THE RETURN (1980) * ½

When Cybill Shepherd was a small girl, she saw a UFO fly over a hick New Mexico town.  Cybil grows up to be a scientist, and while she’s on the road researching extraterrestrial phenomenon, she winds up in the same little town twenty-five years later.  With the help of a drunk deputy (Jan-Michael Vincent), who just so happened to see the same UFO way back when, they try to get to the bottom of some cattle mutilations that’s spooking the local residents.  Eventually, they realize they’ve been brought together for a reason.

Directed by Greydon (Final Justice) Clark and co-written by Ken and Jim Wheat (who would later go on to write Pitch Black), The Return was riding on the coattails of the UFO craze of the late ‘70s as it touches on everything from alien abduction to cattle mutilation.  It also blatantly rips off other, better movies from the era.  The spaceship looks a lot like the one in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and one character brandishes a sawed-off version of a lightsaber. 

Because the Good Ol’ Boy genre was still in effect, there’s also a gratuitous car chase in the early going to pad out the running time and cater to the rednecks in the audience.  It’s not a terrible scene, but Clark uses way too much slow motion throughout the rest of the picture.  I guess he was trying to disguise how little action there really was.  Either that, or he was trying to draw things out until he got the movie to ninety minutes.

The Return starts off well enough, but it gets downright laborious in the middle section.  That wouldn’t have really mattered if Clark rallied the troops together for a big finale.  Instead, he delivers a damned Irritating non-ending that’s just downright insulting.  I mean the aliens wait twenty-five year to collect Vincent and Shepherd only to… drop them back off again?   What the hell?

Shepherd was only four years removed from Taxi Driver and she was already slumming in a Greydon Clark movie.  Vincent looks like he’s going the Method acting route during the scenes where he’s drinking six packs.  It’s nice when you can stay in character by staying drunk.  I guess he was trying to make up for the fact he had zero chemistry with Shepherd. 

The two leads aren’t much to write home about, but the supporting cast is kind of fun.  Martin Landau (who was also in Clark’s Without Warning) is kind of funny as the sheriff who tries to dunk his donut in his beer.  You can also have a ball watching Raymond Burr sleepwalking through his role as Cybill’s dad (and boss) as he apparently used a teleprompter to deliver his lines (and it shows).  Although I can’t recommend it by a longshot as it is dreadfully dull and mostly stupid, I insist that if you ever wanted to see Vincent Schiavelli stab Neville Brand through the face with a lightsaber, then you came to the right place.

Clark also has a cameo as one of Schiavelli’s victims. 

AKA:  The Alien’s Return.

SCREAM AND STREAM AGAIN: THE LAST REVENANTS (2017) * ½

(Streamed via Halloween Flix)

A virus is on the verge of wiping out vampires for good.  Faced with extinction, the last four sexy vampire women on the planet turn to a scientist for help.  Her plan is to develop a serum that will allow them to give birth to half-human babies.  However, she just might have her own ulterior motives for conducting her experiments. 

Directed by Jim (Blood Reunion) DeVault, The Last Revenants has a good idea, but the shoestring budget prevents it from realizing its potential.  I know making a low budget horror movie is a difficult endeavor, but you’d think they’d at least spring for better lighting.  Or use the takes in which the actors didn’t flub their lines.  Or edit out the bit where you can hear the director yell, “ACTION!”

The opening scene works pretty well though.  Elissa Dowling gives a guy a rub n’ tub massage before biting his neck.  I especially liked the fact she waited until AFTER he was dead to mount him and ball his brains out.  After that, the fun dries up fast and you’re left with a rather dull low budget vampire flick.

The sepia-toned flashbacks were really unnecessary too.  They eat up a lot of screen time and help pad out the running time.  I’m not sure we really needed them as they do very little to flesh out the characters’ backstories.  If they had been excised entirely, it would’ve made for a much tighter film.

Jim Wynorski was originally going to direct the film but was fired when he wanted to play up the sexy aspects of the story.  I can only imagine how much better the movie would’ve been with him at the helm.  The skin quotient is also low, and the lesbian vampire scenes are halfhearted at best.  I can easily imagine Wynorski tossing in a couple of gratuitous sex scenes to give this a reason to exist.  At least he would’ve brought a sense of fun to the proceedings.  As it is, it’s a somber, sluggish crawl to the end credits. 

Well folks, that’s about it for The 31 Days of Horror-Ween.  I’ll be sure to continue watching and reviewing more horror reviews well into November as all month long it will be Halloween Hangover.  Stay tuned and stay sick because there’s a lot more horror reviews to come!

THE HAUNTING (1999) *

The Haunting is Jan de Bont’s artistically inept, ludicrously overblown, and perpetually boring remake of the 1963 Robert Wise classic.  After the one-two punch of Speed and Twister, de Bont made Speed 2, this, and Tomb Raider back-to-back-to-back.  After that triple header of turkeys, he rightfully hasn’t sat in a director’s chair again.  Remember how bad Speed 2 was?  Well, this one is even worse!  It was so bad that even executive producer Steven Spielberg took his name off it.

Like Twister, it’s all special effects and no real human drama.  Take away the CGI (which isn’t very good to begin with) and you have a lot of boring people sitting around and doing boring things.  What’s amazing is that all the actors are genuinely fine performers, just not in this movie.  Lili Taylor seems to be doing a parody of her usual Lili Taylor schtick (there’s a reason she mostly appears in small indie dramas and not big-budget tentpole releases), Owen Wilson acts like he had amnesia and is trying to figure out how to be Owen Wilson again, and Liam Neeson smiles absentmindedly and appears aloof, almost as if he’s mentally calculating how much cash he’s raking in on that Qui-Gon Jinn action figure deal.

The biggest guffaws come from watching Catherine Zeta-Jones vamp it up.  She overacts to hysterical proportions as the horny bisexual of the group.  How dumb do you have to be to cast Zeta-Jones in a once-in-a-lifetime role of a horny bisexual and then you put her in a crappy CGI PG-13 horror remake?  Why couldn’t you have put her in a ‘90s erotic thriller playing the same character?  Her character belongs in Jade 2.  Not a remake of the goddamned Haunting. 

The house is the real star though.  It’s a marvel of Hollywood set construction and certainly looks great.  That’s the problem.  It almost looks like a parody of your typical haunted house.  It’s like the Haunted Mansion ride on steroids.  De Bont obviously didn’t get the message that bigger isn’t necessarily better.

