The Tomie Series Part Two

TOMIE: RE-BIRTH

(2001)

Dir - Takashi Shimizu

Overall: MEH

 

In between two of his Ju-On movies, director Takashi Shimizu took a crack at the Tomie franchise with Tomie: Re-Birth; the most anti-climactic one yet in the series.  The first credited screenplay from Yoshinobu Fujioka, (who would also write the following Tomie: Forbidden Fruit), this one utilizes elements from the "Painter" and "Hair" segments found in Junji Ito's manga source material.  It is the same ole, already tired shtick though of a new actor portraying the title character, (Miki Sakai in this case who is as acceptable as any of the other on-screen incarnations); a title character that once again refuses to die no matter how many times any part of her physical body is destroyed.  She is less of a malevolent force than just a steadfast annoyance here, popping back up over and over again to obnoxiously giggle and be rude to a small handful of people, some of which are temporarily smitten with her and others who waste no time at all by just murdering her at the first opportunity.  Anyone venturing in that is unfamiliar with the established framework will be confused at the very least, but even with some memorably strange attributes here or there, the story is both too redundant and repetitive to benefit from Shimizu's lethargic, would-be creepy tone.

TOMIE: FORBIDDEN FRUIT

(2002)

Dir - Shun Nakahara 

Overall: MEH

 

Yet another entry in the Tomie series sees things going in a more low-key route with Tomie: Forbidden Fruit, (Tomie: The Final Chapter - Forbidden Fruit, Tomie: Saishuu-shô - kindan no kajitsu).  Director Shun Nakahara came from a pornography background, which is interesting in that his work here has only mild lesbian elements and no nudity or overt sexuality.  It is also problematically paced, at least during the first act which establishes an aloof atmosphere where most of the characters seem to be sleepwalking through their performances.  This stylistic choice is not necessary a poor one, but it does lend itself to a sluggish start that introduces the title succubus in a nonchalant way where she manipulates a sheepish girl, (who is also named Tomie because her father was obsessed with the demon version in his younger years), into being her only "friend".  Eventually though, things move into the darkly comedic and heavily bizarre, even if the mood is still set in a cumbersome, ethereal haze.  Here, Nozomi Andō's version of Tomie gets repeatedly murdered and even dismembered, growing an insect-like baby body from her severed head at one point as well.  So on that note, at least its weird AF.

TOMIE: BEGINNING

(2005)

Dir - Ataru Oikawa

Overall: MEH

The sixth Tomie film Tomie: Beginning was the first to come after a break, with the previous five emerging once per year since 1998.  Writer/director Ataru Oikawa returns, (who was behind the lens on the first in the series as well as the following Tomie: Revenge which was released a week after this one), and it has a cheaper, shot-on-digital-video aesthetic as opposed to some of the more polished ones that came before.  This is not a distracting issue besides one or two unintentionally goofy looking shots like a plastic severed ear that crawls away like a bug.  It is low on weirdness and a more meandering affair, which is thankfully kept to a brisk seventy-four minutes.  Rio Matsumoto plays the title character this time in prequel form, showing up as a mysterious high school student who immediately bewitches her classmates and teachers, turning the boys into hopelessly smitten love puppies and the women into jealous bitches.  Things progress as one who is familiar with the franchise would expect, (i.e everyone goes crazy while Tomie smiles adorably at them), but anyone hoping for a fleshed-out backstory will be disappointed.  She mentions something about being experimented on "unspeakably" by doctors and her regenerating powers are compared to that of a flatworm, but that is about it.  Still, prequels that are centered around mysterious supernatural entities are fundamentally a bad idea in the first place, so this one fares no better or worse in that regard.

The Tomie Series Part One

TOMIE

(1998)

Dir - Ataru Oikawa

Overall: MEH

The first in a to-date nine-deep franchise based off of Junji Ito's manga of the same name, Tomie is a low-key and laboriously paced bit of supernatural horror that is minimal on both the supernatural and the horror.  Narratively, it serves as a sequel to Ito's initial story and draws elements from the "Photograph" and "Kiss" segments therein, bringing Miho Kanno's Tomie to life as a bug-eating severed head baby that quickly grows into the manipulative, creepy, and diabolical succubus that she is.  Kanno established the portrayal here that all future actors would take as Tomie's various incarnations, and her face is kept off screen entirely until the third act where her orange eyes are briefly shown to go along with her bewitching mannerisms.  Filmmaker Ataru Oikawa would get behind the lens for 2005's Tomie: Beginning and Tomie: Revenge as well, the only such director to helm more than one in the series as well as receiving sole screenwriting credit while behind the lens.  Sadly though, his sense of urgency is problematically lacking.  It takes forever to link Aoi Miyazaki's protagonist to that of the title villain and it does so in a murky way at best, with other characters weaving in and out inconsequentially.  The body count is low, but Oikawa stages a few mildly freaky set pieces at least.

TOMIE: ANOTHER FACE

(1999)

Dir - Toshirō Inomata

Overall: MEH

 

Edited down to a feature-length film from the V-cinema series Tomie kyōfu no bishōjo, Tomie: Another Face, (Tomie: anaza feisu), features Runa Nagai as the title villain, here working her seductive magic in three different stories that are linked by a former police coroner who has been tracking her down.  While it is nothing spectacular, it makes for an agreeable anthology horror watch at only seventy-one minutes, trimming the fat from the already brisk episodes which could have been included in their entirety.  First coming back from the grave to make her high school boyfriend and a competing love interest's lives miserable, Tomie then lures a photographer into her midst who was smitten by her image as a younger man.  The last story is the one that properly introduces the one-eyed Oota who reveals himself to be hunting Tomie throughout her exploits, though audience members will no doubt surmise said character's agenda long before he spells it all out.  Nagai turns in creepy performance, using the character's overt cuteness and coy sex appeal to hoodoo men into appeasing her diabolical needs.  Things play out as one would expect for better or worse, with Tomie gaining the upper hand in her perpetually immortal quest that even an incinerator cannot finalize.

