Halloween 2022: October 21st

Elvira's Haunted Hills (2001)

I'm not one of those insufferable millennials that genuinely believe the eighties and early nineties were any better than today. But ya know what those decades did have? Elvira, everywhere. Cassandra Peterson eventually parlayed her popularity as a pitchwoman and TV horror host into a movie. Though “Elvira, Mistress of the Dark” would quickly become a cult classic, it flopped in theaters upon release. But Peterson didn't want to give up on film stardom for her trademark character. She cooked up a script with her partner-in-crime, John “Jambi the Genie” Paragon, for a second Elvira feature film. She believed in the project so much that she mortgaged her home to raise the budget. Thus began the embattled existence of “Elvira's Haunted Hills.”

Elvira is a traveling singer and dancer, heading through the Carpathian Mountains in the 1850s. Her and her housemaid, Zou Zou, go fleeing into the forest after getting kicked out of their hotel. They hitch a ride with Dr. Bradley Bradley, who immediately takes a shine to Elvira. They travel to the crumbling estate of the Hellsubus family. Lord Vladimere and his sister are afflicted with a rare condition that makes them sensitive to light and noise. He's still haunted by the memory of his dead first wife, whom Elvira happens to resemble. When the spirit of the late Elura is conjured up and takes over Elvira's body, weird things begins to go on throughout the castle.

Cassandra Peterson has made it known many times in the past that she's indifferent to gorier, more modern types of horror movies. She has, however, expressed a repeated love of the films of Vincent Price and Roger Corman. This is probably why “Haunted Hills” is an extended throwback to the Poe Cycle. Scott Atkinson, as Bradley, is clearly modeled on Price. The Hellsubus family condition and much of the plot recalls “House of Usher.” The swirling colors under the opening credits and the climax are straight out of “The Pit and the Pendulum.” The dead wife and Richard O'Brien's sunglasses recall “Tomb of Ligeia,” while Elvira is bricked up inside a wall as an obvious homage to “The Cask of Amontillado.” (For good measure, the final shot is likely inspired by Bava's “Black Sunday,” while there's a little Hammer horror style for seasoning.) There's some lovely sets. The castle location includes a large stone staircase decorated by spooky portraits. Naturally, Elvira walks down this staircase while holding a candelabra. It's obvious that “Haunted Hills” was made as a loving homage to a particular type of bygone horror. 

Interestingly, “Elvira's Haunted Hills” is not a sequel to “Elvira, Mistress of the Dark.” Instead, the script simply drops Elvira, as we know her and as she's always existed, into the Victorian setting. This means everyone around her is more-or-less acting like how you'd expect the characters from a Hammer or Poe movie to be,  while Peterson is in full-on goth valley girl mode. She's constantly dropping dopey double entendres. One of the earliest scenes involves her boobs getting groped, the first of many mammary-centric gags in the movie. Elvira breaks the fourth wall on multiple occasion, winking at the audience directly. Probably the centerpiece of the movie is Peterson performing a sexy song-and-dance number, concluding with her flashing her panties – with the word “APPLAUSE” across the ass – at the screen. 

Peterson goes for broke, like she always does, digging into every silly one-liner and shameless physical gag. Unfortunately, the comedic pitch of the movie around her is off. There's a few solid jokes here. Elvira hooks up with the ludicrously handsome stable boy, who is amusingly badly dubbed. (By an immediately recognizable Rob Paulsen.) Richard O'Brien, as Vladimere, gets one or two good moments. Such as when he awakens with a teddy bear. Unfortunately, the movie is otherwise bereft of laughs. The jokes surrounding the Hellsubus' sensitivity are shockingly lame. The running gags around Elvira's heavy-set sidekick feel strangely mean-spirited. There's just no pep or zip to the jokes here, the entire production feeling weirdly listless even when it does have funny ideas. 

