THE 31 DAYS OF HORROR-WEEN: PRIME EVIL: THE FREAKMAKER (1974) ***

I saw The Freakmaker on television as a kid (under its original title, The Mutations) and it freaked me out.  Usually when I do The 31 Days of Horror-Ween, I’m looking for weird or obscure movies I’ve never seen before.  However, when it was suggested to me under the “Customers Also Watched” recommendation heading, it brought back a flood of memories.  I’m glad I watched it again because it makes for a solid slice of rainy-day fun.

The opening is just a work of mad genius.  The time-lapse photography of plants growing, giving way to shots of carnivorous plants eating insects, accompanied by creepy narration by Donald Pleasence makes it feel like a mash-up of Hammer’s House of Horrors and Nova.  The film fitfully flirts with fulfilling the promise of this sequence throughout its running time and when it does, it’s enough to put a smile on any horror lover’s face.

It was directed by legendary cinematographer Jack Cardiff, so you know it looks like a million bucks.  Yes, the man who gave The Red Shoes that otherworldly aura lends that same look and feel to the scene where Donald Pleasence feeds a bunny rabbit to a Venus Fly Trap.  I’m here to tell you, it’s a thing of beauty.  (Oh, and did you know Cardiff was also the cinematographer for Rambo:  First Blood:  Part 2?  This guy can do it all!)

Anyway, Pleasence stars as a college professor who spends most of his time in his botanical lab trying to create half-man half-plant mutants.  Whenever he fails, he just sends the botched experiments to the local freakshow.  Dr. Who’s Tom Baker is his deformed assistant who abducts comely college coeds for Donald’s experiments.  When he turns one of his students into a freak, it prompts her friends to coming looking for her.

So, what we have here is a mix of Freaks, Frankenstein, and Little Shop of Horrors.  In fact, the movie blatantly rips off whole scenes from Freaks (even the “One of Us” scene).  It’s enough to make you wonder how no one got sued.  (Even though the movie rips off Freaks, I think there’s a moment at the end that David Cronenberg ripped off when he made The Fly.)

Admittedly, it all fits together incongruously as The Freakmaker often feels like two movies spliced together.  Then again, it kind of fits the theme of the movie.  For me, the mad scientist plot worked slightly better than the freakshow scenes, but your mileage may vary.  I mean the big reveal of Pleasence’s creation (as well as his subsequent comeuppance) is just all kinds of lurid fun.  I especially liked the scene where Baker (whose character is stricken with acromegaly) goes to a prostitute just to have her tell him she loves him.  Little touches like these give added dimension to the movie and makes it feel like something more than your average horror show.  

AKA:  The Mutations.  AKA:  Dr. of Evil.  

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: PRIME EVIL: DISCONNECTED (1984) **

Disconnected comes to us from director Gorman Bechard, the man behind such films as Psychos in Love, Galactic Gigolo, and Cemetery High.  It’s kind of rough, but you can sort of see what he was going for.  There are plenty worse Hitchcock-inspired, no-budget, first-time features out there, that’s for sure.

Alicia (Frances Raines) just broke up with her boyfriend.  There’s a slasher going around killing young women and it doesn’t even dawn on her that the creepy guy who keeps asking her out might be the killer.  Meanwhile, Alicia is plagued with telephone calls.  This isn’t just your average obscene caller either.  When she picks up the phone, it emits a screeching, piercing sound into her ear, effectively driving her bananas.

Does the slasher story and the telephone subplot ever come together?  Not really.  True to its title, Disconnected never clicks.  In fact, it’s all over the place.  There are scenes that have polish and pizzazz (like the opening credits sequence that utilizes rapid-fire editing) that are almost immediately followed by long, drawn-out scenes that seemingly go nowhere (like the scene where a terrible band is shown playing a number nearly in its entirety), making for a frustrating and uneven experience.  Most of it is kind of rough, but there are a few good moments along the way that make it almost worthwhile.  (The Argento-ish use of color during an atmospheric nightmare sequence is pretty inventive.)  Other sequences are baffling incompetent.  (One scene has a giant lens flare that basically whites out the entire frame.  It’s enough to make J.J. Abrams envious.) 

The quality whiplashes back and forth so much that it often feels like it was the work of two entirely different crews.  Perhaps Bechard started off with a short film and then expanded on it later.  If that was the case, I could be charitable.  However, having the big climax with the killer happen OFFSCREEN is just fucking frustrating as an audience member.  At least Disconnected has some of the best ‘80s wood paneling I’ve seen in a movie.  So, it has that going for it.

The fact that a lot of the movie takes place inside an old mom and pop video store where Alicia works is enough for me to kind of give it a pass.  When you get bored (and trust me, it will happen) you can amuse yourself by spotting the videos on the shelf.  I found Halloween 2, Exorcist 2, The Amityville Horror, and Mother’s Day, among others. 

Raines does a fine job in the lead.  She also plays her twin sister admirably enough.  The scene where she and her sister have a conversation is edited a bit crudely, but Raines equips herself nicely all things considered.  Also, the Galactic Gigolo himself, Carmine Capobianco appears as cop in a Hawaiian shirt.  It’s nice to see him popping up, even if his interview segments feel more like padding than anything.  Oh, and apparently Jon Brion (who did the music for a few Paul Thomas Anderson movies) is in the band in the opening scenes. 

I almost gave Disconnected ** ½ just because when it works, it works.  Unfortunately, it goes on about fifteen minutes too long.  The finale is nothing more than a series of montages that lead up to a puzzling black-and-white still frame collage, capped off by a shitty non-ending.  Up until then, it had the same quirky charm that hallmark most of Bechard’s work.  If you’re a fan of his films, by all means check it out.  Others may want to hang up.

AKA:  Telephone Killer.

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.