Halloween 2026: October 5th

 

The Thing (2011)
 

John Carpenter's “The Thing” ranks near the top of any list of obvious future classics that were initially dismissed by audiences and critics. This is the most basic piece of trivia about the movie. Nine years after the film's unsuccessful theatrical run, enough of a cult following had built up to make a continuation of some sort commercially viable. That's when “Darkman” screenwriter Chuck Pfarrer pitched Universal on a sequel. The studio passed on the treatment but it would re-emerge as a comic book from Dark Horse. (Re-titled “The Thing from Another World,” to distinguish itself from Marvel's ever-lovin', blue-eyed variety.) Three further comic book arcs sprung off from that one, proving that there was demand for more Things. This would kick off a series of attempts to sequelize Carpenter's remake but, in the metamorphic nature of the alien threat, always in mediums other than film. There was an almost well received video game in 2002. Three years after that, Frank Darabont attempted to produce a four hour long television mini-series for the Sci-Fi Channel. This would've depicted what happens when the Thing reaches a populated area. That didn't get made but, in 2007, you could walk through a Halloween Horror Nights maze based on the film.
 
All of this suggested a serious desire to replicate the 1982 film. During the horror reboot hungry new millennium, rumors of a remake of Carpenter's remake sprung from the ice. Quickly realizing that an imperfect clone would be unflatteringly compared to the progenitor, it was decided to follow the second most hacky trend of the time and do a prequel about the Norwegian camp instead. Dutchman Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. quickly boarded as director and a new “Thing” finally grew. Much like another horror reboot Universal made around the same time, the film was subjected to clueless executive meddling and reshoots. Fans and critics generally saw the prequel as an unconvincing copy of what came before. Though it did duplicate Carpenter's work in the sense that it also didn't make much money at the box office... Despite general audiences rejecting the premise twice now, there has been some hubbub recently about another stab at “The Thing.” It remains to be seen if anything will sprout from that but it did prompt me to revisit this prequel, to see if it was better than I recalled from a decade ago. 

And so we return to the frozen wasteland of Antarctica, slightly before the last time we visited it. A Norwegian research team from Thule Station are crossing the ice when their vehicle plunges through the surface. Within, they make two startling discoveries: An apparent otherworldly space craft and, a short distance away from it, the frozen remains of its very inhuman passenger. Kate Lloyd, an American paleontologist who specializes in excavating fossils from the ice, is called in to assist. The team successfully removes the hunk of glacier containing the life form and takes it back to the station. Team leader Dr. Halvorson is ecstatic to have made the paradigm shifting discovery that man is not alone in the universe. Kate and the others, including American helicopter pilot Sam, are less certain. That feeling grows when the thing in the ice breaks out, springing back to life after millions of years. Worst yet, the creature possesses the ability to assimilate and perfectly replicate living tissue. Now, much like an American team will discover in the near future, the residents of the station must contend with the shapeshifting Thing and their own paranoia about who could possibly be it. 

While the uncertainty of its ending has been endlessly discussed, Carpenter's "Thing" is greatly served by ambiguity all throughout. Who among the cast is the monster is rarely certain. The "what" around the creature is largely explained, "where" remains a vague answer of outer space, and the "why" is totally unrevealed. What happened at the Norwegian base is a purposely intriguing question, meant to draw the audience in further and foreshadow what will happen to the Americans soon, but the specific details were a mystery. All of these touches are what makes "The Thing" the intriguing, involving film it is. The prequel, meanwhile, seeks to answer as many questions as possible. Heijningen and his team went through the exploratory scene set at the abandoned base with a fine-tooth comb. They then built their film around showing us the exact steps that led to each little detail. Even minor ones like an axe embedded in a wall or an overturned shelf. It's a well-intentioned but flawed thesis, misunderstanding the purpose of a scene meant largely to entice and forebode as backstory that must be breathlessly detailed. This is the kind of fan boy brain better applied to wikia pages than narratives. 

This is not the main bone of contention people have to pick with 2011's "The Thing" though. No, the prequel was vexed by the exact annoying bullshit everyone feared from a modern day follow-up. Tom Woodruff Jr.'s Amalgamated Dynamics created practical creature effects for the project and they were used on-set. After test audiences complained that the results "looked like an eighties movie," CGI was hastily plastered over the rubber and latex. The effects team were so dismayed at the last minute changes that Woodruff ended up crowdfunding his own "Thing" inspired, all-practical (and totally forgettable) movie. Heijningen, meanwhile, has expressed regret over kowtowing to a clueless studio. Some internet users have petitioned for a release of the unaltered footage, if not a full director's cut of the prequel. This presents a tidy, fan-favorite narrative, of the promising young filmmaker having his vision ruined by air-headed execs. Of a disregard of hand-made artistry in favor of shiny, modern technology that will age far quicker and far worse. 

Now, I have no doubt that the practical creature make-up was easily superior to the rushed out CGI the final film utilizes. The digital effects are often poorly combined with the live actors. A face splitting in two or the final adversary both look especially unconvincing. However, Woodruff has clarified that his team's designs were maintained, the puppetry merely replaced with identical if less convincing CGI. None of the monstrous forms on-display here compare in any way to the work of a sleep-deprived, coked-up, young and hungry Rob Bottin. The original film featured asymmetrical creations, flesh that twisted and warped with a vicious nightmare logic. It combined the very familiar frailty of our human bodies with unexpected sights and sounds, to create a truly alien seeming entity. The prequel, meanwhile, always seems to center a face or jaws in its mutations. There are a lot of vagina dentata like maws or stabbing tentacles shooting forward like arrows. Bodies bend and flop around but are still recognizably human. The one clever gag the film has, an arm suddenly detaching, is quickly squandered by the film returning to gaping, toothy, screeching mouths. While the mediocre digital blanket job does the designs no favor, they repeatedly show a lack of imagination. Never once did the transformations make me wonder what the hell I was looking at, which is kind of an essential quality for this material. 

That lack of imagination is apparent in other elements of the film. While not technically a remake, 2011's “The Thing” essentially operates as one. Many of the iconic moments have similar sequences here. The beloved blood test is reprised, this time with fillings in teeth being used as the indicator that someone is still human. The aforementioned bit with the arm clearly recalls that time a head skittered across the floor. The prequel also concludes with a stand-off between the hero and the monster in its own lair, climaxing in a fiery explosion. Rather than expand on the first film, the script is content to merely repeat what worked before. Except Matthijs van Heijiningen Jr. isn't John Carpenter, with the rest of the crew clearly being similar downgrades. Instead of a score that emphasizes quiet unease, dramatic moments are punctuated with loud notes on the soundtrack. Instead of focusing on generating a feeling of isolation, the film goes for shit jumping out of the dark at you. 

2011's “The Thing” functions a lot like a modern legacy sequel, in the way it seems designed to simply remind viewers of a better movie with most of the changes being cosmetic. While Carpenter's “Thing” is famously devoid of female characters, this one has two. Mary Elizabeth Winstead stars as Kate. You'd think inserting a woman into an all-male space, especially in a story set in the early eighties, would present opportunities for commentary on gender dynamics or sexism or something. Kate is treated badly by Dr. Halvorson but not because she's a woman. It's because he's an asshole who is angered by anybody who challenges his plans. If a man had played this part, her function in the story would be entirely unchanged. Which is either the most progressive position you can take or renders the choice so arbitrary as to make you wonder why it was done at all. Having the French doctor also be a woman doesn't make this a male-exclusive environment anyway, so I guess it doesn't matter. 

