Halloween 2025: October 12th

 

Şeytan (1974)

 

A Turkish film industry has existed since 1914 and has, at various points in time, flourished. In the sixties, Turkey was actually the fifth biggest producer of films in the world. Things have slowed down considerably since then but Türkiye absolutely has cinematic traditions all its own. However, classic Turkish cinema remains extremely obscure outside of its borders. Instead, the films that tend to attract the most international attention are the rip-offs. A trend retrospectively known as “Turksploitation” emerged in the seventies, that blatantly copied Hollywood blockbusters, often using footage and music from these films on a strictly unofficial basis. Clips from “Turkish Star Wars,” “Turkish Rambo,” “Turkish Superman,” and that movie where Captain America and Santo fight Evil Spider-Man have circulated freely among the internet for years and years, mocked by dipshit nerds totally ignorant of other cultures. Among those infamous wannabes is what is commonly known as “Turkish Exorcist.” The actual title is “Şeytan” and, while I'm sure a knock-off of a horror classic probably isn't how Turkish horror fans would want their country represented, I'm simply too curious not to check this one out.

Stop me if you've heard this one before: Somewhere in the Middle East, a wise old man of the cloth walks through the desert. He approaches a recently unearthed statue of a demonic figure, glaring at it expectantly. Far away, in Istanbul, Ayten is currently in the midst of a divorce. Her young daughter, Gül, doesn't seem too bothered by it. The family enjoys the comforts afforded to by her mother's rich lifestyle. However, she's also been messing with a Ouija board. Next, Ayten hears weird noises from the attic. While looking for the mice that the home's caretaker says aren't present, she comes across a book on the topic of the devil. It's been written by Tuğrul Bilge, an atheist author who lives near-by. It's a concerning appearance that seems to signal  Gül's behavior getting stranger. She sleepwalks, starts acting violently, her bed begins quaking at night. Science is helpless to diagnosis her. Soon, it seems her body has been entirely taken over by a spirit that claims to be Seytan himself. Tuğrul is asked to assist and, after the extraordinary evidence piles up, seeks out the help of the only man that can save Gül. A man that you could, convincingly, call an exorcist.

In the past, I have always seen “Şeytan” referred to as a shot-for-shot remake of “The Exorcist.” This is not true. First off, the Turkish film is over twenty minutes shorter than the Hollywood original. Secondly, a number of adaptational changes are apparent. Such as the Father Karras character being changed from a priest to an author or the mother seemingly no longer being an actress. However, it is true that “Şeytan” does directly copy all the most famous scenes from “The Exorcist.” Most of these scenes are laughably pale imitations of iconic moments. The candle going out in the attic, Reagan being thrashed around on her bed, the pea soup, the levitation, the “Power of Christ compels you!” It's all here, just in Turkish and done with a fraction of the budget and a lot less talent. Look no further than the recreation of the head-spinning sequence and the infamous bloody crucifix masturbation that proceeds it. The cross is replaced with a demonic dagger. The furniture moving across the room looks incredibly cheesy. The head twisting around on the shoulders looks a lot like an actor looking over the shoulder of a dummy body. 

A key difference in that scene between “Şeytan” and “The Exorcist” is that... In the Turkish version, the girl does not appear to be defiling a holy symbol. Instead, it looks like she's merely stabbing herself in the thigh with the demon-headed dagger. Part of what made “The Exorcist” such a shocking success in the seventies is that it had a ream of vile profanity coming out of an angelic young girl's mouth. One can only assume that something is lost in translation but, going by the subtitles on my copy, the worst swear Gül unleashes is to call someone “senile.” Similarly, the scars on the girl's face look like cheap Halloween make-up. Especially when combined with the green skin. The vomiting appears more like spat out globs of snot than vulgar streams of greenish puke. I don't know much about Turkish censorship standards. However, it would seem that, in order to make “The Exorcist” an appropriate story for Turkish audience, the filmmakers of  “Şeytan” ended up removing all the edge and danger from the material. In this telling, there's never any doubt that the girl's soul will be saved. The shock value isn't gone only because the audience has already seen this all before. It's as if the transgressive energy has been surgically removed.

That is to be expected, I suppose, when comparing the Hollywood original to the low-budget, international copycat. Presumably the value in a project like this comes from the cultural differences made evident in the retelling. Most obviously, Türkiye is another Muslim majority country. I don't know how familiar your average Turkish person is with the tenets of Catholicism. While the exact faith of the man called to exorcise the girl here is never actually specified, his prayers seem specifically Islamic in nature. He is presumably preaching from a Quran. Shifting the Karras figure from a priest whose faith has lapsed to a non-believer, who never had any faith in the first place, changes the meaning of the material in a serious way. Tuğrul Bilge accepting the existence of supernatural evil and sacrificing himself paints a more conservative image, of somebody atoning for questioning God's existence at all. One of the new additions to “The Exorcist” template is an epilogue, wherein the now demon-free little girl seems to receive a blessing from a holy man looking apparition. This removes all the ambiguity from the source material. “Şeytan” is not about the crisis of faith in the modern age or the question of whether a real source of good exists to challenge the evil in the world. It is, instead, a reaffirmation that God is good and all-powerful and none of this bad shit would've happened if people hadn't doubted that in the first place.

