Halloween 2025: September 20th

 

The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh (1971)
Lo strano vizio della Signora Wardh

I've been doing this all ass-backwards, as is too often my nature. Completely unintentionally, I realize now that I've been watching Sergio Martino's acclaimed run of seventies giallo in reverse order. In 2022, I started with the sleaziest of the lot, "Torso." The next October, I progressed backwards to the dreamier "All the Colors of the Dark." Finally, during last year's Blog-a-Thon, I covered "Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key." That was the one that finally truly won me over to Martino's particular take on the Italian style of murder thrillers. Now, I return to the beginning and reach "The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh," Martino's first stab at this subgenre. Made after he directed two mondo movies and a spaghetti western – not to mention years working as a writer, assistant director, and cinematographer – it would be Martino's proper breakthrough and establish him as a voice onto his own in the Italian film industry. 

Once upon a time, Julie and Jean were lovers. A cruel man, he allowed her to explore her sadomasochistic fantasies and erotic fascination with blood. Eventually, the abuse became too much and Jean married Neil Wardh, a diplomat. The couple arrive in Vienna at the same time a razor blade-wielding murderer is targeting the city's women. Julie begins to receive flowers with threatening notes, signed by Jean. At a party, she meets the handsome George and his cousin, Carol, who recently inherited a great deal of wealth. Neil is an inattentive husband and Julie falls into George's arms. The sinister notes continue, soon escalating to threatening phone calls and black mail. Carol is killed by the same murderer terrorizing the city. The man sets his sights on Julie next. Jean insists he has an alibi. Julie, overcome with frighteningly erotic nightmares and pulled in different directions by the men in her life, feels like a sinister force is closing in on her.

There is a scene about half-way through “The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh” that might be emblematic of what we think of as a giallo. It concerns Julie's friend going in her place to meet the blackmailer in the park. She is watched by a man wearing black gloves, the camera assuming his point-of-view. He soon reveals a straight razor and attacks the woman, slashing her to death. Martino doesn't bring the style, intensity, beauty or poetry to the table of an Argento or Bava. He makes up for it by giving the audience exactly what they want. Another stalk-and-slash sequence in a parking garage is more suspenseful, focusing on Julie's panic as she's pursued by the armed man. It concludes with a brilliant misdirection involving someone coming up the stairs to her apartment. If the film wasn't made during the peak of the genre's popularity, I would almost take it as tongue-in-cheek at times. The ending has two accomplices swerving around on a country road in a way that seems deliberately absurd to me. But the audience paid for razor blade slashings and that's what they get.

This is not the only way in Martino's film is unapologetically lurid. The movie is filled with female nudity, women having their gowns tore off more than once. As the title indicates, the sexual fantasies of Mrs. Wardh are a frequent topic of conversation. Edwige Fenech and her male co-stars kiss and entwine and jiggle their asses. More than once, the film takes us inside her troubled dreams. I don't know how “strange” these vices are exactly – I've seen “Singapore Sling,” this shit ain't nothin' to me – but they certainly are very vice-ful indeed. Such dreamy imagery are paired with a score from Nora Orlandi. It mixes the groovy bass lines and jazzy dissonance with electric organ, mournful flutes, and sigh-like choral singing. When combined with the similarly flashy sets and costumes, as indicative of hip Europe in the swingin' seventies as possible, the tone of a confused but irresistible erotic nightmare slowly encloses around the viewer. 

Perhaps “The Strange Vice” is preoccupied with taking us inside the troubling, lurid fantasies of the titular character simply because it provides the most flesh and blood to the audience. In gialli starring men, the protagonist are usually logical detectives trying to figure out the limited clues before them. When women are the stars, the stories usually concern a descent into madness. This says some clear things about traditional gender roles in Italian culture. At the same time, Martino's film comes off as entirely sympathetic to poor Mrs. Wardh. Her husband can't please her. Jean could but was also a creep and an asshole. George seems like the kind of swarthy lover she needs but he has secrets as well. No wonder her desires are driving her mad. This woman can't get a good fuck and a man who treats her like an actual human being. One imagines this is a plight that many a female has had to navigate. The film doesn't come close to escaping the leering sexism of seventies Euro-sleaze but, simply by centering the audience with a troubled missus, it forces us to consider the pain of a woman beset on all sides by vile, manipulative men. 

I do wish, however, that Mrs. Julie Wardh was a little more fleshed-out. Despite the whole movie revolving around the interior life of the main character, she remains somewhat distant to us. She is tossed back and forth by the different men in her lives, each one controlling her in diverse ways. Edwige Fenech looks as glamorous as can be in and out of a succession of trendy outfits. Ultimately, her history and what actually motivates her is kept obscure from us. This is probably because the film must leap through the hoops of a classically convoluted giallo plot. The last thirty minutes is a mishmash of double crosses, intersecting schemes and ploys playing against one another. Rather than center in on the heroine, the film devotes time to supporting players that exist to be red herrings or another branch of the conspiracy targeting Fenech. All in the name of catching the audience off-guard and leaving us as confused as the protagonist. 

These are flaws that Martino would improve upon in his future gialli. “All the Colors of the Dark,” which this film plays a lot like a prototype for, leans into the paranoid, dream-strewn mindset of its heroine more, determined to let us get to know her better. “Your Vice is a Locked Door and Only I Have the Key” – which takes its title from a line of dialogue here – doubles down on the depravity, madness, and style to considerable improvement. Still, there's no denying that this one is a strong slice of the kinky, twisting, bloody thrills we come to expect from the giallo concept. I guess next year I have to watch “The Case of the Scorpion's Tail,” one of these Martino made between Fenech collaborations that nobody seems to talk about much? That would break the backwards movements I've been making though... [7/10]

African Kung-Fu Nazis (2019)

 

Cinema made on the African continent has been making some global in-roads within the last decade. My Horror Around the World tour last year included a stop-over in Nigeria, which seems to have defined the West African school of film making for most people globally. Near-by Ghana would seem to have a thriving movie industry of their own, however. (Though the Wikipedia article on the subject currently carries a disclaimer that it might contain “hallucinated information” generated by A.I., because we live in the stupidest dystopia.) Outside of the colorful and bizarre home-made posters for imported pictures, Ghanese cinema is almost completely unknown among English-speaking film fans. Simply put, it's not often distributed over here. However, proving that a silly title and an outrageous premise can still garner attention, there is one recent exception to that rule. “African Kung-Fu Nazis” would seem to be the first martial arts movie made in Ghana. It is also, one assumes, the first Nazi-ploitation movie made in Ghana. I don't know if it's the country's first zombie movie but it's probably the most prominent example, at the very least. 

Recorded history would lead you to believe that Adolf Hitler died in a bunker under Berlin in 1945 and that Hideaki Tojo was executed by hanging in 1948 for his war crimes. The truth is, however, that both leaders escaped and fled, via submarine, to Ghana. Having mastered the secrets of Japanese karate, both men have reached peak human strength and conquered aging. Decades later, the Fuhrer and his minions have re-emerged in Ghana with the goal of establishing a Fourth Reich. He uses a magical flag to hypnotize the locals into Aryan zombie warriors, to build an army of super-powered slaves. Meanwhile, young martial artist Addae returns to his home town. He practices Shadow Snake Style kung-fu with the other members of his dojo. His master agrees to compete against Hitler and his Ghan-Arian goons in a contest of skills but end up murdered by the dictator instead. He also brainwashes Addae's girlfriend into becoming his new Eva Braun. Determined to avenge his sensai and save his community, Addae seeks the teachings of three great masters to become the greatest kung-fu fighter in all of Ghana. 

Here in the west, the perception of African film making has mostly been shaped by the likes of “Who Killed Captain Alex?” or “Pretty Liars 1.” Basically, reducing entire nation's cinematic output down to out-of-context clips or wacky trailers marked by awkward dialogue, stilted acting, zero-budget special effects, improbable stunt work, and archetypal plotting. White nerds laughing at foreign productions because of their perceived cheesiness is a long-held practice heavy with racist connotations. However, that doesn't mean local directors in those countries aren't willing to play into international perceptions. Ghanese studios are closely linked to Nigeran ones, my sources tell me. This means “African Kung-Fu Nazis” has the heavily accented English dialogue, amateur acting, low production values, and After-Effects provided muzzle flashes we ignorant Americans associate with Nollywood productions. It is an aggressively silly movie and very self-aware of that fact. The plot depending on unlikely occurrences, like two of the Axis power leaders surviving into the modern day or entire schools of African kung-fu, is only the beginning. A portly fellow being a master of drunken kung-fu, Hermann Göring being resurrected as a large black man named Horse-Man, Tojo developing a taste for African woman alongside glowing fists and a giant dong, or Ghanese people becoming Aryan through the magical application of flour are only a few examples of the tongue-in-cheek shenanigans on display here.  