 

TOMIE: REPLAY

(2000)

Dir - Fujirō Mitsuishi

Overall: MEH

Released on a double bill with another cinematic adaptation of one of Junji Ito's mangas (the outstanding head-trip Uzumaki), Tomie: Replay takes its cue from the "Basement" chapter of Ito's source material.  With a noticeably bigger budget and a more polished presentation than the previous two installments, director Fujirō Mitsuishi, (in his only movie credit of any kind), manufactures the same low-key tone that the franchise had already established.  Some of the set pieces and graphic visuals are more bizarre, with Tomie having a deformed monster face in several shots, emerging out of a six year old's belly, and having her severed-head body be fully functional.  Her particular brand of hoodoo evil is treated more like a virus here than anything, with most people who come in mere contact with her developing generalized, psychotically insane attributes instead of just being disturbingly smitten with her cold, cutesy aura.  Unfortunately, the film is not exciting or strange enough to be front-to-back compelling and it ends in a confused whimper that anyone familiar with the series knows will merely lead into the next incarnation of the immortal title villain.

90's Asian Horror Part Thirteen

TOIRE NO HANAKO-SAN

(1995)

Dir - Jōji Matsuoka

Overall: MEH

A clumsy genre offering that blends PG grade school drama with a serial killer mystery, Toire no Hanako-san, (Hanako-san of the Toilet, School Mystery, Phantom of the Toilet), is based off of the urban legend of a young girl's ghost that haunts bathrooms.  Besides one or two disembodied giggles, oddly no other such haunting takes place here as we instead have a child-murdering psycho on the loose who does not show up until the third act.  This leaves the predominant amount of the running time to merely focus on the students being mean to the new girl who they think is the dead girl for reasons that only bratty kids would come up with.  Poorly paced, director Jōji Matsuoka allows for an endless stream of monotonous scenes to play out, sprinkling them with cutesy music and largely forgetting to touch on the fact that a serious threat is even at stake.  When the creepy-looking maniac with a sickle finally shows up, he makes some unsettling noises and nobody thinks to turn the lights on in the modern-decored school of the setting, leading to a dopey conclusion where every last teacher and student inexplicably shows up at night to slowly surround the bad guy while the music sores triumphantly.

THE QUIET FAMILY

(1998)

Dir - Kim Jee-woon

Overall: MEH

The debut The Quiet Family, (Joyonghan Gajok), from writer/director Kim Jee-woon is a mediocre black comedy that while showing certain amounts of promise for the filmmaker, also botches its humor and comes off more half-baked than fully-formed.  Remade four different times in as many Asian countries, (the most famous and ridiculous of course being Takashi Miike's musical adaptation The Happiness of the Katakuris, which also had stop-motion sequences and zombies in it because drugs), the initial version here goes for a consistent Coen brothers-adjacent tone where a family full of schlubs awkwardly tries to cover up a series of murders, some of which they inadvertently commit.  Things grow exponentially worse with every poor decision that they make, which unfortunately should wield more ridiculous results than what is presented here.  Instead, we have a series of set pieces that are amusing on paper, yet unmemorable in execution.  The pacing suffers as the story becomes more convoluted, monotonous, and incoherent, ending simply because it reached the ninety-minute mark as opposed to revving up to a satisfying payoff.  Still, it is well shot, the cast does adequate work, and the soundtrack has a couple of purposely silly choices on it.  Any movie where a bunch of people die horrible deaths that also opens with a Delinquent Habits song and ends with The Partridge Family's "I Think I Love You" is obviously doing at least something right.

 

RINGU 2
(1999)
Dir - Hideo Nakata
Overall: MEH

Rightfully ignoring the first official, not-good Ringu sequel Spiral, Toho brought back the writer/director team of Hiroshi Takahash and Hideo Nakata for the for-real-this-time-official-Ringu-sequel Ringu 2, (Ring 2).  A confusing move following a confusing follow-up only a year later, the resulting film is also, well, confusing.  Once again a pseudo-science angle is introduced that fits in awkwardly with the vengeful spirit mayhem that was strictly adhered to in the original.  Takahash's script throws in a barrage of ideas, such as water having some sort of afterlife-summoning powers, Sadako's elderly relative thinking that he can stop all of the shenanigans by returning to the sea, a side plot of another teenager trying to make copies of the cursed video tape for another journalist, the kid who survived the first movie now having arbitrary psychic powers of his own, Sadako reemerging as a clay dummy, and comatose mental patients having ghostly orbs that show up in their Polaroids.  This only scratches the surface of ingredients and sadly, there are far too many of them to allow any to land.  Nakata keeps the humor almost non-existent, but he also forgets to throw in an adequate amount of spooky bits, despite the consistently dour tone.  So in other words, one more swing and a miss that proves that an exceptional horror film is better left alone.

90's Asian Horror Part Twelve

TOKYO FIST

(1995)

Dir - Shinya Tsukamoto

Overall: GOOD

As was the case with his renowned debut Tetsuo: The Iron Man and its 1992 sequel, filmmaker Shinya Tsukamoto once again channels the escape from corporate servitude via extreme body mutilation in Tokyo Fist.  A gleefully violent and ridiculous boxing movie of sorts, it is as kinetically surreal as most of the director's work.  Tsukamoto appears as one of three leads, (joined by Kahori Fujii and his brother Kōji Tsukamoto), who are caught up in a love triangle where suppressed trauma and sexuality overcomes all of them with the most bloody of results.  The film has a elevated aggression to it that is equal parts bizarre and humorous, with explosive gore sequences thrown in where character's faces are spewing the red stuff and rendered unrecognizable under face-pummeling bruises.  While the men take out their testosterone-ridden rage against each other, Fujii turns to extreme body piercing, possibly in an attempt to either match her pursuer's overblown masculinity or to claim her own identity through the most extreme form of self-expression available to her.  The thematic details can be endlessly debated, but the wacky, cinematic ride is stylistically engrossing.

 

SPIRAL
(1998)
Dir - George Iida
Overall: MEH
 
An adaptation of Koji Suzuki novel Spiral, (Rasen), the resulting film serves as a direct sequel to Ringu which was released on the very same day in its native Japan.  Though a few of the same characters return and each movie had Suzuki's source material as reference, this one is thematically on a different planet than its rightfully more popular companion piece.  For one, it introduces convoluted science fiction elements in place of supernatural ones, thus undermining all of the skin-crawling appeal of the first film.  Trying to explain the video tape curse as some sort of smallpox-adjacent, tumor-growing virus, (or something), is lame enough, yet the finale here throws in an even more ridiculous twist involving Sadako's restless spirit that is not so much out for unbiased vengeance, but actually has some cockamamie scheme to repopulate the earth with people's loved ones via sexually transmitted DNA, (or something).  The whole affair would be head-scratching and silly enough as its own stand-alone genre hybrid, but in this particular franchise, the results are exponentially more awkard.  Worse yet, director George Iida goes for a sluggish, low-key pace that particularly falls apart during the second act which will probably make most people check out before they get to the daft conclusion.

