Horror Novel Review: Weekend by Christopher Pike

Posted on October 16, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1986 novel, Weekend, involves the most memorable senior ditch day ever!

9 friends, who have a tangled web of personal relationships and conflicting feelings towards each other, head down to Mexico for the weekend. They’ve got a mansion to stay in, one that belongs to the absent parents of their friend Robin. Robin once had a great singing voice and a great future but, at the last party that her friends threw, someone spiked her drink with insecticide. Now, Robin can barely speak and is only being kept alive by a dialysis machine. The weekend in Mexico starts out as a fun but soon, secrets are being revealed, live are being put at risk, and who knows who will survive to the end!

The majority of the story is told through the eyes of Shani, who is a well-written and complicated character. As opposed to the characters who populate the majority of R.L. Stine’s Fear Street books, Shani is nether perfect nor totally evil. Instead, she’s someone who has very real emotions and, even more importantly, very real reactions to everything that’s going on around her. (Christopher Pike’s novels have always felt a little less generic than R.L. Stine’s. That said, Pike’s novels also have a tendency to be a bit more unnecessarily complicated than Stine’s.) That said, the other characters are not as well-written as Shani and, with a total of 9 people staying at that mansion, it can get a bit difficult to keep straight of who is who. Keep a notebook nearby so you can jot down who betrayed who at which pep rally because it’s not always easy to keep track of it all.

I always enjoy books about people stranded with a killer for the weekend and Weekend does a good job of keeping you guessing as to who is responsible for what. The finale, in which everything is explained, is enjoyably over the top. Pike, wisely, chooses to embrace the melodrama when it comes to wrapping everything up.

Weekend is an enjoyably over-the-top novel. If nothing else, this book might make you appreciate your own occasionally overdramatic friends. Because as dramatic as they may be, they’re nowhere near as bad as the folks in Weekend.

October True Crime: The Frozen Ground (dir by Scott Walker)

Posted on October 16, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In the early 80s, Robert Hansen was a respected businessman in Anchorage, Alaska. He owned a restaurant. He was known for being a family man. He held several local hunting records. Almost everyone who met him described him as being friendly and good-natured. In those days before the Internet, it wasn’t as if someone could do a Google search and discover that Hansen had a long criminal record in both Iowa and Alaska. There was no way to know that Hansen had been a teenage arsonist and that had been arrested and charged with rape in the early 70s. (The charges were ultimately plea bargained down to assault.) Even those who did know about his background felt that Hansen had turned his life around and was now an upstanding member of society.

At the same time that Hansen was a respected member of the Anchorage community, he was abducting young women and, after holding them prisoner and raping him at his cabin, flying them into the Alaskan wilderness where he would then hunt them in his own version of The Most Dangerous Game. It’s known, for sure, that Hansen murdered at least 18 women. It’s felt that the number is much higher. Along with his own good reputation, Hansen was protected by the fact that many of his victims were transients and sex workers. Their disappearances were rarely reported to the police and, when they were, the police didn’t go out of their way to find them. Much as happened with the Green River Killer in Washington State, Hansen was able to get away with his crimes for over 20 years not because he was particularly clever but because his victims were considered to be on the fringes of society.

The 2011 film, The Frozen Ground, is a fictionalized account of the investigation that led to Hansen’s arrest. John Cusack plays Robert Hansen. Nicolas Cage plays Jack Holcombe, a weary Alaskan state trooper who has to deal with uncooperative witnesses and beaurocratic indifference while investigating Hansen’s crimes. Vanessa Hudgens plays Cindy Paulson, a 17 year-old sex worker who survives her encounter with Hansen but whose story is originally ignored by the police because of what Cindy does for a living. Both Jack and Hansen comes to realize that Cindy is the only person who can positively identify the killer but Cindy has disappeared into the Anchorage underworld, working as a stripper and being manipulated by her pimp, Clate Johnson (50 Cent).

