Tag: October Challenge

Blood Diner (1987)

Posted on by fenrisfil

Well that’s it, the final review of my 2023 October Challenge. This is the low budget horror comedy “Blood Diner” from 1987. The movie was the third of four movies directed by Jackie Kong in a short career likely only made possible by the VHS boom of the 80’s. The movie was written by Michael Sonye, who has had a reasonable career as an actor but only has writing credits for six movies. This is the highest rated on IMDb at 5.3/10. His lowest is rated at 2.8 out of ten. This is one of those movies where much of the cast have only appeared in this one film and many of the ones that have been in other things use shots from this movie as their bio picture on IMDb (Or have no picture). This gives you hint of what to expect!

Bon Appétit.

The plot of the movie revolves around a pair of cannibals and their “Vegetarian” diner. Two brothers and their dead uncle (Now a brain in a jar) are planning to perform an ancient ceremony to resurrect the ancient Lumerian goddess Sheetar. To do this they have to make a number of preparations that mostly involve killing young women, preparing a cannibalistic stew that will make those that consume it turn into feral zombie like cannibals and prepare the sacrifice of a virgin. On their tail are a pair of tough yet bumbling police officers, investigating a what appears to be a serial killer targeting vegetarians.

Junk Food.

Okay, so I’m just going to say it: This is a bad movie. Whenever I review a fairly average movie I usually say “It’s not terrible but…”, well this one is terrible and there is no real “But” to that. There are some good ideas, but the execution of them is so poor that most viewers likely won’t even give it that much credit. It is poorly acted, poorly scripted, badly paced (Rushing from one joke/murder to the next without giving any of it room to breath), music that seems absent half the time it is needed and overstays it’s welcome when it is not, the gore was so comical that it lost all impact and worst of all, it just wasn’t funny.

Most of the humour falls flat. Most of the jokes are either casual but cartoon like violence or general gross out stuff. There were three scenes that were sort of funny. One was the intro, specifically the radio broadcast about the psycho. Another was where one of the brothers has to keep running someone over before he actually dies and another where a woman having seen her friend being chopped up goes to run away, but then runs back because she forgot her handbag. That was it. The rival chef’s ventriloquist dummy could have been funny in theory, but didn’t really work in practice. It felt out of place and just came across as pointless and dumb.

So Bad It’s Bad.

The acting is especially bad. I’ve watched a lot of low budget B-movies, so I have a pretty good tolerance for bad acting, but this was next level bad. Pretty much all the actors playing the police were dreadful. The worst of the bunch was Sheba Jackson as “LaNette La France” and it’s no surprise to see this is her only credit on IMDB. Max Morris was almost as bad as the Police Chief and joins Sheba in the “This is my only acting credit” department. Fortunately Rick Burks and Carl Crew, who played the two cannibal brothers were just regular bad, though the script they had to work with didn’t do them any favours. Drew Godderis also managed a tolerable performance as the brain in a jar psycho uncle, though he is helped by just being a voice actor.

I get the impression half of the joke here is meant to be that the film is really bad. This kind of thing never really works for me. Things being intentionally bad always fail to reach that “So bad it’s good” category. Most humour works best when played straight, most funny low budget movies work best when the makers treat it seriously, no matter how crazy the ideas they are working on are. Here it seemed they spent too long laughing at their own jokes. Really a lot of this plays like a series of sketches haphazardly thrown together, with most of it adding nothing to the overall story.

Concussion.

Ultimately, this is one big fail. The concept could have worked, but not with this director, writer and most of these actors. Some people may be able to get a kick out of it and I think being drunk and/or high will help. But coming in dry, it’s just plain bad. I give it a few points for trying to be fun and for the half decent concept, but the most generous I can be with this one is a low 3.5/10. On a side note, I like the trailer. It’s better than the movie. That’s all. Happy Halloween and whatever your viewing tonight (If anything), I hope it’s better that this!

Rating: 3.5 out of 10.

