horror movie review – Page 24

Malignant (2021)

Posted on September 11, 2021July 17, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

After going through a traumatizing event, Madison starts having visions of grisly murders which are carried out by her childhood imaginary friend, Gabriel. Having believed that Gabriel was just a figment of her own imagination, she must try to figure out who he really is and why he has come back to torment her and those around her.

James Wan, after an absence from the horror genre since Conjuring 2 (as a director, at least) he is now finally back with a brand new movie: Malignant. And while most people connect James Wan with haunted houses, ghosts and demons (because of the Conjuring and Insidious movies), he stated early on that Malignant would be something completely different. And that, indeed, it is.

At the movie’s opening, we go back to 1993 and witness a large, gothic building which is some kind of medical research facility, where the researchers are struggling with a patient called Gabriel, who kills and maims the nurses. We get a slight glimpse of this “Gabriel” fellow, and then we fast forward to present day and meet Madison, who lives in a beautiful victorian house with just the right exterior and interior for a proper creepy atmosphere. And of course, we step right into James Wan-ish territory with creepy hallways and things moving in the dark. While building up at first to be somewhat Conjuring-esque, it shifts and mixes in what is an obvious homage to giallo films (for those who don’t know, “Giallo” is a term for murder mystery thrillers with lots of blood and gruesome murders, mixed with detective/suspense elements).

While it definitely felt good to be able to see another horror movie directed by James Wan, I can easily see how people might be a bit divided regarding their experience with this movie. Those who expect James Wan to have done another movie in the same vein as his haunted house flicks, might be put off due to this being something completely different. In fact, while we were watching it at the big screen, there were some people who left the theater when the first bloody murder scene was shown. Clearly, some people didn’t expect the movie to take that route, despite it having been given a strict R rating…but perhaps they thought that this rating was given because of titty scenes or something (which there are none by the way). Who the fuck knows.

James Wan did indeed do something very different with Malignant, and to be honest it was quite a pleasant surprise. Therefore, my advice would be to see this movie and not expect some kind of “Conjuring 4” or whatever. This isn’t a new haunted house flick, it ain’t another jump-scare carousel. It’s a throwback to the late 80’s/90’s slasher/thriller/giallo films, and if you’re familiar with these kinds of movies you’re most likely going to take a lot of the references (like the color usage, the killer wearing black gloves, etc.). Malignant is a decent slasher with atmosphere and creepy scenes, and a good amount of effective blood ‘n gore.

Director: James Wan
Country & year: USA, 2021
Actors: Annabelle Wallis, Maddie Hasson, George Young, Michole Briana White, Jean Louisa Kelly, Susanna Thompson, Jake Abel, Jacqueline McKenzie, Christian Clemenson, Amir AboulEla, Mercedes Colon, Ingrid Bisu, Ruben Pla, Jon Lee Brody, Ray Chase, Mckenna Grace
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt3811906/

Cat Sick Blues (2015)

Posted on September 3, 2021July 17, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

It’s a quiet evening and two young ladies are chilling, smoking bong and watching cat videos on YouTube, like most of us do. Then they hear some noises on the roof that sounds like their cat. When one of them goes up to check, she gets surprised by a tall, skinny person wearing a cat mask. She’s too high to get scared, of course, and laughs it off as if it was a prank. He chops her head of with a shovel and throws it down the stairs, and strangles the other one.

We then learn that the person behind the mask is a young man named Ted, who’s turned into a homicidal maniac after losing his beloved cat. When he’s not out killing, he spends his nights jacking off to a cam girl, who’s dressed as a cat. Of course. And he really worships his cat more than anything and wants it back. And to do so, he got the genius idea to kill nine people, collect their blood, to resurrect his cat. He later extends his cat persona by adding a big strap-on dick with spikes (supposed to be penile spines, I guess) because … well, why not.

