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.

The Things You Find On Netflix: The Mafia Kills Only In Summer (dir by Pierfrancesco Diliberto)

Posted on October 6, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The Mafia Kills Only In Summer, a sweet and melancholy comedy from Italy, was originally released in 2013 but it didn’t make it over to the U.S. until March of this year.

Watching the film, as an American, I was happy to get the chance to see it but, at the same time, I could understand why it took it a while to get over here. The Mafia Kills Only In Summer is about Italian (more specifically Sicilian) history and a lot of the humor comes at the expense of an Italian politician named Giulio Andreotti, an infamous figure in Italy but someone who is almost totally unknown here in the States. (In the picture above, the film’s protagonist is pretending to be Andreotti for a costume party. If you want to learn more about Andreotti, I suggest tracking down another Italian film, Il Divo.) That said, though the film may specifically be about the history of the Mafia in Palermo, it also tells a universal story of love and courage. And though the film’s humor is often very dark, there’s a very real sweetness at the center of it. This is a film that can be appreciated by everyone.

The film tells the story of Arturo, who is played by Alex Bisconti as a bambino and by director Pierfrancesco Diliberto as an adulto. The film starts with his conception, which is portrayed via CGI. (As Arturo explains it, all but one of his father’s sperm was scared off by the sound of a nearby mafia murder. Only one sperm was brave enough to stay to fertilize the egg and that sperm was him. As such, Arturo owes his very existence to the Mafia.) Growing up in Palermo, Arturo is constantly surrounded by mafia violence and a good deal of the film’s humor comes from the absurd lengths that all the adults go to deny both the reality of the violence around them and the obvious corruption of the local government.

Every violent mafia murder is dismissed, by the locals, as being the result of a dispute over a woman. (“Women kill more men than heart attacks,” one local resident says while discussing the assassination of a journalist.) Soon, Arturo is terrified of falling in love but fall in love he does. He spends most of his boyhood sweetly but unsuccessfully pursuing Flora (Ginerva Antona as a bambina, Christiana Capotondi as an adulta). His pursuit is observed and commented upon by a kindly judge who is eventually blown up a car bomb. Fearful of Palermo’s violence, Flora’s father sends her to Switzerland. Years later, as an adult, she returns to Palermo and works for a political ally of Andreotti’s, Salvatore Lima. When she happens to run into the now adult Arturo, she gets him a job with the campaign. Arturo has a second chance to win Flora’s love but, as always, his attempts are complicated by the violent realities of Palermo.

The Mafia Kills Only In Summer is a sweetly romantic and unexpectedly poignant film. It’s currently available on Netflix and I highly recommend it.

Horror Film Review: Rosemary’s Baby (dir by Roman Polanski)

Posted on October 6, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

“This is no dream! This is really happening!”

— Rosemary Woodhouse (Mia Farrow) in Rosemary’s Baby (1968)

Yes, Rosemary, it is.

The classic 1968 horror movie Rosemary’s Baby is probably best remembered for a lengthy and wonderfully surreal “dream” sequence in which naive newlywed Rosemary Woodhouse (Mia Farrow) is raped by the Devil while a bunch of naked old people stand around her and chant. At one point, she sees her husband, Guy (John Cassavetes), saying that she’s awake and that she knows what’s going on. Their neighbor, Minnie Castevet (Ruth Gordon), tells him that Rosemary can’t hear anything and that it’s like she’s dead and then snaps at him, “Now, sing!” It’s a great sequence, one of the greatest of Roman Polanski’s career, a perfect blending of horror and dark comedy.

For me, the most interesting part of that dream sequence comes at the start. Rosemary envisions herself naked on a boat and, as she tries to cover herself, who is sitting next to her? None other than John F. Kennedy! Suddenly, Rosemary is wearing a bikini and she’s relaxing out on the deck with a glamorous group of people who I assume were meant to be Kennedy relatives. As the boat leaves the dock, Rosemary sees that her friend and protector, Hutch (Maurice Evans), is standing on the dock.

