The Corpse Vanishes.

Review #2447: The Corpse Vanishes.

Cast: 

Bela Lugosi (Dr. Lorenz), Luana Walters (Patricia Hunter), Tristram Coffin (Dr. Foster), Elizabeth Russell (Countess Lorenz), Minerva Urecal (Fagah), Angelo Rossitto (Toby), Frank Moran (Angel), Vince Barnett (Sandy), and Kenneth Harlan (Editor Keenan) Directed by Wallace Fox.

Review: 

Okay, sure, the 1940s had a few oddball movies that can be called "horror", at least the ones that aren't part of Universal (such as, in part, The Inner Sanctum Mysteries). But fret not, you have Monogram Pictures here to distribute a cheapie movie mystery horror, complete with finding the one actor they could corral for appearing when not busy with other things: Bela Lugosi. When Lugosi wasn't busy doing stuff like Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943), he did a handful of movies for Monogram with Sam Katzman as a producer. Lugosi wanted to do movies that weren't horror (ironically his popularity had received a boost in 1938 because one man did a double feature involving Lugosi's Dracula) and yet here he was, complete with doing opiates to treat his chronic sciatica and doing stage appearances. The film was written three-fold: the screenplay was done by Harvey Gates (a veteran writer who apparently wrote around 200 movies before he died in 1948), while the story was done by Sam Robins and Gerald Schnitzer. The movie was directed by Wallace Fox, who did over 50 movies that started at the tail-end of the silent era to 1951. 

Okay, let's just say the plot of the movie straight out: a mad doctor aims to target the gland fluid of virgins to help his vain wife from straight up dying of old age. But, well, what's the "corpse"? Uh, well, when the doctor gets his orchid to unwitting brides on their wedding day, the flower knocks the lady out in a way that makes people think they are dead and therefore make the body a sitting duck to finagle out to his totally normal lab. Naturally the one investigative force that moves the plot is a reporter that gets directed to an orchid expert: the doctor, who happens to have a few folks in his cellar in a crazy woman and two sons in a dwarf and a strong half-wit. Needless to say, the movie isn't exactly good, but if you did films such as The Death Kiss (1932) with Lugosi around, you might find something curious in its lurid ideas, mainly because it is just 64 minutes long. Lugosi lumbers around a bit with the usual routine that he does with basically being aloof in saying or leering whatever he has to do, most notably when he talks about finding a coffin more comfortable than a bed. Otherwise the movie is mostly by-the-book in monotone nature, as if just showing a dwarf, a lumbering brute and saying a few weird things is going to be enough. It is ridiculous (particularly the fact that it is an orchid of all things), but you are basically chuckling at the film rather than being all into it such as say, Plan 9. The body count isn't even that lurid, since the only people that are shown to get it are just some of the villains (it occurs to me I didn't bother to think about if the brides were okay). The fake-out for the climax is at least funny because even the villain thought it was a goofy idea to try and do a bride-trap (seriously they try to lure the villain with a "bride" but then it goes to a quick climax because the bad guy takes out the reverend). The movie is too silly to really do anything too morbid about old people wanting to stay young, but so it goes. As a whole, The Corpse Vanishes is nothing particularly special, but it may have a strange lurid taste for those who like the plumb the depths of old movies from the way way back that has a few odd little moments to go along with the general Lugosi performance that comes with movies like this. It's a creaky movie but you can't blame the movie for being what it is.

Overall, I give it 5 out of 10 stars.

Fright Night (1985).

Review #2446: Fright Night.

Cast: 

Chris Sarandon (Jerry Dandrige), William Ragsdale (Charley Brewster), Roddy McDowall (Peter Vincent), Amanda Bearse (Amy Peterson), Stephen Geoffreys (Edward "Evil Ed" Thompson), Jonathan Stark (Billy Cole), Dorothy Fielding (Judy Brewster), Art Evans (Detective Lennox), Stewart Stern (Cook), Robert Corff (Jonathan), and Pamela Brown (Miss Nina) Written and Directed by Tom Holland (#614 - Thinner, #1003 - Child's Play)

Review: 

“The story of Fright Night was very specific. It’s about a teenage horror movie fan who becomes convinced the neighbor next door is a vampire. OK? That was me. And I was writing about the movies that I loved when I was 15, 16, 17, and they were the AIP and Hammer Horror films, which starred Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, and Vincent Price... that’s how you get Peter Vincent, the horror movie host. And so I was writing about myself and my growing up. And I thought the story was so strong and had such human values, especially in the person of Peter Vincent, the Roddy McDowall character... the story was strong, and the vampires were right for that.”

Sure, let's feature a Tom Holland movie. As one might wonder, the Poughkeepsie native attended Northwestern University for theater before going to and later graduating from UCLA. He wasn't too keen on acting but took the time to train at the Actors Studio and appeared in a handful of guest roles on TV and film. Around that time, he became friends with Stewart Stern, who influenced him to try writing. He went back to UCLA to study law but found the itch from writing to be too much to bear. His first screenwriting credit was the TV film "The Initiation of Sarah" in 1978 before becoming a film writer with the adaptation of The Beast Within in 1982. Other scripts followed, such as the story for Class of 1984 (1982), which was then followed with being hired to write Psycho II (1983), and lastly was Cloak & Dagger (1984)*. The premise that became Fright Night arose during the writer of Cloak that became tempting to direct himself when he saw the results of Michael Winner's direction for his script Scream for Help (1984). Despite not having a completely wide release from Columbia Pictures in August 1985, the movie was a qualified success with audiences. In total, Holland directed five further movies as a director, although because he was busy with Child's Play (1988), he could not be involved with Fright Night Part 2 (1988), which had Ragsdale and McDowall return to their roles. A remake of Fright Night (which relocated it to Las Vegas with a stage magician that may be an expert on vampires) came around in 2011.

There was a sea of vampire movies in its era that ranged from The Hunger (1983) to Lifeforce (1985) to, well, The Lost Boys (1987), but Fright Night does manage to stick out for itself pretty well because of its enthusiasm. Sure, the slasher was making the rounds for what audiences were going with in its time, but it didn't mean you were going to be lacking at least one movie to cut straight from the heart in playing to familiar comforts. The playful rendition of "Boy Who Played Wolf", combined with some worthwhile effects, does make for a pretty good time for those in the mood for it. You get vampires that can deal in wolf form and/or mist to go with the general tone of menace in baring fangs but in the suburbs to go along with having a vampire killer that actually isn't just the usual authority on the matter. It takes time for Ragsdale to get comfortable in the role, but he does spring a few bits of humor in what comes from actually being right in what his eyes see rather than just cloying, although it helps to have chuckles when paired with Bearse or Geoffreys. It is interesting that the part played by McDowell was basically a homage to the great Vincent Price, mostly because I would assume there was tiny bit of influence in Boris Karloff (okay well the character is also named after Peter Cushing, the vampire hunter actor for all time), who actually did host a TV show about horror (specifically, Thriller back in 1960-62)*. But McDowall aimed to played it as if the character was an old ham actor rather than just being a pastiche of Price (who while approached for the role was winding down from taking horror roles). He basically becomes the heart of the movie with the humor that comes from playing it to the ego required of flipping the usual authority with engaging conviction. Sarandon does make for a solid adversary though, managing to draw the power necessary in icy charm that could swoop in and out from sight in a suburb without becoming a hammy threat to wash away. The sequence near the climax involving him, Ragsdale and Bearse has a special curiosity to it in just seeing how seriously Holland wants to make the plight of someone being correct about vampires being among people and being powerless in that moment. The effects (as led by the team that had just done Ghostbusters [1984]) benefit the film particularly well in reminding one of just how entertaining it can be to look at vampires out in the open. As a whole, the movie eventually finds its footing by the time its 106-minute runtime is over due to its various charms that come off as affectionate rather than just being a failed homage. To put it mildly, it has the vibes worth watching for the spooky season.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

*Incidentally, Cloak and Dagger was inspired by the short story "The Boy Cried Murder", which had been adapted into a film a few times over.