Perhaps I'm nitpicking, complaining about what a film isn't and not about what it is. However, if a quasi-remake does little more than make changes simply to be different from the original, something has gone astray. A pun about how the authors of this "Thing" were not as good at copying as their titular menace is unavoidable. Personally, I think if you are going to make a belated follow-up to an iconic film, you're better served not blatantly emulating scenes and story beats from such a highly regarded work. Maybe the next remake should go back to the monster being a plant guy. What makes this "Thing" more unnecessary is that a far more clever remix of Carpenter's classic was released the year before. Peter Watts' short story "The Things" retells the 1982 events from the perspective of the alien, aghast that Earthlings are unable to shapeshift and unwilling to be assimilated. I don't know how you'd translate that story cinematically but it would make for a more interesting variation than this unimaginative prequel. [5/10]

In the Shadow of Kilimanjaro (1986)

You might not have heard of Raju Patel but he had a curious life and career. The son of an India born filmmaker, he was born and raised in Kenya. His dad, Sharad Patel, had some success with the biopic about Idi Amin where imprisoned journalist Denis Hills played himself. With business dealings in both England and America, Patel would have a pretty big hit with sex comedy “Bacholer Party” at only 24 years old. He would work on Disney movies, Hindi-language productions, and collaborated with random names like Mark Damon and Michael Jackson. He then checked out of life early, dying in his forties of colon cancer. Despite his eccentric career, Raju Patel would only direct one feature. That would be “In the Shadow of Kilimanjaro,” an international co-production that nonetheless still qualifies as one of the few horror movies made in Kenya. It's a trap-on-VHS cast-off that has a pretty good title, which is why I remember it. After all, if you're going to put a famous African mountain in a horror movie, probably a good idea to go with the one that has “Kill” in its name.

Within the shadow of the titular mountain peak are the key locations the film takes place in: The small village of Namanga, a school building for the local youths, a mining operation overseen by an Australian named Chris Tucker, and a hotel/bar that largely serves the miners. The area is caught in an on-going drought and it's causing the local wildlife to behave aggressively. American zoologist Jack Ringtree, while awaiting for his wife to arrive in the village, discovers a child orphaned after her mother is killed by unknown animals. This proceeds further violent attacks, the responsible party being a large troop of vicious baboons. Jack tries to alert the authorities and evacuate the area but his concerns are dismissed. It's not too long before the baboon attacks increase in frequency and intensity, soon trapping the locals within the hotel. 

Among the various dangerous wildlife of the African plains, the Chacma baboon probably ranks far below the more well-known body counts of lions, elephants, hippos, cape buffalo, wild dogs, hyenas, and so forth. Which is not to say that the baboon can't make for a properly intimidating visual. They have those massive fangs after all, the puffy face pads, the big red butts, the sinewy little bodies. While their primate intelligence has made them nuisances to people over the years, it's mostly the fact that they are exceptionally crazy looking when pissed off that makes the baboon a decent movie monster. “In the Shadow of Kilimanjaro” exploits this nicely. The baboon attack scenes, mostly done with real animals, get a lot of mileage out of the apparent ferocity of these monkeys. A swarming pack of angry baboons going right for your face is, indeed, a scary thought. “In the Shadow of Kilimanjaro” emphasizes this with some surprisingly gory special effects, of severed limbs and other body parts slumping to the ground as the beasties tear people apart. 

At the same time, the premise of “In the Shadow of Kilimanjaro” may strike some as, at the very least, unlikely. Baboons are not historically known to be man-eaters and, in some lights, can be kind of cute. The film tries to deflect this thought by claiming to be based on a true story. (An internet search on the topic mostly redirects back to this movie, meaning it couldn't have been too well known an event.) Despite that, “In the Shadow of Kilimanjaro” still generates outrageous chuckles more often than gasps. A rather robotic looking baboon puppet is used for a few scenes. I do applaud the actor playing an airplane pilot in one sequence, who keeps on flying while a very real mad ape is going at his head. Despite that intensity, it's still a deliriously silly sequence. Vicious as they can appear, I guess there is something inherently comical about monkeys sometimes. Still, in its last third, when the film becomes something of a siege picture about a stranded group of survivors hiding in a single location from the rampaging horde, it does generate some okay tension. The wind blowing on the plains at night, wild beast with glowing eyes emerging out of the darkness through a broken window, isn't a bad effect.  

By some improbable coincidence, this is the second jungle-set movie I've reviewed this year that features John Rhys-Davis sporting a preposterous accent. This time, the Welsh thespian adopts an Australian accent as the overseer of the mining operations. He's joined by Timothy Bottoms as Jack. If all animal attack movies are “Jaws” rip-offs of a sort, Rhys-Davis would probably slot into the Quint role. Bottoms is a combination of Sheriff Brody – the low-level authority whose reasonable warnings are ignored by those in command – and Hooper, an animal expert. Unfortunately, the film does not flesh its lead characters out any beyond that. The subplot of Jack and his wife's stormy relationship is nothing but filler. There appears to be an undercurrent in the script, criticizing white industrialists exploiting the natural resources of Kenya. This is most apparent in Don Blakely's role as the elderly, fairly racist hotel owner. This idea never germinates into anything substantial though. The film misses the chance to have its clueless town leader get munched by some crazed monkeys. I guess that correlates with the mayor making it out of “Jaws” unscathed. 

The underwhelming character work pairs with an abrupt and unsatisfying ending, though I suppose it's as logical a conclusion as you'd expect from a story about a drought. “In the Shadow of Kilimanjaro” never quite comes together. The script is too thinly sketched and unable to mine consistent thrills out of its fuzzy threats. Which isn't to say that there isn't some novelty to a baboons go bananas horror flick, especially one set on the actual African continent. (Which distinguishes this one from “Shakma,” whose trailer is slightly funnier, on the short list of baboon-sploitation flicks.) Raju Patel, or at least the team he hired, does show a semi-decent handling of the material, suggesting he probably could have made better movies than this one further down the line. I guess the experience of wrangling a pack of literal baboons did not endear the directional process to the guy. This is definitely a film I wanted to like more than I actually did, if only because of its novelty, but there's not quite enough here to make it stick. Though that airplane attack scene is hilarious. [6/10]

 

 

Wednesday: Woe What a Night
 

I feel like any time I review a modern streaming series, all I do is complain about how these shows are paced, plotted, and structured. The fourth episode of "Wednesday" is a case study example of how sloppy this style is. The show has stacked up a collection of plot threads that it can leap between whenever it wants, with no concern for tonal consistency, satisfying pacing, or overall coherence. This installment sees Wednesday digging deeper into her investigation of the wide-eyed monster in the woods, presenting her evidence to an annoyed and stunned Sheriff Galpin. She discovers that it takes body parts from each of its victims and seems to find its cave lair. She spots some scratches on Xavier's neck and uncovers his secret art studio, which includes paintings of the beast. Suspecting him of being connected to the killer, Wednesday instead ends up asking Xavier out to the upcoming school dance to cover for herself. 

