Alley Oates is a well-respected psychic who’s received several prizes for helping the police solve crime mysteries over the years. Most of her job was to solve brutal crimes which involved children, which seems to have taken a toll on her mental health. Now she’s a deeply depressed, overweight (if she wasn’t already) middle-aged woman who spends her time burying herself in her bed under a mountain of blankets.
For some strange, bizarre reasons, this lady made me think of the nanny from Duckula. She’s got hands that could break coconuts, and I bet that her big, solid solid figure could easily crash through walls. Wouldn’t mess with her.
Anyways – life goes on as children are still missing and the local police need her help. A police man manages to drag her out of her hibernation cave to the the local basement morgue to unravel some dark mystery about three ghoulish corpse children. We learn that the bodies of the kids are possessed by some Asian demons called Kyoshi, and as they’re getting trapped in the basement, the ghoul juniors are about to wake up at any moment to get the schlock party started.
The Boneyard starts off with a dry and serious tone, more than it should, with static and boring dialogue scenes that didn’t leave the best first impression. But that starts to shift slightly when we enter the morgue and get introduced to the wacky receptionist, Miss Poopinplatz (lol) and her cute little poodle named Floofsoms. From here on, the film starts to loosen up and get more drunk as the silly, B-movie fun starts to set in.
Return of The Living Dead meets a very low-budget version of George Romero’s Day of the Dead is maybe the best way to describe this odd little film. The gore is very minimal here though, yet The Boneyard has several moments of solid fun value and special effects. The little kids who run around in their ghoulish rubber costumes add to the goofy charm. And then we have one of the characters who turns into an animatronic monster straight from Beetlejuice. The film rounds off with a crazy climax which could as well have been a deleted scene from Peter Jackson’s Braindead. Some name-dropping here, I know, but you get the point. Overall, it’s nothing spectacular but has its unique scenes and moments that make it an entertaining midnight watch. Ruff, ruff.
The Boneyard is on Blu-ray from 88 Films.
Writer and director: James Cummins Country & year: US, 1991 Actors: Ed Nelson, Deborah Rose, Norman Fell, James Eustermann, Denise Young, Willie Stratford, Phyllis Diller, Robert Yun Ju Ahn, Richard F. Brophy, Sallie Middleton Kaltreider, Janice Dever, Cindy Dollar-Smith IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt0101497/
Night of the Demon Bigfoot is an amateur monster schlock from 1980, which starts off with a wounded dude, Bill Nugent, lying in a hospital bed surrounded by doctors and a police inspector. He’s an anthropology professor, you see, and here’s his fascinating story you wouldn’t believe, which is about his adventure with a group of his students to track down Bigfoot in the woods of Northern California. And he has to convince the doctors that he’s not insane and that he was the only one who survived Bigfoot after the monster killed all of the students.
And good-fucking luck with that, my dude. Mr. Kallen from Slapped Ham would have loved to have you on his first podcast.
Bill starts with the first story, the first series of flashback scenes where we see Bigfoot killing random people. The first victim is some guy in the forest who’s getting ready to fish by a river. In order to have some suspense here, the monster is shown through POV and off-screen and, just like in the great classic Blackenstein, we have a moment where we see the monster rip his arm off with zero force in silhouette. Someone has clearly taken notes from the very best. While he bleeds to death with the use of the thinnest cranberry juice streaming from his ripped arm, the blood streams down to fill one of Bigfoot’s footprints, following the opening credits.
As Bill and his group of students head into the forest to find our mythic creature, they hear about this lady Wanda. She’s a mysterious outcast who lives as a hermit in a cabin deep in the woods, and the legend says that she knows where Bigfoot is. Okay, then. In the meanwhile, as they’re heading for Wanda’s cabin, we get some more flashback scenes told by Bill as they sit around the campfire to remind us how dangerous this Bigfoot is. All these campfire scenes were shot and added during the post production because the producer wanted to amp up the gore. We see Bigfoot killing people in different ways, but don’t get too excited. In one scene, he even uses an axe and the effect is the cheapest-looking rubber wound sticker they could afford.
The most memorable scene is the biker dude who gets his dick ripped off when he’s about to take a piss. Because this is no laughing matter. This is serious. Dead serious. Just look at the deadpan seriousness on Bill’s face when he tells the story. Don’t you dare to even chuckle or roll your eyes in disbelief. Show some respect for the poor guy.
