4 Shots From 4 Films: Special Michele Soavi Edition

Posted on October 25, 2017 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 is all about letting the visuals do the talking.

This October, I am going to be using our 4 Shots From 4 Films feature to pay tribute to some of my favorite horror directors, in alphabetical order! That’s right, we’re going from Argento to Zombie in one month!

Today’s director: the brilliant Michele Soavi!

4 Shots From 4 Films

Stage Fright (1987, dir by Michele Soavi)

The Church (1989, dir by Michele Soavi)

The Sect (1991, dir by Michele Soavi)

Dellamorte Dellamore (1994, dir by Michele Soavi)

Horror on the Lens: Track of the Moon Beast (dir by Richard Ashe)

Posted on October 25, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

When it comes to bad movies from the 70s, you have to love a movie like 1976’s Track of the Moonbeast. This film takes place in New Mexico and tells the story of Paul (Chase Cordel), a slow-talking mineralogist who gets a chunk of moon rock lodged into his brain. As a result, he turns into a gigantic lizard and goes around killing people. His only hope appears to be his old friend, the stoic Profession Johnny Longbow (Gregorio Sala), who knows all sorts of indian lore. He also knows how to make stew and early on in the film, he gives a world-weary monologue about what ingredients he puts in his stew. (Onions, mostly). Anyway, this is an awful, awful film that’s full of bad acting, bad special effects, and dumb dialogue. It’s also a lot of fun and it features the guy pictured below singing a song called California Lady that totally got stuck in my head. I loved Track of the Moon Beast.

Enjoy!

Cleaning Out The DVR: One Small Indiscretion (dir by Lauro Chartrand)

Posted on October 25, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

(Lisa is not just watching horror movies! She is also trying to clean out her DVR! She has got over 200 movies that she needs to watch before January 1st! Will she make it? Keep checking here to find out! She recorded One Small Indiscretion off of Lifetime Movie Network on September 2nd!)

I learned a few things from watching One Small Indiscretion.

First off, and most importantly, I learned that there is no such thing as a “small” indiscretion. In this film, Caroline (Ashley Winters) has a brief affair while separated from her husband, Sam (Cru Ennis). When Caroline and Sam get back together, she tries to forget that the whole thing even happened. Six years later, Caroline tells her best friend that she isn’t even sure what eventually became of her former lover. However, we know that he ended up killing both himself and his alcoholic wife. For Caroline, it was a small indiscretion but, for a little girl named Elle, it was a tragedy that took away her parents.

Secondly, if you work hard and marry well, you can eventually live in a really big house that has a pool, a jacuzzi, and a guest house. However, if you work too hard, all of the romance will go out of your marriage and soon, you won’t even be using the pool after a couple of years.

Third, if you own a guest house, you are required by the laws of plot contrivance to rent it out.

Fourth, if you do rent out your guest house, there’s a good chance that it will lead to someone from the past tracking you down. In this case, it’s Elle (Tiera Skovbye). Elle is now 21 years old and eager to avenge the death of her parents but destroying Caroline’s life. Though she may be young, Elle is already an evil genius.

Actually, I guess it’s debatable as to whether or not Elle is that smart. It’s entirely possible that Elle only seems smart because everyone else in the movie is incredibly stupid. From the minute Elle moves into that guest house, she’s manipulating and seducing. She’s taking naked midnight swims. She’s encouraging Caroline and Sam’s son, Logan (Johnny Visotcky), to skip college. She doesn’t make much of an effort to hide what she’s trying to do and yet, Caroline soon decides that Elle is going to be her new BFF. It’s actually kind of hard not to be on Elle’s side. Elle’s methods may be extreme and she does get more and more psycho as the movie unfolds but Caroline and Sam are so bourgeois that it’s difficult to have much sympathy for them. Add to that, Elle’s an artist. She draws. If you side with the non-artists over the the artist, that means you’re doing life wrong.

But back to what I learned from One Small Indiscretion:

Fifth, it’s not that difficult to bug a house.

Sixth, search engines are like magic.

Seventh, it’s easy to knock people out.

Eighth, Canada is a beautiful country.

