Tag: Horror

Vacancy (2007)

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For today’s movie I’m watching Screen Gem’s motel horror “Vacancy” from 2007. Helmed by “Predators” director Nimbrod Antal and penned by “Overlord” writer Mark L. Smith. The film stars Kate Beckinsale and Luke Wilson as married couple on the verge of divorce “Amy” & “David Fox”, with support from Frank Whaley as “Mason” the creepy Motel landlord. This is a short horror clocking in at only one hour and twenty five minutes.

October Review Challenge – Day 10

The story begins with David and Amy somewhat lost travelling back from a family event. The pair are not on good terms and it seems a divorce is likely in their future. They end up a bit lost and seek assistance from a mechanic who points them in the supposed right direction and takes care of a problem with the car. However, the car then breaks down fully and the couple are forced to take shelter in a nearby motel.

Once in the motel they soon discover something is up. The video players in the room they are in seems to be full of horror films, but on closer examination these footage is from the hotel room they are in and they are snuff films. The movie then becomes a cat and mouse story as the couple try and survive the night.

A to B

That’s possibly the shortest synopsis I’ve written for a while and for good reason. This is one of the most straight forward horrors I’ve seen for a while. Motel/Hotel horrors are pretty much a horror sub genre these days with films such as Psycho, The Shining, 1408, Identity, Hostel, The Innkeepers, Motel Hell, Devils Rejects, Eaten Alive, and Bad Times at the El Royale (Which isn’t really a horror but does involve torture and bloodshed so close enough). Indeed just in this October Challenge it’s my second motel based horror after Psycho II (My 1st of October review).

Likewise there is just as long a list of movies about snuff films stretching from the more thriller based “Cold in July” to the outright nope of “A Serbian Film” (If you know, you know). So it was probably long overdue for these concepts to be combined into one (I had a brief hunt to see if there were any other examples but I couldn’t find any).

Regardless of if it’s the first time a horror has been made about a Motel that secretly makes snuff films, the concept certainly doesn’t feel original or even like an interesting novelty. The angle of camera footage isn’t really put to good use of outside of one scene where the snuff film playing on the TV cuts in and out with the rooms power to a decently scary effect. Nor does the motel provide for a particularly interesting backdrop aside from being in the middle of nowhere and largely abandoned.

The Characters

The film has a very small cast and only three of them feel like real characters and even then only barely. There is more of a backstory woven into the couples dispute but it’s not really done in a way that it matters. It’s just there to let us know the pair aren’t on good terms and so when forced to fight for their lives start to realise how much they mean to each other. It’s reasonable character development but it’s also pretty generic and not enough to make the film interesting. Mason however is basically just a creepy dude. That is all we ever really get to know about him. He’s a bad person. Also somewhat stupid considering his gaffs in dealing with the couple (and one in particular when fighting Amy at the end).

Plot Holes

The movie is actually full of horrendous plot holes. When a cop is called out to the area and then killed, none of the psycho’s seem to acknowledge that they can’t possible continue with their motel snuff show scheme after this. I mean a cop goes to investigate the motel and then disappears, that will be logged, the police will thoroughly check the place out.

The motel is full to the brim of hidden surveillance cameras, snuff movies filmed in the motel in every room, a room full of camera equipment and monitors of those cameras and a huge library of snuff movies. Not to mention the secret tunnels and the damage and blood stains. There’s simply no way they can cover it up and keep working but no one acknowledges this. They should be making plans to evacuate and go on the run while still trying to kill the couple.

It’s also odd the police never send out someone else to investigate after their first officer doesn’t check in. Bad enough they sent a lone cop to deal with a “They’re going to kill us” call, but then when they are phoned a second time they respond to news that the cop was killed by saying “We’ll send another officer out”. Like they are just going to keep sending one officer out at a time to the motel until they are all dead.

Conclusion

The actors performances are pretty good however. But then Beckinsale, Wislon and Whaley are all good actors. They also are quite clever in pushing the terror without really showing anything that hardcore. Those positives don’t unfortunately outweigh the fact that the script is weak and the premise is generic. Ultimately the movie is all packaging and no content. Well made, but really a nothing of a movie. As such I don’t recommend this one and so I’m giving it the highest rating I can for a movie that isn’t worth your time, that is a 4.5/10.

Rating: 4.5 out of 10.

Cat People (1942)

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October Challenge – Day 8

Tonight’s Horror Movie is the classic Horror Cat People from 1942. This is my first viewing this October of anything older than the 1980’s so it may take some adjusting to, though it’s not like I’m new to old movies. This classic stars Simone Simon as “Irena” a Serbian immigrant haunted by her belief she is cursed and Kent Smith as Oliver Reed, her suitor and eventual husband with support from Tom Conway as a Dr. Louis Judd, a psychiatrist trying to treat Irena (But also falling for her) and Jane Randolph as Alice, a rival for Oliver’s affection. The movie is directed by Jacques Tourneur and written by DeWitt Bodeen.

