Halloween 2026: September 2nd

 

The Wailing (2016)
Gokseong

Religion is kind of a worldwide phenomena, ya know? I think it's human nature to assign events to the actions of a higher power or otherworldly forces. We also tend to think of faith as following international borders. Those who write history have worked very hard to paint the Americas and the Anglo corners of the world as the Christian nations, middle Asian countries as Islamic, India as Hindu, and so forth. The East Asian parts of the world, from an ignorant American perspective, seem mostly characterized as a mix of Buddhist, Shinto, and ill-defined local mysticism. This is not accurate, of course. In South Korea, for example, 20% of the population identify as Protestant and 11% as Catholic. While Christianity has a decent sized congregation in the country, local shamanic beliefs are also commonly practiced, sometimes hand-in-hand. This interesting spiritual breakdown is reflected in Na Hong-jin's 2016 film, "The Wailing." Critically acclaimed, the film is what largely brought Na's name to Western fans' attention.

Jong-goo is a policeman in the South Korean village of Gokseong, a small community surrounded by mountains and forest. He is sent to investigate an unusually grisly murder, a man covered in strange boils and scars having brutally dismembered his wife. This is the first of a number of reported violent crimes in the area, often of someone murdering the other members of their family. Many of these incidents seem to link back to the appearance of a Japanese stranger in the village. Jong-goo begins to have nightmares about this unusual man. Shortly afterwards, his daughter Hyo-jin begins to exhibit increasingly strange, violent, and vulgar behavior. Jong-goo is convinced the stranger has possessed his daughter and is prompted to seek out a traditional shaman to exorcise the spirit. While this has some effect at first, the curse falling over Jong-goo and his family can not be so easily defeated. 

I'm pulling from a comparatively small sample size here and also making the same mistake I chastise others for in my opening paragraph, of grouping all Asian cultures together mindlessly. Having said that: A curse that easily passes from person to person seems to crop up in horror movies from that corner of the world sometimes. That's kind of how the mechanics of the haunting in “Ringu” operate. A more recent example would be “The Sadness” from Taiwan, where a literal virus prompts people to indulge their most depraved, violent impulses. In “The Wailing,” evil is similarly a communicable virus. It seemingly begins with the Japanese man coming into the village. He is said to commit sexual assaults, crawl around the forest in his underwear, or eat rotten meat. If this is patient zero for a corrupting otherworldly force is hard to say but, either way, it's spreading through this village. We see individuals in a zombie-like trance, rotting and covered in sores. Meanwhile, in the case of Jong-goo's daughter, the curse acts more like a traditional possession. Whatever the symptoms, this is a demonic outbreak that works very much like a pandemic. If one person in town has caught it, odds are good someone else has it too. 

This is a cool set-up for a fright film, seemingly mixing the familiar tropes of the zombie movie with a degree of demonic horror. However, it's only the jumping-off point for the themes “The Wailing” explores over its two and a half hour runtime. The film operates a lot like a detective mystery, with Jong-hoo attempting to track down the person responsible for these events. It's clear that he is caught in a chain reaction whose trigger event happened some time ago. This is evident in a well done sequence where the shaman performs an elaborate ritual, with a lot of dancing and physical movement, to cast the spirit out. This mostly results in Hyo-jin screaming in pain as her body contorts. As the story progresses, characters learn conflicting information about who is the source of these events and what to do about them. A Catholic priest concludes that the Japanese stranger – a cultural outsider who may be a mere scapegoat? - is a demon. The shaman believes a ghost is responsible. The media blames the consumption of psychedelic mushroom. Ultimately, it doesn't matter to Jong-goo because his daughter is still sick, isn't getting any better, and his home seems careening towards disaster. If all religion is merely an attempt to put a system of cause-and-effect on a universe that is merely random chaos, “The Wailing” is a good depiction of that. Its protagonist is the middle of the falling dominoes, with no chance of stopping the collapse even if he can trace things back to a source. 

A key moment occurs when Jong-hoo and his partner are investigating the home of the supposed demonic individual. Someone points out that a key object was casually picked up, contaminating the forensics and ruining any chance of it becoming evidence in the court of law. When compared to an earlier scene of Jong-hoo cowering from a ghostly image in the police station, the conclusion is difficult to avoid: This guy isn't a very good cop. As he grows more desperate, he uses violence and intimidating frequently to get what he wants. When combined with the dysfunction in his home life, another theme seems to emerge. The family calls on the shaman, under the belief that he knows what to do. He is revealed to be as clueless as anyone else. Doctors can't stop the spread. The Catholic priest is confused too. There is a systematic failure of authority in “The Wailing,” men who are stupid or irresponsible or corrupt or selfish being assigned power they cannot be trusted to wield. This outbreak of demonic influence is their fault and trusting them to stop it seems like a doomed effort. It feels a lot like, oh, every government in the world ever. How can we expect a system that caused these problems to then resolve them? 

Tying these ideas together is Na Hong-Jin's mastery of ambiance and ability to deliver a good shock. The scenic locations, beautifully captured by Hong Kyung-pyo's cinematography, only make the cast seem more isolated and alone as things get worst. Several sequences in “The Wailing” begin with seemingly normal circumstances being disrupted by unusual events that grow more disturbing. A lightning crash and black-out precedes the appearance of a shadowy spectre. A visit to the woods is disrupted by the strange man appearing, who crawls closer and closer. A nose bleed escalates to a torrent of vomit. A frantic drive down a freeway is disturbed by a swarm of bugs pelting the windshield. The movie does a fantastic job of staring at events as they grow more ominous, looking evil right in the face as it plays out in front of us. The result is the viewer feels as trapped with these unsettling revelations as the characters do. These aren't mere jump scares, that jolt the audience and then fade as the adrenaline dies down. These are sturdier chills, nightmare imagery that sticks in the mind and becomes harder to forget.

 

Good shit, in other words. Na Hong-Jing doesn't seem to have attracted the reputation as a lot of other South Korean horror filmmakers. His previous films, “The Chaser” and “The Yellow Sea,” got strong reviews. His follow-up to this one, “Hope,” got scooped up by Netflix and dropped on their streaming service with little promotion, as Netflix is prone to do. I'm definitely going to have to go back and check those out though. (Na also penned a film for Thai filmmaker Banjong Pisanthanakun that started life as a sequel to this one before turning into a stand-alone project. I'm considering making that my stop in Thailand on this year's world tour.)“The Wailing” is a potent dose of dread, featuring strong performances and heady ideas in service of fantastically directed scenes of horror. [8/10]

 

House of the Black Death (1965)
 

In the various circles of schlock movie perdition, Jerry Warren surely resides somewhere on the lower tiers. Ed Wood's surreal dialogue and irrepressible fetishes made his films cult classics. Andy Milligan's deeply felt misanthropy transformed Z-movies into windows to his personal hell. Coleman Francis created stifling works of highly quotable anti-art. I've never seen a single person who express anything but ironic enjoyment of Jerry Warren's work. His films, usually composed of thoughtlessly cut apart and reassembled international movies with utterly lifeless new footage providing the thinnest of connective tissue, have little camp factor and few merits of their own. So how bad does a movie have to be when Jerry Warren is called in to save it? Lora Crozetti, an early female writer in the world of sci-fi fandom, wrote a book called “The Widderburn Horror.” In 1965, director Harold Daniels attempted to adapt it into a movie. Reginald LeBorg apparently also shot some footage of people wandering around the woods. The producers deemed the project incomplete and brought in Warren to shoot additional material and cut it together into something releasable. Whether he succeeded is debatable. However, the film, now entitled “Blood of the Man Devil” and eventually re-titled again to “House of the Black Death,” did play in theaters before paying audiences. Which is something, I guess. 

