Tag: Horror

Bride of Chucky (1998)

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Bride of Chucky is the sequel to “Child’s Play 3” and fourth installment of the Child’s Play franchise. It also the last Chucky movie not to be directed by it’s creator Don Mancini. As much credit as he deserves for the series, it’s notable it went downhill after he took the directing chair. While Mancini writes this installment it is directed by Ronny Yu (Who would go on to direct Jason Vs Freddy). Graeme Revell provides the music and Peter Pau provides cinematography. Brad Dourif naturally returns as the voice of “Chucky”. He is joined by Jennifer Tilly, Katherine Heigl and Nick Stabile.

Years after the events of the previous movie, Chucky’s remains are stored in a high security evidence lock up. Chucky’s girlfriend “Tiffany” (Tilly) from his human life orchestrates breaking the lifeless doll out and re-animating him. She is psychotic but also a romantic and dreams of getting married to Chucky. When the doll rejects her, the two fall out leading to Tiffany’s death and resurrection in another doll. The pair then trick an eloping couple to take the dolls to the cemetery where Chucky’s human body is buried so that he can retrieve his amulet and use it to posses a human form.

Tonal Shift

This a notable shift for the franchise, moving into far more comedic territory and switching away from focusing on Andy Barclay (Protagonist of the first three movies) This was just in time too as the third film was starting to wear the basic concept a bit thin. The film needed a fresh approach and they found that with Bride of Chucky. The first thing I noted with the film is the meta references, which stands out more in retrospect than it would have done in the late 90’s. Thanks to the impact of “Scream” (1996) most late 90’s horror took a very meta, self aware approach. Mostly I wasn’t a fan, but here in a horror comedy it works well.

Right at the start of the film as we’re shown the high security evidence lock up where Chucky’s remains are stored, we get to see a number of other items. Specifically a hock mask, a white mask of a face, a chainsaw and a strange glove with knives on the fingers. If you don’t get those references you are probably not a horror fan. We also get a reference to Pinhead from Hellraiser a bit further in and jokes indirectly about the Child’s Play series itself. This probably wouldn’t work without the comedic shift, but I enjoyed each one. The story didn’t have to go out of it’s way for the references and they were just a bit of fun.

And Then There Were Two

More importantly though is the dynamic between Chucky and Tiffany. Chucky is as abusive as you would expect, while Tiffany is a romantic… To be fair, a romantic serial killer, but still romantic. They only really bond over their love of murder and death, but they bond hard over it. Apparently the good guy dolls are anatomically correct… Yeah, that’s sort of disturbing in it’s own way. The second couple in the story, the eloping Jade and Jesse have their own tension. Mostly stemming from suspecting each other as serial killers. The whole thing is sort of a macabre double date/road movie. It works surprisingly well.

Visually the movie is pretty cool. I think that’s the best way to describe it. It’s not gory or scary, but the visuals are pretty original and unique to what you can do with killer dolls. The look of the rebuilt Chucky Doll is great and there are some creative kills and a variety of looks to Tiffany. It all works rather well. The soundtrack mixes in some great rock/metal of the period (Including a great version of “Crazy” courtesy of the band “Kidneytheives”), with a number of throwbacks to past Child’s play movies. Sadly this is the end of Chucky’s classic run, with creator Mancini taking full control and injecting a bit too much identity politics into it.

Conclusion

This is a different kind of film to past Child’s Play movies and as such it may not be what a lot of people expected from the franchise. That said, it’s not like they tried to make Chucky a hero or anything. He’s as irredeemably evil as ever. Many long running franchises have moments like this, where they recognize their own ridiculousness and lighten the tone a little. Nightmare on Elm Street part 3 and Friday the 13th part 6 come to mind. For me, the added humor was exactly what the franchises needed to stay fresh and this is easily the best Chucky movie since the original. This narrowly hits a 6.5/10 purely for how much fun it is. If you like horror comedy, you’ll like this.

Rating: 6.5 out of 10.

Street Trash (1987)

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Tonight’s movie is the independent horror comedy “Street Trash” from 1987. Made on a budget of $100,000 ($274k in today’s money), making it at the cheaper end of the horror scale. Horror comedies are pretty easy to do at this price range since you can get away with goofy effects and bad acting providing the film is actually fun to watch. This one has been on my radar for a long time. The movie is directed by J. Michael Muro, a professional that mostly works as a camera operated. In that capacity he’s actually a James Cameron regular and has worked on films like “Terminator 2” and “Titanic”. This is the only movie he ever directed. The film is written and produced by Roy Frumkes. David Sperling provides cinematography and Rick Ulfik the soundtrack.

