Horror Film Review: Angel Heart (dir by Alan Parker)

Posted on October 29, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

First released in 1987 and set in 1955, Angel Heart tells the story of Harry Angel (Mickey Rourke).

With a name like Harry Angel, it’s perhaps not surprising that Harry is a private investigator. Harry operates out of New York. He’s got a shabby apartment. He wears wrinkled clothes. He rarely shaves. He smokes almost constantly. (In a rare moment of comedy, the camera catches Harry blithely emptying a full ashtray in the middle of the street.) Harry looks like he reeks of tobacco, beer, sweat, and lost dreams. And yet, it’s difficult not to like Harry. He’s got a charming smile, even if his face is often bruised from his latest beating. He speaks in a low whisper and it’s hard not to get the feeling that Harry is actually kind of shy. He’s incredibly sleazy but there’s something about him that just makes the viewer want to take care of him.

Harry is hired by a mysterious man named Louis Cyphere (Robert De Niro, cheerfully overacting). Louis wants Harry to track down a singer named Johnny Favor. As Cyphere explains it, he did a favor for Johnny and Johnny has yet to pay Cyphere what he owes. Johnny has been suffering from PTSD ever since he served in World War II. When last seen, Johnny was receiving electroshock treatment in an upstate hospital.

Harry’s search for Johnny leads him into an increasingly complex and disturbing conspiracy. He meets a doctor who is addicted to morphine and, when the doctor turns up dead, Harry coolly uses the dead man’s shoe to light his match. Eventually, Harry’s investigation leads him to New Orleans, where he meets both Johnny’s wife (Charlotte Rampling) and Johnny’s unacknowledged daughter, Epiphany (Lisa Bonet). As Harry searches for Johnny, he deals with strange visions of his own mysterious past. He sees himself wandering around Times Square shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Harry also finds himself having to deal with the fact that almost everyone that he talks to ends up being brutally murdered. Every time that Harry tries to quit the case, Cyphere offers him more money. (Cyphere tends to show up whenever Harry finds himself on the verge of abandoning his search.)

Angel Heart moves at its own deliberate pace. In fact, the first hour can feel a bit slow but that first hour definitely pays off during the second half of the film. By the time that Harry starts to truly uncover what has happened to Johnny, the audience actually cares about Harry and is actually worried about what’s going to happen to him when he reaches the end of the case. Mickey Rourke was (and is) an eccentric actor but he’s at his most effective in Angel Heart. A lesser actor would have just played Harry as being a typical hardboiled detective. Rourke plays Harry as being a lost soul, a vulnerable man who is often as confused and scared as the people that he’s looking for. By the end of the film, Harry realizes that the answer to the mystery was right in front of them and his look of despair is surprisingly powerful. If De Niro gives a good performance that is almost totally on the surface, Rourke gives the type of performance that allows the audience to explore what’s going on beneath the surface of a character who many would initially view as being a cliché. Mickey Rourke’s Harry Angel is right up there with Bogart’s Sam Spade and Jack Nicholson’s Jake Gittes. He’s a familiar character who also seems to be a human being.

Full of sex, violence, and increasingly disturbing imagery, Angel Heart is not for everyone. Alan Parker’s direction emphasizes the darkness of Harry’s world and the bleakness of his situation. The film ends with a twist that may not be totally unexpected but which is still undeniably disturbing. The more you think about it, the most disturbing it gets. Angel Heart is an atmospheric and intelligent chiller. It’s existential horror at its most nightmarish.

The TSL’s Horror Grindhouse: Teenage Caveman (dir by Roger Corman)

Posted on October 29, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Who is the Teenage Caveman?

Believe it or not, he’s Robert Vaughn. Vaughn, who would later go on to appear in The Magnificent Seven, The Man From UNCLE, Bullitt, The Towering Inferno, and Hustle, was 26 years old when he played a nameless caveman in Roger Corman’s 1958 film, Teenage Caveman. At the age of 26, Vaughn looked like he was closer to 35 and he certainly didn’t resemble a teenager. Despite wearing a loin cloth, he also didn’t appear to be a caveman. If he was a caveman than he was certainly a well-groomed caveman and perhaps the only caveman to understand how to use hairspray. Seriously, his hair is perfect in this film.

