The TSL’s Horror Grindhouse: End of the World (dir by Charles Band)

Posted on October 4, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1977 film End of the World has got a great opening scene. An obviously distraught priest (played by none other than Christopher Lee!) steps into an isolated diner. He tells the counterman that he needs to use the phone. The counterman says, “Sure, father.” And then suddenly, everything in the dinner starts blowing up. The phone, the coffee, the pinball machine, everything explodes. The counterman ends up trying to unsuccessfully throw himself through a window. The priest, looking rather confused, steps outside of the diner and he runs into …. his exact double! Christopher Lee meets Christopher Lee!

Again, that’s a great opening and it’s really not a surprise that the rest of the film can’t live up to it. Once the two Christopher Lees disappear into the darkness, the focus of the story shifts to a scientist named Andrew (Kirk Scott) and his wife, Sylvia (Sue Lyon, who years previously played Lolita). Andrew spends a lot of time sitting in front of a boxy computer and staring at the screen. He’s picking up strange transmissions from space and he’s trying to translate them. Andrew goes home. He and his wife got a party. Andrew sits in front of the computer a while longer. Andrew goes home. Andrew goes to work. Andrew keeps staring at the computer….

“Wait,” you’re saying at this point, “isn’t this is a Christopher Lee movie?”

Yes, it is. Christopher Lee is indeed top-billed and he’s hardly in the movie at all. I’d like to think that, when asked why by an intrepid reporter why he agreed to star in End of the World, Lee laughed and replied, “For the money, of course.” But, according to Lee’s autobiography, he did the film because he was told that he would be appearing with a cast of distinguished actors like Jose Ferrer, Dean Jagger, and John Carradine. Now, Dean Jagger does have a small cameo in the film but Ferrer and Carradine are nowhere to be seen. Either they left the production or someone lied to Sir Christopher!

Anyway, back to the plot. Eventually, Andrew figures out that the space transmissions are predicting natural disasters. We don’t actually see any of these disasters because, after all, this is the end of the world on a very low budget. But we are assured that the disasters are happening. Andrew and Sylvia discover that the transmissions are coming from a convent in the middle of the desert. Andrew and Sylvia go to investigate and they discover that the nuns are….

ALIENS!

Now, this is actually a pretty good twist and there are some vaguely humorous scenes of the the nuns working in a space lab. It turns out that the nuns (and one of the Christopher Lees) are stranded on this planet because their spaceship broke down. They don’t really like Earth, considering it to be an ugly and polluted place. They’re planning on ending the world but they need to leave before the whole place blows up. They demand that Andrew help them fix their transporter and they’re going to hold Sylvia hostage until he does so….

It’s all a bit silly but, as you’re watching the film, you can’t help but wish that it had been even sillier. I mean, alien nuns and Father Christopher Lee? That sounds like the makings of a certain type of classic! But, unfortunately, the film never fully embraces the full potential of its absurdity. It takes forever for Andrew and Sylvia to actually reach that convent and even the alien nuns become rather passé after a few minutes. Christopher Lee is fun to watch as always and his character’s irritation with being stuck on Earth was obviously mirrored by Lee’s irritation with being in the film. And, despite all else, let’s give credit where credit it is due — the title lives up to its promise. The world may end in a pile of stock footage but an end is an end.

Anyway, this one is pretty much for Christopher Lee completists only. Watch the opening and then fast forward to the end.

Robotic Vengeance: Steel and Lace (1991, directed by Ernest Farino)

Posted on October 4, 2019 by Jedadiah Leland

On trial for raping concert pianist Gally Morton (Clare Wren), evil businessman Daniel Emerson (Michael Cerveris) gets four of his sleazy buddies to provide a fake alibi for him. After Emerson is acquitted, Gally goes to the roof of the courthouse and leaps to her death.

Five years later, Daniel and his four friends have made a fortune by illegally foreclosing on people’s houses. They may think that they’ve gotten away with their crimes but what they don’t know is that Gally’s brother, Albert (Bruce Davison), has been building a robot version of his sister. Soon, Robot Gally is killing off all of Emerson’s friends while a courtroom sketch artist named Alison (Stacy Haiduk) and a detective named Dunn (David Naughton) attempt to figure out what’s going on.