*I wonder if there is a tiny bit of inspiration that was cribbed from Targets (1968), a movie where Karloff plays a disillusioned horror actor who actually gets confronted with real terror and, well, strikes it down.

Black Phone 2.

Review #2445: Black Phone 2.

Cast: 

Mason Thames (Finney Blake), Madeleine McGraw (Gwen Blake), Ethan Hawke (the Grabber), Demián Bichir (Armando), Jeremy Davies (Terrence Blake), Miguel Mora (Ernesto), Arianna Rivas (Mustang), Anna Lore (Hope Blake), Graham Abbey (Kenneth), and Maev Beaty (Barbara) Directed by Scott Derrickson (#874 - Doctor Strange, #1865 - The Black Phone, #1905 - Sinister)

Review: 

You might remember that The Black Phone was released just a few years ago, first premiering in the festival circuit back in 2021 before Universal Pictures eventually got on actually releasing the movie to theaters in 2022. Scott Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill cultivated a story based on Joe Hill's short story of the same name with a good deal of inspiration from people Derrickson knew when he was younger, which differed from say, the "Spielberg Amblin suburban middle school life": there were obviously a handful of differences between story and movie, most notably that the sister was actually the older one along with having calls from just one person in the story (who actually does tell him to fill the phone with sand as a weapon) and, well, the story ends right as one is trying to escape the house all while the phone is ringing* In 2023, Derrickson and Cargill worked on "Dreamkill", a segment for the found footage horror anthology movie V/H/S/85 that dealt with a cousin of the Blake family with their own psychic ability. Derrickson and Cargill wrote the script just as they did for the previous film, although Hill apparently came up with an idea ("The Grabber calls Finn from hell") for the sequel.

It probably was spooky to watch a movie where you see people in a film just yanked out of the blue that won't come back and will stare at nothing for the rest of time. Sure, a good chunk of the last Black Phone movie was basically an escape room, but it had an interesting performance in Ethan Hawke to go along with a few unsettling moments with a person who clearly had the headspace of wanting to win his own game (whether that involves his brother or not) while wearing such a strange imposing mask. Sure, the movie didn't outright show much in terms of gore, but I think you get the creeping factor that could come in what might happen if one in fact can't just stay dead with a sequel. This is a lot of words for me saying I really wished that I liked the movie, because it is quite ridiculous, when you get down to it (I will try to not spoil anything too specific unless you scroll down below for notes). Let's start with some praise first. McGraw does manage to shine the best among the cast in terms of evoking interest in vulnerable. And I do like Thames reasonably well in his burrowing evolution from the point of "what next?", for the most part. Hawke does still have an unsettling presence here, even if a good chunk of it is really just a voice more than anything (the not-quite spoiler is that being dead means not being able to just take your mask off). The 114-minute runtime can only go so far when having ideas of trying to ape A Nightmare on Elm Street (as I recall, the climaxes for 3 and 4 dealt with resting bones and a soul revolt, respectively), although I imagine someone would argue it might have had a bit of inspiration from Friday the 13th with its camp scenario. But you can only do so many things involving dreams. To put it mildly, there are quite a few scenes now spent in Super 8-filmed dreamland that takes things to new levels convenience. Since the Grabber is basically only around in the dream world (or when he calls Finn because, obviously), it means a good chunk of time is spent in going from thing to thing because the movie can only maneuver itself forward within dreams, particularly when the movie doesn't have as much urgency as you wish it would have. For a movie that tries to be "Good vs. Evil", you can only go so far before you start to wonder if "Black Phone: Rocky Vacation" would've been a more apt title, complete with clunky dialogue all in its midst. I sometimes felt like I was back in It Chapter Two (2019) territory, for whatever reason.

Three ideas popped into my head about what the movie could've been: Finn trying to actually cope with his survivor's guilt, or lurking further with what the Grabber is beyond being a "bottomless pit" of sins, or maybe asking aloud if Gwen actually is going nuts (okay maybe everyone starts to believe something is up when being levitated in the air, but, well). Instead, it goes for lurking in dreams again and again and again until it eventually reveals the last card that comes with things that either could be thought of as a blessing or a curse*. It can only go so far when trying to make the Grabber a thing because you can only go so far in the first place* before it all becomes too goofy for words. You might say it isn't advisable to judge a movie on what you want it to be rather than what it actually is, but for me, there is a uneasy feeling of being underwhelmed by what I was watching by the time the film stumbles to the climax. It already felt sluggish for its first half, but it just doesn't stick the landing all the way through. You can say that it isn't a slasher movie and that it is supernatural and yea, okay, the first movie was about dead kids calling someone, but now we are talking about once-dead beings skating on ice as if they were the Invisible Man, so keep trying to say "atmosphere, atmosphere"- yadda yadda yadda. Some might find it spooky, other might just find it only mildly involving. In trying to justify its existence, it only ends up feeling like an epilogue. As a whole, I wanted to like the movie beyond tagging it as just mildly disappointing but didn't quite find what I was looking for. It's just too average to really love. The tough situation of having voices of the dead be the one point standing between a trapped person and a kidnapper seemingly turned on to playing a game with a stacked deck is now just a rocky mountain adventure. The movie accomplishes a good chunk of its goals but doesn't really pull the punches that were as apparent in the first film. You might think of it as a solid sequel, and that's fine with me. 

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

*Apparently, the short story (30 pages) is available on the Wayback Machine. To prove that, the first words of the story: "The fat man on the other side of the road was about to drop his groceries."

*Okay, one spoiler: Imagine, if even for a second, that Gwen was actually just going a bit crazy, rather than just being The Most Correct Person To Ever Live. But nah, she even gets to be the one who mom talks to on the phone at the end. Sucks to be you Finn! And don't tell me that is supposed to be an emotional hallmark, you already make it so the mom did not in fact kill herself (ITS ALL CONNECTED AHHHHHHH), do you need closure on closure too? I wanted to know if the religious parents died in the ice or not, by the way.

*Addendum: Technically, the movie has no actual body count. Sure, you are told about a few more dead kids from the 1950s, but really: is a movie spookier when you are told about something or when you actually see it? You can't introduce three new characters to join the proceedings and then basically not have any of them deal with mortality. And no, the mom doesn't count, that's just retconning/cheating.

Trick 'r Treat.

Review #2444: Trick 'r Treat.

Cast: 

Dylan Baker (Steven), Rochelle Aytes (Maria), Quinn Lord (Sam / Peeping Tommy), Lauren Lee Smith (Danielle), Moneca Delain (Janet), Tahmoh Penikett (Henry), Brett Kelly (Charlie), Britt McKillip (Macy), Isabelle Deluce (Sara), Jean-Luc Bilodeau (Schrader), Alberto Ghisi (Chip), Samm Todd (Rhonda), Anna Paquin (Laurie), Brian Cox (Mr. Kreeg; Gerald Paetz as young Kreeg), Leslie Bibb (Emma) Written and Directed by Michael Dougherty (#1227 - Godzilla: King of the Monsters, #1309 - Krampus)

Review: 

"Halloween is better than Christmas because it's all about self-expression. Everyone gets to dress up as a character. Even if they go to the store and buy one of those crappy pre-packaged costumes, they're still making a choice to dress up like an idiot, cut loose, and become something that they're not but is also indicative of their deeper personality. There's something so amazing in that. It's about purity, fun, and creativity."

