THE SECT (2014) ** ½

Kali (Patricia Fishman) is a young woman who comes to Buenos Aires looking for work at a shady employment agency.  Before the interview is even over, she is drugged and kidnapped by the proprietors.  She soon wakes to discover she is being held captive by a mysterious cult leader who will pimp her out to rich clients who belong to “the fellowship”.  Eventually, Kali finds herself impregnated by the leader, which complicates her relationship with the employees. 

The cult leader is a rather cool customer.  For a long time, it’s hard to tell if it’s a real guy or just a mannequin who is wearing a Satanic robe and a mask that makes him look like the Aztec Mummy. Heck, he still remains an unsettling presence even after you know the score.

The Sect is a no-frills, low budget, Argentinian horror flick that works more often than not.  It’s not as exploitative as you might think given the subject matter as the nudity is brief and tastefully done.  (Fishman is filmed mostly from the back or from over the shoulder whenever she disrobes.)  Even though he was working with a low budget, director Ernesto Aguilar was able to make a slow burn type of horror film without making the audience wait forever for the resolution.  I will say that the ending is the weakest part of the whole thing, mostly because it’s kind of vague and unsatisfying.  However, Aguilar does quite a lot with his limited resources, and it’s pretty remarkable that it holds up as long as it does… until it doesn’t. 

In short, there’s nothing revolutionary here, but The Sect is reasonably effective and better than you’d probably expect.  It’s short (sixty-nine minutes) and wastes no time getting down to business, which is always appreciated.  It’s also surprisingly stylish in some stretches as the scenes that are bathed in pink and purple light almost feel like an Italian giallo.  While I can’t wholeheartedly recommend it due to the disappointing ending, it remains a solid little chiller all in all.

BEYOND DARKNESS (1992) **

Claudio Fragasso made this the same year he directed the legendary Troll 2.  (It just took two years to reach American video store shelves.)  It even stars that film’s juvenile hero Michael Stephenson, making his screen debut.  Naturally, it doesn’t quite live up to the lofty standards of that classic, but then again, what could?

Gene (Metamorphosis) LeBrock stars as a preacher who moves his family into a creepy old house.  Before long, strange occurrences start happening.  What do I mean by strange?  How about radios moving around on their own and broadcasting satanic messages before they blow up?  The family soon learns the house is haunted by the spirit of a child murdering witch.  When she kidnaps the preacher’s kid (Stephenson), our hero is forced to turn to an alcoholic street preacher (David Brandon) to perform an exorcism.

Coming from the same director as Troll 2 (and the same year, no less), it’s surprising to say that Beyond Darkness contains a couple of effective moments here and there.  I especially liked the imagery when the souls of the children appeared during the execution scene.  Fragasso delivers an atmospheric dream sequence as well.  Then again, when you film your movie in the same house from The Beyond, you’re bound to get a little bit more atmosphere than your typical haunted house flick.

Despite the fact that it is marginally competent, for the most part, Beyond Darkness is a sluggish bore.  On occasion, it threatens to come to life, but it almost immediately runs aground once it starts showing a little promise.  On the plus side, there’s a little something for everyone:  Haunted houses, exorcisms, zombies, witches, etc.  The witch herself is kind of like a mix of Freddy Krueger, Horace Pinker, and Max Jenke, and there are moments that also crib from The Beyond and House by the Cemetery.  However, it just never quite comes together in a satisfying way.  Still, as Italian genre exercises go, you can do a lot worse. 

AKA:  House 5.  AKA:  Horror House 2.  AKA:  Ghosthouse 6.  AKA:  Evil Dead 5.

HINDSIGHT IS 2020: WW84 (2020) * ½

WW84 is one of the worst DC Comics movies of all time.  It’s not as aggressively bad and ugly to look at as Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn).  It’s just maddeningly uneven, overlong, and unfocused.  The actual on-screen title is WW84 by the way, and not the promoted Wonder Woman 84.  I’m not sure why that is, but WW84 is a lot easier to type than Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn), so it has that going for it.

