The TSL’s Horror Grindhouse: Girl on the Third Floor (dir by Travis Stevens)

Posted on October 2, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 2019 film, Girl on the Third Floor, tells the story of Dan Koch (Phil Brooks), a former criminal who says that he’s trying to turn his life around. Phil is married to Liz (Trieste Kelly Dunn) and they’ve not only got a baby on the way, they’ve also got a new house! It’s a surprisingly big house and you have to kind of wonder why no one else has bought it. Maybe it’s because there’s an Episcopalian church right across the street. That definitely would have kept me from moving in.

Still, despite the presence of Anglicans in the neighborhood, Phil moves into the house. He wants to get the house ready before his pregnant wife comes out to join him. Helping Phil out are his dog Cooper and his best friend, Milo (Travis Delgado). Ellie (Karen Woditsch), the rather judgmental pastor who lives in the church, also comes by and visits.

Of course, any old house is going to have its issues. There’s the mysterious sludge that pours out of the walls. There’s the mysterious marbles that keep rolling through the house. There’s the mysterious bumps in the nights and the fact that Cooper seems to be weary of the new home. Dogs can always pick up on evil. Of course, along with being a bit of an idiot, Don is too busy banging his new neighbor, Sarah (Sarah Brooks), to notice.

Don, if you haven’t guessed, is a bit of a jerk. Even though he swears that he feels guilty for cheating on his wife, he still does it. When his friends mysteriously disappear while helping out around the house, Don doesn’t make much of an effort to find them. When Don thinks that there’s a chance his wife might find out what’s been going on at the house, he goes to extreme methods to try to cover everything up. Don thinks that he can control every situation but Sarah and the House both appear to be intent to prove him wrong.

Girl on the Third Floor is a deliberately-paced …. well, I guess you’d call it a haunted house story. I was tempted to call it a ghost story but the film is frequently ambiguous as to whether or not the house is haunted by ghosts or by something far worse. Eventually, we do learn a bit about the house’s past but Girl on the Third Floor is at its best when it leaves you wondering what exactly is going on. Not all questions have to be answered, especially not in a horror movie. In fact, the key to most successful horror tales is the knowledge that some questions will never be answered, no matter how effort we put in to searching for a solution.

Phil Brooks, who wrestled under the name CM Punk, is well-cast as the frequently brutish Don. Brooks convinces us that he does want to be a better person while also showing that he doesn’t really have the inner strength necessary to do so. Trieste Kelly Dunn also does a good job as Don’s wife, who seems like she really does deserve better. Not surprisingly, the film is stolen by Sarah Brooks as the mysterious neighbor. Not only does she get to wear all the best clothes but she also gets all of the best lines and her confidence that Don will fail whatever test she puts before him is both chilling and understandable.

Despite being a little bit slow-paced (especially early on in the film), Girl on the Third Floor has enough atmosphere to hold one’s attention and the final third of the film is enjoyably surreal. Girl on the Third Floor is currently on Netflix. Watch it the next time you’re wondering whether or not to start a home improvement project.

Cinemax Friday: Fever Lake (1997, directed by Ralph Portillo)

Posted on October 2, 2020 by Jedadiah Leland

I’ve seen my share of bad slasher films but Fever Lake is definitely one of the worst.

The plot is a familiar one. Six college students (including Corey Haim, Mario Lopez, and Lauren Parker) head to the lake for the weekend. The lake has a bad reputation and they’ll be staying at a house where a terrible murderer occurred ten years earlier. The sheriff (Bo Hopkins) doesn’t want any foolishness. The local Native American medicine man (stiffly played by Michael Wise) says that there is a demon in the lake and that it’s about to reawaken. The students go to the lakehouse anyway. Can you guess what happens? It’s a 93 minute film where the killer doesn’t show up for 70 minutes. There’s not much gore and zero nudity and it has a twist that anyone will be able to see from a mile away. Haim alternates between sleepwalking his way through the film and screeching unintelligibly and Mario Lopez comes across like he’s playing A.C. Slater on speed. It’s thoroughly inept in almost every way that a film can be and, even worse, it’s boring.

