Halloween 2025: September 25th

 

Turkey Shoot (1982)

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Barbados Project (2022)  

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Ray Bradbury Theater: Usher II
 

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

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

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

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

 

The Addams Family: Addams Cum Laude
 

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

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

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

Halloween 2024: October 19th

The White Reindeer (1952)

Valkoinen peura

In my review of “Good Manners,” I pointed out that werewolf legends exist all around the world. Nearly every culture has a legend about human beings becoming beastly animals and attacking their own, usually through a curse or witchcraft. That includes countries that perhaps don’t have the relationship with wolves that most of Europe and the Americas have. In the South Pacific, there are stories about were-sharks. In Africa, you encounter were-panther tales. Sometimes, rarely, these examples of myths on the were-fringe get the cinematic treatment too. Coming out Finland in 1952 is “The White Reindeer,” the feature debut of cinematographer Erik Blomberg. Yes, this is a movie about a human that changes into a vicious reindeer. Despite that specificity and apparent absurdity of that premise, “The White Reindeer” is neither a Christmas film nor a comedy. Instead, it’s one of the most acclaimed creature features to come out of Lapland. 

Amid the snowy villages of Lapland’s long-ago past, a beautiful young woman named Pirita competes in reindeer-pulled sled races. There, she meets a handsome man named Aslak, the two quickly falling in love. While they experience marital bliss at first, Aslak soon has to travel far away for his work. Lonely and fearful her husband won't be attracted to her anymore, Pirita seeks out the services of a shaman. He creates a love potion for her, entrusting her to sacrifice the first living thing she sees on an ancient altar. That turns out to be a beautiful white reindeer Aslak gave her as a gift. Something goes wrong during the ritual. Now, Pirita is cursed to become a white reindeer on full moons, seeking out men to seduce and murder. As more men in the village fall prey to this mysterious witch in their ranks, the hunters begin to seek out this predatory reindeer. It’s not long before Aslak begins to suspect his wife and this strange monster might be one and the same.

“The White Reindeer” never specifies what era of Finland it takes place during. One scene features a hunter with a bullet loaded rifle, suggesting it couldn’t be happening too far back in history. At the same time, the film seems to capture a truly far away and foreign time and place. The characters wear the traditional hats and furs of Laplanders, largely getting around on skis. The sleds, homes, and pets all seem a part of an older and strange customs. That’s before the elf-like shaman, his magical spells, and talks of cold iron appear. The huge vistas of the locations, always covered in pure white snow, suggests a location truly out of time. I have no doubt that these visuals are less alien to native Finns. However, “The White Reindeer” still does an excellent job of transporting its viewer to another world, a fairy tale space where older rituals and beliefs still persist in the face of modernism. 

Blomberg’s film begins with a long flashback set to a choral song, which establishes the idea that “The White Reindeer” is a part of an older institution. This goes hand-in-hand with an almost silent movie approach. You could probably follow the story for the most part when watched without subtitles. This also speaks to the power of the film’s images. “The White Reindeer” is packed full of moody, eerie images. When the shaman begins his spell, a strangely shaped stone dances around on a drum by itself. This is closely followed by Pirita performing the sacrifice before the altar, which is framed through the curls of discarded antlers. We never see the woman become a reindeer, nor any of the attacks on human beings. We only see the remains of clothes alone in the snow, hoof prints leading away from them, an uncanny sight. The shots of hunters glowering around a camp fire or Pirita flashing her fangs, on the verge of changing, tap into a classical well of gothic horror imagery. To learn that “The White Reindeer” was directed by a cinematographer is not surprising, as the film is full of indelible images.  

Among the film’s most striking reoccurring visuals is the shadows of a window casting a huge cross on the floor of Pirita and Aslak’s floor. A later scene concerns a wedding in a church, before an icon of Christ. In contrast to the story of folk magic and strange witchcraft, that makes it tempting to read “The White Reindeer” as a story about the Christianization of pagan Finland. However, the finale – when the white reindeer woman is struck down – plays more like tragedy than a victory over non-Christian forces. This suggests a deeper quality, that gets at fundamental human truths. Classic stories like this, of maidens becoming beasts and men lured away by beautiful killers, recalls myths of women being punished for their vanity or boys getting what they deserve for going off with strange ladies. Pirita and Aslak seem deeply in love though, their relationship playing as an ideal romance. Pirita’s motivation for seeing the shaman in the first place seems somewhat vague. When combined with the haunting ending, that makes “The White Reindeer” a myth about whether or not we can ever know our partners as deeply as we wish. That people always have secrets and desires that they keep from us.

