Suitable Flesh.

Review #2469: Suitable Flesh.

Cast: 

Heather Graham (Dr. Elizabeth Derby), Judah Lewis (Asa Waite), Bruce Davison (Ephraim Waite), Johnathon Schaech (Edward Derby), Barbara Crampton (Dr. Daniella Upton), Graham Skipper (Pathologist), Brett Newton (Professor Fisk), Chris McKenna (Crawley), J. D. Evermore (Detective Ledger), and Ann Mahoney (Susan) Directed by Joe Lynch (#2468 - Mayhem)

Review:

"I think part of it stems from I grew up watching a lot of horror movies -- and again, this is just my kind of cinematic fetish -- I like to be affected by watching something. I don't like to just complacently let something wash over me, whether it's watching Airplane! or Top Secret where you can't help but laugh at the absurdity of everything that's happening on screen, to A Serbian Film, where you can't help but go [cringes] "Ohhhh, ugh, my god." There's something about the kind of films I grew up watching and still watch today that push the limits because I like to be provoked. I like to see where that line is as a viewer and go "Yeah, go ahead, push it over." I want to be challenged. I like cinema that challenges me."

You might remember that Dennis Paoli wrote a handful of films with Stuart Gordon to varying success. Paoli had been friends with Stuart Gordon since high school with a shared interest in films and reading. Naturally this became a fit for Gordon's Re-Animator (1985), which was based on the works of H.P. Lovecraft. Paoli served as a co-writer on From Beyond (1986), another loose adaptation of Lovecraft. Paoli worked on a handful of scripts for movies in the years that followed, such as The Pit and the Pendulum (1991), Body Snatchers (1993) and Dagon (2001). Gordon and Paoli had planned to work together on an adaptation of Lovecraft's The Thing on the Doorstep, but it never got all the way off the ground before Gordon died in 2020. The resulting remembrances of Gordon led to Paoli and Barbara Crampton reconnecting and talking about scripts, as she was now a producer. He brought it over to Crampton, who in turned showed it to Lynch. Lynch had an interesting idea that intrigued Paoli and others: gender-swapping the leads. The film had a limited release in 2023 before getting onto the video/streaming circuit.

Admittedly, I do sometimes check the rating of a film by other folks around the Internet to get a gauge on how people view something because, well, it never hurts to check. For whatever reason, this is apparently one of those "love it or hate it" type of flick, and I guess the viewpoint doesn't help matters, since Lynch wanted to make a movie where the lead character visualizes the movie as if it was a "late night 10 o'clock erotic thriller from the '80s or '90s". If you go in thinking the movie will just be a Gordon pastiche, well, you might not get all you want, particularly with the effects, but I don't really see a problem with that here. This is a body-swapping movie that wants to ask what all the fuss is about in feeling around new things that, proudly or not, would be fit for the "Skinemax" comparison...or an offbeat Freaky Friday with a few camera spins. Honestly, I dug the movie, mostly because there is something to have fun with in the mayhem of body politics with a demon that likes to jump around for the sake of trying new things (and also smoke) at the expense of people's lives. In that sense, Graham and Lewis have a bit of a challenge in making the swap game interesting beyond just doing the "how to prove one isn't who they are" thing. Each approach it in different ways, naturally (a tiny bit of nudity comes from seeing Graham and maybe a tiny bit of kinky nature). A good chunk of it could be considered a "midlife crisis" when it comes to Graham's character, as if writing books and having to hear people prattle on in therapy while being married just can't compare to maybe, just maybe, having a bit on the side. Graham makes this trouble work, I can believe that one could be tempted (and then, well, horrified) by a new presence among the doldrums of life. When it comes to the scenes of swapping, she makes it quite charming to actually see engage with the new self (yes, the demon craves flesh and doesn't really care who it is, which I guess makes it a greedy bastard more than just bisexual). In the torment of what is and what isn't quite there in the body, Lewis makes a worthy performer to display some of the charm and some of the strangeness in trying to adapt around, mainly because the chemistry between him and Graham is more the fact that he is just something new rather than because he's God's gift to talking to women. Admittedly, it is nice to see a few moments with Davison commit to the bit of playing a hungry demon needing a nibble for a time, and Crampton makes a capable presence of going with the growing absurdity of events without being swept away by it. Some might think it a bit hokey with its body swapping and maybe not nearly as gooey as it could be, but I had a fun time with the movie, mostly because I thought it was a pretty amusing movie in seeing the perils of basically a midlife crisis explode in your face. I liked its sleazy nature, right down to its ending and would say that even if it isn't for everybody, it is nice to have a movie as weird as this come around every now and then.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

And so ends the 7th rendition of Halloween: The Week After. Nine reviews over the course of those seven days went mostly without a hitch. The horror season will be a fun one in 2026 with all of the runner-ups we had in October/November. We'll see how the rest of the month goes and beyond. 

Some of the movies we missed in the 38 days of horror: 

The Girl Who Knew Too Much (1963), Frankenstein Unbound, Nightmares, Inn of the Damned, The Legacy (1978), The Guardian, Daughters of Darkness, The Uncanny, Torture Garden, The Company of Wolves, A Taste of Blood, Scream Blacula Scream, Monkey Shines, Basket Case, Full Circle (1977), Nightbreed, Innocent Blood, What Lies Beneath, He Knows You're Alone, Schlock (1973), Asylum (1972), The Monster Squad, People Toys, The Brood, The Descent Part 2, Messiah of Evil, The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb (1964)

Quartermass 2, Lust for a Vampire (1971), Captain Kronos – Vampire Hunter, Paranormal Activity, Ring 0, The Funhouse, Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, The Evil Dead (2013), Child's Play 3, Critters, Ginger Snaps, Possession (1981), Repulsion, The Omen II, One Missed Call, Van Helsing, Toxic Avenger II, The Return of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Insidious II, Scream 2, Phantasm II, Hellraiser II, Ravenous, and Drag Me to Hell.

Be ready for Halloween: The Week After - Crazy Eights in 2026.

Mayhem.

Review #2468: Mayhem.

Cast: 

Steven Yeun (Derek Cho), Samara Weaving (Melanie Cross), Steven Brand (John "The Boss" Towers), Caroline Chikezie (Kara "The Siren" Powell), Kerry Fox (Irene Smythe), Dallas Roberts (Lester "The Reaper" McGill), Mark Frost (Ewan Niles), Claire Dellamar (Meg), André Eriksen (Colton "The Bull" Snyder), Nikola Kent (Oswald), Lucy Chappell (Jenny), and Olja Hrustic (CDC Official) Directed by Joe Lynch.

Review: 

"That’s what Mayhem is all about, it’s a battle against passive aggression. Everybody wants to discuss when they should just say no and just say that they don’t like this! Why do we have to side-bar everything? Why do we have to have another meeting? Because people’s voices might get raised? Someone’s feelings might get hurt? No one wants to get anyone’s feelings hurt anymore because someone will sue. That’s the problem with the corporate world. It’s this serpent eating its tail, because no one can be honest and everyone will sue. It’s such a deadening situation where no one can be their true selves. And part of directing is being able to be yourself, it’s your vision, it’s your voice!"

