WARNING! Avoid "Spirits of the Fall" Like it Was a Rabid Porcupine Telemarketer

Writing a negative review of a zero budget horror flick is kind of like punching a little kid. Sure it's easy and fun, but eventually your arm gets tired. Back when I was writing Killer B's on DVD over at Cinematical.com, I reviewed some fun low budget flicks as well as some that were flat out excruciating. On a certain level you have to respect these auteurs for completing and distributing a film with next to no cash, so even with the worst of them I would strive to find something positive to say, even if I was panning the film.

I just finished reviewing Spirits of the Fall for The Phantom of the Movies Videoscope magazine, and the movie has stuck with me like a particularly tenacious intestinal parasite. Any sympathy for the small time film maker has evaporated. The film has zero interest in entertaining and consistently fails on every level both creative and technical. I won't review the movie again here, but I'm putting this out there as a warning: this movie does not deserve to exist. Please avoid at all costs.

BLOGS THAT ROCK - Temple of Schlock

I can't believe it took me this long to realize Temple of Schlock has a blog. The Temple was the first film fanzine I remember ever seeing back in the late 80s and I discussed my fond memories of it and zines in general a few years ago. Temple of Schlock was born in Syracuse, NY in July of 1987 and was a cut and paste xeroxed affair, examining the best grindhouse swill of the period.

The blog version carries on that fine tradition with features like "Lost and Not Found" which covers exploitation flicks that have fallen off the map and "This Week on 42nd Street" gives a glimpse at what movies were playing on The Deuce thirty or so years ago. I particularly liked the piece on Twisted Nightmare, a slasher movie from 1988. Chris Pogialli reprints his original review and follows it with several paragraphs on the actual experience of going to see the film at The Harris in New York City. Great stuff.

The Return of Cryptique!

Yes, the lovely Miko Macabre (who I first discussed here) and her acerbic but hilarious take on trashy horror films is back with a new episode of her show Cryptique. She's got a new look, better lighting and improved audio, though I have to say the editing still needs some tightening. Still, the show is a lot of fun and this time Miko skewers the Frank Henenlotter classic Basket Case. You can link directly to the Cryptique sight here, and check out the new episode below.

QUARANTINE: Movie Review

Quarantine has taken a lot of crap, being slammed as an unnecessary remake of the Spanish film [REC], but I think such statements are short-sighted. I would love to have seen [REC] on the big screen, but a subtitled film's chance of getting a wide theatrical release in the States are about as good as a guy in a red shirt making it back to the Enterprise in one piece. No, this doesn't say much for the attention span of the American film-going audience, but [REC] had no chance of getting big theatrical play here. Let's move past it, people.

So that leaves us with Quarantine, a film which does pretty damn well on its own. Jennifer Carpenter of the way cool Showtime series Dexter plays Angela Vidal, a TV news reporter shadowing a group of Los Angeles firefighters on the overnight shift. The entire film is seen through the eye of her camera operated by Scott Percival (Steve Harris). The evening gets off to a slow start so we see Angela sliding down the fire pole, flirting with a firefighter named Jake (Hostel's Jay Hernandez) and lamenting that the whole night might be a washout. Finally a call comes in and the paramedics are called to an apartment building to aid an elderly woman who is infected with something that is contagious via contact with bodily fluids. To borrow a phrase from Shaun of the Dead, the old girl is a bit bitey and her violent and murderous nature quickly spreads among the tenants. Before Angela and the others can flee the building has been surrounded by operatives of the Center for Disease Control, and the space suits they're wearing and their readiness to shoot anyone that tries to leave doesn't bode well for our heroes.

