Welcome to the film-related musings, complaints, and comments of Zack Clopton, an amateur film-critic, scholar, and screenwriter. Featured here are Director's Report Cards, essays, and other reviews. Enjoy!
Last of the Monster Kids
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Familiarizing oneself with another country's horror history means getting to know that country's horror stars. The actress known professionally as Suzzanna had been working since 1958. She became well known for the 1970 human trafficking drama, “Bernafas Dalam Lumpur.” At the start of the eighties, her career would begin a new phase. While macabre films had been made in the country in prior decades – Suzzanna had previously appeared in a 1972 effort, “Birth in the Grave” – Indonesian horror would really kick off in 1980 with “Satan's Slave.” The next year saw the release of “Mystics in Bali” and “The Queen of Black Magic,” two more popular and highly influential titles. The latter starred Suzanne, nearly forty at the time but still astonishingly youthful looking. Its success would lead to her starring in a number of horror flicks throughout the eighties, with “Sundel Bolong” and “Santet” being some of the better known titles internationally. That's how she earned the nickname “The Queen of Indonesian Horror.” But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's go back to “Queen of Black Magic.”
Murni is a virginal maiden in a small Indonesian village. She is seduced by a man named Kohar, who promises to marry her before taking her to bed. Instead, he discards the girl and marries the daughter of the village's leader, granting himself a privileged status. On their wedding day, the bride begins to experience horrific visions of dead bodies, snakes, and rotting food. Kohar accuses Murni of having bewitched his new wife. He assembles an angry mob that tosses Murni off a cliff. The villagers assume her dead but she has been rescued by Gendon, a powerful sorcerer living in the jungle. He promises to teach Murni the ways of black magic, giving her the abilities she'll need to take revenge on those who have wronged her. However, it turns out that her teacher has an agenda of his own. The situation is further complicated by the arrival of Permana, a Muslim authority brought in to investigate all the strangeness, that Murni feels drawn to.
My previous exposure to eighties Indonesian horror was watching “Mystics in Bali” last October. That movie was delightfully insane, in its commitment to using low budget special effects to create truly bizarre and gruesome sights. “The Queen of Black Magic” doesn't pack in quite as much rubbery madness as that movie but it comes close. Murni's specialty, as a enchantress, is to compel the men who tried to destroy her to destroy themselves. A notable scene has a guy's muscles flexing and pulsating until his skin bursts apart. Another stand-out sequence involves a fellow tearing his own head off, which then comes to life and attacks someone else. When not employing these methods, Murni calls upon a horde of vicious bees or spins someone into the ground like a drill bit. As you might expect, the visual effects are far from seamless. However, the cheesy quality only adds to the movie's charm. “Queen of Black Magic” constantly surprises its viewer with one unexpected and grisly sight after another, brought to life with lots of mutating rubber skin and spurting fake blood. It is, in other words, cool as shit and utterly entertaining.
The stereotype is that Asian countries are incredibly patriarchal, which is often reflected in its cinema. This element of Indonesian society is obviously reflected in “The Queen of Black Magic.” The idea of a woman giving her virginity to anyone but the man she'll married is treated as an enormous scandal. It's enough to mark Murni as a pariah even before she's accused of witchcraft. The man, of course, receives no blow back whatsoever for sleeping around. On one level, Murni becoming a magical avenger certainly suggests this is a narrative about fighting back against these restrictive systems. Except, of course, that she's still under a man's control when learning black magic. Moreover, the second half shows Murni being increasingly manipulated by her teacher while she longs to return to traditionally feminine roles like being a mother. The ending makes sure to find a way to excuse Murni for transgressing, having her die a forgiven woman that is subservient to a good man. The moral of “The Queen of Black Magic” definitely seems to be that it's wrong for a man to pressure a woman into sex and generally mislead her... While also pointing towards the idea that a mother, wife, daughter, and sister is still the most she should aspire to.
This is not the only odd cultural dynamic at play here. “The Queen of Black Magic” is quite unambiguous in its depiction of occult powers as something to be reckoned with. In addition to all the horrors Murni reaps, her teacher is able to make a man's belly swell like he's pregnant with the use of enchanted dolls or shoot fireballs from his hands. While “Mystics in Bali” showed good white magic as the opposing force to the evil witchcraft, the hero in this film is a Muslim sufi. I don't know anything about how Islamic beliefs influence Indonesian culture, other than it's the majority religion in the country. The presumption is that a Muslim hero in an Indonesian movie, in combat against black magic, plays a similar role to a Catholic priest in an American exorcism movie. Except the white men of God are usually kind of useless against the devil. The hero in “Queen of Black Magic” knows exactly what he's doing, He counters what the villain throws at him and is gloriously victorious. Maybe there really is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his prophet after all...
It's easy to see why Suzzanna would become the face of the horror genre in her home country. She does have an enchanting presence. She is capable of playing both an innocent woman who has been wronged and a wicked force of vengeance. While it can be a bit tricky to tell how the film expects us to feel about her character at any given point, her performance makes sure that we're always on her side. More than anything else, “The Queen of Black Magic” is packed full of unforgettably bizarre images. Murni going somersaults through the air before a full moon or a body exploding graphically right before the end titles come up abruptly: Oh yeah, that's the stuff. That's what I seek out in cult cinema like this. While not quite the parade of lunacy that “Mystics in Bali” was, this was still a ton of fun. [7/10]
New Concorde was something like Roger Corman's third or fourth company, depending on what exactly you count. By the early nineties, the studio was absolutely in the business of producing quickie, direct-to-video sequels to whatever their latest hit was. This is why they made eight “Bloodfist” movies, five “Carnosaurs” kind of, and two sequels to “Munchies.” Clearly, the video stores is where the company was having their greatest success. That is probably why “Watchers II” went straight-to-VHS in 1990. It must have sold well but not so well as to rush a third installment out. When a deal came along that allowed Corman to make some films cheaply in Peru, I guess somebody figured that would be a good place to shoot “Watchers 3.” Marc Singer was, I guess, unavailable so instead Wings Hauser – another cult celeb casualty of 2025, sad to say – would team up with a super-smart dog against another genetically engineered monster this time.
