July 31st, 2015 - Slithis (1978)

"Slithis" is just a bad sounding name for a monster. Like it's trying too hard to be frightening. "It's cool, because it sounds like a snake!" And technically, our big, gross looking man-in-suit monster isn't Slithis - that's the name of the radioactive goo that he spawned from. But it's a Frankenstein/Frankenstein's monster sort of thing.

Regardless of what you want to call him, I think he looks pretty cool - refreshingly old-school and foamy. (And incidentally *not* like the box art above.) BUT, he's only around for a total of five or so minutes, and the rest of the film is quite a drag. It's your typical "waste from a power plant creates a lake monster" tale, although Slithis doesn't just stick to the lake to go after his victims. There's a canal running through town where he can cover a lot of ground. And, he's not afraid to break into random people's houses (?) to kill them. So he's a little more fearsome than your average shark/monster/whatever... afraid of Jaws? Don't go swimming? Afraid of Slithis? T.S.

July 30th, 2015 - Botched (2007)

Botched is a pretty good/kind of strange mash up style film. While there's no crazy twist or anything like that, the main concept of the film is out there enough that I don't really feel like spoiling it. If you know how it's going to go, you'll probably miss out on a lot of what Botched has to offer. I mean, it isn't a must-see or anything, but it's pretty fun. So sorry if this entry is a little vague - I don't want to be a party pooper.

Botched stars Stephen Dorff as Ritchie, a thief who is somehow in debt to the Russian Mafia. The film kicks off with a decent set piece where a big job he's a part of is flubbed, through no fault of his own. But the Russian Mafia is not known for their forgiveness, so to make up for this botched (see!) job he is assigned an even more dangerous task. He has to go to Moscow and steal a priceless heirloom from a wealthy family in the penthouse of a large (and well protected) building. Even worse, he's teamed up with two inept strangers to pull it off... a hothead wannabe big shot and his easily frightened brother. The big job doesn't go as planned, and the trio ends up with a group of hostages, stranded on a mysteriously unmarked floor in the building. And then some horror movie stuff happens... I'll leave it at that.

July 29th, 2015 - A Night to Dismember (1983)

"Worse than Manos: The Hands of Fate" is a pretty bold claim, but it's one I heard recently on the Badasses, Boobs, and Body Count podcast. So, being a lover of bad films, I was immediately curious. The argument on the podcast was that Manos is probably the best known "worst movie," but there are others out there that are in fact objectively worse. A Night to Dismember was Exhibit A. And now, having watched it, I would have to agree. While Dismember and Manos have a lot in common (they both really crappy looking, ineptly shot, and entirely dubbed over), at least Manos has a semi-coherent plot. I'm not totally even sure what A Night to Dismember is even about.

I mean, I guess the basic plot is that a young woman has just been released after years in an insane asylum, after she committed some heinous murders as a pre-teen. Her mom and dad happily take her back, but her brother and sister want her gone... out of jealousy, I guess? Anyways, once she's back in the house, people start getting viciously murdered again. It's up to an "intrepid" cop to not only figure out what exactly is going on, but to also NARRATE THE WHOLE DAMNED MOVIE.

July 28th, 2015 - Gatekeeper (2008)

Gatekeeper is not very good, but it's pretty hard to hate entirely. It's clearly a very, very cheap independent film, and it has the feel of a group of friends saying "hey guys, let's make a movie!" Ignoring the fact that they may not have the resources to make it happen. While it's pretty bad all the way around, there is a certain charm to it, and it doesn't feel like anyone involved is treating it like a joke. But that still doesn't make it worth watching. And honestly, it could have just been the accents (it's a Welsh film) that made me *kind of* want to give it a pass. Something of this caliber in American English may have left me with a very different impression. Also, I can't figure out why there is picture of what seems to be the Gingerdead Man on the box art on Amazon...

Anyways, it's mainly about a group of hockey players traveling through the Welsh countryside. (Other than the fact that they have hockey sticks, their profession has no bearing on things whatsoever.) They get in a car crash - maybe the worst I've ever seen on film - with a couple of military types who happen to be escorting an ultra badass soldier who went AWOL. (Of course, from that car only AWOL guy survives - luckily for the hockey team, he's actually a good guy.) One dude who lives in town is trying to help, and gets run down and injured by *another* car, driven by a douchey guy and a girl on their first date.