 

SAIMIN
(1999)
Dir - Masayuki Ochiai
Overall: GOOD

For his first of many theatrical works in the horror genre, filmmaker Masayuki Ochiai adapted Keisuke Matsuoka's novel Saimin, (Hypnosis, The Hypnotist), which brings the author's source material to life with head-scratching gusto.  In this sense, the movie is more bizarre than frightening, yet this easily allows for it to stand out amongst the herd of other vengeful spirit works in J-horror.  Though Matsuoka's initial inspiration was taken from the Aum Shinrikyo doomsday cult, the script by Ochiai and Yasushi Fukuda murks up the supernatural details so that the nature of the malevolent entity is left vague, as it is gleefully hellbent on warping people's minds through hypnosis in order to get them to kill themselves in extravagant matters.  One woman literally runs herself to death, some guy washes his face with the fire from a gas-lit stove, another chokes himself with his own tie during his wedding ceremony, and yet another slams his head into a coat hanger, to name but a few.  Performance wise, everyone indulges in melodramatic mannerisms to a possibly intentional extent, giving the film an unshakably odd tone that is equal parts absurd and freaky.  Some dated visual effects, cryptic dialog, and increasingly bonkers scenes that open and close the proceedings only intensify such a challenging watch that if anything, is likely to make viewers think twice about allowing themselves to hear subtle metallic noises.  Long story.

90's Asian Horror Part Eleven

CURSE, DEATH & SPIRIT

(1992)

Dir - Hideo Nakata

Overall: MEH

 

Pure SOV schlock, Curse, Death & Spirit, (Honto ni atta kowai hanashi: Jushiryou), is the debut from Hideo Nakata; a three-part, unrelated anthology collection of made-for-TV J-horror stories.  Though each entry has familiar, fool-proof elements such as a creepy doll, ("The Cursed Doll"), a water-bound spirit, ("The Spirit of the Dead"), and a haunted house with a haunted mirror, ("The Haunted Inn"), they are all presented in a neutered, PG framework that is more in line with Goosebumps or Are You Afraid of the Dark? as opposed to Nakata's later Ringu, which would solidify contemporary J-horror aesthetics and tone.  The Casio keyboard score here is persistently ruining, allowing nothing to play out quietly as to build any sense of unease or tension.  Not that such things were entirely possible due to the brisk running time of each segment, the lot of them clocking in at just sixty-five minutes with beginning and ending credits included.  Said credits even feature a terrible alt-rock song, as was common practice for Asian genre movies going forward.

 

RING

(1995)

Dir - Chisui Takigawa

Overall: MEH

Three years before Hideo Nakata's theatrical adaptation of Koji Suzuki's Ringu novel hit the big screen, a long-forgotten television film for Fuji TV aired that was more faithful to the source material, for better or worse.  Ring, (Ring: Kanzenban), is limited by its small-screen presentation which comes off as unintentionally campy in trying to convey the type of supernatural menace that Nakata's version had in spades.  As typical for the era, a B-movie keyboard score plays through far too many scenes and director Chisui Takigawa utilizes Dutch angles, distorted color pallets, and idiot-proof recalls that do everything in their power to break verisimilitude.  Following the book's plot almost to the letter, there is some nudity and gaudy revelations in the third act that may garnish chuckles instead of gasps from the audience; revelations which were wisely jettisoned in later interpretations.  Still, it is paced agreeably and even if she comes off as far less terrifying by comparison, the depiction and backstory of the ghost-in-a-well Sadako stands apart from the rest of the franchise, allowing the movie to at least serve its purpose as a curiosity for fans of the series or just J-horror aficionados in general.

HANAKO OF THE TOILET

(1998)

Dir - Yukihiko Tsutsumi

Overall: MEH

 

The first theatrical work in horror from television director Yukihiko Tsutsumi, Hanako of the Toilet, (Shinsei toire no Hanako-san, Demon Doll Hanako School Mystery), is yet another cinematic retelling of the urban legend of the title.  Though comparatively better than its 1995 counterpart which was directed by Joji Matsuoka and featured a younger cast, the high school-set story here is delivered surprisingly straight for something with such a ridiculous title.  In fact, bathroom shenanigans play an inconsequential part to the proceedings, with nearly all of the supernatural occurrences revolving around a shrine that was set up behind the school which holds a creepy doll that is inhabited by malevolent forces.  The characters are all interchangeable and only two of them are given any sort of backstory, one being the sister of a missing child who is connected to the Hanako legend and another being some kind of teacher with psychic abilities who is also related to said missing child.  There are a handful of bog-standard spooky moments and the final set piece provides a fun bombardment of wailing wind and disturbing, cackling doll close-ups, but the story is both poorly conceived and monotonous.

90's American Horror Part Fifty-Two

SHOCK 'EM DEAD

(1991)

Dir - Mark Freed
Overall: WOOF

Calling the harebrained doof-fest Shock 'Em Dead, (Rock 'Em Dead), the "best" heavy metal horror comedy would be like calling syphilis the "best" venereal disease.  In a sub-genre where every entry is different levels of embarrassingly horrible, this one is both the most horrible and the most embarrassing.  With a band name like Spastic Colon, a song titled "Hairy Cherry", and a lyric like "I'm in love with a slut!", all making an appearance, clearly much of the juvenile humor is intended.  While such moronic hair metal, boner comedy, and misogynistic/insensitive/scatological stereotypes are gleefully abused, no great terrible movie is complete without unintentional hilarity.  Thankfully there is plenty of that to be found, from every bizarre set piece being awkwardly staged, to abysmal acting, uninspired cinematography, cringe-worthy music, and lousy special effects even by D-grade schlock standards.  The inexperience of director Mark Freed, (whose only previous film credit was being behind the lens on Jeff Porcaro's drum instructional video of all things), likely plays a role, but Martin Scorsese could hardly have done much better with such a meager budget and absurd material.  Still, a top-billed Traci Lords engages in a brief catfight and Michael Angelo Batio shows up as a guitar-shredding demon so, go sports!

