Last night Frani and I watched a gift from my kiddo Aidan called Cure, which is a Japanese film from 1997. Directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa, it starts out as a serial killer investigation film, and a damn fine one.
We have a String of murders here in which the perpetrator is caught immediately in each case, but every victim suffers the same MO. The detectives begin to tie hypnotism to the possible means for what’s happening here, and that’s when it takes a sharp turn into the bizarre and the creepy.
Also, amnesia is an element that wedges itself in sideways to do two Things: muddy the water, and drive you insane.
Once the movie makes that turn I was mentioning, you realize that you’re in the hands of a different Director. This guy basically is applying the elements to the canvas, and is providing you with the paints and the pallet to finish the work. What is really happening is up to you to decide. I’m sure the Director has his ideas, but he’s probably curious what you think.
I have my theories as to what happens at the end, and I think it’s 85% what most people think, but there are elements swirling about the ending events that have you questioning their meanings. Cure is intense at times, frightening at others, and in a couple of instances drew laugh out loud reactions from me .
I highly recommend this film but pay close attention as there’s important things in the film’s basements and attics that you might miss, if you’re not paying close enough attention.
You’re meant to provide Cure as much as it’s giving you.
Last Night Frani and I watched The Burning, which was a release sandwiched right into the slasher era. It really is cut from the cloth as it takes place at a summer camp years after horrible events take place at another summer camp in which our creeper is victimized and damaged.
Years later, Yada yada yada.
The Burning was made in 1981 and contains extremely early work from Jason Alexander, Fisher Stevens, Leah Ayers, Brian “Rat” Backer, and a blink and you’ll miss her Holly Hunter. We also get our gore effects from the professor, Tom Savini.
It also was “created by” Harvey Weinstein and another chap, with a screenplay by his brother Bob and yet another chap. This was a very early Miramax release.
The story is pretty carbon copy, the acting is terrible and it features some of the worst day-for-night shooting I’ve ever seen. It causes disorientation! What the hell time is it supposed to be anyway?
Still, worth a chuckle for its historical value around Halloween if you can forget Uber-turd Harvey Weinstein was in any way involved. “Created by”? What is this a series?
The 1970's was probably when America hit its cryptozoological boom. In Search of... Bigfoot was on TV, Sasquatch movies were in the multiplexes and millions of copies of books were sold.
Every state has it cryptid. You have the big daddy, Bigfoot, (who much to the mockery and chagrin of others, I believe in) in the upper Northwest, The Beast of Bray Road in Wisconsin, Mexico and Texas' Chupacabra, The Mothman of Virginia, and in Florida, the Donald J. Trump.
Heck, the phenomenon became so big that the six million dollar man even did battle with a bionic Bigfoot in some of the series most popular episodes.
Charles Pierce got some investors together in 1972 and beginning shooting footage in and around Fouke, Arkansas to tell a quasi-documentary story about the cryptid of that area, with the very creative name, "The Fouke Monster". Pierce shot gorgeous footage (all with a 16 mm camera) and conducted interviews with the locals, shot dramatizations of adventures involving the monster, recorded a couple folksy tunes that related to the area dwellers and made a movie out of it.
The Legend of Boggy Creek was born.
Legend is the Billy Jack of "found footage mockumentaries". Despite being made for under 200,000 it grossed 22 million dollars in 1973 and has now become something of a cult classic.
It has its creepy moments, but works just as much as a reflection of rural deep southern life than it does a monster movie. Folks on the internet still speak of the effect this movie had on them to this day, able to remember the realism of the more intense scenes and the horrifying scream the creature made that lilted across the rivers and lakes of the Fouke area (the scream nicely rolls in its full length on the DVD menu). It made the rounds on the big screen, the drive-in, and on TV. I've been hearing about this movie since I was 12, and until last night, Frani and I had yet to see it.
Legend is only available through the Boggy Creek website set up by Charles Pierce's daughter. She now has the rights, and that's a good thing, because I've read that the VHS/DVD copies that have been "available" were all illegal, and looked like hot garbage. The blu-ray she has managed to put together remastered from a mint condition print found at the British Film Institute, has the movie finally looking like it deserves to. It's worth seeing if just for Pierce's gorgeous filming of the area. It holds up against any nature show of its era and may surpass it. It was lovingly shot. Move over, Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom.
The movie is not a violent Sasquatch murder-fest with blood and guts. It actually achieved a "G" rating. But the mood is set as the monster is kept just enough in the shadows, and the creeps are in the reactions, and the townsfolks' ebbing and flowing panic and fear. The happenings may be dramatizations of actual events, but it all feels a tad more realistic than some of the things you see on television docudramas in this day and age.
Now, if you feel it's a bit corny, or dated, then see it for its historical importance. This was an era when making, let alone releasing, an independent film was a serious and difficult undertaking, and credit is due.