July 27th, 2015 - Parasite (1982)

Except for the couple of times that a nasty worm thing is graphically popping out of someone's body, Parasite is a mostly slow, kind of unexciting film that just didn't click for me. It's got a kind of interesting premise and (cheap) post-apocalyptic feel, but ultimately it doesn't have the budget, humor, or panache to make it work or ever elevate it above a crummy B-movie. And unfortunately, there isn't much of the B-movie charm you'd hope for from a 3D Charles Band film. Oh well.

Parasite is about a scientist named Paul Dean... he's been working on some sort of government project (presumably - you have to just infer a lot of stuff about the story here) involving - you guessed it - a parasite. But when he accidentally infects himself, he goes on the run with a bunch of medical equipment and a thermos with a living sample in it. I guess his bosses just want to kill him (and actually send some guy in a fancy ass car to chase him down), so he needs to find an isolated place where we can shack up, do some science, and hopefully get the parasite out of him.

July 26th, 2015 - Mystics in Bali (1981)

Mystics in Bali is the sort of cult film that I just love. There's some bugnuts insane horror stuff in there, but the overall story and execution is just so... off? In a good way though, one that is just super entertaining to me. I'm not sure if it's a translation thing (it's an Indonesian film and actually focuses on a legitimate piece of Balinese folklore), or an international edit that cuts out some pertinent stuff, but what you're left with is a fun concoction of bizarre effects, bad dubbing, and an overall groovy feel.

Mystics in Bali wastes no time in cutting to the chase. After a rad opening sequence featuring lots of Balinese percussion and cool looking masks, we are introduced to Cathy - an American student studying in Bali. She sounded that way, anyways - some reports have her as Australian. At any rate, a she's white foreigner. Hanging around with Cathy is her Balinese boyfriend Hendra. They *seem* to be romantically involved anyways, but anytime they are about to kiss or whatever, they are "comically" interrupted. But right away, Cathy is all "I want to learn Leyak" (a Balinese form of black magic), and Hendra is all "Sure! It's the most dangerous form of black magic, but I can help you out. Let me arrange a meeting with the Leyak Queen." (Besides interrupted intimacy, their relationship basically consists of Hendra doing whatever Cathy tells him to do.) Cathy wants to write a book about the dark arts, and figures the best way to learn about it is to get trained by the evil Leyak Queen. And it's apparently not that difficult of an application process, because before you know it Cathy is training with the really weird - and *constantly* cackling - Leyak Queen.

July 25th, 2015 - Bigfoot: The Lost Coast Tapes (2012)

For whatever reason, found footage bigfoot is a tough one to nail. I mean, I'm partial to bigfoot movies, but something about the big fella just hasn't really lended itself well to the found footage genre thus far. The ones I've liked are generally either more action-oriented (Exists) or maybe not even bigfoot movies at all (Willow Creek). I'm always hoping to get more of a creeping-terror type bigfoot found footager - while the "noises outside the cabin" are always a good way to build some tension, from there things usually just devolve into a blurry mess of first-person chase scenes. Unfortunately, Bigfoot: The Lost Coast Tapes doesn't really deliver anything new. It's not terrible, but it's not all that good either. If you are a fan of bigfoot and found footage (as I am), it's passable. But it's certainly not going to win over any haters of either genre.

July 24th, 2105 - Sin Reaper (2012)

Sin Reaper is truly a magical film - in the respect that it makes time slow down to a crawl and manages to make an hour-and-a-half feel at least twice that long. It's a pretty unexciting slasher that squanders a unique setting (a monastery) and a cool looking bad guy/weapon. Also, the title is just kind of weird to me... I keep on emphasizing the "Reaper" (as in "Grim Reaper"), but in the film they emphasize "Sin" - as in, a guy who reaps sin. Which is grammatically correct, I suppose - you can't reap grim... but it still sounds weird to me. You know when those types of concerns are running through your head that you're probably not watching a very engaging film.

Anyways, Sin Reaper centers on an "American" girl named Samantha. (I say "American" because (a) she's clearly not, and (b) there's no reason she even has to be.... or even any specific nationality. But the filmmakers go out of their way to make sure you know... it's kind of weird.) She's been having terrifying dreams and is on a cocktail of psychiatric drugs to help her control them. But her dreams very specifically evoke a particular monastery in Germany. So her psychologist (a disinterested Lance Henriksen - removed enough from the action that it had to just be an afternoon of work for him) suggests she travels there to face her fears. So she does.

