1990s American Horror Part Twenty-Eight

GHOST

(1990)

Dir - Jerry Zucker

Overall: GOOD

 

Knocking it out of the park for his first solo effort behind the lens, Jerry Zucker's Ghost plays an entirely different game than the director's legendary laugh fest collaborations with his brother David and Jim Abrahams.  He is hardly the sole individual to take the credit though as all parties involved make it a top to bottom crowd pleaser that perfectly weaves its various genre components.  A romance story first and foremost, the on screen chemistry between Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore is the stuff of Hollywood legend and the tearjerker elements to the story are infections to say the least.  Whoopi Goldberg is quite scene-stealing and hilarious as a con-artist turned genuine spiritual medium and both Tony Goldwyn and Rick Aviles make excellently loathsome villains.  While the horror elements are comparatively underplayed, the script by Bruce Joel Rubin still offers up some clever supernatural ideas and both scenes where demonic shadows drag the bad guys presumably to hell are pretty chilling.  Commercially successful on a massive scale, the movie helped revitalize "Unchained Melody" as the ultimate love song and made both pottery and female boy cuts sexy, but thankfully it also holds up as something emotionally impactful, funny, and slightly spooky.

RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD 3

(1993)

Dir - Brian Yuzna

Overall: MEH

 

Pivoting quite noticeably from the first two installments, Return of the Living Dead 3 sees filmmaker Brian Yuzna taking at crack at the franchise with mixed results.  The characters and setting are practically all new, focusing on a military operation that moronically wants to make zombies into controllable weapons because of course they do.  This goes as awry as it always does when such scenarios play out and on top of this, Melinda Clarke and J. Trevor Edmoond are the hoodlum couple thrown into the proceedings with the former turning into a punk rock wet dream version of a brain-munching babe.  While there are plenty of goofy details and a sufficient amount of preposterous gore, it is still a toned down effort coming from Yuzna who does not embrace a schlocky enough tone to make it as hilarious as it should be.  Also, the minimal budget shows throughout, with below average, straight-to-video special effects making it look like the cheap B-movie that it is.  It is worth seeing at least for fans of campy zombie tropes, blood, and menacing keyboard soundtracks that play throughout every scene.

BORDELLO OF BLOOD

(1997)

Dir - Gilbert Adler
Overall: MEH

The cinematic property that finally put the lid on the Tales from the Crypt coffin, Bordello of Blood is a remarkably juvenile vampire yarn that is both half bad and half hilariously bad.  Originally conceived of by Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale back in the 1970s as an exploitation cheapie, it was dug up decades later by Universal Pictures as a follow-up to Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight, upping the comedy angle tenfold while still indulging in loads of gore and naked women.  On paper, the concept kind of works, but the resulting script from A.L. Katz and Gilbert Adler is exceptionally stupid and only befitting to something that cannot possibly take itself seriously.  On that note, the casting of Denis Miller in the lead is a particularly daft move as the helplessly smart-assed comedian allegedly only agreed to star if the payday was a million dollars and he could improvise his lines.  His utter disdain for the material cuts through each moment that he is on screen, which actually makes his "performance" a hoot at times.  Less is the case for Corey Feldman and especially Angie Everhart, whose actually scripted dialog is as wretchedly embarrassing as their ham-fisted mannerisms.  Still, watching Miller and Chris Sarandon murder a bunch of vampires with super-soakers to the tune of "Ballroom Blitz" is something more movies probably need.

1990s American Horror Part Twenty-Seven

DEMON WIND

(1990)

Dir - Charles Philip Moore

Overall: WOOF

 

If not the worst Evil Dead/Night of the Demons knock-off ever made, Demon Wind is easily up there as one of the most hare-brained.  Essentially all of the blame lies at writer/director Charles Philip Moore's feet, making his solo debut here.  Considering that Moore made a career out of nothing but derivative, D-rent garbage like this, his "skills" behind the lens are either intentionally asinine and uninspired or just pathetically inept.  From the ominous keyboard score that never, ever shuts up, to the distorted demon voices that never shut up, to the horrendously unlikable characters that never shut up, every actor trying to do a worse job than the other, and dialog made up of as many cliches as every single plot point has, the movie plays out like a series of only the most schlocky horror movie tropes that have long been burnt out to death.  The tone is far too sincere to be considered any kind of a spoof and Moore's pacing is utterly monotonous, growing tiresome long before everyone is trapped in a creepy cabin and each person get inevitably picked off by putty-faced monster versions of themselves whose warped, scary-voiced dialog we can barely understand.  Not that anyone should give a shit about what they are saying in the first place.

