Tag: Horror

City Of The Living Dead (1980)

Posted on by fenrisfil
City of the Living Dead (1980) poster

Tonight’s October Challenge Review is the 1980 Italian Giallo Horror “City of the Living Dead” (A.k.a. “Gates of Hell”) from one of the main maestro’s of the genre Lucio Fuici. This one was recommended to me last October and so I slotted it in to this years challenge. Written by Fuici and Dardano Sacchetti, this zombie movie features a classic Fabio Frizzi soundtrack. So classic, I recognised several of the tracks, despite not having (To my memory) seen the movie before. Yes, I often listen to horror film soundtracks for fun.

The has a multi-national cast with Christopher George (American), Catriona MacColl (English), Carlo De Mejo (Italian) and Janet Agren (Swedish) taking up the lead roles. This was a pretty common approach for Italian Giallo movies in the 80’s since they wanted to appeal to as broad an audience as possible.The actors would quite often be speaking in their native languages and then everyone would get dubbed after. The result being that some characters would always appear better dubbed than others. You get used to it and the tactic paid off as these movies became international cult classics.

City of the Living Dead (1980)

The Dunwich Horror.

The main setting for this movie is the town of Dunwich. The name is a tribute to the Lovecraft story, but this isn’t an adaptation of the Dunwich Horror, instead this town was built on the ruins of Salem (Which in reality is still standing, so you just have to ignore that). A priest hangs himself, breaking down the barrier between this world and the world of the dead. Meanwhile in New York during a séance, “Mary Woodhouse” (MacColl) experiences a traumatic vision of the priests death and what will result from it. The impact of the vision gives Mary the appearance of being dead. She remains in that state long enough to almost be buried and is only saved at the last minute. Her saviour is journalist “Peter Bell” (George), a character quite reminiscent of Carl Kolchak from the Night Stalker series.

Together they set off to Dunwhich to try and prevent the dead rising en mass on All Saints Day. Although not directly mentioned, the movie is set mostly during Halloween. In Dunwich, meanwhile, all hell is breaking loose (Literally). A couple are murdered out in a romantic parking spot by the undead priest. Another girl is found dead after an encounter with the priest with a local vagrant is blamed for the crime. The now dead Emily also starts to turn up along with a few other recently deceased. As Peter and Mary reach Dunwich they team up with psychiatrist Jerry (De Mejo) and his patient Sandra (Agren) and must find a way to close the gates of hell.

Powers Of The Living Dead.

This is a film where the plot and the characters are secondary to the general atmosphere and the moments of shock. A lot of the characters act like the zombies hunting them, standing around and waiting to die. Even the more active ones act sort of dumb. Mary and Peter quickly arrive in the cemetery where Father Thomas is buried but then go off with Gerry and Sandra to give them an off screen exposition dump and then get sidetracked saving a child whose parents have been killed. By the time they get back to the cemetery it is All Souls Day and the invasion of the living dead has begun in force.

Speaking of the living dead, these ones have unique abilities. First of all they tend to teleport, because I guess it’s a lot scarier than just shambling after people. They basically have two modes of attack too, one is grab the back of peoples heads and pull their brains out (Particularly dangerous when combined with the teleporting). Their other attack is to stare at people until they throw up their own insides. It’s a strange set of abilities but these zombies are very consistent in using them. As daft as it sounds, that is basically establishing rules for the fictional world so it”s not a bad thing… Just a very strange thing. Eventually Gerry figures out that the Zombies have a weakness to being stabbed in the gut by things. Seriously, no one else tries to fight back in any way until Gerry gets all stabby.

Maximum Fuici.

Being a Lucio Fuici movie, nothing is done quickly. When a woman is forced to vomit out her insides, we see pretty much every foot of guts come out of the poor unfortunate girl. In another scene in which a man falsely suspected of murder is killed with a drill. The build up to the actual death seems to go on forever, making you wonder if he will get a last minute reprieve from his fate. He does not. Earlier in the film when Mary is mistakenly put in a coffin to be buried, Peter hears her screaming, but not sure what it is almost walks away several times before eventually realizing what has happened. All these scenes drag, but they drag with them the tension of the moment. To be honest, I think Fuici drags this out a bit too much, but it still works to some extent.

In the case of the gore though, this is largely what people turn up to a Fuici movie for and he makes sure to deliver it. From the vomit scene, to the swarms of maggots and rats, to the many, many victims of the rear brain attack and the particularly graphic drill through the face (The one murder not directly caused by zombies). It’s all there in full colour. But the creepy atmosphere is there as well and it should be obvious from the choice of town name (Dunwich) that Fuici is going for a bit of a Lovecraftian atmosphere and he succeeded pretty well. The constant fog is a good part of it, but there is also things like the cracks in the walls (and even in the end credit) suggesting something evil creeping into the universe,

Conclusion

Before hitting the conclusion, I just want to mention how much I like this soundtrack. It’s very 80’s for sure, but that’s not a bad thing. It has a relentless beat to it, like an evil slowly plodding after you. This is accentuated by discordant patterns and screeching noises in the creepier moments like the world is falling apart. It fits perfectly with the movie. It has a few catchier riffs in it too. Although this kind of music was fairly common for the era, it makes a nice refreshing change from the more standard horror music I’ve been hearing throughout October.

Ultimately this is a very “Cool” Horror, but objectively not a particularly good one. If you can get your kicks from the atmosphere and the gore and just accept the nonsensical plot and ridiculous way the characters tend to act then you will have a good time. It basically has “Cult Classic” written all over it. It’s a movie that you’ll easily forget the plot within a few days, but you will never forget the kills. In short it’s a Lucio Fuici movie! The soundtrack is a 7.5/10 but the movie itself is only a 5.5/10, though it is a high one (Just short of a 6). It’s not for everyone and definitely don’t watch it over dinner!

Rating: 5.5 out of 10.

A Bucket Of Blood (1959)

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For tonight’s October Challenge Review, I’m checking out the Roger Corman directed black comedy horror “A Bucket of Blood” from 1959. This was a turning point in the legendary producer/directors career. While he had was always a master of B-Movies, this was the first of a strong run of films which including the original “Little Shop of Horrors” and “The Fall of the House of Usher” in 1960, “Pit and the Pendulum” in 1961, “Tale of Terror” in 1962 and “The Raven” and “The Haunted Palace” in 1963. Despite being made in five days for $50k, its often considered one of Corman’s finest works. So let’s see if this is truly a work of art or just a feat of clay….

