'Cold Storage' is a film that deserves a wider audience

Cold Storage (2007)
Starring: Nick Searcy, Joelle Carter, Matt Keeslar, Brett Gentile, Jeffrey Pillars, and Terry Loughlin
Director: Tony Elwood
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

Clive (Searcy), a mentally disturbed mountain man, meets the girl of his dreams and commits to spending the rest of his life with her. Unfortunately, she's already dead, having suffered a fatal injury in a car accident near Clive's isolated shack. However, he isn't the sort of guy to let a little thing like decomposition get in the way of happiness. Nor will he allow anyone else to get between him and his true love, especially the living who might come looking for her, such as her strong-willed sister (Carter) and her looking-to-reconcile ex-boyfriend (Keeslar).

"Cold Storage" is a top-notch horror flick that gets just about everything right. It features a great script that refrains from giving into genre cliches so so it remains exciting and its developments unexpected remain unexpected up the very last moment. Made for just a few hundred thousand dollars, it's a film that puts movies made with budgets measured in multiple millions to shame.

This is a movie that could easily have been yet another slasher movie about cityfolk meeting hicks in the backwoods who when they aren't breeding with their sisters are killing strangers who happen along. Thankfully, director and co-screenwriter Tony Elwood created a far better film than that. In fact, he used the rural setting of the film as a means to make it even more suspenseful by playing against the typical Hollywood image of anything outside Chicago, Los Angeles, or New York City.

Most of the film's action takes place in or near a small North Carolina mountain town called Rainerspoint. While there are some decidedly freaky people living on the town's outskirts, the town itself is inhabited by normal, typical Americans and it is like any other small town you might visit anywhere in the country. The sheriff--played by Jeffrey Pillars--comes across as bigoted, lazy and a bit incompetent, but that's more out of the fact that he has very little to do with his days than outright malice, and his attitude and behavior is countered by a couple of the shopkeepers we meet during the course of the film. In general, the people of Rainerspoint aren't a bunch of toothless freaks just waiting to pounce on anyone who happens by... they welcome the tourists and it's clear that if anyone was aware of what was going on out at Clive's shack, they would have been horrified and taken action far sooner than they did. No one here is trying to cover anything up, but, like most Americans, they tend to mind their own business and assume the best about their neighbors.

By making Rainerspoint a typical small town inhabited mostly by friendly people, Elwood makes the creep factor (and ultimately the horror factor) of the happenings at Clive's shack that much more frightening and intense. The weirdness of Clive isn't diluted by surrounding him with equally weird and scary neighbors--with one exception... and that neighbor is probably worse than Clive. Elwood further deploys set and lighting design to contrast the normality and the town with Clive's private world in the forest; the scenes in the town are all in clean, brightly lit places and the sun always seems to be shining on the street, but Clive's place is full of filth, deep and dark shadows and it always seems to be overcast or raining. It's a powerful approach, and it's one that shows that productions and scripts developed with thought and care will deliver powerful experiences no matter what the budget.

"Cold Storage" is as good as it is because of the great care that has been taken in creating it. During filming, it's clear that Elwood understood what to show and what not to show in order to build suspense, and it's equally plain that a good deal of post-production work took place. For countless reasons, post-production is where the mistakes that cause many low-budget films not to reach their full potential, mostly because the filmmakers cut corners. Oftentimes, it's the color correction process or the sound design/re-recording that drags a movie down. In the case here, viewers treated to big-budget post-production quality on a small-budget film. And it shows.

The film also gains much of its strength from its script. I've already talked about the intelligent portrayal of Rainerspoint, but the quality of the script also shines through in the way the story unfolds at a perfect pace. Although we know full well that the two main characters, Cathy and Daric, won't find Cathy's sister alive, the gradual revelation of exactly how insane Clive truly is ensures that the viewers will be on the edge of their seats when the inevitable confrontation with Clive happens; it's an encounter where we know someone will end up dead, and it will probably be one or both of our heroes.

Speaking of heroes... this is another area where the film excels. It features a cast of very talented actors who take the excellent material provided to them in the script and bring it fully to life.