As for the film itself, it’s about a primitive tribe of people who live in a rocky wasteland. However, just across the river, there’s a land that’s full of plants and animals. It would obviously be a much better place to live and Vaughn’s teenage caveman is totally annoyed that the older folks on the tribe refuse to cross the river. They claim that a monster lives in the river and that it will kill anyone who tries to cross. Being a rebellious teenager, Vaughn decides to cross the river anyway. He convinces a group of friends to go with him. When they reach the river, they meet and fight the monster and they also discover that the monster was doing more than just guarding the river. It all leads to a plot twist that feels as if it was added at the last possible second.

In a later interview, Robert Vaughn referred to Teenage Caveman as being the worst film in which he ever appeared. He went on to suggest that it was the worst film ever made. Those are bold words coming from someone who appeared in as many bad films as Robert Vaughn did. That said, I do think that Vaughn was being a bit too hard on Teenage Caveman. For what it is — an extremely low-budget film that barely runs over an hour — Teenage Caveman is entertaining if you’re in the right mood for it. It’s hard not to smile at the cavepeople, with their modern haircuts and their very American accents. As well, the film features the same stock footage of dinosaurs fighting that appeared in countless other B-movies of the time and, again, it’s hard not to smile at the actors valiantly trying to pretend that there are dinosaurs fighting just a few feet away from them. And while that final plot twist may come out of nowhere, it’s just random enough to be interesting. Worst film of all time? With all respect to the teenage caveman, I have to disagree. It’s a B-movie and, if you enjoy B-movies, you’ll enjoy this one. And let’s give some credit to Robert Vaughn. He gives an earnest performance, even though he later said that he felt foolish every time he stepped out on the set. Add to that, his hair is perfect.

Claws (1977, directed by Richard Bansbach and Robert E. Pearson)

Posted on October 29, 2022 by Jedadiah Leland

After a group of hunters wound a grizzly bear in Alaska, the bear mauls a logger named Jason Monroe (Jason Evers). Both the bear and Jason survive their initial meeting. For the next six years, the bear attacks people in the woods and Jason tries to move on from his experience. The indigenous people call the grizzly, “Satan Bear” and it seems like no one can stop it. But when Satan Bear dares to attack a group of boy scouts (including Jason’s son), Jason decides that it’s time to enter the woods and track down the bear.

Claws is like Jaws except the monster has claws. Actually, despite the similarity of their names, Claws isn’t really a rip-off of Jaws as much as it’s a rip-off of Grizzly, which was a rip-off of Jaws. Claws is a rip-off of a rip-off, complete with the all the usual characters who appear in revenge of nature films. Jason is the grizzled hunter. There’s an idealistic college student who knows all about bears. There’s a wise old native man who talks about spirit animals. What sets Claws apart from both Jaws and Grizzly is its heavy use of badly tinted stock footage and all of the flashbacks. The movie starts with a group of hunters shooting at two bears but it’s obvious that the actors playing the hunters were nowhere near the two bears that are featured in the stock footage. The flashbacks are used to fill in everyone’s backstory but none of them have anything to do with the bear so I’m not sure what the point of them was supposed to be. The movie would not be exciting even if it only focused on the bear attacks but adding all those dull flashbacks transforms Claws from being merely mediocre to a real challenge to sit through.

Claws was a flop when it was first released but, a year later, it found success when it was rereleased and retitled Grizzly 2. I guess the film’s distributor figured that they should just go ahead and admit it.

International Horror Review: The Werewolf and the Yeti (dir by Miguel Iglesias Bonns)

Posted on October 29, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This 1975 Spanish film is known by several titles. In Spain, it was called La Maldicion De La Bestia. In some other European countries, it was released as either Night of the Howling Beast or Hall of the Mountain King. In the United States, it was released under the title The Werewolf and the Yeti.

Regardless of which title you see the film under, this is the eighth of 12 films in which Paul Naschy starred as Waldemar Danisky. Waldemar was a Polish nobleman who, in film after film, transformed into a werewolf so that he could battle some other monster. What set the Danisky films apart from other horror franchises is that each film was totally unrelated to the one that came before it. Every film featured Danisky getting transformed into a werewolf for the first time and the majority of them ended with Danisky dying. Even though Naschy was playing the same character, each film seemed to take place in a separate universe. Apparently, regardless of the reality that he found himself in, Danisky was always destined to become a werewolf. Talk about rotten luck!

