Terror Titans

Saturday Scream Queen: Karen Black

2012-01-28T00:55:00.000-08:00

While Karen Black would probably want to be remembered for her roles in critically acclaimed dramas like "Easy Rider" and "Five Easy Pieces", or even for her role in Alfred Hitchcock's final movie "Family Plot", most film lovers of my generation, and horror fans in general, remember her as the woman menaced by an African fetish doll in "Trilogy of Terror", or as the ill-fated wife in "Burnt Offerings".

Since the mid-1970s, Black has split her career between dramas and horror films, with a few bizarre offerings mixed in--such as the low-budget Rollerblade Seven trilogy during the 1990s ("The Rollerblade Seven", "The Return of the Rollerblade Seven", and "The Legend of the Rollerblade Seven"). She nearly 200 film credits to her name, and roughly half of those are horror films or thrillers. Any horror fan who came of age in the 1970s, 1980s, or 1990s can almost certainly mention a Karen Black film they cherish.

Black is over 70 years old now, but she is still going strong. She worked on seven movies in 2007, including the soon-to-be-released horror films "Some Guy Who Kills People" and "The Ganzfeld Experiment".

Saturday Scream Queen: Rachel Ward

2012-01-21T00:02:00.000-08:00

Rachel Ward is a top fashion model who turned to acting. She is best known for appearing in romantic items like "The Thorne Birds" and "Against All Odds", but her extensive resume also dotted with numberous chillers like "The Final Terror", "Black Magic", and "Double Obsession" (which also featured previous Saturday Scream Queen profilee Maryam d'Abo).

Rachel Ward was busiest as an actor during the 1980s and early 1990s, after which she split her time between her career and her three children. As the new millenium dawned, she added writer/director to her credits, and she has directed and/or written nine films so far.

Wolf Man vs. Vampire Woman: The Rematch!

2012-01-18T21:44:00.000-08:00

Night of the Werewolf (aka "The Craving" and "The Return of the Wolf Man") (1981)
Starring: Paul Naschy, Azucena Hernandez, Silvia Aguilar, Julia Saly
Director: Paul Naschy
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

An psychopathic witch (Aguilar) resurrects the evil vampire Countess Bathory (Saly) in a quest for ultimate power and eternal life. But she didn't count on the intervention of Waldemar Daninsky (Naschy), the tragically heroic reluctant werewolf and his sexy sidekick Karen (Hernandez).

By the time he wrote and directed "Night of the Werewolf", Spanish actor Paul Naschy had played the continuity-challenged werewolf character Waldemar Daninsky nine or ten times (depending on whether one counts a movie that may or may not ever have been released), and this film assured him his place in history as the actor to play a werewolf in movies more than any other actor. And he went on to play a werewolf six more times--including three more appearances as Daninsky.

It is therefore not surprising that "Night of the Werewolf" has a very familiar feel to it. Naschy follows the formula of previous outings--Daninsky is a recluse, trying to deal with his monstrous side, who is forced back into the world, first to save the film's love interest from bandits/rapists/her own stupidity... and then to save the world from an evil greater than he. And, in the end, Daninsky wins by performing the ultimate sacrifice and/or must himself be slain because the werebeast within him is too strong to overcome--hitting most of the same plot and emotional notes that worked in previous films.

The plus in this approach is that if you liked previous Naschy outings, you're bound to like this one, as there are just enough variations to the formula to add a little freshness to the going-ons. The negative side, however, is that if you didn't like the previous films, you want to avoid this one like it was a plague carrier. The twists on the formula won't be enough to make this film worth your time.

Decently acted and featuring a script that tries to address some of the common Stupid Character Syndrome mainstays of the vampire and werewolf movie--like why do vampire killers never seem to go looking for the monster's hide-out during the daytime, and why doesn't the werewolf always just lock himself away when the moon is full--it's further augmented by beautiful women who take their shirts off every now and then. While there are some awkward scene transitions and disappointing werewolf transformation effects, the good ultimately outweighs that bad.

Fans of Hammer Films' gothic horrors from the 1950s and 1960s may also wish to seek this film out. Naschy captures the mood of those films perfectly in several sequences... even if his film looks a bit shabbier, because he didn't have Terence Fisher's gift for making $1.95 look like 1.95 million. Still, there aren't many good gothic horror flicks outside the Hammer Films canon, so one has to take them where one finds them.

Reportedly, this was Paul Naschy's personal favorite of all the 12 or 13 Daninsky films, which is no great surprise as this was his first outing as both star, writer, and director. Personally, I think "Werewolf vs. Vampire Woman" (of which this film is, essentially, a remake) is better, but I enjoyed this one, too.

Saturday Scream Queen: Jasmine Waltz

2012-01-14T00:01:00.000-08:00

Jasmine Waltz's hard childhood in Las Vegas landed her in a maximum security facility for girls by the time she was 16. After her release two years later, she embarked on a career as a model, augmenting her income with bartending jobs.

Drifting through several cities, she eventually ended up in Los Angeles where modeling gave way to television commercials, commercials to bit-parts in movies, and bit-parts to supporting roles.

Although Waltz is presently more famous for who she does than what she does, she has enough screen presence that she might eventually get recognized more for her acting, as she is at the very beginning of her acting career. So far, the horror movies on her resume are "Cheerleader Massacre 2" and "Poker Run", both released in 2009. In 2012, that list will grow with "Demon" and "Murder 101".

'Poker Run' follows predictable trail

2012-01-13T11:30:00.000-08:00

Poker Run (2009)
Starring: J.D. Rudometkin, Bertie Higgins, Robert Thorne, Jasmine Waltz, Debra Hopkins, Jay Wisell, and Skip Pipo
Director: Julian Higgins
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

A pair of successful lawyers (Higgins and Rudometkin) buy a pair of motorcycles and drag their wives (Hopkins and Waltz) on a mid-life crisis inspired Poker Run in the California desert. However, they fall prey to a pair of psychopathic bikers (Wisell and Thorne), who abduct the women and force the men to perform a series of murders that they frame them for.

"Poker Run" merges the "killer hicks" genre with motorcycles and throws in a dash of torture porn and "The Hitcher". It's mostly well-acted, technically competent, and very suspenseful at times. Unfortunately, it's also very, very predictable. If you've seem two "city folks in the back-country" horror movies prior to this one, you've seem most of what this film has to offer--not necessarily done better as there are a lot of crappy movies with that theme, but you will have seen it.

The strongest aspect of the film is the performance given by Robert Thorne, as the murderous master-manipulator who seems to have every resident of the California desert obeying his every psychotic whim in order to preserve their own lives. It also ultimately becomes one of the film's downfalls, because his control is so absolute and so far-reaching that viewers find themselves at a couple of occasions reacting more with a "Seriously?" rather than a "Oh, my God!"

Another performance worth mentioning is that given by Debra Hopkins. She gives such a perfect performance as a shrewish wife that I've not found myself wanting a character to be killed so badly since Barbara Shelley in "Dracula: Prince of Darkness".

"Poker Flats" is available in at least one DVD multi-pack where it is joined by two decent flicks and one weak one. It's worth the asking price when joined with other films--if you enjoy Killer Hicks movies--but I wouldn't waste my money on it as a stand-alone.

'Gacy House' might be worth visiting

2012-01-09T01:11:00.000-08:00

8213: Gacy House (2010)
Starring: Jim Lewis, Matthew Temple, Diana Terranova, Michael Gaglio, Brett A. Newton, Rachel Riley, and Sylvia Panacione
Director: Anthony Fankhauser
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

A group of paranormal investigators (Gaglio, Lewis, Newton, Panacione, Riley, Temple, and Terranova) conduct a ghost hunt in the house built on the site where pedophile and serial killer John Wayne Gacy's home once stood. They find more then they could have imagined in their worst nightmares.

"Gacy House" is a film that will appeal to you if you are a big fan of TV shows like "Ghost Hunters" and found footage hoax movies like "Blair Witch Project". You're also going to be willing to overlook the fact that the film is plagued by numerous instances of characters behaving in ways so mind-blowing idiotic that Stupid Character Syndrome doesn't even come close to describing the degree to which badly considered plot dictates override common sense and logic. (The worst of these: A character who decides to bail on the ghost hunt, yet can't seem to figure out to how to use a cell phone to call a cab or to simply walk away from the haunted house.)

The film is mostly well acted and there aren't many instances where you find yourself groaning at the clumsy attempts at maintaining the illusion of reality... although, personally, the film lost credibility when it tried to present itself as actual police evidence, so I never did manage to suspend my disbelief in regards to the events of the film being real. That said, I did find a couple of moments very well done, such as the one where a character is working both with an infra-red camera and a regular camera, so we get to see a ghost invisible to the naked eye attack him in a clever sort of split-screen effect thanks to monitors.

While not as good as "The Last Exorcism" or "The Blair Witch Project", "Gacy House" is still a far sight better than many other attempts at this sub-genre. Still, it's flawed enough that I am giving it the lowest possible of a Five Star rating, and I think it's probably only of interest to the biggest fans of "found footage" efforts.

Saturday Scream Queen: Sara Paxton

2012-01-07T00:02:00.000-08:00

A California blonde, born and bred, Sara Paxton began acting in films at the age of 8, and by the time she graduated high school in 2006, she had appeared in more than a dozen television series, and been a regular cast member on five of them.

Starting with the remake of "The Last House on the Left" in 2009, Paxton's resume has been loaded with horror films and thrillers, including 2011's "Shark Night 3D" "Enter Nowhere", and the just-released "Innkeepers".

Paxton appears in at least two more horror films slated for release in 2012--"Static" and "The Briar Lake Murders".

'Dr. Shock's Tales of Terror' mostly disappoint

2012-01-06T20:25:00.000-08:00

Dr. Shock's Tales of Terror (aka "Tales of Terror") Starring: Bruce Hoyt, Bob Kelly, Mark Standriff, Chris-May Zeithaml, Douglas Agosti, Otto Smith, Kristen Brochetti, Elena Pointinger, Dennis Staples, Mark Newman, and Timide
Directors: Douglas Agosti and Lance Otto Smith
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

I've come to believe that there are two general statements that can be made about anthology films. First, it doesn't really matter if any one segment is weak, because something else is going to follow in sort order, and it'll be better. Second, the best is usually saved for last (or second last).

When it comes to the anthology film "Dr. Shock's Tales of Terror", both of those general statements are inaccurate. While each segment is brief--the film is a collection of four short splatter flicks, each with an introductory host segment--it doesn't follow that what comes next is better. Similarly, the film doesn't save the best for last; in fact, as it progresses, things get steadily worse.

I'm going to assign ratings to each part of the movie as I discuss it. The rating at the top of this post is an average applied to the entire film.

The tone for the film is set in the host segments. Each film in "Dr. Shock's Tales of Terror" is, naturally enough, introduced by Dr. Shock, an obnoxious and very unfunny character who is like a male Elvira on a cocktail of uppers. His antics are supposed to be reminiscent of the Crypt Keeper, and the stories he introduces are likewise supposed to be tales of gore with humor and twist endings, just like "Tales From the Crypt" when it was at its best. Sadly, Dr. Shock and his material are nowhere near the quality of even the worst "Tales From the Crypt" episodes. The host segments do what their supposed to, but they're more irritating than funny, so they rate 5/10.

The first of the four terror tales included is "Bullet for a Vampire". In it, the bitchy daugther (Zeithaml) of a mobster (Standriff) brings a gypsy curse upon her family, in the form of a vampire (Timide) who introduces himself as "Drake Uala, from a small town in Scandinavia." (And, yes, that is so stupid that I resigned myself to the fact that I was in for something truly craptacular.) However, the story is amusing enough, and the performance of Standriff as a mobster who takes on vampires with an attitude that would humble anyone in the Soprano household, makes it even more entertaining, despite the badly written dialogue. The sets and vampire makeup are also pretty decent for a low-budget, shot-with-a-camcorder production. It could have done with a little trimming here and there, but, it wasn't a bad effort. I give it 5/10, and note that it could have been a 6/10 if the script had been tightened up a bit.

The second film is "The Town That Loved Pizza", and it deals with a pair of creepy strangers (Hoyt and Kelly) who open up a pizza parlor on the outskirts of a small town in northern Texas. Their all-mean pizzas become all the rage in the town, but when citizens start vanishing, the question arises: Just what is the mystery meat on those beloved pizza pies? I think this one was supposed to be equal parts gross, horrifying and funny, but it's really just predictable, over-long and dull. It gets 2/10.

Next up, we have "The Garden Tool Murders" which features a grounds-keeper who goes nuts and starts killing people who litter or otherwise behave in an anti-social fashion in and around a small town park. Who will stop the rampage? Well, the answer is almost as horrifying as the Garden Tool Murders themselves. Very silly, very gory, and nowhere near as dull as "The Town That Loved Pizza" this short is almost as good as "Bullet for a Vampire", and it rates 5/10.

Closing out the collection is "Demon's Day", a nonsensical little effort that demonstrates why cloning is bad and shows that the preferred method by which a demon dispatches a victim is by pulling his or her head off. (It's also the film that made me realize that Miss Cherry from "The Garden Tool Murders" WASN'T a guy in drag, as Kristen Brochetti reappears here as a hooker seeking redemption from the Lord; she just happens to have a very... um... severe face. If there was a point to "Demon's Day" and its weird circular "was it a dream or wasn't it" content, it was one that's either too deep or too dumb for me to grasp. It rates 1/10

"Dr. Shock's Tales of Terror" is an all-around disappointment, even for someone like me who loves the anthology format. "Bullet for a Vampire" and "The Garden Tool Murders" have the genesis of good ideas within them, but I think that the efforts of Agosti, Smith and Friends demonstrate here that there's more to making good movies than enthusiasm and good ideas. (In the hands of someone with more experience or talent or both, or if some more work had gone into the scripts, I think those could have been truly fun little movies. But, "could have" is not good enough for a recommendation. And, as much as I'd rather not, I must advise all to take a pass on this film.

'Legend of Sorrow Creek' has a few good moments

2012-01-05T04:24:00.000-08:00

The Legend of Sorrow Creek (2007)
Starring: Christina Caron, Freya Ravensbergen, Joe Deitcher, Matt Turner, Stephen Walker, Russell Sangster, and Michelle Caron
Director: Michael Penning
Rating: Four of Ten Stars

Four friends (Caron, Deitcher, Ravensbergen, and Turner) cut through a patch of haunted forest and draw the attention of wrathful spirits.

"Legend of Sorrow Creek" is a well-acted and well-filmed horror movie that shoots for a "Blair Witch Project" sort of vibe within traditional filmmaking approaches instead the "found footage" route. It's a low-budget horror film with a professional look to it, mounted by a director who obviously understood how to work within his means, and which delivers several genuinely scary moments.

However, the film is done is by an underdeveloped script (by director Penning) which relies on the characters behaving in idiotic ways in order to keep the plot moving forward, and which just sort of fizzles to a close (after perhaps the most astounding display of Stupid Character Syndrome ever put on screen) instead of ending with an explosion of horror. Perhaps even more damning, the film has a wrap-around sequence that features its worst actors and lamest dialogue, and which makes little sense in the context of the rest of the movie. I think something like it was needed for the film, but this wasn't it, and it's the most blatant sign that the script needed a lot more attention that it got.

If you like horror films with a "spooky forest" motif, or ones that revolve around "beautiful young people in trouble," this might be a film worth checking out. It's not exactly awful, but the shaky script foundation that supports the respectable efforts of the cast and crew result in a film that's not worth going out of your way for either. (I came across it in a set of eight different movies, among which were gems like "Prom Night", "Below" and four Charles Band productions. and in that context it's harmless filler. But I wouldn't bother with a stand-alone DVD unless you were renting it cheaply.)

Saturday Scream Queen: Felissa Rose

2011-12-31T00:02:00.000-08:00

Born in 1969, Felissa Rose grew up in New York wanting to be an actress. In 1983 at the age of thirteen she landed the role of Angela in the cult horror film "Sleepaway Camp."

That was the only role she played as a child, instead following a path that saw her finish school, college, complete formal training as an actress, and appear in numerous acclaimed stage productions.

In 2000, Rose returned to screen acting. In the past ten years she has been featured in more than 35 different independent horror films, including "Return to Sleepaway Camp" in 2008. At present, she is featured in four different movies in varying stages of production.

Just leave this one alone and in the dark

2011-12-27T00:05:00.000-08:00

Alone in the Dark (2005)
Starring: Christian Slater, Stephen Dorff and Tara Reid
Director: Uwe Boll
Rating: One of Ten Stars

Edward Carnby (Christian Slater) is a paranormal investigator who has spent the last several years trying to unlock a mystery in his past that is somehow tied to a mysterious prehistoric culture. He is on the verge of finding his answers when a series of nonsensical events surrounding invisible monsters, a girlfriend played by an apparently bored actress (Tara Reid), symbiot-infected government agents, and a for-no-apparent-reason-bitter co-worker from the government's paranormal research branch Dept. 713 (Stephen Dorff) erupt.

This movie starts with a dull bit of exposition, and it doesn't get much better. It's a mish-mash of half-developed story elements and non-developed characters played by actors who in most cases seem like they know they're in an awful film so they're not even trying. The monstrous threat is self-contradictory (the critters are loose in the world, yet they're not... the critters are stopped from invading the world, yet they've depopulated it by the end). The super-secret, heavily armed government agency set up to deal with supernatural threats have been fighting the growing monster menace for years, yet they go to face it repeatedly in the film without the fairly simple, easy-to-come-by methods to weaken it. (The creatures are vulnerable to light. Private citizens can rent light towers with gas or battery powered generators, yet the hi-tech, paramilitary Dept. 713 can't lay their hands on any.)

Maybe the problem is that the three writers on "Alone in the Dark" never showed each others pages to one another before rehearsal and filming started?

There is nothing nice to say about this film, except maybe that it moves fast enough to not get boring. For that, it gets a very generous One Star. I knew I was watching garbage, but it kept me mildly entertained. I still wish I had the time back I spent watching it, and I don't recommend you waste yours on this film.

It's Price Times Three in 'Twice-Told Tales'

2011-12-26T11:30:00.000-08:00

Twice-Told Tales (aka "Nathaniel Hawthorne's Twice-Told Tales" and "Nights of Terror") (1963)
Starring: Vincent Price, Sebastian Cabot, Beverly Garland, Brett Halsey, Joyce Taylor, and Mari Blanchard
Director: Sidney Salkow
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

"Twice-Told Tales" is a collection of three short films loosely based on stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne. They are a nice mix of melodrama and horror, and, although they unfold somewhat slowly (and those who think a horror movie has to have gore and violence or it not worth seeing will be bored), each tale features some great classical style acting and chilling twist endings that will keep lovers of well-done dramas entertained.

Vincent Price plays the lead in two of the three segments, and he displays clearly why he was a rising leading man in Hollywood until he shifted gears career-wise and became a star of horror films. Although he is the villain in each piece, he carries himself with such an air of melancholy-tinged elegance that one can't but feel a little sympathy for the evil men he portrays.

In film opens with "Dr. Heidegger's Experiment." Here, Price plays the best friend of the title character (played by Sebastian Cabot), a scientist who discovers a literal fountain of youth in the crypt of long-dead woman they both loved. The two friends regain their their youth, and even manage to resurrect their beloved Sylvia (Blanchard). Unfortunately, turning back the hands of time also resurrects dark secrets long buried.

The second story is "Rappaccini's Daughter". In it, Gionvanni (Halsey) falls in love with a mysterious beauty (Taylor) who never leaves the mansion and walled garden she shares with her father, Rappaccini (Price). It soon comes to light that Rappaccini used chemistry to turn his daughter's very touch poisonous to protect her from sin... and when it becomes clear to him that Giovanni and his daughter love each other, he takes steps to ensure they'll be together and faithful to each other forever. This is perhaps the oddest and saddest of the three tales, and while Price's character is definitely a total madman in this story, he still manages to bring a sympathetic quality to Rappaccini in his performance.

