Look what's buried inside your television
Boy, I haven't written about movies I like here in more than a year. Although I can probably count the number of 2013 releases I've seen on my fingers without needing to loop back, I have indeed watched a lot of movies since my last missive. And tradition dictates that I need to come up with some sort of Halloween playlist, however unmotivated I am to do so.
Whelp, here's a chronologically accurate video playlist of trailers for 20 horror movies I've watched since last Halloween, many of them for the first time. No time for a musical playlist, I'm afraid, but I need to write about music soon. In the meantime, any Misfits album should do ya.
1. "A Bay of Blood" (1971) - After catching "House of Exorcism" at a local drive-in event, I got a bug to watch more Mario Bava. I chose his "10 Little Indians" riff from the plethora of Bava titles currently streaming on Netflix because I'd only ever seen a crappy bootleg of it, and that was more than a decade ago. It's definitely nice to look at and plenty atmospheric, and of course the first few "Friday the 13th" movies stole some of its best set pieces, but I don't think the mystery/slasher hybrid here is as cool as in "Blood and Black Lace."
2. "Frightmare" (1974) - I saw a couple of Pete Walker's movies on VHS way back when you could still rent older, unfamous movies at area stores. I remember them being pretty dreary despite their lurid elements, as is the case with most vintage British exploitation, but this elusive title always intrigued me due to its cannibal family plot. It's no white-knuckle thrill ride, but the actors really sell "Frightmare," and it's unique enough that I enjoyed it much more than the more conventional likes of "The Flesh and Blood Show " or "House of Whipcord."
3. "Long Weekend" (1978) - This Australian obscurity concerns an irritating, bickering couple attacked by natural forces such as birds, mammals and weather when they take their big city hubris into the wild. I think it's sort of like "Open Water" on land, but having never seen that, I assume this modest production is slightly more intriguing due to the variety of threats on display, reminiscent of the free-for-all of "Day of the Animals" or "Frogs." It's still pretty forgettable among the many post-"Jaws" animal attack movies.
4. "Island of the Fishmen" (1979) - As a child, I used to pore over the newspaper movie ads my grandfather brought me every week. One that always stuck with me was the 1981 New World release "Screamers," with its unsettling tagline: "Be warned: You will actually see a man turned inside-out." When I grew older and less squeamish, I was disappointed to find out that the ad campaign was a sham, as "Screamers" was just a retooled, retitled version of this hokey Italian mad scientist flick. The titular Fishmen are pretty cool rubber suit monsters, but unless you're into Barbara Bach, they're the only attraction here.
5. "Don't Go Near the Park" (1979) - A cut-rate, trashy, completely bonkers regional flick that involves cannibal cavepeople cursed with eternal life, orphans squatting in an abandoned ranch and a disturbingly convincing teenage protagonist who virtually every male in the movie attempts to molest. With an early (clothed) appearance by scream queen Linnea Quigley, charmingly amateur production values, convoluted plot and complete lack of political correctness, fans of junky cult horror are strongly advised to hunt down this weirdo treasure trove.
6. "City of the Living Dead" (1980) - I recently acquired and viewed my third copy of this flick, which should give you an idea of how I feel about it. Deep down, I know "The Beyond" is a better movie, but this is my sentimental Lucio Fulci favorite. After a VHS copy I dubbed from a rental (under the alternate name "The Gates of Hell") and a laserdisc (the last laserdisc I ever bought new, I believe), Blue Underground's Blu-ray release is a revelation, clearly spotlighting every eerie set, dramatic zoom, synth drone and vomited intestine.
7. "Sleepaway Camp" (1983) - After many years of vaguely recalling it, I actually revisited this slasher favorite twice in the past year. The first was via YouTube, after an episode of "How Did This Get Made?" piqued my wife's interest. Having matured since my first viewing in college, I can now see that it's remained a touchstone as much for its general weirdness as for that great stinger ending, which is all I'd previously remembered. The second time was at the aforementioned drive-in event, via a print so dark and murky that a first-time viewer probably couldn't see that ending, anyway.
8. "Creature" (aka "Titan Find") (1985) - One of the later "Alien" rip-offs, this modest space snoozer came out not too long before James Cameron's sequel appeared and inspired a new set of rip-offs. It folds a little of "The Thing" into the mix since the titular space beastie can control its victims' minds, and features Klaus Kinski in a glorified cameo as well as Diane Salinger (Simone of "Pee-Wee's Big Adventure" fame) as an icy warrior who I was surprised didn't turn out to be a secret android.
