HorrorGhouls – Page 3 – Horror Ghouls

House (1985)

Posted on October 22, 2024October 24, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

Roger Cobb is an author who has just inherited his deceased aunt’s house. The same house where his only son Jimmy once disappeared without a trace, and where his aunt died by hanging herself. Nice. Must be a place full of wonderful memories. Aside from also being separated from his wife, his publisher keeps pressing him to write another book, and he plans to write a novel based on his experiences in the Vietnam war in the hopes of using this experience to deal with some of the trauma. He decides to live in his aunt’s house in order to start working on said novel. Soon after moving in, he begins having nightmares about his dead comrade from the war, and strange phenomena occur in the house. He also starts having flashbacks of Jimmy’s disappearance, where he saw something pulling him down the swimming pool. His late aunt claimed that it was the house itself that took him, which does sound preposterous, but being inside that house now and experiencing all these strange things, Roger is not so sure his old aunt wasn’t right after all.

House is a comedy horror film from 1985, directed by Steve Miner with screenplay by Ethan Wiley, based on an original story written by Fred Dekker. The film is produced by Sean S. Cunningham (the man behind the original Friday the 13th) and is the first in the House film series. The exterior shooting was done at an estate now known as Mills View, a Victorian style home built in 1887. At the time, the house was owned by two Los Angeles firemen. The production designer and crew spent about four weeks on modifying the manor, where they repainted the entire exterior, set up a wrought iron fence, and attached foam spires to the roof. Seven monsters were designed for the film, including a zombie, demonic kids, a flying skull-faced monster and all kinds of ghoulish creatures. Both puppetry and animatronics were used in the film, and also some stop-motion and the good old actors in rubber suits.

This movie is from the 80s, and like so many films from this decade, it’s filled with the most delicious-tasting cheese. The tone is for the most part quite jovial and lighthearted, where our protagonist gets haunted by all kinds of strange monsters popping out from here and there. It’s kind of a goofy mess, but never gets boring. The monsters in the movie are definitely the highlight, with some really inventive ideas. While it does go for a darker approach with the zombiefied version of Roger’s former Vietnam war buddy, it also goes totally bonkers with a funny ghoulish monster-version of his ex-wife. Too bad the crazy creatures didn’t give us some gory death scenes, as the film is a lot more closer to a family-friendly approach than a full-out horror one.

House is definitely a cheesy and fun horror comedy movie, which spun two “sequels“ that doesn’t really have jack shit to do with each other. So in that regard, they’re not movies you have to watch in sequence, as they are actually quite dissimilar. This one is perfect if you want some mindless old-school fun with a typical 80’s charm.

Director: Steve Miner
Writers: Fred Dekker, Ethan Wiley
Country & year: USA, 1985
Actors: William Katt, George Wendt, Richard Moll, Kay Lenz, Mary Stavin, Michael Ensign, Erik Silver, Mark Silver, Susan French, Alan Autry, Steven Williams, James Calvert, Mindy Sterling
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091223/

Sequels:
– House II: The Second Story (1987)
– House III: The Horror Show (1989)

Dark Waters (1993)

Posted on October 21, 2024October 21, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

Elizabeth receives a message about her father’s recent death on an island convent. This island is her place of birth, but she hasn’t been there since she was a child. It appears that her father used to give regular donations to the convent, and as her father’s sole beneficiary she will now have to determine whether these should continue. Elizabeth then travels to the place, but a heavy rainstorm has stopped all the traffic to the island. She ask one of the boat owners if he can take her over, but he refuses. Strangely, her conversation was overheard by a fisherman who offers to take her to the island, as he’s not afraid of the bad weather. Once there, she meets the ancient Mother Superior, who is (of course) blind. She will be staying at the convent, and a sweet and friendly nun named Sarah will be her guide. When they visit a decaying library, Elizabeth notices an illustration of a demonic creature, and a painting of two little girls and a pagan amulet. Soon, all kinds of weird nightmarish shit start to happen, and Elizabeth is bound to find out the disturbing secrets about the place, and her own connection to it.