I have a strong stomach for campy, self-mocking gaggery like this. “African Kung-Fu Nazis” certainly has some amusing moments. Each of the battles to the death concludes with hilariously over-the-top fatal blows, usually accentuated with knowingly clumsy digital effects. Some of the jokes are pretty good, such as Hitler describing his replacement Eva Braun as just like the old one but “tanner.” My favorite bit is the sudden appearance of a masked luchador among the combatants, who sounds a lot like “Macho Man” Randy Savage. Gratuitous product placement for a liquor brand known as Adonko Bitters – a real product, it seems – is a decent running gag. It must also be said that the fight choreography on-display isn't bad either. However, the kind of energy necessary to make fast-paced goofballery like this consistently hilarious can be difficult to come by. By the time Addae is training with the third master – a priestess in the woods who mostly speaks in non-sequiturs – or having a climatic shoot-out with Hitler, the joke has worn a little thin. You can only have a movie yell “Look at how irreverent and campy we can be!' for so long before it gets tedious. 

Obviously, the mixture of classic exploitation movie tropes is part of the joke here. Conspiracies about Hitler's survival and Nazi plots, kung-fu treachery, and zombies are exactly the kind of outrageous plot points the public at large associates with grindhouse cinema of old. To the point that all three – but the Nazis mostly – have been reduced to “le epic bacon meme” status within contexts such as these. I have no idea what significance the memories of Nazi Germany and the tenants of National Socialism has among the citizens of Ghana. One imagines these plot points were picked because of their easily recognized absurdity. Nazis being rendered as cartoon supervillains in comic books, video games, and movies like these is probably part of why fascism has so successfully re-emerged in the 21st century. If we can distance ourselves from these ideas by treating them as ironic bits, it's easy to say that we “aren't like” the villains of the past. However, the plot point that Hitler is literally swaying people to his will via the power of a flag does strike me as a commentary of sorts on the insidious appeal of fascism. All throughout the film, the German tyrant repeatedly emphasizes how this is a specifically Ghanese version of Nazism. Almost as if emphasizing an idealized cultural identity, no matter how vague or detached from the actual stated goals of a movement it might be, is an important part of the fascist playbook. 

Or maybe it's all merely a joke. Neo-Nazis have become obnoxiously difficult to get rid of but the iconography of Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan should always be held up to mockery, right? I'm almost certainly reading way too much into an intentionally ridiculous movie. I certainly had some fun with “African Kung-Fu Nazis.” Everyone involved is clearly enjoying themselves. There's something very much to admire in directors and actors not letting a lack of resources keep them from making movies. However, this is an example of a joke that probably shouldn't support a feature length runtime. It also needed more of those pancake batter zombies. I guess their presence, the exaggerated violence, and multiple fantastical plot points is more than enough to qualify this for autumn viewing. A sequel was made this year but I think I'll want to see a Ghana-made film not pitched so clearly at snark-poisoned internet commentators in other countries next. [6/10]

 

 

 

Supernatural: Night of the Marionettes

Long before the Winchester brothers started their fight against evil, a different “Supernatural” aired on BBC1. The eight episodes were designed to replicate the tone of the gothic horrors of the twenties and thirties. This is evident in “Night of the Marionettes.” “Supernatural” had a framing device, where applicants to the Club of the Damned would tell a frightening story, the quality judged by whether they are allowed to live. “Night of the Marionettes” follows Howard Lawrence, a literary scholar in the 1890s, obsessed with Byron and Shelley. Alongside his wife Elspeth and daughter Mary, he is retracing the steps the poets took on their way to Villa Diodati. They stop at a mysterious inn in the Swiss alps. The remote building is staffed by strange figures. Howard discovers books related to Shelley in his room, coming to believe that the group must have stopped here on the same journey sixty years before. The inn attracts an audience with the macabre, life-sized marionette shows they put on. The puppet show – about a stitched-together corpse brought to life before it attacks and kills a maiden – disturbs Lawrence and his wife but fascinates their daughter. Lawrence begins to suspect that this bizarre performance inspired Mary Shelley to write “Frankenstein.” Also, that it's not merely a work of fiction. 

“Supernatural” does a good job of matching the literary tone of the Victorian horror stories it is emulating. There are quite a lot of period costumes, proper accents, and high-minded discussion here. This program definitely had a slightly bigger budget than the anthologies series that aired on ITV. “Night of the Marionettes” layers in references to “Frankenstein,” obviously, but “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari” as well. The stage-play recalls the expressionistic visuals of that film, with this monster looking quite a bit like Cesare. The play is also rather sexually explicit, the revenant pulling the sleeping maiden from her bed and humping her before thrashing her to death. That Lawrence's daughter, also named Mary, begins to mirror Mary Shelley's writing style in her journal suggests a parallel history here. When the monster inevitably invades her bedroom at the end, it brings the simmering sexuality of Shelley's book – and most gothic horror of the period – to the surface. The Frankenstein monster is the Jungian shadow of the Victorian era, all the impolite and lowly tendencies the proper society of the time sought to repress. Naturally, its rampaging libido is unleashed on the virginal young girl.

This is also one of the few riffs on “Frankenstein” that acknowledge something that's always been implied in the text: That the monster is uniquely repulsive to the living because he represents a violation of natural law. The marionette show the innkeepers put on is certainly weird. Human beings moving as if they are stiff puppets on strings does create an uncanny effect. At the same time, it's not like the performance is that horrifying. However, the show seems to shake Lawrence, his wife, and daughter to their core. After Lawrence forces his way into the laboratory, what he sees seems to briefly shatter his sanity. Over the many faithful and loose adaptations of “Frankenstein,” there's been much discussion of man tampering in God's domain. Few actually entertain the idea that the monster's mere existence – a dead thing made living again – would have the same effect on a sane man as locking eyes on one of Lovecraft's Elder Gods. Truly, there are some thing we are not meant to know.

“Supernatural” definitely seems to wear its very English pretensions on its sleeves a bit. It's as stage-like and dialogue-driven as many of the other British anthologies I've been watching this month. However, “Night of the Marionettes” does pack in some solid, old time ambiance. The isolated inn is a shadowy location. The unusually pale staff certainly reminds one of Bela Lugosi's Dracula and Lon Chaney's Phantom of the Opera. The largely silent presentation of the marionette play does build an eerie feeling. That carries into the increasingly grim final act. I was surprised at the amount of tension this one built up before the end. It is slow and stuffy but quite interesting from a writing perspective, with some strong performance. Maybe they should've shot it in black-and-white though... [7/10]

 

The Addams Family: Ophelia Finds Romance

 

Someone must have decided that Ophelia Frump was too fun of a character to only use in flashbacks. Morticia's even more eccentric twin sister appears again, sending the family a message that she has been dumped by her latest boyfriend and is distraught. Minutes afterwards, she appears at the Addams' home... With her new beau besides her. That would be Horatio Bartholomew, an enthusiastic man who seems to be fabulously rich. Gomez and Morticia are immediately suspicious, suspecting he is a cad that is only after the family fortune. They go about investigating the man, discovering that the local rich boys' club haven't heard of him. Morticia then attempts a mock-seduction of Horatio, to test his loyalty. This goes quite wrong, Gomez quickly getting into a sword fight with his sister-in-law's new husband-to-be. 

In her second appearance, Ophelia does get a bit more fleshed-out. It would seem being a fool for love, always seeking men who ultimately dump her, is a habit of her's. Her super-strength and fondness for Judo throws is still present. However, she comes across as a much weirder, more bipolar figure. Her mood swings wildly between giddy and depressed. That would explain why Morticia is both protective of her and a little weary around her. You can tell Carolyn Jones enjoyed playing a character that does not have Morticia's calming sensibilities smoothing out her eccentricities. A little bit where Ophelia offers Horatio a daisy to pluck out of her hair, resulting in her leg kicking upwards, is probably my favorite physical gag in this one.