Finally, we have a very loose adaptation of Hawthorne's novel "House of Seven Gables" where Gerald Pyncheon (Price) returns to his his ancestral home with his wife Alice (Garland) and awakens a restless spirit and a deadly curse. While the first two stories were tragedies with "mad science" overtones and nifty twist endings , this one is pretty much a standard haunted house story with all the various expected elements used exactly as anticipated. It's not only a fairly bad take on Hawthorne's novel, but it's also the weakest short film here, and it was one that saw me wishing for the credits to start rolling. Still, Price gives a good performance, and there's never anything wrong with watching someone as lovely as Beverly Garland, even if she is in some nicely put-together dreck. (Oh... and the model shot of the house of the title is probably one of the worst bit of special effects since the Alpine village in Hitchcock's "The Lady Vanishes.")

Although it ends on a down-note, "Twice-Told Tales" is an interesting anthology film. It's a film I recommend highly to fans of Vincent Price, particularly if they've not been exposed to his pre-Corman and pre-Castle days. He is in great form in this film.

It's 'Horror for the Holidays'

2011-12-24T20:22:00.000-08:00

If you're looking for something to keep yourself awake while waiting for Santa, check this little collection of classic horror stories and mysteries.Horror for the Holidays. (They've been hand-selected by your Terror Titans host, me!)

Pick up this latest collection of classic fiction from NUELOW Games and help keep a roof over my head. :)

Christmas Saturday Scream Queens

2011-12-24T00:01:00.000-08:00

In celebration of Christmas, I bring you multiple Scream Queens in Santa Hats!

Scarlett Johansson: Good at being naughty?

Scarlett Johansson started her career as a child actress at the age ten, appearing in such films as "North" (1994) and "Just Cause." (1995). She made the successful transition from child actress to adult movie star with the horror-comedies "Eight Legged Freaks" (2002). During 2006 alone, she appeared in three different films with horror-themes--"Scoop", "The Black Dahlia", and "The Prestige". She is currently filming the sci-fi/horror flick "Under the Skin", which is slated for release in late 2012.

Ha Ji-Won: She causes Santa to say "Ha! Ha! Ha!" instead of "Ho! Ho! Ho!"

Ha Ji-Won has been described by many critics in her home country of South Korea as one of that nation's most talented actresses. She has made 20 movies since her film debut in 2000, and her performances in horror films such as "Truth Game" (2000) "Phone" (2002), and, more recently, disaster movie "Tidal Wave" (2009) and the monster-on-a-rampage sci-fi/horror flick "Sector 7" (2011) show that the critics may be right for once.

Tara Reid: All she wants for Christmas is a pair of pants.

Tara Reid graduated from "that cute little girl in TV commercials" to horror films when she appeared in the 1987 chiller "A Return to Salem's Lot". Although she is perhaps best known for her recurring role as Vicky in the "American Pie" sex comedy series, Reid's resume of more than 35 films features ten horror movies. Among these are "Urban Legend" (1998), "Devil's Pond" (2003), "Incubus" (2006), and, most recently "The Field" (2011). She also starred in "Alone in the Dark" (2005), a horror movie that failed on so many levels it's hard to keep track of them. Director Uwe Boll blames Reid for the film's terrible state, but anyone who's suffered through it knows that Boll needs to cast that blame on the man in the mirror.

The Parasite

2011-12-22T03:33:00.000-08:00

The Parasite (1995)
Starring: David Gaffrey, Julia Matias, David Akin, and Robert Taminga
Director: Andy Froemke
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

When college professor Richard Austin (Gaffrey) volunteers to be the test subject in a fellow researcher's (Taminga) experiments with a powerful psychic (Matias), he finds himself the victim of a stalker who doesn't even have to leave her house to make his life hell.

The premise of this film is cool--think "Fatal Attraction" with psychic powers and hypnotism tossed in and you're close--but it's executed badly here. The film unfolds at a glacial, deadly dull pace... it's not padding that makes it boring (as is often the case with low-budget horror films like this), it's just a boring film. To drag the film down even further, the acting is pedestrian, the gore effects are badly done, and the visual "psychic vision" cues are even worse.

I'm sure there's a way make a premise as this one into an exciting film. "The Parasite" isn't it, though.

'Bloodlock' should have stayed locked up

2011-12-19T00:02:00.000-08:00

Bloodlock (2008)
Starring: Ashley Gallo, Dominic Koulianos, Gregg Biamonte, Debra Gordon, Karen Fox,
Dick Hermance, and Nick Foote
Director: William Victor Schotten
Rating: One of Two Stars

Young married couple Christine and Barry (Gallo and Biamonte) discover a sealed door made of titanium in the basement of the house they have just purchased. As Christine grows obsessed with what might be behind it, her husband and slutty sister (Fox) are having an affair... and the creepy neighbors (Gordon and Hermance) are plotting to get into the door and take possession of what's inside.

William Victor Schotten is a filmmaker who is learning is craft as he goes. This is evident from the two films from him I've watched so far... this one, the oldest, and the Rapture/Zombie tale "Sabbath". Both date from 2008, but while "Sabbath" is far from perfect, it's a much, MUCH better film than "Bloodlock."

Heck, based on the difference in quality between "Bloodlock" and "Sabbath", I may have to get my hands on Schotten's most recent film--"Silver Cell" from 2011, because if he's continued at that rate of improvement, he may just have created one of the Greatest Movies Ever Made.

There's no word to describe "Bloodlock" better than "inept." The pacing is wrong from the get-go and it only gets worse as the film unfolds... with sequences that could have benefited from a little a pause being raced through like they were running out of film, and sequences that should have been quick being dragged out. The script is disjointed and chaotic, with a number of tones drifting through the disorganized story like so much flotsam as the film moves from being a erotic thriller, to a gory monster flick, to a half-assed comedy. There was also clearly a lack of funding when it came to special effects and a lack of rehearsal time when it came to the fight scenes... and the inexperience of Schotten and his technical crew only makes these shortcomings more obvious because they were either unable to use cinematic trickery to cover for them, or unaware of the fact they were looking at inadequacies until it was too late to do anything about it. And, finally, the ultimate doom for the movie are the mostly amateurish actors struggling with flat, poorly written lines. (Dominic Koulianos and Karen Fox are not only called upon to deliver awful lines, but they don't seem to be all that talented to begin with. That's a mix that destroys almost every scene they're in.)

This is, however, also one of those films I wish I could say nicer things about, because hidden inside this mess are some gems. I like the pirahna-style design used for the vampires in the film, and I think something cool could be done with the psychic housewife-turning-monster-hunter. But in this film, both of these cool aspects are all but wasted.

The one thing I have to give Schotten (or maybe screenwriter Tom McLaughlin) is that he realized this movie was disjointed and messy. So clear was that realization was that the film ends with the old "it was all a dream" and then loops back on itself by repeating an early scene. If you have a movie that doesn't make any sense, I suppose that's not a bad way to try to say "We meant to do that!". My reaction to such endings are typically either an irritated growl at the lazy cop-out or a grin at the well-executed creepy moebius loop, but seeing it here at the end of "Bloodlock" just made me a little sad. It seemed to say that the filmmakers knew what they had here didn't amount to much of anything.

Saturday Scream Queen: Kumi Mizuno

2011-12-17T00:55:00.000-08:00

Born on New Year's Day in 1937, began her film career appearing in thrillers and mystery films, but as the 1960s progressed, her good looks and pleasant demeanor made her a favorite of director Ishirô Honda and thus she became Toho's go-to gal when it came to befriending or being menaced by aliens and monsters of all kinds, in a range of sci-fi and horror films.

Mizuno emerged from her stint with monsters as one of Japan's most popular actresses and moved away from the horror and sci-fi genres as the 1970s progressed.

With a career that has spanned more than five decades at this point, she remains much-loved among the Japanese movie-going public and continues to act in films up to the present day. While she personally never put much weight on her early career co-starring with giant monsters and special effects, she returned to face Godzilla once more in Godzilla vs. MechaGodzilla (2002) and Godzilla: Final Wars (2004), two entries in the Toho Company's "Millenium" series.

A good idea is butchered in 'Demon Slaughter'

2011-12-14T11:30:00.000-08:00

Demon Slaughter (2008)
Starring: Adam Berasi, Bill Wittman, Vic Badger, and Shannon Johnson
Director: Ryan Cavalline
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

Psychopathic killer Jimmy (Berasi) decides to quit the crime syndicate by stealing a few million dollars from it and then killing everyone that might come after him. But his partners in crime get wind of his intentions, and they decide to take out Jimmy and his wife (Johnson) first. And that's when the demons and zombies start popping up.

"Demon Slaughter" has in interesting story at its heart and that makes it yet another in the seemingly unending row of films I wish I liked more. Jimmy, as played by Adam Berasi is an absolutely unlikeable character, but the viewers become invested in his fate despite ourselves; he's a character like Scarface (from the 1930s version... I've not seen any of the remakes) with even fewer good qualities. This is a credit to Adam Berasi's acting talent more than the material (or the props) he's working with.

Unfortunately, the film is nowhere near as powerful as it might have been, due to budget- and skill-limitations on every front.

First off, this is a movie with lots and lots of gun-play in it, but there was not the money to hire an armorer (so the weapons--some of which look like toys--are never fired and the actors don't even try to simulate recoils), nor the budget to actually damage the interior of a building where a massive shoot-out takes place (all those missed shots from the automatic weapons never impact anything), nor the special-effects know-how to rig actors with squibs (or whatever the modern equivalent is) and blood-packs for when they get shot. All-in-all, the shoot-outs and gangster action felt more like someone trained a camera on adults playing Soldiers or Cops & Robbers rather than something that belonged in a movie.

Second, there wasn't the budget to fully create scary zombies when all of Jimmy's victims (I assume that's who the zombies were, although that's never expressly stated) come back for their revenge. The make-up and costumes were reminiscent of a high school play or cheap haunted house rather than something that belonged in a movie. It also didn't help that there were barely half a dozen zombies when the sequence called for a veritable hoard of them.

And then there's a the sound effects and sound recording in general. There is a reference to "boom operators" in the credits, but if such were used on this film, they were the least competent people to ever handle that equipment. It seems more likely that all dialogue was recorded with the built-in microphone on the cheap video camera that was used to make this movie, as there are times where the dialogue is so soft so as to be almost inaudible and the volume of the actors' voices vary greatly... sometimes to the point of being inaudible. And Cavelline uses the game gunshot sound over and over and over and over and over....

Finally, the transition point from violent gangster flick with a few horror touches into full-blown surrealistic horror film is so clumsily handled that anyone who's read "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" (or read any of the many comic book adaptations, or the "Twilight Zone" episode based on it) will have a pretty good idea about where the rest of the film is headed. If the story had been a little more elaborately structured--with the first half perhaps being in flashback?--maybe it could have been a little less predictable.

Despite all the toy guns, bad effects, and clumsy filmmaking, the film has enough moments to make it just good enough to not end up at Movies You Should [Die Before You] See... but only barely. The scenes surrounding the death of Jimmy's wife that lead up to the transition from gangster movie to horror movie are pretty well done and are the film's highlight.

"Demon Slaughter" can be found in several DVD multi-movie packs from Maxim Media's Pendulum Pictures and Brain Damage Films. It's worth checking out if acquired that way, but you will regret spending the money if you get any stand-alone version that might be out there.

An island of missed opportunities

2011-12-12T00:03:00.000-08:00

Frankenstein Island (1981)
Starring: Robert Clarke, Steve Brodie, Robert Christopher, Tain Bodkin, Kathrine Victor, Cameron Mitchell, George Mitchell and John Carradine
Director: Jerry Warren
Rating: Two of Ten Stars

Hot air balloonists crashland on an uncharted island where they discover primitive bikini babes descended from alien visitors, stranded pirates, Kung Fu zombies, and Shiela Frankenstein (Victor) continuing the experiments of her famous relative.

Despite a crazy mix of elements--any one of which could have brought some excitement to this film--"Frankenstein Island" is a crushing bore from beginning to end. The dull 'heroes' wander around not doing much of anything--even the Kung Fu fight versus the zombies who all look like they just walked out of a beatnik cafe is boring--and the villains aren't much more active or effective.

The biggest shame of the movie is how badly everything is executed. The writer/director was clearly going for a cross between a "Lost World" film and a "Mad Scientist on a Rampage" movie, but he was not competent enough to capture the feel of either genre, and he botches even the simplest elements. (Worst offense: He doesn't make full use of the bikini babes... one should have developed a romance/association with one of the heroes early on and then should have been following the around. At the very least, we would have had something nice to look at while struggling to stay awake.)

Another missed opportunity was the identity of Sheila Frankenstein's husband. When he was first brought up in an ominous way, I was hoping he would be revealed as as the Frankenstein Monster. Alas, this was not to be. Sheila's mysterious husband turns out to be one of the more boring elements of the film.

"Frankenstein Island" is not a place worth visiting.

Saturday Scream Queen: Kerry Kearns

2011-12-10T00:01:00.000-08:00

Kerry Kearns' resume reads like she is the movie character rather than the actress.

Kearns is a field producer for Pennsylvania-based WBRE-TV by day, and B-movie starlet by night!

Since graduating from college in 2001, Kearns has worked primarily as a television news writer and segment producer, but she has also acted in six different low-budget horror films (with a total of seven listed on her resume as the short film "Cannibal Cheerleader Camp" was ultimately folded into the 2010 anthology film "Suburban Madness").

Kearns' most recent film, "Attack of the Vegan Zombies", where she plays one of four college students under attack by blood-hungry grape vines, will receive wide release on DVD in January 2012.

'Attack of the Vegan Zombies' is an uneven but entertaining effort

2011-12-08T01:33:00.000-08:00

Attack of the Vegan Zombies! (2012)
Starring: Christine Egan, Jim Townsend, Natalia Jablokov, Kerry Kearns, Watt Smith, John D. Kelly, H. Lynne Smith, and Wyatt Gunter
Director: Jim Townsend
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

A string of bad growing seasons might cause Dionne and Joe (Egan and Townsend) to lose the vineyard and winery she inherited from her father, so Dionne turns to her mother (Smith), a practicing witch, for help. Together, they cast a spell that causes the grapes to grow like never before... but there is one big problem: The plants are sentient and thirsty for the blood of anyone who drinks wine made from the vineyard's grapes.

"Attack of the Vegan Zombies!" is one of those films I wish I liked more than I do. It has a lot going for it... a cast that's generally more talented than what I often see in films at this budgetary level, and a writer/director who seems to actually haven taken his script through more than a single draft, because the dialogue actually seems polished (although I got the sense that maybe a little more research into wine-making might have been needed). Also, as an idea for a low-key "Shaun of the Dead"-type horror spoof, this is a great one.

Townsend also clearly has a firm command of the technical aspects of filmmaking. The scenes are well-framed and well-lit, the edits and establishing shots always dead-on, the sound always clear and well-balanced, be it dialogue or sound effects. On a technical level, this film stands heads-and-shoulders above the vast majority of is low-budget, direct-to-DVD kin.

But as much as I want to like it, the weaknesses present here are so strong that they really get in the way of my overall enjoyment of the film.

The most glaring and persistent of these weaknesses are the characters portrayed by Watt Smith and John D. Kelly. These are a pair of uber-nerds that are played with such over-the-top gusto and caricature that they are out of step with the more realistic performances around them, making their characters irritating on the level of the comic relief characters that were shoehorned into the majority of horror films from the 1930s and 1940s. However, the aren't quite as bad as the majority of those characters, because Kelly and Smith have enough charisma to be likable through the annoying character acting. It's a shame that director Townsend chose to go in that direction, because the geeky banter back and forth between these characters would have been even funnier if they'd been played in a more straight fashion.

Another aspect that weakens the film is that Townsend may have taken on more than he was ready to handle in his first outing as a director; he may have made a mistake when he chose to play the male lead in the film he also directed, because every scene he appears in as an actor seems flat and lifeless when compared to those he isn't in. The clearest example of this is the scene where Dionne and her mother reveal that they are witches with a very real ability to weave spells. It's a great little scene that brings back fond memories of the "Bewitched" TV show, but actresses Christine Egan and H. Lynne Smith showed far greater energy in the scenes where they were interacting with each other or with other actors while Townsend was off-screen watching the scene unfold instead of trying to watch it from within. With more time and money to "get it right", Townsend might have been able to both star in and direct this picture, but given that he only had $30,000 as his budget and presumably the severe time limitations that arise when you have to coordinate your cast-with-dayjobs with when your locations are available, I don't think he had the opportunity for the multiple takes probably needed.

Finally, the film, strangely, seems to come apart at the seams during the final half-hour. For most of its running-time, it builds steadily toward what promises to be a chaotic climax full of killer grapevines and blood-sucking zombies. But as we get to that climax point, promises made early in the film don't pay off--like the exchange the mother has with a local restaurant owner to whom she sells a case of wine that seems to have been made from the magical grapes and its promise of a whole hoard of zombies attacking the winery in search of more "nectar". There are also strange continuity gaffes, and a repeated shying away from anything resembling physical altercations or violent action: We get the set-up, but in nearly every case, the action is either truncated or completely absent. All-in-all, what seemed very promising just sputters out at the end... even to the point where Townsend makes the huge error of tacking on one last joke in the form of a "shock surprise ending" which is predictable, not very funny, and nowhere near the closing moments that this film deserved.

There is enough good about this film that I hope it does well enough for Townsend to either motivate him to self-produce another movie, or for someone to hire him to make one for them. I would like to see what he could come up with, given lessons learned from this film. I also wouldn't mind seeing Christine Egan take another turn in front of a camera, as I think she did a fine job here, in what seems to be her only film role so far. This really is a an okay little movie that got torpedoed by a few bad choices on the part of a first-time director.

"Attack of Vegan Zombies" was completed in 2010, and Townsend has been selling copies of the film directly through his website and on Amazon.com. However, it was recently picked up for distribution by Midnight Releasing, and it will be available everywhere come January 3, 2012.

(My thanks to the good people at Maxim Media for providing me with a copy of the film for review.)

These 'shrooms provide majorily bad trips

2011-12-06T11:45:00.000-08:00

Matango (aka "Attack of the Mushroom People") (1962)
Starring: Akira Kubo, Miki Yashiro, Kumi Mizuno, Hiroshi Koizumi, Hiroshi Tachikawa, Yoshio Tsuchiya, and Kenji Sahara
Director: Ishirô Honda
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

A sudden storm maroons a group of pleasure-boaters on an uncharted island inhabited by strange mushroom creatures.

If "Gilligan's Island" were a horror movie, then this would be it. We have the Skipper and Little Buddy characters (although they're contemptuous of their passengers and treacherously self-centered as opposed to bumbling and helpful); we have Ginger and Mary-Ann (although one is a shy student and the other a bitchy diva), the Millionaire (the owner of the yacht who is always quick to remind everyone else how rich he is... and the bitchy diva stands in for His Wife), and finally, the Professor (who is, well... the Professor).

"Mantango" is a far more effective horror film than I expected to see from the home of Godzilla and who-knows-how-many-other giant monsters. It stars out feeling like an adventure flick, but once our crew of castaways find the wrecked research vessel on the coast of the island where they are marooned, a sense of claustrophobic horror starts to build. And as desperation starts to grip our band of contentious castaways, it becomes more and more evident that they have nowhere to hide from the monsters or each other.

Perhaps the biggest surprise in the film was that the monsters--the mushroom people--were not as silly as I expected them to be. Perhaps it was because they were tied in with the fact that the only way for the characters to survive was to eat food they knew would turn them into monsters, but the effective make-up effects and costumes also played a role.

While I wasn't thrilled with the "shocking twist ending"--which was so bad that it rivals some of the worst modern offenders I've complained about--everything prior to it as very well done. It's a horror film that's free of gore and nudity, so it can be enjoyed by the entire family. Heck, it's even free of stringy-haired girl-ghosts, so this might just be a Japanese horror flick that even those who are sick of them can enjoy!

Saturday Scream Queen: Susan Cabot

2011-12-03T00:01:00.000-08:00

Susan Cabot's rough childhood, which saw her grow up in a string of eight foster homes, led, by some accounts, to her being cold, distant, and downright abusive to those around her in her personal life. Something which ultimately led to her demise.

