Horror Film Review: The Devonsville Terror (dir by Ulli Lommel)

Posted on October 8, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Who is the world’s worst director?

That’s a question that can really lead to lot of conflict. First off, it’s a deceptively simple question. The more you think about it, the more you realize how fragile concepts like good and bad truly are. Some of the greatest films ever made were critical flops. Some of the films that have been embraced by contemporary critics will definitely be less acclaimed by future viewers. There’s a lot to take into consideration when it comes to determining whether or not a filmmaker is good, mediocre, or one of the worst of all time. It’s something that requires a lot of careful thought and consideration and research.

Of course, if you don’t have time for all that, you can just say that the world’s worst director is Ulli Lommel and save yourself the trouble.

This German director has been making movies for longer than I’ve been alive. He got his start in the early 70s, as an actor who frequently collaborated with the great German filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder. With Fassbinder as his producer, Lommel made a few surrealistic (and, it should be stated, critically acclaimed) films in Germany and then, in 1977, he moved to the U.S, and became friends with Andy Warhol. He also married Suzanna Love, an actress who was the heiress to the Standard Oil Fortune and who starred in a handful of Lommel’s early films.

Today, Lommel’s reputation for being the world’s worst director is largely the result of an endless series of low-budget, straight-to-DVD films that he’s made about various real-life serial killers. I’ve seen quite a few of these movies (and I reviewed Lommel’s Curse of the Zodiac three years ago) and they are truly bad. Normally, I can find something to love about almost every movie that I watch but Lommel’s serial killer films are beyond terrible. They’re so bad that they are almost impossible to review. I mean, how many different ways can you find to say that a movie sucks so much that it will make you question whether Eadweard Muybride should ever have filmed Sallie Gardner at a Gallop in the first place?

But here’s the thing with Ulli Lommel and this what makes it especially so frustrating to see him currently doing a thousand variations on Curse of the Zodiac. His first two horror films — both of which were filmed in the early 80s and starred Love — are not that bad. Don’t misunderstand me. They’re not particularly good but they still feature enough hints of genuine talent and inspiration that you have to wonder just what the Hell happened.

The first (and best known) of Lommel’s horror films was 1980’s The Boogeyman, an incredibly stupid film that still featured some good atmosphere and a few memorable deaths. Lommel followed The Boogeyman with 1983’s The Devonsville Terror.

The Devonsville Terror may not have the same cult status as The Boogeyman but it’s actually a far more interesting film. The film opens in the 17th Century. In the Massachusetts town of Devonsville, three women are executed for being witches. After the final witch is burned, her spirit appears in the sky and announces that the town is now cursed.

We then jump forward 300 years. Dr. Warley is researching the Devonsville curse. By researching, I mean that he continually invites citizens in Devonsville into his office and hypnotizes them, which leads to them having flashbacks to 1683 and those of us in the audience having to continually rewatch the first few minutes of the movie. The spirit of the witch curses Dr. Warley and soon, he’s having to pull maggots out of his arm. It doesn’t add up too much but Dr. Warley is played by Donald Pleasence so he’s at least entertaining.

Meanwhile, a new school teacher, Jenny (played by Suzanna Love), has moved into town and she’s teaching the kids to think for themselves and even goes as far as to suggest that God might be a woman! The town leaders are shocked and more than a few of them start to suspect that she might be a reincarnated witch…

At the same time, a loser named Walter (Paull Wilson) has just murdered his wife and soon finds himself having nightmares where Jenny allows him to drown in a swamp. “The legend’s true!” Walter shouts in his dream, “You are a witch!”

On top of that, two other liberated women have recently moved into town, which leads to a panic as the townfathers realize that their town — best known for executing three witches — is now home to three feminists!

Of course, it all leads to an attempt to duplicate the executions of 1683. Heads explode. Faces melt. Don’t mess with the witches, y’all. That’s all I’m saying.