EVIL TOONS

(1992)

Dir - Fred Olen Ray

Overall: MEH

With Dick Miller, David Carradine, gratuitous female nudity, and ninety seconds of Who Framed Roger Rabbit? live action/animation all thrown into the mix, one would think that the results would at least be worth the price of admission.  While Evil Toons stays in its lane and knows exactly what kind of low-budget schlock that it is delivering, it is still a missed opportunity of comedy horror high-jinks.  Shot in eight days, at a single location, and with the usual amount of no money that Ray consistently had to work with, most of the running time is spent with harmlessly sleazy T&A action as Penthouse Pet/Skinimax queen Monique Gabrielle plus three other often-naked ladies trade juvenile Valley girl banter with each other while doing spontaneous stripteases, fondling themselves in the mirror, or sleeping on the floor in their underwear.  The plot line can be chalked up to "Evil Dead except with boobs and stupid" since the same human-skin-covered Necronomicon makes an appearance, except this one unleashes a horny cartoon demon that turns one of the ladies into a vampire thing because sure whatever.  Sadly, both Miller and Carradine are wasted with each of them only appearing in a couple of scenes, but the movie is knowingly silly and booby-filled enough to be embarrassing yet at least not INSULTINGLY embarrassing.

CHERRY FALLS

(1999)

Dir - Geoffrey Wright

Overall: WOOF

Suffering the uphill battle of having a ridiculously inept tone as well as being yet another teen slasher romp that is as 1999 as any 1999 movie ever was, Cherry Falls is a bizarre and ridiculous entry in its insultingly over-saturated sub-genre.  Originally rejected by the MPAA ratings board, the movie was eventually released in a watered-down version by USA Films which is perplexing concerning something that features nasty kills and a finale with a high school orgy as its center piece.  Post-Scream movies of such an ilk were required to be self-referential to some extent and Ken Selden's script here makes an awkward-at-best attempt to spoof the concept of a giallo-styled killer that murders sexually promiscuous young adults.  Instead, the victims here are specifically virgins due to a deliberately "Huh?" reveal in the closing moments that is laughably absurd and delivered with the same inconsistent mix of goofiness and harrowing brutality.  While it is impossible to be intimidated by Jay Mohr in any capacity whatsoever, Brittany Murphy makes a lovable, twenty-two year old, alt-grunge high schooler and Michael Biehn is a pleasant edition to anything, including something as stupid as this.  Otherwise though, every single student character is relentlessly unlikable and comes off like a dated stereotype that only exist in hackneyed screenplays, plus the slasher framework is as boringly upheld as ever.

90's American Horror Part Fifty-One

BLOOD TIES

(1991)

Dir - Jim McBride

Overall: MEH

 

A lackluster made-for-television film with one of the most neutered interpretations of vampires on any size screen, Blood Ties is rightfully forgettable.  Airing on Fox in May of 1991 with some mild soap opera sexiness thrown in that is adjacent to that of Melrose Place which debuted the following year, there is no star power present and as a collaboration between director Jim McBride and screenwriter Richard Shapiro, (both of whom had worked in and out of TV by this point), its pedestrian style and melodrama leaves much to be desired.  In this universe, vampires are all descendants from a single bloodline, that being derived from the biblical character of Lilith, Adam's first wife from Judaic and Mesopotamian mythology.  Said undead can roam about freely in the day time, are not immortal, do not have fangs, and also have little to no interest in sucking blood, so why bother labeling them as "vampires" in the first place is anyone's guess.  The story examines foreign assimilation and racism in the most mild of senses, throwing in some yawn-inducing romance and petty rivalry between the not-really-vampiric family, all while the stock musical score plays continuously and nothing frighting or tantalizing happens at any time.

THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS

(1993)

Dir - Henry Selick

Overall: GOOD

A celebrated stop-motion fantasy musical that simultaneously constitutes as both a Christmas and Halloween one, The Nightmare Before Christmas is an impressive achievement in its field.  Though Tim Burton was not officially at the helm, (that duty would go to fellow, former Disney animator Henry Selick), the director's influence and style remains front and center.  Burton wrote the story and struggled in vain to get it made as anything from a short, a televised holiday special, or even a children's book before he finally had enough Hollywood clout under his belt to get it underway as a feature.  The same year that digital effects work hit a milestone with Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park, Selick and his team here took over two years to deliver stellar stop-motion animation in the more traditional manner, utilizing twenty sound stages to create three different highly imaginative and detailed worlds.  Halloween Town is rooted in pure German Expressionism, Christmas Town is Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and the real world resembles a comparatively more normalized version of both.  It all has a quirky energy that is purely appeasing to Burton's singular aesthetic and throw in a barrage of toe-tapping Danny Elfman songs, (as well as his own singing voice for Chris Saradon's Jack Skellington), wonderful voice work, and a brisk seventy-six minute running time, and it remains an infections watch.

STRANGE DAYS
(1995)
Dir - Kathryn Bigelow
Overall: GOOD

A gritty and grandiose techno-noir/cyberpunk thriller, Strange Days marks the most ambitious collaboration between filmmaker Kathryn Bigelow and James Cameron.  Nearly a decade in the works from conception to completion, Cameron's initial ninety-page treatment was eventually collaborated upon by he and Jay Cocks, with Bigelow finding thematic inspiration from both the 1992 LA riots and the Lorena Bobbit incident.  Technically dazzling with groundbreaking POV camera work and a jacked-up editing style that firmly roots it in a sensationalized, post-MTV type of grunge aesthetic, its bombastic length and presentation never becomes exhausting.  This is partly due to its unflinching brutality at times, which snaps the viewer out of the very sensory-overload trance that the characters in such a dystopian setting are experiencing, with a virtual reality epidemic that allows for people to feel other's sensations that are recorded on discs.  The over-the-top style may distract from what is essentially a popcorn friendly conspiracy mystery with a heavy ending that borders on schlock, but the ride is so captivating, the cinematography so inventive, the alt-industrial soundtrack so deliciously 90s, and the performances so finely-tuned, (especially Ralph Fieness and Angela Bassett in the leads), that it easily represents a high point for all involved.