This uncorks a mess of soap opera-like romantic entanglements. Enid goes to the dance with another guy, one of the bullies in town, to make Ajax jealous after he stood her up the other night. Xavier apparently genuinely likes Wednesday and, when he discovers that she only asked him out because of the mystery, he asks his siren ex-girlfriend to erase his memories of the Addams. But Wednesday still has a date to the dance cause Thing, of his own accord, asked normie townie boy Tyler to take her instead. That's not all of the melodrama at work here, as nerdy beekeeping boy Eugene is also harboring a crush on Enid. Oh my god, what the fuck. How is this an "Addams Family" show? Netflix really did take a premise designed to deliver goofy, morbid sight gags and turned it into a "Twilight" style supernatural romance for teenagers and fandom-brained Tumblr users. 

By 2022, however, the comic strip and sitcom that spawned her was long since overshadowed by the snarky goth girl archetype that Wednesday Addams became in the popular consciousness. "Wednesday" is a show more for people who saw the Barry Sonnefield films as a kid and caught a crush on Christina Ricci or fans of some YouTube cosplay account than anything else. I mean, the character imprinted on young me too, leading to an unfortunate life long fascination for women with dark hair, black clothes, cyanide wits, and undiagnosed BPD. Tim Burton deserves a lot of blame for the commodification of the goth subculture too, which makes his involvement with this show almost satirically on-the-nose. This episode really gets at how annoying this entire shtick has become in two moments. That is when a character tells Wednesday how he admires how free and unburdened she is by social expectations. Once again, it is hammered that Wednesday is a self-styled outcast, unpopular with her peers. A bit hard to buy that when she's at the center of two separate crushes in this episode alone and her family clearly has a long history with the school she's attending. Another scene has Wednesday criticizing the "objectification of women and the male gaze," a tweet misconstrued into dialogue. The episode then features the obviously movie star pretty Jenna Ortega doing a wacky girl dance at the goth prom to a Cramps song. It is a moment so tailor-made to appeal to people with a fetish for superficial strangeness that it's really as objectifying and othering for the young woman at its center as a strip tease would be. 

Of course, that scene became a viral sensation and is probably the main reason "Wednesday" became such a hit for Netflix. Like I said, I'm part of the problem. I liked that scene. It is one of the few moments "Woe What a Night" emerges from its own mess of subplots and rehashed cliches to show a spark of energy or wit. The "Carrie" homage that follows is predictable as can be but Ortega's enthusiasm and then disappointment with the stunt actually got a laugh out of me. So did how she stumbles through her attempt to ask the long-haired pretty boy to the dance. Or the genuinely cool shot of her and Enid in their dorm, split right down the middle between their two distinctive aesthetics. All of this suggests that if "Wednesday" was as much of a sitcom as the show that spawned it, merely about contrasting the protagonist's particular behavior against stratified adolescent social rituals, it would probably be consistently funny. Alas, such a humble pleasure is beyond the modern media landscape and I have four more episodes of this show, that I very stupidly promised to review, to wade through. [5/10]
 

 

The Twilight Zone: To Serve Man

As with past installments I've covered, I know the twist ending of "To Serve Man," the 24th episode of "The Twilight Zone's" third season, very well.  The rest of the episode is discussed less often. Alien beings known as the Kanamit arrived on Earth. They come in peace and, moreover, generosity. The beings speak to the United Nations from a book and offer endless treasures. While people are skeptical at first, the Kanamits lives up to their offers. They turn barren deserts into verdant fields. They offer impenetrable force fields to each nation, ending all international conflict overnight. They also willingly submit themselves to any tests the Earth governments ask for. Among these is an attempt by the American government to translate the significant book the aliens brought with them, whose title means "To Serve Man." Chambers, a cryptographer, and his assistant Patty work at the task. As pleasure cruises from Earth to the Kanamit home world begin, Chambers decides to join such a ride. As he boards the vessel, Patty arrives to inform him of the book's true purpose... 

The outlook of Rod Serling's work was usually pessimistic. Many of his stories reflect a belief that, while the individual person might be good, the human race is destined to destroy itself over petty grievances. "To Serve Man" is a bit unusual in that an outside force is the antagonist. Nine foot tall, dome-headed aliens arrive extending a glad hand only for it to hide more sinister intentions. It is tempting to read the moral as xenophobic or at least extremely cautious: Don't trust any offer that seems too good to be true. It reminds me of Hansel and Gretel, where endless generosity and a shelter in a storm are only a precursor to pure predation. All that kindness is to disarm you. All those sweets are just to fatten you up. While "To Serve Man" is ultimately cynical in its perspective, I do think Serling is criticizing mankind's preference for easy answers and gluttony more than anything else. Alien saviors arrive and resolve all our problems instantly. It makes us so happy that we can barely stop to consider their motivations. Moreover, the Kanamit promises endless pleasures too. Why, as a man boarding their ship excitedly shouts, they even have baseball on their home world. Maybe that fairy tale comparison is apt and the episode should be taken as a simple warning that good intentions are not always what they seem. Now, as then, tis simple truth, sweetest tongue has sharpest tooth. Literally, in this case. 

My initial reaction to "To Serve Man" is once again astonishment at how economical vintage television could be in its story telling. This is a far reaching story, about the entire planet's reaction to otherworldly visitors, and ends in outer space. Despite that, it runs a half-hour and mostly takes place in a few simple rooms. The action is mostly composed of people talking. Somehow, the stakes never feel artificial and the audience never feels cheapen. The U.N. setting establishes the global impact of these events and the seriousness with which each actor approaches the material makes the consequences feel fittingly important. I really like the montage in which leaders of various countries thank and welcome the alien visitors, speaking in their own languages with the translation appearing as a news ticker at the bottom of the screen. It shows that newsreels and stock footage – notable examples immediately recognizable as from "The Day the Earth Stood Still" and "Earth vs. The Flying Saucers" – can indeed be used to create a sense of scale and wide-reaching events. It's never the budget of a project but always the people utilizing it. 

"To Serve Man" doesn't have the intense expressionistic visuals of "Eye of the Beholder" nor the surreal nightmare logic of "It's A Good Life." Director Richard L. Bare – who would go on to direct "Wicked, Wicked" and 166 episodes of "Green Acres" – mostly keeps things simple. Though I do like the Kanamit being introduced first as a towering shadow on the wall before we see its face. Beloved tall guy Richard Kiel plays the lead alien. While the bulging cranium and white robes are typical of extraterrestrial depictions of the time, the Kanamit communicating strictly via telepathy means their faces are unmoving. Their eyes seem to project dull, animalistic instincts while their mouth droops open slightly, like a dog salivating over a ham bone. Maybe that's meant to be a hint to their motivations being hunger, not kindness. The ending is one of bitter irony, the title being revealed as a sick punchline, and the final moments being a grim conclusion that the wilier predator is always destined to eat the lesser one. Pretty good stuff. A tasty meal served quickly and effectively. [7/10]

Halloween 2026: September 3rd

 

Primate (2025)

Having now inspired two separate horror movies, it looks like Travis is going to be the most influential non-human anthropoid of the 21st century. Sorry, Harambe. I apologize for being glib. The story of Sandra Herold, her chimpanzee “son,” and the friend of the family he left brutally deformed was a senseless tragedy all around. Unfortunately, it was also too fascinating and bizarre a tale not to demand our attention. A deeply mentally ill woman using an innocent wild animal as a surrogate for her lost loved ones, mistreating him when she thought she was loving him, the novelty of our almost but not quite human cousin living in such proximity to people: It all says a lot about human psychology, animal well-being, and the responsibility we have and most certainly do not have towards the natural world. Sadly, the moral far many more people took away from this incident is that a chimpanzee can and will totally fuck your shit up. The pendulum has perhaps swung too far in the other direction, from the public perceiving chimps as adorable pranksters to vicious murder machines. Surely not helping matters are motion pictures like “Primate,” literally turning an endangered species into a horror movie villain. While the animal lover in me has mixed feelings about this, the trash movie enthusiast cannot resist the allure of such ape-shit shenanigans. Be prepared for more puns like that through this review, something I'm definitely not going to apologize for. 