Oliver first meets Irena at the zoo, where she is sketching a panther, something she does regularly. They strike up a conversation that leads to a friendship and then fall in love (It all moves pretty fast because it’s a short film and these things were usually portrayed as pretty easy in the 40’s). Irena is quite superstitious though and eventually she explains to him her belief that she is descended from the cursed “Cat People” of her village in Serbia. These were devil worshipping witches that escaped from King John’s purging of the evil in those lands. Irena believes that if she allows her passions to get the better of her she will transform into a cat (the big dangerous type, not a kitty) and potentially kill the target of her affections.

Despite this revelation, Oliver asks her to marry him. Obviously he doesn’t quite buy the curse idea and assumes Irena will come around. But she does not and so Oliver seeks help from a psychiatrist friend Dr. Judd to treat her condition. The treatment doesn’t solve the issue and a frustrated Oliver starts spending time with Alice. Not as an affair at least not to begin with, just as someone he can talk to about his frustration. This was Hays code days so they likely couldn’t portray adultery, which makes it hard to determine how far they were meant to have gone. Irena though assumes the worst and becomes jealous. At this point Irene starts showing her darker nature.

As we roll into the final third of this short film it appears as if the curse is indeed real. Irena struggles with her dark side, but eventually loses control when Oliver seeks an annulment of their marriage so he can marry Alice. Between her emotions at that and the romantic overtures of Dr. Judd she unleashes her inner beast.

This is effectively a werewolf movie, but turning into a panther instead of a wolf. With the limitations of the day and the film code in place there. On occasion the use of sound is very good in this movie, both music and effects. At one point when Alice is being stalked by Irene a bus suddenly pulls up making a noise very much like an enraged cat. The music meanwhile, while mostly typical for the era occasionally employs a more playful tone and takes on a jazzier feel. Effectively it becomes a bit more cat like (think of the music that would accompany a cat stalking it’s prey). There are also blasts of Noir like visuals and use of shadows. It’s notable these are all used very sparingly. A good portion of the movie is just standard 40’s in look and sound, but that makes those few sections more impactful.

Simone Serena, who is actually French suffers a bit in her performance due to her heavy accent, this was a problem for her throughout her career, but in an age where most people spoke with a Trans-Atlantic accent it stands out and with it still being fairly early for movies would sound, the audio quality isn’t always great at clarity with her. It’s a shame because otherwise her performance is good and she portrays her confusion and inner conflict well with her facial expressions. One scene when she is trying to grab a bird from it’s cage her face becomes very playful, but also predatory (I mean cat’s and birds, it’s exactly what you’d expect). When the bird dies though she is distraught and disgusted with herself (all done without words), but then goes and feeds it almost aggressively to the panther at the zoo. These scenes are when Simone is at her best.

By todays standards this isn’t a scary film and it is very short at only one hour and twelve minutes. But it manages to move the story on at a reasonable pace that doesn’t feel rushed. The only problem is many of the characters don’t really get enough development time for the audience to empathise with them. The film excels though in the few key moments where Irene’s darker sides comes out. It’s very well done. A lot of modern werewolf films could learn some this.

Overall though, the movie has suffered a bit for the 80 years between it’s release and my viewing. Many of the techniques employed in this film would develop through the 40’s and beyond, so this is a lot of it in it’s rawest form. It is an interesting watch still and well worth checking out for any Horror buffs that has an interest in the roots of the genre and wants to look beyond the Universal monster movies. Overall I’m going to give this a 6/10. A low 6/10 by todays standard, but in it’s day this would have been at least a 7, perhaps an 8.

Rating: 6 out of 10.

Vicious Fun (2020)

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October Challenge – Day 7

Tonight’s movie is Canadian Horror Comedy “Vicious Fun”. A movie about killing serial killers set in the 80’s because… why not, I guess. The film stars Evan Marsh, Amber Goldfarb and Ari Millen, is directed by Cody Calahan and written by Calahan and James Villeneuve.

Synopsis

Our story follows Joel (Marsh), a loser film critic for a Horror magazine that manages to stumble into a gathering of America’s most successful psychopaths. At first he attempts to blend in, but his rouse only lasts until the arrival of Bob, another psycho that also happens to be dating his roommate and specialises in faking occupations, so is quick to rumble Joel. Then it becomes a struggle for survival, but fortunately for him one of the psycho’s isn’t all she seems.

Admittedly that seems a bit of a spoiler, but they unfortunately telegraphed it a bit too much in the opening scene where we see a woman (Goldfarb) hitch a lift in the car of someone that is obviously a serial killer and then kill him. That wasn’t a great start. Not only is it a bit cliché (I’ve seen the victim turns out to be the killer many times since I first came across it in Blade II in 2002 when it was still a subversion), it also gave away that she wasn’t a legit member of the psycho fun club and diminished the surprise of Joel realising the situation he is in (Would have been so much better if it come out of nowhere).

