October Hacks: The Last Slumber Party (dir by Stephen Tyler)

Posted on October 13, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Woo hoo! School’s out for summer and that means that it’s time to have a slumber party! It’s time to gather at the home of whoever has the biggest house and dance around in your sleepwear before falling on the couch, watching a really bad TV show, and talking about how all the boys in town suck. What fun! Seriously, I used to love slumber parties! Of course, the parties I went to were a lot more fun than the one featured in the film that I am about to review.

The 1988 film, The Last Slumber Party, is called The Last Slumber Party because it features an escaped homicidal lunatic who wears surgical scrubs and mask and who carries around scalpel. The lunatic shows up at the party and makes sure that, for the majority of the cast, it is their last slumber party. But, to be honest, I think this would have been the last slumber party even if the killer didn’t show up just because the party sucks so much that I don’t think anyone would ever want to run the risk of throwing another one.

Seriously, this is the most boring slumber party that I’ve ever seen. First off, there’s only three guests and only one of them, Chris (Jan Jensen), has a personality. Of course, that personality is not a particularly likeable one, in that it leads to Chris constantly cursing and making fun of every boy at the school for being, in her opinion, gay. Speaking of the boys at the school, four of them attempt to crash the slumber party but again, none of the really have a personality beyond not being able to open up a can of beer without spilling it on their shirt. As well, most of the guys are quickly dispatched by the scalpel-wielding killer. The girls are a bit perturbed when the guys start to mysteriously disappear but none of them are upset enough to actually look for them or to pay attention to the reports on the television about an escaped murderer. Instead, Chris just suggests that the boys got scared off because they were gay. Seriously, Chris is a bit obsessed.

Also obsessed with Dr. Sickler (David Whitley), who is the father of one of the girls and who was scheduled to give the escaped lunatic a lobotomy. Of course, Dr. Sickler isn’t obsessed with his missing patient as much as he’s obsessed with remembering to pick up some orange juice. His wife really likes orange juice and there’s way too much talk of orange juice in this film. Oddly enough, Dr. Sickler never actually picks any up.

I’m grasping at things to say about this film because there’s not really a whole lot to be said about The Last Slumber Party. Judging by the accents of the majority of the cast, The Last Slumber Party was a regional production and it was made down in my part of the world. I actually enjoyed hearing the familiar accents but I just wish the characters had been a bit less unlikable and the dialogue had more of a natural rhythm. As it is, this is just one of those slasher films that’s full of padding and feels considerably longer than just 77 minutes. For the majority of the film’s characters, this would indeed be their last slumber party. It’s a shame they couldn’t have ended things with a better get-together.

The TSL Horror Grindhouse: The Chill Factor (dir by Christopher Webster)

Posted on October 13, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1993 film, The Chill Factor, is a bit of an oddity.

The film opens with a shot of young, attractive people racing their snowmobiles across a snowy landscape. One of them, Jeannie (Dawn Laurrie), narrates. She tells us that she can still remember everything that happened as if it was yesterday. She and her friends were visiting the ski slopes of Wisconsin. She was engaged to be married to Tom (Aaron Kjenaas), who she secretly knew didn’t really love her that way that she loved him. She mentions that they were traveling with their friends and none of them had any worries because they were young and the year 2000 was right around the corner. She mentions that one of her friends was “dating a black girl.” It’s an odd line, especially when heard in 2023, when interracial couples in movies and television are so common that it’s almost become a bit of a cliché. One thing that makes the line feel all the stranger is the rather flat tone of the narrator’s voice. The narration almost sounds as if it’s being delivered by someone who is under hypnosis.

Jeannie, Tom, and their friends stop off at a rustic lodge. Karen (Connie Snyder) is Tom’s little sister and Chris (David Fields) is her boyfriend, as well as being a medical student. Ron (Jim Cagle) is a friendly football player who has just been drafted by a pro team. Ron’s girlfriend, Lissa (Eve Montgomery), is the black girl mentioned in Jeannie’s opening narration. When two local racists confront Ron and Lissa and spit out a racial slur, friendly waitress Bessie (Bekki Vallin) makes it up to the group by telling them about a great place to race their snowmobiles. It’s called Black Friar Lake and Bessie promises to tell them why it’s named that if they come back. Even though Tom has been drinking all day long, he insists on going out to Black Friar Lake.

