Halloween 2025: October 9th

 

Watchers (1988)

Dean Koontz will likely always be regarded as the Dollar Store Stephen King, the sting of which is surely easy to ignore when you've supposedly sold 500 million books. Serious horror fiction fans dismiss Koontz but, I don't know, I've liked the couple of books of his I've read. In fact, I really liked “Watchers,” the fifty-second or so novel the prolific writer had published. The 1987 tale of three misfits – a burnt-out former soldier, a secluded woman, and a super-intelligent dog – forming a family and fighting off the genetically engineered monster and government agents on their trail struck me as surprisingly heartfelt, despite its ridiculous premise. The novel must've struck someone in Hollywood too: It's been adapted four times, starting the year after the book was first published. I reviewed Jon Hess' “Watchers” during 2016's Halloween Horror-Fest Blog-a-Thon, which I am distressed to see was nine years ago. If I'm going to take in this whole dog-and-monster show, I better start at the beginning. I'll try not to repeat myself. 

An explosion at a top secret government research lab results in two escapes. The first of which appears be an ordinary golden retriever. The second of which is a Sasquatch-ian monster obsessed with ripping people's eyeballs out. The first victim the monster claims is the father of ordinary teenage girl, Tracey Keeshan. He's killed in a barn, shortly after Tracey sneaks her boyfriend Travis out. As he's driving away, the same dog leaps into Travis' truck. He immediately notices how intelligent the animal, that he names Furface, is. The two quickly bond and Travis convinces his single mom, Nora, to let Furface stay. However, the super-smart dog is desired by cold-blooded government agent, Lem. Most pressingly, the murderous monster has a instinctual drive to hunt down the dog and destroy it, ripping apart anyone it meets along the way. Soon, Travis and his mom are hiding out in the woods, preparing to protect the dog they've come to love and to fight off the killer beasts on its trail.

While Koontz' novel ultimately succeeded due to imbuing its goofy premise with utmost sincerity, the film adaptation has no such luck. The script by Damian Lee, of “Abraxas: Guardian of the Universe” fame, breathlessly explains its own premise. Both an oddly knowledgeable news report and a lengthy conversation between Lem and his boss gives us all the information we need on the dog and OXCOM, the monster tracking it. Lee also changes Koontz' army ranger hero into a teenage boy who only wants to be reunited with his girl and his dog. This does not stop him from demonstrating some bad-ass action hero abilities in the last act, taught to him by a totally off-screen father. The movie truly doesn't find much narrative meat on these bones. To fill time and up the carnage, a number of very goofy supporting characters are inserted. An Australian handyman with a crush on Travis' mom, a female deputy who talks too much, a busy-body Russian woman who owns a hotel, a kid on a bike with a hideous mullet and the overweight peer he calls “Piggy:” All enter into the story merely to give OXCOM someone to kill until he can finally catch up with the primary boy and his dog. 

As disconnected from the source material as this “Watchers” is, it does get one detail right. That super-smart dog is very charming. Furface – who had the less insulting name of Einstein in the book – is played by a precious pup named Sandy. Her big expressive eyes are exactly as heart-melting as they are meant to be. Sandy's ability to bark on command, tap a book cover with her nose, or hold a pencil in her mouth are simply delightful. That Travis would immediately become attached to the dog is the least absurd thing in the film. As I've said before, I'm a total dog guy. I was a total dog boy earlier in my life. I was never a Corey Haim type, whose performance operates largely on a “gee shucks!' level even when he's supposed to be a horny or rebellious teen. However, I will always relate to the story of a bond between a boy and his dog. When Furface uses a Scrabble board to spell out a message for Travis, asking him to leave and not endanger himself any more for his sake, that plucks the weathered, frayed heart-strings in my chest. The appeal of a super-smart dog that can do your homework for you is obvious but the appeal of a loving, unfailingly loyal fuzz-butt with a wet nose and wagging tail is universal. 

The scenes focused on Travis and Furface together feel like something out of a goofy family movie. Especially when the dog sneaks his way into the boy's school or demonstrates his ability to his disbelieving mom. This stands alongside the gory creature feature “Watchers” also is. This was only director Hess' second feature but he knew enough to keep the mediocre looking ape-monster suit mostly in the shadows. Instead, the beast is mostly portrayed as a point-of-view monster that frantically chases people through buildings or hallways. If nothing else, the film convincingly portrays the OXCOM as a rage-driven killer. The scenes of it throwing kids off bikes, reaching a claw through a window to slash at a random lady, or bashing down a wall are silly but convey a sense of danger. As a monster movie, “Watchers” is competently executed. No great stakes but gets just a little bit of tension up.

The subplot involving Michael Ironside and Blu Mankuma feels half-formed. A twist regarding Ironside's character has never made much sense to me. Despite that, Ironiside is naturally an intimidating, colorful presence that enlivens the film every time he's on-screen. The film dumbly removes the dog from the action at the end, becoming a fairly colorless “Predator” rip-off instead. That was silly, seeing as how the link between Travis and Furface was the best thing this one had going for it. Hess' “Watchers” has none of the pathos of Koontz' book, obviously. The downgrade is most evident in the monster, which goes from a self-loathing lab-made misfit that hates to be observed and despises the genetic brother that has everything it wants to a generic beastie. Still, corny and silly as it is, 1988's “Watchers” does have a cute dog, a convincingly relationship between it and its hero, and enough eighties horror flair for me to give it a mild thumbs-up. [6/10]

 

Dead Sands (2013)

Fans that are old enough to remember will recall a time when the zombie film was a niche subgenre adored only by die-hard gore-hounds and those obsessed with the history of the horror movie. Look back far enough on some truly ancient horror fan-sites to unearth writers bemoaning how obscure the zombie premise had become. It all seems rather ironic in light of the last twenty-five years, where zombies have remained a regular presence in popular culture. The popularity of shambling, undead gut-mucher is global too. In the past, I've covered zombie movies from places as far apart from each other as Cuba and Nigeria. Having said that, discovering that there is a Bahraini zombie movie still surprised me. The island nation of Bahrain is the smallest country in the Middle East and seems to be known, on an international scale, more for the government's human rights violations than anything else. People have dreams of making movies everywhere, however, and a filmmaker named Ameera Al-Qaed would achieve their's with the 2013 release of “Dead Sands,” her nation's first zombie movie. 

An opening radio broadcast speaks of an airborne virus that has been reported in the nation of Bahrain. Many dismiss it as no more concerning than the common flu, claiming the experts are panicking over nothing. It certainly doesn't seem to worry a group of young people, all of whom head out for a night on the town. They include soft-spoken music major May, self-centered rich girl Samara, mysterious biker-type Wolf, outcast Friday, his crush Reem, wannabe filmmaker TJ, and a few other friends. This potential good time is ruined when the recently dead begin to rise as flesh-hungry ghouls, who kill and eat the living to spread their virus. The youths are thrown together by circumstance, working together to flee a concert venue. Wolf mentions that one of his clients owns a house boat and the group sets their sight on that as their goal. They are going to have to learn to work together if they have any chance of surviving the night though.

In my time as a fan of low-budget, independent, or exploitation filmmaking, I've come across a number of productions that are fair to refer to as amateurish. There's nothing necessarily bad about being an amateur. Every expert started out that way. Certainly, making movies is an example of an art form where the basic equipment is readily available but the money and skills required to do so properly are much harder to come by. Every cellphone has a camera in it now, meaning almost anyone can technically make a movie. At what point does that make you a filmmaker? All of this is a precursor to me saying that “Dead Sands” is obviously the work of amateurs. The shot composition is bland. The lighting is flat all throughout, giving the entire movie the same washed-up and slightly purple look. The writing is vague, at best. The script is mostly composed of characters having brief conversations of no real importance, giving us the tiniest sliver of who they are and what they want out of life. That is, when you can hear what anyone is saying. The sound mixing in “Dead Sands” is especially poor. The dialogue often sounds like little more than mumbling. Music frequently drowns out what people are saying while the sound effects seem non-existent from time to time. 

“Dead Sands'” writer Ahmed Zayani appears as TJ. He makes sure to include references to George Romero and “Game of Thrones,” as well as standard zombie movie cliches like power-hungry lunatics trying to consolidate power in the end times. What he doesn't remember to include are, well, the zombies. When the undead do appear in “Dead Sands,” it's as people with a little fake blood in their mouths and on their skin with a smattering of make-up on their face. They gurgle and hiss in a distracting fashion. Usually, the undead appears briefly, nibbling on someone, before the characters flee. It's not until the last act that we get anything like a proper zombie horde but its numbers are still quite small. In fact, for a movie supposedly about the fall of society, there's surprisingly little people in “Dead Sands” at all. Every location seems practically empty to begin with. It's hard to get a sense of zombies taking over society when there's both few zombies and fewer signs of society. 