 

DEATH BECOMES HER

(1992)

Dir - Robert Zemeckis

Overall: GOOD

Lighthearted yet cheekily macabre, Death Becomes Her was yet another in a string of box office hits for director Robert Zemeckis.  One of the earliest works to rely heavily on CGI, such effects may look as dated as one would expect today, yet they are utilized in a stream of clever set pieces, each one of which is successfully played for laughs.  The script by Martin Donovan and David Koepp is an over the top satire of superficial Hollywood where Goldie Hawn and Meryl Streep's envious bickering is matched only by their selfish desire to live forever.  As a cruel, twist of fate tale of comeuppance, said characters are given relatable if petty motivation behind their awful behavior which along with the hilarious gags, dialog, and performances are just enough to make them sympathetic.  While Streep is predictably good in everything and Hawn had long proven herself as a comedic juggernaut, Bruce Willis surprisingly steps up to own all of his moments as the shamed yet ultimately noble plastic surgeon that is the only person in the movie to see through the eventual, lonely shortcomings of being both fabulous and immortal.

THE DEVIL'S ADVOCATE

(1997)

Dir - Taylor Hackford

Overall: GOOD

Stuck in development HELL, (har, har), for a number of years, the A-list budgeted adaptation of Andrew Neiderman's novel The Devil's Advocate eventually emerged under Taylor Hackford's direction as a slick, John Grisham/Rosemary's Baby/The Omen hybrid.  In a role tailor-made for his particular brand of scenery-chomping, Al Pacino excels as the Great Deceiver.  This version of Satan leans into Faust/Paradise Lost influences which are integral to the actual story, even going as far as to having the character use the alias John Milton.  The entire film hinges on the premise of free will, where Keanu Reeves is constantly given an out yet he lets his vanity ultimately doom him into Pacino's unholy hands.  Though the plot hardly contains any surprises, it cruises along at a pace that forgives the nearly two and a half hour running time.  Pacino certainly and predictably owns the movie, yet Reeves is quite strong as well in the lead by showing off some chops, (as well as a far more convincing accent than his infamous one in Bram Stoker's Dracula), that most of his other performances hardly call for.

1990s American Horror Part Twenty-Six

MISERY
(1990)
Dir - Rob Reiner
Overall: GOOD

The only detour into the horror genre from director Rob Reiner ended up being widely recognized as a one of the best Stephen King adaptations ever made.  While Misery may not boast any supernatural components and is more accurately in the thriller vein, its solid reputation is quite justified with the usual disturbing King premise, tight pacing, and skilled performances out of its two leads.  In the role that kicked her career into hyper-drive, Kathy Bates makes an iconic "cuckoo for cocoa puffs" villain while James Caan steps out of his usual tough guy persona and becomes the vulnerable victim.  Reiner and prominent screenwriter William Goldman faithfully streamline the novel while tweaking the infamous scene where Annie Wilkes breaks writer Paul Sheldon's ankles instead of severing them, which makes her slightly less monstrous enough to feel some level of pity for.  Riding that line of tongue-in-cheek schlock is a tricky yet essential one in ordter for such naturally outrageous material to work and thankfully, Reiner and co satisfyingly elevate things here until the last uncomfortable, balls-out act.

TALES FROM THE CRYPT: DEMON KNIGHT
(1995)
Dir - Ernest R. Dickerson
Overall: GOOD

Banking on the success of the popular/now iconic television series, Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight was the first theatrically released tie-in film which plays exactly like a full-length version of the show, with the same opening and bookending Crypt Keeper segments in tow.  The script was originally its own beast, going through several directors and studios before kicking off what was planned to be a trilogy of Tales from the Crypt movies, though only two were ultimately made.  Because of this, the story is not an adaptation of one of the original EC Comics titles and is instead a Biblical end of days bit of schlock that intentionally leans into its B-movie archetypes.  One of those archetypes is rather loose plotting that features a handful of "stupid people in horror movies" cliches, yet director Ernest R. Dickerson seems to know his audience and keeps up a highly engaging pace with his first work in the genre.  As the main, wise-talking baddie, Billy Zane chews up the scenery accordingly and the practical effects deliver the blood-drenched, slimy goods.  It is no masterpiece, but as silly, entertaining, and macabre popcorn fare, it delivers all that is required.

