Cinemax Friday: Relentless IV: Ashes to Ashes (1994, dir by Oley Sassone)

Posted on October 30, 2020 by Jedadiah Leland

Sam Deitz (Leo Rossi) is back to hunt one last serial killer in this, the last of the Relentless films.

This time the killer is a boring nonentity. He’s not as interesting as the killers played by Miles O’Keeffee or William Forsythe. Nor is he as unintentionally funny as the one played by Judd Nelson in the first Relentless film. Instead, he’s just your run-of-the-mill religious fanatic, killing sinners and performing rituals. His trademark is that he only kills the person that he wants to kill. Anyone else who might be around is just taken out with a stun gun. That’s a boring if considerate trademark.

Deitz is assigned to track down the killer, along with his new partner, Jessica Pareti (Colleen Coffey). While Deitz is trying to solve the case, he’s also having to deal with his rebellious teenage son (Christopher Pettiet). Between this film and the last, Deitz’s ex-wife died and now Deitz is a single father. He and his son barely know each other. Deitz tries to keep his son under control while all his son wants to do is spend time with his girlfriend, Sherrie (Lisa Robin Kelly).

Relentless IV is the least interesting of the Relentless film. It’s so trapped by the now-stale Relentless formula that not even the casting of Famke Janssen as a possible femme fatale can save it. Janssen is a psychiatrist who is connected not only to one of the victims but possibly to the killer as well. She and Deitz are obviously attracted to each other and Deitz is torn between that attraction and treating her like a possible suspect. The relationship between Deitz and the doctor has potential but it keeps getting sidetraced by scenes of Deitz trying to deal with his teenage son and it never really lives up to what it could have been. Janssen is beautiful and Rossi gives a typically good performance but watching the film, it’s obvious that there wasn’t much left to do with the character of Detective Sam Deitz.

Direct-to-video mainstay Oley Sassone directs in a flat and unmemorable manner and the entire film just seems tired. When the best your serial killer can do is kill someone with a Campbell’s soup can, you know you’re running on empty. There would not be a Relentless V. Hopefully, Sam Deitz finally found some peace and figured out how to balance being an intense New Yorker with living in laid back California.

International Horror Film Review: Nothing Underneath (dir by Carlo Vanzina)

Posted on October 30, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1985 Italian film, Nothing Underneath, is a giallo that’s achieved some notoriety based on the fact that it’s not a very easy film to find.

Seriously, I’ve spent years looking for this film. I had read enough good things about it to make me believe that it was a film that I, as an unapologetic fan of Italian horror, simply had to see. Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, it’s never gotten a proper DVD or Blu-ray release in the United States. It’s not so much that the film is controversial or even particularly graphic. Apparently, the main problem is that the film takes place in the world of high fashion and that means that there are several scenes that take place at fashion shows and most of those scenes feature songs that were very popular in 1985. Nothing Underneath has never gotten a proper video release because of all the music. It’s kind of unfortunate, really. There are so many good movies that are currently in limbo because of disputes over the rights to the music on the film’s soundtrack.

Anyway, the good news is that last night, I was able to find Nothing Underneath on YouTube! So, I finally got to watch it.

The bad news is that I watched it in Italian with no subtitles.

Now, that’s not quite as big of an issue as you might think. The thing with Italian horror films is that the story is often less important than how it’s told. The best Italian horror films are all about style and suspense and less about keeping track of who did what to whom. That’s certainly appears to be the case with Nothing Underneath. Film is a visual medium, after all.

The film is about a brother and a sister. Bob (Tom Schanley) is a park ranger who works at Yellowstone and is very happy with his simple and honest life. Jessica (Nicole Peering) is a fashion model who currently lives in Milan and who spends all of her days modeling lingerie and fighting off sleazy coke addicts. Bob and Jessica have such an extremely strong bond that, occasionally, Bob has visions of Jessica’s life in Milan. Whenever Jessica is in danger, Bob knows it. When Bob has a vision of someone stalking Jessica while carrying scissors and wearing black gloves, he rushes back to his ranger station and calls Italy to warn her. Unfortunately, he’s too late. By the time he convinces the surly desk clerk as Jessica’s apartment building to give Jessica the message, Jessica has disappeared.

