Halloween 2025: October 8th

 

The Untold Story (1993)
Bā Xiān Fàn Diàn Zhī Rén Ròu Chā Shāo Bāo

In 1986, concerns in Hong Kong about the effects of violent movies on children led to the creation of a rating system. Three separate categories were introduced to let parents know what kind of content a film contained before their kids watched it. Category I movies were deemed acceptable for all audiences. Category II was for movies tagged inappropriate for children. (Later, this label would be divided into IIA and IIB, about equivalent to the PG-13 and R ratings we have over here.) Category III, meanwhile, was the only rating that carried legal consequences: Anyone under the age of eighteen was forbidden by law from renting, buying, or watching such a film in theaters. Rather than lead to a softening of violence in Hong Kong cinema, this new system ended up galvanizing exploitation filmmakers. They began making movies deliberately packed with explicit sex and grisly violence, to utilize the inevitable Category III classification as a marketing tactic. These "Cat-III" films would become especially notorious among international horror nerds, in search of ever-more extreme and depraved shock value. Among these notorious titles, "The Untold Story" is probably the most critically acclaimed among global gore hounds. Well, I've got a pretty strong stomach so let's sit down for this extra-rare international delicacy. 

In 1978, Hong Kong resident Chan Chi-Leung brutally burned a man to death. He would destroy his government-issued I.D. and flee to Portuguese Macau, assuming the name Wong Chi Hang. Eight years later, "Wong" is operating a successful restaurant called the Eight Immortals. He claims to have won the business in a gambling match from its original owner, Cheng Lam, who then left the country with his wife and eight kids. The cops grow suspicious of Wong after receiving a letter from Lam's brother, saying he's been missing for months. When severed human limbs wash up on a local beach, one of which belonged to Lam's mother-in-law, authorities begin actively investigating Wong Chi Hang. They are right to do so. Wong is a violent psychopath, prone to murdering anyone who offends him. The Eight Immortals restaurant, and its popular barbecue pork buns, has provided him with a very effective way to dispose of the evidence of his crimes... 

The very first scene of "The Untold Story" depicts a man being viciously beaten and then set ablaze. This establishes, right away, a malicious mood. While some of the violence occurs with a degree of sick humor – a corpse's buns being buttered like it's a Thanksgiving turkey, a receipt spike to the eye – unrelenting brutality seems to be the primary goal here. When Wong assaults and murders a waitress, it's the kind of limits-pushing extremity I've come to expect from international shock-fests. However, “The Untold Story” keeps going. Multiple scenes follow of people being beaten. Methods of torture, like water being injected under the skin to create blisters, are detailed. Self-mutilation and urine being expelled, consumed, and bloodied are reoccurring topics. Yau's film grabs the viewer by the throat and drags them through this world of casual cruelty, in which people are butchered and fed into the meat grinder in exactly the same manner as pigs. In which nearly every interaction is met with shouts, mockery, or punches. It's grimly impressive how “The Untold Story” manages to keep topping itself in terms of shocking, mean-spirited content. After eighty minutes of despicable violence, the film then made me audibly gasp during its climatic cavalcade of cruelty and executions. 

Obviously, such punishing material makes for an uncomfortable watch. One understands the filmmakers' desire to, perhaps, provide some moments of levity in-between the beatings and cannibalism. The choices Yau and co-writer Danny Lee came up with is far less elegant. The group of cops assigned to Wong's case are bickering clowns prone to slapstick antics. Among them is a character named King Kong, also played by an actor named King Kong, a buffoon with a bowl cut. He's part of a team that includes a wannabe macho he-man type, Lee's womanizing lead officer, and the token female named Pearl. Pearl's tomboy fashion and mannerisms are a source of constant bullying from her sexist co-workers. Lee is regularly dragging sex workers into the office, parading them around in mini-skirts and tight dresses. When trying to get finger prints off a severed arm, Kong and Pearl comically hold their noses. This is the level of Keystone Coppery “The Untold Story” chooses to include to lighten an otherwise extremely grim story. The tonal whiplash that ensues is of a severity not seen since “The Last House on the Left.”

As annoying and out-of-place as these scenes are, I do think they serve a roundabout purpose. (Aside from Hong Kong filmmakers' previously documented disinterest in tonal coherence and tendency towards broad humor.) “The Untold Story” portrays the cops after Wong as incompetent. They are warned about him early on but dismiss the concerns and letters. It's only after they see him throwing away suspicious material that they think maybe he's up to something. Wong escapes police custody not because he's a criminal mastermind but because the authorities are nincompoops. When they grab the killer again, their response is to throw him into a jail cell with other crooks they know hate Wong. The police ignore his pleas for help as he's repeatedly beaten. Wong is tortured and kept awake for days until he confesses to his crimes. Basically, “The Untold Story” pits an openly corrupt and inept “justice” system against a monstrously deprived killer, raising questions of whether justice is a concept that can be said to truly exist at all.