Nick Searcy gives a spectacular performance as the deranged Clive that makes the viewers feel sympathy for the character even as he repulses and terrifies us. It's a performance that displays both acting and scripting of a caliber that is all-too-rarely seen in films.

Joelle Carter is also noteworthy as Cathy, who portrays a stubborn, confident woman deeply concerned for her sister. It's a part where she easily could have come across as bitchy, but she never does. Similarly, her character comes across so clearly that when she does something very, very stupid toward the end of the movie, it seems perfectly natural for her to do so, instead of an example of Stupid Character Syndrome (where a character's brain stops working because the plot needs him or her to do something so the story can continue).


"Cold Storage" isn't perfect--it DOES have one example of pure Stupid Character Syndrome [although, maybe not, because the character being boneheaded and putting himself in danger because of it doesn't seem very swift to begin with] but this is small flaw is heavily outweighed by the superior quality of everything else in the film.

From the script, through the set design, the lighting, the acting, the cinematography, the special effects, and the musical score are all of a quality that puts to shame any number of horror flicks that have appeared in the theaters in recent years. The only thriller and horror movie fans who will be disappointed by this film are those who are into the "torture porn" genre or who feel that if there aren't any boobs on screen it's not worth their time. Everyone else will love it!

"Cold Storage" is, sadly, still looking for a distributor, so it may be a while before you'll have a chance to see it. I sincerely hope that someone has the good taste to snatch up this film, because it's head and shoulders above most modern horror films.





To read more about the film, visit the office website by clicking here.

'Return to House on Haunted Hill' is a wasted trip

Return to House on Haunted Hill (2007)
Starring: Amanda Righetti, Erik Palladino, Tom Riley, Kevin Pacey, Andrew Lee Potts, and Jeffrey Combs.
Director: Victor Garcia
Rating: Four of Ten Stars

Treasure hunters are trapped and targeted for death by angry spirits when they invade Hill House in search of an evil idol reputed to be hidden there.


This sequel to a misguided remake of the original "House on Haunted Hill" is a smidgen better than the movie it follows, but it actually suffers becausethe tenious connections it has to the 1999 movie leads to logical lapses and plotholes. (The biggest of is the way the groups of characters can just wander into the house easily and unchallenged. After the events of the other film, whoever owns it would HAVE to have taken steps to secure it. And don't get me started on the "hey, let's break the locking mechanism of the house by shooting at it" scene.)

The logical lapses, however, are minor whem compared to the bad dialogue that is standard throughout this film and the Stupid Character Syndrome that comes into play more than once to keep the flimsy plot moving--even when allowing for ghostly befuddlement of wits, several characters in this film are so stupid one wonders how they remembered to breathe.

The actors do a pretty good job with the material they have--Eric Pallandino is particularly fun to watch as he chews up scenery as the evil treasure hunter who is the inadvertent cause of everyone else's doom--and the special effects are passable. But, overall, this is a pretty weak film which deserves to fade into total obscurity.

"The Ghost and Mr. Chicken" is an amusing comedy in the Scooby-Doo mold

The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (1966)
Starring: Don Knotts, Joan Staley, Liam Redmond, Dick Sargent, and Skip Homier
Director: Alan Rafkin
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

When the timid typesetting at small-town newspaper (Knotts) has a shot at acheiving his dream of becoming a reporter by spending the night in a local haunted house, his tale of the ghostly manifestations turn him into a local hero, gets him the respect of his boss (Sargent), a chance to romance the girl of his dreams (Staley) and show up a bullying co-worker (Homier). But when he is later challenged to show others the haunting, everything is quiet and he may lose everything. What is going on in the Murder House?


"The Ghost and Mr. Chicken" is a great family movie that should entertain young kids and adults equally. While Don Knotts is best in small doses, the story here of the sweet nerd who comes out ahead should appeal to everyone.

The cast is good, with Knotts, Sargent, and Redmond (whose turn as the strangely manipulative janitor provides some of the films most puzzling and funny moments, until the Big Revelation occurs) being particularly good. Staley is a bit of a dead spot, but she's only here to be the Cute, Sensitive Love Interest, so her apparent limited ability doesn't harm the film much. The soundtrack is also good, featuring a single theme used in different enough ways that it doesn't become repetitive, and which manages to both be small-townish, funny, and spooky all at once.