Originally, Michael Dougherty created the character of Sam with his senior thesis film at New York University in "Season's Greetings" in 1996, doing so with hand-drawn animation over the course of seven months, specifically because he wanted to create a mascot for Halloween (a holiday he felt made life more magical than Christmas as a kid), noting that there was plenty of imagery but not "the one" - he landed on basically a small being with a sack. Eventually, the Columbus native wrote a first draft with Sam in 2001 but studios were not particularly interested in "old-fashioned" stuff like vampire, werewolves, and zombies (one thing that was different was that a graveyard was the setting for a story rather than a quarry). In the meantime, Dougherty devoted time to scriptwriting, contributing to X2 (2003) and Superman Returns (2006), which both were directed by Bryan Singer, who served as a producer on the film that started production in late 2006 and was shot over a few months. Doughtery aimed to get certain age groups for each story, whether that involves carving a pumpkin as a kid, heading out to trick-or-treat as a teenager, or being with hormones in your twenties...or being in your twilight years. Rather than having a traditional structure where the stories were separate, it was felt that the movie fit better when the stories were mixed in together, which is basically being inspired by Pulp Fiction. To put it mildly, Warner Bros. screwed this movie (one that was made for $12 million, mind you) over in every shape and form. It was first publicly screened on the festival circuit in 2007 but didn't get a real theatrical release, instead being released on DVD in 2009. Dougherty never got a straight answer as to why his movie was screwed over the way it was, but he had no bitter feelings over the making of the film, noting that because horror fans "don't like being told no", managed to boost the awareness of the film that apparently made it slip into the mainstream. Plans for a sequel have floated around for years but nothing has actively been in development.

Sure, it may not be Creepshow (1982) type of fun with spooky anthology fun, but it is at least enjoyable for most of what it aims for in the holiday spirit with some chuckles. Sure, it may not be the great Halloween thing ever (Halloween (1978) has won the argument year after year in quality, regardless of its gore because if you can't handle gore, you don't deserve it), but the enthusiasm for the holiday is clearly on display from Dougherty. So you get four (maybe five if you count the opening with Penikett/Bibb) stories that weave in with each other for varying effect. What comes first (as a whole story, technically) is Baker and the ever-lingering story of trying to deal with an unwilling captured body that probably feels the most macabre of the stories to come ahead; it helps that Baker can balance the line of chilling and amusing. You then get to see the next story involve a quartet of kids (McKillip/Ghisi/Bilodeau/Deluce and Todd) engage with a possible legend and dealing with the power of belief within legends and, well, fiction. The third one, and by that I mean one that has been here-and-there between Paquin and the trio of girls (Smith/Aytes/Delain) playing dressup while doing a Halloween shindig that has hang-ups more notable than being without a mate for the fire. Kinda funny, particularly with how the last story ended, anyway. The final segment involves Cox and directly seeing that mascot Sam and the mischief that arises in curmudgeons meeting the devoted, although I don't really know if Sam is really as much of a creature of mischief with the mix of whimsy and darkness as he is just kind of there. Maybe it is just me, but I do wish it was a tiny bit longer than the 82-minute runtime. It doesn't exactly take itself too seriously, but there is a part of me that believes the film doesn't bare enough fangs (despite having an R rating, it mostly cuts away in the body count) to really be as effective as it needs to be. As a whole, the quibbles I have with the movie don't detract from the fact that there is fun to be had in reminding oneself of the mischief that can be had on Halloween. It can be filled with candy, it could be filled with watching horror movies, it could be spent with friends*, or one of all/none of the above. It is a nice little movie that achieves most of what it wants to do, and I suppose that is more than enough for October.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

*Honestly, my one memory with a pumpkin is my dad putting some fireworks in one and exploding it on New Year's Eve 15+ years ago. Trick or treating was more of a thing I did with my mom with one exception in freshman year of high school. After that I pretty much gave up, but I argue horror movie marathons are just as fun.

The Giant Spider Invasion.

Review #2443: The Giant Spider Invasion.

Cast:

Steve Brodie (Dr. Vance), Barbara Hale (Dr. Jenny Langer), Robert Easton (Dan Kester), Leslie Parrish (Ev Kester), Alan Hale Jr (Sheriff Jones), Bill Williams (Dutch), Kevin Brodie (Dave Perkins), Dianne Lee Hart (Terry Kester), and Tain Bodkin (Preacher) Directed by Bill Rebane (#756 - Monster A Go-Go)

Review: 

"I call myself a dyed-in-the-wool Wisconsinte and I just believe this state has so much to offer other filmmakers, especially in locations."

I suppose it made sense to give a proper spotlight to Bill Rebane with his most talked about movie. Born in Latvia, he came to the States at age 15 and majored in drama at the Art Institute of Chicago. He worked a variety of jobs in media from WGN-TV to working in Germany involving Cinemascope and his own circular motion picture process. He also worked as an international studio representative with Bendestorf Studios for several years. He wanted to make a feature film in 1961 and began production on what was to be "Terror at Halfday" with June Travis. You might recognize that the movie did come out...as Monster A Go-Go, since Rebane sold his (not quite complete) footage to Herschell Gordon Lewis, who needed a movie to put on a double feature. Apparently, he felt that his real contribution to the industry was the "first 360-degree motion picture process created with one camera" (which had one projector on a seamless screen), brought over from Germany. Later in the decade, he bought a farm property in Gleason, Wisconsin that became "The Shooting Ranch", an actual feature film studio in the Midwest that could do commercials and small-scale films. Rebane used it to do his first true film with Invasion from Inner Earth (1974). Apparently, the Giant Spider Invasion was made for roughly $300,000 and was shot around the Wisconsin towns of Merrill, Tomahawk and Gleason. The movie apparently made millions of dollars (although it was apparently pirated many, many, many times) and Rebane continued to make horror movies for a time, with one even featuring Tiny Tim as a star. His career effectively ended when he had a stroke in 1988, as the farm soon was sold off and Rebane moved away from the town to Hurley. Did you know that Rebane actually ran for Governor of Wisconsin twice? (1978 and 2002, where he was quoted as not really caring about the results). Rebane has lived long enough to see a film festival (as hosted by people from Mystery Science Theater 3000, no less) held in his honor and even served as the focus of a documentary. Apparently, the movie will have an "enhanced version" to celebrate its 50th anniversary later in the month.

 

Admittedly, you probably have low expectations for a movie that dare to call itself "Giant Spider Invasion". And you would be right. This is a movie that has a Volkswagen beetle used to represent a giant spider (one spider was lifted by crane) to go along with "The Skipper" being cast as a goofy sheriff talking to scientists that are claiming the spiders have arisen from a mini-black hole to go along with a diamond plot, I swear. The movie was written by Richard L. Huff and Robert Easton. Easton is mostly known for his countless years of work as dialogue/accent coach (which led to Rebane motivating him the best way possible: locking him in a cabin to write multiple pages to get food) while Huff apparently never wrote for a movie again. The best thing to say is that at least the crowds that run from the spider at least looked like they had fun doing things. Well, that, and the fact that you need crap like this to remind you of what to appreciate when watching movies and saying they look like slop or find on a streaming service (pity). Honestly, while I get how some people call it one of those "cult following things, I just found it kind of boring and not really that interesting as a movie. Easton being in the movie to play a skeevy husband is at least semi-curious, but the movie clashes way too much with what it wants to be: either attempt to be a monster movie like the 1950s or go all out in humor, but pick one, man. The spiders (whether as a car or the actual tarantulas they used) are only moderately funny to see on screen. This might be one of those movies you watch with The Giant Claw (1957), but at least that movie wanted to try and actually follow procedure in monster mashing (okay that movie had a monster from an "antimatter galaxy"). This movie just meanders for 80 minutes with either skeevy weirdos, a preacher that randomly pops in (and doesn't even get eaten!), totally funny line-delivery or bland authorities. Sure, it is funny to look at the countless times where day-for-night shots are actually screwed up, and sure it is funny to look at the absurd juxtaposition of man and car-spider. That's about all you get. On the other hand: at least when you say the name Bill Rebane, you won't immediately think of worse stuff like Monster A Go-Go. There's a lesson to be had there...probably.

Overall, I give it 4 out of 10 stars.

Jigoku.

Review #2442: Jigoku.