A mix of The Terminator and I Spit On Your Grave, Steel and Lace is a classic of its kind. While the deaths are inventive and, considering who Robot Gally is killing, deserved, what really sets the film apart is the strong cast and the inventive direction. Director Ernest Farino wastes no time getting down to business and he inventively opens the film by cutting back and forth between Emerson assaulting Gally and the jury acquitting him of the crime that we just saw him commit. Davison is not in the film as much as you might expect but he still makes an impression as the fanatical Albert and Naughton and Haiduk are likable even if their scenes sometimes feel like padding. Best of all is Clare Wren, an actress who deserved to be a bigger star and who is convincing both as the fragile Gally and as the vengeance-driven robot. Robot Gally eventually comes to question whether justice is truly be served by all of the killings and Wren sells it. Also be sure to keep an eye out for David L. Lander, playing the prerequisite eccentric coronor. (Has there ever been a movie coroner who wasn’t an eccentric?) Finally, Brian Backer — who will be forever known for playing nice guy Mark Ratner in Fast Times At Ridgemont High — is effectively cast against type as one of Emerson’s stooges.

Steel and Lace is one of the best low-budget films to come out of the early 90s, a deeply satisfying tale of robotics and vengeance.

Video Game Review: Hamburger Hell (1986, J.P. Jansen)

Posted on October 4, 2019 by Jedadiah Leland

In this game, you are working in a fast food restaurant. Your goal is to make as many hamburgers as possible. The more hamburgers you make, the more money the restaurant makes and the more your boss likes you.

Sounds simple, right?

Think again!

In this restaurant, it’s not just about knowing when to flip the burger. Instead, you have to climb to the top of a ladder and push each ingredient down a level, one-by-one. (That’s you, at the bottom of the third ladder.) Making things extra difficult is that there’s a ghost running up and down the ladders. The more hamburgers you make, the faster the ghost becomes. If the ghost touches you, you die. You come right back to life the first four times. But after the fourth time, this happens:

This is an intentionally dumb but very addictive game. You can play it at the Internet Archive.

Eat well and watch out for that ghost!

Horror Scenes That I Love: Jack Meets Lloyd in The Shining

Posted on October 4, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The scene below is, of course, from Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 masterpiece, The Shining.

In this scene, Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) stumbles into the Overlook Hotel’s ballroom, still fuming over having been accused of abusing his son. A recovering alcoholic, Jack sits at the bar and thinks about how he would give up his soul for just one one drink. And, on cue, Lloyd (Joe Turkel) appears.

As I was watching this scene, it occurred to me that, way back in 1980, there probably was some guy named Lloyd who saw this movie in a theater and was probably totally shocked when Jack suddenly stared straight at him and said, “Hey, Lloyd.”

The brilliance of this scene is that we never actually see Lloyd materialize. We see him only after Jack has seen him. So, yes, Lloyd could be a ghost. But he could also just be a figment of Jack’s imagination. Jack very well could just be suffering from cabin fever. Of course, by the end of the movie, we learn the truth.

Everyone always talks about Jack Nicholson’s performance as Jack. Some people love it and some people hate it. (I’m in the first camp.) However, let’s take a minute to appreciate just how totally creepy Joe Turkel is in this scene. Turkel was a veteran character actor and had appeared in two previous Kubrick films, The Killing and Paths of Glory. Two years after appearing in The Shining, Turkel played what may be his best-known role, Dr. Eldon Tyrell in Blade Runner.

From Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, here’s Jack Nicholson and Joe Turkel:

Horror Book Review: Encyclopedia Of Vampire Mythology by Theresa Bane

Posted on October 4, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Now, here’s the interesting thing about vampires:

They’ve been around forever.

Seriously, long before Bram Stoker first put pen to paper, there were legends about vampires. Of course, they weren’t always called vampires. In the Middle East, there was talk of the Afrit, which was the soul of a murdered person who would return to the spot of its death and drink the blood of anyone unlucky enough to cross it. In Macedonia, it was said that certain people who had lived wicked lives and never eaten pork would return to life as a blood-drinking wild boar. In Iceland, it was the Alfemoe who sucked blood while the ancient Greeks could tell you all about Empusa, who drank blood to maintain a youthful appearance.

Of course, we all know that vampires don’t exist, or at least they don’t exist as supernatural creatures. Still, it is somewhat amazing that all of these different societies and cultures developed essentially the same myth at roughly the same time, despite not having much contact with each other. There is just something universal about both the threat and the allure of the vampire.

