Welcome to the film-related musings, complaints, and comments of Zack Clopton, an amateur film-critic, scholar, and screenwriter. Featured here are Director's Report Cards, essays, and other reviews. Enjoy!
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Some years back, a list started to circulate around social media displaying the scariest films for each of the last fifty years. According to who? The person who created the image, I guess. Most of the usual suspects were present and accounted for, as you'd expect, but a few more left-field choices did crop up. One of which, for the year 2008, was “Coming Soon.” This was the sole title mentioned that I was unfamiliar with. A little research showed me it was a well-regarded Thai film, the directorial debut of Sophon Sakdapisit. Sakdapisit previously wrote “Shutter,” the film largely responsible for putting Thai horror on the map in the new millennium. That film was also my previous sole exposure to terror tales from this particular country. Since my journey around the world via horror films this season has brought me back to Thailand, watching “Coming Soon” seemed like the logical next step to take.
A multiplex holds a cast-and-crew only screening of “Resentful Spirit,” a yet-be-released horror film. Projectionist Shane, a former drug addict trying to rebuild his relationship with co-worker Som, has agreed to bootleg the film pre-release and sell it to some gangsters. As his friend Yon records a clandestine screening of the film, he mysteriously vanishes. Shane investigates further and soon sees that Yon's dead body is now part of the movie. Haunted by visions of the film's ghostly antagonist, Shane becomes convinced the movie is cursed. Teaming up with Som, he digs into the origins of the film and the grisly legend – of a mad woman who kidnapped children and gouged their eyes out, before a mob lynched her – that inspired “Resentful Spirit.” Can he unravel this mystery before it is too late?
"Coming Soon" begins with a lengthy clip from the film-within-the-film. This scene features lots of shaky cinematography, ghastly gore thrusts into the audience's face, and loud jump scares. As the black bars of the letterbox format push in on the images, it's revealed to the audience that what they are watching is fictional within the film's context. At first, I took this as a backhanded criticism from Sakdapisit about the clichés of the horror genre. Surely some sort of point about the differences between what hack filmmakers think is scary and what is actually scary is emerging? While "Coming Soon" doesn't feature much shaky-cam, it has no problem with deploying gory special effects and screaming jump scares. The visage of the ghost woman is admittedly quite unnerving. The scenes of her clawing out eyes or tearing her own jaw apart are effectively grisly. As for the jump scares... I don't think there's any modern horror trope I criticize more but, like everything else, the sudden shock is merely another tool in the filmmaker's toolbox. It can be used well. "Coming Soon's" litany of shrieks are professionally orchestrated. The ghostly corpse appearing in a flickering hallway, assuming the appearance of Shane's girlfriend in a dark basement, or lingering behind him in an elevator are all decently executed. Personally, I find moments like these most effective when paired with prolonged suspense or an atmosphere of sustained dread. However, if a barrage of well done boos is what you want from a horror movie, "Coming Soon" will likely prove most satisfactory.
If the focus on screeching ghost faces didn't make it apparent, "Coming Soon" has a limited interest in subverting audience expectations. The script has a frustrating habit of seeming to go in a more clever direction before getting right back on the expected track. Midway through the story, Shane and Som seek out the origins of the legend that inspired the cursed movie. As in "Ring," "The Eye," and "Shutter," their investigation takes them to a remote village in the country. This all proceeds a decently surprising twist that seems to confound what you'd typically expect from a plot structure like this... Before another routine origin is plainly revealed for this haunting. This is not the only time "Coming Soon" counteracts a swerve. Shane eventually decides burning the physical film might end the curse, a standard conclusion to make in a movie like this. Instead, this action traps him in a time loop. Instead of pursuing this idea further, it's merely another set piece on the way to a standard climax.
"Coming Soon's" disappointing habit of going right up to the line of truly subverting expectations only to conform at the last minute is most evident in its apparent unwillingness to communicate with its own subtext. "Coming Soon" is about watching a horror movie cursing the viewer. The ghost summoned by this act gouges out your eyes, the organs you watch with. The mechanics of the curse are built around the viewer unknowingly being witness to a horrible act. This thread climaxes with a fourth wall breaking moment, the ghost accusing us, the watcher at home or in the theater, of being similarly complacent. A self-reflective horror movie that examines why people are compelled more to watch than to help is a fascinating idea. Instead of expounding on this idea, "Coming Soon" focuses on standard scares and a melodramatic subplot about Shane and Som's history. Scenes based around a significant timepiece are so schmaltzy as to feel utterly out-of-place. "Coming Soon" is short too, running only a little over eighty minutes, so this sweaty romantic subplot is all the real development the protagonists get. That makes it difficult to be invested in their ultimate fates.
Unlike a lot of Asian horror films that received international attention in the 2000s, "Coming Soon" was spared a mediocre Hollywood remake. I can't imagine this one being improved by getting the "One Missed Call" treatment. However, a good remake that delves more into the ideas present in the film, of interrogating why we are drawn to watch horrible acts, would be a worthwhile endeavor. Despite the obvious skill on-display in "Coming Soon," it never rises above the standard ghost movie shenanigans it seems designed to counteract. That rotting corpse ghost woman – whose slashed mouth, twisted ankles, and stringy hair seems to combine different mythological figures from across the Asian continent – is pretty freaky though. Hopefully she doesn't start popping out at me after watching this one. Would giving "Coming Soon" a middling score make me more or less likely to be targeted by the curse? We should've gotten a sequel about that... They could've called it "Coming Sooner." [6/10]
Charles Band may be the last exploitation movie producer – in the grindhouse/drive-in sense, where the line between coattail rider, con man, and P.T. Barnum showman blurs – in the business. In 2020, when the world was being ravaged by an unprecedented pandemic, he threw together two actresses in front of a green screen and lots of repurposed footage to cash-in on the widespread disaster. At this point, it's hard to imagine that questions of taste crossed his mind on the way to making a quick buck. Band has always been like this. In the old days, he'd mock-up a poster, an image he knew was marketable, and build a movie around it only afterwards. This is undoubtedly how “Zone Troopers” came to be. And what a poster it is! Slotting a snarling alien in place of Uncle Sam in the classic pose, beckoning personally to the person looking at it, made “Zone Troopers'” one-sheet an object of frightful fascination for some young people. The movie itself – a few years early to be a “Predator” rip-off, instead drawing obvious inspiration from “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and “Star Wars” – is more of a question mark though. I already own the poster, and love it, so it's past time for me to see if I feel similarly about the actual motion picture.
World War II rages in the Italian countryside. A small troop of American soldiers see their inexperienced leader killed by the Germans. This forces roughneck Sgt. Stone to take charge, leading the group further into enemy territory. They come across an unexpected Gestapo stronghold, in the same area where their compasses give odd readings. The team soon discovers that the Nazis have captured a downed alien vessel and the strange lifeform inside. The Americans take it upon themselves to rescue the extraterrestrial. The outsider seeks to be reunited with his kind but will the visitors be sympathetic to the U.S. war effort? What of the Germans, hot on their trail?
"Zone Troopers" was the directorial debut for Danny Bilson, who previously wrote "Trancers" for Band. The two films share a lot in common, with much of the same cast and a premise that introduces a sci-fi element into a classic pulp story. While "Trancers" mashed-up a film noir set-up with time travel and monsters, "Zone Troopers" literally drops an alien into the middle of WWII. While the film obviously seeks to emulate comics like "Weird War Tales," it can never quite capture that anything-can-happen thrill. In fact, "Zone Troopers" feel weirdly low stakes. The platoon has no goal other than to make it out from behind enemy lines. While the Nazis hope to reverse engineer weapons from the alien tech, this is only mentioned in passing. The script mostly feels like a series of encounters, strung together with little sense of direction. This is most evident in farcical scenes where a captured soldier punches out Hitler or a childish private conjured a brunette in a slinky gown with some alien gizmo. These scenes don't add to the story, instead functioning as amusing incidents included to pad out the runtime.
