I finally saw The Lazarus Effect and … bleh, who cares? You may remember that the Lazarus Effect came out earlier this year and it got some attention because it was one of the first horror films to be theatrically released in 2015. But then the reviews came in and they were all awful. And then the movie opened in theaters and audiences saw it and soon, social media was full of tweets and updates about how disappointing the film was. I meant to see it but the movie just kind of came and went. Looking at my records, I can see that — when the Lazarus Effect was still in theaters — I instead chose to see Kingsman, Cinderella, and Maps to the Stars.
But, last night, I finally found the time to watch The Lazarus Effect and … well, I think I made the right decision skipping it. The Lazarus Effect is about a bunch of scientists who discover a serum that can be used to raise the dead. For instance, they use it to bring back to life a dog but guess what? The dog isn’t very happy to be back and he spends most of the movie glaring at every human that he sees. One of the scientists (played by Olivia Wilde) worries that the dog may have happily been in “doggie heaven” and now resents being brought back to life. Mark Duplass, playing her boyfriend and fellow scientists, laughs at her but it turns out that Wilde had a point.
The other scientists are played by Donald Glover and Evan Peters. There’s also a videographer, played by Sarah Bloger, who is there to record all of the experiments. You may notice that I’m not using any character names and that’s because the characters themselves are not that memorable. You remember them because of who played them and not because of anything that the character may have said or done. It’s true that The Lazarus Effect has a pretty good cast but it doesn’t matter because none of them are really given anything worthwhile to do. It’s not so much that anyone gives a bad performance — though the usually very effective Mark Duplass certainly does come close — as much as it’s just a case that the characters just aren’t that interesting. They’re all recognizable stereotypes and, if you can’t exactly predict the order in which they all die from the minute they show up on screen, you obviously haven’t seen enough horror movies.
Anyway, after they bring the dog back to life, Olivia Wilde ends up getting electrocuted so, of course, Mark Duplass decides to use the serum to bring her back to life. Needless, that was a big mistake. Not only does she return with a lot of super powers but it appears that Wilde left her soul in whatever afterlife she was inhabiting.
So, now, you’ve got an angry Olivia Wilde wandering around and killing people…
And it should be interesting but it’s not. The idea has promise but the movie does nothing new or unusual with it and the talented cast mostly just goes through the motions. The Lazarus Effect ends with the promise of a possible sequel. Let’s hope it’s a promise unfulfilled.
Well, it’s the 14th of October. Halloween is just two weeks away! Have you bought your costume yet? Have you tracked down a big bag of candy for all the trick or treaters? Do you have the Silver Shamrock jingle stuck in your head? Are you ready for Halloween?
If you’re not, why not watch today’s blast from the past because I guarantee that it will help to improve your Halloween spirit! First released in 1929, The Skeleton Dance was the first entry in Walt Disney’s iconic Silly Symphonies series. As you can guess from the title, it features dancing skeletons and it’s simply adorable. (It also features some black cats hissing at each other and you know I loved that!)
This was directed and produced by Walt Disney and animated by Ub Iwerks.
Remember Glenn Manning, the unfortunate “hero” of The Amazing Colossal Man?
The previous film may have ended with Glenn plunging to his apparent death from the Hoover Dam but, believe it or not, he survived! Unfortunately, he didn’t survive well. Now, he’s even bigger and he’s even angrier. Plus, he’s massively disfigured. The once articulate, if cranky, Amazing Colossal Man is gone. Now, he’s a Colossal Beast!
That’s the story behind the 1958 film, War of the Colossal Beast! In this sequel, Glenn is back and the army once again has to find a way to control him. Needless to say, it all leads to a final confrontation near Los Angeles’s Griffin Observatory, which means that War of the Colossal Beast is not only a sequel to Amazing Colossal Man but it’s also a bit of companion piece to Rebel Without A Cause!
(Speaking of companion pieces, am I the only one who associated the end of Colossal Man with those commercials that MSNBC used to show of Rachel Maddow going on and on about how only a nation could build the Hoover Dam? Never say “Lean forward” while you’re standing on top of a dam.)
Anyway, War of the Colossal Beast has a totally different cast from Colossal Man and a somewhat different feel. That said, the Colossal Beast makeup — that eye socket freaks me out! — is memorable and, like the previous film, it’s fun in a 1950s B-movie sort of way.
