Here we have one of the more grimmer throwback horror-80s movies which seemed to be made by accident, or followed by a witness to an accident to be more correct. You see – other than producing their own low-budget horror films, the creative guys Jeremy Gillespie and Steven Kostanski from Astron-6 (Father’s Day, Manborg, Psycho Goreman and more) have also worked on bigger Hollywood films such as It, and Scary Stories to Tell in The Dark with special effects and art designs. They also worked with one of the greatest; Guillermo del Toro and Jeremy Gillespie was working at Pinewood studios where del Toro was in pre-production of his magnum opus which never happened: At the Mountains of Madness. After the project crashed and burned due to the high budget costs and the fact that del Toro refused to add in a love story and a happy ending to the studio’s demand, Gillespie and Kostanski got inspired to make their own low-budget spin on the story. And with their obsession for the 80s and the old school of filmmaking, it was natural to make it as a throwback.
It’s around past midnight when the small town sheriff, Daniel Carter (Aaron Pole), picks up a wounded guy on a rural road and takes him to the local hospital. Here we also meet our small group of characters, among them a cute young pregnant woman who’s about to give birth. And let’s hope that nothing bad happens to her and the baby (ha-ha). To bring this John Doe to the hospital seemed to be a very bad idea as weird things started to happen, such as the lights flickering and the phone shutting down. From here, it gets messy pretty quickly around the hospital when one of the nurses gets shot by the sheriff after she stabs the eyes of one of the patients . The lights shut down and the hospital gets surrounded by a group of cloak/hazmat suit-wearing cultists who have no intention of letting anyone get out of the building. Some ancient supernatural forces have also seemed to awaken in the basement which transforms dead people into the most grotesque-looking mutants that has been put on film in modern time.
It’s valid to mention that this is not an Astron-6 production which focuses more on humor, as this one has a far more serious tone. The Void is also crowdfunded on Indiegogo with a raise of only 82,510 dollars (!), which seems like a box of molded breadcrumbs for an ambitious Lovecraftian project like this. Having that said, the film looks pretty damn good with overall solid, creative filmmaking with a long string of clear inspirations from 70s and 80s classics. We have the siege element from John Carpenter’s Assault on Precinct 13, the claustrophobic paranoia from The Thing, the morbid, grotesque madness from Stuart Gordon’s From Beyond and the cryptic vibe and atmosphere from Lucio Fulci’s The Beyond, to mention some – all blended into its own unique, beefy and tasteful love letter for us older gorehounds. A great soundtrack by Blitz//Berlin which also suits the grim retro style perfectly like a penis in vagina. Except for some very few visual effects, there is no CGI here, only the usage of gallons of fake blood and sticky, top-tier latex monsters that could be something straight from 1987.
Writers and directors: Jeremy Gillespie, Steven Kostanski Country & year: Canada, 2016 Actors: Aaron Poole, Kenneth Welsh, Ellen Wong, Kathleen Munroe, Daniel Fathers, Mik Byskov, Art Hindle, Stephanie Belding, James Millington, Evan Stern, Grace Munro IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt4255304/
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/
Ambar is a young woman who tries to move from Mexico and settle in Cleveland, Ohio, after her mother passes away. Unfortunately, she’s an undocumented immigrant, which makes it incredibly hard to find a job and a place to live. She works at an “under the table” job, with an asshole boss who treats her like shit because he knows she doesn’t have much of a choice. In a desperate search for some place to stay, she finds a dilapidated boarding house where the owner, Red, doesn’t care about asking any questions as long as one month’s rent is paid up front. Shortly after she moves in, she starts experiencing strange things and sees ghostly figures. Some of the rooms in the house is also filled with strange artifacts, as Red’s parents were archaeologists. And to top it all, Red’s got a mentally disturbed brother who acts in a threatening manner. And while she isn’t the only woman in the house as there’s also two other young women renting a room there, Ambar soon feel that the supernatural visions and the overall threatening atmosphere in the house is becoming a bit too much…
No One Gets Out Alive is a supernatural horror film from 2021, directed by Santiago Menghini and based on an Adam Nevill novel by the same name. It premiered on Netflix on 29 September 2021. Now, while I have read some of Adam Nevill’s books I haven’t read this one, so on that part I’m unable to make any comparisons. I think this movie is a little bit of a modern gothic horror, set in a gloomy mansion-like boarding house where ghostly apparitions fit well in with the interior, so to speak. It’s atmospheric and offers mysteries and tension, which are not all caused by the supernatural affairs. Ambar’s experience as a lost, lonely and desperate young woman in a place where she basically has no value, and constantly in a situation where others might take advantage of her without repercussions, adds to the feeling if despair and tension. Even when Ambar befriends one of her colleagues who promises to get her a fake ID, she just ends up getting robbed by this woman whom she thought would help her. If Ambar hadn’t been in a very despairing situation, I don’t think the underlying tension would have been quite as effective.
The movie also hints that it exists in the same universe as The Ritual, as a newscaster mentions the four lost hikers in the Swedish woods. The Ritual is another book by Nevill which had a movie adaption released in 2017, and is currently also available on Netflix. Just like in The Ritual, there’s a god-like monster here. It isn’t particularly well explained, but it is some kind of Aztec goodess named Itzpapaloyl, which actually means “clawed butterfly” or “obsidian butterfly”. In Aztec religion, Itzpapaloyl is a fearsome skeletal death goddess. And just like in The Ritual, the monster design and effects are neat and otherworldly to the max, even if their display time is minimal.
Overall, No One Gets Out Alive is gloomy and creepy, where the heroine’s problems are just as much related to financial and social problems than just the supernatural ones. While it certainly isn’t fast paced I didn’t ever find it boring, and consider it a pretty enjoyable watch.