It only seems right to close things out with a fresh face. Joe Lynch initially started out as a child actor on Long Island but found himself interested in making films by the time he was studying at Syracuse University in the late 1990s. With a visual style described as being influenced by films such as "Evil Dead II, Goodfellas, and Raising Arizona way too many times as a kid", he graduated with a bachelor's degree in visual and performing arts and had a few student short films make the festival circuit. Lynch directed music videos for a variety of groups before becoming a feature director with Wrong Turn 2: Dead End (2007), which had a brief horror festival run before being released on DVD. Further efforts for films include Chillerama [2011] (directing a segment), Knights of Badassdom [2013] (a movie he disowned), and Everly [2014]. The script was written by Matias Caruso. Lynch had plenty of experience with corporate irritation, noting his experience trying to do anthology project to do videos that ran into plenty of hassles. The movie was shot in Serbia due to the country giving the filmmakers the proper amount of days they needed to shoot (25, which compared well to the 15 offered by Pittsburgh and 18 by Vancouver). The film was released in a few theaters and on "VOD and digital HD", and, well, I found it on a DVD pack that seemed promising, so why not?*

Sure, there have been a few action horror movies involving boatloads of crazed lunacy in a building. A cursory glance shows a few movies involving a fight to survive, whether that was Mean Guns [1997] (fight to the death for cash between killers), The Tournament [2009] (rich people watching others kill for sport), or The Belko Experiment [2016] (workers locked in a building told to start killing each other). Here you get one involving a virus that gets in your head and turns your impulses into a thing that may be a worthy killing machine, albeit one that makes sure to say the attacker isn't liable for their actions. I imagine there has also been at least one movie about fighting to the top of a building. But there is something infectious about the way the movie maneuvers through 86 minutes of a few thrills within moments of delirious execution at the office. The horrors of being in a crappy job that degrades one soul probably does go hand in hand with the horrors of people wanting to act their impulses to kick the crap out of you, to put it mildly. In that sense, it is a crowd pleaser for a handful of moments in terms of quick cuts to the action and a few fun lines, even if it likes the voice over perhaps a bit too many times. Yeun (best known at the time for his work on The Walking Dead*) does make for a solid lead to hold it together in wavering action status, one trying to balance the impulses that come with office politics and wanting to find a way out of being a drone off the old block. Weaving makes for a worthy pairing with Yuen in energy that bounce off each other in mutually assured destruction (of others), charming but convincing in being ready to handle whatever happens in the movie with nail guns and fists. Brand and others get their moments of making corporate stooges a bit more unnerving when poised to actually use violence beyond the usual corporate twist-and-turning, which works out for a few chuckles (mostly highlighted by Chikezie). At least the ending has a few chuckles in the idea of a business-mandated push to try and cure the virus (hey, this was made in 2017), although it probably is a bit routine in the actual endpoint (and a bit inevitable). In general, Mayhem has a few entertaining moments seeing the horrors of the corporate world go upside down for a few punches that might make for a worthwhile recommendation.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

*Unusually, you can thank The Last Drive-in with Joe Bob Briggs for this double-header coming to fruition, as I eyed a "double feature DVD" that had a disc of this film and Suitable Flesh. So one spends a little over two hours each watching a movie that happens to have little segments of Briggs making commentary on the film. Honestly, I don't actually watch the Drive-in because I'm not much of a streaming service (as available on...Shudder) person or a live show guy, but it does sound like something cool to see around.

*What's that show?

Black Sunday (1960).

Review #2467: Black Sunday.

Cast: 

Barbara Steele (Asa Vajda/Katia Vajda), John Richardson (Dr. Andrej Gorobec), Andrea Checchi (Dr. Choma Kruvajan), Ivo Garrani (Prince Vajda), Arturo Dominici (Igor Javutich), Enrico Olivieri (Constantine Vajda), Tino Bianchi (Ivan, the Vajdas' Manservant), Antonio Pierfederici (Priest), Clara Bindi (Innkeeper), Mario Passante (Nikita, the Coachman), Renato Terra (Boris, the Vajdas' Stableman), and Germana Dominici (Sonya, the Innkeeper's Daughter) Directed by Mario Bava (#792 - Black Sabbath)

Review: 

I have to admit that I haven't covered as much Italian horror (in its native language, preferably) as I possibly could. Mario Bava actually wanted to be a painter in his youth, but he found that following in his father Eugenio's footsteps of cameraman was his best option, serving as an assistant working on special effects in the late 1930s. Bava was approached by his friend Riccardo Freda about the idea of developing a horror film one day, which led to I Vampiri (1957), a movie Bava was to shoot and provide special effects for. However, he was thrust into the director's chair for the final two days of production when Freda left production, which had Bava come up with a new ending and include stock footage. There were other movies where Bava did work you could consider directorial work, such as The Day the Sky Exploded (1958), where actor accounts said he directed it more than the credited directed Paulo Heusch. There was also Jacques Tourneur's The Giant of Marathon (1959), a film Bava shot but had to do reshoots for exterior scenes because apparently there were moments where you could see extras smoking on camera. And then of course there was Caltiki – The Immortal Monster (1959), a sci-fi horror movie with dubious accounts over who really directed it between Bava and Freda, the latter of whom left in the middle of production. But Black Sunday [La maschera del demonio] was his formal debut as a director. Galatea, fresh off peddling movies such as the sword-and-sandal Hercules films, wanted to get another movie for the markets abroad and went with Bava, who wanted to make a horror film because of the recent success of Terence Fisher's Dracula (1957). He chose to base it on the novella "Viy", as written by Nikolai Gogol in 1835. Bava would do a variety of films in the horror genre to varying success, such as The Girl Who Knew Too Much [1963] & Blood and Black Lace [1964] (each considered among the early ones in the giallo genre), Planet of the Vampires [1965] (which some have compared to Alien [1979]), the action/crime comic movie Danger: Diabolik [1968], A Bay of Blood [1971] (likely his most violent movie). Bava's last completed film was with Shock [1977]; he died of a sudden heart attack in 1980 at the age of 65. 

American International bought the movie for the States release and did a re-dub with a few changes to the character names. Known as "La maschera del demonio" in its native country, AIP went with "Black Sunday" for the American title. There is an eerie sense of intrigue that comes with this film from the get-go of its 87-minute runtime. The opening in particular manages to intrigue the viewer closely with its imagery and sheer audacity (masks with spikes on the inside to hammer inside the evil beings). Steele has the double act that you sometimes get with costume dramas: the evil being filled with ambition and yet trapped to a specific place and the unfortunate reincarnation lookalike who can't quite catch a break. Steele became a star in various Italian movies because of the film, which she said "was probably the best of that genre of film I've made...but anybody could have been playing that girl." I think she sold herself a bit short here, there is just something to the way she moves and says her lines that manages an otherworldly feel of odd elegance. One has an unsettled feeling when watching the film at times when it comes what does get shown (sure, the other actors are mildly fine, but that's how it does sometimes). As a whole, Black Sunday has managed to attract so much interest over the years because of the sheer power you can feel in its bones of atmosphere that crisscross with elements of effective gore (such as the parts involving blood). There is something about how the movie feels and acts that you just didn't see back then that just manages to stay as unsettling and dazzling as it did back in 1960. You'll have an interesting treat on your hands with this film or other Bava movies, that's for sure.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

On tap to close out 7 Days of the Week After Halloween, as per tradition, a doubleheader: 

Mayhem / Suitable Flesh

Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist.

Review #2466: Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist.

Cast: 

Stellan Skarsgård (Father Lankester Merrin), Gabriel Mann (Father Francis), Clara Bellar (Rachel Lesno), Billy Crawford (Cheche), Ralph Brown (Sergeant Major), Israel Aduramo (Jomo), Andrew French (Chuma), Antonie Kamerling (Kessel), Julian Wadham (Major Granville), Eddie Osei (Emekwi), with Rick Warden (Corporal Williams), and Mary Beth Hurt (Pazuzu) Directed by Paul Schrader (#2290 - Cat People [1982])

Review: 

"I’m happy with the film. I realize its limitations. I realize that I made a film with a problematic commercial premise. Now, it may be a quality film, but there was no way this film was gonna go out and break box office records. Not gonna happen. Now the truth is, if they had tarted up my movie, cut it with some gore, done a misleading ad campaign, not shown it to critics, did a huge television [campaign], which is what they did for Renny’s film, they probably could have made somewhere in the same vicinity of money...But, I’m much happier having the film that I made exist in the form that I made it in rather than some tarted-up version I’d have to disown."

Exorcist: The Beginning was such a flop that Paul Schrader actually saw the film on opening weekend with William Peter Blatty and stated, "This is really bad. If it stays this bad, I bet there's a chance I can get mine resurrected." While Warner Bros. planned to give Schrader's film a direct-to-video release, Morgan Creek "generously" let Schrader do a limited theatrical release of his version, specifically a small amount of time and money to refine things (examples include that most of the music is recycled from the Harlin film and a lack of time to do ADR and color timing work). Tim Silano was approached to edit the movie but he insisted that Schrader be around to oversee it. Schrader, in seeing the nature of the Harlin film, went for "a little more leisurely" edit rather than the staccato cut he had done prior (the final movie was 116 minutes, which happened to be two minutes longer than The Beginning). Caleb Carr (who once called Schrader's original cut "one of the most inept, amateur, utterly flat excuses for a film that has ever been concocted") and William Wisher Jr were the only writers given credit for the screenplay. With a limited release in a few theaters (the same weekend as Revenge of the Sith) the movie was at least seen by people the way it should have been: not on the direct-to-video bargain bin; Schrader later called the experience as one he shouldn't have done, complete with saying he "got suckered". The Exorcist was not done being pillaged for new material, as a television series came and went in the 2010s before a new film came out with David Gordon Green's The Exorcist: Believer (2023), a movie that, you guessed it, paled in comparison to the original. 

