THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #11: YOKAI MONSTERS: SPOOK WARFARE (1968) *** ½

(Streamed via Shudder)

Treasure hunters accidentally awaken a bat monster from its tomb in the desert.  It makes its way to Japan where it drinks the blood of a local magistrate and takes his form.  Soon, the monster begins racking up more victims and turns them into his minions.  When he sets his sights on draining children of their blood, the monsters that lurk in the dark decide to band together and stop the bat-vampire-thing once and for all.  

Yokai Monsters:  100 Monsters was a fun flick, but it had a bit too much samurai drama and gratuitous asides that prevented it from firing on all cylinders.  This sequel is a straight-up horror show, and it’s all the better for it.  The monsters from the first movie make a welcome return (including my favorite, the Umbrella Monster), but the new monsters are really cool too.  I think the best addition to the cast is the monster who puffs out his belly and shows flashbacks on it as if it was a projection screen TV!  Another fun moment occurs when a pair of comedy relief guards (who are sort of playing an off-brand Japanese version of Abbott and Costello) have a run-in with a monster who resembles a cross between Gonzo the Great and Gabriel from Malignant.

I also liked how the monsters pull a ‘70s Godzilla and become a friend to children in this one.  Despite that touch, it’s a much darker film than its predecessor, even if the monsters are pretty much “the good guys” this time around.  The finale is quite rousing too as the villain becomes Godzilla size and our monster heroes have to call on the “100 Monsters” to help defeat him.  (Unlike the last movie, it actually looks like there’s a hundred of them in this one.) 

AKA:  The Great Yokai War.  AKA:  Ghosts on Parade.  AKA:  Yokai Monsters 2.  AKA:  Big Monster War.  AKA:  The Battle of the Spooks.  AKA:  Big Ghost War.

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #10: EVIL TOWN (1987) * ½

(Streamed via American Horrors)

Evil Town had a long, painful, strange production.  It was started in 1973 under the direction of Curtis (L.A. Confidential) Hanson.  He wound up getting fired and replaced by the producers (Death Game’s Peter Traynor and Larry Spiegel).  Production was eventually halted due to lawsuits and the film wasn’t completed until the mid ‘80s by producer Mardi Rustam (who added a bunch more nudity to make it commercially viable).  

The results are far from seamless.  Then again, the seams are expected when a film took fourteen years and four directors to finish.  The plot threads are all over the place.  There are two families camping whose car breaks down in the titular town.  We also have two horny gas station attendants who like to sneak off and rape coeds.  Then, there’s also the matter of a nuthouse where a sexy doctor is performing illicit experiments on her patients.  

You can probably guess what’s going on, thanks to the fact that the town is mostly populated by old people.  Yes, they are luring young folks into town and performing experiments on them in order to prolong their life.  Although it’s pretty obvious, the shoddy new scenes kind of make the whole thing kind of confusing.

Incredibly enough, there are some name stars in the cast.  James Keach and Robert Walker, Jr. are the paternal figures taking their family camping, and poor old Dean Jagger (in his final role) is the head mad scientist behind the insidious plot.  Sadly, he makes the whole thing even harder to watch as he is noticeably frail, often looks as if he is in pain, and flubs his lines a lot.  

Yes, Evil Town is a fucking mess.  The film stock, hairstyles, fashions, and cast changes often.  The various plots feel like they were stuffed into an UNO Attack game and then spit out at random.  The overuse of slow motion in some scenes is downright laughable too, but I’m sure it helped the distributors pad out the running time.  At least there is a lot of T & A.  

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #9: SAINT MAUD (2021) ***

(Streamed via Paramount+)

Maud (Morfydd Clark) is a home hospice healthcare worker tending to the needs of a former dancer (Jennifer Ehle) stricken with terminal cancer.  It soon becomes apparent Maud is more than a little touched.  Devoutly religious, Maud fears her hedonistic patient is in danger of going to Hell, and she sets out to do anything in her power to prevent that from happening.  

