1990s Anime Horror

MIDORI
(1992)
Dir - Hiroshi Harada
Overall: MEH

The story of Midori the animated film is positively fascinating and strange.  Based off of the ero guro graphic novel by Suehiro Maruo, (itself an adaptation of a kamishibai tale with varying origins), animator Hiroshi Harada sunk his life savings into the project and hand-drew every frame himself since the source material was so risque as to scare away all potential investors.  Then Harada insisted on showing it in his native Japan solely through a series of bizarre screenings which involved audience members having to go through specific instructions, following clues, and experiencing the movie in an interactive format that Rocky Horror Picture Show fanatics would appreciate.  It was also shown in legit freak show recreations as well.  As far as the rest of the world getting a chance to see it, a French DVD is the only means and whether or not it is in fact complete is still possibly a mystery as different print lengths exist according to different sources.  Finally getting to the movie itself, it is enormously unsettling and strange.  A twelve year old girl gets raped and tortured both physically and psychologically by a number of depraved and deformed circus freaks and reality itself is skewed where her short-lived moments of happiness seem to diminish in an endless loop.  The style is quite unique and of course the lengths that Harada went to make it and screen it are admirable, but it is a highly difficult work to ride out.

PERFECT BLUE
(1997)
Dir - Satoshi Kon
Overall: GOOD

A deliberate, well-executed psychological thriller that seems more than a little akin to the giallo sub-genre, Satoshi Kon's Perfect Blue is nearly remarkably done.  An adaptation of Perfect Blue: Complete Metamorphosis, (a novel by Yoshikazu Takeuchi), the film works best when it is increasingly blurring the lines between reality.  The audience is left impossibly confused just as the lead protagonist is, but this never becomes frustrating due to how meticulously structured it is.  The more topsy-turvy it gets, the more compelling it gets.  The grand reveal may be slightly disappointing to some as well as the familiar stalker-killer elements.  Even still though, with a plot that so carefully distorts all realms as possibility, the twist at least seems appropriate.  Originally planned as a live-action film which it easily could have worked as, (and one would eventually get made in 2002 under the title Perfect Blue: Yume Nara Samete), 1995's Kobe earthquake ended up diminishing the budget.  This is only a problem in that some of the characters are impossible to tell apart at times due to the animation, but it is still only a minor qualm.  This easily stands as one of the more excellent contemporary-set, non-dark fantasy anime horror films out there.

NINJA RESURRECTION
(1997/1998)
Dir - Yasunori Urata
Overall: MEH

This flawed, two-part OVA based off of the novel Makai Tensho by Futaro Yamada was never finished, thus making it a frustrating adaptation.  Ninja Resurrection also bares many stylistic similarities to the wildly popular Ninja Scroll, down to the main character having the same name of Jubei and the logo baring a close resemblance.  The fact that it is not related to Ninja Scroll beyond just surface level and that this was possibly done to confuse audiences as a cash-in may certainly annoy some, but the problem is more simply that it is left incomplete.  Since it is rather pointless to become invested in a story that only sets up its premise, all that is really left to do is appreciate the squandered potential.  Brutally violent and featuring enough Christian blood-shed and blasphemy to make any well-respecting heathen giddy, it throws in some other unpleasant details such as rape and child murder just to up the nastiness even more.  It is difficult to tell what side of the holy or unholy fence one is supposed to root for, (which is an interesting idea to present), but again, unless you read and finish the actual source material, there are no answers or further development to be found here.

1990s Foreign Horror Shorts

EXIT
(1990)
Dir - Stig Bergqvist/Martti Ekstrand/Jonas Odell/Lars Ohlson
Overall: GOOD

One of the many shorts produced by the Swedish animation company Filmtecknarna, (who also pump out commercials and music videos on the regular), Exit is a compelling and surreal dystopian nightmare lightly portrayed as a black comedy.  Taking place almost entirely in a hedonistic amusement park that seems to have virtually every unhealthy, cruel, or sinful vice you can think of, it is full of fascist, generational, and indulgent symbolism.  Some of the decadent imagery is uncomfortably cruel, (like the senseless butchering of animals exaggerated to look as Disney-esque adorable as possible), and the characters trapped in this strange universe that presumably consumes all who enter it are almost frightfully pathetic.  It is intentionally provoking though, made more strange and subtly unnerving by the traditionally cartoony animation.