Fever Lake is the type of film that, in the 90s, you always hated coming across on late night Cinemax. Because you were watching 2 in the morning, you would expect something extreme and instead you ended up with an hour of Corey Haim and Mario Lopez driving up to the lake. Late night connoisseurs held films like this in a special kind of contempt. For the most part, we never asked much from more late night Cinemax offerings and when a movie like this couldn’t even deliver what little we did ask for, it was hard not to take it personally. (To be honest, the PG-13 rating should have given the game away. I’m not sure what the film did to rate the addition of that 13, though. This film is a solid PG, all the way through.)

Today, of course, we can enjoy Fever Lake because of RiffTrax. Mike, Kevin, and Jim ripped Fever Lake apart in 2015. The film, with their commentary, is available on Prime. It’s the best way to watch Fever Lake.

Horror Scenes I Love: Dr. Loomis at Michael’s Board Review From Halloween

Posted on October 2, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

To go along with my review of Curtis Richards’s Halloween novelization, today’s scene that I love comes from the film Halloween …. kinda. It wasn’t included in the theatrical release but, instead, it was later added when Halloween made it’s network television premiere.

Now, I’ve actually heard two stories about this scene. One story is that it was shot during the filming of the original Halloween but that it was cut out of the theatrical release. When Halloween premiered on television, the network needed some footage to pad out the running time so this scene was re-inserted.

The other version is that the scene was specifically filmed for the television version of the film. According to this version, the scene was in an early version of the script but Carpenter didn’t film it until after Halloween had already had its theatrical release and was set to make it’s television debut.

(Personally, to me, the second version sounds more plausible.)

Regardless of when this scene was filmed, I like it quite a bit. In this scene, Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasence) attempts to get his colleagues to understand just how dangerous Michael Myers actually is. This, of course, was a running theme for the character of Dr. Loomis and it has always amazed me that no one was ever willing to listen to him. Loomis spent the last 30 years of his life telling people that Michael was an unstoppable killer. Every single time, he was proven correct. And yet no one ever listened to him!

This scene gives us a chance to see Dr. Loomis in a professional setting, as well as giving us a glance of an adolescent Michael at Smith’s Grove Sanitarium. “You’ve fooled them, Michael …. but not me.”

As someone who has seen all of the Halloween films multiple times, I have to say that Donald Pleasence’s performance as Dr. Loomis, especially in the first 2 films, has always been underrated. Pleasence gave a convincing portrait of a man who had spent the last ten years of his life dealing with evil on a daily basis. Who could blame him for being a bit fanatical? Wouldn’t you be if you had spent that much time staring into Michael’s soulless eyes?

International Horror Film Review: From the Dark (dir by Conor McMahon)

Posted on October 2, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

It’s an Irish horror film!

As a reviewer, I think it’s important for me to be open about my biases. Especially in October, I think it’s important for you to know that I love horror movies in general and that I especially tend to like low-budget horror films. You should also know that I tend to value positivity over negativity and, as a result, I’m always going to spend more time on what I like about a movie than on what I don’t like. I have no interest in joining in with the parade of bitterness that’s consumed so many otherwise intelligent people.

You should also know that I take a lot of pride in my Irish heritage. Whenever I get stressed out here in America, I remember visiting Argdlass two years ago. It calms me down. It makes me happy. I hope to be able to visit again soon. As a result, I’m naturally biased towards Irish films. That’s particularly true now, when I find myself often thinking about what life was like before the start of this year.

Needless to say, with those biases in mind, I was probably the ideal audience from From The Dark.

From The Dark open with a man named Mark (Stephen Cromwell) and a woman named Sarah (Niamh Algar) in a car. As I watched them drive across Ireland, I shouted, “I’ve done that!” When Mark and Sarah got lost while trying to navigate the Irish roads, I said, “I’ve done that.” When the car ends up getting stuck in mud, I said, “Yep, I’ve done that.” Finally, when Mark and Sarah approached a scary-looking farmhouse in the middle of the night while looking for help, I said, “Oh, Hell no!”

Once you’ve seen enough horror movies, you know that it’s always a mistake to approach a farmhouse in the middle of the night. Farmhouses are always full of either zombies or inbred rednecks or blood farmers. Stay away from the farmhouses! That’s what Sarah and Mark should have done because they soon find themselves being chased and attacked by a monster who seems to thrive on the darkness of the night….