Like 28 Days Later this is a zombie film without zombies. No one is coming back from the dead, but victims of this infection quickly degenerate into slobbering lunatics, not unlike what you see in Walmart on the day after Thanksgiving. After a beginning that is intentionally slow to build suspense, things ramp up with the film balancing action and exposition nicely. As with any of these pseudo documentary films like The Blair Witch Project or Cloverfield the question of why are these people still filming while they're running for their lives is a valid one. Director John Erick Dowdle (who also helmed The Poughkeepsie Tapes) does a respectable job of keeping the gimmick believable. Occasional bits are inserted to provide a reason for the fact that Scott is still shooting, but it isn't overdone as it was in Diary of the Dead, in which George Romero's frequent references to the fact were just distracting. Dowdle might have further aided the illusion by casting unknowns, but recognizable faces are presumably a necessity in getting financing, even if we're not talking about huge stars.

The Spanish version will likely hit DVD around the same time or shortly after Quarantine does, and the publicity surrounding the remake will have a trickle down effect, bringing far more attention to the U.S. DVD release of [REC] than it would have gotten on its own.

BLOGS THAT ROCK - Monster Crazy

Pierre Fournier, the blogger behind Frankensteinia: The Frankenstein Blog which I discussed here is also the guy behind Monster Crazy, a blog that knows when to keep its mouth shut. Text is kept to a minimum, with all manner of classic horror imagery being the focus. Movie posters, stills, old horror mag interiors and covers, and random works of monstrous art. This is one cool ass blog.

Miko Macabre's Cryptique

Introducing Miko Macabre. I stumbled across Miko's show Cryptique while searching for horror reviews on Youtube and frankly I'm surprised these videos have so few hits. Cryptique presents the capsule versions of trashy horror flicks with Miko adding her two cents throughout. There are two episodes currently posted covering Night of the Demons and Burial Ground: Nights of Terror, with each installment broken into three parts. As Miko points out in her first episode, the use of these copyrighted films really pushes the limits of "fair use" but the Cryptique versions of these flicks are a lot more entertaining than the originals ever were.

The resemblance to Elvira, Mistress of the Dark is obvious, with the combination of innuendo, cleavage and cornball humor, but Miko has the distinct advantage of actually being funny. Elvira had camp appeal, but she never actually made me laugh. Cryptique has recently launched a new site, though there's nothing there yet. There is a pretty cool Youtube video promoting the upcoming season, but for a real taste of what the show has to offer, check out the three installments of Episode 2 embedded below. I think this project has a lot of potential and I'm anxious to see where it goes.


Cryptique Episode 2, Part 1



Cryptique Episode 2, Part 2



Cryptique Episode 2, Part 3

THE STRANGERS - Review

I'm imagining some ill-informed pseudo-intellectual heading on down to the multiplex thinking he's about to see an adaptation of Albert Camus' The Stranger. I'm imagining sitting behind this person and shrieking "I've got your existentialism right here!" right before one character gets his face shotgunned into a substance resembling a hearty chili con carné. Yes, I need to get out more.

No, think Wes Craven rather than Camus. Specifically, The Strangers reminded me of Last House on the Left, with it's brutal victimization of two people, and its pervasive sense of dread and nihilism. The movie definitely earns its R-rating, but this isn't from the gore for gore's sake school of movie making. There are several examples of the classic Hitchcock definition of suspense in which the audience is shown the danger but the characters are not, and despite a few missteps The Strangers proves to be a white knuckle ride worthy of the best that Six Flags has to offer.

James Hoyt (Scott Speedman) and Kristen McKay (Liv Tyler) arrive at James's family's secluded vacation home in the wee hours of the morning following a friend's wedding reception. The evening has not gone well. James's proposal to Kristen having been met with rejection, we watch the two struggle through an awkward civility, and we get the distinct impression that this is a deal-breaker for the relationship. A knock comes on the door during what may well prove to be a round of break up sex. Concealed in the shadows, a young woman asks the couple if Tamara is home.

James and Kristen tell the girl she has the wrong house and send her on her way. She doesn't go far, though, and she's not alone. The girl and her two companions, a man and another woman, mount an increasingly tense series of assaults upon the couple. The assailants faces are covered by eerily simplistic yet horrifying masks and they want only to do very bad things.

