The TSL’s Horror Grindhouse: Unspeakable (dir by Thomas J. Wright)

Posted on October 22, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

So, here’s a few good things about the 2002 film, Unspeakable.

First off, Jeff Fahey plays the governor of New Mexico. Any film that presents us with a world where Jeff Fahey can be elected governor of an actual state has to be worth something. Seriously, I’ve long thought that the country would be more interesting if actors were elected to run each state. Here in Texas, for instance, there was a movement to draft Tommy Lee Jones a few years ago. (Personally, I’d rather live under Governor McConaughey.) Steven Seagal (agck!) apparently wanted to run for governor of Arizona and, of course, Cynthia Nixon actually ran up in New York. There’s always a chance of Alec Baldwin running for something and, of course, Arnold Schwarzenegger actually did govern California for two terms. Val Kilmer, I should add, came close to running for governor of New Mexico, where this film is set! Personally, I’d vote for Jeff Fahey over Val Kilmer, It’s the eyes.

Another good thing about Unspeakable is that it features Dennis Hopper playing a crazed prison warden who rambles about how much he enjoys sending people to the electric chair. “I am God!” Hopper says at one point and you have to enjoy any scene that features Dennis Hopper saying, “I am God!” in a southwestern accent.

Another fun thing about Unspeakable is that it features Dina Meyer and Lance Henriksen as scientists! Meyer invents this weird little headband thing that allows her to look into your mind and see your thoughts. Let me repeat this for those of you who might have missed the significance: DINA MEYER HAS INVENTED A MACHINE THAT ALLOW HER TO SEE EXACTLY WHAT IS HAPPENING IN SOMEONE’S MIND! If that wasn’t amazing enough, there’s also the fact that no one seems to be that impressed. In fact, no one really cares. Everyone just kind of shrugs it off.

Meyer and Henriksen ask for permission to test their invention out on death row inmates. Sure, why not? It’s not like Warden Hopper cares what happens to the inmates, right? Meyer discovers that one of the inmates is innocent! Unfortunately, no one cares. Gov. Fahey, who is also Meyer’s former lover, refuses to commute the sentence because he’s got an election coming up and voters love the death penalty. And so, that innocent man goes off to the electric chair.

But wait! There’s a new prisoner on death row. His name is Jesse Mowatt and he’s played by Pavan Grover, the doctor who wrote this film. It turns out that he is America’s most prolific serial killer! He’s murdered hundreds of people, all because of some weird issue he has with religion. Anyway, it’s pretty obvious that this killer has a date with the electric chair but first, Meyer gets to use her amazing-invention-that-nobody-cares-about on him. What she discovers is that this serial killer might be a demon-possessed monster who can use his mind to drive other people to do things like rip their faces off. Or maybe he’s just really clever. He does definitely have super strength and beats up any guard that comes near him. It never occurs to the guards to use handcuffs on him or anything. That’s just the type of prison that it is.

Anyway, I appreciated the film’s anti-death penalty theme but the film still got a bit too heavy-handed for my tastes. Pavan Grover wrote himself a pretty good part but he doesn’t really have the screen presence necessary to do the whole irresistible sociopath thing. Still, I appreciate any movie that features Jeff Fahey as a governor.

FAHEY 2024!

Insomnia File #42: Revenge (dir by Tony Scott)

Posted on October 22, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

What’s an Insomnia File? You know how some times you just can’t get any sleep and, at about three in the morning, you’ll find yourself watching whatever you can find on cable? This feature is all about those insomnia-inspired discoveries!

Earlier today, If you were having trouble getting to sleep around one in the morning, you could have turned over to TCM and watched the 1990 action film, Revenge.

Revenge is an almost absurdly masculine film about two men who are in love with the same woman and who, as a result, end up trying to kill each other and a lot of other people.

Jay Cochran (Kevin Costner) is a U.S. Navy aviator who, when we first see him, is doing the whole Top Gun thing of flying in a fast jet and making jokes while his navigator worries about dying. Interestingly enough, Top Gun and Revenge were both directed by Tony Scott so perhaps this opening scene was meant to be a self-reference. Well, regardless of intent, it’s a scene that goes on forever. This is Jay’s last flight, as he’s due to retire. We go through an extended retirement party, where everyone has a beer and Jay gives one of those bullshit sentimental speeches that men always give in films like this.

