THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #16: KILLER PINATA (2015) *** ½

(Streamed via Cinehouse)

I went into Killer Pinata expecting to see a pinata kill people.  I got that, but I also got more.  A lot more.  

Killer Pinata is one of the best horror movies I have seen in some time.  It takes a Troma level premise and gives it the A24 treatment.  There is a tongue in cheek aspect, sure.  This is Killer Pinata after all.  However, there is an offbeat artiness to the entire enterprise that is enormously endearing.  

The film is essentially a variation on Child’s Play, except, you know, with a pinata.  A father buys a bunch of pinatas for his kid’s birthday party.  After seeing his friends smashed to pieces, the devilish donkey pinata sets out to get revenge on his fallen comrades.  He singles out a bunch of college kids partying it up and proceeds to take them out one by one.  

The scene where the pinata watches in horror as a little kid beats another pinata in super slow motion is downright hauntingly beautiful.  I never thought I would ever type that sentence but here we are.  Trust me, the movie still gives you the sort of hijinks you’d expect.  In one scene, the pinata strings up a dork and beats him until his teeth splay out onto the pavement like hard candy.  There’s also more than one scene where the pinata shits tainted (no pun intended) candy that kills whoever eats it.  However, despite these broad, obvious moments there’s a funky, vibrant, swagger to the film that makes it unique and tons of fun.  

It does have a little trouble stretching its admittedly thin premise out to a feature length.  One undercooked subplot involves the pinata possessing a human and forcing him to do its dirty work.  However, some of the padding works surprisingly well (like the great animated flashback detailing the origin of the killer pinata), and director Stephen Tramontana pulls off several unlikely sequences with unexpected pizzazz.  (The Pinata POV shots are very well done.)  Besides, as I said at the beginning of this review:  Killer Pinata gives you what you expect, but brother, does it give you a whole lot more.

Bottom Line:  This pinata is chockfull of goodies.

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #15: HALLOWEEN ENDS (2022) ** ½

(Streamed via Peacock)

I was not a fan of David Gordon Green’s previous pair of Halloween sequels.  Because of that, I had little excitement and next-to-no expectations for Halloween Ends.  Maybe it was the lowered expectations, or the fact I knew (or cared) very little about the film’s plot that helped me enjoy it much more than the last two outings.  It’s still not “good” exactly, but it’s an interesting (if flawed) attempt to breathe a little life into the franchise.

If you go in expecting a big, action-packed trilogy capper, you are bound to be disappointed.  It seems by now that Green’s M.O. from the get-go has been to thwart fans’ expectations.  If that really was the case, then Halloween Ends is his master thesis on the subject.  It almost feels like the Halloween franchise’s version of Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi as it acts as a deconstruction of the series.  A sort of litmus test to see how much you can color outside the line of the franchise while still very much adhering to what makes the franchise work.  (The fact that there’s already a petition by angry fans to have the whole movie reshot bears that theory out.)

Without giving too much away, the bulk of the film revolves around Corey (Rohan Campbell), the new Haddonfield urban legend.  A couple years ago, the kid he was babysitting for wound up dead in a freak accident.  Harassed, bullied (by roving gangs of marching band bullies, no less!), and pushed to the brink, the mixed-up Corey has a fateful run-in with Michael Myers that…  Well… you’ll see.

From the very beginning, you can tell Green and Co. are out to subvert our expectations as he uses the same font for the opening title sequence as Halloween 3:  Season of the Witch, the first Halloween film to polarize the fanbase because it dared to take Michael Myers out of the equation.  Green does a similar bit of redirection here.  However, he wisely keeps Michael around (a little bit), allowing for Myers’ legend to still cast a long shadow over the town.  It’s an interesting, if only sporadically effective way to go, and certainly a more enjoyable ride than the previous Green-helmed sequels.  

