Horror Film Review: Waxwork (dir by Anthony Hickox)

Posted on October 3, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

First released in 1988, Waxwork asks the audience with a very important question.

Let’s say that you and your best friend were walking to school one day when you suddenly noticed a gigantic mansion that you had never seen before, sitting in the middle of your neighborhood. And what if a tall, somewhat sinister Englishman (played by David Warner, none the less) suddenly appeared out of nowhere and told you that the mansion was actually a waxwork. And what if that Englishman than invited you to come to the waxwork at midnight and specifically asked you to come in a group of 6. Would you do it?

Now, I know that your first instinct is to say, “Of course, I wouldn’t!” That’s the type of answer that we’ve been conditioned to give because no one wants to admit that they can be as dumb as a character in a horror movie. But really, I would go. Especially if, like the characters in Waxwork, I was a teenager. (Actually, most of the characters in Waxwork are described as being college students but they all act like high school students and their college appears to be a high school so draw your own conclusions.) When you’re a certain age, you feel like you’re immortal and an invitation to hang out in a creepy building with a bunch of strangers at midnight feels totally reasonable.

Anyway, four rich kids — Mark (Zach Galligan), China (Michelle Johnson), Sarah (Deborah Foreman), and Tony (Dana Ashbrook, a year before he was cast as Laura Palmer’s boyfriend in Twin Peaks) — visit the waxwork at midnight. What they discover is that the building is full of macabre exhibits that recreate various moments from horror history. There’s werewolves, vampires, and Jack the Ripper. There’s also the Marquis de Sade, a figure that the seemingly innocent Sarah becomes fascinated with. And, as two of the visitors discover, stepping past the red rope and entering an exhibit transports them into an alternate world where they become the victim of the star of each display.

Not surprisingly, the film is at its best when imagining the world inside each exhibit. Each exhibit has its own backstory and its own set of guest stars. John Rhys-Davies shows up as a werewolf. Miles O’Keeffe is a properly urbane Count Dracula. J. Kenneth Campbell plays the Marquis de Sade, who the film imagines as a swashbuckling sadist. That said, I think the most effectively frightening exhibit was one that featured no special guest stars but a very determined and very strong mummy.

What’s going on at the waxwork!? As explained by Sir Wilfred (Patrick Macnee, bringing some welcome wit and style to the film), it’s all a part of a scheme to bring the most evil beings ever back into existence so that they can conquer the world. It’s important that none of the waxworks be allowed to enter the real world and soon, Sir Wilfred and his ragtag army are laying siege to the waxwork and bringing things to an apocalyptic conclusion. The final battle is a bit haphazardly edited and it’s impossible to really keep track of who is fighting on which side. (Indeed, I’m still not sure where Sir Wilfred even found his army.) But it does feature plenty of in-jokes for horror fans, including a cameo appearance by the carnivorous plant from Little Shop of Horrors.

Waxwork is entertaining film. It doesn’t take itself particularly seriously and, indeed, Mark, China, Sarah, Tony, and all of their friends feel as if they could just as easily have been found in the pages of a Bret Easton Ellis novel about pretty but vapid alcoholics. Mark is the type who gets his maid to write his term papers. Tony just wants to drink (but, because he’s played by the adorable Dana Ashbrook, he’s still the most likable character in the film). China says, “I do what I want, when I want,” when confronted about cheating on her boyfriend. Sarah is the “innocent” one but just seeing the words “Marquis de Sade” causes her to swoon. Dropping these four idiots into a situation where the fate of the world is at stake feels like a wonderfully sardonic cosmic joke.

In the end, the true pleasure of Waxwork is watching old pros like David Warner, Patrick Macnee, and the exhibit guest stars hamming it up. Macnee, in particular, seems to enjoy leading the final charge against the forces of evil and, indeed, it’s hard not to wish that he had even more screen time than he did. David Warner, meanwhile, rolls his eyes at just how difficult it can be to bring the 18 most evil figure in history back to life. It’s hard work but I guess someone has to do it!

