Author Archives: Jedadiah Leland

The Stone Tape (1972, directed by Peter Sasdy)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Peter Brock (Michael Bryant) is the leader of a team of researchers who work for an electronics company that is trying to come up with a new recording technique to keep up with their Japanese competitors.  Peter and his team move into an old Victorian mansion that is said to be haunted.  After Jill Greeley (Jane Asher) thinks that she’s seen a ghost, Peter theorizes that the stone walls of the mansion have actually recorded everything that has happened at the location over the years, like a security tape.  Some people, like Jill, are sensitive enough to pick up on the images of the past.  Other people, like Peter, are so determined to use what he calls The Stone Tape to his own advantage that it leads to tragedy.

The script for The Stone Tape was written by Nigel Kneale, who was also responsible for creating Quatermass.  As he did with his Quatermass stories, Kneale took an otherwise standard horror story and added an interesting scientific twist.  Peter is a classic villain who makes the mistake of thinking that he can control that which he does not understand.  Ghosts and spirits may just be recordings of past events but that doesn’t mean they can’t hurt you.  There’s a lot of screaming in The Stone Tape but there’s also some very interesting ideas, good acting, and intelligent directing from Peter Sasdy.  First broadcast by the BBC in 1972, The Stone Tape is a classic ghost story, creepy and clever with a killer ending.

Babydoll (2021, directed by Manfe Lozial)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

A group of college students on holiday stay at an abandoned house, little knowing that it was once the sight of a Satanic ceremony.  After one of the women gets upset over a game of spin the bottle, she steps outside and finds a doll.  She gets possessed and goes on to stalk her friends.

A standard slasher/possession film, Babydoll would have worked better if the doll didn’t look like some demented version of Raggedy Anne.  It would have also helped if the characters had been memorable or at least likeable.  The possession scene is effective and it didn’t bother me that the movie left some questions unanswered at the end.  It’s a horror movie so it doesn’t have to wrap everything up in a neat package.  But I just couldn’t get past that stupid doll.  Truly evil dolls don’t look like something you would order as a joke from Etsy.

Hillwalkers (2022, directed by Tom Cosgrove)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

A group of hikers decide to take a walk through the hills of Ireland.  Things do not go well.  First, one hiker is injured in an accident.  Then the other hikers ignore a “No Trespassing” sign while looking for help and end up being stalked and targeted by a the people living on the land.  The hikers have no one to blame but themselves.  If you look through your binoculars and see someone wearing a skull mask and carrying a rifle, that should be enough to make you turn around.

The story is basic and the characters are poorly drawn but the Irish landscape is stunning, even when people are fighting for their lives.  The budget is low and there are more than a few scenes where you can see the blood squibs under everyone’s clothes before their shot.  If you can overlook or forgive that, Hillwalkers is occasionally suspenseful and it has enough action to appeal to thriller fans.  This is a standard city folks vs country folks movie and there’s nothing surprising about it but it does a good job of showing why it’s best to stay on the approved path while hiking.  Pay attention to those warning signs.  They’re there for a reason!

Vampirella (1996, directed by Jim Wynorski)

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Intergalactic vampire Vlad Tepes (The Who’s Roger Daltrey) has come to Earth and is performing in Las Vegas under the name Jamie Blood.  Though most vampires now drink synthetic blood, Vlad is a purist who prefers to drink straight from the veins of others.  Vlad wants to unleash a horde of vampires on Earth.  Trying to stop him is Vampirella (Talisa Soto), another intergalactic vampire who wears a revealing red bodysuit and little else.

Jim Wynorski says this is the only film that he regrets directing.  Think about that.  This is a film that even Jim Wynorski regrets!  It’s easy to understand why.  Talisa Soto is attractive and convincing in the action scenes but she’s still miscast of Vampirella, a character who was as known for her voluptuous figure as for her status as one of the first vampire super heroes.  The movie has none of the subversive humor of the original Vampirella comic book and the special effects look cheap even by 1996 standards.  With the exception of Roger Daltrey’s devilish portrayal of Vlad,  Vampirella is an anemic take on a vampire legend.

Of course, in 1996, almost all comic book movies were as bad as Vampirella.  While there were exceptions like the Batman movies, most comic book films were low-budget affairs that were made for nice audiences and which no one put much effort into.  Comic books movies were not expected to be blockbusters or huge cultural events and most of them, like Vampirella, were released with very little fanfare.  Things have certainly changed.

Murder In The Dark (2023, directed by Jacob Osborn)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

A group of friends gather and spend a night hanging out.  Old resentments simmer to the surface.  A murder is committed.  A killer with a bag over his head emerges from the night.  The friends try to figure out who amongst them could be a killer or if there’s something else going on.  I know some people will automatically suspect the guy wearing the Slipknot t-shirt because the members of the band all wear masks and the killer wears a mask but that’s the same logic that led to the Satanic Panic of the 1980s.  If he was wearing a Nickelback t-shirt, I would be with you.

This is a short horror film that feels like a bunch of real-life friends got together to play the fictional friends.  The opening half is too talky and slow but the second half picks up and features a few clever touches.  There aren’t many kills and they’re largely bloodless but I think director Jacob Osborn was going for something more than just another slasher.  The movie is more about how the friends relate to each other than anything else.  This is a low-budget, regional film that starts out way too slowly but I’m going to cut it some slack because the second half of the movie makes up for the weak first half.  At a time when the term indie film gets applied to even big-budget productions with major stars, Murder In The Dark is a true independent film.

Blood Harvest (2023, directed by Danny LeGare)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

“You have no idea the sacrifice I have made for this land!” Uncle Ollie (Greg Nutcher) yells when his family complain about life on the farm.  They’re about to find out, though.