Director: Santiago Menghini Writers: Jon Croker, Fernanda Coppel Country & year: UK, 2021 Actors: Cristina Rodlo, Marc Menchaca, Vala Noren, Claudia Coulter, Teresa Banham, David Barrera, Alejandro Akara, David Figlioli, Cosmina Stratan IMDb:www.imdb.com/title/tt13056008/
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/
The Magician returns for a new holiday season, this time setting his sights on a group of old college friends celebrating Halloween. Will they give treats or will they get tricks?
Trick or Treat 2 is a fun Halloween horror short, and the sequel to Trick or Treat from 2021.
Director: Wesley Mellott Writer: Wesley Mellott Country & year: USA, 2022 Actors: Gary Paul Bowman, Danica Lee Clauser, Andrew Glessner, Andreas Quiroga IMDb:www.imdb.com/title/tt22012948/
We follow the young Thai couple, Tun and Jane, as they are on their way home after spending an evening with some friends. Their existence gets turned upside down when they accidentally hit a woman on a dark road. While Jane wants to check on her as she was also the one being behind the wheel, Tun panics and orders Jane to stomp the pedal and just leave the woman behind. Jane is soon to struggle with guilt, night terrors and never seems to be able to smile again, while Tun does his best to forget the whole thing and move on with life. Dream on, bud.
Tun is a freelance photographer and starts to see glimpses of a pale, creepy woman through the lens and eerie white shadows in his pictures which screams bad vibes. These are analog pictures, by the way, before the era of digital cameras took over. To get some answers other than “your camera is broken”, Tun and Jane speak to a photo expert who sells fake ghost photos to a glossy magazine. He also shows them an album which he claims is a collection of real shit, taken by polaroids and still images from security cameras, which is quite impossible to fake. Quick info for Gen Z; polaroid was a camera which gave instant physical pictures rolling out of the camera seconds after taking them. We see a collage of some creepy vintage photos, and some of them you might even recognize. I get a little nostalgic by especially seeing the classic image of The Grey Ghost Lady of the Willard Library, one of the first of its kind I was exposed to when I was hunting for this stuff in the darker corners of the web in the early 2000s, way before social media. Good old times.
All photos here are taken from the web and the film gives a credit at the end by addressing – The producers would like to thank in advance the owners of any spirit photographs or photo representations that were not properly credited for their use in this motion picture. –
Anyway, things get progressively worse and bleak for the couple as they get haunted with visions, more night terrors and more spooky stuff that appears in the photos. Tun develops a chronic neck pain while his friends from his schooldays mysteriously drop dead by jumping off buildings. Huh… As Jane starts her own little investigation, she stumbles upon some clues that expose a dark, disturbing past of their hit-and-run victim.
This is the debut film of the talented duo Banjong Pisanthanakun and Parkpoom Wongpoom (sorry if I butchered their names). The movie was released at the peak of the J-horror craze during the hot trend of displaying pale, skinny, scary Asian ghostly ladies with glitchy body movements with their long black hair obscuring their face followed by a series of jump scares. A gimmick that got more and more old to the level of almost parody until it fizzled out with bad sequels and remakes. It was easy to assume that Shutter was just another J-horror, even though this one is from Thailand. I wouldn’t go as far as saying that they reinvented the wheel here, but what makes this one stand out is the idea of the phenomenon of capturing ghosts on camera, a concept which has always intrigued me. It’s also a damn good horror flick which is still solid twenty years after its release, and one of the very few movies in the ghost film genre that still fills my heebie-jeebies meter scale up to ten.
Although there is a ghost lurking here, the film relies more on solving a mystery as the suspense and tension builds up to the maximum. The director duo has a great understanding of the more subtle ways to trigger the deepest primal fears of the audience by exposing them to the unknown, a pretty rare skill we don’t often see. James Wan with his two first Conjuring films, Scott Derrickson’s Sinister and Hideo Nakata’s Ringu are maybe the only ones than can match. As minimal as the effects are, the scares are probably the most inventive I’ve seen in the genre, which still slaps most of the similar and modern horror films to shame. The scene where Tun is alone in a photo studio where the lights turn off and his camera starts to flash on its own is one great example of how simple, yet effective Shutter is. A razor sharp sound design also does the trick and the fitting soundtrack during the opening credits already sets the tone. A modern classic.
The film has been remade not just one or two times, but actually three times: Sivi (2007) from India, which has been seen by hardly anyone, Click (2010), also from India, which looks more like a cheap version from Asylum, and the American Shutter (2008). I’ve only watched the last mentioned, which I don’t remember much of other than it gave me a good night’s sleep. And in order to not get confused, Shutter is also released with the undertitle The Original.
Directors: Banjong Pisanthanakun, Parkpoom Wongpoom Writers: Banjong Pisanthanakun, Parkpoom Wongpoom, Sophon Sakdaphisit Also known as: Shutter: The Original Country & year: Thailand, 2004 Actors: Ananda Everingham, Natthaweeranuch Thongmee, Achita Sikamana, Unnop Chanpaibool, Titikarn Tongprasearth, Sivagorn Muttamara, Chachchaya Chalemphol, Kachormsak Naruepatr IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt0440803/
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/
A curious girl investigates the cries she hears coming from a forbidden house across the street.
Opal by Jack Stauber is a creepy and impactful animated horror short that features serious themes of child abuse, neglect, trauma, escapism, and coping. The film uses heavy symbolism while portraying its themes, and makes for an unsettling experience.
Director: Jack Stauber Writer: Jack Stauber Country & year: USA, 2020 Actors: Jack Stauber IMDb:www.imdb.com/title/tt13362084/