Cast: 

Shigeru Amachi (Shirō Shimizu), Yōichi Numata (Tamura), Utako Mitsuya (Yukiko Yajima and Sachiko Taniguchi), Hiroshi Izumida (Kyōichi "Tiger" Shiga), Kiyoko Tsuji (Kyōichi's mother), Akiko Ono (Yoko), Hiroshi Hayashi (Gōzō Shimizu), Kimie Tokudaij (Ito Shimizu), Jun Ōtomo (Ensai Taniguchi), Akiko Yamashita (Kinuko), Torahiko Nakamura (Professor Yajima), Fumiko Miyata (Mrs. Yajima), Tomohiko Ōtani (Dr. Kusama), Kōichi Miya (Journalist Akagawa), Hiroshi Shinguji (as Hiroshi Shingûji) (Detective Hariya), Sakutarō Yamakawa (the Fisherman), and Kanjūrō Arashi (Lord Enma, the King of Hell) Directed by Nobuo Nakagawa.

Review: 

It does sometimes help to pick a horror movie from a studio that just let things twist in the wind. This was actually the last film to be produced by the studio Shintoho. The studio had come around in the late 1940s because of defectors that came from a strike within Toho. They produced movies such as Akira Kurosawa's Stray Dog (1949) but could not exactly compete with the big studios. In the last years of their run before becoming bankrupt, they pumped out a good deal of cheap period ghost movies and sci-fi movies. One of the directors brought on to do a few of those movies was Nobuo Nakagawa. He actually had been directing movies since the 1930s, having risen from amateur film review writing to working in film production. He did comedies, war documentaries, thrillers, and a small amount of ghost/horror movies to go along with work for television, and he directed all the way until near his death in 1984 at the age of 79. The Ghost of Yotsuya (1959) is likely the other movie he is known for. For this film (also known as The Sinners from Hell), he wrote the screenplay with Ichirō Miyagawa. As Miyagawa explained in an interview years later, the two were engaged in a discussion about the "Plank of Carneades" thought experiment in which if one would be of guilty of murder if they pushed a person off a plank to save themselves that happened to coincide with hearing a TV report of a fisherman catching fish in the Tama River that he sold to people rather than eating it due to fears of it being poisoned. One thing leads to another in then talking about Faust and alter egos and having the question asked about having an idea in mind and boom, the two got to work (apparently, the one question the studio had is where the heaven was, since the original mandate was to make a script called "Heaven and Hell" so Miyagawa joked the sequel would be about heaven). The movie was remade in 1979 by Tatsumi Kumashiro and apparently a remake was done in 1999 with Jigoku: Japanese Hell by Teruo Ishii*.

Hell or no hell, you get a visually entertaining time watching this movie eventually unfold the deck of cards that arise in punishment for the wicked. Hell isn't just a realm of torture, it can also be the things that are seen every day on here itself. There are plenty of worthy shots to appreciate and examine in detail for a movie that might as well be a canvas of suffering. The hell sequences take up roughly 40 minutes of the 100-minute runtime, and you have to understand that the movie is basically a morality play, complete with how it is staged. You know how much the actors cared? In the scenes you see of actors in dirt (on a soundstage with no props but plenty of dirt to dig), the actors themselves dug the holes. Of course, when you have a cheap movie, you can do shots with a washtub, a mirror, a stirrer and some colors and make it look like, well, something you can believe in. This also goes for "Needle Hell", which just goes with plastic and lighting to, well, make a place look like a place. It is a disorientating movie to experience and honestly, it is darkly funny if you think about it. You have a guy who has one little thing (being the passenger to a car accident) spring consequence among consequence to the people he ends up encountering from that point on, whether that involves people that fall off bridges, folks getting poisoned from sake, double-strangulation, and people committing suicide. Sure, the people in the movie are, well, people that probably deserve hell, but screw it, I enjoy seeing the strange qualities that come with weird people all getting the curtain thrust upon them. It's like a soap opera but where everyone dies (with one consolation, anyway). 

And then of course there is the whole "hell" thing, presented with bits of gore in illustrating the type of punishment that takes inspiration from Buddhist ideas about hell. Technically speaking, Amachi and Numata are meant to be playing the sides of a coin, with the latter stating that Nakagawa told him that it was "about the outside and inside of a person" (like Faust). Numata was not entirely satisfied with his performance, but I find him to be a very curious presence in this film, since there are certain sequences where he just arises out of the blue like a dark cloud that can only lead to trouble that he handles with odd charm. He looms with a knowing presence of decay that we can see in all of us. Our temptations and the decisions that come from acting on (or not) those things make us who we are and, to those with the soul to do so, where we may end up. The movie sees a bunch of people who made a few choices for themselves rather than others and says, yep, you are all fit for down under. The filmmakers theorized that if it is hard to show psychological torment on screen, you might as well make it a graphic metaphor, although its mechanisms of plight do have an abrupt end in the closing. Sure, it is a crude film that probably won't win everyone over with its pacing at times, but it sure is a devilishly curious time to at least encounter once. It takes its time to really get the footing going, but if you buy into its little play before the showstopping pits of hell, the trip (not literally) will surely be worth it.

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.

*Speaking of names that might merit consideration down the line. And, oddly enough, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, because I found a Criterion video about Jigoku that featured him talking about the movie. New Directors Month 2026?

Demon Knight.

Review #2441: Demon Knight.

Cast: 

Billy Zane (The Collector), William Sadler (Frank Brayker), Jada Pinkett (Jeryline), Thomas Haden Church (Roach), C. C. H. Pounder (Irene), John Kassir (voice of The Crypt Keeper; Brock Winkless as puppeteer), Brenda Bakke (Cordelia), Dick Miller (Uncle Willy), Gary Farmer (Deputy Bob), Ryan O'Donohue (Danny), Charles Fleischer (Wally), John Schuck (Sheriff Tupper), and Sherrie Rose (Wanda) Directed by Ernest Dickerson (#1641 - Juice) 

Review: 

"I’ve always enjoyed Demon Knight. I love horror films, and I had a lot of fun creating a horror mythology. It was a great cast. I was also happy to do the first film where an African American woman saves the world. That was a good project to be involved with."

Hey, remember Tales from the Crypt? In 1989, a television series was created based on the bi-monthly horror comic anthology series that was created by Bill Gaines and Al Feldstein. By the 1980s, one was long past whiny parents and even whinier doctors having fears that horror comics were making kids illiterate and/or juvenile delinquents*, now you could mine old stuff for movies and premium TV (complete with sex and violence, the hallmark of horror movies and probably America too). The show ran on HBO until 1996 and it probably makes sense that movies were coming. Plans for three of them, in fact. The other ones were tentatively called "Dead Easy" and "Body Count". The screenplay was credited to Ethan Reiff, Cyrus Voris, and Mark Bishop, although it should be noted that the script for the film had been languishing around for several years and at one point there was a version scripted around not having demons being shown but instead a legion of Bible salesman clad in suits and sunglasses that just happen to be revealed as demons later. Demon Knight, a movie released in January of 1995 because they pushed it back from Halloween 1994, was a mild success with audiences (not with critics, but do you trust mainstream critics about horror?), and a post-credits scene states the next film of the Crypt would be Dead E-nope, the second film "presented by Tales from the Crypt" was quickly retooled into Bordello of Blood in 1996 (funny enough, that was also a movie involving an old script being retooled). A hastily made segment with the Cryptkeper character was done for a movie called Ritual (2002), which remade I Walked With a Zombie of all movies (seriously?), although that movie barely had a release in theaters.