It may interest you to know that Schrader once called The Exorcist "the greatest metaphor in cinema - God and the Devil in the same room arguing over the body of a little girl." The two Exorcist prequels basically run from the same start and end points with diverging ways to get there: a priest with a crisis of faith (1947/1949) encounters something in the midst of his time in Derati (British Kenya) that challenges who he is before he regains his faith. You could say that Blatty had a point in calling this film a "handsome, classy, elegant piece of work" while also noting that it can only go so far in trying to live up to its namesake. Both movies show Merrin have his faith shaken after being terrorized by a Nazi that has him choose people to die rather than see a whole group get taken out but this one starts with it rather than show it in parts as before. But here he is now an archaeologist that happens to find a buried church in Kenya, complete with having the exorcism target be a youth who goes from crippled to far more walkable by the time the effects (not quite finished, but hey) show up for a movie that at least tried to take evil seriously (before the loin cloth, anyway, that is when I start to chuckle). It is curious to see Skarsgård again hold up an Exorcist movie with the best performance, mainly because there is something to ponder in seeing one try to pick up the pieces of their faith with conviction that does at least make you believe he would be ready for what could happen next in say, The Exorcist. I guess you could say Mann provides the one supporting presence in either of these movies that is worth a glance, even if his role is mostly a whimpering one in the eyes of guilt (both movies end the same way for him anyway).You could say that the depiction of the military intruding upon the natives imitating what Merrin saw in the war is a curious one, but even then, it feels a bit polite when one is talking about evil (Merrin isn't exactly much better, at one point he wants people to work really really hard to dig out that church). I really wanted to like the movie, but there is a hollow feeling I get when watching the movie, it just doesn't feel nearly as tense or as interesting as it wishes to be in "angst". Schrader just seemed more interested in personal angst with Cat People and it also just seemed like a more well-rounded film. As a whole, Dominion holds up better as an overall movie than The Beginning, but neither movie really moves the needle on belonging as an actual prequel to The Exorcist. In their travels from finding faith through an exorcism, Dominion is mild in execution and altogether not as curious as it really feels like it should be, but it at least is entertainment when compared to the slop of Beginning. Pick your poison, I suppose.

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.

Exorcist: The Beginning.

Review #2465: Exorcist: The Beginning.

Cast: 

Stellan Skarsgård (Father Lankester Merrin), Izabella Scorupco (Sarah), James D'Arcy (Father Francis), Remy Sweeney (Joseph), Julian Wadham (Major Granville), Andrew French (Chuma), Ralph Brown (Sergeant Major), Ben Cross (Semelier), David Bradley (Father Gionetti), Alan Ford (Jefferies), Antonie Kamerling (Lieutenant Kessel), with Eddie Osei (Emekwi), and Rupert Degas (Pazuzu) Directed by Renny Harlin (#016 - Die Hard 2, #670 - Cliffhanger, #745 - A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master, #2163 - The Adventures of Ford Fairlane, #2240 - Cutthroat Island)

Review:

"What I tried to do is set up a lot of those unanswered questions that we see in the original. There are a lot of open plotlines that are never explained, so I tried to make it so that if you watch this film and then watch the original 'Exorcist,' the original will seem like the sequel."

Hey, remember when people thought The Exorcist could be a franchise? Morgan Creek Productions, not content with their excessive tinkering of William Peter Blatty's The Exorcist III (1990), had started plans to make a prequel to, well, The Exorcist (1973) in the late 1990s. William Wisher Jr (co-writer of Terminator 2: Judgement Day) did a first draft, and there were already people hired to try and helm the project by 1999 with Tom McLoughlin, but he left because of issues with the script. Apparently, the 2000 re-release (and subsequent money made from it) of the Exorcist film helped to put The Beginning on the fast track. Caleb Carr (novelist of books such as The Alienist) revised the screenplay and there were plans to have John Frankenheimer direct with Liam Neeson as the star in the summer of 2002...but neither came to pass, as Frankenheimer fell ill; he died in July 2002. Instead, Paul Schrader (director of Cat People (1983) and writer of films such as Taxi Driver) was hired to direct, with "Exorcist: The Beginning" beginning filming in late 2002. Schrader did his rewrite of the script to trim certain things, and the film was first screened to studio executives in May of 2003...and they didn't even bother to give him notes, as he was dumped because they apparently wanted to "re-edit the movie to make it scarier". They tried to re-cut the movie with Schrader involved and then Morgan Creek said to hell with things and instead searched for a new director for the film. They landed on Renny Harlin, who went with re-writes (Skip Woods, Alexi Hawley, and even Harlin himself, although only Hawley was credited), a few new actors (all but Skarsgård, French, Kamerling, and Wadham left) and, well, "action". The new Beginning film was shot in late 2003 but apparently had a hell of a time actually finishing production (Schrader had his film ripped out from under him, Harlin got hit by a car during production and was on crutches). In total, a movie that wa meant to be done for $35 million ballooned to $90 million and wasn't even screened for critics. At least Schrader seemed positive about seeing his version come to the masses, albeit as a "there's a buck to be made" while Blatty (in seeing The Beginning with Schrader in a theater) called The Beginning "surely the most humiliating professional experience of my life, particularly the finale."

It is so funny that Morgan Creek wanted to make a "scarier" film and wasted so much money on a venture that was just going to be skewered no matter what because of the history that comes with trying to play off the "Exorcist" name. III was the only good follow-up, and that was the one where the studio forced an exorcism for the climax. Harlin's movie suffers from just feeling so routine in its execution to the point of exhaustion, mainly because it is a corny experience to actually see play out, at least when you consider buried churches, goofy climaxes with voices, and butterflies. Apparently, Skarsgård (cast as a young version originally played by Max Vox Sydow, who also happened to be from Sweden) had differing approaches for his performance in each movie, once being quoted as saying that he was "much darker" in the Schrader version and even changed his makeup for this version. Undeniably, he does at least manage to be the shining light in either version you watch, mainly because you buy him as Merrin without it seeming like someone just playing dress-up. It at least matters a tiny bit to see his progression beyond just moving away from religion and to step into the shoes that we know, suffice to say. Unfortunately, the rest of the cast does not fare as well, mainly because the movie is so confused about what it really wants to do besides cheap moments (one guy slashing himself, another guy confronting butterflies and shooting himself) that you don't get a feel for any of them. One guy has a bunch of boils on his face and that's about all you can really say as a character. I guess there's one neat line in talking about the spot where Lucifer fell when it comes to the spooky buried church. The movie tries to fake you out in the idea that the focus of the possessed is actually a kid when really it is a woman and honestly, I couldn't help but chuckle because it meant that you at least see a spider-walk from an adult (complete with a demon voice talking about mounting because get it, they did it in the first one) rather than having to see the image of a kid doing it. One doesn't care about the conflict of the people besides Merrin, this could've almost been set anywhere if you think about it, complete with a lack of mystery. In general, the movie is just kind of boring, not really doing anything that makes you think about the first film in a different light while being a general waste of everyone's time. As someone who does give slack on occasion to compromised movies and things*, this was just one of those movies that goes out one ear and through the other. Morgan Creek spent oodles of money but couldn't find anything for audiences to give a damn about, that's probably the scariest thing in the whole movie.

Overall, I give it 5 out of 10 stars.

*Exorcist III was probably better with the exorcism in it, change my mind. Or Rise of Skywalker. Or The Stupids. Or any other strange film that I at least have given credit to over the years.

Tales from the Hood.

Review #2464: Tales from the Hood.

