Category Archives: Film Review

Horror on the Lens: The Little Shop of Horrors (dir by Roger Corman)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

(It’s tradition here at the Lens that, every October, we watch the original Little Shop of Horrors.  And always, I start things off by telling this story…)

Enter singing.

Little Shop…Little Shop of Horrors…Little Shop…Little Shop of Terrors…

Hi!  Good morning and Happy October the 29th!  For today’s plunge into the world of public domain horror films, I’d like to present you with a true classic.  From 1960, it’s the original Little Shop of Horrors!

When I was 19 years old, I was in a community theater production of the musical Little Shop of Horrors.  Though I think I would have made the perfect Audrey, everybody always snickered whenever I sang so I ended up as a part of “the ensemble.”  Being in the ensemble basically meant that I spent a lot of time dancing and showing off lots of cleavage.  And you know what?  The girl who did play Audrey was screechy, off-key, and annoying and after every show, all the old people in the audience always came back stage and ignored her and went straight over to me.  So there.

Anyway, during rehearsals, our director thought it would be so funny if we all watched the original film.  Now, I’m sorry to say, much like just about everyone else in the cast, this was my first exposure to the original and I even had to be told that the masochistic dentist patient was being played by Jack Nicholson.  However, I’m also very proud to say that — out of that entire cast — I’m the only one who understood that the zero-budget film I was watching was actually better than the big spectacle we were attempting to perform on stage.  Certainly, I understood the film better than that screechy little thing that was playing Audrey.

The first Little Shop of Horrors certainly isn’t scary and there’s nobody singing about somewhere that’s green (I always tear up when I hear that song, by the way).  However, it is a very, very funny film with the just the right amount of a dark streak to make it perfect Halloween viewing.

So, if you have 72 minutes to kill, check out the original and the best Little Shop of Horrors…

The TSL’s Horror Grindhouse: The Scarehouse (dir by Gavin Michael Booth)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

One night, a college student named Brandon died.

While two sorority pledges painted his face and then posed for selfies with his unconscious body, Brandon choked to death on his own vomit.  The pledges were named Corey (Sarah Booth) and Elaina (Kimberly-Sue Murray) and when they were put on trial for manslaughter, they claimed that it was just a prank gone wrong and that the other members of the sorority put them up to it.  Of course, no one was willing to back up their stories.  Instead, the president of the sorority, Jacqueline Gill (Katherine Barrell), just went on television and said that she hoped the two would ask God for forgiveness.  Corey and Elaina were convicted and sent to prison.

Two years later, Corey and Elaina have been released and now they’re looking for revenge.  However, a simple revenge will not do.  Elaina is an engineering genius and Corey … well, Corey’s just really angry.  They’ve set up an elaborate haunted house and they’ve sent a private invite to each member of the sorority…

Two girls seeking revenge for a sorority prank gone wrong sound like either the set up for a Lifetime movie or the world’s worst Lime-a-rita commercial.  (“So, this happened: we thought we were going to a haunted house but then it turned out we were actually being invited to our violent doom.  Yep, it was a Lime-a-rita night.”)  However, The Scarehouse is neither.  Instead, it’s a rather grisly horror film with a streak of extremely dark humor.

But is it any good?

Let’s start with what works.  Both Sarah Booth and Kimberly-Sue Murray give very good performances as the two girls.  Even when the script lets them down, Booth and Murray keep the movie from dying.  The film actually does some interesting things with the two characters.  It keeps us guessing about which one of them is really the driving force behind the whole revenge plot.  No sooner do you think that you’ve figured out their power dynamic then something will happen or words will said that force you to reconsider what you previously assumed.

Though I had a hard time believing that such an elaborate death trap could have been designed by just two people, the haunted house was a memorable and creepy location.  It was full of atmosphere and the promise of doom.  If I ever found myself in there, I’d probably be scared.

Finally, you always have to admire a horror film that doesn’t shy away from pursuing things to their darkest conclusion.  Once one enters the Scarehouse, there is no escape and everyone’s worst nature will be exposed.  There is no exit and Hell is other people.

At the same time, I’ve grown tired of movies that feature lengthy scenes of people being tortured.  After nearly two decades of Saw films and Hostel rip-offs, whatever shock value those scenes may have once had are gone.  The tortures in The Scarehouse are elaborate and sadistic and thoroughly unpleasant to sit through.  A girl with an eating disorder has her corset tightened until she literally splits in half.  A forced pillow fight leads to corrosive chemicals eating away at flesh.  Some of it is clever but, far too often, these scenes go on too long.  There’s only so long you can spend watching someone being tortured until you mentally check out.

