Horror Film Review: The Hunger (dir by Tony Scott)

Posted on October 20, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

“Bela Lugosi’s dead….” Peter Murphy sings at the start of 1983’s The Hunger and, in the case of this film, it’s as much of a challenge as a tribute.

Bela Lugosi and Dracula are gone, the film announces, and so is the old-fashioned vampire movie. Here’s a new look at an old favorite….

Of course, seen today, The Hunger doesn’t seem new. Since The Hunger‘s release, there’s been a countless number of films in which vampires have been decadent and chic aristocrats, hanging out in dark nightclubs and looking at the world with ennui-stricken eyes. By today’s standards, the stylish decadence of The Hunger can seem almost quaint. Much like Paul Schrader’s remake of Cat People, The Hunger is such a film of the 80s that you half-expect someone to offer you a line coke while you’re watching it. Also, like Cat People, it’s such a glorious tribute to excess that there’s no way you can’t watch it once it starts. It’s hypnotic in its excess.

In The Hunger, our vampires are Miriam Blaylock (Catherine Deneuve) and her lover, John (David Bowie). Miriam has been a vampire since at least the time of the ancient Egyptians. Rather than sinking her fangs into the necks of her victims, Miriam uses an Ankh pendant to slit their throats. John was once a cellist in 18th century France. Now, they live in an expensive New York townhouse, where they teach classical music and occasionally murder anyone that they can convince to come up to see them.

When they first met, Miriam promised John that he would have eternal life but she didn’t promise him eternal youth. Unfortunately, it takes 200 years for John to notice. When he starts to rapidly age, he seeks out aging expert Dr. Sarah Roberts (Susan Sarandon) for help. Though Dr. Roberts is originally dismissive of his claims, she is shocked to see John age several years in just an hour.

When an angry and desperate John kills the music student (Beth Ehlers) that Miriam was hoping to transform into her next lover, Miriam is forced to search elsewhere. When Sarah shows up, searching for the man who aged years in an hour, Miriam feels that her search may be over.

As one might expect from a film directed by Tony Scott, The Hunger is an extremely stylish film, to the extent that the film’s story is often secondary to the way that Scott chooses to tell it. The set design is so ornate and every scene is so precisely lit and shot and that, at times, the movie feels a bit like a commercial for vampirism. It’s easy to imagine Britney Spears singing “Work Bitch” in the background of some of the scenes. (“You want a hot body? You want a Bugatti? You Want a Maserati? You better work vamp.”) Throughout the film, New York glows like a neon wonderland while John and Miriam coolly look out over the world like 18th century French aristocrats who have no idea that they have a future date with the guillotine. At times, it’s a film that becomes almost ludicrous in its celebration of grandeur and style. One could imagine Jean Rollin telling the same story just as effectively while spending a lot less money.

And yet, it’s that very embrace of the over-the-top ludicrousness of it all that makes The Hunger a memorable film. The film’s a tribute to excess, with an ending that falters precisely because it attempts to reject precisely what it’s spent the past hour and a half celebrating. The Hunger doesn’t add up too much but its hypnotically stylish and well-acted by a cast who does their best to keep up with Tony Scott’s camera.

Horror on the Lens: The Lodger (dir by Alfred Hitchcock)

Posted on October 20, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

A serial killer known as “The Avenger” is murdering blonde women in London (which, once again, proves that its better to be a redhead). And while nobody knows the identity of the Avenger, they do know that the enigmatic stranger (Ivor Novello), who has just recently rented a room at boarding house, happens to fit his description. They also know that the lodger’s landlord’s daughter happens to be a blonde…

Released in 1927, the silent The Lodger was Alfred Hitchcock’s third film but, according to the director, this was the first true “Hitchcock film.” Certainly it shows that even at the start of his career, Hitchcock’s famous obsessions were already present — the stranger accused of a crime, the blonde victims, and the link between sex and violence.