This lack of direction is also apparent in the indecisive treatment of the alien. Despite its threatening visage on the poster, the hairy, mandibled critter is only played as a figure of fear in one brief scene. Later, it's seen emerging from an egg, giving you the impression that this monster is a baby. That's quickly changed, the alien instead being a female science officer of some kind. When other extraterrestrials appear, they look like blue-skinned Nordics with tubas on their heads. This constantly changing approach to the aliens is also present in how they act. The dramatic crux of the script has the infintry men asking the visitors to assist in the fight against the Nazis. They initially resist before changing their minds entirely off-screen. It would have been nice to have a scene of the aliens realizing what the soldiers did for them or seeing that the Nazis were a monstrous threat that demanded their attention. Of course, this wouldn't blend well with the lackadaisical, made-up-as-it-goes-along nature of the story. You can also see that in the alien tech, which can do anything the scene demands.
If there's not much tension in the wartime setting and little focus about the sci-fi elements, what does "Zone Troopers" have going for it? Well, the creature effects are good. That's to be expected, as Empire Pictures regular monster man John Carl Buechler did the make-up. I like how the central alien invokes both an insect and a monkey, with its bug eyes, segmented mouth, and hairy skin. Mostly, it's the cast that carries this one. Tim Thomerson's Sgt. Stone is clearly inspired by D.C. Comics' Sgt. Rock, what with the name and his inexplicable tendency to survive any injury. Thomerson proves that he would've been an inspired choice to play that character, showing a good mixture of hard-boiled toughness, concern for his men, and bad-ass gusto. The other soldiers are never developed much beyond general archetypes. However, Timothy Van Patton, as the youthful Verona, and Art LaFleur, as the comical "Mittens," get a few good moments together. The action direction isn't inspired at all, largely belonging to the stale tradition of "guns go off, people fall down" style. This is most disappointing at the finale, where the deployment of the alien tech proves deeply underwhelming. It's a shame there's no exciting pyrotechnics to accompany the colorful cast.
Bilson would only direct one more theatrically released film, forgotten ensemble comedy "The Wrong Guys." This is not to say he hasn't had a long fruitful career. He co-wrote "The Rocketeer," created threesuccessfulTV shows, and later pivoted successfully into video games. Most recently, he provided the blueprint for Spike Lee's "Da 5 Bloods." Which probably makes up for him fumbling this men-on-a-mission war flick. Like a lot of Band's Empire Pictures, "Zone Troopers" was MIA on disc for many years. During that time, it cultivated a bit of a cult following. I can't help but wonder how much VHS rental nostalgia and the bitchin' poster art influenced that. "Zone Troopers" sadly does not live up to its potential. A Charles Band production being outshined by its box art is certainly not unprecedented. That's the way it goes sometimes. [5/10]
"Alfred Hitchcock Presents" didn't make quite the impact on pop culture that "The Twilight Zone" did. This might explain why it got the slightly more successful revival in 1985. Though the new "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" mostly featured direct remakes of the classic episodes. Such as "Night Fever," which follows a charming young psychopath named Jerry. After failing to pick up a girl at a grocery store, he robs it instead. When the cops arrive, Jerry starts shooting. He fatally wounds an officer and receives a bullet into his own arm. He arrives at a hospital, knowing the police will book him the minute he heals up. That's when his nurse, a sweet and naïve woman named Ellen, catches his eye. He attempts to woo her into helping him escape.
The 1985 version of "Night Fever" casts Robert Carradine as its Starkweather-esque psycho. The star of "Revenge of the Nerds" – same director, by the way – might seem like an odd choice for a seductive killer. Somehow, the episode makes it work. Jerry is obviously good at spotting vulnerable people. When he sees the dowdy Ellen, he immediately checks her as a lonely young woman ready to be taken advantage of. He immediately compliments her appearance, knowing that'll work, using the exact same line on her that he used on the girl in the first scene. (Whose jaw he broke afterwards.) This is, of course, exactly how sociopaths operate in real life. They only care about themselves and usually aren't very smart – Starkweather was barely literate – but have enough outward charm to win over those most susceptible to their wiles. "Night Fever" reminds me a lot of Jack Ketchum's "The Lost" in the way it clearly depicts this seemingly contradictory dichotomy. Not only because both stories have killers with a rockabilly style about them.
The cops in "Night Fever" are eager to punish the man who has injured one of their own. This stands in contrast to the doctors around Jerry, who treat all patients equally, no matter their crimes. (Coincidentally enough, he doctor is played by Basil Hoffman, just seen in the same year's "Button, Button.") This presents a theme of justice and the fairness of capital punishment... That is tossed out by a twist ending that occurs literally within the final minute. It's a hell of a twist though, one that changes the context of everything we've seen before in the best way and ends things on a surprising, chilling moment. Jeff Kanew's direction is standard enough, though the cramped hospital room does generate some claustrophobic tension. Mostly, it's the performances of Carradine and Lisa Pelikan that makes this one worth seeing. Like many "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" episodes, this leans more towards noir than horror. Though the protagonist being a remorseless killer pushes it into the marginal side of things. Horror fans should also keep their eyes peeled for a bit part from Ken Foree as an orderly. [7/10]
We get a rare Fester centric episode in "Crisis in the Addams Family." After some pirate themed roleplay goes awry, Fester blows a hole in the family's plumbing. This leads to Gomez filing another claim with the family's put-upon insurance agency, who decide to cancel the Addams' policy. Distraught over all the drama he's caused, Fester sinks into a depression. Gomez encouraged him to seek out a new job to invigorate himself, which leads to Fester finding employment at the exact same insurance company the represents the family.
"Crisis in the Addams Family" is quite an unfocused episode. At first, it seems to be about Uncle Fester feeling frustrated with his role in the household, tired of always playing the bad guy in Gomez's games. The scene where he confined himself to his bedroom, in a funk, seems to support that idea. Instead, the script quickly changes gears to be about the always exciting world of insurance policies. The two ideas don't seem to have in common with each other. Fester getting a job with, coincidentally, the same agency about to cancel the family's plan seems like a desperate attempt to mash together two unrelated premises.
To compensate for a messy structure, "Crisis in the Addams Family" attempts to pack in lots of gags. Gomez is especially wacky in this episode, starting it wearing a feathered pirate hat and ending it in paratrooper gear. Extra attention is giving to the family's ooky cuisine, with gopher loaf apparently being Fester's favorite meal. We also find out that the uncle has magnetic abilities, which seems like a believable extension of his electric properties. What other superpowers does Uncle Fester have? As far as the show's many unsettled straight men go, Parley Baer as the baffled insurance manager is pretty funny. Hus reaction to a climatic phone call is a solid joke. Though it leads to the episode's plot resolving itself in a confusing, rushed manner. "Crisis in the Addams Family" also repeats the joke of Lurch being mistaken for the head of the household, another clue that this isn't the "Addams'" most inspired half-hour. [6/10]
Natalie Erika James's "Relic" was one of the first movies to come out in the wake of "Hereditary" and "The Witch" that actively seemed to be riding the same wave. The difference between that one and many of the other pictures in the "elevated horror" style is that "Relic" was actually a good horror film and not merely a maudlin drama with some jump scares welded on. When it was announced that James had her next film lined-up, a mysterious project called "Apartment 7A," I was intrigued. Details were kept secret as it moved through production until it slipped, shortly after filming wrapped, that "Apartment 7A" had been a prequel to "Rosemary's Baby" all along. We had fallen for the ol' "The Woods/Blair Witch" dodge again, which at least explained the lack of details about the story up to that point. I don't think we needed a follow-up to "Rosemary's Baby," as previousattempts to do so proved, but I assumed a talented director like James had a fresh angle on the idea. "Apartment 7A" then sat on a shelf for two years before dropping on Paramount+ recently, amid middling reviews and zero hype. It would seem producers still can't capitalize on Ira Levin and Roman Polanski's classic. Because I dug "Relic" so much, I decided to give it a look anyway.
In 1965, dancer Terry Gionoffrio moves to New York City with dreams of being a star on Broadway. She seems on her way when she badly shatters her ankle during a performance. After healing up, she tries to impress at auditions but can't secure a job. Desperate, and developing a painkiller addiction, she shows up at producer Alan Marchand's apartment building. There, she catches the eyes of Minnie and Roman Castavet, a kindly elderly couple. They offer her an apartment and quickly get her a date with Alan. It would seem Terry's luck is turning around, as she gets cast in a big production and misfortune befalls her rival. At the same time, she begins to have disturbing nightmares and see weird stuff around the building. That's when Terry realizes two things: First off, she has been the target of a Satanic conspiracy and, secondly... She's pregnant.