We then get introduced to Claire, who owns one of the many viral cats on YouTube. She gets an unexpected visit from an obsessed “fan” that you wouldn’t want to get near to. Stupidly enough she invites him in, and he (take a wild guess) rapes her, after he accidentally breaks her cat’s neck and tosses it out the window. She attends to a pet grieving group where she meets Ted. They start dating, fucking, and they have a chemistry like two lobotomized potatoes with a relationship that goes in a bizarre direction which you’ll never see coming. And when Ted is not dating Claire, he’s out body counting.

As a cat-person myself, I was hoping to get an antagonist to feel or at least root for. But no, Ted proves to be just a deranged and complete soulless, cold-blooded serial killer from the very start, who clearly enjoys raping and killing innocent young ladies for the hell of it while feeding his morbid, obsessive fetish fantasies. And when even fellow cat persons gets body counted by him, that’s a big no-no, from me at least. He also kills the cam cat lady we saw earlier for no reason. There’s a lot of sadistic cat killers out there, by the way. Why not hunt some of them, in Dexter-style, which no one would miss anyway? Before I take this shit too seriously I’ll just point out that the idea itself for Cat Sick Blues is pretty genius and unique, just too bad we don’t get any depth or backstory of the killer.

On the more positive note, the film is overall pretty entertaining for what it is, a pure demented serial killer slasher. If you’re in for the gore and kills, you will not be disappointed. As a low-budget film, and the debut feature of Dave Jackson who made it by crowdfunding from Kickstarter, it looks pretty impressive. While there’s some clearly experimental stuff going on with slow motion and scenes that slip into some out-of-place artsy moments, the killing scenes are straight to the point, with some nasty visuals that will probably get your dick as hard as Ted’s strap-on. Also a great use of practical effects with heads smashed to pieces, and chopped off, and of course some throat slashing with some sharp cat claw gloves. Even Selena Kyle would be intimidated by this maniac. And as little as there is to wrap one’s mind around Ted’s deranged head, I have to give actor Matthew C. Vaughan some credit for his acting-style and use of energetic cat body language while he goes hunting for victims.

Cat Sick Blues is available on DVD from Wild Eye Releasing.

Director: Dave Jackson
Country & year: Australia, 2015
Actors: Matthew C. Vaughan, Meg Spencer, Jeni Bezuidenhout, Danae Swinburne, Rob Alec, Mahalia Brown, Shian Denovan, Smokey, Rachel Rai, Noah Moon, Matthew Revert, Andrew Gallacher, James Arnold-Garvey
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt4185862/

Perfect Blue (1997)

Posted on August 21, 2021July 17, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

Mimarin Kirigoe is a J-Pop star who decides to leave her group (“Cham”) in order to pursue a life as an actress. But her life takes on a quick turn for the worse after this decision, and Mimarin starts losing her grip on reality. An online fansite of her appears, describing things from her life in such detail, and in such a personal way, that the only person who could know about these things is herself…and she is constantly confronted with sightings of her alter-ego: the Mimarin who wanted to remain a pop-star. While struggling with differentiating between fantasy and reality in her now paranoid existence, people around her gets murdered.

Perfect Blue is more or less what you would get if you decided to mix anime, David Lynch, Hitchcock, and a dose Dario Argento. The result is an animated psychological thriller that works incredibly well. You get your eyes as well as your brain cells stimulated, and you never know exactly which of Mimarin’s experiences are rooted in reality, and what happens only inside of her fragmented head.

Satoshi Kon (R.I.P.) knows how to build a story of this type, something he’s proven time and time again (like in Paprika, Paranoia Agent, Millennium Actress, etc.) Building a story where you’ll witness a character’s gradually broken psyche can easily be a difficult task, where you’re supposed to make it a bit confusing and mystical, while also making sure the viewer doesn’t get thrown off completely. The reason Satoshi Kon for the most part does this very well, is probably because he doesn’t seem to give a damn whether the viewer pays attention to everything or not. He’s got a story to tell, and he tells it the way he thinks best. If the viewer loses track, it’s due to not paying proper attention. When the director gives himself a free reign like that, he also avoids any tedious “spoon-feeding”. The result is a movie that is rare in many ways, and can be perceived as both exciting and surprising along the ride.

