2000s American Horror Part Thirty-Seven

WILLARD
(2003)
Dir - Glen Morgan
Overall: MEH

Remaking a lousy movie sounds like a good idea on paper since there is at least a chance that it can be done better, and in most respects, the 2003 reinterpretation of Willard is more agreeable than its oddball predecessor.  This is not to say that writer/director Glen Morgan's loose take on Stephen Gilbert's 1968 novel Ratman's Notebooks does not carve out its own brand of quirkiness, since any story about a neurotic Norman Bates type who talks to, befriends, controls, and ultimately runs afoul with a barrage of rodents must inherently play up its eccentricities.  On that note, Crispin Glover rises to the occasion in a role that he was born to play, giving the title character the type of crippling awkwardness that warrants his free fall into madness.  He is never intimidating or even that funny, but he is always pathetic and sad, plus Glover's tearful aloofness manages to get the audience on his side.  R. Lee Ermy is also ideally cast as the Ernest Borgnine odious boss from the original, but Laura Elena Harring's would-be love interest is wasted in an underwritten and ultimately useless role.  Elsewhere, the rats behave arbitrarily and sometimes they are rendered with unconvincing CGI, but these are minor grievances since the focus is rightfully on its doomed protagonist who is so pitiful, isolated, and lacking in confidence that he finds his only solace in creatures that everyone else instinctively attacks and "eeeks" at.  The movie is hardly necessary and has nothing in the way of clever or suspenseful set pieces, but Glover and Ermy still manage to nail the assignment.

 

BLOOD TEA AND RED STRING

(2006)

Dir - Christiane Cegavske
Overall: GOOD

Thirteen years in the making, Blood Tea and Red String emerged from stop-motion filmmaker Christiane Cegavske as a beautifully-realized fairy tale that examines humanity's inherently self-defeating nature via woodland critter.  Void of dialog, it pits the Creatures Who Dwell Under the Oak, (a combination of rodent and bird), against aristocratic mice and a spider with a humanoid face, all of whom seem compulsively drawn to a life-sized doll and resort to desperate measure in order to obtain it.  While certain parties are portrayed as more benevolent than others, they each forgo composure and moral duty in order to bogart their object of affection, which ultimately leaves all of them void of the prize.  Cegayske fills the simple fable with wonderful details, and the entire setting breathes persistent motion and life, helped by an ambient sound design as well as Mark Growden Renaissance-era music.  Much can be read into the story itself since the lack of words welcomes the viewer to interpret everything at their leisure, but the surreal journey remains fascinating, occasionally brutal, and lovingly portrayed by Cegayske as a testament to retro stop-motion animation and fantasy storytelling.

 

THE HOLE

(2009)

Dir - Joe Dante

Overall: MEH

Arriving a month before his interactive webseries Splatter and three years after his second Masters of Horror installment, Joe Dante returns to full-length horror with The Hole, doubling as his first 3D feature.  On paper at least, it is nice to see Dante back behind the lens, indulging himself in the genre that made him famous and bringing Bruce Dern along with him in a minor part, as well as an nonspeaking Dick Miller in an even more minor part.  The novelty of such familiar genre icons being back in the game wears off quickly though since the production here is anything but impressive.  Sticking to the cheap, TV aesthetic of his aforementioned Masters of Horror episodes, the film looks like a CW program with its attractive cast, cookie-cutter/small town setting, and a jaunty musical score that jives adorably with Dante's usual penchant for lighthearted comedic quips and grisly set pieces.  While this is tonally in keeping with the director's long-established shtick, the presentation is watered-down and generic, lacking the laugh-out-loud humor and innovative horror aspects of his best efforts.  Instead, it is just cutesy, dull, and hackneyed, with a story about a hole in a suburban house that unlocks peoples fears and ergo gives way to a creepy killer doll, a little girl with zombie make-up on, and a final set piece that looks like a D-rent variation of Dante's "It's a Good Life" segment from Twilight Zone: The Movie.