The only real complaint I have with the film is that the director and technical crew should have spent a little more time on lighting. The night and day shots are lit the same way, and the house and grounds are no where near as spooky as they should be, due to the flat lighting throughout.

Still, it's an entertaining, good-natured film that's worth your time. Check it out.

'Curse of the Wolf' shows common problems with low budget films

Curse of the Wolf (2006)
Starring: Renee Porada, Todd Humes, Leon South, Brian Heffron, Alex Bolla, Pamela Sutch, Darian Caine, Lanny Poffo, and Kylie Deneen
Director: Len Kabasinsk
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

Dakota (Porada) is a reluctant werewolf who finally finds a way to suppress her bestial nature and monthly transformations and starts a new life in the city. When the leader of the werewolf pack she used to belong to (Humes) decides she needs to be forced to accept her true nature and starts targeting her newfound friends for death, she allies herself with an enigmatic nightclub owner (Poffo) and his more-than-capable bouncers/enforcers.


"Curse of the Wolf" is one of countless low-budget. barely above amateur-level productions where I can see the heart and excitement of the filmmakers and actors in every scene, but where I ultimately have to give it a bad rating because heart and love of a project is not enough to make a good movie.

Although the film suffers from a myriad of technical problems (the typical bad sound recording of the modern low-budget film, day-for-night shoots so blatant I haven't seen the likes since Amicus closed up shop, and a complete absence of color correction), the biggest problem here is with the editing. I think if the editing had been tighter in ust about every scene, the stagy, hammy acting of the performers would have come across a little less stagy, a little less like each actor was politely waiting for their fellow performers to finish their line before they started theirs. (Of course, more rehearsal time on the part of the actors might also have gone a long way to solving this problem.)

Another problem is that EVERYONE in the picture is acting as if they are playing to the very back row of a very large theater, except for Darian Caine, who is about right and who therefore seems like she is sleepwalking through the movie. I'm not sure if this was an intentional approach on the part of the director--there are many moments in the film that put me in mind of old horror movies from the likes of the aforementioned Amicus, Hammer, and American-International--or whether it was inexperience that failed to reign the actors in. I suspect it's the former, because the lines delivered by Todd Hume in his role as the werewolfpack leader Michael would sound fantastic if coming from the likes of Christopher Lee or Charles Gray (as they appeared in the 1960s), but they don't work quite so well coming from him because he doesn't have the presence to back up the over-the-top drama with which he delivers each line.

Things aren't all bad, however, The fact that the film made me think of some of my favorite horror movies and classic horror film actors says alot about the underlying quality that peeks through the generally bad execution of this film. It's also laudible that writer/director Len Kabasinski managed to make a somewhat successful werewolf movie on a very tight budget. (The werewolf parts are pretty well done, so long as allowances are made for the universally bad editing.)

Kabasinski also understands how to place the camera when filming fight scenes. The camerawork during the many fights in the film is some of the best I've seen in movies of this vintage and of this level of budget. There are a few places where the actors are under-rehearsed and therefore they either telegraph or anticipate blows (thus revealing the fight is staged), and the fight scenes suffer from the same lax editing that the plagues the entire film, but this is one area where Kabasinski displays real talent. He clearly has a flair for making horror movies with a martial arts/action flavor to them.

And while I'm covering what's praiseworthy about the film, I should mention Brian Heffron, who takes an amusing turn as a rather gross comic relief werewolf character in this flick. He does a good job in a fairly well-written part. It's too bad several of the gags are spoiled by the weak editing.

(Yes, I know I've harped on the editing in this film, but I think it really is what kept this film from getting a 4 or maybe even a low 5 rating.)

Werewolf films seem to be the hardest type of horror movies to do right... and with a little more care and money, I think this one could have be counted among those few. Actually, I think the topic of werewolves might be something Kabasinski should consider returning to the topic down the road. He continues to improve as a filmmaker, so I think he could eventually bring us one kickass werewolf film even if he continues to shoot on a shoestring budgets.