A big problem facing this episode is that the conclusion is evident to the viewer early on. Our protagonists believe Horatio to be a con artist. The rules of comedic pay-out dictate that they turn out to be wrong, the man actually being a genuine millionaire who inexplicably loves oddball Ophelia. That diffuses a bit of the punch from this one. Many of the joys in “The Addams Family” emerges from watching the lovable cast play off each other Putting a new character into the mix and building most of the episode around Gomez' interaction with him isn't as much fun. Robert Nichols – previously seen in “The Thing from the Another World" – is a decent guest star, though his ridiculous mustache tells you most everything you need to know about the character. The scene where Morticia attempts to seduce him does provide us with a chance to see the usually faithful wife being a bit more seductive. I enjoyed that. That same scene features a good bit of physical comedy with Thing. Probably the best joke in this episode is when Gomez excites himself by using some French. Not a stand-out episode but Ophelia is growing on me as a character. [6/10]

Halloween 2025: September 13th

 

Predator: Killer of Killers (2025)

Back when I was in the sixth grade or so, my school had one of those annual book fairs. For whatever reasons, I picked up a paperback collection of the comic book “Predator Vs. Judge Dredd,” despite its gory content probably not being teacher approved. Nestled in the back of that collection was a second story, told entirely without dialogue. It depicted an African tribesman, sometime in the distant past, encountering an extraterrestrial hunter while on a manhood ritual. Dark Horse often told stories like that through their extensive “Predator” and “Aliens” comic book series, realizing these monsters can work in almost any setting. The cinematic installment of this particular franchise never showed any interest in following this lead until Dan Trachtenberg took over with 2022's “Prey,” which did just that. Trachenberg was clearly so fond of this approach that he's doing something similar with “Badlands,” the forthcoming release in the franchise which has a post-apocalyptic theme... And the surprise animated “Predator” movie that was made in secret and dropped on Hulu back in April. “Predator: Killer of Killers” sends the iconic alien into three different eras of mankind, once again showing how versatile this particular creature truly is. 

In 7th century Norway, Viking warrior Ursa and her teenage son Anders seek revenge on the Krivich warlord that murdered her father. The bloody onslaught into enemy territory is interrupted by the arrival of a human hunting alien creature, equipped with a sonic wave manipulating weapon. 700 years later, in feudal Japan, the sons of a samurai damyo are forced to duel to see who will inherit his royal role. Now as adult, the losing brother – acting as a shinobi – sneaks into the family stronghold to resolve the sibling rivalry. Plans are interrupted by an intergalactic interloper. In 1942, teenage John Torres is drafted into World War II. While stationed on a battleship, the fighter jets start being shot down by a mysterious craft that doesn't belong to either side of the earthly conflict. In the final segment, the survivors of these three encounters awaken on an alien world, forced to compete in gladiatorial combat for the amusement of the trophy-obsessed travelers.

The idea of the original “Predator” was that Earth's mightiest warriors, over-the-top icons of machismo like Arnold and The Body, had met their match in the form of a big game hunter from beyond the stars. It established a pattern that most of the four or six sequels have followed. We Earthlings are always outmatched by the Predator's superior technology at first but human ingenuity and our never-say-die attitude eventually wins out. “Killer of Killers” sees this same outline playing out four times in a row. This gives the impression that these Yautja – the species name for these creatures introduced in the comics that I guess is canonized now – actually aren't very good at hunting other lifeforms. However, it is a sturdy formula. The viking familiarity with the frozen Scandinavian landscape, a samurai's sense of brotherhood, or a World War II mechanic forced to think on his feet in mid-air all prove to be interesting ways to get the upper hand on the aliens. And maybe there's simply an evergreen appeal, in we mighty humans actually being allowed to be the underdogs against a greater threat. 

Obviously, setting does ninety percent of the work in “Killer of Killers.” There's an undeniable cool factor in the concept of the Predator fighting Viking warriors, of a ninja and a samurai teaming up against the same alien, or a WWII dog-fight with an UFO. However, each segment does a good job of quickly getting us invested in the characters. Ursa introduces herself with a tale of woe, detailing her quest of vengeance. The sibling rivalry that drives the feud between Kenji and Kiyoshi is the kind of universal theme anyone can relate to. Same goes for John Torres trying to prove himself as a mechanic getting his first shot at piloting a plane. The characters are archetypal. The film does nothing to dissuade cliches of vikings being obsessed with paying blood to blood or the samurai fixation on bushido honor. Once John gets a tough but fair commanding officer, it's not hard to guess what will happen to him. (The officer is voiced by Michael Biehn, who now joins Bill Paxton and Lance Henrisken in a very exclusive club.) 

As simple as the characters and stories in “Killer of Killers” can be, it works in the film's favor. The script takes just enough time with each character and setting to fully establish them, before introducing the mandibled threat on their tails. These themes are universal, the characters straight-to-the-point, to get us hooked as quickly as possible, since the film only has so much time to showcase each segment. This also leaves plenty of room for the other thing “Killer of Killers” is about: Kick-ass action. “Prey” showed Trachtenberg had a talent for creatively engineered mayhem, the camera weaving in and out of stylish showcases of high-tech butchery. Being a cartoon – visual effects expert Josh Wassung is credited with co-directing the film and presumably handled a lot of the technical aspects of the animation – allows this one to go further with that approach than “Prey” did. Ursa dismembering enemies with a battle axe and shield is a smoothly executed, highly brutal sequence. The stylized swordplay of the samurai sequence is also extremely well down, the end including a visual trademark of the Jidaigeki genre that is truly satisfying. 

If there is a weak link in “Killer of Killers'” quartet of stories, it is probably the World War II sequence. That sequence sees a Predator – this one has an eye-patch, so you know he's a bad-ass – mostly doing his hunting from a spaceship. The film works hard to incorporate the species' trademark technology into this setting, shooting heated chains that can cut through jets like a cheese slicer, but it's not quite as compelling. Either way, it's incredibly clear that Dan Trachtenberg loves playing in this sandbox. Each hunter is outfitted with their own technological gimmick. There's a sonic wave super punch, a spear that sprouts extra barbs, and a chained whip. Pretty cool stuff and logical expansions on what has appeared in previous entries. The final segment takes us back to the home world, giving us a bit more of a peek at the alien culture that produced such honor-obsessed poachers. You can tell the movie was made by massive “Predator” fans because the leader of the clan has a cape of spinal columns that bares more than a passing resemblance to the old Kenner Toys conception of a “King” Predator. That made me smile, big and proud. 

If all modern franchise film-making can be described as overgrown nerds playing with their action figures well into their old age, the mid-credits teaser “Killer of Killers” throws in will do nothing to dissuade that notion. Which is a fair enough criticism. I'm not sure every corner of a nostalgic nerd property needs to be overturned, in order to mine them for all they're worth. However, at least “Predator: Killer of Killers” expands more than it retreads. The freedom of animation – competently done, if not a mind-blowing application of the cell-shaded CGI style seen in most post-”Into the SpiderVerse” features – allows a lot more leeway in what can be shown here versus in a live action film. I don't think an “Avengers Assemble” of past “Predator” heroes is necessary. However, Trachtenberg and his team clearly have a passion for this world that extends beyond merely homaging what came before. That bodes well for "Badlands" – annoyingly not releasing during the Halloween season – and hopefully for the rest of the franchise's future as well. [7/10]

 

 

 

Perfect Strangers (1984)

To me, Larry Cohen is one of the essential New York City filmmakers. Fred Williamson strutting through Harlem as "Black Caesar," Andy Kaufman becoming a rogue shooter during the St. Patrick's Day parade in "God Told Me To,"  "Q: The Winged Serpent" roosting in the Chrysler Building: The guy was gifted at invoking something essential about America's most prominent metropolis. In 1984, Cohen would return to NYC after an unsuccessful year in Hollywood. He would shoot two low budget thrillers back-to-back, made with no-name cast plucked from the local theater scene. While the self-reflective "Special Effects" has grabbed a little bit of attention over the years, the second of this burst of creativity, "Perfect Strangers," remains largely overlooked. If you search the title on Wikipedia, you have to scroll a bit to find this one. A Google search produces more results about the sitcom and Deep Purple song of the same name. Is this one a hidden gem or a rightfully forgotten piece of Cohen's eccentric career?