A top secret aircraft is shot down over a jungle infested Central American country. Two creatures escape from a container that is left behind. The first is a mundane golden retriever. The second is a hideous monster, that sets about immediately tearing apart a local military encampment. Meanwhile, a decorated soldier named Ferguson is being held in military prison, for unspecified crimes. A government official named Stratten makes him an offer. Ferguson and a team of other ex-military convicts will be sent into the jungle after the monster as a black ops. unit. If they can capture the beast, their records will be cleared. Shortly after arriving, Ferguson encounters a super-smart dog that he recognizes as Einstein. Yes, it's at this point that “Watchers 3” is revealed as an actual sequel to the second movie. Oh yeah, he also realizes that the team hasn't been sent to stop the Outsider. They've been sent to prove how effective a killing machine it really is.
It wasn't too difficult to see that “Predator” was a clear influence on the first two “Watchers” movies. The original features its hero setting traps for the monster in the forest. The second doubled-up on the action elements, while adding more infrared-style point-of-view shots from the creature's perspective. Despite that, the movies at least carried the main gimmick of the book forward by focusing on the relationships between the heroes and the hyper-intelligent dogs they befriend. Unfortunately, “Watchers 3” has comparatively little of that. Ferguson and Einstein are not reunited until about half through the movie. For most of the film, the dog hangs out with a mute boy. The exclusively jungle setting leaves few chances for cute scenes of Einstein doing extraordinary activities like typing or driving a car. Instead, “Watchers 3” commits itself entirely to being a “Predator” rip-off. This is a movie about commandos, sent into the jungle under false pretenses, being killed off one-by-one by a super competent monster. Several scenes are directly copied from John MacTiernan's sci-fi/action classic. Such as the monster tending to its wounds and shrieking towards the heavens or the hero rigging up a swinging log booby trap for the beast.
I don't know why New Horizon decided to produce a blatant knock-off of “Predator,” four years after the cloaked extraterrestrial hunter lurked through the big city. What I do know is that the budget clearly was not here to emulate the pyrotechnics and over-the-top action that made “Predator” a classic. Instead, “Watchers 3” seems to feature a lot of downtime for its team of ex-con bad-asses. There are a handful of encounters with the Outsider in the first half but none are allowed to escalate very far. This means the runtime is padded out with many sequences of the guys bickering among themselves. The one female on the squad is harassed by the biggest asshole on the team, encouraging Ferguson to bark about how he's a dad now or whatever. There's lots of scenes of the dudes challenging his authority, debating what to do, or looking back on their time in Vietnam. Wings Hauser had a certain raspy charm but that can only go so far. A long sequence in which he explains the events of the previous movie, while leaning against a tree, only gives the impression that this life-or-death situation is not so urgent after all.
That “Watchers 3” ends up more uneventful than thrilling is disappointing. While straying further and further from the alligator/baboon described in Koontz' book, this sequel probably has the coolest look for the Outsider yet. It's a reptilian creature with bulging bug eyes, a bumpy exterior hide, and a decently animated face. The seams in the budget still show repeatedly. Whenever the creature has to run, its various scales and armor flop around. It makes the same canned hissing/shrieking dinosaurian monster noises you've heard in a hundred other B-movies. However, when dedicated to the monster tearing dudes apart, “Watchers 3” finally develops a pulse. The gory dismemberment mostly play out on-screen this time. Two bloody moments that couldn't help but make me laugh involved the monster ripping the flesh from a guy's chest until the rib cage was revealed and a rather rubbery beheading. Once the rest of Ferguson's team bit the dust, and the film becomes a mano-a-monsto showdown, the feeling of dull inevitability overtakes it once again.
“Watchers 3” cooks a little bit of “Rambo: First Blood Part II” into its premise as well, what with the good guy being released from prison only to be screwed over by the man in charge. Because this is a half-assed and low-budget rip-off, we don't get to see Wings get revenge on the stuffed-shirt CIA pencil-pusher who sent him off to die. We do, however, get to see Wings sit down from across a large black man and say “I'm black.” (They are about to play chess, har-har.) There's also an amusingly overheated moment where one of his army buddies has a Vietnam flashback right at the moment of death, leading to much overacting from both parties involved. Does that make “Watchers 3” worth watching? Not really. This one definitely needed more dog. [5/10]
Of all the prominent celebrity deaths in 2025, the one that hit me the hardest was Michelle Trachtenberg. I'll admit, I had a crush on her back in my middle school days, going so far as to pin a poster of her from the official “Buffy” magazine up on my bedroom wall. I've decided to pay homage to Miss Trachtenberg by digging up an overlooked series she hosted. In 1996, Discovery Channel launched a kid-centric spin-off network called, fittingly enough, Discovery Kids. At the time, Discovery was still a brand associated with actual educational programming and this venture was meant to bring the same quality of documentaries and science shows to a younger audience. One such program was “Truth or Scare,” which was basically a version of “In Search Of...” targeted at the 7-to-12 crowd. From a bitchin' looking creepy library set, “Michelle Trachtenberg of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,”” as the credits referred to her, would brings us a little bit of the history behind legends like Dracula, werewolves, Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, and haunted locations from all around the world.
Of the twenty-two episodes, “The True Story of Halloween” is obviously the most fitting for this time of year. Over a half-hour, Trachtenberg describes a brief summation of Halloween's roots as a Celtic celebration and how this practice was eventually Christianized and secularized into the holiday we know today. The narration is fairly simplified but the information covered is essentially true. The script has the annoying habit of relying legends under the guise of “a man claims to have seen” something but it gets the message across. A kid watching this would learn that Halloween began as a celebration of the harvest, a commemoration of the spirits of the dead, and a time when spiritual awareness was heightened. Stories like human sacrifices or black cats being burned at this time are mentioned and smartly dismissed as legends. Instead, the origins of bobbing for apples as a form of divination or trick-or-treating's probable beginnings as the Catholic tradition of souling are high-lighted. Good stuff for a eight year old to learn back in October of 2001.
The footage that plays behind this narration is standard B-roll of nineties trick-or-treaters. The number of Ghostface masks on display make that clear. When Michelle is discussing the legend of Stingy Jack, we get some fun footage of a guy in a devil mask hanging out in a tree. “Truth or Scare” mixes in a little bit of backstory behind the vampire and witches legends too. A modern pagan named Fiona Horne is interviewed to provide some insight into witchcraft history and its link to the modern Halloween. Anybody well versed in the history and folklore of the holiday isn't going to learn anything new here. However, it sets a fittingly spooky ambiance for anybody who has nostalgia for this era of television. This is especially true of the opening titles – depicted as an animated trip through the secret passageways of a haunted host – and the cool goth fashion Trachtenberg wears in her host segments. While surrounded by pumpkins and candles, no less. No wonder my twelve year old self got a good look at her and started feeling things. Rest in peace, Michelle. [7/10]
Before Jean Rollin started making his dreamy sexploitation movies about naked lady vampires and an immediately recognizable beach, he was a young filmmaker trying to establish himself. After failing to make a documentary about Francisco Franco, he directed a surreal short entitled "The Far Countries." It concerns a young man wandering through the streets of a ruined city, covered with rubble. He has few memories and only knows he is seeking the town center. The people he meets speak a strange unearthly language, always too busy to help him. In an underground tunnel, he meets a young woman who speaks French. Her memories are also fragmented but, together, the two attempt to navigate through this strange, inhospitable place.
