HALLOWEEN HANGOVER: FIRESTARTER (2022) ***

In my review for The Black Phone, I mentioned that child abuse is kind of like last taboo in horror films.  I guess I was wrong.  Animal cruelty is probably the next-to-last.  This unnecessary but surprisingly effective remake of Stephen King’s Firestarter manages to combine the two in a scene of appalling repugnance that you just have to tip your hat to director Keith Thomas for Going There.

In it, the pyrokinetic kid Charlie (Ryan Kiera Armstrong) is learning to harness her flamethrowing superpowers when she happens upon an alley cat.  She goes to pet the seemingly friendly feline when the cat scratches her.  Since the kid only uses her powers while under mental duress, she lashes out at the cat and cooks that thing alive.  But here’s the kicker:  The thing ain’t dead.  The half-burned/half-fluffy kitty-witty is still mewling while its crispy catty-watty body is a smoldering mass of burnt flesh and orangy-worngy cuteness.  Since her dad, (Zac Efron) is trying to teach her how to control her gifts, he tells her she has to finish what she starts, so she nukes the poor scruffy-wuffy-itty-bitty-kitty-snookums.  

I bet this scene even made Stephen King say, “GODDAMN.  Get Sarah McLaughlin on the phone.”

I know Efron is probably trying to shed his clean-cut High School Musical image, and thanks to his participation in this rank-ass scene, I would say, “MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!”

Yes, this scene is mean, nasty, and crude, but you definitely won’t find shit like this in that Drew Barrymore flick.  

John Carpenter did the music, which is interesting because he at one point was going to direct the 1984 version.  That didn’t pan out, but I guess providing the score to this nasty piece of work was an OK consolation prize.  I can imagine he didn’t want to do it at first, but then the filmmakers probably showed him the cat scene and he was like, “Shit, where do I sign on?”

I’m not going to lie.  While Firestarter won’t wind up on anybody’s “Best Of” lists of Stephen King adaptations or find its way onto any “Year End Top Ten” countdowns, it remains a better-than-expected remake.  I guess that had something to do with my expectations being in the toilet, but still.  Even without the showstopping cat scene, by the time Charlie was torching government agents in a Day-Glo lit secret facility while Carpenter’s tech-noir music was thumping and bumping, I had to admit, I was having a good time.

Then again, what do I know?  I liked The Dark Tower.

Gloria Reuben, who plays the head of “The Shop” gets the best line of the movie when she says, “She’s been brainfucked from birth!”  

HALLOWEEN HANGOVER: THE BLACK PHONE (2022) *** ½

Child abduction/abuse is probably the last taboo in horror films.  If you’re going to make a movie about this already icky issue, you might want to tread lightly.  With The Black Phone, director Scott (Doctor Strange) Derrickson does a pretty good job navigating the subject matter, all things considered, and along the way delivers a damned fine supernatural suspense story.

A small suburb is rocked by a series of kidnappings by a skeevy killer the locals have dubbed “The Grabber” (Ethan Hawke).  This masked maniac snatches up a young boy named Finn (Mason Thames) and keeps him locked in a dank basement with only a broken phone to keep him company.  Eventually, Finn discovers he can use the phone to talk to the Grabber’s past victims, who help him devise an escape plan.  

The supernatural aspects don’t really come into play until the second half, and work surprisingly well, given the fact that the first half is so grounded in reality.  The film is based on a short story by Joe Hill (the son of Stephen King), and like many of his old man’s stories, there’s a subplot about a psychic (in this case, the kid’s sister, played by Madeleine McGraw, who is excellent).  Even this supernatural touch is handled better than expected and doesn’t detract from the immediacy and urgency of Finn’s desperate situation.  

It also helps that Ethan Hawke underplays the menace of the Grabber.  What makes it work so well is that we don’t see very much of him, so when he does appear, it leaves an impression.  Even when he is on screen, he wears his mask about 98% of the time, which keeps up the air of mystery of the character.  Derrickson wisely leaves a lot of the general unpleasantness of his past victims up to the imagination, and stages a heck of a finale when Finn faces down his captor for the last time.  

The Black Phone is a low key and effective chiller.  It’s much better than Derrickson and Hawke’s previous collaboration, the overrated Sinister.  This is one horror flick that will definitely grab you and won’t let go.

HALLOWEEN HANGOVER: TERRIFIER 2 (2022) **

Terrifier 2 was given a limited theatrical release over the Halloween season and became an unexpected box office hit.  Unfortunately, I didn’t get a chance to see it in theaters.  Thanks to Halloween Hangover, I get to play catch-up.  

