Cleaning Out The DVR: The Wrong Bed: Naked Pursuit (dir by Monika Mitchell)

Posted on October 2, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

(Lisa is not just devoting all of her time to horror movies this month! She is also trying to clean out her DVR. She has recorded over 170 movies this year and she needs to watch all of them before January 1st! Will she make it? Keep checking this site to find out! Lisa recorded The Wrong Bed: Naked Pursuit off of the Lifetime Movie Network on June 2nd.)

Now, this is just frustrating!

When you sit down to watch a movie called The Wrong Bed: Naked Pursuit, I think you’re justified in thinking that the majority of the movie is going to take place in a bed (perhaps even the wrong bed, which I guess would mean that it has a lumpy mattress or a lice-infected pillow something). I think you’re also justified in expecting that everyone’s going to be naked for the majority of the movie. As for the pursuit — well, pursuit can mean anything. Maybe the two naked people in the wrong bed are pursuing pleasure or enlightenment. Maybe they’re pursuing the ultimate high of sexually decadent ennui. Who knows?

Well, The Wrong Bed: Naked Pursuit does open with Stella (Jewel Statie) and Owen (Corey Sevier) waking up naked in bed and handcuffed together. However, it’s not the wrong bed. It’s just a hotel bed and it looks like a pretty nice hotel, too! Both Owen and Stella are naked but that only lasts for about ten minutes. Eventually, they get out of bed and manage to get partially dressed. And while I appreciate the fact that the film is honest about the difficult of putting on a bra while handcuffed to another person (because, seriously, it’s not as easy as the movie’s usually make it look), that still doesn’t change the fact that the title specifically promised us a naked pursuit in the wrong bed.

Now, I should admit that the title is honest about the pursuit part. When Owen and Stella wake up, they have no memory of how they met or eventually ended up in bed together. However, they do know that someone is chasing them. They spend the entire movie running around Canada, trying not to get caught by the usual collection of men in suits and uniforms. Occasionally, Stella has flashes of memory. She sees herself strapped down to a gurney with a scientist named Larissa (Lisa Berry) preparing to give her a shot. She realizes that she and her best friend tried to earn some extra money by taking part in some sort of clinical study. However, something went wrong…

Stella and Owen try to retrace their steps. It turns out that they both got pretty wild the night before they woke up in the not-so wrong bed. They ever started a riot at a bowling alley. Even more importantly, they find the time to stop by Owen’s house. Owen, who says that he’s a fireman, lives in an impressively big house. That’s Lifetime, though. Everyone gets a mansion, regardless of what they do for a living.

Anyway, once I got over the misleading title, The Wrong Bed turned out to be a pretty entertaining little movie. It was directed by Monika Mitchell, who has done several Lifetime movies and who can always be depended on to keep the action moving quickly. Things got a little bit silly once Owen and Stella discovered why they were being pursued but no matter! Jewel Statie and Corey Sevier had chemistry and Sevier looked good without his shirt on.

It all worked out.

The TSL’s Horror Grindhouse: Far From Home (dir by Meiert Avis)

Posted on October 1, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

There are several lessons that can be learned from watching horror films. One that is often overlooked is the importance of staying out of trailer parks. Seriously, I have lost track of how many horror films have taken place within the confines of a trailer park. Once you see someone surrounded by RVs and mobile homes, you know that they’re probably doomed.

Take 1989’s Far From Home, for instance.

Far From Home is set in perhaps the sleaziest trailer park in America. This place sits in the middle of the Nevada desert and is run by chain-smoking Agnes Reed (Susan Tyrrell), who has a voice like a bullfrog, a daughter (Stephanie Walski) who is obsessed with watching TV and eating fishsticks, and a delinquent teenage son named Jimmy (Andras Jones).

The only law is provided by Sheriff Bill Childers (Dick Miller), who has a squad car but apparently no deputies. Childers is gruff but not that bad of a guy once you get to know him. However, he’s also played by Dick Miller and we all know better than to depend on Dick Miller to maintain the peace.

There’s a gas station nearby. A mellow Vietnam vet named Duckett (Richard Masur) owns it. Duckett is always willing to be helpful but he rarely has any gas. This is one of those small towns where the gas truck apparently only rolls in every two months or so. Still, Duckett’s a nice guy and he’s full of stories about how the government used to do atomic bomb tests in the surrounding desert.