Cabot's film career was an on-again, off-again affair. She was a contract player with Universal Picture in the early 1950s, but asked to be released form that contract in 1954 so she could do theater work in New York City. During this time, she appeared mostly in westerns.

In 1957, Roger Corman convinced her to return to the film business and she spent the next two years primarily appearing in films produced or directed by Corman. Among these is her very best performance in the chilling "Sorority Girl"--perhaps one of Corman's best and most heart-felt pictures. It's dressed up like an exploitation horror thriller, but it's really a far deeper picture about a sociopath's doomed struggle to find friends and fit into society.

Cabot ended her film career in 1959 with another starring turn as a sociopath in "The Wasp Woman", this time a decidedly villainous rather than piteous character. This mad scientist film set in a cosmetic company is slow-moving and mostly dull, but Cabot is, once again, quite good. Perhaps a reason she excelled at playing sociopaths is because she was putting a big part of herself up there on the screen?

As I mentioned at the beginning of this piece, Cabot was cold and abusive to those close to her. In fact, she was so abusive to her son that he was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and given a suspended sentence after he bludgeoned her to death while she slept in 1986.

'Project Vampire' is a failed project

2011-12-01T06:16:00.000-08:00

Project Vampire (1993)
Starring: Brian Knudson, Mary-Louise Gemmill, and Myron Natwick
Director: Peter Flynn
Rating: Two of Ten Stars

A mad scientist, Dr. Klaus (Natwick), is perfecting a longevity serum that turns those who use it into vampires. A brave intern from the univsersity hospital (Knudson), a kind-hearted nurse (Gemmill), and a Chinese genius (Cho) join forces to save themselves from the effects of the serum and to stop Klaus's convoluted schemes from coming to fruition.

At the center of "Project Vampire" is a neat idea--I like the notion of the vampire serum--but that idea is brutally strangled by a script so badly structured I doubt the writer/director has even heard the term "three-act structure", and then dumped in a shallow grave by a cast of actors who have almost certainly heard the phrase "don't quit your day job" many times. To make matters worse, the film is a mixture of a chase story and a race-against-time story, but both of these normally dramatic plot-types are made deadly dull by chase scenes that have all the excitement of my daily commute to work.

(In fairness, I may actually be being a bit harsh on the actors who star in this picture. Mary-Louise Gemmill and Myron Natwick both have extensive credits to their names, albeit as a voice actress and bit-player respectively--taking center stage may not be where their talent lies, or maybe they were let down by director Peter Flynn. Flynn has been a prop-maker for a host of high profile television series and movies but this was the one and only film he's directed.

In the end, "Project Vampire" is yet another badly executed low-budget film where a good idea falls victim to a shortage and/or misdirection of talent. (It's also the only film of recent vintage that features a Chinese character that brought to mind Lionel Twain's rant at Inspector Wang in "Murder By Death" about geniuses being unable to grasp the use of preposition, articles, and pronouns when speaking.)

'Tales of Terror' is Roger Corman at his best

2011-11-29T01:22:00.000-08:00

Tales of Terror (aka "Edgar Allan Poe's Tales of Terror") (1962)
Starring: Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, Basil Rathbone, Leona Gage, Maggie Pierce, Joyce Jameson, and Debra Paget
Director: Roger Corman
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

This is the film that convinced me that Roger Corman actually could make a good movie, when I first saw it. My first exposure to his work was "The Wasp Woman" and "The Terror", not exactly Corman at his best.

"Tales of Terror" is an anthology film that features three shorts loosely adapted from stories by Edgar Allan Poe, and further tied together by the fact that each star Vincent Price in a different role.

First up, we have the chilling and tragic tale "Morella", where a young woman (Pierce) returns to her childhood home in one last attempt to connect with the father who rejected her (Price) after the death of her mother. Moody throughout and downright terrifying at the end, this story is a excellent excursion into the dark corners of the human heart and a fabulous horror story.

Next, we have "The Black Cat", which folds the story of the same name and "A Cask of Amontillado" into one tale of dark comedy as a drunkard (Lorre) ends up in a hum-dinger of a drinking competition with a snooty wine-taster (Price) after he stumbles into an annual wine festival. When he later discovers that wine-taster has been having an affair with his wife, he decides to take drastic action. This tale is characterized by a taut balance between comedy and a brooding sense of dread, with the on-screen interplay between Lorre and Price being a fabulous bit of movie magic. (They're even better here than in "A Comedy of Terrors".)

Finally, we are presented with "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar", an exceedingly creepy tale of a greedy mesmerist (Rathbone) who uses hypnosis to trap the spirit of a dying man (Price) between this world and the next... with terrible consequences for everyone involved. This segment isn't as stunning visually as the first two, but it gets plenty skin-crawly as it builds toward its climax.

The ever-present cheapness in a Corman film is invisible here. I've no doubt that every dollar is present on the screen, but the crew working on this film built some great sets, they're beautifully lit, and the camera work and editing is excellent; the material here looks far better than what I still think of as "typical" Corman. Further, there's no obvious padding to dispel the mood of horror and dread in any of the three stories.

All the principal actors (and even some of the bit-players) give excellent performances. I would even venture that Price might not be the best in this film--Lorre's comedic performance is fabulous, as is Rathbone's turn as a blackhearted villain. (That's not to say that Price isn't great in all the three parts he plays.)

If you like classic horror movies, I'm sure you'll love "Tales of Terror." If you tend to sneer at Corman films, as I used to, maybe this one will show that he can be really, really good when working with the right cast, writers, crew... and when he takes more time than 48 hours to shoot a film.

Saturday Scream Queen: Amy Smart

2011-11-26T00:01:00.000-08:00

Cute and blonde, California native Amy Smart has been busy playing everything from bit-parts to leading lady since her acting debut in 1996, appearing in over 50 films and television series. Best knwon for appearing in "Varsity Blues", "Outside Providence", and the two gonzo action films in the "Crank" series, her resume has been dotted with horror films since the earliest points of her career.

Smart appeared both im the anthology film "Campfire Tales" in 1997, and followed up the next year with the the internet stalker horror film "Strangeland". Ten years later, she made it a double-bill when she starred in two horror films that year--"Mirrors" and "Seventh Moon."

We won't have to wait ten years for Smart's next horror film, however. She is currently filming "7500", a movie about supernatural happenings during a flight across the Pacific. It's being directed by the "Grudge" series that is slated for release in late 2012.

Day of the Turkey Review: The Witches' Mountain

2011-11-24T23:11:00.000-08:00

The Witches' Mountain (1971)
Starring: John Gaffari, Patty Shepard, and Monica Randall
Director: Raul Artigot
Rating: Four of Ten Stars

A commerical photographer (Caffari) takes a random girl (Shepard)--it WAS the Seventies!--with him on a trip to shoot a photo-essay on isolated Witches' Mountain. Random weirdnesses, and eventually witches, haunt them every step of the way.

"The Witches' Mountain" is a film with a muddled story and a twist ending that guarentees nothing in it makes sense.

How does the prologue with the evil little bitch girl fit with the climax? Was Shepard put in Gaffari's path through magic? What was the deal with the deserted village? Why do witches look like a modern ballet company during rehersal when doing "black magic"? Why do witches like to steal our hero's car and break into his house? These are just some of the questions you will be left with when the final frame of film freezes on your DVD player.

The best actor in this film is Shepard, who has shockingly blue eyes and has an odd sort of beauty about her--very much like the more well-known Barbara Steele--but no one is exactly bad... except perhaps that god-awful creepy innkeeper/comic relief character. But that might just have been the voice actor who did the dubbing.

Shepard's beauty aside, the only other thing this film has to offer is some great moments of unintentional hilarity to brighten any Bad Movie Night. Otherwise, this is just a mediocre horror film that's scare free and, like its protaganists, ultimately ends up nowhere.

Day of the Turkey Review: When Heaven Comes Down

2011-11-24T13:01:00.000-08:00

When Heaven Comes Down (2003)
Starring: Emily Albright, Dominica Wasilewska, Joe Gordon, Cory Schiffern, Anthony Sabatino, and Aaron Reisner
Director: Garry M. Lumpp
Stars: Three of Ten Stars

Several years ago, Samantha (Albright) was saved at the last minute from a religiously driven serial killer (Gordon) by a renegade FBI agent (Reisner), and the serial killer is locked up. She put her life back together, and she is now tending bar at the local watering hole and running a support group for battered women. But then the women in the support group start dying... brutally murdered in a way that makes it seem that the serial killer is back and stalking Samantha and those around her yet again.

"When Heaven Comes Down" is a clumsily made slasher flick that includes a few elements that could have helped it rise above the pack of low-budget, shot-on-video, direct-to-DVD films that anyone with a camera, friends, and a few dollars to burn seemed to be making 5-10 years ago. Given that low-budget horror film stalwart Robert D'Zar helped produce the film (and is in a single, unimportant scene), it's not surprising that it should have SOMETHING to distingush it. But that little bit of something is not nearly enough to make the movie worth watching.

The fact that a support group for battered is the focus of the murderer's activities was an inspired idea. You have the horror of women who are now being victimized all over again, and you have a ready pool of possible maniac suspects constantly lurking nearby in the form of the abusive ex-husbands and boyfriends and fathers. It's a great idea, but it requires some development of the characters in the support group... and I've seen slasher films where Drunk Girl #3 got more character development than any of the victims here. The idea also requires some skill on the part of the actors portraying these ladies... but skill and talent for acting is in short supply in almost every cast-member in the flick. Emily Albright was properly cast as the lead as she can at least deliver her lines with some degree of intensity, but everyone else is either lame or too far over-the-top in their performances.

Perhaps the most damning thing about the cast in this film is that Robert D'Zar is more memorable than all of them put together in a tiny, pointless bit-part.

I suppose if you're a fairly green viewer of horror films, you might get some enjoyment at trying to guess who the killer is while watching. It can't be original maniac as he's locked up tight in a facility for the criminally insane. Is it the now-retired, embittered FBI agent? Is it one of the abusive boyfriends? Is it Samantha's unbelievably understanding and supportive boyfriend? Or is it Samantha herself, completely cracked and on a rampage with a split personality? The guessing game can only carry you so far, because even if this is the first slasher film you've seen, about halfway through the movie, you will realize that there's a simple way to stop this killer: If Samantha actually got interviewed by the police, as she would be in real life, the killer's identity would be immediately known to them. (In fact, if Garry Lumpp had spent a little more time developing the script he wrote, he would have realized this plot problem and been able to fix it. As it is, it's a back hole of suckiness that pulls his already weak movie dangerously close to belonging on this blog instead of here.

Saturday Scream Queen: Audrey Hepburn

2011-11-19T00:02:00.000-08:00

Audrey Hepburn, one of the most beautiful and talented actresses to ever grace us with her presence in films, only appeared in one film that can be considered a horror movie during her career. In "Wait Until Dark," she played a blind woman whose home is invaded by three thugs who will stop at nothing to retrieve a doll stuff with illegal drugs. It is a thriller so intense that it is more frightening than most films that get passed off as horror movies.

And Audrey Hepburn is as great in it as she was in anything else she appeared in.

Audrey Hepburn passed away in 1993.

(I know Audrey Hepburn doesn't really qualify as a Scream Queen, even if she did do her fair share of it in the thrillers she appeared in, but since I started this blog, this series has not missed a single Saturday. With my current eye troubles, I am not able to stare at the screen long enough to select photos and type p a bio, so I am cheating to keep up the streak... sort of. The fact that Hepburn plays a blind woman in "Wait Until Dark" seemed like a good enough excuse to post a picture of her.)

No posts on any of my blogs this week.

2011-11-17T09:18:00.001-08:00

I am having really bad eye trouble. Hopefully, tomorrow's trip to the doctor will start to make things better.

I hope you'll check in at some point in the future.

Saturday Scream Queen: Shirley Anne Field

2011-11-12T00:02:00.000-08:00

Raised in an orphanage after she and her brother were abandoned by their impoverished mother, British actress Shirley Anne Field first entered show-business as a pin-up model in the early 1950s. By the middle of that decade, she'd moved onto movies, first in bit parts where she was cast for her curvacious good looks, but her gifts for acting soon saw her moving up to real roles.

Among her earliest parts with a little meat to them were an appearance in the obscure chiller "Horror of the Black Museum" (1957) and the imfamous proto-slasher flick "Peeping Tom" (1960). In 1963, Field starred in one of Hammer Films' most unusual releases, the sci-fi horror flick "These Are the Damned", and she gave a good accounting of herself. However, she would not appear in another horror film until the very disappointing "House of the Living Dead" ten years later. Field is great--and even sexy and youthful-enough in appearance to be playing a character who is 25 as opposed to her actual age of 35 at the time--but almost everything else in this slow-moving gothic horror story is dull and drab.

"House of the Living Dead" is Field's final horror movie to date, but she has appeared in numerous thrillers, in both supporting and leading roles.

Now 71, Field still possesses good looks and remains a busy working actress. She appeared in three different productions in 2010, and has been reported to have a role in "Tranfer at Aachen", a crime drama that seems to be all over the internet but which likewise does not seem to have received an official release.

'Below' is an ever-changing chiller

2011-11-11T13:01:00.000-08:00

Below (2002)
Starring: Bruce Greenwood, Holt McCallany, Olivia Williams, Matt Davis, Nick Chinlund, and Andrew Howard
Director: David Twohy
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

While on a patrol in the Atlantic during WW2, an American submarine picks up survivors of a strange attack on a medical ship. As they attempt to reach port, the boat comes under attack from a persistent German submarine hunter while seemingly supernatural events start to hinder their efforts to survive.

With "Below", David Twohy does for the war movie what he did for sci-fi with Pitch Black. What starts in the vein of a war drama, soon shifts to an apparent espionage thriller... and eventually morphs into a full-on horror film with the crew of the submarine fighting against a monster outside (the German ship trying its best to send them to the bottom of the sea permanently) and a vengeful ghost within (both an actual supernatural ghost and the guilt harbored by some of the ship's officers surrounding the events that placed Lt. Commander Brice (Greenwood) in the position of acting captain.

With exceptional performances by the entire cast, a clever script that keeps viewers guessing about what is happening and what will come next up to, quite literally, the film's final scene, and excellent special effects, I am left wondering why this film was dumped unceremoniously directly onto the DVD market and quickly relegated to DVD multi-packs. It's a film far more deserving of the obscurity and company it's been relegated to.

If you like war movies and horror movies, "Below" is a film you need to check out.

Saturday Scream Queen: Katee Sackhoff

2011-11-05T01:01:00.000-07:00

Born in 1980, actress Katee Sackhoff was a rising television actress with a handful of roles to her name when she shot to sci-fi stardom as the cigar-chomping fighter pilot Starbuck in the remake of "Battlestar Galactica" on the Sci-Fi/Syfy Channel. She played Starbuck for four seasons.

However, her first major role in a television series was in the short-lived horror anthology series "The Fearing Mind". Along the way, Sackhoff has also appeared in a number of horror movies, including the misbegotten "Halloween: Resurrection" and "White Noise 2: The Light".

Sackhoff is currently filming a western series for television, as well as working on three movies in varying stages of production, two of which are horror films: "The Haunting in Georgia" (for which a sequel is already in the works, even before the first one is through post-production) and "Growl", with both tentatively slated for release in 2012.

'Open Graves' is not worth your time

2011-11-03T14:22:00.000-07:00

Open Graves (2009)
Starring: Mike Vogel, Eliza Dushku, Ethan Rains, Lindsay Caroline Robba, Naike Rivelli, and Gary Piquer
Director: Álvaro de Armiñán
Rating: Four of Ten Stars

A group of 20-somethings (Dushku, Rains, Rivelli, Robba, and Vogel) working and surfing in Spain fall victim to a powerful and deadly curse after they play a board game made from the bones of a witch.

If you've seen the classic movie "Jumanji", you know the basic premise of this film. You've also seen that premise used far more effectively. Heck, you've even seen more intense and frightening scenes than what you'll get in this horror movie.

"Open Graves" features a script so weak and predictable that I wonder why it was made as an R-rated film. Anyone who has seen even one other film featuring a cursed object will be able to guess where the film is going, up to and including the ending, so the only audience who would have enjoyed this picture would have been young kids. Everyone else will grow increasingly bored as this movie unfolds and brings nothing new. (There is a creepy little twist involving Eliza Dushku's character toward the end of the film, but it's so minor so as to be a reach for me to even mention it as a positive aspect of the film. I suppose the subplot involving a police detective with a dark agenda is also unpredictable... but only because it ends without any particular resolution. Not a Good Thing.)

Of course, it doesn't help the overall weakness of the material that the actors appear to have been cast mostly for their good looks than their talent. They add more attractiveness to this already beautiful-looking film, but they ultimately also help emphasize the emptiness and unoriginality of the script, because there is little or no life to their characters. The exception to that general statement are Dushku and Vogel, who bring enough charisma to their characters that we care a little about what will happen to them... but for all but the most entertainment-starved captive audience that's not enough to make it feel like watching this film was time well spent.

Nine Days of the Ninja:Ninjas & Zombies: Tastes that go great together?

2011-11-01T00:33:00.000-07:00

Ninjas vs. Zombies (2010)
Starring: Daniel Ross, Cory Okouchi, Carla Okouchi, P.J. Megaw, Dan Guy, Daniel Mascarello, Melissa McConnell, Tara Moore, and Will Stendeback
Director: Justin Timpane
Rating: Four of Ten Stars

Three friends are granted the magical powers and combat prowess of The Ninja when a necromantic ritual unleashes a soul-sucking, zombie-creating demon on a small American town.

As low-budget action spoofs go, "Ninjas vs, Zombies" is fairly well accomplished on the technical front. The special effects are well-deployed, both the practical gore effects and the digitally generated "magical energies" and muzzle-flashes and explosions. Director Timpane seems to have a good sense of how to film action and martial arts scenes, and the editing generally helps cover up budgetary shortfalls rather than emphasize them. The main technical disappointment about the film is that the foley artists could have been on the job more, as there are several fight and effect scenes that are less effective than they might otherwise have been.

The acting is better than I've come to expect from films at this level of production, with lead heroes Daniel Ross and Dan Guy being particularly skilled and fun to watch. P.J. McGaw also gives a good accounting of himself as the root of all evil in the film, and the rest of the cast and supporting players are also quite good.

Unfortunately, everyone is let down by an inadequite script. Written by the director, it feels like a first draft, with flabby and repetative scenes and dialogue, particularly early on, and, worse, irrelevant scenes and pop cultural references that distract from the film's central high concept of Ninjas kicking Zombie ass without adding anything worthwhile to the mix. I suppose with Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer somehow still having careers and still making shitty comedies that consist of little more than stringing together random references to popular movies and pop culture, it was only a matter of time before a new generation of filmmakers started to copy them. (It also doesn't help that some of the character interaction feels like it was lifted from a Kevin Smith movie. Stealing is a time-honored tradition among script-writers, but one really should take one's screenplay through an extra draft or two to hide the sources a bit better. Even if it means bringing in a co-writer.

I think there is all sorts of potential for a great horror and/or action comedy when it comes to pitting Ninjas against zombies. I also think that potential is on display in this film, but it remains mostly unrealized. It's better than most of the Godfrey Ho patch-work Ninja films, but it's still not a film to go out of your way for, whether you're looking for a comdy, a zombie film, or a ninja picture. It might make a good second feature for a bad movie night, if your group has patience for films with slow wind-ups and irrelevant detours.

The Halloween remake is a horror

2011-10-31T06:00:00.000-07:00

Halloween (2007)
Starring: Scout Taylor-Compton, Malcom McDowell, Tyler Mane, Daeg Faerch, and Brad Dourif
Director: Rob Zombie
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

Michael Myers comes home for a "re-imagining" of his classic beginnings. Fans of the original film are going to wish he stayed away.

This sorry prequel/remake goes wrong almost immediately. It spends a great deal of time "humanizing" Michael Myers, showing us his awful childhood with an awfully cliched bad family with members who spout awfully bad dialogue. (In fact, there's barely a decent line of dialogue in the film, except perhaps those uttered by good old Dr. Loomis (played here by Malcolm McDowell, in the only performance that measures up to the original cast).