Of course, I had heard all about the reports of theater patrons fainting and puking in the aisles, which is always a good sign.  I’m glad to say the gore is easily the best thing about the movie.  The gore alone isn’t quite enough to salvage the film, however.  Even though Terrifier 2 has some unexpected moments and weirdly veers off into uncharted territory for a slasher, its crippling overlength prevents it from really cooking.  

Art the Clown (David Howard Thornton) is out to slaughter more unsuspecting victims on Halloween.  A potentially disturbed kid named Jonathan (Elliott Fullam) sees him, but naturally no one believes him.  His sister, Sienna (Lauren LaVera) just may be the only one with the power to stop Art’s reign of terror.  

Let’s get this out of the way first:  There was no reason for this to be 138 minutes.  Too many scenes just go on for way too long.  Writer/director Damien Leone (who also made the first movie) was probably so enamored with the individual scenes that he didn’t want to lose anything.  I’m sure taken on their own accord, these scenes worked as their own self-contained vignettes.  However, once they were all strung together, it should’ve been apparent that not everything should’ve been kept in the final cut.  At all times, it feels like you’re watching an assembly cut of all the footage that was shot.  I’m sure the editor could’ve easily snipped a minute here and a minute there in the name of expediency.  

Slashers work best with a ninety minute runtime (or shorter).  Anything over that, I feel the director has to justify the excess running time.  At one point, I hit the “DISPLAY” button on my remote, fully expecting there’d be only ten more minutes left.  Much to my shock, there was still a half hour to go.  

That’s because Leone has something… different up his sleeve.  I won’t spoil what it is.  All I’ll say is that you either go with it or you don’t.

I didn’t.

Fortunately, Leone’s overindulgences extend over into the gore scenes, which are some of the most over the top blood and gut sequences I’ve seen outside of a Troma film.  Grisly murder set pieces include a decapitation, skull crushing, and dick trauma.  One particularly ghoulish scene involves Art slashing a woman’s eyeball, scalping her, and tearing off one of her limbs.  Then it gets REAL nasty.  Scenes like this make Herschell Gordon Lewis look like Walt Disney in comparison.  If only Leone had been a bit more judicious with the editing, this might’ve been a minor classic.  

Thornton is excellent as Art.  He could’ve been a silent movie actor as he milks the mime routine for all its worth.  Thornton’s performance is the reason Art is about the closest thing we have to another Freddy or Jason these days.  I can’t wait to see him in another installment soon.  I just hope the next one will be a bit more streamlined than this one.

HALLOWEEN HANGOVER: A WOMAN LIKE THAT (1979) ***

I’ve seen a few Turkish rip-offs of Hollywood hits in my time, but this is one that I never knew existed.  Unlike the Turkish rip-offs I’ve watched, this Turkish version of I Spit on Your Grave doesn’t steal footage or music from its inspiration.  (Although it uses Muzak versions of songs like “Something Stupid”, “Penny Lane”, and “My Bonnie”.)  In fact, the set-up is entirely different.  

Four skeevy guys run out of gas and go to an old man’s house for help.  They get one look at his daughter (Zerrin Dogen) and decide to rape her.  After killing her father, they hit the road.  When she discovers his body, she swears revenge and sets out to seduce and murder the men one by one.    

The flick clocks in at less than an hour, so it’s a full forty minutes shorter than Grave.  Unlike the American version, this one wastes no time getting to the depravity.  Ten minutes into the movie and our heroine has already been repeatedly abused and defiled.  It’s not nearly as effective as its American counterpart, but it’s not entirely without merit either.  (The scene where she contemplates suicide before settling upon a course of revenge is pretty good too… unnecessary zooms aside.)  A Woman Like That also has the distinction of being the first Turkish adult film (according to IMDb), and the consensual sex scenes elsewhere in the film are crude, and not exactly sexy, but I guess it’s not bad for a first try.

The revenge scenes are likewise crude.  However, that’s kind of what makes it work.  Sure, it pales in comparison to the original, but taken on its own accord, it kinda works.  In fact, the more you distance it from I Spit on Your Grave, the better it plays.

Even with the abbreviated running time, there’s a lot of stuff going on, plot wise.  Much of it that has nothing to do with I Spit on Your Grave.  The subplot with a police detective investigating the murders is unnecessary, but it’s handled economically enough, all things considered.  

Dogen is surprisingly good.  I particularly liked the scene where she transforms herself from a homely farmgirl into a sexy avenging angel by going out and buying new clothes and getting her hair and nails done.  The way she reverts back to her peasant look to (literally) stick it to her main tormentor was a nice touch too.  I also liked the way director Naki Yurter framed the scenes of the newly empowered Dogen in the second half of the film.  Some of the angles where she’s towering over the camera have a Russ Meyer feel to them.

Overall, A Woman Like That is a solid Rape n’ Revenge picture.  If you never knew it was a Turkish version of I Spit on Your Grave, you might not have even caught the connection.  I watched it on Thanksgiving, and it certainly was no turkey. 

