HALLOWEEN HANGOVER: LOST IN NEW YORK (1989) * ½

Three years before Kevin McAllister pulled the same stunt, a bunch of babes get lost in New York and wander around in this befuddlingly bad, cobbled together TV movie by horror maestro Jean Rollin.  

An old blind woman reminisces about when she was little.  She meets another girl, and together, they read a storybook and imagine themselves disappearing into the stories.  The stories mostly involve women in white masks being transported to various locations around New York City.  They could be the little girls from the prologue-within-a-prologue, but then again, they might not as we are told these scenes happened either before or after that.  (“OR NOW!”)  Segments include two women getting into a knife fight on a rooftop, a vampire babe biting an unsuspecting broad (the only real horror-related sequence in the entire film), and a lady doing a sexy dance.

Yes, this is a mess.  Watching it immediately after Dracula’s Fiancée, it certainly felt like a big comedown.  It’s only fifty-two minutes long, but it feels much longer thanks to the incoherent plotting and editing.  At all times, it just feels like an unfinished movie that was slapped together and released anyway.  I think Rollin was hoping to pass the fractured plot off as another one of his dreamlike features.  However, the visuals are just not compelling enough to tie everything together.  He's going to have to do a lot better than a bunch of babes hanging out on the beach wearing masks to make this work. 

I did like the funny scene early on where the little girls compare their adventures with a long list of classic movies like King Kong and Eyes Without a Face before tossing in a bunch of Jean Rollin films in there.  Sadly, you’ll be wishing you were watching any of the films the girls mentioned as they are all much better than this crap.

HALLOWEEN HANGOVER: DRACULA’S FIANCEE (2002) ****

I read a few reviews claiming that Dracula’s Fiancée was a lesser Jean Rollin film.  Ten minutes into the movie, we get a scene where a naked vampire chick stalks a foggy graveyard and bites a circus dwarf on the neck.  Now, I ask you:  How can any film containing a scene such as this be considered a “lesser” work of ANY filmmaker? 

Anyway, an old vampire hunter and his young assistant are on the trail of Count Dracula.  After hassling the dwarf in the cemetery, they go and bug the “village idiot” of a nearby town.  This village is pretty great because this gal is without a doubt the hottest village idiot in screen history.  (She even flashes the vampire hunter.)  I don’t know what the exact coordinates of this village was, but I am halfway tempted to book an Airbnb there this weekend.  

So, the vampire hunter and his manservant head on over to this convent where a bunch of nuns are looking after Dracula’s Fiancée.  Since she is Dracula’s Fiancée after all, her sexual powers have turned the nuns into horny, pipe-smoking basket cases.  Admittedly, this might be one of the film’s weaker sections, but it does contain what I believe to be the only filmed instance of a nun using belly dancing to ward off evil, so it is extremely vital, if only because it contains such a cinematic milestone.

After that, the dwarf, the vampire babe, and an “ogress” (who despite the name is a hot babe that walks around with her boob hanging out) take Dracula’s Fiancée to meet the “She-Wolf, The Mistress of Ceremonies” who is played by none other than Brigitte Lahaie!  To kick off the nuptials, one of Dracula’s henchmen takes out a nun’s heart… using a goddamned HAMMER.  A hammer!

Just doing a quick mental round-up of some of the Rollin movies I’ve seen—

Rape of the Vampire?

Requiem for a Vampire?

Shiver of the Vampires?

Night of the Hunted?

The Iron Rose?

Living Dead Girl?

The Grapes of Death?

FUCKING ZOMBIE LAKE?!?

Fly Me the French Way?

GUESS WHAT?  NONE OF THESE MOVIES HAVE A SCENE WHERE SOMEONE’S HEART GETS TAKEN OUT WITH A GODDAMNED HAMMER!

But it gets better.  A little while later, the nun wakes up, grabs her heart off the ground, stumbles around for a bit, and then LITERALLY KISSES HER HEART GOODBYE, and throws it on a burning pyre.