Bob flies to Milan, determined to find his sister. He teams up with Commissioner Danesi (Donald Pleasence) to investigate Jessica’s disappearance. As soon as I saw Donald Pleasence, I automatically assumed that he would eventually turn out to be involved in Jessica’s disappearance but no. Pleasence actually plays a good guy in the film, one who appears to harbor no dark secrets. That was kind of a nice change of pace and, even though he was dubbed into Italian, I could tell that Pleasence gave a likable and sympathetic performance in this film.

It turns out that the black-gloved killer is murdering models all over Milan. Can Bob discover the killer’s identity? Will he be able to protect Barbara (Renee Simonsen), the killer’s latest target? And will he discover all of the sordid details about Jessica’s life in Milan?

Despite the language barrier, I enjoyed Nothing Underneath. It’s an old school giallo, right down to the whodunit mystery and the point-of-view shots of the black-gloved killer. Visually, the film is impressive. The opening sequence neatly contrasted the simplicity of Yellowstone with the decadence of Milan and the scenes of the killer stalking their latest victim were nicely done and very suspenseful. It was a bit hard to judge the actors (as usual, some of the dubbing was very poorly done) but Donald Pleasence was a delight as always and Tom Schanley come across as being very sincere and likable as the park ranger.

I’m glad to have seen Nothing Underneath. I hope it gets a decent video release at some point in the future.

Cleaning Out The DVR: The Butterfly Effect 3: Revelations (dir by Seth Grossman)

Posted on October 30, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I’m continuing my efforts to clean out my DVR. I just finished watching the 2009 film, The Butterfly Effect 3: Revelations. I recorded this film off of Cinemax way back in June. To be honest, I was surprised when I came across it because I have absolutely no memory of having recorded it. I can only hope that it wasn’t recorded by a time traveler because, after seeing enough Butterfly Effects, you know that nothing good comes from time travel!

The Butterfly Effect 3 starts in medias res. Sam Reide (Chris Carmack) already knows how to jump back and forth in time and, even more importantly, he already knows all of the dangers. He knows that he can’t change the past. He can’t try to help people. He can’t do anything but stay hidden and observe because the least little alteration to the past could totally screw up the present. And, as we all know, studying the past is the present that we give to the future. (GAG! Seriously, though, I’ve been looking for a excuse to say that for like 10 years now.) So, the good thing here is that we don’t have to sit through a lot of pointless scenes of Sam learning what we already know.

Sam actually has a pretty good scam going. He goes back into the past, observes a murder taking place, and then tells the police who committed the crime. He’s convinced that cops that he’s a psychic, which I guess cops would be more likely to believe than that he’s a time traveler. I don’t know. Whatever. We’ll go with it. Helping Sam out is his sister, Jenna (Rachel Miner). Jenna, we’re told, would be dead if not for the fact that Sam jumped into the past and saved her from a house fire. Of course, by doing that, he also accidentally killed off his parents! That’s how Sam learned not to mess with the past! As a result, despite his ability to time travel, Sam leads a pretty squalid existence. He drinks at the local bar. He hangs out in the worst sections of Detroit. He visits Jenna in her run-down apartment. And yet, he doesn’t use time travel to invest in Facebook or anything like that because he knows that it’ll change the present. That’s dedication!

Sam is also still mourning the murder of his girlfriend. (Has anything ever gone right in Sam’s life?) The man convicted of her murder is due to be executed but Sam has reason to believe that the man might be innocent. When Sam visits the man and lets him know that he’s going to go to the past to prove the man’s innocence, the man is not impressed. According to the man, Sam is the murderer!

Anyway, Sam starts jumping into the past to see what really happened but, of course, he can’t help himself and he ends up changing stuff. As a result, the presents gets messed up though not as dramatically as it did in some of the previous Butterfly Effect films. For instance, the slutty bartender is suddenly engaged. At one point, Sam wakes up to find out that he no longer has an apartment. It’s kind of weak. (To be honest, this film might have worked better if it had just been a time traveling mystery as opposed to a Butterfly Effect film.) The mystery, however, is intriguing and the film ends with a somewhat satisfying twist. As far as third entries in bad franchises are concerned, The Butterfly Effect 3 is actually better than you would probably expect it to be.

