THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #31: DEAD DUDES IN THE HOUSE (1989) **

(Streamed via Popcornflix)

A group of guys and their girlfriends buy a dilapidated house and try to renovate it.  When the asshole of the group kicks over the tombstone in the front yard, it awakens the ghost of an old woman who committed murder in the house decades before.  Whenever she kills one of the carpenters, they turn into killer wisecracking zombies who attack their friends and turn them into more… dead dudes in the house.  

Troma released this low budget horror flick and gave it a silly title.  Even though it wasn’t one of their in-house productions, the humor and gore is fairly consistent with their usual sensibilities.  The special effects, gore, and make-up (all handled by Ed French) are better than you might expect.  Hands are hacked off, people are skewered, and in the standout sequence, a guy is cut in half by a window.  

The granny killer (played by a guy in convincing old age make-up) is reasonably effective too.  She has a couple of memorable moments when she randomly appears and/or lurks just behind the heroes.  Too bad her hot daughter (who is also an evil ghost) doesn’t get nearly enough screen time.

Although Dead Dudes in the House certainly has its moments, much of the running time is an endurance test of the audience’s patience.  I mean half the fucking movie is devoted to never ending scenes of characters trying (and failing) to open doors.  Just when that becomes too much to bear, they take to trying (and failing) to open windows.  (You know, for variety’s sake.)  Seriously, if you played a drinking game and took a shot every time someone couldn’t open a door, you yourself would be a dead dude (or dudette) in the house at about the twenty-minute mark.  It also doesn’t help that too many of the characters are obnoxious and that the finale drags on for an eternity.  

AKA:  The House on Tombstone Hill.  AKA:  The Dead Come Home.  AKA:  The Road.

Well, folks, that will do it for this year’s 31 Movies of Horror-Ween festivities.  Stick around as there are plenty more horror reviews to come as Halloween Hangover will continue until the end of November.

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #30: LORD SHANGO (1975) ***

(Streamed via Night Flight)

Lord Shango is a voodoo-themed horror-drama that was released in the midst of the ‘70s Blaxploitation craze.  Unlike many of those films, it doesn’t feel like it’s capitalizing on a thriving subgenre.  Instead, it’s an effective chiller in which the characters just so happen to be black.  

Femi (Bill Overton) is a voodoo practitioner who tries to prevent his girlfriend Billie (Avis McCarther) from being baptized in a river.  The congregation gets a little rough with Femi and he accidentally drowns when they try to “convert” him.  Things go from bad to worse when Billie’s stepfather Memphis (Wally Taylor) rapes her, causing her to leave town.  Her furious mother (Marlene Clark) then turns to a voodoo priest (Maurice Woods) to see that justice is done.  

Marlene Clark is excellent as her performance requires her to run a gamut of emotions.  She’s particularly engaging in her scenes with Lawrence Cook, who plays the town drunk, who just may know a little more than he lets on.  McCarther and Woods are equally good in tricky roles.  

I liked the way director Ray (The Last Porno Flick) Marsh resisted the temptation to lean into the horrific elements of the story.  Instead, he patiently allows characters to slowly seal their own fate with their actions. You probably won’t even mind that the horror is more subdued as the sometimes-icky family drama and strong performances are enough to keep you glued to your seat.  Not only that, but Lord Shango is a searing indictment of religious hypocrisy.  It’s also interesting the way Marsh contrasts elements of voodoo with Christianity, leaving the viewer to decide which of the two does more harm than good.  

Lord Shango probably runs on about ten or fifteen minutes longer than necessary.  However, this is one movie in which the marinade is more important than the meat.  It might move a little pokey in sports, but it’s a damned fine alternative to some of the schlocky Blaxploitation horror flicks of the era.

AKA:  The Color of Love.  AKA:  Soulmates of Shango.

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #29: CURSE OF THE VOODOO (1965) ***

(Streamed via Raygun)

Director Lindsay Shonteff and his Devil Doll star Bryant Haliday reteamed for this effective voodoo thriller.  Haliday plays a smarmy great white hunter who kills a lion on sacred ground in Africa.  Since the local tribe worship lions as gods, they put a voodoo curse on him.  Once Haliday is back in London, he tries to reconnect with his estranged wife (Lisa Daniely).  It is not a happy reunion, however, as he is haunted by the witch doctor’s fiendish curse wherever he goes.  

Shonteff delivers a couple of solid sequences, namely the big game hunting scene which is accompanied by an almost humorously bombastic score.  Other memorable scenes involve Haliday going out for a midnight stroll and being menaced by the sound of a snarling lion, and when he is pursued by the apparition of the witch doctor on the streets of London.  The best scene is the terrific African dance sequence set in a London nightclub where a black dancer does what can only be described as the ‘60s version of twerking.  I would like to think the reason this scene goes on for so long was because Shonteff was trying to juxtapose the native dancing of Africa with the more modern dance of swinging London in the ‘60s.  More than likely, he just wanted to get lots of footage of the dancer shaking her moneymaker for all its worth.

With his pale, pockmarked face and devilish demeanor, Haliday is ideally cast as the big game hunter getting his just desserts.  He’s just as good at being an asshole in Africa as he is being haunted by specters in London.  Dennis Price also lends fine support as Haliday’s hunting buddy.  