2000s American Horror Part Thirty-Six

THE CONVENT
(2000)
Dir - Mike Mendez
Overall: WOOF

An unwatchably obnoxious Night of the Demons knock-off, The Convent is the type of jacked-up horror comedy that goes so hard in slamming home a barrage of cliches that it forgets to make any of them anything but torturous.  For far too long now, anything in the slasher vein has to set up its unlikable characters so that we can cheer for their bloody demise, but director Mike Mendez and screenwriter Chaton Anderson take these wretched dipshits to a level that is unforgivable.  Horny frat bros, a bimbo in a cheerleader costume, a Goth chick, said Goth chick's ex-best friend who is now trying to fit in with the cool kids, a white drug dealer who talks like he is not white, a dork getting hazed, prissy Satanists, a slut Satanist, Bill Moseley and (mostly) Coolie randomly chewing the scenery as cops; everyone on screen is both a lazy stereotype and the worst human being you can imagine.  Adrienne Barbeau eventually collects an easy paycheck about fifty minutes in and is the only person on screen with any semblance of likeability, but the film has more problems than just how stupid, cheap, hackneyed, and annoying it is. Namely, it breaks the one rule of comedy, meaning that it is light years away from being funny, yet it tries way, way too hard with a grating sense of reckless abandon.

 

TRAPPED ASHES

(2006)

Dir - Sean S. Cunningham/Joe Dante/Monte Hellman/Ken Russell/John Gaeta

Overall: MEH

Similarly in line with Mick Garris' Masters of Horror series from Showtime, Trapped Ashes brings together a handful of directors, (some renowned, some not), into an anthology setting with cheap, sleazy, though occasionally fetching results.  The first full-length from screenwriter Dennis Bartok, he throws in an endless stream of familiar genre and cinephile references, and even offers up an alternative reality story about Stanley Kubrick pawning off a succubus vampire witch on his best friend.  Joe Dante doing the wrap-around segment, (and throwing in Henry Gibson as the Crypt Keeper stand-in, plus a non-speaking cameo from Dick Miller because of course), should be enough to get the attention of horror fans, but Ken Russell helming "The Girl with Golden Breasts" about blood-sucking fake tits and appearing as a transvestite doctor in it himself will be what most viewer's will remember/scratch their heads at.  Sean S. Cunningham's Japanese-set "Jibaku" is passable, Monte Hellman's "Stanley's Girlfriend" gives John Saxon a solid chance to stretch his chops, and special effects man John Gaeta gets his first crack behind the lens on the oddball ""My Twin, the Worm".  The overall production is B-grade at best, the special effects are caca, nudity is shoehorned into each entry, and they all vary in tone, but some of it is goofy enough to enjoy.

HOUSE OF THE WOLF MAN

(2009)

Dir - Eben McGarr

Overall: WOOF

It is always unfortunate to shit on a movie like Eben McGarr's House of the Wolf Man, something that was clearly made with love and took every available technical and budgetary care to deliver a proper homage for its nostalgia-craved target audience.  As should be obvious, this is a Universal monster-mash throwback that was shot in black and white and in full-frame, with accurate cinematography, music, and production values that at least give individual frames the proper old timey allusion.  Not every aspect is accurately conveyed to go full 1940s Hollywood B-picture though.  For one, the pacing is way off, with slowly delivered dialog that does not in any way recall the rapid-fire delivery system of cranked-out studio movies from the bygone era.  It takes over an hour for any monsters to show up, (another major strike), and the title Wolf Man and Frankenstein creature are more ferocious and gnarly than Universal ever allowed, which is fine except that it misses the mark on the retro execution.  By far the biggest issue besides the labored plot is the insufferable performances.  Everyone on screen awkwardly embarrasses themselves, no more than Lon Chaney's great-grandson Ron Chaney in the lead, who may be the worst actor that ever lived.  The whole affair is a damn shame since the things that it gets OK are dwarfed by its blunders.

2014 Horror Part Fifteen

DA SWEET BLOOD OF JESUS

Dir - Spike Lee

Overall: GOOD

 

Nearly thirty years into his career and Spike Lee finally ventures into horror with his faithful remake of Bill Gunn's Ganga & Hess, here changed to Da Sweet Blood of Jesus.  Doubling as his first Kickstarter project and shot in both Martha's Vineyard and his native New York, Lee updates yet follows Gunn's film closely, toning down the original's psychedelic aesthetic for something that is more narratively challenging.  It is not a conventional film about addiction, repetition, African culture, or romance, but it weaves these motifs through a distinct, hypnotic lens that is sensual, funny, and horrifying without necessarily provoking much thought.  In their respected leads, Stephen Tyrone Williams and Zaraah Abrahams have a likeable be it quirky and clearly doomed chemistry, plus an almost incessant musical accompaniment by a barrage of artists, (many of them being then unknowns), give it a forward momentum even as the story spins aimlessly around its murky ideas.  Style over substance yet never boring, it plays like one long, evocative dream sequence, just with some blood drinking, attractive actors, and an eclectic soundtrack.

