Category Archives: Horrorthon

Horror on the Lens: The Unknown (dir by Tod Browning)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

First released in 1927, The Unknown tells the story of circus performer Alonzo the Armless (Lon Chaney, Sr.).  As you might guess from his name, everyone thinks that Alonzo is armless.  Of course, he’s not.  He’s just a contortionist who pretends to have no arms.  People thinking that he has no arms gives him the perfect alibi whenever he has to strangle someone.

However, Alonzo has fallen in love with Nanon (Joan Crawford), his beautiful circus assistant.  Unfortunately, Malabar the Mighty (Norman Kerry) is also in love with her and there’s no way that Alonzo could allow her to get too close because then she might discover that he not only has arms but that his hand has an unusual deformity that would identify Alonzo as the man who strangled Nanon’s father.

Alonzo’s solution?  Maybe he could just get someone to amputate his arms for real!  But will that be enough for him to win Nanon away from Malbar?  Or will he pursue an even more macabre plan to get Malabar out of the picture?

The Unknown was, for years, considered to be a lost film.  In 1968, a 49-minute print of the film was found in France.  That’s the version that I’m sharing here.  Reportedly, several early scenes were missing but those scenes were not important to the overall story.  Even in truncucated form, The Unknown is a wonderfully surreal and atmospheric film and it’s widely considered to be the best of Tod Browning and Lon Chaney’s collaborations.  Since this film was made in the age before CGI, whenever Alonzo hides his arms, Chaney was having to do the same thing.  This is one of Chaney’s best performances.  Alonzo is both frightening and rather sad in his way.  Having won the role over Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford was 18 when she played Nanon.

Enjoy!

Rain, The Teskey Brothers – Rev. Case Wright

Posted on by casewright

Happy Horrothon! “I know you’re gonna say, this isn’t horror! This is Thor singing the blues!” I hear your critique and I reject it! The greatest horror stories especially in science fiction have trauma, fear, and hope. Alien, for example, terrible things happen to this crew of…. I guess…. miners, but at the end – there’s hope because Ripley overcomes. I always have a bit of anxiety at the end of the New “Outer Limits” or films like “Life” because it’s a good twist, but everyone is now dead and the heroes failed- that’s too much like life!

In “Rain”, a woman is alone and there appears to be a guy in the friendzone who REALLY wants to be with her and can sing and looks like Thor. For the interest of Horrorthon, we’re going to presume that- I don’t know this lady’s name but I’ll call her Susan- that Susan’s previous guy was eaten by a …got it…. a werewolf! Take that doubters told you I could contrive this into a horror review- BWAHAHAHA!

Side note: Susan, you’re being too picky. I’m sure that you had a rough time, but this guy even wrote a song for you, looks like Thor, and sounds like Otis Redding reincarnated. Maybe your standards are just WAY too high?

Susan’s boyfriend was werewolf puppy chow and Thor is trying to tell her that it will be okay. He has felt her pain because there is probably at least another werewolf in town that probably ate his girlfriend too. Can you imagine that support group? They must hate Iams and Doggy costumes! The line “Is that rain or are you crying again?” gets to me because when you’re broken-hearted – it’s like the tears can’t stop. “A soul with no face is a lonely embrace” this line is all about not seeing your soulmate again- Fucking Werewolves, we gotta do something about them, but then this song wouldn’t exist; so, I’m torn!

As they try console each other, “now’s there clouds between us all”; so, they likely hooked up, but they also have to worry about the full moon coming- probably. I like that at the end of the song – he says – “You ain’t gonna be ain’t gonna be alone” and notice, he doesn’t say- With me – Wonderful me. He’s left her better off and maybe he will be alone and live out his days as a werewolf hunter?

Music Video of the Day: Push It by Garbage (1998, directed by Andrea Giacobbe)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Push It was the lead single off of Garbage’s second studio album, Version 2.0.  The video was directed by an Italian photographer named Andrea Giacobbe, who was selected after the band saw and was impressed by his video for Death in Vegas’s Dirt.  Though Shirley Manson said that the songs lyrics were intentionally meant to be surreal and that the song was about, “the schizophrenia that exists when you try to reconcile your desires and demons with the need to fit in,” even the band was surprised by the bizarre storyboards that Giacobbe prepared for the video.

