Horror on the Lens: Faust (dir by F.W. Murnau)

Posted on October 22, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today’s Horror on the Lens is a silent German film from 1926. Based on the legend of the alchemist who sold his soul to the Devil, Faust was dismissed by European critics when it was initially released but it has since been recognized as one of the greatest cinematic examples of German Expressionism.

It was after directing this film that Murnau traveled to Hollywood and directed his masterpice, Sunrise: A Story of Two Humans. (Murnau was also responsible, many years earlier, for directing Nosferatu.) The role of Fasut was played by Swedish actor Gosta Ekman, who tragically developed an addiction to cocaine while making the film and who would die as a result in 1938. Playing the role of Mephisto is German actor Emil Jannings, who would later go to win the very first Academy Award for Best Actor. Unfortunately, with the advent of sound, Jannings — who had no interest in learning English — returned to Germany and, after making some classic films with Marlene Dietrich, spent the rest of his career appearing in Nazi propaganda films. Whether or not Jannings was a committed Nazi or just an opportunist remains a point of contention but it’s still undoubtedly not the career path that one would hope for one of the very first Oscar winners.

Here is Faust:

October Positivity: A Matter of Faith (dir by Rich Christiano)

Posted on October 21, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

“Does your mother look like a gorilla?” Evan (Chandler Macocha) demands of one of his fellow college students. “Do your grandmother look like an ape? WHO IN YOUR FAMILY IS THE MONKEY!?”

Normally, you might think that Evan sounds like a jerk but, since he is a character in the 2014 film A Matter of Faith, he’s presented as being a hero. No one can come up with anything to say when he demands to know why no one in their family looks like a gorilla. Because Evan is apparently the first person to ever use the “Why don’t humans look more like apes?” argument, he wins every theological debate that he gets involved with.

A Matter of Faith is all about a theological debate. Professor Kamen (Harry Anderson) is a popular college biology professor who teaches that evolution is the only possible way that life could have been created. He even brings a rubber chicken to class to illustrate that the egg came before the children. However, one of his students, Rachel Whitaker (Jordan Trovillion), has always been taught that the chicken came first because God created the chicken. When Rachel’s father, Stephen (Jay Pickett), discovers what Kamen has been teaching and that Rachel hasn’t even opened her Bible since going off to college, he heads down to the campus. When Stephen objects to what Kamen teaches, Kamen challenges Stephen to a debate. Stephen agrees, though you have to wonder why a college would sponsor a debate between a professor and some random guy that no one has ever heard of before. It would be one thing if Stephen were an activist with a huge following. But really, Stephen is just a guy who no scientist background and stepped into a professor’s office and was challenged to campus date. Is it even ethical for Kamen to debate the father of one of his students like this?

Soon, the Evolution vs. Creationism debate is the hottest ticket on campus, because apparently it’s a very boring campus. Everyone is planning on attending! Rachel wishes her father would just drop out while Evan, who works for the school newspaper, tries to help Stephen prepare. Evan discovers that the college’s former biology professor, Joseph Portland (Clarence Gildyard, Jr.), lost his job when he refused to each the theory of evolution as established fact. In fact, Kamen was the one who got Portland fired. Can Stephen convince Portland to set aside his bitterness and help him win the debate? And can Evan help Rachel see that her jock boyfriend, Tyler (Barrett Carnahan), is a no-good frat boy who doesn’t even go to church? And will Rachel ever develop a personality beyond sitting in her dorm room and studying?

Yes, this is a Christiano Brothers production, with all of the awkward dialogue and heavy-handed sermonizing that one would normally expect. Rich and Dave Christiano wrote the script while Rich directed. The debate aspect of the film will undoubtedly remind many viewers of God’s Not Dead, though the film deserves some credit for not resorting to the old trope of having Professor Kamen be a former believer who became an atheist due to family tragedy. That said, the debate itself is a bit of let down as neither side makes much of a case for itself. When Kamen uses Freud to dismiss the existence of God, Portland shouts out, “Freud was wrong!” and the stunned gasp from the audience made me laugh out loud.

