This isn't a Farmer's Daughter Joke

Silent Bloodnight (2005)
Starring: Vanessa Vee, Robert Cleaner, Alexander E. Fennon and Mike Vega
Directors: Stefan Peczelt and Elmar Weihsmann
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

A farmer and his son (Cleaner and Fennon) go on a killing spree in a small Austrian town to avenge the rape and murder of the farmer's daughter, and to eliminate any potential witnesses to the rape and their subsequent killings. And then to get rid of witnesses to the killings of the witnesses. When sex-pot local access channel TV reporter Sabrina (Vee) starts to investigate the string of murders, she becomes a target as well.


From its title through the final scene, "Silent Bloodnight" is a stupifying mess. The plot makes absoultely no sense, the reasons for the many killings are nonsensical (even for a pair who must have been psychopathic before the slaying of their daughter/sister), questions are raised in the course of the movie and never answered, and the film SHOULD have been over about thirty minutes in, if the local Chief of Police (Vega) wasn't so incompetent that it broke my disbelief's suspension. (I want to know where to send the repair bill.)

The film also has the further problem that its cast is made up of Austrian actors performing in English. Their Engilsh is decent enough, but I can imagine that those who didn't grow up around a variety of accents may occasionally have trouble understanding what is being said at times. I also think that the fact the film was shot in English instead of German may have harmed some of the acting in it. What we have here is actually a little above par for a low-budget slasher film these days (where anyone with a Camcorder, some red dye, and a few friends with enthusiasm and spare time on their hands thinks they can make a movie), but I can't help but wonder if Vee might not have been better in a couple of the scenes if she hadn't been so obviously focused on enunciation of English phrases that might otherwise be slurred and incomprehensible under her Austrian accent. (Arnold Schwarzenegger makes it seem a lot easier than it is.)

This movie would really have benefited from a few more thousand dollars worth of budget, and a decent group of British voice actors. In fact, this is ready-made to be redubbed, as several scenes have been carefully staged to avoid any signs in German--we don't even see the side of the police car that appears a few times--and the actors are listed in the credits with Anglicized names.

With all that said, the movie still has a number of good qualities. First, lovers of the slasher-genre will enjoy a number of parallels to the early "Friday the 13th" movies, and they should also appreciate the fact that this is an attempt to make a serious slasher film. Second, any horror fan will able able to appreciate the decent camerawork throughout--I wish the entire film had been as spooky as the opening scenes of the barefoot young woman in a white dress doing ballet steps down a country, but what we get is decent enough. Third, the gore effects are expertly done (except for the spurting severed neck we see a couple of times... they should have made the shoulders look a little less plastic). Fourth, Sabrina does her newscasts in a bikini, and she and the most of the other girls in the film are usually wearing tight or skimpy outfits, just like old time slasher-flicks! The film also features a very high degree of nudity and sex. Fifth--a personal favorite of mine--the film features a van that gets turned into a mobile gas chamber!

"Silent Bloodnight" was a film that I had a little harder time than usual assigning a rating to. The movie has some pretty glaring flaws (the weak script that relies to a large extent on Stupid Character Syndrome being the biggest), but there was also a fair degree of craftsmanship and creative energy evident throughout. More importantly, the film kept me entertained, even while rolling my eyes at the lameness of Mike Vega's character, and the entertainment value always is an important factor in how highly I rate a movie. In the final analysis, this film ends up at the low end of average with a rating of Five.

The Best of Charles Band

Writer/director/producer Charles Band has left his mark on some of my favorite movies. As much as I hate to admit it, it is increasingly appearing to me like his creative Golden Age was during the 1990s and that he may never reach those heights of inspired madness ever again. I keep hoping that he will Find His Groove again, but I'm growing increasingly doubtful. (I'm starting to wonder if the missing element in recent years has been the late Kirk Edward Hansen. He was co-producer on most of Band's best efforts.)

However, thanks to the DVD, we can always enjoy his old movies. Here are reviews of Band's five best pictures. I'd love to hear your take on them, if you have one.


Trancers (aka "Future Cop") (1985)
Starring: Tim Thomerson, Helen Hunt and Michael Stefani
Director: Charles Band
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

Just as the toughest cop in Angel City of 2247, Jack Deth (Thomerson) wipes out the last diciple of Whistler (Stefani), a powerful psychic and cult-leader who turned his followers into homicidal zombies, he learns that Whistler has fled some 250 years into the past... to 1985 where he is hunting and killing the ancestors of those who thwarted his plans of domination. Whistler plans to change history and only Jack Deth can stop him by following him back into the past, and do what he does best: Hunt trancers.


"Trancers" is a fun sci-fi flick that should be counted among Band's finest efforts. classics. It doesn't have any of the weird puppets and miniatures that would soon become hallmarks of Band's films, but it has a well-crafted script with lots of creative ideas and a plot that zips along at a lightning-fast pace yet still leaves time for character development that adds depth to the proceedings, and his other trademark--a mix of slightly off-kilter humor that's tinged with horror.

The success of the film is also, naturally, due in no small part to excellent performances by Tim Thomerson and Helen Hunt, who both take their first turn as stars in this picture. Thomerson is great as the hardboiled future cop who finds himself out of his element and forced to rely on help from Hunt's character, a liberated woman who had just wrapped up a one-night stand with the ancestor whose body Jack Deth's consciousness ends up inhabiting. Hunt is equally excellent asthe strong-willed Lena who won't be told what to do by anyone. While Thomerson is every bit the leading man as a fullblown movie star, his roots as a stand-up comedian and character actor stands him in good stead as he forms what is first an uneasy partnership with Hunt's character. Hunt's comedic timing that would help make "Mad About You" such a successful series is also on full display here, even as she comfortably fits into the role of an action-adventure sci-fi movie sidekick.

