October Horror Movie Challenge - Second Week!

Day 8 - 976-EVIL II (1992) and directed by Jim Wynorski. Not nearly as good as the first one, because I used to be totally obsessed with that, due in part because I remember those hotline numbers you could call and my friend down the street in the seventh grade got in trouble with her mom because she was calling Freddy Krueger and Bobby Brown for like 19.99 a minute and it was a huge deal and I was instructed never to call those numbers EVER or else I would dealt with accordingly. So of course the fact that there was a HORROR movie about these sorts of things is going to go down as some awesome shit to a thirteen year old me. I had seen this one before, so I put it on, had a few glasses of red wine, and promptly passed out. I remember some such shit about astral projection and the complete and utter absence of Robert Englund and Stephen Geoffreys and that is about all. I still have the Vestron Video copy so I can revisit whenevs.





Day 9 - JAWS OF SATAN (1981). Lots of fun to be had here with snakes, Christian overtones, witchcraft, wayward priests, demonic possession, overt sexual symbolism, strong female leads, the first cinematic appearance of a ten-year old Christina Applegate, and a constantly-eating mortician. (I swear one of these days I'm going to compile a list of all the filmic morticians that are always fucking eating on camera.) This wasn't great, but it was pretty good. Me likey.





Day 10 - I BURY THE LIVING (1958). There's a new cemetery director and he thinks he can cause people who buy plots to die by some sort of push pin on a map voodoo shit and this plays out over the course of many, many minutes. I was on the phone for most of this, discussing some work drama, so Sam caught more of it than I did. I found it to be lackluster at best.



Day 11 - THE GIRL SLAVES OF MORGANA LE FEY (1971) - sexy sexploitation romp featuring a vampiric beauty intent on acquiring souls of other lovely ladies to continue her immortality, her dwarf assistant, and some all out Jean Rollin-style imagery from Italian director Bruno Gattilion. Good times, here, perverts, good times. Sexy ladies tied up in dungeons, a dwarf scheming to get in their pants all the while, and some other ethereal/exploitative stuff. I dug it.



Day 12 - SWITCHBLADE SISTERS (1975) directed by the venerable Jack Hill. I remember this being a ROLLING THUNDER (Quentin Tarantino's early nineties distribution company) release, so when Sam had just started this on Wednesday night as I rolled home from work, I was down to watch, as I hadn't seen it when it had its revival on VHS almost twenty years ago. Good stuff here - girls, guns, and gang warfare - all with ridiculous fucking accents and plenty of knifings. Wish I hadn't waited so long, but I'm glad I did because I don't think I would have enjoyed it two decades ago.



Day 13 - CHAWZ (2009). Korean wild boar invading the human sphere movie. The title is no accident, but there is nothing that can really redeem this, especially the attempts at black humor. Boring. I feel asleep. But you already know how I work late and drink lots, but this is this week's crap-fest. Total.



Day 14 - THE APE (1940). I showed up for the Karloff, stuck around for the lab-or-atories and circus stuff, and got drunk on the fact that Karloff had to don a fucking ape skin and kill people for their spinal fluid to find a cure for polio. I chose this one in part for its brevity (62 minutes and I'm tired, especially after a Friday night bar shift), but was mostly entertained.

There you go, pervs. Just a regular ol'week. Boris and girl gangs and sideshows and horror chat lines and dwarves and killer boars and Christian snakes and all sorts of other good stuff. You're welcome.

First Week of the October Horror Movie Challenge, Y'all!

Day 1 - Al Adamson's DRACULA VS. FRANKENSTEIN (1971). What do you think of when you think of Adamson's pictures? Be honest. They ain't all that, but that doesn't mean there isn't fun to be had. Because here you have a fucked up looking Dracula helping a Anton Levey looking wheelchair bound Dr. Frankenstein bring an even more fucked up looking Monster (back) to life. There's a serum for immortality, a Vegas showgirl with a missing sister, a mute, riddled by alcoholism Lon Chaney, Jr. (which is depressing and sad and almost sick), an appearance by Forry, awesomely bad hair, loads of expository dialogue, a dwarf carnival barker, and all the trappings of something wonderful. To quote Sam 'It's not a great movie, but it's got great shit in it.' Well said.



Day 2 - THE BAT (1959), starring Vincent Price and Agnes Moorehead. Fairly run of the mill mystery/suspense thriller. There's some stolen money, an old dark house, a masked killer, and a mild Scooby Doo ending. Vincent's sorta kinda evil here as a greedy doctor and Agnes is pretty annoying as a mystery novelist. The rest of the cast acts as they're supposed to and the killer has some pretty cool fingernails on his black gloves. S'aright.



