the amazing denim jacket: 2016

12/2/16 - Witchcraft 2: The Temptress (1989)

So the first dialogue in Witchcraft 2: The Temptress is a spooky witch's spell. It made me laugh, so why the hell not:

So, this hasn't happened before... I was very ill today. I had some sort of bug or food poisoning or something like that where I was all sore and had the chills and whatnot. Not the ideal conditions for watching a movie. But, you do what you gotta do. I looked for something I didn't really care about, since it seemed like that I would be drifting in and out of it. Luckily for me, I picked The Shunned House - I stayed conscious for the whole thing, but the film sort of drifted in and out of itself. Let me explain:

The Shunned House is a sort of loose adaptation of three H.P. Lovecraft stories - "The Shunned House," "The Music of Erich Zann," and "Dreams in the Witchhouse." The film tells these three tales in a very non-linear way - in the "present" day, a couple is investigating an old house with a horrifying past (murders, mutilations, disappearances... all that good stuff). Basically, we are constantly cutting back to scenes from the house's past, which you eventually piece together into these separate stories. It's a discombobulating way to proceed, but it also kind of works. For some reason, equating "Lovecraft" with "Doesn't make sense" works for me. For being (obviously) low budget, The Shunned House gets a good mood going, and I was pleasantly surprised by how well it worked.

Satanic kind of pissed me off. More than most bad movies I see. Not because I was upset with the portrayal of Satanism or anything. Which I know nothing about, to be honest. Watching a lot of horror movies and listening to metal doesn't amount to much in that department. (Although I bet the characters in Satanic would tell you otherwise.) But Satanic commits two unforgivable sins: (1) it treats you like an idiot, and (2) it creates tremendously annoying characters, and then doesn't give you the satisfaction of watching them die. Boo on you, movie.

The Death of April starts out really frighteningly. And not in an "oh my, this is scary" way - more like an "oh no, is this whole damn thing shot on a laptop?" kind of way. Turns out, it's about a young woman (confusingly not April) who kept a regularly updated video diary when she moved from California to the East Coast. But strange things are afoot in her new apartment, and luckily her video diary was there to document them.

And luckily for us, the video diary isn't the sole means of telling her story. The Death of April is set up as a documentary - so while the diary plays a big part, you also get interviews with friends, family, paranormal researchers, etc.

The Giant Claw is pretty much perfect as far as super cheesy 50s monster flicks go. It's corny, kind of stupid, and overly earnest but still really fun. It moves briskly and has a goofy looking monster that you see cause a decent amount of destruction. Good times all around.

Alexis, take me to Dark Amazon - where you can buy drugs and guns with one-click shopping? Or Dark Amazon Smile, where .05 % of your snuff film purchases will go to a charity of your choice!

Obviously, no. I doubt the fine folks at amazon.com would allow for such a thing to happen. This Dark Amazon is a crappy found footage jam about some folks searching for a cure for cancer in the Amazon. Rainforest, that is. Do you think kids today even know that the Amazon is actually a place and not a website?

Anyways, Big Spoilers ahead for a movie that I think you shouldn't see.

I think there should be some sort of genre/term for films where the characters back into a horrific situation by making really poor decisions. You know, where a group of generally okay people are innocently hanging out, an accident happens, and then it all goes to shit because of infighting or deciding to zig when you *clearly* should zag. (You know what, I'm making a "Bad Choices" tag. We'll see how much use that gets.) That's what's happening in Body, and it's kind of a horror movie by default. There's not a lot of blood or gore or anything, but these three women make a bad situation terrible, solely by their own making.

This is going to be a short and vague write-up. Body is the kind of movie where the plot is the movie, so describing it would basically ruin it. And it's a pretty decent watch. The set-up gives you a little to think about, and overall the film is well executed. It's not must-see, but it's solid.

Funhouse? More like Not-so-Funhouse, amirite? I just expected more from this film, I guess. What with the Tobe Hooper brand and the can't miss "slasher at a carnival" premise. (Both of which, it turns out, very much can miss.) The opening credits are pretty solid and are the highlight of the film. They're just tightly framed shots of creepy animatronics from around an old, rickety carnival funhouse. Unfortunately, it's pretty much downhill from there.

Especially when the very first thing you get (post-credits) is a shower scene with nudity from an actress that looks about 15. She was actually 18 or 19 at the time, but still. It's disconcerting, and not in a good way. Anyways, her little shit brother scares her - he grabs a bunch of horror paraphernalia from his room and pranks her by pretending to stab her while she's showering. First, gross. Second, it's set up like this kid will have *something* to do with the story. And while he hangs out at the periphery of the plot, he's literally a nothing character. It's hard to say why he's even in the film, other than to just pad the runtime. Maybe he had something better to do (like get killed?) in a different version of the script, but as it is he's just a waste of space.