Horror Film Review: The Invisible Man Returns (dir by Joe May)

Posted on October 3, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

1940’s The Invisible Man Returns opens with Sir Geoffrey Radcliffe (Vincent Price) sitting on Death Row. Convicted of the murder of his brother, Radcliffe is due to soon be executed. Radcliffe claims that he was framed and his girlfriend, Helen Manson (Nan Grey), has spent the past week of her life begging for someone to order a stay on the execution. However, with the home secretary out of the country, there is no hope of a reprieve.

Dr. Frank Griffin (John Sutton), brother of the original Invisible Man, visits Radcliffe in prison and gives him the same serum that his brother previously developed. Now invisible, Radcliffe is able to escape from the prison. Radcliffe is determined to prove his innocence but Dr. Griffin is more concerned with developing a way to reverse the serum’s effects before Radcliffe is driven insane, just as the original Invisible Man was. Radcliffe becomes convinced that his brother was murdered by their cousin, Ricard Cobb (Sir Cedric Hardwicke) but is Radcliffe correct or is the serum just making him paranoid? With Inspector Sampson (Cecil Kellaway) searching for Radcliffe and fully aware of what effects the serum are going to have on his mind, can Radcliffe clear his name before he loses his sanity?

The Invisible Man Returns went into production after the success of Son of Frankenstein proved that there was a market for sequels to previously successful horror films. (Yes, there was a time when sequels were not an automatic thing.) This was also one of the first horror films in which Vincent Price made an appearance. (Today, we’re so used to the image of Vincent Price as a somewhat campy horror icon that it’s easy to forget that he originally started his career as a romantic leading man and was even seriously considered for the role of Ashley Wilkes in Gone With The Wind.) As he spends the majority of the film wearing the same tight bandages that hid Claude Rain in the first film, Price’s actual face is only visible for slightly less than a minute and, without his famous mustache, it’s actually rather difficult to recognize him. That said, there’s no mistaking Price’s voice, heard as the invisible Radcliffe bitterly complains about everything from a barking dog to other people’s doubts about Cobb being the murderer. While this film does find Price in a slightly more subtle mood than many of us horror fans are used to, it still features plenty of hints of what the future would hold.

I enjoyed The Invisible Man Returns, which featured some witty invisibility sequences (watch invisible Vincent Price toss off those clothes!) and also managed to take the story’s violence about as far as it could without violating the production code. While it’s always a pleasure to watch any film featuring Vincent Price, I also liked the performance of Cecil Kellaway, who played the inspector as being the epitome of the the upstanding but dryly humorous British policeman. One gets the feeling that absolutely nothing could ever take the Inspector by surprise …. not even an Invisible Man!

Previous Universal Horror Reviews:

Horror on the Lens: The Unknown (dir by Tod Browning)

Posted on October 3, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

First released in 1927, The Unknown tells the story of circus performer Alonzo the Armless (Lon Chaney, Sr.). As you might guess from his name, everyone thinks that Alonzo is armless. Of course, he’s not. He’s just a contortionist who pretends to have no arms. People thinking that he has no arms gives him the perfect alibi whenever he has to strangle someone.

However, Alonzo has fallen in love with Nanon (Joan Crawford), his beautiful circus assistant. Unfortunately, Malabar the Mighty (Norman Kerry) is also in love with her and there’s no way that Alonzo could allow her to get too close because then she might discover that he not only has arms but that his hand has an unusual deformity that would identify Alonzo as the man who strangled Nanon’s father.

Alonzo’s solution? Maybe he could just get someone to amputate his arms for real! But will that be enough for him to win Nanon away from Malbar? Or will he pursue an even more macabre plan to get Malabar out of the picture?

