80's American Horror Part Nine

JUST BEFORE DAWN
(1981)
Dir - Jeff Lieberman
Overall: MEH

An 80's slasher movie that owes even more to The Hills Have Eyes and Deliverance than it does Friday the 13th specifically, Just Before Dawn is mostly forgettable sans one significant detail.  This would be the film's soundtrack which is decent in and of itself, but far more effective when it is surprisingly and completely absent during long, key sections including almost the entire last act.  To say this makes the movie appear more realistic and grounded though is not necessarily accurate as nearly everywhere else it is young attractive people getting picked off, "rednecks in the woods", "I warned you not to go up there", by numbers type stuff.  Also, it is far too boring, particularly during the final showdown which peculiarly slows down to a near detrimental crawl and has an odd, "Are the cameras still on?" type feel.  Director Jeff Lieberman heavily re-wrote the script which originally had a fanatically religious family as its main attracting.  Removing every last trace of this was probably a swell move even if it made the result mostly generic.  For people who rigorously follow the slasher genre, Just Before Dawn is probably recommendable, but one viewing is certainly enough for others.

EYES OF FIRE
(1983)
Dir - Avery Crounse
Overall: MEH

Eyes of Fire is a baffling, aggravating film that is either made in such an avant-garde style as to deliberately ignore any coherence or it is borderline incompetent.  The debut from writer/director Avery Crounse, (who has only made three movies and none since 1996), Eyes of Fire is loaded with problems that most filmmakers do not particularly adhere to.  Yet it also has more startling, creepy visuals than most horror films ever muster.  The story is nearly incomprehensible though.  Essentially a flashback told through occasional narration, it is incredibly difficult to keep a single character straight and even after reading the plot synopsis after the fact, numerous things are undetectable.  Now whether this has to do with the sluggish pace, (particularly during the first half), and sloppy editing or if instead the movie indeed is severely underwritten, in either case it is a faulty presentation.  The film would be an atrocious waste of time if not for the fact that it is brimful of spooky ideas that would actually come off as such if we had any kind of footing as to what was going on.  With no investment or even proper understanding of the story, these macabre, eye-popping horror moments are more or less just window dressing when they could have been much more powerful.

BLOOD DINER
(1987)
Dir - Jackie Kong
Overall: GREAT

An unofficial sequel to Herschell Gordon Lewis' seminal gorefest Blood Feast that utilizes the same Ishtar, (here named Sheetar), cannibal-goddess -raising premise, Jackie Kong's Blood Diner is everything ridiculous, over the top, outrageously offensive 80's video nastys were meant to be.  You could fairly dub this the most Troma movie Troma never made as it seems hellbent on throwing in as many distasteful things for laughs as it possibly can.  *SPOILER ALERT* There is a wrestler named Little Jimmy Hitler, an entire band dressed as Hitler, people obliviously eating and enjoying fried human fingers, people getting run over by cars, (multiple times), a topless video shoot, a talking, horny brain that yells at its nephews and calls them "fags", a naked lady getting her head deep fried, a talking dummy for no reason, farts, and a hunger pill that turns a dance club into zombies.  There are a handful of foreign actors whose accents are either exaggerated or laughably slip while trying to come off as American, and most if not all of the dialog is post-dubbed.  All of these elements plus non-stop, slapstick gore make it barely possible to catch your breath either laughing or shaking your head in befuddled amusement at everything you are witnessing.  For a film whose goal is to be exactly what it is and thoroughly, absurdly enjoyable in the process, Blood Diner is a trash masterpiece.

80's American Horror Part Eight

WOLFEN
(1981)
Dir - Michael Wadleigh
Overall: MEH

Uneven and overly long, Michael Wadleigh's Wolfen, (based off Whitley Strieber's novel The Wolfen), is a half success.  The cinematography by Gerry Fisher and use of Predator style thermography are very excellent and the landscape of a barren, rundown Bronx, Central Park, and upper Manhattan is excitingly brought to life in a manner as if it was taking place in the conventional wilderness.  While Gregory Hines is quite funny as a coroner and Tom Noonan as a sympathetic zoologist, lead Albert Finney appears to be either intoxicated, bored, hungry or all three, (within the first thirty minutes of the movie, he is eating in every scene).  The plot is seriously overstuffed to the point where none of the elements are given any proper development.  There is an environmental angle, stuff about terrorism, the plight of Native Americans, and political activism on top of lead characters who randomly fall in love with no explanation to be found.  On the horror angle, Wolfen is mostly disappointing outside of some severed limbs being thrown around as there is very little suspense that is able to build up due to the plodding running time.  As a tweak on the werewolf film, it is individual enough, but blows its potential to be anything more.

SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES
(1983)
Dir - Jack Clayton
Overall: GOOD

It is rather impressive that Disney's Something Wicked This Way Comes survived its troubled production and still noticeable flaws to end up working well enough as a final product.  Ray Bradbury originally wrote it as a screenplay that was never made, then turned it into a novel, and then after many years, studios, and directors came on and off board, it finally got under way with Jack Clayton, (The Innocents), behind the lens.  Yet then massive re-shoots, re-writes, and re-scores took place and the studio meddling certainly shows.  The film begins and builds up nicely to a point, but the ending in particular is aggressively messy.  There is clearly far more to some of these characters than we are given and the frenzied editing shows a lack of coherence near the finale that leaves far too much unfulfilled.  Still, the performances and dark fairytale mood are pleasantly strong and even during the confused bits, they lift the movie up and carry it through.  There is plenty of quality horror set pieces too involving creepy magic and multitudes of tarantulas running amok.  Also did anyone else notice how James Horner's music rather blatantly rips off Darth Vader's main theme?  Probably better that he did it here than for his Titanic score.

