First Man, Review By Case Wright

Posted on October 13, 2018 by casewright

Happy Horrothon……wait a minute…this isn’t a horror movie!!! Nope, but it is going to win Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Director.

First Man is a biopic of Neil Armstrong from his test pilot days, Gemini missions, Apollo Mission and return home. I was moved. Ryan Gosling inhabited that man’s very soul. I have not seen acting that good in years and years. At every point in the film, you are more on the edge of your seat than you have been in decades. I knew he would land the LEM on the moon, but it was so close to disaster that you felt for him.

The picture opens with Neil doing test piloting. He’s already getting tapped to be in the Gemini missions, but he almost passes. He has a daughter that stricken with cancer and we share in his grief throughout the film’s entirety. I won’t spoil it, but there’s a moment when Neil is on the moon with his late daughter’s bracelet and …. oh man. Once his daughter passes, his wife pushes him to take the Gemini mission and we rapidly see that she is his ROCK! We see it when his daughter passes and when the stress of the burden of achievement weighs upon this Great Man.

The weight of greatness and death is looked dead in the eye in this picture. Brave men are facing and dealing with mortality in nearly every scene. We see that the cost of putting the first man on the moon is paid in blood. So many great men die in this heroic quest that it begins to feel like a Homeric adventure or great tale of an ancient Samurai told through a modern lens. All the while they are struggling to make this great achievement, we hear the familiar whining of lesser men moaning in the background like white noise.

Once it is clear that Neil will be Commander to go to the Man, his wife demands that he explain the risks to his two remaining children. He tells them and we feel his paternal pain twisting in him like a blade because his destiny is set. We get closer to the other two members of his team – one I can’t remember and the other is Buzz Aldrin who is portrayed as complete asshole. I mean…wow…what a dick!

When Neil approaches the moon, the LEM is heading for disaster and fate tempts Neil to abort, but it’s obvious that Neil will succeed or he will die trying. There was no going back empty handed for him. There’s a lesson here: the greatest achievements require sacrifice up to and including your life.

The film allows us to see this amazing quest through the eyes of our greatest American Representative. It is also clear that the Space Race, Humankind’s greatest achievement, was a road that led to victory and was paved with blood.

The TSL’s Horror Grindhouse: Last Girl Standing (dir by Benjamin R. Moody)

Posted on October 13, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The final girl.

Every old school slasher film has one.

You know who I’m talking about, of course. She’s usually the only person in her circle of friends who isn’t sexually active, who doesn’t drink, and who doesn’t do drugs. She’s usually studious and responsible and it’s usually said that she’s so mature and smart that guys are scared to ask her out. While that may sound like kind of a boring life for a teenager to lead, it also means that there’s nothing around to distract her once the killer shows up. While all of her friends are too drunk, stoned, or naked to escape, the final girl is the one who not only outruns the killer but who occasionally beats his head in as well.

Every slasher film has a final girl but few of them ever really seem to concern themselves with what’s going to happen to her after the end credits roll. (Usually, if there is a sequel, we find out that the final girl died mysteriously a few months after surviving the previous massacre.) It’s only logical that having all of your friends killed over the course of one night would not necessarily leave you in a good place emotionally.

The 2015 horror film Last Girl Standing answers the question, “What happens after the horror movie ends?” In the opening scenes, we find Camryn (Akasha Villalobos) in a very familiar situation. She’s running around the woods. She’s stumbling across the bodies of all of her dead friends. She’s being pursued by a man wearing a deer mask. The man is known as The Hunter and when Camryn finally manages to turn the tables on him, we have reached the point where most slasher films would end.

However, this is right where Last Girl Standing begins.

Two years later and Camryn is still struggling to recover from the night. She’s haunted by nightmares and sometimes, she even has visions of the Hunter stalking her. She’s gotten a job working in a laundromat and her co-workers seem nice but are they? It seems like everyone Camryn meets either asks her about that terrible night or they’re scared to get too close to her, as if she carries bad luck or they’re afraid that the Hunter’s insanity has somehow been transferred to her.

