american horror movies – Page 5

Puppet Master III: Toulon’s Revenge (1991)

Posted on June 30, 2023October 6, 2023 by HorrorGhouls

In the third installment of the Puppet Master franchise we go back to year 1941 and the place is Berlin, Germany where we meet André Toulon who works at the local puppetry theatre. And already here is the continuity off the rails when we learned in the first film that Toulon committed suicide in 1939 to escape the nazis, yet here is he alive and well and looks even younger. And if you thought this continuity blunder was bad, then you haven’t seen Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich where Toulon is suddenly an evil, unearthly and monstrous nazi himself. Oh my. Anyways… Toulon is also a happy man with his wife Elsa and it’s all flowers and rainbows until a nazi spy gets his attention on Toulon’s mysterious green serum, Elixir of Life, which wakes his puppets to life. And the nazi colonel Major Kraus (Richard Lynch) is very interested in that serum so he can resurrect dead bodies to use as human shields at the battlefront. With a group of Gestapos they invade his home and Kraus shoots and kills Elsa like the main villain he is. Toulon manages to escape and settles down in a hiding place where he’ll plan his way to avenge his wife and kill those nazi pigs with the help of his loyal puppets.

Although ocean air is always good for your health it was refreshing to get a break from the same locations on Bodega Bay Inn to the dark smogfilled streets of Berlin. And as Full Moon’s very limited resources to do a WW2 film is pretty far-fetched, they surprisingly nailed it. The sets, the costumes, the noir atmosphere is spot on. I was also surprised how the stock-footage of a crowded WW2 Berlin was able to blend in.

Then of course we have the puppets themselves which from here on and onward are actually the good-guys. Don’t know what I actually feel about that but as long they fight against nazis I’m in for it. And yes, nazis gets killed here in a straight-forward fashion, but like the second film and the upcoming ones, the kills are pretty tame and underwhelming. Some blood here and there and that’s pretty much it. Oh yeah, some quick shots of bare breasts, I almost forgot to mention. The new puppet, Six Shooter, is fun to watch though. He’s some dark bizarro version of Woody from Toy Story.

Puppet Master III is also regarded as the best one in the series and I agree. The script is on its most cohesive, more steady pacing and more interesting characters to pay attention to. The strongest card here is the main villain, Major Kraus, played by the charismatic cult legend Richard Lynch, the most top-tier actor you’ll witness in the whole franchise. It also have the unique whimsical Full Moon trademark tone from first two perfectly balanced with the more serious undertone, which adds to the odd entertainment value.

Director: David DeCoteau
Writers: Charles Band, C. Courtney Joyner, David Schmoeller
Country & year: USA, 1991
Actors: Blade, Pinhead, Jester, Tunneler, Six Shooter, Leech Woman, Djinn, Mephisto, Guy Rolfe, Richard Lynch, Ian Abercrombie, Kristopher Logan, Aron Eisenberg, Walter Gotell, Sarah Douglas
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt0102728/

Puppet Master II (1990)

Posted on June 27, 2023October 6, 2023 by HorrorGhouls

We’re in the gloomy smoke machine-filled Shady Oaks Cemetery where the puppets pour some green liquid on André Toulon’s grave to finally resurrect their beloved master. After this atmospheric and eerie opening, we get introduced to the new characters, a group of young ghost hunters who are sent to the Bodega Inn to investigate the murder of Megan Gallagher, the wife of the previous owner.

One of the investigators go missing after getting kidnapped by two puppets and, ah shit, here we go again. There’s a weird side-plot with a redneck couple that lives in a shack not so far from the hotel, and they’re there only to get body counted. A soft-spoken man of mystery with a Romanian accent shows up at the hotel who looks like a mix of The Invinsible Man and Héctor from the Spanish Sci-Fi thriller Timecrimes. And who could that possibly be and why is he so interested in collecting brain tissues as people at the hotel starts to get killed? Huh.. Only Scooby-Doo would know…

Although this could also easily be a remake of the first one, there are some new ideas here to make some progress in the franchise which later goes more back-and-forth in the timeline. We have some flashbacks as we dip more into the lore and backstory of André Toulon and how he and his wife came across the Elixir of Life somewhere in Egypt. The characters are mostly disposable meat balloons with their own personal drama, but they’re at least far more awake and in presence than they were in the first one.

But the star here is the new puppet Torch which, you’ve already guessed, torches his victims to hell with a flamethrower as a hand. Totally rad! And then we have a quick classic “paused movie moment“ with three seconds of bare tits. The kills are not to get too exited about. We have a lackluster scene with the Tunneller who drills the skull of one of the sleeping victims, some quick knifing from Blade and the only memorable one is a woman who gets burned alive by the Torch. There’s also a scene in broad daylight where some kid encounters Torch, which cuts off before he gets roasted. No dwarfs were available for body burn, I assume. Meh! Puppet Master II is overall entertaining as long as it’s going thanks to the mysterious villain, tasty gothic visuals, gloomy and light-dimming atmosphere, the puppets themselves, catchy tunes from composer Richard Band (brother of Charles Band) but otherwise, not much that will stick to the memory.

