THE 31 DAYS OF HORROR-WEEN: THE PSYCHIC (1979) ***

The Psychic feels like an attempt by director Lucio Fulci to make a “respectable” movie.  It’s been labeled as a giallo by some (there is a killer wearing black gloves, but he doesn’t show up until the last act), but it’s more of a thriller in the vein of The Eyes of Laura Mars.  I can’t quite say it’s among his best work (if I had my druthers, I’d pick his gore-soaked zombie films over this flick any day).  That said, this is a solid second-tier effort that is quite entertaining. 

When she was a little girl, Jennifer O’Neill had a psychic vision of her mother committing suicide.  Years later, she has another premonition, but everyone seems to shrug it off.  The visions intensify once she moves to her husband’s abandoned mansion with the intention of fixing the place up.  Soon after, she finds a skeleton hidden in the walls, which inadvertently implicates her husband in the murder.  With him behind bars, O’Neill sets out to find the real killer and clear his name. 

The opening sequence where the white cliffs of Dover get painted blood red is quite effective.  It doesn’t even matter if some of the shots of the brutally skinned face as it hits the cliffside on the way down look a little fakey.  It’s still some good shit and a heck of a way to open a picture.  The same goes for the scene where O’Neill discovers the skeleton in the wall.  The great twist that sets up the third act is expertly sprung too and the Poe-inspired finale is a lot of fun as well (even if it ends abruptly).  Strong sequences like these make it easy to overlook some of the slower Nancy Drew-style scenes in the second act where O’Neill is questioning potential suspects. 

While those scenes tend to drag, O’Neill is nevertheless excellent in them (and indeed throughout the picture).  She really carries the film squarely on her shoulders and the audience is with her every step of the way.  We also get some fine support from Gianni (the Sartana movies) Garko as O’Neill’s husband, and Gabriele (On Her Majesty’s Secret Service) Ferzetti as the prime suspect. 

AKA:  Murder to the Tune of the Seven Black Notes.  AKA:  Demoniac.  AKA:  Seven Black Note.  AKA:  Death Tolls Seven Times.  

THE 31 DAYS OF HORROR-WEEN: WEAPONS (2025) **

Zach Cregger is kind of like the white Jordan Peele.  By that I mean he pivoted away from doing sketch comedy in the early 2000’s to writing and directing critically acclaimed horror movies.  I wasn’t a fan of Barbarian, his first foray into the genre, but it had enough bright spots to make me curious what he’d do next.  His follow-up, Weapons wound up being a big box office hit, though I’m not exactly sure why. 

A small town is left in shock when seventeen kids simultaneously run away from home in the middle of the night.  Making their disappearance even more curious is the fact that they all had the same teacher (the omnipresent Julia Garner).  An angry father (Josh Brolin) then sets out to get to the bottom of the mystery. 

Weapons admittedly has an interesting hook, and the initial scenes suck you in right away.  However, the film gets bogged down almost immediately.  Like most “elevated horror” flicks, it suffers from an inflated running time (over two hours) and the structure isn’t exactly optimal for this sort of thing.  The movie is broken up into chapters that revolve around members of the town who are dealing with the disappearances.  Sometimes these scenes intersect a la Pulp Fiction.  The problem is that some of the stories seem like an attempt to tiptoe around the central mystery instead of dealing with it head-on.  I mean you can only get jerked around so much before you start looking at your watch.  In fact, the structure honestly is just a means to dress up the narrative.  Had things played out from point A to point B, it would’ve been really underwhelming.  The dream scenes are rather ho-hum too and only serve to eat up more precious screen time. 

It doesn’t help that by the time the woman who is at the center of the disappearances (Amy Madigan) finally shows up, she looks like a cross between Estelle Getty in Golden Girls and the mom from Rugrats. 

Weapons does have its moments, but they are mostly weighted towards the first and last ten minutes.  I mean, any movie that features an ending that manages to crib from both Point Break and Day of the Dead can’t be all bad.  It’s just a shame that script spends so much time chasing its tail in the middle section of the film. 