'Death of a Ghost Hunter' is a well-crafted spook fest

(In August of 2015, this film appears to be out of print on DVD... which is a damn shame. It least it's still available through streaming services.) Death of a Ghost Hunter (2007)
Starring: Patti Tindall, Mike Marsh, Davina Joy, and Lindsay Page
Director: Sean Tretta
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

Professional ghost hunter Carter Simms (Tindall) is hired to lead a three-day investigation at a house where a preacher and his family perished twenty years ago in what appeared to be a brutal murder/suicide. Together with videographer Colin Green (Marsh) and journalist Yvette Sandoval (Joy), and joined at the last minute by the enigmatic fundamentalist Christian Mary Young Mortenson (Page), she sets out to locate and document any evidence of ghostly activity. What she finds will shock her. What she doesn't find will kill her.


"Death of a Ghost Hunter" is an expertly crafted ghost movie that manages to both hold to the traditions of the genre while also delivering unexpected surprises. It's a movie that will satisfy those in the audience who are interested in the "science" of ghost hunting (as portrayed in the "Ghost Hunters" television series, or by guests on late-night talkshow "Coast to Coast AM), as well as those who are just looking for a well-done supernatural thriller.

The Wolfman and Paul Naschy

Spanish actor/writer/director Paul Naschy died at the age of 75 on December 1, 2009. Horror fandom has seen another one of the iconic actors pass away, and I don't think there's anyone that can be pointed to as an equal in the modern filmworld.

At the very least, I doubt anyone will beat his record of having portrayed a werewolf in at least 12 different movies. Few actors outside of episodic television stick with anything that long these days.


I wasn't going to start this blog for another two or three months, but this seems like the right time to do a round-up of the Paul Naschy reviews, putting forth both the good and the bad among his movies that I've enjoyed over the years. (And so some extent, I've gained enjoyment from all of Naschy's films. No matter how weak they were overall, there was always some cool element that I could say made at lest some of the time well spent.)

My guess is that I've watched and reviewed other Naschy films over the years, but these are the four that sprang immediately to mind. In fact, if you like the look and feel of European horror films from the 1970s, I recommend tracking down a copy of "The Hanging Woman." It's one of the best you'll find.


The Fury of the Wolfman (aka "The Wolfman Never Sleeps") (1970)
Starring: Paul Naschy, Perla Cristal, Veronica Lujan, and Mark Stevens
Director: Jose Maria Zabalza
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

When a globe-trotting scientist (Naschy) contracts lycanthropy, he becomes the latest subject of the twisted experiments of a mad scientist (Cristal) and her all-woman team of graduate student assistants.


"The Fury of the Wolfman" is a mess of a movie. It's over-long, partially due to the fact that the creators seemed to want to cram every legend and scientific-sounding theory they'd heard about werewolves into the picture and tie them into the efforts of their multi-discipline mad scientist... who is working on several mind control projects and creating human/plant hybrids in the basement of her creepy castle. And then there's the completely superflous plotline involving a reporter and a police inspector who are both trying to track down the wolfman.

Another issue with the film is the title. It would have been more aptly named "Moonlight Strolls of the Wolfman" or "The Wolfman, Starring WB's Tazmanian Devil"... because the wolfman spends much of his time just wandering about, and when he's snarling, he sounds exactly like the Tazmanian Devil from the old Bugs Bunny cartoons. While this does give rise to much unintended hilarity, it doesn't make for much of a horror film.

The movie is at its best as the poor victim of lycanthropy and a newfound ally try to escape the mad scientist's castle. But this is about ten minutes of the running time, and even here the film lapses into unintended comedy.

"The Fury of the Wolfman" is fast enough paced, has enough characters behaving stupidlyl, and enough instances of fullblown, unintended comedic disaster that it would make for a fine addition to a "Bad Movie Nite" party... but that's all it's good for.