Financing “Elivra's Haunted Hills” totally independently turned out to be a nightmare for Peterson and her team. Elvira's prominence in pop culture had slipped by the start of the new millennium, meaning they spent all their money on a movie they then couldn't sell. The film sat on a shelf for several years, before receiving a meager direct-to-video release in 2001. There's been some attempt since then to reclaim “Haunted Hills” as  a cult movie on the level of Elvira's first movie, most recently through a spiffy Blu-Ray from Scream Factory. It's never quite taken off for a simple reason: This one isn't as funny or entertaining as the character's previous cinematic excursion. “Haunted Hills'” heart is in the right place and I love and respect Peterson's creation so much. But this is a movie I ultimately want to like more than I actually do. A go-for-broke leading lady can only do so much to elevate a comedy severely lacking in quality gags. [5/10]

Popcorn (1991)

By the end of the eighties, the slasher genre couldn't have been more played-out. Just about every possible variation on the premise, of a masked lunatic chopping up teenagers, had been put on-screen. Yet the body count formula had become so intrinsic to how people observed the genre that it was hard for producers to let go of it. “Popcorn” remains one of the odder attempts to keep the slasher formula fresh and original. The film would marry the premise of young people being killed in an isolated location with parodies and throwbacks to the history of cinema. The result did not catch on with audiences in 1991 but, more recently, “Popcorn” has found some defenders among cult movie aficionados.  

Maggie is a young film student who is writing a screenplay based on her eerie, reoccurring dreams. After the idea is suggested by fellow student Toby, the class puts on an all-night horror movie marathon in an abandoned theater. Audiences are drawn in by the crazy gimmicks made to sell the movies being performed in the cinema. While cleaning up the props, the students come across a print of “Possessor,” a lost film by infamous cult leader Lanyard Gates. The film holds a missing key to Maggie's muddled past. When other people start to disappear in the theater, a killer lurking among the guest, it's clear that Maggie's past is far from settled too.

Instead of riffing on the slasher genres that dominated the previous decade, “Popcorn” goofs on the B-movies of the fifties and sixties. There's four movies-within-the-movie. “Mosquito” is a black-and-white giant bug flick, probably inspired by “Tarantula.” “The Amazing Electrified Man” has similar plots to “Man-Made Monster” and “Indestructible Man.” “The Stench” is a Japanese sci-fi/horror flick. Each comes with its own gimmick: “Mosquito” has an Emergo-like giant mosquito that swings through the theater. "Electrified Man" is paired with Percepto-like joy buzzers in the seat. “The Stench” is paired with Smell-O-Vision, of course. (Audiences are also asked to sign life insurance policies before entering the theater , recalling “Macabre.”) The internet tells me that “Possessor” was inspired by Jose Mojica Marins but it looks more like a Charles Manson thing.

Clearly, the crew had fun replicating the look and feel of these specific eras and subgenres of bygone horror films. The fake movies definitely steal the show in “Popcorn.” As for the movie around the parodies, it's less certain. The theater setting is cool and having everyone dress up in various costumes in a nice touch. There's some clever murder scenes, that aren't so much gory as they are creative. Like the giant mosquito being weaponized or a kiss turning deadly, with stringy flesh being yanked away from a face. Yet other parts of the movie feel weirdly off-center. An electrocution is hilariously melodramatic in how it's shot. A murder by gas bomb in a bathroom makes me wonder if “Popcorn” isn't going for laughs, despite its apparent seriousness. There's also, seemingly, some supernatural elements in an early scene that are never mentioned again.

In fact, on a scripting level, “Popcorn” is a bit of a mess. The killer has a bizarre gimmick, of wearing flawless latex flesh over his face. While this provides a few interesting moment, he strips down to his burnt-off skin later. This is followed by lengthy exposition dumps, that quickly cause the story to get convoluted. The entanglements between the characters seem more contrived than usual. Kelly Jo Minter gets a couple of nicely sassy moments while Freddie Simpson is cute in the nurse uniform. “Popcorn” is maybe best remembered as a vehicle for Jill Schoelen but she's forced into a disappointingly passive role. Maggie spends half of the movie strapped down to the killer's flesh-replicating machine. Tom Villard goes wildly over-the-top as the campy Toby.