BELOVED
(1998)
Dir - Johnathan Demme

Overall: GOOD

Johnathan Demme's follow-up to the Oscar winning Silence of the Lambs and Philadelphia was the ambitious and largely faithful adaptation of Toni Morrison's novel Beloved, which unfortunately failed commercially.  Oprah Winfrey secured the film rights to Morrison's source material shorty after it was published over a decade earlier and this reunites her with The Color Purple co-star Danny Glover, both of whom turn in stellar performances along with Kimberly Elise as Winfrey's daughter Denver.  The only work in Demme's filmography with a supernatural component, it is far more disturbing in its historical depictions of slavery and the troubled aftermath of the Civil War than in any horror movie type moments.  This is fitting though as the highly traumatic past of the characters would have been cheapened by conventional genre pandering and the overarching theme of manifested guilt and the eventual outcome therein hits stronger in this more serious, be it melodramatic tone.  While it is steadily sensationalized and the nearly three-hour running time is a bit cumbersome, it is still a powerful work as was clearly the intention.

1990s American Horror Part Twenty-Five

IT

(1990)

Dir - Tommy Lee Wallace

Overall: MEH

 

ABC's partially inconsistent adaptation of Stephen King's massive, cocaine-fueled novel It is a frustrating view.  Originally even longer in length to accommodate the intimidating source material, George A. Romero was set to be behind the lens and did a considerable amount of pre-production work on it before scheduling issues forced him out and John Carpenter collaborator Tommy Lee Wallace in.  Given a hefty budget for a miniseries, Wallace and his production crew stage some creepy and fun set pieces and for his role as Pennywise the Clown, Tim Curry created one of the most memorable horror movie bad guys of all time.  Elsewhere though, the condensed script comes off more silly and plot hole-filled than anything.  There is a campy charm to the sterile television presentation at times, making it less frightening than it otherwise could have been.  Most troublesome of all though is the weak ending which jumps from a goofy looking spider monster to a level of sugary, sickening sap that would even make Stephen Spielberg embarrassed.

 

HOCUS POCUS

(1993)

Dir - Kenny Ortega

Overall: WOOF

 

The incessantly obnoxious kiddie horror film Hocus Pocus is quite the mangled effort.  The original script by Mick Garris was heavily re-worked to tone down its more gruesome elements, but the resulting plot is a slapdash mess that barely keeps its ill-conceived rules together if it does so at all.  Even for a cutesy Disney product, it is bombastically joyless.  The concept of Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Kathy Najimy either bellowing, screaming, or mumbling their, (very), unfunny dialog like an embarrassing imrpov version of the Three Stooges grows old immediately, and it only gets more impossible to stomach from there.  None of the other characters or performances come off any more amusing and without any exceptions, every attempt at a gag would only make someone laugh if they do not know what comedy is.  Some people may have miraculously fallen under its antithesis of charm over the years, (lord help them), but this is too annoying to be enjoyable even in a trainwreck capacity, more logical to be avoided like the plague.  If you want your kiddie Halloween fix, clearly just watch Tim Curry sing "Anything Can Happen on Halloween" from The Worst Witch instead.

 

THE FRIGHTENERS

(1996)

Dir - Peter Jackson

Overall: GOOD

 

Just before venturing into Middle Earth for several years, Peter Jackson made his to date final comedy/horror hybrid The Frighteners.  Jackson and partner Fran Walsh initially put the script together on Robert Zemeckis' insistence as a possible feature-length entry to the Tales from the Crypt series.  The resulting film, (which was shot in Jackson's native New Zealand though set in the American Midwest), is far more commercial than the director's early, independent, degenerate splatter movies, yet it is still bombastic in an almost Sam Raimi pizazz sense.  Jackson's always hyper-fueled pacing is in full swing with Danny Elfman providing his usual deafening and persistent score.  Michael J. Fox is highly likeable in the lead while Jack Busey, Dee Walace, and especially Jeffrey Combs crank it up to eleven in supporting roles.  Jackson's newly formed Weta Digital company has a field day with the cartoony special effects, some of the most elaborate and time-consuming to produce at the time.  While the script fails to connect some of its intricate pieces, the movie is still a highly enjoyable bit of popcorn ready, dark humor fun.

1990s Spanish Horror Part Two

CTHULHU MANSION

(1990)

Dir - Juan Piquer Simón

Overall: MEH

 

The silly yet adequate haunted house movie Cthulhu Mansion, (Black Magic Mansion, La Mansion de los Cthulhu), is at least better than what one would come to expect from Spanish filmmaker Juan Piquer Simón.  The Lovecraftian deity is nowhere to be seen and serves more of a mood setting purpose for the mansion in question which holds some dark, otherworldly secret involving elemental evil being trapped behind a locked door or something.  The supernatural occurrences are as random as ever for such movies, including cliches like the old bleeding shower, a phone call from the dead, (on a line that has been cut), animated foliage, and monster hands coming out of the fridge ala Ghostbusters.  Such moments are fun in a purely spookshow, eye candy sense and the movie has a consistently creepy mood as well.  The fact that more than half of the characters are obnoxious, drug dealing scumbags is more of a problem than the repetitious pace and lousy dialog, plus things derail into nonsense more as it goes on.  Far from a masterpiece, but its macabre, schlocky heart is in the right place.

