LIGHTS OUT (2016) *

Martin (Gabriel Bateman) is an exhausted kid who keeps falling asleep in class.  When his nutzo mom (Maria Bello) won’t pick him up from school, it’s up to his estranged sister Rebecca (Teresa Palmer) to take him home.  When Rebecca discovers mom’s off her meds, she decides to let Martin stay with her.  Rebecca slowly realizes Martin’s insomnia is directly tied to a mysterious shadowy entity named Diana, who can only be seen in the dark.  Eventually, Diana comes for Martin, and it’s up to his big sister to protect him.

Lights Out was expanded from a short film and boy, does it ever show.  It’s only eighty minutes long, but there’s really only enough plot for eight.  Bloodless and boring, it flounders around for most of the running time substituting darkened rooms for genuine atmosphere.  The attack scenes are repetitive too.  Diana appears in the shadows.  Someone shines a light on her.  She disappears.  They move the flashlight, and she returns; this time accompanied by loud screeching sounds on the soundtrack to let the audience know it’s “scary”.  Minor variations on this scenario are peppered about here and there as the movie reaches its obvious conclusion, but none of them are remotely effective.

This was the first feature by David F. Sandberg, who went on to make the better-than-it-should’ve-been Annabelle:  Creation and the fun Shazam!  (There are a lot of DC superhero references throughout the film.)  If anything will keep you muddling through, it’s the fine lead performance by Teresa Palmer.  Other than that, there isn’t much here to recommend.  You’re sure to be out like a light by the time the credits roll.

AKA:  Lights/Off.

THE 31 DAYS OF HORROR-WEEN: PRIME EVIL: SHE DEMONS (1958) **

She Demons was the first film from director Richard E. Cunha.  It’s pretty rough in spots and doesn’t have the wacky charm of his later work.  It lacks the endearing silliness of Missile to the Moon and the flat-out fun of Frankenstein’s Daughter.  However, there are faint glimpses of what the man was capable of, and for that, it’s (almost) worth watching.

A quartet of castaways wash up on an uncharted island.  After getting their bearings, they head off looking for the legendary creatures that supposedly inhabit the island.  They soon discover the place is crawling with Nazis.  Their leader is performing experiments on the native girls, turning them into hideous she demons in an effort to keep his ugly wife beautiful.  Naturally, it’s up to our heroes to thwart the Nazis’ devious plans.

She Demons starts off just fine, but it gets awfully talky in the middle section of the film.  Although you have to wait around quite a while for something to happen, the dance routines of sexy ‘50s babes wearing loincloths and bone necklaces gyrating wildly around a fire pit are amusing.  The big reveal of the doctor’s wife’s face is effective too.  The final escape sequence isn’t bad either, especially when you consider Cunha had to stage an eruption of lava using little to no money.  It also contains a bit more blood than you’d typically see at the time.  

If anything, She Demons is memorable for its inclusion of minority actors as half of our heroes are non-white; a rarity in a ‘50s horror flick. While the African American character (Charles Opunui) is kind of cliched and superstitious (not to mention the fact that he’s the first to die), the Asian sidekick is quite funny.  He’s portrayed by Victor Sen Yung, a veteran of many Charlie Chan movies.  He easily gives best performance of the film, stealing every scene he’s in from the dull romantic leads.

THE 31 DAYS OF HORROR-WEEN: PRIME EVIL: AEROBI-CIDE (1987) ** ½

Amazon Prime has this listed as Killer Workout, but Aerobi-cide is the actual on-screen title.  Both names are equally funny.  I can’t blame the filmmakers for being unable to choose between them.  They were probably like, “Screw it, let’s use both of them!”  Maybe if they ever make a sequel it can be called Gym-crazy-um.  Or Kill-lates.  Or Yoga-nna Die.

Rhonda (Marica Karr) had a twin sister who died in a horrific tanning bed accident.  Now, people are getting murdered at the gym by a killer using an oversized safety pin.  Predictably, the place is loaded with hotheaded musclebound suspects. 

