Watchful Eye (a.k.a. Voyeur Beach)

Watchful Eye, or Voyeur Beach as I knew it in my youth, is a late-night made-for-cable "erotic thriller."

I first saw this movie probably about 7 years ago on HBO Zone, a great HBO channel to watch a bunch of schlocky films by day and then these types of films by night.

The plot of Watchful Eye concerns Shannon, played by the wonderful Renee Rea, as a new roommate in a house that has very shading happenings going on. Unlike a lot of the "erotic" films - the adult scenes are very short, and are only barely more than you'd typically find in a hard-"R" rated film. The movie is full of eye candy, as all the actresses are pretty attractive.

So from the very start it's clear that the house is wired with cameras so that perverts can spy on them and make some cash. Probably describes the pitch to the people who produced this film too. Apparently the European import contains 7 minutes of cut footage. Why you'd cut a film that is already presumably "uncut" - I have no idea.

A few notes I took while watching this:

-Beginning of film: Wow, this guy looks like he's trying to be Shawn Ashmore before Shawn Ashmore was Shawn Ashmore.
-00:10:50 mark: Jeez guys, white balance your cameras!
-"Bailamos" knock-off music during one of the "adult" scenes.
-00:20:30 mark: Nice moves Renee!
-00:45:00 mark: WHITE BALANCE
-All the male leads look like the same guy.
-End: Why am I taking notes?

If you like this kind of schlocky film, check it out.

Camp Cuddly Pines Powertool Massacre

"I don't think moose SCAMPER!"

Camp Cuddly Pines Powertool Massacre is a 2005 adult comedy-horror film. The film was released by Wicked Pictures and stars Stormy Daniels, Jessica Drake, Eric Masterson, Tommy Gunn, Voodoo and Nicole Sheridan.

The presentation of this feature is top-notch. The image quality is pretty fantastic and the camera work may not be extra-ordinary, but it is leaps and bounds above the amateurish attempts that many independent studios are capable of in producing a horror film given the same basic budget. But what of the acting you say?

Surely the acting in a pornographic film has got to be terrible. Well, the acting is actually pretty good here as well. I mean, any movie where Voodoo makes an appearance isn't going to be Oscar worthy, and there's some clunky dialogue that characters like Jessica Drake is forced to read through, but all-in-all it's far better than what you'd find in a low-budget horror flick. You're as surprised to hear that as I was to say it.

The gore does take a back-seat in this film, so even though it is most assuredly an adult feature, the movie's focus is not directly on the horror. Why should it? These are supposed to be "designed for couples" (or lonely single men). Nearly every single normal person out there does not want to see blood and gore interspersed with sex scenes.

In terms of the horror, it's all tongue-in-cheek (that was not intended to be a pun). The film molds itself after Scary Movie more than it does Scream or something serious like The Ring, Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street, however it does take a lot of inspiration from the last two listed. You see, Kristen (Stormy), Jessica (Jessica Drake) and Rayford, Todd and Josh (Eric Masterson, Voodoo and Tommy Gunn respectively) are all headed to a Metalicide concert when they accidentally hit a homeless drifter that Kristen first believes to be a hurt Moose. Trouble ensues when they tie the dead man to the roof and then get lost in the woods.

Randy Spears makes an appearance as the town's sheriff, and I came extremely close to laughing until I puked. Can we get him in every movie please? Oh and going along with that horror movie staple, nearly every single person who has sex dies immediately afterward.

The video is historic in a way, as it is the first adult film to be released on the HD DVD format. The run-time is roughly 2 and a half hours. Oh, and please be 18 before enjoying this.

Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead

So this Friday night I sat down to catch a horror flick. As you can tell by the date, it's that time of the season. Well, what better than a film called Poultrygeist, right? That's gotta be a good horror film, right? Wrong. Somehow this piece of dreck got a "fresh" rating of 64% on Rotten Tomatoes.

This "film" is a Troma Entertainment release from 2006 directed by Lloyd Kaufman. It is apparently supposed to be a satire of the fast food industry in which a character by the name of Arbie is hired by "American Chicken Bunker" to get back at his ex-girlfriend, turned activist lesbian, Wendy.

