October Hacks: Blood Theatre (dir by Rick Sloane)

Posted on October 10, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I have watched my share of not-good films but, as I sit here typing this, it’s hard for me to think of anything quite as mind-numbingly bad as 1984’s Blood Theatre.

Blood Theatre is a horror film without scares and a comedy without laughs. It starts at some point in the past, when a lovelorn movie theater owner (played, as a young man, by David Milbern) has a nervous breakdown upon discovering that the ticket girl doesn’t love him. So, he stabs her to death and then sets the theater on fire, killing the majority of the patrons inside. Years later, Mr. Murdock (Rob-Roy Fletcher) decides to increase his chain of Starlite Theaters by purchasing the old theater. He sends three of his employees over to get the place in shape. What he doesn’t stop to consider is that the theater owner (now played, as an old man, by Jonathan Blakely) is still haunting the old theater and killing anyone who shows up. Is the owner a ghost or a human killer? The film never quite makes up its mind, as sometimes he appears to have control of electricity and time and space and other times, he’s just an old geezer with a knife.

But the motives of the killer really aren’t that important because, oddly enough, he’s not really in the much of the film. Instead, the majority of the film is a broad comedy about the people working at the theater, none of whom are particularly funny or even likable. Selena (Joanna Foxx) gets mad when someone fails to pay for their popcorn so, for some reason, she follows them into theater and rips of her bra in front of them. I’m not really sure how that is supposed to get back at them for not paying for their popcorn but it does lead to a riot in the theater as everyone demands that she sit down so that they can enjoy the movie. Amazingly, this somehow does not lead to Selena getting fired but instead, she and her friend Darcy (Stephanie Dillard) are transferred to the new theater, much to the irritation of their co-worker, cheerleader Jennifer (Jenny Cunningham). Jennifer, Selena, and Darcy are all supposed to be in high school but they also all appear to be in their 30s.

Mary Woronov is also in this film. She’s totally wasted in the role of Murdock’s administrative assistant. She spends the entire movie answering the phone in the office and rolling her eyes and then making sarcastic comments about the fact that Murdock has gone to a theater owner’s convention but he hasn’t returned yet because he’s been mugged. For reasons that aren’t really clear, she hates Murdock and she hates everyone that she works with but then again, no one in this movie seems to like anyone else. Everyone in this movie dislikes everyone else and, as a result, it’s not as if any of the people are particularly pleasant to hang out with.

This is one of those comedies where every joke is repeated ad nauseum, to the point where it becomes impossible to watch the film without wanting to throw something at the screen. It would help, of course, if the jokes were funny but none of them are. It would also help if there was a shred of charisma to be found in the cast but, with the exception of Mary Woronov, everyone delivers their lines stiffly and without personality. Clocking in at 75 minutes but feeling much, much longer, Blood Theatre is one of the most incredibly dull films that I’ve ever seen. This is the slasher film that answers the question, “Just how bad can these films get?”

The TSL Horror Grindhouse: Sweet Kill (dir by Curtis Hanson)

Posted on October 10, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

As the saying goes, everyone has to start somewhere and, for Curtis Hanson, that somewhere was with 1973’s Sweet Kill.

Curtis Hanson, of course, would go on to become one of Hollywood’s top genre directors, directing films like The River Wild, Bad Influence, Wonder Boys, The Hand That Rocks The Cradle, 8 Mile, and the Oscar-nominated L.A. Confidential. But, in the early 70s, he was just one of the many recent film school grads who approached Roger Corman for a job.

Having previously worked on the script for the Corman-produced Dunwich Horror, Hanson approached Roger and told him that he had an idea for a Psycho-inspired movie about a female serial killer. Corman replied that he would help finance the film if Hanson made the killer into a man. Hanson did so but Corman still ended up only putting up a third of the film’s budget as opposed to the two/thirds that he had originally offered. Hanson ended up convincing his parents to take out a mortgage on their home to help finance the movie.

Hanson shot the film in 1971. Corman said that the film showed promise but that it needed more nudity and a better title if it was going to be successful. Corman re-edited the film and additional nude scenes were shot and inserted into the film. Despite this, Sweet Kill was a box office disappointment when it was originally released. Corman re-titled the film Kisses For Eddie but it didn’t help at the box office. Finally, the film was released under a third title, The Arousers. Despite a lurid ad campaign built around “the arousers,” the film once again failed at the box office. It wouldn’t be until years later, when Hanson started to achieve some mainstream success, that Sweet Kill would be rediscovered.