Johnny, a young punk in the New York mob, is ordered to knock off a small time drug dealer. He stabs the guy to death in a back alley. Only to realize that a toddler saw the whole thing. Feeling guilty, Johnny tells his boss about the witness. He is next instructed to clean up any loose ends, in whatever manner necessary. Johnny goes about talking to Sally, the two year old's single mother. She is having trouble with her baby-daddy, who never wanted the kid but is now protective of him, and barely scraps by as a clothes reseller. She is charmed by Johnny and soon falls in love with him. He starts to develop feelings for her too and also bonds with Matthew, the kid at the center of all this. As the police continue to investigate the murder and connect Sally to the crime, Johnny is put under more pressure to complete his orders. More killings follow, a child is endangered, and a mother will have to defend her baby.

The entirety of “Perfect Strangers” hinges on a rather implausible idea: That any judge in the land would put a two year old kid up on the witness stand. Matthew is a toddler, non-verbal and unable to dress himself. The likelihood of him remembering witnessing a murder, much less being able to identify the killer, strikes me as unlikely. Moreover, if Johnny had kept his mouth shut and simply not mentioned the kid to the mob, he wouldn't have been commanded to commit infanticide. This speaks to the rather cheesy tone that infects all of “Perfect Strangers.” Cohen and Paul Glickman, his regular cinematographer, made the baffling decision to shoot the entire movie through a waxy, soft-focus lens. This makes the whole film look like a flashback sequence. Dwight Dixon's score – his sole credit – is defined by chintzy sounding synth shrieks. This is paired with some hilariously corny songs from Michael Minard. (Previously of the hilariously corny “Fall Break” from “The Mutilator.”) It's difficult to take whatever angst Johnny might have seriously when he expresses himself by spray painting black outlines of his own body underneath bridges. 

A degree of campiness or intentional melodrama would not be unprecedented, from the director of “The Stuff.” I guess there's a big difference in handing material like this to a professional eccentric like Michael Moriarty versus the less experienced cast here. Brad Rijn, as Johnny, has a strange rhythm to his delivery. He never seems entirely convinced of anything he's saying. Anne Carlisle is a little better as Sally. However, the love story between the two is never anything less than awkward.  The two don't have any sparks so much as a weirdly antagonistic vibe between each other, that the script insists they play as romantic. They go from being strangers to lovers far too quickly. The eventual sex scene can't overcome a sense of discomfort. All the acting in the movie is kind of like that. Stephen Lack, the extremely wooden star of “Scanners,” plays a detective as some sort of camp-gay figure. John Woehrle, as Sally's ex, walks an uneasy balance between stilted and exaggerated. Meanwhile, Carlisle's “Liquid Sky” co-star Otto von Wernherr shows up for one inessential scene, lumbering through a conversation with a distinctly Schwarzeneggerian accent. 

As a romance, “Perfect Strangers” is sunk by the bizarre anti-chemistry between its stars. As a character study of Johnny and his conflicted morality, it never comes together. Mostly because of Rijn's weird performance but also because of the script's refusal to give Johnny any real depth. The scene where he's bathing Matthew and trying to couch the kid on what to say are, I think, supposed to be suspenseful but only come off as uncomfortable. Which is odd because, as a thriller, “Perfect Strangers” is quite competent. Cohen gets right to the point – so to speak – arriving at the bloody stabbing that kicks off the plot the minute the opening credits end. That's a frantically cut scene, a furious stabbing that concludes with blood stylishly splattered on the ground. A moment where Johnny is pushing Matthew on a swing set or the kid is in a mobile merry-go-round come close to catching that same sense of out-of-control danger. As the kid flies overhead – the little actor genuinely seeming in peril – the film taps into the inevitable feeling this is all going to end in tragedy. Which it does. The last act of “Perfect Strangers” transforms into a well executed stalk-and-slash scene, the film finally committing to the slasher undercurrents it was suggesting all along. Right before ending rather abruptly but at least it goes out on a high note. 

The most interesting thing about “Perfect Strangers” has little to do with the genre parameters it plays around in. As was often his style, Cohen shot part of the film right on the streets of New York without any permits at all. When Matthew is abducted briefly by his father, the reactions of the people behind the arguing couple seem genuine. Most notably, a long sequence was shot at an on-going Women Against Pornography march. This brings up another element of the film I've not yet mentioned. Sally's best friend is a die-hard feminist and talks greatly about how women have to defend themselves from men. A key scene has Johnny going ballistic on her ex, beating him in a playground. Any exact message about the relationship between men and women isn't totally coherent. It wouldn't surprise me if Larry Cohen was working through some hang-ups with his own ex-wife through this story. At the end though, the film does seem to come around to the idea that women are pretty justified in being afraid of men, who are too often driven by feelings of violence and entitlement. 

To repeat a statement I think like I've been making a lot this September, “Perfect Strangers” is an extremely flawed film that still has some interesting stuff floating around inside it. When focused on being a grim little thriller, Cohen definitely shows his skills as a consumerist pro at giving the audience what they want. He also couldn't repress his tendency to make his films both a record of their time and place and a statement on some woes of the day. All of which is well and good but not quite enough to make up for the movie being a bit of a fiasco otherwise. A silly script, an uneven cast, a fine layer of cheese, and a very slow middle keeps “Perfect Strangers” from standing tall on the wings of its dreams. Vinegar Syndrome put the film out on Blu-Ray recently, meaning it will be rediscovered by people who will probably like it more, but I kind of agree with history forgetting this one. [5/10]

 

Door Into Darkness: Eyewitness
La porta sul buio: Tentimane oculare 

 

Last year, I watched an episode of Dario Argento's short-lived seventies anthology series. In the time since, “Door Into Darkness” has gotten a spiffy Blu-Ray release from Severin, along side a few other Argento obscurities. Ultimately, Dario's style of murder mysteries proved a little too intense for Italian television. This is why the series would end with “Eyewitness,” only its fourth episode. The hour follows Roberta who, while driving home one night, sees a woman leap out in front of her car. She looks closer and sees that the woman was already bleeding before she was nearly struck, spotting an obscured male figure nearby. She reports the crime to the police but they are unable to locate a body. Roberta is convinced of what she saw though and continues to investigate on her own. The detective and her boyfriend, Guido, both become concerned about her sanity. Especially when she claims to be pushed into traffic, despite everyone around her reporting that she nearly fell. Once Roberta receives a threatening phone call from the killer – who says he'll track her down that night, while Guido is out of town – she knows she isn't crazy. She's in danger. 

“Eyewitness” has a lot in common with “The Tram,” the installment of “Door Into Darkness” I previously covered. Both episodes present a seemingly impossible mystery: A woman stabbed to death inside a crowded cable car with no witnesses in the former and an apparent murder for which no evidence can be found in the latter. Both hours get off to slow starts, as the protagonists go through the routine of everyone believing they are crazy despite never wavering in their certainty. However, where “The Tram” followed the eccentric detective on the case, “Eyewitness” has the much more classically Argento premise of an ordinary person caught up in a crazy mystery. Marilù Tolo plays Roberta as a woman who is nervous enough to be possibly cracking up but also seems sensible enough. She returns to the scene of the supposed crime, goes over the events in her memories again and again, and tries to assemble a logical explanation. Once you factor in the creepy phone call, the similarities to “Profondo rosso” truly come into focus. Like in that classic, the killer ends up revealing themselves after the hero gets too close to the truth.

The gender of the protagonist adds an interesting new layer though. Roberta is surrounded by men who think she's hysterical. Her boyfriend never outright says he's concerned about her sanity. The detective admits he respects her and believes her recollection of events. (While also implying he's romantically interested in her.) At the same time, there's an undeniable layer of condensation to their words of encouragement. Argento's work has been accused of sexism many times over the years and not always without good reason. However, “Eyewitness” does force the viewer to relate to a woman who is doubted, looked down on, and manipulated by the men around her. It feels like something of a rebuttal to the idea that the director had issues with women. (Though how pushed around Roberta is by the plot, not exactly being proactive in the second half and waiting for the killer to come get here, makes it difficult to interpret “Eyewitness” as a feminist text.)