MANIAC COP
(1988)
Dir - William Lustig
Overall: GOOD

Written and directed by William Lustig, (Maniac), produced by Larry Cohen, (It's Alive, God Told Me To), and staring Bruce Campbell with a cameo from none other than Sam Raimi, Maniac Cop is a bit of an all-star, B-movie horror affair.  Two sequels followed this one, (each handled yet again by Lustig), and it seems to have been the plan since the ending leaves us on a cliffhanger with yet another supernaturally proficient serial murderer unleashed on the movie-going masses.  Which is how the 1980's rolled.  For his part as the title character, Robert "The Chin" Z'Dar unfortunately does not get that much screen time outside of being silhouetted and the choice to film him in the typical slasher villain fashion seems more generic than necessary.  Elsewhere, it is a pretty solid entry though.  The script is smart in keeping its wrongfully excused character arc plausible enough and thankfully no one in the movie behaves in too stupid of a horror movie manner.  This and the cast being rather solid, (besides Laurene Landon who gives the only embarrassing performance), is rather surprising as with a premise and title like this, the film easily could have been far too schlocky for its own good. 

80's American Horror Part Seven

NIGHT WARNING
(1982)
Dir - William Asher
Overall: MEH

Television veteran William Asher's Night Warning is frustrating in many respects and laughably offensive in others.  In many ways this is the Birth of a Nation for the gay rights movement.  Very liberal usage of the word "fag" is dropped by one of the worst characters in any movie, a cartoonishly homophobic, smirking police detective who comes awfully close to being so ridiculous and unlikable as to ruin the movie.  Law enforcement officers who arrogantly scream at anyone with a perfectly logical thing to say to them are near the top of any horror movie no-nos, but the incessant gay-bashing at least unintentionally makes said character a total joke.  Elsewhere, a young Bill Paxton has a brief role as a highschooler who already this early into his career is very Bill Paxtony and Susan Tyrell, (Andy Warhol's Bad, Forbidden Zone, Fire & Ice), is over the top in a far more effective way as a psychotic, incestuous, lunatic Aunt who does plenty of unsettling things to make her performance memorable.  The movie's ending sadly goes full, generic slasher, irritatingly doing a number of cliche things, (the usual, boring chase scenes, the killer springs back to life when you are not looking, a victim gets bludgeoned in the head with both a mallet and a large rock numerous times only to emerge perfectly fine a few minutes later, etc).  Still, it is nearly recommendable to see Tyrell go full psycho, witness all of the politically incorrect "fag" bombs, and have Bill Paxton be exactly like you would expect him to be.

THE BLOB
(1988)
Dir - Chuck Russell
Overall: GOOD

The 1980's were a pretty solid decade for remaking 1950's sci-fi horror with John Carpanter's The Thing and David Cronenberg's The Fly both emerging before Chuck Russell likewise took on and largely improved upon The Blob.  Though it is comparably less successful than those now iconic, aforementioned remakes, The Blob does handle its material appropriately and it is certainly good enough to warrant its existence.  Taking the original film which was silly and only sporadically fun as its source, Russell and Frank Darabont's script throws in some government conspiracy elements and to a far less successful extent, some religious ones to differentiate/update the proceedings.  That and the much more gruesome violence, (helped by Tony Gardner's excellent practical effects work), certainly make it a darker affair, but there is still plenty of schlocky humor to be found.  Characters cannot help but to throw out action movie one-liners and early on there are the usual laughs with horny teenagers doing horny teenager things.  To play it more straight and dire than it did though would probably have worked less since the basic premise of a purple mass of goo that eats people alive can only be so frightening before you remember how goofy it is.

INTRUDER
(1989)
Dir - Scott Spiegel
Overall: WOOF

Scott Spiegel has made a career as a director/screenwriter/actor/producer of a number of mostly bottom barrel horror outings and his full-length debut Intruder is as bottom barrel as it gets.  The film is appreciated for its flashy camera work and having a gimmick of the killer murdering everyone with grocery store equipment, but to appreciate it for that you have to ignore every other completely idiotic and stock aspect of it.  The murderer defies the laws of physics by seemingly being in twelve places at once, having all the time in the world to display his victims in elaborately funny ways for the final girl to conveniently find later.  There is also the ole "I stabbed him so I'll just leave him here and turn my back on him and oh wait, yeah he's not dead" scene and doors are inexplicably locked from the outside.  The movie becomes simply a waiting game for each character to first be picked off and then be found, all before one of the most insulting twists you can imagine is dumped on us and the cat and mouse chase boringly continues anew.  Before the awful, unnecessary, and catastrophically moronic twist was revealed, Intruder was just a straightforward and dumb slasher outing.  Yet like many, many other films in this vein, it is despicably ruined by its last act and then quickly and terribly spirals further out of control from there.