Taking full of advantage of the chilly atmosphere and the isolation of the Alaskan wilderness, The Frozen Ground is an effective journey into the heart of darkness, featuring excellent performances from Nicolas Cage and John Cusack. Cusack smoothly alternates between being the arrogant hunter and the desperate prey while Cage’s weary expression captures the psychological toll of investigating the crimes of someone like Robert Hansen. Of course, when the film came out, it received a lot of attention for featuring Vanessa Hudgens in a dramatic role. Hudgens’s performance here continues the tradition of former Disney (and Nickelodeon) actresses trying to prove their range by playing an edgy role. Though there’s a few scenes where she does seem to be trying too hard to make sure that we all know she’s capable of more than High School Musical, Hudgens is convincing for the most part.

As for the real-life Robert Hansen, he was sentenced to spend 461 years in prison for his crimes. (Alaska has no death penalty.) In 2014, three years after the release of this film, the 75 year-old Hansen died of natural causes while still incarcerated.

4 Shots From 4 Horror Films: Special Terence Fisher Edition

Posted on October 16, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

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: one of the masters of Hammer horror, Terence Fisher!

4 Shots From 4 Terrence Fisher Films

Horror of Dracula (1958, dir by Terence Fisher, DP: Jack Asher)

The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958, dir by Terence Fisher, DP: Jack Asher)

The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll (1960, dir by Terence Fisher, DP: Jack Asher)

The Curse of the Werewolf (1961, dir by Terence Fisher, DP: Arthur Grant)

Guilty Pleasure No. 67: Aerobicide (dir by David A. Prior)

Posted on October 16, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

It doesn’t get more 80s than 1987’s Aerobicide, a rather ludicrous slasher film that is also known as Killer Workout.

The clients and the staff at Rhonda’s Work-Out are in danger. People are being murdered inside the gym, left and right. One member of the gym is slashed to death in the showers. Another one is beaten to death with a barbell while his friend is killed with a very large safety pin. One instructors ends up hanging in a closet while another is stabbed to death in a locker room. A group of teens show up to spray graffiti on the outside of the club and they all end up getting murdered as well.

Most people would assume that, with all of those murders going on, that the place would be closed down or, at the very least, people would stop frequenting the gym. But no, the opposite happens. Every murder is followed by an aerobics class, in which the camera shamelessly lingers on the lycra-clad participants, none of whom seem to be particularly concerned about working out at a crime scene. ( If your body’s looking too big, one of the film’s many songs tells us, Like a hippo or a pig/ Gotta workout/ gotta work out….) The gym’s owner, Rhonda Johnson (Marica Karr), doesn’t seem to be particularly concerned about the gym getting a bad reputation as a result of all the murders. Instead, she’s more annoyed with her surviving instructors, snapping at one, “Stop showing off your tits and that tight little ass!” Personally, I would think looking good would be a top priority for someone working at a gym but apparently, Rhonda feels differently.

(Then again, if people were being murdered at my gym, I’d probably cancel my membership, despite the fact that my gym is only a few blocks away from my house and most of the people who go there are relatively cool. That said, the main reason why I signed up for a membership was so my sister could get a discount on her membership fees. Personally, I prefer running.)

Even if Rhonda refuses to close the gym, you would think that Lt. Morgan (David James Campbell) would make sure that the gym had a full-time police presence. Eventually, Morgan does assign one policeman to watch the gym but that’s only after several murders have already occurred and that one policeman’s presence doesn’t really do much good. Then again, Lt. Morgan never comes across as being a particularly good cop. Morgan is spectacularly bad at his job, which wouldn’t be a huge problem if not for the fact that Morgan is also the hero of the film. Eventually, he does figure out that the murders are connected to a tragic tanning bed accident but it’s hard to say how exactly he managed to do that. Rather than actually showing us Lt. Morgan gathering clues and drawing conclusions, the film just has him randomly blurt stuff out.

It’s all pretty ridiculous but, because the film is such a film of it’s time, it’s also rather fascinating. Killer Workout may not have been the only or even the first film to combine Flashdance with slasher chills but it is the first one to feature a song with lyrics like, “It’s the perfect body you’re looking for/it’s aerobocide.” This is one of those films where you come for the big hair and the 80s fashions and the bass-heavy score and you stay for the ludicrous plot twists, the overacting, the overheated dialogue, and the out-of-nowhere plot twists that dominate the film’s final 30 minutes. It’s not necessarily a “good” film but I defy anyone to look away once it begins.

