Hi there and welcome to part 2 of this special Halloween edition of Lisa Marie’s Favorite Grindhouse and Exploitation Film Trailers! Today, we’re looking at some of my favorite Italian horror films!
1) Suspiria (1977)
2) Bay of Blood (1971) (a.k.a. Carnage, Twitch of the Death Nerve)
3) Dellamorte Dellamore (1994)
4) A Blade In The Dark (1983)
5) Zeder (1983)
6) Zombi 2 (1979)
What do you think, Trailer Kitty?
So, guess what?
Originally, we were going to feature an Italian film called Dawn of the Mummy today. It’s the world’s only zombie/mummy hybrid and you guys would have loved it! Or maybe not. I have to admit that I don’t really love it. It’s actually a pretty bad movie but, at the same time, how many times do you get to see a movie that features both a mummy and zombies?
However, last night, the YouTube account that was hosting Dawn of the Mummy was deleted.
AGCK!
So, instead of showing you Dawn of the Mummy, we’re going to show you the original Little Shop of Horrors. It’s true that we featured Little Shop last Halloween but, oh well. It’s a fun little movie, especially when you consider that Roger Corman filmed it in 3 days. Jack Nicholson gets all the attention for playing a masochistic dental patient but I think the best performance is given by flower-eating Dick Miller.
From 1960, enjoy the original (non-musical) Little Shop of Horrors!
(However, speaking of the musical, I was in a community theater production of Little Shop of Horrors when I was 19. I so should have been cast as Audrey but instead, I was just a member of the “ensemble.” Bleh! Anyway, our director showed us the original Little Shop of Horrors and I was the only member of the cast to understand that Corman’s film was superior to the musical version. That said, I still tear up whenever I hear “Somewhere that’s green.”)
With Halloween rapidly approaching, it’s time for another 3-part edition of Lisa Marie’s Favorite Grindhouse and Exploitation Film Trailers! Today, we start things off by revisiting 6 trailers from a very familiar franchise.
1) Halloween (1978)
2) Halloween 2 (1981)
3) Halloween 3: Season of the Witch (1982)
4) Halloween 4 (1988)
5) Halloween 5 (1989)
6) Halloween 6 (1995)
What do you think, Trailer Kitty?
With only two days left to go until we reach Halloween, now seems like the perfect time to watch a classic Vincent Price haunted house film. I’m talking, of course, about the original House On Haunted Hill.
Released in 1959, House On Haunted Hill tells the story of how an eccentric millionaire (played by Vincent Price, of course) rented out a “haunted” mansion for a party. invited over five guests, and offered each of them $10,000 on the condition that they manage to spend the entire night in the house. Along for the ride is Price’s unhappy wife (Carol Ohmart) and the house’s wonderfully neurotic caretaker (played by Elisha Cook, Jr, who played a lot of neurotic caretakers over the course of his long career).
House on Haunted Hill remains one of the classic B-movies. This is largely because of Price’s wonderfully over-the-top lead performance and William Castle’s equally over-the-top direction.
Back in 1959, theaters were equipped so that a plastic skeleton would appear to fly over the heads of the audience during some of the film’s more shocking moments. So, grab yourself a skeleton, take a seat, and enjoy House on Haunted Hill!
“You step outside. You risk your life.” — Hershel Greene
The first two episode of The Walking Dead for season 4 has been all about upending the sense of normalcy and serenity that Rick and his group of survivors have fought and worked to create within the safety of the prison. We saw a timeskip of many months from the time Rick brought the survivors of Woodbury back to the prison to show them that they weren’t the monsters the Governor had made them up to be and from there started up this community that the audience was dropped into in season 4.
As we saw with last week’s episode, “Infected”, that sense of civilization and safety was nothing but an illusion. The zombies got into the prison and attacked a major chunk of the survivors and now a new threat has reared it’s viral head to make the lives of Rick and the gang that much more difficult, if not, hopeless. Zombies, even herds of them, and other people this group could handle as Glenn commented to his father-in-law, but the disease which struck Patrick and looks to be burning through those who were in the compromised Cell Block D was one thing they couldn’t fight.