 

THE GUEST

Dir - Adam Wingard

Overall: MEH

 

Several of Adam Wingard's films have long been plagued by plausibility-challenged scripts and The Guest, (his fifth collaboration with screenwriter Simon Barrett), is no different.  Part of the "stranger comes to town" sub-genre of thriller, unintentionally laughable moments are present such as a family blindly taking in Dan Stevens' Army veteran stranger who claims to have patrolled with their dead son without said family contacting the V.A. or even asking for proof of I.D., military police showing up and gunning down said family's house with reckless abandon, the mercilessly bullied son choosing to blindly cover for his new role model buddy that he rightly suspects of deceiving and murdering people, and several of these violent acts happening in broad daylight because witnesses, what are those?  Granted, Barrett does make a few "sure, I guess" excuses for the liberal amount of such plot malfunctions and there are a handful of purposely funny beats scattered about, but the movie's fast and loose nature still careens into schlock, especially during the dopey finale which clashes the most with the previously established tone.  Less miserable than it otherwise could have been with agreeable performances and a hip synth wave soundtrack at least, it is fun if one can shut their brain off for a hundred minutes.

BURYING THE EX

Dir - Joe Dante

Overall: MEH

The final solo directorial full-length from Joe Dante, (as of this writing), Burying the Ex fleshes out screenwriter Alan Trezza's 2008 short film of the same name.  Shot quickly on a noticeably slim budget, Dante includes his usual hallmarks of public domain horror movies playing in the background and the film's protagonist is even a genre cinephile who works in a horror trinket shop and longs to open one of his own.  Also, Dick Miller shows up because of course he does.  More eyeball-rolling than clever, Trezza's script comes off as a hack-job that channels other identical zombie comedies where a doomed couple go through the post-mortem motions.  Ashley Greene is purposely obnoxious as a cookie-cutter, environmentally friendly LA girl with attachment issues for days and Anton Yelchin fulfills every stereotype of the dorky guy with a girlfriend who is way outside of his league that he endlessly puts up with.  His immediate chemistry with Alexandra Daddario's fellow horror geek is too conveniently cutesy to buy into and even though everyone on board does a fine job with the lazy material, this still comes off as an out-of-touch bit of by-numbers silliness from a filmmaker whose best work unfortunately seems miles behind him.

1980s American Horror Part Ninety-Eight (Joe Dante Edition)

THE HOWLING
(1981)
Overall: GOOD

As a piece of terrifying, lycanthropian celluloid, Joe Dante's adaptation of Gary Brandner's The Howling is not a particularly shining example.  Yet what it does not attempt in creepy, restrained scariness, it generally delivers in giddy, tongue-in-cheek popcorn horror flare.  That said, the opening segment in a porno booth does get under the skin, particularly when we hear Robert Picardo's voice shift to its disturbing tone.  Also, the deservedly lauded make-up effects by Rob Bottin, (who topped himself and perhaps everyone with his legendary work on the following year's The Thing), are hair-raising, (har, har), at least when they are not briefly abandoned for dated cartoons and stop motion animation.  In typical Dante fashion, there are oodles of in-jokes and references to other horror works, with both John Carpenter and Forrest J. Ackerman having non-speaking cameos, The Woflman playing on TV, and an autographed picture of Lon Chaney Jr. quickly showing up in an office to only name a few.  The script by John Sayles, (which was heavily re-written by Terence H. Winkless), seems rushed and sloppy at times, plus a few blasé performances during harrowing events hardly seem appropriate, but this is still as solid and essential of a werewolf movie as has probably ever been made.

 

TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE

(1983)

Dir - John Landis/Steven Spielberg/Joe Dante/George Miller

Overall: GOOD

 

Most infamous for the unfortunate and controversial on-set murder of actor Vic Morrow and two children who were working against restricted safety guidelines, Twilight Zone: The Movie still manages to be a slightly above average anthology horror film despite its real life tragedy.  The notable crop of directors each remake a different story from the original series and though they predictably vary in quality as much as in any anthology film, they are at least singular from each other.  John Landis does his usual mix of comedy and horror in the brief prologue, but his full segment "A Quality of Mercy" is far more weighty and dark, not least of all because it is the one whose production resulted in the three accidental deaths.  Landis' co-producer Steven Spielberg's version of "Kick the Can" is easily the most forgettable and is nothing more than a whimsical, sentimental presentation of the elderly reliving their youth.  Joe Dante goes surreal with the wacky and disturbing "It's a Good Life", visually the most interesting of the bunch.  It is George Miller though who redoes the most famous story "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" with the best results.  Featuring a manically over the top performance from John Lithgow, it is probably one of the all time best horror shorts ever made and easily elevates the entire collection here.

