue almost exclusively through dialogue between the two men as it journeys towards its twists.

But despite it being dialogue heavy, the style, tone, and editing definitely keep your interest—you really do want to get to the end to find out what the hell is going on.

SKARE (2007)

With no flesh to be found in Devil’s Path, I thought I‘d balance out my night with something super sexy, and indie flick Skare totally delivered.

It’s simple, it’s low budget, and…it’s straight! This is the story of a weird woman who takes in a young man on the run from the law and makes him her servant…and sexualized slave.

She keeps him scantily dressed, makes him work out to keep his body perfect, and pulls a Norman Bates, peeping when he showers.

The dark secrets of each are revealed as their psychosexual relationship blossoms, and they both start to snap.

Of course there are other characters that unfortunately stand in their way, which is a bonus for us, because it brings macabre, murderous moments to what would otherwise be a simple erotic thriller.

And just to add more sleaze and cheese to the mix, the crazy woman regularly serves her boy toy a special green drink that gives him nightmares.

On top of that, he becomes intrigued by a book about historical witchcraft cases, which he is the star of in flashbacks/dreams.

Does any of it make sense? Not really, but it sure makes this low budget sexy psychotic skin flick one I couldn’t stop watching.

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Amicus anthologies in the 1970s

Posted on December 22, 2018 by Daniel

I’ve already blogged about 1960s anthologies Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors and Torture Garden from British film production company Amicus. The horror brand continued its streak of anthology films into the seventies, but for every time they did one right, they seemed to do one absolutely wrong. So which of these five are my faves?

THE HOUSE THAT DRIPPED BLOOD (1971)

Amicus enlists Robert Bloch of Psycho fame to write these stories. They all revolve around incidents that occurred in one house, a wraparound that has since become a common anthology theme, usually with a real estate agent showing a house with a dark past. In this film, detectives are investigating the latest tragedy and discuss the past stories.

1st story – a horror writer moves into the house, writes a story of a creepy killer…and starts seeing him around the house. EEK! The killer is fucking creepy with a smile of jacked up teeth.

2nd story – Peter Cushing and his friend see a figure at a wax museum that looks like a woman they once knew. This one is filled with Argento lighting when Argento barely existed.

3rd story – Christopher Lee hires a woman to teach his troubled daughter. Soon the teacher sees signs of witchcraft around the house.

4th story – this is a rather unique take on vampire lore. It’s also kind of campy. I was living for the flying vamp moments and the suggestion of them turning into bats, which reminded me of something out of Dracula: Dead and Loving It.

The wraparound conclusion stems directly from the final story, so while it’s supposed to be scary, it is also kind of campy, which is fine by me.

ASYLUM (1972)

Asylum is directed by Roy Ward Baker (The Monster Club), with Robert Bloch once again writing. The wraparound—a guy going to an insane asylum to talk to inmates—begins with “Night on Bald Mountain,” which just isn’t the same without a disco beat, so I immediately had to pull out the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack to fix that when the movie ended.

1st story – My absolute favorite tale, it’s the classic plot of a deceitful, murderous spouse stalked by his dead partner. Only this time he hacks her up to freeze her, which makes all the difference in how she comes back. Too awesome.

2nd story – Peter Cushing asks a tailor to make him a suit out of a very special fabric after midnight. That’s always a bad sign. This one is confusing because both the killer corpse and the killer twist look alike…and like Edgar Allan Poe.

3rd story – Veteran actress Charlotte Rampling may be in an asylum, but she tells a tale of a previous release from an asylum…and how a friend who came to visit landed her back in it. The twist is pretty predictable here.

4th story – This one about a crazy dude who makes little robot models of people feels like it was the inspiration for a whole lot of Full Moon films.

It also melds directly into the wraparound, which has a predictable twist these days, but leaves us with one of the creepiest lunatic laughs ever.

TALES FROM THE CRYPT (1972)

This one makes me nostalgic because it was one of the first movies me and my brothers rented (with Evil Dead) at Christmas time right after we got our first VCR back in the 80s.