However, I can’t help but feel a little shortchanged.  We’ve been waiting over forty years for Michael and Laurie’s final face-off.  As a payoff to that storyline, it comes up a bit short.  I think they should’ve called it Halloween Aftermath.  It would’ve been a more fitting title.  Although, honestly, this might’ve worked better as a TV show called Haddonfield.  It could’ve focused on the characters of the town that have had their lives impacted, shattered, ruined, or poisoned by Myers’ reign of terror.  You could’ve brought Jamie Lee Curtis in for the intros (the scenes of her writing her memoirs feel very TV Movie-ish) and spent various episodes fleshing out the new characters.  I know John Carpenter always intended to turn Halloween into an anthology, but given the evidence here, it might just work, as long as there is at least SOME connective tissue to the Myers legend.

I didn’t mind the way Green paralleled Corey and Michael’s ascension to boogeyman status.  Sure, it’s the old nature vs. nurture deal, but it kinda works.  I really liked seeing Laurie opening up a bit and starting a potential romance with the sheriff (Will Patton).  The movie could’ve used a lot more of these scenes and less of the Romeo and Juliet stuff with Allyson (Andi Matichak) and Corey.  I never really believed they were in love, and the arc of their romance feels forced and rushed.  

One thing I did enjoy was seeing Michael taking Corey on as sort of an apprentice.  I mean he’s sixty-five years old.  He can’t keep on killing forever.  It would make sense to for him to train the next generation of psychos.  Corey himself sort of has an Anakin Skywalker vibe going on.  He even has an understanding girlfriend that doesn’t seem to mind when he slaughters innocents.  

Throughout the film, I went back and forth on whether I liked it or not.  The longwinded romance scenes in the middle of the flick made me want to give it **, but then, late in the game, we got that great kill scene in the radio station set to The Cramps’ “I Was a Teenage Werewolf”, which is worth at least another Half-Star my book.  I mean, if Return of the Living Dead, Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, and Near Dark have taught us anything, it’s that any horror movie can be made even better by including a needle drop on a Cramps song.  

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #14: SHOCK CINEMA VOLUME 3: BLOOPERS, BABES AND BLOOD! (1991) ** ½

(Streamed via Tubi)

Producer Brinke Stevens returns with another installment in the Shock Cinema series.  Although she provides narration over the chapter breaks, she doesn’t have any formal hosting sequences this time around.  (She does appear on the opening graphic and shows up in clips from Nightmare Sisters though.)  Unlike the previous two Shock Cinema Volumes, this is less a video magazine and more of a compilation tape.  There are no interviews with B-Movie directors and not as much behind the scenes footage as you might expect.  Instead, it’s broken up into several chapters devoted to various horror/exploitation elements.

The first (and best) chapter is devoted to “T & A”.  We see scenes of Linnea Quigley, Michelle Bauer, and Brinke appearing au natural in Nightmare Sisters, as well as Linnea taking it off in clips from Murder Weapon and Deadly Embrace.  The next segment is on “Blood and Gore” and it features assorted stabbings, bludgeonings, flesh rippings, and exploding heads.  (Mostly from Robot Ninja.)  “Trailers” contains coming attractions for Deadly Embrace, the Scream Queen documentary Something to Scream About, Murder Weapon, Robot Ninja, Skinned Alive, and Ghoul School.  “Bloopers” contains outtakes, flubs, and follies from Nightmare Sisters and Dr. Alien.  These bloopers aren’t exactly funny, but they do offer a tantalizing (if fleeting) taste of what it was like to be on those sets.  The volume is rounded out with “Action and Special Effects”, a collection of fights, bites, slashes, gashes, shootouts, mutants, monsters, and musical numbers from the previously mentioned films.  

Since it’s only drawing from a small pool of titles (mostly Tempe releases), the clips have a tendency to get a little overfamiliar as the tape goes on.  (Some scenes are even repeated by the end, which tends to get a little annoying.)  The short running time (under an hour) helps somewhat, though the overall sense of déjà vu sort of diminishes the fun.  Even though it’s not as informative or as entertaining as the first two volumes, it’s still worth a watch just for the T & A segment alone (especially if you’re a fan of Scream Queens Stevens, Quigley, and Bauer).  

AKA:  Shock Cinema Volume 3.

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #13: LIMBO (1999) *

(Streamed via Cineverse)

About ten minutes into Limbo, it became apparent that B-Movie Scream Queen-turned-first time director Tina Krause rented Jacob’s Ladder one night and decided to make her own loose remake using the crappiest home video equipment available.  That probably wasn’t the worst idea in the world, but the problem is that there is barely any connective narrative tissue to hold the thing together.  Because of that, it looks like one long, cheap, SOV music video.  

