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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Showing posts with label eighties horror. Show all posts
Showing posts with label eighties horror. Show all posts
While writing about “Silent Rage,” I pointed out how horror and action movies appeal to similar audiences, leading to inevitable crossovers between the two. The slasher movie had such a grip on the eighties that depictions of serial murderers that didn't invoke “Halloween” and its ilk at least a little bit became hard to find. Similarly, Reagan-era audiences were so used to movie cops being shoot-first, ask-questions-later lone wolves that cause lots of unnecessary collateral damage that otherwise grounded depictions of the police still frequently used some of these tropes. Since cops ostensibly investigate killers, this meant action movies with horror villains became an identifiable phenomenon later in the decade. I guess it's possible they were all simply ripping off “Dirty Harry” but I always think of Stallone's “Cobra,” as stock-parts an eighties action movie as you can find that inexplicably becomes a slasher flick at random intervals, as what popularized the idea. Pretty much every big action star has done one movie such as this but Chuck Norris actually did two. After going toe-to-toe with a silent but raging killer in 1982, Chuck would play the hero against some terror in 1988's “Hero and the Terror.”
Officer Danny O'Brien pursued Simon Moon – a lumbering, brutish serial killer who murders women with his bare hands – to his pier side lair. In the ensuing struggle, O'Brien is nearly killed but Moon falls from a ladder, leading to his capture. O'Brien, dubbed “Hero” by the press, gets the credit for catching the killer the media was calling The Terror. Three years later, O'Brien is still haunted by nightmares of the murderer while trying to start his life over, by convincing his pregnant girlfriend, Kay, to marry him. That's when Moon escapes from his prison cell, steals a van, and seemingly drives it off a cliff side. The Terror is presumed dead but O'Brien is not so sure. When new victims, barring Moon's trademark style of killing, begin to crop up around a recently restored old movie theater, O'Brien is more certain than ever that the Terror is back at it again. Will he be able to find the killer's new hiding spot, stop the madman, convince his boss he's right, and win his baby mama's hand in marriage?
After making Braddock a dad in “Missing in Action III” and trying out comedy in “Firewalker,” it was clear that Chuck Norris was trying to prove he could be more than just a kicking machine. “Hero and the Terror” represents the star's most concentrated effort yet to show off his (acting, not karate) chops. He's having sweaty, bare-chested nightmares about his encounter with the killer. He's feeling guilt over getting credit for a victory that he knows he doesn't deserve and desperately wants to prove himself again. Mostly, Chuck spends a large chunk of “Hero and the Terror” flirting and bantering with Brynn Thayer as Kay. They get romantic in her apartment, he tells her she's beautiful, takes out for dinner as she gets pregnant-lady-emotional, and even faints from nerves as she goes into labor. I've commented all throughout this retrospective that I actually like Norris as a romantic lead. He is charming enough here, having decent chemistry with Thayer and hitting most of his dramatic beats semi-convincingly. At the same time, expecting audiences to watch ninety minutes of Chuck Norris being domestic, with limited fighting in-between, is perhaps asking a lot.
While it would be untrue to say “Hero and the Terror” doesn't feature Norris doing the things he's best known for, action theatrics are truly only one part of what the film is attempting to do. The scenes focused on the murderous antagonists are right out of a horror flick. Jack O'Halloran, better known as Non in “Superman II,” plays the villain entirely silent save for yells and grunts. He is a tall, stocky beast of a man whose face is kept in the shadows, as if it's going to be revealed that he's deformed or something. His doctor talks like there's a psychological reason driving his compulsion to kill and O'Brien makes mention of how one female victim was left to be found because she wasn't “pure.” However, the script provides no actual insight into the villain's mindset. We can only make presumptions about why he drags the dead bodies of those he kills back to a lair, posing them in the nude but pointedly not sexually assaulting them. When combined with Moon snapping his victims' necks with his bare hands, and the sanity-shaking effect his reign of terror has on the hero, the natural conclusion is simple: Simon Moon is less a man than he is a monster, an otherworldly demon made flesh that cannot be explained or reasoned with.
Director William Tannen got his start in advertising, writing jingles and directing commercials before moving into feature films. This was only his second full feature – he replaced Larry Cohen halfway through production of the Billy Dee Williams vehicle, “Deadly Illusion” – and he's not done much in the horror genre since. However, he proves adapt at the macabre stuff. Surprising and delighting me, “Hero and the Terror” is actually kind of a “Phantom of the Opera” riff. The antagonist hides out in the walled off section of an old movie palace, sneaking through the duct work to attack people in vulnerable places like the rest room. There's a well done sequence where the madman appears in a largely empty auditorium, silhouetted before the screen. The last act makes good use of the behind-the-scenes interiors of a dusty old theater. The cinematographer on-duty here was Eric van Haren Norman, previously a camera operator on “The Burning” and the second and third “Friday the 13th” films. That perhaps accounts for the atmospheric night shoots and moody mist that float through a few scenes. The slow-mo neck crackings are cheesy but, generally speaking, “Hero and the Terror” operates like an okay monster movie.
This is a good thing, as the action sequences are mostly limited to the beginning and end of the film. The script throws in a sequence of Chuck, undercover as a taco truck employee and amusingly going by “Carlos,” chasing some random thugs around a dock. This feels like the movie capitulating to expectations fans of the film's star might have, as it's the only real sequence of fighting we get before the climax. (Save for a brief though amusing scene where Chuck casually clotheslines a purse snatcher that runs by him.) That finale is good and arguably worth the wait. As in “Silent Rage,” the film gets some mileage out of putting Norris up against an enemy that's bigger and stronger than him. The way O'Brien and Moon slam and kick each other through walls and catwalks, before the fight explodes out onto the roof of the cinema, is well done. All of “Hero and the Terror” is building up to this confrontation and the film is mostly assured in giving us our money's worth after all that waiting. If nothing else, the Terror does get a suitably epic horror villain death.
I guess I didn't look closely at the back of the DVD case when I popped “Hero and the Terror” in. As the opening credits progressed, my smile grew wider as more of the supporting cast was revealed. Steve James is back as Chuck's sidekick, returning from “The Delta Force.” They get a few amusing exchanges in but, sadly, James' own martial arts skills are not utilized. Then Ron O'Neal's name popped up, making his second appearance in this marathon too. He plays the untrustworthy mayor but, aside from a brief argument with Chuck, doesn't get to show off that Youngblood Priest energy much. Finally, when Billy Drago's name appeared in the credits, I got very hopeful. Cause why put Drago, another character actor with a great bad guy face, in your psycho killer movie and not have him play the psycho killer? Unfortunately, that is indeed what the film does, Drago having a fairly nothing role as the Terror's psychologist. Another reoccurring face is Jeffrey Kramer, once again playing Norris' partner after doing the same kind of role in “Code of Silence.” Good to know the Chuckster was loyal to his boys.
“Hero and the Terror” ends with a very cheesy love ballad over the end credits, furthering the impression that the film is very seriously trying to sell Chuck Norris as a romantic lead. Another mildly interesting thing about the film is that it's based on a novel by Michael Blodgett, who had some success as an actor – with memorable roles in “Beyond the Valley of the Dolls” and “The Velvet Vampire” – before making the leap to writing. I wonder if the book is more or less insightful into its murderer's motivations? “Hero and the Terror” probably would've been better if it focused solely on the horror elements at play. As an action flick, it is frustratingly short on the kicking and punching. However, it is a nice display for how far Chuck has come as an actor from his earlier credits, I suppose. [6/10]
[THE CHUCK OF NORRIS: 4 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 [] Sports Some Cowboy Getup
They are the two genres I think of whenever memories of slightly disreputable video stores come to mind. I have no actual proof to go on here and my personal preferences might be clouding my judgement. However, if you ask me, the Ma and Pa rental places were built on the back of low-brow horror and cheap action movies. These are the most blue collar of movies. Back in the eighties and early nineties, you could probably sell five thousand units with simple ingredients. All you need for one is a decent location and a little fake blood. All you need for the other is one guy who can kick higher than his head. Filmmakers had been getting their action chocolate in people's horror peanut butter since Maciste went to Hell. The broad appeal among the video renting public of these two styles meant proper cross-pollination was inevitable. As far as I can tell, the first big American action star to lend his fighting prowess to a stab-stab-knife movie was Chuck Norris in “Silent Rage.” This has made the film a minor cult fave among fans of both demographics. I've written about it before but it's been long enough that I think a revisit is in order.