A liquor store own frequented by street bums finds a box of “Tenafly Viper” in his basement. Seeing it as trash, he decides to sell it at $1 a bottle to the local tramps. Unfortuantely for them, it kills anyone instantly that drinks it. Meanwhile, the bums have their own problems. They are unwelcome residents of the junkyard they inhabit. They are lorded over by a crazed Vietnam vet with a tendency towards psychotic outbursts. After a passing commuter is murdered and a few of the Viper killed corpses turn up, the cops also get involved and last but not least a local gangster has a grudge against the group after they gang rape and murder his girlfriend.

Brothers, Bums and Booze

One of the first things I noticed about the movie is how almost none of the plot actually revolves around the “Viper” booze, which from the trailer you’d think is the main story. This isn’t the story of the deadly booze, it’s just sort of there and not much of the story relates to it. But then that’s the kind of story this is. This is really just a story about a bunch of crazy hobos, being crazy hobos. The conclusion to the story is basically two hobo brothers dealing with the psycho boss hobo. The brothers are the closest thing to protagonists this film has, but it’s an ensemble cast really

Because of the chaotic plot and the ensemble cast none of the characters really have any kind of charm or appeal to them. But then they are all hobo’s so they probably aren’t meant to. To be fair, I wasn’t expecting character depth here. Another thing I wasn’t expecting was James Lorinz to turn up in a random small role and steal the show. You’d be forgiven for going “Who?” to that, and I would too had I not recently watched “Frankenhooker“, where he stars. This was his first movie role and it likely got him that job. Another cameo highlight is Tony Darrow also in a minor role, as a mobster (Naturally).

Conclusion

While these cameos are good, there’s also some pretty poor acting from other characters. Nothing that wrecked my enjoyment. Even though this isn’t a Troma Studios film, it is at that level. The humor, the gore, the sex, the acting are all what you’d expect from that studio. Basically it’s trash, but trash you can have fun with. Speaking of the gore, style of gore here is apparently known as a “Melt movie” and that is certainly an apt description. But it’s not just hobo’s melting, there’s also a severed penis being thrown around at one point too, because why not I guess.

This is a chaotic and ridiculous film. The plot feels like it was written by a hand grenade. The acting quality is all over the place and the special effects are deliberately silly. The music is actually quite good, in a cheesy 80’s sense. The cinematography is actually pretty solid but then Muro is primarily a cameraman and cinematographer so that makes sense. Basically, the title is accurate, this is tras. But it’s the kind of trash you can have fun with. Especially if you are drinking, though I’d avoid the Tenafly Viper. 5/10

Rating: 5 out of 10.

Oddity (2024)

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Oddity is an independent Irish horror written and directed by Damian McCarthy. Not quite sure how this one came to my attention but the last independent Irish horror I reviewed was the excellent “A Dark Song”, so that probably got me looking at other Irish horrors and this one came up. The film stars Carolyn Bracken (In two roles, though one is brief). She is supported by Gwilym Lee, Caroline Menton and Steve Wall. Colm Hogan provides cinematography and Richard G. Mitchell provides the soundtrack.

“Dani” (Bracken) is murdered at her house late one night while her psychiatrist husband “Ted” (Lee) is at work. A year later and the psychiatric patient that is suspected of the murder is himself brutally slain Tom gives the man’s glass eye to “Darcy”, Dani’s blind sister (Also Bracken), a clairvoyant that is able to learn about that person from their items. She then travels to her sisters house to uncover the truth, bringing with her a large box containing a mysterious wooden statue of a man. Tom has to go to work, but his new girlfriend “Yana” is left at the house. But she is uncomfortable, not just by the company but also the house itself. She keeps seeing visions of Dani. As events unfold, the truth will be revealed.

Two Player Mafia

This is a film with few sets and few actors, but this leads to a major issue as it’s pretty obvious there is no real mystery over what happened to Dani. It’s a bit like trying to play the card game “Mafia” with two players. You know the guilty party at the start. The explanation for motivation feels a little weak at first. The reveal of just the kind of person Ted is helps with that, but also opens a number of potential plot holes. The main issue is the big divide between Ted’s life and his wife’s. They have been married for a number of years. Despite his sister-in-law being a clairvoyant and despite this being something that runs in their family, Ted casually dismisses all the occult. Even when faced with things that have no realistic explanation.

Meanwhile, Ted is a sociopath that has been abusing patients (And occasionally hiring psychotic ones as orderlies) for years. Yet neither his wife nor her clairvoyant sister ever suspected a thing. So while most of the reveals were predictable from the start, the few surprises just damage the films verisimilitude. Now to be fair, I’m sure the film makers knew it would be predictable. I mean, after the initial set up there are only four characters left in the film. One of which is only introduced late on and only after we are told of his involvement. The only question I had was if the girlfriend was involved or not. Whichever way that landed, wouldn’t really add to the mystery.