The Desard family's legacy is one of witchcraft, devil worship, black magic, and arcane curses. At the family's foggy estate resides the bed-bound Andre, the eldest member who is deeply protective of the Desard's dark secrets. His brother, Belial, works with a coven of loyal followers to undermine Andre and claim the family's powers for his own. Andre's children, Paul and Valerie, arrive at the home to discuss these terms. Belial's followers kill their dog and go about attempting to activate a much discussed curse, that will turn Paul into a werewolf. Paul, his sister, a skeptical doctor, and dear old dad talk about ancient spells and tomes. Meanwhile, the literally horny Belial has his followers perform striptease outside the house as part of dark rituals, I guess.

“House of the Black Death” qualifies as a motion picture only on a technicality. It begins with a montage of the main players, their names and roles in the story being introduced by an off-screen Satanic voice. If that seems didactic, it's practically dynamic compared to how the rest of the movie plays out. Most of the film's thankfully short 74 minute runtime is devoted to people standing around within the undistinguished rooms of the family home. They ramble on about the family's demonic heritage and history of lycanthropy, often repeating the same points again and again. The visibly bored actors are usually in the center of the frame, footage cutting back and forth with the subtly of a power saw, as they talk about this incomprehensible bullshit. The word “coven” is repeatedly pronounced in such a manner as not to rhyme with oven, man. It is lifeless, feeling like stilted amateur theater unwisely committed to celluloid for all time. 

Considering his pedigree, I would expect these endless scenes of inane dialogue to be Mr. Warren's work. The exact breakdown of who shot what seems lost to the ages. We do know that Warren brought in his regular Katherine Victor, who appears in scenes of the cult bickering among itself. Otherwise, we can only speculate. The multiple scenes of female Satanists gyrating around in their lingerie before a demonic alter represents exploitation film making at its most desperate, throwing half-naked bodies on-screen in hopes of diverting audience attention for a second longer. Sure, the girls are attractive. Among them is legendarily proportioned British pin-up girl Sabrina, in her final film credit. Their dance routines are recorded without a sense of eroticism or basic energy. It's like “Orgy of the Dead” with all the fun parts cut out. Much like that particular piece of cheese, “House of the Black Death” links its tedious conversations and titillation-free lap dances with hokey horror movie atmosphere. There's a stone altar shaped like a saddle, the topic of several conversations. A rusty gate, a cardboard tombstone, a blanket of fog over the floor. Even someone with as much affection for elementary school Halloween party set-dressing as myself can only find so much here to be charmed by. The scene where someone finally turns into a werewolf – a split-second shot of foam gurgling through a gorilla mask – and Lon Chaney transforming into a paper skull instantly made me chuckle a little. But that's it.

I watched “House of the Black Death” because of its over-the-hill stars. As always, John Carradine and Lon Chaney Jr. are professionals. Carradine never blinks or stutters when reading reams of droll exposition. He is one of the few actors in the film that actually do anything meaningful, called upon to perform a mostly off-screen fiery incantation at the end. It's impossible to care about any of it and I doubt Carradine did either. However, he does his best. Chaney was well into the drinking-himself-to-death portion of his career. He hams gratuitously for the camera, smiling wickedly and staring with evil lust at the various girls on display. The little horns on his head are kind of cute. These are, to say the least, the most modest of pleasures. The two horror legends never directly interact. You'll have to watch “The Black Sleep” for that, a movie that's also quite lame but is still considerably better than this one. 

I genuinely do try and find the best in every movie I watch. I've sat through some dire stuff simply because an old monster movie guy was propped up through a scene or two. I've seen films that tested my patience more than “House of the Black Death,” I suppose. However, it is an hour and change stunningly devoid of value. Many pieces of interesting cinema have been dismissed because “nothing happens” within them. This is a genuine description of “House of the Black Death.” It “moves,” and therefore is a movie, only because live humans were recorded for it. If you swapped them out, even the esteemed Mr. Carradine and Chaney, with motionless cut-outs, the film would be fundamentally unchanged. I feel no hatred towards it, only indifference, perhaps the most damnable sin of all. [2/10]

 

Wednesday: Wednesday's Child is Full of Woe

The idea of Tim Burton being involved with some new version of “The Addams Family” is, to generalize, hack shit. To quote a sort of wise man, it's too obvious, a hat on a hat. This is so true that Burton had already been attached to a reboot of the property years before. However, the most obvious programming possible is what Netflix specializes in. This is presumably why the new series would revolve around Wednesday Addams. The upbeat, cheery little girl of the sixties sitcom has now been utterly eclipsed in pop culture by Christina Ricci's interpretation of her as an extremely sardonic, glaring, sadistic goth girl. Wednesday now exists more as a Halloween costume, the phenotype upon which a hundred OnlyFans providers have built their brand on, than as a character. Again, this made a show about her having adventures the most obvious choice. Nevertheless, none of this prevented Netflix's “Wednesday” from becoming a pop culture phenomena back in 2022, turning Jenna Ortega into a cult icon overnight. After watching the original “Addams Family” series over the last two years, I've decided to give this iteration a shot. 

And so I must grapple with the most ChatGPT-coded angle on “The Addams Family” you could imagine. In “Wednesday,” Gomez and Morticia's daughter has psychic powers. She has grim premonitions of the past and future upon touching someone, like she's in “The Dead Zone” or some shit. After filling her high school's swimming pool with piranhas to avenge Pugsley getting bullied, Wednesday is shifted off to Nevermore Academy. This is a private boarding school for monsters and freaks, which is where Gomez and Morticia met each other as teens. Meaning this premise is also “Harry Potter,” right down to the student body being sorted into four different groups. Wednesday's class mates include werewolves, sirens, gorgons, a telekinetic descendant of a witch hunter, and actual actual actual vampires. Having the Addamses exist along side literal monsters kind of defeats the purpose of them being the kookiest, spookiest family in town, does it not? Dropping Wednesday into Monster High is the definition of redundant. 

Again, the writers and producers of “Wednesday” were not inclined to resist the most obvious choices. This means that Wednesday's room mate is a perky and upbeat modern teenager, addicted to social media and prone to brightly colored accessories. This at least leads to the first episode's funniest moment, when Wednesday literally divides their room up. Another obvious writing choice here is to have Wednesday come into conflict with the local normies, which include the suspicious town sheriff. I was fine with this idea in the abstract until she started kung-fu fightin' some bullies. One of two way over-choreographed fight scenes here. I am less okay with the other choices here. The entire point of the Addams family is that they love and adore each other despite their outwardly morbid appearance. Here, Wednesday has teenage angst with her parents. She believes Gomez and Morticia are trying to turn her into a perfect copy of them and resents them for it. How trite. (Wednesday is also woke now, something I don't object on its face so much as it's difficult for me to imagine the Addams having an opinion on any modern political divides.)

I am trying my best to give this show a fair shot but, unfortunately, I can already see all the tendencies of streaming television that I despise at work. A dozen potential subplots, that can bounce back and forth over the next seven hours, are set up here. Despite her repeated insistence that she is not interested in such things, the first episode laboriously sets up multiple love interests for Wednesday. There's the straight-laced guy who works at the coffee shop, the handsome classmate with some connection to her, the skinny dweeb in the fencing class. Several rivals to lovers paths. There's implications about a dark family secret, connected to her parents' school days. Clearly, Wednesday's principal and court-mandated therapist are Up to Something. At least two potential villains with a grudge appear. There's a mystery to resolve too, a brutish beast with bulging Burton eyes introduced shortly before the credits roll. Such standard serialized drama elements is a rough fit for the farcical style of the Addams Family. How are characters such as these meant to function in a world where things like murder have actual legal consequences? 