Aerobi-cide begins with a great opening credits theme that sound like a workout remix of John Carpenter’s Halloween theme.  Along the way, director David A. Prior gives us numerous cheesy ‘80s aerobicizing scenes featuring big-haired women crammed into Spandex bobbing up and down to heavy drum machine-driven tunes. Yes, in case you’re wondering, there are tons of close-ups of gyrating buttocks.  

The horror elements work up to a point.  The opening tanning bed murder is great, and there’s a Psycho-inspired shower death and a memorable false scare involving a locker.  Some scenes have a cool red tint to them, resembling a ‘70s giallo, but most of it looks like your typical slasher movie mixed with an ‘80s workout video.  The killer’s weapon (the giant safety pin) is… different?  I can honestly say I’ve never seen that before. 

Too bad the constant fistfights between the two hotheaded lunkhead gym rat suspects eat up a lot of screen time.  These scenes are more of a throwback to Prior’s low-budget actioners and don’t really fit in with the rest of the movie.  (Same goes for the big chase scene/shootout at a construction site.)  Still, they’re just weird enough to make it memorable. 

Aerobi-cide is good for a few laughs and works as lightweight trashy fun for much of its running time.  It does have a tendency to plod on in the second half, making the 85-minute running time feel much longer.  (There are two or three false endings too many.)  It’s uneven to be sure, but the highs are appropriately cheesy enough to make it marginally recommended. 

AKA:  Killer Workout.  AKA:  Aerobic Killer.  AKA:  Aerobicide.  

TERROR IN THE WAX MUSEUM (1973) **

Claude Dupree (John Carradine) is the old proprietor of a wax museum who’s seemingly murdered by one of his own creations.  His niece Margaret (Nicole Selby) inherits the museum and her legal guardian (Elsa Lanchester) takes over the operation.  Harry (Ray Milland), Carradine’s partner is incensed because he believes he was passed over in the will and considers himself Dupree’s true heir.  The killer, possibly the Jack the Ripper wax figure come to life, then sets its murderous sights on Margaret.

Produced by Bing Crosby Productions (who were churning out drive-in hits like Willard and Walking Tall around the same time), Terror in the Wax Museum is a loose variation on House of Wax.  The scene of Milland giving customers a tour of the museum is similar to the one found in that film, and there’s a slight reworking of House’s famous face-cracking scene.  Too bad the costume drama subplots are dull, and the pacing is sluggish.

It doesn’t help that it is all very tame, even for the standards of 1973.  It almost feels like a TV movie as the terror is kept to the bare minimum.  It also looks pretty cheap too, which adds to the Made for TV feel.  That said, Carradine’s wax figure freak-out scene is well done. 

Despite the low budget feel, you have to admit the cast they wrangled together is pretty stellar.  In addition to Milland, Lanchester, and Carradine, we have Maurice Evans, Patric Knowles, and Broderick Crawford.  Maybe the budget went to corralling all these people into one place.

The most memorable part of the movie is the character Karkov (Steven Marlo), a deformed hunchback who lives in the museum as Carradine’s unofficial adopted son.  Unlike most horror films, this hunchback is more pathetic than anything.  He’s a character to be pitied, not feared.  When he has a breakdown at Carradine’s funeral, you feel kind of bad for him

Another thing that makes Terror in the Wax Museum a bit different than its ilk is its Ominous Fortune Teller scene.  Most times in these movies, the Ominous Fortune Teller is an old gypsy woman.  This time out, it’s a Chinese tea leaf reader.  This character, nor Karkov can exactly save the picture, but they do prevent it from feeling completely stale.

JOKER (2019) *** ½

Joker is neither the incel recruitment video Twitter would have you believe nor is it the Scorsese-pastiche-as-comic-book-movie it was sold as.  It merely exists as a Thespianpalooza for Joaquin Phoenix.  If you ever wanted to see Phoenix get nuts (as Bruce Wayne ‘89 would say), this movie has you covered.  He laughs maniacally, contorts wildly, and dances like a blind white man on Soul Train.  He’s on screen nearly every minute of the movie and when he is, you can’t take your eyes off him.  It’s truly a fearless performance.  Not many people would lose fifty pounds, smash their head in, and cry till snot oozed out their nostrils, so we have to give the guy credit.

