the astounding denim jacket: 2015

December 10th, 2015 - THE END

Or is it?

Not really. The fact of the matter is that I made it through mid-February 2016, watching a movie every day. But it's at about this point where I stumbled with the blog entries, took some shortcuts, and straight up skipped writing about some of them. So it seems as good of a time as any to call it quits...

Until October 2016! If you'd like equally random but more recent horror movie crap in a blog format, please see The Amazing Denim Jacket.

Thanks for stopping by!

December 9th, 2015 - Blood Riders: The Devil Rides With Us (2013)

It's not entirely fair to call every ultra low-budget and knowingly stupid film Troma-esque, but that's where my brain goes. Troma with a dense Canadian filter is probably how I would describe Blood Riders: The Devil Rides with Us. Even though there's a lot of tasteless humor and cheap gore, it's a bit more good-natured then I would expect from a wacky low budget horror-comedy.

Janek and Kyle (I think I have the names right) are buddies - they're pretty good guys, but are sick of being treated badly by their peers. So, as you do when you want respect, they attempt to steal a car. But they are interrupted by Dane and Zoey (two "cool kids") and try to walk away. But Dane harasses them, and in order to show him up they successfully steal a *different* car. And the four not-really-friends go for a little joyride. However, when they go to ditch the car out in the woods they find a dead body in the trunk. Zoinks!

I liked Pod quite a bit. It's a cool story, and it's pretty intense but feels kind of minimalist at the same time. I think there is total cast of five? And the majority of it is just three characters - mentally-ill (or is he?) war vet Martin, his psychologist brother Ed, and their younger sister Lyla. Ed has gotten a creepy voicemail from Martin, who is living in an isolated cabin in the woods. Ed begrudgingly recruits Lyla to go up and check on their brother because it sounds like it "could be happening again." Apparently, Martin has been diagnosed with some sort of PTSD and paranoid schizophrenia, and while they thought things were under control, it sounds like the meds may not be working anymore.

When Ed and Lyla get to the house, it's in rough shape. All of the windows/doors are blocked off with foil, and the place is a total mess. And Martin is visibly NOT okay; he begins spouting off about super soldier programs and tests that were performed on him during the war, and how he's being tracked by the government. (He's even turned to self-mutilation to get the tracking devices out.) Oh, and he's got a pod in the basement (and not the storage kind - more like an egg). He claims it's from some strange creature that somehow ties in with his government conspiracy. And he begs Ed and Lyla not to go down there, no matter what happens.

Arang is a just fine-ish Korean ghost-tale/thriller about someone... or something... killing off a bunch of well-to-do dudes. The only connection at first seems to be the fact that they've all been instant messaged a link to this "terrifying" website. I mean, I guess it's just a tourist advertisement for this little town by the sea - particularly this one old salt house. For those of you not in the know (like me), it's an old salt storage place by the sea - in this case, it's a creepy old wooden cabin looking thing. But the website is not very effective as a marketing tool. It makes the town look creepy, and it's shot all ominously, slow panning in black-and-white. It's clearly not meant for public consumption. But these victims seem to be spooked, and it's obvious that something more is going on here than anonymous instant messaging.

Detective So-young is assigned to the case. She has just returned to the police department after a forced sabbatical. She's not necessarily a loose cannon and doesn't totally "play by her own rules," but she gets partnered with an inexperienced guy anyways. Together, they try to figure out who... or what... has committed these murders, and how they can stop them from happening again.

After a number of mockumentaries, Blood, Boobs, and Beast marks my first proper documentary for this blog. And while it's not a horror film, it's about a guy who made horror movies (including the pretty rad Nightbeast), which is good enough in my book.

The subject here is Don Dohler, a filmmaker who is known in some circles for a couple of different projects: he had a late 70s comics 'zine that launched the career of many a famous artist, as well as a special effects magazine called Cinemagic. While the film touches on these, it's most interested in his horror films, which have gained cult status for their regional charm and their DIY aesthetics. And for the record, I've very much enjoyed everything I've seen from him, so I may be a little biased.

The year? 1990. The problem of traveling to the moon has been solved for many years. Space Stations have been built there, and authorized personnel come and go as they wish. But the moon is a dead world, and the great question about space still remains... does life exist on another planet?

Well, it turns out Queen of Blood didn't quite get that right. But it's always fun to see how the past viewed the future, now that it's the present. Or in this case, now that that particular present is the past. I guess. Whatever.

Queen of Blood is an interesting movie. Some of the visuals are amazing, and some of them look like crap. But there's some money behind the big shots of outer space - and while I am no film historian, I don't associate American International Pictures with big budget stuff. But after watching the film and doing a little research, I found that the good stuff is lifted from a couple of fancy Russian sci-fi flicks. AIP bought the footage, inserted their own cheap and convoluted story about Mars trip gone awry and a creepy alien race... and voila! One of the more inconsistent films I've come across... maybe ever.

I'm not sure how to explain The Cabining without pretty much ruining it. So, fair warning. (For the record, I'd say it's probably not worth seeing anyways.) Think of an awkward indie-horror version of Adaptation... it's got some of the meta-ness of Cabin in the Woods, but it just isn't particularly clever. It's not stupid, but it's not smart either. And this is the type of story that requires some smarts and finesse, and unfortunately The Cabining doesn't have either.