An early scene in "Apartment 7A" convinced me that it might actually be good. At an audition, Terry is identified as the girl who broke her ankle on stage and commanded to perform the pivotal dance move over and over again. Afterwards, Alan essentially asks her if she's willing to humiliate herself for success. Anybody watching "Apartment 7A" knows that the kindly old couple have ulterior motives. Terry suspects that their offers may be too good to be true as well. She stills takes them up on it, because she's desperate. When Alan gives her a part in the play after that seemingly sleep together, Terry feels lousy about it... But she still takes the part. In these moments, "Apartment 7A" outlines how a patriarchal society sets up a structure of control designed to debase and manipulate women. Participating in this system is a deal with the devil. (Literally in this case.) What other choice does Terry have though? By the time she realizes what is actually happening, it's too late. She's caught up in this system too. It's an interesting idea, one that expands on the points of "Rosemary's Baby." That James has Terry bring drugged before she's assaulted makes me wonder, perhaps, if "Apartment 7A" isn't a self-critical reaction to the original film or, at least, the man who directed it.
There's other signs that James and her team know what they are doing. "Apartment 7A" is a good looking movie, with opulent costumes, lovely sets, and cinematography that is both warm and claustrophobic. You get the impression that James really wanted to direct a musical. The film delights in the stylized visuals and swooping camera movements of the genre whenever Terry is performing on-stage. The highlight of the film is a full-on Bugsy Berkeley style dance scene fantasy. James isn't ignorant on how to engineer some scares too. That dance sequence climaxes with a glittery faced monster appearing, a decent shock. Similarly, a moment when Terry looks down to see monstrous hands wrapped around her waist is an example of a jump scare done correctly. A sequence where an old woman with a pair of oversized scissors attacks Terry at night is the moment most similar to "Relic," the director operating in familiar territory for them with some skill. While "Apartment 7A" can never match the intensity of Polanski's original, its better moments do capture something of a sense of that film's paranoia and a conspiracy closing in on our heroine, especially during a pivotal haircut scene.
To take the dance metaphor further... James and her team know the steps but can't quite nail the spirit of the work. "Apartment 7A" makes the classic mistake of showing us too much. In the same year as "The First Omen," another pregnancy centric prequel to a demonic classic, created some surprisingly startling scares, "Apartment 7A" ends up feeling far hokier instead. It would seem the Satanic infant Terry is carrying has some sort of magical powers. It bends her bitchy rival's body into a pretzel and keeps anyone from harming it. The original "Rosemary's Baby" operated with subtly, thoroughly putting us in the mind frame of Rosemary to the point where we could wonder if it wasn't all in her head, despite all of us knowing what the movie is about. The devil's offspring having telekinetic powers kind of spoils that, ya know? The prequel makes a bigger mistake later on, clearly showing us the demonic father of Terry's baby, a moment so wrong-headed that a corporate exec must have insisted upon it. Ultimately, "Apartment 7A" can't stop itself from following too closely in the footsteps of the film it's connected too. The prequel has a very similar structure to the original, at times feeling more like a remake than a follow-up. This eventually results in the movie limply reprising iconic moments from the original, feeling like desperate attempts to get a reaction out of the audience when we already have a clear idea of where all of this is headed. Besides, "Apartment 7A" leading right into the events of "Rosemary's Baby" means its story can truly only end one way. This satanic conspiracy is destined to fail in a way that's all too evident from early on, a structure the script makes no attempt to swerve away from.
All of this is a shame since there's more than one suggestion that "Apartment 7A" could have been good. Aside from the decent cinematography and production design, a fine cast is assembled here. Julia Garner makes for a likable heroine, getting a lot of dramatic tension out of Terry feeling both lucky for the circumstances she finds herself in and increasingly trapped by them. When the girl expresses herself through dance is when the viewer feels most connected to Terry. Dianne Wiest manages to make Minnie, a little old woman with a high-pitched voice, into a surprisingly intimidating figure. How she can make an innocent sounding sentence surprisingly pointed and painful with merely her delivery gives you the impression that the writer/director is more than familiar with the power of guilting, manipulative mother. (When paired with "Relic," it suggests a good deal of mommy issues on the director's behalf.) In a film less beholden to following the template created by its predecessor, Garner and Wiest easily could have elevated the material into a fine horror picture.
Unfortunately, "Apartment 7A" is ultimately a dud, a pale imitation of the classic it is linked too. It is another example of a decades-later sequel that operates more like a remake at times, dooming itself to follow a path we've traveled before without innovating in any way. While "Relic" had surprisingly well engineered scares, this film sees James falling victim to many of the same lame hallmarks of modern studio horror flicks, which turns up the volume and throws in weak attempts at freaky nightmare imagery when it has no other ideas. In other words, the film lacks the conviction that "Rosemary's Baby" had, not trusting its viewer enough and too eager to simply do what worked before. I guess a prequel is better than a remake – which is what Platinum Dunes first wanted to do back in 2008 – but "Apartment 7A" ultimately gives us an idea of what a modern day attempt to remake "Rosemary's Baby" would look like. In other words, it's not scary and ends up being kind of boring and goofy. Maybe Natalie Erika James should have made a full-blown musical instead. Like many attempts to follow-up an iconic original, "Apartment 7A" is destined to be a footnote, forgotten by all but the most committed horror fans while the original continues to be a classic for all time. [5/10]
Of all the directors to find a career in the proud Italian industry of ripping off bigger budget movies or cashing in on cinematic trends, Lucio Fulci is definitely among the most respected. His die hard fans might be unwilling to accept this but it's undeniably true. "Zombi 2" was a bootleg sequel to "Dawn of the Dead." "Conquest" followed in "Conan the Barbarian's" footsteps. "Warriors of the Year 2072" was inspired by "The Road Warrior." "Massacre Time" and "The Psychic" were part of whole waves of spaghetti westerns and gialli. Fulci himself was not above admitting what more famous films he was copying. He acknowledged 1987's "Ænigma" as inspired by "Carrie." The film also clearly took some elements from "Patrick" and Argento's "Phenomena." Being obvious copycats is probably why later period Fulci work like this or "Manhattan Baby" aren't as discussed as widely as his earlier stuff. Still, this one had enough of a positive reputation to intrigue me...
Kathy, a bullied outcast at St. Mary's all-girls academy in Boston, is the victim of a cruel prank. Handsome gym teacher Steve pretends to go on a date with her, before a group of girls come out to mock her. Kathy flees and is struck by a car, falling into a coma afterwards. Shortly after that, a new girl named Eva arrives at the school. Strange events follow, Kathy's tormentors falling victim to bizarre accidents. The philandering Dr. Anderson investigates, falling for Eva in the process. Slowly, people start to realize that Kathy, in her comatose state, has developed telepathic powers, possessing Eva and taking psychic revenge on her bullies.
If a lot of Italian horror movies can be criticized as being nothing but a series of stylized death scenes, Fulci's work is probably most guilty of that. I've always gotten the impression that narrative coherence was of least concern to him. That designing grisly and frequently dream-like Grand Guignol set pieces were what interested him the most about his horror films. If this is true, then "Ænigma" provided a rare chance for Fulci to essentially abandon story logic and focus entirely on weird ways to kill people. There doesn't seem to be any limit to Kathy's psychic powers. She can possess Eva, seemingly take control of her disabled mother, project elaborate visions into her victim's minds, manifest objects into reality, and control the physical nature of things. This results in elaborate, nightmarish scenarios, the bullies psychologically tormented before being offed. Sometimes, these visions are ironic. Such as when the narcissistic gym instructor is strangled by his own reflection. Others play on the girls' phobias. Sometimes, Fulci is simply having fun with the setting. My personal favorite scene in "Ænigma" has one of the girls wandering a classical museum, blood spraying at her from a painting of a heavenly scene. She's later dispatched when a Greek statue leaps to life, representing one of the few times "Ænigma" actually manages to build some suspense out of an overall hallucinatory tone.