While “The Untold Story” is largely an uncompromisingly grim exercise, there does seem to be a purpose to creating such a loveless cinematic world. Anthony Wong becomes Chan Chi-Leung by wearing giant square glasses and shaving his hair down to a widow's peak that makes his head dome-like. He juts his bottom jaw out to create an unflattering double chin, while starring ahead unblinking and pursing his lips together tightly. Wong often swears and yells at anyone he meets. When accused of cheating at mahjong, he admits that he does cheat but is still driven to rage by the accusation. The guy is despised by everyone who meets him. This makes Wong a rather accurate depiction of an anti-social personality type. He's an exposed wire, a terrifying presence that can launch into brutal violence without a moment's notice. Wong also looks astonishingly like the Chudjak meme, the modern face of petty bitterness and undirected hatred leading to mass murder. This is fitting, as Chan Chi-Leung is also a stupid, charmless person. It never occurs to him that killing his employees and putting up a help wanted sign the next day is suspicious. He is motivated primarily by greed. After accidentally committing one gruesome murder, he escalates to full-blown familicide by reasoning that there's no point in stopping now. There's something chillingly accurate in this depiction of evil not as something brilliant and charming but ugly, impulsive, senseless, and greedy. It feels truer to life than your usual cinematic serial killer. 

Anthony Wong's performance was such an impressive display of aggression and ignorance that he won the Hong Kong Film Award for Best Actor, the country's version of an Oscar. It's hard to imagine an exploitation film as gross and nasty as this achieving an honor like that in Hollywood. “The Untold Story” is made more disreputable by being based on fact. Or, more accurately, it is based on the sensationalist rumors that arose in the tabloids and urban legends after the actual crime. The Eight Immortals restaurant was a real place and the family that owned it was murdered following a gambling debt gone wrong. None of the cannibalism or more outrageous acts of violence depicted here are known to have actually occurred, making the film about as tacky an enterprise as possible. Despite that and some embarrassing comic relief, it is a compelling brutal motion picture, that achieves an effectively stunning impact on the viewer. Assuming you've got, uh, a taste for such things. [8/10]

The Sadist (1963)

Arch Hall's son was going to be a movie star. Hall, an actual cowboy who became a Western stuntman, he founded the film company Fairway Productions in 1959. His first feature, “The Choppers,” arrived in 1961. The teenage delinquent flick just so happened to star Arch Hill Jr., who also sang several songs in the film. The movie was profitable on the drive-in circuit, allowing Hll Sr. to pursue his dream of turning his son into an Elvis style rock 'n' roll singer/movie star. Archie Jr.'s lack of screen idol good looks wasn't going to stop him either. Their next features, the killer caveman/rock n roll/dune buggy flick “Eegah!” and musical “Wild Guitar,” were also mildly successful without turning Hall's boy into a teen idol. (In addition to being regarded nowadays as some of the most miscalculated B-movies ever made.) Perhaps with the thought that nobody wanted to see Arch Hall the Second as a hero,  it was decided to cast him as a villain in the next Fairway Production. This was the origin of “The Sadist” which, intentionally or not, has become the best reviewed of Arch Hall Jr.'s misbegotten film career.

Ed, Doris, and Carl are all school teachers. The trio is headed to a Dodgers game, mostly because the married Carl wants to see the single Ed and Doris get together. Some engine troubles ensue and they stop into an isolated gas station in the Antelope Valley. The place is seemingly abandoned but Carl soon finds a still-warm meal sitting on the table inside. That is when a strange young man, Charlie and his equally odd girlfriend, Judy, make themselves known. Wielding a gun, Charlie holds the three teachers hostage. He forces Ed, a former mechanic in the war, to fix their vehicle. When not doing that, Charlie and Judy torment and harasses the three adults. After Carl attempts to reach out to the young man's better nature, he beats him and shoots him in the head. That is when Ed recalls the spree killings reported in the area, realizing that the sadistic and unpredictable Charlie and Judy are responsible. And that they are aiming to make the remaining teachers their next victims. 

