The Bleaux Leaux Reveaux

A Trip to the Adult Nookstore

2011-08-10T11:28:00.000-04:00

As a completely unexpected and wonderful surprise, Mrs. Leaux recently bought me a Nook ("a kept man" she said, shaking her head as we left Barnes & Noble- but hey- as long as the swag is this nice I suppose I can put up with that sort of comment). The Nook works largely on the same instant gratification principal as devices like the iPod. Users can access a massive online library, and when a specific title catches your eye, click- it’s yours. In order to help lure newbies, there are a number of titles available for free. Granted, your not going to find any bestsellers in this category, but come on…can anyone really resist a free Nook book with a title like Bubba and the Dead Woman?

“Bubba is a good old boy with lots of problems. His ex-fiancée is deader than a door nail and everyone thinks he dun did it. His house is haunted. His mother is running an illegal gambling ring. His dog likes to bite people too much. And he's got to find out who really did it before the sheriff throws him in jail...again."

Don’t even try and tell me that doesn’t sound awesome.

Encouraged by this early find, I continued perusing by category, then filtering by price, which I have to admit is easier than walking up and down the isles with my head cocked at a 45 degree angle so I can read the spines. of books I'll never pick up. Not long after I found Bubba, I came across another interesting title: Not Just an Orgy. One can only guess at the context:

“Hey, hon, what’s going on this weekend?”

“Nothing much. I think the Harrises are hosting another orgy, but that’s about it.”

“Well...hold on a sec. It’s not just an orgy, you know. There’s a lot more to it than that.”

Anyway, it would appear from the sheer number of, um, descriptive titles that lit-porn is quite the popular genre: The Best Roomate (a bit vague, but the cover hints at what makes her “the best”)… Fingering Rachel (for the crime, of course) ...My Trailer Trash Girlfriend and Her Family (presumably a tale of seething class conflict)...and that timeless American classic, I Can’t Help It That I’m A Slut (which we can only assume chronicles our heroine’s fight against the oppressive social stigma brought on by her slutty-ness). All of these seemed fairly upbeat and chipper compared to some of the more lurid looking entries, of which thankfully there were few (I mean, Malcolm and the Rent Boy..!? Really? WTF?).

In all fairness, there’s a lot of great non-porny material available in the Nook store, and I’ve just begun to skim the surface. Although I fell strongly that there’s still value to be had in actually holding a tome in your hands and turning pages (coffee table books, for example, do not translate well to the Nook), I’m really kind of taken with the idea that I can store my own personal library online, rather than taking up space I don’t have with books I’ll probably never read again but can’t seem to let go of. At the moment, I’m thoroughly enjoying my first download, Sex on the Moon- which is not about people having sex on the moon, so get your mind out of the gutter.

Back to Black...For Good

2011-07-29T16:31:00.000-04:00

Okay, maybe the final act was a bit cliched: After years of scandalous headlines and risky behavior, famous musician finally rolls snake eyes and exits feet first at 27, becoming even more famous in the process. It's an old story and quite frankly it's getting a little tired. Still, there wasn't much, if anything, that was contrived about Amy Winehouse. She was one of those force-of-nature artists whose undeniable talent seemed to jump out of her like an electrical arc- not so much as a conventional performance, but as the raw byproduct of a volatile personality (not to mention an apparently unstable psyche). Whatever place Lady Gaga and Christina Aguilera occupy in the pantheon of modern music, Winehouse was the antithesis of that.

A few years ago, my wife started telling me about this British chick she'd heard on the radio who belted out soul and R&B tunes with an extraordinary voice and delivery that somehow seemed fresh and classic at the same time. Mrs. Leaux doesn't follow the music biz very closely and almost never recommends specific artists to me, so when she does I usually pay attention. Back to Black wasn't Winehouse's first album, but it was the one got everyone's attention, and the more times I hear it the more I'm convinced it's one of a handful of decade-defining records.

Winehouse had issues with substance abuse and self harm way before then, of course, but her commercial breakthrough seemed to be the catalyst that turned a slow downhill roll into a plunge off a cliff. Boozy, bloody fistfights with her junkie husband, assaults on fans, trainwreck concerts, public drug consumption, rehab, problems with the cops. By the time she died, she was already somewhat of a punchline, better known for her stupid, tabloid-selling antics than her music (of which she sadly made very little after 2006).

"What a shame, what a waste," people say. And of course they're right. But let's say Amy Winehouse hadn't been gripped by all of this self destructive behavior in the first place. Does it follow that she'd have lived to produce even more great music? That's what we always tend to think, almost by default. John Belushi would have delivered so many more laughs, Janis Joplin would have decades of hits under her belt instead of just a few years worth, and so on. But I'm not sure I buy it.

I'm not saying substance abuse and creativity go hand in hand. That's one of the oldest canards out there about artists in general and musicians in particular. Some of the giant talents in popular music have been teetotalers: Bruce Springsteen, Frank Zappa, Angus Young of AC/DC...I could fill several lengthy posts with examples. But like most of the greats, Winehouse never seemed as though she was trying to seduce her audience with an illusion. Her voice, her style, her phrasing- all of it was an extension of who she actually was. It just so happened that she was, if nothing else, a very troubled individual.

What I'm getting at is that, much as we might wish otherwise at times, talent isn't an accessory. It can't be cleaved off from its owner and given to someone better suited to handle the fame it brings. Winehouse 's talent was only available with her problems; it wasn't sold separately. I, for one, will not be able to listen to her vocals any time soon without thinking of the mess her life became. But that doesn't make the music any less great.

End of the Begining: The Reveaux Redux

2011-07-18T16:37:00.000-04:00

Okay, time for some changes around here.

Horror movies are great and all, but all horror all the time is a bit of a drag. All anything all the time is a bit of drag, actually- not to mention boring to write about. Not that I was ever Mr. Prolific, but I’ve been doing this horror blogging thing for a couple of years now, and it’s pretty well played out for me. So basically that leaves this blog at a crossroads. I figure I’ve got three choices here: shut down the Reveux and start a new blog; hang up the blogger thing altogether and do something more productive with my time; or retrofit this space entirely. I’ve decided to go with that last option- first, because at the end of the day I seem incapable of shutting my trap completely, and second, because I’m too lazy to start over from scratch. So starting pronto, I’m switching over to a free-form, shoot-from-the-hip format.

So…what does that mean, exactly? Well, first and foremost it doesn’t mean the horror movie stuff is necessarily going anywhere. I’d still rather watch a good horror film than just about anything else, and I’m rarely without an opinion on the state of the genre, so it’s pretty much status quo as far as that aspect of the blog goes. (actually, I'm hopeful writing about other things will make me more enthusiastic about my horror-related posts) I guess what it does mean is that if I wake up tomorrow and want to write about plastic cutlery, or why Kurt Cobain’s suicide was the best thing ever to happen to Nirvana, or why I hate going up into my attic, well, that’s what’s going up.

I realize this approach is likely to kill some (most? all?) interest in this place. Most of the regulars here are devoted members of Blogger’s horror blogging community and (understandably) do not give a rat’s ass about my thoughts on microbrews, the Allman Brothers or the NFL lockout. I promise not to take it personally if you scratch the Reveaux from your feed, guys. You signed up for a horror blog, not a bunch of random unhinged nonsense. At the same time, I’m hopeful someone, somewhere, will enjoy listening to me run my mouth about other things- there are all sorts of disturbed people in the world, after all.

Which brings me to the somewhat touchy subject of Blogger “followers”. For the most part, I’ve always followed what seems to be the generally accepted etiquette of “You follow me, I follow you.” This practice made sense, at least initially- a sort of co-op approach that offers participants some exposure within their particular Blogger niche (and anyone who says they aren’t looking for at least some exposure is full of it- why else are you posting your thoughts online for everyone to read?). However, this like-for-like approach leads to a couple of related things happening over time, neither of them good. One, you end up with a certain percentage of followers who actually could care less about your blog. You never hear from them after that initial visit; they’re just fishing for the reciprocal “follow” in order to run up their own follower count, the way some people collect absurd numbers of Facebook friends (I mean, come on… you have eight hundred “friends”? Really?). Two, you inevitably wind up cluttering your feed with a whole bunch of blogs that you never actually read (either because of a lack of time or because you never really liked them that much to begin with). So I’m putting an end to this cycle of lunacy and gradually cleaning out my follow list. Here’s the deal: if the blog is one I comment on or visit regularly (or semi-regularly), it stays. If I rarely or never visit, it goes, whether its author follows me or not. Again, it's nothing personal; just a little common sense housecleaning.

So that’s where I’m at. I haven’t worked out all the details yet, but I’m looking forward to doing something different in this space.

Insidious Works (Most of the Time)

2011-07-16T10:16:00.000-04:00

It’s easy to look at Insidious and make a big deal out of its shortcomings. That’s usually the case when a movie drives all the way to the goal line of greatness, then fumbles instead of punching it in. But while some of that criticism is valid, I’m getting a little sick of all the bitching and moaning about how this or that aspect “ruined” the movie. Horseshit, I say. While it's not quite the film it could have been, Insidious is still a very good…ghost story? Haunted house story? Hybrid? Whatever the case, it works far more often than not, even if it comes perilously close to coming off the rails down the stretch.

I'm a firm believer that horror movies don't have to be original to be good, and Insidious is a classic example. In fact, it's at its best during the first two thirds, when it frequently acts as an homage to several of the most notable horror films of the last thirty years, including the film it borrows most heavily from, Poltergeist (see, when good movies lift scnes and ideas, it's called an "homage"; when bad movies do it, it's a "cheap rip-off"). So yeah, you've heard it before: a little boy (Ty Simpkins) slips into a coma after an encounter with some unseen terror; weird and scary stuff begins to happen in the house; the initially skeptical parents (Rose Byrne and Patrick Wilson) eventually feel threatened enough to call in the local psychic cavalry (Lin Shaye). Formula to be sure, but it's all so well assembled that I didn't even mind the liberal use of jump-scares, something I normally deduct points for. They're all well set up and make perfect sense in the context of what's happening, and you never feel like you're being clubbed to death by having every trick in the book thrown at you at once. Plus points here.

It's actually only when Insidious deviates from the formula that things get a bit lost, with a somewhat fuzzy stretch run that seems to meander a bit when compared to the tightness of the first hour. It's not enough to spoil the experience, but it does point back to the idea that the film walks right up to the brink of being a classic, only to back off at the last minute.

(One minor production note: there's been a bit of fuss about the a fact that a key apparition looks a bit too much like Darth Maul from Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. And...he does, actually. Not sure what the makeup people were thinking here. Still, his first appearance will definitely make you jump.)

Insidious does plenty of cribbing, but with style

I’m still having a hard time getting over the fact that this film is the work of director James Wan and writer Leigh Whannel, the perpetrators behind the original Saw, a film which I probably loathe more for the insipid franchise it spawned that for its own obnoxiousness (Dead Silence, the duo's other collaboration, was marginally better). Maybe these two copped a page from bluesman Robert Johnson’s book and made a Faustian bargain for more talent or something. In any event, Insidious is a colossal upgrade for the team, trading in the brain-dead R-rated splatter for a cool, well constructed story that feels a lot more edgy than its PG-13 rating might suggest (I know I’ve said before that I don’t have any problem with violence and gore when they’re used smartly, but seriously- this idea that horror has to be rated R to be effective is way past its due date and needs to be shot and buried in the desert once and for all).

Hardcore devotees of gore-fests, torture porn and other and "extreme" horror will likely have little use for Insidious other than to ridicule it, but even with its obvious flaws and shameless cribbing, it's strong enough to have an appeal slightly beyond the borders of the horror genre. For anyone looking for a solid tale of the supernatural, I can easily recommend it.

Stake Land Is Dead On

2011-06-30T17:03:00.000-04:00

Although I really didn't know anything about it going in, on the surface Stake Land seemed to promise a familiar ride. A mysterious, stoic traveler and his teenage protege wage a bloody fight for survival while traveling through a post-apocalyptic American landscape infested with vampires. *yawn* Nothing wrong with a little riffing on the classic I Am Legend premise, mind you, but let's face it: this is territory that's been covered ad nauseam in the last decade. Just minutes in, I could see what was coming: swap the vampires for zombies and Stake Land was going to be Zombieland, minus that film's big budget, big names, and frat house sense of humor.

Shows what I know.

(Insert obvious pain-in-the-neck joke here)

Turns out, Stake Land is very much its own film and what's more, it's damn good- even great in spots. In fact, I was kind of floored by how much i enjoyed it. Jim Mickle's screenplay may not be anything to write home about in the originality department, but as a director he clearly knows how to get maximum value out of a scene. Because so much essential information is conveyed from that actions of the characters, Stake Land manages to avoid slipping in to the tar put of unnecessary exposition (a trap especially common to the apoco-horror sub genre). I've never seen Mickle's other full length feature, Mulberry St (from After Dark's 2007 batch), but I definitely plan on hunting it down soon.

Kelly McGillis hasn't aged a..well, she's still cool, anyway.

By the same taken, I was largely unfamiliar with the cast here (and considering this is a horror movie blog, shouldn't I know this shit?), but they all turn in understated and effective performances. The badass antihero, referred to only as Mister, is conveyed with considerable menace by Nick Damici (and don't try and act all cool like you know who he is, unless you actually do, in which case my hat's off to you). His teen sidekick, Martin, is played by some kid named Connor Paolo, who I apparently would have recognized if I watched Gossip Girl, which I don't. But you know who's hanging around here that I do recognize? Kelly Friggin' McGillis, that's who! I hadn't seen her anything in forever, and even though she's changed quite a bit and doesn't have a whole lot to do here, just seeing her on the screen again gave me a brief nostalgia buzz (I mean, damn: Witness, Top Gun, The Accused...the lady was on a serious roll in the 80s).

So...what were we talking about? Right. Stake Land is a definite recommendation here. It may look like same ol' same ol', but trust me: everything about it is a cut above. And speaking of cutting, there's some good stuff going on with these vampires. If you're as sick of the over-stylized metrosexual weenie sacks that pass for vampires in things like True Blood (yeah, I was gonna say Twilight, but that horse has been dead for a while), you'll love these nasty...uh...things. Taking a que from films like 28 Days Later and 30 Days of Night, the vamps of Stake Land creep around at night in a sort of ravenous delirium. They cannot be bargained or reasoned with. It's either you or them, which is exactly as it should be.

Addicted to Anarchy

2011-06-10T23:07:00.000-04:00

So obviously I've been AWOL for a few weeks, and what’s more, the very first thing I'm going to do now that I'm back is slap up a non-horror post. Why I gotta be like that? Well, the truth is that I haven’t watched, read, or even thought about horror lately. Instead, I’ve been rabidly chewing up back episodes of a show a lot of you are no doubt well acquainted with with: Sons of Anarchy (and NO SPOILERS, please - I still need to watch the entire third season). Obviously I'm a little behind the curve, but at least I finally found the party.

What's sort of weird about this is that I've never been into serial television dramas as an adult. Peruse the eighty hundred billion DVDs in my library, and you'll find exactly two TV shows: the first two seasons of The Simpsons, and the first and only season of Freaks and Geeks (an absurdly good show that never lived to even see the shark, much less jump it). For whatever reason, I just never found anything that clicked for me. Thousands of folks tried to sell me (well, maybe less, but it seemed that way) of the brilliance I was missing out on by not following The Sopranos, but when I finally gave it a test drive, no amount of critical praise could make me give a damn about what happened next to some neurotic middle-aged doofus from New Jersey and his greasy dimwit pals. Same deal with the allegedly awesome True Blood- talk about a monumental disappointment. I couldn't even get through the entire first season, and I wound up wanting to bitch-slap most of the characters I was ostensibly supposed to be rooting for. Lost began promisingly enough, but it quickly disintegrated into an annoying shell game. I did thoroughly enjoy The Walking Dead, but its six quick episodes last fall seem like ancient history now, and with no new shows until September, the jury's still out as far as I'm concerned.

So how come I can't shrug off a show about a scumbag biker gang and the the small California town it lords over? Beats me. Sure, the performances (from Ron Perlman, Katey Sagal, and a bunch of know-the-face-but-not-the-name types) ooze understated excellence, and the storyline is loaded with hooks, but those things hardly put the show in a class by itself. It's not like it's a critics' darling, either- the reviews have been stronger as the show has grown, but other than a nod for music, Sons hasn't logged a single Emmy nomination. Actually, that's kind of a plus in my book; it suggests the show is connecting with people on a level the wine and cheese set doesn't quite understand.

Viewed from a distance, it's clear the big story to this point is loosely copped from Hamlet. Protagonist Jax Teller is the heir apparent to the gang his late father founded, and he's haunted by the old man's words as he butts heads with the club's current president, who also happens to be his step-dad (Perlman as Clay Morrow). But the real meat of this ridiculously entertaining street opera can be found in the struggle of the characters to live up to their own skewed moral codes. The capacity for good people to commit vile acts, evil people to act selflessly, and the degree of difference between the two provide the fuel for many of Sons' best segments.