 

GREMLINS

(1984)

Overall: GOOD

 

Released the same day as Ghostbusters, the collaboration between director Joe Dante, producer Steven Spielberg, and screenwriter Chris Columbus that is Gremlins became yet another benchmark horror/comedy hybrid.  It also single-handedly ushered in the "tiny adorable monster" sub-genre that begat a handful of cheap to moderately successful knock-offs.  The script, (while clever in most instances), does have some questionable logic concerning the title creatures.  Plus, why are children attending school on Christmas Eve in the first place?.  Still, it works exceptionally as one of the best examples of balancing fun, chaotic goofiness with nasty and genuinely suspenseful scares.  The set pieces are exclusively memorable and inventive under such conditions, with most of the praise then lying at Dante's abilities to pull off such a tonal balance, let alone with oodles of animatronic puppets to manage.  Chris Walas' top-notch gremlin design and a committed cast that plays everything appropriately straight both contribute significantly as well.  In the hands of a less talented personnel and/or an insufficient budget, a movie like this would easily be a disaster.  Instead, it is a well-deserving classic which transcends its 80s nostalgic appeal.

 

THE 'BURBS

(1989)

Overall: GREAT

One of several exceptional works from Joe Dante in the 1980s and probably his all out funniest movie along with the following year's Gremlins 2: The New Batch, The 'Burbs is a textbook example of the type of material that the director worked best at.  Comedic elements had always been inherent throughout his filmography and the suburban-set script by Dana Olsen primarily goes for laughs while exploring/parodying a type of neighborhood paranoia run absolutely amok.  Like any clever mystery, the details keep pointing to the impossible while plot elements subvert expectations, leading to a twist that is sufficiently macabre as well as in keeping with the build up.  Filmed on Universal Studio's frequented Colonial Street, the cast is top to bottom fantastic with Corey Feldman playing his usual stoner, Carrie Fisher the level-headed housewife, Wendy Schaal the eye candy, Rick Ducommun the suspicious ring-leader, Brother Theodore as the mysteriously unfriendly foreign neighbor, Tom Hanks the everyman lead, and a scene-stealing Bruce Dern as the gung-ho Vietnam vet.  A dark comedy that keeps both feet in the comedy while still dishing out the dark, every gag works and every creepy bit chills, as is usually impossible to pull-off.

1990s American Horror Part Twenty-Four

GREMLINS 2: THE NEW BATCH

(1990)

Dir - Joe Dante

Overall: GREAT

One of the most gleefully silly horror sequels ever made, Gremlins 2: The New Batch quite successfully ups the comedy to the point of pretty exclusively being, well, comedic.  With a handful of the cast returning, (including leads Zach Galligan and Phoebe Cates), as well as director Joe Dante who was given a triple-sized budget and complete creative control from Warner Bros., the result is a deliberate satire on everything from frozen yogurt, to cooking shows, to technological advancements, to movie sequels in general.  Dante and screenwriter Charles S. Haas's script is ludicrous in a Looney Tunes type fashion, (it is no accident that Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck open the film), but it is also nearly perfectly structured.  There are oodles of Easter eggs and meta references scattered throughout and just about every supporting performance is from a recognizable face.  Rick Baker's more dynamic creature design gives way to an endless array of inventive puppets, famously including a female gremlin, an intellectual gremlin, a vegetable gremlin, and a spider gremlin to name but a few.  It is both arguably better than its predecessor and as strong a contender as any for Dante's finest hour behind the lens.

THE PROPHECY

(1995)

Dir - Gregory Widen

Overall: GOOD

 

Thus far the lone, full-length directorial effort from Highlander and Backdraft screenwriter Gregory Widen is The Prophecy; an adequately ambitious "war in heaven" thriller that spawned an increasingly less interesting franchise.  Led by a perfectly cast Christopher Walken as the sinister archangel Gabriel, most of the film's viewability revolves around his effortlessly quirky and eerie performance.  Elsewhere, Eric Stolz, Virginia Madsen, Elias Koteas, and Viggo Mortensen as Lucifer himself add some further respectability to the proceedings.  Widen's version of such frequented, Biblical source material offers up some nifty details, particularly how the angels prefer perching to sitting, can suck out and transfer souls, and carry themselves convincingly as if they have eons of all-knowing history amongst them.  As often seriously as the story is presented, the conventional structure gets a bit silly at times with some ham-fisted dialog and plot inconsistencies.  For the most part though, both the accidental schlock and well-intended humor remain entertaining enough with all the other fun aspects firmly in place.