Dark Waters (which is also known as Dead Waters in an American home-video edition) is a horror film from 1993 directed by Mariano Baino, co-written with Andy Bark. It was based on a short story by Andy, one that was inspired by his childhood visit to Staithes in North Yorkshire. The film is also one of the first western films shot in Ukraine after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the process was a truly troubled one. The system there created some bumps in the road, with some travel problems and even multiple coup attempts where Mariano was awoken by gun fire while in Moscow for the dubbing. Still, the filming location provided cheap sets with spectacular locations for a low cost, and for a movie like this there’s no doubt that locations and scenery really puts the film up several notches.

There are some obvious Lovecraftian elements in Dark Waters, or “Cave of a 1000 candles“ if you will because I haven’t seen so many candles being lit during a film production, ever. Must have been one hell of a job to lit all of those. Everything that surrounds our protagonist feels old, wet and otherworldly. Much of it appears very dreamlike, or nightmarish would probably be a better term, as all the locations and the people Elizabeth meets feel so incredibly…off. Everything from the strange location of the convent to the even stranger people she encounters. While obviously helped by great locations, the film is beautifully shot and with a competent and strong focus on contrast to enhance the mood as much as possible. There’s also some instances of decent gore, so another thumbs up for that.

What struck me the most while watching Dark Waters was that it has a very distinct 70’s vibe all over it, and if I didn’t know that it was a movie from 1993 I could have sworn it to be another hidden 70s gem. Instead, it’s anther hidden 90s gem, because this film is unfairly obscure and I’m quite sure that if it had been made as a throwback film these days, it would have garnered a lot more attention. Speaking of these days, there’s a 2023 film called Consecration, directed by Christopher Smith (Creep, 2004 and Triangle, 2009) where the plot looks very much alike this film. Not sure if that is some kind of unofficial remake though, as I haven’t yet seen it.

Dark Waters is an old-fashioned occult thriller, with a Lovecraftian and slightly surreal vibe to it. While the story is a bit murky, the film is all very much about style, mood and atmosphere. And candles, of course. Lots of ’em.

Director: Mariano Baino
Writers: Mariano Baino, Andy Bark
Country & year: Russia/UK, 1993
Actors: Louise Salter, Venera Simmons, Mariya Kapnist, Lubov Snegur, Albina Skarga, Valeriy Bassel, Pavel Sokolov, Anna Rose Phipps, Tanya Dobrovolskaya, Valeriy Kopaev, Ludmila Marufova
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109550/

Dr. Caligari (1989)

Posted on October 20, 2024October 20, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

Dr. Caligari is experimenting with her patients at the Caligari Insane Asylum (or the C.I.A. for short). Among her many crazy patients, there’s Mr Pratt who is a cannibalistic serial killer, and then Mrs. Van Houten who is a nymphomaniac housewife. The doctor’s treatment? Mindswapping, of course! All done by transferring glandular brain fluids from one patient to the other. Nothing could go wrong here, nope, nothing at all. Of course, Dr. Caligari (who is, naturally, described as the descendant of the original Dr. Caligari from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari) has her enemies like all geniuses do, and the married couple Mr. and Mrs. Lodger wants her experiments to stop and turn to their father for help. Problem is, that their father has a very high opinion of the doctor, and refuses to do anything to stop her. At least not at first. And when he becomes another victim to her mindswapping techniques which turns him onto a nymphomaniac transvestite, there’s not many people left to stop her. Except…maybe the patients themselves…

Dr. Caligari is a really, really bizarre thing to watch. It’s an avant-garde horror film with a lot of erotic scenes, released in 1989 and directed by Stephen Sayadian. As you can expect from the title, it’s some kind of pseudo-sequel to the famous film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari from 1920. It was originally billed as Dr. Caligari 3000 for a short time when it debuted in select theaters, but after being released on VHS and Betamax, the title was shortened down. While it’s mostly a very obscure movie, it’s gotten a cult classic status. Despite the movie quickly falling into obscurity after its release, which shouldn’t be a surprise since this is so far from mainstream as you can get, Stephen Sayadian continued to direct X-rated movies up until 1993. As should probably be expected, several of the actors here also didn’t star in many other films after the 90s, including the lead actress Madeleine Reynal who only played in one movie prior to this one.