Day 3 - THE UNNAMABLE (1988). Lovecraft and urban legend inspired, this tale takes four college kids into a haunted house. Much POV demon breathing, practical SFX, and Miskatonic University references ensue, and we're unfortunately left wondering why this garnered a sequel, which I think I have on VHS somewhere here in the house but can't remember either purchasing it or watching it. And the box art totally spoils the monster!



Day 4 - NIGHT OF THE CREEPS (1986). Perennial cult favorite, due mainly/mostly in part to Tom Adkin's chain-smoking cop with a vengeance performance, the gory practical FX, the horror movie in-jokes, and the mix of teen sex comedy with alien zombie plague plot. Throw in a zombie cat, a zombie dog, annoying frat douche-bags, some nubile sorority sisters, and some slug alien thingys that enter your body through the mouth and cause your head to explode and you have a pretty good 90 minutes or so. Schlocky and predictable, this one is still quote-worthy and an overall good time.



Day 5 - THE DAY THE WORLD ENDED (2001). This stars a broke ass Randy Quaid phoning it in as a doctor with a past in small town. He tries to keep everything on the down low with the particulars on how he really adopted Ben, an 'orphaned' kid with some pretty freaky telekinesis tricks. It's all fairly typical (I hate you, dad! You're grounded, son!) up unto a point and then pretty Dr. Stillman arrives (Nastassia Kinski, no less, but by no means as hot as when she was in CAT PEOPLE or in that nun's habit in TO THE DEVIL A DAUGHTER!), a big city therapist thinking she can save Ben. Some light B&E on Stillman's part in the name of therapy, and the fact an alien might be terrorizing the countryside performing brutal murders from those he seeks a certain retribution. There might not be an alien, though, because it could be all in Ben's MIND. And really, if you watched this far, you've already wandered off to the bathroom three times, made popcorn you didn't even want to eat and called attention to a cat's ear placement at least more than twice. This is that boring. Not even the Randy Quaid crazy factor can change that. I want to be punny and say something about my world ending or some such clever thing to tie it all into the title, but I don't care and I took an Ambien halfway through this mess. No apologies.



Day 6 - SNOW CREATURE (1954). An American botanist and his scotch-drinking assistant head into the Nepalese Alps accompanied by some scotch-drinking sherpas who declare mutiny when a yeti steals the lead sherpa's woman. All is forgiven however when the botanist and said alcoholic capture the yeti and bring it back to L.A. Hijinks ensue and honestly, I wish I could tell you more but the fatigue and sleeping pills took their toll and I passed out towards the end. And don't let the word hijinks fool ya, this one is played as straight as an arrow. It is from the mf'ing 50's. I just wanted to say hijinks in the same paragraph as sherpa, two words I love and rarely get to use in tandem. BTW, this still counts towards the challenge even though I fell asleep. I work very late into the night getting perverts like you drunk for my own monetary benefit so you all can get over it.



Day 7 - THE WASP WOMAN (1959). Roger Corman-directed psuedo-science schlock as it's intended to be. (And Jim Wynorski of CHOPPING MALL fame directed the 1995 remake!) Janice, the aging proprietor of a cosmetic company, tries an experimental royal jelly injection to save her failing beauty and enterprise. When the scientist she gets the serum from is hit by a car (plot point!), she must resort to other methods to keep the inevitable at bay; the inevitable being she turns into a fucking wasp. The cover art is excellent and all this plays out exactly how you want it to, but it's good, classic Corman monster fun.

The first week of the challenge is over! I had some fails and some near misses, but I'm still having fun! I have no idea what's in store for the second week, so stay tuned!

Barn of the Naked Dead (1973)

Simone, Loretta, and Sherri are three cute dancers on their way to Las Vegas to meet their agent. Of course, they have to drive through the desert and break down along the way in the middle of freakin' nowhere. After a night spent in their car, Andre comes to the rescue and takes them in his beat up old jeep to his nearby farm. Left to explore while Andre goes to get something within the house, the girls discover a caged cougar and an outbuilding where at least ten young girls are chained to posts in the floor. Before they can even react, Andre adds these three new lovelies to his menagerie and later becomes convinced that Simone is the reincarnation of his dead mother.

That's about all there is to the threadbare plot which grinds to a halt after Simone and company are captured by Andre. Occasionally, the captives are forced into mock circus acts as Andre bull whips them, but the whole circus thing kinda seems forced. It's like, oh here are some cages at the location we found for our movie - let's tie in a circus theme of sorts! I would have like to have seen it used more to Andre's advantage, it could he's a total psycho and thinks women are animals and the actor (Andrew Prine) plays the part with such chilling aplomb it made it almost difficult for this girl to sit through. He's got some amazing lines like, 'I'm your trainer - you obey me and you'll be part of the greatest animal menagerie of history - disobey me and you will SUFFER!' and 'Breeding is important - some of them seem untrainable - it will be my DUTY as ringmaster to train them!'

