October 2016 Horror Movie a Day

[Johnny Unusual]

26. Rifftrax - Psycho 2

The film isn't very good but there's a seed of a good idea in there: a movie about a killer trying to reform and adjust to a normal life.  But it really shouldn't have been a Psycho sequel and the fact that the community is kind of chill or unaware that he's a killer (the community's most notorious) is kind of ridiculous.  Anthony Perkins plays the character as... kind of adorable?  Which might have worked better if the film's camp factor worked a bit better.  I mean, if you have the soap opera conceit of "Norman Osborn's REAL mother", you better be all in on the silliness.

[PsychoGoatee]

I enjoyed Psycho 2 when I saw it, not super memorable but better than I expected for an obscure sequel to a classic.

Speaking of sequels to classics, just watched Dracula Has Risen from the Grave, pretty solid sequel. None of these match up to Horror of Dracula for me, but this pulled me in and was a fun little Dracula yarn. Now the Hammer Frankenstein series on the other hand, that's compelling pretty much all the way through, Terence Fisher and Peter Cushing can't lose. But still, Dracula is pretty classy in this one, Christopher Lee is the man.

So I've watched Nightmare Beach, Return of the Living Dead, Freddy vs Jason, Buffy the Vampire slayer almost forgot to mention (so 90s! Still funny), this is #5.

[SJP]

The Blob (1958)
Steve McQueen pretends he is a teenager while trying to warn his town about a murderous lump of goo, whose sole purpose appears to be to hide away and make everyone think he's insane.
I think the funniest thing about this movie is that, in an 82 minute runtime, the Blob itself is only part of the plot for maybe 20 minutes.  The rest of the movie revolves around McQueen trying to convince everyone that no, really, the monster IS out to get everyone, and the hijinks that ensue when he and his friends try to help.  This doesn't mean the movie isn't entertaining, but when more of your movie is dedicated to a seven minute argument about the legalities of backwards drag racing (at least, it felt like seven minutes) and the most whiny cop this side of Kelton, it feels more like a monster invaded a juvenile delinquent movie than a cohesive monster film.  That quibble aside, it's still a fun watch.  The '88 version is objectively a bit scarier and more focused, but the original is not without considerable charm.

[Johnny Unusual]

27. Rifftrax - Tourist Trap

The film itself has had a resurgence as of late, but it really is... It's not a good movie, but it's not awful.  It is delightfully silly, but I feel there isn't enough consistency in Chuck Connors story.  It's kind of a little too convoluted.  Like both personalities are evil and there's kind of a conflict between them but it is never resolved.  I feel like a second pass through the script might have helped make it a better campy horror flick.

28. Tales from the Hood

I was hoping the current political atmosphere would make this prescient and largely it does.  A horror anthology for a black audience, it's more like a series of the better-but-not-best Tales from the Crypt episodes.

The first story is not the best, but it is the most prescient, about some cops who kill a black political leader looking to oust crooked cops.  They end up getting attacked by an undead political leader.  It's pretty basic stuff but the timeliness gives it a boost.

The second is about a boy who is a victim of abuse at home by a "monster".  David Allen Greer is in this one and he's surprisingly effective as an abusive boyfriend.  While it isn't the MOST harrowing portrait of abuse, it is certainly uncomfortable at times, making the sudden goofiness of the villain's comeuppance kind of an odd turn.

Next, an ex-KKK politician buys an old plantation known for it's cruelty to slaves, only to have the souls of the dead to come back as devil dolls.  This one is pretty fun and the unsubtle visuals (a bigoted politician beating a little black doll to death with the flag) work pretty well.

The last story is a mix of A Clockwork Orange and Jacob's Ladder about a gangbanger who undergoes a radical new rehabilitation program that's more than meets the eye.  Some of it feels kind of weak while some of it is really effective, particularly unsettling images of lynchings shown alongside black on black crime.  It's a mixed bag in one story.  Some of it genuinely effective, but it doesn't all work.

The wraparound is kind of weak except that Clarence Williams III plays the storyteller of the film with such perfect hamminess, it's a shame it never became a TV series with him as the host.

As a whole, it's not all perfect, but it is a lot of fun, and I would be happy to see if someone resurrected this as a new movie or even a series.  The current political climate seems perfect for it.  Although, do people even say "the hood" anymore?  Maybe it needs a new title.

[Johnny Unusual]

29. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2

I was kind of looking forward to this.  I love the original and I heard this was more of a comical sequel.  But mostly, it isn't good.  It isn't god-awful but the last act goes on WAY too long and it spends about 10 minutes of run time recreating one of the film's best, most-famous scenes but with what must be 10 times the budget and a 1/10th of the charm.  Also, the guy who replaces Gunnar Hanson is trying but his chainsaw-dancing his far less charming.

