Dario Argento’s 2021 film, Dracula 3D, doesn’t get the respect that it deserves. I guess that’s to be expected, as people are pretty much obsessed with criticizing Dario and his later films. Personally, I think it’s an enjoyable and unique version of the legend. Thomas Kretschmann is a credible Dracula. Rutger Hauer was a great Van Helsing. The whole thing is wonderfully over-the-top and stylish.
Plus, to my knowledge, this is the only Dracula film in which the Count turns into a preying mantis and beheads someone. Don’t believe me? Here is today’s horror scene that I love:
Today’s Horror on the Lens is a classic film that really needs no introduction! Released in 1922, the German silent film Nosferatu remains one of the greatest vampire films ever made. It’s a film that we share every October and I’m happy to do so again this year!
Last night, as a part of our attempt to make some space on the DVR so that I can record every upcoming episode of The Bachelorette and she can record the World Series, Erin and I watched the 2011 film, Seven Days In Utopia.
Seven Days In Utopia is a Texas-set (and Texas-filmed) movie about a young pro golfer named Luke Chisholm (played by Lucas Black) who has a very public meltdown while in the middle of a tournament. Feeling that his career is pretty much over, Luke jumps in his car and goes speeding around Southwest Texas. Because he’s not pay attention to the road (which, I’ll be honest, occasionally happens when you’re driving through rural Texas.), he almost doesn’t notice the cow standing in front of his car. Fortunately, Luke swerves and avoids the cow. Unfortunately, he crashes through a fence.
The fence belongs to Johnny Crawford (Robert Duvall), a friendly rancher who — coincidence of coincidences — also happens to be a former pro golfer! With Luke’s car temporarily out-of-commission, he’s stuck in Utopia for at least seven days. Johnny offers to spend those days teaching Luke everything that he needs to know about golf and about life. Luke agrees, because what else are you going to do when you’re stranded in Uvalde County?
Seven Days In Utopia is one of the few films in my lifetime to have been released with G rating and it pretty much earns that G-rating by being the most inoffensive film ever made. Seven Days in Utopia is almost aggressive in its pleasantness. Johnny is very nice. Luke is very nice. Just about everyone that Luke plays against is pretty nice. Everyone in town is pretty nice, even if they do give Luke a hard time about being a “city boy.” Deborah Ann Woll plays the nice waitress at the local diner, with whom Luke has a very pleasant romance. Woll and Black make for a cute couple and they have a nice chemistry. They’re all very pleasant.
Seven Days In Utopia is one of those films that you end up watching when you need something to watch with an older relative who doesn’t understand why “all the movies nowadays have to use all that language!” It’s an old-fashioned movie. That, in itself, is hardly a problem for me. I like old movies and, despite my love of horror as a genre, I can also appreciate movies that are not meant to traumatize the audience. For that matter, I like Lucas Black and I like Deborah Ann Woll. As for Robert Duvall — I mean, My God, he’s one of the last of the great character actors. He’s Boo Radley and Tom Hagen, for God’s sake! Of course, I love Robert Duvall and Duvall really is probably the only actor who could make an idealized character like Johnny Crawford into a real human being. That said, Seven Days In Utopia is also a rather slow film. The pacing will make you feel all seven of those days and the lessons that Johnny teaches to Lucas aren’t particularly profound once you look beyond the fact that they’re being taught by legitimate great actor Robert Duvall. It’s an nice film and the scenery is pretty but, while watching it, it’s hard not to miss the anarchistic spirit of golfers like Shooter McGavin and Happy Gilmore.
The 2009 film, Nightstalker, opens with a drifter named Richard Ramirez (Adolph Cortez) lying on his back in what appears to be an alley. He’s obviously been beaten. He appears to be only half-conscious. As he lays there in that filthy alley, we’re treated to several negative-filtered flashbacks of Ramirez shooting people. This is followed by a series of blurry shot that were apparently filmed by someone driving down a street in Los Angeles. Discordant music plays on the soundtrack. If you listen carefully, you can hear someone mumbling in the background but good luck figuring out what they’re actually saying. This is a low-budge film and sound quality was not a concern.