Five Nights At Freddy’s (2023)

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For the penultimate review of my 2023 October Challenge I’m checking out the long anticipated and recently released “Five Nights At Freddy’s”. This is of course based on the hugely successful survival horror video game series from 2014 onwards. So disclaimer up front: Although I own the first few games, I never got around to playing them. I know a reasonable amount about them, but I no doubt missed a lot of references. That said, that also means I’m not going to give the film any bonus points just for including Easter Eggs. This is directed by Emma Tammi

 A Magical Place.

The movie is set mostly at “Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza”, a closed down 80’s diner that is likely based off Chuck E. Cheese that features large animatronic robots that resemble anthropomorphic animals. In the prologue we see the death of the previous security guard at the hands of the animatronic monsters and we are then treated to a pretty cool intro credits sequence involving what appears to be a tribute to the 8-bit style minigames from some of the games. We’ve then introduced to our protagonist “Mike Schmidt” played by Josh Hutcherson (Mike was also the protagonist from the first game). This version of Mike has a young sister Abby (Piper Rubio) he takes care off and a traumatized past where his brother was kidnapped and never seen again.

Mike is desperate to find a job so he doesn’t have to give up custody of his sister to their greedy Aunt Jane (Mary Stuart Masterson). As a result he takes the job of the new night security guard at the Pizzeria. The place has a strange effect on him though, where his recurring dream about the kidnap of his brother is altered to including five mysterious children that he believes may hold the secret to the identity of the kidnapper. Things reach a whole new level of crazy though when he discovers the animatronics are possessed by the souls of murdered children and it’s these children that were appearing to him. This revelation puts him and his sister in imminent danger however, both from the animatronics and their mysterious master.

Horror In The Hallways.

So the first thing to mention here is as far as being a horror goes, the movie is very light. There isn’t really much in the way of jump scares, though the animatronics are done very well and do look pretty menacing. There are kills of course, mostly in one section where Aunt Jane sends a group of thugs to smash up the diner in an attempt to get Mike fired. The problem here really is that all the kills are either people we don’t know (The original security guard) or bad people we are meant to dislike and none of the kills are themselves particularly interesting. The horror elements are also very spread out, so if you turned up to watch people slaughtered by animatronics you will probably be disappointed.

That out of the way, there’s actually a lot of positives with this movie. It just may not be what people expect going in. What it does excel at is the general look. As I mentioned above the animatronics look great and it’s satisfying to see quality practical effects on my screen again. The monsters have enough life to both be able to express basic emotions and to provide a suitable amount of menace. The diner also looks great and the general feel seems to fit really well with what I would expect for something with 80’s ties. Of course 80’s nostalgia has been done to death, but here it used right. Never really pushing it too far, though of course it’s not set in the 80’s that’s just where the diner originates.

The Players And The Game.

The second thing I liked here was how they managed to take the basic premise of the game and work a character driven story into it. This is very much Mike’s movie, but his sister and officer Vanessa Shelly (Played by Elizabeth Lail) all get decent character development. Even the con woman babysitter (Secretly working for his aunt) actually has an implied crisis of conscience after having grown attached to Abby. Through this the movie actually has the feel of a family film and with its PG-13 rating I think parents could find this quite a suitable Halloween film for the family.

In regards to the actors performances I can’t say any particularly stand out. Probably Mary Stuart Masterson is most notable, though her role is short and her character one dimensional. The other characters are absolutely fine, but nothing more. The music is a little hit and miss, in places working very well but in others feeling sort of generic. Having not played the game I don’t know if there were any musical references, but I gather the first game largely used modified public domain music so probably not. The story itself appears to be very true to the main story/theme of the game, with only a few minor modifications which were entirely reasonable to make it work as a film. Of course big fans of the game may disagree on that, I can only go by the broad strokes I’m aware of.

Freddy Vs Willy Vs Banana!