80's American Horror Part Six

Q
(1982)
Dir - Larry Cohen
Overall: MEH

Yet another thoroughly oddball exercise by Larry Cohen, Q, ( also known as The Winged Serpent), is most likely one of the few movies to throw an Aztec deity dinosaur bird into Manhattan while simultaneously being about a mob schlub caught up in shenanigans with the cops.  While Cohen's story is assuredly ambitious, it is a bizarre viewing experience in unforeseen ways.  Michael Moriarty was one of the many excruciatingly awful things about Cohen's trainwreck The Stuff and he is regrettably the lead here as well.  Though Moriarty is playing a very different character here, why anyone heaps any amount of praise towards his performances is utterly baffling.  His every delivery and mannerism are so distractedly strange in a manner that is difficult to describe, so strange that he becomes nearly torturous to watch.  David Carradine for his part seems to be phoning it in as much as he possible can and when he and Moriarty are on screen together, it is an amazingly bad combination of actors both taking it way too seriously and not at all.  The stop motion animation is dated of course yet fine, though it' is really the story structure that is so unwelcoming.  It comes off as two different movies sandwiched together with the entire, far more interesting "horror" sub-plot simply bulldozed off to the side and sporadically picked back up again at random times as if a large number of scenes in between are missing.

THE ABOMINATION
(1986)
Dir - Bret McCormick
Overall: WOOF

Good lord.  The SOV, (shot on video), boom in the 1980s where camcorders were readily available for household/incompetent filmmaking to use wielded hundreds of laughably inept movies, most of them seemingly horror ones.  To even call The Abomination a "movie" is insulting even to the worst movies out there as it hits all the marks of a clueless cast, crew, and director offering up something thoroughly unwatchable.  The dialog is all dubbed in post production and is noticeably distracting, but the actual words that they are saying are all levels of embarrassing, ("Last night I coughed up a big tumor.  Now I can't find it", "Instead of helping, the beer made my stomach churn").  There is a scene where a guy sits on a toilet and gets his asshole and then entire body eaten and another guy gets stabbed with a shovel and screams "Oowww! My stomach!".  This is also the only film ever made that begins with its own trailer; a three minute montage of all the gore moments to follow with the same shot of the main character jolting out of bed while screaming shown at least four-hundred and eighty times.  Now the problem is all of this sounds hilarious on paper and such moments isolated on their own are absolutely worthy of the "so bad they're funny" tag.  Yet the movie itself is outrageously boring.  You are seriously wondering if they even hired an editor or simply included all of the footage that they had as every scene just lingers on and on and on.  It seriously makes Plan 9 from Outer Space look like Goodfellas.

U.F.O. ABDUCTION
(1989)
Dir - Dean Alioto
Overall: MEH

Both U.F.O. Abduction and a 1998 remake Alien Abduction: Incident in Lake County made by the same team preceded the logically compared The Blair Witch Project in the "found footage" camp.  The initial version was produced for only $6,500 and definitely shows, which is one of its undoings.  The film quality itself is so incredibly poor that it is nearly impossible to make out what you are looking at and the very few things that would actually be exciting to see are all but indistinguishable.  Though it is barely an hour long, it feels noticeably stretched to make it there.  So little transpires in Abduction that the filmmakers were forced to have their cast behave irrationally to a fault, just to fill up time.  When aliens are clearly spotted and then one of them even gets brought into their house, (one of several moronic things these people do), their logic is to just kill time acting normal while opening birthday presents, eating cake, and playing cards.  Though this is presented as the only reasonable option, it becomes very boring since we are just waiting for something/anything else to happen.  The family's dialog is staggeringly poor and several of the male characters spontaneously erupt into bossy, asshole behavior, screaming things at their family like "Shut up!" and "I'm in charge of this family!" when nothing of the sort is either here nor there.  Clearly the cast was add-libbing as best they could and the overlapping dialog does appear more natural near the beginning of the movie.  Yet once the children's Halloween costume level aliens, (another big strike), show up, all the aforementioned problems truly emerge.

80's American Horror Part Five

THE DEADLY SPAWN
(1983)
Dir - Douglas McKeown
Overall: WOOF

Despite having a synth score and a puppet monster that is as decent as any from the 1980s, The Deadly Spawn is deadly, deadly, deadly boring.  Written and directed by Douglas McKeown, (who has made a grand total of zero movies before or since this one), the pacing is absolutely detrimental to the film.  Essentially, if the giant slug creatures with layers of razor sharp teeth are not on screen munching people up, it is a laborious experience.  Even when the kill scenes do transpire, they are anything but exciting.  Characters get predictably jumped by them and at one staggeringly insulting instance, a kid literally just stands in place without immediately running away and/or screaming, instead watching them drool right in front of him for what seems like an hour.  There is also a party of middle aged ladies that we get to witness all the agonizing prep for, people making breakfast, waking up, sitting around and talking, more sitting around and talking, and then hiding and screaming which is just as dull as all the sitting around and talking.  Again, the creatures look good but they are as slow moving as the movie is and the ending, (as in once the creatures are seemingly defeated and everyone is chilling outside with cops and ambulances), just keeps going and going before the last predictable shot finally takes place.

