Book Review: Haunted Places: The National Directory by Dennis William Hauck

Posted on October 18, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

As I’ve said before, you don’t necessarily have to believe in ghosts to have fun searching for them.

Myself, I don’t believe in Ghosts, UFOs, conspiracy theories, or Bigfoot. But I still enjoy reading about them and occasionally visiting the places where they’ve supposedly been spotted. In fact, I would say that being a skeptic makes it even more enjoyable to visit a haunted house. On the one hand, you would think that, because you don’t believe in ghosts, you wouldn’t be frightened about the possibility of running into one of them. However, from my own personal experience, I’ve found the opposite to be true. Haunted houses are even scarier when you don’t believe because you’ve always got that voice in the back of your head saying, “What if you’re wrong?”

Haunted Places: The National Directory is just what the title on the cover says it is. It’s a listing of places across the country that some believe to be haunted. Some of the places are said to be inhabited by ghosts. Some of the places are better known for the UFOs that have supposedly visited. Some places have been visited by Bigfoot. There’s a few lakes that are rumored to be home to underwater monsters. It makes for interesting reading and, like many paranormal directories, it’s a treasure trove of potential inspiration for the aspiring horror writer. The latest edition of the book as published in 2002 so don’t expect to find information of recent hauntings and some of the locations may have been torn down in the past twenty year. It happens. That said, Jeff and I used this book to plan a road trip a few years ago and we had a great time, even if we didn’t see any ghosts.

International Horror Film Review: En el Pozo (dir by Bernardo and Rafael Antonaccio)

Posted on October 18, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In this 2019 film from Uruguay, four people spend the day at a quarry. Needless to say, things don’t go well.

Alicia (Paula Silva) grew up in the small town of Suarez but she has since moved to the big city. When she returns to her home to visit her parents, she brings along her new boyfriend. Bruno (Augusto Gordillo) is well-educated and apparently wealthy. He’s not a fan of hunting. He finds fishing to be barbaric. He doesn’t think much of Alicia’s small town and it’s obvious, from the first minute that we see him, that he is eager to get back to the city. However, Alicia wants to spend the day at the water-filled quarry (“It’s as close to the beach as we get,” someone explains) with two of her old friends, Tincho (Rafael Beltran) and Tola (Luis Pazos). Tincho is Alicia’s ex-boyfriend and is obviously still in love with her. He gets the day off to an awkward start by telling her that he’s ready to abandon Suarez and join her in the city. Tola, meanwhile, is a cheerful joker. While Bruno and Tincho spend their timed trying to one-up each other, Tola is content to just smoke weed and drink beer. While Alicia tries to keep the peace, the tension between Tincho and Bruno continues to grow.

From the start, it’s obvious that at least one member of the group is going to eventually end up trying to kill the others. It’s just a question of who is going to snap first. The film tells its story with a deliberate pace, capturing each moment of growing tension. When Bruno kicks away Tincho’s soccer ball, we wonder, “Is this the moment that’s going drive Tincho to murder?” When Tincho taunts Bruno into risking serious injury by diving into the quarry, we again wonder if this is the moment that Bruno is going to finally lose it. Even Tola occasionally seems somewhat suspicious. I mean, no one can be that laid back! As women have done since the beginning of time, Alicia tries to keep the men from killing each other in their attempts to impress her with their displays of machismo. It takes a while but the inevitable violence does arrive and I have to say that I was actually a little surprised to see who instigated it.

En El Pozo (the name translates to In The Quarry) is a well-acted and tense film. One thing that works to the film’s advantage is that no one in the film is one-dimensional. None of them are perfect but none of them are totally evil. Bruno is correct when he says that Tincho is trying to bait him but, at the same time, Bruno is also a bit condescending to both Tincho and Alicia. Tincho may be an immature jerk but his feelings for Alicia are real. And while I sympathized and related to Alicia, I did have to wonder why she thought it would be a good idea to have her new boyfriend hang out with her ex-boyfriend in an isolated quarry. The violence erupts suddenly and the events that happen afterwards are as much a result of panic as they are of maliciousness. En El Pozo is well-acted and well-directed, with the atmosphere becoming progressively more claustrophobic as the tensions continue to rise. It all leads to appropriately dark and downbeat ending. Así es la vida.

8 Shots From 8 Horror Films: 1990 — 1993

Posted on October 18, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

4 Or More Shots From 4 Or More Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking!

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

Today, we take a look at 1990, 1991, 1992, and 1993!