You all know the story, right?  Neeson gets everyone to the house to study their dreams or some shit, but really, he wants to see how they’ll react to being inside a haunted house.  Generally, they act just like anyone would when confronted with ghosts and shit.  So, what’s the point?

From the stupid CGI ghost children that crawl under bedsheets to the giant swinging lion head plume that decapitates people, the set pieces range from yawn-inducing to eye-rolling.  The “feel good” ending is the fucking worst though, and the final big bad ghost is so shitty, it makes the “Darkness” monster from the House on Haunted Hill remake look like the Thing in comparison.

CLEANING OUT THE DVR: THE BYE BYE MAN (2017) ** ½

(DVR’ed from Showtime 2 on March 23, 2018 during a Showtime free preview weekend)

Back in the mid ‘90s, Stacy Title directed the star-studded cult flick The Last Supper.  For whatever reason, she was never able to really capitalize on her early promise.  Other than directing the dreadful Snoop Dogg’s Hood of Horrors, she hasn’t done a whole lot since.  At least she was able to grind a paycheck out of this moderately entertaining, competent, but generic PG-13 horror flick.

College student Elliot (Douglas Smith) buys a house for dirt cheap and fixes it up with the help of his girlfriend (Cressida Bonas) and best bud (Lucien Laviscount).  They soon learn it’s haunted by the sinister figure known as “The Bye Bye Man” (Doug Jones) who gets inside their heads and messes with their minds.  Eventually, they can’t trust their own eyes as the Bye Bye Man puts images in their brains and tries to make them commit murder.

Even though this is all rather bloodless PG-13 horror stuff, Title tries her darnedest to keep you engaged.  She uses a lot of camera movements and long takes to help put the audience in the character’s shoes.  I’ll take that over a bunch of ill-advised jump scares any day.  The green-tinged cinematography also helps to saturate the film in a deathly pall, even if they kind of go overboard with it at some junctures.

There is a kernel of an interesting idea here.  If you say the Bye Bye Man’s name aloud to someone, they too will be driven insane by his visions.  It’s a subtle metaphor for teenagers who are afraid to talk about their problems, and the more they keep it bottled up inside, the worse it becomes.

While it’s a potentially potent idea, the film is pretty much undone by the weak villain.  I mean he’s just a tall pasty dude wearing a hoodie.  Those guys are a dime a dozen.  Jones has played some memorable monsters before, but unfortunately, this is not one of them.

Smith, Laviscount, and Bonas make for a solid trio.  They’re certainly more likeable than most of their PG-13 horror movie counterparts, that’s for sure.  We also get some extended cameos by name stars like Carrie-Anne Moss, Faye Dunaway, and Leigh Whannel, although they don’t really stick around for too long.

It’s Jenna (Terrifier) Kanell who makes the biggest impression as the sexy psychic who holds a séance at her friends’ housewarming party.  You know, when you’re doing seances in your new home the first night you have company, you’re just asking for trouble.  Next time maybe play Scattergories or something. 

SCREAM AND STREAM AGAIN: BLOODMANIA (2017) * ½

(Streamed via Watch Free Flix)

Bloodmania was the final directing effort of Herschell Gordon Lewis, the man who invented the modern-day gore film with Blood Feast.  I don’t know if co-directing and hosting a no-budget horror anthology movie was exactly how he wanted to go out, as it’s nowhere near the same league as his classics (or even the latter-day Blood Feast 2).  Even if his segments aren’t very good, I guess they aren’t bad for a ninety-year-old.  He’s clearly having a ball during his Crypt Keeper-style introductions to each story, which accounts for something at least. 

The first tale is Lewis’s “Gory Story” (* ½).  A loser finds out his girlfriend is cheating on him.  When he tries to kill her with a chainsaw, he accidentally cuts his own hand off.  He then goes around sporting a hook and finds out the hard way it’s cursed. 

Gory Story has a one-joke premise:  The dude keeps accidentally stabbing himself with the hook.  It’s not very funny, but at least the gore is over the top.  You know, when Lewis did this sort of thing in the ‘60s it all had a sense of humor, some style, and a lot of low budget ingenuity.  This unfortunately plays like your typical bad shot-on-video horror-comedy.  If it had been just a lot of gory shit for the sake of gory shit, it might’ve been okay.  However, it suffers from an awkward structure and the stupid newscasts eat up way too much time (and get in the way of the gore). 

“Attack of Conscience” (*) is the next story.  A woman goes for a drive with her unbalanced fiancée who purposefully crashes the car and sends her into a coma.  There, she perpetually lives out (and dies from) more horrible deaths at the hands of her lover. 

Like Gory Story, this chapter suffers from a crummy structure.  It could’ve played like a half-assed variation of Happy Death Day, but it’s all done in such an annoyingly vague way that it almost immediately becomes frustrating.  The shitty CGI is also an uneasy fit alongside the cut-rate practical gore effects. 

The next tale is “The Night Hag” (**).  A bickering couple are killed by something living inside their walls.  A new family buys the house and moves in, only to come face to face with the feral cannibal woman who secretly resides within the walls. 

This story was also done by Lewis, and it suffers from weird tonal shifts.  The early scenes play out like a comedy, complete with a sitcom laugh track.  The stuff with the new family is played mostly straight, and it’s sort of effective.  I liked the scene where the husband takes a sleeping pill which induces sleep paralysis, rendering him unable to fend off the night hag’s advances.  Too bad the ending is fucking terrible. 

They saved the best (relatively speaking) for last with GOREgeous (**).  It tells the story of a former rocker named Gordo who gets his kicks by chopping up women with a samurai sword.  He gets a gig managing an all-girl rock band and quickly sets out to make them his next victims. 

GOREgeous ain’t great, but it’s coherent, fast moving, and doesn’t wear out its welcome.  It’s also packed with lots of nudity, which makes it the best story by default.  Although it’s pretty cheesy stuff, it does contain the world’s first treadmill chase scene.  There’s also a funny swordfight, but instead of swords, they use guitars.

Although Bloodmania ended Gordon’s career with a whimper, it’s still far from his worst film.  Anyone interested in the legendary director will be sure to stumble upon it at some point.  Just try to watch his classics first.

