Category Archives: Horrorthon

Bonus Horror On The Lens: I Was A Teenage Werewolf (dir by Gene Fowler, Jr.)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

1957’s I Was A Teenage Werewolf combines two genres that were very popular in the late 50s.

On the one hand, it’s a film about a teenage rebel.  Tony Rivers (Michael Landon) is a teenager that means well but he keeps losing his temper.  If he can’t learn to control his anger, he could very well be looking at a life behind bars.

On the other hand, it’s also a horror film.  When Tony visits a hypnotist (Whit Bissell), the end result is Tony turning into a werewolf and going on a rampage, all while still wearing his letterman jacket.

All in all, this is a pretty fun little movie.  You can check out my review of it by clicking here.

And you can watch the movie below!

Scenes That I Love: The Opening of Suspiria!

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The opening of Dario Argento’s 1977 masterpiece, Suspiria, is about as perfect an opening as one could hope for.  American ballet student Suzy Banyon (Jessica Harper) arrives in Frieburg, Germany.  Both Argento and Harper perfectly portray Suzy’s confusion as she makes her way through the airport and, as torrential rain drenches her, attempts to hail a taxi and get a ride to the dance academy.  (What Suzy doesn’t know, of course, is that the dance academy is home to the ancient witch known as Our Mother of Sighs.)  With this opening scene, Argento both immediately establishes the off-center, nightmarish atmosphere of Suspiria and establishes Suzy as a character who we, as the audience, relate to and care about.  Suspiria is a great film and certainly one that didn’t need a pretentious remake.  The greatness of the original Suspiria all begins with this brilliant opening.

Horror Song of The Day: Main Theme From Suspiria by Goblin

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Suspiria (1977, dir by Dario Argento, DP: Luciano Tovoli)

You knew this was coming!

Today’s horror song of the day is the classic main theme to Dario Argento’s Suspiria!  (The Argento version is the only version that matters.)  The iconic soundtrack was composed by Goblin.  I saw an interview with Claudio Simonetti in which he said he wanted the song to be “almost annoying” in its intensity.  While I could never be annoyed this song, I do understand Simonetti’s point.  The score is designed to be as overwhelming as the evil at the center of the film.

All together now: “WITCH!”

4 Shots From 4 Horror Films: 2000s Part Two

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

This October, I’m going to be doing something a little bit different with my contribution to 4 Shots From 4 Films.  I’m going to be taking a little chronological tour of the history of horror cinema, moving from decade to decade.

Today, we complete to the aughts!

4 Shots From 4 Horror Films

Halloween (2007, dir by Rob Zombie)

Halloween (2007, dir by Rob Zombie)

Paranormal Activity (2007, dir by Oren Peli)

Paranormal Activity (2007, dir by Oren Peli)

Cloverfield (2008, dir by Matt Reeves)

Cloverfield (2008, dir by Matt Reeves)

The House of the Devil (2009, dir by Ti West)

The House of the Devil (2009, dir by Ti West)

October True Crime: Stolen Innocence (dir by Bill L. Norton)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

1995’s Stolen Innocence opens with 18 year-old Stacy Sapp (Tracey Gold) trying to sneak back into her house after a long night of drinking and partying.  Unfortunately for her, Stacey isn’t very good at sneaking around and she’s caught by her mother (Bess Armstrong) and her father (Nick Searcy).

“I’m 18!” Stacy argues.

“You’re going to end up pregnant!” her mother yells.

Stacy says that that her mother is just scared that she’s going to end up a loser “like you!”  Well …. yeah, Stacy, that’s kind of the point.  If your mother has experience with the life decisions necessary to become a loser, maybe you should listen to her warnings.

Anyway, Stacy runs away with a friend of her’s.  After her friend decides to go back home, Stacy hitches a ride with a trucker.  When the trucker stops off at a truck stop so he can get his brakes looked at, Stacy meets Richard Brown (Thomas Calabro, wearing a really bad wig).  Richard is long-haired and has got a tough guy beard and a cheesy tattoo of a heart on his scrawny forearm.  Stacy, of course, is totally smitten and she goes off with Richard and his “friend,” Eddie (Matt Letscher).

It doesn’t take long for us to figure out what Richard is bad news.  He carries a gun.  He’s financing his trip through stolen checks.  He might not even own the truck that he’s driving.  He and Eddie have a bizarre relationship in which Richard continually abuses Eddie but Eddie refuses to leave.  Richard is obviously a bad guy and we can all see it.  When Stacy finally calls her parents from the road, they immediately figure out that Stacy is in trouble.  However, it takes Stacy forever to figure it out because Stacy’s kind of an idiot.