Todd and Bruce are buddies trying to make it as screenwriters. The problem is they are terrible. Supposedly they've been at it for years, but their scripts are laughably bad. Todd is the more serious one - he's concerned with rent and, uh... writing. His buddy Bruce just kind of goofs around all the time and doesn't really even try to write. And in the off chance he has an idea, it usually sucks. So yeah, not much of a team. Anyways, the pair is lamenting the fact that their most recent attempt at a horror script was laughed out of a writing workshop. Plus, they stand to lose Todd's rich uncle's (Richard Riehle, Skype-ing it in) investment if they don't get something good together... and fast.

The Cutting Room starts off with a very intense credit sequence: black screen with freaky old-timey music, intercut with torture sounds and screaming, and then the visual of a young woman being chained to a table. But after that, the film just sort of twiddles its thumbs for an hour, leading up to a not very rewarding climax. Oh, and it's found footage! So it's another film to add to the ever expanding pile of crappy found footage films, I guess.

Robin Hood: the Ghost of Sherwood just might be the stupidest movie I've ever seen. It's just unrelentingly dumb on so many levels. Not only do character's motivations change at random... the actors actually playing the characters change! They try to cover it up with some magic potion hogwash... although I suspect they changed everything so they could have Tom Savini in their movie. (Suspiciously, the "potioned" characters only appear in scenes with him.) I like Tom Savini just fine, but I don't think he's worth completely scheduling your film around, you know? And also - bad direction, bad script, bad action, bad ADR... and it's WAY too long (at nearly 2 hours). It's poorly done at literally every level.

The Big Bad is an intriguing indie film that occasionally comes close to being ruined by its own indie-ness. Visually the film can be pretty brutal (the first 20 or so minutes have this weird haze in the picture), and there are some performances that are bad/off enough that they threaten to derail the whole thing. But there's enough zest and energy to things that it ends up mostly working, and it builds up a pretty interesting world for our hero Frankie to journey through.

It starts out kind of rough... You've got some pretty shaky camera work (and that weird haze) as Frankie goes about town, clearly looking for a dude. She settles into one of the diviest bars I've ever seen and sort of befriends this drug-addict lady, and they do the typical indie dramatic yammering thing for a while. After about 15 minutes, it's still not clear what the film even is or will be. A dark and dramatic character piece about these two? A crime thriller of sorts? I actually stopped it to make sure that this was a horror film about 15 minutes in. But what Netflix says, goes, so I continued on with the film.

Oof. The Gardener is bad. And not in a fun way. Check out this plot - it's literally the best I could find from a half-dozen sites, and it's still bad: A strange man grows odd plants for a wealthy American woman in South America. The plants begin to emit deadly fumes! It seems that all of his previous employers have died mysteriously. What happens to him in the end is very bizarre. (Thanks terribly written Amazon plot summary!) Usually, with a plot like that, you can bank on some enjoyable weirdness or at least some entertaining surreal badness. But there's none of that here. The Gardener just drags... and drags... and drags with very little to offer. It's exasperating. I think I was checking the remaining runtime on this more than I have for any film in recent memory. It's just plain rough to watch.

That plot summary kind of sums it up. I watched the extras and actress Katherine Houghton - playing Ellen, the wealthy woman who hires the titular gardner - summed up her interest in the film by saying there was some good class tension in the script. And I guess it's kind of there... her and her husband are elite, rich, white folks living in a gated mansion in Brazil (actually filmed in Puerto Rico), with numerous servants and what not. But really, other than one scene where she's driving through a poor part of town, the class theme never really makes it through. (To be fair, Houghton says as much in the interview.) Basically you just sit there waiting for some plants to kill people (which happens about one-half of one time), and it seems like the filmmakers don't care about class tension *or* plant action.

Yes, it's about a woman trying to solve murders that *may* have been committed by vampires, and much of this action takes place in a graveyard. But Moonlight Vampires feels like a film that kids could watch (a kid that could either read subtitles or understand Chinese anyways). Not that they'd like it… There's a subplot in there about government corruption, and it's kind of slow. But as far as horror goes it feels pretty toothless. It's listed as Not Rated, but other than one scene of general terror (against a couple of young girls) and a vague prison torture scene this is PG easy. Not that there's anything wrong with that. It's a very easily digestible film and is occasionally entertaining. But it's certainly not all that memorable.

When a horror film is called The Pyramid, I think it's a generally safe to assume the plot of the film will involve people going into a pyramid, and things not going as planned. Like yesterday's The Pyramid, for example. But today's The Pyramid, despite suspiciously similar title artwork, is not about that. (Although in The Pyramid's defense, I think you are pretty much obligated to highlight the "A" if you are designing that title.) The actual pyramid here is a little knickknack. It's like a crappy version of the little puzzle thing from Hellraiser. And it unleashes pure evil, which is obviously problematic for whoever has it in their possession.

But this The Pyramid uses this framework to sort of have a connected anthology. It's four stories are about how this little knickknack affects the people who have it... how it magically uses them to do it's evil bidding. And maybe even take over the world! As much as a semi-sentient little toyshop pyramid can, anyways.

This entry is particularly painful. I accidentally erased this entire post (note to my fellow inexperienced bloggers: do not use command Z to undo a page break). So, not only is this whole thing a waste of my time, I have to relive the painful experience of watching The Pyramid.