Now, how to properly explain this movie…well, what should be obvious is that the film is very much all about sex and deviance, but it never gets too graphic to be considered more than an R-rating. There’s some tits and nudity here and there, but nothing outright explicit. But one thing is for sure: everything here, and I mean absolutely everything, is totally fucknuts bonkers bizarre, with characters, scenery and dialogue that’s completely over the top in absurdity most of the time. Pretty much everything that’s said here is delivered in what I assume must be practiced monotony, especially the lines delivered by the titular character herself, and you’ll easily lose count of how many times the fourth wall is broken. Whenever a character opens their mouth to talk, it’s all a bunch of strained and artificial lines with very weird facial expressions to follow, often looking straight at the viewer. Mostly this was done on purpose, I guess, which adds to the very odd vibe throughout and gives a theater-play feeling to it. I have to give props when it comes to the special effects and scenery, the surrealistic insanity displayed here is something that must be seen to be believed. After all, a woman getting licked by a gigantic tongue sticking out from a wall of flesh isn’t something you see every day.

Dr. Caligari feels like some kind of wet fever dream Tim Burton could’ve had if he was locked up in a madhouse together with John Waters. If you want something truly bizarre that’s filled to the brim with naughty absurdities, then this one’s for you!

The movie was released on DVD, Blu-ray and 4K Ultra HD by Mondo Macabro. It is also available on Shudder.

Director: Stephen Sayadian
Writers: Stephen Sayadian, Jerry Stahl
Country & year: USA, 1989
Actors: Madeleine Reynal, Fox Harris, Laura Albert, Jennifer Balgobin, John Durbin, Gene Zerna, David Parry, Barry Phillips, Magie Song, Jennifer Miro, Stephen Quadros, Carol Albright
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097228/

CAM CLOSER II – Horror Short

Posted on October 20, 2024October 20, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

A woman makes a disturbing discovery when her security camera notifies her of movement in her living room.

Horror Short Sunday again! Today we’re taking a look at Cam Closer II, by David F. Sandberg. As usual, his wife is getting pestered by demonic shenanigans again..

Director: David F. Sandberg
Writer: David F. Sandberg
Country & year: USA, 2023
Actors: Lotta Losten
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt27773086/

Tales from the Hood (1995)

Posted on October 19, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

Y’all know the tales from the crypt. But you’ve seen nuthin’ yet, cuz here’s the tales from tha motthafuckin’ HOoOD! … and that’s enough of me trying to talk like someone from the ghetto.

Stack, Ball and Bulldog are three young aspiring drug dealers who are on their way to meet Mr. Simms at his funeral home. And this Mr. Simms dude is a trip and as eccentric as he looks, something our homeboys are soon to experience when they get invited to his gothic and dim-lighted cozy home. And I bet the thick layer of weed rips those nostrils hard. Could I have some, please? Anyway, Stack, Ball and Bull are here to buy some drugs that Mr. Simms claims to have found in an alley. Mr. Simms has hidden the drugs somewhere in the house (and let us guess: the basement), but before we go down there, the old man has some stories to tell, all of which are based on the recent dead bodies lying in the caskets. All of them are actually true, of course, because don’t think otherwise. And as Mr. Simms says; Death… it comes in many strange packages.

The first story, called Rogue Cop Revelation, takes us to the gritty urban city streets which you can guess by the title what is about. Yup, police brutality and the every-day racism protected by the badge, and even more protected by the corrupted code that is Blue wall of silence. Yes, that is actually a thing. Protect, serve and God bless America. Here we meet the rookie cop Clarence (Anthony Griffith) and he couldn’t have a rougher start to his job when he one night is out patrolling with his scumbag partner Strom (Wings Hauser) and some other cops. Because Clarence is actually black, you see, and Strom is a first-class, rage-filled racist. Clarence gets set in a corner when Strom and the other cops beat the hell out of a black man for no reason. They beat him so badly till he dies, and then dump him with his car in the ocean by the docks to make it look like an accident.