Since this movie was beaten to the screen by two knock off’s of its concept, it’s worth examining how those contrasts with them. The movies I’m talking about here are “The Banana Splits” (2019) and “Willy’s Wonderland” (2021). The Splits was the first out and utilized a licence for the Banana Splits franchise, a legit children’ s program’s variety show that ran from 1970-1982. A bold movie and the movie itself was perhaps the most straight horror of the three. I actually quite enjoyed it and anyone that hasn’t seen it and wanted more horror to this movie should probably give it a shot.

Willy’s Wonderland however was largely a subversion of the concept, where the animatronics (In this case possessed by a serial killer and his acolytes) come across something more terrifying than themselves… Nicholas Cage. It’s actually a huge amount of fun, but must be said is really more about Cage’s character. This one was far more action orientated and far less of a character story since Cage keeps silent the whole time and outside of some obsessive compulsive behaviour is largely just an ass kicking machine.

Despite coming out last, Five Nights At Freddy’s contrasts really well with it’s imitators. It provides something they don’t with its more family friendly, polished and character driven approach and with that, carves out it’s own place in the world of psycho animatronics. Perhaps most importantly though in the head to head, the animatronics simply look much better in this Movie (Credit to the Jim Henson team for that). Is it better though? I think all three films will have their supporters. Personally I preferred WIlly’s Wonderland, but I would say Freddy’s is the objective best of the bunch.

Conclusion.

Overall this was an entertaining film. It dragged a tiny bit in places and the actual horror elements were a bit disappointing both in their number and quality. However it has a great atmosphere, solid character writing and appears to be relatively true to the game. Far truer than most video game adaptations anyway. So this is a strong 6/10. Worth a watch, even if you aren’t a fan of the games.

Rating: 6 out of 10.

Carnival of Souls (1962)

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Tonight’s movie is the arty indie movie “Carnival of Souls” from 1962. Loosely based on a French short film and later Twilight Zone episode “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”. The setting and characters are drastically changed but the core of the story is the same. This version was directed by Herk Harvey (As his only feature length movie) and stars Candace Hilligoss with main support from Frances Feist and Sidney Berger. Originally it was released as part of a double feature with the Swedish anthology film “The Devil’s Messenger” (Actually a compilation of episodes from a TV show). The movie was largely forgotten until randomly becoming a cult classic in the 80’s. Let’s see if this Carnival is worth visiting.

Life Is A Drag.

The story starts with “Mary Henry” (Hilligoss) and her friends being challenged to a drag race by some young men. During the race Mary’s car goes off a bridge. It appears there are no survivors until someone spots Mary struggling to the shore. A few weeks later she has decided to leave the town and take a job as a church organist in Salt Lake City. Here she is haunted by visions of a strange man (and occasionally over ghoulish apparitions) and finds herself strangely drawn to an old pavilion just outside town where there used to be a carnival.

Mary seems to be indifferent to personal relationships and going through life now almost like in a day dream. When she actually does dream, she dreams of being invisible to people and still pursued by that strange man. Usually when he catches up to her is when she awakens. One day while practicing her organ parts at the church she falls into a kind of trance where she starts playing spooky music (It’s a shame it was six years too early for In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida) and sees people from the carnival dancing around. She is stopped by the reverend who fires and for playing such “Satanic” music. Freaked out, Mary tries to spend the evening with her neighbouring lodger John (Berger) so as to not be alone, but eventually drives him off too. The following day she decides to flee from the town… but can she leave?

A Silent Movie With Sound.

Carnival of Souls is very much an art movie. Director Herk Harvey was influenced by European films of the period such as the works of Igmar Bergman and Jean Cocteau. However, this movie comes across to me more like a silent movie… just with occasional speech. The organ soundtrack is reminiscent of a live musician playing to a silent movies (As well of course being a reference to Mary’s job) and the more silent scenes involving the carnival ghouls have the entities moving around in exaggerated ways that could be right out of a silent film. There is not a great deal of dialogue and that’s probably for the best because the acting is mediocre at best.