Werewolf Shadow (aka "The Werewolf vs. the Vampire Woman", "Blood Moon" and "Shadow of the Werewolf") (1970)
Starring: Paul Naschy, Gaby Fuchs, Barbara Capell, Patty Shepard, and Yelina Samarina
Director: Leon Klimovsky
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

Two college students (Fuchs and Capell) conducting research into a supposed vampire and witch from the Middle Ages (Shepard) trace the existence of her tomb the isolated castle of Count Waldemar Daninisky (Naschy). While the hospitible, yet secretive, count is showing them the tomb, the ancient (and very hungry and lusty) vampire is awakened. Will the count be able to save the girls and the nearby villagers? Will he decide that there are days where it's actually good to be cursed with lycanthropy?


"Werewolf Shadow" is a direct sequel to "Fury of the Wolfman", and, although a bit slow at times and showing signs of a director struggling to pad the film to meet a certain running time, it's a pretty good little flick--and it's far, far better than the film it follows. It stands up nicely when compared to some of the movies released by Hammer around the same time. Of course, if you're familiar with the output of Hammer in the early 1970s, you might think I'm damning this film with faint praise... and you might not be entirely wrong.

(And if you've seen "Fury of the Wolfman", you're probably wondering why the Good Count is even around. That's explained quite nicely in the first minutes of the film, where a coroner makes the worst blunder of his career. It's a sequence that is one of the more effective in the film.)

This is an okay horror flick, but it's not great. Its a solidly average 1970s monster film, teetering on the brink of low-average (between the ratings of 5 and 6 on my scale). It's got decent acting, some nice, moody camerawork, and there's some great use of lighting and fog machines to enhance the creepiness of many scenes. The slow-motion, gliding movements of the vampires is an excellently executed way of adding creepiness to them, and there are moments when the film is almost lifting itself up to a higher level of quality... but those moments pass quickly and then the movie sinks back to its low-average comfort zone.

A big problem is the above-mentioned padding of scenes. Another problem is the film's star, Paul Naschy. Just like in "The Fury of the Werewolf", he seems to more stroll through the night than run. He does a slightly better job when he's not a werewolf, but he still seems to dragging himself through the film... and as a result he drags it down.

On the upside, though, the film is helped by three gorgeous leading ladies (Shepard is particularly good and sexy as the resurrected vampiress), plenty of bare breasts, a good heaping of blood, and a well-done climactic fight.

It's worth seeking out if you enjoy early 1970s horror flicks, but just be aware that Naschy is quite possibly the most lethargic wolfman in cinematic history.


Hanging Woman (aka "The Orgy of the Dead", "Terror of the Living Dead", and "Return of the Zombies") (1972)
Starring: Stan Cooper, Dianik Zurakowska, Maria Pia Conte, Paul Naschy and Gerard Tichy
Director: John Davidson (or Jose Luis Moreno, depending on the source)
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

When Serge Chekov (Cooper) arrives in a small mountain village to claim his inheritance, he stumbles upon the body who has seemingly comitted suicide. He soon learns she's a resident in the manor house he's inherited from, his recently deceased uncle. It soon becomes apparent that both the hanged woman and Chekov's uncle were actually murdered, and he attempts to find out why (with the assistance of pure-hearted Doris (Zurakowska)), he discovers bigger problems with his new house: The dead are getting out of their graves and killing the living.


"Hanging Woman" is a funky cross between a zombie movie and Sherlock Holmes-style detective film with a sensibility that harkens back to classic Hammer films, such as "The Reptile" and "Plague of the Zombies." It's relatively straight forward, but the way it tosses both witchcraft and Victorian-style mad science into the bubbling plot cauldron (not to mention a necropheliac grave-digger, played with flair by Spanish horror film mainstay Paul Naschy) obscures the going-ons just enough to keep the viewer as much in the dark as the protagonists.

The film could have benefitted from some judicious editing and script rewrites, but the acting is better than what is often seen in movies of this level--and this goes both for the actors on screen and the voice actors--and there are numerous genuinely tense moments, but the film is a little too slow-moving and flabby to be truly scary. Plus, there is a "shocking denoument" which is just plain stupid.