Conclusion

Fortunately though, Oddity has a solid atmosphere to it. Really, very little happens, but the movie makes the most of the dark foreboding ambiance. A lot of this is probably down to budget restraints, but horror has always worked well in those situations. There’s not much else to it however. Despite being the protagonist Darcy doesn’t really do much. Most of the actual acting here is from Caroline Menton in her role as Ted’s girlfriend Yana. Sadly, she gets a barely passing grade in that regard. Not terrible, but unconvincing. After Yana departs, everyone is basically taking the role of antagonist, including Darcy. It becomes a “Who can be more menacing” competition.

One last positive thing I can say about the movie is the Golem did look creepy. I can tell they spent some time on the design. Which in some ways is a waste because it too doesn’t do much in this film. This is a bit of a theme really. There is no much to this movie outside of atmosphere. The plot doesn’t drag you in or make you think and none of the characters are really compelling or relatable. On Atmosphere alone it could score well, but overall I think the best I can give the film is a 5.5/10. If you like slow burn, atmospheric horror you may enjoy it. On the other hand if you do like that and haven’t seen “A Dark Song” (2016), watch that instead.

Rating: 5.5 out of 10.

Fright Night Part II (1988)

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The original “Fright Night” was a 1985 vampire movie and generally regarded as a classic of the sub-genre. Not the biggest vampire film of the 80’s, but it was well liked and relatively successful. A sequel was inevitable. Due to other commitments original director Tom Holland was not able to return and so Tommy Lee Wallace stepped in. Tommy became a go-to guy for horror sequels, directing “Halloween 3”, writing “Amityville 2” and later going on to direct the sequel to John Carpenter’s “Vampires”. His biggest success though would be the original “IT”, filmed as a TV mini-series and staring Tim Curry as “Pennywise”. Roddy McDowall and William Ragsdale reprise their roles as Peter Vincent and Charley Brewster.

Three years after the events of the first film, Charley is recovering in a mental health facility. He has come to believe and accept that there were no vampires. He now believes what he experienced was a combination of group hypnosis and trauma. Vincent meanwhile has returned to hosting his show, but is wary of the Vampire threat. As Charley attempts to return to a normal life, with his new girlfriend “Alex” (Traci Lind), he is unsettled by the arrival of a new group of people to town. Especially one strangely alluring female Regine (Julie Carmen). Old suspicions return and it appears once again he and Vincent must face off against a vampire menace. This time though, it’s personal.

The Vampire Bites Back

As sequel ideas go, this is pretty reasonable. We have a direct link to the first film, a switch in the antagonist to being female. Due to this change we also see Charley as a victim of vampire seduction. The film tries to play up the sexiness of this, but doesn’t really nail that part. The film also tackles the implications of the events of the first film. Ultimately though, the way it tackles this is designed to give you as much of a reset button as possible. So the movie ends up largely a rehash of the original film. There’s just about enough original here to get away with it as a sequel, but it won’t stand on it’s own.

The movie does feature a great synthesizer based score, courtesy of Brad Fiedel (Most famous for “The Terminator”). It also features decent cinematography and effects. It’s worth noting this movie had a substantially lower budget than the original so keeping the monster effects above the bar of “reasonable” was going to be a challenge. They mostly succeed, aided somewhat by this being a horror comedy. Speaking of that though, the comedy aspects are erratic. Like the movie isn’t always sure if it is a horror comedy or not. One specific vampire seems to be the main comedy relief, but he doesn’t really feature enough to make that work.

Conclusion

This is a pretty average sequel. The cast and acting are reasonable. Ragsdale and McDowall slip back into their roles with ease, but I wouldn’t call either outstanding. The cinematography is reasonable, the music is fairly good. There’s nothing terrible here, but it is largely a lesser rehash of the first film but with a female antagonist. This does make a difference and it’s just about enough to justify it’s existence. The plot is straight forward, but ticks all the boxes it set out to. The horror effects are solid, especially for a horror comedy. The comedy side is a little lacking and too reliant on one character in a film that seems to have too many characters anyway.

A third movie was originally planned for this series. Those plans were scrapped after the murder of Live Entertainment chairman Jose Menendez by his own sons. That tragedy also resulted in this movie facing minimal distribution, resulting in box office failure. While only an average movie it deserved better. This fell about where my expectations for a sequel would land. Were this a stand alone movie I’d probably give it a 5.5/10, but as a sequel I can just about justify a 6/10. Recommended, if you’ve seen the original. If you haven’t, then I recommend the original instead (It’s notably better).

