THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: HALLOWEEN (2018) * ½

Halloween is a good lesson to future filmmakers looking to resurrect dormant horror franchises.  It’s okay to put the original film in the series on a pedestal as long as you don’t look down your nose at the sequels that came before your new movie.  Don’t think that just because you have some of the original heavy hitters involved that it’s okay to retcon decades of enjoyable movies and erase other filmmakers’ hard work out of existence.  I beseech you, if you’re going to retcon something, make sure what you come up with is better than what you are retconning. 

This Halloween plays out as if everything from Halloween 2 (1981) to Halloween 2 (2009) never existed.  Erasing the revelation that Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) is no longer Michael Myers’ sister was shortsighted.  If that’s the case, why does he come after her forty years later then?  Because he’s “pure evil”?  Give me a break. 

Director David Gordon Green is a filmmaker I admire.  I like how he goes from drama (like George Washington) to comedy (like Pineapple Express) seemingly on a whim.  I’ve also enjoyed his work on the small screen and believe Vice Principals to be one of the best shows in the past decade.  However, I don’t think he was the best choice to bring Michael Myers back.

A lot of the problem has to do with the staging of the suspense sequences.  In just about every case, there is no build up.  No tension.  No suspense.  The Shape just shows up and starts killing people.  Gone is the Myers who would hide in the bushes, disappearing at random, hiding under a sheet, and playing with the psyche of his intended victims.  This Myers is surprisingly much closer to the one found in the Rob Zombie movies (minus the weird beard and the extreme bulk) as the kills are often over the top and gory, (which is something the original Myers never was).  In fact, the highlight of the movie directly rips off Zombie’s Halloween 2, which in a film so beholden to John Carpenter’s original, is odd to say the least. 

Speaking of Zombie’s sequel, that film did a much better job at exploring Laurie Strode’s past trauma.  Heck, even Jamie Lee Curtis’ quiet scenes with Adam Arkin in H20 are more effective than her shrill yelling and bitching at her family’s lack of Boogeyman preparedness.  Say what you will about Halloween:  Resurrection, the Laurie vs. Michael scenes in that flick were better executed, and there’s nothing here remotely as satisfying as the axe scene at the culmination of H20. 

The subplot involving Myers’ new doctor is among the worst in the entire Halloween series.  Yes, that includes the cult of the Thorn.  Yes, that includes Busta Rhymes.

While we’re on the subject of Busta Rhymes, have you even watched Resurrection lately?  The lame “webcast” shit in that movie has not aged well at all.  In fact, it feels more dated in many ways than the original.  This Halloween revolves heavily around a couple of knuckleheads doing a podcast.  It’s my belief that this insipid plot device will date this entry even worse.

I also take issue with turning Laurie into a Sarah Connor knockoff.  (Right down to the fact that her kid was taken away from her by the authorities.)  Seeing her go from meek babysitter to pistol-packing granny is jarring to say the least.  Maybe if there were more scenes addressing her coming to terms with the ’78 attack, I could’ve accepted it.  However, it’s all done with shockingly little substance and no real motivation other than she wants to kill Michael.  Also, how can you introduce three generations of Strode women, but then give them no real meaningful scenes together?  (Their dinner table scene is cringe-worthy.)

The new characters are even worse.  In addition to the aforementioned doctor, this movie contains some of the worst teenage characters I’ve seen in a horror film lately.  They’re all awful characters whose only purpose is to be killed by Michael Myers.  I did like Will Patton as the sheriff, but he was woefully underserved by his thinly written character.

Even the finale, which is laboriously set-up fails to pack much of a punch.  The reverse-callbacks of the original are almost laughable.  (Although they got a big reaction from the opening night crowd, which just goes to show this is little more than hollow fan service.)  Maybe that’s because I felt absolutely nothing for this iteration of Laurie.  At least her character in H20 had a little spunk to her.  Here, she’s less a human being and more of a plot device to take out Michael Myers once and for all.  