Psycho Buddies

Joel and his saviour, Carrie, find themselves having to deal with the other killers and a bunch of horrendously incompetent cops to boot. The psychos themselves are a colourful bunch of of somewhat stereotypical loonies, including a classic hulking slasher type (Robert Maillet), a John Wayne Gacy type (Julian Richings), an Yakuza assassin type (Sean Baek), an ex-CIA torture specialist (David Koechner) and of course Bob (Millen), whose ability to disguise himself isn’t actually that impressive and relies on everyone being an idiot. Fortunately this is very much a comedy horror and very much a self aware one with Joel even pointing out how bad Bob’s disguise was. Bob is clearly modelled on Patrick Bateman from American Psycho but really just comes across as your typical 80’s movie douchebag (The kind of person that is inexplicably dating the hot girl and challenges the hero to a skiing competition).

For the comedy side of things the best part is the interaction between the serial killers. That was actually quite fun, while Joel’s general pathetic incompetence was too clichéd to enjoy. Eventually Joel has to pull himself together and grow a pair with the guidance of bad ass Carrie. But this is something I’ve seen done before and much better in “Guns Akimbo”. Not only did that feature two better actors in Daniel Radcliffe and Samara Weaving, but the balance was a lot better with Radcliffe actually becoming quite badass by the end and Weaving not feeling like an unstoppable ass kicking machine with impenetrable plot armour. It is frankly a much better film.

Assessment (some spoilers)

The way most of the killers are despatched is a little too easy for my liking, with Bob really being the only threat for Carrie, but only through luck and then even a weakened Carrie, after losing a load of blood makes short work of him. Honestly Carrie is way OP in this. Not only that but when Joel’s room mate turns up, she randomly pulls out some martial arts and takes out the John Wayne Gacy type killer. You can tell this movie came out recently. It also seems to have made the mistake of assuming it would get a sequel seeing as the movie has a big set up with no pay off (Specifically a big bad that is talked about but never shows up).

The violence is pretty well done, but the real strength of this movie is the initial premise and the synopsis I read seemed to suggest Joel pretending to a be a serial killer would go on for a lot more of the film and it’s a shame it didn’t because that was the best part I would have liked more of that and more of the killers in general. Everyone other than Bob who was just a douche. A lot more interesting things could have been done with this premise but they missed that opportunity by basically turning it into a less interesting version of Guns Akimbo. It’s also worth noting the serial killer convention idea was done in The Sandman comics back in the 90’s so the most interesting part of the film is also not original.

Stranger Nostalgia

The soundtrack is 80’s style Synthwave, reminiscent of Stranger Things. Again at this point that’s become somewhat of a cliché thanks to Stranger Things, but I’m not complaining because I like Synthwave. That brings me to the fact the movie is set in the 80’s. It’s clear they wanted to go for some kind of 80’s style but the truth is this movie could have been set any time before mobile phones were common and not change one bit. Also because it’s heroes are very much from the archetype of 2010’s/2020’s heroes and not the 1980’s ones it means that theme simply fails to click. Indeed it was only the end credit soundtrack that reminded me it was an 80’s movie.

The film seems to want to be retro while not really committing firmly enough to that to pull it off. Meanwhile the imaginative premise is blown far too early and the movie ends up going exactly as expected it to after that opening scene. The performances are all competent enough (Especially Julian Richings, David Koechner and surprisingly Robert Maillet who used to Wrestle under the name “Kurgen” in the 90’s) and the production values are solid. So it’s not actually a bad film as such, just very average.

Final Judgement

As such I’m going to give this a 5/10. Too many conflicting ideas and too many modern cliché’s waste the films few good ideas and push the interesting characters into the background. A movie that wants to cash in on 80’s nostalgia but doesn’t really show any affection for the decade itself.

Rating: 5 out of 10.

The Signal (2007)

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October Challenge – Day 6

For tonight’s movie I’m hitting another independent movie, this time “The Signal” from 2007. This is an everyone-goes-psycho movie, but presented in an interesting fashion through three segments from three different characters perspectives and set in the fictional city of “Terminus” on what appears to be New Years Eve. Each section (or “Transmission” as the film refers to it) has it’s own director and with that it’s own style. David Bruckner (V//H//S, The Night House) directs the first section “Crazy in Love”, Jacob Gentry (Synchronicity) directs the second “The Jealousy Monster” and Dan Bush (The Vault) directs the final piece “Escape from Terminus”.

We interrupt this transmission to make you batshit insane.

After a brief swerve of 70’s style horror (that was just on TV) we start with the trigger for everyone going nuts, which is a signal breaking through to peoples TV sets and radios. Coming across like some garbled interference but it was pretty clear what it was going to do. The film wastes no time starting up and doesn’t get bogged down in explaining the why’s of the situation. Things are kept vague enough that you can bet there are a lot of theories on this one. That works for me.