What sets Curse of the Voodoo apart from typical voodoo-themed horror flicks is that much of the horror is psychological.  Yes, Haliday’s visions stem from the witch doctor’s curse, but they can also be seen as a metaphor for his alcoholism (many characters chalk up his increasingly erratic behavior to his drinking) and/or guilt.  Although the pacing sort of sags here and there (especially once Haliday lapses into a comatose state) and the final confrontation is a tad underwhelming, this is nevertheless an entertaining, low key horror flick that works more often than not.

AKA:  Voodoo Blood Death.  AKA:  Curse of Simba.  AKA:  Lion Man.

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #28: DRACULA’S WIDOW (1988) ***

(Streamed via Freevee)

Two things I learned from the title of this movie:  Dracula’s 1) Married and 2) Dead.  Shit.  Had I known that, I would’ve sent flowers… to both the wedding and the funeral.  

All kidding aside, Dracula’s Widow was the first movie directed by Christopher Coppola, who would later go on to direct the immortal classic, Deadfall.  It would make a great triple feature of Late ‘80s/Early ‘90s Coppola Vampire Movies, alongside the Nicolas Cage-starring Vampire’s Kiss and Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula.  

Lenny Von Dohlen is the temperamental owner of a Hollywood wax museum who winds up receiving the remains of Dracula’s widow (Emmanulle’s Sylvia Kristel).  Before long, she bites him, makes him her familiar, and goes out into the night turning her victims into hamburger.  This is why you should always inspect your packages before you sign on the dotted line for them.

For a first-time feature, it’s pretty good.  Coppola bathes many scenes with lots of cool colors (many sequences are lit like a giallo) and gives the whole thing a look that’s a lot artier than you might expect.  Despite being the titular character, Kristel doesn’t seem to be in it a whole lot.  She doesn’t really look like she’s having a lot of fun either, but at least she looks great (even in her bad wig).  The biggest debit though is all the scenes with a hardboiled detective (Josef Sommer) investigating the murders, which aren’t exactly bad, it just feels like they came out of an entirely different movie.  

These quibbles are relatively minor in the long run.  For the most part, Dracula’s Widow is briskly paced, looks slick, and it contains lots of blood, guts, and gore.  Since Kristel is “both beauty AND beast”, she not only drinks the blood of her victims, but turns into a rubber-faced monster and eats them.  The highlight comes when she rips apart a bunch of Satanists during a black mass.  There’s also a solid bat transformation scene near the end which puts lots of today’s CGI crap to shame. 

AKA:  Lady Dracula.

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #27: BLOODY MUSCLE BODY BUILDER IN HELL (1995) ****

(Streamed via Midnight Pulp)

Bloody Muscle Body Builder in Hell is basically a low budget, hour-long, shot-on-video Japanese remake of Evil Dead 2.  After reading that sentence, you should already know if you are the target audience for this sort of thing.  Even if you didn’t dig it as much as I did, you have to admit:  It has one of the greatest titles in movie history.  

Shinji (writer/director Shinichi Fukazawa) is a bodybuilder who takes his girlfriend and a psychic to investigate his father’s supposedly haunted house.  Before long, the vengeful spirit of his father’s former lover possesses the psychic and uses his powers to lock the couple in the house.  After being tormented endlessly by the possessed psychic, our hero eventually uses his love of weightlifting to smash the demon once and for all.

Some scenes follow Evil Dead 1 and 2 pretty closely, and the recreations are quite impressive considering the time and resources that were available.  Fans of Sam Raimi’s trilogy will enjoy these moments to be sure (everything from the headless corpse attack to the iconic “Groovy” scene is here), but I was even more impressed by Fukazawa’s original flourishes and twists on Raimi’s standbys just as much.  The eyeball stabbing scene is great, and the part where a necklace comes out a person’s mouth and digs into their eye is kind of freaky.  The film even manages to one-up Raimi when the dismembered hand fuses together with a severed head, creating a Bride of Re-Animator-esque creation.  Also, those who were always incensed that Evil Dead 2’s poster boy, the skull with human eyes, was nowhere to be found in that movie will be pleased that a very low budget version shows up here.

In front of the camera, Fukazawa mimics Bruce Campbell’s performance rather closely and nails many of his facial tics.  Weirdly enough, this was his only movie, and it’s sort of a shame.  Even though it’s clearly a riff on Evil Dead (I hesitate to call it a “rip-off” as it’s more of a homage than anything), his own unique spins on Raimi’s films are enough to make you curious what he might’ve been able to do with a completely original premise.  

“Sayonara, baby!”

AKA:  The Japanese Evil Dead.

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #26: ADVENTURE AT THE CENTER OF THE EARTH (1966) ** ½

(Streamed via Otherworlds TV)

Julia (Carmen Molina) and her boyfriend are taking a tour of a cave when they sneak off for a little hanky-panky.  They fall into a hole and her man is killed by a giant rubbery reptile.  A professor (Jose Elias Moreno) then gathers together an expedition to find the monster responsible.  

Directed by Alfredo B. (Santo vs. the Martian Invasion) Crevenna, this Mexican sci-fi horror flick suffers from a lot of padding.  The opening narration is especially longwinded, there’s an inexplicable musical number that brings things to a screeching halt, the diamond smuggling subplot goes nowhere, and the slow-moving scenes of the expedition traipsing through the caverns are likely to bore you.  The funniest form of padding comes during the hilarious scene where the professor preps his team for the journey by showing them footage from One Million B.C. and Unknown Island.  Usually, these kinds of films try to incorporate shots from other movies into the action, so it was nice to see monster fights from other flicks being passed off as “research” material.  