The Devonsville Terror is a huge mess but, much like The Boogeyman, the film has a lot of atmosphere and features a good performance from Suzanna Love. (As well, just as The Boogeyman features John Carradine not doing much of anything, Devonsville Terror features Donald Pleasence not doing much of anything.) But the main thing I liked about The Devonsville Terror was its feminist subtext, which is not something you would typically expect to find in a horror film from the early 80s.

You have to ask yourself — how did the director of The Devonsville Terror ends up becoming the guy who directed Curse of the Zodiac and Mondo Americana? One huge clue is probably found in the fact that Suzanna Love is nowhere to be found in any of Lommel’s later films. According to the imdb, Lommel and Love divorced in 1987.

With Suzanna Love, Ulli Lommel was an occasionally interesting, if uneven, filmmaker.

Without her, he’s just the guy who directed Curse of the Zodiac.

Horror on the Lens: The Norliss Tapes (dir by Dan Curtis)

Posted on October 8, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today’s Horror on the Lens is The Norliss Tapes, a 1973 made-for-TV movie that was also a pilot for a television series that, unfortunately, was never put into productions.

Reporter David Norliss (Roy Thinnes) has disappeared. His friend and publisher, Stanford Evans (Don Porter), listens to the tapes that Norliss recorded before vanishing. Each tape details yet another paranormal investigation. (Presumably, had the series been picked up, each tape would have been a different episode.) The first tape tells how Norliss investigated the mysterious death of an artist who apparently returned from the grave.

For a made-for-TV movie, The Norliss Tapes is pretty good. It’s full of atmosphere and features a genuinely menaching yellow-eyed zombie monster.

Enjoy!

Horror Film Review: Rockula (1990, dir. Luca Bercovici)

Posted on October 7, 2015 by Valerie Troutman

I hate to say it, but I think Monster High is better than Rockula. For all of Monster High’s problems, stuff happened in it. This movie has some memorable characters and a funny setup, but then it just devolves into a series of musical numbers. Most are performed onstage so they have an in film context, but there is at least one that is done like you would expect from a music video. On the other hand, this does have Bo Diddley, Thomas Dolby, and Toni Basil in it. However, while we do see Diddley with his square guitar, never is Toni Basil dressed like a cheerleader and nor does Thomas Dolby become blinded by science.

The film opens and we are introduced to our lead named Ralph (Dean Cameron). He lives with his mother Phoebe (Toni Basil). They are both vampires. We are also introduced to the Ralph in the mirror.

In this movie, Ralph has another version of himself that is trapped inside every mirror he looks into. This is one of the highlights of the movie because his mirror self is quite funny. Like when he finds that a fun house mirror that stretches him out has increased more than just the length of his body.

Next we go to the exposition dump bar and learn about the setup of this film. Let me see if I can get this right. Sometime around the 17th century he met a girl named Mona and fell in love with her. But she had a boyfriend who was a pirate. Ralph and Mona were going to slip off and get married, but the boyfriend found out. Ralph and the boyfriend get in a fight. The boyfriend loses his sword and Mona gets killed by a hambone to the head. Ralph tried to save her, but since there were 20 pissed off pirates, he fled. Since she was killed before he could lose his virginity to her, she is now reincarnated every 22 years until they get it right. The day after the bartender tells us this story Ralph is going to meet Mona once again. And he unless he falls in love with her and saves her, a crazed pirate with a rhinestone peg leg will kill her on Halloween. Got that? Well, as you can imagine, Ralph is a little depressed. Or as Bo Diddley says.

Oh, and the sun doesn’t do anything to Ralph. Also, he has a similar scheme to Robert Sean Leonard in My Best Friend Is A Vampire (1987). The Red Cross Blood Mobile makes deliveries to him. Crosses don’t do anything to him either. Basically take everything you know about vampires and throw it the window. Well, he can turn into a bat. Just not a very impressive one.

All you really need to know is that he must lose his virginity to Mona otherwise a peg leg pirate will kill her leaving him sexless for another 22 years. Remember, this came out in 1990. The 1980’s were still going on in the heads of many people.

In short order, he runs into Mona. Mona is a singer. To be honest, I’m not sure how Thomas Dolby’s character is related to her other than that they are close and he sells really bizarre things for dead people.