That is interesting. Is it interesting enough to make “Şeytan” worth watching, especially if you've seen “The Exorcist” fifty times? Probably not. The differences that do emerge surely reflect variations in beliefs. Does the scene of the rather goofy looking demonic figure appearing in the girl's bedroom, wherein the possessed victim visibly bows before it, reflect a difference in how Islam considers the figure of Shaitan in comparison to what modern Christian demographics think of Satan? You'd probably need to be better read in Turkish culture and Muslim beliefs than I am to say for sure. Nevertheless, whatever anthropological factors “Şeytan” reveals is overshadowed by it being a supremely fangless and rather dryly executed unofficial remake. I suppose I am glad I saw it but, ultimately, it's hard to justify watching more than a high-light as worthwhile in a world when you can simply watch “The Exorcist” instead. [5/10]

Watchers Reborn (1998)

For all its many and obvious flaws, “Watchers 3” could be commended for one element. It was something like an actual sequel to the previous entry in the series. While the second movie operated as another adaptation of the original novel, the third at least attempted to continue the story. It didn't do it well. The explanation provided for what happened to Paul Ferguson and Einstein the smart dog in-between movies was not satisfying. The new Outsider in part three was also implied to be the same monster from the last time, suggesting that some re-writing was done between installments. Still, having now set a precedent, you would expect a fourth “Watchers” to follow this pattern too, right? Unfortunately, someone decided to resume the original pattern by making “Watchers Reborn” another adaptation of the story Dean Koontz had written nearly two decades earlier at this point. Perhaps creature effects specialist and “Ghoulies III: Ghoulies Go to College” auteur John Carl Buechler was simply a big fan of the book and wanted to do it right this time. More likely, nobody was expending the necessary creativity and thought process to think of a new story for the fourth “Watchers” movie. Still, there's enough familiar faces and names behind and in front of the camera for this fourthquel to catch my attention.

So, once more, with feeling: A government research facility blows up. A dog and a monster escape. The dog is smarter than the average canine. The monster likes to rip people's eyes out. Dr. Grace Hudson, a geneticist involved with the project, goes in search of the hound. A group of G-man assassins, led by Lem Johnson, are out to destroy both projects and eliminate any witnesses. This time, a traumatized police detective named Jack Murphy ends up with Einstein, the smart dog. It's not long before Grace finds him, the trio going on the run from both the federal agents and the monster. The doctor and the cop fall in love, as she seeks to protect Einstein and communicate with the Outsider before both are killed by the ruthless Lem.

As far as fourth entries in direct-to-video monster movie franchises go, "Watchers Reborn" has a fairly high profile cast. One suspects John Carl Buechler cashed in some favors he had built up through his years as a make-up and effects guy. Mark Hamill is the hero, Lisa Wilcox of "A Nightmare on Street 4" is the heroine, and Stephen Macht from "Monster Squad" and "Graveyard Shift" is the bad guy. The further down the guest list you go, the more random it gets. Perennial TV special guest star and talk show host Gary Collins is Hamill's ill-fated partner and Lou Rawls appears as a scientist. Kane Hodder has a cameo. Sadly, "Watchers Reborn" gives its eccentric cast little to do. Hamill looks amusingly disheveled and worn out but his character's tragic backstory is utterly routine. The script prioritizes his romance with Wilcox over his bond with the genius dog. The two have mildly interesting chemistry but their love story is no where compelling enough to devote this much screen time too. “Watchers Reborn” almost feels more like a boring romantic-comedy between these two than a proper horror film.

With a blue print provided by Koontz' novel and three previous movies, you wouldn't think “Watchers Reborn” would be as sloppily assembled as it is. The standard chase plot is routinely interrupted by weird digressions. An extended scene follows a couple in a bar, arguing with the mobster who wants to sell drugs in this establishment. As you begin to truly wonder what any of this has to do with the rest of the movie, the monster busts in. Another scene has Hamill hitching a ride with a random driver. This seemingly unimportant passer-by persists for a number of scenes afterwards. Far too many moments in “Watchers Reborn” are like that, allowed to ramble on for far longer than necessary. It creates a slapdash feeling with an incredibly unmotivated pacing, events changing depending on who was available that day and headed in no determined direction.

An element I liked a lot in Koontz' novel was the treatment of the Outsider. A frightening monster that routinely tears people apart, it was also driven to destroy through instincts cooked in by its makers. This was a Frankensteinian creature, made without its consent, designed to be unlovable, and so repulsed by its own hideousness that it was disgusted by the idea of anyone looking at it. The previous adaptations pulled from that a little bit.  Buechler's take begins with the Outsider being a mindless monster, that looks like a greasy-faced version of the werewolf from “Altered Beasts.” Slowly, it is revealed that the monster can talk. The last act suddenly plays up the monster's sympathetic aspects. It's not a bad idea but comes across as a random change made far into the runtime. Not to mention it's hard to feel bad for a monster that ripped a bunch of people apart earlier, in gorier fashion than the other “Watchers” films. 

Much of “Watchers Reborn” is set in forgettable looking apartments, barns, and warehouses. This does not dissuade the notion that the movie was made cheaply and hastily with whatever was available. Aside from a scene where he writes his name out in gravy on a newspaper, Einstein the dog doesn't get nearly enough to do either. How do you make a movie about a super-smart dog and not have most of the plot revolve around him? It's not any more faithful to the book than previous adaptations. I guess the “Reborn” subtitle is technically correct but the film certainly lacks the renewed energy you expect from a rebirthing. How can a book be made into a movie four times and each of them miss the mark on what made the original special? A decent cast was pulled together for this one but there's very little else about “Watchers Reborn” that justifies its existence. Maybe someone will give this story of brainy dogs and the monsters who hate them a proper shot some day... [5/10]

 

Dr. Terrible's House of Horrible: Scream Satan Scream!

As an ignorant American, I only know of Steve Coogan for his appearances as an actor in Hollywood movies of varying middlebrow-ness. I am vaguely aware of the Alan Partridge character that he's played many times for British television but that's about the extent of my knowledge about that. However, upon discovering that Coogan also created and starred in a series spoofing classic British horror movies, well, that's a lot more up my alley. “Dr. Terrible's House of Horrible” aired for six episodes on BBC Two in the fall of 2001. Coogan introduced each episode under heavy make-up as “Dr. Terrible,” a slightly senile seeming mad scientist type who would present stories from the fire side, like Roald Dahl in “Tales of the Unexpected.” As the title indicated, the Amicus anthology films was a primary source of inspiration but episodes also spoofed Hammer horror, “The Hands of Orlac,” and Yellow Peril stories. Sounds like a fairly niche idea for a series to me and I''m not surprised to read that audiences didn't warm up to it. But maybe I will...