More Hammer Horror. And it's still pretty darn good. I'll have to see if it's Mr. Peter Cushing that's giving me the vapors, or Mr. Terrence Fisher, who has directed all of the Hammer Horror up to this point. (And both seem to be involved with the next couple too - so, something to look forward to.) By all accounts, The Revenge of Frankenstein was shot almost directly after The Horror of Dracula (apparently even using some of the same sets), so I guess they were on a hot streak and just went with it.

Feast of Flesh is from Argentinian director Emilio Vieyra, also known for the X-rated The Curious Dr. Humpp. It's on the same Something Weird DVD as Night of the Bloody Apes, and as I was looking for something "Feast" related (Thanksgiving and all), it seemed like a good fit. And like Humpp, Feast features weird masks and a lot of sexuality - although nothing here is explicit, I assume it would still get an R-rating. The scenes with nudity are more uncomfortable that titillating - there's a sort of drugged/hypnotized thing going on in those scenes, but it's never graphic. And Feast plays like more of a creepy mystery rather than an outright horror film. It's confusing at times, but it's quirky enough to be kind of a fun watch.

I just noticed bunch of movies in the Witchcraft series showed up on Amazon Prime. I think there are like five of them on there. And this particular Witchcraft was not that great, but not bad enough that I'll avoid the sequels. But after a little research, it turns out there are 16 of these! Although from the imdb descriptions it seems like we just might be getting into softcore porn stuff the deeper we get into the series. (For example, for part 5: a warlock "uses beautiful, large-breasted, and frequently nude women to try to collect enough souls... [to] bring Satan to Earth.") We'll see what happens.

Jebadiah's Axe starts off like it could be some fun. It looks *super* cheap, but in an enjoyable way. You get a nice guffaw from the bad effects in the opening scene, and the acting (or lack thereof) makes you think you might be in for a treat, like Jebadiah's Axe might be an enjoyable bad movie. But once you get to the relatively unexciting story/main characters, it just kind of plods along. There's some laughs to be had along the way, and it's really short (just over an hour). But generally speaking it's kind of tough to get through.

Decay is one of those movies that feels more like a 90 minute tone poem rather than anything that's intent on telling a story. Honestly, not a ton of stuff happens over the course of the film - it's more of a sparse, moody character study of this lonely and mentally ill man. There's not a ton of suspense or scares... just this clearly troubled person hanging out with a dead body.

This right here is a damned good vampire flick. And depending who you talk to, maybe the best ever? And a shame that I haven't seen it until now. I've never been a big vampire fan - there's just a lot of cheap vampire crap out there. And then, there's the whole Twilight thing... it just felt like the whole genre has been kind of diluted, and other than the stone cold classics (Tod Browning's 1931 version with Bela Lugosi) I haven't been all that interested in doing an awful lot of digging around. But I think Horror of Dracula should change that. Good thing too, because I guess Hammer made like 8 more of these. So that'll be fun.

I'm kind of loving these 80s movies from the Troma library. I perk up whenever I see the old, dull transfer of the Troma logo preceding a film. While their particular in-house brand of goofy gore (or whatever) doesn't really do it for me, they managed to accumulate a number of independently produced films that are weird enough to be enjoyable. Terrible gems? (Nightmare Weekend being my current favorite, I think.) Death by Dialogue is no gem, but it's dumb enough to be kind of fun.

Death by Dialogue has a premise that lets the film go pretty much where ever it wants to. There's this haunted script, you see, that generates scenes that makes bad guys materialize in the real world and kill people in crazy ways. So even though none of the kills here are particularly well-executed, at least there's a lot of variety to them. It doesn't change the fact that Death by Dialogue is a really bad title. While it's true that both words start with the same letter, even by the loose standards of this universe it doesn't make a lick of sense. No one dies by the spoken word. Oh well.

The Alligator People is one of those 50's monster flicks that feels rather dull by today's standards. It feels like not an awful lot happens - you kind of hope for more alligator people going berzerk. But Alligator People is content to keep the promised hybrids hidden until the end of the film. But there's actually a decently executed (if not generic and a little bit cheesy) story going on here. That and a few creepy touches make The Alligator People stand a little above the rest of it's late 50s/early 60s movie monster brethren.