The opening credits of “Eyewitness” claims it was directed by Roberto Pariante, Argento's second unit man on the Animal Trilogy. In fact, Dario was displeased with Pariante's work and fired him after a few days. He finished the episode himself before having Luigi Cozzi go back and re-shoot everything Pariante did complete. You can definitely see Argento's stylistic fingerprints on “Eyewitness.” Early on, there's a point-of-view shot from the perspective of a tea cup. Later, Roberta is watched by the camera as she listens to an answering machine. The episode has a jazz score, largely composed of frantic drumming, that recalls Ennio Morricone's soundtrack for “Four Flies on Grey Velvet.” The climax has the girl cornered in her own home, while a black-gloved killer wielding scissors busts through the door. It's a tense sequence and shows that the director could still create plenty of suspense without the gore of his theatrical releases. The denouncement is a bit disappointing, the responsible party simply explaining the how and why of their crimes. Still, up to that point, “Eyewitness” is a suitably Argento-esque experience that fans will surely get a kick out of. [7/10]

 

 

 

The Addams Family: Gomez the Cat Burglar

 

After having extra helpings of Grandmama's yak stew at dinner, Gomez gets out of bed in the middle of the night with an episode of sleep walking. Being an Addams, Morticia doesn't consider this suspicious. Nor does she connect this moment with the story on the news paper the next day of a cat burglar stealing valuables in the neighborhood. As the title reveals, these two incidents are very connected, Gomez's newly acquired collection of gold, jewels, and furs in the basement making it apparent. The family makes multiple attempts to prevent the patriarch's nightly somnolent activity – such as Fester standing guard outside the bedroom door or Morticia playing a snake charmer's flute to hypnotize her husband – but nothing works. When the cops show up, something more serious most be done.  

"Gomez the Cat Burglar" is a very sight gag centric episode. Luckily, the bits of wacky physical comedy and implementation of goofy props are consistently amusing. Lurch acts literally when instructed to help Gomez "hit the sack." The sequence where Fester attempts to stand guard outside the master bedroom – he immediately falls asleep – keeps escalating in nicely ridiculous ways. I like the reveal that the Addams keep bags of dirt, including a fire axe behind a "Break In Case of Emergency" glass, in the hallways. The bit with Morticia playing a magic flute to hypnotize her husband also gets silly quickly too, Gomez busting out a bugle in response. The last act features John Astin disguising himself as an old man to fool the police but it's spoiled when Morticia says "Voila." Good to see the writers finding new variations on the "Tish, that's French!" running joke. The resolution also managed to catch me off-guard, one goofy joke coming back around to resolve the plot. 

This episode is especially a showcase for Carolyn Jones' comedic timing. Her initial reaction to her husband sleepwalking or her response to a newspaper smashing through a window are both so perfectly deadpan. Though it does strike me as odd that she's confused by her ability to only cut paper dolls with multiple limbs. Or Fester reacting to her modernist painting with bafflement. You'd think this family would be delighted by such weirdness! Presumably not wanting to be left behind by Lily and Herman, this episode reveals that Gomez and Morticia are now sleeping in the same bed together. (He puffs his cigar in his sleep and her nightgown is almost identical to her regular clothes, both subtle little gags.) In fact, Gomez says the word "Sex" later in the episode. Maybe 1965 was less prudish than I previously thought? Also, there's a cool shot when Fester and Morticia enter the dark Playroom, the two of them framed between the spokes of gold wagon wheel. Nice cinematography there. [7/10]

Director Report Card: James Wan (2021)

10. Malignant

You've always heard of filmmakers trying to break into Hollywood by making a low budget horror movie. The idea being that they could piggy-back off the genre film's success in order to make what I suppose some people would call “real” movies. As far as I can tell, this hasn't actually happened that often. Sam Raimi and Peter Jackson are only a few exceptions that come to mind. Having said that, after directing two billion dollar grossing action movies, James Wan certainly could have stopped making horror movies, if he wanted to. Instead, he's continuously returned to the genre that he clearly loves. The director took the blank check presumably afforded to him after “Aquaman” made a bundle for WB and spent it on “Malignant,” a weirder and wilder horror movie than any of the previous ones he made. While “Malignant” failed to recreate the box office success of “Saw,” “Insidious,” or “The Conjuring,” it was well received among a certain breed of horror nerd. In fact, it's also the movie that finally convinced me that I actually like this guy.

Madison has no memories of her life before being adopted by her foster parents. She barely recalls her childhood before her sister, Sydney, was born. She has moved back into the home in Seattle where they grew up. Her marriage is strained by the number of miscarriages she's had, which her abusive husband blames her for. After smashing Madison's head into the wall, an intruder sneaks into the house and violently murders the husband. Following another miscarriage, Madison begins to have disturbing visions of someone called Gabriel violently murdering people... All of whom are doctors, who treated her as a child. She discovers that “Gabriel” was also the name of her disturbing imaginary friend as a kid. With the cops suspicious of her connections to the killing, Madison and Sydney dig more into her past to discover a disturbing truth. Gabriel is very real and his connection to Madison is far deeper than she could ever guess.

“Malignant” can be described as a type of movie that is, when done poorly, insufferably self-indulgent but, when handled right, results in some of the coolest motion pictures ever: The director just shoving in stuff he likes for the entirety of the run time. As evident by all of his haunted house movies, James Wan is fond of foreboding old buildings, surrounded by fog and containing creepy attics. Extra points if it's an abandoned hospital too. “Saw” featured a mild detective element, which also appears here. The killer has long gothy hair and wears a black trench coat, not unlike a spectre that previously appeared in “Insidious.” It's only by some miracle that “Malignant” doesn't feature a creepy ventriloquist dummy. There's a sequence set in the Seattle underground, one gets the feeling mostly because the director had been wanting to utilize it for a while. The killer broadcasting their thoughts via scrambled electronics also strikes me as a premise that had been searching for a home. Somehow, “Malignant” doesn't feel like a grab bag of random, unrelated ingredients, all these wild premises blending together into one kooky narrative. 

Something else Wan likes, it would seem, is fucking around with camera angles. After being the cinematographer for the last three “Conjuring”-verse projects, Michael Burgess graduates to working with the franchise's creator directly. The guy clearly knows his stuff too. Another reoccurring element of “Malignant's” script is Madison experiencing Gabriel's murders as psychic visions. This is accompanied by the environment distorting and melting away, a fun extension of the grungy visuals Wan employed way back in “Saw.” When “Malignant” really starts playing, we have smooth, gliding point-of-view shots or overhead perspectives roaming through a home. “Malignant” begins with a frantic “Jurassic Park” homage full of playful Dutch angles. One of the most distinctive moments in the film prominently displays a massive Silvercup Studios sign in the background. Any fans of eighties genre cinema will recognize this as a shout-out to “Highlander,” Wan acknowledging his debt to fellow Aussie Russell Mulcahy. And I fucking love “Highlander,” so it's an unexpected nod I truly enjoyed.

This is not the only obvious influence Wan happily points to in “Malignant.” Early in production, the film was described as being “in line with a giallo film.” Upon release, a lot of people followed this thread and declared "Malignant" a full-blown giallo homage. I think that's overstating it. It's a murder mystery of sorts, with a black gloved killer that wields a distinctive knife. A pair of chummy detectives are also on the murderer's trail. However, they aren't the protagonists and the story eventually leans in a totally different direction, more akin to a modern revamping of an eighties monster movie. When Wan said "Malignant" was giallo adjacent, what he really meant is that it was Argento inspired. Which mostly meant drawing from the exaggerated color palette of "Suspiria." Not that this is a complaint. Wan has sprinkled some neon reds into his previous films and goes full-hog with it here. Searing red lighting stands alongside deep blacks and stylized blues. The result is a movie that is way more striking, visually, than the likes of "Insidious" or "The Conjuring." Callbacks to horror nerd favorites from the seventies and eighties is another thing Wan likes, another ingredient swirling around in the stew of influences that is "Malignant."