The final episode to air, “Scream Satan Scream!,” is primarily inspired by “Witchfinder General.”  In it, Coogan plays Captain Slater: Witch Locator. He travels the countryside with his depraved dwarf assistant, Tygon, and looks for beautiful woman to accuse of being witches. It would seem that his methods of determining if a woman is consorting with the devil involves quite a lot of personal inspection of their naked bodies. At some point, Slater actually did burn a real witch at the stake. Now, her two sisters have placed a curse upon Slater and are determined to turn the hysterical, devil-fearing mobs that he riles up against him. Somehow, however, Slater keeps escaping being hoisted by his own placard. 

“Scream Satan Scream!” is, as far as comedies go, pretty dumb. It would be inaccurate to say that the episode only has one joke. However, it does revisit the central joke – that the pious witchfinder is just a horny bastard looking to get laid, using his witch-hunting techniques as an excuse – over and over again. This does lead to a few chuckles, namely the way the universe constantly stymies Slater's efforts. When presented with a pair of beautiful twins, they dead-pan answer each of his questions about witchcraft in the negative. A series of crude double entendres revolving around the town's name “Devil's Hole” is a gag beat so far into the ground that the repetition of the joke itself becomes the joke. Probably the moment that made me laugh the most is when Slater enters the cabin of a young lady he's prepared to accuse of witchcraft, only to discover that she has a giant crucifix up on her wall. 

The more surreal, absurd bits are the ones that made me chuckle a bit more consistently here. None other than Warwick Davis appears as Tygon, an obvious shout-out to the production company that made “Witchfinder General.” Davis never speaks but gets in a number of amusing physical gags, such as when he repeatedly stumbles into metal traps. A sequence in which Slater gets a branding iron all ready only for his intended victim to successfully dispel it, forcing him to brand Davis instead, made me chuckle. That weirdness persists throughout, especially in the climatic sequence where the devil itself appear. The show also attempts to draw humor from the conflicting elements of various witch lore, which is the first joke anybody makes about swimming a witch. I laughed a little but this is an odd one. What would the modern American equavelent to this be? Eric Andre convincing Adult Swim to fund comedic homages to Ray Dennis Steckler?  I think I admire the audacity of something like this actually making it to air more than I enjoyed it as a comedy. [6/10]

The Woman Who Powders Herself (1972)

La femme qui se poudre
 

Horror is one of the few cinematic genres that can entirely get by on mood and atmosphere. Furthermore, it often invokes the surreal and absurd, violating the natural order of the world, in service of unnerving the viewer. Because of this, horror and experimental film making sometimes cross paths. As is the case with "The Woman Who Powders Herself," an inexplicable fifteen minutes of nightmare imagery from French mixed media artist, Patrick Bolanowski. Through a shadowy, distorted, silent movie-like aperture, the short presents a number of bizarre scenes. People wearing dehumanizing, plaster masks motion to each other through the darkness. A woman cakes herself in dust while a man tends to her within a geometrical room. A figure moves across a desolate, surreal landscape. Someone pours a black liquid – Blood? Oil? – into a tea cup until it overflows and consumes the screen. Ominous figures advance on the woman while floating material assembles itself into a tower out in the distance. All the while, a discordant soundscape plays as the footage crackles, warps, and twists through filmic, photographic, and animated means. 

When a film wanders as far into the art house as "The Woman Who Powders Herself" does, what it all means is as much your guess as mine. The provided synopsis describes it as "a study of human anxieties about beauty, youth, and objectification." The actors' faces are twisted into crude caricatures of humanity, except for those who seem to wear a wreath of tumorous tissue around their heads. I suppose that relates to beauty. Is the titular woman meant to be elderly, fighting off her aging appearance by covering her face? Or is she hiding from the world that seeks to objectify her, which descends on her at the end? If that's the case, what does all the other weird shit mean? 

Trying to fashion a narrative out of almost purely experimental filmmaking like "The Woman Who Powders Herself" is hard to do. The desert-like landscape and warped faces gave me post-apocalyptic vibes. The increasingly cracked and popping visuals certainly feel like a depiction of a world falling into nonexistence. Though the touches of animation seem almost whimsical compared to the otherwise haunting imagery. The musical score is composed of mechanical shrieks, foghorn-like cries, and what sounds like water dripping into a sink. All together, the result is a total head scratcher that, nevertheless, summons up an eerie feeling in the viewer and presents our eyes truly with some things we haven't seen before. One wonders if a young David Lynch wasn't influenced by the film. “Eraserhead's” score and visuals share some similarities. While I have zero doubts that E. Elias Merhige swiped nearly the entire "Begotten" aesthetic from this. Nowadays, if you slapped some gnarly doom metal on top of "The Woman Who Powders Herself," you'd have a pretty fucked-up music video. [7/10]

Halloween 2025: October 11th

 

The Queen of Black Magic (1981)
Ratu Ilmu Hitam

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]

 

Watchers 3 (1994)

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]

Truth or Scare: The True Story of Halloween

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]

The Far Countries (1965)

Les pays loin

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]

Halloween 2025: October 10th

Watchers II (1990)

During my review of 1988's “Watchers,” I referred to it as the first of four adaptations of Dean Koontz' novel. That might sound like an odd way to talk about the film of a book that then got three sequels. However, none of the cinematic follow-ups to “Watchers” are truly sequels. Instead, each film more-or-less is another try at adapting Koontz' book. I can only speculate on why “Watchers” would go down this path as a franchise. The changes the first film made to the source material are disliked by fans of the book now. I imagine this was also the case back in the eighties. Not that “Watchers II” is markedly more faithful than “Watchers I.” It just didn't replace the main character with a teenage Corey Haim. While it's tempting to say that producer Roger Corman saws the sequel as a second chance at doing the book right, it's more likely that no one could think of a better idea than simply telling basically the same story a second time.

And so: For the second time, a genetics research laboratory has a top secret government contract. They have bred and modified dogs to be highly intelligent, capable of complex thought and able to understand language. Animal psychologist Dr. Barbara White has been working closely with a golden retriever named Einstein. Unbeknownst to White, the dog is telepathically linked with a hideous monster kept in the facility's basement. A pair of NSA agents arrive to investigate and our killed by this “outsider.” The incident causes the program to be shut down, with the order that the experiments are destroyed. Director Malceno considers the Outsider too valuable to destroyed and stages a fire and outbreak by animal activists. Einstein quickly meets up with Paul Ferguson, a Marine taken to military prison for punching a superior officer. The Outsider is close behind, pursuing the dog and killing anyone who gets in the way. That includes Paul's ex-wife, Ferguson soon suspected of being responsible for the murders. Einstein leads him to Dr. White, an odd trio forming as they work to keep the dog safe and stop the bloody rampage of its monstrous “brother.”

“Watchers II” utilizes the same trick you see in a bunch of eighties and nineties action movies. The hero is a soldier, someone who obeys orders and serves as part of a strictly organized system. However, Paul is introduced with his hands cuffed together, being escorted off by some M.P.s. See, this establishes that he's a bad-ass trained in war craft and killing but he's also a rebel with no use for authority, the kind of lone-wolf underdog Americans love to root for. When it's revealed why he slugged his commanding officer – he was ordered to take men out on a dangerous training mission that got people injured and killed – that makes him an honorable rebellious trained bad-ass. His moral scruples are established immediately, when he protects innocent Einstein from getting run over by some assholes in a Jeep. It's a hacky trick but it totally works here. Not the least bit because Marc Singer, a while off from his “V” and “Beastmaster” glory days, gives the guy a more personality than your standard John Rambo rip-off. Singer plays Paul as something of a smart-ass who mostly stumbles into danger, never seeks it out. He's got a laid-back charisma and sense of humor to him.

When you pair a likable leading man up with a dog that can type, well, that's a winning formula. As in the first movie, “Watchers II” gets a lot of mileage out of the natural adorableness of its canine co-star. The sequence where the dog drives a car is definitely a highlight. When Einstein is trying to communicate with Singer, who plays his bafflement well, that's another good scene. Singer and Einstein are paired up with Tracy Scoggins as Dr. White. The trio have good chemistry together. Such as in the amusing scene where Paul discusses the artillery he has to buy. I like the way Einstein nudges the two humans to get together. As well as how Scoggin's female lead actually listens and understands when it looks like her new guy friend might be a serial killer. “Watchers II” corrects a big mistake the first film made but actually having the girl and the dog get involved during the final showdown with the monster too. 

The cute dog and likable heroes are the main element that makes “Watchers II” a slight improvement. As a monster movie, it's still fairly standard stuff. The suit used to create the Outsider is quite awkward. That it looks like a humanoid figure covered with tumors or malformed flesh is cool but the elongated snout is distressingly aardvark-like. The P.O.V. shots are still obviously inspired by “Predator.” However, I do appreciate that “Watchers II” takes a little more from Koontz' novel, in the sense of making the monster a bit sympathetic. This genetically engineered beast rips people apart, gouges eyes out, and bursts through a window when some teenagers are about to have sex. The script repeatedly clarifies that the Outsider is an unloved abomination. Malceno is the closest thing it has to a friend and he's only keeping the monster around because of its military value. Both Einstein and the Outsider are fond of little teddy bears. Which is cute and typical for a dog but, for a monster, gives it a child-like quality to contrast with its murderous rage. That doesn't make scenes where the Outsider wears a trench coat and walks into a corner grocery store or chats with two bums any less silly. Still, an effort was made.

Lastly, “Watchers II” has far prettier cinematography than a Roger Corman production from 1990 required. Edward J. Pei, who has mostly worked in TV, was the D.P. here. He includes several sequences of rays of light crisscrossing through blue-black rooms. A sequence where Singer stalks the Outsider through the sewers is also well shot. Director Thierry Notz hasn't done much else of note but his work here is competent enough. As with the first shot at “Watchers,” I think the super smart dog still gets side-lined by the more standard monster movie shenanigans. The action theatrics are nothing all that special, save a solid dive out a window. Right after the climax ends, the film goes right into credits, which is somewhat abrupt. No one will mistake this for high art. However, for those of us with a taste for direct-to-video junk of the early nineties, “Watchers II” makes for a more-than-serviceable way to waste an hour and a half. [7/10]

The House At the End of Time (2013)

When you think about it, the idea of being transported through time is kind of scary. You are being picked up from the only period in history you know and are familiar with and put down in a foreign land. If you are lucky, you haven't gone back so far that the language is still somewhat compatible. Getting dropped only a hundred years into the past will still leave you with a lot of changes to adapt to. Another century or more and forget about it. Limiting time travel within your own life time still presents challenges. Such as how much changing one event can effect another, leaving you dealing with the fallout of countless ripples in time that could make your future unrecognizable. Not to mention bringing up some existentially terrifying questions about the nature of fate. While most time travel stories are more on the sci-fi adventure side of things, a few films have attempted to explore the horror potential in the premise. Such as “The House At the End of Time,” supposedly the most successful horror film ever made in Venezuela. 

Back in the eighties, Dulce traveled into the basement of her home. Her husband, Juan Jose, has been stabbed in the neck with a butcher knife. She is then helpless to watch as her eldest son, Leopoldo, is carried into the darkness by an unseen person and vanishes. Authorities find Dulce's fingerprints on the knife and she is arrested for the murder of both Jose and Leopoldo. She is imprisoned for thirty years. Now an old woman, she is allowed to serve out the rest of her sentence under house arrest... In the same house that the murders occurred in. Three decades before, Dulce and Juan Jose's younger son, Rodrigo, died in a playground accident. The tragedy put greater stress on their already failing marriage. That's when the haunting started, the family being visited by strange figures and assaulted by bizarre noises. In the present, Dulce finds the supernatural activity has resumed. A friendship with a local priest reveals the history of the home and how its secrets might hold more answers than Dulce could expect.

At least for its first half, “The House at the End of Time” seems to be a fairly standard haunted house flick. The titular structure, an imposing building of stone with a distinctive tower, certainly looks creepy enough. The paranormal activity is nothing we haven't seen plenty of times before. The disturbing figure, of a semi-nude old man with a knife, is glimpsed in mirrors and over shoulders. Hands reach between the gaps in locked doors, grasping at those inside. Director Alejandro Hidalgo and his team are adapt at engineering scares like this. A fittingly spooky ambiance is created within the dark hallways of the house. While Hidalgo is not above using loud blaring musical scores or sudden intrusions of faces or figures to get a sharp jump out of the viewer, they are well done. A sequence involving a medium, fairly standard stuff for a ghost movie, is quite well orchestrated. A moment where an obscured figure moves through Rodrigo's bedroom towards him is the creepy highlight of the movie. What truly elevates the film, however, is the directions the story twists and turns in. The time travel narrative sees “The House at the End of Time” revisiting many of its previous scares and gifting them with a deeper meaning on their second appearance. Making the audience jump isn't too difficult. Giving that jump scare unexpected emotional resonance later on is a lot harder and a far more noble goal.

While “The House at the End of Time” is definitely a horror movie, the film doesn't allow itself to be narrowed by genre conventions. A lot of other scenes in the film play out like they're from a drama about a family struggling in eighties Venezuela. Juan Jose can't find work and Dulce is starting to resent him for it. Leopoldo and Rodrigo spend their days playing baseball with a number of local youths, including a little tomboy they both harbor a crush for. That bond is what accidentally leads to Rodrigo's passing, the kind of simple mistake that can haunt a kid for the rest of their lives. These scenes are overly sentimental, not helped by a rather mawkish score. The sequences of domestic drama can be rather slow-paced. However, “The House at the End of Time” is invested in its characters and their emotional journeys. The clever script brings almost all its ideas full circle by the end, at which point you truly care about what happens to them. When the true threat, which is very human, is revealed, it works because the script has taken the time to build up meaning behind the emotions and actions of its characters.

I'm writing around some of the surprises “The House at the End of Time” has in store because I want people to discover them on their own. The script is fantastically concise in the way many details introduced in the first half come back around before the end credits. To say much more might dilute the satisfaction of watching it play out. However, I was impressed with the method of time travel the movie invents. Rather than go the science fiction route or utilize your standard magical spells, this is film about one of my favorite fantastical plot points: Architectural magic. The script knowingly invokes Masonic ideas, in how the construction of a structure can effect the events that take place within. This is combined with the idea of significant times and dates, numbers that reoccur throughout history. What if events could reoccur in a similar fashion? It all suggests the occultic idea that symbols and patterns link to a higher, more mystical level of operation. Whether you can actually believe in that stuff or not, it's a way more interesting idea than your standard time travel shenanigans. 

“The House at the End of Time” is further supported by strong performances all around. Ruddy Rodriguez stars as Dulce. While the old woman make-up they have her wearing in the present-set scenes leave something to be desired, she still gives a heart-felt and sincere performance. The child actors also do a good job too, never getting too broad or silly. The musical score is a bit sentimental, some of the kid-centric scenes feeling like they're from an Amblin wannabe. The film, in general, is a bit too slow and gentle-handed at times. However, I was ultimately won over by this one. A Hollywood remake was discussed at one point, with Hidalgo attached to direct that too. That must've fallen through and he instead made another horror film in his home country. Based on the strengths of this one, I'm very interested in checking it out. “The House at the End of Time” is well done. [7/10]

Hollywood Off-Ramp: The Flying Wahoo

Last October, I reviewed an episode of extremely obscure anthology program, “Strange Frequency.” That was an attempt by VH1, a network still best known for music videos at the time, to make their own “Twilight Zone.” Presumably somebody thought it was time for this network not known for scripted programming to give it a shot. Clearly, something was in the air that time among execs of cable channels that specialized in shit other than speculative fiction anthology shows. A year before “Strange Frequency” debuted, the E! Network – a channel known primarily for celebrity gossip and making fun of talk shows – would also make their own “Twilight Zone.” It was called “Hollywood Off-Ramp,” telling twisted tales of fame and fortune, as hosted by a very sarcastic Brian Unger. Much like “Strange Frequency,” it was not successful and failed to redirect the focus of a network that would soon be dominated by reality show slop. While “Strange Frequency” at least got a handful of episodes released on DVD, “Hollywood Off-Ramp” would completely disappear after it finished airing. Copies of the episodes probably reside in some studio archive or producer's basement but the show is, as far as anyone else is concerned, “lost” media. 

Except, that is, for one episode that somebody happened to have on a VHS and then slapped onto Youtube. “The Flying Wahoo” stars David Arnott as a former child star . After a company known as Smiley Time bought the production house of the sitcom he worked on, his part was recast. While this failure still stings, David has a new passion. He is the Flying Wahoo, the costumed mascot for basketball team the Fresno Flyers. Nobody else understands his enthusiasm for wearing a purple raccoon suit, least of all his mother nor the residents of the bar he frequents. When Smiley Time also buys the Fresno Flyers, they play to take the team to San Francisco. David is not expected to come along. Feeling despondent, he continues to insist that he is the Flying Wahoo, which soon prompts an unexpected transformation. Alas, some wishes shouldn't come true.

Aside from the fact that nobody was watching the E! Network for dark fantasy stories, the obvious reason nobody remembers “Hollywood Off-Ramp” is that it wasn't very good. The show was obviously very low-budget, taking place mostly on generic sets. Despite being about a sports mascot, we never actually see the inside of a sports arena. Bizarrely, shots of any actual basketball games are replaced by extremely shitty looking CGI animation of a ball going into a hoop. The acting is overall extremely mawkish, with David Arnott being obnoxiously upbeat and cloying in the lead role. In general, “The Flying Wahoo” seems to occupy a cartoonish and exaggerated version of reality. I guess this proceeds the magical events happening in the last third but it mostly makes the show annoying more than anything else.