To win over Mona, Ralph becomes ROCKULA!

Unfortunately, this did come out in 1990. So this happens to:

That is Bo Diddley on the right doing what I really hope was the least dignified thing of his career. If there was worse, then I don’t want to see it.

I could stop here and say I don’t want to spoil the ending of Rockula so I have an excuse to stop writing. But who cares about the ending and you already know what happens, so here it goes. Thomas Dolby gets really jealous and Toni Basil helps him to become the pirate with the rhinestone peg leg.

They duel, and Ralph wins. Dolby is knocked into a cryogenic pod that is conveniently there and drifts off to sleep thinking that a nine iron is an extension of his penis. No, seriously, the machine keeps telling him that as he drifts off to sleep.

Ralph and Mona live happily ever after. But wait, there’s one loose end. What about the Ralph in the mirror? That Ralph breaks the mirror on his end and emerges as this.

No explanation given for this at all. He just goes out on stage and sings while the credits roll. Who needs explanations? Ralph lost his virginity, Dolby will never be hyperactive again, Toni Basil is fine after getting hit by a hambone during the duel, and Bo Diddley is dead so he doesn’t have to worry about me reminding people this movie exists. Everyone’s happy.

Well, let’s leave Bo Diddley with a little dignity.

The Daily Horror Grindhouse: The Devil Times Five (dir by Sean MacGregor and David Sheldon)

Posted on October 7, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Initially released in 1974 and also known as Peopletoys, Tantrums, and The Horrible House on the Hill, Devil Times Five is one of a handful of films made about murderous children targeting and killing adults. In the case of Devil Times Five, the children are five escapees from a mental hospital and the adults are a group of largely unlikable people who have gotten snowed in at a ski lodge.

(In a film like this, it helps that the victims are all too unlikable to really care about.)

When watching Devil Times Five, it helps to know a little something about what went on behind the scenes. Apparently, original director Sean McGregor was fired when it turned out that, after several weeks of filming, he only had 38 minutes of usable footage. Several weeks later, a second director, David Sheldon, was brought in to reshoot a good deal of the movie. Unfortunately, by the time that Sheldon arrived, the majority of the cast had moved onto other projects and the main killer kid (Leif Garrett) had gotten his hair cut for another movie, meaning that he had to wear an ill-fitting wig for the reshoots.

And the end result is a truly weird movie, one that is full of odd continuity errors and strange scenes that were obviously only included to pad out the film’s running time. Among the most obvious of the continuity errors is the insistence that the characters are snowed in despite the fact that there appears to be hardly any snow on the ground outside. (This, of course, was largely due to the fact that the reshoots were done in sunny California.) As for the padding, perhaps the most infamous example is the scene where the five children attack and beat to death their doctor. This entire scene is shown in slow motion. It lasts five minutes.

Seriously — and if you doubt me on this, be sure to read Stacie Ponder’s review of the film over on Final Girl — five minutes is a really long time. It’s certainly a long time to watch someone get beat to death, especially when the scene is underlit and sepia-toned. It starts out as disturbing but, after the 2nd minute or so, it just gets boring. And then about 4 minutes in, you start to laugh because you’re just like, “How much longer can this crap go on?” And then, at the 4:30 mark, you start to get bored again. Around the 4:55 mark, I realized that I had forgotten who they were killing or why. And then it was finally over. Yay!

Incidentally, this is one of those films where, whenever one of the kids is going to kill someone, the kid suddenly starts moving in slow motion. It was kind of like the music in Jaws. If the kid picked up an axe but was still moving at normal speed, you knew not to worry. But the minute that slow-mo started, you knew someone was about to die.