Anyway, One Small Indiscretion is a thoroughly predictable Lifetime film. The best role in these films is always the psycho and Tiera Skovbye plays Elle as if even she can’t believe how stupid everyone else in the film is. Elle is having so much fun being evil that you can’t help but be happy that she received the opportunity. She may be the villain but you’ll totally be Team Elle when you watch One Small Indiscretion.

A Movie A Day #289: Night Visitor (1989, directed by Rupert Hitzig)

Posted on October 24, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

Billy Colton (Derek Rydall) is a teenager who has a reputation for exaggeration. Lisa Grace (Shannon Tweed) is his next door neighbor, a high-priced prostitute who does not mind if Billy spies on her. When Billy tries to tell everyone about his wild new neighbor, no one believes him. Billy decides to prove his story by grabbing his camera and sneaking next door. Instead of getting proof that she’s a prostitute, Billy witnesses his neighbor being murdered by a robed Satanist, who just happens to be Zachary Willard (Allen Garfield), Billy’s hated science teacher! Billy goes to the police with his camera but Captain Crane (Richard Roundtree) points out that Billy forgot to take off the lens cap.

What can Billy do? He knows that Zachary and his strange brother, Stanley (Michael J. Pollard), are sacrificing prostitutes to Satan but he can’t get anyone to believe him. Working with his best friend (Teresa Van der Woude) and a burned out ex-cop (Elliott Gould), Billy sets out to stop the Willard Brothers.

Combine Rear Window with late 80s Satanic conspiracy theories and this is the result. Not as bad as it sounds, Night Visitor is an unfairly obscure movie about Satanism in suburbia. While it has its share of dumb moments (like when Billy uses a watermelon to end a car chase), it also has enough good moments that suggest that Night Visitor is deliberately satirizing the excesses of the Satanic panic that, at the time of filming, was sweeping across the nation. It also has a once in a lifetime cast. Along with those already mentioned, keep an eye out for character actor extraordinaire Henry Gibson and future adult film star Teri Weigel. Allen Garfield is especially good as the evil Mr. Willard. Any actor can say, “I sacrifice you in the name of Satan.” It takes a good actor like Allen Garfield to say it without making anyone laugh.

One final note: this movie was originally called Never Cry Devil, which is a much better title than Night Visitor.

Halloween Havoc!: CHRISTINE (Columbia 1983)

Posted on October 24, 2017 by gary loggins

cracked rear viewer

Stephen King turned 70 last month, and the Master of Horror’s grip on the American psyche is stronger than ever, thanks to the unprecedented horror hit IT!, now playing at a theater near you. King’s macabre novels have been adapted for the screen since 1976’s CARRIE with varying degrees of success; some have been unabashed genre classics, others complete bombs, most lie somewhere in the middle.

Top: Stephen King 1983
Bottom: John Carpenter 1983

Director John Carpenter had a string of successes beginning with 1978’s seminal slasher film HALLOWEEN, but his 1982 remake of THE THING, now considered a masterpiece of the genre, was a box office disappointment. Carpenter took on King’s novel CHRISTINE as a work-for-hire project. I recently watched it for the first time, and think not only is it one of the best adaptations of King’s work to hit the screen, it’s one of Carpenter’s best horror…

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Horror Scenes I Love: What Happens When You Summon Candyman

Posted on October 24, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today’s horror scene that I love is from 1992’s Candyman.

For the record, after watching this film, I stood in front of a mirror and I said Candyman three times. I’m waiting until I have something to be mad about before I say it two more times.

4 Shots From 4 Films: Special George Romero Edition

Posted on October 24, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today’s director is one of the most important names in the history of American horror cinema, George Romero!

4 Shots From 4 Films

Night of the Living Dead (1968, dir by George Romero)

Dawn of the Dead (1978, dir by George Romero)

Day of the Dead (1985, dir by George Romero)

Land of the Dead (2005, dir by George Romeo)

Horror on the Lens: Monster A Go Go (dir by Bill Rebane and Herschell Gordon Lewis)

Posted on October 24, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Can you figure out what’s going in today’s horror on the lens, the 1965 film Monster A Go Go?