“The Sadist” has the kind of set-up that would've been commonplace in the seventies. It's loosely inspired by notorious spree killer Charles Starkweather and his underage accomplice Caril Ann Fugate, whose crimes had shocked the nation six years prior. Attached to this vaguely true crime-like premise is a grim tone. The title is apt. Early on, Charlie beats Carl and starts playing head games with him. Judy asks the young man if he enjoys causing other people suffering, causing Charlie to merely smirk. B-movies were getting nastier in a post-”Psycho” world but “The Sadist” still seems unusually focused on the psychological torment the villain puts his victims through. Charlie constantly reminds Ed and Judy that he's capable of killing them at any point. He forces Judy's face into the dirt, instructing her to eat it, before groping her breasts. It's not that the violence or sadism is especially graphic. It's not. It's that “The Sadist” seems determined to capture a tone of hopelessness. Whenever a chance for escape comes along, it is foiled. The film only grows more downbeat as it goes along, leaving the viewer truly wondering if anyone is going to make it out of this alive.

Part of what makes this bleak quality more surprising is that it exists inside a fairly typically cornball B-movie. Richard Alden is your standard, stout-chinned, fifties style good guy. When he stripes his over-shirt off to work on the car, he warns Marilyn Manning's Judy so as not to scandalize her. Manning and Don Russell, as Carl, give especially mannered and dorky performances, seeming as square as can be. Somehow, these dorks stumbled into a proto-”Texas Chain Saw Massacre” style situation, right down to the extremely grungy looking setting. At the center of this is the bizarre anti-charisma of Arch Hall Jr. Hall's bulging eyes, pug nose, cherubic face, giant chompers, and prominent chin already give him an uncanny quality. “The Sadist” emphasizes this with a streak of make-up under his brow. He guffaws in an idiotic manner and affects a cartoonish voice for many scenes. At other times, his voice is weirdly gruff. Intentionally or not, the film seems to capture the real Starkweather's "dull normal" intelligence. Either way, Hall is such a distressingly bizarre figure that he makes for the kind of cinematic villain you can't take look away from.

Not much actually happens in “The Sadist.” Its super-low budget is apparent in almost the entire movie being set in the gas station. The script is repetitive, composed of failed escape attempts and Charlie threatening the heroes again. Every bright spot is short-lived, possibly making the film feel like a pointless exercise in nihilism. An unexpected attribute holds it together. “The Sadist” was the debut credit of cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond. As in the guy who shot “McCabe & Mrs. Miller,” “Deliverance,” “The Long Goodbye,” “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” and “The Deer Hunter.” Unsurprisingly, this means “The Sadist” is full of striking images. Zsigmond repeatedly attaches the camera to the perspective of Hall's gun as he peers at his victims. Or to the soda bottles he constantly, mindlessly gulps from. The stark black-and-white photography is paired with the flat, desolate landscape that stretches in all direction. The result is a sense of foreboding isolation, furthering the feeling that the protagonists are really out there and alone with this chuckling nut case.

It's entirely possible that Zsigmond's cinematography is the secret ingredient that makes the difference here. Director James Landis' other credits do not inspire much confidence. Hall's lack of star power is well documented and his dad would stop putting him in movies shortly after this. While it's hard to argue for the quality of “Eegah!” or “Wild Guitar,” “The Sadist” is too grim and unsettling to be dismissed. Like all the Fairway Productions filmography, this was quickly made to fill out drive-in double bills, meaning no precaution was taking with copyright. The film fell into the domain immediately and is accordingly available anywhere. However, there's enough artfulness in that carelessness to create an irritating but effective exploitation flick. I know Rob Zombie is a fan of the film and you can see it as a direct influence on his later depraved white trash killer sagas. [7/10]

Alien: Earth: The Real Monsters

The season finale of “Alien: Earth” sees, as tend to happens, the evil corporation losing control of the unpredictable super-weapon they've engineered. Wendy and the other Lost Boys are captured and held in confinement. Unfortunately, Boy Kavalier has forgotten that Wendy can seemingly control the island's entire network with merely her thoughts. She proceeds to torment the security force. She lets her brother and Morrow out of their separate cell, the cyborg soon having his showdown with resident synthetic Kirsh. Wendy goes off to protect Joe, who Boy Kavalier hopes to infect with the crawling eyeball parasite. Through it all, the xenomorph – which seems totally obedient to Wendy – lurks around and kills any one who attempts to hurt it. Eventually, the various opposing forces come to blow, certain someones will be held accountable for what they've done, and youths will be forced to grow up.

When paired with “Alien: Earth's” on-going “Peter Pan” fixation – oh god, I just realize Morrow having one hand makes him Captain Hook, doesn't it? – it becomes clear that this is a show about growing up. Considering “Alien” has always been a series fascinated with reproduction, this is a logical enough idea. However, as it repeatedly has, the show seems fixated on its ideas only in the shallowest of ways. Wendy repeatedly states that she is not human and not machine, not a grown-up and not a child. She is not a robot-girl, not yet a robot-woman. She strikes me most as an edgy teenager, discovering that the world is a shitty place, some people will try and manipulate you, and it can be hard to do the right thing. When Joe sums all of this up by saying that it is “complicated,” she gets mad with him. But he's right, man. Life is fucking complicated. Aside from her cybernetically enhance super-ability and intelligence, what does Wendy think she can do to change that?