“Isn’t Hutch coming with us?” Rosemary asks.

“Catholics only,” John F. Kennedy hisses in that famous accent, “I’m afraid we are bound by these prejudices.”

“I understand,” a dazed Rosemary replies.

And it’s a wonderful little moment, though I have to wonder if I’d react as strong if my own background wasn’t Irish Catholic. But still, there’s something so wonderfully subversive about a bunch of elderly Satanists pretending to be the Kennedys.

And really, Rosemary’s Baby is a wonderfully subversive film. I imagine it was even more subversive when it was first released back in 1968. It’s been ripped off and imitated so many times that it has undoubtedly lost some of its impact. (That’s one reason why I wish I had a time machine, so I could go back in the past and see it was truly like to see a classic film for the first time.) But still, 47 years after it was initially released, Rosemary’s Baby is still a surprisingly effective horror film.

The film opens with newlyweds Rosemary and Guy moving into the Bramford, an exclusive New York apartment building. Guy is an actor who, despite having appeared in two off-Broadway shows (one of which was entitled Nobody Likes An Albatross and really, that is so true) and a few motorcycle commercials, is still waiting for his big break. There are hints that, before she married Guy, Rosemary had a very active and interesting life (when we briefly meet her old friends, they all seem to be a lot more exciting than boring old Guy) but, when we meet her, Rosemary appears to have happily settled into a life of domesticity.

Life at the Bramford is strange. For one thing, Guy and Rosemary appear to be the only young people living in the entire building. (There is a young woman named Terry but she ends up jumping out of a window.) The Woodhouses befriend elderly Minnie Castevet and her husband, Roman (Sidney Blackmer.) Roman claims to have traveled all over the world and embarrasses the Catholic Rosemary by criticizing the Pope. Minnie, meanwhile, is the noisiest person in the world. Guy makes fun of both of them and, yet, he still decides to spend his free time with Roman.

One day, Guy gets a role that he had previously lost. Why? Because another actor is struck by a sudden case of blindness. Shortly afterward, Rosemary has her “dream.” She wakes up and discovers that her body is covered with red scratches. Guy claims that he had sex with her while she was asleep and promises to cut his fingernails.

Soon, Rosemary is pregnant but the Castevets insist that she use their doctor, the firm and sinister Dr. Saperstein (Ralph Bellamy, who just 8 year earlier had played FDR in Sunrise at Campobello). Rosemary knows that something is wrong with the baby but she can’t get anyone to listen to her. It all leads to one of the best and most iconic endings in the history of horror cinema.

Rosemary’s Baby is a classic of fear and paranoia and it holds up surprisingly well. See it this October, whether you’re Catholic or not.

(However, do not see the needless 2014 remake. Seriously, what the Hell was up with that?)

(By the way, is anyone else amazed that I made it through this entire review without making a single joke about either Ronan Farrow or Mia’s lame Sharknado live tweet? I am shocked.)

A Blast From The Past: Mia & Roman (dir by Hatami)

Posted on October 6, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Mia & Roman is a short film that was filmed in 1968 to promote the release of the classic horror film, Rosemary’s Baby.

The film profiles director Roman Polanski and actress Mia Farrow, both of whom appear as being young and full of hope. (It’s sad to think that, just a year after appearing happy and optimistic in the film, Polanski’s wife and unborn child would be murdered by the Manson family. Polanski, of course, would later end up fleeing the country and he remains controversial to this day. Mia, meanwhile, would eventually become both the mother of Ronan Farrow and an overrated SyFy live tweeter.) Along with serving as a time capsule of the 1960s (and you know how much I love time capsules), Mia & Roman also features some behind-the-scenes footage from the making of Rosemary’s Baby.

Enjoy!

Horror on the Lens: Sisters of Death (dir by Joseph Mazzuca)

Posted on October 6, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Sisters of Death, which is included in a countless number of Mill Creek box sets, is not necessarily the greatest film ever made but it is a personal favorite of mine.