Okay, this film seems to get a lot of praise from the underground, low-budget aficionados out there. To be completely fair, many would lump me directly into that group of people. I love schlocky, low-budget horror films. The problem is, one reason why I like "terrible" horror movies is because they were almost always not meant to be terrible. Most of those filmmakers seriously tried to make a legitimate horror film and failed. Like a guy who thinks he's funny but is terrible instead of a guy who doesn't know he's terrible and funny.

While watching Poultrygeist you can plainly see the entire crew knew they were making a schlocky film, and it comes off like a bunch of friends getting togther to shoot footage in their backyard and then crudely stringing it together with some "fart" sounds for added effect. I simply don't see the allure of that if it's clear that you aren't putting any effort into something you should otherwise be passionate about. Lloyd Kaufman has been making movies for decades, the final result looks like a poorly realized student film.

This movie is nothing but a box of bad puns and cliches wrapped with a bow of terrible acting, flat singing and terribly unfunny scenes. I was willing to give it a chance, but after 20 or so minutes of virtually nothing interesting, funny or seriously horrible going on (just "comedy gore") I gave up. I kept watching though, hoping it would get better. Spoiler: it didn't.

After watching a lame parody of Subway's Jared (who was morbidly obese in this film) paint the restroom in feces, ending with a "smaller," skinless version of himself ripping his way out of his skin, I couldn't take much more. Perhaps the film could improve and find some kind of direction, perhaps it could re-find the plot and get on with it instead of dabbling with terrible vignettes.

I made it to the scene where the director makes a cameo when it finally hit me - this movie is terrible. Terrible script, terrible acting, terrible direction... and everyone involved knows it. It's a lower budget version of the already low-buget Asylum films.

Based on some of the extremely over-the-top reactions I have uncovered regarding this film, you'd think this was groundbreaking stuff. People are praising it in some of the most exaggerated, absurd reviews I've ever seen, so it's hard to not get that impression. Then again, "The Room" gets a lot of this fake praise too - but you know that 99.9999% of the people writing those reviews are mocking it - the "positive" reviews are nothing but false praise.

If you like it, good for you. Enjoy.

Frogs

Frogs is a 1972 "eco-horror" film staring Sam Elliott and Ray Milland featuring amphibian killing machines Hellbent on terrorizing an upper-class U.S. Southern family on their plantation home.

Jason Crockett (Ray Milland) is a millionaire who invites his family to his home for his birthday. Pickett Smith (Sam Elliot) is a nature lover and photographer down in the swamp to take pictures of nature for a magazine. Opinions collide when it's discovered that Jason Crockett kills off practically everything that enters his property by using massive amounts of poisonous chemicals. Of course, the bodies are going to quickly pile up, as the noise of *ribbit* sounds like payback is coming soon.

Frogs was probably one of my best movie watching experiences. It's fun, and schlocky, but also well made enough to enjoy as a legitimate film. Shockingly this film never made it on the MST3k chopping block, though it's sister movie, Squirm did. Squirm was about killer worms terrorizing a family and invading a small town eating everyone in their path. Frogs was that exact same plot, but on a smaller scale since the frogs, as well as the other maligned creatures, only attack a southern estate on a small island.

Considering the title of the film, it's strange that it never seems like the Frogs do any of the killing. They're appear in a role more suited for, say, a "General" sending out troops of other animals that actually *DO* the dirty work. The film itself ends on one of the most bizarre and laugh educing awkward cuts that they could possibly come up with.

Check it out.

The Last Man on Earth

Vincent Price, one of the most distinct voices in the history of cinema, plays "The Last Man on Earth," fighting vampires. Most of the first act of this film is Price's character, Dr. Robert Morgan, lone survivor of the human race. Most people better know him as Robert Neville.

I think that this version is perhaps the most faithful to the original Richard Matheson novel, I Am Legend, in part because Matheson himself wrote the original screenplay. Each adaptation has its faults, this one being so low-budget that it just couldn't do the script justice, and the 2007 Will Smith film failing to do the meaning behind the title of the film any justice. Ironically the original (alternate) ending to the 2007 version hit about as close as they could considering the "humans" were nothing more than pack animals with little more than base human characteristics. Later re-writes convinced Matheson to remove his name from this film, but he's still credited under the pseudonym "Logan Swanson."

