Horror Film Review: The Fog (dir by John Carpenter)

Posted on October 11, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

“Time for one more story,” Mr. Machen (John Houseman) declares the beginning of John Carpenter’s 1980 horror film, The Fog.

Mr. Machen is a resident of Antonio Bay, California, a coastal town that was founded with the help of gold stolen from a ship that was owned by a wealthy man named Blake (Rob Bottin). Blake wanted to start a leper colony. Instead, he was betrayed by six sailors who sank Blake’s ship, stole the gold, and used it to start the town of Antonio Bay.

At 12 midnight, on the day that the town is to celebrate its 100 anniversary, strange things start to happen. Windows shatter. Masonry falls from walls. A thick fog rolls across the ocean and seems to move from house to house. Inside the fog are several angry spirits, led by Blake. They not only want their gold back but they also want to take six lives as a way of getting revenge on the six conspirators who stole their gold and sank their ship.

It all starts with knock at the door and, if you look out a window, maybe you’ll see a dark shadow standing in an all-enveloping fog. Answering the door is a mistake. At the same time, so is not answering the door. It’s not easy to escape the vengeful spirits in the fog.

The Fog (1980, dir by John Carpenter, DP: Dean Cudney)

The Fog plays out like a disaster film, albeit one with a supernatural twist. The film follows several characters who are trying to survive the night and the majority of them don’t even meet until the final half of the film. There’s a truck driver (Tom Atkins) and a hitchhiker (Jamie Lee Curtis). There’s the alcoholic priest (Hal Halbrook) and the chairwoman (Janet Leigh) of the anniversary committee. Nancy Loomis, who co-starred with Curtis in Carpenter’s Halloween, plays an administrative assistant while Carpenter’s wife, Adrienne Barbeau, plays the local radio DJ whose son is briefly targeted by the fog. There’s even a coroner named Dr. Phibes!

In fact, the whole film is full of references to other films. The Fog finds John Carpenter in a rather playful mood, with characters named after Carpenter associates like Dan O’Bannon, Tommy Wallace, and Nick Castle. There’s even a mention of Arkham, the fictional New England town that served as the setting for many of H.P. Lovecraft’s stories.

42 years after it was made, The Fog holds up as a very well-told ghost story. I mean, fog is just creepy in itself. Then you add in a bunch of silent shadows standing in the fog and it gets even scarier! For the most part, the actors all do a good job playing rather thinly-drawn characters. Tom Atkins is always fun to watch! The true stars of the film, of course, are the ghosts and they will definitely give you nightmares.

The Fog is a good film for Halloween viewing so watch it and don’t answer the door!

The Fog (1980, dir by John Carpenter, DP: Dean Cundey)

(Don’t just take my word for it! Be sure to read Leonard’s review of The Fog!)

Horror on the Lens: Bride of the Monster (dir by Edward D. Wood, Jr.)

Posted on October 11, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Bride of The Monster (1955, dir by Ed Wood)

Since yesterday was the great man’s birthday, it seems appropriate that today’s horror film on the lens is Edward D. Wood’s 1955 epic, Bride of the Monster.

(Much like Plan 9 From Outer Space, around here, it is a tradition to watch Bride of the Monster in October.)

The film itself doesn’t feature a bride but it does feature a monster, a giant octopus who guards the mansion of the mysterious Dr. Vornoff (Bela Lugosi). Vornoff and his hulking henchman Lobo (Tor Johnson) have been kidnapping men and using nuclear power to try to create a race of super soldiers. Or something like that. The plot has a make-it-up-as-you-go-along feel to it. That’s actually a huge part of the film’s appeal.

Bride of the Monster is regularly described as being one of the worst films ever made but I think that’s rather unfair. Appearing in his last speaking role, Lugosi actually gives a pretty good performance, bringing a wounded dignity to the role of Vornoff. If judged solely against other movies directed by Ed Wood, this is actually one of the best films ever made.

(For a longer review, click here!)

Horror On TV: Ghost Story 1.10 “Elegy For A Vampire” (dir by Don McDougall)

Posted on October 10, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

On tonight’s episode of Ghost Story, college co-eds are being drained of their blood! Who could the culprit be? Oddly, some say that they saw a recently deceased college professor near the scene of the crime. What was that professor studying when he died? Vampirism!

This one is kind of silly but I always enjoy a vampire story. This episode aired on December 1st, 1972.

The TSL’s Horror Grindhouse: Studio 666 (dir by B.J. McDonnell)

Posted on October 10, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In Studio 666, the members of Foo Fighters play themselves. Struggling with writer’s block and hoping to remain musically relevant in a world where the culture belongs to the young, the band heads to an Encino mansion so that they can work on their latest album. The mansion is infamous because years ago, another band was murdered while attempting to record there. (Oddly enough, Jenna Ortega plays the drummer of the murdered band. Ortega had quite a year as far as the horror genre is concerned.)