The wraparound, right out of the magazines after which it is based, is clearly the inspiration for the robed ghoul in the animation sequence of Creepshow 2. However, this host is live action as he welcomes five people into his crypt to tell them stories…

1st story – the Christmas classic Ryan Murphy had Joan Collins reenact on American Horror Story, this was also remade as the first episode of the Tales from the Crypt series. We never learn why Collins kills her loving husband (in a cleverly shot scene involving a newspaper), but after she does, she finds herself in a pickle when an escaped psycho in a Santa suit comes knocking and she can’t call the police because her dead husband is on the living room floor.

The scenes of Santa right outside are chilling and the jump scare still gets me. It’s just interesting to realize that she goes through so much trouble to cover up her crime when she could have just called the police and blamed her husband’s murder on the psycho Santa they were looking for.

2nd story – a cheating husband is in for a shock in the aftermath of a car accident with his mistress.

3rd story – Peter Cushing plays an old man driven to death by neighbors on Valentine’s Day. This is a classic back from the dead tale, and it’s awesome to see Cushing as a zombie. It’s also impossible to deny that British horror from the 1970s looks like a period piece even when it’s supposed to be modern day.

4th story – a clever twist on “The Monkey’s Paw”, this one has a woman trying to outwit the outcome of the classic story with a carefully thought out wish after her husband’s death. The nonsensical part of this is the weird chase scene with a guy on a motorcycle in a skull mask who I presume is supposed to be death. Just super cheesy.

5th story – an unpleasant and cruel tale which is unforgettable for that very reason. Patients get revenge on the cruel head of an asylum, and it involves pitting him against a starving dog in a narrow passage lined with razor blades.

With a classic wraparound conclusion and organ theme song, it’s clear why this one was turned into a TV show, even if it took 16 years.

VAULT OF HORROR (1973)

Director Roy Ward Baker and Amicus reunite for this shamefully bad follow-up to Tales from the Crypt. The wraparound and stories are equally bad. 5 businessmen get on an elevator that takes them to a “men’s club,” basically called that simply because they are all men. They each start to recall their dreams. I’d call them nightmares, but I’d be lying. These stories just all feel too simple, like low budget indie shorts you see on YouTube these days.

1st story – although it’s a generic vampire story, this is one of the better of this bunch simply because the end is deliciously dastardly.

2nd story – a verbally abusive neat freak drives his messy wife to take desperate action in a classic case of a woman snapping.

3rd story – A magician and his wife want to learn how a woman snake charms a rope, but their evil plan backfires.

4th story – a little meta fun here when we see a dude reading a Tales From The Crypt book. Aside from that, this is a sloppy buried alive plot.

5th story – at least the movie ends with a halfway decent story. A jilted artist uses his paintings as voodoo dolls to get revenge on his enemies.

FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE (1974)

Before he jumped into the 80s with Motel Hell, director Kevin Connor made this disaster. These are four of the most over-inflated, overly long, extremely weak tales I’ve ever seen in a horror anthology from a reputable source. Peter Cushing is featured in the wraparound as a guy who sells antiques to customers, which sparks each tale.

1st story – At least there’s murder and gore. A dude starts killing people to sacrifice to some creep in a mirror.

2nd story – Donald Pleasence and a man in a miserable marriage become friends, and eventually Donald’s daughter becomes the dudes love puppet…or so it seems.

3rd story – I at least applaud this one for daring to go for farcical horror. A man calls a campy medium he met on a train to come exorcise his house.

4th story – A guy buys a door behind which lies the room of an old occultist. While the specter is supposed to be terrifying, his period costume is laughable.

Have you seen all five of these anthologies and if so, which stories are your faves?

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SAY WHAT? 4 flicks in foreign languages

Posted on December 21, 2018 by Daniel

Alien creatures, Bigfoot, infected folks, demonic possession…these are a few of my favorite things. But did other countries do them right? Let’s take a look.

DEAD SHADOWS (2012)

The 74-minute length had me doing a happy dance…until the movie ended, at which point I realized it needed another 15 minutes to actually make sense of everything that had been presented. And, you know, more of this hottie wouldn’t hurt.