That's one thing that's cool about the show, anyway. Or, for those who prefer a more direct appeal, it's got bikers, skinheads, a pot smoking sheriff, Irish gun runners, and porn stars, which to many of us is a far more appealing brew than overweight Italians in absurd clothing or soggy vampires-are-people-too southern melodramas.

As a side note, it's worth noting that the show dishes out its violence far more deftly than many of its peers. The helpings are both graphic and substantial, but never (at least through the first two seasons) gratuitous. Sons understands the difference between shocking its audience with blood and guts and simply numbing them with it, and knows when to throttle back the splatter.

Bringin' Home the Hardware

2011-05-10T22:42:00.000-04:00

Hmmm. It appears this seedy little corner of the horror blogging community has received some recognition, courtesy of the relentlessly creative Holly at Holly’s Horrorland.

Now, I must confess that I'm not quite sure what the "versatile" means here. I used to be versatile back when I also blogged about football, but lately I just blog about horror. Maybe it means that I'm versatile in the quality of my posts: some of them are kind of funny, some of them are kind of awful, and some of them are worse than that. I only average about 2-3 posts a month, so I’m kind of surprised Holly sees fit to include the Reveaux in such esteemed company as Dr. Cyclops’ Horror and Spookworks- but I'm damn pleased and honored nonetheless. Yeah, I know there are about six trillion of these things being passed back and forth out there, and that some blogs have so many of them they probably use the extras for coasters or something, but the trophy case here is looking pretty empty, so it's nice to have some hardware to put in it.

Here's where it gets kind of weird for me. As part of my acceptance, I’m supposed to reveal seven things about myself, then bestow the award on either seven or fifteen (there seems to be some question about this) other blogs. I don't like talking about myself, unless I'm just telling lies to impress you or freak you out; then it can be kind of fun. Anyway, here are seven things you should in no way care about:

I’m an artist for my wife's digital stamp company, Dude Time Doodles. I draw cartoon people, she and her team do everything else.

I did a handful of radio commercials as a kid. When puberty hit and my voice cracked, I found myself over the hill at 12 years old.

I’m not the least bit interested in surviving the zombie apocalypse if said post-apocalyptic world doesn’t have 1) sushi, 2) hot wings, 3) beer, and 4) football on TV. They can rip me to pieces on day one; I don't care.

If an object remains stationary long enough, both of my dogs will pee on it.

In younger days

Sean Penn just flat sucks ass. I don't mean that in the "but he's a good actor" sense, I mean that in every sense.

I have about 500 full or partial bootlegged Grateful Dead concerts on an external hard drive. If you're dying to know my thoughts on why 9/21/72 is better than 8/27/72, e-mail me.

The county I live in has one stoplight.

That's enough of that. Time to move on to the tough part: picking some blogs to pass the love on to. Although I don't get to all of them as often as I'd like, I do make a sincere effort to check in on all of the blogs I follow. After filtering out a handful that had already won this award, then eliminating the really big boys (I really don't think a blog as justly celebrated as Frankensteinia, for example, needs or would even notice an award from moi) I came up with fourteen that are deserving of some extra attention. Although a few of these are fairly well known (at least within the Blogger horror community, which is sort of like living in New York and saying you're well known around your house), most, like the Reveaux itself, are kind of off the beaten path. They may not be the most prolific bunch, but they all bring something different to the table that keeps me coming back. Cheers!

Cavalcade of Perversions

From Midnight, With Love

Midnite Media

I Will Devour Your Content

Maynard Morrissey's Horror Movie Diary

I Like Horror Movies

Ghost Hunting Theories

Ghost Stories and Haunted Places

Who Is Afraid Of....Miss Lovett?

Hayes Hudson's House of Horror

Scare Tactic

HorrO's Gory Reviews: Reviews to Die For

Scream Bloody Entertainment

The GreatWhiteDope's Mecha-Blog-Zilla

Five Horror Remakes That Don't Reek of Failure

2011-04-30T15:12:00.000-04:00

I know I've said this before, but I normally loathe remakes. It's not the idea that bothers me- when you think about it, the remake is just the cinematic equivalent of a cover tune. But the execution is almost always dreadful, and the finished product winds up being either a slavish imitation of the original (in which case, what’s the point?) or bears no resemble to it whatsoever (in which case, why not just give it an original title?). Either way, the spectacle of watching people fail miserably while leeching off someone else's creativity is almost always a waste of my valuable cinematic time. Yet, amazingly, there are a exceptions. The few, the proud, the well worth watching. The films on this week’s list manage to gracefully dance on the tightrope between celebrating the source material and creating something fresh. Some of these will come as no surprise, but a couple will probably have you raising your eyebrows and insulting my intelligence.

The Thing (1982)- There's a reason almost everyone cites this as one of the best remakes ever. Looking at the quality of his three previous films (Halloween, The Fog, Escape From New York), I think it’s pretty safe to say that John Carpenter was at the indisputable apex of his career when he dealt us this radical update of 1951’s The Thing from Another World. So what happened? Nobody went to see it, the critics pissed all over it, and Carpenter was never again as consistent. So much for first impressions. Thirty years later, though, there’s no real questioning The Thing’s status as a scifi-horror masterpiece; many argue that it trumps Halloween as Carpenter’s best film (I say no, btw, but it's not far off). It works great as an examination of paranoia or just a good old crap-your-pants monster movie, and the practical effects, which had stomachs churning back in the day, have held up amazingly well.

The Fly (1986)- Another no-brainer. Though not as well known at the time as Carpenter, David Cronenburg already had several well-regarded horror titles to his credit when he decided to take on another bomb shelter era, classic, 1958's The Fly. And like Carpenter, he created his own classic by using the core premise of the original film as a skeletal framework on which to hang a far more complex, adult saga. Of course, it helped that Jeff Goldblum's transformation from slightly goofy geek to psychotic mutant was one of the actor's finest hours- not to mention a showcase for Chris Walas's brilliant make up effects. One of the few instances where a pure horror film transcended the genre to score big with mainstream audiences and critics alike.

The Body Snatchers (1993)- So right about now, you’re probably thinking WTF?...or something along those lines, anyway. The second of three(!) remakes of 1956’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers, this 1993 version was virtually disowned by Warner Brothers after getting slashed up by critics at some early screenings. I know the 1978 Donald Southerland-with-a-stupid-looking-perm version is supposed to be the one to watch, but it was set in San Francisco in the 70s, meaning an argument could made that aliens were actually the heroes in that one. Smaller in scale and much tighter, this edition dishes out the claustrophobia and paranoia in a much more believable manner. It’s not sitting on a lot of shelves because of its unfairly bad reputation, but if you come across it in a dump bin or as part of a budget pack, snag it.

House On Haunted Hill (1999)- Here we have one of those films that just about everyone else seems to loathe, and I'm totally stumped as to why. Sure, it’s only a remake in the loosest sense, completely forgoing the campy yuks of the 1959 William Castle production, but it’s got Geoffrey Rush hamming it up marvelously in the Vincent Price slot, a fun supporting cast, and just enough deadpan humor (most of it courtesy of a surprisingly enjoyable Chris Kattan) not to get caught taking things too seriously. Fans of the original will appreciate the in-jokes, but for the most part House On Haunted Hill is content just nodding at the general concept of the first film without getting tangled up in it. Even if the ending falls slightly flat, I still rank it as one of the better haunted house movies of the Lewinsky decade.

The Ring (2001)- Honestly, I’m really kind of tired of this knee-jerk assumption among some film geeks that foreign horror movies are automatically superior to their American remakes. The 1998 Japanese Ringu may have been a tad unsettling, but it’s nowhere near being in the same eerie ballpark as 2002’s The Ring. There are so many cool shots and edgy visuals in the American version that you wind up not even caring that the story doesn't always make sense. Considering the way the decade started out, it's a shame it wound up being remembered more for its torture porn dumpster fungi than great films such as this.

Haters Welcome : Five Absurdly Overrated Horror Movies

2011-04-08T16:31:00.000-04:00

Catchy post title aside, calling something "overrated" doesn't necessarily mean you don't like it. It's merely a way of saying you think the consensus opinion is too generous- way too generous in some cases. In way, what I'm commenting on here isn't so much the films themselves as the way they've historically been evaluated.

Below are five notable horror titles from the last 80 years. One I'm still crazy about, one I'll always loathe, and three I'm fairly lukewarm on, but one thing I'm certain of: whatever your opinion is of them, it's probably too high.

Friday the 13th (1980) – Although both Psycho and Halloween rank among my Top 5 horror films, generally speaking I’ve never been really big into the whole slasher sub-genre. The standard template doesn't lend much room for imaginative improv (Scream was one of a small handful that succeeded at doing something fresh) and the killers are always predictable automatons or societal outcasts. Now, I don’t actually harbor any particular animosity toward Friday the 13th (it was hardly the first, or worst, in the wave of Halloween ripoffs that swamped theaters in the 80s) but I'm really tired of seeing it referred to as some sort of horror masterpiece. Hell, series poster boy Jason Voorhees (essentially an overweight, second string Micheal Myers) doesn't even swing into action until Part 2. There's something to be said for the experience of watching a young Kevin Bacon get an arrow shoved through his neck (I would have much rather watched Sean Penn suffer this fate), but otherwise this is nothing more than forgettable drive-in fodder (and yes, I do love a lot of forgettable drive-in fodder, but...that's for another post).

The Amityville Horror (1979)- The story of George and Kathy Lutz's allegedly haunted house, source of both Jay Anson's 1977 bestseller and this cinematic equivalent of Lunesta, has had so many holes blown in it by now that if you still believe even a shred of it, I kind of feel sorry for you. And truthfully, the fact that it was all bullshit wouldn't even matter if the movie itself wasn't so unforgivably boring. There are a couple of semi-uneasy moments, but nothing approaching true creepiness (much less fright). In fact 75% of the film is just Margot Kidder and James Brolin giving each other weird looks. Believe it or not, even the barely mediocre remake with Ryan Reynolds manages to easily top the original by dropping all pretense that any of this stuff actually happened and just going for made-up scares.

Dracula (1931)- Okay, right up front: I hate having to put this movie here, because it truly is an essential horror film from a cultural perspective, and I watch it every October without fail. Plus, Bela Lugosi pretty much created the prototypical vampire template here, and God love him for it. Unfortunately, just because Lugosi is great in it doesn't mean that Dracula itself is great. The truth is that, even by the moldy oldie standards of 1931, director Todd Browning's film is oddly stiff and lifeless. Plus, in perhaps the most anticlimactic ending in horror history, Dracula's death actually occurs off camera. For an example of what might have been, check out the Spanish-language version starring Carlos Villarias, shot simultaneously with the same sets and costumes, not to mention James Whale's vastly superior Frankenstein, made the same year.

Hellraiser (1987) - Personally, I don't give a damn what Stephen King said about this film. I didn't really dig Hellraiser even back when it came out (although I'll concede the Cebonites were pretty cool), but everyone kept insisting to me that it was some sort of cutting-edge horror masterpiece. With an utter lack of modesty, I'm here to say: "Told ya." A rear-view look at Hellraiser reveals an unconvincing 80s museum piece that hangs its hat almost entirely on a few gross-out effects and s&m undertones. Since time has eroded the shock value, there's really not anything else here worth getting excited about, although I'm sure the sequels and remakes will continue unabated.

Hostel (2005)- A lot of people, of course, don't rate Hostel highly to begin with, but the fact that it has a 59% rating on Rotten Tomatoes is a bit mystifying. Of course, the RT rating only goes down to zero, well above the steaming septic tank this worthless turd of a film belongs in. So in that sense, yes, Hostel is indeed overrated. It could be argued that Eli Roth's rancid product doesn't even belong to the horror genre, since the only thing really horrifying here is the fact that enough tickets were sold to inspire the making of a sequel. And speaking of that pompous jackass Roth, I once read an interview where he claimed that use of the term torture-porn "genuinely says more about the critic's limited understanding of what horror movies can do than about the film itself". Uh...no, it doesn't. It means you made a shitty, unimaginative, one-note movie completely lacking any sort of thoughtful metaphor, irony, or sense of humor- end of story.

Savoring The Haunting

2011-03-18T23:46:00.000-04:00

I've been watching so much new horror lately ("new" in my world means anything made within the last, oh, 5 years or so) that, like a junkie sneaking off for a fix, I recently sequestered myself in a dark room with 1963's The Haunting for the first time in forever. And in the words of Randy Jackson, "Yo Dog! That's...how...you do it!"

Because let's be honest, folks: The Haunting is just about perfect. Perfectly paced, perfectly acted, perfectly shot. If it came out today, I suspect there wouldn't be any more horror movies, because everyone who makes horror films would see it and go "Well hell, looks like there's no point in trying anymore, because the perfect horror movie has been made. Time to go home." Actually, no they wouldn't. They'd go, "Hey! Let's take Shirley Jackson's awesome novel Haunting of Hill House and make a really shitty, disposable movie starring Liam Neeson out of it." Which is exactly what happened in 1999, so never mind.

"This place better have wireless!"

I suppose there's not much point in worrying about spoilers with a movie older than I am (insert joke about "talkies" here), and the set-up is Ghosts 101 anyway. Paranormal investigator Dr. John Markway (Richard Johnson) hopes to capture evidence of other-worldly activity inside the allegedly haunted Hill House, a gargantuan manor with a gruesome past. Hoping to shake lose the spirits, Markway invites a number of people he feels may act as psychic triggers to come and hang at the house, but only the spinsterish Eleanor (Julie Harris) and the slightly bitchy Theodora (Claire Bloom) respond. They're joined by the wisecracking Luke (Russ Tamblyn in a stealthy good performance), the estate's heir apparent, who initially seems to be on hand just to make sure no one puts their feet up on the furniture and devalues his inheritance. Once everyone is comfy, strange doings commence, most of which seem to target- or emanate from -Eleanor. As the house goes, it seems, so goes Eleanor's mind. Or vise vera. Or it's all in Eleanor's head. Take your pick, kids!

(BTW- If some of this sounds vaguely Rose Red-ish, it’s because that miniseries was originally conceived by Stephen King as a remake of the ’63 film; King has referenced Jackson’s works roughly six billion times over the years).

"You kids stay off my lawn!"

Director Robert Wise and screenwriter Nelson Gidding went for a relatively faithful adaptation of the book, something I'm not sure would even be possible today (if the remake is any indication, the answer is no). Hill House is a deliberately unfolding story, long on ambiguity and uneasiness but absent gooey splatter, jump scares, and The Big Shock. In fact, it's never made clear who- or what - it is that haunts Hill House, a plot point which I'm sure would come across as inconceivable to a modern studio exec. The Haunting is the sort of slow-burn ghost story no one really does anymore, and...hell, come to think of it they didn't do a whole lot of it way back when, either. Rarely has horror been as simultaneously understated and effective as it is here.

Eleanor realizes she forgot to pack her toothbrush

The small cast plays off each other well; everybody hams it up just the right amount, though Harris- by turns sympathetic, whiny, and edgy as the frayed Eleanor -is the MVP of the bunch. But the real "star" of The Haunting is Hill House itself, as seen through the eyes of Wise’s deftly directed camera. Through masterful use of black and white (the director’s last such film), lens distortion, and then new infa-red technology, Wise’s Hill House isn’t so much a setting as another character in the story, which is about as much as you can ask from any haunted house film. The Haunting isn’t built for those looking for gore or evaluating “kills” (not knocking that type of film; chill out), but it is one of the absolutely essential horror films, one I can’t recommend highly enough.

Flat Tire

2011-03-10T16:53:00.000-05:00

Serial killer. Lots of gore. Trail of dead bodies. I'd heard Rubber described somewhere as an "art house horror movie", so I gave it a shot. Sometimes my sense of adventure pays off. Other times, I wind up feeling like I'm wasting my life. This little trip to Snoozeville definitely took me closer to the second category.

This is a film centered around a telekinetic, homicidal tire named Robert (yes...a fucking tire). That acid-drenched premise alone invites about a billion questions, especially everyone's perennial favorite: WTF? I can't answer those questions, because although I watched the movie, I didn't get it. Which in the twisted rubberverse probably means I did get it, because as we're told in first 5 minutes of the movie, there's nothing to "get". It's a story, and a film, with no reason. Rubber is French director Quentin Dupieux's oddball ode to randomness.