Of course, none of this should come as a surprise to anyone who is familiar with the unique aesthetic of director Ulli Lommel. As I wrote in my review of Son of Sam, Lommel started his career as an association of Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s before he eventually came to America, got involved in the New York art scene, and made a handful of decent films. Unfortunately, after he divorced the heiress who was responsible for funding the majority of his early films, Lommel spent the rest of his career making zero-budget, direct-to-video films about serial killers, like Richard “Night Stalker” Ramirez. Lommel always claimed that there was a political subtext to his serial killer films and I don’t doubt that he was being honest. You have to be sincerely committed to make a film as inept as Nightstalker. At the same time, it’s not easy to figure out just what exactly it was that Lommel thought he was trying to say.
Nightstalker is undoubtedly one of the worst of Lommel’s serial killer films. Usually, I try to make sure that all of my reviews include at least 500 words but it’s really difficult to think of much to say about Nightstalker. The film is frequently out-of-focus. The sound quality is atrocious. The actor who plays the Nightstalker comes across more like a male model than a homeless serial killer who was known for having bad teeth and disagreeable odor. Because there’s already been multiple films and documentaries made about Richard Ramirez, the Lommel version fails to add anything new to the story. Instead, the film is a collection of scenes of Ramirez aimlessly wandering around Los Angeles, sucking on a lollipop and occasionally flashing back to his abusive El Paso childhood. The film moves slowly and Ramirez’s inner monologue is vacuous. The real Ramirez’s thoughts were probably pretty vacuous as well so give Lommel some credit for not trying make the the guy more interesting than he actually was.
Watching the film, you do get the feeling that Lommel was sincrely trying to say something about being on the fringes of society in America. Lommel’s true crime films often implied that American serial killers were the direct result of American culture and its obsession with violence and wealth. As I said, I think Lommel did think that he was making an artistic and political statement with these films, in much the same way that Lucio Fulci insisted that The New York Ripper was actually a critique of capitalism. (Oh, if only Lommel had possessed just an ounce of Fulci’s talent….) Son of Sam, for instance, actually does have a few moments where Lommel’s hallucinatory approach is somewhat effective. But Nightstalker shows the limits of Lommel’s zero budget, semi-improvised approach. It’s a chore to sit through and it’s a shame that, due to the continuing infamy of the mercifully late Richard Ramirez (Netflix aired a documentary about him earlier this year that had him trending on twitter), this is probably one of Lommel’s most-viewed films. Hell, I watched it. But I think this is going to be my last Lommel true crime film for a while.
Halloween, after all, is meant to be a joyous time.
A disturbed man named Harry starts calling Dr. David Kelly (Joseph Bottoms), a radio psychiatrist who is already being sued as a result of one of his patients killing herself on the air. Harry eats dog food and hates real estate agents because they keep trying to sell the houses in which he’s illegally squatting. The police even suspect that Harry may in fact be responsible for several recent realtor murders. When David mentions that his girlfriend, Lisa (Adrienne Barbeau), just happens to be a real estate agent, it looks like she might be Harry might have a new target!
Open House is from the same group of producers who gave the world Terror on Tour. Like Terror on Tour, it’s a pretty lousy film but at least Terror on Tour had a killer clown and a loud soundtrack. Open House has a bland synth soundtrack and a killer who could just as easily been a generic criminal of the week on an 80s cop show. Rick Hunter would have just blown this psycho away and said, “Works for me.” Because David needs to be redeemed for that patient who killed herself as a result of his bad advice, he gets a chance to encourage Harry to talk about his feelings. It leads to a very long monologue.
The main appeal of the film is that it features the beautiful Adrienne Barbeau but she doesn’t get to do much other than get menaced by Harry. Barbeau supposedly only accepted the roll so that she could use her paycheck to pay for her son’s tuition fees so at least something good came out of this film.
Open House is one of those films that I can remember being displayed prominently at the local video store that we used to visit when I was a kid. It was a popular rental, because it had a cool cover and the back of the box promised much more blood and gore than the film delivered. I can’t remember how old I was when I rented it but I do remember worrying about my mother figuring out what type of movie I had selected. I need not have worried because Open House was about as tame as they come.