Jay has been invited to estate of Tibbey (Anthony Quinn), who is a Mexican gangster. Tibbey and Jay are apparently old friends, though it’s never quite explained how the youngish Jay knows the not-very-youngish Tibbey. Tibbey is one of those gangster who is incapable of doing anything without first talking about what an amazing journey it’s been, going from poverty to becoming one of the most powerful men in Mexico.

Tibbey apparently wants to play tennis with Jay and take him hunting. Jay decides that he’d rather have an affair with Tibbey’s much younger wife, Miryea (Madeleine Stowe). Miryea is upset that Tibbey doesn’t want to have children because he feels that pregnancy would ruin her body. When Tibbey finds out about the affair, he sends Miryea to a brothel and Jay to the middle of the desert. That’s Tibbey’s revenge!

Except, of course, Jay doesn’t die because he’s Kevin Costner and if he died, the movie would end too quickly. So, Jay fights his way back from the desert, intent on not only finding Miryea but getting his own revenge on Tibbey!

(It’s hard to take a bad guy named Tibbey seriously, even if he is played by Anthony Quinn.)

Revenge goes on for way too long and neither Tibbey nor Jay are really sympathetic enough to be compelling characters. You never really believe in Tibbey and Jay’s friendship, so the whole betrayal and revenge aspect of the film just falls flat. On the plus side, youngish Kevin Costner is not half as annoying as cranky old man Costner. Anthony Quinn was one of the actors who was considered for the role of Don Corleone in The Godfather and, watching him here, you can kind of see him in the role. He would have been a bit of a crude Corleone but Quinn had an undeniably powerful and magnetic screen presence. In Revenge, Quinn chews up and spits out all of the scenery and is not subtle at all but it’s entertaining to watch him because he’s Anthony Quinn.

Anyway, Revenge ends with a tragedy, as these things often do. Anthony Quinn never says, “Revenge is a dish best served cold,” and that, to me, is a true missed opportunity.

Previous Insomnia Files:

Horror Scenes I Love: The Television Scene From Ringu

Posted on October 22, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Yesterday, in a comment, Michael McClure mentioned this scene as a scary one and you know what? He’s right!

So, I decided — why not share it today?

Now, of course, if this scene seems familiar, that’s because it was later remade as The Ring. This, however, is from the Japanese original.

From 1998’s Ringu, here’s a scene that I love!

A Blast From The Past: What About School Spirit? (dir by Herk Harvey)

Posted on October 22, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Director Herk Harvey

The 1958 short film, What About School Spirit?, introduces us to the greatest high school in all of Kansas. The entire state is envious of Lawrence High. Not only are they champions in basketball but they’re champions in academics as well! What is it that makes Lawrence High so special?

Well, as one student explains, Lawrence High was’t always the wonderful institution that it is today. It’s not that the school didn’t have school spirit. In fact, it had too much school spirit! The students were driving fast and painting the school’s initials “where they had no business to be!” Everyone was so crazy about the school that they didn’t stop to think about how their rambunctious behavior was making life annoying for everyone else!

Then, luckily, the basketball team captain, Bob Corby, spoke at a student assembly and what Corby said changed the entire direction of the school. I’m not sure how that happened exactly because, judging from what we see of his speech, it’s nothing that special. In fact, I think Bob Corby’s kind of overrated. That’s right, I said it. Of course, after giving the speech, Bob Corby got sick and died. The students, of course, continued to display properly controlled school spirit in his memory.

I guess the message here is that teenagers should be proud of their school without being too loud about it. To be honest, though, Bob Corby and all of his followers kind of come across as being little fascists who are determined to quash any hint of nonconformity or rebellion. The next time that they say, “It couldn’t happen here,” you tell them that it already happened at Lawrence High.

This film was directed by Herk Harvey, who made a career out of doing educational films like this one. However, horror fans will always know Harvey best for directing the massively influential Carnival of Souls. That’s a film that we’ll watch later this month. For now, enjoy the legend of Bob Corby!

International Horror Film: The Shiver of the Vampires (dir by Jean Rollin)

Posted on October 22, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This is the one with the vampire in the clock.

Now, admittedly, a female vampire emerging from a grandfather clock is an image to which filmmaker Jean Rollin would frequently return. It was one of his most iconic images and, in many ways, a perfect visual for his uniquely dream-like aesthetic. Seeing as how Rollin’s films always seemed to be, at least somewhat, concerned with how the past bleeds over into the present, it only makes sense that every grandfather clock — that ultimate symbol of the past — would have a vampire lurking somewhere within it.