Director: David Allen
Writers: Charles Band, David Pabian, David Schmoeller
Country & year: USA, 1990
Actors: Blade, Pinhead, Jester, Tunneler, Leech Woman, Torch, Djinn, Mephisto, Elizabeth Maclellan, Collin Bernsen, Steve Welles, Greg Webb, Charlie Spradling, Jeff Celentano, Nita Talbot
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt0100438/

Puppet Master (1989)

Posted on June 23, 2023October 6, 2023 by HorrorGhouls

It’s time to take a dive into the dim-lighted, twisted, wacky and demented world of Full Moon from the mind of the master of puppets himself, Charles Band, where it’s Halloween 24/7.

Full Moon Features were established in the very late 80s and Mr. Band was already a veteran in the independent movie business, which had the Empire Pictures in his legacy of producing primarily low-budget horror/fantasy films spewed out for the blooming VHS market. Most of which are cheap schlocks aimed at a niche audience. Some notable titles from that era includes The Dungeonmaster, Troll, Ghoulies I and II, Trancers, Crawlspace, Rawhead Rex, TerrorVision, Re-Animator, From Beyond, Cellar Dweller and the list goes to the moon and back.

But with its brand new company after the financial collapse of Empire Pictures, it needed to get more serious and create a flagship film series to kickstart a new era where VHS was still king (and very expensive to buy). With Charles Band’s deep obsession with puppets and dolls, The Puppet Master became a long-lived franchise which, at the time being, has spawned over 14 sequels over the course of the 90s and 2000s. The last entry was released in 2022 with Puppet Master: Doktor Death and more are likely to come. An online video game based on the films was also launched this year.

All films are available on streaming at fullmoonfeatures.com, except for Puppet Master vs Demonic Toys (2004) because it’s owned by SyFy for some reason and Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich (2018) for whatever reason. They’re available on other streaming sites though for those who have regional bullshit access.

Puppet Master starts back in 1939 at Bodega Bay Inn, a hotel on the Californian seacoast and the main location in most of the films in the series. The old puppeteer, André Toulon, is in his room surrounded by his dolls and puppets as he’s adding some colorpaint on his latest creation. He also has a mysterious elixir that brings the puppets to life, and no other than Hitler himself wants that elixir. Of course. Two Nazi spies enter the hotel as they are on the way to capture Toulon. Before they enter his room, Toulon has hidden the puppets away in a suitcase and committed suicide by a bullet in the skull.

We then jump to present time where four psychics are spiritually contacted by Neil Galahger. He’s the current owner of Bodega Bay Inn, and when they arrive they find out that he committed suicide. Why? Who really cares. The more important thing here is that there are murderous puppets creeping around and they don’t like these psychics, and understandably so when they have the nerve to trespass on their domain. So go kill’em, puppets!

The film has its flaws and rough edges but my biggest gripe here is the characters (the humans to be more specific) which drags the film to utter boredom on several places. There’s absolutely nothing to them as they have as much screen presence like a dead potato. They seem completely tuned out, bored out of their minds and there’s clearly no one home behind their eyes. Even the puppets look more alive. And yes, my ghoulish walnut-sized brain gets that they’re supposed to dip in-and-out of trances and whatnot like the weird psychics they are, but still… WAKE THE FUCK UP! SNAP-SNAP! One of the psychics, played by Paul Le Mat, looks like a young H.R. Giger, by the way.

Then we have the puppets which are just cute and adorable and always amusing to watch. They also have their own skills and weapons. Here we meet Jester the Clown with possibly the largest weapon pack that includes a knife, a handgun, razor-sharped scissors, exploding cigars filled with nitroglycerin, candy bazooka, smiling heart–shaped laughing gas bomb, flesh–eating bubble gum blower, explosive cyanide– acid stuffed Ice Cream pies, and even much more. Even John Wick would struggle here.

Leech Woman is the one with the gross-factor as she spews out leeches from her mouth upon her victims. Tunneller is an asian-looking puppet with a cone-shaped power drill on his head which speaks for itself. Blade is the leader of the puppets and pretty much the mascot for the whole Full Moon brand and which his name suggest, slashes his victims with his knife. My personal favorite is Pinhead, the one with the small head and the big knuckles. He’s just simple and a pure old-schooler who sucker-punches his victims into oblivion and oozes good old toxic masculinity. And the reason Pinhead’s fists looks more real in the elevator scene where he punches a woman is because it’s the fists of a dwarf stunt woman. In one of the sequels Pinhead also manages to rip someone’s head off with his hands. Savage!