I cringed a lot while watching Stolen Innocence, not so much because of the film’s depiction of Richard’s criminal lifestyle but because I used to have a definite weakness for bad boys and I could kind of understand what was going through Stacy’s mind when she first met Richard.  That said, I’m pretty sure that I would have figured things out a lot quicker than Stacy did.  Stacy quickly goes from being a somewhat sympathetic rebellious teenager to being someone who you really start to get annoyed with.  Oh, he’s threatening you with a gun?  Okay, that’s when you leave!  That’s when you start plotting your escape.  You don’t make excuses for him.  He’s financing his trip with stolen checks?  I’m sorry, is that not a red flag?  Add to that, as played by a miscast Thomas Calabro, it’s not like Richard is some boiling cauldron of charisma.  From the first minute we see him, with his long hair and his cowboy hat and his tattoo, the guy seems like a joke.

Eventually, Stacy does figure out the truth but, by that point, Richard and her are holed up in a motel room and Richard is exchanging gunfire with the FBI.  The film ends with a title card, reminding us that this was a true story.  “He’s not a bad person!” Stacy wails to the police.  I guess some people really are that stupid.

Whisper in the Woods, AI Short Review by Case Wright

Posted on by casewright

There’s the Summer of the Shark; so, this is the Horrorthon of the Terrible AI shorts. Technically, I don’t need to review these things, BUT I feel like we at the beginning of a new way to tell stories and if the technology gets better and it will, maybe it will attract some people who are good at things? Maybe?

I’m not saying that the people who create these films should be parachuted into an actively shark-infested section of the ocean wearing a meat-based wetsuit and slathered in a blood-based suntan oil, but if you’ve already left with these people and you had parachutes, the suits, and lotion ready; then, I’m not getting in your way. Who knows? Maybe stopping bad AI art could bring us together? Also, the market share for meat wetsuits is wide open for the taking!

So, let’s determine if “Whisper in the Woods” is cause for shark-time!

There is a car driving in a haunted forest. A woman sees a spooky woman standing in the road. The driver investigates. Then, a hooded figures presumably kill her. Technically, it had a beginning, middle, and an end. So, it’s as good as anything Alex Magana ever made, but I’m Team Shark!

Horror On The Lens: The Last Man On Earth (Dir by Ubaldo Ragona and Sidney Salkow)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today, I present to you one of the most important films in horror history.  Though it wasn’t appreciated when it was first released back in 1964, The Last Man On Earth was not only the 1st Italian horror film but George Romero has also acknowledged it as an influence on his own Night of the Living Dead.

It’s easy to be a little bit dismissive of The Last Man On Earth.  After all, the low-budget is obvious in every scene, the dubbing is off even by the standards of Italian horror, and just the name “Vincent Price” in the credits leads one to suspect that this will be another campy, B-movie.  Perhaps that’s why I’m always surprised to rediscover that, taking all things into consideration, this is actually a pretty effective film.  Price does have a few over-the-top moments but, for the most part, he gives one of his better performances here and the black-and-white images have an isolated, desolate starkness to them that go a long way towards making this film’s apocalypse a convincing one.  The mass cremation scene always leaves me feeling rather uneasy.

The film is based on Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend and no, it’s nowhere as good as the book.  However, it’s still a worthy adaptation and one that stays true to the tone of the text, including the fact that Price’s main tormenter was also once his neighbor and best friend.  This is one of those films that just hits differently in the wake of 2020’s COVID hysteria.

And now, it’s time for The Last Man On The Earth….

 

Music Video of the Day: One More Reason by L.A. Guns (1988, directed by Ralph Ziman)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

L.A. Guns is a band that has had a long and storied history, from their initial formation in 1983 to the brief moment when they joined with Axl Rose and became known as Guns N’ Roses to Tracii Guns leaving Guns N’ Roses after conflict with Rose and then forming a second version of L.A. Guns.  At the same time that Guns N’ Roses were releasing their first music videos and making their mark on MTV, L.A. Guns released their video for One More Reason, one of the most apocalyptic looks at Los Angeles ever put on film.

Director Ralph Ziman also worked with Ozzy Osbourne, Toni Braxton, and Faith No More.

Enjoy!