Rating: 6 out of 10.

Howl (2015)

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Britain has strong ties with Werewolf movies. The movie that established the rules of on screen lycanthropy was “Werewolf of London” (1935). The movie often regarded as the best Werewolf movie of all time is “American Werewolf in London” (1981), set in London and a co-production. If I was to list a top five Werewolf movies I’d definitely include American Werewolf, but I’d also likely add “Dog Soldiers” (2002) and “In The Company of Wolves” (1984). It’s safe to say we can make a decent Werewolf movie in the UK. So naturally I wanted to give “Howl” a chance. The movie is directed by Paul Hyett and written by Mark Huckerby and Nick Ostler. Cinematography is by Adam Biddle and Music is by Paul E. Francis. The movie cost a mere $1.9m to make.

The movie follows “Joe Griffin” (Ed Speleers), a train guard on a double shift working an overnight passenger train from London Waterloo to “Eastborough” (A fictional destination). “Joe” has a romantic interest in another member of the crew, “Ellen” (Holly Weston), who runs the tea trolley. A little way from their destination when passing through some dense forest the train hits a deer and the driver (Sean Pertwee) makes an emergency stop to assess the situation. However he is attacked by some kind of creature and killed. Hearing the driver is missing and rail company can’t send help out for four hours the passengers decide to walk to the next station, but they too are attacked. Trapped back in the train carriage the mismatched group of strangers must try and survive the night.

Dog Veteran

So first thing to note here is the disappointment at Sean Pertwee’s painfully brief cameo. Sean of course was one of the main actors in 2002’s Dog Soldiers, so it’s not his first time being eaten by a Werewolf. An underrated actor and one who is well known by fans of the genre, so it feels a real waste to have him as the first person killed. His screen time was two and a half minutes. Still, the budget for this movie is so low they probably couldn’t afford to have him star. It’s worth noting Dog Soldiers cost $2.3m and came out 13 years earlier, so this is on an even tighter budget. Fortunately the rest of the cast are fairly solid (Being the usual mix of TV actors you tend to get at this budget point).

The Werewolves in this movie are somewhat unique. More human that usual. Not even going the “Wolfman” approach, but instead remaining mostly human outside of the legs and face. Interesting to note here, the effects are a hybrid between practical and CGI. It’s not layered though, it’s half and half. The legs are CGI and the facial changes are practical effects. The result actually worked quite well in the movie. Personally though, I prefer my werewolves to look more wolf like (In the traditional hybrid style). But this variation did fit the film, so that is fine. As original takes on the design go, it’s actually one of the better ones. Certainly better than that last “Wolfman” movie.

Conclusion

This is a simple concept with a straight forward execution. That can be fine, but it puts more weight on the other elements to deliver. There is a vague attempt at putting some social commentary into it, but it’s a bit clumsy. The commentary relies entirely on the background of the passengers and them basically telling you who they are. Often the film seems to be flailing around desperately trying to say something but not quite sure what it is. Outside of that, the characters are reasonable and have a bit of variety. That said, I occasionally mixed up “Ed Speleers” Joe with Sam Gittin’s “Billy”. The action/violence when it happens is done pretty well, especially considering the budget.

This is a pretty basic Werewolf movie, with an interesting design and well made for the restrictions of the production budget. It doesn’t really do much to stand out, outside of that unique werewolf design and that may be a negative for some people anyway. This is a firm 5.5/10. If you are a fan of the sub-genre then it’s probably worth the watch, but it’s not likely to make anyone’s top ten.

Rating: 5.5 out of 10.

Cure (1997)

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One of my favourite horrors from these October Challenges was “Pulse” (2001). A smart and emotionally deep ghost story that stuck with me a long time after I watched it. When I see a film like that I always check out the director and look for other movies. In this case the director was Kiyoshi Kurosawa and his most famous horror was actually a film called “Cure” from 1997. It’s described as a Neo-Noir horror so I was sold on it right away. Cure is written and directed by Kurosawa, with Tokushô Kikumura providing cinematography and Gary Ashiya providing the score. The movie stars Kōji Yakusho, with support from Masato Hagiwara, Tsuyoshi Ujiki, Anna Nakagawa, Yoriko Dōguchi and Yukijirō Hotaru.