“Lesser” my ass.

Yes, Dracula’s Fiancée comes complete with all the stuff you’d expect from a Jean Rollin flick.  Namely, pale vampire chicks, abandoned castles, and pale vampire chicks wandering around abandoned castles.  However, what makes it even more impressive is the fact that even though he made it in 2002, it still looks and feels like a lost relic from his ‘70s heyday.  Incredible.  

In fact, I may be inclined to say that this is actually… my… favorite Rollin film?  Sure, it’s missing the poetic dreamlike lyricism of Requiem for a Vampire and the gut-punch ferocity of Night of the Hunted.  What it does have is the confidence of a genre director in his twilight years gleefully indulging us with his cinematic fetishes one more time.  I respect that kind of shit.  

Another thing that’s cool about this movie is its episodic nature.  You never know just who the heck is going to show up and add to the gaggle of already memorable characters.  In fact, it almost doesn’t seem like a big deal that Dracula doesn’t even arrive on the scene until the film’s halfway over.  If anything, he seems a bit lame next to the cast of characters that are running around elsewhere in the flick.  In fact, he spends most of his time imprisoned in a grandfather clock.  I’m not sure whether that’s supposed to mean Dracula is a timeless figure or that time is up for conventional cinematic creatures.  All I know is that if someone asks you if you want to watch Dracula’s Fiancée, your response should be “I DO!”

AKA:  Fiancée of Dracula.

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #31: DEAD DUDES IN THE HOUSE (1989) **

(Streamed via Popcornflix)

A group of guys and their girlfriends buy a dilapidated house and try to renovate it.  When the asshole of the group kicks over the tombstone in the front yard, it awakens the ghost of an old woman who committed murder in the house decades before.  Whenever she kills one of the carpenters, they turn into killer wisecracking zombies who attack their friends and turn them into more… dead dudes in the house.  

Troma released this low budget horror flick and gave it a silly title.  Even though it wasn’t one of their in-house productions, the humor and gore is fairly consistent with their usual sensibilities.  The special effects, gore, and make-up (all handled by Ed French) are better than you might expect.  Hands are hacked off, people are skewered, and in the standout sequence, a guy is cut in half by a window.  

The granny killer (played by a guy in convincing old age make-up) is reasonably effective too.  She has a couple of memorable moments when she randomly appears and/or lurks just behind the heroes.  Too bad her hot daughter (who is also an evil ghost) doesn’t get nearly enough screen time.

Although Dead Dudes in the House certainly has its moments, much of the running time is an endurance test of the audience’s patience.  I mean half the fucking movie is devoted to never ending scenes of characters trying (and failing) to open doors.  Just when that becomes too much to bear, they take to trying (and failing) to open windows.  (You know, for variety’s sake.)  Seriously, if you played a drinking game and took a shot every time someone couldn’t open a door, you yourself would be a dead dude (or dudette) in the house at about the twenty-minute mark.  It also doesn’t help that too many of the characters are obnoxious and that the finale drags on for an eternity.  

AKA:  The House on Tombstone Hill.  AKA:  The Dead Come Home.  AKA:  The Road.

Well, folks, that will do it for this year’s 31 Movies of Horror-Ween festivities.  Stick around as there are plenty more horror reviews to come as Halloween Hangover will continue until the end of November.

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #30: LORD SHANGO (1975) ***

(Streamed via Night Flight)

Lord Shango is a voodoo-themed horror-drama that was released in the midst of the ‘70s Blaxploitation craze.  Unlike many of those films, it doesn’t feel like it’s capitalizing on a thriving subgenre.  Instead, it’s an effective chiller in which the characters just so happen to be black.  