The castle-style hotel of Bodega Bay Inn with its gothic surroundings mixed with POV shots from the puppets perspective creates an eerie atmosphere. There’s certainly some great production value here, despite its flaws, and it’s overall a decent-looking film with some clever camera work and steady directing from David Schmoeller (who also made the cult film Tourist Trap and Crawlspace with Klaus Kinski). The gore is minimal but we have at least some throat slashing, fingers that gets chopped off like small sausages and some other ghoulishness for dessert. Nothing too special but the fact that all kills are performed by a mix of stop-motion and puppets on strings surely adds to the charm.

Director: David Schmoeller
Writers: Charles Band, Kenneth J. Hall, David Schmoeller
Country & year: USA, 1989
Actors: Blade, Pinhead, Jester, Tunneler, Leech Woman, Gengie, Shreddar Khan, Paul Le Mat, William Hickey, Irene Miracle, Jimmie F. Skaggs, Robin Frates, Matt Roe, Kathryn O’Reilly
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt0098143/

The Swarm (1978)

Posted on June 20, 2023September 19, 2023 by HorrorGhouls

With titles such as Invasion of the Bee Girls (1973), Killer Bees (1974), The Savage Bees (1976), The Bees (1978) and Terror Out of the Sky (1978), we can fairly say that the 1970s was also the decade of the killer bees. While most of them were obscure TV movies, it was The Swarm that stood out, mainly because this was a big Hollywood studio film with as many Oscar winners as possible on the cast list, fronted by Michael Caine. And before Roland Emmerich and his Independence Day, which revived the disaster-film genre in the mid 90s, there was Irwin Allen. “Master of Disaster“ he was called in positive terms for the success of producing blockbusters like The Poseidon Adventure (1972) and The Towering Inferno (1974) which is regarded as the very first disaster-film. He also directed numerous TV series. So, in 1978, it was time to not only to produce, but also direct his first disaster feature with a big star cast and the most notable of all: 20 million bees!

The plot centers around Texas where a large legion of African killer bees have invaded the state. While the bees spread further into the country and starts terrorizing cities and leaving thousands of body counts, the scientist Dr. Bradford Crane (Michael Caine) is constantly on track to figure out a plan to stop them while fighting against the government. With him he has his trustworthy Dr. Walter Krim (Henry Fonda) to develop an antidote to the bee venom. We quickly learn that these bees are not to be underestimated as they’re capable of attacking military helicopters and plunging them to the ground in an explosion. A sight you don’t see everyday. So yeah, these bees are pissed as hell. We have a picnic scene where a young boy witnesses his parents getting swarmed right before his eyes. He isolates himself in the car, wipes the thick layer of bees on the front windshield and manages to escape by driving off to the nearest town. He later makes matters worse by going back to the area with some friends to throw molotovs at the swarm. It all escalates to the point where cities have to evacuate, which also leads to an infamous scene with a train and a chaotic climax with doomsday mayhem which includes flamethrowers and explosions.

And the question is: is this really as bad as its reputation, even being on the list of “worst films ever made“? Nah. On the technical aspects, the film is, for the most part, pretty solid although it has its stains. The script, however, and if not the pacing of its runtime of 156 minutes (judging Warner Archive’s Blu-ray), has a lot of issues. We have boring subplots with love affairs that go nowhere. Some people come and go and are never to be seen again. There’s some eye-rolling and wonky dialogue here as well, some of which are delivered as if this was an Adam West Batman movie. There’s a bunch of dry science talk, a lot of filler-scenes, which makes the film look more dated, clunky and overall an unfocused mess. The scenes where the stung victims hallucinate and see a big bee hoovering right in front of them looks just goofy, out-of-place and -again- dated like a public-domain 50s monster movie, while the film takes itself dead seriously. Not a masterpiece in any shape or form, but the bees alone makes it worth a watch.

Then we have Michael Caine’s character, who comes across like a stone-cold psychopath who would fit more as a sinister villain in a James Bond film. He always bears a duper-delight and smirks in the most inappropriate moments. His off-putting demeanor may be linked with the fact that this was one of Caine’s notorious list of “paycheck movies“ and he later claimed that it was the worst film he ever starred in. A-ha… He never saw Jaws: The Revenge, another paycheck, so that film doesn’t count. Sir Caine turned 90 recently, by the way. Cheers.