There aren't much in the way of any answers. Certainly not to the question of how or why she can do anything she wants with nearly any other machine. There's also no explanation for why Nibs has become delusional and violent, which the other robot children don't seem concerned about. What “The Real Monsters” gives us instead is an origin story for Boy Kavalier. He describes his father as an abusive drunk that he replaced with a robot he built himself. That suggests he grew up in blue collar roots – a betrayal of not only what we know about the super-rich in real life but the show's own themes – and that he's kind of sad and pathetic inside. The show doesn't use this back story as an excuse for his behavior. If anything, this finale clarifies that Boy is an entitled little asshole. However, I don't understand “Alien: Earth's” repeated need to give all of its villains some sort of tragic origin. Why was that necessary? 

I can't answer that question either and it's not the most pressing mystery anyway. No, I've left season one of “Alien: Earth” wondering why the hell anyone would want to make an “Alien” TV show and spend so much screen time focusing on other aliens. The crawling eyeball creature remains the actual extraterrestrial antagonist here, getting a dramatic showdown with the heroes and a promise that it'll be back next year. There's also a bit of gory spectacle, in the show finally displaying what the weird Venus fly trap creature can do. Sure, whatever, that's fine. Aren't we here for the xenomorph? It has a few moments of on-screen chaos but largely lurks only on the sidelines, hissing. As with everything else about Wendy's extraordinary abilities, her bond with the alien is left unexplored. That this TV show reduces one of cinema's scariest, most provocative monsters down to a subservient pet for its super-powered protagonist ultimately strikes me as deeply unsatisfying. Maybe a little insulting too.

What does “The Real Monsters” leave us with, aside from that hilariously grandiose title? There's a fight scene between Babou Ceesay's Morrow and Timothy Olyphant's Kirsch that is mildly entertaining. It says a lot about this show's constant need to re-affirm its own cleverness that, seconds away from winning the fight, Morrow starts rambling about John Henry instead. Ya know, it's weird that this future set series keeps referencing contemporary pop culture! Ultimately, season one of “Alien: Earth” proved to be such an immensely unsatisfying experience to me that I don't think I'm likely to bother with another big budget serialized streaming spin-off series any time soon. Rehashed premises from the older films under the guise of something new, characters that ranged from one-note to annoying, themes and social commentary that was deeply shallow but self-important, and that ever-present god-awful pacing made this season mostly a chore to get through. [5/10]

 

The Hunger: The Secret Shih Tan

One assumes that, when the idea first arose to turn “The Hunger” into a horror anthology show, David Bowie was always intended to be the host. I guess the Thin White Duke must have been unavailable at first though. Season one was, instead, presented by Terence Stamp. I had no plans to revisit “The Hunger,” since the episode I watched last October was annoying, but Stamp's recent passing has motivated me to give an earlier installment a try. “The Secret Shih Tan” follows Craig Yun, the owner of the Golden Tail, the fanciest Chinese restaurant in town. One night, millionaire Hugo Lawery appears with his female companion, Zan. He asks Yun to prepare a rare, poisonous fish and watches him cook the dish. Afterwards, he's given a business card promising access to the Secret Shih Tan. That would be a mythic cook book said to contain the most delicious and forbidden recipes, which drove the last man who made a meal from it insane. If you are guessing the main ingredient in these secret recipes is people, you'd be right. Horrified at first, Yun is compelled by curiosity and blackmail to make Lawery a meal from the book. The young and beautiful Zan, purchased by Lawery at a young age to do with whatever he pleases, is chosen to be the main course, the recipe calling for her to be slain at the height of sexual pleasure.

“The Secret Shih Tan” is based off a short story by Graham Masteron and directed by Russell Mulcahy, two storytellers who know how to make trashy material entertaining. The episode reveals fairly early on that the secret ingredient is people, in an effective sequence where we watch Yun thumb through the legendary cook book. Jason Scott Lee, an underrated performer, does some excellent face-acting in this scene as he notices that all the diagrams in the book are of human beings. “The Secret Shih Tan” does have a twist ending, an act of misdirection that's fairly easy to predict. However, it does fulfill the gruesome promise of the premise while also providing a surprisingly potent taste of social commentary. The rich already figuratively consume the poor and this set-up merely makes that literal. The ending is upbeat while grimly suggesting that participating in this act of classist consumption is the only way to advance in this world. Either way, it does make for a fittingly ironic ending.