We also have a campfire story about this random couple who’s about to have sex in a van. This is also the only body count flashback scene (as far as I remember) that was not shot in broad daylight. This is one of the more what-the-fuck-moments where the guy gets dragged by Bigfoot up to the top of the car while the lady can’t decide how to react as she makes orgasms sounds and looks confused rather than terrified. It’s noteworthy to mention that director James C. Wasson mainly produced porn films, so maybe there are some connections there.
Then there’s the star of the film, the man, myth and the legend himself: Bigfoot… and I have to be honest and say that the face-makeup is not the worst I’ve seen. Some effort went in here for sure, and I would assume the make-up artists took some inspiration from the creation of Michael Myer’s mask in Halloween, only here based on the face of Mick Jagger. And I don’t think anything can really top that.
Night of the Demon is available on DVD and Blu-ray from Severin Films, restored and uncut. A fun time for all lovers of schlock and funny-bad movies.
Director: James C. Wasson Writers: Mike Williams, Jim L. Ball Country & year: US, 1980 Actors: Michael Cutt, Joy Allen, Bob Collins, Jody Lazarus, Rick Fields, Michael Lang, Melanie Graham, Shannon Cooper, Paul Kelleher, Ray Jarris IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt0081229/
It is the end of October in 1987, and it’s Halloween time! For some teenage girls in the small town of Vernon, things have gotten way too scary, however…Tiffany Clark, Marisa Song and Heather Hernandez are all killed by someone going by the nickname Sweet 16 Killer, each having been stabbed 16 times on the night of their 16th birthday. And they all had their birthdays in the days close to Halloween, of course: on October 27, 29 and 31. Many years later, to present day, the murders are still unsolved as the killer was never caught. Jamie Hughes is the daughter of a woman named Pam, who used to be friends with the three victims of the Sweet 16 Killer. Naturally, Pam is having a rather strained relationship to Halloween, and feels anxious when Jamie goes to a concert with her friend on Halloween night. While being at home giving out candy to the trick or treaters, Pam is suddenly attacked by the killer who seems to have come back for her all these years later, and she’s stabbed to death. While Jamie grieves over her mother’s death, she also helps her friend Amelia finish the final parts of her time machine (yes, an actual time machine), which Jamie later activates and is sent back to 1987. Realizing that she can now stop the Sweet 16 Killer from actually going on the killing spree, she tries to warn people (which goes as well as one might expect) and befriend her mother and her group of friends, hoping to stop the killer and save her mother from dying in the future. But she’s got to hurry – or else she will be trapped in 1987…
Totally Killer is a comedy slasher film from 2023, directed by Nahnatchka Khan. It premiered at Fantastic Fest on September 28, 2023, and was later released on Amazon Prime on October 6, 2023. I guess the best way to describe it is a movie where Scream meets Back to the Future. In the leading role we have Kiernan Shipka as Jamie(who also played Sabrina in the Netflix series Chilling Adventures of Sabrina), who plays a typical modern teenage girl. This is something that the movie makes sure to exploit when she gets sent back to 1987, where things are considerably less “politically correct” and Jamie often finds herself baffled by what was apparently deemed okay in the past. While this does sometimes come off as a bit overkill, I can’t help but feeling that this is probably exactly how a teenager of today would have experienced a trip to the latter part of the 80’s: constantly on edge by all the stuff that could potentially be offensive by someone or something. Whew.
Totally Killer is fast paced, generally fun and very much your typical teenage slasher flick. Already from the start it’s very upfront about what it is: a movie that’s supposed to be uncomplicated fun mainly aimed at teens. There is no excessive gore to be witnessed, but the violence is moderate and offers some bloody kills here and there. The killer is walking around wearing a Max Headroom-esque mask, which was made by makeup artist Tony Gardner.
Overall, Totally Killer is an entertaining horror comedy in the same vein as Happy Death Day: it’s nothing spectacular, but offers just the right amount of amusement which will make it a fun experience. There are some obvious plot holes, especially for those who might like to nitpick on things, but they don’t really overshadow the movie as a whole. Just bring forth your Halloween treats and some popcorn, and have fun!