Saint Maud has a great set-up that first at makes it feel like it’s going to be one of those ‘90s thrillers like The Hand That Rocks the Cradle.  However, it doesn’t take very long for it to dovetail into some very different territory.  Fortunately, writer/director Rose Glass changes gears so subtly that you never quite notice the slight of hand at work.  

I hesitate to get into spoiler territory, so I will try to keep this review as brief as possible.  The second half is pretty wild and features moments that reminded me of everything from Taxi Driver to The Exorcist to Carrie.  Somehow, Glass manages to make all those nods feel organic and fresh and not just a filmed checklist of tried-and-true horror tropes.  

Saint Maud never quite steps over the line into balls out horror, but whenever it tiptoes around those parameters, it’s often very effective.  It’s less an arthouse horror show and more of a character study of a sad, broken, and possibly insane loner on a slow, painful, and tragic journey to an inevitable, horrific fate.  The reason all this works as well as it does is because of Clark’s performance.  Like Sissy Spacek in Carrie, you feel for her every step of the way, even though you know she’s going to pull some heavy shit in the final reel.  It’s a powerhouse performance that keeps the movie afloat, even through its draggier passages, and makes it well-worth watching, even if it isn’t exactly a home run.  Sometimes (especially in October), a ground-rule double is all you need.

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #8: THE WEREWOLF OF WOODSTOCK (1975) **

(Streamed via Beta Max TV)

Dick Clark produced this inane mess, a TV movie that was broadcast as part of “The Wide World of Mystery”.  If you’re expecting to see a werewolf attack the likes of Jimi Hendrix, The Grateful Dead, The Who, and Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, forget it.  There’s only about ten seconds of actual concert footage (which may or may not have been Woodstock) in the beginning.  In fact, the Werewolf attacks the TOWN of Woodstock… and by “TOWN” I mean “the woods”.

After three days of peace, love, and music at Woodstock, everyone goes home, but nobody bothers to tear down the stage.  The hippie-hating town drunk gets shitfaced after the festival, wanders onto the stage, and winds up getting electrocuted.  The freak accident causes him to turn into a werewolf (!?!?!?!?!) and before long, he is stalking a rock band who have shown up to the abandoned stage just so they can say they “played at Woodstock”.  After the wooly werewolf kidnaps their favorite groupie, the band agrees to help the cops lure the loathsome lycanthrope out into the open using the rock n’ roll music the monster despises so much.

The werewolf is shoddy as all get out.  It looks just like a Halloween mask you’d see at a five and dime.  I guess they tried to do something different with the accepted werewolf lore (he transforms whenever there is an electrical storm rather than a full moon), but the changes are just as dumb as the make-up.    

Michael Parks brings his typical offbeat energy to the role of a detective, but honestly, he looks embarrassed to be there.  (Can you blame him?)  The only other names in the cast are Andrew Stevens as the hotheaded band member who acts like a prick to everybody and Belinda Balaski (who later faced off against werewolves in The Howling) is the groupie who has psychic premonitions.

I was tempted to give this One Star all the way through, but in the third act something so mind-bogglingly awesome happened that I just had to tack on an extra Star.  It occurs when the werewolf is being pursued by the authorities and he steals a dune buggy and high tails it out of there.  Ive seen a lot of shit in my time but I've never seen a werewolf in a dune buggy before.  It doesn’t make up for the awful effects, lethargic pacing, and constant fade-in and fade-outs for TV commercials, but it does make it memorable.

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #7: DEATH GAME (1977) ***

(Streamed via R Flix)

Seymour Cassel stars as a happily married man celebrating his fortieth birthday home alone on a dark and stormy night.  When two beautiful young girls (Sondra Locke and Colleen Camp) show up asking to use the phone, he chivalrously obliges them.  It doesn’t take the lovely ladies long to seduce the poor dope with a three-way in the bathtub.  Problems arise the next morning when they refuse to vacate the premises.  When Cassel eventually threatens to call the police, the girls counter and claim they’ll say they were raped if the cops show up.  They then perpetually harass, manipulate, and eventually kidnap him, which naturally leads to more complications, including murder.  

