The TSL’s Horror Grindhouse: The Ghastly Ones (dir by Andy Milligan)

Posted on October 5, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

A young couple — both of whom are dressed in clothes that appear to come from the 1890s — enjoys a romantic and sunny excursion to an isolated island. Unfortunately, their day is ruined when they’re discovered by a buck-toothed hunchback named Colin (played by Hal Borske). Death and dismemberment follows.

Somewhere in New York, three sisters are informed that their father has died but that neither they nor their husbands can receive a cent of their inheritance until they fulfill one very specific requirement. According to their father’s impossibly elderly attorney (played by Neil Flanagan, who is made up to look like an old witch from a community theater production of MacBeth), the sisters and their husbands must spend three nights in their father’s mansion. Of course, the sisters agree.

Upon arriving at the mansion, they discover that the mansion is being looked after by two maids and a hunchbacked, buck-toothed handyman named …. COLIN! Within a few minutes of meeting everyone, Colin eats a live rabbit while everyone watches. Later the remains of the rabbit shows up in one of the sister’s bed, along with a note that reads, “Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit!”

Speaking for myself, I would probably leave as soon as I saw the handyman eating a live rabbit. I mean, none of the sisters appear to be struggling financially but then again, greed is a powerful force. Instead, everyone settles in for their three-night stay, which leads to 1968-style sex scenes and a lot of footage of people sitting around and talking about nothing. For a low-budget grindhouse film, this is an extremely talky movie.

Anyway, eventually people start dying. Someone gets pitchforked. Another person is found hanging by his ankles. There’s a rather bloody disembowelment and someone else loses their head. Bloody X’es are left on doorways. Who is doing the killing? Hmmm …. well, Colin is the obvious suspect since we already saw him kill two people for absolutely no reason. But, it turns out that Colin has a little help. That’s right! The Ghastly Ones comes with a twist ending that you’ll see from miles away.

So, what exactly is The Ghastly Ones? It’s an extremely low-budget film, full of unlikable people dying in various grotesque ways. It’s an oddly moralistic film, with everyone dying because their greed prevents them from doing the sensible thing and leaving the house. It’s also apparently a period piece, with everyone dressed like they belong in the 1890s even though you can clearly hear the sound of cars in the background of a few scenes.

In short, this is another Andy Milligan film! Filmed on Staten Island and featuring a largely amateur cast (though one of the husbands is played by Richard Romanus, who went on to appear in Martin Scorsese’s Mean Streets and has since had a respectable career as a character actor), The Ghastly Ones is just as bad and weirdly hypnotic as you would expect any Andy Milligan film to be. Milligan even makes a cameo of sorts in the film. Listen closely and you can occasionally hear him off-camera, feeding the actors their lines and, at one point, telling one of the sisters to “roll over.”

It’s a terrible movie and yet, it’s also strangely fascinating. I think that’s because Milligan’s ineptness was matched only by his anger and that anger (along with a lot of pressimism) courses through the entire film. Every frame of the film drips with Milligan’s sincere disdain for the greedy and selfish characters who appear throughout the movie and, as you watch, it becomes obvious that Milligan had more sympathy for Colin than for any of his victims. (Of course, two of Colin’s victims were just two innocent people in love who were trying to have a nice picnic so perhaps it’s for the best not to dwell too much on what that might mean.) Milligan directs this story with an intensity that doesn’t quite make up for the lack of talent involved but, at the very least, it does keep things vaguely interesting. “Who are the Ghastly Ones?” Andy Milligan seems to be asking. “We all are.”

By the way, between this and Guru, The Mad Monk, I have now watched two Andy Milligan films in one week. Pray for me.

Horror Scenes that I Love: Checking Out The Boat in Lucio Fulci’s Zombi 2

Posted on October 5, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The scene below comes from the 1979 Lucio Fulci masterpiece, Zombi 2.

In this scene, a mysterious boat is floating towards New York City. Two cops are sent to check the boat out and, as they eventually discover, the boat isn’t quite as deserted as they thought it was.