July 23rd, 2015 - Extraterrestrial (2014)

The Vicious Brothers' (of Grave Encounters "fame") Extraterrestrial is not friendly like E.T. The ET's here are less of the fat Reese's loving little guys and more of the killer gray man variety. Generally speaking, they don't *like* to kill people, but when our group of kids manages to piss them off, it's open hunting season on our cabin-dwelling friends.

You get a pretty standard slasher set up in Extraterrestrial. Five kids go out to a cabin in the woods, and shit goes down. Technically, they are there so final girl April (Brittany Allen) can take pictures of the place so her recently divorced parents can sell it. She thinks it will just be a nice weekend alone with her boyfriend Kyle (Freddie Stroma), but he's got a different idea and invites a few friends along for the ride. They hang out at the cabin, get wasted, and generally have a good time. And then, aliens crash, do their hunt/abduct thing... and, movie.

July 22nd, 2015 - Wolfen (1981)

Wolfen is pretty badass. It's got an old-school vibe that I found impossible not to enjoy. There's some comedy in there, but mostly it's a serious film about a cop trying to solve a series of vicious murders in New York City. Wolfen is more or less a standard police procedural film, one that is played totally straight - I think these types of things hadn't been done to death in 1981 (and there wasn't as much competition on television), so it was nice to see a straight-ahead procedural without any bells and whistles. It also looks very cinematic and seems to have a bigger budget than I would have expected for a "werewolf" film - there are some really nice shots in there, especially of the bridge in the opening sequence - sorry New Yorkers, not sure which one. So while the story feels a little generic at times, you never hold it against the film because there's so much other cool stuff going on: great use of NYC, some thinly-veiled social commentary, solid (if sparingly used) gore, and a great supporting cast (featuring Gregory Hines, Edward James Olmos, and Tom Noonan).

Wolfen kicks off with a clearly wealthy couple coming home from their anniversary party. They make the last minute decision to stop by the park where they were married. While they are there, they are stalked by someone... or something... with proto-Predator heat vision. Moments later, they are violently dispatched. Officer Dewey Wilson (Albert Finney) has a troubled past and seems to be on some sort of leave of absence. But since he's the best damn cop on the force, his boss calls him in to work on the case. Along with CSI guy Whittington (Hines), Dewey determines that this was not your standard random murder... it's extremely nasty and seems to be a ritualistic murder or a gangland style execution. But despite the bodies being torn to shreds, they can find no trace of any metals in the bodies, so no knives. What gives?

July 21st, 2015 - Terror-Creatures from the Grave (1965)

So that's a pretty good title. The actual film isn't as goofy as the title makes it sound though. It's a mostly seriously told story of revenge... from beyond the grave! Terror-Creatures is not an outstanding film - it's a little sloppy at times and feels a bit hastily put together. (And hastily dubbed.) But considering the source (Pure Terror Budget Set) I have to look at it as a nice surprise.

Terror-Creatures mostly takes place on an estate in a small town at an undetermined (for me) time. Telephones are considered new technology, for what it's worth. 1930's, maybe? If you can figure out when "getting an owl stuck in the engine" (?) was a common car problem, maybe you can figure it out. Anyways, it's about Albert, a lawyer who gets a letter from Count Hauff to help him get his will in order. When Albert arrives at Hauff's estate, he is welcomed by the Count's daughter Corrine and his wife Cleo (Barbara Steele)... and they inform him that the Count has been dead for nearly a year to the day. The letter clearly had the Count's seal on it... so what gives?

July 20th, 2015 - The Conspiracy (2012)

I'm a pretty paranoid person in general. But I've never been a conspiracy nut. While do I think there are probably a lot of evil, powerful people out there, I don't really trust in the competence of the machine to pull off any of the Big Time Conspiracies. No doubt there's some shady stuff going on. But I just kind of feel like I have to roll with the punches... cueing Bruce Hornsby... that's just the way it is.