POLTERGEIST 3 (1988) **

Carol Anne (Heather O’Rourke) gets pawned off on her Aunt Pat (Nancy Allen) and Uncle Bruce (Tom Skerritt) and goes to stay with them in their big-ass skyscraper in Chicago.  It doesn’t take long for the demented Reverend Kane (Nathan Davis, a poor substitute for Julian Beck) to come looking for Carol Anne as he once again needs her to guide him “into the light”.  With the help of Tangina (Zelda Rubinstein), Pat and Bruce buckle down to go to the other side to find Carol Anne.

Everyone always talks about “The Poltergeist Curse” because of the deaths of many actors in the franchise.  This is the one most clearly affected by the curse since poor little Heather O’Rourke died during the making of the movie.  Because of that, a terrible pall hangs over the entire film.  Even if she had lived, Poltergeist 3 would’ve still been a lame sequel.  Since she died, it just adds an unpleasant air to the proceedings. 

Let’s talk about the good stuff first.  I really dig Tom Skerritt and Nancy Allen in this.  While Craig T. Nelson and JoBeth Williams are sorely missed, Skerritt and Allen have their own brand of chemistry that makes their scenes together fun to watch.  It’s just a shame they were stuck in a crappy Poltergeist sequel.  I also enjoyed a young Lara Flynn Boyle (in her film debut) as their spunky daughter. 

This is also the slickest looking film in the franchise.  Gone is the soft-focus Spielbergian feel of the first two movies.  The sleek, polished look compliments the skyscraper setting and helps to give this entry its own distinct vibe.  We also get a WTF moment when Boyle bursts through a husk of Rubinstein that qualifies as the flick’s lone oddball set piece.

That’s about it.

The big problem is that director Gary Sherman (who also directed the classic Vice Squad) only has one trick up his sleeve:  Mirror bullshit.  People look at their reflection and see something happening in the mirror before it happens in real life and/or a ghost that can only be seen in the mirror and not beside them.  That’s it.  This gag gets old fast and Sherman hammers it mercilessly into the ground even before the first act draws to a close. 

Seriously, you won’t want to look at a mirror for a week after you watch this.  Not because you’ll be scared.  You’ll just be sick of seeing mirrors. 

The ending is also hard to watch.  It feels rushed, almost as if it was hastily rewritten after O’Rourke’s death.  It’s also awfully anticlimactic.  The fact that they used a painfully obvious double for O’Rourke doesn’t help matters either.

The worst part of the movie though is the gratuitous shrink character played by Richard Fire.  He has got to be the most unlikeable, grating, annoying asshat to ever appear in a major horror franchise sequel.  I know he’s supposed to be the guy you love to hate, but he is so delusional, arrogant, condescending, and moronic that you just want to punch his stupid face every time he shows up.  Most of the blame should be diverted to Sherman and his co-writer Brian Taggert (who also wrote Wanted:  Dead or Alive with Sherman) for shamelessly stacking the deck against him and piling on repulsive trait after repulsive trait.  Fire was obviously a much better writer than actor as he also wrote the classic Henry:  Portrait of a Serial Killer.

POLTERGEIST 2: THE OTHER SIDE (1986) ** ½

For decades, it’s been hotly debated who really directed Poltergeist.  Was it the credited director, Tobe Hooper who was responsible for the horror classic?  Or was it producer Steven Spielberg who was calling the shots all along?  We may never really know.  One thing is for sure though.  We know who directed Poltergeist 2:  The Other Side, and it was… uh… Brian (What’s Love Got to Do with It?) Gibson.  I mean, he’s not exactly Spielberg, is he?  Heck, he’s no Tobe Hooper!

So, basically what we have here is a Poltergeist movie without any input from Spielberg or Hooper.  As such, it’s about what you’d expect.  The family (minus Dominque Dunne, who is conveniently forgotten about) returns, and their chemistry together helps to carry the film over a lot of the hiccups and stupid shit that occurs.  JoBeth Williams and Craig T. Nelson are still as fun as ever to watch together (the scene where they contend with the insurance company over the house in the first film is pretty funny), and Oliver Robins and Heather O’Rourke also do a fine job as the kids.

The real star is Richard Edlund, who did the special effects.  

The film has a couple of strong set pieces to keep it from falling into the usual sequel trap.  The scene where Robins is attack by haywire dental work will freak out anyone who ever wore braces, but the real showstopper is the Tequila Vomit Monster (who was designed by none other than H.R. Giger).  This sucker gave me nightmares as a kid and showed me at a young age the dangers of drinking.  Why they show stupid filmstrips in health class and not this scene, I’ll never know.  To this day, I haven’t swallowed the worm yet, and I have this movie to thank for it.

This time out, the family goes to stay with Williams’ mother.  When she croaks, the supernatural shit starts up again.  The poltergeist sort of manifest themselves in the shape of a creepy old preacher named Kane (Julian Beck) who wants poor little Carol Anne (O’Rourke) to guide them into the light once again.  It’s up to a wise old Native American (Will Sampson) to help the family and drive away the evil spirits.

The Native American mumbo jumbo really cuts into the action.  Did we need the powwow scene where Sampson sits around the campfire and lets a bunch of ghosts fly up his nose?  Or the long scenes where he and Nelson go and do some half-assed men’s retreat?  Sampson is not a bad actor, but his character just feels totally gratuitous.  He’s also a poor substitute for Zelda Rubinstein, who once again appears as the pint-sized psychic, although she isn’t given a whole lot to do. 

While the film is slow to start off, it quickly switches gears and begins to feel rushed.  The ending is a real shitshow.  The scenes of the family flying around definitely feels like Gibson trying to out-Spielberg Spielberg, but it just comes off as embarrassing.  Apparently, the studio cut a half-hour out of it just before its release, which probably accounts for a lot of the pacing whiplash that occurs. 

Also, Kane is a weak villain.  Personifying the evil from the original movie was a real misstep.  It doesn’t help that the big thing that makes him evil is… he’s old.  It’s like look how creepy that old guy is, which really smacks of ageism.  The scene where he comes to the door and screams, “YOU’RE GONNA DIE!” is some unintentionally hilarious shit too. 

You know, every time I try to dis this movie, I think back to the Tequila Vomit Monster and have to reassess my position.  Yes, there’s a lot of stupid shit in Poltergeist 2.  Yes, it’s nowhere near the same league as the original.  However, a little Tequila Vomit Monster goes a long way.