At Black Friar Lake, Tom pulls a Kennedy and crashes his snowmobile into a tree. His friends drag the unconscious and blood-covered Tom to an abandoned Dominican summer camp. They bandage his wounds and try to keep him warm. Chris says that Tom probably has internal injuries. However, Tom suddenly opens his eyes and, other than having a headache, he acts as if nothing serious has happened. While Ron heads back to town to try to get help, Karen searches the camp and comes across a makeshift Ouija board. Even though Jeannie believes that Ouija boards can actually summon evil spirits, she still joins the others in fooling around with it. (As Jeannie explains in her narration, “It was my nature.”) Soon, Tom is waking up more often and speaking much more aggressively than usual. (When Karen — HIS SISTER — tells him that he’s a pain in the ass, Tom tells her, “I’ll give you a pain in the ass,” and then suggests that she and Chris should go have sex.) Soon, people are dying, blood is being spilled, and the Ouija board keeps trying to send out messages.

The Chill Factor is an odd film. On the surface, it seems like a typical mash-up of slasher mayhem and Evil Dead-style supernatural activity. But there’s an intriguingly off-center quality to the film. The film moves at its own dream-like pace, with certain scenes going on longer than one might expect while other scenes end rather abruptly. When the group first arrives at the summer camp, their conversations are a bizarre mix of the mundane and the philosophical. Random shadows can be spied moving along the walls and the main characters never seem to notice that fresh blood is flowing from the eyes of a statue of Jesus. Towards the end of the film, there’s a Rosemary’s Baby-style sex scene between Tom and Jeannie, except occasionally it’s not Jeannie that Tom is making lover to but instead Karen. The falling snow gives the entire film a chilly and rather bleak atmosphere. (This may be the only film to feature a demon chasing his prey on a snowmobile.) The cast was obviously made up of amateurs and the majority of the performances are extremely stiff. However, even that contributes to the film’s otherworldly atmosphere. Indeed, watching the performers, I was reminded of Werner Herzog’s Heart of Glass, in which Herzog had his actors perform under the influence of hypnosis.

Finally, there’s an interesting subtext to this film. Jeannie, who fears that Tom will never love her the way that she loves him, has a night of passionate sex with him, just to wake up the next morning and discover that he had suddenly changed. He’s not the man who she thought he was. Now, in Tom’s case, this is because he’s been possessed by a demon. However, this scene captures a fear that every woman has felt. Will your lover still be the same man when you wake up in the morning? Or, having gotten what he wanted, will he then reveal his true self? As much as Jeannie feared the Ouija board, she still used it because, deep down, she wanted to know who Tom really was. And the board revealed the truth. In her final piece of narration, Jeannie speaks of still dreaming about that night with Tom and her flat tone leaves it up to the audience to decide if she dreams of who Tom become or who she thought Tom was before.

I suspect that The Chill Factor may have been a happy accident, a case of a low budget and an amateur cast actually coming together something that turned out to be far better than anyone was expecting. Accidentally or not, The Chill Factor is an intriguing work of existential horror.

A Blast From The Past: Stoned (dir by John Herzfeld)

Posted on October 13, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In 1980’s Stoned, Scott Baio plays Jack Melon, a teenager with a problem.

Jack is shy, awkward, and can’t escape the shadow of his older brother, Mike (Vincent Bufano). Mike is champion swimmer. Jack is someone who can barely walk down a hallway without walking into a wall. But then Teddy (Jack Finch) gets Teddy hooked on marijuana, the so-called weed with roots in Hell! Soon, Jack is acting weird, making strange jokes, and getting all of the attention in the world. Unfortunately, Jack is also alienating those closest to him and his newfound habit leads to a near-tragedy.