The intro sets up the two key characters Mya (Anessa Ramsey) and Ben (Justin Welborn) who are a pair of lovers that are considering eloping. Mya is married to Lewis (AJ Bowen) and the marriage is clearly not happy, though since we don’t get to to see them together pre-signal we don’t get to find out why.

Crazy in Love

The first section “Crazy in Love” follows Mya’s journey. After leaving Ben’s place she comes across a man (possibly homeless) asking for help and covered in blood. The man claims to have been attacked. Another man starts approaching them menacingly and so Mya get’s in her car and drives off. She returns to her own apartment building to find people the hallway fighting and acting generally crazy. Disturbed she quickly heads to her apartment.

As she enters, her husband and two of his friends are trying to watch the big game, but because the TV is getting the crazy signal they are mostly standing around being angry. Lewis obviously suspects Mya of her affair and questions her with an accusation tone. I can’t really judge if Lewis is a bad person normally since Mya is having an affair and Lewis has been affected by the crazy signal, but here he is aggressive and domineering.

That Escalated Quickly!

One of his friends is waving around his baseball bat and out of nowhere Lewis starts to get mad about it, after the argument gets heated he ends up bludgeoning his friend to death. As the other friend wrestles with Ben, Mya flees only to come across another murder in the hallway. This leads to a series of violent attacks and fleeing that eventually sees Mya crash a car and shout at some guy that offers help to stay away and she’s going to terminal 13 to meet her boyfriend and get out of Terminus and don’t follow her. That leads into our second segment which switches gears.

The Jealousy Monster

Transmission two: “The Jealousy Monster” is probably the most fun section of the movie, changing into a black comedy horror, but maintaining the brutality so it doesn’t feel like a section from a different film. This follows a character named Clark (Played by Scott Poythress), the good Samaritan that Mya refused to let help him. He is sheltering around a neighbours house, a woman called Anna who was going to host a New Years Eve party.

Both of them have managed to kill someone in self defence and it remains questionable if either of them are affected by the transmission. Into this mix comes Lewis (Mya’s husband), looking for Mya and clearly with a very loose grip on reality. The trio tries to keep their sense of reality but for Lewis and Anna this seems to be a losing battle. Anna is mostly harmless, Mya’s jealous and possessive husband though, much less so

Escape From Terminus

The Final section: “Escape from Terminus” finally follows Ben’s journey. I don’t want to give away too many details here as it is the final section but suffice to say it involves him having a stand off with Lewis and finally discovering Mya’s fate.

There was a lot of positives to this movie. The three directors different styles and the change in pacing and character focus kept things feeling fresh for the duration. The actors all did their job well and I quite liked the score. The plot is pretty straight forward but it didn’t really need to be more complicated and it contains in it the big mystery of why this is happening. Is the signal an attack? Is Terminus purgatory or hell? None of this gets answered, but ambiguity and mystery isn’t a bad thing for this kind of horror.

Confusion, Mysteries, Balance and Madness.

That said, they probably should have examined the situation a little more that they did. The movie reminds me a bit of Pontypool, which came out a year after this in 2008, but Pontypool actually did dig into the mystery of what was happening a little more and they did it so well the movie became a real classic. They didn’t need to dig in much here, just enough to give the mystery a bit more meat, but they opted not to. It’s not a big issue, but I think if done right it could have added to the overall mystery.

The film has a good balance between the brutality, character moments and comedy. The later is used sparingly and mostly in the middle section, but seeps out a little bit after through one of the characters from that section and it’s just enough to make the transition smooth. The brutality is fast and effective and just graphic enough for it to feel brutal without just trying to gross you out. It’s also spaced out enough that nothing is wasted. They do a good job of blurring the line between those that have gone psycho due to the signal and those pushed to their limit psychologically by the world around them.

Conclusion

On the whole I’ve got to say I liked this movie. It’s the second movie close to opening up my 7/10 spot for films this year (Hatching being the first). It’s worth mentioning (If you haven’t figured it out already) I rarely give 7 stars or higher. The decision factor for that is basically “Do I like this enough to buy the physical media”, Signal isn’t quite there but I definitely recommend giving it a watch.

UPDATE: Having the benefit of a few extra days to reflect and a few more movies to compare it to, I have decided, this is actually one I want to own. So I’m bumping it up to a 7/10. It does absolutely deserve it. Now it’s up to the other films this month to try and reach towards an 8.

Rating: 7 out of 10.

Hatching (2022)

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Tonight I’m watching the recently released Finnish Body Horror movie “Hatching”, directed by Hanna Bergholm in her feature film debut and written by Ilja Rautsi. The film stars Siiri Solalinna as Tinja the daughter of a Finnish family. Solalinna will be doing double duty on this film as both Tinja and the movies monster, a demanding role for the young actress.