Director: Nahnatchka Khan Writers: David Matalon, Sasha Perl-Raver, Jen D’Angelo Country & year: US, 2023 Actors: Kiernan Shipka, Olivia Holt, Charlie Gillespie, Lochlyn Munro, Troy Leigh-Anne Johnson, Liana Liberato, Kelcey Mawema, Stephi Chin-Salvo, Anna Diaz, Ella Choi, Jeremy Paul IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt11426232/
It’s a cold winter in the small New England town of Milburn. The year is 1979, and four elderly friends who have formed a men’s club which they call the Chowder Society, get together to tell each other ghost stories. These men are the businessman Ricky Hawthrone (Fred Astaire), the lawyer Sears James (John Houseman), the physician John Jaffrey (Melvyn Douglas) and Mayor Edward Charles Wanderley (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.). Meanwhile, in New York City, Edward’s son David dies after falling from his apartment window in a high rise building, something we witness was caused by him stumbling backwards in shock as his girlfriend suddenly turned into a living corpse right before his eyes. Edward’s other son, Don, then comes home to see his father, who soon after also dies in a snowstorm when falling off a bridge. Don doesn’t believe for a second that his father committed suicide, and approaches his father’s friends of the Chowder Society and wants to gain membership there by offering a ghost story of this own. And his tale soon reveals something about a mysterious woman named Eva Galli, who is apparently the source of everything that is happening to them…
Ghost Story is a supernatural horror film from 1981, directed by John Irvin and based on the novel by the same name written by Peter Straub. It stars Fred Astaire (this was his last film), Melvyn Douglas (also his last film, and he previosuly had a role in the excellent ghost horror film The Changeling from 1980), Douglas Fairbanks Jr., John Houseman, Craig Wasson (who played a role in A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors) and Alice Krige (who played the evil witch in Gretel & Hansel from 2020, and also had roles in Silent Hill from 2006 and Sleepwalkers from 1992). Thus, there’s a handful of recognizable faces for horror fans here.
Aside from a strong cast, there’s definitely a good amount of atmosphere as we watch the elderly gentlemen either sit by the fire telling their stories, or in some kind of supernatural misfortune. It’s almost like you can smell the mix of cigars and Old Spice through the screen. The movie itself moves along at a leisurely pace, offering scares on a very limited scale but instead focusing on upping the underlying apprehension for what is to come. The apparition and ghost effects are quite decent, however sparsely they’re actually used. Spooky scenes of an old dilapidated house, flashback scenes and some shots of a delightful wintery landspace makes the film pretty nice visually, although any major scares are sorely lacking.
Now, for those who have read the book, you’ll notice that the movie is very different in so many ways. Normally, a movie adaptation usually has more than a few changes, but there are those that have changed a few things here and there and then there are those that have changed so much that it’s barely even the same story anymore. The movie adaptation of Ghost Story belongs to the latter category. I won’t spoil too much, but the original story is so much more than just a ghost story, and the drastic change in the movie version also caused several key elements to be removed entirely. Some characters, like Gregory Bate and his little brother Fenton, feels like they were shoehorned in just to have them there, because the lack of their eerie backstory pretty much removes their purpose completely. Originally, Peter Straub was unhappy with the final result due to the removal of elements and complete change of his story, and as a result he would not allow any further adaptions of his books. Over the years, though, he did apparently soften up on it and have praised the actors, music and atmosphere in the film despite being disappointed with the movie overall. He was grateful that it actually caused people to seek out the book, as the movie did have quite the success with a total of $23,371,905 at the United States box office, which made it the third-highest grossing horror film in 1981 and the 34th highest grossing film of the year.
Personally, I would recommend the book as a much more complex, intriguing and immensely layered supernatural story, and I could easily see how the book could have made for a pretty good miniseries or even TV series, if made by the right people. But regarding this movie, then overall I’d say it works well as an average, old-fashioned atmospheric Ghost Story.
Director: John Irvin Writers: Peter Straub, Lawrence D. Cohen Country & year: US, 1981 Actors: Fred Astaire, Melvyn Douglas, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., John Houseman, Craig Wasson, Patricia Neal, Alice Krige, Alice Krige, Jacqueline Brookes, Miguel Fernandes, Lance Holcomb IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt0082449/
The year is 1982, and a man called Nix has gathered his cult members in an old house in the Mojave Desert. His disciples refer to him as “The Puritan”, and he’s got real magic powers. He plans to sacrifice a young girl, and convinces his followers that this will save the world and grant them wisdom. At the same time, a group of former cult members are driving through the desert in order to stop him. Among them is Philip Swann, who ends up being attacked by Nix’s magic but is then saved by the young girl who manages to shoot Nix through the heart with Swann’s gun. Of course, this isn’t enough to kill the guy, so Swann takes a hellish-looking iron mask and fastens it on Nix’s head in order to “bind” him and his powers. Apparently, he then dies, and his body is buried in the desert. Fast forward to present day, which is thirteen years later, we’re in New York City where a private detective named Harry D’Amour is investigating occult cases, including an exorcism case which shakes him badly. During a new investigation which is supposed to not have any occult-related cases, he still ends up in a messy attack on a fortune teller which warns him that “the Puritan is coming”, hinting that Nix may return from the dead. The fortune teller dies before he can reveal anything more. Then, he gets hired by a woman named Dorothea, who is Philip Swann’s wife. Swann now works as a famous stage illusionist, and she fears for her husband and wants D’Amour to investigate if he’s being targeted. He’s invited to Swann’s next magic show, which then goes terribly wrong…and that’s just the start of D’Amour’s descent into a world of magic and madness.