Albeit uneven, From The Dark has its moments. The low-budget is obvious in almost every shot but the film makes good use of that farmhouse location and, even more importantly, it keeps us guessing about the monster that’s living there. Wisely, the film keeps the monster off-camera for as much as possible, leaving both the audience and Mark and Sarah to wonder where in the darkness it could be hiding. I’ve always felt that horror is more effective on a low-budget than a big budget and From The Dark shows why. The more expensive a monster is, the more obligated the filmmaker is going to be to show it off. Low-budget monsters, though, are usually kept off-camera for the majority of the film and therefore, they’re much more intimidating. There’s nothing scarier than what the human imagination can come up with and nothing sparks one’s imagination quicker than trying to figure out what might be hiding in the dark.

From the Dark does have some pacing issues. As much as I enjoyed the footage of the Irish countryside, the scenes of Sarah and Mark driving dragged a bit. As well, Sarah and Mark aren’t always the most sympathetic of protagonists. Usually, I don’t mind it when characters in horror films do stupid things because, quite frankly, we all do stupid things. But when there’s only two humans in the entire film, it’s a lot easier to dwell on the dumb things that they did that led to them getting in their dire situation in the first place.

Taking all of that into consideration, From the Dark may be imperfect but, when it works, it’s effectively creepy. Plus, it’s Irish!

4 Shots From 4 Jack Arnold Films: It Came From Outer Space, Creature From The Black Lagoon, Tarantula, The Incredible Shrinking Man

Posted on October 2, 2020 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!

This October, we’re using this feature to recognize and honor some of our favorite horror directors! Today, we honor the one and only Jack Arnold!

4 Shots From 4 Jack Arnold Films

It Came From Outer Space (1953, dir by Jack Arnold)

Creature From The Black Lagoon (1954, dir by Jack Arnold)

Tarantula (1955, dir by Jack Arnold)

The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957, dir by Jack Arnold)

Horror Film Review: Everfall (dir by John Kissack)

Posted on October 2, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 2018 horror film, Everfall, tells the story of Eva and Daniel.

Eva Saint (Jessica McLeod) is a figure skater who, at one time, had a bright future.

Daniel (Joe Perry) is the world’s worst boyfriend.

Daniel is also the reason why Eva’s skating career get derailed. Daniel hosts his own “extreme sports YouTube channel,” which he calls “The Daniel Show.” Daniel is the type who tends to say things like, “This is going to be a totally new direction for the Daniel Show!” One of Daniel’s new directions was to convince his girlfriend to stand on a ledge. Unfortunately, while Daniel was showing off for the camera, Eva fell off that ledge and broke her leg.

A year later, Eva’s leg is scarred but healed. She wants to get back into the world of competitive figure skating but she’s struggling. She’s no longer as confident in herself as she once was. None of her old partners want to work with her anymore. Even worse, she’s still going out with Daniel. I’m not sure why. If I was dating a guy who was responsible for me falling off a roof, I’d probably break up with him as soon as I regained consciousness.

Eva’s coach gives her one last option. She can go to an obscure little town called Everfall, where they have an annual skating competition. Eva’s never heard of it before but she knows that she has to do something so she agrees. And again, for some reason, she takes Daniel and Daniel’s cameraman, Jordan (Kristian Wang), with her.

The competition at Everfall turns out to be even worse than Eva was expecting. First off, the ice skating rink appears to be on the verge of collapse. Secondly, there don’t seem to be another other skaters around. The mysterious Mrs. Redgrave (Catherine Gell) sends Eva to Dressing Room #5. Dressing Room #5 turns out to be a not very pleasant place to be….

Everfall is an effectively creepy film, one that makes good use of its eerie location and which features an excellent performance from Jessica McLeod. Everfall is also a film that never really makes much sense but, in this case, that’s acceptable. When you’re dealing with a skating rink that may or may not be haunted by several ghosts, you can get away with a little incoherence. The film is full of surreal moments and disturbing imagery. Characters appear to die and then, just as quickly, they show back up again. It’s a film that was obviously influenced by Kubrick’s The Shining — particularly the final few scenes — but it also manages to carve out its own rather odd identity.

While Eva, Daniel, and Jordan are wandering around the skating rink from Hell, there’s also wildfire raging around the town of Everfall. Amazingly enough, Eva’s father is a fireman but he refuses to acknowledge that Eva’s in any sort of danger. Eva’s parents are played by Jayson Therrien and Julie Orton. They bicker through the entire film and, to be honest, I could have done without the majority of their scenes. The scenes between Therrien and Orton wreck havoc on the film’s narrative momentum. Whenever you’re really starting to get into whatever’s happening to Daniel, Eva, and Jordan, Eva’s parents pop up and start arguing with each other. The main theme of these scenes is that Eva’s dad isn’t willing to rescue her from a fire despite the fact that he is a fireman and that’s literally his job. You really can’t help but feel sorry for Eva. She never had a chance.