Despite their bizarre lack of continuity, Naschy’s werewolf films were popular across Europe and, to a lesser extent the United States. Of course, in America and the UK, they were only released in badly dubbed versions. Indeed, the plot was often changed during dubbing depending on where the film was set to be released. As a result, it’s difficult to fairly judge both Naschy and his films. Paul Naschy had a definite physical presence but it’s rare that anyone ever heard his real voice. In most of the Danisky films that I’ve seen, Naschy seems to play Danisky as if he is in a permanently bad mood. But, I guess if your entire existence revolved around getting turned into a werewolf every year or so, you’d be in a bad mood too.

In this film, Waldemar Danisky is an explorer who is romantically involved with the daughter of Professor Lacombe (Josep Castillo Escalona). Lacombe is planning on leading an expedition into the Himalayas, despite the presence of pirates, warlords, and Yeti! Danisky warns Lacombe against attempting it but, in the end, he still agrees to serve as the expedition’s guide. Unfortunately, this film’s version of Waldemar Danisky isn’t very good at his job and he soon gets separated from the expedition. The professor and his daughter are captured by a group of mountain pirates who torture them and make plans to sell them into slavery. Meanwhile, Danisky stumbles across a cave that is inhabited by two women who also happen to be …. WEREWOLVES! It’s not long before Danisky gets bitten and finds himself transformed into a werewolf. He uses his new werewolf powers to kill the women in the cave and then he heads off to rescue the professor. It’s a good thing that Waldemar’s a werewolf because it turns out that the pirates have a …. YETI!

Yes, this is a weird and incoherent film. Of course, that’s the main reason why it’s hard not to enjoy this silly little film. It’s quickly paced and, like many of Naschy’s film, it operates on its own strain of dream logic. The most interesting thing about the film is that no one is particularly shocked to discover that Waldemar Danisky has been transformed into a werewolf and Danisky himself seems to accept it as having been inevitable. One gets the feeling that the expedition watched a few Paul Naschy films before heading to the Himalayas and, as a result, they knew exactly what to expect. As I mentioned above, it’s hard to judge Naschy as an actor because his films were so poorly dubbed. But, you can judge him as a werewolf and he really puts his heart into fighting that Yeti. Waldemar Danisky is the werewolf that you want on your side.

¡Viva Naschy!

Horror Film Review: Attack of the Puppet People (dir by Bert I. Gordon)

Posted on October 29, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

At the start of the 1958 film, Attack of the Puppet People, Sally Reynolds (June Kenney) is looking for a job. Fortunately, Dolls, Inc. is hiring! Dolls, Inc. is owned by Prof. Franz (John Hoyt), who is the world’s greatest dollmaker. In fact, he’s got an entire display case full of very lifelike dolls. Why, the dolls are so authentic that it almost seems as if they could be alive. Is it possible that Franz had been shrinking people and then sticking them in his display case?

It’s not only possible but it’s also exactly what Franz has been doing.

Soon, Sally and her boyfriend, Bob (John Agar), have been shrunk down to dollsize and are living with the other dolls in the display case. It turns out that Prof. Franz’s motives aren’t really malicious. He just tends to get lonely and he’s decided that they best way to keep people around is to shrink them and then imprison them. Fortunately, getting shrunk doesn’t seem to lead to any health complications or anything like that. It just means that you’re now very small and vulnerable to dogs and cats.

Franz even allows the dolls to come out of the display case at night. Much like the toys from Toy Story, the Doll People throw a party every night and pretend to just be inanimate objects whenever anyone steps into the store. That said, the puppet people don’t necessarily want to spend the rest of their lives on display. Can they figure out how to escape from the store and how to reverse the shrinking process?

It’s a pretty silly film but then again, what else would you expect from something called Attack of the Puppet People? There are a few amusing scenes where the puppet people have to deal with maneuvering around and dealing with giant furniture and, at one point, a really big door knob. And, of course, there’s the inevitable scene in which a curious dog spots two of the puppet people trying to make their escape. It’s a 50 B-movie, dumb but undeniably fun. John Hoyt appears to be having a lot of fun as the doll-loving mad scientist and John Agar is his usual stolid but oddly likable self.