BLOOD RAGE
(1987)
Dir - John Grissmer
Overall: MEH

Though it is equipped with an interesting twin brother premise and boasts no shortage of gruesome death scenes, John Grissmer's Blood Rage is loaded with problems.  Everything that would be clever about the film is merely implied.  Instead of addressing any of its presented psychology or even developing its villain in any way shape or form, it instead just has him start murdering absolutely everyone until the credits hit.  It is almost impressive how the movie blows all of its on-paper potential with a plot that is so empty that it barely appears to have one.  Whether this was due to editing and censored versions existing which omitted some scenes while adding others, in either case, the filmmaker's complete neglect to flesh out the story and instead just make it a kills-by-numbers outing is thoroughly disappointing.  The acting is mostly b-level except with one-time Louise Lasser who delivers the most irritating performances possible as the boy's mother, spending nearly all of her scenes hysterically breaking down and crying, especially the entire middle of the movie.  Blood Rage only becomes a bore because after so long, it becomes unmistakably apparent that jacking up the body count was indeed its only goal in the first place.

PARENTS
(1989)
Dir - Bob Balaban
Overall: GREAT

Actor/author/producer/occasional director Bob Balaban's Parents was his non-television debut behind the lens and not the first or last of his forays into horror comedy.  It is an extremely strong opening all around though, with everything to recommend and nothing to condemn.  Utilizing the premise of a child with an overactive imagination who sees everything his textbook, 1950's, suburban working class parents do as being sinister, Parents is remarkably stylized from beginning to end as an eerie, nightmarish horror movie while simultaneously being cheerful and goofy at surface level.  This is one of those films where nearly everything contributes to its success.  Christopher Hawthorne's script continually keeps the audience guessing, Jonathan Elias and Angelo Badalamenti's music is superb, the sound design could not be more effectively moody, the cast is perfect, (particularly Randy Quaid as the smiling, calmly threatening dad and Bryan Madorsky as the nervous, almost totally silent kid), and Balaban keeps the tone in check while carefully going the conventional horror movie route when necessary.  Many instances wonderfully toy with the horror format, while others are presented in a more genre friendly way that turns visually innocent things into macabre ones.  Top notch stuff.

80's American Horror Part Four

MANIAC
(1980)
Dir - William Lustig
Overall: MEH

Director William Lustig's Maniac was his first non-porno movie and it became a textbook "video nasty" for its time.  Supported by Caroline Munroe, co-writer/lead Joe Spinell, and Tom Savini, (who besides doing the top-notch gore effects as is his specialty, also appears as one of the title character's victims), Lustig's vision here is bleak, bloody, and actually a little boring.  So, one too many b's.  Though Spinell is very effective as the heavily panting, overweight psycho killer, it was already a cliche in 1980 to have your murderer be yet another emotionally disturbed mama's boy.  Maniac's script is not really put together properly as the sub-plot with Munroe springs up randomly and appears to have several scenes missing from it, making it unclear as to its purpose in being there since it clashes so hard with the rest of the behavior and motivation from Spinell's title character.  There are a few murder sequences that unfortunately suffer too much from the horror format.  Since we know that all of these no-named women are doomed, there is no suspense in waiting for them to finally get all sliced and diced; a wait that occasionally seems to take forever at times.  Though things like this plod the movie down, the mood and complete lack of humor does make it pretty creepy even during the slow bits.

STREET TRASH
(1987)
Dir - J. Michael Muro
Overall: MEH

Cinematographer J. Michael Muro, (who worked on everything from numerous James Cameron films to Dances with Wolves), has a lone directorial effort under his belt and it is the absolutely asinine Street Trash.  Deliberately designed to be as offensive as possible to find a devote, midnight movie/video nasty audience, it is a frustrating combination of bizarrely exceptional camera work, practical gore effects, absolutely no plot, and unbearably terrible performances.  When the dialog is not in the "so bad it's hilarious" camp, it is overlapping with guido after guido after guido yelling profanities over each other to the point of nausea.  Muro definitely delivers on the trash element of the title with necrophilia, rape, racism, and women-beating all mixed with homeless people being portrayed as raving, Neanderthal lunatics who revel in playing keep-away with somebody's severed penis.  As ridiculous as Street Trash certainly is, it would be easier to appreciate it as hilarious garbage if not for the meandering lack of a story where random characters and "plot" lines abruptly come in and out, going nowhere in the process.  It becomes aggravating and tedious far too quickly like a kid at recess who keeps picking stuff out of his nose and relentlessly chasing you around with it.

WARLOCK
(1989)
Dir - Steve Miner
Overall: GOOD

Genre director Steve Miner, (several Friday the 13ths, House), worked with a script from future director David Twohy, (The Riddick Trilogy, Below), on Warlock, a pleasantly silly film whose budgetary constraints are noticeable yet not detrimental.  Twohy initially conceived of a far grander story, but limited funding resulted in some major rewrites that basically makes the movie a part fish out of water comedy and part Terminator rip-off with black magik, neither of which is a bad thing.  As a horror film, it is severely missing in anything spooky or at all frightening, though an early scene featuring Mary Woronov's medium nearly qualifies even if it is still played somewhat for laughs.  Julian Sands was cast against type as the diabolical title character and Richard E. Grant was straight off the heels of Withnail and I, each actor getting to speak in threatening old English at each other in a very Dracula vs. Van Helsing way.  The script does a good job of keeping its rules straight while simultaneously giggling at them, plus most of the poor visual effect work can be forgiven due to the era and lack of funds.  Another director would take on the following, even lesser-financed sequels, (with Sands returning for second as a totally different warlock), but the initial one here stands on its own just fine.