CLEANING OUT THE DVR: RUPTURE (2017) *** ½

(DVR’ed from The Movie Channel on February 17, 2018)

Steven Shainberg has had an interesting career.  He started out with the bleak Jim Thompson adaptation Hit Me before becoming something of a critical darling for 2002’s Secretary, which for my money is still the best BDSM movie of all time.  Whatever critical praise he garnered from that flick was quickly squandered when he made the universally panned Fur:  An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus.  It took him a good ten years to get his next directing gig after that fiasco, but he made quite a comeback with this bleak and brutal sci-fi/horror/survival flick starring Noomi Rapace. 

She stars as a divorced mom on her way to a date with her new boyfriend.  She gets a flat tire and is kidnapped by some shady folks who take her to an underground clinic, strap her to a gurney, and proceed to perform a bunch of horrifying “tests” on her where they make her confront her worst fears.  Noomi eventually discovers the doctors aren’t trying to scare her to death.  Rather, they want to scare her to the point of “rupture”, which is probably just as bad, if not worse.

Essentially, this is kind of like Captivity Meets Martyrs with a little bit of Invasion of the Body Snatchers thrown in there.  The plot is predictable, but the game cast help to elevate it into being something more than just another psychological horror show.  Rapace is aces as the smart, resourceful, and feisty heroine.  She does her best John McClaine as she crawls around ventilation shafts, dodges despicable scientists, and tries to survive the night.  It also helps that the trio of doctors, Michael Chiklis, Lesley Manville, and Peter Stormare are perfectly cast.  Each one brings their unique energy to their roles and together make for a formidable threesome.

Is Rupture kind of predictable?  Yes.  (It’s probably no coincidence that there’s only a one letter difference in the words “Rupture” and “Rapture”.)  Does it feel like a variation on Martyrs?  Sure.  However, the way Shainberg doles out the clues, sets the atmosphere, and ratchets up the tension is expertly done.  Writer Brian (Hard Candy) Nelson also posts an interesting concept:  Is your greatest fear the very thing that’s holding you back from your achieving your potential?  If you’re in Noomi’s shoes, you might not like the answers, but if you’re an audience member, you’ll probably enjoy the movie. 

FULL MOON HIGH (1981) *

Writer/director Larry Cohen’s movies usually have a string of tongue-in-cheek humor, social commentary, or macabre wit running through them.  When he flat-out goes for laughs though, the results can disastrous, as anyone who has seen Wicked Stepmother can attest.  The same can be said for Full Moon High.  The jokes are juvenile, the gags are tired, and a pretty decent cast is thoroughly wasted. 

Adam Arkin stars as a high school student who accompanies his dad (Ed McMahon) to Romania on a top-secret mission.  While dad is busy having a three-way, Adam is forced to wander the streets of Romania unattended.  Naturally, he gets bitten by a werewolf and returns home with a craving to bite people on the ass. 

Yes, you read that right.  The werewolf in this movie goes around biting people on the butt.  Ho-ho.  You’d think that would mean they would also turn into a werewolf too, but the film is so dumb it doesn’t even stop to entertain that possibility. 

Like many of the horror-comedies of the early ‘80s, Full Moon High takes a lot of its inspiration from Airplane as the gags occur at a rapid-fire clip.  Unfortunately, there isn’t nary a laugh to be had here as the results are closer to Saturday the 14^th than Student Bodies.  Heck, this makes Saturday the 14^th look like Saturday the 14^th Strikes Back! 

Some of the gags, you just shake your head in disbelief.  Take for example the scene where Arkin foils an airline hijacking by turning into a werewolf.  I know this sort of thing was on the audience’s mind in those days, but it’s just so random (and stupid) that it comes off feeling forced.  The whole idea that Arkin remains eternally young is a bit odd too.  In fact, the entire second act in which he returns home twenty years later feels like it came out of a totally different movie.  It’s almost as if Cohen took two half-finished scripts and combined them. 

Not only that, but it’s sort of a shame that something that features Joanne (Switchblade Sisters) Nail, Roz Kelly, Jm. J. Bullock, Demond Wilson, Bob Saget, and Pat Morita is a total washout.  Even an extended cameo by Arkin’s old man, the usually reliable Alan Arkin falls flat.  I hesitate to call Full Moon High a “dog” because that would be sinking to the movie’s level.  

WE’RE GOING TO EAT YOU (1980) ***

Tsui (Zu:  Warriors of Magic Mountain) Hark directed this wild horror-Kung Fu hybrid.  Agent 999 (Norman Chu) goes to a remote island to find a master criminal known as Rolex (Melvin Wong).  There, he stumbles upon a village solely populated by cannibals.  Naturally, it doesn’t take long before their chief (Eddy Ko) wants to turn Agent 999 into a hot lunch.

I have to be upfront by saying that not all of the humor works.  Some of the gags are overly broad, painfully obvious, or just plain unfunny (like the stuff with the horny transvestite).  I guess that’s to be expected though.  The very nature of combining so many genres virtually guaranteed this was going to be wildly uneven.  (There’s even an element of film noir here as Agent 999 wears a fedora and smokes constantly, just like an old-fashioned movie detective.)  The strongest sequences are weighted towards the first act, but there are some definite rough patches along the way.  However, when it finds its sweet spot, and all the elements come together, it’s kind of dazzling to watch.

The breathless action sequences masterfully blend Hark’s knack for action choreography with horror and humor.  There’s a terrific scene where Agent 999 is strung up like a human hammock and has to fend off a meat cleaver-wielding cannibal.  The ingenuity of this scene, not to mention the clever punchline, will surely put a smile on your face.  Another fight scene takes place in “the slaughterhouse” where he singlehandedly takes on a squad of cannibal guards features some really funny sight gags and impressive Kung Fu moves.

Again, a lot of this is uneven.  The ending is sort of dumb too.  That said, there is some jaw-dropping stuff to be had here.  It’s definitely the best Kung Fu cannibal comedy I’ve seen in some time.  In short, fans of horror-comedies and Kung Fu insanity are sure to eat up We’re Going to Eat You.

AKA:  Cannibal Kung Fu:  Burn!  Cannibal Fist.  AKA:  Kung Fu Cannibals.  AKA:  Hell Has No Gates.  AKA:  No Door to Hell. 

CLEANING OUT THE DVR: THE BELKO EXPERIMENT (2017) ***

(DVR’ed from Cinemax on February 16, 2018)

It seems like an ordinary day in an office building in Bogota, Columbia when all of a sudden, a voice comes on the intercom and tells the workers they must kill one another in order to survive the day.  Initially, they shrug it off, thinking it’s a prank, but when steel shutters surround the building, blocking their escape, they suspect their predicament is all too real.  When they fail to execute their co-workers in a timely fashion, random people begin dying, thanks to explosive chips implanted in their heads.  Eventually, the employees come to grips with their grisly situation and begin terminating the staff. 