8 Shots From 8 Horror Films: 1990 — 1993

Troll 2 (1990, dir by Claudio Fragasso, DP: Giancarlo Ferrando)

It (1990, dir by Tommy Lee Wallace, DP: Richard Lieterman)

Frankenstein Unbound (1990, dir by Roger Corman, DP: Armando Nannuzzi)

The People Under The Stairs (1991, dir by Wes Craven, DP: Sandi Sissel)

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992, dir by David Lynch, DP: Ron Garcia)

Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992, dir by Francis Ford Coppola, DP: Michael Ballhaus)

Witchboard 2: The Devil’s Doorway (1993, dir by Kevin S. Tenney, DP: David Lewis)

Cronos (1993, dir by Guillermo Del Toro, DP: Guillermo Navarro)

Horror Film Review: The Watcher (dir by Joe Charbanic)

Posted on October 18, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Released in 2000, The Watcher is one of those movies where a burned out FBI Agent finds himself locked in a game of cat-and-mouse with an overly verbose serial killer. The FBI agent doesn’t want to get involved and is struggling with a drug addiction. (It’s always either drugs or a wife who doesn’t feel like she knows him anymore.) The serial killer is surprisingly intelligent and well-spoken, despite the fact that most real-life serial killers are only a step or two away from blowing themselves up in a meth lab. Movies love the idea of a witty sociopath but it rarely happens in real life.

Anyway, you get the point. Probably just from reading the previous paragraph, you already know everything that happens in The Watcher. There’s not a single moment in this movie that will take you by surprise. In fact, this movie is so full of clichés that, when I watched it, I actually got mad at the film’s characters for not being able to figure out that they were all just characters in a predictable serial killer film. Seriously, if I woke up and discovered that I was only a character in a movie, I imagine that I would devote at least a few minutes to having an existential crisis. There is also a lot of random slow motion in this movie. The slow motion doesn’t create suspense or generate thrills or anything like that. It’s just kind of there.

Really, the only interesting thing about The Watcher is the cast. For a movie like this, it has a surprisingly good cast. James Spader plays the FBI agent. Marisa Tomei plays the agent’s therapist. (She’s also the only female character to have more than 10 lines in the entire movie. To be honest, it’s a role that anyone could have played but Tomei does her best with what she’s been given.) The serial killer, who is named David Allen Griffen because all serial killers have three names, is played by Keanu Reeves.

Keanu as a serial killer is strange casting. For the most part, Keanu’s appeal has always been that he comes across like someone who, to quote Mother Bates, wouldn’t hurt a fly. Keanu flashes his charming smile and speaks politely with his future victims and, at no point, does he make much of an effort to be a believable killer. Some of that may be because Keanu apparently didn’t want to do the film. Keanu has always said that one of his assistants forged his name on a contract, legally obligating Keanu to appear in this movie. That’s a strange story. When you hear it, you think to yourself, “This the type of thing that could only happen to Keanu Reeves.”

For more than Keanu, James Spader is convincing in his role. Spader spends the entire movie looking like 1) he’s going through massive drug withdrawal and 2) like he’s on the verge of losing his mind. So much of acting is expressed through the eyes and, throughout this movie, Spader’s eyes are bloodshot and exhausted. It’s a superior piece of acting and it’s hard not to feel that it’s probably more than this movie deserved.

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

Posted on October 18, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today’s Horror on the Lens is a classic film that really needs no introduction! Released in 1922, the German silent film Nosferatu remains one of the greatest vampire films ever made. It’s a film that we share every October and I’m happy to do so again this year!

Enjoy!

Artwork of the Day: Hellraiser (by Chris Kuchta)

Posted on October 18, 2022 by Dazzling Erin

by Chris Kuchta

That’s quite a gathering.

Horror on TV: Circle of Fear 1.17 “Doorway to Death” (dir by Daryl Duke)

Posted on October 17, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Tonight, on Circle of Fear, bratty Robert (played by Leif Garrett) discovers that an upstairs door in his family’s new apartment building leads to someplace very unexpected. His older sister, Peggy (Susan Dey), doesn’t believe him but she soon learns the error of her ways.

This episode is really creepy and atmospheric and I don’t want to spoil too much of it. It was written by Jimmy Sangster, who also did several Hammer films, and it was directed by Daryl Duke. To be honest, this episode reminds me of the episode of Lost where Jack stumbles across the ghosts of Ben’s parents outside of the cabin. It has a similar, dream-like feel to it.

The episode originally aired on January 26th, 1973.