The worst part of it all is the cast seems well chosen. At first, Jenna Ortega is doing a fairly straight impression of Ricci's work in the Sonnenfeld's films. However, as the hour goes on, she proves adapt with the kind of corny, morbid one-liners that made the original sitcom so much fun. Ricci herself is here, as is Riki Lindholm, and both seem like they fit in. While the verdict is still out on whether I agree with their characterization, I also like Luis Guzman and Catherine Zeta-Jones as Gomez and Morticia. At least their devotion to each other and their family is intact. Shifting the focus from the familial unit to one member being in a strange location changes the key interaction, in such a way that I find rather boring. In general, I found “Wednesday's Child is Full of Woe” quite boring. I'm going to try and stick it out for at least the first season but if the rest of the show is this bland, I'm going to skip season two. [4/10]

 

NBC Matinee Theater: The Fall of the House of Usher

I don't pay for regular television anymore and I know I'm not alone in that regard. From what I've gathered from sitting in waiting rooms, daytime television is now dominated mostly by chat programs, game shows, and endless reruns. Things have changed a lot since the mid-fifties, when NBC deemed daytime audiences so valuable a demographic that they invested in a pricey, daily anthology series, filmed in color and broadcast live. That would be “NBC Matinee Theater,” which run for 650 episodes over the course of three years, a number that seems improbable today.  The series has faded utterly into obscurity in the years since but a handful of notable episodes still float around online. Like a lot of early anthology programs, “Matinee Theater” often drew from classy literary sources for material. This usually precluded anything spooky or macabre but the series delved into the accepted canon of respectable horror stories from time to time. One example is a version of “The Fall of the House of Usher” that aired in August of 1956. 

Adapter Robert Esson and director Boris Sagel maintain the broad strokes of Poe's story. The protagonist, named David here, arrives at the crumbling family estate of his old school mate, Roderick Usher. Roderick is gripped by a powerful melancholy and a malady that makes him sensitive to all sights and sounds. He attributes this to a family curse that has driven every Usher before him mad. His sister, Madeline, is also quite ill and dies while David is visiting. You probably know what happens next. This “House of Usher” underplays the isolation of the story by adding more characters: A faithful family housekeeper, a doctor called in to tend to the sick Madeline, and a police constable. It also ventures outside the titular location into the near-by town for a scene, which I think tellings of this tale probably should not do. 

While the producers of “Matinee Theater” sought to save money where they could by utilizing small cast and limited staging, the best thing about this “Fall” is its set. We never see the exterior of the home in full. Only a creaky gate, a sign bearing the family name swinging ominously in the wind. Roderick's room has an overflowing book shelf, an ornate throne, a window waiting to be dramatically thrown open. The family tomb, a pivotal location in any version of this story, has the neat detail of a wall of caskets. The shot of Roderick and David descending into this inner most chamber, lit by candlelight, is a good one. The reading of “The Haunted Palace” also ranks among the episode's better moments. It's not much but I think the producers did an okay job of summoning some gothic ambiance with the set dressing that was afforded to them. 

Otherwise, the tone of this take on “Hosue of Usher” veers more towards the hokey and melodramatic. Tom Tryon, best known to me from “I Married a Monster from Outer Space,” plays Usher at maximum staginess, bellowing his cries of misery and putting all his feelings into the character's descriptions of his mental agony. Marshall Thompson as the protagonist is so straight-laced and blandly heroic as to appear out-of-place in this tale. Probably owing to its TV-bound roots, the darker suggestions within Poe's text are downplayed. Madeline is introduced clawing at the walls of her room, making the family madness as broad as possible, and all the subtext of incest and depravity is gone. The image of Madeline's arm rising from her newly interned sarcophagus reminded me too much of Disney World's Haunted Mansion. And then the episode revisits that visual about three more times. It comes across as fairly defanged and hammy. Considering there's a dozen other adaptations of this story out there, the “Matinee Theater” version counts as inessential. The show did most of the public domain horror standard greatest hits (plus an occasional deeper cut, like The Queen of Spades or The Bottle Imp) and one imagines they are of a similar pedigree as this: Serviceable but a bit weak sauce. [5/10]

 

CHUCK'S ROUNDHOUSE: Lone Wolf McQuade (1983)

When you're watching through every leading role in a movie star's career, you inevitably start to think of the actor as the main driving force behind most of the creative decisions. In a case such as Chuck Norris, where audiences are expecting very specific things from his movies, this is probably more true than with a performer that absorbs themselves more in a character. We are here to watch Chuck Norris do Chuck Norris things, not see the versatility of his acting. Accordingly, Mr. Norris did not work with the same directors that often in his earlier credits, most of the filmmakers not having diverse or memorable filmographies of their own. Steve Carver is the exception. A graduate of the Roger Corman school of independent film making, Carver's name is on notable B-movies like “The Arena” and “Big Bad Mama.” He would graduate to slightly classier studio movies with “Capone” and “Drum” before directing “An Eye for an Eye.” Chuck and Carver must have gotten along because the two teamed up again for 1983's “Lone Wolf McQuade.” Back in 1983, it got slightly better reviews than previous Norris joints and remains a favorite among his fans. 

J.J. McQuade is a Texas Ranger in El Paso, a cowboy hat wearing, karate-kicking former Marine who drives a turbo-charged truck, carries a big gun, and doesn't seem to own a shirt that buttons up all the way. His lone wolf attitude brings in the bad guys – frequently in body bags – but has made him unpopular with his commanding officers. McQuade's boss teams him up with Kayo, a younger and more by-the-book highway patrolman. McQuade's teenage daughter is injured after stumbling upon a criminal syndicate smuggling weapons across the border. He reluctantly teams up with Kayo to get to the bottom of the case. A smug, kung fu fighting weapons dealer named Rawley Wilkes is behind the operations. He is muscling into the territory of local crime lord Falcon, prompting an alliance of sorts. McQuade also ends up romancing Rawley's moll, a horse trainer named Lola, making the inevitable confrontation all the more personal when his daughter is kidnapped by the bad guys and he has to go across the border to get her back.

While Bruce Lee or any other martial artist star might seem like the more obvious inspiration, Chuck Norris was always fairly open about what movie star he wanted to be. In interviews promoting “Good Guys Wear Black,” he directly cited Clint Eastwood as his model. “Lone Wolf McQuade” follows that influence to its logical conclusion. The opening credits feature a font not dissimilar to that seen in Sergio Leone's “Dollars” trilogy. Composer Francesco De Masi does a decent Ennio Morricone impression on the soundtrack. Cinematography Roger Shearman invokes Leone's mythic version of the American West in the opening scene, filming Norris behind the midday sun and among the wide, flat Texas deserts.. The movie is a spaghetti western for the eighties. There are Dodge trucks instead of horses and Uzis instead of Winchester rifles but “Lone Wolf McQuade” is still operating in that same mode. It's a hyper-real story of tough men, with stubble and perpetually sweaty faces, hunting down far more ruthless villains in a south-western landscape so barren and topped with rocky structures as to be a fantasy land. 

“Lone Wolf McQuade” is also an action movie from the era when the genre was starting to get more excessive, the pyrotechnics and machismo reaching such a level that it very quickly crossed over into the realm of self-parody. That actually turns out to be a good fit for the spaghetti western aesthetic, which was already a more exaggerated version of traditional American myth making. While Norris' past films were mostly fight movies with some shoot-outs or explosions added here and there, “McQuade” truly ups the ante. The opening sequence has machine gun fire breaking out across the mesas of the desert. A well done stunt involves the action star being dragged behind a moving truck, a sequence that concludes with a fiery explosion. The last act, meanwhile, is an orgy of bullets, flames, and heavy machinery. Norris' movies before this one very much felt like B-movies, lower budget attempts to compete with the big studio spectacles. “Lone Wolf McQuade” is the first time the star seems to be operating on the same level of gloriously overwrought mega-violence as his peers.

