The Horror List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Project)

[domino harvey]

Glad you liked at least one of my recommendations! And now, to get back to the true spirit of this thread, here's more bad movies I watched in my quest to burn through my backlog:

the Amityville Horror (Stuart Rosenberg 1979) For a film with such a deep cultural relevancy, I was shocked at how dull this movie was. Almost nothing happens, unless the slow descent of watching James Brolin take grooming tips from Charles Manson counts as narrative action now. Rod Steiger provides some phenomenal overacting, even for him, as the requisite concerned local priest. For fans of exciting scenes where characters look for misplaced money or swat away flies only.

Amityville II: the Possession (Damiano Damiani 1982) A film that fixes the main problem in the first film by making everything happen. Hiring an Italian horror director to make a non-stop collection of nonsensical “spooky” images makes for a film equally terrible to the first, just in a different way. And what’s with that gross subplot of Diane Franklin and her brother giving into an incestuous relationship, only part of which ends up being demon-house assisted?

Amityville 3-D (Richard Fleischer 1983) The “best” of the original trilogy, in that it decides to ripoff Poltergeist rather than Fulci or, uh, paint drying? Fleischer makes some stabs at legitimacy by hiring Tony Roberts and Candy Clark, and while the film isn’t very good, after the first two, I was grateful for mediocrity. Also, for a film in which she dies and comes back as a neon purple ball of energy, this is still the sanest movie Lori Loughlin starred in this decade.

Demon Seed (Donald Cammell 1977) The thing with this Dean Koontz adaptation about a computer-controlled house that rapes and impregnates the helpless woman trapped inside is that there was never any way it could be a good movie, but the fact that Julie Christie was in it caused me to let curiosity get the best of me. Isn’t this entire thread a Scared Straight for this mindset?

Frankenhooker (Frank Henenlotter 1990) I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a movie so fully embody the notion of white trash— the characters in a John Waters movie look like Downton Abbey rejects in comparison! An aggressively unfunny male lead (who does the bad Bill Murray imitation thing about as well as Dana Olsen in Making the Grade) archly comments on all stages of his hackneyed plan to use a prostitute’s corpse to bring back his deceased fiancee. If you think the idea of a scientist developing a more powerful and destructive version of crack cocaine and calling it “super crack” is the height of comedy, you’ll be in stitches when smoking it causes a room full of prostitutes to explode into flames and errant body parts. For a film that promises a Frankenstein’s Monster made of hooker parts, we only really get maybe fifteen minutes or so of it, and surprisingly the Penthouse Pet in the title role is the only tolerable professional element of this garbage, and she’s barely in it! Intentionally bad to be bad tripe like this is just torture to sit through.

the Living Dead at Manchester Morgue (Jorge Grau 1974) Presumptuous quasi-hitchhiker hippie finds himself combating the risen dead in small-town Britain. Arthur Kennedy is also on hand, for some reason, as the hard-nosed Irish detective who knows that damnable longhair is up to no good. Oh how the mighty do fall. As far as Euro zombie movies go, it was merely mediocre rather than actively awful, so I guess that's something. Typically pointless fatalistic ending too.

Night of the Demon (James C Wasson 1980) Bigfoot furry rapes a woman and kills others who threaten her in Wild Bunch-style slow motion. Extraordinarily unwatchable.

Prophecy (John Frankenheimer 1979) Starring Talia Shire and a guy who looks like he wants to sing AM Gold soft rock, this tale of environmentalists versus industry baddies is a failure from the start, in that I hated both the warring sides and the “impartial” arbitrators! And then of course the giant mutant bear shows up, literally blows the roof off, and characters do the requisite stupid things they always do in movies like this. No idea what Frankenheimer saw in this project.

Trapped (William Fruet 1981) It’s been too long since I’ve said these words in this thread, but this is one of the worst pieces of shit I’ve ever seen. Backwoods hick kills other backwoods hick, as sanctioned by still more backwoods hicks, all witnessed by a quartet of college outsiders, who are then kidnapped and threatened with murder by said backwoods hicks. Complications ensue. The film is an endless stream of characters making the stupidest decisions conceivable, on both sides of the conflict, to the point that it’s impossible to care about anyone other than to hope all shown are swiftly removed from the film, leaving, perhaps, the rest of the running time devoted to static shots of the backwoods themselves. At least ninety-five minutes of nothing but trees would have resulted in me swearing at the television a lot less.

Vamp (Richard Wenk 1986) Three college dudes make their way to the neon-colored wrong side of town, where the nightlife is overrun with vampire strippers and bleach-blond gang members. I liked the bright and outrageously artificial color palette (though I could just as easily enjoy it in a better horror film, like TerrorVision), Dedee Pfieffer is cute and the film has fun playing with the typical horror tropes of her being a surprise vampire, and the movie doesn’t take itself too seriously. But ultimately this story of Grace Jones’ mute Egyptian vamp suitably vamping about is approximately as empty an experience as actually going to a strip club.

[knives]

Prophecy (John Frankenheimer 1979) Starring Talia Shire and a guy who looks like he wants to sing AM Gold soft rock, this tale of environmentalists versus industry baddies is a failure from the start, in that I hated both the warring sides and the “impartial” arbitrators! And then of course the giant mutant bear shows up, literally blows the roof off, and characters do the requisite stupid things they always do in movies like this. No idea what Frankenheimer saw in this project.