As well, The Scarehouse uses a nonlinear time line.  In between the scenes of Corey and Elaina getting their revenge, we see flashbacks to the prank that led to death of Brandon.  But, since we already know what happened because it’s all Corey and Elaina ever talk about, there’s not really anything new to be discovered in the flashbacks.

Obviously, my feelings about The Scarehouse are mixed.  I was pretty dismissive immediately after I watched it but the movie has definitely stuck with me.  It has its flaws but it also has two memorable and frightening performances.  Watch at your own discretion.

 

Horror Film Review: The Mummy (dir by Alex Kurtzman)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Oh, where to start?

The Mummy was promoted as being the first entry in Universal’s new Dark Universe, a shared cinematic universe that would supposedly do for the classic monsters what the MCU did for super heroes.  (Of course, horror fans with a good memory remember that Dracula Untold was originally supposed to be the first part of the Dark Universe franchise but, after that film bombed with both critics and audiences, Universal announced, “We were just kidding.  The Dark Universe starts with The Mummy.”)  The Mummy was released in June and it got absolutely decimated by critics.  That wasn’t too surprising.  One could tell from the commercials that, even with 2017 being a good year from horror, The Mummy was not going to be a critical favorite.  But then, audiences rejected it as well, throwing the whole future of the Dark Universe franchise into limbo.

To be honest, I think The Mummy could have been a fun little movie if it had only been 90 minutes long and hadn’t gotten bogged down with all that Dark Universe nonsense.  There are a few moments that actually do work, though they are few and far between.  The film stars Tom Cruise, who is a veteran at handling nonsense and who gives a somewhat lighter version of his standard Mission Impossible performance.  Jake Johnson shows up as a talking corpse and he has a way with a sarcastic line.  Some of the special effects are effective, though The Mummy is often far too dependent upon them.

The plot is damn near incoherent and it didn’t take long for me to give up on trying to follow it.  The film started with a bunch of crusaders moving in slow motion and then it jumped forward to modern-day Iraq, where Sgt. Nick (Cruise) and Cpl. Chris (Johnson) uncovered an ancient tomb.  Apparently, opening the tomb unleashes Princess Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella), who is thousands of years old and is still alive because she was cursed to be both immortal and buried alive.  So, now, she’s free and apparently, she wants Nick to merge with Set, the Egyptian god of all things evil.  But Nick doesn’t want to be evil.  He just wants to save the lives of Chris and Jenny (Annabelle Wallis), an archeologist who basically has the same role that Natalie Portman had in the first Thor film.

Meanwhile, Russell Crowe is wandering around as Dr. Jekyll.  This is where the whole Dark Universe things kicks.  Dr. Jekyll is in charge of this secret organization that keeps tabs on all the paranormal stuff that’s happening in the world.  However, if Dr. Jekyll doesn’t regularly get his injection, he turns into evil Mr. Hyde.  In this movie, that means that Crowe suddenly starts talking with a cockney accent.  I’m assuming that, much like Samuel L. Jackson did for the MCU, Russell Crowe is meant to link all of the Dark Universe films together.  Of course, the difference is that the early MCU films usually only had Jackson show up at the end of the movie, often in a post-credits scene.  Crowe, on the other hand, pops up out of nowhere, takes over a huge chunk of the film, and then vanishes.  I was already having enough trouble trying to keep up with the Mummy’s schemes without having to deal with a random Mr. Hyde sighting.

The Mummy is a mess.  When it starts, it’s a likable mess, with Cruise and Johnson exchanging silly lines.  But then the movie gets caught up in trying to launch a franchise and it all goes downhill from there.  There’s even a scene where Ahmanet stands in the middle of a London streets and starts throwing cars around.  It’s such an MCU scene that I was surprised Robert Downey, Jr. didn’t come flying by.  If The Mummy had just been a content to be a silly monster movie, it could have been fun.  But instead, The Mummy tried to launch an entire universe and it just wasn’t up to the task.

A Movie A Day #293: See No Evil (1971, directed by Richard Fleischer)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

After a rain, a car drives through a puddle and splashes mud on a man’s designer boots.  The owner of the boots follows the car back to a country manor and murders everyone inside.  (Did he really kill everyone in the house because his boots get muddied?  It is never really clear.  Before his boots got splashed on, he was looking at violent comic books in a shop.  Maybe Wertham was right.)  Later, Sarah (Mia Farrow), the niece of the car’s driver, arrives at the house.  As the result of a recent horse riding accident, Sarah is blind.  She walks through the house, unaware that she is surrounded by dead bodies and unaware that the owner of the boots left behind a bracelet that he will soon be returning to retrieve.

Obviously inspired by Wait Until Dark, See No Evil is a well-done cat-and-mouse game between Sarah and her unseen stalker.  Mia Farrow is great as the blind woman and the scenes of her unknowingly walking past the dead bodies of her family while being followed are tense and suspenseful.  See No Evil has been overshadowed by Farrow’s other two horror films, Rosemary’s Baby and Full Circle, but it is definitely worth a look.