Rollin was a filmmaker obsessed with reoccurring ideas and images. He returned to many of them over and over again throughout his career, like reprises during an orchestral piece. "The Far Countries" lacks the sexploitation or gothic elements of his later work but does zero in on another persistent theme. Here, we see a man wandering through a strange city. He doesn't know anything about it, other than he doesn't belong here. Rollin protagonists are always misfits and, more often than not, they wander through labyrinth locations where they do not fit in. The lack of memory – revisited in "Night of the Hunted" – and not speaking the language makes the outsiderdom in "The Far Countries" even more existential. The man doesn't know how he got here, where he's going, and can't make anyone understand how lost he is. You can't help but interpret the film as a metaphor for life when you're a confused young person, with not much behind you and no idea of what's ahead, surrounded by a hostile landscape where everyone around you doesn't even speak the same words as you.
The protagonist persists in this state until he meets a girl, who is enough like him that they can form a bond. There's no resolution to "The Far Countries" but what we do get is a young couple finding some form of solace in each other's arms. The ending is more hopeful than Rollin's later films that touched on similar ideas, like "The Iron Rose" or "Lips of Blood," which veer more towards tragedy or ennui. In general, the short lacks the threat of death or campy dime store horror trappings that haunts his later work. However, it has the same sort of dreamy otherness that I seek from Rollin. Ideas here – running into a friend at his home and being unable to convince him of what you need because he's about to leave on an important trip – feel right out of an anxious dream. As do inexplicable but somehow meaningful images like the man picking up a dislocated door and laying it aside. Describing the "The Far Countries" as horror exactly is a real stretch. (Though being lost in a seemingly post-apocalyptic city where everyone speaks a weird language you can't understand would be pretty scary.) Yet, for Rollin fans like me, it provides a tantalizing glimpse into his early days, when the obsessions were just taking roots but the symbols resonate with the same hard-to-define importance. [7/10]
The cinema of India is fairly accessible in the west now. Most movie fans have at least a vague idea of what a Bollywood movie is like, thanks to cultural osmosis. Streaming has made many international titles available to anyone with an Internet connection. Slowly, Bollywood flicks are breaking into the American mainstream. Being the massive industry it is, there are lots of Hindi horror movies for me to choose for my Horror Around the World project. Last year, instead of choosing a movie rooted totally in Indian culture for my Halloween visit to Calcutta, I picked the Bollywood rip-off of "A Nightmare on Elm Street." Because I could not resist the lure of possibly seeing a Freddy Krueger knock-off sing and dance. He did not, much to my dismay. Surely, this year I will be more open-minded and watch a purely original Indian production? No, I'm watching the Bollywood rip-off of "Scream." Because I can not resist the lure of possibly seeing a Ghostface knock-off sing and dance. I'll do better next time but, for now, let's get into 2003's "Sssshhh..."
One night, Malini and her boyfriend are murdered by a knife-wielding, mask assailant at their college recreation center. A year later, her younger sister Mahek begins to receive threatening phone calls from someone claiming to be the killer. At her school, the same masked man murders one of her teachers. A bloody foot print is left behind at the scene and the police suspect Suraj, Mahek's new crush, might be a match. A friend of Mahek, Rocky, obviously has feelings for her and is jealous of Suraj. After being attacked in her home, she notices Suraj wearing the same watch as the masked man. He is arrested but Mahek is attacked again shortly awards. Suraj arrives to rescue her, alongside the police, who seemingly fatally wound the attacker. Feeling stressed, Mahek and her friends – including Suraj and Rocky – decide to take a vacation to Indonesia. After arriving at a secluded island, the killings begin again. It becomes apparent that the murderer is among them.
Most Bollywood remakes of international productions are, it is safe to say, more loosely inspired by their source material than directly based on it. However, you get the impression that the team who made “Sssshhh...” actually did see “Scream.” I'm guessing cellular and wireless phones were not yet in wide use in Shimla in 2003, so that element is downplayed. This also means that Ghostface's primary M.O – quizzing his victims on horror movie trivia – is entirely absent. The Edvard Munch inspired mask has been replaced with a yellow/red/blue-on-white clown mask. However, there are more parallels here to Wes Craven's original than expected. There's a stalking scene in a school bathroom. This killer is similarly vulnerable as Ghostface, getting whacked around by its victims while no less doggedly pursuing them. The nature of the murderer's identity and their motive – revisiting the sins of the parent on the child – are similar as well. The moment where a love interest appears outside the heroine's house only to be immediately fingered as her attacker is a direct quote. Director Pavan S. Kaul and writer Arshad Ali Syed might have seen another late nineties slasher flick too. Since “Sssshhh...” has a standard Bollywood runtime of nearly three hours, there's room for an extended third act where the characters arrive on an exotic island for a vacation, only to find a mostly abandoned resort and the killer waiting for them. Kind of like in “I Still Know What You Did Last Summer.” It makes you feel like you're watching a “Scream” knock-off directly followed by its own sequel.
While watching “Mahakaal” last year, I got the impression that the directors were much more interested in the nails-on-a-chalkboard comic relief, schmaltzy romance, and extremely culturally specific pop culture parodies than they were in making a scary horror movie. “Sssshhh...” provides almost the opposite feeling. Even when taken apart from its Hollywood inspiration, “Sssshhh...” functions as a decent slasher flick in its own right. Switching the opening to a rec center with a game room and swimming pool allows for a unique setting to create suspense. The color palette is bright and varied, almost giallo-esque at times. There's an intentional sense of exaggerated reality in many scenes. Such as an underwater attack in the second half, that feels otherworldly in its artificiality. A sequence set on a waterway in the foggy mountains or the first attack in Mahek's home do manage to generate some intensity and atmosphere. While the gore is mild compared to “Scream,” it's still there. A knife to an eye through a pair of glasses or blood splattered on a paint canvas suggests some thought went into making these kill scenes artistically delivered.