He doesn't stop there. When the film first debuted in theaters, I was told to go in as blind as possible. However, I still caught wind of the movie containing elements people described as "Henenlotter-esque." Wan also enjoys wild twists in the narrative, having included them to varying degrees of success from time to time. For its first half, "Malignant" seems to be chasing a hacky story swerve straight from the Donald Kaufman playbook: That the hero and the villain are the same person, suffering from a split personality. The script repeatedly suggests Gabriel is supernatural, as displayed by his various superpowers. However, his deep link to Madison's mind makes you expect him to merely be a repressed persona. Remembering the comparison to Henenlotter, I fully expected a "Basket Case" reveal: That Gabriel was a conjoined twin of Madison's, separated in their youth and now back for revenge. That he targets the doctors that experimented on them makes you think this. That's a lot closer to what "Malignant" is doing but this hides another, far wackier left-turn. That the script continuously kept me guessing, going in ever more unexpected directions, made that first viewing a delightful experience. For bonus measure, a "Saw" style twist – that an imprisoned supporting player is a lot closer than expected – occurs early in the story in an explosively dramatic fashion. 

What all of these choices represent – the comic book colors, the script always topping itself with wilder twists, a playful blending of genre elements – is the director and his team happily ditching the commitment to realism seen in his earlier work. "Saw" and "Insidious" got ridiculous in spots. All his ghost movies have paranormal plots. Ultimately though, these films take place in "the real world." They are rooted in a desire to be plausible, no matter how fantastical the stories got. Most American cinema is like this, committed to reflecting reality even with the inclusion of fantastical events. This has always been a detriment to Wan's horror movies because, deep down, he's a silly boy. I've always sensed that his heart belonged more to "Evil Dead 2" than "Seven." The Saturday morning cartoon theatrics of "Furious 7" and "Aquaman" allowed Wan to indulge this desire. With "Malignant," he finally brings that energy to his macabre side. Thus, when Sydney drives up to a towering mental hospital, she parks right on the edge of a perilous cliff. When the cops finally deduce that Madison has something to do with these killings, she's thrown into the hoosegow with a collection of farcical female crooks that seem straight out of a parody of women-in-prison films. Because why not? Why not insert a lady with a fabulous afro and a seventies pimp suit? Is there a good reason not to add Zoe Bell with a hideous mullet into your body-horror filled, giallo-adjacent, slasher-esque psycho-thriller? Bell gets to scream "What the fuck?!" in reaction to the movie's most outrageous reveal. That is how the viewer is supposed to respond too, with baffled disbelief that what was advertised as a "normal" studio horror movie went there.

In other words, "Malignant" is having fun. It dismisses the need to be bound to boring plausibility, not caring if you laugh at it or with it. This instinct informs the choice to have something else follow Wan here from his blockbusters. With a half-hour to go, "Malignant" suddenly shifts again into an over-the-top action flick. Yes, this hideously deformed movie monster with a delightfully weird gimmick also knows kung-fu. Did I mention Gabriel has super strength too? This results in an incredibly entertaining, beautifully unexpected sequence of the villain tearing through an entire police station, graphically snapping bones, crushing heads, leaping through the air, and tossing a chair a yard away and exactly hitting the intended target. "Malignant" fully commits to this swing into Hong Kong action, with skillfully choreographed stunts and a novel combination of puppetry, make-up, and a very talented contortionist/dancer to pull it all off. I suppose what I'm saying is more horror movies would benefit from having their bad guy, without warning, start throwing out some pencak silat moves over an hour into their runtime. 

Horror movies aimed right at the Fangoria crowd, assembled from random parts of seventies and eighties classics, aren't often especially deep affairs. "Malignant's" script is credited to Akela Cooper – the author of "Hell Fest," another underrated throwback to eighties horror – but is based on a story by Wan and his wife, Ingrid Bisu. Meaning some of his writerly quirks are undeniably present. "Malignant" is mostly concerned with catching the viewer off-guard with successively wilder twists. However, something else James Wan likes are stories of childhood trauma returning to haunt someone as an adult. That was the central thrust of his "Insidious" movies, the ghostly presence eventually emerging as a symbol of abusive parents, and "Dead Silence" played with that a little too. All throughout her childhood, Madison has heard voices telling her to do awful things. Once she received the proper medical treatment, this lurking voice was suppressed deep within her skull... Until a blow from her abusive husband awoke that subconscious personality. Gabriel targets the doctors that tried to destroy him but also Madison's sister and birth mother. The implication seems to be that Gabriel wouldn't exist without this primordial parental abandonment. He also sees Madison's foster parents having another child through biological means as further evidence that he is unwanted. This turns Gabriel into a symbol of mental illness, a monster inherited from Madison's biological parents that is always lurking in the back of her skull. He wants to destroy the people she loves, to remind Madison that she deserves to be alone and unloved. The title refers to the exact nature of what Gabriel is. However, it also refers to another type of malignancy born out of our genes that waits to sprout up again, like any tumor or cancer would. 

Indie horror guy J.T. Petty also did an uncredited pass on the script. If anybody else saw "S&Man" or "Hellbenders" too, you might also recognize some of Petty's sick sense of humor here. Rather than simply have its villain function as a metaphor for intrusive thoughts or a genetic propensity towards schizophrenia and depression, Gabriel is literally a horrible monster existing within Madison's physical skull that had to be shoved down and hidden. This essentially makes the villain an elaborate pun, a visual joke literalizing the idea of a suppressed personality. At the same time, this is the latest horror film from the man that brought the world Jigsaw, Annabelle, the Nun, and the Lipstick Faced Demon. Gabriel was definitely designed to be a new cool horror villain, the kind to spawn future Halloween costumes, that would've gotten a Movie Maniacs action figure back in the nineties. The long, stringy black hair and leather slicker recalls goth fashion and shock-rock imagery. Gabriel's trademark weapon, a dagger fashioned from a trophy his doctor owned, was clearly designed to be as immediately recognizable as Freddy Krueger's glove or the Lament Configuration. What makes Gabriel a lot more interesting than the director's previous attempts to reverse engineer a new horror icon is his especially grotesque defining gimmick. While utilizing contorted, twisted body parts for easy shocks have long since become a much-abused cliché, "Malignant" pushes it so much further than any other film, becoming a genuinely new approach to the idea that has an undeniable novelty to it. That grotesqueness might have made Gabriel too gross to become a new pop icon. However, the way the character combines rubber creature effects, twitchy body horror, and theatrical costuming truly works for me.

How much of "Malignant" is going for campy laughs over intense chills is debatable. The film largely strikes me as in-on-its-own-joke while playing the material fairly straight. This is true of most of the supporting cast. George Young and Michole Briana White play the detectives on the case. Young has a perpetual look of annoyance on her face, as if she can't believe any of this shit, while Young carefully tows the line between being sympathetic towards Madison's cause and baffled by what he sees. Maddie Hasson brings a plucky spirit to Sydney, someone eager to defend her older sister and that the audience can root for. All the actors playing the doctors involved in Gabriel's past, Jacqueline McKenzie and Christine Clemenson primarily, play the material with utmost seriousness. They treat the pulpy melodrama of the film as if they are living it themselves. 

A funny thing about even the best performances in "Malignant" is that they act as if they have been dubbed into English. If Wan truly was seeking to replicate the look and feel of a seventies Italian flick, I suppose this hard-to-nail-down effect was all too intentional. However, that odd off-beat quality to the acting is most noticeable in the film's lead. Annabelle Willis previously starred (not as the doll) in the first "Annabelle," so one assumed Wan must see something in her. Truthfully, her performance is kind of terrible in "Malignant." She speaks every line as if she's on the verge of breaking into an operatic scream. Her attempts to play Madison as panicked or traumatized come across as jittery and overdone. When the character has to be heroic, she is far less believable. It doesn't distract from me enjoying the rest of the movie. However, it is another noticeably weird thing about this off-beat flick. 