A lack of money and resources is one thing. There seems to be little in the way of official support for budding filmmakers in Bahrain. That “Dead Sands” is lacking any sort of professional sheen or general technical competence is unsurprising. In the past, I've seen movies lacking these qualities that still managed to be charming, usually because the enthusiasm of the people involved still shined through. Unfortunately, everyone in front of the camera in “Dead Sands” seems deeply uninterested in being there. The acting in the film is largely monotone. Most of the performers quietly mumble through their dialogue, without any sense of urgency. You'd expect everyone would be more worried if cannibalistic undead were wandering around. The shapeless script is a collection of minor character arcs, none of which are completed. The story has no sense of direction. I can assume the cast and crew of “Dead Sands” had fun making it but there's little evidence of that on-screen.

The idea of a zombie movie, a familiar premise, being made in Bahrain by filmmakers with cultural specific perspectives is a tantalizing one. There is certainly a little bit of that on display here. Miraya Varma, as Samara, seems to be the only performer in the film that's actually acting. The character is a narcissist who stops in the middle of the zombie apocalypse to redo her make-up, while being more than happy to manipulate those around her if it'll help her. She's basically the film's villain and acts, culturally, very Western. Is Samara's inevitable fate some sort of commentary? At least one of the characters in the film is Muslim. “Dead Sands” ends with an uncertain invoking of the words of Allah. Is this important? Is director Ameera Al-Qaed saying something about traditional values in Bahrain? It's hard to say, as “Dead Sands” feels half-formed in so many ways. Beating up on what was obviously a very low budget production made with extremely limited resources makes me feel like an asshole. I hope more films of note come out of this region of the world and that they are sturdier or at least more entertaining than this one. [3/10]

Urban Gothic: Vampirology
 

British television's fascination with the horror anthology format seems to have waned by the middle seventies. The nineties and beyond did see a few attempts to revive the subgenre, from time to time. Such as “Urban Gothic,” which aired for two seasons on Channel 5, starting in May of 2000. The second episode, “Vampirology,” is a mockumentary about a film crew following around Rex. He is an immortal and thoroughly cynical vampire living in modern day Soho. His ageless good looks finds him work as a model while wannabes pay to have themselves vampirized. (He had his fangs filed down, because they were “kitsch,” and now does the bloodletting with a straight razor.) He hangs out with trendy friends and spends a lot of time in night clubs. The camera tracks him as Rex details his philosophy about life and becomes increasingly desperate as he prowls the streets for the right kind of victim.

A key moment in “Vampirology” has Rex's collection of friends – a model proud of her breast implants, an intellectual, a rich lawyer – each being asked what they think a vampire is. They describe him as a metaphor for AIDS or the predatory nature of capitalism. Rex dismisses each of these theories in quick succession, as cliched and worn out. This is a very self-reflective moment on the writers of “Urban Gothic,” who were surely aware of how malleable a symbol the vampire is. To the various cultural ideas and anxieties the mythological figure has spoken to over the decades. Rex is dismissive of all these ideas because this vampire is a self-absorbed hipster. He smokes constantly, brags about what type of shirts he wears, spends a lot of time in trendy restaurants and clubs. Comparing a person who only comes out at night and preys on other people to a vampire is a fairly fresh angle, I'll admit.

The conclusion “Vampirology” seems to come to is that, when you see other people as nothing but food, it tends to leave you alone and miserable. Rex surrounds himself with people he know he won't get too attached to, that he won't feel bad about bleeding. Similarly, his human hanger-ons consider their vampire pal more of a status symbol than a meaningful relationship. At one point, when presented with an apathetic youth who is totally content to be drained by him, Rex flies into a rage. He says he wants to hunt humans, to feel some sort of challenge. However, he later dismisses potential victims for having too much facial hair or too much garlic in their blood. (He isn't allergic to garlic, he just doesn't like the taste.) This vampire is a pretty shallow guy. No wonder he ends up alone and covered with blood, thinking more and more about suicide as an escape from his ceaseless life.

“Vampirology” strikes me as heavily inspired by “Man Bites Dog,” aping its hand-held documentary visual style and interview-heavy format. That link is most evident when we finally see Rex kill someone. It's a drawn-out sequence that ends up painting both the perpetrator and the victim as pathetic figures. In fact, the longer “Vampirology” goes on, the clearer it becomes that Rex is the butt of the joke here. A scene where he visits a video store sees him comparing cinematic portrayals of Dracula to different James Bond actors. Lee was the Connery of Draculas, Lugosi was more like Roger Moore. However, he seems quite enamored of Ingrid Pitt... Which sets up a later moment where, after a potential biting date stands him up, Rex happens to run into Pitt. She is utterly unimpressed with this real vampire, leaving him embittered and humiliated. It's a funny idea, starting the half-hour out with the vampire as utterly desirable to everyone and ending it by revealing he's kind of a loser. [7/10]

 

Suspense (1913)

When we think of the silent era of horror, what comes to mind is probably the surrealism of German expressionism or Universal's early gothic melodrama. We probably don't think of home invasion thrillers, a subgenre that wouldn't really come into vogue until the seventies. However, from 1913, here's exactly such a film, likely the first such example in cinema history. “Suspense” follows a woman and her infant child, unknowingly left home alone when the maid quits without notice. Her husband calls to inform her he's staying late at the office. That's when a homeless vagrant begins to stalk around the property. He discovers the key left under the mat by the maid and enters the home. The woman calls her husband as she barricades herself in the bedroom, the tramp advancing up the stairs with a knife. The man races home, hoping he can make it back before it's too late.

“Suspense” isn't only surprisingly modern in terms of subject matter for a 112 year old movie. A good amount of this one-reeler is shot in the stage-like, vertical technique that was common in these primitive days of filmmaking. There are some camera techniques here that must've seemed utterly cutting edge at the time. A three-way split screen is used to show the woman on the phone with her husband, while the tramp is sneaking into the house. Later, there's a high-speed car chase, as the hero hitches a ride with some cops in an motorized buggy, that feels a lot more fast-paced than you'd expect from something over a century old. Better are the P.O.V. shots, from the woman's perspective, as she makes eye-contact with the sinister hobo. A shot of him starring up at her through a window is actually quite creepy. 

“Suspense” manages to live up to its name too. It's a simple enough equation. We see the vagrant making his way up the stairs, knife in hand. The wife hides in the bedroom. The husband does everything he can to make it back. These are the foundational building blocks of cinematic tension, a vulnerable woman and child, a threatening villain, a race against time. There's a shot of the home invader busting his hand through a locked door too. “Suspense” definitely isn't free of the stodgy cliches of the time. A shot of a car speeding off, via undercranked camera movements, is silly looking to modern eyes. As is the rather hammy acting. “Suspense” proves surprisingly effective and well done for something so antiquated. By the way, IMDb says a random guy smoking a cigarette is played by Lon Chaney. It does kind of look like him... [7/10]

Halloween 2025: September 25th

 

Turkey Shoot (1982)

The perpetually underrated Olivia Hussey, who passed away in December of last year, of course got her big break as Juliet in Franco Zeffirelli's classic adaptation of Shakespeare's timeless romance. However, this is not the film that ended up predicting the direction of her career. Rather, 1974's “Black Christmas” made the quiet, controlled Hussey into a scream queen. This preceded her appearing in many other off-beat genre projects. After the 1978 version of “The Cat and the Canary” and Kinji Fukasaku's “Virus” – but before “Quest of the Delta Knights,” “Ice Cream Man,” and playing Norman Bates' mom in “Psycho IV” – there was “Turkey Shoot.” Shot during a time when tax write-offs made Australia a hot spot for low budget productions, it was the fifth narrative film from the prolific director Brian Trenchard-Smith. Though English born, Trenchard-Smith would make a number of memorable films during this 10BA era. (So named for the division of Australia's Income Tax Assessment Act that made these productions possible.) That would make Trendard-Smith one of the names most associated with what would eventually be called Ozploitation. For Hussey, films like this were a far cry from the Bard but you take work where you can get it, I suppose. 

