HALLOWEEN HANGOVER: THE CHANGER (1993) ** ½

(Halloween may be over, but I'm going to keep the horror reviews coming at a semi-regular pace throughout November with a little column called Halloween Hangover.  Enjoy!) 

Joe (Carl Zschering) is a nose-picking, dogfood-eating loser who gets frustrated when young high school girls won’t give him the time of day.  One day, he meets a homeless wino (Horace Grimm) who gives him a mystical incantation to change himself into a young girl in exchange for a sip of booze.  Once he’s transformed, Joe enrolls himself in a nearby high school and sets out to stalk and kill a clique of teenage girls.

Like Memoirs of an Invisible Man, we mostly see Joe as his “normal” self, and (for a while anyway) it’s quite funny seeing this aging perv hanging out with goodie two-shoes high school girls and trying to blend in.  Other times, we see the girl he’s become, “Jo” (Ann Flood) when he looks at himself in mirrors or for a handful of random shots.  These scenes are better than most body-swapping comedies of the ‘80s.  (The montage of Joe trying to fit in at school set to the toe-tapping tune “Schoolin’” is rather hilarious.)

Unfortunately, The Changer isn’t nearly as successful when it turns into a full-on horror movie.  It’s here where Joe uses his good looks to lure, rape, kill, and partially eat his victims.  Near the end, he also begins to see visions of his victims who appear to him and say shit like, “Was it good for you?”

Despite being a tad clunky in the second half, the twist ending is decent enough.  The short running time (76 minutes) certainly keeps things moving along at a steady clip, and the pacing is fairly brisk.  Overall, The Changer may be an uneven experience, but there’s an endearing goofiness to the whole enterprise that makes it memorable.

AKA:  The Nostril Picker.

ONE DARK NIGHT (1983) * ½

A psychic kills a bunch of women using “bio-energy” and then dies mysteriously.  His body is interred in a mausoleum where a girl gang initiation is taking place.  While Meg Tilly spends the night in the mausoleum to prove her worth to her “sisterhood”, the psychic revives himself and begins to wreak havoc on the girls.

Directed by Tom McLoughlin, One Dark Night suffers from an extremely longwinded set-up.  Not only do you have to wait around while the girls make their way to the mausoleum, you also have to deal with the marital shit involving Adam West and his wife arguing constantly.  Even when Tilly finally gets to tomb, it’s still a slog as the film is heavily padded with lots of long scenes of Tilly walking down the halls of the mausoleum.  

In fact, it takes over an hour for anything remotely supernatural to occur.  Once it finally does, it’s nothing to write home about.  The initial scenes of the dead rising from their interment is cool, but once they’re finally out, all they do is float around in the air and… dogpile their victims?  

I like Tilly as much as anyone, but most of the film is devoted to her hanging around the mausoleum waiting for something to happen.  Unfortunately, so does the audience.  Even the solid supporting cast is basically wasted.  I mean what can you say about a movie that casts Adam West and Elizabeth Daily and then gives them absolutely nothing to do?

Lucky for us, McLoughlin got much better with Friday the 13^th Part 6:  Jason Lives. 

AKA:  Entity Force.  AKA:  Mausoleum.  AKA:  Dark Night.  AKA:  Night of Darkness.  

SUPER DARK TIMES (2017) ***

Super Dark Times takes us back to the ‘90s.  It was a time in the days before the internet where teenage boys had to settle for watching scrambled Playboy Channel signals on cable instead of XXX porn on their phone.  It was also a time where you could ride your bikes with your friends while arguing about Marvel characters and daring each other to eat weird gas station food, all without parent supervision. 

It’s a coming of age story, but it’s also a suspenseful morality tale.  It’s about how teenage boys can act like stupid children, and simple tomfoolery can turn deadly in an instant.  It’s about accidentally doing a heinous act, and how the fear of being caught can lead you down an even darker road. 

When you’re that age everything little act is magnified, and your emotions are amplified because of your hormones and your uncertainty of how the world really works.  Super Dark Times captures that feeling expertly.  It exists in the middle ground between John Hughes, Stephen King, and the Coen brothers, but has a unique view all its own.

I’ve been deliberately vague about the plot description.  It’s better to go in cold without any expectations.  Having said that, I think it probably runs on a tad too long.  I know the filmmakers want to let the characters stew in their own guilt before being propelled down a darker path, but I think the third act could’ve been streamlined a bit more.  It’s also less successful when it skirts with out-and-out horror, like during the dream sequences.  Still, there are enough powerful moments to ensure that Super Dark Times will stay with you.

