Can it be? Can we have found that rarest of horror movie characters--one that isn't stupid and has a tiny bit of survival instinct? Or is something else happening here? Check out today's micro fright film and tell us what YOU think!
Not This Time (2021)
Starring: Christina Morris
Director: Christina Moris
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars
(Actually, we hope you got a big a kick out of the twist to this one as we did!)
Today's Tuneful Tuesday is different than anything we usually present during the 31 Nights of Halloween, in that it's 40 minutes long and it's a musical. Yes, a musical.
The Line, the Cross, and the Curve (1993)
Starring: Kate Bush, Miranda Richardson, and Lindsey Kemp
Director: Kate Bush
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars
A multi-talented musician and performer (Bush) is going through a crisis of confidence when a supernatural creature (Richardson) tricks her into putting on a pair of cursed pointe shoes. She must travel through alien dimensions and confront demons to remove the curse before she is compelled to dance herself to death.
"The Line, the Cross, and the Curve" is the rarest of films: It's a musical that is also succeeds brilliantly at being a dark fantasy film. Given that Kate Bush is not only a highly skilled dancer, musician and vocalist, but also has a talent telling stories infused with ethereal spookiness and outright horror, she could well have been the only creator in the 1990s who could have pulled this off. Or the only creator, ever.
Partly inspired by a fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen and a movie from the 1940s (both titled "The Red Shoes"), this film is built around songs from Bush's album "The Red Shoes". It was made as the music video was reaching its creative pinnacle as a format, and it deserves to be ranked among the very best of those efforts. (The film did win some awards Back in the Day, and it was also broken up into pieces to serve as videos for the songs featured.)
"The Line, the Cross, and the Curve" is beautifully shot and brimming with great music. It may be a bigger time commitment than items we generally offer for your entertainment during the Halloween Season, but we think you'll find this a very enjoyable.
Alex Magana is back for a second time this year! We're just going to make it official and declare Magana Mondays for the entirely of the 31 Nights of Halloween!
The Mime 2 (2022) Starring: Orion Smith and Isabella Moore
Director: Alex Magana
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars
A commuter (Smith) comes to regret slighting a street-performing mime (Moore).
"The Mime 2" sees writer/director Alex Magana returning to a familiar set-up: An unfortunate Normie encounters a wrathful or inscrutable supernatural being on a deserted railway platform late at night. And it's a fine return to his old stomping ground. (As with most films this short, the more I say, the more likely I am to ruin the freaky spookiness of the piece... so I will stop typing and instead just recommend you click below. I assure you that, by the end, you will think twice about not tipping performers, as well as catching that late-night train.)
Hello? (2021) Starring: Emmy James, Brian McGuire, and Jules Nurrish Director: Tim Shechmeister
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars
A young actress (James) visiting Hollywood for a series of auditions rents a furnished apartment with a storied history. Unfortunately, she soon discovers there's one story the book isn't closed on.
"Hello?" is a creepy little film that goes in a different direction that its opening scenes led me to expect. It's a ghost story that features a character who tries to interact with the phantom menacing her on its terms as she tries to distract and appease it. I appreciated the fact the filmmakers presented us with a character who tries something other than hiding, fighting, or just screaming in response to the supernatural. I appreciated it even more, because it's also well-acted and well-filmed.
This element might have a stronger appeal for me than for many others, because I, too, have my fun with casting now-obscure but once-famous real-life Hollywood actresses in tales of the supernatural and horror. The main figure in such efforts on my part has been Bessie Love, but Joan Blondell has also been the subject of a flight of fancy or two.
Whether you like fictionalized versions of Old Hollywood or just well-crafted horror stories that don't go where you expect them to, I think you'll enjoy "Hello?"
Italian actress Jennifer Mischiati was born in 1986. Her early childhood was spent constantly on the move, living all over Italy and eventually in various places in the United States. The one constant for her wherever she lived was her interest in volleyball and studying dance.
The family eventually returned to Italy, and, while they were living in Rome, Mischiati developed an interest in performing. By the time she was 15, she had resolved that acting would be her life.
After initially studying acting at Italian universities, Mischiati secured a student visa to the United States and relocated to Hollywood at the age of 20 to continue her studies. While in the U.S., she became fluent in English and worked hard to gain a natural-sounding American accent so she could more easily gain parts in American productions. Her athleticism and grace served her well as she learned her craft, as she also came to master stage combat and sword fighting. Eventually, she graduated from the American Musical and Dramatic Academy (AMDA) at the top of her class.