Sometimes horror works best when it functions as a nightmare. No reason is given for the terror, it just is. I had been wondering if The Strangers could sustain those scares from the trailer that I'm not ashamed to classify as the "oh God I just peed a little" kind. I applaud writer/director Bryan Bertino's decision to leave certain things unexplained and to give the the film a less than upbeat ending. The Strangers is pretty dark, so dark that when you leave the theater you'll want to go home, find someone you love and hug them. Just make sure they're not carrying a big freakin' knife.

As for the "inspired by true events" claim, I call shenanigans on whoever decided to make that claim. I suspect it may be another intentional homage to 70s horror, and that this film's relationship to true events is about as accurate as that of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which is to say "not very."

Whatever happened to Dark Floors?

I got to wondering tonight what happened to Dark Floors. I do the weekly Trailer Park column over at Cinematical.com and I did a write up on the Dark Floors preview back in December. The film got its world premiere in its native Finland on February 6, and has since been released in Iceland and Estonia (I'm embarrassed to say I don't even know where that is) but I haven't heard any news of a U.S. release. Well, the Internet is a pretty awesome thing and I quickly learned (thanks to an article over at Bloody-disgusting.com) that the film has been picked up by Ghost House Underground, a new direct-to-video branch of Sam Raimi's Ghost House Pictures that will be releasing the film in October.

Dark Floors stars the band Lordi, a Finnish rock group who wear some very cool and downright horrific monster costumes as part of their act. When a man removes hist autistic daughter from her doctor's care and attempts to the leave the hospital, they and a handful of others step off the elevator onto a floor that shouldn't exist. The place is strewn with corpses, and they find themselves stalked by monstrous demons, played by the members of Lordi. This looks awesome enough for me to ignore the slight resemblance to Silent Hill. I checked out the movie's official site which is a pretty cool Flash driven affair. Take a look at the trailer below, and beneath that you'll find a Lordi video that proves they've seen The Evil Dead in Finland.

BLOGS THAT ROCK The Horrors of it All

I used to regularly purchase Overstreet's Comic Book Price Guide and drool over all those golden age and silver age comics that were just too ridiculously expensive to buy. The horror comics were of particular interest, especially since the ones published before the advent of the Comics Code Authority were far darker and more daring than the code approved comics that were the only game in town when I was a kid.

Well, now I need drool no longer. The Horrors of it All, which is put together and frequently updated by a blogger calling himself Karswell, features scans of entire stories from pre-code horror comics. If this is your sort of thing, this site will keep you busy for awhile. He's got 358 postings for 2007 and 291 so far for 2008.

BLOGS THAT ROCK Frankensteinia: The Frankenstein Blog

Of all the classic monsters, Frankenstein's undying creature was always my favorite, whether it be the box-headed bolt-knecked beastie from the classic Universal series, the somewhat gorier creatures from the Hammer period, or the nose- up- between- the- eyes of Dick Briefer's pre-code comic book version. I've recently come across a blog that shares my affection for Mary Shelley's patchwork creation called Frankensteinia: The Frankenstein Blog which is the brainchild of blogger Pierre Fournier.

Recent posts have included a look at Frankenstein on postage stamps, a look back at the character Jonathan Brewster from the stage play and film Arsenic and Old Lace (a stitch-faced character, played many times by Boris Karloff), a discussion of the original lost pilot for The Munsters, and postings about Valerie Hobson and Hazel Court, two of the best remembered actresses to play the often doomed (depending on which version you're watching) Elizabeth Frankenstein. If you think the subject too limiting I think you'll be pleasantly surprised at the wealth of material Fournier and his guest bloggers have assembled.

The Shadmock

Wonder not why your hair stiffly bristles,
just abandon all hope when the shadmock whistles.

Lately I've been reading and enjoying the hell out of The Mammoth Book of Monsters edited by Stephen Jones. It's roughly 500 pages of short horror stories from a variety of authors, with each tale containing some sort of monster. What's not to like? A nice little surprise was the inclusion of "The Shadmock" by late British horror writer R. Chetwynd-Hayes. I knew the story from its adaptation as part of The Monster Club, a 1980 horror flick noteworthy for containing Vincent Price's only portrayal of a vampire and being the last gasp of a cycle of horror anthology films that included the likes of Tales From the Crypt and The House That Dripped Blood.