Once again, global instability has led to an authoritarian regime seizing control of all of Earth's most powerful nations.  Political undesirables, referred to as "deviants," are placed in prison camps and subjected to inhuman tortures. An especially brutal example is located near the Queensland coast of Australia. At Camp 47, Camp Master Thatcher invite the rich and powerful members of society to hunt the prisoners in what he calls a "turkey shoot." New arrivals at the camp include Paul Anders, a political activist arrested for broadcasting anti-government messages. He is joined by Chris Walters, an innocent young woman who merely stood up officers who were beating a man. Together with former sex worker Rita, the escape artist Griffin, and the visibly insane Dodge, the two are set loose in the near-by jungle. Over the next twelve hours, they will be hunted like animals by senators and millionaires armed with rifles, explosive crossbows, all-terrain vehicles, and at least one werewolf. Paul doesn't simply plan on surviving the turkey shoot. He plans on escaping and turning the tides against the fascist tormentors in power. 

“Turkey Shoot” had a troubled production, its shooting schedule halved at the last minute. As a result, Trenchard-Smith cut the script down to the bare essentials. The result is a movie that wastes little time. Within minutes of meeting our heroes, everything we need to know about them is explained. The concept is quickly established. After a little torture and shower stall abuse, we are off to the man hunt. In order to make things as expedient as possible, the characters are simple. By which I mean they have one or two bizarre quirks. Steve Railsback is a never-say-die hero, Hussey is virginal in her innocence. John Ley makes Dodge an exceedingly bizarre, twitchy presence that adds a nervous energy to every scene he's in. Among the villains are Carmen Duncan as a sexually predatory lesbian who prefers to travel by horseback, a lunatic in a dune buggy named Tito, and Alph. Alph is some sort of evolutionary throw-back, with pointed teeth and claws, a hairy body, and yellow animalistic eyes. He likes to eat people's toes. Despite his beastly appearance and behavior, he's introduced wearing a top hat and bow tie. Why is there some sort of a dapper beast-man in this movie? Is he a result of post-nuclear war  mutations of another sort? Tito says he's a “freak, found in a freak show.” No time is wasted on explaining why a wolfman is among the cast. You must simply accept that he is there. 

This is the kind of motion picture “Turkey Shoot” is, a thoroughly outrageous experience much more interested in being memorable than being sensible. To fulfill that goal, Trenchard-Smith and his team fill the film with over-the-top violence. A machete to the head nearly splits a skull in half. A man is bisected at the waist with a shovel trowel. Bodies explode in a theatrical downpour of blood and brain matter. This is a film that decides its rape-y she-bitch villainess carrying a crossbow is insufficiently ridiculous. Instead, her arrows explode upon impact, to add an extra layer of pyrotechnics. To complete this tone of comic book-like silliness and excess, goofy looking vehicles and set designs are prominent throughout. Such campy looking costumes and props removes any doubt that “Turkey Shoot” knows exactly how ridiculous it is. The film is absolutely in on the joke. 

The hit-the-ground-running pace and desire to always feature some silly, sleazy, or violent thing on screen means “Turkey Shoot” is thoroughly entertaining. That goes a long way to disguising that it's a movie widely made up of familiar pieces. The excessively sadistic prison guards, evil lesbian, and communal shower scenes all recall women-in-prison movies of years past. The sci-fi set-up is recycled from any number of familiar stories, freely mixing bits and pieces of “1984,” “Logan's Run,” “Rollerball,” and “Death Race 2000” with “The Most Dangerous Game” and “The Great Escape.” In its last third, the film gives into the demands of action movie theatrics. By which I mean it becomes a repetitive series of shoot-outs and explosions, “Turkey Shoot” turning into a mini-war movie. The film goes fiery and large, when it should've been tightening up and focusing more on its “hunting humans” set-up. 

Despite clearly being derivative of numerous films and stories that come before, and collapsing somewhat in its final reel, “Turkey Shoot” is too enjoyably loopy to be dismissed. The villains are thoroughly absurd. The violence is spectacularly over-the-top. The movie is insanely fast-paced, never having a single boring moment in it. Odd ball or extravagant inclusions tickle the synaptic nerves in my cult movie loving brain. Olivia Hussey reportedly had a dreadful time making the movie, terrified of the Australian wild life. The director was feuding with the producer – who was David Hemmings for some reason – all throughout. Out of such dire situations emerged a wildly entertaining B-movie geek show. “Turkey Shoot” suggests that any worn-out genre set-up can be improved by randomly including a monster-man and some dune buggy related violence. [7/10]

The Barbados Project (2022)  

 

The found footage film has existed since at least 1961 but there's a reason the format didn't truly catch on until “The Blair Witch Project” in 1999. That movie was made by a bunch of nobodies, screwing around in the woods of Maryland, and it became a paradigm shifting blockbuster. "Paranormal Activity" had a similar impact. Both proved you didn't need elaborate special effects, recognizable stars, or a massive crew to make a scary flick that was also extremely profitable. That set-up must be especially appealing to filmmakers in countries without much of an established cinematic industry of their own. IMDb lists only 88 titles with the nation of Barbados as their primary hub of production. Locally made motion pictures have little international reach and the island does not seem to be as popular a filming location for Hollywood studios as other places in the Caribbean. Barbadian visual effects artist Stockton Miller had some viral success with a found footage style reel of a werewolf he made. Miller would team up with the Texas-based Thomas Burke – who seems to specialize in found footage and mockumentaries – around 2018 to start work on what would be the island nation's first feature length science fiction movie. Initially entitled "The Land We Call Home," it got picked up by Dread Central's distributing arm in 2022 and was slapped with the more direct title, "The Barbados Project." Well, let's take my Horror Around the World tour to a warmer climate tonight and see how we like this one. 

In 2019, shaky cell phone footage of unidentified creatures lurking in the distance or emerging from the sea went viral around the country of Barbados. The videos prompted debate and skepticism but clearly something was going on. Journalist Reesa Price and her cameraman Alex decided to get to the bottom of these mysterious sightings. "The Barbados Project" compiles the declassified footage concerning their investigation and the surrounding events. The news crew uncovered a connection between the creatures and a local military contractor named Building Six. They interviewed a whistleblower claiming that the company had been doing weird experiments since the eighties. After encountering one of the beasts, Reesa begins to exhibit bizarre physical symptoms. The further into the conspiracy the crew went, the stranger it got.

The effectiveness of the found footage style is highly dependent on if the film can create a sense of realism. The intended illusion, after all, is that you are watching “real” recordings that the viewer has accidentally stumbled upon. “The Barbados Project,” unfortunately, does not pass this particular sniff test. This is largely because of the special effects. Within the opening minutes, we are presented with footage of some sort of giant monster wading through the ocean, off in the distance. It looks far too much like a GIF being dragged across the screen. Near the end, we see similarly shoddy CGI of dragon hovering in the air and breathing fire. It's simply not believable and, worst yet, the movie makes little attempt to disguise what we are looking at. When the primary monsters in the film appear – they look a lot like the Skullcrawlers from “Kong: Skull Island – they are right in the center of the screen, brightly lit. This not only removes any doubt in the viewer's mind that they are looking at a mediocre, computer generated creation. It also spoils the premise of the movie. How are we supposed to believe that there's any debate or skepticism about the existence of these creatures when they are clearly on-camera like this? That takes the idea from cryptozoology to regular zoology, ya know. 

Aside from the deeply unconvincing visual effects, “The Barbados Project” fumbles immersion in other ways. In general, the acting is poor. As our journalist hero, Cerah Belgrave's line-reading is consistently stilted. What are supposed to be off-the-cuff conversations feel anything but, coming across more as awkward attempts to memorize dialogue the actors were given only a few moments to memorize. The actor playing the informant is easily the worst in the film, given reams of exposition to read and monotonously stumbling through it all, visibly glancing off-screen several times at presumed cue cards. In general, the writing in “The Barbados Project” is less than polished. It seems to me the filmmaker had a number of ideas but couldn't find a way to assemble them into a compelling whole. Instead, the film alternate between unexplained events – such as the biological effects encountering the monsters have on people – and flatly explaining story points that involve a lot of fuzzy sci-fi concepts. You get the impression of a script that was made up as filming went along. 

Despite being advertised as the first feature length monster movie made in the titular country, “The Barbados Project” is barely over an hour long. Meaning it meets the Academy standard for a “feature film” by exactly one minute. Furthering my belief that the story was largely improvised, the plot line involving Reesa Price wraps up with about twenty minutes to go. The film then leaps into the future, to depict a TikTok video of a totally unrelated character resolving the narrative in his back yard. It's a moment that seems to be taking shot at internet content creators concerned only with upping their following count, totally at odds with a premise treated seriously up to that point. The movie leaps around formats like that a lot. Prior recordings, declassified government footage, and lots of flashy computerized menus appear around the primary footage telling the story. That goes hand-in-hand with an abuse of on-screen pixelization and scrambled footage. It's an interesting idea, a movie composed of snippets of different mediums like this. When combined with a haphazard script and shifty acting, it only furthers the impression that the filmmakers couldn't focus on one idea for very long. 