So what now, Clarence? Do you break the code and rat on your colleagues, or pretend this never happened? He quits his job in guilt and shame and becomes an alcoholic. The comedic elements start to hit when Clarence returns from his grave, by reasons I won’t spoil, and takes his sweet revenge on the cops.

The second story is titled Boys Do Get Bruised, and here we’re in a relatively quiet, middle-class suburb area where we meet the family of four: mom Sissy, dad Carl and their young introverted boy, Walter. He also wears some bruises that catch the eye of his teacher, Richard (played by the director himself, Rusty Cundieff), and he gets concerned about his well-being. Especially when he also gets bullied at school.

Richard tries to have a chat with Walter to ask him how he got those bruises, which are certainly not from the bullies. He says that a monster comes and terrorizes him while being in bed at night. And if we’re to believe him, we’re actually talking about a real boogely monster that he also makes some cute drawings of. The subject here is pretty obvious, here spiced up with metaphors and a batshit crazy conclusion that even Mr. Simms couldn’t come up with. And I also dare to guess that last year’s Cobweb took some inspiration from this.

KKK Comeuppance is the third story, and my favorite. Because…well, I can’t say without spoiling. But what little I can say is that here we have the sweet and short biopic of none other than the white supremacist, and former grand wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, David Duke. Here he’s credited as Duke Metger as a combination of the neo-Nazi and founder of the White Aryan Resistance, Tom Metger, just to kill two snakes with one stone.

So, here we have the pleasure of meeting Duke, played by an energetic Corbin Bernsen (The Dentist), a pompous and arrogant senator who’s running for governor in Louisiana. As an ex-member of the KKK and all that shadiness, people aren’t happy, and to add insult to injury, Duke is preparing his office at an old, historical plantation. One of the protesters, who had ancestors living there, won’t let that happen, and has a special plan for him that includes, yes you guessed it – Voodoo, which seems to work every time. This one gets pretty wild with some great use of stop-motion effects that would even make Charles Band drool like an infant. And I couldn’t stop thinking about the song Voodoo by Body Count.

Hard-Core Convert is the fourth and final story. And there isn’t much fun to have with this one, to be honest. But it’s a solid and well-made segment, though, that spits some hard red-pilled truths about the black gang communities. It’s another day in the hood when a gang-related shooting episode escalates, where Jerome gets shot, survives and gets thrown in jail. After being in the tank for four years, he gets met by Dr. Cushing (a nice, little nod to Dr. Van Helsing Peter Cushing) who offers him a plea-deal if he participates in an experimental rehabilitation program. He, of course, takes the offer, and what happens next is a more twisted version of A Clockwork Orange, where Jerome gets put into a sensory deprivation chamber to get confronted by all the people he’d killed over the years, all of whom are black. One of his victims is also a little girl. A bleak segment, this one. Now I want some more weed.

But while this was the final story, we have an encore here. And boy, o’boy … nothing can prepare you for this!

And that’s pretty much how far I can go into each segment without spoiling the whole damn thing. But you see the pattern of social commentary here, told with a morbid and great sense of humor. Black humor in the purest form, if you will, where a ridiculous, zany and charismatic Clarence Williams III steals the entire show between the segments with his electric performance as the mortician Simms. He looks like a bizarro version of Samuel L. Jackson who’s just slipped into a pool filled with cocaine. Tales from the Hood is overall a wild ride and a timeless, little classic that seems as fresh and relevant today, much due to the subject matters.

Director: Rusty Cundieff
Writers: Rusty Cundieff, Darin Scott
Country & year: USA, 1995
Actors: Clarence Williams III, Joe Torry, De’aundre Bonds, Samuel Monroe Jr., Wings Hauser, Tom Wright, Anthony Griffith, Michael Massee, Duane Whitaker, David Alan Grier, Brandon Hammond, Rusty Cundieff, Paula Jai Parker, Corbin Bernsen
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114609/

Drag Me to Hell (2009)