I'm an idiot. My initial introduction for this was going to be "Hey, Netflix should have a 'found footage' tag, because I didn't really feel like watching one when I chose Invoked." But the description all but tells you: "Hey jerk! This is quite obviously a found footage movie!" ("Five friends boozing it up on a deserted island go missing. But their camcorder tells the terrifying tale of a seance gone seriously wrong.") So yeah - I need to read that shit a little more carefully.

But after having a hard time with Green Room, I was hoping for something stupid that would go down easy. And Invoked sounded like pretty straightforward Cabin in the Woods fare. But the first scene of the film is some cops literally finding footage. So the the filmmakers are taking the found footage concept quite literally, I guess.

And then the footage plays... and holy shit is it rough. For 15-20 minutes it flirts with being unwatchable. The characters are just yelling over each other, and all of their dialogue is obnoxious. (And almost certainly improvised - if someone actually wrote this stuff... yikes.) But it also has the sort of camera work that makes you nauseous. I like to think I have a good stomach for this sort of thing, but the shaky cam in Invoked was just too much. I was debating calling an audible and switching to another movie (which I don't like to do), but I stepped away for a few minutes, washed some dishes, and came back. And luckily, once our friends get to their destination the camera work settles down some. The people the camera are filming are still annoying, but at least you don't have to deal with motion sickness on top of it.

I really wanted to like Green Room. It got a ton of good press, has a lot of good people in it, and I really liked writer/director Jeremy Saulnier's last film Blue Ruin. And it's not like Green Room is a big departure from that film - I was expecting a lot of tension, explosive scenes of violence, and people making bad choices. But while Green Room is undoubtedly a well-crafted film, it was just a little too unpleasant for my liking.

And look, I'm bringing some baggage into this one. First off, our recent election. Seeing a movie about skinheads at this point in America's history just hit a with a little more intensity and hit too close to the bone. Patrick Stewart's skinhead gang leader Darcy probably has too much baggage to be a part of the Trump administration, but he sure as hell would have campaigned hard for the man. I just think it would have stung a little less had I seen it prior to November 8th, you know? I mean, if a really shitty ghost got elected president, maybe The Ghost Club would have been hard to watch too. Also, Dogs. Green Room prominently features a skinhead dude who has pit-bull attack dogs and uses them as weapons. He talks about dog-fighting and all that shit. Just the reminder that Yes, That Is A Thing That People Do just bums me out. And the dogs are in it quite a bit, and while they're not outright mistreated or anything, their presence still makes me a little sad. So I don't know - I'm not sure if I was just looking for escapism and got constantly reminded of several Real and Very Terrible Things, but those elements of Green Room just didn't sit well with me.

Maybe your mileage will vary.

I've never gone ghost hunting. It's not that I'm an outright skeptic - I've actually looked around at some local groups with half-serious thoughts about going. (Apparently, with some groups you can just pay and go on an investigation. Sweet!) But the fact that you sometimes have to sign a waiver absolving the group of any guilt if a demon follows you home... that's enough for me to take a pass. Even if I don't believe in 99% of it, I'm not risking fucking around with the underworld, you know?

Anyways, despite my lack of practical ghost hunting experience, I've seen a ton of ghost hunting movies. And while that certainly doesn't make me an expert, I think I know enough to say that the folks in The Ghost Club are really bad at it.

I assume at some point in its development, Splatter University was known as Splatter High, because this here is one of the most unrealistic portrayals of college that I've ever seen. Maybe it was High and the filmmakers realized during editing that everyone looks kind of old? I mean, by the rules of the Splatter University universe, troublesome college kids are sent to St. Trinian's - a Catholic University - to get their heads on straight. I think if you're a troublemaker by that point in life, you generally ignore your parents and skip college, yeah? Splatter University plays it like it's military school for college kids, which just doesn't make any sense.

11/9 - 11/12/16 - 4 movies

So... I don't want to do this, but I may have to sacrifice writing regular entries for a few days. Something happened a few days ago that really took the wind out of my sails... guess what it was? I suspect there's a lot of wind missing from a lot of sails around the country right now, is what I'm saying. Anyways, I watched some movies, but just don't really feel up to writing about them in depth.

When I did this last time, once I missed writing about a couple of movies in a row, it was all too easy to fall behind. Which ended up creating a vicious cycle where I ended up not even wanting to write, missing out on entire months, and so on. Hopefully, allowing myself a little leeway here and there will make for a happier and healthier blog experience. I'm shooting to have my shit together by Sunday, but we'll see what happens...