Attack of the Puppet People was directed by Bert I. Gordon, who also did The Amazing Colossal Man and War of the Colossal Beast. (At one point, Bob and Sally got to a drive-in that’s show The Amazing Colossal Man and Gordon shares a few minutes of his previous film.) Gordon specialized in films about giant lizards, giant insects, giant ants and sometimes even giant people. In fact, his nickname was “Mr. Big,” both because of his initials and the subject matter of his films. Attack of the Puppet People is a unique Gordon film in that it deals with shrinking instead of growing. It’s also one of his more entertaining films. Bert I. Gordon, incidentally, is still with us. He turned 100 years old on September 24th.

Horror On The Lens: House On Haunted Hill (dir by William Castle)

Posted on October 29, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The original The House on Haunted Hill is a classic and one that we make it a point to share every Halloween. And since October is nearly over, now seems like the perfect time to do so!

Be sure to check out Gary’s review by clicking here!

Enjoy Vincent Price at his best!

Guilty Pleasure No. 59: Teen Wolf (dir by Rod Daniel)

Posted on October 29, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

First released in 1985, Teen Wolf is a bit of an odd film.

Michael J. Fox is Scott Howard, a 17 year-old high student in Nebraska. There’s nothing special about Scott. He plays on the school’s lousy basketball team. He has a crush on the most popular girl in school, even though she barely seems to know that he’s alive. He’s completely oblivious to the fact that his lifelong best friend, Boof (Susan Ursitti), is totally crushing on him. His parents are clueless to Scott’s angst. Maybe the only thing that Scott has going for him is that he is friends with the coolest kid in school, Stiles (Jerry Levine). How cool is Stiles? He’s so cool that his name is Stiles! Actually, to be hones, Stiles seems just as dorky as Scott but this is an 80s film so who am I to argue with the film’s argument that everyone wants to hang out with Stiles?

Then, one night, Scott discovers that he has inherited the family “curse.” He’s a werewolf! But, on the plus side, he’s a really popular werewolf. Everyone at school loves the werewolf. The popular girls want to date the werewolf. Everyone loves seeing the werewolf van surfing. And, even more importantly, the werewolf is really good at basketball! It’s weird because the Werewolf is just as short as Scott was but apparently, being a wolf makes you good at basketball. You have to wonder why the other teams wouldn’t protest having to play against a werewolf. I would be worried that the werewolf would get mad if it missed a shot and kill everyone on the court.

Anyway, Scott is popular but he soon learns that popularity is empty, regardless of whether you’re a werewolf or not. He also realizes the Boof is the girl that he should be going out with but Boof only wants to date Scott. She doesn’t want to date the werewolf. Will Scott find the courage to go to the school dance as himself?

This is a pretty stupid movie but Michael J. Fox brings a lot of heart to the role of Scott and his romance with Boof (who really needs a better nickname) is actually rather sweet. The highlight of the film are Scott’s interaction with his supportive but nerdy father (played by James Hampton). There are a lot jokes that fall flat and the plot never makes much sense but the film itself so amiably dumb that it’s hard not to kind of like it. That said, don’t ever try to surf on top of the van. Werewolf or not, that looks dangerous!

Previous Guilty Pleasures

Blast From The Past: The Mermaid (dir by Georges Méliès)

Posted on October 29, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

For today’s blast from the past, we have another dream film from Georges Méliès. In this film, a man (played by the director) appears to dream of a mermaid. This film is from 1904 and, 118 years later, it’s still a charmingly surreal vignette. Georges Méliès reveals himself to be not only a dreamer but a pioneer of the type of special effects that we today take for granted.

Insomnia File #57: Boris Karloff: The Man Behind The Monster (dir by Thomas Hamilton)

Posted on October 29, 2022 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 Netflix? This feature is all about those insomnia-inspired discoveries!

Ah, the mystery of Boris Karloff.

On screen, Karloff was a horror icon. He brought Frankenstein’s Monster to life and influenced generations of actors and horror filmmakers. He was also the Mummy and the first actor to play Sax Rohmer’s international criminal, Fu Manchu and, of course, he won over a whole new generation as narrator of How The Grinch Stole Christmas. Over the course of his long career, Karloff appeared in movies both good and bad. He worked for Mario Bava and Roger Corman and James Whale and Peter Bogdanovich. He was also the host of Thriller, a much-beloved horror anthology series. At the height of his fame, he was often credited by just his last name. Everyone knew who Boris Karloff was.