But the real stars of the film is the 20 million bees that got used and sacrificed. God bless and no wonder why they’re furious. Today all would be CGI, no question about it, but here we actually have sets with thousand of bees that swarms around actors and crew as they do their best to not have their mouth open. While there are some dated edges here, the scenes with the bee attacks looks as real as they can get and are quite spectacular, highly ambitiously made and is an unnerving sight. Even though 800,000 of them got their stingers removed, they couldn’t avoid to mix them with those who had the stingers intact which caused several actors to get stung. How anyone would sign up for something like this is beyond me. And the amount of children that’s involved must have parents that really hates them. We always hear about difficult filming conditions, especially from the pre-CGI era where most of the effects had to be shot on set but bruh… I refuse to believe that anyone involved would look back and say; yeah, being in that bee movie was such a fun time and I would do that again. You couldn’t even pay me a million. Mr. Not-The-Bees himself would agree (that meme just had to be shoved in here).

The Swarm was a massive flop and was ridiculed by the few critics that saw it. Producer and director Irwin Allen was so devastated by all the money he lost on the film that he refused to ever mention the film in future interviews. And besides the short 22-minutes making-of documentary on the Blu-ray there isn’t much insight to behold. At least the trivia section on IMDb can tell us that actor Michael Caine stated in an interview that during filming he thought the little yellow spots left by the bees on his clothing was honey, so he began to eat them, entirely unaware that what he was eating was actually bee feces. In other words: honey and bee poop tastes the same. Yummy.

Director: Irwin Allen
Writers: Arthur Herzog III, Stirling Silliphant
Country & year: USA, 1978
Actors: Michael Caine, Katharine Ross, Richard Widmark, Richard Chamberlain, Olivia de Havilland, Ben Johnson, Lee Grant, José Ferrer, Patty Duke, Henry Fonda & 20 million bees
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt0078350/

Ed Gein: The Musical (2010)

Posted on June 16, 2023July 10, 2023 by HorrorGhouls

♫ ♪ Somebody Framed Meeeeeee ♪ …

– Shut up and quit singing!

Welcome to amateur hour. Today we take a look at Ed Gein: The Musical, a homemade micro-budget horror comedy made for shits n’giggles that was probably a fun time for all those involved. The rest of the world had to wait for ten whole years to finally witness a singing Ed Gein to be released on DVD.

The film starts straight to the point where Ed Gein enters Mary Hagan’s store and then shoots her with a shotgun. After the sinful act, we hear the first notes of Eddie as he sings (with the voice-over of Will Keizer, who wrote most of the songs).

♫ Oooooooooh no, I Did A Bad Thing … And Now They Are Coming For Meeee … There’s Nowhere To Hide … Ooooh Mama, I Did A Bad Thing ♪ …

Eddie takes the corpse to his shed with the second musical number while he chops up some limbs, titled Lonely Feeling, Lonely Reeling, and the energy is as electric as a Sunday evening at the local Bingo hall.

Ed gets arrested by the sheriff, suspected of the murder of Miss Hagan, and brought into the interrogation room. From here on, Ed tells his life story, filled with nothing but delusional fantasies as we dive into more zero-budget, amateur movie madness and two-notes of honky-tonk song numbers mixed with mainly acoustic guitar and not much of the basic understanding of how a musical works. The songs are completely forgettable and performed in the most bland, lifeless karaoke style with a static camera.

We see a quick flashback scene where a young Ed gets abused by his dad for having a picture of a half-naked lady. After getting whipped with the belt, Ed says: When I’m grown I won’t take this crap. When I’m grown I will be a handsome chap. Yeah, you heard that right. We then cut to the current Ed, dressed like a sleazy car-salesman as he sings… a rap-song. The cringe meter is already at its maximum, but it still manages to get worse. Because we haven’t seen the scene with Ed and his mom yet.

We see Ed in various scenarios. In one scene he’s in some hall with elderly people, he’s in the fakest-looking cemetery ever put on film, he sits in a bar, sings some duets with random chicks and more nonsensical buffoonery follows. We also see him in a sitcom setting where they forgot to add the laugh track. All filmed in blurry and out-of-focus images with the sense of filming in general as a blind, drunk sailor man who’s way past his bedtime. As for the comedy goes we laugh more at the film than with it, which is completely fine by me.

The only legit quality to point out is the eye-catching artwork on the DVD cover. And if you dig far enough you can find it at CD Universe. For more Ed Gein, check out Deranged (1974), Ed Gein (2000) and the graphic novel Did You Hear What Ed Gein Done? (2021).