Apparently, Death Game had a tumultuous production.  Cassel and director Peter Traynor fought so much that he refused to come back to record his dialogue.  The producers were then forced to get cinematographer David Worth to loop his lines.  If Cassel didn’t have such a distinctive voice, it might not have mattered, but the dubbing is painfully obvious, and much of the suspense is lost every time he opens his mouth.  

Luckily, Locke and Camp make a lot of the film’s shortcomings seem like a moot point.  They are a lot of fun to watch and are hot to trot (especially Camp) during their love scenes.  Heck, they still manage to look foxy as Hell even in the midst of their psychotic rantings and ravings.  (Like when they put on way too much make-up and put Cassel on “trial” for his various crimes.)  Even though you know from the get-go they are up to no good, it’s hard to fault Cassel for letting them in.  I mean, duh.

The biggest debit is the annoying music.  The theme song, “Good Old Dad”, which is played way too often will get on your damned nerves almost instantly.  The ending is way too pat, which also knocks the rating down a bit.  However, whenever Locke and Camp are front and center being psychotically sexy, Death Game is a game worth playing.

Eli Roth later remade this as Knock Knock, with Locke and Camp returning as producers.

If you’d like to know my thoughts on the remake, I reviewed it in my book, The Bloody Book of Horror:  The Bloody Book of Horror: Lovell, Mitch: 9781542566629: Amazon.com: Books

AKA:  Make-Up.  AKA:  The Seducers.

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #6: GOODNIGHT MOMMY (2022) ** ½

(Streamed via Prime)

If you’ve already seen directors Severin Fiala and Veronika Franz’s Goodnight Mommy, you probably know where this gratuitous, yet sporadically effective Hollywood remake is going.  Since you’re likely to know the twist before it happens, you can amuse yourself by seeing just how director Matt Sobel has updated it for American audiences.  Even though it has been noticeably watered down, I still think I enjoyed it more than the original, mostly thanks to Naomi Watts’ performance.

Elias (Cameron Crovetti) and Lukas (Nicholas Crovetti) go to live with their movie star mom (Watts) in the middle of nowhere.  She had a surgical procedure done on her face, so she has to walk around the house wearing a scary white mask.  The kids are subject to her increasingly erratic behavior and slowly begin to suspect that it might not be their mother under the mask.  

This is a good role for Watts, who is quickly changing gears from Hollywood It Girl to Direct to DVD Schlock Queen.  It’s a fun performance and she gets to act a little gonzo, as the anonymity of the mask allows her to cut loose when needed.  I don’t know many actresses that could’ve pulled off a role like this (or who would’ve wanted to), but Watts certainly goes for it.  (There are times she looks like a female version of Diabolik… except in a negligee.)  There’s a particularly unsettling scene where she does a sexy dance in front of a mirror unaware one of her kids is watching.  

It may lack the nasty edge the original had, but it’s more straightforward and better paced, and benefits from Watts’ performance.  There’s also some decent horror imagery here and there, although it usually turns into one of those irritating “It was all a dream” scenarios.  It’s not great, but I liked it better than the original.  It’s certainly much better than Watts’ other Hollywood remake of a foreign language horror flick, the overrated The Ring (or even Funny Games, for that matter).  

If you’d like to know my thoughts on the original Goodnight Mommy, check out my book, The Bloody Book of Horror:  The Bloody Book of Horror: Lovell, Mitch: 9781542566629: Amazon.com: Books

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #5: HELLRAISER (2022) *

(Streamed via Hulu)

My hope going into the new Hellraiser was that it would at the very least be better than the last six installments.  It really wasn’t asking a whole lot as they were without a doubt some of the worst DTV sequels ever made.  Sadly, this dreary reboot could’ve even clear that incredibly low bar.  