John Kirby is having a hard time. His mind is a wasp's nest of violent thoughts and agitation. The apartment he's staying in is occupied by screaming kids, a bickering land lady, and screeching music. After making a panicked call to his shrink, Kirby finally snaps. He takes an axe to the other residents. Sheriff Dan Stevens and his incompetent deputy Charlie are soon on the scene. Stevens subdues the now silent and rageful Kirby with his karate moves but it's not enough: The madman is shot down by the other cops. His body is taken to the local hospital and catches the attention of Dr. Spires and Dr. Vaughn. Against the protests of Kirby's psychologist Dr. Halman, Spires and Vaughn pump the not-quite-dead Kirby with an experimental drug. It cranks his immune system to its highest level, causing his wounds to heal within seconds. Unfortunately, the experiments do nothing to cure Kirby of his psychosis and violent tendencies. Spires tries to use Kirby to destroy those that would stop his research but the madman proves too difficult to control. Halman is the brother-in-law of Alison, Stevens' on-again off-again girlfriend. This puts the woman in the path of the murderer, which means the sheriff is going to have to find a way to stop this unstoppable threat.
Director Michael Miller insists he wasn't a fan of slasher movies and was not thinking about “Halloween” when making “Silent Rage.” He instead points to “Frankenstein” as his primary inspiration. While I don't believe him that John Carpenter's classic wasn't a point of reference at all, the Frankensteinian elements are intentional and unavoidable. The words “Dr. Stein” are even said by someone. Steven Keats as Dr. Spires repeatedly says that he believes the advancement of science is more important than any moral concerns. Dr. Halman repeatedly points out that doing a Weapon X on a spree killer is extremely unethical, not to mention obviously unwise. Spires, meanwhile, is too preoccupied with the could've and does not consider the should've. Hysteria over what science has wrought in its hubris surely seemed as old hat as can be in 1982. However, “Silent Rage” attacks the idea with such sincerity that it honestly worked for me.
If one were to break down the percentages, you would probably find that “Silent Rage” is more slasher than it is action movie. The sequences devoted to the killer hunting and dispatching his intended victims probably take up more of the runtime than the brawls. Despite dismissing any connection to the stalk-and-slash style, director Miller and his team are competent at it. We get more than a few Michael Myers-like point-of-view shots of the killer watching his targets. A mild degree of tension is generated in these moments, the viewer wondering when Kirby might finally strike. There's a smidge of that small town isolation, that late-at-night eeriness, in the tracking shots through a darkened home or an empty hospital.
While not especially gory by the standards of these things, I do think the film handles the grue nicely as well. A sequence where Kirby emerges suddenly and strikes a head against a wall with killing force is extremely well done. Brian Libby, previously of a small part in “The Octagon,” wears a fairly silly cleansuit throughout most of the movie. Otherwise, he simply looks like a guy. Probably needed a spiffy mask or a hook hand or something. Nevertheless, Libby has the frame and the intimidation factor necessary to make a decent villain. No explanation is provided for why this rage is silent but Libby has the dead-eyed stare and the occasional unhinged smirk down.
The public perception of the slasher film is that they are nothing but mindless violence. In actuality, the most lovable slashers tend to quietly hang out with their characters long enough for the audience to get a sense of their vibe, if not their personalities. “Silent Rage” does this as well and it's maybe the motion picture's secret weapon. After being complacent in creating an immortal murder machine, Dr. Halman goes home to his wife. She is a painter, gives him a glass of wine. The two order a pizza together. The reliable charm of an actor like Ron Silver is a big reason why this moment feels so comfy and lived-in. However, it goes a long way to make you care about what may or may not happen to these characters. Similarly, the third scientist involved in this is a nothing character that is elevated by the oddball energy William Finley brings to it. That's the kind of thing you would hire William Finley for. It's not a lot. Slasher films are not built on “a lot” but rather a little and these are the exact components fans like to see.
The dominant side of “Silent Rage's” brain certainly belongs to its horror instincts. However, this is still a Chuck Norris flick. It is, in fact, the first of his motion pictures in which he puts on a cowboy hat, shit-kickin' boots, and a big ol' belt buckle. Combined with his unexplained karate expertise and its Texas setting, the roots of “Walker, Texas Ranger” are starting to show. Much like the future TV show, this element of the film is corny with extra kernels. Stephen Furst plays Charlie, the comic relief sidekick, and he has barely turned the volume down from his performance in “Animal House.” This is a ridiculous character, an overgrown child that is utterly stunned by a sight of some boobies, completely delusional about his own abilities, and incapable of doing anything right. The romantic subplot, meanwhile, is conveyed with no less seriousness. Norris and Toni Kalem have an awkward, combative chemistry. He's not quite able to sell the smooth lines but, somehow, it works in the film's favor. This is good, as they spend most of their scenes together in bed. Most prominently in a romantic montage set to a seriously syrupy love song.
The hokiness extends to the context around the action scenes. In order to give Chuck more warm bodies to beat, a cartoonish motorcycle gang rides into town to cause trouble. Much like Charlie's bizarre confession to freezing his childhood dog alive, this scene contributes nothing to the overall plot. Not that I mind because it's a surprisingly effectively piece of fight choreography. Chuck repeats the gag of splitting a pool cue and using the broken wood as a weapon, while delivering some fast piece kicks and punches. It concludes with the delirious sight of a motorcycle flying through a window, the kind of imagery eighties action movie legend is built upon. While most of Norris' action beats are isolated to a few scenes, the central gimmick of “Silent Rage” provides a new angle to the familiar fisticuffs. This is an enemy Norris can't beat into submission. John Kirby gets Michael Myers-shot out a window, dragged behind a moving vehicle, set on fire, takes all the roundhouse kicks to the face and it only annoys him. While Chuck Norris was never much of a thespian, he does a good job of conveying that desperation. It's novel to see the action star up against a threat that actually outclasses him.
“Silent Rage's” uneven split between two different types of low-brow entertainment means it might not please everyone. If you are here strictly for the action, you might walk away disappointed. Slasher nuts, however, are used to keeping their expectations low. Which means we are more than satisfied with a competently executed body count thriller that has the bonus of including some silly Chuck Norris theatrics. That many of the additional elements are extra silly on their face only makes this a more delicious camp stew. Like most of the murder movies that followed in Michael Myers' path, “Silent Rage” ends by promising that its deathless killer will return. Like the majority of slasher flicks that flooded theaters in-between 1980 and 1983, no sequel followed. “Silenter Rage” wasn't in the card. However, I think this genre hybrid remains a fascinating idea and could probably support a remake. Get Jason Statham or Scott Adkins up against another speechless super-killer and I bet I'll have a good time with it. Every guy famous for kicking folks in the head should fight a monster or two in his career. “Silent Rage's” all-timer of a tagline – “Science created him, now Chuck Norris must destroy him” – works just as well with any martial artist slotted in. [7/10]
[THE CHUCK OF NORRIS: 4 outta 5] [X] Facial Hair [] 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
Two years after Canada became an independent nation, the chief of the Kanesatake Mohawk nation led a small armed group against the Catholic seminary that had claimed nine square miles of land promised to indigenous people for themselves. The rebellion was crushed by local authorities. In 1936, the land was sold against the Mohawk's wishes. In 1956, a golf course was built on the land, right next to an ancient site of burial mounds. In 1989, plans were made to expand the golf course and clear the contested wooded area. Mohawk protesters built a barricade to block access to the land. Early in the morning on July 11th, police deployed tear gas and concussion grenades against the protestors. This was the first of several violent interactions and stand-offs between protestors and police, that lasted for 75 days and ended with heavily armed military forces being sent in. By the time what became known as the Oka Crisis was over, two people were dead and a little girl had been stabbed with a bayonet. Around the same time in Ontario, a project with some startlingly similar themes was being filmed. Upon release in 1991, “Clearcut” would receive little attention. After many years in obscurity, the film was recently released in a collection of folk horror films, beginning the recognition of this overlooked motion picture and what is, I think, of it acquiring the reputation of a classic.