With everything else it has going for it, we can add the fact that it's a time travel movie to the mix. I love time-travel stories, and I think this one is particularly fun as it has an unusual method of time travel--minds/consciences can be sent back in time to inhabit the physical forms of direct ancestors. Some of the other theories of time travel are a bit shakey, but it all makes sense on the comic-book universe level that the film's world exists on.

"Trancers" is an entertaining little film that sees its stars and its director doing some of their most interesting work. It's worth checking out if you're in the mood for some light, spirited sci-fi action.


Head of the Family (1996)
Starring: Blake Bailey, Jacqueline Lovell, J.W. Perra, Gordon Jennison, and Bob Schott
Director: Robert Talbot (aka Charles Band)
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

Smalltown coffee shop and grocery store operator Lance (Bailey) uncovers a dark secret harbored by the strange Stackpool family and uses this knowledge to blackmail them into "disposing of" the dangerous husband (Jennison) of the woman he loves and loves to boink whenever possible (Lovell). Unfortunately for Lance and his sexy sidekick, Myron (Perra), the figurative and literal head of the Stackpool family as his body is 90% head and he controls his siblings with mental telepathy, doesn't appreciate being threatened....

"Head of the Family" is a funky little film that spoofs the "erotic thriller" and "psycho Southerners in the woods" genres as only Charles Band and Full Moon Entertainment could have done. It may not have puppets or stop-motion animation, but the make-up and split-screen photography that turns actor J.W. Perra into a character that's nothing but a big head still embodies that Full Moon weirdness that makes the company's output from the 1990s so much fun to watch. And the perverse and twisted nature of the characters matches the level found in other of Band's best, like "Hideous!" and "Blood Dolls".

This film has the further benefit of being an effective spoof of both genres it's poking fun at, with satire and comedy running through every scene and every actor showing a talent both for drama and comedy. The film is especially hilarious when the genres collide at the movie's climax, creating a perfect end to a perfect script.

And, of course, it helps that Band took full advantage of the fact that his leading lady mostly appeared in softcore porn movies when this film was made. There is no skimping on the "erotic" as far as the "erotic thriller" part of the film goes--there is more sexy nudity in this film than any other Full Moon movie I've seen, with Jacqueline Lovell spending quite a bit of time on screen half-clothed, fully naked, and being one half of the Beast With Two Backs. That said, she, like the rest of the cast puts on a great show... she is fun to watch both for her gorgeous body and for her talent as a comedic actress.

From comments Charles Band made during a personal appearance here in Seattle, I got the sense that "Head of the Family" is one of his personal favorites. It should be.



The Creeps (1997)
Starring: Rhonda Griffin, Bill Moynihan, Justin Laur, Kristen Norton, Phil Fondacaro, Jon Simanton, Joe Smith, Thomas Wellington and Andrea Squibbs
Director: Charles Band
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

A mad scientist (Moynihan) builds a machine that transports Dracula, the Wolfman, the Mummy, and Frankenstein's Monster from the books and movies they usually exist it, into the real world. But interference from a librarian (Griffin) and a wanna-be private detective (Laur) who were recovering an original hand-writen draft of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein novel that the scientist stole to use in his experiment, cause the process to go awry. The four monsters are brought to life as 3-foot-tall midget versions that are not quite as imposing as their fictional counterparts. Dracula (Fondacaro) doesn't appreciate his diminished height, and he sets about getting the scientist what he needs to redo the experiment, getting it right this time.

"The Creeps" is a fun film, with creative well-written dialogue and full of creative and crazy ideas that are well-implimented. As such, it ranks as one of my favorite Full Moon movies. However, there is an air of cheapness to this film, an air that will grow more pervasive in Band's films through the first half of the 2000s, only starting to dissipate with the release of "Doll Graveyard" and "Gingerdead Man 2".

That said, this is not a Band production where the cheapness hurts. Instead of puppets and special effects to bring to life Band's obsession with stories about tiny terrors, we're instead, surprisingly, treated to "little people" taking on the roles of Universal Pictures' Big Four Monsters--Dracula, Frankenstein's Monster, the Mummy, and the Wolf Man.


The script is fun and fast-moving and the story is populated by quirky characters that may be little more than two-dimensional cartoons, but they are great fun and being portrayed by talented actors who seem to be having a load of fun.

In the entire movie, there's only one actor who plays his part straight and that is Phil Fondacaro as Dracula. In fact, Fondacaro plays a more convincing and creepy Dracula than many actors in serious horror movies, giving a performance that is comparable to the Draculas of Bela Lugosi, Christopher Lee and Jack Palance. It's a performance that shows that Fondacaro is a far more talented actor than he'll probably ever get a chance to fully show, because of his small stature. (I think he could be a great Hop-Frog, though, if that story is ever properly adapted to the screen.)

The only complaint I have about the film is that it's rather illiterate in its approach to classic horror. First off, as excellent as Fondacaro's Dracula performance is, the character design doesn't resemble Dracula as he has appeared in any movies nor as he is described in Bram Stoker's novel; the only Dracula design that springs to mind is the one that appeared in a small handful of comics from Marvel in the mid-1970s and late 1980s. The film also implies that the Frankenstein Monster that the mad scientists causes to manifest is somehow tied to Mary Shelley's novel. Nothing could be further from the truth, as Shelly's monster was intelligent and articulate while the monster here is a midget version of the Universal Studios Frankenstein Monster. (And Thomas Wellington does a great impersonation of the creature as it was played by Boris Karloff.)