Alcohol money. According to Frankenheimer this was the apex of his alcoholism where Stephen King style he didn't entirely remember filming just that the end product was so terrible he wanted to retire after making it.

[domino harvey]

A film so bad that claiming to be too blotto to be held liable for it is preferable to taking responsibility!

[tarpilot]

I remember Richard Donner once getting either confused or embarrassed and saying he directed Randal Kleiser's Dawn: Portrait of a Teenage Runaway instead of his own Sarah T.: Portrait of a Teenage Alcoholic. Funnier as Sarah's by far the better film with a pretty great central performance by Linda Blair.

[Rayon Vert]

Megan is Missing (2011) - If Saw was purely psychological it would be this film. Internet predator stalks a young girl and it is well executed. The movie told in basically real time from when Megan disappears to when her friend Amy deals with the consequences. This is one of those movies that really latches onto an original idea and makes your blood run cold. http://meganismissing.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Just saw this yesterday by chance. I didn't think much of it at all, with the last twenty minutes or so falling into egregious torture porn. But beyond the quality (or lack thereof) of the film, I was taken aback by some of the sexual material concerning these 14-year-old characters. At one point Megan describes to her friend online, at 10 years old at summer camp, in graphic (X-rated) detail, being forced into giving oral sex to a 17-year-old guy, but recounting it in a way where she enjoyed it. To me, this was crossing the line of (ahem) "sociopsychological realism" into excusing sexual abuse and exploiting minors (characters, that is) for potential titillation purposes. Really dubious.

[domino harvey]

Can't stop the horror:

Dark Intruder (Harvey Hart 1965) Repurposed TV pilot about Leslie Nielsen investigating a strange series of paranormal murders. Nielsen is sarcastic and arch and dons several disguises to converse with his pal the police honcho so as to not damper his street rep, and that's about it. It’s unfair and pointless to grade this like it’s a real movie even if Universal presented it as such, but I’ve sat through far worse things.

the Devil’s Rain (Robert Fuest 1975) A lot of brand name stars in this mess, toplined by Ernest Borgnine who is the only reason to go anywhere near this. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen Borgnine look like he’s having this much fun, and while he isn’t the first name I’d have thought of for a Satanic cult leader, he is a total hoot— and just wait til he shows up in the goat makeup! Other than Borgnine though, this movie’s a nonsensical slog— the film is so confusing that for the first act I thought I may have inadvertently started watching a sequel to a film I never saw, and many of the character motivations and plot contrivances are free-associative. And boy does William Shatner earn his much-mocked reputation for over-pausing and over-emoting. But, you know, there’s still this:



Lost Souls (Janusz Kamiński 2000) The cinematographer who inspired the worst-looking cinematic visual fad of recent memory with his Saving Private Ryan directs this silly end of the world lite tale of Winona Ryder’s exorcist assistant (?— I literally have no idea what her duty is in the Church, other than to teach French to elementary schoolers and be in the room for exorcisms) who tracks down an author who is being primed to become the AntiChrist. Every contemporary review of this film talks about how gorgeous it looks, and stumbling upon those words in association with this movie now is like reading the words of an idiot in YouTube's comments section. This movie’s color-drained, artificially-diffused garbage look has not aged well, and the film is edited and shot so poorly that it’s one step away from being unintelligible at all times. It is fitting that a lot of people debate the meaning of the ending even though it’s not remotely cryptic, primarily because it’s executed in such a sloppy manner.

Spoiler

I do think the only point of interest here is the ending, which shows through its failure how unsatisfying hardline logical resolutions can be in this genre. Ryder must kill the AntiChrist by a certain point, she waits til the last minute and then does. The end. No twist, no anything. But by giving us what we’re always screaming at the screen, the film shows it’s even more hollow and unsatisfying. So much so that apparently some viewers want to believe there is a twist, that Ryder is hallucinating the majority of the film and ends up murdering an innocent man in the process. Well, that sounds like a better film than this one, but you’d have to ignore the majority of what’s actually in this film for that conspiracy theory to have any weight.

the Night Walker (William Castle 1964) The film never recovers from its fantastic prologue, filmed in avant-garde fashion like an extended Twilight Zone credits sequence and featuring Castle’s requisite narration, here about dreams. It’s a wonderful and promising beginning, but the actual story is far more creaky: Barbara Stanwyck, in her final feature role, is the widow of a jealous blind man who finds herself confronted with her dream lover while she sleeps and seeks out the help of her ex’s attorney Robert Taylor. Taylor and Stanwyck, real-life exes, are clearly just cashing paychecks here, and their opposing styles (one overacts, the other underplays… if I need to ID which is which, you need to see more movies) are occasionally distracting… not that it matters in a movie this ridiculous, with a twist you broadly see coming a mile away, even if the specifics are a bit fuzzy (for good reason!). I reckon this is more of a noir than a horror film, but whatever.

