Category Archives: Horror

Chilling Adventures of Sabrina 1.4 “Chapter 4: Witch Academy” (dir by Rob Seidenglanz)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Witch Academy opens with Sabrina (Kiernan Shipka), Harvey (Ross Lynch), Roz (Jaz Sinclair), and Susie (Lachlan Watson) debating just what exactly The Fly was about.  Harvey just thinks it was just a film about a guy who turns into a fly.  Ros says that it’s about body dysmorphia.  Sabrina points out that Cronenberg said that the film was about STDs.

(Actually, they’re all wrong.  The Fly was actually a pilot for a Canadian TV series about a sarcastic fly and an earnest tabloid journalist who team up to help people, solve crimes, and battle climate change.)

It’s the weekend and that means that it’s time to debate horror movies and get ready for three days of terrifying drama in the lives of Sabrina Spelmman and her friends.  Ros is desperate to get out of having to do church stuff so she agrees to spend the weekend hanging out with Susie.  Harvey would love to spend all of his time with Sabrina but it turns out that Sabrina is going to be gone for the entire weekend.  She tells Harvey that she’s going to a farm expo with Hilda.  But we all know that she’s actually starting as a part-time student at The Academy of the Unseen Arts!

Unfortunately, the Academy turns out to be a fairly unfriendly environment.  Sabrina is not even allowed to bring Salem with her and she’s immediately bullied by Prudence Night (Tati Gabrielle) and two other witches.  Sabrina is put through the harrowing, which is a witch version of extreme hazing.  Sabrina even meets the ghosts of several children who, over the years, have died during the harrowing.  They want revenge but, in a rather sweet twist, they can’t pursue it unless someone gives them permission to do so.  Fortunately, despite having been excommunicated last episode, Zelda (Lucy Davis) still comes to the school and gives them permission to do what they want.

(At one point, Sabrina points out that the witches are treating a fellow witch as cruelly as the mortals once treated them.  Unfortunately, Prudence and her witches fail to appreciate Sabrina’s point.)

Perhaps even worse than the hazing is the fact that Sabrina isn’t being allowed to take any conjuring classes.  Father Blackwood (Richard Coyle) says that he needs to make sure that Sabrina is capable of handling conjuring but could it be that he secretly suspects that the only reason Sabrina agreed to attend the Academy was so she could learn how to defeat Satan.  Father Blackwood gives Sabrina a puzzle and says that, if she can solve it, she can take conjuring classes.  It turns out that the puzzle was made by her father and, with the help of a student named Nicholas Scratch (Gavin Leatherwood), Sabrina does solve it.  Of course, as soon as she does, a demon shows up and things end with Sabrina screaming in terror.  Nothing’s easy when you’re a witch.

While Sabrina was dealing with Witch Academy, her friends were dealing with Susie’s Uncle Jesse.  Apparently, Jesse used to work in the mines and he hasn’t been the same ever since he saw the same monster that Harvey saw when Harvey was a child.  In fact, Harvey’s attempts to tell Uncle Jesse about his experience led to Jesse going crazy and attacking him.

Meanwhile, Ambrose violated the terms of his sentencing by using astral projection so he could go on an extremely awkward date and Madam Satan (in the form of Ms. Wardwell) managed to get into the Spellman house.  It was a busy three days in Greendale!

This was a pretty good episode.  If I’m not as enthusiastic about Witch Academy and I was about The Trial of Sabrina Spellman, it’s just because the whole hazing subplot was a bit predictable.  That said, Kiernan Shipka continues to impress in every single scene in which she appears and Lucy Davis had some great moments in the episode as well.  After watching this episode, I’m a bit concerned that Sabrina and Harvey are heading for heartbreak because 1) the Witch Academy is a huge part of Sabrina’s life that she won’t be able to tell him about and 2) she’s going to have to keep coming up with excuses for why she can’t spend the weekend with him.  Add to that, she seems to have a lot more in common with Nicholas Scratch than with Harvey Kinkle.

But for now, Sabrina’s main concern has to be with the demon that’s just been conjured up in her bedroom.  We’ll see how she deals with that in episode 5!

Halloween Havoc!: HOUSE OF DRACULA (Universal 1945)

Posted on by gary loggins

gary loggins's avatarcracked rear viewer

Since I’ve already reviewed HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN back in 2015,  we now turn our attention to HOUSE OF DRACULA, the last “official” entry in the series (though the Universal Monsters would ‘Meet Abbott & Costello’ three years later). The film tries to put a new slant on things, using science to conquer the supernatural, but winds up being just a hodgepodge of familiar horror tropes without much cohesion. HOUSE OF DRACUA does have its fans, but I’m not one of them.