One is tempted to take it easy on “The Barbados Project.” Clearly much of the team were amateurs getting their big break. One assumes that resources were limited, given the lack of support for film productions in their country. Considering Stockton Miller's background in special effects, I imagine he did most of the digital work himself. Getting a movie finished and released is hard work and many factor determine the outcome. There were clear ambitions here but whatever resources were available fell far short of them. The truth of the matter is that there's simply nothing much effective about what we see here. The result is less thrills and chills and more secondhand harassment for everyone involved. The feeling is more akin to watching a randomly assembled YouTube video than a professional production, thoroughly ineffective and underwhelming in every way. Best of luck to everybody who worked on this on all their future endeavors though. I know it's hard out there. [3/10]

The Ray Bradbury Theater: Usher II
 

Ray Bradbury was rather stuck on the idea of the government banning and burning books. Aside from “Fahrenheit 451,” he also explored the idea in “The Exiles” – in which the ghosts of banned authors manifest on Mars – and “Usher II.” The latter was adapted into a season four episode of “The Ray Bradbury Theater.” In the future, a government agency known as the Moral Climates has banned all tales of the fantastic and macabre. An eccentric millionaire named William Stendahl has spent most of his fortune constructing a replica of the House of Usher, as described in Edgar Allan Poe's story. He has populated it with life-like androids, playing the roles of witches and monsters. Moral Climates' Mr. Garrett sends a robot doppelganger of himself to investigate, which Stendahl replaces with his own. This copy invites the head council of the Moral Climates to a costume party at the new House of Usher. There, they watch as apparent robotic copies of themselves fall victim to grisly scenarios from Poe's stories. That's when Stendahl invites the real Garrett, who has already ordered the destruction of this new House of Usher, down into the wine cellar to taste some fine amontilado sherry... 

At various points in his dotage, Mr. Bradbury would bitch about political correctness or claim “Fahrenheit 451” was actually about how bad television is. There are signs of this in “Usher II.” Stendahl claims that the roots of the current oppressive government were civil rights organizations demanding the censoring of “offensive” content. Great futurist though he was, Bradbury couldn't imagine the current state of affairs. Where knowledge is not control by information being limited but rather by the public being inundated with it, a deluge of non-stop distraction and insincere lies burying actual truths. That timelines would pile horrors upon horrors, in-between mindless advertisements, to deaden our drive to pursue what was right. That corporations would further the destruction of true wisdom not by burning books but by burning forests, to replace actual imagination with dead-eyed simulacra vomited out by mindless machines. I know we've all had fun dunking on pearl-clutching fuddy-duddies from time to time but it gulls me a bit that someone as clearly intelligent and observant of the human condition as Ray Bradbury would blame “political correction” for the denigration of actual knowledge than the businessmen and billionaires. 

But there I go being a grousing old man myself. What about “Usher II?” Patrick Macnee, John Steed himself, plays Mr. Stendahl as someone who delights in the theatrical. He invents this elaborate scheme mostly to take revenge on the people he's despised. Because why merely murder someone when you can build an actual House of Usher and have them shoved up the chimney by a mechanical orangutan? (Of which the aftermath we only see here, presumably for budgetary reasons.) As his rival, Stuart Devenie – later seen as the kung-fu fighting priest who shouts “I kick ass for the lord!” in Peter Jackson's “Dead Alive” – is equally despicable. A dead-faced fascist, who takes a cold sadistic pleasure in punishing “immoral” behavior, is probably the kind of people who deserve to get walled up alive. Watching these two bounce off each other, especially once Stendahl goes about recreating “A Cask of Amontilado,” is quite entertaining on its own. The final accusation, that cultural critics blame society's woes on media they don't bother actually reading or watching themselves, sure sounds pointed coming out of Macnee's lips.

“Usher II” was directed by Lee Tamahori, a few years before “Once Were Warriors” and a decent run of thrillers later in the decade. (And long before he pivoted to very loud dreck like “Die Another Day” or “xXx: State of the Union,” the kind of movies ol' Ray probably would've hated.) Alongside cinematographer Warrick Attewell and production designer Rick Kofoed, they make sure the titular haunted abode looks amazing. Lots of gothic arches, shadowy corridors, spider web strewn staircases, and moonlight peering through wide windows. I'm not sure the episode is making nearly as much of a point about the attitudes that make censorship possible as it thinks. It seems much more about Bradbury enacting some suitably ironic revenge on anyone who dares to burn books. All the business with androids and robotic copies seems ultimately unnecessary, in service of a twist ending that is very easy to see coming. I do, however, totally understand the impulse to live out the rest of your life in a dusty old haunted castle. That may, in fact, be my greatest ambition in life. The house of Usher has fallen. Long live the House of Usher. [7/10]

 

The Addams Family: Addams Cum Laude
 

Once more, “The Addams Family” writers' room uses Wednesday and Pugsley as springboards for a story without actually involving them in the plot much. The Addams children report to their parents that a recent incident involving blasting caps has gotten them in trouble at school. Disappointed that an educational facility would stifle their kids' creativity, Gomez and Morticia immediately set out finding a private academy for their offspring. Sam Hillard – last seen running for office after being a truant officer – is now the head administrator at Mockridge Hall. At first, Hillard wants nothing to do with the Addams but Gomez' generous offer has him changing his mind. Pugsley and Wednesday immediately get expelled for bringing their pet octopus and Gila monster to class. Morticia and Gomez' solution to that is to simply buy the school outright, ousting Hillard and bringing their typically eccentric approach to the curriculum. This outrages the parents of the regular students, who demand Hillard's return

“Addams Cum Laude” – a title that sounds less unfortunate than it looks – does exactly what we expect from this show by now. Which is to say it's an episode devoted to the Addams' creepy and kooky antics being more than the average folks can handle. This is most evident in the sequence when Hillard visits 0001 Cemetery Drive and is presented with Addams' plans for the school syllabus. However, I do think the script here cooks up a few good variation on the familiar gags. Uncle Fester supplements his usual light bulb trick with a new ability involving a record player, which is amusingly stretched out. When Gomez hears Morticia speaking French, he accidentally grabs the arm of another woman instead, which is a good bit. In general, there are some inspired silliness here. Gomez practices his polo skills on a stationary bike, which then whinnies like a horse. Lurch pops into the room before Morticia rings the gong, startling her slightly. That made me chuckle, if only because Carolyn Jones' facial expression is priceless. Also, I am more convinced than ever that Thing can teleport, as he appears in Mr. Hilard's desk to comfort him unexpectedly. 

A fairly standard installment of “The Addams Family” but it does present one of the sharper bits of social commentary in this old series. Hillard is reluctant to get involved with the Addams at first, being well aware of their eccentricities by now. The minute Gomez starts counting a huge stack of money, however, the principal changes his mind. Yes, the all mighty dollar sees a member of polite society reconsidering his previously firmly held beliefs. You can read a little deeper into the set-up here too. The Addams devote their lives to pursuing their passions, which makes them happy. The standard American school system tries to force kids down a specific path. When Gomez and Morticia attempt to transform a standard academy in their own vision, the parents who pay the tuitions demand an immediate return to conformity. Despite the Addams' new system actually being far more profitable for the school, as the ending reveals. Oh, if only we were all as rich as the Addams and could spend our days worshiping our hot goth wives and blowing up toy trains... [7/10]

Halloween 2024: October 31st - HALLOWEEN

I don't live in a neighborhood that sees much trick-or-treating which, for many years, made Halloween night the major anticlimax to the season. Luckily, I have a friend who does live in a bustling suburb and he happily invited me over to help every year. Donning a plastic werewolf mask and some rubber dinosaur hands, I venture over to join the frivolity before heading back home to feast on fun-sizes candy bars and horror movies all night. 

Bunnicula, the Vampire Rabbit (1982)

Recently, while at a Spirit Halloween, I spotted adorable plush toy versions of Freddy Krueger and Pennywise for sale. Making children's toys based on monsters that kill children is somewhat morbid. (Not that these toys are meant for kids so much as adult collectors.) At the same time, it follows a long cultural tradition of horror movie villains inevitably getting watered down into something soft and cuddly for children. Honestly, I'm fine with the existence of Count Chocula and Monster High and other extensions of this habit. Kids love horror and deserve to have age appropriate entry points. Another such example is Deborah and James Howes' 1979 children's book, "Bunnicula, a Rabbit Tale of Mystery," which introduced the world to a vampiric fluffy bunny rabbit that sucked the juices from vegetables. I read it as a kid and enjoyed it too, though my monster loving habits were already well established by then. What I didn't know until very recently was that the book was adapted into an animated special in 1982, produced by Ruby-Spears for ABC Weekend Special block. I like to kick off my October 31st with a vintage Halloween special and, seeing as how a kind soul has uploaded "Bunnicula, the Vampire Rabbit" to YouTube, decided to give this one a look. 