Posted on October 18, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

The year is 1969, and the young medium Shaun San Dena gets a visit from a desperate couple who wants her to save their son. After having stolen a necklace from the gypsies, he’s fallen ill and have started hearing evil voices. Before she can even start a proper séance, the boy is quite literally dragged to Hell to never be seen again. Then, we fast forward to present day in Los Angeles, where Christine Brown works as a bank loan officer and is hungry for a promotion to become assistant branch manager. Her boss gives her some advice: she will prove her worth if she can show herself as someone being able to make tough decisions. She gets her chance pretty soon afterwards, when an elderly woman named Sylvia Ganush asks for a third extension on her mortgage. Despite Ganush literally begging on her knees, Christine refuses her pleas because she wants to show off her “tough decision making“ to her boss. Promotion, here we come! Later, in the parking lot, the elderly woman decides to give Christine a payback for shaming her and denying her pleas for help, and after a long struggle Ganush rips a button from Christine’s coat and curses it. Uh-oh. Christine is soon haunted by a dark spirit, which is attacking and tormenting her. She decides to beg Ganush for forgiveness, but before she can do so she finds out that the old woman has passed away. Not only that, but the curse that’s been cast upon her will have her tormented by a powerful demon for three days, before she will be dragged to Hell.

Drag Me to Hell is a supernatural horror film from 2009, directed and co-written by Sam Raimi with Ivan Raimi. The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, and became an immediate success. It grossed $90.8 million worldwide on a $30 million budget, and won awards and received generally very favorable reviews. Originally, the story for the film had been written 10 years prior to the film going into production, under the working title The Curse. After finishing the script for the film, Raimi was busy with the Spider-Man film series so it took a while before the film could be pushed forward. Raimi wanted it to be a PG-13 film, with less gore than his earlier horror films, stating that this time he wanted to do something different. He wanted to make a suspenseful movie with wild moments and a lot of dark humor, and in all of this he definitely succeeded.

The movie starts with a punch during the opening scene, where a little boy is quite literally dragged to the depths of Hell itself to burn forever while his terrified parents can’t do anything but watch in horror. And all over a stolen necklace…not exactly eternal damnation-worthy, but curses aren’t always supposed to be fair. Seeing this we know what Christine is at risk of, which heightens the suspense. While the protagonist isn’t all that innocent (she could have helped the old lady, but she chose to focus on her promotion instead), her actions are still not so awful that we think she deserves to be cast into Hell. Yes, we root for her, but we also can’t help but watch in glee when things turn into total demonic frolic mayhem, with scenes that are both funny and delightfully spooky. While the film does have its cheesy moments, its all done with a lot of excitement and manages to blend the dark humor with the horror elements very nicely. It’s all done in a boisterous Halloween spirit, managing to be a great load of fun. The special effects used in the film is a good variation of different techniques: green screen, prosthetics, puppets and cgi, and different effect houses were utilized, including Phil Tippet‘s studio.

Drag me to Hell is a blast from start to finish, and a perfect watch during the Halloween season!

In early 2023, Raimi revealed that Ghost House Pictures was actively trying to come up with ideas for a sequel. Well…we’re now in the late part of 2024, and while Drag me to Hell 2 is listed on IMDb, there’s absolutely no info about this sequel at all. So I’m not holding my breath for that one.

Director: Sam Raimi
Writers: Sam Raimi, Ivan Raimi
Country & year: USA, 2009
Actors: Alison Lohman, Justin Long, Lorna Raver, Dileep Rao, David Paymer, Adriana Barraza, Chelcie Ross, Reggie Lee, Molly Cheek, Bojana Novakovic, Kevin Foster, Alexis Cruz
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1127180/

FleshEater (1988)

Posted on October 17, 2024October 17, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

It’s a crisp and sunny day in late October in the deep redneck lands of Pennsylvania where a group of college kids are getting ready to celebrate Halloween somewhere in the woods. Meanwhile, some redneck farmer is trying to get rid of a treestump with his tractor. That was more easer said than done. Under the treestump he finds a wooden casket with a pentagram mark and some cryptic letters that says something like “do not open“. Of course, he opens it and in the casket lies the one and only – The Flesheater.

