For today’s horror on the lens, we have 1991’s Sometimes They Come Back.
Adapted from a Stephen King short story, this made-for-television film tells the story of a teacher (played by Tim Matheson) who returns to the New England town where he grew up. If he seems reluctant to do so, it’s because he has some bad childhood memories to deal with. In the 60s, his brother was murdered by a group of leather-clad greasers, all of whom subsequently died in a fiery car crash.
But, if all of them died in the 60s, why are they now showing up in his classroom? And why have none of them aged?
Could it be that … sometimes they come back?
And could it also be that the reason that they’re coming back is so they can finish the job that they started in the 60s and murder the last remaining brother?
This campy but enjoyable adaptation features good performances from both Tim Matheson and, in the role of the main dead guy, Robert Rusler. Why have they come back and what can be done to make them leave once again? Watch, find out, and enjoy!
Well, as Val already made clear with today’s music video of the day, it’s Friday the 13th!
(As I type this, I’m currently in my underwear and sitting in a wilderness cabin. If I here any strange noises outside, I’m going to grab a flashlight with a failing battery and go outside to investigate without putting on pants or letting anyone know that I’m leaving. I honor the traditions of this day.)
And you know what? It’s an even better Friday the 13th than usual because … IT’S OCTOBER!
I think this is the first time, since we started this site and our annual horrorthons, that we’ve had a Friday the 13th in October. It seems like today would be the perfect day to review every single film in the Friday the 13th franchise but … I ALREADY DID!
Back in 2012, I reviewed every Friday the 13th film. It was one of the first “review series” that I ever did and I’m still quite proud of how it went.
Don’t feel bad if you don’t. To be honest, I had totally forgotten about it until, two years ago, my friend Janeen mentioned it to me. (And to be honest, I’m not sure if I ever knew about it before then. Memories can inconsistent, especially when it comes to obscure TV shows that didn’t last for very long.) Freakylinks is a show that aired on Fox back in 2000. It only lasted one season and it was about this guy (played by Ethan Embry) who ran a website called freakylinks.com. To me, that sounds like a porn site but apparently, it was actually a site dedicated to investigating the paranormal.
Freakylinks was produced by the same company that produced The Blair Witch Project. A few months before the show premiered, in order to try to create some Blair Witch-style buzz for the production, the production company set up a website called Freakylinks.com and designed it to look like it was just some ghost hunter’s Geocities-style blog. While the web site got some publicity, it didn’t translate into ratings and Freakylinks was canceled. The freakylinks.com domain is currently for sale if anyone wants to buy it and turn it into a paranormal porn site. (Who says the two have to be separate?)
The entire series has been uploaded to YouTube and below you’ll find a pilot!
Prepare to take a trip into the past, to a time when the internet was still a mysterious and powerful thing and people apparently didn’t realize that anyone with time to kill could make a web site.
In 1986, nerds could build robots that displayed human feelings.
Angry old neighbors hate robots.
If a nerd can build a robot that displays human feelings, then he can also bring his girlfriend back to life by putting a computer chip from the robot in her brain.
Once brought back to life, the girlfriend will start to behave just like the robot.
Basketballs can be used to do anything.
Deadly Friend is best remembered for the scene where the newly revived Samantha (Kristy Swanson) throws a basketball with such force that it causes the head of her neighbor (Anne Ramsey) to explode. It is also remembered for BB, the big yellow robot that was built by Paul (Matthew Laborteaux). Deadly Friend starts out as the ultimate nerd fantasy: a beautiful girlfriend. a big robot, and a killer basketball. By the end of the movie, the fantasy has turned into a nightmare.
Deadly Friend was Wes Craven’s follow-up to A Nightmare on Elm Street. Craven intended for the film to be a dark love story between a teenage outcast and his zombie girlfriend, with a strong emphasis on the hypocrisy of the adults around them. Craven said that, in his version of Deadly Friend, people like Samantha’s abusive father were meant to be scarier than Zombie Samantha With A Microchip In Her Brain. Warner Bros. wanted a film that would appeal to teenage horror fans and demanded Elm Street-stlye nightmares and buckets of more blood. As a result, Craven practically disowned the finished movie and Deadly Friend is a tonally inconsistent, with sentimental first love scenes competing for space with heads exploding and necks being snapped. Despite good performances from Laborteaux and Swanson, the final film is too much of a mess to work. However, I know that I will never look at a basketball the same way again.
Today’s horror scene that I love is from the 1953 film, House of Wax!
In this scene, a curious visitor to Vincent Price’s wax museum discovers that more than a few of the figures are actually corpses that have been covered in wax. When she is confronted by Vincent Price, she hits his face and, in an homage to the famous unmaking scene from The Phantom of the Opera, discovers what is underneath.