So, does it compare well to the 1972 Tales from the Crypt movie? Eh, sort of. If you accept the movie as a little ride through varied conversations about lore (well, something involving religion I guess) and familiar ground for a siege movie, you will be totally fine with what you get here. 92 minutes sounds like they could've just packaged a few episodes for video but it makes for a mostly paint-by-numbers movie, but...it is up the alley. If you thought the show could show promise when not just being a [name actor is here for 20 minutes]* episode, the movie will probably satisfy some of the expectations you may have in entertainment. Maybe it could have been more unsettling, but it at least makes up for it with a few solid moments, in particular because of the presence of Billy Zane, who is delightful in menace. He manages to be unsettling in the sequences of temptation because it ends up sounding pretty believable to walk along his path, which is a hard road when one scene has him drop the pretense of being a cop to just punch straight through a guy's head.  He just has an aura of energy and capability to make you want to listen to what the hell is coming up next that I almost wish would've made it all the way to the end. Sadler may be strapped with an understated type of hero role, but I see it more as an appropriately weary performance that is enjoyable to see play out, mainly because Sadler just seems reliable to take seriously. For a movie that invites you to the idea of a key filled with many, many people's blood (and Christ) in it, anyway. Pinkett makes a worthy participant to the proceedings around her, quirky yet eventually endearing enough to root for, at least when compared to the delightfully adversarial presence of Church* or the always on-time Pounder and Miller. In general, the movie sets its body count early and has a few fine moments with the effects and chuckles, although it definitely feels more a casual ride for those who've seen Assault on Precinct 13 (1980) a few too many times more than a truly original ride. But I like hokum like this when it is presented with likable people or a few little moments of gore to make me want to see it all the way to the ending, which might be a bit too cozy (even the lesser Crypt episodes tried sticking a twist in like a knife for the end). But as a whole, Demon Knight manages to have a few entertaining moments to ride through the obvious bumps that come with trying to turn 30-minute spine-tinglers into a full-edged movie for a moderate ride of success.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

*Why can't people focus their attention on asking aloud why certain people are weird like Taylor Swift superfans?

*Remember when Morton Downey Jr appeared in an episode about haunted ghosts on live TV? The one I probably remember best is the one with Joe Pantoliano about remembering just how many times he has died. Or the one about being trapped in one's own body.

*A Harlingen High School graduate, don't ya know?

Private Parts (1972).

Review #2440: Private Parts (1972).

Cast: 

Ayn Ruymen (Cheryl Stratton), Lucille Benson (Aunt Martha Atwood), John Ventantonio (George Atwood), Laurie Main (Reverend Moon), Stanley Livingston (Jeff), Charles Woolf (Jeff's dad), Ann Gibbs (Judy), Len Travis (Mike), Dorothy Neumann (Mrs. Quigley), Gene Simms (First policeman), John Lupton (Second policeman), and Patrick Strong (Artie) Directed by Paul Bartel (#955 - Eating Raoul, #2231 - Death Race 2000)

Review: 

"If you wish you hadn't seen it, it's bad bad taste. If you feel you were brought dangerously close to the edge, but at the end you were made to laugh or learn something, then it's good bad taste."

It really is a terrible thing to be called Private Parts, if you think about it, so imagine if that was your film debut. This was the case for one Paul Bartel. Born in Brooklyn but raised in Manhattan and New Jersey, Bartel had an interest in film from a young age and apparently spent time assisting cartoonists at UPA, as one does when fascinated with marionettes before they turn 10. He studied at UCLA and made short films that got him a scholarship to study film in Rome. The Secret Cinema (1966), a short detailing a woman being secretly filmed by manipulators around them, was his first prominent short film. Gene Corman served as producer of the movie, a cheapie meant to be for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The working title of the movie was "Blood Relations" before MGM president James Aubrey suggested the change. Go figure: local newspapers saw "Private Parts" and said, nope, too shocking to print, which defeats the whole purpose of a title (in some places, they just called it "Private Arts"). The movie was written by Philip Kearney and Les Rendelstein (screenwriters of this, Strange Invasion [1965], and nothing else), who apparently knew a few oddballs in the underworld of Los Angeles; they were UCLA guys around the same time as Bartel, who apparently did some re-writes to the script. Premier Productions was the distributor of the movie, but actually it was just a subsidiary of MGM, who apparently was embarrassed by the sex and violence but wouldn't just sell it to someone who actually cared. Well, given that they were in the business of doing a horror movie, what exactly were they expecting, Rosemary's Baby?* Bartel appeared in a variety of movies (cameo or supporting, as one expects from a character actor) while often appearing his own directorial efforts, of which he made a total of nine movies before he died in 2000 at the age of 61.

It's a neat little sleazy movie that happens to have a change in mood right around the climax that Bartel stated had an impact with why test audiences were not as big on it as you might expect. He once stated that you had to "be detached from the film and not take it seriously" in order to appreciate it, which may prove fascinating for a movie that does seem pretty relevant more than ever. Sure, some people probably know who their neighbors are (anonymity is the goal but not expected), but there are likely some secrets best not worth knowing everything about; basically, this is a movie for those who like to pair their movies with Psycho or Peeping Tom. It has a few moments of gore but is also just as amusing in the weird spaces that you see for 87 minutes. This is the first and only credited movie for Ruymen, who had done a handful of theater productions and even getting on Broadway with Neil Simon's The Gingerbread Lady*. She did a handful of television appearances over the next few years and has mostly spent time directing for the small stage. She pulls off an interesting performance here, mainly because she has the fascinating challenge of playing eager youth without just being a final target. She does pretty well in balancing that tightrope, doing so with a certain shaky type of charm to go with the foibles of youth that can make one chuckle just as much as grimace. Undeniably, Benson shines the best among the cast, proving to be unsettling without having to strain to make one get the idea as one might expect from a character depicted going to funeral to take photos. You know something is a bit up with her from the jump but you are entranced at the self confidence that comes in that type of belief of self-righteousness about the nature of men and women. It also happens to be the only movie for Ventantonio, who is fairly unsettling, albeit for a movie that relies plenty on having an unsettling feeling on what one is allowed to see. You get plenty to see in images and other things in the landscape two-fold: a person we first see observing someone having sex and a person we soon see observing others from their abode while you also get some side moments with eccentrics (one of them played by Bartel, naturally) to remind you that there can be just as much unease without bloodshed. Uneven or not, there is at least something for everyone even for a slasher film that likes to show a mirror at the world and chuckle a bit at what we see in malaise. Look, there are people who don't respect horror and then there are those who are willing to believe that comedy just doesn't work with horror. But Private Parts (1972) is a neat little movie that happens to dwell in the macabre with eccentric energy that might be right up your alley for a strange time in the horror season.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

*Hey, we don't hate Rosemary's Baby here, I just think it's funny to rag on it. Or Hereditary. Or people who call Sinners anything other than straight horror. No it isn't a musical, stop lying to yourself.

*The play actually lasted just five months on Broadway. The only other movie with Ruymen in it was Jaws, she played a nurse and didn't get screen credit.

*I do find a bit strange Wikipedia terms it as "LGBTQ-related film", since we are talking about a movie where someone injects blood into an inflatable sex doll full of water. Not exactly something you'd want to fly the flag for, you know?

The Bride (1985).

Review #2439: The Bride (1985)

Cast: 

Sting (Baron Charles Frankenstein), David Rappaport (Rinaldo), Jennifer Beals (Eva), Clancy Brown (Viktor, the Monster), Geraldine Page (Mrs. Baumann), Anthony Higgins (Clerval), Alexei Sayle (Magar), Veruschka von Lehndorff (Countess), Quentin Crisp (Dr. Zalhus), Cary Elwes (Captain Josef Schoden), Phil Daniels (Bela), and Timothy Spall (Paulus) Directed by Franc Roddam.

Review: 

Admittedly, this movie had been on the ledger for quite a few months, mostly because one can only look over a Frankenstein film once in a while. The 1980s though, were not exactly a great time for movies with Frankenstein being an inspiration, as evidenced by Frankenstein Island (1981), The Vindicator (1986), or, well, The Monster Squad (1987). And then you have The Bride. The movie was directed by Franc Roddam, who went from London Film School to film directing with Quadrophenia (1979). Sting, best known at the time for his work with, well, The Police, had made his debut as an actor with the Quadrophenia film. Beals was best known for Flashdance (1983), which she filmed as a student at Yale University (The Bride was done on summer break and she graduated in 1987).  The movie was written by Lloyd Fonvielle, who had co-written the adaptation of The Lords of Discipline (1983), which Roddam directed. Interestingly, Roddam later created the worldwide sensation MasterChef. No, really.