Director Patty Jenkins (who also directed the much better first film) tries to juggle three main plots.  Any one of them on their own could’ve probably sustained a movie.  As it is, they’re all crammed together fighting for superiority.  The best of the plots finds Kristen Wiig as Barbara Minerva, a nerdy co-worker of Wonder Woman’s alter ego, Diana Prince (Gal Gadot).  She gets her hands on a wishing stone (it looks like a crystal dildo) and wishes to be more like Diana.  Naturally, she doesn’t realize Diana is Wonder Woman, so she winds up with a bunch of superpowers she didn’t count on, which she readily uses to get back at the male population.  Later on, she gets a second wish to be more predatory, which turns her into the catlike Cheetah.  Even though her character is a rehashing of Michelle Pfeiffer’s Catwoman and Jim Carrey’s Riddler (or Jamie Foxx’s Electro as they all play dorky characters who are obsessed with the hero), Wiig does a fine enough job with what she was given.  However, all bets are off once she takes on the Cheetah persona as she basically looks like a refugee from Cats.

The return of Wonder Woman’s boyfriend, Steve Trevor (once again played by Chris Pine) could’ve worked if it wasn’t all so goofy.  Instead of returning to life, his spirit just inhabits the body of some random dude.  Whenever Wonder Woman (and the audience) looks at him, all she sees is Steve.  This could’ve been a fun idea if they had gone for an ‘80s Body Swap kind of vibe, but the filmmakers do fuck-all with the concept. 

The villain, Maxwell Lord (The Mandalorian’s Pedro Pascal) could’ve been great.  He starts off as kind of a riff on those “Power of Positive Thinking” hucksters before he gets caught up in all the wishing stone nonsense.  That wishing stone, it must be said, is probably the stupidest plot device in a modern-day superhero movie.  You know you’re in trouble when the villain winds up being the fucking Wishmaster. 

Not only that, but the “be careful what you wish for” lesson is childishly oversimplified.  In the end, people learn they should never ever wish for anything ever.  It’s as if the movie is saying, “Never strive for anything.  Accept mediocrity”, which is fitting because the movie is as mediocre as you can get.   

There is some good stuff here.  It’s nice to see Gadot and Pine back together as their chemistry is as charming as ever.  You just wish the material was strong enough that you had a reason to care (leftover goodwill from the first movie notwithstanding).  

The action is a bit of a mixed bag overall, but the opening flashback sequence is leagues better than anything that follows it.  It’s so good you almost wish they just stuck with the Young Wonder Woman Chronicles for the rest of the movie.  The Commando-inspired mall fight that kicks off the 84 scenes is goofy, but kinda fun too. 

After that sequence though, the film takes a nosedive in quality.  Much of the problem has to do with the constant juggling of plotlines.  Some unnecessary scenes run on forever while a few, seemingly crucial scenes are cut short (or possibly left on the cutting room floor altogether).  Wiig is fine, but her character is so one note that she never really stood a chance to be a memorable villain.  Things continue to spiral when the movie begins to favor Pascal’s plotline.  Although he admirably overacts, his scenes are so relentlessly corny that they begin making the ‘70s TV show look downright gritty in comparison.  The ending is particularly lame.

At two-and-a-half hours, WW84 is a tough sit.  It’s tonally out of whack and has too many moving parts that don’t quite fit.  The biggest problem is that other than the opening montage (which plays like a tribute to Superman 3, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that), there’s no real attempt to make it feel like 1984.  Heck, if you came in twenty minutes late, you’d never know it was supposed to take place in the ‘80s.  I’m not saying they have to bombard you with nostalgia every minute, but even Diana outfits feel way too contemporary. 

I have a feeling I would’ve been even more underwhelmed had I seen this on the big screen in middle of the summer (if there wasn’t a pandemic, that is).  Seeing it at home on HBO Max kind of softened the blow.  You almost sense that Warner Brothers and DC knew they had a turkey on their hands and decided to shuffle it to HBO. Really, WW84 should’ve been 86’ed altogether. 

AKA:  Wonder Woman 1984.