Well, Black Water Sasquatch didn't stand much of a chance. My initial plan was to ignore the election news and watch a real movie... but then the results starting coming in. And much like an accident that you can't look away from (a racist, sexist, and hateful accident), I was stuck. I drifted in and out of a different movie, but once it became clear that my mind was guaranteed to be elsewhere, I wanted to find something that I didn't really care about. And boy oh boy, did Black Water Sasquatch fit the bill. And fair warning, I'm writing this on the day after the election and my brain still feels detached from my body - the news and the implications of it just haven't sunk in. But even if I wasn't 100% with it, I'm still fairly confident in my assessment: Black Water Sasquatch is really quite bad.

It's kind of funny, actually. Just the other day while writing about Black Water Wilderness, I mentioned how much I'd like to see a bigfoot-slasher hybrid, where the big guy goes after victims with a knife. Well, imagine my surprise when that's exactly what happens in Black Water Sasquatch! What a Black Water coincidence! I was pretty stoked. The bigfoot here looks terrible, but apparently he kills people and cuts off their faces (!) - at first, it seemed like there was some potential for some good stuff.

Undo / Redo in blogger is a real pain in the ass, you know? I had a big write up about Psychic here, and poof - it just disappeared because I was dumb and tried to change one line. So I'm pissed, and this is going to be maybe short and probably not good. Psychic wasn't an outright bad movie, but it's not one I feel the need to revisit again in any great detail.

When I was reviewing my blog entries up to this point, I noticed a big 1990s-shaped hole in what had been published up until now - and yeah, movies from the 90s probably won't be particularly well represented here. It's just not an era that I particularly care about. I don't know if it's from me being an 80s kid and the 90s just don't have the same nostalgic value for me or whatever, but I'm not particularly interested in them. My general (*very* generic) breakdowns for genre films:

Where to even begin with Robo Vampire? It's crazy. The pitch must have been "Robocop fights vampires" - which is admittedly fantastic. But that's not really what made the final cut. Yes, there is about 20-30 minutes of "Robo Warrior" fighting hopping Chinese Vampires (and a topless ghost), but the rest of the movie is some completely unrelated drug war nonsense. I would bet big money that they filmed about a half-hour of Robo Warrior stuff and just edited that into a cheesy action movie. And as we all know, movies just mashed together in post-production never quite work out.

Hey! It's Return of the Evil Dead! I probably would have used a different font for that title. And also... I'm on vacation, and have come down with a little case of vacation brain. And I've also get a pretty nasty case of Election Brain. So forgive me if things are short, bad(der), or more random. As a great man once said, when referring to a story about underwears, "that's life."

Return of the Evil Dead is the sequel to the pretty damned good Tombs of the Blind Dead. Returning writer/director Amando de Ossorio abandons some of the things that made the first one work - the creepy graveyard atmosphere and temple ruins are gone, and Return does the standard sequel thing where it's shooting for more of an action-movie feel. Eerie atmosphere is more in his wheelhouse, at least on this budget - some of the action stuff here looks really cheap. But there's an undeniable power to the Blind Dead zombies, and the new setting (a populated town, rather than an abandoned temple) provides some good opportunities for a couple of decent setpieces. It's not as solid as Tombs, but Return is still a decent watch. Theres a Diminishing Return of the Evil Dead joke to be made here, but I'll be damned if I can find it.

Hey! It's The Wailing! And I'm on vacation, and have come down with a little case of vacation brain. And I've also get a pretty nasty case of Election Brain. So forgive me if things are short, bad(der), or more random. Like Bruce Hornsby says, that's just the way it is...

I remember The Wailing getting really good press when it was released earlier this year... and now I'm kicking myself for not having seen it in the theaters. It's an engrossing film, but it's also kind of long (about two-and-a-half hours). Having the distraction-free environment of a movie theater would have been nice. Plus, it's got some shots that would have looked gorgeous on the big screen, and a couple of intense scenes I would have loved to see with a proper sound system.

Hey! It's The Curse of Frankenstein! And I'm on vacation, and have come down with a little case of vacation brain. And I've also get a pretty nasty case of Election Brain. So forgive me if things are short, bad(der), or more random. Seems like I have *more* to do when I take time off work, but whatever.

But The Curse of Frankenstein! I have always meant to see more Hammer Horror movies. They've got such a good reputation but I just haven't gotten around to them for one reason or another. And I figured I should start from the beginning, instead of just randomly jumping in somewhere in the middle. But after some free time at work, a little research, and some time on dvd.netflix.com (yep, I've still got an account), I've got about half of them queued up. Quick side note - they are obviously *old* DVD's - the "special features" are just blocks of text that you scroll through. How quaint. But the picture quality is never that good. Presumably there are better versions out there, but I've already met my blind buying blu ray quota for 2016. So to the outdated DVDs we go.