Just as making "Dead Silence" after "Saw" was a deliberate attempt to avoid getting pigeonholed as only a gore guy, James Wan made "Malignant" to avoid becoming known in Hollywood primarily as the ghost movie dude. It didn't exactly work, as "Malignant" failed to attract a mainstream audience the way the director's previous shriek shows did. From the admittedly small sample size I've witnessed, it seems the average moviegoer found this one too goofy or something. That same quality made it instantly beloved among horror fan crowds. As James Wan has plenty of other projects to fall back on, all "Malignant's" mediocre performance truly means is we won't get a sequel. Gabriel will not return to vex Madison in increasingly weirder ways. I would have liked to have seen that, especially if it meant Wan became more willing to mix his love of horror imagery, intense violence, and plot twists with the throw-it-in, go-nuts approach of this movie. Upon re-watch, "Malignant" has emerged as not only my pick for Wan's best horror movie but probably my favorite thing he's yet done. [Grade: A-]

Halloween 2024: September 23rd

Children of the Corn (2020)

The year was 2020 and the world was in the grips of a pandemic the likes of which hadn't been seen in a hundred years. But someone knew exactly what was needed during this troubled time, to bring us all together and heal our hearts: A new "Children of the Corn" movie. Yes, Kurt Wimmer – the visionary filmmaker who boldly answered the question of "What if Paul W.S. Anderson's movies were shittier?" – believed so much in this idea that he forged ahead after the threat of COVID-19 put a stop to most film productions. Thus are the risks you take for art! In all seriousness, a remake of "Children of the Corn" had been bandied about as soon as people forgot one already existed. With the death of Dimension Films putting the rights up for grabs and the box office success of "IT" making King adaptations hot again, time was probably right for a new one. Unfortunately, the bad luck that began with filming during a pandemic continued as, after one screening, the movie basically disappeared for two years. Shudder dug it up, dusted off the corn silk, and slapped the reboot onto their streaming service last year. How does the latest entry in this inexplicably long-running franchise stack up? 

2020's "Children of the Corn" does make a clever choice I'm surprised the franchise hadn't done before. Instead of taking place after the killings have already happened, it shows the child uprising as it plays out. In a small Nebraskan town, Eden's older brother leads a revolt among the local children that results in a whole crowd of kids being killed via poison gas. Eden is then adopted by a pastor living in nearby Rylstone. The town's livelihood of corn is failing, prompting an idea to destroy the crops and take a government subsidy. Local teenager Bo is against this idea, thinking a long term strategy is better. Eden is horrified too but that's because she's begun to worship an entity living in the cornfields called He Who Walks Behind the Rows. Having gathered a following among the town's children, Eden leads a bloody revolt against every adult. Bo stays behind to save her father and break the hold the cult has on her younger brother. 

Dropping the Christian fanaticism and pagan rites of every previous iteration, this "Children of the Corn" instead posits another explanation for the murders: Maybe the adults had it coming. Eden convinces the local kids to wipe out the grown-ups by speaking to genuine grievances the youths have with the prior generation. Kids have been abused, ignored, mocked, and left to live in a world without a future. The bloodshed starts with a mock trial against the town's leaders, which ends with a whole crowd being buried alive in a mass grave. When Eden promises that Rylstone is only the beginning, that she's going to lead a bloody revolution against all grown-ups everywhere, it speaks to the idea that children actually are an underclass that have suffered throughout human history. A charismatic leader radicalizing an overlooked social caste by speaking to the resentment in their heart is probably a more plausible modern cause for this story than brainwashing by Old Testament moralizing or eldritch nature deities. 

While Wimmer's film has some bold ideas, the scares simply aren't there. Everyone having cell phones and internet connection remove the small town isolation pivotal to the other films. An overall drab, earthy visual style removes any chance at atmosphere. There's a curious cruelty to the death scenes, too sadistic to function as cathartic fake violence but not realistic enough to be disturbing. More than anything else, these children aren't creepy. They're kind of goofy actually, playing pirate or "Alice in Wonderland"-themed make-believe games before graduating to mass patricide. The sense of strict social structures or cult-like devotion present in previous iterations of the story isn't here, the audience never feeling the sway Eden's beliefs have over the other kids. This shaky uncertainty is paired with some ghastly CGI jump scares that truly undermine any tension.

At times, it feels like this "Children of the Corn" is toying with removing the supernatural element from the story altogether. The movie is filled with some vague anti-GMO undertones, pointing out that the townsfolk have used fancy pesticides and lab-grown seeds in hopes of saving their dying town. In the first scene, Bo points out that toxic molds can grow on dying corn and that such an outbreak probably led to mass hysterias like the Salem witch trials. Both ideas are basically dropped in the second half, when it's revealed that He Who Walks Behind the Rows is real. And he's a giant CGI cornstalk monster. All of the "Children of the Corn" movies have struggled with how to depict the unseen god referenced in King's story. A knock-off PS4 Swamp Thing proves no more convincing than a cloud of red graphics or a fireball in a grain silo. After this reveal, the reboot abandons its killer kid gimmick to become an uninspired monster movie, building to an extremely stupid gotcha ending. 

An influence from 2017's "IT" – and the inspiration that film took from "Stranger Things" – is certainly felt. Elena Kampouris, as Bo, has a Sophia Lillis vibe about her with her tomboy fashion and curly bob. Like that film and show, this "Children of the Corn" attempts to invest us in the young characters' lives. Bo's father seems to have been recently left by their cheating mother, though the exact nature of this split is never defined. Her brother is annoyed that she's leaving town to go to college, feeling abandoned. Both of these subplots are dropped long before the end and none of this half-formed melodrama hooks the viewer anyway. It's a bummer too, as the young actors aren't bad. Kampouris has a certain girl-next-door charm about her that's paired with a spunky, can-do attitude. While I'm mixed on the character of Eden in general, finding her more annoying than creepy, I do think Kate Moyer did a decent job. Her anti-adult rants are convincing enough. She shows a cold brutality, which comes from a place of genuine contempt for the grown-ups around her.

With a better fleshed-out script and a director more interested in creating a foreboding atmosphere than playing with CGI bullshit, I think this "Children of the Corn" probably could've been a good movie. Taking more from the childhood resentment of "Who Could Kill a Child?" was a better idea than referring back to any of the previous sequels. It has some strong ideas and solid leads. As ridiculous as the notion of a corn-centric horror series is, clearly something about this premise resonates with people. They wouldn't have made eleven fucking movies if it didn't. So I'm sure He Who Walks Behind the Rows, in whatever form he takes next, will rise from the cornfield again at some point in the future. Until then, 2020's "Children of the Corn" represents an interesting attempt at reinventing the story that never fully wins you over. [6/10]

Your Vice Is a Locked Door and Only I Have the Key (1972)

Il tuo vizio è una stanza chiusa e solo io ne ho la chiave

Too often, the word "giallo" is thrown around to refer to any Italian horror movie that doesn't have zombies in it. Listen, people, please: "Suspiria" is not a giallo. This is all the sillier since gialli are easily identified by their titles. The more lurid and long-winded the Italian title is, the likelier the film is to contain black-gloved murderers, stylish directions, unusually observant detectives, and a smattering of eroticism. I kid, of course, as outliers with one-word titles, like "Autopsy" or "Libido," do exist... You might think of "Torso" as a simply-named giallo but Italian prints are known as "The Bodies Bear Traces of Carnal Violence!"  Sergio Martino directed that one. He also made my favorite example of a sleazy killer-thriller whose name functions as a short story on its own, 1972's "Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key." 

Oliviero's mother was a successful actress, famous for playing Mary Scott. Upon her death, she left her riches, her estate, and a boatload of mommy issues to her son. Once a popular novelist, Oliviero has fallen into alcoholism and perversion. He takes his sexual and creative frustration out on Irina, his much-abused and long suffering wife. Irina is also tormented by her late mother-in-law's cat, nicknamed Satan. When Oliviero's mistress and the house's maid are brutally murdered, Irina begins to suspect that her husband is a killer. The arrival of Oliviero's comely niece, Floriana, inflames everyone's passions further. The three are soon entangled in their own schemes, as the bodies pile up in the wine cellar. 

"Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key" isn't an especially representative title. The words are taken from an earlier Martino gialli and the script is another loose adaptation of Poe's "The Black Cat." Not that there isn't plenty of vice here! In fact, the film possesses an impressively depraved atmosphere. Within the opening minutes, Oliviero has been sexually racist towards his maid, invited a hippy chick to dance naked on his table, and brutally assaulted his wife. Incest, voyeurism, prostitution, piquerism, animal cruelty, and dirt bikes all weave their way into the plot. Did I mention that Floriana is bisexual and easily seduces Irina too? The film's twisted soul is most reflected in the character of Oliviero. An always sweaty, always hirsute booze hound who is also always horny despite his implied impotence, he spends the entire movie ranting and raving at everyone while holding an unseemly obsession with his dead mother. That's the world "Your Vice..." takes place in, one where psychological hang-ups have long since calcified into aberrant fetishes and shrieking madness. The murder is a natural side effect of such an environment, where wanting to fuck your niece feels like one of the more reasonable things the male lead tries to do. 