(The scenes where Duckett drives around the desert feel somewhat out of place but they’re still enjoyable, due to Masur’s eccentric performance.)

Living in the trailer park, there’s a lot of odd people. Some of them are permanent residents while some of them are just temporarily stranded. 14 year-old Pinky (Anthony Rapp, who would go on to appear in Dazed and Confused and Rent) lives with his mother and is a permanent resident. His mother is rarely seen, though occasionally she can be glimpsed through a window, propped up in front of the TV. Pinky says that, when he was a kid, he and Jimmy were best friends. But now, Jimmy and Pinky are enemies.

And then there’s Amy (Jennifer Tilly) and Louise (Karen Austin), who are just waiting for enough gas to come in to be able to get Amy’s car to start running again. Louise is intelligent and responsible. Amy is flighty and undependable. As soon as one of them accidentally pulls the handle off the driver’s side door, you just know one of them is going to end up getting trapped in that car at a bad moment.

When Far From Home opens, two newcomers have moved into the trailer park. Writer, divorced father, and self-described “former angry young man” Charlie Cox (Matt Frewer) has just spent a month with his 13 year-old daughter, Joleen (Drew Barrymore, who was 14 when she made Far From Home). It hasn’t exactly been a great vacation and it doesn’t get any better when Charlie’s car runs out of gas. Joleen is about to turn fourteen and she doesn’t want to spend her birthday in a crummy trailer park with her incredibly dorky dad.

However, both Jimmy and Pinky are happy that Joleen will be spending at least a day or two at the trailer park. At first, Joleen crushes on Jimmy and then, after Jimmy reveals himself to be aggressive and unstable, she crushes on Pinky, who protects her from Jimmy. One of the two boys is so obsessed with Joleen that he is willing to commit murder to keep her from leaving the trailer park. But which one?

(It’s actually pretty obvious but you probably already guessed that.)

Far From Home is a film about which I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, the movie’s totally predictable. Characters do dumb things for no real reason beyond needing to move the plot forward. Charlie’s parenting abilities change drastically from scene to scene. A traumatized character goes from catatonic to recovered to catatonic again with no real explanation.

One of my main issues with the film is that there’s no real surprise about who the killer turns out to be. Even worse, once the killer’s identity is revealed, the killer suddenly turns into one of those psychos who can come up with a dozen one-liners while trying to kill someone. I mean, seriously, who does that? Are movie psychos required to take a year’s worth of improv clubs and do an apprenticeship with the Upright Citizens Brigade before they’re allowed to pick up a knife? If I was the type to commit murder (and I’m not but let’s just say that I was), I would be too busy trying to make sure everyone was dead to be witty. I’d save the jokes until I was safely on a beach somewhere, drinking pink lemonade and keeping an eye out for Ben Gardner’s boat. That’s just me, I guess.

And yet, there’s a part of me that really likes this stupid, stupid movie. It’s a surprisingly well-directed film, full of artfully composed shots. The trailer park really does take on a life of its own and the film also makes good use of a nearby abandoned apartment building. It’s a great location and, occasionally, it lends the film a dash of surrealism. (Of course, I guess you could legitimately ask who would build an apartment complex in the middle of the desert, especially one that’s still humming with radiation from the Atomic bomb tests, but let’s not.) Richard Masur, Dick Miller, and Susan Tyrrell all give good performances. For that matter, the same is true of Anthony Rapp and Andras Jones. Neither Rapp nor Jones are to blame for the fact that they were let down by a weak script.

Though I doubt either one of them would describe Far From Home as being their proudest cinematic achievement, Matt Frewer and Drew Barrymore are totally believable as father and daughter. In the end, that’s why I like this movie. Whenever I’ve watched Far From Home, I’ve always been able to relate to Joleen. When I was thirteen, I basically was Joleen.

Fortunately, though, I was never found myself stranded in a trailer park full of homicidal maniacs.

I guess I just got lucky that way.

Horror Film Review: The Belko Experiment (dir by Greg McLean)

Posted on October 1, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

How far would you go if all you had to do was follow orders? That is the question posed by The Belko Experiment.