THE 31 DAYS OF HORROR-WEEN: IT’S A WONDERFUL KNIFE (2023) ** ½

On Christmas Eve, Henry Waters (Justin Long), a rich real estate asshole who is trying to gentrify a quaint little town, murders the last old codger who won’t sell his home.  He then sets his sights on killing some partying teens when a teenager named Winnie (Jane Widdop) electrocutes him to death.  One year later, everyone but Winnie seems to have moved on from the trauma of that night.  Feeling depressed and unwanted on Christmas, she wishes she was never born.  By doing so, not only does the killer come back to life, but he’s now become mayor of the town which allows him to constantly get away with murder.  It’s then up to Winnie and the town weirdo, appropriately named “Weirdo” (Jess McLeod) to stop Waters and get back to her own timeline. 

It’s a Wonderful Knife is basically Scream Meets It’s a Wonderful Life.  The title itself almost sounds like a gag you’d see on The Simpsons or something.  It’s actually similar in tone to another movie that tried to graft an old classic onto a slasher chassis, Freaky (which makes sense since it was written by the same guy).  However, it’s not nearly as successful or entertaining as that film.  Also, the way Long’s character turns the town into a veritable shrine to himself is reminiscent of the alternate 1985 scenes in Back to the Future 2. 

While the structure and plotting are clever, the slasher scenes are mostly ho-hum.  If only the filmmakers had put as much thought into the stalking and suspense sequences as they did the It’s a Wonderful Life homages, this might’ve been a modern classic.  As it stands, it’s a case of close, but no cigar.  The killer’s get-up is kind of lame too.  It looks just like Ghostface, but all in white and with a blank white mask to match.  You’d think a costume like that would be impractical considering how much blood gets on it.  I mean, how does he get the blood stains out from scene to scene?  Or does he have a never-ending supply of costumes?  You know it’s a problem when you’re thinking about stuff like that instead of concentrating on whether or not the characters will make it out of the house alive.  I did like the fight scene in the movie theater while the “Let’s All Go to the Lobby” ad was projected over the action though. 

The cast is strong, which helps neutralize many of the film’s shortcomings.  Widdop makes for a likeable lead, and she has genuine chemistry with McLeod.  Long makes for a funny villain as he really leans into the character’s yuppie scum persona.  We also have Joel McHale doing some fine dramatic work as Winnie’s grieving dad and Ginger Snaps’ Katharine Isabelle is a hoot as her feisty aunt.

THE 31 DAYS OF HORROR-WEEN: HOUSE OF THE LONG SHADOWS (1984) **

The prospect of legendary horror stars Vincent Price, Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, and John Carradine teaming up for a movie is irresistible.  Add to that the fact it’s directed by Pete (House of Whipcord) Walker, produced by Golan-Globus, and (loosely) based on a story by the creator of Charlie Chan, Earl der Biggers, and you have yourself a recipe for fun.  Despite the pedigree, House of the Long Shadows still manages to be quite dull. 

A best-selling author (Desi Arnaz, Jr.) bets his agent he can write a gothic romance novel in 24 hours.  The agent then sets him up in a spooky old house to write the book.  One by one, the house is called upon by strange gentlemen who prevent him from getting any work done.  Turns out Cushing, Carradine, and Price have returned to the house to finally let their deranged brother out of the attic after forty years.  Lee is the new owner of the property who eventually shows up and demands to know what the hell is going on. 

It takes a while before the titans of terror finally appear on screen.  Till then, it’s mostly a bunch of scenes of Arnaz, Jr. walking down darkened hallways.  Even once the stars finally get together, they mostly just stand around and look grumpy.  It takes even longer for people to start getting offed.  A woman is strangled till her eyeballs pop cartoonishly out, another gets acid in her face, and someone is hacked to death with an axe.  The double (cheat) twist ending is kind of obvious too and only adds to the inflated running time. 

I’m sure everyone involved thought this was going to be a triumphant return for some of horror’s biggest stars.  Sadly, it was not a hit, and it became the last time any of them starred alongside each other.  Only Lee seems to be in his A-game as everyone else looks bored or disinterested.  Then again, YOU try acting alongside Desi Arnaz, Jr and see how you make out.  Leading lady Julie Peasgood isn’t bad though, and sort of resembles a Temu version of Britt Ekland. 

AKA:  House of Long Shadows.

