November 21st, 2015 - The Tell-Tale Heart (1960)

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!

October 30th, 2015 - Lucifer's Angels (2015)

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.

October 13th, 2015 - Valley of the Zombies (1946)

Not really even a zombie movie. And not in the White Zombie vein of 'this was before Night of the Living Dead and we don't recognize these things as zombies...' there's just no zombies here at all. (Nor is there a valley, incidentally.) The closest you get is Ormund Mercks (Ian Keith). He's technically dead, I guess, but walks/talks/generally operates like a normal, living person. He needs blood to survive - I'd guess he drinks it, but it's never explicitly mentioned. So I guess if "zombie" is a catchall for "scary dead guy," then Mercks counts.

Anyways, Mercks is at the hospital looking for blood. It doesn't hurt that the doctor who institutionalized him prior to his death is there also - so he can get a little revenge at the same time he gets his fix. Mercks doesn't *want* to kill the doctor, but it just so happens he's got the blood type he needs. And wouldn't you know it? The hospital blood bank is out of it. So murder it is, courtesy of unseen strangulation.

September 15th, 2015 - Exit to Hell (2013)

Eh - I just didn't like Exit to Hell as much as a hoped I would. I like the actors involved (Kane Hodder, Tiffany Shepis), but it's just way too faux-grindhousey for my liking. You get a ton of aggressive effects to simulate old scratches/jumps/whatever on the film, and it just doesn't work. I'm not inherently opposed to it, but when little effects draw more attention than the actual story, that's a problem.

The film also manages to feel overly padded yet underdone at the same time. It starts with a little movie-within-a-movie (a gory nurse/zombie thing that if I had to guess was probably an existing short from one of the filmmakers), and then a ten minute story before the credits where a Chris R. looking guy and his buddy botch a gas station robbery. I guess it serves to introduce our main bad guy, Sheriff Sickle (not what they call him, because those two words sound dumb together - but it's still what he'd be), played by Kane Hodder. At any rate, it's nearly 15 minutes into the film before we get introduced to our *actual* main characters. And the film (sans the ending credits) is only an hour and fifteen minutes, so really you only get an hour to tell the whole story. Which ends with a big fat "huh - that's it?" So I don't know, it just doesn't feel well-laid out to me.

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 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.

June 21st, 2015 - Killer Holiday (2013)

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June 19th, 2015 - Scream Bloody Murder (1973)

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June 6th, 2015 - Naked Massacre (1976)

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June 3rd, 2015 - The Embalmer (1965)

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June 2nd, 2015 - City of Lust (2013)

The box for City of Lust (aka Yellow) claims that it's a "modern Giallo horror film" - but I don't know if that does the film any favors. It kind of sets a highish bar that it just doesn't need to. I really like giallos, and just name dropping it gives is kind of a "for us (horror fans), by us" attitude that sort of raised my expectations. (I mean, even knowing that the subgenre exists is something - is "giallo" even a known thing outside of horror or film circles?) I think I would have been into it more had I just known it's a "horror movie" and watched it unfold rather than (kind of) knowing what to expect. Also, I have always associated giallos with a kind of style and slickish production. Sadly, City of Lust doesn't have the budget for that. It's still pretty decent - especially for a small indie - but with the "giallo" attached I had hoped for something more. Oh well, at any rate it probably got more eyeballs on the film.

Arianna (Margaret Grace) is a young woman who has recently moved to Chicago. It's pretty clear that she's running away from *something*, and she's having a hard time getting used to life in the big city. It doesn't help that she's prone to strange anxiety attacks, where she'll see some bizarre, bloody visions and occasionally black out. Also, her nose bleeds a lot. She likes her job as a hair stylist, but works with horrible people, and doesn't have anyone she could really call a friend. But that all changes one night when Arianna decides to call a phone sex line (1-900-SEXCHAT - which I'm sure is a real number) and is enticed by Jackie's pre-recorded introduction: "I'm here for the same reason you are - to make a connection." Arianna becomes increasingly dependent on Jackie, talking to her for hours until she feels like she's found someone she can trust. Eventually, the two meet and start a romantic relationship. At the same time, some of the "problem people" in Arianna's life are being violently dispatched of. Coincidence? The cops - or rather, cop - is onto Arianna, but who is the guilty one?