When it premiered at Cannes, “The White Reindeer” would win an award in a special category for fairy tale-like motion pictures. (It also won one of the five Golden Globes for foreign language movies that year.) That makes it all too apparent that the filmmakers succeeded in their goal of putting an ancient folk tale to celluloid. While the term “folk horror” has been tossed around constantly in the last few years, “The White Reindeer” has to rank among the most transporting examples I’ve yet seen. The movie takes us to a far away land, telling a story rich with archetypal ideas and mythological figures. Visually stunning, deeply effecting in its emotions, and consistently eerie in its presentation, this is a classic horror story that any fan of the genre should seek out. If nothing else, you’re not likely to see another were-reindeer movie any time soon. [9/10]

Body Melt (1993)

While I'm sure Australia's indigenous population doesn't see it this way, the country has always loved adopting the public persona of a plucky underdog, a nation of rough-and-tumble but laid-back blokes that managed to survive in a desert continent full of killer animals. Australian genre cinema certainly reflects this image too, in the sense that what we call Ozploitation often has a scrappy, do-it-yourself feeling that reflects a blue collar but chaotic energy. The truth is far more varied than that, filmmakers of wildly divergent styles as Peter Weir and Brian Trenchard-Smith shipping out of the Aussie low budget genre scene. A lot of Australian horror flicks are still happy to play right into this perception of Straya as a slightly untamed and unpredictable place. This was true after the end of the wild and woolly seventies and eighties. 1993's "Body Melt" certainly has stiff competition but might win the title of the most slime packed and unhinged horror flick to sprout from the largest island nation in the world. 

A sexy hook-up ends with a man being injected with an exotic new drug. The next morning, he finds himself experiencing wild hallucinations before his body begins violently mutating. He has been drugged by an employee of Vimuville Corporation, which is about to test their new vitamin supplement in a nearby town. He races towards the idyllic suburb of Pebble Court, looking to warn the residents, but dies bizarrely first. A pair of detectives try to figure out what happened, getting on the trail of a Vimuville employee performing damage control. This strange journey takes him to a backwoods farm occupied by deformed weirdos – former test subjects – and a health spa run by the corporation, where families are already experiencing the freaky effects. Meanwhile, Vimuville's dangerous new substance begins to rampage through Pebble Court, soon reducing one resident after another to pulsating puddles of tumorous tissue in various grotesque ways. 

"Body Melt" comes to us from Philip Brophy and Rod Bishop, formerly of → ↑ →, an experimental electronic band/performance art group with a hard-to-Google name. Befitting that background, "Body Melt" is a motion picture with a driving energy that violently rejects all forms of the establishment. Frequently to a thumping electronic rock score, the film's camera often careens through the twisted bodies of its rapidly mutating characters as well as the corridors of their homes and towns. A similarly chaotic scene depicts a kid in roller blades going up and down a half-pike, before graphically face-planting from the top rail. This anarchic visual style pairs well with a plot that brutally tears down one target of corporate conformity after another. Pre-planned suburbs, the nuclear family, health fads, spa vacations, the pharmaceutical industry, horny teenagers, and a tendency by big corporations to value profits over people are all get summarily eviscerated. The final set piece of the film is one of the effected individuals puking all over the local police department, making the final statement on what "Body Melt" thinks of all forms of authority. 

The never-wrong oracles at IMDb trivia inform me that "Body Melt" was originally planned as an anthology. If true, this would certainly explain the disorganized structure of the script. The film doesn't truly have a main character. The perspective shifts constantly between a diverse cast. The sex-craved teens seem to be the protagonists until they are brutally killed by the rednecks. What about the guy who repeatedly has hallucinations of a woman with a scarred face? Or the Everyman repairman with a pregnant wife? A less busy movie probably would have built the story around the family vacationing at Vimuville's hotel or the cops on the trail of the murderous corporate "cleaner." Not to mention some of the weirdo workers at the company, such as the roided-out guys who speak with the voices of young boys. Instead, "Body Melt" decides to follow all these story threads, hyper actively switching between them on whims. An anthology would have allowed each set-up a little more breathing room. Then again, perhaps that matches the break-neck frenetic quality the entire movie operates with. "Body Melt" tears apart every social institution it can get its slimy tentacles into. Why not rip up the traditional story structure as well? 

Not that individual characters or plot are all that important to a movie such as "Body Melt." As in its most obvious inspiration, "Street Trash," the loose plot is mostly a delivery system for a series of outrageous, creatively demented special effects sequences. In that regard, "Body Melt" might top previous melt movie hallmarks. The truly grotesque mutations are impressively twisted. Animated globs of snot, fountains of projectile vomit, and splintering flesh occur as often as possible. Squishy tentacles squirm out of people's nose, erections expand until they burst, a pregnant belly explodes open, and a placenta comes to life and attacks. As the title promises, plenty of people melt on-screen too. While "Body Melt" is no doubt a gross-out fest determined to turn viewers' stomachs with as many hideous special effects as possible, there's definitely a satirical edge to these nasty displays. The film's elaborate body horror represents a full-on revolution against the physical perfection perpetuated by popular culture and mainstream normalcy. The falling out eyeballs and emulsifying torsos are as much a joyous rejection of nineties conformity as it is an impressive flexing of latex, rubber, and ooze.

In classic punk rock fashion, "Body Melt" screws around plenty too. The entire subplot devoted to the inbred backwoods freaks or a surreal hallucination in which a female spirit has a collection of rib bones she's stolen from past conquests are as much sick jokes as they are expressions of any point. "Body Melt" definitely belongs as much to the Troma tradition as Cronenberg's. As scattershot as the story is, I found myself enjoying the film's chaotic parade of gory madness. I mean, anybody who appreciates eighties and nineties special effects kind of has to love this one at least a little bit. Unsurprisingly, "Body Melt" has garnered a cult following of its own, among gore hounds and weird movie buffs. Maybe not the smoothest ride, the film is nevertheless an exhilarating and delightfully disgusting experience. [7/10]

Creeped Out: Cat Food

British, kid-friendly series "Creeped Out" is, in my experience, uneven but still a lot better done than most attempts to reinvent "The Twilight Zone" formula for the primary school demographic. "Cat Food" is about Stu, a sneaky kid who cheats at games and fakes being sick, so he can stay home from school. Sitting in his room, he notices the old lady across the street getting a large delivery of cat food... That she lifts with ease. He next sees Mrs. McMurtle remove a false wall in her garage, bathe in the cat food, and seemingly turn into a monster. He desperately attempts to convince his mom of what he's seen but, instead, she invites Mrs. McMurtle over to babysit Stu. That's when the old woman reveals her true nature. She is a creature called a Keokeoken, a shapeshifter that challenges children to games and then steals their bodies and assumes their identities when she wins. 