Shoot, you should order one of these pristine new copies, while available, if not just for the killer mailer they come in.
It seems a trend in modern horror. Third act problems. And Cobweb is no exception.
Which is a shame really. You have a terrified little boy, bullied at school during the day, and hearing noises from within his bedroom walls at night. His parents, who do address the issue as little as possible, don't appear to be completely right in the head.
Our little hero, Peter, sets out to solve his own problems, then. Usually in these terrorized child films, the parents are heroic, sacrificial, and take it to the edge to protect their offspring.
Lizzy Kaplan (Castle Rock), and professional dickhead Antony Starr (The Boys' Homelander) are not effective in any form or fashion when it comes to addressing their child's issues. As a matter of fact, that may be an understatement, and as little Peter starts to communicate with the source of the noises, you begin to wonder what Peter's options are.
He seems to have no one to turn to, besides a sympathetic schoolteacher who gets turned away at every effort to assist Peter.
The suspense builds, one of the most horrifying nightmare sequences I've ever seen sends a strike of lightning through the middle of the film, and we go barreling toward what you hope will be an explosive and satisfying conclusion. I've said numerous times that I don't mind ambiguous conclusions, and hate confusing ones.
This one fails to really answer any of the questions the previous 86 minutes asked. So, just like an early Samhain entry, The Empty Man, I find myself really pulled into an eerie and powerful story just to leave scratching my head.
I lived in Texas for a few years in the mid 80s and needless to say when I moved down there I didn’t have friends at all. It was a hard place to make them and when I didn’t have any to begin with, it was a lonely life. I did manage to raise a few bucks here and there sometimes through babysitting, sometimes odd jobs. and Friday evenings I headed to Richland Mall which was not located far from my house.
The usual places that I visited included Camelot records, Waldenbooks, and B. Dalton booksellers. During one of my trips to Walden, I came across a Stephen King book that really can be quite fascinating. He had written a novella, Cycle of the Werewolf, which was a werewolf story told by the month, which means every month a short chapter would be written about a werewolf murdering a member of a small town called Tarker’s Mills, accompanied by terrific Bernie Wrightson artwork. The copy I picked up also had one of those sharp King introductions and the complete screenplay for the movie version, Silver Bullet, included with it. I still have this book to this day
Sunday night Frani and I watched Silver Bullet, a film I haven’t seen since I was in high school and didn’t realize had even been released until it made HBO while I was a senior. It holds up fairly well in terms of good acting, particularly via pre-lost boys Corey Haim, a wonderful Gary Busey before all of his unfortunate incidents, and even Terry O Quinn and Bill Smitrovich (with some wicked ass mutton chops) as adversaries. They eventually would go on to play a partnership in the wonderful Lance Henriksen-led TV series Millennium, which I really recommend if you haven’t seen any of it.
But Silver Bullet is a lot of fun; it starts out as a bit of a lycanthropy who done it, and there’s some pretty cool Carl Rambaldi effects. while the performances are fun and the slaughter plentiful, it’s a bit heartwarming in its own way as Haim and his sister, played wonderfully by a young Megan Follows, really seems realistic and hit close to home.
I think that it takes a negative rap because it came out in the same decade as American werewolf in London and The Howling, both excellent films of course, but it ends up being the third place finisher of those films. That’s still not really a fair judgment.
You have to dig the really good script here, by Stephen King himself. Highly recommended.
Hard to get a read on a film that isn’t what the director intended. The last third was redone and a character inserted for the titles sake that stands out like a sore thumb. But there is a lot to like about Exorcist III.
Williams Peter Blatty’s direction is sharp and unsettling, the performances from George C Scott and Brad Dourif are nothing short of amazing. Particularly Dourif. Not many actors can veer from crack-up funny to intimidating-as-the-devil like he can. Dourif may be his generation's most underappreciated actor. Look at the resume: Poor Billy from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, a heart-destroying performance in Rob Zombie's Halloween II that is worth the price of admission alone, and the loveably gruff Doc from Deadwood. I'm just scratching the surface here.
As far as the film goes, nothing is what it seems and for that matter, no one is either, and that’s what gives the film its edges.
Barry DeVorzon’s occasional droning score adds to the already unbalanced feel the film procures from most viewers, as it has a large cult following despite its initial critical and box office failures. Great humorous dialogue at the outset between our gruff detective Kinderman and Father Dyer give a warm counterpoint to the gruesome killings being investigated before the supernatural sets in like a lead weight.
It’s not perfect, and I plan on seeing Blatty’s Legion cut to get his full intention, but the film still has its scary moments and is worth the view.
Last night, Frani and I watched the last in the Saw soap operas before the most recent, Saw X, which is entitled Spiral: From the Book of Saw. I gotta say it’s on par with Jigsaw in terms of strength and story. While Jigsaw felt more like it was in line with the previous Saw films, this one stands on its own as a more urban focused take on the Jigsaw copycat killer concept. It functions outside of that original methodology by being detached from the Tobin Bell-led series.