The movie practically nosedives once you realize that yes, it is going to keep jumping between the narratives of Beals/Sting and Rappaport/Brown. Yes, the movie called "The Bride" really could've just been called "Frankenstein and the Circus", particularly since it becomes apparent that Beals is playing the title character but barely moves forward in terms of "interesting developments". Sure, you can say there is supposed to be something interesting in viewing what happens when you try to tell the story of a woman who learns to think for herself beyond just being groomed by a man to be in his image (remember that he tells folks she got found after an accident). Instead, it just comes off as something to chuckle at when you see a scene of her trying to be in respectable company and she starts hissing at a cat. The "psychic connection" that is suggested to be with Beals/Brown doesn't exactly help matters, coming off as someone having a bit too many shots of whiskey. If the Beals scenes are a drywall version of Pygmalion, the Brown sequences might as well have come from the land of Dumbo. At any rate, there is just something about Sting's performance that seems to desire a more experienced actor despite his decent attempt at playing a grand old hypocrite (or basically, an Internet "male feminist"). Even when one knows he is playing "Henry" Frankenstein, it still feels like one is chasing down Peter Cushing in a futile effort (incidentally, Frankenstein Created Woman (1967), the only one of the Hammer films involving creatures and women, was better). It is a hell of a thing to look like you are about to do a music video when trying to aim for "strange genius". There is an odd feeling one gets when watching Beals because you almost feel there is something really worthwhile to say about a woman created from lightning that finds more to life than what a "creator" says. Instead, she just gets lost in the shuffle, she doesn't really get her own highlight to be anything other than the lady who hisses at cats and gets cut off for the circus (don't even get me started on the brief sequence of nudity, what the hell is that all about?). This was one of the early roles for Elwes, and he just wanders in and out of the film with little damage to credibility (seriously, he wanders out of the movie just...because). 

Rappaport* does have a smarmy charm to make what probably could've been its own interesting tragedy or something else when you consider the bond that comes with misfits of all shapes and sizes. Brown gets a bit lost in the makeup, but he makes a quality imposing presence that you almost wish he was the one getting key billing. You wish there was a movie of Beals and Brown there, because the damn movie just ends abruptly (complete with a voiceover about following one's heart, as if this was an advertisement for coffee). There are a few supporting names that might be familiar, such as a 76-year-old "raconteur" in Crisp or a youthful Spall, who naturally are killed off in the opening lab sequence, which at least seemed like a scene worth highlighting for having lights and lightning that seem cool to think about before the inevitable. There just isn't passion to be found, it all feels like dinner theater Gothic horror, particularly when you grimace at the fact that 119 minutes can in fact feel like nothing has actually happened in the film beyond reminding you that even a scene throwing a dude off a building can make you roll your eyes. I'm not mad at the movie, just disappointed even with such low expectations (imagine how it must have felt in 1985, and this was for a movie that made less than $4 million*). A 6/10 implies a nearly-there experience, a 5/10 is the proper rating for a middle-of-the-road movie that is too lame to be a near-miss. As a whole, the movie is a failure in the parts that matter most: sure, it looks nice at times and it has a few interesting chuckles with Rappaport and Brown, but the film never has conviction in making you care about Beals or where the movie will end up and it has the tone of a Hallmark greeting card rather than actual Gothic horror. 

Overall, I give it 5 out of 10 stars.

*It was made for roughly $14 million. God, could you imagine if The Bride! (made for reportedly $80 million scheduled for release 2026) is bad? If it is good, sure, cool. The trailer did not do many favors but I would desire a tiny trainwreck if possible.

*This actually was Rappaport's penultimate film appearance, having appeared in ten total movies from 1973 to 1989, most notably with Time Bandits (1981). He committed suicide in 1990, dying at the age of 38.

The House of the Dead (1978).

Review #2438: The House of the Dead (1978).

Cast: 

John Ericson (Talmudge), Ivor Francis (The Mortician / A Good Feller), Leslie Paxton (Marie), John King (Marie's Husband)

First segment: Judith Novgrod (Miss Sibiler)

Second segment: Burr DeBenning (Growski), Elizabeth MacRae (Mrs. Lumquist), Linda Gibboney (Julie), 

Third segment: Charles Aidman (Detective Malcolm Toliver), Bernard Fox (Inspector McDowal)

Fourth segment: Richard Gates (Cantwell)

Directed by Sharron Miller.

Review: 

Okay, I do have a curiosity for anthology movies. This is one of the movies that popped up when searching for stuff that have a few stories to make up a movie...and it does so with probably the thinnest of premises. A man gets lost in a rainstorm and winds up in a mortician's place with a bunch of caskets with people embalmed due to a strange death. Four of them, in fact. It may interest you to know this is actually the only movie directed by Sharron Miller. She was born and raised in Oklahoma and started directing and writing short films from a young age. She went to both Oklahoma State University and Northwestern University to study in theater and film and soon became a director in Hollywood with work on the TV show The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams in 1976. Miller continued to direct for television and short films into the early 2000s, which included a few Emmy Awards for her work, most notably for "ABC Afterschool Special: The Woman Who Willed a Miracle" (1983). Apparently, the movie was shot in Oklahoma with a budget of barely over $650,000 that had non-unionized broadcasting students from Oklahoma State University. The movie was almost known as "Alien Zone" for some weird reason. At least the movie has had a restored release on home video.

 

The song that plays at the start of the song is probably the highlight. So, let's judge the four segments with the bodies one by one. The first segment involves a woman coming home from her school that has a disdain for children. She comes home and tries to relax by herself only to encounter strange noises. Take a guess what seems to be the problem. It isn't even worth wondering how children can just maul an adult to death. The second segment involves a guy who has a thing for cameras and photography. Okay, and killing women in front of the camera, since he is seen being escorted from court. You see the killing of three women because, well, guy, camera, woman, yea. The segment doesn't even show his execution, the mortician is the one who tells us this, as if saying that the killer was rejected in asking for his execution to be captured on film is ironic. I suppose one is supposed to be unsettled by the segment, but we already know the character is dead from the moment we see him, you couldn't find an ironic way for him to die (what, a camera falls on him making him blindly fall into a fireplace?) rather than just have it be court-ordered execution? The third segment is the best one, mostly because it actually has two people talking to each other. It involves two egotistical detectives trying to assert their status as the great criminologist. One gets a note telling him that someone he knows will die in three days. Technically this is an interesting little duel of the minds, because at least there is something worthwhile in seeing Aidman try to assert himself against Fox in detective work. Of course, since the story only has two characters, I think you can tell what is going to go down for the climax to a point, but at least this one sounds like it could've been its own movie. The fourth segment flat out doesn't even bother to figure things out, since it is just about some rude guy getting trapped in a building that suffers anguish mentally and physically and he only has beer to drink. Then he gets out, sees a person headed towards the building (who insults him just like he did to some hobo...minutes ago, because none of these stories are particularly long to remember anyway) and...later dies of a rotted liver. I guess taking a shower and refreshing oneself after getting out of a "mysterious" building was out of the question, time to start the road to die of alcoholism, I guess. Not explaining what's up with the building in being trapped is one thing, having a guy die off-screen is beyond lame. These stories (as written by David O'Malley) seem more like a collection of short ideas that needed a second draft more than anything, but at least the movie has easy to see action rather than looking like a bad 60s cheapie.

The movie starts and ends with Ericson, who is depicted to be an adulterer. He confronts the fact that there is a fifth coffin and the fact that the four coffins depict people who were victims of their own frail foibles. Yea man, a guy dying of alcoholism after escaping a weird building, really frailty thing right there. The adulterer refuses to believe it is for him, runs off...and is shot by the cuckold. Real open and shut thing, just like the rest of the movie. And then the mortician is seen in the ambulance because ooooh. I think you can tell what I think of the movie: it stinks. Anthology movies do have a problem with having consistent quality within story to story, but this movie manages to sink down to the lousy zone early and never lets up for 80 minutes. You could say there are a few moments here and there when it comes to staging the idea of a scare (or, well, the third segment for an actual pairing), but for the most part, it just comes off as disjointed and not really that interesting to actually see play out. In a sea of horror movies, anthology or otherwise, you probably could do better than this one, but you at least won't hate the whole experience.

Overall, I give it 4 out of 10 stars.

Friday the 13th Part III.