Why the filmmakers thought that Michael Myers needed to be given a reason to kill other than "he's an evil homicidal maniac" I'll never know. The first quarter of the movie is dedicated to undermining the otherworldly monstrousness that Michael Myers embodied in the original "Halloween" flicks, presenting him as a character that we should feel sympathy for. What's more, once the killing starts, we the viewers are put in the awkward position of feeling obligated to root for the bad guy because he's lashing out at those who made his life hell.

The filmmakers even decided they had to give a lame tie-in to Michael Myers childhood for his signature mask instead of the accidental origin that was presented in the original.

If you do rent this film, don't make the mistake I did: It does NOT get better once the "he was just a poor widdle boy who lost his way" crap is behind us. There are a few "boo" scares, the splatter is well done, and the cinematography is impressive, but the awful dialogue gets even worse and several of the murders are so drawn out that they become boring. In balance, the last hour-and-a-half or so of the movie is even WORSE than the beginning.

I should have trusted my instincts. I KNEW this was going to be another crappy remake of a great John Carpenter film, and I was absolutely right.

I never imagined in my worst nightmares that it would make me wish I was watching "House of 1,000 Corpses", however.

I should have saved my time and money, and I strongly encourage you to not make the same mistake I did. The ONLY good thing about it is Malcolm McDowell... and he is simply not enough to make this a worthwhile movie.

Countdown to Halloween with Vampirella

2011-10-31T00:01:00.001-07:00

There's No Time Left...

By Michael Kaluta

Countdown to Halloween with Vampirella

2011-10-30T12:03:00.000-07:00

There is One Day Left....

By Mike Hoffman

Saturday Scream Queen: Eliza Dushku

2011-10-29T01:55:00.000-07:00

Born in 1980, Eliza Dushku made her film debut at age 12, and she has been busy ever since. As the world was panicking over Y2K, Dushku successfully made the transition from child actress to simply actress with leading and supporting roles in a variety of television series and films, with an emphasis on dark thrillers and horror.

Aside from playing then popular bad-girl vampire hunter Faith on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Angel," and starring roles in the short-lived series series "Tru Calling" and "Doll House," Dushku has been featured in hakf a dozannumehorror films, such as "Sole Survivor", "Wrong Turn", "Locked In", and "Open Graves". Dushku has also leant her distinctive voice to numerous computer games and animated features, most recently voicing Catwoman in the "Batman: Year One" animated feature.

Dushku has several projects in various stages of development, with the most prominent of these being slated part in "Ghostbusters III".

Countdown to Halloween with Vampirella

2011-10-28T11:01:00.000-07:00

There are Three Days Left....

By Bruce Timm

Countdown to Halloween with Vampirella

2011-10-26T01:01:00.000-07:00

There Are Five Days Left....

By Granado

'Goregoyles 2' has something for all horror fans

2011-10-25T17:22:00.000-07:00

Goregoyles 2 (2007)
Starring: Marco Calliari, Sebastien Croteau, Martin Dubriell, Eric Therrien, and Chantrel Petrin ("Clean" segment); John Muggleton, Tara MacKenzie, Ryan Greenacre, Brett Kelly, and Mark Singleton ("The Walkers" segment); Eric Therrien, Isabelle Stephen, and Sylvain Dinelle (Host segments)
Directors: Alexandre Michaud and Nigel Finlayson
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

"Goregoyles 2" is Canadian director/producer Alexandre Michaud's follow-up to "Goregoyles: First Cut", and, like its predecessor, it's an anthology film.

While there's nothing that quite reaches the high-points of the best parts of the original "Goregoyles", there's also nothing here that's as mind-crushingly awful as the original's low-points. The quality level is consistent across all the parts that make up this package.

Another noteworthy thing here is that the directors responsible for the content here obviously have a sense of how to make a low-budget film. In the case of Michaud, he knows that when making a splatter-fest (which is the best way to describe his contribution here), the budget needs to be spent on making the blood and guts look good.. but he also knows that he doesn't have the money (or maybe even access to the technical know-how) to make truly complicated gore effects look good, so he knows to not let the camera dwell upon them. Even better, neither film overreaches the limitations of the modest budgets they were made within. That alone makes the efforts praiseworthy, and it shows that Michaud and Miles Finlayson understand how to work with limited budgets. That puts them in a class that 90 percent of horror filmmakers out should aspire to being in... and that 90 percent would be well-served to use the work here as a model for their own.

"Goregoyles 2" consists of two short features and introductory host segments. The DVD I screened also contained an interview with directors Michaud and Finlayson. I'll address each part in turn, assign a rating to each, which in the end averages out to the Seven-star rating I've given the entire package.

First, the host segments. Like in Michaud's first anthology film, each part of "Goregoyles" is introduced by a Crypt Keeper-like host. Here it's Uncle Vicious (Therrien), and he offers general comments on each upcoming film while showing off his sadistic sexual tendencies. These are servicable, if tacky, bits of film, although I liked the wittier, more informative introductions from the original "Goregoyles". The best part here was the "Farewell from Uncle Vicious" segment where Therrien (joined by Michaud and the boom-mike operator) demolish the set while Isabelle Stephen go-go dances topless in the background to blaring hard rock. I only wish the other segments had been so amusing. Still, they were okay, so the host segments get a rating of Six Stars.

The first film in the package is "Clean". It's a strange, gory picture that stars Marco Calliari as Crane, a brutal murderer who has hooked up with other sexual psychopaths through an Internet chat room, and has been invited to their once-a-year, face-to-face gathering. Like the rest of them, he's there for the beer and brutal slayings... but he has a different sort of victims in mind than his fellow "hobbyists." The hunters become the hunted as Crane sets out to wipe the slate clean.

Although "Clean" is the sort of movie I usually give low marks to (if I bother reviewing it at all)--it's full of horrible violence and gore, hateful characters, and utterly humorless--I actually like this one. Unlike the ever-growing wave of movies that feature violence and brutality for no reason other than to feature violence and brutality (all the various "Saw" imitators), "Clean" doesn't attempt to make the violence look sexy, nor does it attempt to entertain the viewer with it. Here, the violence is presented as horrible and ugly, and anyone but people like the characters who have gathered to watch a female captive (Petrin) to be tortured to death will almost certainly have to avert their eyes as it unfolds on screen. (I certainly couldn't watch as Joe--played with perfect hideouslness by Sebastien Croteau--sliced the poor girl with a razorblade and then poured salt and Tabasco sauce into her open wounds.)

The people who commit the heinous acts aren't at all glamorous or witty... they are utterly repulsive, reprehensible and boorish, including our "hero", Crane. I thought "Clean" is an excellent response to the wave of "torture porn" films that will, hopefully, soon crest, crash on the shore, and retreat; it's well past the time for another fad to take hold in the horror genre. Well-paced and well-acted, I give this film a Six Star rating.

The second film presented is "The Walkers". It tells the story of Mr. and Mrs. Walker (Greenacre and MacKenzie), a sociopathic married couple and would-be "Bonnie and Clyde" who get lost in a trackless Canadian forest along with two police officers (Muggleton and Kelly) who are pursuing them. The four of them spend a week in the wilderness, struggling to survive, until stress and fear drives all of them mad.

"The Walkers" is the best part of "Goregoyles 2". It's a smart horror movie that's imbued with a sense of oppression, dispair and growing anxiety throughout, and which is driven by a well-written script and some good acting on the part of the featured players. John Muggleton is particularly good as the jaded cop who finds himself stripped of a very important last hope while attempting to find his way out of the forest.

The violence in this film is sparse, so gorehounds who grooved on the level of splatter and guts that was featured in "Clean" may be dissapointed in "The Walkers". However, what violence that we do get is shocking and impactful, so those who like their horror movies with more substance than gore will appreciate this second feature far more than the first. In fact, "Goregoyles 2" covers both ends of the horror movie spectrum under one banner, ranging from a nearly pure blood-and-guts splatter-fest to an almost violence-free psychological horror film. "The Walkers" gets Seven Stars, and I hope to come across other work by Miles Finlayson in the future.

Finally, the DVD contains a discussion between directors Miles Finlayson and Alexandre Michaud as they kill a few beers. Like the interviews on the original "Goregoyles" DVD, this is an interesting bit of film that gives the viewer insight into the process of not only making the film at hand, but also revisits "Goregoyle: First Cut" and Michaud's notorious underground film "Urban Flesh". It's something that aspiring filmmakers in particular would do well to watch. This "DVD Extra" gets a Six Star rating as well.

With the range that is covered genre-wise in "Goregoyles 2", I think any horror fan will find something to like here. And I particuarly recommend this anthology film for those horror fans out there who think they can make their own movie. Goregoyles 2 Directors: Alexandre Michaud and Miles Finlayson.

Countdown to Halloween with Vampirella

2011-10-24T01:01:00.000-07:00

There are Seven Days Left...

By Joe Jusko

Countdown to Halloween with Vampirella

2011-10-22T12:02:00.000-07:00

There are Nine Days Left....

By Enrique Torres

Saturday Scream Queen: Brooke Adams

2011-10-22T05:05:00.000-07:00

Born and raised in New York City, Brooke Adams started acting professionally in theatre productions while still a child and graduated from New York's High School for the Performing Arts and the School of the American Ballet. As an adult, she broke into film, and has appeared in film and TV programs of just about every genre, although horror and thrillers, mostly low-budget, have been the mainstay of her career.

Among her notable horror films are starring turns in "Song of the Succubs", "Shock Waves" and the first remake of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" during the 1970s; "The Dead Zone" and "Haunted" during the 1980s; and "The Unbord", "Sometimes They Come Back" and "Probably Cause" during the 1990s.

Noteworthy small horror parts include a role in of the best of the Black Dahlia movies "Who Was the Black Dahlia" and a tiny but fun appearance in "The Stuff".

Adams married actor Tony Shaloub in 1992, and after the birth of the second child in 1993, she increasingly shifted her attention to the stage, although she has continued to appear in small film and television roles. She appeared as three different characters during the seven year run of the television series "Monk", which starred her husband, and she will next be seen in 2012 in the big-screen docu-drama "Hemingway & Gellhorn", which will star Clive Owen and Nicole Kidman as the title characters.

Fear-filled Phantasms: The Young Witches of Halloween

2011-10-21T00:01:00.000-07:00

The Young Witches are ready for Halloween. Are you?

Countdown to Halloween with Vampirella

2011-10-20T12:02:00.000-07:00

There are Eleven Days Left...

By Mike Hoffman

The Adventures of Kharis the Mummy

2011-10-19T00:05:00.000-07:00

While the 1932 film "The Mummy remains the best mummy picture ever made, it was the Universal low-budget quickies of the 1940s that actually solidified the idea of the shambling, bandage-wrapped mummy that dominates pop culture and Halloween spook houses today. This post covers those four genere-shaping films.

The Mummy's Hand (1940)
Starring: Dick Foran, Wallace Ford, Peggy Moran, George Zucco, and Tim Tyler
Director: Christy Cabanne
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

A pair of hard-luck Egyptologists (Foran and Ford) discover the location of the long lost tomb of Princess Ananka. Unfortunately for them, an evil cult leader (Zucco) controls the immortal, tomb-guarding, tanna leaf-tea slurping mummy Kharis, and he's hot afraid to use him to keep the secret of the tomb.

More of an adventure flick with a heavy dose of lowbrow comedy than a horror film, "The Mummy's Hand" isn't even a proper sequel to the classy 1932 "The Mummy."

This movie (and the three sequels that follow) are completely unrelated to the original film, despite the copious use of stock footage from it. The most obvious differences are that the mummy here is named Kharis, as opposed to Imhotep, and has a different backstory. Then, there's the fact he's a mindless creature who goes around strangling people at the bidding of a pagan priest where Imhotep was very much his own man and did his killing with dark magics without ever laying a hand on his victims.

If one recognizes that this film shares nothing in common with the Boris Karloff film (except that they were both released by the same studio), "The Mummy's Hand" is a rather nice bit of fluff. It's also the first film to feature the real Universal Studios mummy, as Imhotep was an intelligent, scheming, and more-or-less natural looking man, not a mute, mind-addled, bandaged-wrapped, cripple like Kharis.

The Mummy's Tomb (1942)
Starring: Wallace Ford, Turhan Bey, John Hubbard, George Zucco, Dick Foran, Isobel Evans and Lon Chaney Jr.
Director: Harold Young
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

Thirty years after the events of "The Mummy's Hand, the High Priest of Karnak from the last film (Zucco), who, despite being shot four times and pointblank range and tumbling down a very long flight of stairs, survived to be an old man. He passes the mantle onto a younger man (Bey) and dispatches him to America with Kharis the Mummy (Chaney), who survived getting burned to a crisp at the end of the last movie, to slay those who dared loot the tomb of Princess Anankha. (Better late than never, eh?)

Take the plot of "The Mummy's Hand" (complete with a villain who has the exact same foibles as the one from the first movie), remove any sense of humor and adventure, toss in about ten minutes of recap to pad it up to about 70 minutes in length, add a climax complete with torch-weilding villagers and a mummy who is just too damn dumb to continue his undead existence, and you've got "The Mummy's Tomb."

Made with no concern for consistency (Ford's character changes names from Jenson to Hanson, the fashions worn in "The Mummy's Hand" implid it took place in the late 30s, or even in the year it was filmed, and yet "thirty years later" is clearly during World War II... and let's not even talk about how the mummy and Zucco's character survived) or orginality (why write a whole new script when we can just have the bad guys do the exact same things they did last movie?), this film made with less care than the majority of B-movies.

Turhan Bey and Wallace Ford have a couple of good moments in this film, but they are surrounded by canned hash and complete junk.

The Mummy's Ghost (1944)
Starring: John Carradine, Ramsey Ames, Robert Lowery, George Zucco, and Lon Chaney Jr
Director: Reginald Le Borg
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

Modern day priests of ancient Egyptian gods (Zucco and Carradine) undertake a mission to retrieve the cursed mummy of Princess Ananka from the American museum where she's been kept for the past 30 years. Unfortunately, they discover that the archeologists who stole her away from Egypt broke the spell that kept her soul trapped in the mummy and that she has been reincarnated in America as the beautiful Amina (Ames).

"The Mummy's Ghost" starts out strong. In fact, it starts so strong that, despite the fact that the priests who must be laughing stock of evil cult set were back with pretty much the exact same scheme for the third time (go to America and send Kharis the Mummy stumbling around to do stuff, that it looked like the filmmakers may have found their way back to the qualities that made "The Mummy" such a cool picture.

Despite a really obnoxious love interest for Amina (played with nails-on-a-chalkboard-level of obnoxiousness by Robert Lowery) and a complete ressurection of Kharis (boiling tannith leaves now apparently reconstitutes AND summons a mummy that was burned to ashes in a house-fire during "The Mummy's Tomb"), and a number of glaring continuity errors with the preceeding films (the cult devoted to Ananka and Kharis has changed their name... perhaps because they HAD become the laughing stock among the other evil cults), the film is actually pretty good for about half its running time. The plight of and growing threat toward Amina lays a great foundation.

And then it takes a sharp nosedive into crappiness where it keeps burrowing downward in search of the bottom.

The cool idea that the film started with (Ananka's cursed soul has escaped into the body of a living person... and that person must now be destroyed to maintain the curse of the gods) withers away with yet another replay of the evil priest deciding he wants to do the horizontal mambo for all enternity with the lovely female lead. The idea is further demolished by a nonsensical ending where the curses of Egypt's ancient gods lash out in the modern world, at a very badly chosen target. I can't go into details without spoiling that ending, but it left such a bad taste in my mouth, and it's such a complete destruction of the cool set-up that started the film, that the final minute costs "The Mummy's Ghost" a full Star all by itself.

The Mummy's Curse (1944)
Starring: Peter Coe, Lon Chaney Jr, Kay Harding, Dennis Moore, Virginia Christine and Kurt Katch
Director: Leslie Goodwins
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

A contruction project in Louisiana's bayou uncovers not only the mummy Kharis (Chaney), but also the cursed princess Ananka (Christine). Pagan priests from Egypt arrive to take control of both. Mummy-induced violence and mayhem in Cajun Country follow.

What happens when you make a direct sequel where no one involved cares one whit about keeping continuity with previous films? You get "The Mummy's Curse"!

For the previous entries in this series, Kharis was shambling around a New England college town, yet he's dug up in Lousiana. (He DID sink into a swamp at the end of "The Mummy's Ghost", but that swamp was hundreds of miles north of where he's found in this film.)

He also supposedly has been in the swamp for 25 years. For those keeping score, that would make this a futuristic sci-fi film with a setting of 1967, because the two previous films took place in 1942. (And that's being generous. I'm assuming "The Mummy's Hand" took place in 1912, despite the fact that all clothing and other signifiers imply late 30s early 40s.) Yet, there's nothing in the film to indicate that the filmmakers intended to make a sci-fi movie.

And then there's Ananka. Why is she back, given her fate in "The Mummy's Ghost"? There's absolutely no logical reason for it. Her ressurection scene is very creepy, as is the whole "solar battery" aspect of the character here, but it is completely inconsistant with anything that's gone before. And she's being played by a different actress--but I suppose 25 years buried in a swamp will change anyone.

There's little doubt that if anyone even bothered to glance at previous films for the series, no one cared.

Some things the film does right: It doesn't have the Egyptian priests replay exactly the same stuff they've done in previous films for the fourth time (although they are still utter idiots about how they execute their mission), it manages for the first time to actually bring some real horror to the table--Kharis manages to be scary in this film, and I've already mentioned Ananka's creep-factor--and they bring back the "mummy shuffling" music from "The Mummy's Ghost" which is actually a pretty good little theme. But the utter disregard for everything that's happened in other installments of the series overwhelm and cancel out the good parts.

"The Mummy's Curse" should not have been slapped into the "Kharis" series. If it had been made as a stand-alone horror film, it could have been a Six-Star movie. As it is, this just comes across as a shoddy bit of movie making where I can only assume that anything decent is more by accident than design.

Amazon.com Widgets

Countdown to Halloween with Vampirella

2011-10-18T00:01:00.000-07:00

There are Thirteen Days Left....

Countdown to Halloween with Vampirella

2011-10-16T00:07:00.000-07:00

There are 15 Days Left....

By Paul Abrams

Saturday Scream Queen: Suzanne Kaaren

2011-10-15T00:01:00.000-07:00

Born in New York in 1912, Suzanne Kaaren was an accomplished high school athlete whose beauty so blossomed at a young age that she was offered the opportunity to join the Zeigfeld Follies at the age of 15. Her parents forbade her from pursuing the opportunity, just as they blocked her from an opportunity to compete in the 1930 Olympic Games.

Despite what seems to be the best efforts of her parents, Kareen turned to professional modeling, dancing and acting. Starting with local theater companies, she quickly rose through the theatrical ranks, and she was one of the original Rockettes and performed on stage when when Radio City Music Hall opened in 1932.

By the end of 1933, Kaaren had left New York City for Hollywood, and worked under contract for Fox and MGM, and also appeared in films from RKO, and famed low-budget movie factories Monogram Pictures and PRC.

Kaaren's film career never quite took off, and she was cast in mostly in small roles and more for exotic looks and shapely legs than for her skills as an actress. She appeared in numerous comedies and westerns, but is best remembered today for appearing in two Three Stooges films--"Disorder in the Court" and "What Matador?", and for her leading role in one of Bela Lugosi's best pictures--"The Devil Bat" from PRC. That one role, in that very fun movie, is remarkable enough to give her a place in this series.

Kaaren retired from film acting in 1944 and moved back to New York to focus on her family and raising her two children. She passed away in 2004.

Countdown to Halloween with Vampirella

2011-10-14T00:01:00.000-07:00

There are 17 Days Left....