Shortly before his death, Steve Carver would do an interview where he admitted that Chuck Norris wasn't much of an actor. He called his performance “mechanical.” It is true that Norris has not always had the most graceful line readings or emotions up to this point. There are a few exchanges in “Lone Wolf McQuade” that come off as fairly stiff. However, the guy had developed a certain presence, which the film definitely capitalizes on. The film sees Norris bonding with “Friday the 13th Part III's” Dana Kimmell as his daughter, the actor convincingly being paternal towards her. It's an interesting note that McQuade's ex-wife is written as still fond of him, their relationship seeming easy-going and relaxed. A way overqualified Barbara Carrera plays his proper love interest. When she cleans his filthy house out, McQuade is annoyed at first but soon tries to do better. This proceeds a very silly but kind of sexy garden hose assisted make-up session. When out at a date in a saloon, Carrera slaps a handsy barfly. Amazingly, McQuade walks away from the conflict here. All of this points towards the secret appeal of Norris as an action star. Despite his tough guy exterior and powerful punches, he's actually kind of a sweetheart. Men want to be him, sure, but also he could be your dad. Women can actually imagine themselves running their hands over his hairy chest, as opposed to the god-like mega-physiques of Arnold or Stallone. 

Chuck's more approachable style of bad-assery did not mean that his films were any less campy than the bigger budget fair coming out at the time. In fact, “Lone Wolf McQuade” is hilariously silly in spots. A key sequence involves McQuade being buried alive in his truck. He does not escape this death trap through quick thinking or any applied skill. Instead, he pours a beer all over himself and revs the engine until the truck explodes out of the earth, sheer boneheaded good ol' boy brute force overcoming the laws of physics. That McQuade is a romantic lead is amusing, considering his sloppy, beer-swilling life style – directly compared to the wolf-dog that is his pet – seems irreconcilable with a feminine touch. (That dog, by the way, gets a far more mournful send-off than a later death scene. Carrera is effortlessly charming in her part but the character is never anything more than a pawn to pass between the hero and villain, woman as accessory to brawny guys.)

What I'm saying is this is Chuck's gayest movie since “Breaker! Breaker!” Despite being a lone wolf, McQuade's most important bonds are with the other guys in the movie. He has a mentor relationship with L.Q. Jones as an older cowboy cop. Despite initially being antagonistic towards him, in buddy cop movie fashion, McQuade and Kayo becomes partners before the end. The final scene even sees Kayo pulling the hero's attention away from his ex-wife and daughter, inviting him to leave the women behind and play with the boys. Before his final dual with the bad guy, McQuade removes his belt. Obviously, this is a hero and villain setting their fire arms aside to have a fair fight but it's seemingly deliberately framed as a prelude to a distinctly different type of wrestling. “Lone Wolf” is hilariously adrift with hyper-macho imagery. McQuade is usually seen with an oversized phallic firearm of some sort. A memorable moment has him pushing another vehicle out of a ditch with his Supercharger, after the other drivers besmirch his attitude, as if this is some truck-on-truck alpha wolf domination thing. That's not the only example of mechanical frottage in the film either. The dialogue is also littered with repeated references to the manly posterior. When McQuade's sidekick blasts a bad guy and says he “never forgets an asshole,” I'm sure it's supposed to be a tough one-liner but the implication struck me as slightly different. And it should go without saying that Chuck is topless for most of the film. This cowboy doesn't tuck in his shirt, no sir. 

As all of the above should indicate, this is not a motion picture of any degree of realism. “A Force of One,” “An Eye for an Eye,” and “Silent Rage” would all draw some attention to its protagonist overstepping the boundaries of law enforcement. You'd see Chuck turning in his badge before going full vigilante or attempting to visibly restrain himself before utilizing lethal force. That's not a problem for J.J. McQuade, who is blasting bad guys from the first scene on. A key moment has him capturing a key witness before L.Q. Jones tortures him by nearly shooting him several times. The last act has McQuade deliberately ignoring the laws of the land to cross the border and take on the weapon smugglers personally. He has the approval of the FBI in doing this. While R.G. Armstong as the captain chastises McQuade for his cowboy coppery, he is ultimately only rewarded for his extra-judicial actions. That was another sign we were well and truly in the eighties now. Harry Callahan would make a show of tossing his star away, acknowledging that he had broken the law in his pursuit of fascistic “justice.” J.J. McQuade doesn't give a shit about that and neither would Marion Cobretti, Martin Riggs, John McClane, or Jack Slater. Thus was the ethos of Ronald Reagan's “might makes right” administration. 

 

None of which is meant as a criticism. One must acknowledge the ridiculous perspective of films like this before being able to embrace them as the campy fantasies they are. On that level, “Lone Wolf McQuade” is effortlessly entertaining. The finale is an orgy of destruction, bazooka and bulldozer included, that repeatedly tops itself in terms of destruction. The climax is a showdown between Norris and David Carradine, a title bout between two of the icons of white boy kung-fu. Amusingly, Chuck would supposedly later be quoting as saying, “David Carradine is every bit the martial artist as I am an actor.” This is an astute, self-aware observation but I will say that Carradine can more convincingly throw a kick here than in his Kwai Chang Caine days. Carradine plays Rawley like a slithering snake of a bad guy, all slick self-confidence. His gold chain and polo shirt paints him as a deliberately different type of masculine verve than McQuade's sweaty, rugged cowboy machismo. Another campy touch is Falcon, the story's other gangster, being a dwarf. That too is a touch that feels more Sergio Leone than John Ford. 
 

In other words, “Lone Wolf McQuade” is absolute cinema. It takes all the goofy touches of Norris' earlier films and pairs them with a more self-assured sense of campy artifice. When Chuck does a slow-mo jump kick to a wooden target, it's a deliberate declaration that this shit is as awesome as it is silly. All the varied influences of Norris' self-image come together here, in a miasma of martial arts, western imagery, reactionary politics, and rascally redneck charm. I guess we are missing some New Age Native American mysticism or Born Again Christianity nonsense – two elements that Chuck would add when essentially recycling the film's premise for “Walker, Texas Ranger” – but the film has enough dudesweat and fireballs to make up for that. Take a beer bath yourself and give this one a spin, preferably on an over-rented VHS tape in the back of a shitty trailer, with the A/C howling against the scorching heat of the Texas summer night. [9/10]

[THE CHUCK OF NORRIS: 5 outta 5]
[X] Facial Hair
[X] Jumps or Kicks Through a Window or Wall
[X] Performs Spin Kick or Spin Punch to Enemy's Face
[X] Shows Off His Hairy Chest
[X] Sports Some Cowboy Getup

Halloween 2025: October 16th

 

Kuroneko (1968)
Yabu no Naka no Kuroneko

Near the start of this year's Halloween Horror-fest Blog-a-thon, I talked a little bit about the history of scary movies about cats. In my typically Anglo-centric, ignorant American fashion, I completely forgot to mention that Japan devoted an entire fuckin' subgenre to scary cat movies. They are called kaibyo eiga and Japan has been making them since at least 1910. Ghostly cats obviously first appeared in Japanese folklore and stories about them first became popular in Kabuki theater. As a cinematic genre, these monster cat movies took off in the thirties, reoccurred in waves about every ten years, and finally died out in the sixties. That's when what is the best known example in English-speaking territory arrived. After making psycho-sexual Japanese folk tale “Onibaba” in 1964, director Kaneto Shindō would put his own spin on the ghost-cat movie with “Yabu no Naka no Kuroneko” – “A Black Cat in a Bamboo Grove” – which is simply known as “Kuroneko” abroad. 

Set in the same Warring States era as “Onibaba,” the film begins with a similar set-up. Hachi is off at war. Yone and Shige, his mother and wife, have been left alone. A group of samurai descend on their house, raping and killing them both. Afterwards, both women are resurrected as predatory ghosts who can transform into black cats. They begin to lure every samurai that comes across the gate at Rajomon back to their lair, seducing each one and then tearing their throats out.  On the battlefield, Hachi kills an enemy general and presents his decapitated head to samurai governor, Minamoto no Raiko. Hachi is made a samurai himself and renamed Gintoki. Raiko then tasks him with the mission of killing the ghost cat women that have been knocking off samurai near-by. Shortly after encountering them, Gintoki recognizes the spirits as his wife and mother. Since they've pledged to kill all samurai, the spectral women are conflicted about what to do next. Passion, honor, and a thirst for vengeance ensue.