Also of note, the credited assistant director — Alma Reville — would become Alma Hitchcock shortly before The Lodger was released.

The TSL’s Horror Grindhouse: The Banana Splits Movie (dir by Danishka Esterhazy)

Posted on October 19, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The Banana Splits Movie takes viewers behind the scenes of a children’s television show and shows us the sordid world that nobody knows about.

The stage manager is overworked. The new head of the network is a jerk. The star of the show is a drunk. The lovable Banana Splits, who play silly games and all play music instruments, are all actually robots who are looked down upon by their human coworkers. When Stevie (Richard White), the star of the show, learns that the show is being canceled, he makes the mistake of telling the robots and, before you know it, all Hell is breaking lose. People are getting stabbed to death with lollipops. Network executives are getting dismembered. One unfortunate person gets slammed in the head with a giant hammer. You gotta be careful who you piss off, folks. Robots are ruthless.

To me, the most shocking thing about The Banana Splits Movie was the discovery that it was based on an actual show. Apparently, the Banana Splits were real and they had their own show in the late 60s and early 70s. I’m going to guess that the Banana Splits were played by people in costumes as opposed to just being big robots. At least, I hope that’s the case because, after watching The Banana Splits Movie, I’m kind of over wanting anything to do with robots.

I will say this. If I imagine the characters from this movie not killing people, I can kinda understand why they would have their own TV show. I mean, they’re all really cute, except for when they’re covered in blood and brain matter. My personal favorite was Snorky, who was a big elephant and was a bit less murderous than the other three members of the Banana Splits. In fact, I have to admit that the film kind of left me feeling a little bit depressed because all of the robots are so cute that you really don’t want to see them murder people or get damaged themselves. The film actually does a pretty good job of contrasting the adorableness of the Banana Splits with the pain and carnage that they caused.

And make no doubt about it. There’s a lot of blood spilled in this movie. The Banana Splits are ruthless murderers and they don’t care how nice you are or if you paid money to see the show or if you’re just trying to make your daughter into a big star. If they see you, they’ll kill you. In fact, I have to admit that it sometimes got to be a bit too much for me. I got a little bit tired of all the violence but, at the same time, I also appreciated the film’s satiric intent. In a world gone mad, why wouldn’t the stars of a children’s TV show turn out to be a bunch of killer robots? When you think about all of the once beloved celebrities that have fallen from grace over the past 10 years, it makes an odd sort of sense.

Anyway, The Banana Splits Movie is well made splatter film with a satiric vein running through all blood and guts. It was a bit much for me but I respected it for sticking to its subversive premise and I do think it will be appreciated by a lot of other horror fans and pop culture fanatics.

I’m just hoping that the sequel features more Snorky.

It’s No Westworld: Futureworld (1976, directed by Richard T. Heffron)

Posted on October 19, 2019 by Jedadiah Leland

Two years after the Westworld “incident,” (in which a group of robots malfunctioned and murdered hundreds of humans), Delos Amusement Park has reopened and is accepting guests. Westworld has been permanently shut down but guests can still go to Romanworld and Medeivalworld (despite the fact that it was in Medievalworld that the whole robot rebellion started in the first place). Delos has added two new worlds: Spaworld and Futureworld. Spaworld is a spa for people who want to think young and Futureworld is the world of the future, which looks much like 1976, the year that this film was made.

Two reporters, Chuck Browning (Peter Fonda) and Tracy Ballard (Blythe Danner), have been invited to cover the grand reopening of Delos and to hopefully generate some good publicity. Chuck, however, has reason to believe that there’s something sinister happening at Delos. While Tracy is busy fantasizing about Yul Brynner, Chuck discovers that Delos is using Futureworld to clone diplomats.