The Unknown was, for years, considered to be a lost film. In 1968, a 49-minute print of the film was found in France. That’s the version that I’m sharing here. Reportedly, several early scenes were missing but those scenes were not important to the overall story. Even in truncucated form, The Unknown is a wonderfully surreal and atmospheric film and it’s widely considered to be the best of Tod Browning and Lon Chaney’s collaborations. Since this film was made in the age before CGI, whenever Alonzo hides his arms, Chaney was having to do the same thing. This is one of Chaney’s best performances. Alonzo is both frightening and rather sad in his way. Having won the role over Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford was 18 when she played Nanon.

Enjoy!

Artwork of the Day: An Old Friend of the Family (by Joe DeVito)

Posted on October 3, 2023 by Dazzling Erin

by Joe DeVito

A very old friend indeed. This is from 1987.

Music Video of the Day: Push It by Garbage (1998, directed by Andrea Giacobbe)

Posted on October 3, 2023 by Jedadiah Leland

Push It was the lead single off of Garbage’s second studio album, Version 2.0. The video was directed by an Italian photographer named Andrea Giacobbe, who was selected after the band saw and was impressed by his video for Death in Vegas’s Dirt. Though Shirley Manson said that the songs lyrics were intentionally meant to be surreal and that the song was about, “the schizophrenia that exists when you try to reconcile your desires and demons with the need to fit in,” even the band was surprised by the bizarre storyboards that Giacobbe prepared for the video.

What’s happening in the video is definitely open to interpretation, as the action goes from three nuns assassinating Shirley Manson’s rotoscoped “partner” to Manson living in the suburbs with a man who has a light bulb for a head. Demonic children and aliens also make an appearance. In the end, the video feels like a throwback to the early days of MTV, when it was more important to be weird and challenging than to craft your image for the adolescent Total Request Live crowd. It certainly feels as if it’s taking place in a separate universe than the one where MTV is now the exclusive property of Rob Dyrdeck.

What does it all mean? It doesn’t really matter.

Enjoy!

Horror on TV: The Hitchhiker 4.2 “Minuteman” (dir by Chris Thomson)

Posted on October 2, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

For tonight’s episode of The Hitchhiker, our narrator (played by Page Fletcher) takes a look at Jeremy (John Shea) and Julie (Alexandra Paul).

Jeremy and Julie are a couple who are taking a road trip and whose relationship is strained due to Jeremy’s obsession with organization and control. However, when Jeremy and Julie meet two people that Jeremy can’t control — a biker (Dean Hallo) and his pregnant girlfriend (Nancy Isaak) — Jeremy finds himself taking a trip through time and learning a lesson about letting go.

This episode features good performances from John Shea, Alexandra Paul, Dean Hallo, and Nancy Isaak and it also features the Hitchhiker offering up some memorably judgmental commentary. The Hitchhiker is apparently not a fan of control freaks. I’m not really a fan of control freaks either but there’s nothing wrong with having a to-do list to help guide you through your day.

This episode originally aired on February 24th, 1987.

October Hacks: Madman (Dir by Joe Giannone)

Posted on October 2, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

First released in 1982, Madman takes place on the last night of camp.

Max (Carl Fredericks), the jovial and beloved owner of the camp takes his senior counselors and his campers on one last outdoor adventure. As they sit around the campfire, he tells them the story of a farmer named Marz who, years before, went crazy and hacked up his family with an axe. The local townspeople attempted to hang Marz but somehow, he escaped from the noose and disappeared into the wilderness, along with the bodies of all of his victims. The locals say that Madman Marz is still out there in the wilderness, waiting for someone to shout his name so that he can return to life and kill again. Max tells his campers that it’s very important that they only whisper the name of Madmam Marz.

“MADMAN MARZ!” Richie (Jimmy Steele), one of the campers, shouts.

Everyone tells Richie not to shout his name so Richie shouts it again.

Max announces that it’s time to return to camp. He specifically tells none of the campers to deviate from the path back to the camp. He tells everyone to follow their counselor. He makes the directions very specific and clear.