Prime Evil (Roberta Findlay 1988) What if Martin Luther, upon being excommunicated, decaptitated his accusers and forced the others in his order to either join his Satanic cult or die? Aside from being a pretty out-there diatribe against Luterans, this film is embarrassingly bad, with said Satanic cult hypnotizing poor social workers and syringing everyone from underage hookers to the gabby comic relief so they can take part in the climactic Black Mass. Choice “tough guy” dialog from the useless cops during the finale: “Cut the crap, fart-breath.” Hard to believe the Satanic leader didn’t take his toys and go home after being faced with that. Also, if this helps sway anyone in one direction or the other, I found this important blog posting after Googling one of the stars of the film, Christine Moore:

THE STATS

ACTING ABILITY: 5.1

STARDOM: 3.9

ELEGANCE: 8.1

BODY: 9.7

BREASTS: 10

FANMAIL: unknown

Requiem for a Vampire (Jean Rollin 1971) Well, even when working with many of the same component parts, it’s remarkable how much better Rollin is than Jess Franco at making movies of naked girls encountering vaguely supernatural elements in the countryside, but even that only goes so far. I was with this one for a while, especially after the bizarre first act that finds our two protagonists dressed in full clown regalia for no real reason. But eventually these young girls find their way to a crypt overrun by sadistic vampires and we get what must be a ten minute sequence of anonymous nude French girls groped while chained to the wall and I just lost all interest. The movie sporadically captures something like dream-logic, and Rollin is capable of doing this kind of thing well as seen in Fascination, but this one doesn’t work.

Satan’s Blood (Carlos Puerto 1978) Never has a film gone so rapidly from feigning respectability to wallowing in vulgarity. A refined opening sequence, discussing the dangers of the Black Mass, dubbed by an erudite-sounding Brit, immediately gives way to a comely young woman being disrobed and endlessly fondled by a creepy old man. If soft-core repeated gropings of some young woman’s chest is supposed to be representative of the evils of Satanism, Cinemax after 9PM just got a lot more devilish. Of course, neither of these two opening scenes have anything to do with the rest of the film! And what the film actually is isn’t much better, as a young couple finds themselves railroaded into visiting another couple at their secluded estate and then find they can’t leave. 1/5 stars, would not join Satanic cult.

Sometimes They Come Back (Tom McLoughlin 1991) TV movie adaptation of a Stephen King short story, part of the wave of King adaptations that flooded the airwaves in the early 90s. I saw this back in the day and barely remembered it, but revisiting it now fulfills neither nostalgic or contemporary standards. This protracted, unintentionally silly, and frequently self-serious tale of a survivor of a violent attack by greasers in his childhood who moves back home and faces off against the undead hoods who killed his big brother and blame him for their own death is… about as ridiculous as that one sentence description sounds, only it doesn’t play it up like it could. The finale is one of those things that made perfect sense to me as an eight year old watching this on CBS, but is laughably nonsensical now.

Spellbinder (Janet Greek 1988) Tim Daly of Wings rescues Kelly Preston and finds himself protecting her from a well-connected coven of witches. I actually saw this a couple months ago and forgot to write it up, but it’s worth drawing attention to, especially in the wake of some of these weak Black Mass movies this round. The overall turn this one takes may be screamingly predictable, but that it takes it at all and the whole thing is hinged on it is suitably dark and mean-spirited. For all the recent talk of a lack of female directors, here’s a good horror film directed by a woman that has something provocative to say about gender relations, and is a good and smart horror film apart from that. Highly recommended.

[knives]

Have you gotten to The Iron Rose yet? It's extremely simple with that simplicity for me at least making it Rollin's best.

[domino harvey]

Not yet, I'll try to get to it for the next round of viewings

[Werewolf by Night]

the Devil’s Rain (Robert Fuest 1975) A lot of brand name stars in this mess, toplined by Ernest Borgnine who is the only reason to go anywhere near this.

When the faces melt though! That scared the crap out of me when I saw this on TV as a little kid. But yes, when I went back to watch it as an adult, I could barely stay awake.

[Satori]

Requiem for a Vampire (Jean Rollin 1971) Well, even when working with many of the same component parts, it’s remarkable how much better Rollin is than Jess Franco at making movies of naked girls encountering vaguely supernatural elements in the countryside, but even that only goes so far. I was with this one for a while, especially after the bizarre first act that finds our two protagonists dressed in full clown regalia for no real reason. But eventually these young girls find their way to a crypt overrun by sadistic vampires and we get what must be a ten minute sequence of anonymous nude French girls groped while chained to the wall and I just lost all interest. The movie sporadically captures something like dream-logic, and Rollin is capable of doing this kind of thing well as seen in Fascination, but this one doesn’t work.

I'm a big Rollin supporter, but I largely agree with you. I think the first thirty minutes or so are brilliant but it does lose its way. Apparently Rollin was forced to add said ten minute groping sequence to the film in order to up the sexploitation factor, so this is one case where the cut version would probably be better. I agree with Knives about Iron Rose too: it features all of the great melancholic dreaminess of his best work without all the exploitation elements.