“Sssshhh...” is still very much a Bollywood production. Meaning that, yes, there are several musical numbers. As was the case with “Mahakaal,” the horror movie element and musical elements never quite interact. Disappointingly, no, this means the Ghostface stand-in neither sings nor dances. The songs are about topics like longing for love, trying to impress a girl you like, having fun while on vacation, or getting all sweaty and sexy in an Indonesian night club. While none of the songs struck me as especially catchy, they are more bearable than in “Mahakaal.” That's far from the only bizarre tonal swerves. The fight scenes are as theatrically choreographed as the dance scenes. Bollywood Ghostface, with his ability to survive being set on fire, shot, and leaping through a window, makes his American counterpart look like a wimp. The story involving a love triangle, Mahek torn between Suraj and Rocky, provides lots of romantic intrigue, comical teasing from her friends, and melodramatic declarations about tragic pasts. Thankfully, the truly broad comedic touches are mostly limited to only a few scenes, like a moment involving an overly persistent map salesman.
From my admittedly limited exposure, the feeling arises that South-East Asian audiences go to the movies looking more for a full meal, a sampling of many different types of cinematic treats, than a more concentrated dose of one specific thing or another. What these crowds don't seem to want is any particularly deep character drama, at least from the little bit I've seen. The characters in “Sssshhh...” are simple, to the point of archetypal. Most of Mahek's friends are interchangeable. Her hang-ups – an absentee father, the death of her sister, choosing between two guys – are treated at maximum volume. At the same time, the conflicts are simple. It's all about wanting to be noticed by the girl you love or trying to atone for the past. The performances are similarly larger than life. Despite its 168 minute runtime, nobody outside of Mahek and her immediate suitors get much development. Most of the characters never emerge as especially defined, making some of the death scenes later on much less effective.
I definitely need to take in more films from India before I truly get used to the tonal shifts and particular types of excesses that define a lot of motion pictures from that region. However, “Sssshhh...” is a bit more in my wheel house. It follows some recognizable patterns from American genre cinema while also doing its own, extremely Bollywood-centric thing in a number of ways. I'll also say that, despite being so long, it's also fairly effortlessly paced. There's a lot of stuff happening in this movie, that's for sure. Horror fans who have no patience for musical numbers or romantic melodrama should probably avoid “Sssshhh...” but I found it to blend many different ingredients in a mostly satisfying way. The film was seemingly not popular in India, denying us Bollywood remakes of “Urban Legend” and “Cherry Falls,” sadly. Maybe if they had the Ghostface knock-off dance, it would've been different. Nevertheless, I did enjoy this. [7/10]
“Witchboard” was given a limited theatrical release on the very last day of 1986. The film did well enough at the box office that its distributor expanded the release by the following spring. Ultimately, the movie made over seven million, a good return on a low budget flick but hardly a blockbuster. Still, this was the eighties, horror was big business, and the video market was expanding. It took four years but “Witchboard” would finally spawn a sequel in 1992, fulfilling the promise of every semi-successful eighties horror film and becoming a franchise. (Despite it taking until the nineties for that to come to pass.) Kevin S. Tenney would return to both write and direct, now a far more experienced filmmaker with four more features – including another cult classic, “Night of the Demons” – under his belt. Sometimes subtitled “The Devil's Doorway,” “Witchboard 2” doesn't seem to have a fraction of the fans as the original but I've never caught up with the rest of the "Witchboard" movies, so this October is the time.
Paige has recently broken up with her boyfriend, a cop named Mitch. She has rented a studio apartment and decided to pursue her dream of becoming an artist. While moving in, with some help from the landlord with a wandering eye and his extremely eccentric wife, Paige stumbles upon a ouija board. Without thinking much of it, she begins to mess with the occultic item. A spirit referring to itself as “Susan” begins to contact her. It inspires Paige's artwork and helps her out at her accounting day job. At the same time, this “Susan” drops hints of her own past, claiming to be the spirit of a murdered woman. Paige befriends Russell, a photographer who also lives in the apartment, and he claims Susan was a woman who lived upstairs. And that she's still alive. He also warns her to stop using the board. Paige persists and three things become clear: Susan was very much murdered. Her ghostly spirit is beginning to possess Paige, making the innocent girl act more scandalously. And this same supernatural force is seeking bloody revenge on the other tenets of the building.
"Witchboard 2" is one of those sequels without any direct connection to the original. So much for Malfeitor seemingly being set up as the Freddy or Jason of this series. Instead, it is linked by more-or-less the same thing happening to a totally different set of people. Much like part one's Linda, Paige begins using the ouija board by herself, unaware of the danger inherent in the act. She slowly falls into "progressive entrapment" from a malevolent spirit, while poltergeist activity claims the lives of those around her in apparent accident. There's a mystery around the identity of the spectre and nightmares in which the female lead wanders around in a slinky nightgown. However, "The Devil's Doorway" does shake things up by centering the woman being possessed in the story. Paige is our main character and we experience the benefits and changes evident in a ghost inhabiting your body. Unlike the strictly evil entity in the original "Witchboard," Paige relates to Susan as a victim of violence. It almost creates a feminist subtext, in that the clingy asshole cop ex-boyfriend, the handsy "nice guy" photographer upstairs, and the pervy landlord all have their eye on Paige. All of them wish to "possess" her too. Of course, that is undermined considerably by an ending that makes ghostly Susan into a full-on villain, removes Paige from the narrative, and turns Mitch into a rescuing hero. (The planchette does not spell out ACAB, it would seem.) Not to mention Ami Dolenz being constantly leered at by the camera in a succession of revealing outfits, an apparent compromise between the production company wanting the female lead to get naked and Dolenz' unwillingness to do nudity. Still, it is interesting.
You can tell watching “The Evil Dead” must have been a eureka moment for Kevin Tenney. He imitated the point-of-view shots from a nebulous evil force in the first “Witchboard” and “Night of the Demons.” It returns here, the camera assuming the perspective of some unseen spirit as it whooshes around the apartment building. In general, there's a certain Raimi-esque wackiness to the visual direction here. The build-up to a car crash includes a genuinely impressive shot of the camera passing through the back of the vehicle and back out through the front. When the crash happens, the chaos is ramped way the fuck up. All the death scenes in “Witchboard 2” have that nicely over-the-top quality to them. When someone gets taken out by a rogue wrecking ball, not unlike something in one of the shittier “Omen” sequels, the resulting explosion is bigger – and way funnier – than I was expecting. If nothing else, Tenney certainly understood the principal about sequels needing to be bigger than the original. The final act involves a dive through a window, a stuntman dangling off a swinging fire escape, some clever use of shadows, and a visual quote from “The Shining.” All signs that the director was having fun making this one.