THE 31 DAYS OF HORROR-WEEN: LIVING WITH CHUCKY (2023) **

A Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th both got documentaries on their respective series. I guess it was a matter of time before Chucky got his.  If you’re looking for an exhaustive chronicle of the franchise, forget it.  This isn’t nearly as in-depth as the others I mentioned.  It’s a shame because it kind of feels like a missed opportunity. 

I was honestly kind of surprised by the number of cast and crew who were suspiciously absent.  Catherine Hicks and Chris Sarandon, the stars from the original are nowhere to be found.  The same goes for director Tom Holland and special effects man Kevin Yagher, who created the doll for the first four films.  (The director, Kyra Gardner is the daughter of Tony Gardner, who did the effects for the series from Seed of Chucky on, so maybe there was a conflict of interest there.)

The opening portion about the first film is good, but they really rush through the making of 2 and 3.  Oddly enough, Brad Dourif isn’t interviewed for these segments, which is disappointing as it would’ve been interesting to hear his take on them.  (Maybe he didn’t have anything nice to say, so they cut it out.)  Since this is a fluff piece, they don’t even mention the infamous Bulger case where a couple of kids murdered a schoolmate and blamed it on Child’s Play 3.  Conversely, they spend way too much time on the lukewarm DTV sequels. 

You can see in the interviews that Dourif takes the role of Chucky VERY seriously, which is I guess a testament to the character’s longevity.  The file footage scenes of him voicing Chucky in an audio booth are among the best in the film as you can really tell he’s giving it his all, even if his reactions aren’t being used in the film.  The interviews with Jennifer Tilly are fun too, but they aren’t all that in-depth. 

The film particularly hits a wall in the last half hour when the camera turns on the director.  It’s here where she talks about how the Chucky filmmakers are kind of like a second family she never met and that she’s using the documentary as an excuse to meet and talk to everyone involved.  (Fiona Dourif can also relate as she is also a second generation of Chucky participant.)  This segment is OK, but it just seems like it should’ve been its own thing.  Having it tacked onto a chronicle of the franchise just seems like a way to pad things out.  I mean, make a movie about Chucky or make a movie about your family.  Splitting the difference just doesn’t quite make for an engaging documentary.

While parts of Living with Chucky play like a nice jaunt down memory lane, it ultimately feels more like a DVD bonus feature than an actual documentary.  Some of the material will be an old hat for fans and/or people who read Fangoria back in the day though.  The parts with people who weren’t even involved with the franchise (like Abigail Breslin and Marlon Wayans) weren’t really necessary either.  At least they interview John Waters, who gets the best line:  “Chucky has sex!  Godzilla doesn’t have sex!  Frankenstein doesn’t jerk off!”

THE 31 DAYS OF HORROR-WEEN: NIGHTWISH (1990) * ½

Nightwish is a frustrating mishmash of A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Haunting, and Alien.  That combination plays as schizophrenically as it sounds.  Not even a bunch of familiar faces from ‘80s horror movies like Clayton (Destroyer) Rohner, Elizabeth (Silent Madness) Kaitan, and Brian (Fright Night 2) Thompson can save this turgid mess. 

A group of parapsychology students go to a secluded house to conduct experiments to see if the place is haunted by an extraterrestrial supernatural entity.  (No, really.)  They get their answer pretty damn fast.  Adding to their woes is the fact that the professor snaps and starts killing his students. 

The opening scene where Kaitan is taking part in a dream experiment to see if she can cause her own death inside of the dream is intriguing.  It all goes downhill in a hurry after that.  Admittedly, there is some cool stuff here.  The most effective scene comes when Kaitan’s head is shoved inside a glass box crawling with spiders, which contains a POV shot from Kaitan’s tonsils.  (I think that might be a cinematic first.)  It’s just that you can only get jerked around so long before your brain begins to check out. 

Oh, and if you couldn’t tell after ten minutes this was going to end up being one of those “It was all a dream” things, you deserve your horror movie-watching license revoked. 

The ending is less of a “Gotcha!” and more of an excuse to justify the nonlinear nonsense in the film.  Scenes involving glowing green alien snakes and cyclones menacing the students are more puzzling than laughable, and the stuff with the alien embryos incubating in the victims feels like they came out of an entirely different movie.  There’s also a Halloween 3-inspired scene where bugs crawl out of a crushed skull because, why the hell not?