It is really absolutely infuriating that this increasingly thrilling film leads up to what seems like a series of edits that cause huge plot holes. The conclusion gives you the sense there wasn’t enough money to finish the film, although there might be an underdeveloped twist that would explain a lot. Just not sure if I was reading it right or overthinking it.

The upside is that Dead Shadows feels like a mashup of Invaders from Mars, Night of the Comet, and the first Cloverfield. A young man who is afraid of darkness—he’s on meds for the issue—suddenly notices people acting weird after news surfaces that a comet is about to come close to the planet earth.

When he gets invited to an end of the world party by a girl he likes, the night spins out of control…fast. They may seem like infected or zombies, but as people begin mysteriously turning into crazies, they also have some serious tentacle issues!

From the first appearance of the infected at the party, this film ramps up to an awesome thrill ride as the main guy goes on a hunt for the girl he likes. While CGI is used for tentacle moments, the gore and makeup effects are practical and totally awesome.

That is why it is unfathomable that the film ends suddenly, leaving viewers totally confused.

COLD GROUND (2017)

It’s another found footage Bigfoot film. I think. The creature kind of looks like a werewolf because it has big ears. But perhaps the filmmakers were just trying to challenge what we’ve been conditioned to believe Bigfoot looks like.

Either way, both mythical creatures are speculated to be the culprit by the cast. What pisses me off is that one girl asks what a Bigfoot is. Look, I’m willing to suspend disbelief of epic proportions, but I refuse to believe someone doesn’t know who Bigfoot is.

Documentary filmmakers and scientists go into the cold winter woods to investigate cow disappearances and animal mutilations. After this sexy scene, that is.

It’s the 1970s, so the found footage…has a grindhouse filter? Still easier to accept than the chick who doesn’t know Bigfoot.

Next question. Were there portable video cameras with lights on them that could last for hours in the 70s? Yet another question. Would people be able to survive for days in the freezing cold mountains in tents without ever once lighting a fire?

Anyway, it’s like an hour of finding animal tracks in the snow, coming across dead animals, and science jargon in both French and English. Seriously, subtitle/audio vacillating totally fucks with my head. I can watch with my ears while doing other stuff…have to focus on the screen…back to looking away and listening…focus again…listen…look…listen…look…. It’s exhausting.

When the action finally amps up, it’s about as typical and disorienting as can be for found footage. The gore and glimpses of monster are entertaining enough, but I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again—if you want found footage Bigfoot, just watch Exists.

DANNY’S DOOMSDAY (2014)

This is like Attack the Block in a nice, upscale white neighborhood. During an inexplicable heat wave, all the local dogs start getting ornery. A teen boy and his younger brother soon find out why when their house is attacked by big black walking fish monsters!

Initially locking themselves in the basement, the brothers are soon joined by a neighbor. The moment this guy walked down the stairs, the hubby and I both blurted out, “Oh, daddy!” Sadly, we weren’t referring to each other.

This simple little movie uses camera work and timing to create some fantastic suspense scenes without actually showing the creatures until late in the film, when the boys decide they have to go to the mall to save their mother.

From there it turns into a sort of teen creature feature with all the predictable clichés as they meet up with their high school friends, making this a safe one to watch with kids. Definitely horror/sci-fi lite.

LUCIFERINA (2018)

This film is way too highbrow for my tastes, with religious symbolism and, well, that’s enough to kill it for me.

Even so, if the 2-hour length had been hacked down to about 75-minutes, retaining the handful of awesome demonic possession scenes and typical ghost girl shtick, I would have been thoroughly entertained.

A young woman is booted from the convent and comes back home to find her mother dead, her dad bandaged up like a mummy, and her sister pissed at her for deserting them.

After some drama with her sister’s friends, she joins them on an excursion, and they are soon delving into occult rituals.

No, I don’t get any of it (I’m sure it probably has something to do with purity, loss of innocence, losing your faith, temptation, blah blah blah), but there’s a fun scene involving nuns, a birth, and an exorcism, so I was okay for a while.

Lots more confusing shit happens then finally the main girl and a nun have to battle a young possessed dude who leaps around a big room as he terrorizes them. I was into that part, too.

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