I guess I should’ve known it was going to suck since it went straight to Hulu.  The last time Hulu released a Clive Barker adaptation we got the abysmal Books of Blood.  Shockingly enough, this might even be worse than that turd.  

The first thing you should know about Hellraiser ’22 is that it is over two hours long.  There is no reason why any Hellraiser movie needs to be that length.  As bad as Hellraiser 9 and 10 were, at least they were short.  In fact, you could almost watch them back-to-back in the time it takes you to sit through this thing. 

Odessa A’zion stars as a former drug addict fighting to stay clean.  She has a fight with her brother about rent, so she and her boyfriend figure stealing a mysterious box and fencing it will put them in the money.  Little does she know the box is the Lament Configuration, and when she opens it, the box sends her brother straight to Hell.  She does some research on the box and traces it back to a reclusive billionaire who…

Yes, this is all plot that happens BEFORE Pinhead (Jamie Clayton) shows up.  In fact, you have to wait SEVENTY minutes before she makes any kind of significant appearance.  At least at this point, if you were watching Hellraiser 9, it would be over, but this one still has a full FIFTY flippin’ minutes to go.  

If you ask me, director David Bruckner (taking a huge nosedive in quality from his last film, The Night House, which I reviewed the other day), should’ve cut back on all the Junkie Nancy Drew shit and got right to the Cenobite action.  Then again, the Cenobite action isn’t much to write home about either.  In fact, we only get ONE single cool moment when Pinhead sticks one of her pins into a dude’s neck and we see a POV shot from INSIDE his throat as the pin goes all the way through to the other side.  That lone moment of invention just can’t justify freaking two hours’ worth of drudgery.  

The slight redesign of Pinhead’s look is OK.  Jamie Clayton tries to do what she can with the role, although she isn’t given a whole lot to work with.  She isn’t a patch on Doug Bradley, but she can rest assured she is easily the second-best Pinhead.

I heard there’s now a Hellraiser TV series in development.  Since it’s directed by Halloween’s David Gordon Green, that will probably suck too.  Maybe if they’re smart, they’ll finally let the franchise go to Hell where it belongs. 

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #4: MAD MOVIE (2015) ****

(Streamed via AsianCrush)

After 28 Days Later, there were a glut of fast-moving zombie pictures.  After Saw, we got a lot of variations where characters were trapped in a “game” where they had to make do-or-die decisions.  There have also been a lot of horror flicks that use snuff movies as a plot device.  Mad Movie blurs the line between all three subgenres and the results are wildly successful.  This is one of the most kick-ass movies I have seen in a long time.    

Two aspiring filmmakers coax two pretty tourists to appear in their movie.  They sneak into a seemingly abandoned warehouse to shoot some test footage unaware that an unseen psycho has plans to make them the star of his own demented movie.  He’s placed cameras all around the premises and livestreams the carnage to a nearby movie theater where the rowdy patrons revel in seeing the “stars” stalked.

When things get slow, the “director” pushes a button which releases a gas that turns people into zombies that attack the “cast”.  Whenever he needs to spice things up, he unleashes another gas that makes everybody horny and bang each other.  When he REALLY wants to rile up the audience, he releases a gas that makes the zombies horny.  Folks, this is some of the finest horny zombie action I’ve ever seen.  

At seventy-four minutes, director Hideo Jojo keeps everything moving at a brisk pace.  Jojo can film a softcore sex scene just as good (if not better) as a zombie attack.  When he combines the two… LOOK OUT!  Not to be outdone, he also gives us a pretty great Kung Fu zombie scene in there as well.

Jojo also tosses in some interesting plot wrinkles (an actress’s fiancé is kidnapped and forced to watch her in the film) and delivers a great twist ending as well.  This is the first film of his that I’ve seen, and I look forward to seeing more from him soon.  He doesn’t seem to have a big following here in the States (heck, this flick doesn’t even have a listing on IMDb), but I hope that will change in the near future.  