Saying the movie has no meaning isn't the same as saying nothing happens, of course. People's heads explode, a girl gets stalked, and a policeman asks to be shot twice in the chest just to show it doesn't bother him. We also have a group of chatty weirdos with binoculars watching everything unfold from a safe distance while eating a poisoned turkey. I'm guessing these people are supposed to stand as some sort of commentary on audiences, and they do serve as a Greek chorus of sorts, but honestly I have no idea. I'm not sure even Dupiex himself could tell you, 'cause I swear he made a lot of this movie up as he went along, not that you could tell the difference.

The main problem with Rubber isn't that it doesn't make any sense; it's that none of this stuff is nearly as interesting, or darkly humorous, as it sounds. Actually, the whole joke starts getting pretty stale at around the 20 minute minute mark, which unfortunately makes the remaining 70 more of an endurance test than anything else. Film students and cooler-than-thou hipster types might groove on it, but but otherwise it's really more of a novelty than a movie- and a dull one at that.

The Devil and M. Night Shyamalan

2011-03-04T21:58:00.000-05:00

So…M. Night Shyamalan. Seems it's cool to hate on him these days. But since I've never been one of the cool kids anyway, I'm not piling on. Truth is, I still really groove on his best films, and while he’s definitely had some pretty big whiffs the past fews years, there’s a whole lot more to it than just “The Sixth Sense was awesome and everything after that sucked." In fact, he’s done enough quality stuff that I hope to get ‘round to doing a retrospective post on his work someday (along with all the other shit I say I’m going to be doing “someday”). For now, though, I just want to talk about Devil. And no, it didn't suck.

Not surprisingly, Devil got pissed on quite a bit before most people even saw it, which is just plain stupid (pissing on movies one hasn't seen is something only I'm qualified to do). Besides, Shyamalan didn’t even direct Devil (John Erick Dowdle did), although it’s his production and his story, and from the opening scene on, there’s no mistaking the M. Night-ness of it (not that you could have missed the much mocked trailers reminding us that this is "From the mind of..."). However, it definitely moves along more briskly than most of his previous films, which even when he's at his best sort of stroll along at their own sweet pace. Dowdle gets part of the credit for that, I suppose, but let's also give a pat on the back to Brian (30 Days of Night) Nelson's screenplay, which keeps the dialogue snappy, the action frequent, and the BS to a minimum. In any case Devil clocks in at a very tight 81 minutes (just 10 minutes shorter than the seemingly endless highway to nowhere that was The Happening). It's called economical storytelling, and sadly, it's a dying art.

As for the story itself, here 'tis: five strangers are trapped in the elevator of a high-rise office building. One of them is the devil himself, come to earth to collect him a few wicked souls. Power to the elevator is sporadic, and every time the lights go out, evil doin' ensues. And spoilers aside, that's really it. There are a couple of goofy guards taking in the action via a security camera, and a couple of detectives who do a whole lot of talking and not much else, but all of that is basically just an excuse to let the audience out for some fresh air now and then and inject a little more background info on the characters. All of Devil's effective moments spring from the claustrophobic dynamics in the elevator occurring in more or less real time. Which brings us to something else Devil has going for it: smart, low key casting. You've seen most of these people before, but there's not a "name" in the bunch, which keeps things on a fairly even keel as far as playing Guess the Bad Guy goes.

Of course, no Shyamalan movie would be complete without an obvious , overstated morality tale. Here, it's a bit of folksy pontification on the nature of sin and forgiveness, although to be fair that's usually a given in any film where Lucifer is a headliner.

Mind you, I'm not trumpeting Devil as some grand return to form. There's plenty to pick on here, not the least of which is the less than credible explanation for why the Dark Lord is going through all of this trouble to begin with. If you're already so far down on the Nightman for past sins that you've got your snarkiest snark locked and loaded for every mention of his name, then nothing here his going to swing you in the other direction. The film that can do that probably can't be made, actually. But while it could certainly be improved upon, Devil is a modestly entertaining horror film, and a major step back from the abyss. Maybe Shyamalan needed the more collaborative experience he got here to swiftly kick him in the ass and out of the rut he's been in, and it could be a false step- for all I know he'll fall right back into the brainless muck he's been wallowing around in since Lady in the Water. But at least for the moment, he appears to be scraping himself up off the canvas, slowly.

Semi-Frozen

2011-02-21T22:49:00.000-05:00

I don't know that I'd ever have watched Frozen had it not been this month's choice over at Final Girl Film Club, but here goes nothin'...

Right out of the gate, the best thing Frozen has going for it is that its premise- three college kids are accidentally stranded on a ski lift and left to battle the elements– is the sort of eye-catching, weird-but-true headline that actually crawls across the ticker every so often. This type of film doesn't ask for quite the same suspension of disbelief as, say, movies about bulletproof seven foot psychopaths. It also had my complete lack of knowledge going for it- I don’t know shit about skiing, so I was pretty unquestioning of any technical details here about lifts, ski slopes and whatnot, not that there are many. Lord only knows what slipped by me.

Anyway, there you have it- cue the opening music and we’re off to an unnamed resort with frat boyish Dan (Kevin Zeggers), his apple pie girlfriend Parker (Emma Bell) and his pothead buddy Joe (Shawn Ashmore), where they’ll bribe a schlubby-looking lift attendant for a day of discount skiing. Joe and Dan are ready to party down, but Parker seems dubious. “Are you guys sure this is a good idea?” she asks. Poor Parker apparently isn’t much of a horror movie buff, otherwise she’d know that the answer to this timeless classic of a question is always a resounding HELL NO!

Anyhow, thanks to some conveniently buffoonish behavior on the part of the aforementioned crooked operator and his co-workers, our three main characters soon find themselves stranded 50 feet in midair on a deserted mountain as night arrives and the temperature plummets (its Sunday, we’re told, and they’re shutting down for the week). There’s a storm a-comin’, Parker has to pee, and Joe has some chick’s phone number but no way of getting in touch with her. Bad news all the way around.

After going through the predictable stages of denial, in-fighting, and pointless confessional gibberish our intrepid crew isn’t any further toward their goal of getting out of the damn chair. What to do, what to do. Finally, Dan convinces himself that 50 feet isn’t that far to jump, and that if he can just get himself on the ground, he can head off for help. Silly Dan! He jumps, landing squarely on his feet- whereupon (*cree-ack!*) both of his legs snap like matchsticks, leaving him sitting in the snow with a boney mess protruding through his pantlegs (sounds kind of wrong, I know). To make matters worse, wolves are immediately heard howling nearby. Dan begins to (understandably) freak out a bit. Joe hollers down and says not to worry, then makes the rather surprising claim that “wolves are pussies”, more scared of Dan than Dan is of them, etc. Silly Joe! It turns out the wolves are not pussies after all.

But enough with the spoilers- if you want to know what happens, watch the movie. As a horror fan, I promise it won't be the worst 93 minutes you spend this year. Personally, though, I found something distinctly undercooked and haphazard about Frozen . Like I said, the core premise isn't a bad one, but writer/director Adam Green doesn't deliver the goods with either his script or his shots (I never saw Hatchet, his 2006 slasher flick, and honestly if it weren't for IMDB I'd have probably thought this was his first time at the rodeo). Seemingly obvious touch points are missed (giving the audience a bit of vertigo here and there, for example, would have made Dan's big jump much more of a payoff moment) while time is piddled away elsewhere on meaningless sidebars (Joe's flirtation with some ski bunny) . The performances from all three leads, much like Frozen itself, are both passable and forgettable, but I honestly never know how much to attribute lukewarm acting to weak direction. And dammit, for a movie with such a "this could really happen, maybe" jumping off point, I didn't find a vicious pack of wolves to be much less of a stretch than a troupe of hatchet-wielding gnomes. All in all, a mild disappointment- the potential for a higher level of horror film was definitely here.

Women In Horror Month: Behind the Camera

2011-02-12T10:15:00.000-05:00

Banner lifted from Womeninhorrormonth.com

And Women in Horror Recognition Month rolls on...

Last week I gave a quick rundown of what I consider to be some of the most pivotal female performances in horror history. With a talent pool eight decades deep to draw from, it wasn't exactly a challenging exercise; the only real question was where to stop. Definitely a fun list to pull together, but a fairly pedestrian hodgepodge of the obvious, I'll admit (when Heather Langenkamp is the least-known name on your list, you're not exactly taking a stroll down on Obscurity Row).

This week things are a little different as we head behind the camera. Up until the 1980s, female producers and directors were all but non-existent in Hollywood at large, much less the narrow confines of horror. In fact, for a community that wears its smarmy brand of uber-PC liberalism like a badge of honor, Tinseltown is as packed with greasy, old school chauvinism as any of ass-backward hick towns it likes to mock in its films. So the next time you catch one of these self-righteous patronizing Sean Penn-types blowing it out their ass on some shitfest like The View about how Americans need to be enlightened on gender equality issues, feel free to go all Elvis on their ass and pump a couple of rounds into your TV set.

ANYWAY...uh...I think my main point was going to be that if this week's list looks a little light on the golden oldies, it's 'cause the ladies simply haven't had their share of at-bats. But that's changing- in fact, there's probably a good discussion to be had around the idea that women are slowly taking over as the predominant horror audience, and that's going to increasingly be reflected by the number of women involved in making horror films. If that's the case- hell, even if it's not - the names below all deserve a tip of the hat for helping to kick the door in.

Kathryn Bigelow, director

Why She's Here: Okay, I know The Hurt Locker was her "important" film, and Point Break was her big summer popcorn blockbuster, but Near Dark, her criminally overlooked 1987 horror-western, was her finest hour. So sez me.

Mary Lambert, director

Why She's Here: Lambert made a name for herself directing some of Madonna's early video efforts, then made the jump to horror with 1989's Pet Semetary. She's remained prolific ever since by casually bouncing back and forth between the two genres, specializing in TV and straight to video horror fare.

Jackie Kong, director

Why She's Here: Known for her schlocky B pictures, Kong's best work remains 1987's Blood Diner, a gory nod to 1963's trashy Blood Feast. Although Blood Diner remains unavailable on DVD in the US, it's managed to cobble together a small cult following over the years.

Jen and Sylvia Soska, directors/writers/actresses

Why They're Here: Busted! I'm totally cheating here. I haven't even seen Dead Hooker in a Trunk, the first film from Canada's Soska sisters, and even if I had it would be way premature to have them on a list like this. They haven't earned it. But damn, having the best title in movie history ought to count for something, and I have yet to read a bad review of this film. So they're on the list. Consider them the representation of the new wave, and we'll just have to see if they can deliver the goods enough to stay here.

Mary Harron, director

Why She's Here: Well, she's not here because I'm a big fan of her American Psycho, I can tell you that (I don't like Brett Easton Ellis anyway, and with the exception of Less Than Zero, haven't cared for the movies made from his works). Still, there's no denying the film has developed surprising legs over the years, and is increasingly referenced as an influential work by people who know a hell of a lot more about making movies than I do. And she did coax one hell of a performance out of Christian Bale, so onto the list she goes.

Debra Hill, producer/writer/director

Why She's Here: Sadly, Hill is no longer with us, but her legacy as a writer and producer is a lengthy and impressive one, including co-writing credits on Halloween (the good one, not Rob Zombie's sleeping pill of a remake), Halloween II, and The Fog. As a producer, she helped give birth to The Dead Zone, Halloween III, and Escape from New York among a slew of others (and that's just the horror stuff).

Jovanka Vukovic, editor/writer/cinema historian

Why She's Here: For starters, she helped pilot Rue Morgue magazine from just another dime-a-dozen horror fanzine to one of the genre's most influential publications. She's also written a book (Zombies! An Illustrated History of the Undead) and most recently delivered her first short film, The Captured Bird. Even if she weren't one of the most astute critics of horror around, she'd belong here for her versatility alone.

Mary Shelley, author

Why She's Here: A fascinating meditation on the relationship between morality, technology, and natural law, her novel Frankenstein has provided an almost bottomless source of inspiration and material for nearly two centuries by reminding us that just because you can do something doesn't always mean that you should.

Women in Horror Month: Let's PARTY!

2011-02-04T16:40:00.000-05:00

picture by Alison Lilly

As most everyone likely to be reading this knows, February is Women in Horror Recognition Month. This means there are zillions of tributes, salutes, and high-fives going on around the horror-sphere, with something available in just about any size and flavor you might choose: Totally Jinxed is all about the Bad Girls of horror, Little Miss Zombie interviews authors Sephera Giron, Lisa Morton, Nancy A. Collins and Lisa Tuttle, The Girl Who Loves Horror is taking a look at Stephen King's Ladies, From Midnight, With Love already has several WIH posts up (including a great one on Attack of the 50ft Woman) and Monsterland is promising a month long celebration. Of course, it's pretty much a given that there's an official WIH site and, shockingly, a Facebook page.

Do some poking around and you'll find some pretty snappy writing online this week about the growing role of women in horror, or about how women who don't appeal to the sexual fantasies of male horror fans are marginalized, and other deep, heavy topics that I'm too lazy and dimwitted to get into. The Reveaux isn't an academic type blog, it's a beer-and-popcorn type blog. I'm fresh out of postmodern feminist essays and such.

That said, I do love women, horror movies, and a good party, so let me in! I've got a post or three lined up for this month focusing on the standout ladies in what has obviously been a male-dominated genre (though that's changing fast). I didn't want to just tick off a list of "Horror Babes" (though they certainly have a role to play here), so I decided to break things up. Today's post focuses on some of the great work women have done in front of the camera; I'll be back soon with my list of great directors and offscreen personalities.

Women in Horror Pt:1 - Screams Queens, Bad Girls, and One Stressed Out Mother

Elsa Lanchester as The Bride in Bride of Frankenstein- Lanchester's actual screen time as the Bride may have been brief, and she may not have had any real dialogue, but let's face it: when you're wrapped in an absolutely iconic look everything else is pretty much irrelevant. The hair, the bandaged arms...seventy-plus years later, it's a package that still works.

Maila Nurmi as Vampira- Lily Munster, Morticia Addams, Elvira...knockoffs, every last one of 'em. Give it up for the the original horror sexpot.

Janet Leigh as Marion Crane in Psycho- Let's see here....she's having sex in the opening scene of the movie, steals a bunch of cash, and ends up getting sliced to bits in the shower of some remote motel room. And voila! The Bad Girl Gets What She Deserves cliche is born.

Ellen Burstyn as Chris McNeil in The Exorcist- Linda Blair this, Linda Blair that. Lost amid all the pea soup was one of the greatest performances ever in a horror film. The effects may have made us jump, but it was really Burstyn more than anyone who sold the audience on what was happening.

Sigourney Weaver as Ellen Ripley in Alien- Ellen Ripley is that rarest of birds, the female action hero. While her counterparts in slasher films were taking on slow-footed masked doofuses with kitchen knives, Rip was going toe-to-toe with a nine foot monster with acid for blood. Props.

Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode in Halloween- And the prototypical Final Girl is born.

Heather Langenkamp as Nancy Thompson in A Nightmare on Elm Street- I can't quite put my finger on what I've always found so compelling about Langenkamp's performance in one of the most original horror movies ever made, but trust me- she belongs on this list.

Kathy Bates as Annie Wilkes in Misery- Considering the fact that Kathy Bates bagged some major Oscar hardware for her spin as a psychotic nurse, I’m really surprised at how rarely her name seems to come up on lists like this one. Plus, how many real life Annie Wilkes are out there? Scary, no?

Heather Donahue as Heather Donahue in The Blair Witch Project- I guess poor Heather's "I'm so sorry" scene in this movie has been parodied just about to death, and the poor girl was actually stuck with a Razzie award, but you know what? That's because EVERYONE knows that scene, because Blair Witch was great, and Donahue was great in it. Haters be gone!

Not Much of a Case

2011-01-20T16:56:00.001-05:00

Meet the Serious Family

(Caveat emptor: This is a pretty weak post. I saw Case 39 a couple of weeks back and really struggled coming up with much of anything to say about it. But dammit, I wasn't going in to another weekend post-less, so you're just going to have to suffer through it. Peace.)

Apparently Renee Zellweger just annoys the hell out of some people. I keep coming across comments to this effect in the blogosphere; usually its something to do with her looks or her voice. But she’s never bothered me (I thought she was pretty terrific in Cold Mountain), and I was totally up for seeing her tackle the unfamiliar turf of a horror movie in Case 39. In retrospect, I might have gotten a little carried away with my visions of Bridget Jones: the Final Nightmare and set the bar a little too high. Case 39 is pretty much just another by-the-numbers Evil Little Kid movie- think Orphan with the psychopathic brat swapped out for a paranormal one. And as for our girl Renee, well, she just sort of cruises through the proceedings on impulse power (which isn’t necessarily a knock; even squinty-eyed Oscar-winners have bills to pay and are allowed to mail it in once in awhile).

I know everyone (well, a lot of people...okay, some) dug Isabelle Fuhrman's performance as the homicidal waife in Orphan, but I think Jodelle Ferland has her beat here. The girl brings the creepy. Actually, she's the best thing about Case 39 (well, her and veteran Ian McShane as Zellweger's grizzled detective pal). There are some good scenes, but the whole thing is pretty rote.