If you can get past the scenes of real animal cruelty and casual racism, you’ll be treated to some terrific rubbery monsters.  There’s a cool cyclops, a giant bat monster (who has a hilarious flying scene), and a big ass fuzzy spider.  The shots of the monsters’ eyes glowing in the dark are quite atmospheric and the monster attacks are even a little bloody.  Another memorable sequence occurs when the expedition is attacked by bats while perilously dangling above a lava pit.  

For a film filled with so much padding, it sure ends awful abruptly.  I mean, appreciate it when a movie wraps things up before it wears out its welcome, but it’s still a little jarring.  However, for all its faults, when the monsters are front and center, Adventure at the Center of the Earth is cheesy fun.

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #25: PAGANINI HORROR (1988) ***

(Streamed via Plex)

Paganini Horror starts off with some of the worst/funniest scenes of terrible musicians performing awful rock n’ roll numbers since Pod People.  The band’s manager is understandably upset and hates the song almost as much as the audience.  “I know the difference between a hit and the mundane!  We need another hit… not rehashed bullshit!”

Concerned, one of the band members gets in contact with a poorly dubbed Donald Pleasance who sells him an old parchment of a lost song by Paganini.  To double down on the whole Paganini-Mania the kids obviously go gaga for nowadays, the band decides to film their music video in Paganini’s old villa (ran by Daria Nicolodi, who also wrote the flick).  Here, we are treated to another hilarious/awful rock video segment where a guy in a gold mask stalks the band.

I’m sure you probably can guess that the real Paganini (who allegedly sold his soul to the devil for fame and fortune) comes to life and starts to make mincemeat out of the band and the video crew.  You probably didn’t predict he would do so with a switchblade violin.  (Then again, you might, if you saw it under its alternate title, The Killing Violin.)  

In short, this is some of Luigi (Starcrash) Cozzi’s finest work.  Although he can’t quite sustain the WTF momentum of the early scenes throughout the entire running time, Cozzi gives us enough face melting and flesh dissolving to make this a cut above your typical rock n’ roll horror flick.  If the shoddy musical numbers didn’t endear Paganini Horror to you, or if the sight of Donald Pleasance throwing money from the top of tall buildings failed to make you smile, or if the brightly colored balls-out scene of horror didn’t leave an impression, then the dialogue will at least make you sit up and take notice.  There are howlers aplenty here.  I think my favorite line came when the band gets the idea to film their horror-themed music video and one of the gals says, “No one has ever done anything remotely like it before!  Except for Michael Jackson and his fantastic Thriller video clip!”

AKA:  The Killing Violin.  

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #24: RETURN TO… RETURN TO NUKE ‘EM HIGH AKA: VOL. 2 (2017) **

(Streamed via The Halloween Channel)

The title of Troma’s Return to… Return to Nuke ‘Em High AKA:  Vol. 2 is a little unwieldy and chaotic.  That’s okay because it perfectly suits the movie itself.  Following up the fun Return to Nuke ‘Em High Vol.1 was an unenviable task.  Although this belated (even though they were shot simultaneously) sequel is an often disjointed mess, there are some truly memorable moments here to still make it worth a look for Troma fans.  

Heck, the first scene qualifies it as some kind of manic classic.  It’s a fun, gory, and surreal rip-off of the shower scene in Carrie.  While it’s pretty much all downhill from there, this scene will be etched into my brain for months to come.

After being raped by a duck in Vol. 1, Lauren (Catherine Corcoran) gives birth to a mutant duck baby.  She and her lover Chrissy (Asta Paredes) ease into their parenting roles surprisingly well, all things considered.  The couple’s bliss is soon shattered when the glee club-turned-gang of mutant bikers, The Cretins kidnap Lauren and her newborn.  Meanwhile, the head of Tromorganic (Lloyd Kaufman, who also directed) turns into a fire-breathing mutant monster and it’s up to Lauren’s duck monster boyfriend, Kevin to save the day.

Like most Troma sequels, Return to… Return is heavily padded with flashbacks to the other movies in the series. The editing is slapdash at best, and the whole thing feels cobbled together from leftovers from the previous film.  “Meta” scenes of Kaufman arguing with his wife (and producer) about editing gore and dicks out of the final cut feel more like a way to pad things out than anything.  (Extra padding occurs in the form of outtakes and even a musical number over the credits.)

Overall, it’s less assured and certainly messier than Vol. 1.  Despite a grand set-up, it pretty much falls apart in the second act.  At least the gross FX, dumb gags, and abundance of T & A keep it from completely spinning off the rails.  

Your enjoyment of the film may hinge on your ability to go with all the duck stuff.  I’m not sure why Kaufman leaned so hard into the duck humor.  If I had to guess, I’d say it was the natural progression of the foul humor (no pun intended) of Poultrygeist.  Who knows?

Monique Dupree gets the best line when she sees Corcoran giving birth in the shower and screams, “She’s not dying!  She’s dilating!”

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #23: TAG (2015) *** ½

(Streamed via Horror Movies by Fawesome)

I first became aware of Tag when they played a clip from the opening scene on an episode of The Soup.  It involves a bus full of Japanese schoolgirls on a field trip that wind up being cut in half by an unseen force.  This jaw-dropping bravura set piece features some janky CGI in some spots, but I’ll be damned if it doesn’t work.  This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the film’s unexpected, surreal, and gory sequences.

Tag is sort of like a mix of Evil Dead, Final Destination, and The Butterfly Effect.  A Japanese schoolgirl runs afoul of mysterious forces that cause her classmates to die in horrifically ghoulish ways.   Just when she thinks she’s escaped death’s grasp and everything has returned to normal, she finds herself in an alternate universe where yet another grim fate awaits those around her.  