John Carradine  returns as Count Dracula, introducing himself as Baron Latos to Dr. Edlemann (Onslow Stevens ) and seeking a cure for his vampirism. Edlemann discovers a “peculiar parasite” in Dracula’s blood, and believes he can cure him through a series of transfusions. But the Count, that sneaky devil, has his fangs set for Edlemann’s pretty nurse Militza (Martha O’Driscoll),  whom he hypnotizes with those hypnotic eyes of his…

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Horror On The Lens: I Was A Teenage Frankenstein (dir by Herbert L. Strock)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

From 1957, it’s I Was A Teenage Frankenstein!

This film was produced as a direct result of the box office success of I Was A Teenage Werewolf.  Just as in Teenage Werewolf, Whit Bissell plays a mad scientist who makes the mistake of trying to play God.  (He also makes the mistake of keeping an alligator in his lap but that’s another story.)  The end result …. Teenage Frankenstein!

The makeup on the Teenage Frankenstein is probably the best thing about this film.  If nothing else, this film features a monster who actually looks like he was stitched together in a lab.

Enjoy and please be sure to read my review of this film at Horror Critic!

 

Halloween Havoc! Extra: Boris Karloff in THE SNAKE PEOPLE (Columbia/Azteca 1971) Complete Horror Movie!

Posted on by gary loggins

gary loggins's avatarcracked rear viewer

Boris Karloff frightened the nation in 1931’s FRANKENSTEIN , and continued to terrify audiences for over three decades. In 1968, at the age of 81 and suffering from emphysema and crippling arthritis, Boris signed on to do four low-budget horror films for a Mexican production company. Unable to travel, Karloff’s scenes were shot in Hollywood by Jack Hill (SPIDER BABY, THE BIG DOLL HOUSE, SWITCHBLADE SISTERS). These films had a limited release here in the U.S. in 1971, two years after Karloff’s death, then went straight to late night TV.

THE SNAKE PEOPLE is probably the best of the quartet (which admittedly isn’t saying much!), featuring some bizarre imagery, flesh-eating zombies, voodoo rituals, human sacrifice, and other cool stuff! Karloff looks ill (and he was), but still manages to command every scene he’s in. Enjoy a last visit with the King of Horror, Boris Karloff, in THE SNAKE PEOPLE!:

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Music Video of the Day: Unmade by Thom Yorke (2018, dir by Ruffmercy)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today’s music video of the day is for another song from Thom Yorke’s soundtrack to the upcoming Suspiria remake or rehash or reboot or whatever it is.  I’m not really happy about the movie but I do like what I’ve heard of the soundtrack.

Enjoy!

Previous Suspiria Music Videos:

The TSL’s Horror Grindhouse: Blood for Dracula (dir by Paul Morrissey)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Count Dracula (played by Udo Kier) has a problem.  In order to stay strong and healthy, he needs a constant supply of virgin blood.  (Or, as Kier puts in, “weergen blood.”)  Unfortunately, he lives in 1920s Romania and apparently, there just aren’t many virgins left in Eastern Europe.

However, Dracula’s assistant, Anton (Arno Juerging) has a solution.  Dracula just needs to move to Italy!  After all, Italy is the home of the Vatican and it’s just been taken over by Mussolini and the fascists.  Surely, no one in Italy is having sex!  Dracula should be able to find all the virgins that he needs in Italy!

So, Dracula climbs into his coffin and Anton drives him to Italy.  Once they arrive, they meet an Italian land owner,  Il Marchese di Fiore (played by Italian neorealist director Vittorio De Sica).  The Marchese is convinced that Dracula is a wealthy nobleman and he says that Dracula can marry any of his four daughters.  He assures Dracula that they’re all virgins but Dracula soon discovers that two of them are not.  It turns out that, thanks to the estate’s Marxist handyman, Mario (Joe Dallesandro), it’s getting as difficult to find a virgin in Italy as it was in Romania!

After completing work on Flesh For Frankenstein, director Paul Morrissey and actors Udo Kier, Joe Dallesandro, and Arno Juerging immediately started work on Blood for Dracula.  Though Blood for Dracula never quite matches the excesses of Flesh for Frankenstein, it still taps into the same satiric vein that provided the lifeblood that gave life to Flesh for Frankenstein.  Once again, the sets and costumes are ornate.  Once again, the frequently ludicrous dialogue is delivered with the straightest of faces.  Once again, Udo Kier goes over-the-top as a famous monster.  And, once again, Joe Dallesandro plays his role with a thick and anachronistic New York accent and he looks damn good doing it.