I mean take the finale of H20 for example.  She locked her son out of the school in order to face Michael Myers alone.  Her first thought was to make sure her son was safe.  In this one, she locks her daughter INSIDE a basement with Myers on the loose in the house.  It’s even worse when it’s revealed (SPOILER) that the basement has been designed as a trap for Michael, which makes her daughter the bait!  That just didn’t sit well with me.  Heck, Curtis’ death scene in Resurrection is more touching than anything she did here. 

Which brings me to my biggest complaint about the movie.  It just feels so… ordinary.  Things happen in it, sure, but Green tries to downplay so much of the suspense that it might as well been nonexistent.  Halloween ’18 is competent on a technical level.  It’s well-shot and looks great.  But, is it a worse sin to be mind-numbingly awful like Halloween 6 or Halloween 8 or aggressively not good like this one?  At least those two films had memorable moments.  This one is mostly forgettable.

I never thought a movie would make me yearn for Josh Hartnett, but here we are. 

Are you craving more reviews of horror sequels?  Well, you can read all about them in my latest book, The Bloody Book of Horror, which is currently on sale at Amazon.  Get your copy HERE

PRIME EVIL: THE RED QUEEN KILLS SEVEN TIMES (1976) ** ½

Two rich sisters named Kitty and Eveline live in a mansion where a spooky painting of a woman in a red cloak foretells their ominous fate.  Decades later, friends of the now-grown Kitty (played by Barbara Bouchet) are picked off one by one by a killer dressed as the woman in the painting.  It’s only a matter of time before she becomes the killer’s next target.  Even though the police are hard at work on the case, Kitty is withholding an incriminating secret that could bust the investigation wide open.

The central murder mystery is ho-hum, and the stalking scenes suffer from a few repetitive kills.  (The only memorable death involves someone being impaled on a gate.)  In fact, the film’s subplots are a lot more interesting than the murder investigation itself.  The legend of the woman in red, along with the revelation of Barbara’s big secret (not to mention her involvement with a junkie blackmailer) are sure to keep you engaged when the rest of the movie is spinning its wheels.

The Red Queen Kills Seven Times is an uneven, sometimes frustrating giallo, but it’s buoyed by a great performance by Bouchet.  She’s given plenty of scenes that allow her to descend into wild-eyed theatrics and she looks positively stunning during her freak-outs.  While most of the film is patchy, the final reel in which Bouchet is locked in a slowly flooding room teeming with rats is stellar.  (She also gets a handful of sultry nude scenes too.)  Sybil Danning also shows up briefly, but you’ll wish her part was bigger.

AKA:  Horror House.  AKA:  Blood Feast.  AKA:  Feast of Flesh.  AKA:  The Corpse Which Didn’t Want to Die.  AKA:  The Lady in Red Kills Seven Times.

You can watch the film for free on Amazon Prime:  HERE

THE 31 MOVIES OR HORROR-WEEN: THE STRANGERS: PREY AT NIGHT (2018) **

I don’t know why it took ten years to make a sequel to The Strangers.  It wasn’t exactly great or anything, but its low-fi concept seemingly lends itself to unrelated sequel after unrelated sequel.  Maybe the lukewarm Strangers:  Prey at Night is proof that coming up with another similar scenario is harder than it looks.

I was looking forward to Prey at Night primarily because it gave Christina Hendricks an opportunity to have a leading role.  I don’t want to spoil anything, but… Let’s just say at least she’s top-billed.

Hendricks and her family are on their way to take her teenage daughter to boarding school.  They stop to spend the night at an abandoned trailer park owned by some relatives.  If you saw The Strangers, you know they’re about to be visited by a gang of home invaders wearing creepy masks who delight in tormenting the family before picking them off one by one.

The difference this time out is that the characters are in unfamiliar surroundings.  Because of that, it feels less like a violation of the home and more of a straightforward slasher.  That feeling is compounded by the fact that this time there are four potential victims instead of two, so there isn’t as much endless toying with the characters (or the audience).  That doesn’t exactly translate into scares though.  