Cast:

Welcome to My Mortuary (framing segments): Clarence Williams III (Mr. Simms), Joe Torry ("Stack"), Samuel Monroe Jr. ("Bulldog"), and De'Aundre Bonds ("Ball")

"Rogue Cop Revelation" segment: Tom Wright (Martin Ezekiel Moorehouse), Anthony Griffith (Officer Clarence Smith), Wings Hauser (Officer Strom Richmond), Michael Massee (Officer Newton Hauser), and Duane Whitaker (Officer Billy Crumfield)

"Boys Do Get Bruised" segment: Brandon Hammond (Walter Johnson), Rusty Cundieff (Richard Garvey), Paula Jai Parker (Sissy Johnson), and David Alan Grier (Carl)

"KKK Comeuppance" segment: Corbin Bernsen (Duke Metger), Roger Guenveur Smith (Rhodie Willis), Art Evans (Eli), Tim Hutchinson (Councilman Rogers), Christina Cundieff (Miss Cobbs), John A. Cundieff (Funeral Priest), and Erika Hansen (Anchorwoman)

"Hard-Core Convert" segment: Lamont Bentley (Jerome "Crazy K" Johns), Rosalind Cash (Dr. Cushing), Ricky Harris ("Lil' Deke"), and Rick Dean (Racist Inmate)

Directed by Rusty Cundieff.

Review: 

"The title, Tales From the Hood, seemed to be the automatic way to put across the idea that it was an anthology, and also related to the black experience, whatever that was at the time. I wanted to make sure that the there was something socially relevant within each piece, and also create a situation where the horror and supernatural forces were things that you were rooting for as opposed to against. We didn’t have young co-eds who you wanted to stay alive. All the humans in Tales from the Hood do bad things and the supernatural is their comeuppance."

The movie's anniversary did slip past by me, but there's always time to redeem oneself. Rusty Cundieff was born and raised in Pittsburgh with an interest in the entertainment business from a young age, with horror being a genre he liked from his days watching Chiller Theatre on late Saturday nights going hand in hand with him participating in plays as a youth that had him liking comedy, and he started doing stand-up in his junior year of high school. He attended Loyola University for his freshman year at college before transferring to USC with an interest in their film and television department, although its lack of great features meant that he took filmmaking courses on the side; he graduated with degrees in philosophy of religion, journalism, and drama. He did a bit of acting and found the experience in working on School Daze (1988) to make him want to direct and write. In 1993, Cundieff wrote and directed his first film with the rap mockumentary Fear of a Black Hat. The basis for his second film came from a one-act play he performed called The Black Horror Show: Blackanthropy. Cundieff and Darin Scott co-wrote the film, which was made with Lee's 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks. The movie had a mild impact with audiences but for whatever reason, it had a prolonged release on home media in the 21st century, where a DVD release occurred in 1998 that subsequently went out of print before a Blu-Ray release finally came out in 2017. Cundieff has directed for a variety of television shows (most notably Chappelle's Show) and a few films over the prevailing decades and was behind two sequels to Tales from the Hood in 2018 and 2020.

Within a 98-minute runtime features an eight-minute opening to set the stage of what is to come that might remind you of Tales from the Crypt (1972) or The House of the Dead (1978) in coffins and mislaid belief colliding together with a stranger (in this case a group trying to score some drugs); each of the four stories have its own length, with "KKK Comeuppance" running the shortest at roughly 18 minutes while the longest story is the last one at "Hard-Core Convert", which goes 27 minutes. It is clear pretty early that Cundieff wanted to make a movie that actually touched upon issues one could find in their community without being done for cheap scares or jokes that basically meant that the scariest things that could happen to someone if the human things that happen every day. Williams makes for a solid person to set up each of the stories in his daffy energy that is quite infectious and altogether entertaining. You get four pretty solid segments, all things considered. "Rogue Cop Revelation" deals with the fallout that arises when a Civil Rights activist is brutally murdered by a group of cops. It proves to be an interesting one for the eventual comeuppance for its key adversaries that are probably just as likely to exist in the real world as one thinks. Wright is a solid enough crusader from the grave (the best one is when he turns someone into a mural), and the overall endgame that comes from reckoning with action vs inaction is at least a curious one to end on. "Boys Do Get Bruised" deals with a young boy dealing with a monster in his closet that leads the teacher to learn what it really means to draw upon experiences at home. It probably fits the best in being a short segment when you consider that it is actually a segment about the perils of domestic violence, and Grier makes the most of a brief but terrifying enough role. Apparently, the movie was going to get an X rating until a chunk of the domestic violence scene near the end was trimmed. At any rate, it has a neat little ending. "KKK Comeuppance" (as "absolutely informed" by 1975's TV movie Trilogy of Terror) deals with an aspiring politician (and white supremacist) that deals with a few historical dolls. Coincidence or not, when actual racist-turned-politician David Duke ran for Governor of Louisiana in 1992, someone did an anti-Duke voodoo doll on display in New Orleans and a photo was taken of it. Bernsen makes for a delightfully hammy performance in extolling just the type of person that could have confidence in themselves to say what they say and not expect it to boomerang back to them. Sure, you know what is going to happen pretty early on, but it is still fun. Apparently, the last sequence, as done by the Chiodo Brothers in stop-motion animation, was only done because test audiences were not satisfied at the original ending. Clearly, they made the right decision. "Hard-Core Convert" deals with a murderer being given a chance to cure himself by seeing the consequences of his actions literally thrown at him. Amid the gang violence of the time that was depicted in movies such as Boyz n the Hood (1992) is a look upon a violent person seeing both a racist that wants to bond with him because of their apparent shared hatred of black people and then a montage of actual public lynchings and beatings. It probably is the standout segment of the four for how Bentley handles the scenario thrust upon him in all of its bravado and vulnerability as a murderer. In total, what we have is four pretty interesting segments that all want to look upon actual things that happen in people's lives (black or not), whether that involves domestic violence or a lust for violence and make it compelling to see it intersect with the supernatural for macabre effectiveness. In that regard, it is a nice little film that may be right up your alley.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

Next up: the match made for the Devil itself: Exorcist: The Beginning vs. Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist

Pumpkinhead.

Review #2463: Pumpkinhead.

Cast: 

Lance Henriksen (Ed Harley), John D'Aquino (Joel), Jeff East (Chris), Kerry Remsen (Maggie), Kimberly Ross (Kim), Joel Hoffman (Steve "Scratch"), Cynthia Bain (Tracey), Florence Schauffler (Haggis), Matthew Hurley (Billy Harley), Buck Flower (Mr. Wallace), Brian Bremer (Bunt Wallace), Mayim Bialik (Christine Wallace), Lee DeBroux (Tom Harley), Peggy Walton-Walker (Ellie Harley), Madeleine Taylor Holmes (Old Hill Woman), and Tom Woodruff Jr. (Pumpkinhead) Directed by Stan Winston.

Review: 

“It was a small picture, something I thought I could handle as a director; and I felt there was a lot that I could bring to the story. So I told the producers, ‘Yeah, I’ll do the creature — but only if I can direct the movie.’”

Apparently, Pumpkinhead started out as a poem, written by Ed Justin. It was merely a poem about avoiding Pumpkinhead unless one was tired of living or was one of his dead enemies, complete with stating that nothing, not even a guard dog prowling in the yard, would protect from it. Four different people were given writing credits: Mark Patrick Carducci and Gary Gerani wrote the screenplay, while Carducci, Richard C. Weinman and Stan Winston were given credit for the story. Winston expressed interest in directing the movie when asked by the De Laurentiis Entertainment Group about doing the special effects. Winston originally started in Hollywood as an aspiring actor before deciding to aim for makeup work, rising from an apprentice at Walt Disney Studios to having his own company by the 1970s. He won a handful of Emmy Awards in the decade before becoming a perennial Academy Award-nominated name, which started with Heartbeeps (1982) and peaked with Aliens (1986). Winston directed just two films: Pumpkinhead and A Gnome Named Gnorm (1990) but continued to work in effects for films that saw him win four Academy Awards before he died in 2008 at the age of 62. The movie inspired three follow-up films: two for television and one direct-to-video that saw Henriksen reprise his role twice. A remake has been teased for a few years now but nothing has happened as of yet (honestly, it wouldn't be a bad idea to try and give new life to the material - what, you want remakes of great horror movies again?). 