VIBROBOY
(1994)
Dir - Jan Kounen
Overall: MEH

Eh, whatever.  Netherlands-born French filmmaker Jan Kounen's Vibroboy is a wildly obnoxious something that is jacked up to eleven for practically all of its twenty-eight minutes.  It is impossible to tell what on earth can be happening or at least any sort of reason for what on earth can be happening since all three characters and one in particular are screaming all of their dialog while the frantic camera work spends all of its time trying to disorient the viewer.  Who are these people, where are they, what previous relationship did the transvestite have with the other two, what is with the cat in the fridge, what is with the stuffed animal, and is the insane husband just the world's most unstable asshole or is a phallic, Aztec statue making him so?  None of this seems to be important and instead the movie appears to just want to pummel you with how loud and dirty it can be.

ELEVATED
(1996)
Dir - Vincenzo Natali
Overall: GOOD

A year before dropping his first full length Cube, Vincenzo Natali made the similarly-toned short Elevated, (which also stars David Hewlett).  Instead of people being trapped in, well, a cube, this time they are kind of trapped in, well, an elevator.  Wisely, Natali and Karen Walton, (who would go on to script Ginger Snaps), leave the real menace of the movie unexplained, instead offering up a couple of possible, disturbing scenarios.  As was a problem with Cube, the characters here get a little too screamy and excitable, but at least in the former they did not get so revved up while only a few minutes in.  There is also one scene that may or may not be unintentionally funny, but besides these minor flubs and annoyance, the fact that it is quite unclear what is going on again works to the film's benefit, making it a decent, heart-racing bit of horror movie-making.

HOW WINGS ARE ATTACHED TO THE BACKS OF ANGELS
(1996)
Dir - Craig Welch
Overall: GOOD

Mournful and rather mildly eerie, Craig Welch's How Wings Are Attached to the Backs of Angels takes an interesting look at control and possibly the suppression of longing.  Animated with a mixture of detailed, black and white sketch work, Terry Gilliam's cartoon style, and rotoscoping, it follows a linear yet surreal structure where a thin, lonely, and presumably wealthy man seeks to demonstrate what is posed by the film's title.  With mostly flowing camerawork where particular images within complex machinery and the rest of the setting seem to transform into each other, it all appears rather precise even as an ethereal woman emerges that emotionally effects the unnamed man.  The style is quite engaging and one can get a lot of mileage from pondering some of the meaning here, making it an alluring enough art film to applaud.

 

OUTER SPACE

(1999)

Dir - Peter Tscherkassky

Overall: MEH

Austrian avant-garde filmmaker Peter Tscherkassky's Outer Space reinterprets footage from Sidney J. Furie's The Entity into a scratchy, seizure-inducing cacophony of disorienting noise.  This was Tscherkassky's second experimental short to utilize material from other movies and anyone who is familiar with Furie's aforementioned original will be able to interpret a narrative here, even if it forgoes such conventions when looked at individually.  The spastic presentation is admirable to a point and Tscherkassky seems to be going for an expressive nightmare assault on the senses, but even at ten minutes, it becomes a tiring if not cumbersome watch.  Such cinematic deconstruction is deliberately aggressive which fits the context of Furie's film about a woman who is sexually assaulted by demonic forces, but it works better as a curiosity of editing than anything thematically profound.

1990s British Horror Shorts

THE SANDMAN
(1991)
Dir - Paul Berry
Overall: GOOD

The only directorial effort from British stop-motion animator Paul Berry, (who died in 2001 at the mere age of forty), The Sandman is based off E.T.A. Hoffmann's version of the European legend and has little if anything to do with the sort of famous Metallica song that referenced him and was released the same year.  That or Neil Gaiman's brilliant graphic novels of the same name for that matter.  Berry would go on to work with Tim Burton on The Nightmare Before Christmas and the style here is nearly identical, meaning that it very deliberately channels German Expresionism.  The characters are highly stylized with pointy facial features and limbs, plus the set design is aggressively Gothic.  It wonderfully showcases the type of late night fear that any child can suffer when their entire surroundings seem enormously ominous.  Nine minutes long and void of dialog, it is a brief, stunningly dark little fairytale.