Written by James (Guardians of the Galaxy) Gunn and directed by Greg (Wolf Creek) McLean, The Belko Experiment is a none-too subtle metaphor about cutthroat business practices, predatory co-workers, and overly hostile work environments.  Just because Gunn and McLean skimp on subtlety doesn’t mean it doesn’t work.  I mean, the premise is admittedly kind of thin.  (It’s The Office Meets Battle Royale.)  When you’re making a movie with this many exploding heads, subtlety is kind of overrated.

Yes, the plot is probably the sort of thing that might’ve been best suited to a short film, or maybe even a horror anthology.  Thankfully, Gunn’s smart and funny script, coupled with McLean’s no-nonsense direction help propel the film along at a rapid pace.  While the plot is a bit skimpy, there aren’t many wasted moments.  Every scene builds on top of one another, so there’s no gratuitous padding to get in the way of the fun. 

It helps that the heavies are expertly cast.  Tony Goldwyn can do this kind of scumbag yuppie role in his sleep by now.  However, he finds new ways to make this archetype even more despicable.  John C. McGinley is also a lot of fun to watch as the sex pest of the group who adapts to the role of executioner way too easily. 

We also have Gunn regulars Sean Gunn as the office’s resident conspiracy theorist, Michael Rooker as the kindly janitor, and Gregg Henry as the mystery man who is pulling the strings.  If you’re a fan of Gunn’s work, you should certainly enjoy seeing all of them popping up.  John Gallagher, Jr. is a bit milquetoast as the hero, but that’s kind of what the role requires as he is one of the few voices of reason.

Even though most of the horror comes from the “What Would You Do?” scenario, the gore is solid all the way around.  Fans of exploding heads will surely dig it as it contains almost as many exploding head effects as a Scanners movie.  Even though most of the kills come courtesy of boring old gunfire, we still get a few choice impalements, axes to the face, and skull crushings too. 

In short, The Belko Experiment is a fast-moving, down-and-dirty, three-chord horror movie.  It’s content to resist the temptation to exceed its grasp and that restraint results in a consistently entertaining little flick.  It certainly beats a day at the office, I’ll tell you that.

SCREAM AND STREAM AGAIN: AMITYVILLE DOLLHOUSE (1997) ** ½

(Streamed via The Archive)

A blended family moves into a new home.  They find a dollhouse replica of the Amityville Horror house sitting in their garage and stupidly put it in their little girl’s room.  It isn’t long before a bunch of wacky supernatural shit goes down.  Eventually, the family’s psychic aunt and biker occult expert uncle must step in to put a stop to the otherworldly antics.

Amityville Dollhouse was the eighth and final entry in the original Amityville Horror series before the franchise was rebooted by Michael Bay eight years later.  It’s an often perplexing but moderately entertaining mishmash of half-baked elements, clunky set pieces, and WTF logic.  Screenwriter Joshua Michael Stern (who went on to direct Jobs) must’ve been sitting at his typewriter like a deranged cook who keeps adding more and more ingredients to a meal and then forgets to turn on the oven.  It’s never boring, so there’s that.

It’s all over the place, and it’s sometimes just plain stupid, but it’s hard to completely hate any movie that contains:  A zombie dad, a giant rat, a biker who runs an occult bookstore, a spider in a piñata, nightmarish visions, voodoo dolls that come to life, a pair of killer headphones, magic spells that look suspiciously like they were stolen from a Vegas light show, rubbery demons, and dialogue like, “Hey, maggot-brain!  You’re history!”

Other than the fact that the dollhouse is a replica of the original house, there really isn’t any connective tissue with the other films in the Amityville Horror series.  I guess the subplot where the sexy stepmom (Ghoulies 2’s Starr Andreeff) becomes possessed and gets the hots for her stepson is kind of like a callback to the incest stuff in Part 2.  It’s weird and icky, but, once it’s introduced it’s almost immediately forgotten.  Just like everything else in the movie.

Sure, you have to sit through a lot of After School Special crap with the stepsiblings that don’t get along.  Of course, the precocious little brother character will grate on your nerves every time he opens his damned mouth.  However, once the supernatural shit hits the fan, it’s mostly agreeable dumb fun.   

I mean how many movies have you seen where the sexy girlfriend’s topless sex scene is interrupted by a zombie hornet?  This could be the only cinematic instance of such a phenomenon on record.  Later, the same babe gets too close to the fireplace and goes up like a Buddhist monk.  Talk about a hot date. 

Speaking of burning up, get a load of those long lingering shots of the burning house at the end.  They go on so long that it becomes painfully obvious we’re watching nothing more than a terrible model being set on fire.  Heck, it looks even faker than the dollhouse itself!  They should’ve just filmed the dollhouse burning.  It would’ve been more believable. 

The dialogue is pretty choice throughout, but it’s the wisecracking zombie dad who gets the best line of the movie when he says, “Don’t worry, it only hurts… FOREVER!”

SCREAM AND STREAM AGAIN: THE RING (1998) ** ½

(Streamed via Asian Crush)

I’ve been on record stating the American remake of The Ring is one of the worst horror films of the 21^st century.  Because of that, I have long put off seeing Hideo Nakata’s 1998 original, the one that kickstarted the “J-Horror” trend that continues to this day.  It surprises me to say that it is better by a wide margin.  I can’t quite call it “good.  It’s not exactly “scary”.  However, I much preferred Nakata’s low-key approach to Gore Verbinski’s overly stylized bullshit.

One of the big differences between this one and the remake is that the male protagonist gets a lot more to do.  In the remake, it was the Naomi Watts show the whole way through.  I kind of liked how in this version it was a team effort between Nanako Matsushima and Hiroyuki Sanada to solve the mystery of the cursed videocassette that kills you seven days after you watch it.

This one isn’t nearly as draggy as the remake either.  The pacing is much tighter (albeit still kinda slow), and it runs a full twenty minutes shorter, which is always a plus.  Even then, there is an additional subplot or two that’s not present in the remake, which still manages to prevent the movie from really getting into gear.

