HALLOWEEN HANGOVER: LAS VEGAS STRANGLER (1968) *** ½

Jeff (Robert Dix) is a seemingly normal guy who saves a dance hall girl named Lori (Gillian Simpson) from being roughed up by a drunken customer (John “Bud” Cardos).  He then takes her for a night out on the Vegas Strip, and they wind up getting married.  The next day he brings her home to meet his domineering mother (June Drake, who co-wrote the script) who naturally disapproves of the marriage.  Unbeknownst to the new bride, her hubby likes to sneak out in the middle of the night and kill brunette hookers, showgirls, and party girls and retain swatches of their hair for souvenirs. 

Co-written by Oliver (The Mummy and the Curse of the Jackals) Drake, Las Vegas Strangler is a real find.  It’s a stylish and fun psycho-slasher that packs a pop.  Not only are the strangling scenes well done (the one in the swimming pool is reminiscent of Dementia 13), but our killer also stabs, electrocutes, and impales his victims.  The mostly memorable part though is the trippy dream/vision of topless women going around on a carousel. 

The film also features a swinging score that’s a combination of jazz, rock, and blues guitar, including a great theme song “No Tears for the Damned” (which was also its alternate title).  We also get a fun number called “Demon of Love” as part of a finger-snapping night club act.  The Las Vegas location work is excellent both on the Strip and in the casinos themselves. 

The scenes with the disapproving mother feel like something out of a William Castle movie, while the stuff with the hookers plays like a West Coast version of a New York roughie from the era.  There’s a great sequence when Dix crashes a party where there’s drinking, dancing, and strip poker.  While all that’s going on, a drunk crawls around in all fours and peeps on various couples (and throuples) boning.  One short segment is even set to the tune of Tommy Roe’s “Dizzy”!  Incredible. 

Las Vegas Strangler is full of good-looking women, plenty of T & A, and stylish kills, which makes this a minor classic.  There’s also a surprising (for the time) gay subplot in there for good measure.  All in all, it’s another fine gem rediscovered by the good folks at Vinegar Syndrome for their Lost Picture Show Blu-Ray box set.  The only real complaint is the abrupt ending, although I have a feeling it could’ve possibly been missing its final reel.  Either way, it’s a blast. 

Simpson’s Cockney hooker character gets the best line when she says, “For Christmas they raffled me off for a hundred dollars and a turkey!”

AKA:  No Tears for the Damned.

HALLOWEEN HANGOVER: VICIOUS (2025) **

Dakota Fanning stars as a young woman all alone in a big empty house when one night a seemingly confused and lost little old lady (Kathryn Hunter) rings her doorbell.  She quickly takes pity on the woman and invites her inside.  After some chitchat, the woman gives her a mysterious box and informs her she’s going to die if she doesn’t put the things it craves inside. 

It’s a solid set-up for a horror story.  Writer/director Bryan Bertino knows how to set the stage, which makes sense since he also made The Strangers.  Like that film, he gets a lot of mileage out of someone alone in their house (or at least thinking they are).  He does variations on the famous scene in The Strangers when the heroine can’t see someone is standing behind her, but the audience can.  However, that winds up being the only trick up his sleeve and he goes to that well a few too many times over the course of the film.  He also overuses The Mamas and the Papas “Dedicated to the One I Love” for ominous effect. 

I liked The Strangers a little less than the general consensus.  I tried to give this one as much leeway as possible since Fanning is quite good, especially since this is a one-woman show for a good chunk of the running time.  Ultimately, I had the same major problem with Vicious that I had with The Strangers, which is that this may have worked as a short, but when stretched out to feature length, it quite often tests your patience.  In fact, the longer it goes on, the weaker it gets.  (The subplot late in the game when Fanning tries to pawn off the curse on someone else is clunky and feels tacked on to pad things out.)

A sturdy first act and a strong performance by Fanning aside, Vicious just seems more like an exercise than an actual experience.  It’s set at Christmas, so if you’re looking for a holiday-themed horror flick this winter, this might fit the bill.  Die-hard horror fans will probably be left unimpressed though.  Other than a decent bit involving self-mutilation, there’s little here to live up to the title. 

HALLOWEEN HANGOVER: SKULL: THE MASK (2021) ***

Archeologists find a skull mask while on a dig in the Amazon.  When the woman in charge brings it home, her girlfriend uses it as part of an ancient black magic ritual, which naturally goes horribly wrong (or horribly right depending on how you look at things) and they both wind up dead.  Before you know it, the skull attaches itself to a beefy guy and makes him run around the city ripping people’s hearts (and guts) out.  It then falls on a tough but crooked cop named Beatriz (Natallia Rodrigues, who kind of looks like Rebecca Ferguson a little) to stop it. 