Both the film and short story explain that years of interbreeding by various creatures of the night has resulted in some new variations, including shaddies mocks, and maddies, and if a mock and a maddy marry their offspring will be a shadmock. To summarize, vampires sup, werewolves hunt, ghouls tear, shaddies lick, maddies yawn, mocks blow, shadmocks only whistle.

Interestingly, other than featuring a shadmock and making the reader or viewer wonder exactly what sort of devastation might be wrought if this guy were to forget himself and start whistling "Smoke on the Water," the story and film adaptation have practically nothing in common. In the film our shadmock is a wealthy pigeon loving recluse named Raven, with a young couple named George and Angela attempting to swindle him out of his fortune. Angela attempts to woo Raven, but when she loses her temper and tells him how his corpse-like visage disgusts her, he lets loose with a whistle that essentially liquifies much of her skin.

In the original story, our shadmock is a servant rather than a millionaire. Sheridan and Caroline, a married couple have purchased an estate in a remote area of the English countryside. The mansion comes with a family of servants who have lived there all their lives, and they include an elderly shaddy, a mock, a maddy as well as the offspring of the last two, a handsome young shadmock named Marvin. Caroline takes a fancy to Marvin who also has eyes for Caroline despite the fact that once they've removed Sheridan's soul and made him a creature of the night like them, they plan to drain Caroline of her bodily fluids and use her remains to fertilize Marvin's garden. Even Marvin's own family is careful not to upset him, as shadmock's have a tendency to whistle when angered, but in an attempt to save Caroline he turns his ability on his own family with devastating results.

The story is a great read, written in a reserved British style, and has more substance than the filmed version, though the movie is still worth seeing as well. All three of the film's stories are based on the works of R. Chetwynd-Hayes, with the story that features a Humghoul (another product of monstrous interbreeding) being the high point. Have a look at the trailer:

YOU'RE SCARING THE CHILDRENStreaming Horror Film

You're Scaring the Children was distributed in the mid 1990s by its creator via what he was calling shareware video. I'm no longer certain where I first learned about the video, but it was either on the alt.horror Usenet newsgroup or a horror listserv mailing list I was subscribing to. The deal was this guy would send you a copy of this film just for the asking, and you had the right to copy and distribute it as you please. Now that I finally have the technological capacity to do so, I'm doing just that.

You're Scaring the Children grabbed me right away, and it's become one of those videos I watch once a year or so. It's not a film in the traditional sense, but more of a short horror story with video illustrations. The video work is barebones black and white with the narrator speaking directly to the camera, recounting the various bizarre occurrences that happened at Seacrist Elementary School.

I've never seen anything quite like it (and I've seen a LOT of horror movies) and I still find the video downright haunting. After a little Googling I was able to determine that the video was the work of an author who goes by the name of Soren Narnia. You can check out his website right here, and he's self-published several collections of his short stories that you can find on Amazon and other online retailers. I contacted him awhile ago just to make sure I still had his blessings to distribute his video online and he was good enough to give the thumbs up.

I've broken the video into four parts for ease of uploading, and you can link to all four parts below. I figure if I'm so fond of this video there's got to be someone else who will find it interesting. Please feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section below.

You're Scaring the Children, Part 1


You're Scaring the Children, Part 2


You're Scaring the Children, Part 3


You're Scaring the Children, Part 4

Buffer the Vampire Slayer

Kegger on Kong Island

Bava Book Almost Here

Tim and Donna Lucas of Video Watchdog magazine announced last Friday that they are at long last in possession of two advance copies of their book Mario Bava: All The Colors of the Dark. The book has been several years in the making, and about three years ago I had the pleasure of assisting with the digital restoration of some of the many images in the book. The book will, no doubt, become the last word on Italian film maestro Mario Bava. Tim and Donna have posted a video here of the two of them viewing the advance copies for the very first time, and they definitely have the air of proud parents about them. I can't wait to see the book myself.