This is my second favorite Vincent Price film, falling just behind "House of Wax." You may say, "Chris, Vincent Price was in a lot of bad movies!" Yep. Keep reading.

I suspect the re-writes probably had to do with slimming down the budget – in the original story, the vampires are fast, not lumbering zombies. They can run and climb. The use of a "cure" in this version of the film comes a bit too easy, perhaps something modern genetics allowed the 2007 film to be a bit more flexible with, but not poor Dr. Morgan with a crummy looking garage chemistry set. The vampires in the film, aside from their dislike of the sunlight, acted a lot more like zombies (or really really slow people). This film certainly did help inspire modern zombie films as it laid the foundation for Romero’s Night of the Living Dead.

They could have also built up and strengthen the final confrontation a bit more, but as I postulated earlier, I don't think that the budget could have supported anything different.

In a likely move to save even more money, much of the beginning of the film is just a voice over, which unfortunately drones on at times. Dr. Morgan goes about his day-to-day, post-apocalyptic, activities such as cleaning up dead bodies, finding new food, and then finishing off the day with killing a few vampires in the early evening before bed. The movie does pick up a bit in the second act, when he meets Ruth and his conflict with finding a true cure to it all and his belief on whether or not any of them are truly human anymore completes the film. The film is very pessimistic – and thus so is Price’s character, who has completely given up, which ultimately leads to his downfall.

I'd like to thank my friend Matt for introducing this film to me so many years back. I first watched this one in one of those "50 films for 20 dollars" public-domain box-sets. The print was rife with problems. It was obviously produced using an inferior quality print. But I didn't care. The movie is an enjoyable B-flick.

Army of Darkness

More of a comedy than a horror film, Army of Darkness is an oddity that has polarized many of the fans of the original two Evil Dead movies. The first Evil Dead film was as close you could get to being a pure horror film. There were a few light or twisted moments of comedy, but it was a horror film. The second film was still very much a horror movie, but most of the horror had a heavy serving of tongue-in-cheek comedy. It was screwy, but funny as the “camp” factor had been turned not-quite-up to 11. Army of Darkness finally came out, five years later, it was much more of an action-adventure comedy than it was a horror film. Matter-of-fact, I didn't actually find this movie all that scary at all.

The story picks up directly after the second Evil Dead film, though there is no pressing need to watch the first two films before this one - I didn't the first time and quite a few times after that - as the film stands completely on its own.

Ash, played by Bruce Campbell, is a poor soul who has traveled back in time from the late 1980s and is now trapped in the 14th century. His only hope to return home is the book of the dead, the Necronomicon. Of course he is the only person who can go after it, and it's definitely in the most dangerous part of the entire world. After accidentally unleashing the forces of Hell, Ash must battle to save humanity and get back home.

This film is in no way historically accurate at all, and I'm not simply talking about how there is walking dead in the 14th century, but that the places and locations don't seem to fit any particular area of the world. One of the two endings of the film produces an even more confusing situation as to where the heck they're supposed to be. So I ignore it, and treat the locations much the way that I would treat one of the Conan the Barbarian films, in that it takes place in undefined "Eurasian" location.

The movie itself is fun and campy, but it does suffer a bit. Director Sam Raimi is certainly not the best director out there. The Spider-man films were schlocky, but not really in an enjoyable way after-the-fact. Decent, but one wonders how anyone could have said that those were the best comic book films ever made, especially after seeing how great they can actually be from films such as Iron Man. Raimi productions are produced with what I like to call that silly "New Zealand Camp Factor." I personally think he does best with this kind of material and Bruce Campbell certainly is one of the best actors that works with him. Campbell knows how to chew the scenery and make a production fun.

If you want a film to laugh about and enjoy, Army of Darkness is a film to check out. I prefer the directors cut of the film over the theatrical version, but both are great (though, you'll miss a great depressing ending if you go for the theatrical version).

Let's Eat!: Microwave Massacre

This half cooked (pardon the pun) idea of a horror film is one of the worst films I’ve ever seen, but one of the most fun movie experiences I’ve ever taken part of. The DVD box hails the film as the “worst horror movie of all time,” and they are pretty darn close.