This sci-fi/horror hybrid details what happens when an astronaut lands on Earth and promptly disappears. Much like The Creeping Terror, this film makes frequent use of a narrator. I always appreciate it when movies like this come with a narrator.

Anyway, Monster A Go Go was reportedly started by Bill Rebane in 1961. When he ran out of money, the film sat unfinished for four years. That’s when Herschell Gordon Lewis bought the film, added some additional scenes, and then released it on a double bill with one of his own films. Hence, if Monster A Go Go seems like two different movies crammed together … well, that’s pretty much what it is.

Along with its interesting production history, Monster A Go Go is also well-remembered for its amazingly nonsensical ending. I imagine that this film led to a few drive-in riots.

Enjoy!

Cleaning Out The DVR: New York Prison Break: The Seduction of Joyce Mitchell (dir by Stephen Tolkin)

Posted on October 24, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

(Lisa is not just watching horror movies! She is also trying to clean out her DVR! She has got over 200 movies that she needs to watch before January 1st! Will she make it? Keep checking here to find out! She recorded New York Prison Break: The Seduction of Joyce Mitchell off of Lifetime on April 23rd!)

“That is some hard wood.”

— Joyce Mitchell (Penelope Ann Miller) in New York Prison Break: The Seduction of Joyce Mitchell (2017)

Why would Joyce Mitchell, a middle-aged wife and mother, help two convicted murderers escape from a prison in upstate New York?

That was the question that everyone was asking in 2015, even though everyone already knew what the answer probably was. (Bad boys are sexy. Murderers are the ultimate bad boys. Plus, Joyce Mitchell appeared to be a little bit crazy and a little bit stupid.) After breaking out of Clinton Correctional Facility, both Richard Matt and David Sweat spent several weeks on the run while Joyce Mitchell was briefly both the most hated and the most ridiculed woman in America. Interestingly, Joyce Mitchell was not the only prison employee to help out the two convicts. She was just the only woman.

During the manhunt for Sweat and Matt, I did what I usually do. I made a joke. I can’t even remember what the joke was but I do remember that it really ticked off some random people on twitter. Seriously, the way these randos reacted, you would think that I was the one who had helped two killers to escape from prison.

“Certain things are not funny!” they shouted, “CERTAIN THINGS YOU DO NOT JOKE ABOUT!”

(Seriously, can you believe that people could actually get that mad at little old me? What is this world coming to?)

Anyway, I have to wonder if any of those self-righteous losers watched New York Prison Break: The Seduction of Joyce Mitchell and, if they did, how they reacted to it. New York Prison Break may sound like a standard Lifetime true crime film but it takes a satiric approach to the material. If certain people found my relatively innocuous comments to be triggering, I can only imagine how they reacted to a made-for-TV movie that opened with a bloody recreation of Matt and Sweat’s crimes and then segued to a scene of Joyce making breakfast while listening to a trashy romance novel on tape.

As played by Penelope Ann Miller, Joyce is somehow sympathetic, pathetic, annoying, and frightening, all at the same time. She has a nice house with a perfect kitchen and a husband, Lyle (Daniel Roebuck), who is utterly clueless as to how bored and dissatisfied Joyce has become with her very safe life. It leaves her open to being manipulated by both David Sweat (Joe Anderson) and Richard Matt (Myk Watford), both of whom drew her into aiding their escape by feigning a romantic interest in her. While they both encourage Joyce to fantasize about running off with them and starting a new life in Mexico, Lyle’s idea of adventure is to go out for Chinese food. For Joyce, helping Sweat and Matt escape is like a real-life version of one of her novels.

Though it’s a true story, it’s also a very absurd story. New York Prison Break emphasizes the strangeness of it all. Scenes of Joyce and Lyle discussing the ins and outs of fabric softener are mixed with scenes of Sweat and Matt bickering over whether they should go to Canada or to Mexico. Joyce’s desperate attempts to cover up her own involvement in the escape are contrasted with Sweat and Matt bonding outside of the prison. Joyce may have been in love with both of them but, as the film makes clear, Sweat and Matt only loved each other. And, as it eventually turns out, they didn’t even love each other that much…

“Mrs. Mitchell,” one detective asks, “you knew these men murdered and tortured a man and you gave them the means to escape from prison?”