“Kenichi Takabe” (Yakusho), is a Tokyo Metropolitan Police detective tasked with the investigation of a bizarre series of violent killings by seemingly random perpetrators. All of which seem to have no motivation for the killings and Takabe begins to suspect hypnotism my be involved. He discovers each person had a meeting with a mysterious man with no memory called “Mamiya” (Masato Hagiwara). After taking him into custody he tries to get to the bottom of who this man is; how he does what he does and; why he does it. But as Mamiya takes a special interest in Takabe things become more complicated.

Of Human Nature

This is a slow burn psychological horror with neo-noir leanings. Indeed it is so slow burn and psychological that sometimes I forgot it was a horror. But that’s not a bad thing, because it works. The story isn’t complex, but is very introspective and philosophical. The question Mamiya keeps asking people is “Who are you?”, but he is not asking for names. That is the core of this story. When investigating hypnotism, Takabe is reminded that you cannot hypnotize people to do things that are outside of their nature. So these murders are not entirely outside of what the murderers are capable of, they just never did it before. It is a dark look into what ordinary people may be capable of with the right mental justification. Something I worry about more and more these days.

The horror here is very much psychological and implied. We see a few killings, but not a lot in the way of gore. Indeed there’s no focus on the victims here or their terror as they are stalked or attacked. Most of them are taken by surprise and none of them are notable characters. This is focused on the killers and human nature as a whole. Mamiya is an interesting antagonist, manipulative and yet apparently helpless at the same time. Takabe is a good antagonist too. Flawed, but driven. He struggles with having to look after his wife (Who suffers from schizophrenia) and having such a mentally taxing day job doesn’t help. The conclusion of the story is quite unsettling and yet also somewhat open ended.

Conclusion

Visually this film matches the tone of the story perfectly. The cinematography here favors long shots, visual isolation and heavy use of space, which gives the film style somewhat reminiscent of a Edward Hopper painting. There is a certain detachment to it. The characters are detached from each other, the killers especially so of their victims and the viewer from the brutality of the killings. By contrast Mamiya is the opposite, he has a natural empathy but uses it to convince people to kill. It shows that empathy too can be a double edged sword.

In some ways the movie was a bit predictable, but I’m not sure that matters. This is something true of neo-noir’s and film noir in general, since knowing where things will go is sometimes where the suspense comes from (See Hitchcock’s bomb analogy). Noir is fatalistic and this movie follows that tradition. This is an unsettling movie that sticks with you. Ultimately not as much as Kurosawa’s “Pulse” did. For me though I think that is because that movie personally resonated with me. Objectively speaking I’d say this is on par and deserves the same score. A strong 7/10.

Rating: 7 out of 10.

Good Boy (2025)

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Tonight I’m looking at another movie this year that has generated a lot of hype. That is “Good Boy”, a horror film entirely from the perspective of a pet dog. This was made as a side passion project by director Ben Leonberg. He used his own dog, Indy (Which is also his name in the story, for obvious reasons). Leonberg is his own cinematographer and wrote the story with assistance from Alex Cannon. The score is provided by Sam Boase-Miller. Indy the dog stars, but Shane Jensen is his primary support and the main human character.

Indy’s owner “Todd” (Jensen) has just moved into a rural house which he inherited off his grandfather. Todd is unwell, but is hoping some fresh air and relaxation will help. Indy however is unsettled. There is something else going on here and he worries that some dark forces may be trying to take Todd away from him. His nights are interrupted by a series of bad dreams, and he keeps catching glimpses of… something. Todd is getting worse and becoming irritable, but Indy loves him and will do anything to protect him.

Man’s Best Friend

This isn’t the first horror from the dog’s perspective, or at least where the dog is the protagonist. Bad Moon from 1996 was based on the novel “Thor”, which was written from the dogs perspective. That film, didn’t go all in on it, but Thor (The dog) is the one the story follows most of the time and the hero of the story. Good boy however, does go all in. Not first person (or dog) perspective, but the film shows as little of the humans as possible. Not just in their involvement, but also how they are filmed. Faces are covered, angles are from behind or below. Lighting is also used to diminish their visibility. Of course the human cast is mostly one person, Indy’s owner.

Showing the dog’s owner was essential to the story of course. This is really about the relationship between a dog and his owner. Deeper than that, this is about the well known extent of a dogs loyalty. It’s not a theme that has been turned into a horror film before, so this is original in more than one way. There are plenty of hints to the direction of the film as it goes on, which is deliberate. Being from the dogs perspective, there’s no easy way to provide context to the viewer. That means every bit of information you get has to be very deliberately put in front of you. Fortunately, the obviousness of it doesn’t do any harm to the story. It may even help.