The movie often swings back and forth between tones that are artistic, cruel, and campy. When Eva arrives at the school, a stylishly lit scene follows, making it clear that her and Kathy are one and the same. The finale takes place in an isolated morgue, with marble walls and floors, a set that Argento would've envied. There's some cool shots from the perspective of Kathy's spirit while it floats above the town. The locations – the Bosnian city of Sarajevo standing in for Boston – and an at times ethereal score do provide a fittingly dreamy feeling. Other times though, "Ænigma" is nothing but low-brow cheesiness. The opening scene, where Kathy gets ready for her big date, is scored to a painfully schmaltzy pop song. The plot point of her mother being disabled in some way, lurking around the school with glowing red eyes, leads to some groan-worthy dialogue. One of the climatic death scenes features an obvious dummy tumbling from a window, proceeded by a repetitive montage of decapitated bodies laying in bed. No scene in "Ænigma" is more notorious than when one of Kathy's victims has a living nightmare of snails covering her body. Recalling the spider attack in "The Beyond," she lays totally still as the slow, slimy invertebrates cover her naked form, eventually smothering her to death. Maybe Fulci had simply ran out of creepy crawlies to feature by this point. Perhaps he saw "Slugs" and decided he had to one-up it. Either way, it's a laugher of a scene.
The mean-spirited atmosphere of Fulci's work is what has kept me from getting more into him in the past. "Ænigma," perhaps, seeks to resolve this issue by making all the characters deeply unlikable. Kathy's targets are mostly mean girl victimizers who, within the twisted moral universe of a horror film, "deserve" the ghastly fates that befall them. We don't feel bad rooting for these people to die, as they show no remorse for pranking a fellow student so badly, she's in a coma now. At the same time, this approach leaves us with no one to root for. Kathy herself spends 90% of the movie unconscious and her revenge is so twisted that it's hard to relate to her. The girls school seems to be a university but the attendees act a lot like teenagers. That does little to make all the male characters, happy and willing to hook up with the youthful students, seem like anything but sleaze balls. The gym teacher – who hits on and sexually harasses his students, in addition to happily fooling Kathy in the first scene – is obviously unlikable. I'm not sure how Dr. Anderson, with his receding hairline, is meant to be any better, considering he woes two teenage girls throughout the film. Even if the girls are over 18, that's still sketchy behavior. If he's meant to be our hero, the film dedicating a steamy nightmare scene to a naked Eva clawing and biting him seems to suggest he deserves a ghastly fate as well.
When paired with an abrupt and typically Fulci-ian downbeat ending, "Ænigma" does nothing to discard my theory that most of the director's films are about providing sadistic punishments for unlikable characters. The unsteady mixture of cruelty, grindhouse sleaze, and late eighties cheesiness – there are so many crash-zooms – does not make this the most even-handed of his films. However, the dreamy vibes and cartoonish touches makes the film's ridiculousness and nihilistic writing a bit easier to swallow. Long since disregarded as minor Fulci, "Ænigma" does provide some stuff to chew on for fans of the director and of exploitation nonsense such as this. I can't dislike any movie that features an ominous shot of a snail oozing over a poster of Sylvester Stallone. To me, that is cinema, despite the movie around it is as uneven as can be. Amazingly, this isn't the only sleazy Italian horror flick inspired by "Patrick" but that, my friend, is a story for another day... [6/10]
Of the various high-profile directors to work on "Amazing Stories," I don't know if Peter Hyams would be anyone's first choice. I'm a fan though and decided to check out his episode, "The Amazing Falsworth." The city is being stalked by a murderer known as the Keyboard Killer, who strangles his victims with piano wire. After a homeless man spots him while garroting a woman, the unidentified murderer ducks into a night club. There, a stage psychic named the Amazing Falsworth is performing his act. He wears a blindfold, goes into the audience, touches people's shoulders and tells them about their lives. When he brushes against the murderer, Falsworth gets a vision of the killings and becomes terrified. He attempts to report the evidence to the cops, who are incredulous. A prickly detective arrives as Falsworth fears for his life and tries to identify the Keyboard Killer before he finds him first.
The opening shot of "The Amazing Falsworth" is a prowling view of a woman exiting a hotel and walking down a dark alley. A killer wearing black gloves stalks her, his face unseen. The subsequent murder scene focuses on her terror and continues the stylized lighting and cinematography of the episode. Falsworth later unravels the killer's identity through unconventional means that involve the arts, before a tense confrontation in a closet. In other words: "The Amazing Falsworth" is a giallo. As if you had any doubt about this intentional homage, the last act reveals the killer has a passion for Italian opera. And now that I think about it, the inciting incident might've been inspired by "Deep Red."
Hyams – and screenwriter Mick Garris, no doubt – do a good job of imitating Argento too. Cinematographer Robert M. Stevens uses cool blues and moody reds in the backstage scenes. The attack scenes are quite tensely assembled, often focusing on the characters' terrified faces. The final confrontation, probably inspired by "Halloween," is surprisingly suspenseful. Gregory Hines makes for a fine lead, making Falsworth's number of ex-wives and his overall sweaty demeanor charmingly pathetic. It's easy enough to guess the true identity of the killer, though the reveal is still well done. Overall, I didn't expect an episode of "Amazing Stories," usually more whimsical, to be this tense. Also, this is the second murder mystery from 1985 to feature a singing telegram. What was up with that? [8/10]
The writers of "The Addams Family" managed to find a story to tell about the least mobile character on the show. "Thing Is Missing" begins with the titular hand and Uncle Fester having a hair brush related spat. Afterwards, the handy helper seemingly vanishes. After Gomez interrogates members of the family, a ransom note appears. This leads to the Family hiring a private detective named Sam Diamond to deliver the funds.
"Thing Is Missing" is a sturdy episode full of multiple fantastic gags. Such as Morticia being surprised when Gomez gives her a squeeze or Fester practicing his safe-cracking talent. Gomez's detective moment, including a deerstalker cap and oversized pipe, leads to amusing defensive remarks from Wednesday and Granmama. Sam Diamond, played by Tommy Farrell, is better than your usual "Addams Family" guest star because of how well his cowardly behavior contrasts with the hardboiled detective get-up. In fact, interactions with outsiders provide some good chuckles here. When the family puts a want ad in the paper for a "Thing," a guy brings them some hard-to-describe fuzzy object that the Addams naturally love. Earlier, Morticia attempts to explain to a cop what exactly Thing is, leading to much confusion on his behalf.
It is a question worth asking though. "Thing Is Missing" continues to playfully expand the mystery of what the disembodied hand's precise nature is. It's shown in this episode that the boxes Thing emerges from are connected to long, seemingly bottomless tunnels. Later, however, it's suggested that Thing can fit in the glove compartment of the family car. Thing's legal name is Thing T. Thing, so he's not a full-blooded Addams, and his parents were also disembodied hands. Of all the pop culture things out there, I'm beginning to think this is the most accurately named. Either way, this episode shows how expressive a mere hand can be, if he's successfully a beloved member of this cast now. [7/10]
I'm, by no means, a religious man. In my experience, karmic retribution rarely exist. However, I do find it interesting that the majority of cultures here on planet Earth have some conception of the idea of Hell. Judeo-Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Islamic, Zoroastrianism, the ancient Greeks: All are united by the idea that, if you misbehave in life, you will go to a place of infernal suffering and torment in the afterlife. Maybe this is simply the human mind applying its version of logic onto a chaotic universe. That those that evade justice in life will face punishment afterwards, that kings and beggars will all be judged equally. That's an appealing thought on every continent. The superstitious part of my brain, however, has trouble dismissing the coincidence of people and cultures, never interacting and separated by vast distances, all coming to the same conclusion. Maybe Jung was on to something with all that collective unconscious talk... Or maybe Hell does exist. Either way, eternal damnation has inspired cinematic visions all around the world. One example came out of Türkiye in 2015, when filmmaker Can Evrenol expanded his short "Baskin" into a feature film. My exposure to Turkish cinema doesn't extend past a few Cüneyt Arkın movies so I figured this would be as good a place as any to start with Turkish horror.
As a young boy, Arda had haunting dreams, the spirits of his friends and parents visiting him shortly after their deaths. He was adopted by "Boss" Remzi, a police officer who raised Arda to become a cop too. As an adult, Arda is the most timid member of a group of rowdy, boisterous officers. After eating at a restaurant, where the bawdiest cop gets into a fight with a waiter, back-up is called for in the Inceagac region, home to many strange legends. The driver of the police van sees someone in the road, striking them before driving off a bridge. The cops drag themselves out of the river and continue on food, coming to an abandoned police station from the Ottoman era. Inside, they discover a strange, demonic cult seemingly trying to manifest Hell here on Earth. Arda and Remzi, who have both seen ghosts their whole lives, capture the attention of the deprived leader of the gruesome gang.