DRILLBIT
(1992)
Dir - Alex Chandon
Overall: WOOF

*Cue Georgia Hardstark's catchphrase "IIIIIIIIIIIIII'm sorry...!"*.  SOV movies are certainly not for everyone's tastes.  Unpopular opinion or not, one can fall into the logical camp that if you do not have the technical means, (or talent), to make a movie, then you should not make one or at least someone should stop you from making one.  Alex Chandon, (who also did a bunch of Cradle of Filth music videos by lying about who he was probably), made Drillbit presumably with his parent's camcorder plus his high school drop out friends and it is one of the biggest pieces of shit on earth.  No budget torture porn with less than no technical skill anywhere in frame, the worst part is that it is trying to be funny.  Well the jury may be out on that, but who knows for sure.  Kind of hard to tell when you are dealing with incompetence and annoying shock-garbage of this unwatchable magnitude.

THE MAN IN THE LOWER-LEFT HAND CORNER OF THE PHOTOGRAPH
(1997)
Dir - Robert Morgan
Overall: GOOD

This early work in the filmography of English stop-motion animator and short filmmaker Robert Morgan mostly succeeds on the details it presents us with.  There is even a clue given by the title The Man in the Lower-Left Hand Corner of the Photograph, as we see our unnamed, nonspeaking title character gazing at a picture of himself in that very potion presumably happier than he is currently portrayed.  We know this by the rotted surroundings of the settings which looks like some sort of rusted nest equipped with a bed, a desk, and a dresser.  Also a pet maggot in case you missed the rotted part.  Despite its bleakness, the film manages to be lovely in an odd way, offering a sort of solace within its final images.  With no musical score and very few sounds at all to go along with the striking imagery, it seems meant to be something pondered more than precisely made clear.  As a side, it is no coincidence that it is reminiscent of Tool's stop motion music videos as the band used segments of Morgan's The Separation in "Jambi".

ON EDGE
(1999)
Dir - Frazer Lee
Overall: MEH

The first of three shorts that to date act as the only such directorial efforts from Frazer Lee, (who commonly works as a writer, electrician, or cameraman depending), On Edge is a sufficient if predictable one.  Pinhead himself Doug Bradley gets to sink his teeth, (pun intended, as is made clear by those who have seen it), into what is essentially a monologue as he does some gruesome things to an impatient patient while remaining relatively calm and charming.  It all basically builds to a single moment of revolting gore which is adequate if again not all together shocking.  Bookending the film is an odd scene in a nightclub that is playing the same one minute loop of an industrial metal song over again.  This seems to only be there to fill up time as it hardly creates the proper mood or has anything to do with what else transpires.  The film is a pretty one-note effort overall, but fun enough for what it is.

EXPELLING THE DEMON
(1999)
Dir - Devlin Crow
Overall: GOOD

Scoring none other than Nick Cave to, well, score his film, Devlin Crow's Expelling the Demon is a comedic bit of extremity wrapped up in less than five minutes.  To date, Crow has exclusively made short films and his animation here is crude with blobby drawings over primitive backgrounds.  Steven Berkoff, (Rambo: First Blood Part II, Beverly Hills Cop, Octopussy), rambles and raves as an anthropomorphous tongue for just about the entire movie and by the time that he is expelled as the title spoils, it is quite a relief.  As intentionally annoying as said appendage is, it is nice that Crow gets in and gets out as quickly as he does, plus the minimalist animation helps hammer home the point that no further details are truly necessary.  Being a wacky, distorted joke on macho, male masculinity and embarrassment, it is kind of a hoot.