Tag is full of spectacular carnage and over the top gore.  The film contains a wonderful scene where a Japanese schoolgirl takes a crocodile to the crotch, as well as one of the greatest wedding scenes in movie history.  There is a school shooting sequence that may be too much for some viewers to take, however, so fair warning.  Some of the stuff in between the gruesome set pieces feels a tad like padding, but since these scenes include several instances of Japanese schoolgirls getting into slow motion pillow fights, it’s hard to lodge a complaint.  The camerawork is also impressive as it is at times reminiscent of both Raimi and Kubrick.  

The ending is a little on the underwhelming side, but then again, anyone would be hard-pressed to tie together all these wildly disparate sequences in a satisfying manner.  That doesn’t necessarily diminish the overall impact as it certainly fits the unpredictable tone throughout the rest of the film.  Tag may have its flaws, but this is one movie I had no idea where it was going from one scene to the next.   Even if some parts didn’t work, I didn’t care as being along for the ride was part of the fun.  

AKA:  Tag:  A High School Splatter Film.  AKA:  Real Tag.

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #22: DARK NIGHT OF THE SCARECROW 2: STRAWEYES (2022) **

(Streamed via Vudu)

The Made for TV Movie, Dark Night of the Scarecrow has its share of ardent followers.  I never found it to be particularly great, but it was better than many similar ‘80s TV horror flicks.  Considering the film’s cult following, it seems odd that they waited forty-one years to make this low budget DTV sequel.  As far as forty years too late sequels go, it’s not terrible or anything.  I’ve certainly seen worse this month, that’s for sure.

Chris (Amber Wedding) and her son Jeremy (Aiden Shurr) move from the big city to a small rural farming community.  They aren’t in town very long when several people begin turning up dead.  Could the local killer scarecrow legend be to blame?  

I can’t tell if Dark Night of the Scarecrow 2:  Straweyes is trying to honor the Made for TV feel of the original by having most of the kills occur offscreen or what, but the results are kind of weak.  When we seldom do see the carnage left by the killer scarecrow, it’s pretty tame.  In his defense, writer/director J.D. Feigelson (who also wrote the original) does set up the kills in a competent manner and manages to sometimes punctate them with a clever touch.  (Like when the farmer’s glass eye pops out.)  I just wish he hadn’t been so frugal with the red stuff.

Had we had some quality kills, it might’ve been easier to overlook some of the film’s other shortcomings.  The biggest drawback is the fact that it withholds its connection to the original for a good chunk of the running time.  The whole Witness Protection subplot eats up a lot of screen time too.  This shit wouldn’t have cut it on a lackluster episode of Nash Bridges, let alone a four decades later DTV sequel to a Made for TV horror movie.

AKA:  Dark Night of the Scarecrow 2.

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #21: THE SKELETON OF MRS. MORALES (1960) ** ½

(Streamed via Dark Matter TV)

Mr. Morales (Arturo de Cordova) is a perpetually henpecked husband who is married to a real shrew (Amparo Rivelles).  He finally has enough of his nagging wife’s shit and decides to poison her.  Since Mr. Morales is a taxidermist by trade, he proudly displays the bones of Mrs. Morales in his storefront window, practically begging for the suspicious townsfolk to call the cops.  Naturally, he is arrested, fools everyone at the trial, and eventually gets away with murder.  After the trial, he confesses his crime to his local padre (and main accuser), who informs him he will soon face the wrath of God for his deeds.

Directed in atmospheric fashion by Rogelio A. (Ship of Monsters) Gonzalez, The Skeleton of Mrs. Morales is a beautiful looking film.  The cinematography is excellent and some of the camerawork is quite impressive (especially in the final scene).  In fact, there are moments that may make you think of both Alfred Hitchcock and Mario Bava.   

Ultimately, the story is a bit one-note and predictable to be fully effective.  It would’ve made for a gangbusters half-hour episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents or The Twilight Zone, but at feature length, it has a tendency to drag (particularly in the second act).  Although the twist is telegraphed ahead of time, it is nevertheless well executed by Gonzalez.  I won’t spoil it for you.  I’ll just say it’s the sort of thing you have seen dozens of variations of before in similar films, although to be fair, it’s done better here than in lots of better known movies.

The acting is a bit maudlin and hammy, which helps prevent it from really kicking into gear.  Both de Cordova and Rivelles go over the top at times, which doesn’t necessarily endear them to the audience.  With no one to sympathize with or root for, we are essentially just along for the ride and await the guilty party to get their just desserts.

Bottom Line:  Despite having a bone (or two) to pick with the film, The Skeleton of Mrs. Morales is a solid little horror chiller.

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #20: THE MUNSTERS (2022) * ½

(Streamed via Netflix)

When I heard Rob Zombie was directing a reboot of The Munsters, I was optimistic.  I mean his best song, “Dragula” was inspired by The Munsters’ race car, so who would be more qualified to bring the beloved monster family into the 21st century?  Sadly, it’s just a fucking mess.

It's an origin story, which I guess wasn’t the worst way to go, but it takes an inordinate amount of time to get going.  In fact, Herman (Jeff Daniel Phillips) doesn’t even show up until about a half-hour into the flick as all that running time is devoted to a mad scientist (Richard Brake) putting together parts of dead bodies to bring him to life.  