“Isolation” marks another forward step for a show that has had a difficult time trying to stay on course when it comes to it’s overarching story arcs for the season. New showrunner Scott M. Gimple promised a season that was going to avoid standing pat, but reintroduce a sense of mystery and unknown dangers to a group that’s as battle-hardened as any military unit after three seasons of constant fighting. Now we know that one of these new dangers is a disease (maybe a particularly strong strain of the flu or maybe even the plague itself) which has used the cramped living spaces of the prison and a shortage in proper medicines to incubate and spread itself amongst the survivors.
The entire episode works almost like an isolation ward for the main characters and some of the newer ones. They’ve come such a long way to survive this hellish new world and partly due to isolating themselves from the problems inherent in a zombie apocalyptic world, but also in a community that’s one step removed from the disease-ridden refugee camps we see televised on TV on a daily basis. This was a group that had fooled itself into thinking that isolating their little piece of “heaven” from the outside would keep them safe. It has to a certain degree but it also made them complacent. Yes, they’ve become more compassionate (though smarter) about letting new people into the community, but they’ve stopped trying to venture farther out into the wilderness to find other communities who could share resources and help rebuild the very civilization Rick and the council has been working so hard to accomplish.
Now, their isolation will need to end as they must find new sources of medicines to help combat the disease that’s burning through the prison. Their mission has become much more dire in that it’s not just the new additions to the group who have now become infected but one of their in Glenn has succumbed to it as well. And for all the hardcore survival instincts and skills Daryl, Michonne and the rest have honed to a deadly degree the world outside still remains one that could kill them all without hesitation no matter their skills. The pan of the camera to show the oncoming herd (much bigger than past shown herds) on the group of Daryl, Michonne, Tyreese and Bob was something we rarely see in zombie flicks and tv (though World War Z did it through use of CG). This sequence just shows how easily people who’ve isolated themselves from this never-ending danger could easily lose hope as Tyreese looked to have at first glance.
This latest episode of The Walking Dead really didn’t have any of the action we saw in the first two episode of the new season, but it’s been one that avoided the past season mistakes of not moving the story forward. Yes, they’re still stuck in the prison, but the narrative has continued to propel forward. We find out who killed Karen and David (the burnt bodies that ended episode 2) instead of the writers stretching it out over several episodes. The answer to this mystery brings up new questions as to why this long-standing character decided to act unilaterally even if it was for the greater good of the community. The fact that their actions ultimately failed to keep the disease in check still doesn’t change the fact that even the meekest of the group has grown and change to adapt to a world where even something as simple as a common cold or the flu could kill just as quickly as the zombies gathering at the prison fences.
“Isolation” was written by comic book creator Robert Kirkman who has grown to become better in translating ideas he has written for the series’ comic book counterpart and ideas discarded along the way into something that helps the tv show distinguish itself from the original source material. The show has almost become a way for Kirkman to recreate the early days of the comic book source with new themes and characters. With the comic book itself already years ahead of the show it’s going to be interesting to see whether the tv show will skip some of the smaller story arcs that occur after the prison and move the group closer to the timeline comic book readers are currently at.
While short on action, “Isolation” brings to the fore new problems for the group both immediate and moral. Will the admission of one of their own to the culpability of Karen and David’s murder be told to the rest of the council or will Rick keep this secret to himself? Is the brief radio signal caught in the car radio as Daryl and his scavenging group drive down the road lead to the Governor or a truly safe haven?
One thing that’s been consistent with this new season so far has been that the writers have learned to not stand pat with the show’s narrative. Previous showrunner Glen Mazzara preached forward momentum with season 3 but ultimately failed as the season limped to it’s finale. Only time will tell whether new showrunner Scott M. Gimple will do the same or actually finish this season strong and actually stay around for a following season.
Notes
Season 4
For some of our readers, this will probably be the most challenging episode of television that I’m going to post this Halloween season.
But first, what is Door Into Darkness?
In 1973, after he had directed his highly successful Three Animals Trilogy, Dario Argento produced a television series called Door Into Darkness. Each episode of Door Into Darkness told a different story of horror and suspense. Argento would appear at the beginning of each episode and introduce the story.
Of the four episodes of Door Into Darkness that were produced, most critics agree that the first one was the best. Titled Neighbors, it was also the directorial debut of Argento’s long-time assistant, Luigi Cozzi.