My memories of the Howes' original book are admittedly fuzzy, seeing as how I was probably six when I read it but this adaptation still struck me as rather loose. The hook is maintained: Harold the dog and Chester the cat, pets of the Monroe family, are our protagonists. The two boys bring home a rabbit one day, asleep in a box full of soil and containing a note that reveals his name to be Bunnicula. Shortly afterwards, vegetables that have been rendered white by having all their juice sucked out begin to turn up. Chester, an avid reader, suspects Bunnicula is a vampire while Harold is more skeptical. To this simple story, Ruby-Spears added an entire subplot about the factory the family dad works out closing down due to an apparent haunting and the neighbors coming to believe that the Monroe's new pet rabbit is responsible for their vegetable gardens being raided. 

Despite being produced in the eighties, "Bunnicula" feels much more like a product of the previous decade. The character designs are uninspired, with the human characters looking utterly generic. The animation is unimpressive, frequently stiff and often rather flat as well, with dull colors and unimaginative framing. The cheapness is evident in the notable continuity errors. Such as the writing that came with Bunnicula interchangeably being referred to as Russian or Romanian. Or the rabbit – his design sickeningly cute – making noises that sound a lot more like monkey chatters than rabbit squeaks to me. The result is a 29 minute presentation that feels a lot like Hanna-Barbera's "Scooby-Doo" series from the time, though lacking the occasional dopey charm of that franchise. What I'm saying is that "Bunnicula" is lacking in Halloween vibes, instead betting much more heavily on wacky animal antics to keep the kiddies entertained. 

This is most evident in how the special treats the title character. Despite getting top-billing, Bunnicula doesn't do much throughout the brief runtime. Mostly, we only see the little bunny sleeping in his box or being carried by the other animals. If any tension can said to exist in the story, it presumably comes from Chester and Harold's disagreement over Bunnicula's true nature. That is kind of ruined by this special being subtitled "The Vampire Rabbit," don't you think? If you're looking for an adorable cartoon lagomorph doing vampiric acts, "Bunnicula" will let you down as well. It's not until the finale, in which the animals investigate that bizarre subplot about the factory being haunted, that Bunnicula does anything at all. The results prove underwhelming, this vampire lepus seemingly having the power of telekinesis via red glowing eyes. One suspects that was chosen so that Ruby-Spears could very cheaply animate the climax, which inexplicably reveal a pack of wolves to be responsible for the ghostly activities around the factory. Surely, even a child would realize that a wolf could never be mistaken for a ghost, much less responsible for similar activities. 

Like far too much underachieving children's media, "Bunnicula" is most concerned with imposing a moral on any young viewers. The literary "Bunnicula" is about jealousy and acceptance, Chester the cat learning to overcome his suspicions of the new family pet and greet him as part of the family. This is still somewhat present in the cartoon, Chester eventually expressing sympathy for the animal he suspected if being nosferatu. (Or, perhaps, nos-fur-atu.) However, this is muddied largely by the other stupid shit added here. The subplot about the neighbors blaming Bunnicula for their drained crops makes little sense, existing seemingly only to include a shot of the classic horror cliché of a mob with torches and pitchforks. The conclusion bends towards a totally different moral too, one of responsible pet care.... However, the final scene mostly has me wondering how the parents allowed a bag of vegetables to sit on the counter, in a grocery bag, for two weeks. When combined with the bullshit with the factory shutting down because of a wolf infestation, it gives the impression that "Bunnicula" was written in a weekend. 

Considering "Bunnicula" was produced by the same studio that brought us such esteemed products as "Chuck Norris: Karate Kommandos" and "Rubik the Amazing Cube," perhaps my expectations where too high. But, I don't know, guys. I kind of think kids deserve slightly higher quality programming than crap like this. James Howe, after Deborah's passing, would write six more books about Bunnicula, as recently as 2006. The books would also inspired a three season animated series that aired on Cartoon Network and Boomerang from 2016 to 2018. From what I've seen of it, that "Bunnicula" looks aggressively manic but I'd wager it's still a lot better than this subpar production. In other words, if your kid is a fan of vampires and soft fuzzy bunny rabbits, skip this cartoon and go straight to the book. By the way, the YouTube upload includes the original commercials. The ads for Nintendo Cereal and Connect Four probably have more cultural value than "Bunnicula, the Vampire Rabbit." [5/10]

The Lady and the Monster (1944)

Universal would kick off the American horror genre as we know it in 1931, with the one-two punch of “Frankenstein” and “Dracula.” Horror would then fall out of popularity later in the decade, before the 1939 release of “Son of Frankenstein” led to a second wave. This time, studios besides Universal and the Poverty Row guys were starting to churn them out. Columbia teamed up with Boris Karloff, RKO gave Val Lewton free reign to create a legendary run of films, with Paramount and Warner Bros making a few notable titles too. Republic Pictures, a mini-major best known for their serials and westerns, decided to take a stab at the genre with some classy monster flicks starting in 1944. As if to guarantee success for the film, Republic would pull from Universal's pool of talent and adapt Curt Siodmak's novel, “Donovan's Brain” as their first chiller of the decade. “The Lady and the Monster” has been eclipsed by later versions of that same story but I've long been curious about it.

Professor Mueller, deep within his castle laboratory in the Arizona desert, has been working to preserve a brain's lifespan outside of the skull. With the help of his assistants, Dr. Patrick Cory and the young and beautiful Janice, he hasn't seen much success thus far. During a stormy night, news breaks that a plane has crashed near-by. Inside was millionaire industrialist William H. Donovan. Mueller illegally extracts Donovan's brain from his body, blackmailing Cory into helping him. The duo successfully keep the brain alive afterwards. However, that is when Cory begins to act strangely. He hears voices, pursues goals that aren't his own, and grows increasingly violent and unhinged. It turns out Donovan's brain, separated from his body and amplified by the machine, has telepathically taken control of Cory's body. Janine wants the brain destroyed but Professor Mueller won't let his experiment come to an end.

“The Lady and the Monster” – not to be confused with Paramount's “The Monster and the Girl” from a few years earlier – was directed by George Sherman, who had a long career of mostly undistinguished work. However, the film also happened to have John Atlon as its cinematographer. Atlon would come to fame for his work on noirs later in the decade before winning an Oscar for photography “An American in Paris.” Atlon makes sure that “The Lady and the Monster” looks brilliant. Every sequence set in Mueller's laboratory is thick with atmosphere. The shadows of the equipment are cast huge on the towering walls, the mad scientist glowering in the shade of his work. Whenever the brain is seen floating in its vat, it's backlit in such a way as to look far more ominous. There's more than a few noir-esque shots of men framed by the shadows of window shades too. Basically, the film provides exactly the type of monochrome ambiance that I desperately crave from classic horror films. 

If only “The Lady and the Monster” told a story as sharp as its visuals. As opposed to Siodmak's novel, where Dr. Cory is the sole scientist on the experiment, this adaptation adds far more characters to the story. The addition of Professor Mueller brings with it more melodrama, such as him harboring a crush on Janice and often abusing his maid. The film also focuses far more than was necessary on the mechanics of Donovan's fortune, his scheming widow after the riches, and the murder case tangled up with the incident. To put in the words of a far more observant man than myself: There's too much plot getting in the way of the story. This results in a 86 minute runtime, which is still short by any ordinary standard but about twenty minutes longer than most forties monster movies. The overwritten script is also evident in the strange reoccurring voice-over from an omniscient narrator in a few scenes, an odd inclusion.

Erich von Stroheim is probably better remembered as a director but, in his lifetime, he was more successful as an actor. Probably inspired by his villainous turn in “The Great Gabbo,” von Stroheim would star in a few horror flicks, such as this, “The Crimes of Dr. Crespi,” and “The Mask of Diijon.” He never grows the fangs shown on the poster and only wears the fedora and overcoat in one scene. Nevertheless, Stroheim makes for a fine mad scientist. His ability to make only a look menacing, without having to raise his voice, is well utilized. As Cory, Richard Arlen is a likable enough heroic type. However, when the persona of Donovan takes over, he does quite well as an aggressive, threatening villain. This is most apparent in the film's climax. Czech ice skater Vera Ralston, as part of a concentrated effort by Republic to turn her into a movie star, gets top-billing as Janine. It's easy to see why Ralston's acting career never quite took off as she's rather wooden here, with a thick accent and incredibly stiff body language. Her lack of chops is a big detriment towards the film being better than it is. 