"The Creeps" is Charles Band close to his craziest and it's a film that will be a perfect addition to any Bad Movie Night line-up (or to any movie night spotlighting weird comedies).




Hideous! (1997)
Starring: Michael Citriniti, Mel Johnson Jr., Jacqueline Lovell, Gerard O'Donnell, Tracie May and Rhonda Griffin
Director: Charles Band
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

A pair of rival collectors of "medical oddities" (Citriniti and Johnson) are trapped inside a sealed house with their staff with a bizarre mutant who has re-animated a collection of deformed fetuses and turned them into tiny killing machines.


"Hideous!" is a another very strange horror comedy from Full Moon that's full of random weirdness--with the sewer-born mutant giving life and intellect to pickled fetuses actually being less strange than the bizarre character portrayed by Jacqueline Lovell. (And if you're going to cast a character who commits a robbery while topless and wearing a gorilla mask, giving the part to a softcore porn star is a very good choice. The choice is even better if that softcore porn star happens to be a fine actress with excellent comic timing.)


Benjamin Carr wrote over 20 films for Full Moon, and this is not only one of the strangest but also one of the most effectively structured. He recognized how weird the film and its characters are, so he inserted a surrogate for the viewer, a stereotypical hardboiled detective (played with great flair by Gerard O'Donnell) who voices what's going through the viewers mind as the film unfolds, such as 'Doesn't anyone think this is strange?". Although he has plenty of funny lines, O'Donnell's character is the closest thing to a straight man in this crazy movie. Everyone else is in comic and over-acting overdrive, chewing on the scenery and playing as if to the back row of a very large theater. But, in this movie, it works and it works brilliantly. Just when you think the film has reached it's weirdness quotient, it gets stranger.

Although Charles Band has helmed some so-so movies in recent years, both as a director and a producer--okay, so most of his recent films have sucked hard--but "Hideous!" dates from a time when you could count on him to deliver the goods when it came to insane horror comedies.

This is a movie that will be a big hit as part of any Bad Movie Night you care to host. (Just remember that Jacqueline Lovell appears topless--except for a gorilla mask--for an extended scene if you're going to have young kids present and/or you're sensitive to nudity.)

"Hideous!" is available on DVD for around $10. That's the price to see a movie in the theater these days, but this film is much funnier than most so-called comedies that are being released now.



Blood Dolls (1999)
Starring: Debra Mayer, Jack Maturin, William Paul Burns, William Draper and Phil Fondacaro
Director: Charles Band
Producers: Chales Band, Donald Kushner, Peter Locke and James R. Moder
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

When an alliance of shady business people threaten to bankrupt reclusive billionaire Virgil Travis (Maturin), Travis sets about gaining bloody revenge upon them, using his trusty clown-makeup-wearing assassin and ordained minister Mr. Mascaro (Burns) and a trio of living killer dolls, the Blood Dolls of the title.


"Blood Dolls" is perhaps one of the most unusual movies that has issued forth from the mind of Charles Band. it is also possibly one of the purest manifestations of his creativity as he handled the producing, scripting, and directing of the film. The end result is perhaps the best movie to bear his name in the past ten years, and justifiable one of his personal favorites among all the movies he's been involved in.

There are some movies that a reviewer can ruin if he says too much about what happens in it; "Blood Dolls is one of those movies. Part of what makes it such an interesting experience is the strange and bizarre characters that populate it and revealing the secrets they hide or the fates they suffer as the film unfolds will rob it of much of its impact... as the main joy of watching this movie is its bizarreness. (In fact, even watching the preview reveals some things about the movie that viewers should come to cold.)

I will say this: If you liked the overall tone of "Head of the Family," you're going to get a kick out of "Blood Dolls." The same is true if you're a fan of the writings of the late Steve Gerber.

This film features an unusual mix of genres being spoofed (in this case, erotic thrillers, John Grisham-type dramas, and Band's own tiny terror films) and social satire that gives it a completely unique feel. It also has a (for a Full Moon/Charles Band movie) unusual, Gerber-esque theme running through it--that everyone wears masks and no-one is who they seem.

From the semi-protagonist Virgil Travis--there really aren't any traditional "good guys" in this film (who wears a mask to hide a most unusual deformity) to his most trusted henchman, Mr. Mascaro--(who feels that his real face is the clown make-up he wears unless he's "in disguise") to Travis's main adversaries, Mr. and Mrs. Yulin (who wear the most elaborate masks of all) to Travis' Blood Dolls, none of the main characters in this film are quite who or what they seem. (And, just to take the masks and deceptive appearances a step further, Mr. Mascaro plants evidence to convince the world that a man who is described as the "most heterosexual of all of us" was killed during a homosexual rendezvous, forcing a deception/mask upon someone else.) This running theme adds a very interesting dimension to the film.

Please don't assume that this is an "intellectual" horror film or comedy just because it's got an interesting subtext. It is not. The primary reason to watch the movie is to watch a billionaire freak so rich and crazy that he's got a goth-rock band trapped in a room that provides his life with a oh-demand soundtrack; to watch his midget major domo demand they perform properly ("Play #6! Louder! Louder!") and apply electrical shocks to them when they don't; and to watch Mr. Mascaro and the Blood Dolls execute Travis plan of revenge... unless they get outsmarted by the equally mysterious and strange Mr. & Mrs. Yulin. The bit with the masks is just the frosting on this very strange cake, like the social satire and deeper messages were added value to the monster stories Steve Gerber wrote for "Man-Thing" and "Tales of the Zombie".


