Category Archives: Horror

Are You Ready For The Slaughter Brothers Dime Circus?

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Back in 2022, I was lucky enough to get a chance to view and review Richard Burgin’s Fang, a visceral work of body horror that not only captured the paranoia and fear of our increasingly isolated society but which also featured an excellent performance from the iconic Lynn Lowry.  It’s a wonderful film and one that I continue to recommend.  With the horror genre running the risk of being commercialized and compromised by the big studios that, just a few years ago, refused to even consider supporting the genre, it is more important than ever to support indie horror and independent filmmakers.

Richard Burgin’s upcoming project promises to be another unique excursion into the world of indie horror.  The Slaughter Brothers Dime Circus is described as being “(a) calliope-fueled comic nightmare. A surrealist horror circus mindbender.”  The production, which takes inspiration from both classic horror and film noir, takes place at a dilapidated carnival and it will explore both the lives of those who work at the carnival and also the horror that lurks underneath the show.  The Slaughter Brothers Dime Circus was originally a stage show that, like so many creative endeavors, ran afoul the COVID lockdowns.  The stage show was transformed into a radio show and now, director Burgin and the show’s writer, Sean Sullivan, are hoping to adapt into a feature film.

And I hope they do!  The premise sounds intriguing and Richard Burgin has already shown, with Fang, that he can craft a surprising and moving horror film.  As well, I think we’re just now coming to terms with just how much the creative industry suffered as a result of the COVID era.  As a result of the pandemic and how the fears of COVID were handled, so many theatrical and cinematic projects were derailed and many of them are just now getting back on their feet.  Some projects never recovered.  So many theaters shut down permanently as a result of the pandemic that I always have to cheer whenever I hear about one that has reopened.  That’s the beautiful thing about creative people.  We have faith in our vision and we don’t give up.  Not only do I want to see this film for its story but I also feel that its production will prove the resilience of the creative spirit.

You can find out more about this project at their indiegogo site.  As I sit here typing, this project has raised 69% of its goal.  Here’s a link to their site, which has more information about the film, its story, and the people involved in producing it.  I’m looking forward to reviewing this one!

 

Scenes I Love: Lon Chaney, Jr. Learns The Facts Of Werewolf Life

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

On this date, 115 years ago, Lon Chaney, Jr. was born in Oklahoma City.  At the time, Oklahoma wasn’t even a state.  His father was the actor Lon Chaney Sr.

Originally named Creighton Chaney, Lon Jr. followed in his father’s footsteps.  Like many sons of famous men, he often struggled to escape his father’s shadow.  While he would never be mistaken for a man of a thousand faces, Lon Chaney, Jr. did make a name for himself, first as Lenny in the Oscar-nominated 1939 film version of Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men and then as Larry Talbot, the unfortunate man who found himself cursed to turn into the Wolf Man whenever the moon was full.  Chaney spent the majority of his career appearing in horror films and, later, westerns.  Not only did he play The Wolf Man but he was also one of the many actors to take a shot at playing both Frankenstein’s Monster and Dracula.  Later, he would appear in a series of low budget horror films that were often a far cry from his best-known films.  In his later years, he was a favorite of producer/director Stanley Kramer, who cast him in both High Noon and The Defiant Ones and who once said that Chaney was one of the finest character actors in Hollywood.  His deep voice and craggily face made an undeniable impression in those later films.  Looking at him, you could see had lived a tough life but he had the heart of a survivor.

In today’s scene that I love, Larry Talbot learns the facts about being a werewolf.  From 1941’s The Wolf Man, here is Lon Chaney, Jr in his signature role.

Live Tweet Alert: Watch Cannibal Apocaylpse With #ScarySocial!

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in a few weekly live tweets on twitter.  I host #FridayNightFlix every Friday, I co-host #ScarySocial on Saturday, and I am one of the five hosts of #MondayActionMovie!  Every week, we get together.  We watch a movie.  We tweet our way through it.

Tonight, for #ScarySocial, I will be hosting Cannibal Apocalypse, starring John Saxon and Giovanni Lombardo Radice!

If you want to join us on Saturday night, just hop onto twitter, start the film at 9 pm et, and use the #ScarySocial hashtag!  The film is available on Prime and Tubi!  I’ll be there co-hosting and I imagine some other members of the TSL Crew will be there as well.  It’s a friendly group and welcoming of newcomers so don’t be shy!

 

Late Night Retro Television Review: Friday the 13th: The Series 3.1 and 3.2 “The Prophecies”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing Friday the 13th: The Series, a show which ran in syndication from 1987 to 1990. The entire series can be found on YouTube!

This week, we start season 3!