Joker famously doesn’t have a backstory in the comics, and the one presented here is vastly different from the ’89 film.  The thing is, it’s all origin story.  It’s less a superhero movie and more of a gritty character drama indie dressed up as a superhero movie.  This is an interesting idea, but it works much better as a character piece than a spandex opera.

It was talked-up as a homage to Taxi Driver and King of Comedy, but there’s as much Death Wish and Network in the movie’s DNA as the Scorsese pictures.  There’s a feeling of frustration about society letting “the little guy” down that both those films share.  When the Joker kills three people, he becomes a headline-grabbing sensation.  When he appears on TV, he inspires others to draw on his anger and frustration.  

What’s interesting is that it’s not all a blame game.  The film never shies away from Joker’s mental illness as a contributing factor to his decline.  It could’ve copped out and just foisted the cause of Joker’s spree to being an Angry White Man, but there’s much more to it than just that.  There’s also a class struggle aspect that weaves in and out of the narrative.  Yes, Gotham City is a scary place to live for someone like Arthur.  Someone like billionaire Thomas Wayne on the other hand, has a very different experience living in Gotham, and the have-nots are growing restless about the economic inequality tearing the city apart.

Some may feel kind of cheated that there isn’t enough superhero-y stuff in the movie.  As I stated, it’s all origin and no real story.  In fact, he isn’t called even Joker until the last fifteen minutes or so.  The story, such as it is, has Arthur Fleck, an aspiring comedian hampered by mental handicaps trying to eke out a living in Gotham City.  In between sessions at a cut-rate shrink, he dotes on his loving mother (Frances Conroy) and cares for her, never missing their favorite program The Murray Franklin Show.  When he loses his job and medicine (due to government cutbacks) he aims his frustrations at Wayne.  

I will back off here because it’s these scenes that are the most interesting.  Not because of how they connect back to a certain Caped Crusader, but how they inform Arthur’s journey.  Without giving anything away, I’ll just leave you with the questions the movie poses, which are:  Are we the sum total of the lies we’ve been told all our lives?  Or are we a product of the new truth we’ve found for ourselves?  Adding Arthur’s deteriorating mental state into the mix only makes what comes after a tragedy, and not a call to arms.

Arthur’s journey is involving, with a few twists and turns along the way just to keep you guessing.  Phoenix’s fiery performance also helps propel the film, giving Arthur glints of hope and humanity, while not entirely painting him as the victim.  It’s his destination that is sort of the problem.  That’s mostly because it can kind of only end one way.  As inevitable as that may have been, I still think there was room to have stuck the landing in a more precise way.  As it is, it’s fine, but the fact remains he was more interesting when he was Arthur than as Joker.  It also doesn’t help that the film suffers from Return of the King-itis as it contains not one, but three endings.  Any one of them by themselves would’ve worked as a coda.  (Okay, maybe just two of them.)  Having all three just kind of betrays the ending that came before, especially considering each mini-ending is worse than the one that immediately preceded it.  

So, overall, I liked it.  As a vehicle for Phoenix, it will be around for a long time.  It will be dissected and discussed as a gonzo Method actor’s wet dream.  As a Batman movie (even though Batman doesn’t appear, it’s very much a part of his world), I don’t think it would even crack my Top 5, but I’m glad I saw.  

It’s definitely not worth anyone dying over.

THE 31 DAYS OF HORROR-WEEN: PRIME EVIL: A GHOST STORY (2017) **

You know, we’re only a week into The 31 Days of Horror-Ween and I decided I needed a little break.  After all the vampire clowns, horny bigfoots, and psychic Spocks I’ve been dealing with, I thought it would be nice to change things up and watch something a little classy.  I thought maybe a ghost movie starring an Oscar winner would be just the thing to wash out the taste of such cheap movies like Varan the Unbelievable and Gallery of Horror.  I was wrong.  The monster in Varan was a guy in a rubber suit.  The vampires in Gallery of Horror just had plastic fangs.  The ghost in this critically-acclaimed film was… are you ready for this?  Just a dude in a sheet.  Casey Affleck in a sheet, but still.  I kinda knew A Ghost Story wasn’t really horror, but I thought at least it would be good.  Nope. 