9. "The Video Dead" (1987) - I used to frequently pass over this one when renting VHSes, and finally checked it out as the B-feature on Scream Factory's gorgeous "TerrorVision" Blu-ray. The story's pretty blah, the kills are weak and the acting ranges from poor to abysmal, but the zombies look pretty good (as promised in the promotional artwork, they come out of a mysterious TV set). The production definitely has that homemade '80s direct-to-video vibe all the kids are seeking these days.
10. "Howling III: The Marsupials" (1987) - Another title I've long been curious about due to its bizarre contrivance of Australian marsupial werewolves, I recently took the plunge and discovered why most people consider this a terrible film. Its pitiful werewolf costumes and lack of blood aside, this is more of a dull, unconvincing social drama about a minority that doesn't exist than any sort of horror film. It's also one of those movies that makes a big point of establishing that a lot of time has passed, but the characters don't appear to age. There is a hilarious part where a ballerina turns into a werewolf on stage, though.
11. "Ghoulies III: Ghoulies Go to College" (1991) - Here's one of many older flicks which inexplicably saw their first DVD release via recent budget sets from Lionsgate. I'd rented this on tape way back when, and correctly remembered it to be a fun if fairly stupid horror comedy that plays up the cartoonish goofiness found in series highlight "Ghoulies II." Star Kevin McCarthy's always great, and he hams it up like a champ here, but the lil' puppet creatures almost wear out their welcome by spouting endless corny one-liners. At least the Ghoulies are in the movie a lot, which you can't say for parts 1 or 4.
12. "In the Mouth of Madness" (1994) - I've long contended that this was John Carpenter's last good horror film, and think I'll stick with that despite not having seen "Ghosts of Mars" or "The Ward." Despite its extreme '90s datedness, "Madness" remains a pretty decent mishmash of King/Lovecraft-inspired literary spookiness. I came back to it at a 24-hour sci-fi marathon, of all places, where the most disturbing aspect was discovering that we'd paid admission to watch a good portion of the films (including this one) on DVD. It seems like the outfit that ran that marathon does this regularly at their events... too bad they didn't hold out a few months for the Blu-ray, which just came out last week.
13. "Embodiment of Evil" (2008) - The return of Zé do Caixão could have been so much worse. I had feared some boring-ass cop movie or teen drama with the infamous undertaker sprinkled in, but Jose Mojica Marins learned from the mistakes of antecedents like the "Hellraiser" and "Nightmare on Elm Street" series. He kept his focus on the charismatic villain, who is as offspring- and torture-obsessed as ever, and the result is a far better Coffin Joe sequel than expected.
14. "Mutant Girls Squad" (2010) - Despite its onslaught of imaginative effects, this slice of modern Japanese splatter cinema is just OK if weighed against the likes of director Yoshihiro Nishimura's "Tokyo Gore Police" and "Helldriver." None of the more-developed characters are too compelling, and the notion of mutants declaring war on the society that marginalized them was handled better in "X2: X-Men United." However, this has a cheerleader who can make a prehensile chainsaw pop out of her ass, and such creativity shouldn't be taken for granted.
15. "Munger Road" (2011) - After the glut of "Blair Witch" knockoffs mercifully subsided, the subsequent instant entertainment milieu has left little room for small regional horror flicks. Therefore, this urban legend-based indie that was shot and set in nearby St. Charles, IL is sort of an anomaly. If I hadn't finally watched the dull-as-dishwater "Paranormal Activity" shortly before this, some of its scare sequences might have seemed more unique. As it is, at least it's not another budget zombie epic, and aside from the unconvincing teen actors, it's quite professionally presented.
16. "The Theatre Bizarre" (2011) - I'm glad these multi-director omnibuses are all the rage, but as with any nascent trend, you will find plenty of misfires among the trendsetters. I can't tell you how psyched I was to see a new horror anthology with segments by the directors of vintage classics "Hardware" and "Combat Shock." In reality, after stopping it halfway through to attend to something else, it was several months before I came back and finished it. There are some nice squirmy bits with a chick injecting dead people's eyeball fluid into her own ocular orbs, but otherwise I only remember one segment that's so restrained as to be anti-scary, a bunch of arguing couples and me wishing it would end.