Ultimately, you win some and you lose some. The 1953 version of “Donovan's Brain” is more faithful to the source material. However, it certainly lacks the riveting, expressionistic cinematography of this take. I'm going to be honest with you guys. “The Lady and the Monster” is probably a fairly leaden attempt at a horror film, especially compared to the pulpy fun of Universal's flicks at the time and the psychological complexity of Val Lewton's work. However, all those glorious black-and-white visuals go an awfully long way with me. When combined with a strong beginning and ending and a pair of decent performances, it's easy for me to overlook the dragging middle section and give this one a recommendation. [7/10]

The Woman Eater (1958)

A while back, I was reading an old article from Bogleech in which he discussed his favorite monsters from fifties B-movies. Being a seasoned classic horror nerd, I had seen or at least heard of most of the movies high-lighted in that list. Except for one. That would be “The Woman Eater” – entitled merely “Womaneater” on most prints – a creature feature made in England in 1958. Upon further research, I discovered something else about the movie. It is one of the few monster flicks out there about murderous plant life. Outside of the Pods, Audrey II, and the Triffids, that's not a style of beastie you see too often. Simply knowing that there was another cheesy monster movie out there I hadn't seen was enough for me to want to seek out “The Woman Eater” but knowing it was a killer tree picture? Oh yes, that's a fine addition to anyone's Halloween marathon. 

Five years ago, Dr. Moran travelled into the depths of the Amazon Rainforest in search of an elixir known to the local tribes. The potion is said to be able to bring the dead back to life. Moran spies a secret ritual in which a beautiful woman is fed to a carnivorous tree, which supposedly produces the miracle drug he is after. In the present day, Moran and Tanga – a member of the aforementioned tribe – have relocated the woman-eating tree to his lab in London. The two abduct women to feed to the monster, much to the concerns of his housekeeper and the attention of the local police. Meanwhile, mechanic Jack meets dancer Sally, the two quickly falling in love. Jack sends Sally to work for Moran, unaware of the doctor's murderous habits. She gets the job but will this means she is doomed to become the next victim of the Woman Eater?

One of the great – if you'll excuse my flagrant abuse of the word “great” – laughably goofy monsters of fifties B-movies is the Tabanga from “From Hell It Came.” In fact, the perpetually scowling visage of that creature is the whole reason to see that movie. “The Woman Eater” is also a movie about a murderous tree. For what it's worth, this creature is not as silly looking as the Tabanga. In fact, it's fuzzy branches and insectoid claws are slightly creepy. When you look at the Woman Eater, you can't be entirely sure what you're seeing at first. Adding to the uncanny element of the titular beastie is that it's never specified how exactly this carnivorous tree devours people. The fact that a murderous tree, by its very nature, is an immobile threat that can do much probably made it a hard monster to build a story around. This probably explains why the creature is not in nearly enough of the movie. However, I do think it's an interesting idea for a cinematic critter. 

As a horror movie from 1958, “The Woman Eater” is also from that odd transitional time for the genre. It is beholden to the conventions of the previous decade, with its big rubber monster and mad scientist villain. At the same time, the film shows signs of the more salacious direction horror would go in only a few years later. The title promises us women being eaten and that is mostly more implied than shown. At the same time, the movie still features lots of shots of women in low-cut dresses being hypnotized and pushed into the flesh-eating tree. I don't know why Moran feeds his tree exclusively on beautiful women but it provides lots of opportunity for shapely actresses to appear in the film. None are more shapely than Vera Day, whose proportions bring Mamie Van Doren to mind. A notable sequence has her sitting in the passenger seat while her boyfriend fixes a car, her breasts framed perfectly in the shot. She's also introduced in a hula skirt. Director Charles Saunders was clearly enamored of her or at least of the way she looked. 

In other words, “The Woman Eater” is positioned between between a nastier type of exploitation movie and a hokey rubber monster movie. This is also apparent in the casual sexism of the script. Our hero falls for Sally upon seeing her in a swimsuit. Later, he repeatedly mocks her for a perceived lack of intelligence, which she seems to think of as charming flirting. Moran wants to possesses the girl the minute he lays eyes on her too. This angers his housekeeper, who is in love with him. When he cruelly rejects her, she becomes unhinged and violent. Bitches be crazy, am I right? “The Woman Eater” pairs its misogyny with a fair bit of racism too. The indigenous shaman who becomes Moran's sidekick is always treated as an intimidating presence. He seems to have no issue with feeding random women to the tree. As wicked as Tanga is, he's also untrustworthy among the villains. Not that I'd recommend going to fifties B-movies for sensitive politics but “The Woman Eater” is especially egregious. 

When put it aside a ridiculous threat like an killer tree, “The Woman Eater's” political incorrectness only come off as camp. George Coulouris is a perfectly despicable villain as Dr. Moran. Despite the way the script treats her, Vera Day is utterly charming. The entire movie wraps up in seventy minutes, with the bad guys punished, the monster destroyed, and moral relativity restored to the universe. In other words, this gave me exactly what I want from a forgotten B-movie about a tree monster that devours ladies. Sometimes, an easily digested – pun intended? – cheapie with a wacky monster and some sleazy sex appeal is all you need. If nothing else, it's a lot better than the vaguely similar “The Creeping Terror.” By the way, actual myths of flesh-eating trees have popped up over the years, though usually in the jungles of Africa and not South America. [7/10]

Malatesta's Carnival of Blood (1973)

Who doesn't love the carnival? It's wholesome fun for the whole family, right? The perfect place to enjoy some rides, play some games, eat some funnel cake, and get harassed, attacked, and murdered. The dangerous, otherworldly atmosphere of the circus has inspired its fair share of horror stories. The carnival has many of the same features but is sleazier by far, being more of a fly-by-night operation staffed by nomadic con men. Beneath the promise of harmless amusements, there's simply an air of depravity about the carnival, ya know? Unsurprisingly, many horror movies have sought to play off this idea. Among the stranger examples resides genuine seventies oddity, “Malatesta's Carnival of Blood.” Thought lost for years – I only became aware of the film while reading, of all things, a retrospective on the career of Hervé Villechaize – the film was unearthed for Arrow's American Horror Project, exposing it to a far wider audience than ever before.

Johnny Morris disappears while at Malatesta's Carnival, a local amusement park that has recently reopened. His parents and sister, Vena, arrive at the carnival under the pretense of looking for jobs. They meet with one of the two managers, the mysterious Mr. Blood, before parking their RV on the camp grounds. In truth, the family is there to locate their missing son. Vena sneaks out to meet up with Kit, the boy who runs the shooting range booth that she's taken a liking too. Soon, the daughter uncovers the horrible truth. This is no ordinary carnival. Malatesta and Mr. Blood are vampires. Most of their employees are cannibalistic ghouls and the bloody accident in the park are no accidents at all. They live in the tunnels under the carnival, performing bizarre rituals, with Vena soon chosen as their next sacrifice. 

“Malatesta's Carnival of Blood” is the sole credit of writer Werner Liepolt and the only narrative film made by director Christopher Speeth. Liepolt is a mystery but Speeth was well known in the Philadelphia theater scene. Supposedly, he pulled the film together to provide work for actors between seasons. One imagines that Speeth and his humble team – his brother did the special effects – chose to make a horror film because it's a profitable and cheap genre to work in. You can certainly see the vestigial outline of a traditional horror movie here. The idea of a carnival run by vampires and staffed by zombies is simple enough to understand, the kind of premise any monster kid would imagine. A family looking for their missing child is a totally normal prompt for the story too.

However, none of that prepares the viewer for the aggressively strange atmosphere “Malatesta's Carnival of Blood” engineers. One of the first things you'll notice about the film is its bizarre sets and art direction. The Tunnel of Love has walls lined with what appear to be feathers, random objects, and fleshy expanses. In the tunnels under the carnival, a Volkswagen has been hung upside down with an enormous mouth built into it. Vena is kept inside a a bubble-like structure at one point. The ghouls often gather in front of an enormous screen, showing clips from silent horror movies. Paired with these odd images is a sound design that is more surreal. Strange humming noises, overlapping dialogue, and discordant fragments of music combine to create a truly nightmarish feeling. 