[domino harvey]

Having now watched the Iron Rose, the Demoniacs, the Nude Vampire, the Living Dead Girl, the Shiver of the Vampires, and A Virgin Among the Living Dead, I think I’m ready to write off Jean Rollin completely (though I know he’s not fully responsible for that last one). In fact, the more I think about it, the more I suspect I responded so well to Fascination just because it was the first of its type of movie I saw and I didn’t realize this kind of thing was beyond outré and played out in Rollins’ filmography (I’ll still hold onto it, though, unlike the rest which I happily put up for sale immediately following viewing). I probably should have suspected as much when I didn’t care for the Grapes of Death, widely regarded as one of his best, back whenever I saw it. Ah well, I guess I can sort of see what others get out of these, but to me they’re all just nudie pics with half-hearted feigns at being horror films (or worse, artsy), with no ideas or imagination beyond the occasional fleeting moment. When the most exciting thing to happen while marathoning these six is recognizing one of the girls from Du côté d'Orouët (she’s the titular nude vampire, but isn’t even nude— can I get a refund?), I’m clearly halfway out the door on even registering what happens on screen. I picked up 25+ of these Redemption titles unseen years ago when there was some kind of stupid-good deal on them, knowing that as horror films the resale value would be ideal insurance, and thank God for that, as so far the only ones I’ve seen and wanted to hold onto are the aforementioned Fascination and the Virgin Witch. But while I’ve exhausted my Rollin backlog (I think...), there’s still plenty more Redemption releases in my unwatched palatial estate— now that’s scary!

[Rayon Vert]

Having now watched the Iron Rose, the Demoniacs, the Nude Vampire, the Living Dead Girl, the Shiver of the Vampires, and A Virgin Among the Living Dead, I think I’m ready to write off Jean Rollin completely (though I know he’s not fully responsible for that last one). In fact, the more I think about it, the more I suspect I responded so well to Fascination just because it was the first of its type of movie I saw and I didn’t realize this kind of thing was beyond outré and played out in Rollins’ filmography (I’ll still hold onto it, though, unlike the rest which I happily put up for sale immediately following viewing). I probably should have suspected as much when I didn’t care for the Grapes of Death, widely regarded as one of his best, back whenever I saw it. Ah well, I guess I can sort of see what others get out of these, but to me they’re all just nudie pics with half-hearted feigns at being horror films (or worse, artsy), with no ideas or imagination beyond the occasional fleeting moment.

Your reaction to Rollin is very akin to mine.

I watched five of his a few years ago, and these were the notes I scribbled for myself.

Requiem for a Vampire (1972). [erotic vampire horror] This is all sorts of things: mostly softcore porn, but also a Hammerish vampire film, some lyrical visual moments and even vaguely out-of-place comic moments. Strangely, it’s not completely bad, and one sort of sees what Rollin is after, but nothing here coheres and it ends up being pretty much vulgar. C-

The Iron Rose (1973). [psychological horror] Future accomplished French actor Hugues Quester stars in this poem to death. A boy and girl get locked in a cemetery and the girl winds up preferring the dead. Starts looking fairly solid and ends with a few compelling images but most of this is insufferable, purporseless running around the cemetery at night with little sense. D

Lips of Blood (1975). [vampire horror] Another extremely slow, dreamy vampire film. Though it’s often highly regarded among Rollin’s other works, I don’t find anything exceptional here. The story is a little bit more solid and there a few shots which are evocative, more towards the end, but all in all this is quite dull. D

The Grapes of Death (1978). [zombie horror] In a welcome change of pace, Rollin makes a more straightforward horror film, a Romero-inspired gory zombie flick that’s a bit faster than his usual rhythm. It isn’t great, and in fact much of the action in the middle of the film is a bit dull, but it has its moments and is more entertaining than his usual stuff. C

Fascination (1979). [erotic vampire horror] Another quasi-soft porn “vampire” film that’s less lyrical than some of Rollin’s previous outings, and more narratively-driven. I largely fail to see the interest in this sort of material and its treatment, which is largely silly and sometimes inept. D

Generally, when I first read about his films, I was attracted to the ideas and descriptions, but watching the results was a disappointment.

[Mr Sausage]

Hammer's The Vampire Lovers is easily the best of the early 70's erotic vampire movies. It's far, far beyond the hazy lethargy of Rollin and Franco.

[domino harvey]

I did think that one was okay, though I liked the Virgin Witch better. And Rayon Vert, if it's not too late, I'd avoid Franco, who is far, far, faaaaaarrr worse a director-- maybe the literal worst

EDIT: Actually, I guess the Virgin Witch isn't a vampire movie at all, is it? Not that I think it matters in the slightest!

[swo17]

Daughters of Darkness, unless you consider it starring Delphine Seyrig as cheating.

[Rayon Vert]

Hammer's The Vampire Lovers is easily the best of the early 70's erotic vampire movies. It's far, far beyond the hazy lethargy of Rollin and Franco.

Then to me that says there possibly isn't much to get into here!