Mischiati returned to Italy in 2009 and launched into a busy international acting career that has spanned stage, television, and film. From working as a stuntwoman (including being a stand-in for Angelina Jolie); to leading roles in Shakespearean stage productions (such as Desdemona in "Othello"); supporting roles on several Italian television shows; appearing in short films and numerous music videos; and a number leading roles in independent films--mostly sci-fi, fantasy, and horror-- she gets busier with each passing year.
Among Mischiati's most notable horror film appearances are key supporting or starring roles in "Ex Inferis" (aka "Back From Hell") (2011), "Evil Things" (2012), "The Plan" (2017), "Curse of the Blind Dead" (2020), and "Fade Out" (aka "Succubus") (2021). Most recently, she played the lead role in "Dead Bride" (2022), and she is also starring in the soon-to-be released "The Follower".
Playground (2022) Starring: Wolfgang Fiegl and April Fiegl
Director: Jacob Arbittier
Rating: Nine of Ten Stars
A young boy (Wolfgang Fiegl) is led away from a park playground and into darkness.
Burnt Mill Road has a thriving YouTube Channel that is full of the type of mini-horror films that have become Our Thing to cover in recent years here at Terror Titans. We've checked out their offerings on an infrequent basis, and we found them to be a bit erratic quality-wise, but there's been enough quality that we check out films when they show up in Recommended.
But this one is going to make us go back and take another look through their listings to see if we've missed any perfect, ghoulish gems.
"Playground" is one of the more terrifying films we've come across while selecting the line-up for this year's 31 Nights of Halloween. This film is so expertly done that the real terror hits when it ends. (I'll continue my comments below, so as to not spoil the film for those who check it out.)
Speaking of spoilers, I just realized the preview image for "Playground" is a bit of one. This goes double if you've been following the Burnt Mill Road channel, as it's actually part of a series featuring the same unseen camera operator, doing terrifying things.
Coming to this film cold (not having seen any of the previous entries in the series), I think it was a smart move on the part of Burnt Mill and Jacob Arbittier to so, because it hides where the story is going until the Big Reveal. I understand the benefit to letting audiences know that there's another bit of something they like through titles, but I think that can sometimes work against horror short-shorts like this one.
Based on production quality and acting alone (Wolfgang Fiegl is a very talented child actor!) this is a Eight of Ten Stars effort on our 0-10 scale. When little touches like the dedication at the beginning of the film and the credits listings on the YouTube page are added in, it gets a Nine rating that is bordering on a Ten! Those little touches make this film scarier when it's over, because it feels all-too-real.
We hope we're not front-loading the great films too much, but "Playground" may well be one of the best horror shorts you'll see this Halloween Season!
Ping (2021) Starring: Becca Breitfeller Director: Josh Breitfeller Rating: Five of Ten Stars
After her cellphone goes missing, a young woman (Briefeller) tries to locate it by "pinging" it with her smart-watch.
Technically, this is a well-done film. The sound is good, the lighting is great, and the camerawork is excellent. The acting is good and the pacing is spot on. I really like what's here. Before the review continues, perhaps you should watch "Ping" so I don't taint your experience with the negativity (and minor spoilers) that are coming.
What is lacking in "Ping" is a proper set-up. I often comment on the slow-wittedness of horror movie characters, or their complete lack of survival instinct... but I don't recall encountering a character quite as dim as this one before. Or so she seems, because there isn't a proper set-up for why she behaves in such an inexplicably dumb fashion.
Maybe it's a generational thing, but I can assure you that if I was alone in my home and my cellphone mysteriously moved from one part of the house to one I hadn't been in for a while, I wouldn't go looking. No, I'd leave the house and to borrow a neighbor's phone to call the police or a gun-owning friend or two. For most of "Ping", I was swinging back and forth between thinking "this is really well done" and "they didn't think this one through, did then?"
This very technically competent film is undermined by a badly constructed story. It needed to establish why the main character is so calm about her phone seemingly migrating from in front of the TV to a closet in an upstairs bedroom. This could easily have been done with perhaps a bunch of beer cans and liquor bottles around the living room and on the kitchen counter, and the character remarking to herself that she must have blacked out again (or something similar). Or maybe there could have been a minute at the beginning to establish there might be someone else in the house who is an annoying prankster?
This could have been a great little movie with just a bit more story/character development. As it is, it's still worth seeing, but it's not what it could have been.
