Italian Horror Showcase: Zombi 4: After Death (dir by Claudio Fragasso)

Posted on October 18, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1989 Italian zombie film, After Death, takes place on a Caribbean island. I’m not sure if the island was actually given a name in the film. If they mentioned it, I either didn’t hear it or I didn’t bother to jot it down in my notes. But, to be honest, the island doesn’t really need a name. If you’ve ever seen an Italian zombie film, you’ll recognize the island immediately. It features the same lush tropical jungle that was used in Hell of the Living Dead and there’s the usual voodoo-loving island natives. Whether it was in Zombi 2 or Zombie Holocaust, you’ve seen this island before.

Years ago, Jenny grew up on the island. Her parents were scientists, working to discover a cure for cancer. But, after one of them shot and killed the local voodoo priest, all of the scientists on the island ended up getting eaten by zombies. Jenny would have been eaten as well, except for the fact that she owns a magic necklace.

Now an adult, Jenny (Candice Daly) is returning to the island with a group of mercenaries. We know that they’re meant to be mercenaries because they have guns and grenades and headbands. They’re not exactly the most impressive paramilitary crew that’s ever appeared in a movie. I mean, if this was a Predator movie, it would be a contest to see which one of them ended up getting killed first.

Jenniy and the mercenaries are heading to island to discover why her parents were killed. As soon as they arrives at the island, their boat’s engine dies, which is really rotten luck because now they’re stranded. Of course, their luck is about to get even worse….

But first, we cut to some hikers. They’re hiking the island and you have to wonder why Jenny and the mercenaries were acting like this island was so isolated when apparently, anyone can just hire a guide and hike it anytime they want to. Anyway, the hikers stumble into a cave that they shouldn’t have stumbled into. This leads to the zombies once again coming to “life” and proceeding to attack anyone who they perceive as not belonging on the island.

Only one of the hikers survives. Fortunately Chuck (played by Jeff Stryker, a porn star who appeared in this film under the name Chuck Peyton) manages to find the mercenaries and together, they all hide out in a deserted laboratory. Unfortunately, one of the mercenaries has been injured by the zombies and is slowly dying. Soon, everyone is under siege as the undead surround the lab….

So, After Death is a totally ludicrous film that I can’t help but kind of like. It doesn’t quite rise to the level of being a guilty pleasure but, for the most part, the cast fully commits to their thinly-written roles and, from the minute the dead come back to life, the action is nonstop. These aren’t your typical mindless zombies, just wandering about and randomly eating people. Instead, these zombies are on a mission and their determination makes them a bit more menacing than the typical decaying cannibal. While director Claude Fragasso never creates the type of ominous atmosphere that distinguished the zombie films of Lucio Fulci, he still keeps the action moving at a steady pace. Even the fact that the ending makes no sense adds to the film’s weird charm.

After Death is also known as Zombi 4: After Death. When Dawn of the Dead was released in the Italy, it was called Zombi. It’s success led to Lucio Fulci making a film called Zombi 2, which, while being a fantastic horror film, had nothing to do with George Romero’s classic. The success of Zombi 2 led to Zombi 3, which was started by Fulci but completed by Claudio Fragasso’s frequent collaborator, Bruno Mattei. (Fragasso also wrote the screenplay for Zombi 3.) Beyond the undead and the island setting, After Death has nothing to do with the previous Zombi films. It has even less to do with the subsequent Zombi 5: Killing Birds. However, you have to give the Italian exploitation film industry some credit. They never allowed a good title to go to waste.

Horror Film Review: The Walking Dead (dir by Michael Curtiz)

Posted on October 18, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In this 1936 film (which has absolutely no relation to the AMC zombie show), Boris Karloff plays John Ellman. John Ellman is perhaps one of the unluckiest guys ever. Seriously check this out:

John Ellman was once an acclaimed concert pianist. However, he was wrongly convicted of killing his wife and spent ten years in prison. Now that he’s finally been paroled, he can’t get anyone to hire him. Meanwhile, the judge who originally sent him to prison is in the news for having defied the mob and sentenced a well-known gangster to prison. The mob is out for revenge but, rather than take the fall themselves, they’d rather frame a patsy. And who could be a better patsy than a man who everyone already knows has a grudge against the judge?

Nolan (Ricardo Cortez), a crooked lawyer, arranges for Ellman to be given a job. Ellman is told that he simply has to spy on the judge for a few nights to determine whether the judge is having an extramarital affair. Ellman agrees and soon finds himself being set up. The gangsters kill the judge and plant the body in Ellman’s car. Ellman is arrested and sentenced to die. It doesn’t matter that there are witnesses who know that Ellman’s innocent. No one is willing to cross the mafia.

