Frank Grillo and werewolves?
That sounds like a winning combination to me!
Here’s the trailer for Werewolves, which is being released in December despite being a natural for October.
Tag Archives: Film
Here’s The Trailer For The Electric State!
The trailer for The Electric State, the latest film from the Russo Brothers, dropped earlier today. The film stars Chris Pratt and Millie Bobby Brown and, if this trailer intrigues you, you’ve got a while to get ready for the film as it’s not set to be released until March of 2025!
Horror Scenes That I Love: The Danse Macabre in Werner Herzog’s Nosferatu
Since today’s horror on the lens was the original Nosferatu, it feels appropriate that today’s scene of the day should come from Werner Herzog’s 1979 remake. In this scene, Lucy (Isabella Adjani) observes firsthand the madness that has come to the town of Wismar, along with the vampire and ship full of plague-carrying rats. While the people of the town have a last supper and celebrate their impending doom, Lucy tries to figure out a way to save them from Klaus Kinski’s Dracula.
This scene is a perfect example of how the director of a remake can both pay respectful homage to his source material while also bringing his own concerns to the story.
Horror Film Review: Handling the Undead (dir by Thea Hvistendahl)
Handling The Undead opens, as many Norwegian films tend to do, with a shot of an overcast sky, an ugly apartment complex, and a forest that appears to be submerged in shadows. From the opening shots, it’s a depressing film. Again, that won’t come as a surprise to anyone who has ever watched a Norwegian film.
Three families are dealing with death. A woman has buried her young son and is now struggling not only with her grief but also her loving but overbearing father, whose attempts to make her feel better have the exact opposite result. An old woman’s longtime spouse lies in a coffin, having not yet been put back into the Earth. A woman is rushed to a hospital after an automobile accident and is not expected to live.
At night something happens. The lights turn off. Static is heard on every radio. When the lights come back, so do the dead. The grandfather hears his grandson wheezing and beating on his coffin and promptly digs him up. The old woman’s spouse climbs out of her coffin on her own and returns to the home where she lived for decades. The car accident victims opens her eyes and is alive, even though the doctor say that her heart is not beating rapidly enough to sustain life. While the local authorities try to figure out why the dead have come back to life and to try to keep track of where they’ve all gone, their relatives spend one more day with their loved ones.
The problem is that dead may be alive but they’ve come back as silent and unemotional empty shells. They seem to have a slight memory of their former lives but they don’t react to anything in a normal way. Instead, they stare straight ahead. The child has already started to decay and his return brings no happiness to his mother. In fact, there’s not much happiness to be found anywhere in Handling the Undead. One gets the feeling that even Ingmar Bergman would want to tell this film to lighten up.
Handling the Undead unfolds at a leisurely pace. There are a few creepy scenes but, for the most part, the horror comes from what we’re expecting the zombies to do than what we actually see them do. Everyone watching the movie knows what is eventually going to happen with the zombies. We know that eventually, the undead will attack the living. Handling the Undead, however, is more concerned with how the living would react to the dead than how the dead will eventually destroy the living. There’s very little dialogue and every scene is darkly lit and full of shadows. The majority of the characters hope that the returned dead will act like their old selves but they soon discover that they can’t go back to the way things once were. It’s an intelligent film about how we grieve and deal with loss.
That said, it’s also a rather dull film. It’s a deliberately boring film and, at times, it’s low-key approach feels almost as gimmicky as the blood and guts that can be found in more traditional zombie films. Stretched out to 90 minutes, the running time feels like an endurance test. And again, that’s probably what the filmmakers were going for but it doesn’t make the film any easier to sit through. When one reaches the end of a 90-minute film that is this purposefully slow, one has the right to expect more of an emotional or intellectual payoff than this film provides. This is a film that I can grudgingly respect but it’s not something that I’ll ever watch again.
4 Shots From 4 Films: Special Lamberto Bava Edition
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 is all about letting the visuals do the talking.
Today’s director in Lamberto Bava, one of the most underrated directors in the history of Italian horror cinema.
4 Shots From 4 Lamberto Bava Films
Macabre (1980, dir by Lamberto Bava, DP: Franco Delli Colli)
A Blade In the Dark (1983, dir by Lamberto Bava, DP: DP: Gianlorenzo Battaglia)
Demons 2 (1986, dir by Lamberto Bava, DP: Gianlorenzo Battaglia)
Delirium (1987, dir by Lamberto Bava, DP: Gianlorenzo Battaglia)
Horror on the Lens: Nosferatu (dir by F.W. Murnau)
Today’s Horror on the Lens is a classic film that really needs no introduction! Released in 1922, the German silent film Nosferatu remains one of the greatest vampire films ever made. It’s a film that we share every October and I’m happy to do so again this year!