Horror Rises from the Tomb (1973)
Starring: Paul Naschy, Emma Cohen, Helga Line, Víc Winner, and Betsabe Ruiz
Director: Carlos Aured
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars


Hugo du Marnac (Nashcy) comes into possession of the severed head of an ancestor who was exectued for witchcraft centuries ago (also Naschy). Unlike many of those so condemned, Hugo's forebearer was a REAL warlock, and he's been waiting for centuries to have his head reunited with the rest of his body, so he can ressurect his witch-wife (Line) and resume their lives devoted to Satan and Evil. Subsequently, murder, mayhem, and water-logged zombies threaten to completely ruin Hugo and his friends' vacation in the French countryside.


"Horror Rises From the Tomb" starts slow, but once it gets going, it emerges that Paul Naschy made. The resurrection scenes, the heart-ripping scene, and the zombies shambling out of the lake are all very effective moments with images that will remain with you long after the movie is over. Naschy is also a bit more energetic than usual, bringing lots of energy to the roles he plays in this film--especailly to the evil warlock Alaric. Whether he's a head-in-a-box, or the resassembled servant of Satan, Naschy radiates evil here.

The supporting cast is decent, with the female leads being not only gorgeous to look at, but okay actresses to boot. The film is also well photographed and the filmmakers made excellent use of both the desolate landscapes and the decaying buildings that serve as the film's setting.

'Blood from the Mummy's Tomb' spilled for no cause

Blood from the Mummy's Tomb (1971)
Starring: Valerie Leon and Andrew Keir
Director: Seth Holt
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

In "Blood from the Mummy's Tomb", archeologist Prof. Fuchs (Keir) loots the tomb of an ancient, thoroughly evil Egyptian princess, carting its entire content (including her perfectly preserved, perfectly sexy, body) back to England and recreates the tomb in his basement. The dark magic harnessed by the princess in her lifetime--the same magic which is keeping her body from decaying--manifests itself by causing Fuchs' daughter Margaret to first grow into the perfect image of Tera (with Leon playing both the undead princess and Margaret) and then to unleash deadly dark magic upon an unsuspecting modern world as the spirit of Tera possesses the young woman.


While "Blood from the Mummy's Tomb" isn't the worst of Hammer's mummy movies' it's darn close (that honor goes to "The Mummy's Shroud.") It's got a muddled confusing plot that's crammed with too many characters (so none are ever properly introduced), at least one subplot too many (so none are ever properly resolved) and a build-up that's too slow and that seems even slower due to the fact that the storyline is confused and muddled and jammed with too many characters. The most amazing thing about the film is that it is losely based on Bram Stoker's "The Jewel of the Seven Stars", and it succeeds in being even more boring than that novel is!

Leon is easy on the eyes, and she gives an okay performance. Keir has a small part, but he does his usual excellent job--and it's him that really makes the ending work as well as it does. In fact, the ending is probably the only part of this movie that I'd consider to be well-executed. Everything else about "Blood from the Mummy's Tomb" is weak and flawed to some degree or another. (There is a scene where one of the members of Fuchs' expedition is killed by Tera's magic... but it's ruined by bad editing, so it goes from having the potential to be damn scary to just too much so it is seems more silly.)

Despite a strong ending, I'd only recommend "Blood from the Mummy's Tomb" to Hammer completists. As it stands, I think the creepiest thing about it is that Prof. Fuchs left the nearly naked Tera exposed on the slab in his basement. While she's a joy to behold, I would have thought that as Margaret came to resemble her more and more, Fuchs would have covered Tera up. Or maybe not. Who knows what happens behind closed doors among the upper-classes?

'Vampyros Lesbos' is Jess Franco at his best

Vampyros Lesbos (aka "The Vampire Women" and "The Heiress of Dracula") (1970s)
Starring: Soledad Miranda, Ewa Stromburg, and Dennis Price
Director: Jess Franco
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

Linda (Stromburg) is drawn to an island where a reclusive young noble woman resides in her castle. Turns out, this noble woman (Miranda) is a vampire with a taste for female flesh and blood. She drinks Linda's blood and starts her transformation into her eternal blood/love/lust slave. Random nonsense follows, as Linda attempts to fight off the vampiric urges and a vampire hunter (Price) with dark motives arrives on the scene.


"Vampyros Lesbos" is one of the better Jess Franco films I've seen, which means that it's not unwatchable garbage.