I don't necessarily have a problem with movies sticking tightly to formula, mind you. Hell, that's exactly what Sam Raimi did a couple of years ago with Drag Me to Hell, and he came up with one of the best horror movies of the last decade. BUT...beware yon pitfalls. Director Christian Alvert and writer Ray Wright both have decent resumes; they shouldn't need to be told that if you're going to lean on a lot of cliches, its probably a good idea to not use them more than once in the same film. Like, I'm okay with "the monster is in the back seat of the car!", even if it's a little worn out- but three times in 109 minutes? Uh, no. Same deal with "break-the-tension-with-a-loud-knock-on-the-door/window". I'll give you the first one, but points are coming off when you throw it at me a second time. That's just sloppy.

Bradley Cooper's bathroom habits become an issue

I really don't have much else to say here. I was disappointed, but most probably because I was hoping for more than I should have. When you're looking for something you can really sink your teeth into, a bowl of barely lukewarm competence doesn't really cut it. But whatevs. The weekend's here; on to the next movie.

Robots!

2011-01-09T11:38:00.000-05:00

I’m not nearly as big into science fiction as I am into horror, but I’ve always dug robots ("Who doesn't?" you're probably thinking). Sometimes they’re scary, sometimes they’re weird, and sometimes they’re just comic relief, but considering the scope of their contributions to film history pretty much since the beginning, they rarely get their due. Apologies to those I'm sure I'm overlooking , but I'm taking a moment to salute some of my favorites:

Roy Batty (Blade Runner, 1982)- I don't care what you say about Rutger Hauer, he was flat out perfect in this. And yeah, a "replicant" qualifies as a robot in my book. "I want more life...fucker." Don’t we all, Roy, don’t we all.

Gort (The Day the Earth Stood Still, 1951)- Fair question: is there a single more iconic horror/sci-fi image from the 50s than Gort just standing in front of his flying saucer? Kind of sums up genre films from the Ike decade in just one shot. Plus, how much more...um... robotic can you get then just standing there, not talking, and blowing things up with your eye-beam?

Ash (Alien, 1979)- First, it looked like he had Elmer's glue for blood, which at age 12 flipped me completely the hell out. Second, he won't lie to you about your chances, but you do have his sympathies (who says robots don't have feelings?). Ash got inside Ripley's head so bad, she was still being a total android-hating be-yatch to Lance Henrickson one whole movie later in Aliens. And yeah, an android is too a robot.

Robby the Robot (Forbidden Planet, 1956…among many others)- Holy crap- If Ron Jeremy isn't the hardest working man in show business, then Robby certainly is. His film and TV credits are just about endless, but it all started with Forbidden Planet, one of the all-time great sci-fi movies.

Robocop (Robocop, 1987)- He just flat kicked ass. And that's the end of that.

Maschinenmensch (Metropolis, 1927)- As cool and eerie as this fembot-robo-droid looks now, I can't imagine how mind-blowing she must have appeared to silent-era audiences watching 1927's Metropolis. I mean, Maschinenmensch looked like C-3P0's less geeky older sister fifty friggin’ years before Star Wars came out.

T-101 (The Terminator, 1984)- The franchise hasn't been very consistent about the model number of the first cyborg in the series, but whatever- you know who I'm talkin' about. 27 years of listening to everyone and their brother’s crappy Ah-nold impressions at parties have made it easy to forget just what a stone cold badass the Terminator originally was.

T-1000 (Terminator 2: Judgment Day, 1990)- Terminator 2 is that rare sequel which equals (and in some cases surpasses) the original. No surprise, then, that it should come with a new and improved model of Terminator than could morph and melt and do all sorts of cool new things that special effects just didn’t allow for in 1984.

Phreakin' Out with Dr. Phibes

2011-01-01T14:37:00.000-05:00

I rarely buy DVDs from Barnes & Noble, because although they actually have a pretty good horror selection, their prices are high as hell. But when, flush with B&N gift cards, I came across The Abominable Dr. Phibes paired with Dr. Phibes Rises Again on sale for $9.99 this week…well, no brainer, right?

The Clockwork Wizards lay down a groove

It's a stone cold fact that Vincent Leonard Price II portrayed quite a few memorable characters during his distinguished career, but for my money the greatest of them all was one Anton Phibes (that’s Doctor Phibes to you). Unlike like the garden variety one-note psychopathic killer typically encountered in the horror genre, the cultured Phibes was a true renaissance man: world class organist, scientific genius, noted theologian, tinkerer…the list goes on. Plus, he wore a Vincent Price mask, built mechanical jazz combos and ate drank, and spoke through various holes in his neck. Hardly the sort of chap who’s easily forgotten, even if he weren’t trying to kill people with mechanical snakes, brass unicorn heads, and so on.

Locusts eat more than one might think

A true cult classic, The Abominable Dr. Phibes came out in 1971, a bit past Price’s late 50s/early 60s heyday as the hammy king of B horror flicks but still while he was capable of bringing his A game to a role. In fact, I’m not sure either this movie or its sequel would have worked nearly as well with anyone else in the lead- it’s very hard to imagine, say, Christopher Lee bringing the same wit and sympathy to the character that Price does.

You'd wear a Vincent Price mask too if you looked like this

The all-timer of a performance from Price isn’t the only thing the Phibes saga has going for it, though. Because the story is set in the 1920s- uncommon territory for a horror film- we get a lot of really cool art deco sets, costumes and toys, like the stylish grammaphone thing Phibes plugs into his neck when he wants pontificate about something. We also get some great comic relief courtesy of Peter Jeffrey as the bumbling Inspector Trout.

When we first meet Phibes, he’s already busy killing off the doctors he holds responsible for his wife’s death several years earlier (whether or not they did anything wrong is never made clear). He themes his killing spree around the ten deadly plagues of Egypt, and although its been pointed out that he doesn’t get either the plagues themselves or the order exactly right, his inspiration isn’t nearly as important as the inventive ways he goes about his gruesome business. I mean, rats that bring down airplanes…frog masks that strangle people…good stuff, people!

Kermit gets sloppy drunk

That's one way to deal with wax buildup, I guess

Although a lot of fans regard Dr. Phibes Rises Again as being as good as (or better than) the original, personally I don’t see it. I watched both films back-to-back over the holidays, and like most hurried horror sequels Rises Again is pockmarked with continuity problems. Exhibit A: It’s easy enough to overlook the fact that Vulnavia, Phibes’ mute assistant, is played by a different actress, but how is it that she displays no ill effects from the acid shower she took at the end of the first movie? There are half a dozen or so similarly irritating gaffs, although I might be nitpicking on some of them. The real problem I have with the second movie is the shift in tone: while Abominable certainly spent its share of time winking at the camera, Rises Again is far more overtly camp, and Phibes’ increased dialogue makes him a less menacing figure. Basically, it’s a case of too much creepiness being sacrificed in order to cram in as many one liners as possible. Still, I’ll take it over probably 90% of the horror sequels made in the 28 years since.

As a side note, although both movies are American International Pictures productions, they were filmed in England using Brit sets, locations, equipment, and (mostly) casts, which is why you'll note a slightly Hammer-esque look and feel.

Random Trailer Trash

2010-12-09T17:16:00.000-05:00

Okay, time for some low budget 50's horror/sci-fi weirdness, brought to you from across the decades in low definition black and white. And yes, this is just my way of saying that I know it's been three weeks since my last post, but I've been so busy this is the best I could come up with.

The trailer for 1959's The Alligator People is totally worth watching just to hear Lon Chaney Jr scream "I'll kill you, Alligator Man! Just like I would any four legged gator!" Because, see, the Alligator Man has two legs because he's half man...and because "I'll kill you" is a bit too vague, I guess.

My favorite part about the clip from 1953's Robot Monster is watching the girl try not to laugh when the monster scoops her up. I'm not saying a gorilla suit with a TV set for a head is the worst monster costume ever- it's not as bad as The Creeping Terror, for example - but it's still bad enough to make the above-mentioned Alligator Man look like Alien by comparison.

I know I just did a post raving about Ed Wood's Plan 9 from Outer Space, but I've been looking for a reason to post Bela Lugosi's dragon speech from 1953's Glen or Glenda, so here it is. This might be the most bizarre bit of dialogue from any movie ever made, and it makes no sense whatsoever (either by itself or in the context of the movie), but God bless Bela- he's obviously giving it his all here.

Plan 9 from Outer Space Revisited...and Remade?

2010-11-18T16:45:00.000-05:00

By now, I guess everybody knows that we’re in for a remake of Plan 9 from Outer Space at some point soon (and if you didn’t know, well thank God you found this blog, right?). This is one of those projects that screams "Why?" more than most. The details are still kind of sketchy, but all indicators point to something along the lines of an ordinary zombie flick. If true, that’s disappointing, because while the original Plan 9 and the man who directed it were many things, one thing they were not was ordinary.

Wood indulges his angora fetish

Bias alert: I’m a big fan of Edward D. Wood Jr. Or more accurately, I’m a big fan of his attitude. As for his technical ability, there are two schools of though, one which holds that Wood had minimal talent, the other that he had none at all. But the guy was on fire with his own unique artistic vision, and unintentionally comedic as it may have been, he was remarkably committed to seeing it through. Wood lacked the money, connections and resources to operate anywhere but on the furthermost outskirts of the legitimate film business, and even during his 1950s (*ahem*) "heyday" was viewed as somewhat of joke (his habit of cross-dressing while on set probably didn't help). But he soldiered on, directing, writing, editing, promoting, scamming and whatever else it took to get his movies made. If nothing else, you've got to admire his unshakable belief in the value of what he was doing.

ANYWAY...back to Plan 9 from Outer Space itself. Rarely has cinematic ineptitude been as roundly celebrated as this 1959 sci-fi/zombie train wreck (which was actually shot in '56). Then again, rarely has a movie displayed that ineptitude with such flair (though it should probably be noted that the film was virtually forgotten until 1980, when critic Micheal Medved tagged it as the Worst Movie of All Time, and Wood as Worst Director). Me, I don't think it's even close to being the "the worst" anything. Incompetently made, completely nonsensical and amateurish in every way, definitely- but I've seen a number of movies I would rank below it because they're something far worse that incompetent: they're boring. I mean, there's more to enjoy in the first ten minutes of Plan 9 than in the entire 9 hours of a pompous Quaalude sandwich like Lost in Translation. In fact, it's so enthusiastic in its awfulness that its like own episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 Who needs riffing when you've got hunks of dialogue as rich as

"For a time we tried to contact them by radio but no response. Then they attacked a town, a small town I'll admit, but never the less a town of people, people who died."

and

"Now, don't you worry. The saucers are up there. The graveyard is out there. But I'll be locked up safely in there. "

and

"We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives. And remember my friend, future events such as these will affect you in the future."

Almost makes fun of itself, doesn't it? But wait- there's more! In addition to the absurd (yet oddly fascinating) gibberish between characters, there are visual goofs galore, and I'm not just talking about the cheesy pie tin flying saucers, or the ever-present shadows of crew and equipment, or the cardboard tombstones getting knocked over or the recycled set pieces (or maybe patio furniture doubling as bedroom furniture was just a style thing back in the 50s). I'm talking about some of the most spectacular continuity problems ever committed to film. Day changes to night and back again at random, often within the same scene. A cop car changes makes and models not one, but twice during the same short drive. A terrified woman runs shoeless from her home, but is seen moments later with fashionable footwear. Perhaps most memorable of all, Bela Lugosi's "Ghoul Man" character inexplicably grows about a foot taller and starts covering his face with his cape (Lugosi actually died before filming began and "stars" in Plan 9 only courtesy of some test footage that the Woodster had previously shot for another project).

Tor Johnson finds movies to be a cushier gig than wrestling

And speaking of the cast...well, it's an interesting conglomeration of Ed's little troupe of semi-pro actors and pals. First, you've got Lugosi- three years in the ground by the time of the premier -getting top billing, a strategy which might have helped the box office had he not been basically forgotten by the time he kicked. Then you've got Vampira, the original Elvira prototype, who despite being paid union scale (she claimed), was supposedly so costly that all of her scenes were filmed in two hours (not hard to believe it all given Wood's "that's good enough" approach to filming). Next you've got Hollywood veteran Lyle Talbot, an actual real living actor who was known to boast that he never turned down a paying gig (no shit, dude). There's also lumbering wrestler Tor Johnson, who actually was a pretty scary looking dude, as Inspector Clay, who winds up getting zombi-fied. Drag queen John "Bunny" Breckenridge is on hand playing The Ruler, and Wood's chiropractor (yes...chiropractor) fills in for Lugosi, despite bearing no physical resemblance whatsoever to Bela.

Bela Lugosi rises from the grave one last time

Plan 9 has become sort of my go-to film choice when I really need to just veg in front of a classic piece of genre trash. This is partly because its just so damn reliable: it's consistently entertaining while maintaining the lowest possible standards of quality in all phases. But there's more to it than that, and it has to do with Ed Wood himself. Unlike Tim Burton's cheery 1994 biopic (which I loved, even if it played fast and loose with the facts), Wood's life did not have an upbeat ending in the aftermath of Plan 9. By the late 60s he had slid into an alcohol-fueled grind of softcore porn flicks and dime smut novels, eventually dying of a heart attack while staying in a friend's apartment in 1978. Knowing this, and knowing that his interest in lurid subject matter largely reflected his own personal demons (1953's Glen or Glenda, for example), I find something simultaneously innocent and desperate about Plan 9. The final descent into depravity had yet to begin, but I think Wood knew he was just about out of chances, and put everything he had into this film. It may not be a "good movie", but it sure is fun to watch, and wherever he is now, i hope he takes that as a compliment.

The chiropractor is the one with his face covered

Payback Time: Those Crazy Critters of the 1970s

2010-11-05T23:02:00.000-04:00

I didn't catch the Piranha remake/retelling/re-imagining or whatever the hell it was when it came out a few months ago, but no biggie: I grew up in the 70s, which means I'm already well acquainted with the very finest in man vs. nature horror schlock.

In much the same way 50s horror/sci-fi was obsessed with the strange and terrible consequences of the encroaching space age, the "Me Decade" seemed preoccupied with the idea of Mother Nature bitch-slapping the human race with a variety of attacks. These included assorted natural disasters and calamities like those portrayed in The Poseidon Adventure and Earthquake. But the real fun came from the the "animals attack" films. Not all of them took themselves seriously, but the general idea was always the same: man had dished out the punishment for long enough, and now it was payback time! Check out some of these gems:

One of the first, and dumbest, entrants in this dubious class of film was 1972's Night of the Lepus. It's about- I shit you not - giant killer rabbits. Janet Leigh is in this, which I can't decide if I find amusing or just sad.

Rabbits not doin' it for ya? Okay- how about killer frogs? No? Well, at least they're vaguely more threatening than rabbits, right? Or slimier, at any rate. Ray Milland "stars" here, for whatever it's worth.

Now this is more like it. Who likes snakes? Hardly anyone, 'cept that weird chick with all the tatoos that lives in the apartment upstairs. This isn't so much an animal attack film as it is a "messing with the natural order of things" movie, but it still seems to fit here. For promotional purposes, though, it probably wasn't a good idea to have a seven letter title composed of only consonants- you just feel kind of perverted going "Hey, have you seen Sssssss?" For the record, it seemed like this was on "ABC Sunday Night Movie" about every four weeks in the late 70s.

Worms? Oh well. At least the poster was cool. Actually, I shouldn't be so dismissive here- I haven't seen 1973's Squirm since way back in the day, and really don't recall much about it other than the worms in question start going nuts after a downed power line gives them a massive electrical shock (I think).

Few movies have spawned more obvious rip-offs than Jaws, and fewer still made less effort to deviate from the formula even for a scene or two than Grizzly. 34 years later, though, that's actually a plus.

I guess by 1977, the animals got together and decided that since they were getting their asses handed to them on an individual basis, maybe they should team up and go after Leslie Nielsen.

Another staple of the late night movie circuit, 1978's Piranha. Gee, wonder where they got this poster idea? Fun movie, though.

Here's an example of a movie trying way too hard to be "socially relevant" and putting everyone to sleep in the process (although it has one of the all-time great jump-scares at the very end; my wife still remembers flinging her popcorn up in the air almost 30 years later). Another bear, albeit a considerably uglier one than the title character in Grizzly, terrorizes Talia Shire and pals.