I remember being sort of excited when The Pyramid came out last year. I'm kind of a found footage nerd, and a pyramid seems like a more interesting setting than a haunted house for the thousandth time. But bad reviews, a busy holiday schedule, and a remarkably short theatrical run kept me away. And that's probably a good thing, because The Pyramid is a really bad, bordering on awful movie... one that would have probably invited to a regret-filled theatrical experience.

Hey yo! It's Manos! It's a bit weird to be using this for the blog, as I've kind of seen it many times. But only in riffed form. Maybe a half dozen times on MST3K, and twice on Rifftrax. This "real" version is more punishing, as you don't have the jokes or the buffers of the host segments. But I've never made it through the "real" version, and just like I wouldn't count a riffed movie as my movie for the day, it seems fair to use a movie that I've only seen riffed. So... Manos!

And this Manos is pretty special, because it's the recently released Blu-Ray, which was lovingly remastered in HD by Ben Solovey. Honestly, I don't really know how any of this stuff works... but this Manos looks great. Almost like a real movie at times! So many thanks to Mr. Solovey for his odd labor of love - you've made the world a better place, good sir.

I feel like Shocker has gotten a little extra play as of late, given the recent passing of writer/director Wes Craven. It's a surprisingly light flick, considering the big bad is a serial killer (Horace Pinker) who massacres entire families! Usually, slashers just kill off teens or (shitty) single people/couples. Because knocking off an entire family is kind of depressing. And actually, Pinker is a serial killer until he's executed. At which point, using some sort of occult spell/black magic, he manifests into some sort of ghost/spirit who can jump either (a) from body to body, possessing the person, or (b) into the TV (?). It's interesting… Shocker starts out pretty grim, and progressively gets zanier until the big climax, which plays more like a comedy than anything else. So, even though it's a little on the long side, at least Shocker is never boring.

Is it good? Eh... I mean, it's entertaining for sure, but I think I kind of expected more considering it's a Wes Craven joint - and also considering all of the love I've heard for it over the years. Granted, it's a love that often comes with an asterisk, but still. The tone is just kind of all over the place, and it never really cohered into anything that made enough sense for me to enjoy on anything other than a superficial level. Although there could be love for it because of how insane it is... and I kind of get that. But overall it just never clicked for me.

Confession: I've never done mushrooms. If I ever do (even though at age 35 my "trying new substances" days are almost over), I hope there isn't some ghost/beast thing running around trying to kill me after I take them. That would suck. And I guess that's pretty much the story of Shrooms.

It's worth noting that Shrooms is NOT a comedy. I expected it to be an Evil Bong-ish silly drug misadventure (the likes of which are generally painfully unfunny), but Shrooms is far from it. It plays more like a grim n' gritty slasher than anything. Not a particularly good one, mind you, but still a step up from your average drug comedy.

Please note: I am not talking about the 1993 Alec Baldwin/Nicole Kidman thriller. This Malice is a feature film pieced together out of a web series (if my IMDB detective work is correct). Which is in and of itself is kind of interesting. We were doing it in the 30s and 40s with serials, and what's old is now new again via the internet. Anyways, you can't really tell that Malice was a web series. It mostly feels like a legit low-budget film on the first watch, and there aren't any obvious breaks in the action or anything like that. It's still not very good though. If I was watching it one 10-15 minute episode at a time, I'd maybe make it to episode three.

It starts with teenager Alice chilling on the roof of her house with an assault rifle (or other big gun), as a crowd of horribly animated zombies close in. The rest of the film gives you the story as to how that happened.

I had been hearing good things about Absentia for a long time. It seemed to be popular amongst my favorite writers on the internet, and was lingering on my Netflix Instant queue for a long time... Until one day, like the gentleman in the film, it disappeared. I was sad. But it continued to linger on my DVD queue... And then one day... Bang! What a pleasant surprise!

Absentia is not only a good flick, but it's one of those where your feelings about it are amplified once you watch the extras and know the backstory. I mean it's a really good (if pretty low-key) film on its own, but once you learn about it's lowbudget-kickstarterness (and general inexperience of the filmmakers) it's hard not to love. But I'll try to not let that color this entry.

Fair warning: some of this is spoilery. Just see the movie. It's really good. I mean, it's understated and not full of action, but in terms of not-too-dark indie psychological horror it's the real deal.

I must have read Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart" at some point, but other than the main bullet point (guy fesses up to murder because he can still hear the heartbeat of his victim) I don't remember anything. I'm pretty sure it didn't involve a creepy loner named Edgar trying to woo his beautiful neighbor. But whatever - this adaptation still pretty much works, even though it has to try a little too hard to stretch the source material to feature length.

Laurence Payne plays Edgar, a librarian leading a mostly solitary life. He's got a big house with a maid, but other than the occasional social visit from his friend Carl, he prefers to be alone. That is, until the beautiful Betty moves in across the street. Edgar is smitten, but doesn't know how to go about getting to know her. He even asks Carl (a dashing, suave ladies man) "How do you talk to a girl?" So he's rather inexperienced, but also a little creepy. He conveniently can see into Betty's window from his bedroom, and follows her around town, only to ask her a question and then vanish. Nerves, I tell you!

Treehouse is good enough to be disappointing. That counts for something, right? It's got a really strong first act, which does an excellent job establishing the relationship of our hero brothers (Crawford and his younger brother Killian) and the world they live in. For the first half, Treehouse reminded me (in a good way) a lot of the coming of age movies I grew up with in the 80's - it's a world where adults are present, but are very peripheral. We experience everything through the brother's eyes, and during the setup of the film it works very well.