Admittedly, it is a bit above average. It has one worthwhile performance in Henriksen to go along with a solid looking monster to hold up a movie that is sometimes satisfying in what comes from one having to actually hear about what revenge really means when dealing with a creature that comes from an old pumpkin patch in a graveyard. Inspired or not, it reminds one of Forbidden Planet (1956), which had "monsters from the id" as a key focus, although it is placed in a movie that has a body count of a few teens that is more about having them be victims of impulse and anger rather than just straight up being people to dispose of like other slashers. It's a movie that has one interested most of the time in its rural atmosphere and occasional nice shots to see for a movie that has an interesting looking monster. It only gets shown in the dark, but it manages to come off so well with what you actually see of it and its movements, managing to come off a creature of vengeance and fear right from the jump, particularly since it doesn't have one of those silly weaknesses that could corral other being of anger but instead inward. Henriksen manages to achieve most of the goals probably set out in a performance meant to built on pain, mostly because he is likable enough to make you understand why someone might inquire about the sacrifices one might take when their pride and joy is put in danger. He makes for a quality doomed figure, one who we want to understand in the vulnerability that comes in looking upon what anger takes a person, which carries a movie where the teens are mostly just fine. The guilt is palpable even with the inevitability that comes with, well, a slasher, although it is curiously one with multiple final people. I like the ending in its swift nature of showing just where vigilante justice can take a person and what it may lead to again for those down the road, whether it involves one or a group to target. As a whole, Pumpkinhead has its peaks and valleys when it comes to entertainment value that you either like for what it is in spectacle or wash away in the sea of slashers. You might find some enjoyment here.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

Next up: Tales from the Hood.

I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997).

Review #2463: I Know What You Did Last Summer.

Cast: 

Jennifer Love Hewitt (Julie James), Sarah Michelle Gellar (Helen Shivers), Ryan Phillippe (Barry Cox), Freddie Prinze Jr (Ray Bronson), Johnny Galecki (Max Neurick), Bridgette Wilson (Elsa Shivers), Anne Heche (Melissa "Missy" Egan), Muse Watson (Benjamin "Ben" Willis / the Fisherman), and Stuart Greer (Officer) Directed by Jim Gillespie.

Review: 

"The joy of this film for me as a filmmaker was in taking [the] elements that we've seen before, and saying to the audience: 'Here's something you've seen before'—knowing that they're saying 'We've seen this before'—and still getting them to jump."

You may or may not know that this came from the writer of Scream (1996). Yes, Kevin Williamson had written a script loosely based on the 1973 novel of the same name, which had been written by Lois Duncan...but that script was done before Scream was even a thought in his mind, with the success of the 1996 movie getting people onto the idea of maybe doing studio slashers, which is where the old script came into play. This was the feature film debut of Jim Gillespie, who previously had done work on television and music videos. Duncan went on record as stating she was appalled by the movie being based on her book (stating specifically that she had a problem with sensationalized violence made to "seem thrilling rather than terrible", particularly since she was the mother of a murdered child); incidentally, Gillespie aimed to film with as little on-screen blood as possible to try and not be gratuitous with the violence. The book was a suspense novel featured a group of teens getting into a car accident (in the book's case, a young boy on a bike) that leads to death for the kid and oddly enough, nobody else. The movie was relatively successful with audiences, at least enough to inspire a sequel called I Still Know What You Did Last Summer in 1998 to go along with a direct-to-video feature (nobody cares), a modern take of the first film for an Amazon show in 2021 (what?), and a legacy sequel in 2025 that was called...I Know What You Did Last Summer (ironically following Scream doing the same thing years earlier*). 

Sure, you remember the movie about a hook-wielding killer terrorizing four teenagers. And you probably had one question on your mind: What the hell? What the hell to any of this? This was Williamson's "straightforward" horror script? To be clear, I will say that I may or may not be a bit generous with horror movies when it comes to assessing them because, well, there are some that are just entertaining even in mediocrity. But not this one. It isn't even the barebones body count (four), and it isn't even just the fact that the characters might as well have been constructed out of a wood board. No, what annoys me the most is that this supposed modern take on the slasher movie is just the same type of hack stuff you could find in Friday the 13th. And that movie was meant to be taken seriously, but with this movie, I thought it was supposed to be a joke, right down to the scene where Hewitt twirls around before screaming into the air what is the killer waiting for. Some might be subservient to any kind of slasher movie when it comes to spectacle, but not me, not for this one. The funny thing is that the killer is pretty terrible at how he targets people, since half the people he kills had nothing to do with the thing that happened a year prior and some of the time he just sneaks up on the people just to...terrorize them (seriously, he breaks into one girl's house to cut her hair down). But it comes in such a tedious little movie, one that aims to say something, anything about what it means to make the wrong choice and have to live with it...and then the ending coughs that up anyway! 

Some folks might consider Gellar to be the highlight of the film when it comes to...acting, but in general, everyone seems to be on the autopilot you could find in any generic slasher, even with the proverbial dark cloud over their heads. They just seem more like they are waiting for the boat show rather than being spooked by what is occurring around them, suffice to say. At least Phillippe is amusing in that veneer of arrogance and privilege for a time, probably far more than you think he will go given the amount of people to be terrorized or otherwise (such as Galecki, who might as well have been a paperweight). By the time the movie has ended its reign of error, complete with the characters seemingly learning about telling the cops about what the hell is going on, you will have gotten the feeling the movie was the equivalent of a toothache. This isn't one of those times where I get mad a slasher for being a slasher, this is just one of those frustratingly mediocre movies to get mad at because there were ideas worth looking into. Why not make a mystery worth watching about people who can't cope with who they are in making the wrong choice? But nah, there was a hook story mentioned in the early parts of the movie so we can have the killer go with hooks because, uh, reasons. As a whole, I Know What You Did Last Summer has a few tiny moments of relief - the chase of Gellar near the end is probably the highlight, at least when not considering the humor at the movie's expense for sheer ludicrous things. But the real moment where you believe things will be good comes here: when you look at the fact the 101 minutes are over, and you can watch a different, more interesting slasher movie. Or just a non-slasher movie. Or, well, whatever. Anything other than middle of the road junk.

Overall, I give it 5 out of 10 stars.

Next up: Pumpkinhead.

*Totally not the point, but I don't give a shit about the reasoning for Scream 5 (2022) being called Scream. It was stupid when Halloween (2018) did it, so if I ever get to the Scream movies beyond the first, you best believe I'm calling the 2022 one Scream 5. Then again, the weird people talking about Scream in recent days about 7 on both sides make me roll my eyes. 

Les Diaboliques.

Review #2462: Les Diaboliques.

Cast: 

Simone Signoret (Nicole Horner), Véra Clouzot (Christina Delassalle), Paul Meurisse (Michel Delassalle), Charles Vanel (Alfred Fichet), Jean Brochard (Plantiveau), Thérèse Dorny (Madame Herboux), Michel Serrault (Monsier Raymond), Georges Chamarat (Dr. Loisy) Directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot (#2337 - The Wages of Fear)

Review: 

Sure, let's go for another movie with plenty of horror and thriller in it. The movie takes its inspiration from the novel She Who Was No More [Celle qui n'était plus], as originally written by the writing team of Pierre Boileau and Pierre Ayraud in 1952. Apparently, Clouzot was informed about the potential of making a movie of the book by his wife Vera, who read it and told him immediately to read it, sleep be damned. Supposedly, Clouzot purchased the rights to the book just before Hitchcock could do so (just as well, Clouzot took over a year to actually get down to filming). Clouzout and his brother Jean (who for whatever reason went by Jérôme Géronimi for credit) are credited with the screenplay while René Masson and Frédéric Grendel were given a "with the collaboration of" in the credits. There were a few changes, mainly because it dealt with a travelling salesman teaming up with his mistress to murder the spouse (with one big thing in the climax being particularly different). Narcejac once stated that while the film does not resemble the book, the combination of the suspense, pacing and unfolding action were effectively in line with what they wanted, while Boileau noted that the film had an "immersion of the character in a collective universe was the best equivalent to the solitude we described in writing." At any rate, Hitchcock got his chance to adapt a Boileau-Narcejac novel later in the decade with Vertigo (1958). The movie was quite the hit at the time and even had an American release (which apparently trimmed the runtime of 114 minutes to 107), which is where it was known as "Diabolique". Robert Bloch, who wrote the novel Psycho that became its own film by Hitchcock (with its own warning about spoiling the movie), said that Clouzot's film was his favorite horror film of all time.