The movie begins and we see a girl walking down the street on Halloween. She smashes a pumpkin and Billy Corgan takes revenge on her because her eyes turn creepy. She runs into the forest and becomes a monster. Then the movie reminds me that if I don’t like it, it’s not director Peter DeLuise’s fault cause it’s called R.L. Stine’s Monsterville: Cabinet Of Souls. The missing “the” had to be donated to the band The The who lost one of their the’s in a tragic accident.
Now it’s one year later and the kids are putting on a high school production of Something Wicked This Way Comes. We are introduced to two guys and two girls. Seeing as I got over my Disney Channel addiction a few years ago, I only recognize Dove Cameron seen here in Liv makeup…unfortunately.
This is a horror movie that wastes no time in killing off people.
He is never heard from again after being killed by that candy apple. Just kidding.
Anyways, we now cut to Nora’s Dance & Ballet Academy Halloween Spooky Dance Contest. Cue the Suspiria (1977) footage!
It’s bad enough the High School Musical movies made Disney think we want dancing and singing kids again, but then Nora says this.
No! Don’t do it kids! That’s how we ended up with the movie Nudist Colony Of The Dead (1991)!
Then these two show up. That’s Dr. Hysteria (Andrew Kavadas) and Lilith (Katherine McNamara). Dr. Hysteria then invites the children to visit his Hall of Horrors which is a journey “into the wretched black heart of pure evil itself.” He’s exaggerating though since it’s just a haunted house. He’s not holding screenings of God’s Not Dead (2014), Let’s Be Cops (2014), and Frenemies (2012).
All jokes aside, both of those actors do good jobs in this movie. They manage to actually be creepy and evil right up till the end. He even kills a kid. No joke.
Because the local news station actually had a story with enough information for the first time in days, they air that the girl from the beginning of the movie is still missing. Now we meet a guy who is probably interchangeable with an actor from Prom Night III: The Last Kiss (1990). I’ll find out when I get to it.
He goes on to brag that he once surfed in a monsoon and outran an avalanche with a broken snowboard so he doesn’t scare easily. I sat through the god awful Extreme Ops (2002) knowing that a guy actually died scouting locations for that studio cash-grab on the extreme sports craze, so this guy didn’t scare me.
Oh, and this movie has kids rapping, so if you are a child, you might not want to show this to your parents because they will probably want you dead. But let’s get to the haunted house.
And I put this screenshot here just so everyone knows that it’s okay to start submitting to IMDb that an alternate title of this movie is Troll 4.
There are scary things in this haunted house such as what Calculus II would have looked like in the sequel to Freshman Father called Sophomore Father: Revenge of the Derivative! There is also a guy making inappropriate references to penises by pretending to sell “brains on a stick”. But nothing is as scary as that ginormous pink scarf they have Cameron wear in these scenes. Seriously, why? She looks like someone is going to throw a saddle on her and start riding her. Also, I played The Walking Dead and know that you don’t want something a zombie can easily grab on to. Of course she stumbles into a backroom during this sequence to to find that maybe some of these monsters are real.
After Cameron figures out that the missing girl has something to do with the Hall of Horrors from a site with a malformed URL that it shows a close up of for no good reason. We see Lilith insist on having this guy wrap his arms around her as they ride her bike before she whispers in his ear that her favorite movie is Joe D’Amato’s Porno Holocaust (1981). The kid is naturally scared by this seeing as his favorite movie with Mark Shannon is Italian Batman (1982).
Now the really creepy stuff starts happening. Dr. Hysteria takes kids in to the backroom and shows them their dreams through a portal he opens up in front of them. Their eyes flash and the kids are now his. We don’t know what that means exactly at this point, but we soon find out.
Inside The Cabinet Of Souls are kids standing around while a fog machine fills the room. It’s a little unclear, but I believe these are the kids souls while their bodies exist in the real world as monsters. It’s all a little unclear. We see some of the monsters walk into the kids bodies. And we see Dr. Hysteria feed off their souls. He does this to one kid who apparently only had one more shot to give cause she dies. I like children’s movies that don’t soft pedal the danger. Harry Potter may have been a bit much, but you get my point. Oh, and before I jump to the end. Just in case the kids aren’t already afraid of clowns.
I love the way this kid acts too. It’s like they gave him a copy of Beetlejuice, told him to watch it, and just do that. Oh, and here’s the kid dying.
He says she’s almost empty, then sucks that last bit of lifeforce from her body. She dissolves to the ground and he says “you were a good worker.” Again, kudos to the actors and the people involved with this production for making this movie genuinely creepy even while making it geared toward a younger audience.