May 25th, 2015 - Haunts (1977)

I'm not sure why I still get excited abut seeing Cameron Mitchell in the cast of of a movie. (It must be because of Space Mutiny.) I mean, I like the guy, but in Haunts, much like The Silent Scream, he gets top billing and just isn't around all that much. Maybe that's just his thing? And the plot description on Amazon is a little misleading... "May Britt plays a seemingly innocent farm girl convinced that her slovenly uncle (Cameron Mitchell) is the man responsible for the bloody scissor-murders of several local girls." First off, May Britt was in her mid-forties when Haunts was made, and I don't think you'd ever *really* suspect Cameron Mitchell - the synopsis actually swerves you more than the actual film. Plus, the box art makes it look like the devil will be involved, what with the goat head outline and cross prominently featured. But not such luck - Britt does milk some goats I guess, but that's about the extent of it.

At any rate, Haunts is a psychological thriller that is really a product of it's time - it's moody, slow, and plods along, but still gets pretty nasty at times. I feel like that's a kind of unique cocktail that you mostly see in 70's films. It's not particularly well done - some of the twists just kind of come out of nowhere, and it's not that technically proficient from a filmmaking standpoint. But it's still pretty effective at times. It actually reminded me of a more amateurish Let's Scare Jessica to Death. They've got kind of a similar vibe, and both focus on women with a shaky mental stability. Although Jessica is made with a lot more skill (and probably money) and has a better story and more engaging cast.

May 6th, 2015 - River of Darkness (2011)

River of Darkness is a really, really shitty movie. If you told me that before I watched it, there's no way I would have believed you. I mean, check this out: (my favorite) professional wrestler Kurt Angle stars as a small town sheriff investigating several gruesome murders. It turns out they are being committed by three vengeance seeking ghosts who kill their victims in slasher fashion! Oh, and two of these three axe-wielding ghosts are none other than pro-wrestling's "Psycho" Sid Vicious and "Big Sexy" Kevin Nash! HOW COULD ANYTHING GO WRONG!

Well, for starters, it's poorly made and really boring. Even though the synopsis sounds really awesome, it's executed very poorly. River of Darkness looks cheap and is very blandly shot, and a lot of the scenes just sort of linger on for much longer than they need to. Most of the film's boring, poorly acted conversations take place in drab, visually uninteresting locations. Plus, some of the editing choices are baffling. You get a lot of scenes where it looks like the people must have not been on set on the same day, but then at the very end you'll see they were. What the H.? 

May 3rd, 2015 - Mischief Night (2013)

The general idea behind Mischief Night seems to be "home invasion, but the person at home is blind." And that's not a horrible idea, as long as it's well-executed. And Mischief Night mostly is. It sort of undercuts its own basic premise by having most of the third act revolve around a sighted person - it's almost like they liked the blind-victim concept but couldn't come up with a satisfactory way to wrap things up without resorting to a more generic finale. Regardless, it's mostly well-done, has good lead performances, and does what needs to be done to make it an adequate home invasion flick.

Emily (Noell Coet) is a high-schooler who suffers from psychosomatic blindness (i.e. doctors cannot find anything physically wrong and believe it's a mental block thing). She blames herself for her mother's death 10 years ago - she was in the car when her mother crashed it and died. She has just moved into a new house with her father, and it's really nice. There's tons of space, a nice open layout, and isolated from any neighbors. As we find out in the prologue, it also happens to be a really nice spot for a murderer to break in undetected. Apparently, there's some masked guy who likes to break into this house on Mischief night and murder people. Mischief Night, for those of you not in the know (like me), is the night before Halloween where people go out and cause mischief (TP-ing, egging, flaming bags of poo on the front steps - generally not murder).