By J. Scott Campbell

(Yes... that IS Vampirella, as she appeared in the "Vampi" series from the late 1990s (Or early 2000s? I rightly don't recall anymore). In it, publisher Harris Comics and the writers/artists of Anarchy Studios transported her to a dark future where she was a manga character rock star who wielded dual machine guns and the big-ass swords she's posing with above. It wasn't bad for the first six or so issues, but it quickly got boring as a thin story was stretched waaaaaaaaaaay too long. Rather like just about any comic book you care to mention these days. What happened? Did people forget how to make good comics, are they fixated on graphic novel collections, or are they just too lazy to write and draw exciting, content-rich stories?)

Countdown to Halloween with Vampirella

2011-10-12T00:12:00.000-07:00

There are Nineteen Days Left...

The Complete Devil Bat

2011-10-11T00:02:00.000-07:00

During the 1930s and 1940s, PRC specialized in cranking out low-budget quickie genre pictures. Among the best of their efforts was the Bela Lugosi vehicle "The Devil Bat." It was followed by a misguided sequel, and I cover them both in this article. They might make a nice pair of movies to show at a Halloween party.

The Devil Bat (aka "Killer Bats") (1942)
Starring: Bela Lugosi, Dave O'Brien, Suzanne Kaaren, and Donald Kerr
Director: Jean Yarborough
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

Everyone loves the ever-smiling chemist Dr. Paul Carruthers (Lugosi), especially the investors in the cosmetics company he's been creating best-selling colognes and perfumes for. When the company owners make what they feel is a nice gesture to reward Carruthers' many years of service, he feels like he's been insulted and he decides to kill his bosses and their entire family. Revealing that he's as talented a mad scientist as he is a chemist, Carruthers transforms otherwise harmless bats into giant hunter-killers that hone in on a special cologne that he's given to his victims for "testing." Will Carruthers get away with his bloody schemes, or will a lazy tabloid reporter (O'Brien) and his photographer (Kerr) manage to stumble their way to the truth?

That's a long summary, but "The Devil Bat" is pretty convoluted. In fact, it's so convoluted that it's one of those films that you need to just watch without thinking too hard, particularly when it comes to Paul Carruthers, his killer bats, and his rambler house with its secret Mad Scientiest Lab and tower for convenient bat launches.

The film's got a decent cast (with Lugosi being particularly fun to watch) a story with plenty of humor (both intentional and unintentional), and a pace that is just fast enough to keep the viewers interested. It's by no means a masterpiece, and its low, low budget is painfully visible in some of the sets (although the bat effects are better than I expected), but it's a fun bit of viewing if you enjoy Bela Lugosi and the nonsense breed of plup fiction-style sci-fi/horror flicks that filled the B-feature slots at movie houses in the 30s and 40s.

By the way, I highly recommend getting the DVD version of the film that I've linked to below. Not because I recommend watching colorized classics, but because I think it's fascinating to compare a colorized version with the black-and-white version. Invariably, you will discover that colorizing saps a film of life rather than enhances it. (I used to think that it was only dramas that were ruined by colorization. Then I picked up the disc containing both the colorized version and original version of "My Man Godfrey." Actually, watching both versions close together changed my mind completely.)

Devil Bat's Daughter (1946)
Starring: Rosemary La Planche, Michael Hale, Nolan Leary, Monica Mars, Molly Lamont, and John James
Director: Frank Wisbar
Rating: Four of Five Stars

Nina (La Planche) driven to a mental breakdown when she learns her dead father was not only a murderer but may have also been a vampire, is placed in the care of manipulative psychiatrist Dr. Morris (Hale). When his wife (Lamont) is murdered, everyone--including Nina herself--believes she did it in a fit of madness... everyone except handsome Ted Masters, the dead woman's son who has fallen in love with Nina. He sets out to prove Nina's innocence and that his step-father is the killer.

Taken on its own, "Devil Bat's Daughter" is an okay little horror flick that suffers from stiff acting, clunky dialogue, and strange story continuity lapses (such as a continuing back-and-forth about whether the "Devil Bat" of the title--a local mad scientist who either came to a bad end at the fangs of his own monstrous creations but only after they killed half a dozen others, or who was put on trial for murder and presumably executed). The majority of the story elements are familiar elements of horror movies and thrillers of this vintage--a woman shocked into amnesia, a corrupt psychiatrist who may or may not be abusing his patients, and a bland hero whose only defining quality is that he is in love-at-first-sight with the imperiled heroine--there are a number of other factors that make this an unusual film and worth checking out.

The primary of these is the sympathetic portrayal of the "other woman" with whom the slimy psychiatrist is two-timing the wife he obviously only married for money. Rather than being a coldhearted and scheming bitch who is every bit the villain that he is, she is another victim of his manipulations, and she ultimately comes across as remorseful. Almost as important is the titular character, who, although little more than a conduit for melodrama, is also the pivot-point for enough plot substance that there are genuine questions in the minds of viewers that she might indeed be an unhinged, murdering somnambulist. This is all too rare in pictures of this production level and period, where plot misdirection and obfuscation usually feel halfhearted and are often painfully transparent. Screenwriter Griffin Jay and director Frank Wisbar truly rose above the standard for this kind of movie in this case.

Unfortunately, the film is less successful as a sequel to the original "Devil Bat" picture. While I admittedly might be a bit more of a stickler for continuity than many movie viewers, I still think anyone who saw "The Devil Bat" would wonder how/why the small town that was home to Paul Carruthers moved from the American Midwest to the East Coast, or why everyone from the town gossipers to the courts seem to have forgotten that Carruthers confessed to committing several premeditated murders using a trained bat before being killed by said bat in front of witnesses, or how Carruthers somehow transformed in everyone's mind from a well-respected local chemist and pillar of the community who secretly dabbling in bizarre experiments with growth acceleration through electrical glandular manipulation to a researcher who relocated to the town to work in peace and quiet on his mad science projects. The only details about Carruthers and his "devil bat" that remains consistent from the original film to this one is that he was the final victim of his own monster.

Why the creators of "Devil Bat's Daughter" chose to virtually ignore the story of the original film in favor of making Paul Carruthers the center of vampire legends and recasting him as a misunderstood genius instead of a raving madman is a mystery to me. Perhaps they were trying to convey that the entire town was shocked into a state of amnesia and dissasociation like Nina was over the revelations surrounding Paul Carruthers: Everyone in the small town of Heathville forgot who they were, where their town was located, and everything that really happened, and they filled in the blanks with details that seemed more logical to them than what had actually happened.

The film would have been much stronger if they'd remained consistent with the original, as Nina's madness and apparent homicidal mania could have been inherited from her crazy father; the writers could even have kept their goofy "ah-yup, dem townies shurly do believe that ole Doc Carruthers wuz a vampire, yup dey sure do" stuff as the trigger for her mental breakdown. Instead, they created a film that is undermined every time it invokes the original movie with distortions and revisions of that films most basic plot points and background elements.

And that's a shame, because their sloppy and arbitrary story telling manages to ruin what might otherwise have been a decent film.

Countdown to Halloween with Vampirella

2011-10-10T00:12:00.000-07:00

There are 21 Days Left....

By Seedy Deedee

The MonaLisa Twins at Hotel California

2011-10-09T00:03:00.000-07:00

In this post at Shades of Gray, I lamented the fact that I'd not see a good video for "Hotel California." It's a spooky song that BEGS for a great video treatment, yet no one has done one.

That said, teenaged Austrian sister-act the MonaLisa Twins has covered the Eagles classic AND been featured in a good video for it. It's still not the spooky mini-horror flick this song needs, but it's a good clip for a good cover of a great song.

Countdown to Halloween with Vampirella

2011-10-08T12:01:00.000-07:00

There are 23 Days Left....

By Mike Mayhew

(Be nice... you don't want Vampirella gunning for you!)

Saturday Scream Queen: Denice Duff

2011-10-08T00:01:00.000-07:00

Denice Duff started her acting career in 1990 after winning a contest held by talent agent Jay Bernstein, a contest she hadn't even considered entering until the judges encouraged her to do so.

After minor roles on television series like "Matlock" and "Northern Exposure", Duff was cast as the reluctant vampire Michelle in "Subspecies II" after the actress who originated the role did not come back for the sequels. She would play the part in two additional films, and she became so thoroughly associated with the part that few even remember that she was a replacement, and everyone agrees that she was a key element in one of the best series of vampire films ever produced.

Aside from "Subspecies", Duff is best known for a recurring role on soap opera "The Young and the Restless" during the years 2001 - 2002, and as a talented and sought-after celebrity photographer.

Although acting is no longer her main vocation, and she stepped away from the horror genre for a time after the "Subspecies 4", Duff came back to chillers starting with "Dr. Rage" in 2005. Earlier this year, she completed the soon-to-be-released thriller "Codex" and will also be appearing "Night of the Living Dead 3D: Re-Animation" along with a cast that is a vertible who's who if 1990s horror luminaries.

Fear-filled Phantasms: Monsters Need Maidens!

2011-10-07T00:05:00.000-07:00

Pin-up style paintings of cuties and creatures
by Fastner & Larson.

Countdown to Halloween with Vampirella

2011-10-06T00:01:00.000-07:00

There are 25 Days Left....

By Michael Bair

Low-budget but impressive, 'Bio-Slime' delivers goopy scares

2011-10-05T00:02:00.000-07:00

Bio-Slime (aka "Contagion") (2010)
Starring: Vinnie Bilancio, Ronnie Lewis, Victoria De Mare, Kelli Kaye, Micol Bartolucci, Magic Ellingson, Gia Paloma, and Ron Fitzgerald
Director: John Lechago
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

Troy (Bilanco), a down-and-out artist whose talent has been drained away by alcoholism finds himself stalked by a mysterious slime-monster that is absorbing into its mass the occupants of the ramshackle building housing his small studio. Trapped with his agent (Lewis), a few friends (Ellingson, Kaye, and Paloma) and a porn actress from the film studio next door (De Mare), Troy has to find a way to defeat the creature before they all literally become one body and mind.

With a little nip and a tiny tuck here and there to get rid of some bare breasts, "Bio-Slime" is the sort of movie you might find on the SyFy Channel with a "SyFy Channel Original" logo slapped before the opening credits. I'm not saying that to insult the film, but to praise it, because I suspect that John Lachago made this self-funded, self-produced film for a fraction of what those movies are made for... and his end product was as good as most of them, and even better in the effects department.

And those creature effects are the real star in this film. Most of the characters really serve no purpose other than to be monster chow, each suffering a dire, disgusting, and wholly unique fate at the pseudo-pods and tentacles of the slime-monster. All the creature effects, with the exception of a few of the tentacles, were practical effects--make-up, puppetry, and cinematography tricks. And they look great, far better than even some of the computer-generated effects in recent films with budgets 100 or 1,000 times what "Bio-Slime" was made on.

This is a movie that shows that the old methods of making movies are still perfectly adequate--and even superior--to hi-tech wizardry when those time-tested tools are being wielded by talented and skilled artisans like Lechago and his special effects make-up artist Tom Devlin. Devlin and Lechago also worked together on "Killjoy 3", so they obviously make a good team. Here's hoping I see more from them in the future.

I should probably mention that while very little character development takes place in "Bio-Slime", that's not to say there isn't a fully fleshed-out story here. Not only do we get hints of what sort of life the main characters have led beyond the dingy walls they have been trapped within, but there is a sense of history surrounding the monster as well. It emerges from a hi-tech containment device that is opened by the characters through a mixture of curiosity and outright stupidity, it talks about having a life so long that it can't recall where it came from, and the "prologue" and "epilogue" scenes hint and a story far larger and a threat of a possibly global scale that might visit the terror of the few trapped in Troy's studio to the entire world.

But these hints of a larger story are not presented in the hamfisted "Oooo we're setting up a sequel, kids? See? See?! We're not really giving you a complete story here, because we want you back for Part Two and Part Three!" that has become so annoyingly common over the past 15-20 years since everyone thinks their horror or sci-fi film is the next big trilogy or franchise. No... Lechago has written them into the film in an organic way, so we become curious about what might have happened before the film stars and what comes after the end credits finish their crawl. Any dreams he may harbor of sequels is up to him to discuss, but whether he had them or not, he managed to make the events of "Bio-Slime" feel connected to a much larger world, a world that viewers can't but help be curious about; he has planted his "sequel seed" the right way.

(In fact, Lechago did it SO right that I found myself imaging what could be going on... and the players in my on-again, off-again near-future sci-fi role-playing campaign will be dealing with something "borrowed" from this movie. And I can safely say this here, because none of them bother reading my film reviews, because they get enough of my rants in person.)

In addition to well-done story, the film also benefits tremendously from a nice, very traditional-flavored music score. I didn't really notice the music until the film was building to its climax and Troy was getting ready for his final showdown with the slime-creature, but it had been there previously as well. Michael Sean Colin's score is perfect in every respect, deployed at just the right moments and providing just the right intensity needed, mostly blending perfectly with the events unfolding on screen, but stepping to the fore when appropriate as during the film's climax.

Last, but far from least, the film features a great cast of actors. As I mentioned above, the characters in film are mostly here just to get killed, and there isn't much development that takes place with them. However, we get just enough to let us know the type of character each one of them is... and that type is then brought to seemingly full life through the talent and charisma of the actors playing them. While there might not be a whole lot for each actor to work with, what there is, they handle expertly, and they make us care about relatively shallow characters and to feel horrified as each one of them dies. Lachago matched the right actor with the exact right character, and the results are quite impressive. While I can nitpick some of the dialogue and some of the character interaction, I don't feel so inclined, because the actors gave such enjoyable performances, with Victoria De Mare as the bitchy porn actress and Vinnie Bilancio as the reluctant hero who was hoping to turn over a new leaf and make today the first day in the rest of his life, are particularly good in their parts.

"Bio-Slime" has not yet secured wide distribution, which is a shame. I think it's a film that deserves as audience beyond film festivals and cranky typists like yours truly.

(For a sample of what Lechago is capable of, you can check out "Killjoy 3" from Full Moon Features. Click on the link to read my review at the Charles Band Collection.)

Countdown to Halloween with Vampirella

2011-10-04T00:22:00.000-07:00

There are 27 Days Left....

By Dan Bereton

The Complete Subspecies

2011-10-03T00:01:00.000-07:00

Producer/writer/director Charles Band has put his stamp on nearly 300 horror and sci-fi movies since the late 1970s, but he has yet to top the quality of the "Subspecies" series. These four vampire films were helmed by his frequent 1990s collaborator Ted Nicolaou, and they are not only among the best movies to ever bear Band's famous Full Moon logo, but they are among some of the best vampire movies ever made.

You can read more about Full Moon movies at my other blog "The Charles Band Collection", but I am posting reviews of the Subspecies series here as well, because they are movies that any fan or student of the vampire genre needs to check out. Those of you who enjoy vampire movies with more of a gothic flavor to them than we've seen in recent years will be especially appreciative of the tone and nature of these films. It's a shame it's not been as popular as some of their other creations, such as the Puppet Master films.

Subspecies (1991)
Starring: Laura Mae Tate, Irina Movila, Michelle McBride, Anders Hove, Ivan J. Rado and Michael Watson
Director: Ted Nicolaou
Producer: Ion Ionescu and Charles Band
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

Three pretty grad students (McBride, Movila and Tate) working on disertations are in Transylvania to study the local legends and folk customs, only to find themselves in the middle of a vampiric family feud that's been brewing for centuries and that is now reaching it's brutal, bloody finale.

"Subspecies" is one of the better vampire movies to come out of the 1990s, despite the obvious budget constraints it was made under. It's an interesting merging of the hideous monstrosity vampires from the real legends and early movies and the sexy vampire that grew increasingly popular during the second half of the 20th century, reaching the pinnacle of pop culture success by the mid-1990s.

The story feels a tad slow-moving, partly because the film telegraphs where it's going by leading with the vampires and their blood-feud and then cutting to our three soon-to-be damsels in distress--two very cute blonds and an androgynous brunette--for extended sequences as they wander around old castles and a beautiful countryside, broken only by scenes of the very creepy and disgusting vampire Radu (played by Anders Hove, in a fashion that makes Max Schreck's Count Orlock in "Nosferatu" look like a GQ cover model) rising from his coffin. Radu is so vile that you know he's going to be chewing his way through the cast, so you're going to be feeling a bit impatient with the film as it works its way toward the expected carnage.

However, the film is never dull, nor will you likely be tempted to turn it off. The cast are all good actors and they all play their parts well. The camerawork is excellent and the true Romanian settings lends an atmosphere of realism to the film that few modern-day vampire films can muster.

But when it gets going, it delivers vampire material running the gamut. We've got a disgusting, drooling taloned vampire that's a late 20th century take on the "Nosferatu"-style vampire, we've got sexy vampire babes in nightgowns who might have just flitted over from one of Hammer's Dracula movies, and we've got the male model modern vampire hunk love interest of one of the girls (played by Michael Watson, who was a soap-opera star when the "Subspecies" movie were made).

With all of the good things I'm saying about the film, why am I only giving it a Six Rating, you ask? Well, it's because of the inconsistencies and strange logic surrounding the pint-sized monters that are a mainstay of Charles Band-produced films whether they belong or not. Here, the tiny creatures are nasty demons that are created from severed tips of Radu's fingers, but they fail to seem real because of the truly crappy effects used to bring them to life. For example, in all but one scene, no one bothered to trick in shadows under the creatures, so they appear to be floating over the floor instead of walking on it. They look exactly like what they are: Puppets that have been placed in the scenes via special effects, and they ruin almost every scene they're in because of it.

Despite its flaws, "Subspecies" is a vampire movie that has a little something for everyone, including bare breasts. It's a good start for a series that only gets better.

Subspecies II: Bloodstone (1993)
Starring: Denise Duff, Anders Hove, Melanie Shatner, Kevin Spirtas, Michael Denish, Ion Haiduc and Pamela Gordon
Director: Ted Nicolaou
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

Young Michelle (Duff) has recently been turned into a vampire and is on the run from the evil vampire prince Radu (Hove) and his twisted, immortal mother (Gordon). Her sister (Shatner) arrives in Romania hoping to help her, but what can a mere mortal do against an ancient vampire who is not only chasing Michelle because he want to possess her, but also because she has stolen the magical Bloodstone?

"Subspecies II: Bloodstone" is a direct continuation of the original "Subspecies"--it picks up just one single night after the final scene of the first movie--and it's one of those very rare sequels that manages to turn out better than the movie it follows. This is an especially remarkable feat because a near-total cast change has taken place and the film takes some very unexpected directions as far as story goes.

The only actor to return in the sequel is Anders Hove, who repeats his performance as the extremely vile, supremely creepy Radu. Although Radu doesn't actually kill anyone in this film--or even sink his vampiric fangs into a single neck!--he's an even more menacing presense than he was in the first film. He developes a maniacal need to possess Michelle, the mortal woman who was made a vampire by Radu's brother Stefan and he seems to start deluding himself into thinking that she will care for him, partly because he murdered Stefan to gain her as a possession. This insanity makes him even spookier than he was in the first movie.

Radu also seems more creepy because of superior camerawork and lighting present in this film. From beginning to end, there is a consistant mood of dread and darkness in every frame of the film, most of it created with simple lighting techniques and camera angles. (The same is true of a number of low-cost effects that seem to make the vampires beings of living shadows--something that is created through well-considered placement of spotlights and cameras and the result is far more effective than more costly special effects could ever have been. (The one time where there is an animated shadow, it looks cheesy, but every time Radu's arrival or departure is demonstrated with shifting, giant shadows it's very dramatic and cool.)

Aside from the competent camera work and lighting, the film also sports a great soundtrack that is fresh yet still reminicent of the one present in the first film. The featured actors also do an excellent job in their various parts, with Denise Duff being particularly noteworthy for stepping into the role of Michelle quite nicely (even if one has to wonder why they chose to go with her as Michelle when Melanie Shatner, the actress who plays Michelle's sister, bears closer physical resemblence to the actress who played Michelle in the first movie) and Michael Denish for serving as the film's comic relief as a scatter-brained Van Helsing-type scholar.

Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the film when one considers it was produced by Charles Band's Full Moon Entertainnment is the fact that the film follows continuity from the first film very closely. Even with a near-total cast change and the film shifting in tone from Hammer-style gothic horror to a more modern sensibility, the storyline and all the characters remain consistent. Other Full Moon series, like "Puppet Master" and "Trancers" seem to almost go out of their way to screw up story continuity between the various movies, but writer/director Ted Nicolaou chose to actually pay attention to what he'd done before and remain consistent with it even though he took the story in a very different direction than the ending of "Subspecies" seemed to be leading toward.

Subspecies III: Bloodlust (1993)
Starring: Anders Hove, Denice Duff, Melanie Shatner, Kevin Spirtas, Ion Haiduc and Pamela Gordon
Director: Ted Nicolaou
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

After failing to rescue her sister from the clutches of the evil vampire prince Radu (Hove), Becky (Shatner) enlists the help of a young American diplomat (Spirtas) and a frustrated Romanian police detective (Haiduc) to stage a raid on Castle Vladislav. Meanwhile, Radu is educating the fledgling vampire Michelle (Duff) in how to use her new supernatural powers while attempting to corrupt her soul in order to make her is vampire bride in body as well as spirit.

"Subspecies III: Bloodlust" picks up at the ending of the previous film, seamlessly continuing the storyline of Michella, Radu, and the fearless (but hapless) vampire hunters led by Michelle's sister Becky. Characters who had minor roles in the previous film take the spotlight in this one and they launch a concerted and believable (once one buys into the idea that vampires and witches exist) effort to bring down the vampires.

Once again, the cast all give admirable performances, with Anders Hove making Radu even more disgusting in this installment than he had been in the previous ones. At the same time, however, he manages to evoke some degree of sympathy in the viewer as well. (He's a hideous, murdering monster who has more than just a few screws loose, but the love he has developed for Michelle--however twisted--and the pain it is causing him that she doesn't love him back gives the character a dimension that both makes him increasingly creepy but also gives the viewer something to relate to.)

In some areas, this film continues the trajectory started with the first "Subspecies" sequel, increasing the quality of the film instead of decreasing it as is the usual pattern when it comes to sequels. In other areas, the film holds its own quite nicely, and the end result is a film that will provide a satisfying viewing experience for lovers fo vampire movies of all stripes.

The script for this installment of the series is the best so far. I've already touched upon the great performances given by Anders Hove and Denice Duff, performances that wouldn't have been possible if they hadn't been provided with a great script as their starting point. The scripts quality is also manifested in the comic relief character of Lt. Marin (portrayed by Ion Haiduc), who has scenes that manage to inspire laughter on the heels of, or even during, some of the film's most intense and scary moments. The only complaint I have with the script is that I would have liked to have been given a bit more of a solid ending, but what we have isn't decent enough so that's a minor complaint.

The film isn't as impressive in the photography and lighting area as its predecessor was, with many of the shadow and transformation effects being acheived with animation or composite shots instead of simple lighting and camera tricks. The overall look of the film also isn't quite as dramatic as "Subspecies II", but it's still far beyond the average low-budget horror film and it is still good enough to place this film among the best movies to ever emerge from the Full Moon film factory. It is without a doubt evidence that the Golden Age for Charles Band and his Full Moon label was in the early 1990s. (Band may yet rediscover how to mount productions as impressive as this one, but nothing he has produced in recent years even comes close.)

"Subspecies III: Bloodlust" is one of the very best vampire films ever made. It should be on the "must-see" list of any serious fan or student of genre.

Subspecies 4: Bloodstorm (1998)
Starring: Denice Duff, Anders Hove, Floriela Grappini, Jonathon Morris, Mihai Dinvale, Ion Haiduc, and Ioana Abur
Director: Ted Nicolaou
Producers: Charles Band, Kirk Edward Hansen, and Vlad Paunescu
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

Free of her master Radu (Hove), fledgeling vampire Michelle (Duff) enters the care of a doctor who claims he has discovered a method to reverse her undead condition. But Radu is not ready to let her go yet, and he launches an effort to retrieve her, with the reluctant help of Bucharest's most powerful vampire, Ash (Morris).

In the annals of unnecessary sequels, few are more unnecessary than "Subspecies 4". The 1993 third movie in the series provided a satisfying conclusion to the core story of the series--Michelle resisting Radu's attempts to turn her to evil--and the heroes driving off into the sunrise as Radu was burned to ashy oblivion was a nice period at the end.

But, Charles Band being Charles Band, a successful film WILL have a sequel no matter what, so four years later, Nicolaou was back in the director's chair at the helm of this film, which is an unnecessary sequel not just to the first three "Subspecies" films, but to the tangentially related "Vampire Journals", which was also written and directed by Nicolau. (Or maybe it's a prequel to "Vampire Journals"? With Full Moon's trademark disregard for continuity, I never can be 100 percent sure what they're intending....)

All that said, despite being a wholly unnecessary add-on to the other vampire films, it stands with the original "Subspecies" films and "Vampire Journals" as one of the most visually striking films to ever come from the Band direct-to-home-video assembly lines. Nicolaou really knew how to get the most out of the grand Romanian locations, especially at night. He also continues his flair for stretching his minimal budget to the point where he creates an end-product that looks better than films that cost ten times as much to make.

And while the film is not as good as "Subspecies 3"--the best film from Nicolau I've seen so far--it is an improvement on the overly slow "Vampire Journals".

As for the story, it's a tangle plots and counter-plots that rival the storylines envisioned by the creators of the 1990s roleplaying game "Vampire: The Masquerade" which these movies have always seemed like the perfect adaptation of. Radu plotting to conquer
Michelle, Ash plotting to destroy Radu, Dr. Niculescu's hidden agenda and dark secret... all of these intrigues swirl around Michelle who continues to resist the call of evil and dream of reclaiming her humanity. If you like the Anne Rice-style vampire genre and/or the 1990s White Wolf-style roleplaying games, you'll enjoy this movie.

You'll also enjoy the film if you liked Anders Hove performances in the previous "Subspecies" films. Hove's Radu is every bit as disgusting as he's always been, although he is also even more pathetic in this film that ever before, with his desire for Michelle now fully transformed from its initial need to possess into unrequited love. The rest of the cast do a good job as well, with Jonathon Morris actually being better as Ash in this film than he was in "Vampire Journals" and Ion Haiduc providing gallows-humor comic relief as a police detective turned bumbling vampire (making him the only returning character from the previous two films aside from Michelle and Radu).

Countdown to Halloween with Vampirella

2011-10-02T00:04:00.000-07:00

There are 29 Days Left....

By Joel Robinson

Halloween Scream Queens

2011-10-01T00:01:00.000-07:00

Here's a little something to kick off the October of 2011, possibly the LAST October ever if they Mayans were right and the world is going to end sometime in 2012: A post featuring all the primary actresses from the Halloween movies. Including those who appeared in the "Halloween" films I like to pretend don't exist... although as I was putting together this post, it appears to me that the worse the movie, the more breasts the producers and directors try to add to make up for it.

Jamie Lee Curtis: Laurie Strode

Halloween (1978), Halloween II (1979), Halloween H20, and Halloween: Ressurection
Click here to read Curtis' Saturday Scream Queen profile.

Danielle Harris: Jamie Lloyd &Annie Brackett

Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers &
Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers;
Halloween (2007) & Halloween II (2009)
Click here to read Harris' Saturday Scream Queen profile.

Ellie Cornell: Rachel Carruthers

Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers &
Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers
Click here to read Cornell's Saturday Scream Queen profile.

Marianne Hagan: Kara Strode

Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers
(Second Worst of the Original Series.)
Saturday Scream Queen profile coming soon.

J.C.Brandy: Jamie Lloyd

Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers
Saturday Scream Queen profile coming soon.

Tyra Banks: Nora

Halloween: Resurrection
(Worst of the Original Series)

Katee Sackhoff: Jen

Halloween: Resurrection
Saturday Scream Queen profile coming soon.

Bianca Kajlich: Sara Moyer

Halloween: Resurrection

Scout Taylor-Compton: Laurie Strode

Halloween (2007) and Halloween II (2009)
Saturday Scream Queen profile coming soon.

Stacey Nelkin: Ellie Grimbridge

Halloween III: Season of the Witch
(The non-slasher one.)

Amazon.com Widgets

In honor of the Zombie Walk...

2011-09-30T14:52:00.000-07:00

A bunch of blogs are taking part in the "Zombie Walk" blogathon today. This isn't one of them, just because I wasn't sure how busy I'd be.

But... Zombie Walkiers, I salute you!

It's English Settlers vs. Viking Ghosts!

2011-09-30T13:01:00.000-07:00

Lost Colony (aka "Wraiths of Roanoke) (2007)
Starring: Adrian Paul, Frida Farrell, Rhett Giles, and Michael Teh
Director: Matt Codd
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

Ananias Dare (Paul) leads a desperate struggle for the survival of his fellow settles in 16th century Roanoke when the colony is set upon by undead Vikings.

"Lost Colony" is a made-for-television spookfest that is loosely based on the mysterious demise of the English Roanoke colony. By the standards I've come to expect from a film from the Sci-Fi Channel (now known by the nonsensical name SyFy Channel), it's a masterpiece. By the standards I apply to horror films in general, it's not bad. It's not great, but it's entertaining.

The acting is serviceable, with Adrian Paul offering his usual Sensitive Hero character and Frida Farrell, as the distressed damsel haunted by evil pagan dreams, leading the cast. None of the characters are particularly deep or all that well-developed, but what we do get is just enough. (Although, having said that, I would have liked to know more about Ananias Dare's connection with Nordic paganism, as it seems like an bit of knowledge to assign to a person whose real-world historical counterpart seems to have been a brick-layer by profession.)

Special effects-wise, the film is also a little better than what I've come to expect from a "Sci-Fi Original", but I did at a couple of points find myself wishing that either more time had been spent rehearsing actors when it came to them sword-fighting with opponents who literally weren't there (as the phantom Vikings they were battling were computer animations added later) or more money and time had been spent on post-production, as there are several points where the fights are less than convincing.

As a period horror film, you can do a lot worse than "Lost Colony". The price is also right, if you pick up in the "Horror 4 Pack Volume 2" which can be found at some retail outlets for as little as $5.

'Grizzly Park' should be closed due to weak script

2011-09-26T10:01:00.000-07:00

Grizzly Park (2008)
Starring: Glenn Morshower, Emily Foxler, Randy Wayne, Sherlock Anderson III, Jelynn Rodriguez, Julie Skon, Kavan Reece, Trevor Peterson, Zolay Hanao, and Jeff Watson
Director: Tom Skull
Rating: Four of Ten Stars

Eight juvenile delinquents are sent into the wild back country of Grizzly Park together with Ranger Bob (Morshower) on a week long expedition to pick up trash as court-ordered community service. But killers are at large in the woods... wolves, bears, and an escaped homicidal maniac (Watson). Will any of the teens, who for the most part are literally too dumb to live, escape to engage in criminal activities again?

The most damaging thing to this film isn't its predictability--if I wasn't expecting a movie with teenagers being stupid in the forest and getting killed in the process, I wouldn't have bothered with "Grizzly Park" in the first place--it's that this is possibly one of the laziest scripts I've ever encountered.

It's not bad, just lazy. The characters for the most part are so underdeveloped that even the broad strokes used to establish them as stereotypes being enough to make the viewer invest even the slightest attachment in them. The entire movie is also driven by Stupid Character Syndrome, with even extras being infected with it--like one of the kids being able to "sneak" a massive bear costume onto the excursion, despite the fact that the DoC and sheriff department staff would have checked their bags before leaving on the trip... and Ranger Bob would have checked everyone's bags before taking them to the park's interior. But he doesn't, because he would find the bear costume. And possible weapons. And junk food that might attract wild animals. He pays lip service to checking, checks one bag, and then promptly forgets to check the rest.

And what Stupid Character Syndrome can't accommodate, gaping logic or practicality holes will take care of. That aforementioned bear costume? The mask alone is larger than the pack pack the character supposedly smuggling it is carrying. And that's just the most obvious and annoying of the several such "well, this won't work, but fuck it... it's staying it!" elements; the film is full of them.

There's also a bizarre case of short term memory loss apparently afflicting many of the characters, which makes me wonder if the film went through some re-edits and new scenes were shot after completion and no one was paying close enough attention anymore. There are a handful of instances of this scattered throughout the movie. The most glaring takes place when the viewer is informed (by way of a character reading a plaque out loud) that Grizzly Park is so named because it was once home to the largest bear population in that part of the nation but that the bears were hunted to extinction long ago... but two scenes later, Ranger Bob is cautioning the kids about bears in the park telling them and what to do and what not to do. Yet, no one asks him why he thinks there are bears in the park when the historical marker stated they were all gone. Bob discussed that wolves had been restocked but did not mention anything about bears, yet everyone just goes with it.

Finally, there are a couple of underdeveloped subplots in the film, such as one revolving around two of the juvenile delinquents and a gang war between White and Mexican racial supremacists, and the one involving the escaped maniac mentioned in the teaser summary at the top. While the way that last one terminated was unexpected, it served so little purpose in the overall story that dumping it would have changed nothing... except perhaps freed up a little time for some character development. Perhaps that would have been enough to make "Grizzly Park" worth the effort of putting it in the DVD player.

"Grizzly Park" is available as a stand-alone DVD, or in "Horror 4 Pack Vol. 2", which crams four movies onto a single DVD. If this film sounds interesting to you, then you will want to get the "Horror 4 Pack", because it costs about the same (or less, if you go to a certain retailer with big stores and low prices, whom I won't mention because I wouldn't send my worst enemy there I dislike the experience of going to thost stores so much) but you get three other movies. The drawback is that only one of those is any better than "Grizzly Park".

Saturday Scream Queen: Adrienne Barbeau

2011-09-24T01:23:00.000-07:00

Born in 1945, Adrienne Barbeau began her show-business career as a go-go dancer in a mafia-operated club in New York City, but by 1968, she had broken into Broadway theater and left exotic dancing behind. In 1978, she starred in her first collaboration with her future husband writer/director John Carpenter, and their association led to her most famous roles in "The Fog" and "Escape From New York", roles that Carpenter conceived with Barbeau in mind.

Although she is best known for her horror roles, those types of movies actually make up a very small part of her far-ranging acting resume, with the number of recurring roles she's had on television series (staring with "Maud" in the 1970s and continuing through to this very day with her regular role on "General Hospital). Not even one-tenth of her 100+ acting and voice-over parts have been horror roles, but she still makes the top of many "scream queen" lists. And Barbeau continues to return to the horror genre every so often, as evidenced by the 2007 chiller "Unholy" and her rumored involvement with the upcoming film "Manson Rising".

'Haunts' is an interesting misfire

2011-09-23T18:26:00.000-07:00

Haunts (aka "The Veil") (1977)
Starring: May Britt, Cameron Mitchell, and Aldo Ray
Director: Herb Free
Rating: Four of Ten Stars

A young woman (Britt) haunted by dark memories is stalked by a murdering rapist. Or is she? The town sheriff (Aldo) thinks she's being hysterical and possibly even losing her mind... but just what is it her slovenly uncle (Mitchell) doing with his nights?

"Haunts" is a thriller that attempts to use a mentally unbalanced character to provide the narrative Point of View for the film. It's a clever and laudable idea, but it's not one that the director and writer (one and the same, at least with a co-writing credit on the script) were up to pulling off. The film is a bit too slow in unfolding, and what could have been a truly powerful ending (with some chilling realizations dawning on the part of the attentive viewers) is weakened by it likewise going on for a tad too long and by a last-minute attempt at throwing a possibility of something supernatural into a straight thriller. Once again, we have an ending that's ruined by filmmakers who just didn't know when to quit.

Along the way, though, we are treated to some great, creepy imagery that captures the loneliness and isolation of the main character, and which manages to make the setting into a character in the film almost as important as the leads.

With some judicious editing, this film could actually be quite good, and it's one I wish I liked more. There's alot of misspent potential here, and all the three leads do such a good job that the void of talent embodied by some of the supporting cast is almost not noticeable. In fact, a scene in a bar featuring two of these talentless actors could be cut almost entirely, and the film would immediately get stronger in several ways--the mystery of the killer's ID would be heightened, and we'd have lost some of the more noxious flab dangling from the work's body.

Seriously flawed, the film still has just enough good parts to make it worth checking out if you have an interest in the development of the slasher flim--this is one of those almost-formed slashers that pre-date "Halloween"--or if you're a filmmaker interested in an object lesson of how just one or two bad choices can ruin an otherwise decent picture.

Note: "Arbogast" just posted a nice write-up of this film, which is what cause me to reach into the archives over at Watching the Detectives and repost this review here (with a couple of tweaks). Click here to see what he had to say.

'Goregoyles: First Cut' is a nice package

2011-09-21T11:01:00.000-07:00

Goregoyles: First Cut (2003)
Starring: Robert Harvick, Sebastian Croteau, and Matt Busch
Directors: Augustine Arredondo, Kevin J. Lindenmuth, and Alexandre Michaud
Rating: Six of Ten Stars (for the film)/Seven of Ten Stars (for the overall DVD package)

This was a hard one for me to rate, not only because it's an anthology film of wildly varying quality, but also because the entirety of the DVD package is something I feel needs to be taken into account in the review. This is rare for me, as Most of the time, the "bonus features" on DVDs are fairly dull or just recycled/archived marketing materials. With the "Goregoyles: First Cut" DVD, however, most of the extras are interesting and well-worth being considered "bonuses.")

First, the movie. I'll rate each part of it seperately, and then give an overall rating for the film alone. "Goregoyles: First Cut" is the first in a series of films that will feature several short horror shorts, framed by introductory comments from Uncle Dodo (Croteau).

The Uncle Dodo sequences are both amusing and informative--the long-haired host is a combination of Joe Bob Briggs and the Cryptkeeper--something which isn't true of other low-budget anthology films I've come across. I suppose I should admit with some degree of shame that the Uncle Dodo set bears a disturbing resemblence to my office. (Okay, there's no blow-up doll in the corner, but the rest is strangely similar....) By themselves, I rate the Dodo sequences at Six of Ten Stars.

Then there's the first of the two short films, "The Holy Terror." This is the story of a man (Harvick) who gets possessed by a demon and then finds himself pursued by occultists and assassins for the Catholic Church.

"The Holy Terror" should be required viewing for anyone who makes or is contemplating making a horror film on a limited budget. Reportedly made for around $800, this short film is better crafted than some horror flicks with ten times its budget. It features good acting, nice camera work, a well-done and well-used music soundtrack, and is nicely structured and paced. The producer/director, Augustine Arredondo, also seems to have had a realistic sense of what he was able to accomplish--he limited his special effects to movie gore and didn't make any attempts putting monsters, physical transformations, or anything else that required lots of money to pull off on the screen--and he didn't attempt to pad his film to the 70 minutes minimum for a feature. Most low-budget horror movies are ruined not so much by crappy acting, but by padding and filmmakers attempting things their budget and resources simply don't allow for, and Arrendondo avoided both those pitfalls. Even better, he clearly understands that if your effects are cheaply made, you don't want to feature them in long, loving shots so the audience has a chance to roll their eyes and snicker at you. It seems like something that should be easy to understand, but given the number of filmmakers who don't do this, it must be a hard concept to grasp.

"Holy Terror" was Arredondo's first outing as a director, and so far his only one. This is a shame, because while it's not a perfect film--it could have done with a few more minutes of running time and story to fill in a couple of niggling plot issues, and a stronger ending would have been nice--it is still good enough to earn a rating of Eight of Ten Stars. It's a shame he didn't stick with directing.

The second film that Uncle Dodo presents is titled "Bezerker". Almost everything that "The Holy Terror" got right, this one got wrong... despite the fact that this one is supposedly the product of a "legend" of low-budget filmmaking, Kevin J. Lindenmuth, while the first film was the product of a newcomer.

"Bezerker" is a short zombie movie with a storyline so muddled it trips over itself, despite being thinner than a supermodel on a hunger strike. Basically, it's Viking zombies show up and kill people. To make matters worse, it has a cast of actors who range from bad to awful, and some of the worst zombie costumes put on the screen.