However, Andre ain't all that in that he never carries a gun, but can apparently overpower three fit young ladies without so much as a struggle. Director Alan Ruldolph (yes, the same Alan Rudolph who directed CHOOSE ME and TROUBLE IN MIND) seems almost embarrassed by scenes like this, and quickly cuts away before the viewer has time to think about what just happened. But this viewer, who has ample time to think about all kinds of stuff, couldn't help being offended by the outright stupidity of the women in this movie.

Certainly, the minimal brutality we are actually treated to in the film isn't enough to break these women's wills so easily. I cannot be forced to buy that these women at some point or another (some having been held captive by Andre for as long as six months) had tried some form of escape. As a weird film aficionado, I guess you could say I'm used to (for lack of a better term) women being depicted as weak, but being depicted as stupid is another thing entirely.

For instance, when Andre becomes convinced that Simone is his dead mother, he unshackles her and then whips the living daylights out of Sherri. Simone idly watches - couldn't she use her new found maternal authority to thwart Andre's attempts to harm her friend? She does have the smarts to play along; however, instead of trying to convince Andre to let the girls go, she more just pumps him for information to carry the plot and action along.

Another instance of women's lack of intellect here is when one girl who has become useless to Andre for whatever reason is 'set free.' Before letting her go, Andre makes her don a yellow smock which he smears with cow's blood. He gives her a running start and then releases the wild cougar he keeps in a cage for this express purpose to hunt her down. How can she be so naive? The cougar is right there! She could just take the blood-soaked shirt off! But no, she runs out into the desert and of course, gets killed.

Oh, and there's some HILLS HAVE EYES-ish back story (even though this film was made in 1973 and HHE was made in 1977, but you get it) involving some nuclear testing in the area. Andre's dad has been deformed and mutilated by atomic radiation and stalks the farm, occasionally getting his burned hands on a fleeing victim or two. But this whole things seems stilted and arbitrary (a jab at the Man? At the Establishment, maybe?) and meaninglessly tacked on to the end of the film as some sort of plot device (?).

The film was in part modeled after the case of Robert Hansen of Anchorage, Alaska. Between 1977 and 1981, Hansen tortured and sexually abused seventeen women. What was most chilling about his crimes was that he would release the women naked into the countryside, give them a head start, and then track them down with a high-powered hunting rifle. He was eventually caught and received life imprisonment.

It's all grisly enough and weird, but not in a wonderful way like a movie called BARN OF THE NAKED DEAD should be. Prine as Andre is the true star here, chewing scenery all over the place and generally being as menacing as possible. He's a charismatic psycho and charming, if not completely off his rocker. Andre and his creepy dialogue are the one thing keeps this from settling right into an utter waste. The film can be found under the alternate title TERROR CIRCUS.

The Hearse

Normally, after all my family members die and my husband divorces me within the same month, I choose to head to my creepy old dead aunt's house out in the middle of nowhere for a summer of fixing up the house, dating ghosts, fighting with lawyers, and leading on young teens that work at their daddy's hardware stores. And being pursued by creepy hearses for no particular reason is always on my list of good times.

Such is how Jane's summer unfolds. She moves out of San Francisco for the summer - you know it's San Francisco cause look, here's some row houses. Over there, the Golden Gate Bridge! Here's some hills. It's all standard boring scene establishing stuff that's straight outta a made for TV movie, which I'm guessing THE HEARSE (1980) was made for TV, given its generic score (think ominous music at night, lilting piano scenes for the ghost sex - calm down - we'll get there in a minute, and boring we're moving out of the seventies into the early eighties score stuff for establishing shots and driving music), and lack of violence, as well as lack of female anatomy.

Jane moves into her old aunt Rebecca's house. Seems there some animosity amongst the townfolk - Rebecca's been dead almost thirty years (and there's nary a spec of dust in her house and it's not even all that decrepit) - and the town's lawyer Pritchard has been taking care of it. He wanted the house for himself, but since Jane's mom passed away a few weeks prior, the house now belongs to Jane. So Pritchard's miffed as fuck, even more so when he has to deliver the keys to Jane in the middle of the night when she arrives after being chased by a mysterious antique hearse on the road into town. We're not showing too much promise so far - the hearse is mainly concealed by the crappiness of my avi file and Jane, while it's intimated that she's a pretty loose canon (she sees a shrink before she leaves for BFE), she's just Jane, as her name might imply.

The slow burn continues as Jane settles into her new abode. Yeah, the place is big and sometimes the music box in the back room seems to play itself creepily and once in awhile Aunt Rebecca will make her presence known when you're on a ladder three stories up cleaning windows to scare the shit out of you, but it's home. Hell, it was free. I've always wanted to inherit a house - I don't even care what kind of house. No more mortgage, no more townhouse association fee.. but whatever. The filmmaker or whoever is going for a creepy old dark house vibe and it just ain't happening. Most of the 'spooky' stuff takes place during the day and the movie is freakin' called THE HEARSE. Less house, more demonic carriage of the dead, please.