A violent and disturbingly plausible social satire/horror film, The Belko Experiment was released into theaters on March 17th. It was one of the best films of the first half of 2017 but, as so often happens whenever a genre film subverts the traditional narrative, The Belko Experiment is also one of the most overlooked films of 2017. It got mixed reviews, with most critics focusing on the fact that the script was written by James Gunn. (Though Gunn may be best known for directing Guardians of the Galaxy, his non-MCU work has always been distinguished by a subversive, often transgressive sensibility.) A few critics dismissed it as being just another lurid celebration of violence, showing once again that you can always count on certain mainstream critics to unfairly categorize any film that doesn’t neatly fit into their preconceptions. Yes, The Belko Experiment is violent. And yes, it is gory and sometimes hard to watch. However, to dismiss The Belko Experiment as merely being that latest entry in the torture porn genre is to totally miss the point.

Mike Milch (John Gallagher, Jr.) is one of the many employees of Belko Industries. He’s a nice enough guy. In fact, if I worked for Belko Industries, Mike would probably be one of my favorite co-workers. He’s friendly. He’s funny. He’s not unattractive. He’s kind of a less smirky version of The Office‘s Jim Halpert. I’d want to be his friend. Since Belko’s offices are located in a remote area of Colombia, I would want to make all the friends that I could.

(Early on in the film, we’re informed that every employee of Belko Industries has been required to get a tracking device implanted at the base of their skull. They’re told that this is because there’s always the risk that one of them will be kidnapped by drug traffickers. Of course, as the film plays out, we discover that it’s actually for a totally different reason.)

When The Belko Experiment begins, it’s a day like any other. People show up for work. Some people actually do work. Some people slack off. Everyone tries to look busy whenever the boss, Barry Norris (Tony Goldwyn), wanders by. The maintenance workers (Michael Rooker and David Dastmalchian) do their thing. A few employees sneak up to the roof of the office building and get high. Everyone tries to avoid Wendell Dukes (John C. McGinely), a pervy executive. The security guard (James Earl) watches the door. The newest employee (Melonie Diaz) learns about her new job and coworkers.

Of course, there are a few strange things. Some new security guards have shown up and they don’t appear to be particularly friendly. They turn away all of the locals who work at the office, only allowing in the American employees. Everyone agrees that it’s strange but, instead of thinking about it too much, they just keep going about their day.

Then, the steel shutters slam down, effectively sealing the building off.

Then a voice (Gregg Henry) demands that they select two co-workers to die. When the employees of Belko Industries refuse (with several dismissing the whole thing as being a tasteless prank), tracking devices start to randomly explode until four employees are dead. The voice goes on to say that, unless 30 employees are killed in the next two hours, 60 people will be randomly killed…

Some of the co-workers refuse to kill their friends but many more do not. And soon, even those who refused to take part in the murders, are forced to start killing just to keep from being killed themselves…

The Belko Experiment wastes no time in establishing that anyone can die at any moment. It doesn’t matter how funny you were a few seconds ago or how likable you may be. If the unseen voice decides to flip your switch, that “tracking device” will explode and it’ll take your head with it. And, even if the unseen voice doesn’t get you, your coworkers might.

That, by itself, would be disturbing enough. However, The Belko Experiment ultimately succeeds as a work of horror because it illustrates a truth that many people would prefer to ignore. When the employees of Belko Industries start to kill each other, it feels all too plausible. Culturally, human beings are conditioned to follow orders. We like to have an authoritarian around to tell us what to do. It’s a good way of avoiding responsibility for our own actions. (“I was following orders.” “I was following protocol.” “I’m just doing my job.”) As The Belko Experiment demonstrates, most people would never dream of hurting someone else … unless they were ordered to do so. The characters in The Belko Experiment start the movie as individuals but, as the experiment unfolds, all quirks and differences vanish. All that is left are drones who slavishly do what they’re told.

