Category Archives: Horrorthon

Game Review: Ascension of Limbs (2020, AKheon)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Ascension of Limbs is an entrant in the 2020 Interactive Fiction competition.  You can browse and play all the entries here.

In Ascension of Limbs, you play the owner of a mysterious antique store.  You may have bought the store.  You may have inherited from a relative.  You may have gotten it in some other mysterious way.  There’s a lot of randomization involved in Ascension of Limbs, which means that you can play the game several times and have a totally different experience each time.

Your goal in Ascension of Limbs is to not go broke, to not go insane, and to not end up poor and destitute.  That’s not as easy as it sounds.  There are some dangerous things in that antique shop and, if you’re not careful, they can sap away your sanity and lead you to do some terrible things.  (Losing a point of sanity limits what you can do in the store, sometimes at the worst possible moment.)  If you can’t find anything to sell, you’ll lose money.  Lose all your money and the game is over.  It’s not easy to make money when you’re also losing your mind.  Lose your mind and the game is also over.  Balancing both money and sanity will be challenge but the game offers a lot of ways to do it.

Make your choices.  Do you promote your store or do you hope the customers will just find you?  Do you call the police about criminals or do you use them to commit insurance fraud?  Do you build up a strong base of loyal customers or do you murder them, for either their money or as an exchange for forbidden knowledge?  The choice is yours!

Ascension of Limbs is a challenging game but I can’t recommend it enough.  For those with patience and a tolerance for the occasionally macabre, Ascension of Limbs is a game to play again and again.

Play it here.

The Thrilling Covers of Thrilling Mystery

Posted on by Dazzling Erin

Thrilling Mystery ran from 1935 to 1951, though, like many pulp magazines, it would change its name a few times towards the latter part of its run.  Thrilling Mystery started out with supernatural-themed stories.  In the 40s, it shifted away from the supernatural and became another hard-boiled crime magazine.  The covers below are all from Thrilling Mystery‘s early, horror-themed days.

Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find any information on who was responsible for doing any of these covers.  If any of our readers can help shed some light on who should be credited for these covers, please let us know!

Horror Film Review: The Grudge (dir by Nicolas Pesce)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Eh, who cares?

Released way back in January (and, in fact, I think it may have been the first horror movie released in 2020), The Grudge is the latest film to tell the story of a house where ghosts compel inhabitant after inhabitant to kill themselves and their families.  Look, we all know how it works.  We’ve all seen Ju-on.  We all know that it begins with someone dying while extremely angry or extremely sad and then a curse being passed on from person to person.  The original Japanese films are frightening while the American versions tend to get bogged down in all of the usual horror clichés.  We all know how these things work.

Anyway, this version of The Grudge takes place, for the most part, at 44 Reyburn Drive, where a number of people die over the course of the film.  The Grudge is told in a nonlinear fashion, so we hope back and forth in time.  We meet a lot of different people and sit through a lot of different stories but none of them are particularly interesting.  Two real estate agents discover that their unborn child is going to have a rare genetic disorder.  An elderly couple prepare for an assisted suicide.  A nurse is haunted by the things that she saw while she was working in Japan.  A detective obsesses on all of the murders.  In the present day, another detective (Andrea Riseborough) tries to figure out why so many murders are connected to the house.  It’s difficult to really get caught up in her investigation because we already know the answer.

It’s all pretty dull.  Maybe if I had never seen any of the other Grudge films, I would have found this movie more interesting but The Grudge doesn’t really bring anything new to the table.  All it really does is remind you of how formulaic the American version of franchise has always been.  Of course, everyone’s going to die and, of course, there’s going to be a shock ending.  (Interestingly enough, the international version has a different ending.)  It’s all rather boring and it’s hard not to get annoyed that the film assembled a truly amazing cast and then basically didn’t anything with them.  Consider some of the people in this film: Andrea Riseborough, Demian Bichir, John Cho, Betty Gilpin, Lin Shaye, Jacki Weaver, William Sadler, Frankie Faison.  Wasting a cast with that much talent really does amount to cinematic malpractice.  It seems like it should be an impossible mistake to make but The Grudge somehow manages to do it.