Despite these sundry unpleasantries concerning her new dwelling, Jane is met with equal animosity in the town. Seems old Auntie had quite the reputation, as Jane will come to find out, the old broad was a card-carrying Satanist and pissed off more than a few townies with her witchy ways. Even the kindly old Reverend (who I don't trust for a second) Winston stops by to encourage Jane to attend church. She politely tells him she's not interested, but not before my favorite dialogue of the movie is exchanged.

Jane (upon seeing the Reverend pop up kinda outta nowhere): You scared the hell out of me!

Rev. Winston: I guess I should take that as a compliment.

Yeah, start slapping your knee now, I know. It really doesn't get much better than that. Or does it? I did mention ghost sex, didn't I?

So Jane's being hated on all over town and the house is weird and there's this hearse that likes to follow her at night, and she's been reading her Satanist aunt's journal at night before she goes to bed during thunderstorms (which is my usual reading material - it really relaxes me - especially by candlelight during power outages and I play the Halloween theme on a battery powered radio as I do so). Needless to say, she's having these funky nightmares where she attends her own funeral and her dead body hisses at her and there's all these old people in the church with fog and smoke. Remember that visit to the head shrinker? Yeah. Well, is Jane just crazy or is this whole business with the Satan worshipping aunt and her boyfriend, Robert granting her eternal life some big secret in the town that everyone knows about by Jane? You figure it out, because I'm bored. I told you this was a slow burn.

But we still have to get to my favorite part - the ghost sex. Despite all the aforementioned stupid shit, Jane meets Tom, a dapper gentleman that seems a bit out of time and place, but handsome enough nonetheless. And Jane's on the rebound big time, having been jilted by her man only like a month ago, so why not. When he offers to help her after her car breaks down on the side of the road, she invites him in. The make a date to see each other again and the next thing we know, they're out on their first date in a row boat in the middle of the lake in the middle of the night musing about love and death. Excuse me, but if some dude was like, hey Jenn, let me take you out in this canoe on this lake AT NIGHT and talk to you about the differences and similarities between being truly in love and truly dead, I would not want to go on that fucking date. No sir. I'm scared of canoes and lakes, especially at night. I also have a particular aversion to pretentious conversation as well. But hey, everyone else is hating on Jane, I'm not going to. And you'd date a ghost, too, if he flashed a thin-lipped smile at ya like this:

One thing leads to another, as things are wont to do, and Jane and Tom (what boring names - indicative of their romp) end up in the sack together. It's all tender and sweet with that nice piano music and everyone seems to enjoy themselves, given their happy facial expressions. After the coupling, that pretentious ass Tom leaves before he even gets to have coffee made for him. I don't trust him. And I've already spoiled it for you.

Jane falls hard and then decides to call Tom, but his numbers unlisted. Duh duh duhnnnnn! Get the digits before you do it with him, girl. After some more weird hearse pursuits, cemetery visiting, and Satanic journal reading, Jane figures out that Tom is actually Robert, Aunt Rebecca's partner in Luciferian crime, and he's come to make her immortal. I'd have to consider the sexy times though - what was it like doing it with a ghost? If it was okay, I might consider it. She's seems so ga-ga over Tom, why not? What else is she going to do - return to San Francisco and be a kindergarten teacher with and forget all about her otherworldly love affair and Beelzebub lovin' ancestry? I'd go with the more supernatural scenario, personally. I might even forgive Tom for that awful row boat date.

But before you can say I don't really give an eff, Reverend Winston (I know! And to think I was wary of him from the get!) comes over uninvited and and exorcises the house. Robert Tom and Jane get into a hearse/Chevrolet car chase and the hearse bursts into flames. FIN.

I tried to get a good pic of the hearse for you guys but my avi file was too dark, so here it is in flames. It really is the best thing about the movie - it's vintage looking - I'm not sure what make or model or anything - but it'd be a great hearse to drive around in - all purple curtains hanging and a big hood ornament. You know what they say about hearses with big hood ornaments? I'm not sure, either.

This is one of those that I had much more fun writing it up than I did actually watching it. It was slow, slow, slow. I want to take it by its shoulders and yell at it to hurry up! In fact, I cooked and ate dinner, had two phone conversations, and cleaned the kitchen during the hour and a half run time for this molasses-ed paced thing and STILL kept up! I wouldn't say totally avoid, but I think I'd just say 'meh' on THE HEARSE. (I like typing it in all CAPS; it makes it seem so much more ominous.) I mean, it shouldn't have even been called THE HEARSE; it should have been called something like AUNT OF SATAN or even something more ridiculous like HEARSE OF DEATH. That's a good title. Somebody make that movie for me.

