It’s sharks, werewolves, killer comedians, and crazy rednecks in this foursome of flicks I checked out over the weekend.
WEREWOLF CABAL (2022)
This 110-minute indie horror comedy doesn’t offer enough comedy or plot to warrant the runtime. While the werewolf action was horror comfort food for me when it finally arrived, the amount of pointless, dull dialogue is staggering, and the delivery is so deliberate and slow that it drags the pace down even more.
The plot is about a cute young horror author who inherits his deceased mother’s house. When he moves in, a young woman is already living there and informs him that his stepbrother has also passed.
However, there’s more to it than that. There’s a nefarious cult—or cabal, if you will—keeping a werewolf captive in the church.
After an early werewolf attack, it’s literally an hour before the werewolf finally escapes the church. Even then, the werewolf attacks are few and far between for a while.
The cheesy werewolf mask and inexplicable red and blue horror lighting that appears in every indoor location whenever he shows up totally rock.
If this film had been edited down to 80 minutes without removing any of the werewolf scenes, I would recommend it for the nostalgic 80s horror vibes during the werewolf segments, but it’s a chore to sit through the long stretches of everything else here.
TWO HEADS CREEK (2019)
This predominantly action-free backwoods cannibal horror comedy waits until the very end to deliver all the humorous hack ‘n’ slash fun. The last fifteen minutes are a blast and save the movie.
After the death of the woman who adopted them, a brother and sister pair heads to Australia in search of their biological mother.
This lands them in the small rural town of Two Heads Creek, where everyone is really weird and quirky. The siblings also learn their mother has died recently, but something seems very fishy about that story.
Unfortunately, the first 50 minutes of the film don’t do enough to make us fear for the fate of our two leads. The horror elements and a body count are non-existent, the mystery angle isn’t strong enough to keep us guessing, and the humor isn’t consistent enough to keep us fully engaged, despite the cast doing a good job with the material.
Then comes the twist, which has a bit of a conspiracy theory angle (definitely a sign of the times), and it’s a goodie. The movie hits its stride as the truth is revealed. There’s even a playful musical performance at a party…the locals doing a glammed up performance of The Skyhooks Halloween playlist favorite “Horror Movie”.
Once the siblings fight back, this becomes a glorious slice ‘n’ dice party movie for fifteen minutes.
If only the battle had started about halfway through the film, this would have been loads of fun.
TOO LATE (2021)
Three horror comedies in a row, all with the same problem…where’s the horror and humor? Too Late is perhaps the worst offender considering it even takes place in a comedy club!
There’s a whole metaphor here for how the comedy and entertainment worlds swallow you whole…scratch that. It’s barely a metaphor. It’s pretty much hammered home. The horror feels more like the metaphor because it’s virtually non-existent.
The story involves a young assistant to a popular comedian/monster that needs to feed on humans in order to survive. The assistant’s job is to get him new acts for the show so that he can feed. Let the Right Comedian In? How damn desperate is this woman to be successful?
The sad thing is that this sets up the possibility of numerous comedian encounters with the ravenous boss.
It. Never. Happens.
Instead, there are clips of stand-up comedians (one of them being a trans character with trans jokes, which is cool), and our main girl beginning to fall for a comedian she then has to protect from her boss.
The boss does finally show more of his monster side near the end (sort of looks like a zombie), but by the time we watch him eat his one and only victim of the film (in shadow puppet style), Too Late is too little too late to satisfy horror fans.
BLOOD IN THE WATER (2022)
I simply had to watch a bad b-movie self-described as Saw meets Jaws. Personally, with the state of the Saw series being a joke at this point, this basically should have just been a direct-to-streaming sequel called Saws! Just When You Thought It Was Safe To Play A Game in the Water.
The plot is as simple as it gets. A handful of people awake chained to the edge of a pool. A Jigsaw type voice keeps coming over a loudspeaker insisting they admit to their sins. One by one they get yanked into the pool, the lighting in the room turns red, and a huge shark comes in and gobbles them down.
You just watch Blood in the Water for the gobbling scenes, which are quite satisfying. You do have to wonder how hungry this shark is, because no stray body parts ever rise to the surface. Neither does any blood for that matter.
We don’t even really care what the characters did wrong, but there is some obligatory dialogue as well as flashbacks letting us know. Worst of all, the final survivor gets an apology monologue right up to the final frame. Yawn. Just feed that bitch to the shark and be done with it.