Director: Steve Russell
Writer: Dan Davies
Country & year: USA, 2010
Actors: Dan Davies, Clifford Henry, Laurie Friedman-Fannin, Lucia Stevenson, M.J. Marsh, Cindy Yungwirth, James Fairchild, Barbra Alloy, Edie Amundsen, Charlie Bitter, Jason Buss
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt1562295/

The Cellar (2022)

Posted on June 13, 2023 by HorrorGhouls

Kiera and Brian Woods move into an old house with their two children, the teenage girl Ellie and the elementary boy Steven. Ellie, being a typical teenage girl is opposed to the move and is already missing her old place and her friends. However, Kiera and Brian moved to this place because of job opportunities, so that’s that. On their very first night in the old house, the couple must leave for work and leave their two children all alone, in a completely unfamiliar place. Yeah, great parenting right there. Ellie is of course dismayed that she is tasked with watching her younger brother on the very first night in the new house, and while Steven is up to his shenanigans he finds a secret room which includes an old Sonographe. Ellie starts playing it, only to hear a man reciting some formulas, and counting up slowly. She shuts it off before the counting reaches seven, and says to Steven that it’s time to go to bed. Soon after, there’s a power outage and Ellie panics and calls her mother. The breaker is located in the cellar (of course), but Ellie is terrified to go down there. While on the phone with her daughter, Kiera tells Ellie to count to 10, which is the number of steps down to the floor of the basement. Ellie keeps counting, but after reaching the number 10, she keeps counting and sounds like she have come into a trance-like manner. Kiera and Brian hurries home, only to find Ellie missing.

The Cellar is a 2022 Irish supernatural horror film, based on the horror short from 2004 called The Ten Steps. Both are written and directed by Brendan Muldowney. The story is following the well-known formula of how you should never buy an old, creepy house without knowing about its past. And of course, the wife is the one who understands that something spooky is going on, while the husband is pretty much “meh” about everything and believes their teenage daughter just decided to run off (which she had done before). So yeah, there are some of the familiar horror tropes here. But instead of the old over-sized house being infested with ghosts and ghoulies, however, the movie goes into sci-fi territory, with a little bit of Lovecraftian themes of cosmic horror, symbolism and occult numerology.

While the actual horror elements are a bit lacking, there’s a satisfactory amount of creepy atmosphere. The old big house with its creaky floors and gothic interior keeps the eerieness in place. It’s solid despite being rather formulaic, and the scene with Ellie going down the stairs and keeps counting is quite chilling. Of course, it’s not having the same effect as in the original horror short which leaves everything so much more mysterious. I guess that’s often an issue with horror shorts becoming full feature films: a short may only give you a small idea and leaves a lot to the imagination, while a feature film will need to explain things. Overall, however, The Cellar is a nice watch held up due to its solid atmosphere, and an interesting idea which is different from your typical spooky house flick.

Writer and director: Brendan Muldowney
Country & year: Ireland, Belgium, USA, 2022
Actors: Elisha Cuthbert, Eoin Macken, Abby Fitz, Dylan Fitzmaurice Brady, Tara Lee, Michael-David McKernan, Andrew Bennett, Aaron Monaghan, Marie Mullen
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14550642/

Glorious (2022)

Posted on June 9, 2023 by HorrorGhouls

Wes is driving at random after seemingly having a lot of trouble getting over his ex Brenda, and eventually stops his car at a roadside rest stop. He decides to stay there for the night, brings out the bottle and gets shitfaced to the point of blackout, and during the process he burns several of his possessions, including his pants. Yeah, that’s probably going to make everything so much better, right? Well, in the morning he wakes up on the ground, ready to empty his bowels and stumbles into the nearby restroom. He soon finds out that he is not alone in there, as another man starts speaking to him from one of the closed stalls. This conversation quickly grows uncomfortable for Wes, as this “man” claims to be a demigod by the name Ghatanothoa. Wes tries to leave, but finds that the door is sealed shut, and he’s got not other option than to listen to the so-called demigod and find out what it wants from him.

Glorious is a 2022 sci-fi comedy horror film directed by Rebekah McKendry, starring Ryan Kwanten in the leading role and J.K. Simmons as the voice actor for Ghatanothoa. Oh, and for those who may not already have guessed that this is a Lovecraftian movie: Ghatanothoa is said to be the firstborn of Cthulhu which first appeared in the 1953 story Out of the Aeons, which was ghostwritten by H. P. Lovecraft for Hazel Heald.

As you also may have guessed from the description alone, this movie is a real oddball for sure. Since the locations are very limited, the acting is essential here which fortunately comes off as quite decent and believable, with J.K. Simmons delivering a carefully balanced performance as the demigod. The comedy elements are often more subtle and dark, which I personally found fortunate as this heightened the weirdness without making it exhausting. It’s easy to get curious about this Wes character, why he’s taking the breakup with his ex Brenda so badly yet seemingly having been somehow to blame, based on a few snippets of flashbacks we get to see. And why the demigod in the restroom needs his help. It’s a mystery-fueled story, soaked in neon-colored weirdness.