Lifetime Film Review: Her Secret Family Killer (dir by Lisa France)

Posted on October 30, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

DNA Tests are all the rage right now.

Right now, everyone is taking them. Most of them seem to be hoping that they’ll find something really unexpected and cool in their background, like that they’re descended from Tecumseh or somebody. Personally, I’d love to discover that I am related to Rutherford B. Hayes, seeing as how he was the greatest president who ever lived. Of course, then you have other people who are just hoping that a DNA test will somehow make them seem less generic. “I’m 1.2% North African,” they’ll tell you, in-between posting Taylor Swift memes on twitter.

That said, everyone should approach DNA tests with caution. First off, if you’ve ever taken a DNA test, that means that the government now has access to your DNA and can probably use it to clone a race of super soldiers or something. That’s definitely one thing to consider. There’s also the possibility that being goaded into taking a DNA test could end whatever hope you have of ever being elected President. That’s another thing you have to consider. And finally, there’s the possibility that your DNA will turn up on the dead body of your best friend! Agck!

That’s exactly what happens to Sarah (Brooke Nevin) in Her Secret Family Killer. Her best friend Victoria (Carmen Moreno) gives her a DNA test for her birthday. Despite the protestations of Lyle (Devin Crittenden), who says that DNA tests are the first step towards dictatorship, Sarah gets the test done. Later, Victoria disappears. Sarah, while out on her morning run, just happens to stumble across Victoria’s dead body. The police test the DNA that was on Victoria’s body and just guess whose DNA shows up.

That’s right! Sarah’s!

But, surely, Sarah couldn’t be the murderer. It must just be someone who shares Sarah’s DNA, like a family member. So, which of Sarah’s relatives is the murderer? Or, could it be that there’s something else going on? I mean, seriously, when you’ve got DNA traveling all over the place, who knows who might be able to get their hands on it….

The best Lifetime films always strike at a secret fear that many people have but aren’t always willing to express. Her Secret Family Killer is all about the fear that one of your relatives might be murderers and you might not know it. I mean, it’s definitely possible. Ted Bundy, Charles Manson, the Grim Sleeper, the Baseline Killer, the D.C. snipers, they all had families and they all had relatives who were probably shocked when cousin Ted ended up in jail, accused with murdering people across the country. I mean, who knows what type of monsters you might have hiding in your family tree? People take DNA tests assuming that they’ll discover they’re related to someone great. What if you take your DNA test and discover that your great-uncle is the BTK Killer? It could happen.

Anyway, Her Secret Family Killer is another entertaining Lifetime thriller. Brooke Nevin has appeared in a few of these and she does a good job of embracing the melodrama, which is pretty much the key to making a good Lifetime film. If nothing else, watching the film will make you think twice before sending your DNA off to strangers and that’s probably a good thing.

Horror Film Review: The Silence (dir by John R. Leonetti)

Posted on October 30, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

“Don’t make a sound!”

“Why not?”

“Because we’re characters in the 2019 film, The Silence.”

“Uhmmm….okay.”

“And there’s monsters flying around the car.”

“Oh, is that what those are? I thought they were like fruit bats or something.”

“And they only hunt by sound.”

“Wait.”

“So, if you make a sound, they’ll swoop down and kill the entire family, even old grandma in the back seat.”

“Does any of this seem familiar?”

“Shhhh….”

“I swear this film feels familiar.”

“Oh please …. this is nothing like A Quiet Place.”

“Uhmm …. big flying creatures swarming on people who make noise and killing them. How is this not like A Quiet Place?”

“Well, The Silence not only features creatures that only hunt by sound but there’s also a subplot that comes out of nowhere, about a bunch of cultists who have cut out their tongues and who want to sacrifice the family to the monsters.”

“Oh.”

“Nothing like A Quiet Place.”

“So, basically, this just A Quiet Place meets a bad episode of Fear The Walking Dead.”

“Kind of but you know what? The Silence has got Stanley Tucci in the cast and he’s an Oscar nominee! Plus, Kiernan Shipka plays Tucci’s deaf daughter and she’s Sabrina. Also, Miranda Otto is in it and she-costars with Kiernan on that Sabrina show, so this entire movie really does feel like a particularly messed-up episode of Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.”