So, of course, Richie decides to wander off by himself. As he wanders through the wilderness, he comes across Madman Marz’s old cabin and he breaks a window….

Now, if you’ve ever seen a slasher film before, you are probably expecting Richie to be the first victim of rejuvenated Madman Marz. Well, you would be incorrect. In fact, Richie turns out to be a bit of a Karma Houdini because, while Madman Marz does return with his axe, he never actually goes after Richie. Instead, Madman Marz just stalks the various counselors who go into the woods in search of Richie. Don’t get me wrong. Richie is definitely a bit traumatized by what he sees inside of Madman Marz’s cabin. But it’s still hard not to feel that Richie got off pretty easy when compared to everyone else.

But that’s really what makes Madman a superior slasher film. It defies our expectations when it comes to who dies and who doesn’t. Though it was obviously inspired by the camp-centric horror of Friday the 13th, Madman isn’t afraid to break the rules of the genre. It’s one of the rare slashers where it feels like anyone could fall victim to the killer depending on how their luck goes that night. As opposed to slashers where it sometimes seems that the victims are being punished for having sex or doing drugs or going against the rules of society, the victims in Madman tend to just be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Marz doesn’t really have a complicated motivation. He’s a madman and he’s so ruthless and relentless that he becomes a genuinely frightening monster.

Madman Marz is not only genuinely frightening but so is the film featuring him. Madman was a low-budget, non-union production, with the majority of the cast and crew credited under pseudonyms. (Dawn of the Dead‘s Gaylen Ross, who appears as one of the counselors, is credited as Alexis Dubin.) But that low budget does prevent Madman from being an atmospheric and suspenseful slasher film, one that will not only inspire nightmares but also probably cure most people of any desire to go camping.

The TSL Horror Grindhouse: I Dismember Mama (dir by Paul Leder)

Posted on October 2, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Ugh. It’s hard for me to think of any film that left me feeling as icky as the 1972 film, I Dismember Mama. Seriously, who would have guessed that a film with a title like I Dismember Mama would be disturbing and offensive?

Zooey Hall stars as Albert, a puritanical young man who idealizes the Victoria Age, when “men were gentlemen and women were pure.” Albert has tried to murder his rich mother three times for being “a whore,” and he’s now living in a minimum security mental hospital where he spends his time watching pornographic movies. When Albert escapes from the mental hospital, he heads straight to his mother’s house. His mother isn’t there but Alice (Marlene Tracy), the maid, is. After raping and murdering Alice, Albert heads down to the living room where he meets Alice’s 9 year-old daughter, Annie (Geri Reischl, who would later take on the role of Fake Jan on the Brady Bunch Variety Hour). Albert doesn’t know Annie but Annie instantly recognizes Albert from the pictures that his mom has up around the house.

Suddenly enchanted by Annie and her innocence, Albert lies and tells Annie that Alice has been taken ill and had to go see a doctor but she asked Albert to keep an eye on Annie until she got back. (Is there a reason why everyone’s name starts with an A? My ADD is going crazy just trying to type this up.) Albert then takes Annie for a ride around town, telling her about how much he loves the Victoria era and eventually checking into a motel with her. (Ewwwwww!) When Albert murders a woman that he picked up at a bar, Annie runs away from the hotel and Albert, suddenly convinced that Annie is now a harlot, chases after her. It all leads to a properly violent conclusion. Say what you will about the film but the final five minutes make great use of slo mo of doom as Albert and Annie run through a mannequin factory in slow motion.

My favorite character in this film was the police detective played by Greg Mullavey. When Albert’s liberal doctor (Frank Whiteman) argues that even Albert can be cured with the right amount of treatment, the detective just smirks and complains about how his tax dollars are being used “to baby murderers.” Normally, I would argue that the doctor has a point but Albert is such a creep and his fixation on Alice is so disturbing that I was totally on the Detective’s side. Whether he could be cured or not, Albert deserved a bullet in the head.