“The Hunger” being a slightly disreputable late night, premium cable series, the kind of flesh that's eaten is the only one on display here. The script simply had to include that detail about the young women being in orgasmic ecstasy before being cooked, leading to a predictably softcore love scene. Compared to how obnoxiously directed the two episodes from the Bowie season I've seen were, “The Secret Shih Tan” looks calm in comparison. Only the montage where a body is prepared is prone to shaky camera work and overly frantic editing. Otherwise, Mulcahy brings the level of cool slickness you expect from him here. Not a bad little morbid morsel, this one. As for Stamp's host segments, he makes the totally bullshit narration seem profound and sells the seriousness with only a few glares. The man was an utter professional, that's for sure. [7/10]

 

 

 

Halloween 2025: October 7th

47 Meters Down (2017)

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

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

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

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

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

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

Warlock III: End of the Innocence (1999)

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

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

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

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

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

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

Alien: Earth: Emergence

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Halloween 2025: October 6th

Warlock: The Armageddon (1993)

I joke and say that the eighties is when one-off horror hits become on-going horror franchises. However, we have to examine if this is exactly true. It's not like “The Burning” or “Madman” spawned long-running series. In the late eighties and early nineties, however, a concentrated effort was made to transform fluke indie successes into video store empires. This is the time when suddenly the Angelas, Pumpkinhead, Pinhead, He Who Walks Behind the Rows, Xtro, some werewolves that howl, and whatever the “Witchcraft” movies are about had multiple titles to their names. Perhaps everyone was eager to fill the hole left in the public's heart after Jason and Freddy burned themselves out. Up next was the Warlock, whose first movie must've been a hit for TriMark. After directing “Waxwork II” and “Hellraiser III,” Anthony Hickox would be recruited to turn Julian Sands' stylish, sexually ambiguous, time-traveling he-witch into the next Michael Myers.

Sands' presence as a pretty boy demon-spawn with magical powers is, in fact, the only connecting fiber between “Warlock” and “Warlock: The Armageddon.” The second film instead focuses on an ancient druidic tribe who have sworn to stop the off-spring of Satan from bringing about the end of the world. In the modern day, only a handful of followers survive. Teenage lovers, Kenny and Samantha, are unaware of their destiny as the last in this bloodline. The six rune stones capable of summoning the Devil to Earth have been spread across the country. During a lunar eclipse, the foretold return of the Warlock arrives, reborn as a slimy monster before becoming a man again. He sets out on a road trip to gather the other stones. Kenny's father murders him before bringing him back to life, a necessary step to awaken his magical powers. His elders give him all of six days to train and master the ways of Druid magic before the Warlock arrives in town and attempts to summon his add.

While the first “Warlock” had a magical MacGuffin, in the form of the Grand Grimoire, this was merely an excuse to send our two lovable heroes and charismatic villain on a chase across the U.S. “The Armageddon” has a much sillier plot, far more concerned with ancient orders and magical plot devices to gather. A minute's examination reveals the mythology the semi-sequel invents as nothing but a pretense. “Warlock: The Armageddon” is actually about putting Sands' campy villain in multiple different locations. He's in these places for the next Chaos Emerald he must gather. More importantly, though, he kills another person in each location in some crazy manner. If Hickox's “Waxwork” movies were mostly an excuse for wildly different set-pieces to occur within the same story, he applies a similar approach to what the first “Warlock” built.

Hickox's ADHD-like style, always bouncing from one idea to the next, is certainly not without its charms. “The Armageddon” exists to be a showcase for two things. First off, Julian Sands gets to ham it up in a variety of places and against multiple partners. He enters the movie nude and screeching, already vamping. At one point, he starts spewing green blood before Frenching a mechanic and stealing his replica of the General Lee. Later, he picks up a street-walker strictly to have another person to banter with and then gorily off. Which he does, spectacularly. Those murder scenes are highly entertaining and each is brought to life with inventively gooey creature effects. A sequence where the Warlock uses his seemingly limited ability to stretch a human being's body into a piece of modern art is easily the high-light of the entire film. Though the bubbling map he makes of torn-off human flesh is cool too. Through it all, there's Sands delighting in being a floating, campy figure of chaos. 

Narrative coherence, thematic depth and characters with actual personalities have never been Hickox's strong suit. You can tell he had a lot of fun making “Warlock: The Armageddon” though. Gerry Lively's cinematography is colorful and frantic. A sequence set inside a roadside fun house is shot in psychedelic colors, featuring plenty of Raimi-ian camera movements, a distorted hall of mirrors, and some random rubber monsters. An earlier scene has Sands negotiating with a fashion designer atop a skyscraper that appears to be in Tim Burton's Gotham City. There are multiple shots adhered to people's faces as they fly backwards through the air in slow-motion. At one point, Sands – or his stunt double, more likely – leaps over the camera like he's in a kung-fu movie. There are multiple explosions and shoot-outs, sometimes with magical finger-guns. The art direction, production design, and visual composition have been stretched as far as possible to create a goofy, bloody, comic book-like tone of excess. 