Lovely Everyday Life

The movie starts out with our host family presenting their apparently perfect, lovely life for the mother’s blog. It’s pretty clear though things aren’t completely perfect. This isn’t a classic horror dark secret kind of thing though, just that the mother is clearly more focused on image than emotional well being and is determined to push her daughter as hard as possible so as to achieve success in gymnastics. The family’s son seems to have picked up some of her mothers personality and is needy and demanding, while the father is aloof, more interested in his guitars than his family, likely explaining why his wife is almost openly cheating on him (That is the daughter knows and he it seems doesn’t want to).

The Bad Egg

The mother has a cruel streak to her as is demonstrated early on when she kills a stray bird that comes into the house instead of releasing it outside. This sets up our theme as later that day Tinja comes across a dying bird in the woods by her house and gives it a mercy killing, only to discover a nearby bird egg which she takes home. This is where the horror bit starts. The egg of course hatches and what comes out of it isn’t a regular bird. It is about the size of young Tinja and seems to have some intelligence, quickly bonding with the girl who decides to look after it and names it Alli (A name I feel that is a clue to the films meaning).

Things start to go off pretty quickly as our Hatchling kills the neighbours dog and drops it’s mutilated corpse on the pillow next to Tinja is a bit of a reversal of the classic dog “present”. Things obviously escalate and it is clear their is something more to the connection TInja has with the hatchling, the two are bonded mentally and physically, so much so Alli is starting to look like Tinja. Since this is a recent movie I’m not going to reveal much more but this is a body horror so expect violence and a bit of grossness.

Be Careful Which Wolf (Or Bird) you Feed

There is a deeper level to all this though. This is a metaphor for self loathing. Tinja’s mother’s quest to present the perfect life to her blog video viewers and the pressure she puts on her daughter to achieve in gymnastics has lead to Tinja being angry with herself for her failures, to be disgusted with herself and see herself as a monster. The story is really about a young girls fragile psyche and the importance to nurture more than a sense of shame. It’s important to note, the victims of the Hatchling are not people that have abused her, but her rivals. The monster is not protecting her, but enacting her darkest desires in her own drive to be considered special in the eyes of her mother. Eventually the child’s innocence is lost and she becomes a twisted version of her formers self. It is a darkness that as Tinja says in the final act “I hatched it”

I mentioned earlier I thought the name “Alli” was significant and it is a double whammy. It happens to be the brand name of a weight loss drug (relevant because some of the scenes in the film are heavily hinting at Bulimia) but also is a name of Greek and French origin that effectively means “Keeping ones chin up”. There is no way that is a coincidence give the mother’s attitude and the Tinja’s internal struggle between her natural good nature and the part of her that is turning into her own mother. Well played Hanna, well played.

Assessment

I liked the metaphor. It came through clearly, but it doesn’t hit you over the head with it like a lot of films do. It is also done very effectively through the horror. This is a very good bit of intelligent horror story telling. That said, I didn’t find any of the particular scenes stood out visually, nor did I find the hatchling itself particularly scary. For me though the story is more important than all that. The actors seemed pretty good, though I always find it hard to judge when I’m busy reading subtitles instead of looking at the actors. Siiri Solalinna though I’m sure has a bright future.

I also liked the haunting soundtrack, which was fairly minimalistic but effective and the physical creature effects were actually done pretty well. I thought the closeups looked a bit fake, but at a mid distance it looked really good. They transition from puppet to Solalinna about half way through and before anything too complicated is called for, which was probably for the best.

For tonight's movie I watched the Finnish Body Horror Movie Hatching.

Conclusion

This came out of a fairly simple idea of Rautsi’s about a boy bringing home an egg that hatched his doppelganger. A doppelganger story is not in itself especially original or compelling, it’s what you do with it that makes or breaks it and they did well here. While the film didn’t blow me away, I definitely came out with a healthy respect for it and it’s makers. This is a high 6.5/10

Rating: 6.5 out of 10.

Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat (1989)

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October Challenge – Day 4

For today’s movie I’m hitting up 1989’s western horror comedy Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat. I didn’t even know this movie existed until fairly recently so I’m going in without preconceptions. This is directed by Anthony Hickox (Hellraiser III, Waxwork) and stars David Carradine, Bruce Campbell, John Ireland, Maxwell Caulfield, Morgan Brittany, Deborah Foreman and a good number of other recognisable actors.

What We Do In The Sunlight.

Out story is set in the town of Purgatory, not to be found on any modern map since the inhabitants don’t want to be found. This is a town of vampires, lead by the ancient Count Mardulak (Carradine), but these vampires on the whole are trying to adapt to the modern world and find a way to live side by side with humans. As such they have developed a machine that creates artificial blood, a problem with that machine has required them to call in it’s inventor a human called David Harrison. Harrison is visiting the town with his family as a working holiday hoping it will be a restful break.

Dead and Not Particularly Loving it.

While most of the town are trying to change their ways they are not completely beyond killing as an incident early on reveals where a rude motorist by has his head knocked off by a grumpy vampire manning the local gas station. Worse than this though a sub faction within the town lead by Ethan Jefferson (Played by John Ireland) and a young vampire named Shane (Maxwell Caulfield) is scheming to wipe out the others and return to the old ways.