QUICKSILVER HIGHWAY

(1997)

Dir - Mick Garris

Overall: MEH

Mick Garris was all over the small screen in May of 1997 with The Shining miniseries dropping on ABC a mere week before yet another of his Stephen King adaptations in Quicksilver Highway premiered on Fox.  Comprised of two stories, (one, "Chattery Teeth" by King and the other, "The Body Politic" by Clive Barker), Garris initially proposed a horror anthology series which was rejected outright by studio executives.  Fox eventually came on board for a stand-alone television film, at which point original director John McTiernan stepped down and Garris went from screenwriter to being behind the lens as well.  Featuring a positively hammy performance from Christopher Lloyd as the linking Crypt Keeper Aaron Quicksilver, each segment is typically generic.  Typical in the sense that Garris' directorial work is rarely poor, but also just as rarely memorable.  Once again tampered by the censored network TV format, the stories are given a goofy yet flat presentation.  Considering that one is about a child's toy coming to life and biting its victims and the other is about people's hands leading a revolution against their human bodies while talking in cute goblin voices to each other, perhaps some fault lies with the source material itself.  Still, Barker and King's writings certainly do not read this silly and perhaps are simply not suited for primetime.

1990s American Horror Part Twenty-One

NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD

(1990)

Dir- Tom Savini

Overall: GOOD

 

Partly due to the initial film accidentally getting lumped into the public domain, George A. Romero tried to beat the crowd from any remake rights continuing to fall into other's hands, which led to the 1990 updated Night of the Living Dead.  Romero penned the script and his frequent collaborator and "king of splatter" Tom Savini took on directing duties as well as his usual special makeup effects.  Up until the last act which detours in a few significant ways, the plot adheres closely to the original, which is hardly surprising due to Romero's involvement.  The most noticeable change is the arc of Barbara, (Patricia Tallman), who keeps her wits about her this time and goes the empowered, bad ass final girl route.   Otherwise, the gore is more prominent, there is profanity, and the overall presentation is comparatively more over the top, making it fit in with the times.  As respectfully and professionally done as it is with all around solid performances to boot, obviously the film cannot dream of comparing to the original in terms of ingenuity or cultural significance.  It still manages to be memorable in a number of ways though.

 

MATINEE

(1993)

Dir - Joe Dante

Overall: GOOD

Blatant nostalgia from front to back yet cleverly structured blatant nostalgia at that, Joe Dante's Matinee is his ultimate B-movie love letter.  Once again teaming up with screenwriter Charles S. Haas after their proceeding, ridiculous, and brilliant Gremlins 2: The New Batch, the tone is unmistakably comedic here as well, while the story is genuinely heartfelt.  Set against the backdrop of the Cuban Missile Crisis in Key West, Florida, John Goodman's William Castle stand-in Lawrence Woolsey seems gleefully indifferent to such real world events.  He instead delights in putting on a schlock spectacle for the locale crowd, most of whom are high school kids caught up in drama of their own.  Though it gets messy as things grow more over the top and complex, it thankfully manage to stay light and humorous throughout.  Besides Goodman who is excellent as always, the equally strong young cast is complimented by a hilariously unimpressed scream queen in Cathy Moriarty, as well as fun bit parts from Kevin McCarthy and an unknown Naomi Watts in the two films-within-a-film.  Speaking of which, the radioactive man/ant hybrid premise in Mant becomes a convincing genre parody and if there are any complaints to be had, it is that we do not get to see more than a handful of snippets from it.

ALIEN RESURRECTION

(1997)

Dir - Jean-Pierre Jeunet

Overall: MEH

 

The forth and final installment in the initial Alien franchise before Xenomorphs would go on to do battle with Predators and Ridley Scott would return with two prequels, Alien Resurrection also concludes the cinematic arc of Sigourney Weaver's Ripley.  Serving as co-producer again as she had with the previous Alien 3, Weaver is joined by Winona Ryder, (perhaps the least convincing bad ass mercenary in any movie), and fun genre regulars Brad Dourif and Ron Pearlman.  For this round, Joss Whedon was brought on as screenwriter, whose seminal Buffy the Vampire Slayer debuted earlier that same year.  Whedon hammered out a handful of scripts before producers were finally satisfied, originally working it around a clone of Newt from Aliens before the focus once again shifted that concept back to Ripley.  The "haunted house movie in space" tone from the initial film had long been replaced with full-throttle action and that transforms into full-throttle schlock here, yet French director Jean-Pierre Jeunet brings in a solid design team and the practical effects are outstanding.  Though things are kept relatively tame during the first act, such restraint does not last long as the entire film degenerates into awful one-liners, laughably implausible set pieces, and loud, wet, explody nonsense.