As far as I know, though, 1971’s The Shiver of the Vampires was the first time that Rollin ever featured a vampire emerging from a clock. Rollin often cited The Shiver of the Vampires are being one of his personal favorites from his filmography so it makes sense that he would continually return to that film’s best-known moment.

Though I prefer later films like Living Dead Girl, Two Orphan Vampires, and Night of the Hunted, The Shiver of the Vampires is definitely one of Rollin’s best films. It’s certainly the first of his films in which Rollin feels like a truly mature filmmaker. This was his third film and, like both Le Viol du Vampire and The Nude Vampire, it plays out like a cinematic dream. At the same time, it’s more coherent than either of those earlier films, without the occasional moments of pretension that sometimes threatened to make those two films feel like elaborate student exercises.

The Shiver of the Vampires takes place in all of the usual Rollin locations. There’s an isolated castle and decrepit castle, a symbol of the past which still features very modern graffiti on some of the walls. There’s the chapel, which seems to be specifically designed to accommodate human sacrifice. And, of course, there’s the beach. As with so many Rollin films, all paths lead to the beach, a location that Rollin presents as being both comforting and menacing.

The Shiver of the Vampires tells the story of a honeymooning newlywed couple, Isle (Sandra Julien) and Antoine (Jean-Marie Durand). Isle is looking forward to visiting her two cousins at their castle but, upon arriving, Isle and Antoine discover that the castle is now the home to two young women and that Isle’s cousins died just the day before. Upset at both the news and a strange meeting with another woman named Isabelle (Nicole Nancel), Isle decides to spend the night sleeping alone. However, while Isle is getting ready for bed, Isolde (played by the singularly-named Dominique) emerges from the grandfather clock.

Isolde is the vampire who not only killed the cousin but who, along with her two servants, has taken over the castle. While Isolde leads Isle to the cemetery, Antoine wanders around the castle and just happens to run into the two dead cousins…

At its heart, The Shiver of the Vampires is an old Universal haunted castle movie with a bit more nudity and the sexuality move to the forefront as opposed to just being subtext. It’s a horror film with plenty of blood and one rather nasty death via piercing by pointed nipple covers. At the same time, it’s also a rather sentimental film. Ultimately, Isle is vulnerable not because she has any secret desire to be a vampire but instead because her cousins, regardless of what they’ve become, are the only family that she has left. Married or not, Antoine is just an interloper.

As with all of Rollin’s films, The Shiver of the Vampires plays out at its own dream-like pace, with the camera loving examining every inch of the old castle. On the one hand, the film may be a dream of dark and disturbing things but, at the same time, it’s also a sad-eyed look at family and the impossibility of escaping the past.

And, of course, you’ll never forget that grandfather clock.

4 Shots From 4 Films: 28 Days Later, Bubba Ho-Tep, Halloween: Resurrection, The Ring

Posted on October 22, 2019 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’re using 4 Shots From 4 Films to look at some of the best years that horror has to offer!

4 Shots From 4 2002 Horror Films

28 Days Later (2002, dir by Danny Boyle)

Bubba Ho-Tep (2002, dir by Don Coscarelli)

Halloween Resurrection (2002, dir by Rick Rosenthal)

The Ring (2002, dir by Gore Verbinski)

Horror Film Review: The Guardian (dir by William Friedkin)

Posted on October 22, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

OH MY GOD! THAT TREE IS EATING PEOPLE!

“You mean the tree played by Kevin Costner?”

No, no. You’re thinking of the wrong Guardian, my imaginary friend. This Guardian is from 1990 and it’s the killer tree film that was directed by William Friedkin.

“William Friedkin directed a killer tree film?”

Apparently so.

“What’s it about?”

It’s kind of hard to say. Camilla (Jenny Seagrove) is hired as a nanny and proceeds to not only claim the baby as her own but also tries to seduce the baby’s father away from his wife.

“I think it’s cute the way that you always mention the actor’s name is parenthesis….”

Well, that’s what we’re taught to do. But back to The Guardian. The Guardian could also be a movie about a druid who steals babies so that she can sacrifice them to a tree God.

“You mean like that big talking tree from the from Lord of the Rings?”

I guess. Or maybe Camilla is a reincarnation of Lillith, the demon who kidnaps babies in the night.

“Poor Lillith, so misunderstood.”