If “Popcorn” feels like a weird, disjointed mess, that's because it is. The movie's production was famously fraught. Bob Clark produced and originally had his old friend Alan Ormsby directing. Ormsby was fired after three weeks, supposedly for taking too long to shoot the parody sequences, and took the original leading lady with him. A new director was quickly hired, with Clark possibly doing some uncredited shooting as well. The movie was shot in Jamaica, which is why there's so much mediocre reggae in it. (Including a reggae concert in the middle of the story, which will seem inexplicable if you don't know this information.) “Popcorn's” weirdo bent and meta elements would win it a minor cult following. Though, if I'm being honest, I think the movie's wicked poster art is the real reason a handful of people are fond of it. Occasionally funny or weirdly compelling but this kernel definitely doesn't pop either. [6/10]

Shockers: Parent's Night

My journey into overlooked horror anthology shows reaches its most obscure point with “Shockers,” a six episode British series from 2000. This show's gimmick is that the scripts were from up-and-coming writers. “Parent's Night” comes from “Ultraviolet's” Joe Ahearne. It follows David, a teenager who has recently moved to a new school. He's relentlessly bullied by his classmates, especially by a little shithead named Alan. David begins to bring a camera to school, to document his torment, but this only makes him a bigger target. The boy grows increasingly desperate, especially once Alan begins to bully him at home too. David takes drastic measures to end his suffering and begins a chain reaction of violence.

“Parent's Night” has to rank among the most disturbing and bracing depictions of bullying and school violence that I've seen. There's little respite from David's torments. Any time he thinks he's found a counter against Alan and his friend's bullying, the other kids find a new angle. Alan mock his dead father, accuse David of being a pedophile, act like he's going to seduce his mom, and beats the shit out of him too. The teachers meant to protect David do nothing to keep him safe, even accusing him of bringing the bullying on himself. Most insidiously, the bullies will randomly pretend to make amends and want to be friends with David, before resuming the torment again. It's brutal and, as someone who was mercilessly bullied in school, totally realistic. 

“Parents' Night” is partially told through David's camera, making it almost a found footage movie. This further creates a sense of realism. When contrasts with a video tape of a school shooting David has, it makes you think you know where things are going. Instead, “Parent's Night” heads in an even more distressing direction, before swerving towards a gut-twistingly visceral final act of violence and revenge. The image of violence are stark and disturbing, precisely because they approach an unfortunately familiar topic – the school shooting – in a new light. The final images are heartbreaking, largely thanks to the sincere and lived-in performances from Liam Barr as David and Aisling O'Sullivan as his mom. “Parent's Night” is a disturbing hour of television, powerful and unsettling. I see a lot of myself in “Parent's Night” and I'm glad I made it out. Not every kid does. [9/10] 

Ursula (1961)

"Ursula" is a 1961 short film from experimental filmmaker Lloyd Michael Williams. It follows the titular little girl, who lives with her cruel mother in a crumbling home, located deep within a swamp. While playing in a tree, Ursula tears her dress. Her mother teaches her a lesson by breaking her pet bird's wing. Ursula takes this lesson in a different way than her mother intended and begins to "break" other animals. When her mother punished her more, Ursula decides to take this lesson further.

"Ursula" is a bit too self-consciously artsy-fartsy for my taste. The film features a number of experimental, visual tricks. Such as bubbles boiling on-screen when mother disposes of the frog Ursula killed. The extended nightmare sequence features lots of overlapping future of birds flying and the moon in the sky. Those birds show up again during the climatic act of violence. It doesn't help that the prints of the film online are in poor condition, making these oblique visuals symbols even harder to decipher. 

Yet "Ursula" is still effective eerie at times. The decision to have a grown woman dub over the little girl's voice definitely establishes a weird mood. The string soundtrack is fittingly discordant, furthering the uncanny ambiance. I like the dark fairy tale aspect to the story, the way it shows how children interpret things differently than adults do. And how parents shouldn't be needlessly cruel when teaching children those lessons. If a restored print of this is floating around somewhere, I would probably get a little more out of it. [6/10]