Walter Paisley Is Born!

A Bucket of Blood was written by Charles B. Griffith who would go on to pen two more of Corman’s cult classics “Little Shop of Horrors” and “Death Race 2000”. The movie stars Dick Miller as the slow, impressionable, busboy and wannabe artist “Walter Paisley”. Supporting cast includes Barboura Morris, Antony Carbone and Julian Burton.

The straight forward plot sees Walter desperately trying to become an artist so he can fit in with the crowd of Beatnik Hipsters at “The Yellow Door Cafe” and win the affections of cafe hostess “Carla” (Morris). His problem is he completely lacks talent and gets easily frustrated. One evening at home he hears his neighbours cat stuck in the wall and in attempting to free the pet Walter accidentally kills it. Feeling creatively inspired and desiring to cover up the accident he covers the cat in clay and presents it as a sculpture to Carla and his boss Leonard (Carbone). The “Sculpture” goes down well with Carla and the crowd at the cafe and encourage him to create more.

After Walter murders a police officer that was trying to arrest him for possession of heroin (Given to him by a fan at the cafe), he turns the corpse into a new “Sculpture”, gaining further accolades from the crowd at the cafe. Encouraged by their praise and afraid of being forgotten, Walter continues to murder people to turn them into even more macabre “Art”. This can’t go on forever of course, especially not with someone as dimwitted as Walter doing it. Leonard has already figured it out, but gaining a big cut of his sales he has so far kept quiet. When Leonard puts on a bit exhibition for Walter, things are bound to come to a head.

What is Art?

So first of all, I loved how well this movie sends up the pretentious and fickle nature of the beatnik art scene. As they say, the more things change, the more they stay the same and I can’t help but feel you could remake this film in the modern day and this side of it would work just as well now as it did then. The bohemian crowd at the cafe where Walter works initially look down their nose at him, much as they do anyone they consider mundane and not creative. But as soon as he presents his work to them, they (mostly) treat him like a superstar. Falling over themselves to hang out with him and offering large amounts for his work. They even greet the unimaginative, purely descriptive titles of his pieces (Such as “Dead Cat”) like the naming itself is a work of genius.

Every character here is a clever parody of the kinds of characters you would find in such a community. Leonard is both repulsed by the art, even before realizing what they really are. Yet he is overcome with greed when bids start coming in for it. After a man offers him $300 for “Dead Cat”, Leonard gives Walter just $50 as his cut and only does this as an excuse for Walter not to work as a bus boy anymore since he understandably creeps him out. Later Leonard remarks “I’m starting for feel responsible for this”.

Go Down You Murderer!

One benefit of the setting is that it provides a Jazz heavy soundtrack, which was actually pretty common in 1959 but I’m yet to find this a negative. A lot of the score mixes in the Jazz elements with standard horror elements and the result is a pretty intense, fast paced soundtrack. Mixed in with that are the diegetic tracks such as the folk track “The Ballad of Tim Evans” (The story of a man condemned for murder) played shortly after the first murder. All told, excellent use of music throughout.

Effects wise… well there aren’t any really outside of the clay statues (Which is more prop than effect) and the ending especially you can tell they didn’t have the time or budget to quite do it justice. Fortunately though the ending still works (And actually makes sense given Walter’s incompetence is an important theme of the story). The rest of the film didn’t really need effects. It’s actually very much designed from the ground up to work with the limitations that Corman had in place. This is why he is the master of the B-movies.

The King of the B’s

It’s very easy to dismiss B-movies and those that make them as lesser cinema/film makers. But that doesn’t do justice to just how clever and skillful those that make them have to be to create something good with so little money and in such a short period of time. Not to mention how in tune you have to be with the audiences to actually be successful. Corman has produced a lot of bad movies, usually the ones that take effects, musics and entire scenes from other movies. But even those are far better than they probably had any right to be. Between those though there are actually a lot of good movies and it’s no shock really to find many Marvel fans still consider his unreleased (But leaked) Fantastic Four movie to be the most accurate version of the team to date.

While my favourite Corman movie will probably always be “Battle Beyond The Stars”, this is definitely one of his best. While it’s not scary or even particularly unsettling, the satire on the art community/beatnik community was absolutely nailed and doing it with such a macabre story is in itself quite poetic. This is a strong 6.5/10. Oh and there is a literal bucket of blood in it, so the title isn’t completely random!

Rating: 6.5 out of 10.

Head of the Family (1996)

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Tonight for my October Challenge Review, I’m checking out the 1996 Horror Comedy “Head of the Family” from Charles Band. Band is mostly known as a producer and one of the most prolific producer of low budget (Mostly horror) movies in the history of the movies, likely only behind his idol Roger Corman. Every now and then, such as with this movie, he steps behind the camera himself. Well, to be fair he’s taken the directors chair 86 times, which is more than some of the most prolific Hollywood directors. Often the results of these more hands on movies are very good. For example one of my favourite cult classics “Trancers” (1984) was a Band directed movie.

As can often be the case with B-Movie horror, Head of the Family features actors mostly know for appearing in this movie. Indeed many of the actors IMDB bio’s use a photo from this movie for their publicity shot. Unlike some of those movies though (Troll 2 comes to mind), they have been in other films and actually their acting was perfectly reasonable. You don’t make movies for the kind of budgets Charles Band works with by hiring big name Hollywood stars. Anyway, Blake Adams plays the movies lead “Lance” alongside Jacqueline Lovell as “Loretta” while the titular Head is played by J.W. Perra.

Dawn Of The Head.

The plot of the movie sees Lance attempt to blackmail a family of freaks known as the “Stackpool” after witnessing them kidnap someone late at night. The family is run by “Myron” who is little more than a head. Myron’s over-sized brain is able to psychically control the other members of his family, who all are intellectual simpletons. Otis is the family’s muscle, inhumanly strong. Wheeler is the families eyes and ears, with superhuman perception and Ernestina… well I don’t have to tell you what she can do.