90's American Horror Part Fifty

EVIL SPIRITS

(1990)

Dir - Gary Graver

Overall: MEH

Inspired by the then recent, real life serial boarding house murders committed by Dorothea Puente, Evil Spirits was the second and last feature done by schlock-peddler Gary Graver's short-lived production company Grand Am.  Persistently boring due to the noticeable lack of funds at hand as well as Graver's abysmally uninspired direction, it oddly boasts a delightful cast of B-movie regulars.  Michael Berryman plays someone besides a dim-witted brute for once, though his peeping tom/egg-loving writer character is still certainly eccentric.  The same goes for Martine Beswick's spiritual medium, Debra Lamb's mute ballerina, and Hoke Howell's elderly alcoholic, all of whom are living in Karen Black's boarding house where she pockets social security checks, talks out loud to her husband's corpse that also talks back to her, (and sits all peaceful-like in a chair, Norma Bates style even though no one ever mentions what must be an appalling smell coming from there), and begins murdering her tenants because that is just what wackadoo psycho biddy ladies like her do in such movies.  The on-screen players may be enough to make this a minor curiosity to genre fans, but it is simultaneously a D-rent dud for all involved.

 

SORCERESS

(1995)

Dir - Jim Wynorski

Overall: MEH

 

A Skinemax staple amongst many, Sorceress, (Temptress II), is an interesting footnote in softcore genre cinema for some legit personnel on board, who are joining others that made a career out of taking their clothes off on camera.  Produced by Fred Olen Ray, (who also makes a cameo appearance), shot by Roger Corman/John Cassavetes/Orson Welles' collaborator Gary Graver, and directed by prolific exploitation filmmaker Jim Wynorski, mainstays Julie Strain, Rochelle Swanson, Kristi Ducati, and Toni Naples provide the bosomy birthday suites while Linda Blair, Michael Parks, Edward Albert, and even William Marshall of all people provide the overqualified star power.  Uneven from a thespian standpoint, (Strain goes for it in the diabolical lead, Swanson holds her own enough, Naples is terrible, Blair has done both far worse and far better, and Parks actually pretends that he is in a real movie), it delivers the steamy sex scenes alright and stays in its lane as far as boobie flicks go.  Though the half-assed, witchcraft story-line boils down to just something to throw in there between all of the horniness, it is a campy and charmingly sleazy watch that ends up being technically better than it has any reason to be.

PROGENY

(1998)

Dir - Brian Yuzna

Overall: MEH

 

Played straight for once coming from director Brian Yuzna, Progeny is an icky alien impregnation movie that still finds room for schlock and gross-out gore.  Scripted by Aubrey Solomon as well as frequent Yuzna collaborator and master of horror Stuart Gordon, the story of a well-meaning couple suffering from a freak pregnancy is hardly an original one and the usual motifs of a seemingly quack doctor, a woman bouncing between "Get this thing out of me!" and "Please don't kill my baby!" mood swings, characters not believing people's inexplicable yet of course true stories, and nightmare psyche-outs are all present.  In addition to those, the cheap production values render the whole thing more embarrassing than convincing, with adorable grey extraterrestrials and their squiggly tentacles being inexplicably bathed in light in order to heighten their cheap, Halloween decoration aesthetic.  At other times though, Screaming Mad George and the rest of the special effects department deliver some nauseating shots of internal organs and monstrous fetuses, plus Arnold Vosloo does a slight Christopher Walken style line delivery, Jillian McWhirter gives it her all in trying to pretend that she is in a better movie, and Brad Dourif turns in a more subtle performance than he is ever usually hired to do.

90's American Horror Part Forty-Nine

NETHERWORLD

(1992)

Dir - David Schmoeller

Overall: MEH

 

Charles Band and David Schmoeller are back at it with Netherworld; a New Orleans set supernatural yarn that was allegedly to be a European production with other personnel attached before the project was put on hold long enough to switch back across the Atlantic.  Boasting the usual combination of adequate atmosphere and straight-to-video schlock, the potential is held back due to such a presentation which becomes subtly dopey despite its best intentions.  Characters speak in cliches, several actors chew the scenery, Band's screenplay becomes increasingly convoluted, the pacing meanders, not a single scene is without its synth musical accompaniment, and it all takes itself just serious enough to be tonally inconsistent.  Visually it is not without some charm though, channeling Phantasm through a Southern Gothic lens and the special effects work by Mark Shostrom is better than one would expect from the meager budget.  Plus Edgar Winter randomly shows up during a fever dream montage, wailing away on the sax in the film's mysterious brothel where voodoo practitioners trap the souls of villainous individuals inside of birds because why would they not?

WHEN A STRANGER CALLS BACK
(1993)
Dir - Fred Walton
Overall: GOOD

 

Fourteen years after the theatrical release of When a Stranger Calls, writer/director Fred Walton plus actors Carol Kane and Charles Dunning team up again for the Showtime sequel When a Stranger Calls Back.  A sense of déjà vu permeates the opening scene where Jill Schoelen's babysitter undergoes an eerily similar traumatic event, (in a carbon copy of the same house no less), to the one that Kane faced in the original, except instead of being an exact retread, the details are more bizarre and unsettling.  Unlike the previous film though, this one has more tricks up its sleeve outside of the first sequence.  Kane and Dunning's characters return to show emotional support for Schoelen as well as to track down her alleged stalker who apparently has advanced ventriloquist abilities.  Sluggish to a point and not without its share of plot inconsistencies, the performances are top-to-bottom committed and Walton maintains a serious tone that disguises the movie's shortcomings.  He also shows an expert knack for delivering the suspense and concocting surprises that sound goofy on paper yet again also work due to the campless presentation.  Horror sequels are generally unnecessary and struggle to deliver just enough of the same thing to bring the initial fans on board while simultaneously being unique enough to warrant their existence in the first place, but this effort here surpasses expectations and is superior to its comparatively more flawed predecessor.

NIGHT OF THE DEMONS 2

(1994)

Dir - Brian Trenchard-Smith

Overall: MEH

Super Soakers full of holy water, a pair of tits that turns into hands, a zombie demon playing basketball with his own head, sexy dancing set to Morbid Angel's "Rapture", a nun who performs kung-fu with a pair of rosaries, a tube of lipstick that crawls out, fornicates with, and then possesses a woman; the relentlessly stupid Night of the Demons 2 runs a slight variation of the first film's presence into the ground for those who need something to laugh at.  Australian director Brian Trenchard-Smith steps in for Kevin S. Tenney, pitting another crop of unlikable horny douchebags against the forces of scenery-chewing evil and he keeps the tone rooted in a level of schlock that the material deserves.  The plotting is slap-dash and lazy with its details, pulling hilarious excuses out of its sleeve for more mayhem to unfold; mayhem that is thankfully over-the-top enough to warrant some deserving chuckles.  If not for the uneventful first half and so many characters behaving like parodies of the worst kind of one-note assholes in 80s slasher movies, this could be seen as a more agreeably campy watch.  Flaws in all though, it works when it works and delivers nonsensical, blasphemous, sleazy, and gory set pieces better than others of its kind, including its 1988 predecessor.