The effectiveness of the killers’ stalking ability will probably depend on how creepy you find their masks.  Also, they don’t do much other than stand there, and when they finally do attack, they mostly just slice and dice.  There is at least one memorable jump scare, but it’s not enough to put this one into the win column.

Director Johannes Roberts films things with a stylish flair.  He gives us a lot of fog-drenched streets and gloomy exteriors, but that doesn’t exactly mask the fact that there really isn’t much of a movie here.  He also directed 47 Meters Down, which might explain the film’s extended underwater sequence.

His overuse of ‘80s songs like “Kids in America”, “Total Eclipse of the Heart”, and “Making Love Out of Nothing at All” is marginally effective I guess.  Not only are the characters fighting for their lives, they have to struggle to survive while Air Supply blares in the background.  Personally, having to suffer through listening to Air Supply should count as torture all by itself.

AKA:  The Strangers 2.

Are you craving more reviews of horror sequels?  Well, you can read all about them in my latest book, The Bloody Book of Horror, which is currently on sale at Amazon.  Get your copy HERE.

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: TALES FROM THE HOOD 2 (2018) **

I was a huge fan of Rusty Cundieff’s Fear of a Black Hat and Tales from the Hood.  With that powerful one-two punch, he cemented himself as a filmmaker to watch in the ‘90s.  After Sprung he sort of quietly slipped through the cracks, working primarily in television.  When he did resurface, it was often with hysterical results.  (His segment in Movie 43 is great.)  Now Cundieff is back, along with his producing partner Darin (Deep Blue Sea 2) Scott, twenty-three years later with a sequel to their horror anthology classic.  

The wraparound segment, “Robo Hell” (**) has Mr. Simms (Keith David, taking over from Clarence Williams III) visiting a security advisor, Dumass Beach (Bill Martin Williams) who is about to unveil his new prototype for the “Robo-Patriot”.  Simms’s job is to tell the A.I. stories to help it understand human nature and be able to assess criminal threats.  The tales are as follows:

“Good Golly” (** ½) has two college girls visiting the “Museum of Negrosity” featuring Jim Crow era antiques and artifacts.  The girls want to buy a gollywog doll, but the proprietor of the establishment refuses to sell it.  They return in the night to steal the doll with deadly consequences.

This story is sort of a callback to the killer doll segment from the first film.  It starts off with a lot of atmosphere and an interesting set-up.  Despite one nifty kill (I’ve seen plenty of gut-ripping scenes in my day, but never a gut-WHIPPING scene), the finale is a tad disappointing and feels like something you’d see in a Troma movie.  

The next story is “The Medium” (***).  A trio of thieves accost a former pimp-turned-preacher (“He had an e-PIMP-hany!”) to find the location of his secret stash of money.  When they accidentally kill him, they go to a John Edwards-inspired charlatan TV psychic to contact his spirit.  The séance works better than anticipated.

This one works as both a Tales from the Hood segment as well as a throwback to the old Amicus horror anthologies of yesteryear.  The set-up may be a tad longwinded (there’s probably too much backstory with the psychic), but the punchline is fun.  The thieves’ eventual comeuppance offers up a nice array of gore effects too.

“Date Night” (** ½) has two knuckleheads getting hooked up with two hotties on Tinder.  They play Cards Against Humanity for a bit before slipping the girls a roofie.  The duo gets more than they bargained for when the girls turn out to be immune to their tactics.

This tale starts out as a parable on the dangers of social media dating.  Too bad the interesting intro is undone by a limp conclusion.  I do give it points for blending an old school vibe with a newfangled technology, but it’s not wholly successful.

“The Sacrifice” (**) combines the story of a ‘50s lynching victim and a modern-day black Republican working for a racist politician.  It seems his very pregnant white wife has been having disturbing dreams.  Eventually, ghosts of slain civil rights leaders reach out to him, demanding a sacrifice for their cause.