Per Amazon: What happens when you mix Deliverance with Friday the 13th and a touch of the Breakfast Club, the result is Black Water Wilderness, a pulsating pounding action horror set in the frightening and dark backwoods of Alabama. Going camping in the woods will never be the same.

That's overselling it, as if the grammar didn't give it away. But there was still quite a bit I liked about Black Water Wilderness. It's definitely a horror film, but it makes a marked effort to try to throw a little story and teen angst in there too. Black Water Wilderness is no masterpiece by any means, and it's low budget seams show at times. But it's still a pleasant enough offering with it's heart in the right place.

Crazy Eights didn't do a heck of a lot for me. It's got an okay premise: A group of childhood friends reunite after one of them dies - a la It - and of course they have a shared secret. Maybe even a supernatural one! And we know the secret has to do with "experimental facilities in the South" where children were basically bought from their parents, because the title card tells us so. While the whole "medical experiments on kids" angle is kind of cool, it's dealt with rather awkwardly and not in a satisfying way. I almost wonder if the information got on a title card because they didn't bother explaining it well in the film? It's treated in Crazy Eights like a slow unveiling, and usually you don't have a title card spoil a reveal...so whatever. The important thing is that there's a ghost, and it kills people.

October 2016 In Review

All right - it's time for a month in review! Here's my thoughts from the the month that was:

October 2016

Best Movies

Peeping Tom
Deranged
The Neon Demon
Tombs of the Blind Dead

I don't often feel like an old man, but Peeping Tom made me feel that way. It's from 1960, which is only 20 years old than me - it couldn't even drink when I was born! (Okay, it's British - so it could drink thanks to reasonable liquor laws. I mean, movies can't drink, but you get what I mean.) But then realizing it's 56 years old... that's getting into "so old it's irrelevant territory" for some people. Which means I'm approaching "so old it's irrelevant territory." Oh well.

So it's no surprise that Peeping Tom feels dated. It's certainly no children's film, but it's hard to believe that it was critically despised upon its release and considered (nearly universally) to be vile, depraved, and without value. It essentially halted director Mike Powell's UK career for about 10 years until people got over it. Peeping Tom feels pretty tame by today's standards, but that's not to say that it doesn't work as an unnerving portrait of a mild-mannered serial killer.

Summer of Blood works pretty well as a comedy, and not much at all as a horror film. It's never really even *trying* to be a horror film, so I don't hold that against it. What did bother me a little is that it uses vampirism as a means of just having something happen (our hero turns about 30-35 minutes in). Summer of Blood doesn't use it to say anything noteworthy or do anything interesting. It just kind of happens because the movie needs a hook - and vampires are as good as any, yeah?

The other day I was trying to think of my *favorite* movie. And I don't think I can honestly answer that question. I know which movies I have seen the most (The Room, Jurassic Park) and which have to made it into the multiple watch category, but "favorite" just leaves too much room for interpretation. So I tried to think of qualities that I liked in movies/filmmakers, and one thing that kept coming up is commitment to an idea or tone. Films like Detention or Scott Pilgrim, that have a unique take/vibe and uncompromisingly stick to it, for good or bad. While I hate it in terms of politics, I like the "you're either with us or against us" concept in genre filmmaking.

And shortly thereafter I watched Rob Zombie's 31. Zombie very obviously has a unique style, and I'd say that 31 revels in that style more than any of his other films. He commits to a grimy, crusty, disgusting vibe and just goes with it. So while I admire that commitment, I have to say that just about everything else in 31 is really bad. I guess you need something like a comprehensible story, or competently shot action, or decent acting - otherwise you've just got some cool production stills and not much else.

Astute viewers will notice that the first words you see on screen in Apparition are about 10 seconds in. They are on the t-shirt of our main character / hero. He's a ghost hunter working on a case, helping a family rid their house of a Banshee, or some such nonsense. His shirt says, in big letters:

Big Daddy's ASS BURN Hot Sauce

Stay classy, dude. Was your Big Johnson shirt in the wash? So ASS BURN kind of sets the tone for Apparition. Also, it's the only film I can recall seeing where a character's butt crack is showing pretty clearly in a shot. It's in an intense scene (or what would pass for one in Apparition), and it's like the filmmakers couldn't be bothered to yell "Cut - your crack is showing - let's do another take." I'm pretty sure they just didn't care. And if they didn't care, why should you?

