Yearly Archives: 2017

Horror on the Lens: Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter (dir by William Beaudine)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

This 1966 western/horror hybrid is just about as stupid as you think it is but it’s also a lot of fun if you’re in the right mood.  Notorious outlaw Jesse James (John Lupton) attempts to hold up a stagecoach but, in the process, his hulking partner Hank (Cal Bolder) is serious wounded.  Some helpful peasants direct Jesse and Hank to the mysterious German doctor who happens to live in a nearby dark and scary house.  That doctor is Maria Frankenstein (Narda Onyx) and she’s been conducting experiments to bring dead Mexicans back to life.  Imagine her joy when the nearly dead Hank shows up at her laboratory.  Anyway, Maria performs a brain transplant on Hank and once Hank comes back to life, she informs him that his new name is “Igor.”  Yes, she does.  That plot description pretty much tells you everything you need to know about the movie but I vaguely enjoyed vaguely paying attention to it.  Maria’s German accent is hilariously overdone, the Frankenstein laboratory is full of pointless electrical things, and a character dies halfway through the film just to later show up again with no explanation.  It’s that type of movie.

And it’s also the type of movie that you can watch below!

Enjoy!

Cleaning out the DVR: My Daughter Is Missing (dir by Tamar Halpern)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

(Lisa is not just watching horror movies!  She is also trying to clean out her DVR!  She has got over 200 movies that she needs to watch before January 1st!  Will she make it?  Keep checking here to find out!  She recorded My Daughter Is Missing off of Lifetime on June 25th!)

My Daughter Is Missing and Liam Neeson is nowhere to be seen!

Fortunately, Sara (Miranda Raison) was in Belgrade when her daughter was kidnapped by a Serbian human trafficking ring.  Even more importantly, Sara is a former computer hacker and, in the world of Lifetime, there is literally nothing that the internet cannot do.

Need to view the security footage of your daughter being kidnapped from the club?

Use the internet!

Need to find out who is behind human trafficking in Eastern Europe?

Use the internet!

Need to figure out who you can trust or who you can’t?

The internet will explain all!

The other thing about Lifetime films is that mom will always be proven right.  Sara told her daughter to be careful.  Her daughter wasn’t and now, she’s about to be sold to the highest bidder.  Sara told the cops that her daughter had been kidnapped.  The cops didn’t believe her and now Sara’s going to find the proof on her own.  Fortunately, she knows how to use a computer and, as we’ve already established, computers are magic.

To be honest, Sara really should have been named “Mary Sue” because she is one of the biggest Mary Sues that I’ve ever seen on Lifetime.  Not only does she have a tragic and dramatic backstory but the main theme of the movie appears to be that everyone in the entire world is stupid except for Sara.  Whenever Sara uses the internet to prove everyone wrong, you can be sure that at least one person is going to say, “No one should ever have doubted you, Sara.”

(My favorite part of the movie is when Sara tracks down the web site for the auction and all the “hackers” standing behind her gasp in amazement and say stuff like, “She’s on the dark web.”)

Anyway, this movie was shot on location in Belgrade.  That does add a little authenticity to the film, though it doesn’t last long.  There’s a line towards the end of the film, where a sympathetic character points out that there’s more to Belgrade than just political corruption and sex rings.  That was nice of him to say because, otherwise, the movie probably isn’t going to do much for the tourism industry.

I ended up throwing a high heel in the direction of the TV while I was watching My Daughter Is Missing.  That’s my favorite way of expressing displeasure.  I guess the plot of My Daughter Is Missing would be intriguing if I had never seen Taken but I have seen Taken and this movie was a pure substitute.  Not only is the plot predictable but Sara is literally too perfect.  It’s hard not to get annoyed with her — and only her — being right all the time while every other person in the movie was portrayed as being either evil or willfully ignorant.  By the end of the movie, I was expecting someone to declare, “You’re the best mom ever!”

I should admit, however, that the movie didn’t go that far.  Maybe they’re saving it for the sequel.

 

Music Video of the Day: Something In My House by Dead Or Alive (1986, dir. ???)

Posted on by Valerie Troutman

Yes, I did Creeper by Islands a few days ago. However, that song didn’t spin me right round like a record, baby, right round round round.

I can’t find much information on this one. The song was edited down for the music video. According to Wikipedia, the video is an homage to Jean Cocteau’s Beauty And The Beast. I buy that. It may have been about a decade since I saw that movie, but things like knockers made of human faces definitely remind me of that film. That’s all I can find.

We lost Pete Burns on October 23rd of 2016. On the 24th of this year, we lost Fats Domino. I thought about breaking with the October theme to do the live video of Cheap Trick covering Ain’t That A Shame, but I decided against devoting a whole post to it. Then I decided, I still wanted to include it. So, here is their cover of Ain’t That A Shame performed from where else, than Budokan.

