HALLOWEEN HANGOVER: DEMONOID (1981) ** ½

Samantha Eggar and her husband do a little digging in the Mexican Mummy mines and accidentally unleash a centuries-old killer hand.  Before long, it possesses her hubby and he takes off for Vegas.  Samantha follows in hot pursuit until the hand decides it likes her better, kills the husband, detaches itself, and comes after her.  She then turns to priest Stuart Whitman to help destroy the hand once and for all.

Say what you will about this movie, but the opening is amazing.  A priest hacks off the hand of a topless woman and it runs around all by itself while a devil that looks like something out of an ‘80s heavy metal album cover subliminally flashes on screen. You have to wonder if it was added after the fact to beef up the running time (it’s only 79 minutes long), or at the very least add a little T & A to the mix.  Whatever the case may be, I loved it.  

The scenes of people voluntarily hacking their hands off have a certain kick to them (like the part where someone is forced to use a blowtorch on their wrist to free themselves of the hand).  I also liked the part where the hand fakes out a victim out by using a mannequin hand as bait.  Unfortunately, everything in between almost feels like something out of a TV Movie of the Week.  Even with the brief running time, there are still several lulls during the handless stretches of the film.  Still, it’s better than Oliver Stone’s similarly-themed The Hand. 

AKA:  Devil’s Hand.  AKA:  Demonoid:  Messenger of Death.

HALLOWEEN HANGOVER: MALATESTA’S CARNIVAL OF BLOOD (1973) *

Here’s a jaw-dropping slice of homegrown, regional, low-budget ‘70s hokum.  Your jaw won’t drop because it’s particularly gruesome or scary or anything.  It’ll drop because of how cheap (and bad) it is. 

The idea is sound.  Who wouldn’t want to see random people getting bumped off in a carnival setting?  Too bad the production values are so poor that even the simplest of scenes are awfully unconvincing.   

For starters, there’s hardly anyone ever at the carnival.  At all times it looks like it was filmed at a carnival after closing time with background extras being precious and few.  When someone finally does get killed, they aren’t even missed, which doesn’t help to generate suspense.  There is one potentially great scene where a guy is decapitated on a rollercoaster, but the effects are so shoddy, and the editing is so haphazard that the payoff is basically ruined. 

Speaking of editing, the whole movie feels slightly off-kilter because of the way it’s assembled.  Scenes come and go with little bearing on what happened before.   Often, the film is choppy and incoherent.  In other places it feels unfinished, almost as if it was cobbled together after the fact.  Because of that, it feels much longer than the seventy-three-minute running time suggests. 

The subplot about the horde of cannibals that lurk below the carnival works the best.  The scenes of the cannibals attacking their victims owe a great debt to Night of the Living Dead.  While we’re on the subject of public domain films, I must point out that I did like the part where the cannibals all hang out and watch Lon Chaney movies.  

The acting is painfully amateurish at times.  The only name star in the cast is Herve Villechaize, who has a small role (no pun intended) as a carny.  He’s far and away the best actor in the film, which really isn’t saying much. 

HALLOWEEN HANGOVER: THE NESTING (1981) **

An agoraphobic writer (Robin Groves) moves to the country to soothe her condition.  Turns out the house she’s rented is a former bordello that’s haunted by the spirit of the madam (Gloria Grahame from Blood and Lace, making her final film appearance).  Before long she’s having waking nightmares of being a hooker and slowly starts losing her grip on her sanity. 

Director Armand Weston is most famous for the legendary porn classic The Defiance of Good.  His skill set didn’t seem to carry over into the horror genre.  The Nesting works in fits and starts and occasionally threatens to genuinely gather momentum.  The problem is that the scare sequences don’t have much in the way of rhythm.  The stalking scenes go on and on, almost comically at times.  At least they have memorable punchlines.  (One scene climaxes with a drunkard handyman being pulled into a lake by zombie arms and another ends with a scuzzy chicken farmer getting a sickle planted in his forehead.) 