The Clueless Vampire Killer

Thrown into the mix a Van Helsing descendent (Played by Campbell) has arrived at the town determined to wipe out each and every vampire. Unsurprisingly Campbell provides the comic relief and isn’t particularly effective. Fortunately for him Sandy, a young vampire woman has fallen for him and doesn’t want him to wind up dead. Well, fully dead, she’s okay with undead.

The Lost Ploys.

There’s actually a lot of additional sub plots in all this and it has a large ensemble cast of big personalities so I’m not going to cover it all. Things get more serious when the rebels make their move. Being mostly younger vampires they can’t fight the older vampires hand to hand so they develop wooden tipped bullets so they can use firearms to even the playing field. Eventually this leads to an epic shootout final battle.

Bite Night.

This is a pretty entertaining film, though it definitely lands very much in the middle of the various genres is straddles. It’s not especially funny, especially horrific or overly like a Western but it does just enough of each genre to justify the label. It is very 80’s though (Which I consider a positive). There is a lot going on, everything is frantic and the characters are as colourful as possible. It has a lot of charm to it and the story moves quickly enough that it maintains a sense of adventure the whole time. This is a vampire film though, so naturally it isn’t without a good amount of blood.

Fangs for the Memory.

Because of the cast size and pace none of the characters or actors really get enough screen time to fully shine. I felt Bruce Campbell was largely wasted and it would have been nice to see a bit more of David Carradine and John Ireland too. But this wasn’t a film with any particular focus. Those three performed their roles well (As you would expect) and the rest of the cast, featuring many familiar faces did a good job of supporting. There was no real weak links in that regard, even the children did a passable job. The music my Richard Stone was perhaps a bit too obvious in what it was going for (Generic Western soundtrack) but ultimately did what it needed to.

Conclusion

Overall, I had fun with this movie. It’s not anything astounding but if you want a comparatively light-hearted Halloween romp you won’t be disappointed with this. This is a strong 6/10 (Perhaps a fang short of a 6.5).

Rating: 6 out of 10.

Super Dark Times (2017)

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October Challenge – Day 3

Tonight’s movie is an independent release called “Super Dark Times”. Helmed by debuting director Kevin Phillips and staring Owen Campbell (Boardwalk Empire, The Americans), Charlie Tahan (Gotham, Ozark) as best friends Josh and Zach

Living in the 90’s

We start of with a bit of shock factor, with a dead animal in a school, which is of no real importance to the plot, but it is a nice opener. Quickly we switch to a group of college friends chatting about stuff and messing around. Pretty standard stuff. I’m not really sure how old they are meant to be. They react to a bag of marijuana like younger teenagers, but Owen Campbell was 23 when this came out and he looks clearly in his early 20’s. I guess we’ll say “Teen” and move on.

End of Innocence.

Things quickly go pear shaped when a stupid fight between the kids ends up with one of them being killed in circumstances that would be hard to explain and so the kids do the whole “Vow of Silence” thing. That never works out well. At this point it’s clear that Zach is coping somewhat better with the events than Josh. Though by “coping” I mean he’s having nightmares and anxiety, which is fairly normal for having gone through trauma. Josh however is clearly withdrawing into himself. Skipping school and sort of moping around. Since they are hitting all the school shooter tropes, I’m surprised he didn’t buy himself a trench coat.

Coming of Rage (Spoilers).

Ultimately Josh goes full psycho. It doesn’t really feel natural because the film follows Zach and not Josh. I can’t help but feel the movie would have been more interesting following Josh as he loses his mind. Instead we just see things from Zech’s perspective, and Zach is a fairly bland character and it doesn’t really feel like the pair are genuinely that close. Either Josh has had a complete change in personality almost overnight or Zach just didn’t know him that well to begin with.

Assessment.

This is more of a drama than a psychological thriller or horror. The violence in the movie, while minimal is actually portrayed in a realistic fashion: spontaneous and clumsy. There isn’t a huge amount of suspense and no real sense of terror to really justify it as a thriller or horror. A few scenes had moments of promise, the odd camera shot, a bit of nice editing but it never really delivered on that promise. Outside of the solid (if irrelevant) opening scene. the films offers little in the way of visuals to talk about. The soundtrack is minimal and transparent, possibly deliberately to push the realism. The actors performances are passable and average.

Conclusion

It’s worth noting this was pretty well loved by critics and my guess is because it is a coming of age film and a trauma survival film in one, but for me I didn’t find the journey from trauma to conclusion that enlightening or entertaining. Maybe the problem was I wasn’t really after a drama. I’m going to have to give this one a 5/10 and mark it down simply as “Not for me”.

Rating: 5 out of 10.