Horror stories often operate as moral lessons and, unsurprisingly, kid-friendly horror media does this far more. "Cat Food" is obviously designed to discourage children from deceiving people. Stu is quite the juvenile hustler. In addition to cheating at games and lying to his mom, he also sneaks into his principal dad's office and copies the answers to tests, which he sells to kids around school. It's clear where this is going from the moment Mrs. McMurtle challenges him to a game. The boy rips off the monster and thinks he's gotten away with it, only to learn that his grift has consequences. While his mom doesn't seem to be aware that her son is a pint-sized fraudster, there's an element of "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" here. Mom doesn't believe the outlandish story about the little old lady next door being a monster and this comes back to punish the boy, his lying ways sealing his fate. 

The moral is heavy-handed, as morals in children's programming usually are. That the story encompasses monsters and elaborate fraud seems to sully the simplicity of that message. Still, I did find some elements about "Cat Food" to enjoy. The story, essentially, updates long held folkloric archetypes into the modern age. Mrs. McMurtle is clearly a witch type. She stirs the cat food in a bathtub, like a cauldron. Her association with felines and nature as an older woman fits this as well. The stipulation that she can only take over a child's body if they agree to it willingly, usually via losing at a game, also recalls ancient stories about fairies and demons. (The Keokeoken is a name invented for this show but it was probably inspired by the Cat-sith of Scottish legend, an upright cat monster that steals souls and is sometimes a witch in disguise.) The old woman flatly explaining all of this to Stu is a bit cumbersome. It's also somewhat disappointing that we never actually see the witch change into her true monstrous form. I guess, even in 2017, BBC genre shows still had the kinds of budgets that forced them to imply more than they could show. 

I imagine only an extremely young child would find "Cat Food" scary. Some of Stu's Kevin McCallister-like antics cast an overly broad mood, dampening any sense of horror. Margaret Jackman does what she can to imbue the soft spoken woman with some intimidating power but a little old lady still doesn't make for much of a villain. Having said that, there is a decidedly unwholesome element in the subtext here. An adult manipulating a child into doing something they don't want to do, but convincing them it's their fault, brings a number of distressing topics to mind. As does McNulty ingratiating herself to Stu's mom to get closer to the boy for her own nefarious ends. While "Cat Food" is clearly telling kids not to be sneaky, lying little bastards, maybe the moral of "friendly faces aren't always what they appear" would be more valuable. This uncomfortable subtext provides some tension to what is a decent half-hour of kids' television that probably could've been a lot more. [6/10]

Sleepwalker (1984)

Released the same year as “A Nightmare on Elm Street,” Saxon Logan’s “Sleepwalker” presents a different take on the world of the waking and the dreaming crossing over in horrific ways. The film follows a quartet of characters: Brother and sister Alex and Marion live in an isolated home in the British countryside. There, Alex does his quiet, solitary work as a translator while Marion has reoccurring nightmares and takes every chance she can to castrate her brother’s ego. They are visited by acquaintances, Richard and Angela. After a window in their kitchen mysteriously explodes, the four go out to eat at a fancy restaurant. There, the political and social divides between them are revealed through petty bickering. Richard and Angela are invited to stay the night, the former being seduced by Marion. However, as the sun goes down, the line between reality and dreams begin to blur.

Logan’s “Sleepwalker” is not a movie that is easy to like. From its opening minutes, strife and discord is established between its characters. Alex is antisocial and withdrawn. Marion is cold and cutting. Angela seems to be largely empty-headed. Richard, meanwhile, is a vicious capitalist who never misses a chance to look down on anyone he deems beneath him. Minutes after sitting down for dinner, the man makes a barrage of disgustingly homophobic comments. This proceeds a tense conversation where the man establishes himself as fine with slave labor, in contrast to Alex being more left leaning politically. The sniping, arguing, and passive-aggression continues after they return home. In other words, everyone in this movie is hateful to each other, with none of the characters emerging as especially sympathetic. It’s clear that Logan – a protégée of Lindsay Anderson – has crafted a vicious act of social commentary here. The film presents eighties Thatcherism at its most ugly and exaggerated, the class wars playing out through verbal sparing. 