This 1977 film opens with a very baroque sorority initiation that ends with one of the sisters being killed in a game of Russian Roulette. A few years later, the surviving sisters are invited to an isolated and lavish estate where it turns out that the dead girl’s father (well-played by Arthur Franz) is looking for revenge. This film is predictable and a lot of the plot depends on people refusing to use any common sense but Sisters of Death is such a fun little melodrama that I can’t complain too much. The film plays out like a surprisingly violent Lifetime movie and it has one of those wonderfully cynical 1970s endings.

Enjoy!

Hallmark Review: Autumn Dreams (2015, dir. Neill Fearnley)

Posted on October 5, 2015 by Valerie Troutman

When I saw the ads for this I was worried that it was basically going to be Your Love Never Fails 2. While it does share some similarities, it’s just an average romantic comedy, nothing more.

The movie opens up in Iowa with a teenage couple. Annie (Jill Wagner) who is 18 and Ben (Colin Egglesfield) who is 19. In short order they elope. Her father catches them and says the marriage is going to be annulled. He takes her home. Cut to 15 years later and you can guess.

The marriage was never annulled, both of them are going to be married soon, and they never explain why it wasn’t annulled. They just quickly say there must have been a paperwork mix up and that’s all of that. However, that also assumes that her, at legal age as a judge reminds us later, would have had no part in the annulment process. It just doesn’t make sense.

Anyways, she still lives at home working the farm. He moved to New York City and works on the stock market. She goes to New York City so they can both get a divorce, but there’s a little problem. His wedding date requires a very quick divorce that the judge isn’t willing to supply especially after Annie and Ben have a little spat in the courtroom.

But enough of that, because you know exactly where that plot line goes. You don’t need me to lay it out for you. I want to draw your attention to one of the things that stands out in this film. It’s one of the supporting actors. His name is Matty Finochio who plays the lawyer trying to make the divorce happen for the couple. When they give him the chance he’s very funny. I’m not sure why they felt this already screwball comedy plot setup needed to fall back on so much of the traditional Hallmark romance formula.

There is this great scene where Ben’s fiancee comes up to him just after he got of court for the first time. From left to right: Annie, Ben, The Lawyer, and the Fiancee. It goes like this:

Fiancee: “I stopped by your office after seeing the architect. Guess what? You weren’t there. So I looked at your calendar. It said “court”. Nothing about a pretty girl.”
As the lawyer points to Annie: “This isn’t a pretty girl.”
Fiancee: “I think she could pass for pretty.”
Lawyer: “No. Annie’s my client…”

Obviously, I can’t do it justice with words alone, but trust me that he has good comedic timing. Every time he shows up he’s delightful.

I know the other two actors are probably not the most versatile, but they seemed like they could have done this in a more comedic manner. It’s a lost opportunity.

The only other thing to mention is a goof I spotted. The same paragraph appears twice in the same newspaper article back to back.

The rest of the movie is exactly what you expect. Perfectly average Hallmark romance with somewhat lackluster acting from the leads. Just remember that if you watch it, pay attention to the lawyer. If you want to see Matty Finochio some more afterwards then he is also in the Hallmark film So You Said Yes.

The Daily Horror Grindhouse: Burning Dead (dir by George Demick)

Posted on October 5, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Many years ago, a teenager named Jim Reed was one of the few people to survive a fire that burned down the entire town of Maxwell and killed nearly the entire population, including his parents. As you might guess, even after he grows up, Jim has some issues. He feels tremendous guilt. He has nightmares. He feels he’s responsible for the deaths of thousands. And even worse, he can’t really remember how the fire started or why. All he knows is that he keeps seeing terribly burned people and they all keep telling him that it’s all his fault.