Our lead is played by Chris Rock, who is solid despite painting the corners of his speech with brief but effective comic schpiels. He gives an air of humor the other Saw films lack, while providing a dead serious character who’s dialogue crackles regardless . This film proves Rock is more than a comedian, even though he didn’t embarrass himself as far back as New Jack City (which he hilariously references here).
Someone is John Kramering corrupt cops, and since Rock seems to be the only straight detective on the force, our Jigsaw wannabe decides to connect with him after his “games”. Rock is stuck with a rookie partner, an effective performance from Max Minghella of The Handmaids Tale, to help piece all of this together.
This is a much better film, and much better Saw film than it has been given credit for, and I think those who disregarded it ought to give it a second look.
Tonight‘s Halloween film was one from a few decades back. Frani and I watched Brian DePalma‘s Sisters featuring Margot Kidder and Jennifer Salt. This film was early in the career of DePalma, after some oddball comedy attempts, but all the elements of what makes a DePalma movie a DePalma movie are present. Split screen editing, voyeurism, and a twist towards the end are key ingredients.
Oh yeah, and William Finley.
Brian clearly borrows heavily from Hitchcock, and in this case he even utilizes his music producer known specifically for the shower murder music in Psycho, Bernard Hermann. Hermann is A man who was so full of himself he was blown off by William Friedkin in minutes during a discussion of Hermann scoring one of his films.
No, Sisters is not really scary and derives heavily from Rear Window at the outset. Then a mystery develops that a small time reporter finds herself enveloped in. The acting is solid and Herman’s score is very good, but the movie sometimes gets just a little bit too weird for me, especially as it’s winding up. I’m not exactly sure what the ending had to say, especially the final shot.
It’s always nice to see Charles Durning and Barnard Hughes, even if they are in small roles. Olympia Dukakis even makes an uncredited appearance.
Particularly in the area of technology, this movie seriously dates itself. Sometimes I wonder if filmmakers ever thought that we would even have a future, when I see what passes for “state of the art” at the time of a shoot. That being said, it’s far better than attempting to forecast the future with production design as in a film like Soylent Green. The mark is often missed so badly and almost embarrassingly, that it’s worth a chuckle.
Is Sisters a Halloween film? Certainly not, but it’s definitely worth checking out to see where DePalma was headed. This film was clearly his leaping off point.
“I made a little series. If you don’t like it, fuck off. If you do like it, I like you. So there you go.”- John Carpenter
Everybody knows John Carpenter is a legend whose body of work spans for decades, and singularly my cinematic hero and quasi-diety. Even some of his films that were regarded as poor or below average have been reconsidered over the years to become classics. I can say I liked all of them from day one. I didn’t need “the time”.
They Live, Prince of Darkness, and even more recently Ghosts of Mars are among them. They’re classics. Because they are classics. Not because of reevaluation,
Now he’s produced a television series on Peacock that is kind of a true crime program with more of a sinister edge to it. The show is called Suburban Screams and Carpenter only directed one episode which was the one I watched, entitled “The Phone Stalker”.
Not particularly scary, not particularly compelling, and definitely not very well acted. The best thing about it is the music (by Carpenter, his son Cody, and godson Daniel Davies). It is infinitely above the quality of most of your standard true crime docudramas that you see on cable channels, and sometimes even on network TV. Its got that eerie Carpenter ring to it, and it definitely holds the project a little higher than some of the other stuff around it, and lends a spookiness to the proceedings.
The problem is the acting is not believable, the events have huge holes in them that don’t make sense, and it overall just doesn’t seem to work. I probably won’t indulge in the other five episodes, but I figure Mr. Carpenter has more than earned my respect and participation.
Still, the show is an interesting concept, and I think with the right research, news articles, interviews, audio and video excerpts to back up the events, with less of the unconvincing dramatizations, the episodes could probably be effective if they are all of this ilk.
But I also have a problem with these people saying that Mr. Carpenter‘s legacy has been ruined by this program.
They can suck on a chili dog out behind the Tastee Freeze.
There are other directors who have indulged in television works that weren’t much better than this, and they didn’t get accused of destroying their otherwise terrific body of work.
Right now in many ways, Mike Flanagan is the name in television horror. He's also responsible for several films including the sequel to The Shining, Doctor Sleep. It's his Netflix mini-series Haunting of Hill House, Haunting of Bly Manor, and the true monster of them all Midnight Mass, that are the foundations of a truly concrete career. Midnight Mass, by the way? Probably the best television work I've seen since Salems Lot. It possesses incredible writing and performing all the way across, and a real reason to kick Netflix in the balls for not making their product available in the physical medium. Flanagan's made this complaint himself, actually.