Stoned was aired as an ABC Afterschool Special and, while it’s not quite Reefer Madness, it does adhere to the general anti-drug formula. In record time, Jack goes from being shy and dorky to being goofy and potentially dangerous. We get all the expected scenes of Jack devouring ice cream, Jack wandering around in a daze, Jack realizing that the girl he likes what’s nothing to do with the new Jack, Jack’s well-meaning teacher (played by the show’s writer and director, John Herzfeld) confronting his students about their drug use, and Jack accidentally hitting his brother with an oar. Jack thinks that marijuana is opening his brain because, while stoned, he suddenly realizes that a tree looks like “Old Man Eber.” Stoned goes on to show Jack ruining his life but I have to admit that I spent most of the running time wondering who Old Man Eber was. (Seriously, Old Man Eber sounds like some sort of Lovecraftian ghoul, waiting in the shadows to drag one to an Arkham cemetery.) Of course, someone nearly dies as a result of Jack’s marijuana use. What’s interesting is Jack is able to save the person’s life, even though he’s stoned. Would non-stoned Jack have been able to do it?

From the fashion choices to the cast to the message that marijuana is the most dangerous thing on the planet, Stoned is one of those TV specials that epitomizes its time. This was a film that was made at a time when it was inconceivable that there would some day be commercials for edible gummies and it shows. Watching Stoned is like stepping into a time machine.

Today, of course, Scott Baio is better known for his politics than his acting. Whenever I see a headline that reads, “This veteran Hollywood star is calling out his industry for not understanding America,” I know the story is inevitably going to be about Scott Baio complaining about his taxes. That said, Scott Baio is convincing when he’s playing Jack as being awkward and insecure but he definitely goes a bit overboard once Jack starts smoking. While that probably dilutes the effectiveness of the film’s message (because, let’s be honest, real stoners are going to watch this and easily recognize the fact that Jack is trying way too hard to convince everyone that he’s stoned), it does give this film a certain entertainment value.

Here is Stoned, complete with the commercials that aired when the show was original broadcast on November 12th, 1980:

Corbin Nash (2018, directed by Ben Jagger)

Posted on October 13, 2023 by Jedadiah Leland

Corbin Nash (Dean S. Jagger) is a New York cop who has been suspended for shooting a rapist. While he and his stepfather (Bruce Davison, making a cameo appearance) sit in a bar and talk about how much the world sucks, they are approached by a mysterious man (Rutger Hauer, also making a cameo appearance) who explains that Corbin’s father was not just a minor league baseball player but he was also a demon hunter who was murdered by his enemies in Los Angeles. Jack confirms that what the stranger says is true.

Corbin does what anyone would do. He moves to Los Angeles, joins the LAPD, and starts to investigate cases of missing children. This leads to Corbin being captured and held prisoner by two vampires, a drag queen named Queeny (Corey Feldman, camping it up to a cringe-worthy degree) and Queeny’s lover, Vince (Richard Wagner). Queeny and Vince force their prisoners to participate in cage matches until finally feeding on them. Corbin escapes but, as the Blind Prophet (Malcolm McDowell, collecting a paycheck) reveals, Corbin is now a vampire. Like a less memorable version of Blade, vampire Corbin sets out to battle evil.

The film’s overall tone is grim and serious, which makes Corey Feldman’s mincing performance as Queeny feel all the more out-of-place. Watching him in films like this, it can be easy to forget that Feldman was actually a fairly good actor before his career went off the rails in the 90s. As a child, he appeared in some classic films and, as a teenager, he often redeemed otherwise subpar material. But he never made the transition into adult roles. Being one of “The Two Coreys” didn’t help and he had the misfortune of struggling with drugs before Robert Downey, Jr. made rehab cool. Well into his 20s, he was still playing high school students and, even today when he’s in his 50s, Corey Feldman still comes across as being the world’s oldest teenager. That’s certainly the impression that I got from Corbin Nash, where Feldman seems like a high school theater student who is more interested in showing off than actually acting.

Of course, Feldman’s self-indulgence is still more interesting than the rest of the film, which feels like an origin story for a super hero who never really took off. There are a few interesting idea to be found in the film but mostly, it just feels like a cut-rate version of Blade and a dozen other recent vampire films. Corbin Nash never creates an identity of its own.

October True Crime: Deranged (dir by Jeff Gillen and Alan Ormsby)

Posted on October 13, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

First released in 1974, Deranged tells the story of Ezra Cobb (Roberts Blossom).