80's American Horror Part Three

BASKET CASE
(1982)
Dir - Frank Henenlotter
Overall: GOOD

Frank Henenlotter's low budget debut Basket Case, (which spawned two sequels also helmed by the writer/director), is one of the early 80's horror outings that found a cult following on VHS as so, so many others likewise have.  It still stands as one of the more unique movies of its kind, using the diabolical, "bad twin" premise for equal parts laughs and unnerving creepiness.  As silly as the title character puppet looks on screen, (likewise in his dated, stop-motion animation form), it is rather amazing that he also comes off severely eerie in many instances.  Hearing his unearthly, distorted howl and watching him silently stare with his glowing red eyes provide the film with its most memorable, chilling moments.  It also helps that Henenlotter had the good sense to keep his creature off screen for awhile, simply teasing him for nearly the entire first half.  Elsewhere, the acting is understandably sub-par and the barrage of goofy, seedy New York street characters we encounter are nothing to take seriously, nor should they be.  The pacing is the only spot where the movie dips a bit though.  Henenlotter cannot quite keep it as brisk as it needs to be and the movie easily could have shaved ten or so minutes off, particularly near the end.  Minor complaint though, all said and done.

SLEEPAWAY CAMP
(1983)
Dir - Robert Hiltzik
Overall: MEH

The 1980's were the decade of slasher summer camp garbage and Sleepaway Camp is as textbook an example as any.  There are POV killer shots, awful, horny teenage characters, a mystery as to who is committing all of the murdering, terrible dialog, more terrible acting, all the usual bits and pieces.  Distinguishing itself minimally from the crop of other Friday the 13th carbon copies is the fact that the cast is largely made up of actual adolescents, (as in, not twenty-odd year olds playing fifteen year olds), and the ending is very surprisingly very creepy.  The actual twist is as silly and juvenile as any, but the film's final shot and the sound that comes along with it very genuinely stands out as unnerving.  Elsewhere, it is a near suffocating amount of cliches piled on top of each other and oodles of unintentional humor.  It is not quite clear when macho, Jersey-accented dudes dressed in ball exposing hot pants and cut-off tees when not swimming naked with each other went from totally heterosexual in this decade to flamingly not in modern times, but it is highly amusing to watch such homoerotic tomfoolery played so straight.  Several sequels followed this one because of course, but at least director Robert Hitlzik had the good sense to bow out of most of them.

THE STEPFATHER
(1987)
Dir - Joseph Ruben
Overall: MEH

The "stepparent" sub-genre in horror is not necessarily the most abundantly used, but thriller/B-movie filmmaker Joseph Ruben's The Stepfather can still easily be seen as the quintessential one whose premise revolves around a sinister "not my real mom/dad" scenario.  Terry O'Quinn, (who would go on to arguably be the best thing about Lost), is rather ideal here as the schizophrenic title character.  It is a wise move that his backstory is left vague, since his disturbing, twisted, fanatical insistence on having the most textbook, lame, suburban "aw shucks" family life seems thoroughly unwholesome, thus creating an intriguing paradox.  The movie is sadly undone by its cheap production values though.  Besides being heavily dated, the keyboard happy music is awful and rarely lets up for a single scene.  It also looks like a television movie, though this could be argued to be a plus in a roundabout way since the film skews traditional family values and therefor has the look of something a family would sit down together to watch after dinner on ABC or something.  There are also a couple of weak plot holes like how clueless and ultimately disinterested the law enforcement is in catching this guy and how seemingly easy it is for O'Quinn to start up a new life over and over again.  It is better than it could have been, but also a bit worse.

2000's American Horror Part Six

BUBBA HO-TEP
(2002)
Dir - Don Coscarelli
Overall: GOOD

On basis alone, Don Coscarelli's Bubba Ho-Tep is rather exemplary.  Based off the novella of the same name by Joe R. Lansdale, the combination of all of its core plot elements, (Elvis, JFK, mummies, an old folks home, and dick jokes), seem like they were randomly thrown into a blender and the fact that a coherent script and entertaining movie overall was produced out of them could be seen as somewhat of a miracle.  Wildly different than Coscarelli's most lauded Phantasm franchise, most of the gratification in Bubba Ho-Tep comes from its hilarious premise and Bruce Cambell's superb performance, which could be the best in his entire career.  What is really the kicker is how much surprising depth it has as a sincere and heartfelt look into growing old and lamenting past mistakes.  As solid as the movie is, the pacing does drag a bit, the score while good does get overused, the action scenes could have been handled a little more cleverly, and the juvenile, gross-out humor misses its mark from time to time.  All that said, it is still certainly a commendable, highly unique work, warts and all.