The young performers are all excellent.  Owen Campbell does a fine job as the guilt-ridden Zach and Charlie Tahan (who sort of resembles Andrew Garfield) is a lot of fun to watch as the unbalanced Josh.  Tahan also gets the best line of the movie when he says, “I’m not going to die. I’m immortal. Like Highlander.” 

THE SORCERERS (1967) ***

Boris Karloff stars as a hypnotist, who along with his wife Catherine Lacey devise a method to telepathically control their subjects and force them to obey their will.  They dupe poor Ian Ogilvy into signing up for their experiment, which proves to be an immediate success.  There is one side effect:  The couple experiences all the sensations Ogilvy feels during his hypnosis.  After making Ogilvy steal an expensive fur coat, Lacey becomes addicted to the thrill of committing crimes.  She eventually overtakes her husband and uses the powerless Ogilvy to commit murder.

The Sorcerers was made in the late ‘60s so there’s a lot of trippy, psychedelic stuff in there.  During the experiment, Karloff’s machine emits garish strobe lights and projects tie-dyed colored lights on Ogilvy’s face.  There’s also a couple of mod musical numbers in a nightclub that helps to pad the running time out a bit.  These are the only dated bits in the film, which starts off as marginally silly, but becomes more engrossing and disturbing as it goes along.

Director Michael Reeves is low key in his approach.  The horror comes out of the corruption of the elderly couple as they push Ogilvy to commit more and more criminal acts.  There’s also the horror Karloff experiences as he witnesses the moral deterioration of his wife firsthand.  Then of course there’s Ogilvy’s horror at not being in control of his own actions, as Lacey forces to murder his friends.  Reeves deserves credit for stretching out such a thin premise and turning it into an absorbing battle of wills.  

The ‘60s was such a volatile time that you can almost see The Sorcerers as a parable for the era.  Since the generation gap was getting larger and larger at that time, you can view Karloff and Lacey as the older generation trying control the younger generation.  By contrast, you can also look at it as the younger generation being constantly overpowered and forced on a course of action their elders have already put in place for them.

Sure, this might’ve worked better as a forty-five-minute tale in a horror anthology.  It’s the power of the three lead performers, coupled with the skill of Reeves that keeps you so invested.  It’s a testament to Reeves’ directing chops (not to mention Karloff’s acting ability) that he can pass off close-ups of people concentrating as his finale and still make it suspenseful.  It’s a shame Reeves died so young because he certainly showed a lot of promise.  His next film, the iconic The Conqueror Worm, proved to be his last.

WACKO (1982) ** ½

A killer wearing a pumpkin on his head murders people with a lawn mower.  Thirteen years later, on Halloween (and prom night), people start dying again.  Naturally, he has his mower set to kill his first victim’s sibling (Julia Duffy), who of course had decided to pick prom night (and Halloween) to lose her virginity. 

Wacko, like Pandemonium and the other ‘80s slasher spoofs set in the Airplane! mold, is extremely spotty, but when it hits, it’s good for a couple of stupid chuckles.  Director Greydon Clark isn’t exactly known for his comedic prowess (as anyone who’s ever seen Angels Revenge can attest).  His main strength is action, which comes in handy during the not-bad crash and burn chase scene involving a couple of Drivers Ed cars.

There are sight gags about The Omen and Psycho, and even one particularly odd spoof of Alien.  I think my favorite bit was the fact that it took place at “Hitchcock High” and the school song is “Funeral March of a Marionette”.  Not all the jokes land (like Dr. Moreau turning the football team into werewolves), but there is a likeable goofiness about the whole thing that helps keep you involved.  

Some of the better moments are akin to what we saw in Pandemonium.  There’s a funny subtitle that calls out the filmmakers’ use of a tired cliché.  (In this case, an unnecessary dream sequence that prompts the audience to “go out and get some refreshments”.)  As with Pandemonium, it features a scene where characters inexplicably fly through the air after an explosion.  And like Pandemonium, it features a future star of Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure in a supporting role.  (In this case, Elizabeth Daily.)

Speaking of the cast, Duffy does a fine job as the Final Girl of the piece.  We also have George Kennedy (doing a virtual dry run for his appearances in the Naked Gun movies) as Duffy’s pervert father.  The biggest surprise is seeing a young Andrew “Dice” Clay when his act was still in its formative stages.  He adopts a Travolta-esque persona and has a funny moment when he “gets hooked on pea soup” and his heads spins around like in The Exorcist.  Joe Don Baker also gets to chew the scenery as the drunk slob detective on the case (he’s essentially still playing Mitchell).  However, the sight of Joe Don Baker in drag being whipped by a dominatrix dressed in leather isn’t funny. In fact, it’s one of the most horrifying things I’ve seen in some time.