Skull: The Mask is a bizarre action/horror hybrid that is a gory good time.  Parts of it kind of reminded me of Evil Dead and Dead-Alive (especially the scene with the preacher).  Even then, it manages to feel fresh and original. 

The old school gore effects will be the main draw for many viewers.  In addition to all the heart and gut ripping our titular killer does, he also strangles a guy with his girlfriend’s guts, rips out throats, hacks off faces, and crushes heads.  The standout scene of carnage comes when the skull man shows up to a Halloween costume unnoticed and mows down several partygoers in gruesome ways.  Another memorable bit occurs when a woman is murdered in a pool of blood while wearing a T-shirt of the shower scene in Psycho with Janet Leigh.

The action and fight scenes offer a mixture of Kung Fu and Saturday Night Wrestling maneuvers.  I lost count of how many times the killer choke-slammed his victims.  (That’s a good thing.)  The trippy cosmic hallucination sequences are pretty cool too. 

After somewhat of a slow start, things really sizzle once the mask finds its host.  Then, it’s off to the races.  I mean, not only does it feature a badass slasher, it also contains some shit I’ve never seen before (including a guy dressing his bullet wound with a tampon).  Who could ask for anything more?

HALLOWEEN HANGOVER: THE LONG WALK (2025) ****

Based on the harrowing novel by Stephen King (using his Richard Bachman pseudonym), The Long Walk takes place in a not-too-distant totalitarian future.  Every year, a contest is held wherein fifty boys from fifty states participate in a walking marathon.  The catch is if they stop walking, the armed battalion creeping just behind them will shoot them dead. 

Licorice Pizza’s Cooper Hoffman is Ray, who acts as sort of a beacon of hope throughout the walk.  He tries to inspire his fellow walkers to press on, even when their situation turns grim.  Mark Hamill (in his second King adaptation after Sleepwalkers) is pure evil as “The Major” who issues edicts and warnings from atop his slow-moving Jeep. 

This was my second favorite Bachman book (behind Rage), and I always thought it would make a great film adaptation.  Maybe we had to wait till now to get one.  It’s the perfect political climate for such a chilling tale. 

I never saw those Hunger Games movies, but I think director Francis Lawrence learned enough from them to deliver a badass futuristic game of do or die.  His style is very cut and dry, which serves the desolate road setting nicely.  He doesn’t gussy it up either when someone gets their ticket punched, as the scenes where the boys are gunned down are sometimes brutal. 

What I liked most about the movie was that it dealt with questions any viewer may have about the logistics of the walk head-on and without flinching.  For example, going to the bathroom in a contest where you’ll be shot if you stop walking.  I fully expected them to broach the subject of having to take a piss.  I wasn’t prepared for the scene where a guy had to take a shit.  Or that it would be shown in graphic detail.  That has to be some kind of first for a studio picture.  (As a bonus, there’s ANOTHER shitting scene later in the picture.)

Everybody loves those newfangled, overrated It movies, but did they feature two scenes of full-on defecation?  I think not. 

Speaking of which, Karate Kid Legends’ Ben Wang gets the best line as a fellow walker who says, “Your plan and the stuff that comes out of my asshole bear a suspicious resemblance!”

HALLOWEEN HANGOVER: THE HAND THAT ROCKS THE CRADLE (2025) ***

I know this isn’t exactly a horror flick, but I’m going to allow it as part of Halloween Hangover since it features two of my favorite Scream Queens of the last decade or so, Maika Monroe and Mary Elizabeth Winstead.  The original film was one of the first and best of the “From Hell” subgenre of studio thrillers that dominated the ‘90s.  The genre has lost its potency over time, especially once Lifetime basically adopted the format for their original movies.  This remake updates the premise for the times and even adds in some sexual tension between the two leads, which is certainly welcome. 

Winstead plays a new mom who could use a hand around the house, so she hires a seemingly perfect nanny (Monroe) to watch the kids.  At first, she finds small ways to undermine her employer’s authority, like secretly giving the children cupcakes when they aren’t allowed to have sweets.  Eventually, she’s swapping out breast milk for formula before doing more devious activity like poisoning Winstead’s home cooking.  Before long, she learns her new nanny has a score to settle, and she won’t stop until Mary’s life is thoroughly ruined. 

Director Michelle Garza Cervera does a good job at broaching uncomfortable subject matter within the context of a Hollywood thriller.  When Winstead’s young daughter comes out as gay, she suspects Monroe had a hand in coaching her and calls her out on it, which naturally makes her look like a homophonic piece of shit.  These micro manipulations by Monroe keep Winstead (and the audience) off balance. 