After all of the drama that went into post-production, it would be nice to be able to report that Sweet Kill was some sort of overlooked masterpiece but, to be honest, it’s pretty bad. The film stars Tab Hunter as Eddie Collins. When Eddie was a kid, he used to hide in the closet and watch as his mother lounged around her bedroom in lingerie. Now that Eddie is a grown-up and working as a high school gym coach, he is still so haunted by his mother that he’s impotent. As a result, Eddie spends his time breaking into apartments, stealing underwear, and having a prostitute dress up like his mother so that he can undress her while sobbing. After a chance meeting with a hippie girl leads to Eddie once again failing to get it up, he shoves the girl hard enough to kill her. The film implies that this act of violence leads to Eddie getting aroused for the first time and soon, Eddie is killing people and …. well, that’s pretty much the whole movie. There’s not really a plot, beyond Eddie looking confused and trying to keep his sympathetic neighbor from finding out that he’s a serial killer.

Sweet Kill has gotten some attention because of the casting of former teen idol Tab Hunter in the role of psycho Eddie. Tab Hunter has the right blonde look for Eddie, who is basically a homicidal beach bum, but otherwise, Hunter’s performance is fairly dull. Watching the film, it’s obvious that he wasn’t particularly comfortable with the role of Eddie and, as such, he sleepwalks through the performance. (Ironically, Eddie was based on Norman Bates, who was played by Hunter’s former partner, Anthony Perkins.) There are a few creepy moments where Hunter stares off into the distance with a blank look on his face but otherwise, this isn’t a particularly memorable performance nor is Sweet Kill a particularly interesting film.

That said, Curtis Hanson went on to have quite a career so, on that level, Sweet Kill‘s bland badness is inspiring. If the director of Sweet Kill could still go on to direct and produce some of the best films of the past 50 years, there’s hope for everyone looking to achieve their dreams. Don’t let one failure get you down.

Death Metal (2023, directed by Michael Kuciak)

Posted on October 10, 2023 by Jedadiah Leland

Abyssinister is a death metal band that has seen better days. Lead singer Ivan (Nico Zahniser) is a perfectionist who has alienated most of the members of the group with his abrasive personality. Their records aren’t selling. Their European tour was a disaster. Hardly anyone can pronounce the band’s name and those who can think that Abyssinister broke up. And the band is on the verge of breaking up for real until Ivan announces that he’s hired the famed Norwegian producer, Fleming (Ray Goodwin), to produce their next album.

Agreeing to give stardom one last shot, Abyssinister travels out to Fleming’s isolated farm and recording studio. After they arrive, Ivan announces that he has a copy of a supposedly cursed concerto that he wants the band to record. The band records the piece and it sounds great but what neither the band nor their manager, Shadia (Shadia Martin), knows is that Ivan had made a deal with the Devil and now, there is a price to pay.

Full of inside jokes about the death metal scene and featuring some surprisingly realistic gore, Death Metal turned out to be much better than I was expecting it to be. The first half is a humorous satire of every cliché about the Death Metal scene while the second half is full of effective jump scares and frightening scenes. Every member of the band and their groupies get a chance to make an impression before the concerto is recorded and you actually do worry about them once everything starts to fall apart. I especially liked the performance of Chris Richards, as the otherwise mild-mannered drummer who legally changed his name to Baphomet.

Death Metal is both an effective satire of the hysteria surrounding death metal music and an effective horror movie.

Horror Scenes I Love: Robert Englund in A Nightmare on Elm Street

Posted on October 10, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Ah, Robert Englund.

By most accounts, Robert Englund is one of the most affable men in Hollywood, someone who is so talkative and friendly that people are often stunned to remember that he’s best known for playing Freddy Krueger. Indeed, in his pre-Nightmare on Elm Street films, Englund was usually cast as quirky and often shy characters. It was rare to see him play a villain.

That all changed when he was played Freddy Krueger in 1984’s A Nightmare on Elm Street. (Interestingly enough, director Wes Craven wrote the role with David Warner in mind.) In the role of Freddy, Englund became a horror icon. Freddy himself became such a quip machine in the later films that it’s easy to forget just how terrifying a figure he was in the first film.

In this scene, we see just how scary Robert Englund’s performance truly was in A Nightmare on Elm Street.

Horror Novel Review: College Weekend by R.L. Stine

Posted on October 10, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1995 YA novel, College Weekend, opens with Tina in a superexcited mood.