Of course, it takes a while to get around to the killings. Devil Times Five clocked in at about 88 minutes. I would guess that roughly 65 of those minutes were pure filler. We spend a lot of time getting to know the adults at that ski lodge and, for the most part, they’re loathsome. The oldest and grumpiest of them is even called Papa Doc, perhaps after the infamous Haitian dictator. (And let’s not even start on the film’s nominal hero, Rick, who has a pornstache, a comb over, and an extended nude scene.) All of the adults spend a lot of time talking about their crumbling marriages and their dying dreams and it’s all very angsty for slasher film about a bunch of killer kids. There’s even an extended cat fight between Julie (Joan McCall) and Lovely (Carolyn Staller), which involves a lot of rolling around on the floor while the 70s “wah wah” soundtrack plays in the background.

Once the killings do start, however, Devil Times Five actually starts to live up to its potential. These are some mean little kids! Once they start their rampage, we get axes in the back, spears to the throat, immolation, death by swing, and one really disturbing scene involving a bunch of bear traps. However, Devil Times Five is probably best known for the piranha scene. You can legitimately wonder why someone would keep piranhas at a ski lodge but there’s still no denying that you don’t want to take a bath with them.

(Making the piranha scene all the more icky that the victim in the bathtub is played by the mother of two of the actors who played the killers.)

Devil Times Five makes for a strange viewing experience. It starts out as nothing but filler and then suddenly, almost out of nowhere, the entire film goes batshit crazy. Devil Times Five has slipped into the public domain, so you can watch it for free on YouTube if you want. But I suggest tracking down the Code Red DVD, which comes with a fascinating commentary track and an entertaining and candid interview with several members of the cast.

Halloween Havoc!: THE ROBOT VS THE AZTEC MUMMY (1959)

Posted on October 7, 2015 by gary loggins

cracked rear viewer

I first saw this movie when I was maybe 12 or 13 at a second-and-third run neighborhood theater. I remember thinking, “Boy, does this suck!” After watching it again recently on TCM, my opinion hasn’t changed. THE ROBOT VS THE AZTEC MUMMY is a terrible film. Fortunately, I’m a connoisseur of terrible films, so I enjoyed it!

The opening narration is Straight Outta Ed Wood (“How far can the human mind penetrate the mysteries of the great beyond…”) We meet Dr. Alamda (Roman Gay) and his wife Flora (Rosa Arenas, who’s kinda hot). They’ve gathered some scientists and the story unfolds in flashbacks. Actually, I think it’s more like stock footage from the previous two AZTEC MUMMY series entries (yes, this silliness was a series!) Flora is the reincarnation of Xochtl, an Aztec princess who had a forbidden love with a warrior. For this trespass, Xotchl had her heart cut out, and loverboy…

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Horror Film Review: Delirium (dir by Lamberto Bava)

Posted on October 7, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

“I warn you, the hate of a woman can be very bad!”

— Dialogue from Delirium (1987

The 1987 Italian film Delirium is an odd combination of soapy melodrama and giallo horror. Someone is murdering models and taking pictures of their corpses. Some other people are plotting to take over a magazine. Obscene phone calls are received. Recorded taunts are heard. Oh, and one unlucky model is attacked by a swarm of bees.

That’s right — Delirium is the first and probably the only giallo to feature bees used as a deadly weapon.

Gioia (Serena Grande) is a former prostitute-turned-model-turned-men’s-magazine-publisher. When we first meet Gioia, she’s sitting out at her pool and watching a photo shoot. Her neighbor — a teenage boy who is confined to a wheel chair — calls her.

“You make my member hard with desire!” he tells her, “It wants to penetrate your flower and explode!”

Gioia calmly tells him to stop bothering her and then hangs up on him. And really, this scene pretty much establishes everything that we need to know about Gioia. She is a successful businesswoman who is just as comfortable dealing with the pervert next door as she is making high power deals. You think Donald Trump’s ruthless? Well, he’s got nothing on Gioia!

The other thing that you notice about Gioia is that she has an extremely voluptuous figure. There’s not a single scene that isn’t shot to emphasize that fact and yet, the unapologetic pride that Gioia (and actress Serena Grande) took in her body was actually very empowering and one of the better aspects of the film. Far too often, movies associate being busty with either being stupid or slutty and women are told that they have to hide their figure to be taken seriously. (Traditionally, in horror films, it seems like the bigger an actress’s cup size, the less likely she is to survive until the end of the film.) Speaking as someone who shares Gioia’s struggle, I was happy to see a woman with big boobs being portrayed as both an intelligent businesswoman and a tough, strong survivor.