Apparently, Clouzot was tense during production, even once stating to Signoret that he shouldn't have let her read the end of the script. The tension is palpable for the movie, which practically boils it down to a science with a worthwhile group to lead it. It is the kind of movie that allows you to participate in a game of watching a trap spring all the way to its logical conclusion with the dread of knowing that it is all so believable in motive and the horror of wondering just what is going to happen next in the clear-cut way things are shot. The atmosphere by Clouzot with a boarding school is particularly spooky to consider because of the fact that it probably could be considered as an off-kilter fairy tale (in fact Clouzot aimed to do both a sinister atmosphere and "a somewhat fairytale universe"). The Clouzots married in 1950, the same year Vera worked as a continuity assistant on the film Miquette. This was the second of three movies she appeared in as an actress, which started with The Wages of Fear (1953) and ended with Les Espions (1957); she died in 1960 at the age of 46. Her performance of seemingly aiming for a martyr is fine in her defeated outlook towards it all, even when she gets into the eventual scheme involving a body in the bathtub. Her drawn out nightmare is our drawn-out nightmare, for which Signoret (a future Academy Award winner) excels in drawing the knowing fear that comes with people that know who they are and what they have done in diabolical nature and like it. Of course, it helps that Meurisse makes for a worthwhile lout to set all of this up in unsavory timing. The questions we ask about the movie aren't because we are grousing but because we want to know how the trap will spring.

Now, as for the ending: 

Don't be DIABOLICAL!

Do not destroy the interest that your friends may have in this movie.

Do not tell them what you have seen.

Thank you, on their behalf

Yes, it may be a movie that is seven decades old, but you just have to see it to believe it, really. There is just something so swiftly diabolical in its rug-pull that could only come from someone expressly interested in making everything snap into place. Do I love the ending? Well, it is fine in that final snap of the real trap, but I will say that the part right after it is a bit, well, convenient (which also is changed from the novel). You can only do so much with authority figures that show up now and then, I guess. As a whole, it is the kind of suspense horror movie you just have to watch just as it is. 

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.

Yes, it's time for the seventh rendition of having horror movies from November 1 to November 7 with 7 Days of the Week After Halloween

Suspiria.

Review #2461: Suspiria.

Cast: 

Jessica Harper (Suzy Bannion), Stefania Casini (Sara Simms; Silvia Faver as the English voice), Flavio Bucci (Daniel; Gregory Snegoff as the English voice), Miguel Bosé (Mark; Gregory Snegoff as the English voice), Barbara Magnolfi (Olga Ivanova; Carolyn De Fonseca as the English voice), Susanna Javicoli (Sonia; Susan Spafford as the English voice), Eva Axén (Patricia "Pat" Hingle), Alida Valli (Miss Tanner), and Joan Bennett (Madame Blanc) Directed by Dario Argento.

Review: 

“It’s true, almost everyone is female in Suspiria, all the heroes and villains are women, and the few men are either blind, mute or useless. But I don’t know if it is feminist, people tell me it is… The truth is I like working with women, I have always been fascinated by them. When I was very young I went to a school close to my mother’s studio; she was a photographer, famous for her portraits of actresses in the 1940s and 50s. After school, I would run there and sit in the front room where the actresses would do their make-up and get changed into glamorous dresses, and I would see these marvellous women transform. I would watch how my mother lit their faces and bodies, and when I was shooting Suspiria I remembered this.”

Well, it did seem time to cover a Dario Argento movie, so why not just go with the obvious? The son of a film producer and photographer, Argento was a film critic and a columnist before he became a screenwriter, and one of those scripts that he did work for was Once Upon a Time in the West (1968). He became a director with The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970). Influenced by American movies of the 1950s and 1960s along with the works of producer Val Lewton, the movie apparently played for years in Milan, with the movie often being associated as among the big ones of the "giallo" genre (which basically combines some form of the slasher, thriller or psychology). Suspiria was the first of what ended up being three movies that took inspiration from the collection of essays Suspiria de Profundis by Thomas de Quincey (as first published in 1845). He was inspired by a trip he had done through various European cities and a particular spot where France, Germany, and Switzerland meet ("Magic Triangle") while being quite serious about the occult and witchcraft. Argento wrote the movie with his partner Daria Nicolodi that also took inspiration from fairy tales such as Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. The imbibition process was utilized to make for more vivid color rendition that previously had been done for films such as The Wizard of Oz (1939); it was among that last movies to be processed in Technicolor. The movie ran 99 minutes in its native Italy but for the original American distributed release, 20th Century Fox cut some minutes out and even used a shell company to show the movie to audiences, which apparently was quite a hit there. The following two films in a so called "Three Mothers" trilogy were Inferno (1980) and Mother of Tears (2007). After years of attempts to do a remake of the film from American hands (most notably David Gordon Green), a "homage" was released in 2018 that was directed by Luca Guadagnino; Argento was quoted as personally being underwhelmed by what he saw in the film, save for the design. Argento directed a film as recently as 2022 with Dark Glasses. 

It may interest you to know that most of the dialogue in the movie is dubbed over by actors in post-production (save for, well...) because that is how it was for a good deal of Italian movies for the time. It does tend to fit the movie in a strange and unnerving way to look upon the flourishes of color and hear voices that aren't exactly the same as the people saying them. Argento aimed (in his eyes) to make color that would remind you of Snow White (along with early Westerns) what you get is a movie that seemingly comes right out of his mind like a dream - or a nightmare. The study by Argento and cinematographer Luciano Tovoli clearly was worth it in the soul. It goes hand in hand with the progressive rock score by Goblin, who did it collaboration with Argento before the movie was actually shot. The darkness within ourselves can be a powerful force, even for a movie that dances around its narrative like it was a ritual, not dwelling on its absurdity (apparently, the cast was meant to be inhabited by younger people before bowing to the hesitation of the producers). Apparently, Harper's performance in Phantom of the Paradise (1974) influenced Argento to cast her. Harper enjoyed the filming experience (four months in Rome, by the way), complete with getting mail every now and then about the movie and she even made an appearance in the 2018 Suspiria. She provides the vulnerability and grace required of a person who basically is thrust in a fairy tale nightmare, one that is delightful in her ballet from oblivion. The violence of the film looms over the movie with such stark execution that might as well be laughing at you in its defiance of what you might see coming. The logic of the movie is all about what you want it to be, at least when you don't consider some of the convenient exposition. But it all comes down in a great swoop for its climax that just burns down on you with its bouts of imagery and sound. The great terror isn't so much a coven of witches but the coven of one's doubt in their mind about what really is real beyond form and the blood of ourselves. It isn't so much a murder mystery or even a movie about what lurks beneath the coven but instead a movie all about the fear and strange things that lurk in us. The movie is exquisite to view in practically any scene for what you are seeing in its reds and blues that make for devastating effect with the gore in a way that you don't see nearly that often in movies, horror in particular. It is the kind of jagged movie that will leave an impression on its viewer more than just for its gore but for the things that it will inspire the next time one is left in the dark by themselves.

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.

Happy Halloween. Get ready for Halloween: The Week After: The 7th Time

Green Room.

Review #2460: Green Roon.

Cast: 

Anton Yelchin (Pat), Imogen Poots (Amber), Alia Shawkat (Sam), Joe Cole (Reece), Callum Turner (Tiger), Patrick Stewart (Darcy Banker), Mark Webber (Daniel), Eric Edelstein (Big Justin), Macon Blair (Gabe), Kai Lennox (Clark), David W. Thompson (Tad), Brent Werzner (Werm), and Taylor Tunes (Emily) Written and Directed by Jeremy Saulnier.

Review: 

"In Green Room, the gasps are real. People are sort of white-knuckled watching this movie. That’s what I love. The involuntary response their bodies create. It’s pretty hard to do, to make people actually terrified. It’s about making the characters relatable. It’s about breaking a few rules, not just to break them, but to keep things off-balance. Let people know that they’re not going where they’re supposed to go. You go where the characters take you, which is terrifying because these people have no fucking idea what they’re doing. As for the violence, because there’s so much brutality in Green Room, and there’s some full-frontal gore, it can be perceived as sensational. But the way I treat it, if you look and scrutinize every moment, it’s very reverent."