These are my viewing notes for The Vampire Lovers and Countess Dracula:

The Vampire Lovers (1970). [vampire horror] Even the presence of Peter Cushing can’t entirely save this one. It gets a bit better in the end, but the lack of subtlety in the emphasis on the erotic in the first half turns that part of the film into soft porn basically. The production values are also extremely fair (some very basic matte paintings and special effects), and the acting uneven. C

Countess Dracula (1971). [deranged/grotesque human antagonist(s) horror] Intrid Pitt isn’t a vampire but an old countess who regains her youth through bathing with the blood of murdered virgins. This is an odd mix of vampirish-but-not-quite-Gothic horror, cheesy sexploitation and a fairy tale, but it’s actually better than it should be. It’s mediocre product by the standards of earlier Hammer glories but it actually gets better as it goes along and is quite competent though never distinguished. C+

[domino harvey]

Daughters of Darkness, unless you consider it starring Delphine Seyrig as cheating.

And I liked that one too! I draw the line at Baba Yaga with this sort of thing, though

[Rayon Vert]

And Rayon Vert, if it's not too late, I'd avoid Franco, who is far, far, faaaaaarrr worse a director-- maybe the literal worst

Thanks, I planned too anyway! Just saw bits of his movies, like the nunsploitation flicks, for a laugh.

[barryconvex]

The Boxer's Omen (AKA Mo) (Chih-Hung Kwei 1983)

If you see one movie this year about a shady, would be gangster (who vomits up a rather large eel in his hotel bathroom after being psychically summoned by a ghost) trying to exorcise a spiritual twin's devils (he from a former life, of course, now a dead Monk stored in a giant earthen ware vase who, whilst on the brink of attaining immortality, was killed by demonic spiders unloosed by the chief warlock himself) by way of killer bats, corpses sewn into dead alligator bellies, fiendish Thai kick boxers, banana peel regurgitating henchmen, witches who have their skin peeled off prior to discharging five gallons of blue amniotic fluid and then giving birth to a gaggle of furry one eyed monsters and triplet cellophane wrapped (!!) black magicians, in order to save your life, the Monk's AND get revenge for your brother who suffered a broken neck kick boxing the aforementioned Thai gentleman, make it this one...

If the above paragraph seems wildly nonsensical and overstuffed it only means i was trying to emulate the film itself. This movie has more imagination in its little finger than the entire filmography of certain directors, or certain decades for that matter. The closing 20 minute battle between good & evil has to be the most batshit sequence in modern cinema. A big thank you to Cold Bishop and all the other members who recommended it on this thread all those years ago...

[domino harvey]

Ah October, when a young man’s fancy turns to horror! I still have hundreds of unwatched horror films to get to, so I’m making a dedicated effort to only watch horror movies for the next month in hopes of making a dent. Here’s my first pass:

Boardinghouse (John Wintergate 1982) Known for being the first Shot-On-Video slasher, but not much else I imagine. Forget being filmed on tape, this thing looks like it was edited using two VCRs— choppy and incomprehensible transitions between scenes and almost no establishing shots or second-camera work make what was already a confusing tale of a telekinetic girl who kills her fellow boardinghouse members with her mind even more befuddling. I rarely knew what was happening, but I could follow enough to realize this wasn’t keeping me from anything worthwhile. Perhaps if you are not talented enough to raise the funds to make a real movie, you should not be making one anyways. I see my slow Bataan death march towards the second Hundred 80s Slashers mark is going to be littered with examples somehow even worse than the first…

Disconnected (Gorman Bechard 1983) It may be unfair to praise this film for being so fascinatingly inept while decrying Boardinghouse, but this like Satan’s Blade or A Night to Dismember enters into that sweet spot of being intensely watchable and unexpectedly endearing in its cluelessness. Alternately artsy and hypnotically artless, this is one of the strangest slashers I’ve ever seen. There’s sort of a plot (one that ends with twenty-five minutes still left in the movie!), but the most accurate description is that the film presents an endless loop of plotless scenes in which a comely young actress ambles around her apartment while answering the phone, looking at the phone, and being in the general vicinity of the phone, occasionally interspersed with other actors, locales, and murders. The “improv” in the film is car crash-level role playing out of a job interview, but amazingly this only helps to build-in the intentional awkwardness of moments like a nerd trying to hit on a qt video store employee. There are also lots of phoned-in film references— 90% of the apartment scenes unfold in front of a Trouble With Harry poster, which is A+ meta placement, but I liked how this particular shot was contrasted with the Dial ‘M’ For Murder poster in the background



—and the characters talk about “old” movies and stars like we do here… which is disconcerting for all involved! The Wikipedia entry for the actress playing the lead even insists she’s related to Claude Rains, which would be doubly impressive since she spells her last name with an E. Recommended for advanced students of my 80s Slasher breadcrumb syllabus.

Doctor Butcher MD (Marino Girolami 1980) Those 42nd Street Forever / Video Nasties discs strike again. I actually had both this and Zombie Holocaust penciled down from various comps, but I was able to quash both with one fell viewing, since Doctor Butcher MD is a reedit with additional footage. I don’t imagine it made it any worse or better in the process though. No intention of finding out, either— once is definitely enough for this tripe. I did enjoy the titular doc saying “the juggler vein” ala Jon Wurster though.