A Halloween Film Review: Kong: Skull Island (dir by Jordan Vogt-Roberts)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

You may have noticed that, in the title of this post, I specifically referred to Kong: Skull Island as being a Halloween film but not a horror film.

That was very much intentional on my part.  Kong: Skull Island is really not a horror film.  (I think you could argue that the only King Kong film that can legitimately be considered a horror film would be Peter Jackson’s version and that’s just because he tossed in a few scenes that were obviously inspired by the old Italian cannibal films.)  I watched Kong: Skull Island a few months ago and I really can’t say that there was ever a moment where I was scared or even uneasy.  It’s just not that type of film.

At the same time, it is a fantastically fun and entertaining monster movie, one that has a good sense of humor about its own absurdity.  Halloween is not just a time to get scared.  It’s also a time to have fun and, for that reason, Kong: Skull Island is a perfect movie for October.  In fact, I think that it was actually a mistake for Warner Bros. to release the film in March.  They should have released it during the first weekend of October.  It could have provided a counterbalance to all of the depressing films that have been released this month,

Kong: Skull Island is a throwback to the gleefully absurd monster movies of the past.  Just so we don’t miss that point, the film starts with a 1944 prologue before then jumping forward to 1973.  (Significantly, not a single scene takes place in the 21st Century.)  Samuel L. Jackson plays Lt. Col. Preston Packard, the tough, no-nonsense commander of the Sky Devils helicopter squadron.  The Sky Devils are finally on the verge of leaving Vietnam but they’ve been asked to carry out on more mission.  They’ve been asked to fly an expedition over a newly discovered island.  The official story is that they’re going to be mapping the island but everyone knows better than to trust the government.

Kong: Skull Island is very well-cast, which is a good thing because the majority of the characters are thinly written.  Among the civilians in the helicopters: Tom Hiddleston, Brie Larson, and John Goodman.  Of course, they’re all playing characters but, for the most part, you’ll spend the entire movie thinking of them as being Tom Hiddleston, Brie Larson, and John Goodman.  For that matter, you never think of Samuel L. Jackson as being Preston Packard.  He simply is Samuel L. Jackson.  When they eventually discover a castaway living on the island, it doesn’t matter that the man’s “name” is supposedly Hank Marlow.  He’s played by john C. Reilly and that’s who you’ll always think of him as being.   They’re all charismatic actors so you certainly don’t mind watching them but, at the same time, the film understands that the main reason we’re all here is to see the giant gorilla.

To the film’s credit, it doesn’t take long for King Kong to show up.  This is not one of those films where things are dragged out in an unnecessary attempt to create suspense.  (After all, the audience already knows that King Kong’s on the island.)  Almost as soon as the helicopters breach the airspace over Skull Island, Kong shows up and starts knocking them out of the sky.  The survivors end up stranded on different parts of the island.

Of course, it’s not just Kong that they have to worry about.  In fact, from the start, the audience is smart enough to know that Kong is actually one of the good monsters.  However, Skull Island is also inhabited by bad monsters, like these giant reptiles that Kong keeps having to fight.

Early on, there’s a scene in America where, in regards to the Watergate scandal, John Goodman says that Washington, D.C. is never going to be more screwed up than it is at that moment.  That line pretty much epitomizes Kong: Skull Island.  It’s a lark with a knowing sense of humor and it is not meant to be taken at all seriously.  At it’s best, Kong: Skull Island satirizes some of the most pompous monster movies of the past.  Whenever someone says something portentous, you can be sure that the film will quickly find a way to puncture the somber mood.

And it’s all terrifically entertaining.  Watch, enjoy, and don’t worry too much about whether or not any of it makes sense.  A trip to Skull Island is a trip worth taking.

Horror on the Lens: Samson vs. The Vampire Women (dir by Alfonso Corona Blake)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

If a group of vampires are determined to ruin your night, what should you do?  Well, according to the classic Mexican film Santo vs. las Mujeres Vampiro, your first move should be to call a wrestler.

What to know more?  Well, you can read my full review of the film by clicking here!

And you can watch the movie below because it’s today’s horror on the lens!

A Movie A Day #292: The Bride (1985, directed by Franc Roddam)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

The Bride opens where most films about Frankenstein and his monster end.