While “Onibaba” had some extremely moody black-and-white cinematography of its own, “Kuroneko” takes the same visual style much further. The opening sequence, devoted to the women's violation and murder, takes place entirely without dialogue. From the moment the ghostly cat-women appear, the film is arrested by a dream-like tone of other-worldliness. The spectres are dressed all in white, appearing in a shadowy world of high contrast darkness. Their abode is depicted almost as an expressionistic set, vague and square interiors that stretch on into infinity. Figures disappear with a look, their appearances change just as quickly. During confrontations, the ghost women tumble through the air like the bad guy in a kung-fu movie. By the final act, every inch of ground under the actors' feet is covered with swirling white fog. It looks fucking cool, is my point. 

Such stylized visuals immediately evoke the feeling of a traditional folk tale. And the characters in a folk tale don't know they are in a folk tale. There were no cell phones in 16th century Japan, so each samurai falling to the ghost women in the exact same fashion is understandable. When Gintoki comes across two ghostly maidens who happen to look exactly like his dead wife and mom, he must wait several minutes to mention that. When certain conditions of the ghostly curse are broken, this must be explained via extensive dialogue. Most egregiously, the climax involves a strange old woman knocking on Gintoki's door and him letting her in, buying her story when she goes “Oh yeah, I'm totally not the vengeful ghost that's been pursuing you the whole movie.” “Kuroneko's” script is well aware of its status as a traditional Japanese ghost story. Minamoto no Raiko was a real historical figure who is also the main character in a well known myth featuring some crazy monsters. He mentions this to Gintoki, assuring him that tall tales are more politically advantageous than the mundane truth. How this relates to the movie's own relationship with the stereotypical folk tale structure it invokes, I'm not sure. 

In fact, there's a great many things about “Kuroneko” of which I am not sure. Ghost stories about vengeful female spirits are very common all across Japan and Asia, if that wasn't already obvious. As it is any time a horror film features women using their sexuality as a weapon against men, using the desire they inflame in the opposite sex to destroy them, a feminist reading is likely to emerge. While all the samurai that came before him are total assholes who get what's coming to them, Gintoki seems to be a nice enough guy. He loves his wife, is faithful to her, and wants to be with her. Their romance is destined to be doomed and Gintoki's eventual fate, perhaps, is a commentary on the idea that even “good” men benefit from a patriarchal system that punishes women. Like so many revisionist samurai movies made in the fifties and sixties, the inevitable feeling to “Kuroneko”s ending once again suggests that the concept of Bushido honor was actually a self-destructive trap for all who believed in it. 

Whatever meaning can be taken from “Kuroneko,” one thing is for sure: Kaneto Shindō fuckin' hated samurai. If the same guy makes two separate movies in which a pair of women repeatedly lure in and murder a specific type of warrior from his country's past, that makes his feeling on that particular cultural figurehead unambiguous. Ultimately, I think I found the repressed sexual desires emerging as murderous instincts of “Onibaba” a more satisfying experience than the more straight-forward ghost story structure of “Kuroneko.” Nevertheless, it's certainly a gorgeous movie. Its images are striking and unlikely to be forgotten any time soon while its dream-like tone successfully puts a spell on the viewer. Not as much evil ghost cat shenanigans as the title might make you expect though. [7/10]

Spider (1992)
Zirneklis

From 1944 to 1991, the nation of Latvia was under occupation by the Soviet Union. This brought with it strict regulations over what could and could not be depicted in art. Latvian cinema absolutely existed during this time, with a number of historical epics and crime dramas being produced during those years. However, as in many other Soviet ruled nations, topics of the macabre and supernatural were off-limits. After the establishment of independence in 1991, the first Latvian horror movie would be produced. "Zirneklis," or "Spider" in English, was directed by Vasili Mass and would be released in 1992. It's an artsy fever dream full of nudity and weird sex. One imagines this must have felt like a release of pent-up, repressed fantasies and desires after forty years of Soviet censorship. 

Vita is a young, virginal maiden living in the Latvian countryside with her mother. While attending school, she is approached by Albert, a local artist that has been commissioned by a nearby church to paint a religious scene. He wants Vita to be his model for the Virgin Mary. Upon arriving at Albert's studio, she is met by other nude models, collections of spiders, and erotic paintings. The man begins to hold a strange sway over her, leading Vita to have vivid nightmares and erotic fantasies. While visiting a castle in the countryside, Vita meets a young man that also inflames her lust. As her dreams grow stranger, the young woman finds herself pulled between different men with different intentions for her. 

I suppose it says a lot about the nature of European horror films throughout the sixties and seventies that a movie as aggressively weird and willfully transgressive as "Spider" does not seem as unusual to me as it once might have. The film follows the tradition of erotic, dream-like, dark fairy tales about young women coming into maturity, discovering they are desired, and navigating a world that wants to own and control them while exploring their own budding imagination. "Valerie and Her Week of Wonders" and Borowczyk's "La bete" are the most obvious influences. A scene, where Vita imagines herself prone and naked on a gallows, might be inspired by Laraz' "The Coming of Sin." You can see traces of Vlacil, Franco, and Zulawski here. I fell into "Spider's" groove quickly, understanding immediately that this would be the kind of movie that traipses between dreams, fantasies, visions and reality without warning. 

Some of those dreams are quite a sight to behold, to be fair. The title of "Zirneklis" is presumably a metaphor for the various webs of desire that Vita finds herself entangled in. More literally, it refers to the big-ass spider that is the primary reoccurring figure in her erotic nightmares. We first see it holding her nude figure in its eight arms, almost tenderly. Later, it attacks her in bed and tries to spread her legs apart. This proceeds the film's most infamous sequence, where the girl and the Volkswagen sized arachnid consummate their relationship. When a pulsating ovipositor appears on-screen, the film officially straddles – so to speak – the line between the arthouse and a notorious subgenre of hentai. The audience is never entirely certain if the maiden is a willing participant or not as the giant sized creepy crawler takes her doggy style (spider style?), adding to the idea that she is adrift in her own stimulated fantasy. Say what you will about "Spider's" obvious relationship to the artsy-fartsy kinky Eurohorror freak-outs of the past, I've never seen that before. "Earth Vs. the Spider" sure didn't go there. The film showed me something new. 

The merits of whatever substance “Spider” has is debatable. The pacing is sleepy, the narrative is loose. Before the end, the grotesqury on-display gets a tad tedious. The story of a young girl defining her own sexuality, away from the wants of the men around her, still ends with her being molded by the fantasies of others. Choosing the right guy is her happy ending, not self-realization. Aurelija Anuzhite is gorgeous and wide-eyed, in such a way that you can project your own fantasies and feelings onto her easily. On the merits of style, “Spider” has a lot going for it. Gvido Skulte's cinematography is absolutely gorgeous. Almost every frame of “Spider” looks like it could be a painting. The lighting is perfectly composed in each shot to be warm, glowing, like a dream come to life. A moment when Vita imagines one of Albert's paintings coming to life is stunning, almost Bosch-ian in the depth of its color and the decadence on-screen. When the setting switches to an aged castle in the last half, the movie leans fully into a shadowy ambiance. Visually, “Spider” is fantastic.

I suppose “Spider” should also be commended for successfully capturing an older feeling. If not for a random appearance from a Walkman, there would be no way to know when exactly the film is set or made. It's in Russian but, drawing so much from other European films means it's hard to pinpoint the film as specifically Latvian. Not that I'd know what a Latvian movie would look like off-hand, I suppose. A couple of other horror films have been made in the country since this one, so “Spider” does not stand alone as the sole example of Latvian horror. The movie is absolutely worth seeing if only because there's no other film that shows you the mating habits of giant spiders and that gorgeous cinematography. The lack of depth in the rest of the film keep this from a higher recommendation, despite the strength of those images. [7/10]

Nite Tales: Ima Star

Despite being a self-taught musical prodigy who can play fifteen instruments, Flavor Flav will always be remembered as the goofy guy in Public Enemy who wore the big clock. Mr. Flav certainly did this perception no favors during his re-emergence into pop culture in the late 2000s. He parlayed an appearance on an embarrassing reality show and a brief relationship with Brigette Nielsen into several other embarrassing reality shows. After that but before his go at restaurant ownership, Flav would give being a horror host a shot. “Nite Tales” started life as a made-for-TV horror anthology film on BET, with the Public Enemy hype-man playing a macabre M.C. called “The Time Keeper.” The movie must have gotten decent ratings for the network, as “Nite Tales: The Series” followed shortly. The series presumably did not get decent ratings, as it lasted all of six episodes. Nobody has thought about this show in 16 years but my continued quest to find ever-more obscure horror anthology programs has led me here. 