Anyways: It's the night of the big town fair (or something). But we find out (actually we see, in the pre-credit sequence) that a teenage girl and her young brother have gone missing, taken by some unseen force. The sheriff says something along the lines of "the disappearances have started again" and is acting all cryptic, so the festival gets cancelled. Crawford and Killian are bummed, but they aren't going to let that ruin their night. So they go out into the woods to party, but when their friends don't show they say "eff-it" and light off some fireworks on their own. But one firework illuminates a treehouse high above the forest floor, and being rascals, they have to go check it out.

Haunt is frustratingly middle-of-the road. The story is decent, it's competently made, and it has a little style... but there's just nothing here to get excited about at all. There's nothing too good, but also nothing bad enough that you're either angry or entertained. Haunt is just there, hitting all the beats you expect it to and moving along at a fast enough pace to kill the time, but never doing anything too engaging. It's so average it's actually kind of impressive.

The Deal? There's this house... many people assume it's cursed, because the last family that lived there (and worked there - mom & dad had a pediatrician/dentist thing going on) had three children die under mysterious circumstances. And when dad dies during in the opening scene after talking into an old school radio-wave scanner (spirit box for all you Ghost Adventures nerds), mom decides it's time to high-tail it.

Like Croaked: Frog Monster From Hell, Curse of the Cannibal Confederates (originally known as Curse of the Screaming Dead) has the dubious distinction of being named as one of the five worst films in the entire Troma library by founder Lloyd Kaufman. And also like Croaked, Curse is a rough-looking, amateurish, regional horror film that is not a "good" film by any means, but one that I found charming nonetheless.

Here's the scoop. Six friends who don't really seem to like each other (three guys and their girlfriends) are heading out on a camping trip. They end up lost in the woods and come across an old church/graveyard - and as you can guess, there are Confederate soldiers buried there. One guy (whose main trait is that he steals things) finds an old journal laying about and takes it. This greatly angers the dead soldiers, as they rise from the grave and go after our heroes in typical early 80s gut muncher style.

Sorry really old people... you're inherently frightening. Particularly when you're all frail and fighting off a disease, as the titular Deborah Logan is here. (And I say this as (a) someone who will hopefully get the chance to be old and decrepit one day, and (b) had a close family member die of Alzheimer's. It's a shitty, shitty disease that this film portrays respectfully enough.) And maybe "inherently scary" isn't the right phrasing. It's one of those things where you're not scared of the thing, you're scared of becoming the thing. And if things go well (i.e. you don't die young) you will become it. So there's an extra layer of... hopeful inevitability there? I don't sit there watching Suburban Sasquatch worrying that I'll become bigfoot, you know?

Anyways, The Taking of Deborah Logan is a very effective mockumentary/found-footage jam, where a grad student is making a film for her thesis statement. The gist of it is something about the effects of Alzheimer's not only on the person suffering from the disease, but also on those close to them. Here, you've got Deborah rapidly deteriorating from the disease, while her daughter Sarah tries to take care of her. In her lucid moments, Deborah is not too keen on having a film crew around, but Sarah insists that they need the money to keep the house (as well as the assistance with the medical bills).

Bloody Reunion is one of those films that is kind of frustrating, but good enough that you mostly overlook its issues. There's some nasty torture-porny stuff in here, but it mostly plays like a slasher/mystery. Not an entirely effective one, but one that delivers where it counts, I guess.

After a bizarre opening sequence featuring a woman giving birth to a deformed child, it kicks off with some cops investigating a horrific crime scene in an isolated house out on the beach somewhere. It looks straight out of a Saw film - bodies tied up to chairs and very clearly tortured. The way it plays, you kind of expect the film to be *about* the cop, or at least have him as a featured character or something. But he pretty much just vanishes from the film until the very end, as we flash back to the incidents that led to the grisly scene.

The Sleepwalking Cannibal

Eddie: The Sleepwalking Cannibal seems to be going for some sort of grandiose statement about art, inspiration, and mortality. I guess it didn't work for me on that level... I just wasn't buying what it was selling. But thesis statement aside, it's still an okay (but slightly pretentious) watch. Not that it's super artsy - I mean, it's still more of a comedy than anything, and it succeeds mostly on that front. Maybe I just hate art?

Thure Lindhardt plays Lars, a famous Danish painter whose artistic output has taken a nosedive; he hasn't painted anything in 10 years (although to me he looked too young for that, but whatever). Lars is looking for a change of pace, and finds it by getting a job teaching in a small art school - I'm guessing in small town Canada (Eddie is a Danish/Canadian co-production), although I don't think it's ever specifically mentioned. Anyways, one of the quirks of the school is Eddie - a strange, mute man (some would probably call him "simple") whose parents died when he was very young. Eddie's aunt is a big benefactor of the school, and they let him hang out there as a gesture of goodwill. But when Eddie's aunt dies, she wants to leave her inheritance to the school - on the condition that they take care of Eddie. And for whatever reason (I guess so there's a movie), they decide it would be best for Eddie to stay with Lars.