Also, don't assume that the presense of Charles Band's trademark tiny terrors makes this an inferior copy of "Puppet Master" or "Dolls". You might be prone to think that way if you've seen "Doll Graveyard", but you'd be wrong. The dolls of the title play a relatively minor role in the film, their presence being little more than an excuse for Band to create and market tie-in merchandise (which he did, in the form of a Pimp Doll. I'm even prone to think the film might have been better if Band had stayed clear of his usual impulse and simply made Mr. Mascaro the lone assassin in the film and given him a range of unusual weapons. This film is more about characters than the vast majority of Band's movies, and the dolls detract more than they add.

(The girlband and their songs is another manifestation of Band's dreams of tie-in products; he had intended to create a record label and he was going to release a CD, but they fell through However, they fit seamlessly and hilariously into the film. The Blood Dolls, while amusing, do not.)

No one will ever mistake "Blood Dolls" for "Citizen Kane", but it one of Charles Band's best solo efforts to date. It's a film that you can feel comfortable about adding to the line-up of any Bad Movie Night, and it is bound to surprise and amaze those in attendance. (Oh... and anyone fanatical about political correctness is bound to turn purple with rage at the sight of the Blood Dolls, so that's another reason to get a copy of the film.)

'Death at Love House' is a flawed TV movie

Death at Love House (aka "The Shrine of Lorna Love") (1975)
Starring: Kate Jackson, Robert Wagner, and Sylvia Sidney
Director: E.W. Swackhamer
Rating: Four of Ten Stars

Donna and Joel Gregory (Jackson and Wagner) are researching a book about highly-revered and long-dead Hollywood film goddess Lorna Love. They decide to stay visit Lorna's estate, which is still being tended by her long-time housekeeper (Sidney). Things take a turn for the worse when Joel, whose father had had a passionate affair with Lorna, becomes obsessed with the deceased movie star and starts to have waking dreams of a life spent with her. Is Donna losing her husband to the ghost of Lorna Love?!


I enjoy watching Kate Jackson--she's my favorite "Charlie's Angel" and she made "Scarecrow and Mrs. King" the fun show it was. Her quirky voice, cute looks, and superior acting ability brighten everything she's in, and it's only her presence in "Death at Love House" that pulls it up to a rating of Four (and only barely).

This is a film that's well-acted by a literally stellar cast (in addition to the stars, it features cameo appearances by a whole slew of old-time actors and actresses, including horror great John Carradine), and that takes full advantage of the location--which was actually the home of real-life silent film star Harold Lloyd--but which is killed by a atrocious script and some really bad production design/direction at key moments. The film is overburdened by too many elements that don't pay off in any meaningful way (whatever happened to Lorna's "spiritual advisor" who keeps cropping up?), shoddy details when it comes to historical looks (at one point Joel watches one of Lorna's old silent movies,but instead of looking like a leading lady from 1923, she looks just walked off a porn movie set in 1973), and an already reliance on characters behaving stupidly in order to make the plot work (someone tries to kill Donna, there are three people in the house, and no one calls the cops or checks up on the housekeeper?!).

"Death at Love House" is a weak melodrama that tries to be a suspense/horror movie, and it fails. It's too bad to see such a good cast wasted on such a weak movie, especially the wonderful Kate Jackson.

Not as bad as 'Howling V', but still weak

The Howling VI: The Freaks (1991)
Starring: Brendan Hughes, Bruce Martyn Payne, Jered Barclay, Michele Matheson, Gary Cerventes, and Sean Gregoy Sullivan
Director: Hope Perello
Rating: Four of Ten Stars

Ian (Hughes), a drifter with a mysterious past settles in a small desert community, living peacefully until the arrival of a traveling carnival led by the sinister ringmaster Harker (Payne) comes to town. When Harker discovers Ian secret--that he's a werewolf--he captures him and forces him to become part of the carnival's sideshow. As Ian's new friends try to free him, they discover that Harker has secrets of his own, triggering a night of violence and terror.


"Howling VI: The Freaks" is a surprisingly good little movie, partly because "Howling V" was such a steaming pile of werewolf droppings (review here) and partly because this is a fast-paced, enjoyable movie that hits all the notes of a classic werewolf film (and I mean "classic" as in the Universal Pictures wolfman monster-mashes like "House of Dracula" and "House of Frankenstein") while giving us sympathetic heroes and bystanders and villains of the most evil and petty kind. It's not high art, but it is great fun if you like a little melodrama with your horror.

The performances by Bruce Payne (as the smarmy, blackhearted carnival master) and Brendan Hughes (as the reluctant werewolf) are both major contributors to making this movie as much fun as it is. A decent supporting cast with meaty roles to perform also help... in fact, it wouldn't be overstating things to say that this film has one of the best scripts I've seen in films at this budget level. There are several points when the script allows a character to break the standard B-movie mold--with the town sheriff being the best and most unexpected example of this--and although I knew Harker was bound to have a secret and perhaps even be a monster himself, I didn't expect the Big Reveal to be what it was. Even when we were offered hints, I was taken by surprise, first by the revelation and then by how deftly it was handled. (It was the biggest of two "I didn't see that coming!" moments "Howling VI" has to offer.)

For its good parts, the film also has some bad parts. It's got lame transformation scenes that end up at some of the worst werewolf make-up to ever be featured in a supposedly professional productions. As awful as "Howling V: The Rebirth" was, it at least had a decent-looking werewolf. An off-the-shelf Halloween mask with some some tufts of insulation glued on would have been preferable to what we get here. There's also a meaningless denouement that ends up wrecking an otherwise thrilling ending and subsequently manages to undermine what is otherwise a pretty decent film.