Making the nightmare scenario feel all the more believable is a large and strong cast of familiar faces. As the closest thing that this film has to a hero, John Gallagher, Jr. is likable and you find yourself hoping that he’ll somehow manage to survive all of this with his humanity intact. Tony Goldwyn brings some interesting shades to his role while John C. McGinley is memorably creepy as Wendell. Micheal Rooker, Abraham Benrubi, Sean Gunn, Josh Brener, Melonie Diaz, Brent Sexton, and Adria Arjone all shine in smaller roles. To be honest, you really don’t want to see any of these people suffer, which makes their inevitable fate all the more disturbing.

The Belko Experiment is ultimately a portrait of how easily people can be persuaded (or ordered) to surrender their humanity. It’s the exact mentality that we currently see everyday, with people willingly becoming slaves to one ideology or another and then tossing around terms like “treason” whenever anyone dares to do something other than obey. It’s the exact mentality that leads to people accusing you of being “selfish” when you refuse to surrender your right to self-determination. Our real-life Belko Experiment has been going on for several years now and it doesn’t appear to be ending anytime soon. This movie is frightening because it’s real.

Horror Scenes That I Love: Georges Méliès’s The Haunted Castle

Posted on October 1, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Technically, today’s scene that I love isn’t so much a scene as it’s an entire movie!

Below, you’ll find The Haunted Castle, a 3-minute silent from the great French director, Georges Méliès. This film was made in 1896 and is considered, along with The Execution of Mary Stuart, to be one of the very first horror films!

Needless to say, The Haunted Castle is going to look primitive to modern eyes but so what? There’s a lot of charm to be found in these three minutes. Imagine seeing this in 1896, at a time before everyone was knowledgeable (and a bit cynical) about special effects and film trickery.

After you watch this piece of film history, please be sure to watch Martin Scorsese’s Hugo. Just be prepared to cry.

Enjoy!

6 Trailers For The First Of October!

Posted on October 1, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

As a part of this October’s horrorthon, I am pleased to announce the return of Lisa Marie’s Favorite Grindhouse and Exploitation film trailers! This used to be a regular (and fairly popular) feature here on the Shattered Lens. Unfortunately, a few years ago, I discovered that I had shared almost every worthwhile trailer on YouTube and, as such, it became more of a “special occasion” type of feature.

However, enough time has passed that there are now new trailers on YouTube! Yay!

So, let’s get things started with 6 Trailers for The First of October!

(Why six? Because Lisa doesn’t do odd numbers!)

I Drink Your Blood (1971)

Let’s start things off with I Drink Your Blood (1971), a film about what happens when hippies get rabies. None other than Ryan C, the Trashfilm Guru himself, has described I Drink Your Blood as being one of the greatest grindhouse films of all time.

2. Psychomania (1973)

What’s the best way to deal with blood-crazed hippies? How about an English motorcycle gang? This was also the final film of George Sanders.

3. Werewolves on Wheels (1971)

Speaking of motorcycle gangs, you can check out Gary’s review of Werewolves on Wheels by clicking here!

4. The Beast Must Die (1974)

Not all werewolves ride motorcycles! Some of them terrorize remote locations and are hunted by Peter Cushing, as seen in The Beast Must Die.

5. Shock Waves (1977)

Peter Cushing went from filming The Beast Must Die to appearing in Shock Waves, perhaps the greatest Nazi zombie film ever made. Check out my review here!

6. The Loch Ness Horror (1982)

However, zombie nazis aren’t the only thing that live in the water! Just ask the people of Scotland!

What do you think, random hippie with cat?

Horror Film Review: Happy Birthday To Me (dir by J. Lee Thompson)

Posted on October 1, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

“John will never eat shish kebab again!” announces the poster for the 1981 Canadian slasher film, Happy Birthday To Me.

Happy Birthday To Me is famous for three things. One of those things is the poster above, which was apparently so controversial that it actually led to the film being banned in some countries. That said, it’s a brilliant poster, one that probably belongs in the Film Poster Hall of Fame. If I had been alive and old enough to sneak into the movies in 1981, that poster would have drawn me into the theater.

The other interesting thing about the poster is that no one in the movie is named John. There is a shish kebab scene, of course. But it happens to a guy named Steven, not to anyone named John. Of course, the poster also says that Steven likes to ride a motorcycle but, in the movie, the motorcycle rider is a pervy French-Canadian named Etienne. Maybe the film’s producers feared that American audiences would not be willing to watch a movie featuring a character named Etienne. (They were probably right, by the way. Happy Birthday To Me came out decades before Degrassi: The Next Generation taught America that it has nothing to fear from the Canadians.)