It does get a little repetitive at times (after all, there’s some limitations as to how many things can happen in a locked restroom, right?), but it manages to reel it in and keeps you interested enough in watching how everything unfolds and this makes it an interesting chamber piece. There’s a few surprises and twists that keeps fueling the mystery, especially concerning the main character Wes with whom we are getting subtle hints about his true identity every now and then, but it’s not getting properly pieced together until the end. There’s a little bit of blood and gore and a few slightly gross parts, and despite the limited scenery it’s actually quite visual with use of vibrant colors.

If you want something a little quirky, wacky and weird, something to not take too seriously, then Glorious is a nice watch, although it will definitely not appeal to everyone.

Director: Rebekah McKendry
Writers: Todd Rigney, Joshua Hull, David Ian McKendry
Country & year: USA, 2022
Actors: Ryan Kwanten, J.K. Simmons, Sylvia Grace Crim, André Lamar, Tordy Clark
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12724306/

The Boogeyman (2023)

Posted on June 6, 2023June 7, 2023 by HorrorGhouls

The Harper family suffers from the recent death of the mother, who died in a car accident. Will, the husband, is struggling coming to terms with it and despite working as a therapist he doesn’t communicate well with his daughters, Sadie and Sawyer, who are suffering on their own. Sawyer, the youngest, is having nightmares and finds herself in need of keeping night lights on in order to sleep, while Sadie is having a hard time adjusting back into school as her friend has joined a group of girls who keeps treating Sadie like shit. While the whole family is suffering enough already, Will one day gets a man into his office who seems desperate to speak to him. The man’s name is Lester Billings, who explains that all of his three children are dead and that he is suspected of having killed them. He claims that some kind of entity is behind his children’s murders, and Will is getting the heebie-jeebies from the guy’s attitude and decides to secretly call the police while leaving the man alone in the therapy room. From bad to worse, this man slips away into the house and hangs himself in a closet, which Sadie is unfortunate enough to see and becomes even more traumatized than she already was. After Lester’s suicide, things are starting to become strange around the house of the Harper family. Sawyer starts noticing small glimpses of a creature hiding under her bed, and Sadie also starts noticing weird things. Soon, the girls realize that Lester Billings brought his children’s murderer to their own house.

The Boogeyman is a 2023 supernatural horror film directed by Rob Savage (Host). The movie was actually originally announced in 2018 with Beck and Woods writing the screenplay, but due to Disney’s acquisition of Fox it was cancelled in 2019, only to be revived in 2021 with Savage in the directing chair. It was also originally planned to just be released on the streaming service Hulu, but Disney instead opted for a theatrical release after positive response during the test screenings, and even Stephen King sent feedback about enjoying it, in which he wrote in an e-mail to Savage “They’d be fucking stupid to release this on streaming and not in cinemas“.

The Boogeyman is based on a short story by Stephen King from 1973, which is included in Night Shift (for more movies based on stories from Night Shift, check out The Mangler and Graveyard Shift). There are significant changes from the short story to the movie version, however, as the original is pretty much a one-room story about a man coming into a therapist’s office to talk about his dead children, which he believes have been killed by “the boogeyman”. The story is actually quite suspenseful, keeping the reader guessing as to what actually happened with the man’s children as he doesn’t exactly come off as the most sympathetic of people. And there’s the twist ending too, of course. So, how does the movie compare?

First off: while parts of the short story has been kept in the movie, it is of course very different as the man in the story (Lester Billings) is not the main character here. We also get more than a few of the modern horror tropes: dead family member, grief, single parent, etc. and as most supernatural horror movies these days fare, it’s not exactly scary. That doesn’t mean it’s bad, because overall it’s quite decent as a typical streamlined horror flick with supernatural elements (and of course, it’s considerably better than the Boogeyman movie from 2005, which doesn’t have anything to do with the Stephen King short by the way). Not unexpectedly, there’s no originality here, but the main issue with the movie is the pacing where there’s some parts that takes a little too long to come off.

The strength in this movie lies in it being relatively well-crafted which lifts it some cuts above average, and there’s a dark oppressive atmosphere throughout. It’s using grief as some kind of metaphor for the monster, and the boogeyman looks fairly okay (although, of course, he looks creepier when you only see him in the shadows during small glimpses). It’s not a movie that will make you turn your night lights on, but at least it’s a decent watch.