“So, basically, this movie is a A Quiet Place meets Fear The Walking Dead meets that terrible Sabrina show.”

“My point is that this film has a really good cast and it’s also got the guts to totally waste them in uninteresting roles.”

“How does that take guts?”

“It also has the guts to kill off the adorable family dog because sometimes you just have to make difficult choices to say alive.”

“Especially when you’re living in a second-rate version of A Quiet Place, right?”

“LISTEN!”

“Uhmm …. should you have just yelled like that, considering all the monsters killing anyone who makes a sound?”

“Whoops.”

“Well, we’re screwed …. AAAAAAGH!”

And the rest is silence.

Horror On The Lens: Carnival of Souls (dir by Herk Harvey)

Posted on October 30, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Well, we’re nearly done with October and, traditionally, this is when all of us in the Shattered Lens Bunker gather in front of the television in Arleigh’s penthouse suite, eat popcorn, drink diet coke, and gossip about whoever has the day off.

Of course, after we do that, I duck back into my office and I watch the classic 1962 film, Carnival of Souls!

Reportedly, David Lynch is a huge fan of Carnival of Souls and, when you watch the film, it’s easy to see why. The film follows a somewhat odd woman (played, in her one and only starring role, by Candace Hilligoss) who, after a car accident, is haunted by visions of ghostly figures. This dream-like film was independently produced and distributed. At the time, it didn’t get much attention but it has since been recognized as a classic and very influential horror film.

This was director Herk Harvey’s only feature film. Before and after making this film, he specialized in making educational and industrial shorts (some of which we’ve watched this month), the type of films that encouraged students not to cheat on tests and employees not to take their jobs for granted. Harvey also appears in this film, playing “The Man” who haunts Hilligoss as she travels across the country.

Enjoy Carnival of Souls!

And remember, don’t stop for any hitchhikers!

The Things You Find On Netflix: We Summon The Darkness (dir by Marc Meyers)

Posted on October 30, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

We Summon The Darkness is a horror/comedy that has got a devilish little twist that I can’t spoil in this review.

That’s a shame because, believe me, I would love to spoil it. I would love to tell you all about the twist and about how much I love the twit and how clever I felt it all was but really, this is a twist that you need to experience for yourself. I don’t know if it’s really possible to go into a movie blind anymore but if there’s any movie that benefits from being viewed with as little foreknowledge as possible, it’s We Summon The Darkness.

I can tell you that that movie takes place in Indiana in 1988. It follows six people — three women and three guys — over the course of one long and very eventful night. It starts with Alexis (Alexandria Daddario), Val (Maddie Hasson), and Bev (Amy Forsyth) heading to a heavy metal concert out in the middle of nowhere. As they head to the concert, we see glimpses over an evangelist (Johnny Knoxville) railing against heavy metal and Satanism. We also hear some random news reports about some recent murders, all of which appear to have been the work of Satanists. It’s obvious that this film takes place in a very religious community, one that feels it is currently under attack from the forces of darkness.

At the concert, the girls meet up with three dorky guys, Mark (Keenan Johnson), Kovacs (Logan Miller), and Ivan (Austin Swift). Ivan is the leader of the guys, an outspoken atheist who is clearly skeptical of all of this Satanic panic. Mark, meanwhile, is celebrating one last hurrah before heading off to Los Angeles. Alexis invites the boys to come back to her father’s mansion, which is apparently empty for the night. The boys agree and….

….all Hell breaks loose.

And that’s all I’m going to tell you about the plot. In fact, I probably shared too much already. What I will say is that the film takes you by surprise. Just from reading about the film’s opening few minutes, you may think you know who these characters are but, instead, they surprise you. You may also think that you know how all of the chaos at the mansion is going to play out but again, the film surprises you.

We Summon The Darkness is a clever and intense mix of horror and satire, one that keeps the audience guessing. From the strong opening to the twisty conclusion, this is a film that grabs your attention and refuses to let it go. Director Marc Meyers does a great job of ramping up the tension and he’s helped by a wonderful cast, all of whom bring their odd characters to life. Alexandra Daddario and Ivan Swift are the cast stand-outs, with Daddario especially tearing through the film like a force of nature. Though I initially assumed that Johnny Knoxville’s role was an example of stunt casting, he actually gives a good performance as a character who turns out to be far more important than you might initially assume.