And it is a lot of fun, don't get me a wrong. A little more substance perhaps wouldn't have hurt though. While the original had the heroes trying to beat the bad guy to the last Dragon Ball, “The Armageddon” lives the good guys weirdly stationary and puts the villain on the move. Chris Young's teenage hero never actually meets Sands until the showdown at the end. Attempts are made to make the subplot about the Druidic order more complex. The small tow's pastor – played by Bruce Glover, R.I.P. Crispin's dad – used to be a Druid but left when he couldn't bring himself to kill his daughter. Despite knowing she'll come back to life. Considering we all know Sands' Warlock is the star of the show, it all strikes the viewer as an unnecessary attempt to add some conflict and depth to the script's other half. Young isn't a bad lead. The conflict with his dad, played by Steve Kahan is mildly interesting, but all the business with the Druids is an obvious load of nonsense. It's simply there to prepare us for the inevitable showdown and to fill time between the Warlock tearing shit up. 

It is interesting that, despite its Abrahamic subtitle, “The Armageddon” casts Christian beliefs as impotent interlopers in the battle against evil. That the heroes are Druids, another branch of pre-Christian paganism, against the explicitly Satanic baddie surely says something about the spiritual mood in 1993. Perhaps it's another example of people seeking shelter in New Age corners after being failed by organized religion. Considering the movie also throws in runes, a Germanic thing, maybe the goofball script is simply a jumble of random semi-mystical ideas that were popular at the time. All of that aside, “Warlock: the Armageddon” is a fun piece of nineties monster movie hokum. It's a big step-down from the first but is still a suitably wild time. Creative direction, fun special effects, and an amusingly hammy leading man is sometimes all you need. [7/10]

It's Never Too Late to Mend (1937)

To fans of the early days of cinema, when sound was new and film was in black-and-white, a familiar set of faces are carved upon the face of the Mount Rushmore of Horror. Mostly, it's the same three names that Universal Studios largely build their iconic legacy of monster movies upon: Lugosi, Karloff, and the Chaneys. This is probably true for classic film fans all over the world. However, countries around the world occasionally would attempt, within their own Hollywoods, to build their own Karloffs or Lugosis. A good example is Tod Slaughter. Slaughter got his start on-stage, becoming popular for productions in the Elephant and Castle region of London. He headlined many plays, in roles like Sherlock Holmes and D'Artagnan, but Slaughter would truly excel at playing villains. His most popular roles were William Burke and Sweeney Todd, causing Slaughter to boast that he had committed “15 murders on-stage a day.” Eventually, an attempt would be made to translate Slaughter's stage success to the silver screen, playing a lot of the same roles on-screen. While there was a token attempt to sell Slaughter's films abroad, they never caught on much in America. Nevertheless, recent restorations and Blu-Ray releases have made his work ripe for rediscovery. Why not pick a film from England's home-grown classic horror star to represent that country on my cinematic trip around the world?

Like most of Slaughter's starring roles, “It's Never Too Late to Mend” is a hoary melodrama, set in Victorian London and based on a penny novel from that period. Slaughter plays Squire John Meadows, an openly corrupt justice-of-the-peace. He covets Susan, the daughter of a poor farmer named Merton. Susan, however, is in love with the virtuous George Fielding. Determined to deal with his romantic rival, Meadows cooks up a phony charge of poaching to get George sent off to prison. George's buddy, Tom, swaps places with him so he'll go to jail in his place and George will go off on a trip to Australia. He writes to Susan all the time but the Squire intercepts his letters, making sure she never receives them. Slowly, he conspires to take the girl for his own. What pushes “It's Never Too Late to Mend” into the horror genre is that Squire Meadows is also on the board of governors at the local prison. There, he gleefully enacts a number of cruel punishments on the in-mates, delighting in torturing them far beyond the boundaries of what could be called a “justice” system. 

If the above plot synopsis didn't make it abundantly clear, “It's Never Too Late to Mend” is about as stereotypical an old story of crime and punishment as you could possibly find. The characters are all exaggerated archetypes. Ian Colin's hero isn't merely a nice guy. He's as pure-hearted and good-natured as a human being as you could possibly imagine. Marjorie Taylor as Susan is such a perfectly virginal maiden as to have no other characteristics at all, existing as a symbol for the men in the story to conspire for. The story is full of improbable turns. Love triangles, mistaken identities, blackmail, and missing letters are all prominent plot points.  Naturally, much of this information is conveyed via shouted declarations by the characters. People falling to their knees, begging and pleading for one thing or another, is not an uncommon sight here. Naturally, this means “It's Never Too Late to Mend” ends with the villain explaining his evil plot in detail after being found out. Meanwhile, the moral of the story – summed up in the title – is mentioned as often as possible too. 