The creepy stuff keeps getting more and more frequent until it finally comes down to whether Cameron is going to join the family or not. Notice two members of the family are rocking the Jason Voorhees from Friday the 13th, Part 2 look. Of course Cameron fights back and saves the kids, leaving Lilith, extreme sports guy, and Dr. Hysteria to go into a red oblivion.
I enjoyed this movie. Yeah, I’m sucker for kids movies cause I basically missed out on my childhood by being sick and at home through middle school and high school, but this was well made. I recommend it. Serious points to Andrew Kavadas for the character of Dr. Hysteria.
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!
Last night, if you discovered that you couldn’t get any sleep around two in the morning, you could have turned to Showtime and watched the 1987 film, From The Hip.
In From the Hip, Judd Nelson plays a character named Robin Weathers. Of course, his nickname is Stormy. Robin has just graduated from law school and is working at a prestigious law firm. He’s ambitious, he’s outspoken, and he’s totally frustrated. As his co-workers (played, quite well, by David Alan Grier and Dan Monahan) continually remind him, nobody gets to try a case during their first year out of law school. They advise him to be patient and to wait his turn.
However, a man who is capable of being patient would not be nicknamed Stormy. It just wouldn’t make any sense. So, Stormy Weathers schemes his way into the courtroom. One morning, he intentionally withholds information from the senior partners, going out of his way to keep them from realizing that a trial is scheduled to begin that afternoon. When senior partner Craig Duncan (Darren McGavin) discovers what Stormy has done, he fires him and makes sure that he never get hired at another law firm … oh wait. No, he doesn’t because that would make too much sense. Instead, he allows Stormy to try the case because, at this point, Stormy is the only one who knows anything about it.
The case is a simple assault case that involves two bankers and should be resolved easily but Stormy manages to drag it out for several days and his flamboyant style catches the attention of the media. The other partners in the law firm — who are all old and boring — want to fire Stormy but Stormy’s client says that, if Stormy is fired, he’ll take his business and his money elsewhere. Stormy becomes a minor celebrity but — in a rather clever little twist — it turns out that he and the prosecuting attorney are old friends from law school and they conspired to make each other look good.
Anyway, Stormy is now so famous that he gets assigned to defend a college professor, named Benoit (John Hurt), who has been accused of murder. When it quickly becomes obvious that Benoit is not only guilty but will probably murder again, Stormy is forced to choose between ambition and morality…
When my friend Evelyn and I first started to watch From the Hip last night, I really thought I was going to hate it. The hot pink neon credits screamed, “Bad 80s movie!” and, because I happen to know quite a few lawyers, I tend to be a 100 times more critical of movies about lawyers than I am when it comes to movies about, say, homicidal fishermen.
And, honestly, From The Hip is a heavily flawed film. Judd Nelson is miscast and the scenes with his politically conscious girlfriend (Elizabeth Perkins) are painfully shallow and reek of limousine liberalism. But, if you can get through the weak opening, the film itself is watchable and enjoyable in a dumb sort of way. John Hurt does a great job as a sociopath and, miscast as he may be, it’s still fun to watch Nelson go insane in court.
From The Hip is not a great film but, in its way, it’s an enjoyable little time capsule. Believe it or not, there was a time when Judd Nelson starred in a movies that were actually released in theaters.
Last night, the Alamo Drafthouse hosted a special one-night showing of an infamous horror film. It was a film that was first released in 1985, the same year that I was born. It was a film that was obviously made for a very low-budget, featuring a cast of unknown actors, many of whom appear to have been amateurs. Much like Savage Weekend, it was a remarkably inept film that somehow managed to work almost despite itself. It was also a film that featured a scene with a giant fishing hook that made me and my BFFs Evelyn and Amy all go, “AGCK!” at the same time. The name of the film? The Mutilator.
That’s right, The Mutilator. Say what you will about this film, you can’t criticize that title. When you see a movie called The Mutilator, you know exactly what you’re getting into. And, though the film does get off to a bit of a slow start, it does ultimately live up to that incendiary title. There is a lot of mutilation to be found.
(And some it involves getting stabbed in the vagina with a giant fishing hook … AGCK!)
The film also features perhaps the most brilliantly generic theme song in the history of the movies. It’s called Fall Break and it’s all about teenagers having a good time. There’s no mention of fish hooks or anything else like that! Instead, it sounds exactly like something you’d expect to hear in a Crown International high school film, like The Pom Pom Girls or The Beach Girls. Just listen to the song below and tell me that it isn’t the most insidiously generic thing that you’ve ever heard.