The violence is executed in a very effective way, and the animation (although it could be perceived by some as a little bit outdated today) is holding up to a good standard. Facial expressions, body language and movements look natural, and fits the situations the characters find themselves in. The music also fits very well, where you make transitions from the cheesy and lively J-Pop music from Cham, to the more action-filled and sometimes ominous music score in the other scenes. This makes the atmosphere successfully creepy.

When it comes to the movie’s conclusion, you may sit back with a feeling of thinking that this choice was a tad bit too easy. Not that the ending is predictable – far from it – but there’s something about the otherwise complexity of the rest of the movie that kind of warranted a bit more complex ending as well. Still, it’s at least good that the movie decided to let the viewer have a proper explanation without a lot of loose threads.

Simply put, Perfect Blue is a well done anime psycho-thriller that is likely to hold on to being a classic for a good time to come.

Director: Satoshi Kon
Original title: Pâfekuto burû
Country & year: Japan, 1994
Voice actors: Junko Iwao, Rica Matsumoto, Shinpachi Tsuji, Masaaki Ôkura, Yôsuke Akimoto, Yoku Shioya, Hideyuki Hori, Emi Shinohara, Masashi Ebara, Kiyoyuki Yanada, Tôru Furusawa, Shiho Niiyama, Emiko Furukawa, Aya Hara, Shin’ichirô Miki
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt0156887/

The Empty Man (2020)

Posted on August 14, 2021July 17, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

We start in Bhutan, and the year is 1995. Four friends (Greg, Fiona, Ruthie and Paul) go hiking, and Paul starts hearing a strange whistling sound that no one else seem to notice. Trying to investigate where the mysterious sound is coming from, he suddenly falls into a crevice and Greg must try to get him back up again. After climbing down, Greg finds a catatonic Paul, and when trying to touch him he whispers “touch me and you’ll die“. Paul and Greg are not entirely alone down there, though…there is also a huge deformed skeleton embedded into the cave wall. No matter how mysterious this all looks, Greg’s priority is to get Paul out of there, and the group takes him to an empty house right before a snowstorm hits the place. Paul is still in a catatonic state, and the group soon find out that he’s being slowly possessed by an evil spirit.

In Missouri, 2018, James is a former detective who is struggling after the death of his wife and son in a car accident a year ago. When the daughter of one of his friends runs away from home, where the only clue she’s left is a bloody message saying “The Empty Man made me do it” written in the bathroom, he tracks down this girl’s friends and he eventually finds out that they tried a ritual a few nights ago: summoning the Empty Man. As the legend goes, on the first day you would hear the Empty Man, on the second you would see him, and on the third he would find you. When the teens start turning up dead, James delves further into the legend of the so-called Empty Man, and gets thrown down into a dark and crooked rabbit-hole.

The Empty Man is a horror mystery thriller directed by David Prior, and based on a comic book series created by writer Cullen Bunn and artist Vanesa R. Del Rey in 2014, published by Boom! Studios. While initially thinking it might be yet another supernatural teen slasher, it was obvious right from the start that this was something entirely different. The opening with the cave and the deformed ancient skeleton set a few expectations for something a bit more eerie and weird than a run-of-the-mill homicidal entity, and yup – those expectations were certainly met. With a lot of truly creepy scenes and a steadily building atmosphere of dread, The Empty Man manages to entwine you into a nightmarish story with cults and cosmic horror.

While the movie is overall very exciting and suspenseful, I have to admit that I’m not sure exactly what I think of the ending. At one point during the last part of the movie we kept joking that it’s been so entertaining and suspenseful so far, that it didn’t really matter even if it had some bullshit twist-ending where he got captured by aliens or eaten by Bigfoot or something…and while, of course, neither of those happened, the ending still felt a bit more of a “whuh..?” rather than an “a-ha!” experience, and I think that some parts needed a bit more explanation for the ending to feel more satisfying (note that I haven’t read the comic book series, and didn’t even know it existed until after watching this film). It still doesn’t detract from it being a pretty good movie, though, with creepy atmosphere and a lot of suspense. It’s sad to say that some people might steer clear from it due to its “supernatural entity killing off teens” premise, which might give some Bye Bye Man or Slenderman vibes…but as a whole that is not what the movie is about at all. This means that those who might watch it under the premise of seeing an easy supernatural teen-slasher, would also get something entirely different than they bargained for…

The Empty Man is a solid mystery thriller, and well worth a watch.

