HALLOWEEN HANGOVER: SHOCK TREATMENT (1964) **

Roddy McDowall is a gardener for an old rich widow.  One day, he snaps and cuts off her head with his gardening shears, but not before burning up his employer’s money.  Or did he?  Stuart Whitman is an actor who gets hired to infiltrate the insane asylum where McDowall’s been institutionalized and find what’s left of the money.  The only problem:  McDowell’s crazy shrink wants to get her hands on the loot too.

Shock Treatment has a durable premise.  It’s just that the execution is lacking.  There doesn’t seem to be much urgency to the proceedings and the whole thing just seems too… respectable to really kick into gear.  The ending features at least one semi-gruesome death, but the film needed more of these juicy moments to come to life.

Part of the problem is the casting.  Whitman is just too handsome and mild-mannered to pass himself off as crazy.  He’s a solid leading man and I’ve enjoyed his work in many films.  He’s just all wrong for the role.  

Speaking of being wrong for the role, let’s talk about the film’s biggest problem.  I’ve refrained from stating the identity of McDowall’s doctor, not because it’s a spoiler, but because you just won’t believe the mad doctor is played by… LAUREN BACALL?!?!  I mean she’s one of Hollywood’s finest actresses, but playing a conniving shrink who willingly gives sane people shock treatments and LSD is far removed from her wheelhouse.  Nobody played a femme fatale like Bacall.  As a mad doctor, she’s ludicrously miscast.  

Still, whatever energy the film has comes from McDowall.  His understated performance gives his character a tinge of sympathy, but he’s still fun to watch whenever he occasionally goes off the rails.  Timothy Carey makes an impression in a bit part, and it’s a shame he wasn’t given more to do.

Director Denis Sanders went on to direct Invasion of the Bee Girls.

A NIGHT TO DISMEMBER (1989) ½ *

Doris Wishman is my kind of filmmaker.  She goes out there and makes the movie her way.  You can look at one frame of a Doris Wishman film and know it was made by Doris Wishman.  If it’s got lots of close-ups of feet, no synch sound, and looks like a series of people’s last known photographs, you can bet your ass it’s a Wishman flick.

When Wishman is cooking, she often hits it out of the park.  Anyone who’s ever sat through Let Me Die a Woman, Deadly Weapons, or Nude on the Moon will attest to that.  However, her misses are about as bad as they come.  (The Amazing Transplant, anyone?)  That’s why it pains me to say A Night to Dismember just might be her worst flick.  

It’s not really her fault.  You see, according to legend, some disgruntled lab employee burned the film print.  Wishman then had to scramble, cutting the movie together using odd ends, discarded footage, and whatever scraps she could find.  She added some newly shot footage, and then cobbled it all together and released it on an unsuspecting public.  

Trying to follow the story will give you mental whiplash.  It revolves around the bizarre murders of a troubled family.  Things kick off with a gruesome ax murder in the tub, but then the murderess slips and falls on her ax.  Most of the time, the editing is so rapid fire that simple scenes are hard to figure out.  Shots are repeated, slow motion is used for like, two seconds, shots alternate from night to day, and there are long negative scenes; all of which are usually accompanied by overbearing, out of place library music. 

A narrator constantly runs his mouth to try to make sense of the plot.  (It’s really nothing more than your standard let’s-drive-a-relative-crazy plot, but the way it’s told is just confusing as fuck.)  This movie has more narration than The Creeping Terror and Monster a Go-Go combined.  Occasionally, we do hear a snippet of dialogue or two, but it’s clearly just Wishman’s voice dropping in a few lines here and there.  

I like Wishman.  That’s why it hurts to say this flick is a disaster of epic proportions.  Still, it’s a miracle it exists in any way, shape, or form considering the circumstances.  That alone is a testament to Wishman’s tenacity.  

Recently, a print of the original version was miraculously found.  I don’t know if my nerves could stand to watch that one so soon after subjecting myself to this.  Judging solely from the evidence here, I’d say they burned the wrong movie.

A BUCKET OF BLOOD (1995) ***

A Bucket of Blood is a remake of the 1959 cult classic starring Dick Miller.  It was made as part of the Showtime series Roger Corman Presents and it sticks close to the original.  Only now, since it’s on Showtime, they can include a scene involving a violinist performance artist doing a striptease.

Anthony Michael Hall steps into the Walter Paisley role.  He’s a busboy with dreams of artistic stardom who only works in a beatnik club to be around the artists he admires.  One night he accidentally kills a cat.  With no way to get rid of the carcass, he wraps it plaster and passes it off as “art”.  He quickly becomes an overnight sensation, but what will he do for an encore?