Femi (Bill Overton) is a voodoo practitioner who tries to prevent his girlfriend Billie (Avis McCarther) from being baptized in a river.  The congregation gets a little rough with Femi and he accidentally drowns when they try to “convert” him.  Things go from bad to worse when Billie’s stepfather Memphis (Wally Taylor) rapes her, causing her to leave town.  Her furious mother (Marlene Clark) then turns to a voodoo priest (Maurice Woods) to see that justice is done.  

Marlene Clark is excellent as her performance requires her to run a gamut of emotions.  She’s particularly engaging in her scenes with Lawrence Cook, who plays the town drunk, who just may know a little more than he lets on.  McCarther and Woods are equally good in tricky roles.  

I liked the way director Ray (The Last Porno Flick) Marsh resisted the temptation to lean into the horrific elements of the story.  Instead, he patiently allows characters to slowly seal their own fate with their actions. You probably won’t even mind that the horror is more subdued as the sometimes-icky family drama and strong performances are enough to keep you glued to your seat.  Not only that, but Lord Shango is a searing indictment of religious hypocrisy.  It’s also interesting the way Marsh contrasts elements of voodoo with Christianity, leaving the viewer to decide which of the two does more harm than good.  

Lord Shango probably runs on about ten or fifteen minutes longer than necessary.  However, this is one movie in which the marinade is more important than the meat.  It might move a little pokey in sports, but it’s a damned fine alternative to some of the schlocky Blaxploitation horror flicks of the era.

AKA:  The Color of Love.  AKA:  Soulmates of Shango.

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #29: CURSE OF THE VOODOO (1965) ***

(Streamed via Raygun)

Director Lindsay Shonteff and his Devil Doll star Bryant Haliday reteamed for this effective voodoo thriller.  Haliday plays a smarmy great white hunter who kills a lion on sacred ground in Africa.  Since the local tribe worship lions as gods, they put a voodoo curse on him.  Once Haliday is back in London, he tries to reconnect with his estranged wife (Lisa Daniely).  It is not a happy reunion, however, as he is haunted by the witch doctor’s fiendish curse wherever he goes.  

Shonteff delivers a couple of solid sequences, namely the big game hunting scene which is accompanied by an almost humorously bombastic score.  Other memorable scenes involve Haliday going out for a midnight stroll and being menaced by the sound of a snarling lion, and when he is pursued by the apparition of the witch doctor on the streets of London.  The best scene is the terrific African dance sequence set in a London nightclub where a black dancer does what can only be described as the ‘60s version of twerking.  I would like to think the reason this scene goes on for so long was because Shonteff was trying to juxtapose the native dancing of Africa with the more modern dance of swinging London in the ‘60s.  More than likely, he just wanted to get lots of footage of the dancer shaking her moneymaker for all its worth.

With his pale, pockmarked face and devilish demeanor, Haliday is ideally cast as the big game hunter getting his just desserts.  He’s just as good at being an asshole in Africa as he is being haunted by specters in London.  Dennis Price also lends fine support as Haliday’s hunting buddy.  

What sets Curse of the Voodoo apart from typical voodoo-themed horror flicks is that much of the horror is psychological.  Yes, Haliday’s visions stem from the witch doctor’s curse, but they can also be seen as a metaphor for his alcoholism (many characters chalk up his increasingly erratic behavior to his drinking) and/or guilt.  Although the pacing sort of sags here and there (especially once Haliday lapses into a comatose state) and the final confrontation is a tad underwhelming, this is nevertheless an entertaining, low key horror flick that works more often than not.

AKA:  Voodoo Blood Death.  AKA:  Curse of Simba.  AKA:  Lion Man.

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #28: DRACULA’S WIDOW (1988) ***

(Streamed via Freevee)

Two things I learned from the title of this movie:  Dracula’s 1) Married and 2) Dead.  Shit.  Had I known that, I would’ve sent flowers… to both the wedding and the funeral.  

All kidding aside, Dracula’s Widow was the first movie directed by Christopher Coppola, who would later go on to direct the immortal classic, Deadfall.  It would make a great triple feature of Late ‘80s/Early ‘90s Coppola Vampire Movies, alongside the Nicolas Cage-starring Vampire’s Kiss and Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula.  