Director: David Prior
Country & year: USA, 2021
Actors: James Badge Dale, Marin Ireland, Sasha Frolova, Samantha Logan, Evan Jonigkeit, Virginia Kull, Robert Aramayo, Ron Canada, Jessica Matten, Aaron Poole, Stephen Root, Jamie-Lee Money, Owen Teague, Joel Courtney, Phoebe Nicholls
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt5867314/

Old (2021)

Posted on August 7, 2021July 17, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

Guy and Prisca are a married couple who have decided to travel to a luxurious tropical resort with their two young children, Maddox and Trent. It will be their last family vacation before they divorce, something they have decided to keep a secret for the children in order to let them have one great vacation together before splitting up. The resort’s manager tells them about a beautiful secluded beach that he admits to only revealing to some of his guests, and they travel there together with three additional parties: a rapper called Mid-Sized Sedan and his female companion, a surgeon named Charles with his wife Chrystal, their young daughter Kara and Charles’ mother Agnes, and Jarin and Patricia, a husband and wife. A driver (played my M. Night Shyamalan himself) takes them to the area where they can get to the beach, but he refuses to go anywhere near the place himself. Not suspicious at all…

After walking through a cave they get to the beautiful beach, and is indeed stunned by the place. Everything quickly turns into disaster, however, when one of the people ends up drowning, quickly followed by Agnes suddenly dying. They try to go back through the caves where they came from in order to get help, but no matter how often they try, they end up dizzy and disorientated inside the cave and eventually blacks out, returning back to the beach every time. One strange event after the other takes place, and when the children have turned into teenagers the group realize that the area is rapidly aging them. Additionally, they also discover that each of the parties at the beach have at least one family member with an underlying medical condition.

Old is an adaption of a graphic novel from 2010, by Pierre Oscar Lévy (writer) and Frederik Peeters (artist), called Sandcastle. Mr. Shyamalan got it as a Father’s Day gift, and explained that his inspiration for making a movie adaption of it was that he could work through a lot of anxieties he had around aging and the inevitable death, and his parents getting older. And who doesn’t think about aging and death, unavoidably shuddering at the thought of your loved ones and yourself getting older and perhaps suffering from age-related problems? We are constantly reminded of these things through media, and you can hardly browse through anything without there at least being one ad or article about how to “stay young”, how to keep from aging with this or that (bullshit) remedy, how to avoid certain age-related health issues by eating/doing/buying x, y and z, etc. No matter what fear people have in regards to getting older, most people have them to some degree, whether it be due to the risk of health problems, watching their loved ones grow old and die, or more trivial matters like losing their youthful appearance and attractiveness. And all of these themes are displayed through the various characters that find themselves trapped on the beach where their age is rapidly increasing. Some of these themes aren’t really thoroughly explored, however, and some of the characters behave a bit oddly with some clunky dialogue here and there. There are times when you can’t help but to chuckle a bit over certain things that happen, but with an odd and somewhat surreal tone it felt more intentional than unintentional.

The cinematography is great, but shouldn’t come as much of a surprise when looking at the cinematographer’s name: Mike Gioulakis, who also did the cinematography in It Follows and Us. The film was also shot on 35mm, whereas M. Night Shyamalan has previously only shot films digitally since The Last Airbender (2010).