Sure, let's go with a vicious little thriller to feature for once. This was the third film of Jeremy Saulnier, who started making films in his early twenties. The Virginia native became a feature filmmaker with the horror-comedy Murder Party (2007), which he wrote and shot himself. His next film was the Kickstarter-funded Blue Ruin (2013), which he also wrote and shot with the idea that it could've easily been his last movie with the time required to raise his family. The impetus for making this film was his desire to make a movie with a green room, with his experiences at concert venues as a person who used to be in a punk band shaping a short film that he made in 2007 staying in his mind for when he could make a film the way he wanted. You may or may not be surprised that punk had a bit of the skinheads in there, particularly ones that liked to wear uniforms (and conversely there also existed Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice). What Saulnier had the most fun was in realizing what he wanted to do for years and yet not have a clue just where he wanted to take it before figuring out where both sides of the door would go in their choices without playing into too many genre tropes; he specifically stated that there was nothing sadistic in the film but instead "brutal difference and self-preservation" and one choice act of unmotivated violence that leads to the clash. Premiering at the Cannes Film Festival in 2015 but not getting a release in theaters until spring 2016 (first limited before wide), the movie was not a big success at the time, but Saulnier has continued to make films with Hold the Dark (2018) and Rebel Ridge (2024).

Sure, you could call it a punk rendition of Assault on Precinct 13 (1976). But it has its own type of relentless dread and brutality that make for a resounding success in unsettling the viewer with how fast things can go down in the pit of bleakness and keep going. The horror is the fact that everything that could go wrong for these folks in the film can in fact can be much worse to actually see play out. The parts you see within the land of skinheads and their type of organization (right down to the dog-training) are probably most unsettling because it seems so natural in a way that it hits all the marks required to strike bone. Yelchin (who tragically passed away in 2016) manages to sell the quick-rising fear that comes in going from having one's trouble evolve from where to maybe siphon gas to most definitely seeing someone with a knife in their head. Granted the group of rockers do have a bit of time to show the toil of punk rocking in a world that doesn't really seem to hear the notes for a few chuckles (note that they play at a Mexican restaurant early on). Poots and her weary expression to pair with Yelchin for a good chunk of the film makes for a fascinating one to see, one with a cracked sense of self that seems authentic in the all of the strange sad ways possible. Technically speaking, Stewart is not in the film too much, coming in and out of the darkening situation (figuratively and literally, if you consider one of the last lines of the film) but he makes the most of it with a unsettling sense of calm that reminds you that there are people like him somewhere in the world that are content with who and what they believe in without needing to turn to unnecessary bombast. Others who make an impression include Blair and his shaky presence at the powder keg of ugliness or the small moments that show the strange place that we are having to look upon (at one point you've got a guy willingly getting into a stabbing incident to help distract a cop). The movie earns its stripes of making you care about the violence and how it could easily happen to any of us who find ourselves in a bad spot and can't rely on people adhering to cliches and tricks, with the climax allowing for only the slightest of relief of the stark nature we just saw for 95 minutes. As a whole, Green Room manages to show the terror of places you couldn't imagine exist and shows that one can have their stomach churn in its simple brutality and solid execution.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

Night of the Demon.

Review #2459: Night of the Demon.

Cast: 

Dana Andrews (Dr. John Holden), Peggy Cummins (Joanna Harrington), Niall MacGinnis (Dr. Julian Karswell), Athene Seyler (Mrs. Karswell), Liam Redmond (Professor Mark O'Brien), Peter Elliott (Professor Kumar), Maurice Denham (Professor Harrington), Reginald Beckwith (Mr. Meek), Rosamund Greenwood (Mrs Meek), and Brian Wilde (Rand Hobart) Directed by Jacques Tourneur (#998 - I Walked with a Zombie, #1898 - Cat People, #2280 - The Leopard Man)

Review: 

"The real horror is to show that we all live unconsciously in fear. Many people suffer today from a fear that they don't begin to analyze and which is constant. When the audience is in the dark and recognizes its own insecurity in that of the characters of the film, then you can show unbelievable situations and be sure that the audience will follow. For another thing, people love to be afraid."

Naturally, this was a movie loosely based on an old short story. M. R. James wrote a handful of stories for More Ghost Stories of an Antiquarty in 1911, and "Casting the Runes" was one of them. Charles Bennett had the rights to the story and thus made a screenplay ("The Haunted") that loosely took inspiration from the short story. He sold the story to producer Hal E. Chester (much to Bennett's regret, because he later found that people like Robert Taylor and Dick Powell were interested in being in the film*) who ended up making changes that resulted in him getting a co-credit, although it was really blacklisted writer Cy Endfield who crafted significant parts of the screenplay. For whatever reason, the movie was called "Curse of the Demon" in the States (often with a double feature pairing with 20 Million Miles to Earth) with a runtime of 82 minutes that cut certain sequences from the original 96-minute cut. This was the last horror movie Tournier made as a director (famously, he apparently rejected the term "horror movies", stating once he made "films on the supernatural" because he believed in it). Tourneur was involved in the project because Ted Richmond (the producer of his prior film Nightfall) gave Chester a recommendation, which in turn got Tournier to show the script to Andrews.  Apparently, the demon was a contentious aspect of the movie for the filmmakers. Hal E. Chester and his co-producer wanted to show the demon at the start and end of the film, but Tourneur and Bennett weren't happy about it, with the latter being once quoted as saying that if Chester was up at his driveway, he would shoot him (a book about the making of the film by Tony Earnshaw contends including the demon was planned from the start anyway). Tournier claimed that the movie was "ruined" by showing the demon from the beginning, stating that he shot just one scene with the idea of a demon in the cloud sequence. Tourneur did five further movies as a director: The Fearmakers (1958), The Giant of Marathon (1959), Timbuktu (1959), The Comedy of Terrors (1964), and City Under the Sea (1965).

Let's get one thing out of the way: of course you show the damn demon on screen. This was the 1950s man, you can't go with the power of suggestion and "maybe" seeing something, at a certain point you're going to do something when "Demon" is in the film title (showing a cloud only for a movie like this would be silly, arguably). At any rate, what we have here is a solid little movie, managing to evoke a sense of dread through mood and atmosphere, one that arguably is Tournier's best horror movie when compared to Cat People (why anyone would reject the term horror movie is beyond me). It lurks in the shadow of noir that gradually makes you wonder just what may be beyond what eyes and ears can sense. It helps that Andrews (who apparently wasn't a fan of Chester either) is the right type of rigid for this role, one whose skepticism can only come from a place of flustered vulnerability that we understand that some can look mystery in the face and see a bottomless pit. Sure, we know there's something lurking beyond the wind rustling, but it helps to have a movie that is patient in the push-and-pull of belief and devotion. MacGinnis is practically the same in that regard when it comes to vulnerability, mainly because he is not merely a mad magician but is instead one who is consumed by a force greater than one could imagine, one who could play tricks for the youth but instead plays tricks on himself and those around him. The rest of the cast do a pretty fine job in that usual dignity of a horror movie that isn't about body counts or creature effects (the demon does look good, in close-up anyway) but instead of the terror of imagination going awry. My one little gripe is with the ending, specifically the very last scene. After spending a whole movie getting his ideas about the supernatural all mixed up, complete with seeing a cloud of smoke and something that may be a demon inflict fear on someone else for the climax...he doesn't go to inspect the body, instead leaving with the girl. I don't know man, I know these movies love to make sure to set the guy up with the girl at the end but c'mon, some things really are better to know. In general, what we have is a pretty neat movie involving the power of belief and what comes from those who are engulfed by it to subservience and those who know exactly where the road leads. It's one of those esteemed old movies that definitely deserve a look, that's for sure.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

*Oh who cares about Taylor and Powell when you have Dana Andrews?

Death Line.

Review #2458: Death Line.