Open House has never gotten anything more than a VHS release but it’s there on YouTube for anyone who wants to track it down. I rewatched it knowing that it was a boring film but I had forgotten just how boring. When it comes to this Open House, lock the door and throw away the key.
Kier is 77 years old. This German actor has over 260 film credits to his name, having worked with everyone from Dario Argento to Paul Morrissey to Gus Van Sant to Alexander Payne to Rob Zombie to Lars von Trier. Though he’s appeared in every genre of film, he’s best remembered for his horror appearances. In fact, his career got a major boost when he was cast in two horror films that were produced by Andy Warhol. (As with all things Warhol, there’s more than a little debate as to how much Andy was actually involved.) In 1973, Kier played Baron Von Frankenstein in Flesh For Frankenstein. In 1974, he played Dracula in Blood for Dracula. Both films were deliberately over-the-top in both their gore and their performances and they helped launch Udo Kier on the path to cult stardom. Take, for example, the scene below. This is from Flesh for Frankentein. Kier’s Baron meets his end but not before giving a lengthy monologue. One thing to keep in mind is that this film was originally released in 3D so, while Kier was giving his speech, the Baron’s organs were hanging out over the audiences.
(If you have a hard time with gore, I would not suggest watching this scene.)
Happy birthday, Udo Kier! Thank you for putting your heart into ever role!
Okay, no one actually says that in the 1988 Dutch film, Amsterdamned. However, I will admit that, while I was watching the movie on Shudder, I said it after every single murder. Seriously, it’s just too good to resist. Whatever else you might want to say about this movie, you can not deny the power of that title. How many people have watched this movie just because it’s called Amsterdamned? I would guess a few thousand at least.
As for the film itself, it deals with a murderous diver who swims through the famous canals of Amsterdam and kills just about anyone they come across. Our diver is not one to discriminate when it comes to selecting their victims. They may start out killing a prostitute but soon, they’re targeting environmentalists, boat captains, cops, and perhaps even the girlfriend of Amsterdam’s top cop, Eric Visser (Huub Stapel). Visser is one of those cops who drinks too much, doesn’t spend enough time with his daughter, and who is still bitter about his divorce. It’s nice to see that “Cops Who Play By Their Own Set Of Rules” are not a uniquely American phenomenon. Of course, since Eric is Dutch, his partner is named Vermeer (Serge-Henri Valcke). It doesn’t take Eric and Vermeer long to figure out that Amsterdam has a serial killer haunting the canals.
Amsterdamned is a mix of a slasher film and an action film. The highpoint of the film is a pretty exciting speedboat chase between Eric and the Killer, which features some truly spectacular stunts and which definitely shows that director Dick Maas can handle directing action. At the same time, though, the film is also full of point-of-view shots of the diver emerging from the canals and stalking their next victim. The diver is an effectively creepy villain and the film makes good use of the idea that practically anybody or anything could be hiding under the water. I haven’t been to Amsterdam but I have been to Venice and I can tell you, canals are both beautiful and frightening at the same time. It’s had not to look down at the water and to consider all of the secrets that could be hidden under that murky surface. The comparison between the canals of Amsterdam and the canals of Venice is an apt one, if just because Amsterdamned is pretty much a Dutch version of an Italian giallo films. While it’s not as mean-spirited as the infamous Giallo in Venice, it’s just as much a whodunit as it is a standard slasher film.
It’s a film that has its effective moments, though it’s also a film that has some pretty glaring flaws. With a nearly two-hour running time, it’s at least 30 minutes too long and the film occasionally seems to get bogged down with the details of Eric’s personal life, as if the filmmakers didn’t understand that all they had to do was tell us that Eric was a hard-drinking, independent-minded detective and we, as experienced film watchers, would be able to fill in the rest of the details for ourselves. When the killer’s identity is revealed, it’s a bit of a let down and it’s hard not to feel that the movie didn’t exactly play fair with its audience. Even with all that in mind, though, there’s enough creepy moments to make Amsterdamned worth visiting.
