This game starts off with a premise that anyone has ever had to rely on mass transit can relate to. You’re waiting for the #44 Bus so that you can ride it to the station where you have to catch your train. However, while you’re waiting, you get a notification telling you that your bus is running 40 minutes behind schedule!
Do you try to catch another bus? Do you try to catch a different train? Or do you just suck it up and wait for your bus to arrive? Choose carefully because the world is strange and who knows where all of these buses and trains could be going. I consistently failed to pick wisely and I ended up more lost than I was before.
There are 10 different endings that you can get at the end of this game, depending on which bus or train you decide to take. Among the endings I’ve gotten, I’ve found myself trapped in a train station and I’ve also entered into a strange parallel dimension. I have yet to actually get to where I needed to go. Anyone who has ever had to deal with MTA Maryland or tried to navigate the subways in New York or the Underground in London will be able to relate. It’s a universal game, one to which we can all relate and which everyone should be able to enjoy. We’ve all been there.
Since today is Klaus Kinksi’s birthday, it makes sense that he should be featured in today’s scene of the day. In this scene from Werner Herzog’s 1979 film, Nosferatu, Klaus Kinski and Bruno Ganz have dinner. Of course, in this scenario, Bruno Ganz is Jonathan Harker while Kinski is Dracula.
(In the original, silent Nosferatu, Harker’s name was changed to Thomas Hutter while Dracula was called Count Orlok. By the time Herzog shot his version, the characters were in the public domain and there was no longer any need to pretend that Nosferatu wasn’t an adaptation of Bram Stoker’s novel.)
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 lets the visuals do the talking!
94 years ago today, the infamous but incredibly talented Klaus Kisnki was born. Though Kinski appeared in many genres of film, he was an actor who seemed to be well-suited for horror films. Today, we honor that legacy with….
4 Shots From 4 Films
Aguirre The Wrath of God (1972, dir by Werner Herzog)
Nosferatu (1979, dir by Werner Herzog)
Crawlspace (1986, dir by David Schmoeller)
Nosferatu in Venice (1988, dir by Augusto Caminito and Klaus Kinski)
The original The House on Haunted Hill is a classic and one that we make it a point to share every Halloween. And since October is halfway over, now seems like the perfect time to do so!
The Empty Man is an upcoming horror film about a spirit that is vengeful because …. well, it’s empty, I guess. I mean, I guess that would make me angry too. No one wants to be shallow.
Anyway, here’s the trailer. How many clichés can you count?
The 17th episode of Baywatch Nights was called The Servant and it featured Mitch and Ryan fighting a mummy! Unfortunately, it’s also one of the few episodes to not be available on YouTube, or at least not in watchable form. (There’s a sped-up version where the image is so oddly cropped that it’s basically unwatchable but that’s about it.)
So, we’ll have to skip The Servant and instead move onto Symbol of Death which features an apparent alien abduction. If nothing else, this episode shows what a debt Baywatch Nights owed to The X-Files.
This episode originally aired on April 19th, 1997!
Basically, it tells the story of Christie Ryder (Lucinda Dickey), who appears to have everything that someone could want out of life. Not only does she have a really nice place to live but she also repairs phone lines for a living! (That might not sound glamorous but she lives in California, which means that there’s always a nice view when she’s working.) She also teaches an aerobics class because this film is from 1984 and, in 1984, everyone taught their own aerobics class. At least, that’s the impression that I’ve gotten from watching movies of the era.
Christie only has one problem. She’s been possessed. She hasn’t been possessed by any ordinary old demon, either. Instead, she’s been possessed by a dead ninja. Hanjuro (David Chung) came to America because there were some people on a golf course who needed to be killed. Unfortunately, no sooner had he killed everyone on the back 9 then he found himself surrounded by cops. It took a lot of bullets to take down Hanjuro but down he went. However, his spirit went up and entered Christie’s body.