What’s happening in the video is definitely open to interpretation, as the action goes from three nuns assassinating Shirley Manson’s rotoscoped “partner” to Manson living in the suburbs with a man who has a light bulb for a head.  Demonic children and aliens also make an appearance.  In the end, the video feels like a throwback to the early days of MTV, when it was more important to be weird and challenging than to craft your image for the adolescent Total Request Live crowd.  It certainly feels as if it’s taking place in a separate universe than the one where MTV is now the exclusive property of Rob Dyrdeck.

What does it all mean?  It doesn’t really matter.

Enjoy!

Horror on TV: The Hitchhiker 4.2 “Minuteman” (dir by Chris Thomson)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

For tonight’s episode of The Hitchhiker, our narrator (played by Page Fletcher) takes a look at Jeremy (John Shea) and Julie (Alexandra Paul).

Jeremy and Julie are a couple who are taking a road trip and whose relationship is strained due to Jeremy’s obsession with organization and control.  However, when Jeremy and Julie meet two people that Jeremy can’t control — a biker (Dean Hallo) and his pregnant girlfriend (Nancy Isaak) — Jeremy finds himself taking a trip through time and learning a lesson about letting go.

This episode features good performances from John Shea, Alexandra Paul, Dean Hallo, and Nancy Isaak and it also features the Hitchhiker offering up some memorably judgmental commentary.  The Hitchhiker is apparently not a fan of control freaks.  I’m not really a fan of control freaks either but there’s nothing wrong with having a to-do list to help guide you through your day.

This episode originally aired on February 24th, 1987.

October Hacks: Madman (Dir by Joe Giannone)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

First released in 1982, Madman takes place on the last night of camp.

Max (Carl Fredericks), the jovial and beloved owner of the camp takes his senior counselors and his campers on one last outdoor adventure.  As they sit around the campfire, he tells them the story of a farmer named Marz who, years before, went crazy and hacked up his family with an axe.  The local townspeople attempted to hang Marz but somehow, he escaped from the noose and disappeared into the wilderness, along with the bodies of all of his victims.  The locals say that Madman Marz is still out there in the wilderness, waiting for someone to shout his name so that he can return to life and kill again.  Max tells his campers that it’s very important that they only whisper the name of Madmam Marz.

“MADMAN MARZ!” Richie (Jimmy Steele), one of the campers, shouts.

Everyone tells Richie not to shout his name so Richie shouts it again.

Max announces that it’s time to return to camp.  He specifically tells none of the campers to deviate from the path back to the camp.  He tells everyone to follow their counselor.  He makes the directions very specific and clear.

So, of course, Richie decides to wander off by himself.  As he wanders through the wilderness, he comes across Madman Marz’s old cabin and he breaks a window….

Now, if you’ve ever seen a slasher film before, you are probably expecting Richie to be the first victim of rejuvenated Madman Marz.  Well, you would be incorrect.  In fact, Richie turns out to be a bit of a Karma Houdini because, while Madman Marz does return with his axe, he never actually goes after Richie.  Instead, Madman Marz just stalks the various counselors who go into the woods in search of Richie.  Don’t get me wrong.  Richie is definitely a bit traumatized by what he sees inside of Madman Marz’s cabin.  But it’s still hard not to feel that Richie got off pretty easy when compared to everyone else.

But that’s really what makes Madman a superior slasher film.  It defies our expectations when it comes to who dies and who doesn’t.  Though it was obviously inspired by the camp-centric horror of Friday the 13th, Madman isn’t afraid to break the rules of the genre.  It’s one of the rare slashers where it feels like anyone could fall victim to the killer depending on how their luck goes that night.  As opposed to slashers where it sometimes seems that the victims are being punished for having sex or doing drugs or going against the rules of society, the victims in Madman tend to just be in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Marz doesn’t really have a complicated motivation.  He’s a madman and he’s so ruthless and relentless that he becomes a genuinely frightening monster.

Madman Marz is not only genuinely frightening but so is the film featuring him.  Madman was a low-budget, non-union production, with the majority of the cast and crew credited under pseudonyms.  (Dawn of the Dead‘s Gaylen Ross, who appears as one of the counselors, is credited as Alexis Dubin.)  But that low budget does prevent Madman from being an atmospheric and suspenseful slasher film, one that will not only inspire nightmares but also probably cure most people of any desire to go camping.