The editing and cinematography is well done considering how much of it was filmed guerrilla style (I.e. Rushed and without permit). It’s no masterclass though and is overall quite a mixed bag. Some very impressive spots and some seeming quite amateur. However all together, it fits the tone of the movie. The whole thing is designed to feel like somewhat of a dream and for a very specific reason, which you should have already guessed. Spoilers for the next section, skip to the conclusion if you don’t want to know the twist.

Soul Spoiler Section.

I’ve written before about twist movies, but there are some times where a twist doesn’t make a movie disposable and that’s where the movie doesn’t rely on the shock factor to work. In the case of Carnival of Souls… well, the name is pretty much a giveaway to the story, at least paired with the already quite suspicious intro with the car crash. It’s pretty obvious that Mary is dead so when the car is recovered in the epilogue with her still in it, there was no shock.

But it’s not just the title, the entire tone of the movie, the dreams where Mary can’t be seen by regular people and her aloof nature, not even feeling any desire to be with people, until she was afraid to be alone. All these things laid out Mary’s condition pretty plainly. I don’t know what they did intend with the movie, but in my view it was never meant to be a shock. It was meant to feel inevitable and we were meant to be watching a lost souls journey into accepting the reality of her terrible fate. The story of the ghost that doesn’t realise they are dead is pretty well known these days and a fairly standard part of the horror genre, not sure I can think of earlier examples on film though. So credit for that.

Conclusion

All told this is a very melancholy horror film. Indeed it’s not really much of a horror, it’s more just a sad supernatural story. The ghouls are far from scary, partially because neither the extras playing those roles nor the quality of their make up was especially good. The lead ghoul was actually played by the director, but was not much more convincing than the rest. But none of that is a big problem because as a melancholy supernatural tale it doesn’t need horror. The movie talks to isolation, both self imposed and simply not feeling part of society. It is also a very fatalistic movie. It certainly invokes a vibe.

Overall this movie is a pretty straight line from A to B but presented like a confusing dream. It was always clear where things would lead, and while it embraces that it doesn’t give you a huge amount extra. With very little actually going on in, without any real actors performances of note and with a conceptually interesting but easily forgettable soundtrack this movie ends up feeling overly long, despite the short run time (80 minutes). This is effectively a short movie dragged out into a feature. Which is not surprising considering it is literally based on a short French movie/Twilight Zone episode. This is a strong 5.5/10. Sure to be divisive, artier viewers and those that love good cinematography will enjoy it, those after fun entertainment or engaging characters will probably not.

Rating: 5.5 out of 10.

The Wolf Man (1941)

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For tonight’s October Challenge review it’s time to fix a gaping hole in my Horror viewing and check out the Universal Horror classic and one of the earliest werewolf movies “The Wolf Man” from 1941. This wasn’t the first werewolf movie as they’ve been around since 1913. “Werewolf of London” came out only a few years earlier in 1935 and that movie largely created the modern concept of the Werewolf including passing the curse from a bite and full moons triggering the transformation. This however was the gold standard and the most famous Werewolf movie for the next 40 years (Until “American Werewolf in London” came out in 1981)

Whoever Is Bitten By A Werewolf And Lives…

The Wolf Man was written by Curt Siodmak (Robert’s brother) and directed by George Waggner. The movie stars Lon Chaney Jr. in the titular role as “Lawrence Talbot”. The supporting cast included Claude Rains, Warren William, Ralph Bellamy, Bela Lugosi and Evelyn Ankers. Lugosi’s role is brief but pivotal. The movie begins with Lawrence’s return to the Talbot estate after the passing of his brother. He hasn’t been back for a while but he and his father (Played by Rains). Larry becomes infatuated with a local girl called “Gwen” (Ankers) and takes her and her friend “Jenny” to have their fortune read by some local gypsies.

While Jenny is having her fortune read, Larry takes Gwen off for a walk. They hear Jenny screaming and Larry rushes to her to find her being attacked by a wolf. Larry is unable to save Jenny but kills the wolf with his cane (A cane with a silver wolf head on it, purchased from Gwen’s shop earlier in the day). Having been bitten during the struggle, Larry is injured and taken home. The next morning the body Jenny is found alongside a dead gypsy that has been killed with a blunt instrument.