Making it Work

With the focus on a real animal (Not CGI), the key to making this film was in the directors ability to control his dog. This probably couldn’t have worked had it not been his dog specifically. I doubt even a trained dog wouldn’t be able to pull off all of the expressions and actions on display here. I’m fairly sure there was a stunt double or two, but the acting part is entirely down to that relationship. An owner knows there dog, knows all the funny faces they make and that is why this works. This will be a hard feat to replicate. But also the story being told here is a very dog specific story. This is truly a one off.

The atmosphere in the film is strong but does get repetitive. This is why even at the short length of 72 minutes, the film gets very close to overstaying its welcome. There’s only so many ways to build tension when you are committed to a dogs perspective. The soundtrack does a lot of the heavy lifting, but that is itself pretty much just a series of noises. It’s a very modern soundtrack, lacking in anything you could really call music. Discordant strings, banging, piercing drones. It’s fine, but for an entire movie it can become tiresome. But the real story is so minimal, the atmosphere is what most of this is about. The film employs most of the tricks of ghost based horrors and uses them repeatedly.

Conclusion

The film is effective, but it gets very close to overstaying it’s welcome and probably lacks re-watch value. It is ultimately a gimmick movie, but one with heart. I suspect most dog lovers will find it moving. It has one thing to say and it says it. The rest of it is standard supernatural horror stuff and being impressed by Indy. Some of the human acting is mediocre, but not painfully so and a fair amount of it doesn’t really make sense, but since the whole thing is largely metaphorical anyway that probably doesn’t matter. This is a definite recommend, and a strong 6.5/10. But I can’t give it higher, simply because the nature of the film limits its own scope. If you like dogs or have ever owned one, you will enjoy this film.

Rating: 6.5 out of 10.

House of the Devil (2009)

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Tonight’s horror film is one I’ve been putting off for a while. This is “House of the Devil” from writer/director Ti West. I put it off because I’d watched two of his films previously and frankly, hated both. But this had a lot of hype around it and I felt I should give the director one more chance. This is one of his earlier works and is written, directed and edited by West. Eliot Rockett provides cinematography and Jeff Grace the soundtrack. The movie stars Jocelin Donahue. This was made for just $900k, but didn’t get close to recouping that in theaters. With that kind of budget though, it’s likely made it’s money back in the secondary market.

The movie is set in the 1980’s and follows “Samantha” (Donahue), a cash strapped college student needing to find some work to pay her rent. After finding a babysitting job advertised, she has her friend Megan (Greta Gerwig, yes the “Barbie” director) drive her out to check it out. On arrival she finds out it is not actually a child she will be sitting. Instead she is just required to house sit and keep an ear out for the clients elderly mother in case of an emergency. The client, “Mr Ulman” (Tom Noonan) offers to pay her four times the usual rate with half in advance. Despite her friend calling her an idiot to do it, she elects to stay. Obviously, not a wise decision.

Retro Nostalgia Bait

This film is what I imagine an alien that’s never actually seen a horror movie but read about slow burn 60’s/70’s horror may try and make. It’s easy to see what it is trying to do, but it does it so clumsily that I’m almost embarrassed for everyone involved. Yet for some reason this film has a lot of praise. Most of that praise though seems to be based on them liking the throwback style and pacing. Sure, it contrasts with a lot of the horror movies of the mid 2000’s, but if you actually put it head to head with a slow burn movie of earlier decades it is exposed for it’s shallowness. This is a million miles from “The Haunting” (1963).

Like many Ti West movies, the film uses the gimmick of being set in a past decade (80’s here) as a distraction and shortcut to world building. It doesn’t really impact anything. West also opted to use 16mm film to give the movie a retro feel. I like the look, but again it is just a gimmick. The film wants to convince you it is from a different age, yet it doesn’t have the heart of either an 80’s movie or a 60’s/70’s slow burn horror. The truth is, this is a 15 minute short story padded out to a feature film. It uses artificial tension building (Mostly through a generic, yet definitely effective soundtrack) to pretend there is more to it.

Rooting For The Villains

The first act is itself fine, if overly long. Half the movie is gone by the time our victim is in place in the mansion. I didn’t really have an issue with the movie up to this point. That didn’t last long. Samantha becomes annoying fast. After everyone leaves she starts randomly wandering around the house. About two minutes in she phones her friend and is annoyed she’s not already home. She then wanders around opening random doors and touching everything (Despite being a “Germaphobe”, which impacts almost nothing in the movie). About five minutes in, she orders a pizza and then sits down and starts eating a chocolate bar while watching TV. That lasts about 30 seconds, before she gets bored and turns it off.