Enjoy!
The Film’s of 2024: God’s Not Dead: In God We Trust (dir by Vance Null)
It can be easy to forget just what a big splash God’s Not Dead made when it was released back in 2014. Today, it’s taken for granted that every year, at least one faith-based movie will be released to terrible reviews and then “shock” everyone by opening up strong at the box office. However, in 2014, God’s Not Dead was the film that started the whole trend, along with sparking the ongoing debate about whether or not Hollywood has the slightest idea what most Americans want to see.
That’s not to say, of course, that God’s Not Dead was a good film. It’s not. It’s a ludicrously simplistic and smug film that, over the course of its overly long run time, promotes the idea that the only reason atheists exist is because they’re either bitter, evil, or both. (For the record, if a professor truly threatened to fail a paying student solely because of his religious beliefs, the end result would probably be a lawsuit.) The idea that someone could sincerely disagree with the film’s heroes or even believe differently than them without having an ulterior motive is not one that is entertained in the God’s Not Dead universe. Indeed, perhaps the most interesting thing about the God’s Not Dead films is that they are just as heavy-handed and often just as condescending as the secular films being churned out by the major studios.
God’s Not Dead has, to date, spawned four sequels. The second was enjoyably campy and featured an earnest performance from Melissa Joan Hart. The third, which is the the closest that the franchise has gotten to actually making a good film, was surprisingly even-handed, or at least as even-handed as a film in this franchise can be. The fourth was way too talky but, because it came out during the COVID lockdowns, its condemnation of government overreach reflected the way that a lot of people were feeling at the time. Somewhat inevitably, the fifth film finds Reverend David Hill (David A.R. White) running for Congress again the villain from the second film, dastardly atheist Peter Kane (Ray Wise).
The film opens with the death of an incumbent congressman. His opponent, Peter Kane, tells the press that the congressman was a good man and then proceeds to gloat about his death in private. Kane is an ultra-liberal atheist. Usually, the villains in the God’s Not Dead universe have a dead relative to help explain why they’ve lost their faith but Kane is just evil. (In God’s Not Dead 2, Kane specifically put Melissa Joan Hart on trial for expressing her Christian beliefs and then chortles, “We are going to prove God is dead!”) With Kane on the verge of being elected to Congress by default, Rep. Daryl Smith (Isaiah Washington) suggests that David Hill, who went viral for denouncing Congress in the fourth film, should be the party’s new nominee.
After some hesitation, Hill agrees. However, he drives his campaign manager, Lottie Joy (Samaire Armstrong), crazy by basing his campaign on his religious beliefs. Of course, if you didn’t want a candidate to talk about his religious beliefs in a campaign, why would you nominate a pastor whose fame is totally based on those beliefs? Add to that, Hill is running for a Congressional seat in Arkansas. I have family in Arkansas. Growing up, I occasionally lived in Arkansas. Sure, there are liberals in Arkansas and there are atheists in Arkansas. But none of them are going to get elected to Congress anytime soon. Arkansas is probably one of the few states where Hill’s faith-based campaign wouldn’t be considered controversial.
(That Mike Huckabee has a cameo as himself should be all the reminder that viewers need that Arkansas is not at all hesitant about electing pastors to higher office.)
It’s heavy-handed and cartoonish, which is probably to be expected. Unfortunately, it’s also rather boring, with not even Ray Wise’s villainy providing much entertainment value. Outside of arguing that atheists are evil and that separation of church and state is just a catch phrase, the film argues that money is a divisive force in politics and that politicians shouldn’t be bought. Wow, really!? It’s a film about politics that has little fresh insight to offer. David Hill goes from being a media-savvy pastor to being an innocent naïf who is shocked to discover that politics is a dirty business. God’s Not Dead: In God We Trust makes Billy Jack Goes To Washington seem like a hard-hitting portrayal of American politics.