A Few Vampires That Don't Suck

2010-10-28T16:23:00.000-04:00

Typically, the horror films I watch during the week leading up to Halloween tend to be the stone cold classics, but last night I thought I’d mix it up a bit since I hadn’t bothered to see Daybreakers when it came out. And, in the words of annoyed royalty throughout the ages, we are not amused. I mean, the idea about what would happen if vampires actually took over the world is a cool enough premise, but WTF is going on here? Well, I’ll tell you: it’s the wuss-ification of vampires into anxiety-riddled little creatures struggling to get in touch with their inner human. Maybe it’s just me, but I thought vampires were supposed to be BAD. You know, the undead, the prince/princess of darkness, no soul, and so on. But here lately it seems like were being hit with this wave of vamps that are more neurotic than Woody Allen. Take Ethan Hawke’s character here. He doesn’t want to drink human blood, so he “only” feeds on animals. Great. Another vampire with a moral compass: Edward Cullen, all grown up. Gag.

There is a fair amount of violence and red gooey slop wedged into the film (though honestly I don’t think either is necessarily required), and there are some cool scenes scattered here and there. There’s also Willem Defoe, who I usually like (and who was in a far superior vampire movie, Shadow of the Vampire, a decade ago). But mostly, Daybreakers just made me think of other, better vampire movies.

Other than being pretty consistent about citing Psycho as my favorite film ever, my various lists tend to remain in flux. So these aren’t necessarily my favorites, or what I think are the “best” vampire films. And I’m leaving out a TON of great ones, because I just don’t have time for a longer post., and if I even start naming them I'll wind up going on and on. So I’m not exactly braggin’ on the collection below, but I’ll promise you this: campy or serious, everyone of them is a damn sight better than Daybreakers.

The Last Man on Earth 1964- Like I was saying, the idea about what would happen if vampires actually took over the world is a cool enough premise. And that’s just what’s happened here, although I suppose it’s a matter of debate whether the creatures in Richard Matheson’s novel I Am Legend (on which this movie is based) are technically vampires, zombies, or something else. This is B-movie madness at its finest: you’ve got good source material, a tiny budget, an Italian shooting location, and Vincent Price. It’s also in the public domain, meaning you can download it and watch it for free.

30 Days of Night 2007- Now this is what I’m talking about! In the age of Twilight-y vampires wrestling with their feelings, their place in society, and all that other insipid crap that a real vampire wouldn’t give a rat’s ass about, Days brings it all back home to the essentials: blood, darkness, and fear. There’s no real attempt at back-story or silly social commentary subtext, and the most of the classic trappings (mirrors, crucifixes, garlic) nowhere to be found, but holy shit! The vampires! They’re great! Why? Because they’re not all a bunch of whining emo-weenies! They’re just relentless killing machines that can’t be appealed to or reasoned with. The pacing is awesome and the story is tight.

Nosferatu (1922)- Yeah, it’s a silent movie. And yeah, it’s basically Dracula, ‘cept the rights to the novel couldn’t be secured, so they called the vampire Count Orlock instead. But…it’s really quite eerie and Max Schreck comes off as totally inhuman, no mean feat considering the primitive makeup and technology of the day.

Salem’s Lot (1979)- Snicker and roll your eyes all you want, but TV miniseries or not, this late-70s product still stands as one of the better retellings of a Stephen King novel. It helps that when they did tweak the story, the tweaked it in a cool way: Kurt Barlow is indescribably creepy in the book, but the mute monster he’s transformed into for this version was incredibly effective as well. I should also note that the late great James Mason is utterly fantastic in this, and that the scene with the undead kid floating outside the bedroom window really bothered my when i was in the 7th grade.

Fright Night (1985)- Kid stuff, sure- but TASTY kid stuff. If you’re just flat morally opposed to mixing horror and comedy Fright Night probably won’t get you to change your mind, but it’s well done and engaging, gives a nice shout out to genre fans, and it’s got the always entertaining Roddy McDowell. Come to think of it, Chris Sarandon’s new-to-the-neighborhood vampire Jerry is still cooler and more memorable than any character from Twilight (guess I've made my feelings on that film pretty clear). Good for the family half of your Saturday night double feature before the kids get put to bed and the beer (and other adult vices) is broken out.

Dracula (1931)- Well, now I’m kind of fudging things a bit here, because truth be told Dracula isn’t all that great as a movie (though several of the deluxe DVD editions include the fascinating- and superior – Spanish version, shot at virtually the same time, on the same sets, at night). But man…friggin’ Bela Lugosi! You’ve got to give it up for Bela- he was so damn good in this thing that his take on the Count still dominates the public perception of the vampire 80 years after the fact. What’s the word for that? Oh yeah…iconic.

Horror of Dracula (1958)- There’s no way I can put this sort of list together without a nod to the great Hammer Studios. Sure they pumped out their share of crap, and they were still yanking on the udder long after there was no milk left in the Dracula franchise cow, but you’ve got to admire the gusto the Brits threw into their films…not to mention the generous amounts of blood and heaving cleavage. And good grief, if Bela Lugosi isn’t your iconic vampire, then Christopher Lee sure as hell ought to be.

Just for Fun: It's Slime Time!

2010-10-20T16:23:00.001-04:00

I know, I know- Considering the time of year I really should be getting on with something a little bit less schlocky, maybe a bit more...I dunno...scary. But what the hell- Halloween is a month long celebration around here, and there's plenty of time left. This trailer was just too tempting not to post, mainly for the laugh factor. I first caught 1963's The Slime People on a Sunday afternoon creature feature at my Grandma's house back in the 70s, and looking at the trailer now, I can see why I thought it was so awesome then: because it's friggin' hilarious! First off, the you'll notice Slimers apparently need some additional combat training, because just one human appears to hold his own pretty well against three of them by going all WWF on their slimy asses. The rest, well, you can see the comedic value for yourself.

The Slime People (man, I just can't get enough of that title!) was just one of about six billion entries in the Radiation-spawned Mutant Sweepstakes of the 50s and 60s, and it was goofy enough to get the Mystery Science Theater 3000 treatment at some point (I'll leave it to bigger geeks than myself to figure out when exactly that was). As far as the evolution of rubber suit monsters goes, the Slime People themselves won't make anyone forget the Gill Man in Creature from the Black Lagoon, but they're certainly far more evolved than the charred pile of latex that was the Creature from the Haunted Sea.

Bleaux Leaux and Bonibleaux too

2010-10-18T20:44:00.000-04:00

And now for something a little different. But there's still a horror tie-in, kinda sorta.

Meet Zane Zombie. Zane is the nattily-attired star of the card above as well as the official mascot of the Bleaux Leaux Reveaux. I actually drew Zane myself, but I really don't have much to do with why he looks so cool, so colorful, so retro and so in-the-now all at the same time.

As it happens, I'm married to the lovely and talented Boni of Bonibleaux Designs. The woman could care less about scratchy old horror movies (or spiffy new horror movies for that matter), but in the world of stamping and crafting, she's got serious game. Think Stacie Ponder if Stacie created kick-ass cards instead of kick-ass posts about obscure 80's slasher flicks.

ANYWAY...here lately we've been collaborating on some digital stamp creations, and you can check them out in the gallery here at the Bonibleaux Designs store. I'm seriously out of my element here, so fortunately my part is really simple: I draw a picture, and Boni uses her magical powers to demonstrate the awesome artistic possibilities to the rest of the world. And voila! Instant fun!

Now, I'm guessing that the overlap between horror bloggers and craft bloggers is, like, whisker-thin. At the same time, though, I know the horror blogging community is fairly well infested with arty, creative people cranking out all sorts of creations in all manner of mediums. This post is for those particular folks who might dig the groove we're layin' down, so if you're feelin' me, come check us out!

Creeping Around with Spider Baby

2010-10-13T16:32:00.000-04:00

First things first: If nothing else, you need to watch Spider Baby just for the wacky-ass theme song performed by the movie's leading man, Lon Chaney, Jr. It's fantastic. Beyond that, I'll leave it up to you whether to tackle this 1968 horror-comedy hybrid from Jack Hill (a Roger Corman protege, btw). I dig it in a major way, but it's not going to be everybody's cup of venom.

Actually Spider Baby was filmed in 1964, but when the original producer got tapped out, it was shelved for a few years. Alternate release titles for this piece of weirdness include The Liver Eaters, Attack of the Liver Eaters, Cannibal Orgy, and The Maddest Story Ever Told. Promising titles all, but I still prefer the understated elegance of Spider Baby.

In any event, Chaney plays Bruno, a chauffeur by trade and guardian of the orphaned Merrye "children", all of whom appear to be in their teens and quite fully, uh...developed. They're all shacked up together in a rambling old Victorian crib with a sort of Addams Family thing going on...if the Addams Family were a bunch of tweaked out homicidal junkies instead of just silly. See, the kids have something called "Merrye Syndrome" which supposedly makes them "regress down the evolutionary ladder". I'm not sure what that's supposed to mean, but mainly these brats want to eat nasty crap, play with spiders, and hurt people. When distant relatives show up to claim the house as part of an inheritance...well, enough with the plot stuff. You can guess the rest.

Unlike a lot of the older B horror flicks I write about here, Spider Baby is often quite funny on purpose, and for as dumb as it might seem on the surface it's actually a lot smarter than most "serious" horror fare of the era. It also winks at its audience a lot, referencing early Chaney roles several times (at one point someone actually asks Bruno if he's seen The Wolfman- good stuff!). But it also creates some genuinely uncomfortable moments by openly flirting with several taboos, and although it never really crosses any lines, it effectively creates a mood where we 're sure something upsetting is just about to happen. And that, of course, is what effective horror is really all about.

The more I think about it, the more I realize I'll probably take Spider Baby for another spin, probably before Halloween. There's really quite a bit going on here, some of which I'm sure escaped me on the first go-round. If you're interested in watching this surprisingly hip, effective cheapie but don't feel like hunting down the DVD, the movie can be downloaded for free here (I'd try the MPEG1 file, as I think there are sound issues with the 512kb MPEG4).

Found Footage Films- A Sampler

2010-08-27T16:34:00.000-04:00

Okay, my flirtation with "retirement" and some accompanying technical difficulties appear to be things of the past- now, like some moldy old zombie with stink breath, bad skin and a dated sense of style, I'm back. So just to loosen up again, here's a semi-coherent ramble inspired by a just released film that I have yet to see.

The Last Exorcism hit theaters yesterday. I was a little leery of this thing when I first caught sight of it coming down the pike. Sorry, but I just think the whole found footage/reality/docu-horror thing got bled out a good long while ago and could use a rest (I know I'm in the minority on this but I thought Paranormal Activity was kind of sleepy). Now every time I see the camera wobble in a preview...well, you get the idea. But apparently a lot of folks are likin' this latest entry in the Next Blair Witch sweepstakes, cause some of the early reviews are surprisingly kind.

Which kind of got me to thinking: I'll bet everyone is dying to know which found footage/reality horror movies I think are noteworthy. Or maybe which ones I hate. Or even those I'm ambivalent about but feel like spotlighting for reasons of my own. Anywhere, here's a small batch of the good, the bad, and the ugly from the You Can Do This Too! school of horror movies. It's not meant to be all-inclusive; just a sampler platter according to my own peculiar tastes (so no fair bitching about "where's Rec or Cloverfield?").

Cannibal Holocaust (1980)- Here we have an underground fave, the Italian exploitation cheapie that started it all. At least that's what all the cool kids say. And, it was banned in a bunch of countries, which of course only added to its hip, must-see status. Me, I think it's a piece of self-indulgent crap, "horrifying" only in the way that watching actual footage from a slaughterhouse is horrifying (several live animals were purposely killed for the making of the movie). Revulsion and horror aren't necessarily the same thing. Bird shit is disgusting, too, but that doesn't make it scary. Still, I suppose this movie is notable enough to warrant a mention here.

The Last Broadcast (1998)- Director/writers Stefan Avalos and Lance Weiler took the "lost documentary" concept of Holocaust and filtered it through the take-home digital technology of the late 90s. The result is less a horror movie than an old-fashioned whodunit, and ultimately the concept is way better than the finished product, but the parts that do work work extremely well.

The Blair Witch Project (1999)- The passage of a decade has done nothing to dull the jagged fault lines this movie caused among horror fans. To some it was the effin' coolest, freshest, creepiest thing they'd seen in years; others saw only an increasingly tedious, headache-inducing home movie. Whatever the case, Witch was the movie that took the homemade/underground aesthetic of the found footage concept, injected it with a brilliant viral marketing campaign, and dragged it kicking and screaming into the land of the blockbuster. Personally, I rank it as one of the very finest horror movies ever made, for enough reasons that I should probably do a completely separate post about it. For the moment, I'll just leave it at this: Blair Witch was a true milestone in horror, a deafening rebuke of a lazy, bloated genre that had gorged itself on reel after reel of gore-slathered stupidity and soulless special effects for far too long. And the last 5-10 minutes comprise possibly the best ending in horror move history.

Death of a Ghost Hunter (2007) Never heard of it? Neither had I until Mrs. Leaux fished it out of the dump bin at K-Mart. This movie is ultra low budget even by the meager standards of this list. And fair warning given: a lot of the acting is especially atrocious. Like the actors are regurgitating. Their lines. Word. For. Word. But there's something seriously unsettling buried underneath the high school drama class antics, and things ultimately things coalesce into a surprisingly effective ghost story. It's no classic, but if you come across it in a discount store, its well worth the $3 investment.

Diary of the Dead (2007) A colossal misstep for the father of the modern zombie film. Horror icon he may be, but George Romeo's ill-advised attempt to stay current only served to underscore just how dated this whole franchise has become. While a few segments are reasonably effective, the movie simply has no flow, lurching along awkwardly like one of the damn zombies before finally stalling out completely near the end.

Paranormal Activity (2009) A decade after Blair Witch, writer/director Oren Peli simply moved the whole concept to the cozy indoors of yuppie suburbia and did hella box office. Didn't quite work for me, though I didn't think it out and out sucked. Whether its a house or a person that's being haunted, most ghost stories eventually come up against one fundamental question: "Why don't the characters just go somewhere else and see if that changes anything?" Some movies handle this well (in Poltergeist, for example, the family can't leave because their youngest daughter is trapped in the house), some simply ignore it and hope for the best. Paranormal Activity tries to split the difference by lamely offering up a minor character who tells the unfortunate couple that it is the woman, not the house, that is haunted. I could never get past that. Come on- things are obviously getting worse night after night. Don't you think they'd at least try to sleep somewhere else for one night? Like, say, a church, or the TAPS van, or...something? Plus, it was suh-LOW. Still, I've got to give it a thumbs up for completely forgoing any cheap tricks or effects and going straight for the psychological chill. I just didn't think it connected.

A Quickie with the Daughter of Horror

2010-07-22T22:25:00.000-04:00

The weekend, finally. This Monday-Thursday thing is really starting to try my patience. Anyhow, to kick things off in as offbeat a manner as possible, here's a super short post about a super short- and super weird -little movie you've probably never heard of from the decade that gave us Elvis, the Edsel, and Sputnik.

I'm not sure exactly how to classify 1955's Dementia (aka Daughter of Horror). Part horror movie (I think), part arthouse wanna-be (kind of), part quirky beatnik artifact- well, maybe that sounds like a bit of a mess, but Dementia actually has a far more distinct vision and sense of purpose than, say, Jennifer's Body. It's also mercifully shorter (under an hour).

Lacking both credits and conventional dialogue, but boasting a genuinely creepy musical score, Dementia takes us through one sleepless night as seen through the mind of a mentally unstable young woman (Adrienne Barrett, who bears an unsettling resemblance to Lynndie England of Abu Ghraib fame). A slightly re-cut version with a rather pointless bit of narration inserted was re-issued as Daughter of Horror.

Quite honestly, I think this flick was probably a decade ahead of its time- it's got a very late 60s edge to it. The few people who did check it out back in the day probably had no clue what to think of it- it certainly wasn't like anything else playing at the time, and even today its comes across as strangely unsettling.

And because it falls into the public domain, it's free! You can download the narrated cut (Daughter of Horror) here (among other places), or you can hunt down the Kino DVD and get both Dementia and Daughter of Horror with vastly superior pictures and a few extras thrown in. And beware- there's at least one more version floating around in cyberspace (it's here, if you care) which inexplicably keeps the hokey narration but scuttles the super cool musical score in place of a more "modern" sound. I haven't watched it all the way through, but it appears to be 10-12 minutes shorter than the better known cuts I've already mentioned.

A couple of useless trivia bits you can't live without:

The narrator of Daughter of Horror is allegedly Ed McMahon- he's even credited as such on the movie's IMDB entry - but I'll be damned if I think it sounds like him. Decide for yourself.

Daughter of Horror is briefly shown playing on screen in the theater sequence of 1958's The Blob, and the movie's poster appears as well.