I had pretty high expectations for the original Prom Night. I don't think I've ever heard anyone say it's great, but it seems to have a decent enough reputation. And it's always fun to check out a slasher film from the late 70s/early 80s, when the template hadn't been totally set yet. Although I guess whether or not it should be considered it a slasher film proper is up for some debate - it really does feel more like a mystery/thriller rather than an out and out slasher flick. But I guess having Jamie Lee Curtis, a masked killer, and being released in the slasher boom will get you that reputation. And it probably didn't hurt at the box office either.

Since we really needed a fishing-based horror film - we got Blood Hook. By "we" I mean mid-80s American Video stores (I'd guess this wasn't big in theaters), and by "horror film" I mean a goofy comedy masquerading as a horror film. Blood Hook is the kind of deal where you can't really tell (at first) if the filmmakers are spoofing the genre or just being really generic and tone deaf. And muddying the waters even more - it's got that regional feel to it, as it was shot in beautiful Hayward, Wisconsin. (Making it my third Wisconsin-based film of the month, after The Rohl Farm Haunting and Deranged. Strange.) But eventually you get the idea that it was written and shot with its tongue planted firmly in cheek.

________ vs. Zombies is apparently a big thing. I have already seen Strippers vs. Zombies and Pro Wrestlers vs. Zombies, and will almost certainly regret watching Bigfoot vs. Zombies, which is lurking near the top of my Amazon Prime Watchlist. (For the record, Strippers was okay, and Pro Wrestlers is one of the worst movies I've ever seen.) But today, I watch Navy Seals vs. Zombies (aka Navy Seals: The Battle for New Orleans) on Netflix. It's not a very good movie, but it's not actively bad either. It's just kind of there.

I really rather liked The Neon Dead. It's a scrappy little indie flick with a lot of style and a unique visual hook. Plus, it's hard for me not to like a film made in 2015 that has uses stop motion animation for its big bad.

And I hate having to put this disclaimer on all of these indie horror entries, but that's the world we live in. Thanks Obama... The Neon Dead is not a slick, big-or-even-modestly budgeted film - imdb has it listed at $17,000. It does feel amateurish at times, and the acting isn't always so great. So while I'll be talking about how much I dug it, it's probably not going to change your mind about inexpensive indie stuff. Although I will say it's considerably more ambitious than something from the "let's make a documentary about ghost hunting" genre. And for those of us who can swing cheap music, normal looking people, and the other "warts and all" in this sort of movie, that ambition pays of in a really fun film.

Personally, I was expecting a little more Prince of Darkness in Prince of Darkness. If you told me "here's a movie about Satan, except instead of Satan it's a big green vial of crap," I would expect the worst. But leave it to John Carpenter to take that concept and make a pretty darn good movie about it. Misleading? Maybe. But it's still a pretty decent watch.

I'm not overly familiar with the horror maestro's work. (Shake your finger at me - "Thats a BAD horror movie blogger.") But he seems to excel at taking a group of people and trapping them in an isolated location - this time, it's at an abandoned church surrounded by crazy homeless people (including Alice Cooper!), where a ancient (and evil!) artifact has recently been unearthed. According to an old text, the green goo will be instrumental in bringing Old Scratch back our plane of existence. The big vial of green stuff made me wonder what kind of film John Carpenter's Secret of the Ooze would have been - probably no Vanilla Ice. And a lot more vomit.

Amando de Ossorio's Tombs of the Blind Dead is a good old-fashioned atmospheric zombie flick. It sometimes gets billed as Spain's answer to Romero's Night of the Living Dead - i.e. a moody, suspenseful, first-generation zombie film, before things got gonzo in the late 70s. And it's an apt comparison. Night is a lot stronger in the story department, but both manage to generate a ton of tension and dread with their slow, lumbering dead. Although I would say Tombs does so more cinematically, whereas Night depended on a more gritty realism.

Boardinghouse is a really strange, strange film. I picked it up on DVD about a year ago after hearing about it psychotronic movie podcast called That's Cool, That's Trash. It's a shot on video horror film with a unique history - it is purportedly the first film to be shot on video and then theatrically released, as well as the first film to use computerized credits (if you believe the interview with writer/director/star John Wintergate). Also, on the DVD there is a Director's Cut that clocks in at (a certainly punishing) 157 minutes, while the Theatrical Cut is 98. I watched the Theatrical cut, because spending 157 minutes on a shot on video film just sounds crazy. But I dug it enough that I'll have to watch the director's cut - maybe as something to kill time while I try to get black-out drunk on Election Day? (Seriously, I'm terrified about what might happen. Voting early in the morning and then trying to pass out might be my best course of action, if I want to avoid any anxiety attacks.) And I don't know, something about Boardinghouse's sheer lunacy just seems like it might be a good fit.