Gioia has more than just the pervert next door to deal with. There’s also the fact that her models are being murdered and she’s receiving photos of their dead bodies in the mail. Who is killing Gioia’s employees? Could it be a rival publisher (played by Capucine)? Could it be Gioia’s neurotic assistant (played by Daria Nicolodi)? Could it be George Eastman, who plays Gioia’s former lover? Actually, it’s made pretty clear that it’s not George Eastman, which is odd when you consider how many movies have featured Eastman as a killer. (Eastman and Grandi also co-starred in the infamous cannibal epic Anthropophagus, in which Eastman was the killer and Grandi was the center of one of the most infamous scenes in the history of Italian horror.) Or could the killer by the pervert next door?

As is typical of films in the giallo genre, most of the murders are filmed from the killer’s point of view. What’s interesting is that, when the killer looks at his victims, he literally sees them as twisted monsters. It’s a neat little technique that leads to scenes like this:

Delirium was directed by Lamberto Bava, who has never quite gotten the attention that he deserves. Despite the fact that he directed such classics as the two Demons films and A Blade In the Dark, I’ve always felt that Lamberto is often overshadowed by the achievements of his father, Mario Bava. However, Lamberto Bava’s films are almost always entertaining when taken on their own terms. Delirium may not reach the heights of A Blade In The Dark or even Demons but it’s still an entertaining giallo. It’s perhaps not the film to use to introduce a newcomer to the genre but, those of us who are familiar with giallo, Delirium is an enjoyably crazed offering.

Lisa Reviews on Oscar Nominated Horror Film: The Sixth Sense (dir by M. Night Shyamalan)

Posted on October 7, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Before I talk about the 1999 best picture nominee, The Sixth Sense, I have to ask — is it really necessary to give a spoiler warning? I mean, everyone knows that this film has a big twist at the end and everyone’s aware of what that twist is, right? I’m going to assume that’s the case because, quite frankly, it’s kind of pointless to talk about this film without talking about the twist. I mean, the Sixth Sense has been around for 16 years and it’s still a film that people seem to frequently talk about. (For instance, “Why aren’t any of M. Night Shyamalan’s other films as good as The Sixth Sense?”) If you’re over the age of 20, you really have no excuse for not knowing the twist ending of The Sixth Sense.

But, fair is fair — THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS!

Anyway! The Sixth Sense is the story of a 9 year-old named Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osment). Cole lives in Philadelphia with his harried but devoted mother, Lynn (Toni Collette). Cole is a withdrawn child, haunted by the fact that he’s constantly seeing and hearing people that nobody else can hear. As Cole explains it to his psychologist, Dr. Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis), “I see dead people.”

(And you know what? That line has been quoted and parodied a thousand times since The Sixth Sense was released but that’s because it’s a great movie moment. Haley Joel Osment was a great child actor and did deserve the Oscar nomination that he received for his performance in this film.)

Malcolm has some issues of his own. The previous year, one of his former patients (Donnie Wahlberg) broke into his house and shot him, while Malcolm’s terrified wife (Olivia Williams) watched. Malcolm feels that he was shot because he failed that patient and that he can achieve some sort of redemption by helping Cole. Of course, as Malcolm devotes more and more time to Cole, he finds it harder and harder to speak to his wife. In one scene, Malcolm sits down across from her and tells her all about Cole. She responds by ignoring him and then standing up and walking out of the room.

And when she does that, your natural response is to go, “What a bitch!” and feel sorry for Malcolm. Except, of course, Cole really does see dead people. And, as we discover in the film’s twist ending, Malcolm is one of them. If his wife seemed distant, it was because she didn’t know he was there. If she seemed emotionally withdrawn, it was because she was deeply mourning him. Everyone — including Cole — knew that Malcolm was dead. Everyone but Malcolm.