The Sacrifice by far the most serious and grim tale in the bunch.  It’s also the most heavy-handed too.  (It’s also the second story revolving around pregnancy.)  The back-and-forth narrative doesn’t quite work either and the timeliness and urgency of the piece is undermined by a handful of amateurish performances.

Sure, a lot of the social commentary is a bit on the nose, but you can get away with that in a horror film.  The problem is, the film is just too long (nearly two hours) and uneven to work as a whole.  Some stories feel rushed, while others take their sweet time.  (The Medium could’ve probably been expanded to make a standalone feature.)

David was a fine replacement for Williams III.  He takes delight when saying the character’s patented catchphrase, “The shit!” over and over again.  I just wish he was given juicier dialogue to sink his teeth into throughout the film.  The rest of the performances are uneven.  This installment could’ve used someone on par with the original’s Corbin Bernsen and Wings Hauser, who knew how to sell their character’s menace with a sense of style.

The Robocop-inspired wraparound segments are odd and clunky.  I understand it was Cundieff’s intention to bring attention to the underlying problems inherent in America’s police force, but a robot cop just seems out of place compared to the tales revolving around killer dolls, seances, vampires, and ghosts.  It also doesn’t help that the design on the Robo-Patriot is rather crummy. 

I know I’ve been talking up Cundieff, but it’s his producer and co-director Darin Scott who actually directed the two best segments.  It should come as no surprise that Scott knows his way around a horror anthology, having produced From a Whisper to a Scream, one of the all-time best the genre has to offer.  Scott’s segments are no less as uneven as Cundieff’s, but they’re a big step-up from his last sequel directorial effort, Deep Blue Sea 2.

Tales from the Hood 2 offers up sporadic fits of amusement.  The inconsistent tone eventually sinks it.  Still, as far as twenty-three years later DTV horror sequels go, you can certainly do much worse.

Now that Rusty is back in the director’s chair once again, is there any chance we can get Fear of a Black Hat 2?  The landscape is perfect for a sequel.  Imagine Ice Cold going all Kanye and visiting The White House.  Tasty Taste pulling a Jay-Z and becoming part of the Illuminati.  Tone Def becoming a reality star.  This thing writes itself!

Are you craving more reviews of horror sequels?  Well, you can read all about them in my latest book, The Bloody Book of Horror, which is currently on sale at Amazon.  Get your copy HERE.

THE HOUSE WHERE EVIL DWELLS (1982) ** ½

Edward Albert stars as an American writer who moves his family to Japan.  They rent a haunted house where a century ago, a samurai murdered his wife and her lover before committing suicide.  Before long, Saki cups are falling over mysteriously, lights turn off all by themselves, and faucets begin having a mind of their own.  The ghosts then possess the bodies of Albert’s wife (Susan George) and best friend (Doug McClure) and force them to reenact the tragic love triangle from centuries ago.  (She’d have to be possessed to want to go to bed with McClure.)  

The Japanese setting helps give The House Where Evil Dwells a different flavor than the countless haunted house movies that came out in the wake of The Amityville Horror’s success.  There are notable cultural twists on the usual horror clichés (like having a Japanese monk try to exorcise the spirits instead of a Catholic priest) that help make this one stand out from the rest of the pack.  The ghost effects are simple, but quite effective.  (They were filmed live, using mirrors.)  They’re probably a little bit overused though.  Their appearance works best when they’re taking over the bodies of Albert and George.  However, we see entirely too much of them as the film goes on.

Director Kevin Connor, who worked with McClure on the Land That Time Forgot films, seems to throw the restrained approach out the window by the time Albert’s daughter gets attacked by giant crabs.  On its own merits, this is a nutty sequence that works as pure head-scratching WTF nonsense.  On the other hand, it feels like it belongs in another movie altogether.  We do get a fair amount of gore (heads and arms are hacked off with samurai swords) and a decent bit of T & A too, although not nearly enough to qualify it as a classic or anything.

You could argue that the ending is predictable.  I’d rather say it’s inevitable.  I mean the whole thing is structured like a classic tragedy.  Giant crabs notwithstanding.