Sadly, once Herman finally shows up, he’s freaking annoying.  Gone is the Fred Gwynne iteration of the character.  Phillips’ take on the character is a guy who’s basically an unfunny stand-up comedian.  I know it’s mostly a kids movie and all, but Herman’s constant one-liners wouldn’t have cut it on the back of a box of Franken Berry.  

At least Sheri Moon Zombie is able to channel Yvonne DeCarlo’s old persona while infusing it with her own sensibilities, making Lily a joy to watch.  Daniel Roebuck isn’t bad as “The Count”.  I appreciate they didn’t even try to make him like “Grandpa” as there’s only one Al Lewis, but his material is as equally creaky as Herman’s and his jokes are mostly groaners.

Swindled out of their ancestral castle in Transylvania, The Munsters are forced to relocate to their more familiar residence at 1313 Mockingbird Lane.  And, uh, well… that’s about it as far as the plot goes.  Not that a Munsters movie necessarily needs a strong plot, but it needs… SOMETHING to string together all the bad jokes and awful puns.  What’s more, the villainess (Catherine Schell) never has any real interaction with the family.  Since there’s no confrontation or tension between them, there’s nothing to really advance the plot.  

That is, besides Lily and Herman’s courtship scenes.  Too bad they are almost unbearable.  Once the Lily and Herman music video for “I Got You Babe” was in full swing, I kind of mentally checked out from the entire movie.  

Another thing:  It’s kind of hard to get past the film’s garish, ugly, and oversaturated look.  The whole thing looks like a puke-stained Day-Glo Basil Gogos painting.  Some of the visual quirks work (like the Creepshow-inspired backgrounds for some of the close-ups) are neat, but the majority of it just feels like an assault on the eyeballs.

Also, there’s no Eddie!  How can you make The Munsters without Eddie Munster?  ARGH. 

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #19: CLAWS (1977) **

(Streamed via Creature Features)

The Brain That Wouldn’t Die’s Jason Evers stars as a logger who is mauled by a bear.  Five years go by, and he still is unable to let it go.  His wife finally has enough of his bitter and hateful ways and takes his son to start a new life.  However, when his son is attacked by the same “Satan Bear”, Evers finally mans up and goes out for revenge.  

Claws is one of those When Animals Attack flicks that were so popular in the late ‘70s after the success of Jaws.  Oh, and the title rhymes with Jaws just in case you didn’t already pick up on that.  This one also came in the wake of Grizzly, a far superior killer bear movie.  Even though parts (OK, most) of Claws are laughable, dumb, and confusing, I’ll be damned if there aren’t a few moments when it almost works.  

The biggest drawback is its structure, which relies heavily on the use flashbacks.  The second act is particularly spotty as characters have flashbacks left and right.  All these scenes are mostly there to flesh out their motivations, but honestly, they are really unnecessary as the exposition-heavy dialogue makes many of the flashbacks redundant.

The way the nature footage of grizzly bears is edited into the action is pretty funny though.  The film stock rarely matches in these scenes as some of the wildlife shots are tinted and/or faded, which further makes them stick out like a sore thumb.  Plus, the print I saw was already in shambles to begin with, which didn’t help.  Just when you think you’ve reached your limit with all scenes of the hunting party traipsing through the woods, there is a great payoff involving the Native American guide having a trippy freakout that is good for some unintentional laughs.  

If you can stomach all the corny flashbacks (including a slow-motion romantic interlude in a field), boring custody drama, Native American mumbo jumbo, and sloppy editing, the kill scenes are sporadically effective.  The best one involves a bunch of Cub Scouts camping in the woods who cry wolf about seeing the “Satan Bear”.  Naturally, the real bear shows up later on and tears their camp to shreds.  The editing in this sequence is surprisingly strong (especially compared to the other attack scenes in the movie) and the carnage is rather jaw-dropping.  Although much of Claws is sloppy, shoddy, and idiotic, this sequence, as the kids say nowadays, “goes hard”.

The whole movie is a case of “Good News, Bad News”.  For every quality moment, there’s a bunch of schlock that gets in the way.  Although Evers’ intense performance keeps things from completely unraveling, the rest of the cast act rather embarrassing.  The while demise of the bear is pretty epic, the whole build-up to that choice moment is unbelievably lame as the last five minutes or so of the film are mostly all in slow-motion.

Bottom Line:  Whenever Claws bears its claws, it’s rather grizzly, but it’s more than likely to make you hibernate.

A stoned hippie gets the best line of the movie when he comes face to face with a bear and inexplicably says, “I’m a rock singer, not Walt Disney!”

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #18 BITTEN (2009) ***

(Streamed via Crackle)

Jason Mewes stars as Jack, a paramedic struggling to get over his cheating ex-girlfriend.  He finds an unlikely new love in Danika (Erica Cox) when he finds her in an alley covered with blood.  He brings her home, cleans her up, and to show her gratitude, she turns into a vampire.  Since it’s love at first sight, Jack keeps the relationship afloat by finding her victims so she can feed.  

Mewes is surprisingly good in his dramatic scenes while still being able to deftly delve into his usual Jay persona when needed for comic effect.  Cox is also effective as the pathetic, obviously dangerous, but… you know… hot, vampire.  She is especially good while covered in blood and wanting sex.  She even participates in a three-way with Mewes and another babe, although director Harve Glazer unwisely chooses to get arty and make it into more of a dimly lit montage.  Cox only appeared in a handful of movies, and it’s a shame she wasn’t in more stuff because she is great in this.  Richard Fitzpatrick is a lot of fun too as Mewes’ foulmouthed paramedic pal.  