Anyway, as for the film itself, it opens with a kid named Little Ed finding a shotgun and accidentally shooting his mother in the back. This leads to his father, Big Ed (Jack Chatham), becoming a drunk and declaring that his son will pay for what he has done.
Jump forward several years later and Ed Jr. (Matt Miller) is now in college. When Big Ed calls and demands that Ed Jr. spend his fall break taking care of their beach house, Ed Jr. is reluctant to take the job. But then his friends convince him that this would be a great chance for all of them to spend their fall break hanging out on the beach.
When they finally reach the beach house, Big Ed is nowhere to be found. Ed Jr. figures that Big Ed has already gone back home. After all, Big Ed’s battleaxe — which he usually leaves hanging on the condo wall — is gone. “Dad loves his battleaxe,” Ed Jr. explains.
Of course, what Ed Jr. and his amazingly stupid friends don’t realize is that Big Ed is still in the house. He’s in the basement, surrounded by empty bottles and sleeping with his battleaxe. When Big Ed wakes up and discovers that his son and his friends are in the condo, Big Ed decides to kill them all.
And that’s pretty much what he does.
The Mutilator was directed by Buddy Cooper and the end credits are full of other people named Cooper. This was Buddy’s only film and, for the most part, it’s definitely an amateur production. And yet, that amateurishness works to the film’s advantage. The start and the middle section of the film are so inept that when the murders start and when they turn out to be shockingly brutal and the gore effects turn out to be surprisingly effective, it’s a total shock.
Along with that fish hook (Agck!), we also get decapitations, drownings, strangulations, pitchforkings, and disembowlement by outboard motor. Making all of this all the more disturbing is that nobody really struggles or screams and tries to escape while being attacked. Instead, it’s almost as if they all realize that they’re in a slasher movie and the appearance of Big Ed and his latest weapon of choice almost puts them in a trance. It’s as if almost all of them have accepted their fate. And I realize that’s probably more due to inept directing and bad acting than anything else but still, it gives the film a disturbingly dream-like feel. In the end, The Mutilator becomes one of those films that should not work and yet somehow does.
The Mutilator will be released on Blu-ray by Arrow Video in September.
Another really simple one. I always feel bad reviewing one of these cause I feel like I’m cheating somebody. Also, this isn’t one I could watch where I could take screenshots. Oh, well. It is what it is.
The movie begins and we are introduced to Eddie Avedon (Ethan Erickson) who plays Mulligan the bunny on a children’s TV show. As soon as the camera shuts off, he shoves the kid costar on the show out of the way. He then proceeds to bitch and moan about the costume before he finally gets it off. Of course he hops in his car and soon ends up behind Annie Benchley (Jennie Garth). Benchley’s old run down car breaks down so Avedon keeps honking at her till he makes an attempt to go around her car. And by attempt, I mean he runs into her car. Setup!
We already know that obviously Avedon would rather be doing something else careerwise so we need to be introduced to Benchley. Benchley has a daughter who is losing her eyesight. She loves the character of Mulligan the bunny. So of course the two are going to end up together. The daughter kind of melts his heart. There are no surprises here or anything particularly interesting to mention.
The problem with this film is that I didn’t really think two leads had any chemistry together. Also, Jennie Garth doesn’t fit in the role of a single mother who is down on her luck working as a waitress with a kid going blind. Call it the fault of starring on Beverly Hills, 90210 for too long, but I just couldn’t look at her face and accept her in the role. I accepted him, but I also never really warmed up to him.
Still, it was okay. There were decent supporting performances from Avedon’s friend (Zack Ward), Benchley’s mother (Marilu Henner), Avedon’s agent (Fred Willard), and I even kind of liked the kid costar (Adam Karelin). This one will pass some time for you.
For today’s horror on the lens, we present the 1957 film, The Amazing Colossal Man!
Directed by Bert I. Gordon, The Amazing Colossal Man tells the story of what happens when Lt. Col. Glenn Manning (Glen Langan) is exposed to an atomic blast, the force of which not only burns off his clothes but leaves him bald as well! At first, everyone is convinced that there’s no way Glenn Manning will survive but, to everyone’s surprise, he does survive.
And he starts to get bigger!
That’s right — radiation does the craziest things!
Soon, Glenn’s a giant and he’s not very happy about it. As the government tries to keep both the accident and the mutation a secret, Glenn grows more and more bitter and angry. And it certainly doesn’t help matters when the scientists decide they want to inject him with a giant syringe.
Seriously, you’ve got to see this syringe!