Ironically, one of the differences between Flesh for Frankenstein and Blood for Dracula is that there’s quite a bit less blood in the Dracula film.  Then again, that’s also kind of the point.  Dracula literally can’t find any blood to drink and, as a result, he’s become weak and anemic.  Udo Kier is perhaps the sickliest-looking Dracula in the history of Dracula movies.  By the time that he meets the Marchese’s four daughters, he’s so sick that he literally seems like he might fade away at any second.  As ludicrous as the film sometimes is, you can’t help but sympathize with Dracula.  All he wants is some virgin blood and the communists aren’t even willing to let him have that.  Blood for Dracula is, in its own twisted way, a much more melancholy film than Flesh For Frankenstein.  Or, at least it is until the finale, at which point one character gets violently dismembered but still continues to rant and rave even after losing the majority of their limbs.

When Blood for Dracula was released in 1974, it was originally called Andy Warhol’s Dracula, though Warhol had little to do with the movie beyond allowing his name to be used.  As with Flesh for Frankenstein, Antonio Margheriti was credited in some prints as a co-director, largely so the film could receive financial support from the Italian government.

Sadly, there would be no Andy Warhol’s The Mummy or Andy Warhol’s Wolfman.  One can only imagine what wonders Kier, Dallesandro, and Morrissey could have worked with those.

 

 

The TSL’s Horror Grindhouse: Flesh For Frankenstein (dir by Paul Morrissey)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Here are just a few things to be experienced in 1973’s Flesh For Frankenstein:

A fanatical Baron von Frankenstein (Udo Kier) needs a brain for his latest creation so his assistant, Otto (Arno Jurging) goes out with a giant pair of hedge clippers, snips off a divinity student’s head, and then runs off with it.

An incredibly sexy farmhand named Nicholas (Joe Dallesandro) speaks with a thick and very modern New York accent, despite living in Germany in the 19th century.  Meanwhile, everyone around him speaks with an extra-thick German accent.

The Baron announces to Otto, “To know life, you must fuck death in the gall bladder!”

Nicholas has an affair the Baroness von Frankenstein (Monique van Voreen), who in one scene loudly sucks on Nicolas’s armpit.

The Baron gets rather obviously turned on while removing organs from a body.

The Baron’s children decapitate their dolls and take a perverse pleasure in being cruel.  Some of this could possibly be because the Baron and the Baroness are also brother and sister.

The Baron rants and raves about how, by bringing the dead back to life, he will be able to create the perfect Serbian race, one that will only take orders from him and which will …. well, do something.  The Baron has a lot of plans but he’s not always clear on just what exactly the point of it all is.

Speaking of points, one character eventually gets a spear driven through his back an out of his chest.  Despite the fact that his heart is literally hanging off the tip of the spear, he still manages to get out a very long and very emotional monologue before dying.

Now, of course, you have to remember about that scene with the heart is that Flesh for Frankenstein was originally shot in 3D, which means that audiences in 1973 would have literally had that heart dangling over their heads while waiting for that endless monologue to stop.  How the audience would react to that would have a lot to do with whether or not they were in on the joke.

And make no mistake, Flesh For Frankenstein is not a film that’s meant to be taken too seriously.  It’s a satire of …. well, just about everything.  Baron Frankenstein, with his sexual hang-ups and his obsession with creating a perfect male and a perfect female so that they can have perfect Serbian children, is the ultimate parody of the mad scientists who usually populate these films and Udo Keir gives a truly mad performance in the role.  One need only compare Keir’s Frankenstein to the coldly cruel version that Peter Cushing played in Hammer’s “serious” Frankenstein films to see just how much Keir embraced the concept of pure batshit insanity.  Whereas Keir joyfully overacts every moment that he’s on-screen, Joe Dallesandro pokes fun at the traditional image of the strong, silent hero by barely reacting to anything at all.  The film’s nonstop flow of blood parodies the excesses of the horror genre while Nicholas’s affair with the Baroness satirizes not only Marxism but also an infinite number of European art films.  Flesh for Frankenstein is a film that is so deliberately excessive that it often feels as if it’s daring you to stop watching.  Of course, you don’t stop watching because you know the movie will probably start making fun of you as soon as you turn your back on it.

Flesh For Frankenstein is also known as Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein.  Warhol actually had little do with the movie, beyond lending his name.  The film was directed by Paul Morrissey, who served as Warhol’s “house director” during the Factory years.  The best Factory films were defined by the combination of Warhol’s detachment with Morrissey’s political and religious conservatism.  With Flesh For Frankenstein, Morrissey not only satirizes what he viewed as being the excesses of European and horor cinema but he also satirizes the fact that there’s an audience for his satire.  Flesh For Frankenstein is definitely not a film for everyone but, in this case, that can be considered a compliment.  It’s an audacious and wonderfully over-the-top movie, one that would be followed by Blood for Dracula.