In the 1950s, Ezra is a shy and withdrawn farmer who lives in Wisconsin with his elderly mother (Cosette Lee). Ezra’s mother has raised Ezra to view all other women as being evil and to view sex as being sinful. The end result is that the middle-aged Ezra is absolutely devoted to his mother but he also has no idea what to do with himself after she dies and is buried in the nearby cemetery. After a year of being alone in the farm house, Ezra starts to hear voices telling him to dig up his mother. Ezra does so but, disappointed to see how much her body has decayed over the past few months, he decides that he should start digging up fresher bodies so that he can “rebuild” his mother.

Eeeek!

Yes, it’s a creepy story and it’s all the more creepy for being true. Ezra Cobb is based on Ed Gein, the farmer, grave robber, and serial killer whose actions not only shocked the town of Plainfield but which also inspired Robert Bloch to create the character of Norman Bates. Psycho was based on Ed Gein’s crimes. So was The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, with the bone-strewn home and Leatherface’s habit of wearing other people’s faces lifted directly from some of the more sordid details of what was found at Gein’s home. By the time the police discovered what had been happening at the farm, Ed Gein had moved on from grave robbing to committing murders. It’s known that Ed Gein killed at least three people. It’s suspected that he was responsible for more. Interestingly enough, Ed Gein was described as being very friendly and helpful after he was captured. He spent the rest of his life in various mental hospitals, where he was described as being a model patient.

A low-budget Canadian production, Deranged plays out in a documentary fashion, featuring enough gore that the film was actually banned in some countries. That said, as bloody as certain scenes are, there’s a strong strain of dark humor running through Deranged. As played by character actor Roberts Blossom, the dazed but always polite Ezra never makes much of an attempt to hide his activities. When Ezra’s friend, Harlan (Robert Warner), reads aloud an article about a missing barmaid, Ezra replies that the barmaid is over at his place. Harlan has a good laugh at the idea and Ezra responds with a somewhat shy smile. No one in town suspects Ezra, largely because he doesn’t hunt and he always seem to be so quiet and mild-mannered. Even when Ezra points a rifle at a store clerk, she laughs and asks, “What are you doing, Ez?” and, given that Ezra looks so harmless, it’s easy to understand why. Ezra? Why, he wouldn’t hurt a fly! Interestingly enough, everyone around Ezra is far more openly violent and misogynistic than Ezra. Harlan brags about his ability as a hunter. A man in a bar makes misogynistic comments about the bar maid who has become Ezra’s latest obsession. Though Ezra is the one who acts on his impulses, the film suggests that Ezra isn’t that different from the other men in town.

In a rare starring role, Roberts Blossom gives a strong performance as Ezra, playing him as someone who is so far divorced from reality that he actually seems to be genuinely offended when one of his victims tries to escape from the barn. Blossom plays Ezra as someone who alternates between being a violent madman and someone who has an almost childlike need for approval.

Ed Gein was one of the first serial killers to become national news and Deranged acknowledges this by featuring a newsman (Leslie Carlson) who not only serves as the film’s narrator but who also occasionally shows up in Gein’s farmhouse, speaking directly to the camera and explaining what was going on in Gein’s life at the time. It’s actually an effective technique, one that acknowledges the media obsession with the crimes of men like Ed Gein. That obsession, of course, led to movies, including Deranged. In many ways, Deranged’s use of the newsman is prophetic. It predicted a future in which the media would play their part into turning serial killers into almost mythological figures, sneaking their way through the more shadowy parts of American history.

Deranged is an effective film. For a long time, it was also believed to be a lost film. After the film’s 1974 run, all prints of the film disappeared. Fortunately, in the mid-90s, a copy was found in Florida and both the film and Roberts Blossoms’s performances got the reevaluation and appreciation that they deserved.

Horror Film Review: The Killer Must Kill Again (dir by Luigi Cozzi)

Posted on October 13, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In this twisty Italian thriller from 1975, George Hilton plays one of his signature roles. Hilton is cast as Giorgio Mainardi, a handsome and superficially charming man who is actually a soulless cad. Giorgio is a womanizer who is unhappily married to Norma (Tere Valazquez). Giorgio doesn’t love Norma but he does love her money and he’s eager to get his hands on it.