College student Lucy returns home to Hawaii with her best friend, Kate, and an additional guest, Hannah. They arrive at the scenic home of Lucy's parents, with its cliff-side swimming pool and large outdoor enclosure. Waiting for them are several family members: Kate's brother and Lucy's long time crush, Lucy's deaf-mute father who is also a famous novelist, her little sister Erin, and Ben. Ben is a chimpanzee, who has grown up with the girls. Lucy's late mother was a linguistics scientist and taught Ben to communicate a little, through sign language and a tablet with a press-button soundboard. The dad goes off to a book signing, leaving the kids and the ape alone. Unbeknownst to anyone, a rabid mongoose got into Ben's pin and bit him. The girls and Nick begin to have a party, even inviting some other guys over, but soon notice that Ben is acting strangely. After tearing a visiting veterinarian's face off, Ben begins to violently attack the people who considered him family. Soon, Lucy, Erin, and the others must defend themselves against a homicidal animal that is intelligent, extremely strong, and armed with a mouth full of pointed teeth and opposable thumbs. 

Likely the reason chimpanzee attacks on humans have gained so much notoriety in the last decade is because of their viciousness. Denser muscles and "fast twitch" fibers give chimps a brutal grip strength, meaning they can rip through flesh and crush bone with ease. When combined with their tendency to go for vulnerable areas like the fingers, faces, and genitals, the idea of a random chimp event has truly become the stuff of nightmares for many. This is something "Primate" exploits repeatedly. In the opening sequence, we see Ben yank someone into his cage, a standard horror movie opening... But the film goes the extra mile and then shows the ape tearing Rob Delaney's face off, all before the opening credits. Later, we see Ben bite a chunk out of someone's thigh, bash heads in, rip a jaw off, scalp a girl with his bare hands, and snap a finger like a Kitkat. The make-up artists, effects team, and sound designers truly earned their pay on this one. Each attack is wince-inducing and horrifying. The film seems to delight in the meatiness of the human body and how those multiple layers of skin, muscle, fat, and nerves can be twisted and torn. It has truly been a while since a mainstream horror movie made me groan this much.

“Primate” is directed by Johannes Roberts, whose “47 Meters Down” films gave him experience with stories of young women trapped in an isolated location with a blood-thirsty animal. “Primate” is a little less contrived than that one. Ben's rabies stems from a mongoose, with the clarification that Hawaii is a rabies free state but no explanation for where the infected mongoose came from! Mostly, the contrivances in the script here allow for the suspense to go up. The heroes isolated in the pool as they attempt to get around the insane monkey stalking the area produces a few moments of nicely drawn out tension. The best example occurs when Lucy is hiding in a closest, only a door and a layer of transparent plastic separating her from the agitated ape. Considering chimpanzees are naturally unpredictable creatures, Ben made all the more-so by his altered mental state and the audience's general uncertainty of what the animal is even seeing at any point. It's a sequence that builds nicely and ends with a suitably intense shock of the hairy beast smashing right through a glass window. Since the film establishes so early how dangerous this animal is, we are well aware of the stakes at play here. Combined with tight editing and frenzied cinematography, “Primate” frequently makes for a tense thrill ride. 

Roberts has cited "Cujo" as an influence and it's easy to see the connection there. Both films, after all, are about vulnerable characters trapped in a tight location by a rabid animal. While Roberts successfully emulates the intensity of Lewis Teague's classic, perhaps he should've studied that film a little harder in other regards. Ben the Chimp is a delightfully devious villain. He seems to taunt the girls as they float in the pool, by tapping the "Dead" button over and over again on his speech tablet. After an unsuccessful attempt to push the bananas bonobo off a cliff goes horribly wrong, Ben rises back up with victorious glee. He plays like a child with the dismembered parts of his victims. Probably the moment that most characterizes the ape as a convincing sociopath is when he reveals that he has the fob to unlock a car. All of that aligns with what the film is going for. Ben is brought to life through a clever combination of an actor in a detailed animatronic suit and CGI, which looks real enough to pass the sniff test but with enough uncanniness to add to the creature's fright factor. However, part of what made "Cujo" not just scary but effective was the equal anxiety and sympathy the film had for its titular terror. Cujo was a killer and a threat but he was also just a dog, sick and dying and not knowingly acting with any malice. "Primate" probably would've been a stronger movie if it offered the same agency to Ben, playing him not as evil but rather as a thinking, feeling creature driven by sickness and instinct to behave in this manner. 

Perhaps I'm the one making a mistake by expecting that level of depth from a movie like "Primate." It's a minor miracle that the film pulls off the level of suspense and shotgun-level jolts that it does. The core players are quickly introduced in the first act. There's some uneasiness between Lucy and Erin, the younger sister resenting the older for leaving home. Hannah seems to have invited herself on this vacation, causing some annoyance. Obviously, there's unspoken sexual tension between Lucy and her crush. I don't know why I bring any of this up because it is not important at all. Once the (ape)shit hits the fan, the meat bags in "Primate" become basically indistinguishable from each other. Any nuance the characters might have had totally vanishes as the heroines focus entirely on outsmarting the simian stalker and tending to the wounded. This is probably for the better. I hate it when horror movies insert petty drama between the cast in a survival situation. "Primate" runs a tight 89 minutes and it stays focused on the goal of maximum thrills and grimaces throughout, any unnecessary bickering cut out. Still, I would've liked to have been able to tell the girls apart by more than just their hair colors. By the time some drunken frat boys show up, it's clear that "Primate" is basically a slasher movie, as much about gory showmanship as anything else. 

