THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #19: DARK WATERS (1993) ***

Elizabeth (Louise Salter) arrives at a convent located on a remote island.  It seems her dead father made regular contributions to the church, and she wants to see where his money was going.  Before long, she begins to suspect the creepy nuns may have sacrificed a friend of hers.  Elizabeth then teams up with a Sherlock Holmes-obsessed nun (Venera Simmons) to unravel the truth. 

Director Mariano Baino has the same philosophy as Dario Argento when it comes to atmosphere taking precedence over the plot.  Given a choice between a scene making sense or looking cool, he’d pick the latter every time.  I respect that.  It doesn’t always make for the most coherent moviegoing experience, but I respect that.  I can’t say it 100% “worked”.  I can say I was always entertained. I’ll admit some of the “plot” was a tad confusing.  However, I could honestly say I didn’t know where the movie was going to go next.  That’s not something you can say about dozens of other horror flicks. 

Dark Waters has a cool visual style reminiscent of other ‘90s horror films like Dance with the Devil, Cemetery Man, and Killer Tongue.  Baino also delivers some unique nightmare/freak-out imagery.  The shots of the crucified nun are atmospheric and the scene where Salter begins chowing down on a dead fish is quite memorable.  The sequences where the nuns hold their unholy sabbaths in the candlelit catacombs under the church are also appropriately moody. 

I will say that the final monster is awfully rubbery looking.  That’s probably why he’s only briefly shown.  That said, the payoff is still satisfying enough to make some of the more ambiguous passages feel justified. 

This is one of those movies where you have to turn off your rational mind to unlock the mystery.  Let your lizard brain take over and some of the more abstract breadcrumbs will begin to make sense.  If you can groove to Dark Waters’ dream logic frequency, it will sure to be a big splash. 

AKA:  Dead Waters.

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #18: KEEPER (2025) **

The only Osgood Perkins film I’ve seen that I enjoyed was his last one, The Monkey.  I was hoping a little bit of that movie’s wacky momentum would carry over into his latest, Keeper.  Well, I guess the “Glass is Half Full” take is that this is, in my opinion, the second-best Osgood Perkins movie.  That is to say, it’s still not very good but it’s a lot better than something like Longlegs. 

Tatiana Maslany (who was also in The Monkey) and her boyfriend (Rossif Sutherland) go to a cabin in the woods for some R & R.  There, she eats some chocolate cake and soon begins seeing weird shit.  Is the place haunted or was the cake laced with some sort of hallucinogenic?  Or is it a bit of both?

One of the big reasons Keeper falls apart is the fact that Sutherland delivers one of the worst performances in recent memory.  He’s just a non-entity throughout the movie.  That wouldn’t be such a big deal if so much of the plot didn’t hinge on whether or not Maslany should trust him or not.  Even in the scenes where he’s supposed to be threatening or menacing, he’s just sort of…there.  Fortunately, Maslany anchors the film as best as anyone could’ve expected, given the circumstances.  She gives a good performance, but the film that surrounds her just isn’t worthy. 

Perkins does give the film plenty of atmosphere.  The cinematography during the final sequences is also quite striking.  The glass-walled cabin has a lot of personality too, which helps, especially during the scenes where Maslany is all by herself in the house. 

I don’t mind being a patient viewer on slow burn horror movies like this if my patience is eventually rewarded.  Well, there is a payoff to all the vague haunting and mysterious phenomena going on in the house.  Whether or not it was worth the wait will probably depend on the individual viewer.  Personally, I think it was a bit lackluster, but at least Perkins threw us a bone at the end.  It’s just a shame it didn’t have any meat on it. 

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #17: THE PHOTOGRAPHER (2011) *

I watched the sequel to this movie, The Photographer:  Inside the Dark Room a while back and I genuinely enjoyed it.  For whatever reason, it took me a while to circle around and check out the original.  I have a feeling that if I saw this one first, I wouldn’t have even bothered with the sequel. 

A model comes to a hotel room to pose for a geeky photographer.  She gets weirded out when he tries to rub baby oil on her and tries to leave.  Up until this point, I was totally with the movie.  However, at about the fifteen minute mark, it takes a nosedive and never recovers. 

The model mysteriously winds up on a deserted stretch of road.  Before long, a couple find themselves on the same road and have a run-in with the photographer.  It’s here where things devolve into a series of psych-out sequences.  Some play like music videos.  Others are overly artsy-fartsy. 