Absentia is his first film, a Phase 4 product financed through Kickstarter. You can tell it's an early work as it doesn't have the sure hand of Flanagan's current works, and looks very raw at times. Still, he draws excellent performances from a primarily novice cast, and it has quite a few creepy moments and shocks within its well written framework.
The carpeting of the story is one sister coming to visit another, the latter of which is now pregnant, and 7 years into living with a missing husband. A corner is being turned as she is dealing with the paperwork of claiming him legally dead and entering into a relationship with someone else, when truly Mike Flanagan moments begin to take place. A good slow burn begins that comes to a conclusion that some would not be satisfied with, but I find acceptable, because it's a reflection of life's realities and the stupidity of bureaucracy.
In toto, it hurts but it works.
Frani asked as it ended, "Is this really a horror movie?" and I didn't have an immediate answer. I guess probably not, but life is horrific, and this film reflects that, whether or not the core of the story is realistic.
I'd watch something else for Halloween, but Absentia is truly an amazing debut work from one of the best in the business.
Imagine you’re a person who isn’t ready to move in with your significant other. But a character comes into your life, one who brings companionship, warmth, even a shoulder to lean on.
And then saves your life in a home invasion.
This is what Kristy McNichol (stepping out of her typical teen heartthrob stance) encounters in Samuel Fuller‘s 1982 film White Dog. She rescues a German Shepherd after accidentally hitting him with her car on a Mountain Road, falls in love, and takes him in. There’s only one problem.
This dog is racist and has been trained to attack and kill black people without restraint. He is what is referred to as a “white dog”.
McNichol's character, Julie, knows this really isn’t the dog's fault, and sees through the darkness to a truly beautiful animal. She finds someone in Paul Winfield, a terrific actor who is overlooked to a pathetic degree. Here he plays Keys, a man who has a method for changing a “white dog”, and for the better.
Removing the racism.
His performance in a powerful film is amazing. Yet, the studio bailed on the flick upon release among fears and cries of racism. (This is stupid, the film is clearly anti-bigotry). It never received a proper uncut intended release until Criterion got on the job in 2008.
This film does work as a horror film on a couple levels. When the dog's racist switch is flipped, he goes from adorable to downright terrifying. And it is a scary fact that in this world people would put massive effort into training a gorgeous animal to kill people merely for the color of their skin. Racism causes a lot of stupidity though, as it is born of stupidity, ignorance at the very least.
This long overlooked film deserves further rediscovery and discussion after viewing. Curtis Hanson and Samuel Fuller have scripted an amazing movie enhanced with a terrific Ennio Morricone score.
It may sting a little bit going down, but it’s a necessary drink.
I had written last week that despite not really liking Pet Sematary, I kind of enjoyed Pet Sematary Two. It felt different, less grim, and possessed a heady dose of humor that gave it a buoyancy the original lacked.
Last night, Frani and I viewed Pet Sematary: Bloodlines, a prequel that is really a conundrum to explain. It is a very grim film, as grim as the original, but moves with a snappy quickness crammed in its compact 92 minutes that seems to give the film a kick in the cinematic ass.
It’s cast well, with Jackson White playing Jud Crandall, Louis Creed’s next door neighbor and confidant in the original (played there by a wizened Fred Gwynne). It seems even in 1969. The Sematary is an issue for grief-stricken Ludlow, Maine, and a little history of why is snuck into what I said was a trim and fast paced movie.
Jud’s father will do anything to get his son out of Ludlow. He goes to lengths most Dads won’t and his intentions are beautifully brought to clarity later in the story. Agent Mulder, David Duchovny’s, son is “back” from Vietnam. But with bad intentions, as it doesn’t take long to know he’s not really back in any real sense.
The film builds suspense in a really smooth way despite its brief running time, the supporting cast is solid, especially Mike Flanagan fave Henry Thomas as Jud’s dad. It would have been nice to see more of Mr. Duchovny as his weather-worn persona is visually and emotionally strong.
And his undead son, Timmy? Great casting with Jack Mulhern, he is the walking creeps.
My kid and I have always been big fans of the 70's standby Grizzly, which I yammer about here. That William Girdler B film was among the highest grossing independent films of the 70's and was the #1 indy movie for its release year. Was it good? Well, read the blog post.
But Grizzly II?
Where do I start? Apparently the makers wrapped principal photography in Eastern Europe in 1983. Then there were funding issues, and completion issues, and apparently a curse or two, and basically they were unable to finish the damn thing. Word is that in 1988, Cannon Films was going to buy and finish it, but they had money problems of their own.
It wasn't long before it became something of a cinematic urban legend, until in the 2000's a very low quality workprint showed up on the internet. I guess, this sent the rights owner into action to get it completed.
Which she did. Sort of.