Ellman is convicted and promptly executed but his story isn’t over. A scientist named Dr. Beaumont (Edmund Gwenn, who later played the man who might be Santa Claus in Miracle on 34th Street) knows that Ellman is innocent. He takes Ellman’s body and, through an artificial heart and a bunch of other science-y things, he manages to revive Ellman. John Ellman lives again! Of course, he’s a bit of a zombie now and he doesn’t have any memory of his former life. And yet, he instinctively knows who set him up to be executed and he sets out for revenge.

What’s interesting is that Ellman doesn’t kill anyone. Even after he’s revived and presumably has no concept of right and wrong, John Ellman remains a rather passive zombie. For the most part, the racketeers die because of how they react to the sight of the previously dead Ellman coming towards them. For that matter, Beaumont isn’t the typical mad scientist that you might expect to turn up in a film like this. He’s a benevolent man who was simply doing what he thought was the right thing. Though the film ends with a warning about playing God, one can’t hep but get the feeling that, unlike Frankenstein, the film is overall very supportive of the idea of reviving the dead.

Directed by Michael Curtiz (who also did Casablanca, Mildred Pierce, The Adventures of Robin Hood, and countless other classic films), The Walking Dead is a combination horror/gangster film. The film’s plot is a bit too convoluted for its own good but, overall, The Walking Dead works because of Boris Karloff’s performance. He’s poignantly pathetic as the living John Ellman and then rather chilling as the vengeance-driven, recently revived Ellman. The film’s most effective scenes are the ones where he just stares at his enemies, fixing them with a gaze that takes no prisoners and offers no hope. It’s a great performance that elevates an otherwise uneven film.

Horror Scenes That I Love: Conal Cochran Explains Halloween in Halloween III: Season of the Witch

Posted on October 18, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Tonight’s horror scene that I love is from the underrated 1982 film, Halloween III: Season of the Witch.

In this scene, Conal Cochran (Dan O’Herlihy) explains not only the origins of Halloween but he also discusses how he’s going to make Halloween great again. This scene is probably the best in the film and it’s almost entirely due to O’Herlihy’s wonderfully menacing performance as Conal Cochran.

“….and happy Halloween.”

4 Shots From 4 Halloween Films

Posted on October 18, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

4 Shots From 4 Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking.

Today, we acknowledge the release of David Gordon Green’s Halloween with….

4 Shots From 4 Halloween Films

Halloween (1978, dir by John Carpenter)

Halloween III: Season of The Witch (1982, dir by Tommy Lee Wallace)

Halloween H20 (1998, dir by Steve Miner)

Halloween (2007, dir by Rob Zombie)

Cowboys and Zombies: Ghost Town (1988, directed by Richard Governor)

Posted on October 18, 2018 by Jedadiah Leland

When an abandoned car is found in the desert, Deputy Langely (Franc Luz) is dispatched to the scene. While Langely investigates, a man suddenly rides by on horseback and takes a shot at him. Searching for the man, Langely comes across an old ghost town. After he passes out in a seemingly abandoned building, he wakes up and discovers that he’s surrounded by old-timey western folks. There’s a barmaid and a blind gambler and a blacksmith. They are all spirits who are being held hostage by an undead outlaw, Devlin (Jimmie Skaggs), who long ago made a pact with Satan that gave him control over the souls of all the people in the town. Now, Devlin has kidnapped Kate (Catherine Hickland), a woman from the modern world, and it’s up to Langely to not only rescue her but also set free the spirits that are trapped in the ghost town.

There’s nothing unexpected about this hororr/western hybrid, which was produced by Charles Band’s Empire Productions. The combination of two different genres leads to double the clichés but the film itself is still entertaining in its own cheesy way. The town is atmospheric and spooky, Franc Luz is a passable lawman, Jimmy Skaggs is a devilish villain, and Catherine Hickland shows that she deserved to be known for more than just being David Hasselhoff’s first wife. Despite a troubled production that went through three different directors, Ghost Town is a decent B-movie that should be enjoyed by anyone who ever played cowboys and zombies.

Halloween Havoc!: FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN (Universal 1943)

Posted on October 18, 2018 by gary loggins

cracked rear viewer

FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN was Universal’s first Monster Mash-Up, and in my opinion the best of the lot. From here, things got a little crowded, but by spotlighting just two supernatural terrors, we get a spooky, atmospheric ‘B’ film that really works. Lon Chaney Jr. returns to his signature role of Lawrence Talbot, suffering from the curse of lycanthropy, and he’s even better than in the original (which I reviewed in 2015 ). And The Monster is played by 60-year-old Bela Lugosi , in the part he rejected twelve years earlier. Bela’s interpretation is… interesting (but more on that later).

