December 2nd, 2015 - Robin Hood: Ghosts of Sherwood (2012)

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.

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 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.

June 22nd, 2015 - Horror Hotel (1960)

I rather liked Horror Hotel (aka The City of the Dead - which really doesn't make sense as it's not a zombie flick). While it's no classic, it's a fun enough diversion - it's got decent atmosphere, some solid surprises, and a little more teeth than I was expecting from a 1960 horror film. And also, it was the first time I've checked out a Christopher Lee film since his passing. It's not his most memorable role, but he proves once again that he elevates everything he's in.

Horror Hotel is about a college student named Nan Barlow (Venetia Stevenson). Nan is really into her witchcraft class taught by Professor Driscoll (Lee), and asks for his recommendation for a place she can go to study up on the topic for her senior thesis - you know, look over town records, interview descendants, and whatnot. Driscoll recommends Whitewood, a very small town in the Northeastern US known for it's history of witchcraft. (In fact, the opening scene of the film is a good old fashioned Whitewood witch burning from 1692, complete with a monotone "burn the witch" chant from the villagers.) Despite the protests of her boyfriend and brother, Nan goes to Whitewood alone - and yeah, it's pretty creepy. Even if you ignore the hitchhiker that she picks up that magically vanishes, she's gawked at by everyone in town and is warned by the old blind reverend to leave town immediately.

May 15th, 2105 - The Damned (2013)

The Damned is a pretty decent little possession flick. It's got a little international flavor (the characters are mostly English-speaking, but it takes place in Columbia) and strays far enough from the standard demon/Satan-possession genre to be interesting. Instead of a demon, the possessing entity here is an ancient bruja (witch) who can leap from one body to another. In the rules of The Damned, if you try to kill the bruja, it can jump into from the dead body to the body of the person who killed it. So trying to take it out is no good - the best you can really do is trap it. The possessed person is pretty much the same as you'd expect from any possession film - crazy eyes, scary voice, super strength, knowing your secrets - but here you get all of that goodness without having to deal with the lame religious angles and poorly done exorcisms. Plus, here the possessed isn't tied to a bed or anything - it can wander around causing havoc while trying to jump to the strongest possible body, so The Damned has sort of monster movie feel as well.

The setup? A man and his fiancee are in Columbia to retrieve his adult daughter. The girl's mom passed away some years ago, so you've got a little family drama to deal with that isn't worth getting into here. (To be fair, The Damned doesn't feel like getting into it either - it's presented and then quickly dropped.) Anyways, dad, fiancee, daughter, daughter's boyfriend, and daughter's reporter friend are traveling through the countryside to get to the airport (or something) when they are caught in a crazy storm/flash-flood. The ensuing accident is really well done from a technical standpoint (it's the biggest set-piece in the film), but it totals the car and injures the fiancee. They run to the only nearby building for shelter and help, which happens to be an old decrepit hotel. The old man at the door refuses to let them in, but when the dad begs for help for his "family," the man gives in. He offers to get them towels but insists that they do not leave the living room.

April 28th, 2015 - The She Beast (1966)

The She Beast was a really nice surprise. I have learned not to expect a lot from films on the 50 Tales of Terror budget set, but every once and a while you get a little gem that makes it worthwhile. And honestly, with the possible exception of The Sadist, this is the best I've come across in the 30+ I've seen thus far (Disc 9 and counting). It's a good mix of legitimately bothersome horror and off-kilter/almost campy comedy, most of which I assume was intentional.

After a pretty cheap looking credit sequence (see above - at first I swore they just used a crumpled paper bag for the back-drop), we are told we are in Transylvania. You know what that means! (If you said "witches," you and The She Beast are on the same wavelength.) We flash back 200 years ago, to an incident where a witch killed a child and was tracked back to her cave by angry townsfolk. And this is one nasty looking witch, with a really melty-looking face... really, she's more like a troll. Anyways, they capture her and slowly kill her with an iron spike to the chest and then dipping her in and out of the the town lake on some catapult looking thing until she drowns. It's rather barbarous, and pretty disturbing right off the bat - along with the gross face, she just screams like a banshee.

February 22nd, 2015 - All Cheerleaders Die (2013)

I wanted to like All Cheerleaders Die way more than I actually did. I'm a big fan of director Lucky McKee - May is awesome in so many ways and The Woman is one of my favorites of the last few years. Even though Cheerleaders is a co-directed film (McKee and Chris Sivertson), I was pretty excited to see something new from him. His films are usually pretty upfront and deft about exploring gender/sexuality issues in really interesting ways, as well as subverting genre conventions. It seemed like the high school setting of Cheerleaders would be fertile ground for a filmmaker of his skills and style. I also knew that McKee & Sivertson were revisiting a short they made 10+ years earlier, so I assume they must have had good reason to go back to the well. Unfortunately, it just didn't do it for me. There's a pretty fine line between mocking negative genre conventions and outright embracing them - and I felt like Cheerleaders was pretty inconsistent and veered a little to closely to the latter.