At the end of Futureworld, Peter Fonda gives everyone the finger and that’s really cool but otherwise, this is a forgettable sequel to Westworld. The whole point of the original Westworld was that the robots didn’t know they were robots but, in Futureworld, the robots not only know what they are but they’re also superfluous to the plot. There’s no robot revolution in Futureworld nor is there any of Crichton’s concerns about technology run amok. Instead, it’s all about clones and a predictable political conspiracy.

The main issue facing the makers of this film was how could they do a sequel to Michael Crichton’s unexpected hit when Westworld‘s main attraction, Yul Brynner’s robot gunslinger, was thoroughly destroyed at the end of the first film. It would not make any sense for anyone to have reactivated the robot. Their solution was to bring Brynner in for a cameo in which he appeared in one of Tracy’s dreams. Sadly, why they thought it was a good idea to have Tracy develop an erotic fixation on a killer robot and then, just as abruptly, abandon the idea is not for us to know. They would have been better off leaving Brynner out of the film entirely because his presence just reminds us that Futureworld is no Westworld.

International Horror Film Review: The Iron Rose (dir by Jean Rollin)

Posted on October 19, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

“Let’s go to the cemetery.”

That line is actually from another Jean Rollin film, Requiem for Vampire, but it also perfectly sums up the plot of his 1973 masterpiece, The Iron Rose.

A man (Hugues Quester) meets a woman (Francoise Pascal) at a wedding party. They agree to go on a date, one which includes a railway station, a picnic, bicycling, and finally a walk that leads to a seemingly deserted cemetery. On what seems to be a whim, the two of them enter the cemetery. The woman seems to be fascinated with the place. The man is dismissive, saying that funerals are an expensive, waste of time. The woman believes that there is something after death. The man is cynical, saying that once you’re dead, you’re dead. As any couple would do after having a theological conversation, the two of them enter a crypt and make love.

While they’re busy making love, we discover that there actually are others in the cemetery. There’s a clown that places flowers on a grave. There’s a mysterious man who has been watching the couple as they walk among the graves. (In the credits the man is called “Le vampire,” though he never actually does anything in the film that would indicate that he’s a bloodsucker.) And then there’s the old woman who, as night falls, promptly closes the cemetery gates.

When the man and the woman emerge from the crypt, they discover that they are trapped. There’s no way to open the gate and there’s no way to get out of the cemetery. The two of them start to walk around, searching for either an exit or, at the very least, some sort of shelter for the night. As they walk, strange things start to happen and we’re forced to reconsider our previous assumptions about not only the man and the woman but also the cemetery itself. Did they enter the cemetery on a whim or did one of them specifically lead in the other? As the night progresses, the feeling of impending doom only grows. It all leads to a rather macabre fate for one of our lovers and a dance among the tombstones for another.

The Iron Rose is one of Jean Rollin’s best films and, sadly, it’s also one of his most unjustly obscure. Even by the standards of Rollin’s early vampire films, The Iron Rose is a surreal film, one that is far more interested in creating a haunting atmosphere than in telling a traditional story. What is the real reason that leads to the man and the woman entering the cemetery? The Iron Rose is full of hints but, for most part, it’s left to the audience to answer that question for themselves. The film’s haunting final scenes force us to reconsider everything that we previously assumed by the characters and their actions. Are they obsessed with love or are they just in love with death? There are no easy answers.

Obviously, a 90-minute film about two people walking around a cemetery is going to have some slow spots but, in this case, those occasional moments just add to the film’s ennui-drenched atmosphere. As filmed by Rollin, the cemetery becomes as important a character as both the man and the woman and a reminder that the present is always going to be tied to the past. The Iron Rose is Rollin at his dream-like best.

Horror Film Review: The Plague of the Zombies (dir by John Gilling)

Posted on October 19, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

One of the best (and scariest) zombie films of all time came to us from Hammer Studios.