Psycho II (1982)

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Well, October has rolled around again. Last October I decided to do the October Horror Challenge and watch a Horror movie a day for the month. I went further, not just in that I watched two horrors on the 30th and three on Halloween, but also that I reviewed a horror a day as well (I didn’t review my triple bill, so it totalled 31 reviews). I didn’t start my blog until the following month largely after positive feedback from the reviews, which I had posted to Facebook and Minds. So this year these are going straight to the blog.

Because I’m going to have to do these much faster than my regular reviews I’m keeping each comparatively short, with the length largely dependent on the time I have to do it. Last year I only did movies I’ve not seen before, this year I may be a bit more flexible but I’ll figure that out as I go. Anyway, enough with the explanations, it’s October 1st 2022, time for my first horror review….

Psycho 2 was released in 1982, twenty three years after the original These days that’s nothing but I imagine in 1982 people thought a sequel to Psycho was (appropriately enough), utter madness. I have seen this before, but i barely remembered it so I’m giving it another shot.

On the Back of Giants

We start out with the infamous shower scene from the original before switching to the present day. The first thing of note is right in the credits: Music by Gerry Goldsmith. Gerry is a talented and underrated composer who is all over the soundtracks of the 80’s and 90’s. The original film was scored though by one of the biggest legends of film scores Bernard Herrmann. Sadly Bernard passed in the 1970’s so they had no choice but to look elsewhere. Goldsmith somewhat impersonates the original films score and throws in the odd motif from it, but in general the music sounds smoother, lighter and perhaps a little laid back. The tone isn’t quite right in places, but it’s still a good score.

Someone who had more difficult shoes to fill however is “Blue Lagoon” director Richard Franklin, stepping in for Hitchcock who had also passed before this movie was made. He does a competent job but that’s about it. The movie is also a bit more graphic than the original and perhaps the most obvious change is it is in colour.

Homecoming

The story follows Norman after his release from the sanatorium. He appears a lot more stable, but is being victimised by some unknown entity posing as his Mother. Obviously it’s not his dead Mother, but the question remains is someone messing with him or is it all in his mind. Even if someone is messing with him, there is obviously a danger of him relapsing because of it. As the story progresses however it becomes clear Norman is at the mercy of more than one outside agenda.

Norman is of course played by Anthony Perkins who is easily the highlight of the movie. He plays a character just on the edge of sanity with perfection. Meg Tilly played Mary, a waitress at the dinner where Norman works after his release from the asylum. Mary has an ulterior motive for befriending Norman, but becomes conflicted as he gets to know Norman. Her performance is perhaps a little underplayed but believable.

Conclusion (Spoilers)

The final act involves a twist that comes pretty much from nowhere and somewhat devalues the plot of the rest of the film. Turns out Norman has another Mother, a character that doesn’t turn up as a real character (Instead of a shadowy figure killing people) until the very end of the film. From a character perspective at least things end appropriately enough. Norman has gone full circle. Meanwhile Mary and her mother suffer the price for playing with fire. Mary remains conflicted for the whole movie until that conflict leads to her own demise.

Overall a fairly decent horror that unfortunately can’t escape harsh comparisons with original film. The plot is a little messy, but the characters, especially Norman help to salvage that. It’s just about a 6/10. Not a bad start to my October Horrorthon.

Rating: 6 out of 10.

Morbius (2022)

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For tonight’s feature I viewed Sony’s new release from their “Venomverse” universe, “Morbius” (2022). This marks Sony’s first addition to the Venomverse and as such the movie the finally turns that world from  a playground for Symbiotes into a true shared universe. Not that this has any cross over material outside of a throw away line and an awkward post credit scene, but it is an important milestone for Sony and one you’d think would be important to them. Then again they made so much money off Spider-Man maybe they no longer care.

Blood, Sweat, Tears and more Blood.

The movie is helmed by director Daniel Espinosa, who obviously has some horror experience from making the Alien-esque “life” (2017) and I assume this is why he was picked for the movie. The movies writers, Matt Sazama and Burke Sharpless have a string of genre movies to their name but it’s worth noting their highest IMDB score is for Dracula Untold (A movie I did enjoy) which hits the heady heights of 6.2/10. The rest of their movies are in the fives and that probably explains a lot about this one.

Jared Leto stars as the eponymous Doctor Michael Morbius and is joined by Matt Smith’s Milo/Lucien, Adria Arjona as Martine Bancroft and Jared Harris as Dr. Emil Nicholas. There are also a number of minor roles that appear to have been reduced to bare bones in the edit room including Tyrese Gibson as a race swapped Simon Stroud, who in the comics is actually a superhero himself but apparently his entire arc was cut, reducing the role to just a chasing FBI agent that seems a little more competent than his colleagues. Apparently there were whole scenes featuring his cyborg arm, but neither those nor the arm itself made the theatrical release. Still, he has more presence than Michael Keaton’s Adrian Toomes who appears to have had his entire role reduced from something worthy of inclusion in the trailer, to just a confusing mid credits cameo.