After spending years just drifting, an adult Jim (played by D. Vincent Ashby) returns to the town of Maxwell. It’s been rebuilt and, amazingly enough, there seems to be next to no sign that it was ever the site of a huge apocalyptic fire. (I suspect this has more to do with the film’s budgetary limitations than anything else.) He ends up staying with his brother and occasionally, he seems to be possessed by some unseen force. (For example, there’s the time that he wanders into his nephew’s bedroom while wielding a hammer.) Jim meets his ex-girlfriend Shelly and an old friend named Bill. And, through it all, he continues to have visions of horribly burned zombies telling him that everything is all his fault…

It’s always tempting to get snarky when talking about a movie like 2004’s Burning Dead. This is a microbudget film that was obviously made with a largely amateur cast, the majority of whom are quite stiff as they deliver their overdramatic dialogue. Yes, it would be easy to make fun of Burning Dead but you know what? For what it is, it’s not that bad. It’s a horror film that had a lot of interesting ideas but not the budget to really execute them. But there are films with huge budgets that have absolutely no interesting ideas. Ridicule the limitations of Burning Dead if you must but, as far as I’m concerned, the filmmakers deserve some credit for trying to create something more than just your standard low-budget zombie film.

Add to that, I am an admirer of the stoned nonchalance of D. Vincent Ashby’s lead performance. It may be a the result of a lifetime of trauma but Jim, at times, seems to be one of the most mellow in protagonists in the history of horror cinema. No matter what he’s confronting or explaining, Jim retains the same casual attitude.

My favorite moment in the film came when Bill asked Jim if his parents lost anything in the fire.

“Their lives,” Jim replies with a slight shrug.

Obviously, Burning Dead is not the easiest of films to find. It’s included in the Decrepit Crypt of Nightmares Boxset and that’s where I found it.

(One final bit of trivia: according to his imdb page, director George Demick previously played a zombie in George Romero’s Day of the Dead.)

D. Vincent Ashby considers Burning Dead.

Netflix Halloween 2015 : “Mr. Jones”

Posted on October 5, 2015 by Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)

Trash Film Guru

What’s this? Five days (and five movies — not that I can promise that this roughly one-film-per-day pace will prove to be sustainable a whole lot longer thanks to “real life” responsibilities) into our Netflix Halloween round-up, and not one “found footage” horror movie has made its way onto these virtual “pages” yet? Well, let’s rectify that right now, shall we?

Apparently, writer/director Karl Mueller’s Mr. Jones was something of an audience-splitter when it made its debut at the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival, with about half the folks who saw it thinking it was superb, the other half hating it with a passion, and not too may people in between — which means it’s in good company with things like White Castle hamburgers, chicken and waffle-flavored potato chips, and other stuff that tends to elicit a love-it-or-hate-it reaction among the populace at large. I’m sure I’m forgetting plenty of other…

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Halloween Havoc!: Joan Crawford in TROG (Warner Brothers, 1970)

Posted on October 5, 2015 by gary loggins

cracked rear viewer

Let’s be honest: TROG is not a very good movie. It’s definitely not Joan Crawford’s best movie. It’s surely not director Freddie Francis’s best movie. Hell, it’s not even producer Herman Cohen’s best, and he’s responsible for some real bombs! TROG isn’t scary, or gruesome, or even so bad it’s good. It’s just kind of dumb, and it’s a sad end to Crawford’s great screen career.

Joan (in a blonde wig) plays anthropologist Dr. Brockton, who helps discover a troglodyte found living in an underground cave. The beast is half-man, half ape, but is really pretty stupid looking. Dr. Brockton thinks Trog is the Missing Link and begins to train him, feeding him fake looking fish and lizards, teaching him to roll a ball and play with a wind-up baby doll. Mommie Dearest, she’s not!! We also discover Trog likes classical music, but hates rock and roll!!