Anyway, The Amazing Colossal Man is one of those fun sci-fi films that elitist critics love to criticize. But you know what? If you’re watching a movie like this because you want to nitpick every little detail, you’re missing the point. The Amazing Colossal Man is a 1950s B-movie and, when taken on those terms, it’s a lot of fun.
Add to that, Glen Langan really throws himself into the title role!
— Monique (Beverly Lynne) in Hell’s Highway (2002)
It certainly is, Monique! It certainly is.
Hell’s Highway is a stretch of road that runs through the desolate California desert. The side of the road is decorated with crosses, each signifying another person who lost her or his life on the road. There are only a few cars on this lonely stretch of highway. One car belongs to a serial killer who dresses as a priest. Another car is being driven by veteran porn actor Ron Jeremy, who ends up getting castrated in close-up.
And then there’s a group of college friends on a road trip. They drink beer. They smoke pot. They occasionally stop to camp out on the side of the road. And they also pick up a hitchhiker named Lucinda (Phoebe Dollar).
Picking up Lucinda was probably a mistake because, as soon as she gets in the car, she starts talking about how much she enjoys killing people. She then pulls out a gun and tells them, “My name’s not really Lucinda but it’s close enough.” The road trippers manage to kick her out of the car and drive away.
But it’s not that easy to get rid of Lucinda!
The next day, they once again come across her hitchhiking. They run her over and then drive off with her large intestine still wrapped around the back bumper.
And yet, Lucinda continues to reappear! No matter how many times they destroy her, Lucinda always returns…
Like so many of the films that I’ve reviewed for this October, Hell’s Highway is included in the Decrepit Crypt of Nightmares box set. Like every other film included in that set, Hell’s Highway is a low-budget, direct-to-video gorefest that doesn’t really waste much time with anything as mundane as plausibility. And yet, for what it is, Hell’s Highway is actually pretty effective. Lucinda makes for an effectively creepy villain and all of her victims are so unlikable that you won’t feel too bad when they get killed.
Perhaps best of all, Hell’s Highway ends with one of those out-of-nowhere twists that makes so little sense that it becomes oddly brilliant. Just when you think the film can’t get any stranger or any more implausible, it goes there. And it goes there with such conviction that you can’t help but slightly admire it.
Perhaps despite itself, Hell’s Highway works surprisingly well.
Wow! This was not what I expected at all. This is what I imagine Luis Bunuel would have made if he started his career as a low budget 1980s horror director. Since the characters have several names, I’m just going to refer to them by the actor’s names.
The movie begins and we are introduced to William Dame’s character as he seems to be a mechanic for planes. Two men show up, remove a ring from his finger, and proceed to knock him out by holding a plastic bag over his head. Then he wakes up in some house dressed in a tux and we meet Catherine Dee’s character.
Next we are introduced to an old lady who appears to want him to have sex with Dee for her amusement, and then have sex with her, or Dee dies. This whole scene plays out like something surreal you would expect from Bunuel, The Twilight Zone, or the like, but then…
just as Dame is about to have sex with the older lady, we are introduced to the third main character played by M.R. Murphy. I almost feel bad for giving away the twist that the old lady is a guy, but honestly, I could keep giving away twists all I want and it would still have something more up it’s sleeve.
I guess the best way I can sum it up is like this. We start off in what appears to be reality. Then we feel like we are in something truly surreal till the mirror breaks on that to reveal a new reality. This pattern of destroying the current setup for a new one repeats throughout the entire movie till it comes to it’s conclusion. But it’s not like we see them stop, then dress up for a new part. It’s like when a character wakes up from a dream, but it’s just another dream. Except it’s not annoying.
This is the one of the most interesting movies I’ve seen all year. I know this is not a movie for everyone. It’s weird, but it’s my kind of weird. It had me thinking about The Exterminating Angel (1962) and mostly The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz (1955).
I’m not sure what else I can really say about this movie that doesn’t just lay out the plot for you. Doing that would ruin it if you wanted to watch it and it’s one of those movies I think loses so much in the translation to words. Here are a few of the highlights and some closing thoughts, followed by the movie itself which is available on YouTube.
I guess my only real complaint about the movie is that they didn’t make it even more surreal. That, and I actually wanted it to keep going longer. I love that the movie nearly takes place entirely inside this one house. It gave it that claustrophobic feeling of The Exterminating Angel, while the resetting of the characters and their relationships kind of reminded me of The Discreet Charm Of The Bourgeoisie (1972). Seriously, this movie had me thinking about Bunuel throughout it. That’s a good thing!
Not for everybody, but I was very pleasantly surprised.