The TSL’s Horror Grindhouse: Beyond The Time Barrier (dir by Edgar G. Ulmer)

Posted on October 17, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This 1960 film tells the story of Bill Allison (Robert Clarke), an air force test pilot who flies his test craft into space and then returns to discover that Earth has totally changed!

The Air Force base where he previously worked is now deserted and desolate. After he’s captured by a group of silent soldiers, Allison is taken to an underground city known as the Citadel. He meets the head of the city, an older man known as The Supreme (Vladimer Sokoloff). The Supreme explains that only he and his second-in-command, The Captain (Red Morgan), can speak and hear. The rest of humanity communicates through telepathy. Though the Supreme’s granddaughter, Princess Trirene (Darlene Tompkins), telepathically insists that Allison is not a threat, the Supreme and the Captain still exile him to live with a bunch of angry, bald mutants who are determined to destroy the city. Allison meets three other exiles and discovers that they too are time travelers. The scientists explains that Bill has found himself in the far future. The year is no longer 1960. No, the year is …. 2024!

OH MY GOD, WE’VE ONLY GOT TWO YEARS LEFT!

Actually, we’ve probably got less than two years left. This is October and the film appears to be taking place in the summer so we’ve probably only got 18 months to go!

(Cue Jennifer Lawrence: “We’re all gonna die!” Cue Leonardo Di Caprio: “I’m so scared!” Okay, tell them both to shut up now.)

Anyway, Allison assumes that society must have collapsed due to a global war but the scientists explain that the first manned spacetrip to the moon actually ushered in an era of peace. (Wow, how did I miss this?) In fact, humans had colonized the Moon, Mars, and Venus by 1970. (Woo hoo! Yay, humanity!) However, years of nuclear testing had weakened the Earth’s atmosphere and, in 1971, the planet was bombarded by cosmic rays. (Uh oh….) Humanity was forced to move into underground cities. Some of them developed telepathy and became super advanced. Others became bald mutants. Unfortunately, everyone is now sterile and the Supreme probably expects Allison to impregnate Trirene and do his part to repopulate the planet.

On the one hand, Allison and Trirene are falling in love. Allison is handsome and strong. Trirene has pretty hair and is the only citizen of the Citadel who gets to wear anything flattering. They’re a cute couple. On the other hand, if Allison sticks around the repopulate the planet, he’ll never be able to go back to his present and warn everyone about the upcoming cosmic ray plague. Plus, it soon becomes clear that the scientists have an agenda of their own. Allison finds himself torn between the two factions trying to control the Citadel.

Made for next to no money and filmed at Fair Park in Dallas, Beyond The Time Barrier is a surprisingly good film. It was directed by Edgar G. Ulmer, an Austrian director who started out as an associate of Fritz Lang’s and who followed Lang to the United States. Ulmer made films for the Poverty Row studios and he was a master of creating atmosphere on a budget. He was one of the pioneers of film noir and he brought that same style to his horror and sci-fi films. As envisioned by Ulmer in Beyond The Time Barrier, the future is full of menacing shadows, dangerous con artists, and untrustworthy authority figures. It’s a fatalistic film, one that ends on a surprisingly downbeat note. Even if Allison can save humanity, will it really be worth all the trouble? Much like Detour, Ulmer’s best-known film, Beyond The Time Barrier plays out like a deliberately-paced dream, full of surreal moments and ominous atmosphere.

Beyond The Time Barrier is available on YouTube and Prime. Watch it now before we have to go underground.

Great Moments In Comic Book History #29: A Vampire Stalks The Night

Posted on October 17, 2022 by Jedadiah Leland

Now that we are halfway to October, I decided to share my personal favorite cover from The Tomb of Dracula.

The Tomb of Dracula was a comic book that ran for 70 issues, from 1972 to 1979. It was published by Marvel and it’s generally considered to be one of the best of the horror comics. It was also the first comic book to feature the character of Blade, who was later brought to life by Wesley Snipes in one of the first successful films to be based on a Marvel comic.

I’m a Tomb of Dracula fan and a collector. I’ve got nearly every issue of Tomb of Dracula and it’s companion magazine, Dracula Lives. Below is my favorite cover:

Previous Great Moments In Comic Book History:

Great Moments In Television History #25: Vincent Price Meets The Muppets

Posted on October 17, 2022 by Jedadiah Leland

In 1977, during the 16th episode of The Muppet Show, Kermit The Frog got a chance to interview Vincent Price and show off his vampire moves. Later, no worse for wear, Vincent joined with the Muppets to sing a song.

I’m surprised that this episode was aired on January 16th, 1977 and not during October.

Here is the scene that lives forever in meme form: