Anchorwoman In Peril

Coming soon... in 1978

2011-11-17T13:53:00.001Z

It's a twin thing

2011-11-08T19:54:00.000Z

There’s something about 1982’s TheThing (rating 4/5) that affects me now in ways that failed to grab me back when Ifirst encountered it as a teenager. It’s a cold, draughty and dragging film.It’s sludgy, unforgiving and a bit of an effort. It’s, well... brilliant,really. If you never thought a monster movie could feel in any way realistic,this one’ll leave you sprawled face-down in the ice. I’ve heard that wintercrews at Antarctic outposts watch it when all the home flights have left forcivilization. That’s pretty brave! We’re talking about a film where the onlycomic relief is the borderline hysteria brought on by its ever more extreme anddisgusting developments. Kurt Russell is incredible in it, delivering aperformance that’s 87% beard and cowboy hat, but which somehow holds the wholething together. Not that it’s in danger of falling apart: the idea’s neat, thescript solid, and John Carpenter’s direction note-perfect in its mixture ofchilly observation and steaming relish. You’ll probably have questionsafterwards, but that’s one of its strengths. It’s a film that encourages debate; that wants you to work at it and pick itapart. And then it wants you to puke.

The new The Thing(3/5) slavishly fills in the backstory of Carpenter’s original, attempting to explainhow each snowmobile came to be standing in which particular snow-coveredparking spot of that abandoned Norwegian base; how each individual icicleformed on each particular overhang; and many other thrilling enigmas barelyworth wasting another semicolon on. One thing it doesn’t explain is why the Thing itself – formerly an unutterablysquelchy dollop of melted face and hyperactive spaghetti – is now a smooth, shinydigital effect that never stands still long enough to let you get a decent lookat it. Neither does it explain why the Thing doesn’t just give all thatmutating a rest for, like, five minutes and pass itself off as a dog longenough to escape triumphantly into the wilderness like a more evil LittlestHobo... Hey, Miss Thing, I found myself thinking in a sassy voice, just rent Invasion of the Body Snatchers if youwant to see how a self-replicating pod-person really gets shit done!

All of which got me wondering why this Thing had to be called “The Thing” again, when even “The ThingAgain” would’ve been a better title. This is, after all, a proper prequel ratherthan a remake – a touch of mild novelty surely worth pointing out by way of amore imaginative title. I suggest The NewThing... Oh no, that’s wrong. Technically, it’s The Old Thing... although that makes it sound like the originalfilm again. How about Before the Thing?First Things First? The Thing-ummy? Baby Thing? That Thing You Do? (Hmm, maybe The Thing wasn’t such a bad title, after all...)

It’s not a bad film, either, being enjoyable in the mannerof a Resident Evil movie, andchallenging us to accept Mary Elizabeth Winstead as a leading 1980s palaeontologistin a way that’s so serenely audacious it’s actually entertaining in itself. Asa monster movie, it’ll likely be as much of a relic as The Relic in ten years’ time, having had as much deep impact on thesci-fi genre as, er Deep Impact. But,if the worst it does is drive you back into the squiggly arms of the original Thing, then that’s no bad thing. (Hmm...The Bad Thing? No... stop that now!)

Let’s turn our attention instead to Seconds Apart (2/5), a sort of telekinetic torture-porn slasher moviethat weds Carrie and Willard in ways that make less sensethan this sentence. The film features Edmund and Gary Entin as twins – bothevil, both psychic, and both able to command other people to kill themselvesagainst their will – and Orlando Jones as a detective who’s scarred bothphysically and mentally after leaving his wife to frazzle in a house fire. Saiddetective is investigating said twins following a spate of suspicious suicides,while said backstory allows flashbacks that pad out the running time.

Yes, Seconds Aparthas interesting ideas but fails to do anything very appealing with them. Itsidea of style could be described as “tones of decay and some stuff with asnowglobe” – which is probably a direct quote from the script. What it reallycould’ve done with is the colourful, black-humoured histrionics of a Tim Burtonrip-off like the aforementioned Willard(and I believe that may be the first time Willardhas ever been aforementioned) or May. Or an actual Tim Burton film like EdwardScissorhands. Or perhaps any film that takes its title from the name of itsmain character, with the possible exception of Rocky.

Ooh! And The Thing!

Dean Koontz's Intensity

2010-03-25T17:35:00.005Z

Boy, it’s just amazing what you’ll get up to in your efforts to put off doing something you don’t want to do, isn’t it? Namely, avoiding working on the book you’re writing, which is the reason you haven’t updated your blog for 64 million years, give or take a century. So here I am with a little look at Dean Koontz’s Intensity. Yup, not only have I sought out a three-hour TV movie to watch, but now I’m actually writing about it... Can you say “procrastination”? Of course you can! But can you spell it? Ha!

Things got so bad on the putting-off-work front today that, besides shampooing my carpets with Head & Shoulders – surprisingly tough on rug dandruff – I also managed to watch a Mary Higgins Clark TV movie... you know, the kind where a woman’s kidnapped, her fretful friend falls in love with the detective, something explodes (probably a yacht) and you wish you’d watched a proper thriller instead. The one I picked was For Better or for Worse, aka Terror Stalks the Class Reunion (now you see why I gave it a go) and you can read my review over at Retro Slashers... But hold your horses there, pardner! I haven’t even started this review yet!

Funnily enough, Intensity is also about a kidnap but, believe me, it’s a whole lot better than the Mary Higgins Clark outing. The clues are in the titles. Where For Better or for Worse has little of the former but lots of the latter, Intensity lives up to its name with a smattering of prolonged suspense sequences and a running time that, far from dragging everything out, actually gives it the feel of a decent novel. (This is probably the part where Dean Koontz fans point out that that’s because it’s based on one.)

And – oh – Intensity... there’s another reason you’re interesting, and that’s down to the fact that you’re basically a blueprint for the 2003 French horror film Haute Tension/Switchblade Romance. (This sent the blogging world into a frenzy seven years ago, so I’ll let you do your own Google search.) Haute Tension is basically the jacked-up, hyper-gory, streamlined version, and a safer bet for horror fans, I guess, but taking the trip with Intensity is well worth the ride too.

What are you in for if you do? Well, Molly Parker stars as an emotionally damaged waitress called Chyna, who can’t flip an egg without having a disturbing flashback of her awful childhood, in which she was apparently raised by Mickey and Mallory Knox whilst being pursued by a camera mounted on the back of a bee with balance problems. Chyna is visiting the family of her friend, Laura, at Thanksgiving when a serial killer played by Scrubs’ John C. McGinley (slightly distracting) breaks in and kills everyone... Everyone, that is, except for Laura, whom he decides to tie up and kidnap, and Chyna, who sneaks undetected into the back of the killer’s getaway vehicle (a mobile home) and tries to think of a way of freeing Laura without getting captured and killed herself.

The whole home-invasion is a great piece of sustained tension, as is almost every ensuing scrape Chyna manages to get herself into, from dodging the killer during a blood-splattered stopover at a gas station, to mounting an escape from the his home past a pack of hungry guard dogs. Piper Laurie pops up as a motorist dragged into the chase, and there’s also the small matter of a kidnapped child who needs rescuing from the monster’s lair. If it’s woman-in-peril thrills you’re after, you can’t go wrong with this one, really. It’s twice as suspenseful as most similar offerings, not to mention twice as long.

Intense procrastination material, then.

Rating: 4/5

Bloodbath at the House of Death

2009-10-18T22:00:00.003+01:00

If you’ve ever wanted to see Vincent Price bang his hand on an axe-head and shout “Oh shit!” then this British horror spoof is the movie for you. Price appears as “The Sinister Man”, parodying his roles in various Roger Corman films, and is for a while the best thing about Bloodbath at the House of Death (1984), until his unceremonious exit about halfway through. Amongst the rest of the cast – most of whom play scientists and other experts investigating the titular mansion – Pamela Stephenson (Not the Nine O’Clock News) probably comes off best, despite enduring copious fart gags, Kenny Everett’s dubious attempts at physical comedy, and being stripped naked by an invisible force à la The Entity.

Yes, the standard of jokes in Bloodbath is about on a par with The Kenny Everett Television Show, meaning that you’ll likely either love it or hate it depending on your taste for innuendo-strewn, frequently incoherent grossness. If anything, however, the freedom to push the gore and nudity to the limit results in a lazier approach, meaning that the writers are too often content to rely on the aforementioned fart gags, while anything approaching a clever spoof of horror clichés falls by the wayside.

Bloodbath works best through a haze of nostalgia, recalling a time in British history when increasing permissiveness on TV collided head-on with escalating concerns over violent “video nasties” – and this feels like the bloody aftermath. Call an ambulance... Or, better still, a coroner.

Rating: 1/5

Wet Gold

2009-10-17T14:43:00.003+01:00

Does DVD picture quality reflect the quality of a film? I’ve often wondered, but no more so than when I got about halfway through Wet Gold, a 1984 TV movie that tries to do for underwater adventure stories what The Deep did for underwater adventure stories. And fails. (I’d like to say “spectacularly” but putting that word anywhere near a review of this film would be misleading.)

So, anyway, the DVD’s picture quality – if you can call it that – is not good, but that’s not always a problem. A bigger one for Wet Gold is the fact that it very quickly descends into a quagmire of dull double-crossing between people you care very little about. There’s Brooke Shields as a Florida waitress who dreams of bigger things (shame she turns out to be so lazy and self-centred, then); Burgess Meredith as a drunken seadog who knows the location of a fortune in sunken gold; and Thomas Byrd and Brian Kerwin as the deckhand and diver competing for Shields’ affections.

The four of them head out to sea, they find the treasure, they see a SHARK! (at this point, I thought things were going to get interesting... alas not) and they have a run-in with some pirates. But mostly they go skin-diving and argue about their shares in the loot. It’s all quite dreary, really, although there is a nice moment involving the underside of a boat and the topside of a character’s skull that redefines the term “propellerhead”.

I’m easy to please when it comes to underwater action movies. There simply aren’t enough of them (unless you count submarine flicks, which to me are as interesting as films set in warehouses) but Wet Gold isn’t a good example of one, despite some decent scenes inside a sunken shipwreck. If you’re looking for a schlocky oceanic crime story along the lines of The Deep and Into the Blue, try Shark or Night of the Sharks instead. This one sunk without trace for a reason.

Rating: 2/5

AiP’s annual post

2009-07-22T11:23:00.025+01:00

Don’t joke! If not quite my only post this year, this is certainly my first in over a month. And I feel bad about that, I really do. I could write a list of excuses, I could tell you how busy I am with my other blog, My First Dictionary, I could ’splain it all to you over croissants and a mint julep, but I sense none of those would do any good anyhow. And pastry with cocktails is never a good idea.

A bunker like that from which I emerged today

Perhaps the main reason I’ve not been updating recently is that I simply haven’t watched anything in an AiP vein to write about. I’ve hardly watched any films at all, in fact, since I last reviewed the new Last House on the Left a few weeks back, although the ones I have seen (Gran Torino, Bolt, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince) – mainstream as they are – have all been quite good. There’s also been Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff, which I hope to write about here shortly (because it’s really quite interesting, y’know) and something called Red Mist.

Oh, Red Mist... While we’re on the subject of that new supernatural slasher, I can tell you I reviewed it over at Retro Slashers, so that’s one piece I’ve managed recently, and the movie’s worth a look if you want to see what happens when the “prank gone wrong” and “hospital slasher” subgenres collide (clue: it’s messy!). I also put together a gallery of Really Retro Slasher Villains, which I think looks pretty spiffy in all its monochrome menace.

Bunker fish. I saw lots of these in my bunker.

What about the stuff I haven’t done? Well, I’m mad, mad, mad, MAD with myself for missing the submission deadline for Vince Liaguno’s mouth-watering upcoming slasher book, Butcher Knives & Body Counts. Not that I expect to have had anything accepted but – damn – it would’ve been worth it to get the chance to have something included in the kind of good company that’s been announced so far.

And, speaking of good company, I happen to know that super-scribe Amanda By Night is working on something pretty special at the moment, which she asked me to be a part of but which I’ve unforgivably neglected of late. Let’s see if I can get back on track a bit and enable her to get it finished before AiP’s next annual post.

In the meantime, I highly recommend becoming a follower of Tower Farm Reviews, in my opinion the natural successor to Anchorwoman In Peril, where Billy and JM have an uncanny knack of picking the movies I keep meaning to be review... Seriously, can you think of any other site that could segue effortlessly from Ticks to Roller Boogie in the space of a few reviews? I rest my case (and hopefully not on your foot).

See you intermittently!*

*No guarantee of intermittent reader-writer reunion is implied or should be inferred.

Next house on the left

2009-06-14T21:18:00.004+01:00

Because I generally like films about rape and murder – and because, as we all know, remakes are always just great – I decided to rush out and give the new Last House on the Left a try on its UK opening day. So I sat there in the dark with about eight strangers – some of whom gasped at the graphic stabbings, sexual assaults and miscellaneous mutilations – and thought: Why am I doing this? Am I sick? But you know what? This film is just great. And I’m not sick, I assure you... Although I guess I would say that.

I’m a fan of Wes Craven’s original. What horror fan isn’t? It’s not perfect (I’m sure you’ll have your own reasons – possibly several – as to why) and Craven would come on leaps and bounds as a filmmaker throughout the rest of the 70s, but it works by succeeding at everything it’s trying to do and, crucially, horrifying the hell out of you three decades on.

The new Last House actually smoothes out a lot of these imperfections both plot-wise and stylistically. Which isn’t to say it’s a superior film; I think the original holds its own just because it got there first. But it certainly doesn’t insult the original, unlike many a recent remake, and it stands alone in a way the Friday the 13th and Halloween remakes don’t.

Quality films about rape and murder are usually foreign, and sometimes quite boring and pretentious. The Last House on the Left is certainly quality – it’s got a lush, orchestral score, beautiful cinematography and a capable cast – and it drags you in on the weight of your own gloomy expectations that its initial idyll can’t last. Of course bad things are going to happen to its teenage protagonists, although I can’t say whether or not you’ll find them more disturbing that those in the original (I found them less so – just slightly – thanks to the high production values and reduced sense of humiliation).

Pretentious it definitely isn’t, however. While it’s sensible enough to make you believe it, it’s also plenty pulpy when you just want that revenge-kick. It doesn’t pussy-foot, but it’s not tactless either. By dishing out dollops of nasty mayhem in its final third it does what Funny Games (the original and remake) denies – that is, allows you to wallow in the horror. After all, it’s a horror movie. It’s supposed to be chock-full of horrible, and it’s supposed to be a cathartic experience... In fact, now that I’ve seen the new Last House, I think I’ll be able to get through the next three weeks without kicking a single kitten.

It’s that good.

Rating: 4/5

Bad day at the office?

2009-06-01T23:30:00.011+01:00

Some recent gallivanting around Europe has put me in possession of a couple of obscure horror films with a workplace theme. But without visiting the IMDb and spoiling all the fun, I know next to nothing about either, other than what’s written (in Dutch) on the DVD covers...

First up, there’s Office Party, a “psychologische thriller” starring Michael Ironside and David Warner, one of whom appears to be wearing a scary mask in the stills on the box. While Ironside is touted on the front cover, however, it’s Warner who’s mentioned in the plot description on the back, so I can’t really tell which is the hero. I’m guessing it’s Warner because his character appears to be called Eugene, and I can’t imagine a masked killer going by that name (oh, how quickly we forget Eric’s Revenge). From the looks of things, I’m thinking Eugene and his co-workers are trapped inside an office building by a deranged murderer and must fight to survive the night!

Then there’s Office Killer, which – joy of joys – stars Carol Kane. Judging by the cover (a dubious practice, I hear) she’s in mousy mode, but don’t be fooled, as “she will kill her way to the top!” apparently... Just like Michael Caine in A Shock to the System, perhaps? Quite frankly, I’ll be happy enough if this is simply better than the disappointing The Temp, which it also appears to resemble. But I can’t get enough of stationery-item-related violence at the moment (Drag Me to Hell’s stapler and ruler antics had me in fits) so, if Carol gets handy with a letter opener – or even just a few paperclips – I’ll be pleased as (a hole) punch.

I’ll be scheduling Office Party and Office Killer for their performance appraisals just as soon as I find a free slot in my Filofax.

It!

2009-05-27T15:04:00.010+01:00

It’s no secret that my goal in life is to watch every movie Roddy McDowall ever made. But did you also know that my other goal in life is to watch every giant killer statue movie ever made? Well, it is. And I made this life-altering decision about two minutes after I watched the 1966 Brit flick It! – which not only stars Roddy McDowall but also features a giant killer statue. Talk about everything clicking into place!

You want to see the Rodster overacting like he’s never overacted before? Watch It! You want to see giant killer statues punching holes in London landmarks? Again, watch It! In fact, we could all save a lot of time if you just switched off your computer right now and went and watched It! – but I understand you come here for in-depth critical analysis and film theory, so let’s plough on.

Roddy plays Arthur Pimm, a curator’s assistant who lives at home with his elderly mother. And, when I say “elderly,” I mean old... Cobwebby old. Yes, Mrs Pimm is actually a rotting corpse sitting in a rocking chair in her son’s bedroom. (I know... where have I seen this idea before, right? It’s on the tip of my tongue...) Anyway, Pimm talks to her, dresses her, and carries her around the house, but mostly she just sits there rocking quietly in her chair. Quite how she manages to rock is never actually explained. She is, after all, dead. But rock she does, and very spooky it is too, thankyouverymuch.

One evening sometime in Scene 2, Pimm is called out to the museum’s storage warehouse, the scene of a devastating fire that’s destroyed almost everything the museum owns. Oh, except for a large, scowling stone figure, which may – or may not – be a giant killer statue. I’m giving nothing away. Pimm gives it the benefit of the doubt but, when his boss gets an unseen whack to the back of the head whilst standing near the statue, things aren’t really going in its favour. Particularly when the curator dies as a result.

Was it the statue that delivered the fatal blow? All we know is that, where once its arms were in an extended position, one of them now seems to be pointing downward, and Roddy does to great lengths to illustrate this using an umbrella and a range of puzzled facial expressions. I tell you: you don’t know what acting is until you’ve seen someone using a brolly to mime the motions of a giant killer statue.

Let’s cut to the chase, anyway, because It! doesn’t keep you guessing for long. It’s a Frankenstein story at heart and the statue is actually a golem, which is to say it’s an ancient, folkloric monster of unlimited strength, compelled to do the bidding of its master. In the right hands, it could be the most lethal WMD the world has ever seen. In Mr Pimm’s hands, it helps steal a few bracelets and smack anyone round the head who stands between him and the job of head curator.

Around about this point, I’d love to provide you with a screen grab of the golem but, since I watched It! on TV, I can’t do my usual high-tech wizardry – and there don’t even seem to be any good pictures online, either. But I will say it’s quite an effective-looking monster and I’m sure would’ve caused me a nightmare or two when I was younger. Oh, hang on, here’s a likeness from an old print ad... Prepare to shudder!

Golems aside, I had to marvel at Pimm’s other secret weapon: his marvellous filing cabinet. Whenever he needs anything (or, alternatively, needs to hide anything) it’s straight into the top drawer and the problem’s solved. It’s so good, in fact, and so devastatingly handy, I actually began to wonder if that filing cabinet was really the “It!” of the title. Again, a screen grab would be wonderful here, but you’ll just have to make do with this randomly-sourced image... Prepare to marvel!

Sheesh! Look at that thing go! Anyway, I don’t want to spoil the rest of the film for you but I can’t not mention that the last twenty minutes of It! are so insane, they make the build-up look like a serious documentary about dangerous stonemasonry. There’s motorbike stunts, old ladies being torched, and the dropping of a nuclear bomb somewhere in the Home Counties. Those sweet, sweet 1960s!

Wheel out your Wondrous Filing Cabinet of Wonder and file under “It!’s awesome!”

Rating: 3/5

Don't be a dummy

2009-05-07T16:50:00.006+01:00

You’ve seen Dead Silence. You’ve seen Magic and Dead of Night. If you’re a real straight-to-DVD masochist, you may even have seen The Dummy and Triloquist. But can anything prepare you for...

Now tell me that’s not the scariest ventriloquist’s dummy you’ve ever seen. I’m not sure about Melbourne Ales putting life into you, so much as The Fear Of God!
I found that newspaper ad in a copy of the Yorkshire Evening News from 1955. The reason behind me posting it? Um... yeah, ya got me there. Although I have been watching 1967’s It! which is all about a murderous statue come to life. So that’s kinda like a deadly dummy, no?

Okay, no. But it does have Roddy McDowall in it... Therefore It! equals automatic joy! Review on the way.

Slaughter High

2009-05-01T23:23:00.009+01:00

Slaughter High is a slasher that goes straight down the middle. It’s not great, it’s not crappy and, when I watched it, I forgot why I supposedly like slashers so much in the first place. In fact, I felt like any normal person watching a slasher. I was mildly entertained, yet I was unmoved. I felt no affection towards the genre, nor any great loathing of it. I wondered why I wasn’t watching something with more famous people in it. Or any famous people. Or some explosions. It was weeeeeird.

The movie itself hasn’t been put together with any great thought. It starts with a prank that goes predictably wrong... Well, I say “predictably” but I’m not sure if anyone who hasn’t seen this would be able to imagine how said prank goes from humiliating the school nerd in the locker room to said nerd having his face blown off by an exploding jar of nitric acid. I guess It’s just another sad incidence of violence in our schools...

Anyway, the nerd is Marty (Simon Scuddamore) and he’s not particularly likeable, which might be detrimental to the plot if this were a straightforward tale of feelgood revenge (but it’s not). His taunting classmates aren’t especially appealing, either, although they do eventually become tolerable simply due to the fact that the film spends most of its time with them. Where? Back in the school, five years on from graduation, where the guilty gang have arrived to celebrate their reunion. Funny thing is: no one else from the Class of Nineteen-Eighty-Whenever has turned up. It’s just them. The school’s been closed down but their lockers are still there, and each contains an item they thought they’d lost long ago. Spooky, huh?

Faced with a desolate, cobweb-strewn building, some creepy props and no one around, you’d think the teens would blow the joint and find somewhere worth partying in, but they stay to down a few beers – a plan that quickly goes awry when one of their number drinks from an acid-spiked can and finds his intestines bursting from his stomach with the projectile force of the creature from Alien. Most of the teens flee – only to find the doors and windows blocked by electric fencing – while one decides to take a bath, naturally, in the school’s, um... student bathtub? Again, not a good plan, in any case, as acid comes churning out of the mixer tap and bath-girl promptly dissolves like a giant Alka-Seltzer®.

An acid-base slasher, then? Nope. I think that’s it for the chemistry-related killings, although the remaining death scenes are fairly memorable, especially one involving electrocution and dirty talk. It’s not that Slaughter High doesn’t try. It just doesn’t seem to impress. That’s even more surprising when you take into account the climactic chase scenes, which I have to admit are quite brilliantly filmed using a Steadicam. It’s a great technique, and it throws you right into the action... but, again, you probably won’t care enough to get too worked up.

Until recently, Slaughter High was considered something of a lost slasher, having had no DVD release and drifting about in rated and unrated versions on video in the US, and a heavily cut version in the UK. Lionsgate’s new DVD puts out when it comes to being uncut, but is also the most blatant case of poor-quality VHS transferred straight to disc I think I’ve ever seen from a reputable distributor. Now, I wouldn’t have minded at all if I’d been watching on video, but I wasn’t, and that sucked. It’s distracting, disappointing and reeks of cutting corners to cut costs.

On the other hand, the disc’s trivia track invaluably informed me that, when one character donned a hockey mask, it was a tribute to Friday the 13th. Not a total waste then.

Rating: 3/5

Kicking against the pricks

2009-04-14T22:45:00.006+01:00

Toby Wilkins knows a thing or two about visual effects, having been in the business for the last ten years, and his first feature film as director bears this out. You can see the proof there on the cover of Splinter: he’s created “the year’s best beast”, according to LA Weekly. And, you know, I’m not going to argue. Splinter’s figure-skating fusion of amalgamated body parts is downright horrific and perfectly realized (I know because I watched the special feature on the DVD and they way they brought it to life really is clever).

Wilkins himself is British, which may explain why we got Splinter on DVD a few weeks ago, while it’s only out in the US today. As a low-budget monster movie, it’s pretty fantastic. The creature’s great, the story works, there’s loads of gore, and the characters’ actions are fairly reasonable. In fact, if there is a flaw, it’s that there aren’t enough characters. We’re more used to seeing superfluous extras picked off left, right and centre, whereas the action here centres almost entirely around three people trapped inside a gas station convenience store. But don’t be put off by the location – there’s plenty of exciting stuff going on (none of which involves beef jerky or porn mags) and when characters meet their ends, they do so in spectacularly nasty fashion.

That’s the US DVD on the left above, with the UK release to the right... One-nil to us Britishers, I say. Give Splinter a go.

Manhunt

2009-04-05T16:11:00.015+01:00

There’s backwoods, and then there’s backwoods. And, by the latter, I mean 1970s Norway... Is there anyplace worse to find yourself in a slasher movie? Manhunt, known as Rovdyr in its home country, sets out to answer this question – and does so with a decent amount of gory panache but nothing in the way of originality.

That surprised me, actually. My most recent encounter with Scandinavian cinema was the blindingly unique Let the Right One In, which does things to the teen-vampire genre that would make an Eastern European hooker blush. And, before that, there was Cold Prey: also Scandinavian, also snowy, also bloody brilliant. Manhunt doesn’t have the snow. Nor the brilliance.

It’s 1974, the year of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, but Tobe Hooper’s film obviously hasn’t made it as far as Norway yet because the four teenage protagonists of Manhunt don’t seem to realize it’s not really a good idea to drive somewhere remote in a camper van, make fun of the locals, and pick up a half-crazy hitchhiker. Pretty soon, the hitchhiker is dead, one of the teens is dead (shotgunned graphically in the heel, and then – oops – the head) and the survivors are on the run from some scruffy, possibly inbred hunters who prefer human prey to woodland wildlife.

That’s pretty much where the TCM referencing stops and, unfortunately, the story along with it. Manhunt offers nothing else beyond running and hiding in the woods for the rest of its scant, 75-minute running time. We never get to understand, or even meet, the killers in any detail, there aren’t any actual set pieces (like Wrong Turn’s masterful keyhole, treetop or waterfall sequences) and it’s not even particularly suspenseful. But then, I wasn’t bored, either... Damn you, Manhunt! You should be a pointless retread but there’s something – something! – about you that keeps you interesting. I’ll be damned if I know what it is, though.

Quite simply, there’s no justice: the use of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre goes way beyond a simple jumping-off point for Mannunt. It’s more like a straight remake-cum-rip-off, only without the second half. Sorta like this:

Is it really feasible, however, that someone would virtually remake a 35-year-old film and not only fall far short in comparison, but also chuck out all the accumulated slasher learnings of the past three decades? Manhunt does nothing new. It doesn’t even try to do anything new, except set itself in Norway.

Speaking of which, I think I’ll remake Halloween and set it in the Maldives. That Michael Myers could really use a nice tan.

Rating: 3/5

Put your hands up

2009-04-01T08:14:00.006+01:00

If you’re in any way interested in the development of the slasher genre and haven’t yet read Snake Oil’s Proto-Slashers take on Hands of the Ripper, get yourself over to the Retro Slashers Blog and have a gander, as they say in period London. The 1971 Hammer horror is the latest in Snake Oil’s fascinating look at the films that paved the way for the modern slasher, and if this appetizing review doesn’t have you gagging to see it... YOU’RE ALREADY DEAD! Or something.

I’ve also just discovered there’s a special edition DVD available, at least in the UK. (That’s the cover above, see?) Yes, for once, we Brits get the, er, longer end of the stick, the one without the poop on it.

Previous previews in the Proto-Slashers series (and try saying that in a hurry) include: Francis Ford Coppola’s Dementia 13 (1963), the PG-rated sickie Blood and Lace (1971), and the British babysitter-in-peril movie Fright (also 1971... What made the world so angry that year?).

Mum & Dad

2009-03-31T00:58:00.007+01:00

Well, really! Who wants to see knitting needles going into places where they definitely shouldn’t? Or chunks of human flesh used as masturbatory aids? And Christmas decorations made from mutilated corpses?! Not me! BAN THIS SICK FILTH, I say... I’ve had enough!

Hee! Gotcha. Although Mum & Dad quite obviously goes out of its way to disgust you with its depravities, it’s actually nice to see a torture-porn-type flick that’s clearly aimed at seasoned horror fans, as opposed to shock-me-once teenage moviegoers. It’s also pretty well acted, creepily convincing, and astonishingly good-looking considering its £100,000 budget.

Oh, and the BBC stumped up some of the money to make it, so it practically counts as Public Service Broadcasting... Just call yourself a responsible adult.

At the outset, Mum & Dad reminded me a bit of 2004’s London Underground chiller Creep, although it’s nothing like it, really. The reason I thought that was because it also has a foreign-girl-in-London lead – in this case, Lena (Olga Fedori), a young Polish woman working as a cleaner at Heathrow Airport. Where Creep pitted its heroine against a sort of over-the-top monster-human in a gothic setting, however, Mum & Dad takes Lena into what seems like a very ordinary suburban home. Of course, it’s anything but... The run-down house beside the airport, which Lena ends up in when she misses her last bus one night, actually has more in common with the home of Fred and Rosemary West.

In fact, it’s home to two “children”, Birdie and Elbie, who spend their days ransacking lost luggage for electrical items to sell at the car boot. Then there’s their “Dad” (Perry Benson), who wears a blood-soaked vest and does dubious things in a dark room with a dirty hammer, and finally “Mum” (Dido Miles) who prefers a scalpel. It’s the kind of place you’d run screaming from. And Lena would have probably done just that if she hadn’t already been injected with tranquilizer and tied to a filthy bed. It seems the family are looking for a new daughter...

Ohhh, Mum & Dad is so sick! I’ve often wondered if you could make a decent horror film set mainly in one location, with just a small number of characters and some nasty ideas. Well, you can, and here’s the proof. It’s sort of like The Royle Family gone hideously wrong: not much more than a few characters sitting around in a dingy house – but here the TV shows hardcore porn, you can’t see the wallpaper for blood, and the suspense as Lena tries to escape is stifling.

What really works is the disturbingly short journey Lena takes from dull routine to incomprehensible terror. Mum & Dad pulls the strange trick of not letting you see much of the exterior of its house of horror, but this only serves to strengthen the point that it could almost be next-door to yours. Now, are you sure you need that cup of sugar?

TV licence fee revenue well spent.

Rating: 3/5

Pssst!

2009-03-25T22:48:00.007Z

Check out some of the new titles made available as downloads and “custom-made DVDs” from the recently opened Warner Archive...

So let’s see, that’s:

Kristy McNichol in a dream-vs-reality psycho-thriller directed by Alan J. Pakula (and the poster is fantastic!)
An extremely offbeat-looking doggy-dunnit, starring James Garner and Katharine Ross
Another of Hammer’s post-Psycho mind-warpers (you may remember I enjoyed Hysteria)
A nasty-looking noir featuring the brilliant Dana Andrews and some heavy psychological undertones
Troy Donahue + Reincarnation + A killer on the loose!

I’ve not seen any of this lot but, unfortunately, Warner won’t send their DVDs to the UK so it may be a while before I do. Something to do with region-coding or something. Grr. If you’ve seen any of them, be sure to let me know what I’m missing (if anything).

Let’s hope I don’t have similar problems catching up with the new “slasher TV series” Harper’s Island, as previewed by Slasher Speak, which promises “13 episodes, 13 murders!”.

And, if you are in a slashery mood today, you could head over to Retro Slashers and read my recent articles, Great Slasher Mysteries Volume 1 and Volume 2... Who knows? Maybe you can solve ’em!

Let some good ones in

2009-03-24T12:23:00.014Z

If you think things have gone a little quiet here at Anchorwoman In Peril! of late, that’s because, well... they have!

Seems I’m afflicted with what Lucy Ricardo called “the mauves” – not quite the blues, but arguably less appealing to the eye, and certainly not good for the blog. I’ve been getting the feeling recently that life’s too short for shit films. I know... unthinkable! What’s come over me? Is it age-related? Should I be thinking about taking out some kind of life cover plan? And will I get a free gift just for applying? (I do need a new carriage clock, after all.)

This has all meant, anyway, that I’ve started watching three different films recently and, to put it bluntly, just given up on them. The first, Mirror Images II, wasn’t even that bad. Sure, it was nothing like as good as the first film, but anything about evil twins is worth watching as far as I’m concerned (I mean, you need to prepare yourself in case it happens to you!). Still, despite the movie’s good intentions, I only made it through to the main character’s fourth therapy session-turned-steamy lesbian romp...

Zombie Strippers! fared less well. In fact, I think it holds the record for the shortest amount of grace-time I’ve given a film before switching it off. Tacky photography, lame-o zombie make-up, annoying “characters” and the threat of Robert Englund... I think I gave it all of 50 seconds. Classic case of “great poster, shame about the movie”:

I then made the mistake of trying Nature of the Beast, which is a made-for-TV (yay!) horror spoof (hmm...) starring American Pie’s Eddie Kaye Thomas (oh dear) as a soon-to-be-married werewolf. This one got a full 30 minutes of my attention, but only because I was feeling guilty about giving up on Zombie Strippers! so quickly.

So there you have it. Is this the end of Anchorwoman In Peril?! No, of course not, silly! I think I just need to spend some quality time with some quality films – ones that aim high and think hard – in order to appreciate the gutter trash again. It’s not all doom and gloom: I’ve actually seem some pretty good films recently too. I watched 1939’s glorious The Women back-to-back with its Meg Ryan remake and enjoyed them both on different levels. (While the original’s like being taken for a spin by a clever friend, the remake’s like that same friend coming round with a load of free booze but refusing to leave when you get tired.)

Controversially, I really thrilled to the good-looking, hard-work Watchmen, with its dallying storyline and weirdly terrific cast. And, unlike Final Girl, I had a pulse-pounding time with Eden Lake, despite its unsympathetically stupid main characters (yes, she napped; I know). I even watched a Hungarian film called Kalandorok (or Adventurers to you) which didn’t have a special effect in sight. That last one was screening at the Bradford Film Festival, where I’m also seeing Let the Right One In later this week. So... yeah, I’m getting there. Just give me some quality time with the freaky foreign vampire kids.

Dardos 2!

2009-03-17T00:10:00.005Z

While I’m currently taking a little time off to recover from my second dose of psycho-clownified terror in less than a week (thanks to Amusement, which is really rather good), I couldn’t miss saying a big thank-you to Friend Mouse of the aptly named blog Friend Mouse Speaks (or “squeaks”, surely?!) for sending another Premio Dardos award my way. Now, if only someone would turn these things into actual golden statuettes, I’d really have something to dazzle the neighbours with.

In this case, it’s a particular honour, as Friend Mouse is a fellow LAMB and, from the looks of things, all-round good egg, whose utterly charming and knowledgeable blog mixes witty TV recaps, reviews of all sorts of movies, and a genuine love of chocolate bacon. And how could anyone not love a blog whose label list manages to incorporate Eighties music, Gorillas, Martinis and Nathan Fillion?

Anyway, be good, stay out of trouble, and I might post a review of Amusement for your, er, amusement... Isn’t life just thrilling?!

Fear of Clowns

2009-03-12T17:27:00.009Z

Drat and buggeration. I hate it when a film you intend to snark on turns out to be... quite good. Not good, mind – but not bad. Like Fear of Clowns, for instance: a cheapo horror film that manages to make a low budget look, if not exactly big, then bigger, simply by pulling together something resembling a story, casting adults rather than teenagers, and investing in an orchestral-sounding score and some proper camerawork.

Like I said, it has a story. I didn’t say the story makes much sense. Jacky Reres plays an artist called Lynn Blodgett who paints not-terribly-terrific pictures of scary clowns (and, yes, I know all clowns are scary) which she manages to sell for $8,000 a pop at a local Baltimore gallery. She’s also going through a bitter divorce, bringing up a kid, falling in love with a rollercoaster designer called Tuck, and being stalked by an evil killer wearing clown makeup. Pay attention, folks... This is how you make a slasher movie last an hour and fifty minutes.

So, one day, Lynn is leaving for work when a neighbour informs her that an entire family has been butchered in their beds, oh, two doors down. You can tell it’s serious because there’s some of that yellow crime-scene tape you see on CSI, and no gawkers watching as the paramedics clumsily hoist out a few bodies wrapped in what appear to be blankets. But, hey, Lynn’s already late so she packs herself off to the gallery. And it’s a good thing too, because there’s a rather strange man there who wants to pay her $20,000 to paint his child-molesting dead clown father. Bargain!

Lynn says no... then yes... then worries she might not be able to finish the portrait in the specified three days... and then swans off with her new boyfriend to a disused amusement park for some minor clown-dodging chills. Did I mention she also has a child? It’s OK, I think she forgot too. Little Nicholas is only around when the plot needs him, and Lynn keeps him in a box or something for the rest of the time.

Somewhere amidst all of this riveting entertainment, the clown keeps on a-killin’ and the suspense starts to build. Which brings us to Fear of Clowns’ big fat unfortunate flaw. The clown-faced but shirtless killer is, um... kinda hot. You see, whereas mask + boiler suit = scary, I’m afraid that mask + pecs + abs = something else entirely. This is a problem, as they say in Houston, and I’m sure it even holds true in Baltimore. You simply cannot have a killer who’s both scary and distractingly hot. I mean, you need to know which direction to run in. Granted, said killer may have the face of an evil clown and carry a giant battleaxe, but hotness will always win out, so trying to make your killer both horny and horrifying is like trying to have your cake and ~~lick~~ eat it. (Note to self: invest in therapy.)

Anyway, Lynn (remember her?) doesn’t have the same problem as I did regarding her greasepaint-sporting stalker. She’s flat-out terrified. So it’s bad news for her but good news for Tuck, who gets to hang around with her a lot, which, in turn, is bad news for Little Nicholas, who has to go back in his box until tea time.

For me, Fear of Clowns peaked around the midpoint, when there’s a simply outrageous (and suspenseful) scene involving an altercation between our hunka honka lethal killer, a hitman who’s unfortunately also dressed as a clown, and a completely innocent clown caught in the red-nosed crossfire. It’s a real circus, believe me. Thereafter, things do build up to a lengthy climax that takes place, credibility-stretchingly enough, in an empty movie theatre, but I’m not sure whether it was the prolonged nature of this set piece that caused me to start getting a bit antsy, or if the movie had simply worn out its welcome by then.

I didn’t exactly juggle for joy, then, when I found out there’s a sequel, Fear of Clowns 2, that actually picks up after the events of this film, utilizing most of the same cast and crew. Still, after reading up on it, I’ve become intrigued enough to want to give it a go. Maybe Fear of Clowns will become the new Phantasm series of continuity-based low budget horror. Or maybe not. Either way, I’d find myself much more predisposed to the whole thing if they’d called this one Someclown’s Watching Me!

Rating: 3/5

The Unborn

2009-03-08T17:47:00.008Z

As usual, Stacie Ponder is right when she pleads for horror movie makers to Put the ‘Care’ Back in Character... or, in other words, try creating a few characters we might actually like in a horror film, rather than ones we can’t wait to see killed. I experienced the same problem watching Platinum Dunes’ new ghostly gobbledegook movie, The Unborn, last night.

Odette Yustman plays main squeeze Casey Beldon – and I use the word “squeeze” not to be sexist but because the poor girl’s been literally squeezed into a pair of panties obviously meant for a nine-year-old. I’m assuming she picked them off the wrong rack or something. Otherwise, the only alternative is that writer-director David S. Goyer didn’t intend to create a main character we could actually feel something for, but one that he could simply shoot from all angles of PG-13 camel-toe as she investigates spooky noises emanating from her bathroom cabinet (and don’t even get me started on the intrinsic non-scariness of haunted cabinets).

But Casey, who also blithely steals a rare book from her local library (a capital offence to my librarian mind), is positively adorable compared to her best friend Romy (Meagan Good), who’s portrayed as flat-out horrible. Visiting a nursing home, she dunks her hand into a bowl of sweets on the reception desk and crams a fistful into her bag while nastily locking eyes with the perfectly pleasant receptionist. Then, she goes on to loudly mock every elderly resident of the home within earshot. Why? No reason. I don’t think Goyer intends to portray her as a bitch. It’s almost as if he just can’t help it.

The film itself is a random assortment of jump scenes so lethally overblown it actually stops feeling like a horror movie. I’ve no idea how anyone would actually find it scary. Similarly, I’ve no idea how Platinum Dunes have got away with calling it an “original screenplay” – other than in comparison to the rest of their output which, prior to The Unborn, has consisted entirely of high-profile remakes. The only thing original about it is the sheer élan with which it lifts elements from other films, from Emily Rose-style exorcism, to Ring-like spooky videos and the aforementioned haunted bathroom cabinet. (What? You haven’t seen Candyman?)

Gary Oldman – whose surname is starting to come true – turns up about halfway through as a sympathetic rabbi who generously consents to translating Casey’s stolen book of Hebrew folklore in his spare time. Oh, and pulls together an impromptu exorcism involving ten interdenominational experts in demonic-type affairs at a moment’s notice. Actually, it’s not a demon as such that’s the problem here (besides the script) but a dybbuk – that is, an evil free-floating soul desperate for a bodily host. If you don’t believe me, check it out on Wikipedia.

Anyway, apologies for the disjointed nature of this review. I know it’s been choppy, haphazard and all over the place. Quite apt, really.

And, Casey... Take that goddamn library book back!

Rating: 2/5

Night of the Living Dead 3D

2009-03-04T15:57:00.009Z

Raise your glasses, please... this review is COMIN’ AT YA! in 3D!

It’s true, folks – if you have a pair of 3D specs handy, you can thrill to my amazing screen shots from Night of the Living Dead 3D actually IN that mysterious third dimension! But I’ll bet that your glasses aren’t as cool as my super-de-downright-duper, blood-splatter-effect NOTLD glasses, four pairs of which came with my DVD. That’s right... FOUR pairs! How popular do they think I am?

Anyway, before you get too excited – and I know what you’re like when you’ve had too much orange juice – I should point out that the 3D in Night of the Living Dead 3D is... well... OK, to be blunt, it’s terrible. I don’t know if that’s because large chunks of the film take place in the dark, or because the 3D effect doesn’t transfer to TV very well, or the process itself just plain sucks but, whatever the case, watching this movie looks mostly like this:

Oh, I forgot to mention that Sid Haig’s in it, so it actually looks like this:

I was honestly tempted to remove my specs at various points and watch the film in fuzzy flatscreen. At least that way I might’ve actually been able to see what was going on. But I persevered – for your sake, dear reader, and just in case there was some really cool shot where zombie guts came flying out of the screen and totally landed in my lap in a big bloody heap. Unfortunately, that never happened; there’s hardly any gore on show at all here. But, then again, I was wearing my nice jeans, so it might’ve been for the best.

George Romero’s original Night of the Living Dead has been colourized, re-edited, parodied and even remade once already, so remaking it in 3D was probably the only thing that hadn’t been done to it before now (or before 2006 if you want to get picky about the release date). There’s definite potential for fun in 3D horror: Amityville 3D showed us what it would be like if a giant stuffed swordfish levitated into our faces; Jaws 3D went one step further by making it a giant stuffed shark; and the recent My Bloody Valentine probably took the format to its zenith as far as airborne gore goes. Does Night of the Living Dead 3D bring anything like that to the table? No. It most certainly does not. Although I’m sure I looked pretty snazzy in my 3D glasses... Did I mention the cool blood-splatter-effect frames?

What we do get is a reasonably cute beginning, going from an opening gag involving the original film showing on a TV set, to a reworking of the famous graveyard scene that manages not to grate. For a minute, I thought I was going to like it. But the unfortunate truth is that this remake rather quickly becomes boring.

“Barb” (Brianna Brown) is zombie-chased to the usual big farmhouse after a perplexing run-in with local mortician Sid Haig, and a motorbike lift from a greasy stranger (Joshua DesRoches, recently seen in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button). There, they encounter a group of people watching the original Night of the Living Dead on TV (once was funny, twice is... not so funny). They warn them of the zombie menace, said people laugh in their faces, zombies eventually show up and... well, that’s it for a while. No one makes any attempt to prevent the living dead repeatedly crashing in through the windows; two teens sneak out to the barn to have sex but end up getting munched... Basically, everyone acts like it’s all an annoying interruption to their TV viewing.

Roughly 57% of the time, then, my eyes were unable to penetrate the three-dimensional gloom, while the rest of the time, I felt like I just didn’t get it. Is Night of the Living Dead 3D supposed to be funny? Characters come out with lines like “When the dead walk, you gotta call the cops” and “The zombies must’ve cut the phone lines!” but I didn’t find myself smiling. For the most part, the zombies themselves look like badly-dressed people in need of a good night’s sleep, and it’s a good job they don’t go around crying “Brains!” because they’d be unlikely to find many amongst the cast.

Thing is – annoyingly – I did find myself drawn back into the proceedings during the second half. This version of the tale provides an explanation for the undead hoards (which actually aren’t so much “hoards” here, but just a few zombies dotted about). While I don’t think the concept particularly needs explaining, the backstory this movie comes up with is sort of intriguing, especially when it emerges that one character regards the living dead as having been “born again”. I kind of dug it. I know. I hate myself.

Grudgingly, grudgingly then, Night of the Living Dead 3D gets a...

Rating: 2/5

The Corpse Grinders

2009-02-25T17:05:00.007Z

Ah, The Corpse Grinders. I’m pretty sure that, when people find out I’m a fan of horror films, they imagine I sit up late watching things with titles like that all the time. But the truth is, as nasty as it sounds, The Corpse Grinders is about as innocuous as 70s grindhouse features get. It’s almost charming, in fact... Or, at least, as charming as a film about unscrupulous factory-owners using human flesh as a cat food ingredient could be, anyway.

With such catsploitation dynamite as a premise, you’d think director Ted V. Mikels would be happy enough to stick a few perfunctory characters in the way and cut straight to the corpse-grinding (I’m sure Herschell Gordon Lewis would have) but he and his team actually take the idea a step further. You see, it turns out that cats, once they’ve tasted human giblets, won’t settle for anything less, so it’s not long before pets the length and breadth of Pasadena are biting the hand that feeds them... Literally! Logically, it’s a leap, I’ll admit. If cats are that insatiable, shouldn’t they already be going around attacking horses, or whatever else went into pet food in the 70s? But, no matter, the cats are OUT FOR BLOOD! And if that means fifty shots of alcoholic housewives clutching wriggling cats to their throats, then so be it.

On that note, something tells me that most of the feline stars of The Corpse Grinders weren’t properly trained stunt cats, but actually just regular cats lured by the promise of a quick paycheque and fifteen minutes of fame. But I hear that most of the moggies were supplied by cast and crew members so, assuming they wouldn’t have wanted any harm to come to their beloved pets, I’m telling myself that none were harmed during the making of this film.

Let’s take stock before we lose the plot, anyway. So far, we’ve got crooked cat food manufacturers cramming human corpses into cans. Next to the factory, there’s a conveniently located graveyard, where a hulking goon and his Cockney, doll-loving wife dig up fresh bodies to feed into the meat grinder. And, oh yeah, at a (possibly nearby) hospital, there’s a 70s porn star doctor and his buxom nurse lover who stumble over the plot when the hospital cat goes crazy for the doctor’s man-meat. And, with that guy’s sexy moustache, who wouldn’t, quite frankly?

72 minutes whiz by, as more good pets go bad and several factory employees end up as corned beef – and, with dead bodies being chucked fully-clothed into the grinder left, right and centre, it’s no wonder the cats are going crazy. They’re probably choking on the buttons. Eventually, Hot Nurse puts herself in peril by going to investigate the cat food company. Alone. At night. And everything culminates in a climax wherein yet more people get minced, after being shot and – rather clumsily I thought – collapsing onto the conveyor belt and getting dragged into the blades (which in a nice touch, actually have blades painted on them as far as I could see).

“Lotus Cat Food – for cats who like people” runs the company’s amusing slogan, in a typical example of this enjoyable film’s light touch. Half of the scenes take place in swirls of mist and/or green-and-red lighting, while half the cast look like Jerri Blank from Strangers with Candy. I had fun, in other words. A remake along the lines of the recent Wizard of Gore or 2001 Maniacs couldn’t ever capture its straight-faced zaniness but, at the same time, there’s the potential for some camped-up, CGI gore-strewn lunacy here, and I think the makers of Trailer Park of Terror should have a go at it.

Best watched, then, with the cat safely locked outside, dinner fully digested, and your tongue shoved firmly into your cheek. Or someone else’s. If you’re still peckish.

Rating: 3/5

DVDs I bought in London!

2009-02-23T23:29:00.010Z

Yes, folks, it’s a filler post!

Well, I have been away for the best part of a week, after all. And I’ve still not made it to the end of The Corpse Grinders so I’ve nothing else to review. (Seriously, is that film seven hours long or something?) But while I wait to find out if anything – anything – can halt those killer kitties in their tracks, you can see what DVDs I got my hands on while I was on holiday. I know... it’s like having a crystal ball that looks into my brain or something!

First up is the only one I’ve actually seen already – and, for my money, it’s one of the best slasher movies made since the year 2000. Ten times more creepy and suspenseful than it is Norwegian (and it’s pretty darn Norwegian!) it’s...

Then there’s:

I’ve always found Tom Hanks scary enough (Forrest Gump... shudder!) but what about his son, Colin? Well, it looks like Col gets his freak on as a deranged stalker in this one, which I didn’t even know had been released here until I spotted it on the shelf in Fopp. And all for just £4! Let’s hope that, as it says on the cover, “IT GETS UNDER YOUR SKIN.”

Next, as I mentioned during last year’s Sham Shocktober, here’s a famous horror film I’ve never actually seen. Actually, I’ve not seen the 1922 version of Nosferatu either, but giving this 1979 effort a go should be a good start.

Some titles just stick with you, don’t they? I’m like that with Eyes without a Face, which sounds like a giallo but is actually a French film from 1960. It looks like such an original that I’m already warming a place for it on my favourite movies list, and just hoping it can live up to my expectations.

Finally, there has to be a gamble:

Sleepover Nightmare looks pretty terrible (in fact, I can’t think of many post-1990 low-budget slashers I’ve actually enjoyed) but I’ll give it a chance just because it has the word “sleepover” in the title. And “nightmare”. In fact, come to think of it, it’s doing pretty well on both counts.

Anyway, The Corpse Grinders isn’t going to watch itself, is it? I best go and get on with it. Here kitty kitty...

Now showing

2009-02-17T19:05:00.000Z

My friend Simon spotted this intriguing new film playing at the cinema the other night:

As for me, I’m about halfway through the crazy killer-cats shocker, The Corpse Grinders. I seem to be working my way through it in ten-minute segments, to the extent that it’s turned into a demented never-ending nightmare lurking in the background of everything else I do... Will I ever finish it? Can I ever finish it? And, as if things weren’t bad enough, I’m going to be away for the rest of the week, so it’ll be some time yet before I find out if the killer kitties ever get their comeuppance. The epic continues...

Friday the 13th: A NEW New Beginning

2009-02-14T00:46:00.008Z

Watching the remake of Friday the 13th this evening, I experienced a startling revelation: I don’t really like watching slasher movies in the cinema. I mean, I do love watching slashers – always have, always will – but I get much more out of them at home on my TV.

I realize this flies totally against the whole “best enjoyed with an audience” aspect of shared-experience horror but – you know what? – the novelty of hearing someone shout “Kill the bitch!” at the screen, I can actually live without. Thinking back, the only really good time I’ve ever had with a slasher in the movie theatre was Scream, back when the number of mobile phones used onscreen actually outweighed those going off in the audience. But, anyway, I’m not here for a rant about movie audiences; my newly realized preference for fuzzy telebox viewing is my own problem. I’m here to look at Friday the 13th: The New New Beginning!

And let’s drag one fact out of the woods and into the campsite clearing right away: there’s no real doubt that the Friday the 13th redux is a better film than its predecessor. It’s extremely well made, looks great, and has something approaching a proper story (hell, it even has subplots). But is it more enjoyable? The short answer’s “no”. The original may look like old hat these days but, even watching it thirty years later, there’s that sense of risk, of gory abandon, of envelopes being pushed, that’s completely absent in this new version.

Part of that – obviously – is down to the fact that the once-shocking gore and violence are pretty mainstream stuff nowadays, thanks to the likes of CSI and the ever more extreme and nasty horror films produced by Hollywood. I actually think the gore is pretty well handled by the new Friday: it’s not literally thrown at you, as in the recent My Bloody Valentine remake, and there’s even a couple of effective fade-to-black moments where you might have been expecting a squirting prosthetic. Subtle! Ironically, however, the gore in the original 1980s F13th movies was somehow more titillating; that delight at seeing what they managed to get past the censors, being grateful for every surviving spot of blood splatter... That’s entertainment.

As far as leading performances go, I’d take Jared Padalecki over MBV’s Jensen Ackles any day. Jared’s certainly more likeable than his Supernatural co-star here, although that may be down to the fact that his character in Friday the 13th is the only male not presented as a total jerk. Seriously... you’ll probably never see a slasher so determined to make you dislike its characters. Is that a problem? Not hugely. Jason’s victims are there to be killed, and one of the new gang – the smarmy Trent, played by Travis Van Winkle – is so deliciously detestable that anticipating his demise is a pleasure. But, overall, I’ve not seen such an unsympathetic and unpleasant bunch since Freddy vs. Jason, which came from the same writers, Damian Shannon and Mark Swift. Humanitarians they are not.

Most crucially, Friday the 13th 2009 does feel like a Friday the 13th movie. Jason is a palpable, lethal menace and his methods are galvanizingly brutal. Would he handcuff someone and keep them alive in a mineshaft for six weeks as he does here? Not the Jason I know, but I’m still more than satisfied with this monster – who’s hulking, inhuman and so vivid you can practically smell him.

Also effective is the setting: just seeing the signs for Camp Crystal Lake is enough to give you a nostalgic goosebump or two in this context, although what the deal with all the mineshafts is, I’m not sure (there’s actually more underground mayhem in this than there was in last month’s My Bloody Valentine, and that was set in a mining town). Amusingly, the campsite itself has been abandoned since 1980, but characters are continually passing its weather-beaten signposts in a “this shouldn’t work but dammit it does” touch of wistful cheesiness.

Friday the 13th: The Remake, then, isn’t a disaster. Platinum Dunes haven’t turned out a reimagining on a par with their superb Texas Chainsaw Massacre – or even one that’s an outrageous exaggeration of a flattish original, à la Amityville – but they’ve got enough right to intrigue fans whilst keeping the mainstream appeal broad. An interesting slasher... that’s an interesting concept in itself. Can’t wait to watch it on the comfort of my TV.

Rating: 3/5

Mirror Images

2009-02-12T10:55:00.011Z

This cannot be healthy! I’m talking about my current obsession with Gregory Dark’s Mirror Images, which he directed under the unlikely name of Alexander Gregory Hippolyte back in the early 90s. And, if I may regress back to my teenage years for a moment, using the advanced self-hypnosis techniques of which I’m a master... Down the staircase... back to 1992... Yes, here I am now... I see myself standing in the local video shop in a Global Hypercolor T-shirt... Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince are playing on the radio, and I’m guiltily sneaking peaks at a shelf that looks something like this:

...and there in the middle is Mirror Images, along with its sequel. (It’s gone straight to video.) Obviously a very slutty film, and not one I ever dared lay a hand on at the time but, seeing it now – wow, that cover looks familiar. Even through the mists of time! Anyway, I’m going to count to three now and snap myself back to the present for a nice retrospective paragraph or two.

1992 was the year of the erotic thriller, mainly thanks to Basic Instinct, which I did manage to see – in French, which made it seem even ruder – a couple of years later during a school trip to France. Sex back then was big business, much as it is these days – only, where today’s teens are watching 2 Girls 1 Cup on a laptop, we presumably considered Shannon Whirry removing her bra the height of pornographic naughtiness.

In order to get such perversity into video stores, producers routinely dress it up as being part of a movie. So, throughout the 80s, nudity was associated with slasher movies and sex comedies; in the 90s, the trend was for “adult thrillers” and Gregory Dark led the pack with such classics as Animal Instincts, Carnal Crimes, Night Rhythms and Secret Games, which from the looks of things focus heavily on voyeurism, adultery, prostitution and, if you’re especially lucky, moderate S&M.

I say “from the looks of things” because I don’t know from personal experience. I never did pluck up the courage to rent anything from that shelf. But Mirror Images was playing on Movies4Men at the weekend and I decided to give it a spin thanks to the familiar title and the fact that I’ve been enjoying Amanda By Night’s Not so Basic Instincts sex-thrillers column at Horror Yearbook for some time now.

And, oh my god, it was so good... Nipple-lickingly, evil twinningly, light-lesbianismly good. With an actual plot, plus some recognizable faces (Jeff Conaway from Grease! John O’Hurley from Seinfeld!) and a guaranteed bout of steamy bosom-jiggling every ten minutes. I honestly had to check the TV guide to make sure I hadn’t flicked on Citizen Kane by accident.

Delia Sheppard plays Kaitlin, the beautiful, repressed housewife of Jeff (played by Jeff Conaway – coincidence?). Jeff’s some sort of PR person (PR was big in the 90s, remember) and currently working on a campaign to get a sleazy-looking man called Carter Sayles elected into office. (Office of what exactly, I can’t quite remember, as there was a buttock-thrusting scene that completely distracted me from my notes.) When Jeff’s not at the office, he’s bullying poor Kaitlin into attending fundraisers and the like, in dresses he picks out for her. But she’s not just a trophy, you know? She’s got needs... She needs to make love, to feel like a woman, not some vapid doll on the arm of a big-haired businessman. (Big hair was big in the 90s too, remember. Or was that the 80s? Either way, Jeff’s hair is bigger than it has any right to be.)

Kaitlin gets her way and stays in for the evening, much to her husband’s annoyance, and decides to have a bit of “me time” – you know, sitting in front of a mirror wearing just your lingerie, slowly disrobing to saxophone music, etc etc. We’ve all done it. Suddenly, the phone rings and on the other end is... Delia Sheppard again! Yes, Kaitlin has a twin called Shauna. A twin with a mysterious life! Shauna has to leave town for a few days and asks Kaitlin to keep an eye on her apartment while she’s gone.

Jumping at the chance to snoop around her secretive sibling’s abode, Kaitlin quickly gets dressed, does her hair, gets undressed to some saxophone music, gets dressed again, and rushes out. Across town, Shauna’s landlord mistakes her for her sister (ooh, plot twists ahead!) and lets her in...

...Into an Aladdin’s cave of early 90s magic! God, I love Shauna’s apartment. There’s mannequins, wigs, silhouette art, a secret room... I thought I’d died and gone to Sliver. And Kaitlin loves it too, swiftly disrobing (no saxophone) and trying on a few of Shauna’s fabulous dresses. Fabulously slutty dresses. Shauna’s obviously some sort of prostitute... Maybe that’s why she’s had to leave town. Maybe she’s in danger. But who cares?! Kaitlin hasn’t been getting any for months now and Shauna’s blond, big-haired boyfriend is knocking at the door...

Now, I love movies about secret double lives almost as much as I love early 90s apartments belonging to glamorous call girls, and Mirror Images is one of the best. One of THE BEST, I tell you! It goes without saying (but I’ll say it anyway) that, while dressed as Shauna, Kaitlin discovers a new sexual freedom, a taste for lesbianism, some nasty home truths and – oh yeah – an international drugs ring extending into the upper echelons of power. All in 90 minutes!

Director Gregory Dark has recently gone somewhat more legit, helming the 2006 slasher movie See No Evil, which I’m also a big fan of. Even 15 years ago, though, he was clearly managing to put together an engaging film, albeit in the guise of softcore erotica. I did wish Mirror Images had a slightly more dramatic climax, but it’s not bad, and the film as a whole is a better thriller than some of the theatrical efforts released at the time by the big studios (such as Guilty as Sin and Trial by Jury – both quite dire). Its sequel, Mirror Images II, has a lot to live up to, let me tell you. Now, if only I dared rent it.

Rating: 4/5

The A-Z of F13

2009-02-11T11:18:00.003Z

I’m just thrilled to be able to contribute to all the Friday the 13th remake hype with my latest article at Retro Slashers, A ‘Friday the 13th’ Alphabet. Everywhere you turn at the moment, it seems that Ol’ Hockeymask and Pop Culture Icon, Mr Jason Voorhies, is stalking you. It’s like being back in 1989 again, except this time it’s not just Manhattan he’s taking... but the world! Which presumably means he’ll spend a few weeks on a cruise boat sailing around the Cape of Good Hope, before docking in Sri Lanka or somewhere for the last 20 minutes.

Oh dear, what am I going on about today? Just giving you something to do while you await my review of the 1992 erotic thriller Mirror Images, okay? Now you can’t say I don’t care.

Dardo talks!

2009-02-09T23:39:00.005Z

Amanda (of the incomparable Made for TV Mayhem) sent a Premio Dardo award my way today, showering Anchorwoman In Peril! with so many kind compliments that I feel like Kate Winslet in Oscar season. So now I get to nominate five other blogs I think deserve the award... In fact, I don’t just get to nominate; by taking part, I actually spread the award, just like an STD. And by that I mean a Sensationally Transmitted Disease!

Anyway, thanks Amanda and, since you named Cinema du Meep in the same breath, I’ll have to start thinking outside the blog when it comes to my other five favourites:

Freddy in Space – Seriously, just how prolific is Johnny Boots?! I think the guy writes in his sleep. Not that I’m complaining because he really knows his horror and always has plenty of interesting stuff to say.

Giallo Fever – Looking for intelligent discussion of ultra-rare Italian thrillers, plus posters and reviews you simply won’t get anywhere else? Look no further than this site run by an Edinburgh-based PhD student.

Linus Loves 80s Horror – And I love Linus! Evocative reviews that mix personal reminiscences with insightful commentary.

Deep Dish – Then, when I’ve had enough horror, it’s Golden Girls and naked boys all the way with this ultra-fun, seriously gay blog.

My So-Called Strife – Every blogger has a secret cyber-crush whose musings they’re inexplicably addicted to. This is mine.

Sweet Sixteen

2009-02-07T10:55:00.010Z

It’s been a couple of weeks since I watched Sweet Sixteen and I’ve been meaning to cast a critical eye over it for a while now, but... meh. It’s hardly calling out to be reviewificated. Not because it’s bad – it isn’t. But it isn’t the slasher movie that its DVD cover and reputation would suggest, and how it’s even ended up being classified as a slasher, I’m not sure.

Well, actually, I have a pretty good idea... It was released during the slasher’s golden age (1983 to be precise) and stars Dana Kimmell, fresh from her stint as Friday the 13th Part III’s final girl. And THANK THE SLASHER GODS for Dana Kimmell in this movie because, without her, it wouldn’t be half as much fun.

That’s a pretty controversial comment considering Kimmell has since gone on to badmouth the Friday the 13th series, violence in horror films, nudity in horror films and, well, just about everything that makes horror any fun. Nice one, Ms Kimmell – you’re welcome to your post-slasher career of one-off appearances in daytime soaps – but I’ll admit it: your funny and engaging presence is the best thing about Sweet Sixteen.

Kimmell plays Marci Burke, a small-town Nancy Drew-type who reads books like this:

...and is first on the scene when the body of a local boy is discovered with multiple stab wounds. Quickly pumping her sheriff father for information, Marci regales her classmates with the gory details, whilst all the while keeping one disparaging eye on new girl, Melissa Morgan (Aleisa Shirley), who was apparently the last person to see the dead boy alive. I mean, would you trust a girl who eats apples this seductively...?

If all of this makes Marci sound like a bit of a bitch, I’m giving you the wrong impression... She’s actually a crazy hilarious bitch, and in many ways holds the film together. It’s not entirely her show, however, because she also has an almost equally funny older brother, Hank (Steve Antin), along for the ride.

By this point, you can probably see the entire plot of the movie spreading out in front of you in comfortingly familiar widescreen: bodies will pile up; the sleuthing siblings will investigate; Melissa’s behaviour will get stranger and stranger and— Nope! Sorry, not this movie. There’s one more murder and Marci and Hank scare each other silly talking about it, but everything basically dissipates into a sea of subplots involving archaeologist Patrick Macnee, tensions between the locals and their Native American neighbours, and a whole tin of red herrings.

Marci and Hank actually end up befriending the mysterious Melissa and attending her titular sweet sixteen party – although, when I say “befriend”, I’m using the term generously considering that the birthday present they give her is an old handkerchief. Look, you can see she just adores it! And look how pleased the siblings look with themselves! Told you they were just a leeeetle bit on the “crazy hilarious bitches” side:

Things eventually come together in a quick round of last-minute stabbings and a not-very-surprising revelation concerning the identity of the killer but, if you’ve been led to believe this was going to be a slasher movie, you’ll be mondo disappointado. It’s much more along the lines of a made-for-TV mystery, which of course suited me just fine but isn’t likely to mollify anyone who’s shelled out for the special edition (!) DVD, especially considering the poor transfer.

Speaking of the DVD, you get a Theatrical Version and Director’s Cut, which purportedly aren’t hugely dissimilar. I took a look at what’s apparently the main difference between the two: the opening scene, which, in the Director’s Cut, involves a long, steamy shower sequence with the – eek! – supposedly 15-year-old Melissa, sans apple and clothes.

I actually preferred the Theatrical opening, mainly because it offers more of Dana Kimmell... There she sits reading that fabulous Murder Mystery book as a storm rages and a mysterious knock is heard at the door. Cue suspense music followed by a jolt I’m not going to spoil here, except to note that (1) it has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the movie, (2) was obviously filmed months later, and (3) is just fucking wonderful.

Nice movie, shame about the slasher delusion.

Rating: 3/5

They’re dropping like flies

2009-02-04T09:11:00.005Z

Today I strike another title off the list of unseen horrors I compiled for Sham Shocktober. Yep, I done readed Vince A. Liaguno’s terrific slasher novel, The Literary Six... I mean, anyone can watch a movie, right? But you have to be some kind of genius to read a whole book and stuff.

Luckily, The Lit 6 is about as much fun as you can have reading anything other than your sister’s secret diary. For my full review, head on over to Retro Slashers – and be sure to top it off with a visit to Liaguno’s own website where you can watch the book’s trailer. Yes, a trailer for a novel... It’s so very now! You can probably even “download” it to watch on your PDA, or something. And, by PDA, I refer of course to your new-fangled Portable Dishwashing Answerphone... Erm, I think.

Two ventures into the deepest, starkest realms of the supernatural

2009-02-01T00:28:00.016Z

One of the benefits of working in a local history library (and you have to grab ’em where you can) is that I often come across interesting and funny titbits in the line of duty – some of which end up on my other blog, Musty Moments. Today, whilst searching a 1964 edition of the Yorkshire Evening Post, my eye was naturally drawn to this ad:

What a different world it seems, 40 years ago, when adverts like this would’ve been appearing in the local paper! Here’s a photo (from 1970) of the Leeds ABC cinema where this programme originally played. It closed in 1999 and was finally demolished last year:

It looks like The Gorgon and The Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb were an official Hammer double bill, if this poster I found online is anything to go by:

And, interestingly enough, the two films can still be found together on DVD today:

Now all I need to do is watch them!

Let’s all stare at a random pic!

2009-01-29T16:51:00.006Z

I know what you’re thinking: Who’s that? Why him? And what’s with that stupid fucking frame? Well, said picture stands for two bits of exciting news I have for you today. Firstly, I’ve started blogging for Retro Slashers, a website I’ve long adored and which, along with Hysteria Lives, should be part of your staple diet for slasher reviews and information – yes, even if you don’t normally eat staples (admittedly, they can be a bit sharp going down). Anyway, the above image comes from my first blog post, entitled The 10 Best Slasher Movie In-Jokes. Enjoy!

The second part of that oh-so-exciting news is that I finally – finally! – got round to watching one of the movies I mentioned back in Sham Shocktober, the month when I took it upon myself to preview 30 horror films I’d never seen. And that movie, if you don’t recognize the above screencap, was Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon. When I originally included the flick in Sham Shocktober, I never expected the strength of the positive comments it would draw, such as:

“I have not only seen Leslie Vernon but went on to own it. For me, it was 2nd only to Grindhouse for best 2007 horror. Nathan Baesel strikes that perfect chord of a horror leading man. One minute charismatic, the next psychotic.” (Reel Whore)

“I envy your Leslie Vernon virginity. I love this movie so much... and soon (hopefully), so will you.” (Corey, Evil on Two Legs)

Well, I did love it and, in retrospect, it probably was one of 2007’s best horror films. If you like slashers (as you probably do if you’re hanging out here) and haven’t yet seen this movie, what are you waiting for?! Behind the Mask is extremely clever and a whole lot of fun. If you’re worried (as I was) that it’ll be more about slashers than a slasher itself, then worry not – you get 2 for the price of 1 here, and neither element disappoints.

If there’s one minor quibble I had with it, it’s that Nathan Baesel, while definitely charismatic and psychotic, isn’t the most physically imposing of killers – i.e. he’s no Kane Hodder (the man in the pic above, incidentally). With his slender build and that strange mask on, he looked a little more like he should’ve been ass-raping Christopher Walken in Communion than stalking teenagers. But, hey, either mental image is disturbing enough.

And, as for that “stupid fucking frame” on the picture, as you so rudely put it, I was playing about in PhotoShop, okay? Happy now? Sheesh... some people!

Knock Knock

2009-01-28T17:03:00.009Z

I read an opinion on some message board that the upcoming DVD release of Slaughter High might be Lionsgate’s way of testing the water before greenlighting a remake of the toilet swirly-revenge slasher. That I can’t see, I’m afraid; the name just doesn’t have the cultural stock of Friday the 13th or even My Bloody Valentine. On the other hand, I never thought anyone would want to remake Offerings, Night Screams or any of those goofy late-eighties slashers, either. But that’s pretty much what Joe Ariola has achieved with Knock Knock (2007)... Joe, I think I love you.

I can’t get enough of the low-budget likes of Offerings, Night Screams, Hell High and Psycho Cop. Although they lack the initial excitement and glimmers of originality that surround the slashers from the earlier half of the decade, they have an ambience all of their own – one soaked in pastel décor, cheesy rock, boring sleepovers, late nights at the mall, and deserted football fields. In fact, just thinking about it is making me want to watch The Last Slumber Party.

Knock Knock stirs in some MTV flash-editing and a touch of techno music but, really, it’s one of these late-80s efforts through and through, from its suspicious, slobbish janitor character to a masked killer that looks as though someone stuck Leatherface’s head on Michael Myers’ body. All that’s missing is a fat sheriff... I mean, there is a sheriff (with the unlikely name of Cutter) but he’s a weedy, scraggly-haired Johnny Depp type, so perhaps the makers were referencing Depp’s early role in A Nightmare on Elm Street. Or perhaps I’m reading too much into it.

The movie begins, aptly enough, with a knock-knock at the door of a nameless cheerleader. Actually, I don’t think it’s stated whether she’s a cheerleader or not, but she’s doing that whole T-shirt off-the-shoulder thing and, hell, this is a slasher movie so she probably is a cheerleader. Anyway, the point is: there’s a knock at the door and, when Nameless Cheerleader goes to answer it, there’s no one there. Creepy! Personally, I’d lock the door, go upstairs and listen to some Enya if that happened to me, but NC is made of sturdier stuff and answers several more mysterious knocks, with much the same result. On the last occasion, however, a pair of scary hands burst through the door and grab her by the throat! Either she’s late paying the Avon lady this month or there’s a killer on the loose who doesn’t mind the odd splinter.

I dare say the small town of Glass County is rocked to the core by this vicious crime but the next night’s school football game goes ahead as planned, although there don’t seem to be many extras in attendance. Afterwards, one of the players is ambushed and killed whilst walking home, and ends up skewered to his own front door with a set of ice picks. And, when I say “ambushed”, I really mean it! There’s no heavy-breathing stalker nonsense for this poor guy – just a killer who leaps out and gets stabby with the stabbing, no questions asked. Either he’s gone and got on the wrong side of a travelling ice pick salesman or there’s a killer on the loose who doesn’t mind the odd splinter and has no patience whatsoever!

What this case needs is a crack team of serial killer profiling experts all the way from the FBI... Or a busty blonde detective babe called Billie Vega and her sleuthing grandpa sidekick. Glass County goes with the latter and, with local teenagers dropping like gruesomely mutilated flies, it’s up to this mismatched duo to stop the killer before he knocks – and indeed kills – again.

I can’t knock Knock Knock. Throughout its running time, I feared it might be on the verge of copping out by taking the supernatural route (a bugbear of mine) but, no – it thankfully stays within the boundaries of a straight slasher movie, albeit one with a fetish for ghostly chanting on the soundtrack. In its final third, the action shifts slightly away from the teenage stalkees and towards the detectives, but this is something that happens in many an authentic 80s effort, too, like the entertaining Night School for one.

The points it loses for epileptic editing, Knock Knock gains back by liberally dishing out the gore. This is a killer who doesn’t just kill, but chops, lops and generally slops out the slasher mince – all seemingly without the aid of CGI. In fact there’s an impressive locker-room impalement I simply couldn’t get my head around, so it looks like I’ll be checking out the DVD’s make-up FX featurette to find out how they did it.

It’s not a model of suspense, then – or even sense – but, in terms of that all-important slasher atmosphere, Knock Knock is one that really delivers. Right to your door!

Rating: 3/5

Going batty: Nightwing & The Bat

2009-01-24T23:14:00.010Z

Holy flying mammals! I was going through my TV’s hard drive recently, deleting most of the 4,368 movies I’ve recorded from The Paranormal Channel, when I realized I had the perfect combo for a bat-themed double bill:

Why a bat-themed double bill, you ask? Well, simply because I could. And the two movies – 1979’s eco-thriller Nightwing and 1959’s Old Dark House mystery The Bat – couldn’t have been more different. Yet together they make the title of a fabadoo-sounding 70s cop show, Nightwing and the Bat!

Oops, no, what I meant to say was that, together, they made a most satisfying double feature. You know, like Carrie and Grease (and, if you’ve never boogied back-to-back with those two, you’ve never lived... Just make sure you watch Carrie first or the come-down will kill you). Anyway, I went with Nightwing first, mainly because I’ve wanted to see it for years. There aren’t many big studio horror films I’ve left to see and I’m especially fond of the “nature bites back” cycle that followed Jaws, of which this and the same year’s Prophecy are two of the more generously budgeted.

I’ve actually got an old ex-rental video of Nightwing I never got round to watching (and now I’ve seen it in pristine widescreen on ITV4, I’m glad I waited). The cover looks like this:

...and explains the gist of the film thusly:

The world’s newspapers actually carried stories of hoards of bubonic-plague carrying bats who were possibly making their way north from South America. Nightwing projects this sensational threat to Man’s continued presence on this planet into one of the most exciting thrillers of all time. With incredible special effects and enough blood-curdling horror to satisfy any video viewer, Nightwing should be your first choice for a ‘chilly’ night.

No, I’m not really sure what that “chilly night” bit’s getting at, either. If anything, Nightwing is a really hot, parched-feeling film set mostly in the desert, where dehydration and death, not to mention unsightly sweat patches, are a constant danger for the characters. All in all, I think the video cover sums it up better with its tagline, “The Bats of Hell Let Loose Upon the Earth”... I mean, wow! The bats of hell are loose? Tell me that and I’ll watch anything!

Specifically, said bats (of hell) pose a threat to the community living in and around an Indian reservation in New Mexico, where Chief Duran (Nick Mancuso) divides his time between protecting local land from unscrupulous developers and frolicking naked in a hot spring with his girlfriend, Anne (Kathryn Harrold). His elderly uncle (George Clutesi) seems to be going a bit loopy in his old age, drawing scary-looking paintings on the floor of his sacred Indian hut and ranting about the end of the world, “opening the circle” and blah blah blah... Sorry, all I could think by this point was “BATS!” and I may have missed some of the fine details.

It’s a bit of a long wait before we really see anything resembling a bat, as it happens. Much like Jaws, it’s about halfway through before one pops out, I think (not that Jaws had any bats in it). But I was happily caught up in the various reservation dramas, ranging from Duran’s despair at his girlfriend moving away to collage, to tension between the Maskai Indians and a neighbouring tribe. Meanwhile, in the middle of the night, something’s sucking the blood from local cattle and – gasp! – people, leaving behind only a stink of ammonia and some very stiff-looking corpses.

Dr David Warner, who’s arrived on the scene in a mobile bat-lab, is convinced that bubonic bats are behind it all – a threat to humanity he’s devoted his life to eradicating. All they do is “drink blood and piss it out as ammonia,” he spits (along with a few monologues about the essence of evil that mark him out as this film’s Dr Loomis type) and so he never leaves home without lots of wire mesh and a ton of explosives. But first he has to find the bat cave...

As I said, it’s a while before we actually see any of the nocturnal nasties, but what an entrance they make! As soon as the campfire scene begins, prepare for Final Destination-style shocks galore. This is Nightwing’s standout scene and rivals anything in Hitchcock’s The Birds for squealing, twittering, hair-tangling horror, and nothing else in the film really comes close to matching it, unfortunately (although there’s a wild, fiery climax).

Kathryn Harrold = WHITE HOT in my book, and I loved the scenes following the campsite attack that find her stranded in the desert, getting all MacGyver with wires, tyres and fires (and some unconventional “fishing”). Why Duran doesn’t want her to follow him into the bats’ eeeevil lair at the end of the film, I’ve no idea, as it’s plainly obvious she could whip up a flame-throwing TNT bat-apult in five minutes flat, using only some string and a yogurt pot.

Nightwing needs a DVD release; it’s almost as good as Prophecy, which has had at least two, but then that one does have a mutant bear-monster. Nightwing’s bats are a little less elaborate but still effective, and studios just don’t make this kind of silly “serious” horror anymore. Still, I’m not sure about the environmental message: Save the world; kill the bats? Squeeee! Rating: 3/5

The bat in, um, The Bat is another kind of monster altogether: the human sort, here to be found prowling around a spooky mansion decked out in black, sporting a fedora and razor-blade talons, in search of blood and hidden money. The first we see of him – black-gloved claws crawling around a door jamb – is pretty hokey, but our second glimpse of a faceless form in the shadows outside a window gave me a genuine jolt. How the innocent, pre-Psycho audiences of 1959 reacted to it back in the day, I can only imagine, but the shock holds up really well today.

That’s one of the best things about The Bat: it’s a scare-comedy in the vein of The Cat and the Canary but, unlike most of its ilk, its emphasis is on the scares. The laughs, mostly comic asides buried in the dialogue, are just the icing on an otherwise icy murder mystery. They could’ve gone either way with the villain – keeping him in the shadows would’ve no doubt made him scarier, but director Crane Wilbur ensures we see plenty of him skulking about, which lessens his impact but doesn’t hurt the film plot-wise. Incidentally, his method of killing – tearing out the throats of his victims – is surprisingly brutal.

Agnes Moorehead plays mystery author Cornelia van Gorder, who’s rented out a country mansion called The Oaks over the summer while its owner, bank manager Mr Fleming, is on an extended hunting trip. Unbeknownst to her and comedy sidekick Lizzie (Lenita Lane), Fleming has been embezzling bank bonds to the tune of a million dollars, which is now hidden in the manor. The only other person who knows about the stash is Dr Wells (Vincent Price in a subtle turn) who obviously has more then the health of its residents on his mind when he makes his frequent trips to the mansion...

Oh, The Bat, I adore you! And the plethora of debates and nitpicks over at the IMDb concerning its plot twists suggest there are plenty of people out there who just live this film. Certainly, it’s enormous fun, has a great creepy-house atmosphere and enough going on to sustain multiple viewings. I can’t understand the reviews that call it boring; there’s not a single line of dialogue that doesn’t enhance the mystery or propel the plot along in some way.

Best of all is the movie’s structure. It’s essentially a three-act play, with each of the first two acts culminating in a night of terror at The Oaks (the second of which features a real cocoa-spiller of a murder). Day #3 builds to a fine suspense scene involving a secret room, and I honestly didn’t find the outcome predictable at all. Considering you can get hold of the DVD of this one for less than a pound, I know I’ll be adding it to my collection. Oh, and in case you’re wondering, The Bat does contain some bats of the furry, flying kind as well: big ones, small ones, real ones, rubber ones... Don’t let the film slip off your radar. Or sonar. Or whatever bats have. Really, you’d think I’d know by now. Rating: 4/5

Last night’s double-header, then, marks my contribution to supporting the bat-movie industry and, if that means I never have to watch the Lou Diamond Phillips movie Bats, well, that’s fine by me. I never thought I’d have such a fearful funfest with a bunch of creatures I basically find more cute than frightening, so maybe next time I’ll try Night of the Lepus... How about those killer bunnies, huh?

America

2009-01-23T23:36:00.011Z

Saw this meme at Kirkkitsch’s blog and couldn’t resist trying it myself... Judging by the results, I’m a really melancholy person. With waaaay too much frickin’ Beautiful South stuff on my iPod.

What does your music library say about you?

1. Put Your iPod on Shuffle.
2. For each question, press the Next button to get your answer.
3. You must write down the name of the song.

What do your friends think of you?
Emerge by Fischerspooner (Perhaps they want me to “come out of my shell”. Bastards.)

If someone says, “Is this okay?” you say?
Sadness by Enigma (Yes, I’m always going along with things when, secretly, I don’t want to.)

How would you describe yourself?
Tears by The Beautiful South (Gosh, for realz? *sob*)

What do you like in a guy/girl?
Blackbird on the Wire by The Beautiful South

How do you feel today?
The Old Fat Robin by Lambchop (LOL!)

What is your life’s purpose?
Get Here by The Beautiful South

What is your motto?
I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow by John Hartford (Put me on suicide watch!)

What do you think about very often?
Don’t Smoke in Bed by Nina Simone

What is 2 + 2?
Bruise Pristine by Placebo

What do you think of your best friend?
Guest List by Eels

What do you think of the person you like?
Craw Song by Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks

What is your life story?
The One by Elton John (Always knew I was a legend.)

What do you want to be when you grow up?
Narrow Your Eyes by They Might Be Giants

What do you think of when you see the person you like?
Just Go Away by Blondie (Ha!)

What will you dance to at your wedding?
Words Fell by Lucinda Williams

What will they play at your funeral?
Prairie Fire That Wanders About by Sufjan Stevens (Actually, I’d love this at my funeral.)

What is your hobby/interest?
Don’t Stop Movin’ by The Beautiful South (Jesus! What is it with all these Beautiful South songs? Yes I have most of their albums, but FIVE songs from the 4,430 on my iPod manage to make it onto this list?!)

What is your biggest fear?
If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next by Manic Street Preachers

What is your biggest secret?
Cherry Chapstick by Yo La Tengo (It’s Cherry Coke Chapstick, actually.)

What will you post this as?
America by Simon & Garfunkel (Topical, no?)

My Bloody Valentine

2009-01-20T00:58:00.007Z

I’ll admit it: My Bloody Valentine has never been one of my favourite slashers. I first saw the 1981 Canadian film a few years back and found it atmospheric but dull, with the obvious MPAA edits detracting from what little fun there was to be had. But then the dawn of 2009 promised not only an uncut special edition but also a gore-filled 3D remake, and my interest was positively piqued.

January 16th finally rolled around and, after a ticket-booking misjudgement that meant I missed the movie on opening night, I finally got to catch up with it last night. And, when I say “catch up”, I’m not exaggerating: it’s not often you see a slasher movie with three separate massacres in the first ten minutes and, to be quite honest, if your head’s not already spinning as you acclimatize to the 3D, it will be by the time the “10 YEARS LATER” card signals the end of the prologue. Mine shafts collapse, killers escape, guts are splattered, entire universes form and collapse... It’s actually all a bit garbled and I wouldn’t have objected if screenwriters Zane Smith and Todd Farmer had spent a little more time setting up the story at the outset, since these early events set up the dynamics played out across the rest of the film. But you do get your 3D gore delivered in spades (and, at one point, using a spade) and the blood and body parts fly impressively throughout.

To anyone whose 3D experience is limited mainly to kiddie movies, MBV’s bombardment of sharp implements and sticky viscera will come as something of a shock. I’ll even admit that I actually ducked once – not at a lopped-off limb or swinging pickaxe but, rather embarrassingly, as a cardboard candy box flew towards me. (In retrospect, it’s entirely possible I was making an unconscious lunge for the potential chocolate contained therein.) In any case, there’s no doubt that the 3D aspect of My Bloody Valentine is in-your-face fun all round.

But is the film any good? Well, it’s fun and it’s colourful and it certainly entertains, but it’s not and probably never will be a classic slasher. Nothing about its setting or cast (especially the dreadful Jensen Ackles) feels in any way “real”. I know that sounds stupid; after all, who demands realism in their slasher movies? But I find I need something to invest in, like the feeling that someone along the way is in real danger or doesn’t deserve to die. Here, the mining town of Harmony simply looks deserted. Hell, there aren’t even any extras. (Would too much background detail have made the 3D blurry or something?)

There’s no sense of a township in terror, either. Remember Scream and its seemingly omniscient killer just waiting to get you on your own? MBV’s maniac miner certainly looks the part in gasmask and heavy-duty work duds, but never feels like anything other than a cipher (which is interesting, admittedly, when you consider the “surprise” ending). I did enjoy the film but it wasn’t the essential experience I was hoping for and, shorn of its 3D element, wouldn’t be something I’d recommend to non-slasher fiends.

At the very least, it’s secured a long-awaited uncut rerelease of the 1981 film on DVD, which I’m really looking forward to revisiting just as soon as my Amazon order comes through. Something tells me that, of the two Bloody Valentines, the 80s original may be the one with the extra dimension.

Rating: 3/5

My bloody idiocy

2009-01-18T00:47:00.003Z

Thanks to my own stupid stupidity (i.e. not booking tickets), I managed to miss out on catching My Bloody Valentine 3D on opening night this weekend, but the seats are now booked for Sunday and nothing short of a pickaxe in each eye socket will prevent me from watching it. After the glowing reviews from Final Girl and Vince A. Liaguno, it’s safe to say my expectations are pretty goshdarn high so, if I do come out of the cinema disappointed tomorrow, well, I’ll be very disappointed indeed.

The one upside of staying in was that I discovered The Paranormal Channel on Sky Digital. Being owned by Yvette Fielding of Most Haunted fame, I thought it was just a load of fake ghost documentaries and... okay, it is really, but they’ve also started showing some pretty decent films around midnight each night. Recently there’s been How Awful About Allan, The Bat and The House of Seven Corpses (the latter of which I included in Sham Shocktober last year). And coming up this week are Demons, Night of the Living Dead, The Corpse Grinders and – wait for it – Night Train to Terror! Maybe I’ll stay in tomorrow night after all.*

*As IF!

Crooked House

2009-01-15T21:44:00.011Z

“The only way to improve that property, sir, is to raze it to the ground and sow the land with salt!”

Here’s something that probably would’ve made my Top Horror of 2008 list if I’d watched it in time; but the made-for-TV Crooked House was only screened during Christmas week, by which time I was ~~stranded at Chicago airport~~ sipping margaritas in Las Vegas... Dammit, BBC, you’re never going to make it onto end-of-year lists if you carry on like that!

Remember those bloody brilliant horror anthologies that Amicus churned out in the 70s, like Vault of Horror and Tales from the Crypt? Well, Crooked House is a modern take on the subgenre, written by Mark Gatiss of the creepy/funny TV series The League of Gentlemen. There’s two ways of enjoying Crooked’s spookiness: either in three 30-minute instalments (as it was originally screened over three nights on BBC Four) or as an omnibus TV-movie edition. And we all know that TV movies rule, so that’s how I decided to catch up with it.

Now, when I say “modern take”, I genuinely mean it’s something a bit new and original in style, as opposed to a straightforward pastiche of the Amicus approach (which the League of Gentlemen had already done – superbly – in their 2000 Christmas special). Without giving too much away, Crooked House actually ties its tales together in its third part in rather a neat way, sorta like Pulp Fiction but without all the coke and cameos. Anyway, Crooked House is much more than the sum of its parts. And, without sounding too crass, let’s take a look at its parts.

As with all anthology movies, you get your wraparound story – that’s the bread of the anthology sandwich or, to put it literally, the “wrap” that goes “around” the tasty filling. Here, it’s the story of high school History teacher Ben (Lee Ingleby), who’s popped into his local museum with a mysterious artefact dug up in his back garden. The curator (Mark Gatiss himself, sporting a convincing Scottish accent) believes it to be a doorknocker from the now demolished Geap Manor, an old house that “drew evil to it like a sponge draws in water” – or, to stick with our analogy, like a sandwich draws in water if you, say, drop it in the bath. Anyway, Ben wants to hear more – about the house’s history, that is, not the porous properties of sponge – which is lucky for us or it’d be a pretty boring film. Cue flashback!

Part One: The Wainscoting

Wainscoting, in case you’ve never lived in an English country manor, is wood panelling on an interior wall, and it’s at the centre of the horrors for Geap’s owner in 1786, Joseph Bloxham (Phillip Jackson). He’s having the place refurbished, after making his fortune on the back of some dubious business deals that haven’t gone down too well with the local townsfolk. Still, the place looks simply marvellous with its fancy new paintwork... If only those strange blotches would stop appearing on the walls, accompanied as they are by strange noises from behind the panelling. As it turns out, it’s all down to a nasty secret and some very poorly sourced building materials...

Part Two: Something Old

Another nasty secret lurks in the background of the second story, set in 1927, when heir to Geap Manor, Felix (Ian Hallard), is busy romancing the lovely Ruth. She’s a little lower on the social ladder than his family might be used to, but Felix thinks she scrubs up simply spiffingly. At a costume party held at the house, the couple announce their engagement – which doesn’t go down too well with some of the guests. But the only one Ruth’s really worried about is the mysterious, veiled bride she keeps glimpsing in the shadows. Everyone else is in high spirits, however, and it’s all fun and games. At least until the lights go out...

Part Three: The Knocker

Welcome back to the present, where Ben (remember him?) isn’t quite the heir to Geap Manor exactly, but it seems that his townhouse is built on the land where it once stood. This would explain how the old doorknocker turned up in his garden, although not the tortured expression on its twisted face. Perhaps it’s not the best idea to hang it on his front door, but that’s what Ben does. And soon comes a loud knocking in the middle of the night...

Following the pattern of the best anthologies, Crooked House uses its first story as a nice warm-up for the chills that follow, then gradually ramps up the fear towards a deliciously nasty pay-off. Thus, The Wainscoting is the least disturbing of the three tales but Gatiss fills it with period dialogue I just couldn’t get enough of, and the revelation when it comes unsettles like a comfortably creepy M.R. James tale.

Something Old is, simply put, a great ghost story. Economically written (there’s almost enough plot here for a full-length feature but it flits by), it relies on character to draw you in and, like the first part, is terrifically acted. It’s almost a disappointment when we segue into part three and leave its charmingly spooky world – or, at least, it would be if The Knocker didn’t immediately grip with its present-day mystery, leading to a chilling resolution that’s all the more effective because Gatiss allows you to work some of it out for yourself.

I won’t claim that Crooked House is the scariest ghost story of all time or anything but I spent most of it enjoying the all-too-rare feeling of tingles running up (and down!) my spine. And I didn’t even have my Prestigio Massage Chair switched on. The idea of period horror on a BBC Four budget may conjure up a few chills before you even get to the proper thrills, but everything about this worked for me, and I think it’s probably entirely down to Mark Gatiss’s devilishly intelligent writing and enviable understanding of the genre. I can only imagine what kind of amazing sandwiches he’d make if he opened up a deli.

Rating: 4/5

The House Sitter

2009-01-11T22:24:00.008Z

As promised last month, here’s a little look at one of Tori Spelling’s more recent TV movie outings...

And I tell you: I only have to look at this poster for The House Sitter to know that everything is right with the world. Tori is centre stage, dressed in cast-offs from Paris Hilton’s wardrobe (but we won’t hold that against her), obviously starring as a Nancy Drew-like figure who’s no doubt investigating the spooky mansion behind her, over which brooding, good-looking men glare in moody monochrome. It’s thrilling, it’s chilling, it’s riddled with typos (Jonhatan? House Sitter instead of The House Sitter?)... In short, it’s TV movie heaven. Scratch that. It’s heaven. Period!

Should you require any further evidence that The House Sitter was Meant To Be, just check out the casting of Tori Spelling and Dean McDermott – husband and wife in real life. Because, of course, Tori is now Tori Spelling-McDermott, and referred to as such in the credits. And I hear she won’t answer to anything else!

Mrs Spelling, then, is an artist with painter’s block who answers an advert on DumbThingsToDo.com for a housesitter required to look after the home of eccentric coin collector Frank (Jonathan Higgins) while he’s away on business. Also staying in the house is Frank’s cross-gendered female cat, Fred, who’s “desperate for female company” (this is never explained, and nor do I think ever could be). Tori takes one look at the ~~wine cellar~~ beautiful manor and signs up. After all, it’ll provide the perfect opportunity for her to change into dungarees and scribble giant pictures of the garden – not to mention fall in love with hunky plumber Phil (Dean McDermott) after a mysterious burst water pipe bursts mysteriously all over the kitchen floor.

But, ah, sweet TV-movie plot-twists... because no sooner have Mr and Mrs Spelling-McDermott shacked up in mansion-house bliss than Frank calls to let her know that he’s finished up his business early and is on the way home right this very fucking minute! So Tori has to kick Phil the Plumber out of bed and pack him off in his van... Just in time, too, because Frank is back with some valuable rare coins. Oh, and the scary notion that he’s going to marry her.

Tori’s less keen on the idea and does a runner to the address on Phil’s business card. But that turns out to be a motel... Gross! Can she trust someone who’s been lying to her all along about his skanky abode? If only she’d managed to actually sell some paintings – then she wouldn’t be in this mess!

As a TV movie thriller, The House Sitter teeters deliriously on the edge of brilliance, with an accumulation of plot twists that eventually converge to put Tori (plus two innocent friends who turn up on the doorstep!) at the mercy of an insane killer. You’ve probably worked out by now that either Frank or Phil is a bit of a madman, but you’ll have fun figuring out the hows, whos and whys – and, really, it’s a fairly suspenseful affair all round.

What doesn’t quite work is the pacing, which involves some highly unnecessary fade-outs to “the next morning” – never the best technique, especially during chase scenes. Thankfully, there’s loads to make up for that, beginning with the great guilty-pleasure casting of Tori and Dean as torrid lovers. Not to mention Fred the cat. Meow!

Rating: 3/5

Blowup

2009-01-07T22:55:00.008Z

Hurrah! I’ve seen my first great movie of 2009!

Well, it’s not a film of 2009, exactly. It’s a film of 1966, but I saw it for the first time in 2009. Oh, and I’ve actually already seen two other pretty great movies this year (Rogue and Sydney White*) but this one’s on another level entirely. So, okay then, I guess you could say I’ve seen my first truly great movie of 2009... Jeez, just get off my back, will you? I’m trying to tell you about a great movie here!

[*What can I say? I love Amanda Bynes.]

So, onto Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blowup. It’s a masterpiece. It’s a mystery about a murder that might not be a murder. In fact, it might not even be a death. It’s a movie about mysteries, and a mystery about movies. It’s about what you see, what you think you see, and whether anything can really be seen at all. You see?

You could talk in circles about Blowup like this all day and, at the end of that day, all you’d be left with is smoke, mirrors and possibly a headache. But it’d be a good headache: the kind that means you’ve been thinking really hard about something meaningful.

I’ve never seen another film quite like Blowup and, in the 42 years since it was made, I’m not even sure there’s been one. Interestingly, two of my favourite directors have made their own reimaginings (to coin a phrase). Dario Argento was purportedly so exasperated by Blowup’s distinct refusal to solve its own mystery that he signed up its star (David Hemmings), cast him in another elaborate enigma (Deep Red), and this time ensured that everything was properly explained by the last scene. Brian De Palma, ever eager to get his homage on, swapped Blowup’s themes of things seen for things heard and came up with Blow Out, which incidentally turned out to be one of his best efforts.

Both of these films are reminiscent of Blowup, but neither is like it. Neither says so much with seemingly so little, nor burrows so deep into your consciousness that you know you’ll never watch movies in quite the same way again. Sometimes, while watching a film, I become aware that it’s not going to be my only viewing of said title, and that I’ll undoubtedly be revisiting it again at some point in the future. With Blowup, I was anticipating that second viewing every step along the way, wandering further into its labyrinth and falling deeper under its hypnotic spell, my only reassurance being that, next time, I’d be that little bit better prepared to understand it that little bit more.

What of that plot then? Blowup sounds stupidly simple. It spends a day and a half or so in the company of a playboy photographer played by David Hemmings. And, by that, I mean he’s a photographer who’s a bit of a playboy, not a photographer for Playboy. This is London, after all. Hemmings, whose character is never named, spends his time chasing skirt (although it often chases him) and taking pictures. He’s buying property in an up-and-coming area full of “queers with poodles” and makes ostentatious impulse purchases, like the giant wooden propeller he picks up at an antique shop while flirting with the sales assistant. Somehow this seems significant.

What’s definitely significant is the strange meeting he has in a windswept public park with a woman (Vanessa Redgrave) who demands that he surrenders to her the film he’s just used to take snaps of her cavorting with her lover. She won’t say why, and he won’t find out why until he gets back to the darkroom and thinks he notices something funny in the background.

I could reveal more but it really wouldn’t tell you anything because this is a film that has to be experienced before it means anything to you. You already know that Blowup’s mysteries aren’t resolved in the usual way – and I’m in two minds about having told you that – but it’s a fairly famous aspect of the film, which you may already be aware of. It’s also the kind of thing that might ordinarily put me off a film, so I mention it both to warn you beforehand and reassure you that, thanks to a few twists, Blowup’s incredibly evocative openness to interpretation will actually enhance your viewing of it. It’s that clever.

Don’t pass up Blowup because you like your mysteries to come with solutions. You’ll never find a more intriguing one.

Rating: 5/5

DVDs I bought in Vegas!

2009-01-04T02:17:00.024Z

* Can you believe the only one of these films currently available on DVD in the UK is Mommie Dearest? And our edition lacks the John Waters commentary found on the US disk! Is it any wonder I double-dipped?

** The ones I’ve never seen: Let’s Scare Jessica to Death, Sweet Sixteen, Return to Sleepaway Camp, Demonia, Death to the Supermodels, Doom Asylum, Knock Knock, C.H.U.D., Wet Gold, Valley Girl, Death Wish 4, Half Moon Street, Mausoleum and Blood Song... See you in February sometime!

In other recent DVD acquisition-related news of mine, how fucking fantastic is the Australian killer-crocodile flick Rogue?! Seriously. Being one of four croco-shockers to come out in 2007 (the others being Blackwater, Croc and Primeval, the latter of which was renamed Primeval Kill in the UK... y’know, to distinguish it from Primeval Cuddle), Rogue sorta sank to the bottom of the swamp. But now I’ve fished it out and witnessed its brilliance, I just want to grab its scaly hand and dance with it until... well, sometime tomorrow morning at least, assuming it lets go for toilet and snack breaks.

Of 2007’s other croc-flicks, I’ve managed to catch the more modestly budgeted Blackwater and thought it pretty good – but, really, it can’t hold a candle to Rogue. And if it tried, that bad-ass reptile would probably leap up and bite its motherfucking hand right OFF! Yes, Rogue is surely the ultimate crocodile movie: suspenseful, creepy and darkly funny, with a surprisingly convincing monster. I loved it. Now, how about four decent shark movies for 2009, please?

Finally! It's door #24!

2008-12-24T07:13:00.004Z

I’m making a list, I’m checking it twice... Yes, it’s the top horror of 2008, according to Anchorwoman In Peril!

10. APPARITIONS: Here’s an outsider to start with – the BBC’s recent six-part horror/drama serial about a Catholic priest turned reluctant exorcist (played by Martin Shaw). Yes, it was slow and, yes, it was sometimes silly – but how often does prime-time TV basically amount to a slasher movie with Satan as the killer?

9. DIARY OF THE DEAD: While not as epic in scope as Land of the Dead (or, really, as jaw-droppingly brilliant as any of Romero’s previous zombie outings), Diary still delivered. (Full review here.)

8. WHILE SHE WAS OUT: A classic woman-in-peril TV-movie plot is beefed up with extra (and I mean extra) gore, plus Kim Basinger and a Christmas-time setting... I’m sold! (Full review here.)

7. THE RUINS: Scott Smith’s adaptation of his own novel (which was fantastic, by the way) made Stephen King’s list of the 10 Best Movies of 2008, and who am I to argue? Truly nasty stuff.

6. DUMA KEY: And, speaking of Stephen King, his most recent novel was a fine return to form, and one of his most purely enjoyable ghost stories.

5. THE MIST: Sheesh! It’s King again! This adaptation of his open-ended novella came out in the US last year but didn’t arrive in the UK until March. It was definitely worth the wait, however, as it quickly became one of my favourite monster movies ever.

4. MOTHER OF TEARS: Yep, I’m aware that this list seems to be revealing me as a slavering fanboy but I really DID enjoy the poorly-received final part of Argento’s Suspiria trilogy – at least on the level of a wild fantasy-adventure filled with Dario’s unique imagination.

3. INSIDE: This French film is what people are talking about when they describe a horror movie as “extreme”. It’s a nightmarish scenario that just... keeps... getting... worse! Gruellingly spellbinding.

2. THE MIDNIGHT MEAT TRAIN: After being buried by its distributors in the US, I almost couldn’t believe it when this Clive Barker adaptation got a cinema release in the UK, and I’m glad I didn’t miss it. Brutally gory set pieces mix with black humour and dingy mystery to produce an unusually original horror film.

1. DEAD SET: Big Brother + zombie apocalypse = modern British horror at its best, all the more surprising (and effective) for having been made for the small screen. Definitely recommended to anyone who enjoyed Shaun of the Dead or 28 Days Later, and the year’s horror highlight for me.

What's behind door #23?

2008-12-23T07:19:00.002Z

It’s the Spanish made-for-TV horror film The Christmas Tale! I’ve not yet seen this creepy-looking festive story (which was released in America as part of a DVD box set called 6 Films to Keep You Awake) but it’s showing on UK TV tonight at 2.20am on BBC2. You can read a review of all six films in the series over at Kindertrauma.

Door #22 blows open

2008-12-22T07:13:00.004Z

Today’s the day I set off on my Christmas holiday to Vegas but, thanks to the recent snow storms there, it doesn’t look like it’ll be the break from the wintry British weather I’d anticipated. At the very least, I’m hoping the plane doesn’t skid off the runway, crash into the Luxor Hotel and explode in a blazing fireball. (I mean, I’d rather it was warm, but not that warm.)

I’m afraid my departure does also mean that the final two doors of the Anchorwoman In Peril! Madvent Calendar™ will be pre-scheduled auto-posts. I’m sorry – I know they’ll seem so hollow, but at least you’ll know that, as you read them, I’ll be having a fantastic time sipping fabulous cocktails in Sin City. Or burning to death in a flaming inferno.

Have a great time over the holidays. Thanks for reading, and best wishes for 2009!

What's behind door #21?

2008-12-21T11:15:00.005Z

While it might not even be Christmas Eve yet, it's worth giving some thought to what you'll be doing on New Year's Eve... Otherwise you'll just end up doing the same boring thing you do every year: murder a bunch of people in a gimmicky way. Ho hum.

Who's behind door #20?

2008-12-20T00:14:00.002Z

It’s the queen of TV movies! Yes, Tori Spelling and Christmas go together like pine trees and vacuuming. She’s starred in a festive TV movie...

...is on first-name terms with Santa...

...and her mom even has a gift-wrapping room in the Spelling family mansion!

If I get chance before I go away for Christmas, I’ll post a review of The House Sitter... No, not the Goldie Hawn comedy laugh-fest, but a surprisingly good telemovie thriller in which Tori stars alongside her husband, Dean McDermott. And, after that, I’ll be reviewing Tori’s new animals-run-amok horror flick, Wildcats.

(Not really.)

Door #19 creaks open...

2008-12-19T07:05:00.002Z

There's nothing better than a good ghost story on a cold Christmas night, and the 1940s/50s radio show Inner Sanctum Mysteries produced some of the best, featuring stars like Orson Welles, Boris Karloff, Mary Astor and Claude Rains. Listen to episodes online at Obscure Horror or, if you want to get spooky on your iPod, download MP3s from Old Time Radio.

Who's behind door #18?

2008-12-18T07:09:00.005Z

It’s Donald Pleasence! Or, since the beloved actor sadly died in 1995, technically it’s... wait for it... the Ghost of Christmas Pleasence! (Oh my sides.)

Christmas in Britain just isn’t complete without a screening of The Great Escape on TV, meaning that I’ve come to associate old Dr Loomis as much with December 25th as I have October 31st. Like his character in this film, Donald Pleasence actually was an RAF officer during WWII, and really did spend time in a German POW camp. Also less known is the fact that there’s a 1988 TV-movie sequel called The Great Escape II: The Untold Story, in which Pleasence, the only returning cast member, played a Nazi... How’s that for acting range?

Slashing through door #17

2008-12-17T07:05:00.001Z

Tell your granny you don’t want another knitted sweater this Christmas... You want a knitted Freddy Krueger!

I’ve been hanging out at The Adventures of Cakeyvoice a lot recently, where horror-loving crafter Hannah displays woolly wonders like a knitted Michael Myers, a knitted Ash from The Evil Dead and, my favourite, Dawn of the Knitted Dead. It’s like watching Romero’s masterpiece again For The Very First Time... Only plushier!

Sloshing through door #16

2008-12-16T07:07:00.000Z

OMG! This could be you if you drink too much eggnog!

Oozing through door #15

2008-12-15T07:09:00.003Z

OMG! This could be you if you eat too much on Christmas Day!

The Stalker

2008-12-14T17:35:00.008Z

Way, way, way before the craze for stalker movies (well, 1977) a middle-aged Witchita woman received a string of taunting threats by phone and post from a sinister criminal the police dubbed “the Poet”. Twenty-one years later, along came the TV movie version of her Lifetime-baiting true story, which starred Mare Winningham in the lead role and was entitled Little Girl Fly Away.

There’s a reason for that perhaps strange-sounding title (later changed to the more straightforward The Stalker) but before we get into all that, let’s play a quick game of “Complete The Threatening Note!”. I’ll give you the first few lines of one of the Poet’s endeavours and all you have to do is pick the missing lyric. Ready?

Hickory dickory dock
I know you are Cathy Brock
Your clock has run out
Only I can hear you _____
Hickory dickory dock

(A) Shout (B) Pout (C) Scream, you fucking trout

Hmm, I think the author just scrapes by with that “poet” nickname, personally, but the answer is, in any case, A – although C would’ve been far more threatening, don’t you think? Let’s try another!

Wherever you go on water or land
I’ll make sure everybody knows about your _____

(A) Brand (B) Post-punk band (C) Soon-to-be-chopped-off right hand

Yep, the answer’s A, somewhat disappointingly. Apparently, Cathy was attacked and “branded” by a sex offender back when she was a teenager. I think C would’ve been much scarier. The Poet really missed a trick there! One last one:

Frank can’t save you, nor the cops
I’m too clever for all them _____

(A) Slobs (B) Fops (C) Cock-sucking candy-pops

It’s a toughie, I know, but the answer is... A again! It doesn’t even rhyme, does it?! Quite frankly, I would’ve made a much better deranged literary stalker myself – as would you if you picked all C’s. But we can’t all be sadistic geniuses, can we, and this is a TV movie after all.

I mentioned earlier that The Stalker was originally known as Little Girl Fly Away, which admittedly sounds less like a scary thriller and more like a heart-warming drama. Basically, the reason for this is that The Stalker does err more on the side of heart-warming drama, but to explain why takes us into spoiler territory...

Now, it’s not a major spoiler if you’re in any way familiar with the real-life case of the Poet, or the book this movie’s based on, but it’s something the film chooses not to reveal until halfway through. And that’s the fact that ... SPOILER ALERT! ... Cathy, the supposed victim, is herself the Poet. That’s right: she’s stalking herself – composing the scribbled notes, leaving a jar of urine on her own doorstep, stabbing herself with a knife and, at one point, even going so far as to go missing from a local mall, only to turn up bruised and battered many hours later, having been “kidnapped”.

So why is she doing all this? And what’s with the “Little Girl Fly Away” stuff? Well, it’s not just a case of drawing attention to herself, nor was it diagnosed as multiple-personality disorder; the second half of the movie deals with Cathy’s quest to understand the motives behind her behaviour with the help of a therapist (played by CCH Pounder). I’ll not spoil it all here but, as you might expect, the roots of her problem go back to her childhood.

Yet another title this movie goes by

The Stalker is filled with good actors. Mare Winningham makes the slightly frumpy, unlikely victim role her own, with Bruce Davison sympathetic as her bewildered husband. If you’ve ever wondered what a psycho-stalker movie would be like with a middle-aged couple at the centre instead of a glamorous TV anchorwoman played by Morgan Freeman, well, there’s clearly something wrong with you, but the good news is: this is the movie for you. Anne Haney plays it cool as Cathy’s distant (suspicious?) mother, while Clayton Rohner (still displaying signs of hotness) is a cop on the case who suspects that the Poet is someone Cathy’s been having an affair with. Finally, there’s CCH Pounder, who’s so white-hot I’d happily fake mental illness just to have her as my shrink.

Despite its (new) title, this is a long way from being a thriller, but I still found it pretty gripping – more so, in fact, than some outright thrillers. With that cast, a decent script and a touching final scene, can The Stalker really be blamed for the fact that the most lasting impression it leaves is the mental image of Mare Winningham peeing in a jar? I think not.

Rating: 3/5

Who's that behind door #14?

2008-12-14T11:34:00.008Z

It's Anne Haney! This distinctive and delightful character actress, with over 100 credits on the IMDb, starred in not one but two classic seasonal TV movies, The Night They Saved Christmas (1984) and The Christmas Gift (1986), not to mention 1986's The Thanksgiving Promise, before taking on roles in some major Hollywood films in later life. Genre fans will also recognize her from the TV-movie remake of The Bad Seed, Gus Van Sant's remake of Psycho, and the spooky Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.

I've just seen her in the 1998 TV movie The Stalker, which I'll be reviewing shortly!

What's going on behind door #13?

2008-12-13T14:54:00.003Z

What could be nicer during the run-up to Christmas than a nice romantic meal for two? Good food, fine wine, the candlelight sparkling off the glasses... Wes Bentley's even dressed up in his Santa suit. But Rachel Nichols doesn't appear to be very amused. In fact, she seems quite uncomfortable. It almost looks like she's been tied into that chair...

Door #12 opens

2008-12-12T00:10:00.004Z

AiP is putting together the songlist for its annual creepy carol concert. Do feel free to add your own suggestions...

Away In A Mangler
Blood King Wenceslas
O Little Town Of Deathlehem
I Saw Three Shivs
In The Shriek Midwinter
Slay Amid The Winter’s Snow
We Three Kings Of Gorient Are

Behind door #11...

2008-12-11T07:05:00.002Z

It’s Bess Armstrong!

Since today is the 11th, I thought we’d take a look at 11th Victim, a TV movie from 1979 that I dimly remember watching as a teenager. Bess plays a TV journalist in Des Moines who finds out about her younger sister’s secret life as an L.A. prostitute after said sister is murdered (she’s the titular eleventh victim). Apparently, the story was inspired by the Hillside Strangler case, itself dramatized several times since. With no video or DVD release, however, 11th Victim has become a bit obscure so there’s little chance of me seeing it again, which is a shame because it sounds like prime Anchorwoman In Peril fodder.

TV Guide said it “had potential, but was defeated by the usual TV-movie budgetary restrictions and desire to exploit rather than explore a ‘hot’ issue”. I know... Like exploitation is a bad thing! Anyway, I must have agreed on some level because I reviewed it in my own film guide at the time thusly: “Slick TV movie succeeds as an exploration of the sleazy side of life in Hollywood but, as a thriller, is flat and unexciting”. Did you know I’ve been keeping a record of all the films I watch since I was 13? Eat your beard off, Leonard Maltin!

Time to open door #10!

2008-12-10T10:21:00.003Z

With year-round snow and a population consisting entirely of elves and reindeer, Norway is the most Christmassy country in the world... Really. It also gave us one of the best straight slashers of recent years, Fritt Vilt, a.k.a. Cold Prey, which is twice as scary as it is icy (making it very scary indeed!). A sequel was released in Norway in October, and will hopefully be making its way around the rest of the globe soon, no doubt on the back of a flying reindeer. Rejoice!

Who's behind door #9?

2008-12-09T07:08:00.003Z

TWO beloved actors with DOZENS of TV-movie roles between them share a birthday today. Yes, it's Beau Bridges and Michael Nouri... Love the hats, guys!

Beau, who turns 67, will be forever remembered (by me) for his association with two of the most memorable titles ever given to TV movies: 1992's The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas Cheerleader-Murdering Mom and 1989's Everybody's Baby: The Rescue of Jessica McClure. (Seriously, I don't think there's a day that goes by without some TV station in the world showing that one. And I think it's usually Movies24.)

Nouri's just 63, and his sterling TV-movie work includes the excellent, Barbara Eden-starring thriller Eyes of Terror (1994) as well as a host of Danielle Steele and Sidney Sheldon adaptations.

Happy 9th Day of Madvent, gentlemen! Oh, and enjoy your birthdays too.

Who's behind door #8?

2008-12-08T07:05:00.004Z

It’s Roddy McDowall in a cravat to die for!

If you’re feeling like a little Yuletide fun with the Rodman, you could look out for his turn as Bob Cratchet in the George Burns Comedy Week episode Christmas Carol II: The Sequel, but I’ve absolutely no idea how to get hold of it. For an easier festive fix, try the superior snowbound psycho-thriller Dead of Winter instead... You won’t regret it. My review here!

Something fishy behind door #7

2008-12-07T01:04:00.002Z

Betcha forgot Jaws: The Revenge was a Christmas flick, didn’t you! Not only that, but it features today’s Unconvincing Shark Attack Of The Day! Read on, you lucky, lucky people...

Unconvincing shark attack of the day: The festive edition!

2008-12-07T00:50:00.011Z

Today in USAOTD, we take a look at a shark attack sequence that relies purely on clever editing and a technique known as “flying shark teeth comin’ atcha” to achieve its effects... Someday I’ll write a proper, full-length article about the brilliant, highly TV movie-like Jaws: The Revenge but, for now, let’s concentrate on its memorable opening scene, featuring Sean (son of Martin) Brody:

Picture it... Amity... 1987... It’s Christmas time but – oh no! – a buoy-type-thing has got all tangled up in the bay!

“No worries, I’ll poke it with a stick.”

“Argh! Flying shark gnashers!”

“Argh! No arm!”

We interrupt this shark attack to bring you shots of a joyful Christmas scene for maximum irony. (And, why, yes... Christmas IS annual!)

“Hello! Still missing an arm here! Perhaps if I lean tantalizingly over the edge of the—”

“Argh! Flying shark gnashers again!”

Sean’s been swallowed whole... and now the boat’s sinking. On the plus side, it looks like he managed to fix the buoy.

But what a MESS!

Do you see what I see on Day 6?

2008-12-06T00:24:00.000Z

“PUNISH!!!”

It’s killer Billy from my Number One Christmas-themed Slasher and Third Favourite Christmas Movie Of All Time, Silent Night, Deadly Night! Read my thoughts from when I watched the film for the first time last Christmas or, for the ultimate SNDN experience (short of actually watching it), head on over to the scarily exhaustive Silent Night, Deadly Night Resource.

Let's unlock door #5

2008-12-05T09:30:00.003Z

Jeez, wouldn’t you just know it? It’s Christmas-time commuter chaos...

One woman who finds herself in the middle of holiday shopping hell is Della (played by Kim Basinger) in While She Was Out, a rather excellent new woman-in-peril thriller produced by Guillermo Del Toro. Read on for a full review!

While She Was Out

2008-12-05T09:20:00.006Z

It’s a cliché, true, but every so often a modest little film seemingly comes from nowhere and manages to completely blow you away. The first to have this effect on me in quite some time is While She Was Out... and, no, it’s not a mind-blowing masterpiece, nor is it something that’ll occupy a “special place” in the hearts of generations to come, but – damn – it’s a good time and a great thriller.

Y’see, it’s pretty much identical plotwise to one of those women-in-peril TV movies from the 70s/80s that I rave about constantly – albeit with one major difference: it’s nasty... REAL nasty! We’re all used to the straightforward, linear and cosily familiar style of TV movies like She Cried Murder – and While She Was Out slots easily into that mould. But, whereas the worst thing that might befall Lynda Day George and pals was a twisted ankle, and the cops would always show up at the end, there’s no such security here. Kim Basinger is on the run from some truly dangerous thugs with only a toolbox grabbed from her car for protection – and, believe me, she’s not afraid to use its contents in ways that would give Tobe Hooper nightmares.

First rule of suspense filmmaking: give us characters we care about. Basinger, who’s just been getting better and better in recent years, is Della, a suburban mom with a borderline abusive husband (Craig Sheffer) but two nice kids. After a Christmas Eve domestic, she escapes to the mall in search of a little retail therapy. But the snowy roads are lethal, the car park is gridlocked and, to add insult to injury, a black Plymouth is taking up two parking spaces. Incensed, Della writes an angry note and leaves it on the windscreen, before parking down the road and enduring a miserable time in the mall, where such events as running into a smarmy school friend and having her name misspelled by a dull-eyed cashier subtly remind her that Women Are Socially Disadvantaged and Commercialism Is Bad.

Back outside, Della’s in for a nasty surprise when the drivers of the badly-parked Plymouth – four punks led by Lukas Haas (who seemed like such a nice boy in Witness) – show up and corner her at the outskirts of the parking lot. I’ve decided not to tell you any more than that, suffice to say that things turn very nasty very quickly, and Della’s soon running for her life through a hazard-strewn construction site. And you thought the Black Friday sales were scary!

Hurtling along and bombarding you with shocks, While She Was Out is what those of us in the movie-reviewing business refer to as “a rollercoaster ride”, and what people in the rollercoaster business refer to as “technically, just a film” – although I’m sure they’d agree it’s a pretty good one. Kim Basinger makes as compelling and resourceful a heroine here as she was in Cellular, while Lukas Haas’ gang of youths make frightening villains not because they’re intimidating or sinister, but simply because they’re stupid, reckless and dangerous – exactly the sort of people who give darkened parking lots a bad name.

Because so few films are directed by women – especially in the horror/thriller genre – you can’t help but look for notable differences when you come across one. Susan Montford certainly doesn’t pull any punches with her directorial debut (which she also scripted from a short story by Edward Bryant), and creating an interesting female lead is obviously a priority, but genre fans won’t find any “special spin” on the material to distract from the thrills. That said, it’s intelligent enough, with a build-up that sets up a disconcerting, melancholy tone, and a double-payoff that finishes off the expectedly cathartic climax with a nice little twist of the knife.

One word of warning: don’t be tempted to seek out and watch the trailer. In fact, avoid all trailers for this in case they’re the one included on the UK DVD release, which basically condenses the entire film into two minutes, ruining every single plot development along the way, including the ending. Other than that, if you come across any opportunity to see While She Was Out, you grab eet, you watch eet, you love eet!

Apologies to anyone with a fake Mexican accent.

Rating: 4/5

Door #4 opens

2008-12-04T09:43:00.003Z

It’s the Ghost of Christmas Present – a.k.a. Carol Kane, one of the most distinctive (and funny) actresses around. I’ve sung her praises before, and she’s taken on some extremely kooky horror roles in the past in such films as Pandemonium, Office Killer, When a Stranger Calls, When a Stranger Calls Back, Transylvania 6-5000 and Don’t Ring the Doorbell. But none beat her hilariously disturbing performance as a psychotic Christmas fairy in this – probably my favourite holiday movie – Scrooged. Altogether now: “Look, Frank! It’s a toaster!”

What's lurking behind door #3?

2008-12-03T07:14:00.002Z

Argh! It’s one of those glass unicorns like in Black Christmas! Those things can be fucking lethal in the hands of a deranged killer. Watch out Margot!

Who's behind door #2?

2008-12-02T07:37:00.001Z

Ho ho ho! Who’s that jolly bearded fellow? Why it’s Lucio Fulci! While I don’t think Mr Fulci ever made an all-out Christmas film, he did give his fans a little present back in 1990 in the shape of A Cat in the Brain, which offered up more of the man himself than any Fulci fan could shake a candy cane at. Full review below!

A Cat in the Brain

2008-12-02T07:36:00.001Z

“I think I’m going crazy... as if my brain is being eaten by a cat!”

That’s how it feels to be an aging horror movie director, according to this spoof-autobiographical piece from celebrated goremeister Lucio Fulci. And, in case you still don’t get it, the idea is represented by the unforgettable sight of a stiff-legged cat puppet pawing at some minced beef. Yes, 1990’s A Cat in the Brain (also known as Nightmare Concert) finds the 63-year-old Fulci indulging in a bit of postmodern malarkey in much the same manner that Wes Craven would in his New Nightmare four years later.

Fulci plays himself in what essentially boils down to a kind of wraparound story, in which he believes himself to be going insane while a serial killer strikes wherever he goes. Meanwhile, clips from a few of his recent films – as well as some he merely supervised – play out in gory clip-show fashion, presented as hallucinations, dreams and supposedly real murders.

When it gets to the point that Fulci can’t even pop a ready-meal in the microwave without seeing visions of melting faces, he decides to visit a psychiatrist. And that’s when things get really strange, as Dr Schwarz appears to be having some sanity issues of his own... By his second session, the shrink claims to have watched all of Fulci’s films (57 according to the IMDb) and read all the scripts. No wonder he’s going a little crazy! And, sure enough, he’s soon hypnotizing Fulci and setting off on a killing spree of his own (or is he?).

It all sounds confusing and incoherent but, in reality, A Cat in the Brain is quite entertaining (much more so than some of the dire films from which footage is plundered, anyway). Whether this is due to Fulci’s bemused performance or the sheer amount of outrageous gore is hard to say, but there’s a light tone that makes it hard to take too seriously – which is perhaps why it got through the BBFC uncut (eventually). It is cheap and choppy, but that’s part of the charm. There’s even a sequence where the spliced-in violence is spookily effective, as Fulci wonders around a villa while murder victims are hacked up left, right and centre, seemingly oblivious to his presence.

Ultimately, the film is the product of a director having a little fun, and when it’s a director who’s provided his fans with as much fun over the years as Lucio Fulci, it’s hard to begrudge the man. As ever with Fulci films, I can’t leave you without quoting some of the more memorable lines from the script...

Psychiatrist: Now, you say the first manifestations of your illness have been the fear of hamburger and gardeners...

Fulci: The film we’re watching is the one I’m in the throes of shooting at the moment... and the violence in it is making me, mentally, deeply disturbed!

Fulci (describing a dream): It was a girl who was a pocket... and they shot a ball into her... on a pool table.

Newsreader: So far, there have been few clues to the identity of the killer, who is believed to be of middle-age and probably an apparently normal person.

Psychiatrist (to wife): Damn you! You’ve made a mess of my life. Damn you to hell! But now I’ve had enough... Enough!

Movie producer: If you’re trying to create a sensation like you do in your films, well, this time you goofed!

Rating: 3/5

AiP Madvent Calendar: Day #1!

2008-12-01T07:32:00.000Z

Do you like scary snow globes? Yikes! It’s the weird Christmas decoration/piece of handmade Scream merchandise I bought on eBay... naturally! This delightful festive figurine is not available in shops. Or, at least, I doubt it ever was, considering it’s the only one like it I’ve ever seen and the base is made of hand-painted wood. Is it fan-sculpture? Or was it a prototype for a range of Ghostface snow globes that never made it to the production line in Hong Kong? Who knows? But Scream + Christmas = Joy To The World in my book!

It’s a theme month!

2008-11-30T00:45:00.003Z

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ll know that tomorrow is the first of December. And, even if you have been living under a rock, the wide availability of wireless communication technologies these days means you’re probably perfectly able to keep up with current events from your subterranean boulder-based dwelling. So who am I to question your lifestyle choices? I’m sure it’s very pleasant under there.

In any case, starting tomorrow, Anchorwoman In Peril! is marking the countdown to Christmas in the shape of its very own virtual Madvent Calendar! ’Tis true... Join in with me every day (and, yes, I’ll require a doctor’s note if you miss one) as we open up the little doors to find out who or what’s lurking behind. But remember: they’re not actual doors – they’re just digital ones – so don’t go prising open any holes in your computer screen because that’s potentially dangerous. And rather unsightly.

It’ll also be a countdown to another kind of holiday for me... in America! Yessiree bobtail, I’ll be spending Christmas in “fabulous” Las Vegas this year. I sure hope I don’t run afoul of the Night Stalker. Or the Switch Killer. Or end up getting hacked up into little (murder-set) pieces! But, don’t worry, I’ll ensure there’s enough pre-scheduled posts to take us right up to Christmas Eve, Madvent-style, whether I’m here in Leeds or flying across the Atlantic in a big ol’ plane.

Tell all your under-rock friends!

Lessons in terror: Horror 101 & 102

2008-11-26T17:28:00.006Z

You may have noticed I went AWOL for a little longer than usual last week. Well, blame the teachers – ’cuz I was in school... Horror school! I planned to watch Horror 101 and send a review your way shortly afterwards but, on completing the course, I realised that the film was just so nothingy, I didn’t have enough to say about it. The solution? Sign up for the sequel, Horror 102, of course! Surely seeing both films would give me enough ammo to fire off a spectacular double-whammy review! Ka-blammy, mofos!

Hmm... well, not quite. Horror 102 turned out to be nearly as nothingy as Horror 101. It’s not scary enough to scare, not thrilling enough to thrill, and not funny enough to, er, fun. But I’ll let you into a little secret: I liked it... and I liked Horror 101 too!

Now you’re giving me that blank stare again. I know what you’re thinking: Horrors 101 and 102 sound like a double-helping of horror dog-doo, right? Who wants to watch a pair of nothingy movies? Has Ross gone quite, quite mad? And is “nothingy” even a proper word? Well, to answer these questions, we’ll have to look at each movie’s individual report card in a little more detail...

STUDENT: Horror 101 (2000)
DESCRIPTION: A group of students attend an evening class on the “nature of fear” or something (honestly, they give degrees out for anything these days) but find themselves trapped inside the school and picked off one by one. Bo Derek, who’s quite watchable but disappears after the first 15 minutes, plays their teacher.
BEHAVIOUR: Horror 101 is a non-slasher movie. That is, it follows the structure and conventions of a slasher movie except for the fact that, instead of getting slashed, its characters simply vanish. And there aren’t any bloody bodies popping up à la April Fool’s Day, either. They just disappear. C
APTITUDE: Something about Horror 101 works, however. It’s reasonably well made, suspenseful in a slow-burning way, and kept me entirely entertained from start to finish. Director James Glenn Dudelson apparently does nothingy quite lovingly. B+
EFFORT: Killer Rottweilers, snakes, spooky shadows in the hallways, and a twist ending. I'm happy. B+
ORIGINALITY: None... until the very end, which I have to admit got me. Otherwise, Horror 101 is total TV-movie territory, perfectly suitable for a Sunday afternoon screening. B-
OVERALL RATING: 3/5

STUDENT: Horror 102: Endgame (2004)
DESCRIPTION: No relation to 101, other than the fact that this new bunch of students appear to attend the same vaguely-referenced college, VDBU. This time, they’re trapped inside a disused mental asylum while taking part in some hazily-explained fieldwork assignment and, when the killings start, the bodies do actually pile up.
BEHAVIOUR: There’s more gore in the opening minute of Horror 102 than there is in the entirety of its predecessor. And that’s just because they write the title in red. The gory stuff here is mild but, conversely, quite strong for a PG-13. B+
APTITUDE: Horror 102 is a better film than 101, I thought, although perhaps not quite as professionally made. Building to another clever ending, you could almost make a case for this series being a Saw forerunner. (Or “Sawrunner”, if you will.) A-
EFFORT: Again, Horror 102 has a bland feel and mainly consists of a lot of running around searching for whoever the currently unaccounted-for character is. But scratch the surface and there’s an interesting investigation into just about every explanation for the supernatural you can think of, ranging from drugs, hallucinogens and poisons, to mental illness, paranoia and fear. A-
ORIGINALITY: Is it supernatural? Is it madness? Is there an actual killer at work? You won’t find out until the end when, if you’re anything like me, you’ll be quite surprised. But, then again, I’m a sucker. A-
OVERALL RATING: 3/5

So, there you go. Please sign and date the above report cards and return them to me at your earliest convenience. And don’t be afraid to give these two movies a go if you like horror films but don’t want anything that might put a strain on your heart medicine. Also please note that the first film is called “Horror 101” and not “Horror LOL”, which is what I originally saw when I read the title, and am now going to rename my blog.

Stranger and stranger

2008-11-25T23:59:00.002Z

In case you’re in any doubt about the pointlessness of most “unrated” versions of horror films released on DVD, check out this description of the two whole differences between the Theatrical and Unrated versions of The Strangers (but only if you’ve seen the movie already, ’kay? Otherwise, it’s mondo spoilo).

Now, I’m not against including alternative endings on discs – in fact, this one’s even quite interesting. What I am against is labelling them as “UNRATED!” and “Too terrifying for theatres” just because they haven’t been formally submitted to the MPAA and hence don’t have a rating. There’s nothing included in the unrated version of The Strangers that’s any more disturbing than that in the original cut – so, DVD people, give it up and get a new gimmick. We’re not fooled!

While we’re on the subject, oh, how I pine for the days when a horror movie had a coherent directorial vision behind it, rather than a toned-down theatrical release, followed by either a juiced-up DVD version or a selection of redundant deleted scenes edited back in to justify the unrated tag. The Strangers’ DVD release only underscores for me how negotiated the entire affair seemed when I saw it at the cinema. However much I love a little extra unrated nastiness in a film, I respect a little passion and personality a whole lot more.

Unconvincing shark attack of the day: The revenge!

2008-11-19T19:26:00.004Z

Last time on USAOTD we saw what happened when an overconfident tour guide found herself up shark creek in Red Water... Today’s unpersuasive date with toothy destiny comes from Shark in Venice – not a film I particularly liked, but I have to admit it has its moments, including the following... And check out those plastic urns!

It’s an intimate moment on one of Venice’s less impressive bridges.

“Oh Johnny, where’s your class?”

“Go and stand pointlessly close to the water’s edge.”

“OMG! Watch out for that Unconvincing Shark Attack!”

“You’re flying!”

“And I’ve completely vanished in the next shot too!”

Too Scared to Scream

2008-11-15T18:36:00.007Z

Too Scared to Scream is one of those 80s movies that’s too nasty to be a mainstream thriller, yet too mired in the conventions of mainstream thrillers to be a proper slasher (other examples might be The Fan, 10 to Midnight and The Majorettes). None of this would probably have mattered if Brian De Palma had directed it – but he didn’t, so the end result here is pretty uneven and uninspired, albeit worth a go if you like slashers.

I like slashers. You know that. And I particularly like slashers set in big cities. In theory, if you’re being chased by a killer, it should be scarier to find yourself stuck in the middle of nowhere (like a summer camp in the woods or a remote, abandoned house) but what if you were actually completely surrounded by people, only no one could – or would – help? Now that’s a scary thought. Some flicks that explore this idea cleverly include:

Scream 2 – That opening in the crowded cinema is probably the cruellest and most disturbing of all the trilogy’s kill sequences. Wes Craven contrasts the collective excitement of the audience with the isolation of the victims in a way that I actually find quite upsetting... What is wrong with me?!

Terror and Black Lace – The first half of this “Mexican giallo” concentrates on the increasing loneliness felt by its bored housewife Maribel Guardia. After that, it’s terror (and black lace!) all the way in the second half when a scantily-clad Guardia finds herself chased by a killer in, around and over the apartment building as a noisy party takes place just out of reach...

Slumber Party Massacre III – This slasher sequel (which I’m actually a big fan of) is interesting because it plays out on a normal suburban street, with the “remoteness” of the location coming from the fact that the killer does a really good job of trapping his victims in the house.

There’s probably dozens of other examples of this freaky film phenomenon; in fact, Joe D’Augustine does a great job of describing it in relation to Argento’s Four Flies on Grey Velvet at his blog, Film Forno. The reason I mention the notion here is that I’d been hoping beforehand that Too Scared to Scream would also tap into it, being set as it is in a New York high-rise – the kind of place where people live piled on top of one another and, if my understanding of Seinfeld is correct, frequently burst in on each other without knocking, not to mention find themselves embroiled in all kinds of humorous scrapes.

As it turns out, Too Scared to Scream does have some nice urban-living scare sequences, employing such things as empty laundry rooms and painfully slow elevators to suspenseful effect. It also has more than its share of crazy shit going down – crazy shit that causes all kinds of pacing problems and, well, just general weirdness that ultimately distracts and subtracts from it as a whole.

Plot-wise, tenants of the aforementioned apartment building are falling prey to an in-house killer at an alarming rate. The cops suspect creepy doorman Vincent Hardwick (Ian McShane)... After all, he’s smarmy, British, and lives with his mother, a paralyzed car-crash victim who, in an instance of that crazy shit I was telling you about, has no scripted lines but is played by Maureen O’Sullivan (in a far cry from her Tarzan days).

Further investigation of the murders leads Lieutenant Alex Dinardo (Mannix’s Mike Connors) in the direction of a chauffer with some sort of S&M fetish that’s thankfully not explored in too much detail (oh, except for a shot of his naked behind covered with cigarette burns), as well as a drunkard played so heartbreakingly by Murray Hamilton that his one scene is actually distressing. There’s also a shoot-out outside a porno theatre, and a scene-stealing cameo from John Heard as – if I’m remembering this correctly – a coroner. Quite frankly, after all that, I’m too scarred to scream. Mentally, that is.

Had your fill of crazy shit yet? No? Well, next there’s our junior detective – and final girl – Kate Bridges, played by Anne Archer (who had also starred in an episode of Mannix ten years previously!). Archer is easily one of the best things about this film, whether she’s cunningly disguised as a bag lady with a fake nose, or jiggling herself crazy in woolly legwarmers as part of some aerobic nightmare set to a pumpin’ 80s beat. Kate also attempts to seduce the blatantly gay doorman by jogging up to him in the park and stopping to stretch her spandex-clad thighs on a bench, just inches away from his face. (I was honestly waiting for his wheelchair-bound mother to slowly roll into the pond in the background.) It’s detective work at its finest... Sorry, no, I meant camp comedy at its finest.

Too Scared to Scream is a slasher with a large dose of mystery and, while the identity of the killer didn’t come as a shock to me, his/her motivation was something I really hadn’t seen coming – even though the clues are certainly there. Another thing I hadn’t anticipated was our heroine’s choice of weapon as she prepares to face the killer at the climax – namely, a telephone receiver. (Well, phones can be deadly, remember!)

With all the 80s horror remakes doing the rounds at the moment, I almost wouldn’t be surprised to see this one plucked from obscurity, even if it’s just to cash in on the caché of the title... 2 Scared 2 Scream, anyone?

Anyone?

Rating: 3/5

LIFF screening: Sexykiller

2008-11-12T11:53:00.010Z

Sexykiller marks the first time I’ve bought a ticket for a movie without knowing anything about it beforehand. And by that I really mean nothing. Nada. Not even the title, making it officially 97.5 times more mysterious than that time I watched Intersection and didn’t know what it was going to be about. Or how dull it was going to be. You see, Sexykiller was this year’s surprise horror screening at the Leeds International Film Festival... I pays my money, I takes my chances, and I hopes Sharon Stone isn’t in it again.

And I’m mostly glad I did. The film was certainly more enjoyable than the evening’s second offering, the French film Martyrs, which felt like a movie based on the opening chapter of a novel. (As for the 20 straight minutes of watching a woman being force-fed and punched in the face... That’s horror these days? By all means try to shock me, but don’t just repel and bore me at the same time.) Anyway, you won’t find anything so gruelling in Sexykiller. It has its nasty scenes (in fact, one involving a hook on a chain was a bit too mean-spirited to sit with the overall comic tone, I thought) but it’s a film that, above all, is trying to please. Scratch that... desperate to please.

Director Miguel Martí and star Macarena Gómez, who both attended the screening, have created a memorable character in the sexy killer herself. Bárbara, as she’s called, basically IS the film – a perkily psychotic college student who isn’t afraid to murder anyone (and almost everyone) who gets in her way. She’s the daughter of Serial Mom, in other words, and if you’re the one who runs over her dog or buys the dress she had her eye on, then... unlucky you.

There’s so much pandering in Sexykiller, however, I could almost taste the bamboo. It opens with locker-room nudity, a Scream parody, and an extended “Barbie Girl” fantasy sequence. Then there’s the autopsy-room grue, frat humour and, eventually, a sharp left turn into Night of the Creeps-style zombie comedy. I won’t say I didn’t laugh a few times, but I couldn’t have felt more like a target audience if there’d been big black circles drawn around me and arrows flying into my face. Which is about how subtle the film is.

Macarena Gómez herself was a big hit with the audience in the subsequent Q&A session, translating her director pal’s answers humorously and alternating between kissing audience members on the cheek and threatening them with a plastic gun. Asked about the film’s comedy element (or “elephant” if you want to describe its subtlety-level more accurately) she revealed that she’d tried to play Bárbara straight, which is probably why the character herself works within the film. It’s a little bit of a shame that the director didn’t show some similar restraint but, with a film so lively, colourful and eager to please, you can’t really criticize him for trying.

Rating: 3/5

Leeds International Film Festival: Quarantine & LV-16

2008-11-10T00:06:00.011Z

I’ve been busily attending the 22nd Leeds International Film Festival this week – always a reason for getting out of bed in November, thanks to the number of quality horror films shown (although if they do want to start coming round to my house and showing them in my bedroom, I won’t object... just bring your own popcorn, ’kay?). Top of the shocks for me so far this year has been Quarantine, the American remake of the year’s earlier Spanish film [REC], which as I’m sure you’re aware was a handycam mockumentary with a viral-outbreak theme. I liked [REC] well enough and, while I wasn’t craaaazy about it, I did think it was a solid piece of Blair Witchery that unfortunately lost me a bit around the hour-mark, when everything seemed to degenerate into people running around screaming and biting each other with the lights off.

Quarantine, which was rushed into production before [REC] was even released, involves a similar amount of partially-glimpsed nocturnal nibbling, but you know what? It’s all spelled out a little more clearly – which is no bad thing when your film juggles around 30 characters and takes place mostly in the dark. Quarantine also gives us more memorable moments – gimmick-shots, really, I suppose, like a scene where the camera smashes repeatedly into the face of a zombie-woman – but these all keep things interesting. Otherwise, 90 minutes of hand-held camerawork can get a tad exhausting.

Showing before Quarantine was a short film (okay, very short film) called LV-16, made as part of Zone Horror’s “Cut” competition by Ryan Haysom, but definitely able to stand on its own as a neat little video-nasty that got everyone in the mood for some grainy gut-munching. In it, a man finds himself in a CCTV-monitored holding cell with a plastic bag over his head and something very nasty happening in the corner. If I said any more, I’d run the risk of spoiling things, so I’ll just say that LV-16 is like the (non-funny) horror equivalent of a comedy sketch: instantly gripping, snappy and topped with a nice pay-off. Makes me wish there was such thing as a horror sketch show... Watch it HERE.

Shark in Venice

2008-11-06T12:26:00.007Z

I want to tell you that Shark in Venice is good. That it lives up to the promise of its title. That – I don’t know – it’s better than Shark Attack 2 or something.

I can’t.

It sucks.

Take a look at this scene from around halfway through, when Stephen Baldwin’s character is shark-attacked while diving in the canal:

I’m sure you noticed that Le Shark seemed to be having a good old chew on Stephen. There’s lots of blood in the water and, oh yeah, HIS LEG CAME OFF. Well, unfortunately, none of the producers seemed to notice this small detail because, in the very next scene, The Littlest Baldwin is happily walking around on two legs again.* Now, I’ve never lost a leg, thankfully, but I’m fairly certain they don’t grow back. At least, not by the next day.

[* There’s a possible suggestion that Baldwin dreamed this whole attack, but he was in the water and he does end up in hospital, so that doesn’t make any real sense either.]

It’s this kind of annoying detail – whether it’s bad editing or filmmaking-by-committee or whatever – that sums up Shark in Venice’s lack of effort in general. Interviewed in the DVD’s making-of featurette, the cast go on about how the movie’s just meant to be undemanding fun for the viewer. But, really... sloppy shark attacks consisting of nature footage, red filters, lots of splashing and incoherent clips from Shark Attack 2? Where’s the fun in that?

Anyway, on to the plot. Stephen Baldwin is – don’t laugh – Doctor David Franks, an oceanography professor with a permanently glazed expression and really bad dress sense. Seriously, it looks like the wardrobe department put in even less effort than the editor:

David is called to Venice, where his scuba diving father has apparently been killed in a “suspicious boating accident”. You know, the kind with teeth-marks. David correctly identifies the mangled mannequin as his dad and ~~goes on to the bonus round~~ vows to find out what really happened, with the help of girlfriend Laura, played by Scarlett Johansson’s sister Vanessa. What has all this got to do with (a) Mafia henchmen, (b) rogue sharks and (c) the Medici Treasure? Well, it turns out that (a) Mafia henchmen have released (b) rogue sharks to guard (c) the Medici Treasure. There you go. Someone saved your life tonight.... Well, 90 minutes of it, anyway. So don’t say I never do anything for you.

The problem with Shark in Venice – or, rather, the overriding problem – is that it just doesn’t care. Some digital compositors came up with this:

and this:

...so that the makers would have something to show to the investors and hopefully raise enough money to get a film made, and that’s where the interest in filmmaking stopped. As far as Venetian shark mayhem goes, the above scenes are literally everything you get. The budget didn’t even cover the costs of flying the principal cast members to Italy, so all you see is a shot of Stephen Baldwin pointing:

followed by a shaky camcorder shot of this:

Yes, Shark in Venice hates you. Do not watch it!

Rating: 1/5

You know you’re a slasher fan when...

2008-11-04T23:55:00.003Z

You think TCM stands for Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

You know what NOES, MBV and SPM stand for.

You write a post entitled “Happy Birthday to Me” whenever your horror blog has an anniversary.

You have a horror blog.

You wish other bloggers a “bloody birthday”.

You know which state Haddonfield is in.

You know what they did last summer.

You’ve seen Terror at Tenkiller.

You’ve heard of Terror at Tenkiller.

You enjoyed Terror at Tenkiller.

You can get from Holly Hunter to Jason Alexander in only one degree of separation.

You still know what they did last summer.

You got mad when Happy Birthday to Me was released on DVD with a new musical score.

You recently petitioned Lionsgate to reinstate My Bloody Valentine’s missing gore.

You know (and live by) Randy’s three rules.

You’ve seen Tom Hanks’ movie debut.

You know which films contain the raft massacre, the fishhook penetration and the subway stalking.

You don’t consider Scream to be the first ironic slasher.

You’ve seen more javelin-related murders than you have javelin-related sports events.

You’ll always know what they did last summer.

Switch Killer

2008-11-03T08:24:00.001Z

You have to worry about the sort of mind that watches a film like Transamerica and thinks, “What this needs is tits and gore”. It makes you wonder if there’s someone in the audience of every film thinking that. I mean, I love horror as much as the next horror-lover, but I can also make it through Mamma Mia! without expecting to hear the roar of a chainsaw any moment. (Wait a minute... what’s that buzzing?)

Nevertheless, someone was impressed enough by Transamerica, yet sufficiently unsatisfied with its gore quotient, to want to remake it horror-style. In its heart-warming tale of a transgendered father seeking his son’s acceptance, they saw bloody revenge and lots of naked pole-dancing. In short, they had a vision... A vision called Transamerican Killer! (Later retitled to Switch Killer, presumably because the buzz surrounding Transamerica had died down.)

That someone was writer-director Mack Hail, whom you might recognize as the man who played the killer in Nutbag, Nick Palumbo’s heavily-censored (in Britain) film about a serial murderer stalking Las Vegas. The adage “write what you know” proves true here because Hail’s script for Switch Killer again concerns a killer in Vegas, only this time the twist (and I think it’s actually meant to be a twist in the plot, though I’m not sure) is that this killer is a man in a dress. Look, you can see him/her hovering ominously in the background here:

Let’s back up a bit. Why is he in a dress? Simple. Obviously, he’s been rejected by his girlfriend, who left him for another woman, so naturally he sticks on a wig (because wigs can do anything, remember?), twins it with an evening gown, and sets off on a stripper-murdering frenzy on the streets of Sin City. And to think: Felicity Huffman got an Oscar nomination just for wearing a plastic cock.

All of this may make it sound as if Switch Killer spends most of its time in the company of gender-bending Bobby (for that is his name – the Bobby part, at least). This isn’t really true, however, as the main character is actually his former girlfriend, Jamie, played by Cara Jo Basso. As well as lesbian tendencies, Jamie also sports extensive eye shadow:

Focusing on a female victim thus nudges Switch Killer away from being another Nutbag-like piece of pure nastiness and further into slasher movie territory, as Jamie goes about her life unaware that her friends and colleagues are being stabbed to pieces all around her (and, in one instance, stabbed then hit by a train – unlucky!). Of course, Jamie and Bobby eventually cross paths again in time for the climax, when the bodycount triples in the space of a few minutes thanks to a clutch of unfortunate partygoers getting in the way, and Jamie discovers she’s quite handy with a chainsaw. (Now, if only there’d been one of those in Mamma Mia!)

You’re probably starting to sense that subtlety isn’t one of Switch Killer’s strong points. In fact, I suspect the makers would’ve called it Sex-Change Killer if they thought they could get away with it. But is the movie as offensive as it sounds? And, more importantly, is it any good?

Surprisingly... yes! This one’s single-handedly restored my faith in the modern low-budget slasher. Sure it’s cheap (some of the sets are terrible) but director Hail manages not to take it too seriously whilst also, crucially, not letting it descend into a complete joke. As a result, it’s sometimes damn funny. (I particularly liked the Casablanca remake that plays on TV and includes the line: “Get your ass on that plane!”) The gore is simple but reasonable, and made more effective by the fact that the kills themselves are well staged, again including some amusing dialogue. But, best of all, Switch Killer doesn’t feel like most of the despicably drossy shot-on-video efforts that have been kicking around since 1999. Instead, something about its bad fashions, largely adult cast, and lack of modern technology actually makes it seem a little more timeless, in the way of an 80s slasher.

The movie’s main flaw – albeit one that doesn’t spoil enjoyment – is that it’s not clear how obvious it’s supposed to be that Jamie’s stalker is actually her ex-boyfriend. Towards the end, it’s treated almost like a plot twist, despite having already been evident throughout, even to the extent that it was referenced in the title. But this is just one bum-note in an otherwise confident – and competent – black comedy/horror.

Rating: 3/5

Day 31: Sham Shocktober shortlist!

2008-10-31T00:10:00.007Z

Well, it’s been 31 days of blog, sweat and tears but finally Sham Shocktober has come to an end, shortly before my tether. As promised, I’ve previewed thirty different horror films over the last month, none of which I’ve actually seen... yet! Now, thanks to some inspirational user comments, I’ve decided which five I’m going to splurge some hard-earned PayPal funds on. So, credit crunch be damned, let the DVD-buying frenzy commence!

The movie: KILLER KLOWNS FROM OUTER SPACE
The reasoning: I’ve wanted to see this, like, forever anyway, but it was Jenn’s recommendation that finally sealed the deal: “This is one of those movies that I've seen probably a dozen times. It’s probably not worth that many viewings, but I can’t help myself!” How can one resist such fervour? Such passion? Such personal shame?!

The movie: BLACULA
The reasoning: Reader Stacia (of She Blogged By Night) is a connoisseur of classic Hollywood so I was quite surprised when she ’fessed up to a love of this infamous piece of 70s blaxploitation: “One of my favorite parts of Blacula is the opening animation sequence with the bat. It is absolute gold. You must see this!”... You know, I think I must!

The Movie: FUNERAL HOME
The reasoning: Guilt! Pure guilt on my part about calling its star Lesleh Donaldson “horribly named” – which is, in retrospect, a pretty mean thing to say, as one of her cousins pointed out. So, to support Lesleh, and because I recently found out she also starred in the slasher classics Curtains and Happy Birthday to Me, I’ve decided to go for Funeral Home. Oh, and did I mention it sounds freakin’ rad?!

The movie: SHOCK WAVES
The reasoning: “Shock Waves is awesome, and I’m glad you chose this one as an option. It’s pretty amazing, claustrophobic and just plain creepy. I say go for it!” So says Made for TV Mayhem-blogger and all-round horror journo extraordinaire, Amanda By Night. And I always aim to please, so consider it bought!

The movie: BEHIND THE MASK: THE RISE OF LESLIE VERNON
The reasoning: Wow! Mucho love for this one, with Reel Whore calling it “2nd only to Grindhouse for best 2007 horror” and Corey of Evil on Two Legs opining: “I envy your Leslie Vernon virginity. I love this movie so much... and soon (hopefully), so will you”. Well, I can’t wait to pop my BTM cherry and find out!

Tonight, however, it’s just me, a few friends and Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer. Happy Halloween, folks!

Day 30: Let's Scare Jessica to Death

2008-10-30T00:28:00.007Z

Sham Shocktober hasn’t been any kind of countdown, but I have saved the best for last. And tomorrow I’ll let you know which of Shocktober’s 30 suggestions have become my Top 5 must-see movies. To me, today’s choice is the Holy Grail of horror films I haven’t seen – the one I almost can’t believe I’ve never watched. Think about it: I’ve seen Cheerleader Massacre and yet I haven’t seen this? I’m clearly either (a) stupid, (b) stupid, (c) stupid, or (d) all of the above and stupid to boot. Anyway, if you haven’t worked it out by now – or read the post title – I’m talking about 1971’s Let’s Scare Jessica to Death.

Key to my fascination with Jessica is the fact that I know so little about it. Basically, I hear it’s creepy and it might have something to do with vampires... who knows? I actively avoid reading about the plot because I really don’t want to spoil anything. Anything at all. But it’s difficult to argue with reviews like these:

“To say it’s one of the best horror films ever made still wouldn’t do it justice” – Amanda By Night

“They really don’t make ’em like this anymore. I was mesmerized” – Final Girl

“Will linger in your consciousness for years to come” – DVD Drive-in

“Shamefully underrated” – Kim Newman (and that’s high praise indeed from this venerable horror expert)

So that’s why we might call Jessica the guts of Sham Shocktober, celebrating a month of classic horror I haven’t actually experienced. Behind the scenes, I’ve been frantically flogging unwanted DVDs on eBay, and tomorrow – yes, on Halloween itself, pumpkins – I’ll let you know which five of the thirty preceding movies I’ve decided to buy with my PayPal proceeds. Thanks for the help in choosing!

Day 29: The Crazies

2008-10-29T00:05:00.004Z

I’d love to be told The Crazies is a great film. Especially if it’s true. I consider George Romero to be The Maestro as far as zombie movies are concerned, but my enthusiasm doesn’t quite extend to anything else he’s done. The slow-paced Martin, for instance, left me cold, but I’d be prepared to give it another go with my now no-longer teenaged head on (that old teenage head might’ve had more hair on it but, damn, it got bored easily). I fared better with Creepshow and Monkey Shines, both of which were just weird and wacky enough to keep me entertained, but as for Romero’s dull contribution to the two-part anthology Two Evil Eyes... well, talk about your “dark half”. Wait, that’s also the name of the Stephen King novel he adapted in 1993! And that was so memorable I can’t remember anything about it.

The Crazies might be the closest George has got to the outbreak themes addressed in his brilliant Dead movies without making another all-out zombie flick. It concerns the effects of a malignant virus called Trixie (scary!) which, from the looks of things, turns the residents of a Pennsylvania town into CRAZIES – which is an acronym of “Creepy Rednecks Are Zombified In Every Scene” – and causes them to engage in all kinds of “crazy” behaviour. I’m not sure how crazy exactly, but Romero isn’t one to shy away from the violent and nasty so I doubt it’s anything like the sort referred to in those hilarious “You don’t have to be mad to work here – but it helps!” signs.

But how mad would you have to be to miss The Crazies?

Day 28: Nosferatu

2008-10-28T19:54:00.004Z

Amanda By Night quickly sniffed out the answer to today's riddle:

NOSE + FUR + R2 = NOSFERATU!

So, if we stick to our equations, that means: Nosferatu (1922) + Nosferatu (1979) = TWO more movies I've not seen! That's two potential classics, both quite highly regarded from the looks of things. And if we add them to Blacula, Ingrid Pitt and Bela Lugosi's Dracula, that's one rather large pile of Very Important Vamps I've never clapped eyes on.