I went through the struggle of watching this film for The Samhain Project. Wow. It's interesting to see George Clooney, Laura Dern, and Charlie Sheen get opening credits top billing and then die in the first 5 minutes. That's a hoot. Especially when most of their dialogue is unintelligible (the closed captioning even says so!). They're killed by a bear obviously, one who's height is claimed to be 18 feet tall according to the experts in the cast. But the POV has the bear being anywhere from as tall as a mobile home to a four story building. That's downright disorienting.
Deborah Raffin is the "bear expert" for the state park that this film takes place in. She's very upset when the forest ranger, played by Steve Inwood and his massive hair, want to kill it. It only wants revenge for the poaching of her cubs! (This happens in freshly shot footage at the open). I'll give the rest of the movie credit. It has been cleaned up and looks pretty sharp for its age and having been buried for close to 40 years. Even the segments shot at a rock concert that takes place in this particular national park.
Yes. This concert's apparently in the script.
There's way too much footage of the "performers". Obviously they used the overshoot to pad the film's 75 minute running time. There's too much, and it's awful. Is this a killer animal movie or a fucking music video? To top it all off, you have the always adorable Deborah Foreman, in like 3 scenes, and obviously 2 or 3 more were needed to have those make narrative sense. Either they were never shot or vanished during the films 40 year production period.
By the way, this concert is being produced by Louise Fletcher, who wants to be Nurse Ratched for the festival crowd, apparently. Lastly, we have a bellowing John Rhys Davies, (who would be everyone's favorite Lord of the Rings character, the dwarf Gimli), as a French Indian bear trapper that I swear to God has to be the inspiration for Jon Voight's wackadoo Cajun in Anaconda.
So one would think, after reading all this, that the bear is going to go after this massive crowd they've managed to film, right?
Nah.
It attacks from the rear of the stage during a fireworks accident, in one of the most poorly edited "action" sequences I've ever seen.
I'm out of breath. From both the writing and the unintentional laughter.
However, let's get serious, bears can be real trouble.
I distinctly remember going to see Zack Snyder's remake of Dawn of the Dead for my birthday the year it was released. Zombie films had been long stagnant in the public eye and the fact that Dawn was being remade was a bit of a surprise to me.
The film was effective, made a huge profit and launched a zombie genre onslaught that is still going to this day. Make no mistake, most zombie movies are complete trash. But there are some good ones that have been made in the wake of Snyder's remake, including George Romero himself with three films, and of course things like Zombieland, The Dead, and Shaun of the Dead.
But for every good one that has been made, there have been at least a dozen that fit the term hot garbage. The television show The Walking Dead was launched from its source material which was an excellent comic book. Even today some 19 years later, The Walking Dead (after it Spawned a spinoff a handful of years back), has belched three more spin offs as the original itself came to a close.
The Night Eats the World is an outstanding zombie film in a zombie era coming up on 20 years of primarily garbage. It’s the complete opposite of most zombie films. You don’t have a small or medium size group of survivors trying to find a way to live, or contact other survivors as they engage in action film pyrotechnics.
You do have a single survivor named Sam who wakes up alone, and though that did happen in 28 Days Later and even The Walking Dead for that matter, where it goes from there is a completely different direction. Sam, our lead, finds ingenius and creative ways to hole himself up in the apartment building that he’s in, and survive for a long time.
As a loner to begin with, Sam begins to question however, whether or not being alone is what he really wants now that he’s gotten the ultimate taste of it. I recommend this movie in a big way. If you’re into chewed flesh and gunplay, you’ll be disappointed. It’s a cerebral film that makes you think, and brings you to an ending that makes you think even harder.
If there's one thing there's never a shortage of this time of year, it's horror anthologies. I just described one a couple of entries back that takes place "in real time", Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. Last night I watched the legendary Trick r' Treat, and last year Frani and I viewed Tales of Halloween, but for some damn reason I didn't write it up for the holidays movie entries.
Tonight we watched Nightmare Cinema. A great piece of collaboration, sparked by Mick Garris and including his work along with that of Joe Dante, David Slade, Alejandro Brugues, and Ryuhei Kitamura. This flick doesn't really miss.
It seems the Rialto theatre is run by "the projectionist", a goofy-ass Mickey Rourke. The cinema pulls in people who eventually seem to get stuck watching their own nightmares come true on screen. Each one being an individual story in this piece. I've read how some critics say the film is hit and miss, and I gotta disagree.
Oddly, the one I liked the least is from Kitamura, and it's not exactly trash. It's a pretty solid story of a small parochical school that is the stage for demonic battles. David Slade's This Way to Egress is a story of a woman who seems to have slipped out of her dimension of reality and is terrific and disturbing. Brugues' The Thing in the Woods is a hodgepodge of all things horror with a chunk of laughter tossed in for good measure.