Peter Macquire arrives in the Canadian woods, where First Nations protestors are trying to stop a logging operation from completely clearing the area of trees. Peter is a lawyer representing the tribe and he's come to tell them that they've lost the case blocking the company from building on the land. Peter plans to appeal but feels hopeless and angry at Bud Rickets, the logging CEO. After participating in a sweat lodge ceremony, Peter meets a mysterious First Nations activist named Arthur. After violently attacking loud partiers at Peter's hotel, Arthur coerces Peter in accompanying him on a mission to kidnap Bud Rickets. Peter is dragged along as Arthur captures and ties up the CEO, before taking them all deep into the woods. Arthur – who seems linked to the legendary trickster spirit Wisakedjak – grows more erratic, making it clear that he intends to follow through on his promise to skin Rickets alive. Peter feels increasingly conflicted about his loyalties.
“Clearcut” is based on a novel by M.T. Kelly and directed by Polish filmmaker Ryszard Bugajski, neither of whom have any Indigenous blood, as far as I know. Despite that, it is one of the angriest films I have ever seen. An early scene has a protester, after being beaten by a cop, scream profanity at the “white man.” Throughout, police and white authorities refer to the local tribe as “Indians” or “chief.” Meanwhile, the scenes of lumberjacks hacking down trees with chainsaws are shot with a vicious fury, as if we are watching innocent kids cut up. The film returns to the image of blood, or blood-like sap, running down the bark of trees, as if the land itself was gushing from a grievous injury. When Arthur acts against the hicks at the hotel or Rickets, he wraps them in duct tape, notably covering their eyes and mouths. It robs the white people of their visual identity, much the same way all Indigenous people have been treated for centuries. Arthur usually speaks calmly, matter-of-factly going about his gruesome business. As if he has been living with his rage for so long, that it has subsided into silence. That's the kind of fury “Clearcut” shows at all who violate the Earth and disrespect the ancient ways.
Peter is notably not exempt from that rage. All throughout the film, Arthur is chastised by white men for not doing things “the right way.” Such as when he improvises some spear-fishing. In the last third, during a second steam house ritual, Peter begins to cough and say that Arthur has done it wrong. This seems to point towards the lawyer's true intentions in helping the First Nations people. He claims to be an ally and shows repeated anger and frustration towards the CEO. However, when ultimately forced to choose between helping the “Indian” and helping his fellow white man, who do you think he picks? As a weepy white guy myself, I feel an anger at the injustices persecuted races and minorities have faced from my awful government. Is this an attempt by my psyche to displaced some degree of guilt? Do I care only because it makes me feel better? There's a lot of films out there about brown people suffering, seemingly made primarily to make white folks feel bad. “Clearcut” attacks this attitude head-on, daring to ask its white audience to examine the true origins of their sympathies.
I'd like to think I'm utterly sincere in my very cool and woke convictions, in my outrage at environmental and social injustices. Maybe I'm full of shit though because I found Graham Greene terrifying in “Clearcut.” When he casually suggests blowing up the paper factory or skinning the CEO alive, it's with the exact sort of tone that makes you completely uncertain of if he's joking or not. The way he refers to himself as an “Indian” or suggests he scalps someone, it speaks to such a clear anger at the treatment of his people and his Earth. When he moves towards violence, all of that tightly contained anger bursts forward into physical action. You have no doubt that he's capable of all the things he says. When he does bellow in rage during the second steam house ritual, it continues that undercurrent of dark humor alongside a frightening intensity. The implication that Arthur truly is some otherworldly spirit of mischief exists strictly at the film's margins. Nevertheless, Greene perfectly captures that feeling. He is violently unpredictable and quietly funny. All of his behavior in accordance with a grand plan that definitely exists even if only he can see it.
“Clearcut” is one of those films that, despite its lack of supernatural events or standard genre conventions, still can't be classify as anything but horror. François Protat's cinematography is gorgeous, looking out over the trees and mountains with an appropriate awe. He creates a real eeriness with simple images, such as Greene's hands outstretched over a lake or Peter's vision of a tree branches reaching out like hands or antlers. Despite the natural beauty of the locations, “Clearcut” feels more and more like you are descending into Hell as you watch it. Michael Hogan's increasingly delirious cries as he goes into shock, combining with the certainty that Peter isn't getting out of this unscathed, adds to a growing sense of intensity throughout.
Ultimately, “Clearcut” is one of those movies that leaves you stunned in silence afterwards. It feels like a blow to the head, an expression of a primal anger at a list of injustices that has been growing for thousands of years. It does not let its own audience off the hook, forcing the viewer to consider some very unflattering things about themselves. Or maybe that's just me. Either way, “Clearcut” is a hell of a right. A thriller of such intensity that it almost becomes unbearable in parts, it features Graham Greene giving the performance of a life time and some awfully striking imagery. I'm glad the film is getting recognized now. And thirty-four years later, it's hard to say if anything has gotten truly better for Indigenous people. Maybe we need some people like Arthur in real life... [9/10]
Last year, on my stop in Egypt during my Horror Around the Wolrd tour, I took in Mohamed Shebl's “Fangs.” Despite commonly being referred to as the Egyptian “Rocky Horror,” I found the film to be a bit more than that. It was a charmingly home-made Halloween party with a highly specific perspective that I found interesting. While a handful of Egyptian horror movies exist, Shebl seems to have been one of the few filmmakers who truly specialized in scary stories. His latter most films, 1989's “Nightmares” and 1992's amusingly entitled “Love and Revenge... With a Meatcleaver,” seem to be completely unavailable to Western horror fans. However, I was able to dig up a subtitled copy of his follow-up to “Fangs,” 1987's “Al Ta'awitha.” Generally, that title is translated as “The Talisman” though the alternate title of “The Curse” seems to be a little more accurate within the context of the actual movie.
Mahmoud is a simple family man, living in a modest Cairo home. The cramped residence houses himself, his wife Rawya, their young son, their teenage daughter Nadia, his mother, and his sister Faten. The family is often having money struggles. When a mysterious man appears, willing to buy the house and give the family a spacious apartment by the Nile in exchange, Rawya is eager to take it. Mahmoud does not want to give up his home though. Little does his wife realize but this eager buyer is actually an evil sorcerer. He really wants their house too. Determined to drive the family out, the villain puts a curse on everyone in the residence. Poltergeist activity, fires, distressing visions, deadly accidents, bleeding faucets, and a visit from a demonic goat all plague the family. They seek out the help of a mystic woman but will it be enough to stop the presence haunting them?
If “Fangs” represented Shebl remixing “Rocky Horror,” “Dracula,” and half a dozen other flicks via a distinctly Egyptian perspective, “The Talisman” sees him doing the same with a number of American horror film. The general premise of “Al Ta'awitha” plays a bit like “Poltergeist” or “The Amityville Horror.” A cameo from a creepy clown doll, the bleeding plumbing, and the evil extending its influence over a vehicle seems likely seems probably inspired by those blockbusters. A sequence where Rawya's bed starts to rock wildly is obviously a quote from “The Exorcist.” A scene where she's seemingly sexually assaulted by the evil spirit in an elevator brings “The Entity” to mind. The way the evil spirit causes improbable accidents, like a sheet of glass nearly crushing Mahmoud or a scientist accidentally cooking up a poison gas in the lab, suggests a heavy influence from “The Omen” as well. The film is very heavy on roaming point-of-view shots from its malevolent presence suggests “Evil Dead” made its way to Egypt as well.
As with “Fangs,” the fun here arrives from seeing these familiar moments mashed up in such a free-wheeling style and then paired with hokey, low-fi special effects. A sequence where a black goat projects a star-like shape from its eyes is so low-budget in its construction that the moment borders on abstract art. The car crash is created by seemingly pushing a toy car into a wall. The film saves its wildest special effects for the last few minutes, when the villain tears his own skin off and a towering classical demon with red skin and horns appears. All of this stuff is pure camp but those “Evil Dead”-like perspective shots are genuinely kind of eerie. The film's soundtrack is mostly pilfered from “Psycho II,” alongside a number of American pop songs that the producers definitely didn't pay a license for. The score works though, managing to make an otherwise very silly horror film feel a bit spooky at times.