Lance has the family knock off the local crime boss so that he can steal his lady, the beautiful Loretta with whom he has been having an affair. After this is done though, Lance presses the rich family for more and causes Myron to take drastic action. This leads to a bizarre performance of Joan of Arc with a potentially fatal finale for Loretta.

Head And Butter.

The plot is simple, but has enough to it to for a little world building and allows the story to progress in a logical linear fashion. While the roles are fairly undemanding, the characters are quite fun. Lance and Loretta especially work well. Despite being total dirtbags, the pair present a lot of charm and personality. It definitely doesn’t hurt to get to see so much (Literally) of the lovely Mrs Lovell either. Most of the Stackpool family are one dimension by design, though their unique talents does makes them memorable. J.W. Perra did a particularly good job as Myron. I’m not sure if playing a head in a wheelchair is a hard role or an easy one, but he did a great job either way.

The effects are mostly in the bizarre look of the family (Myron in specific though Wheeler’s freaky eyes too) and they do their job fine. I have to give a mention to Richard Band’s soundtrack here as being particularly good and well suited to what was on screen. Richard is of course Charlies’ brother, so it’s no surprise to find he’s written over 100 movie scores, most of which for his brother’s productions. This one is a stand out though, with a quirky almost Addams Family vibe to it.

Conclusion (Sorry, No Pun Heading This Time).

Overall this is a fun movie and in my opinion exactly what a low budget B-Movie Black Comedy Horror should be. A crazy idea, straight forward plot and fun characters. A movie executed with minimal fuss and presented with just enough polish to have it stand out above all the other low budget B-Movies. While it is still a B-Movie, it is one worthy to be a cult classic.

For me this a 6/10, though your mileage may vary depending on how much you like these kind of films. If you were a fan of Charles Band produced Horror/Comedies such as Terrorvision, Re-Animator and Evil Bong, you’ll probably get a kick out of this. If not, I imagine this will probably make your head hurt!

Rating: 6 out of 10.

The Uninvited (2009)

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Tonight’s horror is Charles and Thomas Guard’s “The Uninvited” from 2009. This is a remake of the South Korean Horror “A Tale of Two Sisters” from 2003. I haven’t seen the original, though in researching this I did find out the differences in the plot and they are substantial. This version is written by the team of Craig Rosenberg, Doug Miro and Carlo Bernard. The Uninvited is a twist movie that hinges on two specific twists. That’s a bold strategy, let’s see if it pays off.

A Tale of Two Sisters.

The movie stars Emily Browning as “Anna”, a young girl just returning from a stint in a Mental Hospital. Primary support is from Arielle Kebbel as “Alex” her sister, David Strathairn as her father “Steven” and Elizabeth Banks as “Rachel”, Steven’s girlfriend and the former nurse to his wife and Anna’s mother. Anna was in the Mental Hospital due to a suicide attempt following the death of her Mother in a fire. She can’t remember what happened that night and is clearly still traumatized by it.

Anna dislikes and is deeply suspicious of Rachel. After being haunted by dreams of her mother and strange dead children and at the apparent encouragement of her sister she begins to investigate the events of that night and Rachel in particular and finds a lot of things that don’t add up. Eventually she confronts Rachel, who only gets angry with her and threatens her with going back to the Mental Hospital. Believing Rachel is actually a serial killer that murder another family and fearing for her life and that of her sisters Anna becomes desperate. But is everything what it seems?.

The Trouble With Twists.

There are two problems with building a movie around a twist (Or in this case two of them). First of all, the viewer may guess the twist. Secondly, when you watch the movie a second time you will know the twist and that will significantly alter the perception of every view other than the first. If the movie doesn’t work with the twist revealed then it is a disposable movie meant to be viewed just once. This movie had two twists, one revolving around Anna’s sister Alex and the other the cause of the fire that took her mothers life.

With these particular twists, one was incredibly easy to guess and yet played out as if it would be a shock to everyone. On my second viewing (Done while writing this) it is only more obvious and doesn’t really add much my perception since I had figured it out early first time around. After figuring out the first one, the second twist lays itself out pretty bare. This is the problem here. Had the first one not been so obvious, then the repeat viewing would have exposed how the second was laid out for the viewer. It would have made the film seem quite clever. Sadly though, the sister twist was so obvious it instead makes the film seem pretentious.

–SPOILERS–

Part of the problem here is we’ve seen this kind of twist done before and far better. When you are exposed to a trope done well, it makes it very easy to be critical of it. In some ways it could be argued that it sort of kills the trope off. It also tends to lead to an increased popularity of that trope. I’ve been dancing around the specifics here so for this section I’m hitting SPOILERS now.

The trope in particular is the imaginary friend/multiple personality trope. Anna’s sister Alex is actually dead and the version she sees is basically a reflection of herself. But the lack of two way interaction with others, the way she appears and disappears and the way her entire existence revolves around her sister makes this very obvious. The more successful versions of this trope actually do have the imaginary version interact with people, but in reality it is still the main character doing that interaction. With clever writing you can cover up that the other characters think they are talking to the same character. Here though they they leave Alex on the peripheral of everything in a way that means she never seems real.

The most famous example of the trope is the excellent “Fight Club” from 1999. But it wasn’t until “Mr. Robot” in 2015 that someone found a way to bring the trope back and breath life into it. The trick they found there was in recognizing that the viewers would have figured it out and actually working that into the story. Now those were clever. This one, just thinks it is.

Missed Opportunities

To be fair, there are some interesting aspects about this movie, but sadly they aren’t examined particularly closely. The main one for me was how many of Anna’s delusions came from interactions in a mental hospital with another patient. Which reminds me of an idea I had for a sequel to the movie “Joker”. In that idea, Arthur/Joker would be in the Asylum relaying stories about former inmates to Harley Quinzel, those stories reflecting the other Batman rogues gallery villains. But by the conclusion you realize that Arthur told the stories to those inmates and this actually led to the stories becoming part of their own delusions.

Effectively he was creating the Rogues Gallery through interaction with them. This isn’t what we will get for the Joker sequel of course, but I liked my idea and I see elements of that idea here in the brief presence of the “Mildred Kemp” character. They don’t really do anything with that though. They also don’t explore the ghost aspect, with it just turning out to be delusional instead. It’s worth noting the Korean movie does explore this and had they followed suit they would have avoided the issues with their over reliance on the twists.