And you know what? Film bloggers like me spend a lot of time making snarky comments about M. Night Shyamalan and his twist endings but the ending of The Sixth Sense works beautifully. It worked when I first saw it and it has worked every time that I’ve seen it since. Even knowing that Malcolm is dead, it’s still incredibly poignant to watch him realize it.

And that’s why I’d love to have a time machine. I would love to be able to hop into my time machine and go back to 1999 and see what it was like for the very first audience that watched this film. How did they react when they discovered — for the very first time — that Bruce Willis was a ghost? I’d love to find out.

But, even without that time machine, The Sixth Sense holds up surprisingly well. Haley Joel Osment and Bruce Willis tend to get so much attention for their excellent performances that I’m instead going to praise Toni Collette, who does great work as Cole’s loving but overwhelmed mother. She didn’t get a great catch phrase nor was she a part of a huge twist but the heart of the film is to be found in her performance.

The Sixth Sense was nominated for best picture of 1999. It lost to one of the worst films to ever win an Oscar, American Beauty.

Horror on the Lens: Death Ship (dir by Alvin Rakoff)

Posted on October 7, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today’s Horror on the Lens comes to use from 1980. In Death Ship, a cruise ship collides with a mysterious black freighter. When the survivors board the freighter, they discover that it appears to be deserted. But is it really? As the survivors explore, they start to suspect that they might not be alone. Even worse, the already unstable captain (George Kennedy) starts to hear a mysterious German voice, encouraging him to kill everyone else and stay on the freighter forever.

It’s kinda like The Shining, except it takes place on a boat and it’s not as good.

But then again, very few horror films are as good as The Shining! Death Ship is an enjoyably pulpy exercise in ghostly horror and it can actually be quite scary, especially if you have an obsessive fear of drowning, like I do!

Plus, George Kennedy really puts his heart and soul into being possessed.

Watch Death Ship below!

Horror Film Review: Motel Hell (1980, dir. Kevin Connor)

Posted on October 6, 2015 by Valerie Troutman

You read the title of this post correctly. This is directed by Kevin Connor who has made numerous Hallmark films I’ve reviewed on this site. In addition, Bradford May was the camera operator on this film who also went on to direct numerous Hallmark movies I’ve reviewed. And it has one more connection to Hallmark because it has John Ratzenberger in it who went on to be in a few Hallmark movies.

So with all those connections to Hallmark in this 80s horror film, does it have any similarities to those films? Actually, it does in a way. In the case of Kevin Connor, it makes sense to hire a director who has proven themselves to be able to make a memorable movie with a small budget to make your small TV Movies.

Let’s talk about the movie now.

The film opens with Vincent Smith (Rory Calhoun) sitting on the porch of his Motel Hello. The ‘O’ being in need of replacing as it keeps going out. Thus changing the name of the place to Motel Hell. Smith drives out to the road and we see a motorcycle carrying a guy and a girl go past a sign.

Smith sells smoked meat out of his motel. He sees the motorcycle hit something then go down. The guy is dead, but the girl is still alive. He loads them up and brings them back home.

Smith doesn’t live alone. He lives with his sister Ida (Nancy Parsons). Look familiar?

If a painful game of tug of war came to mind, then you do recognize her, because that’s Balbricker from Porky’s (1981). She grabs no dicks in this movie. This is Rory Calhoun’s film. And he makes it known with his time tested and approved way of calming kids down who just ran scared after wandering through a slaughterhouse.

We are now introduced to the three other characters who matter in this movie.

First, the girl who survived the crash. Her name is Terry (Nina Axelrod). She wakes up to find out that her boyfriend is long gone. Smith has already buried him.

Second, the 80s sheriff Bruce Smith (Paul Linke). He’s Vincent Smith’s kid brother.

And inspector Bob Anderson (E. Hampton Beagle). Oh, poor poor Bob. Because after he gets this goodbye from Vincent.

Bob makes an unfortunate discovery about Vincent’s secret garden.

