Category Archives: Film Review

International Horror Film Review: Dr. Orloff’s Monster (dir by Jess Franco)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

This 1964 Spanish film takes place in Austria.

The notorious Dr. Orloff is dying.  Orloff was the lead character in director Jess Franco’s The Awful Dr. Orlof.  (The spelling of Orlof’s last name changes from film to film.)  In the first film, Orlof (played with maniacal relish by Howard Vernon) was a father driven mad by his daughter’s disfigurement.  With the help of his mute servant, he murdered women so that he could perform skin transplants in order to give his daughter back her beauty.  In Dr. Orloff’s Monster, Dr. Orloff is a more of a generic mad scientist and he is now played Javier de Rivera.  Knowing that his time is running out, Orloff passes along his secrets to one of his disciples, Dr. Conrad Jekyll (Marcelo Arroita-Jáuregui).

(In the dubbed American version of the film, Dr. Jekyll’s name is changed to Dr. Conrad Fisherman.)

Dr. Jekyll returns to his own remote Austrian castle.  He’s soon joined by his innocent niece Melissa (Agnes Spaak).  Melissa is searching for her father, Andros (played by Hugo Blanco).  What she doesn’t know is that Dr. Jekyll earlier caught Andros in bed with Jekyll’s wife, Inglud (Luisa Sala).  Jekyll murdered Andros.  This led to Inglud becoming an alcoholic.

However, thanks to the teachings of Dr. Orloff, Jekyll knows how to bring Andros back to life.  Unfortunately, the reanimated Andros is a hulking monster who Conrad uses to kill all of his former mistresses.  It turns out that Inglud wasn’t the only one who had trouble sticking to marriage vows.  Soon, Inspector Klein (Pastor Serrado) is investigating a growing number of nightclub-related murders.  Inspector Klein is also falling in love with Melissa, which has the potential to make things more than a bit awkward.

Dr. Orloff’s Monster (which is also known as The Mistresses of Dr. Jekyll) was Franco’s first sequel to The Awful Dr. Orlof and it was also the tenth film that was he was credited with directing.  (As Franco was a prolific filmmaker who used a huge amount of pseudonyms and whose films were often released under several different titles, we will probably never have a definite answer on how many films he actually directed over the course of his long career.)  Particularly when compared to Franco’s later films, Dr. Orloff’s Monster seems rather restrained.  As always with Franco, there’s a bit of nudity and an emphasis on murder but the violence is rather bloodless and the usual Franco perversions are hinted at without being explicitly shown.  Instead, with this film, Franco emphasizes atmosphere over shock.  The black-and-white cinematography creates the feel of a perfect noir, with Andros emerging from the shadows to attack his victims and then retreating back into the darkness.  This, along with a deliberate pace and Franco’s frequent use of close-ups, gives Dr. Orloff’s Monster the feeling of a languid but menacing dream.  With this film, Franco fills the screen with nightmarish ennui.

Unfortunately, the film suffers due to the absence of Franco’s usual villain, the great Howard Vernon.  Vernon always brought a hint of old world decadence to his performances and the rather bland Marcelo Arroita-Jáuregui is simply not as interesting as Dr. Jekyll.  Despite his death at the start of the film, Dr. Orloff would appear in other Franco films and, fortunately, Howard Vernon would return to play him.

A Blast From The Past: The Four Troublesome Heads (by Georges Melies)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

With the arrival of both October and our annual horrorthon, today’s Blast From The Past is here to help us get in the mood with some head action.

In this short film, director Georges Milies plays a magician who can remove his head.  Fear not!  When he removes his head, another head quickly appears on his shoulder.  Pretty soon, our magician has one head on his shoulders and three other heads chatting away on a table.  Everything’s fine until it’s discovered that, apparently, the heads aren’t very talented when it comes to singing.

Obviously, today, we know how camera tricks like this are done.  We tend to take them for granted.  But consider this, when watching The Four Troublesome Heads: this film was made in 1898.  At a time when the movies themselves seemed like an act of magic, Georges Melies was removing his head and then trying to perform a song.

Yes, this the same Georges Melies who was played by Ben Kingsley in Martin Scorsese’s Hugo.  That’s a great film, by the way.  It marks the only time that Christopher Lee appeared in a Scorsese film.  Go watch it, if you haven’t already.

What Lisa Marie Watched Last Night #223: Black Eagle (dir by Eric Karson)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last night, I watched the 1988 “action” film, Black Eagle!

Why Was I Watching It?