Don't Be Afraid of the Dark

So Monday night, the ex and I went to see Final Destination in 3D. It was at my choosing, having already seen Halloween 2 on Friday with the BFF and while the ex would have preferred I sat through H2 again on his behalf, I was having none of it. Flaming drinks beforehand and the kitsch factor of 3D glasses did nothing to save FD, but this isn't a post about that shit. It's about the palette cleanser movie after FD that the ex brought over, Don't Be Afraid of the Dark, a 1974 made for TV exercise that exceeded this movie junkie's expectations tenfold. It made me so happy, I almost started crying. I'm serious about stuff like this, ya'll. I was also seriously crunked. It was so good, we watched it again Tuesday and quoted it to each other over hair of the dog margaritas. I know once you see it, you'll be like, damn Jenn, that was so good and I have you to thank so please accept these gifts of free movies and pony bottles of liquor. Remember, no gin!

I love when a movie tells me not to do something. The very title warns against something as banal as looking in basements or being fearful of the dark. I like that in a title. Tell me right up front what it is that I'm not supposed to do so I can do the very opposite. I WILL be afraid of the dark and I WILL look in that fucking basement thank you very much. I'm like that. Very obstinate.

Anyway, DBAotD is a simple tale of a simple couple, Sally and Alex, who inherit Sally's grandmother's creepy old house. Based on the title, you're likely thinkin', okay, spooky, old dark house movie, I can get down. Might have some psychological thriller stuff thrown in there. We shall see. So Sally and Alex move in and the place is old and a bit of a fixer upper, so Sally, a housewife with nothing much to do while lawyer Alex slaves away at becoming partner, hires a gold chain wearing, three buttons undone on his shirt, bearded decorator to give the place some much needed style. And by much needed style, he's thinking navy blue shag carpeting and neon green walls.

There just so happens there's a mysterious locked room in the house which Sally eventually procures the key for. Seems it's an old damp study with bricked up fireplace. Sally, 'the perfect woman, stubborn and curious' (her own description of herself), becomes obsessed with opening up the fireplace. Mr. Harris, a whizened old carpenter who came with the house, warns her against it, being as how he himself bricked it up for Sally's meemaw fifty some years ago.

Screw Mr. Harris, the thing must be opened. Sally takes an axe to it, and in no time, there's a gaping whole in her study, literally. Well, that proved to be a real lark, she sticks her head down in there, sees nothing, and goes to have a scotch with her husband. She's gotta fix him dinner too, you know.

Unbeknownst to the happy couple in their overly stereotypical gendered roles, Sally has let forth an unspeakable evil into their midst. And by unspeakable evil, I mean these guys, the cutest little demon dudes I have ever seen:

Some strange shit starts happening around the house, ashtrays get broken, Sally's dress gets ripped, she's starting to hear voices. Alex tells her basically to grow up, I mean, he can't be bothered since he's this high-falutin' lawyer hoping to make partner. So who cares if Sally's having a mental breakdown or what, Alex needs her to throw the party of the century to impress the bigwig lawyers. Well, there's only one thing that can happen during said party, Sally sees the little guys and has a massive screaming freakout right in the middle of dinner.

Seemingly calmed down a bit now (has this woman never heard of valium?), Sally decides to take a shower in the dark. The demons, they're only about a foot and half tall and oh so adorable, sneak in through a secret passage way in the linen closet. They're carrying a strait razor and have the following conversation, one of the best conversations I have ever heard in a movie:

Demon 1 to Demon 2 who is brandishing a strait razor: Don't! Wait! Don't hurt her!

Demon 2: But I want to! I want to get her!

D1: Wait until tomorrow. Just scare her.

D2: Scare her! Scare her!

D1: We'll get her in the bedroom!

I don't know if Sally can hear this convo over the roar of the shower spray, but it is so terrifying. What if you were just minding your own business and two tiny little demon guys came into your bathroom and had a conversation about how they were just gonna scare the shit out of you today and then give you 24 hours to think about your impending demise the following evening by their hand?

She gets out of the shower and the demons have disappeared, but she finds the strait razor and is completely whacked out by it and tries to go lay down. The demons run all over the house repeating to themselves and the others (there are about four, I think), 'We'll get her tomorrow. Yes, tomorrow. Tomorrow. Tomorrow.'

So Harris, who knows about the little buggers, natch, comes by to get some tools he left at the house. Seems he won't be working there any more. Well, he tries to warn Alex that 'some things are better left alone' and goes to the study to get his crap. The goblins are waiting for him and they know what he's been up to. 'You told,' they whisper at him menacingly. 'You told! You know what happens to people who tell!' Where'd these guys get their dialogue from, a mob movie? Alex comes to check on Harris and the little guys let him be....for the moment.