Episode 3.1 and 3.2 “The Prophecies”

(Dir by Tom McLoughlin, originally aired on October 7th, 1989)

The third season starts with a 90-minute episode, one that was split into two parts when the show was later re-aired.  It’s a rather strange episode, one that takes the Curious Goods crew far from Canada and one that also see Ryan transformed into a…. well, we’ll get to that.

When the episode starts, Ryan is in a state of shock because he recently ran into his mother (Jill Frappier) while visiting the grave of his brother.  His mother walked out on Ryan and his father after the death of Ryan’s brother and the reunion between the two leaves Ryan feeling conflicted.  As he blames himself for both the death of his brother and his father, he can’t help but wonder what he would do if he had the opportunity to do everything over again.

Meanwhile, Micki is running the antique store with none other than Johnny Ventura.  Last season, Micki disliked Johnny and she had ever right to as Johnny tended to be a little bit stalker-ish in his behavior towards her.  But, with the start of this season, it appears that all has been forgiven.

As for Jack, he’s in a small town in France.  He received a letter from Sister Adele (Marie-France Lambert) telling him about some apocalyptic visions that she’s been having.  Those visions are largely the result of fallen angel Asteroth (Fritz Weaver), who is determined to bring the AntiChrist into the world by following the step laid out in the Books of Lucifer.  He has to kill a nun and he’s decided that Adele is that nun.  However, Asteroth cannot get to her.

But then Jack gets shoved down a flight of stairs and ends up in the hospital.  Ryan, Micki, and Johnny fly over to France.  Ryan is promptly possessed by the Devil and he murders Sister Adele!  But now, for some reason, Asteroth also needs to murder a young girl who seems to know Ryan and whose presence in the episode is never really explained.  In order to free Ryan from being possessed, it’s necessary to transform him back into a small child.  Eventually, God gets tired of all this and Asteroth bursts into flame.

The ending is a bit ambiguous about what this all means but I do know that this was John D. LeMay’s last episode and that Johnny Ventura will become a series regular as well.  (Steven Monarque, who played Johnny, is still listed as a guest star in this episode.)  So, I guess Ryan, who no longer has any memory of Micki or any of his Curious Goods adventures, is going to go live with his mother and grow up again and I’d love to know how Jack and Micki are going to explain that to his mom.

This was a weird way to write Ryan out of the show.  (If anything, Ryan sacrificing himself to save Micki and/or Jack would have made much more sense and been just as powerful an ending.)  But, with all that mind, this was still a good episode.  While the episode did not film in France, it does feature some location work in Quebec and those scenes are full of ominous atmosphere.  Fritz Weaver was an appropriately creepy Asteroth.  Speaking of being creepy, John D. LeMay did a great job playing possessed Ryan.  This episode was not always easy to follow but it was scary and atmospheric and it worked surprisingly well.

Bye, Ryan!  I’ll miss you.

Film Review: Mouse of Horrors (dir by Brendan Petrizzo)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

As a horror fan, I always appreciate a good slasher film.  As dark and as disturbing as they can be, they’ve also helped me to face down a lot of my own real-life fears.  Watching a good slasher film can be cathartic.  You may be scared when you’re watching and, if you’re like me, you’ll probably put your hands in front of your eyes during the more graphic kills but, when the end credits roll, you feel proud of yourself for having made it all the way through.

Again, that’s a good slasher film.

A bad slasher film can be, if you’ll excuse the expression, absolute terror.

Mouse of Horrors is not a good slasher film.  It’s a film about Chloe (Natasha Tosini) and her friends who, after about 15 minutes of filler, finally go to the “fun fair.”  It turns out that the fair is not very fun because it’s home to Dr. Rupert (Chris Lines) and his two sons, one of whom wears a mouse mask and another of whom wears a bear mask.  They’re Mickey and Winnie, though they’re never explicitly called that over the course of the film.  (The Mouse is played by Lewis Santer while the Bear is played by Stephen Staley).  Dr. Rupert needs body parts so he sends his two sons out to collect them.  As you may have guessed, this leads to a lot of scenes of spurting blood, hacked-off limbs, and screams.  Mickey and Winnie do not speak but Dr. Rupert does.  In fact, the old man will not shut up.  Even if he wasn’t some old weirdo demanding that his sons hack up random people, Dr. Rupert would be an annoying old crank.

Let’s give some credit where credit is due.  The Mouse has potential and physically, Lewis Santer does a good job of portraying The Mouse’s jumpy style of movement.  The Mouse mask is creepy, or at least it is at first.  Eventually, I got bored with looking at the Mouse and, by the time the Bear started fighting with the Mouse, I no longer cared much about looking at either of them.  Still, the killer is one of the most important parts of a slasher film and the Mouse had potential.  The setting of the carnival also had potential, though most of it went unused.