The eerie opening scene features two graverobbers under a full moon, breaking into the Talbot family crypt. Opening the lid of the late Larry Talbot’s coffin, they find the body is covered in wolfbane, and one of them recites that familiar “Even a man who’s pure in heart…” poem…

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Horror Trailer: The Curse of La Llorona

Posted on October 18, 2018 by Arleigh

The Curse of La Llorona

Every culture has it’s own folktales and scary stories to tell around the campfire in the dark. Coming from the Philippines I know of many scary folk stories and monsters that’s unique to my culture. As the world has become more modern these dark tales have morphed into urban legends new and old.

What all these dark folk tales and urban legends have in common is the theme of death and suffering. One such urban legend, or a dark folk story among the Latino community, is the tale of “La Llorona” or the Weeping Woman.

This April 2019, James Wan of The Conjuring fame will bring to the bigscreen an adaptation of the tale of the “La Llorona.” This should be of much interest not just to me but to fellow co-founder of the site, Lisa Marie, who has such a huge interest in the subject of the Weeping Woman.

The Curse of La Llorona arrives with its first official poster as seen above and it’s first trailer below.

Horror On The Lens: Pharaoh’s Curse (dir by Lee Sholem)

Posted on October 18, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

It’s really not Halloween without at least one mummy film!

With that in mind, here’s a 1957 film called Pharaoh’s Curse. In this film, a team of archeologists foolishly enter a mummy’s tomb and you can probably guess the rest. Honestly, you would think that archeologists would eventually learn that it’s never a good idea to test a curse but apparently, it never happened.

Anyway, if you’ve got an hour to kill, enjoy Pharaoh’s Curse!

The TSL’s Horror Drive-In Grindhouse: Attack of the Eye Creatures (dir by Larry Buchanan)

Posted on October 17, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

1965’s Attack of the Eye Creatures is an odd little movie.

It starts, as so many bad sci-fi movies do, with Peter Graves narrating about how the government has been keeping an eye on a flying saucers that’s apparently been hovering over the Earth for quite some time. However, a quick visit to Project Visitor reveals that the soldiers assigned to protect us are more interested in using their monitoring equipment to spy on teenagers making out in their cars!

Agck!

EWWWWWW!

Total invasion of privacy!

Of course, what’s particularly sad about the whole thing is that you know that’s totally what would happen in real life as well. Give a group of people the power to spy on anyone in the world? Of course they’re going to end up spying on people fooling around in cars! That’s one reason why Earth is just as doomed today as it was in 1966.

Anyway, the flying saucer does eventually land. Unfortunately, our government is too incompetent to do anything about it. The aliens inside turn out to be …. well, not that impressive. For one thing, they don’t speak. There are none of the grandiose threats to conquer the world that we’ve come to expect from aliens. At the same time, we also don’t have to hear about how the rest of the universe is disappointed in us for polluting our planet and blowing each other up so that’s a good thing. So often, intergalactic visitors can be so judgmental! Anyway, these aliens are lumpy and gray and they’ve got several eyes. They don’t really look that impressive. Seriously, check this jerk out:

As I said, the government turns out to be pretty useless when it comes to battling the aliens and the local police are skeptical that any intergalactic visitors would bother to land in their crappy little town. Fortunately, as always happens whenever the controlling legal authorities fail to do their job, there are teenagers and they’re willing to do what needs to be done to protect the world!

Of course, if Stan (John Ashley) and Susan (Cynthia Hull) are going to rally the troops against the aliens, they’re going to have to borrow someone’s phone. That’s going to mean convincing the local old man to let them use his phone. The old man, who has had enough of those crazy kids with all their kissing and the jazzy lingo, is more interested in using his shotgun to keep people off his lawn.

Meanwhile, two drunks decide that they want to get in on all this alien business. They both later die and no one in the movie seems to care. That’s just the type of movie that this is….

….and if it sounds familiar, that’s probably because you’ve seen the 1957 drive-in classic, Invasion of the Saucer Men! Basically, in the mid-60s, American International Pictures commissioned Texas filmmaker Larry Buchanan to remake some of their most successful drive-in films. Apparently, the plan was to sell them to television. So, Buchanan took the script for Saucer Men, tossed in some scenes of the government spying on people (Buchanan was a noted conspiracy theorist who previously directed The Trial of Lee Harvey Oswald), and called his film Attack Of the Eye Creatures!

Yet, while Invasion of the Saucer Men was a genuinely clever sci-fi satire, Attack of the Eye Creatures is done in by Buchanan’s inability to keep his story moving at a steady pace and it doesn’t help that the iconic Saucer Men have been replaced by men who appear to be wearing trash bags. Attack of the Eye Creatures is an unfortunate remake and one that should be viewed only after you’ve watched Invasion of the Saucer Men and maybe every other public domain sci-fi film that’s currently on YouTube.