The 1966 film, The Plague of the Zombies, takes place in a small, fog-filled English village. The village has been hit by a plague, one that is wiping out all of the inhabitants. Unable to combat or even diagnose the mysterious illness, Dr. Peter Tomlinson (Brook Williams) calls in his friend, Sir James Forbes (Andre Morrill) for help. Sir James arrives with his daughter, Sylvia (Diane Clare) and suggests that the graves of the recently deceased should be dug up so that he can examine the bodies himself.

Sounds like a reasonable idea, right? There’s only one problem. ALL OF THE COFFINS ARE EMPTY! Now, before anyone asks, they weren’t empty when they went into the ground. There were dead bodies in them when they were originally buried. But now the coffins are empty, the bodies are missing, and that can mean only one thing — ZOMBIES!

And since this is a Hammer film, that also means that a squire is to blame! Seriously, if there’s anything that I’ve learned from watching British horror films, it is to never trust a squire. Squires always seem to end up practicing some sort of black magic. In this case, Squire Clive Hamilton (Jack Carson) has just returned from Haiti, where he apparently spent some time researching the art of zombie creation. Squire Hamilton has a tin mine to manage and undead workers are apparently far less demanding than living workers.

(Of course, today, Squire Hamilton could have just automated the mine and brought in robot workers, who would probably be even less demanding than zombie workers. In fact, with the march of progress, there may soon be no need for zombie workers at all.)

This is a Hammer film so, needless to say, Sylvia eventually gets kidnapped and it’s up to Dr. Tomlinson and Sir James to put an end to the Squire’s evil plans before Sylvia is transformed into a zombie herself. That’s not going to be as easy as it seems, because there’s zombies everywhere!

The Plague of the Zombies is one of Hammer’s best films and it’s also one of the few that, even to a modern viewer, remains frightening. The village is a wonderfully atmospheric location, mixing all of the usual gothic tropes that we’ve come to expect with Hammer films with a very real feeling of decay. Even before the whole zombie plague started, one gets the feeling that the village was already dying a slow, economic death. The tin mine may be the only way to keep the village alive but, at the same time, killing the village is also the only way to keep the tin mine open. The Plague of the Zombies is a moody and rather sad film, one that has a bit more on its mind than just supplying the usual Hammer combination of cleavage and blood.

Speaking of blood, Plague of the Zombies has one of the scariest zombie scenes of all time, in which one of our heroes finds himself wandering through a mist-covered cemetery while the dead rise around him. At one point, he literally steps over a pool of blood. Of course, the scene itself turns out to be a dream but it’s still effectively frightening. Also frightening are the zombies themselves, with their pasty, decaying flesh and their blankly hostile faces. It has been suggested that Plague of the Zombies was an influence on Romero’s Night of the Living Dead and you can definitely see that in its portrayal of the zombies as being a threat not because they’re fast but because they’re so relentless and pitiless.

The Plague of the Zombies is one of the best Hammer films out there so watch it this Halloween!

Horror on the Lens: Dante’s Inferno (dir by Henry Otto)

Posted on October 19, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today’s horror on the lens comes to us from 1924! In Dante’s Inferno, a businessman visualizes Dante’s trip to Hell while little realizing that his behavior is going to lead him to the same destination.

There’s a lot different prints of this film floating around. The original version ran for 60 minutes. The version below was a 49-minute version that was released on VHS. At the time of its release, it’s vision of Hell was considered to be so frightening and definitive that clips of this film were actually used in other films that depict Hell. In fact, Ken Russell used clips from this film in 1980 to depict a drug-induced hallucination in the film, Altered States.

The quality of the upload is not the best (again, largely because it was taken from an old VHS tape) and it’s impossible not to cringe at the character of the butler (whose portrayal, sadly, is typical of how African-Americans were regularly portrayed in films up until the 1960s) but this is still a bit of cinematic history.

Insomnia File #41: Elektra (dir by Rob Bowman)

Posted on October 19, 2019 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? This feature is all about those insomnia-inspired discoveries!