Sadly, “The Talisman” is not quite as fleet-footed in its wackiness as “Fangs” was. Much more time is spent on the family's daily strife here. An extended subplot involves a police officer asking for Nadia's hand in marriage. There's several scenes of the family watching movies on television and criticizing them as too violent or addictive. More scenes than were probably necessary focus on Faten's work situation. It's all a bit more pedestrian than I think I would prefer. In general, Shebl's attention wanders from time to time. A sequence set in a disco features a lengthy montage of dancers set to James Brown's “Living in America.” The same setting has a plus-size drag singer lip-synching to Divine's “You Think You're a Man,” once again suggesting the queer undercurrent in “Fangs” was no mistake. These scenes definitely aren't necessary to the plot. Nor is the lengthy moment devoted to a dance-like ritual being performed in the house to ward off the evil spirit. I can appreciate the energy of these moments but they all go on way too long.
Speaking as someone with zero insight into the Egyptian mindset circa 1987, it's hard to read a cultural significance into “The Talisman.” Faten is outspoken in her left-wing politics, much to the chagrin of the traditionalist grandmother. The word of Allah is invoked many times in hopes of driving out the demon. A Sheikh appears to give the family a blessing, assuring them that faith in Allah is all that is needed to overcome evil. It simultaneously feels fairly conservative in its religious messaging, not unlike how any number of American Satanic Panic flicks do, while also being more open-minded than you'd probably expect from Egypt in the late eighties. I'm intrigued but also too ignorant to draw any concrete conclusions here. Still, “The Talisman” is too fascinating to dismiss. I know Shebl's films are unlikely to ever gain official distribution in the west but hopefully his other two movies crop up online eventually. Flawed though it is, I liked “The Talisman” enough to want to see those too. [6/10]
“Masters of Horror” was a beautiful dream, despite never living up to the potential of its concept. The dream was so grand that Mick Garris actually envisioned the program as the first in a whole series, in which masters of different genres would be assembled and allowed to run amok. (As long as it was within a television budget.) The first proposed of these spin-offs, and the only to make it to air, was “Masters of Science Fiction.” The masters, in this case, would not be the directors but the authors, famous sci-fi writers having their work adapted into hour-long episodes. It was a good idea and the production team – which, Mick Garris claims, barely involved him – got Stephen Hawking to be the host. I remember being intrigued by “Masters of Science Fiction” in the lead-up to its debut... And then there was nothing. About a year later, when a DVD release came along, I learned that four episodes of the series aired as a summer replacement on ABC with zero promotion. While “Masters of Horror” remains something like a cult favorite, “Masters of Science Fiction” has been entirely forgotten. Well, not by me but I remember everything. I figured I can squeeze an episode into the Blog-a-Thon so I can finally give it a look.
“A Clean Escape,” the debut episode, is about two people. Deanna is a psychologist. Every day, a man named Havelman enters her office for a session. Every day, Havelman has no memory of their previous sessions together. In fact, he thinks he just left home from his wife and kids, that he has to leave early to see his daughter's play at her school. As a result of a trauma of inexpressible grandness, Havelman has retreated entirely into his memory. Deanna is determined to bring him out of it... To face the consequences of what he's done. Because there is nowhere else to go, as the two are actually hundreds of feet underground in a top-secret bunker. Because everyone above is dead. Because Deanna is determined to make the man who killed the world face the gravity of what he's done.
“A Clean Escape” is adapted from a short story by John Kessel. As I was watching the episode, I found it to be rather play-like in its construction, only to learn that Kessel himself had previously adapted the story as just that. I imagine “A Clean Escape” would work a little better as a play. “Masters of Science-Fiction's' version lays the cards down too early. We see flashbacks of Deanna being picked up by the military and taken away from her family, the last time she saw them. Or of people at a weapon manufacturer company discussing some grave course of actions. There are repeated scenes of her in other parts of the underground facility, talking with other high-ranking agents. All of this gives the audience a vague notion of what this situation is exactly, that the planet above has perished in nuclear hellfire. Any time the camera cuts away from Deanna and her patient, the tension flags a little. There are still surprises awaiting in “A Clean Escape,” about the exact identity of these players. However, I imagine this story would be more compelling and satisfying if we went in knowing absolutely nothing, simply that it's about two people in a room.
Those two people are Judy Davis and Sam Waterston. Davis, with a wild fringe of hair that makes her look totally exhausted and on the verge of collapse, gives a complex performance as a doctor who feels sympathy for her client but also demands he face justice for his crimes. The moment where Waterston finally realize who he is and what he's done is a powerful one, a man reduced to screaming and crying like a child. The grim moral of the episode is that those in power tend to be shielded from the consequences of their actions, even if by their own mind. However, for one moment – when “A Clean Escape” crosses over the most into horror, thanks to the grim sights of nuclear annihilation – the guilty are allowed to feel the weight of what they've done. A good hour of television. It's a shame “Masters of Science-Fiction” was never given a proper chance. [7/10]
Public access television has a bad reputation, associated with amateur productions made with a complete lack of budget or production values. While this is true, the low barrier to entry for local television meant the kind of people who maybe didn't normally get to make movies and TV shows managed to sneak onto television anyway. That brings with it a natural, home-made charm all of its own. That is readily apparent with “Haunted Indiana,” a nineteen minute Halloween special made for Bloomington, Indiana television station, WTTV4. It tells five urban legends, collected from the Indiana University Department of Folklore: A professor is chased through the woods by the ghost of a hanged murderer. A motorist on Cable Line Road near Elkhart, Indiana encounters the Sasquatch-like Cable Line Monster, which costs him his life and leaves his face imprinted on a near-by tree. A group of kids on a camping tree awaken within a ghostly cemetery. A devout Catholic woman decides murdering her husband is not as big of a sin as divorcing him, burning their house down and sealing her own fate instead. The final tale involves a little boy named John hearing strange noises from the stairs outside his bedroom at night, proceeding a grisly fate.
I've never been to Indiana but the stories and backwoods locations displayed here seem universal to me. The production values in “Haunted Indiana” are non-existent. Co-writer Stephen White provides the narration, speaking in plain-voiced tones that aren't spooky at all. The narration plays over all the footage, doing little to distract from the extremely cheesy acting. Shot entirely on video tape, the whole short has a grainy, washed-out, backyard look to it. All the music is stolen from recognizable scores, with the “Night of the Living Dead” and “Psycho” themes being notably reused. Most prominently, the special effects are deeply unconvincing. A “ghost” is a Halloween store prop with pixelated vector graphics overlaid. A monster is a pimply mask with bright red stage-blood dripping from his mouth. The fourth story is mostly composed of shots of the woods and trees in the surrounding area.
If all of the above sounds like criticism, then I'm afraid you've misread my tone. “Haunted Indiana' is exceedingly charming exactly because of its lack of professional sheen and flashy special effects. The corny acting pairs perfectly with these well-trotted ghost tales, capturing the exact kind of community theater vibes you want from local legends such as these. The special effects further seal this “let's-put-on-a-show” atmosphere, the efforts of inexperienced craftsman doing the best they can with the extremely limited resources available to them. I doubt those involved with “Haunted Indiana” made much, if any, money from its production. This is the result of people doing it strictly for the love of the artform, motivated by the desire to tell a story and have a good time than any businessman-like concerns. Pure cinema, in other words, as it should be.