Director: Rob Savage
Writers: Scott Beck, Bryan Woods, Mark Heyman
Country & year: USA, Canada, 2023
Actors: Sophie Thatcher, Chris Messina, Vivien Lyra Blair, David Dastmalchian, Marin Ireland, Madison Hu, Maddie Nichols, Leeann Ross, Rio Sarah Machado
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt3427252/

Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986)

Posted on May 23, 2023May 26, 2023 by HorrorGhouls

Henry Lee Lucas and Ottis Toole were two middle-aged fugly-looking serial killers, which I would never guess after glancing at a picture of them. Huh… looks can be deceiving. Henry had the distinct dead rigor mortis eye and his epic Bugs Bunny grin, while Ottis looked like a white trash side character from a Rob Zombie film that I would guess had liked to dip his mosquito-nibbled penis into a chicken’s butthole. And among most of the classic and glorified serial killers like Ed Gein, Ted Bundy, Richard Ramirez, John Wayne Gacy, Jeffrey Dahmer and let’s also throw Fritz Honka in the club while we’re at it, they eventually got their hook in the mainstream pop-culture with a dedicated fanbase. Because serial killers fascinates us and we can’t get enough of them, it’s as simple as that.

Henry was especially a popular figure in Japan. A four-hour long documentary split into four episodes was released in 2019, titled The Confession Killer, where we see a film crew from Japan that were totally starstruck by finally meeting the legend. They even gave him a present after shaking hands and the ecstatic fanboys were all smiling ear to ear until Henry said I’ve been in your country, too. Har har. Henry was eventually proven to be a compulsive liar (wow, what a shocker) who hadn’t been in an airplane once in his life and didn’t even know that Japan is an island nation. The documentary is available on Netflix.

Henry has already been in and out of prison like a ping-pong ball, once for killing his mother at age 24, before he met his boyfriend and partner-in crime Ottis Toole in the mid 1970s. Their victims were mostly women as Henry hated them with a passion. If we put on the Dr. Phil glasses for a second we can assume that his hatred for women may stem from him allegedly being abused as a kid by his mother. Together the couple killed over hundreds of people, which Toole claimed after being arrested in ’83. When Henry got arrested some months after, he took the confession a bit further, to put it mildly, by claiming he’d killed well over 600 (!) people and went on a quiet bizarre confession-circus tour around the country with the law enforcement dangling clueless by his tail, all of which left more questions than answers. Only three (yes 3) of his victims were found and the whole thing happened to be a big, monumental prank/scam by Henry just to get more juicy media attention by falsely confessing a bunch of killings while the police wasted god know how much time, money and resources. A complete shitshow. Ottis died in 1996, age 49 while Henry got his last laugh in 2001, age 63.

Fun fact: Henry was one of the very first who got the “serial killer“ description after the FBI Special Agent Robert Ressler coined the term in the 1970s.

Henry: Portrait of a Serial killer starts direct and brutal with some graphic images of Henry’s recent victims who’s suffered painful deaths, as we dive straight into his grim world filled with depravity, rage and nihilism. We spend the first ten minutes with Henry (played by the young aspiring actor Michael Rooker in his first movie role) as he’s roaming the suburban streets of Chicago with his rusty car, scouting for his next victim like an emotionless Terminator. He finally catch a victim when he picks up a hitchhiker, a young lady with a guitar. And that’s good for the day. The next thing we see is Henry entering his apartment – a crampy, stinky shithole he shares with his friend Ottis (Tom Towles). He’a an older dude with a comb-over and bad teeth. They’re not a gay couple here though as they were in the real life, just some buddies who met in prison. When they’re not out to fuck some hookers in their car, who normally ends up getting killed by Henry’s lack of impulse control, they have at least a TV to watch, only until Ottis, that clumsy buffoon, smashes it.

Anyway, Ottis’ sister Becky (Tracy Arnold) comes to stay for a while after being on the run from a violent relationship. As Henry and Becky both shares trauma, they connect and she gets aroused by hearing how Henry killed his mother. This monologue alone, which starts with she was a whore shows what a top tier and intense actor Michael Rooker is by displaying his inner, explosive rage just with facial expressions while showing vulnerability like a lost child.

Ottis has never killed anyone but that’s about to change when he one day gets punched in the face by a teenage kid. I wanna kill somebody he says to Henry who then takes him out for a killing spree to teach him how to be a serial killer. It builds up to a home invasion scene where Henry has gotten the absolute worst out of Ottis as he snaps some woman’s neck like a deranged caveman in a pure gleeful psychosis and starts to show some tendencies of necrophilia, which even gets too much for Henry. A nasty scene that truly rips, much because of how we see the whole act through the grainy lens of Ottis’ camcorder like a snuff film.

The film is not heavy on plot, like most of the films in this subgenre, as it works more like a slice of life and death, and a psychological study of serial killers’ empty and nihilistic existence from their own perspective. We see the daily (and nightly activity) with Henry and Ottis as the time goes by, all filmed handheld on 16mm like a pseudo-documentary with a layer of unfiltered grittyness, surrounded with urban decay and dark, piss-smelling alleys – where also two serial killers happen to be lurking around, killing people just for the thrills. Nothing but bad vibes all over the place and not so far from William Lustig’s Maniac (1980) when it comes to the vacant tone and the overall grim atmosphere. Both Michael Rooker and Tom Towles are just fabulous in their role as a deadly and self-destructive duo, the one more sick in the head than the other, with a fucked-up dynamic which makes them amusing and entertaining to watch, just like two train-wrecks coming together with Ottis’ poor sister Becky being a clueless passenger.