With all of the different legends out there, it can be difficult to keep your mythological vampires straight. Fortunately, the Encyclopedia of Vampire Mythology is here to help! Written by a vampirologist (albeit one who goes out of her way to make sure that we understand that she personally doesn’t believe in them), this encyclopedia has entries for all of the various mythological vampires and their legends. With the exception of Dracula, this encyclopedia doesn’t include any of the “fictional” vampires from television or film. If you’re looking for an entry on Angel or Edward Cullen, this is not the place to look. But what the book does have is entries on the legendary beings who came before the celebrity vampires of today. It makes for interesting reading and it also serves as a reminder that there’s more to the vampire legend than what we’ve seen in the movies or read in novels.

For both authors and readers of vampire fiction, the Encyclopedia of Vampire Mythology is a valuable resource.

International Horror Film Review: House (dir by Nobuhiko Obayashi)

Posted on October 4, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1977 Japanese horror film, House, opens with a teenage girl named Gorgeous (Kimiko Ikegami) who is excited about the start of summer. Her father has finally returned home from Italy, where he was scoring a film for Sergio Leone. (Supposedly, Leone said that her father was even more talented than Ennio Morricone!) However, Gorgeous is upset to discover that her father has remarried and she has a new stepmother! No longer wanting to be around her father, Gorgeous writes to her aunt and asks if she can spend the summer with her. Gorgeous’s aunt (Yōko Minamida) agrees and invites Gorgeous to visit the country house where she lives with a white cat.

However, Gorgeous will not be traveling on her own. She’s bringing six of her school friends with her! Like Gorgeous, all of them have trait-appropriate names.

For instance, Kung Fu (Miki Jinbo) is athletic and good at kung fu.

Prof (Ali Matsubara) is intelligent and wears glasses.

Fantasy (Kumiko Oba) is a daydreamer.

Mac (Mieko Sato) enjoys eating.

Melody (Eriko Tanaka) plays music.

Sweet (Masayo Miyako) is …. well, sweet.

They’re all fun, cheerful, optimistic, and good-natured. (They also all have a crush on their teacher, Mr. Togo (Kiyohiko Ozaki), goofy fellow with sideburns and an old car.) As soon as the girls arrive at Auntie’s house, they present her with a watermelon and then take a tour of the old house. They all take the time to notice Auntie’s white cat, who is adorable but seems to have a little bit of an attitude. Everyone’s happy and perky and it truly appears that this is going to be the greatest summer of their lives….

Of course, not everything’s perfect. There are a few complications. For instance, Gorgeous is still upset about her father remarrying and chooses to go off on her own. Mac goes out to the well and then doesn’t return. However, her head is later seen floating around the house and biting the other girls. One girl gets eaten by a clock. Another loses her hands while playing the piano. The piano then proceeds to eat the girl while Mac’s disembodied head giggles and says, “Naughty!” Soon, there are body parts flying around all over the house and the downstairs is flooded with blood. The cat, it must be said, appears to be rather amused….

I don’t know if words alone can convey what a strange movie House is. This really is one of those movies that has to be seen to believed. In many ways, it feels like a children’s film made by someone who really dislikes children. Everything starts out very happily, with bright colors, frantic camera work, corny humor, and cheerful music playing in the background. There’s even several incidences of deliberately crude, pop art-style animation sprinkled throughout the film. Then the girls reach the house and suddenly, everyone’s screaming and there’s blood spurting everywhere and disembodies heads and other limbs flying around and yet, the tone of the film doesn’t change. The music remains cheerful. The humor remains corny, especially in the scenes involving hapless Mr. Togo and his attempts to rescue the girls, and the film’s special effects remains deliberately crude. At the same time, there’s an interesting subtext to the film. Gorgeous’s aunt is bitter over the death of her lover, who never returned from World War II. When Gorgeous meets her new stepmother, the sky glows with an almost atomic intensity and one unfortunate character is literally vaporized into nothing. The old house is literally eating the young, perhaps to punish them for being the first generation to be born after the end of the war and to have no firsthand experience with the twin traumas of the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

As I said, it’s a weird, weird movie. It’s also an incredibly watchable one, one that comes very close to capturing the feel of a filmed dream. It’s not for everyone, this oddly cheerful bloodbath. But I’d still recommend watching it at least once.