The next day, Alex has to leave on business. The demons couldn't be more thrilled - they emit some green light and keep repeating 'Sally, Sally' in their whispering throaty little voices. They string up a trip chord at the top of the stairs and beardo interior decorator strips over it and dies instead of Sally. Another freakout later - they actually reveal themselves to her and tell her they need her spirit - and Sally's got the cops, a doctor, and BFF Joan in the house with her. The doctor, thinking she's suffering from some sort of mental breakdown, prescribes sleeping pills. Joan, or the demons, it's hard to tell exactly because Joan seems like she's cool and Sally doesn't really want to take the meds, slips her the pills in some coffee and she's off to acting drugged out. A few cut power and phone lines later, and it's all hell breakin' loose!

The demons make their move and drag Sally through the house, as she makes some really suggestive noises IYKWIM, to take her straight down to hell, or wherever it is they come from. Maybe they just live in the fireplace. But she shows them, and grabs a camera and takes their pictures. I guess they don't like to be photographed. She only proves to incense them more and they take her ass into their fireplace hell and she essentially becomes one of them and fuels their desire for world domination.

Oh boy, did I have a good time watching this thing! The little demons are so fabulous, so cute, and I love how creepy they are with their whispers. I can tell you one thing, had I seen this as a kid, I would have been so fucking freaked out, I probably wouldn't have slept for days. I would have been thinking those motherfuckers were in my closet, coming to drag me down the chimney. I don't think I would have gone near a fireplace.

There's plenty of subtext too, lots of sexual repression going on, and lots of stereotypical sexist stuff that almost seems out of place in a movie set in the seventies. Having said that, Sally could have been hotter. She's frumpy and not very entertaining to watch in her shape hiding cardigans and mumus. She could do with a makeover. So the aforementioned shower scene is kinda lost. And this is made for TV, so what the hell are they really gonna show?

The house is also under-utilized; I like how some of these movies with this type of setting almost incorporate the house as a character; this one doesn't. At first, I was thinking it was an old dark house movie and it probably could have functioned well as one, but introduce those creepy critters and all the better.

Pour the wine and get ready to start telling all your friends 'I'm gonna get you tomorrow.' It'll freak 'em out, I promise. I sent the BFF a text message earlier today telling him that very thing. Thank you, hilarious and creepy little demons from a all but forgotten made for television movies from the seventies. Thank you.

Night Train to Terror

If I told you one movie contained within Nazis, stop motion animation, a Russian roulette death club, breakdancing, a porno scene involving a squaw and an explorer, an omniscient narrator, a carnival, and Richard Moll in a dual role, would you be all like, hell yeah, sign me up, that sounds like a real coherent good time! Or would you be like, hmmm, I don't know, it sounds like a leeetle to much for my poor senses to take in right now.

Such is Night Train to Terror. If I was to describe it to you play by play, you would be like, hell yeah, Jenn, that sounds right the fuck on! But then I would have led you astray with my comedic writing style (ha!), and you would watch the movie expecting this great marvel of cinema, yet you would be sorely disappointed. Sorely, my friends. And then you'd hate me. Since I want nothing more than to win your love and adoration, I won't write a play by play of Night Train to Terror. I will merely say this: when you have a movie with a frame type situation (here it's God and Satan on a train discussing the fates of three people - those who you see in the vignettes involving Nazis, squaws, Russian roulette, et. al.) make sure....wait, I'm not really sure what you should make sure of. That shit makes sense? You know, I don't often care if stuff doesn't make sense, in fact sometimes I rather enjoy it when it doesn't. But this movie made little sense and not in good, I'm watching a fever dream, let me sit back and enjoy it kinda way. If a movie can take you (in fifteen minutes of screen time or so) from seeing a girl selling popcorn at a fair to the same girl and her lover, as well as ex-pimp, all strapped to electric chairs while a computer chooses who gets to be electrocuted, it's done something. I'm not sure what. And if that same movie can take you from watching 'band' (in the loosest sense of what constitutes a band - drums? guitar? lots of dancing while wearing headbands? One song to their repertoire?), to seeing a Nazi demon mow down with a machine gun imprisoned females playing the violin for the entertainment of Nazi troops, I guess that's talent. I shouldn't be so harsh on NTtoT. It makes some pretty impressive leaps.

I'm at a loss for words. And I love bad horror movies! You know, as I was watching this last night, I didn't even feel like finishing my glass of wine! I went to bed at 11 pm! Well, I tried watching Drive-In Massacre but was too exhausted emotionally after NTtoT, I couldn't even commit to another movie! I hope I'm okay. I feel a little better now, thank goodness. Your sympathy is appreciated.