SATAN'S LITTLE HELPER
(2004)
Dir - Jeff Lieberman
Overall: WOOF

If you were to make a list of the worst things that humanity has to offer, (Hitler, puppy cancer, Fred Durst's birthday, etc), Satan's Little Helper would earn a well deserved place amongst them.  Bad horror movies are fine.  Bad horror movies that are so bad they are hilarious are even better.  Yet bad horror movies that are knowingly insulting to their audience are neither fine nor better.  Jeff Lieberman went sixteen years without directing a movie before this and why he chose to reemerge with such a mind-meltingly awful venture is anybody's guess.  The tradition of terrible kids in horror films who you want to beat over the head with a stick is as solidified as any other genre trope for some reason, but if this does not have the absolute worst kid, it easily has the stupidest.  His family does not fare any better in the brains department either though.  The universe this movie presents can only possibly work under these circumstances if we are genuinely sold on the fact that the entire town that they live is exclusively made up of legitimately mentally challenged people.  When the movie is not letting its killer effortlessly convince everyone he meets that he is not a killer even when he murders people and displays them proudly in front of them, then it is following as many moronic slasher cliches as it can muster up while looking like the cheapest of Goosebumps episodes.  Watch under the heaviest drug influence or not at all.

BAGHEAD
(2008)
Dir - Mark Duplass/Jay Duplass
Overall: MEH

While Mark Duplas is half responsible for arguably the most disgraceful horror movie ever made, (Creep), he was also in the The League so he gets a pass.  He and brother Jay's Baghead is a super low-budget, mumblecore product reminiscent of many not just in its presentation, but also in its premise.  There is another isolated cabin in the woods here where people get trapped while someone is after them and it really is remarkable how many filmmakers keep scrapping the barrel with this exact set up trying to find some untapped gold with it.  Baghead does not go through the uninspired motions as countless others, but it is also not really a horror movie and the entire shtick seems to be in pretending that it is, which is certainly fine.  The performances are genuine and the way everything twists around is fun for awhile and though it is definitely more interesting than yet another slasher killer picking people off trainwreck, it is also kind of empty by the end when you realize it was all just what it was.  Meeting the film on its own turf which is fair, it does a good job as a human relationships study, but it may not hold up to repeated viewings once its other elements are pre-exposed to the viewer.  Still, it certainly beats the ever loving hell out of Creep.

2000's American Horror Part Five

PITCH BLACK
(2000)
Dir - David Twohy
Overall: MEH 

The first in the Riddick trilogy, (all of which star Vin Diesel and were directed and co-written by David Twohy), Pitch Black is pure B-movie, sci-fi action schlock.  Brim full of awful dialog, macho posturing, terrible special effects, tinted color pallets, and cliche character arcs, it goes by the books to a rather laughable extent.  As a horror movie, it fairly enough kind of fits in and has as many lame, predictable jump scares as anything this side of The Conjuring.  Diesel for his part seems fine on paper and fits the tag of this generations Arnold Schwartzenegger or Sylvester Stallone and to be fair, Pitch Black is probably just as silly as Cobra or Commando ever were.  For the clear targeted audience who grew up on 80s action goofiness, this may come off as both a little too safe and formulaic while being exactly the right amount of safe and formulaic.  Things blow up and characters yell a lot at cartoon monsters so it is what it is supposed to be.

THE ROOST
(2005)
Dir - Ti West
Overall: MEH

Ti West's filmography has consistently been various levels of disappointing, going all the way back to his full-length debut The Roost.  Though each of his films finds a few unique ways to drop the ball from the last, West generally has the same problem with all his movies, being a terrible script loaded with inconsistencies.  They also all have good ideas on paper, making the combination of what could work but never does all the more frustrating.  The Roost begins very amusingly with West regular Tom Noonan playing a campy, late night Creature Features host, presenting the movie itself in a fun, forth wall breaking, almost grindhouse fashion.  Once things kick into play though, the sluggish pacing, unlikable characters, multitude of arbitrary, violin screechy jump scares, and unfocused set-up where it is difficult to get our barrings as to where we actually are location wise from scene to scene make everything rather sloppy to say the least. Then near the end, we break back to our Zacherle-esque Noonan for a very confusing few minutes that becomes even more silly when the movie proper picks back up again. There are a lot of unnecessary elements like this going on in The Roost, where you are frequently asking yourself if what is happening in it really needs to be happening or makes the most sense.  Which is also sadly a Ti West trademark.

WHITE LIGHT
(2007)
Dir - Robbie Banfitch
Overall: MEH
 
A School of Visual Arts, fifty-nine minute thesis project from filmmaker Robbie Banfitch, White Light is not bad coming from somebody who is cutting their teeth at the medium, but it is also far from good.  It has the look and feel of a made-for-TV genre movie from the 1990s with natural lighting, poor sound design, and persistently obnoxious New Age music in virtually every scene.  What is more distracting is the amateur-level performances, embarrassing melodrama, and poor pacing.  While Connie Redna fairs comparatively better in the lead as a troubled woman experiencing waking nightmares who apparently suffered a miscarriage after being immaculately impregnated, Burnadair Lipscomb struggles the most from the material as Redna's best co-worker best friend, over-dramatizing her mannerisms and already stiff dialog to unintentionally comical extents.  Banfitch stages several sequences without any sense of proper blocking, including a several minute, single shot of Redna retelling a dream that she had which is as exciting as it sounds.  Despite its understandable shortcomings, the ethereal atmosphere is on point and there is at least a shred of an interesting idea here that could have worked far better in a more experienced writer/director's hands.