All of this is occasionally amusing, but you’ve got to put up with a lot of dull, predictable crap in between the good stuff.  It’s also undone by a lousy ending.  Groves’ wisecracking boyfriend grates on the nerves too. 

John Carradine is around long enough to say a couple of lines before having a stroke and disappearing for a good chunk of the movie.  Then he turns up later in the picture, but promptly has a heart attack and is sidelined yet again.  He’s still well enough to manage reciting the huge exposition dump in the final reel though.   

AKA:  Phobia.  AKA:  Massacre Mansion.

HALLOWEEN HANGOVER: THE WITCH WHO CAME FROM THE SEA (1976) ***

After watching the documentary GLOW:  The Story of the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling, I got a hankering to watch a Matt Cimber movie.  He of course directed a string of exploitations pictures long before his involvement with the ultimate women’s wrestling show.  I’m glad to say, The Witch Who Came from the Sea is one of his best. 

Millie (The Shooting) Perkins stars as a mentally frail waitress who lives with her sister and two nephews in a gloomy seaside town.  When she learns her two favorite footballs players have been murdered during a kinky sex act, she flies off the handle.  It’s also troubling to her because she’s unable to remember if she’s the one responsible.  

The Witch Who Came from the Sea has a freewheeling, experimental feel to it.  The murder sequences have a dreamlike quality and the freak-out scenes are quite memorable.  It has a grimy, homemade look so the “normal” everyday scenes almost feel like a home movie.  Because of that, when things get weird (like the scene where Perkins imagines a bunch of bodybuilders being strung up and killed), it feels especially freaky.   

Due to its very nature, the film is uneven and sometimes frustrating.  Whenever it threatens to derail itself, Perkins swoops in to save the day.  You never quite know what she’ll do next and her homicidal bursts of lunacy are really something to see.  One moment, she’s sweet and innocent.  The next, she’s unhinged and deranged.  The supporting cast, which includes such favorites as George “Buck” Flower as a cop and Roberta Collins are equally fine and lend terrific support.

MIDNIGHT IN THE GARDEN OF GOOD AND EVIL (1997) **

I’ve been wanting to watch some Clint Eastwood movies I hadn’t seen before.  I chose this one based on the strength of the cast.  I mean who wouldn’t want to see John Cusack teamed up with Christopher Plummer?   

Cusack stars as a New York reporter who goes to Savannah, Georgia to do a story on a lavish Christmas party held by the eccentric Plummer.  During the party, his lover (Jude Law) storms in demanding money.  Later, he winds up dead and Plummer is charged for murder.  Cusack decides to stick around and cover the story. 

I never read the book this was based on, but supposedly, Cusack’s character was an invention of the screenwriters.  He’s only there to act as a tour guide to the various oddballs and eccentrics that populate the movie.  One guy walks an invisible dog, an old lady performs voodoo ceremonies in a cemetery, a trans nightclub performer constantly hits on Cusack, and an old coot carries around a vial of poison and threatens to taint the town’s water supply.  I don’t know if they were going for Twin Peaks Down South or what.  All I know is that the elements never quite gel.   

The reporter device doesn't really pay off.  It hinges on people telling Cusack information about other character instead of showing us what they’re all about.  This gossipy stuff might’ve worked in the book, but this a movie.  You have to show, not tell.  

It’s mildly amusing in the first half when we’re being introduced to the assorted bunch of colorful characters.  It’s when the film settles down into its long-winded courtroom scenes that much of the energy drains out of it.  Ultimately, the plot is just too dawdling, and the pacing far too languid to make it entertaining. 

This was an odd choice for Clint.  It kind of goes against the grain of his strengths and sensibilities.  Maybe he was trying to stretch as a director and show he could do more Oscar bait-y type of material.  To quote Dirty Harry, a man’s got to know his limitations. 