It is, to say the least, all rather hackneyed. Compared to the enormously atmospheric monster movies and thrillers that Universal cranked out in the twenties, thirties, and forties, the visual palette here is rather restrained. There's a cool tracking shot through an open door. A sequence in which a priest comforts a dying young boy in a jail cell, probably the movie's best, looks quite stylish. However, much of “It's Never Too Late to Mend” is rather beholden to its stage roots. There are many scenes of people standing around in rooms and talking. Music is not used that often, only being noticeable in a scene of Slaughter creeping around an empty bar. The sequences devoted to all that old English discipline will probably be of most interest to classic horror heads. A fifteen year old kid is locked in a steel bodice attached to a wall. Prisoners are dropped into a deep, dark hole for days on end. They are forced to turn heavy cranks endlessly. Seems to qualify as cruel and unusual punishment in my eyes, though it falls a bit short of “The Pit and the Pendulum” or the kind of shit Hjalmar Poelzig got up to in “The Black Cat.” 

Through its admittedly short runtime of seventy minutes, the audience's attention is mostly kept on “It's Never Too Late to Mend” thanks to Slaughter's elaborate overacting. He is the very image of a stereotypical Bad Guy here. He wears the black overcoat and top hat. He lurks and hunches and schemes. He does indeed have a mustache and, yes, it should go without saying, he does twirl the ends of it. If I didn't know better, I would assume these cliches originated with Slaughter, that's how much he embodies them. From the minute he appears on-screen, Slaughter's character is obviously, blatantly evil. He smirks with absolute wicked glee as he talks about whipping prisoners and confining them to a black hole. The ending of “It's Never Too Late to Mend” features Slaughter cackling with insane abandon. That was simply inevitable.

I had previously seen Slaughter's version of “Sweeney Todd.” However, that was a long enough time ago that I have little to no memory of it. Consulting my old review shows that Slaughter's acting was quite over-the-top in that too. It would seem to me that Slaughter's films simply weren't as artistically shot or memorably poetic as the American monster stars he followed in the path of. However, the guy could tear up the scenery. No doubt about that. “It's Never Too Late to Mend” will probably prove equally forgettable, distinguished once again by its star's theatrical vamping. I don't think I'll be picking up that box set of his movies but I did get enough out of this one to probably watch another Tod Slaughter pic somewhere further down the line. [6/10]

Alien: Earth: The Fly
 

Six hours in, “Alien: Earth” has abandoned all pretenses about its individual episodes having any sense of pacing at all. This show has simply become a game of watching the progress bar on its various plot threads load a little more. Wendy is slowly getting the hang of communicating with the xenomorph Prodigy has in captivity. Joe begins to plot out a scheme to help his sister escape the island. After Nibs' disturbing declaration that she was pregnant, the corporate brass talk the scientists into rebooting her memory to before the traumatic incident. The negotiations between Prodigy and Yutani fail, as no amount of billions sees Boy Kavalier willing to give up the aliens. Morrow continues to manipulate Slightly into allowing a warm body to meet a face-hugger. Isaac gets over-confident while dealing with the other alien specimens in the lab, leading to tragedy. A few of these wandering subplots meet up before the episode is over, tricking you into thinking all of this is going somewhere. 

One of the elements people complained very, very loudly about with “Prometheus” was that the characters acted in a “stupid” manner. That a scientist poking a weird alien snake thing or a panicked character not thinking to run in a different direction was an unrealistic way for some one to act in a strange situation. There are pros and cons to these arguments. However, considering how lab-tested so much of Disney's franchise extensions are these days to appease internet complainers, you'd think they would avoid people doing stupid shit in their “Alien” series. Instead, “The Fly” has a character wandering into a laboratory full of bizarre, deadly creatures and, through a series of unlikely mistakes, getting trapped in a containment unit with one of the monsters. Certainly, human beings assuming they are at the top of the food chain and underestimating the capabilities of other creatures is a reoccurring idea across the “Alien” films. The implication of this scene in “The Fly” is that Isaac is woefully overestimating his own skills and abilities. However, the number of leaps one must make to accept the reality of this scene playing out are... Excessive. 

The most pressing issue of all in “The Fly,” if not most of the episodes of “Alien: Earth,” has been if I actually cared about something happening to any of these characters. Wendy's outrage at Nibs having her memory edited to suit corporate needs is obviously a comment on how far trans-humanist concerns will inevitably conflict with technocratic goals. However, the script writers forgot to make the audience actually have any interest or investment in Nibs before beginning this development. Similarly, has Slightly ever had a purpose within this story line outside of being manipulated by Morrow? The advantage of television over film is that you have more time to flesh-out characters and explore their personalities. Instead, “Earth” having a large cast and multiple plot threads means everyone on this show is an idea that is simply stretched out as long as possible. 