The ending is something that I’m a bit tempted to write about, but I will need to steer clear of that in order to avoid spoilers. All I will say is that the old saying “the road to Hell is paved with good intentions” comes to mind…

Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Country & year: USA, 2021
Actors:Gael García Bernal, Vicky Krieps, Rufus Sewell, Alex Wolff, Thomasin McKenzie, Abbey Lee, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Ken Leung, Eliza Scanlen, Aaron Pierre, Embeth Davidtz, Emun Elliott, Alexa Swinton, Gustaf Hammarsten, Kathleen Chalfant, Francesca Eastwood, Nolan River, Luca Faustino Rodriguez, Mikaya Fisher, Kailen Jude, M. Night Shyamalan
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt10954652/

Cannibal Apocalypse (1980)

Posted on July 30, 2021July 17, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

We’re in the jungles of Vietnam where two American POWs are being held captive by some natives. A group of troops, lead by Norman Hooper (John Saxon) is about to rescue them. While they succeed after a tirade of bulletstorm, flamethrowing and throat-slicing, the two captives seems to have been turned into cannibals by some virus. And those who gets bitten leaves people with serious cravings for human flesh like a hardcore heroin addict. Or just zombie cannibals, if you will. The next who’s to be infected is Norman, when he gives out a helping hand to get them out of the hole they’re trapped in.

This was a flashback nightmare, by the way, and Norman wakes up sweaty besides his wife in their home in Atlanta, Georgia, and now struggles daily to not get his cravings and triggers by looking at raw meat, and fears ending up a cannibal himself. He especially struggles not to take a bite out of the teenage girl next door, who has a crush on him.

Things doesn’t get better when Norman receives a phonecall by Charles Bukovski (Giovanni Lombardo Radice) who wants to hook up for a drink. He’s one of the guys who’s gotten turned into cannibalism, and Norman smells Bad News and says “another time”. Charles seems to have lost his mind completely, as he’s just hunting for his next fix and wanders around like a deranged serial killer. He goes into a movie theater, where he can’t resist it no more when a coupe starts to make out in front of him. He bites the chick’s neck like Dracula, and the Zombie Apocalypse has just started.

I hadn’t heard of this film until it suddenly popped up on Netflix (Norway) of all places, fully uncut and ready for the whole family to watch on a Friday night. I remember there was a time when films like this was totally banned in most countries, and you had to import a VHS copy from US to watch in the basement with friends while the parents were far out of sight. Yeah, things have changed. This film was also on the Video nasty list because of two seconds where a sewer rat is getting torched by a flamethrower.

And no, as you’ve probably already figured, this is not your typical cannibal flick with confused half-naked natives running around sunny jungle surroundings, big turtles getting ripped apart, penis severing/castration, et cetera… We’re in a gritty urban setting where the police, and some angry bikers, gets involved to hunt down the cannibals through the streets and sewers. It’s more action-packed with some really great tension filled moments, and of course a bit of the mandatory Italian sleaze. Not the most complicated plot, really, but overall an entertaining Grindhouse flick with an interesting take on the cannibal genre and a crazy, unhinged character. But I’ll never get used to hear saxophone music during killing scenes, though…

Also known as Invasion of the Flesh Hunters and Cannibals in the Streets.

Director: Antonio Margheriti
Original title: Apocalypse domani
Country & year: Italy, Spain, 1980
Actors: John Saxon, Elizabeth Turner, Giovanni Lombardo Radice, Cinzia De Carolis, Tony King, Wallace Wilkinson, Ramiro Oliveros, John Geroson, May Heatherly, Ronnie Sanders, Vic Perkins, Jere Beery, Joan Riordan, Laura Dean
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt0080379/

The Call (2020)

Posted on July 23, 2021July 17, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

Seo-yeon is a 28 year old woman who has traveled to visit her sick mother in the rural area where she grew up. Finding that she has lost her cellphone, she goes to her rundown childhood home where she finds an old cordless phone. Soon, she starts receiving calls from this phone, where a woman claims she is being tortured by her own mother. Thinking of it as someone who have just dialed the wrong number, Seo-yeon decides to investigate the matter when more calls from this mysterious woman comes through the old phone. She finds out that the woman making the calls, Young-sook, lived in the same house in 1999…which is also the year Young-sook claims to live in when making the calls. Seo-yeon lives in 2019, which means there’s a 20 year timegap between her and the caller. The two women make contact through the phone calls, and starts exchanging information about the time they live in and their own lives. Seo-yeon explains that when she was a child, her father died in a fire. Young-sook is then able to prevent Seo-yeon’s father from dying in that accident, and Seo-yeon’s life immediately changes: both of her parents are now suddenly there and healthy, and their house is no longer in the rundown state it used to be in. Happy about the turn of events, Seo-yeon starts searching for Young-sook in order to find out what kind of life she is living these days, in the present…only to find an old newspaper article about how Young-sook was killed by her mother during an exorcism. Seo-yeon tries to warn Young-sook about what is going to happen, and by doing so, unleashes an unexpected chain of events.