Horror Express (Eugenio Martin 1972) The stated premise of this one didn’t sound too promising (Scientist Christopher Lee’s frozen apeman thaws out and attacks victims on a moving train) but it turns out there’s more going on than just cavemaniacs running wild— like Rasputin stand-ins for starters! It took me a while but I did eventually warm to this one, especially by the time Telly Savalas shows up for some reason in the last third of the movie. Goofy fun.

Killer’s Moon (Alan Birkinshaw 1978) Though it starts to undermine itself with some unnecessary scenes of rape and sexual violence about halfway in, overall this is a surprisingly light and arch comic take on grindhouse fare, with many memorable and frequently bizarre lines (My favorite: “Thank you dog”). A rare case of one of these films that would actually play better edited for television. Also, this is the pullquote Redemption went with, which is just a Mary Whitehouse-ish description of the worst elements without recommendation or value ascribed:



MARIO BAVA-O-RAMA: Black Sunday (1960) / Five Dolls For an August Moon (1970) / Baron Blood (1972) / Lisa and the Devil (1973) While I liked parts of Black Sabbath, I wasn’t too taken with the other four Bava pictures I’ve seen, but I kept hearing and reading about his vaunted reputation, so I finally got to more of his high profile titles and… I’m now ready to write off yet another Euro horror auteur as Not My Thing. Black Sunday is a passable gothic tale of a vampiric witch brought back to life rather surreptitiously who proceeds to kill others to rebuild her body. I’m not the biggest fan of these spooky castle-set Euro movies, though I guess I should learn to love them since I still have a ton of unwatched Hammer films to get to! Though I can’t say I enjoy the modern-day Euro murder-fests any better: 5 Dolls For an August Moon is a confusing and silly portrait of mod rich people getting killed and shoved into a freezer every ten minutes. I did enjoy the jaunty theme that played every time we found ourselves back inside the deep freeze— it obviously gets played many, many times! Baron Blood is worse yet: Joseph Cotten is the titular cursed figure who is brought back to life in the form of Witchy Poo before transcending to his final slumming Hollywood star form. Borders on Jess Franco-levels of unwatchability. Speaking of, last up was Lisa and the Devil, wherein stupid shit happens to characters who may or may not be ghosts in yet another dilapidated Italian estate. If there is anything all these giallos and Euro sleaze horror pics have taught me, it’s that the truly lucrative business in the 70s was owning one of these properties to rent out for the seemingly endless stream of movies that needed a place to put dead bodies.

Nightmares Come at Night (Jess Franco 1970) Blonde Mary Tyler Moore doppelgänger tricks 100% nude all the time girl into killing jewel thieves in her sleep. Grading this movie on the same scale as other films is like grading Hot Springs Hotel as a sitcom— the only reason this thing exists is so people could get aroused by it, not invest themselves in the plot or the craft. And it fails by even those wispy metrics, as Franco is so incompetent a filmmaker that most of the copious nudity here is either obscured by poorly-considered shadows and poor blocking or filmed in garish harshness that flatters no one. I have no nice explanation as to how in the world a director this incompetent had such a flourishing career in the film industry, but I assume he was just a drug dealer who knew both beautiful women and film producers from his day job and used these movies to launder cash. Drugs would also explain why anyone went to see these during their first runs as well. I have nothing to base this unfair conjecture on apart from my disbelief that the single most incompetent director of all time somehow managed to make movies for decades and is now receiving endless deluxe Blu-ray editions of his work-- which means DARE clearly didn’t work!

Premature Burial (Roger Corman 1962) Lively Poe adaptation from usual suspect Corman, with Ray Milland (who fared so much better with these Corman pics than his unlucky star-fallen brethren will the next decade in giallos) starring as a man obsessed with being buried alive. Some effective twists and generally accomplished atmosphere help the whole slight but fun enterprise wash down well.

She Killed in Ecstasy (Jess Franco 1970) He Watched in Boredom.

the Watcher in the Woods (John Hough 1980) I imagine RL Stine is a fan of this one, as his entire Goosebumps series echoes the film’s structure and use of “scares.” However, like that series, I’d have liked this a lot more if I’d experienced it when I was nine. This is all a bit silly now, and the explanation as to just what is going on in the woods of cranky old Bette Davis’ estate is full-on ridiculous.

X: the Man With X-Ray Eyes (Roger Corman 1963) A wonderful movie, and a breath of fresh air amongst a lot of garbage this round. Ray Milland plays God and ends up going mad at the sight of him after his permanent x-ray spex via radical medical experiments allow him to not just see thru ladies’ blouses but also into the eye of the creator. Side effects! While it’s obvious Corman didn’t quite have enough material (in conception or actuality) to round out a feature-length film, what is here is marvelously quick-moving and novel, though the film exhausts itself near the end and we get a completely useless car chase to kill/fill a few minutes. Still, this is probably as good a film as could ever be made of this material. Highly recommended.