The actors playing the college students are all fairly boring. Watching the film, one wonders when the last time was that the Christianos ever talked to anyone under the age of 40. Not surprisingly, the best performances in the film come from Harry Anderson and Clarence Gilyard, Jr. Anderson, in particular, deserves a lot of credit for bringing some nuance to the role that was probably not present in the script. (Sadly, this was his final acting role. He died four years later.) Gilyard, as well, has a good moment towards the end of the film when Portland apologizes for his previous refusal to only teach creationism, saying that the job of the college is not to push either creationism or evolution but to allow both sides to be heard. That’s not a sentiment that you would necessarily expect to hear in a Christiano film.

That said, once you get past Anderson and Gilyard, you’ve still got Evan demanding to know if anyone has a monkey in their immediate family and one gets the feeling that, despite all of the talk of letting both sides be heard, the film has more sympathy for Evan’s abrasiveness than Portland’s fair-mindedness. As well, it’s hard not to feel that, as a character, Rachel is never really allowed to make up her own mind about anything. At first, she looks up to Kamen. Eventually, she looks up to her Dad. At first, she wants to spend all of her non-studying time with Tyler. By the end of the film, she’s falling in love with Evan. In the end, Rachel’s decision is never about what she believes but instead about which man she’s going to follow. For Rachel, it’s less a matter of faith and a more a matter of, “Hey, he’s cute!”

In the end, when I think about this film, I’ll probably think less about the debate and mostly just remember Harry Anderson and the rubber chicken.

The TSL’s Horror Grindhouse: The Giant Gila Monster (dir by Ray Kellogg)

Posted on October 21, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1959 film, The Giant Gila Monster, takes place in a small Texas town, where everyone’s either a drunk, a law enforcement officer, or a teenager who wants to go the sock hop. In fact, the teens are so enthused about the sock hop that it takes them a while to notice that two of their friends are missing! What happened to Pat and Liz!?

Well, as we already know what happened because we saw it at the start of the film! Pat and Liz were parked at the ravine, making out in Pat’s car, when they fell victim to a giant Gila monster! Though, if we’re going to be honest …. the monster actually isn’t really a Gila monster. It’s just a really big lizard that was filmed wandering over around a miniature set. It moves very slowly and it sticks out its tongue at the camera. It’s a nice looking lizard but it’s no Gila monster. No matter, though! What’s important is that it’s big, it’s dangerous, and it’s making its way towards the town!

Anyway, the teens eventually figure out that their friends have disappeared and they try to appeal to the town’s useless sheriff to help them find them. The sheriff doesn’t really seem to care though. He’s got an entire town of drunks to deal with. So, it looks like the teens are going to have to save the town themselves!

The Giant Gila Monster is a pretty silly film. It’s a little over 70 minutes long and it’s obvious that the majority of the budget was spent on the cars that the various teenagers drive. It was an independent production, made to be sold to drive-ins around the South. Teenagers in 1959 probably watched the film and honked their car horns whenever the monster showed up. The script is bad, the actors are bad, the direction is bad, but you know what isn’t bad? The fake Gila Monster is actually kind of cute. I mean, we’re told that we shouldn’t like it and that it’s responsible for killing a lot of people but who cares? Whenever it shows up, slowly lumbering its way across the countryside, it’s hard not to admire the determination of the Gila Monster. Though the actors often seem to be confused by their dialogue, the lizard is obviously having the time of its life. Go, Lizard, go!

The Giant Gila Monster is one of those independent 50s monster movies that are pretty much impossible to resist. To its credit, the film does have a sense of humor about itself. It is meant to be a comedy, though most of the laughs are unintentional. And, as I said before, vintage car lovers will enjoy seeing some of the roadsters that pop up in this film. Even with all the classic cars, though, the big lizard in the main attraction. It walks around the miniature desert set as if it owns the place. The star is the monster and that’s really the way things should be.

Finally, The Giant Gila Monster was filmed outside of Dallas. Apparently, the film was funded by none other than Gordon McLendon, who is best-known for founding Dallas’s first talk radio station, KLIF.

A Blast From The Horror Past: Georges Méliès’s The Monster

Posted on October 21, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

For today’s blast from the past, we have a film that has often been described as being France’s first horror film.

The Monster is 2-minute silent film from 1903. Directed by the pioneering French filmmaker, Georges Méliès, The Monster tells the story of an Egyptian prince who brings the dead body of his wife to a sorcerer who apparently likes to hang out in front of The Sphinx. The sorcerer attempts to bring her back to life and, as so often happens in any film directed by Georges Méliès, things don’t quite go as planned.