AKA:  Turkish I Spit on Your Grave.  AKA:  She is Such a Woman.

HALLOWEEN HANGOVER: TERROR TRAIN (2022) **

The original 1980 Terror Train was a novel slasher in two ways.  The first was its location, a passenger train, which helped set it apart from its contemporaries (most of which took place in either small towns or summer camps).  The second difference was unlike most slashers, the killer wore more than just one mask (he stole the masks from each of his victims and impersonated them to lure the next one).  The first remake, 2008’s Train was novel in that the setting was changed to Europe.  It also upped the gore considerably, which is always appreciated.  

Now, here comes the third iteration, Terror Train, and it’s a fairly close remake to the original.  There’s even a magician on the train!  However, this guy is no David Copperfield.  (Then again, who could be?)  I guess the big difference this time out is that the conductor is a woman.  (Mary Walsh, who looks like Judi Dench’s stunt double.)  She isn’t bad, but I did miss Ben Johnson from the original.  The new leading lady, Robyn Alomar, is no Jamie Lee Curtis either (but you already knew that).  Heck, she isn’t even Thora Birch.

Things start off OK with a solid Fraternity Prank Goes Wrong scene.  Then, we flash forward to a Halloween Party thrown by the fraternity aboard the titular train.  A killer boards the loco locomotive and before long, he’s picking off the people who perpetrated the prank one by one.  

I was kind of hopeful for this one since it was a Tubi original.  I’ve never seen a Tubi original before, but Tubi has long been my favorite streaming service because it’s free and it features some of the weirdest, dumbest movies I’ve ever seen.  Sadly, Terror Train is thoroughly generic and by-the-numbers in just about every way.  The kills are fairly bloody, sure, but they lack imagination.  (They’re mostly assorted stabbings, slashings, and at least one decent decapitated head.)  Ultimately, it’s a rather pointless remake, and the changes/concessions to the modern era (characters must learn hazing and sexism are bad) are halfhearted at best.  You’ll probably head for the sleeping car long before this train pulls into the station.

Incredibly enough, a sequel has been announced… and it’s coming out before the end of the year?!?!

HALLOWEEN HANGOVER: SMILE (2022) ****

Smile had a great viral marketing campaign where they had several people sit in the stands of baseball games and smile unblinkingly into the camera inning after inning.  That was cool, but it wasn’t quite enough to get me into the theater to see it.  When it was released, it became the rarest thing in horror:  An original horror film with no big movie stars that became a word of mouth hit, grossing over $100 million at the box office.  Even as the positive word of mouth was spreading, I still somehow never found time to check it out.  Now, I’m home for the holidays, it’s on Paramount+, and I no longer have an excuse.  Even with little to no expectations and knowing very little about it, Smile knocked me on my ass.  Unlike Barbarian, this is one horror flick that lives up to the hype.  

An overworked shrink named Rose (Sosie Bacon) is horrified when her patient commits suicide right in front of her.  The worse thing about it?  The demented smile that remained on her face the whole time she performed the deed.  Now, Rose keeps seeing weird, smiling people everywhere she goes.  After doing some Encyclopedia Brown-style investigation, she discovers a pattern:  Anyone who comes into contact with a sinister, smiling suicide victim will themselves commit suicide seven days later.  Will Rose be able to break the curse, or is she doomed to perpetuate it?

It would be flippant to shrug Smile off as “It Follows Meets The Ring”.  Yes, the bare bones of that scenario is there.  However, this flick sets out and accomplishes what it intends to do a hundred times better than those two overpraised movies did.

Smile is a slow burner, but somehow writer/director Parker Finn (making one heck of a debut) cracked the code of how to make a slow burn horror flick that manages to keep the tension simmering, while at the same time carefully doling out jump scares, gross-out moments, and gnarly set pieces at expertly timed intervals, so that the audience’s patience is never once tested.  In fact, these sequences (chief among them, the birthday party from hell) add to the allure and mystery of the premise.  

A lot of that has to do with Bacon’s performance.  She runs the gamut from caring doctor to raving lunatic with about a hundred different shades in between.  The film wouldn’t be as effective as it is if we didn’t believe the terror she was experiencing, and brother, we buy it hook, line, and sinker.

I joke about every horror movie these days being about “trauma”.  Smile is the first one to say, “Yup, that’s what this one is all about:  TRAUMA.  Bold, underlined, italicized trauma.”  What’s interesting and effective about the film is the way the supernatural menace assaults its victims much like, say, PTSD.  They go around having a fairly good day without a care in the world until the entity (trauma) comes tumbling down on them like a ton of bricks, making them on edge, unable to cope, and pushing themselves away from their loved ones.  