The Call is a South-Korean Netflix horror-thriller, directed by Chung-Hyun Lee, which is an exciting ride from start to finish. I hadn’t read much about it before watching it, so I didn’t know anything about how the movie’s plot would unfold (and that’s the best way to experience movies like this, in my opinion). At first it gives the appearance of being a rather sweet story about two girls meeting each other despite the difference of time being between them, but it all transpires into something much darker. The two main characters, Seo-yeon and Young-yook, are delivering strong performances, and I really liked the turn of events unfolding throughout the story.With a runtime of almost 2 hours, there wasn’t really a moment without suspense or some kind of excitement, but it isn’t until the first two thirds of the movie that the plot starts to delve into its more sinister part.

There is a mid-credits “twist” that apparently felt a bit off-putting to some people, but overall it just points out the numerous twists and turns that could be caused by so-called time traveling (a concept that could easily be considered a bit paradoxical by itself). I didn’t think this ending ruined anything per se, but it definitely gave assumptions of the possibility of a sequel.

All in all, The Call is an exciting and gripping Korean thriller, which was released on Netflix globally on November 27, 2020.

WARNING: watch the trailer at your own risk, it pretty much spoils the entire movie. Which seems to be a common mistake in many trailers these days…

Director: Chung-Hyun Lee
Original title: Kol
Country & year: South Korea, 2020
Actors: Park Shin-Hye, Jeon Jong-seo, Sung-ryung Kim, Lee El, Park Ho-San, Moon Chang-gil, Oh Jeong-Se, Kyeong-sook Jo, Grace Lynn Kung, Ryu Kyung-Soo, Dong-hwi Lee, Jonny Siew, Yo-sep Song, Chae-Young Um
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt10530176/

Delirium (2018)

Posted on July 17, 2021July 17, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

Tom (Topher Grace) has been recently released from a mental institute. He’s inherited a large mansion after his father committed suicide just a few days before, and here he needs to serve 30 days under “house arrest”. While the large mansion isn’t exactly the worst place to be quarantined, and you could say he hasn’t exactly got any reason to complain (with a big indoors pool and all!), things do, of course, turn out to be not too great. He’s plagued by visions and hallucinations of his father’s dead body, and he hears noises around the house that makes him believe someone’s inside there with him. Will he be able to fight the ghosts from his past, or will the mansion and his memories make him lose his sanity for good?

Delirium is a psychological thriller directed by Dennis Iliadis (Last House on the Left 2009), which is a typical “does this really happen or is the protagonist just crazy” kind of film. While many of these movies can end up being too predictable or too twisty for its own good, Delirium offers enough space for proper doubt of the events as well as realizations about what’s really going on. Very often during the movie, you’ll be kept wondering if Tom is really experiencing the things he sees and hear, or if it’s all his illness coming into play.

Since Tom is locked inside the mansion for the entirety of the movie, it’s important that the house and interior itself adds to the feeling of approaching madness, which it manages pretty fine. The mansion, with all the rooms, hallways, pool, etc. is big enough for him to explore, but also big enough for other things to…reside. This makes it more exciting when he actually hears or sees something, as he is also well aware that he can’t really trust his own eyes. And since we, the viewers, only see what he does, we’re in the same position of doubt. There’s bound to be some confusion, but the movie is called Delirium, so that shouldn’t really come as a big surprise…

While by no means the most exciting of thrillers and without any real scares, Delirium is still a decent psychological thriller, where the visuals of the lavish mansion with its secret passages and long hallways, helps building the creepy atmosphere.

