Tag Archives: Horror

Horror Film Review: The Wasp Woman (dir by Roger Corman)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Aging sucks!

I mean, let’s just be honest about that. No one wants to get older. No one wakes up in the morning and thinks to themselves, “Yay! I’m one day closer to death!” People do not celebrate the appearance of a wrinkle or a laugh line. No one is happy when their vision gets blurrier or when they start to ache more and more frequently. No one wants to get old! That’s a simple truth and it’s the truth that is at the heart of the 1958 film, The Wasp Woman.

Directed by B-movie maestro Roger Corman, The Wasp Woman tells the story of Janice Starlin (Susan Cabot). Janice owns a cosmetic company. She’s made a fortune helping people defy their age. Unfortunately, the company’s sales are down because Janice herself cannot defy the passage of time. She’s looking older and apparently, people across the world are saying, “Why would I buy makeup for a mortal? I only buy my makeup from ageless mythological goddesses, who never age.”

So, Janice does what anyone would do. She tries to find a way to stop herself from getting old. When she discovers that a scientist is experimenting with using the enzymes from the royal jelly of a queen wasp to reverse the aging process, she agrees to fund his work. However, she has one condition. She has to be the test subject …. which, now that I think about it, makes absolutely no sense. Surely Janice could hire someone else to be the test subject before undergoing a highly experimental and unproven scientific process herself. I mean, Janice is extremely wealthy! Or maybe Janice could just hire a model to be the new face of her company. Or she could retire and take her millions to Europe and spend the rest of her life living in luxury. My point is that it seems like Janice is acting a bit impulsively here.

Anyway, Dr. Eric Zinthrop (Michael Mark) reluctantly agrees to Janice’s demands. He really needs the money, I guess. And if Janice dies, it’ll just means that he’ll probably go to prison for life. He certainly won’t ever be allowed to experiment with any more wasps. Is anyone in this movie capable of thinking ahead?

At first, the experiments seem to work. After one weekend, Janice looks 20 years younger! However, there is an unfortunate side effect. Janice occasionally transforms into a wasp/human hybrid! Uh-oh! That’s not good….

Clocking in at barely 70 minutes, The Wasp Woman is an entertainingly daft movie. As I’ve already pointed out, this is one of those movies where so much drama could be avoided if people would just consider the possible consequences of their actions. That said, the pace is fast and Susan Cabot is enjoyably bitchy in the role of Janice. The Wasp Woman costume manages to be both ludicrous and effective at the same time. Laugh? Scream? Why not do both!?

In the end, this is a silly but entertaining movie. If nothing else, it proves that sometimes it’s best just to accept that no one stays young forever.

One final note: This film has a great poster, even if it is totally misleading.

Game Review: The Pool (2022, Jacob Reux)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

In The Pool, you are a socially awkward employee at a research facility that is investigating aquatic life.  You’re job is to keep the lights on.  As Dr. Chambers, the head of the facility, puts it, you “help to illuminate the world.”  But, at the end-of-the-month reception, you discover that there is something lurking in the facility’s pool and soon, the entire place is flooded with water and monsters.  You’ll have to figure out who you can trust as you try to escape the pool.

This is a choose-your-own-adventure Twine game.  One of my pet peeves when it comes to Interactive Fiction is that so many creators use Twine to create short stories where any choice you make inevitably leads to the same conclusion.  (Anyone who has played enough Twine game will experience the frustration of clicking on a choice, just to be told that your character has changed his mind and decided to go with the other option.)  That is why I am happy that the choices that you make in The Pool actually do make a difference.  Where you go during the reception and who you go with actually does effect the course of the game.  Because each decision also leads to different details about what is in the water, this is a game that rewards being replayed.  All in all, it’s a well-written slice of horror.

Play The Pool.

Horror Scenes that I Love: The Gas Station Attack From Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Now, in all honest, it’s not just The Birds that cause chaos in this scene from Alfred Hitchcock’s 1963 film of the same name.  I will never understand why that gentleman decided that he just had to light up a cigar at that particular time.  And if he had used a lighter instead of a match, he could have prevented a lot of trouble.

That said, you do have to respect the Birds for somehow knowing that he would do exactly that and therefore, making sure that the gasoline ended up right around his feet.  Those birds are clever!

Seriously, though, this scene really creeps me out.  I think it’s because there’s so many birds and, as this scene showed, there was absolutely no way the humans on that island were going to be able to win this particular battle.

8 Shots From 8 Horror Films: The Mid 60s

Posted on 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 the mid-60s!

8 Shots From 8 Horror Films: The Mid 60s

Black Sabbath (1963, dir by Mario Bava DP: Mario Bava)

The Birds (1963, dir by Alfred Hitchcock, DP: Robert Burks)

The Raven (1963, dir by Roger Corman, DP: Floyd Crosby)

The Evil of Frankenstein (1963, dir by Freddie Francis, DP: John Wilcox)

The Masque of the Red Death (1964, dir by Roger Corman, DP: Nicolas Roeg)

Blood and Black Lace (1964, dir by Mario Bava, DP: Mario Bava)

Planet of the Vampires (1965, dir by Mario Bava, DP: Antonio Rinaldi)

Rasputin The Mad Monk (1966, dir by Don Sharp, DP: Michael Reed)

Horror on the Lens: The Night Stalker (dir by John Llewelyn Moxey)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

For today’s horror on the lens, we have a real treat!  (We’ll get to the tricks later…)

Long before he achieved holiday immortality by playing the father in A Christmas Story, Darren McGavin played journalist Carl Kolchak in the 1972 made-for-TV movie, The Night Stalker.  Kolchak is investigating a series of murders in Las Vegas, all of which involve victims being drained of their blood.  Kolchak thinks that the murderer might be a vampire.  Everyone else thinks that he’s crazy.