The audience will figure it out before Neil (Troy Escoda) and his clairovoyant son, Jake (Ian Hernandez-Oropeza).  As soon as they arrive at the farm, Jake starts having visions of sacrifices and women having their tongues cut out.  It’s easy to figure out what the farmers in the town due to ensure that they’ll have a good crop but no one in the movie is as smart as those of us watching at home.

The movie probably would have been scarier if I could have actually heard or understood half the dialogue.  The film’s sound quality is terrible.  I even checked my hearing aid to make sure that it wasn’t a problem on my end.  Some of the dialogue has been obviously dubbed.  Some scenes are too loud.  Some scenes you can’t hear anything at all.

There’s not much of a story here so everything gets dragged out.  “Have you wondered why there are no children her!?” Uncle Ollie yells while swinging around an axe.  Nah, Ollie, we figure it out a while ago.

Ghost Box (2015, directed by Mike O’Mahony)

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A man is living every writer’s dream.  He has quit his day job and is now working on his book that he thinks will prove the existence of the paranormal.  However, while doing research, the man summons an actual ghost that appears to be determined to make his life a living Hell.

Ghostbox, which I watched on Pluto earlier today, was obviously made for a very low-budget and it’s cast is full of unknowns.  The story unfolds slowly and those looking for sudden shocks and expensive horror effects will want to look elsewhere.  Ghostbox attempts to be more of a mood piece than a typical scream-out-loud horror movie.  When taken on its own terms, though, Ghostbox isn’t bad.  It does a good job of setting the mood and the film’s plot actually does pay off at the end.  It’s a simple ghost story that is barely over an hour long.  Though it takes some getting used to, I liked the DIY feel of the film and even the slow pace felt appropriate for the story that the movie was telling.  Your mileage may vary.

Black Cadillac (2003, directed by John Murlowski)

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On a snowy night, Scott (Shane Johnson), CJ (Josh Hammond), and Robbie (Jason Dohring) cross into Wisconsin so that they can have a good time at a notorious roadhouse.  After CJ starts a fight that gets them kicked out, the three of them start to drive back to Minnesota.  They stop to pick up a deputy sheriff, Charlie (Randy Quaid), whose squad car has broken down.  Charlie assures the young men that he’s off-duty and asks them a lot of questions about what they’ve been doing during the night.  When a mysterious 1957 black Cadillac pulls up and challenges the Scott to a drag race, Charlie tells Scott to “go for it!”

It turns out that the Cadillac is interested in more than just a race.  It tries to force Scott into crashing his car and, even after Scott seems to escape from the car, it keeps showing up wherever the friends are driving.  Why is the other driver after them and how is Charlie involved?

Not a bad film.  The black Cadillac and its driver are great villains that seems to be able to transport anywhere.  No matter what the three young men do, they can’t escape from or even slow down the Cadillac’s pursuit.  The three friends are all likable, even if the movie does get bogged down with all of their secrets.  Randy Quaid shows  why, before he apparently lost his mind and started talking about star whackers, he was one of the busiest character actors around.  Black Cadillac is a good mix of horror and car chases.

Alarmed (2014, directed by Matt Lofgren)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Samantha stands trial, accused of killing her father, mother, and two of her sisters.  She is acquitted.  Five years later, she’s trapped on the family yacht, stranded at sea with the ship’s onboard computer ordering her to remove her limbs and slash her face.  Every morning, she wakes up and it’s as if nothing happened.  But during the evening, she goes through the entire ritual again.  Samantha feels that she is being punished for murdering her family, except that Samantha did not murder her family.  While being tortured on the boat, she thinks back and tries to figure out who the guilty party actually was.

It’s an interesting idea but a dumb movie.  You’re stuck on a boat, far from civilization and medical help.  The only other person on the boat is your husband, who can’t help you because the boat’s onboard computer has locked him out of control room.  Are you going to chop off your finger just because a computer tells you to?  Are you going to saw off your hand, just because the computer says so?  The boat is also haunted by ghosts and I wish the movie had just focused on them instead of bringing in the computer and the time loop element.

The movie just doesn’t work.  The plot is overstuffed and the acting is terrible.  Try not to laugh when you hear the dialogue between the judges and the lawyers in the courtroom scene.  The yacht is a good location but a few long shots make it obvious that the yacht is not as far away from civilization as Samantha and her husband seem to think.

All in all, a misfire.

Flight of the Living Dead: Outbreak On A Plane (2007, directed by Scott Thomas)

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Bad news!  There’s a zombie outbreak on a 747 jumbo jet!  That’s what you get for trying to transport a scientist who has been infected with a “super warrior” virus on a commercial flight.  It’s fine as long as she’s in her container but it just takes a little turbulence for her to get free and start infecting everyone.

This movie was advertised as being the first movie about a zombie outbreak on a plane and yes, it came out the same time as Snakes on a Plane.  Flight of the Living Dead makes good use of its limited setting.  Not only do the handful of uninfected passengers have to maneuver around the undead in a tight space but they have to figure out how to get off the plane before it either runs out of fuel or gets blown up by the fighter jets that are following it.  The plane setting also reveals a new way to dispose of zombies, though it also means disposing of many of the living as well.

Flight of the Living Dead was better than I expected.  The characters are all cardboard but the action is fast and furious and that it was all happening the air did bring a new element of suspense to the familiar story.  Zombie movies are dime a dozen but this one’s not bad.  The next time I have to fly anywhere, I’m going to make sure I’m seated as far to the back of the plane as possible.