Lawrence is told by another Gypsy that he was bitten by a Werewolf and is now doomed to become one. This upsets Larry, who can sense something is wrong but is not yet willing to accept it. However over the following nights Larry finds he is transformed into something part way between a man and a wolf and though he has no memory of it, he has been killing people while in that form. Larry suspects the truth and as a good man at heart he is broken by it. This is a story that can only end in tragedy.

There’s Something Very Tragic About That Man

This is the archetypal tragic monster story. Larry’s battle is more of an emotional and psychological one than a physical one. From the moment he is bitten he is not the same. No longer bold, confident and charming. Instead he uncertain of himself and of the world around him. Now punished for his act of heroism in facing the wolf by being cursed until the day he dies. Lon Chaney Jr. performs his part perfectly and broadcasts an air of tragedy in every scene he is in after. The rest of the cast is solid, but outside the brief Lugosi appearance nothing particularly stands out.

What does stand out is the visuals. The sets are very well made, the use of fog and lighting make the whole picture very aesthetically pleasing and atmospheric. It would be many years before you could really pull something like this off in colour and this movie makes maximum use of the benefits of black and white. It’s the kind of lighting and shot framing used in this kind of horror movie that would later be a big influence of Film Noir directors.

Bark At The Moon.

Of course this is a very short movie at only one hour and ten minutes long. Fortunately the plot is very focused and straight forward, so there are no obvious holes. This was the standard Universal way of working for these horrors. To a modern viewer now it definitely feels a bit rushed, especially towards the ending.Much like with Frankenstein, most of the movie is the origin story and then it’s a rush to the finish line. In many ways it’s actually a very similar story to American Werewolf and the contrast between the two exposes the two main weaknesses, the first being the legnth.

The second weakness in comparison to modern movies is of course the effects. After American Werewolf showed us a full on Werewolf transformation and The Howling presented truly monstrous Werewolves it’s hard to look back at the limitations of 1941 and fully appreciate what they achieved. The Wolf Man make up does look pretty good and we do see a sort of transformation with spontaneous appearances of hair. The problem is when we see the original Werewolf it is a full on wolf (Or wolf prop for most of that fight). That made it seems sort of strange that Larry doesn’t go full wolf. I guess having Larry fight a man-wolf at the start would have made his skepticism not make sense.

Conclusion

Overall this is a great tragic horror that in some regards has aged badly but still largely holds up. Ultimately Werewolf movies are hard and most of them are not especially good, so that this early entry in the list is still in the top ten (Possibly even top 5) is a great testament to the quality of the film making. In it’s day I’d say this was a 7/10, but for the modern day I rate it a narrow 6/10.

Rating: 6 out of 10.

Nefarious (2023)

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Tonight’s October Challenge Review is the recently released independent horror film “Nefarious”. Directed by the combo of Chuck Konzelman and Cary Solomon and based on the novel “A Nefarious Plot” by Steve Deace. This isn’t a combo I would usually expect to entertain me as they’ve mostly done religious movies in the past, but I’d heard good things about this movie so wanted to check it out. The two leads for the movie are Sean Patrick Flanery and Jordan Belfi. Flannery is probably most famous for “The Boondock Saints” and was always a capable actor, though probably has more misses than hits to his name. Belfi meanwhile is mostly a TV actor, but a capable one. Its a solid choice of actors for an independent movie.

A Nefarious Plot.

The plot of the movie is relatively simple on the surface. The psychiatrist Dr. James Martin has been called in at the last minute to assess the mental state of prolific serial killer Edward Wayne Brady so that he can be executed (By the electric chair, something he requested himself). He is a last minute replacement since the previous psychiatrist committed suicide. Most of the rest of the story is the conversation between the two of them, with the occasional brief interlude. In that conversation Brady claims to be a demon, and begins a psychological battle with the psychiatrist in an attempt to get him to publish his book, a sort of demonic bible. The demon has been studying Martin ever since he was a boy and knows exactly what buttons to push and when.