 

TESIS

(1996)

Dir - Alejandro Amenábar

Overall: GOOD

 

A rather unmistakable commentary on people's voyeuristic draw towards violence, Alajandro Amenábar's debut Tesis, (Thesis), is an impressive one with enough red herrings to keep even the most jaded thriller aficionado satisfied.  Writing about what you know, Amenábar made the movie while studying filmmaking at Complutense University in Madrid, which is exactly where it takes place and more or less what the central characters here are engaged in.  The subject matter of snuff films is universally disturbing and the localized ring of such individuals taking place in their filming and distribution here does not unveil a conspiratorial network of underground murder as much as it shows the morbidly curious draw for those outside of it.  Ana Torrent's college student persistently denies her fascination with such unpleasantness until it is too late to fool anyone and at that point things have persistently pointed in all directions, which casts a wide net as far as how much and to what degrees different people can be consumed by that fascination.  It can be argued that the movie might have a few too many set pieces, but the unveiling of layers is expertly handled by Amenábar and its level of suspense is certainly commendable.

 

PERDITA DURANGO

(1997)

Dir - Álex de la Iglesia 

Overall: GOOD

A Hispanic companion piece to David Lynch's Wild at Heart as it was an adaptation of the third novel in Barry Gifford's series, Perdita Durango, (Dance with the Devil), takes a different kind of absurd approach to such satirical ultra-violence.  Spanish filmmaker Álex de la Iglesia is not the utterly singular, surrealist wizard that Lynch is, (nor is anybody), and the resulting movie here lacks the kinetic, acid-fueled presentation of Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers to compare similar thematic material, but Iglesia's hilarious, very dark humor shines through in his unmistakable, auteur manner.  Rosie Perez' title character and her Santeria practicing cohort, (played with a trademark ridiculous haircut in tow by Javier Bardem), are the type of thieving, raping, and murdering anti-heroes that challenge the viewer to sympathize with main characters that are complete villains in every conceivable way.  Party due to their engaging performances and the gritty yet ludicrous tone throughout, a slew of vile acts seem less disturbing than they actually are.  Supporting roles from James Gandolfini and Screamin' Jaw Hawkins of all people are also delightful, with the former getting comically tossed around like OJ Simpson in The Naked Gun series and the latter as, (of course), a rambling voodoo priest.

1990s Spanish Horror Part One

THE DAY OF THE BEAST
(1995)
Dir - Álex de la Iglesia
Overall: GREAT

The second full-length The Day of the Beast, (El día de la bestia), from Spanish filmmaker Álex de la Iglesia is renowned by many of his peers as a game-changing horror movie that helped to revitalize the genre in its native Spain.  Iglesia's penchant for dark comedy jives perfectly with the end of days scenario where a possibly delusional, unassuming priest is hell-bent on a quest to sell his soul to Satan so he can find out where the Antichrist will be born in order to destroy it.  Along the way, several other likeable, eccentric characters come into the picture including but not limited to a goofy metalhead, a violence-prone mother who is handy with a shotgun, a drug-fried grandpa who refuses to put on clothes, and a charlatan, occult expert TV personality.  The wonderfully committed performances help keep things moving in Iglesia and frequent collaborator Jorge Guerricaechevarría's ridiculous yet inventive script where the next hilarious moment gets that much more strange and diabolical all at once.  This is also one of the first Spanish films to use digital effects and though they are rather poor from a technical standpoint, everything else going on is so relentlessly entertaining and clever that any perceivable flaws can quickly be forgiven.

LICÀNTROPO
(1996)
Dir - Francisco Rodríguez Gordillo
Overall: MEH

 

Five years after suffering a rather serious heart attack, Paul Naschy staged what would be a failed comeback with Licántropo, (Lycantropus: The Moonlight Murders, Lycantropus: The Full Moon Killer), the eleventh entry in the Waldemar Daninsky series and first since 1983's The Beast and the Magic Sword.  Elements of the film seem right out of the Spanish Wolfman's 70s output, namely the flat direction and piles of exposition.  The problem is that both of these "qualities" are exactly what undoes the final result as the movie is alarmingly talky, almost completely absent on gore, actually absent on sex appeal, and incredibly boring.  Worse yet, it throws in a pathetic slasher sub-plot and Naschy only appears in werewolf makeup for what amounts to less than a minute of screen time.  The makeup itself is far more toned down and therefor light years less impressive than what his previous portrayals were known for, plus the once exuberant actor is noticeably older and clearly struggling to muster any enthusiasm in his performance.  There are some halfway passable attempts at creating a suspenseful atmosphere with the flat material, but this is still quite a slog.