Lord of Illusions is a neo-noir supernatural horror film from 1995, written and directed by Clive Barker. It is based on one of his own short stories, named The Last Illusion, which was published in 1985 in Volume 6 of the anthology Books of Blood. The movie stars Scott Bakula as the private detective D’Amour, and Kevin J. O’Connor (Swann) and Famke Janssen (Dorothea), the latter two both starring in Deep Rising from 1998. While Clive Barker kept many of the elements from the short story, he made enough changes so it’s practically a new story, which was apparently met with mixed opinions from the readers of his original work.
Those familiar with Clive Barker’s work knows that he’s most known for Hellraiser, and that his stories often range from traditional horror to dark fantasy and sometimes even comedy. A recurrent theme is how seemingly ordinary people end up in situations that are either supernatural or violent/mysterious in some kind of way. The stories can often be morbid and disturbing, and while some of them are more fun than unsettling, there is one story of his that really stuck with me, and that’s In the Hills, the Cities which was published in the first Books of Blood volumes. It was also published in the comic anthology Tapping the Vein with haunting visuals by John Bolton. His most famous work to this day is still Hellraiser, which was based on his short story The Hellbound Heart. A remake was also made in 2022, directed by David Bruckner.
Lord of Illusions is a movie that is nowhere close as renowned as Hellraiser, however. And it’s definitely more of an odd film, and thus destined to bounce off the radar for a lot of people. It’s a shame, though, as it really offers a nice blend of neo-noir with cosmic horror. A masterpiece it ain’t, but it’s still damn entertaining. The movie starts off with a bang, giving us a glimpse into a crazy cult leader’s world and his brainwashed followers, and a fight which ends in a brutal scene. While there are some parts in the film that move along a little slowly, it doesn’t really let up from there as we’re being presented with a steady delivery of action, murders, magic and insanity. There’s a few twists and turns underway as well, and some decent gore. Most specifically it’s got style; it’s pleasant to watch with a lot of intriguing scenes and settings like the creepy decrepit house in the desert and the magician’s victorian mansion for example. As for the movie’s special effects, there’s a range of the good to the pretty outdated. Some of the death and gore scenes are fairly well executed with believable effects, while some of the otherworldly elements looks like something from a Nintendo 64 game…but honestly, that’s part of the fun, and adds to the overall peculiar atmosphere of the movie.
So all in all I think that Lord of Illusions is a fun spooky ride, providing a bit of mystery and a lot of dark magic. It was the last film Clive Barker directed, and it may not be Clive Barker at his best, but it is definitely enjoyable.