The TSL Horror Grindhouse: I Dismember Mama (dir by Paul Leder)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Ugh.  It’s hard for me to think of any film that left me feeling as icky as the 1972 film, I Dismember Mama.  Seriously, who would have guessed that a film with a title like I Dismember Mama would be disturbing and offensive?

Zooey Hall stars as Albert, a puritanical young man who idealizes the Victoria Age, when “men were gentlemen and women were pure.”  Albert has tried to murder his rich mother three times for being “a whore,” and he’s now living in a minimum security mental hospital where he spends his time watching pornographic movies.  When Albert escapes from the mental hospital, he heads straight to his mother’s house.  His mother isn’t there but Alice (Marlene Tracy), the maid, is.  After raping and murdering Alice, Albert heads down to the living room where he meets Alice’s 9 year-old daughter, Annie (Geri Reischl, who would later take on the role of Fake Jan on the Brady Bunch Variety Hour).  Albert doesn’t know Annie but Annie instantly recognizes Albert from the pictures that his mom has up around the house.

Suddenly enchanted by Annie and her innocence, Albert lies and tells Annie that Alice has been taken ill and had to go see a doctor but she asked Albert to keep an eye on Annie until she got back.  (Is there a reason why everyone’s name starts with an A?  My ADD is going crazy just trying to type this up.)  Albert then takes Annie for a ride around town, telling her about how much he loves the Victoria era and eventually checking into a motel with her.  (Ewwwwww!)  When Albert murders a woman that he picked up at a bar, Annie runs away from the hotel and Albert, suddenly convinced that Annie is now a harlot, chases after her.  It all leads to a properly violent conclusion.  Say what you will about the film but the final five minutes make great use of slo mo of doom as Albert and Annie run through a mannequin factory in slow motion.

My favorite character in this film was the police detective played by Greg Mullavey.  When Albert’s liberal doctor (Frank Whiteman) argues that even Albert can be cured with the right amount of treatment, the detective just smirks and complains about how his tax dollars are being used “to baby murderers.”  Normally, I would argue that the doctor has a point but Albert is such a creep and his fixation on Alice is so disturbing that I was totally on the Detective’s side.  Whether he could be cured or not, Albert deserved a bullet in the head.

It’s a competently-made and well-acted film and Zooey Hall deserves a lot of credit for making Albert into an all-too plausible madman.  It’s also a thoroughly icky film, the type of film the features flashbacks to scenes of rape and violence that occurred mere minutes before.  This is one of those grimy films that leaves the viewer feeling as if they’re going to need to take multiple showers after watching.

The film is today is best remembered for the gimmicks that were used to promote it.  Theater patrons were given an upchuck cup, in case the film proved to be too intense for them.  And, of course, the film’s famous trailer featured people who had been driven insane by watching the film.

Director Paul Leder and Greg Mullavey would reunite for another grindhouse horror film, My Friends Need Killing.  Look for my review of that film tomorrow!

Murderbot (2023, directed by Jim Wynorski)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

“Blow harder!”

— Val (Lauren Parkinson) in Murderbot

In a remote army base, three busty scientists create a busty robot named Raquel (Melissa Brasselle).  General Griffin (Arthur Sellers) is impressed that Raquel has mastered all forms of combat but he is not happy by her dominatrix outfit because, according to him, America’s enemies don’t fear cleavage.

One night, while the scientists all have hot dates, Raquel escapes from the base and goes to a nearly deserted desert town, where she kills a leering gas station attendant and a busty diner owner.  Meanwhile, a group of busty teenagers and their boyfriends run out of gas while driving through town and find themselves being stalked by Raquel.

This is a Jim Wynorski film so you know what you’re going to get, a lot of cleavage (though, for once, no actual nudity), a splattering of blood, and some deliberately corny humor that is sometimes self-aware enough to be funny.  Murderbot was originally named Killbot, a reference to Wynorski’s first film, Chopping Mall.  Murderbot even duplicates that film’s famous exploding head scene, though it’s the entire body that explodes this time.

This is pretty dumb but Wynorski fans should be happy.  Even though no one will be watching this movie for the acting, I actually did like the performances of Walker Mintz and Sylvia Thackery, playing respectively a trumpet player and the girl that he likes.  As Raquel, Melissa Brasselle is no Arnold Schwarzenegger but she still handles dreadful one-liners like “You’ve been deleted,” with enough aplomb to make them tolerable.