Bitten doesn’t exactly break new ground, but it remains a simple and entertaining vampire flick.  Although using the vampire as a metaphor for addiction is a tad obvious, when it switches gears and uses it as a metaphor for dating someone with a lot of baggage, it works much better.  It helps that some of this is often quite funny.  I especially liked the love triangle between Mewes, Cox, and his old girlfriend.  (When she turns into a vampire, she hisses “I want my TV back!”)  I also admired some of the odd choices, like the inexplicable use of Spanish title cards and the random-ass Spaghetti Western opening title sequence.

While Bitten is surprisingly sturdy for the bulk of its running time, the ending offers more fizzle than sizzle.  If anything, it’s good to see Jay stretching his acting muscles a bit and showing he doesn’t always need Silent Bob by his side to carry a picture.  It’s Cox though who gets the best line of the movie when describing her vampire hunger:  “It’s like I want to fuck you and eat you at the same time!”

AKA:  Vampire Apocalypse.  AKA:  Bitten in the Twilight.

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #17: PORN SHOOT MASSACRE (2009) ** ½

(Streamed via ConTV)

Few words stir the blood like “Porn”, “Shoot”, and “Massacre”.  When you put all three in the title of your sex-filled horror movie, I’m bound to watch it, even if the results are mixed at best.

Things kick off in spectacular fashion with Shelly Martinez’s epic shower scene that continues to only get better as it goes along.  After stepping out of the shower, the camera follows her as she dries off and applies lotion to her nude frame.  She does get dressed to answer the phone, but only her panties, which means she’s already one of the best actresses I’ve seen in a long time.  Sadly, she gets Janet Leigh’ed early on, but since she goes out via an A+ pantyhose strangulation, it’s hard to be too mad.  

Then, the plot begins:  A bunch of porn starlets arrive at a seedy warehouse set where an oddball director is making his latest XXX flick.  As the cameras roll, the cast and crew are unaware there’s a masked killer lurking about who gets his jollies from axing porn stars and making his own snuff movies.  

The cast includes a mix of lady wrestlers, one-and-done starlets, and actual porn stars.  They are all beautiful and their voluptuous measurements are so stacked that it would make them overqualified for a Russ Meyer movie.  My favorite was Kasey Poteet AKA:  porn star Diana Prince AKA:  Joe Bob Briggs’ mail girl, Darcy who gets a great lesbian scene with porn star Naomi Cruz (who plays “the Fetish Queen”).  Martinez is a wrestler with limited acting credits, but her brief but memorable appearance here is evidence she could be a top-notch Scream Queen any time she decides to come back to the horror genre.  Her opening nude scene in this is right up there with Betsy Rue’s in My Bloody Valentine 3-D, and folks, praise doesn’t come much higher than that.  

Porn Shoot Massacre is a lot of fun until it hits a wall in the third act.  It’s here where we get a needless “twist” that doesn’t do the movie any favors.  It’s not exactly “bad”.  It’s just that once the twist is sprung, there isn’t really anywhere for the film to go.  (It’s also a little hard to take that the filmmakers expect us to start sympathizing with the killers in the late stages of the flick.)  And despite the great opening, it all leads up to a rather unsatisfying non-ending.  It’s disappointing that the ho-hum third act puts a wet blanket on what otherwise was a solid T & A gore-drenched horror flick.  However, that first hour or so is solid enough for me to give this one a marginal recommendation.

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #16: KILLER PINATA (2015) *** ½

(Streamed via Cinehouse)

I went into Killer Pinata expecting to see a pinata kill people.  I got that, but I also got more.  A lot more.  

Killer Pinata is one of the best horror movies I have seen in some time.  It takes a Troma level premise and gives it the A24 treatment.  There is a tongue in cheek aspect, sure.  This is Killer Pinata after all.  However, there is an offbeat artiness to the entire enterprise that is enormously endearing.  

The film is essentially a variation on Child’s Play, except, you know, with a pinata.  A father buys a bunch of pinatas for his kid’s birthday party.  After seeing his friends smashed to pieces, the devilish donkey pinata sets out to get revenge on his fallen comrades.  He singles out a bunch of college kids partying it up and proceeds to take them out one by one.  

The scene where the pinata watches in horror as a little kid beats another pinata in super slow motion is downright hauntingly beautiful.  I never thought I would ever type that sentence but here we are.  Trust me, the movie still gives you the sort of hijinks you’d expect.  In one scene, the pinata strings up a dork and beats him until his teeth splay out onto the pavement like hard candy.  There’s also more than one scene where the pinata shits tainted (no pun intended) candy that kills whoever eats it.  However, despite these broad, obvious moments there’s a funky, vibrant, swagger to the film that makes it unique and tons of fun.  

It does have a little trouble stretching its admittedly thin premise out to a feature length.  One undercooked subplot involves the pinata possessing a human and forcing him to do its dirty work.  However, some of the padding works surprisingly well (like the great animated flashback detailing the origin of the killer pinata), and director Stephen Tramontana pulls off several unlikely sequences with unexpected pizzazz.  (The Pinata POV shots are very well done.)  Besides, as I said at the beginning of this review:  Killer Pinata gives you what you expect, but brother, does it give you a whole lot more.

Bottom Line:  This pinata is chockfull of goodies.