Writer and director: Clive Barker Country & year: US, UK, 1995 Actors: Scott Bakula, Kevin J. O’Connor, Famke Janssen, J. Trevor Edmond, Daniel von Bargen, Joseph Latimore, Sheila Tousey, Susan Traylor, Ashley Tesoro, Michael Angelo Stuno, Keith Brunsmann IMDb:www.imdb.com/title/tt0113690/
Ben Rolf and his wife Marian and their 12 year old son Davey travels to a remote mansion because they’d like to rent it for the summer. Greeted by the home’s owners, the elderly siblings Arnold and Rosalyn Allardyce, they quickly realize that these old geezers are more than just a little eccentric, bordering on being outright cuckoo with a weirdly strong attachment to their home. Which makes it kind of strange that they’d like to rent it out in the first place. And the price is quite the bargain too: $900 for the entire summer. It comes with one odd requirement though: there’s an old lady in the upstairs room, which the family must promise to deliver meals to during their stay for the summer. They’re told that this old lady wants privacy and most likely won’t be seen, and that they should just leave the meals outside her locked bedroom. Nothing fishy about that, right? While having a few second thoughts, the family still decides to rent the wonderful house, and along with them they bring Ben’s elderly aunt Elizabeth. When they arrive back at the house, the siblings have already left the place, having left a note at the door. And while all seems like the setup for a wonderful time, the house appears to make some of them behave rather oddly. Marian becomes obsessed with cleaning and caring for the house, and making sure that the elderly woman upstairs is being fed. Despite never actually seeing her, or even hearing a word from her. She distances herself more and more from the family, while Ben starts being haunted by the visions of the creepy hearse driver he once saw at his mother’s funeral when he was a child. And he starts behaving aggressive, especially towards his own son. What was first thought to be a wonderful summer holiday at a beautiful house, soon turns out to be a nightmare…
Burnt Offerings is a horror film from 1976, directed by Dan Curtis and based on the book by the same name which was written by Robert Marasco. The filming took place in 1975, in the historic Dunsmuir House in Oakland, California. This film was the first to be shot at this location, and many horror fans will probably recognize the house as it was used in the horror film Phantasm some years later. Several movies have been filmed there, and the latest being Delirium from 2018. Dan Curtis mentioned that there were no sets built for this film, and everything was filmed entirely on location. Something that feels oddly refreshing to watch these days…
The film is a typical old-fashioned haunted house movie, with a very slow build-up and devoid of jumpscares. You feel something is off from the very start without having anything specific to pin it on, there are no obvious ghosts or ghoulies which terrorize the family, so you’re not really sure what is happening to them. The film is very much about mood and atmosphere, with a beautiful old-fashioned home providing the perfect environment for such a setting. Despite being your typical slowburner, it constantly throws things at you which keeps you constantly on edge and wondering what’s going to happen next. Especially unsettling is watching how Marian keeps distancing herself entirely from her own family, only caring for the house and becomes obsessed with keeping it clean and in order, and staying outside the old lady’s room upstairs while watching an array of old photographs and playing the melancholic tune of the music box on the table there.
The family characters, although somewhat generic, fits their role pretty well as the ordinary middle-class family, and the siblings we meet at the start of the movie (played by Burgess Meredith and Eileen Heckart) were perfectly eerie-kooky. While the film portrays a somewhat strained relationship between the wife Marian (Karen Black) and the elderly aunt Elizabeth (Bette Davis), it’s worth noting that there may have been more than just acting between those two. According to Bette Davis, these two had conflicts during the shoot and she thought Karen’s behaviour was disrespectful and unprofessional. However, Bette also expressed a disdain for Oliver Reed (who played Ben), and referred to him as “possibly one of the most loathesome human beings I have ever had the misfortune of meeting”. I’m going to suppose the atmosphere in that house wasn’t all chipper in real life either…
This movie isn’t particularly well known, despite horror authors Stephen King and Bentley Little having both acknowledged that it influenced their writing, and Stephen King was apparently inspired by both the book and the movie when writing The Shining. I’m also thinking that he probably let his son Joe Hill (Joseph Hillstrom King) watch the movie as well, considering how the creepy hearse driver in the movie gives off real Charles Manx-vibes (NOS4A2). This character was not included in the original novel, actually, but was based on an actual childhood experience of Dan Curtis, where he recalled as a young child being at his mother’s funeral and seeing a chauffeur laughing outside of the funeral parlor, something he found disturbing and which then stuck with him ever since. There are some other scenes in this movie as well which makes me wonder if several other horror films have taken inspiration from it, including a certain scene which will ring a bell or two for those who have seen Evil Dead.
Overall, Burnt Offerings is an interesting addition to the haunted house genre, and derives a bit from the ordinary spookhouse story. Some may find the ending a little cheesy, but it’s kind of what makes it a bit exceptional and also make the title fit very well with what’s actually going on.