Poor old Jackie Vernon plays Donald, a construction worker who absolutely hates his wife’s “gourmet” cooking. The movie begins with breasts. After talking about food, you'd expect I was referring to chicken. You'd be wrong. In what I can only imagine was a cheap ploy to hook the audience, a pair of breasts attached to a porn-caliber actress walk down the street. Inter-cut is Donald, who is on his lunch break. His fellow co-workers and friends have “regular” food for their lunch, but in all his wife’s culinary wisdom she’s made Donald a wonderful crab sandwich – shell and all. The crab is so fake, I'm surprised they were able to find bread large enough to encompass it since it's about the size of a pizza pie. So back to the young actress with “assets.”

The poor young lass stumbles across a construction site, and decides to peer through a hole in the wall, well it's not so much a hole as two round holes, like a funny shaped knothole. Apparently for a by-passer on the street, the mere fact she’s slightly bent over leads him to take advantage of her – and to be perfectly honest – playfully rapes her, much to the delight of two useless bums that work there, and miss out on getting a feel as she escapes. But wait, there's more. This all happens in the first 5 minutes.

Trying to pawn off his food day after day, his buddy declines the crab, explaining that “Sir, no sir! I remember those films in the army. I don't want anything to do with crabs!” in the most monotone, bland acting that I’ve seen in ages. Even *I* could read lines better than that and I can barely string together more than a sentence or two that I've practiced and planned. Eventually, to Donald's horror, his wife buys a microwave. Being a film that was shot in the 70s, the microwave is about the size of a standard oven. The house also has four ovens in that kitchen. God help Donald. So what does she concoct you might ask? Well only the most vile, nasty looking food I’ve seen in cinema history – worse than live, moving Klingon food. Klingons eat slimy, marinated worms while they're still alive and squirming. I think I could stomach that over this stuff. So it's not a surprise that Donald is about to snap. All he wants is a bologna sandwich. After an argument that we didn't really need to see filmed, Donald finally implodes and solves his marital problems in one or two fell swoops.

The next morning he wakes up not realizing what had transpired the evening before, and goes into the kitchen to see where his “lunch” is. He needs to leave for work so he guesses it might be in the microwave. Apparently not only is the microwave huge, it’s large enough to fit people in it. Yep, his wife has been placed in the microwave. Only half disgusted, and hardly worried, Donald ends up having to cut up the body and decides to store in the fridge.

To make room, he dumps all the crummy food she kept into the trash. He’s watching a TV show later, and the “host” is talking about a perfect crime – in which the closest a person got was eating all the evidence. Hungry from all the legalese the disembodied voice from the TV provided, Donald heads to the trash for a quick midnight snack. He goes straight to the food left in the trash, which may be more appetizing after being left to fester all day in the warm garage. Unfortunately for him, he didn’t notice the poorly placed hand of his dead wife fall out of the fridge into the trashcan earlier in the day, and begins to eat the foil wrapped treat. “MAY!” He screams when he realizes that it was her. Still not disgusted enough with himself, he realizes she tastes pretty good, and the following scene is Donald munching on what I can only guess is her leg.

Cue the “knothole girl” from earlier, who now has snuck into the construction site, I guess to return to the place of the crime that occurred earlier. Is she smart? No, I don’t believe so.

Well, now that Donald craves the taste of human flesh, the rest of the film is pretty much made up of vignettes where the end result is him stocking up his fridge with more meat. The jokes range from poor stereotypical jokes to simply poor jokes. Donald’s co-workers joke that the meat is darker – she was black – and later Donald jokes about “Peking Chick” – much to the chagrin of his buddies trying to tell him it’s actually “Peking Duck.”

Between poorly edited scenes that don’t fit in the film at all – mind you the film is only 75 minutes long – it could have been edited down to the length of an old Tales from The Crypt episode, Crypt Keeper monologues and all. However, the movie is a riot, a laugh a minute, whether it was intentional or not. So watch it and laugh. Laugh I tell you!

It's Mother's Day!

In honor of Mother's Day, I present to you: Mother's Day, a 1980 Horror film written and directed by Charles Kaufman (not that Charlie Kaufman) and released by Troma Entertainment.