As for the stories themselves? The Cable Line Monster segment is so dark, as to be barely perceivable. The shot of a face appearing on a tree at the end is extremely goofy. The third and fourth stories are so minor as to barely register, counting as underwhelming examples of horror. The first and fifth segments, however, kind of rock. There's a campfire story creakiness to both rendition. The highly energetic sequence of a cheap spectre chasing a balding professor through the woods is exhilarating. The finale, of a little boy haunted and claimed by an hideous beast, is the exact kind of scary story youngsters pass around the playground. Threadbare as the production values may be, there is a certain zest to the telling that makes it invigorating anyway. Unlike most public access productions, that air once and are never seen again, “Haunted Indiana” re-run on local TV for many years. During all those showings, it is said to have spook more than one young viewer. That's exactly the way it should be, as this brief anthology persists entirely on the same kind of barreling-ahead youthful energy that an impromptu exchange of urban legends does. Overflowing with lo-fi Halloween vibes, it now survives forever as a blurry internet upload. [7/10]
When it comes to the international perception of Chinese cinema, the filmmakers of Hong Kong tend to dominate the conversation. That's where all the “cool” stuff comes from, right? They've got the wuxia, the kung-fu movies, the heroic bloodshed, the types of films that tend to excite film nerds. Of course, mainland China has its own film industry, which has been growing in leaps and bounds in recent years. However, historically, horror has rarely been a popular genre on the mainland. Since 2008, depictions of ghosts and the supernatural have technically been banned by the government, making macabre stories much trickier to tell. There are exceptions though. If you go way back to 1937, you'll find “Song at Midnight.” It's often credited as the first Chinese horror movie, a local variant of “Phantom of the Opera” that is regarded as a classic film in its home country. It's been remade multiple times but, ya know me, I wanna go back to the beginning.
While Gaston Leroux's classic novel is an obvious influence, “Song at Midnight's” plot also contains elements of “Hunchback of Notre Dame,” “Cyrano de Bergerac,” and a random shout-out to “The Invisible Man.” The setting is an abandoned theater soon to be demolished. A traveling group of actors known as the Angel Theatre Trope arrive at the location, deciding to refurbish it enough for one last round of performances. Leading man Xiao'ou is having trouble with the lyrics of the opening song though. That is when an unseen voice from the shadows begins to coach him. He soon learns that this is the voice of Song Danping. A great stage actor and veteran of the Second Chinese Revolution, he would have his face horribly disfigured with acid by a rival. He claimed to be dead, a shock so horrible that it drove his lover, Xiaoxia, into muteness. Xiao'ou agrees to pose as Danping to assuage Xiaoxia's shattered mind. As a thank you, Danping gives him a revised version of one of his old plays. It proves to be a hit but attracts the attention of the owner of the theater, the same man responsible for scarring Danping's face.
As someone who has watched a decent number of old monster movies, I'm well aware that melodrama is a common feature in them. “Phantom of the Opera” is already a story about a love triangle, dark secrets, lost romance, and dramatic declarations. “Song at Midnight” – good pun in the title there – amplifies these elements considerably. This is the kind of story where, after Danping and Xiao'ou have known each other for months, the teacher suddenly learns that his student has a girlfriend. This breaks Danping's heart, who hoped that his apprentice would take his place as Xiaoxia's lover. The idea of a girl going mute after hearing of her beloved's death or said man keeping his fate a secret to spare her feelings are further examples of the kind of events that usually only happen in narratives such as these. The climax revolves around someone stepping into a room at just the right moment. It's all fairly contrived and overheated, the kind of storytelling you have to be prepared for.
“Song at Midnight” is also very much a product of its place and time. Given the setting and story, there's quite a lot of singing here. Whether the style of Chinese ballad popular in the thirties will resonate with modern ears is entirely a matter of taste. I thought they were okay. It's certainly an indicator of the then-political climate that its disfigured anti-hero is a former man of the revolution. His writing is openly political and that topic seems to resonate with the crowds Xiao'ou sings to. I don't know much about this period in time in Chinese history. However, it's obviously significant that Danping would ultimately be silenced for his outspoken politics. When his identity is revealed in the last act, the classic horror cliché of the angry mob with torches takes on a new political dimension, of a dissident being pursued by the conformists of the day. That is what's fascinating about international variations of well known stories. They reconfigured elements we are familiar with into something culturally specific. That's interesting.
Classic horror fans will have to be patient with this one. The dilapidated old theater does make for a cool setting. When Xiao'ou is invited into Danping's lair, there's some very cool ambiance of spider webs and fog. The shots of the phantom's shadow cast huge on the wall are classical stuff. When Danping's deformed face is revealed, it represents the most blatantly horrific content in the film. That is a very strong scene, a slow zoom-in on the make-up, that still looks quite grotesque. The scenes of Danping wrapped up in bandages are always kind of cool. However, as far as phantoms go, this one is fairly benevolent. His intentions are ultimately good, he is genuinely only misunderstood, and he doesn't kill anyone until the very end of the movie. The phantom figure is not the story's villain at all, despite hiding out in a secret room in the theater. As far as movie “monsters” go, I think Song Danping would only count on a technicality.
The prints of “Song at Midnight” currently in circulation do not seem to be in the best condition. The version I watched is very dark and murky, with a few scenes difficult to decipher. Scratches, grain, and dust are present throughout. The sound quality is not great either. A couple of times the dialogue is sped up, as if everyone was suddenly voiced by the Chipmunks. It's entirely possible that I would've gotten more out of “Song at Midnight” if a clearer, restored print was available. Either way, I imagine the film will be of most interest to historians. As a “Phantom” fan, it is fascinating to see such a version of the story filtered through another culture's sensibility. At the same time, it is slow, extremely melodramatic, and greatly in need of a little more classic horror trappings. [6/10]
Through no intentional planning on my behalf, all of the film series I've been watching this October have featured little to no link between the movies. These are “franchises” in the truest sense, in which the name brand is the star. “Warlock” was about warlocks, “Watchers” was about watchers, and “House” was about houses. The haunted home that was a gateway to Roger Cobb's Vietnam War trauma and the wacky mansion full of alternate dimensions, ghost cowboys, and crystal skulls of the first two “House” movies had no connection, while “The Horror Show” was barely a haunted house movie at all. Seemingly to piss me off, the fourth “House” – sometimes seen with the subtle “The Repossession,” to match part two's equally punny “The Second Story” – bucks this trend. Kind of. Let's get into it.
Yes, “House IV” returns to the Cobb family, though it makes no mention of Roger's son Jimmy, his ex-wife Sandy, his career as a horror author, his history in the war, or the haunted house he previously resided in. Instead, the film sees Roger and his new wife Kelly, alongside their teenage daughter Laurel, debating what to do with the old family home. His brother, Burke, wants to sell it and develop the land. Roger insists the home stay in the family. Driving away from the mansion that night, there is a car wreck. Laurel is left paralyzed from the waist down and Roger is left a burnt skeleton. Kelly makes the hard decision to take her husband off life support and he passes. Now a widow with a daughter in a wheel chair, Kelly is still being pestered by Burke to sell the house. This is when weird stuff begins to happen around the home. Kelly discovers that the building sits atop an ancient Indian gateway to the spirit realm, which must be guarded. Burke begins to send enforcers from the Mafia, to which he owes money, in order to convince Kelly to change her mind.
Beyond the general concept of a haunted house, the first two “House” movies were connected by their weirdo creature effects. The films sought to bring the ghost movie idea into the eighties by packing the houses full of vividly created monsters. If nothing else, “The Repossession” continues this trend towards wacky, rubbery critters. Probably the high-light of the sequel, and the most “House”-like sequence, involves a pizza developing a singing human face, which Kelly attempts to dispose of. Another highlight has the mobsters suddenly becoming the insect and snake masks they wore earlier in the film, giving the movie an excuse to include a twitching, elaborate homage to “The Fly” in its last third. There's also a decent gag where the dog-shaped lamp Laurel is fond of transforms into an actual snarling Rottweiler, with a lampshade still attached to its head. It's clear that “House IV” doesn't have the budget of previous installments and uses its creature effects much more sparingly. However, these scenes are still the sequel's most memorable.