If we are not interested in what happens to these people, why am I watching “Alien: Earth?” I'm watching because I talked myself into an non-existent contract to review each episode. However, ostensibly, I'm watching because I'm a fan of the freaky monsters and sci-fi setting of the “Alien” movies. In that case, “The Fly” is also a failure. The little baby xenomorph Wendy chatters with is in a few scene. There's a tiny bit of Facehugger action at the very end. Otherwise, the monster quota in this episode is provided by the mutant sheep glaring from behind glass and an oversized space-insect puking acidic enzymes into someone's face. That bothers me because it seems to show a lack of imagination central to this entire program. When the iconic monster of a horror film is already famous for the acidic components of its bodily fluids, why would you add another creature with skin-melting spew? I don't know, you guys. My capability to not feel increasingly annoyed with this show is running thin. That point-of-view shot of the space-fly buzzing around a room was kind of cool, I guess. [5/10]

Goosebumps: One Day at Horrorland
 

After directing Canadian horror films like “Funeral Home,” “Killer Party,” and “Blue Monkey” in the eighties, William Fruet would find steady work directing low-budget television shows filmed in the Great White North to save cash. That would include 27 episodes of “Goosebumps,” including the previously reviewed “Welcome to Dead House” and “Don't Look in the Basement.” Those were not complete dog-shit so I return to Fruet's work for my latest attempt to give “Goosebumps” a fair chance. “One Day at Horrorland” concerns the Morris family. A road trip to an amusement park called Zoo Gardens goes wrong when dad gets lost. Trapped in a car with no air conditioning, eldest child Lizzy and youngest child Luke are starting to get antsy. After being assaulted by fireballs on the road, the family begins seeing signs for an attraction called “Horrorland.” The kids beg to go, simply to get out of the car, and the parents reluctantly agree. The mostly abandoned park seems staffed entirely by horned monsters. The rides get the participants too close to real fear. When the family threatens to leave, they see a sign informing them that “No One Leaves Horrorland Alive.” The Morris brood is then ushered onto a soundscape, forced to participate in a game show run by more of these devilish ogres. 

I've written before about the potency of the idea of a carnival, amusement park, or circus being used as a setting for a horror story. The contrast between engineered but safe thrills with decidedly not-so-safe thrills is fertile ground. There's exactly two moments in “One Day at Horrorland” that touches on some of these ideas. Shortly after arriving at Horrorland, the kids spot what appears to be a costumed performer holding a decapitated human head. The head then speaks, informing them not to go on the guillotine ride. Hey, that's a mildly gruesome, almost morbidly funny moment! Meanwhile, at the end of the first half-hour – this was originally a two-part episode – the family are faced with a locked gate and a sign reading “No Exit.” Aside from being a Sartre shout-out in a kid's show, the idea of entering a seemingly innocent seeming park, only to learn that you are trapped there forever... That's a genuinely nightmarish idea, by which I mean I've often had nightmares of entering a building only to be unable to leave it. 

As is typical for “Goosebumps,” any potency “One Day at Horrorland” could have had is squandered by an excess of goofy bullshit and a total lack of any sense of danger. The cheapness of the program is unavoidable. All the Horrors are made up of two different types of green, horned, goblin masks. One is more expressive while the other is entirely still. The attractions that are supposedly so traumatizing to Lizzy and Luke do not strike me as especially intense. She is lead around a hall of mirrors that ends with her getting dropped through a trap door... To the outside of the fun house. The second ride is like a flume log lazy river ride, except in caskets. And that's entirely it! The game show sequence is mostly an excuse for half-assed jokes and bits. Such as an advertisement for a CD of monster-themed love songs. It seems to be building towards an actual grim climax, until a minor supporting character appears to save the family!

That is probably my biggest problem with “Goosebumps,” as an entire enterprise. The characters are ridiculously one-note and often obnoxious. Such as the obnoxiously stupid parents here or screeching little brother. However, the complete lack of any stakes to all these stories makes them essentially a series of scenes amounting to no meaning at all. Life or death is not necessary for a horror story to be effective. However, there has to be some reasons for this. When the Morris parents insist on participating with the monster-themed game show, because of the promise of a new car, that almost struck me as a commentary on greed. Instead, it simply because another phrase the script repeats over and over again. I know “Goosebumps” is a nostalgic favorite for some but I grew up with this show and these books too and I still think this shit blows ass. [4/10]