Somewhat oddly, I haven't come across many medieval horror flicks over the last year or so. Not like it's a huge genre or anything, but still. I think Devil's Possessed may be my first. It's a Spanish effort starring Paul Naschy as (the) Baron Gilles de Lancre. Many years ago, he was a noble and fair man, but because of some dabblings in the occult - as well as the (evil) influence of his (evil) wife - he's turned into an enemy of the people. For years now, the Baron has been collecting unfair taxes, ruling the peasants with an iron fist, and turning a blind eye to the pillaging done by his royal army.

Plus, he is mad with power, and will stop at nothing to rule all of the land. He's decided the only way he can do this is to turn lead into gold (of course). So his wife puts him in touch with the greatest alchemist in all the land. The alchemist tells the Baron that he must sacrifice maidens in a series of elaborate rituals. You get the idea that this alchemist guy is probably full of it, but the Baron doesn't catch on. So a-sacrificin' he goes.

Really shitty things happened in the world today. I wasn't looking forward to watching a movie, and wasn't really in the mood for anything. So I "meditated" a bit - probably the closest I can get to actually shutting down my brain entirely is by mindlessly perusing through movie titles on Netflix and Amazon. It's almost zen-like in it's calmness... After about 20 minutes, I think I realized I didn't actually care, and eventually landed on Fraternity Demon. I think I just saw "college kids accidentally unleash a sex demon," and on this particular night, that was enough.

And it's not very good! Never mind the fact that its barely a horror film at all. (If I was doing a "dumb sex comedy a day" blog, this would be perfect.) Other than the fact that she's called a "demon" (complete with stupid devil horns), there's nothing even close to horror here. No tension, no atmosphere, no scares, no blood... no one even dies! A couple of guys get sexed by the demon and you *think* that might be the end of them, but it turns out they are just tired. So... there's that.

The other day when I was writing about Satan's Slave, I mentioned the proliferation of "girl goes out to an isolated estate and runs afoul of an evil cult" movies... and here's another one. A Virgin Amongst the Living Dead has the extra "benefit" of being a Jess Franco film (in quotes because he's a rather divisive filmmaker - personally I like him). And while this one feels a little less mean-spirited than some of what I've seen from him in the past, it's still got plenty of his trademark style, including a dreamlike plot and plenty of nudity. So while the general framework is pretty generic, it ends up being pretty interesting for an artsy/erotic horror film. It's a bit of a mess at times, but it's watchable.

Our main character is Christina - she's headed out to her recently deceased father's estate for a reading of his will. But her uncle Howard and a few of his friends (I'm not sure if they're family or what) were living there at the time of her father's death. And they're still hanging out, doing weird stuff, and maybe killing and eating people? At least you'd think so, what with the overall creepiness and random body parts hanging around. But they're definitely not zombies/the living dead in the traditional sense, so don't let the movie's title fool you. They seem mostly normal (except for one guy, who is a mute and is just strange in general), although they *may* have some sort of powers of hypnosis? Or maybe they're just a cult who eats people? Whatever they are or what they really do isn't made explicitly clear.

I've been curious about Silent But Deadly for quite some time. I'm not sure if I've seen non-Jay Jason Mewes in anything, and "cheap Canadian Slasher" is not a deterrent for me (in spite of Dark Fields). But honestly? The title kept me away. Not that I'm above fart jokes or anything, but naming your movie that just seemed like a bit much. But, despite being mostly absent of fart jokes/potty humor, it's actually a pretty good name for the film. I mean, it lowered my expectations to the point that I ended up enjoying my time watching it. A lot of the reviews (rightfully) give it a hard time about the CGI kills, but I honestly can't get too upset that a film called Silent But Deadly went the crappy/cheap route. The title all but tells you it's going to. It still falls short of a pleasant surprise though. I was pleasantly surprised that it wasn't unwatchable garbage at least, if that makes any sense.

Woman Who Came Back is an old-timey ghost/witch flick with not a heck of a lot going for it. You get a lively opening scene featuring a witch getting on a bus - stop me if you've heard this one - and the ensuing bus crash (which is more entertaining for its model-ness more than anything). It's pretty fun. But other than that, there's not much here to get into. It's never outright terrible, but it's never that good either.

It's about a woman named Lorna Webster, coming back to her hometown of Eben Rock, Massachusetts. Eben Rock has quite the Salem-ish history of witch persecution. A particularly big part of that history was Lorna's grandfather, a powerful judge who was responsible for sending many women"witches" to their deaths. It's long been rumored that one of those "witches" made a pact with the devil and will seek her revenge on the Webster family. And that rumor may be coming true. On her way home to Eben Rock, Lorna encounters a creepy old lady on the bus, who knows her and cackles her way through the Webster family history. If it looks like a witch and talks like a witch...

I'm just not quite sure what to make of Suicide Club. I'm sure some of the nuances are probably lost in translation (it's a Japanese film) - but I suspect it's just kind of a weird movie anyways. So while I didn't always understand what was going on, I definitely dug it. It's a bold film with a lot of style and manages to pack in a lot of creepy imagery without ever leaning too heavily on ghost/paranormal stuff (a la Ringu and the other tech/ghost flicks that were coming out at the time).