Another element the sequel happily expands on from the first movie is a supporting cast full of bizarre characters. Last time, we had a juggling detective and a goofball medium. This time, we get a hippy lady so burnt out that she seems genuinely unaware that the sixties are over and also misheard the lyrics to 70s A.M. pop songs. She's paired with an overly gregarious, slightly creepy husband. There's also a single scene appearance from an extremely Jewish occult expert, a moment of blatant exposition made much more entertaining and memorable by that choice. I don't know if “The Devil's Doorway” has anything as memorable as the homoerotic tension between Jim and Brandon in the last one. However, Ami Dolanz does make for a compelling lead. She made this film between “Ticks” and “Pumpkinhead II,” making her the Scream Queen Supreme of early nineties direct-to-video schlock-horror that punches way above their weight class. She nicely balances being both a girl-next-door sweet heart who seems naive and overly trusting about the ways of the world, while also projecting an evident sexiness that makes you understand why every guy in the film is after her. She's a likable enough lead that you find yourself caring about her otherwise routine work place drama that occupies a few moments.
“Witchboard 2” naturally lacks some of the freshness of the original. While the first film was able to turn a simple board game and a wooden planchette into ominous symbol, the sequel can't invest the title object with that much dread. It also doesn't have the moody locations too, generally feeling a lot smaller scale in terms of scope. Nevertheless, this is easily an above average bit of comfort horror junk food. It's a lot smarter, funnier, more creative, and better acted than a four years later sequel to “Witchboard,” during the doldrum days of the nineties, needed to be. These kind of medium budget sequels to medium proof eighties cult classics, essentially made for the video store audience, were not well respected in their day, were not respected during their day. In our age of streaming slop, follow-ups like this, “Night of the Demons 2,” the “Sleepaway Camp” sequels, and another flick I'll be reviewing in a few days seem positively charming. They no doubt succeed because of lowered expectations but “Witchboard 2” proves that creativity could still be on-display in venues such as these. [7/10]
The second episode of “Alien: Earth” presents one of my primary problems with serialized storytelling in television and especially during the streaming era. Every body wants to make movies that are eight hours long and broken into parts, instead of letting the television format do the things that it is good at. “Mr. October” sees “Alien: Earth” splitting time between several subplots, which is all too often the fate of programs like this. Wendy and her unit of hybrid cyborg children have been deployed to New Siam. She quickly lets it slip that her brother, Joe, is the medic of the team sent inside the crashed building. That same set of Prodigy corporation paid soldiers soon encounter the alien life form responsible for these events. Wendy eventually gets reunited with her brother, who quickly learns who she is. The android who was aboard the crashed ship is still attempting to contain the Xenomorph. The other members of the “Lost Boys” uncover some unrelated alien life forms, which they capture for their trillionaire corporate overlord. Meanwhile, he bickers with the owner of the Yutani organization over ownership of the extraterrestrial prize within the ship.
If it wasn't apparent, I hate plotting like this. It doesn't allow the storytelling to grow organically or progress in a smoothly paced manner. Instead, it creates this herky-jerky back-and-forth as we jump between various plot threads, all of which are happening simultaneously. “Mr. October” focuses a lot of attention on developing Wendy and her relationship to Joe. The climatic moment of the episode, when the two are reunited and any doubt in his mind is removed that this robot girl truly is his resurrected little sister, is sweet. Some sense of actual emotion is invested in that scene. Sydney Chandler and Alex Lawther have some decent chemistry in that moment. However, these scenes have to occur as the characters make their way through a ruined building infested with hostile alien life forms. (Which continues the same sinking feeling I got from “Alien: Romulus,” that video games are influencing this franchise too much these days.) The episode ends on a big dramatic cliffhanger, that stops the emotional momentum of the story until it can be picked up again. Momentum that was already being interrupted as we cut between all the other collections of characters doing stuff in this episode.
I remain uncertain about Wendy and Joe as characters. This episode reveals that Wendy's unique properties as a hybrid human consciousness in a robot body gives her a litany of special abilities. In the past, revealed during another pacing de-railing flashback, we learn she communicated to Joe through a corporate office computer he was communicating with once. Later, while inside the building, she can seemingly sense the presence of the Xenomorph before the others can. I'm not sure how any of this is possible outside of pure magic. Ya know, in crappy comic books and fan fiction, characters are often given special powers in place of actual depth. In general, the story of a dying twelve year old suddenly having her brain transported into a super-advanced robot body – while still thinking and acting like a kid – feels a bit on the precious side. When paired with the maudlin emotion of her reaching out to a brother who thought she was dead, it all feels a bit weepy. Sentimental is something I don't think “Alien” should ever be.
“Alien: Earth” also seems committed to bringing the series' conception of the near future into something more akin to what we think of “cyberpunk.” This has always been an element of “Alien,” massive corporations putting technological gain above basic human rights. The planet and solar system being chopped between mega-corps or cold and totally automated systems making decisions about human life in a hyper-industrial future are logical extensions of what “Alien” presented. “Mr. October” takes it a bit further, by having a digital billboard for vapid, consumerist pleasures play on repeated in the background of all the urban destruction. The scenes devoted to the boy genius trillionaire leader of Prodigy, who is literally named “Boy Kavalier,” make it clear that he's a super-rich and utterly ego-driven idiot that believes himself superior to 99.9% of all human life. Another moment has a group of rich partiers, dressed up like French libertines, continuing to revel, completely unaware of the disaster playing out around them. Yes, I agree that billionaires are immoral, capitalism is evil, and that the glorification of wealth and those who have it is a denigration of the human soul. Also, it might be getting to the point that simply portraying these ideas can't count as meaningful insight anymore. Especially not in a franchise that's owned by an actual mega-corps, that utilizes I.P. from their library as reference points within the story.
