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.

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.