Enjoy!

Horror on TV: Thriller 2.5 “God Grante That She Lye Stille” (dir by Herschel Daugherty)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

For tonight’s horror on television, we have an episode from the second season of the Boris Karloff-hosted anthology series, Thriller.

In God Grante That She Lye Stille, Lady Margaret Crewer (Sarah Marshall) returns to her ancestral home, hoping to collect her inheritance.  However, as soon becomes clear, the house is haunted by the spirit of one of her ancestors, a witch who was burned at the stake.

Who doesn’t love a good ghost story of Halloween?

Enjoy!

A Movie A Day #290: The Granny (1995, directed by Luca Bercovici)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Granny Gargoli (Stella Stevens) is an old, wealthy, and dying.  With the exception of her niece, Kelly (Shannon Whirry, wearing glasses so it’s clear that she is not a gold digger), Granny hates her entire family.  When they come by for Thanksgiving dinner and start arguing about who is going to inherit Granny’s money, Granny snaps at her oldest son, “You’re the load that I should’ve swallowed!”

Since Granny does not want anyone to inherit her money, she decides that the best course of action would be to never die.  She buys a magic elixir that will grant immortality to whoever drinks it.  The salesman (played by director Luca Bercovici) tells her that it is very important to keep the elixir out of direct sunlight.  Of course, that gets screwed up faster than a mogwai turning into a gremlin.  When her family poisons her, the corrupted elixir does not keep Granny from dying.  Instead, it allows Granny to return as a demon who hunts down her greedy relatives one at a time.  One son is castrated.  A daughter-in-law is attacked when her mink stole comes to life.  Even after being killed, the members of the family return as wisecracking members of the living dead.

A mix of comedy and horror, The Granny used to show up regularly on late night Cinemax.  It may not be scary (though the castration scene is the reason why I get nervous whenever I see scissors) but, with the exception of Kelly, everyone in the family is so hateful that it is still fun to watch all of the get what they deserve.  Stella Stevens and Shannon Whirry are the main reasons to watch The Granny.  Stella gets all the best lines while Shannon Whirry shows why those who grew up watching late night Cinema still debate which Shannon was the best, Whirry or Tweed?

 

Halloween Havoc!: BUBBA HO-TEP (Vitagraph 2002)

Posted on by gary loggins

gary loggins's avatarcracked rear viewer

Don Coscarelli, the man who brought you the PHANTASM series, scores a bulls-eye with BUBBA HO-TEP, a totally unique film based on Joe R. Lansdale’s novella. Lansdale is well known to fans of horror fiction for his books and short stories in the filed as well as other genres (crime, westerns, even comic books). Coscarelli’s adaptation is a delightful blend of horror and humor, and a bittersweet reflection on aging, if not gracefully, then with courage.

Bruce Campbell (ASH VS EVIL DEAD) stars as Sebastian Haff, former Elvis impersonator who may or may not really be The King. He believes he is, and that’s what matters. He’s stuck in a Mud Creek, Texas rest home, confined to a walker and battling a weird growth on his pecker. People at the rest home are dying, as you’d expect in a place like this, but under some strange circumstances that’re causing Elvis…

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Horror Scenes That I Love: The Finale of Dellamorte Dellamore

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today’s horror scene that I love comes from the 1994 Italian film, Dellamorte Dellamore.

Viewed out of context from the rest of the film, this is not an easy scene to explain.  My suggestion is enjoy it for the beauty of the images and Rupert Everett’s mournful performance.  And, if you haven’t seen it, watch Dellamorte Dellamore as soon as possible.

Jedadiah Leland’s Horrific Adventures In The Internet Archive #13: Night of the Walking Dead (1992, John Olsen)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

For today’s horrific journey through the Internet Archive, I played Night of the Walking Dead (1992, John Olsen).

In order to claim a million-dollar inheritance, you have to find the grave of your Aunt Bedilia, dig her up, and get her locket.  It will not be easy because the graveyard is haunted by zombies and other strange things.  Plus, you have decided to search at night.

This is a text adventure, where you have to solve puzzles and examine your surroundings.  The puzzles are not too difficult and, while the game’s descriptions are terse, they still provide you with everything that you need to know.

Still, as with most text adventures sometimes this will happen:

I turned out that the proper command was “get recorder.”  Sometimes, coming up with the right command can be frustrating but it is nothing that cannot be figured out.  After you get the recorder, you can find a tape and get some background information on what’s been happening in the cemetery:

The game picks up once the zombies show up.

It is not just zombies that you have to worry about.  There are also bats.

Night of the Walking Dead is a very simple game but I enjoyed it.  Now, if I can just figure out how to avoid those bats…