Conclusion.

Outside the plot, the movie is actually pretty well made. The musical score increases the tension and does a good job of attempting to manipulate the viewers response. The acting is actually very good and several of the creepier visuals are well put together. Ultimately though there is not much that can compensate for the failure of the twist that has the entire movie hinge on the viewer buying it. As a result this is only a 5/10. The original South Korean film had a radically different ending and had they remained faithful to that version, they would have avoided most of the pitfalls this movie fell in. That’s Hollywood remakes for you!

Rating: 5 out of 10.

Spellbinder (1988)

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Tonight’s October Challenge movie is the 1988 sexual thriller/horror “Spellbinder”. Directed by Janet Greek (Most famous for her TV work, especially with Babylon 5) and written by Tracy Tormé (Writer for “Star Trek TNG” and creator of the 90’s series “Sliders”). The movie stars Tim Daly as Lawyer “Jeff Mills” and Kelly Preston as the mysterious “Miranda Reed”.

The Coven

After an saving Miranda, a young woman from her abusive boyfriend in a parking lot, lawyer Jeff Mills takes her home (As she claims to not have a home anymore) and eventually falls in love with her. But her mysterious past comes back to haunt her. It turns out she is a member of a Coven of Witches, which she was trying to escape from and it is down to Jeff to try and protect her.

To talk about Spellbinder it is unfortunately necessary to talk about the ending. Skip to the conclusion if you wish to avoid knowing the twist. I’ll also be mentioning some other movies with a similar twist, though nothing from the last 30 years. You have been warned! Personally I found the ending predictable, but while I didn’t know for a fact what it was, I was aware there was a twist. That meant I was looking out for clues in that regard. I can’t say how I would have felt had I actually seen this in 1988 (Especially as I would have been twelve).

Trick or Treat?

Earlier in the movie the lead actress mentions that the Witches human sacrifice required the victim to go to the location willingly. The second she uttered that line, I knew that Jeff was going to be the victim, since he would go to whatever location to try and rescue Miranda. The thing is, given Miranda was tricking him the whole time, it was pretty stupid of her to mention that. Especially stupid given she then was pretending to be kidnapped and taken to the ritual… which wouldn’t be a willing arrival.

Of course it could be that the victim has to have knowledge of this for it to count as willingly going to the ritual location or that she secretly wanted him to figure it out and end the cycle (Because as we see after his murder, she does this regularly and the suggestion is that should she fail, she ends up sacrificed). However we all know the real reason was for the viewers sake, to explain the movie.

It’s worth noting that this isn’t the most original twist in the world. Without it however, this wouldn’t really be a Horror movie. “The Wicker Man” (1973) is probably the most famous version of this twist. What is more interesting though is that the year before this movie came out, we had “Angel Heart” (1987), which not only is an excellent horror movie, but is arguably best version of this trope. It was one that really built on the impact of the protagonists realization too. So coming out after that, this twist would feel a little basic. The scene where the deed is done also doesn’t really give Tim Daly a lot of chance of express his horror at the realisation of his situation.

Finish Him!

The trouble with the ending is they’ve made the witches out to seem tremendously powerful. Just prior to this, they apparently assaulted a heavily defended survivalist compound with little difficulty. So one unarmed lawer running down into their ritual sacrifice was always likely to end up with him getting killed. There is a sort of double tease with his lawyer friend and two cops heading to the scene behind him. However at the last minute they just end up part of the cult. Again though, what are two cops and a lawyer are going to do against this group? By the time they arrived I had no doubt at all they’d just be more bad guys.

Conceptually though, I like the idea. It just could have been worked better and if you take the ending from the film, there really isn’t much horror. It is more like fantasy than horror, very light handed. This perhaps is by design so that you don’t expect the protagonist to end up murdered, but given I guessed anyway and that this would only work at all on the first viewing, I’m not sure it was the wisest move.

There isn’t a great deal that stands out about the rest of the film. The side plot of the secretary being suspicious about Miranda doesn’t really lead to anything but that character’s off screen death (During a brief epilogue scene). The cop (Played by Shang Tsung himself, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa) that is investigating these witches, is shown to still be at it in that epilogue, but doesn’t seem much closer to actually achieving anything.

Conclusion

In conclusion, this is a pretty average movie and it feels more like a TV movie than something that had a theatrical release. Perhaps this is why it bombed at the box office, making just about a tenth of it’s $6m production budget. To be fair, it only had a short release window so maybe it was intended to be a TV movie at some point. The movie came out the year after “Fatal Attraction” and “Angel Heart” and is pretty much a mixture of the two, but without anything close to it’s quality. It’s not terrible and makes for a pretty easy watch but unless you get caught out by the ending (Which can only work on the first viewing) I don’t think you’ll find it particularly memorable. This is slightly below average, so that’s a high 4.5/10.

Rating: 4.5 out of 10.

Bride of Frankenstein (1935)

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For tonight’s review it’s time to watch the oldest film on my October Challenge list, A film that I’ve owned on DVD for decades and a long overdue watching! This is “Bride of Frankenstein” from 1935. The sequel to Universal’s groundbreaking “Frankenstein” (1931), the movie sees the return of Karloff the role that made him famous (Going from his non-credit as “?” in the original to simply “Karloff” here and in many future roles). Colin Clive returns in his role as Henry (Renamed from the novel’s “Victor”) Frankenstein and James Whale returns as director. Dwight Frye also returns though in a new (but basically the same) henchman role. They are joined by Ernest Thesiger and Peters Heggie joining the main cast for this sequel.

Despite being a sequel to the original movie, this is also an adaptation of Mary Shelly’s legendary novel “Frankenstein; or The Modern Prometheus” and focuses on elements of the story the original simply didn’t have the time to utilize. Specifically it deals with two sections on the novel. First of all The Monster’s infatuation with a poor family in a nearby village and brief friendship with the families blind father. Secondly and more importantly (As it gives the film it’s title) it deals with Frankenstein’s abandoned attempt to create a bride for the Monster. In the novel this second creature never sees life, but here of course it will.

Gods and Monsters.