Speaking as a seasoned horror viewer, it's rare to see a film that strikes me as genuinely twisted, where it feels as if the filmmakers is truly capturing something forbidden on-screen. This is especially important when attempting to put visions of Hell on-camera. The best examples – "Jacob's Ladder," "Mad God," "Hellraiser" – tap into that feeling without going over into childish posturing. "Baskin" can now join this exclusive club. The slower first act goes a long way towards building a foreboding atmosphere. The visuals are bathed in neon blues and glowing oranges, as if the flames of damnation and the frost of the Ninth Circle are never far away. Earlier scenes summon slimy, unpleasant tactile sensations by highlighting raw meat, steaming buckets full of frogs, or oozing black blood. Once the cops arrive at the shadowy, abandoned building – as classical a setting for a horror story as you could find – all Hell literally breaks loose. "Baskin" is impressively committed to the grotesque. Bloody, shrieking, half-humanoid figures wearing tattered, soiled garments perform half-glimpsed acts of apparent cannibalism and torture. There's a definite sense of sexual sadism throughout, that whatever hideous actions are going on here, these figures are clearly getting off on it. These monsters don't merely seek to hurt you, they wish to violate you as well. The location feels like a sex dungeon, a regular dungeon, a butcher shop, and an altar, capturing a fittingly hellish feeling. The special effects team must be commended for creating effectively gooey and grimy spouts of blood, viscera, and bodily mutilation on a clearly limited budget. Instead of aiming for simple gross-outs, the movie is aiming for a mean-spirited, uncomfortable tone and that is far more bracing.
"Baskin" isn't effective only because it tosses some fucked-up gore around while replicating an ambiance of depravity. All throughout, the script makes references to dreams. We often get peeks into Arda's visions, the most effective of which occurs after the car crash when he's plucked out of the water by a giant pair of hands. The entire last third of the film involves the leader of the cult – played by an actor with very distinctive facial features – enacting an elaborate sacrifice with the captured men. All the while, he makes vague statements about the nature of Hell and the purpose of his actions. The film never gives us a complete idea of what is going on here. We know as much as the characters do, who have stumbled into the middle of an otherworldly ritual. When combined with the emphasis on dreams – which eventually comes together in the last act – "Baskin" does a good job of invoking an atmosphere of cosmic horror. Something with implications beyond our understanding is going on here. We are only getting a small glimpse at a far bigger picture, one that we wouldn't be able to grasp even if we did see all of it. The cult's leader's body is tattooed with key holes and locks, pairing with him making references to opening the door. This moves the idea of Hell away from something karmic and religious into the realm of the metaphysical. Hell being a place that coexists alongside our own world, accessible through dreams and rituals, is a lot scarier to me than it being the bad place bad people go to when they die. Perhaps we are all mere pawns in a vast cosmic plan that we have to jab our own eyes out to get a fleeting look at.
While "Baskin" does have a somewhat Lovecraftian approach to its demonic torments, a decipherable moral is present here. From the minute we meet the gang of cops, they are having vulgar conversations about sex and picking fights with random people. While travelling in the van, they sing songs together that emphasize what bad-asses they are. Naturally, all of this proceeds them suffering often ironic tortures. The biggest, toughest guy – the gutsiest, you could say – is disemboweled. The sleazy weasel who brags about picking up hookers is forced into a humiliating sexual ritual. The lesson is clear: Your macho, dude-bro police fraternity bullshit won't protect you in Hell. Remzi's fatherly role towards Arda is clearly the least toxic example of this brotherhood. However, it seems the older man has somehow invited this damned scenario on his men. The bitterly ironic ending is as downbeat as you'd expect. I don't know anything about the political situation in Türkiye. It's entirely possible "Baskin" is making specific cultural references that go over my ignorant American head. But I'm betting ACAB is a universal statement. At the very least, Evrenol's film has the thesis that braggadocious, aggressive masculinity doesn't lead to any place good. It further pushes the film into the realm of cosmic horror, the thought that our earthly institutions, power structures, and brotherhoods are worthless in the face of an unknowable universe.
In other words, "Baskin" is fuckin' brutal, man. It presents a distressing image of otherworldly horror, with enough creativity to be unpredictable and enough messed-up cruelty to unnerve. While the synth soundtrack and lighting gives the impression of one of the many eighties throwbacks the horror scene is littered with, "Baskin" combines its influences into something clever and original. Can Evrenol has made a few more films since this one and I'll have to see if I can track those down too. "Baskin" plays like a splatterpunk short story put to film and, if that description isn't off-putting to you, than it's probably the kind of crazy shit you'll enjoy too. Only somewhat indistinct characters and a slightly repetitive last act keep this from being a perfectly grim expedition into perdition. [8/10]
One of the first things you hear when you start writing is "Write what you know." The same adage applies to filmmaking, which is why there are so many movies about making movies. The horror genre is no different and the contrast between gruesome things happening on stage and gruesome things happening in reality has existed since the medium's inception. This was surely one source of inspiration for Larry Cohen when conceiving of 1984's "Special Effects." The film tosses the persistent itch that movie violence and real violence have some link into a blender with a number of other ingredients: The spectacular flame-outs beloved seventies auteurs Michael Cimino and Peter Bogdanovich suffered early in the decade; the grisly murder of Dorothy Straton and subsequent film adaptation of it; classic Hitcockian tropes and, presumably, Brian DePalma bringing them into the neon-tinged, cocaine dusted decade. Released a month after the similarly themed "Body Double," "Special Effects" remains largely overlooked within Cohen's career.
Following an enormous box office flop, director Christopher Neville has been kicked off his latest film. He returns in shame to New York, passing the time covertly filming people having sex at the wild parties he throws. Andrea is a teenage mother who has fled her small town life for dreams of stardom. She's currently stripping in the big city. That's where her husband and father of her child, Keefe, tracks her down. After an argument, Andrea runs away from Keefe to Neville's place. When she discovers Neville is recording their intimate encounter, he snaps and strangles her to death on-camera. The disgraced filmmaker concocts an elaborate stunt to frame the girl's husband for the murder and resurrect his career. He's going to make a low budget movie about the killing, starring Keefe as himself, as the investigation is unfolding. The team tracks down Elaine Bernstein, a woman who looks a lot like Andrea, further complicating the situation. Especially when Neville starts to kill again...
When Andrea first meets Neville, he's watching a recording of Lee Harvey Oswald's murder by Jack Ruby on a loop. The director observes that actual violence, when recorded, feels less real than elaborately staged fictional violence. This is a known phenomenon. Humans spend so much of our lives looking at screens, watching engineered events, that objective reality seems less real in comparison sometimes. "Special Effects'" premise is all about the blurring of reality and movies. Neville is making a movie about his own crime, starring his victim's actual husband, as part of a scheme to frame the guy for the murder he committed. The villainous director is using fiction to rewrite reality. It's a preposterous premise but a potent one, because the allure of the big screen truly is that powerful. Keefe is no actor, nor is Andrea's lookalike Elaine. Yet who can resist the offer to become a movie star? Similarly, the smart-ass detective investigating the crime is easily duped by Neville simply by the promise of being directly involved with filmmaking. The best moments in "Special Effects" are the ones that leave the viewer uncertain about what level of reality the movie is operating on. After Andrea's death, a title card appears. The absurdly Hollywood-style ending seems improbable, followed by someone other than Larry Cohen being credited in the actual credits. At what point within "Special Effects" are we watching Larry Cohen's movie and at what point are we watching Christopher Neville's movie?
This swirl of fake-real and fake-fake events is the strongest idea "Special Effects" has. It is present in a number of key scenes. Such as when Keefe shows Andrea a home movie of their kid or when the director records the reenactment of the love/murder scene that kicks off the plot. Unfortunately, "Special Effects" can never quite cohere these intriguing ideas into a focused whole. The script never decides who its protagonist is. Andrea is the focus of the first half, before the "Psycho" switch of Christopher Neville, the murderous villain, seeming to slip into the main role. However, Keefe and Elaine are presumably the story's heroes and much of the narrative follows them as well. Leaping back and forth between these four prevents any of them from becoming clearly defined characters. Both Keefe and Elaine seem pushed along by the plot, not the other way around, leading to a movie that gets more muddled as it winds down towards a frenzied last act.