Director: Dan Curtis Writers: William F. Nolan, Dan Curtis Country & year: US, 1976 Actors: Karen Black, Oliver Reed, Bette Davis, Eileen Heckart, Lee Montgomery, Dub Taylor, Joseph Riley, Todd Turquand, Orin Cannon, Jim Myers, Anthony James IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt0074258/
Lord Emerson Blackwood is a renowned 19th century wildlife painter, who lives in a huge manor called Blackwood Manor. One day, he bludgeons his housekeeper to death in the basement, and afterwards he removes her teeth. Not only that, he also removes his own teeth…and offers them as some kind of sacrifice to a bunch of mysterious creatures living inside the old fireplace, who has kidnapped his son. The creatures reject his offer, and tell him that they only want the teeth of children. And then, just like his son, he also gets dragged in by the creatures. Fast forward to present day, we meet 8-year old Sally who moves into Blackwood Manor with her father Alex and his girlfriend Kim. They want to restore the old manor for a client, to have it put on the market for sale. Very soon Sally gets to hear and see glimpses of the teeth-craving creatures, who are eager to finally get some of those children’s teeth they want…
Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark is a supernatural horror film from 2010, directed by Troy Nixey as his feature directorial debut, and written by Guillermo del Toro and Matthew Robbins. It is a remake of the 1973 ABC made-for-TV film of the same name. In the original Sally was the wife of Alex, not his daughter, but this change kind of fits well for the more apparent fantasy-theme this remake has been given. And yes: obviously, it has Guillermo del Toro’s fingerprints all over it.
With the movie’s opening there isn’t much of a mystery plot going on, as we already know that there are some creatures living in the house which craves for human teeth, or specifically those from children. Thus, we already know the mansion is infested with ghoulish tooth fairies. We do find out a little bit more about them as the mansion reveals some of Lord Emerson’s secrets, which includes some of this paintings. Despite a lack of actual mystery, the atmosphere is one of the focal points in the film, blending the gothic mansion interior and exterior with the fantasy aspects and making it spookily fun. As for the monsters themselves, they’re…well, not exactly very impressive. They’re the standard CGI fantasy creature, fitting in a fantasy plot more than a horror one I guess.
Now, the original from 1973 is by many deemed a classic, and it appears to have given lots of kids the willies when they saw the movie sometime in the 70’s, and according to del Toro it also gave him quite a fright when he watched it as a child. A remake is bound to not have the same effect, especially when also changing the perspective from a grown woman to that of a child. It works pretty well, but it does of course change the tone of the story quite much. And since Guillermo del Toro was involved in this, I guess that there were also some people expecting a new Pan’s Labyrinth or something, which it is definitely not. It’s a typical movie that plays primarily on childhood fears, mixing in some bits from the world of mythology and turns it into something sinister, but not as dark as what can be seen in the aforementioned film. Overall, I still think it’s a well made gothic fantasy-horror movie, with enough spooky atmosphere to be enjoyable.
Director: Troy Nixey Writers: Guillermo del Toro, Matthew Robbins Country & year: US, 2010 Actors: Katie Holmes, Guy Pearce, Bailee Madison, Bruce Gleeson, Eddie Ritchard, Garry McDonald, Carolyn Shakespeare-Allen, Jack Thompson, Julia Blake, David Tocci, Lance Drisdale IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt1270761/
Miriam is the only survivor of a twisted game her own father set in motion, which left her siblings killed in horrible ways. She is brought to the hospital, where a supernatural entity, the “Gamemaster”, offers her the opportunity to re-live that event from the beginning, and maybe change the outcome since she would then be armed with the knowledge of what is about to happen. She decides to do so, hoping to save her siblings from their own father’s cruel and twisted plans. And so, once again she’s together with them in their father’s high rise building because he asked them all to come. And he once again reveals that he’s got a brain tumor that is inoperable, and that he’s going to die soon…and then continues to tell them how awful disappointments they all are. Will Miriam be able to stop the murders from happening all over again, or will it be just as bloody as the first time?
To Your Last Death is an animated action horror film from 2019, directed by Jason Axinn and written by Jim Cirile and Tanya C. Klein. It was 114% funded on Indiegogo in 2016, with a total of $52.713 raised before the film went into production. At first, this movie felt a bit strange to watch with the pretty stiff puppet animation together with the realistic cartoon style, somewhat reminiscent to the show Archer, just a bit less polished. But I got pretty quickly used to it. It gives off a comic-book art style, and there’s even some scenes where there are comic book panels, so it was obviously made in order to replicate the graphic novel style. I also liked how they used Ray Wise’s character (the father Cyrus DeKalb) to look exactly like him. The voice casting is also excellent, with several well-known names such as Morena Baccarin and William Shatner. Bill Moseley (who plays Otis in the Rob Zombie movies House of 1000 corpses and The Devil’s Rejects) also has a voice acting role here, and he’s got the voice of one of the villains (no surprise there).
The story is a little bit like Groundhog Day meets Saw, and does it indeed get bloody and vicious at times! The evil businessman’s contraptions to have his own offspring killed is pure Jigsaw-esque in style and depravity, like how one of them needs to fill a bucked of blood by cutting themselves over and over again, or else they will get decapitated. Ooooh, messy! Aside from delivering on some very graphic kill scenes, it also offers enough tension to keep you invested throughout the movie.