(I’ve recently decided that they should change the name of October to something more appropriate, like Pricetober. Seriously, this month is all about Vincent Price…)
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 is all about letting the visuals do the talking.
This October, I am going to be using our 4 Shots From 4 Films feature to pay tribute to some of my favorite horror directors, in alphabetical order! That’s right, we’re going from Argento to Zombie in one month!
Today’s director: Guillermo Del Toro!
4 Shots From 4 Films
The Devil’s Backbone (2001, dir. by Guillermo Del Toro)
Pan’s Labyrinth (2006, dir. by Guillermo Del Toro)
Crimson Peak (2015, dir by Guillermo Del Toro)
The Shape of Water (2017, dir by Guillermo Del Toro)
No, actually, they don’t. If anything, they cause crimes to happen.
First released in 1971 and directed by Al Adamson, Dracula vs. Frankenstein may not be a good film but it’s definitely an unforgettable film. Yes, it may be thoroughly inept but it’s also perhaps the strangest take on the Dracula/Frankenstein rivalry that you’ll ever see.
Plus, it’s one of the final films of Lon Chaney, Jr. Unfortunately, Lon doesn’t exactly look his best in Dracula vs Frankenstein...
Speaking of slumming celebrities, long before he played Dr. Jacoby and inspired America to shout, “Dig yourself out of the shit!,” Russ Tamblyn played a biker named Rico in this movie.
Also, like every other exploitation film made in 1971, Dracula vs. Frankenstein features hippies, leading to the age old question: who needs the supernatural when you’ve got LSD-crazed hippies running around?
Another age old question: Is Dracula vs. Frankenstein merely inept or is it a classic of bad filmmaking?
The movie known as Bloody Movie was originally filmed in 1987, under the title Terror Night. However, it was never released. There are plenty of rumors about why it wasn’t released. Some people say that it was because the film was produced with Mafia money. Some people say it was because it used a lot of footage that was lifted from other movies and the producers apparently didn’t bother to clear the rights. Of course, it’s also totally possible that the film wasn’t released because it wasn’t very good. I mean, that does happen.
Regardless of why, the film apparently sat on the shelf for 20 years. It was finally released by Fred Olen Ray’s Retromedia and retitled Bloody Movie. That said, the DVD that I own (and watched for this review) was released by Legacy Entertainment and still had the Terror Night title. The transfer on the Legacy DVD was notably bad. From what I’ve been told, the Retromedia release looks a lot better.
Now, there’s a lot bad things that can be said about Terror Night. It’s low-budget, which is one of those things that can be overcome by a clever director but, in this case, it just results in Terror Night looking cheap. It’s poorly written, full of one-dimensional characters who were shallow even by the standards of a late 80s slasher. This is also one of those movies where formerly respectable actors pop up for five minutes cameos. Whenever one of those actors shows up, all the action stops so that they can earn their paycheck. Aldo Ray is homeless and doomed. Cameron Mitchell is a cynical cop and doomed. Alan Hale, Jr. is an affable security guard and apparently not doomed. There’s no real reason for any of them to be there but there they are! There’s also a biker couple who show up for no particular reason, along with the typical collection of teenage victims.
But yet, there are moments when Terror Night goes from being bland to being almost transcendently odd.. There are moments of comedy mixed in with some surprisingly mean-spirited death scenes. Necks are snapped. Heads are chopped off. Bodies are split in half. It all gets rather messy and the presence of all those old time actors makes the sudden gore scenes feel all the more strange.
However, the main thing that distinguishes Terror Night from the other slashers of the era is the identity of the killer. (And, before anyone yells at me, this is not a spoiler. There is never any mystery about who the killer is.) Lance Hayward is not a zombie like Jason Voorhees or a silent symbol of evil like Michael Myers. He’s not seeking vengeance for some crime in the past. Instead, he’s a former silent screen star. (It seems like Hayward would have been close to 90 years old at the time of Terror Night. He’s still surprisingly spry.) Hayward commits his murders while wearing costumes from his old movies. Adding to the strangeness of the whole scenario is that actual silent footage is spliced into the murder scenes. Most of the footage comes from movies like The Thief of Baghdad, The Black Pirate, and the Gaucho. You have to wonder if Douglas Fairbanks cheated the director’s father or something.
(Since Hayward spends most of the movie in costume, I’m assuming that he was mostly played by stuntmen. When Hayward actually shows his face, he’s played by one-time Oscar nominee, John Ireland. At the height of his career, Ireland co-starred in films like All The King’s Men.)
As to why a silent scream star would be murdering teenagers … well, your guess is as good as mine. It’s a strange film, a mix of gore and nostalgia. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it but I still always appreciate anything this strange.
Through the Shattered Lens 