The wildest part is the ending (Vaguest of Spoilers Ahead, but it’s hard not to discuss the thing that makes the film so great), in which our heroine finally confronts the monster (trauma) head-on.  And I don’t mean “wild” as in it’s crazy or weird.  I mean “wild” as in I’ll be damned if I didn’t get a little choked up.  We all have a little trauma inside us all.  Smile foregoes a fiery, balls-to-the-walls conclusion befitting a great horror movie, and instead gives its heroine an opportunity to confront, reconcile, and move on from her past trauma (monster)… Of course, then it continues onto a fiery, balls-to-the-walls conclusion befitting a great horror movie.

Smile sure left this horror fan grinning from ear to ear.

HALLOWEEN HANGOVER: TRAILERS #1: HORROR AND SCI-FI OF THE ‘50S AND ‘60S (1992) ***

Here’s the first installment (of many) in Something Weird’s trailer compilation series.  It’s a good primer for anyone looking to get into trailer tapes.  Many of the previews wound up on later Something Weird releases (and elsewhere), but there are still plenty here I had never seen before (including She Devil, The Night the World Exploded, and a re-release trailer for the 1943 Batman serial).  Overall, it’s a fast and fun two hours of black and white thrills and chills.  (Well, the trailer for Eyes of Hell is tinted.)  

Things kick off with a couple of ‘50s re-release trailers of horror classics including a cool MGM Triple Feature of Mark of the Vampire, The Mask of Fu Manchu, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, as well as a trailer for One Body Too Many.  The low budget sci-fi schlock world of director W. Lee Wilder is showcased through previews for Phantom from Space, Killers from Space, and The Man Without a Body.  Roger Corman classics such as Not of This Earth, The Viking Women and the Sea Serpent, and Teenage Caveman are featured as well.  Universal Pictures is represented by Tarantula, Monster on the Campus, and Curse of the Undead.  And movies that appeared on episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000 such as Terror from the Year 5000, The Beast of Yucca Flats (narrated by director Coleman Francis), and 12 to the Moon also turn up.

Some of my favorite trailers include Daughter of Dr. Jekyll (in which Mr. Hyde is a… vampire?!?!), Allison Hayes overacting to the hilt in The Disembodied, and Tabonga the killer tree doing his thing in the ad for From Hell It Came.  And what would a trailer be without a great tagline?  Some of the best belong to Attack of the Puppet People (“SEE—A Baby Doll Take a Bubble Bath in a Coffee Can!”), The Brain Eaters (“It’s an Adventure That Will Burst Your Blood Vessels with Suspense!”), Return of the Fly (“The Thriller-Chiller That Will Really BUG You!”), Beyond the Time Barrier (“Will YOU Die Sixty-Four Years from Today?”), Strait-Jacket (“Warning:  Strait-Jacket Vividly Depicts Axe Murders!”), and Cat Girl (“To Caress Me is to Play with DEATH!”).

All in all, this is a solid collection.  Since the trailers are culled from the ‘50s and ‘60s, they are a tad tame.  That said, fans of cheesy space exploration movies, mad scientist flicks, and monster mashes will surely enjoy it.  

The complete trailer line-up is as follows:  MGM Triple Horror Feature - Mark of the Vampire / The Mask of Fu Manchu / Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, One Body Too Many, Phantom from Space, Killers from Space, Tarantula, Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, Not of This Earth, Voodoo Woman, Daughter of Dr. Jekyll, The Viking Women and the Sea Serpent, The Astounding She-Monster, The Haunted Strangler, The Colossus of New York, I Bury the Living, Frankenstein 1970, Attack of the Puppet People, War of the Colossal Beast, Teenage Caveman, Monster on the Campus, The Brain Eaters, The Screaming Skull, The Man Without a Body, Curse of the Undead, Jack the Ripper, The Alligator People, Return of the Fly, Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow, Missile to the Moon, The Leech Woman, Beyond the Time Barrier, The Terror of the Tongs, The Beast of Yucca Flats, Homicidal, The Creature from the Haunted Sea, Phantom Planet, Burn, Witch, Burn, Panic in Year Zero, The Vampire and the Ballerina, Varan the Unbelievable, Night Tide, The Playgirls and the Vampire, Strait-Jacket, The Last Man on Earth, Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte, the 1943 Batman Serial, Untamed Women, She Devil, The Night the World Exploded, Unknown Terror. The Disembodied, From Hell It Came, Cat Girl, Macabre, War of the Satellites, Terror in the Haunted House, Terror from the Year 5000, Monster from Green Hell, The Headless Ghost, Caltiki, the Immortal Monster, 12 to the Moon, Doctor Blood's Coffin, The Devil's Partner, Mr. Sardonicus, Eyes of Hell (AKA:  The Mask), and The Innocents.