During the interview and while Martin is still fully skeptical Brady/Nefariamus convinces him to invite the demon inside him to prove that he is lying. Nothing happens, at least not at that point. But from then on Brady/Nefariamus has the upper hand. He tells Martin he will commit three murders before he leaves. These murders are entirely subjective and part of the mind games. To cover any more of the plot would be spoilers though.

Interlude.

This is a movie that had great word of mouth from viewers, but has been slammed by politically partisan critics that effectively review bomb anything they even suspect of leaning right or being at all Christian. For example “Joker”, which I don’t personally consider right wing, but the critics did, not just suffered unfair review bombing from those critics, but also a media campaign to dissuade people from viewing in fear of supposed “Incel murder sprees” they claimed would take place in the cinema. Yes this is a thing that happened and it’s bizarre people still give those that manufactured that panic a pass.

In this case the critics seem to object to the Christian leanings in the film and yet the idea of complaining about such leanings in a film literally about demonic possession is the kind of absurdness that leads to… Well, the recent Exorcist film, that presents a demonic possession based on a very Christian demon and yet seems ashamed of the existence of Christianity. Bizarre. It used to be the scene in the Exorcist that offended people was when Regan masturbates with a crucifix. Now it’s saying “The power of Christ compels you”.

Yes it’s undeniable that it has Christian leanings especially considering Konzelman and Solomon’s previous output, but having seen the film it’s clear in this case the reviewers are not being objective. One of their complaints is that they think the demon is acting as the mouth piece for the directors views. It’s odd to complain about a character that is the embodiment of pure evil expressing opinions they don’t like. Maybe it’s a demon rights thing. Anyway, let’s get back to the review.

Two Men In Alone In A Room… Or Are They?

Considering this movie is almost entirely two men in a room talking, it is incredibly effective. A movie like that requires two strong actors and we have that here with Flannery and Belfi, both of whom put in a career best here. Flannery especially is remarkably good both as the demon and it’s victim. It also requires strong writing as it’s going to be very easy to pick at a film that is almost entirely dialogue. Not all the dialogue was completely convincing for me, but about three quarters of it worked well and that’s a pretty good ratio for a movie was so much of it. I have to give credit to Konzelman and Solomon. Of course I’ve not read the source material, so I don’t know how much is them and how much is from the novel.

In regards to the possession side of things, this feels to me in some ways a spiritual successor to the Denzel Washington movie “Fallen” from 1998. The demon can’t jump bodies as quickly as that one, but using it’s victims to commit horrible murders is pretty similar and the demon feels a lot like the one in that movie. The main difference of course is the smaller budget and scale. There’s only two scenes that come close to action here, so the style is different but the tone really reminds of that 90’s classic. While not unique, it is a rarer way to portray demonic possession. It’s nice to occasionally break away from the usual child possession stuff.

Letting Evil In.

There’s nothing really to talk about effects wise and there is very little music, though what is there is used effectively. Where there is music it is very subtle, slow and suspenseful. Mostly it is present in the scenes between the interviews. During the monologues it is mostly silent and that makes those scenes even more menacing. Despite being dialogue heavy, it’s actually a relatively fast paced movie with a lot of intensity. Even though I am agnostic and this does have an undeniable Christian slant, ideas such as the dangers of inviting evil into your life are universal to the human condition. Plus of course from a mythological/story point of view, the idea that evil may be winning the eternal war in always a great horror premise

Conclusion.

This one deserves a strong 7/10 and I think most people I think will find this compelling. The exception being if you are offended by the Christian slant. It probably would have benefited from toning that down a little (and it may have cost it a 7.5/10 from me). However, it’s definitely not required to be a believer to find this compelling. I mean, you don’t need to believe in vampires to enjoy Dracula do you? For me this is the best movies I’ve seen so far this October, but there are a few more days left, so we’ll see if it still has it’s crown by the 31st.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10.

City Of The Living Dead (1980)

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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.