1990s American Horror Shorts

I WAS A TEENAGE SERIAL KILLER

(1993)
Dir - Sarah Jacobson
Overall: WOOF

Forgiving viewers may find Sarah Jacobson's zero budget debut I Was a Teenage Serial Killer to be a charming bit of underground, fringe, down and dirty filmmaking, but there can be no denying that it is terribly made.  Shot under the guidance of low-fi indie proprietor George Kuchar, Jacobson subverts the misogynistic dynamic that is found in nearly all exploitation movies, pitting a nineteen-year-old prostitute against a never-ending slew of deplorable male shitbags who get frisky with her or worse.  It is an admirable, feminism-by-way-of Z-grade black comedy premise, but the execution is detrimentally amateurish.  The ADRed dialog does not come anywhere near matching the actors mouths, most of the shots are out of focus, and the story is so stripped down that hardly anything that happens is established before it wraps itself up at the twenty-seven minute mark. Such technical issues are understandable considering that Jacobson had no experience or finances to work with, but it is still a rough watch that looks as if it should have never escaped the editing room.

 

MY SWEET SATAN

(1994)

Dir - Jim Van Bebber
Overall: WOOF

One of the most endlessly annoying cliches for any movie is that of loner, drug addict, douchebag losers who listen to heavy metal and think the Devil is just the bees knees.  My Sweet Satan takes this one-note premise and tries to do whatever with it for about nineteen minutes.  The result is skin-crawling in how unwatchably stupid it is.  Characters who we are barely even introduced to are narrating off screen, the movie begins with the lead character, (writer/director Jim Van Bebber looking like an asshat clown parody of a disturbed metalhead), hanging himself, and no attempt is made to make him or anyone else he ever encounters appear more than cartoon character scumbags.  So clearly having sympathy for anyone on screen was not the point.  If it was just to highlight a disturbed youth culture then it is an utter failure since things are exaggerated to the point of parody.  In this regard though, it is far from trying to be funny either and just bashes you over the head by being amateurish and brain dead.

MICHAEL JACKSON'S GHOSTS
(1997)
Dir - Stan Winston
Overall: WOOF

It is such a shame really that by 1997, (post molestation charges no less), Michael Jackson was certifiably out of touch with reality.  Layers of proof had come to light at that point and much more would follow, but the curious, thirty-nine minute music video, (a Guinness book record), for "Ghost" off the HIStory album/compilation is a solid timestamp of where the King of Pop's psyche was at.  A toddler could not miss the overt symbolism in having an angry mob storm a "weirdo's" mansion only to have one authority figure point the finger at him while all of the kids and nice parents go along with the batshit insane, supernatural shenanigans that Jackson's "weirdo" gets up to.  He at once seems to be taking out his frustrations with the media ripping his endless eccentricities, (and again, child molestation charges), apart while still indulging in his childish fascination with horror films and fairytale whimsy.  Sadly, the results here are not only uncomfortably on the nose, but awkwardly boring as hell.  It is almost entirely just people pretending to be amazed or scared at awful CGI, ghouls in not-Thriller costumes dancing around, and Jackson stretching out his hands and yelling at least nine-hundred and eleven times.  Even with Stan Winston behind the lens, Stephen King co-scripting it, and Jackson providing a solid enough soundtrack of course, it still comes off as an extreme vanity project that is downright sad to watch.

CUTTING MOMENTS
(1997)
Dir - Douglas Buck
Overall: MEH

This stark and very aloof short from Long Island filmmaker Douglas Black takes an enormously bleak look at family dysfunction.  It pushes into the horror genre by the mood of mounting dread that it builds to, (made possible by the a mostly non-existing musical score and deliberate pacing), which culminates with an excessively gory finale.  The mood is perhaps too depressing and uncomfortable at least from a state of enjoying the experience, but this can also be seen as a successful trait for such a somber movie to have.  How exactly this doomed couple got to the point of such an extreme emotional void in their and their child's lives is left a mystery which makes it less something to really connect with and more surreal instead.  Cutting Moments is pretty striking yes, but it sure is rather miserable as well so it kind of comes down to how bummed out you want to be in twenty-nine minutes.