The Conspiracy starts out as a standard mockumentary about a guy who doesn't roll with those punches. Terrance has an apartment full of newspaper clippings, and has a detailed theory connecting the evils of the powers that be to many major catastrophic events throughout history, from the sinking Lusitania to 9/11. Terrance is the kind of guy that feels obligated to spread "the truth" and he sets up shop on street corners or in parks to yell at people through a megaphone while they are on their lunch breaks. Filmmakers Aaron and Jim approach him from a distance - they don't outright mock him, but they occasionally shoot questioning glances at each other and the camera. The doc is going well, until one day when Terrance mysteriously vanishes.

July 19th, 2015 - The Killing of Satan (1983)

I just don't really even know what kind of a movie The Killing of Satan is. I mean, it's about a guy named Lando (yes!) in a battle with the devil, and the title sure as shit sounds like a horror movie. (And you get a couple of surprising bits of gore totally out of nowhere.) But in the bizarre world of this Filipino import, somehow Christian mythology is mixed with guys who can shoot lazers out of their hands and have telekinetic powers. You also get some really bizarre shape shifters, teleportation, and lots of snake abuse. Praise Jesus!

Honestly, it's a hard one to summarize, and I don't think a synopsis does it any justice anyways. But the gist of it? Lando is a family man who is killed but brought back to life by his magical uncle, who lives miles away on an island somewhere. The uncle is a very powerful magic good guy, and is apparently fighting the forces of evil. It is the uncle's dying wish to pass on all of his powers to Lando - which I guess you can do when you are that magic. But when Lando goes to visit magic uncle he finds out that he has passed away. But that doesn't mean his uncle's rival - the Prince of Magic (a surprisingly toothless way of saying High Disciple of Satan) is going to leave Lando alone. Nope, the Prince of Magic heads to the island and attacks Lando and his family, kidnapping his daughter and taking her to be Satan's bride. Lando, along with his less magical but still pretty cool cousin, must journey to Hell (I thought it was just a cave, but I'll go with imdb on this one) to rescue his daughter.

July 18th, 2015 - It's Alive! (1969)

Day two of the two-day It's Alive-Fest! Sadly, It's Alive! (note the punctuation), unlike It's Alive, does not feature a killer mutant baby. It instead relies on a nutty old man that kidnaps people to feed the titular it - a really, really, shitty looking creature that lives in a cavern in his back yard. The beast is not menacing in the least, looks totally goofy, and is hardly in the movie at all. Two scenes, and maybe a grand total of 30-45 seconds of screen time. Killer Mutant Baby wins the battle of the It's Alives and it's not even close. It's Alive! just pretty much sucks.

It starts with Asshole Businessman Norman and his wife Leilla on a road trip. They took a wrong turn somewhere and are on a desolate strip of road, about to run out of gas. They end up pulling over and asking a guy named Wayne (Tommy Kirk, who is the best thing about this movie) for gas. Wayne can't help him, but directs them to a big house up the road. They get there and are welcomed by Greely - an older, husky guy who is slightly odd but mostly nice... at first. Leilla's spider sense is all atinglin'- something about the house just seems off to her. But Norman, being a total dick and all, doesn't listen. And seriously, Norman just seems to have gotten married so he could constantly belittle his wife. Norman's assholery is so over the top that it gives Tommy Kirk's presence a run for its money as the best thing It's Alive! has to offer. Anyways, after putting on a nice guy act, Greely leads them down into a cell underground and traps them there. Eventually, a killer beast will eat them. And when Wayne comes around, he ends up getting tossed in there too. So the three of them spend most of the film trying to (a) avoid being eaten (which is surprisingly easy - It doesn't seem that hungry) and (b) escape from the cell. They may have an ally in Bella, Greely's clearly frightened maid/housekeeper - she's obviously terrified to be there, and may not even be there by choice. (Please note that this may not be the exact order of events, but it's the gist. Which is enough for It's Alive!, as far as I'm concerned.)

July 17th, 2015 - It's Alive (1974)

You had me at killer mutant baby.

July 16th, 2015 - The Houses October Built (2014)

I've never been a big haunted house/haunted hayride guy. I was too scared as a kid, and now I really just don't care enough to get off my ass in October and go make it happen. I've got movies to watch! But seriously, I always had the impression that a lot of these are just a little too jump scare-y for my tastes. When you add crowds of people (truly the most frightening thing of all) to the mix, I always just end up taking a pass.