And Dante and Garris ring in with their elements of style.
The two veteran chefs of this macabre soup are on their game completely. Dante brings the grim and borderline nasty humor that he's known for, and Garris tugs at the heartstrings while playing the suspense violin he's developed a career with. I don't know if Nightmare Cinema is Garris attempting to start up another class of Masters of Horror, but if it is, I'll be the last to complain.
The film I'm going to banter about is not the ridiculous 1980 The Boogeymanwhich I banter about here, or the 2005 Boogeyman with Barry Watson from TV's mildly religious 7th Heaven (nor its 2 sequels). Those aren't worth bantering about. I'm talking about the 2023 Rob Savage film, The Boogeyman.
Starting with The Babadook, a lot of horror films seem to be using familial trauma as a sparking point. A list eventually grew to include Hereditary,Midsommar, The Lodge, and Goodnight Mommy which I've babbled about all on here. Please feel free to click.
Or don't. I don't give a shite.
Stephen King's short story The Boogeyman, which appears in the collection Night Shift is the first King short story I've read, and I do recall it scaring the shit out of my 11 year old ass. It's when I knew after reading a couple of his novels that he was and is a true master of his craft.
The Boogeyman is a very short story, and as I recall, the main protagonist is mentally on the edge of paranormal hysteria. He walks in the door of this film and makes a connection to the true centers of this movie before meeting his unfortunate fate. A family of three, about a month beyond the loss of their matriarch is the core of this film.
Before you think this is indeed another grief-based horror film, give it a second. There's some layering here from the start right to the last frame that show grief may be a factor, but there's elements to grief. And this wonderfully played family battles all of them. Even the supernatural.
Director Rob Savage has his hands firmly on the wheel preventing this vehicle from going over the edge, guiding great performances form a widely varying age group. You have sympathy in your heart for these folks from the jump, and that heart needs to be ready, because there's some solid scares waiting for you.
It's 1968, kids are being shipped off to fight in wars around the world. It's a scary time In the United States for other reasons. Like a president who feels his crimes are okay as long as he commits them, gun violence is killing young people, sometimes on college campuses, sometimes in the streets. Protests flicker up as those that we believe could make a stand against tyranny and racism are being silenced.
Sound Familiar?
So what do you get when a haunted book is stolen from a locked house (The "Boo Radley" house in this particular community) that was used by the local Boo Radley to write scary stories in, stories that apparently killed local children sometimes when they listened to their author read them?
What you get is The Book begins to write new stories itself. Stories about the thieves that took it, our sympathetic heroes in this case. And you get an anthology that happens in real time, except the segments are really happening to our characters in short order.
Scary Stories, much like The Gate, is a horror film of the PG-13 variety, but unlike the terrifying Lights Out, can be used to introduce youngsters to horror. But don't get me wrong, there's plenty of creepy and even outright scary moments in this one, so be prepared nonetheless. It's based on a children's book which arose in 1981 and was a collection of takes on folklore retold by Alvin Schwarz with some eerie-ass drawings by Stephen Gammell. Guillermo Del Toro is the producer behind this film, which should surprise no one.
GDT is a guy who hangs on to his memories, his monsters, and brings them to his films, and helps others draw their own pictures as their producer. He is the man behind Andy Muschietti's Mama, and Netflix's Cabinet of Curiosities, which had multiple genre directors telling dark stories. Scary Stories is no different and no failure. I consider this recommended, and especially for this time of year.
As this movie actually opens on a dangerous Halloween night.
That's a great line from an almost great film. I did some reading on this one, and people have dictated that bad timing and worse marketing are the reason it failed. A wonderful movie didn't get its due. So I wanted to see it, and I was on board as it unspooled.
Goddamn third act problems.
The Empty Man has a killer 20 minute intro that's exciting, creepy, and suspenseful as hell.
Then we jump forward to present day, and we appear to be in a pretty slick urban legend setting that has set pieces galore, great acting, and really tight direction. There are truly great moments.
The end results of this urban legend nightmare leads us onto a mystery that has even more moments, a few capable of raising some goosebumps on both arms, while making you guess as to what's going on here along with our intrepid investigator. Is there some sort of evil at work here, or just a bunch of weirdos inflicting damage for a mysterious reason??
Then.....
then....
A final 15 minutes unwinds with what I suppose the director thinks is arty editing, but all it does is confuse you. You pretty much get the big picture, but the hows, and the goddamn whys are completely buried or missing. And also, the biggest question mark: What is the point of the whole thing? That goes unanswered.
What is the ultimate goal of This Empty Bastard and his cult of empty dipshits?
Again. There's a big difference between ambiguous and confusing; I've stated that here before.
There's nothing more disappointing than when a filmmaker has laid out a multi-level story, strung with creepy moments, great visuals, complex world-building and really damn good acting.