HINDSIGHT IS 2020: CASTLE FREAK (2020) ***

This remake of the old Stuart Gordon flick begins in fine fashion with a sexy naked nun flagellating herself in an ancient castle.  Rebecca (Clair Catherine) receives word she’s inherited the castle, and she and her asshole boyfriend John (Jake Horowitz) go to check it out.  John just wants to sell it and get outta Dodge, but our blind heroine kinda digs it.  She soon finds out there is a misshapen thing lurking within the castle walls, but naturally, asshat doesn’t believe her.  Eventually, John’s friends (whose reckless behavior was a contributing factor in blinding Rebecca) come to the castle to party and it’s only a matter of time before our old freak crashes it.

The original had some pacing issues, but this one is even more extreme in regards to pace.  In fact, after the fun prologue, the next hour and fifteen minutes or so are pretty sluggish.  You also have to put up with a whole lot of overly annoying asshole characters.  Of course, they all wind up getting their just desserts, but it certainly does take a while.

The gratuitous nude and sex scenes that occasionally rear their head help to keep you watching throughout the draggy sections.  We are talking some heavy duty Skinamax stuff here.  I know this is a remake of a Charles Band film, but there are times when it feels closer to a Surrender Cinema flick than a Full Moon movie.  That, in case you were wondering, is a compliment. 

Things get progressively kinkier as it goes along too.  Not only do we have scenes involving the freak watching others participating in the sexual act, the freak itself even gets down and dirty with a freaky S & M sequence that is sure to make your jaw drop.  Yes folks, this remake puts just as much emphasis on “Freak” as it does “Castle,” if you know what I mean.

Although the first 4/5 of Castle Freak are slow and uneventful, hang in there because the last twenty minutes or so have to count as some of the wildest, sickest, twisted shit I have seen in a motion picture in some time.  Not only does the film find a way to put a fresh spin on the original during the third act, but the last scene is gloriously gross.  The final shot is so fiendishly fucked-up that it singlehandedly secured the flick a positive review, no matter how dawdling the first two acts were.  As bad as 2020 on the whole was, this scene alone is enough to give any jaded horror fan hope for the future.

In short, give this Castle Freak a shot and let your freak flag fly!

CORPSE EATERS (1974) **

Corpse Eaters is the first Canadian gore movie.  Even though it holds such an illustrious distinction, it isn’t very good.  Nor is it original as it blatantly rips off scenes from Night of the Living Dead, Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things, and the works of William Castle.  There’s even a long stretch that owes a debt to Ring of Terror as well.  It somehow winds up being less than a sum of its parts, but some of its parts are amusing. 

A surly funeral home director bosses his mortician into doing a rush job on a dead guy who was “mauled by a bear”.  Flashbacks reveal that he and his friends spent Friday the 13^th at a graveyard performing rituals that resulted in the resurrection of the dead, and it didn’t take long for them to become a hot lunch for the zombies.  If the mortician isn’t careful, he may find himself on the zombie menu as well.

Corpse Eaters is only fifty-six minutes long and it simultaneously feels way too long and not long enough.  There are long stretches where nothing happens and when you combine that with the droning soundtrack, you have a recipe for Snoozeville.  However, if you’re able to keep your resolve, you will be treated to some decent zombie attack scenes. 

You almost feel like this started off as a short, but then more scenes got added to bulk up the running time.  The bookending scenes with the funeral home director go on way too long and are pretty much only there as filler.  The confusing “It was only a dream” ending doesn’t help matters.  (There’s also another “It was only a dream” scene early in the film to further flesh out the running time.) 

Fortunately, the film has a great gimmick, which at the very least helps make it memorable.  In the opening scene we are shown a spinning hypnotist wheel and told we will be warned whenever a gory scene is about to happen.  The gore itself is pretty cheap as the guts look like raspberry jam, but the warning shots of a theater patron losing his lunch in the aisle are effective. 

The scene that basically sums up my feelings on this movie is the introductory sequence when we first meet our four ill-fated friends.  There is a LONG scene of them driving their boat around a lake that seemingly goes on forever.  Just when you’ve about lost your patience, the one guy pours beer all over his girl’s chest, rips her bikini top off, and the two proceed to bang for a LONG time right in front of their friends!  I guess what I’m saying is that if you are willing and able to sit through long sequences where nothing happens to get to a long sequence of sheer nuttiness, then you just may eat up Corpse Eaters.