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #15: HALLOWEEN ENDS (2022) ** ½

(Streamed via Peacock)

I was not a fan of David Gordon Green’s previous pair of Halloween sequels.  Because of that, I had little excitement and next-to-no expectations for Halloween Ends.  Maybe it was the lowered expectations, or the fact I knew (or cared) very little about the film’s plot that helped me enjoy it much more than the last two outings.  It’s still not “good” exactly, but it’s an interesting (if flawed) attempt to breathe a little life into the franchise.

If you go in expecting a big, action-packed trilogy capper, you are bound to be disappointed.  It seems by now that Green’s M.O. from the get-go has been to thwart fans’ expectations.  If that really was the case, then Halloween Ends is his master thesis on the subject.  It almost feels like the Halloween franchise’s version of Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi as it acts as a deconstruction of the series.  A sort of litmus test to see how much you can color outside the line of the franchise while still very much adhering to what makes the franchise work.  (The fact that there’s already a petition by angry fans to have the whole movie reshot bears that theory out.)

Without giving too much away, the bulk of the film revolves around Corey (Rohan Campbell), the new Haddonfield urban legend.  A couple years ago, the kid he was babysitting for wound up dead in a freak accident.  Harassed, bullied (by roving gangs of marching band bullies, no less!), and pushed to the brink, the mixed-up Corey has a fateful run-in with Michael Myers that…  Well… you’ll see.

From the very beginning, you can tell Green and Co. are out to subvert our expectations as he uses the same font for the opening title sequence as Halloween 3:  Season of the Witch, the first Halloween film to polarize the fanbase because it dared to take Michael Myers out of the equation.  Green does a similar bit of redirection here.  However, he wisely keeps Michael around (a little bit), allowing for Myers’ legend to still cast a long shadow over the town.  It’s an interesting, if only sporadically effective way to go, and certainly a more enjoyable ride than the previous Green-helmed sequels.  

However, I can’t help but feel a little shortchanged.  We’ve been waiting over forty years for Michael and Laurie’s final face-off.  As a payoff to that storyline, it comes up a bit short.  I think they should’ve called it Halloween Aftermath.  It would’ve been a more fitting title.  Although, honestly, this might’ve worked better as a TV show called Haddonfield.  It could’ve focused on the characters of the town that have had their lives impacted, shattered, ruined, or poisoned by Myers’ reign of terror.  You could’ve brought Jamie Lee Curtis in for the intros (the scenes of her writing her memoirs feel very TV Movie-ish) and spent various episodes fleshing out the new characters.  I know John Carpenter always intended to turn Halloween into an anthology, but given the evidence here, it might just work, as long as there is at least SOME connective tissue to the Myers legend.

I didn’t mind the way Green paralleled Corey and Michael’s ascension to boogeyman status.  Sure, it’s the old nature vs. nurture deal, but it kinda works.  I really liked seeing Laurie opening up a bit and starting a potential romance with the sheriff (Will Patton).  The movie could’ve used a lot more of these scenes and less of the Romeo and Juliet stuff with Allyson (Andi Matichak) and Corey.  I never really believed they were in love, and the arc of their romance feels forced and rushed.  

One thing I did enjoy was seeing Michael taking Corey on as sort of an apprentice.  I mean he’s sixty-five years old.  He can’t keep on killing forever.  It would make sense to for him to train the next generation of psychos.  Corey himself sort of has an Anakin Skywalker vibe going on.  He even has an understanding girlfriend that doesn’t seem to mind when he slaughters innocents.  

Throughout the film, I went back and forth on whether I liked it or not.  The longwinded romance scenes in the middle of the flick made me want to give it **, but then, late in the game, we got that great kill scene in the radio station set to The Cramps’ “I Was a Teenage Werewolf”, which is worth at least another Half-Star my book.  I mean, if Return of the Living Dead, Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, and Near Dark have taught us anything, it’s that any horror movie can be made even better by including a needle drop on a Cramps song.  

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #14: SHOCK CINEMA VOLUME 3: BLOOPERS, BABES AND BLOOD! (1991) ** ½

(Streamed via Tubi)

Producer Brinke Stevens returns with another installment in the Shock Cinema series.  Although she provides narration over the chapter breaks, she doesn’t have any formal hosting sequences this time around.  (She does appear on the opening graphic and shows up in clips from Nightmare Sisters though.)  Unlike the previous two Shock Cinema Volumes, this is less a video magazine and more of a compilation tape.  There are no interviews with B-Movie directors and not as much behind the scenes footage as you might expect.  Instead, it’s broken up into several chapters devoted to various horror/exploitation elements.

The first (and best) chapter is devoted to “T & A”.  We see scenes of Linnea Quigley, Michelle Bauer, and Brinke appearing au natural in Nightmare Sisters, as well as Linnea taking it off in clips from Murder Weapon and Deadly Embrace.  The next segment is on “Blood and Gore” and it features assorted stabbings, bludgeonings, flesh rippings, and exploding heads.  (Mostly from Robot Ninja.)  “Trailers” contains coming attractions for Deadly Embrace, the Scream Queen documentary Something to Scream About, Murder Weapon, Robot Ninja, Skinned Alive, and Ghoul School.  “Bloopers” contains outtakes, flubs, and follies from Nightmare Sisters and Dr. Alien.  These bloopers aren’t exactly funny, but they do offer a tantalizing (if fleeting) taste of what it was like to be on those sets.  The volume is rounded out with “Action and Special Effects”, a collection of fights, bites, slashes, gashes, shootouts, mutants, monsters, and musical numbers from the previously mentioned films.  