Previous Guilty Pleasures

Horror Film Review: Kiss of the Vampire (dir by Don Sharp)

Posted on October 16, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1963 Hammer film opens with a funeral in early 20th century Bavaria. It’s a solemn affair, full of mourning villagers and taking place in an atmospheric cemetery. However, just as the wooden coffin is being lowered into the grave, the stern Prof. Zimmer (Clifford Evans) walks through the funeral party, carrying a stake and a hammer. Without bothering to open the coffin, he hammers the stake through the lid. As the members of the funeral party wail and scream, bright red blood bubbles up from the coffin.

Yep, it’s a Hammer vampire film! That means that once again, we’ve got a small village, we’ve got superstitious townspeople, we’ve got an aristocratic vampire and his vampire brides, and we’ve got a mix of red blood and cleavage. What we do not have is Christopher Lee, despite the fact that Kiss of the Vampire was originally planned to be a Dracula film. Lee, who was a serious student of the occult and a fan of Bram Stoker’s version of the legendary vampire, was very much not a fan of Hammer’s interpretation of the character and, whenever he could get out of doing a Hammer Dracula film, he would.

As a result, Kiss of the Vampire features not Dracula but instead Dr. Ravna (Noel Willman), a vampire who lives in a castle and who has a loyal cult of followers. Both his son (Barry Warren) and his daughter (Jacquie Wallis) are also vampires. When two British newlyweds drive into town on their honeymoon, Dr. Ravna hopes to turn Marianne Harcourt (Jennifer Daniel) into a vampire as well. Marianne’s husband, Gerald (Edward de Souza), teams up with Prof. Zimmer to keep that from happening. It’s vampire doctor versus human professor!

This was director Don Sharp’s first horror film for Hammer and he does a pretty good job of creating an appropriately gothic atmosphere. Almost all of the things that we love about Hammer films is present in Kiss of the Vampire, from the cobblestone streets to the imposing castles to the elaborate masquerade ball that allows Dr. Ravna to abduct Marianne in the first place. There’s also a lot of blood, including a wonderfully grisly scene where Prof. Zimmer deliberately sets his arm on fire in order to cauterize a vampire bite. Visually, the film is full of macabre images and operatic horror. In fact, one could argue that the absence of Dracula and Van Helsing allows Kiss of the Vampire to go in a direction that the other Hammer vampire films could not. The finale, which featured the heroes using black magic to battle the vampires, was originally meant to be the finale of The Brides of Dracula until Peter Cushing objects that Prof. Van Helsing would never use dark magic to battle a vampire. Prof. Zimmer, on the other hand, had no such qualms.

That said, the film really does suffer from the fact that Noel Willman does not have the evil charisma of Christopher Lee and Dr. Ravna and Prof. Zimmer do not share the long history of Dracula and Van Helsing. Kiss of the Vampire is a good film but it’s hard not to mourn what it could have been.

Horror On The Lens: Attack of the Giant Leeches (dir. by Bernard Kowalski)

Posted on October 16, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

For today’s public domain horror film, I present to you 1959’s Attack of the Giant Leeches. This 60-minute film is a classic Drive-in film. It features an iconic performance from Yvette Vickers, who is one of my favorites of the strong, confident, unapologetically sexy women who dominated the old B-movies. (Plus, she was only 5’3 and it’s not easy being brave when you’re having to look up at everyone. Trust me, I know.) This short little film is steamier than Louisiana in August and is full of bayou atmosphere.

I have to admit that I’m kinda freaked out by the scenes of people floating underwater in this film. And leeches .… agck! Don’t even get me started on leeches. Especially giant leeches….

Artwork of the Day: Thrilling Mystery (by Rafael DeSoto)

Posted on October 16, 2023 by Dazzling Erin

by Rafael DeSoto

This cover is from 1936 and wastes no time getting to the point.