Last night, I watched Black Eagle as a part of the Monday Action Movie live tweet.  Going into the film, I knew that it starred Sho Kosugi and Jean-Claude Van Damme and that was enough for me.  As the film started, I was happy to see that it took place in Malta.  I spent the summer after I graduated from high school in Europe and I spent a few days visiting Malta, its museums, and especially its beaches.  I have good memories of the Malta days and especially the Malta nights.

What Was It About?

I’m not really sure what the film was about.  I watched all 100 minutes of it and, as far as I could tell, an American airplane crashed off the coast of Malta so the CIA brought in Ken Tani (Sho Kosugi) to dive into the sea and retrieve something important from the plane.  However, a Russian named Andrei (Jean-Claude Van Damme) also wanted whatever it was that was on the plane so he and his people ended up chasing Ken all over Malta, an island that I have visited.

Ken was also on vacation so, when he wasn’t killing people, he was hanging out with his two sons, Brian (Kane Kosugi) and Denny (Shane Kosugi).  The CIA helpfully sent along one of their agents, Patricia Parker (Doran Clark), and she acted a sort of nanny while Ken was busy fighting the Russians.  Also helping Ken was a Jesuit (Bruce French) who also happened to be an explosive expert.  I don’t think the Vatican would approve of a priest blowing up boats and building but everyone knows better than to argue with a Jesuit.

What Worked?

Jean-Claude Van Damme didn’t really do much in this movie but he still looked good and he got to do the splits a few times.  In fact, it was kind of funny to watch him actively search out any possible excuse to do a split.  I had a lot of fun imagining that Andrei only became an international spy so that he could show off his gymnastic abilities.  It’s too bad he missed out on Gymkata.

The Maltese scenery was lovely, even if the film itself was a bit grainy.  Have I mentioned that I’ve been to Malta?

What Did Not Work?

Oh, that Sho Kosugi.  He was great when he was fighting people and tossing them off of buildings but whenever he had to actually deliver dialogue and try to show emotion …. AGCK!  There’s a reason why Sho Kosugi’s most popular American films — Enter the Ninja, Ninja III: The Domination — feature him playing a villain.  Even when Kosugi was acting opposite his children, he seemed to be in a fairly bad mood.

At one point, Ken asked the priest how he became an expert in demolitions.  “Ever hear of a place called Vietnam,” the Jesuit replied and I groaned as I realized that Ken had made one of the biggest mistakes of his life.  If there’s one thing that I understand as a result of being raised Catholic, it’s that you never ask a Jesuit for his origin story unless you’ve got a few hours to kill.

To be honest, the film could have used even more scenes about Malta, a lovely place of which I have many good memories.

“Oh my God!  Just like me!” Moments

I’ve been to Malta.

Lessons Learned

Definitely go to Malta if you get a chance.

Horror Film Review: Child’s Play (dir by Tom Holland)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

A few months ago, I rewatched the original 1988 Child’s Play.

I have to say that I was surprised by just how well the film held up.  Today, of course, everyone knows about Chucky.  Everyone know that Chucky was originally Charles Lee Ray (Brad Dourif), a serial killer who was chased into a toy store by police detective Mike Norris (Chris Sarandon).  Knowing that he had little chance of escaping and not wanting to go to back to prison or face the electric chair, Charles Lee Ray performed a quick occult ceremony.  While lighting crashed all around the store, Charles transported his soul into a “Good Guy” doll.

That doll was later purchased by a hard-working, single mom named Karen Barclay (Catherine Hicks).  She gave the doll to her six year-old son, Andy (Alex Vincent).  There was nothing that Andy wanted more for his birthday than a talking Good Guy doll.  Unfortunately, Good Guy dolls were also very expensive and Karen wasn’t sure if she’d ever be able to afford to buy one.  But, when she ran into a homeless guy who happened to be selling stolen merchandise out of his shopping cart, Karen was able to make Andy’s birthday a happy one!  Andy unwrapped the doll and smiled as the doll introduced himself as being “Chucky” and asked if he wanted to play.

Unfortunately, it soon turned out that Charles Lee Ray wasn’t going to stop killing people just because he was now trapped inside the doll.  If anything, being trapped in the doll made Ray even more homicidal.  It makes sense if you think about it.  I’m sure that Charles Lee Ray didn’t realize that performing that voodoo curse would cause him to wake up as a plastic toy wearing overalls and being expected to be a 6 year-old’s best friend.