After this she puts on her Walkman and plays an undetermined amount of pool. Then she starts dancing around like she’s in a disco, touching more stuff, throwing peanuts up in the air to catch in her mouth. Unsurprisingly she knocks over a vase, but only does half the job cleaning it up. After some actual plot briefly happens, she watches 5-10 seconds of TV again before getting bored once more and wandering around again. By this point, I was already rooting for the devil worshipers. This is the thing with Ti West films, his characters are not real people, they are just plot devices. She did all this stuff, because West wanted her moving around the house to build “Tension”.

Worst Devil Worshipers Ever

But the final act takes the biscuit for stupid. Turns out these are the most ineffective devil worshipers ever. They apparently can’t tie knots and they all have a tendency of standing around doing nothing to make sure Samantha has a chance to run away or deal with each of them individually. Again, no one here acts like a real person. They don’t even act like fictional characters. They are all plot devices that only ever do what is necessary to move the story along. Then you get the ending. I won’t give you spoilers, but it is very, very stupid. Even if it wasn’t, it’s basically just a knock off of far better films with a similar outcomes.

On top of this, there is some terrible continuity and abysmal lighting (Pretty sure they regularly forgot the story revolves around an eclipse). There was one scene, in the final act which I’m fairly sure it was filmed in daylight, despite it supposedly being mid lunar eclipse. The acting varies throughout, sometimes reasonable, sometimes poor. Since there are some good actors involved, I’m marking this down as bad directing. Last but not least the news report at the end about the eclipse ending fast… yeah, I just laughed at that stage.

Concussion (Not a Typo)

I feel I should say some positives, before I render judgment. I will give them a solid soundtrack. Not ground breaking, but it works very well (And the movie relies heavily on it). The use of 16mm film does actually work in the films favor too. It is a gimmick, but one I’m happy with. There’s some good visuals in the final act and the one early kill is well executed (Pun not intended). I do applaud an attempt at doing this kind of film, but this ultimately a shallow imitation of far better films. I’ve watched three Ti West films now and every one of them I found to be notably poor. I just don’t get the hype. IMDb considers this a 6.3/10. Best I can give it is a 4.5/10, which is at least higher than I gave X or The Innkeepers . Not worth your time.

Rating: 4.5 out of 10.

The Mummy (1932)

Posted on by fenrisfil

Tonight’s movie is the original Mummy from 1932. Not to be confused with the now, more famous 90’s remake. That was a very loose remake, though not as loose as Alex Kurtzman’s debacle from 2017. The original Mummy was created to follow on from the success of Dracula and Frankenstein. Like those films it became a franchise with multiple films to it, though none were direct sequels. The movie is directed by Karl Freund, mostly known as a cinematographer. His credits as a cinematographer includes Metropolis, Dracula. Key Largo and the I Love Lucy TV series. His cinematographer here is Charles Stumar, who would later work on “Werewolf of London“. Playing the titular Mummy is of course Boris Karloff, already big enough a name to be credited simply as “Karloff”.

In 1921, A “Sir Joseph Whemple” (Arthur Byron) led archaeological expedition uncovers the Mummy of Imhotep, an Egyptian high priest. Buried with him is a casket with a curse on it. When Whemlpe’s assistant opens the casket, he finds an ancient scroll within and begins to read it. As he does so the Mummy comes to life, takes the scroll and leaves, driving the assistant insane. Years later another expedition led by Whemple’s son (David Manners) is guided by a mysterious Egyptian “Ardath Bey” (Karloff) to uncover the tomb of princess Ankh-es-en-Amon. Bey, who is really Imhotep seeks to resurrect his ancient lover, but finds that she has actually been re-incarnated as a woman named “Helen Grosvenor” (Zita Johann). He now plans to abduct and sacrifice her to free her soul to be re-animated in her old body.

Reunited Across Time

On the surface this could be seen as a bit of a Dracula rip off, yet Imhotep’s obsession over Helen is not by coincidence. The idea that Helen is a re-incarnation of Imhotep’s long dead lover was at the time unique to The Mummy. Now of course, ever since 1992’s “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” this has become a recurring theme for Dracula too. I think it’s safe to say Coppola had seen The Mummy, so this was probably where he got the idea from. Yes that means Coppola turned Dracula into a knock off of a knock off of Dracula! Still, it worked well, so the idea was good. It works here as well in it’s original form.

The romantic element does add a nice bit of tragedy to the story. Indeed this is more of a Gothic horror than a monster movie. This gives both Johann and Karloff a chance to really shine. Indeed, you could argue this was Karloff’s best performance. The man was actually a very capable actor, it’s just when you are typecast as monsters you don’t get many chances to show it. The rest of the cast are solid too, though the plot doesn’t ask that much from them. This is a short film (73 mins), so the main story speeds through pretty quickly. A good part of the run time is taken up with the backstory, leaving less time for the main plot. Apparently the original version was longer, but that (Now lost) footage was mostly additional flashback material.