For her part, Camryn worries that someone might be stalking her and it doesn’t help her paranoia when Nick (Brian Villalobos) starts working at the laundromat. Again, Nick seems friendly but is he? Can Camryn ever trust anyone again? Even more importantly, should she ever trust anyone again? As most things do, it all ends in blood and tragedy.

Last Girl Standing is an interesting hybrid of a film. On the one hand, based on the film’s opening and its final scenes, Last Girl Standing is definitely a horror film. And yet, the middle part of the film is far more concerned with examining the life of someone struggling with PTSD than with providing the usual jump scares. While the film’s premise might sound like the setup for a typical slasher film, Last Girl Standing is ultimately more about how we deal with trauma. Akasha Villalobos gives a sensitive and empathetic performance as Camryn and the entire cast of this low-budget film does a good job of grounding this story in reality.

All in all, Last Girl Standing is a worthwhile film for those of us who have wondered what happens after the final credits roll.

Bad Medicine: Dr. Giggles (1992, directed by Manny Coto)

Posted on October 13, 2018 by Jedadiah Leland

In 1957, the citizens of the town of Moorheigh discovered that their local doctor was doing experiments on his patients, removing their hearts and using them to try to bring his dead wife back to life. The townspeople responded by executing Dr. Rendell and chanting a poem that goes, “This town has a doctor named Rendell/Stay away from his house because he’s the doctor from Hell.” They would have killed Dr. Rendell’s son too, except that Evan, Jr. escaped by sewing himself up in his mother’s corpse and then later using a scalpel to cut his way out.

Thirty-five years later, Evan, Jr. (Larry Drake) returns to Moorheigh, looking to get revenge on the town. Because of his evil laugh, he is now known as Dr. Giggles and he has a medical-related one liner for every occasion. When Dr. Giggles learns that Jennifer (Holly Marie Combs) needs a heart monitor, Dr. Giggles decides to stalk her while killing all of her interchangeable friends. Dr. Giggles says that he wants to give her a new heart, preferably one that he’s ripped out of someone else’s body. Jennifer is not very appreciative.

Dr. Giggles was meant to be a franchise started, in the fashion of the Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th films. It was a franchise that would never be because there wasn’t much that could be done with Dr. Giggles that wasn’t done during the first film. Larry Drake was a good actor but, other than the scene where he used a scalpel to cut himself out of a dead body, there was nothing about Dr. Giggles that distinguished from all the other horror movie slasher. He wasn’t a dream weaver like Freddy or indestructible like Jason. He was just a dude dressed like a doctor who giggled too much.

For a better film featuring Larry Drake as a villain, do yourself a favor and watch Sam Raimi’s Darkman.

Halloween Havoc!: HORROR ISLAND (Universal 1941)

Posted on October 13, 2018 by gary loggins

cracked rear viewer

Universal Pictures kept cranking out the horrors, but HORROR ISLAND isn’t one of them. It’s as misleading a title as Hollywood ever produced, more of a comedy/mystery with some “old dark house” elements thrown in for good measure. This little ‘B’ was released as a double feature with MAN MADE MONSTER, and while its good for what it is, it ain’t horror!

Atmospherically directed by George Waggner and shot by Universal workhorse Woody Bredell , HORROR ISLAND begins spookily enough with a peg-legged sailor trodding the docks attacked by the mysterious Phantom. Rescued from the briny water by hard-pressed for cash entrepreneur Bill Martin and his pal Stuff Oliver, we learn the sailor is Tobias Clump, a Spaniard who claims he has half a map of Sir Henry Morgan’s buried treasure – and The Phantom just stole the other half! Bill happens to have inherited Morgan’s Island, where twenty…

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Italian Horror Showcase: Bay of Blood (dir by Mario Bava)

Posted on October 13, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Like many Italian horror films, Mario Bava’s 1971 film, Bay of Blood, is known by many different names.

The original Italian title, or at least one of them, was Ecologia del delitto, which roughly translates to Ecology of Crime. That may sound a little dry to our English-speaking ears but it’s actually a totally appropriate title. The film is about a series of crimes, all inspired by greed and the desire to take control of a bayside mansion.