One night, after an argument with Norma, Giorgio goes for a late night drive so that he can call his mistress from an isolated phone booth. While Giorgio is making the call, he witnesses another man pushing his car into the nearby harbor. The man, who is simply identified as the Killer (Antoine Saint-John), is a serial rapist and murderer whose latest victim was in the car. Giorgio approaches the man and the two strike up an unlikely partnership. Giorgio agrees not to go to the police about what he saw if the Killer agrees to kill Norma for him.

A few days later, while Giorgio is at a party, the Killer drives out to Giorgio and Norma’s house. He breaks into the house and strangles Norma. He then places the body in the trunk of his car. The Killer goes back in the house to make sure that he hasn’t left anything behind. When he comes back outside, his car is gone. Realizing that his car has been stolen, with Norma’s body in the trunk, The Killer steals someone else’s car. Of course, in doing so, he sets off a car alarm and the police are called. By the time Giorgio returns home, both the Killer and the car are gone but the police are waiting for him with the news that Norma has apparently become the latest victim of Rome’s kidnapping epidemic!

(At the time this movie was made, Italy’s terroristic Red Brigades were regularly kidnapping anyone who was considered to be wealthy.)

The Killer’s car has been stolen by Luca (Alessio Orano) and his girlfriend, Laura (Cristina Galbo), who are driving to the beach. Of course, what they don’t know is that there’s a dead body in the trunk and that the Killer is tracking their every move. When they reach the beach, Laura soon finds herself fighting for her life when the Killer manages to track her and Luca down.

The Killer Must Kill Again starts out as a Hitchcock-inspired giallo, with the super-sleazy Giorgio hiring the Killer to kill his wife and apparently assuming that he’ll be able to outsmart anyone who investigates the case. However, once the Killer starts following Luca and Laura, it becomes a thriller with the Killer stalking the two clueless car thieves. Fortunately, director Luigi Cozzi is able to pull off the massive shift in tone without the story falling apart. Cozzi delivers a genuinely suspenseful film, one that will keep you guessing until the final moment. In much the same way that Brian De Palma was often criticized for his obvious love of Hitchcock, Cozzi has often been unfairly dismissed as just being an disciple of Dario Argento’s. But, with The Killer Must Kill Again, Cozzi brings his own unique spin to the giallo genre and shows himself to be a much stronger director than he was often given credit for being.

One final note: The Killer Must Kill Again features one of the scariest psycho killers that you’re ever likely to see. Antoine Saint-John is chilling as the nameless Killer. Later, he would give another excellent performance when he played the doomed painter in Lucio Fulci’s The Beyond.

Horror Film Review: The Mummy’s Curse (dir by Leslie Goodwins)

Posted on October 13, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

When last we checked in with Kharis the Mummy, he was running into a swamp in Massachusetts, carrying the reincarnation of Princess Ananka with him. Chasing after him were the standard towns people with torches and guns. It’s not a Universal horror film without angry villagers, even if the movie itself is taking place in Mapleton, Massachusetts.

Upon entering the swamp, both Kharis and Ananka sunk under the water, traumatizing Ananka’s boyfriend but apparently bringing Kharis’s reign of terror to an end.

Well, not so fast!

The 1944 film, The Mummy’s Curse, opens with the townspeople talking about how Kharis continues to haunt the old swamp, so much so that most of the locals refuse to work in the swamp. Oddly enough, though, the townspeople are suddenly a mix of Cajuns and gypsies. (The film even opens with a gypsy woman singing a song in a bar.) The swamp has now become a bayou. We are repeatedly told that the film is taking place in the same location as the previous Mummy films but suddenly, that location has changed from Massachusetts to Louisiana.

As for the plot of The Mummy’s Curse, it all centers around the swamp. The Southern Engineering Company (and that really doesn’t sound like a Massachusetts company) is draining the swamp. The locals are worried that draining the swamp will bring back the curse of the mummy. Two representatives from the Scripps Museum show up and announce that they want to search the drained swamp for the remains of the mummies. Dr. James Halsey (Dennis Moore) is typical of the archeologists who tend to show up in these Mummy films. Meanwhile, his associate is Dr. Ilzor Zandeeb (Peter Coe) who — surprise! — is that latest Egyptian high priest to come to America to try to recover the bodies of Kharis and Princess Ananka.