In short, Mad Movie sure as heck lives up to its title! 

AKA:  Maze:  Secret Love.

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #3: THE NIGHT HOUSE (2021) ** ½

(Streamed via HBO Max)

Rebecca Hall gives a devastating performance as a grieving woman who is despondent after the suicide of her husband (Evan Jonigkeit).  Soon after his death, she begins having strange dreams and starts to feel as if there is a supernatural presence in her house.  She eventually discovers her husband had some dark secrets, such as a string of affairs with women who look suspiciously like her.  Most troubling of all, is the fact he built a nearly identical home (except everything’s in reverse) in the middle of the woods.  

Without the strong central performance by Hall, The Night House would’ve crumbled like a house of cards.  She is electrifying and surprisingly funny too as she uses her grief as an excuse to spit venom at people who test her patience.  The standout scene is when she has a conference with a bitchy parent who wants to know why their kid got a C on an assignment.  This scene is a seriocomic masterpiece that ranks right up there with anything in Manchester by the Sea.  Too bad the horror stuff never comes close to getting under your skin the way this scene does.

Hall is surrounded by a great supporting cast too.  Vondie Curtis Hall has some strong scenes as a concerned neighbor who might have a clue as to Hall’s husband’s shenanigans.  Sarah (Barry) Goldberg is equally fine as Hall’s friend who might know more than she lets on.  

There were times I flirted with giving The Night House ***.  Unfortunately, the mystery behind Hall’s husband’s philandering and his ominous nocturnal carpentry is markedly less involving than the stuff with her grieving and drinking excessively.  The ending is a bit of a letdown too, which is the main reason I couldn’t quite recommend it (although it is well-worth seeing just for Hall alone).  On the plus side, director David Bruckner (who just directed the upcoming Hellraiser reboot) does a solid job establishing the mood and gives the scenes where Hall is alone in her home a nice creepy edge.  

Then again, they might not have been as effective if it wasn’t for Hall’s performance.  Usually, scenes of characters investigating strange noises down dark hallways get repetitive.  Since the ones in this flick feature Hall being surly after too many glasses of wine, they have an entertaining spark about them.  I just wish the script The Night House was built on had a better foundation.

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #2: DEMONICUS (2001) **

(Streamed via The Archive)

A group of friends go hiking in the Italian Alps.  One dude goes into a cave and is possessed by the spirit of a bloodthirsty Roman gladiator.  Before long, he is walking around dressed like a Spirit Halloween version of Russell Crowe and starts slaughtering his friends in order to bring the gladiator back to life.

You can say what you will about Demonicus, but at the very least, it has a novel premise.  I’ve sat through a lot of low budget slashers in my time.  This is the first one I’ve seen where the killer is possessed by the spirit of a gladiator.  

As a slasher, it gets the job done.  The kills are competent enough, and director Jay (Trancers 6) Woelfel keeps them coming along at a relatively steady clip.  He also wastes no time establishing the unlikely set-up as our villain dons his gladiator get-up and has his first victim in the bag before the opening credits even have a chance to roll.  Unfortunately, as the film enters into its second half, the characters start to wander aimlessly in circles, and so does the movie.

The cast all hit their marks.  The only person I recognized was the Femalien herself, Venesa Talor.  I would’ve liked to have seen a bit more of her (if you know what I mean), but she does a fine job, nevertheless.   

All in all, Demonicus is a moderately proficient slasher.  While it still falls into some of the same pitfalls inherent in an early ‘00s low budget horror flick (poor sound, inconsistent digital cinematography, shoddy CGI effects, etc.), it remains memorable thanks to its wacky premise (although it’s played seriously enough) and kooky sequences.  Even though it’s mostly a throwback to ‘80s slashers, there were moments that harken back to other genre movies.  The scene where the killer keeps a damsel in distress tied up in a cave next to a rotting skeleton is a bit like Eegah!, the part where he puts a bunch of severed body parts in a cauldron is reminiscent of Blood Feast, and the melting finale owes more than a little to The Evil Dead.  These moments aren’t quite enough to save the flick, but they sure keep you watching.