Of course, this winds up being one of those “It was All a Dream” deals, and the movie essentially starts over again at around the halfway point.  I was already starting to mentally check out by then.  Having to unceremoniously shift gears midway through did not help matters. 

It feels like this might’ve been one of those cases where the filmmakers made a short and then tried to expand it to feature length.  Some of the dreamy, obtuse shit might’ve worked in a short, but when you do it in a feature, your audience just feels like they’re being jerked around.  It’s a long time coming when the film eventually tries to win the audience back.  It gives us a couple of decent scenes of women in bondage including models wrapped in duct tape, bound with nipple clamps, and encased in shrink wrap.  Sadly, just when you think the movie has reclaimed its bearings, it shits the bed again. 

I guess I could also complain about the abrupt and unsatisfying ending, but hey, at least it ended. 

AKA:  The Photographer:  Inside the Mind of a Psycho.  AKA:  The Camera Killer. 

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #16: READY OR NOT: HERE I COME (2026) **

This uneven and overlong sequel to the fun Ready or Not picks up immediately where that film ended.  Samara Weaving survives the deadly game of Hide and Seek on her wedding night only to be kidnapped again by a cabal of all-powerful Satanic rich people who want to hunt her down and kill her… again.  This time they add Weaving’s estranged sister (Kathryn Newton) into the mix.  Predictably, the two bickering siblings must learn to work together in order to survive the night. 

Here I Come takes an inordinate amount of time to set up its premise, which might not have been so bad if it wasn’t just a rehash of the original.  Further hampering the film is the laborious first act which is loaded with scenes of people over explaining the “rules” of the new game.  Also, the setting, a posh country club for rich assholes, isn’t nearly as interesting or atmospheric as the castle in the first movie. 

Weaving and Newton are two of my favorite actresses working today so pairing them up should’ve been a recipe for success.  While they have their moments, it’s not exactly the pairing you’d hope it to be.  Part of the problem lies in the fact that their characters more or less hate each other.  Because of that, most of their scenes devolve into a lot of shouting about their ongoing family squabbles.  Not only do these scenes get repetitive, but they also prevent the action from gaining momentum.  Maybe they can be paired again in a better written film somewhere down the line. 

The supporting cast is pretty good though.  It includes Sarah Michelle Gellar, David Cronenberg, and Elijah Wood as various pawns in the new game.  While Wood gets some okay quips, and Gellar gets to do some Buffy-type action, Cronenberg is pretty much wasted in what is essentially an extended cameo. 

It might sound like I really have it out for this movie.  Here I Come is fine, I guess.  It’s a step down from the original that’s for sure.  The standout moment comes when someone is tossed into an industrial washing machine.  There’s also a fight between two women who are both blinded by mace that’s kinda funny.  However, the long-winded third act really takes it down a notch.  You’ll probably be ready to go before Ready or Not is over. 

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #15: DOLLY (2026) ***

Chase (Seann William Scott) and his girlfriend Macy (Fabianne Therese) go hiking in the woods where they encounter a creepy woman wearing a doll mask (Max the Impaler).  She kidnaps Macy and takes her back to her oversized dollhouse in the woods where she dresses her up and forces her to play baby doll.  When she doesn’t comply, her captor gets mad.  REAL mad. 

Dolly is a three-chord horror flick that tries to replicate the look and feel of an old school slasher, and it more or less succeeds.  It’s a slight reworking of the old Texas Chainsaw motif except with infantilism and a killer who wears a doll mask taking the place of cannibalism and a killer wearing a mask made of human skin.  (They also trade out chainsaws for shovels.)  The fact that the filmmakers keep it simple and straightforward is what makes it work so well.  There are no unnecessary characters or subplots gumming up the works.  It’s just Macy trying to elude Dolly and reunite with her boyfriend. 

I was genuinely surprised to see Scott appearing in something like this.  There’s no trace of the old Stifler here.  He does a fine job at playing a grown-up character for a change.  In fact, you’ll probably feel sorry for him most of the time.  Therese likewise puts in a solid turn and gets into her Final Girl role with spunk and fire.  It’s Max the Impaler who makes the biggest impression as Dolly.  She’s a professional wrestler that I’m unfamiliar with, but if this film is any indication she has quite a career ahead of her.  I was particularly impressed how she was able to slip in little bits of humanity into the role which prevented the character from being just another generic hulking slasher. 