And the team starring in the okayish mocumentary/found footage The Houses October Built seem to think that most haunted attractions ("haunts") are pretty lame too. So they are going to go on a road trip to find the scariest, craziest, most extreme haunt out there. But of course, since it's a horror movie, they find one that is maybe a little too extreme, and things don't go as planned.

July 15th, 2015 - Blood Shack (1971)

Blood Shack is a super cheap, super crappy, super short... ghost movie, I guess? There's technically a ghost/legendary killer haunting an old shack on an abandoned ranch, but the film seems content to spend about half it's runtime dicking around at the local rodeo. Writer/Director Ray Dennis Steckler is not exactly known for his taut screenplays (see The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed Up Zombies), and here he tries to pad out about 30-35 minutes of "action" to feature length. I would argue that he doesn't really succeed. Even with a *lot* of padding via the rodeo, it's still only 55 minutes. Apparently, there's a 75 minute cut out there (since 55 wouldn't cut it for distributors). It's just the same movie with 20 more minutes of rodeo. Sheesh. So at least I watched the short one - that longer cut would be brutal. But still - there is still a kind of crappy-charm to Blood Shack. The performances are *just* out there enough, and the script comes together funnily enough, that there are segments of the film that are unintentionally entertaining.

The "plot" of Blood Shack: Carol has just inherited her family's big ol' ranch. It's rather decrepit and shitty, and there is one house on the property that is haunted. At least, according to Daniel, the caretaker of the ranch. Daniel is also the only guy that makes the film worth watching... his diction and overall acting (like a more hickish Forrest Gump on speed) are consistently entertaining.  Daniel tells of the legend of the "Chooper" (although I swore it was "Trooper" until I read up on the film), who has been known to murder people who trespass in the old haunted house on the ranch. Daniel does his best to warn them away  - if I could buy a t-shirt that said "Chooper's gonna git ya!" I would. But those who don't listen and end up victims of the chooper? Daniel takes their wallets and buries their bodies out in the desert - curious.

July 14th, 2015 - Eraserhead (1977)

Prior to watching Eraserhead, I was mostly only familiar with David Lynch by reputation. I maybe saw Lost Highway as a teen (damned memory - I definitely had the soundtrack, at least), and am currently a couple of episodes into season 2 of Twin Peaks. That's about it. But even knowing that he's a really weird dude didn't really prepare me for the weirdness (and really, the grossness) of Eraserhead. Because yeah... it's really fucking weird. And honestly, I at least expected more of a *movie* movie - at least in the sense of having a traditional plot/central-conflict, or even normal dialogue... but nope. I'm quite certain that Eraserhead is good, but it's also persistently and aggressively off-putting.

Which is why I think Eraserhead would be a great candidate for a remake. I mean, it's a recognizable brand and beloved in some circles. But it's old enough now that we could introduce a whole new generation to it - keeping it's sensibilities, but being marketably "outsider" enough to appeal to at least parts of all four quadrants. Could you imagine how badass those puppet babies would be in CGI? And the merchandising would be a no-brainer - how many Henry Spencer costumes would you see next Halloween? And the snacks you could tie in... it practically writes itself! C'mon Hollywood - give us a remake the people *actually* want!

July 13th, 2015 - Werewolf Woman (1976)

Based on the title alone, Werewolf Woman seems like it should have been right up my alley. I like werewolves, and I like women. And I really like me some 70's Italian horror. But rape-revenge? Not so much. And Werewolf Woman seems especially cruel in this regard. Not that the scenes are overly graphic, but I just felt too bad for our main character (Heroine? Antagonist?) to really wring much enjoyment out of the film.

First we get a bizarre opening scene with a gratuitous nude dance, an anatomically correct werewolf transformation, and a gory axe attack.  It's probably as "fun" as the film gets. Then we get to our main story, and it just gets kind of depressing. Werewolf Woman focuses on a woman named Daniela (Annik Borel) who was a victim of a (unseen) gang rape when she was younger. Her wealthy father has moved with her out to his isolated estate to help her recoup, but she is still bearing the psychic scars from that traumatic event. She has severe mental issues... in particular as it pertains to sex. She has natural feelings of sexual attraction, but due to the attack in her past, she lashes out with violence and fear whenever those feeling occur. And somehow, she has latched onto an odd piece of family history, where a relative (who looks just like her) was rumored to have been a werewolf. This mishmash of events/mental instability has turned her... well, crazy. Whenever she sees/is close to engaging in a sex act, she'll think she's a werewolf and tear out some throats with her teeth. If you're lucky, maybe she'll have sex with you a little first.