(Free tip to filmmakers: If you have a zombie who is rotted and decayed from wandering the woods for a decade, don't put it in a clean, bright white, freshly washed night gown. Similarly, rotting walking corpses shouldn't all be wearing black sweatshirts that look brand new, particularly not when some of them supposedly are 1,000 year-old zombie Vikings. Thank you. You're welcome to acknowledge me in the credits of your next film.)

Given that Uncle Dodo's description of "Bezerker" both in the intro and the lead-out make it sound interesting than it it, and seem more like a description of what SHOULD have been on the screen instead of what is, it sounds like the producers of the "First Cut" anthology were as bored with this worthless piece of trash as I was. There are two good scenes in it, one of which is almost ruined by terrible child actors, and the other undermined by an ineptly done gore effect--although the zombie eating himself while walking around still made me squirm and will stick with me for some time. This one gets Two of Ten Stars.

Overall, I give "Goregoyles: First Cut" a rating of Six of Tomatoes of Ten, skewing the rating a bit high, because as awful as "Bezerker" is, it's thankfully short.

The final thing I touch on here are the extras that are included on the DVD. Like I mentioned above, I don't usually take those into account when reviewing a film, but I make an exception here.

First off, the interview with "Goregoyles" producer Alexandre Michaud is interesting, insightful, and far more honest than the self-congratulatory marketing crap we usually get in these sorts of offerings. He talks about the origins and intent of the "Goregoyles" series, and even touches upon some shortcomings. Similarly, the "making of" documentary about "The Holy Terror" also features some very candid interviews with its star and director that provide an interesting look into "no-budget" filmmaking, and it's a real look at the production process, not just an extended ad that originally appeared on HBO.

Among the extras is also a "bloopers" section that doesn't actually contain bloopers but instead feature longer versions of Uncle Dodo's commentary. I liked these longer riffs better than what appeared in the film, although I also agree with the choice of shortening them; the films shouldn't be secondary to the host.

Finally, the disk contains previews for numerous movies in the Brain Damage Films catalogue. I'm impressed with the way they can make movies I know to be completely and utter turds (because I've had the misfortune of seeing them) look like they may actually be interesting. It's a nice look at what this distribution company offers--even if some of the previews are better than the films they are made to advertise!

When I add the high-quality extras on the "Goregoyles: First Cut" DVD into my considerations, the overall package gets an extra Star, bringing the rating up to Seven of Ten Tomatoes. I applaud Brain Damage Films for producing a DVD package where the "bonus" material is worth watching, and I encourage lovers of horror films to track this one down for "The Holy Terror" at the very least.

Note: "The Holy Terror" is also included in the Catacombs of Creepshow 50 movie pack. That might be a better way to get your hands on it, as you'll be getting a slew of other indie horror flicks... some good, some pretty awful. But the price is good.

Countdown to Halloween with Vampirella

2011-09-20T20:04:00.000-07:00

It's coming in October.... so don't say you weren't warned!

By Joe Chiodo

Saturday Scream Queen: Suzy Kendall

2011-09-17T00:02:00.000-07:00

British blond Suzy Kendall had her heart set on being a clothing designer, but her exceptional beauty caused photographers and other designers to continually urge her to go into modeling. She made an initial half-hearted attempt in that field and found herself, to her surprise, in instant and constant demand. This led to movie roles, and, despite not having any formal training as an actress, she enjoyed a thriving movie career starting with "The Liquidator" in 1965 and ending in 1977 when she decided she'd had enough of the profession her heart was never fully in. She retired from show-business to focus on her family.

Kendall appeared in 25 films, with roughly half of them being European horror films. Horror highlights include Dario Argento's directorial debut "The Bird with the Crystal Plumage", "In the Devil's Garden", "Tales That Witness Madness", "Spazmo", and "Craze".

Donating to Project Gutenberg in honor of Michael S. Hart

2011-09-13T23:15:00.000-07:00

Tonight, I learned that Michael S. Hart, inventor of the e-book and founder of Project Gutenberg, passed away on September 6.

As I mentioned in the obit post at Cinema Steve, I will donate all my earnings on sales of "From Dark Corners: Thirteen Unusual Tales from Famous Authors" from now until September 21 to Project Gutenberg, in honor of his memory.

So, if you like horror fiction, here's an opportunity to get yourself a collection of some of my favorites AND give money to a good cause. Please click here to get a copy and help me donate to Project Gutenberg.

And please help me spread the word about this little effort with announcements in your own blogs, if you would be so kind.

Dario Argento's first film is one of his best films

2011-09-13T00:50:00.000-07:00

The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (aka "The Gallery Murders" and "The Phantom Terror") (1970)
Starring: Tony Musante, Enrico Maria Salerno, Suzi Kendall, Eva Renzi, Renato Romano, and Umberto Raho
Director: Dario Argento
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

On the eve of returning home to the United States, an American writer in Rome (Mustante) witnesses a brutal attack on a young woman in a gallery (Renzi). The authorities insist he remain in Rome until they clear him as a possible suspect, as they believe the attack and in the meantime, he starts his own investigation. He witnessed the attack, but he feels there was something off with what he saw, but he just can't put his finger on what it was. Meanwhile, the serial killer continues to target young women, seemingly completely at random, and the writer and his beautiful girlfriend (Kendall) end up targeted for death as well.

"The Bird with the Crystal Plumage" was Dario Argento's first film as a director, and I think it is one of his most solid efforts. In fact, it is so solid that I had an even harder time deciding whether my write-up belongs here or with the Argento mystery films over at Watching the Detectives.

This film is, in many ways, a less bloody, more coherent version of "Deep Red," another of Argento's better efforts. Maybe of the same psychological themes are present in this one, including the one where the main character needs to recall something he saw at the scene of a violent crime but that didn't really register with his conscious mind. The conspiracies surrounding the murderer are also similar to one another, and both films "play fair" with the viewer insofar as the surprise twists and the "big reveal" of the killer's identity in both films is set up as the film progresses and the clues that lead to the solution are evident in retrospect. And while "Bird" and "Deep Red" both have characters behaving in unrealistic and stupid ways either for plot convenience or reasons that are only understood to Dario Argento, this film at least doesn't have gaping plot holes that he's trying pass off as red herrings.

More clearly showing Argento's debt to Alfred Hitchcock and Mario Bava than any of the films he made later (including his supposed tribute to Hitchcock that's more a love note to Argento himself in many ways), but also clearly a film coming from his own vision and sensibilities, it's a film that draws its tension as much from what you don't see as what you do see... there are sprays of blood but no outright gore, throats are cut but it happens off scene, and the pictures that will form in your imagination are far more horrible than what appears on screen. Its the intensity generated by the "less is more" approach in this film that caused me place it among his horror films instead of his mystery films.

That's not to say that there aren't great moments that Argento creates as well. The scene where our hero is locked between two automatic glass doors and has to watch helplessly as a knifed woman bleeds all over the floor of an art gallery; the sequence where he chased by an assassin through the deserted back streets of night-time Rome until he reaches a crowded area and then starts stalking the assassin; and some of the visual flourishes involving characters in pitch darkness silhouetted against a single source of sharp light, spring to mind as some of the most effective bits of filmmaking I've seen in any Argento picture.

Argento's "Susperia" had been presented to me as the best of his films. "Deep Red" had also been praised highly and come recommended by people I usually trust. However, I found both films to be deeply flawed, despite their admitted strong visual appeals, and after the more recent garbage he's made--"The Card Player" and "Do You Like Hitchcock?"--I was ready to give up on him completely. Then someone recommended I at least watch "Bird with the Crystal Plumage" and "Cat of Nine Tails" before turning my back on his work... and I'm glad I listened. Although not perfect, they are the best efforts I've seen from Argento yet. (And "Cat o' Nine Tails" will be get a write-up at Watching the Detectives eventually.)

I don't know what went wrong with Dario Argento as far as his skills as a filmmaker go, but he seems to have declined rather than get better as the years went by. Maybe his early films were as good as they are because he had to push himself to be the very best he could possible be, but that he got lazy once he was established and started to coast on his reputation. I wonder if that is what puts him apart from truly great filmmakers that he is compared to... they kept breaking their backs to deliver the best work possible even after they could coast on name value alone?

Saturday Scream Queen: Maryam d'Abo

2011-09-10T00:01:00.000-07:00

Maryam d'Abo is one of the many actresses with a long career behind her, but for whom full-fledged stardom has been elusive. With more than 40 television shows and movies to her name, made over three busy decades, hers is still a face that all but the biggest fans of horror films and thrillers from the 1980s and 1990s will have a hard time placing.

A European actress (born in London, but raised in Paris and Geneva by parents who were of Dutch and Croatian extraction), d'Abo got her start playing the ill-fated, over-sexed babysitter in the goopy sci-fi horror flick "Xtro," and her wide ranging and varied resume sports numerous genre flicks and television shows throughout the 1980s and 1990s, including a lead role on the short-lived series "Something Is Out There," and starring turns in horror films like "Night Life", "Immortal Sins", "Stalked", and "Double Obsession".

D'Abo is, however, perhaps best known for playing Kara, the Russian cello-playing Russian spy in the James Bond flick "The Living Daylights". She used that connection for a flirtation with writing and producing that brought the 2002 documentary film "Bond Girls Are Forever", which explores the connotations of being a Bond Girl and the impact it has on actresses' careers, into being. She has since returned to acting full-time, and in recent years has appeared in horror films "Trespassing" (2004) and "Dorian Gray" (2009).

'Mayhem Motel': Home of sex, violence, mimes, and puke baths

2011-09-08T09:30:00.000-07:00

Mayhem Motel (2001)
Starring: Matthew Biancaniello, Sarah Berkowitz, Lorene Scafaria, David Langley, and Ray Jarrell
Director: Karl Kempter
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

"Mayhem Motel" defies summary. It is a collection of vignettes that are scrambled together to tell the story of a night of sex, murder, mayhem, and just plain weirdness. If one were to attempt to make sense of the film in order to take away a point to it, one would have to conclude the film was made to convey the messages that one should always keep one's motel room door bolted, and that sex with strangers kills--not because of venereal disease, but because of knives and guns. Oh, and there's also the moral that one shouldn't ever piss off a dwarf.

This is a film that is 100% unique viewing experience--and for that the world should be grateful.

First of all, "Mayhem Motel" contains the single most disgusting scene I've ever witnessed on film. It was so gross that I almost stopped the DVD when it occurred. The second scene of the movie has a character named Pukey in the credits (played by David Langley) settling into a tub and puking into the bathwater. He then proceeds to stir the water and vomit around him as he sits there. Whether that was actual vomit or some REALLY convincing special effects (and my money is on actual vomit... it simply too convincing not to be), the scene is so disgusting that it put me off my dinner. It almost put me off the rest of movie, but since it was so early on, I felt obligated to stick with it just a little longer. (As it turned out, I watched the whole thing.)

Second, "Mayhem Motel" is almost entirely plot-free. Each vignette has something of a story to it, but for each plot that is brought to an almost-conclusion, there are two that are left hanging, giving the overall movie a feel of a short story collection rather than a complete film. And I don't mean a collection of short films... I mean a collection of scenes like the ones you might have students write if you were teaching a writing workshop. They're interesting, they're pretty raw, but they're also for the most part utterly pointless except for invoking a momentary reaction in the viewer. While this approach did keep me watching, it's not one that I would want to see become commonplace.

That said, this film does feature some good acting, decent dialogue, and it moves along at a fast pace (with only the mime scene dragging a bit). The filmmakers obviously know their craft, and they know that they should put exactly what a scene needs onto the screen, and not a second more. Add that the fact that there are several hilarious moments (like both instances of a character choking to death during sex--in the "I know I shouldn't be laughing at this but I can't help" kind of way), and the end result is a movie that I find myself liking far more than is probably healthy.

Maybe my brain has finally rotted away due to all the Z-grade movies I watch? If "Mayhem Motel" had just a little more structure to it--the priest who we're introduced to at the beginning of the film should have been seen leaving the motel at daybreak the next day--I may even have given it a Seven-Star rating.

Although I still don't feel comfortable recommending anyone see it--although if you get it as part of the "Mental Maniacs" multi-DVD set as I did, you might as well give it a try--I still think but that "Mayhem Motel" has some impressive qualities to it. It MIGHT also be a suitable screener for a Bad Movie Night, if you have the right crowd. (I know that I'd never show this film to anyone *I* socialize with, but then I don't know everyone.)

Ginger Rogers Double-Feature Fright Fest!

2011-09-06T21:33:00.000-07:00

Everyone one knows Ginger Rogers for doing what Fred Astaire did, only backwards and in heels, but did you know that, early in her career, she starred in a couple of horror films, one of which holds up rather well, despite nearly 80 years having passed since it was released?

(Well, if you're a regular reader, you probably did, because you read her Saturday Scream Queen profile back in July... but here are the details on the movies themselves.)

The Thirteenth Guest (aka "Lady Beware") (1932)
Starring: Lyle Talbot, Ginger Rogers, and J. Farrell MacDonald
Director: Albert Ray
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

When Marie (Rogers), the young heiress to the Morgan fortune, is found mysteriously electrocuted in the family manor that has remained sealed since her father died during a dinner party 13 years prior, Police Captain Ryan (MacDonald) calls upon the assistance of playboy criminologist Phil Winston (Talbot) to help solve the baffling murder. Before Winston can even begin to investigate, the mystery takes an even stranger turn: The dead girl turns up alive and in police custody for car theft... and soon there's a second dead body at the old Morgan place.

"The Thirteenth Guest" is a pretty good little mystery movie for most of its running time. The three lead actors all give decent performances that are in line with what is to be expected from one of these "who-dunnit in the dark, old house" mysteries, and the murderer had a fairly clever set-up with which to commit the murder. There are also just enough plausible suspects and clever plot-twists make it real mystery film.

Unfortunately, for every clever twist there's a plot logic-hole that a truck could be driven through. Equally unfortunate is the presence of a truly lame comic relief character. And I won't even dignify the idiotic mask and cape they have the murderer prance around in with comment. (Hang on... did I just comment on the idiotic mask and cape? Curses!)

The good parts outweigh the bad parts--but only barely--in "The Thirteenth Guest." It's not a film I recommend you rush out to find a copy of, but if you're looking around for a little something to round out a "home film-festival" selection of mystery movies, this might be what you're looking for. Just don't make it the main attraction.

A Shriek in the Night (1933)
Starring: Ginger Rogers, Lyle Talbot, Purnell Pratt, Harvel Clark, Lillian Harmer, Louise Beaver, and Arthur Hoyt
Director: Albert Ray
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

A series of murders take place in an upscale apartment building, and reporters Pat Morgan (Rogers) and Ted Kord (Talbot)--working for rival newspapers but involved in a romantic relationship--are hot on the trail of the killer, or killers. Morgan happened to be working on an investigative piece about one of the victims, so she is in a perfect place to help both her career and the police... so long as she doesn't end up a murder victim herself.

"A Shriek in the Night" is, for the most part, a fairly typical early 1930s low-budget mystery, with dimwitted maids, cranky police detectives (although in this one the detective is not incompetent, just cranky), and wise-cracking reporters running circles around everyone and ultimately providing the clues needed to solve the mystery. The acting is above average here, and the characterizations of the two reporters and the police detective are also a bit more intelligent and three-dimensional than is often the case in these movies. (The comic relief maids are still as annoying as ever; if this is what American-born house-servants were like, it's no wonder we took to importing illegal aliens to turn down our beds and clean our homes!)

What really sets the film apart from others like it is its villain, and a surprisingly chilling sequence where he prepares to burn Pat Morgan alive. This character feels in many ways like an ancestor to the mad killers who came into vogue during the 1970s, and which continue to slash, strangle, and mutilate their way across the movie screen to this very day.

Another thing I found interesting in this film is how different Ginger Rogers' character was from the one she played a year earlier in "The Thirteenth Guest".

Many actors and actresses that appeared in these B-movies gave pretty much the same performance in movie after movie--for instance, there's very little difference between the smart-ass character Lyle Talbot plays here and the one he played in "The Thirteenth Guest." I haven't seen enough of Rogers' performances to really know why there is this difference--was she lucky enough to have a chance to show different facets of her acting ability, or did she make each part she played different somehow?--but it was an unexpected surprise.

Those of you out there with more than just a passing interest in suspense and horror movies may want to check this film out for its very modern, proto-"maniac killer" character/sequence. Those of you who just enjoy this style of movies--mysteries that get solved by wise-cracking reporters who take nothing seriously--should also check it out. It's a fun way to spend an hour.

Saturday Scream Queen: Faith Domergue

2011-09-03T00:03:00.000-07:00

Born in 1923, Faith Domergue's acting career was one that almost ever happened. In 1939, just after graduating from high school, she was involved in a car accident and was severely disfigured by being thrown into the windshield. She underwent a painful year-and-a-half worth of plastic surgeries, and emerged with looks and grace that captured the interest of billionaire industrialist and movie mogul Howard Hughes, and he had her signed to a contract.

Hughes' RKO studio spent a great deal of money and resources trying to make Domergue a star, but all three big budget pictures they featured her in were busts at the box office. Dropped by RKO, Domergue became a freelancer, accepting roles from a variety of studios, appearing in westerns and crime dramas... and eventually in the string of horror and sci-fi movies for which she is during the late 1950s.

Most notable of her horror flicks from this period are "Cult of the Cobra" and "It Came From Beneath the Sea".

During the 1960s, Domergue turned to television, appearing on several top-rated series while squeezing in a couple of sci-fi movies along the way.

During the early 1970s, Domergue returned to horror film with starring turns in "Legacy of Blood" in 1971 and "So Evil, My Sister" and "The House of Seven Corpses" in 1974. Those would prove to be her final screen appearances, as she retired from acting soon thereafter.

Domergue died in 1999 from cancer.

'Horsemen' is predictable and slightly dull

2011-08-31T12:03:00.000-07:00

Horsemen (aka "The Four Horsemen") (2009)
Starring: Dennis Quaid, Clifton Collins Jr., Ziyi Zhang, Lou Taylor Pucci, Liam James, Patrick Fugit, and Eric Balfour
Director: Jonas Aakerlund
Rating: Four of Ten Stars

Homicide detective Aidan Breslan (Quaid) is struggling to reconnect emotionally with life and his two young sons (James and Pucci) after the death of his wife when a gruesome series of murders linked by the Biblical Prophecies of the Four Horsemen begin to have a strange resonance with his life.

"Horsemen" is one of those films that started out with a great idea at its core, but then the filmmakers either lost track of it along the way, or they were never competent enough to carry it out. Where they should be subtle in their dropping of hints, they are hamfisted... and when they should be clear and straight-forward with what they are trying to convey, they are so vague that the viewer is left wondering "what was the point of that" more than once. Or worse, we wish they'd get on with it, because we've figured out where they're going and attempts at being clever for no apparent reason become irritating.

The hamfistedness at the wrong times as the story unfolds goes a long way to making this movie strangely dull, despite the fact that the cast and technical crew does their best to keep the suspense up. In fact, the film ultimately feels like an extra-long, weak episode of "CSI: Crime Scene Investators", both with its look and storyline.

Cast-wise, everyone does a decent enough job, although they would have probably done better if they'd redubbed Ziyi Zhang with a good voice actress who spoke better English. She is clearly still struggling with the language and that hurts her performance somewhat, while I think a well-acting re-looping of her dialogue plus her body language on screen would have brought out the intensity that is lost in her thick accent. (Plus, I find it hard to believe that an adopted child who has been with an American family and going to American schools for a decade wouldn't know better English, no matter how bad the parents were.)

This one is worth checking out on cable TV when there's absolutely nothing else that looks interesting, but otherwise this is one to take a pass on.

'The House That Screamed' has Hammer Films mood

2011-08-29T20:40:00.000-07:00

The House That Screamed (1969)
Starring: Lilli Palmer, Christina Galbo, Mary Maude, Maribel Martin, and John Moulder-Brown
Director: Narciso Ibáñez Serrador
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

The head-mistress of a boarding school for wayward girls (Palmer) tries with increasing fierceness to keep order and discipline in the sea of run-away hormones and rebelliousness among the students and her teenaged son (Moulder-Brown). But soon after the arrival of a new student, someone starts enforcing an even sterner form of discipline in the school's shadow-haunted hallways... a discipline that leaves girls dead.