When this movie first aired, it was the highest rated made-for-TV movie of all time.  Eventually, it led to a weekly TV series in which Kolchak investigated various paranormal happenings.  Though the TV series did not last long, it’s still regularly cited as one of the most influential shows ever made.

Anyway, The Night Stalker is an effective little vampire movie and Darren McGavin gives a great performance as Carl Kolchak.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Her Black Wings by Danzig (1990, directed by Glenn Danzig and Victor Giordano)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

It’s October so I had to find room for some Danzig.  This song appeared on Danzig’s second album, Lucifuge and it features this band at their best.  In 1990, this was the type of music that caused the nation’s moral guardians to go into tizzy.  There were actual Congressional hearings!  Imagine your Congressman listening to Danzig and probably playing it backwards to look for hidden messages.

Emjoy!

Horror on TV: Ghost Story 1.6 “Alter Ego” (dir by David Lowell Rich)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

In tonight’s episode of Ghost Story, a sickly child is upset when he becomes to ill to continue going to school.  Luckily, his doppelganger shows up and starts going to school for him!  Unfortunately, it turns out that the doppelganger isn’t quite as benevolent as one might hope.

This episode co-stars Oscar-winner Helen Hayes and was co-written by Richard Matheson.  It originally aired on October 27th, 1972.

The TSL’s Horror Grindhouse: Food Of The Gods (dir by Bert I. Gordon)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Uh-oh! Something weird has bubbled up to the ground on an island near British Columbia and a farmer and his wife (played by John McLaim and Ida Lupino) foolishly decided to feed it to their farm animals! Soon, they’ve got giant chickens! And listen, that might sound like a good thing to some but I’ve spent enough time around farms to know that giant chickens are not a good thing! Seriously, normal-sized chickens are messy enough. Giant ones? I don’t even want to thinking about it.

Unfortunately, it’s not just the chickens that are eating the food. Rats are eating the food. Wasps are eating the food. All of the animals are turning into giants and now, they’re hunting humans! After his best friend is attacked and killed by giant wasp, a football player named Morgan (Marjoe Gortner) decides to investigate on his own. You would think that a football player would be busy preparing for his next game or something like that but no, not Morgan! Morgan’s determined to find out why there are giant animals off the coast of Canada.

Of course, Morgan isn’t the only one interested in the so-called Food of the Gods. There’s also Jack Bensington (Ralph Meeker), who owns a dog food company. Jack wants to sell the food. Why would Jack want to do that? Does he actually think that causing dogs to transform into giants who would undoubtedly try to kill their masters is somehow going to be good for his company’s reputation? Jack’s main motivation seems to be that he’s a businessman and, in this film’s moral universe, that automatically makes him one of the bad guys. But it seems like even an evil businessman would know better than to kill off all of his customers.

This 1976 film, which is loosely (very loosely) based on a novel by H.G. Wells, was directed by Bert I. Gordon and, if you think the plot sounds a little ludicrous …. well, it is. Nothing about the film really makes much sense but that’s kind of to expected from a Bert I. Gordon film. Gordon specialized in making films about giants destroying stuff. The films were never particularly good but Gordon obviously understood that American filmgoers love big things. Food of the Gods, as silly as it may be, apparently made a lot of money when it was first released.

Today, of course, it’s impossible to watch the film without noticing just how terrible the special effects are. Between the unconvincing use of super-imposed images and the obviously fake rats that are tossed at some of the actors, there’s not a single shot that doesn’t somehow look totally ridiculous. In fact, it’s all so silly and obviously done on the cheap that it becomes rather charming, or at least as charming as the superimposed image of giant wasp ever could possibly be. You have to admire the film’s determination to tell its story despite not having the resources to do so. As for the rest of the film, it’s dumb but it doesn’t take itself too seriously. If you’re specifically searching for a bad giant animal movie, The Food of the Gods is fun in its own goofy, nonsensical, low-budget way.

Creepozoids (1987, directed by David DeCoteau)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

In 1992, society collapses due to a nuclear war.  In 1998, a group of army deserters are looking for a place to hide from the authorities when they come across an underground bunker in Los Angeles.  The bunker was once home to a research lab.  Even though all of the scientists are dead, the monster that they created is not and soon, the deserters are fighting for their lives, battling not just the monster but also giant rats.

Creepozoids is a low-budget Alien rip-off.  It’s actually a little incredible just how closely Creepozoids copies Alien, right down to a monster that can spit acid and a scene where someone has a fatal seizure while eating dinner.  The monster itself is not badly realized but the giant rats are obviously just stuffed animals that are being tossed on the cast by crew members standing off-camera.  Though the film takes place in what was then the “near future,” it’s an 80s production all the way through.  The top secret government lab as a bulky computer that only one of the deserters knows how to use.  The secrets to genetic modification are stored on a 8-inch floppy disk.  Most 80s and 90s kids will get nostalgic watching this movie.

One of the deserters is played by Linnea Quigley, which is the main reason why Creepozoids retains a cult following.  While the rest of the deserters want to search the bunker and look for supplies, Linnea’s main concern is trying out the facility’s shower.  (Good news, it works!)  Linnea Quigley appeared in many bad films but she always brought a lot of sincerity and good humor to her performances.  In Creepozoids she gamely wrestles with a stuffed rat and proves herself to be one of the best screamers of the 80s DTV horror industry.  The rest of the cast is interchangeable but, as always, Linnea earns her screen queen crown.

Creepozoids is a lesser imitation of Alien but, seen today, it benefits from nostalgia.  I can still remember Creepozoids showing up on Cinemax, late at night and with a warning that the movie featured not only adult language but also nudity and violence.  (Was anyone ever dissuaded by the Cinemax content warnings?)  This is one of the B-movies that made being an 90s kid fun!