Neighbors tells the story of a newlywed couple who, along with their newborn baby, move into a seaside villa. (Along the way, they also manage to run their car into a ditch, effectively leaving them stranded at their new home.) When they arrive at the villa, they discover that the power hasn’t been turned on yet so they decide to hang out in the apartment upstairs. Once up there, they come across the dead body of their neighbor’s wife. When the neighbor arrives back home, the couple have to try to survive in the darkness while he looks for a place to hide the body of his dead wife.
Neighbors is an effectively suspenseful story that makes good use of both our inherent fear of the dark and the fact that we can never be quite sure of what our neighbors are doing.
I’m happy to say that a user in Italy has downloaded all four episodes of Door Into Darkness to YouTube and, hence, we can now share Neighbors on this site.
However, that’s where the challenge comes in.
The episode below is in Italian.
It has not been poorly dubbed into English and there are no subtitles. Personally, that’s not an issue for me. The plot of Neighbors is effectively simple and easy to follow and Italian suspense has always been a visual genre. Add to that, I love Italy. I’m a fourth Italian. I could listen to people speak Italian for days without understanding a word with it. I just love the sound of the language.
With all that in mind, here is Door Into Darkness…
Only four more days to go until Halloween so what better time to feature one the greatest horror films of all time, 1922’s Haxan: Witchcraft Through The Ages?
Directed by the Danish director Benjamin Christensen, Haxan is a quasi-documentary that, over the course of four separate sections, documents the history of witchcraft and superstition in Europe. Along with making a potent case that religion and superstition are largely the same thing, Haxan is best known for dramatizing various old folk tales. Though the film was made in 1922, its images of lustful devils and dark magic remain powerful to this day.
Enjoy Haxan!
“We make up horrors to help us cope with the real ones.” — Stephen King
Last week we saw the release of the Carrie remake starring Chloe Grace Moretz and directed by Kimberly Peirce. This got me to thinking that of all the writers I grew up reading it was Stephen King whose novels, novellas and short stories made for easy film adaptations. His stories may be supernatural, horror scifi or dark fantasy but they all share that common denominator of having some basis in the real world.
They’re stories of how the real world and it’s seemingly normal inhabitants will react to something just beyond the norm, the pale and the real. In one story we pretty much have a Peyton Place-like setting having to deal with a arrival of a Dracula-like figure. On another we see the isolated work of hotel sitting during the winter turn into something both supernatural and a look into the mind of someone cracking under the pressure of issues both personal and professional.
With all the Stephen King film adaptations since the original Carrie I know I have seen them all and can honestly say that I’ve become an expert on the topic. So, here’s what amounts to what I think would be my top 10 best and bottom 5 worst film/tv adaptations from Stephen King stories.
Top Ten
1. 
2. 
3. 
4. 
5. 
6. 
7. 
8. 
9. 
10. 
Bottom Five
1. 
2. 
3. 
4. 
5. 
(I originally posted a version of this review over at HorrorCritic.Com. I’m sharing it here because I think it makes a nice companion piece to both Ryan’s review of the original Carrie and Leonard’s review of the remake.)
Lately, the 1999 horror sequel The Rage: Carrie 2 has been showing up fairly frequently on Encore and I have spent many an insomnia-filled night watching a wild-eyed Rachel use her brain to kill every high school football player on the planet. It seemed like every time I came across Carrie 2, the film was already halfway over. For some reason, I always seemed to find the movie at the exact moment that Rachel was using a stack of CDs to decapitate some of the most obnoxious jocks to ever crawl out from underneath a cinematic rock. However, once I managed to catch Carrie 2 from the start, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that it’s actually a pretty good film and that — surprise! surprise! — it has a lot more than just bloody ,mayhem on its mind.
In Carrie 2, Rachel (well-played by Emily Bergl) is the half-sister of the original Carrie White. Like her sister, she can move things with her mind and, again much like Carrie, Rachel goes to a high school that is totally and completely dominated by jocks.