We Summon The Darkness can currently be summoned from Netflix and it’s worth the watch.

Film Review: Compulsion (dir by Richard Fleischer)

Posted on October 29, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1959 film, Compulsion, tells the story of two wealthy young men — Judd Steiner (Dean Stockwell) and Artie Strauss (Bradford Dillman) — who think that they can outsmart anyone. Judd started college when he was only 14 and he speaks several different languages. Artie, the more loquacious and sociable of the two, is convinced that he can talk his way out of anything. Desiring to prove that they’re capable of committing the perfect crime, Judd and Artie kill a young boy who is walking home from school.

At first, it seems like Judd and Artie may have pulled it off. The police seem to be baffled. Local reporter Sid Brooks (Martin Milner) dutifully reports that there are no leads. Judd and Artie are convinced that both their wealth and their superior intelligence will protect them. However, Judd soon discovers that he can’t find his eyeglasses. Where he could he have lost them? Well, he does remember struggling a bit during the murder …. could they have been knocked off? What if they’re at the scene of the crime….

Based on a novel by Meyer London, Compulsion retells the infamous story of Leopold and Loeb, the two students who murdered another student in order to show their devotion to Nietzsche. In real life, of course, both Leopold and Loeb were arrested when one of their possessions was discovered at the crime scene. In the end, the two were convicted of murder and the only thing that prevented them from being hanged was an impassioned closing plea from their lawyer, Clarence Darrow. Darrow argued not that the murderers deserved any mercy but that the death penalty itself was immoral and barbaric. Supposedly, his final speech went on for 12 hours, which is odd to me. I can’t imagine ever listening to anyone speak for 12 hours.

Leopold and Loeb’s crimes have served as the basis for several movies. Hitchcock’s Rope was based on Leopold and Loeb. So was the far less interesting Murder By Numbers. Compulsion, however, seems to stick the closest to the facts of the case, with the two killers being driven by a combination of arrogance and alienation. While Artie appears to simply be a sociopath, the far more neurotic Judd is driven by a need to win Artie’s approval. (I’ve read conflicting accounts about the nature of Leopold and Loeb’s relationship. Some accounts say that they were lovers while others say that they were just intensely close friends. Compulsion keeps things ambiguous but it certainly implies that Leopold — or Judd — was obsessed with Leob.)

Bradford Dillman and Dean Stockwell are well-cast as Artie and Judd. Stockwell’s neurotic performance certainly shows why, if Anthony Perkins had refused the role of Norman Bates in Psycho, Alfred Hitchcock was planning to offer the role to him. There’s a good deal of pleasure in watching the two murderers get tripped up by the same cops and prosecutors to whom they considered themselves to be intellectually superior. This is especially true in the scene where Artie realizes that he’s not as good at fooling people are he originally assumed he was.

That said, the film is pretty much stolen by Orson Welles, who plays the role of attorney Johnathan Wilk, a stand-in for Clarence Darrow. Welles doesn’t show up until the final 30 minutes of the film but he’s such a commanding screen presence and so comfortable with the role of the theatrical attorney that he thoroughly dominates your impressions of the film. Though Welles was apparently annoyed that he hadn’t been asked to direct the movie, he still gives one of his best performances and he delivers his final plea against capital punishment with the powerful conviction of a man who believed every word that he was saying.

Overall, Compulsion is an intensely watchable film. Even if you know how the story is going to turn out, you’ll want to see it for the performances of Stockwell, Dillman, and especially Orson Welles.

The TSL’s Horror Grindhouse: Chopping Mall (dir by Jim Wynorski)

Posted on October 29, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This 1986 film tells the story of what happens when one local mall decides that it’s had enough of thievery and vandalism.

First off, automatic locks and shutters are installed. What that means is that, at a certain hour, anyone who is inside the mall is going to be trapped there until the morning. Secondly, three robots are used as a security force. They’re called Protectors and they roll around, looking for thieves and keeping people safe. Don’t worry about getting mistaken for a thief, of course. As long as you’ve got a badge, the protector will just say, “Thank you and have a good day.”