July 12th, 2015 - Storage 24 (2012)

Storage 24 is kind of like Alien, but instead of being on a spaceship, they are in a storage locker facility. Not the most exciting spot for a horror movie, but really, it serves the same purpose. As long as your heroes are trapped, I guess it at least has a chance of working. And it *kind of* does here. In Storage 24, there has just been a huge military plane crash, and apparently some sort of strange cargo (i.e. killer alien) has escaped from the plane and slunk off to a 24 hour storage facility. Oh, and the plane crash has messed with all of the electronics and tripped up the security system, so everyone (all half-dozen of them) is trapped there. Good times!

The dramatic side of the story comes from Charlie (Noel Clarke) - he's all bummed out because his girlfriend of 5+ years has just broken up with him. Along with his best friend Mark (Colin O'Donoghue), he's headed to the storage locker to pick up some of the stuff he shared with Shelley (Antonia Campell-Hughes). But wouldn't you know it - Shelley is there with some friends, also picking up some stuff! And of course tempers fly out of control, and it gets worse when they find out they can't leave. Eventually they also figure out that there is a man-eating (or really, just a man-mutilating) beast locked in there with them. They'll have to work together if they have any chance of getting out alive.

July 11th, 2015 - Raw Force (1982)

Okay, this is the second day in a row where I'm not totally convinced that I watched a horror film. But Raw Force is also known as Kung Fu Cannibals, and does in fact have zombie martial artists and monks that barbecue and eat women. So I guess it counts.

And unlike yesterday's film of questionable horror vintage (Virgin Witch), Raw Force is a heck of a lot of fun. I mean, it's really quite stupid, but its goofy tone and the way it revels in its exploitation roots makes it quite entertaining. It's a hefty helping of early 80's action cheese with a significant grindhouse/sleazy vibe. It's not going to win anyone over who isn't into dumb 80's movies, but it works as a fun, trashy, and dumb action film - if you're into that sort of thing.

July 10th, 2015 - Virgin Witch (1972)

I had just assumed that 70s British horror was my thing. Up until now, I've pretty much enjoyed most of what I've come across. But after yesterday's misfire (The Beast Must Die) and now The Virgin Witch, I need to rethink my policies.

I mean, it's hard for me to really even call Virgin Witch a horror film. I'm pretty sure the main concern of the filmmakers was to get a lot of nudity onscreen - and in that respect, they succeed. But, despite being about a coven of witches, it's surprisingly tension-free and uninteresting. I mean, you can only watch women nude-model and bathe for so long - eventually you need something to happen. As it stands, Virgin Witch is more about the office politics of being in a coven of witches. And while that may actually be fertile ground for a story, what you get here is not well done and pretty boring.

July 9th, 2015 - The Beast Must Die (1974)

You know you're in a bit of trouble when a film starts off with padding. And not just a little bit... The Beast Must Die kicks off with a full 10 minutes of an entirely needless chase through the woods. A couple of minutes would have been sufficient. When you have no idea who is being chased (or who is doing the chasing) - unless you have some seriously kick-ass action (which this film doesn't), the only possible end result is boredom, plain and simple.

So you've got 10 minutes of a man being chased through the woods - he's being chased by helicopters, trucks, and men on foot. And there is some guy in some control room somewhere, who is leading the whole thing. The man being chased looks up, and sees cameras in the trees - or looks down and sees microphones on the ground... the whole area is covered and under watch. But when the guy gets caught? The pursuers just point their guns at him and let him go. Intriguing? Or boring? I'd suggest the latter...