The Baron (played by fucking Sting, of all people) has agreed to create a bride for his creation, who in this movie is named Viktor and played by Clancy Brown.  Jennifer Beals plays the Bride, who is named Eva.  Eva looks like a normal, beautiful wielder-turned-dancer so when she first sees Viktor, she screams.  Viktor gets upset and starts to trash the laboratory.  “Don’t be impertinent!’ snaps the Baron’s assistant (Quentin Crisp).  A fire breaks out.  Quentin Crisp dies and so does another assistant played by Timothy Spall.  The monster escapes.  The Baron takes Eva into his household.  The Baron is obsessed with controlling Eva, who wants her independence and who has fallen in love with Cary Elwes.  When Eva sees a cat, she screams.  “You never told me about cats,” she tells the Baron, “I thought it was a tiny lion!”

The rest of the movie is a bewildering collection of cameos from respected thespians forced to recite some of the worst dialogue in film history.  Viktor befriends Rinaldo the dwarf (David Rappaport), who tells Viktor about how much he dreams of one day seeing Venice.  After Rinaldo is murdered by Alexei Sayle, Viktor swears that he will go to Venice and he will take Eva with him.

(Timothy Spall,  Quentin Crisp, and Alexei Sayle are not the only British performers to be strangely miscast in The Bride.  Keep an eye out for Phil Daniels, Ken Campbell, and Tony Haygarth, all wasted in small roles.)

The Bride attempts to put a revisionist, feminist spin on the story of Frankenstein but it ultimately just looks like a two hour Duran Duran video, with a guest vocals provided by Sting.  The scenes with Clancy Brown and David Rappaport work but otherwise, every important role is miscast.  Jennifer Beals is monotonous as the Bride and Sting never comes close to suggesting that he is capable of the type of mad genius that would be necessary to create life.  When it comes to the Bride of Frankenstein, stick with the original.

One final note: Both Sting and Phil Daniels also appeared in a much better film from Franc Roddam, Quadrophenia.  I recommend seeing Quadrophenia almost as much as I recommend forgetting about The Bride.

Horror on the Lens: Cruel Jaws (dir by Bruno Mattei)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today’s horror on the lens is the 1995 Italian film, Cruel Jaws!

As you’ll quickly notice, though the actors speak in English, there are also Japanese subtitles.  That’s because the film was barely released in the United States, for legal reasons.  (Cruel Jaws is full of footage lifted from better-known shark films.)  However, it was very popular in Japan.

This film was directed by the one and only Bruno Mattei.  You can read my review here.

A Movie A Day #291: Pale Blood (1990, directed by V.V. Dachin Hsu and Michael W. Leighton)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Someone is murdering women in Los Angeles and draining them of their blood.  A mysterious detective named Michael Fury (George Chakiris) arrives from London and starts to investigate.  Fury is a vampire but he is a thoroughly modern vampire.  He even has his own special travel coffin that he takes with him on trips.  To help him with his investigation, he hires a researcher named Lori (Pamela Ludwig).  Lori is convinced that the killings are being committed by a real vampire but Michael believes that they are actually the work of a human who is only pretending to be one of the undead.  Michael is worried that this fake vampire will make real vampires look bad.  Meanwhile, a crazy photographer (Wings Hauser) stalks Michael, determined to capture a vampire of his very own.

Pale Blood went straight-to-video and does not have the budget to match its ambitions but it is still a fairly good, if overlooked, vampire movie.  George Chakiris, who is best known for his role in West Side Story, had the right look to play a brooding vampire and he and Pamela Ludwig made a good team.  Not surprisingly, the best thing about Pale Blood was Wings Hauser.  In this movie, Wings Hauser gave a performance that was demented even by the standards of Wings Haauser.  Hauser is so crazy in this movie that Pale Blood sets the standard by which all other crazy Wing Hauser performances must be judged.

One final note: the vhs cover art, which is pictured above, features a shot of Wings Hauser that was apparently lifted from a different movie.

 

Horror on the Lens: Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter (dir by William Beaudine)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

This 1966 western/horror hybrid is just about as stupid as you think it is but it’s also a lot of fun if you’re in the right mood.  Notorious outlaw Jesse James (John Lupton) attempts to hold up a stagecoach but, in the process, his hulking partner Hank (Cal Bolder) is serious wounded.  Some helpful peasants direct Jesse and Hank to the mysterious German doctor who happens to live in a nearby dark and scary house.  That doctor is Maria Frankenstein (Narda Onyx) and she’s been conducting experiments to bring dead Mexicans back to life.  Imagine her joy when the nearly dead Hank shows up at her laboratory.  Anyway, Maria performs a brain transplant on Hank and once Hank comes back to life, she informs him that his new name is “Igor.”  Yes, she does.  That plot description pretty much tells you everything you need to know about the movie but I vaguely enjoyed vaguely paying attention to it.  Maria’s German accent is hilariously overdone, the Frankenstein laboratory is full of pointless electrical things, and a character dies halfway through the film just to later show up again with no explanation.  It’s that type of movie.

And it’s also the type of movie that you can watch below!

Enjoy!