Horror Movie a Day: October 2011

[Compound]

Okay, I'm in public domain land now, so here's a brief rundown.

Kill Baby Kill
A balkan town is rocked by a series of suspicious deaths that seem to be caused by a curse coming from a deceased girl.

Eh. There's a few interesting visuals in this, but it's pretty ho-hum. It's very slow by modern standards and fairly non-suspenseful.

The Devil's Nightmare
Seven guests check into a remote castle, each representing a deadly sin. There a succubus plays upon those sins and corrupts 6 of them.

Another Italian film, this one's okay, if fairly predictable. The F/X are quite bad (some of the "blood" is orange) though. The one big mar for my copy of the film was it being preceded by some generic (and much more recent than 1971) horror show host along with two topless women. The T/A sequence (and that's all they're there for) lasts for around 10 solid minutes, but it feels like 40.  Not fun minutes, but well beyond the "just get on with it already" point. But if your copy lacks that bit, hey. You're good to go.

God Told Me To
A very Catholic cop in NYC investigates a series of seemingly random murders that the murderers claim happened because "God Told Them To."

Okay, this film (by Larry Cohen) starts off very well. A bunch of people just randomly start killing others and then claim it was due to divine intervention. For the first half hour, we see our heroic cop investigate the murders, culminating in a fellow police officer opening fire on others during the St. Patrick's Day parade in NYC. (This cop, BTW, is played by Andy Kaufman. Seriously. It was his first role.) That first 30 minutes is pretty interesting stuff. But the next half hour starts meandering. The murderers had all talked to a long haired fellow. The cop tracks down the mom, who tries to kill him. Then he starts tracking down the fellow's history. The doctor who delivered him notes that the mother was still a virgin, and he delivered the kid via c-section. Oh, and the kid was apparently genderless. And then things go really off course. During the next 20 minutes or so, his crooked partner gets killed by a drug dealer, who blames it on the crazies. A  newspaper reporter starts ranting about how atheists would love to see God reappear. Cop finds another virgin who gave birth, and apparently it's his long lost mother. Although the whole "abandoned by his birth mom" thing had not been brought up prior to this. And the cop runs into the long haired... person, who seems to actually have mind controlling powers. There's also an interlude between his girlfriend and ex-wife about her miscarriages and how she'd like to get a divorce, but he won't agree. (Catholic, remember?)  At this point in the film, it feels like we're missing pages from the script. To top it off, the virgin births?

Yeah, that seems to be the result of alien abductions. So we now have alien astronauts in our little supernatural thriller.

Anyway, the cop also shows alien mind control abilities. He goes and avenges his partner's death and then goes to meet his counterpart. Who then offers to mate with him.  (facepalm) She lifts up her robe to reveal a vagina, which seems to be located just below her ribcage on the side of her body.

Huh. I guess I've been looking in the wrong place.

Anyway, cop reacts poorly to this suggestion. They fight. Girl dies. Cop goes to the loony bin.



So, the film's quite intriguing for the first half hour and then careens off into goofy land. But after that... wow. I'd avoid it personally, but if you're morbidly curious go for it.

[Johnny Unusual]

Way behind, but I did definitely see some horror stuff recently.  Mostly bad.

The Astral Factor - Pretty forgettable and silly slasher/psychic killer movie about a psychic killer who can turn invisible or something.  Lame.

Van Helsing - WOW.  THIS WAS BAD!  I mean, worse than I thought.  And I kind of liked the first Mummy movie (dumb as it was, it was fun for me.  Haven't seen it in a while though).  It felt like they were advertising for the video game and toy line and totally forgot to make a movie.  Also, I have never seen anything with Kate Beckinsale but she is the most dull, uncharismatic actress I've ever seen.  Also, she really like her character to put her hands on her hips.  Cause it makes her look tough.

Frenzy - This was really good.  Definitely not the best Hitchcock film, and it doesn't quite feel cohesive (most of the scenes are good, but it doesn't all feel like it belongs in the same movie and the ending feels like the film was building to a more tragic but satisfying ending), but there are some truly amazing scenes and it's obvious that Hitchcock, in small ways, is taking advantage the fact that he can have more blood, nudity and swears in films.

Nightmares in Red, White and Blue - A good but flawed documentary about the history of horror films and how they reflect America.  They generally make really good choices, but it can be frustrating as at some points they'll draw attention to films and not go into much detail about their importance or just say a sentence about them.  For it's faults, it is a fun film looking at the best of American horror and it's inspiration.  Oh, and one noticable error: though they might deal with American themes, Shivers and Videodrome are very Canadian films.  And those are like the only Cronenberg films mentioned, which is odd since after Videodrome, most are American (come to think of it, did he ever do any feature length Canadian films after that?  Was Crash Canadian?)