The Modern Lens

As tends to be the case with the classic Universal horror, the movie really makes the black and white sing. With a gifted cinematographer in the directors chair you’d expect no less. The use of hard contrast and clever lighting make every scene stand out. The flashback scenes look great too, even if we have to watch them through a weird TV screen. The sad thing here is the effect is actually really clever work from director Karl Freund and cinematographer Charles Stumar. TV’s were experimental in 1932, viewers at the time wouldn’t have thought “TV” whenever Imhotep uses his magic pool. The intention was to show a somewhat degraded image, to make it dream like. Unfortunately to me it just looks like Karloff is watching the Telly. If they had just skipped the black border, it would have aged better.

Some of the other effects show their age, but really most of it holds up. Not bad for a 93 year old movie. This movie looks better than some movies half that age. The recycled music and silence doesn’t grate too much here either (Compared to Frankenstein or Dracula), though using the exact same Swan Lake opening as they did with Dracula robs the movie of some originality. One year later and we’d start to see custom scores made for movies like this. Overall, while the movie still looks good, the plot feels a bit unbalanced. It is more concerned with the backstory, than the main story. Still, this is a strong 6/10. Worth a watch for any fan of horror or black and white movies in general.

Rating: 6 out of 10.

Frankenhooker (1990)

Posted on by fenrisfil

Today’s review is the cult horror comedy “Frankenhooker” from 1990. I’m a fan of the genre, but for some reason I’d never gotten around to this one. This is directed by Frank Henenlotter, who also co-wrote it along with Robert Martin. Henenlotter is most famous for another cult horror comedy, “Basket Case” from 1982. Music is by Joe Renzetti, who previously scored “Child’s Play”, “Dead and Burried” and even John Carpenter’s “Elvis” movie (The non-Elvis parts, obviously). This was made for $2.5m ($6m by today’s money), making it a low-mid budget horror. Basically this is a deliberate B-Movie, an intentionally B-like movie, but made to a slightly higher budget.

The movie stars James Lorinz as young mad scientist “Jeffrey Franken” and Patty Mullen as “Elizabeth Shelley” aka “Frankenhooker”. I think you can probably get the references in the names. A classic romance story. Boy meets girl. They get engaged. Girl accidentally kills herself with a remote controlled lawn mower. Boy keeps girls head in a freezer. Boy makes a load of hookers explode with super-crack and then re-animates girl using their body parts. Girl becomes partially possessed by her hooker body parts and runs off looking for Johns. Boy chases after girl. Will they end up happily ever after?

Piece by Piece

Well, this is certainly a silly movie, but I can’t say it is particularly hilarious. It is amusing in places though and in some cases possibly unintentionally. Elizabeth is meant to be overweight, apparently from a pretzels addiction. But the actress clearly isn’t overweight and so they basically got her to fully do up her outfit and stuff it with what I assume is clothes or paper. It looked ridiculous. That made me laugh more than the rest of the film, but I have no idea if that was intentional or they genuinely thought it would work. There actually wasn’t much need for her to be overweight either since she’s reduced to just a head shortly after the intro.

This is one of those movies that have nothing to it outside of the concept and what you see in the trailer. I wasn’t sure quite how much to cover with the synopsis. What I described is the entire first two acts, but that’s the basic premise and it’s all in the trailer. The movie takes a long time to get around to re-animating Elizabeth. It’s a typical horror built around a gimmicky concept, Quite often with these movies they don’t know what to do after the concept is activated (At least within their budget), so they pad out the build up instead. Still, thanks to James Lorinz wacky portrayal of Jeffrey Franken, the build up is just as amusing as the the actual Frankenhooker rampage.

Conclusion

Once we finally have our Frankenhooker loose in the red light district, the humor is about what you’d expect. It’s a brief pay off for the build up. I do have to give it to Patty Mullen for her portrayal of the monstrous prostitute. She gets a little repetitive but it’s an amusing routine. It is Lorinz that has to hold the film together though and he does a good job. What lets the film down is it seems to run out of ideas just as it gets going. I also got a little bored of people blowing up. It’s sort of one trick comedy gore here.

Ultimately this is a moderately amusing horror comedy that comes across a bit dated in both plot and execution. I enjoy horror comedies more than most, so this is a disappointment. It’s not a total disaster though and I can see why it achieved cult status. If you enjoy comedy horrors based just on ridiculousness then this could be for you. For me though I can only give it a strong 5/10. Best viewed with lots of beer.

Rating: 5 out of 10.