The rest of the film, though …. ugh!  Seriously, this was one of the worst edited films I’ve ever seen, including one scene where a day for night scene went totally day for a few shots.  The story dragged.  (It takes 20 minutes to get them to the fun fair when the film really should have started with them already there.)  I was never quite sure where the Mouse was in relation to anyone else in the film, negating any chance of generating suspense.  Why was the town suddenly deserted?  Why did everyone else at the fun fair suddenly disappear except for Chloe and her friends?  Why did the Mouse go the local pub to kill a bartender instead of just staying at the fun fair?  Does the Mouse walk around town with his mouse mask on?  How does he get away with that?  I’ve always been the first to say that enjoying a horror film requires a certain suspension of disbelief but the audience has every right to expect some sort of reward for playing along.  This film doesn’t offer that reward.

Get ready for a lot more films like this. Copyrights are expiring and everyone wants to either make a film based on their childhood nightmares or get revenge on their English teacher for making them read a book in high school.  This was not the first killer Mickey film and I doubt it will be the last.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Monsters 3.8 “Shave and a Haircut, Two Bites”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Wednesdays, I will be reviewing Monsters, which aired in syndication from 1988 to 1991. The entire series is streaming on YouTube.

Who needs a haircut?

(What is it with today’s reviews and hair?)

Episode 3.8 “Shave and a Haircut, Two Bites”

(Dir by John Strysik, originally aired on November 18th, 1990)

Tom (played by a young Matt LeBlanc) stands in front of an old timey barbershop and remembers when he was a teenager and he learned the truth about the place.  His friend, Kevin (Wil Wheaton), lived across the street from the barbershop and was convinced that the two elderly barbers who owned the place were actually vampires.  Kevin pointed out the customers were going inside with big jars of blood and then coming with little jars of blood.  Tommy remained skeptical.  I’m not sure why.  Jars of blood are a HUGE red flag.  Still, Tommy warned Kevin that if he continued to follow his vampire theory, he would probably get kicked out of all of his honors classes.  That was a risk that Kevin was willing to take.

Tommy and Kevin snuck into the barbershop one night and searched for evidence of vampires.  Kevin was serious while Tommy treated the whole thing as just being a big joke.  They were caught by the two barbers, Mr. Innes (John O’Leary) and Dr. D’Onofrio (Al Mancini), who revealed that they were not vampires.  Instead, they were just two guys who worshipped a giant slug creature who lived in the basement.  The slug creature stayed alive by drinking the blood that was brought into the barbershop.  In return, it offered up a smaller amount of its blood for the donors to drink.  The blood apparently allowed to people to live for a very long time.  So, I guess they were vampires but not really.

In the present, Tom gets a shave and a haircut and allows Kevin to draw some of his blood.  Then Kevin gets in the barber chair and Tom picks up the razor blade.  They both have noticeable scars on their neck.

This was an odd episode.  It was full of atmosphere and Tom’s voice over contributed to the creepy vibe.  It was generally well-acted.  Not even Wil Wheaton was too annoying.  The premise of the episode was intriguing but the episode’s pay-off fell a little flat.  I was happy that the show did something other than vampires but the weird slug creature really wasn’t that compelling either.  It felt like something out a Lovecraft short story but Lovecraft’s style of horror always works better when it’s something that the reader has to imagine as opposed to actually seeing.  This episode played out like an odd dream.  Even the ending feels like a fragment from a bigger narrative that has been lost to time.

Overall, though, I liked this episode and I appreciated the strange atmosphere.  Monsters was always the most fun when it was weird and this episode was definitely that.

 

Scene That I Love: The Escape Disaster In Night of the Living Dead

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today would have been George Romero’s 85th birthday.

Today’s scene of the day comes from Romero’s best film, Night of the Living Dead.  In this scene, an attempt to escape from a farmhouse ends in disaster.  As was typical of all of Romero’s films, the disaster has less to do with the zombies and more to do with humans that simply can’t work together.

The upload isn’t great but this scene still represents Romero’s vision of a society working to destroy itself.

Live Tweet Alert: Join #ScarySocial for Ticks!

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in a few weekly live tweets on twitter.  I host #FridayNightFlix every Friday, I co-host #ScarySocial on Saturday, and I am one of the five hosts of #MondayActionMovie!  Every week, we get together.  We watch a movie.  We tweet our way through it.

Tonight, at 9 pm et, Deanna Dawn will be hosting #ScarySocial!  The movie?  1993’s Ticks!

If you want to join us this Friday, just hop onto twitter, start the movie at 9 pm et, and use the #ScarySocial hashtag!  I’ll be there tweeting and I imagine some other members of the TSL Crew will be there as well.  It’s a friendly group and welcoming of newcomers so don’t be shy.