The film was also called Reazione a catena, which translates to Chain Reaction. Again, that may sound a bit bland but it’s a totally appropriate title. This film takes the concept of a chain reaction to its logical extreme. Everyone in the film wants control of the bay and everyone is willing to kill to do it. One person murders someone just to get murdered themselves. As dark as that may sound, this film actually finds Bava in a rather playful mood. Bava’s direction is wonderfully self-aware and totally cognizant of how absurd the film’s plot occasionally is. It all ends with a perfectly sardonic little twist, one that not only feels earned but which perfectly epitomizes the film’s darkly humorous worldview.

When the film was released in the UK and the United States it was given several different titles. (At one point, in the United States, it was actually sold as being a sequel to Wes Craven’s Last House On The Left, which it definitely was not.) One title was Carnage. Another was Blood Bath. Again, bland titles but totally appropriate to the film. Over the course of the film’s 84-minute running time, 14 people are murdered. With the exception of two innocent bystanders and four teenagers who made the mistake of trying to party in the murder mansion, they were all bad. Still, fourteen is a lot of carnage.

In fact, Bava’s film would later be cited as one of the first slasher films. That’s true, though this film has considerably going on beneath the surface than the average slasher film. If the average slasher often can be defined by sex=death, Bava’s film can be defined as greed=death. That said, several of this film’s murders were “borrowed’ by the early installments of the Friday the 13th franchise. Remember that double impalement from Friday the 13th Part 2? It was taken, almost shot-for-shot, from Bava’s film.

My favorite title for Bava’s film was Twitch of the Death Nerve, which is just so wonderfully over-the-top and melodramatic. It’s the title that most captures the film’s combination of blood and satire. If I was solely in charge of picking the film’s official title, I would have selected Twitch of the Death Nerve.

However, the official title of Bava’s film appears to be Bay of Blood and I guess that’s an okay title. I mean, it’s appropriate. A lot of blood is spilled in that bay, starting with Countess Federica (Isa Miranda) and then going on to include the majority of her family members and business associates. The film opens with Federica’s murder and then doesn’t waste any time in revealing that Federica was murdered by her husband, Filippo (Giovanni Nuvoletti). Filippo murdered his wife on behalf of her estate agent, Frank (Chris Avram) and now, Frank just needs Filippo to sign the property over to him. Of course, what Frank doesn’t realize is that Filippo was murdered just minutes after he murdered Federica….

And that’s just the start.

Bay of Blood is one of Mario Bava’s best films, featuring a cast of wonderfully sordid characters and grisly murders. The film itself becomes a bit of a black comedy, as one murder leads to another. Bava directs with his usual bravura sense of style, making the bay both beautiful and menacing at the same time. If you want to know why almost every horror film made since 1970 owes a debt of gratitude to Bava, Bay of Blood is a good place to start.

Horror Movie Review: A Nightmare On Elm Street (dir by Wes Craven)

Posted on October 13, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Damn, this is a scary movie.

That may seem like an obvious point to make when talking about the original A Nightmare On Elm Street but it’s still one that needs to be made. I always seem to forget just how scary the original is. I mean, there’s been so many sequels. And there was that kind of silly movie where Freddy Krueger fought Jason Vooerhees. And then there was the fairly forgettable reboot. Freddy Krueger is something of a cultural icon. Even people who have never watched any of the movies knows who Freddy Krueger is. Freddy has become so well-known for his quips and his puns and his bad jokes that it’s easy to forget that the reason he put razors on his gloves was so he could kill children.

Despite the fact that Jackie Earle Haley took over the role in the reboot, Freddy Krueger will always be associated with the actor who first played him, Robert Englund. What’s interesting is that, whenever you watch or read an interview with Englund, he comes across as being literally the nicest guy in the world. (His autobiography is one of the most cheerful Hollywood memoirs that I’ve ever read.) Before he was cast as Freddy, Englund was a fairly busy character actor. It’s always a little odd when he pops up in some old movie on TCM because, inevitably, he’s always seems to be playing a nice and often kinda shy guy. Supposedly, when Englund auditioned for the role of Freddy, he darkened his lower eyelids with cigarette ash and he purposefully said very little while meeting with director Wes Craven. Craven, who based Freddy Krueger on a childhood bully, was impressed enough to cast this very likable actor as one of the most evil killers in the history of horror cinema.