Plummer is so aloof that it becomes hard to root for his character.  Since you never really care about him, it's consequently hard to care whether he’s guilty or not.  In one scene he has a monologue about no one understanding his special “bond” with a much younger man.  Life doesn’t imitate art much, does it? 

Cusack gets the best line of the movie when he describes the situation to his editor:  “It’s like Gone with the Wind on mescaline!”

HALLOWEEN HANGOVER: SADAKO VS. KAYAKO (2016) ** ½

If you’re going to do a vs. movie, you must make sure the opponents are evenly matched.  King Kong vs. Godzilla had two giant monsters facing off against each other.  Freddy vs. Jason found two of the premier slashers of their era going head to head.  Alien vs. Predator had two extraterrestrial beasties locking horns.  For Sadako vs. Kayako, we have the little ghost girl having a bad hair day from The Ring going up against the little ghost girl having a bad hair day from The Grudge.  This is about as evenly matched as it gets, folks. 

There’s even a little bit of Urban Legend here as the heroines have a professor that teaches a class on urban legends.  He offers his students cash money for proof that the cursed video from The Ring exists.  If only Rebecca Gayheart was lurking around in a parka, it could’ve been a triple-header. 

Anyway, our two heroines find a VCR at a dirt mall that just so happens to have the mythical tape in it.  Naturally, they watch it.  In a brilliant stroke, one of the girls is busy texting on her phone so she misses the whole thing!  Of course, her friend is doomed to die in two days, so they ask an unconventional exorcist to help them lift the curse.  He suggests performing the exorcism in the haunted house from The Grudge and letting the two evil spirits duke it out. 

Like both franchises, the pacing is awfully slow.  The constant cutting back and forth between The Ring and The Grudge’s storylines also takes a lot of the wind out of the movie’s sails.  I will say The Ring scenes work better than The Grudge scenes, but there is one good part where the Boy Who Meows Like a Cat from The Grudge attacks a couple of bullies.  You’ve also got to wait a long time before both curses fight each other in the final showdown and when it finally does happen, it’s a bit of a letdown.   

Despite these annoyances, this is still a lot better than any of the previous films in both respective franchises, so that’s a small victory at least.  It doesn’t take itself very seriously, which is a blessing.  Both franchises hinged on the audience’s belief that a little ghost girl having a bad hair day was scary, which, it isn’t.  This one kind of senses the stupidity inherent in the premise(s) and decides to have a little fun with it.  I’m not saying it completely works, but I’ll be damned… I ALMOST liked it.

MANBORG (2011) * ½

Faux-grindhouse throwbacks are risky propositions.  Sometimes I wonder if these things are just an excuse for people to make a bad movie on purpose.  If that was the makers of Manborg’s intentions, all I can say is mission accomplished.

In the future, the world goes to war with Hell.  A soldier is killed on the battlefield and turned into a cyborg by a mad scientist.  He is sent to fight in gladiator games against Hell’s minions before banding together with a few fellow fighters to stage an uprising.

The effects are purposely terrible, which gets old quick.  It’s like the movie thinks haphazardly using obvious greenscreen effects is automatically hilarious.  As a result, the whole thing looks like a shitty Sega CD game.  The stop motion animation is better than the crappy CGI, but it's still not very good.

The dubbing is bad on purpose too, but it’s never so out of whack that it elicits a laugh.  It’s no Kung Pow:  Enter the Fist in that department.  The only laughs come from the villain’s attempt to woo one of the women prisoners he has a crush on.  It’s odd that the intentional humor works rather well, but the calculated use of shoddy effects and low budget techniques falls flat.

There might have been enough material here to pick and choose from to make a three-minute faux grindhouse trailer.  At seventy minutes, it’s all rather insufferable.  If you stick around after the credits, you’ll be treated to a fake trailer for Biocop, which looks like a cross between Maniac Cop and The Incredible Melting Man.  It contains as many laughs in three minutes as Manborg did in seventy, which pretty much proves my point.  At least Biocop knew when to quit.