2018 Horror Part Eight

LUZ

Dir - Tilman Singer

Overall: GOOD

 

One of the most unapologetically strange debuts the horror genre at least has seen in quite some time, Tilman Singer's Luz is pretentious to a fault though startling in its low-key ambition.  A thesis student film for Singer who wrote, directed, edited, and produced, it utilizes a micro-cast and only an equally small handful of locations.  While some of the film's eclectic qualities can be traced back to retro Euro horror, the approach is thoroughly avant-garde.  Multiple, incredibly stagnant takes, a completely incomprehensible story, fantastic yet highly unorthodox sound design, a percussive, ambient score, and trance-like performances make the movie a sensory overload that is relentlessly bizarre.  A few startling sequences are thrown in for good measure, though they are as frustratingly vague from a narrative standpoint as everything else taking place.  Even at a forgivable seventy-minutes in length, Singer ultimately stretches the laborious pacing to a breaking point and too many moments overstay their very weird welcome.  Still, it is a highly impressive work and if anything else, almost shockingly different from any other genre movie in recent memory.

NIGHTMARE CINEMA

Dir - Alejandro Brugués/Joe Dante/Mick Garris/Ryuhei Kitamura/David Slade

Overall: MEH

Predominantly speaking, the anthology film Nightmare Cinema is, well, a nightmare.  Every movie of this kind is uneven by nature and David Slade's excellent entry with the surreal and genuinely unnerving "This Way to Egress" sticks out jarringly amongst the other four hackjobs.  Mick Garris' closing segment "Dead" is textbook for the by-the-books genre enthusiast, meaning it is thoroughly uninventive and mediocre.  Joe Dante's "Mirari" fares little better by comparison, managing to be both quirky and predictable all at once.  As yet another goddamn slasher parody, the opening "The Thing in the Woods" from Alejandro Brugués jumbles its tone and features a truly abysmal performances from Sarah Withers.  The worst of the bunch is thrown smack in the middle though with Ryuhei Kitamura's mind-numbingly awful, laughably derivative and cheap "Mashit", which is pure "shit" alright.  One of the oddest components to this collection is the sporadic presence of Mickey Rourke as The Projectionist.  Clearly available only for about thirty minutes of shooting, he is awkwardly shoe-horned in only three of the five segments as a totally uninteresting Crypt Keeper, except Rourke's own mangled face is in a way far scarier than said Tales from the Crypt host ever was.

THE WIND

Dir - Emma Tammi

Overall: MEH

In her full-length debut The Wind, filmmaker Emma Tammi creates a gradual form of tension while ambitiously utilizing a fractured narrative.  Teresa Sutherland's script focuses heavily on themes of severe isolation, paranoia, and loss, setting itself in the barren, late 19th century American frontier lands.  The supernatural mythology is wisely obscured, forcing the audience to question everything just as the troubled characters do.  The feminist angle is not limited to the writer/director team as the film is also centered almost exclusively around female protagonists who are persistently reminding each other to be respectful and catering towards their men who are either aloof or refusing to believe the supernatural occurrences both insist on experiencing.  Though it is refreshing during its first two acts, the movie looses its compelling grip due to excessive use of flashbacks and flash-forwards and an almost jarring switch to more conventional, hackneyed horror cliches after predominantly having avoiding them earlier.  It is still a promising work, beautifully shot and performed, but the drawbacks come during the final twenty minutes which ultimately leaves the viewer underwhelmed and somewhat disappointed.

Masters of Horror Season Two Part Two

PRO-LIFE
(2006)
Dir - John Carpenter
Overall: MEH

 

For his to-date penultimate film Pro-Life, John Carpenter chose to fuse the sensitive topic of abortion with Christian fanaticism and demonic monsters.  It is a dark, occasionally over the top thriller that is both hit and miss in execution.  Outside of the rather impressive creature design that comes near the finish line, this is the most visually bland of Carpenter's works.  A women's health clinic's lights being shut off on a pleasant, warm-weathered morning basically provides the only means of atmospheric scenery.  The script by Drew McWeeny and Scott Swan as well as the musical score by Carpenter's son Cody are just as unremarkable, though Ron Perlman makes for an imposing, calmly mannered villain.  There is a couple of memorable moments and the tone is kept rather grounded and serious, but it is all not as exciting as it otherwise could be.