"Howling VI" may not be a classic. but it's also not a film that those involved in should be ashamed of. It's one of the best entries in this series.

Why ask why when the ghosts start killing?

Ju-On: The Grudge 2 (2003)
Starring: Noriko Sakai
Director: Takashi Shimizu
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

Famous horror actress Kyoko Harase (Sakai), her unborn child, a TV news-magazine crew, a couple of high schoolers, and a handful of random bystanders fall victim to the curse of angry, homicidal ghosts.


"Ju-on: The Grudge 2" is one creepy movie. From beginning to end, it's got an unsettling air about it, and the ghost attacks are all nightmarish and flawlessly executed.

What is not so flawlessly executed is the script. It's no problem that the story is told out of sequence, but about 2/3rds of the way through the movie, the timeline completely disintergrates. Until the two high-schoolers are introduced (who I assume must have been around in the first Japanse "The Grudge" to which this film is a sequel), all the pieces fit on a timeline that makes sense--Kyoko and the filmcrew are cursed when they viisit the house for a TV segment, and the ghosts then start picking them off, just as they did in the American versions of the tale. But, the teeny-boppers must have been cursed by the house BEFORE the filmcrew went there... although one of them appears to never have escaped it, yet she's walking around and....

The bit with the school girls makes no sense when viewed on the timeline of the film, or as a seperate event. It further causes the question to arise: How and why Kyoko was targeted by the ghosts in the first place? What exactly was the whole baby and birth thing about, particuarly when viewed in the context of the ending? And why WERE those school girls in the film? Is there a law that every Japanese horror film must include at least one girl in a school uniform?

Either the plot is so tangled that it trips over itself (bad writing) or Simizu is assuming that everyone in the audience has seen the first film in the series and he further intends to explain the tangle in a third movie (bad filmmaking), or I'm not as smart as I like to think I am (not possible). Whatever the reason, this movie is a masterful excersize in makiing the viewers feel freaked out, but a failure as an excersize in story-telling. The posives and negatives here end up placing this film on the very low end of average.

I also think this will be the last entry in "The Grudge" series that I'll be sampling. The best thing about these movies appears to be their marketing campaigns.

(That said... the birth scene and its aftermath is one that will stay with me for awhile....)

Double Feature Spook Spectacular: 'The Grudge' and 'The Grudge 2'

I'm reviewing the first two American installmentss of Takashi Shimizu's "The Grudge" series in this post. Tomorrow, I'll be posting the review of the Japanese "The Grudge 2," which seems to follow on the events described in these movies. I don't know if that's just me trying to impose order on chaos, as I don't have the impression Shimizu gives a rip about story continiuity. (And I'm not likely to seek out the original Japanese "The Grudge." The awfulness of these three films has been quite enough for me.)


The Grudge (2004)
Starring: Sarah Michelle Gellar, Jason Behr and Medaka Ikeno
Director: Takashi Shimizu
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

In "The Grudge," Americans living and working in Tokyo fall victim to curses and angry ghosts tied to a house in the city. The most recent victim (Gellar) sets out to discover the cause of the deadly and nightmarish events and hopefully to prevent the fate that is occuring to everyone around her to her.


While "The Grudge" features some interesting visuals surrounding the ghosts in the film, the scares are all of the "gotcha" variety, the script is disjointed and badly done, and the activities of the ghosts and the curse never really make any sense.

It's okay to have a crazy ghost with strange motivations. It's even okay to have a ghost with motivations that SEEM to be understandable but which are ultimately revealed not to be. It's okay to have a ghost that may have been a victim in life but which is also completely and utterly batshit crazy and evil. It's even okay to have all of those.

But what is not okay is to have a ghost (and subsequently a ghost story) that seems to have no rhyme or reason to it. Sure, the characters might die horrible deaths without ever knowing what's going on, but the audience should be left with at least an inkling that there is some underlying cause for the haunting and ghosts actions other than a writer/director being too lazy to think his own story through properly.

"The Grudge" is a ghost movie done in by laziness on the part of the creator, and no amount of CGI effects and cheap scares can make up for that laziness. Unfortunately, things only get worse in the sequel. It's a shame that a good cast (including Sarah Michelle Gellar, Sam Raimi and Bill Pullman) are wasted on such a bad movie.



The Grudge 2 (2006)
Starring: Amber Tamblyn, Arielle Kebbel, Matthew Knight, Edison Chen, Sara Roemer, and Teresa Palmer
Director: Takashi Shimizu
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

The "most haunted house in all of Japan" continues to curse victims... and now it's gone global.


"The Grudge 2" is like the original. It's got the same good parts, and the same bad parts, only moreso in both cases. The curse and its motivation still makes absolutely no sense, nor does the reasons for why the angry ghost targets who she does. In fact, ambiguity is even worse in the sequel, because it appears that the ghost isn't just tied to the house, but that it will go anywhere and target anyone... even people who have absolutely nothing to do with the house or anyone who has ever been in it. Further, it appears that the ghost isn't just the original ghost, but that all its victims are somehow being it. Or something. Or maybe another restless, tormented spirit was house-sitting while the O.G. (Original Ghost) is globetrotting.

Without spoiling too much, this sequel features not just one tale of mysterious hauntings but three--one with Amber Tamblyn and Edison Chen trying to unravel the curse a few days after the events of the first movie; one with Arielle Kebbel and Teresa Palmer a few years later when some mean school girls use the house for a bit of hazing; and a Chicago apartment building where, a few weeks after the ill-fated hazing in faraway Tokyo, teenaged Sara Roemer and her little brother Matthew Knight notice their neighbors start behaving strangely. The film moves back and forth between them, and toward the end of the film it does so in a fashion that seems truly random, and really confuses the viewers sense of what is happening when. I've seen at least two reviews claim the three stories don't connect, and I can only assume that the critics either didn't see the last few minutes of the movie, they weren't paying close enough attention, or they weren't expressing clearly enough the fact that the three stories don't connect in any way that makes sense.