17. "V/H/S" (2012) - While it's uneven and the found footage/VHS format falls apart if you think about it too hard (seriously, what evil force sat around transferring all this footage from Skype conversations and high-tech eyeglass cameras onto old videotapes?), this is a more satisfying multi-director anthology. Most of the individual stories are startling enough to sustain the short segments, with the last one remaining particularly memorable, and even the less successful bits remain grounded as horror stories, eschewing the wry or ironic portions that have deflated many a previous horror collection.
18. "The Devil's Carnival" (2012) - "Repo: The Genetic Opera" is a mess, but it's a fascinating and fairly original mess. Bousman and Zdunich's follow-up, not so much. It's set up like an anthology about several people forced to confront their sins by a singing devil and your standard retinue of aging goth carnies, most of whom appear to have gone on a Hot Topic shopping binge to console themselves after losing roles on the final season of "Heroes." At less than an hour, it manages to drag despite not having enough time to develop beyond that basic concept. Too many of the tuneless songs feature the carnies shrieking and cackling abrasively toward some person who is trying to look upset. When the dude from Five Finger Death Punch is your musical's best singer, you shouldn't be fast-tracking a sequel.
19. "The Woman in Black" (2012) - After that "Let the Right One In" remake and a few smaller productions, Hammer Films' major return to big screen British gothic horror is pretty decent. Mind you, this is coming from someone who's spent the better part of a decade absolutely loathing PG-13 ghost movies. Restrained but not at all timid, it creates an effective atmosphere of macabre gloom, and Daniel Radcliffe fits his role as a miserable young widower so well that I forgot it was Harry Potter I was watching dig up a child's corpse. The movie did so well that they are making a sequel, which seems dumb considering that it's so self-contained.
20. "Piranha 3DD" (2012) - I'd been lead to believe this sequel to Alexandre Aja's shockingly awesome semi-remake of the Joe Dante classic was a disappointment. It is, but only in the sense that it doesn't try to approach the original's abundance of gory mayhem. Instead, "Feast" auteur John Gulager amps up the goofiness, addressing a few glaring errors of "Piranha 3D" while nailing the salaciousness and nasty humor that made the preceding film such a treat. And in David Hasselhoff, it offers the most hilarious celebrity self-parody casting in recent memory (not counting "This Is the End," of course). Check your expectations for the red stuff and you might just enjoy this quick, cheap and sleazy trifle.
Whelp, here's a chronologically accurate video playlist of trailers for 20 horror movies I've watched since last Halloween, many of them for the first time. No time for a musical playlist, I'm afraid, but I need to write about music soon. In the meantime, any Misfits album should do ya.
1. "A Bay of Blood" (1971) - After catching "House of Exorcism" at a local drive-in event, I got a bug to watch more Mario Bava. I chose his "10 Little Indians" riff from the plethora of Bava titles currently streaming on Netflix because I'd only ever seen a crappy bootleg of it, and that was more than a decade ago. It's definitely nice to look at and plenty atmospheric, and of course the first few "Friday the 13th" movies stole some of its best set pieces, but I don't think the mystery/slasher hybrid here is as cool as in "Blood and Black Lace."
2. "Frightmare" (1974) - I saw a couple of Pete Walker's movies on VHS way back when you could still rent older, unfamous movies at area stores. I remember them being pretty dreary despite their lurid elements, as is the case with most vintage British exploitation, but this elusive title always intrigued me due to its cannibal family plot. It's no white-knuckle thrill ride, but the actors really sell "Frightmare," and it's unique enough that I enjoyed it much more than the more conventional likes of "The Flesh and Blood Show " or "House of Whipcord."
3. "Long Weekend" (1978) - This Australian obscurity concerns an irritating, bickering couple attacked by natural forces such as birds, mammals and weather when they take their big city hubris into the wild. I think it's sort of like "Open Water" on land, but having never seen that, I assume this modest production is slightly more intriguing due to the variety of threats on display, reminiscent of the free-for-all of "Day of the Animals" or "Frogs." It's still pretty forgettable among the many post-"Jaws" animal attack movies.
4. "Island of the Fishmen" (1979) - As a child, I used to pore over the newspaper movie ads my grandfather brought me every week. One that always stuck with me was the 1981 New World release "Screamers," with its unsettling tagline: "Be warned: You will actually see a man turned inside-out." When I grew older and less squeamish, I was disappointed to find out that the ad campaign was a sham, as "Screamers" was just a retooled, retitled version of this hokey Italian mad scientist flick. The titular Fishmen are pretty cool rubber suit monsters, but unless you're into Barbara Bach, they're the only attraction here.