No one rewrote the rules with this one.  Nor did they need to.  If you enjoy a good throwback slasher flick, you’re bound to eat this one up.  This is the kind of film where characters go hiking in the woods and discover hundreds of dolls nailed to the trees and they CONTINUE TO WALK ALONG THE PATH.  I mean they pretty much deserve what’s coming to them if you ask me. 

And here’s just a taste of what’s coming to them:  A shovel to the mouth scene (it’s a real jaw dropper), ear ripping, a hand through the chest, skull flattening, and a decapitation.  We also get an icky changing table scene as well as the craziest breastfeeding scene since Barbarian.  If that won’t entice you to watch it, I don’t know what will. 

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #14: THE DOLL OF SATAN (1969) **

Elizabeth (Erna Schurer from Scream of the Demon Lover) learns her uncle has passed away and that she is set to inherit his castle.  She arrives at the property with her boyfriend Jack (Roland Carey) and soon comes to realize her uncle might’ve been murdered.  Before long, we discover that the help is plotting to drive Elizabeth insane by using a drug so they can disinherit her. 

It’s a tale as old as time.  Or at least as old as movies themselves.  Yes, The Doll of Satan (the only film from one-and-done director Ferruccio Casapinta) is another Old Dark House movie.  They weren’t really making a lot of these things in 1969, and the proof is in the pudding.  It’s a creaky and dull murder mystery.  You know, if it wasn’t for the fact that it’s in color (the gorgeous cinematography is a huge plus) and it contains some brief (very brief) nudity, it could’ve passed for a movie from thirty years earlier.  

I’m a fan of Old Dark House mysteries, and even this one tried my patience.  The set-up takes longer than necessary and the plot plods for nearly an hour as fragments of the killers’ scheme are slowly doled out to the audience.  Once the drug takes effect and our heroine begins to experience sexual dreams/hallucinations, things perk up slightly.  However, the cheesy ending is right out of an episode of Scooby-Doo (complete with heroic canine). 

Schurer is quite good in the lead, but the movie makes a serious miscalculation by keeping her largely absent from the action in the third act.  Maybe it wouldn’t have mattered if Carey wasn’t such a dull leading man.  It also doesn’t help that the torture dungeon in the basement (which figures prominently in the poster art) barely gets any use.  Oh, and despite the title, Satan never once figures into the action.  What the hell.  Oh well, I guess you can get some laughs from the club scenes which feature some of the whitest white people dancing you’ve ever seen. 

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #13: VIRGIN SACRIFICES (1996) ***

Sal Longo goes down to the South American jungle to find a native method for preserving body parts.  He returns home with his assistant’s head in a box that miraculously can still communicate with him through telepathy.  You see, he was kept alive in a sacred mud that will preserve a man’s life forever.  The only catch is that a virgin woman must be sacrificed in the mud first.  He then sends Sal off to find four virgins to make him whole again.  Predictably, Sal’s own daughter (Laura Giglio) is a virgin too.  Will Sal be able to break the head’s control over him in time to save his daughter’s life?

This is a solid set-up for a horror movie from W.A.V.E. Productions.  While the film doesn’t stray from the company’s tried and true formula, it finds interesting variations of their trademark tropes, which should make it a real treat for fans of this sort of thing.  The death by mud bath scenes are a slight reworking of W.A.V.E.’s typical quicksand deaths.  One of these sequences leads to an enormously amusing inter-gender mud wrestling match between Longo and Tina Krause.  Another twist comes when the decapitated head uses the power of telepathy to drown its victims.  There are so many W.A.V.E. flicks that feature women being drowned by men that having them drown themselves was a unique enough touch to make it feel fresh. 

The usual W.A.V.E. suspects appear and put in fun turns.  Longo is as entertaining as ever playing the possessed papa.  Clancey McCauley is strong too as his ex-wife, Pamela Sutch is great as the leader of a pro-abstinence group, and Giglio is quite good as the virginal daughter.  It’s Tina Krause who takes the acting honors as a sassy stripper who gets the best line of the movie:  “I may have to work in a mud hole, but I don’t have to wallow with the pigs!”

Children of the ‘80s will likely get a kick out of the scene where Sal stalks a victim at a video store.  It’s fun spotting posters for movies like Inner Sanctum, Seedpeople, and Dr. Caligari on the wall.  Ah, those were the days!