I appreciated the fact that Nakata didn’t go overboard trying to scare the audience like Verbinski did.  His quieter approach, while not exactly masterful, was certainly more effective.  Take for example the contents of the videotape.  Verbinski tried way too hard to make it look like a snuff film.  Nakata’s take is a little more surreal, which works much better.  It also helps that he keeps the ghost girl Sadako offscreen for much of the movie.  The less of her you see throughout the film, the bigger impact she makes when she is finally front and center.  (Kind of like Freddy in the Nightmare on Elm Street series.) 

The moment that really showcases how much better this one is than the remake is the well sequence.  It’s a lot more subtle, and even kind of thoughtful and sad.  The scene where Matsushima tenderly pushes the hair out of Sadako’s face is creepier than anything Verbinski came up with, that’s for sure.

Again, it’s not quite a winner.  The middle section kind of dawdles, and the premise is still just as shaky as it ever was.  However, it’s like fucking Psycho compared to the remake.  I can’t quite recommend it, but it’ll be required viewing for fans of J-Horror.

Nakata went on to direct the crappy American sequel, The Ring Two.

AKA:  Ringu.

BORAT SUBSEQUENT MOVIEFILM: DELIVERY OF PRODIGIOUS BRIBE TO AMERICAN REGIME FOR MAKE BENEFIT ONCE GLORIOUS NATION OF KAZAKHSTAN (2020) *** ½

It doesn’t seem like it’s been fourteen years, but Sacha Baron Cohen returns with this surprise sequel to the hilarious Borat.  It’s a testament to how screwed up the world (or at least our country) is that Cohen could go around pranking famous folks, crashing Republican conventions, and generally causing mayhem for the past few months and it didn’t even cause a blip on the radar.  While I can’t say it’s as good as the original (or even Bruno, my personal favorite Cohen movie), it did provide me with some much-needed laughs while simultaneously reminding me what a shitshow 2020 has been.

After soiling his country’s name in the first movie, Borat (Cohen) has been wasting away in a gulag in Kazakhstan for fourteen years.  Eventually, he is given a chance to redeem himself by delivering a monkey to Mike Pence as a goodwill gesture from his country.  When the monkey comes to an untimely end, he decides to hand over his fifteen-year-old daughter (Maria Bakalova) to Pence.  That attempt fails, so he tries to deliver her to Rudy Giuliani. 

Cohen is able to get around the fact that everyone knows who Borat is by disguising himself in a variety of outrageous costumes.  While many of these scenes offer some very big laughs, some of the interactions fall flat due to the participants being all-too eager to play along with the gag.  Even then, the setups alone are frequently hilarious.  The best bits include Borat taking his daughter to a pro-life clinic to “get a baby out”, a disgusting “fertility dance”, and the much-publicized scene where Giuliani gets into a compromising position.  It’s enough to make you wonder how far it wouldn’t gone if Cohen allowed the bit to play out even longer.

In all honesty, some of the stunts feel forced and/or overly staged.  Others are half-baked or look like they might’ve been partially botched.  Even then, Cohen’s gift for ad-libbing carries the weakest sequences and ensures there will still be plenty of laughs to be had.  I don’t know if he could ever get away with being Borat a third time, but I’ll sure as hell be there for it.  Very nice!

AKA:  Borat Subsequent Moviefilm.  AKA:  Borat Subsequent Moviefilm:  Gift of Pornographic Monkey to Vice Premiere Mikhael Pence to Make Benefit Recently Diminished Nation of Kazakhstan. 

SCREAM AND STREAM AGAIN: HAUNT (2019) *

(Streamed via Shudder)

I pretty much hate walk-through haunted houses because it’s so damned basic.  Anybody with a mask can just leap out of nowhere, grab you, and make you jump.  Personally, I much prefer the old school ride-through houses that feature cool animatronics and weird papier Mache monsters.  At least with those, you can appreciate the craftsmanship that went into making them.  Better that than being a target for some masked jerk with rage issues who probably wouldn’t have passed the background check the owners of the haunted house obviously didn’t bother to perform. 

That basic bitch approach extends to this movie.  Six annoying characters go to an out of the way haunted house.  About halfway through, they see (or think they see) someone murdered by one of the masked “actors”.  Next thing you know, they have to double back through the house, and this time, the scares are FOR REAL. 

If the set-up was excruciating and laborious, the follow-through is painfully predictable every step of the way.  The clichés range from The Final Girl who is troubled by a stalker boyfriend to the gang of killers who have purposefully vague backstories to the part where the villains trick the heroine into accidentally killing her best friend.  We’ve seen all this before and done much better. 

The kills are lame and forgettable too.  Most revolve around Saw-style booby traps.  The other deaths of the stab and slash variety are weak.   

What’s worse is that it all just goes on far too long.  The movie was already annoying, slow, and tedious to begin with.  Then along comes the superfluous final reel to eat up another unnecessary ten minutes of your time.  Just when you think it can’t get any worse, they play one of those irritating slowed-way-down cover versions of popular rock songs, in this case “Dragula”.  These are normally reserved for trailers, so I don’t know what the heck it’s doing in the actual movie.

Producer Eli Roth should know better.

The directors also wrote the infinitely better A Quiet Place.

SCREAM AND STREAM AGAIN: QUARANTINE 2: TERMINAL (2011) **

(Streamed via Plex)

A dumbass doctor brings lab rats infected with a zombie virus aboard a commercial flight.  One of the rats bites a passenger who turns into a zombie and attacks one of the flight attendants.  The plane is forced to make an emergency landing at a nearby airport where the passengers are forced to quarantine in an abandoned terminal.  Naturally, the zombie rats get loose and bite more people.  It’s then up to the sole surviving flight attendant (Mercedes Mason) to protect the passengers and stop the zombie virus from spreading.

One of the things outbreak movies lied to us about was the fact that when an outbreak happens, citizens are held at gunpoint by government agents in hazmat suits, who force them to follow the strict quarantine protocols.  Maybe if we did that nowadays, we still wouldn’t be in the midst of a pandemic.  Anyway…

Quarantine was a forgettable shaky-cam zombie flick.  This sequel isn’t a Found Footage movie, so it’s immediately better in my book.  Director John G. Pogue sometimes relies on handheld camerawork in hopes of putting the audience in the midst of the action, which helps to subtly remind you this is part of the Quarantine universe.  Another nod to the Found Footage format is the POV sequence near the end in which a character dons night-vision goggles to escape the zombies in the dark.  Thankfully, this scene doesn’t go on too long, so it wear out its welcome.

