NETFLIX AND KILL: THE INVITATION (2016) *

Logan Marshall-Green goes to a party at his ex-wife's house with his new girlfriend in tow.  If that already wasn’t awkward enough, the ex and her new husband tries to indoctrinate them in their newfound hippie religion.  Everyone at the party tries to be nice, but it soon becomes apparent that this hippie-dippy shit is actually a cult.  The hosts show them a recruitment video and even makes them participate in one of their group circles under the guise of a party game.  Eventually the guests have had enough and try to leave, but realize too late that they’re trapped in the house.

Too much of The Invitation feels like you're at a party where you don't know anyone.  There’s more social awkwardness here than out-and-out horror.  It also takes way too long to make its point.  You have to wait about eighty minutes for anything remotely horrific to happen, which is bad enough when you consider the film is already too long at a hundred minutes to begin with. 

Director Karyn (XX) Kusama is going for a slow burn type of deal, but she forgets to turn on the stove.  I don’t mind a slow build-up if you deliver the goods in the third act.  Sadly, the payoff here is painfully weak.  The big revelation is underwhelming and the scenes of the guests going bonkers at the end isn’t worth the wait.  Not by a long shot.

NETFLIX AND KILL: THE BABYSITTER (2017) ** ½

Cole (Judah Lewis) is a nerdy, bullied kid that still has a babysitter (Samara Weaving).  Fortunately for him (and the audience), she’s smoking hot.  Cole wonders exactly what it is the babysitter does after he goes to bed, so he is determined to stay up late and find out.  As it turns out, she likes to bring her friends over to perform a human sacrifice. 

I really wanted to like The Babysitter, but despite a handful of funny moments, the movie often acts like it’s too cool for its own good.  The way the characters endlessly spout out pop culture references (not to mention endless obscenities) grows tiresome, and the on-screen graphics that occasionally pop up to add an exclamation mark on the proceedings gets old fast.  I mean, the whole thing is pretty much taken from Cole’s perspective anyway, so there’s a heightened sense of childhood paranoia already on display.  Having all the title cards popping up is just gratuitous.  (Example:  When Cole witnesses a human sacrifice in his living room, the letters “W…T…F?!?” appear just below his horrified expression.) 

Director McG is deliberately going over the top with the gore and the performances, which is fine.  I even dig the retro-‘80s vibe he’s trying to give off during the death sequences.  I just wish he was a little more disciplined when it came to all the Edgar Wright-inspired graphics. 

Even though the film is tonally a mess, the performances are so good that it really works better than it should.  Lewis makes for a likeable young hero, but it’s Samara Weaving that steals the show as the sexy and deadly babysitter.  No matter what the movie’s faults are, it still has a scene in which she and Bella (Amityville:  The Awakening) Thorne play Truth or Dare and make out with each other.  Because of that, a lot of its sins are easily forgiven. 

Thorne also gets the best line of the movie when she gets shot in the boob and says, “Can’t you just put a tampon in there?” 

NETFLIX AND KILL: DEATH NOTE (2017) **

Nat Wolff stars as a dorky high school kid who finds a magic notebook.  The evil guardian of the book (Willem Dafoe) tells him if you write someone’s name it, they’ll instantly die in the way you described.  At first, he and his girlfriend (Margaret Qualley) try to use it for good by killing criminals under the guise of an avenging angel named Kira.  His detective father (Shea Whigham) is quickly put on the case and joins forces with an unconventional profiler (Lakeith Stanfield) to bring him down. 

Wolff is pretty in the good lead.  I liked the fact that even though he had a book that possessed evil powers, he still screams like a girl whenever he’s in danger.  He has a likeable chemistry with Qualley, who looks a little like a young Eva Green, and they make some of the film’s more tedious sections tolerable just because they are fun to watch.  Willem Dafoe basically plays The Green Goblin again, but dressed up as a porcupine man cosplaying as the Joker.  Whigham has some good moments as Wolff’s father, but Stanfield’s character is annoying.  I’m sure he’s a talented performer in other films; it’s just that his character’s eccentric behavior gets on your nerves almost instantly. 

Death Note was based on a manga, which is probably why it pretty much makes no sense.  I mean, the book just drops out of the sky and Wolff picks it up.  That’s your opening scene!  I guess this was one of those deals where I had to read a comic book prequel or watch an anime short beforehand to figure out what was going on.   

Some of the death scenes have a Final Destination quality about them.  Most of the kills are weak though.  I guess it’s novel that the characters used the book’s power on a global scale instead of just using it to get back at bullies, but the approach is just too clunky and the book's endless list of “rules” gets irritating almost from the get-go.