At first, anyway. In its opening minutes, “Sleepwalker” gives us peeks at Angela’s disconcerting nightmares. These scenes play out in moody blues and purples, as we get flashes of violence and violation. That sets up a dreamy sense early on, which continues during similarly phantasmic scenes of the window exploding or Richard and Marion’s nighttime visitation. The visuals get trippier as the fifty minute film moves towards a bloody last act. In these scenes, “Sleepwalker” becomes almost a slasher movie of sorts, displaying some creatively framed and gory executions. When paired with a slithering synth score, the result is a nasty but effectively upsetting work of eighties horror. This one isn’t for everyone but, if you get into its mean-spirited headspace, you might enjoy it too. [7/10]

Halloween 2023: October 8th

Talk To Me (2023)

One of the promises of YouTube is that it could make anyone into a filmmaker. A site where everyone can upload anything they can capture on a camera should've democratized the distribution world, right? Instead, the realm of YouTube curdled almost immediately into its own self-contained, venomous ecosystem. Most uploads go unnoticed in an ever-expanding sea of content, with the more successful creators forced to cater to an arbitrary algorithm and the whims of an attention-eroding media landscape. YouTube favors folks who talk about stuff and ruthless marketers, not so much individual artists. Yet, rarely, it happens. Twin brothers Danny and Michael Phillippou forged a following with their RackaRacka YouTube channel. While their meme-y prank videos didn't suggest much innovation, the brothers managed to segue their viral success into an actual movie deal. Their debut feature, "Talk to Me," would become the talk of this year's Sundance Film Festival. The tidal way of hype would lead to A24 scooping up the movie. The company put the supernatural horror film on theater screens world-wide this past summer, where the press immediately declared it the latest scariest movie ever. Time for me to be the judge of that. 

Set in the Phillippous' native Adelaide, "Talk to Me" follows teenager Mia. Still recovering from her mother's fatal overdose – which Mia believes was accidental – she has found solace with her best friend Jade's family, which includes little brother Riley and new boyfriend Daniel. While at a party, Mia is introduced to a strange artifact: A ceramic hand, which supposedly belonged to a medium, that can summons the spirits of the dead. All you have to do is grip it and say "talk to me" to make a spectre appear. An invitation of "Come into me" allows the ghost to inhabit your body and communicate with the living. Though risky, Mia and her friends treat the ritual like a game. Soon, Mia becomes obsessed with the process, believing she can communicate with her late mother. Yet malevolent entities wait on the other side and it's not long before Mia, Jade, and their loved ones are in horrible danger. 

Ultimately, “Talk to Me” revolves around a modern update of the century old tradition of spiritualism. Much like the seances trendy in the late 1890s and early 1900s, people gather around a table, light candles, perform simple rituals, and make the concept of contacting the dead into a party game. Considering they got their start on the internet, it's not surprising that the Philippous relate to how teenagers in 2023 would probably react to such an endeavor. Any time the hand is used to summon the spirits, everyone has their phones out. Recordings of people in the thralls of the dead circulate as viral videos. The opening sequence, which set-ups most of the misfortune soon to happen, plays out like a creepypasta passed around social media sites. The mediums of the past were all frauds, their supposed powers simple parlor tricks, but the enchanted hand in “Talk to Me” is totally for-real. In spite of that lack of skepticism, I still found this to be a clever update on an old idea. 

From the minute it was established that Mia is still recovering from the trauma of her mother's death, I kind of expected “Talk to Me” to be one of those “elevated” horror movies all about grief. While her inability to healthily process her mom's death is undeniably part of Mia's journey, the film has more on its mind than that. Her mother's death pushes her apart from her father. The horrible incident with the magical hand separates her from Jade and her family, before an ill-advised cuddle with Daniel further pushes Mia away from her best friend. In her loneliness, Mia keeps turning to the hand because it provides her with a sense of hope. It's a distinctly false form of hope too, the otherworldly spirits soon revealed as manipulative. Whether you read this as a direct metaphor for drug addiction or not, “Talk to Me” becomes an effecting portrayal of teenage isolation. Sophie Wilde's performance, fearless and wide-eyed, further makes Mia's descent seem like more than just typical adolescent angst. 

That Mia's journey feels so bleak goes a long way towards generating a proper atmosphere of dread. From the beginning, it's clear none of this is going to end well. The musical score is intense and the cinematography creates an unsettling ambiance. The Philippou's also know how to execute some genuinely shocking gore. A sequence of repeated head trauma is graphically disturbing, concluding with a visceral eye injury. That the violence seems so realistic, so reminiscent of actual gory accidents, makes the reprises of this moment equally effective. Once the malformed ghouls, and the hellish realm they inhabit, appear on-screen, that's well done too. It's clear these RackaRacka guys know their stuff when it comes to the horrific and the creepy. 

Yet sometimes one misstep is enough for a movie to totally loose a viewer. “Talk to Me” features a rather contrived event in its last third. The exact rules governing the malevolent spirits are fuzzy, which I'm used to with the horror genre. Somehow, such a series of events are orchestrated to leave Mia even more alone and traumatized as we head into the climax. It's the only time the film feels too clever for its own good, the story bending in such a way to catch the audience off-guard and not because it's a natural escalation of the plot. That left a bad taste in my mouth, putting me off a film that was otherwise a potent dose of dread and shock. Sometimes, you have to ask if a movie is telling a story in order to express something personal or if it's just fucking with the audience. 