HINDSIGHT IS 2020: COLOR OUT OF SPACE (2020) **

After being fired from the much-maligned Island of Dr. Moreau, Richard Stanley gets another crack at adapting a beloved work of horror fiction with this Nicolas Cage-starring sci-fi/horror flick based on a tale by H.P. Lovecraft.  The story was also the basis of the 1987 shitfest, The Curse.  While Color Out of Space is leagues better than that dung heap, it still never quite kicks into overdrive. 

Cage stars as a family man who lives on an alpaca farm with his wife and three kids.  One night, a meteor crash lands in their yard, and pretty soon things start getting mighty peculiar down on the farm.  Before long, the meteor shit gets into the water and it starts having strange effects on the family members.  Cage admirably tries to keep the family together, even when the family starts… uh… coming together.

Stanley takes his time unfurling the premise.  This would be okay if he was merely building suspense, but there are a few too many unnecessary characters and subplots that sort of prevent the film from really getting into gear.  The stuff with the water-testing scientist (Elliot Knight) and the hippie freeloader (Tommy Chong) causes the first act to stall.  As David Keith did with The Curse, Stanley overdoes it with all the close-ups of the glasses of water to hammer home the fact that the water is no bueno. 

Once the colors (mainly pink and purple) start lighting up the farmhouse, Color Out of Space starts to settle into a decent rhythm.  The briefly seen monster effects are reminiscent of both The Thing and In the Mouth of Madness, and there’s a gooey sequence that will probably remind you of The Fly 2 as well.  I know Stanley was trying to show restraint here, but he really should’ve cranked up the weird monster shit to balance out the slow beginning.

The same goes for Cage.  Whenever he’s the upstanding father and husband, he just acts like your average guy.  Once the meteor shit hits the fan, he occasionally will step on the gas and hightail it to Cageland.  However, there isn’t quite enough Caginess to salvage the picture.  Then again, only a guy like Cage could take a line like, “It’s time to milk the alpacas!” and turn it into poetry.

Just when it looks like it’s ramping up, the film fizzles out just before it reaches the homestretch.  The fact that it runs nearly two hours certainly didn’t do it any favors either.  The colors are spiffy and all, but the movie itself ain’t very bright.

HINDSIGHT IS 2020: YOU SHOULD HAVE LEFT (2020) **

Kevin Bacon stars as a rich dude with a shady past who needs to get away from it all.  He gets his much younger actress girlfriend (Amanda Seyfried) to book an airbnb in Wales, far away from prying eyes before she goes off to shoot her next movie.  Eventually he comes to realize the place has obvious plans for him, or as the creepy storekeeper in town says, “You don’t choose the house.  The house chooses you.”

You Should Have Left would’ve probably made a good Twilight Zone episode.  At ninety-three minutes, the premise is stretched out awfully thin.  In fact, it only starts to pick up steam in the third act, which is too little too late.  I mean, slow burn horror flicks can work if the script is strong.  This one isn’t bad.  It just doesn’t help matters when the first two acts test your patience and the finale is pretty much a foregone conclusion. 

The good performances help keep you invested throughout the picture, but honestly, writer-director David Koepp delivers more fizzle than sizzle, especially when it comes to the predictable ending.  I’m a huge fan of Bacon and Koepp’s previous collaboration, the unsung classic Stir of Echoes, and I was hoping this would be a reunion to remember.  However, the film hews closer to Koepp’s muddled Stephen King adaptation Secret Window in terms of quality.  You Should Have Left contains a lot of thematic elements that Koepp already mined rather thoroughly in those aforementioned films, and it’s a shame he couldn’t find something new to say.

The real star is the house.  Filled with long ominous hallways, a foreboding atmosphere, and an ever-changing geography, it certainly is one of the more original looking haunted houses in recent horror films.  Even though the two leads give solid performances, it’s the house who steals the show.  Too bad the lights are on, but no one’s home.