This film is fully entrenched in the 1970s. The fashions, the style, the music. That specific film stock that only these kinds of horror films seem to have used... The story revolves around three women, Abbey, Jackie and Trina. While on a camping trip, they run into a group of hillbillies named Ike and Addley along with their insane mother. The three poor women are attacked and brutalized by this group, along the same lines of what you'd expect from a slasher of that time.

The film itself was better than I expected. It was certainly a low budget horror flick, but the film is enjoyable in its own right. They hit just about every mark a horror film should. The people behind the film have a slight sense of humor, as there is a "bus terminal" in the film, and it looks like they simply shot it at an abandoned landfill (The joke is that they're in New Jersey). They cross paths with some hillbillies at a gas station/convenience store, and while it doesn't do much within the film aside from establish some of the mood, it looks *just* like a scene from the hilarious comedy-horror film, Tucker & Dale vs Evil, which I always feel the need to give props to (can that film get distributed soon?).

There are some good fake scares early on in the film, and the stuff that happens to these girls is pretty gruesome and sadistic. These hillbilly punks are one screwed up family. They're not as disgusting as the ones from the X-Files episode, "Home," but they're close. I'm pretty sure I had an Sesame Street alarm clock like the one that featured around the 44 minute mark in the film, though it's a lot more creepy in this particular film then when I was growing up...

Another 1980 horror film outshines this one is Friday the 13th, in that it has a stronger "mother" element than this one and is a lot more memorable. The film has been remade and apparently released starring Rebecca De Mornay not that long ago.

In the UK, the film was rejected by the BBFC banning it from sale and is apparently still banned to this day. Due to portrayals of extreme violence and rape, I do not recommend sitting down with your own mother to watch this movie.

Quick Fire Review: The Bat (1959)

The Bat is a horror film that is more horrible than it is horror.

I suspect that this film is largely forgotten except for that it starred Agnes Moorehead and Vincent Price. The Bat concerns itself with a writer by the name of Cornelia van Gorder (Moorehead) who purchases a house of a recently deceased bank president who had committed a serious case of embezzlement.

The Bat plays a lot more like a strung out television anthology episode than it does an actual film and would have probably best been suited as a 25 or 50 minute story. The themes are a mish-mash of horror, thriller and mystery and none really meld too well together. There's just not a lot of vision here. The film is bland and boring to the point that not even Vincent Price could save it.

Christmas is coming early!

Santas Slay is an absurd Christmas comedic-horror film staring the wrestler Goldberg as Santa Claus. The film also stars Douglas Smith as Nicolas Yuleson, Emilie de Ravin as Mary Mackenzie, Robert Culp as Grandpa Yuleson, Dave Thomas as Pastor Timmons, and Saul Rubinek as Mr. Green. This is probably the only worthwhile thing that Brett Ratner has ever produced (directed by his former assistant, David Steiman).

The film is a jolly old tale where Santa is revealed to actually be a child of Santa who lost a bet with an angel and was forced into a 1000 year life of spreading cheer and happiness. It's been 1000 years.

The film isn't scary. It's not even that good, but somewhere in there, it's fun to watch. It is really fun to watch. And I think that's where people missed the point. The film wasn't designed to be scary. It wasn't designed to be anything but a tongue-in-cheek absurd film where Santa is played by a pro-wrestler and nothing is taken seriously.

Highlights of the movie are when James Caan is stuffed to death by turkey and the silly "hell-deer" 'shaky cam' scene towards the end of the movie.

** 1/2 out of *****

The most horrible person ever in cinema

Ebola Syndrome or Yi boh lai beng duk is a 1996 Hong Kong horror film about a murderous undergound criminal named Kai who contracts the Ebola virus and then proceeds to give it to people across South Africa and then later, in Hong Kong.

If you want to know the most horrible fictional non-supernatural character presented on film? Look no further Kai has the competition beat. He's a horrible person. And I mean real horrible. Everyone wants to bully him (the poor translation decides to present us with "bully" for something that would probably better be translated to "don't frak with me."

Kai literally gives people the Ebola virus, through sexual intercourse, spitting on them, and even killing, butchering, and making his boss and his wife into "African Buns" to serve at the restaurant he worked at. This is almost as horrible as how he contracted it, raping a Zulu who dies in the middle of the act. What, the film can't be as bad as I'm describing it? Sorry, it's worse.