Nevertheless, I do admire the craft on-display in “Talk to Me.” I clearly wasn't the only one, as the film made a healthy profit for A24. The Philippous are determined to make this their calling cards. They filmed a prequel, expanding on the opening act of violence that sets the story off, before “Talk to Me” even reached theaters. A sequel – with an admittedly amusing title – was quickly announced as well. I'm not sure how “Talk to Me” will translate to a franchise. I don't even know if it'll endure the way previous A24 genre efforts like “Hereditary” or “The Witch” have. Yet I do think it's a pretty darn good horror movie, one or two narrative leaps aside. [7/10]

Lost in New York (1989)

Perdues dans New York

Somehow, it's been eleven years since I first discovered the dreamy, sleazy, campy, and enchanting films of Jean Rollin. Rollin's cult following is founded upon the equally surreal, erotic, and comical vampire films he made in the seventies. Perhaps unsurprisingly, movies that straddle the line between the art house and the grindhouse were not always commercially successful. Rollin would spend many years directing hardcore pornography, just to pay the bills. By the end of the eighties, it really seemed like his best years as a filmmaker were behind him. That was when a chance to shoot in New York City prompted Rollin to return to many of the themes that defined his most beloved work. The resulting film, “Lost in New York,” only ran for 58 minutes and debuted on French TV. Unseen for years, it would eventually be rediscovered by Rollin scholars. 

Even by the standards of Rollin's films, “Lost in New York's” plot is vague. I'll do my best to sum it up. An old woman named Michelle recalls her childhood best friend, Marie. The two bonded over a wooden idol they called the Moon Goddesses. They used the statue to travel in and out of their favorite story books and films, as well as moving through time and space. As girls in their twenties, they both arrive in New York City. Marie and Michelle run through the streets of Manhattan, attempting to find one another and be reunited. The elderly Michelle reflects on these dreams and memories, while seemingly the living manifestation of their childhood goddess dances in the distance. And, because it's a Rollin movie, a cemetery and a vampire show up too.

All of Jean Rollin's movies have a certain dream-like quality to them. Yet “Lost in New York,” by dismissing with plot almost totally, truly captures the tone and pacing of a dream. The story exists in the past, present, and future simultaneously, the young heroines seemingly being unstuck in time and space. While Marie and Michelle's quest to be reunited is the main driving premise, other ideas intercede from time-to-time. Such as a woman on a roof top threatening Marie with a knife or the token appearance of a female vampire. This is much like how a dream will randomly digress. That two little French girls in the past would convince of New York City as a far-off, magical land is fitting as well. Considering movies are of-their-time historical records, “Lost in New York” becomes a travelogue of a New York that no longer exists as well.

Being a dream, “Lost in New York” is much concerned with imagination. As children, a story book transported the girls to other places. Yet, as the elderly Michelle describes these travels, she's actually describing movies. “Picnic at Hanging Rock,” “Modern Times,” and “Eyes Without a Face” are all name-dropped alongside several of Rollins' own films. Here, the director seems to be arguing for the transformative power of art, while also comparing movies to memories. Michelle is recollecting all of this, after all. The old woman longs to return to the childhood innocence of her friendship with Marie. In its final, touching moments, “Lost in New York” suggests that even death cannot truly separate us from those we love and that all lost bonds will be renewed on the other side. 

Such a distinctly nostalgic, self-reflective mood makes “Lost in New York” a deeply personal movie for Rollin. The director's films have always largely been variations on themes. Yet there's a sense of the finite to the way “Lost in New York” revisits Rollin's reoccuring motifs. The sisterly bonds between two young women seen in his films frequently hovered between the child-like and the sensual but here it's clarified as a longing to return to innocence. That immediately recognizable beach, with the legs of a rotted away dock extending from the water like teeth, reappears. So does the hunting vampire in a see-through nightgown, wandering through a blustery cemetery. To this litany of trademark imagery, “Lost in New York” adds another. The women wearing white masks is as immediate and gripping an image as any other the director put before cameras. 

As much as “Lost in New York” feels like a final statement by the director on his body work, it would not be his last movie. Rollins would actually make five more movies before his death in 2010, including several that touched upon the camp horror concepts that made him famous. “Lost in New York” belatedly brings Rollin's style into the eighties, with a slithering synth soundtrack, but still feels like a throwback to the groovy seventies. Especially when a comical sproing sound effect is used when the girls teleport across the globe, one last goofy joke in a film more concerned with putting a point on things. Recently, a restored version was released on Arrow's streaming service, really allowing “Lost in New York” to be rediscovered by Rollin's obsessives, where it has been properly evaluated as one of the most intriguing, beguiling, and important works of the director's career. [9/10]

Tales of the Unexpected: The Hitch-Hiker

If there's anything I've learned from horror movies and thriller stories, it's that picking up a hitchhiker is never a good idea. I'm not surprised that Roald Dahl, prolific writer that he was, put his own spin on this particular genre trope. Nor that such a story would be adapted for “Tales of the Unexpected.” “The Hitch-Hiker” begins with Paul, an American writer, traveling across Ireland in his new automobile. He picks up a hitchhiker, an eccentric fellow named Fish, who talks him into testing out the car's speed capabilities. When a highway patrolman pulls him over for speeding, Paul is none too pleased. Afterwards, Fish reveals that he's an exceptionally fast “fingersmith,” able to steal a man's belt off without him even noticing. And Paul's luck only gets worst from there.