The film's got some very fascinating visuals, Soledad Miranda gives an excellent and subdued performance as the vampire queen, and there's a dreamlike atmosphere that hangs over the entire film... but, ultimately, what passes for the story here is just an excuse to show as many tits and naked lesbian nookie as possible. Not that is necessarily a bad thing, but when the story is convoluted and badly thought out, it becomes almost as frustrating as the bad comedy bits that Seduction Cinema likes to insert into their films (where the storylines are also mostly just there as an excuse to show naked, cavorting lesbians).

The story that IS here is better than what you find in, say, "My Vampire Lover", but there's no excuse for it to be as muddled as it is... except for the fact that it's badly executed becuase it's just there to get us from one softcore lesbian vampire scene to the next. It also causes the film to drag and feel over-long.

If you feel like you need "art" to justify your softcore porn watching, "Vampyros Lesbos" might be worth checking out. It's a nicely shot film with a pair of very pretty ladies in it.

Coming in December: Saturday Scream Queens

Joey Wang (star of "Chinese Ghost Story") wards off the cold and a different sort of chill, because she knows that in December, things really get going here at Cinema Steve's "Terror Titans". I'm introducing the weekly Saturday Scream Queen series where you'll find a mini-profile of a different actress every week..

'Ghost Watcher' delivers big chills on small budget

GhostWatcher (2002)
Starring: Jillian Byrnes, Jennifer Servary, and Marianne Hayden
Director: David A. Cross
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

Elizabeth Dean (Servary) makes a comfortable living from selling ghost detection devices of questionable utility and her supernaturally themed porn website, but when an emotionally disturbed young woman (Byrnes) who is being haunted by a real ghost approaches her for help, Elizabeth is drawn into an investigation of a real haunting.


"GhostWatcher" is a neat ghost movie that, despite being made on what is obviously a very low budget, it's more entertaining than many films with one hundred or perhaps even a thousand times the budget this was shot for. It's got a nice idea at its center--a phony ghost investigator gets drawn into a real haunting involving a particularly nasty ghost--and director David Cross and his cinematographer Dan Poole have a good eye for building suspense through visuals... there were a couple of scenes early in the movie that gave me Hitchcock flashbacks. If the editing had been a bit tighter, there could even have been some moments that might have rivaled his films for tensions and terror.

The script could have used more work (there are more examples of bad dialogue than good, and there are logic fallacies that strain even the most generous-minded viewer's ability to suspend disbelief), the acting is inconsistent (Byrnes and Servary are excellent in some scenes but awful in others... although this may arise from weaknesses of the script, as actors are often only as good as the material they have to work with), and the film ends in a confused mess of badly motivated character actions that are founded in the dictates of plot instead of character and good story telling.

I believe that if Cross had taken it through a draft or two more, he would have realized that Elizabeth Dean behaves in an utterly unrealistic fashion during the second half of the movie, even if we allow for the possibility that Cross was shooting for some sort of extreme version of a "hooker with a heart of gold" idea for her character. (I can't go into detail about how Elizabeth's behavior is unrealistic without spoiling several of the films major plot-twists, but this already neat character could have been so much more impressive if only she had been better developed.

With a more polished script, slightly tighter editing in a number of scenes, this film would have been very impressive. I'm going to have to seek out a copy of "Ghost Watcher II", because if Cross learned anything from this first film, I'm certain the sequel is superior.

(At the very least, he'll probably have a zombie that looks a little less like a member of the Blue Man Group down on his luck. That make-up added much unintended hilarity to what otherwise was one of the film's creepiest and most effective sequences.)

'Haunted Forest' is a good but flawed spook show

Haunted Forest (2007)
Starring: Sevy Di Cione, Adam Green, Jennifer Luree, Mark Hengst, Edoardo Beghi, and Kiralee Hayashi
Director: Mauro Borrelli
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

A group of twenty-somethings are stalked by a madman and the vengeful spirit of an Indian maiden who haunts an isolated stretch of forest. Will Sean (Di Cione) be able to interpret the secrets contained in his grandfather's diary before it's too late for everyone?


"Haunted Forest" is a spooky little ghost movie that borrows its good bits from Japanese ghost movies of recent years but dragged down by an overcomplicated script and lapses in story logic.