All of these issues aside, the question remains of whether or not “Alien: Earth” functions as a horror show. There's a scene involving a seemingly dead, rotting cat revived by whatever the secondary monster is that I liked. It feels distinctly more like something out of “Bride of Re-Animator” but it was cool. A lot of the editing remains weird and jerky in a way that bugs me. Most evidently in the scene where Joe leaps away from the Xenomorph. However, I'll admit that this hour is most effective when focused on the slithery, slimy alien lurking in the background or chasing after some fleshy, easily torn apart humans. The other alien life forms glimpsed so far, that look like oversized geoducks, have not fired my imagination as of this writing. Most of my complaints here probably boil down to me being a grumpy old man who hates everything but “Alien: Earth” still has a ways to go to win me over. [6/10]
The last few episodes of “Monsters,” the horror focused follow-up to “Tales from the Darkside,” that I've watched have been quite good. That trend continues with “A Bond of Silk.” It follows Nash and Portia, a pair of newly-weds from the sticks. They have arrived in the big city for their honeymoon, spending the night in a hotel room recommended at a bargain by one of Nash's friends. Upon arriving, Portia immediately notices something odd. The closest already has clothes in it. Nash, undeterred, looks into the bedroom to see an enormous spider-web in place of a bed. He assumes it to be some kind of kinky role play at first until he becomes stuck to the threads. The couple begin to suspect that they've been lured into a trap and are now prey for an enormous spider. Nash dismisses this at crazy talk but his new bride is right. A giant-sized, eight-legged man-eater crawls into the room soon enough.
“A Bond of Silk” is a potent little slice of nightmare logic with a simple moral and an execution befitting an eighties horror flick. The how and why of this scenario is unimportant. We don't know why there's a giant spider in this hotel. Nor do we know how some hayseed's friends are connected to it. The important part is the premise itself. Through nefarious means, some unsuspecting individuals have arrived in a massive spider's web. That part works in favor of a television show's budget, limiting the entire episode to two sets. It also plays out like a bad dream, seemingly ordinary events quickly growing bizarre and unsettling.
From there, the concept plays out logically enough. Figuring out how this scenario came to be is not helpful to our heroes. They only need to figure out how to get out. Nash remains fixated on how implausible this trap is. His wife – a teacher, with a student who just did a report on spiders, hence her relevant knowledge – is focused on getting them out. That allows the tension to quickly escalate, Portia trying to navigate the web and free her husband. When the lights go out and the spider makes its appearance, that's when things get very tense. The entire last third of “A Bond of Silk” is a rush towards escape, the suspense rising high and fast as people barely escape from the spindly grasp of this creepy crawler. The climax is an amusing sick joke that blows up a common sight – squishing a bug – to super-sized proportions. It's a thunder jolt of an ending, “A Bond of Silk” ending immediately afterwards.
Through it all, an easily understood message to reiterate: if something seems too good to be true, it probably is. That reflects on the couple's marriage as well. Nash's desire for a cheap honeymoon is what got him and Portia in this disturbing scenario in the first place. He leaps into the web like an idiot and then panics. She operates with a calm head throughout, logically considering what might be happening. In other words, these two were never going to work out. Their approaches to life were totally antithetical to each other. Marc McClure is a pitch-perfect yokel while Lydia Cornell displays an immediate intelligence and strength as Portia. The direction is a bit flat and the lighting is overly dark. From what we see of the stop-motion spider, it looks cool as hell. Clearly, the shadowy visuals were probably a deliberate move to cover-up any seams in the special effects. “A Bond of Silk” shows “Monsters” operating at a brutally effective pace. [8/10]
Every corner of the globe has their own monsters. However, it does seem certain ideas catch on within specific geographical spaces. Practically every Eastern European country has their variation on the vampire. La bruja seems to be the dominate bugbear in Latin American cultures and the djinn is prominent in Muslim majority countries. Meanwhile, multiple areas in East Asia tell tales of ghostly women who seek vengeance on unfaithful men. Sometimes while having long, stringy black hair and wearing white burial gowns. Japan has been fascinated with the story of the ghost of Oiwa for two centuries. The equivalent figure in Chinese myths is called a nü gui while the Korean version is usually known as cheonyeogwisin, the virgin maiden ghost. In Thailand, they have the supposedly true legend of Mae Nak Phra Khanong. A shrine to the phantasmic bride and her unborn child stands in Bangkok to this day. Wikipedia mentions at least 24 film adaptations of the folktale. This meticulously researched Letterboxd list points to a 1936 version as the earliest cinematic take on the story. Of these many retellings, the most well known in the West is 1999's “Nang Nak,” from director Nonzee Nimibutr. It was, for a time, the highest grossing Thai film ever made.
For those unfamiliar, this is how the story goes: Mak has been drafted to fight in the Siamese-Vietnamese War. He leaves his small village behind, his devoted – and very pregnant – wife Nak being left alone. While on the battle field, Mak suffers a near fatal injury. He is rescued by a monk and his assistant, who insist he leave behind his old life and devote himself to the spiritual path. Mak refuses to abandon his wife and child though. He returns home, joyously received into his wife's arm. While haunted by dreams of the war, Mak notices that Nak is starting to act strangely. He also notices that no one else in the village wants anything to do with him and that many of their neighbors are dead. An old friend tries to convince Mak of something that seems impossible to him: Nak died during childbirth and now exists only as a ghost, terrorizing anyone who dare tries to separate them. Mak refuses to believe at first but soon can no longer deny that his wife is an undead spectre.
Most folk tales persist because they tell a moral that speaks to the values of the surrounding culture. Admittedly speaking as an outsider looking in, it would seem to me that the story of “Nang Nak” contains a specifically Buddhist message. After nearly dying and being saved by a monk, Mak is told to leave all his worldly possessions and passions behind. He can't do it because he loves his wife so much. Similarly, Nak herself cannot move onto the hereafter because she remains utterly attached to her husband. The idea of refusing to accept death as a part of a natural cycle and trying to escape the cycle of rebirth runs throughout the whole film. Unsurprisingly, the same Buddhist monk from earlier emerges as the story's hero by the end. It's as much a lesson about the tenets of Buddhism as any story of a vampire being warded off with a crucifix is a message about how awesome Christianity is. No belief exists in a vacuum and stories are reflections of the people that birthed them.
It reads, like most folklore that is at least a hundred years old, as melodrama to modern eyes. The emotions on display in “Nang Nak” are quite oversized. The first ten minutes of the film involves characters' names repeatedly being shouted, amid dramatic partings. Nang and Mak often declare their love for one another. The guy is so excitable that, simply seeing an old friend is enough to make him leap naked from a lake. When the ghost business takes precedence, the villagers are soon wielding torches and promising to drive out the evil. Nak's threats of supernatural vengeance against those who are trying to separate her from her husband are similarly overblown. However, despite the sweatiness of the emotions in this story, it still worked for me. This is mostly because the love story, one-note as it may be, is quite sweet. Intira Joroenupra and Winai Kraibutr have strong chemistry together as the couple. We never learn much about their history together but scenes like a flashback, in which they flirt in the field and share some betel leaf, are genuinely sweet. By the end, when yet more operatic declarations of love are being made, I admittedly found myself effected by them. The idea of loving someone so much that you refuse to live without them – despite being dead – is a powerful one.