April 20th, 2015 - Point of Fear (2006)

Happy 4/20! Don't watch Evil Bong.

Point of Fear is a not too bad (but not too good) indie psychological horror film - and it really only qualifies as "psychological" because it's about a killer psychologist. It's not like anyone here is playing mind games or anything. Honestly, Point of Fear is pretty dumb at times, but at least it has the sense to never really try to be intelligent. Basically, it's a simple story about a big lug of a crazy doctor who kills people, and the poor 20-somethings who have the misfortune of being his victims. Easy enough.

Four friends head out for a relaxing weekend at a cabin in the woods. (Stop me if you've heard this one before.) It's actually slightly different that the standard set-up, as the woods are in the mountains - and one of the friends (Melissa) is afraid of heights! Enter "The Fear Doctor" as he's been dubbed in the local press. Dr. Jamison has recently relocated to the small town of Pleasant Point, and he's found a small measure of success using controversial methods to cure his patient's phobias. (For example, he lets a tarantula crawl on the arm of a guy who is afraid of spiders. So he can work at his pet store unencumbered by his arachnophobia. Revolutionary stuff!) But it's not just his methods that are dubious - very little is known about his background, other than the fact that he moved to Pleasant Point after the death of his wife and child. The sheriff in town (who bears a striking resemblance to Pawn Stars' Rick Harrison) doesn't hide his contempt for Jamison - and it turns out he has good cop sense. We quickly find out that Dr. Jamison is indeed crazy - he occasionally snaps and kills his patients. Or (in Melissa's case), if you happen to remind him of his deceased wife, he might just tie you up and slap you around a little. (Seriously, they don't explain why he does this to her. Just plain crazy is reason enough, I guess.) Melissa's friends try to save her, and maybe they do. And good times were had by all.

April 14th, 2015 - What Have You Done to Solange (1972)

What Have You Done to Solange is a solid entry in the giallo subgenre. It's pretty straightforward though - it doesn't have as many of the stylistic flourishes you might expect, and plays more like a standard mystery at times. But it's got enough suspense, brutality, perversion, and first person stalking to please the genre's fans.

Solange is about a teacher at a Catholic Girls school named Enrico Rosseni who is in a romantic relationship with Elizabeth, one of his students. It's not played off as sketchy or anything (he's our hero, after all) - he is just waiting for the right moment to tell his wife. One day, while he is out with Elizabeth on a boat in the Thames, they are about to get it on when Elizabeth freaks out, claiming to have seen a knife flash in the woods. Rosseni thinks she is just making excuses to avoid him, but when a brutal murder is reported on the news the next day, and he realizes she was telling the truth. Worse yet, the victim was a classmate and friend of Elizabeth. They hesitate to go to the police (wanting to keep their affair a secret) but then more students from their school are murdered. The evidence seems to suggest that the culprit is someone at the school, but who? There are a lot of really creepy looking guys to pick from... But Rosseni is the number one suspect, by virtue of him being at the crime scene, lying to the cops, and his reputation for liking the young ladies. In an attempt to clear his name, Rosseni and the officer investigating the crimes play a very dangerous game trying to catch the real killer.

April 8th, 2015 - The Evictors (1979)

I've said it before (Find Me) - there ought to be a database somewhere of houses where people have been murdered. (Update: Apparently there is: diedinhouse.com. But you have to pay for it! Although I guess $11.99 isn't much to avoid a potential haunting.) It never turns out well for the new owners, like Ruth and Ben of The Evictors. Not that diedinhouse.com would've helped them - the action here takes place in 1942. But it still would have been nice for them to have gotten some kind of a heads up. The mysterious deaths in the old Louisiana house have since been explained away as accidents - but we know better. I won't spoil them, since they are slowly revealed and make up the bulk of the horror in the film. These scenes are nothing special, but this is a PG movie from 1979, so I guess they are about what you'd expect.