Overall, the zombie action is unfortunately kind of low.  I did like the constant fake-outs in the beginning to make the audience guess where the zombie outbreak will start.  However, the film twiddles its thumbs too much in the middle act to make it really worthwhile.  We do get an OK zombie cat attack and a gnarly “test” scene in which a doctor jabs a hypodermic needle into his eye.  I’ll take an extra-long Q-Tip up my nose any day next to that!

Pogue went on to direct Deep Blue Sea 3.

SCREAM AND STREAM AGAIN: THE NIGHT OF A THOUSAND CATS (1974) *

(Streamed via B-Movie TV)

Hugo Stiglitz flies around in his helicopter looking for hot chicks.  When he finds the one he wants, he takes her back to his bachelor pad (an ancient monastery) where he cuts their heads off and preserves them under glass.  Then, he feeds the rest to his pack of flesh-eating cats. 

Directed by Rene (Guyana:  Cult of the Damned) Cardona, Jr., The Night of a Thousand Cats is only 63 minutes long, but it’s a long 63 minutes.  The thing that really drags it out is all the scenes of Hugo flying around in his helicopter.  I’m not lying when I say that half the running time is devoted to Hugo in his helicopter spying on women.  These scenes play out like a low budget Mexican version of Blue Thunder or something.

Once he gets them back to his house, the scenes of animal cruelty are kind of hard to take.  Hugo tosses them around violently and even drowns one in a swimming pool.  The shots of the (certainly not a “thousand” but probably over a hundred) cats corralled into a small space look like an ASPCA commercial waiting to happen.  Seriously, any second you expect to hear Sarah McLachlan to pop up singing “Angel”.

There is one sequence that works:  A flashback where Hugo’s mute servant chases his true love in super slow-motion intercut with Hugo hunting doves.  Other than that, it is quite the chore to sit through.  Don’t let the short running time fool you:  That 63 minutes feels much, much longer.  

Apparently, a ninety-minute version exists.  I’m not sure if it features more explicit sex scenes (there’s only a smattering of nudity), but it wouldn’t surprise me if it was just a half hour more helicopter footage.  As it is, The Night of a Thousand Cats is pretty reprehensible stuff.  Then again, if you love Hugo Stiglitz, long helicopter rides, and wanton animal cruelty, it’ll be a Four Star movie for sure.

AKA:  Cats.  AKA:  Night of 1000 Cats.  AKA:  Blood Feast.

SCREAM AND STREAM AGAIN: GHOSTS OF HANLEY HOUSE (1968) **

(Streamed via Classic Movie Vault)

Ghosts of Hanley House is the kind of obscure horror flick I enjoy stumbling upon.  It’s a regional feature with no name stars and even less of a budget.  It’s also notable for being written and directed by a woman, Louise Sherrill.  It’s a shame she didn’t direct anything else.  Although the film as a whole isn’t always successful, Sherrill shows some ingenuity when it comes to creating atmosphere with obviously very few resources at her disposal.

A guy and his friend make a friendly wager in their neighborhood bar:  If he can stay one night in the haunted Hanley House, he’ll hand over the keys to his Ferrari.  He eagerly agrees, calls up some pals, and together they have a party in the abominable abode.  Naturally, one of his friends happens to be a psychic, and during a séance, the ghosts show themselves to be very real.

Sherrill delivers a strong pre-title sequence that sets the mood nicely.  As the camera tours through Hanley House, doors slam, thunder crashes, and women scream.  The sound effects coupled with the ominous music almost makes it feel like something out of an old radio show.  The stark black and white cinematography is also well done.  The shots of people standing in front of a black background are eerily effective, and some scenes are reminiscent of Night of the Living Dead.

You also have to give Sherrill credit as a screenwriter.  In most of these movies, you wonder why the people just don’t automatically leave the house at the first sign of danger.  Here, the hero has a very good reason for staying:  A Ferrari!

Ghosts of Hanley House starts off in fine fashion.  Sherrill doles out low key but effective chills throughout the first act.   I also enjoyed the great acid rock soundtrack during the early scenes.  I especially liked it when it was blaring over the dialogue to disguise the fact they didn’t have synchronized sound for the outdoor scenes. 

Unfortunately, the movie quickly take a nosedive in quality and it never quite recovers.  The film pretty much slams on the brakes in the second half when the group decides to leave the house and wind up getting lost in the woods.  From there, the picture slowly peters out until it reaches its thoroughly unsatisfactory conclusion.  (The axe murder flashback is the only highlight of the otherwise dreary finale.)  Still, it’s worth a look for the promising early scenes that play almost like a no budget remake of The Haunting. 

SCREAM AND STREAM AGAIN: SLEEPING BEAUTY (2014) ** ½

(Streamed via Peacock)

A movie based on the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale doesn’t immediately sound like something I’d watch for The 31 Days of Horror-Ween.  It kind of makes more sense when you realize it’s The Asylum’s mockbuster version of Maleficent.  The real reason I wanted to see it was because it was the directing debut of one of my favorite actors, Casper Van Dien.

Van Dien also has a small role as Sleeping Beauty’s father.  He even managed to get the whole Van Dien clan acting gigs in this one.  His then-wife, the ever-lovely Catherine Oxenberg, plays the Queen, and his daughter Grace stars as Sleeping Beauty.  His other children have small roles as well.  Why have Grimm’s Fairy Tales, when you can have Van Dien’s Fairy Tales?

The first fifteen minutes or so sets up the Sleeping Beauty legend rather succinctly.  The big twist is that after the evil witch (Olivia D’Abo) tricks Sleeping Beauty into pricking her finger on a spindle, everyone in the village falls asleep along with the narcoleptic royal.  Flash-forward a hundred years, and a whipping boy named Barrow (Finn Jones) finds a map to Sleeping Beauty’s castle.  The arrogant Prince (Edward French) makes him lead the way so he can get his grubby hands on some prime princess real estate.  Naturally, Barrow proves to be much more of a man than the Prince and he sets out to wake Sleeping Beauty his own self.

Despite the title, there are just enough monsters and ghouls here to warrant including the film in the Halloween season festivities.  Once our heroes reach the castle, they are greeted by a moat monster who gobbles up one of the Prince’s squires.  Within the castle walls, they do battle with another CGI beastie.  The evil queen even unleashes a horde of zombies on the Prince and his men.  I’m not sure I remember that in the Disney version. 