Meanwhile, there’s a local developer named Murdock (Michael Gough)…

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Hallmark Review: Signed, Sealed, Delivered: The Impossible Dream (2015, dir. Kevin Fair)

Posted on October 5, 2015 by Valerie Troutman

As always with the Signed, Sealed, Delivered movies, if you can, you should go back and start with the Christmas one, then work your way forward to this one. However, if that’s not possible, then you should at least see the one right before this entitled Truth Be Told. I say that because while the series very much builds on each and every episode, this and Truth Be Told are a two part episode. Not in the way you would see a two part episode of say Star Trek: The Next Generation, but more like a crossover between two different shows. Except it’s the same show. By that I mean Truth Be Told can be watched and viewed as a whole, but there is an unresolved element that is then picked up and finished by this film.

The episode opens in Afghanistan where we see Lieutenant Randilynn Amidon (Tammy Gillis) from Truth Be Told is alive. She is trying to help a woman who is in labor. After Amidon is told that she doesn’t have much time left, we see a letter go out. Cue the titular music!

Now we see The Postables going in to meet with a congressional committee. They’re there because they want to plead their case that a rescue mission be sent in to save Lieutenant Randilynn Amidon. She was thought to be missing or to have even gone over to the enemy side in Afghanistan. Of course the committee wants to hear why, so Oliver O’Toole (Eric Mabius) takes us back to tell the story.

Turns out they came to Washington for, I kid you not, the Miss Special Delivery pageant that Rita Haywith (Crystal Lowe) is going to be in. As much as that is the lamest excuse for them to end up in Washington, it does serve a purpose beyond just putting them there for the main plot.

While they are in Washington they also go to visit Shane McInerney’s (Kristin Booth) childhood home, but it’s no longer there. Meanwhile, Rita checks in at the pageant while Shane, Oliver, and Norman (Geoff Gustafson) run into Amidon’s daughter and who I assume is Amidon’s grandfather. They probably said it at some point in this or Truth Be Told, but I missed it. However, the grandfather is played by William B. Davis so it’s probably Amidon’s grandfather given his age. They find out they are trying to get someone in Washington to listen to them about Randilynn. And I have to say, it’s kind of humorous to see this scene because of the character William B. Davis is probably most famous to people for playing. That being the mysterious Smoking Man from The X-Files. It’s funny to see him having trouble getting someone in the government to listen to him.

This is when the blast from the past shows up, and you know what? One of my wishes was fulfilled with this entry in the series. He’s not there to take up the majority of the film giving us backstory on one of the main characters. Nope. He’s an ex of Shane’s who works in the government. She called him thinking that he might be able to help in getting someone to listen to Amidon’s family. And that he does because he has the letter that we saw go out at the beginning of the film.

They can’t take the letter with them, but luckily Rita got a quick look at it and has a very good memory so she is able to recall details about it.

What follows is largely the other wish I had about future episodes of Signed, Sealed, Delivered. The rest is mainly them working to decipher the letter and explain to the committee what that means, and where they need to go in order to rescue her in Afghanistan. So, yay for me, and I hope future episodes do this sort of thing more.

There are only two other things I think are worth mentioning.

The pageant serves a purpose beyond just giving them an excuse to be in Washington. While this movie doesn’t have someone show up to give us a character backstory dump, the pageant and what happens with it does move the Rita and Norman love story forward. Also, we see Oliver inherit the money from his father that we found out about in Truth Be Told and he uses it to buy McInerney’s old lot to build a house for retired postal workers. The first acquisition he plans to use the money for in order to do good things.

The second thing is that while I’m sure that shot and all the shots in Afghanistan are in California or Canada, they don’t screw it up. They often shoot at night or with dust in the air. They shoot in areas that aren’t obviously not where they claim to be. And most importantly, they don’t linger on anything long enough for you to call BS. Sadly, this is not a usual thing for Hallmark, so kudos to the production crew of this particular one.

I recommend it, but at least see Truth Be Told first. However, you won’t be lost with the short mention about Oliver’s wife and I think you can pick up Rita and Norman’s story anywhere a long the line without any issue.