Now, there’s a few reasons why this scene is important. Number one, Zombi 2 is an Italian film that was designed to pass for an American film. (Technically, it was sold as being a prequel to Dawn of the Dead, which was released under the title Zombi in much of Europe.) In order to maintain the illusion, Italian filmmakers would often spend a day or two shooting on location in a recognizable American city. More often than not, that city would turn out to be New York.

Number two, since Zombi 2 was promoted as being a bit of a prequel to Dawn of the Dead, one could argue that this scene shows how the whole zombie apocalypse began in the United States. It wasn’t radiation from space or Hell running out of room. No, instead, it was juts a boat floating from an island in the Caribbean all the way to New York.

This scene is also memorable because of the “boat zombie,” who is one of the best-known of the movie zombies. Even people who have never heard of Lucio Fulci will probably recognize the boat zombie. He’s an icon of the undead!

Finally, this scene sets up one of the greatest closing shots in the history of zombie cinema. New York beware!

International Horror Film Review: Alien 2: On Earth (dir by Ciro Ippolito)

Posted on October 5, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Don’t get too excited about that title. Yes, I know that it says Alien 2: On Earth, which would suggest that this is a sequel to the classic sci-fi horror film that we all know and love but …. well, we’ll get to it in a moment.

First, let’s talk about the movie….

HEY, EARTH! YOU’RE GETTING INVADED AGAIN!

This time, it’s not flying saucers. It’s not pod people. It’s not the monsters from Cloverfield or A Quiet Place or Battle Los Angeles or Skyline or any of those films. Instead, this time, you’re getting invaded by little blue rocks. These rocks may look pretty but, if you hold them long enough, something will spring out of them and cause your face to explode. Sometimes, the creature inside the rock will even hug onto your face for a while. I guess maybe you could call it a face hugger, assuming that you had enough money to settle the copyright suit that would follow….

Famed cave explorer Thelma Joyce (Belinda Mayne) has been having horrific visions, largely due to the fact that she’s psychic whenever it’s convenient for the plot. Could her visions have something to do with a spacecraft that has recently returned to Earth with all of its inhabitants missing? (The implication is that the spacecraft was captained by a man named Dallas and had a warrant officer named Ripley, though that’s never specifically stated.)

Oh, why worry about all that ominous outer space stuff? After all, Thelma and her husband Roy (Mark Bodin) have already got a full weekend planned out. They’re going to get together with a group of friends and explore a cave! It sounds like fun. Of course, on the way to the cave, one of their friends finds a blue rock and decides to take it with him. Hmmm….there’s no way that could backfire.

Once everyone’s in the cave, Thelma tells Roy that she has a feeling that something awful is about to happen. Roy laughs off her concerns. I mean, is Thelma supposed to be a psychic or something? Oh, wait a minute….

Can you guess what happens? If you think that Roy, Thelma, and their friends end up getting trapped in the cave with an alien that’s looking to dissolve all of their faces, you might be as much of a psychic as Thelma. Needless to say, everyone picked the wrong weekend to go underground.

This Italian production from 1980 is, in many ways, a typical low-budget exploitation film. There’s a lot of gore (including a pretty nifty beheading) and the film ends on a properly (and somewhat humorously) dark note but it takes forever for the movie to actually get going. Fans of Italian horror will be happy to see Michele Soavi show up as one of the cave explorers and, if nothing else, the film does feature an effective sequence involving a survivor running down the streets of an eerily deserted city.

That said, this film is best-remembered as an example of just how shameless that Italian film industry could be when it came to ripping off more successful films. Alien 2 had nothing to do with the original Alien but, because Ridley Scott’s film was a huge hit, the film was marketed as being a direct sequel. Because the word “alien” existed long before any of the movies using it as a title were ever released, 20th Century Fox’s efforts to sue producer/director Ciro Ippolito for copyright infringement were just as unsuccessful as Ippolito’s later attempt to sue the makers of The Descent for, in Ippolito’s opinion, ripping off his story of cave explorers getting ripped apart by a strange creature.

So, no, this is not technically a part of the Alien franchise …. unless you want it to be. That’s the fun thing about watching an unofficial sequel like this. You can decide for yourself whether or not to accept it.

Finally, keep watching the skies and don’t pick up any blue rocks! To quote the film’s final title card, “YOU MAY BE NEXT!”

4 Shots From 4 Films: Dawn of the Dead, The Grapes of Death, Halloween, Martin

Posted on October 5, 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 1978 Horror Films:

Dawn of the Dead (1978, dir by George Romero)

The Grapes of Death (1978, dir by Jean Rollin)

Halloween (1977, dir by John Carpenter)

Martin (1978, dir by George Romero)

Horror Film Review: Firestarter (dir by Mark L. Lester)

Posted on October 5, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Adapted from Stephen King novel, 1984’s Firestarter is a film about a girl with a very special power.

Back in the day, a bunch of college students needed weed money so they took part in a government experiment. Half of them were told that they were being given a placebo. The other half were told that we would be given a low-grade hallucinogen.

Surprise! The government lied! It turns out that everyone was given the experimental drug! Some of the students ended up going crazy. One unfortunate hippie clawed his eyes out. Meanwhile, Vicky (Heather Locklear) gained the ability to read minds. She also fell in love with Andy McGee (David Keith), a goofy fellow who gained the ability to mentally control people’s actions. They married and had a daughter named Charlie (played by a very young Drew Barrymore). Charlie, it turns out, can set things on fire! She’s a firestarter!

Well, of course, the government can’t just leave the McGees out there, controlling minds and setting things on fire. Soon, the McGees are being pursued by the standard collection of men in dark suits. Vicky is killed off-screen, leaving Charlie and Andy to try to find some place where they’ll be safe.

Good luck with that! This is the government that we’re talking about. The thing with films like this is that the government can do practically anything but it never occurs to them to not all dress in dark suits. I mean, it just seems like it would be easier for all of these secret agents to operate if they weren’t automatically identifiable as being secret agents. Anyway, Andy and Charlie are eventually captured and taken to The Farm, a really nice country estate where Andy and Charlie are kept separate from each other and everyone keeps talking about national security.

Running the Farm is Capt. Hollister and we know that he’s a bad guy because he wears a suit and he’s played by Martin Sheen. Working with Hollister is John Rainbird (George C. Scott), a CIA assassin who kills people with a karate chop across the nose. When Charlie refuses to show off her firemaking abilities unless she’s allowed to talk to her father, Rainbird disguises himself as a custodial engineer and proceeds to befriend Charlie. Of course, Rainbird’s plan is to kill Charlie once she’s displayed the extent of her powers….

Stephen King has written that he considers this film to be one of the worst adaptations of one of his novels but, to be honest, I think the movie is actually a bit of an improvement on the source material. Firestarter is probably the least interesting of Stephen King’s early novels. Supposedly, Charlie was based on King’s youngest daughter and, reading the book, it’s obvious that everyone’s fear of Charlie is mostly a metaphor for a father trying to figure out how to raise a daughter. Unfortunately, instead of concentrating on those primal fears, the book gets bogged down in boomer paranoia about MK-ULTRA experiments.

The movie, however, is just silly enough to be kind of charming. For example, consider the way that Andy grabs his forehead and bugs out his eyes whenever he uses his powers. Andy’s powers may be slowly killing him but he just looks so goofy whenever he uses them that you just can’t help but be entertained. And then you’ve got Drew Barrymore sobbing while setting people on fire and George C. Scott growling through all of his dialogue and even Martin Sheen gets a scene where he gets excited and starts jumping up and down. (And don’t even get me started on Art Carney and Louise Fletcher as the salt-of-the-Earth farmers who try to protect Andy and Charlie….) Some of the special effects are a bit hokey, as you might expect from a film made in 1984 but occasionally, there’s a good shot of something (or someone) burning up. It’s all so over-the-top and relentlessly dumb that you can’t help but be entertained. You can even forgive the fact that basically nothing happens between the first 10 and the last 15 minutes of the movie.