And I love a good slasher movie, probably more than is considered healthy. The only performer in the film going for much nuance is Troy Kotsur as Lucy's father. He shows the impressive subtlety of expression and thoughtfulness that won him an Oscar for "CODA." This does not stop the movie from playing his disability for easy thrills though, the deaf man unaware of the horror just behind him. Which probably speaks to the limited variety of roles available to actors with disabilities. The Academy Award winner also punches a chimpanzee in the face not once but twice. Who am I to turn my nose up at such a blessing? Yes, "Primate" is undeniably junk food but it is such delicious junk food. I have too much respect for the technicians and artists at work here who made me gasp, groan, hoot, and scoot towards the edge of my seat multiple times throughout the film. Perhaps that speaks to the simian nature of all our brains. This monkey see that monkey do homicide and it makes him clap for more. This is, as far as research shows, the first of Johannes Roberts' movies to open in January but is so perfectly indicative of the simple pleasures of the "January horror movie" that I can't imagine it'll be the last. "Primate" is prime pulp and I loved it, flaws and all. [8/10]

The House on Straw Hill (1976)

Udo Kier was, to put it plainly, like no other. He was a performer gifted with huge reflective eyes that could glow with rage or lust or madness. He had an outrageous accent and an on-screen persona just as flamboyant. His unforgettable and extremely European screen presence led to repeated appearances in films by respected auteurs like Fassbinder, Wenders, von Trier, Herzog, Van Sant and Maddin. It also meant Kier – who passed away last November and worked right up until the end of his life – was in a lot of trash. Often, he was the most memorable thing about said trash. This is technically not the case with 1976's "The House on Straw Hill," alternatively known as "Trauma" or "Exposé." The film is most notable as a Video Nasty, one of the 72 titles banned in England during the eighties VHS boom after being declared a threat to moral decency. Much to the chagrin of Mary Whitehouse, I'm sure, "Straw Hill" was one of the few home-grown video nasties, exploitation filth made right there in England. While its "deemed obscene by the government" status has guaranteed this otherwise not-that-notable film a permanent place of notoriety in horror history, I'm watching it in remembrance of Kier's unhinged talent. 

Paul Martin is having trouble finishing the follow-up to his best selling debut novel. He is having frequent nightmares of blood and death. This leads to a break-up with his girlfriend Suzanne. Hoping to refocus on his work, he rents an isolated cottage out in the British countryside. By chance, he saves a woman named Linda from some local yokels. She is a stenographer and agrees to work as Paul's secretary, typing up his new novel as he dictates it. Sexual tension simmers between Paul and the unreceptive Linda. The hicks return to rape her in the field outside the home, resulting in her killing them both with a shotgun. The cottage's caretaker vanishes. Suzanne reappears and Linda seduces her. Paul's nightmares and visions intensify. Someone cuts the brakes on his car. Clearly, secrets and ulterior motives are afoot in the house on straw hill. 

"Straw Hill" was directed by James Kenelm Clarke. Mostly a composer and documentarian early in his career, he switched gears when he co-founded Norfolk International Pictures. It is for this company that he would make films with classy titles like "Let's Get Laid," "Hardcore," and "Sweet Virgin." Several of those flicks and this one co-star Fiona Richmond, billed as "Britain no. 1 sex symbol" on the posters. All of which is to say that "House on Straw Hill" is an irrepressibly horny motion picture, blurring the line between exploitation and softcore porn. Richmond is naked within the first five minutes. She spends most of the movie humping or getting humped and also gives Udo a blowie seemingly through his pants at one point. Linda Hayden's character is compelled to masturbate no less than four times throughout the film. Unsurprisingly, the sexual assault sequence is filmed more for titillation than terror. "Lesbian sex" and "anal rape" are among the film's keywords on IMDb. 

Whether the film succeeds as smut is a matter of opinion. Richmond and Hayden are nice to look at. Their girl-on-girl scene has a certain sweaty, sleazy heat to it and is probably the closest the movie comes to genuine eroticism. So I suppose "House on Straw Hill" will give interested wankers what they are after. Whether it functions well as a horror movie is more debatable. Udo's visions of a dead body in a bathtub, breaking glass and a bloody hand falling to the side, reoccur enough that they start to grow tedious. There are two sequences of people being knifed. One is a darkened stalking that ends with a slashed throat and the other is a "Psycho" inspired shower stabbing that ups the flesh and blood. Both would make passable moments in a mid-tier giallo. The montage of Udo's car careening out of control, intercut with the above mentioned lesbian tryst, is mildly well done. The free mixing of sex and a malevolent atmosphere does create a somewhat charming sense of sleaziness.

Mostly, this is a pretty dumb movie where not much actually happens. A key moment depends on a presumed slain character returning to life, a clear result of the filmmakers writing themselves into a corner. The runtime is largely a mix of skin scenes, bloody nightmares, the occasional murder, ominous foreshadowing, and Udo dictating his novel to Linda. Watching Kier ramble out tawdry prose while he grows ever-more wide-eyed certainly has entertainment value. The main joy present in "The House on Straw Hill" is watching Udo go crazy. He gives his character some intriguing quirks, like always wearing latex gloves when making love. Unfortunately, somebody made the unfathomable decision to dub over Kier's voice, denying us the chance to hear his insane German accent deliver such florid lines. I probably would have bumped this one up half a star if they simply kept the original audio.

Really, there's only one deeper idea in "The House On Straw Hill" that holds any sway at all. The script finally reveals what the plot is up to in the final scene. This is preambled by a moment where Martin is dictating the end of his novel to Linda, who begins to change every single word and line that he makes up. It's another tensely edited scene, showing that the people who made this movie actually did have some grasp on suspense and pacing. Furthermore, it raises an interesting question about true authorial intent. Every bestselling writer has an editor. How many eyeballs does a manuscript pass before on the way to being published? How many fingerprints are left on a finished book? The question of what degree a story actually belongs to someone – and who deserves credit for the telling – when so much collaboration is necessary in every field is an intriguing one. "Straw Hill" goes right back to being dumb, sleazy schlock right after that. Perhaps a presentation a little more focused on the push-and-pull within the creative process than buttocks and bewbs could have explored this idea more.

The "House on Straw Hill" title is clearly meant to recall both "Straw Dogs" and "Last House on the Left." There's some comparison there, what with the sexual violence occurring out in the scenic countryside and being bloody avenged. The image of Kier wearing a silk shirt while brandishing a shotgun made a few of the posters and obviously invokes Sam Peckinpah's controversial classic. At least this title accurately describes the film, as that house is indeed located on Straw Hill. "Trauma" is too vague to have a specific importance to this story. "Exposé" makes it sound more like a movie about journalism, though I guess plenty of things are exposed here. All of these details mark this as the film as the cheap, greasy rip-off it is. This is one of those movies that is probably objectively bad but whose stupid sleazeball atmosphere I unfortunately am somewhat charmed by. I bet this would play a lot better in a 42nd Street grindhouse than all digitally restored at home. R.I.P. Udo, overacting and groping some beautiful breasts is surely how you would want to be remembered. [6/10]

 

Wednesday: Woe is the Loneliest Number

Unburdened by having to set up the premise of the show, the second episode of “Wednesday” is slightly better than the first. But only slightly. This one leans into the “Harry Potter” influence much more blatantly. Christina Ricci teaches a class suspiciously similar to herbology, Wednesday's Gorgonian love interest generates a ghostly spider for her, while the second half of the episode basically revolves around the goth Tri-Wizard Cup. Otherwise, the plot continues to function in usual streaming television fashion. We've got half-a-dozen story threads, plates for the show to keep spinning in the air. The monster that seemingly killed Wednesday's attacker last time is nowhere to be seen. Neither is the kid's body, as he reappears. This might be the work of some sort of cover-up, the town sheriff remains suspicious, and his son remains obviously flirty with the title character. We get some more development on Wednesday's powers, the idea that there's some kind of prophecy around her arrival at the school, and her following in the footsteps of her mother despite her stated desire not to do so. Romantic entanglements and rivalries are also starting to form. I'm struggling to care about any of it. 