PELTS
(2006)
Dir - Dario Argento
Overall: GOOD

The third television film in a row from Dario Argento and the last before making the hilariously over the top trainwreck Mother of Tears the following year, Pelts may rank as one of the most curiously strange entries in the once mighty filmmaker's career.  As anyone with even a passing familiarity with Argento's work can attest to, this is saying something.  It is once again unclear how ridiculous the director's intentions were as the cartoon level gore, overt sleaze, Meat Loaf's bombastically silly performance, and the very peculiar premise all lend themselves to bursts of head scratching laughter for the audience.  As a critique on the fur industry of all things, it is played both dark and schlocky all at once and certainly a hoot if anything else.

THE SCREWFLY SOLUTION
(2006)
Dir - Joe Dante
Overall: MEH

 

Round two for Joe Dante in the Masters of Horror series is a similar social commentary essay as Homecoming was from the previous season.  Instead of being anti-war/anti- right wing propaganda essentially, the Alice Sheldon adaptation The Screwfly Solution turns violent, toxic masculinity and Christian zealousness into a virus while throwing a quite random curve-ball at the audience during its closing minutes.  Stripping away his usual knack for humor, Dante's straight-fisted approach does not particularly stick as numerous moments dip their toes into unintended silliness.  The film seems both heavy handed and quite rushed, with lukewarm performances and an amateur quality look that is due to it being shot on digital cameras.  

VALERIE ON THE STAIRS
(2006)
Dir - Mick Garris
Overall: MEH

Arguably the dullest entry in the series, Masters of Horror creator Mick Garris' Clive Barker adaptation Valerie on the Stairs has certain compelling ingredients at play, but manages to mangle them in an incredibly lackluster fashion.  Some excessive gore, nudity, and scenery chewing performances from Christopher Lloyd and Tony Toddd, (the later as a wildly made-up demon), occasionally provide a heartbeat or two, but the story itself is stagnant to a fault.  The first half is incredibly tedious as the main protagonist does nothing except sit down to write in his room, hear knocks at his door, go out to find a nude woman calling for him, get yelled at by the other tenants, make friendly with the bro out of the bunch, and then it all repeats almost exactly as such several times over.  Once things start getting more unholy and actually exciting, the boredom has taken too strong of a hold and it ends confusing and ham-fisted.

Masters of Horror Season One Part Two

CHOCOLATE
(2005)
Dir - Mick Garris
Overall: MEH

The first Masters of Horror entry to be helmed by the series creator Mick Garris, (Sleepwalkers, the television miniseries version of The Shining), Chocolate has a somewhat ambitious and strange premise that unfortunately falls a bit flat.  Familiar faces Henry Thomas and Matt Frewer are present, with the former being besieged by uncomfortably strange, violent, and horny visions, the latter an aging punk rock musician, and both are artificial food chemical scientists because why not?  Though it is comparatively void of the at least aggressive schlock present in some of the bigger name director's installments, it is still clunky due to a less than tight script, some B-movie acting, and the modest TV budget. 

HOMECOMING

(2005)
Dir - Joe Dante
Overall: MEH

Joe Dante's loose adaptation of Dale Bailey's 2002 short story Death & Suffrage is a strongly potent zombie film for the Bush Jr. era.  As a political satire, Homecoming is incessantly on the nose, depicting right wing warmongers as sub-human, cartoon character villains who are in black and white contrast to the sympathetic undead soldiers that have come back to vote non-Republican.  The contrast of sentimentality and goofy, zombie high jinks is jarring to say the least and Dante never quite establishes the right tonal balance between them.  This mixed with the nonchalant way that the characters react to the extraordinary situation on hand makes for a bizarre end result that loses its footing as humorous parody, coming off more confused than anything.

DEER WOMAN
(2005)
Dir - John Landis
Overall: GOOD

Returning to horror after a thirteen year break, John Landis' Deer Woman is quite typical of the director's output.  Meaning it is violent, features Easter eggs to his previous works, and is overtly comedic.  Co-written by his son Max and featuring Dream On's Brian Benben in the lead, the humor is very hit or miss.  It is mostly an issue of timing and some odd performances, with several moments lingering awkwardly for laughs that never quite land.  On the plus side though, the light tone is appropriate and just as he did in the seminal An American Werewolf in London, more time is spent teasing the title monster than properly showing it.  Messy and flawed to be fair, but it is also not taken very seriously and ends up rather enduring because of this.