5. "Don't Go Near the Park" (1979) - A cut-rate, trashy, completely bonkers regional flick that involves cannibal cavepeople cursed with eternal life, orphans squatting in an abandoned ranch and a disturbingly convincing teenage protagonist who virtually every male in the movie attempts to molest. With an early (clothed) appearance by scream queen Linnea Quigley, charmingly amateur production values, convoluted plot and complete lack of political correctness, fans of junky cult horror are strongly advised to hunt down this weirdo treasure trove.
6. "City of the Living Dead" (1980) - I recently acquired and viewed my third copy of this flick, which should give you an idea of how I feel about it. Deep down, I know "The Beyond" is a better movie, but this is my sentimental Lucio Fulci favorite. After a VHS copy I dubbed from a rental (under the alternate name "The Gates of Hell") and a laserdisc (the last laserdisc I ever bought new, I believe), Blue Underground's Blu-ray release is a revelation, clearly spotlighting every eerie set, dramatic zoom, synth drone and vomited intestine.
7. "Sleepaway Camp" (1983) - After many years of vaguely recalling it, I actually revisited this slasher favorite twice in the past year. The first was via YouTube, after an episode of "How Did This Get Made?" piqued my wife's interest. Having matured since my first viewing in college, I can now see that it's remained a touchstone as much for its general weirdness as for that great stinger ending, which is all I'd previously remembered. The second time was at the aforementioned drive-in event, via a print so dark and murky that a first-time viewer probably couldn't see that ending, anyway.
8. "Creature" (aka "Titan Find") (1985) - One of the later "Alien" rip-offs, this modest space snoozer came out not too long before James Cameron's sequel appeared and inspired a new set of rip-offs. It folds a little of "The Thing" into the mix since the titular space beastie can control its victims' minds, and features Klaus Kinski in a glorified cameo as well as Diane Salinger (Simone of "Pee-Wee's Big Adventure" fame) as an icy warrior who I was surprised didn't turn out to be a secret android.
9. "The Video Dead" (1987) - I used to frequently pass over this one when renting VHSes, and finally checked it out as the B-feature on Scream Factory's gorgeous "TerrorVision" Blu-ray. The story's pretty blah, the kills are weak and the acting ranges from poor to abysmal, but the zombies look pretty good (as promised in the promotional artwork, they come out of a mysterious TV set). The production definitely has that homemade '80s direct-to-video vibe all the kids are seeking these days.
10. "Howling III: The Marsupials" (1987) - Another title I've long been curious about due to its bizarre contrivance of Australian marsupial werewolves, I recently took the plunge and discovered why most people consider this a terrible film. Its pitiful werewolf costumes and lack of blood aside, this is more of a dull, unconvincing social drama about a minority that doesn't exist than any sort of horror film. It's also one of those movies that makes a big point of establishing that a lot of time has passed, but the characters don't appear to age. There is a hilarious part where a ballerina turns into a werewolf on stage, though.
11. "Ghoulies III: Ghoulies Go to College" (1991) - Here's one of many older flicks which inexplicably saw their first DVD release via recent budget sets from Lionsgate. I'd rented this on tape way back when, and correctly remembered it to be a fun if fairly stupid horror comedy that plays up the cartoonish goofiness found in series highlight "Ghoulies II." Star Kevin McCarthy's always great, and he hams it up like a champ here, but the lil' puppet creatures almost wear out their welcome by spouting endless corny one-liners. At least the Ghoulies are in the movie a lot, which you can't say for parts 1 or 4.
12. "In the Mouth of Madness" (1994) - I've long contended that this was John Carpenter's last good horror film, and think I'll stick with that despite not having seen "Ghosts of Mars" or "The Ward." Despite its extreme '90s datedness, "Madness" remains a pretty decent mishmash of King/Lovecraft-inspired literary spookiness. I came back to it at a 24-hour sci-fi marathon, of all places, where the most disturbing aspect was discovering that we'd paid admission to watch a good portion of the films (including this one) on DVD. It seems like the outfit that ran that marathon does this regularly at their events... too bad they didn't hold out a few months for the Blu-ray, which just came out last week.