Deflating Michael Myers

2010-07-17T09:29:00.000-04:00

So...Halloween. I really hate for my first post in a month to be spent taking a three year old movie out behind the woodshed, but as a tremendous fan of John Carpenter’s original 1978 masterpiece I suppose I couldn’t avoid talking about Rob Zombie’s remake forever (although I sure as hell tried). I didn’t have the slightest interest in seeing it when it hit theaters back in August 2007, and I completely ignored the DVD release a short four months later. Even when it occasionally began popping up in the clearance bins that are my usual stomping grounds, I couldn’t still sell myself on it. Finally, fate saddled me with a free copy- and the damn thing sat still around for a month before I finally shrugged one night, knocked back a few beers and got on with things. As it turned out, I probably should have taken a few shots of a good bourbon, too. Or a cheap tequila. And a few bong hits. And maybe some Thorazine.

Maybe remakes are an easy target, but they pretty much deserve all the abuse the get. Because really, does filmmaking get any lazier? The more you “remake” a movie, the less of your own creativity you have to exert. Once you start injecting your own ideas, you start moving away from the original, until it gets to the point where…hey, why didn’t we just make our own damn movie to start with?

True, not all remakes suck. Every now and then, someone gets it all just right and smacks one over the fence. 1978’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers, for example, can look the 1956 original right in the eye, and Carpenter’s version of The Thing (1982) is a masterpiece in its own right. But the remake that can hang with an original is a rare beast indeed. ANYWAY…Rob Zombie’s Halloween was spun as a “re-imagining” of the original. Apparently, “re-imagining” means “clumsy, bloated fusion of two half-finished ideas”, because the end product is part prequel, part rerun, and all suckage. Maybe Zombie should have just done what a billion other people have done over the last 30 years: ripped off the basic plot outline, thrown in a couple of half-assed curve balls, and claimed it as his own.

One of the great things about the 1978 Halloween was that its yard sale budget forced Carpenter to serve it up lean, mean, and brutally to the point. There's scarcely a scrap of waste to be found in its 91 minutes. Does it really matter why Michael Myers is evil? He just is. We get all the back story we need in the first five minutes of the film. He’s been fucked up since he was a kid, and he's been locked up since then. Boom- shift to the here and now. After that, the movie’s effectiveness comes entirely from its sense of immediacy. It is a full throttle in-the-moment experience.

Zombie’s version is the antithesis of this approach. His Halloween leads with a ponderous 30 minute section where Michael’s childhood and psyche are probed, dissected and….whooooosh! That’s the sound of all the air exiting the Halloween mythology balloon. In a laborious attempt to explain something which never needed explaining, Zombie transforms Michael Myers from an unknowable demon to a garden variety psychopath with mommy issues. The movie then downshifts into more conventional remake mode for the remaining hour and a half, dishing up most of the better known shots, dialogue, and music bits from the original. That only makes the first part feel even more haphazardly tacked on, and overall the movie seems even longer than its two hour running time.

Rob Zombie’s primary background is music videos and theatrical heavy metal schlock. He knows how to make just about anything look cool, so it's not surprising that even the slow opening has some memorable visual sequences. About the only other worthwhile thing I can say about this Halloween is that I enjoyed seeing Malcolm McDowell throw himself into the Sam Loomis rolw with the same over-the-top zeal that the late Donald Pleasance did three decades ago. Otherwise...well, I'll have something more interesting to talk about next time. Like a better movie...or another crappy movie that's not as boring...or possibly the dust bunnies under my dresser.

Gettin' Tricky

2010-06-14T21:42:00.000-04:00

Lollipop, lollipop, oh lolly, lolly, lolly....

Horror anthologies can be downright cool when they’re done right. Trilogy of Terror, Creepshow, Tales from the Darkside…I could probably do a whole post about the best titles from this freewheelin’, ass-kickin' sub-genre, and maybe I will at some point. Right now, though, I just want to talk about one: Trick ‘r Treat.

Filmed in 2007, Trick ‘r Treat sat on the shelf like a moldering old pumpkin for two years before finally slipping out direct to DVD last October. Obviously, this sort of backdoor treatment is often a red flag that something sucky this way comes, but in this case the only red flag is the one pointing to the dickweed suits at Warner Brothers who, for whatever reason, never got this movie the theatrical release it most definately deserved.

Of course, you probably already know this, because like a truly devoted horror fan you probably saw it last fall when the DVD finally appeared. Despite just a handful of screenings at assorted film festivals, Trick ‘r Treat had some pretty good pre-release buzz going for it, and on the whole it was enthusiastically received by the horror community. Me, well...I waited a while to see it. Like until this past weekend. Look, I never said I'm Mr. Up-with-the-Times.

Anyway, my initial reaction to Trick ‘r Treat was that it's the sort of film that will hold up to, even invite, repeated viewings. Hell, I might watch it again this weekend. Why? Because it's not bland, recycled crap for starters. That alone helps lift it above the festering dung heap of remakes and sequels currently looming over the horror landscape like...well, like a big tower of shit. Sure, it takes some major cues from the previously mentioned anthology films, but never for a second does it feel stale or cliched. Originality- what a freakin' concept.

Michael Dougherty wrote and directed Trick ‘r Treat, and lemmie tell ya, this guy did a bang up job keeping his story tight. Pacing problems are often an issue with anthologies because of their stop-start nature, but Trick ‘r Treat's overlapping segments are joined smoothly enough that the effect is very much that of a seamless whole. Dougherty obviously knew going in exactly what he wanted to do, and he executed his plan pretty damn well.

As well constructed as the screenplay is, though, the action in Trick 'r Treat isn't nearly as impressive as how visually rich it is. This flick is absolutely drenched in atmosphere, with scene after scene receiving just the right about of fog, shadow, moonlight, or pumpkin orange lighting. I can't remember the last time I saw a movie that so successfully evokes the feeling of Halloween onscreen. Maybe never.

The main two knocks against the movie are that 1) it's not creepy/violent/bloody enough, and paradoxically 2) kids are on the receiving end of a lot of what violence there is. The first point I think can be dismissed out of hand, because these complaints are mostly coming from people so numbed by endless torture porn sequels that they can no longer distinguish horror from sadism. As to the second point, I could almost entertain the idea if this were a grittier, non-genre film. But the violence in Trick 'r Treat is very much administered within the comic book world Dougherty has constructed. It's effective within the context of the story, but it never comes close to flirting with real life sensibilities.

Back to the fun stuff. There are some recognizable faces covorting about on the screen here, like Anna Paquin and Leslie Bibb, but if the movie does have a "star" it would be the mysterious trick 'r treater Sam . The pint-sized, burlap-masked little something-or-other shambles in and out of the various storylines, sometimes participating, sometimes just observing, but always where the action is.

Sam I am...
A lot of folks are labeling Trick 'r Treat as an instant classic, but I'm not willing to go that far- yet. Not because I don't think it's fantastic, in case you hadn't picked up on that yet, but because "instant classic" is another one of those terms that I reject out of hand. Isn't a "classic" largely defined by staying power? As much as I enjoyed it, I can't be sure just yet if I'll be reaching for Trick 'r Treat 20 or 30 years from now the way I reach for Halloween or Night of the Living Dead. But I wouldn't be surprised if I'm popping it in next October 31st.

Bra-burning on a Budget: Euro Horror from the 70s

2010-06-07T22:01:00.001-04:00

Looks like it's going to be a little further into the weekend before I can crack open a couple of new (well, new to the slimy confines of this blog, anyway) movie reviews. In the meantime, let's pass the time with this fine collection of trailers highlighting some eminently forgettable Euro-trash horror films from the 70s (including the previously mentioned Beyond the Door trailer that caused me to soil my britches back in '74). Obviously these clips have been strung together for their (rather substantial) comic value, but even at the low-rent end of the movie spectrum, we see the same themes present as in the big budget scare flicks of the day.

One of the many things that made The Exorcist so damn great was the way it played to the fears of a culture already stressed by the cultural and generational upheavals of the late 60s and early 70s. Audiences already completely wigged by the behavior of their own drug taking, fornicating, draft card burning hippie heathen kids were pretty open to the idea of some demonic, other-worldly forces as an explanation. But you didn't necessarily need a great script, a lot of money, and Linda Blair to make your own spook infested social statement.

By the time the "Me Decade" really got rolling, the women's movement was rolling right along with it- and the ripoff artists were taking note. How else to explain all the trouble womenfolk are up to in these movies? Take Lady Frankenstein. It's difficult to tell from the trailer here if she's building a bloodthirsty monster, a really ugly gigolo, or both, but what the narrator seems most alarmed about is that she's trying "satisfy her strange desires". I mean, creating life from the flesh of rotting corpses is one thing, but hey- satisfied desires? It's time to draw the line! Yes, the sinister hand of women's lib can be found wreaking all sorts of havoc in these films-check it out!

Checking in to Horror Hospital

2010-06-01T12:04:00.000-04:00

Hey- have you ever seen that British horror movie where Michael Gough (Alfred the butler from the Tim Burton-era Batman flicks) plays a wheelchair-bound doctor who lobotomizes promiscuous hippies and rides around with a midget in a black sedan outfitted chop people's heads off? No? Well then you, my friend, have yet to indulge in the perverted pleasure that is 1973's Horror Hospital.

Randy hippies consider using protection

I hardly even know where to begin reviewing this schlocky masterpiece, because to do so in the conventional sense pretty much misses the point. It's infested with plot holes, inane dialogue, and events that have no apparent purpose. Like that’s a bad thing. Anyway, it matters not- what makes Horror Hospital worthwhile (at least to moi) is the swagger it shows in shrugging off what should be fatal flaws and delivering scene after scene with bloodthirsty gusto. It’s one thing to make no apologies for being a shameless exploitation flick, but quite another to wallow in it while winking at the camera.

Rolling Stone Brian Jones and two extras from Speed Racer join Dr. Storm

There actually is a story here, for those who care to follow it- some mumbo jumbo about a stressed out rocker dude (Robin Askwith) and some groovy chick (Vanessa Shaw) who meet on their way to a “health hospital”, only to find out too late that its really a front for the experiments of the hippie-hating nutjob Dr. Storm (Gough) and his staff of fellow psychotics. Most likely, though, you’ll be busy making smartass remarks with your drunken friends, as this is the type of movie that practically begs to be watched with beer and company. Besides, not much anyone says in the film matters anyway, though Gough owns what good lines there are in his scenery chewing appearances. It’s what we see on the screen that counts. In addition to the aforementioned lobotomies and decapitations, there’s a reasonable dose of nudity (by 1973 standards, anyway), a faucet that flows blood, a big slime monster that shows up out of nowhere, and a couple of helmeted motorcyclists who beat people to death. All of it is wonderfully captured with lurid clarity by writer/director Antony Balch. In fact, in it’s weird way Horror Hospital looks like nothing so much as an insane mash-up of Rocky Horror Picture Show, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and, just for a touch of Hammer-style color, Dracula Has Risen From the Grave.

The hospital offers free cherry Kool-Aid!

If that sounds like something right up your alley, than there’s really no reason for you not to give Horror Hospital a whirl. This is Brit horror/comedy at its campiest, no surprise given the resumes of Balch and producer Richard Gordon. I got my copy via a four DVD British Horror set from Elite Entertainment that Mrs. Leaux spied in the dump bin at FYE, but it shouldn’t be too difficult to track down separately.

Attack of the slime monster! Why? Good question!

On Second Thought...

2010-05-17T22:29:00.000-04:00

Okay, I suck. I said sometime around the holidays that I was going to start posting here more, and here I am with the year damn near half over and I’m slackin’ big time. Not that I haven’t been productive- I've been writing plenty, just not plenty about horror. But I still feel bad about it, and I (still) swear I’ll do better…like starting now, for instance, with a this fat double post concerning two very different types of movies to be found for a pittance in the bargain bins of your local clearance store. Let’s get it on.

Wind Chill

Sometimes, the proper set and setting make all the difference.

I picked up Wind Chill about six weeks ago for three bucks at Big Lots. I kinda sorta recognized Emily Blunt from something else, but basically I went into it blind. I didn't even read the cover (Horror movie? Three bucks? Sold!). Maybe I put it in too late, or had too much other crap on my mind, or I was just in a bad mood, but for whatever reason it didn’t move the needle at all for me. In fact, I was barely even paying attention during the climax- and like sex, that's not something you like to say about a movie.

"Shut up and drive": Blunt gets annoyed with her ride

Now typically I don't re-watch movies that didn't flick my Bic the first time because A.) I rarely change my mind, and B.) I really don't have the time (my need-to-watch pile is always eying me from the corner of the room, making me feel guilty). Still, I had this nagging feeling that I hadn’t really given Wind Chill a fair shake. I mean, I’m always bitching like a bitchy little bitch about lack of character development in horror movies, and too much CGI, and an over-reliance on cheap ass “jump scares”- but none of this stuff is a problem with Wind Chill. So what, exactly, was wrong with it?

It's a bronze statue of Gene Simmons!

Not much, actually, as I discovered when I gave it a second shot about a week ago. Wind Chill may not be a genre classic, but it’s a pretty tight ghost story, and it's sure as hell a cut above most of the brainless by-the-numbers torture porn Hollywood has passing off as "horror" the last 6-7 years (I'm looking at you, Saw franchise, and you too, Hostel). Director Gregory Jacobs actually gives everyone enough breathing room in the beginning that Blunt and Ashton Holmes actually get a chance to pump some life into their roles as an unnamed couple of college kids headed home for winter break. They're not necessarily the most likable of characters (she's a icy snob, he's slightly creepy) but they're more interesting than the usual cardboard targets we see in these slots.

It's also nice to be reminded that there are still movies being made that aren't essentially 90 minute music videos (now I'm looking at you Rob Zombie). Wind Chill is well shot, but it never elbows its story out of the way while trying to impress us with how cool it looks. I've got to pat Jacobs on the back for this-for a guy directing just his second feature (especially in a genre notorious for excess), he never really falls into the "look at me!" trap that gunks up so many movies. Subtlety- what a concept!

Like I said, I'm not urging anyone to run out and hunt Wind Chill down this weekend. It's nothing you haven't seen before. But the performances are above average, and overall it's a nice return to the sort of minimalist school of horror films we saw a lot of in the 1970s and early 80s, before style starting suffocating substance.

Blood of Dracula’s Castle

This C class goof-a-rama came packaged with Mill Creek's Gorehouse Greats budget pack (of course with a title like that it's practically a gievn that none of the selections are either great or especially gory, but I'm mostly enjoying the set anyway). The source print must have been in atrocious shape, and it takes some real patience to get through the first 10 minutes or so despite the really cheesy yet totally kick-ass song playing during the opening sequence...but hey, who cares when we're talking about yet another piece of Al Adamson drive-in fodder? If the transfer is a big issue for you, you've probably picked this movie up by mistake anyway.

The castle in question.

Blood of Dracula’s Castle is a “Dracula movie” only in that it has a vampire in it whose name is Dracula. Otherwise, the whole Dracula mythos/legend pretty much gets tossed in the trash and replaced with some sort of nonsense about a cool swingin’ 60s couple that inherits this castle-house looking thing out in the Arizona (or was it California?) desert. When they arrive to check out the new property, they find Dracula and his wife (WTF?) have been comfortably squatting (again, WTF?) there for some time, along with the standard issue dimwitted brute for muscle and John Carradine as their loyal butler (why the hell they didn’t cast Carradine as Dracula instead of the remarkably unconvincing Alexander D'Arcy is beyond me- D’Arcy comes off more like Robert Goulet than the Prince of Darkness). There’s also a fugitive of some sort hanging around the place, inserting himself into the plot for no apparent reason. His character is never fully explained beyond the fact that he’s another bad guy- it seems that depending on which cut of the film you have he’s either a serial killer or a werewolf (I got the Ted Bundy version).

John Carradine wonders what he's doing here

It seems that by the 60s, when this film was made, Mr. & Mrs. Dracula weren't into running around at night looking to quench their thirst with the blood of innocents. Instead, they mostly sit on their ass by a big fireplace. Come feeding time, they just send staff out to snag voluptuous young women, bring them home, tie them up in the "dungeon", and harvest their blood with syringes. Kind of like ordering takeout, I guess. Exactly what's made them so lazy is never made clear, but it's worth noting that this idea has resurfaced in a lot of modern horror films like After Dark's The Hamiltons.

Mr. & Mrs. Dracula moments before their demise...

...and after

There’s nothing in this movie that’s remotely within spitting distance of a slightly nervous moment, much less any legitimate creepiness. Yet while it’s by no means classic schlock (it's not funny/bad enough for a beer and pizza party) there’s enough Scooby Doo silliness about the whole thing to make it watchable and occasionally snicker worthy.

What sort of movie doesn't benefit from outfits like this?

See what I mean?

Psychotic Distractions

2010-03-21T22:21:00.000-04:00

My original plan for this post was to cover some of the newer low budget fare I’ve been excavating from dump bins as of late. But then I noticed Psycho was on television, and my plan promptly went skidding off into the ditch. I’m nothing if not easily distracted.