Firestarter‘s silly but I liked it.

Horror on the Lens: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (dir by John S. Robertson)

Posted on October 5, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Ever since the birth of film, Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde has been a popular subject for adaptation. Not only does the classic story of a good doctor who unleashes his evil instinct via potion serve as a potent metaphor for everything from sexual repression to drug addiction, but the dual role of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde has provides an excellent opportunity for an actor to show off.

The first film adaptation of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is believed to have been made in 1908. Two more version followed in 1912 and 1913 and then, suddenly, 1920 saw three different film versions.

The best known of the 1920 version is our film for today. This version is best remembered for John Barrymore’s powerful performance in the title role but it also holds up remarkably well as a work of cinematic horror.

The TSL’s Horror Grindhouse: End of the World (dir by Charles Band)

Posted on October 4, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1977 film End of the World has got a great opening scene. An obviously distraught priest (played by none other than Christopher Lee!) steps into an isolated diner. He tells the counterman that he needs to use the phone. The counterman says, “Sure, father.” And then suddenly, everything in the dinner starts blowing up. The phone, the coffee, the pinball machine, everything explodes. The counterman ends up trying to unsuccessfully throw himself through a window. The priest, looking rather confused, steps outside of the diner and he runs into …. his exact double! Christopher Lee meets Christopher Lee!

Again, that’s a great opening and it’s really not a surprise that the rest of the film can’t live up to it. Once the two Christopher Lees disappear into the darkness, the focus of the story shifts to a scientist named Andrew (Kirk Scott) and his wife, Sylvia (Sue Lyon, who years previously played Lolita). Andrew spends a lot of time sitting in front of a boxy computer and staring at the screen. He’s picking up strange transmissions from space and he’s trying to translate them. Andrew goes home. He and his wife got a party. Andrew sits in front of the computer a while longer. Andrew goes home. Andrew goes to work. Andrew keeps staring at the computer….

“Wait,” you’re saying at this point, “isn’t this is a Christopher Lee movie?”

Yes, it is. Christopher Lee is indeed top-billed and he’s hardly in the movie at all. I’d like to think that, when asked why by an intrepid reporter why he agreed to star in End of the World, Lee laughed and replied, “For the money, of course.” But, according to Lee’s autobiography, he did the film because he was told that he would be appearing with a cast of distinguished actors like Jose Ferrer, Dean Jagger, and John Carradine. Now, Dean Jagger does have a small cameo in the film but Ferrer and Carradine are nowhere to be seen. Either they left the production or someone lied to Sir Christopher!

Anyway, back to the plot. Eventually, Andrew figures out that the space transmissions are predicting natural disasters. We don’t actually see any of these disasters because, after all, this is the end of the world on a very low budget. But we are assured that the disasters are happening. Andrew and Sylvia discover that the transmissions are coming from a convent in the middle of the desert. Andrew and Sylvia go to investigate and they discover that the nuns are….

ALIENS!

Now, this is actually a pretty good twist and there are some vaguely humorous scenes of the the nuns working in a space lab. It turns out that the nuns (and one of the Christopher Lees) are stranded on this planet because their spaceship broke down. They don’t really like Earth, considering it to be an ugly and polluted place. They’re planning on ending the world but they need to leave before the whole place blows up. They demand that Andrew help them fix their transporter and they’re going to hold Sylvia hostage until he does so….

It’s all a bit silly but, as you’re watching the film, you can’t help but wish that it had been even sillier. I mean, alien nuns and Father Christopher Lee? That sounds like the makings of a certain type of classic! But, unfortunately, the film never fully embraces the full potential of its absurdity. It takes forever for Andrew and Sylvia to actually reach that convent and even the alien nuns become rather passé after a few minutes. Christopher Lee is fun to watch as always and his character’s irritation with being stuck on Earth was obviously mirrored by Lee’s irritation with being in the film. And, despite all else, let’s give credit where credit it is due — the title lives up to its promise. The world may end in a pile of stock footage but an end is an end.