If, around 2 in the morning on Saturday, you were having trouble getting to sleep, you could have turned over to Cinemax and watched the 2005 film, Elektra.

Elektra (Jennifer Garner) used to be dead but now she’s alive again. She was killed during the 2003 film, Daredevil, but, two years later, she was resurrected by a blind martial artist named Stick (Terence Stamp). Stick taught her how to not only fight but also how see into the future, which I guess is helpful if you have to decide whether or not to throw one of those little knife things at someone. (As you can tell, I’m definitely the expert when it comes to martial arts and ninja assassins.)

Elektra uses her training to become the world’s most deadly assassin, which is probably not what Stick had intended but what’s he gong to do, right? However, when Elektra is ordered to kill a totally hot guy and his 13 year-old daughter, she starts to have doubts about whether or not being a murderer-for-hire is really for her. And can you blame her? Not only do you not get to make many friends but I imagine that you’re also constantly having to buy new arrows for your crossbow and that has to get expensive at some point.

So, Elektra decides not to kill the hot guy or his daughter but it tuns out that an evil group of ninjas called The Hand are determined to kill the guy anyway and apparently his daughter is perhaps destined to maintain the balance between the forces of good and evil. (Don’t ask me, I didn’t write the script.) Elektra has to take it upon herself to defeat the Hand and hopefully ensure that the hot guy’s daughter gets to enjoy her adolescence without having to worry about balancing killing people with school work.

Elektra was released with a lot of fanfare back in 2005. It didn’t do particularly well at the box office, which apparently led to Marvel getting into their head that no one would pay money to see a comic book film with a female hero. (This belief was disproven 12 years later, with Wonder Woman.) Today, in the wake of the MCU and whatever DC calls their cinematic universe, Elektra feels almost like a relic. It’s a film that lacks of the self-awareness of the later comic book films but it also never matches them in their scope or their ability to make us feel as if we’ve entered into a separate, fully functioning universe. Elektra is from the age when comic book movie didn’t want to admit that they were comic book movies.

It’s a silly film but, at the same time, it can be kind of fun if you’re in a particularly undemanding mood. Watching it last night, I was shocked to be reminded of the fact that there was a time when Jennifer Garner actually kicked serious ass. The fight scenes are fun to watch, mostly because it’s a woman who gets to beat everyone up. The dialogue is fun to listen to because it’s all so terribly written. (All of the bad guys refer to the title character as being, “the female, Elektra!,” as if it was felt that there was some sort of danger of the audience forgetting who the star of the film was.) It’s an enjoyably dumb movie, which makes it perfect for insomnia-fueled viewing.

Previous Insomnia Files:

International Halloween Review: All Monsters Attack! (a.k.a. Godzilla’s Revenge) (dir by Ishiro Honda)

Posted on October 18, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

“Godzilla says that I have to learn to fight my own battles.”

Well, good for you, Minilla, son of Godzilla. It’s good to see that Godzilla’s raising you well! But can your monster advice possibly contain any useful life lessons for the human world? Let’s watch 1969’s All Monsters Attack and find out!

You may have noticed that I’m specifically calling this a “Halloween review” as opposed to a “horror review.” That’s because it’s just not Halloween without a Godzilla movie or two but, at the same time, it would be really stretching things to describe any of the Godzilla films of the 60s and 70s as being horror films. Certainly, the original, black-and-white Gojira was a horror film, even if it no longer scares audiences. But, by the time the 60s rolled around, Godzilla had gone from being the living equivalent of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to becoming a cuddly friend of children everywhere.

All Monsters Attack, for example, is clearly a film made for children and stock footage aficionados. Ichiro (Tomonori Yazaki) is a little kid who has no friends but he does have an active imagination. Whenever he falls asleep, he goes to Monster Island where he watches as Godzilla beats up various monsters. Why exactly does Godzilla stay on Monster Island, I wonder. Like literally everyone else on the island seems to hate his guts and they’re constantly trying to kill him. If I was advising Godzilla, I’d suggest he move to another island.