Psycho is possibly my favorite movie ever- I’ve probably seen it in excess of 20 times over the years- yet as it rounded into the stretch run I still found myself thinking “Damn, this movie is just so...ridiculously...good.” I mean, obviously it’s a classic for a reason, but I guess it’s easy to forget just how much it brings to the party when you haven’t seen it in a while.

You know that GEICO commercial where Charlie Daniels tears through a blistering fiddle solo, then says "That's how you do it, son" before strutting off screen? Well, that's pretty much what Alfred Hitchock did when he rolled out Psycho. There really wasn't much for other directors to do but look at their shoes for a while, then start slavishly copying everything about the movie.

But as much righteous praise as Hitchcock deserves for shaping this shiny black diamond of a horror movie, I’ve always kind of thought the strength of the source material gets unfairly overlooked. Psycho is a pretty strong book to begin with, and the film's script follows the plot pretty closely. After the movie hit, I've got to wonder how often author Robert Bloch wound up walking around sounding like Col. Trautman in First Blood: “Hitchcock didn’t make Norman Bates…I made him!”

'Course, the casting decision that morphed Norman from the blading, lardy forty-something of Bloch’s novel to the young and bright-eyed and virile Anthony Perkins was all Hitch, and that was a pivotal decision, because it glamorized Bates and made him more sympathetic to the audience. Suddenly the monster in the story wasn't ugly. He wasn't recognizable. He was a harmless enough fellow, at least 'til you had dinner with him and he started getting a little twitchy and then came back later wearing a dress and a wig and stabbed you death in the shower.

Now, I'm sure some of you are thinking "But, it's, y'know...kind of old. And all black'n'white and stuff like that. And it's not scary." Okay, fair enough- if you can't dig the vibe of the classics, then go help yourself to the predictable jump-cut "scares" of Saw XXXVII. But I might suggest that the next time you do stumble across an antique masterpiece like this, try viewing it in context. There are certain things about older films- the oddly formal acting style, the obsolete special effects, etc - that you just have to get past, the way you have to get past the goofy looking uniforms when you're watching sports highlights from the 40s. Hitchock is working within the technical limitations of his era, not to mention some fairly prudish audience sensibilities. This was a movie that took all sorts of taboo subject matter and tossed it right in the face of Ozzie & Harriet America.

Oh, and there's this scene in the shower. I don't really know what more can be said about this. No nudity here, which is pretty remarkable considering the impression left with the viewer is that there are several nearly full body shots. We also never actually see the knife blade touch Janet Leigh's skin, even though we think we see her being stabbed repeatedly. Yet it still all comes across as tremendously jarring and violent and great.

Okay- I admit I get these weird compulsions to state the obvious sometimes, but I think I've gotten this pretty much out of my system for the moment. To sum up: Psycho? Great. Hitchock? At least as much of a badass as Charlie Daniels. Perkins? Perfect (a little too perfect, as it turned out). Robert Bloch? Responsible. Having dinner in remote locations with sexually repressed psychotic young males when you're as good looking as the young Janet Leigh? Bad idea for you...but a great idea for a story.

Vintage Trailer Friday

2010-03-04T21:49:00.000-05:00

Just a quick sumpin' sumpin' for the weekend:

I wouldn't classify Burnt Offerings as classic 70s horror by any means, but it did have a few things going for it. Like Bette Davis for one, who was already just getting naturally creepy all on her ownkiller by this point. And the Dunsmuir House location, which was so great looking that Don Coscarelli used it just a year later for the exterior mortuary shots in Phantasm. And that smiling limo driver with the Ray Bans- I'm not sure what was up with that guy, but it wasn't good.

Speaking of haunted house films shot back in the "Me Decade", what about the original Amityville Horror? Yeah, I know, the whole true story angle kind of came apart at the seams (although both George and Kathleen Lutz insisted to the end of their lives that the basic story was true), but so what? It worked great as a metaphor for the economic carnage of the Carter years, which I suppose helps explain why it was one of the most successful films of 1979.

Cuttin' a rug with The Gravedancers

2010-02-08T22:33:00.001-05:00

Over the last few months, I’ve gradually been working my way through the back catalog of the After Dark Horrorfest line. The results so far have been kind of uneven, but I’d been looking forward to The Gravedancers ever since I caught the promo, and I have to admit I was almost inappropriately excited when I finally snagged it as part of a budget 4-pack a couple of weeks ago.

As usual I'm not going to bother with a ponderous rehashing of the plot, but the Reader's Digest version here is that three old college friends (Dominic Purcell, Marcus Thomas, and Josie Maran) manage to get them themselves in a whole mess of trouble by drunkenly dancing on the graves of some psychopathic criminals. The mechanism which triggers this act is absurdly we-thought-this-up-at-the-last-second even by horror movie standards (and never satisfactorily explained, I might add), but whatever- let the haunting begin! Actually, it's more like hunting than haunting, as the rest of the movie is essentially about these dancin' fools trying undo what ever hoodoo they've brought on themselves before the enraged spirits of the graves' occupants manage to kill them. I suppose killing someone just for cutting a quick rug on a patch of poorly maintained lawn may seem a bit extreme, but at least it's consistent with who these ghosts were in life, and I like that. This innocent-soul-scares-everyone-shitless-to-reveal-the-killer stuff works well from time to time, like in Stir of Echoes, but let's face it: a scary person is going to make for a scarier spook.

ANYWAY...the first part of The Gravedancers actually sets up pretty well: foolhardy yuppies, nasty spirits, suitably creepy atmosphere. But things gradually go off the rails during the middle act as the film unwisely relies on some rather flimsy special effects to move things along, and by the big finish the proceedings have been reduced to a nearly Ghostbusters level of silliness. The ghosts themselves aren't overly cheesy looking, but some scenes, such as an unintentionally hilarious attack by a bargain bin Wal-Mart skeleton, are just embarrassing.

Not that I mind dime-store effects, mind you. If anything, I champion them. Hell, Roger Corman and William Castle are heroes of mine. Bring the cheese is what I say. Or not. But for God's sake, be honest. Embrace what you are. That's what's so disappointing about The Gravedancers. It can't decide what it wants to be, and it winds up being nothing much at all. Too bad- this could have been a good one.

Loitering in the Public Domain

2010-02-01T22:25:00.000-05:00

I finally got around to taking in some more films this weekend (including, finally, The Gravedancers), but I need a couple or three more days to write those suckers up. So...looks like it's time to break out my favorite stalling tactic: the always dependable "movie poster post". This is a trick I've shamelessly copied from too many other horror blogs to mention, but let's face it: this blog needs all the help it can get. Shall we?

The posters below all advertise movies that all fall in the public domain. Typically, most things that have "public" in their name aren't exactly top of the line, which is why most people will avoid using a public restroom if they're less than 15 minutes from home. And yes, the majority of movies that have ended up in the public domain are there because they're not worth the effort involved in filling out the copyright forms. But a little patience will reward the dedicated dumpster diver here: turns out genre classics like Night of the Living Dead and Nosferatu are also free turf. The selections presented here are a mixed bag quality wise, but most of them can be downloaded free (and legally) from places like the Internet Archive, or are available as part of the ridculously cheap budget bundles from companies like Mill C reek.

Having A Ball With Phantasm

2010-01-22T22:34:00.000-05:00

I know, I know… I suck for slacking off so much here. For the scant few who still check this blog, I’d normally offer some lame joke or half-baked excuse, but that wouldn’t be nearly as fun jumping right into today’s topic: 1979’s Phantasm.

Angus Scrimm having a ball

For the record, I don’t count myself among the legion of “phanatics” who consider Phantasm a true horror classic, but it’s still a damn entertaining movie, even if a lot of it doesn’t make any sense. And the Tall Man (Angus Scrimm) really is an iconic bad guy, and than damn flying silver ball with all the sharp stuff sticking out of it is cool as hell, so unlike a lot of films with a cult following, Phantasm isn’t a love-it-or-hate-it proposition at all. You can enjoy it without getting all geeky about it.

Dunsmuir House

Shot on a pocket lint budget in 1977 and shelved for a couple of years, this was writer/director Don Coscarelli’s third feature film, and even though it took a decade to get around to the first sequel, it ultimately turned into a rather solid franchise- nothing quite as endless as Friday the 13th or Halloween, perhaps, but enough that there’s buzz of a fifth edition going 'round as we speak.

The plot- and I use that term loosely – is centered around a creepy mortician/funeral director (Scrimm as the aforementioned Tall Man) hijacking the corpses of the recently deceased and somehow turning them into dwarf zombies. Yes, I typed that right…dwarf zombies…imagine the results you'd get from cross-breeding the zombies from Dawn of the Dead with the Jawas from Star Wars, and that's pretty much what we have here. Exactly why he’s doing this is never made completely clear- something about collecting an army of slaves -but he’s seriously unhappy when his gruesome hijinks are uncovered by a nosy young kid named Mike (Michael Baldwin) and his older brother Jody (Bill Thornberry), and the chase is on. Much is made of the fact that the brothers have recently lost their parents in a car accident, and there’s some psychological claptrap about the nature of fear- of death, of separation, of growing up - but what really drives this movie, aside from it’s sheer weirdness, is the cat-and-mouse game between The Tall Man and Mike.

And make no mistake- Phantasm is one weird flick, in case you hadn't already deduced that from the whole zombie dwarf thing. Not only does it swerve back and forth indiscriminately between straight up horror and fantasy/sci-fi territory, but it introduces all sorts questions that it never follows up on: What the hell are the dwarf zombies doing? Is the entire story taking place in Mike’s head? And what‘s the deal with that flying sphere? It's almost as though Coscarelli thought this might be his one and only shot at this type of movie, so he’d better toss in every odd concept running around in his head. The story is a mess on many levels- yet, somehow, it works. In fact, I’m not sure I can think of a horror movie off the top of my head that’s a better example of the whole being substantially better than the sum of its parts.

BTW, I’d sort of forgotten just how little there is of the infamous silver sphere of death (or whatever you want to call it) in this first movie- it’s onscreen for maybe 90 seconds, tops. But it’s one effective 90 seconds, lemmie tell ya. In fact, the sphere is the star of a notorious kill scene that originally got Phantasm slapped with an X rating by the MPAA back in the day (they eventually backed off to an R), and even today it’s pretty effective.

A trip to the Mortuary

2009-10-20T22:25:00.000-04:00

Now here we have a tasty Happy Meal of cheesy horror fun- nothing that will blow you away, but an excellent way to spend 90 minutes you might otherwise waste on something productive.

When most people see Tobe Hooper ’s name on a film, they immediately think of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and pretty much everything he’s done since then has been compared to that (somewhat overrated) milestone on one level or another. Too bad if you ask me- it’s not fair to Hooper, for starters, and it sells short some pretty good movies. I mean, Chainsaw was 35 friggin' years ago, and he even gave us a sequel- isn't it time we quit waiting for another one and just start enjoying the guy's other movies for what they are? Like the wonderfully low-budget Mortuary, for instance. Zombie flicks have been reborn, wrung out, and hung on the line to dry within the last decade, but Mortuary manages to keep things lively by A.) not pretending like we haven’t seen all of this a million times before, and B.) never taking itself too seriously.

Plot wise, this is standard family-moves-into-an-obviously-creepy-and-dangerous-place fare featuring the Doyle family. Dad’s dead and mom needs to make ends meet, so she moves her son and daughter out to some nameless California town where she immediately takes up residence as the local mortician (because that‘s what so many recently widowed people tend to want to do, right- hang around dead bodies?). Actually, they move in to the mortuary itself, which is run down and mega gross, what with the septic tank overflowing into the yard, and mildew problems, and old coffins everywhere, and some sort of black fungus stuff that feeds on human blood. Oh, and as an added bonus, it also comes with legend that the deformed offspring of a previous owner lives underneath the adjacent cemetery…which he does, as it turns out. Not only that, but I guess he got so lonely that he figured out a way to raise the dead so he’d have someone to drink beer with on the weekends. Or maybe just do his laundry, or something like that. Fungus-covered hi-jinks ensue. The end.

Mortuary isn’t especially bloody, but it does mostly give us what we paid our money for: nasty dead people doing sick things to teenagers. Hooper moves things along pretty briskly- he knows that we know the drill. He’s also not afraid to go for some yucks here and there- in fact, some parts of Mortuary probably have more in common with Fright Night than with 28 Days Later. But hey…I really liked Fright Night. If you’re in search of real scares and unsettling material you’ll probably want to look elsewhere, but of you just want to knock back a few beers and watch zombies chase hormone-addled teens around a nasty old house and a cemetery, it’s a pretty good pick.

Halloween Kickoff: It's Hammertime!

2009-09-30T21:43:00.000-04:00

Finally- October! Time to kick this sucker into gear and start revving up for the greatest holiday that's not an actual holiday, that annual celebration of tombstones and tooth decay, the one...the only...Halloween! I'm going to begin the final countdown by gettin' my Brit on- in the word's of some forgotten 80s rapper, it's hammertime!

1958's Horror of Dracula (simply Dracula in the UK) was among the earlier horror films from Hammer Film Productions, and right off the bat we can see that these guys have their act together. No money? No problem. Spend the little you do have on a couple of respected actors, up the blood and violence quotient, show as much female flesh as the censors would likely allow, strip the plot of every unnecessary word and action, crank the musical score up to eleven, and viola! Instant horror classic!

Technicolor was one of the best things ever to happen to horror movies, and even if Horror of Dracula does look at tad quaint in spots (I mean, than damn thing is a half century old), it's easy to imagine how cool that fire-engine red blood spattered on the Count's tomb in the opening sequence must have looked to audiences of the day.

I don't happen to be one of these folks who prefers Christopher Lee's Dracula to Bela Lugosi's, but he's pretty damn terrific in this, as is Peter Cushing.

Future efforts from Hammer would offer increasing amounts of blood, violence, and heaving cleavage as the studio perfected its formula, but for anyone interested in exploring this studio's wonderful output, this is a good place to start.

Trivia: This was the first movie to actually show Dracula with fangs. Lugosi never wore them.

Lazy Post Alert: A Little Artwork

2009-09-15T16:01:00.001-04:00

Okay, laziest post ever- but I haven't posted here in waaaay to long. I've been really busy with football coaching and football blogging and pretty much football everything else, meaning I haven't had time to blog about creepy, or crappy, or creepy AND crappy movies. But I have made time to watch a few recently. Hence, today's celebration of the poster art for my recent selections. Killer cars, rubber suit monsters, blood, brains, boobs, and blaxploitation- hell, a little something for just about everyone, 'cept maybe the kiddies...and mom and dad...and the people you work with...and those uptight friends of yours. Some of these I liked, some I hated, some I'd seen before and watched again just cause that's how I roll.

I'm going to actually write something here this weekend. No...seriously, I swear.

Muppet from the Haunted Sea

2009-09-02T13:08:00.000-04:00

Well, it looks like the reign of the crawling carpet thing from The Creeping Terror as my Worst Movie Monster Ever is going to be short lived. Yup, there’s a new bully on the block. Check out this shambling mess from schlock master extraordinaire Roger Corman's hilariously bad Creature From the Haunted Sea. Now, the old rubber suit approach to sea monsters/reptile men/slime people always produced a lot of unintentional comedy, but this guy's got some real issues. It doesn't even look like they bothered to put a menacing look on his face- just some paint, some Silly String and a couple of ping-pong balls. The result is something that looks very similar to the Cookie Monster, if the Cookie Monster had survived a bad kitchen fire. Or maybe a character from the Simpsons kept prisoner in a septic tank for a few years. I don't know how Corman & Co got a single take done with Drippy here sloshing around the set, but I'll bet they had fun.

Tune in, turn on...get serious?

2009-08-30T22:45:00.000-04:00

You wouldn't expect a movie that opens with a close up of a male crotch, then pulls back to reveal two hippie chicks spying on some hippie dude urinating next to his RV in the middle of nowhere to take itself too seriously, but unfortunately that's exactly the problem with The Pick-Up, which I came across in volume 1 of Mill Creek's ass-kicking* Drive-in Cult Classics collection. Tarot cards, freaky visions of clowns, endless dream sequences- it's all very deep and symbolic, you see. Which sucks, because if it weren’t for these long, drawn out attempts at meaning and other feints at “serious“ filmmaking, we could just relax and enjoy the plentiful helpings of gratuitous nudity, stupidity, and if-it-feels-good-do-it-man vibes of this hippie-x-ploitation (now there’s a seldom discussed sub-genre for ya) curio.

* Well, it's ass-kicking on the little old-school Magnavox in the Bleaux Leaux headquarters, anyway. Haven't watched it on the big boy plasma downstairs, so I can't make an claims as to picture/transfer quality.