She is going to be spending the weekend up at Patterson College, where she’ll finally be reunited with her boyfriend, Josh! Josh is a year older than Tina and, while she’s finishing up her senior year at Shadyside High, Josh has been busy in college, collecting rocks and studying geology. Tina is so excited to have the chance to spend the weekend with Josh that she’s even willing to agree to her parents’ demand that she take her boy-crazy cousin Holly with her.

Awwwwwwwwww! Long distance relationships are so sweet!

Unfortunately, when Tina arrives on campus, she is met not by Josh but instead by Josh’s roommate, Chris. Chris explains that Josh is up in the mountains on a Geology field trip. He thought he would be home in time to pick up Tina but apparently, he had car trouble. Chris volunteers to show Tina and Holly around the campus and Tina agrees, even though she can’t help but feel that there’s something that Chris isn’t telling her. (This is one of those books that could only have been written in the days when everyone was dependent on landline phones.) Chris, Tina, Holly, and some others go to a party that night and …. HOLLY DISAPPEARS!

Tina is definitely concerned but Chris tells her not to worry about it. In fact, having heard that Tina is an aspiring model, Chris explains that he’s related to a famous photographer and that he has his own studio. In fact, Chris is willing to take some professional-quality pictures of Tina. He even has some clothes for her to wear, clothes that belonged to a former girlfriend who just happened to look a lot like Tina …. yikes!

You can probably guess where all of this is leading. Let’s just say that this turns out to be one truly traumatic college weekend and I have a feeling that Tina will probably want to apply to a different university. That said, this book does a really good job of capturing just exciting visiting a college campus can seem when you’re still in high school and you’re plotting out your future. My sisters and I visited a lot of campuses, both during their senior years and mine. I always enjoyed getting to see all of the different campuses and getting to imagine what it would be like to live on each one. Of course, I eventually ended up at a school that had a boring campus but a fun student body.

In the end, College Weekend is a fast-paced and entertaining trip to the campus of your nightmares.

October True Crime: Chicago Massacre: Richard Speck (dir by Michael Feifer)

Posted on October 10, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Richard Speck was the worst of the worst.

A petty criminal-turned-drifter, Richard Speck fled Texas to avoid being sentenced to prison for his part in a grocery store robbery. He eventually ended up in Chicago, where he lived with his sister and her husband and found occasional work as a seaman. When he couldn’t get work on a boat, the alcoholic Speck supported himself by mugging and burglarizing. It’s not known when he committed his first murder, though it is suspected that it occurred back in Texas. It is known that, in July of 1966, Speck’s sister and brother-in-law finally got sick of dealing with him as a houseguest and Speck ended staying in a series of rooming houses and homeless shelters. On July 13th, the 24 year-old Speck mugged and raped at 53 year-old woman before then breaking into a townhouse that was occupied by nine student nurses. Over the course of the night, he raped and murdered eight of nurses. The only survivor hid underneath a bed until Speck left. She later told police that Speck spoke with a soft Southern accent, had an acne-scarred face, and a tattoo that read Born to Raise Hell.

It was the tattoo that led to his capture. Two days after the murders, with the city of Chicago in an uproar and the police launching a city-wide manhunt to catch the killer, Richard Speck attempted to kill himself by slitting his wrists. He was taken to Cook County Hospital, where Dr. LeRoy Smith saw Speck’s tattoo and called the police.

Though protesting his innocence, Speck was convicted of the murders and sentenced to die. He was spared the death sentence when the Supreme Court briefly outlawed capital punishment. From prison, Speck eventually admitted that he had killed the nurses but he claimed that he was so drunk and high that he had no idea what he was doing. After Speck died of heart failure in 1991, a videotape would emerge of a cocky Speck telling his fellow prisoners that he knew exactly what he was doing and he never felt a bit of guilt. “Just wasn’t their night,” was Speck’s explanation for why the murders happened. Speck also said that if the public knew how much fun he was having in prison, they would have released him for sure. Richard Speck is the type of evil specter who seems to exist to specifically challenge those of us who are opposed to the death penalty. If anyone has ever deserved to be executed in the most painful way possible, it was Richard Speck.

The 2007 film Chicago Massacre stars Corin Nemec as Richard Speck and the film’s makeup department deserves a lot of credit for transforming the handsome and normally quite personable Corin Nemec into the horribly poc-marked Richard Speck. Sometimes, monsters truly do look like monsters and that was definitely the case of Speck. Nemec plays Speck as being a natural-born deviant, a soulless sociopath who has no control over his impulses and who never seems to understand why the world is so disgusted by his crimes. It’s a truly frightening performance.