To Your Last Death will definitely not be everyone’s cup of tea, and even though I liked the animation style I can understand that some people might be put off by it, at least for the 1 and a half hour duration. Still, it’s a pretty fun watch and quite fast-paced. There’s a lot of violence and gore, so gorehounds should start wagging their tails to this one.
Director: Jason Axinn Writers: Jim Cirile, Tanya C. Klein Country & year: US, 2019 Voice actors: Morena Baccarin, William Shatner, Damien C. Haas, Bill Moseley, Ray Wise, Mark Whitten, Benjamin Siemon, Bill Millsap, Florence Hartigan, Dani Lennon, Tom Lommel IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt3748918/
Writer, producer, editor and director Rick Sloane is a true independent auteur, no one can at least take that away from him. He’s made 16 movies over the course of the decades since the early 80’s, and we all should know about his Vice Academy films, a spoof of Police Academy which spawned five whole sequels. Yet he’s known for one movie and one movie only: Hobgoblins – one of the most, if not the most, sour fart-smelling and cringe-inducing cheese fests from the 1980s that got its place on the Worst Films Ever Made list and became a cult-classic of so-bad-it’s-good-movies.
The film starts in some old movie studio where the young nightguard, Dennis, have been strictly told by his older co-worker McCreedy to stay far away from the vault. Of course he won’t. And when he enters it, he’s suddenly on a stage in his own fantasy land where he’s a rock star. Shortly after he grabs the mike and does some silly movements, and ends up getting killed, off screen. A new young guy gets hired with the same warnings to stay away from the vault. Pffft, yeah right. One night when he opens it, a group of fluffy Mogwai/Critter hybrid creatures escape from the vault and drive away in a golf cart.
To quote the back of the Blu-ray; as bodycounts starts to rise, Kevin, with help of his friends, decide to track down the deadly creatures before they wreak havok on the city.
There’s only one (yes 1) bodycount in the entire film though, and that’s the guy we saw in the beginning, and the film is as tame as a newborn kitten. We learn that the creatures came from space in the 1950s in a small shuttle that crashlanded near the movie studio where McCreedy was a nightguard. He has since then kept them trapped in the vault, since anyone who encounters them will have their fantasy wishes come true, only until they get killed by the creatures. And guess what: they also get attracted to very bright lights. Rick Sloane claims that he wrote the script for Hobgoblins several years before Gremlins, by the way, so don’t you even dare to think otherwise.
There’s no more plot to break down from here ’cause there isn’t any. We have a string of nonsensical scenes where our group of protagonists keeps bullshitting around Kevin’s house. We have some rivalry between Mike and some Rambo wannabe who fights with rakes, because…just because. Later that night, they have a party where the creatures finally stop by to get the plot going forward. We eventually end up in some sleazy nightclub where it just gets more crazy and weird.
Hobgoblins is a real stink bomb in every aspect with the production value of an episode of ALF. The direction, the acting, the story (if there is any), the characters, the pacing, the effects, everything falls completely on its face. The attempt to be a comedy is like … I can’t even put a word on it. It’s something else. Holy moly macaroni. Even though the actors are a group of young and fresh graduates from the prestigious Troll 2 School of Acting, Troll 2 is Citizen Kane compared to this one, and you have to lower your bar to the lowest to sit through Hobgoblins.
There are no effects here. No blood, nothing. The only kill we get happens offscreen because its budget of $15,000 obviously couldn’t afford a single effect artist. What we have left is actors who do an impossible job to make us believe they are in danger while they wiggle around with lifeless puppets in the purest Ed Wood style. Picture Bela Lugosi with the octopus and there you have it. When we see the puppets moving around, they’re being operated by a woman who has just been released from a mental hospital. No shame in that. Sometimes crazy people need a job too.
The film is also sprinkled with goofs, but the one who caught my eye was the sequence with the car during where a hand visibly rocks the stationary car, and you can see it as clear as day. Then we have the grenades of the Rambo-wannabe-dude which he throws around the nightclub that does zero damage. A grenade gets thrown in one direction but explodes in a completely different direction. Like Ed Wood famously said: Filmmaking is not about the tiny details. It’s about the big picture.