90's American Horror Part Forty-Eight

CLASS OF 1999

(1990)

Dir - Mark L. Lester

Overall: GOOD

 

Following up his 1982 movie Class of 1984, filmmaker Mark L. Lester jumped ahead a decade and a half with Class of 1999; a dystopian action variation of the comparatively more down to earth themes of delinquent violence that were explored in the first outing.  Screenwriter C. Courtney Joyner steps in to crank everything up, presenting a world where the American school system has gotten so overrun with crime that a covert military operation has stepped in to implement a new disciplinary program involving cybernetic soldier teachers run by a sleazy Stacy Keach with a ridiculous haircut.  In typical sequel fashion, everything is done to a more outrageous degree; the setting is one step away from a Mad Max post-apocalypse, the villains are more cartoonishly one-note, the gore is a plenty, and super-powered cyborgs are brought in to go sentient with their "eliminate the enemy" agenda.  It all builds to an over-the-top finale where everything blows up, everyone is covered with blood, and teachers with animatronic bodies need to be liquefied in order to be stopped.  Subtly is not the game in other words, but Lester sticks to the schlocky tone and for anyone who wants to see Pam Grier brutally murder a bunch of high school punks Terminator style, this is your movie.

 

WITCH HUNT

(1994)

Dir - Paul Schrader

Overall: MEH

 

Replacing Fred Ward with Dennis Hopper in the lead as private investigator Harry Philip Lovecraft, screenwriter Joseph Dougherty churned out a sequel to the 1991 HBO film Cast a Deadly Spell, here titled Witch Hunt.  Julian Sands in an Irish accent playing yet another warlock, Penelope Anne Miller as a Hollywood starlet, Eric Bogosian as a corrupt political hopeful, Angelo Badalamenti providing the music, and Paul Schrader of all people behind the lens, it has plenty of star power to be of interest.  Unfortunately, this particular yarn slams home the metaphor of magic as communism via a McCarthy-style witch hunt for practitioners, (hence the film's title), and is only moderately successful in the process.  There are a couple of wacky set pieces where spells are cast that can transform women into bosomy screen queens, sick ravens on people to make them fall asleep, or in the most ridiculous showstopper, make somebody's literal "true self" emerge from their bodies after throwing-up a toad.  Though all of the other performances are captivating enough, Hopper seems to be going through the motions here with a surprising lack of charisma as a film noir private dick, plus the period setting of 1940s LA is poorly convened to the point of being indistinguishable from the early 90s when it was actually made.

JACK-O

(1995)

Dir - Steve Latshaw

Overall: WOOF

Though it may be of interest to horror buffs for technically containing the final film roles of both Cameron Mitchell and John Carradine as well as Linnea Quigley's naked boobs, Jack-O is an inexcusably embarrassing piece of Z-grade garbage.  Hilariously and, (more importantly), boringly failing at every level, it marks the third collaboration between producer Fred Olen Ray and director Steven Latshaw, with several of the duo's usual cast and crew members adding another dud on their resumes.  Carradine and Mitchell's footage was each taken from unrelated projects considering that the former died almost a decade earlier and 1990's Demon Cop literally contains the same shots of Mitchell sitting behind a desk as a TV horror movie host.  For Quigley's part, her introduction here is in her birthday suite while showering and due to the incompetent editing, it takes several minutes before we realize even who in the hell she is supposed to be, making one of several unintentionally funny moments along with insultingly tedious nonsense taking up the majority of the proceedings.  Every other "actor" on screen could not possible be worse and the whole thing leaves one with that feeling of sinking into your chair in uncomfortable unease as a pathetic, no-money, no-talent variation of Stan Winston's Pumpkinhead plays out before you.

90's American Horror Part Forty-Seven

THE VAGRANT

(1992)
Dir - Chris Walas
Overall: GOOD

A ridiculous home invasion thriller comedy from Mel Brooks' production company Brooksfilms, The Vagrant is a bonafide treat for Bill Paxton fans and has some demented glee to excuse its unmistakable shortcomings.  The second and last theatrical effort from special effects man-turned director Chris Walas, its script by Richard Jefferies allegedly sat on the shelf for a decade and is ripe with plot holes and goofy inconsistencies.  Hinging on the premise of a psychotic homeless person obsessively terrorizing Paxton's yuppie dweeb to the point where the latter's sanity is constantly in question and Michael Ironside's police detective goes beyond both his jurisdiction and the ways of the law in order to catch who he thinks is a serial killer, it is all wisely played as a black comedy since how could it not be?  Paxton is delightful as he loses his mind to the point of fleeing the city and taking a management job at a trailer park, shacking up with a jolly Patrika Darbo, and growing a mullet, plus a handful of other familiar faces help keep the nyuck nyucks in check, particularly Colleen Camp, Ironside, and Darbo who all get to indulge in various levels of scenery-chewing.   Even if the story is asinine and the Paxton's frustration is played as a long-winded gag that the audience can share, (for better or worse), it nails its absurd, R-rated tone.

 

SKINNER

(1993)

Dir - Ivan Nagy

Overall: MEH

 

After a decade and a half in television, director Ivan Nagy churned out the oddball, straight-to-video slasher Skinner, which is notable for some of the on-screen personnel, as well as its sloppy tonal issues.  A bargain basement production utilizing sleazy motels and dilapidated industrial parks, it is an ugly-looking movie that basks in the demented exploits of its serial killer antagonist, played by the effortlessly quirky Ted Raimi in a rare top-billed role.  Depending on who you ask, Raimi is either perfectly or miscast as a murderer who skins his victims and is actually named Skinner, (at least as far as we know).  Dweebish and awkward one minute, charmingly adorable the next, making Daffy Duck noises as he runs around covered in his victim's flesh, or, (in the most eyebrow raising instance), literally wearing blackface while donning a stereotypical African American accent, Raimi is anything but boring on screen.  Rikki Lake and Traci Lords are pleasant additions as well, with the later doing her best to chew the scenery even if the sound design renders nearly all of her dialog as incomprehensible whispers.  As gory and monotonously plotted as any other low-rent slasher movie, both its accidental and intentional wackiness and sleaze elevate it just enough to be of interest.