After digging up a bizarrely mutilated corpse on her land, physician Tora Hamilton uncovers a lethal connection to ancient pagan rituals.

So goes the Netflix description for Sacrifice. And while it's essentially accurate, after watching the thing it feels a little misleading. I was expecting some hot pagan action - you know, crazy cultists in robes chasing people around, nutso rituals and skull masks, and all that kind of stuff. But Sacrifice just isn't that movie. Despite being in the "horror" section of the Netflix site, it's much more of a mystery/thriller. Yeah, it has elements of pagan rituals and some weird stuff, but it almost plays more like a spooky Halloween episode of Criminal Minds or something. (Or at least what I'd imagine Criminal Minds is like, having never actually seen it.)

I think this is only on DVD/Blu-Rays of big studio releases, but I kind of hate how they show you the MPAA rating, including all of the reasons, before a film starts. It sort of spoils things, you know? For example, The Neon Demon: Rated R for "disturbing violent content, bloody images, graphic nudity, a scene of aberrant sexuality, and language." Guess which one jumps out at me? So I'm spending the film with that in the back of my mind, just waiting for an aberrant sexual act. Also, what qualifies as "aberrant" in the eyes of the MPAA? Knowing them, non-heterosexual sex? But I guess The Neon Demon eventually delivers in the aberrant sex department... let's just say I won't be recommending this to anyone at work.

But it's reminds me of how credits can kind of play as spoilers too. Like if I see a movie with a "monster design by" or "creature effects by" credit, I get excited... "okay, there's a monster coming up." But with this ratings business, I'm sitting there waiting for Some Drug Use, or Some Sequences of Explicit Sexual Content Including Perverse Imagery. It kind of ruins the surprise.

The Neon Demon is pretty good.

I watched Zombie Werewolves Attack because I was looking for something on Amazon Prime that was (A) short, and (B) made in the 80s. (To keep things fresh during this movie a day thing, I try to not watch too many movies made in the same era consecutively.) The Roku Amazon app had this listed as being made in 1984. But that's a pretty obvious typo, and this is clearly a 2000's shot-on-consumer-grade camera deal. But I guess qualification (A) won out, because I finished the darn thing.

The Girl in the Photographs is the last thing horror maestro Wes Craven had his name attached to before his death in 2015 (he was the executive producer). It's too bad that this film has gotten pretty bad-to-middling reviews - it would have been nice to see his career end on a high note. But the "For Wes" at the end isn't totally embarrassing. It's always kind of depressing when an absolute piece of crap is dedicated to a recently deceased person. And The Girl in the Photographs isn't an absolute piece of crap. That's not to say it's good - it has good moments and looks nice at times, but generally is bogged down by an uninteresting story, lack of tension, and annoying characters.

It is kind of funny though, in that it starts off like Craven's (2nd?) most influential film Scream - but in a way that will only really click with horror nerds.

I'm pretty sure I saw parts of Motel Hell on TNT or something about 15 years ago. I vaguely remember a pig mask and a chainsaw fight. And when Mr. Burns made that Rory Calhoun joke, I always thought "oh yeah, that guy from Motel Hell!" But I haven't seen it proper until now.

It had sort of been built up in my head as a cult classic of sorts. But honestly Motel Hell didn't really do it for me. Mr. Calhoun gives a good performance, but the horror and comedy aspects just didn't mesh. Motel Hell keeps getting billed as a comedy, but it doesn't hit that way. Yes, some characters are crazy and over the top. But those characters don't constitute comedy in and of themselves - there still needs to be some jokes somewhere. And falling in the mud (which happens to two different characters) doesn't cut it. I guess "religious and proper old man farmer does decidedly unproper things" just isn't that funny for me.

All right! Deranged is my first real pleasant surprise of the month. "Pleasant" meaning I really liked the movie - the subject matter / film itself is decidedly unpleasant. But, considering this was on the flip-side of a disc featuring Motel Hell, I went in expecting some sort of horror comedy. But it's kind of hard for a movie based on serial killer Ed Gein to be comedic, I guess.

I had no idea what this film was really about at the outset - I rented the disc for Motel Hell, so this was as close to a blind watch as you can get. Plus, from afar the guy on the box art reminded me of David Hyde Pierce. Turns out it was just star Roberts Blossom wearing someone's face.