As far as hitchhikers from anthology shows go, Fish here is more on the mischievous than the outright murderous side. Considering the setting and the seemingly magical slight-of-hand Fish displays, I can't help but wonder if he's not meant to be a leprechaun or other fairy being. (At least in a metaphorical sense, if not literally.) After all, he's able to snatch Paul's shoelaces off while he's driving. Much like you'd expect from such an impish spirit, Fish isn't done playing tricks on the man foolish enough to give him a ride. Since this is “Tales of the Unexpected,” the story ends in a twist ending that isn't exactly shocking though is a suitably ironic place to end things.

The episode is mostly a two-man show, with Rod Taylor as the driver and Cyril Cusack as the hitchhiker. Taylor makes an ideal straight man in this scenario, growing increasingly frustrated with the situation. Cusack, with his lilting Irish accent, is also ideally cast as the trickster. The way their conversation progresses, how he's able to subtly goad Paul into more and more bad decisions, is natural but diverting. As far as British television shows from the early eighties go, this one is well shot too. There's several crane shots over the highway which adds a nice cinematic quality. Maybe that's the unexpected part... [7/10]

The Munsters: The Fregosi Emerald / Zombo

“The Fregosi Emerald” starts with Marilyn's birthday party. Eddie gifts her a ring he found in the attic. Grandpa claims it is the cursed Fregosi Emerald. Marilyn's date that night goes horribly, suggesting the curse is real. Herman is skeptical, slipping the ring on himself and immediately having bad luck befall him. The ring is stuck to his finger, forcing Grandpa to find the sole descendant to the Fregosi family to remove the curse. In “Zombo,” Eddie has developed a fascination of the titular TV horror host. Herman is jealous of his son looking up to another monster, prompting him to extreme measures. When Eddie wins a contest to meet Zombo, he's disappointed that his hero is just an actor and not an actual ghoul.

Herman doubting the existence of a cursed ring feels like a stretch, considering everything else about him. “The Fregosi Emerald” starts off kind of slow, as far as these things go, with a lack of laughs in the first few minutes. “The Munsters” being the show that it is, more laughs are produced the broader things go. Lily's muffins exploding or Herman immediately having stuff fall on him the minute he slips on the ring is a good chuckle. Things get even wackier as the story progresses, eventually coming to involve a Transylvanian operator with  New York accent and a warlock posing as the head of an auto company. The final minutes are a nice expansion of the episode's central premise. 

If the amount of times I've heard it referenced is any indication, “Zombo” seems to be among the most popular episodes of “The Munsters.”  That's probably because the central premise – a real monster becomes jealous of a fake one on TV – is a novel use of the series' gimmick. “The Andy Griffith Show” couldn't do an episode like this! Also, Zombo seems to have a large budget for a horror host program. The make-up and haunted house set are fairly elaborate. Zombo also knows how to smash some monster-shaped crackers. As memorable as Zombo himself is, that's not the most entertaining thing about this episode. Herman trying to get his son's attention, being a massive man-child, or attempting to imitate Eddie's new idol are all good gags. The conclusion is sweet, as far as these things go, and seems like a fairly meta addressing of the show's younger viewers. [The Fregosi Emerald: 7/10 / Zombo: 7/10]

Halloween 2022: October 14th

The Devil's Candy (2015)

The connection between horror and heavy metal goes back to the beginning. After all, one of the foundational acts of the genre is named after a Mario Bava movie. Proto-Metal acts like Alice Cooper were awash with horror theatrics. By the time The Misfits started basing entire albums around horror homages, there was no going back. This link was especially fruitful in the eighties, when both horror and metal were the targets of moral panics. Both genres being happy to give the people what they want, there were a number of horror movies about heavy metal bands. Flicks like "Trick or Treat" or "Rock 'n' Roll Nightmare" became cult classics and we occasionally get a new metal-horror flick. Which brings me to "The Devil's Candy," Sean Byrne's much anticipated 2015 follow-up to "The Loved Ones." 

Metalhead and struggling artist Jesse is looking for a new home for himself, his wife Astrid, and their teenage daughter Zooey. (Who shares her father's interest in heavy music.) They find an affordable home in the Texas countryside with an impressively spacious studio. The house comes with a catch though: The previous residents died tragically. Raymond Smiley, who wails on his Flying V guitar to drown out the Satanic voices in his head telling him to kill, murdered his mother and father. Jesse buys the house anyway. He soon starts to hear the voices too. Moreover, Raymond is still out there, shredding on his guitar and reluctantly giving the devil his favorite candy: The lives of children. It's not long before he wants to return home. 

Those who saw "The Loved Ones" already knew that Sean Byrne was gifted at creating intense sequences. This is proven again in "The Devil's Candy." A tone of doomy dread is established in the first scene, where Raymond plays discordant music on his guitar as his mother butts her nose into his room. This continues in the scenes where Jesse, under the otherworldly influence, paints disturbing images. Scenes of Jesse arriving at school to pick up Zooey or a child swinging on a playground shows a visual precision, which helps in engineering effective scares. The best moment occurs in the last act, when Raymond bluntly deals with a police officer outside the household. Each act of violence, a gunshot or blow to the head, hits like a hammer. Or, perhaps, a big rock which is Raymond's preferred weapon. The fiery climax is impressive but the most striking visual in the film is a montage that cuts between Jesse painting and Raymond cleaning up after one of his murder, the swirling fluids quickly becoming indistinguishable. 