ZOETROPE
(1999)
Dir - Charlie Deaux
Overall: MEH

Pretentious nonsense more or less, occasional music video director Charlie Deaux's Zoetrope is an adaptation of Franz Kafka's In the Penal Colony, but one that decides to meander pointlessly for eighteen minutes instead of maybe going somewhere with its subject matter.  For such a short film, it sure does repeat the same shots over and over again and it does not take long at all to get the gist of it and realize absolutely nothing else is going to happen.  This is one of those black and white, spastically-edited art films that you can probably just see a couple stills from and basically "get" the whole movie without having to watch it.  The industrial, bludgeoning sound design is interesting, but as it is mixed with senseless, philosophical hogwash that is monotonously uttered by one of the two "characters", it ultimately does not matter one tit what any of the dialog is as since it may as well just be mumbled gibberish.  A steampunk-esque, dystopian nightmare sure, but a very aimless and boring one all the same.

1990s American Horror Part Sixteen

BRIDE OF RE-ANIMATOR
(1990)
Dir - Brian Yuzna
Overall: GOOD

In one respect, Bride of Re-Animator is rather an impossible, compatible follow-up to not only Stuart Gordon's superb original from five years prior, but also Society, the debut from Brian Yuzna who steps in for Gordon to helm this one.  Meeting the movie on its own turf, it is hit or miss with a story that just kind of goes through the motions while not being all that interesting.  Yet it is still mostly enjoyable in the same over the top way one would expect.  David Gale returning as the severed head of Dr. Hill does feel a bit shoehorned in there, but at least he gets bat wings attached to him so he can fly this time.  The whole thing pretty much adheres to such ridiculousness where random body parts both human and animal are mishmashed together with the help of Dr. Herbert West's trusty ole green, glowing goo.  Naturally, Jeffrey Combs is very Jeffrey Combsy once again and he is still a hoot even if he becomes more of a cartoon character with his dialog getting extra absurd at times.  That is kind of the name of the game though and Yuzna knows that he is making a full-fledged comedy here regardless of how much splat-tacular gore, zombie hordes, or creepy catacombs and cemeteries he throws into the mix.

RAISING CAIN
(1992)
Dir - Brian De Palma
Overall: WOOF

In what has to be the worst movie Brian De Palma ever made, Raising Cain is fascinatingly clashing and terrible.  A return to the psychological thriller for the rightfully lauded writer/director, (and also reuniting him with the concept of identical twins in some respects), things are uncomfortable and worrisome right out of the gate.  The dialog, plotting, editing, and performances are so asinine most of the time that one has to seriously ponder that a man of De Palma's proven talents and track record has to be pulling some kind of bizarro-world prank on his audience.  There are some highly elaborate, technically impressive long takes that are totally wasted on an otherwise absurd and clumsy presentation.  John Lithgow, (who is also usually amazing), is routinely over the top and gives one of the most textbook, "guy with a multi-personality disorder" performances you are likely to see.  Lolita Davidovich is awful in the opposite direction, often just sighing or staring off into space while her husband behaves like a maniac, her ultra-brief fling shows up out of nowhere and cries immediately, and her daughter is missing or presumed dead.  The whole thing has the feel of a Lifetime movie on drugs and from beginning to end it is thoroughly unclear how much of it is supposed to be as bafflingly bad as it is.

WOLF
(1994)
Dir - Mike Nichols
Overall: GOOD

Erroneous in a few spots, there is still enough top-notch talent on hand in Wolf that it kind of gets by.  The only horror film from Mike Nichols and once again reuniting him with Jack Nicholson, (who was also a personal friend of screenwriter Jim Harrison who allegedly quit Hollywood after clashing with Nichols over the tone here), it is in many ways a standard werewolf movie where someone is bitten, gradually begins to change in all mannerisms, does not believe at first what is happening to them, and then goes full lycanthope by the end.  The humor that is frequently scattered around keeps it enjoyable though, as does Nicholson's usual superb performance which balances his rather rational and passionless human persona with his more aggressive and playful wolf one.  James Spader is likewise great as the type of character he never is not, (a pervy scumbag), while Michelle Pfeiffer gets to be kind of a bitch, (pun intended).  The ending was actually re-shot and is a little unintentionally silly as is the final "twist" tag that leaves some of the early potential about the nature of animals positively or horrifyingly affecting their human, yuppy hosts unfulfilled.  It may feel a tad too long and be too lacking in overtly gnarly monster make-up as well, but all parties involved seem to be having fun with the material and it thankfully shows.