[Darth Geek]

Van Helsing - WOW.  THIS WAS BAD!  I mean, worse than I thought.  And I kind of liked the first Mummy movie (dumb as it was, it was fun for me.  Haven't seen it in a while though).  It felt like they were advertising for the video game and toy line and totally forgot to make a movie.  Also, I have never seen anything with Kate Beckinsale but she is the most dull, uncharismatic actress I've ever seen.  Also, she really like her character to put her hands on her hips.  Cause it makes her look tough.

Make sure to check out the Quiptracks riff of this. Absolutely hilarious! Still my favorite riff of theirs, and right up there with the best of Rifftrax.

[D.B. Barnes]

#23 - The Crazies

This is the second time I've seen it and I found it almost as enjoyable as the first time. I love the atmosphere of this movie. From that very first scene, this extreme weirdness is established that holds up through the movie. I think this a pretty well-put-together horror flick with good pacing, scary situations, good jump-scares, and decent performances. It's a fun ride that never really gets bogged down.

MOVIE GRADE: B+

[Darth Geek]

#23 - The Crazies

This is the second time I've seen it and I found it almost as enjoyable as the first time. I love the atmosphere of this movie. From that very first scene, this extreme weirdness is established that holds up through the movie. I think this a pretty well-put-together horror flick with good pacing, scary situations, good jump-scares, and decent performances. It's a fun ride that never really gets bogged down.

MOVIE GRADE: B+

You do know it's a remake, right? Have you seen the original Romero movie?

[D.B. Barnes]

#23 - The Crazies

This is the second time I've seen it and I found it almost as enjoyable as the first time. I love the atmosphere of this movie. From that very first scene, this extreme weirdness is established that holds up through the movie. I think this a pretty well-put-together horror flick with good pacing, scary situations, good jump-scares, and decent performances. It's a fun ride that never really gets bogged down.

MOVIE GRADE: B+

You do know it's a remake, right? Have you seen the original Romero movie?

Yeah, I did know that, although I haven't seen the original. I've actually heard the remake was better but I guess I'll have to watch the original and decide for myself. Any thoughts?

[Darth Geek]

#23 - The Crazies

This is the second time I've seen it and I found it almost as enjoyable as the first time. I love the atmosphere of this movie. From that very first scene, this extreme weirdness is established that holds up through the movie. I think this a pretty well-put-together horror flick with good pacing, scary situations, good jump-scares, and decent performances. It's a fun ride that never really gets bogged down.

MOVIE GRADE: B+

You do know it's a remake, right? Have you seen the original Romero movie?

Yeah, I did know that, although I haven't seen the original. I've actually heard the remake was better but I guess I'll have to watch the original and decide for myself. Any thoughts?

I haven't seen the remake, just the original. I liked it more for the concepts than the overall execution. You can tell it's very early in Romero's directing career.

[SJP]

24: Blood (2009)

Is it possible to take a movie that includes gratuitous sex, a melting face, and a showdown between samurai vampires, and make it dull, uninteresting, and make 86 minutes feel like 3 hours?  Yes, yes it is.

This Japanese film can be summarized thusly: cop investigates cold case murder, cop is told murderer is several hundred year old samurai warrior by vampire woman, cop made into vampire by woman, woman and cop have sex at least 8 dozen times, then cop and samurai fight for vampire woman's affections.  On paper, this should've been awesome.  However, the movie's tone shifts from Japanese melodrama on the sheer loneliness of living forever with wire team-aided fight scenes that never get as gory or exciting as they should.  Even the gratuitous sex and nudity sucks since the two leads aren't all that attractive.  The only redeeming bit is where the vampire woman's deaf sidekick...Jumps in front of the cop and saves him from getting killed by taking a samurai sword to the gut.  For a moment, she lays there, and you think she's going to have a nice, poignant moment...fitting, since she's the only character worth a damn in the whole movie...and instead, she smiles, her eyes roll up in her head, and she dies.  Total span of time: two seconds.  It's absolutely hilariously bad.  There's also a scene of a guy's face melting (apparently vampire blood isn't for everyone), but it's not even gruesome enough to be cool.  Plus, the final fight is ruined because the set looks so obviously like a set that you can just imagine the crew eating lunch while these two swordfight with all the finesse of an epileptic barber.  Skip by all means.