Anyway, it turns out that Godzilla’s son, Minilla, is being bullied by a red-headed lizard named Gabara. Minilla is a monster who always seems to get a mixed reaction from Godzilla fans. When I first saw him, I was like, “AGCK! BURN IT! KILL IT WITH FIRE!” But actually, Minilla is kind of cute and he does this adorable thing where he breathes radioactive smoke rings at his enemies. Godzilla could protect Minilla but instead, he tells Minilla that he has to fight his own battles.

OH MY GOD, JUST LIKE ICHIRO! Ichiro is so moved by Godzilla’s advice that he decides to stand up to the bullies. But first, he’s going to have to stand up to some bank robbers as well, The bank robbers take Ichiro hostage so he promptly takes a nap so he can hang out on Monster Island with Godzilla and Minilla. Good plan, kid!

Anyway, All Monsters Attack is considered by many to be the worst of the old Godzilla movies and, in many ways, it is. While all of the later Godzilla movies were aimed at kids, most of them at least had a decent fight or two. All Monsters Attack is basically just 69 minutes of the kid getting in trouble and then taking a nap. In fact, Godzilla’s barely in the movie at all. Minilla gets most of the monster screen time. That said, the film’s heart is in the right place and if it made any bullied children feel better then it did some good.

(Listen, I’m always going to give any movie starring Godzilla the benefit of the doubt, okay?)

That said, it does kind of seem like the ultimate message of the film’s final scenes is that the best way to deal with a bully is to pull a mean prank on someone else and then join the bully’s gang. So maybe All Monsters Attack! did more harm than good. I don’t know. As long as Godzilla’s okay, that’s all that really matters.

Snakes On A Vacation: Curse II: The Bite (1989, directed by Frederico Prosperi)

Posted on October 18, 2019 by Jedadiah Leland

Clark (J. Eddie Peck) and his girlfriend, Lisa (Jill Schoelen), are vacationing in New Mexico. It’s a romantic getaway, except for all of the snakes. Clark manages to save Lisa from one snake through the use of his trusty rifle but then he himself gets bitten once they go to a motel. Luckily, traveling salesman Harry Morton (Jamie Farr!) has a suitcase that’s full of anti-snake venom antidotes. Unfortunately, the one that Harry gave to Clark doesn’t do much good because not only does the bite on Clark’s arm get worse but it starts to turn into a snake! In fact, his entire body is full of snakes, just trying to slither out! It’s a vacation from Hell as Lisa tries to find a cure for Clark, Clark tries to control his serpent-like instincts, and Harry tries to find the young couple so that they don’t sue him.

This is an unrelated sequel to a film called The Curse. In fact, it’s probable that this film was just called The Bite until the first Curse did slightly better at the box office than anyone expected. The two films share not a single character or plot point in common. There’s not really even a curse in this so-called sequel! Clark’s problems are all due to the snake being radioactive. (Once again, science is to blame.) It’s a typically cheesy, low-budget 80s horror film but it does have a few things to recommend it. The special effects range between being enjoyably cheap and effectively gross. Jamie Farr is entertaining as Harry Morton and seems to be happy to not be playing Klinger again. The truckers that Harry enlists to help him search for Lisa and Clark are all colorful characters and they are a little more interesting than the usual horror movie canon fodder. Bo Svenson also has a good cameo as the sheriff.

Best of all, the film features one the greatest scream queens of the late 80s and early 90s, Jill Schoelen. Schoelen is best remembered for her role in The Stepfather but she actually appeared in several horror movies between 1987 and 1993. As she was in almost all of her roles, Jill Schoelen is both sexy and believable in The Bite. She had a talent for making even the worse dialogue sound natural and that was a talent that The Bite gave her many chances to display.

The Bite is hardly a great film but, by the standards of late 80s cable fare, it’s undeniably entertaining.