Mostly, the writing is what fails here. The way the narrative of “The Flying Wahoo” is structured gives the impression that we are supposed to feel sympathy for the main character. He's constantly being shit on by his griping, hateful mother. His career fell apart through no fault of his own. Now, the next thing he loves, being the Flying Wahoo, is being taken away from him by the same corporate assholes. However, the script portrays him as unlikable, clueless to the point of idiocy with no honest perception of himself or reality. He's more pathetic than sympathetic. The magical event that takes place seems like it should present a solution to his problem. Instead, it only ends up making his life worst. The episode then wraps up on an ending so vague as to be almost meaningless. When combined with Unger's sardonic host segments, the impression “Hollywood Off-Ramp” gives is one of mean-spirited mockery. As if the moral of the lesson is “Look at this dumb-ass fail at his dreams and laugh!” I have foggy memories of watching “Hollywood Off-Ramp” as a kid but this episode suggests the series isn't worth remembering. [4/10]

Born of the Wind (1964)

Before creating exceedingly bizarre cult curiosity “Sins of the Fleshapoids,” filmmaking duo Mike and George Kuchar created “Born of the Wind.” The twenty minute film's plot is simple enough: A mad scientist discovers a mummy princess and falls in love with her, despite his maid clearly holding feelings for him. He realizes that a potion made from blood can bring the mummy to life. After a quick trip to the local blood bank, he's cooked up the right elixir and has himself a cute mummy girlfriend. However, she has homicidal tendencies of her own. Things really start to fall apart when a burglar breaks into the doctor's castle and quickly wins her heart. The attempted break-up that follows ends in a twist that nobody is going to predict. 

You can't talk about the work of Kuchar brothers without first talking about what it looks like. This film and “Sins of the Fleshapoids” were both shot silently, on 8mm film. In order to work around this, “Born of the Wind” operates essentially as a silent movie, hand-written title cards describing what dialogue is necessary to tell a story mostly conveyed through visuals. Though the quality of the film is scratchy and dark, a bizarre visual panache still shines through. The home-made sets and special effects of “Born of the Wind” are charming. A rubber skeleton is wrapped in bright white linen to replicate a moment. Blood is runny red water. A mad scientist's laboratory is recreated in an apartment. Most strikingly are several extremely crudely animated sequences of a bat flying over a gothic tower.

Moments such as that point at what the Kuchars were likely doing with “Born of the Wind.” The film is a DIY regurgitation of horror tropes, randomly remixed in a freewheeling style that recalls kids at play. That's why otherwise unrelated ideas like a mad doctor, a rather vampiric mummy, and newfound love collide so wildly. All of this is done with a degree of camp, everyone involved clearly aware of the limited resources they are working with, compensating with theatrical gusto. It's not surprising to read the Kuchars were an influence on John Waters, as their films carry a similar tone of self-aware outrageous. At twenty minutes, “Born of the Wind” definitely wears out its welcome before the utterly nuts ending. As crude as the Kuchars' later work, ti's still more refined than this. Yet it is an intriguing experiment in micro-budget horror myth-making. [7/10]

Halloween 2025: October 9th

 

Watchers (1988)

Dean Koontz will likely always be regarded as the Dollar Store Stephen King, the sting of which is surely easy to ignore when you've supposedly sold 500 million books. Serious horror fiction fans dismiss Koontz but, I don't know, I've liked the couple of books of his I've read. In fact, I really liked “Watchers,” the fifty-second or so novel the prolific writer had published. The 1987 tale of three misfits – a burnt-out former soldier, a secluded woman, and a super-intelligent dog – forming a family and fighting off the genetically engineered monster and government agents on their trail struck me as surprisingly heartfelt, despite its ridiculous premise. The novel must've struck someone in Hollywood too: It's been adapted four times, starting the year after the book was first published. I reviewed Jon Hess' “Watchers” during 2016's Halloween Horror-Fest Blog-a-Thon, which I am distressed to see was nine years ago. If I'm going to take in this whole dog-and-monster show, I better start at the beginning. I'll try not to repeat myself. 

An explosion at a top secret government research lab results in two escapes. The first of which appears be an ordinary golden retriever. The second of which is a Sasquatch-ian monster obsessed with ripping people's eyeballs out. The first victim the monster claims is the father of ordinary teenage girl, Tracey Keeshan. He's killed in a barn, shortly after Tracey sneaks her boyfriend Travis out. As he's driving away, the same dog leaps into Travis' truck. He immediately notices how intelligent the animal, that he names Furface, is. The two quickly bond and Travis convinces his single mom, Nora, to let Furface stay. However, the super-smart dog is desired by cold-blooded government agent, Lem. Most pressingly, the murderous monster has a instinctual drive to hunt down the dog and destroy it, ripping apart anyone it meets along the way. Soon, Travis and his mom are hiding out in the woods, preparing to protect the dog they've come to love and to fight off the killer beasts on its trail.

While Koontz' novel ultimately succeeded due to imbuing its goofy premise with utmost sincerity, the film adaptation has no such luck. The script by Damian Lee, of “Abraxas: Guardian of the Universe” fame, breathlessly explains its own premise. Both an oddly knowledgeable news report and a lengthy conversation between Lem and his boss gives us all the information we need on the dog and OXCOM, the monster tracking it. Lee also changes Koontz' army ranger hero into a teenage boy who only wants to be reunited with his girl and his dog. This does not stop him from demonstrating some bad-ass action hero abilities in the last act, taught to him by a totally off-screen father. The movie truly doesn't find much narrative meat on these bones. To fill time and up the carnage, a number of very goofy supporting characters are inserted. An Australian handyman with a crush on Travis' mom, a female deputy who talks too much, a busy-body Russian woman who owns a hotel, a kid on a bike with a hideous mullet and the overweight peer he calls “Piggy:” All enter into the story merely to give OXCOM someone to kill until he can finally catch up with the primary boy and his dog. 

As disconnected from the source material as this “Watchers” is, it does get one detail right. That super-smart dog is very charming. Furface – who had the less insulting name of Einstein in the book – is played by a precious pup named Sandy. Her big expressive eyes are exactly as heart-melting as they are meant to be. Sandy's ability to bark on command, tap a book cover with her nose, or hold a pencil in her mouth are simply delightful. That Travis would immediately become attached to the dog is the least absurd thing in the film. As I've said before, I'm a total dog guy. I was a total dog boy earlier in my life. I was never a Corey Haim type, whose performance operates largely on a “gee shucks!' level even when he's supposed to be a horny or rebellious teen. However, I will always relate to the story of a bond between a boy and his dog. When Furface uses a Scrabble board to spell out a message for Travis, asking him to leave and not endanger himself any more for his sake, that plucks the weathered, frayed heart-strings in my chest. The appeal of a super-smart dog that can do your homework for you is obvious but the appeal of a loving, unfailingly loyal fuzz-butt with a wet nose and wagging tail is universal. 