Review #2437: Friday the 13th Part III.

Cast: 

Dana Kimmell (Chris Higgins), Paul Kratka (Rick Bombay), Tracie Savage (Debbie Klein), Jeffrey Rogers (Andy Beltrami), Catherine Parks (Vera Sanchez), Larry Zerner (Shelly), David Katims (Chuck Garth), Rachel Howard (Chili Jachson), Richard Brooker (Jason Voorhees), Nick Savage (Ali), Gloria Charles (Fox), and Kevin O'Brien (Loco) Directed by Steve Miner (#761 - Friday the 13th Part 2, #1148 - Halloween H20: 20 Years Later)

Review: 

Maybe someday I will be generous to the Friday the 13th series. Honestly, it has been so long since I saw the first movie that I only remember the lack of interest I had in the characters before they got killed in various ways involving blades and other things, although at least the first movie had Betsy Palmer for some sort of chance at respectability. No I don't care, the movie is not a quality slasher in enjoyment for me. Sorry. Of course, the second movie now was a Jason movie, complete with rushing it like it was a conveyor belt, with the first three movies coming out within a year of each other. There were a few changes from the second movie. There were a few changes from the second movie. Sure, Steve Miner would return to direct, but they could not recall the services of (final girl) Amy Steel due to an apparent issue with her agents. Scriptwriter Ron Kurz also turned down the project. Apparently there were ideas floated around about setting it in a psychiatric hospital or involving a final confrontation. Instead, Martin Kitrosser and Carol Watson were hired to write for the movie; Petru Popescu provided significant re-writes that ended up in the final script, but he was not given credit. Apparently, the real focus of the film was to make sure the 3D (as assisted with 3-Depix cameras from Marks Polarized Corporation) would look good on screen, with Popescu claiming that the casting sessions were targeting actors for their looks rather than their acting ability and David Katims was once quoted as saying "the writing and the acting didn't matter at all." With a budget of $2.2 million, the movie was a substantial success, making fifteen times its budget with audiences. In 1984, the intended final film of the series was released by Paramount. It may interest you to know that this is the first movie of the series to feature its killer with a hockey mask, since you might remember the last movie had a sack over his head.

Sure, you could watch a character play with a yo-yo that could make you remember the days of 3D. Or you could watch something that is not so needlessly padded. Sorry (not sorry), this movie sucks. I don't care if someone finds it goofy, this is just a boring film in the long run, and it isn't even because of the violence. It is as paper thin as the other two movies, and if I don't care one iota about the people in the film before they get turned into eye-popping targets for death, why should I care about the movie as a whole? What, is seeing an annoying character like Shelly get bounced supposed to be a highlight? (he starts out by faking that he is dead only to later on in the film actually get killed only for no one to believe him HAHAHAHA GET IT?). The final girl setup is unbelievably stupid, mainly because it lacks definition. You're supposed to believe that two years prior, the character ran into the woods, was attacked by Jason, had a struggle...and woke up right in her bedroom with no memory of what happened after being in the woods. Yes, Jason Vorhees, famously remembered for attacking folks in the woods without killing them (apparently, one idea floated by Popescu was that actually Jason raped her, which makes even less sense). Kimmell just can't sell it anyway, because everyone just seems to be on autopilot mode, where you just hear the lines and then you forget about it just as quickly. In general, there is nothing particularly appealing about the characters that makes me want to stick with them besides wondering what stupid 3D thing is going to happen next, but Jason is just going around killing people just...because. You could see that done better with Halloween II (1981), for crying out loud. As a whole, with middling characters that pad out a 95-minute runtime with lazy ambition and lame 3D ideas, the third movie manages to do exactly nothing fresh or interesting with a series that had little innovation in the first place.

Overall, I give it 5 out of 10 stars.

The Tingler.

Review #2436: The Tingler.

Cast: 

Vincent Price (Dr. Warren Chapin), Judith Evelyn (Mrs. Martha Ryerson Higgins), Darryl Hickman (Dave Morris), Patricia Cutts (Isabel Stevens Chapin), Pamela Lincoln (Lucy Stevens), Philip Coolidge (Oliver 'Ollie' Higgins)

Produced and Directed by William Castle (#369 - House on Haunted Hill (1959), #1071 - 13 Ghosts, #1418 - The Night Walker, #1703 - Undertow, #2261 - Macabre, #2300 - Homicidal, #2301 - Strait-Jacket)

Review: 

Well, if you are going to try and give audiences a bit of a scare, you might as well try to make it a whole show of gimmicks to grab attention, I suppose. William Castle's Macabre (1958) had the life insurance policy for anyone dying of fright while House on Haunted Hill (released in January 1959) had an "Emergo" gimmick where a pulley system was rigged so a plastic skeleton could be flown over the audience at a certain point in the film.* Anyway, with The Tingler, released in July of 1959, Castle came up with a couple of ideas: Percepto, in which the underside of select seats would have electrical buzzers attached to try and provide a tingling sensation for moments (as one does when having surplus airplane wing dicing motors from the World War II days). As noted in the opening, said by none other than Castle himself, only certain members would get the shock because "some people are more sensitive to these mysterious electronic impulses than others." And then of course there is the other idea, which involves planted members of the audience for a certain moment in the climax. As with Castle's two previous horror movies, it was written by Robb White, who did two further scripts for him. It was the second and last time that Vincent Price was the star of a William Castle movie. Obviously, the movie was enough of a hit for Castle to continue on with gimmicks: his next film in 13 Ghosts had a gimmick where you could see the ghosts in "Illusion-O" (a trick involving red and blue filters applied to the footage when dealing with the ghosts).

Really if you accept the premise as, well, with tingling curiosity, you already are half-way to having some enjoyment with the film. You've got a guy thinking he can find a creature that looks like a (big) centipede all in the name of science, at least if one doesn't scream about it first. I suppose the real thing about the tingler is that it could be represented as anything that makes us shudder and how we try to cope with apparent fears ahead of us. It has a small cast that naturally is highlighted by Price, who glides through the movie in making you go for the material in a movie that is actually kind of weird. You have a small ensemble, a few weird relationship dynamics being explored for a bit and the use of lysergic acid, or, well, LSD. Since Price looks committed to the material (as opposed to eyerolling it or just playing to scream scream scream), we find ourselves gravitating to the 82-minute runtime as well. The most interesting sequence could be the bathtub sequence (as acted by Evelyn in her final film role - she actually was brought in at the request of Price, who worked with her on Broadway), since it was shot in color that saw the set painted white/black/gray to go along with gray makeup so that way you could see the blood stick out from an otherwise monochrome background. What is particularly strange is that it comes not too long after Price's character tries out some LSD (in an attempt to spook himself without screaming), but one really wonders if he also gave it to someone else, because where else would a scene of red blood in otherwise monochrome stuff come into play? The movie just plays it as he just gave someone barbiturates for a prescription and then they just happen to see weird stuff but really if this had been made a few years later, it probably could've actually implied more that it was really LSD that did her in more than "oh, scared to death" for a trigger to die. Of course, the mystery of the film is where the tingler is going to end up, since it only can reside in folks that are alive. This is where the climax aims for the astounding: the movie actually stops in the guise of the tingler "being loose" and you have to wonder just how it felt with audience plants being around to pretend the thing was around them, although it should be mentioned that for most of the film, all it really does is get set to choke just one person, and the end goal for our hero is...to sew it back into a dead body. Yep, the thing is just going to go right back in, one can't just shoot it but it will slip right in a corpse fine. At any rate, it is an interesting experience to get wrapped in, if you allow it to do so. I don't think it is better than say, House on Haunted Hill, but you can see where Castle could take showmanship a bit further down the road. As a whole, The Tingler is moderately interesting when it truly kicks into gear for the fun that comes out in remembering just what it means to scream, which may or may not make for one heck of a climax if one finds themselves in the mood for what it is selling in the overall experience. If you like the Castle strategy of playing to the horror audience, you've got a winner here.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

*Evidently, Alfred Hitchcock certainly took notice of the low-budget success of Castle's films prior to making Psycho (1960).