The star of “Ima Star” is Ray J, best known for his appearance in the Kim Kardashian sex tape. He plays a wannabe rapper named Stormy O. His audition before some record execs go wrong when present big shot, Z Diddy – that's a reference that aged great! – dismiss his rhymes as whack. Dispondant, Stormy hits the club for a rap battle in hopes he'll regain his confidence. Instead, he looses the contest. Right as Stormy is about to give up on his rap dreams, he is met by an agent eager to sign him. What Stormy O doesn't know is that this agent is in deep with some sketchy types and has to make some money soon. The publicity stunt cooked up to make Stormy's record a hit – the rapper faking his own death – ends up going horribly wrong. 

The production values for “Nite Tales” were slightly higher than “Strange Frequency” and “Hollywood Off-Ramp.” This episode actually has about three different sets! The record executive's room, the rap club, and a funeral home. Either way, you'll probably notice that an awful lot of “Ima Star's” runtime is devoted to the main character showing off his rap skills. As the whitest of white boys, I have no ability to judge the abilities on-display but I did find this sequence mildly amusing. However, these moments being focused on suggest that there wasn't much of an idea for a narrative here. “Ima Star” doesn't really become a horror story until its very end. 

It's clear that “Ima Star” is more farcical than grim. The record execs repeatedly answering their cell phones during the audition, the goofy P. Diddy parody, a supporting part for Kel Mitchell: It all points towards comedy. The ending makes the entire episode feel like the wind-up for a punchline, which ends up being a simple gag about rapper's LPs selling better after their untimely death. The twist is extremely easy to predict and rather poorly pulled off. This is true of all of “Ima Star.” The cinematography is quite shaky, with multiple long montages of honies shaking their ass on the dance floor. Ray J's acting ability extends no further than goofy mugging. The host segments are devoted to Flavor Flav in a silly Dracula costume doing his typical shtick in front of a green screen. It's not very good. If I had been aware of this show when it aired, I probably would have watched every single episode and told all my friends about it. [6/10]

A Rose for Emily (1983)

 

Of all the trademarks that clarify the gothic tradition, none is more persistent than a fascination with death. A morbid fixation on the end of life and all the trappings around it is, most probably, the primary characteristic of the genre. This extends to what we call Southern Gothic, the local off-shoot of the same literary movement that draws from a distinctly American version of being obsessed with that which has passed and is no longer. Rather than the moldering tombs and churches of old Europe, it focuses on is the fading niceties and blatant racism of Antebellum and early Reconstruction life in the Southern states. William Faulkner is the scribe most associated with Mississippi, a really rather southern state. Naturally, that means he penned a few entries into the Southern Gothic subgenre himself, none more well-regarded than “A Rose for Emily” from 1930. 

You might have read the story in high school English class, where it's often used as a way to demonstrate shifting tenses and non-linear sequence of events. If you read the story as a teenager, you might have also watched the 1983 made-for-TV short film adaptation starring Angelica Huston. It follows the plot of Faulkner's story closely: A funeral director reflects on the life of Emily Grierson, the daughter of a rich old family settled in Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha county, shortly after her passing. She was left traumatized by the death of her belligerent father upon her 30th birthday, refusing to give up his corpse to the mortician for several days. Afterwards, she became a recluse and a frequent topic of small town gossip, as the estate she lived in began to crumble and age. One of her few interactions with the outside world was the courtship of a Yankee foreman named Homer Barron. After a brief but seemingly intense romance, Homer is never seen again. It is widely assumed he skipped town. Searching through Emily's cobweb strewn home after her death, the far more unsettling truth is discovered. 

If the gothic story type reflects an inability to let go of the past and to linger on the dead and dying, that means themes of necrophilia commonly occur there as well. What better metaphor is there for being unable to move on from an event than continuing to treat a deceased lover as if they were still alive? This provides the final morbid twist in “A Rose for Emily” and it's quite easy to predict, even if you haven't read Faulkner's story. Director Lyndon Chubbuck – who went on to work largely in television after this – handsomely adapts Faulkner's text, maintaining a good deal of his lovely prose with a respectable degree of period costumes and set-dressing. Angelica Huston, with her perpetually forlorn face and raven hair, is well-cast as the title character. The last act of the twenty minute short is suitably spooky and unsettling. A slow motion shot of the bedroom door being knocked in has stuck with me since seeing this in school, a long time ago. Chubbuck's “A Rose for Emily” doesn't come close to capturing the sense of longing and feeling of decaying tradition that Faulkner's story did. Not that you could really expect such a humble production to. However, it is a decently executed little film and hints at the wider themes – a deep south longing for an idyllic past that never truly existed, a sickeness that persist to this day – of the source material well enough. [7/10]

Halloween 2024: September 17th

White Dog (1982)

Dogs are man's best friends for a reason. Their loyalty makes them faithful companions and their goofy playfulness helps us feel younger. However, dogs are also only a few genes removed from wolves, predatory animals that have inspired centuries of folk tales and horror stories. This duality, dogs' commonness and the unspoken potential that the kindest mutt could turn savage, has led to a number of horror stories and movies about our four legged friends. The most controversial of these dog thrillers is doubtlessly Samuel Fuller's 1982 film, "White Dog." The controversy is mostly the fault of the studio itself, as they feared this obviously anti-racist movie would be misinterpreted by the public and chose to basically shelve it for over a decade. After some critically acclaimed festival screenings, the film would finally be made available to the public at large thanks to a disc release from Criterion. “White Dog” is now regarded as another classic work from a respected auteur. 

While driving home one night, struggling actress Julie strikes a stray dog with her car. She takes the perfectly white German Shepherd to the vet and ends up bringing it home. After the dog saves her from an intruder, Julie bonds with the canine. However, whenever the dog escapes the house, he violently attacks the first black person he sees. After injuring a black friend of Julie's at a commercial shoot, she takes the animal to a trainer named Keys. Keys, a black man himself, immediately recognizes the Shepherd as a "white dog," a dog trained by white supremacists to attack and kill black people on-sight. Keys becomes obsessed with training the animal to unlearn the violent instincts taught to it by horrible racists. Is such a thing possible? And can it be done before the white dog kills again? 

"White Dog" is not subtle in its thesis. The dog is an animal, ultimately innocent in its intentions. This is emphasized in the scenes of it cuddling up to Julie, comforting her, or crawling into her lap. All normal dog behavior. It has been taught by hateful humans to act in a racist manner. This makes the dog a clear metaphor for people themselves. Nobody is born racist. Instead, it's something they learn from their family and peers. When Julie confronts the man who trained the white dog in the penultimate scene, she points to his granddaughters and says he better not teach "those puppies" to be so hateful. The question doesn't hang on if bigotry is taught but whether if it can be untaught. This is what Keys seeks to do. However, the film is uncertain about that. It poses the hypothetical to us: Once the poison of racism infects someone, can they ever be free from its influence? The ending is pessimistic and leaves us to wonder if hate can be overcome or if the effects of prejudice lingers in the mind after its been purged. 