Everfall has its flaws. This is one of those films where the camera is always moving, even when it should be sitting still. That said, there’s enough strange details and out-there plot twists to make it an effective head trip and it ends on a nicely surreal note. That’s always a good thing.

Horror on the Lens: An Evening With Edgar Allan Poe (dir by Kenneth Johnson)

Posted on October 2, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

What better way to get ready for Halloween than spending a little time with Vincent Price?

In this 1970 film, Price recites four of Poe’s works in front of a live studio audience. Price performs as only Price could, proving once again that he was not only an iconic figure in the history of horror but an iconic actor as well.

Enjoy!

The TSL’s Horror Grindhouse: Blood Rage (dir by John Grissmer)

Posted on October 1, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Filmed in 1983 but not released until 1987, Blood Rage tells the heart-warming story of two twin brothers, Todd and Terry Simmons (both played by Mark Soper).

In 1974, young Todd and Terry go to a drive-in movie with their mother, Maddy (Louise Lasser) and Maddy’s boyfriend. (It’s suggested that Maddy has had many boyfriends over the years.) The twins fall asleep in the back of the station wagon but, when they wake up, they discover that Maddy is making out with her date. This inspires Terry to sneak out of the car, grab a nearby hatchet, and walk from car to car. When he comes across another couple making love, he hacks the man to death and then watches as the man’s naked date runs into the night. Realizing that he’s about to get in a lot of trouble, Terry hands the hatchet to Todd and then rubs blood on his brother’s face. As a result, everyone assumes that Todd is the murderer.

Nine years later, Terry is living with Maddy at a secluded apartment complex called Shadow Woods. Todd, on the other hand, is stuck in an asylum and not very happy about it. On Thanksgiving, Todd escapes from the asylum and heads off to Shadow Woods.

Here’s where things get strange. Everyone assumes that Todd is heading to Shadow Woods to get revenge. That’s certainly what I assumed when he first escaped. But it turns out that Todd, despite all he’s been through, is still a gentle soul. He just wants to be free and to see his family. However, when Terry learns that Todd has escaped, he sees it as a perfect excuse to go on another killing spree.

So, while Todd is sneaking around the complex, Terry is killing Maddy’s latest boyfriend and all of their neighbors. Everyone who sees Todd asumes that he’s Terry and almost everyone who sees Terry assumes that he’s Todd. It’s an intriguing premise that has a lot of potential. Unfortunately, Blood Rage never gets as much mileage out of the idea as it should. It’s not until the last few minutes of the film that it really digs into just how messed up Maddy and her sons really are.

Every by the standards of an 80s slasher film, Blood Rage is brutal. Hands are hacked off. Heads are separated from necks. One unfortunate victim is chopped in half and spends what seems like several minutes feeling around for the lower half of her body. As opposed to emotionless killing machines like Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers, Terry Simmons seems to get real kick out of what he’s doing, which makes him all the more disturbing. Interestingly, it’s not just the killing that Terry enjoys. Terry also seems to enjoy knowing that he’s specifically going to get Todd in even more trouble. He’s the ultimate bad sibling.

Mark Soper plays both Todd and Terry and he does a good enough job in the role that you can tell the two twins apart. Occasionally, Soper does occasionally go a bit overboard as Terry but then again, most murderers aren’t known for their subtle personalities. The film is pretty much stolen by Louise Lasser, who gives a memorably eccentric performance as Maddy who is, in her own way, just as unstable as her sons. Some of the performances from the surprisingly large number of victims are inconsistent but, in the end, everyone dies convincingly and that’s what really matters in a film like this.

As I mentioned at the start of this review, Blood Rage was filmed in 1983 and sat on the shelf for four years. Apparently, several different versions of the film have been released. There’s a version called Nightmare at Shadow Woods that has almost all of the gore cut out. The version that’s on Shudder is apparently uncut but it also opens with a title card that reads Slasher. Blood Rage is a bit of a generic title but it is appropriate. There is a lot of blood and there’s a lot of rage.

