May 7th, 2015 - Tales from the Darkside: The Movie (1990)

I really wanted to like Tales from the Darkside. I watched Creepshow a while back and rather liked it, and while I was checking out some info on that film, I read that Darkside was a sort of spiritual sequel to the Creepshow series. Far more than Creepshow 3 anyways, which is not held in very high regard. And while I can kind of see some shared DNA between the two (Darkside definitely has some of that Weird Tales/comic-booky feel - at least as far as content goes), Darkside is just not as well made. The effects are worse, it just feels kind of cheap, and there isn't enough of the playful vibe that made Creepshow so enjoyable. It's never mean-spirited per se, it's just kind of dull.

Our wrap around story is about a young boy who is about to be cooked for dinner for some sort of evil dinner party. He's being kept in a dungeon/cell hidden in a woman's (Deborah Harry!) pantry, and to keep him busy while she preps the rest of the meal, she's given him a book of stories. While she readies the oven, he tries to stall her by reading three tales from the book.

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 5th, 2015 - Deadball (2011)

Yesterday I praised Wolfcop for being ridiculous but fun. But sometimes a film can get just a little too ridiculous for its own good, and that's what happened with Deadball. It cranks up the slapstick/gore/craziness to unbearable levels. The Japanese film industry has long been at the forefront of insane-goofball-horror-comedies, but I think it's possible to out-extreme yourself. At the root of it, there still has to be some semblance of a story and characters you kind of care about, and Deadball just throws that stuff aside for ass-jokes and geysers of CG blood. I mean, a few of the (numerous) gags work, but it's so over the top that after a while you just kind of go numb and it becomes a slog.

It doesn't take long for Deadball to distance itself far from reality and get completely fucking ridiculous. A kid and his dad are playing catch, and the dad says "Throw a fastball, Jubeh!" He obliges, saying "okay... I'm not going to hold back dad!" At which point, he magically launches himself hundreds of feet into the air and whips the ball down from the sky, while it burns like a comet entering orbit. Dad apparently didn't know about Jubeh's wicked heater, because he's not prepared and is killed by the ball. Jubeh promises never to play baseball again.

May 4th, 2015 - Wolfcop (2014)

Werewolves shooting guns. Who would have known that such a simple concept could be so great? It's one of those things that I didn't even realize I was missing from my life until it presented itself to me in Wolfcop. I guess I'm pretty easy to please. Unsurprisingly, Wolfcop is a pretty ridiculous movie that doesn't really reach for anything beyond the mashup promised in the title. Not that you'd expect it to. But it's made with enough care and has a goofy enough sense of humor to be a winner in my book. Also, it's the perfect length - Wolfcop knows what it is and doesn't overstay its welcome at a scant seventy-some minutes.

Our titular wolfcop is Lou Garou (Leo Fafard). Garou starts out as drunkcop - as in the kind with a permanent five o'clock shadow who brings a fifth with him everywhere he goes and unabashedly drinks from it at crime scenes. The small town police force he's a part of (a captain, Garou, and the overachieving Tina) are getting geared up for the annual "drink n' shoot." This event sees the townies get wasted and go hunting for a regional mythical beast out in the woods. Sounds safe, right? But there have been a series of vicious crimes lately, culminating in the murder (staged as an overdose) of a local politician. But when Garou goes to investigate another potential crime out in the woods, he runs afoul of some satan-worshipping folk, and blacks out. When he awakens, he has a heightened sense of smell and hazy memories of a bloody (and hairy) evening the night before.

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).

May 2nd, 2015 - The Phantom Creeps (1939)

I had a passing familiarity with The Phantom Creeps based on its appearance on Mystery Science Theater 3000 - it was presented as a series of shorts in the earlier seasons of the show. (And I guess it *was* originally a 12 part serial, but here it's stitched together as one film.) I remember certain things - the freaky robot, the fake spiders - but didn't really have an appreciation for Bela Lugosi at the time. So I was glad to get the chance to see it as an uncut film, courtesy of the 50 Tales of Terror budget set. And honestly, it's kind of fun. Lugosi is pretty classic as mad scientist (hard to believe, I know) Dr. Alex Zorka. He gets a lot of power-mad dialogue and just seems really committed to the role. Don't get me wrong - The Phantom Creeps is no classic - it's pretty cheesy and kind of feels like fluff, but it passes the time okay.

The element Zorka has discovered can do just about anything - from making a death ray to incision-free surgery - although he seems most proud of the fact that it can put anyone in a state of suspended animation. He does this by putting a little cracker on a person (coated with the element), and then has a spider thing - the titular creep, which is attracted by the element - crawl to it. So you get a lot of comically fake spiders the size of tennis balls crawling around, which is nice. When the spider gets to the wafer.... BOOM! A little smoke and the person goes into a coma. It sounds pretty stupid... and it is. But that gives you a general idea of the science in The Phantom Creeps, and you just have to roll with it.

May 1st - Crimes at the Dark House (1940)

Crimes at the Dark House is another film from the 50 Tales of Terror budget set featuring the one and only Tod Slaughter. And much like The Crimes of Stephen Hawke, it's an above average story elevated even further by Slaughter's over the top performance. The man just knows how to be a good bad guy, and luckily the filmmakers of the era knew it. It's not all that common to see the villain as the main character, but it's par for the course when he's around.

Our story starts with the scoundrel Slaughter sneaking into a tent and brutally murdering Sir Percival Glyde. It's certainly not a gory death, but conceptually it's pretty nasty - he hammers a spike into his ear while he's sleeping. (Despite seeing him strangle a kid in Hawke, the level of violence still surprised me here.) Anyways, Slaughter (his character doesn't have a name) finds a letter addressed to Glyde, saying that it's finally time for him to come home. His last relative has passed away, and the family fortune/estate has been passed onto him. Slaughter figures it's been long enough that he could pass as Sir Percival Glyde, and gives it a go. His impostering works on most people, and all he has to do is murder a couple of people who aren't buying his act. Easy enough, right?