(1990)
Dir - Brian Peck
Overall: WOOF
On paper, The Willies should be a fun, stupid horror movie for kids, but in reality it merely adheres to the "stupid" part. The sole directorial effort of Brian Peck, (Return of the Living Dead's Scuz), the movie boasts a generous amount of recognizable cameos not limited to Dana Ashbrook and Kimmy Robertson from Twin Peaks, several cast members from Growing Pains, Sean Astin, and Peck's Living Dead cohorts James Karen and Clu Gulager. None of the star power ends up mattering though since the film is a dreadful, predictable bore. Utilizing an anthology framework, it is definitely meant to be light-hearted in the vein of what the Goosebumps TV show would do a few years later, but the stories themselves are too simple minded to provide any genuine humor let alone any thrills. Worse yet, they drag quite a bit and the presentation is sloppy. Two quick, dumb anecdotal tales are shown before the opening title credits which are followed by only two segments after that, both of which are tediously overstuffed to flesh out the running time. Trimming each one down and adding a third could have helped, but then again judging by the quality of what is already here, perhaps not.
(1995)
Dir - Stuart Gordon
Overall: MEH
Once again loosely tackling another H.P. Lovecraft story, (The Outsider), and utilizing the services of Jeffery Combs and Barbra Crampton for another go-round, adored genre filmmaker Stuart Gordon's Castle Freak changes things up by stripping all of the humor away from the proceedings while maintaining plenty of aghast-worthy gore. The decision to take itself more dramatically serious is fitting to the story though, so the lack of any calculated schlockiness may be missed by the die-hard Gordon fan, but it is not all together necessary here. Gordon allegedly went with the story after seeing an unrelated poster in producer Charles Band's office titled "Castle Freak" and was told to come up with whatever he wanted if he wished to make a movie out of it. Though party successful, said plot is easily anticipated and dragged out a little too long with its various connecting themes such as forgiveness and the grieving or abandoning of children also on the obvious side. The title character looks properly grotesque and his actions likewise are, with a handful of moments that would make anyone less desensitized to horror movie violence feel a bit on the queasy side. A step down from Re-Animator and From Beyond to be fair, but not too far of a step.
(1999)
Dir - David Koepp
Overall: MEH
As fate would have it, The Sixth Sense debuted in theaters mere weeks before Stir of Echoes did and the two film's similar, critical "little kid who sees ghosts" ingredient is impossible not to notice. Such is also the case with various other cinematic elements that can be traced back to Close Encounters of the Third Kind to The Changeling to The Shining to The Dead Zone to name a few. The readily noticeable influences are what ultimately ends up making Stir of Echoes more mediocre than it perhaps deserves, especially since it is based off of a novel by Richard Matheson, one of the most prolific and best horror writers of the 20th century. For his part, Kevin Bacon plays the unwilling suburbanite gone wacky dad, (with a convincing Chicago accent and an unnecessary, chiseled physique to boot), rather solid. even if again his actions are all reminiscent of many protagonists we have seen many times before. The initial hypnotizing sequence is done well yes, but the standard horror movie moments elsewhere, (ghost with eyeshadow popping up in the mirror, tilting its head, and only adhering to the laws of dramatic tension), are anything but inventive. Still, it is better than most, just marginally weaker than the best of the films whose shoulders it is standing on.
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