The premise is that the one returning original cast member from the first movie, the Cook (who is killing it harder than anyone in this movie), has just won a chili cook-off (guess what the meat is?) and he's returning home when he discovers that someone caught on audio the sounds of one of Leatherface's kills.  So Leatherface and this film's version of the hitchhiker, the evil hippie Chop Top, are sent to take out the DJ who has the tape.  Chop Top's first scene actually made me pretty hopeful for the movie.  I found him unbearable for much of the movie where he is screaming and ranting (it makes sense that he would be that, but it gets really irritating for the audience as well as the characters) but in his first appearance where he's trying to play nicey-nice had an appropriately Beetlejuice as a hippie stereo-type (with the slightest touch of Weird Al in his cadence) that made him interesting and leads to a surprisingly effective scare moment (which the film doesn't have a lot of) which ends in slapstick.

But overall, the 80's excesses don't serve this particular movie well.  The turn toward comedy could have worked, but it just doesn't.  I don't think this characterization of Leatherface is completely off-the-mark, but I didn't care for it.  I think the worst offender, as mentioned, was the Grandpa Redux scene, which is both less scary and less funny (sure, grandpa is still impossibly old, but in the middle you keep thinking "What, is he just a corpse?"

I wanted to like it, but it was mostly unpleasant in a way that doesn't do itself enough favours (I also think the way they tried to call back the original in the final scene is a pretty weak misfire).

[Johnny Unusual]

30. Tales That Witness Madness

An OKish anthology movie.  First, we have a kid's killer imaginary friend.  Hoo-hum.  Then a guy haunted penny farthing bicycle.  This is actually the most interesting in it's unintended silliness, particularly the constant facial expression changes of a haunted portrait.  It tries to do something interesting with a curse across time/time paradox haunting but it's all pretty weak.  The third story is a guy who brings home a hunk of wood that is more than it seems and may have romantic intentions.  Some fun stuff here, but nothing really to write home about.  The last one just sort of abruptly ends.  It really isn't a surprise since it seems to project everything it's going to do ahead of time and doesn't feel like a pay-off so much as a dull thud.  Watchable, but really skippable in the grand scheme of 70's British horror anthologies.

31.  Waxwork

This really bugged me.  As a horror-comedy-adventure, it doesn't work particularly well in any genre and seems to squander the premise, the actors and potential to do interesting, fun stuff.  It clearly wants to be in the Joe Dante realm, but it seems woefully incompetent in a lot of area of filmmaking.  Sometimes, it has a few good, or at least interesting, moments, but most are few and far between.  Special effects aren't too bad for it's budget, but they aren't great either.  The comedy seems completely mismanaged (poor David Warner) and Zach Gilligan, who I like in Gremlins, is a real charisma vacuum.  For some reason, they also thought the leads should be rich douches.  They kind of try to have Zach be likable except after a failed attempt, he spends most of the movie as an asshole who makes his maid write his university paper.  David Warner was OK, but not given enough to do.

Too much of this feels really thrown together and the logic behind the waxwork museum is confusing.  OK, so David Warner's evil plans work and he brings the most evil people in history to life (including a random zombie and a pod person, so I guess that includes fictional history?).  But it also brings the victims to life as bad guys?  Why are they both alive and bad guys now?  Shouldn't it be JUST the bad guys.  Also, a pod person emerges from a pod and later during the fight, our heroine stuffs an evil little butler in the pod, which says "Feed me!" like in Little Shop of Horrors.  So it's a pod person pod AND Audrey II?  What's going on here?

There's fun to be had in the premise, but I feel like the film doesn't properly mine it.  Damn shame.  It could have been fun if done right.

[Darth Geek]

I agree about Waxwork being a bit of a missed opportunity. It's one that I think could be improved on in a remake.

[Johnny Unusual]

32. Cry of the Banshee

First of all, there is no banshee.  It's a completely misleading title.  It doesn't even take place in Ireland.  There's two references to a banshee's cry but that's about it.

Second of all, there's an opening by Terry Gilliam, done in his Monty Python style.  Neat.

And finally, the movie is just fine.  I do take issue with the confusing message of it.  The idea is that Vincent Price is a cruel and evil witch hunter.  OK.  But there are also actual witches who are Satan worshippers.  So I guess we are on there side.  OK.  But they aren't given enough character to really be our heroes and then there's the issue that what made witch hunting so awful is that innocent non-witches were murdered and almost every woman who is tortured in this movie does seem to be at least an accessory to witchcraft, except one poor woman who is burned alive.

Still, while it isn't one of strongest films in the genre, it's a fun enough time passer.  But just call it Curse of the Witch, won't you?  Because that is what it ACTUALLY IS!

And here's the Terry Gilliam opening!

[PsychoGoatee]

Oddly enough I've never seen Waxwork, but I really enjoyed Waxwork 2 (fun/funny movie, has Bruce Campbell etc).

[SJP]

I've seen Waxwork but not its sequel...which is a shame, because a LOT of people say it is the better movie.  It's a lot like the Ouija franchise, but Ouija made a lot more money, I think.