"The House That Screamed" is a Spanish horror movie that successfully crosses the look and feel of Hammer Films' black-and-white psychological thrillers from the early 1960s with their gothic horror films of the 1960s. Writer/director Serrador isn't quite Terence Fisher, but he's the next best thing, as he delivers an effectively paced, well-staged film that will keep you guessing as to the identity of the killer and what exactly is going on within the walls of the girl's school until the Big Reveal at the end. While the ending ultimately is not all that surprising, the path leading there and its execution is chilling and stylish.

Featuring a talented cast of young actresses as the students, and a superb performance by Lilli Palmer who manages to portray a sadistic, controlling bitch and still illicit sympathy for her from the audience, and some shocking murders, this is a great film to check out if you liked "Susperia" or any of the black-and-white Hammer Films psychological thrillers--even if this film is in color. (Oh, one thing the film is surprisingly short on, what with its all-girls boarding school location, several sexual themes, and even a shower scene, is nudity. I don't recall any, in fact.)

Saturday Scream Queen: Edwige Fenech

2011-08-27T00:01:00.000-07:00

Born on Christmas Eve in 1948, European actress Edwige Fenech started her career on a beauty contest circuit but soon found employment as a model. In 1967, she made her film debut, and she cut a striking (and often naked) figure in dozens of horror films and sex comedies through the 1970s and early 1980s.

As the 1980s wore on, Fenech transitioned to parts that called more upon her talent for acting rather than disrobing, but by the mid-1990s, her career had evolved to the point where she was famous for mostly being famous and she was a regular on Italian talk shows.

Fenech retired from acting and moved behind the camera at the head of her her own production company. She has produced numerous films and mini-series for Italian television, including a very well-received adaptation of Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice."

Fenech made a brief return to acting in 2007 with a bit-part in the torture-porn cannibal extravaganza "Hostel II," mostly just showing up to show up as an inside joke for fans of 1970s European horror films.

Good advice from Chris De Burgh

2011-08-26T03:03:00.000-07:00

Keep this in mind when you're Crossing Over....

(This song dates from 1982, and it's probably the best thing Chris De Burgh ever recorded. And that's setting aside that it's got some really creepy lyrics. Am I just an old fogey, or is it true that they simply don't make them like this anymore, what with all the Auto-tune and sampling shit that every other popular singer seems to be up to?)

'The Ferryman' by Rainer F. Engle

A stylish film too disjointed for its own good

2011-08-24T00:04:00.000-07:00

A Bell From Hell (1973)
Starring: Renaud Verley, Veveca Lindfors, Maribel Martin, Nuria Gemino, Christina Betzner, and Alfredo Mayo
Directors: Claudio Guerín and Juan Antonio Bardem.
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

John (Verley), a young special effects artist, is released from an insane asylum into the care of his crippled aunt and her three attractive daughters. He becomes convinced they were behind his being committed in the first place, and they intend to have him sent back, so he plots his revenge.

"A Bell From Hell" is too disjointed for its own good. It's well enough acted, and it moves along as a decent clip while offering many unexpected twists and turns, but there are a couple too many tangents and too many badly defined characters who are doing things for no discernible reason other than the script says so.

This is a very moody, creepy, and stylish film, and the last half hour ranks up there with some of the great horror movies--with John's fate the most chilling part of the film--but the story is just a little too chaotic for this movie to truly be considered worth the time to watch.

(Trivia: Director Claudio Guerín fell to his death from the tower housing the title bell on the last day of principle photography.)

'Planet Terror' is worth landing on

2011-08-22T00:05:00.000-07:00

Planet Terror (2007)
Starring: Rose McGowan, Freddy Rodriguez, Bruce Willis, Josh Brolin, and Jeff Fahey
Director: Robert Rodriquez
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

"Planet Terror" is a sci-fi/horror flick starring Rose McGowan as a tragic stripper, Freddy Rodriguez as a bad-boy tow-truck driver with a mysterious past, and Bruce Willis as a Army lieutenant with a dark addiction that results in a chemical that transforms those exposed into flesh-eating, pusstule-festooned zombies. McGowan and Rodriquez join with other survivors in fighting their way to safety.

The best part of "Planet Terror" is its very John Carpenter-esque musical score and its subplots involving a psychotic doctor (chillingly portrayed by Josh Brolin) and his unfaithful wife, and that surrounding the town sheriff and his BBQ-cooking brother. Unfortunately, these subplots swirl around in the general chaos that is the flow (or rather complete lack thereof) that makes up "Planet Terror" and just as they get going, we go back to the main story of puss-filled zombie fights. The film also serves nicely as a send-up of over-the-top action movies, but it drives this aspect so far into the ground and is so heavy-handed about it that the hilarity gives way to tedium by the time the film is over. It's a nice effort, but it barely clears that bar of average. (And it doesn't help matters that the director chose to intentionally leave out a chunk of the movie to recreate the atmosphere of a cheap movie theater.)

The actors are good all around, with Rodriquez, Willis, Brolin, and Jeff Fahey (as J.T., master Texas BBQ chef and zombie killer) being particularly noteworthy. The true star of this film, though, is the Carpenter-pastiche soundtrack. It is what truly gives the film its 1980s horror flick air.

Saturday Scream Queen: Rose McGowan

2011-08-20T00:01:00.000-07:00

Rose McGowan spent her earliest childhood within a fringe Christian cult in Italy and her teenaged years struggling against false accusations of drug use that saw her briefly committed to a mental institution. At the age of 15, she was emancipated from her parents, and eventually graduated from high school and gained a beauticians license.

However, in 1995, McGowan began her acting career and received many early accolades for her quirky performances, despite giving them in films like "Bio-Dome" and "Encino Man". When she was cast in Wes Craven's "Scream," McGowan seemed destined for horror movie stardom... but then she entered a romantic relationship with Rob Zombie.

Although she continued to appear in leading roles throughout the rest of the 1990s--including chillers "Phantoms" and "The Last Stop"--very little notice was paid to them, as she was defined first and foremost as "Rob Zombie's girlfriend,"

Once they split, however, McGowan's stat began to ascend again, and she burst back into public consciousness with a starring role as a young witch in the television series "Charmed" and two roles in the retro horror double-feature "Grindhouse", one in "Death Proof" and the lead in "Planet Terror".

McGowan's latest role is in the new film adaptation of "Conan the Barbarian" as a particularly perverted villainess who really loves her daddy. (My guess is that relationship would be Roman Polanski's favorite part of the film.)

One of Argento's best still prompts the question, "That's it?"

2011-08-19T10:40:00.000-07:00

Suspiria (1977)
Starring: Jessica Harper, Stefania Casini, and Joan Bennett
Director: Dario Argento
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

Suzy Banyon (Harper) comes to study at a prestigious German dance academy, but instead becomes drawn into the murderous and deadly web of secrets exists within its walls. Is there a killer on the loose in the school, or is it the spirit of its founder--a reported witch--who has returned from the depths of Hell?

When "Suspiria" was over, I mused out loud, "Was that it?"

The film is praised by critics and viewers as being Argento's best, but I think "Deep Red" is a far superior film. The only things "Suspiria" has going for it are some fantastic sets, some interesting lighting, a neat theme by Goblin, and the attractive Jessica Harper's deer-in-the-headlights performance.

Everything else is "Suspira" is sorely lacking. The structure of the dance classes shown are odd and unrealistic, the acting is mostly wooden, and the script is so weak so as to feel like an excuse to simply display the three set-piece murder scenes. To make matters worse, what story their is only succeeds due to Stupid Character Syndrome, except here it's the villains that engage in such mindless stupidity that one wonders how they managed to the school's secrets for as long as they did.

There are countless really cool cinematic moments in the film (prime among them are Suzy's trip through the rainstorm at the beginning of the film, the climactic moments of the first murder, the sequence in the open plaza, the entire sequence of Sara's flight through the school, and Suzy's exploration during the film's climax), but the story that should be motivating all these scenes is so ill defined and poorly explained that it makes an already weak climax feel rushed and as if the movie ends before we're even given one-quarter of the story.

Impressive visually, but severely lacking in the story department, "Suspiria" isn't as good as its repuation might lead you to believe. I think it's worth seeing if your interested in seeing a technically well-done film, but you can spend your time better if you're just interested in watching a creep-fest.

2-fer-1: 'The Crawlspace' and 'The Red Cell'

2011-08-16T22:45:00.000-07:00

Up today, are reviews of two horror films from the very talented Chris Schwartz. Unfortunately, he seems to have stopped making movies after finishing these two efforts.

The Crawlspace (2006)
Starring: Chris Schwartz, Jason Hastings, and Julian Peck
Director: Chris Schwartz
Steve's Rating: Six of Ten Stars

Mike (Schwartz) wakes up in a filthy, cramped space. A phone rings, he answers... and he discovers that he's been kidnapped and imprisoned by a psycho (who calls himself "The Director") intent on playing mind- and torture-games with him.

"The Crawlspace" is a surprisingly effective low-budget (well, probably no-budget) entry into the mysteriously popular "torture" horror subgenre that's emerged in recent years. Think "Blair Witch Project" meets "Saw", and I believe you'll have a sense of the general look and feel of this picture.

Chris Schwartz, who, according to the credits, did everything on this film but grind and install the lenses on the cameras, not only manages to convey the claustrophobic environment of the film's setting, but he gives a performance that's amazingly good, given what is typically found in small-budget indie pictures. Further, Schwartz seems to be a filmmaker who understands how to work within the limits of his means. The film he's set up here is almost perfect for a film shot on a partial shoestring budget, and Schwartz concentrates his resources and efforts on creeping the audience out with what he has on hand. Based on this film, I think he could probably do wonders with a four-figure budget, and I hope to find more films by him in the future.

That's not to say this is a perfect movie. Part of the film only works because of Stupid Character Syndrome, some of the sound effects needed a little more work, and the film could have used a stronger ending. But, these flaws are far from fatal, and the good outweighs the bad here, making this a picture that's worth seeing.

"The Crawlspace" is another movie that earns a spot on my "Free Advice for Low-Budget Filmmakers" list. If you're dreaming about making a movie with the change you just scooped out of the fountain at the mall, this is an example of how it's done, and it's a movie you have to see.

The Red Cell (2007)
Starring: Donovan Schwartz
Director: Chris Schwartz
Steve's Rating: Six of Ten Stars

Ayden (Donovan Schwartz) wakes up in a shabby basement where the walls are lined with cardboard and the only window has a strong electrical current running through it. He soon discovers that he has been abducted by a gasmask-clad maniac who is committed to curing him of his lethal cancer through a variety of hideous tortures.

"The Red Cell" does what most of the "capture and torture" movies fail to do. It generates genuine mystery and even some confusion (of the good kind, not the kind arising from a poorly executed flick) for the viewer to resolve as they watch. Has Ayden truly been kidnapped by some crazy man who fancies himself in possession of a miracle cure, or are all the horrible things that gasmask-clad figure--who sneaks in and out of a sealed room with ease--something that's simply a product of Ayden's sick body and brain? The film also has a dimension of psychological horror that so far I haven't seen any other of the sub-genre even come close to featuring.

I thought I knew exactly where the film was going, but then Schwartz throws in a twist-ending that made gave me a "Wow!" feeling that someone who watches entirely too many movies (like, oh, me) only rarely has. Schwartz, in one stroke, showed that not only can a talented and creative filmmaker do something VERY worthwhile artistically with the "capture and torture" genre, but he actually managed to make a film that deserves to be considered along side not only the "greats" of this sub-genre, but should be included when considering good horror films in general.

What's even more remarkable, Schwartz made his film on a tiny fraction of what the other wide release examples of the "tortured captive" genre are made on, and probably even less than the majority of the low-budget direct-to-DVD examples of it.

"The Red Cell" is currently seeking distribution, and it's a film that deserves to be seen by as wide an audience as possible. It's not a perfect film--it's a little too slow at times, driving home Ayden anguish and suffering well past the point where the audience has gotten it and the scene starts getting tedious--but it's one that horror movie fans will appreciate. Particularly those fans who are looking for something a little different.

Saturday Scream Queen: Rachel Nichols

2011-08-13T00:02:00.000-07:00

Rachel Nichols is another model-turned-actress, and in the roughly ten years since since she turned to acting, she has had major roles in three different TV series (including the serial-killer-centric "Criminal Minds") and numerous cinematic big budget extravaganzas, such as "G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra", "Star Trek", and "Conan the Barbarian", which opens in theaters Friday, August 19, 2011.

While horror fans might find something to enjoy in the new Conan films, assuming its done in a manner faithful to the original Robert E. Howard stories, the are probably already familiar with Nichols from her starring turn in the chilling "P2" and the retro-horror flick "The Woods".

In 2012, Nichols will further expand her horror/thriller resume with a lead role in the latest screen adaptation of a James Patterson novel, "I, Alex Cross".

'Point of Terror' is nearly pointless

2011-08-11T00:01:00.000-07:00

Point of Terror (1971)
Starring: Peter Carpenter, Dyanne Thorne, Leslie Sims, Joel Marsten, Paula Mitchell, and Lory Hansen
Director: Alex Nicol
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

Lounge singer Tony Trelos (Carpenter) thinks his dreams of stardom are at hand when he becomes the latest boy-toy for the oversexed wife of a record executive (Thorne) and she promises him a record contract. But things get dangerously complicated when her husband (Marsten) turns up dead and Tony falls in love/lust with her stepdaughter (Hansen).

"Point of Terror" is a messy movie that meanders through a predictable "Pride Goeth Before a Fall" story. The tone varies widely from comedy to thriller to horror, but it never stays with one atmosphere long enough to establish whether writer/producer/star Peter Carpenter failed at making an erotic thriller, a horror movie, or a dark comedy. Although the demise of the abusive husband, some of the revelations around Dyanne Thorne's character, and the fact that Tony Trelos is about as dumb as a box of rocks make me wonder if this is a REALLY dry comedy, I THINK Carpenter and director Alex Nicol were trying to make a thriller in the Italian "gaillo" vein. Unfortunately, while they captured the incoherence so dominant in many Italian mysteries and thrillers, they captured none of the style. Worse, scenes with flourishes that were intended to be artistic drag on and on and on and feel more like padding than anything else. (You know you're watching an erotic thriller gone wrong when you are reaching for the remote to fast-forward through the sex scenes because they are boring and the music score under them is nerve-gratingly bad).

The film isn't helped by the fact that the only performer with any screen presence in the whole thing is Dyanne Thorne. As prone as I am to make jokes about her two humongous talents, she actually does have quite a bit of charisma... and it really shows when she's surrounded by the caliber of actors in this film. She pretty much steals the movie from poor Peter Carpenter, although he obviously intended this to be his vehicle of stardom.

Speaking of Carpenter, this is the second of his films that I've watched--the other being "Blood Mania", which he also wrote, produced, and starred in, and which I will be reviewing one of these days--and in both cases, I felt that he was an okay actor but simply didn't have much in the way of screen presence... or he simply had the misfortune of always playing against actoresses who outshone him. This was the last of Carpenter's films, and I feel like he was to the 1970s as John King was to the 1940s.

'Don't Answer the Phone' should be disconnected

2011-08-09T19:07:00.000-07:00

Don't Answer the Phone (aka "The Hollywood Strangler") (1980)
Starring: James Westmoreland, Nicholas Worth, Flo Gerrish,
and Ben Frank
Director: Robert Hammer
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

A serial killer (Worth) is on the loose in Los Angeles, murdering hookers and photo models with unchecked savagery while taunting radio psychiatrist Lindsay Gale (Gerrish) with on-air phone calls. Will the homicide detectives in charge of the case (Frank and Westmoreland) catch him before his torment of Gale turns to murder?

Indifferently acted with cinematography and lighting to match, not to mention listless direction, the thus poorly written killer-on-the-loose flick doesn't have much going for it other than the graphic nature of its highly sexually charged murder scenes and the overall creepiness of the mad killer... and that's only if you watch the uncensored version, which is what is included in the "Pure Terror" boxed set.

There's little question that the creators of this film were trying to be as nasty as they could be, with the kill scenes each lingering on the pain and suffering of the victims as they are choked to death (with the one exception feeling strange as a result) and almost always following up with some disturbingly perverted behavior by the insane killer. In some ways, this film is worse than some of the "torture porn" films that have been so popular in recent years. It could even be considered a precursor to them, although it has more in common with Italian bloody thrillers from the hands of Dario Argento or Mario Bava than the more recent flicks.

This is one of those films where I almost feel bad for the actors in it. I've no doubt everyone was trying their best, but they were working with material so badly written that even the greatest actors would have a hard time saving it. James Westmoreland plays one of the dumbest, most obnoxious cops that's ever been presented as a heroic lead character in any film, and his partner--played by career bit-player Ben Frank who probably had hoped that this, one of his few large roles would have been better--is only slightly smarter; Flo Gerrish is so shrewish and shrill that you will find yourself HOPING she gets killed just so she will shut up--although, to the filmmakers' credit, when she finally does become a direct victim of the killer, it is a scary and well-done sequence and we are genuinely worried for the character as she is about to be brutalized, murdered, and raped; and Nicholas Worth's killer is so brutal and crazy and depraved and so over the top that he almost become a parody of the mad killers from the aforementioned Italian thrillers.

In fact, the script for this film is so bad that I've seen some reviewers comment on it as if it was a satire of slasher flicks and Argento-style thrillers. While that is certainly a charitable way to look at the film, I sincerely doubt that writer/director Robert Hammer was trying to make anything but a serious thriller.

In the final evaluation, "Don't Answer the Phone" might be fitting as part of a line-up for a Bad Movie Night centered on detective movies or Italian-type thrillers, but only if your viewing buddies have a tolerance for stupid cops and extended rape/murder scenes.

Saturday Scream Queen: Barbara Lass

2011-08-06T00:12:00.000-07:00

Polish-born Barbara Lass' was on track to a career as a dancer when, at the age of 17 in 1957, she won a contest hosted by a movie magazine and was offered a film role as a result. By 1959, she left Poland for western Europe and an international film career that spanned three decades and 30 films. She also changed her last name from the very Polish Kwiatkowska to the very simple Lass.

Lass was seen mostly in comedies, as befitting her cute appearance, but she did manage to squeeze in a few horror roles, such as "Werewolf in a Girl's Dormitory", "Effie Breist" and "The Thorn in the Flesh."

Barbara Lass was once married to convicted child rapist Roman Polanski. She married him in 1959 when she was 19 and he was 26, but they divorced in 1961. It's easy to see what attracted Polanski to Lass, and even easier to imagine why she divorced him.

Lass died in 1995 at the age of 54 from a brain hemorrhage.

A special discount for Terror Titan readers on my new PDF eBook

2011-08-05T11:46:00.000-07:00

I've just released a little collection of classic horror stories through NUELOW Games, and I am offering a 50 percent discount for all readers of Terror Titans who get a copy.

"From Dark Corners" contains a total of thirteen short stories from Robert E. Howard, Bram Stoker, Arthur Conan Doyle, H.G. Wells, and Clark Ashton Smith. The newly prepared anthology takes you beyond the usual stories of Conan the Barbarian, Dracula, Sherlock Holmes, and Martians while sending chills down you spine that are sure to beat even the worst summer heat! (Naturally, I didn't write these stories; I just assembled the anthology and did some of the art.)

Use this link to buy your copy of "From Dark Corners" for $1.25, and start reading today!

In order to get the book at a discounted rate (or at all), you'll need an account with one of Onebookshelf's websites--be it DrivethruHorror, DrivethruFantasy, or RPGNow. Setting up an account takes no time at all, and once you have it, you can order thousands of books in many different electronic formats... even some good, old-fashioned print editions. Many products are even free.

I invite you to check out NUELOW Games' other fiction offerings, as well as our entire catalog of roleplaying games--if nothing else, grab a free copy of "ROLF: Old Skool" while there. We hope to release a Halloween supplement that will be compatible both with it and the new and improved "ROLF!: The Rollplaying Game of Big Dumb Fighters".

The special price is good through the first week of September, so get your copy today!