Shocking. Disgusting. Almost surreal, the film is a disaster to look and stare at. And if you don't like it, don't bully me. But do, please check it out, won't you?

31 days of Halloween: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is a 1920 German expressionism horror film directed by Robert Wiene.

Overall the movie was absolutely astonishing in terms of its visuals, but for the most part the story was lacking a bit. Only toward the end did it really start to pick up. Then again, for being a 67 minute film (at least the version I saw), it was pretty good.

The visuals were breathtaking and like a nightmare at the same time. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is regarded as the first German expressionist film (or at least the film that broke the technique into mainstream) - if I remember correctly. The sets are a sight to see, and frankly no film could honestly pull something so bizarre off today. Absolutely all of the doors are crooked, the windows slanted, walkways are bent, roads twist and turn, and it all looks like some bizarre painting that Salvador Dalí would have relished in.

Even though I found the story lacking a little bit, though it's the dawn of cinema, what should I expect, it was quite clever. The set up of the story is completely innocuous, and is dashed to shreds later on, much to my surprise. The story opens in a pretty dull and "normal" setting, and quickly thrusts the viewer and the characters into the "expressionistic reality" which could easily be viewed as a dream-world nightmare of epic proportions.

I personally would have to say that the more seasoned film buffs should check this film out, as it will probably confuse or bore the plebeians. It's not quite so scary as it is creepy and disturbing. The story has been lifted time and time again over the years, probably lessening the impact of the story to today's audience compared to when it was first released.

***/*****

31 days of Halloween: The Tripper

The Tripper is a 2007 American horror film. The film is directed, produced, written by, and stars David Arquette. Other actors in this film include Courteney Cox Arquette, Balthazar Getty, Jaime King, Lukas Haas, Thomas Jane, Stephen Heath, Jason Mewes, Marsha Thomason, and Paul Reubens.

The film is a silly, absurd story which reminds me of the over the top, "so bad it is good" horror films of the 1980s.

The film deals with a group of twentysomethings who are traveling to a "love and peace concert." Paul Reubens (Pee-Wee Herman) plays the unscrupulous manager of the concert, hamming up just about every single line he has in the film. Thomas Jane plays the local sheriff. The teens traveling to the concert include Samantha (King), Jack (Heath), Jack (Haas), Joey (Mewes) and Linda (Thomason).

The villain of the film is a killer who dons a Ronald Reagan mask. Hence the name, "The Tripper" - a play off a line from "Knute Rockne, All American" where Ronald Reagan says the line "Win one for the Gipper." Well, the film devolves into a series of hippies getting axed to death in the woods. Hey, better than that "evil Republican" chopping down the forest, right?

So silly. Very enjoyable. This film was originally part of 2007's After Dark Horrorfest.

** 1/2 out of *****

Hippy Blood will Trickle Down

The trailer to The Tripper.

31 days of Halloween: Evil Dead II

Evil Dead II, the sequel to The Evil Dead, is a 1987 horror film starring Bruce Campbell and directed by Sam Raimi. The film was followed by Army of Darkness, which came out in 1993.

The interesting thing about this film is that the first 15 or so minutes is essentially a retelling of the first film. Ash and his girlfriend Linda travel to a cabin in the woods for a vacation. This cabin is not their own, but one they find unoccupied and decide to stay there for the weekend. He comes across a tape by Professor Knowby who is reciting passages from the Necronomicon Ex-Mortis (The "Book of the Dead"). Well, with those recitations, Ash unknowingly unleashes the ungodly force of the dead upon them. Linda is possessed, and she becomes a deadite. He kills her and he is then lifted up into the air and thrown into the woods.

This is where the first film ends (well sorta, since it's an alternate version of the events from the first film). The second film finally "starts" here - where Ash, on the ground is possessed by a demon until the sun "forces" it out of him. He is trapped in the woods, unable to escape so he returns to the cabin for shelter and some potential safety. While Ash is in the cabin, Professor Knowby's daughter Annie and Ed travel to the cabin with locals Jake and Bobby Jo.

The for make it to the cabin to find it in shambles, covered in blood, and Ash sitting there in the middle of it. At first he's blamed for all the death and destruction. He's thrown down into the cellar, and the three soon discover that Knowby had to kill his wife, Henrietta, who had become a deadite and then buried her in that same cellar. Henrietta then broke through the soil and began to attack Ash.