Just to pull down his underoos and shit all over the damn thing.
Prior to my Junior year in High School there was a cable channel on our system in Wausau, WI. called Movie Time. Their content was extremely limited and seemed to cycle and repeat every 15 minutes or so. A flick they mentioned and showed footage from was a Canadian/American jaunt called The Gate. I filed it away for future reference.
A year later, my sister and her fam came to visit, (I believe the summer of 88), and I stopped at Schofield's version of H-E-B, Super 29 to rent The Gate on VHS. My sister Linda is a huge horror buff, and I thought she would enjoy it. I seem to remember the film, despite the 35 years, quite well.
Frani and I found one of the Lionsgate/Vestron nostalgia blu-rays at a knockout price (anywhere but Wal-Mart with their special Halloween slipcover is asking 3 times the $9.99 I paid for mine) and decided to watch for The Samhain Project.
A 12 year old Glen (Stephen Dorff) leads the cast of capable youngsters. They're up against a gateway to hell that opens up under a recently removed backyard tree. It's activated thanks to a series of coincidental paranormal acts that they commit purely on accident. This knowledge is revealed thanks to Glen's geeky metalhead friend Terry's record album, and its explanation.
Huge Stretch. Huge. I know. Ya gotta suspend your disbelief.
These kids, (including Glen's sister who completes the trifecta of evil-battlers) are endearing to watch. The visual and practical effects are amazing considering the time period and the low budget. Particularly the minions that come up through the gate first and raise a little figurative hell before all hell breaks loose. (That's some serious pun work, there)
Even Terry's metal album by a European band called Sacrifyx (roll eyes here) is stunningly close to some of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal shit flopping around circa 1987. Kudos to The Gate's graphic arts department. (Although we have the fact that the first jean jacket Terry wears has a Venom patch on it, followed by one with a Killer Dwarfs patch. Pick a genre, bro!)
Of course Stephen Dorff would go on to have a lengthy and successful career including Judgment Night, Blade, Backbeat (amazing performance as original Beatles' bassist Stu Sutcliffe), World Trade Center, and TV leads in Deputy and Season 3 of True Detective, where he is fucking amazing in support of Maheershala Ali.
Of course for my money, it's the Blu e-cigarette commercials that really stand out in my mind.
In 2019, my kiddo Aidan posted a video testing the first edition of Mountain Dew's spookytime contribution Voo Dew online. Aidan’s reaction was less than positive.
But I enjoy the seasonal of all products, as my readers will know, and here's my attempt at that years Voo Dew:
So what the hell, I gave it a shot:
And I never learn a lesson, so a year later, I headed back down that path.
And Now follow along as I attempt to try the 5th entry in the Voo Dew collection.
I was never a big fan of the original Pet Sematary as its emotional grimness was a bit much for me, especially in its era. The book the original film was based on was probably my least favorite Stephen King novel as well.
Pet Sematary Two has its share of grimness, but there is humor injected that didn’t exist in the original. One of the reasons I feel this one doesn’t carry the same glum feeling is the important character who dies, dies early, as in the first five minutes. You don’t develop the same emotional attachment you did to the folks in the original, who face the circumstances they did. Circumstances that elicited a painful vibe.
This character who dies, an actress/mom leaves behind a husband (Anthony Edwards) and teen son (Edward Furlong). In their grief, they elect to move from LA to the couples original hometown, Ludlow, Maine. This wise decision isn’t affected at all by the fact that it’s the location of the events that so horribly destroyed the Creed family in the original.
The film looks to be your basic “grieving teen faces the adversity of new surroundings” cliche until it hangs a hard one about halfway through with Furlong’s character. Refreshing? Maybe. Weird? Definitely.
Clancy Brown plays the town sheriff. It’s hard to decide if he’s a bigger asshole before or after he’s buried in the infamous burial ground of the living dead. Either way, his performance is absolutely unhinged and a big reason to watch the film. He’s a complete perfect bastard before, and riotous nutjob after his “return”.
Pet Sematary Two wraps up in a much more positive way for those who like unambiguous “up” endings. You do have to endure some graphic violence and cruelty along the way there, however. It’s nowhere near as powerful or apocalyptically edgy as what the original brings. The return of Mary Lambert as director is the reason the film retains a touch of the grit and edginess it may have otherwise lost.
The Uninvited is a classy 1944 ghost story that while it belongs to the old dark house trope, doesn't wield the sharp edge of others in the genre like The Haunting and The Innocents. A brother and sister pair, Roderick and Pamela, have elected to move from London to a cliffside mansion in Cornwall. The place is breathtaking, off the ocean, and while they notice the eeriness upon initial inspection, still feel the need to buy the joint. It's nice digs.