The Devil's Bland, or, Who Knew Commissioner Gordon Worshipped Satan?

2009-08-28T12:57:00.000-04:00

Well, the less said about this one the better, I suppose. But I did waste 70 minutes of my life on The Devil’s Hand, so I reckon I’ll jot down a few words and be done with it.

Robert Alda plays Rick Turner, a typically stiff early 60s skinny tie-wearin’ dude who can’t get a good night’s sleep because he keeps having dreams about some mysterious and sexy babe (Linda Christian). Apparently this is getting him seriously hot and bothered to the point where he can’t think about anything else, which is a bit awkward since he’s engaged to Donna Trent (one time Mexican scream queen Ariadna Welter, in her only US film appearance). Anyway, one night our hero is out for a stroll and comes across a doll shop (apparently all-hours doll shops were commonplace back in the day…?) run by a Mr. Lamont (Neil Hamilton, best known as Commissioner Gordon from the 1960s Batman television show). Hamilton’s store is an interesting one- not only does it feature dolls which bear an eerie resemblance to both Rick’s fiancé and his dream woman, but it’s got a spiffy Satanic worship room in the back, complete with a human sacrifice altar and floor pillows for the audience. Needless to say, our straight arrow Rick quickly gets sucked into a murky netherworld of sexual temptation, voodoo, and the cult of the renowned “devil god of evil”, the great Gamba (whoa! Gamba!….I get a little freaked out just writing his name).

Truth be told, watching The Devil’s Hand feels a lot more like catching an overly long, rejected episode of The Twilight Zone than an actual movie. Every scene, whether inside or out, has the exact same look and lighting, and the sets all look to be roughly the size of your average full bathroom. It’s not scary, it’s not funny, it doesn’t have any naked people- it’s just flat-out dull, which as far as I’m concerned is just about the worst offense a horror movie can commit. I really can’t even recommend The Devil’s Hand for an evening of beer and pizza-fueled mockery with friends, but if you have a bad cold or insomnia or something and can’t sleep, it’ll probably do just as well as a bottle of Nyquil.

The Creeping Carpet....I mean, The Sluggish Terror

2009-08-16T17:32:00.000-04:00

In my never ending search for the good, the bad, and the even worse in the horror genre, I finally took in The Creeping Terror, a 1964 sci-fi monster flick about which I'd heard a great deal but never actually seen. Before I get into how truly pathetic this movie actually was, I have to address something I've not seen mentioned elsewhere: namely, that the premise for this movie is actually not that bad, especially for the era. The idea is that the monster of the title is actually some sort of bio-engineered “sampler” designed to ingest whatever life forms they come across and transmit the data back to whoever sent them out looking for stuff in he first place.

Unfortunately, it takes more than a cool idea to produce a great movie. Some knowledge of movie making, for example, is helpful. So is a budget that covers more than a week’s worth of beer and pizza for the crew. Or actual actors, as opposed to ordinary people who were given parts in the film in exchange for “funding”. Any one of these things might have helped elevate The Creeping Terror into the category of simply bad movies instead of one of the most jaw droppingly awful flicks ever made.

I think most folks interested in these types of films (i.e., weirdos like me) are familiar with the “Worst Movie of All Time” tag frequently slapped on Ed Wood’s Plan 9 From Outer Space (most often by wine-sipping yuppie snots who have never actually seen the film itself and know it only through watching Tim Burton’s Ed Wood). Well, here is a movie that makes Plan 9 From Outer Space look like Blade Runner by comparison. Okay…that’s an exaggeration. A lie even. But only a little white one.

In the opening minutes, the “landing” of a spaceship is portrayed by taking stock footage of a V-1 rocket launch and running…it…backwards. Yeah...it’s that kind of bad.

According to movie legend, the original monster costume was stolen prior to filming, so producer/director/star Vic Savage had to slap a new one together himself from whatever scraps were lying around. The result is almost always described as looking like a undulating pile of carpets with a celery stalk at one end- a description so dead-on I‘d feel silly trying to top it.

Our carpet monster is roughly the size of a VW bus, moves across the mostly open landscape at roughly the speed of a giant slug, and has no real arms or other mechanisms for capturing its pray. Yet probably 80% of the movie’s mercifully short 74 minute running time is taken up with loooooong shots of the terror sneaking up on its victims, who then must help the poor creature out by (apparently) crawling into its mouth, screaming the whole way. There’s actually a great deal of fun to be had watching people to choosing to stand and scream rather than run- or even walk - to safety ,despite being given interminable windows of time in which to do so.

Most of the dialogue is both hilariously awful and barely audible. It’s also obviously dubbed, with most of the action described by a narrator with a delivery so hopelessly boring that he‘ll instantly remind you of the scratchy old movies you watched in 9th grade science class. Even weirder, some of the narration actually takes place while the actors appear to be speaking their lines- I mean, if the damn narrator doesn’t care what they have to say, why should we?

But the terrible sound is nothing compared to how bad the movie looks. If you’ve consumed the proper amount of alcohol required for watching The Creeping Terror then you may not even notice that virtually every scene is wildly out of focus, but there’s no getting around the lack of any sort of light filter. Some scenes are so saturated with white light that it’s virtually impossible to make out what’s going on, not that you’ll care.

Uranium Café has suggested that there is little evidence that The Creeping Terror actually ever made it into theaters in 1964, instead entering the public eye via the weekend monster shows that were popular with network TV affiliates in the 1970s. This hardly seems like a stretch. Even by the wonderfully low standards of 50s/60s horror and sci-fi, this is truly a putrid creation, an aural and visual assault on the viewer's tolerance, lacking even the camp value and geeky charm of the Ed Wood films it’s usually lumped in with. I’m not quite prepared to say it’s the worst movie I’ve ever come across, but it’s certainly a strong contender. As an FYI, Vic Savage apparently never worked in movies again, either in front of or behind the camera.

About those movies...what were they again?

2009-08-07T11:38:00.000-04:00

Well, how’s this for timely? It took a couple of weeks, but I’m finally getting in few quick words about two fairly generic mainstream horror flicks the wife and I watched a couple of weeks ago. Our living room double feature consisted of The Marsh, which is actually a few years old, and uh…uh…what was the other one? Oh yeah- The Uninvited.

Actually, The Uninvited was…not that bad? I mean, um...not really that bad. That is, I don’t exactly recommend it, especially to discriminating horror fans (much less no-fun film snobs who only like “serious” movies), but it’s by no means awful enough to warrant some of the abuse I’ve seen laid on it by assorted reviewers. Some of the haters’ gripes no doubt spring from the fact that the movie is yet another remake of a (presumably) superior Asian horror film (A Tale of Two Sisters), but since I’m the sort of uncultured lowbrow who quickly gets annoyed with subtitles, I haven’t seen the original and probably never will (maybe they’ll come out with some cheesy dubbed version- do they do those anymore?). For me, The Uninvited’s main problem is that it can’t seem decide if it wants to be a horror movie or a dramatic thriller, so it winds up missing the mark on both counts- we’re never clued in to the back story enough to care about the mystery element, and the scary parts (not that they’re all that scary) feel tacked on. But even if we do have to put up with David Strathairn playing the same dull, mildly sedated character he always seems to play, I actually thought Elizabeth Banks was kind of a refreshing choice as the stepmom-to-be; she’s just offbeat enough that I can buy her in a slightly demented role. And I’m a little embarrassed to admit it- maybe I was tired or something - but the silly “twist” ending actually worked for me. You figured it out in the first ten minutes? Good for you. I didn’t- and I’ll bet the average audience member won’t either, unless they’re specifically looking for it. Like after reading this blog post, for example.

The Marsh, (which I somehow missed when it came out back in 2006) was more of a conventional ghost-seeks-revenge story. For what it’s worth, it’s also a better movie, though not without some issues of its own. The film is more successful in its first half, when there’s actually some attention given to crafting some atmosphere (something The Uninvited could certainly have benefited from), than during the stretch run, when, like a kid running down hill too fast, the story seems to get too far ahead of itself and begins to stumble and tumble in its rush to finish. Gabrielle Anwar and Forest Whitaker casually turn in acceptable efforts, although neither is asked to do much besides look worried. Overall, The Marsh wasn’t anything especially memorable, but if you like your horror Stir of Echoes style, I suppose you could do worse for 90 minutes of downtime with some beer and a bowl of popcorn.

A little bit of creepiness from my youth...Italian style

2009-07-27T22:03:00.000-04:00

Mrs. Leaux isn't a big fan of horror movies, but she did join me yesterday for a double feature of relatively mainstream ghost stories, The Uninvited and The Marsh. I've got a couple of things to say about each, but for the moment I'm going to be content with posting a bit of childhood trauma.

As I mentioned the other day, demonic possession movies were hot stuff back in the mid 1970s, and almost all of them were to one degree or another ripoffs of The Exorcist. One of the more blatant (and successful) was a 1974 Italian production entitled Chi Sei? (which I'm told should translate into Who Are You?). Anyway, this little yarn was re-titled Beyond the Door for its American release a year later, and when its trailers starting hitting television in the summer of 1975, they pretty much had me peeing right in my eight year old pants (I mean, I was 8 years old, not my pants...never mind). That damn thing would come on, and that scratchy voice would start going "whoooooo areeeee youuuuu?" and man, I would go tearing out of our basement rec room in a panic. It's a wonder I didn't break my neck running up the stairs. I got to the point where I thought Juliet Mills (in her freaky possessed woman makeup, that is) was going to come floating out of my closet in the middle of the night.

Funny- I can't remember much from that summer other than we moved into a new house, but I've never forgotten that commercial. And now, thanks to the wonder of You Tube, I get to relive the nightmare all over again...

Raw Force? Pure Awesomeness is more like it

2009-07-22T16:29:00.001-04:00

As previously stated, I've been plowing through the various offerings included in The Grindhouse Experience set. Most recently, I had the pleasure of spending a quality hour and half with some ice cold beer and a movie called Raw Force (aka Kung Fu Cannibals) from 1982.

This is the sort of cheap, sleazy little jewel that motivates me to keep searching through the endless universe of bad movies. It's got a little bit of everything: zombies, kung fu fightin', gratuitous female nudity, cannibals, piranhas, dime store costumes, and a plot that wears its complete lack of sense like a badge of honor.

The basic story kicks off with some some karate students from Burbank, some female cops from L.A., and few other oddballs setting out on a cruise to a place called (cue weird music) Warrior's Island. Hey, I told you this was going to be good. As if that doesn't sound like enough fun by itself, we're told that Warrior's Island is the burial ground for assorted samurai/ninja/warrior dudes who somehow lost their honor in life. These gents can be summoned back to life as zombies by some absolutely goofy looking monks who inhabit the island...but only if the monks keep up their magical powers with a diet of female flesh. That's right- cannibal monks.

Fortunately for the monks, said women are available in steady supply from a slave ring run by a weird little man in a white suit who looks like a cross between Hideki Tojo and Adolph Hitler. Tojo-Hitler doesn't want any damn cruise people messing up his operation, so he sends out some of his toadies to intercept the ship. The cruisers defeat the toadies, in the movie's first extended action sequence, but the ship goes up in flames in the process, forcing our heroes to flee in a lifeboat. Needless to say, they quickly find their way to Warrior's Island.

The final act of our little drama involves the ship survivors fighting off both Tojo-Hitler and wave after wave of samurai zombies before escaping in a sea plane (originally used to ferry the slave women to the island) while explosions rock the island. Like a movie like this could end any other way.

There are any number of delights to found in in Raw Force. As mentioned, there are plenty of fight sequences, and none of the females seem to have an issue with taking their tops off., right there we're ahead of the game. Continuity is thrown to the wind early on: when we first see the cruise ship at the dock, it's gargantuan (if you look close, you can see it's actually the Queen Mary), but when it takes to the sea, it's...smaller. A lot smaller- like by two-thirds And junky looking. And speaking of junky, the zombie makeup appears to have been purchased at the nearest CVS. Then there's Canadian actor Cameron Mitchell as the drunken ship captain...or maybe Mitchell just needed a few belts to get himself through the proceedings. There's also loads of hilariously bad dialogue, and truly some head-scratching editing (during one chase scene, we suddenly cut to a slow motion shot of...a table being knocked over?).

For a bad movie, Raw Force is actually pretty well filmed- the folks who made it might not have had much money, but they do seem to have known what they were doing. But that's a minor detail. The bottom line here is entertainment. Raw Force is a movie that delivers what it promises, and you can't really ask for much more than that.

Shark hunting in the wreckage of the 1970s

2009-07-17T11:18:00.000-04:00

A few weeks back, Mrs. Leaux and I were sort of aimlessly drifting through our local Goodwill store- not the clothing section, which is home to some real treasures, but the “random junk” section. This is the part of the store that smells like your great uncle’s basement and serves about the same purpose. For hundreds of outdated and nearly forgotten items, it’s sort of a stay of execution on the way to the landfill. Eight track tapes, rotary phones, record albums by people you never heard of, accessories to things that don’t even exist anymore…and, or course, books. Books that it’s hard to believe someone paid money for, even when they were new. Like the novelization of Jaws 2, for example.

For some reason, I was oddly fascinated by this find. For one thing, I had sort of forgotten they made a Jaws 2. When I think of Jaws sequels, for some reason my mind goes right to the ludicrous Jaws 3-D, the one with Louis Gosset Jr. and Dennis Quaid. But there was a Jaws 2, alright, rolled out by Universal in 1978 with a marketing campaign that included, apparently, a novelized version of the screenplay. And 31 years later, here it was- in hardback, no less.

Now the original Jaws was, of coursed, based on Peter Benchley’s bestselling book of the same name (and yes, the book was already a bestseller before the movie was made). But who, I wondered, would want to read a “novel” based on a movie that’s a sequel to another movie based on another novel? Well, at least one person did- the person who, way back in 1978, took a look at this thing in some bookstore and went “Wow, this looks like a great read- I ain’t waitin’ for no stinkin’ paperback!” And then somehow, the book survived all these years, only to wind up here. And it was in pretty good shape, too. Had anyone had read it since the original buyer? Would anyone would buy it and read it again? Maybe, but it wasn’t going to be me. These are the sorts of things that go through my head when I visit places like Goodwill. If I put as much thought into my job as I did into pondering that damn book, I'd probably be a lot wealthier, but my life wouldn't be nearly as interesting.

Wading into the sludge with the Demon Witch Child

2009-07-15T22:23:00.000-04:00

A few weeks back, I bought a used DVD box set called The Grindhouse Experience for $17.99. The cheap packaging and 20 rather scattershot selections pretty well screamed that this was just a quickie slapped together to cash in on the term in the wake of the 2007 Robert Rodriguez/Quentin Tarantino film. No big surprise, then, when I noticed that the first couple of movies were in fact VHS transfers, complete with the occasional lines and rolls we all knew and hated. Oh well- there’s only so much you can expect at 90 cents per movie, and besides, who knows if the original prints for some of these masterpieces even exist anymore. I figured if I found 4 or 5 of the movies at least semi-entertaining, I’d be breaking even. With that in mind, I went wading into the sludge.

First up: a little mess of a movie from 1975 entitled Demon Witch Child (aka The Possessed). There’s a reason you’ve never heard of it.

Imagine a blatant Spanish rip-off of The Exorcist, featuring a cast of nobodies and apparently filmed on a budget roughly equivalent to the change currently lying under the cushions of your couch. Oh, and through in an absolutely hilarious English language dub job. If that sounds like sheer awesomeness to you, then you need to rush out and find yourself a copy of Demon Witch Child right away. If it doesn’t you won’t need to worry, because you’re unlikely to come across this particular lump of coal unless you’re specifically looking for it.

The plot hinges on the possession of a young girl by the spirit of an evil witch who committed suicide while in police custody. Movies about demonically possessed kids are always kind of fun, but they were never hotter than in the early to mid 70s as parents struggled to raise their kids in the aftermath of the social upheavals of the 60s.

Within the first 30 minutes or so, we’ve already seen two of the more memorable scenes from The Exorcist (suicide by window jumping; levitation above a bed) recreated, and…well, that’s pretty much it. Just a third of the way through, Demon Witch Child has pretty much shot its wad, and what we’re left with is an extremely pedestrian story that goes exactly where we think it will and takes its sweet time getting there. Other than a rather bizarre sequence that finds the witch-child casually castrating a corpse with a pocket knife (it seems like that would be worth the price of admission alone, but trust me, it's not as cool as it sounds), there’s really nothing else memorable that occurs.

There are two types of bad movies in my book: movies that are so bad they’re actually fun to watch, and movies that just plain suck. Demon Witch Child falls somewhere in between for me- between its lousy dubbing, god-awful special effects and shameless theft from superior films, it provided some genuine (and usually unintentional)entertainment in spots, but not enough that I’d be willing to sit through it again anytime in the next few hundred years.