Tag Archives: Horror

Horror Film Review: I Walked With A Zombie (dir by Jacques Tourneur)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1943 horror film I Walked With A Zombie tells a zombie story that would probably seem strange to modern zombie fans. There’s no cannibalism. There’s no feasting on brains. There’s no talk about how the only way to stop a zombie is to shoot them in the head. In fact, the zombies in I Walked With A Zombie may be referred to as being the “living dead” but they’re not actually dead. Instead, if anything, they’ve been cursed. Maybe they’re possessed. Maybe they’ve been brainwashed. Maybe they’re lobotomized. Who can say for sure?

Instead of being the type of zombies that were made famous by George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead, the zombies in I Walked With A Zombie hew closer to the zombies of Haitian legend. These zombies suffer from a sort of mental paralysis. Unable to think for themselves, they wander about in a sort of permanent limbo, trapped between life and death and under control of the voodoo priests who transformed them.

This moody and, at time, rather dream-like film deals with Besty Connell (Frances Dee), a Canadian nurse who has been hired by Paul Holland (Tom Conway), who owns a sugar plantation on a Caribbean island. Paul’s wife, Jessica (Christine Gordon) has apparently been taken ill and, as a result, is behaving strangely. Often, she wanders about with a glazed look in her eyes, almost as if she’s trapped in a sort of dream-state. Paul believes that it’s the result of the severe fever that Jessica previously suffered with. The locals, meanwhile, gossip that, right before Jessica was taken ill, she was having an affair with Paul’s alcoholic half-brother, Wesley (James Ellison). Betsy’s attempts to care for Jessica and understand her condition will lead to Betsy exploring not only the island’s voodoo culture but also …. walking with a zombie!

I Walked With A Zombie is a deliberately paced film, one that focuses more on creating and maintaining an ominous mood than on going for the type of jump scares that we’ve come to expect from most horror movies. I Walked With A Zombie is all about atmosphere and ambiguity. Indeed, it’s never determined for certain whether or not Jessica’s condition is due to a voodoo curse or if perhaps it really is just due to her earlier fever. It’s left to the audience to decide.

Directed by Jacques Tourneur and produced by Val Lewton (the same time team behind the original Cat People), I Walked With A Zombie is an effective and well-acted film, one that also features some gorgeous black-and-white cinematography and an interesting subtext about colonialism. (Upon arriving on the island, Betsy discovers that the Holland family made their fortune through the slave trade and that they still have the figurehead of an old slave ship displayed in their courtyard.) It may not be frightening by today’s standards but it is still a thought-provoking film and one that should be seen by anyone who is a serious zombie fan.

Live Tweet Alert: Watch The Collector with #ScarySocial

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in a few weekly live tweets on twitter.  I host #FridayNightFlix every Friday, I co-host #ScarySocial on Saturday, and I am one of the five hosts of #MondayActionMovie!  Every week, we get together.  We watch a movie.  We tweet our way through it.

Tonight, for #ScarySocial, ArtAttackNYC will be hosting 2009’s The Collector!

Not to be confused with William Wyler’s classic film, 2009’s The Collector is about a serial killer doing serial killer things.

If you want to join us on Saturday night, just hop onto twitter, start the film at 9 pm et, and use the #ScarySocial hashtag!  The film is available on Prime.  I’ll be there co-hosting and I imagine some other members of the TSL Crew will be there as well.  It’s a friendly group and welcoming of newcomers so don’t be shy.

Horror On The Lens: Monstroid: It Came From The Lake (dir by Kenneth Hartford)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Monster_aka_-Monstroid,_It_Came_from_the_Lake-_poster_1980

Today, we have a little indie film from 1980.  This film was released under several names, including Monster.  However, I prefer the title under which it has been included in several Mill Creek box sets: Monstroid: It Came From The Lake!

Monstroid tells the story of what happens when a monster emerges from a lake and starts killing people in Columbia.  Superstitious villagers blame a local woman whom they believe to be a witch.  Even though the town priest (and no horror fan should be surprised to discover that the priest is played by John Carradine) claims that he can exorcise the evil spirits that have possessed her, the villagers would rather burn her at the stake.  Meanwhile, the local Big Evil Corporation has sent in Travis (James Mitchum) to take care of the monster!

And what a monster!  Listen, there’s a lot of negative things that I could say about this low-budget film but the monster is simply adorable and must be seen by anyone who appreciates the rubber monsters that populated horror films in the days before CGI.

Plus, how can you resist a film that features not only Robert Mitchum’s son but John Carradine as well?

Enjoy Monstroid: It Came From The Lake!

Music Video of the Day: Numb by Pet Shop Boys (2006, directed by Julian Gibbs and Chris Sayer)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

According to the band, the music video for Numb was meant to be an homage to Russian constructivist cinema and the video does have the look of the old propaganda films that were put into production during the early days of the Soviet Union.  The video also begins with what appears to be the sinking of the Titanic before moving onto all of the other tragedies that occurred around the same time.  It may not be a “Halloween song” but the video does have a horror aesthetic.

Numb, itself, is a song that was often played whenever the UK was dealing with a tragedy, like being eliminated from the World Cup.

Enjoy!

Horror On TV: Circle of Fear 1.14 “Death’s Head” (dir by James Nielson)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Circle of Fear!?

What happened to Ghost Story!?

Fear not, they’re the same show.  Apparently, Ghost Story was struggling in the ratings so William Castle changed up both the show’s format and the title.  Ghost Story became Circle of Fear and, sadly, Sebastian Cabot was dumped as the show’s host.

The first episode of the new Circle of Fear era featured Janet Leigh as the wife of a man who loves insects.  Unfortunately for him, Leigh hates insects.  This, along with an adulterous affair, can only lead to murder and that, of course, can only lead to the moths coming for revenge.