Ananka (Virginia Christie) is the first to emerge from the swamp, though she has no memory of who she is. When she is discovered on the side of the road by Prof. Halsey and his love interest, Betty (Kay Harding), they allow her to stay at their camp on the edge of the swamp. Everyone is really impressed by the fact that this amnesiac knows so much about ancient Egypt. Eventually, Kharis (Lon Chaney, Jr., again tightly wrapped in bandages) eventually emerges from the swamp as well, determined to protect Ananka.

The Mummy’s Curse was the final film to feature Lon Chaney, Jr. as Kharis. Unfortunately, it’s pretty forgettable and certainly not a satisfying conclusion to the story of one of Universal’s original monsters. A good deal of the film’s 60-minute running time is taking up with flashbacks to previous Mummy films and it seems like it takes forever for Kharis to actually get around to spreading the usual mummy mayhem. Though it may be too much to ask for too much continuity from these films, the sudden switch from Massachusetts to Lousiana is distracting for those of us who have actually invested the time to watch the previous Mummy films. One gets the feeling that, by the time this film went into production, no one involved really cared that much about poor Kharis and his never-ending mission to protect his princess.

Previous Universal Horror Reviews:

Horror Film Review: The Mummy’s Ghost (dir by Reginald Le Borg)

Posted on October 13, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

When we last checked in with Kharis the Mummy, he was trapped in the middle of an inferno in Massachusetts. Having come to America to kill the members of the expedition that discovered the Tomb of Ananka and who brought Princess Ananka’s body to the United States, Kharis (Lon Chaney, Jr.) was trapped by the citizens of the town of Mapleton who, in the best tradition of Universal horror, cornered Kharis in a house and then set the place on fire.

1944’s The Mummy’s Ghost begins with the revelation that Kharis did not die in that inferno. Somehow, he managed to escape and, rather improbably, he’s spent the last few years wandering around town without anyone ever noticing him. The film presents Kharis as being largely a nocturnal creature but, even if he is only coming out at night, it still seems strange that no one would notice a mummy wandering around, especially since the entire town was traumatized by Kharis’s previous reign of terror. As well, it’s also been established that Kharis owes his eternal life to an ancient Egyptian plant. One reason why Kharis has always needed a “minder” is because Kharis needed someone who could keep him supplied with the plant. So, if Kharis has been wandering around Massachusetts for the past few years, from where has he been getting the plant?

The Mummy’s Ghost also established that, in Egypt, High Priest Andoheb (Georg Zucco) is still alive. This is somewhat surprising, considering that Andoheb died in both The Mummy’s Hand and The Mummy’s Tomb. But no matter! Andoheb is apparently still alive. He’s really old and his hands shake but he’s still alive and he’s still determined to bring both Kharis and Princess Ananka back to Egypt. This time, he sends Yousef Bey (John Carradine) to Massachusetts.

Yusef Bey takes over managing Kharis and he’s even able to supply Kharis with more of the special plant the keeps him alive. However, Kharis grows upset when it discovers that Bey has tracked down the reincarnation of Ananka in the person of Amina (Ramsay Ames) and that, rather than return her safely to Egypt, Bey wants to give her eternal life with the help of the plant and then marry her. This leads to Kharis going on a rampage and carrying Amina into a nearby swamp while Amina’s boyfriend, Tom Hervey (Robert Lowery), chases after them.

Full of plot holes and inconsistencies, The Mummy’s Ghost is about as silly as a mummy film can be. If the previous films about Kharis managed to create a feeling of tragic inevitability as Kharis tracked down all of the people who had entered Ananka’s tomb, The Mummy’s Ghost presents Kharis as being something more akin to Frankenstein’s Monster, an inarticulate and easily frustrated creature who does things with little rhyme or reason. That said, the film does make good use of Lon Chaney Jr’s hulking physicality as Kharis. He’s still an intimidating figure when he goes after someone. And John Carradine’s pained expression as Yousef Bey is memorable as a reminder of how much Carradine disliked most of the Universal monster films in which he found himself. Otherwise, The Mummy’s Ghost is fairly forgettable.

Previous Universal Horror Reviews:

Horror on the Lens: Bride of the Monster (dir by Edward D. Wood, Jr.)