However, these are not just your typical high school football players. No, this is the most dangerous collection of clean-cut young sociopaths to be gathered in one place since the beer garden scene from Cabaret. With the exception of sensitive Jesse (played by Jason London, who is so handsome in this film that he looks like he belongs on the cover of a book), the entire football team is obsessed with seducing every virgin at the school. When Emily’s friend Lisa (played by Mena Suvari) is deflowered and then rejected by moronic jock Eric (Zachary Ty Bryan — yes, the oldest Home Improvement kid), she ends up killing herself in a scene that is surprisingly effective because of both Suvari’s sensitive performance and the fact that she was named Lisa.
Seriously, folks, be nice to the Lisas in your life.
Anyway, Rachel soon starts to investigate the circumstances behind Lisa’s suicide and this leads to the jocks hatching a ludicrously complex scheme to silence her. Much as in the first Carrie, it involves humiliating Rachel at the biggest party of the year and, just as in the first film, the end result is Rachel killing a lot of people.
I’m like a lot of filmgoers and horror fans in that I have gotten burned by so many bad sequels to classic movies that, as soon as I see a number in a title, warning flags go up. I tend to watch these films with the expectation that they’re going to both cheapen the original and not bring anything new to the table. However, Carrie 2, while hardly a perfect film, is an exception to the rule. No, it’s nowhere close to being as good as the original Carrie but, when taken on its own term, it’s an effective and entertaining movie.
Along with the strong performances from the entire cast (seriously, you will hate Zachary Ty Bryan’s character so much by the end of this movie), Carrie 2 is well-directed by veteran genre director Katt Shea. Wisely, Shea does not attempt to recreate the original film (despite the similarities in plot) but instead, she brings a unique, feminist perspective to the story. Under Shea’s direction, Emily Bergl makes Rachel into a strong, independent character. She may be victimized but — unlike Sissy Spacek in the original — she is never a victim.
There’s a lot of scenes that stick in my mind from Carrie 2. The film’s final massacre is outrageous and over-the-top and it’s all the more effective because of it. (It also features death by shattered lenses and I have to admit that this myopic reviewer always cringes whenever she sees that scene.) However, to me, Carrie 2 is most disturbing when it explores the pathology behind the film’s doomed football team. One need only watch the scene where the entire team gets their heads shaved, transforming them from being individuals into a mass of virtually indistinguishable teammates, to understand that Katt Shea was looking to accomplish more here than just making a run-of-the-mill horror sequel.
And, to a large extent, she succeeded.
With only five days left until Halloween, I wanted to make sure that I shared this film with our faithful and wonderful readers. Messiah of Evil was first released in 1973 and, since it’s in the public domain, it has since been included in a countless number of bargain box sets from Mill Creek.
I can still remember the first time that I saw Messiah of Evil. It was way back in 2009, when I was living in my first apartment. I had recently picked up a 10-movie DVD box set called Tales of Terror and I was using the movies inside to try to deal with a bout of insomnia. I had already watched The Hatchet Murders (a.k,a. Deep Red) and The House At The Edge of the Park and, at two in the morning, I was faced with a decision. Should I try to sleep or should I watch one more movie?
Naturally, I chose to watch one more movie and the movie I chose was Messiah of Evil. So, there I was at two in the morning, sitting up in bed in my bra and panties and watching an obscure horror movie while rain fell outside.
And, seriously — this movie totally FREAKED me out!
Messiah of Evil tells the story of Arletty (Marianna Hill), a neurotic woman who drives to an isolated California town in order to visit her father. Her father is an artist who specializes in painting eerie pictures of large groups of black-clad people. However, once she arrives at his home, Arletty discovers that her father has vanished and left behind a diary where he claims that a darkness has overtaken the town.
Meanwhile, a mysterious man named Thom (Michael Greer) is wandering about town with two groupies (played by Anita Ford and Joy Bang) and interviewing random townspeople. One crazed man (Elisha Cook, Jr.) explains that “the dark stranger” is returning. After meeting Arletty, they all end up moving into her father’s house.
But that’s not all. There’s also an odd albino man who shows up driving truck and who eats mice….
Messiah of Evil is literally one of the strangest films that I’ve ever seen. It’s shot in a dream-like fashion and the much of the film is left open to the viewer’s interpretation. There are two classic scenes — one that takes place in a super market and one that takes place in a movie theater and the movie’s worth watching for these two scenes alone.
Messiah of Evil is a film that will be appreciated by all lovers of surrealism and intelligent horror and I’m happy to share it with you today.
Through the Shattered Lens 