I will give this franchise some credit for maintaining a surprising sense of continuity. As I mentioned earlier, Ray Wise returns as the character that he played in the second film. Paul Kwo is back as Hill’s associate pastor. Dean Cain returns as the amoral businessman from the first film. You have to imagine that Kevin Sorbo is kicking himself for allowing his smug professor character to die in the first film. What’s funny is that the college student who kicked off the franchise by refusing to sign a piece of paper declaring God to be dead has pretty much vanished from the films. Whatever happened to that kid?
In the end, we all know where this is going. The next film will undoubtedly feature David Hill running for president. 2028 is right around the corner.
The TSL Horror Grindhouse: Fraternity Demon (dir by C.B. Rubin)
In 1992’s Fraternity Demon, Isha (Trixxie Bowie) is a succubus who is summoned into the real world by a nerdy frat boy who is doing something with a personal computer. To be honest, I’m not totally sure what nerdy Dave (Al Darrouch) did to summon the succubus but she shows up in the real world and proceeds to have softcore sex with some 30 year-old frat boys in her quest to find Dave.
To be honest, I should have stopped this film as soon as I saw the New York skyline and “Troma Presents” at the start of it. I’ve seen enough Troma films that I knew exactly what I was getting myself into but I kept watching the film just in case it turned out to be some sort of lost masterpiece. Unfortunately, the film turned out to just be another boring Troma softcore film, featuring bad acting, bad humor, and terrible sound quality. I honestly cannot begin to put into words just how wooden most of the acting was. This was apparently C.B. Rubin’s only film as a director and watching the film, one can see why. Fraternity Demon is an 86 minute film that feels like four hours, largely because the director obviously had no idea how to tell a story cinematically.
That said, I stuck with the film because everything that I read about Fraternity Demon said that the film was worth sitting through for the performance of Shock-Ra, the band that plays the fraternity party. And I will say that I did like Sh0ck-Ra. They reminded me a bit of X, the Los Angeles punk band that I’ve been obsessed with ever since I watched The Decline of Western Civilization a few months ago. Speaking of punk, the film features a character who apparently lives on the front steps of the frat house. He wears a Black Flag t-shirt and he growls at people. He was probably the best actor in the film, assuming that he was an actor and not just some guy who the director couldn’t convince to leave.
Let’s see, what else was amusing in this film? The fraternity was named SUX. The sorority was named ASS. That was pretty dumb but it made me laugh because, when I get delirious in my boredom, I tend to laugh at dumb things. Nerdy Dave and his potential girlfriend, Kelly (Deborah Carlin), were kind of a cute couple. One of the sorority girls comments that she likes a shy guy that she’s seen in at the frat house. Kelly immediately says, “Dave?” because, of course, frat houses are only allowed to have one shy guy.
I initially assumed that Trixxie Bowie was an adult actress slumming in a Troma softcore flick but it turns out that Fraternity Demon was her only film role. She made her debut as a star and then she never made another film. Her performance in this film isn’t particularly good but she does manage to get off a few good one-liners.
Is that 500 words yet? It is? Good, let’s end this review.
Seriously, no more Troma films for me….
October Hacks: Hellweek (Dir by Eddie Lengyel)
It’s open season on frat boy douchebags in 2010’s Hellweek!
And seriously, who’s going to complain about that? Seriously, I’ve watched a lot of low-budget slasher films and I’m usually willing to cut them a lot of slack, especially when it comes to the generic characters who tend to populate them. I mean, that’s just the genre. Most of the money in the budget is going to go to fake blood and plastic body parts. The gore comes first in movies like this because the gore is what people are going to remember. For the most part, the casts of these films are made up by either regional actors or complete amateurs. Sometimes, they’re likeable and I always appreciate that. But, at the same time, I’m not going to make a big deal out of a less-than-compelling performance in a low-budget slasher film. That said, Hellweek featured some of the most repellent characters that I’ve ever seen. Seriously, this is a movie where one guy loudly announces, “It’s pussy time!” before jumping on a bed. It’s a movie where two other guys say, “Let’s go talk to these cumbuckets,” while at a party. This film features some of the least likable characters that I’ve ever seen. Of course, most of them end up dying but still….
The killers in this particular film are a family of inbred hillbillies, who all wear masks and kill anyone stupid enough to enter the warehouse that they call home. “Let’s show her some Southern hospitality!” the patriarch of the family announces at one point. One member of the family wears a clown mask and plays an organ. Another jumps up and down and claps whenever someone is being tortured. They’re not really a family that you would want to live next to, though for a bunch of weirdos roughing it in an abandoned warehouse, they’re clothes were remarkably clean. This isn’t like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, where you looked at the family and automatically imagined the odor of sweet, blood, and chicken feathers. Instead, you look at the family and you wonder which local community theater donated the costumes.