Unfortunately, such antics do not occupy most of the motion picture's runtime. Instead, “House IV” feels entirely too much like a maudlin family drama about trying to move on from loss. The focus is definitely on the mother/daughter relationship, Melissa Clayton being utterly wholesome and precious as Laurel. At times, when paired with the clownish henchman, the sequel feels a bit like a family-friendly TV movie. (Despite a scene where Kelly takes a shower, the camera lingering on Terri Treas' body-double as blood sprays from the shower head on her breasts.) The reoccurring scenes where Kelly is haunted by the memory of pulling the plug on Roger puts to fine a point on the theme of survivor's guilt. The repetitiveness of these flashbacks is more frustrating since the script, otherwise, isn't interested in exploring the depths of grief. Kelly and Laurel are sad about their husband/dad dying. They feel bad about it for a while and then they stop feeling bad. It should be a bit more complicated than that, don't you think?
It's hard to avoid the idea that “House IV's” creative team – the only directorial credit from Sean S. Cunningham's “DeepStar Six” writer Lewis Abernathy, working from a story by four people plus Jim Wynorski – only had a vague outline for a motion picture here. To fill it up, they incorporated some random ideas. Such as the evil half-brother being beholden to a short-staturesd mob boss, who has quite a lot of toxic waste to dispose of. That points towards some sort of environmental angle, which would've been trendy in 1992. Also trendy at the time was Native American mysticism. This element appears whenever Ned Romero's character is on-screen. However, the film doesn't seem aware of actual indigenous folklore, using this element as seasoning on an otherwise underdeveloped story. At least Romero's role isn't too patronizing or stereotypical, beyond the debatable merits of the “Wise Old Indian helping out the White Folks” trope.
“House IV” was released direct-to-video in January of 1992. Having watched a lot of early nineties, DTV sequels this month, I have found that the format could be a place where creative types were free to get a little loose, a little messy, to rewarding results. Video stores were also, sometimes, the last refuge for series that weren't quite popular enough for theatrical releases. Examples of films that the producers wanted to churn out for the sake of a quick buck without expending any real money or good ideas on it. “House IV” is, sadly, mostly the latter. It has one or two funny ideas and some alright make-up effects but it overwhelmed by a feeling of disinterest from those behind the scene. It's okay, we'll always have “The Second Story.” [5/10]
It is time for my yearly attempt to see if there are any decent episodes of the 2002 version of "The Twilight Zone." "Night Route" is about Malina, an English teacher who is engaged to Adam, a hunky and kind guy. While out walking her little white dog Vigo one night, she is nearly hit by an ominous black car. Afterwards, a bus stops on her street, the driver and riders looking at expectantly at her. Malina continues to see the bus, despite there being no route on her street. She starts to hallucinate that she's bleeding from the forehead. She can no longer remember how her and Adam met and he seems uncertain too. People she's never met before claim to know her. She begins to suspect a sinister and impossible seeming conclusion: That she died the night the black car nearly hit her and all of this is a dying fantasy.
The writers of 2002's "Twilight Zone" seemed determined that each episode must have a twist ending. Unfortunately, it seems they couldn't come up with a twist besides "what if this thing was actually another thing?" From the minute Malina is almost hit by the car, it's obvious what is happening here. She has visions of a head wound, not unlike what a fatal strike from a speeding vehicle would look like. One of her students reads Emily Dickinson's "Because I Could Not Stop for Death," with the creepy bus clearly being a modern update of the poem's deathly carriage. The "Dead All Along" ending is such a hacky trope that "Night Route" feels it can only use it by acknowledging how common it is. Malina herself recognizes what is happening and mentions "Jacob's Ladder" to her boyfriend. This does not stop "Night Route" from ending the exact way you expect it to. It does cause the episode to obnoxiously tagged on an additional twist, that Malina's dying dream is a vision of the life she could have led if she hadn't simply watch the world go by. See, like a bus passing through! We know this is the intended meaning of "Night Route" because the characters explain all of this right before the credits roll.
Since we all see the ending coming, "Night Route" becomes a mostly tedious experience of waiting for the twist to reveal itself. Ione Skye plays Malina and gives a flat, unconvincing performance. When paired with writing that blatantly draws attention to itself, you get the impression that nobody was much convinced this episode could be good. Forrest Whittaker seems sleepy and bored in the host segment too. Which I know is kind of his style but it contributes to "Night Route" being an underwhelming experience. The dog is pretty cute though. I liked the scene where he jumps up on the bus and looks at Malina, as if questioning what her deal is. [5/10]
Sometime in 1977, influential environmental activist Ira Einhorn murdered his ex-girlfriend, Holly Maddux. He kept her decomposing body, wrapped in plastic and shoved into a trunk, in his apartment for two years. Though questioned by police, Einhorn wouldn't emerge as a suspect until neighbors began to complain about the smell. During that time, Einhorn dated filmmaker Cecilia Condit, who was unable to sense the odor due to the medication she was on. After Einhorn fled to Europe, and before she made viral favorite “Possibly in Michigan,” Condit would sum up her feelings about the ordeal in “Beneath the Skin.” The eleven minute short recounts a stream-of-consciousness recollection of the events leading up to and following the murder along with Condit's complicated emotions surrounding having dated a notorious killer. This is accompanied by imagery of a woman lying in bed or swinging on a swing, photo projections upon sleeping faces, and rotting bodies.
“Beneath the Skin” occupies the artsy-fartsy end of the horror genre. It is a deeply personal reflection by a woman upon the fact that, no matter how honest and respectable her boyfriend may seem, that the odds he's going to kill her is never zero. The narration, recounted in a distinctively nasally voice, shares deeply personal thoughts and feelings on such an emotion. Much like Condit's “Possibly in Michigan,” there's a musical tone to the rambling, non-stop dialogue that eventually does burst into a song that feels improvised. The visuals are abstract and shadowy, fleeting images distorted and projected atop each other. Brief glimpses of rubber corpses exist alongside shaky hand-held footage of skulls and a woman pulled from her bed by an unseen force. When contrasted with the imagery of the same woman sleeping or playing on a swing, it draws attention to the free-floating sense of anxiety all women feel existing in a world made more for men than them.
The narration, one assumes, are Condit's personal reflections on the Einhorn case. Her words are equally humorous, coming off as almost dismissive of the murder that happened, while also slowly causing a chill to creep up your spine. Just taken as an audio-visual experience, “Beneath the Skin” gives the impression of your mother informing you of some traumatic, horrible event that happened to her as casually as she would would recall the evening's pot luck. Inevitably, the free-form narration eventually has Condit admit that she sometimes feels like it could have easily been her rotting in that closest, a chilling thought that is delivered with the same flippant relaxedness as the rest of the short. Weird and somewhat annoying, “Beneath the Skin” is nevertheless a fascinating peek into the mind of an artist and her brush with an unhinged killer. Einhorn, by the way, claimed the CIA murdered Maddux and framed him. He remained at-large for seventeen years before finally being caught, extradited back to the U.S., and dying in prison in 2020. Condit could not be reached for comment but we have “Beneath the Skin” to tell us how she felt. [7/10]
If you are an American horror fan who grew up during the later stages of the video store era, for many years there was a question that gnawed at your mind. You'd look through the Hs and find “House,” “House II: The Second Story,” and then... “House IV!” Where was “House III?!” No store had a copy in stock and no clerk could locate it. Why did this franchise skip the number three? Eventually, the well-spring of all knowledge that is the internet would resolve any confusion. “House III” is “The Horror Story,” James Isaac's killer-returns-from-the-grave slasher from 1989. The film would begin life as the third installment in the wacky horror/comedy haunted house series, producer Sean S. Cunningham in tow. Partially due to “The Second Story's” box office take and simply because of how the script developed, the decision was made during production to turn “House III” into more of a serious horror movie. The result was so different in tone and story – including not featuring much of a haunted house – that it was released stateside as “The Horror Show.” Overseas, however, the film would maintain the “House” branding. Whether you call it “The Horror Show” or “House III,” either title is equally relevant to the plot.
Police detective and family man Lucas McCarthy is finally the one to bring in “Meatcleaver Max” Jenke, a serial killer that has been terrorizing the country. That's only after Lucas sees Jenke murder his partner and decapitate a little girl. He continues to have nightmares about the killer, concerning his wife and two kids. McCarthy attends the execution of Jenke to make sure he's dead. Jenke takes two volts from the electric chair and threatens to get his revenge on Lucas. Afterwards, the horrifying dreams continue and McCarthy begins to see Jenke tormenting him throughout the day. When his teenage daughter's boyfriend is found dead in the basement, Lucas is the main suspect. Instead, a doctor studying the nature of evil reveals, the truth is far stranger: Evil exists as an electric frequency and, via micro-dosing himself with shocks throughout his life, Meatcleaver Max has returned from the grave as a phantasmic being.