Posted on October 13, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Bride of The Monster (1955, dir by Ed Wood)

Today’s horror film on the lens is Edward D. Wood’s 1955 epic, Bride of the Monster.

(Much like Plan 9 From Outer Space, around here, it is a tradition to watch Bride of the Monster in October.)

The film itself doesn’t feature a bride but it does feature a monster, a giant octopus who guards the mansion of the mysterious Dr. Vornoff (Bela Lugosi). Vornoff and his hulking henchman Lobo (Tor Johnson) have been kidnapping men and using nuclear power to try to create a race of super soldiers. Or something like that. The plot has a make-it-up-as-you-go-along feel to it. That’s actually a huge part of the film’s appeal.

Bride of the Monster is regularly described as being one of the worst films ever made but I think that’s rather unfair. Appearing in his last speaking role, Lugosi actually gives a pretty good performance, bringing a wounded dignity to the role of Vornoff. If judged solely against other movies directed by Ed Wood, this is actually one of the best films ever made.

(For a longer review, click here!)

Horrific Insomnia File #62: Rollergator (dir by Donald G. Jackson)

Posted on October 13, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

What’s an Insomnia File? You know how some times you just can’t get any sleep and, at about three in the morning, you’ll find yourself watching whatever you can find on cable or streaming? This feature is all about those insomnia-inspired discoveries!

Last night, if you were having trouble getting to sleep, you could have logged onto Tubi and watched the 1996 film, Rollergator! Of course, you would have had to watch the Rifftraxx version but, trust me, that would have been for the best. There are some films that demand a certain amount of snarkiness in order to be survived and that’s certainly the case with Rollergator.

P.J. (Sandra Shuker) is a teenage girl who has just moved to Los Angeles. There’s not much to do so P.J. spends her time either hanging out at a local carnival or relaxing on the beach. It’s while she’s on the beach that she hears a voice calling out to her from a nearby cave. Of course, she enters the cave to see who is calling for her because, when you’re otherwise alone and only wearing a bikini, it would only make sense to wander into a strange and dangerous location just because a totally unfamiliar voice asks you to.

Anyway, the voice belongs to a purple alligator who is kind of obnoxious. The alligator can talk. He says that he’s just escaped from the carnival and now Chico Dennis (Joe Estevez) has sent out a mysterious ninja (Lisa Kaake) to bring him back. The alligator just wants to be reunited with his former owner, The Swamp Farmer (played by Conrad Brooks, who was a member of the Ed Wood stock company back in the 50s and the 60s). After giving the alligator a hard time about always being rude and sarcastic, PJ tosses him in her backpack and takes him to …. THE CARNIVAL! The alligator has a great time at the carnival until he and PJ run into Chico and the alligator realizes that they’re at the same carnival from which he previously escaped! How many carnivals are in Los Angeles?

Anyway, the majority of the movie is PJ rollerblading around Los Angeles with a talking alligator puppet in her backpack. The Dark Ninja pursues them on a skateboard but fortunately, a karate instructor (Bobbie Blackford) and a runaway named Slingshot (Jenette Lynne Hawkins) decide to help out PJ and the alligator. Occasionally, the alligator puppet raps but he’s not very good at it. Still, everyone loves the talking alligator. Oddly, no one ever questions the fact that the alligator can talk. Then again, no one manages to deliver their lines with the least bit of emotion, suggesting that everyone in Los Angeles is fairly blasé when it comes to talking alligators and skateboarding ninjas.

Rollergator is perhaps the only movie ever made about a rapping alligator and, watching it, it was kind of easy to see why there haven’t been any other movies featuring rapping alligators. This is one of those films that features an alligator puppet for the kids and a lead actress who spends the entire movie in either a bikini or a sports bra for the adult males watching the movie with the kids but what about the women — the underpaid babysitters and the extremely helpful aunts and the exhausted mothers — who would have, if the film had been successful, been forced to watch Rollergator over the years? The only thing we get is Joe Estevez, bulging his eyes and looking like Martin Sheen on meth. It doesn’t seem quite fair!

Anyway, did I mention that you could watch this if you were having trouble getting to sleep? Well, you definitely can but be warned, you may have Rollergator-inspired dreams as a result. Those are the risks you take.