July 8th, 2015 - Delivery: The Beast Within (2013)

So they forgot "the Beast Within" on the title screen there. But it makes sense in the context of the film - the first act is essentially a pilot for a reality show called Delivery, one that would center on a couple who going through their first pregnancy after trying to get pregnant for a long time. The couple in this case is Rachel (Laurel Vail) and Kyle (Danny Barclay), and we meet them in your typical reality show format... interviews about how they are doing in the early stages of their pregnancy, following them around to doctor's appointments, and filming them as they announce the big news to their friends and family... and it's really well done. Honestly, I think you could show this part of the film to someone and tell them it's a TLC reality show, and no one would bat an eye. (Although the eagle-eyed viewer might notice a surprising lack of sex offenders, which seems to be a requirement for them nowadays - good work, The Learning Channel!)

Anyways, towards the end of the pilot, something goes wrong with the pregnancy, and it seems like they have lost the baby. But through some miracle, the next morning they find a heartbeat once again... and things are back on track. Or are they?

July 7th, 2015 - The Devil's Nightmare (1971)

So what I *think* I have on my hands is the English dubbed version of the Italian release of the Italian/Belgian La plus longue nuit du diablo (The Longest Night of the Devil) - it's French (and official) title. The Italian version (above) translates as the Terrifying Night of the Devil, whereas us English-speakers get The Devil's Nightmare. Anyways, the film was a really nice surprise from the Pure Terror budget set. You never really know what you're going to get from these sorts of things - it could be anything from a bland, cheapo time-waster (here's looking at you, The Dungeon of Harrow) to a legitimately solid well-executed horror/thriller. What I *definitely* don't expect? Baby-stabbing and softcore porn. Let me explain.

The Devil's Nightmare starts out in 1945 Berlin. Baron von Rhoneberg is (I'd guess) a higher ranking official in the German army - and he's holed up in a bunker somewhere with his wife, who is just about to give birth. Bombs are dropping overhead, and the end of the war is near. Rhoneberg's wife dies in childbirth, but the midwife manages to save the child. Rhoneberg asks repeatedly "is it a boy? Is it a boy?" - but the midwife says no, it's a girl. Rhoneberg sends everyone away from them and proceeds to stab the baby. WTF? It's not really brutal or anything - I mean, really, he's just stabbing the pile of sheets next to the baby - but still. The concept of it is particularly nasty, and something I don't think I've ever come across in a film before. So thanks for showing me something new, The Devil's Nightmare.

July 6th, 2015 - Trapped (1993)

Trapped is the kind of movie that makes the whole "watching a horror movie every day" thing worth it. There is just no chance that I would have ever watched this thing otherwise. The story sounds pretty bland - three escaped convicts kidnap two young women and end up trapped (naturally) in a mine shaft with an unspeakable evil - the box art is unattractive, and I've never heard it mentioned on any other website or anything. And while it's far from "good" in the traditional sense, I'll be damned if I didn't have a really good time with it. I'm pretty sure that a lot of it has to do with the fact that it seems to be  targeted right at my personal nostalgic bad-movie sweet spot. Despite a release date of 1993, it was actually filmed in 1988. And it's got 80's cheese written all over it. Over the top villains, bad (yet very watchable) acting, a great/terrible synth score, and Cameron Mitchell - it's almost like Trapped was made especially for me.

So while it'd be hard to recommend it to everyone (or even most people), I feel like it's a bit of a shame that Trapped isn't at least a little more well known. I mean, it's certainly a bad movie, but a lot of bad movies at least have followings, you know?

July 5th, 2015 - The Canal (2014)

The Canal does for canals what Jaws did for sharks... okay, so that's not true. Maybe if you're really prone to taking ghost stories too seriously, this would make you not move near a canal. Or at least, not near a canal that is attached to your home by a series of secret tunnels. But I think that's just plain old good advice period - fear of horror movies or no.

Anyways, The Canal is a well-made psychological-thriller/ghost story hybrid about a man named David (Rupert Evans) - he's a film archivist and has a seemingly happy life. He likes his job, is happily married to his lovely wife Alice (Hannah Hoekstra), and has a precocious five-year-old son that he loves dearly. But that all changes when he's at work looking at some turn-of-the century (1900) footage of a crime scene - unbeknownst to David and Alice, their home was once the scene of a brutal murder. Around that same time, David starts to get a sneaking suspicion that Alice may be cheating on him. And when Alice mysteriously disappears, David is the prime suspect - the investigating officer says "people always suspect the husband. You know why that is? Because it's always the husband, every f---ing time." David is steadfast in his innocence, and begins to think that the ghosts that he's beginning to see - in his house and in the nearby canal - may be at fault. Is David just going mad? Or has he unleashed a heretofore hidden paranormal energy feeding off the history of occult worship and murder in his house? Tune in to find out!