George is good, especially when she becomes possessed by the horny ghost, but Albert is thoroughly bland.  The fact that he’s playing yet another cliched struggling-writer-in-a-haunted-house doesn’t help.  Once Albert finds out he’s been cuckolded by a ghost, he suitably freaks out which leads to the entertaining fight where he and McClure become possessed and all of a sudden know karate and begin Kung Fu fighting each other.

Does it all work?  No.  Is it entertaining?  In fits and starts.  Am I glad I watched it?  Pretty much.

AKA:  Ghost in Kyoto.  

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: SUBSPECIES 4: BLOODSTORM (1998) *

A young woman named Ana (Iona Abur) finds Michelle (Denice Duff) on the side of the road and brings her to see Dr. Niculescu (Mihai Dinvale).  As he tries to study Michelle’s condition, Radu (Anders Hove) awakens and begins his search for her.  Meanwhile, the good (bad) doctor is actually using her blood to turn himself into a bloodsucker and plans to finagle the precious bloodstone out of Radu's possession.

The all-around quality is down a notch or two from the other movies.  Say what you will about the previous installments, they at least had a modicum of atmosphere.  There are moments here that look like they came out of one of those cheap-o Wishmaster sequels.  The make-up on Radu isn’t very good either (at some points he looks like The Grim Reaper from Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey) and the other vampires look almost laughable in their pancake make-up and goofy wigs.  The shadow effects of Radu traveling return to their low budget roots but aren’t nearly as effective as the stuff we saw in Part 2.

Overall, this is even worse than Bloodlust.  The pacing is slower than that film (if you can believe it), and what good bits there are (like a cop eating a rat) are few and far between.  There is a little bit more skin than usual, but not enough to bump it up to a * ½ rating.

The film’s biggest crime is that it wastes the talents of Denice Duff.  She spends most of her time either sleeping or lying down in a hospital bed.  (She must've had the same agent Eric Stoltz had when he made Anaconda.)  It’s enough to make you wonder if the poor woman got bedsores during filming.  She does get a few opportunities to vamp it up a bit in the third act, but by then it’s too little too late.

AKA:  Subspecies:  The Awakening.

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: BLOODLUST: SUBSPECIES 3 (1994) *

Bloodlust:  Subspecies 3 starts with a wrap-up of the events of the last movie, which is more of an excuse to help pad the running time than anything.  Rebecca (Melanie Shatner) is still trying to rescue her sister Michelle (Denice Duff) from the clutches of Radu (Anders Hove) and his decrepit Mummy (Pamela Gordon).  While Radu tries to complete Michelle’s transformation into a full-fledged vampire, Rebecca gathers together a small team of cops and soldiers to storm Radu’s castle.

Bloodlust:  Subspecies 3 was shot back-to-back with Part 2 and it seems like they saved all the good stuff for that picture.  There’s even more filler in this installment, which leads me to believe this started out as one movie and producer Charles Band made director Ted Nicolaou split it up into two sequels in order to save money.  Once again, the scenes with Rebecca teaming up with a cop (played by Kevin Blair from Friday the 13^th Part 7:  A New Blood) are deadly dull.  Whenever these characters are on screen (which is most of the running time unfortunately), the film comes to a dead halt.

The subplot where Radu tries to complete Michelle’s vampire training works slightly better.  That’s mostly because of Duff, who gives far and away the most engaging performance of the film.  Despite her efforts, Bloodlust never once comes to life.  I mean for a plot that’s been strung out for three movies, there’s not a lot to recommend here and the finale is awfully weak.  What’s worse, the little Subspecies dudes are reduced to nothing more than a last-second cameo, which is really disappointing.

The special effects are particularly lacking this time around.  There are no showstopping effects sequences.  Also, most of the effects for Radu’s shadow are done via animation now.  The results look pretty cheap and aren’t nearly as effective as the Nosferatu-inspired effects of the last movie.  

AKA:  Subspecies:  In the Twilight 3.  AKA:  Subspecies 3:  Bloodlust.