The band arrives at the mansion and things quickly go downhill. The band isn’t getting along. Lead singer Dave Grohl is revealed to be a bit of megalomaniac. One of the band’s electricians is killed in what appears to be a freak accident. Most people would move out of a house after someone dies under mysterious circumstances but not this band! Instead, the band decides to dedicate the album to the memory of the dead guy.

Soon, however, there are a lot more dead people at the mansion. Why are there so many dead people there? This is going to sound like a spoiler but it’s not….

DAVE GROHL IS KILLING THEM!

Yes, Dave Grohl has been possessed by the evil spirit of mansion. On the one hand, it’s given him the inspiration necessary to get over his writer’s block. On the other hand, it also leads to him killing the other members of the band in various grotesque ways. Studio 666 is a horror comedy that doesn’t shy away from the gore. If you’ve ever wanted to see a member of Foo Fighters get cut in half with a chainsaw while having sex with Whitney Cummings, I guess this is the film to track down. (Cummings, I should note, does not play herself. This film stars the band as themselves but it’s also filled with recognizable actors who are not playing themselves.)

Studio 666 is a bit of a lark, a horror film starring a band that most people don’t really associate with the horror genre. Indeed, a good deal of the film’s humor comes from the fact that it’s Dave Grohl doing all of the killing. In real life, a good deal of Dave Grohl’s appeal is that he comes across as being as close to a regular guy as a rock star can be. He’s one those famous guys who most people could imagine having a beer with. Studio 666 gets a lot of mileage out of presenting Dave Grohl as being a pretentious taskmaster who would happily sell his soul for the chance to have a successful solo career. It helps that Dave Grohl seems to be having a blast playing such an exaggerated version of himself. It’s hard not to be happy for him because he really does appear to having the time of his life.

That said, once Grohl is revealed to be the killer (and that happens very early in the film so, again, this is not a spoiler), the film really has nowhere else to go. The whole thing simply becomes Grohl tracking down various members of the band and killing them in grotesque ways and it gets to be a little boring. There’s little suspense and, since the Foo Fighters are playing themselves, there really aren’t any stakes because we know the band wasn’t actually murdered while recording a new album. With a 106-minute running time, Studio 666 really grinds its one joke into the ground.

I will say that longtime fans of Foo Fighters will probably enjoy the film, if just because there’s several jokes and comments that are obviously meant to be inside jokes that only a select few will get. Personally, I think it’s nice that the band did something for the fans, even if the movie itself doesn’t really work.

The Munsters (2022, directed by Rob Zombie)

Posted on October 10, 2022 by Jedadiah Leland

Have you ever wondered how Herman and Lily Munster came to live at 1313 Mockingbird Lane?

No?

That’s too bad, because Rob Zombie is going to tell you anyways.

Rob Zombie’s The Munsters is a prequel to the 60s sitcom of the same name. It shows how Herman Munster (Jeff Daniel Phillips) came to be created, how he became a Rob Zombie-style rock star, and how he overcame the opposition of the Count (Daniel Roebuck) and married Lily (Sheri Moon Zombie). It also shows how Lily’s brother, Lester (Tomas Boykin), tricked Herman into signing over the deed for the Count’s castle in Transylvania. There’s not much of a plot but there was never much of a plot when it came to the original sitcom either. Just like the show that the movie is based on, The Munsters exists to show classic monsters making corny jokes and freaking out at the prospect of dealing with what the rest of the world considers to be normalcy. Unlike the multi-faceted Addams Family, The Munsters have always been a one-joke family.

There have always been elements of satire and subversive humor in everything that Rob Zombie has done, as both a musician and a director. Those who claim that Rob Zombie does not have a sense of humor are mistaken. However, the comedy in The Munsters is deliberately broad and vaudevillian, like the show on which the movie is based. As a director, Zombie doesn’t always seem to know how to best present that type of humor. The Munsters is the rare movie that would have benefitted from a laugh track because the jokes are definitely sitcom-level. They were designed to be followed by canned laughter. Zombie’s affection for the material and the characters come through and the deliberately artificial production and costume design actually works better than I was expecting but, at nearly two hours, The Munsters often feels directionless.

Jeff Daniel Phillips and Daniel Roebuck do adequate imitations of Fred Gwynne and Al Lewis, respectively, but its Sheri Moon Zombie who steals the show, bringing a lot of mischievous energy to Lily. Of the principle cast, Sheri Moon Zombie is the only one makes her character feel like something more than just a tribute to an old sitcom. The camera loves her and she convinces us that she loves Herman, no matter how childishly he behaves.

