First released in 1961 and directed by Curtis Harrington, Night Tide stars a young Dennis Hopper as Johnny, an awkward sailor. Johnny meets Mora (Linda Lawson), who works as a “mermaid” on the pier. For Johnny, it’s love at first sight. However, the more that Johnny pursues her, the more he learns about both her mysterious past and the dark fate of her previous boyfriends.
Night Tide is low-key and atmospheric gem of a movie, one that serve as an inspiration for low-budget filmmakers every where. Lawson is perfectly cast as the enigmatic Mora but the film really belongs to Dennis Hopper. Hopper’s naturally off-key presence made him perfect for the role of Johnny.
Night Tide is one of those low-budget movies that, because it’s in the public domain, has been released on DVD (often in inferior form) by dozens of different companies. Often times, films like this turn out to be fairly forgettable. Night Tide, however, is an exception.
I just watched the 2019 haunted house/slasher hybrid Haunt on Shudder TV’s The Last Drive-In.
Joe Bob Briggs, who hosts The Last Drive-In and who is, as we all know, one of the patron saints of grindhouse movie lovers, gave Haunt a rating of 4 stars and said to check it out. Having watched the film, I think Joe Bob was being a bit generous in his assessment. Personally, I would have given it two and a half stars or maybe, depending on my mood, three. It’s an undeniably effective film but it’s also a bit on the predictable side.
A group of students meet up at a Halloween party and end up going to a haunted house together. The haunted house is kind of in the middle of nowhere. It’s populated by oddly quiet people wearing creepy masks. There’s a clown. There’s a devil, who we earlier saw stalking one of the students at the party. There’s a ghost. Before anyone is allowed to enter the house, everyone is required to sign a liability waiver and to give up their cell phone. It’s pretty obvious from the start that anyone who enters the haunted house is going to be stalked and killed by the people in the masks but our partygoers enter the house anyway. Blood flows and mayhem follows.
As I said, it’s effectively done. The haunted house is a wonderful location and the masked killers all look properly creepy. You have to kind of wonder if the killers couldn’t have come up with a simpler way to capture and take out their victims but then again, homicidal psychopaths are pretty much going to do whatever they want. I mean, are you going to be the one to tell a guy wearing a devil mask and carrying a pitchfork that his ideas don’t make any sense? You never disagree with a devil holding a pitchfork. That’s just common sense. If a devil with a pitchfork tells you that you’re going to travel around Illinois, setting up haunted houses …. well, you don’t argue with him. Instead, you hop on the next plane to Chicago and you make a deal with the Mafia to keep you supplied with pumpkins.
But, at the same time, Haunt never really took me by surprise. None of the victims were particularly interesting and, once you got beyond the fact that they were wearing creepy masks and that they all had a messed up backstory, there wasn’t really anything that special about the killers either. The real star of the film was the haunted house, which was imaginatively designed and full of ominous atmosphere. I especially liked the escape room, where all of the notes had to held up to a mirror in order to be read. There’s something under the bed indeed!
Haunt is good enough to serve as a part of your Halloween film buffet but it definitely shouldn’t be the only option on the menu. It’s effectively creepy but it doesn’t stick with you the way that the best horror films do. If the best horror movies are like a nightmare that you simply cannot forget, Haunt is more like an amusement par ride. It’s fun while it lasts but, by the time it’s over, your mind has already moved onto the next attraction.
A young woman (Suzanne Pleshette) desperately needs a blood transfusion. Fortunately, the police have managed to track down one of the only people to share her blood type, an accountant named Harold Stern (Norman Lloyd). Harold seems like a nice, rather mild-mannered guy and he has a long history of donating blood. However, when the police approach him, Harold refuses to donate.
“What type of crumb are you!?” the police demand.
Harold explains that, whenever he gives someone blood, he develops a psychic connection with that person. He can see their future. And that’s simply a burden that he can no longer shoulder….
This episode of One Step Beyond originally aired on September 15th, 1959. Norman Lloyd, who plays Harold, got his start as a member of Orson Welles’s Mercury Theater and he also played the villain in Alfred Hitchcock’s Saboteur. (Speaking of Hitchcock, Suzanne Pleshette played the doomed school teacher in The Birds.) When Lloyd appeared in this episode of One Step Beyond, he was 44 years old.
Today, Norman Lloyd is 105 years old and guess what? He’s still active! He had a role in Trainwreck and still occasionally appears on television.
Eight years since his last appearance, warlock-turned-attorney Will Spanner is back!
A record eight years passed between the release of Witchcraft 13 and this installment, enough time for the franchise to go from being a cheap joke to something that people looked back on with nostalgia. All of the your old favorites are back, with the exception of Kelly. This time, Berna Roberts plays Lutz and Leroy Castanon plays Garner. Will is played by Ryan Cleary, who has apparently not only come to terms with his warlock heritage but who is also now wearing guyliner.
There’s a series of deaths in Los Angeles, all involving people who know and who have displeased Rose (Molly Daughtery). Rose is a witch but doesn’t realize it. When she discovers that her boyfriend is cheating on her, she gets so angry that her powers destroy not only her boyfriend but also the woman that he was cheating with. With people dying around her, Rose is starting to catch on that she might be a witch and she’s concerned about it. Samuel (Jeremy Sykes) is the nefarious owner of a yoga studio who wants to use Rose’s powers for his own evil ends. He sends a coven of witches to recruit her. It’s all a part of another stupidly complex ritual, this one designed to release the Angel of Death from Hell. As usual, it falls to Will to prevent the ritual.