Director: Dennis Iliadis
Country & year: USA, 2018
Actors: Genesis Rodriguez, Patricia Clarkson, Topher Grace, Callan Mulvey, Robin Thomas, Harry Groener, Daisy McCrackin, Cody Sullivan, Jorge-Luis Pallo, Josh Harp, Braden Fitzgerald
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt2069797/

Die Hard Dracula (1998)

Posted on July 8, 2021November 21, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

Die Hard Dracula. How can it go wrong with a title like this?

The film opens with quick a prologue we’ve heard thousand times about Vlad The Impaler and his battle against the Turks, as we see images of people literally sitting on poles in their underwear with no blood, no gore, nothing. Not a single attempt to make us believe that we’re looking at tortured and impaled people in a dark middle ages scenario. You’re just a few seconds in, and you already ask why the hell this movie was made and why it even exists. The visuals are just flat out dreadful, and calling it amateurish doesn’t do it justice, it’s even far beyond that. It’s almost a cliché thing to say, but it’s really hard to put words on how ridiculously bad this is. And this is just the first ten seconds or so.

And after 300 years, Dracula has finally had it with Romania and its God-fearing whining people. As he lies in his coffin, we hear his first lines in the distinct Romanian accent: “No more pray! Three hundred years I listened to this awful praying and boOolshit. I can’t stand it no more.” We then get a scene where his casket flies over the European landscape (yes, with Dracula in it) with the tune of Ride Of The Valkyries playing. What really is there to say … It’s pure movie magic. He lands in his new castle in Moravia, Czech Republic.

After the opening we jump over to sunny California, where we meet the young couple Julia and Steven, who have fun with water skiing. But tragedy suddenly strikes when Julia loses the grip and disappears into the sea and assumingly drowns. One night Steven and his father see a shooting star, and Steven says “I wish Julia was alive.” His dad then follows up with this line: “You know the old saying … see a falling star, a wish may come true.” Steven responds with a blank stare like if he was a lobotomized mental patient : “Yeah … I wish … I really wish ….” No tears, no emotions. He’s probably the worst actor in this film. Anyway, the shooting star hits a random coffin some place in Moravia that resurrects a young, recently deceased woman back to life, who Steven ends up imagining is Julia. Yes, seriously. After the shooting star incident, he then jumps on a plane to Prague and goes from pub to pub, only to get more and more drunk and disappointed. A lot of nonsensical bullshits happens, but he eventually ends up in a tavern where he meets this girl, who then gets kidnapped by Dracula. Van Helsing finally pops up from nowhere, just in time, who teams up with Steven to kill Dracula and save the girl.

Van Helsing is played by Bruce Glover (father of Crispin Glover), and he acts more like a confused half-drunk uncle you just want to put to bed with wishes of a better tomorrow. Most of the “ actors “ seem to be either drunk, or just on something. I would be too, if I was acting in a film like this. We see Dracula in several shapes, played by several actors, one worse that the other. We see him as a big, fat slob that looks like Jabba The Hut and a rotten potato with a wig, and his regular shape where he looks more like Meat Loaf in a porn spoof (just without the porn), to mention some examples.

Dracula also shows off some display of magic powers by throwing fireballs, and shooting lightning from his fingers as he acts like a mental lunatic who tries his best not to impersonate Emperor Palpatine. Several of Dracula’s dialogues were dubbed with the most stiff and lifeless voiceacting that you could’ve heard from a discarded PS1 game. Dracula is the funniest part in this demented madhouse of a movie, for sure, and has a lot of laughable dialogues. And we get the most retarded sex scene with the tune of the the Nutcracker playing. Merry Christmas.

The effects and set-design is a whole another level of absurdness, if not lazyness. While a castle somewhere in Czech Republic was used as the exterior for Dracula’s Castle, the interior set-design is just a room, covered with white cow wallpaper, or whatever it is. It’s something straight out of an elementary school play. The Dracula costume was probably bought at Walmart. The ending puts the level of stupidity all up to eleven which gives a clear indication that we would never see the sequel Die Hard Dracula With a Vengeance, directed by Tommy Wiseau, as much I would have loved to see that one.