After Dark Horrorfest III 8 Films to Die For

Sometimes, although rarely, and then I usually strike it from the record of having said it, I feel like I should apologize for my genre. Often, said apology comes after I have made Christian sit through something truly god-awful and not in a good way shit, and a similar apology was made last year after watching Unearthed. And since Unearthed was part of last year's atrocity known as After Dark Horrorfest II: 8 Films to Die For, I thought this would be a fitting intro for this blog post regarding the cover artwork for this year's set of 8 shitty films put out by After Dark.

Hey, I'll admit it, I love a crappy ass

horror movie. And yes, I will also admit I sat dutifully netflixed and sat through the 16 previous Horrorfest films. And while I cannot remember a single title, let alone, film from the first year, I do remember a couple of flicks from last year, Mulberry Street being the standout, so much so, that it shouldn't have been billed as a After Dark Horrorfest flick. Having the Horrorfest moniker detracts from an otherwise pretty solid humans-turning-into-rat-creatures-and-wrecking-NYC movie. I also recall Tooth and Nail from last year's entries, because, and only because, I enjoyed the premise - the Apocalypse not from you know, stuff like wa

r and other shit, but because we ran out of gasoline. What follows after this premise is presented to the audience, however, is worthy of the Horrorfest name and dissolves into blah. I know I watched the others, but I'm too lazy to go back to my netflix or try to imdb it, because I really don't care. I just want to say this year I am NOT watching any of the new 8 Films to Die For! I'm not. If one of them arrives in the mail, Christian has been instructed to break it over his knee, lest he have to sit through them all as well. I will not waste any more time on these movies. They are not, I repeat, not worth it. T

he promo posters alone should indicate this. Moochie could do better photoshop and he's a cat with no computer skills. And while I don't limit myself to movies with bad promo art, hell, my house if filled with movie posters for 'bad' movies, I have to draw the line at another year of Horrorfest movies. They just keep getting shittier. And I can tell this from the poster art.

Let's examine the posters for the new Horrorfest flicks guaranteed to waste time, induce slumber, and clutter up your queue with recommendations you don't want. In the interest of not wasting anyone else's time, we'll only look at the most atrocious. I have salmon to eat and wine to drink, as well as an issue of Rue Morgue to finis

h tonite.

To your left, we have Autopsy. How lazy is this poster? Seriously, how long did it take someone to do this? Five minutes? And what kind of tag line is 'Get Carried Away.' Aren't there like seventy bajillion other movies called Autopsy, too? And why do these severed legs tell me anything about the titular autopsy? I hate reviews of things that are nothing but questions, but this poster leaves me with nothing but questions and kinda reminds me a poster that a Saw movie maybe used. Once again, laziness keeps me from researching this any further. Well, laziness and my hatred for the Saw franchise. The little flecks of stitch on the top of the legs, oh yes, how horrible, they've obviously been amputated and this movie will undoubtedly be very scary and horrible evidenced solely by some severed legs on a white background. Ugh.

Next on the autopsy table, we have From Within. Again, aren't there already several movies called this? I swear I've seen a movie called From Within before, maybe with Lovecraftian themes? And no, I'm not thinking of Stuart Gordon's From Beyond, I know that somewhere, I have seen a flick with this title. The Horrorfest titles are so generic. From Within could be anything, and if you trust this poster, the within and the from involve some sort of vapor exuding from eye holes at an attempt to be spooky. 'Death is Catching' is our stellar tagline here, however, this one does offer us a bit more than Autopsy's 'Get Carried Away.' I can somewhat glean that maybe a ghost or curse may be involved here and that ghost or curse is likely to be coming from within, or at least somewhere thereabouts. Death likely ensues. Whether or not the audience cares, well, you know I don't care and I'm not even in the audience.

How about Slaughter? Anybody getting a serious 80's vibe off of this one, and once again, not in a good way? And once again, how lazy is this? It's some lips and a knife with the tagline 'Find a Good Hiding Place.' Ugh, man, these taglines, you could put them on anything, put them on your fucking cereal box or get them tattooed under your collar bone. So with Slaughter and it's tagline, I can pretty much tell that there will be some murdering and some (probably CGI) mayhem and maybe a lady is doin' all the killin' 'cos of them there sexy red lips, but I'm probably mistaken because the poster likely has little, if at anything to do with the narrative.

Ack - I can't get the picture to post - I hate that! Allow me to paint the picture for you. Completely black background, blood red lips in a kissy pout with a knife blade brought up to them in a shush! motion. Above it says Slaughter in a sans serif font with a barely noticeable aforementioned bullshit tagline above.