1990s American Horror Part Fifteen

LEPRECHAUN
(1993)
Dir - Mark Jones
Overall: WOOF

If one were to be generous, you could say that there are about three amusing lines in what is otherwise as terribly obnoxious of a B-movie dumbfest as the 90s ever produced.  The first in the Leprechaun series, (how eight of these exist so far is a question only the gods can answer), certainly was not made to be a game changer.  Yet it would be fair to assume that the people behind it at least intended it to be entertaining.  Yet you have to be a glutton for stupidity to think that they pulled such a thing off.  There are false alarms/psyche outs/jump scares, cars not starting, phone lines being down, phone batteries dying, and the title villain can do any number of arbitrary, physics-defying things while ignoring his own would-be apparent rules.  Sometimes bullets stop him, sometimes they do not.  Sometimes four-leaf clovers stop him, sometimes they do not.  Sometimes he appears wherever he wants, other times he has to make toy cars run like real cars with magic to catch up to people.  Sometimes he easily gets the upper hand, sometimes he instead chooses to fuck around for no reason.  We could be here all night.  While English actor Warwick Davis is usually likeable, everything he does and says here grows more painfully annoying and less funny as the movie goes on, though you would think otherwise by how much he incessantly cackles after every utterance.  It is not like people who actually like any of these movies would argue these points, so who is there to convincing really?

THE ADDICTION
(1995)
Dir - Abel Ferrara
Overal: MEH

Overtly pretentious and only partially successful because of it, Abel Ferrara's The Addiction is another contemporary vampire allegory that as one could guess by the title, likens the fictitious undead affliction to severe drug dependence.  The pairing of the two concepts is not anything new and it is a bit on the nose here, but Ferrara still displays a level of control over his multitude of themes which also includes Catholic guilt and a whole lot of philosophical jargon.  The latter element is the one that becomes too much too fast.  Lili Taylor is rather good in the lead going from victim, to blood-sucking junky, to remorseful addict, but she does not have a single line of dialog that is readily decipherable.  By speaking solely in abstract and pompous declarations, the movie overplays its hand at being a bit too arty to really connect with its serious subject matter.  Christopher Walken ends up stealing the movie with his cameo and though his dialog is not really any less grandiose, his very Christopher Walkeny demeanor and delivery sells it better through sheer oddness and intensity.  The Addiction is a unique entry in vampire cinema to be fair, but it could probably come back down to earth a little more and maybe take advantage of its dingy, Manhattan setting in place of quoting Nietzsche and Sartre ad nauseam.

WISHMASTER
(1997)
Dir - Robert Kurtzman
Overall: MEH

Dozens upon dozens of stupid, ultra-violent, post-Nightmare on Elm Street schlocky-horror movies were unleashed primarily in the 1980s, but many other franchises still birthed as late as 1997.  Which brings us to the first of four Wishmasters.  Any of these movies as well as pick-your-favorite where a wisecracking villain keeps coming back and the scripts keep getting recycled with the target audience rarely complaining are just as dumb as the next and this one does not disappoint in its silliness.  Wes Craven threw his name on it which does not come off as random since special effects man turned director Robert Kurtzman is essentially just enhancing the same beats that Craven's directorial efforts indulge in.  The plot is dangerously full of holes, no performance comes within several hundred miles of subtle, the digital effects are utterly deplorable though the practical ones are splendid, and it is all gory, loud, and in on its own joke.  Shameless horror geek service is offered up in that practically everyone on screen is known from a previous, cherished B-movie or several in the genre.  In the lead villain role, Venezuelan-Russian actor Andrew Divoff savors his scenery like a true cornball boss.  In all honesty, this is just a big pile of fun garbage and rather hard to hate.