Ash's mission is now to help everyone make it out of the woods alive and send the demons back to hell.

The film is entertaining, funny, frightening, and suspenseful. It's still more of a horror film than a comedy, something that Army of Darkness is more of. When you take into account the recap at the start, and the modified start of Army of Darkness that changes the end of Evil Dead II, the film runs around 70 minutes. When the heck did Sam Raimi start doing 2 hour+ long films?

*** 1/2 out of *****

31 days of Halloween: William Castle Appreciation

Well I finally made it back to the Washington Psychotronic Film Society (I hadn't been there since they moved to The Warehouse). And boy, aside from having to switch trains a few times, it was a blast!

The theme of the night was in honor of William Castle, a schlocky director who would use marketing ploys and cheap thrills to get people to see his movies (I reviewed House on Haunted Hill, one of his films earlier in the month). The movie that was selected was "13 Frightened Girls!" which, well wasn't very frightening - marginally entertaining in an odd sort of way, a kind of Nancy Drew international mystery - but with more death and the crazy doctor from The Manchurian Candidate.

I feel like I'm skimping tonight, but I'm cold and wet from the rain outside and I just can't get myself to write anything more related to horror.

Watch the trailer, if you dare (it basically gives away most of the movie).

Check out more information:

• YouTube intro to "The Tingler"
• YouTube intro to "13 Ghosts"
• IMDB entry
• Wikipedia entry

31 days of Halloween: Sisters of Death

Sisters of Death is a 1972 horror film (that was ultimately released in 1977). The film stars Arthur Franz, Claudia Jennings (playboy playmate!), Cheri Howell. The movie was directed by Joseph Mazzuca.

The plot revolves around six sorority sisters who play a game of Russian Roulette (smart move there ladies). Well, as the audience would suspect, one of the blanks was replaced by a real bullet. Years later the 5 remaining girls are invited to an isolated house, to reminisce about the past. And everything will be dug up. As the box description says, "now it's time to play."

It is a film before its time. The movie has all the quintessential slasher horror elements, but years before most of them were widely used.

I found this film for 1.99 at a computer store with one of those "fake" generic non-descript covers that it shares with a dozen other films. The image on the front isn't from the movie, which I suppose is almost as bad as using Joe Don Baker's mug from Mitchell for the cover of Curse of Demon Mountain. Worse yet, the box is wrong and says "John Kelly" directed this film, which I suspect is something they forgot to swap out when the packing was put together. I see now it's part of one of those "50 movie packs" - bummer, I could have gotten it for $11.99. I honestly wish I could see a restored version of this, since it really was an enjoyable horror film to watch and not nearly as schlocky and cheap as I had expected.

You can apparently watch the entire film here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcI4hWwPadc

*** out of *****

31 days of Halloween: Cube

Cube is a 1997 Canadian horror film.

The film stars Nicole de Boer as Leaven, Nicky Guadagni as Holloway, David Hewlett as Worth, Andrew Miller as Kazan, Julian Richings as Alderson, Wayne Robson as Rennes and Maurice Dean Wint as Quentin. The movie is directed by Vincenzo Natali.

The film is, well, interesting and unique. The movie uses - perhaps - two or three sets total throughout the entire film. All of them are the same. Cubes. The story involves a group of people, all with memory loss, waking up and discovering themselves trapped in a complex of hundreds of cubes, with no idea what they're doing there or how to get out. Some rooms are safe, others booby-trapped.

The booby-trap rooms are full of shocking surprises - acid, razor wire, flames - you name it. Some are set off by movement, others - who knows.

I find a few problems with the movie, one being that we have absolutely no insight into why these people are part of this "experiment." While this may appear to be a pea for "spoon feeding," I would caution the reader that one must really care enough about the events that are going on within a film to allow themselves to forget about what the film isn't telling them. While an interesting character study, the problems I have with the film involve mostly the nature of why these people are there in the first place. It just isn't enough that it's a bureaucracy out of control, where people do things where the right hand doesn't talk to the left hand to such a degree that people could be drugged, had their memories erased, and then put into a situation where death is all but certain.