"The Devil's Candy" addresses the satanic panic that has long circled the metal genre in an interesting way. Raymond hears a whispering, persuasive voice in his head. When he can't drown it out with guitar riffs, he watches religious programming that rants about how the devil works through humanity. This suggests that Raymond isn't a Metalhead himself. In fact, despite his imposing physicality, he's a soft-spoken man who doesn't seem to want to kill. Jesse, meanwhile, loves loud, aggressive music full of macabre themes. When he hears the voices, he falls into a trance and makes graphic paintings of the children Raymond kills. While the film plays with the idea that Jesse is under the same demonic influence as the killer, the final scene reveals a more benign purpose behind his vision. All of this suggests that, whatever supernatural forces exist in this world, they don't drive us to kill. It's up to the individual human to decide what to do with the otherworldly static his cerebral radio picks up. 

The most unexpected aspect of “The Devil’s Candy” is the touching father/daughter link at the center of its story. It feels like positive parent/child relationships are rare in film in general, much less in the horror genre. Jesse and Zooey not only bond over their shared love of metal. They also have a deep understanding of each other. When Jesse screws up, he apologizes deeply and feels enormous guilt over letting his daughter down. He works extra hard to keep that promise. The performances from Ethan Embry and Kiara Glasco are utterly charming. It's so refreshing to see a movie that resists using a relationship like this as fodder for some deeper theme. There's no grand statement on parenthood, no attempt to use these two to add artificial depth to a simple story. Jesse and Zooey's bond, and the conflicts that emerge naturally and without contrivances, speak solely for themselves. You care about these characters because they are so well written and performed. When they are threatened, it makes the movie far more intense and involving. 

Did I mention that the entire movie, credits and all, runs a smooth 78 minutes long? Despite such a short runtime, "The Devil's Candy" never feels thin or underwritten. It says a lot, creates some intense thrills, involves us in its story, and gets out in under an hour-and-half. And then takes us out on a bitching montage set to "For Whom the Bells Toll." Could we have spent more time in this world, just hanging out with these lovable characters? Sure. And Raymond's condition could've been developed more, though I think the unexplained elements are too beguiling to loose. Ultimately, the only real complaint I have about "The Devil's Candy" is that it's too dark in a few scenes. Maybe that's just cause I bought the DVD, instead of the Blu-Ray. Either way, I loved this one even more on second viewing. I hope Sean Byrne gets to make another movie some day. [8/10]

Horror Rises from the Tomb (1973)

El espanto surge de la tumba

Thanks to some enthusiastic recommendations from the long gone SciFilms website, I've been familiar with the name Paul Naschy for many years. He was Spain's home-grown horror star. A fan of classic monster movies, he played a werewolf, Dracula, Frankenstein, a mummy, and a hunchback over the course of numerous films in the sixties and seventies. Despite the enthusiasm Naschy had for the genre and these characters, his films rarely rose above the level of sleazy, drive-in camp. I've only seen one of his films before and, while selecting a second one, “Horror Rises from the Tomb” was a title that cropped up repeatedly. And, hey, it's on Tubi. Let's give it a shot.

In medieval France, sorcerer Alaric de Marnac is executed. After promising he'll return to haunt the descendants of those who condemned him, he is decapitated and his head buried apart from his body. His female companion, Mabille de Lancre, is also put to death. Hundreds of years later, Alaric's descendant is seeing visions of the warlock while painting. He travels with a  group of friends to the family estate in rural France. There, the warlock's decapitated head calls to them. Slowly, Alaric de Marnac is dug up and reunited with his body. After bringing Mabille back to life, he immediately seeks bloody, supernatural vengeance on all around him. 

Wikipedia informs me that Naschy wrote the script to “Horror Rises from the Tomb” in less than two days. This is readily apparent in the final product. The film's script is a mess of vague characters, unclear motivations, contrived plot points, and unnecessary subplots. The film begins with far too many characters, none of which are developed beyond the simplest ideas. They begin to fade into each other immediately, some of them even looking quite similar. (Naschy plays three separate characters.) The story starts in Paris, before leaping to an ancient castle without much cause, where most of the plot unfolds. Plot points like buried treasure and a wrecked car waltz in and out of the plot. There's a whole scene devoted to a roving group of criminals, who attack the cast and are executed by a lynch mob. None of this becomes relevant ever again. Heroes and villains switch places several times, especially as mind-control is also among the warlock's powers.  “Horror Rises from the Tomb” really feels like its script was slapped together without much consideration for coherence or logic.

It's well known that Naschy was a student of the Universal monster movies. This makes “Horror Rises from the Tomb's” resemblance to “The Thing That Couldn't Die” probably more than a coincidence. Yet the film is not content just being about a decapitated sorcerer who is reunited with his body. The movie throws in a number of horror premises. The first third includes a spooky séance and visions of a floating, bloody head. Before becoming whole, Alaric hypnotizes a number of random people into being his slaves, who willingly commit bloody murder for him. Once Alaric and his bride rise from their graves, he heavily resembles a vampire. He has a long cape, seduces and mesmerizes people, and is repelled by a medallion much the way Dracula is repelled by the crucifix. Naschy even sports fangs in a few scenes. Seemingly for the hell of it, the flick tosses in some zombies half-way through too. Some of the villain's victims rise again as undead, shambling corpses. If you think that's going to be important, then you're probably watching the wrong movie.