A woman named Katherine goes to a bar where she is given an ominous warning by an unseen stranger.  After Katherine picks up a cute waitress (Krause), things spiral into a lot of shaky-cam/let’s-use-every-filter-and-editing-trick-that-came-with-the-camera music video sequences.  She returns to the bar the next night where she picks up another stranger and the cycle repeats itself until Katherine learns she’s actually dead and in limbo.  (Hey, it’s not a spoiler if it’s in the title!)

This one was a tough sit.  Although I enjoy seeing Krause in her low budget horror movies, this is by far the worst one I have seen.  It was also by far the shortest flick I’ve watched this month (it’s only fifty-four minutes), but it sure as Hell felt like the longest.  

It's not all terrible.  If you can make it to the homestretch, there are a couple of decent gore effects (given the budget).  We get a pretty good face ripping scene as well as a not-bad gut ripping sequence.  However, that doesn’t make up for all the schizophrenic editing, incoherent storytelling (a vampire subplot is dropped into our laps in the late going), piss-poor camerawork, and piss-poorer sound.  

I admire Krause’s ambition.  More Scream Queens should take the cinematic reigns and direct their own movies.  I just wish that Krause’s directorial effort was closer in spirit to her other low budget vehicles instead of an overlong, experimental, wannabe student film.

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #12: CAPULINA VS. THE MONSTERS (1974) **

(Streamed via Canela TV)

If you’re unfamiliar with Capulina, he was an extremely popular but painfully unfunny (at least to me) Mexican comedian.  The only other Capulina comedy I’ve seen was Santo vs. Capulina, and that was only because I am a die-hard El Santo completist.  Naturally, the only reason I watched Capulina vs. the Monsters was for the monsters.  I’m a sucker for shoddy South of the Border monster movies, even if they do star annoying comedians.

A mad scientist uses the brain of a dim-witted newsstand attendant (Capulina) to revive Frankenstein, Dracula, the Mummy, and the Wolf Man.  Predictably, they break out of the lab and chase Capulina all over town.  Eventually, Capulina bands together with a bunch of kids to thwart the doctor’s plan.  

The first twenty minutes or so did not inspire hope.  These monster-less passages rely heavily on Capulina’s awful slapstick shtick (which requires him to make silly faces, run around in fast-motion like Benny Hill, and… uh… that’s about it) and have zero laughs.  Thankfully, once the monsters show up, things improve considerably.  While their interactions with Capulina aren’t exactly laugh-out-loud funny, they are at least somewhat amusing.  One fun touch is that garlic has no effect on Dracula, but all the monsters pass out after Capulina eats a bunch of onions and breathes on them.  There’s also an odd scene where Capulina gets into an inexplicable pillow fight with the titans of terror.  The best non-monster scene happens when Capulina mistakes some dwarf criminals wearing Halloween masks for Trick-or-Treaters.  I can’t say “hilarity ensues”, but I think I did crack a smile.  

The monster make-up and costumes are terrible, which only makes the whole thing even more enjoyable.  The Mummy is the worst.  If you thought the Mummy from Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy was bad, wait till you get a load of this guy.  He looks like he’s wearing a repurposed El Santo mask and baggy white pajamas.  However, I dug the scene where Dracula completely unwraps him in order to tie up Capulina and then uses all of his bandages to lower him from a second story window.  Say what you will about this movie, but it has a naked mummy in it, something that possibly might be a cinema first.  

One missed opportunity though:  There’s a scene where the Mummy fights the Wolf Man, and he bites him on the neck.  According to accepted monster lore, shouldn’t the Mummy now turn into a werewolf?  If anything could’ve pushed this flick into *** territory, it would’ve been a Were-Mummy!  Sadly, it was not meant to be.

It also helps that the mad scientist’s assistant Mephistophela (Irlanda Mora) is foxy as all get out.  Wearing a slinky skintight red jumpsuit, she struts around the mad doctor lab looking hot to trot.  One thing’s for sure:  Capulina’s idiotic mugging is certainly easier to take whenever she’s on screen.  