Which also may prove another thought I've always had about sequels and remakes...people don't necessarily hate remakes and sequels, they only hate them if they suck.  John Carpenter's The Thing, Ouija: Origin of Evil, Waxwork 2, and Chuck Russell's The Blob are good remakes and sequels.  Robocop, Total Recall, and Gus van Sant's Psycho were not...or, if they didn't completely suck, they were very forgettable.  Anywho...

27. Rifftrax Live!: Carnival of Souls (1962/2016)
I enjoyed the riff immensely, but the movie I did not.  A friend later watched it in black and white and said he thought it was much improved.  Something tells me that might be the case...after all, the colorizing washes out a lot of the intended shadow and mood, I'm sure, and does give away a part of the plot before it happens.  I may have to watch the original, unriffed, and see how I feel about it later, but it felt like it dragged terribly in places.  I know its place in horror history and can certainly see its influence, but it didn't win me over on this go round.

28. Cronos (1993)
An old man is bitten by a mechanical spider.  It does not give him radioactive powers, but does give him other issues, mainly being bullied by Ron Perlman.
Guillermo del Toro's first theatrical release shows the kind of filmmaker he is...vaguely interested in the supernatural and the weird, but also of creating likeable, tragic figures.  Jesus Gris is a man who, purely by accident, finds himself wrapped up in a search for immortality and at the mercy of a Howard Hughes type and his nephew, but beyond that, the characters all have their little quirks that just makes them all the more human.  Ron Perlman's Angel de la Guardia may be little more than goon, but he's obsessed with getting a nose job (and the irony that befalls in regarding that in the last act).  Jesus Gris says a prayer even as he re-attaches the Cronos device to his hand and gives himself another hit of the stuff within, because he is good man at heart and doesn't understand why he feels the way he does, even as he does it again.  It's those little touches that give the movie it's pathos, and its humanity.  I enjoyed it.

29. House (1977)
Girls go to a house.  House eats them.  Then a bear serves noodles to a guy.  It's that kind of movie.
I was in the mood from something from the Criterion Collection and almost watched Equinox again, when I figured I'd give this a try.  I'm glad I did.  This was one of the most absurd things I have seen in a LONG time.  It is not a movie for everybody (it's barely coherent and has mood whiplash like you wouldn't believe), but as far as visual style, humor, and sheer audacity go, it's an event not to be missed.  While probably not my favorite movie I've watched this year, it's one of the best surprises.  Thoroughly enjoyable.

30. Garfield Halloween/A Disney Halloween (1985/1982)
Two favorite TV specials.  Nothing special about either one, just glad to watch something cozy with the wife.

[Darth Geek]

27. Rifftrax Live!: Carnival of Souls (1962/2016)
I enjoyed the riff immensely, but the movie I did not.  A friend later watched it in black and white and said he thought it was much improved.  Something tells me that might be the case...after all, the colorizing washes out a lot of the intended shadow and mood, I'm sure, and does give away a part of the plot before it happens.  I may have to watch the original, unriffed, and see how I feel about it later, but it felt like it dragged terribly in places.  I know its place in horror history and can certainly see its influence, but it didn't win me over on this go round.

How does the colorization give away a plotpoint?

[SJP]

27. Rifftrax Live!: Carnival of Souls (1962/2016)
I enjoyed the riff immensely, but the movie I did not.  A friend later watched it in black and white and said he thought it was much improved.  Something tells me that might be the case...after all, the colorizing washes out a lot of the intended shadow and mood, I'm sure, and does give away a part of the plot before it happens.  I may have to watch the original, unriffed, and see how I feel about it later, but it felt like it dragged terribly in places.  I know its place in horror history and can certainly see its influence, but it didn't win me over on this go round.

How does the colorization give away a plotpoint?

Thanks to the colorization, you can tell immediately that the psychiatrist is not the psychiatrist when he's sitting with the chair back to the camera, but the ghost guy, because they colored the top of his head with the clown white.  In the original, it's possible to tell that it's not the right guy, but I can imagine in black and white it's a lot less obvious.

[Johnny Unusual]

33. Tales from the Darkside: The Movie

Another serviceable anthology.  The monster in the last story looks fairly cool but over all, nothing special.  First we have a Mummy story, which has Christian Slater and Steve Buscemi.  Cute twist, but that's about it.  Then it's a hitman sent to kill a black cat.  Fun idea and I like William Hickey (the world's oldest actor, even when he isn't) but aside from a hilariously ridiculous scene where the cat kills a man by crawling down his throat, I didn't care for it.  And last, a man promises a monster he won't tell anyone he saw it and afterwards, his life starts to turn around.  But can he keep the promise?  It's kind of all right, but I wish the lead actor was more interesting.  I don't think he was bad or anything, just so-so.

34.  Phantasm

And with this, I'm done.  I like Phantasm a lot and I figured with all it's ghoulies, fall weather and general tone, it was the perfect film to cap off Halloween.