In the 1981 slasher film, My Bloody Valentine, Mabel (played by Patricia Hamilton) is the sweet old woman who has convinced the mayor of Valentine Bluffs to reinstate the annual Valentine’s Day dance. The dance had been a tradition, up until the great mine explosion of 1960. Harry Warden was the only miner to survive the explosion, which everyone agreed wouldn’t have happened if the two mine supervisors hadn’t left their post to attend the dance. (Why two middle-aged men were so eager to attend a teenage dance party is a question that is never really explored.) Harry went mad in the mine and resorted to eating the other miners to survive. AGCK! The next year, Harry killed the two supervisors and was promptly sent off to mental asylum. Meanwhile, the annual dance was canceled because I guess it was easier to blame the dance than the mining company or the corrupt union bosses.
Mabel, however, has brought the dance back and it’s probably not a minute too soon because the town of Valentine Bluffs is one of the most depressing towns I’ve ever seen. The sky is permanenlyt overcast. Everyone spends all day down in the mine, getting covered in soot and trying not to die. At night, they go to the bar and get drunk and argue with each other. If the men need to talk about their feelings, they have a drink at the local junkyard. Among the slashers films that came out in the early 80s, My Bloody Valentine is unique for taking place in an authentically blue collar milieu. These aren’t upper class teenagers who are about to be targeted by a demented killer. These are tough men who work hard all day and who are apparently really into Valentine’s Day dances.
Unfortunately, we all know that it’s impossible to move on from a decades-old murder. No sooner has the Valentine’s Day Dance been announced than some old drunk starts telling everyone that they’re doomed. People start to get strange and bloody packages in the mail. A man dressed up like a miner kills Mabel and stuffs her into a washing machine, which seems like an overreaction on the part of The Miner. It does, however, make one thing very clear. If even sweet old Mabel can die, then anyone can die.
After Mabel’s death, the mayor and the sheriff announce that the dance is off but those miners are really into Valentine’s Day so they decide to throw a party anyway. A few of them go down into the mine, which is not necessarily what I would want to do at a party but whatever. I just don’t like soot. Unfortunately, our brave heroes go down into the mine at the same time that the Miner shows up at the party and starts killing people.
The assumption, of course, is that the Miner is Harry Warden but most member of the audiences will have seen enough slasher movies to know better. There’s two obvious suspects. There’s Axel (Neil Affleck), who has a temper and knows how to use a pickax. And then there’s TJ (Paul Kelman), who also has a temper and knows how to use a pickax. Axel and TJ are both in love with Sarah (Lori Hallier) but only one will get to ask her to be his “bloody valentine.”
Among horror fans, My Bloody Valentine is notorious for having been heavily edited to get an R-rating. Supposedly, cuts were made to every single death scene and, even with the cuts, this is still a notably gruesome film. The scene involving the showerhead impalement is especially macabre, even if it has obviously been edited. The Miner is not one of those talkative, quippy, fun-loving murderers that eventually became a staple of the genre. Instead, he’s notably cruel. The murders he commits feel personal and calculated. He’s not one of those movie slashers who just kills anyone unlucky enough to discover Camp Crystal Lake. Instead, he has a plan. In the end, the Miner is one of the more frightening of the killers to come out of the early 80s slasher boom.
My Bloody Valentine works far better than it has any right to. The mine is a notably creepy location and the film does a good job of creating an atmosphere where you really do believe that anyone could die at any minute. The film plays out like a nightmarish urban legend come to life and it provides an example of the giallo-inspired thrillers that slasher films used to be. Despite being a Valentine’s Day film, it’s one that your really should watch for Halloween.
When you’re watching either this film or the 2009 remake, be sure to offer up a prayer to Mabel. With her love of Valentine’s Day, she made it all possible.
For today’s horror on the lens, we’ve got a sci-fi shocked from 1956.
In Earth vs. The Flying Saucers …. well, the plot is right there in the title. In a semi-documentary style, this film tells the story of what happens when a bunch of flying saucers come to Earth. Unfortunately, the inhabitants of those flying saucers aren’t looking to open up a new trading route. Instead, they want to enslave humanity and, as always, it falls to America to save the world.