And that is the problem with "The Grudge 2". Nothing in any of the stories feels properly grounded in even a shred of internal logic. There's no reason for "the curse" to target some of the people it does--like every resident on a floor of a Chicago apartment building. Stuff just happens because it's time for something spooky. There are plenty of spooky developments and even more "gotcha!" scares (although a couple of those were more laugh-inspiring on a "Evil Dead" level than actually scary... and I don't think they were going for comedy).

Oh... and here's an illustration of why your Mom told you to always put on clean underwear in the morning.


You never know when you might get caught in a phone booth with a ghost looking up your skirt.

Saturday Scream Queen: Sarah Michelle Gellar

Born in 1977, Sarah Michelle Gellar is best known for her role as Buffy the Vampire Slayer in the long-running television series (1997-2003) of the same name. She also has a growing resume of film appearances to her name, most of them horror films or thrillers, as well as a few comedies and mainstream dramas.

Gellar is the rarest of child actors who made a successful transition to adulthood and life as a working actor. She did this by taking her craft seriously and by carrying herself like a professional, something she started doing even as a young teen.

In a 2007 interview, Gellar stated, "You don't party when you're on a TV show. You go to bed for 10 hours and you learn your lines. I never smoked and I didn't drink alcohol until I was 21."

She went on to say: "I don't understand the need to give in to excess and lead your life in public. It doesn't make sense to me. I look at all these kids getting fame and attention now and they're just not equipped to deal with success at such a young age."

Wilbur Whateley: Wizard of the Roofies

The Dunwich Horror (1970)
Starring: Dean Stockwell, Sandra Dee, Ed Begley, Lloyd Bochner, Donna Baccala and Sam Jaffe
Director: Daniel Haller
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

A cute college girl (Dee) is fed supernatural Roofies by 1970s cultist and proto-Emo Wilbur Whateley (Stockwell). Before you know it, he's offering her asa one-night stand to the extra-dimensional horrors known as the Great Old Ones. Will her prudish girlfriend (Baccala) and the curmudgeonly Dr. Henry Armitage (Begley) manage to save her before she becomes a cosmic swinger?



"The Dunwich Horror" is a loose--VERY loose--adaptation of one of H.P. Lovecraft's most famous and most intense works, but, unfortunately, very little of that intensity manages to make it onto the screen.

The film has all the trappings of Lovecraft--the weird Whateley family, the hostile villagers of Dunwich, Miskatonic University, Henry Armitage, strange crystal rocks and even stranger rites and rituals that either summon or ward off invisible horrors and tentacle beasts the likes of which not even the Japanese could imagine! However, the film never comes close to evoking the mood of a Lovecraft story and it barely manages to be scary in a couple of scenes. To make an already borderline dull film even worse director Daniel Haller doesn't seem to know how to end a scenes. There literally isn't a single scene that doesn't go on for anywhere from a few seconds to several minutes too long; it's not that the film feels padded... it just feels like it's incompetently done. (And then there's those horribly long, loud, and garish dream sequences. I'm sure someone thought those were Lovecraftian but I simply found them annoying. Maybe they came across better to movie-goers in 1970, especially those tripping on who-knows-what.)

Except for the languid direction and the painful dream sequence, the film is decent enough. Every performer does a good job with their parts, even if the part merely calls for looking cute as does that played by Sandra Dee, and the cinematography and special effects are also quite well done. The same can be said for the film's score; the main title music seems a bit out of step with the nature of the film, but the variations of the theme featured throughout the film are spot-on. The Whateley House is also a great piece of set design, both inside and out.

"The Dunwich Horror" is one of those films that doesn't have enough good points for me to give it a strong recommendation, nor are there enough bad things about it to make me warn you off it. I was disappointed by it, but if a low-key Lovecraft adaptation that oozes an early 1970s vibe sounds interesting to you, then it might be worth checking out.

Vampire mobsters are VERY serious about the blood oath

Strange Things Happen at Sundown (2003)
Starring: Joseph DeVito, J. Scott Green, Joshua Nelson, Masha Sapron, Jocasta Bryan, Shannon Moore, Livia Llewellyn, Giovanni DeMarco, Robert M. Lemkowitz, Steve Gonzalez and Gina Ramsden
Director: Marc Fratto
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

Jimmy Fangs (DeVito), a Brooklyn-based mobster who also happens to be a vampire, has discovered a way to impregnate marijuana with his blood and thus turn potheads into flesh-eating zombies under his mental control, but the cash he was going to use to create his unstoppable army was stolen by another vampre, Marcel (Green). Never one to let a slight go unpunished, Jimmy hires vampire hitman the Reaper (Gonzalez, voiced by Lemkowitz) to make an example of Marcel and retrieve the cash. Meanwhile, a mysterious woman with vast knowledge of how to kill vampires (Sapron) has everyone in her sights. Can this end any way but badly?


"Strange Things Happen at Sundown" can best be summarized as a cross between "Pulp Fiction" and "Near Dark", as created by Quentin Tarantino, Charles Band, John Carpenter, and George Romero. (It was actually directed and co-written by Marc Fratto, but I think that, in time, we will see his name along side those greats I just compared him to.)

The film's three biggest weaknesses is one that is often present in independent films from first-time directors.