It may seem odd nowadays to remake A Bucket of Blood so closely.  However, it makes sense when you realize that in the early ‘90s, there was a mini-resurgence of spoken word poetry and pseudo-beatnik culture.  (Remember all those Gap ads?)  It also works as a skewering of the pretentious art world at the time.  John Waters later did something similar with Pecker, although that film was much more saccharine in its approach.

Speaking of which, Waters regular Mink Stole also appears as a rich woman married to Paul Bartel.  In fact, the whole supporting cast is gangbusters.  Justine Bateman is having fun doing a snooty accent as the object of Walter’s affection.  We also have David Cross and Will Ferrell popping up in small roles a few years before finding fame.  It’s Shadoe Stevens who steals the movie as the beat poet guru who endlessly pontificates about God knows what.   

I didn’t think anyone could replace Miller as Walter, seeing as it’s his signature role.   I have to admit, Hall makes the role his own.  He does a fine job as the lowly busboy yearning for social and artistic acceptance and manages to be intimidating once he turns into a murderer. 

A Bucket of Blood is a nearly scene-for-scene remake that retains the black humor that made the original such a classic.  The big difference of course, is the gratuitous nudity, which is always appreciated.  I can’t say it was entirely warranted, nor is it by any means essential, but it’s one of the best films in the Roger Corman Presents line-up.

AKA:  The Death Artist.  AKA:  Bloody Secret.  AKA:  Walter.  AKA:  Dark Secrets.

SPELLCASTER (1992) **

Remember back in the day when MTV always used to run those crazy contests, like “Spend the Day with Van Halen” or “Have John Cougar Mellencamp Play at Your Bar Mitzvah?”  Heck, what am I talking about?  Most people have long forgotten that they actually showed videos on MTV.  Well, if you’re like me, and you do remember those fine days, you may (just may) get a kick out of Spellcaster.

Contest winners from an MTV rip-off station are flown to an Italian castle to partake in a treasure hunt.  The grand prize winner gets a check for a million bucks.  Little do the contestants know that Adam Ant is lurking on the grounds, gazing into his crystal ball, and watching in ecstasy every time a moronic, conniving contestant meets their ludicrously improbable demise.

Spellcaster comes to us from producer Charles Band’s Empire Pictures and it’s another one of those Empire movies where a bunch of people wander around a castle for half the running time before eventually getting picked off in some oddly contrived way.  Maybe the problem was they got the director of Screwballs, Rafal Zielinski to helm it.  The man can do a Horny Teenager movie like few in the business, but when it comes to horror, he just couldn’t find his footing.  The incredibly lame happy ending does nobody any favors either.

In a weird way, it kind of plays like Band’s version of Willy Wonka as awful people are lured to an eccentric’s estate under the guise of a contest before receiving their just desserts.  Like for example, the fat guy literally turns into a pig.  I get that.  The tease gets attacked by an ogre who makes her live inside a painting.  Okay.  I sort of see how…  The slut gets eaten by a chair.  Wait… wouldn’t make more sense for the slut to get eaten by a bed…  

Okay, so very little of it makes sense, but there’s enough random shit here to keep your interest from completely waning.  That’s still not enough to make it worthwhile though.  In fact, it’s almost like Band had a bunch of props laying around from other movies and repurposed them for this one.

If you came to the party for Adam Ant, you’re bound to be disappointed, as he’s only in the last ten minutes.  Till then, only his hand is seen touching his crystal ball.  Still, it’s cool they got a rock star for the role because it keeps in with the whole MTV rock star contest motif.  “Win a Date with Death with Adam Ant!”

BAG BOY LOVER BOY (2014) ****

You know the old adage:  They don’t make them like they used to.  I don’t think they ever made them like Bag Boy Lover Boy.  I mean it kind of feels like a sleazy update of the old roughies from the ‘60s where “photographer’s models” met untimely demises after running afoul of a sadistic shutterbug.  However, it’s done with a singularly weird vision and anchored by one of the greatest performances of mind-boggling, otherworldly lunacy I’ve seen in a long while.  I guess what I’m getting at here is, Bag Boy Lover Boy is a goddamn modern classic.

Lonely Albert (Jon Wachter) works at a hot dog stand.  He longs for the love of a customer who is nice to him but would never in a million years sleep with him.  A sleazy photographer named Ivan (Theodore Bouloukos) gets one look at his unusual features and tricks him into posing for a series of lurid photos at Albert’s expense.  Albert desperately wants to become a photographer to impress his customer crush, but Ivan only strings him along in order to get his pictures taken.  Eventually, the unhinged Albert takes to luring hookers and drunks to his studio where he kills, photographs, and violates (in that order) his models.  

It sounds simple.  It is simple.  What is unexplainable is how fucking bizarre Wachter’s performance is.  This is one of the wildest, most Wiseau-ian performances in a long time.  He looks goofy and has an accent that is impossible to place.  I have no idea if that was part of his character or if he really speaks that way.  (I guess that’s why they call it “acting”.)  I do know that his line delivery and bewildered expressions lead to some giant laughs.  Wachter hasn’t done anything before or since.  Maybe that’s for the best.  I don’t know if he could ever equal the tour de force he delivers here.  