It starts out at the Shinjuku train station, where 54 school age girls simultaneously jump onto the tracks, committing mass suicide. The police investigating the incident aren't sure what to make of it. Cult? Somehow Murder? They find a large bag with some pretty gnarly evidence in it... but that only muddies the waters further. Meanwhile, more and more people are just sort of up and killing themselves - sometimes solo, sometimes in groups. A random caller alerts the police to a website where dots appear whenever a person commits suicide - surely it's tied in, but how? Also in the mix? A cop's family, anonymous callers who constantly clear their throats (it's creepy!), a J-Pop group of five girls who may be sneaking subliminal messages into their music, and a gang of Clockwork Orange-ish thugs who kidnap people, wrap them up in sheets, and bring them to their home base (a bowling alley). Said thugs are also responsible for the musical number that is actually pretty cool but comes out of nowhere.

Holy crap. I love that screen grab. I need that on my denim jacket! The rest of the movie can't live up to this title shot's lofty standards... but then again, what could? As long as you aren't expecting too much and have an affinity for 70's British Satan/cult films, you will probably have an okay time with Satan's Slave. (a.k.a Evil Heritage - both titles are pretty excellent.) There's nothing too crazy about the film and honestly, it's not altogether memorable. But it's still a decent enough time at the movies. Or on your couch, enjoying the Pure Terror Budget Set, as it were.

And one of the reasons it's not totally memorable is the plot. I swear "young woman goes out to a country estate and runs afoul of an evil cult" is the 1970's British equivalent to our present day "friends go out to party at a cabin in the woods." So hopefully, I'm not imposing any other movies onto this plot summary. I watched another very similar title shortly before this write-up, and am struggling to keep them separate. (Also, please note that I'm intentionally leaving out a big chunk of story. Not that I expect anyone to watch Satan's Slave, but I won't spoil the most memorable part of the film.)

I remember coming across Harbinger Down on Kickstarter a couple of years ago. The gist of it was "hey, don't you hate all that CGI bullshit that's out there now? We'll here's you're chance to fund a monster movie dedicated to representing all practical effects!" Flash forward to November 2015, and it's finished and on Netflix. And to be honest, it's a little disappointing. It feels like a cheap, unsubtle The Thing rip-off, and while the monster stuff is okay, the design of it is so amorphous that you never really know what you're looking at. (I mean, you can tell it's practical, I guess. But as to what it's supposed to be... who knows?) I have no doubt that Harbinger Down has its heart in the right place... but the execution is lacking.

Anthology alert! I've said it before - I'm just not too into anthologies. I just find it difficult to get into them. There's never any time to get into any given story. By the time you get to know the characters and really want to dig in... crazy twist/reveal, and then you're onto something else. I don't know if it's a symptom of watching a movie a day or what, but I have a hard time remembering them.

To wit - it's been less than a week since I watched The House That Dripped Blood (I'm running a little behind in my write-ups), and it's taken me a long time to remember even vague details about it. In the spirit of being computer-less (I sometimes write these up in a notebook - usually at a bar - before they make it into blogger), I'll try this without the crutch of the internet.

Trackman is a guy who lurks around beneath the streets of a Russian city (not sure which one). It's like an abandoned train line, or something, but it seems like there are mostly mining carts down there. Although I'm not sure *why* you'd be mining right beneath a thriving city, but I'm not familiar with Russian infrastructure, so who knows? And I assume the killer is our titular Trackman - he's never named in the film. He's got a little hidden nook down there where he hangs out and cuts the eyes out of *lots* of pictures (even Abe Lincoln! You don't see many underground-dwelling psychos interested in American History). He wears crazy googles and a ski mask, and occasionally kills people. And his signature move is ripping out people's eyes - he should be called Eyeman, or something.

Our heroes/victims are a trio of bank robbers. They have pulled off an elaborate heist, and their ingenious escape plan has them grab a couple of hostages (a cop and two young women) and escape from Sergei Law by using the underground tunnels. Unfortunately, they weren't planning on Trackman (The Trackman?), who manages to trap and torment them. He bloodily takes them out, one at a time, because, hey... that's what Trackman does, okay? Except for one girl... he seems content to just stroke her face and take her earring. I think he likes her!

Fair warning - I'm a pretty big fan of the Paranormal Activity franchise. They're not earth-shaking films (although you'd be a fool to deny how influential the original was), but I think almost all of them (thanks for the "almost," part 4) work very well as haunted house movies. The tricks they use to build tension almost always work for me - not in a truly terrifying way, but in a fun, anticipation-building way.

So by this point in the game, you probably already have an opinion on the franchise. And The Ghost Dimension is not going to change your mind. But I'd say it knows what worked and what didn't in the last five films and uses those gimmicks effectively and occasionally creatively. It also attempts to tie up some of the convoluted mythology that has ran through the series. And while it certainly doesn't over-explain anything, as a fan I was satisfied with the explanations we get here. It seemed like a fitting end to things, should the rumors be true that this is indeed the last entry. (Until an inevitable reboot in 8-10 years, that is.)

Grave of the Vampire is an early 70s vampire flick that changes up the typical vamp story just enough to be moderately entertaining. There's not much here to rave about, but it passes the time all right. Probably the most interesting thing about the film is how the first half-hour or so seems like a completely different movie from what comes next. I mean, both halves keep a serious tone (I'm not sure if there's even a joke in this film), but I guess it'd be like an extended prologue. It plays out like you get a bizarre short film, followed by a shorter, unconventional vampire movie. Say what you well about Grave of the Vampire, but at least the structure keeps it from being boring.