Off screen, Boris Karloff was a quiet and rather dignified gentleman, one who was widely considered to be one of the kindest and most generous men in Hollywood. Born William Henry Pratt, Karloff’s father was a diplomat and his family assumed that he would follow their career. Instead, William Henry Pratt immigrated first to Canada and then to California and transformed himself into Boris Karloff.

Boris Karloff: The Man Behind The Monster is a documentary that both explores the mysteries of Karloff’s life and also pays tribute to him as an actor. It attempts to answer the question of how such a kindly man could also be responsible for some of the greatest moments in horror. Full of archival footage and interviews with those who worked with Karloff and also those who were influenced by his films (like Guillermo del Toro), the film presents a portrait of a talented actor who was as expressive onscreen as he was somewhat withdrawn in real life. For Karloff, his roles became a way to escape from the troubles of the real world. As the film makes clear, Karloff didn’t start his career planning to eventually become a horror actor and, occasionally, he did chafe a bit at being typecast. However, regardless of what role he was playing, Karloff always gave it his best. He may have appeared in some bad films but he never gave a bad performance. The film not only includes clips from his films but also an examination of what made his performances so special. The analysis of Frankenstein, The Mummy, The Terror, and Targets is especially interesting.

If you’re a fan of horror, this documentary is for you. It’s currently available on Shudder.

Previous Insomnia Files:

October Positivity: The Healing (dir by Russell S. Doughten, Jr.)

Posted on October 28, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1983 film, The Healing, tells the story of Dr. John Lucas (played by Brian Jones).

Dr. Lucas has a bright future ahead of him. He’s a successful and popular doctor in Des Moines. He’s making a good deal of money. He’s socially well-connected. He enjoys playing golf every weekend. Unfortunately, he also tends to neglect his wife and son. His wife continually reminds Dr. Lucas that he was originally planning on becoming a doctor so that he could honor God. But now Lucas has gotten materialistic and callous. Lucas laughs off her concerns until, one day, Lucas is interrupted at the country club by a phone call informing him that his wife and son have both been killed in a car accident.

Sinking into despair, Dr. Lucas starts to drink. Soon, he’s such an alcoholic that he has lost his job and his place in society. With the exception of his fellow alcoholics, no one wants anything to do with Lucas. Lucas is prepared to drink the rest of his life away but then, he sees an elderly homeless man having a medical emergency. His natural instincts kick in and Dr. Lucas saves the man’s life and takes him down to the local shelter. At the shelter, Lucas agrees to act as a doctor on the condition that no one push any religious stuff on him. Following another tragedy, Lucas regains his faith. However, his new-found idealism is put to the test when a junkie shows up at the clinic, carrying a switchblade and demanding a fix….

The Healing is another low-budget faith-based film from director Russell Doughten, Jr. Doughten, who started out his film career working on 1958’s The Blob, directed several independent Christian films towards the end of his career. This month, we’ve previously taken a look at Nite Song, Face in the Mirror, and Brother Enemy. Like those films, The Healing was filmed on the streets of Des Moines, Iowa. If nothing else, Doughten’s films served as a reminder that “urban” problems were not just limited to cities like New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. Instead, homelessness and crime were problems that afflicted every city, even the seemingly quite ones sitting in the middle of the country. Unfortunately, The Healing often portrays the homeless as being plot devices as opposed to actual human beings. In particular, one older gentleman’s only role in the film is to provide Lucas with some advice before promptly dying.

The Healing is achingly sincere in its desire to try to make the world a better, there’s no denying that. Unfortunately, the film’s execution doesn’t always match its high ideals. Brian Jones does a good of turning Dr. Lucas into a sympathetic character but the rest of the cast seems to the struggle with their underwritten characters. The scenes featuring Dr. Lucas and the junkie also feel a bit rushed, as if the film itself was in a hurry to wrap things up. As such, the conclusion of the junkie storyline never feels authentic and since the end of that storyline is also the end of the film, it casts a pall over the entire film.

Personally, as a history nerd, I’m glad that Doughten captured what Des Moines looked like in the early 80s. If I ever find myself in Des Moines, I’ll compare the modern city to the 1983 version. The film has its strengths but ultimately, it’s a bit too uneven to really work.