First and foremost, Fratto has a tendency to let scenes go on for too long, or doesn't cut shots close enough. There literally isn't a single scene in this film that wouldn't have been stronger if it had been trimmed anywhere from a few seconds to a minute, and if some of the individual shots had been edited a bit tighter, the second problem might have seemed a little less evident.

Then there's the issue of some scenes feeling stagey. Too often, the actors seem to be waiting politely for the other person in the scene to finish their line, even in some heated situations. This is less of a problem in this film than in most indie films helmed by a first-time director, but when it's present, it's distracting. Despite the occassional staginess, though, all the principal actors do excellent jobs in their roles. Much of the time, the characters seem believable and the lines seem like they are spoken in earnest instead of recited--but then the loose editing comes into play in certain spots and undermines that sense of reality.

For all my complaining, though, I did enjoy this movie. I got a big kick out of the quirkiness of the characters and I loved the mashing together of humor, horror, and mob cliches that run through the film. (There is one character in particular who must be seen to be believed and who must be experienced cold to have its full impact. I'll just alert you to watch for the vampire who seems like she's a housewife just walked off the set of a 1950s TV show. Played with great flair by Livia Llewellyn, this character is by far the funniest thing about the film.)

While I personally found the vampire victim scenes increasinlgy tiresome as the film went on--particularly after it was explained why no one seemed to go into shock or pass out from bloodloss--I suspect viewers more into gore and "torture porn" than I am, won't mind them. The gore effects are mostly well done for a film at this level, and, unlike some films, there is a valid reason for the suffering going on other than the filmmaker just wants to gross out the viewer.

"Strange Things Happen at Sundown" is a quirky vampire movie that has a few weak spots but that still entertains. It's a film fans of vampires and mafia stories alike should get a kick out of. (Also, if you're still playing the old "Vampire: The Masquerade" RPG, you might be able to steal a few adventure ideas from the film.)

It's a hell of a trip down 'Route 666'

Route 666 (2001)
Starring: Lou Diamond Phillips, Lori Petty, Steven Williams, Dale Midkiff, and L.Q. Jones
Director: William Wesley
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

While escorting an unwilling witness (Williams) to a mob trail, a fractious group of Federal Marshals discover that mob hit men and corrupt small-town cops are the least of their worries. While traveling along an isolated stretch of highway, the find themselves in a life-and-death struggle against the restless spirits of the chain gang that died while building it.


"Route 666" is one of those horror films that's good for a bit of scary fun, so long as you don't think too hard about it. It's one of those movies that would come to screeching halt if the characters behaved intelligently, or even close to the level of professionalism that real US Marshals would exhibit. However, the actions of the characters are SO stupid that and the ludicrous behavior of the cops is so far fetched (two decide to make out in the armored car that's supposed to be carrying their witness, two others decide to beat the crap out of each other in the nearby hills, while their witness is handcuffed to a convertible where he is nearly killed by the ghosts and a mob hit man that's been trailing them) that viewers will be too busy snickering to notice the gaping holes in the plot. It truly is one of those movies that's so bad it's good.

The movie also has the presence of Lori Petty going for it. She's an actress that I've always found appealing, and she tends to elevate everything she appears in. (She has a sort of unconventional tomboyish sort of beauty, and I can sit through just about anything that she has a major part in.) And then there's the quartet of ghosts who assume solid form by becoming creations of asphalt. They are very creepy, very violent killing machines. Oh, and star Lou Diamond Phillips does his usual excellent job at playing Lou Diamond Phillips.

Evil Clown knocks them dead in 'Torment'

Torment (2008)
Starring: Suzi Lorraine, Tom Steadman, Ted Alderman and Lucien Eisenach
Director: Steve Sessions
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

A young woman (Lorraine) is released from a mental hospital into the care of her alcoholic husband. The two go to an isolated house so she can continue her recovery and they can renew their relationship in a quiet environment. Unfortunately for them, a psycho in a clown costume (Eisenach) is capturing and torturing people in the area.


This movie was hard for me to assign a rating to. While there is much about it that I like, there is much I don't like. It's one of the better psycho clown movies I've seen, but it's got some serious flaws.

Suzi Lorraine gives an interesting performance as Lauren, a former mental patient who spots a psychotic killer as he picks out his next victim, but who is disbelieved due to her history of mental illness. The way the script sets up the chain of events that leads Lauren into the worst possible danger is well executed and her confrontation with the Killer Clown (called Dissecto in the credits but unnamed in the film istself) is very suspenseful. Unfortunately, these strong parts of the movie are undermined and outweighed by the weak parts.

"Torment" feels like its two halfbaked scripts that have been combined into one film. They weren't necessarily BAD scripts... they're just unpolished and they work against each other and ultimately end up undermining what suspense and tension they could have produced if they had been two different movies.

The clunky dialogue at times made up for by some well done lines, and the few overlong and even redundant scenes in the film are likewise counterbalanced by some truly creepy, scary and startling moments. (For example, the repeatative expository scenes and dialogue of the fact that Lauren is fresh out of mental hospital are annoying, but they are more than made up for the scene where Dissecto invades her home, or when she is hiding in his.) As far as this goes, the good counterbalances the bad.

However, the way the film makes it crystal clear from the outset that Lauren isn't hallucinating the spooky clown lurking in the bushes-- the extended scenes of him torturing a pair of missing Mormon missionaries is most definately not something she's imagining--and so there is no real tension produced by the "is she crazy or isn't she" question... although it does make her husband come across like a grade-A asshole. If you're into "torture porn", I suppose you might enjoy those aforementioned scenese of Dissecto performing for and upon his victimes, but I'm too squeamish for that sort of thing--having recently experienced my own encounter with excruciating pain has made that sort of material hard for me to watch--but the sloppy costuming of the "Mormons" can't be anything but a strike against the movie. (It's bad enough one of the "Mormons" had a shaved head, but none of their missionaries would EVER sport a soul patch/jazz dot!)