It mostly plays like a Terrance Malick soap opera.  A couple sits around talking, then there’s a random shot of the stars.  Then the couple mumbles for a bit.  There are shots of stuff that happen in real time, like someone hauling garbage to the curb.  Other shots of people remaining perfectly still feel even longer.  In fact, more than a few times I thought the streaming went out or my TV froze because no one was moving for so long. 

Anyway, Affleck dies.  He comes back as a ghost wearing a white sheet with holes cut out.  I’m not lying when I say he looks almost exactly like Charlie Brown on It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.  He comes back from the afterlife to watch over his wife (Rooney Mara), but all he gets to see is her doing mundane shit like washing her hands, doing chores, or stuffing her face.

You know, I kind of figured the afterlife would be like that. 

Mostly this is a movie about someone watching someone else.  Marvel as Affleck watches Mara go to work.  Thrill as he stares at her staring out the window.  The action highlight is when Affleck watches Mara eat a pie.  I don’t mean just a slice either.  I mean a whole pie.  I’m not making this up.

At least when Michael Myers wore a sheet, he stabbed someone. 

Not to worry, there is some mildly horrific stuff about halfway through.  It’s not really effective, but at least here the movie starts showing signs of a pulse.  As the movie goes on, it eventually becomes clear what director David (Pete’s Dragon) Lowery is trying to do, and quite honestly, it’s not a bad idea.  It’s just that the minimalistic approach is a bit too minimalistic for its own good.

What isn’t minimalistic is the scene where a bunch of squatters go in Affleck’s house and throw a party.  There, a random drunk dude endlessly pontificates a lot of nonsense about the meaning of life.  You know you’re in trouble when you have to rely on a random drunk dude to hammer home the message of the movie.  Honestly, I think we would’ve got the idea without his explanation anyway, so for a film so minimalistic, the monologue feels more like a gratuitous exposition dump than anything.

Quite honestly, A Ghost Story does get better as it goes along.  It’s kind of fun just to see Affleck trying to emote from under a bedsheet.  However, it never really grabs you.  Something tells me reading an oral history of The Pie Scene would be more entertaining than watching the actual movie.

THE 31 DAYS OF HORROR-WEEN: PRIME EVIL: BAFFLED! (1973) **

Mr. Spock stars as a race car driver who has bizarre visions in the middle of a race, causing him to crash.  Susan Hampshire is a reporter specializing in psychic phenomenon who thinks his visions are of a murder yet to take place.  Together, they travel to England, piece together the clues from Spock’s brain, and try to prevent the murder before it can occur. 

The chintzy opening credits contain footage of what we’re about to see.  This isn’t a play on Spock’s psychic premonitions, but rather a dead giveaway this isn’t really a movie, but a failed TV pilot.  Despite the okay set-up and premise, like most ‘70s TV movies, there’s a lot of filler in the middle section that needlessly drags things out and get in the way of the fun.

Some of you may wonder why I included Baffled! as part of The 31 Days of Horror-Ween as it’s a watered-down TV movie.  Trust me, there’s enough genre clichés here for it to qualify.  There’s an elaborate murder plot, psychic battles, and a cult that may or may not be draining victims of their youth to keep their members eternally young.

The real reason I watched it was to see Mr. Spock badly miscast as a cavalier race car driver with psychic powers.  Yes, the horror elements are not what you would call overt, but how could I turn down an opportunity to see:   

1)    Mr. Spock drive a race car courtesy of some hilariously bad rear-screen projection. 

2)    Mr. Spock locked in a psychic battle of wills with a little girl. 

3)    Mr. Spock doing the old Austin Powers “That’s not your mother, it’s a man, baby!” routine.

4)    Mr. Spock having trippy psychic visions that make him look like he’s going through pon farr on LSD. 

5)    Mr. Spock telling someone, “Don’t be so emotional!”

The chemistry and banter between Spock and the prim and proper Hampshire is agreeable, if slight.  Their characters are really nothing more than a thin variation on the typical though durable Mismatched Detectives trope commonly found on TV.  Baffled! isn’t bad exactly, but it’s easy to see why it wasn’t picked up as a series.