That "Special Effects" ultimately feels rushed and half-formed is a shame. As you'd expect, Larry Cohen packs the movie full of color and style. This was an early starring role for Eric Bogosian, who strikes an ideal balance between sleazy and charming as the homicidal director. Kevin O'Conner is also extremely memorable as the hard boiled cop on Keefe's tail, who gets swept up in the movie business. Cohen's script is full of the memorably gritty dialogue you expect of his work, these two getting the best lines. "Ms. .45's" Zoe Lund stars as Andrea and Elaine. Her voice is dubbed in the earlier scene, creating a weird disconnect between Lund and the audience. She is more convincing in her second role. Unfortunately, Brad Rijn never makes Keefe seem like a real person, with his ridiculous cornpone accent. However, "Special Effects" almost subsists on style alone. Neville's apartment is an impressive set, with its rose-filled stain glass windows, mirrored hallways, and backlit jacuzzi. A sequence where Neville garrotes an editor with a reel of film is when "Special Effects" comes the closest to capturing a giallo-like level of sleazy intensity. The movie needed more moments like that, as the neon-drenched visuals and copious nudity calls out to be paired with more gratuitous bloodshed.
I'm usually a proponent of a cheesy synth soundtrack, especially in a sweaty eighties thriller like this. However, "Special Effects" has a soundtrack that clicks, chirps, bloops, and hums over every scene to the point of distraction. When combined with a script that never quite builds up to the fever pitch it's clearly aiming for, "Special Effects" proves to be a frustrating watch. However, it is an interesting failure that contains a number of intriguing ideas, some strong performances and fun dialogue, and a few stand-out scenes. This is probably a case of Larry Cohen forging ahead with not enough time and money, as he always did, to fully realize what he was going for. It's not an undiscovered pulp gem like "The Ambulance" was. However, "Special Effects" still distinctively belongs to its filmmaker. [6/10]
Aside from Rod Serling himself, the writer most associated with "The Twilight Zone" is probably Richard Matheson. This connection would continue with the 1985 revival of the program, with the episode "Button, Button." The segment concerns Norma and Arthur Lewis, an unhappy and financially struggling couple. One day, an unexpected package appears on their apartment stoop. Inside is a plain wooden box, topped with a red button contained within a glass dome. The next day, a man calling himself Mr. Stewart arrives. He informs Norma about what the device does: If the button is pressed, the couple shall receive 200,000 dollars in untaxed cash. Simultaneously, someone they don't know shall die. The Lewises debate the ethics of such a proposition, Arthur being against it but Norma weighing the options. She ultimately does press the button, Mr. Stewart returning the next day with the promised money and a stipulation he didn't mention the first time.
Matheson wrote the script for "Button, Button" under the pseudonym "Logan Swanson," suggesting he wasn't pleased with the finished product. The episode still follows the rule of economy in storytelling that makes so much of Matheson's work linger in the mind. Within the opening minutes of "Button, Button," we've learned everything we need to know about these people. Lewis works unsuccessfully on the family car, Norma forced to walk from the store to their dingy, cramped apartment. Arthur stutters, establishing a scattered focus, while Norma chain-smokes and gripes, suggesting the frustration she feels with her husband and this life. Little details throughout the episode, like the mindless chatter of a TV or the grease caked under Arthur's fingernails, reveals so much about these people and their world. They are struggling, they are deeply unhappy, they are hungry for solutions to their problems.
The obvious-on-its-face simplicity of this set-up is evident in how catchy the premise of this story is. "Button Button" essentially asks you the same question it asks of its characters: Well, would you press it? The exact nature of the experiment remains unexplained. Mr. Stewart's black-suited presentation, fedora included, suggests an extra-governmental agent. His particular method of speech – he calls what is an empty and simply adorned box a "button unit" – feels extraterrestrial. (Both of these elements bringing the Men in Black of ufology lore to mind.) The bargain he offers, meanwhile, is purely Luciferin. Norma is repeatedly informed that the person who will die from her pressing the button will be someone she doesn't know, seemingly freeing her from personal responsibility. She argues that people die every day, while Arthur counters that every death means something to someone. The (rather evident in advance) twist shows Matheson's opinion on the matter: No action occurs without an equal, opposite reaction. Everything we do has consequences. You should always make every choice with a careful consideration of the effect of your actions. Still, it remains a tempting offer that can't help but give you pause. Yeah, I'd like 200,000 dollars in pure cash dropped into my lap too. It would help a lot. Is the far off effect of this action worth it? One wonders.
The philosophical subtext of the premise is rich. Is "Button, Button" a depiction of life in a country where every gain a person makes comes at the expense of someone else? Is it a fable-like expression of how everyone makes a cage of their own actions, how our fates are decided by what we do? (Matheson's story, with its very different ending, states the tale is about how possible it is to truly "know" anybody.) The range of the narrative is hampered somewhat by the mannered presentation. The performances are exaggerated. Mare Winngham constantly sneers from under her flint-like eyebrows and bangs. Brad Davis is similarly overdone, with his twitches and gestures. The musical score is ponderous, emphasizing every moment with an overdone theatrical note. Despite that, "Button, Button" still works. Peter Medak directs with a sinister hand, bathing Stewart in shadows and presenting the objects of the scenario from dramatic angles. As melodramatic as the parts are, the whole remains compelling. It's no wonder that Richard Kelly would expand the story into a feature twenty-three years later, though "The Box" would miss the very important need to keep things simple and junk up the premise with Kelly's trademark convoluted bullshit. Stick with "The Twilight Zone" version. [7/10]
That stock sitcom plot of easily-achieved memory loss is riffed on during "Amnesia in the Addams Family." After signing a million dollar insurance policy on his life for Morticia, Gomez conks himself on the head while exercising with his "Indian clubs." The Addams patriarch then experiences amnesia, not knowing who he is or recognizing his family. Moreover, Gomez is now disgusted and frightened by the habits of his family and their unusual style. After the condition doesn't improve on its own – Morticia and everyone else having to tolerate behavior that is quite distressing from Gomez – the family becomes more proactive. They decide another blow to the skull will reverse things, though every member of the family makes this decision without informing each other. Shenanigans ensue.
The idea of someone getting hit on the noggin and forgetting everything, only to have their memory restored by a similar bonk, is such a well-worn premise. I think nearly every sitcom has at least commented on this so-called "Easy Amnesia." "Amnesia in the Addams Family" has me considering the ramifications of such an idea though. A simple whack to the forehead doesn't simply cause Gomez Addams to forget everything. His entire personality changes. He finds Morticia's black dress unpleasant, isn't entranced by her foreign language pet names for him. The sight of Lurch horrifies him, as does the unique ways the Addams relax and play. He's now focused on business and traditionally pleasing aesthetics. This suggests that our personalities aren't innate. That we are cumulations of our life experiences, not "born that way." Moreover, the idea presented is that there is a default setting in the human brain, a reset switch that only takes a strong enough jostle to flip, and that the Addams' way of life goes against it as much as possible. Which really makes you wonder what happened to Gomez and everyone else in the household to make them the way they are. Not to mention challenging the subversive assertion that normalcy is what we make it that seemingly the entire series is built on.