I’m a fan of Rohner, Kaitan, and Thompson, but they are all mostly wasted.  (Kaitan and Alisha Das do provide a fleeting amount of T & A, which does help take some of the sting out of it.)  At least Thompson gets to play an unpredictable character as the asshole of the group who gets his kicks by running over poor defenseless bunny rabbits.  Also in the cast is the director of Cleopatra Jones, Jack Starrett as the creepy professor, and Mr. Clean himself, Robert Tessier as his hulking assistant. 

AKA:  Nightwish:  Out of Control.

TRON: ARES (2025) ****

Let me get this out of the way before I begin this review.  I have no idea why this is called Tron:   Ares since Tron isn’t even in the goddamned thing.  That’s like making a movie called Batman and not having Batman in it.  Heck, no one even says the name “Tron” in the film.  Seriously, David Warner gets more screen time than Bruce Boxleitner and David Warner’s fucking dead!  I probably wouldn’t have been so miffed if they pulled a “From the World of John Wick” number like they did with Ballerina.  (Hell, at least John Wick was in THAT.)  Then again, seeing the insidious way they did Tron dirty in Tron:  Legacy, I can’t really blame Boxleitner for staying away this time out. 

Okay, now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, let’s get down to business.  Tron:  Ares is fucking badass.  It erases the stink leftover from Legacy and honors what came before while simultaneously paving the way for the future.  This is the way to do a legacy sequel.  (No pun intended.)

Maybe it was the lowered expectations.  I was hoping it would be good, but the bad word of mouth and even worse box office made me cool off a little on seeing the flick.  I’m kind of glad too since I was truly caught off guard by how great this was.  You definitely need to see this on the biggest screen possible with the best sound available to get the maximum impact.  Heck, I saw it in a smallish theater and was still blown away by it. 

Ares is a clever reversal of the original premise.  Instead of having a good guy from the real world being sucked into a computer, bad guys are spat out of a computer and into the real world.  That means we get to have Lightcycle races on bridges and crowded streets, Lightjets doing battle with police aircraft, and an enormous Recognizer floating through the air and menacing the city like it was Godzilla. 

I kind of liked how hacking took the place of the gaming aspect of the original.  When Ares (Jared Leto) is sent on a mission to hack into Encom’s system, it plays almost like a heist movie, which was pretty cool.  The action involving Lightcycles, Lightsticks, Lightjets, and even Lightboats are also tons of fun. 

Ares (Leto) is a computer program created by Dillinger (a slimy Evan Peters in grotesque tech bro mode) as a soldier of war.  Dillinger has found a way to make war machines in the computer and then with a newfangled 3D printer, he can not only bring tanks into the real world, but soldiers like Ares as well.  The problem is Ares can only live “off the grid” for twenty-nine minutes before “de-resing”.  When Dillinger orders him to kill his competitor (Greta Lee), Ares develops a conscience and rebels against his user. 

Words like “dazzling” and “breathtaking” get bandied about in movie reviews, but this is one time when both terms apply.  Visually, the film is stunning.   It looks like the universe you remember (and in the movie’s best scene, it’s exactly the universe you remember), just with a modern sheen.  The scenes both on and off “the grid” are moody and elegantly shot too. 

Sonically, it’s something else.  The score by Nine Inch Nails captures the same flavor of Wendy Carlos and Daft Punk without duplicating them, all the while remaining totally NIN to the core.  Trent Reznor creates a score that fits both the Nine Inch Nails aesthetic while at the same time fitting comfortably within the world of Tron.  (Yes, I listened to the score on the car ride home.)

Say what you will about Jared Leto, but speaking strictly about his performance here, he is excellent.  He captures the childlike wonderment of a program learning to be human while still kicking plenty of ass in the action scenes.  Peters makes for a suitably sleazy villain and (poor box office aside) I hope they make another one so they can follow up on the awesome mid-credit stinger.  Gillian Anderson is also quite good as his long-suffering mother.  Jeff Bridges is also around for what amounts as an extended cameo, but he has nice chemistry with Leto, and he looks comfortable enough passing the torch to him. 

So yeah, I’m kind of bummed this flopped because the set-up for the sequel seemed promising.  Then again, Tron was able to buck bad box office and mixed reviews to become a cult hit and spawn a sequel.  Twice.  Maybe it will happen a third time. 

End of line.