Vampire Interrupted.

Speaking of Keaton, let’s address the elephant in the room. This movie was originally due to be released in July 2020, but with Covid delaying things both Sony and Disney shuffled their Marvel deck and this had a knock on effect to a lot of the movies and the continuity between them. There was also a new deal signed between Sony and Disney in relation to Spider-Man’s on screen presence. Through all this there ended up being a need for extensive reshoots and a key change to the movie that removed all references to anything MCU, until the mid credits. At this point I think Morbius ended up a gutted husk of the movie that Espinosa originally intended, though it is hard to tell. What is clear is that Keaton definitely had a bigger role as the scene from the first trailer is completely absent. Also absent is the Spider-Man “Murderer” graffiti that was present in the trailer. Apparently this was added by the studio without the directors knowledge.

Best of Enemies?

One can speculate on what was meant to be, but ultimately we can only deal with what is. So let’s dig into that. The first thing to note is this film feels very small. There are effectively only four characters with any importance to the story and Jared Harris is used sparsely. Adria Arjona has a bit more of a role but even that feels like it is missing some key character moments. The movie instead focuses on Smith and Leto. In itself that’s not a bad move but if you are going to focus so heavily on a pair of friends that become enemies there should really be more of an emotional connection between them. Instead while both actors do their best for their role ultimately every decision either character makes is entirely done to drive the plot. None of it feels particularly natural. There’s very little emotional ambivalence and when they inevitably face off it doesn’t really feel like two life long friends that have gone past the point of no return.

Living Vampire or Dying Franchise?

The plot is itself simple and largely predictable. There is no more to it than what you would read in a synopsis. I would say there is nothing more to the movie than you see in the trailer, but actually there is more in the trailer! This is a bare bones story that has promise and had they found an angle to focus on or expand it could actually have been good. But alas, there is no such angle. The movie just ploughs through a series of events from start to end with almost no character growth, world building or plot complexities (outside of some obvious “twists”). 

Ultimately what is there is absolutely fine. The actors performances were solid, the action sequences mostly work, there are a few cool visuals and there are no overbearing politics or modern clichés that made me especially dislike it The problem is there just isn’t much to the film at all. One day maybe there will be an Espinosa cut or at least some kind of explanation about why the end result appears so different to what was promised in that first trailer. That should make for an interesting story, in the meantime though this movie does not. 

Rating: 4.5 out of 10.

House on Haunted Hill (1959)

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For tonight’s horror viewings I have “House on Haunted Hill”. Directed by William Castle and written by Robb White. The pair would later make the infamous gimmick horrors “The Tingler” and “13 Ghosts” that tried to encourage audience participation in the movies. Castle would also be the man behind getting Rosemary’s Baby made into a film, though he didn’t direct it (Which was a requirement of getting the rights, likely to avoid “Tingler” like gimmicks). The movie was remade in 1999, to minimal acclaim though that movie did spawn a sequel.

Vincent Price

The Set up

In this movie though, Vincent Price stars as Frederick Loren an eccentric millionaire that has challenged five people to spend the night in a haunted house for the prize of $10,000 if they survive (about $100k in today’s money). They are joined in the house by Frederick and his cynical unhappy wife Annabelle (Carol Ohmart). Our five strangers are the heroic Lance Schroeder (Richard Long), the level headed Dr. Trent (Alan Marshall), the neurotic Nora Manning (Carolyn Craig), journalist Ruth Bridges (Julie Mitchum) and the houses traumatized owner Watson Pritchard (Elisha Cook Jr.).

The door are to be locked at midnight trapping whomever is inside until morning. Things begin with a few frights and a lot of cynicism and it becomes clear that it may not be the ghosts that people need to be afraid of in this house (I mean they are locked in a house with Vincent Price, what do you expect). The only guest that really believes in the ghosts is Pritchard, who was traumatized by staying there previously (and the often underrated Elisha does an excellent job here of selling the supernatural aspects to the audience in the face of everyone else’s cynicism). Nora though is certainly afraid and is the victim of a campaign of terror. The truth is though she is not the real focus, but merely a pawn in a cunning plan.

Not the scariest

The Execution

So this movie is really more of a macabre murder mystery than an actual haunted house movie and as such it’s worth noting that it isn’t at all scary. The haunting aspects are basically just goofy, Carolyn Craig sells her terror well enough but I doubt even in the day the audience really believed the ghosts were the problem. As a murder mystery it’s not the most complicated but it is definitely satisfactory and has some good twists. Vincent Price is of course a joy to watch in this kind of role and he plays it about half way between his serious roles and his more over the top ones (Such as the classic Dr.Phibes). The music and sound design is very 1950’s and so feels dated but fitting for the kind of movie it is and I loved the use of the Theremin.

Overall, this movie lacks rewatchability and frankly is not scary, however largely thanks to Vincent Price it is still entertaining in a campy sort of way.

Rating: 5.5 out of 10.