As high-minded as Fuller's social commentary may be, he was also an experienced director who committed fully to any genre he took on, whether that be noirs, westerns, or war movies. The studio wanted "White Dog," to be "Jaws with paws," expecting the thrifty and fast Fuller to churn out a killer animal thriller before a writer's strike hit. As much as the movie's racial element caught execs off-guard, I doubt they were disappointed in "White Dog" as a horror film. When the white dog first gets out of Julie's house – while chasing a brown rabbit, surely foreshadowing – it attacks a black man driving a street sweeper. It's a scene full of fearsome violence, the camera shoved right into the tightness of the truck's cab, before the sweeper crashes through a storefront in a scene of excessive, eighties style pyrotechnics. When the dog pounces on Julie's friend, the scene proceeds in slow motion, focusing on the shocked faces, the horrified screams, and the dog's jaws unleashing torrents of blood. By far the most protracted moment of horror follows the dog as it wanders a neighborhood. We see a black child around a corner, barely out of the dog's sight. Clearly, the movie is mining this set-up for as much suspense as possible. The moment that follows, where the animal chases a man of color into a church and slaughters him behind a pew, is taunt with sickening tension. 

It's all very well done and very scary. Yet one has to ask why. Racism isn't a horror movie monster. Violence against black people is no idle genre entertainment. White dogs are a real phenomenon. Samuel Fuller was a veteran who fought real racists during World War II. He spent his whole life railing against prejudice and bigotry. I have no doubt that his intentions were entirely sincere. The film has nothing but disgust for white supremacy. Still, you can't help but wonder if the audience getting thrills out of scenes of the white dog stalking black victims is Fuller's genre instincts misleading him slightly. The film's disturbing, well executed scenes of horror makes me deeply uncomfortable but not because of their content... But, ya know, would a racist watch this movie and cheer for the dog? The worst people in the world misinterpreting a film is no fault of the filmmakers. And "White Dog" being suppressed by Paramount in 1982 was ridiculous. I do wonder if this was Fuller's story to tell. Maybe a black director should've handled the material. Maybe centering a story about racism around a white woman and shooting the scenes of violence like a monster movie were, in retrospect, not the best choices. 

Then again, who am I to question Samuel Fuller? His directorial instincts are as confident as can be. The film's cinematography are full of prowling tracking shots, the audience observing the events the way a predator tracks its prey. P.O.V. shots from the dog's perspective, seemingly asking us to contemplate the animal's world view, reoccur throughut. (This is furthered by the opening and ending credits, depicted in black and white to parallel a dog's monochrome vision.) Fuller, a master of melodrama, uses more and more cinematic bombast as the movie goes on. A scene of the dog escaping its pen at Keys' training facility is full of tight close-ups of the dog's face and its legs as it tries to climb out. The sequence ends with a slow motion shot of the animal leaping over a sparking fence. Slow-mo is utilized again at the end, with multiple sequences of the white dog, teeth bared and tongue flapping in the wind, barreling towards the camera. It borders on the comical at times, the camera often panning away to black and white objects or images of animals. Not to mention zooms on the actor's faces pushing us further to emphasize with these protagonists. 

Ultimately, "White Dog" is extremely bold filmmaking with a very powerful point to make. Paul Winfield, often called upon to play the black intellectual, is ideally cast as Keys, a man with a Ahab-like determination to untrain the dog's racist ways. Kristy McNichol – doll-like face, big brown eyes, tussled curly hair – invokes the kind of little sister character everyone in the audience will want to protect. Burl Ives, that ideal figure of folkish, grandpa-like warmth, appears as Keys' partner and mentor. Also, it must be said that the dogs who play the titular character are all extremely good actors in their own way. Adorable as a fluffy friend with big, pleading eyes and terrifying as a snarling beast with vicious fangs, the animals perfectly capturing the opposing elements of the canine that is so central to the film. 

Honestly, the older I get, the more I question the ethics of training animals to appear in movies. Dogs are at least domesticated creatures that are usually happy to perform for their people. The story's animal center also features bears, elephants, big cats, and simians. The film never questions the morality of whether it's right to use wild beasts as entertainment. I guess that's one way Fuller was a product of his time. Nevertheless, "White Dog" is an intense and deeply uncomfortable viewing experience that asks some big questions, guided by certain and dramatic visuals. (Not to mention a melodic and contemplative score from Ennio Morricone.) Certain elements give me pause but, that audiences were denied a chance to judge for themselves in 1982, is strictly Hollywood being the anti-artist, corporate run madhouse it too often is. A remake from someone in the Jordan Peele school of filmmaking probably would've been a worthwhile experience. Instead, a film with the same title adapting the true story behind the source novel was made. Either way, Fuller's "White Dog" remains a distressing and deeply thoughtful motion picture. [8/10]

Children of the Corn V: Fields of Terror (1998)

I've seen more than one source refer to the “Children of the Corn” movies as slasher films. I suppose this isn't technically wrong. All the movies certainly feature lots of scenes of people being slashed. The first three sequels all resemble the structure of a slasher film, in the way they'll introduce characters strictly to off them in elaborate murder scenes. The entries in the franchise, up to this point, largely lack the tropes and quirks that truly define the subgenre. By the late nineties, "Scream" had come out. Bloody killer thrillers were hip again, as long as they catered to a young, ironic Gen-X demographic by being self-aware. Being another Dimension Films property, it was decided to steer the "Children of the Corn" series in that direction. In fact, the fifth entry was originally subtitled "Field of Screams" – spoofing another iconic nineties movie – before a fear that people might assume the sequel was associated with "Scream" forced a change. That's why "Children of the Corn V: Fields of Terror" has a title that feels like a half-formed pun. Anyway, part five was written and directed by Ethan Wiley, the same filmmaker behind the delightfully gonzo eighties sequel "House II: The Second Story." That gave me some hope that this one might be more inspired than its status as a direct-to-video follow-up suggests. 

Once again featuring few links to the original story, "Children of the Corn V" follows a group of college students on a road trip through the Midwest. Reserved Alison, goofy Greg, stoic Tyrus, and beautiful Kir are looking for the perfect spot to spread the ashes of a mutual friend. After crashing their car, they are stranded in the town of Divinity Falls. There, a man named Luke has gathered a following of young teens that tend to the corn fields and worship a deity called He Who Walks Behind the Rows. This startles Alison, whose brother Jacob ran away to join such a cult. He's discovered to be living on the farm, with a pregnant child bride. He wants to leave the cult, as followers must sacrifice themselves the minute they turn 19. Hoping to rescue her brother, Alison and her friends are soon terrorized by a boy named Ezekiel and the rest of the Children of the Corn. 

The protagonists of the previous "Children of the Corn" movies were usually parents, to emphasize the patricidal rules of He Who Walks Behind the Rows. Part five makes its heroes a group of photogenic young people who aren't quite young enough to fall under the sway of the corn. This immediately marks "Fields of Scream" as an attempt to emulate "Scream" and the slasher revival it spawned. The fashions, slang, and general attitudes of the heroes are indicative of 1998. While not a full-blown horror/comedy, the sequel features enough smart-ass dialogue and humor – a friend of the group, inexplicably played by Frank Zappa's other son, marks his path with blow-up dolls – to show Kevin Williamson's influence. The slasher influence is most evident in scenes of victims being stalked and bloodily cut up by the children, especially those that engage in premarital sex. Overall, the general look and feel of the movie marks it unmistakably as a product of the late nineties. The soundtrack, cinematography, editing, and "Dawson's Creek" worthy cast are abreast with all the low-budget imitators of "Scream." 

Ethan Wiley supposedly took on making a fifth "Children of the Corn" movie because he was interested in exploring the cult angle of the story. You can see this a little bit in the finished film. In defiance of all the rules of the previous films, the Children are seemingly led by an adult man named Luke. Played by David Carradine in full-on Kwai Chang Kaine mode, he presents himself as a faux-divine figurehead seeking to protect people against a corrupt outside world. That his cult is made up exclusively of teenage runaways reflects how groups like this prey on vulnerable outsiders. Luke also mentions that he's been accused of being a pervert, which speaks to the sexual abuse rampant in situations like this. Jacob and his assigned wife Lily were drawn deep into this religion before realizing they had given up all their freedoms to a violet, obsessive dogma. When they threaten to leave, they are tortured and punished. If IMDb is to be believed, then "Field of Terror" was filmed in July of 1997. A few months after the Heaven's Gate tragedy. Instead of wearing simple, Amish style clothes, these Children sport the modern fashion of the time, reflecting the changing face of Apocalyptic Christianity in the late nineties. "Field of Terror" doesn't have time to explore any of these ideas too deeply, owing to only being 83 minutes long, but it is an interesting angle to bring to this story. 