Perhaps it doesn't really matter, but without that crucial piece of information I find it hard to really connect to most of the characters. Perhaps the only failing - the only characters I could really connect to were Leaven and Worth - who were played by the two actors I was most familiar with (though I am also quite familiar with Wayne Robson from "The Red Green Show").

But hey, for a film that cost somewhere around a quarter of a million dollars (American) isn't half bad!

*** out of *****

31 days of Halloween: The Midnight Meat Train

The Midnight Meat Train is a 2008 horror film based off a short story by Clive Barker.

The film stars Bradley Cooper as Leon, Leslie Bibb as Maya, Brooke Shields as Susan and Vinnie Jones as Mahogany. The movie also features Roger Bart, Ted Raimi, Peter Jacobson, Barbara Eve Harris and Tony Curran.

Midnight Meat Train is a pretty disturbing film. Leon is a photographer who travels the city, and the subway, in the middle of the night trying to capture the "essence" of the city. Like all crazed artists, they're willing to sit and watch other people get harassed, assaulted, and as we later find, killed. Susan Hoff, one of those crazed artists convinces that Leon must venture out and get some "real" shots of the city. This starts a spiraling event in Leon's life which introduces him to the sadistic Mahogany, a butcher by day and night.

Leon suspects that Mahogany is killing people on the subway, and that a string of missing persons over the last century can be linked directly to him and whatever shady dealings that Mahogany is part of. What he eventually uncovers is enough to unravel his own life, and all who are around him as well.

I thought that the film was very moody, and unfolded quite well. In fact it's one of the better atmospheric films since, at least for me, The Ring. Leon's brush with the Meat Train begins to grow on him as the film progress, and he becomes more obsessed with what is going on. What I really liked about the acting was that Vinnie Jones finally plays someone quiet - breaking from the usual loud, obnoxious character he's usually associated with playing. The ending was wholly unexpected when I first started watching, but the feeling of dread as I progressed through the film made the eventual ending more and more obvious to me, though I hoped it wouldn't actually happen. Clive Barker is one screwed up individual.

You can catch this film on FearNet On Demand for free.

*** out of *****

31 days of Halloween: Pitch Black

Pitch Black (later known as The Chronicles of Riddick: Pitch Black) is a 2000 science fiction/horror film. The film stars Vin Diesel and is directed by David Twohy.

The film starts with a crash. A serious crash. The transport ship carrying passengers and a dangerous prisioner, Richard B. Riddick (Diesel), is struck by a freak meteor storm "off the beaten path" on their way through space. By luck the ship navigates towards the nearest habitable planet, where it promptly crashes.

The film also stars Radha Mitchell as Carolyn Fry, Cole Hauser as William J. Johns, Keith David as Abu "Imam" al-Walid, Lewis Fitz-Gerald as Paris P. Ogilvie, Claudia Black as Sharon "Shazza" Montgomery, Rhiana Griffith as Jack, and John Moore as John "Zeke" Ezekiel.

Co-pilot Carolyn Fry (Mitchell) successfully saves as many of the passengers as possible, though she contemplates letting them die to save her and the pilot's lives. After the crash, the few survivors discover that Riddick has escaped.

The planet is hell (it's called Hades, which is fitting), with three suns that never seem to set lighting it. The other survivors include Muslim Imam (David) and his three assistants (aka fodder for the monsters), young Jack (Griffith), Paris P. Ogilvie (Fitz-Gerald), Zeke (Moore), Shazza (Black), and a bounty hunter named William J. Johns (Hauser). The survivors attempt to avoid Riddick while they fight to survive the heat. They discover an abandoned facility, abandoned almost two decades earlier. They they soon discover the ugly truth that darkness is coming, and so are the creatures of the night.

I loved the film's use of color to indicate the various "suns" that appeared above the sky, and the creatures (which I don't believe are ever named) are pretty freaky. While I wouldn't totally classify this as a "horror" film - as it's more a sci-fi adventure, the film is pretty creepy in it's own right if the mood is good.

The film was a minor hit, making 53 million dollars worldwide over a budget of 23 million. A sequel, Chronicles of Riddick, which I adore did not do as well, though there is at least one if not two more Riddick films in the works. Both Diesel and Twohy are set to return, and I can't be happier.

*** 1/2 out of *****