[Robin Davies]

Nightmares Come at Night (Jess Franco 1970) Blonde Mary Tyler Moore doppelgänger tricks 100% nude all the time girl into killing jewel thieves in her sleep. Grading this movie on the same scale as other films is like grading Hot Springs Hotel as a sitcom— the only reason this thing exists is so people could get aroused by it, not invest themselves in the plot or the craft. And it fails by even those wispy metrics, as Franco is so incompetent a filmmaker that most of the copious nudity here is either obscured by poorly-considered shadows and poor blocking or filmed in garish harshness that flatters no one. I have no nice explanation as to how in the world a director this incompetent had such a flourishing career in the film industry, but I assume he was just a drug dealer who knew both beautiful women and film producers from his day job and used these movies to launder cash. Drugs would also explain why anyone went to see these during their first runs as well. I have nothing to base this unfair conjecture on apart from my disbelief that the single most incompetent director of all time somehow managed to make movies for decades and is now receiving endless deluxe Blu-ray editions of his work-- which means DARE clearly didn’t work!

Critics of the quality of Tim Lucas and Stephen Thrower have found plenty to enjoy in Franco's work. I can certainly understand people not liking his stuff (and most of his post-1990 output is hard to defend on almost any level), but he's clearly not "incompetent".

[domino harvey]

I will not back down from that position. Jess Franco is a consistently and thoroughly incompetent filmmaker. He has no idea how to relay narrative, block scenes, direct actors, utilize any inherent aesthetic pleasures in his basic materials (from locales to models) to his benefit, or even film his frequently nude starlets with anything resembling eroticism. He is stridently talentless. Good for Thrower and Lucas and others who get something out of him, but my take is more than justified by the evidence.

[colinr0380]

Horror Express (Eugenio Martin 1972) The stated premise of this one didn’t sound too promising (Scientist Christopher Lee’s frozen apeman thaws out and attacks victims on a moving train) but it turns out there’s more going on than just cavemaniacs running wild— like Rasputin stand-ins for starters! It took me a while but I did eventually warm to this one, especially by the time Telly Savalas shows up for some reason in the last third of the movie. Goofy fun.

I still love the re-edit that the old Exploitica TV series did of Horror Express. I cannot find the actual episode online, but luckily there is a clip of the Top Ten musical moments of the series that includes the standout moment of the countess brutalising her dog with terrible piano playing! (Be warned that the number 1 entry at the end of that YouTube video is NSFW!)

EDIT: One of the parts I like most about Horror Express is that it has a host of fascinating supporting characters, any of whom feels as if they could be the lead of a film going in a different direction (from glamorous female jewel thief, to diminuitve assistant, to the police inspector and Savalas's Cossacks) and continually keeps bumping them off!

[knives]

I've always felt that Milland's performance in Premature Burial was one of is weakest and suffers in comparison to Price. That said he is amazing in The Man with X-Ray Eyes which is easily y favorite non-Price Corman.

[domino harvey]

Second round of my Halloween adventure:

A Bucket of Blood (Roger Corman 1959) Superb exploration of the anguish of the untalented amongst their artistic betters, and one that does three times as much for the subject than Amadeus did in 3X the running time. Dick Miller is pitch-perfect as the sympathetic busboy who turns to murder to provide models for his sculptures. The film is funny in a clever fashion, and the film’s depiction of beatnik culture is both representative, respectful, and fully-knowing in its gentle satire— it is bar nothing the best depiction of the movement I’ve ever seen in film, and one that plays to all sides of it as seen from outside. The film is imaginatively directed by Corman, and I suspect Miller’s long legacy in horror film circles is due in large part to his rare starring turn here. A masterpiece well worth honoring in beat poetry (please do not write beat poetry).

A TON OF VAL LEWTON: the Body Snatcher (Robert Wise 1945) / the Ghost Ship (Mark Robson 1943) / Isle of Death (Mark Robson 1945) / Bedlam (Mark Robson 1946) I wasn’t a big fan of the other five Lewton movies in Warners’ box, and since those were the high profile ones everyone seemed to love best, I put the rest of the set off for years. Coming to them now, I think a few of these still suffer from stilted and often awkward dialog and crudeness in construction, but most at least offer individual positives to make up the difference. The Body Snatcher is a post-Burke and Hare tale of grave robbing that only finds success thanks to Boris Karloff’s terrifically engaged central performance. I’ve never seen Karloff livelier, and he really appears to relish playing the affably awful cabbie who latches onto the lucrative business model of providing corpses to docs. The Ghost Ship too features a colorful central villain role for ol’ Richard Dix, an officious ship captain who kills all who undermine his authority. Even though it’s de-militarized, this one’s anti-authoritarian message is still eyebrow-raising for being made during the war! Isle of Death also brings us an overzealous leader in Karloff’s plague-quarantined Greek military man who takes his role as protector to drastic ends when he becomes convinced one of his fellow survivors is actually an ancient creature bent on destroying the others. The core idea here is intriguing, but it never quite comes together like it should. Bedlam is probably not a horror film at all save the ending (unless thee is a Quaker, in which case thou can somehow square with God standing by and letting a man be buried alive), but this initially comic take on the archaic mental institution of the title is the best of the lot, so whatevs.