He’s played by S. William Hinzman, or more simply Bill Hinzman (1936-2012) and while his name maybe doesn’t ring any hells bells, you surely know his face. Because, you see, he was the very first zombie we saw in George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968). He’s the one who pops up right after the classic line “They’re coming to get you, Barbara…“. So we’re talking about a true legend here, where it was just a matter of time when he got his own spinoff, even though it isn’t officially connected with Living Dead.

The Flesheater attacks the tractor redneck guy right away, which turns him into a zombie. What a shocker. Back to our college teens (who appears to be actors in their early 30s) are getting ready to find their own fuck spot. A couple finds a barn where they eventually get attacked by Mr. Flesheater, and it snowballs from here on with more random rednecks getting their flesh chewed off and turning into flesheaters. And since it’s Halloween, the dispatcher at the local sheriff’s department scoffs off the concerned phone calls as a series of pranks. So, Happy Halloween and enjoy the feast!

The FleshEater is also written, produced, directed and edited by Bill Hinzman himself. A little grassroot passion project made in the rural countryside area of Pennsylvania, where Romero’s Dead trilogy also was made. The actors consist of all from local amateurs to family members who gladly let themselves get killed brutally on screen. The little girl who’s dressed as an angel, who also gets killed, not once but twice (!), is the ten-year old daughter of Bill Hinzman, while the actress who plays her mother is actually her mother and Bill’s wife. What a cute family production and what some cool, wholesome parents this girl must have had.

Hinzman does a fun and entertaining screen presence, although he comes across more like a drunk, unhinged uncle who just wants to score some pussy. The amount of gore is impressively high with some great effects and the film clearly checks all the points to piss the ratings board straight in their faces and shove in as much graphic content as possible. We also have some bushy full-frontal nudity here, cringe foreplay sex scenes, and kids getting killed, as mentioned, where a speed dial to the whambulance may be necessary. Har-har, that was, of course, sarcasm.

This being said, I would lie if I said that the film is on the same level of production value as Romero’s films. It’s a far cry with only a quick paper thin backstory of The Flesheater character, and no character developments other than they’re body-counts in line to be killed off. We jump from one scenario to the next where random people get killed. I call this the Andreas Schnaas of filmmaking. The only thing missing here is someone taking a piss right before getting killed. The acting is lousy, the dialogues even worse. But I can’t say I was bored. It has its shoe-string low budget charm with a certain naive energy to it with a thick layer of redneck atmosphere, and it got several laughs from me. Also, watch Redneck Zombies while you’re in the right mood.

The film has several alternative titles such as Zombie Nosh and Revenge of the Living Dead. The original title is FleshEater, while the full title is actually FleshEater – Revenge of the Living Dead. It’s known as Zombie Flesh Eater – Revenge of the Living Dead in Germany, not directed by Lucio Fulci. And enough confusion for now. The film was released in 2022 by Vinegar Syndrome in both 4K UHD and Blu-ray, and guess what: it’s also on Tubi.

Director: S. William Hinzman
Writers: S. William Hinzman, Bill Randolph
Country & year: USA, 1988
Actors: S. William Hinzman, John Mowod, Leslie Ann Wick, Kevin Kindlin, Charis Kirkpatrik Acuff, James J. Rutan, Lisa Smith, Denise Morrone, Heidi Hinzman, Bonnie Hinzman
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109809/

Night of the Animated Dead (2021)

Posted on October 16, 2024October 16, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

Night of the Animated Dead (2021) is an adult animated horror film directed by Jason Axinn (who also made To Your Last Death). It follows the pretty familiar story of the original movie (Night of the Living Dead from 1968 by George A. Romero): Barbara and her brother John are going to visit their father’s grave in a cemetery in Pennsylvania. Simultaneously, a zombie outbreak causes the corpses to reanimate all over the country, and when John is attacked by one of the zombies, Barbara flees to a nearby farmhouse. There she encounters other survivors, including Ben who also seeks shelter in that house. Barbara gets in a catatonic shock, while Ben must fight of zombies with a torch as it seems fire is their weakness. Then they discover Harry and his wife Helen, who is hiding in the basement with their injured daughter. Several people have decided to seek shelter in the farmhouse, but will they be able to keep the zombies out?