Despite the eight year gap between the last chapter and Witchcraft 14, not much has changed as far as the Witchcraft movies are concerned. The special effects are cheap, the nudity is frequent, and the plot has so many holes that the Angel of Death could probably just slip through one of them and save Samuel a lot of trouble. The main thing that Witchcraft 14 does have going for it is that it’s more intentionally comedic than some of the previous Witchcraft films. Samuel may be a Satanist but he and his yoga-based coven are also the epitome of almost every cliché about spacey Californians. Roberts and Castanon also have good comedic timing as Lutz and Garner. As for Ryan Cleary, he sleepwalks through the role of Will but Lutz and Garner actually get more screen time than he does.
Despite the 8-year gap between installments, Witchcraft 14 is a typical Witchcraft film, just with more intentional laughs. Those who have nostalgia for the series will probably enjoy it. Everyone else will just wonder how they could have possible made 16 of these films.
You have just received a position in a prestigious university’s architecture department. As was mentioned in your acceptance letter, it’s a role that you can “sink your teeth into.” You’ve just arrived at your office, which is pretty bare. Someone even took the curtains and the chair. You’ve got plans for your new job and one colleague in particular but before you can worry about any of that, it’s time unpack.
Academic Pursuits in a moving-in sim, where the challenge is to not only find an appropriate place for all of your things but also to give your office the right feel. Will you make you office feel academic or will you make it feel ominous? While you’re unpacking, you can also examine each object and, even more importantly, think about each object. Gradually, your backstory and your reasons for taking the position will be revealed. Let’s just say that you’re more than just an academic looking to enlighten young minds. How you decorate your office and what you decide to keep will also determine the future of both your career and your relationship/rivalry with another professor.
Academic Pursuits a simple but satisfying game. I especially liked the way that the office changed depending on what you threw away and what you actually put on display. Because there’s so many different ways to unpack (and yes, you do have the option to throw almost everything away), this is a game that can be played and replayed several times.
The 1983 German film, Angst, is one of the most disturbing films that I’ve ever seen. It tells a thoroughly unpleasant story about a man who is truly worthy of hate and yet it’s so well-made that, once it starts, it’s nearly impossible to look away, even though you may want to.
Erwin Leder plays the role of K., a young man who, when we first see him, is shooting a random elderly woman. K. is arrested for that crime and, over a series a still photographs, we listen as a dispassionate voice-over fills us in on the details of K.’s life. Like a lot of serial killers, K. was not wanted by his parents. He was abused by his mother, his grandmother, and everyone else that he met in life. He spent years in and out of prison. Though he claimed that he shot the elderly woman on impulse and that he didn’t really know what drove him to the act, the authorities still decide that the murder was a robbery gone wrong. K. goes to prison for ten years and, we’re told, he’s a model prisoner.
Eventually, K. takes over the narration. He tells us that he’s spent ten years pretending to be reformed, fantasizing about the moment that he’s released and once again free to kill. When K. finally is released from prison, no one is there to meet him. He has no family or friends. A trip to a diner, in which he’s eyed suspiciously by everyone as he rather animalistically eats a sausage, leaves him even more determined to find people to kill. After an unsuccessful attempt to strangle a taxi driver, K. comes across a secluded house. The house is owned by a woman and her two adult children, one of whom is disabled. K. breaks into the house and …. well, things go to Hell.
As I said, Angst is not a pleasant film to watch. How hateful is K? Listen, I’m against the death penalty. I’ve signed petitions opposing the death penalty. I believe that when we celebrate the death of even the worst people, we sacrifice a bit of our soul. That said, if Angst ended with K. going to the electric chair or being shot in the back of the head by some anonymous execution, I wouldn’t have shed a tear. What makes K. such a terrifying monster is that he’s a very real threat. He’s not some sort of paranormal creature. He doesn’t have any supernatural powers nor is he motivated by some sort of esoteric belief. Instead, he’s a man with a traumatic childhood and an unending obsession with killing. The film offers us no easy escape when it comes to considering K. and his actions. We can’t just shrug him off as just being another horror movie villain. Instead, he’s the type of person who is probably walking the streets right now. Angst left me wondering if I’ve ever walked past a murderer without even realizing it.
Angst is a well-made film. In fact, there are times when you kind of resent how well-made it is. If it was just some cheap serial killer flick with fake blood and a boom mic occasionally slipping into view, it would be a lot easier to dismiss the film. Instead, the film plays out almost like a documentary. Whether he’s leaving the prison or staring at a potential victim or running around the house, the camera often holds K. in a tight close-up, forcing us to watch as the madness plays across his face. Later, when K. is attempting to steal a car, the camera views him from above, putting us in the position of a deity who is looking down upon K. and his actions and perhaps wondering how the world could have gone so wrong.
Angst is an antidote to all those films that portray serial killers as being witty and clever antiheroes. There’s nothing particularly witty or clever about K. When he succeeds at his crimes, it’s not due to him being particularly smart or coming up with an elaborate plan. It’s just that most people are in denial about the existence of men like K. He uses that to his advantage.
Angst is somewhat legendary for having been banned in a number of countries when it was first released. It is a totally disturbing film and I don’t necessarily recommend it to the easily triggered. That said, it’s also a remarkably well-made film. For better or worse, it sticks with you.
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 wish a happy birthday to the one and only Sam Raimi!