It takes a while for the film’s victims to make their way to the warehouse. Nearly the entire first hour is padding, with the frat boys arguing amongst themselves and with their girlfriends. One of the girlfriends describes a disturbing dream that she had. Another has a flashback to a murder that happened when she was younger. They argue amongst each other. They go to boring parties. They have too much to drink. At one point, they visit a psychic. It doesn’t really add up to much because it’s just there to pad out the running time.
The second hour (and this film runs for an unwieldy 117 minutes) is an improvement on the first, if just because the killers show up and finally give the plot some sort of direction. Again, this is a low-budget film and it’s obvious that the majority of the budget was spent on the gore. Some of it is effectively icky. Some of it is so obviously fake that I couldn’t help but laugh once I looked up from the pillow I was hiding behind. The warehouse is an effectively creepy location so I’ll give the film some credit for that. I’ll give it another point for featuring a lead character whose hair was red just like mine.
Overall, Hellweek is forgettable, even by the low-budget slasher standards.
October True Crime: Smiley Face Killers (dir by Tim Hunter)
“Okay, you need to go back on your meds….”
“Kaeen, I am on my meds.”
That exchange, between college student Jake (Ronen Rubinstein) and his girlfriend, Keren (Mia Serafino), pretty much sums up 2020’s Smiley Face Killers. It’s a study of modern paranoia, in which Jake thinks — with good reason — that he’s being stalked and all of his friends think that he just needs to take more of his meds. The fact that a lot of very weird things are happening to Jake doesn’t really matter to his friends. They’ve decided that any and all problems are linked somehow to taking meds. “Take your meds” is the only solution that they can offer up. It’s empty advice but it’s also advice that makes them feel absolved about going to parties and obsessing on their own petty dramas while Jake essentially loses his mind.
Jake suspects that he’s being stalked and that his phone is being hacked and that someone wants to kill him. He’s absolutely right about that. The majority of the film follows Jake as he tries to get someone — anyone — to accept that he’s right to be paranoid. The film may have been sold as Eli Roth-style torture porn or as a postmodern slasher movie but, instead, it’s a study in isolation. Jake is being stalked by the Smiley Face Killers for reasons that are never made particularly clear. That said, one gets the feeling that, if the Smiley Face Killers didn’t get Jake, some other group of homicidal lunatics would have. It’s a dangerous world out there and Jake has obviously pissed off the forces of fate.
Who are the Smiley Face Killers? The film’s opening credits refer to them as being an urban legend, though I think that gives the whole Smiley Face Killer thing too much credit. Over the years, there have been several incidents of college students drowning. All of the students were male. All of them were athletic. The majority of them were members of fraternities. Two retired homicide cops noted that smiley face graffiti was present at many of the “crime scenes” and they came up with a theory that these students were being purposefully drowned by a cult who used the smiley face as their calling card. It’s a ludicrous theory but one that was embraced by some grieving parents who were still trying to understand how their child could have possibly died when he had his entire future ahead of him.
Of course, it’s far more probable that there is no cult. The fact of the matter is that the smiley face is a universal symbol and it’s one that you can find drawn or painted just about anywhere. As well, the majority of the victims were described as being drunk when last seen alive. College students — especially frat boys — have a tendency to drink more than they can handle. When a college happens to be near a river or even a creek, it’s a sad of fact of life that there’s a chance of someone stumbling into the water during the night. That’s especially true if that person is drunk. No parents wants to admit that their child died because he didn’t know when to say when, leaving them susceptible to conspiracy theories about cults. Dr. Phil did an entire show on the Smiley Face Killer theory. Oprah’s network aired an entire docuseries about the theory and pretty much presented it as a fact. Both of them exploited the grief of the parents for ratings. Shame on both of them.
As for the movie, it’s actually weirdly effective. Screenwriter Bret Easton Ellis and director Tim Hunter (who also did the similarly dark River’s Edge) do a good job of capturing the paranoia of everyday life. Jake is pretty much doomed from the minute we see him but the film holds our interest by showing how everyone but Jake has essentially closed their eyes to what’s happening in front of them. In the end, Jake has no control over his fate, whether he’s taking his meds or not.
Through the Shattered Lens 