Much like with the original, the new monster is credited only credited as “?” in the credits, but is actually played (Very briefly) by Elsa Lanchester. Elsa does get a credit though since she also plays Mary Shelly in a completely unnecessary lead in that portrays her telling the tale. After the lead in, we basically pick up exactly where the first movie left off and get to see that both Frankenstein and his Monster survived. While the former is recovering from injuries and regretting his attempt to play God he is visited by the sinister “Doctor Pretorius” (Thesiger), who informs him that he too has created and life and wants them to work together. Out of curiosity he agrees to see Pretorius’ creations.

This is where we reach the worst and most ridiculous part of the movie as Doctor Pretorius displays his collection of Homunculi, that is doll size humans created through alchemy. It’s worth noting there’s a lot of examples of such little creatures in old school horror and it’s frankly always very silly. Many years later Army of Darkness probably had the best take on this with the Mini-Ash monsters but even that was designed to be funny. Here it is painfully out of place but fortunately not referenced again in the movie. Prestorius’ main aim is to create a mate for Frankenstein’s Monster.

4.0.1

She’s Alive! Alive!

While all this is going on the Monster himself has escaped the mob and is hiding in a local village where he stumbles upon a blind man playing a violin. Attracted by the music he enters the house and is greeting welcomingly by the man. The two strike up a friendship and over an unclear amount of time he is able to teach the Monster a few words. But some local travelers looking for directions recognize the monster and try to attack it. In the melee the old man’s house is burned down. All parties survive and the Monster flees to a nearby crypt where he follows Prestorius’ goons and discovers the plan to create him a mate. He assists in pressuring Doctor Frankenstein into working on the project by kidnapping his fiance.

Finally we have our tragic conclusion, which I’ll avoid spoilers for, but you can probably guess how it goes. Most of the strength of this story comes from the quality of the original novel, with this sequel having picked two of the most emotionally relevant elements of the novel to focus on. Karloff does do an excellent job as the Monster, despite objecting to having to speak. He gets considerably more screen time than he did in the original here and makes the most of it. We also have a number of fantastic visuals, building on those provided with the original.

The Difference A Few Years Can Make.

One notable difference between here and the original movie is the addition of a unique thematic score by Franz Waxman. Back in 1931 when Frankenstein came out, it was still the early days for the “Talkies” and most films had very little music, using mostly pre-existing stock music or diegetic music (i.e. performed by people in the fictional world and heard by the characters). When you watch Frankenstein these days, the lack of music in the vast majority of the film is painfully noticeable.

Here, this is not a problem and this is possibly one of the most ground break scores of it’s era. This is exactly what you would expect from a Horror score, powerful, discordant and containing distinct themes for the Monster, the Bride and the evil Doctor Prestorius. The end result here is that this film has aged much better than the original. Where the original does have an advantage though is being pre-code it could be a bit more risky with what it depicts, while here they have to play a little safer, but I don’t feel this impacted it much.

Conclusion

Overall, this is a great movie for it’s time and has aged better than several other Universal classics (Notably the most famous ones, “Frankenstein” and “Dracula”). The human aspects of the story come through substantially better than in the original and it’s good to see a sequel return to the source for inspiration instead of going off on a wildly tangential path. It is unavoidably dated in some aspects though due to it’s age. The prologue and the Homunculi scenes both take from the movie to some degree instead of add to it (More so with the latter) and with such a short movie (As these Universal classics tended to be) you really don’t need to be wasting time with such nonsense.

Ultimately I always rate movies for how they work today and not in the time (Since my goal is to inform potential viewers not make a historic statement) that lowers my score somewhat. In the 30’s, this may well have been an 8/10, but for me in 2023 it is a 6.5/10.

Rating: 6.5 out of 10.

BONUS ROUND

Unrelated to the movie itself here is a couple of things I learned from seeing it. First of all I now understand where the phrase “Gods and Monsters” comes from. This is what James Gunn is calling his first phase of his DCU, it sounded familiar but didn’t realize it was from Bride of Frankenstein. I doubt there is any deeper meaning to that choice, but it shows Gunn likes his Monster Movies anyway (No shock for someone that broke through making horror comedies).

Secondly, after seeing the Bride hiss at Frankenstein in revulsion at the end of the movie I now understand that Jeanne Arnold “Grace Munster” repeatedly hissing at Herman in “Munster, Go Home!” was actually a pretty funny reference to this movie (Given she was literally hissing at Frankenstein’s Monster). At the time it just seemed weird but fitting the films tone, now it scores some bonus points. Well played Munsters, well played.

Dark Skies (2013)

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Tonight’s horror movie is the Blumhouse produced, Science Fiction Horror “Dark Skies” from 2013. Written and directed by Scott Stewart, who previously helmed the underrated “Legion” back in 2010. The movie stars Keri Russell, Josh Hamilton, Dakota Goyo and Kadan Rockett as the “Barrett” family, with support from Jake Brennan and J.K. Simmons.

The movie begins with a relatively ordinary seeming family in an ordinary seeming suburban town. The father “Daniel” (Hamilton) in unemployed and seeking work. The mother Lacy (Russell) is attempting to support the family in her job as an Estate Agent and the two boys seem relatively well adjusted with a close relationship where they talk to each other with a walkie talkie. Into this a number of strange occurrences start to happen.

Things That Stack Themselves Geometrically In The Night

One night various items in the kitchen are found stacked up on top of each other in complex patterns. With the family asleep while this was happening they suspect it is someones idea of a joke, but there is no sign of forced entry. The following night after activating their alarm the family a woken up when every sensor is tripped at once and all the family photos are stolen. This is just the start and following this each family member at some point or other ends up behaving strangely and losing time. Several flocks of birds converge and crash into the families house and despite activate their alarm system and installing cameras strange events continue to happen in the house and bypass this security.

Meanwhile through all this the pressures clearly start to get to the family. Eventually Lacy begins to suspect alien activity may be the cause (After investigating the bird situation and finding similarities with cases claimed to be aliens). After discovering geometrics shapes burned into the flesh of their kids Daniel accepts something beyond his comprehension is going on and they seek help from a UFO export, “Edwin Pollard” (Simmons). Here we get an exposition dump that leads us to the final act. The family is about to have one among them abducted and it’s up to them to stop it.