The film was animated by Demente Animation Studio, and on their website it’s clearly listed that this movie was made on a limited budget. And it shows. The animation leaves a lot to be desired, and while it’s made in the traditional and quite time-consuming 2D animation style the movie suffers a bit from not having had a considerably bigger budget to flesh out the animation a lot more. There’s no doubt that the animators had to prioritize certain scenes over the overall product, pretty much like many of the old cartoons where the majority of an episode had very limited animation and movement while action and fight scenes looked nice (most of which were often used in the opening intros of the series, so you literally watched the best parts while listening to the theme songs). It’s obvious that the limited budget put a lot of restraints of how well this could be made, and the final product suffers from it. That being said, there are some decent scenes and particularly the gory ones are pretty good.

Overall, Night of the Animated Dead is more a movie you watch mostly for curiosity’s sake, as unfortunately it feels kind of redundant since it basically just retells the original story. Perhaps it would have been far more interesting if it was made in a completely different way to the original, maybe playing a lot more on the gore scenes because those were definitely the movie’s highlights. An interesting watch overall, but Jason Axinn’s previous film To Your Last Death is far superior compared to this one.

The movie is distributed by Warner Bros, and was released on DVD and Blu-ray in 2021. It is also widely available on several streaming sites.

Director: Jason Axinn
Writers: George A. Romero, John A. Russo (based on their original script)
Country & year: USA, 2021
Voice actors: Josh Duhamel, Dulé Hill, Katharine Isabelle, James Roday Rodriguez, Katee Sackhoff, Will Sasso, Jimmi Simpson, Nancy Travis, Stefan Marks, William Calvert, Chris Edgerly
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14961110/

Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon (2006)

Posted on October 15, 2024October 7, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

Have you always wondered why every damn serial killer in slasher movies tends to walk after their victims, like they’re about to shit their pants, rather than running? Well, Leslie Vernon (Nathan Baesel) is finally here to explain.

Being a top-tier serial killer like Freddy Krueger, Jason Vorhees, Michael Myers or Art the Clown, is not just about grabbing a weapon and going on a killing-spree, you see. A ton of preparation, planning and complex study of the chosen victims to “the final girl“ has to be examined to the smallest details. And be sure to eat well and do your cardio exercise regularly, cause this is not a job for out-of-shape lard asses.

A small group of young film students led by Taylor (Angela Goethals) has gotten the privilege to follow the aspiring serial killer Leslie Vernon. He’s a month away from his upcoming murder-spree where he’s planning to kill a group of kids while they are having a party in an old abandoned house, and the film crew are invited to document the whole process. Sounds like the standard slasher premise we’ve seen two thousand times already. Vernon looks like a little brother of Andrew Divoff and Michael C. Hall, and like his role models, he has a tragic backstory to paint his alter ego with. We get a never-seen-before glimpse of the secret underworld of serial killers when the film crew gets to meet Vernon’s best friend and colleague, Eugene (Scott Wilson). He’s a retired veteran and has learned Vernon some tricks. We don’t know much of Eugene’s many roles in the slasher arena throughout the decades other than there’s some theory that he’s actually Billy Lenz, the unseen killer from Black Christmas (1974). C o o l. He also shares his dark past and double-life in a happy marriage… while he sleeps in a tank under the ground outside the house.

We also met Dr. Halloran (Robert Englund), the film’s version of Dr. Loomis if you will, who once treated Leslie Vernon and now is on his tail to chase him down. I find zero joy in saying this, but it’s not wrong to point out that Robert Englund has appeared in a string of terrible dogshit films during the last 10, 15, 20 years or so, and this is one of the very few watch-worthy flicks he’s in, post Freddy. We see Zelda Rubinstein as a librarian, her final role before she passed away four years later, and wandered into the light.

The film is mostly presented as a raw, handheld documentary with segments that switch back and forth to conventional. This may take some of the edge off, but this is not a film to take seriously to begin with, and Behind the Mask is overall a clever and entertaining satire on the cheesy slasher genre that dominated the 1980s. It’s also, of course, a big plus if you’re a big fan of the genre and have seen most of the catalogs of slashers from that era and its resurgence after the mid 90s. If not, the inside-jokes and the references will fly over your head while you’re just sitting and waiting for the blood’n gore which there’s not much focus on.