It all seems perfect but …. what if the robots malfunction? What if they ignore the badges and just start killing anyone unlucky enough to be trapped in the mall for the night? Surely, that could never happen, right?

Of course, it does happen. Thanks to a freak electrical storm, the Protectors come to life and set out to keep the mall safe from intruders. First, they kill the technicians that are supposed to keeping a watch over them. Then, they kill a janitor named Walter Paisley (played, of course, by Dick Miller). Then, they set off after the six attractive people who were having a sleep-over in one of the stores.

So, what did I learn from Chopping Mall?

Well, I was tempted to say that I learned not to shoplift but actually, no one in the movie gets in trouble for shoplifting. I guess the main thing I learned is not to walk around the mall in my underwear because that definitely seems to be something that will cause the Protectors to blow up your head.

I also learned that, if you’re tapped in the mall with a bunch of killer robots, the best place to go is the sporting goods store because that store not only has a lot of automatic rifles but also an unlimited supply of ammunition. Of course, I already learned that from Dawn of the Dead but it’s always good to be reminded….

Anyway, Chopping Mall is a lot of fun. It’s undeniably dated. Just the fact that everyone’s life revolves around a mall tells you just how dated it is. I guess if they made the film now, it would have to take place at an Ikea store or maybe an Amazon warehouse. But the fact that the film is dated is a part of what makes it so much fun to watch. Seriously, it’s amazing all of the stuff that apparently used to go on at the local mall in the 80s.

Despite the fact that they have a bad habit of killing people, the Protectors are actually kind of cute. If nothing else, they’re unfailingly polite. You have to love the fact that they’ll wish you a nice day even after they’ve killed you. Surprisingly enough, the humans are just as likable as the Protectors. For a film about killer robots, Chopping Mall is surprisingly well-acted by a likable cast. Russell Todd, who was the best-looking man to ever be killed by Jason Voorhees, is in this film and he’s as broodingly handsome here as he was in Friday the 13th Part II.

Chopping Mall is a good mix of humor and thrills and robots and exploding heads and Dick Miller. This is 80s mall horror at its best!

Relentless 3 (1993, directed by James Lemmo)

Posted on October 29, 2020 by Jedadiah Leland

Detective Sam Deitz (Leo Rossi) is back and somehow, his life is even more crappy than before.

Detective Deitz is still an intense New Yorker struggling to fit in with the laid back California lifestyle. Watching a Relentless film, you would think that it’s a crime to be laid back in New York. After three films, Deitz should no longer be as much of a fish out of water as he is in Relentless 3.

Deitz is now divorced and he hardly ever sees his son. That bothers him but also means that there aren’t anymore arguments between Deitz and his wife about him bringing his work home. Deitz is now out on the dating scene. The movie spends a lot of time on scenes of Deitz trying to pick up women. It’s not easy because he’s an intense New Yorker and they’re all laid back California girls. He eventually meets and falls for Paula (Signy Coleman).

Meanwhile, there’s a new serial killer on the scene. Walter (William Forsythe) lives with a mentally unstable woman and is always bragging about how he’s a star. He picks up women in bars, take them home, kills them, and then has sex with their dead bodies before eventually dumping them around Los Angeles. Even though Deitz no longer wants to chase serial killers, he agrees to serve as a consultant. When Walter finds out that the famous Sam Deitz is working the case, he decides to make it personal. Being a “star,” Walter wants to compete with the best.

Relentless 3 gets off to a good start but it runs out of gas quickly. William Forsythe is an effective villain and some of the early scenes of him picking up women are suspenseful. Also, there’s an effective scene where Walter mails Deitz a patch of tattooed skin and proves, as if there was any doubt, that Walter was one sick puppy. But the movie, which should be a relentless cat-and-mouse game between Deitz and Walter, gets sidetracked with all of the scenes of Deitz trying to get back into the dating scene. For all the build-up, the final confrontation between Deitz and Walter feels like a let down. This Relentless film just isn’t relentless enough.

Leo Rossi still does a good job as Deitz but it seems like we learned as much as we need to know about the character during the first two Relentless films and nothing that Deitz does surprises us anymore. Despite good performances from Rossi and Forsythe, Relentless 3 never comes together.