I don’t know how others will feel about the film.  The kills aren’t graphic, but there’s a strange mix of horror, comedy, and tragedy going through each sequence that it makes for a unique experience.  Some viewers will be put off by Wachter’s performance alone.  Some will be perplexed by the odd tone.  If you’re like me though, and you’ve thought you’ve seen it all, Bag Boy Lover Boy is confirmation that you haven’t seen nothing yet.

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: PRIME EVIL: THERE’S NOTHING OUT THERE (1991) ** ½

Before Scream, we had writer/director Rolfe Kanefsky’s horror-comedy, There’s Nothing Out There.  A bunch of college students spend spring break in a remote house in the woods.  The lone horror movie fan of the group gets on everyone’s nerves as he constantly warns his friends not to act like characters in horror films or run the risk of being killed.  Since that includes things like drinking, skinny-dipping, and premarital sex, he’s kind of a buzzkill.  So, they do what any good friend would do… Lock his ass up in the basement.  Unfortunately, that’s when a slimy space alien shows up and starts melting men’s faces and turning the ladies of the group into mind-controlled killers.

Kanefsky does a great job on the opening slasher movie scene set inside a video store.  Not only is it cool seeing all the old school video boxes, it’s also a nice slice of low budget horror filmmaking.  Although it starts out like gangbusters, there are some real lulls in between the laughs and monster attacks.  There are some clever moments to be sure, but Kanefsky should’ve edited this down a bit more to achieve its maximum entertainment value.

The monster, it must be said, looks terrible.  It resembles a green rubber scarf with eyes.  Just when I was about to write it off, the monster started shooting green lasers out of its eyes.  I can honestly say I haven’t seen a slimy scarf monster with laser eyes before, so I guess I’ll cut it some slack.  

Despite the unevenness of the whole enterprise, Kanefsky really crams this thing full of gratuitous nudity, so you’re always guaranteed to keep watching.  He used this aesthetic all throughout his career.  It especially served him well during his long run directing Skinamax movies like the softcore Emmanuelle cable series.

AKA:  Don’t Scream… Die.  AKA:  The Bloody Cottage in the Forest:  Scream or Die.

Well, that’s going to wrap things up for The 31 Days of Horror-Ween.  I’m not going to lie, this year’s selection of films were pretty rough going at times.  Luckily, we finished out the month with a couple of strong features.  Don’t worry, I’ll have a few more horror reviews before the end of All Hallows’ Eve to close out the month.

If you still can’t get enough horror reviews, well, you’re in luck.  November will see the arrival of Halloween Hangover, in which I’ll try to get around to watching all the horror movies I didn’t get around to watching in November.  It probably won’t be as extensive or thorough, but there’s sure to be plenty more horror for me in the near future.

Besides, it’s Halloween.  Everyone’s entitled to one good scare.

A GIRL WALKS HOME ALONE AT NIGHT (2014) ** ½

What would happen if Sergio Leone remade Nosferatu as a ‘90s indie junkie drama?  It might just look something like this.  A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is director Ana Lily Amirpour’s debut picture and it shows she can set a dreamlike, Lynchian mood with style to spare.  I just kind of wish there was more to it.  

Filmed in California (filling in for Iran), it’s the story of a vampire (Sheila Vand) who lurks the streets of a dead-end Iranian town preying on pimps and junkies.  When she falls for a hunky drug dealer (Arash Marandi), it goes against all her principals.  Still, she follows her heart, and strikes up a relationship with him.  Problems arise when she kills his junkie father. 

I don’t think I have to tell you the movie works much better as a vampire flick than it does as an Iranian junkie drama.  Amirpour delivers a sterling sequence when Vand seduces a sadistic pimp.  I had no sympathy for this guy whatsoever.  I’m sorry, but if you go to put your finger in a girl’s mouth and she reveals to you that she has switchblade-style fangs lurking in her teeth, and you STILL put your finger in there, you get what you deserve.  We also get a Duck Soup-inspired scene where she mimics the movements of an old junkie and the part where she threatens a kid with damnation if he isn’t a “good boy” is some real coldblooded shit.

Too bad much of the movie is so overly pretentious (not to mention overlong).  I enjoyed some of the moody, black and white visuals, but honestly, this was kind of a slog in some places.  It also says something about the acting when the cat gives the best performance in the entire film.  

Even though Amirpour draws her inspirations from all over the place, her vision remains distinctive.  Warts and all, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is a unique enough experience to warrant a watch.  I mean, it features the first chador-wearing, skateboard-riding vampire woman in film history, so let’s give it a little credit here, okay?