And make no mistake about it. In the first film, Freddy Krueger is terrifying. He’s not the joker that he would become in later installments of the franchise. When he does laugh, it’s because he’s taunting his latest victim. This Freddy isn’t quite as quick-witted as the Freddy who showed up in Dream Warriors and other films. This Freddy keeps things simple, popping up in your nightmares, chasing you, and, once he catches you, killing you. It’s not just his glove and his burned faced that makes Freddy terrifying in this film. It’s how determined and relentless he is. He’s not going to stop until he catches you and, seeing as how he’s already dead, there’s really not much you can do to slow him down. Englund plays Freddy as being the ultimate bully. The only joy he gets is from tormenting the rest of us. It’s a testament to the strength of Englund’s performance that memories of Freddy dominate our thoughts when it comes to A Nightmare of Elm Street, despite the fact that Freddy is only onscreen for seven minutes.

It’s an effective film, not just because of the nightmare scenes but also because of the scenes that take place in the waking world. The majority of the film follows Nancy (Heather Langenkamp), Glen (Johnny Depp), Tina (Amanda Wyss), and Rod (Jsu Garcia, who is credited as Nick Corri in this film) as they try not to die. And let’s be honest. None of these characters are particularly deep. Rod’s the bad boy. Tina’s the rebellious Catholic. Glen’s the nice guy. Nancy’s the good girl. They’re archetypes that should be familiar to anyone who has ever seen a slasher film. And yet, you really do care about them, especially Nancy and Glen. (Admittedly, everyone that I’ve ever talked to about this film seems to care about Rod the least.) Langenkamp, Depp, and Wyss all give such likable performances that you really do find yourself worrying about what will happen to them when and if they fall asleep.

I rewatched A Nightmare on Elm Street last night and I was shocked to discover that, even though I knew what was coming, the movie still scared me. The sight of Freddy straining against the wall over Nancy’s head was still unbelievably creepy. The gory scene where Freddy attacks Tina still frightened me, as did the famous geyser of blood scene. Even the much-parodied scene where Freddy’s glove rises up between Nancy’s legs while she sleeps in the bathtub still made me shudder.

It’s easy to take for granted just how good and scary the original Nightmare on Elm Street actually is. For horror fans, it’s a film that deserves to be watched this October season. Just don’t fall asleep afterwards.

Horror on the Lens: Indestructible Man (dir by Jack Pollexfen)

Posted on October 13, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today’s horror on the lens is the surprisingly brutal 1956 B-movie, Indestructible Man!

I reviewed this movie back in 2013. It was definitely made on a low-budget and it features one of the most sexist endings in cinematic history and yet it’s also occasionally effective. The film’s biggest strength is that the Indestructible Man is played by Lon Chaney, Jr. Though Chaney was clearly dealing with his personal demons at the time this film was made, his surly manner and ravaged face make him very effective in the role of Charles “Butcher” Benson.

Enjoy!

Horror Film Review: I Married A Monster From Outer Space (dir by Gene Fowler, Jr)

Posted on October 12, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1958 film I Married A Monster From Outer Space tells the story of Marge (Gloria Talbott) and Bill Farrell (Tom Tryon).

Just one year ago, they seemed like the perfect couple. They were newlyweds, looking forward to starting a family and living in a nice house in the suburbs. Bill seemed like the perfect guy, warm, friendly, humorous, and loving.

However, things have changed. On their one-year anniversary, Bill is cold and distant. He certainly seems to have little interest in romance or anything like that. When Marge gives Bill a new dog as his anniversary present, he doesn’t seem to be sure how to react to it. When the dog later ends up dead, Bill gives her an implausible excuse.

Bill has changed but he’s not the only one. Marge notices that all of her friend’s husbands are acting strange as well. It’s as if something has magically turned every man into the neighborhood into a stiff, humorless jerk.

(Either that or it’s the 50s!)

One night, Marge decides to follow Bill into the forest and she sees something that challenges everything that she previously thought she knew about her husband. What does she discover? Well, it’s right there in the title. Marge has married a monster from outer space!