One final note: Because the film was made in Italy, Antonio Margheriti was credited as being a co-director on the film with Morrissey.  While Margheriti did do some second unit work, it is generally agreed that he was not, in any way, a co-director.  Apparently, Margheriti was credited as being a co-director so that the film could receive financial aid from the Italian government.  This scheme later led to both Margheriti and producer Carlo Ponti being charged with criminal fraud.

The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina 1.3 “Chapter Three: The Trial of Sabrina Spellman” (dir by Rob Seidenglanz)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

(Before reading my review of the third episode of Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, be sure to read Case’s thoughts on the first two episodes!)

Having run out on her Dark Baptism, Sabrina Spellman (Kiernan Shipka) finds herself put on trial.  She’s been accused of breaking her promise, which is one of the worst things of which a witch can be accused  (Especially when that promise was made to Satan.)  Even worse, she’s been informed that, in witch court, you are considered to be guilty until proven innocent.  The prosecution has her signature in the Book of The Beast.  Sabrina has an attorney named Daniel Webster (John Rubinstein).

As soon as I heard the name Daniel Webster, I got excited because I assumed that Sabrina’s attorney was going to turn out to be the great Massachusetts political leader who served 19 years in the U.S. Senate and as Secretary of State under three different U.S. presidents.  (Webster was also the subject of a short story and film called The Devil and Daniel Webster, which is briefly referenced when Sabrina is told that Webster once beat the Devil at his own game.)  But no, it turned out that Sabrina’s lawyer was just a mortal named Daniel Webster, a guilt-ridden man who once sold his soul to the Devil and asked to be made the world’s greatest attorney.  As Webster explains it, he used his powers to win acquittals for the worst of the worst and it wasn’t until one of them murdered his daughter that Webster realized that everything came with a cost.  At first, Webster, who is played with a haunting sadness by Rubinstein, refuses to take on Sabrina’s case but then he changes his mind.  Of course, this leads to Madam Satan assuming the form of Webster’s dead daughter and trying to manipulate him into dropping the case.

Speaking of manipulation, Harvey (Ross Lynch) is being manipulated by his abusive father to abandon art and work in the mines.  As Harvey explained to Sabrina, he once saw a creature of unbelievable evil living underground.  Ross Lynch gave an especially good performance in this episode and he and Shipka have an amazing chemistry, as displayed in a scene in which Harvey rather sweetly checked to see if Sabrina had the Spellman “family birthmark.”

That “family birthmark” is one of the key plot points of The Trial of Sabrina Spellman.  With her attorney demanding that Sabrina, as a half-human, be tried by human law, Father Blackwood (Richard Coyle) suggests that if Sabrina wants to be tried as a human then perhaps she should be forced to endure the degradation that humans have forced on witches over the years.  Perhaps, he suggests, she should be tossed in a lake and she can judged by whether or not she floats.  Or perhaps, she should be forced to strip naked so that she can be inspected for a witch’s mark.  And, at that moment, Sabrina is every woman who has ever had her words or his wishes casually dismissed or who has ever been told that the burden of proof is on her and her alone.  Sabrina is told that she  can either be humiliated and degraded as a part of the mortal world or she can be a witch and essentially lose all of her freedom.  For much of this episode, it appears that there is no middle ground.

Meanwhile, in the moral world, Rosalind (Jaz Walker) fights against school censorship and reveals that she’s losing her eyesight.  Rosalind’s bravery inspires Sabrina but it also inspires Ms. Wardwell (who, of course, is actually Madam Satan).  Ms. Wardwell announces the formation of a secret book society, which will allow her to continue to manipulate Sabrina.

Toward the end of the The Trial of Sabrina Spellman, Aunt Zelda (played by Miranda Otto) announced, “Praise Satan!  I’m young again!” and again, I was reminded that I was no longer watching Melissa Joan Hart and Beth Broderick in Sabrina, The Teenage Witch.  That’s not bad thing, of course.  When I was growing up, I loved Sabrina, The Teenage Witch and now that I’m an adult, I’m enjoying Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.  Kiernan Shipka, Mirando Otto, and Lucy Davis are all perfectly cast and Richard Coyle and Michelle Gomez are wonderfully hissable villains.

Up next is Episode 4, which is called Witch Academy.  Look for my review either later tonight or tomorrow!

Horror on TV: Kolchak 1.16 “Demon In Lace” (dir by Don Weis)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Tonight, on Kolchak….

Young college students are dying of heart attacks and Carl Kolchak is on the case!  Could it be just a coincidence?  Could it be drugs?  Could it be anything other than a Sumerian demon?  Well, if you know Kolchak, you already know the answer to that question!

This episode originally aired on February 7th, 1975.

Enjoy!