One final note: Sylvester McCoy — the seventh doctor, himself! — plays the Count’s assistant, Igor. McCoy doesn’t get to do much but it was still good to see him. Igor was the type of role that Tom Baker used to specialize in before he was cast as the Fourth Doctor. By casting McCoy as Igor, it almost felt as if Zombie was keeping the role in the family.

Horror Scenes That I Love: Leatherface Meets Kirk in the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Posted on October 10, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This scene, from 1974’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, only last 52 seconds but that’s all the time that it needs. Leatherface makes his first appearance and, sadly, Kirk exits the film.

What makes this scene so effective is that, even though it’s obvious that something bad is going to happen, Leatherface still seems to pop up out of nowhere. When he does kill Kirk, he does it so efficiently and without hesitation that there’s little doubt that this is just an ordinary day for him. When Leatherface slams that door, what he’s truly saying is that he’s very busy and he’d appreciate it if people just stopped bothering him for an hour or two.

For his part, Kirk really shouldn’t have just gone into someone’s house uninvited. That’s really not Texas manners. That said, I do think Leatherface did overreact just a bit. Killing a guest isn’t really an example of good manners either.

Novel Review: One Evil Summer by R.L. Stine

Posted on October 10, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

It’s summer! That means that it’s time for the Conklin Family to take a vacation to the lovely resort town of Seahvaen. Unfortunately, Mr. Conklin and Mrs. Conklin are both bringing their work with them and oldest daughter Amanda is having to take summer school classes because she failed Algebra. (How do you go on a vacation and so summer school at the same time?) Despite the fact that I never had to do a day of summer school, I could still relate to Amanda because Algebra was always my worse subject. Fortunately, my sister kept all of her tests from the previous year so I was able to cheat my way to a passing grade. I still suck at Algebra and, as Case can tell you, I still throw a fit whenever I have to discuss anything that has to do with math but the important thing is that my summers were mine.

(To be honest, I probably could have done just fine if not for the “show your work” requirement, which always struck me as being fairly nonsensical. If I got the right answer, why did it matter how I got it? Usually, I do most of my work in my head and the notes that I jot down are usually written in such a way that only I can understand what they actually mean. That works just fine for me.)

Anyway, someone has to look after the youngest two Conklin kids during the day so Mrs. Conklin hires Chrissy, despite the fact that Chrissy has absolutely no references and is obviously batshit insane. Amanda keeps trying to get her parents to understand that Chrissy is crazy and planning on killing everyone but her parents are just like, “That’s what you get for failing Algebra.” Bleh!

The book has an intriguing premise and the first few chapters were so silly that I thought I was going to really enjoy One Evil Summer. But then all three of the Conklin family pets died, including a cat named Mr. Jinx and two parakeets that got their throats slit and ended up bleeding all over the place. That pretty much turned me off of the book, as it all just felt gratuitous and cheap. I pretty much lost all interest in the story when Mr. Jinx died and the death of the two parakeets pretty much guaranteed that I wouldn’t get that interest back any time soon. I did skim the rest of the book, just so I could be honest when I wrote this review. Chrissy turns out to be a witch with a secret! I figured out the secret pretty quickly.

To be honest, things get pretty silly towards the end of the book. It would actually have been enjoyably over-the-top if not for all the dead animals. But the death of Jinx and the birds just kind of made the rest of the book too depressing to really enjoy. To Stine’s credit, Amanda to get a new kitten and the kitten got a bit of revenge for its predecessor but still, the whole book just left a sour aftertaste.

Book Review: Encyclopedia of Urban Legends by Jan Harold Bruvard

Posted on October 10, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Don’t you just love that cover?

The cover is based on the urban legend about the driver who stops at a gas station. Usually, the driver is already nervous due to having heard a report about an escaped murderer or a missing mental patient. When a frantic stranger approaches the car, the driver panics and drives off. What the driver didn’t realize was that the stranger was trying to warn her that the killer was in the back seat of her car.

How about the one about the girl and the boy making out in the car when they hear a report that a killer with a hook for a hand is in the area? I’ve heard several variations of that one but the thing they all have in common is that they never end well for the couple. The underlying message, of course, is that the couple was punished for giving into temptation but, in all honesty, most people who hear the story are going to care more about the hook than the subtext.

It’s kind of like the story of the girl who thinks that a killer is trying to enter her dorm room so she locks the door, just to discover, in the safety of the morning hours, that the person pounding on the door was actually her now dead roommate. Aren’t you glad you didn’t answer the door? is written in blood on the outside of the door. That story gave me nightmares the first time that I heard it, even if memories of it didn’t exactly keep me from going out at night. Actually, being scared made me even more determined to go out. I wasn’t going to let an imaginary killer tell me what to do!