And one thing is for certain: You’ll never be able to watch a body-count slasher in the same way ever again.

Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon

Director: Scott Glosserman
Writers: Scott Glosserman, David J. Stieve
Country & year: USA, 2012
Actors: Nathan Baesel, Angela Goethals, Robert Englund, Scott Wilson, Zelda Rubinstein, Bridgett Newton, Kate Miner, Ben Pace, Britain Spellings, Hart Turner, Krissy Carlson, Travis Zariwny
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0437857/

Incident in a Ghostland (2018)

Posted on October 14, 2024October 7, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

Colleen and her two teenage daughters Beth and Vera are traveling to their recently deceased aunt’s house which they have inherited. On their way to the house, which is placed in a very secluded area, they stop by a gas station where Beth reads an article about some recent home invasions where parents have been killed, and daughters spared. When driving towards the house, they are being stalked by some people driving a candy truck. They barely have time to settle in the strange house which is filled with dolls and odd knickknacks, when a huge mentally impaired man (Fat Man) an a transvestite (Candy Truck Woman) breaks into the house and attack them. Vera is assaulted by the Fat Man, while Beth tries to escape but is captured by the Candy Truck Woman who says “We just wanna play with dolls“. The intrudes are then killed by Colleen.

Fast forward sixteen years later, Beth has become a successful horror writer and lives in Chicago with her husband and son. Her new novel is titled Incident in a Ghostland, and she appears on a talk show to promote it and says that it’s based on what happened that night. Later, she receives a phonecall from her sister Vera, who begs her to return to the house. Vera and Colleen have been living there ever since the incident, and Vera has since been unable to recover from the trauma. When Beth arrives back at the house, she finds that Vera is still tormented by Fat Man and Candy Truck Woman.

Ghostland (aka Incident in a Ghostland) is a psychological horror film from 2018, written and directed by Pascal Laugier (Martyrs, The Tall Man). It’s a movie that at first seems to be very straightforward, and then proves to be something completely different. It’s also a movie where you should avoid any spoilers, as they may potentially ruin some of the experience, because there are a fair amount of twists and turns here.

Ghostland plays heavily on making the surroundings as strange and atmospheric as possible, with the deceased aunt’s house filled with creepy dolls and dark hallways. The characters are pretty good, but best of all are of course the villains. The Candy Truck Woman (played by Kevin Power) and the Fat Man (played by Rob Archer) looks like some kind of fantasy-nightmare where Marilyn Manson has teamed up with Goonies-Sloth’s big bad brother. It’s also quite fitting how the two sisters, where Vera is grounded in reality while Beth has her feet more planted into fairytaleland, describe the murderers in the way they see them: Beth’s version of them is “a witch and an ogre“, while Vera’s true to nature description is simply “two men in a fucking truck!“ where both are actually a fitting description for the menaced killers. Personally, I guess I would have gone for “witch“ and “ogre“ too…

There was an unfortunate real incident in this ghostland: the actress who played Vera, Taylor Hickson, got a permanent facial disfigurement during the shooting of the film, for which she sued the film’s production company over due to lost work as a result of her permanent scars.

Ghostland does have some disturbing moments, which shouldn’t come as a surprise since it’s made by the same guy who gave us Martyrs. Despite its somewhat Halloween-ish looks it’s far from being a comfort-horror due to the sexual abuse and psychological terror the girls are going through, but it is a suspenseful and twisty movie with a lot of atmosphere, and I recommend going in blindly if you want to check it out.

Writers and director: Pascal Laugier
Country & year: Canada/France, 2018
Also known as: Ghostland
Actors: Crystal Reed, Mylène Farmer, Anastasia Phillips, Emilia Jones, Taylor Hickson, Kevin Power, Rob Archer, Mariam Bernstein, Alicia Johnston, Ernesto Griffith, Adam Hurtig, Denis Cozzi
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6195094/