Cast: 

Donald Pleasence (Inspector Calhoun), Norman Rossington (Detective Sergeant Rogers), David Ladd (Alex Campbell), Sharon Gurney (Patricia Wilson), Hugh Armstrong (The Man"), June Turner ("The Woman"), Clive Swift (Inspector Richardson), James Cossins (James Manfred, OBE), Heather Stoney (W.P.C. Alice Marshall), Hugh Dickson (Dr. Bacon), Jack Woolgar (Platform Inspector), Ron Pember (Lift Operator), Colin McCormack (Police Constable), James Culliford (publican), Christopher Lee (Stratton-Villiers, MI5) Directed by Gary Sherman (#1199 - Poltergeist III)

Review: 

I did want to so this film last October but honestly didnt have time. Hey, what's another year when talking about a British-American effort. This was the feature film debut of Gary Sherman, who actually described himself as an artist in search of a medium from a young age. He studied at IIT's Institute of Design and one professor told him that instead of design, he was the type that should aim to be a photographer. One of the ways that he was working his way through schools was play in a band and they inquired about trying to record at Chess Records. Sherman's ability to read music helped him in getting to sing backing vocals and lurk around the place, which intersected with him finding an 16mm Arriflex camera at school when work wanted to assign someone to photograph people at work. He ended up becoming a filmmaker when it came to a chance decision to film a recording session involving Bo Diddley at the studio. The result was a 30-minute short called The Legend of Bo Diddley in 1966. He then was asked to do a "music performance film" for The Seeds (among other groups) and the result was that he was asked by an ad agency if he wanted to shoot ads and commercials for them; he moved to London by 1968 apparently due to his experiences at the 1968 DNC. Years later, when working in London, his producing partner Jonathan Demme kept telling him to make a movie. While writing essentially stuff for themselves, John Daly of Hemdale Film came up and suggested to write something somebody would want to make, which, well, why not horror? Sherman came up with the story while Ceri Jones wrote the screenplay for a production that was financed internationally between Paul Maslansky, Alan Ladd Jr and Jay Kanter. Apparently, American International Pictures bought the film out from the financiers in what was called "cross-collateralization" (or bullshit in Sherman's eyes) and they essentially hacked the film away for American release as "Raw Meat", complete with a lurid poster making it look like a zombie movie that Sherman hated completely. At any rate, while the AIP experience burned him out a bit, Sherman did eventually make a few more theatrical films when not doing work on commercials, most notably with Dead & Buried (1981).

Sherman apparently was influenced by the classism he saw by the British (specifically in how apparently construction of certain tunnels saw mistreatment for the workers) alongside the legend of Sawney Bean. The legend apparently was about a person that was said to be the head of a Scottish clan in the 16th century that cannibalized over a thousand people in a span of 25 years. It was the kind of thing that could be found in the literature of the streets (you might recognize that The Hills Have Eyes [1977] took its own inspiration from the tale). So in essence you get two stories: the strange world of the outside world through class and the underworld toil for survival. Power matters, I suppose. Undeniably, the movie has one really entertaining presence: Donald Pleasance, who practically never seems to fail in the great art of scene-chewing with the confidence to back whatever needs to happen for the particular role. Its hard to toe the line of competent and odd for an authority figure, but he achieves that with such gusto that you can't help but smile at seeing him basically stumble into weird things beyond the usual fare. This basically covers for the fact that Ladd and Gurney are merely just okay, since they don't get much to really do when not engaged in banter (maybe there is something about the differences between Pleasance and Ladd in interrogation, but it doesnt really go anywhere). Apparently, Lee wanted to do the movie to be on the same set as Pleasance, even taking scale pay. Of course, Lee and Pleasance* have a bit of a height difference (eight inches), but its just as well to have him there for a moment not needing to bare fangs. Sherman wanted Armstrong for the cannibal right from the jump, even when the possibility of casting Marlon Brando (the first agent of Brando in Kanter approached him), but Brando had a family emergency so Sherman got Armstrong. He doesn't get to say much,  but his weary beaten-down nature makes for a relatively capable performance in evoking some pity for the lone creature of the dark. The movie rides on atmosphere and dwelling on what matters most for the supposed "British dignity" that is sometimes curious and yet sometimes feels a bit wanting, though it at least is paced fine at 87 minutes despite its puzzling ending. As a whole, Death Line is a solid first effort from Sherman and company that might inspire interest in what it ends up showing in its realm of having one solid performance carry things to the finish line in relatively quirky and sometimes involving horror for the season.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

Next: Halloween extravaganza.

*Famously, Christopher Lee was one of the people who rejected the role of Sam Loomis in Halloween (1978).

Jennifer's Body.

Review #2457: Jennifer's Body.

Cast: 

Megan Fox (Jennifer Check), Amanda Seyfried (Anita "Needy" Lesnicki), Adam Brody (Nikolai Wolf), Johnny Simmons (Chip Dove), J. K. Simmons (Mr. Wroblewski), Amy Sedaris (Toni Lesnicki), Kyle Gallner (Colin Gray), Cynthia Stevenson (Mrs. Dove), Chris Pratt (Officer Roman Duda), Carrie Genzel (Mrs. Check), Juan Riedinger (Dirk), Juno Ruddell (Officer Warzak), Valerie Tian (Chastity), Aman Johal (Ahmet) Directed by Karyn Kusama.

Review: 

"I was blessed to read this script at a moment where the producers were meeting with directors and it just knocked me out. It was just so original, so imaginative. That’s what it is about this script and the world is that it feels like a fairy tale gone psycho and I think that’s what most fairy tales actually started as. So, they’ve just been sort of neutralized over the years and there’s something about this story that felt old, like coming from old stories but totally fresh, and I just went to bat for myself, I guess."

It isn't often you see a film poster that bills the talents of its writer, but here we are. In the buildup to the sensation that was Juno (2007), Fox Atomic (a short-lived label of 20th Century Fox and Searchlight that was aimed for comedy and genre film distribution) bought the rights to a certain script by Diablo Cody, the blogger-turned-stripper-turned-writer that, well, wound up winning an Academy Award for Juno (hence the film poster); Jason Reitman served as a co-producer for Jennifer's Body. Cody stated in interviews that she wanted to “pay tribute to some of the conventions that we’ve already seen in horror, yet, at the same time, kind of turn them on their ear" while also saying that her macabre sense of humor played into how it became a comedy-horror movie. As it happened, the movie was directed by Karyn Kusama. Kusama previously had directed Girlfight (2000) and Aeon Flux (2005). According to Cody, the movie (distributed by 20th Century Fox after Atomic closed down), which made nearly double its $16 million budget back in its release in 2009 was marketed terribly, as it apparently was marketed to target “boys who like Megan Fox” (which is how you get a poster that has Fox in a miniskirt) as opposed to trying to target, well, girls too; in recent years, with the growing cult audience for the movie, Cody has stated her wish to do a sequel to the movie, while Kusama noted her appreciation for the following the film has developed in recent years.*

It helps that the movie basically is a fairy tale of two growing women who have rapid change befall them, right down to the line actually said in the film of Hell being a teenage girl...that just happens to run with one of them becoming a succubus that actually reminds me a bit of Rosemary's Baby (hey, when the high schoolers get mowed down and "honored" in a manner not exactly more dignified than Heathers, why not crib from one of the alleged great horror movies too?). I thought it was a pretty funny movie, to be honest, mainly because I went in with mild expectations of expecting a bit of humor and gore that hopefully wouldn't crash and burn up and found a delight. Sure, you can probably understand where people may not have got what it really was going for 15 years ago beyond just leering at its star and waiting for things to happen. You've got a succubus who for her first act (that we see) of trying to cope with their new surroundings of desire go up to a person's house to try and eat an entire rotisserie chicken only to vomit goo, fail to bite someone and then just leave. In that sense, Fox does a tremendous job in the lead role, managing to be quite funny along with unnerving in the plight of a person who goes from a creature that might as well be the parasite in their one friendship to a very hungry creature that could be the parasite for all people (hey, an equal opportunity succubus) involved if she had her way. Her dynamic is compelling with Seyfried in ways that work far better than just simply being a creature bereft of comic timing. Seyfried's journey of change is just an interesting, mostly because it is a self-realization story that perhaps one of the miserable people lurking in the world today actually can get lucky for once beyond just being lumped in as a needy odd-duck. It is a worthwhile time to see the two of them engage in banter all throughout that shows just how one can really view somebody they've known for years when the grisly details are presented so clearly. The rest of the cast is fairly interesting in parts, whether that involves the conniving group of wannabee music icons led by Brody or the hook-handed straight-laced Simmons. The gore sequences (as could be read in some part here) involving the unfortunate souls being led in to the promise of, well, flesh (three) is pretty well done as well. The 102-minute runtime does prove worth it, although one wonders if the real ending is worth being in the credits. As a whole, Jennifer's Body is a delightfully macabre film about the perils of growing womanhood that happens to involve blood and guts for a solid curiosity that really did take time for its audience to really find it and appreciate its merits.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

*Hey, they even did a Q&A of the movie just this week. 

Hell of a coincidence: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRGd7sHN1io