Lenny Von Dohlen is the temperamental owner of a Hollywood wax museum who winds up receiving the remains of Dracula’s widow (Emmanulle’s Sylvia Kristel).  Before long, she bites him, makes him her familiar, and goes out into the night turning her victims into hamburger.  This is why you should always inspect your packages before you sign on the dotted line for them.

For a first-time feature, it’s pretty good.  Coppola bathes many scenes with lots of cool colors (many sequences are lit like a giallo) and gives the whole thing a look that’s a lot artier than you might expect.  Despite being the titular character, Kristel doesn’t seem to be in it a whole lot.  She doesn’t really look like she’s having a lot of fun either, but at least she looks great (even in her bad wig).  The biggest debit though is all the scenes with a hardboiled detective (Josef Sommer) investigating the murders, which aren’t exactly bad, it just feels like they came out of an entirely different movie.  

These quibbles are relatively minor in the long run.  For the most part, Dracula’s Widow is briskly paced, looks slick, and it contains lots of blood, guts, and gore.  Since Kristel is “both beauty AND beast”, she not only drinks the blood of her victims, but turns into a rubber-faced monster and eats them.  The highlight comes when she rips apart a bunch of Satanists during a black mass.  There’s also a solid bat transformation scene near the end which puts lots of today’s CGI crap to shame. 

AKA:  Lady Dracula.

SLASHERMANIACS VOLUME 1 & 2 (1990) **

I remember seeing the video box for The Original Slasher Mania and Slasher Mania 2 double feature in the video store back in the day, but I never got around to renting it.  I may have enjoyed it back then, but as they say, I’m a man now, and my tastes are a bit more refined.  That’s not exactly true.  As a die-hard fan of horror movie compilations, even the most slapdash affairs are usually right up my alley.  Despite my astonishingly high tolerance for the genre, my resolve was periodically tested by this one.  

You can tell it’s going to be a slipshod affair right from the opening title sequence, which proclaims the title as “Slashermaniacs Volume 1” (the title I’m reviewing it under) and not Slasher Mania (or even “The Original Slasher Mania”).  You know you’re in trouble when the compilation can’t even get the title right!

Unlike most horror comps, Slashermaniacs Volume 1 culls from only a few titles, and most of them are public domain.  That’s not the worst thing in the world, but the clips are shown at random and go on seemingly forever.  Sometimes, they’re so long you wonder where one clip ends and the other begins.  

The clips from Volume 1 include Night of the Living Dead (not exactly a slasher, is it?), Alice, Sweet Alice, and another flick I couldn’t identify.  (It would’ve been nice if they had listed the movie titles in the end credits.)  Then, things end with trailers for The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Dr. Phibes Rises Again.  The trailers are obviously the highlight, and it’s a shame there weren’t more previews sprinkled about.  It sure would’ve broken up the monotony.

Since each volume is only a half-hour long, I decided to roll my thoughts on Slashermaniacs Volume 2 into this review.  It offers up more of the same, and it’s a slight improvement over the original, if only because the clips are better.  This installment relies heavily on scenes from Night of the Living Dead (again), Horror Hotel (like Night of the Living Dead, it’s not a slasher, but at least the most atmospheric parts are used), and Alice, Sweet Alice (again).

The trailers are much better this time too, even if there are only a handful of them.  The best part is the iconic trailer for Psycho starring Alfred Hitchcock.  Since this is the greatest trailer of all time, I’m immediately inclined to give Volume 2 the edge over Volume 1, but it’s still kinda rough overall.  The tape wraps up with trailers for Blood Feast and Two Thousand Maniacs, but despite the strong finish, the whole thing feels like it was put together by someone hooking two VCRs together than a professionally edited and distributed horror compilation tape.

AKA:  The Original Slasher Mania.  AKA:  Slasher Mania 2.