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #1: TRAILERS #10: HORROR CLASSICS OF THE 1930’S AND 1940’S (1992) ***

(Streamed via YouTube)

Even though I am partial to trailer compilations featuring films from the ‘70s and ‘80s, this is a really strong collection from the good folks at Something Weird, as it features a nice cross section of movies from the ‘30s and ‘40s.  Everything is covered from the atmospheric works of Val Lewton (I Walked with a Zombie, The Cat People, and The Seventh Victim) to prestigious pictures from major studios (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Hangover Square, and Arsenic and Old Lace) to Poverty Row productions (Ghosts on the Loose, Spooks Run Wild, and The Invisible Ghost).  My favorite ad was probably the one for Mark of the Vampire, hosted by Bela Lugosi himself.  There’s also a cool triple feature preview for Mark of the Vampire, The Mask of Fu Manchu, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde too.  Oh, and despite the title, there’s a couple of trailers for ‘50s movies such as Bride of the Gorilla, House of Wax, and The Mad Magician tacked on at the very end.

Many of the prints are heavily worn, and some of them are so washed out that you can barely make out the ad copy on the trailers.  However, a lot of them are from re-releases, so those are in much better shape.  There are also some drive-in snipes and concession stand ads sprinkled about for padding purposes.  

Even though many of the films featured are tame by today’s standards, there’s a peppering of lurid bits in there to keep you on your toes.  The eyeball eating scene is the highlight of the Maniac trailer, and the Devil Monster preview has lots of native nudity on display.  While many of the titles will be overly familiar to people like me who have watched lots of public domain horror films from the era, there were still enough movies here I had never heard of to at least keep me entertained (The Vampire’s Ghost, The Whispering Shadow, and Dr. Satan’s Robot).  

Oh, and you might be surprised that there are no Universal titles in this collection.  Never fear.  They are the subject of Something Weird’s next compilation, which I plan to review soon.

Here’s the full trailer rundown:  White Zombie, King Kong, Mark of the Vampire, The Black Room, MGM Triple Horror Feature (Mark of the Vampire / The Mask of Fu Manchu / Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde), I Married a Witch, I Walked with a Zombie, The Leopard Man, Hangover Square, The Body Snatcher, The Curse of the Cat People, Arsenic and Old Lace, Maniac, The Vampire's Ghost, The Catman of Paris, The Valley of the Zombies, Ghosts on the Loose, Spooks Run Wild, The Invisible Ghost, The Beast with Five Fingers, Scared to Death, Mighty Joe Young, The Mask of Diijon, The Mysterious Island, Son of Kong, The Whispering Shadow, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941), Doctor Satan's Robot, Cat People, The Seventh Victim, Isle of the Dead, The Undying Monster, Flesh and Fantasy, The Flying Serpent, The Uninvited, Dead of Night, Devil Monster, The White Gorilla, The Monster and the Ape, Who Killed Doc Robbin?, Bride of the Gorilla, The Mad Magician, and House of Wax (1953).

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: STREAM AND STREAM AGAIN… AND AGAIN… AND AGAIN…

It’s that time of the year once again.  Time to put everything else on hold and watch nothing but horror flicks from dusk till dawn.  For the month of October, I will be streaming 31 horror movies from 31 different sources, whether they be streaming online, through my TV, or on my Roku player.  

Since my schedule doesn’t really permit me to post a horror movie review a day, I will instead be uploading them whenever I have the time.  Rest assured; I will review at least 31 of them.  As in previous years, the festivities will continue far past October 31st as I will be watching and reviewing any and all miscellaneous horror flicks under the “Halloween Hangover” banner.  

I can’t wait to see what this month has in store for us.  Will the movies be tricks?  Or will they be treats?  Only one way to find out, so let’s get trick-or-treating!

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!

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.

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.

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.