When us Gen Xers were kids, we were taught to never get into a cars driven by strangers. That admonition carried into adulthood, at least for young women. With the arrival of "ride-sharing apps" like Lyft and Uber, that warning has gone by the wayside... now EVERYONE gets in cars with strangers, and they're letting strangers get into their cars.
This can be a very, very bad idea. Especially during the 31 Nights of Halloween....
The Melodicka Bros. and Violet Orlandi return again for this year's 31 Nights of Halloween with cover tunes and videos that turn pop classics into horror film tributes!
First up, we have "Stayin' Alive" serving as the backdrop for a zombie saga on the scale of "Dawn of the Dead" or "Night of the Living Dead"!
Stayin' Alive (2021)
Starring: Dave Melodicka, Joe Melodicka, and Violet Orlandi
Dead Bride (2022) Starring: Jennifer Mischiati, Christopher Hulsen, Douglas Dean, David White, Sean James Sutton, and Luna Francavilla Director: Francesco Picone Rating: Eight of Ten Stars
After her biological father dies, Alyson (Mischiati), together with her newborn child and her husband (Hulson), moves back to the isolated mansion where she grew up. Here, as dark memories return, and her long struggle with sleep paralysis grows more intense, a supernatural evil stirs and a family curse returns in full force.
"Dead Bride" is a love letter to the classic horror films and ghost movies. It even runs slightly less than an hour-and-a-half, which, to me, remains the ideal length for a horror flick.
This is also a film that relies more on mood created by lighting and camera angles and performances by the actors than special effects. What practical effects are present all serve enhance the plot as well as creepiness, instead of the movement in recent years toward the effects being present for their own sake more than anything else. The film is also perfectly paced, from its mysterious and creepy pre-credit sequence through the literally out-of-this-world climactic sequence when Alyson undertakes a spiritual journey to save her son. The final half-hour of this picture is among the spookiest and trippiest I've seen in recent years.
I have very few complaints I can mount regarding this movie, and most of them are nitpicky. As is my habit, I'm not going to bother with those, but instead just deal with major issues.
First, there are many examples of clunky dialogue in the film. The actors do their best with it, but it is just too stilted to work, no matter how well they deliver their lines. At its worst, this weakness distracted from and undermined a couple otherwise well-filmed and well-acted scenes.
Further, there are three major story elements that I feel were not properly developed or resolved, and I'm in two minds about the way "Dead Bride" wraps up--I both love and hate the horror of it. It fits well enough with the rest of the film--although it only exists because of a couple completely dropped plot threads--but it's not quite the ending I excepted or wanted. (Well, it is, in part. It really suffers because of a key story element that seems to get forgotten once the climax starts. I am borderline harping on that now, but it had enough of an impact that I waffled between giving "Dead Bride" a Seven rather than the Eight rating I ultimately settled on.)
I can't really say more about those undeveloped/unresolved story elements, nor the ending, without spoiling the film. And, since this movie is being released on streaming platforms on October 4, 2022, roughly around the time I am posting this review, I would much rather have those of you out there who love classic ghost movies and haunted house films (and we can even throw flicks featuring demons and demonic cults into the mix) check out "Dead Bride" and then come back and give their take on what might be lacking in the comments section below.
Actually, I'd much rather have all of you reading this go watch "Dead Bride" on Prime Video, iTunes, Google Play, XBox, and other streaming services including some local cable and satellite providers, and then tell us what you LIKED about it in the comments. I think you'll find it to be worthy of your time during this Halloween Season.
To further help in your decision-making, here's a preview of the film:
Films by Alex Magana were a cornerstone of last year's 31 Nights of Halloween, and his Smiling Woman series kept us spooked as we waited for darkness to settle across the land yet again. And, this year, we will be bringing out more tiny terror tidbits from Mr. Magana, and we hope you find them as effective as we did!
For Magana's first 2022 31 Nights entry, we bring you his second piece chronicling foolish young ladies testing Bloody Mary. (It goes as well for them as you might expect...)
We feel this is the perfect treat for our visitors on this, the second of the 31 Nights of Halloween. It's the tale of a man who has his peaceful evening alone at home interrupted by... himself!
The Doppelganger (2021)
Starring: Stuart Hamilton
Director: Stuart Hamilton
Rating: Six of Ten Stars
(We also felt it was okay to that a trick came along with the treat... we hope you agree!)
Shower scenes and big knives have been a horror movie mainstays since at least the 1960s. We're kicking off this year's 31 Nights of Halloween with a film that features both. It also happens to be pretty damn scary! That final 30 seconds or so... truly nightmare-inducing!