Now, Christie spends her time teaching aerobics, working on phone lines, and murdering everyone who Hanjuro feels has wrong him. Hanjuro wants to kill all of the cops who shot him. Unfortunately, one of those cops, Billy Secord (Jordan Bennett), is now dating Christie. Once Billy finally figures out why Christie is acting so strangely, he takes her to an exorcist (James Hong) who explains that it’s going to take more than just an ordinary exorcism to defeat the ninja lurking within Christie. It’s going to require the help of another ninja, the noble Goro Yamada (Sho Kosugi). It’s time to go to Japan!
I may not be a huge ninja movie fan (unless, of course, they feature Franco Nero) but I have to say that I absolutely loved Ninja III. That really shouldn’t come as a surprise. This film is such an utterly weird mishmash of tones and genres that there’s no way that I couldn’t love it. It starts out as a typical kung fu film, just to suddenly turn into The Exorcist before then becoming Flashdance before returning to being The Exorcist. Finally, for the last few minutes of the film, it transforms back into a kung fu film. As I watched the film, I found myself thinking about all of the other films throughout history that could have been livened up by a demonic or spiritual possession subplot. For that matter, think about how much more crazy The Exorcist would have been if Father Karras and Father Merrin had been Ninja Karras and NInja Merrin.
Anyway, in all seriousness, Ninja III is exactly what an exploitation film should be. It’s unapologetically strange and over-the-top and it makes absolutely no apologies for being what it is. It’s a film that says, “I’m here to tell a story about a woman possessed by a dead ninja and if that’s not good enough for you, you need to figure out what’s wrong with your heart.” Ninja III is brilliant, wonderful, and definitely a film that you must watch this October. It’s on Prime so go watch it. Do it now.
Having killed off long-suffering hero Will Spanner in the previous installment, the Witchcraft franchise attempted to chart a new course with Witchcraft VIII: Salem’s Ghost.
In this movie, we meet an entirely new group of people who manage to raise the spirit of another dead and pissed off warlock. Trying to repair their strained marriage, Sonny (Lee Grober) and Mary Anne (Kim Kopf) have moved to Massachusetts and have purchased a house that’s existed since colonial times. Sonny and Mary Anne celebrate their first night in the house by getting covered in chocolate. That’s one way to fix a marriage, I guess.
They soon meet their pushy new neighbors, Mitch (David Wells) and Gayle (Anthoni Stewart). Mitch is so helpful that he even takes it upon himself to try to fix a leaky pipe in the basement. However, when Mitch busts a hole in the wall, it not only leads to the basement getting flooded by a strange red light but Mitch also ends up possessed by the spirit of the warlock who previously owned the property.
Other than the presence of a dead warlock and all of the usual softcore sex scenes (which, in the 90s, were pretty much a mainstay of any direct-to-video horror film franchise), there’s nothing in Witchcraft VIII to really link it to any of the previous Witchcraft films. (I did read that the house in Witchcraft VIII also appears in one of the other films but I’m too lazy and too sick of the Witchcraft films to go back and look for it.) There’s no Will Spanner and no Detectives Lutz or Garner. Instead, the entire film owes more to the Amityville franchise than the previous Witchcrafts. Apparently, when the film went into production, it wasn’t even intended to be a Witchcraft film but instead, it was added to the franchise after filming was completed.
With all that in mind, Witchcraft VIII is not that bad, especially as far as low-budget, direct-to-video horror is concerned. It doesn’t waste any time getting the action started and the actors actually do the best that they can with the material they’ve been given. The dead warlock is played Jack van Landingham, who comes across as if he’s auditioning for a role in a pirate film, which is exactly the right approach to take when you’re appearing in a film like this. Even the terrible special effects are more likely to inspire nostalgia than contempt. Witchcraft VIII is dumb fun, even if it doesn’t include Will Spanner. In fact, it’s nice to watch people deal with a warlock without having to listen to Will complaining all the time.
Financially, Witchcraft VIII failed to do as well as the previous Witchcraft films, which led to the end of plans to continue the franchise with a series of stand-alone films. Instead, despite being dead, Will Spanner would return for Witchcraft IX.
Through the Shattered Lens 