Exploitation filmmakers were ready to leap on the success of “Halloween,” slashers full of masked murderers flooding cinemas by 1980. I guess they took longer to catch on to Freddy's status as the next horror icon. Whatever the reason, four separate movies released between 1987 and the end of the decade would be about vengeful killers returning from the electric chair to kill again. Two of them were blatant Freddy wannabes. Both Craven's “Shocker” and “The Horror Show” make a serious mistake in emulating the Freddy movies. Part of what gave “A Nightmare on Elm Street” a universal appeal was its simplicity. Freddy can only get you in your dreams and, if you die in the dream, you die for real. “The Horror Story” can't seem to make up its mind about what rules govern Max Jenke. Sometimes, like “Shocker's” Horace Pinker, he exists as a living electrical signal, jumping around various appliances. (And, in a blatant imitation of the “Nightmare” films, spends a lot of time in the basement furnace.) Other times, he seems more like a classic ghosts. Jenke also appears in Lucas' dreams and visions. At least once, something that happens in the dream rolls over to waking hours, a wound appearing on Lucas' chest. Jenke is also able to manifest in reality, becoming a physical threat again in the last act but still using some of his supernatural powers. The explanation cooked up, about the abstract concept of evil being an electric wavelength and volts being both Max's weakness and the source of his power, clears nothing up.
Adding further to this confusion is “The Horror Show's” inability to pick a tone. The filmmakers clearly intended Max Jenke to be a wise-cracking Freddy-like figure. He has a trademark, a nasally chortle. At one point, he appears in the guise of a TV stand-up comic, cramming half-a-dozen lame one-liners into a single scene. At the same time, the script tries to make Jenke into a vile serial killer. He gruffly croaks out profanity at his enemies. I mean, he cuts off a little girl's head early on. That's fairly extremely. There's an obvious degree of sexual menace in his interactions with McCarthy's wife and daughter. When he drags Lucas' wife into his power plant lair at the end of the movie, the implication of what he plans to do to her are obvious. Other scenes, that focus on McCarthy being in court-appointed therapy or being investigated by internal affairs, feel like something from a grittier cop-versus-killer thriller. In general, “The Horror Show” feels pulled between wanting to be a farcical horror/comedy, a grim gore-fest, and something more like a typical eighties cop flick.
It's easy to imagine the script for “The Horror Show” beginning life as another “Dirty Harry” imitator, something closer to “Cobra” than “Nightmare on Elm Street.” Lance Henriksen stars as McCarthy, his voice as gravelly as ever. He grimly swears and pulls his gun when pursuing the killer, acting a lot how you'd expect Lance Henriksen to perform in such a role. Brion James, himself a vet of action flicks, is Meatcleaver Max. Like in many an action movie, the bond between hero and villain seems deeper than mere hate. Jenke is obsessed with Lucas, to the point that he returns from the grave for him. The two men make repeatedly references to “getting their ass” and “nailing” each other. In the last act, while holding McCarthy's wife hostage, Jenke demands the cop crawl over to him and kiss his feet. When paired with a scene where Jenke pretends to be his enemy's teenage daughter and tricks her boyfriend into stripping for him, or dresses in drag as McCarthy's wife, points towards a casual homoeroticism. This seems to be a natural side-effect of the movie's heavy-handed machismo, of the plot device of two men being totally obsessed with each other.
The manly longing Jenke has for his archenemy is more interesting than the movie's horror elements. Brion James goes way over the top as Jenke, in a way that straddles the line between fun and overbearing. Lance is a reliable hero. The cast playing his family play their notes at a cartoonish level, especially Aron Eisenberg as the would-be con artist son. The movie does cook up some memorable special effects gag. A noteworthy sequence has Jenke's face appearing in a roasted turkey, the cooked bird becoming some freakish Brion James/fowl hybrid. That was cool. An early scene, where Lance stalks the killer through a dinner littered with severed heads and hands, looks cool as hell. Mac Ahlberg, Stuart Gordon's regular D.P., does the cinematography and creates some moody, foggy, deep blue night shots. There's a lot of ingredients here that should work, simply put.
Instead, as all too often happens: It's the Script, Stupid. “The Horror Show” simply doesn't have a compelling story. As a slasher flick, it never quite delivers, most of the beheadings happening off-screen. I guess because it's ostensibly a “House” movie, most of the film is confined to the McCarthy home. This limits the creativity of the set-pieces the movie can cook up. The inability to figure out what the villain can and can't do, as well as how the viewer is suppose to feel about what they are seeing, keeps this from being better. Despite making him look like Jason on the U.S. one-sheet and multiple advertisement's comparing the film to Freddy, Max Jenke did not become a Halloween costume. I guess the film is a little less annoying than “Shocker,” if not as gloriously camp, and not quite as generic as “Destroyer,” if you want to compare it to the other electric chair themed revenge-from-the-grave flicks. Ultimately, perhaps it's for the best that this was destined to be the “House III” most of us wouldn't know about. “The Horror Story” can't compare to the giddy heights of “House II” or the reliable creature feature fun of the original. [6/10]
Is there a single European country Jesús Franco didn't make a movie in? I mean, probably. However, there's no denying that ol' Jess sure did get around. He worked in Spain, Germany, France, Italy, England, Belgium, Portugal, and Liechtenstein. Yes, Liechtenstein, the semi-constitutional monarchy, all of sixty-two square miles wide, that is wedged between Austria and Switzerland. Despite its relative tininess, Franco would actually make a couple of movies within the country. Most of these fall more on the sexploitation side of his style but at least one is classified more as horror. That would be “Nightmares Come at Night,” which started out as a fragment Franco made sometime in 1970 that was then padded out to feature length with some additional scenes. It was one of Franco's more unseen film during his glory days but, like everything the prolific cult director touched, would eventually get DVD and Blu-Ray presentations far nicer than the grindhouses it was designed for.
Anna worked as an exotic dancer in a nightclub in Zagreb, often dissatisfied with her work and feeling a growing sense of de-personalization. That is until she notices a beautiful woman, visiting the club to watch her every night. The woman introduces herself as Cynthia and, after meeting Anne in her dressing room one night, the two began a passionate love affair. That was some time ago though. Now, Anna is in the grips of a serious mental health crisis. She has haunting dreams every night, which often seem to cross over into her waking hours. Her live-in doctor does not seem to be helping her fracturing psyche any. Growing increasingly frustrated and cold with Anna, Cynthia begins to bring home other lovers. Anna begins to have murderous dreams, beginning to wonder if she has taken a life in reality as well. Or is something more sinister going on?
I've had mixed feelings about the Franco flicks I've seen in the past, enjoying his gothic horror flicks over his trippier doses of erotica. “Nightmares Come at Night” falls squarely on the latter side of the equation. Franco's “Vampyros Lesbos” muse, Soledad Miranda, has a small role here as the often pantless next door neighbor. This film is also about a lesbian tryst between two strippers, another frequent reoccurring element in Franco's work. There's quite a lot of scenes of Diana Lorys and Colette Giacobine in stylish outfits, in various states of undress, lounging in bed, taking showers, or rolling around with various partners. These scenes play out against a smooth jazz score from frequent giallo composer, Bruno Nicolai. The story is extremely loose, the film operating more as a series of set pieces set at often undetermined points in the past. The pacing is languid, to say the least.