The rest of the film is a flawed and heavily fictionalized account of Speck’s crimes, imagining that Speck was actually a casual acquaintance of one of the nurses that he killed and suggesting that she was the main reason why he broke into the townhouse to begin with. The history nerd of me cringed when a police chief (Tony Todd) announced that his lead detective (Andrew Divoff) only had two days to solve the murders because the Democratic Convention was coming up. (Speck committed the murders in 1966, two years before the Democrats came to Chicago for their ill-fated convention.) Todd’s police chief says that he’ll be forced to sweep the murders under the rug if they’re not solved quickly but I’m not really sure how that would happen, given the enormity of the crime and the panic that reportedly swept through Chicago as a result. As much as I hate to single out any one performer for criticism (because I usually assume that a bad performance has more to do with the director and the editor than the actor), Joanne Chew, cast in the role of the sole survivor of Speck’s rampage, delivers her dialogue so awkwardly that it sabotages what should have been some of the strongest moments of the film. (Then again, even the best actress would perhaps be challenged by a line like, “I will look the devil in the eye.”)

Filled with flashbacks to both the murder of the nurses and Speck’s life as Texas criminal, Chicago Massacre is an undeniably icky film but given that it’s about Richard Speck, it really should be. When it comes to a criminal like Richard Speck, it’s always tempting to try to look at his life for clues as how to prevent a future Richard Speck from committing a similar crime. But, with Speck, there’s little to be learned beyond the fact that he did what he did because he had no conscience or sense of guilt to mitigate his impulses. Speck had a terrible childhood but many people have had terrible childhoods without turning into mass murderers. Speck was mentally unwell but many people deal with their mental health without turning into mass murderers. In the end, he was a monster. Thankfully, he was also enough of a dumbass to get a tattoo that made it impossible for him to hide from his crimes.

Horror Film Review: Mothra vs. Godzilla (dir by Ishiro Honda)

Posted on October 10, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1964 film, Mothra vs. Godzilla, opens with a beach in Japan getting hit by a typhoon.

It’s certainly not the worst disaster that has ever hit Japan, though a government bureaucrat does show up to take credit for the recovery effort. Instead of covering his speech, a reporter and a photographer stumble across a mysterious egg that has washed up on the beach. The egg is beautiful and a local entertainment company, Happy Enterprises, has decided that they are going to build an entire amusement park and center it around the egg.

Then, the Shobijin, two twin fairies, show up and inform everyone that the egg belongs to Mothra, a giant moth who has actually been a pretty good friend to humanity in the past. They explain that the egg was washed away from Mothra’s home on Infant Island. Mothra really needs the egg back because the current Mothra is coming to the end of her lifespan and the egg contains the larvae who will become the newest version of Mothra. Unfortunately, the Happy Enterprisises businessmen say that they’re going to keep the egg and that they really don’t care what Mothra wants. Mothra flies over to Japan and takes the faeries back to Infant Island. As they leave, the faeries say, “Goodbye, sorry you were so selfish!”

Unfortunately, shortly after Mothra and the faeries leave, Godzilla suddenly appears on the beach and starts destroying buildings and people with his radioactive breath. Realizing that the only way to stop one monster is to bring in another monster, the humans head out to Infant Island and ask Mothra to help them. When they arrives at Infant Island, they discover that the island itself has been turned into a wasteland by frequent nuclear testing. The natives tells their visitors that they have no desire to allow Mothra to help them out with Godzilla. The faeries say, “Tough.” However, in the end, it’s Mothra’s decision whether or not to save humanity and Mothra, being the kindest of all the monsters, takes off to stop Godzilla.

It’s not really October without watching at least Godzilla film and Mothra vs. Godzilla is a good example of an old school Godzilla film, one that was released by Toho before Godzilla was reimagined as being a friend of humanity. Indeed, a major message of Mothra vs. Godzilla seems to be that humanity doesn’t really deserve any friends. It takes some nerve to refuse to allow Mothra to have her egg and to then expect Mothra to battle Godzilla for you. That Mothra is willing to help is a reminder that, of all the big Japanese monsters, Mothra was the most friendly and willing to give humanity a second chance. Godzilla, meanwhile, is just in a permanent bad mood. In this film, he still represents the trauma of a nation that, less than 20 years previously, had been hit by two atomic bombs. Godzilla fully represents the destructive power of the atomic age while Mothra, who is continually sacrificing her life so that she can be reborn, represents the hope for some sort of renewal. In the end, both monsters fight their battle for the benefit of humanity and it’s exciting and fun to watch. For a giant moth, Mothra is an agile combatant. That said, most viewers will probably be Team Godzilla because he’s reminding humanity of the randomness of fate. Myself, I was just happy with the knowledge that, regardless of who won the fight, they would both be back for future films.