The Babysitter, Review by Case Wright

Posted on October 17, 2018 by casewright

The Babysitter, directed by McG- Lethal Weapon, Supernatural, Aim High, and Citizen Cane. Ok fine, the last one was a bit of a fib, but he’s had an amazing career known for shows that are action heavy, pop, and have a lot of humor. I did watch this one on the elliptical as a to refresh my memory, but I first watched it on a date night for a Netflix and Chill session. The Babysitter was so fun; it doesn’t take itself seriously, until it has to. Like Supernatural, the movie balances the horror with the character arcs to pull you into the story. By the end, you genuinely care about how these characters end up.

Horror is often treated as the stepchild of film because people are attracted by the low budget/high profit payoff potential and think anyone can do it: so wrong. In fact, there are times you have an immensely talented director, but he or she is not meant for this genre – see- https://unobtainium13.com/2018/10/01/all-the-boys-love-mandy-lane-aka-all-the-bland-love-blandy-lane-review-by-case-wright/

Also, writing horror can create masterpieces like 28 Days Later- https://unobtainium13.com/2016/10/24/28-days-later/ . Horror screenwriters can also create misery-inducing steaming piles of terribleness for me or for whomever will have the excruciating experience of having to review it- see- https://unobtainium13.com/2016/11/20/channel-zero-welcome-home-season-1-ep-6-alt-title-so-very-boring/ In The Babysitter, Brian Duffield (Quarantine and soon to be released Vivian Hasn’t Been Herself Lately) delivers a fun popping script with fast moving acts, clear arcs, humor, gore, and clever buildups and payoffs. I am looking forward to seeing the rest of his art and you should too! The Babysitter is not in the Oscar worthy category of The Shining, but it is still brilliant because it succeeds in doing what is most important – it entertains. You care about the protagonist and where he’s going and amazingly sometimes root a little for the villain because she is acted by the uber-talented Samara Weaving.

The film is basically Satanic Home Alone; in fact, they reference Home Alone in the film. Cole, the protagonist, is a bullied awkward 12 year old with a heart of gold and no self-confidence. Yes, I know that reads like a fairly common protagonist, but his nerdiness is so authentic and the dialogue is so real that you buy it. Trust me, I’ve never led you wrong before. Cole has a quasi-friend in the Girl Next Door- Melanie, but Cole’s true friend (seemingly) is Bee (Samara Weaving) his babysitter. She genuinely likes movies and nerdy things just like Cole and we learn she was also an awkward teen herself prior to meeting Cole.

Bee seems to be perfect, but she is a satanic worshipper who wants to sacrifice one nerd, harvest some of Cole’s blood, and read from I guess the Necronomicon to be granted a wish of her choosing from Satan. Then again, we all have our faults. We get to see and not be told how close Bee and Cole have become over the years. They love film and goofy dancing. Cole stays up past his bedtime to spy on his beloved Bee to see what she is up to after he purportedly asleep. Sadly, he watches Bee commit an over the top murder of a seduced nerd. The deaths in this film are Final Destination awesomepants! Watch The Babysitter just for the deaths alone! Bee has cohorts: Robbie Amell who is very good in this. He plays the murderous jock expertly and if you’re so inclined he’s shirtless A LOT with aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaabs. There’s also a lot of great humor with the somewhat bumbling satanic worshippers that are also out to get Cole and his sweet sweet AB Negative.

They need to harvest Cole’s blood to finish the evil wishing spell because he’s an obvious virgin, but he fights back. It’s not corny like Home Alone; he mostly gets lucky or barely survives by finding weapons along the way- No booby traps. The lack of traps and gags during the fight scenes keeps the story in the horror realm with the comedy sprinkled like a Mrs. Dash that doesn’t make you want to vomit.

There is a eventually a final battle between Bee and Cole. She offers to make him part of the wish and live with him forever. Now, I’m not saying he should’ve immediately taken her up on this offer. Maybe some negotiating would’ve been worthwhile, but really Cole…not even taking one beat to consider this pretty awesome offer. I think that would’ve been fun as an alternate ending, but without fighting the final battle, Cole would not have realized his story arc as a true hero. I have to admit if I were the 12 year old nerdy boy and Bee had made the same offer to me, I would have just been trying to figure out how many sock pairs I needed for our evil journey!

I want to make a special note here for the amazing performance of Samara Weaving. She played the heck out of this role. She could believably turn from evil to seductress to friend to good on a dime. With the right opportunities, Samara Weaving will be the next Nicole Kidman! Really!

Happy Horrorthon! Please check out my other stuff and tell your friends to read it as well!