The scenes focused on Travis and Furface together feel like something out of a goofy family movie. Especially when the dog sneaks his way into the boy's school or demonstrates his ability to his disbelieving mom. This stands alongside the gory creature feature “Watchers” also is. This was only director Hess' second feature but he knew enough to keep the mediocre looking ape-monster suit mostly in the shadows. Instead, the beast is mostly portrayed as a point-of-view monster that frantically chases people through buildings or hallways. If nothing else, the film convincingly portrays the OXCOM as a rage-driven killer. The scenes of it throwing kids off bikes, reaching a claw through a window to slash at a random lady, or bashing down a wall are silly but convey a sense of danger. As a monster movie, “Watchers” is competently executed. No great stakes but gets just a little bit of tension up.

The subplot involving Michael Ironside and Blu Mankuma feels half-formed. A twist regarding Ironside's character has never made much sense to me. Despite that, Ironiside is naturally an intimidating, colorful presence that enlivens the film every time he's on-screen. The film dumbly removes the dog from the action at the end, becoming a fairly colorless “Predator” rip-off instead. That was silly, seeing as how the link between Travis and Furface was the best thing this one had going for it. Hess' “Watchers” has none of the pathos of Koontz' book, obviously. The downgrade is most evident in the monster, which goes from a self-loathing lab-made misfit that hates to be observed and despises the genetic brother that has everything it wants to a generic beastie. Still, corny and silly as it is, 1988's “Watchers” does have a cute dog, a convincingly relationship between it and its hero, and enough eighties horror flair for me to give it a mild thumbs-up. [6/10]

 

Dead Sands (2013)

Fans that are old enough to remember will recall a time when the zombie film was a niche subgenre adored only by die-hard gore-hounds and those obsessed with the history of the horror movie. Look back far enough on some truly ancient horror fan-sites to unearth writers bemoaning how obscure the zombie premise had become. It all seems rather ironic in light of the last twenty-five years, where zombies have remained a regular presence in popular culture. The popularity of shambling, undead gut-mucher is global too. In the past, I've covered zombie movies from places as far apart from each other as Cuba and Nigeria. Having said that, discovering that there is a Bahraini zombie movie still surprised me. The island nation of Bahrain is the smallest country in the Middle East and seems to be known, on an international scale, more for the government's human rights violations than anything else. People have dreams of making movies everywhere, however, and a filmmaker named Ameera Al-Qaed would achieve their's with the 2013 release of “Dead Sands,” her nation's first zombie movie. 

An opening radio broadcast speaks of an airborne virus that has been reported in the nation of Bahrain. Many dismiss it as no more concerning than the common flu, claiming the experts are panicking over nothing. It certainly doesn't seem to worry a group of young people, all of whom head out for a night on the town. They include soft-spoken music major May, self-centered rich girl Samara, mysterious biker-type Wolf, outcast Friday, his crush Reem, wannabe filmmaker TJ, and a few other friends. This potential good time is ruined when the recently dead begin to rise as flesh-hungry ghouls, who kill and eat the living to spread their virus. The youths are thrown together by circumstance, working together to flee a concert venue. Wolf mentions that one of his clients owns a house boat and the group sets their sight on that as their goal. They are going to have to learn to work together if they have any chance of surviving the night though.

In my time as a fan of low-budget, independent, or exploitation filmmaking, I've come across a number of productions that are fair to refer to as amateurish. There's nothing necessarily bad about being an amateur. Every expert started out that way. Certainly, making movies is an example of an art form where the basic equipment is readily available but the money and skills required to do so properly are much harder to come by. Every cellphone has a camera in it now, meaning almost anyone can technically make a movie. At what point does that make you a filmmaker? All of this is a precursor to me saying that “Dead Sands” is obviously the work of amateurs. The shot composition is bland. The lighting is flat all throughout, giving the entire movie the same washed-up and slightly purple look. The writing is vague, at best. The script is mostly composed of characters having brief conversations of no real importance, giving us the tiniest sliver of who they are and what they want out of life. That is, when you can hear what anyone is saying. The sound mixing in “Dead Sands” is especially poor. The dialogue often sounds like little more than mumbling. Music frequently drowns out what people are saying while the sound effects seem non-existent from time to time. 

“Dead Sands'” writer Ahmed Zayani appears as TJ. He makes sure to include references to George Romero and “Game of Thrones,” as well as standard zombie movie cliches like power-hungry lunatics trying to consolidate power in the end times. What he doesn't remember to include are, well, the zombies. When the undead do appear in “Dead Sands,” it's as people with a little fake blood in their mouths and on their skin with a smattering of make-up on their face. They gurgle and hiss in a distracting fashion. Usually, the undead appears briefly, nibbling on someone, before the characters flee. It's not until the last act that we get anything like a proper zombie horde but its numbers are still quite small. In fact, for a movie supposedly about the fall of society, there's surprisingly little people in “Dead Sands” at all. Every location seems practically empty to begin with. It's hard to get a sense of zombies taking over society when there's both few zombies and fewer signs of society. 

A lack of money and resources is one thing. There seems to be little in the way of official support for budding filmmakers in Bahrain. That “Dead Sands” is lacking any sort of professional sheen or general technical competence is unsurprising. In the past, I've seen movies lacking these qualities that still managed to be charming, usually because the enthusiasm of the people involved still shined through. Unfortunately, everyone in front of the camera in “Dead Sands” seems deeply uninterested in being there. The acting in the film is largely monotone. Most of the performers quietly mumble through their dialogue, without any sense of urgency. You'd expect everyone would be more worried if cannibalistic undead were wandering around. The shapeless script is a collection of minor character arcs, none of which are completed. The story has no sense of direction. I can assume the cast and crew of “Dead Sands” had fun making it but there's little evidence of that on-screen.