The old cranky bastard they purchase it from is glad to sell, but frowns upon the budding interest between Roderick and his granddaughter. Why this is, leads to the mystery of the film that expands far beyond the facets of a scary old house. The Uninvited's true creepiness isn't in its effects, but in the principal's reaction to it. There's something human and bone-chilling about it that truly effected me.
A true drama unfolds here as we find out the motivations behind all involved, but Ray Milland's performance is tremendous. He's human, given to fear, but swings a delicate sarcasm that gives the otherwise heavily serious affair it's humour. The dark reasons behind why folks in this story do what they do are what Roderick and his new friend, the local doctor, piece together as the suspense ratchets up nicely in the third act.
By the way, Doc is played by Alan Napier, the future Alfred the Butler from the 1966 TV Batman.
This movie isn't gonna scare the shit out of anyone, but it's wonderfully shot and performed and definitely deserving of its really nice Criterion edition. Recommended.
Today's Project is also a Spectrum File! As seen above, it ran in prime time even.
Visiting Hours landed on screens right during the Slasher craze of the early 80's, but really, when it comes down to it, doesn't qualify, even though it was marketed as such. The film is definitely horror, but a bit too complex and socially aware to be a generic slasher flick.
At the outset our heroine, Oscar winner and Whore of Babylon from Damien: Omen II, Lee Grant, is a television journalist who happens to run a controversial interview that her boss, William Shatner (!) doesn't feel comfortable airing because it points out domestic violence and quite overtly. This interview triggers a psychopath who dabbles in right wing extremism when not taking out his hatred of his mother (how dare she defend herself against her shitass husband!) on young women that he encounters in the wild. He pulls a home invasion on Grant's home, putting her in the hospital, a facility he returns to off and on in pursuit of his failed victim. And, I guess, to pluck a few replacement victims to bide his time.
A primary ancillary target in the film, (used to illustrate his methods of releasing his urges), that he takes home to victimize, may have the best line of the film when she asks him (after seeing his collection of letters forcing his racist beliefs on whoever will read) "Do You want to live in the world by yourself?"
That's a good question for all right-wing extremists, really. But I digress.
Lee Grant, who is actually pretty exceptional (which should come as no surprise) given the material, befriends a nurse played by Linda Purl (once the main squeeze of one Arthur Fonzarelli late in the run of Happy Days) who unfortunately finds herself caught in the midst of this maniac's violence and bloodshed.
Oh, and by the way? This maniac? None other than Michael Ironside, villain extraordinaire. We shall all remember him from Scanners, Total Recall (See you at the party, Richter!!) among many others. The man plays a bent and hateful person, just on the brink of exploding as well as anyone in Hollywood history. He rounds out a damn good cast for a "slasher" film of the early 80's and helps it rise above the competition of the time. Visiting Hours, for its era, presents questions about how extreme people get the way they are, and get so easily sparked to violent reactionary behavior.
The film has an unpredictability created by not only having familiar (and talented) faces in the primary cast, but the breakneck speed of setting changes causes a disorientation for the viewer that makes suspense the end result.
I highly recommend this long forgotten cult film, and think Halloween is a great time to discover it.
Tourist Trap is Night of the Living Manneqins meets The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. You got a group of young and attractive folks lost in what is basically the middle of nowhere with a flat tire, right off the bat.
Most of these folks are familiar faces to frequent 70's viewers, which lends an air of unpredictability.
Jon Van Ness along with Jocelyn Jones of millions of television and movie appearances are here with the big roles. Robin Sherwood whose film career appears to have ended with Death Wish II, (and for the love of all that is decent and holy, who could blame her. She has some stories to tell in the exemplary documentary Electric Boogaloo) and former Charlie's Angel, Tanya Roberts round out our young list of potential horror movie victims.
Last, but definitely not least, is our resident weirdo, Chuck Connors, The Rifleman himself.
Much like The Boogens, the acting talent is probably above the script level. However once our cast start encountering creepy ass mannequins, isolated woodland surroundings, run down structures, and a heaping helping of Mr. Connors, it develops a bit of a lift off from its generic first half hour. This is a standard Halloween creeper, and for the squeamish, it's good fun, due to an almost complete lack of gore. (There's an "uncut" version on Tubi right now that I believe has some grue the one that hit theatres probably lacked). It even got a PG rating, and considering the era and the genre, that's a tad hard to believe. That is, until you've seen it yourself.
By the way, also like The Boogens, Stephen King is an admirer.
Also, this was an early work from Charles Band, who went on to be the chap behind Full Moon studios. You know, the producers of the legendary series starring indy-God Tim Thomerson and occasionally Helen Hunt, Trancers, and the long-running Subspecies. Then his studio descended into Evil Bong and Famous T & A.
This blog contains essays, prose, poetry, reviews, and some general whining blather.
I do not review records or movies I don't like because I don't believe in hurting the feelings of another should their art not appeal to me.......I mean, who the fuck am I?