NETFLIX AND KILL: 1922 (2017) ***

Thomas Jane has a pretty good track record when it comes to Stephen King adaptations.  I happen to think Dreamcatcher is a bug-nuts minor classic and The Mist has one of the best horror movie endings of all time.  I’m happy to report that 1922 is another winner from King and Jane. 

Jane stars as a proud farmer whose wife (Molly Parker) wants to sell off her family’s farmland.  Jane won’t hear of it.  Farming is in his blood and he doesn’t want to give the land up.  Besides, it’s all he knows.  She’s headstrong though and won’t budge.  He soon begins plotting with his son (Dylan Schmid) to bump her off in order to preserve their way of life. 

Screenwriter/director Zak Hilditch does a good job of painting the characters in short, economical strokes.  They are desperate and conniving people driven by greed and the way they lie and corrupt to get what they want evokes the work of Jim Thompson.  Hilditch’s use of dark colors and placement of shadows in the early going is more Film Noir than horror movie.  Farm Noir, if you will. 

The second act is when the horror elements start coming into play.  There’s even a subplot about killer rats that may or may not be a reincarnation of Parker’s vengeful spirit.  The sounds of the rats running, screeching, and scratching behind the walls are quite effective.  Anyone who’s ever had a rodent problem can feel some empathy for Jane’s plight.  (Well, with his rat problem, that is.)   

The Farm Noir first half was a tad more successful for me than the stuff with the killer rats.  Both portions of the film have their moments of quiet eeriness though.  It’s just when I think back to the movie, it’ll be the early scenes of Jane manipulating his son that I’ll remember.  Some of the detours 1922 takes in the second act (like Schmid’s evolution into a ruthless bank robber) are a bit unnecessary too, and it probably runs on a good ten minutes longer than it needed to.   

If anything, 1922 is a reminder of how great Jane can really be.  With his steel-eyed stare and speaking out of clenched teeth with a thick country drawl, he does some of his finest character work of his entire career.  Heck, he even makes you feel a little sympathy for him, which considering what a cold-hearted bastard he is in the movie, isn’t an easy feat.

LEATHERFACE (2017) ** ½

Remember Mary Harron’s wonderful indie cult classic I Shot Andy Warhol?  Remember Lili Taylor’s mesmerizing performance as the man-hating, SCUM Manifesto-writing, Andy Warhol-shooting Valerie Solanas?  Remember Stephen Dorff’s heartbreaking turn as the enigmatic transgender superstar Candy Darling?  They were so terrific together that I have spent the last 21 years wondering what it would take to team up those two titans of indie cinema again. 

As it turns out all it took was… Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 8?!?!   

What’s odd about Leatherface is that it’s the second film in the Texas Chainsaw series to be called Leatherface (after Leatherface, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3).  Last time I remember something like that happening was when the fourth Rambo movie came out and they called it Rambo, just like Rambo:  First Blood Part 2.  This also happens to be the second prequel in the series.  In fact, two out of the last three installments have been origin tales if you can believe it.   

Not that a die-hard TCM fans (that’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre fans, not Turner Classic Movie fans) would complain as long as it delivered on the gore.  Oh boy, it sure does.  There’s plenty of red stuff and squishy body parts to go around.  I just wish it felt more like an honest-to-God Chainsaw movie. 

You can’t blame directors Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury (the team that did the amazing Inside) for trying something new.  Even though this is yet another prequel, it focuses more on how Leatherface became Leatherface rather than the usual sawing and slashing.  That means if you came looking for the usual Chainsaw thrills, you might be a tad disappointed.  With the exception of the opening birthday party scene and the last five minutes or so, this prequel is skimpy when it comes to sawing.  There is not a single meat hook in sight.  Sigh. 

This entry is more of a pastiche of other movies than a logical expansion of the Chainsaw series.  I probably missed some of the references, but there were scenes that copied/stole from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Natural Born Killers, Necromantik, Of Mice and Men (yes, Of Mice and Men), The Revenant, and Hannibal.  Okay, so maybe Bustillo and Maury weren’t trying for something new after all. 

The plot is all over the place.  Dorff plays a sheriff whose daughter is killed by the infamous Sawyer clan.  He doesn’t have any proof that will hold up in court, but he makes sure that the demented matriarch (Taylor) will feel his wrath when he sends her kids to child protective services.  Years later, Ms. Sawyer turns up at the nuthouse where her younglings are stashed and instigates a massive riot, which allows her kids to escape.  While the kids try to make their way home, the sheriff sets out to make their life a living hell. 