And that was Die Hard Dracula. Pure mentally retarded trash from start to finish where someone just picked up a camcorder, a mic and goofed around with friends during a long weekend. And God knows what went through their heads. They probably had the time of their lives making this, like they where some teens making their first movie in someone’s backyard, but the result is something even their mothers would struggle to give legit compliments to. Especially considering that the writer, producer and director Peter Horak was at whopping 55 years old when he made this, after working as a stuntman in Hollywood for two decades. At least he got to see his masterpiece become full circle when it finally got released on DVD from Alpha Home Entertainment before he died in 2017.

Director: Peter Horak
Country & year: USA, Czech Republic, 1998
Actors: Bruce Glover, Denny Sachen, Kerry Dustin, Ernest M. Garcia, Chaba Hrotko, Thomas McGowan, Talia Botone, Nathalie Huot, Peter Horak, John Slavik, Robert Coppola, Eddie Eisele, Paul Lackey, Joseph Miksovsky, Margie Windish
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt0162930/

Willy’s Wonderland (2021)

Posted on July 3, 2021August 11, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

A quiet drifter finds himself in a situation where he’s stranded in an isolated little town. His car is in need of repairs, but he’s not able to pay for it…however, he gets an opportunity to pay for the expenses by spending a night in an abandoned family fun center called Willy’s Wonderland, by cleaning it from top to bottom and thus preparing it for its supposed re-opening. While locked inside the place, however, he finds himself in battle with a bunch of possessed animatronic mascots whose obvious intent is to rip him apart.

Willy’s Wonderland starring Nicolas Cage as the quiet/mute janitor, is a ridiculous yet entertaining horror movie, with a premise that probably rings some bells if you’ve ever heard about the game series Five Nights at Freddy’s (FNaF). While I haven’t personally played any of the games, it’s also about killer animatronics (although they only come alive at night) and a security guard that needs to survive the nights. Other than that there appear to be several differences, but since I haven’t played any of the games I can’t really delve too much into any of that.

Now, the plot itself is kind of ridiculous, but it actually works pretty well for a movie like this. Willy’s Wonderland, before its abandonment, was a typical Chuck E. Cheese type of restaurant aimed for children, with animatronics who would happily sing songs like Head, Shoulder Knees and Toes, and everything seemed to be all fun and pleasantries. Except that the place was run by a child killer, and the employees had the same urges as he did. When the police got on to what they’d been secretly doing at the place, that’s when all hell would break lose.

As for performances, Nic Cage is, well… Nic Cage, he pretty much plays himself and there’s nothing wrong with that. He doesn’t deliver a single line during the entire movie, and his lack of surprise towards the murderous animatronics (despite going in full Cage-Rage mode and smashing them to bits and pieces), somehow implies that he knows fully well what’s going on at the place, and can make you speculate whether he might be a a sibling to one of the children that were killed at the place in its hay-days, or something like that, and has seen it as his mission to take on the child killers once and for all. We don’t know anything about his character (not even his name), which makes you wonder if a sequel (or prequel) has ever been in the plans. The other characters provide decent performances as well, but everything is pretty much carried on Nic’s back. Now, as for the animatronics…they actually look pretty good, and were played by stunt people in costumes (with the exception of Ozzie the Ostrich, which was a puppet).

With some fun practical effects and a silly yet entertaining plot, Willy’s Wonderland is a campy cheese-fest filled with whimsy and blood spatter, and definitely not for people who want their entertainment to have a more serious tone, but pleasant enough for those of us who every now and then like to watch a movie that doesn’t take itself too seriously. It’s fun and cheesy, and sometimes, that’s enough.

Director: Kevin Lewis
Country & year: USA, 2021
Actors: Nicolas Cage, Emily Tosta, Beth Grant, Ric Reitz, Chris Warner, Kai Kadlec, Caylee Cowan, Jonathan Mercedes, Terayle Hill, Christian Delgrosso, David Sheftell, Jiri Stanek, Jessica Graves Davis, Taylor Towery, Chris Schmidt Jr., Christopher Bradley, Duke Jackson, Billy Bussey, BJ Guyer
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt8114980/