Early on in the film, a vampire rises from the grave and attacks a couple making out in their car. Yes, they go to the graveyard to make out. How romantic! The vampire cracks the man's back over a tombstone (it looks cool!) and then proceeds to drag the woman down into his open grave and rapes her. (You don't see this, thankfully.) I'm trying to think of another vampire movie where I've seen this. There's almost always a sexual element to a vampire attack, but I don't remember ever seeing a vampire that's solely after sex. So that's different.

I really wanted to like Frankenhooker more than I did. I've certainly enjoyed what I've seen of writer-director Frank Henenlotter's other films, but the way Frankenhooker focuses more on overt comedy just didn't pan out for me. I mean, there are still the occasional horror bits (including some Basket Case-ish body horror towards the end of the film), but the comedy comes first here. That, and the story frankly isn't all that interesting. Despite the mash-up title, there's not a heck of a lot in the film that plays around with the Frankenstein tale/mythos. Frankenhooker certainly has potential and has a few fun moments, but overall it's kind of a disappointment.

(Incidentally, if you watch the DVD, don't check out the special features until *after* you watch the film. I'll usually look to see what special features a DVD has - but I always watch the film first. I just want to know what's there. But here, there's a little clip that segues from the main menu that basically gives away the best moment in the film.)

If you're in the mood for cheap and splattery and aren't too concerned with things like story and characters, Taeter City will scratch that itch. It's almost knowingly devoid of any sort of reasonable story. When one police captain-ish guy is essentially laying out the plot of the film, he says ""Don't ask me how, or why, because this is fucking nonsense - fucking nonsense!"" Which yeah, pretty much sums it up. It's just a loose concept that allows writer-director-star Giulio De Santi to do as much gory shit as possible. Faces/heads getting blown-up/smashed/melted seem to be De Santi's calling card. It's all so over the top and cartoonish that it practically begs you to never really take it seriously.

There's definitely some shared DNA between Last Shift and Let Us Prey (which was one of the more enjoyable flicks I watched in the last couple of months). Other than the plot similarities - female rookie cop encounters crazy shit on her first night on the job - they were also purchased by me shortly before they showed up for "free" on Netflix. With Last Shift, it was like the next day or two. Oh well. Both are definitely worth your time. I think I liked Let Us Prey a little more though.

But that's not to say that Last Shift isn't enjoyable. It's just a little less ambitious and a little more contained. Basically, we're with Officer Jessica Loren (Juliana Harkavy) on her first night on the job. Her assignment? Working the Last Shift at the old police station. There's a brand new station just a few blocks away, and all calls/emergencies have already been routed there. She's the only one in the building and is just there to make sure nothing crazy happens (oops! it does!) and to wait for the cleanup crew to show up and clear out the few remaining items.

Lucifer's Angels is an effective microbudgeted ($3,000 if you believe imdb) indie that plays to its strengths and hides its weaknesses well. It manages to deliver some decent tension, has a good creepy vibe, and has enough going on story-wise that it moves by pretty quickly - you never have the chance to get too bored over the 60-some minute runtime.

There are quite a few moving parts to the film, but it's far from confusing. It starts out many years ago in a mental institution, where four doctors are arguing over their most violent patients. Several staff members have been killed, and the doctors are trying to find a way to deal with these maniacs. Flash forward to the present day. Four friends head out to the mountains for a camping trip - they manage to get some good partying in, but at one point a local boy stops by and tells them a campfire ghost story about the the large number of people that have disappeared in these very woods, how they may be haunted, and so on. The boy's Pop shows up and tells him to "Git!" but the seed has been planted. But it's cool - Pops likes to drink too, so the party continues.

Watching a movie a day is kind of a stupid thing to do. It's occasionally a slog, and being a year into this thing I can't help but think that my time may be better spent on other pursuits. But at the same time, I kind of love it. And films like The Mummy Theme Park are a big reason why.

Don't get me wrong - Mummy is a bad, bad movie. But it's my kind of bad. Bad dubbing, cheesy (yet charming) & very over-used special effects, and a plot that makes you shake your head and laugh. I'm not a huge supporter of the term "so-bad-it's-good" - that's kind of an oversimplification. But it's a good catchall for a film that manages to be extremely enjoyable despite the fact that it doesn't succeed in what it sets out to do. Or, in the case of The Mummy Theme Park - maybe it does. It's a fun, fun movie. But maybe not in the way it's supposed to be.

I was pleasantly surprised by Alien Valley. I'm not sure if it was because of low expectations after being disappointed by Area 51, or if it was how the filmmakers craftily used the blueprints of my "beloved" found footage ghost hunting genre and super-imposed it on an alien flick. Or, just maybe, they did an okay job generating scares and had a unique story to tell. What a novel idea! Whatever the reason, I had a pretty good time with it.

Anyways, it's about a Ghost Adventures-esque show called "Paranormal Mysteries." They go around investigating just about anything "paranormal." But there's not a lot genuine concern amongst them about solving any actual mysteries - it's more about getting ratings than actually discovering anything. (Say what you will about for real ghost hunting shows - the folks on them are nerdy enough that it seems like at least a part of them goes into it with good intentions.) Their producer is actually a pretty big asshole about it, and is clearly most concerned about getting good shots of his attractive cast reacting to rigged scares.