Sorry, Amanda, there ain't no prize but I will point you in the direction of two fantastic free commentaries for that other classic vampire movie Fright Night, one featuring director Tom Holland with William Ragsdale, Stephen Geoffreys and FX Artist Randall William Cook, and the other with Tom Holland, Chris Sarandon and Jonathan Stark. There you go: it's the gift that keeps on giving! Well, if you listen to them repeatedly.

Day 28: Guess the movie

2008-10-28T00:04:00.001Z

Day 27: Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon

2008-10-27T00:02:00.005Z

Somehow, somehow, this recent-ish one managed to get away... Which is surprising because I’m usually all over a slasher movie that gets a half-decent review anywhere. As it happens, Behind the Mask has had plenty of favourable write-ups, but something must’ve been holding me back because I still haven’t seen it. Perfect stuff for Sham Shocktober, then.

My problem might be that it’s not immediately obvious from the reviews and publicity how far down the path of comedy this film goes. I mean, I heart comedy and I double-heart horror, but mixing the two doesn’t always produce hearty results (though you should never let anyone tell you that Haunted Honeymoon is anything less than a masterpiece).

From the sound of things, Behind the Mask follows, in documentary fashion, the preparations made by a wannabe serial killer for his big night of slaughter in a small town. We’ve seen film crews following psychos before (Man Bites Dog) and we’ve also seen comedic Jason Voorhees copycats (Freak Out) but a middle ground between those two movies is hard to imagine: the former is as bleak and nasty as they get, while the latter is so low-budget it would actually look like a documentary if it weren’t so silly.

So someone please tell me: what will I find when I look behind this mask?

Day 26: Dead Set

2008-10-26T00:39:00.009+01:00

Unless you harbour secret fantasies of graphically murdering Davina McCall, you’ve probably never seen her quite like this before. Admittedly, if you live outside the UK, you’ve probably never seen her before anyway, but Davina is famous for presenting Big Brother here for the last nine years. How has she ended up with a gaping jugular? Well, it’s all to do with a new five-part horror serial starting tomorrow night on E4. It’s called Dead Set and, seeing as it’s timed to coincide with Halloween, and seeing as I can’t wait to tune in, I’ve decided to make it my Sham Shocktober pick of the day.

Big Brother has long been accused of turning its viewers into mindless zombies but, in Dead Set, the whole of Britain has already succumbed to a zombie outbreak, with the only people not yet affected (and indeed blissfully unaware) being the remaining contestants holed up in the Big Brother house. Back up this satirical premise with the presence of Davina and the actual BB sets and you have what could be great TV, assuming the makers really go for the gory horror angle as well as the laughs (and, if the trailer is anything to go by, it looks like they do).

It’s been a while since British TV has tried its hand at straight horror but, with this and the forthcoming BBC shocker Apparitions, things are looking decidedly spooky this autumn. Check out Dead Set’s website here.

Day 25: Don’t Ring the Doorbell

2008-10-25T00:18:00.001+01:00

A large part of me wants to see 1978’s Don’t Ring the Doorbell because of its bizarre original name, The Mafu Cage. But another part of me thinks that’s one bad mafu-ing title. (The remaining portion just wants a drink and a lie down.)

Don’t Ring the Doorbell brings together Lee Grant and Carol Kane, who between them have five Oscar nominations and one win. So what they’re doing in a movie about incestuous lesbian sisters living in a monkey-filled mansion, I’m not sure. Neither is a stranger to the horror/slasher genre: Grant is a top final girl (and Anchorwoman In Peril!) in Visiting Hours, while Kane has been in more pseudo-slashers than anyone else I can think of, including the offbeat thriller When a Stranger Calls (and its more satisfying sequel); the previously name-dropped slasher satire Pandemonium; and the gory black comedy Office Killer.

Perhaps the actresses were going for a whole Baby Jane-type vibe. And, if that was the case, please remake it, girls! Thirty years down the line adds all kinds of interesting layers to a project like this. And ageing horror divas are so cool.

Day 24: The House of Seven Corpses

2008-10-24T00:29:00.008+01:00

Sometimes less is more. Rob Zombie’s House of 1,000 Corpses boasts 1K’s worth of cadavers but I can’t say I remember much about the movie. The House of Seven Corpses, on the other hand, makes a rather less spectacular claim, but I’m willing to bet that every one of those dead bodies makes a memorable appearance.

As usual, I don’t know too much about Ho7C’s, but I do know it’s about a film crew making a movie in a spooky mansion with a gruesome past. It stars John Carradine (but, then again, what doesn’t?) and also features Charles Macaulay, who appeared in one of my previous Sham Shocktober entries, Blacula, as Dracula... Confused yet?

Yes, it does all sound a little haphazard, mixing in murders, witchcraft, a haunted house and lots of film-within-a-film moments, but I’d always rather have too much going on in a movie as opposed to too little. Plus, The House of Seven Corpses has an irresistible bit of blurb on its DVD case that goes: “Now the crew’s biggest problem isn’t running out of film... IT’S RUNNING FOR THEIR LIVES!”

Yessiree, it’s written in a goofy red horror font and everything.

Day 23: Midnight Lace

2008-10-23T01:01:00.005+01:00

Sham Shocktober continues with a vintage woman-in-peril thriller that looks to be right up my fog-shrouded alley. It’s got telephone terrorization, mysterious voices in the night, Doris Day as a middle-aged final girl, and – fuck, yeah! – my favourite actor of all time, Roddy McDowall... It’s as if someone shone a projector through my brain and filmed what came out!

One thing that really appeals to me about Midnight Lace is a subplot mentioned by some reviewers involving the contrast between Doris Day’s old apartment block (complete with one of those scary “cage” elevators) and the new block being built nearby. Yeah, I know, sounds thrilling, but bear with me... The architect responsible seems to be one of the men suspected of stalking Doris, and I’m hoping she’ll have to do some snooping around the place. Y’see, the notion of “evil buildings” has always intrigued me ever since I first saw Ghostbusters; while some films (like the Toolbox Murders remake) play fast and loose with the idea, others achieve some really creepy stuff with their empty apartments and mysteriously rearranged architecture (think Rosemary’s Baby and Hysteria).

At the very least, who doesn’t love a good Gaslight-style paranoia piece? And with the quality of this cast (which also includes Rex Harrison, Myrna Loy and John Gavin) I doubt I’ll come away disappointed. I just hope Rex doesn’t sing.

Sham Shocktober update

2008-10-23T00:13:00.007+01:00

Snippets, news nuggets, “snuggets”... call ’em what you will... As Day 23 of Sham Shocktober looms (with a little-known gem of a movie choice, I assure you) AiP is taking a quick time-out to post a few short thoughts.

ITEM! Remember I was going on about The Literary Six the other day? Turns out that its author, Vince Liaguno, has a blog called Slasher Speak, the masthead of which alone is enough to send any slasher fan into an all-out geek fit. It’s snarky and intelligent and makes me all the more enthusiastic about reading his novel. (Check out his interesting take on Jeepers Creepers if you don’t know where to start.)

LINK! Need to practise your voting ahead of the big election? The 1980s Slasher Cup is underway (I know this because cool kid Amanda By Night clued me in via her awesomely awesome blog) so visit daily and pick your favourite slasher from the two suggested. Together we can identify the Best Ever 80s Slasher! And maybe even make the world a better place.

PLEA! Until recently, AiP had six official followers (see right) but now one of them has apparently deserted... Was it something I said? Come back! I can change!

D’OH! Why is it that I can’t seem to post comments at Retro Slashers?

Day 22: The Black Belly of the Tarantula

2008-10-22T00:40:00.008+01:00

Due to the fact that the Italians produced more gialli in the 1970s than they did gelati, it wasn’t difficult to come up with one I hadn’t seen for Sham Shocktober. Other strong contenders were The Case of the Scorpion’s Tail and Seven Bloodstained Orchids, but The Black Belly of the Tarantula won out simply because it mixes in another horror movie staple I love... Spiders.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: spiders make a film scarier. Halloween, you say? Okay, remember the scene where Michael Myers has Jamie Lee Curtis cornered in a closet? Well, just imagine that, as she frantically searches for something to defend herself with, her hand closes around – not the comforting cold steel of a wire hanger – but the hairy legs of a giant spider! Argh!! She’d be out of that closet and jumping into the arms of a soulless boogeyman quicker than you could say “Rob Zombie remake”. (And, if Rob Zombie did remake it, I’m sure we’d find out all about the spider’s past, why it was in the closet, and how its mom was a stripper.)

Anyway, in The Black Belly of the Tarantula, a killer is stalking a health spa, paralyzing his victims with spider venom before gruesomely slicing them up. There’s sleaze, gore, Giancarlo Giannini, three Bond girls... and, above all, there’s spiders. Scary!

Day 21: Shock Waves

2008-10-21T00:25:00.003+01:00

Gee, it’s so hard reviewing films you haven’t seen... I’m glad Sham Shocktober comes but once a ~~year~~ lifetime. On the one hand, I want to find out enough about the movie in question to have something to tell you about; on the other, I don’t want to know so much that I end up spoiling it for myself. But on the other hand (which is actually my left foot disguised with a glove) there’s only ten days of Sham Shocktober left, so let’s just bite the bullet and turn to... SHOCK WAVES!

I’ve actually already seen a few scenes from Shock Waves because its director, Ken Weiderhorn, had the cheek to sneak them into his later film, Eyes of a Stranger, where they play on a TV in the background (and sometimes foreground). Eyes of a Stranger is a pretty good slasher, and a favourite at AiP due to the fact that its heroine is an Anchorwoman In Peril. The clips from Shock Waves aren’t bad, either: the movie is obviously low budget but, even in miniature doses, some of its imagery looks quite striking.

The whole “underwater zombies” theme is one that has yet to be fully exploited by the genre, and yet it makes such sense. Where else do zombies – who don’t need to breathe, remember – have such a home-field advantage over their non-shambling human counterparts? I don’t know if Shock Waves features any underwater chase scenes, but I hope it does. If not, there’s always George Romero’s next film, reputed also to feature waterlogged zombies, to look forward to...

Day 20: The Literary Six

2008-10-20T18:03:00.001+01:00

OMG! How unpredictable, original and thrilling am I? You were all like, “Whoa, I wonder what movie’s coming next in Anchorwoman In Peril’s stupendously awesome Sham Shocktober list”... But guess what? Number 20 isn’t a film at all. It’s like totally a novel! ’Scuse me while I blow... your... MIND!

I’ve seen a lot of slasher movies (although not yesterday’s Funeral Home) but, unless you count Christopher Pike, I don’t think I’ve read too many books that could be considered slashers. I guess the rather simple formula doesn’t easily lend itself to the expanded format of a novel, where things like characterization and motivation are usually a little more thoroughly discussed. Still, it’s an intriguing concept, and Vince A. Liaguno’s The Literary Six, which looks to be a conscious attempt to translate the genre to the page, is getting some pretty good reviews.

It’s set, naturally, on the remote island of Shelter Rock, where six former college friends have gathered to relive their exploits as a bitchy campus clique at the mansion home of one of their number, who’s now a bestselling author. Before you can say “vengeful killer”, a storm has cut off the island and the friends are disappearing one by one at the hands of a mysterious figure from their past. Will they survive this Savage Weekend? Or will it be Curtains for them all? I don’t know! And I can’t think of any more slasher title-related puns, either!

So there you go. I’ve done movies, I’ve done TV shows and I’ve done books... Tune in tomorrow when Sham Shocktober reviews your MOM!

View of Terror

2008-10-19T21:07:00.008+01:00

With Shannen Doherty back in the public eye again (and, shockingly, not for throwing beer bottles) I thought it high time to dig out one of her TV movies from the wilderness years between her exit from Charmed and recent comeback with 90210. And you know what? I liked it! I’m also not alone in this possible delusion, as a surprising number of people have also left positive user comments at the IMDb. Yes, it seems that 2003’s View of Terror (aka Nightlight) just isn’t bad at all. Either that, or Shannen’s been at it with the threats again.

Both sides, huh? Guess that’s why they call it a window!

Like many a post-Rear Window voyeurism thriller, this one begins with a view through a telescope. Someone’s spying on the residents of a New York apartment building and, in particular, a beautiful female resident with some lovely lingerie but, unfortunately, no curtains. The next thing we know, she’s been tied up and left to flambé in a burning apartment, as her mysterious stalker disappears with a whispered “Sleep tight, babydoll...”

SHOCK CUT! to Shannen Doherty, reaching out her hand to grab hold of a large cock...atiel. I’m not sure if this is actually meant to be a shock cut or it’s just a clumsy one but, either way, the terror of the previous scene abruptly gives way to a shot of Shannen fingering her feathered friend – which we learn is a beloved pet that goes by the name of “Kitty”. Irony? I don’t know. But I do know that pets never fare well in stalker movies, and I’ll be surprised if Kitty makes it to the final reel without ending up as cockatiel chasseur.

Flambé... Chasseur... Those cooking classes are really paying off! Anyway, Shannen’s in the middle of bit of a domestic hoo-hah, breaking up with her boyfriend (Michel Francoeur) on the grounds that he’s always starting fights. (Again with the irony, Ms Anger Management!) In retrospect, it’s not the best plan, as not only is she left without a seriously hunky boyfriend but also – oops – a home. Enter her best friend and business partner, Tasha (Jayne Heitmeyer), who pulls a few strings with the building manager and gets her a place across the road in the ominously named (not really!) Sommer Building.

But wait a minute, this new apartment looks familiar. We’ve seen – or rather not seen – its dire lack of curtains somewhere before. Could this be the place formerly owned by the ill-fated exhibitionist from the pre-credits sequence? You bet your spied-upon ass it is! Soon the telescope is back, the threatening phone calls have begun, and Shannen’s starting to regret signing a one-year lease. Oh, watch out Kitty!

As TV-made suspense flicks go, View of Terror is no Someone’s Watching Me! but then it’s not directed by a young John Carpenter. It suffers from the common TV-movie affliction of having good ideas that only get developed as far as the next commercial break. (For instance, there’s a great scene where Tasha decides bring the voyeur out of hiding by performing a seductive striptease in front of her window. Does it work? Who knows, but I can tell you that Peugeot is the drive of your life.™) Similarly, the stalker’s predilection for giving his victims Saw-style “rules” to abide by is never really explored. Despite this, the plot works and even manages to feel like it’s throwing in some new twists.

I liked it that Shannen’s friend, Tasha, is seen both helping her and going behind her back when it suits, like when she sets her sights on Shannen’s boyfriend (y’know, like how people act in real life). It’s actually a shame Tasha’s absent for much of the second half. For once, the police also take our heroine’s fears seriously when she goes to them with her story, but it’s the legal complications that end up making them ineffective. These are simple touches, but they work towards making View of Terror that little bit more believable.

Not that you necessarily want a Lifetime movie to be enormously believable when it comes to providing some decent thrills, but you do want it to be thrilling. And View of Terror manages this and feels so rewatchable that I’d even consider buying the DVD. A few more like this, Shannen, and you can flip ’em the finger when they ask you to star in that next-generation Charmed spin-off circa 2014. Just don’t throw anything, ’kay?

Rating: 3/5

Day 19: Funeral Home

2008-10-19T00:01:00.005+01:00

Authentic 80s slasher movies I haven’t seen are few and far between, so that’s why Funeral Home is a definite addition to the Sham Shocktober calendar. From the looks of things, it’s a little more complex than the straight slasher formula of “Teens + Remote Location + Killer” (thus moving it more towards the horror-thriller end of the slasher spectrum) but let’s not split hairs. I simply can’t afford to get picky where unseen retro-slashers are concerned, or I’ll have nothing left to look forward to at all.

Lesleh Donaldson plays Heather, a young woman who, according to the blurb, “helps her grandmother convert the town funeral home into a bed-and-breakfast inn”... Isn’t that just lovely? They could reopen as Dead & Breakfast or perhaps the Mortuary Motel. My only worry is that the town will be left without a funeral home, but hopefully somewhere there’s a young woman helping her grandmother convert an old hotel into one... because the last thing you need when there’s a killer on the loose is nowhere to put the bodies (just ask Michael Myers).

It all sounds like a good backdrop for a horror film, anyhow, but it’ll have to be pretty amazing to replace Mortuary Academy as my favourite funeral home-themed movie of all time.

Day 18: Three Extremes

2008-10-18T00:44:00.006+01:00

Extremes. If there’s one word that sums up the whole point of horror fiction, that might just be it. Great horror lurks around the limits of what we can endure, understand and survive, daring us not to turn away when confronted with the worst possible scenario.

So, why do I want to see Three Extremes? Number one: it’s a portmanteau movie and portmanteau movies rule. Some horror stories don’t need to be 90-minute features; they need to be short and snappy in order to be shocking (even the 60-minute Masters of Horror TV episodes sometimes feel too long). Secondly, it’s from Asia, a filmmaking region that operates well outside the restrictions and conventions of Hollywood, so who knows what extremes it’ll get up to? And, number three: the trio of short films have creepy and intriguing names – “Dumplings”, “Box” and “Cut”.

Reading about Three Extremes, I’m reminded of “Imprint”, an episode of Masters of Horror that features some pretty extreme material, both in the subjects it explores and the images it presents. It’s also my favourite episode. I mean, it’s nasty. On paper, the plot sounds pretty ludicrous but, believe me, in execution, it just keeps getting more horrific. It’s also from Takashi Miike, who directs Three Extreme’s “Box” segment.

Just call me extremely interested.

Day 17: The Vampire Lovers

2008-10-17T00:45:00.004+01:00

I’m not a huge fan of vampire movies, and neither am I the type to lust after luscious ladies. In fact, you could even say I’m gay and I hate vampires. Therefore, I’m not sure what I think I’m going to get out of the lesbian-themed erotic horror film, The Vampire Lovers. I certainly don’t think that its famous scene of Ingrid Pitt chasing Madeleine Smith naked around a bed is going to do much for me. But still... it’s one of the last “big” Hammer films I’ve left to see, and I’m all for equal-opportunity bloodsucking.

For once, it can’t be said that Hammer added all the sex and sensationalism to a story themselves; by all accounts, the lesbian angle is pretty apparent in Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s source novel, Carmilla. Indeed, when the British Board of Film Censors objected to it, Hammer simply pointed out that the subtext had been there all along – in a piece of classical literature, no less – and, however surprisingly, the censors backed down.

I think it’s this rebel streak that appeals to me about The Vampire Lovers. That and the warning on the poster that it’s “not for the mentally immature”. Perhaps I’m not ready for it yet, after all.

Day 16: Cameron's Closet

2008-10-16T00:11:00.006+01:00

So, yesterday we talked about Howling sequels, a few of which, it turns out, use elements of Gary Brandner’s source novel more faithfully than the original Joe Dante film. Well, it also turns out that, while Brandner wasn’t involved in the screenplay of The Howling, he did write the script for another 80s horror movie – and that movie was 1988’s Cameron’s Closet.

As with a lot of horror films I’ve long harboured an urge to see, my fascination with this one stems back to staring up in awe at the poster in the video store window when I was a kid. (It looked something like the sleeve art to the left, although what language that’s in, I’m not quite sure). Around then, I watched plenty of videos but they were the ones my mum brought home, and tended not to be horror. Or, if they were, they’d be of the tamer variety, like Poltergeist III. Somehow, although I was obsessed with horror films, it never really occurred to me to pester her to bring home a nasty one once in a while. To me, horror was the stuff I stayed up late for on Friday nights (Hammer films if it was BBC1; cheesy monster movies if it was Channel 4). The contemporary stuff looked even better – lurid-looking movies with colourfully gruesome posters and titles like Kindred, The Bite and Pin – but I’d sort of resigned myself to waiting until I was old enough to rent them myself.

Anyway, that’s all I can really base my desire to see Cameron’s Closet on. It’s only today that I actually looked it up on the IMDb and found out what it’s about, and it sounds a bit ropey to be honest. Damn, that poster was cool, though.

Day 15: Howling V: The Rebirth

2008-10-15T00:11:00.004+01:00

What do you get if you cross an Agatha Christie-style country house mystery with a werewolf horror movie? Well, actually, you get 1974’s The Beast Must Die, a campy Amicus outing starring Peter Cushing, complete with a “werewolf break” to give you time to guess the identity of the marauding killer. If you want to get today’s Sham Shocktober film, Howling V, you probably need to chuck in some 80s-style rubber creature effects. At least, that’s what I’m hoping, anyway, because nothing peps up a good murder mystery than some toothy monster masks.

Howling V is set in Budapest, in a centuries-old castle where various parties have gathered to – I don’t know, actually... pad out the number of suspects, I guess. Because the guest list is rapidly dwindling and one amongst them is not only a killer, but a hairy wolverine pest.

I adore Joe Dante’s original The Howling. I think it’s unique in its melding of modern and mythical – not to mention innovative, funny and actually disturbing in places. Of the many sequels, the only ones I’ve seen are Part 2 (surely the nadir of Christopher Lee’s entire career) and Part 6 (which isn’t too bad), but this is the one whose plot really appeals to me. While the Wikipedia entry makes it sound like Citizen Kane or something, I’ll be happy if it just manages to be a furrier take on April Fool’s Day.

Day 14: Dragonwyck

2008-10-14T00:07:00.003+01:00

If Hitchcock’s Rebecca is a spooky film about a haunted marriage, Dragonwyck looks to be an all-out gothic horror movie about said subject. Gene Tierney stars as Son Goku, a monkey-tailed boy on a quest to recover seven magical artefacts known as— Oops, no, sorry, that’s Dragon Ball... Dragonwyck is more concerned with family curses, locked rooms and mysterious deaths. It was on BBC2 recently and I missed it. I’m a dummy.

Like several of the unseen films I’ve mentioned this Sham Shocktober, Dragonwyck (1946) has carved out a little niche in my mind thanks to its evocative title. It was made at a time when Vincent Price could still be regarded as a romantic lead – albeit a sinister one – and I bet he excels. I’ve seen him in the same year’s Shock, in which he plays a murderous doctor, and his suave menace was hard to shake. I’m guessing Dragonwyck plays on this same quality.