Anyway, Chucky went on a rampage, killed several people, and everyone blamed Andy.  Not even Karen believed Andy when Andy explained that Chucky was the one killing people with toy hammers and blowing up houses.  Or, at least, Karen didn’t believe Andy until she herself was attacked by Chucky.  With Chucky freaking out about the prospect of being stuck in the doll’s body for the rest of his existence and wanting to possess his new owner instead, Karen and Mike teamed up to protect Andy from the world’s worst birthday present.

To be honest, Child’s Play shouldn’t work as well as it does.  The story is ludicrous, even by the standards of late 80s horror.  There’s no way that a doll should be able to do things like throw a hammer with enough force to send someone flying out of a window.  (Making the scene even stranger is the fact that it’s not even a real hammer but instead a little plastic Good Guy hammer.)  And yet, the film does work and not just as an example of nostalgic camp.  This is a scary and emotionally effective story, even if you already know the truth about Chucky.  It helps that Alex Vincent gives a totally natural, uncutesy performance as Andy.  Your heart really breaks for him as he begs the adults in his life to understand that it’s Chucky who is doing all of the bad things and not him.  As well, Catherine Hicks deserves a lot of credit for taking her role seriously.  And finally, the great Brad Dourif does wonders with just his voice.  At first, it’s undeniably funny to hear his angry voice coming out of Chucky but Dourif delivers his lines with such unhinged conviction that it’s actually rather frightening when he suddenly drops the act and starts cursing out Karen.  After all of the sequels and the subsequent television shows, Chucky himself has become a bit of a pop cultural icon.  He’s almost as lovable as Freddy and Jason combined.  But in the first Child’s Play, that doll is seriously scary.  He may be small but he has the energy and ruthlessness of a feral beast.  When he attacks, you have no doubt that he’s not going to stop until he’s gotten what he wants and what he wants is usually for someone to die.

The first Child’s Play earns its status as a horror classic by being surprisingly scary and also surprisingly emotional.  You really do end up caring about Karen and Andy.  When Karen finally went after that smug, murderous doll, I definitely cheered a little.  Take that, Chucky!

The Sky, Review by Case Wright (Dir. Matt Sears)

Posted on by casewright

Matt Sears only creates shorts, therefore, I am primed to like this creator. The Sky takes the Alien invasion/destruction genre and compresses it to two ordinary friends who are going to watch it end. The short brushed up a little too close to the Cardinal Sin of making a pitch masquerading as a short. I do give him a pass on this because it did deliver on the apocalypse.

Ellie and Victoria are old friends who are salt of the earth archetypes. Ellie has a string of boyfriends and is on the outs with her mom. Victoria doesn’t want to die alone. They decide to drink the British version of Two Buck Chuck, do shrooms, and watch it all end. Ellie’s mom tries to reconnect with her for the final moments, but she is on a pier somewhere not nearby. It is revealed that somehow Victoria contrived to prevent Ellie from spending the end of the world with her instead of having a reconciliation during this lovely Gotterdammerung.

Ellie leaves Victoria to die alone as she is hallucinating on shrooms. We are not sure whether or not she actually sees her mother, but we do see them both die. This film was made during COVID; so, it has an out with a whimper feel to it. I have not seen Matt Sears’ other shorts, but this is a Stephen King style story-telling- regular people who have to live with a monster in the basement- i.e. it’s never about the monster, it’s about how ordinary people live with a monster.

It reminds me of the song Veronica. It’s not about the Alzheimer’s; no, it’s about how loved she was that a man left everything to help the love of his life- die. Here, there’s no hope, but humanity continues.
So yes, I approve.

Horror on the Lens: A Cold Night’s Death (dir by Jerrold Freedman)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

For today’s Horror on the Lens, we have a made-for-TV movie from 1973.  As you can tell from the video below, it originally aired as a part of ABC’s Tuesday Night At The Movies so it’s only appropriate that we are also sharing it on Tuesday.

A Cold Night’s Death tells the story of two scientists (Eli Wallach and Robert Culp) who are sent to a remote research station to investigate the apparent disappearance of another scientist.  They soon come to suspect that they may not be alone and soon, paranoia rears its ugly head.  With its frozen landscape and its ominous atmosphere, this movie feels like a distant cousin to John Carpenter’s The Thing.

Enjoy!

October Positivity: Early Warning (dir by David R. Elliott)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

First released in 1981, Early Warning opens with a shot of a crowded, polluted city.  On the soundtrack, we hear the voices of newscasters.  The world is tottering on the brink of war.  Gas prices are skyrocketing.  Inflation is rising.  People are losing their jobs and their homes and many of them are having to skip meals in order to have enough food to last through the week.  Riots are breaking out across America.  Crime is running rampant.  The rich are getting richer.  The poor are getting poorer.  The President is a doddering old fool who sounds incapable of bringing America together.