On one hand, there's a moment or two in “Woe Is the Loneliest Number” where I'm reminded that Tim Burton used to be a decent director. The practical sets and production design on display here are actually quite good. Gwendolyn Christie has a giant fire place shaped like a Medusa face with a gaping mouth in her office, which is cool. Sadly, every semi-compelling visual is bordered by some a moment full of badly composed CGI. This is most apparent during the boat race finale, which is unforgivably hideous in spots. Add to that the Netflix-mandated need to keep as much of the action in the center of the screen at all times, to make distribution into social media friendly clips easier, and you've got an hour of TV that feels like beige wallpaper. The term “slop” is overused by, truly, what else to do you call this kind of approach? 

On the other hand, this episode is slightly more tolerable than the debut. There are more nods to the original sixties sitcom here. Thing has a bigger role here and I like the clarification that he communicates via sign language. (Despite that being less funny than everyone in the family just instantly understanding him.) Wednesday has a stated preference for spiders and venomous insects as pets. Some plot reason I've already forgotten has her making friends with the nerdy kid who runs the beekeeping club, which is actually kind of cute. Wednesday has also inherited her mother's knowledge of carnivorous plants. Suggesting a series much truer in tone to that original show was possible, Jenna Ortega continues to excel at delivering absurdly morbid one-liners. I will also admit that Emma Myers as the upbeat, werewolf room mate is fairly adorable. Making Wednesday the Felix to a sunny, energetic Oscar is, again, hack shit but at least the cast compliment each other. The second half of the episode also features its female cast members wearing cat ears and skin-tight body suits, the kind of blatant fetishism I expect from anime but not big budget live action streaming nonsense. I guess Burton still had some of that “Batman Returns” kinkiness in his system after all. This is still aggressively mediocre television though. [5/10]

 

 

Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Incident in a Small Jail

Once again, it's time for me to marvel at how “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” put extremely bleak, perverse stories on late fifties/early sixties American television and got away with it by having a portly, sardonic Englishman make corny jokes before and after them. Traveling salesman Leon Gorwald, while stopping over in a small town, jaywalks across a street. The deputy sheriff notices him and prepares to fine him. Leon tries to bribe his way out of a ticket, a stunt that pisses the cop off and gets Leon thrown into one of two jail cells back at the station. The actual sheriff and his deputy arrives shortly afterwards with grim news: A girl was found mutilated with a knife the other night and they're pretty sure they caught the guy who did it, some scumbag in a mechanic's overalls. As news travels around town about the death of the girl, a lynch mob begins to come together at the local bar. The three cops do what they can to maintain law and order but things soon get out of hand. And Leon Gorwald, some average guy in the wrong place at the wrong time, gets caught up in it. Or that's what seems to be happening at first. 

“Incident in a Small Jail” is another Henry Slesar penned episode, who also wrote the earlier highly regarded “Hitchcock Presents” installment, “The Right Kind of House.” Both these episode are utterly economic in their setting and story. They have limited settings and a small cast of characters, like a one-act play. Both stories introduces a situation that builds steadily but carefully in tension. At first “Incident in a Small Jail” feels like a brilliant encapsulation of a chain reaction. Leon Gorwald casually makes the decision to skip across a street, the butterfly flapping its wings that leads to the tidal wave of him being thrust into the center of an angry mob. The way each new complication is added to the scenario – the unrefined punk tossed into the cell next to him, some drunkards down the street deciding to go vigilante, one small cry for help at the exact wrong time – feels like a perfectly executed web of little bad moments adding up to ruin someone's life. From this perspective, the moral of “Incident in a Small Jail” seems to be “one minor misdeed can have ghastly consequences.” 

This theme, that we are all at the mercy of a chaotic and random universe, is already a fairly black pill to swallow. However, “Incident in a Small Jail” has an even bleaker idea up its sleeve. The episode is brilliantly cast. Myron Healey as the deputy sheriff is the exact kind of hard-ass you would expect to insist on following every minor law, instantly making you dislike him. John Fiedler plays Leon. As always, he's short and non-threatening in his avuncular baldness but that whiny and stammering voice, so perfect for Piglet, also makes him a little untrustworthy. He did try and bribe a cop after all. Should we trust this guy? Once future tough guy Richard Jaeckel appears as the killer, however, you are on the guy's side despite his weaselly quality. The stranger's violent acts are perfectly set-up by Crahan Denton as the sheriff. His weary delivery of the girl's mutilated body being worst than anything he saw in the war is fantastic. 

All of this grim, tightly-wound tension proceeds what seems like an unexpected happy ending... Before “Incident in a Small Jail” drops a pitch black twist, like a knife in the back. The final image of the episode must be one of the most chilling in all of the black-and-white era of American television. In other words, this friggin' rocks. Every time I watch “Alfred Hitchcock Presents,” I find myself stunned to discover that, oh my god, television can actually be good. Why aren't all shows, to this day, tightly paced thirty minute packages of caustic noir goodness? [9/10]

Halloween 2025: October 7th

47 Meters Down (2017)

Nobody is going to make a better shark movie than “Jaws” but that hasn't stopped people from trying. In fact, shark thrillers are so commonplace that nearly every variation on the premise has been tried. Most of these sharks-ploitation flicks get chummed out onto DVD or video-on-demand, unnoticed by any but the most devoted fish fans. This was nearly the fate of “47 Meters Down.” The Weinsteins gobbled the movie up and intended to dump it on disc with the generic title “In the Deep.” (No doubt the re-titling was a result of Bob insisting that stupid Americans wouldn't know what a meter was and that “154.2 Feet Down” is a shitty title.) A week before the intended release, the movie was fished out of obscurity by a new distributor. I'm reviewing the movie now as part of my Horror Around the World journey. This is more than a bit of a cheat. The director is English, the producer is French, many of the names behind and in front of the camera were American. However, it was shot and co-produced in the Dominican Republic, making it another rare horror flick to come out of the Caribbean. Close enough for me. 

Adventurous Kate has convinced her more reserved sister Lisa to go on vacation with her in Mexico. This comes at a time when Lisa is especially vulnerable, having gotten unexpectedly dumped by her long-time boyfriend. The sisters meet two guys, Javier and Louis, in a bar. The men convince the women to go on an adventure the next day: They know a guy who owns a boat and claim they regularly go cage diving with his equipment, to observe the local great white shark population. Upon seeing the janky quality of the boat, Lisa is reluctant but Kate convinces her to go. After a few scenic moments under the waves and getting up-close with the huge fish, everything goes wrong. The wench breaks. The cage is sunk meters below. The sisters can communicate via the radio in their helmets but are outside the range of the boat. Their oxygen supply is limited. The depths are dangerous. The certainty of help arriving is not great. And, of course, there are the sharks. The sharks are very hungry.

I first became aware of Johannes Roberts thanks to his 2010 film, the unfortunately entitled “F.” (Released in the U.S. with the only slightly less bad title “The Expelled.”) That movie wasn't very good but it did prove that Roberts had a knack for creating well-orchestrated scare sequences. That's a skill he'd refine with future films, like “The Strangers: Prey at Night” and his “V/H/S/99” segment. Roberts wrote “47 Meters Down” too, so proud of it he put his name above the title. And he does good work here too. The camera work is often intimate, focused on the actress' faces as they struggle in the cages or swim through the depths. Smartly, the audience usually only sees what's visible in the limited amount of light they have. This makes it very easy for those sharks to sneak up. Once the predators are in frame, the film emphasizes the power, size, and speed of these animals. “47 Meters Down” gets a lot of mileage out of sharks naturally being terrifying and its heroines being quite literally out of their element. 