That may sounds silly but let me tell you, I totally agree with Janet Leigh when it comes to moths.  If you want to see me run out of a room, just point out that there’s a moth flying around.  Agck!

This episode originally aired on January 5th, 1973.

The TSL’s Horror Grindhouse: Planet of the Dinosaurs (dir by James Shea)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

This 1977 film begins with a bunch of goofy-looking astronauts crash-landing on a desert planet. After their spaceship slowly sinks into a lake, the astronauts try to set up camp so that they can wait to be rescued. Unfortunately for them, there’s some dinosaurs living on the planet and the astronauts soon find themselves being stalked by prehistoric predators!

Now, it’s true that I said that this was unfortunate for the astronauts. However, it’s very fortunate for us the viewers because the dinosaurs are a hundred times more adorable than the astronauts.  Indeed, the astronauts tend to be out-of-shape and the men have made some truly unfortunate hair decisions.  The female astronauts, meanwhile, all seems as if they should be posing in front of a car at an auto show.  Everyone delivers their lines with a good deal of forced drama, destroying the myth of the calm and cool astronaut.  Sorry, Tom Wolfe, but there’s no right stuff to be found amongst this crew. Again, we are fortunate that this is one of those low-budget sci-fi films that made use of model dinosaurs and stop motion animation.  There’s something just undeniably fun about watching a bunch of hammy, unknown actors pretend to be terrified of what appears to be a child’s toy. (The most menacing of the dinosaurs is a dead ringer for the dinosaur from the Toy Story films.) Planet of the Dinosaurs is a deeply silly movie but, if you’re a fan of dinosaurs and old timey special effects, you’ll find a lot to enjoy. Just don’t make the mistake of taking anything about it seriously. Of course, the fact that the majority of the astronauts look like they should be dancing under a disco ball instead of exploring space will probably ensure that you stop taking the film seriously long before even the first dinosaur shows up.

In fact, my only real complaint about this film is that there simply aren’t enough dinosaurs. Yes, there’s a T-Rex. And yes, there’s that one-horned dinosaur that looks like a really dangerous armadillo. There’s a few other dinosaurs as well but, to be honest, I feel like a Planet of the Dinosaurs should just be crawling with them. Instead, it appears that there were only six or seven dinosaurs on this planet.  I guess it’s possible that there could have been more dinosaurs on the other side of the planet but still, the planet seemed to be pretty sparsely populated.  Maybe the other dinosaurs were hibernating.

Now, you might be wondering how all these dinosaurs showed up on the planet. Early on, one of the astronauts establishes that the planet is on the same “evolutionary track” as Earth, it’s just several years behind. So, apparently, there are dinosaurs on every Earth-like planet. I guess that’s fine but I was hoping for a Planet of the Apes-style reveal, with the Statue of Liberty or some other monument suddenly showing up. A planet where dinosaurs evolved from men? That would have made the movie a true classic!

Even without the Statue of Liberty, Planet of the Dinosaurs is fun. Silly, but fun.

A Blast From The Past: The Vanishing Lady (dir by Georges Méliès)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

In this short film from 1896, Georges Méliès shows off not one magic trick but actually four.  He makes a woman disappear.  He makes a skeleton appear.  Then he makes the skeleton disappear and then he brings the vanishing lady back.  Today, of course, we all know how these tricks were done but just imagine how audiences in 1896, many of whom were still amazed that movies could exist at all, would have reacted to this short film.  This film provides a look into a simpler and more innocent time.  Watching this film, I found myself wishing that I could feel the wonder at a movie that someone in 1896 would have.  Sadly, audiences are far more jaded today.

Personally, I liked that both Méliès and the Vanishing Lady stepped back onstage to take a little bow.  Even in those early days of cinema, they understood the importance of connecting with the audience.

Game Review: Approaching Horde! (2022, Craig Ruddell)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Your nightly routine is interrupted by the zombie apocalypse!  With your wife and most of your neighbors now turned into denizens of the damned, it is up to you to manage a ragtag group of ten survivors and find a way to survive the end of the world.

Approaching Horde! is a resource management game where you assign each of the survivors in your group a specific task.  There’s a lot that need to be done and the more survivors that you assign to each task, the quicker it will be completed.  The problem is that if you assign too many people to one task, the other tasks won’t get done.  If you have too many people working on a zombie cure but not on growing food, the survivors will starve.  If you have too many people growing food but not working on a cure, your people will be well-fed but they’ll be eaten as soon as the zombie horde arrives.  Fortunately, you can send some of your people out to look for other survivors.  The more people you recruit into your camp, the quicker you can get things done.

It’s a challenge but that makes success all the more rewarding.  Fortunately, the game comes with adjustable difficulty settings.  I found the easiest setting to be pretty difficult but then I was played at the hardest setting and realized just how crazy the zombie apocalypse can get!  I enjoyed this game and, due to its format, it’s one that can be played over and over again.  Trying to survive the end of the world is certainly addictive!

Play Approaching Horde!

Scenes That I Love: The Job Interview From The Shining

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

I don’t care what Stephen King says.  Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of The Shining is great.

One of King’s big complaints about the film is that Jack is obviously unhinged from the start.  King is right that Jack Nicholson plays Jack Torrance as being someone who has a few screws loose even before he starts to work as the caretaker.  But it works for the film, as can be seen in this scene in which Stuart Ullman tells Jack about what happened to previous caretaker.

Incidentally, Barry Nelson’s performance as Ullman is seriously underrated.  Ullman is a far more interesting character in the movie than he was in King’s book.  For that matter, the same can be said of just about every character in the movie as opposed to the way King envisioned them in his novel.  Maybe that’s the main reason King doesn’t like this movie.  Kubrick understood King’s story better than King himself did.