As for what else Happy Birthday To Me is famous for — well, first of all, there’s the actual shish kebab scene itself. As cringe-inducing as it may appear to be on the poster, it’s even more disturbing in the actual film. Interestingly enough, there’s not a lot of blood in the scene. In fact, it’s one of the few scenes in Happy Birthday To Me to not be drenched in blood. However, there is a lot of gagging and gurgling and the sounds are all the more disturbing because they’re taking place off-camera. Making it even more unsettling is that Steven (played by Matt Craven, who has since become a distinguished character actor) is one of the few likable characters in the movie. In a movie full of snobs, pervs, and weirdos, Steven is the guy who is always encouraging people to stop fighting, make love, and gamble.

Finally, Happy Birthday To Me is famous for not making a damn bit of sense.

Actually, to be fair, the movie does make sense up until the final ten minutes or so. Up until that point, it’s simply been a well-made slasher film, albeit an above average example of the genre. There’s a killer on the loose, killing students at Crawford Academy. All of the victims are members of the Top Ten, an exclusive clique of rich and spoiled teens. (Interestingly enough, not every member of the Top Ten is killed. In fact, some of the people who you are sure are due to be killed somehow manage to survive.) One member of the Top Ten, Ginny (Melissa Sue Anderson), should be excited about her upcoming birthday party but instead, she is haunted by flashbacks to a car accident and the brain surgery that she was forced to undergo afterward. (Footage of actual brain surgery was used in the film.) Her father (Lawrence Dane) is clueless. Her therapist (Glenn Ford) insists that Ginny needs to move on with her life. But Ginny can’t escape the feeling that something is not right, especially when all of her friends start to disappear.

As I said, it all makes sense up until the final ten minutes or so of the film. That’s when the film produces a twist that is so out-of-nowhere and nonsensical that you cannot help but admire the film’s audacity. I’m not going to spoil the twist, other than to say that it makes no sense and I absolutely loved it. From what I’ve read, it appears that the twist ending was almost literally made up on the spot and it’s just so weird that it elevates the entire movie.

Of the many slasher films that came out in the early 1980s, Happy Birthday To Me is one of the best. It’s a classic that need not ever be remade. (I doubt any remake could match the audacity of the original’s finale.) Nicely acted, intelligently directed, and batshit insane when it needed to be, Happy Birthday To Me is an October essential!

4 Shots From 4 Films: Special Dario Argento Edition

Posted on October 1, 2017 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 is all about letting the visuals do the talking.

This October, I am going to be using our 4 Shots From 4 Films feature to pay tribute to some of my favorite horror directors, in alphabetical order! That’s right, we’re going from Argento to Zombie in one month!

As you might have just guessed, today’s director is Dario Argento. And these are 4 shots from 4 films!

4 Shots From 4 Films

Deep Red (1975, dir by Dario Argento)

Suspiria (1977, dir by Dario Argento)

Inferno (1980, dir by Dario Argento)

Dracula 3D (2012, directed by Dario Argento)

Horror on the Lens: Baffled! (dir by Philip Leacock)

Posted on October 1, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Hi there and welcome to the October Horrorthon!

This is our favorite time of the year here at the Shattered Lens because October is horror month. For the past five years, we have celebrated every October by reviewing and sharing some of our favorite horror movies, shows, books, and music!

A part of the tradition of Horrorthon is that we begin every day in October by sharing a free movie. Now, I should warn you that most of these movies will come from YouTube and you know how YouTube is about yanking down videos. So, if you’re reading this in 2024 and wondering where the promised movie disappeared to … well, you should have watched it in 2017!

Let’s start this October off with Baffled!, an entertaining little made-for-TV movie from 1973. Leonard Nimoy plays a race car driver who suddenly starts to have psychic visions of a woman who lives in what appears to be a gothic manor. The woman is in some sort of danger. Nimoy, of course, would rather just race cars but a parapsychologist (Susan Hampshire) convinces him that he has to figure out what his visions mean.