It is a good thing that “47 Meters Down” is so strong as a technical exercise. As a screenplay, it's rather preposterous. While discussing “247°F” recently, I was discussing the pitfalls of the confined space premise. This movie doesn't make as many unlikely contrivances as that one. Cage diving, when surrounded by sharks, is already a scenario with a degree of danger to it. The idea that something could go wrong doesn't seem improbable. However, once again, how do you get a whole movie out of people sitting in a cage underwater? The girls are repeatedly warned not to leave the cage. The script comes up with one excuse after another to have them do so anyway. Once they run out of air, the story is over, right? And there's not much of a movie here if the leads can't talk to each other? Trying to set up events so specifically that these elements don't impede the story does push the suspension of disbelief. That's only to make the story possible. To get this already dire scenario to escalate makes more wacky shit has to go down. By the time an errand spear gun or fake-out climax occurs, Roberts' screenplay is starting to push pass its luck.

The silliness of the material almost becomes part of the charm, in truth. The viewer can't help but wonder what bullshit excuse will come along to overcome this next narrative road block. A greater problem ultimately faces “47 Meters Down.” Claire Holt and Mandy Moore star as Kate and Lisa. Both give totally serviceable performances, convincing in their physicality and panicking well enough. The two banter nicely enough in the more light-hearted scenes. Roberts is smart enough to forego any melodrama between the two of them. “47 Meters Down” never resorts to bickering between its leads. Unfortunately, it doesn't think up anything else for substance either. Lisa's arc, of overcoming the heartache of being dumped and trying not to be such a closed-off person, is extremely thin stuff. Kate, meanwhile, doesn't even have that much depth to her. “47 Meters Down” surely would've been a tenser thriller if the viewer was more invested in the main characters.

Maybe that doesn't matter so much. Maybe the viewer is meant to simply put themselves in this same situation, to wonder how they'd do if stuck in a cage under water and surrounded by ravenous sharks. Perhaps that kind of what-if thinking doesn't work on me, a person who would absolutely never be out on the water in the first place. Much less under it. I've seen too many shark movies for that! I'm not going in the ocean! Simply as a delivery system for Great White Shark related thrills, “47 Meters Down” does its job. Roberts is skilled enough to get more out of this premise than a weaker filmmaker could. He also knows when to cut it off, the movie not overstaying its welcome. The special effects are strong too, better than your usual direct-to-video sharks-ploitation flick. Putting the movie in theaters was a smart move. It grossed sixty-two million. Roberts came back for a sequel and another follow-up is currently awaiting release. Apparently some DVDs with the title “In the Deep” did make it out there though, becoming collector's items of some value. Not much Dominican color though but I did have a reasonably entertaining time with this one. [6/10]

Warlock III: End of the Innocence (1999)

Look at the poster art for "Warlock III: End of the Innocence." It is, somehow, perfectly representative of the time and place from which it emerged. The release of "Scream" in 1996 revitalized the horror genre by emphasizing a hip youthfulness that, I guess, somebody felt it had been lacking. That meant a succession of movie posters that put the young, photogenic faces of its cast right up there, front and center. Despite cashing in on the title of a cult classic from a prior era in horror, "Warlock III" does exactly that. Paradoxically, the edgy fashion of the actors on-display, their brooding faces, and the pseudo-poetic subtitle suggest a film desperate to appeal to the alternative and goth subcultures of the late nineties, people opposed to the shiny, pretty aesthetic of the mainstream. Notably not among those faces is Julian Sands, the star of the previous "Warlock" films, whose particular screen presence was a big factor in the franchise's success up to that point. All of these elements seem to tell the viewer that TriMark's attempt to revive "Warlock" six years after the last one wanted to appeal to a massive audience but also a niche subculture but not fans of the previous movies this one is ostensibly a sequel to. Seems very counterproductive to me but I guess I'm not a Hollywood marketing guy. 

I say ostensibly because, yes, "The End of the Innocence" shares no connection to either of the previous "Warlock" movies, aside from featuring a blonde British guy in black killing people with magic. Our protagonist is Kris, a college art student. Adopted as a child, she has no knowledge of her true parentage. When she receives news of inheriting a secluded house in the countryside, she takes it as a chance to uncover more information about her birth parents. She goes alone and discovers a dilapidated and isolated home, beginning to have strange dreams and visions of a little girl with a doll. Her boyfriend Michael arrives unannounced and brings their friends with him: The wiccan Robin, the pining Jerry, and the kinky couple Scott and Lisa. All of them are unaware that, some three hundred years earlier, an evil warlock named Philip Covington lived in this home. He attempted to sacrifice a child – seemingly Kris' ancestor – but was imprisoned in the home's walls. Now he is free again. He uses dark magic to convince Kris' friends, one by one, to surrender her to him so that he can make the girl the mother of a child from Hell. 

It is not only the poster design that pinpoints “Warlock III's” existence to the late nineties. Director Eric Freiser's few previous credits include some weird sounding sci-fi short film with Steven Weber and writing the straight-to-TV sequel to “Midnight Run.” He does not show a distinct visual style of his own. Instead, “The End of the Innocence” generally emulates the edgy, heavy metal music video style images popular at that time. The settings are usually underlit, grimy and dank, with lots of green tinting. Many split-second cuts occur, to supposedly scary shit in similarly dismal locations. I hope you think images of little girls in raggedy white dresses, holding an old doll, is the pinnacle of horror, because this movie does. These cuts are often accompanied by the sound effect of an eagle screeching, a quirk the movie abuses so frequently that it becomes hilarious. As if removing any doubt in the viewer mind that “Warlock III” wants desperately to look like a Marilyn Manson music video, the film has a generally overbearing soundtrack. It's mostly uninspired alt-pop more in the Soul Asylum tradition than industrial metal. 

The script for “The End of the Innocence,” by Freiser and TriMark producer Bruce Eisen in his sole writing credit, is quite confusing. The exact connection between Kris and the little girl we keep seeing flashbacks of is never quite defined. How it is known the house is in her name when she doesn't know who her real parents are especially baffles me. I was never quite sure why exactly the Warlock had to corrupt Kris' friends, convincing them to willingly give up on her, for his magical ritual to work. On a more brass tacts level, the story doesn't work entirely because we do not care if Kris' friends sell her out to evil to escape eternal torment. Each one of them are so obnoxiously one-note. Thier kinky sex life is only thing defining Scott and Lisa. Jerry's crush on Kris and fondness of music is brought up a lot but never actually amounts to anything. The how and why of Michael's attachment to Kris is never shown to us. Trying to build actual tension of the dynamic between characters we don't care about, with so little depth to them, leads to a movie without much tension. 

The first “Warlock' displayed a lot of creativity in how it re-fashioned vintage folklore about witches into an action/horror thriller. The second at least had a nutty imagination to it, in engineering gruesome and wacky special effects scenes. Sadly, the third film seriously lacks much any imagination at all. Compared to the road trip structure of the first two, sealing this “Warlock” entirely within a spooky old mansion – classical a horror movie setting though that may be – is disappointing. Unfortunately, said spooky house is mostly composed of nondescript hallways and generic dingy basement. The sequel cannot deliver the goods as a simple slasher movie either. There is one “Warlock”-style death scene, where the wizard turns a girl to glass before shattering her with some underwhelming CGI effects. Other than that, he doesn't do much besides set people on fire, rip throats out, make some one old or rotting, or just stick people in S&M torture chambers. Lame shit, man. 