Despite an incredibly lurid plot,  "Your Vice" isn't only a sleazy exploitation movie. While Oliviero is all raging id and libido, Irina spends nearly the entire movie in a state of hysterics. Considering she lives with an abusive monster and is even terrorized by the family cat, you can't blame her for going a little crazy. Setting this story in a crumbling villa is fitting, the shadows of the dilapidated building reflecting the broken minds of its characters. Like any gialli worth its salt, the story has multiple twists, turns, and double-crosses. Presumed innocents will be revealed as schemers before being betrayed by yet another conniving femme fatale. The most sympathetic angle of the script, that it's about putting us inside the head of a deeply traumatized woman, is lost before the end. I suppose that's only fitting, as the obscuring shadows of madness also deceive the eyes. In a movie this grimy, everyone has blood on their hands by the end. 

It's not as if a few narrative loose ends are atypical for films like this. All the gaps are filled with the stylish visuals we expect of the subgenre. This is my third Sergio Martino and his strength for voyeuristic eroticism is already apparent. We often watch over people's shoulders as murder, sexual encounters, or eavesdropping occurs. Martino and cinematographer Giancarlo Ferrnando apply soft-focus sensuality or lecherous leering to the nude scenes. The shocking scenes, meanwhile, are heavy on the crash-zooms and latex skin being slashed open. These elements veer towards the tacky at times. However, a sequence where a dead body tumbles down the stairs is a showstopper. By the time we get to the frenziedly edited climax – which cuts between a motorcycle ride around twisting cliffs, close-ups on a provocative billboard, and the killer's preparation while Bruno Nicolai's intoxicating score swirls around it all – I knew the movie had fully won me over. 

A killer clad in a fedora, white stocking mask, black gloves, and wielding a billhook always pairs nicely with a flashy direction and a kinky plot. What truly puts "Your Vice is a Locked Door and Only I Have the Key" over-the-top is a trio of operatic performances. Luigi Pistili operates at eleven throughout the entire runtime, making Oliviero as big of a bastard as possible, never letting a mere look or whisper do when a wild glare or bellow is better. Edwige Fenech gets top-billing despite not appearing until twenty minutes in, looking almost painfully gorgeous. Her eyes always sparkle with the perfect mix of playful innocence and seductive scheming. Anita Strindberg plays Irina as a woman far pass her limit, long since broken down by constant abuse. She switches – effectively, I'll add – into a gleaming seductress at times. However, when the Poe-inspired conclusion arrives and she wails "SATANA!!!" to the heavens, the film is re-centered around her sad, shaken up persona. 

Of Martino's work I've seen so far, "Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key" is easily my favorite. The murder scenes maybe aren't as gorgeously stylish as those seen in Bava or Argento's best work. However, the twisted script and psychological darkness drew me in as the visuals and music get more and more hypnotic. When the Poe component comes back around at the very end, I realized I was smiling ear-to-ear. This sick little feature had found the key to my locked room. Or maybe Martino's other movies only needed to put Edwige Fenech in a pageboy haircut and hot pants to make me love this much. Either way, this is essential viewing for Italian horror devotees, a gory, sleazy, campy, and intoxicating experience. [9/10]

Orson Welles Great Mysteries: The Monkey's Paw

I always thought Orson Welles would've made a perfect host for an anthology series. His resounding voice, eloquent delivery, and distinctive screen presence made him an ideal master of ceremonies for any presentation of the macabre or unusual. A particular radio broadcast proved that. During the frozen peas era of his career, he'd also lend his talent and reputation to any commercial or talk show willing to pay his bill, born out of a desire to fund his serially unfinished passion projects. My suspicion that Welles must've hosted his own "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" at some point was correct. It didn't air in this country though. "Orson Welles Great Mysteries" was broadcast on ITV during the 1973-1974 season. Wearing what looks like the same fedora and cloak from "F for Fake," Welles would introduce tales of mystery and suspense, often adapted from the works of well-known authors. Not every episode dabbled in the uncanny but a few did. Such as the eleventh, a take on W.W. Jacob's oft-told "The Monkey's Paw." 

If you read the story during high school English class, this adaptation will present few surprises. Other than moving the setting into the modern day, it follows the text closely. Elderly retirees, the Whites, are visited by an old friend, Major Morris. Morris has acquired an enchanted monkey's paw while in India, claiming it can grant three wishes but always at a horrible price. Not taking these warnings seriously, the Whites' son encourages his dad to wish for a thousand pounds, to pay off the mortgage. The next day, Herbert is horribly killed in an accident at work. The factory owner offers the family a thousand pounds in compensation. Two wishes remain, the Whites attempting to undo the horror the cursed paw has wrought and only making things worse in the process. 

Jacob's story is so iconic and influential throughout pop culture that it's hard to believe it didn't always exist. Even today, you see memes and jokes about the finger on the monkey's paw curling. The premise of getting whatever you want, but only in the most horribly ironic way, feels mythic. As does the story's climax, in which seemingly the resurrected but hideously mangled corpse of the son bangs at the door unseen. It's the kind of classical ghost story intrinsic to the human imagination, endlessly retold and parodied. Like all timeless tales, it carries a moral too: Be careful what you wish for, as it might come true. Welles' introduction centers in on the ideas of coincidence and destiny, questioning whether we are to take the story's supernatural elements at face value and how much control we have over our own fate. 

As for this dramatic presentation, it is a serviceable telling of the tale. Patrick Magee, making one of his many appearances in British genre entertainment of the time, is properly ominous as Morris. In fact, his warnings are so grave that it's hard to imagine the family brushing them aside. The episode is well directed by Alan Gibson, a vet of British television who also directed the final two Christopher Lee Dracula flicks. The dissolve from the spinning gears of Herbert's bicycle to a clock's face is clever, emphasizing time clicking down in the boy's life and suggesting the industrial accident that will take it. The final act is set up by the wind blowing outside, establishing a properly eerie mood. The banging on the door never builds much suspense but the final shot – a slow pull-out in the open door, mist blowing through the air,  surrounded by darkness – is quite striking. Not bad! By the way, Welles hosted another anthology series later in his career, though "Scene of the Crime" veered more towards the procedural side of things and is even more obscure. [7/10]

The Addams Family: Art and the Addams Family

The pop art movement was rolling along in the early sixties, so it's not surprising that "The Addams Family" would obliquely comment on it. "Art and the Addams Family" sees Granmama getting into modernism. When a local art critic turns his nose up at her work, Gomez decides to hire a teacher. He tries to call Pablo Picasso and instead gets in contact with Sam Picasso, a nobody from Spain. Sam is, at first, overjoyed to be taken in by the rich Addams. Soon, however, he finds himself terrified by the family's unusual habits. 

"The Addams Family" cloaked its humor in campy, classic horror trappings which allowed it to sneak some surprisingly dark jokes onto sixties television. "Art and the Addams Family" introduces Sam Picasso as he's about to put his neck in a noose. Later, he becomes convinced that the Addams intend to torture or murder him, as he's locked in the dungeon and sees Fester walk in carrying a sword. There's jokes about Kitty Cat eating a zookeeper and Wednesday decapitating all her dolls, both delivered with perfectly innocent verve by Lisa Loring. I'm not going to say any of this was cutting edge, even at the time. Still, I'm surprised at what this show was able to get away with. It was a lot edgier than its competition. 

Otherwise, it's a pretty standard episode of "The Addams Family." Vito Scotti is an amusing straight man as Sam. His attempts to manipulate Gomez backfire, as the patriarch agrees to his every outrageous demand. Scotti's increasingly horrified reactions got a chuckle or two out of me. If nothing else, the show is building nicely on many of its established aspects. Cleopatra the African Strangler plant and Pugsley's habit of digging tunnels are both utilized in amusing moments. It's also kind of odd to think of Pablo Picasso as a contemporary to the Addams Family. He was 82 when this episode aired and was still painting. I wonder if he ever saw it? [6/10]