4 Shots From 4 Films: Special William Castle Edition

Posted on October 10, 2023 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 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 is the one and only William Castle, who was as well-known for the gimmicks he used to promote his films as for the films themselves. It’s time for….

4 Shots From 4 William Castle Films

The Tingler (1959, dir by William Castle, DP: Wilfred M. Cline)

House on Haunted Hill (1959, dir by William Castle, DP: Carl E. Guthrie)

13 Ghosts (1960, dir by William Castle, DP: Joseph F. Biroc)

Strait-Jacket (1964, dir by William Castle, DP: Arthur E. Arling)

The Three Covers of Ace Mystery Magazine

Posted on October 10, 2023 by Dazzling Erin

At the height of the Great Depression, many people escaped from the harsh realities of their economic situation through pulp magazines that highlighted the weird and lurid mysteries. Published by Periodical House, Ace Mystery Magazine was one such pulp magazine that was published in 1936. Though the magazine featured stories by popular writers, it never found its place in the crowded pulp marketplace and it was canceled after three issues. Today, the magazine is remembered for its creepy covers, which were done by three of the best artists of the pulp era. Here are the three covers of Ace Mystery Magazine.

May, 1936. Cover by Howard Sherman

July, 1936. Cover by David Berger

September, 1936. Cover by Rafael DeSoto

Horror Film Review: Night Feeder (dir by Jim Whiteaker)

Posted on October 10, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This obscure 1988 film takes place in San Francisco.

Specifically, it takes place in the underground San Francisco art scene, a world where zoned out hipsters gather in a small clubs and listen to bands like Disease. Disease (played by a real-life San Francisco band that was called The Nuns) sings songs that encourage the listeners to slit their wrists. The police don’t care much for Disease and even several of the locals think that Disease is bad news. Rumor has it that three Disease groupies died under mysterious circumstances.

While Disease sings, their fans get hooked on the drug DZS, which is also pronounced Disease. (Yes, it gets a little bit hard to keep track of.) DZS was developed to battle schizophrenia but it can also be used as a party drug and cause overdoses.

Speaking of death, there’s people dying all over San Francisco and Inspector Bernardo (Jonathan Zeichner) thinks that it’s because Disease isn’t just a band but also a brain-stealing cult. Bodies are being found without huge sections of their brain. Apparently, the murderer gouges out its victim’s eye and then sucks the brain out through the eye socket. It does this while the victim is still alive. Ouch!

Also investigating the murders is a reporter named Jean (Kate Alexander). Jean has just recently left her husband so that she can be a member of the underground art scene. She’s currently living with the lead singer of Disease, though he insists that their relationship is totally casual and that there’s no commitment involved. Needless to say, Jean is not happy when Inspector Alonzo suggests that the band might be behind the murders. (For one thing, traces of DZS are found on the majority of the victims.) Jean’s investigation leads her to discover that not only is the city crawling with potential murderers but there’s also a mutant baby to deal with….

That’s right, a mutant baby.

Anyway, Night Feeder was shot on video and, from what I’ve been able to gather online, it was specifically sold in San Francisco video stores. It was a regional production, meaning that the cast was populated with local actors and the production crew was largely local as well. It was shot on location at clubs around the city, making the film into a bit of a time capsule if nothing else. Oddly enough, the movie somehow found its way to Poland, where it became something a cult hit among Polish horror fans. That’s just one of the many oddities of the film distribution. You never know where your low-budget, shot-on-video movie might become a hit.

But, you may be asking — is the movie itself any good? Eh …. it’s okay. I mean, it’s a low-budget film that was shot on video and, even more importantly, it looks like it was shot on video. It has the aesthetic quality of a student film. The majority of the actors deliver their lines stiffly, though I did appreciate the energetic performance of Kate Alexander. She did the best that one probably could with the material that she was given. That said, the special effects were done by a guy who was a part of the VFX crew for David Cronenberg’s The Fly and, even for a straight-to-video production, some of the imagery is memorably grotesque. So, if nothing else, the film has that going for it.

That said, I have a weakness for low-budget regional productions, especially ones that serve as a time capsule of a very particular time and place. Night Feeder definitely does that and, as such, it’s worth watching just for the chance to see how people once lived.