It almost goes without saying that the movie's presentation is cheap and cheesy. The cinematography is filled with the shitty crash-zooms that were commonplace in Spanish horror. The organ-driven score is corny as can be. The special effects, as you might expect, are crude. The dubbing is dreadful. Yet Naschy and his team occasionally touch upon a striking, classic horror image. There's some strong use of fog and Bava-esque color in a few scenes. A moment devoted to Alaric and his bride rising from their caskets looks pretty cool. There's a certain sleazy gusto to the way Naschy and his team insert exploitation elements into this classic horror story. Throats are slashed, hearts are yanked out, and heads are cut off. There's quite a lot of nudity and sex, as the villain often likes to seduce his female victims before drinking their blood. 

That peculiar mix is, I think, where the appeal of Paul Naschy's films lie. He combines an enthusiasm for classic monster kid trappings with grindhouse movie sleaze and a do-it-yourself roughness behind the camera. It doesn't result in a movie that's good by any traditional metric. “Horror Rises from the Tomb” is actually quite hard-to-follow at times and takes a while to get grooving. Yet, once it reaches that sweet spot, I found myself entertain by its kitchen sink approach to horror concepts and the greasy charm Naschy brings to the villainous role. I think I definitely will seek out more of his films in the future. (Though probably not the sequel he made to this one, about a decade later.) [6/10]

Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1986): Final Escape

When it comes to the little loved eighties revival of “Alfred Hitchcock Presents,” it can be hard to choose episode. There's not been much written about it. Looking at IMDb scores, it seems “Final Escape” is among the series' most highly regarded installments. Lena Trent's attempt to convince the judge that she didn't kill her husband is unsuccessful. She is sent off to a women's prison, where she immediately begins to make enemies with the other in-mates and makes numerous attempts to escape. Lena befriends Doc, the prison undertaker who is slowly going blind. They concoct a plan to ship Lena out of the prison in a casket. 

This is one of the episodes of the 1986 version of “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” that is a direct remake of an episode from the original series. The protagonist's gender is switched around, which makes this “Final Escape” an entry into the women-in-prison genre. I haven't seen the original episode yet but it seems the melodrama of the scenario is played up more. Lena spends nearly the entire episode getting the shit kicked out of her by the other in-mates. Season Hubley's performance is pitched as high as possible, making many of her interactions as theatrical as possible. It's a high-strung half-hour of television that walks the line between the sublime and the ridiculous. 

If there's any issue I have with “Final Escape,” it's whether we're suppose to root for Lena or not. The first scene introduces her as a scheming, self-interested femme fatale. She tries to play the judge and everyone else she encounters with a tear-strewn act. When that doesn't work, she immediately turns up the bitchiness. Yet, as the episode repeatedly shows her getting abused, I was wondering if we're suppose to root for her after all. By the time she's blatantly lying to manipulate poor ol' Doc, it's clear were our sympathies are meant to lie. This sets up the episode's dark, ironic ending which is also it's most explicit horror element. That climax is strong enough that it makes the whole episode, so you should discover it yourself. While a bit undecisive, I think I still have to recommend this one. [6/10]

The Munsters: Lily Munster - Girl Model / Munster the Magnificent

“The Munsters” does a not-so-bright take on the women's liberation movement with “Lily Munster – Girl Model.” Frustrated with no one having time for her, Lily decides to get a job outside the home. After a number of unsuccessful gigs, Lily gets hired as a runway model. This immediately makes Herman jealous, who cooks up a ridiculous plot with Grandpa to manipulate his wife into leaving her new job. In “Munster the Magnificent,” Eddie selects his father to perform at a school children/parents talent show. This is a problem, as Herman doesn't have many special skills. Eventually, the Munsters patriarch decides to give being a stage magician a try. After he proves incompetent at that too, Grandpa steps in to help.

I guess it's inevitable that a 150 year old Frankenstein wouldn't have the most enlightened opinions on women's employment. His petty reason for tearing down Lily's new job is disappointing. Despite that, “Lily Munster – Girl Model” is still a pretty funny episode. The montage of jobs Lily holds down briefly is amusing, with her failed attempts at being a secretary being the silliest gag. Grandpa presenting Herman with a series of pills that can turn him into any number of then-relevant sex symbols gets increasingly bizarre, as he tries on personas based on Frank Sinatra and a French movie star. There's also an unexpected shout-out to Pat Boone and Mr. Clean! Things get even weirder as a gender-bending twist is added. The result is a deliriously silly episode with some seriously strange connotations, that I'd rather not entertain. 

“Munster the Magnificent” continues this show's tradition of giving Herman various random jobs. Here, he takes on the title of stage magician. Obviously, the premise of Grandpa helping him out from off-stage is going to result in shenanigans. Though maybe not in the way you'd expect.. As always, Fred Gwynne's way with a silly one-liner or sideways glance counts for a lot. His reaction to a dove appearing under his hat, or telling dad jokes while pulling ribbons out of his sleeve, makes it all with it. Somehow, none of these gags rank among the episode's goofiest. That would be when Grandpa sleeps some automatic dancing shoes on Herman's feet, causing him to perform ballet all over the house and streets. Also, Pat Priest wears a leggy magician's assistant outfit in this episode, for the guys looking for that kind of thing. [Lily Munster – Girl Model: 7/10 / Munster the Magnificent: 6/10]