The film’s nonlinear format doesn’t add much to the story.  I mean, you know everyone’s going to die eventually so having the story told in random chunks and pieces doesn’t really add any sort of suspense.  One could argue that the film does deserve some credit for being as dark as it is.  I mean, it does kill the type of sympathetic characters who, normally, would survive other horror films.  But, even with that in mind, it’s all just kind of boring.  I don’t hold a grudge against anyone for trying to reboot the franchise but this film just doesn’t bring anything new to the table.


4 Shots From 4 Tobe Hooper Films: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Salem’s Lot, The Funhouse, Lifeforce

Posted on 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’ve been using 4 Shots From 4 Films to pay tribute to some of our favorite horror directors!  Today, we recognize Texas’s own Tobe Hooper!

4 Shots From 4 Films

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974, dir by Tobe Hooper)

Salem’s Lot (1979, dir by Tobe Hooper)

The Funhouse (1981, dir by Tobe Hooper)

Lifeforce (1985, dir by Tobe Hooper)

Horror on The Lens: Invitation to Hell (dir by Wes Craven)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today’s horror on the lens is a made-for-tv movie directed by Wes Craven.

First televised in 1984, Invitation to Hell is a wonderfully over-the-top depiction of what happens when an engineer (Robert Urich) sells out and goes to work for a big evil corporation.  Long story short, Satan (in the form of Susan Lucci) takes over his family.  Admittedly, this film does start slowly but, in the end, it’s a lot of fun.

Horror on TV: Baywatch Nights 2.13 “Nights to Dragon One” (dir by Richard Friedman)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Tonight’s episode of Baywatch Nights originally aired on February 16th, 1997.

In this episode of Baywatch Nights, David Hasselhoff and Angie Harmon are hired to track down a missing man and his daughter.  Their search leads to them becoming literally trapped inside a virtual reality where they either have to defeat the crazed Game Master (Vincent Schiavelli) or die!  There’s even a scene where Angie Harmon has to pick up and roll a giant die!  Taking full advantage of the inherent ludicrousness of David Hasselhoff’s screen persona, this is an episode that has to be seen to be believed.

So, watch below and believe.

The TSL’s Horror Grindhouse: 2001 Maniacs (dir by Tim Sullivan)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

A lot of people die over the course of this 2005 film but none of them are particularly likable so who cares.

A remake of the Herschell Gordon Lewis classic (though Lewis’s film only featured Two Thousand Maniacs!), 2,001 Maniacs is about a small town called Pleasant Valley in Georgia.  During the Civil War, Union soldiers killed 2,001 of the residents of Pleasant Valley so, as a result, the angry spirits of the town will not be happy until they’ve killed 2,001 Northerners.  Luckily, for them, some yankee college students come driving through on their way to Daytona Beach for Spring Break.  That means it’s time to bring out the hooks, the blades, the flames, and all the other things that can be used to dismember people on screen.  It’s a bloody good time in Pleasant Valley.

The mayor of Pleasant Valley is played by Robert Englund and, if nothing else, Englund brings a lot of demented glee to the role.  One thing that I’ve always liked about Englund is that, even though he could probably get away with it, he’s always refused to coast on the fact that he’s a horror icon.  No matter the quality of the film in which he’s appearing, Englund always goes all out and gives a memorable performance.  As played by Englund, the mayor comes across as being an affable and welcoming guy, or at least he does until he starts killing people.  The viewers automatically know that the mayor’s a bad guy because they know the type of role in which Robert Englund typically gets cast.  But, and this is the important, you can at least understand why the film’s victims didn’t automatically run in fear as soon as they met him.  The mayor is all about hospitality.  (That, and bloody revenge.)