Music Video of the Day: The Wild and the Young by Quiet Riot (1986, directed by Jeff Stein)

Posted on October 16, 2023 by Jedadiah Leland

The music video for Quiet Riot’s The Wild and The Young takes place in a future that’s controlled by the military and the Parents Resource Music Center (PRMC), the Tipper Gore-led organization that campaigned for albums and CDs to come with warning labels. Because the PRMC was largely made up with the wives of U.S. Senators, there was actually a Senate hearing on obscene lyrics in 1985, which led to a bunch of Senators being made to look foolish by everyone from Dee Snider to Frank Zappa.

Director Jeff Stein has directed several TV shows, along with doing videos for The Who, Weezer, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, George Clinton, Cinderella, Warrant, and Wilson Phillips.

Horror on TV: The Hitchhiker 5.12 “Spinning Wheel” (dir by George Mihalka)

Posted on October 15, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

On tonight’s episode of The Hitchhiker, Patti D’Arbanville is perfectly cast Wendy, a performance artist who uses her disturbing nightmares for inspiration and who finds herself losing her grasp on reality.

The episode originally aired on August 5th, 1989.

The TSL Horror Grindhouse: The Psychotronic Man (dir by Jack M. Sell)

Posted on October 15, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

If you can figure out what’s going on in 1979’s The Psychotronic Man, you’re definitely doing better than most people who have sat through this film.

Filmed on location in Chicago (at a time when the original Mayor Richard Daley was supposedly encouraging filmmaker to shoot anywhere but Chicago because he didn’t want anyone to film anything that could make his city look bad), The Psychotronic Man tells the story of an alcoholic barber named Rocky (Peter Spelson). One day, after work, Rocky decides to drive the long way home, which apparently means driving through every inch of rural Illinois. Seriously, you really do have to wonder just where exactly Rocky lives. Rocky decides to pull over so that he can get some sleep. Suddenly, his car is floating in the air. Was Rocky just having a dream or were aliens trying to abduct him? Rocky’s concerned and so is his wife and so is his mistress.

Rocky goes to a doctor but the doctor has nothing useful to tell him, beyond prescribing his some aspirin for his headaches. Rocky tries to investigate on his own but this just leads to him getting a shotgun pulled on him by a suspicious farmer. This is when Rocky discovers that he can kill people with his mind.

How has Rocky developed the power to kill people with his mind? Your guess is as good as mine, though the film does feature an professor at the University of Chicago who suggests that Rocky’s power is one that we all have, buried deep in our subconscious. Perhaps Rocky’s meeting with the aliens caused this powers to be unlocked. I mean, it’s as good an explanation as any, though you have to wonder why aliens would suddenly want to give an unappealing barber the ability to kill people with his mind. That seems pretty irresponsible on the part of the aliens.

Well, no matter! Rocky’s in a lot of trouble now and he’s got not only the police but also a government agent after him. (The government would like to learn how Rocky developed his “psychotronic powers.”) This leads to several scenes of Rocky and the police walking around Chicago, looking for each other. I would say that probably about 75% of this film is just filler. The plot gets repetitive in record time, as does the bell-dominated soundtrack. Every few minutes, a bell rings as if we need to be reminded that Rocky is one step closer to meeting his psychotronic destiny.

Personally, I enjoyed seeing the location footage of Chicago and the surrounding countryside. It was obvious that the film was shot without bothering to get permits so the majority of the people in the background were probably just people trying to either shop or get to work. That said, The Psychotronic Man plays out a torturously slow pace and Rocky is not at all an appealing main character. Even before he turns into a psycho mind killer, he’s a drunk who slips from a flask while driving and who is cheating on his wife. As far as I’m concerned, Rocky deserved whatever he got!

Finally, this film has lived on due to the fact that it introduced the word Psychotronic to the world. Michael J. Weldon later borrowed the term for The Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film, The Psychotronic Video Guide, and Psychotronic Video magazine. Psychotronic is usually a term used to describe low-budget B-movies, the majority of which are better than The Psychotronic Man.