Wow, that all certainly sounds familiar!  It’s tempting to say that Early Warning predicted the state of the world in 2022.  However, the truth of the matter is that the movie was made at the tail end of the Carter years and, as we all know, history tends to repeat itself.

Early Warning makes the argument that all of the problems in the world are due to the …. are you ready for this? …. One World Foundation.  (The One World Foundation could have picked a less obviously evil name.)  Led by Alexander Stonefield (Joe Chapman), The One World Foundation manipulates humanity by raising prices, destroying cities, and causing natural disasters.  They have a plan to start a nuclear war, by encouraging countries to invade one another and then supplying nuclear weapons to both sides.  They’ve decided that the best way to control humanity is to assign everyone a number and to…. okay, well, you know where this is going, don’t you?  Yes, this is one of those movies.  Before Left Behind, there was Early Warning!

The One World Foundation may be able to manipulate the world but their security sucks because a reporter manages to sneak into their headquarters and record a meeting where Stonefield explains, in exacting detail, everything that he’s planning on doing.  (You have to wonder why Stonefield even felt the need to have that meeting.)  The reporter is caught by a group of silly-looking guards who all wear white knee socks and tap shoes.  He’s killed but not before he put the recording in a mail box.  That’s putting a lot of trust in the U.S. Postal Service but whatever.

Another journalist, Sam Jensen (Christopher Wynne), teams up with a religious activist named Jenny Marshall (Delana Michaels) and soon, they’re doing their own investigation.  It turns out that the One World Foundation is going to have yet another meeting, this one at a hotel in the middle of the desert.  While Sam and Jenny try to uncover the truth, they fall in love but, unfortunately, Sam’s not a believer.  Can this be fixed before Sam is gunned down by a mysterious, helicopter-riding assassin known as The Cobra?

Early Warning is a bit of an odd film.  Jenny is often inappropriately cheerful, even when she’s got guards in knee socks trying to kill her.  Sam is a remarkably whiny hero.  There’s a strange sequence in which Sam and Jenny stumble across a survivalist compound in the middle of the desert and one of the survivalists is played by none other than George “Buck” Flower.  But perhaps the strangest thing about the movie just how low-rent and incompetent the One World Foundation is.  For an organization that can drive countries to war and wipe out someone’s savings just by pushing one button, One World has a remarkably difficult time tracking down two people.

(Of course, that’s always been my issue with most conspiracy theories.  It’s hard for me to buy that a group could be competent enough to control the world while also being too incompetent to properly cover up their activity.)

Early Warning is an early example of an evangelical end-of-the-world thriller.  One gets the feeling that the filmmakers were probably inspired by the then-recent success of The Omen films.  The budget was obviously low but that often works to the film’s advantage.  The grainy images feel appropriate for a movie about paranoia.  What doesn’t work to the film’s advantage are the stilted performances and a screenplay that can never decide whether it wants to primarily thrill the audience or primarily preach at them.  Still, to me, it’s interesting as an early example of a cinematic genre that, even if it doesn’t get much publicity, is still going strong.  It’s also interesting to see that, in 1981, people were just as quick to say the world was ending as they are in 2022.  The world appears to have been ending for a while now.

The TSL’s Horror Grindhouse: The Bunker Game (dir by Robert Zazzara)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The Bunker Game, which made its debut on Shudder earlier this year, opens with what appears to be a bit of alternate history worldmaking.   The viewer watches a black-and-white documentary that presents a world in which the Nazis conquered Europe during World War II but, ten years after Germany’s victory, the United States dropped an atomic bomb.  As a result, Europe is now an atomic wasteland.  A handful of survivors managed to find shelter in Italy, hiding out and forming a new society in an underground bunker that was built by Mussolini in the 30s.  The underground society is an authoritarian one, where mad scientists experiment on the citizens and storm troopers seem to be around every corner.  However, there is a small rebellion brewing….

Sounds potentially interesting, right?  Well, don’t get too attached to the alternative history spin because, within the first few minutes of the film, it’s revealed that the people in the bunker aren’t actually citizens of an authoritarian state and, while the Bunker is indeed real, the rest of Europe is just fine.  It turns out that documentary was just a part of an elaborate and very expensive game.  Instead of being the last refuge of the Third Reich, the Bunker is full of LARPers, people who have spent a good deal of money so that they can spend a week pretending to be …. well, Nazis.

Now again, this sounds like it could be potentially interesting.  Why would a group of people pay money in order to enter a real underground bunker and pretend to be some of the most evil people who have ever existed?  It’s an intriguing premise but, just as with the alternate history angle, don’t get to attached to it because it doesn’t take long for the film to abandon the whole LARPing plot.