Now, to be honest, Baffled! is not a particularly scary movie. Some of Nimoy’s visions are spooky but there’s nothing in this movie that’s going to give you nightmares. Though it may not be horrifying, Baffled! is a lot of fun. Apparently, it was meant to be a pilot for a TV series. If it had been picked up, I guess Nimoy and Hampshire would have been helping out a new guest star every week. Nimoy seems to be having a lot of fun playing a psychic race car driver and he and Susan Hampshire have a really sweet and enjoyable chemistry.

I watched Baffled! with the TSL’s own Patrick Smith and the other members of the Late Night Movie Gang. We all really enjoyed it and I hope you will too:

Cleaning Out The DVR: Nanny Nightmare (directed by Brian Herzlinger)

Posted on October 1, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

(Along with everything else that she’s trying to get done this month, Lisa is also trying to make some progress in getting her DVR cleaned out! She has currently got over 170 things recorded and they’re all going to be erased on January 1st, regardless of whether she’s watched all of them or not. That’s just the way things work in the Bowman household. Will she manage to watch everything before the year ends? Keep checking here to find out! Anyway, she recorded 2017’s Nightmare Nanny off of the Lifetime Movie Network on June 16th.)

If there’s anything that I’ve learned from watching Lifetime movies, it’s that anyone who actually wants to spend time with children (especially babies) is a fucking psycho.

Seriously, I’ve lost track of the number of Lifetime films that have dealt with a crazy babysitter, nanny, teacher, step-parent, foster child, or an obsessed neighbor. They all tend to start out the same way, with a large and tastefully decorated house. Inside the house, a woman thinks that she can have it all: a career, a family, and an outspoken, take-no-bullshit best friend who likes to drink wine. Sometimes, the woman is a single mother. If she’s divorced or separated, her husband is still not quite out of the picture. If she’s widowed, then she still has to deal with a pushy in-law who doesn’t think that she’s spending enough time at home. If she’s still married, her husband is a jerk who spends all of his time at the office with his attractive administrative assistant.

Married, divorced, or widowed, she has at least two children to take care of. It’s not easy trying to balance it all. But then suddenly, someone shows up. Sometimes, it’s a neighbor who is just a little too friendly. Sometimes, it’s a nanny who has been hired because of “impeccable” (and forged) credentials. Whoever it is, they always say that they love children. They imagine it probably has something to do with their own dysfunctional childhood. They just want to find a place to belong. And so, this stranger is hired and entrusted with the safety of the household.

It’s always a mistake. No one is every truly helpful in a Lifetime movie and the more perfect someone seems to be, the more likely that person is going to turn out to be a raving psycho. Unfortunately, the characters in Lifetime movies appear to have never watched television. If they had, they would know better than to trust anyone who claims to love children.

Seriously, children are the worst.

Take Nanny Nightmare, for instance. Nanny Nightmare follows the formula without deviation and it’s hard not to feel that, if only Lauren (Erin Cahill) had watched a Lifetime movie or two, she could have avoided a lot of drama. She would have known that her husband (Brady Smith) was being framed when she found pictures of his half-naked assistant on his phone. She also would have known better than to trust her neighbor, Owen (Jake Manley), when he said that he loved children.

But she did trust him and, before you know it, Owen is installing spy cameras all over the house and trying to trick Lauren into falling in love with him. Owen has finally found a family and he’s determined to never let them go! (Hell. he’s even get a candle-lit altar that’s decorated with pictures of Lauren. That’s determination.)

As I said, it’s pretty much a standard Lifetime movie but I did like Jake Manley’s performance as Owen. I liked the fact that Owen was obviously psychotic and yet, no one seemed to notice. Even when he attacks the neighbor’s lawn mower with a baseball bat, no one seems to be particularly perturbed. Then again, isn’t that the way things usually work in real life? If you have to choose between asking someone if they’re crazy or just trying to ignore the weirdness all around you, most people will go for the latter option.

That’s one reason to keep an eye out for evidence of a psychotic disposition before you invite someone to come live in your house. Seriously, if anyone says that they enjoy being around children, get out of there.

Thank you, Lifetime, for reminding us to stay vigilant.