Or maybe Camilla is a witch who can make wolves and tress do her bidding!

“Like Sabrina?”

I don’t want to talk about fcking Sabrina.

“Did you mean to spell the f-word that way?”

I try to keep my actual cursing to minimum. That way, it means something.

“That’s sweet.”

Whatever. Back to The Guardian! It’s also possible that Camilla actually is a tree that’s come to life and is now doing evil tree stuff!

“So, what you’re saying is that the film is unclear about just what exactly Camilla’s deal is?”

That’s it, exactly! The Guardian is a notorious mess and it’s probably significant that this is one of two films that William Friedkin doesn’t even acknowledge in his otherwise tell-all autobiography, Friedkin Confidential. Reportedly, there were problems on the set. From what little I’ve found online, it would appear that Friedkin originally wanted the movie to be about a mentally deranged woman who thought she was a druid. But the producers wanted a horror film about a woman who actually was a druid. Somehow, this eventually led to The Guardian becoming a movie about a woman who is actually a tree. What’s funny is that the film itself feels like a typical crazy nanny Lifetime film, up until the moment that one of Camilla’s employers attempts to take a chainsaw to that tree.

“Trees don’t like chainsaws.”

Yeah, no joke. Anyway, before all that happens, Camilla is killing people left and right but yet no one seems to notice. She doesn’t make any secret of the fact that she’s trying to seduce Phil (Dwier Brown) but Phil’s wife, Kate (Carey Lowell), doesn’t seem to care. Instead, Phil and Kate attempt to set Camilla up with their friend, goofy Ned (Brad Hall). It doesn’t take long for Ned to get devoured by a bunch of wolves. That’s what happens when you walk in on a druid nanny turning into a tree, I guess.

“Isn’t Brad Hall married to Julia Louis-Dreyfus?”

Indeed, he is! And you don’t see him in any movies nowadays so I guess getting eaten by wolves was kind of the last straw. But the movie gets even weirder! There’s also an odd scene in which three gang members just happen to be walking through the woods when they come across Camilla and the baby. They kind of pop up out of nowhere and they immediately turn out to be some pretty bad guys. Luckily, a tree pops up and kills the all. Is the tree Camilla or is the tree someone else? Who knows?

“Gang members in the woods? You mean like in Friday the 13th Part 3?”

Strangely enough, yes. Even stranger is the fact that no one notices anything strange about Camilla. To be honest, there are times that Camilla might as well be wearing a sign that reads, “Druid” but no one seems to notice. Then again, it’s debatable whether or not she was actually a druid. She might actually be a tree and I guess it’s understandable that something like that wouldn’t naturally occur to anyone. I mean, I think we’ve all probably met a druid or two but someone who is actually a tree? Well, that’s unusual.

“Very unusual!”

Anyway, The Guardian is a messy film and I’m afraid that I’m probably making it sound more fun than it actually is. If you do watch it, please be sure to chime in with your thoughts on whether or not Camilla is actually a tree. I look forward to hearing your opinion!

“Don’t you want to hear my opinion?”

No.

Yes, this an actual scene from The Guardian.

Horror on the Lens: Hands of a Stranger (dir by Newt Arnold)

Posted on October 22, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

After concert pianist Vernon Paris (James Stapleton) loses his hands in an auto accident, he is the recipient of a double hand transplant. Unfortunately, Vernon isn’t happy with having a stranger’s hands and he fears that he’ll never be able to play the piano again. Even worse, he soon becomes convinced that the hands are evil and are trying to force him to commit murders.

But is it the hands or Vernon’s own unstable mind that’s responsible his actions?

This 1962 horror film was the fourth adaptation of the Maurice Renard’s The Hands of Orlac. As opposed to other film adaptations of Renard’s novel, Hands of Stranger plays up the ambiguity of whether the recipient of the hands is truly possessed or if he’s just using the hands as an excuse to indulge in his dark side.

Enjoy!

Horror Scenes That I Love: Smashing The Mirror in The Boogey Man

Posted on October 21, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Ulli Lommel’s 1980 slasher film The Boogey Man is a pretty silly movie but I do like this scene. The idea of seeing something in the reflection of a mirror that doesn’t appear to actually be in the room is one of my top nightmare fuels.

Plus, after the storms we had last night and the fact that there’s still debris all over the place and just driving from one location to another is kind of a pain in the ass right now, there’s just something satisfying about watching a mirror get destroyed.

Break, baby, break!