Anyway, this one is pretty much for Christopher Lee completists only. Watch the opening and then fast forward to the end.

Horror Scenes That I Love: Jack Meets Lloyd in The Shining

Posted on October 4, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The scene below is, of course, from Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 masterpiece, The Shining.

In this scene, Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) stumbles into the Overlook Hotel’s ballroom, still fuming over having been accused of abusing his son. A recovering alcoholic, Jack sits at the bar and thinks about how he would give up his soul for just one one drink. And, on cue, Lloyd (Joe Turkel) appears.

As I was watching this scene, it occurred to me that, way back in 1980, there probably was some guy named Lloyd who saw this movie in a theater and was probably totally shocked when Jack suddenly stared straight at him and said, “Hey, Lloyd.”

The brilliance of this scene is that we never actually see Lloyd materialize. We see him only after Jack has seen him. So, yes, Lloyd could be a ghost. But he could also just be a figment of Jack’s imagination. Jack very well could just be suffering from cabin fever. Of course, by the end of the movie, we learn the truth.

Everyone always talks about Jack Nicholson’s performance as Jack. Some people love it and some people hate it. (I’m in the first camp.) However, let’s take a minute to appreciate just how totally creepy Joe Turkel is in this scene. Turkel was a veteran character actor and had appeared in two previous Kubrick films, The Killing and Paths of Glory. Two years after appearing in The Shining, Turkel played what may be his best-known role, Dr. Eldon Tyrell in Blade Runner.

From Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, here’s Jack Nicholson and Joe Turkel:

International Horror Film Review: House (dir by Nobuhiko Obayashi)

Posted on October 4, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1977 Japanese horror film, House, opens with a teenage girl named Gorgeous (Kimiko Ikegami) who is excited about the start of summer. Her father has finally returned home from Italy, where he was scoring a film for Sergio Leone. (Supposedly, Leone said that her father was even more talented than Ennio Morricone!) However, Gorgeous is upset to discover that her father has remarried and she has a new stepmother! No longer wanting to be around her father, Gorgeous writes to her aunt and asks if she can spend the summer with her. Gorgeous’s aunt (Yōko Minamida) agrees and invites Gorgeous to visit the country house where she lives with a white cat.

However, Gorgeous will not be traveling on her own. She’s bringing six of her school friends with her! Like Gorgeous, all of them have trait-appropriate names.

For instance, Kung Fu (Miki Jinbo) is athletic and good at kung fu.

Prof (Ali Matsubara) is intelligent and wears glasses.

Fantasy (Kumiko Oba) is a daydreamer.

Mac (Mieko Sato) enjoys eating.

Melody (Eriko Tanaka) plays music.

Sweet (Masayo Miyako) is …. well, sweet.

They’re all fun, cheerful, optimistic, and good-natured. (They also all have a crush on their teacher, Mr. Togo (Kiyohiko Ozaki), goofy fellow with sideburns and an old car.) As soon as the girls arrive at Auntie’s house, they present her with a watermelon and then take a tour of the old house. They all take the time to notice Auntie’s white cat, who is adorable but seems to have a little bit of an attitude. Everyone’s happy and perky and it truly appears that this is going to be the greatest summer of their lives….

Of course, not everything’s perfect. There are a few complications. For instance, Gorgeous is still upset about her father remarrying and chooses to go off on her own. Mac goes out to the well and then doesn’t return. However, her head is later seen floating around the house and biting the other girls. One girl gets eaten by a clock. Another loses her hands while playing the piano. The piano then proceeds to eat the girl while Mac’s disembodied head giggles and says, “Naughty!” Soon, there are body parts flying around all over the house and the downstairs is flooded with blood. The cat, it must be said, appears to be rather amused….