Ticks is available on Prime!

See you there!

Late Night Retro Television Review: Friday the 13th: The Series 2.26 “Coven of Darkness”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing Friday the 13th: The Series, a show which ran in syndication from 1987 to 1990. The entire series can be found on YouTube!

This week, the second season comes to an end.

Episode 2.26 “Coven of Darkness”

(Dir by George Bloomfield, originally aired on June 12th, 1989)

Jack and Ryan have recovered a “witch’s ladder,” and they’ve put it in the vault.  However, Lysa Redding (Maria Ricossa) is a witch who wants the ladder back.  Lysa (and I do always enjoy hearing my name, even if it is misspelled) is the head of a coven that was connected to evil old Uncle Lewis.  Lysa performs a ceremony that causes Ryan to become possessed so Micki has to become a white witch so that she can battle the dark witches.

Now, I should mention that Micki has never had magical powers before.  In the past, she’s usually been the down-to-Earth skeptic of the group so Jack suddenly announcing that Micki is actually a powerful witch took me by surprise.  But anyway, Micki is able to use her powers to break Lysa’s spell.  It’s such a grueling experience that Jack says its possible that she’s used up all of her magic powers.  What?  Really?  I guess …. okay, I don’t know what to say about that.  They suddenly gave Micki magic powers and then took them away.

This was a weird episode.  Based on this episode and Prisoner, I’m going to guess the production was nearly out of money at the end of season two.  Coven of Darkness takes place over three different locations and it’s mostly just continual jump cuts between Lysa spellcasting and Ryan freaking out and Micki looking intense.  It all feels very cheap and basic and not at all like a typical episode of Friday the 13th.  Instead of using their wits to defeat evil, Chris and Micki use magic.  It just doesn’t feel right.

I’m going to guess, though, that this was an attempt to reboot the show for the third season.  I’ve seen enough of the third season to know that the reboot didn’t stick around but I can kind of see what they were going for.  With John D. LeMay not planning on being a part of the third season, it perhaps seemed like it would be a good idea to turn the show into the Micki Witchcraft Hour.  And it probably would have been interesting but it definitely wouldn’t have had the same feel as classic Friday the 13th.

This brings season two to an end.  It was, overall, a good season, though I think the show lost its way a little towards the end.  The introduction of Johnny Ventura was rather clumsily handled and a few too many episodes seemed to forget that the show was supposed to center on finding Lewis’s cursed antiques.  The highlight of the show was the chemistry between the three leads.  I’m curious to see how the upcoming season will play without Ryan.

We’ll find out starting next week!

Late Night Retro Television Review: Monsters 3.7 “Small Blessing”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Wednesdays, I will be reviewing Monsters, which aired in syndication from 1988 to 1991. The entire series is streaming on YouTube.

This week, comedians Julie Brown, Kevin Nealon, and David Spade deal with a baby who was born with a lot of very sharp teeth.  Is it a demon or is it just a little blessing?  Let’s find out.

Episode 3.7 “Small Blessing”

(Dir by Roger Nygard, originally aired on November 11th, 1990)

Julie Brown plays the mother of a three-month old baby and, like a lot of new mothers, she is exhausted.  The baby is constantly doing things like crying, crawling out of its crib, and walking on the ceiling.  The baby was also born with over 30 razor sharp teeth and it likes to eat meat.  (I’m going to assume Julie bottle-feeds.)  Julie’s husband (Kevin Nealon) insists that there is nothing wrong with their baby and he gets angry at his wife for constantly being exhausted.  Julie doesn’t know how much longer she can stand being around her carnivorous baby.  When a serial killer (David Spade) shows up at the house, the baby proves its worth.  Julie’s husband comes home to find her holding the baby and talking about how much she loves him.  Awwwww!

This episode was goofy but enjoyable.  It started out as a story about the exhaustion that every mother has felt and then it becomes a comedy in which Julie Brown is the only person who seems to notice that there is anything strange about her baby.  While her husband makes excuses for all of the baby’s odd behavior, Julie knows that it’s not normal for a baby to devour raw meat, climb on a ceiling, and bust its way out of its crib.  But then David Spade shows up with a big knife and the baby proves itself.  Go, Baby!

The main problem is that the baby looked really bad.  It wasn’t a real baby, of course.  It was obviously a puppet and, when I say obviously, I mean it was so clearly a fake baby that it actually worked against the show’s effectiveness.  There was a lot of good things about this episode, including the performances of Julie Brown, Kevin Nealon, and David Spade.  But that fake baby was just too fake to be as effective as it could have been.

Still, this episode proves that even mutant babies deserve love.