CIGARETTE BURNS
(2005)
Dir - John Carpenter
Overall: GOOD

No series called Masters of Horror could exist on admirable footing without an inclusion from John Carpenter and his Cigarette Burns entry is appropriately satisfying.  Stepping noticeably away from the more over-the-top tendencies of his later movies, Carpenter goes for a more eerie and gradual mood here.  As a story about a legendarily infamous bit of celluloid, it is a slow boil that grows increasingly more sinister and strange along the way.  The gory end result is fittingly eye-wincing and the impending madness that has been built up is largely fulfilled.  It is ultimately not as visually captivating as the filmmaker's most lauded work and a mistake is made in showing too much of the cursed film within a film which comes off like a parody of a student art-house movie that is trying way too hard to be disturbing.  Still, it is a strong effort with enough skillful Carpenter flourishes to make it essential viewing for fans of the director's largely excellent filmography.

1970s American Horror Part Nine

BLOOD AND LACE
(1971)
Dir - Phillip S. Gilbert
Overall: MEH

Blood and Lace, (not to be confused with the superior Mario Bava film Blood and BLACK Lace from seven years prior), is as dumb as they come.  Co-written by producer Gil Lasky and directed by Phillip S. Gilbert, (serving as the only movie that the latter would ever make), they also scored Gloria Grahame as an evil orphanage owner, as well as future Uncle Leo Len Lesser as her sleazy sidekick.  Appropriate casting aside, the script is absurd.  There are so many "can only happen in a stupid movie" coincidences and likewise so many times when characters do the most irrational thing possible that it just barely transcends being an offensive waste of time and becomes an occasionally fun trainwreck instead.  Since it was made so cheaply, (using awful stock music, thoroughly unconvincing day for night shots, and amateur cinematography), it makes the hilarious plot that much more unintentionally amusing.  It is within the last few minutes when the inevitable twist rears its head that the ridiculousness becomes overbearing, but there is still plenty to laugh at up until then.

BAD RONALD
(1974)
Dir - Buzz Kulik
Overall: MEH

An adaptation of Jack Vance's book of the same name, Bad Ronald was a made for TV film that aired on ABC around Halloween time in 1974.  At a brisk seventy-four minutes, director Buzz Kulik keeps the pace cruising along with a simple yet far-fetched set-up; a pace which undoes the whole movie.  Due to the brief running time, the relationship between the title character and his mother plus how the former meets his mental breaking point could afford more substance.  It takes until the end before Bad Roland gets suspenseful enough to finally start resembling an actual thriller.  Before that, it just gets by on the creepiness of its on-paper premise, making it a missed opportunity.  To watch something from the point of view of a young and eccentric teenager with mommy and anger issues who is essentially trapped in his own house while succumbing to the madness of isolation, the approach is too mild and underdeveloped for what the story is worth.  On the plus side though, it is an admirable move that Kulik and his cast treat the material respectfully while keeping any potential schlock value uninvited to the party.

PIRANHA
(1978)
Dir - Joe Dante
Overall: MEH

Joe Dante's second feature was the Jaws parody/cash-in Piranha, a film which Universal tried to shut down before Steven Spielberg blessed it by calling it "the best of the Jaws rip-offs".  That statement is probably true, mostly because Dante is interested in getting as many laughs out of his audience as possible, taking the silly, intentionally derivative subject matter as non-seriously as possible.  Full of recognizable faces like Paul Bartel, Dick Miller, Barbara Steele, and Kevin McCarthy as well as highly unremarkable special effects, it is knowingly ham-fisted and everyone on the screen seems fully aware of this without getting too overtly goofy.  While fun and funny at times, it is a tedious story where people get warned about the flesh eating fish, people ignore said warning, and then people get killed by said fish, all of which gets repeated until the high-body count finish.  Characters routinely do idiotic things as well, (including knowingly jumping into the piranha-infested waters), and the laws of physics are slapped in the face as one character parks his boat as far away as possible to then hold his breathe for a supernaturally long time to do something imperative underwater while the fish are probably everywhere.  Naturally ending on an ominous note with a sly, overly confident remark from Steele that clearly sets up the next in the franchise, (Piranha II: The Spawning which would be James Cameron's directorial debut), many of the movie's "flaws" can be seen as part of the appeal, but it does grow just a tad too tiresome after awhile.