Of course, "The Addams Family" is a wacky sitcom. It's not built to handle weighty topics like this nor does it pretend to. Instead, the token "Amnesia" episode stretches the set-up for as much comedy as it can. Gomez becoming "normal" places the show's main character in the role of the usual guest star, someone who is freaked out by the ooky attributes around him. This is a much better joke than the usual formula, if only because it plays off the strengths of the cast and the interactions between them. Lurch's confusion question of "From a cow?" when Gomez asks for a glass of milk or Wednesday's deadpan reaction when her dad says he'll get her a cute doll are hilarious. The repeated sequences of different people hitting Gomez on the head, his personality jumping back and forth between the two modes, pushes the absurdity to higher, cartoonier levels. That comedic escalation continues right into the finale and last joke, applying the same treatment to a different family member. It's an episode that gives every member of the ensemble something to do and regularly producing hearty laughs, surely making it one of the best episodes of "The Addams Family's" 1st season. [7.5/10]
To the 1.9 billion people who identify as Muslims, the concept of the djinn is a well-known one. These invisible creatures, with insubstantial bodies made of smokeless fire, are mentioned 29 times in the Quran. They remain a consistent presence in the folklore of Muslim majority countries. Though the Quran is clear that djinn have free will, as capable of good or evil as human beings, myths usually portray them as mischievous or sinister figures that possess or trick people. In the Anglo world, the concept is still best known through the bowdlerized idea of the wish-granting genie. The morally ambiguous, spirit-like djinn of traditional lore has been making more in-roads in pop culture lately though. In the last decade, they've been the subject of a big budget Hollywood movie and multiple low budget horror flicks from around the world. An example of the latter is "Achoura," advertised as the first monster movie made in Morocco. French-Moroccan director Talal Selhami's film was completed in 2015, released locally in 2018, and found wider distribution in the English-speaking world in 2021.
Long ago, during the Islamic festival of children, a young girl named Bashira was abducted by an otherworldly creature. Decades after that, a group of four kids – Nadia, Ali, Stéphane, and Samir – were lured into an abandoned house by her spirit. There, they unknowingly unleashed a child-eating djinn known as Bougatate. Samir was made the unwilling host for the creature, taken by the man devoted to keeping it trapped. Years pass and the four grow up. Ali becomes a cop, marries Nadia, and fathers a son with her. Stéphane uses his childhood horrors as inspiration for his career as a painter. When Bougatate is unleashed and Samir comes back into the group's life, they band together again to stop the monster before it takes Nadia and Ali's son.
The opening scene of "Achoura" shows Bashira, who looks no older than twelve, being the child-bride of a much older man. Ali's specialty in the police department seems to be hunting down child molesters and pedophiles. This does not prevent him from being cold, or physically violent, towards his own son. Stéphane, meanwhile, remains locked in the headspace of his childhood trauma, painting the monster that attacked him over and over again. The anomalous antagonist is unleashed when a young boy approaches Samir, who has been reduced to a crouching, slurring vagrant after years of carrying an evil spirit in his belly. This scene obviously brings scenarios of kids being abducted or abused by random weirdos to mind. The way the script constantly references how the evil creature preys on and devours children – clearly inspired by the Bouchenka and other boogeymen of Morrocan lore – makes the intentions clear. "Achoura" is a film about how our childhood trauma molds us, how it creates both our strengths and our weaknesses. The ending makes it clear that the heroes hope to break this cycle, of abused kids turning into abusers themselves, before it is too late. Wrapping such a premise in fairy tale-like terms is a potent idea.
It's also a story that bears more than a passing resemblance to Stephen King's "IT." "Achoura" was filmed before the release of the hugely successful 2018 adaptation of King's book. However, the similarities are still hard to ignore. Both stories are about adults reuniting with their tight-knit group of childhood friends, in order to banish the child-eating monster they faced before in their youths. Both groups forget about the horror they fought as kids, except for one who becomes an expert in the subject. King's eldritch terror taking on the form of a clown brought obvious suggestions of kid-diddling perverts to mind, a subtext "Achoura" engages with in ways both more and less direct. King's book, its cinematic adaptations, and "Achoura" all have the heroes entering into a spooky old house to confront the beast. Most obviously, "Achoura" and the literary "IT" cut back and forth between the protagonists' current adulthoods and their childhood days to tell their stories. This presents the biggest problem for Selhami's film. King's book is a sprawling epic that spans over a thousand pages. It has more than enough room to develop its wide cast of characters, digging into their backstories and histories. "Achoura," meanwhile, is only a little over ninety minutes long. It doesn't have time to properly establish its cast as either adult or kids, as well as tell its story of confronting a demon. The result is a film full of thinly developed characters facing off against a mythic villain who never seems to be more than a vague concept. I almost always believe that horror films are best kept short but this is one that very much needed a longer runtime to properly tell its story.
Since the characters are never more than archetypal, it's difficult to be invested in which ones live and die. Stéphane is only a neurotic artist. Ali is only a hard-ass cop, while Nadia is nothing but a wife and mother dealing with a difficult husband and son. Samir's bizarre circumstances leave him as a walking plot device. Without characters we can attach to, "Achoura" is unable to create any foreboding ambiance. Selhami and cinematographer Mathieu de Montgrand create some decent looking gothic atmosphere, especially once the creepy old house becomes the primary location. However, the central monster is mostly brought to life through CGI of wildly varying quality. Sometimes the creature – whose face resembles a plague doctor mask, a rabbit skull, or an insect with especially yonic mandibles – looks okay. When lurking in a dark corner or under a bed, it's a decent effect. Other times, however, the beast appears as a deeply unconvincing computer-generated model, that never seems to be on the same plain or existence as the performers or sets it interacts with. Instead of keeping the thing in the shadows, the filmmakers thrust it into the light far too often, leaving little chance for it to spook or unnerve the viewer.
Dismissing "Achoura" as a foreign knock-off of King's work isn't fair. It is steeped in too many culturally specific ideas for that to be the case. However, it seems unlikely that King's book didn't at least inspire center aspects of the movie. Aiming for that universality means the film isn't as distinct as it could have been either. Mostly, a script that doesn't develop its characters enough and some truly mediocre special effects keep this otherwise decently produced motion picture from being more enjoyable. Selhami and his team are talented and I look forward to what they might do in the future, provided they focus less on middling CGI. Ultimately, "Achoura" left me hoping that the next monster movie that gets made in Morocco is better. [5/10]
Earlier this year, we lost a titan of the genre. I can only be referring to Roger Corman, the man whose ability to spot talent while always understanding what an audience wanted made him a pioneering independent filmmaker and a grand elder statesman of the genre. Of course, that's not what Corman is truly famous for. Instead, his ability to stretch a penny as far as he could and crank out B-movies at an astonishing rate was his most notorious talent. Corman's first movie as producer was “Monster from the Ocean Floor” and his first horror movie as director was “Day the World Ended.” Officially anyway. After making his first two pictures of a three picture deal for the nascent American Releasing Company – not yet known as American International Pictures – the still learning Corman overspent a little on “Five Guns West.” This left the third movie, “The Beast with a Million Eyes,” only 29,000 dollars to work with. Running into issues with the unions, Corman took over directing from credited filmmaker, David Kramarsky, to get the flick in the can. This gives “The Beast” the somewhat dubious distinction of being Corman's technical first horror movie.
Somewhere in the Coachella Valley, Allan Kelley and his family – nervous wife Carol, tomboy daughter Sandy – reside on his struggling date farm. The only other people for company is a strange, mute workhand who only goes by “Him” and the family dog, Duke. The tensions in the household peek when a strange aircraft passes overhead, shattering all the glass in the house. Afterwards, Carol notices that Duke is acting violently. All the animals in the area are behaving strangely. Both Sandy and Him start to wander off into the desert in trances. Allan becomes increasingly convinced something has landed near-by. He's right: An alien entity without form and driven only by a cruel intelligence has arrived, observing the humans through the eyes of all the animals it can possess.
Within the realm of vintage drive-in monster flicks, "Beast with a Million Eyes" is notorious for featuring a grotesque creature on the poster that never actually appears in the film. Knowing this still did not prepare me for how low-key exactly this particular motion picture is though. For most of its short 77 minute runtime, "Beast with a Million Eyes" is less of a monster movie and more of a suffocating melodrama about an isolated family on the verge of collapse. Father Allan begins the movie with an internal monologue about the crushing failure of farming dates. Shortly after being introduced, mother Carol admits she resents her own daughter for having youth and beauty. Later, when she's forced to kill Sandy's beloved dog, it's easy to believe that the woman would do it only to punish the daughter she despises so much. "Him," by far the strangest character in the movie, is introduced glaring at the women through the window of his shed. He decorates his walls with cut-outs of pin-up girls and clutches a girly magazine. Later, when teenage Sandy takes a dive in the local swimming hole, he climbs into a date tree and spies on her. Despite how obviously uncomfortable this creepy guy makes the women, Allan laughs it off and ignores the concerns of his wife and daughter. Lorna Thayer plays Carol as barely holding it together, a hysterical and overdone performance, while Paul Birch is nothing but a bland, stately voice of authority as Allan. The wife is losing her mind, the husband is clueless, the daughter needs someone to genuinely care about her, and the hired help seems minute away from committing a sex crime. You find yourself really wishing a monster would show up already, simply so you can get away from this dysfunctional, miserable family for a few minutes.