In the end, Blood Rage is an effective, if uneven, slasher movie. Though the budget was undeniably low, the gore effects are convincing and the whole twin subplot allows from some unexpected moments. The low-budget look of the film actually works to Blood Rage‘s advantage. The grainy images occasionally give the film a rather dream-like feel. At its best, it looks like a filmed nightmare. At its worst, it just looks like another low-budget slasher flick from Florida.

Blood Rage may not be a masterpiece but it is a good film for the Halloween (and, given the film’s set-up, Thanksgiving) seasons.

Anguish (1987, directed by Bigas Luna)

Posted on October 1, 2020 by Jedadiah Leland

John Pressman (Michael Lerner) is a mentally unbalanced, middle-aged, diabetic mama’s boy who is losing his eyesight. When his mother (Zelda Rubinstein) orders John to go out and collect healthy eyes, it leads to John going on a rampage that eventually brings him to a movie theater. After he barricades everyone inside, he starts to pick off the patrons one-by-one, removing their eyes with a scalpel.

Meanwhile, in another theater, an audience watches John’s rampage on the big screen. Is the story of John Pressman just a movie? Maybe. But in the audience, people start to react strangely. A woman breaks down in tears. When John Pressman starts to kill people in his movie, a man in the audience starts to kill people in the real theater. When the mother in the movie-within-a-movie sends her son out to get eyes, is she after the eyes of the people in her movie or the people watching in the audience? Has the madman in the audience been possessed by the movie or is he just another spree killer, an ever-present threat in both the movies and the real world? And how will his rampage be stopped?

Anguish is a clever, multi-layered Spanish horror film. Watching the film, it’s important to remember that it was produced in the middle of a worldwide moral panic about whether or not people could experience violent movies without becoming violent themselves. At first, it seems like the film is saying that horror movies are a bad influence but then there’s a twist ending that turns the entire premise on its head. As the movie peels away layer after layer of plot, you’ll find yourself wondering what’s real and what’s just a movie.

An unheralded horror classic, Anguish is two good movies in one. Obviously, the film about John Pressman and his crazy mother is considerably more cheesy than the one about the madman in the “real” world but both films are full of atmosphere, suspense, and a some surprisingly grisly violence. The movie-within-a-movie also features Michael Lerner and Zelda Rubinstein, two actors who just seem like they were destined to play a henpecked son and his crazy mother. Lerner is one of the best character actors around and Anguish gives him a rare leading role. Lerner makes the most of it, carefully cutting out eyeballs while his mother’s voice echoes in his head.

Anguish is a good head trip of a film. It’s long been rumored that Anguish contains subliminal images and sounds that are designed to make the people watching feel nervous. I don’t know if that’s true, though the film does open with the following classic warning:

During the film you are about to see, you will be subject to subliminal messages and mild hypnosis.

This will cause you no physical harm or lasting effect, but if for any reason you lose control or feel that your mind is leaving your body — leave the auditorium immediately.

Luckily, Anguish is available on DVD and Blu-ray so you can watch it in the safety of your own home.

Horror Scenes That I Love: The Drive to the Overlook from Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining

Posted on October 1, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

As I’ve stated many times on this site, Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining is one of my favorite horror films and it’s also one of the few horror films that can still scare me even after I’ve seen it hundreds of time. Those two little “Come and play with us” girls still freak me out and I still think about the blood pouring out of that elevator at least once a month.

That said, one of my favorite scenes from The Shining comes early on in the film. It’s the scene where Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson, of course) is driving his family to the Overlook Hotel for the first time. He’s already visited for his job interview but this is the first time that his family is going to see their new home. And, as you can tell in this scene, he already appears to be kind of sick of them.

Seriously, when someone is driving and has that expression on his face, don’t ask him about the Donner Party.

What I love about this scene is Nicholson’s obvious exasperation. You can just tell that he’s thinking, “I’m going to be stuck in a hotel with these two for months.” I especially love the way that he delivers the line about Danny learning about cannibalism from the television. (Of course, I think one reason why Jack is upset is because Wendy’s the one who brought up the Donner Party, in the first place. If you don’t want your child to know about cannibalism, don’t randomly start talking about a famous example of it. That’s parenting 101, I’d think.)

Seriously, if I was a passenger in that car, that is exactly when I would say, “Pull over and let me out. This is not going to end well.”