Yep, Vincent’s meat comes from people. Let me try and explain it the best I can. He sets traps on the nearby road so that people crash. He goes in and gasses them. He then takes them back to his secret garden and slits their vocal cords. He then plants them in the ground leaving just their head poking out. That’s why when the bag covering their heads are pulled off they just making groaning almost zombie like noises. Then he appears to hypnotize them using colorful pinwheels and hypnotic noise before he snaps their necks with a noose attached to a tractor trailer. They are then turned into the meat that he sells. Rather gruesome, but there honestly isn’t a whole lot to it. Here’s the scene that basically sums it all up.

Luckily, one of those heads is attached to John Ratzenberger. I say luckily because it means we finally all got our wish. Cliff Clavin has no way to tell his annoying stories anymore.

Oh, and Ratzenberger is captured after a van carrying himself and several bandmates hits a trap laid by Vincent. And you know what? More bands need to be named after Sergei Eisenstein movies.

That’s basically the film right there. Vincent and Ida collecting bodies, feeding the heads, and justifying it all to themselves with crazy talk. Then Bruce and Terry eventually figure things out and the net closes in on them.

There is one particular capturing scene that is worth watching. Here’s the capture of the kinky couple.

The other thing that is worth mentioning is that Wolfman Jack is in this. He plays a reverend.

According to Motel Hell, the lord works in mysterious ways. Sometimes the lord provides you with an excuse to confiscate a copy of Hustler for your own personal collection.

Horror really isn’t my thing and this film does begin to wear out it’s welcome at a certain point, but it’s Calhoun’s performance and the creepy atmosphere that makes it work. There are more clips up on YouTube if you want to see more in order to make your decision about watching this or not. I guess you have my recommendation.

The Daily Horror Grindhouse: I Hate You (dir by Nick Oddo)

Posted on October 6, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

“Murder is fun and doesn’t cost a thing!”

So says aging stand up comedian Norman (Marvin W. Schwartz). Though we don’t learn much about Norman’s background, it’s obvious that he’s been pursuing his career for a while and he has yet to achieve much in the way of success. With his dark suit, gray hair, and sarcastic delivery, he really does seem like he should be working in a cheap casino or a Catskills resort or maybe on a cruise ship.

But then you hear his act and you discover that he spends most of his time talking about how better the world would be if we just killed each other. At one point, he even mentions that he’s working on a new act in which he’ll basically order the people in the audience to kill anyone sitting near them. Eventually, he offends the wrong person and he’s told that he’ll no longer be allowed to perform at the local comedy club. Norman replies by saying that the club’s owner probably would have hated Lenny Bruce as well.

And so Norman wanders around New York City. He talks to a fellow comedian and notes that Jack the Ripper only killed five people but yet he’s had more books written about him than any president. Everyone that Norman talks to nods along, humoring him. It’s the same basic approach that Peter Boyle took to Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver and look how well that turned out.

Eventually, still wearing his black suit, Norman tries to play in the park. For a few minutes, Norman is actually enjoying himself. Of course, this is when Norman has a heart attack and nearly dies. Norman, who dreams so much of being famous, is forced to consider his own mortality.

And, while all this is going on, Norman also finds the time to brutally murder 11 people. That’s right. Norman’s a serial killer. If he can’t find fame as a stand-up comedian, he’ll find fame as a murderer. However, as Norman discovers, even killers have to struggle to get the recognition they think they deserve. Norman’s comedy is ignored and his crimes are only listed in the back pages…

I Hate You was released in 2004 and has been included in several box sets. (I saw it as a part of the same Decrepit Crypt Of Nightmares box set that included Burning Dead and Dead 7.) It’s a low-budget film that really doesn’t go anywhere but I have to admit that I actually liked it. Marvin W. Schwartz (who also co-wrote the script) gives a good performance as Norman and the movie, which is shot in wonderful black-and-white, provides a lot of wonderful shots of New York City.

Plus, it’s barely an hour long! So, right when you’re getting tired of it, it ends. That’s a lesson that many movies could stand to learn from I Hate You.