This film is probably best known for the scenes of the flying saucers crashing into monuments and buildings in Washington, D.C. The special effects were done by Ray Harryhausen.
The film was originally black-and-white. The version below is colorized. I’m not a huge fan of colorization in general but I do have to say that they did a pretty good job with Earth vs. The Flying Saucers. While the film may not be as deeply philosophical as Plan 9 From Outer Space, it’s still pretty enjoyable.
Legend has it that Steven Seagal’s film career was the result of a bet. The story goes that, in the late 80s, superagent Michael Ovitz, who was then the most powerful man in Hollywood, bet a studio exec that he could make the least appealing man he knew into a movie star. That man was Ovitz’s self-defense instructor, Steven Seagal.
I don’t know if that story is true but it’s as good an explanation as we’re going to get at to why Seagal was ever asked to star in a movie. Despite being a terrible actor who was universally disliked by everyone who worked with him, Steven Seagal was briefly a star in the 90s. Along with Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren, he was one three top B-action stars around. Lundgren’s appeal was that he could actually act. Van Damme’s appeal was that he was a true athlete and actually could do all of his own stunts. As for Seagal, he was packaged to be a star. He appeared in movie with actors who were talented enough to carry the drama while Seagal whispered his lines. He also worked with talented action director like Andrew Davis. For a while there, Seagal had it all.
It fell apart, of course. Seagal was his own worst enemy, fabricating details of his biography and acting like an ass whenever the cameras weren’t rolling. He was notorious for being difficult and every young actress trying to make it in the 90s had at least one horror story about Seagal harassing them at an audition. His appearance on Saturday Night Live was so bad that it’s still talked about as an example of what can happen when the show gets stuck with a terrible host. According to the show’s then-cast members, Seagal insisted that the writers come up with a skit in which he would play a therapist who raped his patients. (Check out Tom Shales’s Live From New York for the details on Seagal’s time as host.) He directed two awful movies. Audiences cheered when his character was blown up in Executive Decision. People stopped showing up for his movies and, for the past few years, Seagal has been better known as a tireless advocated for Vladimer Putin than for his work as a direct-to-video action star.
Against The Dark is one of Seagal’s many direct-to-video movies. It’s also his first horror movie. The movie takes place in the future, when vampire/zombie hybrids have taken over the city. The film misses a major opportunity by not casting Steven Seagal as the head vampire. When this film was made, Seagal was nearly 60, overweight, and out-of-shape. He had the right look to play a decadent vampire king but instead, he was just plays his regular Seagal role. He and his squad patrol the city with samurai swords, hacking up any vampires that they come across. Seagal’s not actually in much of the film and his stunt double does most of the work. When Seagal does appear, he looks like he’s trying to catch his breath. It’s obvious that this film was just a paycheck for him. There’s no speeches about protecting the environment. He doesn’t even get out his guitar and sing.
Most of the movie deals with a separate group of survivors, who are stranded in a hospital and who are trying to find a way to escape before the military blows up the city. Some of the fight scenes, especially the ones that don’t involve Seagal, are not terrible but the film itself is so badly lit that you usually can’t tell who is fighting whom. There is one memorably weird scene of a female vampire filing down her fans so that she can pass as human but the movie doesn’t really follow up on it. The movie doesn’t do much with any of it ideas. Its obvious that vampires and zombies were used because they were hot and someone figured out that even Seagal’s fans were getting bored with him just fighting drug dealers and mercenaries.
Against the Dark is bad, even by the standards of late era Seagal. Shortly after the movie was released, Seagal tried to reinvent himself as a reality TV star with Steven Seagal: Lawman. When that and a subsequent threat to run for governor of Arizona didn’t do much for his career, Seagal went to Russia and, after receiving Russian citizenship, declared that he considered Vladimer Putin to be “like a brother” to him. When asked about Seagal’s claim, Putin’s spokesman replied, “”I wouldn’t necessarily say he’s a huge fan, but he’s definitely seen some of his movies.” Hopefully, the movie was Under Siege and not Against The Dark.
Through the Shattered Lens 