50 Shades of Grays

The plot for Dark Skies is pretty straight forward. Strange events occur until they can’t deny what is happening anymore and go for the exposition dump and a last stand. Who is going to be abducted is actually fairly obvious but the film tries really hard to swerve us. This is a one of those cases where movie makers obsession with subverting expectations actually makes the movie predictable instead of surprising. These days the biggest twist you could have in a movie would be to just play everything straight. But despite that, the movie doesn’t revolve around this twist so the predictability of it doesn’t harm it.

The character writing isn’t particularly good here, though the older boy’s struggles with puberty is quite endearing. The father is a bit of a jerk and his determination to believe the existence of aliens is utterly preposterous is grating. The thing is of all the far out explanations for things, Aliens is the most likely to be real. I mean it’s not like Lacy was telling him it was ghosts, demonic possession or the underpants gnomes. It’s a really big universe out there and many scientists have been of the opinion that alien life exists for a very long time. Indeed the drake equation (For calculating the number of technically advanced Alien Civilizations in our Galaxy) has been around since the 60’s. Skepticism I could get, but given just how crazy the events they were dealing with are I found his extreme reaction to the possibility unrealistic.

Tension and Boredom.

While the characters aren’t terribly well written, the actors do a pretty good job of bringing them to life. The events themselves are pretty well staged and it builds some solid tension. These are filmed in ways that would have cost virtually nothing and yet manage to present a solid amount of horror and mystery. It’s a classic approach to Sci-Fi horror that I appreciate. BY the end of the movie we gain some proper glimpses of the Grays and they look sufficiently scary. The soundtrack adds to this tension well with it’s minimalist approach and intense bursts of noise. These days many sound tracks are more noise based than melodic so this may have been a bit of a trend setter (I’d have to investigate that one further).

Overall, this is quite a mixed bag. The plot and characters are not actually that interesting and the pacing feels a bit plodding in places. I feel like this would have been better had they not waited so long to get to the exposition dump as without that there really is little story progress between each event. The way those events are presented are solid and almost makes up for the rest, but not quite. With a better script this could have been something great, but instead it’s ended up merely above average. This is a strong 5.5/10. Well made, but frankly a little boring.

Rating: 5.5 out of 10.

Don’t Look Now (1973)

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For tonight’s horror we’re checking out the early 70’s horro/Thriller movie “Don’t Look Now”. This is from British director Nicolas Roeg, based on a short story of the same name by Daphne du Maurier. The screen play is from Allan Scott and Chris Bryant and stars Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie. Graeme Clifford deserves a special mention as the movies editor. I don’t normally mention the editors (Which maybe I should), but in this instance the movie wouldn’t be the same without him.

There will be spoilers here, since it’s impossible to talk about this film with tackling it’s conclusion. This is a film where almost nothing can fall into place without that final context, so if you do not wish to have the 50 year old movie spoiled for you, skip ahead to the conclusion section which I will leave spoiler free. You have been warned.

A Series Of Events.

The actual plot of the movie in it’s driest form is simply John (Sutherland) and Laura Baxter (Christie) attempting to move on after the death of their daughter who drowned while playing in the back yard of their country estate. Laura gains some peace after a chance interaction with a blind psychic woman. The woman that explains her daughter is still with them and happy (Albeit still dead). John meanwhile is plagued with strange visions and believes he keeps seeing glimpses of his daughter.

The psychics warn Laura that John is in danger. They encourages him to leave Venice, but he continues to be skeptical. . After a near death experience he starts to wonder if there was some truth to the warning. However he continues to be confused by his own visions and what they mean. Eventually he finds himself chasing after what he thinks is his daughter only to find out it is… well, it’s a psychotic dwarf woman, who kills him. The end. No, I didn’t make that up.

It’s All In The Edit.

The main thing to note is that this film is all about the editing and the themes. It is through the editing that it tells most of it’s story. It is a sort of expressionistic art piece of a movie. If you take away all the visual symbolism what you actually get is a very boring movie with a very strange ending and an infamous sex scene in the middle (Which is actually what it is most famous for). Judging it in in this way you could easily conclude this is a bad movie. In some ways it still is as I feel like there is an over reliance on themes and editing and perhaps most significantly, viewer interpretation. This places the movie as more of a chin stroking art house piece than a story or piece of entertainment.

That said, as more of an art based and theme based movie it does work. John is a man struggling with both grief and his psychic powers, neither of which he is willing to spend time accepting or dealing with it. There is an undertone that perhaps he is even out to punish himself for the events that lead to his daughters death. His daughter drowned and yet he chooses to move to Venice, the most water based city in the world. He has a poor grasp of the language too, which leaves him somewhat isolated. Although he goes about his day to day activity as if the grief is not impacting him, it is clear it haunts him.

Grief And The Need To Deal With It.

This is why a lot of the interpretations of the movie focus on dealing with grief and this was largely my read of the film too. But on top of (and deeply related to) this John is experiencing visions, which he is unable to accept as such. These visions are ultimately of his own death and the events immediately following it. For example when he sees his wife in Venice after she has flown back to England, what he is actually seeing is her at his funeral. But unable to accept such concepts he concludes she is somehow back in Italy and in trouble.

By contrast Laura, who had been struggling more with the death outwardly is able to find some peace when she is told by the blind psychic that her daughter is still with them and is happy. It could be interpreted that her and the psychics attempt to get him to leave Venice is actually talking about the city in a way that is symbolic of his grief and how he blames himself. He is warned, if he doesn’t lead he will die of it. This is true of his grief and of Venice.

The Self Fulfilling Prophecy.

Outside of the metaphors though we have a story of a man predicting his own death, but only drawn to the events that cause his death by his visions that predict it. This is the self fulfilling prophecy, except in this case John’s refusal to accept the visions for what they are becomes a factor. In most cases with such a story it is in an attempt to avoid the prophecy that it ends up fulfilled. These tend to be quite poetic, but here it is presented as more like a malicious ghost story. It actually reminds me of the TV remake of “House on Haunted Hill”, where one character keeps seeing visions of herself with a broken neck, and said visions eventually drive them to die in that manner.

This is an interesting aspect of finding ways to interpret this story. If the visions caused his death, were they given to him maliciously? Was the death of his daughter even just a part of some nefarious spirits plan to destroy the man. Yet the sheer randomness of a lot of these events suggest this is probably not the case. The visions could then be a combination of underlying thoughts of suicide interacting with his gift. Throughout the film we have the symbolism of red and of water, both linking the start and end of the movie and his and his daughters deaths. It certainly has some poetry to it, but it is also fairly obvious and heavy handed.