“Everyone says I’m too nice,” Joyce explains.

New York Prison Break is a superior and well-made Lifetime film, distinguished by a quartet of strong performances. Penelope Ann Miller, Daniel Roebuck, Joe Anderson, and Myk Watford are all at their best and it makes for very compelling viewing.

The TSL’s Horror Grindhouse: Hell of the Living Dead (dir by Bruno Mattei)

Posted on October 23, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Hell of the Living Dead, a 1980 Italian zombie film, is a movie known by many different names. Some of these names are more memorable than others.

For instance, it’s known as Virus, which isn’t a very good name. It’s kind of boring. Plus, a virus could lead to anything. Sure, a virus could turn someone into a zombie but it could also just mean a week in bed. Plus, there’s already a thousand movies called Virus.

Night of the Zombies is a bit more specific, though still rather generic. Just about every Italian horror film that came out in 1980 was about zombies and most of them took place at night.

Island of the Living Dead, at the very least, let’s you know where the majority of the movie takes place. That said, it’s kind of a dishonest title. The island isn’t just occupied by the living dead. There’s also a primitive tribe, the members of which pop up occasionally to throw spears at a group of soldiers and a journalist.

I absolutely love the title Zombie Creeping Flesh. Seriously, I don’t know why they bothered to come up with so many alternate titles when they already had Zombie Creeping Flesh.

However, this film is best known as Hell of the Living Dead and, actually, I guess that’s a pretty good title. I mean, it’s totally and completely over the top. Add to that the title almost feels like a challenge being specifically issued to the fans of George Romero’s zombie films. It’s as if the film is saying, “If you can’t handle the Night or the Dawn, the Hell is absolutely going to kill you!”

Anyway, this is an extremely low-budget film from director Bruno Mettei and screenwriter Claudio Fragasso. The team of Mattei/Fragasso were famous for producing some of the most ludicrously silly horror films to ever come out of Italy. (Outside of his collaboration with Mattei, Fragasso is best known for directing Troll 2.) A typical Mattei/Fragasso film is entertaining without being particularly good. They were never ones to allow a thing like a lack of money to stand in the way of their narrative ambitions.

For instance, in Hell of the Living Dead, there’s one isolated scene that’s supposed to take place at the United Nations. The scene appears to have been filmed in a lecture hall at a small university. One delegate angrily declares that he is sick of everyone exploiting his zombie-occupied country. Someone else suggests that maybe they should take a break until tomorrow. It’s an incredibly inauthentic scene that adds nothing to the story but that didn’t keep the team of Mattei and Fragasso from including it in the film. They were determined to have a UN scene and they weren’t going to let a lack of money or access stop them.

Anyway, the majority of the film deals with a zombie outbreak on a small tropical island. The island is almost exclusively made up of stock footage. A typical scene will feature a character like journalist Lia (played by Margit Evelyn Newtown) standing in the middle of the frame. She looks to the right and we get some grainy stock footage of a bat or something similar. She looks to her left and we get some faded stock footage of a tiger.

As I mentioned previously, the island also has primitive natives. Whenever you hear the drums in the distance, it’s important to toss off your shirt, paint your face, and start jogging. Otherwise, you might get killed. You know how that goes.

And then there’s the zombies, of course. The zombies get an origin story, something to do with an accident at top secret chemical plant. At the start of the film, a rat attacks a scientist. I’m assuming the rat was carrying the virus but it’s just as possible that Mattei just decided to throw in a random rat attack. (His best film was literally just 90 minutes of rat attacks.) Regardless, the zombie effects actually aren’t that bad but the problem is that whenever the zombies show up, they have to compete with all of the stock footage. When the zombies aren’t dealing with animal footage that was originally shot for a mondo film, they keep busy by eating nearly everyone that they meet. A group of soldiers have been sent to take care of the zombies but since none of them are particularly bright, they don’t have much luck.

Hell of the Living Dead has a reputation for being one of the worst zombie films ever made. I don’t know if I would go that far. It’s watchable in a “what the Hell did I just see?” sort of way. And in the end, isn’t that kind of the point of a film like this?