Cervera’s handling of the cringey plot reveals is pretty effective and her staging of the more typical thriller cliches is moderately entertaining the whole way through.  If you have to do a remake, this is the approach you should take.  Keep the bones of what made the original work and add in new layers and nuances to keep it fresh. 

It helps that Winstead and Monroe are both quite strong.  They play off one another extremely well and once the sparks finally fly, it’s fun to see them go at each other.  All in all, it’s a solid remake that’s definitely worth checking out. 

HALLOWEEN HANGOVER: NIGHT TEETH (2021) * ½

Benny (Jorge Lendeborg Jr.) is a young wannabe musician who gets a job chauffeuring two hot women (Debby Ryan and Lucy Fry) around the city for the evening.  The ladies want to hit five parties in one night, and it’s up to Benny to get them there on time.  As it turns out, the gals are actually vampires who are aiming to take out the heads of the five vampire clans so they can run the city. 

Night Teeth thinks it’s edgy and hip, but it’s really tired and boring.  It takes more than just tinkering with the rules of vampirism to make a good vampire flick.  The weakest parts of the film are devoted to the backstory with the various vampire clans which feel overexplained and yet at the same time not fully fleshed out. 

The film starts off with potential as the set-up plays kind of like a vampire comedy version of Collateral.  Whatever promise the flick had soon gets thrown out the window thanks to the lethargic pacing and weak vampire hunting action (which mostly plays out as an afterthought).  The dialogue is often cringe-inducing and all the exposition about “breaking the truce with the humans” will leave you rolling your eyes. 

It also hurts that the acting leaves something to be desired. Lendeborg Jr. kind of blends in with the scenery as he never finds a way to make his sheepish character endearing or memorable.  The only two recognizable names in this are Sydney Sweeney and Megan Fox who play a pair of vampire queens.  They look great in their sexy attire (Sweeney is practically spilling out of her evening gown), but they are unfortunately relegated to extended cameos as they only appear in one scene.  While Fry and Ryan are okay as the two mischievous vamps, I can’t help but think how much more fun this would’ve been if Sweeney and Fox had played their roles instead. 

Ultimately, Night Teeth lacks bite. 

PREDATOR: BADLANDS (2025) ****

Predator: Badlands is the best Predator movie since the first one.  Ferociously original, it is simultaneously a dissection and a dissertation of what makes the franchise so much fun.  The special effects are great, and the action is terrific, but it’s what’s brimming just below the surface that makes it an instant classic. 

A young Predator (called a “runt” by his warrior father) sets out to prove himself by traveling to a hostile planet and kill an indestructible monster.  Along the way, he happens along a heavily damaged synthetic (Elle Fanning) whom he uses as a “tool” to track his prey.  He soon learns there are even more dangerous things lurking on the planet. 

I never thought I’d actually care about a Predator until Badlands.  Yes, I may have rooted for one in AVP, but I never in a million years could I have imagined being caught up in its warrior journey.  The amazing thing about the movie is that director Dan Trachtenberg (encoring after the previous Predator film, Prey) is able to sneakily toss in some pretty timely themes into the film.  I don’t want to spoil anything, so I will tread lightly.  All I’ll say is that the movie is essentially a universal tale of not only finding yourself but family in a truly fucked-up world.  Consider the Predator is spurned by his family for being “different”.  While trying to make something of himself, he develops his own makeshift familial unit who grows to respect and support him.  It’s a picture about shedding the baggage of the previous generation and blazing a new path of your own for the future. 

Either that, or I’m just over analyzing the hell out of this.  Either way, it’s a kick ass Predator movie. 

Fans of the Alien series will no doubt love some of the touches here, especially in the third act.  There were parts that reminded me of Avatar and Apocalypto too.  They also managed to put an homage to Hard Target in there for good measure.  Did I mention how great this thing is?

Fanning is hilarious as the plucky, wisecracking synthetic who is toted around on the Predator’s back like C-3PO in The Empire Strikes Back for much of the movie.  Surprisingly enough, the bond that grows between her and the Predator is genuinely moving.  The best performance though comes from the space monkey who completes their makeshift family.  If you mixed the Cater-Puppy from House 2 with Boots from Dora the Explorer, it might give you an idea of what we are talking about here.  Folks, there is a quiet, tender, and moving scene between the Predator and the space monkey where I got a legitimate lump in my throat.  I’ve believed a lot of strange shit in cinema before, but in never thought I’d live to see that AND be genuinely moved.  Yes, this movie is that fucking good. 

The most beautiful thing about Badlands is that this is a wonderfully profound movie about humanity that doesn’t have a single human being in it.  Yes, I’m serious.