Not that the scenes of sci-fi/horror are much better than the plodding, miserablist melodrama. Every attempt the film makes to be scary or suspenseful proves to be underwhelming. The Beast seizing control of animals could've been an interesting premise. The scenes of simple black birds pelting a car or the family dog turned into a killer subvert commonplace creatures into objects of fear. However, the actors rarely interacting with the animals. When Duke the dog is terrorizing Carol, the actress never seems to be in the same room with the canine. A scene where a docile milk cow becomes vicious is similarly awkward in its construction, mostly composed of closeup on the heifer's face cut with people cowering on the ground. When the cast actually does touch the animals, the results are no more impressive. A scene where Carol is attacked by leaping chickens produces laughter rather than shivers. A brief opening narration explains how the titular beast has a million eyes, a desperate attempt to justify a lurid title in a film that couldn't afford a real monster. Instead, the "beast" is mostly represented by a twirling device in a cave that makes an annoying noise. When Sam Arkoff saw the finished movie, he reportedly insisted an actual monster be hastily inserted. Paul Blaisdell, in the first of his many jobs for AIP, was given all of two hundred bucks to whip something up. The result is a snarly faced miniature that appears in one blurry sequence near the end, never stepping outside of the (unconvincingly tiny) spaceship as it glares at the humans. Blaisdell said the entire scene was shot in ten minutes, so I suppose the results are actually decent considering those circumstances.
Tom Filer's script obviously can't shine much when surrounded by such meager production values. The story is largely composed of the family bickering in their home or people wandering around the desert. Allan comes to some surprising leaps of logic concerning the threat at hand, which seems far beyond his mundane skills of observation. One attack sequence takes place entirely off-screen, Carol unenthusiastically explaining the events that brought them back to that damn farm house. Incidental dialogue from Sandy's boyfriend or the cattle rancher is mind-numbingly inane. Repeated references to a "plane" or all the glass in the house shattering are attempts to pad the script out. "Him's" backstory, the reason the dad tolerates the obvious creep's behavior, is dropped on us in one maudlin monologue. The biggest indicator of the film's cheapness is the climax, which takes the form of Allan and the family arguing with the psychic voice of the invader. How the dialogue keeps circling back to themes of love and togetherness, concepts the alien intelligence can't comprehend, quickly becomes hilariously overwrought. Those unearned pretensions continue into a philosophical postscript, which seems to add some vague religious context to all that has occurred. It is, to say the least, underwhelming. (And no "what is this thing you call love?" rambling could cover up that Flier's premise isn't much more than a rip-off of "It Came from Outer Space.")
I'm a fan of cheapie monster movies and my tolerance for B-movie tedium is higher than most. "The Beast with a Million Eyes" still had me fighting sleep, the finished film feeling much longer than it actually is. When you read about the behind-the-scenes struggles of the production – much more interesting than the actual movie, it must be said – I suppose it's impressive that a presentable motion picture was assembled at all. Clearly, Roger Corman's abilities to simply get the footage in the can, no matter how meager that budget was, were honed during shoots like this. That doesn't mean "The Beast with a Million Eyes" is good though. We were a while off from ol' Rog being able to toss together a cult classic like "A Bucket of Blood" or "Little Shop of Horrors" within a weekend. Instead, "The Beast with a Million Eyes" is largely dull, filled with off-putting characters and desperate attempts to add some depth to a story where little actually happens. An overwhelming shoddiness infects the entire picture, with little of the charm or cleverness that would characterize AIP's later monster quickie. That a nightmare production like this, resulting in such a lame movie, didn't put Corman off filmmaking forever – instead kicking off an astonishingly prolific, nearly seventy year long career with an immeasurable legacy – is a testament to his skill, talent, and sheer passion for the medium. "The Beast with a Million Eyes" mostly blows but Roger Corman will always be a hero of mine. [4/10]
Out of the roughly ten thousand stories Ray Bradbury wrote – about 9,000 of which are fucking phenomenal – 65 would be adapted for "The Ray Bradbury Theater" over the course of six seasons and two networks. "The Coffin" is one such episode. Charles Braling is a very rich, brilliant, and reclusive inventor and roboticist. His younger brother, Richard, is greedy and broke. The two had a falling out over a woman some time ago. Richard visits his brother's mansion, maintained by robotic butlers, and discovers him building an elaborate coffin. Charles, in poor health, passes away after the two have an argument. Richard is willed the house and everything within it. Shortly before his death, Charles hid his entire fortune somewhere inside the building. Having ignored his brother's wishes, Charles left the mechanical coffin in his lab. He soon deduces that the money must be hidden there, fulfilling a plot of revenge from beyond the grave.
For its first half, "The Coffin" is essentially a two-man play between beloved character actors Dan O'Herlihy and Denholm Elliot. O'Herlihy's deep voice and commanding presence makes Richard Brasling immediately seem like the wiser, more upright of the brothers. Elliot, meanwhile, brings an appropriate weaselly quality to Charles, a cad if there ever was one. That the two stars can so quickly establish who these characters are is good, since we only have 22 minutes to tell this story. Bradbury's precise dialogue sounds extremely good coming out of O'Herlihy's mouth. After his character dies, that voice is still put to good use. Even if watching Denholm Elliot by himself, entertaining a performer as he may be, isn't as compelling as seeing these two eighties genre icons verbally spar.
If you haven't read the original story – I haven't gotten to this one yet – it's still fairly easy to deduce where all this is headed. However, it's certainly still a ride worth taking. The robots represent the past's version of the future, meaning they are incredibly charming to see now. That's an example of "The Ray Bradbury Theater's" limited budget actually working in its favor. The climatic booby trap plays out as both black comedy and surprisingly chilling horror. As he's trapped inside the coffin, Charles is berated by a demeaning message from his late brother. The episode cuts between the panicking Charles inside the glass case and the view outside, in which his cries are totally unheard behind the sound-proof material. Unsettling! The very final image pairs the fear of being buried alive with a sense of bitter justice, a bastard done in through suitably ironic means by a lesser bastard. Exactly the kind of sci-fi tinged but deliciously macabre fables Bradbury specialized in, brought to life faithfully by some fine actors. [7/10]
Gomez Addams' rarely utilized profession as a lawyer takes center stage in "The Addams Family in Court." While Morticia and her husband were out bat hunting, Granmama has taken up her old habit of fortune telling again. She's successful enough to attract the attention of the police, who take Granmama away to prison for a municipal code violations. It's a simple ten dollar fee but Gomez decides to take the case, his loophole heavy defense thoroughly baffling and irritating the straight-laced judge.
Despite appearing in the opening credits of every episode, Blossom Rock hasn't gotten much to do as Granmama over the course of these first twenty episodes. "The Addams Family in Court" is a rare Granmama-centric episode. Previous installments mostly portrayed her as a wild old woman fond of battle axes and darts. That characterization continues here, in amusing scenes of Rock clanging a tin cup against her jail cell bars only because she saw it in a prison movie once. This episode also established Granmama's more common attribute as an old witch with a mischievous streak. Her powers of precognition seem quite genuine but her fortuneteller act still feels like a con job. I imagine she likes it that way. Rock does get several laughs here, whenever asked to display an innocent seeming face or where enthusiastically practicing what amounts to her carnival act.
For the most part though, this is another episode devoted to the Addamses Freakin' Out the Squares. Gomez' tactics as a lawyer seems to mostly be confusing the judge with as much nonsense as possible, while throwing around wild accusations. This is presumably why he has a perfect record of no wins or losses. A lot of the expected gags – Thing popping out of an unusual place, Fester sticking a lightbulb on his mouth – show up, while the judge looks on in shock. Hal Smith makes for a fairly tedious straight man. He's then driven off to some obscure corner of the world by his experience with the Addams, as usual by now. However, there are some good gags in this episode. How the court case concludes is amusing enough. The discussion of bat hunting at the beginning made me chuckle, as did the cop's reaction to Uncle Fester's bald head. The episode's final scene features a cute double headed teapot, one of the many amazing props for this show that disappeared after its cancelation. [6/10]