Tales from the Dark 1 is a kind of interesting anthology from Hong Kong. There isn't that much of a connecting thread running between the three stories - other than the fact that some people in them can see ghosts, and all three tales are mildly confusing. Each individual story works well enough on its own in a kind of Masters of Horror/long-short film way. And they are all on the longish side (about 40 minutes a pop), so as a whole the film tends to drag a bit. The stories never really go for jolting scares or crazy twists, so that was kind of refreshing. But there just wasn't much of anything that made me think these stories needed to be told together, you know?

I guess nothing with Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee should ever really be considered a "pleasant surprise," but I think Nothing but the Night would count as one for me. I hadn't heard much about it, and had passed on it more than once because of the PG rating, and the synopsis didn't sound all that interesting. (Although reading it now, it TOTALLY spoils the whole effing thing!) But Nothing is a pretty interesting and well done mystery/thriller. I'd say it eventually ends up in the horror category, but it takes it's sweet time getting there. But it's got a good enough story and has solid enough performances that it manages to be a good time. And I'd imagine there was a little extra effort from Lee and his friend Cushing - this was the first (and unfortunately only) film from Lee's Charlemagne production company.

Despite its place on the Pure Terror Budget Set - as well as being called Point of Terror, there is hardly anything terrifying about this film. Well, maybe star Peter Carpenter's outfits and stageshow... more on that later. But it's hardly a horror film. There is one out of nowhere scene of hacking and slashing, but it honestly felt like something that was just added after the fact when they realized there is no way to effectively market this film. (The poster on imdb says "A Super Shocker" and has a masked man brandishing a knife - that's just flat out intentionally misleading.) Point of Terror isn't overtly bad... it's just a sort of odd tale about a singer guy who will do anything for stardom. But will love get in the way?

Another day, another comedy. I think Entrails of a Virgin bummed me out on more than one level, and I overcompensated by watching three comedies in a row. Don't get me wrong - What We Do in the Shadows was on my To Watch List for a long time... and it's really funny. But like I said yesterday, writing about comedies kind of sucks. So this will probably be a short one.

It's not a great comparison, but What We Do in the Shadows kind of reminds me of The Office, with it's documentary-style camera work and interviews, and it's reliance on awkward pauses and kind of nerdy characters. Only instead of an office setting, you have a bunch of vampire roommates renting out a house. And it's hard to deny that the set-up works. While the style may not be particularly innovative (it's got a little bit of reality show feel to it too), the jokes come in a steady flow and have a near perfect hit/miss ratio. And all of the characters are interesting, have diverse personalities, and are fun to spend time with. It's the sort of comedy where I never really belly-laughed or anything - it's just consistently clever, which worked for me.

It's hard to write about comedy movies. Humor is so subjective, and jokes from the film never translate well into the written word. So other than just saying "I found The Editor to be really, really funny," I won't go into the specifics re: the comedy. You pretty much just need to know that it's a send-up of 70's/80's Italian giallo films - it might *kind of* work if you're not familiar with those types of films, but if you're a fan... it's pretty much a must see. The Editor is a love-letter to/parody of all the things (warts and all) that you love about the genre.

The titular editor here is Ray Ciso (Adam Brooks). He was one of the most sought-after editors in the industry, having edited well-respected giallos like The Cat with the Velvet Blade. But after a horrible editing accident cost him the fingers on one hand, his confidence is shot and he's stuck editing cheap B-movies. He's having relationship troubles with his wife Josephine (Paz de la Huerta), and when people start getting killed on the set of his latest picture, he's the number one suspect. (The killer, you see, is mutilating his victim's hands to be just like Ciso's.) Wonderfully mustachioed Peter Porfiry (Matthew Kennedy) is working the case... but can he solve it before everyone involved with the film ends up dead?

Stalled has a very simple premise: zombie apocalypse, from the view of a guy is stuck in a bathroom stall. And it's certainly not overly complicated - it sticks to that premise (aside from a brief hallucinatory number) until the very end of the film. But surprisingly, it moves pretty fast and doesn't drag as much as one might expect from the one-note premise. There is a bit of a cheat - one (mostly unseen) person is also stuck in the same bathroom with our hero. But I'll give that a pass... without that there would be literally nothing for our hero to do. Anyways, the bulk of the film is the two of them talking - giving each other a hard time and getting to know each other while gut-munchers continue to fill up the bathroom.

The premise pretty much sums it up. But to go into a little more detail... sad sack janitor W.C. is working during the big office Christmas party, and is fixing something in the women's room. And since he's a little pervy, when someone comes in to use the facilities, he hides in one of the stalls. And when another woman comes in and the two start to make out, ol' W.C. thinks he's witnessing a pervy Christmas miracle. (Having actually written this down I really wish Stalled would have starred the Ghetto Heisman himself - rapper WC from the Westside Connection.)

I'm not sure why they went with a font that made it look like it was a made-for-cable-access film. The rest of the film at least looks more professional.

If you're anything like me, the phrase "Nazi Ghosts" will instantly make your ears perk up. As soon as I came across the description of Sodoma's Ghost, I knew I had to check it out. And it's a Lucio Fulci joint? Even better. So despite having a rough couple of days with torturey/mean-spirited and bad movies, I went ahead and checked it out - knowing full well that Fulci can be pretty mean-spirited himself. But Sodoma's Ghost was not too rough in that respect. I'm not going to say it's a blast, but as far as Fulci's films go? It's pretty fun. It's certainly not all that good of a film, but it's not all that boring either. So that's a perk.