Given the story its telling, Nimibutr's film functions more like a supernatural romance than a horror movie. However, the other villagers have good reason to be afraid of Nang Nak. When enraged, she summons a fire storm. In the legend's most famous moment, she stands upside down on a ceiling above a group of monks plotting her destruction. The special effects in “Nang Nak” are often quite cheesy. Another pivotal moment in the story, when Mak realizes his wife is a ghost when he sees her stretch her arm out to pick up a fallen piece of fruit, looks fairly silly. However, there is a classical eeriness to much of what follows. A thunderstorm billowing through a thatch hut, a dead body washing up in a boat, a shaman forced to bash his own head in: These are all striking moments that appear as mythic and old as they actually are. The period setting and ancient rites that seal the ghost make this the folkiest of folk horrors. Nimbutr's film is a respectable, stately retelling of these events that speaks to their power.
Much of “Nang Nak” seems to function as a historical lesson. An opening narration establishes the period setting. An epilogue expands on the legend of what happened to the ritualistic artifact that ultimately contains the ghost. I have no idea how this “Nang Nak” compares to the many other tellings of the story. Older Thai genre cinema is still almost impossible to find on the English language web and largely undistributed on disc. However, it is easy to see why this legend has endured for such a long time. It is a story of undying love and supernatural rage, of rejection and acceptance and unbreakable bonds. It's highly culturally specific, that should go without saying, but these themes are also universal. It is hard to call “Nang Nak” scary. It's almost better described as corny. However, as an argument for the value of folkloric tales such as these, it makes its point. [7/10]
I'm not an expert. I know very little. But: In the sixties, De-Stalinization started in Czechoslovakia and a more liberal government began to take shape. During this time, distinctly Czech and Slovakian voices emerged from the country's literary and art scenes. This is when notable filmmakers like Miloš Forman, Juraj Herz, Jan Švankmajer and František Vláčil started to draw international attention. Today, this movement is known as the Czech/Slovak New Wave and produced some of the most acclaimed movies to be made in the country. It all came to an abrupt end when Soviet forces invaded the country in 1968. The previous period of protest, reform, and liberalization was shoved back into the closet and stricter government censorship was reinstated on all sectors. The films made right at this turning point were some of the most inflammatory in Czech cinematic history up to that point. The likes of Herz' “The Cremator” and Forman's “The Firemen's Ball” were quickly banned by the in-coming administration. Perhaps no film captures this time better – he says, not really knowing what the hell he's talking about – than Karel Kachyňa's “The Ear.” The fusion of domestic drama, paranoia, ice cold absurdist humor, and an overarching tone of nightmarish dread would remain largely unseen until the nineties.
Ludvik is a low ranking member of the ruling Communist regime in Prague. He attends a work party with his wife, Anna. They hobnob with various government officials. Upon returning home, the drunk Anna realizes she left the key to their gate behind. The couple sneak into their own house. That is when they notice apparent government agents standing outside. Ludvik obsessively goes over his memories of the evening, becoming convinced that him and his wife are being targeted for elimination. As the two scour their home for hidden electronic listening devices – ears, you could call them – their already tense relationship begins to fall apart. Every minor slight and long-held complaint rushes to the surface. The night grows stranger and more distressing as they argue endlessly, burn documents, and repeatedly wonder how much they are being watched and listened to.
“The Ear” is not a traditional horror film by any means. Despite its presence on many lists of acclaimed scary movies, it resides on the margins of the genre. The horror present in this motion picture is strictly of the psychic variety. As Ludvik becomes increasingly convinced that every aspect of his life has been under surveillance, he reflects on everything he's said and done. The threat of living in a totalitarian state is that nothing is private. You are held accountable for every thought you have. Every grumble, whisper, and yawn can be held against you. Throughout “The Ear,” Ludvik and his wife move from room-to-room in their house. Private sanctums like the bedroom and bathroom slowly become violated as they are revealed to be bugged too. Their mental state slowly cracks up under the pressure of constantly being listened to and watched, any and all personal feelings being flattened out and kept private by a state that demands constant and complete submission.
One of the scariest suggestions in “The Ear” is that it doesn't truly matter whether this governing body, policing everything the characters say and think, exists or not. Throughout the film, Ludvik and Anna frequently argue about the degree of observation they are under. By the end, there is this creeping suspicion that the bugs in the house aren't hooked up to anything. The events of the next morning, coming at the very end and only after the endless night, leaves the protagonists wondering if they've done anything “wrong” at all. That perpetual uncertainty is exactly where the state wants them to be. Never sure when the hammer might come down, always fearful that they could slip up at any moment and be unpersoned the next day. Whether the structure of control exists or not is irrelevant The mere suggestion of it is enough to shake the duo to their core. The last line in “The Ear” is simply “I'm afraid.” When everything you say and do may or may not be evidence against you, it creates an unending fear of the inevitable punishment. Because we are all guilty of something, after all, aren't we?
In such an environment, what role does interpersonal relationships play? From the opening minutes of “The Ear,” it's evident that Ludvik and Anna's marriage is not a happy one. He seems to regard her with contempt. She seems to drink to help deal with the repressed feelings of resentment towards her husband. The two have a child but he never appears on-screen, only existing as a voice and a concept to be argue about and bargained over. A reoccurring thread in “The Ear” is how these two have never actually known each other, how both have sides they refuse to show. Not unlike how they must keep some thoughts and feelings secret from the government's ever-listening ears. They clearly dislike each other far more than they've ever cared about one another. However, they stay together anyway. In an oppressive country such as this, all relationships are mere tools for the government. More than once, Anna shouts out to the ears, eager to reveal (real or imagined) betrayals her husband has inflicted on her. “The Ear” gets quite a lot of suspense out of how far this unraveling of the relationship will go, supported by a properly frantic performance from Jiřina Bohdalová as Anna and a far more contained Radoslav Brzobohatý as Ludvik.