From any sort of traditional perspective, “Malatesta's Carnival of Blood” probably could not be classified as a “good” movie. Its plot is directionless and vague. The dialogue is often incoherent, the characters never being anything but loose ideas. The acting is stilted. The special effects are unconvincing, the zombies often being actors simply wearing greenish face paint. Somehow, this lack of professionalism works in the film's favor. When combined with the home-made sets and creepy soundtrack, “Malatesta's Carnival of Blood” genuinely captures the feeling of a bad acid trip. The violence, crude as it is, always seems to hit with a genuine sense of sudden sadism. The roller coaster decapitation, no matter how fake it looks, feels quite uncomfortable. The camera angles are off enough that simple scenes, like the daughter running through the woods or the father exploring the tunnels, feel so strange. Side characters included a hook-handed man named Mr. Bean and little Hervé as someone named Bobo. When the characters talk about how they have many faces or arcane rules that must be obeyed, it feels like “Malatesta” has accidentally touched on a degree of cosmic horror. As if the whole movie is a transmission from another dimension. 

The actual abandoned carnival “Malatesta's” was filmed at, from the glimpses we get at it, seems to be genuinely run-down and sketchy. The ending is deeply downbeat, a sense of indifference from a cruel universe emerging. When combined with the lo-fi effects, weird acting, and a story that progresses lucidly from one set-piece to another, the result is a deeply trippy motion picture. Whether intentionally or not, it mirrors the look and feel of a nightmare better than a lot of other movies that actually aim for that goal. Supposedly, Speeth and his team saw little profit from the film and it was said to be booed off the screen by most audiences. It is difficult to imagine a rowdy, drive-in crowd appreciating the particular mood captured here. However, decades after the fact, “Malatesta's Carnival of Blood” can be enjoyed as the bizarre indie experiment it is. Put this one in the love-it-or-hate-it pile but I'm definitely among those that loved it. [8/10]

Mountaintop Motel Massacre (1983)

In 1982, when the slasher genre was nearing the apex of its oversaturation, director Jim McCullough Sr. made a little movie in Louisiana called "Mountaintop Motel." The next year, it played a few drive-ins in the American south, without receiving much attention or doing any notable business. In an alternate universe, that was probably the end of it and the film was confined to the dustbin of genre history. In reality, however, New World Pictures picked the movie up two years later. They demanded reshoots, to make it gorier, and slapped a catchier, more descriptive title on all prints. What ended up absolutely selling "Mountaintop Motel Massacre" was a new poster, featuring a mad-eyed old woman with bloody hands glowering from behind a door, and an immediately catchy tagline: "Do not disturb Evelyn. She already is." It didn't matter that the woman on the box didn't look anything like the actress in the movie or that the new title and tagline promised a far more salacious experience. That image was enough to turn "Mountaintop Motel Massacre" into a minor cult classic among eighties horror fanatics and slasher aficionados. Despite having walked by the VHS box or poster probably a hundred times, I've never made time for "Mountaintop Motel Massacre" before now. That changes on this unseasonably warm October night.... 

Elderly Evelyn has recently been discharged from a mental institute. She returns to her home in rural Louisiana, where she operates a series of outdoor cabins as a motel. Evelyn is far from healed though: She discovers her daughter attempting to contact the spirit of her late father. This drives the woman into a frenzy and she murders the girl with a sickle. Not long afterwards, a bad storm blows in and a disparate group take shelter at the motel: A hard-drinking traveling preacher, a truck driver, some newlyweds, and a sleazy guy pretending to be a record executive who has picked up two hitchhiking teenage girls. The storm seems to push Evelyn to the breaking point. Using the old tunnels under the hotel, she plants vermin in each room. When this does not satisfy the mournful spirit of her daughter ringing in her head, Evelyn picks her sickle back up and proceeds to slash through the motel guests. 

Despite being placed alongside films like "The Burning" or "The Prowler," "Mountaintop Motel Massacre" is an atypical example of the slasher subgenre. If a well-known actress had starred as Evelyn – I'm thinking Patricia Neal or Kim Hunter or somebody on that level – it would've passed as a throwback to the psycho-biddy movies of the sixties. Setting the movie during a thunderstorm in a ratty old motel, hidden out in the deep south, creates an overcast and gloomy atmosphere. That dark-and-stormy night set-up is relied on much more than bloody spectacle to provide chills. Meanwhile – like fellow late-occurring hag horror flick disguised as a slasher, "Night Warning" – much more emphasis than you'd expect is placed in the beleaguered villain's mental state. The best scenes in "Mountaintop Motel Massacre" focus on Evelyn retreating to her creepy inner sanctum, her dead daughter's bedroom that is full of dusty old dolls and creative lighting. We hear the little girl's voice in the old woman's head, prompting her to kill. Anne Chappel – mostly a stage actress who only appeared in one other film than this – gives a sad performance as Evelyn, a disturbed woman haunted by the phantoms of her mind. The scenes focused solely on Evelyn give the impression of what a version of "Friday the 13th" starring Mrs. Voorhees might have looked like. 

Despite resisting many elements of the style, "Mountaintop Motel Massacre" is still structured like a slasher flick. It sticks a bunch of characters in an isolated location and has them picked off, one by one. Despite most of the characters being grown-ups, the honeymooning couple and the creepy guy manipulating the two girls still allows for the required sex and nudity. Packing the movie with warm bodies that can be cut up is actually where "Mountaintop Motel Massacre" falters. None of the characters are developed much, beyond the bare minimum idea. Aside from crazy Evelyn, the film can't truly be said to have a protagonist. The boozing preacher seems like he might be a hero but still spends most of the runtime passes out. By frequently cutting between the different guests, before cutting them up, the script feels spread thin between the various mini-melodramas of its plot threads. Isolating the cast in their respective rooms also removes the ensemble energy that powers so many slasher films. In execution, it makes "Mountaintop Motel Massacre" feel less like it has a plot and more like a bunch of different people waiting around for something to happen to them. 

And wait around they do. The film takes its sweet time getting to the carnage. Evelyn's initial plan doesn't involve murder at all. At first, she sets a snake, some rats, and roaches loose in the different cabins. This plays on a relatable fear of staying in a sketchy motel, renters left wondering what infestations might be around. The idea that the unhinged owner can access every room whenever she wants via secret passageway is a creepy idea. However, McCullough's direction is rather flat and the film is sleepily paced, meaning few scares or tension is generated. Once the sickle murders do start, the gore is decently pulled off. Throats are slashed, heads are run-through, and a hand is cleaved. Unfortunately, the bloodshed starts so late in the runtime, after many aimless scenes of the characters screwing around (sometimes literally) in their lodgings, that it is hard to find it satisfying. The results is a motion picture that only starts to take-off shortly before it is set to end. "Mountaintop Motel Massacre" ultimately feels like a version of Tobe Hooper's "Eaten Alive," made on downers instead of coke and minus the alligator. 

One more thing: Perhaps the word had different connotations in the early eighties. However, I think of a "motel" as a series of interconnecting rooms near a freeway or road, for sleepy motorists to stop in. The run-down cabins of this film, tucked deep within the hills of Louisiana, feel more like an extremely underwhelming campground or resort. I also find the size of the "mountaintop" in question to be inappropriately mountainous. Anyway, New World Pictures definitely had the right idea when they added an edgier word to "Mountaintop Motel Massacre"s" title and threw together that sleazy box art. It's doubtful anyone would remember the movie without the catchy title and catchier advertising campaign. An attempt to fuse a moody psycho-thriller with a body count flick isn't a bad idea but this one can't pull off either idea in a satisfactory manner. It's a bummer that the period when random one-off slasher flicks were getting remade has passed. This one could do with a second stab at it, as long as they kept the tagline the same. [5/10]

Late Night with the Devil (2023)

The conceit of the found footage style is that this is actual recordings someone has stumbled upon, hence the name. The idea, of discovering something forbidden in an unexpected place, has mutated and permeated over the years. The subgenre has always had links to the mockumentary style, which similarly plays with layers of reality and fiction. This has crossbred with the found footage premise to produce a spat of what I'll call "cursed broadcast" movies: Mundane television programs that suddenly get horrific. Obviously, Orson Welles' "War of the Worlds" broadcast is the grandfather of this premise and inspired direct successors over the years, such as "Special Bulletin" and "Without Warning." None of the attempts to recreate this idea has been more influential than "Ghostwatch." In our modern age, when archiving old television programs and uploading them to the Internet or searching out "lost media" has become a passion for many, the idea of finding some footage of a cursed broadcast has taken root in the genre. Probably inspired by Chris LaMartina's "WNUF Halloween Special," this year brought the most high profile take on the idea in years. "Late Night with the Devil" became IFC/Shudder's highest grossing release earlier this year but I knew, given my affection for this style and it's October 31st setting, I wanted to save it for the final film of this year's Halloween Horrorfest Blog-a-Thon. 