In my opinion, this is one of the most charming of Georges Méliès’s surviving films. From the simple but crudely effective camera trickery to the nicely surreal Sphinx in the background, The Monster is a chaotic delight.

Horror Scenes That I Love: The Diner Scene From Mulholland Drive

Posted on October 21, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

From 2001’s Mulholland Drive, here is a scene that literally made me jump the first time I saw it. Personally, I think this is the scariest moment that David Lynch ever directed.

International Horror Film: House On The Edge of the Park (dir by Ruggero Deodato)

Posted on October 21, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Or is it House Of The Park On Edge?

When this Italian thriller was first released in the United States in 1980, the film’s title was mistranslated by whoever put together the film’s American trailer. In Italy, it was known as La casa sperduta nel parco. When it was released in the United States, it was meant to be known as The House On The Edge of the Park but the trailer famously referred to it as being….

That the trailer was sent out with the title incorrectly translated tells you a lot about the American grindhouse film scene. If a similar mistake had been made a with a big studio production, someone would have lost their job and a lot of money would be spent to put together a new trailer. In the world of the grindhouse, it was probably understood that people would come to the film regardless of whether they even knew what the title was. According to the book Sleazoid Express, House on The Edge of the Park was very popular in the grindhouse theaters of New York’s 42nd Street, where audiences loved the violence, the nudity, and the misogynistic dialogue.

Today, House on the Edge of the Park is remembered for being the film that brought together Ruggero Deodato, David Hess, Giovanni Lombardo Radice, Christian Borromeo, Annie Belle, and Lorraine De Selle. (The Anchor Bay DVD release featured interviews with Deodato, Hess, and Radice. Radice and Deodato seemed a bit surprised and, at times, horrified that the film still had fans. Hess seemed considerably less shocked.) House on the Edge of the Park was the film that Deodato made after the subversive and satirical Cannibal Holocaust. Though House on the Edge of the Park retains a subversive edge, it’s a much more straight forward movie than Cannibal Holocaust. No one has ever mistaken House on the Edge of the Park for a documentary.

David Hess, who may have written songs for Elvis and Pat Boone but who is destined to always be remembered for his performance as Krug in Last House On The Left, plays Alex. Alex owns a New York City garage. Alex owns a canary yellow suit. Alex likes to dance. Alex is also a serial killer who, when we first see him, is forcing a woman (played by Hess’s wife, who is credited as Karoline Mardek), off the road so that he can assault and murder her. As the film begins, Alex and his sidekick, Ricky (Giovanni Lombardo Radice, appearing in one of his first films and stealing the show with his demented energy) are getting ready to go “boogie.” Two rich kids, Tom (Christian Borromeo, my blonde Italian horror crush) and Lisa (Annie Belle), pull into the garage. Ricky fixes their car. Tom and Lisa, whose white dress is to die for, are insistent that Alex accompany them to a party at a house …. a house on the edge of the park!

Already at the house are Gloria (Lorraine De Selle), whose red dress is to die for, and Howard (Gabriele Di Giulio), who is apparently Gloria’s boyfriend. Also waiting at the house is Glenda (Maria Claude Joseph), who appears to just be hanging out because she has nothing better to do. (There’s a lot of talk about boredom and ennui, amongst the rich young people of House on the Edge of the Park.) When Tom and Lisa show up with Alex and Ricky, a very familiar class dynamic plays out. Alex and Ricky are very blue collar. Alex is earthy and says whatever pops into his head. Ricky is dependent on Alex to tell him what to do and is also too slow to realize that the rich people are talking down to him. Ricky is taunted into dancing and then into playing poker. Ricky loses his money. Alex discovers that the game is fixed. Violence follows, with Alex holding the house hostage with the help of the increasingly conflicted Ricky.

Of course, it turns out that there’s a twist and that it wasn’t just coincidence that led to Tom and Lisa pulling into Alex’s garage. Of course, the twist itself never really makes sense. The entire film centers around Tom finding time to retrieve something from his office. It takes him forever to do it because Alex keeps watching him and beating him up. But there’s actually several moments in the film in which Alex is distracted and he even leaves Tom alone at one point. You have to wonder just what exactly Tom was doing during all that time.