Subbing in for Julian Sands is Bruce Payne. He's not bad. Payne has played bad guys a lot and can bring a certain degree of villainous charm, dark charisma, or brute force intimidation to the part. He looks good in black leather while gazing wickedly from the darkness. He simply doesn't bring the hint of chaotic glee that Julian Sands had. In fact, this Warlock seems to be having a fairly miserable time. “Hellraiser's” Ashley Laurence co-stars as Kris and she's merely serviceable in the part. Her presence draws inevitable comparisons to all the shitty “Hellraiser” sequels that came out in the nineties. I suppose we should be thankful that the Warlock didn't become like Pinhead, forced to strut his way through increasingly dire direct-to-video slop. There have been a few other attempts to expand this franchise – a Sega Genesis video game to tie-in with part two, a four issue comic book inexplicably published in 2009 – but otherwise this one successfully killed the franchise. [4/10]

Alien: Earth: Emergence

“Alien: Earth” starts to develop an actual sense of movement in its seventh episode but only a little. Disturbed by the brain-hacking that was done to Nibs and the apparent death of Isaac/Toodles, Wendy decides to round up a couple of the other Lost Boys and flee the island with her brother. I only say a “couple” because Slightly and Curly are involved in another subplot, seemingly forgotten by our heroine. They drag the face-hugged body of Arthur out into the jungle, walk around with him under false pretenses, and then gawk in horror as a creature bursts from his chest. This does not please Morrow and the Yutani team of commandos that have landed on the island. They end up getting captured by Prodigy's forces, who now have the new Chestburster in their possession. Good for them too, because Wendy just let the other Xenomorph out of its cage. It's okay, for her anyway, because the alien seems to obey her commands. Meanwhile, Boy Kavalier gets excited about a sheep. 

I hate to say something dramatic like “This episode of television broke me” but... At the very least, I think “Emergence” has successfully broke any interest I have in “Alien: Earth.” After six hours of watching the show spin its various wheels, we are starting to get some level of pay-off. Unfortunately, more must always be left for the next hour, to insure that streaming service subscribers remain ready to tune in next time. Thus, Morrow's entire scheme to manipulate Slightly into getting a Facehugger to impregnate someone and to sneak the invetro Xenomorph off the island amounts to the a big fat bunch of nothing. The hyper-confident cyborg mercenary immediately gets taken capture. This could have been avoided if the gestation period of the Xenomorphs, once they are inside a person, followed any sort of logical schedule. Instead, the aliens only burst out when the plot deems it dramatic enough, meaning some bad timing screws over the scheme the villain has been building up for almost the entire season. 

Much of the clusterfuckery that ensues in “Emergence” could have been avoided if the characters in this show did not routinely trust important decisions to children and idiots. Despite repeatedly telling us how brilliant the hybrids are, the Lost Boys have mostly acted like dumb-ass kids. After Toodles' inglamorous death last episode, this installment sees Slightly reduced to tears, Nibs have a complete psychological breakdown into anti-social behavior, and Wendy reaching what seems to be her rebellious teenage years early. Perhaps putting the minds of dying ten years old in super robot bodies was a bad idea! The obvious implication is that Boy Kavalier is, like all super-rich lords of industry and wannabe scientist, a complete fucking moron. When he discovers that the eyeball parasite can do complex math, his reaction is that they most put the creature into a human being next. His stern British man-servant stares at him in response, well aware that this Muskian man-child is seemingly preparing an insidious alien take-over. This is why insane Roman emperors got stabbed by their guards all the time.

This is, one assumes, meant to operate as commentary on the very stupid cyberpunk future we are actually living in. However, as I previously stated, simply pointing out that billionaire tech lords are all impulsive, entitled, idiotic children does not qualify as commentary to me anymore. Truthfully, though, I'm not upset. Because I don't care. Because I hate Boy Kavalier and his slumpy-eyed super-sheep. I hate Nibs. More accurately, I had no feelings about her at all until she started screaming, jumping, and tearing people's jaws off. Most of all, I hate that Wendy now has a pet xenomorph. She signals to it with in its own language, the beast attacking at her command and bowing its dome towards her. It is, in my opinion, all very silly and far too self-important in its ambitions to be accepted as camp. “Emergence” suggests two things to me. That this season's arc was made up as it went along. And that the people involved in writing this show were not interested in, nor especially respectful of, the same elements of the “Alien” franchise that I am. [4/10]

Beyond Belief: Kirby / Dust / Malibu Cop / A Joyful Noise / The Hooded Chair

I have enough nostalgia for “Beyond Belief? Fact or Fiction” to give it a second look this year. Once again, Jonathan Frakes presents five short stories, some of them being entirely fictional and some of them being extremely loosely based on true event. “Kirby” is named for the animatronic gorilla a special effects technician has built for an upcoming film. The producer treats Kirby and his creator poorly, resulting in the robot gorilla taking revenge when the man comes to the studio by himself. “Dust” follows a pair of college students who spot an attractive woman trying to break into a house. They decide to help her enter only to learn, the next day, that the home is abandoned. “Malibu Cop” sees a police detective investigating a murder on the beach he lives on. “A Joyful Noise” concerns a church choir group who all suffer unexpected delays on the way to practice, the same day the building happens to burn down. “The Hooded Chair” is about a rich collector buying a chair said to bring death to anyone who sits in it, a curse he soon discovers is real. 

“Beyond Belief?” is a show that essentially knee-capped itself with its own premise. By squeezing five stories into each episode, it necessitated each segment had to be short, extremely simple, and straight to the point. This led to most scenarios feeling like re-tellings of old urban legends and ghost tales, setting up a situation right away before immediately subverting it. This is very true of “Dust,” essentially a variation on the Vanishing Hitchhiker premise. The minute the two guys – one of which is played by the wacky room mate from the college seasons of "Sabrina the Teenage Witch" – spot the strange acting lady, you know she's a ghost. At least the way this is revealed, via their foot steps appearing in the dust on the floor, is mildly meat. “A Joyful Noise” plays out like something your mom would re-post on Facebook, a faux-inspirational and reportedly true event that proves that God is good and the universe is magical or something. Pretty lame but at least the actors, playing broad stereotypes of church-going black folks, are having fun.

Such an obvious “shot, chaser” construction to the stories makes a premise like “Malibu Cop” entirely unworkable. The second the sleazy cop mentions that he's had trouble sleeping, the audience puts two and two together. That leaves only two segments in this installment that kind of worked for me. “Kirby” is notable for being directed by Alec Gillis and featuring Tom Woodruff Jr. as the robot gorilla. One imagines that the veteran creature effects team probably have dealt with asshole producers who pushed them around like this. The characters are as one-note as can be, with the puppeteer being an innocent little angel and the producer a total jerk. However, an animatronic gorilla on the prowl does give this segment some novelty. As for “The Hooded Chair,” it's also extremely one-note and corny. Most obviously in the twist ending about the famous historical figure the chair is connected to. However, at least it has the kind of arrogant protagonist that deserves to be humbled by a magical object. The chair is pretty creepy looking too, as far as chairs go. [6/10]