Given the above description, you would expect me to find “Nightmares Come at Night” as tedious as I found “Vampyros Lesbos.” Actually, I ended up liking this one quite a bit. Partially because, unlike “Vampyros Lesbos” mixing of elements from “Dracula” and “The Awful Dr. Orloff” into its stew of dreamy eroticism, this one never pretends to have much of a plot. From the beginning, it's apparent that this film will be a wash of the main character's memories, dreams, and hallucinations. That “Nightmares Come at Night” centers so much on its main character is what, I think, made it work for me. The film features quite a lot of voice over from Anna, which further puts us in her mindset. As she recalls her time at the night club, she describes her feeling of being treated like an object. No wonder she is starting to lose her grip on reality. Everybody around her wants and desires her but nobody is interested in actually knowing her. When the complicated nature of her mental health makes itself known, Cynthia smacks her, yells at her, and starts sleeping with other people. When Anna finds brief solace with a man, it's because he makes her feel realized and doesn't seem to want anything from her. It's a ruse, of course, another person lying to Anna to use her. “Nightmares Come at Night” ends up getting a pass for its sleepy pacing and barely existent story by taking place solely inside the head of its fractured protagonist.
Considering it was one of the Franco productions to be somewhat cobbled together, that's another reason why “Nightmares Come at Night” borders incoherent at times. A subplot about a bank robbery emerges in the second half, that never amounts to much at all. Some characters come and go with little warning. A series of last minute plot twist makes one wonder if this was supposed to be a giallo at some point. As you'd also expect from Franco, the visual approach is quite slapdash at times. There's lots of handheld footage and some rough zooms. More than a few times, the camera actually goes out of focus as it roams around the lovers wrapping their arms around each other and kissing or while Lorys cries on a bathroom floor. I watched the Blu-Ray release and it is still overly dark in spots and quite grainy throughout. While normally these would be the elements that distract me when watching Franco's films, it all blends together to make an intoxicatingly dream-like brew here.
Existing within that nightmare headspace, when your mind is groggy and your memory is foggy, when dreams and wakefulness blend together, causes a lot of “Nightmares Come at Night's” bugs to become features. Perhaps I'm warming up to Franco's particular strain of bullshit. Or maybe the girls were extra sexy enough to keep me watching. Either way, the slowness and choppiness of “Nightmares Come at Night” actually worked its spell on me. Sometimes, you simply want to slip into a fuzzy, relaxed, sleepy world of sex and murder and madness. That cool score from Nicolai doesn't hurt either. I can't decide if the English title is mildly poetic or simply redundant. When else would a nightmare come but at night? [7/10]
A very long time ago, before TLC became a non-stop freak show devoted to individuals of unusual physical dimensions, child beauty pageants, quickie marriages, family with lots of kids, or popping zits, those letters actually stood for something: The Learning Channel. If you turned on the channel around 2002 or so, you might actually acquire some knowledge. That's when the network starring airing “Mostly True Stories: Urban Legends Revealed,” a series all about exploring the likeliness, history, and meaning of those scary and ironic tales we call urban legends. Host Natasha Henstridge would present five stories, which where then presented as dramatic re-enactments. Experts and historians would then expound on whether there was any truth to the story and why such legends endure. The series had a good balance of spookiness, humor, rationality, and laid-back basic cable charm. In other words, I loved it and the show was surely a factor in heightening my fascination with modern folklore.
Not every story explored on “Mostly True Stories” was macabre or horrific in nature. The third episode also discusses the story of an unfaithful husband being caught at a surprise party in his birthday suit. However, as urban legends often do, the tales tended to veer towards the horrific. The episode discusses the tale of a choking Doberman revealing the presence of a home invader, a woman buying a new coat and being bitten by the baby snakes that hatch within, an actual mummified corpse hanging up as a prop in a carnival fun house, and what is probably the most iconic urban legend of all: Teenage lovers driving their car to a secluded spot for a romantic evening only to be interrupted by news of an escaped killer with a metal hook for a hand, who might be closer than either of them realize.
As an educational program, “Mostly True Stories” is well done. The segment on the Hook legend links its likely origins back to the infamous Moonlight Murders that plagued Texarkana in the forties. (The same case that inspired “The Town That Dreaded Sundown.”) It contains an interview with an actual doctor with a real prosthetic hook hand, who makes the case that the story propagates harmful stereotypes about the disabled. Most fascinating to me, the program gets into the cultural meanings behind this story. The Hook is deconstructed as a fable about teenage girls needing to be cautious with handsy boys and their own sexuality. My favorite part is when Dr. Susan Block, quite a colorful looking character, compares the hook itself to a “twisted phallic symbol,” pointing to the subtext of a premature withdraw and castration symbolized in the image of the car peeling out and the hook's bloody fate. All the other legends are given a similarly thorough reading. The facts of the mummy in the fun house – an actual true story – are detailed. An actual coat company CEO is brought in to debunk the snake eggs one. The show was always honest about the harmful elements of these stories too, pointing out the racist qualities of the Choking Doberman.
As a make-shift horror anthology, your mileage may vary with “Mostly True Stories.” The production values for the dramatic re-enactments were extremely modest. The acting from the usually silent actors was often quite campy. However, that didn't stop the show from occasionally producing a striking image. The Hook sequence is actually kind of creepy. The silhouetted shot of the hook man lurking in the shadow or the boyfriend's own hand being replaced with a hook are actually quite well done. When discussing the Phantom Killer, the sudden appearance of a gun-wielding figure in a hood genuinely frightened me as a kid. The other segments are anywhere near as creepy as that one but shots of a cadaver in the lighting of a dark ride or baby snakes slithering out of a coat pocket aren't without their value. Henstridge's host segments are inessential but I do like the smoky, dark set she hangs out in. While most of the shows I watch this time of year are things I'm revisiting from childhood or seeing for the first time, I'll be totally honest and admit that “Mostly True Stories” is one I've re-watched quite frequently. Something about this show is extremely cozy to me. I love this stuff. [8/10]
As far as I know, nobody in the Year of Our Lord 2025 hitchhikes anymore. This is after nearly every pop culture recreation of the activity has depicted it as utterly fraught with danger. No matter what end of the wheel you're on, you are either getting picked up by a psycho or picking up a psycho, it seems. I guess teenage girls hitchhiking to rock concerts and never being seen again was a big problem in the seventies. “Take An Easy Ride” began life as a Public Information Film, those notoriously grim British educational films largely shown in schools, intended for television by director Kenneth F. Rowles. That's when exploitation producer David Grant offered to give the film theatrical distribution if lots of sex was inserted. This is how “Take An Easy Ride” took form as a cautionary pseudo-documentary about the dangers of hitchhiking and also a super sleazy sexploitation flick, with leering camera work and copious nudity. The film follows several storylines, of young women hitchhiking to a rock concert. Some of them are picked up simply by a creepy guy. Another is lured into a hotel room with alcohol. One pair is attacked and assaulted. While another set of young women prove as dangerous as the men picking them up.
This bizarre back-and-forth is what makes “Take An Easy Ride” an interesting cinematic experience. Man-on-the-street interviews, presumably staged, have random people being asked about whether they think hitchhiking should be banned. The film's intention is made repeatedly clear by the stern-voiced narrator repeatedly telling us how unsafe this activity is. As with any PIF, the presentation is stately and frills-free. The acting is often ropey, perhaps even amateurish. Cutting between multiple different scenarios so often furthers the feeling that this was a production by largely inexperienced newbies just happy to get the intended message out there. That's paired with documentary-like footage of the Isle of Wight rock festival, which gives us a fly-on-the-wall peek at seventies hippy culture as it was happening.
This clumsy, if seemingly sincere, attempt to warn the youth at large not to go hitchiking, you friggin' dummies, is paired with an extremely sleazy approach. I think every single actress in the movie get naked on-camera, often for no particular reason. There's a stop over in a sex club, with a strip tease captured on-camera alongside lots of footage of porno tapes. When the sexual violence occurs, it's photographed with extremely pervy angles that glare at the actress' exposed body. The story of a woman intoxicated and manipulated by a charming man does not seem to show much sympathy to the victimized woman. When combined with the strict moralizing tone, the effect feels like the film is chastising the characters as much as it is any perspective viewers. It adds up to create a particular viewing experience, the dissonance between the intended message and the way it's delivered properly baffling the viewer. Sleazy and uncomfortable, “Take An Easy Ride” played in British grindhouses for years, where I can't imagine it informed too many people about the threats of hitchhiking but did provide them with the cheap thrills they were looking for. [6/10]