I imagine that most people’s natural instinct with a film like this is to make fun of the title and just go on from there but actually, I Married A Monster From Outer Space is an intelligent and well-done sci-fi film. Gloria Talbott does a great job in the lead role and Tom Tryon’s rather stiff screen presence is perfectly suited for the role of Alien-Bill. Gene Fowler, Jr. directs the film as if it were a film noir where the usual gangsters and bank robbers have been replaced by humanoid aliens who don’t like dogs.

Since this movie is from 1958, there’s all sorts of subtext creeping around. The most obvious, of course, is that America is being invaded from within. You don’t think your husband could be an alien? Well, Alger Hiss’s mother probably didn’t think her son was a communist spy! You think it’s a silly idea that normal seeming humans would be working to conquer the world? Have you not heard of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg? When Bill and the other men turn cold and impersonal, it’s easy to see that they’ve embraced an ideology opposed to individual freedom and we all know what that means.

However, for me, this film works because it strikes at a very primal fear. How well do you really know the people who you love? Is he always going to be as perfect as he seems when you first start going out or is he going to totally change once he’s sure that you’re not going to leave him? Like many women who have tried to escape from abusive boyfriends and spouses, Marge discovers that no one believes her. She lives in a world controlled by men and all of the men have been taken over by the same thing that’s taken over Bill. Even if you’ve never married a monster from outer space, you know what Marge is going through.

So, don’t dismiss this film because of the melodramatic title. I Married A Monster From Outer Space is an intelligent sci-fi horror film, one that’s still relevant today.

Feeling the Burn: Death Spa (1989, directed by Michael Fischa)

Posted on October 12, 2018 by Jedadiah Leland

Michael (William Bumiller) owns the hottest health club in Los Angeles but that may not stay true if he can’t do something about all the guests dying. Members get baked alive in the sauna. Another is killed when a malfunctioning workout machine pulls back his arms and causes a rib to burst out of one side of his body. Shower tiles fly off the wall and panic a bunch of naked women. A woman loses her arm in a blender and a man is somehow killed by a frozen fish. Strangely, all of the deaths don’t seem to hurt business as people still keep coming to the gym. Surely, there are other, safer health clubs in Los Angeles.

Michael suspects that his brother-in-law, David (Merritt Butrick), might be to blame for all of the trouble. David is good with computers and since this movie is from 1989, that means that he can do anything. (David is described as being a “hacker,” which may be the first time that overused term was used in a film.) Michael feels that David has never forgiven him for the suicide of his sister. Two useless cops show up to investigate the murders while the spa gets ready for Mardi Gras night.

This incredibly cheesy horror movie used to be a mainstay on HBO, where young viewers like me appreciated all of the gore and slightly older viewers appreciated all of the nudity. Viewed today, Death Spa is a real nostalgia trip. From the leg warmers to the bulky computers to the choreographed workout routines, this is a movie that could only have been made in the 80s. The plot is beyond stupid but some of the gore effects were well-executed and that scene where the frozen fish comes to life continues to amaze. Sadly, this was Merritt Butrick’s last film. The actor, who was best known for playing Captain’s Kirk’s son in The Wrath of Khan and The Search for Spock, died the same year that Death Spa was released.

Halloween Havoc!: THE MUMMY’S HAND (Universal 1940)

Posted on October 12, 2018 by gary loggins

cracked rear viewer

Universal revived The Mummy in 1940’s THE MUMMY’S HAND, but except for the backstory (and judicious use of stock footage), there’s no relation to the 1932 Karloff classic . Instead of Imhotep we’re introduced to Kharis, the undead killing machine, as the High Priest of Karnak (Eduardo Cianelli in old age makeup) relates the tale of Princess Ananka, whose tomb is broken into by Kharis, who steals the sacred tanna leaves to try and bring her back to life. Kharis gets busted, and is condemned to be buried alive! For he “who shall defile the temple of the gods, a cruel and violent death shall be his fate, and never shall his soul find rest for all eternity. Such is the curse of Amon-Ra, king of all the gods”. So there!