So, as you can see, it doesn’t really sound like any Chainsaw movie you or I ever saw (no pun intended).  Don’t get me wrong.  It’s not bad.  Dorff in particular is excellent.  There’s just a couple of goofy plot devices (like trying to make Leatherface’s true identity a mystery throughout the picture, which doesn’t work at all) and lame stalling tactics that get in the way of the fun.  Still, it’s almost worth watching just for the gore alone.  It’s just that when you hear the Inside guys are directing a TCM flick, you have a certain amount of expectations.  I can’t say those expectations were met, but I can say that this is the best Texas Chainsaw Massacre prequel AND the best Texas Chainsaw film that has the word Leatherface in the title, so that in itself is a minor victory. 

THE LADIES CLUB (1986) ** ½

Karen Austin stars as a cop who is raped in her own home by a gang of thugs.  After her attackers get off scot free, she receives an outpouring of mail from rape survivors.  She decides to form a club with her doctor and invites the women into her home to talk about their experiences.  Before long, they decide to stop talking and do something about it.  Together, they go out at night targeting, drugging, and castrating known rapists. 

The Ladies Club is a solid exploitation picture that fuses revenge fantasy with social commentary.  It’s not always successful on either score, but you have to give it points for trying.  Things get off to a fine start though and the scenes of the women picking up rapists in bars and dropping them off to the doctor for low-rent castrations are often quite funny.  Despite that, it’s not nearly as nasty or as exploitative as it could have been.  In fact, given the subject matter, it’s ultimately kind of toothless.  With a few edits here and there, it could’ve easily played on Lifetime.  The ending is a bit pat too.   

The supporting cast is solid.  Diana Scarwid does a fine job as one of the ladies and Arliss Howard is pretty good as her concerned husband.  It’s Nicholas Worth who is the most memorable as a scumbag rapist who justly gets what’s coming to him. 

AKA:  The Violated.  AKA:  The Sisterhood.

NETFLIX AND KILL: EXTRAORDINARY TALES (2015) **

Director Raoul Garcia did a nifty feat in adapting five Edgar Allan Poe stories into animation form.  Many of the stories have been done to death, so the animation is a novel way to keep them feeling fresh.  He was also able to get a couple of genre all-stars to narrate the tales, some of them from beyond the grave.  While the results are uneven at best, it’s no worse than most anthology horror films. 

In The Wraparound Story (**), Edgar Allan Poe is reincarnated as a raven.  He flies to a graveyard to brood in solitude, but winds up conversing with the statue of Death.  These sequences are slight to say the least, and they don’t really make much of an impression.  They’re really nothing more than padding to get you from one story to the other. 

The Fall of the House of Usher (** ½), narrated by Christopher Lee, recounts the familiar tale of Roderick Usher.  The animation is well done, but the highpoint is easily Lee’s vocal performance.  The gravitas his voice lends to the proceedings is immeasurable and makes up for the skimpy story. 

The Tell-Tale Heart (***), narrated by Bela Lugosi, is about a guy who kills an old man and buries the body in the floorboards.  The cops arrive on scene and the sound of the dead man’s beating heart drives the murderer insane.  The abstract black and white animation in this segment is reminiscent of Sin City.  The narration by Lugosi is wonderful too.  While the recording itself is creaky and scratchy, it adds to the overall atmosphere.  Again, the story is a bit too short to get the full effect, but it’s worth it just for Lugosi. 

The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar (** ½) is narrated by the Warlock himself, Julian Sands.  It’s about a doctor who mesmerizes his dying friend.  This one has an old school E.C. Comics vibe to it that is a lot of fun.  As with the other tales, it is slight, and suffers from a long-winded set-up, but it isn’t bad. 

The next tale is The Pit and the Pendulum (**) and it was narrated by Guillermo del Toro.  A condemned man awaits his sentencing from the Inquisition.  The animation is a bit more polished than in previous stories, but it lacks the cool sheen of The Tell-Tale Heart.  The story is slow moving, the pacing dawdles, and the ending is a bit of a letdown.  Del Toro’s narration leaves something to be desired too. 

The Masque of the Red Death (**) is the final tale.  Although it contains no narration, it does feature dialogue that is recited by Roger Corman, who of course, directed the original film.  Corman’s involvement is welcome, but honestly, his version was a lot better.  I did enjoy the animation though as it looks like a water-color Disney movie.  While the animation is vibrant and abstract, the story itself a bit slow moving.  It doesn’t really pick up until the Red Death shows up, and even then, it’s too little, too late.