[JimJ]

Movie #24: The Wicker Man (original)

This is so much better than the Nic Cage version.  I had seen it before, but it's been a while.  Really good, effective horror movie.  The ending to this one is actually pretty chilling, as opposed to the laugh out loud absurdity of the Nic Cage version. 4.5/5

[shodan]

Movie #24: The Wicker Man (original)

This is so much better than the Nic Cage version.  I had seen it before, but it's been a while.  Really good, effective horror movie.  The ending to this one is actually pretty chilling, as opposed to the laugh out loud absurdity of the Nic Cage version. 4.5/5

no bees?

[JimJ]

Movie #24: The Wicker Man (original)

This is so much better than the Nic Cage version.  I had seen it before, but it's been a while.  Really good, effective horror movie.  The ending to this one is actually pretty chilling, as opposed to the laugh out loud absurdity of the Nic Cage version. 4.5/5

no bees?

No bees.  They harvest apples in this, not honey.  They also had someone who at least knew the definition of the word "subtle" playing the main character, as opposed to Nic Cage's non-stop raving insanity, which probably helped.  Also, no stupid sub-plot involving the missing girl being the protagonist's daughter (in fact, it's a fairly important point that the protagonist was an extremely religious virgin, something the remake ignored entirely). 

[gojikranz]

Movie #24: The Wicker Man (original)

This is so much better than the Nic Cage version.  I had seen it before, but it's been a while.  Really good, effective horror movie.  The ending to this one is actually pretty chilling, as opposed to the laugh out loud absurdity of the Nic Cage version. 4.5/5

no bees?

No bees.  They harvest apples in this, not honey.  They also had someone who at least knew the definition of the word "subtle" playing the main character, as opposed to Nic Cage's non-stop raving insanity, which probably helped.  Also, no stupid sub-plot involving the missing girl being the protagonist's daughter (in fact, it's a fairly important point that the protagonist was an extremely religious virgin, something the remake ignored entirely). 

it always bugged me that it was honey in the remake.  why are they selling honey arent they supposed to be seperated from the outside world.  in the original it makes sense they live on what they produce but here they are sacrificing him to make a few more bucks in the honey market?  really stupid...

[SJP]

25: The Mummy (1932)

I guess Dracula really was the exception: now that I've see all the 'classsic' movie monsters, I have to say that Bela Lugosi is awesome, but it's a shame his movie had to be the slowest and most boring of them all.  This one wasted no time getting started and, in 73 minutes, wrapped everything up pretty neatly.  The only shame is that Karloff didn't get to do more with his evil powers, but then, if he did much more it might've gotten too hokey.  Everyone does a pretty good job in it for 1930s acting (though the guy who starts laughing hysterically when Imhotep gets up for the first time sounds incredibly stupid; laughing when scared be damned, it just sounds terrible here), and some really cool camerawork as well.  Like Phantom, another classic well deserving of its reputation.

[Compound]

A brief rant-

YOU CGI'D GLASS BREAKING? REALLY? WHAT THE HELL, MOVIE? THEY'VE BEEN ABLE TO DO THAT PRACTICAL EFFECT SINCE THE DAWN OF MOVIE MAKING AND YOU DIDN'T HAVE THE ABILITY TO DO IT IN YOUR FILM?

GGAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!

And for Pete's sake, is that a paper mache head? Really? Good grief. Ed Wood had a better grasp on F/X. Strike that. James Ngyuen has a better grasp of F/X.

[Compound]

Fungicide

A  2002 film about killer mushrooms. I'm pretty sure I spent more money on groceries this week than the budget of this film.

Independent horror film makers. Bless their little hearts. They try and try. Sometimes they succeed. I've seen a few no budget horror films this week that actually weren't badly done. This is not one of those films.

Let's leave aside the acting for a sec. And the plot.  Let's just talk F/X. As a horror film fan, I'm predisposed to support practical effects. Makeup, props etc.

Let me show a frame from the film.


Yeah, that's not good practical effects work. Please note, that's not a split second shot that's the only time you see that head. This sequence goes on for about 30 long seconds. Even someone from a backwards tribe that's never before seen a tv or movie would notice that's not a real head there.  To make matters worse, they toss in CGI work as well. I'm not going to mention the CGi glass breaking. Or the CGi steam coming out of a car. Look at this:



Yes, that's a real mushroom costume from the film. And yes, those are the CGI mushrooms, in all their turn of the millennium glory. Seriously, the birds in Birdemic look like "Avatar" next to this.

Anyway, it's lousy. Don't bother watching it.