Despite its intriguing ideas and occasional bursts of trashy slasher theatrics, "Children of the Corn V" isn't usually as interesting as that suggests. It's young heroes are all fairly dull. Eva Mendez, in her first film, is so terrible as Kir that it actually inspired her to take acting classes. Her story arc, of grieving for a lost lover and falling into bed with the equally wooden Greg Vaughan as Tyrus, is tedious. Greg, played by a Shaggy-like Alexis Arquette, harbors a crush on Alison, another example of the melodramatic script. The stalking and slashing is mostly limited to the beginning and end of the film, leading to a largely uneventful and suspense-free middle section. A typically hammy Fred Williamson as the town sheriff can't liven up these scenes either. The film is never as fun again as an early moment where Ahmet Zappa and Esmarelda Villalobos are stalked and cut up in a corn field. Ezekiel, this sequel's Isaac stand-in, is played by Adam Wylie. Wylie was a common presence in nineties TV – usually playing adorably awkward dorks, as in the made-around-the-same-time Disney Channel movie "Under Wraps" – making him a bit hard to swallow as an evil devil child. 

Despite its many dull stretches and largely bland or miscast actors, "Children of the Corn V" isn't all that bad. Director Wiley and cinematographer David Lewis (who shot the first two "Night of the Demons" movies and a couple Weird Al videos) make a decent looking film. The night shots of the foggy cornfield are cool, there's some decent pyrotechnics at the end, and a scene of Alison reading the cult's Bible while in a rocking chair is clever. The fate of Carradine's character or the hilarious final shot suggests this sequel could've been a loopier experience, if not confined by the low budget parameters of straight-to-VHS filmmaking. Flaws and all, this is still sturdier than you'd expect the third direct-to-video follow-up to a movie that wasn't that good to begin with. It's entirely possible I'm a bit nostalgic for this time period too... [6/10]

Night Gallery: They're Tearing Down Tim Riley's Bar

Every year, when I review an episode of "Night Gallery," I feel like I open by pointing out the show wasn't as popular, acclaimed, or influential as "The Twilight Zone." However, there's at least one episode of the other Rod Serling that seems beloved. "They're Tearing Down Tim Riley's Bar" follows Randy Lane, a sales director who has been at the same company for twenty years. Randy, a widower, is drinking more and his work performance is becoming increasingly erratic. He feels like his boss is ready to replace him with a younger, more reliable employee. When his favorite old bar is prepared to be torn down, Randy becomes trapped by nostalgia for an idealized past that he can never recapture. Moreover, he begins to slip back and forth through time, experiencing the memories he made at Tim Riley's Bar again at his present age. Only his secretary, a kind woman named Lynn, seems to notice how increasingly desperate Randy has become...

Rod Serling's writing always showed sympathy for the outsider or anyone left behind by society. In "They're Tearing Down Tim Riley's Bar," he creates an achingly sad protagonist. Lane has devoted his life to his job. When his wife caught pneumonia, she died alone because he was at work. Now, the same job he's given so much to is treating him as nothing but a disposable employee. The imminent destruction of his favorite watering hole is another example of how the world is leaving Randy Lane behind. We're all going to get tossed aside eventually, making the heartbreak at the center of the story all too relatable. The way Randy is being specifically crushed by the wheels of progress, by a capitalistic society that always favors the young and more cutthroat, feels especially pointed. This is a story about how you can give everything to your job that will be ready to throw you away the minute it no longer deems you useful.

"They're Tearing Down Tim Riley's Bar" is also a story about nostalgia and how easy it is to be trapped by it. Randy is fixated on an idealized version of his past. He loiters around the condemned bar, getting arrested for trespassing and public drunkenness. This was an important place in his life, that he associates with a happy homecoming after the war, meeting his wife, and countless celebrations. However, that way he'll enter these past recollections without warning, disrupting his present life, shows how nostalgia can be a prison too. When he exists the home he used to live at, with his deceased wife, he relives the night she died too. This shows that the past can be as painful as the present, which is also reflected in the figures of Randy's memories becoming more and more aware of their own replacement. Men like Randy Lane get left behind by a culture that's always moving forward. Clinging to a past that is gone, that's never coming back, and wasn't as perfect as you remember it being anyway, isn't going to help anyone either. 

At his best moments, Serling's scripts could get a little didactic or wordy at times. That's evident in this episode, as the dialogue often puts too fine a point on the story's themes. However, a pair of powerful performances bring the wordy script to life. William Windom – one of the busiest character actors of his era, who I'll always remember as the voice of Sonic the Hedgehog's uncle – is heartbreaking as Lane. He spends the entire episode looking disheveled and sopped, every pain he's felt clear on his sad sack face. Windom brings an anger and a resigned sadness to the character, all too aware of how hopeless his situation is but powerless to change it. Diane Baker seems so kind and patient as Lynn. There's a suggestion of romantic feelings between these two but the episode smartly leaves that unspoken. Instead, Baker plays Lynn as a deeply empathetic person who sees another human being drowning and feels like she has to help him. "They're Tearing Down Tim Riley's Bar" has a more sentimental and hopeful ending than the one I would've written but still remains a sad and touching ode to the inevitably of loss. The ghostly visions or time travel push this narrative into the supernatural, though it's still not a horror story at all. If that's what you're looking for, the second half of this "Night Gallery" features a more typical tale of astral projection and revenge, with a bloody twist ending. But I can see why "Tim Riley's Bar" overshadowed that segment. [8/10]

The Addams Family: Green-Eyed Gomez

We know from the previous episode of “The Addams Family” that Gomez has a jealous streak. His wife apparently didn't though, as “Green-Eyed Gomez” sees her invite an old college friend Lionel Barker. Lionel is visiting strictly because he wants to drag the Addams into a stocks scam but nobody else knows that. Gomez' attempt to drive the guy off fail, forcing him to touch on another plan: Hire a maid specifically to seduce Lionel. Named Mildred, a misunderstanding has Morticia believing Gomez has began an affair with the maid. Now both halves of the couple are in jealous misery.

“Green-Eyed Gomez” features a series of gags macabre enough, that I'm honestly surprised 1964 network censors let the show get away with it. After becoming convinced that Morticia is in love with Lionel – after hearing him, out of context, read an old love poem to her – Gomez decides he wants to die. Unwilling to off himself, he asks Fester and Lurch to murder him. I can't say I expected a sixties sitcom to joke about suicide, much less build an entire sequence around it. Here we are, Fester picking up a pistol to shoot his nephew and Lurch tightening a noose around his master's neck. It's a good sequence too, Gomez being rather practical about the machinations of his own demise. He doesn't die, of course, but I still didn't expect “The Addams Family” to go this dark.

Otherwise, this episode is built around comedic misunderstandings. What the Addams find repellant is perfectly hospitable for other people, displayed when Gomez' attempt to make Lionel's room unpleasant backfires. Similarly, they hire Mildred because Fester thinks she's a looker, when the audience is clearly meant to read her as homely. (Though actress Pattee Chapman is actually cute, in her own way.) Gomez and Morticia's confusion that the other is cheating pulls decent chuckles from the classic comedic device of a conversation with two meanings. How they patch things up is adorable though and shows the depths of their love. I also like a moment where Thing emerges from a flower pot to comfort Morticia. Can Thing magically appear from any opening or is each hand linked to some enormous underground body that runs through the whole house? Maybe that's a question we aren't meant to ask... [7/10]