Alright, why waste time talking about these? Because I can't help it - it boggles the mind that they keep getting worse and they continue to get made. While there has been a gem or two hiding behind the label in the last two years or so, making another slew of these is not the answer. The answer to what? The answer to making effective contemporary horror cinema that horror movies freaks such as myself and the other fine bloggers out there can sink their teeth into. And while there is plenty of horror cinema out there of late that fits that bill (and I'm not talking about any of the recent remakes), there is also plenty of crap. And the 8 Films to Die for have proven themselves over the last two years to be total crap. I am hungry and starting to get buzz so I might talk about the other poster art for the other 5, but I might not. Perhaps I am sated for now and I promise to post a review about something I love, rather than something I hate (this is two posts in a row now), and like my apologies for my genre, promises are rather fleeting, but I'll try. I still need to regale you with tails from the audience from this weekend's viewing of the redux of Last House on the Left and post my incomprehensible drunken ramblings from the Paul Naschy (shout of for my man! holla!) vehicle, Blue Eyes for a Broken Doll.

Alien Blood

My review of Alien Blood is mostly a series of questions in no particular order. This review will likely make as much sense as the movie itself. That should give some indicator of how the experience of watching the movie was for christian and me. These were the questions we wrote down about halfway through this god awful piece of shit.

Quick plot synopsis: An alien is here on earth with her child and she's pregnant and there's another alien here too, with her child, but she's not pregnant and that alien and her child get killed by some men with guns so the pregnant alien takes refuge in Dracula's house. I'm serious.

Why is Dracula named James?

Why is the alien speaking French?

Why do bullets kill James? Isn't he a vampire?

Why are the vampires afraid of the aliens? They're vampires. (I come back to this one - the vampires act so freakin un-vamp like. They have fangs, that's about all. They don't drink blood, appear to be affected by crosses, they even celebrate Christmas, for crying out loud! There's a Christmas tree in their house! They drink wine and are all around wusses. James takes a bullet and falls dead. Whatever happened to beheading or the stake through the heart?! They vampires, people! Vampires. Vampires are the badasses of the monster world. They are, by my account anyway, much, much more badass than an french-speaking pregnant alien with a tiny handgun.)

Is the alien male or female? Both? (It clearly looks like a dude in a wig and there's very little dialogue, except for the French stuff, which could have been dubbed in.)

Why are the men following the aliens? Who are the men? Who are the aliens? Why are they here anyway? Why is it new year's eve?

What the hell was that? (This was Christian's question in reference to a completely random shot of a forest and bagpipe music softly playing in the background. This was a question that is asked at least fourteen hundred times throughout the course of the one hour twenty minute running time.)

Again, vampires are acting un-vampire like - how is it they can be out during the day?

Why, why, why, any of this? Seriously.

I was lying in bed after we watching this fucking thing, and I was laughing to the point of tears. One reviewer on Netflix commented: Alien Blood? More like Alien Vomit. I couldn't stop thinking about this movie. The thing about it was, we really enjoyed watching it. We laughed, we were confused, but we had a good time. I don't think I've seen a movie this bad EVER. Worse than Manos, Hands of Fate, worse that Eegah. I don't think MST3K could have done a number on this one, it's that freakin horrible. I know, I watch a lot of stuff, some good, some utter crap, some so-bad-they're-good movies, and some so-bad-i-want-to-rip-my eyes-out bad. This was neither. I was able to watch it and it's been fun writing this 'review' of it, so I can't say I want that hour and twenty back from my life. I often feel this way if I see a mainstream or blockbuster movie, like it was a complete waste of my time. Most movies today don't require half the discussion we bestowed upon Alien Blood. This one really needed a good deconstruction because there was no discernable reason for anything that happened. We really should make our own damn movie, as Lloyd Kaufman (Troma is actually responsible for distributing Alien Blood, and this is bad even by their standards) tells us, because anything, anything could be better. But maybe not as much fun. Because a bad movie is a good time.

Couple other things to note about Alien Blood: There is a CGI alien 'mother' (maybe?) that the aliens sometimes communicate with, sort of, possibly telepathically. But in one scene, a vampire may or may not communicate with her/him? Who knows.

And also, the pregnant alien does get her ass killed at the end (sorry, spoiled the ending for ya there) at the exact moment when the mothership arrives to carry her and her daughter away. Well, she's lying there dead and they get the daughter, the alien priestesses aboard the ship get the daughter, and they leave the alien there in the Dracula house, to die. Christian's question and possibly my favorite of the whole experience, Why can't they psychically lift her body into the space ship? Now tell me the last time that question left your mouth or the next time it might.

So yeah, Alien Blood. I'm sorry. Actually, no I'm not. I'm not sorry for this at all. I'm proud of this. Well, maybe not my rambling review of sorts, but for a movie like Alien Blood to actually get made, there has to be someone to instill pride, right? Or not. Watch if you dare. Or if you are very, very high.