And like Henry would say to sum up it all up in only three words: Fuck the Bears.

Director: John McNaughton
Writers: Richard Fire, John McNaughton
Country & year: USA, 1986
Actors: Michael Rooker, Tom Towles, Tracy Arnold, Mary Demas, Anne Bartoletti, Elizabeth Kaden, Ted Kaden, Denise Sullivan
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt0099763/

Evil Dead Rise (2023)

Posted on May 9, 2023 by HorrorGhouls

Halloween came a bit early this year with Evil Dead Rise – where I was first and foremost hoping for a direct sequel to the 2013 Evil Dead to finally catch up with Mia, that poor girl who fought till the end against demons and her drug addiction with one arm ripped off while it was raining blood. But instead we get a standalone film with an uncertain timeline, this time written and directed by the Irishman Lee Cronin (The Hole in the Ground and the horror short Ghost Train). Evil Dead Rise was originally scheduled to be released direct-to streaming on HBO Max, but when the film got overly positive reactions from the test screenings, the studio, Warner Brothers, decided to take a U-turn and rather go for a wide theatrical release. And what a genius decision that was, as this is yet another strong entry in a four decade old horror franchise that still manages to rip everyone a new one in full Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster force filled with carnage, mayhem, grim diabolical violence, gallons of blood and it’s probably the goriest since Evil Dead II (1987).

After a brutal opening which includes head scalping and a severed head, followed by a delightfully sinister and creative title sequence for Evil Dead Rise to set the tone, we take a big leap from the known primitive cabin setting to an old, deteriorated apartment complex in Los Angeles (even tough it’s filmed on a location in New Zealand). Here we meet the fresh single mother and tattoo artist Ellie (Alyssa Sutherland) and her three kids in the midst of some rough times as the complex is soon to be demolished and her cheating husband recently left her. After her sister Beth (Lily Sullivan) comes for a visit, an earthquake strikes which blocks the building’s entries and makes them isolated (just like the flood did in the first one). The quake also uncovers a secret room with a vault which has been hidden under the building for hundreds of years, filled with hanging crucifixes, a gramophone and – yeah of course – a certain familiar book made of human flesh that was never meant to be found.

Ellie’s son takes the book, the gramophone and some old records up to his room, and as he plays one of the records on it while the book opens up to show some gory illustrations, it conjures an angry, sadistic demon which then possesses Ellie in the elevator. After they find her in the bathtub in full demon makeup, she gives an evil grin to ensure us that mommy’s with the maggots now, and it’s a non-stop pandemonium from here on.

Sam Raimi, who’s only been behind the scenes as producer alongside with Bruce Campbell, have been pretty careful to handpick the right filmmakers for the projects, and Lee Cronin proved to be a bullseye for this franchise. He adds a lot of raw energy, tension and flexible camerawork with the cinematographer Dave Garbett who also worked on Ash vs Evil Dead. We have several nods to the earlier films and a pretty awesome tribute to The Shining. The film also has much of the same gritty and slightly more realistic tone as Fede Alvare’s Evil Dead which makes it easy to imagine these two sharing the same universe.

Evil Dead Rise is also the first in the franchise to include child actors, which can be seen as a red flag. But don’t worry ’bout that, the film doesn’t hold much back regardless, and with its R-rating, 1,720 gallons of fake blood, it delivers, even more than I expected. The violence is relentless, as it should be, with flawless effects that goes more and more over-the top to the point it made me think of Peter Jackson’s Braindead. We also have the fair share of injuries, one of which being a cheese grater peeling someone’s leg, and of course some glass chewing which always looks unpleasant.

Also great performances across the board, most notably Alyssa Sutherland as the possessed Ellie, which is on an unstoppable beast mode here.

So, even though this entry doesn’t have anything much to offer on the surface, other than a new claustrophobic setting in a decaying apartment building and a briefly expanded lore of The Book of the Dead, it’s at least a highly entertaining and adrenaline-filled thrill ride with dedicated actors and solid film-making in general. And I’m not expecting more from an Evil Dead film.

Writer and director: Lee Cronin
Country & year: New Zealand, USA, Ireland, 2023
Actors: Mirabai Pease, Richard Crouchley, Anna-Maree Thomas, Lily Sullivan, Noah Paul, Alyssa Sutherland, Gabrielle Echols, Morgan Davies, Nell Fisher
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt13345606/