 

DARK CITY

(1998)

Dir - Alex Proyas

Overall: GOOD

Alex Proyas' follow up the the Gothic urban comic book adaptation of The Crow was Dark City; an equally stylish conglomerate of German Expressionism, film noir, The Twilight Zone, Greek mythology, Terry Gilliam's Brazil, and spectacle-infused B-movies.  Shot entirely on sound stages in Sydney, Australia, such a tactic is appropriate for the artificial location of the title which is home to a barrage of perpetually aloof people going about their existence without ever seeing the sun or remembering how to commute away from their metropolis.  The out-of-time set design is wonderfully realized, bathed in dark greens and imposing shadows, with the mysterious Strangers uniquely resembling a cross between giallo serial killers, Darth Vader without his helmet, and Max Schreck in Nosferatu.  Many details are gradually laid out in Proyas, Lem Dobbs, and David S. Goyer's script, which keeps the audience in just the right amount of befuddlement while distracting them with lush visuals and a sinister tone.  The recognizable cast do solid work, with Kiefer Sutherland's "one...word...at...a...time" speaking psychiatrist and Richard O'Brien's menacing Mr. Hand being the most eccentric and scene-stealing.  The big, loud, special effects-laden finale may dip its toes into schlock terrain more than is agreeable, but the movie is otherwise so inventive and effectively puzzling that said final set piece serves as a fun, popcorn-munching note to go out on.

90's American Horror Part Forty-Six

SHADOWZONE

(1990)
Dir - J.S. Cardone
Overall: MEH

B-movie writer/director J.S. Cardone paired up with Charles Band's Full Moon production company for the sci-fi/horror hybrid Shadowzone; a mediocre yet adequate creature feature done in the bog-standard straight-to-video style of countless others at the turn of the 1990s.  The monster is largely kept off-screen and is given a nifty hook of being able to physically appear as its victim's most primal fears, which is something that has to do with it spawning from some sort of subconscious nightmare realm that is discovered from covert medical experiments conducted by Louise Fletcher, James Hong, and the "damn enchiladas" man himself Miguel A. Núñez Jr..  The most immediate aspect of course is the very presence of Fletcher, so seeing a former Academy Award winner having to play dead while a smiley animatronic puppet gently caresses her is the stuff of unintended hysterics.  Fletcher gives the material an air of sophistication that it hardly deserves, but all of the performances are surprisingly void of scenery-chewing and Cardone maintains a serious tone, playing its Alien-adjacent framework straight.  

 

THE ARRIVAL

(1991)
Dir - David Schmoeller
Overall: MEH

For his follow-up to Puppet Master, director David Schmoeller made the comparatively less goofy yet still D-rent genre offering The Arrival.  It is a sci-fi/vampire mash-up where an elderly grandpa gets possessed or something by a crashed extraterrestrial and then de-ages into a different actor while simultaneously craving women's estrogen-laced blood.  Yum.  Taking a schlockless approach to the material, Schmoeller stages it as a tragedy where and old man gets another chance at life, (and a chance to romance his adorable nurse that is fifty years his junior), only for it to be perverted into an alien survival story where said being from another planet finds love and just begins to enjoy Earth's splendor, only to be taken down by the cops.  Even with some lazy dream sequences and mild nudity, it is mostly a dull, monotonous series of not-graphic murders followed by law enforcement officials showing up at the crime scene one step behind the perpetrator.  Some cameos from Stuart Gordon, his wife Carolyn Purdy-Gordon, and Michael J. Pollard are fun, plus John Saxton goes way outside of his comfort zone playing a...wait for it....police detective.  These are the jokes folks.

 

NEW ROSE HOTEL

(1998)

Dir- Abel Ferrara

Overall: MEH

Mislabeled as a cyberpunk thriller yet boasting his patented seedy style with trusty sidekick Christopher Walken on board, (as well as Willem Dafoe and Asia Argento), Abel Ferrara's adaptation of William Gibson's short story New Rose Hotel is a well-performed yet incoherent mess.  Though it is set internationally, it is a New York movie like many others in Ferrara's filmography, depicting high-stakes/big city players that get in over their heads with a long-con that robs them of their manhood, finances, and ultimately their lives.  Walken has the more showy role as the ambitious industrial spy or at least he plays it that way, gliding his way through juicy monologues with a cane and his natural, ballerina-like grace.  Dafoe is equally as excellent as Walken's more introspective cohort who breaks protocol by falling in love with Argento, the latter who makes her American debut as a modern day fem fatale that is straight out of film noir cliches.  Unfortunately, Gibson's source material is rendered incomprehensible with Ferrara's "style over substance" approach, having the movie shot with blurry, hand-held cameras in dingy-lit locations and relying on endless callbacks that showcase more of the character's inner paranoia than providing the audience with any substantial clues to go on.  This may have been the point to some extent though, so if anyone comes in with their expectations adjusted accordingly in order to see the main players deliver some gravitas to their performances, it is a worthy watch.

90's American Horror Part Forty-Five

HELLMASTER

(1992)

Dir - Douglas Schulze

Overall: WOOF

 

The debut from a filmmaker who otherwise really likes to put the word "dark" in his titles, Hellmaster, (Them, Soulstealer), is an incomprehensible schlock-fest for bottom-barrel genre enthusiasts only.  Though it features John Saxton and Dawn of the Dead's David Emge, they and everybody else on board are at the mercy of an insufferably dopey script where eugenics, zombie-making goo, and telepathy all co-mingle in a series of nonsensical set pieces that are horridly unmemorable.  All of the young, college-aged Caucasians on screen are indistinguishable from one another, even if some of them have bare-bones personality traits like "asshole", "cripple", and "pretty girl who can read minds kind of".  Filmed on location at an active mental institution in Detroit, writer/director Schulze strictly adheres to the era's straight-to-video aesthetic where the cheap keyboard score never stops, subtlety is nowhere to be found, and D-rent camp rules the day.  Saxton certainly appeared in no shortage of B-movies throughout his career that varied in quality to say the least, yet he is miscast here as an insultingly boring villain whose dialog is cut-and-paste cliches about god not existing, revenge, and other smirky nonsense.  The gore sequences are fine, but the plot is too murky and sluggish to even qualify this as passable tripe.