Murderbot is proof that, no matter how much things change, Jim Wynorski will always by Jim Wynorksi.

Horror Scenes That I Love: Linda Blair In The Exorcist II: The Heretic

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today’s horror scene that I love features Linda Blair in 1977’s The Exorcist II: The Heretic, the sequel to the film for which she received an Oscar nomination.

Linda Blair was only 13 when she was cast a Regan McNeil, the girl who is possessed by a demon in The Exorcist.  She was nominated for Best Supporting Actress, only losing the award after it was revealed that Mercedes McCambridge had dubbed Blair for the scenes in which she was possessed.  Blair has gone on to have a long career, appearing in movies that may not have been as honored by the Academy as The Exorcist was but which are still often very entertaining when taken on their own terms.

In The Exorcist II, Blair returned to the role of Regan.  Now in her late teens, Regan says that she can’t remember anything about being possessed.  Father Philip Lamont (Richard Burton) and Dr. Gene Tuskin (Louise Fletcher) think that Regan is repressing her memories and, in this scene …. well, I don’t really know how to describe this scene.  Seriously, The Exorcist II is such a strange movie!  Basically, Dr. Tuskin has a hypnosis machine while allows people to link minds.  Dr. Tuskin links with Regan’s mind and then Lamont links with Tuskin’s mind.  It’s all incredibly silly but it does allow for this scene in which “good Regan” shares the screen with “possessed Regan.”

Here is a weird scene from a weird movie, featuring a total of four Oscar-nominated performers.  (For the record, Burton was nominated multiple times and, the same year he appeared in this film, he also appeared in Equus, for which he received his final nomination.  Louise Fletcher won for One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest.  Max von Sydow would later be nominated for Pelle the Conqueror and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.  And, of course, Linda Blair was nominated for The Exorcist.)

Horror Book Review: Missing by R.L. Stine

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

First published in 1990, Missing tells the story of Mark and Cara Burroughs.  They’re siblings who have just moved to the town of Shadyside.  Along with their parents and their cousin Roger, they live in a house located on Fear Street.  Even though they are new students, they’re already popular enough that Mark is dating Gena and everyone from school shows up to party at their house while their parents are gone for the night.

Now, there’s a lot of negative things that you can say about the town of Shadyside and Fear Street in general.  I mean, it’s kind of a violent town.  How many homicidal maniacs have lived in Shadyside?  Over the years, how many students at Shadyside High have either been murdered or seriously injured?  But, it should be noted that Shadyside High is notably welcoming to new students.  I know that, when I was in high school, the new transfer students were always initially viewed with suspicion.  That was especially true if they were from any other place than Texas.  (Since my family moved around a lot when I was a kid, I knew far too well what it was like to be the new kid at school so I always tried to be nice to everyone, even if they were from up north.)  At Shadyside High, though, new students can go from moving into new home to throwing a huge party in just a matter of weeks.

Anyway, this party comes to an end when a cop shows up, not to complain about the noise but just to ask if Mark and Cara know anything about a nearby burglary.  After all of their guests leave, Mark and Cara realize that their parents have yet to come home.  What has happened to their parents and how is it connected to Roger, Gena, and a strange monkey statue?  And why is a mysterious van parked outside the house?  And what’s happening in Fear Street Woods!?  That’s a lot of questions and fortunately, Mark and Cara decide to solve the case themselves as opposed to going to the police.  (It should be noted that the phones at the house are all dead and, since this book was published in 1990, Mark and Cara are dependent on their landline.  The 90s were a difficult time.)

Missing was the fourth of R.L. Stine’s Fear Street novels and it’s fast-paced with a lot of enjoyably silly melodrama.  This is one of those books where no one is who they originally claim to be, including the parents.  One could argue that all of the plot contrivances don’t hold together under close scrutiny but Stine keeps the plot moving so quickly and fills the book with so many weird moments that it really doesn’t matter.  The book is full of cliffhangers and Stine wisely doesn’t let things like realism get in the way of resolving those cliffhangers.  By the time a major supporting character shows up, from out of nowhere, with a gun in order to save the heroic siblings, I was giggling with joy.  Seriously, does every resident of Shadyside just happen to have a weapon just casually lying around the house?