13. "Embodiment of Evil" (2008) - The return of Zé do Caixão could have been so much worse. I had feared some boring-ass cop movie or teen drama with the infamous undertaker sprinkled in, but Jose Mojica Marins learned from the mistakes of antecedents like the "Hellraiser" and "Nightmare on Elm Street" series. He kept his focus on the charismatic villain, who is as offspring- and torture-obsessed as ever, and the result is a far better Coffin Joe sequel than expected.
14. "Mutant Girls Squad" (2010) - Despite its onslaught of imaginative effects, this slice of modern Japanese splatter cinema is just OK if weighed against the likes of director Yoshihiro Nishimura's "Tokyo Gore Police" and "Helldriver." None of the more-developed characters are too compelling, and the notion of mutants declaring war on the society that marginalized them was handled better in "X2: X-Men United." However, this has a cheerleader who can make a prehensile chainsaw pop out of her ass, and such creativity shouldn't be taken for granted.
15. "Munger Road" (2011) - After the glut of "Blair Witch" knockoffs mercifully subsided, the subsequent instant entertainment milieu has left little room for small regional horror flicks. Therefore, this urban legend-based indie that was shot and set in nearby St. Charles, IL is sort of an anomaly. If I hadn't finally watched the dull-as-dishwater "Paranormal Activity" shortly before this, some of its scare sequences might have seemed more unique. As it is, at least it's not another budget zombie epic, and aside from the unconvincing teen actors, it's quite professionally presented.
16. "The Theatre Bizarre" (2011) - I'm glad these multi-director omnibuses are all the rage, but as with any nascent trend, you will find plenty of misfires among the trendsetters. I can't tell you how psyched I was to see a new horror anthology with segments by the directors of vintage classics "Hardware" and "Combat Shock." In reality, after stopping it halfway through to attend to something else, it was several months before I came back and finished it. There are some nice squirmy bits with a chick injecting dead people's eyeball fluid into her own ocular orbs, but otherwise I only remember one segment that's so restrained as to be anti-scary, a bunch of arguing couples and me wishing it would end.
17. "V/H/S" (2012) - While it's uneven and the found footage/VHS format falls apart if you think about it too hard (seriously, what evil force sat around transferring all this footage from Skype conversations and high-tech eyeglass cameras onto old videotapes?), this is a more satisfying multi-director anthology. Most of the individual stories are startling enough to sustain the short segments, with the last one remaining particularly memorable, and even the less successful bits remain grounded as horror stories, eschewing the wry or ironic portions that have deflated many a previous horror collection.
18. "The Devil's Carnival" (2012) - "Repo: The Genetic Opera" is a mess, but it's a fascinating and fairly original mess. Bousman and Zdunich's follow-up, not so much. It's set up like an anthology about several people forced to confront their sins by a singing devil and your standard retinue of aging goth carnies, most of whom appear to have gone on a Hot Topic shopping binge to console themselves after losing roles on the final season of "Heroes." At less than an hour, it manages to drag despite not having enough time to develop beyond that basic concept. Too many of the tuneless songs feature the carnies shrieking and cackling abrasively toward some person who is trying to look upset. When the dude from Five Finger Death Punch is your musical's best singer, you shouldn't be fast-tracking a sequel.
19. "The Woman in Black" (2012) - After that "Let the Right One In" remake and a few smaller productions, Hammer Films' major return to big screen British gothic horror is pretty decent. Mind you, this is coming from someone who's spent the better part of a decade absolutely loathing PG-13 ghost movies. Restrained but not at all timid, it creates an effective atmosphere of macabre gloom, and Daniel Radcliffe fits his role as a miserable young widower so well that I forgot it was Harry Potter I was watching dig up a child's corpse. The movie did so well that they are making a sequel, which seems dumb considering that it's so self-contained.
20. "Piranha 3DD" (2012) - I'd been lead to believe this sequel to Alexandre Aja's shockingly awesome semi-remake of the Joe Dante classic was a disappointment. It is, but only in the sense that it doesn't try to approach the original's abundance of gory mayhem. Instead, "Feast" auteur John Gulager amps up the goofiness, addressing a few glaring errors of "Piranha 3D" while nailing the salaciousness and nasty humor that made the preceding film such a treat. And in David Hasselhoff, it offers the most hilarious celebrity self-parody casting in recent memory (not counting "This Is the End," of course). Check your expectations for the red stuff and you might just enjoy this quick, cheap and sleazy trifle.
posted by SoulReaper at 1:02 AM
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