In the seventies, one of the many attempts to dethrone Johnny Carson as the king of late night was Jack Delroy. His show, "Night Owls," would be successful in the latter half of the decade. However, following the death of his beloved wife Madeline, Jack would step away from the show for a while. Upon returning, producers would attempt to boost the program's falling ratings with a series of outrageous stunts. This reached its climax with a 1977 Halloween show. Delroy invited on the show medium Christou, debunker Carmichael Haig, and parapsychologist June Ross-Mitchell with her latest subject, Lily. The only survivor of a mass suicide by a Satanic cult, Lily is supposedly possessed by the demon Abraxas. As the broadcast went on, more strange things would happen, driving Delroy into a personal hell. 

On one hand, "Late Night with the Devil" is a meticulous recreation of a late-night talk show from the seventies. It has convincing sets and costumes, matching the look and feel of the time. Jack Delroy reflects the avuncular presence of the many attempts to imitate Carson, especially in his banter with his sidekick, Gus McConnell. The film also does a decent job of copying the look and feel of such a program, with the proper amount of film grain, awkward camera movements, and overly long bits. This is probably because "Late Night with the Devil" draws direct inspiration from a number of real events. The main inspiration for the movie was stage magician turned skeptical inquirer James Randi appearing on Australian talk show, "The Don Lane Show," which ended with Lane becoming irate with the guest. Carmichael Haig is clearly based on Randi, copying his facial hair, his rivalry with spoon bender Uri Gellar, and his offer of a cash prize to anyone who can definitively prove the existence of the supernatural. The movie draws inspiration from other true events too. Jack is a member of a Bohemian Grove style gentleman's retreat, which also features spooky, quasi-occult rituals involving an owl idol. "Lily," and the book written about her, are obviously based on "Michelle Remembers," the fraudulent biography that kicked off the Satanic ritual abuse hysteria of the eighties. The cult that birthed her has clear tones of Anton LeVay's Church of Satan while the police stand-off ending in fiery death is taken from the Branch Davidians. In other words, "Late Night with the Devil" pulls from a number of notorious figures and moments in pop history to add verisimilitude. 

All of that stuff is extremely my kind of shit. (Though, as a fellow skeptic, I object to the characterization of the Randi stand-in as a pretentious glory chaser.) If "Late Night with the Devil" had devoted its entire runtime to a presentation of a mythical infamous moment in TV history, it would probably stand along side "Ghostwatch," "WNUF," and "Antrum" as a compelling meta narrative. Instead, directors the Cairness brothers repeatedly break immersion. The film opens with a lengthy documentary-like segment, establishing the backstory of "Night Owls with Jack Delroy." Which I think sets some events up too far in advance but is an understandable addition. More frustrating, however, is the repeated choice to cut away from the live broadcast to black-and-white behind-the-scenes segments, that show us what happened while the cameras were off that night. In other words: The film repeatedly abandons its own conceit. Worst yet, these scenes don't give us any information that wouldn't be better left implied anyway. Jack's involvement with the Grove, his infidelity, and the off-screen death of another guest would all be more shocking if revealed later in the film. The biggest sign of "Late Night with the Devil's" half-assed commitment to its own premise is the much criticized use of AI-generated images for the show's bumpers. This is immediately noticeable, as the images do not match the seventies setting and feature all the tell-tale signs of being made by a fucking robot. Obviously, there's no excuse for the inclusion of anti-human, plagiarized bullshit like that in this film. It puts a stain on the entirety of "Late Night with the Devil." 

This is a shame because, otherwise, I did find a lot to enjoy here. The entire appeal of films like this is the sinister and otherworldly interceding on the utterly mundane. There's certainly plenty of examples of live broadcast being interrupted by the tragic or unexpected. The first half of "Late Night with the Devil" is its best, when it balances a realistic recreation of a seventies late night show with darker elements. Such as a strangely unmoving guests in a skeleton costume or Christou going into a seizure during a psychic episode. The film probably pushes it too far during late, more special effects driven moments. Such as the medium vomiting a torrent of black sludge into the camera, the first attempt to contact the demon in Lily, or a hypnosis sequence featuring some very nasty worms. "Ghostwatch" and "WNUF Halloween Special" knew to keep this stuff mostly off-screen, to further the sense that you are watching a normal broadcast gone horribly wrong and not, ya know, a horror movie. These scenes are well done though, especially that bit with the worms. What should have been the film's climax, Abraxas truly making himself known, similarly pushes the visual effects and chaos too far while also being rather nicely pulled off. 

That's not the ending though. You can clearly see a struggle within "Late Night with the Devil" to extend what should've been a regular hour of TV into a feature length movie. (Though "The Tonight Show" often ran for upwards of nineties minutes, so that feels like a copout too.) All throughout, as the film frustratingly abandons its own set-up before swerving back, I wonder what the whole point of this was. "Ghostwatch" is about bringing classical English folklore into the then-modern day while implicitly criticizing the media's need to explore, watch, and exploit everything. "WNUF Halloween Special" and its sequel invoke and subvert nostalgia for discarded pop culture while revealing that the power of human belief is much more dangerous than the myths themselves. "Late Night with the Devil's" indecisiveness prevents it from making a deeper point. The final sequence – which also drops the lost broadcast gimmick – does something interesting though. This is Jack Delroy's story. It is a classical Faustian bargain playing out within the entertainment industry, of sacrificing your soul for fame and success. That is why even the James Randi stand-in is a phony. Everyone in TV is merely hungry for fame and power. David Dastmalchian plays Delroy as a sad, anxious man who is barely holding onto his public persona while his inner demons take hold and he makes the final scenes, of the devil coming to collect what is owed to him, better than they would be otherwise. I don't think a story of how showbiz destroys minds and reaps souls is as compelling an idea as using the medium itself to criticize the messages it propagates. It exposes "Late Night with the Devil" as a bit of a fraud itself, as this story could have been told as a traditional narrative without the catchy gimmick. But at least it's an idea, a sign that this is more than a mere technical exercise and a compilation of decades-old bits of moral panics and TV detritus. 

Ultimately, "Late Night with the Devil" left me very conflicted. Technically, it is well done. The special effects are slimy and gross. Colin and Cameron Cairness are clearly talented at engineering effective shock scenes. The cast is strong, especially Dastmalchian and Ingrid Torelli, who is extremely creepy as the possessed girl. In many ways, this movie is exactly the kind of thing I should love. However, the film's disappointing need to constantly undermine its own strengths makes it a much more frustrating watch. Not to mention the AI bullshit, which is simply inexcusable. (Also, its unwillingness to acknowledge the much more complicated Gnostic origins of Abraxas, which is treated as simply another scary demon. But I'm pretty used to screenwriters doing stuff like that...) In other words, "Late Night with the Devil" could have been a much better movie if not for a few baffling decisions the creative team made. It is stuffed full of Halloween ambiance though and, obviously, a good choice to watch in the middle of the night, despite falling short of giving me the kind of high previous, superior attempts at this kind of thing gave me. [6/10]

The other day, I was in a Target. Despite Halloween itself being neigh, the department store was already all decked out for Christmas. I know I should be used to this by now but seeing the fake evergreens and Santa suits overtake the Jack-o'-lanterns and skeletons bummed me out. When you think about Halloween all year round, and actively celebrate it for two months, what should be the climax of the season instead feels like the dispiriting end of something nice. I sure do like it when everything is decked out in orange and black, bats and ghouls looking at me from every angle. Feels nice, ya know? Seeing that tapper to a close, swallowed up by all that holly-jollyness, is a bummer.

However, it is important to remember something: Halloween doesn't come from a store. Halloween means a little bit more. While standing on a friend's lawn, pretending to be an automaton, and successfully frightening some small children, I remembered that. I can wax philosophically about what this season means to me for pages on end. Somehow, I've made it to this stage in my life without loosing the child-like wonder this time of year invokes in me. As always, thank you, Halloween. Thank you for reminding me that the flesh decays, the leaves turn brown and fall to the ground, and our spirits shuffle off this mortal coil but that some ideas are forever. Being scared, thrilled, or gross out reminds you that are alive. That this life is yours and should be invested with glee as much as possible. That, in spite of the inevitable end of all things, joy and love can be found everywhere. Thank you, Halloween. 

Alright, enough sentimentality. I watched 127 feature films, 101 TV episodes, and 19 shorts over the course of two months. In other words: I did it. I lived the Halloween season to the fullest. Let us face down November 1st with a lifted spirit and a clean conscience. Hey, witches and black cats and candy corn and 12 Foot Tall Skeletons: It's not goodbye forever, it's goodbye for now. Let us slip into our coffins full of earth and sleep for another year, to reawaken next autumn as sure as the changing of the seasons and the rising of the sun.