HAMMER TIME: the Curse of Frankenstein (Terence Fisher 1957) / Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed (Terence Fisher 1969) / Dracula Has Risen From the Grave (Freddie Francis 1968) / Taste the Blood of Dracula (Peter Sasdy 1969) Four more down, eighteen hundred Hammer films remaining. First up: the Frankenstein pics. Peter Cushing exudes the arrogance of Dr Frankenstein well in Curse of Frankenstein, but he and the film he’s in never rise above the confused reimagining of an already well-trodden adaptation subject. However, in Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed, Cushing plays Frankenstein as 100% total asshole, terrorizing a young couple and forcing them to do his bidding in his quest to obtain secrets from a mentally infirm colleague. The body switching plotline finds unexpected gravitas in the last act, and I was surprised at the non-melodramatic and quite sad plight of the brain-transplant victim— it’s an unexpected pivot, but it works, and helps to underscore the film’s cruelty.

Apologies to my fellow moderator, but I don’t like Christopher Lee’s take on Dracula at all. While playing the character like an abusive boyfriend works on paper— he’s in control of the power dynamics and wouldn’t need the consent or non-fear-based affection of his female victims— it is just a chore in practice, and I quickly grew tired of Lee stepping onto set for fifteen seconds of him snarling and being a dick. I don’t find Lee’s embodiment of the role intimidating or charismatic in the slightest, at least based on the three examples I’ve seen thus far. Not that he faces competition from anyone in his films. These two sequels both feature similarly bland central young couples who encounter assorted vampiric calamities on the way to a happy ending. I also found the hollow and infantile provocation masquerading as social critique in Taste the Blood of Dracula especially odious— oh those deeply conservative Christians who berate their daughters for making eyes at a boy are secretly sex addicts and wannabe Satanists, how precious. I don’t understand Dracula’s motivation in the latter film either— he avenges the death of a smarmy ponce who looks like Louis Jourdan's prattish little bro because he drank the blood of Dracula while his wealthy older benefactors declined and watched him die? Would he really show loyalty to anyone but himself based on the evidence found in these films? I know there’s a requisite number of dumb character motivations in even the best horror films, but this one taxed my patience early and often by just about everyone onscreen.

I still have two more sequels from each subfranchise left in my unwatched realm once I get to that massive UK Hammer box, but only Destroyed from this lot gives me any hope for my future encounters.

Hellions (Bruce McDonald 2015) A pregnant Canadian teenager is tormented by costumed children and a purple light filter in the most confusing Planned Parenthood ad ever. McDonald directed the ambitious Pontypool and the Tracey Fragments, but I have no earthly idea what compelled him to make this trainwreck other than the ambition to make the worst Halloween film ever.

Horror House on Highway 5 (Richard Casey 1985) The slasher movie adaptation of Gravity’s Rainbow. An unknown man in a Richard Nixon mask terrorizes college kids sent to work on a project about an ex-Nazi rocket scientist, sometimes using invisible weapons. It will shock no one to learn that the two are one and the same. Also the scientist’s insane children, one named Dr Mabuse, kidnap and torment women as well. It’s a family thing. When the best defenders can come up with for this movie is, “Hey, there are guitars on the soundtrack,” you know there’s nothing actually worthwhile here.

It Came From Hollywood (Malcolm Leo and Andrew Solt 1982) Dan Ackroyd, John Candy, Gilda Radner, and Cheech and Chong introduce and sometimes talk over clips from b-movies. The title is a misnomer, as most of these are either independent productions or dubbed Japanese films, and the comments and skits surrounding the clips are remarkably unfunny, even for proto-MST3K humor. Example: During a Tarzan clip, Radner helpfully adds “Look out for that rock, it’s really heavy.” Comic genius right there. I don’t know that I expect much from the SNL crew but given Candy’s tenure on the film-smart SCTV, I am disappointed in his involvement here. The only ones who come off well are Cheech and Chong, who seem to actually engage with their bits, and having the two critique inauthentic drug representations is the only wholly effective segment of the film. Another film I enjoyed as a kid but can't see much value in now.

Night of the Living Deb (Kyle Rankin 2016) Maria Thayer is the titular Deb, a wonderfully endearing dork who finds herself navigating Portland, Maine in the wake of an overnight zombie apocalypse with her (quasi) one night stand. I know Thayer primarily from Strangers With Candy, where she played Tammi Littlenut, but the biggest and clearest takeaway from this film is that Thayer should be placed in more leading roles pronto, because she steals every second of this film with her goofy affability. The first half of the film is front-loaded with an exhaustive array of belly-laughs, including a wonderful discussion of murder-suicide that cheekily mocks the morose ending of the Mist and countless other downer film apocalypses. It’s obvious early on that this movie is too good natured to end so tragically, and the film’s best idea, outside of casting Thayer, is that it’s basically a stock romantic comedy transplanted into a different genre. But this eventually means the movie has to turn to more conventional arenas as it winds down. I was disappointed in the film’s second half, which feels less fresh and urgent than the barrage of huge laughs that came before it, though there are still a smattering of chuckles in the run up to the finish. This is still a winningly cute movie and gets an easy “Highly Recommended” from me, but as a horror film it of course pales in comparison to what Thayer’s Strangers With Candy co-star appeared in a decade earlier.

Scalps (Fred Olen Ray 1983) College students trespass on ancient indian burial ground despite Poltergeist coming out the year prior. At least one scalping occurs in the process. It takes almost an hour for anything to even happen in this movie. Then things happen and I immediately wanted the film to go back to there being nothing happening instead.