I say all of the above as if I actually have a clue what the hell I'm talking about. Much as I did when I watched "The Devil" last year, I must concede that I lack the proper cultural context to truly get my brain around "The Ear." Kachyňa's film is not only specifically Czech but also very relevant to life in the country during this particular moment of transition. Which means everything I wrote above is mostly me grasping in the dark. However, that doesn't mean I didn't find value in "The Ear." Josef Illík's black-and-white cinematography is extremely moody. The shadowy images establish an eerie tone right away. When the lights come on for the first time halfway through the movie, it feels almost akin to a jump scare. So much of "The Ear" is about secret deeds done in dark rooms, that the presence of brightness feels like an intrusion. The camera often assumes the point-of-view of the film's characters, furthering a paranoid feeling of being watched. Svatopluk Havelka's eccentric score creates a deliberately surreal atmosphere. A sequence where the government officials begin doing a strange dance at the party is when "The Ear" properly captures the sense of a nightmare. When Ludvik's "friends" from work arrive at the house and refuse to leave, it continues the feeling that we are stuck in a bad dream that simply won't end. When the sun comes up and the night finally concludes, the characters are stuck with the realization that their nightmare of paranoia is far from over.
I'm definitely too dumb to fully understand "The Ear." I think I would have to watch a lot more Czech New Wave movies – plus read a few books about the Prague Spring, the resulting Warsaw Pact invasion, and life under Soviet rule – to truly appreciate this one. I'd also argue that its classification within the horror genre is more metaphorical than literal. Not that the spectre of constant government surveillance, the resulting de-personalization, or the crushing paranoia isn't pretty scary. It simply doesn't scream Halloween spookiness to me. Nevertheless, the chilly atmosphere, the creepy visuals, and entombing tone of suspicion did work for me. It's kind of funny too, in that extremely dry and very absurd Eastern European way. Probably best recommended to the serious art house crowd and not your average Fangoria reader, unless you're working hard to expand your boundaries like I am these days. [7/10]
Looks like it was about six years ago when I last watched an episode of NBC's short-lived 1981 anthology “Darkroom.” I wasn't much impressed with what I saw but the James Coburn hosted program does have its defenders. Let's give it another shot, shall we? “Uncle George” concerns the Haskells, a nice old couple who live in a simple home out in the woods. Since Bert had a heart attack, he can't work the way he used to. Margo devotes her days to taking care of Uncle George, the bed-ridden relative in the upstairs bedroom. When Uncle George passes peacefully in his sleep, it is more than simply an emotional loss. Old George received a pension check every month and it helped the couple pay their bills. Bert buries George in the basement and drives over to the local bar. He finds Dixie, a homeless man. Bert takes him into a bar, buys him a drink, and makes him an offer: Dixie can live in their home for free if he poses as Uncle George, insuring that the household still gets that check every month. It seems like a sweet deal and Dixie happily accepts it... There's a serious catch though.
IMDb lists 16 episodes of “Darkroom.” However, this was one of those hour-long shows that usually included two segments per episode. Meaning the whole series actually only lasted for eight installments. The other “Darkroom” stories I've seen have been tales of supernatural horror. The one paired with “Uncle George,” for example, is a monster movie riff from ol' reliable Robert Bloch. For the majority of “Uncle George's” runtime, it seems to be an exception to that rule. It's a thoroughly sentimental story. Bert and Margo are happy to take care of their Uncle George, simply because he's family. It wasn't until Bert's injury that the checks became essential to their survival. When he picks up the old drunk off the street, it's basically a charitable act. Dixie describes how he's never had a family of his own, never been much valued by anyone around him. Here a complete stranger is, giving him a roof over his head and a bed to sleep on. There was a part of me that was wondering if this wasn't “Darkroom's” “Kick the Can” or “The Messiah on Mott Street.” Ya know, a break from the usual macabre subject matter for something more whimsical.
However, all throughout the episode, there is an underlying sinister intent. Claude Atkins and June Lockhart are as warm as can be as the couple. However, they approach what they are doing like it's a serious crime. I mean, it is a swindle but they are rather grave about it. The hushed tones they carry themselves with leaves the viewer guessing, wondering what exactly is up with these two. When that reveal comes, it's literally minutes before the end credits roll, the truth being held off until the final second. It's a hell of a swerve too, that changes the entire tone of the episode and successfully moves an otherwise sweet story into the realm of grisly horror. I don't know if “Uncle George” would have much value at all if it wasn't for that dynamite ending. However, sometimes that's all you really need to bring a half-hour episode together. Maybe “Darkroom” was better than I thought? James Coburn isn't a bad host either, with a wry winkle in his eye as he delivers grandiose, Serling-like introductions. [7/10]
If you'll allow me to, once again, compare and contrast America's two favorite families of the macabre once again:. It is a common observation that, while the Munsters are a working class family, the Addams family are rich. Herman was often at his day job at the funeral home. I think there's been exactly two episodes where Gomez' profession as a lawyer has been relevant at all. I bring it up because the Addams' philosophy towards employment is central to “Pugsley's Allowance.” The eldest child comes to his parents with a strange request: He thinks it's time for him to get a job. Gomez and Morticia are horrified at first, wondering why an Addams should have to work at all. The boy refuses offers of an allowance or an easy job with his dad. Instead, he seeks out a series of odd jobs, none of which are particularly suited to his eccentric personality. It comes to a head when Mr. Henson, frequent season one antagonist and the normie next door, hires the kids to clean out his attic.
“Pugsley's Allowance” does feel a bit like an episode where the writers looked around at some elements they hadn't used in a while and decided to do something with them again. Pugsley hasn't truly been the focus of an episode since that time Fester thought he turned him into a chimp. Mr. Henson is brought back, for the first time since “Gomez the People's Choice,” to once again fill the role of all-purpose antagonist. Now, he's the Addams' neighbor and ends up threatening to sue the family after Pugsley and Wednesday blow his attic up. That is when Gomez' knowledge of the law come back up, planning on counter-suing the guy. Ya know, for all the hardcore “Addams Family” nerds who are closely following the continuity of this silly old sitcom.
This episode does have a good number of funny bits. Pugsley repeatedly being sent back home by his employer every time, because of his unusual perspective, makes for an amusing running gag. It reaches an ideal climax when Pugsley's final attempt to find work outside the home – being the assistant to a bookie – results in another visit. Lurch reaching for guests' hat also gets a good repeat here. The direct way the kids did with Henson's dirty attic is a joke you see coming. But it's a strong one, specifically because it plays off the differing values between the Addams and stuffy, regular suburbanites like Henson. This episode also shows one of the few times in the series when Morticia gets genuinely angry, when her children are threatened. You definitely don't want to piss her off! “Pugsley's Allowance” also features Gomez being chained and padlocked by his wife. He remains tied up for most of the episode. Looks like these two are altogether freaky, am I right? [7/10]