Anyway, it’s tempting to view 2,001 Maniacs as being some sort of statement about Confederate war memorials but …. eh.  I mean, again, it’s tempting but I think it’s ultimately kind of pointless.  This is not a subversive film.  This is not a film that’s attempting to scratch the surface of any major issues.  This is just another gory film that examines the amount of ways someone’s body can pulled apart.  That’s not necessarily a bad thing.  There’s a lot of classic horror films that are centered around people dying in gory ways.  The problem with 2,001 Maniacs is that, since none of the people dying are particularly interesting, you don’t really care about how they die or even the fact that they’re dead.  “Oh hey,” you find yourself saying, “at least I won’t have to listen to that guy talk anymore.”

Despite being a bit on the dull side for most of its running time, 2,001 Maniacs does have an effective final few minutes.  There’s a big battle between a survivor and a ghost that is surprisingly well-directed and would have been exciting if we actually cared about whether or not the survivor was actually going to …. well, survive.  As for the film itself, it ends on a properly macabre note.  I actually laughed at the film’s ending, even though perhaps I shouldn’t have.  Again, it all comes down to not really caring that much about anyone in the movie.

Anyway, 2,001 Maniacs didn’t do much for me.  The Lewis version is still the version to go with.  Thank God for Robert Englund, though.  That man can act.

 

Witchcraft IV: The Virgin Heart (1993, directed by James Merendino)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Witchcraft IV continues the endless story of William Spanner, warlock-turned-attorney.

When this movie begins, William is no longer working for the public defender’s office.  Instead, he now handles insurance law.  He comments that it’s been years since he last used his powers and he’s happy that he is, once again, living a normal life.  However, when Lily Wild (Lisa Jay Harrington) shows up at his office and tells him that her 17 year-old brother, Pete Wild (Orien Richmond), has been arrested for a murder that he didn’t commit, William agrees to serve as Pete’s attorney.

The police are convinced that Pete not only murdered his girlfriend but that he’s also a serial killer who has been responsible for killing at least six other women and removing their hearts.  With the police refusing to be of much help and also apparently withholding evidence so that it doesn’t inspire a copycat killer (?), William decides that the only way to defend Pete is to solve the murder on his own.

Searching the scene of the crime, William finds a matchbook with the word “Coven” on it.  Coven is a club and William’s investigation leads him to both a stripper named Belladonna (Julie Strain) and Santara (Clive Pearson), the club owner who makes aspiring rockers famous in return for their immortal soul.  Santara has not only a very famous father but also a connection to William.  No matter how much William tries to escape his past, he keeps getting pulled back in.

Witchcraft IV is unique among the franchise in that it features William narrating his story.   William obviously learned how to narrate by watching old film noirs but it’s appropriate because Witchcraft IV is more of a direct-to-video neonoir than a horror film.  The horror and supernatural elements are there, of course.  But Witchcraft IV is more interested in the mystery aspect of the story than the horror aspect.  Unfortunately, the mystery itself isn’t particularly challenging and it seems as if William, given his past, should have been able to figure things out quicker than he did.

The best thing that Witchcraft IV has going for it is Julie Strain in the role of Belladonna.  Strain gives a typically uninhibited and forceful performance, one that suggests that, if she had been born many years earlier, she could have had a good career as a noir femme fatale.

Witchcraft IV was directed by James Merendino, who later achieved cult success with SLC Punk!  This would also be the last time that Charles Solomon would play the role of William Spanner.  In Part V, the role would be played by Marklen Kennedy.

Horror Scenes that I Love: The Basketball Scene From Deadly Friend

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

From 1986’s Deadly Friend, directed by Wes Craven:

Now, it should be noted that this scene was not in Craven’s initial cut of the film.  Craven envisioned Deadly Friend as being a melancholy love story about a teenage boy who brings his dead girlfriend back to life.  Elvira, the lady who loses her head, originally had a much less graphic death scene but Warner Bros. wants to take advantage of Craven’s reputation for being a horror director so they demanded a more extreme version and that’s what Craven delivered.

In my opinion, this scene is just ludicrous enough to work.  The studio’s demands were a bit silly so Craven supplied them with perhaps the silliest death scene that he ever directed.  That said, I do think Craven’s original version of Deadly Friend sounds like a nicer movie.