July 4th, 2015 - Nurse (2013)

Nurse just kind of sucked. I don't really know what I was hoping for - Single White Female in nurse outfits? Kind of. Gratuitous nudity? Yep.  Some kitschy gore and questionable gender politics - I guess... but still the whole thing just didn't work for me. I felt like it kind of wanted to latch onto a pulpy storytelling style but stay kind of grounded at the same time - and the two tones just didn't mesh in a good way. Plus, bad acting, too many loose ends story-wise, and too much CGI gore.

Nurse is about a couple of nurses - Danni Rodgers (Katrina Bowden) is a new hire fresh out of Nursing School, and her assigned mentor, Abby Russell (Paz de la Huerta), who is a well tenured nurse but also a crazy murder. Abby is mostly well-liked by her coworkers at the hospital, but her side job is killing "married lying scum... [that] destroy unsuspecting families" - just the cheating *men* of course. In fact, before the opening credits role, we see Abby, "look[ing] like a slut" (her words, not mine) tempting a married man before she seduces him, slices his femoral artery, taunts him, and then throws him off a building. So there's no mystery here - you know right of the bat she's crazy, and enjoys killing people.

July 3rd, 2015 - Zombeavers (2014)

I guess Zombeavers is the kind of movie that you know going in if you have a chance of liking it or not. I mean, a title (and subsequent premise) that stupid automatically eliminates a good section of the potential audience. And what with intentionally bad movie mash-up titles (I'm looking at you, Sharknado), I can't blame them. But Zombeavers isn't intentionally bad - it's actually pretty good. Sure, it's stupid and sophomoric - but the entertainment value comes from it actually being funny/entertaining, rather than constantly winking at the screen being all like "we're in on the joke too." It just doesn't feel cynical like so many SyFy movie-of-the-week entries - you get the idea that co-writer/director Jordan Rubin didn't set out to make a "bad" movie, he set out to make a "fun movie" that just happens to share some elements with many bad ones. Zombeavers is the right kind of stupid, and I had a lot of fun with it.

It starts out with two truckers (comedian Bill Burr and an unrecognizable John Mayer) hauling some toxic waste around. They're joking back and forth (it's pretty funny), but then get distracted and hit a deer. This causes some waste to roll off their truck and land right by a beaver dam, which sets the whole shebang into motion. When I was in eighth grade, I was in a home-made movie with some of my buddies that started off very similarly, so I certainly appreciated the way the zombeaver menace began here.

July 2nd, 2015 - Body Snatchers from Hell (1968)

my VHS box art is in less
than mint condition

More popularly known as Goke, Body Snatcher from Hell... which I like more, but would have been tougher to sell to an American audience. Hence the title change and the white people on the cover of my crummy old VHS copy. Which oddly enough seems to have been copied onto a blank tape and sloppily restickered (and not even on the front of the tape)... and the outside art has been cut up and pasted to a plain old sheet of white paper. Damn you, closing Video Update that I got this from 15+ years ago! I should call VCR and report pirated copies going around:

they *might* not be around anymore

At any rate, Body Snatchers from Hell was a surprisingly solid watch. It's a sort of cheesy but still substantial Japanese sci-fi film with some good old fashioned over-enthusiastic English dubbing and solid special effects.

July 1st, 2015 - Zombie Nation (2005)

Really, really, really bad. For some reason (maybe in an attempt to thwart screencappers everywhere) the title is broken up into several parts. This is the one that best sums up my feelings toward the film. The whole thing just felt so cynical - there *clearly* isn't enough in the budget to make a decent movie... so just don't try! But I guess enough suckers (i.e. me) will watch it if you have good (and misleading) enough cover art, so I'm sure this pile turned a profit. Just throw "zombie" in the title and people will watch it. But man, from the bad acting, to the terrible sets (like, the *worst* I've ever seen), and the general "who gives a shit" attitude of the whole thing - it's just kind of a despicable film in every respect.

I mean, everything in here is so, so bad that it's hard to even know where to start. It's tempting to just make a list and call it a day. (And people have, check imdb. It's pretty damned funny. And really long.) But cripes, I may as well try...