Also, there’s an entire subplot lifted from Aliens in which a little girl who has survived inside the castle undetected helps the heroes.  Heck, her name is Newt!  They didn’t even bother to change it!  Not to be outdone, there’s a scene where D’Abo rips off a guy’s head with his spinal cord still intact just like a Predator.  You won’t see Angelina Jolie pulling that shit, that’s for sure.

Van Dien proves to be a competent director.  Although obviously not a big budget production, the film feels much bigger in scope than your typical Asylum picture.  Van Dien’s handling of the monster attacks and fight scenes shows he’s much more adept at his craft than many of his Asylum filmmaking contemporaries.  While it is a bit of a bait and switch (the middle section of the film feels more like a Lord of the Rings rip-off than a Sleeping Beauty rip-off), it was much better than I was expecting.  As far as The Asylum’s movies go, it’s no Mega Python vs. Gatoroid, but it’s watchable and semi-entertaining, even if it never quite crosses over into the realm of “good”.  

SPIRITED KILLER 3: GHOST WARS (1991) **

A group of guys venture into the woods to find a cursed black egg when they are jumped by some undead Ninjas who kill them and steal the egg.  Twenty years later, two rival teams of adventurers head back into the wild to find the egg, ignoring the warnings of the locals.  When one of the explorers accidentally takes a piss on a skull, it awakens an evil shaman who wants to use the egg to take over the world.

Spirited Killer 3:  Ghost Wars is a step up from its predecessors in just about every way.  I’m not going on record and saying it’s good or anything, but at least some of the humor works this time out.  It helps that it’s more of a flat-out spoof than a horror-comedy.  The scenes where the two warring teams of adventurers half-heartedly fight each other while eating, drinking, and even bathing are good for a chuckle.  Their constant wisecracks and little asides during the swordfights and Kung Fu battles are noticeably less successful, however.

Make no mistake.  All this is still pretty hit-and-miss.  It’s just that it’s slightly more consistent than the other films in the series.  There are concepts that aren’t fully explored or, worse, go nowhere.  (Like the “ass demon” who fights the heroes while wearing a diaper.)  There are also more than a few comedy bits that fail to garner any laughs.  (Like when one of the guys gives fighting tips to a ghost Ninja during a battle.) 

In fact, for the first hour or so, the film is pretty low on horror content.  It isn’t until a sweet little old grandma turns into a zombie do things switch over into full horror-comedy mode.  While she does gleefully chow down on some people’s guts, she unfortunately also participates in a few unfunny fast motion chase scenes.  Despite its faults, Spirted Killer 3:  Ghost Wars has more spirit than the other entries in the franchise, and for that alone, I can’t give it any less than **.  Not bad for a movie that’s essentially one long Easter egg hunt.

Director/star Panna Rittikrai later went on to direct Ong-Bak 2 and 3.

SCREAM AND STREAM AGAIN: THE SUPERNATURALS (1987) * ½

(Streamed via Dark Matter TV)

The Supernaturals is a frustrating experience because it takes an intriguing premise and proceeds to do zilch with it.  Because of that, it’s a prime candidate to be remade.  Before we start thinking about what could’ve been, let’s take a look at what it was, which admittedly ain’t much.

The opening is strong though.  At the end of the Civil War, a bunch of Union soldiers line up a battalion of men from the Confederate army (including one kid who was just wearing a uniform) and force them to walk through a minefield.  A century or so goes by, and a squad of Army soldiers head out into the same woods to perform practice maneuvers.  Eventually, they come face to face with a zombie army that may or may not be at the beck and call of a ghostly woman (Margaret Shendal) who lives in the woods.

Star Trek fans may get a kick out of seeing Nichelle Nichols bossing LeVar Burton around.  Nichols is hilariously miscast as the hardass drill instructor, but she at least gamely commits to the role.  Maxwell Caulfield is the leading man, and he doesn’t do a bad job, although I don’t think his pompadour hairdo would be considered Army regulation.  Oh, and The Bee Gees’ Maurice Gibb has a cameo too.  WTF.

While director Armand (He Knows You’re Alone) Mastroianni does a fine job on the prologue, he can’t quite find a way to make the present-day scenes work.  He also takes a helluva long time to get the show on the road as the first half is particularly draggy.  It would be one thing to sit through the laborious build-up if the payoff was up to snuff, but it’s fucking weak.  The zombie army scenes are rushed and lackluster, and the finale looks really chintzy. 

The subtext of the Confederate spirits haunting modern-day folk is a sturdy one, but Mastroianni doesn’t quite milk it for all its worth.  I think if it was ever remade, the Army platoon should be entirely played by people of color.  It would be an interesting updating that could effectively modernize the concept and give it greater relevance.  As it is, there’s nothing very super about The Supernaturals.

SCREAM AND STREAM AGAIN: WOLFBLOOD (1925) **

(Streamed via Digital Drive-In)

Dick Bannister (George Chesebro, who also co-directed) is appointed the new foreman of a logging company.  He meets Edith Ford (Marguerite Clayton), the owner of the operation, and the two instantly become smitten, despite the fact that she is engaged to a fledgling doctor named Eugene (Ray Hanford).  When Dick catches Deveroux (Roy Watson), the company’s biggest competitor, trying to construct an illegal dam, there is a confrontation, and Dick is badly wounded.  Eugene is forced to save his life via blood transfusion, but when the only acceptable donor refuses to lend a hand, he is forced to complete the transfusion with wolf’s blood.  Before long, word gets out that Dick has the blood of a wolf flowing through his veins, and the loggers soon shun him, thinking he’s some kind of freak.  When Deveroux is found with his throat tore out, Dick starts to suspect he might be turning into a wolf.

Made in 1925 (ten years before Universal’s Werewolf of London), Wolfblood is one of the earliest attempts at a werewolf movie.  It doesn’t really lean into the horror elements until the last ten minutes, and even then, it’s all kind of halfhearted.  The make-up is a lot more subtle than you’d expect (Chesebro only has a five o’clock shadow), but the scene where he follows his wolf brethren through the forest for a midnight run is atmospheric.  Most of the “horror” though comes from his life being ruined by cheap gossip. 

The last ten minutes are kind of fun, especially if you are a student of werewolf cinema and want to see the humble origins.  Till then, you have to sit through a lot of lumberjack melodrama and ho-hum love triangle shit.  If you’re a fan of silent horror films, that shouldn’t be too much of a chore as it’s only 67 minutes long.  Less patient viewers will probably find Wolfblood rather anemic. 

AKA:  Wolfsblood.  AKA:  Wolfblood:  A Tale of the Forest.