I sort of know The Astro-Zombies by reputation. It eventually comes up in most conversations about notably terrible films. So naturally, because I have a problem, I have always wanted to see it. And when I saw there was fancy remastered Blu Ray coming out courtesy of Kino Lorber (including a Rifftrax commentary, as well as commentaries from writer/director Ted V. Mikels and Horror Cinema Historian Chris Alexander), I pre-ordered it and waited with bated breath.

And now, having watched it, I would say it's reputation as a contender for one of the worst is more or less earned. The Astro Zombies is a dull mess a lot of the time. But there's also a certain charm to it. It's definitely no good, but I would say that I half-enjoyed it.

So... would you be interested in a Walking Dead-ish zombie western? If so, would you still be interested if features a large number of former boy band pop stars in prominent roles? (It was produced by and stars Nick Carter of the the Backstreet Boys. and other members of BSB, *Nsync, 98 Degrees, and O-Town show up. Oh yeah, and Jon Secada for some reason.) Still with me? What if I told you it was produced by The Asylum to be shown as a SyFy movie of the week?

Well, that last one would turn me off Dead 7, but I'm watching a movie a day and figured what the heck. But even if you said yes to all those questions - the bottom line is that Dead 7 just isn't good. Which is a little frustrating, because there are some good ideas in the film. But mostly, it's a glossy/cheap looking film with gimmicky casting, strange performances, and a very bad script.

So... that's quite a title, eh? I have been hearing about this film for quite some time - mostly when reading about the shitty movies that happen when someone takes 2 or more movies filmed at different times and just mashes them together (Dracula vs. Frankenstein, Horror of the Blood Monsters). Apparently, most of They Saved Hitler's Brain was originally filmed as The Madman of Madras in the mid-50s, but was too short to run on television when the rights were purchased in 1968. So someone decided it would be a good idea to shoot more footage to tack onto the beginning of the film... and there you have it: They Saved Hitler's Brain!

To be honest, I didn't really even notice that the two parts of it were filmed at different times - maybe I was just really tired. (I did fall asleep more than once, although always rewound to the last scene I remembered.) I'm not too observant re: comparing and contrasting 50s & 60s fashion, and it didn't click that "hey, almost everyone from the first half-hour is dead now!" But whatever, it doesn't matter. There's a few laughs to be had while watching They Saved Hitler's Brain, but mostly it's a rough, rough watch.

Ever since the first Paranormal Activity blew up, there have been a lot of people making improvised found footage movies at their houses or whatever. No Budget? No Script? No Big Deal! I mean, you could argue that the lack of a script is in the service of realism... although it's also just way easier to write down a bunch of bullet points in one afternoon. So, realism or laziness. Maybe you can just call it a result of technological democratization - most people have better cameras on their phones that look better than anything I ever had access to at peak-creativity age. And never mind the editing software - how about hooking 2 VCRs together?

Like a character in the film implies, $1,200 will get you a solid camera to make a professional looking film. At least professional looking enough to get you on Amazon Prime. Now, The Rohl Farms Haunting isn't necessarily good by normal, objective movie standards, but it's definitely better than a lot of films that are made with the attitude of "Hey guys! We've got a camera and some time to kill - let's make a ghost hunting movie!" Dumbasses like me will apparently watch them regardless, so it's nice to get one that's borderline okay.

All aboard the POOOOOOOE TRAIN! Where my Attitude Era fans at? I have to think there's a Poe story/Papa Shango pun out there in the ether somewhere, just waiting to be grabbed... all I'm getting is The Tell Tale Hart Foundation? Piper's Pit and the Pendulum? (What About Me, What About) The Raven? I don't know - why is it so much easier with the old guys?

Anyhow, I figured I'd follow up yesterday's The Oval Portrait with another Poe-inspired film. This time, it's an animated anthology featuring five adaptations of his stories. You only get about 10-15 minutes for each story, so nothing goes terribly in depth. I'm not too familiar with Poe, but I have to assume everything here is abridged to some extent. Every story in Extraordinary Tales has its own look animation-wise. Stylistically, they aren't wildly different from each other, but they all have a slightly different feel. So regardless of if you like a particular story or not, you don't end up spending a lot of time on each one, and overall the film moves at a good pace. And all but one are narrated - some nerd-famous name will just read the story, and the animation more or less matches up (i.e. there aren't separate voice actors for each character). And, it isn't terribly gory or anything. It's PG-13, so you could probably watch it in school. So i there are any lazy high school lit teachers out there looking for something to do this Halloween...