Bad costuming (and the sloppy direction that allows it to happen aside) it's the absolute certainty the audience has of Dissecto's existence that undermines Lauren's story. It makes us dislike her husband to a disproportionate degree and it makes everything leading up to her encounter with Dissecto feel like it goes on and on, because we know the real action won't start until he dispatches the husband and starts stalking her.


And that's too bad. Suzi Lorraine gives an good performance, but my impatience with wanting the movie to get to where the real action was made it hard to notice. Tom Steadman likewise gave a decent accounting of himself as Lauren's moronic husband... and I think that if he had been given better dialogue to deliver, he might have been even better. (To a large extent, he's The Amazing Redundant Exposition Man, and this reduces his role to something less that what it could have been.)

"Torment" is a movie that has a lot to recommend to fans of thrillers, slasher movies, and "torture porn". Unfortuantely, the thriller elements and "torture porn" elements are at odds with each other and between them they almost manage to make the slasher element moot and make the ending seem false and forced because it doesn't feel like a natural outgrowth of anything. These, plus the stilted and clumsy nature of some of the dialogue and the excessive exposition in certain scenes drag this down to a low end of average, despite its strong points. (Speaking of excessive exposition... one thing the film never even hints at is the Who and the Why of Dissecto. Part of me would like to know more about him, but another part of me likes the "senseless evil" aspect this presents. I think the fact I'm torn is another sign that the script needed more work.)

Despite its flaws, though, "Torment" is worth checking out if you're into killer clowns, or if you enjoy small-scale horror films.

Baron Blood:Stupid Character Syndrome runs rampant

Baron Blood (aka "Chamber of Tortures" and "The Torture Chamber of Baron Blood") (1972)
Starring: Elke Sommer, Antonio Cantafora, Massimo Girotti, Joseph Cotton, and Rada Rassimov
Director: Mario Bava
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

While visiting his ancestral home in Austria, a not-very-bright American grad student (Cantafora) restores his sadistic, blood-thirsty 16th century ancestor to life by reading a incantation that promises to do just that. The ressurected "Baron Blood" is now roaming the countryside, claiming victims, and moron-boy must find a way to undo what he did.


"Baron Blood" is an uneven film, both in its photography, pacing and acting. The camera work ranges from amazing to annoyingly bad--how can the same director/cinematographer who made the gorgeous "Diabolik" be the guy who is responsible for overuse of of crash-zooms and focus-pulls that we are subject to here?--the plot moves with a more jerking pace than a car with a failing transmission, and the acting ranges from passable in some scenes, to completely wooden in others, to so over-the-top scene-chewing in yet others that I am sure injuries must have occured from the flying splinters.

Full of stupid characters doing stupid things, being played by actors who aren't giving their best performances, "Baron Blood" is mostly a mediocre attempt at capturing the look and feel of the Hammer gothic horrors from the 1950s and 1960s--something Bava had previously done a better job at in previous films "Black Sunday" and "Kill, Baby... Kill!"--but which is does feature a few dazzling moments of horror and artistry that will make you understand why those who praise Mario Bava are so in love with his work.

There is fantastic sequence where Anna (Elke Sommer), the film's damsel in distress who eventually saves everyone in the end, in a nice little twist to the genre standards, narrowly escapes ambush by the cloaked Baron Blood and is then persued through the eerily deserted streets of the town. The sequence ends with a wimper instead of the bang it could have and should have ended with, but it almmost makes the movie worth wathing by itself. The filming here is as gorgeous as anything Bava ever recorded and the suspense of the chase will have you on the edge of your seat.


The end of the movie, even with the massive plot holes that get opened and let unresolved as we build toward it, is also spectacularly filmed and intense that the viewer will almost forget the mediocrity that went before it. The resolution to the story also has a couple of elements that I never would have imagined, but they are of the "Wow! Cool!" variety rather than of the eye-rolling, out-of-left-field-to-show-how-clever-the-writer-thinks-he-is variety.

"Baron Blood is worth checking out if you've got nothing else that looks interesting, and it would be a perfect headliner for a "Creepy Castle"-themed Bad Movie Night, but you shouldn't go too far out of your way of it under any circumstance.

Japanese horror you can take or leave

Misa the Dark Angel (1997)
Starring: Hinako Saeki and Ayaka Nanami
Director: Katesuhito Ueno
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

"Misa the Dark Angel" is about a young witch who insiutates herself into a boarding school for girls when she and her crusty mentor decide a magical curse rests over the place. Misa, however, being a lonely teenager with no friends, become enamoured with the 'normal' life led by the students at the school and looses sight of why she is there. And that's when the terror begins.

There is nothing particularly bad about this film. The acting is solid, the camera work, lighting, and sets are all used to full effectiveness to underscore the horror and mystery of the events that unfold, and the cast members die in appropriately ironic ways. (That said, "Misa the Dark Angel" is *not* a teenage slasher flick, even if the above sentence might imply that; it's a far more low-key horror film, with patches of horrific gore. Actually, if there is something wrong with the film, it's that it's almost too low-key. The film is almost entirely event free in the second act.)

On the other hand, there's nothing that really stands out, either. It's a solid effort, nothing more. It's worth seeing if you enjoy Japanese horror flicks, but I don't think it would be worth going out of your way for.