DEAR DEAD DELILAH (1972) *

Luddy (Patricia Carmichael) gets out of a mental hospital after serving thirty years for killing her mother.  With nowhere to turn, Luddy is taken in by a wealthy family who feel sorry for her and offer her a job as a housekeeper.  The cranky matriarch Delilah (Agnes Moorehead) is a wheelchair bound shrew who constantly harps on everyone around her.  When she abruptly announces the family is effectively cut out of her will, they begin hatching a murder plot with Luddy making for a perfect scapegoat.

Dear Dead Delilah is an insufferable blend of southern fried gothic melodrama and an old-fashioned whodunit.  The fact that there’s an old woman’s name in the title may lead you to believe this is going to be one of those What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? types of horror flicks.  Really though, it plays kind of like a cross between Dementia 13 and Ten Little Indians. 

You can tell it was directed by a novelist (in this case, John Farris, who also wrote The Fury), as there are too many characters, huge chunks of exposition, and a lot of big speeches.  The characters are kind of the problem because none of them are remotely likeable as they are all greedy, alcoholics, druggies, or just plain despicable.  You know you’re in trouble when your axe murderer is the most sympathetic character. 

Since Farris isn’t really a director, he has no discernable style and no sense of pacing.  The movie just sort of ambles along from one scene to the next and it takes it an awfully long time to develop any sort of rhythm.  By the time the axe murders occur, it’s hard to care one way or another.  Farris does deliver one terrific decapitation however, but that isn’t nearly enough to justify Dear Dead Delilah’s dreary existence.  

YOU WON’T STOP SCREAMING (1998) * ½

You Won’t Stop Screaming is one of the most half-assed horror compilations I’ve ever seen.  Most of the time with these things, there’s a little bit of narration, text, or even a host to help you make sense of what is going on, or at least let you know what movies the clips are taken from.  This one offers you none of that as all the clips are strung together with no rhyme or reason. 

There are snippets from House by the Cemetery, Eaten Alive, The Alien Dead, Cathy’s Curse, The Hills Have Eyes, Simon, King of the Witches, Hatchet for the Honeymoon, The Final Terror, Picture Mommy Dead, The Alchemist, and Lucifer.  While there are a handful of classics in that line-up, most of the films featured don’t have enough highlights to even warrant showing.  House by the Cemetery and Eaten Alive are featured the most, with the entire climax of the former being shown at the very end. 

Terror in the Aisles it is not. 

As a die-hard fan of horror compilations, even I have to admit this one pretty much sucks.  It really needed some kind of framing device to make it all work.  Either that, or the clips should've followed some sort of theme.  Because it’s all been thrown together so haphazardly, it just feels like you’re watching a bunch of movies thrown in a blender.

Many of the movies featured are quite suspenseful, but you’d never know it while watching this.  Stripped of their proper context, they are way less effective when shown in this manner.  What’s worse is that most of the time, they don’t even use the best parts of the film.  The solarized still images from the old Fangoria’s Weekend of Horrors video and clips that play over top a haunted house while distorted “scary” sounds drone continuously on the soundtrack are annoying too.

You Won’t Stop Screaming?  You won’t even start!  Heck, you’ll probably start snoozing before the halfway mark.

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.