THE NAMELESS
(1999)
Dir - Juame Balagueró
Overall: MEH

The full-length debut from Spanish filmmaker Juame Balagueró has a strong emphasis on cliched mood aesthetics and plot details, but the half-baked script undoes things much further.  An adaptation of Ramsey Campbell's 1981 novel The Nameless, it has a sinister, thriller-style premise of an emotionally traumatized mother, an ex cop, and a curious newspaper reporter investigating an evil, clandestine cult, but the end result is more unnecessarily cryptic than frightening.  Some of the cast does solid work with the underwhelming dialog, but a few of the performances are rather difficult to sake seriously in their scenery-chewing creepiness.  Writer/director Balagueró relies far too much on lazily manipulative music and quick, static cuts of grainy, disturbed imagery to give the film a differentiating style, becoming underwhelming in the process.  Things grow increasingly convoluted as it frustratingly reaches its schlocky, melodramatic climax and again, if the presentation was more effectively menacing to match the deadly sincere intentions, then this may have packed more of a punch instead of a whimper.

1990s Foreign Horror Part Four

SEMYA VURDALAKOV

(1990)

Dir - Gennadiy Klimov/Igor Shavlak

Overall: MEH

 

The confused and frustrating Semya Vurdalakov, (Семья вурдалаков, Family of Vampires, The Vampire Family), is another quasi-adaptation of Russian author Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy's The Family of the Vourdalak which viewers will recognize also inspired the "I Wurdulak" segment with Boris Karloff in Mario Bava's Black Sabbath.  Set in contemporary times and focused on a reporter who is sent to investigate a very remote farming village where the residents are regularly disappearing, director's Gennadiy Klimov and Igor Shavlak, (the latter who also appears in the lead), go for a sleepy time tea-induced mood in every conceivable way.  The music is minimally used up until the finale, hardly any of the characters emote except for rare instances, the cinematography is purposely impenetrable, and the story moves at such an alarmingly lackadaisical pace that it soon becomes quite difficult to stay with.  This is a shame in that the atmosphere is occasionally effective and on paper there are moments that should be more chilling than they ultimately appear, but the lumbering presentation makes things nearly incomprehensibly boring instead.

 

MAN BITES DOG

(1992)

Dir - Rémy Belvaux/André Bonzel/Benoît Poelvoorde

Overall: GOOD

Certainly an exercise in audacity, the low budget mockumentary Man Bites Dog, (C'est arrivé près de chez vous) from Rémy Belvaux, André Bonzel, and Benoît Poelvoorde is a movie that effectively toys with the viewer's thresholds for what is fascinating, funny, and appalling.  Shot on 16mm film, Belvaux, Bonzel, and Poelvoorde handle nearly every production aspect as well as appearing on screen with the latter portraying the charming, sadistic, and blasé serial killer Ben who treats his murders as if they are simply an enjoyable profession.  The challenging aspects are not just the subject matter which purposely emphasizes a disregard for human life that is more nonchalant than glamorizing, but the fact that Poelvoorde's character is downright likeable if still clearly psychotic.  His friends, family, and the crew filming him all seem under his charismatic spell and the world they inhabit is an uncomfortable bizarro one that seems eerily grounded and familiar on account of the non-glossy presentation.  The tone shifts gradually as if the movie itself is coming to its senses, but by that point we have been captivated and disturbed in equal measures and the lingering feeling is anything but warm.

 

TWISTS OF TERROR

(1997)

Dir - Douglas Jackson

Overall: MEH

 

Made for Canada's The Movie Network, Twists of Terror is a mediocre anthology film and the second of only two feature-length properties written by author John Shirley.  It is the usual set up of three individual stories being linked by a "host" who is simply a mad conspiracy theorist held up in his house while spouting warnings at the camera.  That easily being the lamest aspect to the narrative, the segments themselves are not particularly bad, they just are not all that exciting.  None of them are supernatural based either and each one involve some sort of diabolical twist with the one in "The People You Meet" being convoluted, "The Clinic" predictable, and "Stolen Moments" rather random and unconvincing.  The synth score is the same found in every other low-budget horror movie from the era and therefor highly forgettable, but there is a low-level sleaze factor throughout that along with the minimal gore is pretty tame by those same standards of the day.  As a Canadian stab at a type of Tales from the Crypt property it is certainly a failure, but it is a harmless one that easily could be worse.