Since it’s only drawing from a small pool of titles (mostly Tempe releases), the clips have a tendency to get a little overfamiliar as the tape goes on.  (Some scenes are even repeated by the end, which tends to get a little annoying.)  The short running time (under an hour) helps somewhat, though the overall sense of déjà vu sort of diminishes the fun.  Even though it’s not as informative or as entertaining as the first two volumes, it’s still worth a watch just for the T & A segment alone (especially if you’re a fan of Scream Queens Stevens, Quigley, and Bauer).  

AKA:  Shock Cinema Volume 3.

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #13: LIMBO (1999) *

(Streamed via Cineverse)

About ten minutes into Limbo, it became apparent that B-Movie Scream Queen-turned-first time director Tina Krause rented Jacob’s Ladder one night and decided to make her own loose remake using the crappiest home video equipment available.  That probably wasn’t the worst idea in the world, but the problem is that there is barely any connective narrative tissue to hold the thing together.  Because of that, it looks like one long, cheap, SOV music video.  

A woman named Katherine goes to a bar where she is given an ominous warning by an unseen stranger.  After Katherine picks up a cute waitress (Krause), things spiral into a lot of shaky-cam/let’s-use-every-filter-and-editing-trick-that-came-with-the-camera music video sequences.  She returns to the bar the next night where she picks up another stranger and the cycle repeats itself until Katherine learns she’s actually dead and in limbo.  (Hey, it’s not a spoiler if it’s in the title!)

This one was a tough sit.  Although I enjoy seeing Krause in her low budget horror movies, this is by far the worst one I have seen.  It was also by far the shortest flick I’ve watched this month (it’s only fifty-four minutes), but it sure as Hell felt like the longest.  

It's not all terrible.  If you can make it to the homestretch, there are a couple of decent gore effects (given the budget).  We get a pretty good face ripping scene as well as a not-bad gut ripping sequence.  However, that doesn’t make up for all the schizophrenic editing, incoherent storytelling (a vampire subplot is dropped into our laps in the late going), piss-poor camerawork, and piss-poorer sound.  

I admire Krause’s ambition.  More Scream Queens should take the cinematic reigns and direct their own movies.  I just wish that Krause’s directorial effort was closer in spirit to her other low budget vehicles instead of an overlong, experimental, wannabe student film.

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #12: CAPULINA VS. THE MONSTERS (1974) **

(Streamed via Canela TV)

If you’re unfamiliar with Capulina, he was an extremely popular but painfully unfunny (at least to me) Mexican comedian.  The only other Capulina comedy I’ve seen was Santo vs. Capulina, and that was only because I am a die-hard El Santo completist.  Naturally, the only reason I watched Capulina vs. the Monsters was for the monsters.  I’m a sucker for shoddy South of the Border monster movies, even if they do star annoying comedians.

A mad scientist uses the brain of a dim-witted newsstand attendant (Capulina) to revive Frankenstein, Dracula, the Mummy, and the Wolf Man.  Predictably, they break out of the lab and chase Capulina all over town.  Eventually, Capulina bands together with a bunch of kids to thwart the doctor’s plan.  

The first twenty minutes or so did not inspire hope.  These monster-less passages rely heavily on Capulina’s awful slapstick shtick (which requires him to make silly faces, run around in fast-motion like Benny Hill, and… uh… that’s about it) and have zero laughs.  Thankfully, once the monsters show up, things improve considerably.  While their interactions with Capulina aren’t exactly laugh-out-loud funny, they are at least somewhat amusing.  One fun touch is that garlic has no effect on Dracula, but all the monsters pass out after Capulina eats a bunch of onions and breathes on them.  There’s also an odd scene where Capulina gets into an inexplicable pillow fight with the titans of terror.  The best non-monster scene happens when Capulina mistakes some dwarf criminals wearing Halloween masks for Trick-or-Treaters.  I can’t say “hilarity ensues”, but I think I did crack a smile.  

The monster make-up and costumes are terrible, which only makes the whole thing even more enjoyable.  The Mummy is the worst.  If you thought the Mummy from Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy was bad, wait till you get a load of this guy.  He looks like he’s wearing a repurposed El Santo mask and baggy white pajamas.  However, I dug the scene where Dracula completely unwraps him in order to tie up Capulina and then uses all of his bandages to lower him from a second story window.  Say what you will about this movie, but it has a naked mummy in it, something that possibly might be a cinema first.  

One missed opportunity though:  There’s a scene where the Mummy fights the Wolf Man, and he bites him on the neck.  According to accepted monster lore, shouldn’t the Mummy now turn into a werewolf?  If anything could’ve pushed this flick into *** territory, it would’ve been a Were-Mummy!  Sadly, it was not meant to be.

It also helps that the mad scientist’s assistant Mephistophela (Irlanda Mora) is foxy as all get out.  Wearing a slinky skintight red jumpsuit, she struts around the mad doctor lab looking hot to trot.  One thing’s for sure:  Capulina’s idiotic mugging is certainly easier to take whenever she’s on screen.  

As fun as the middle section of the film is, things get pretty dire as it enters the homestretch.  The finale is especially weak as the monsters are dispatched by Capulina incessantly chanting about his love for chocolate donuts.  (I think, or perhaps my Spanish was rusty).  The demise of the mad scientist is also WTF as he is electrocuted and turned into a turkey!?!  Oh well, at least when Mephistophela loses her job as a mad scientist’s assistant, she bounces right back, and gets a job as a nanny where she gets to wear sexy nanny outfits.  That’s about as happy of an ending as you can get with something like this.