Red is a Warning, Red is Blood.

Most interpretations of the movie tend to suggest the psycho dwarf is the same killer that is mentioned several times throughout the story. However, that killer has been murdering young women via drowning and the dwarf kills John, a middle aged man, by slashing his throat. This is the key event of the film and yet seems to require a lot of justification by the viewer to make sense of it. I’m less convinced the two killers are meant to be the same. But either way this is clearly designed to throw the viewer of the scent. Ultimately John’s death is a random, meaningless act that is only given context through the characters personal journey. Not that this is a problem, because ultimately that reflect how life works. Most events are random, what gives it meaning is our personal journey.

As I mentioned, this film is very focused on the work of the editor. We constantly see splices of visions of the past and future throughout our journey. The music however, seems to have been stripped right down deliberately to force the focus onto the visuals. The most the music engages with the viewer is with the very dated love theme we get during the intercourse scene. Ultimately, I wasn’t a fan of the soundtrack.

The acting and directing is a bit of a mixed bag. Donald Sutherland does a fantastic job, but outside of that I didn’t find the characters terribly believable or realistic, bu then with such an arty movie you can never be sure if that is intentional or not. A lot of this movie feels like a day time soap, but unlike that form of entertainment, to enjoy this you need to be paying a lot of attention to the smaller things.

Conclusion

Ultimately, I didn’t particularly enjoy this movie. I appreciate the masterclass in editing that it is, the themes and the subtle brand of storytelling it employs. It is a movie with fascinating deeper layers, but not a great deal on the surface. Certainly it will appeal to the art house crowd, but I like movies to have deep layers and provide a solid surface level of appeal.

I should note, I watched this twice, once (My first ever viewing) the night before writing this review and a second time just before writing). My second viewing was better than the first and it is this kind of movie. The more you watch it, the more you gain from it. So perhaps my view will continue to improve over time. As it stands though, the best I can give this is a 6/10. If you like subtle movies with a lot of symbolism you’ll likely be a fan, if however you want a fun ghost story or thriller you may well be disappointed.

Rating: 6 out of 10.

Totally Killer (2023)

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Tonight’s October Challenge Review is the Horror Comedy “Totally Killer” from Amazon MGM Studios and Blumhouse, released direct to streaming on Amazon this year. This is from Nahnatchka Khan, a comedy writer/producer/director in her first foray into Horror and her second feature movie as director. Written by the team of David Matalon, Sasha Perl-Raver and Jen D’Angelo, the latter of which being the most experienced. This is a team clearly coming from TV comedy backgrounds, but sometimes people can surprise you so let’s see if this movie does.

Back to the Screaming.

The movie stars Kiernan Shipka (Who played Sabrina Spellman in the darker 2018 Sabrina reboot series) as Jamie Hughes. The main support comes from Olivia Holt (Dagger from the Cloak and Dagger series) as the younger version of Jamie’s mother “Olivia”. The movie obviously takes influence from “Back to the Future”, “Scream”, “Heathers” and 80’s nostalgia in general, but also seems very similar to the 2015 movie “Final Girls”, though it’s unclear if that is intentional. In regards to the other influence though these are all referenced directly or indirectly in the movie.

The starts at the 35th anniversary of a spree of murders by a killer called “The Sweet Sixteen Killer”. A killer that was never caught (Disappearing after the original three murders) and who was famous for wearing a BIlly Idol/Max Headroom mask and stabbing his victims 16 times. After Jamie’s mother is murdered the town assumes the same killer has returned. After being chased by the killer into an amusement park Jamie takes refuge in her friends experimental time machine and ends up going back in time to the 1980’s where she attempts to prevent the murders and stop the killer, with the primary goal of saving her mother.

Culture Clash.

This is a fish out of water film, where Jamie faces constant culture shock at the differences between the 80’s and the modern day. The lack of caution and security when doing things, people being politically incorrect and even the weaker marijuana. This is the source of most of the comedy and for the most part it lands quite well. Along with this Jamie having to deal with the fact her parents weren’t always the mature responsible over protective types they are now. Indeed her first interaction with her mother is getting a dodge ball to the face from her.

This all works pretty well, though is perhaps a little overplayed in places. The only exception really is her friend who put together the time machine and her mother who are pretty much duplicates of each other (And it is her friends mother that helps her out in the past). That makes the pair the least interesting characters who are basically there just to facilitate the time travel. The rest of the characters though are a colorful goofy bunch that fits the tone of the film well.

90’s Slasher In An 80’s Setting

In regards to the horror/mystery aspect, it was pretty easy to figure out who the killer was. Not from the plot itself as they don’t reveal the key fact that would have made it obvious until after the killer is revealed, but instead by the way the character is presented in the story. It only really made sense they were introduced for the purpose of ending up as the killer, though I do have to praise how they tried to use elements specific to the mask to throw people off the scent, but it didn’t work. It’d be spoilers to say much more about the murders so I’ll leave that one there, but suffice to say there are no shocks in the reveal.

This is base level, Scream knock off stuff (On the level of most 90’s slashers). it’s clear though that this isn’t the focus of the story, even though it’s the driving element of the plot. There was nothing particular of note in any of the kills and there wasn’t a great deal in the way of stalking or anything along the way. The killer isn’t really scary and even when we are first introduced to them they mostly get their ass kicked by their victim (Which is especially reminiscent of the Scream series).

Then and Now and Then Again.

The movie’s approach to time travel is one of convenience. It still has the characters in the original timeline get a linear run of updates to their timeline that happens to match events happening in the film. This is obviously done to cover up the events yet to happen in the film, but it doesn’t really make that much sense. The irony here is the film takes a shot at Back to the Future’s take on time travel and then lays down it’s own rules that don’t make much more sense.

We are told that should her parents not get together that she will persist as a character out of time and yet that is merely one theory on time travel. Yet, the entire existence of the “Grandfather Paradox” is evidence this is a debate and not fact. Indeed the main theory of persistence is based on multiple timelines and if this movie was doing that the characters at her exit point wouldn’t notice any changes and as soon as some were made they would have been isolated from their friend. The truth is the convenience of Marty’s photograph wasn’t any less unscientific than the minute by minute updating of the past/future in this film.