Instead, unforeseen circumstances lead to the game ending early and most of the LARPers heading home. The Bunker Game proceeds to tell a fairly standard story about a handful of people who find themselves isolated in the now-deserted Bunker.  When one of their friends disappears, they split up to search for him and soon, some sort of supernatural force is killing them one-by-one.  The group is made up of identifiable types.  One person is quirky.  Another person is serious and professional.  Another is a stereotypical zoomer.  Another one is too uptight and obviously destined to go crazy before the movie is over.  For the most part, the film focuses on Laura (Gaia Weiss) and her cousin, Harry (Mark Ryder).  Harry is determined to leave the Bunker and never again deal with any LARPers.  Laura, meanwhile, finds herself strangely drawn to the Bunker, even once it becomes obvious that something is killing all of her friends.  Harry cannot understand why Laura would want to be part of the Bunker Game in the first place.  Laura cannot understand why anyone would want to live in the real world.  Most viewers will probably be able to guess where this is all going.

That said, The Bunker Game gets the job done.  The underground bunker is a wonderfully creepy setting and, even if they are playing types, the cast still does their best to bring their characters to life.  (Of course, all of them are playing characters who spent a lot of money so that they could pretend to be Nazis so, well-acted or not, most viewers will have limited sympathy for them.)  Though it’s hard not to regret that the film didn’t do more with its potentially interesting plot, director Roberto Zazzara does a good job of creating and maintaining a properly ominous atmosphere.  For what it is, The Bunker Game works well enough.  One can regret that it’s not thematically challenging while also acknowledging that, whatever flaws the narrative may have, the film still gets the job done.  Those who are just looking for a well-made horror film and who aren’t necessarily concerned with whether or not the plot makes total sense will probably enjoy The Bunker Game.

FWD, Review By Case Wright

Posted on by casewright

There are times when a writer/director knows that he has made something pretty bad. I had to write in “FWD” above because the writer/director didn’t bother to make a poster of any kind. I’d probably hide my involvement.

The story has an email chain letter that was common in 1999 and the main character did not forward it; so, she’s been marked for death. I did like the touches of the antiquated email and the large monitor to tell me – this is from simpler times and this film was done by someone who is creatively simple.

It was a painful ripoff of Scream and I did not like that. I remember Scream when I was a youth and just because you found an old monitor doesn’t mean that you can build a short around it. The actresses’ talents here were wasted.

Sometimes people create when they should just binge Netflix and leave the rest of us Normals alone. I encourage you to watch this terrible short because we all know what you did to deserve it.

Invasion of the Pod People (2007, directed by Justin Jones)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

One day, someone said, “Why don’t we remake Invasion of the Body Snatchers but instead of having the pod people act emotionless, we’ll have them turn into predatory lesbians?”

Of course, the movie went straight into production.

Erica Roby plays Melissa, who works for a PR firm in Los Angeles.  After a meteorite shower, she starts to notice that the people at work and in her apartment complex are all getting strange new ginger root plants and they are all starting to act out-of-character.  For example, Melissa’s formerly bitchy boss, Samantha (Jessica Bork), suddenly wants to make out all the time.  Meanwhile, the husband of one of Melissa’s clients break into Melissa’s apartment, says that his wife has been replaced, and then shoots himself.  It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the body snatchers have once again arrived on Earth and that they’re replacing humans with doppelgangers.  (The main difference is that the body snatchers waited for their victims to fall asleep while the doppelgangers just hatch from the plant and beat whoever it is that they are replacing to death.)  Melissa and her co-worker, Billie (Danae Nason), team up with Detective Alexander (Marat Glazer) to track down where the plants are coming from and destroy them.  It’s a Body Snatcher film so don’t expect a happy ending.

Actually, the idea of doing a softcore version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers seems like such an obvious one that I’m surprised that no one did it until 2007.  In everything from its visual look to its dialogue to its attitude towards sexuality, Invasion of the Pod People feels like the sort of film that used to show up on late night Cinemax during the 90s.  The 90s version, though, would have had Shannon Tweed and Andrew Stevens and that would have been an improvement on the people who are starring in the version that was actually released.  Invasion of the Pod People had potential to be a guilty pleasure but the visual style is so flat and unappealing and the soundtrack is so muddy that the movie feels much longer than just 85 minutes.  With a little fine-tuning and a more invested cast, Invasion of the Pod People could have been a Skinemax classic but it was just released ten years too late.