THE CHILL FACTOR

(1993)

Dir - Christopher Webster

Overall: MEH

On paper, a straight-to-video, snowbound evil possession movie that is thinly structured as a slasher one may sound interesting, but the resulting The Chill Factor, (Demon Possessed), is a poorly directed slog with little going for it outside of its wacky premise.  Hellraiser producer-turned one-time director Christopher Webster is clearly working with an insufficient budget here, judging by the unknown cast, crude special effects, and overall lack of anything remotely interesting happening on screen.  Nobody dies until halfway through the proceedings, which is a detriment if you are trying to appease genre fans that are accustomed to both frequent and inventive kill scenes.  The characters are either flatly written or annoying, which makes all of the meandering around more troublesome to sit through than it otherwise would, especially if Webster had the means or ability to convey any form of slow-mounting tension or foreboding atmosphere.  Sans a grisly snowcat death, a guy getting an icicle to the eyeball, and one scene involving fog, the rest is stuff like a cheesed-out keyboard score that never shuts the hell up, stock cinematography, and unintentionally funny attempts at creepiness such as a woman getting killed by a ceiling fan and a spinning ouija board that looks as if it was a sixth grade school project.

 

LURKING FEAR

(1994)

Dir - C. Courtney Joyner

Overall: MEH

Author/filmmaker C. Coutnrey Joyner's loose adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's The Lurking Fear falls in line with various other straight-to-video cheapies from Charles Band's Full Moon Enterprises.  Horror buffs may enjoy the on-screen pairing of Jeffrey Combs and Ashley Laurence, plus the creature design of the underground-dwelling Martense family is wonderfully striking with their skeletal-thin bodies, gangly hair, and freakishly bulbous white eyes.  Elsewhere though, this is forgettable schlock.  Joyner takes tremendous liberties with the source material, which is nothing new to the era's Lovecraft adaptations.  Yet the updated approach here never picks up riveting momentum as it is merely a bunch of largely annoying, macho-posturing characters who switch the upper hand, point guns at each other, and get violently picked off by the cool-looking monsters.  No matter how campy the proceedings, Combs is always a hoot and he gets to rock unkempt facial hair while playing an alcoholic doctor, plus Laurence gets to show off how lean her protein intake is as a military bad-ass.  There are certainly worse Lovecraft reworkings out there and just as certainly better ones, but with most of the actors enjoying the scenery-chewing along with creepy bad guys to root for, it gets a mediocre pass.

90's American Horror Part Forty-Four

I COME IN PEACE

(1990)

Dir - Craig R. Baxley

Overall: GOOD

 

Grad-A, B-movie schlock, I Come in Peace, (Dark Angel), adheres to every 80s action movie trope in the book while going for unapologetic silliness in its Terminator knock-off agenda.  As director Craig R. Baxley's follow-up to the equally absurd Action Jackson, (and sandwiched in between that and the following year's, Brian Bosworth-starred "masterpiece" Stone Cold), the director leans into the more goofy aspects of such movies with none of the personnel on board taking the material the least bit seriously.  Dolph Lundgren gets a worthy staring vehicle here, spouting a more lean physique and disguising his accent efficiently as the detective who plays by his own rules, partnered up with Brian Benben's wise-ass, by-the-books FBI agent in stereotypical buddy-cop fashion.  David Koepp and Johnathan Tydor's script breaks no rules with the specifics that have been seen countless times before, but it works as a borderline parody where the careless disregard for human life as well as endless quips, car chases, and explosions is meant to be laughed with instead of at.  On paper, the concept of Lundgren battling an extraterrestrial drug dealer is plenty to get anyone on board who was brought up on such testosterone-ridden camp and thankfully, the film plays to its audience with just enough inventiveness at its disposal as to not insult them.

 

SOUL OF THE DEMON

(1991)

Dir - Charles Lang

Overall: WOOF

 

Expectations are unavoidably low when partaking of anything in the SOV camp and this includes Soul of the Demon which is the first of only two such movies made by Charles Lang.  Shot in Nevada with a group of unphotogenic nobodies, the acting is terrible of course yet not as abysmal as one would expect, even if the bro-douche characters that they play sure as hell are.  Three of them have glorious, obligatory mullets and one of them speaks like a parody of a surfer dude who makes his thankfully small number of scenes unwatchable.  Though it takes almost fifty minutes until unholy mayhem is finally unleashed which is way too long, (further padded by an utterly useless and homoerotic basketball sequence), Lang goes for something ambitious as he stylizes his film as if it was not actually made for thirty-five cents with just a couple of his friends over a weekend.  The story line is embarrassingly lazy and goes for a self-referential hodgepodge of horror movie cliches, (one of the teenagers is a bonafide genre buff), but it finally delivers some splendidly outrageous gore sequences in its last act that are bound to make bad cinema fans laugh WITH the movie instead of AT it.  Elsewhere though, it is horrendously amatuerish and merely adorable at best.

HELLRAISER III: HELL ON EARTH

(1992)

Dir - Anthony Hickox

Overall: MEH

Taking his first stab at non-comedic horror, director Anthony Hickox was the next in line to helm a Hellraiser sequel with Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth.  Though another installment was being planned before the previous Hellbound: Hellraiser II was released, it took a number of years for the finished product to get underway with its appropriate personnel.  Clive Barker only came back on board in post-production after having disagreements with producers, incorporating a couple of his patented kinky gore ideas into the mix.  One of the most noticeable differences between this and the former two movies is the persona of Doug Bradley's Pinhead who is no longer the neutral purveyor of Hell's rules.  Here, his essence is split in two, one of whom is his humanity-laden World War II soldier and the other a cackling cartoon villain with his own diabolic ambitious after being untethered to the puzzle box.  Barker's initial themes of the dynamics between suffering and pleasure are gone and instead we have a less profound, more straightforward good vs evil scenario that plays out restrained until the schlocky finale which busts out the groan-worthy one-liners and ups the heavy metal mayhem.  Bradley chews the scenery when appropriate, Terry Farrell, (stepping in for heroine Ashley Laurence who only provides a mere cameo), makes an adequate if underwritten protagonist, and Bob Keen's special effects work is wonderfully ghastly, save for a couple of horrendous computer generated shots.