It’s a deeply misogynistic film, one that features an inexcusable scene in which Gloria and Ricky have consensual sex just a few minutes after Ricky tries to rape her. (Even if you can see beyond the idea of the sophisticated Gloria falling for a rapist, who stops to have sex while there’s a madman threatening to murder all of your friends?) Before the party turns violent, Lisa flirts with Alex and, at one point, even showers in front of him. Her actions make even less sense once it is revealed that Tom and Lisa always knew who Alex was and what he was capable of. Indeed, the film is sometimes so offensive that it feels almost like a parody of an offensive film.

And yet, there are things to appreciate about the film. Deodato plays up the class warfare aspect of the story, with Tom and his friends initially condescending to Alex and Ricky, just to discover how little power they actually had once Alex got the upper hand. Giovanni Lombardo Radice, Lorraine De Selle, Annie Belle, and Christian Borromeo all give good performances, even when their characters are required to do things that don’t make any sense. David Hess is a force of malevolent nature as Alex. The house is lovely and I especially liked the pool, though I would suggest changing out the water before taking a swim. The location shots of late 70s New York are interesting to look at, especially if you’re a history nerd like me. Riz Ortolani’s soundtrack will get stuck in your head. I defy you to watch this film and not end up singing that “Do It To Me Once More” song.

In the end, House on the Edge of the Park is not a film that I can really recommend, unless you’re a fan or a student of Italian horror. In that case, you have to watch the film, if just because of the familiar faces in the cast and the fact that it was directed by Deodato. Still, if anyone ever told me that this was their favorite film, I would probably immediately start eyeing the exit. Towards the end of the movie, Gloria says that there has been enough violence and I agreed with her. That said, violence against Alex is totally acceptable.

The film itself is destined to live forever as an internet meme, as a GIF of David Hess screaming in slow motion has recently become quite popular on Twitter. There’s just no escaping the House of the Park on the Edge!

6 Shots From 6 Horror Films: 2000 — 2001

Posted on October 21, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

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

Today, we take a look at 2000 and 2001!

6 Shots From 6 Horror Films — 2000 — 2001

Shadow of the Vampire (2000, dir by E. Elias Merhige, DP: Lou Bogue)

Ginger Snaps (2000, dir by John Fawcett, DP: Thom Best)

American Psycho (2000, dir by Mary Harron, DP: Andrzej Sekuła)

The Devil’s Backbone (2001, dir by Guillermo del Toro, DP: Guillermo Navarro)

The Others (2001, directed by Alejandro Amenabar, DP: Javier Aguirresarobe)

Mulholland Drive (2001, dir by David Lynch, DP: Peter Deming)

Horror Film Review: Dashcam (dir by Rob Savage)

Posted on October 21, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Calm down, people.

Seriously, the amount of online hate that I’ve seen directed at the found footage horror film, Dashcam, is not only insanely over the top but it also proves (as if there was any proof necessary) that there are a lot of people out there who are incapable of understanding social satire.

Annie Hardy stars as Annie Hardy, a musician who hosts Band Car, the internet’s #1 Live Improvised Music Show Broadcast From A Moving Vehicle. Yes, Annie Hardy is playing a fictionalized version of herself, which is something that many of this film’s critics don’t seem to understand. (Or, more likely, they do understand that but they’re pretending to be obtuse for the clicks.) In the film, which was shot at the height of COVID lockdowns, Annie grows tired of Los Angeles and hops a plane for London. In London, she reunites with her former bandmate, Stretch (Amer Chadha-Patel) and proceeds to clash with just everyone that she meets.

The film’s version of Annie is outspoken about her politics, which is one reason why so many critics have gone after this film. Annie is anti-lockdown. She’s anti-government. She has little use for virtue signaling activists. She spends a lot of time going out of her way to annoy people who wear masks. These are all things most of today’s movie heroes are not allowed to do but Annie’s attitude is, for better or worse, a fair reflection of how a lot of people were feeling at the height of the COVID era. Despite what was often presented in the movies and on television, most people were not lighting their Fauci prayer candles and dutifully waiting for word from the CDC. Most people were not the girl from that Walgreen’s commercial, smiling behind their mask as they rode their kick scooter to the neighborhood market so that they could pick up the latest organic fruit. Most people were frustrated and pissed off and sick of having to pretend otherwise.