Conclusion

Overall this is a fun but flawed movie. It’s strength is it’s comedy and not for the horror or science fiction aspects. You can tell this is from a team of comedy writers simply using horror as their theme. It’s also very hard not to compare this movie to “Final Girls” as despite that involving characters getting sucked into a movie instead of using time travel, they share a very similar plots. Ultimately though Final Girls is the superior movie and a good part of that is it seemed to understand the genre better. As a Horror this would be a high 5/10, as a comedy it would be a solid 6/10 so I’ll balance that out with a high 5.5/10. If you have Amazon Prime then it won’t cost you anything to view and you’ll probably get a laugh out of it.

Rating: 5.5 out of 10.

Mimic (1997)

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For tonight October Challenge Horror Review I’m checking out Guillermo Del Toro’s second feature “Mimic”. The movie was released 3-5 years (depending on the country) after his fascinating new take on the vampire story “Cronos” (1993) and four years before his next movie “The Devil’s Backbone” (2001). This is his take on the big bug monster movie. This is a genre that would include things like “The Fly” and “Aliens”, both from 1986 along with a whole host of giant insect movies from the 1950’s and beyond.

The Unseen

The movie is loosely based on a short story of the same name by Donald A. Wollheim. The basic concept being that there are people that can live in a community that no one ever notices and that one of these people may not even be a person and it would still go unnoticed. This premise is heavily expanded on by Del Torro introducing a scientific explanation for the creatures existence and of course driving the horror and action people expect from a big bug monster movie.

Our primary leads are Jeremy Northam as “Dr. Peter Mann”, deputy director of the DCD and Mira Sorvino as “Susan Tyler” as the genius entomologist who is technically responsible for the horror they are now facing. They are joined by Josh Brolin, Charles S. Dutton, Giancarlo Giannini and F. Murray Abraham along with a future “Walking Dead” legend Norman Reedus (In a minor role). The movie was originally intended to be part of an anthology series of four hour long stories each helmed by a different director. That evolved over time to a full feature, though it wasn’t without issues with Del Torro butting heads with the studio boss and denouncing the final cut of the theatrical release. Though a directors cut did materialize, most of Del Torro’s intentions had remained unfilmed, partially filmed, or simply lost after release.

Judas Breeding

The plot is a little long winded for a monster movie, starting out with a plague effecting the children of New York. The plague is spread by cockroaches and so to deal with the roaches Dr. Tyler uses genetic engineering to create a new breed of roach, called the “Judas Breed” that will eliminate the others. These creatures were designed to only last a single generation so they could do their job and then die off. Naturally that isn’t how things worked out.

While this did save untold numbers of children, it also lead to the rapid evolution of this new breed of roach which would in just three years evolve to radically increase in size and learn to mimic human beings (Including generating a face like carapace). When signs of these creatures start to emerge and Dr. Tyler realizes they are evolved from her creation she begins an investigation that leads Dr. Mann and herself to investigate the cities mostly derelict underground system. Here they realize the scale of the problem they face and must find a way to deal with it.

Swarming Monsters.

This is probably the most generic horror Del Torro has made, but how much of that is down to him and how much down to the studio interference is probably something we will never know. The movie is very heavy on the tropes you would expect from a giant bug monster movie. There are plenty of jump scares and fake outs along with a team all determined to make heroic sacrifices no matter how necessary it actually is. Naturally of course there are plenty of gross out scenes and crawling around in dark tunnels. Actually the tunnels and the insects are very much the kind of thing that seems to fascinate Del Torro.

The design of the creatures is pretty scary and feels like it could easily have been in a Cronenberg film. The initial design concept began with a sketch by Del Torro himself and it is quite clever how they worked in the mimic aspect to it. That said at around the half way point that ability largely becomes irrelevant and it evolves into Aliens without the firepower. This is perhaps the biggest problem, the name of the film and the point of the story it is based off is largely not relevant to the movie itself. While a few insects may be able to pretend to be humans and feed off homeless people in the subway, the swarms of creatures that turn out to be down there would have been so deadly that they’d never need that ability.

Going Nowhere.

While there are quite a few characters involved in the story, most of them really serve not purpose. Probably the most notable is MTA Officer “Leonard Norton” (Dutton) who provides the everyman character of the piece as well as being the teams guide into the underground. The young boy “Chuy” (Alexander Goodwin) survives in the tunnels by his ability to imitate the creatures clicking sounds. This doesn’t really end up especially important to the plot since the team have already smeared themselves with bug insides to hide disguise their presence. The rest of the characters are mostly just there to get knocked off. Of course that is to be expected to some extent in a horror film.

This is largely a theme for the movie, lots of good ideas that basically go nowhere. It is a movie with a lot of potential that is by and large wasted. The virus that started the whole thing off is forgotten 10 minutes later, the mimic ability is redundant by the third act, the strange boy that can imitate their clicking is just there to ultimately be a stand in for “Newt” from Aliens, but is notably less useful. The heroes never really have a plan and it’s only 20 minutes from the end that Susan mentions that there would only be one male (Because she’s been so right about the creatures so far) and they just need to kill that. But then they kill all of them anyway so… Yeah didn’t really matter.

Trust The Science.

On top of this there is the simple fact that none of this really makes any sense. Now to be fair, I’ve watched plenty of those 50’s movies that also made no sense, but when the attempts by “Scientists” to explain the situation sounds so completely stupid, it does take you out of the movie. For example, the suggestion is the Judas roaches evolved to mimic it’s predator… humans. But we aren’t actually their predator, that’d be lizards, birds, hedgehogs and even frogs. So a supposed entomologist calling humans their predators is just… well, dumb. You also have to wonder why they introduced the original batch with it’s one male, I mean just assuming they can’t reproduce but leaving the male there anyway. Not really that genius.

Overall, this film is probably Del Torro’s worst, but that’s not to say it isn’t entertaining. The first half has good ideas and while the second half wastes most of them, it still manages to be a pretty reasonable Aliens knock off. So that leaves this movie where I end up placing a lot of movies with good ideas that just don’t deliver on them and that is a 5.5/10

Rating: 5.5 out of 10.