2000's American Horror Part Four

DONNIE DARKO
(2001)
Dir - Richard Kelly
Overall: GOOD

Though it may not warrant any profound analysis on closer inspection and has ultimately proven to be a fluke for its creator Richard Kelly, Donnie Darko is a refreshingly singular work and one that is tailor-made for cult movie aficionados.  Amazingly scoring a cast that is top-to-bottom recognizable and garnishing a significant enough budget to pull off its stubbornly head-trippy goals, Kelly delivered something right out of the gate that hardly ever gets green-lit by Hollywood executives in the first place.  A period piece set in October of 1988, its fusing of teen-angst/coming-of-age high school drama with David Lynch-meets-Twilight Zone weirdness is fascinatingly messy.   By design, nothing comes together in any spoon-fed, popcorn movie sense, but it remains just as ambiguous on further viewings, cleverly disguising itself as a film that is actually not that clever.  While these can be seen as detriments if looked at cynically, (Kelly was after all a first time filmmaker, first time screenwriter, only twenty-six at the time, and almost completely inexperienced behind the lens aside graduating from USC), the results are stylistically captivating, intentionally funny, and well-performed by everyone on board.

 

LOVE OBJECT
(2003)
Dir - Robert Parigi
Overall: MEH

Producer Robert Parigi's sole writer/director effort thus far Love Object is in some aspects fun, but also a little underwritten.  It is questionable if Desmond Harrington, (Quinn from Dexter), is miscast as a disturbing, social reject who is too work-obsessed and weird to get laid regularly since he is physically too dashing and bro-like.  Still, maybe going with a textbook nerd in the part would have seemed too obvious.  The story is plenty disturbing and kicks it into higher gear during its last twenty or so minutes, but Parigi plays with his format a bit by making the film almost fairytale-like at various times.  This actually ups the odd and creepy elements even if the tone still stays somewhat comedic throughout.  Udo Kier is amusing as an, (of course), pervy neighbor and Rip Torn, (of course), seems to be real life drunk during most of his line readings as Harrington's demanding boss.  The plot ends up leaving too much out since it both introduces a few bizarre elements that go nowhere and Harrington's character is not really given any backstory at all and just sort of up and decides all on his own to be wacky.  This may have been the point somehow, but it still leaves you questioning a few too many things.

 

THE POUGHKEEPSIE TAPES
(2007)
Dir - John Erick Dowdle
Overall: MEH

Before making the flawed yet effective found footage outings Quarantine and As Above, So Below, John Erick Dowdle's The Poughkeepsie Tapes happened.  Originally done in 2007, this did not get out to the public to see regularly until seven years later, at which point Dowdle had achieved his reputation as a go-to, hand-held camera horror guy. Though this sub-genre is rather over-saturated by now, this example here does not suffer so much because it got shelved for so long.  It instead suffers for two specific reasons.  This is another "finished documentary", almost exactly like any pick-your-forensic crime shows.  The "actors" interviewed often do a rather embarrassing job that quickly takes you right out of the movie as we should not be laughing at how hard these people are trying to disturb us.  More detrimental though is that it is all rather too far-fetched.  This is a great idea on paper; to do a documentary on a serial killer who has evaded capture and left hundreds of hours of evidence that the authorities still cannot use to piece together his identity.  The premise is stretched enough to the point of being insulting though.  The horrific scenes get a pass for being too torture-porn-esque since they rather have to be to work, but there is too much wrong elsewhere else.

2000's Foreign Horror Part Nine - The Ginger Snaps Series

GINGER SNAPS

(2000)

Dir - John Fawcett

Overall: GOOD

 

Lycanthropian metaphors take center stage in director John Fawcett and screenwriter Karen Walton's Ginger Snaps; the Canadian, feminist, teenage werewolf movie to dwarf all others.  The utilization of rebellious teenagers, aww shucks parents and school bullies in a coming of age scenario is hardly anything new, yet the story here one-ups such cliches by focusing on codependent, social outcast sisters who are at odds with each other due to blossoming womanhood, raging hormones, and full moon monster shenanigans.  While the humor occasionally falls flat, (mostly due to Mimi Rogers' aloof mom and Jesse Moss' total scumbag character), the complex dynamic between Emily Perkins and Katharine Isabelle's Fitzgerald sisters is sincere and compelling.  Visually it gives off Lifetime movie vibes, but the gore and makeup effects are strong enough to compensate for the modest budget.  Lastly, the film says a lot about self-imposed expectations of women, something that gives their monstrous transformation a sense of attractive empowerment.