Annie’s trip to the UK is predictably a disaster and, because she live streams the entire experience, Stetch’s always-masked wife discovers just how much she and Annie disagree on politics. This leads to a physical confrontation which leads to Annie stealing Stretch’s car. You do have to feel a little bit bad for Stretch at this point. Stretch works as a food delivery driver so, as annoying as Stetch can be, he does kind of need his car. Annie decides to take on one of his deliveries herself, just to discover that the owner of a restaurant wants Annie to drive a sick and incontinent old woman named Angela to another location. Despite her initial misgivings, Annie agrees. Because Annie has been live streaming the entire time, Stretch is able to track them down.

Of course, it turns out that Angela is not quite what she seems and soon, Annie and Stretch find themselves having to deal with cults, demons, and a lot other things. Quite a few people die along the way. Except for a few times when the signal is lost, the entire event is live streamed and the film is worth watching twice just so you can read all of the comments from the people watching Annie and Stretch try to survive a night. They provide a commentary not only on what’s happening to Annie and Stretch but also on the horror genre in general and the whole found footage idea in specific. At the same time that I was getting annoyed with Stretch for being whiny, so were Annie’s fans. While Annie and Stretch were running from Angela, a fight was breaking out in the comments over Annie’s politics. A few people were concerned that Annie was going to get killed. A few were claiming that it was all fake. The majority were eager to see more blood. Quite a few complained that any moment that Annie spent hiding from Angela was “BORING.” One thing they all had in common was a need to try to turn everything that they were watching into either a commentary on politics or an ironic joke. It was a perfect portrayal of online culture.

Both Annie and Angela are forces of chaos in Dashcam, perfect representations of how many people were feeling at the height of the COVID era. (Angela wears a mask throughout the film. At one point, the mask fills up with blood, which is perhaps as powerful a symbol of COVID horror as I’ve seen thus far.) Annie’s a survivor because she refuses to rationalize everything that’s happening around her. She embraces her anger and her annoyance with the world. As a result, Dashcam is not just an effective found footage horror film. It’s also a document of how many people viewed the world in 2021. With so many now trying to rewrite the history of what actually happened during the COVID era, it’s important to have a film, like Dashcam, that reveals just how angry and paranoid people really were. In its way, Dashcam is a valuable time capsule.

Annie Hardy is currently taking a lot of online abuse from trolls who can’t tell the difference between the film’s Annie Hardy and the real-life Annie Hardy. That’s a shame because Annie Hardy is a natural when she’s onscreen and she gives a good performance. Dashcam is currently on Hulu and it’s tempting to compare this film sharp combination of horror and commentary to the rather bland and painfully inoffensive Hellraiser reboot. Hellraiser could have used Annie Hardy.

Live Tweet Alert: Join #FridayNightFlix for Six-Headed Shark Attack!

Posted on October 21, 2022 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 10 pm et, I will be hosting #FridayNightFlix! The movie? 2018’s Six-Headed Shark Attack!

If you thought a shark with five heads was dangerous, just you wait until you a shark with six!

If you want to join us this Friday, just hop onto twitter, start the movie at 10 pm et, and use the #FridayNightFlix 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.

Six-Headed Shark Attack is available on Prime!

See you there!

Horror on the Lens: The Lodger (dir by Alfred Hitchcock)

Posted on October 21, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

A serial killer known as “The Avenger” is murdering blonde women in London (which, once again, proves that its better to be a redhead). And while nobody knows the identity of the Avenger, they do know that the enigmatic stranger (Ivor Novello), who has just recently rented a room at boarding house, happens to fit his description. They also know that the lodger’s landlord’s daughter happens to be a blonde…

Released in 1927, the silent The Lodger was Alfred Hitchcock’s third film but, according to the director, this was the first true “Hitchcock film.” Certainly it shows that even at the start of his career, Hitchcock’s famous obsessions were already present — the stranger accused of a crime, the blonde victims, and the link between sex and violence.

Also of note, the credited assistant director — Alma Reville — would become Alma Hitchcock shortly before The Lodger was released.