I don’t know if words alone can convey what a strange movie House is. This really is one of those movies that has to be seen to believed. In many ways, it feels like a children’s film made by someone who really dislikes children. Everything starts out very happily, with bright colors, frantic camera work, corny humor, and cheerful music playing in the background. There’s even several incidences of deliberately crude, pop art-style animation sprinkled throughout the film. Then the girls reach the house and suddenly, everyone’s screaming and there’s blood spurting everywhere and disembodies heads and other limbs flying around and yet, the tone of the film doesn’t change. The music remains cheerful. The humor remains corny, especially in the scenes involving hapless Mr. Togo and his attempts to rescue the girls, and the film’s special effects remains deliberately crude. At the same time, there’s an interesting subtext to the film. Gorgeous’s aunt is bitter over the death of her lover, who never returned from World War II. When Gorgeous meets her new stepmother, the sky glows with an almost atomic intensity and one unfortunate character is literally vaporized into nothing. The old house is literally eating the young, perhaps to punish them for being the first generation to be born after the end of the war and to have no firsthand experience with the twin traumas of the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

As I said, it’s a weird, weird movie. It’s also an incredibly watchable one, one that comes very close to capturing the feel of a filmed dream. It’s not for everyone, this oddly cheerful bloodbath. But I’d still recommend watching it at least once.

Lifetime Film Review: The Madam of Purity Falls (dir by Sam Irvin)

Posted on October 4, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

One of the first rules of moving to a new place, avoid any location that has a potentially ironic name.

Seriously, don’t live near a virgin spring. Don’t move into the house at the end of Charity Drive. Avoid Peaceful Meadows at all costs. Happy Street? Don’t even think about it. And Purity Falls?

Listen, there’s no way that moving to a town called Purity Falls is a good idea.

Still, that’s what Nicole and her children do in the Lifetime film, The Madam of Purity Falls. The recently widowed Nicole (Kristanna Loken) even gets a job as the guidance counselor at Purity Falls High School! Since the family is still struggling to come to terms with the death of Nicole’s husband and the children’s father, the hope is that a new home can help them move on. Younger sister Justine (Sloane Avery) is willing to give it a try. But older brother Jason (Trevor Stines) is resistant from the beginning. Even meeting and befriending Chad (Jonathan Bouvier) doesn’t seem to help with Jason’s angst. Of course, Chad is soon found floating in a swimming pool, dead. Can you believe such a thing could happen in Purity Falls?

Trying to adjust to a new school, Jason joins the wrestling team and even meets a girl who seems to like him. But how can Jason go on a date when he doesn’t have a car!? And how can he get a car if he doesn’t have any money!? Hey, wait a minute. Didn’t his new neighbor, Courtney (Olivia d’Abo), mention that she had some odd jobs that she needed done around the house and that she would be willing to pay him to do them? At first, Jason is reluctant to work for Courtney but one of his fellow wrestling teammates assures him that working for Courtney will be the greatest experience of his life.

Courtney has a nice big house and a lucrative job selling organic cosmetics. Everyone in Purity Falls seems to know her. She puts Jason right to work, paying him for landscaping and sex. Realizing that there’s a lot of money to be made from being a suburban prostitute, Jason agrees to become one of Courtney’s “boys.” Soon, he’s sleeping with almost every frustrated housewife in Purity Falls, making all sorts of money, and getting into all sorts of danger!

Of course, Nicole is curious as to why her son keeps sneaking out of the house and then staying out for so long. And some of Jason’s clients are into some things that make Jason uneasy. And, of course, there’s the fact that people are dying. Hmmmm …. being a suburban prostitute might not be as easy as it looks! But is Jason already in too deep to escape his new life?

The Madam of Purity Falls is an enjoyably over-the-top in execution as it is in its name. This is one of those films where everyone lives in a nice, big house and they’ve all got nice, big secrets to hide. Don’t take the film too seriously. Just enjoy it for the melodrama and the sex and for Olivia d’Abo’s enjoyably villainous turn as the Madam of Purity Falls.