GINGER SNAPS 2: UNLEASHED

(2004)

Dir - Brett Sullivan

Overall: MEH

Whereas the first Ginger Snaps was an intelligently made, heavily lauded Canadian horror outing and one of the very best to deal metaphorically with puberty and teenage sexuality, its sequel Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed is a mess that is not entirely clear at what it is trying to pull off.  For the second go round, there is a lot of sloppy and blatant subtext involving drug abuse and mental illness, all of which is mixed with an unclear story structure that leaves several elements dangling in the wind.  The movie especially abandons ship for its third act and then drops a twist on us when one was not at all necessary.  Up until that point, some awkward performances and tedious pacing do not help, plus Katharine Isabelle's handful of scenes are uninspired and her presence was clearly shoehorned in there, both to give Emily Perkins someone else to sadly talk to and to get fans of the first movie on board since Isabelle has since become a Canadian scream queen.  This leaves poor Perkins on her own to look even more miserable and exhausted than she did in the first installment.  The movie's intention to deepen its mythology and go somewhere genuinely different than it did before, (which it actually does), is admirable, but for only the second time at bat, all creative parties hit a wall with their fresh yet lame crop of ideas.

GINGER SNAPS BACK: THE BEGINNING
(2004)
Dir - Grant Harvey
Overall: MEH

Though just as unnecessary as the other Ginger Snaps sequel, (which was shot back-to-back with this one, though each boasted a different creative team), Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning fares comparatively better than the aforementioned Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed.  A period piece set in a winter-torn, early 19th century Hudson Bay, Katherine Isabelle and Emily Perkins portray their ancestors who inexplicably have the exact same names as their early 2000's teenage counterparts and speak in a modern vernacular at times that comes off as silly despite the sincere tone.  Television director Grant Harvey concocts a stylistically formulaic experience with jump scares, low-humming music, and actors delivering hackneyed dialog about curses, god's vengeance, and "there is no other way" fate proclamations.  While it is nice to see the Fitzgerald sisters interacting with pilgrims and indigenous folk instead of douchebag high school students and clueless parents, the plot line here wields no surprises and the schlocky presentation has none of the clever feminist, teen-angst, or coming-of-age metaphors present in John Fawcett and Karen Walton's wonderful original.  It certainly could have been worse as far as redundant, cash-grab franchise installments go, (again, see Ginger Snaps 2), but it is harmless, grim fun for those whose demands are minimal.

2000's Foreign Horror Part Eight

DEMONLOVER
(2002)
Dir - Olivier Assayas
Overall: GOOD
 
By its very construction, Olivier Assayas' Demonlover treads murky waters in its examination of matter-of-fact business negotiations as they pertain to dubious enterprises.  Shot in both Japan and Assayas' native France, (with an international cast bouncing between three different languages), it unloads frequent surprises that seem to shift the subject matter if not the entire genre as it goes on.  Being examined more closely though, Assayas fuses the erotic thriller, spy film, and dark web content into something with a singular agenda.  The characters here are all just doing their jobs, which generally revolve around eliminating competing obstacles by the most efficient and non-emotional means.  In this way, when things go awry and then venture into full-on disturbing territory, it maintains a chillingly calm demeanor which heightens the theme of desensitized morals in a corporate landscape.  Connie Nelson, Charles Berling, and Chloë Sevigny, (the latter speaking phonetic French as convincingly as has ever been done), are ideally suited for the material, but Assayas' challenging script and its presentation which includes endlessly flowing, often hand-held camera work is what best keeps the material interesting, if not altogether decipherable at first glance.

LUNACY
(2005)
Dir - Jan Švankmajer
Overall: GOOD

An engaging, ghastly at times social commentary on mental instability and probably some other things, Czech animator/filmmaker Jan Švankmajer's Lunacy takes many a familiar ingredient and boils them quite well into its own stew.  It borrows sporadic elements from Edgar Allan Poe and the Marquis de Sade, (both of whom have been the subject and basis of many a horror film), with Švankmajer himself introducing the movie directly to the audience in an opening scene that calls all the way back to Universal's 1931 Frankenstein.  The weird, stop motion animation that the director is primarily known for is used multiple times with slabs of meat getting into all kinds of bizarre tomfoolery that is supposed to mean whatever you think it means.  Time periods are excellently molded together, (one early scene has characters in period costumes ridding a horse and cart across a busy highway full of modern cars per example), and the lunatic asylum set up provides the perfect scenario for strange, diabolical set pieces.  Though actually the best of these takes place earlier and is bound to bring a chuckle to anyone's face who is a fan of overt blasphemy.

DEAD SNOW
(2009)
Dir - Tommy Wirkola
Overall: MEH

What would be a fun, moronic zombie comedy here ends up being overshadowed by its own lazy screenwriting and many an obnoxious horror genre faux pas.  Director Tommy Wirkola and actor Stig Frode Henriksen cannot keep the details of their story straight, which randomly does whatever it thinks is the coolest or funniest thing at that particular time instead of sticking to it's own rules.  Cell phones do not work until they do, zombies lay dormant but then all wake up when it is dramatically "badass", they are zombies so they chase people and eat them until they want shiny gold trinkets instead, they are also soldier zombies so you would think they would not get wildly chopped up and incapacitated by a bunch of medical students, etc.  There is also stupid hack elements like characters miraculously surviving numerous things that would have absolutely killed them and so, so many jump scares that get increasingly aggravating.  Though the basic set up of young people in an isolated location with no cell phones needs to permanently be retired and the premise of Nazi zombies is something a twelve-year old would come up with and think is swell, they should still allow you to turn your brain off and enjoy yourself.  Zombie burn-out is way too undeniable now though and dumb horror movie tropes halt the gory schlock of Dead Snow from hitting as hard and as funny as it should.