1990s American Horror Part Fourteen

FRANKENSTEIN UNBOUND
(1990)
Dir - Roger Corman
Overall: MEH

Returning from a near twenty year hiatus from at least officially directing films, Roger Corman was coaxed into making what would eventually end up being the adaptation of Brian Aldiss' novel of the same name Frankenstein Unbound.  Some of Corman's famed trademarks are present, particularly random and honestly unnecessary be they stylized dream sequences that are straight out of his Edgar Alan Poe/Vincent Price collaborations from the 60s.  It is also horrendously schlocky at times, falling perfectly in line with the type of B-movie camp that Corman was known for producing, let alone directing himself.  Some of this works to the film's benefit such as comical moments of gore, but, (very), ham-fisted dialog, hokey performances, and the logistical fact that the story itself is rather bull-dozed through to fit it into a compact eight-five minutes makes it a messy affair.  The themes of two men from two different eras toying with nature and the chaotic side effects of such meddling are bypassed quite a bit to make way for more and more laughable line-readings.  By the end of the movie, every character is speaking exclusively in cornball cliches, nearing the point of ruination.  Some of the set design is less convincing than others, but the technical aspects are generally better than would be expected, with Nick Brimble's pretty sub-par Monster at least having a unique creature design.  Michael Hutchence is also in it for about fifteen seconds so there is that.

PHANTASM III: LORD OF THE DEAD
(1994)
Dir - Don Coscarelli
Overall: WOOF

Three entries in and Phantasm is still the reigning champion of illogical storytelling in arguably the most frustratingly moronic horror franchise of all time, (which is saying all the somethings).  This time, a woman on foot ends up untold miles ahead of a car that left before she did, a kid is left out to sleep in that car while all of the whatever monsters are after them so a perpetually horny main character in a race against time can get laid, and there is still absolutely no rhyme or reason to anything the Tall Man is doing or can do.  He teleports to get someone to go with him yet still has to drive around a hearse to move dead bodies who come alive as zombies immediately anyway and his master plan this time seems to be capturing the horrible kid from the first movie who still cannot act so that he can drill one of those spheres in his head.  Which he has in his head too.  Also so does a character that died in the first movie.  Tall Man still captures, recaptures, and chases random characters while standing still or ignoring others that he has already captured or just chases later.  There is even a new obnoxious penis kid this time, Satan help us.  It is truly amazing how the more Don Coscarelli tries to flesh out this asinine universe, the more convoluted it gets.  Worse yet, the comic relief is jacked up the farthest yet while still trying to be strange, dark, and nightmarish, making Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead even more tonally askew than the previous two entries.  Just as the Tall Man says, it truly never ends.

THE NIGHT FLIER
(1997)
Dir - Mark Pavia
Overall: MEH

Falling somewhere in the lukewarm category of Stephen King adaptations, The Night Flier was based off of the author's short story of the same name that was initially published in the Prime Evil anthology collection, eventually finding its way in King's own Nightmares & Dreamscapes.  Done on a low budget and only having a limited theatrical release after debuting in the US on HBO, it has many B-movie hallmarks such as borderline cheap sets, unknown, subpar actors, and a kind of late night TV movie atmosphere.  None of these things really get in the way of the curious story which follows a tabloid reporter, (King's trusty author stand-in), and a tweak on the vampire mythos by having one that flies around in a black Cessna 336 Skymaster filled with his native soil.  Making the protagonist as unlikable as possible is a bit of a bold move, but having Twin Peaks' own Miguel Ferrer play him is a wise one as the actor can convincingly convey the asshole about as good as anyone.  The script follows a pretty linear path and only really gets into surreal territory near the end which is only slightly flawed by how somewhat out of place it feels thematically.  Even though it is also the creepiest set piece overall.  It is a shame that the dialog is mostly poor with too many characters repeating one-liners to themselves on the regular.  It is certainly not a bad piece of work, but a bit faulty all the same.