The opening scene takes place in a sepia-toned 1928. A banker and several cops in old-tymey cars approach an old house - the banker explains that he tried to evict the homeowners already, and they shot at him! So the crew going to the house is now well-armed and ready for action. He gets to the house and yells "Hey! It's just my job, but get out of the house!" And... he gets shot at again. A lot of gunplay ensues, and the credits roll. Hence, The Evictors. (The opening credits are probably the most stylish part of the movie - the action freeze frames and all of the sound goes away whenever a credit comes up. It kicks the film off with a solid feeling of tension and instability.)

April 3rd, 2015 - The Crimes of Stephen Hawke (1936)

You know, I think I really like this Tod Slaughter fellow. I knew nothing about him before seeing A Face at the Window a couple of weeks ago, but I have to say I really love his style. He's great at playing the over-the-top villain - he's got the look and the mannerisms down, and just has a magnetic screen presence. It's undoubtedly corny by today's standards, but it's hard for me not to love such a mustache-twirlingly evil villain. (Note: he does not have a mustache in this one. But I will be doing my best to track down a film where he does, indeed, twirl his mustache. It has to be out there.)

The Crimes of Stephen Hawke has a really odd framing device - the opening shot is zoomed in on a radio microphone, and we are "treated" to a several minute bit from the musical-comedy duo Flotsam and Jetsam. (They read the newspaper, comically, and to music. It's not that good.) Then the host interviews a guy who sells cat food. (?) I don't know why this is there - I didn't think movies from the 30s needed padding, but whatever. Anyways, about 6-7 minutes into the film the radio host introduces the actor Tod Slaughter, who talks about being a deviant in his other movies, but also his newest film, The Crimes of Stephen Hawke. Then the actual movie starts.

April 1st, 2015 - Horns (2013)

There's a lot to like in Horns, but unfortunately there's a lot to not like too. It's sort of a roller coaster ride of liking and not-liking - I'd totally be on board, then something stupid would happen, then something kind of cool, then something even worse. Ultimately, it's an interesting enough film with a unique enough perspective that it's worth a watch - it's basically a horror by way of fantasy movie. But there are still quite a few nagging issues with it.

Daniel Radcliffe stars as Ig Perrish (ugh), a young man in a small-ish Washington town whose girlfriend has recently been murdered. Everyone in town assumes he is guilty - there are reporters camped out at his house that greet him in the morning with Fair & Balanced™ questions like "how does it feel to get away with murder?" At first, we're not sure of the circumstances surrounding the murder - you assume he's not guilty since he's the leading man/Harry Potter, but you never know. Anyways, one morning after a serious bender he wakes up with horns protruding from his head. All of a sudden, people are telling him their deepest secrets, and listening to him when he suggests they do something. Once he figures what the horns do to people, Ig uses his new "talents" to try and find who really killed his girlfriend.

March 28th, 2015 - A Cat in the Brain (1990)

Another Lucio Fulci jam... I've come across people saying this is his masterpiece? The Italian trailer says something along the lines of (I think - I don't know Italian - but I inferred) 'what Hitchcock created, Fulci perfects." That's a bit of hyperbole, right there. But A Cat in the Brain (I like that title more) is certainly a unique vision from the horror maestro. While there is a general framework to the story, it feels like a pretty free-wheeling film. It has that unique Italian craziness you've come to expect, but feels a bit more unstructured. Like it's mostly an excuse to get a bunch of kills onscreen - and also for Fulci to take a crack at being a leading man.

The opening scene is pretty rad. Fulci is sitting at his desk writing, while the camera lingers above him and slowly zooms in on his head. You hear his voiceover, as he is writing in a notebook - just random ideas about violence:

a woman - hacked to death with an ax - her face cleaved in half
another strangled
yet another hanged
someone chopped to bits by a chainsaw
or drowned in boiling water