All of those stories and many more are included in Jan Harold Brunvand’s Encyclopedia of Urban Legends. Many of the urban legends included in here are frightening. A few of them are a little bit ridiculous, especially the ones that were obviously dreamt up as a way to scare kids straight in the 60s. (We’ve all heard about the stoned babysitter and the microwave, right?) Some of them are funny. Some of them are embarrassing. Some, I’ve actually heard repeated as fact by many different people. The book not only details various urban legends but it also has entries about the cultural and historical roots of those legends. (Satanic Panic, for instance, gets an entry all of its own.) It also takes a look at the urban legends of various nations, examining how several different cultures can adopt the same story and make it uniquely their own. Jan Harold Brunvand is one of the world’s leading authorities on folklore and urban legends. His encyclopedia is both entertaining to read and rather thought-provoking as it examines the roots of some of the oldest urban legends around. As well, in the introduction, he takes some time to write about how much he disliked the film Urban Legend. You have to respect that.

Encyclopedia of Urban Legends is a great reference book. It’s one of my favorites. For the aspiring horror writer, it’s treasure trove of research and inspiration. And did I mention how much I love the cover?

International Horror Review: Robo Vampire 2: Devil’s Dynamite (dir by Godfrey Ho)

Posted on October 10, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

There are some films that just defy description.

Sometimes, as with the films of David Lynch, it’s because the films themselves are so surreal and visually stunning that there’s no way to actually describe them. They have to be experienced. The same can be said of films that are so experimental and unique that they simply have to be watched. For instance, if I told you that Derek Jarman’s final film Blue, was 70 minutes of people talking over a blue screen, you’d probably think it was pretty boring. But if you’ve actually seen the film, you know that the opposite is true.

And then there are films that are impossible to describe because they don’t make any damn sense. These are films where the storyline is so nonsensical and the direction is so random and the editing is so ragged that it is essentially impossible to understand what’s going on from one scene to the next. That brings us to 1987’s Robo Vampire 2: Devil’s Dynamite.

And really, it shouldn’t be a surprise that Robo Vampire 2 is impossible to follow. It was directed by Godfrey Ho, the Hong Kong director who built a career out of his ability to build a brand new film out of stock footage and unused takes from other movies. If Robo Vampire 2 feels like it’s a dozen different films rolled into one, that’s probably because it actually is a dozen different films rolled into one.

As you can tell from the title (one of the many titles that the film was released under), this film was sold in a few territories as being a sequel to Robo Vampire. Robo Vampire 2: Devil’s Dynamite does feature a cop who wears a uniform that makes him look like a knock-off Robocop and it does feature vampires but otherwise, it has little in common with the first Robo Vampire. (Indeed the cop is actually referred to as being the Shadow Warrior, instead of a cyborg as was the hero of Robo Vampire.) Robo Vampire 2 deals with the plans of Madame Mary (Angela Mao), who is concerned that her criminal empire will be taken down by a combination of the cops and a rival gangster named Steve (Tsung Hua). Madame Mary employs a monk who creates an army of vampires. When the vampires go on a rampage, killing cops and threatening random children, Alex (Lin Yun) turns into Shadow Warrior and fights them off.

Interestingly, no one is surprised to see the Shadow Warrior, so I guess he’s a pretty well-known figure. But it’s never really clear whether everyone also knows that Alex is the Shadow Warrior nor is it ever that clear just how exactly Alex became the Shadow Warrior in the first place. (The film’s title would seem to suggest that Alex is the meant to be the same hero from the first Robo Vampire but the hero from the first Robo Vampire was a cyborg whereas Alex is not.) Even more surprisingly, no one is shocked by the sudden appearance of the vampires so I guess vampire attacks are a common thing in the world of Robo Vampire 2. Why would Hong Kong’s biggest crime lord need to create any army of vampires in the first place? The film never quite says.

That said, there are a few entertaining fights. Even better, the vampires hop from place to place and they usually have their arms extended in front of them, like kids pretending to be zombies. That’s actually kind of fun to watch. If you’re going to unleash any army of vampires on a town, at least make sure they hop.

10 Shots From 10 Horror Films: 1973 and 1974

Posted on October 10, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974, dir by Tobe Hooper, DP: Daniel Pearl)

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’m going to be doing something a little bit different with my contribution to 4 (or more) Shots From 4 (or more) Films. I’m going to be taking a little chronological tour of the history of horror cinema, moving from decade to decade.

Today, we take a look at two very important years: 1973 and 1974!

10 Shots From 10 Horror Films: 1973 and 1974