Some trivia: The film was shot without permits and in a single week. The film studio was in a parking lot that was deserted at night, next to a crackhouse. McCreedy’s gun was actually a cap pistol, purchased from a toy store for five dollars. Only the eyes for the hobgoblins were going to be seen in an earlier draft of the script. A pit bull’s growl was used for the voice of the hobgoblins. Rick Sloane initially planned on making a sequel in 1990 and had even written a screenplay for it, but it wasn’t made until 2009 as Hobgoblins 2.
Hobgoblins was also mocked by Mystery Science Theater 3000, an episode which Rick Sloane got shocked by when he himself was mercilessly mocked over the film’s end credits. In an interview with Dead Central in 2009, he was asked about the movie’s position on the IMDb Bottom 100. He said he was “surprised it slipped down to #25 as it at sometime was the 2nd spot, right behind Gigli. As for now, it’s on #35. It’s also on a Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack from Vinegar Syndrome.
Writer and director: Rick Sloane Country & year: US, 1988 Actors: Tom Bartlett, Paige Sullivan, Steven Boggs, Kelley Palmer, Billy Frank, Tamara Clatterbuck, Duane Whitaker, James R. Sweeney, Kevin Kildow, Daran Norris, James Mayberry IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt0089280/
It was a boring summer in 2015 with nothing to do, and one day the underground filmmaker Phil Stephens grabbed his 50mm camera, started taking some random photos around his house in Philadelphia and headed out to the local woods to film more random stuff. After hours and hours of footage, he handed the raw material to his friend and editor Ronnie Sortor, who did his very best to stitch it all together to resemble a feature film. Both films, Lung and Lung II, have the same runtime of 1 hour and 14 min.
Lung (also called Lung one) is in all black and white and starts off with a nameless young man with long hair, beard and glasses (played by the director himself) who dismembers body parts with a cleaver. After this warm and welcoming opening, we’re out in the woods where we follow the same person (I assume), credited as Unknown, as he wanders aimlessly through the woods. We can already guess he’s an escaped mental patient judging by his clothes and the ID wristband.
Mr. Unknown sees a baby carriage on a small bridge which holds a baby skeleton. Of course. He then sees some obscure person wearing a gas-mask. Okay. And he continues to stumble upon more corpses, skeletons and, if not dream logic, absurdities the further he goes from the next area to absorption. He walks through some hoods in the Philadelphia area where he enters his house, where he goes more insane and has a mental breakdown in the bathtub. He sees a collection of flyers and photos from Flowers (Stephen’s previous film) everywhere, which seems to trigger him. Not much hope for better days is to be seen on the horizon.
According to Phil Stevens, Lung was originally meant to be an autobio of the director who went insane after the traumatic experience of shooting his second film, Flowers.
Lung II is more or less the first film all over again just with the concept of an escaped killer on the loose. Much of the same footage from the first film is used while some new scenes are added. Some unused footage from Flowers is also stitched in. And if you don’t know beforehand that this is some sort of a prequel to Flowers, you’ll sit there with a big question mark while you’re scratching your balls. Lung II screws more with your head than the first one as it’s filled with more cryptic weirdness, more slimy skeletal corpses, the sweet smell of decay everywhere and all in a universe not too far from David Lynch’s Eraserhead. There’s also a gooey piece of flesh in Mr. Unknown’s fridge with a vagina and an erected penis, just so you know in case you’re hungry.
And if you haven’t already guessed it, we are talking about two very experimental arthouse films, the one more confusing than the other. So don’t expect any conventional story-telling here. I could tell just from looking at the DVD cover that it was far away from the ordinary, and that’s what I got. The mood and state of mindset is everything, of course. What Lung(s) provide really well are the visuals and atmosphere by Phil Stevens, who has a sharp eye for black and white photography. He filmed both films by himself, with handheld and static from different angles, and managed to create the sense of a bleak, nightmarish, dystopian world which we all are welcome to get lost in. Just remember to put your shoes on.
Writer and director: Phil Stevens Country & year: US, 2016 Actors: Phil Stevens, David Chopping, Bryant W. Lohr Sr., Samantha Coppola, Angela Jane, Colette Kenny Mckenna, Michael Kennedy a a lot of corpses IMDb:www.imdb.com/title/tt23396630/ & www.imdb.com/title/tt5073690/
Alley Oates is a well-respected psychic who’s received several prizes for helping the police solve crime mysteries over the years. Most of her job was to solve brutal crimes which involved children, which seems to have taken a toll on her mental health. Now she’s a deeply depressed, overweight (if she wasn’t already) middle-aged woman who spends her time burying herself in her bed under a mountain of blankets.