The ghost that transforms people into trees would have been plenty scary without the uninteresting, crazed trapper that serves as her "Igor." (And why does a ghost that moves easily through the entire forest need someone to help her trap victims anyway? I suppose the filmmakers were trying to throw in a red herring in regards to whether the events were supernatural in origin or not, but it's so very clear early on that they are that the trapper is redundant.)

The film's strongest point is the cinematography. The film gets a lot of mileage out of what was probably a very tight budget thanks to creative camera-work. It also goes a long way to making a beautiful forest into a very scary place.

The film also succeeds to the point that it does thanks to some well-written, believable characters. It's nice to see that some horror writers can still write tales that are character-driven rather than relying on gore or special effects to generate horror and tension. In fact, this film also relies on a time-honored ghost movie rule as far as the gore goes--less is more. There is very little splatter in this film, but what is present is as a result very impactful.

If the script had been tighter, this would have been a top-notch film. It's still worth seeking out if you're a big fan of ghost movies, but it's not a "must-see."

Despite title, this movie is not a Godsend

Godsend (2004)

Starring: Greg Kinnear, Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, Robert De Niro, and Cameron Bright

Director: Nick Hamm

Rating: Three of Ten Stars

A couple (Kinnear and Romijn-Stamos) agree to have their dead son cloned by a enigmatic doctor (De Niro) with inscrutable motives. Eventually, they discover that something is horribly wrong with their second first child...

"Godsend" attempts at being a science fiction film and a thriller and it fails miserably at both. It's based on science so nonsensical that even the most openminded and willing to suspend disbelief viewer will be rolling their eyes, and the plot only gets worse when you toss in the spiritual/reincarnation/cosmic destiny component. Worse, the story is the worse kind of stupid, because there are far, far easier and more sensible ways for the story's bad guy to achieve his goals. (The rationale for the lame complications in the story might be "he's crazy", but that's the sort of cop-out that no remotely professional writer should ever have to fall back on. It's the only one that seems to apply here, however.)

Greg Kinnear gives one of the most over-the-top, hammish performances in the history of cinema, Cameron Bright is his usual Creepy Kid character, and Robert De Niro seems to just be there to collect a quick paycheck. Romijn-Stamos is okay, but she was better in "Lies and Alibies", which isn't saying much.

If you want to see a thriller that includes a cloning angle and a modern-day spin on the whole "tampering with things Man Was Not Mean to Know" spin to it, you're better off seeking out a copy of the 1976 sci-fi thriller "Embryo" with Rock Hudson. It's a superior movie on every level (and one I just realized I still have never written a review for. I'll have to rectify that in short order).






Trivia: Robert Di Niro was originally slated to play little more than a cameo, but once production started, it was decided to expand his character's role in the story. Maybe what we have here is the result of first draft efforts making their way into a final product.

'Outpost' is the place where ghosts meet mad science

Outpost (2008)
Starring: Ray Stevenson, Julian Wadham, Richard Brake, Brett Fancey, Paul Blair, Enoch Frost, Michael Smiley and Julian Rivett
Director: Steve Barker
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

A group of mercenaries are hired to escort a scientist to a desolate area within a civil-war torn eastern European nation. Here, they find a bunker that's been abandoned since WW2, a bunker that houses a Nazi experiment that was never quite brought to a close....


"Outpost" is a pretty straight-forward, no-frills horror movie where our cast of tough guys spend ten minutes getting to the "haunted house", half an hour realizing they're not alone and they're in big trouble, and the last hour trying to figure out a way to save themselves while being slaughtered one by one.

This is a decently paced fright-fest that offers up a pseudo-scientific explanation for the origins of the undead/time-lost Nazi monsters our unsavory mercenary heroes come up against. (Ah, the Nazis... has any other group of lunatic scumbags been as rich and varied a source for so many genres of movies and fiction?)

The only complaint I have is that I wish the writers and/or director had spent a little more time on figuring out the how's and why's of the creatures; their abilities and strength seems to change and vary for no reason other than plot demands. That isn't enough to knock the film to the low end of average though.

For a frightfest that won't put any strain on your brain, I recommend "Outpost".