January 30th, 2015 - Black Forest (2012)

A little while ago I made a joke while writing about I am Omega about how "The Asylum Presents" were the only words you needed to read to strike fear into the hearts of even the most seasoned movie watchers. But now, I've found even scarier words... "Syfy Presents." I wish there was some kind of warning (maybe a little logo on the art on Netflix?) but I figured "what the hell" and sat through it. And it ended up being quite the chore.

I think Black Forest is more or less trying to ride the coattails of Once Upon a Time, the CBS TV show that re-imagines Fairy Tale characters in the real world. Here, some people from the real-world are transported to the Black Forest - another realm/plane of existence where all Fairy Tale characters are real. Basically, a group of seven tourists are roped in by a fast talking tour guide to visit a "magical world" - they figure it's all in fun, but boy, are they ever wrong.

January 28th, 2015 - Witchouse (1999)

For the majority of the time I've been thinking about Witchouse, I've been trying to figure out the best way to spell a noise... I think they call it a 'rasberry?' You know, when you stick out your tongue and exhale and make sort of a farting nosie? Oftentimes accompanied with a thumbs down? That should give you an idea of how compelling Witchouse is. Mmpthhthhthh. It's not very good.

Also, "Witchouse?" Why not "Witch-house?" "Witchouse" sounds like some kind of strange French method of cooking our something.

The story of Witchouse is kind of along the lines of Night of the Demons (or exactly along the lines) - a young woman is throwing a party is a spooky old house. Ostensibly to have a gay old time, but really to bring back a long dead witch from her family lineage to get revenge on the family of those who killed her 300 years ago. I would probably get a little suspicious when the hostess is all "now lets join hands around the pentagram on the floor." But maybe that's just me.

January 8th, 2014 - The Crimson Cult (1968)

The Crimson Cult (also known as Curse of the Crimson Altar, as you may have guessed) is probably most noteworthy for its cast of horror icons. Here you get Christopher Lee, Boris Karloff, and Barbara Steele, all together in the same film. It's probably stunt casting to a certain extent - Barbara Steele is particularly underused here - but it's still a treat to see them all. The movie itself is okay. There is a pretty neat/artsy vibe to all of the witchcraft/cult scenes, and it's fun to see the big names do their respective things, but the overall story isn't all that enthralling.

The Crimson Cult starts with a bang though. You get a pretty wild sacrifice scene right off the bat - a woman tied to an altar getting whipped by another woman in pasties, some mostly naked guys hanging around with S&M gear and antlers/goat masks on, and most notably, Barbara Steele as Lavinia, the cult leader. She's painted blue (?) and is wearing a crazy feathered/horned headpiece. There's a super-reverby sound to all of this, and it's backed with a droning sound that wouldn't be out of place in a 50's sci-fi/alien movie.  Lavinia is encouraging a guy named Peter Manning stab the woman on the altar and then sign some sort of book, so he can "enter their world of darkness." It's an intense and colorful opening.

January 3rd, 2015 - Witching and Bitching (2013)

My command of the Spanish Language is not what it used to be (or not what it ever was?), but from what I can tell this would be translated to "The Witches of Zugarramurdi." Not sure why they went with the vulgar title for English speaking audiences... we like our swears, I guess! But maybe it makes sense, while it's not a overtly vulgar or gross film, it's certainly far from subtle. I know director/co-writer Alex de la Iglesia is a highly lauded filmmaker - and Witching and Bitching is certainly enjoyable and has style and energy to burn. But I *loved* the other film of his that I've seen (The Last Circus), so I felt just a little disappointed that this one was just "kind of good."

The story begins with a robbery in a gold store - the crooks are dressed up as street performers (human statues and Spongebob characters, from what I could tell). It's actually kind of high concept - our main thief Jose (Hugo Silva) is dressed as Jesus and painted totally silver and his weapons are stashed inside the giant cross he's carrying. His accomplice Antonio (Mario Casas) is painted all green, posing as a plastic army man. These two characters really pop off the screen (silver Jesus in particular looks great), and overall the movie looks awesome. It's crisp and colorful throughout, and this kinetic first scene sets a high-energy tone that the film more or less sustains throughout the run-time.

December 9th, 2014 - The Long Hair of Death (1964)

The Long Hair of Death is a gothic Italian joint that takes place in the Middle Ages - the fifteenth century, if you can read the text on the terrible transfer, that is. The story kicks off with a witch being burned to death for the crime of murder. Interestingly, not at the stake - they put her in a small house made of twigs and set that on fire. Before she burns, her oldest daughter Helen (Barbara Steele) begs the ruling Count Humboldt to let her live - she has proof that someone from the Count's inner circle had actually committed the crime! The Count agrees, but only if she sleeps with him first. Classy. While he's busy forcing himself on Helen, they burn her mother to death anyways. Before she burns to death, she casts her last curse on Count Humboldt, his family, and the people of the town. Also bearing witness to this whole thing is Helen's younger sister Elizabeth. Shortly thereafter, Helen in thrown into the river and killed by Count Humboldt, who is still concerned with the curse put forth by Helen's mom.