Chopping Mall.

Review #2435: Chopping Mall.

Cast: 

Kelli Maroney (Allison Parks). Tony O'Dell (Ferdy Meisel), Russell Todd (Rick Stanton), Karrie Emerson (Linda Stanton), Barbara Crampton (Suzie Lynn), Nick Segal (Greg Williams), Suzee Slater (Leslie Todd), John Terlesky (Mike Brennan), Paul Bartel (Paul Bland), Mary Woronov (Mary Bland), Angela Aames (Miss Vanders), and Dick Miller (Walter Paisley) Directed by Jim Wynorski.

Review: 

You have to know that the movie was going to be called "Killbots". Apparently, Vestron Video had a deal with Julie Corman (working with Roger with Concorde Pictures) to do a movie set in a mall. Who better to make a pitch but Jim Wynorski, who already had done writing work for the Cormans in writing and publicity before debuting as a director with The Lost Empire (1984). Wynorski and Steve Mitchell took inspiration taken from the 1954 movie Gog. With the setting in mind, they actually first came up with a "Phantom of the Mall" type of idea before Wynorski came up with just doing it with robots; they wrote the idea in about 24 hours that was soon approved. The effects for the robots (as envisoned by Robert Short) are interesting as the things (all five of them, as one does when preparing for an emergency) had construction from wheelchair frames and conveyor belt pieces, complete with remote control operation or using cables to move them around (you can read more about it here). The movie was shot at the Sherman Oaks Galleria in Los Angeles (with exterior shots being of the Beverly Center), and it only makes sense that it was done when the mall was closed at night; you can recognize the Galleria from its use in Commando (1985) and uh, Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982). The film was shot over the course of roughly three weeks. Apparently, the movie had a regional release with the Killbots title in Spring of 1986 and tested poorly* but was later reissued months later as Chopping Mall, complete with nearly 20 minutes cut out that resulted in the 76-minute runtime (there apparently is a bit of extra footage that was included on TV, but its not easy to find it). While the movie was a mild hit on release, it found a better life with release on VHS and cable. Wynorski made a litany of movies (some for the video market) that ranged from parodies to "erotic" ones, but Chopping Mall is likely the one people know best. 

Admittedly, it is a bubblegum type of horror movie, one that delivers most of the goods in having a neat adversary and a few interesting moments in mayhem (coincidentally, this was the other 1986 movie about robots being changed due to lightning strikes next to Short Circuit). Admittedly, the ensemble presented here is mostly just fine*, serving more as fodder for strangely paired death after death (seriously, most of the body count is delivered like that, because if your significant other dies, logic goes out the window I guess). They go around doing the type of thing you expect in lounging around in a mall by oneself (so a notch around Dawn of the Dead [1978]) for the setup that at least makes these folks useful enough to go with the ever-changing flow from partying to running (honestly it almost feels more favorable to try and hide in the store for several hours rather than trying to attack the three killbots, since even blowing it up with propane isn't favorable). The killbots look cool and even prove to be equal opportunity killers, whether in staging head explosions (okay maybe the effect isn't the most accurate thing ever but just look at it) or stabbing folks or, uh, throwing people off of railings that make them formidable and interesting to see play out. While I wish the excised material was available to compare the two movies, you could at least say the version we have today is serviceable in pacing and mayhem. As a whole, Chopping Mall is the kind of movie you encounter in the middle of the night (for the horror season, ideally*) and put on for a pretty refreshing time, mostly because of the mayhem you get to see from the bots that leads to a few bits of humor within the effects. It is a neat average little gem.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

*Honestly, Killbots is the better title. Pun or no pun, the bots don't chop anybody up in the movie. What, did someone think it was a Transformers thing with the old title?

*It was nice to see Paul Bartel and Mary Woronov from Eating Raoul for about three minutes, admittedly, most to remind me of that movie for a tiny bit. Or Dick Miller, mostly because he really could just pop up in a horror movie again and again.

*Honestly, the horror season is what, 38 days for me? It seems far better than encountering horror movies in the winter or spring, that's for sure.

The Premature Burial.

Review #2434: The Premature Burial.

Cast:  

Ray Milland (Guy Carrell), Heather Angel (Kate Carrell, Guy's Sister), Hazel Court (Emily Gault, Guy's Wife), Alan Napier (Dr. Gideon Gault), Richard Ney (Miles Archer), John Dierkes (Sweeney), Dick Miller ("Mole"), Clive Halliday (Judson), and Brendan Dillon (Clergyman)

Produced and Directed by Roger Corman (#368 - The Little Shop of Horrors, #684 - It Conquered the World, #852 - The Terror, #931 - Not of This Earth, #1007 - Attack of the Crab Monsters, #1039 - Five Guns West, #1042 - War of the Satellites, #1136 - Gas-s-s-s, #1147 - X: The Man with the X-ray Eyes, #1186 - A Bucket of Blood, #1423 - The Wild Angels, #1425 - The St. Valentine's Day Massacre, #1674 - Machine-Gun Kelly, #1684 - Creature from the Haunted Sea, #1918 - House of Usher, #2030 - The Trip, #2113 - The Undead, #2211 - The Intruder, #2275 - The Wasp Woman, #2295 - The Pit and the Pendulum)

Review: 

Apparently, when Roger Corman was making films for American International Pictures, there came a time to settle differences of his fee with a coin toss. He and Samuel Z. Arkoff would flip a coin...and Arkoff won a handful of times that made Corman interested to venture for himself. He went to Pathe Lab to try and finance a film, since they did their own print work and financed a few AIP movies. He got Charles Beaumont and Ray Russell to do the script but had to go with Ray Milland for the lead due to Vincent Price being in an exclusive AIP contract. And then...AIP arrived on the first day of production to say that they were now partners on this film, as they leveraged the position of not having any more lab work to become partners on what became this film. While the movie made some money with audiences, Corman reflected later that the response meant that the formula "had to be varied." The next "Poe Cycle" movie was Tales of Terror (1962), released four months later that was an anthology feature with Price and other noted names. The movie is inspired by the short story of the same name, as written by Edgar Allan Poe in 1844 that had an unnamed narrator with fears of being buried alive with "catalepsy" that tries to cope with the phobia...although that story ends with one ending their obsession with death.

It isn't a forgettable movie, but it definitely is one that shows strain. It may interest you to know that Milland was an Academy Award winning actor, having previously won it for The Lost Weekend (1945). The Welsh actor had a lengthy career, and he was more than happy to be a character actor in his later years with the occasional lead or two, as one might recognize him from AIP's 1963 classic (at least that's how I remember it) X: The Man with the X-ray Eyes (1963); Milland acted until shortly before his death in 1986 at the age of 79. Unfortunately, The Premature Burial is not among his highlights, mainly because the movie does not give him to really do. It isn't merely a case of the movie needing the services of Price (four years younger than Milland, although each was already in their fifties by 1962), it just seems like a movie that is trying to coast on what you already saw from the last two Poe AIP movies and flailing. You want to see a worthy tragedy, you want to see something that could inspire anxiety and curiosity, but Milland can only do so much for a movie that doesn't really have a mystery or tragedy to it. You could almost pick a random actor from Milland's heyday to do this and possibly still have the same effect. It does not help that Court and Ney have absolutely nothing to contribute for what is meant to be a curiosity: a woman who wants to associate with a guy who believes he is doomed and a doctor in the middle of looking at his mental state. But they don't really stick in your mind for anything other than "okay". The sense of doom just seems like the previous two Poe movies but with diminishing returns besides the cemetary maybe being a different angle to look at this time. The dream sequence might be the most noted sequence in the whole film (which only runs at 81 minutes anyway) because it seems lurid and eerie in ways that actually makes one wonder where the rest of the energy went. The movie just isn't as fun as it really could be, managing to be a bit too cozy to really make anyone get chills for something that could've been a fun mystery or a look at a strange person. As it stands, it isn't a bad movie, but it just isn't accomplished enough to really recommend when there are better things elsewhere.

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.