As fun as the middle section of the film is, things get pretty dire as it enters the homestretch.  The finale is especially weak as the monsters are dispatched by Capulina incessantly chanting about his love for chocolate donuts.  (I think, or perhaps my Spanish was rusty).  The demise of the mad scientist is also WTF as he is electrocuted and turned into a turkey!?!  Oh well, at least when Mephistophela loses her job as a mad scientist’s assistant, she bounces right back, and gets a job as a nanny where she gets to wear sexy nanny outfits.  That’s about as happy of an ending as you can get with something like this.

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #11: YOKAI MONSTERS: SPOOK WARFARE (1968) *** ½

(Streamed via Shudder)

Treasure hunters accidentally awaken a bat monster from its tomb in the desert.  It makes its way to Japan where it drinks the blood of a local magistrate and takes his form.  Soon, the monster begins racking up more victims and turns them into his minions.  When he sets his sights on draining children of their blood, the monsters that lurk in the dark decide to band together and stop the bat-vampire-thing once and for all.  

Yokai Monsters:  100 Monsters was a fun flick, but it had a bit too much samurai drama and gratuitous asides that prevented it from firing on all cylinders.  This sequel is a straight-up horror show, and it’s all the better for it.  The monsters from the first movie make a welcome return (including my favorite, the Umbrella Monster), but the new monsters are really cool too.  I think the best addition to the cast is the monster who puffs out his belly and shows flashbacks on it as if it was a projection screen TV!  Another fun moment occurs when a pair of comedy relief guards (who are sort of playing an off-brand Japanese version of Abbott and Costello) have a run-in with a monster who resembles a cross between Gonzo the Great and Gabriel from Malignant.

I also liked how the monsters pull a ‘70s Godzilla and become a friend to children in this one.  Despite that touch, it’s a much darker film than its predecessor, even if the monsters are pretty much “the good guys” this time around.  The finale is quite rousing too as the villain becomes Godzilla size and our monster heroes have to call on the “100 Monsters” to help defeat him.  (Unlike the last movie, it actually looks like there’s a hundred of them in this one.) 

AKA:  The Great Yokai War.  AKA:  Ghosts on Parade.  AKA:  Yokai Monsters 2.  AKA:  Big Monster War.  AKA:  The Battle of the Spooks.  AKA:  Big Ghost War.

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #10: EVIL TOWN (1987) * ½

(Streamed via American Horrors)

Evil Town had a long, painful, strange production.  It was started in 1973 under the direction of Curtis (L.A. Confidential) Hanson.  He wound up getting fired and replaced by the producers (Death Game’s Peter Traynor and Larry Spiegel).  Production was eventually halted due to lawsuits and the film wasn’t completed until the mid ‘80s by producer Mardi Rustam (who added a bunch more nudity to make it commercially viable).  

The results are far from seamless.  Then again, the seams are expected when a film took fourteen years and four directors to finish.  The plot threads are all over the place.  There are two families camping whose car breaks down in the titular town.  We also have two horny gas station attendants who like to sneak off and rape coeds.  Then, there’s also the matter of a nuthouse where a sexy doctor is performing illicit experiments on her patients.  

You can probably guess what’s going on, thanks to the fact that the town is mostly populated by old people.  Yes, they are luring young folks into town and performing experiments on them in order to prolong their life.  Although it’s pretty obvious, the shoddy new scenes kind of make the whole thing kind of confusing.

Incredibly enough, there are some name stars in the cast.  James Keach and Robert Walker, Jr. are the paternal figures taking their family camping, and poor old Dean Jagger (in his final role) is the head mad scientist behind the insidious plot.  Sadly, he makes the whole thing even harder to watch as he is noticeably frail, often looks as if he is in pain, and flubs his lines a lot.  

Yes, Evil Town is a fucking mess.  The film stock, hairstyles, fashions, and cast changes often.  The various plots feel like they were stuffed into an UNO Attack game and then spit out at random.  The overuse of slow motion in some scenes is downright laughable too, but I’m sure it helped the distributors pad out the running time.  At least there is a lot of T & A.