It’s a competently-made and well-acted film and Zooey Hall deserves a lot of credit for making Albert into an all-too plausible madman. It’s also a thoroughly icky film, the type of film the features flashbacks to scenes of rape and violence that occurred mere minutes before. This is one of those grimy films that leaves the viewer feeling as if they’re going to need to take multiple showers after watching.

The film is today is best remembered for the gimmicks that were used to promote it. Theater patrons were given an upchuck cup, in case the film proved to be too intense for them. And, of course, the film’s famous trailer featured people who had been driven insane by watching the film.

Director Paul Leder and Greg Mullavey would reunite for another grindhouse horror film, My Friends Need Killing. Look for my review of that film tomorrow!

Murderbot (2023, directed by Jim Wynorski)

Posted on October 2, 2023 by Jedadiah Leland

“Blow harder!”

— Val (Lauren Parkinson) in Murderbot

In a remote army base, three busty scientists create a busty robot named Raquel (Melissa Brasselle). General Griffin (Arthur Sellers) is impressed that Raquel has mastered all forms of combat but he is not happy by her dominatrix outfit because, according to him, America’s enemies don’t fear cleavage.

One night, while the scientists all have hot dates, Raquel escapes from the base and goes to a nearly deserted desert town, where she kills a leering gas station attendant and a busty diner owner. Meanwhile, a group of busty teenagers and their boyfriends run out of gas while driving through town and find themselves being stalked by Raquel.

This is a Jim Wynorski film so you know what you’re going to get, a lot of cleavage (though, for once, no actual nudity), a splattering of blood, and some deliberately corny humor that is sometimes self-aware enough to be funny. Murderbot was originally named Killbot, a reference to Wynorski’s first film, Chopping Mall. Murderbot even duplicates that film’s famous exploding head scene, though it’s the entire body that explodes this time.

This is pretty dumb but Wynorski fans should be happy. Even though no one will be watching this movie for the acting, I actually did like the performances of Walker Mintz and Sylvia Thackery, playing respectively a trumpet player and the girl that he likes. As Raquel, Melissa Brasselle is no Arnold Schwarzenegger but she still handles dreadful one-liners like “You’ve been deleted,” with enough aplomb to make them tolerable.

Murderbot is proof that, no matter how much things change, Jim Wynorski will always by Jim Wynorksi.

Horror Scenes That I Love: Linda Blair In The Exorcist II: The Heretic

Posted on October 2, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today’s horror scene that I love features Linda Blair in 1977’s The Exorcist II: The Heretic, the sequel to the film for which she received an Oscar nomination.

Linda Blair was only 13 when she was cast a Regan McNeil, the girl who is possessed by a demon in The Exorcist. She was nominated for Best Supporting Actress, only losing the award after it was revealed that Mercedes McCambridge had dubbed Blair for the scenes in which she was possessed. Blair has gone on to have a long career, appearing in movies that may not have been as honored by the Academy as The Exorcist was but which are still often very entertaining when taken on their own terms.

In The Exorcist II, Blair returned to the role of Regan. Now in her late teens, Regan says that she can’t remember anything about being possessed. Father Philip Lamont (Richard Burton) and Dr. Gene Tuskin (Louise Fletcher) think that Regan is repressing her memories and, in this scene …. well, I don’t really know how to describe this scene. Seriously, The Exorcist II is such a strange movie! Basically, Dr. Tuskin has a hypnosis machine while allows people to link minds. Dr. Tuskin links with Regan’s mind and then Lamont links with Tuskin’s mind. It’s all incredibly silly but it does allow for this scene in which “good Regan” shares the screen with “possessed Regan.”

Here is a weird scene from a weird movie, featuring a total of four Oscar-nominated performers. (For the record, Burton was nominated multiple times and, the same year he appeared in this film, he also appeared in Equus, for which he received his final nomination. Louise Fletcher won for One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. Max von Sydow would later be nominated for Pelle the Conqueror and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. And, of course, Linda Blair was nominated for The Exorcist.)