The idea of a zombie movie, a familiar premise, being made in Bahrain by filmmakers with cultural specific perspectives is a tantalizing one. There is certainly a little bit of that on display here. Miraya Varma, as Samara, seems to be the only performer in the film that's actually acting. The character is a narcissist who stops in the middle of the zombie apocalypse to redo her make-up, while being more than happy to manipulate those around her if it'll help her. She's basically the film's villain and acts, culturally, very Western. Is Samara's inevitable fate some sort of commentary? At least one of the characters in the film is Muslim. “Dead Sands” ends with an uncertain invoking of the words of Allah. Is this important? Is director Ameera Al-Qaed saying something about traditional values in Bahrain? It's hard to say, as “Dead Sands” feels half-formed in so many ways. Beating up on what was obviously a very low budget production made with extremely limited resources makes me feel like an asshole. I hope more films of note come out of this region of the world and that they are sturdier or at least more entertaining than this one. [3/10]

Urban Gothic: Vampirology
 

British television's fascination with the horror anthology format seems to have waned by the middle seventies. The nineties and beyond did see a few attempts to revive the subgenre, from time to time. Such as “Urban Gothic,” which aired for two seasons on Channel 5, starting in May of 2000. The second episode, “Vampirology,” is a mockumentary about a film crew following around Rex. He is an immortal and thoroughly cynical vampire living in modern day Soho. His ageless good looks finds him work as a model while wannabes pay to have themselves vampirized. (He had his fangs filed down, because they were “kitsch,” and now does the bloodletting with a straight razor.) He hangs out with trendy friends and spends a lot of time in night clubs. The camera tracks him as Rex details his philosophy about life and becomes increasingly desperate as he prowls the streets for the right kind of victim.

A key moment in “Vampirology” has Rex's collection of friends – a model proud of her breast implants, an intellectual, a rich lawyer – each being asked what they think a vampire is. They describe him as a metaphor for AIDS or the predatory nature of capitalism. Rex dismisses each of these theories in quick succession, as cliched and worn out. This is a very self-reflective moment on the writers of “Urban Gothic,” who were surely aware of how malleable a symbol the vampire is. To the various cultural ideas and anxieties the mythological figure has spoken to over the decades. Rex is dismissive of all these ideas because this vampire is a self-absorbed hipster. He smokes constantly, brags about what type of shirts he wears, spends a lot of time in trendy restaurants and clubs. Comparing a person who only comes out at night and preys on other people to a vampire is a fairly fresh angle, I'll admit.

The conclusion “Vampirology” seems to come to is that, when you see other people as nothing but food, it tends to leave you alone and miserable. Rex surrounds himself with people he know he won't get too attached to, that he won't feel bad about bleeding. Similarly, his human hanger-ons consider their vampire pal more of a status symbol than a meaningful relationship. At one point, when presented with an apathetic youth who is totally content to be drained by him, Rex flies into a rage. He says he wants to hunt humans, to feel some sort of challenge. However, he later dismisses potential victims for having too much facial hair or too much garlic in their blood. (He isn't allergic to garlic, he just doesn't like the taste.) This vampire is a pretty shallow guy. No wonder he ends up alone and covered with blood, thinking more and more about suicide as an escape from his ceaseless life.

“Vampirology” strikes me as heavily inspired by “Man Bites Dog,” aping its hand-held documentary visual style and interview-heavy format. That link is most evident when we finally see Rex kill someone. It's a drawn-out sequence that ends up painting both the perpetrator and the victim as pathetic figures. In fact, the longer “Vampirology” goes on, the clearer it becomes that Rex is the butt of the joke here. A scene where he visits a video store sees him comparing cinematic portrayals of Dracula to different James Bond actors. Lee was the Connery of Draculas, Lugosi was more like Roger Moore. However, he seems quite enamored of Ingrid Pitt... Which sets up a later moment where, after a potential biting date stands him up, Rex happens to run into Pitt. She is utterly unimpressed with this real vampire, leaving him embittered and humiliated. It's a funny idea, starting the half-hour out with the vampire as utterly desirable to everyone and ending it by revealing he's kind of a loser. [7/10]

 

Suspense (1913)

When we think of the silent era of horror, what comes to mind is probably the surrealism of German expressionism or Universal's early gothic melodrama. We probably don't think of home invasion thrillers, a subgenre that wouldn't really come into vogue until the seventies. However, from 1913, here's exactly such a film, likely the first such example in cinema history. “Suspense” follows a woman and her infant child, unknowingly left home alone when the maid quits without notice. Her husband calls to inform her he's staying late at the office. That's when a homeless vagrant begins to stalk around the property. He discovers the key left under the mat by the maid and enters the home. The woman calls her husband as she barricades herself in the bedroom, the tramp advancing up the stairs with a knife. The man races home, hoping he can make it back before it's too late.

“Suspense” isn't only surprisingly modern in terms of subject matter for a 112 year old movie. A good amount of this one-reeler is shot in the stage-like, vertical technique that was common in these primitive days of filmmaking. There are some camera techniques here that must've seemed utterly cutting edge at the time. A three-way split screen is used to show the woman on the phone with her husband, while the tramp is sneaking into the house. Later, there's a high-speed car chase, as the hero hitches a ride with some cops in an motorized buggy, that feels a lot more fast-paced than you'd expect from something over a century old. Better are the P.O.V. shots, from the woman's perspective, as she makes eye-contact with the sinister hobo. A shot of him starring up at her through a window is actually quite creepy. 

“Suspense” manages to live up to its name too. It's a simple enough equation. We see the vagrant making his way up the stairs, knife in hand. The wife hides in the bedroom. The husband does everything he can to make it back. These are the foundational building blocks of cinematic tension, a vulnerable woman and child, a threatening villain, a race against time. There's a shot of the home invader busting his hand through a locked door too. “Suspense” definitely isn't free of the stodgy cliches of the time. A shot of a car speeding off, via undercranked camera movements, is silly looking to modern eyes. As is the rather hammy acting. “Suspense” proves surprisingly effective and well done for something so antiquated. By the way, IMDb says a random guy smoking a cigarette is played by Lon Chaney. It does kind of look like him... [7/10]