Some of the jokes are good for a laugh (like Kennedy’s address to the audience before the closing credits).  Some are just plain stupid (like the talking elephant).  Overall, Wacko is a fun, if extremely uneven slasher spoof.

Baker also starred in Clark’s Final Justice the following year. 

AKA:  Wacko Weekend.  AKA:  Crazy Doctor in Love.

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

(Note:  This is actually the 32^nd Movie of Horror-Ween, but I had a little extra time on my hands this month, so consider this one a bonus.)

Victor Crowley is the fourth film in the uneven Hatchet series.  It was made in secret by director Adam (Hatchet 1 and 2) Green and sprung upon an unsuspecting world.  (Kind of like the new Blair Witch movie.)  It’s a step up in quality from the last two entries in the series, but still isn’t quite up to snuff with the original.

The opening sequence, set in the ‘60s, is my favorite part.  Part of the reason is because it features Jonah Ray from Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Kelly Vrooman from The Sunny Side Up Show.  They have a good vibe together and it’s a shame they’re totally dismembered before the opening credits roll.

Well, it’s ten years after the Victor Crowley murders.  Andrew (Parry Shen), the paramedic who survived the ordeal, has written a tell-all book on the subject.  As he makes the talk show rounds, people make it abundantly clear they think he’s the real murderer.  While on his way to revisit the scene of the crime for a true crime show, the plane crashes into the swamp.  Meanwhile, a group of filmmakers trying to make a movie about the murders, happen by the plane crash and offer assistance.  Naturally, Crowley (Kane Hodder) is prowling around the swamp with his trusty hatchet in hand waiting to turn everyone into chopped liver.

There’s more comedy this time out, and much of it is successful; something that can’t be said for the other entries in the series.  (I liked the constant interruptions by the captain on the PA system during the flight.)  Felissa Rose steals a handful of scenes as a mouthy publicist and Dave Sheridan is on hand to do impressions and act as a likeable goofball as the tour guide/aspiring actor.  Shen also gets to show off his comedic chops, especially in the scene where he is forced to sit in on what has to be the most awkward book signing in history.  

Speaking of chops, the gore is solid this time out.  There’s plenty of eye gouging, decapitation, face-hammering, scalping, and head stomping to go around.  The best bit is a nod to Cannibal Holocaust but updated for the smartphone era.

Despite doing a better job at combining the gore with the comedy than in any of the other sequels, Green never really finds a way to tie it all together.  It’s not bad or anything, but the movie often feels slight and unnecessary.  There’s really nothing here that builds upon the established lore of the character, which is odd because it’s called Victor Crowley.  Because of that, I was expecting it to at least focus on him a little more instead of keeping him in the shadows for most of the film.  Maybe I wouldn’t have felt this way if they had just called it Hatchet 4.

AKA:  Hatchet:  Victor Crowley.

(There might be a few more reviews on tap before Halloween comes to a close tomorrow, but if for whatever reason I don’t post any, fear not:  I’ll continue the horror-movie-watching project throughout November with a little feature I call “Halloween Hangover”.)

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: RETURN TO BLOODFART LAKE (2012) *

A crew of ghost hunters go to the cabin on Bloodfart Lake to make a documentary about the scarecrow murders.  Little do they know the demented killer is back prowling around Bloodfart Lake in search of victims.  It’s then up to the survivors of the first attack to save the film crew.

Return to Bloodfart Lake is exactly the kind of movie I was expecting the first film to be.  That one surprised me with a healthy dose of genuinely funny dialogue and a handful of gory kills.  This one is pretty much the pits.

The acting is even more amateurish this time around, even by those who were in the first movie.  Some actors even look like they’re on the verge of laughing while reciting their awkward, profanity-laden dialogue.  Also, many of them speak in terrible accents that get on your nerves the second they open their mouths.

The original had some rough patches, but there was some genuinely hilarious stuff sprinkled throughout.  This one is mostly just a chore to sit through.  To make matters worse, Return to Bloodfart Lake looks even cheaper than its predecessor, if you can believe it.  There’s even more awful ska music too.

The ending is particularly annoying.  It features (among other things) a breakdance battle with the killer, unholy marriages, sex changes, characters from the first movie returning from the dead… and then… nothing happens.  It’s frustrating to say the least.

We do get an occasional stray funny one-liner (“Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio!”), although they are more the exception than the rule.  There’s also at least one over the top death, but that’s still not remotely enough to make it all worthwhile.  I mean what can you say about a movie in which the killer shoves corn into a guy’s ears and he doesn’t even bother to make a joke about an “ear of corn”?  That’s just lazy.