4 Shots From 4 Films: Eraserhead, The Hills Have Have Eyes, Shock Waves, Suspiria

Posted on October 4, 2019 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 lets the visuals do the talking!

This October, we’re using 4 Shots From 4 Films to look at some of the best years that horror has to offer!

4 Shots From 4 1977 Horror Films:

Eraserhead (1977, directed by David Lynch)

The Hills Have Eyes (1977, dir by Wes Craven)

Shock Waves (1977, dir by Ken Wiederhorn)

Suspiria (1977, dir by Dario Argento)

Horror Film Review: Underworld (dir by Len Wiseman)

Posted on October 4, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Underworld is one hell of a confusing movie.

I saw Underworld when it was first released in theaters, way back in 2003. And I’ve rewatched more than a handful of times since then, mostly because of my huge girl crush on Kate Beckinsale. And every time that I watch this movie, I find myself wondering what the Hell’s going on.

I mean, I get it. There’s a centuries-old war between vampires and Lycans and the Lycans are basically werewolves but they’re called “Lycan” because Lycan sounds better than werewolf. The Death Dealers are vampires who go around and shoot Lycans on dark rainy nights. And apparently, the vampires think that the Lycan threat has been neutralized because the leader of the Lycans, Lucian, is dead but maybe he’s not because Lucian’s body was never found. And meanwhile, there’s three vampire rulers and two of the rulers get to sleep while the other one reigns and they switch out every few centuries.

Oh! And the vampires and the Lycans are not really supernatural creatures. Instead, they’re people who have been infected by a virus that causes them to live a really long time and have a craving for blood or something like that. So, that explains why none of the vampires turn into a bat or anything like that during the movie. Instead, everyone just runs around and does parkour and shoots guns at one another.

Also, the vampires don’t have to prey on human beings because they’ve learned how to clone blood because cloning is the solution for everything.

And also, everything happens at night while it’s raining because the vampires and the Lycans are secretly living in the same world with humans, they’re just living underground. They’re living in an underworld, if you will.

Also ….

Well, listen, there’s a lot of plot in this movie. Underworld lasts for 121 minutes and there’s really not a slow spot in the entire film. In fact, that’s probably one of the film’s greatest strengths. The nonstop action keeps you from thinking about how the plot of the film just seems to be something that the filmmakers made up as they went along. Instead of wondering how everything fits together, you’re too busy watching as the movie flies from violent set piece to another.

Underworld‘s other great strength is that it stars Kate Beckinsale. Nowadays, the action girl who kicks ass and defeats evil while looking good has become such a cliche that it’s easy to forget just how exciting it was when we first saw Kate Beckinsale, clad in leather and effortlessly dodging bullets and ruthlessly killing Lycans. Though its impact may have subsequently been diluted by too many sequels and imitations, watching Underworld for the first time was a very empowering experience. Watching Underworld for the first time, I wanted to be Kate Beckinsale. If Kate could defeat both vampires and Lycans without breaking a sweat then I knew that I could defeat my own insecurities. Of course, unlike Kate, I didn’t have the advantage of movie magic to help me down a backflip off of a wall and I ended up spraining my ankle but still, Kate Beckinsale in Underworld was the perfect antidote to years of previously watching women in horror and action films be treated like either disposable victims or damsels in need of rescue.

In Underworld, Kate Beckinsale played Selene, a Death Dealer who tries to figure out why the Lycans are all after a human named Michael (Scott Speedman). Selene also falls in love with Michael, which leads to some complications after Michael gets bitten by Lucian (Michael Sheen), the Lycan leader who wasn’t really dead after all. Meanwhile, Kraven (Shane Brolly) wants to take over the vampires and a vampire elder named Viktor (Bill Nighy) is woken up early and then ages backwards through the film, which is actually a pretty clever idea.

And, as I said before, it never really makes much sense. But, as incoherent as Underworld may be, it’s still an undeniably addictive viewing experience. The movie is pure style. It takes place in a world where it’s always night and it’s always raining and where everyone is beautiful and deadly at the same time. Whether they’re a vampire or a Lycan, People in Underworld movies don’t merely enter a room. Instead, they throw the doors open and allows blue light to flood in as they make a grand entrance. At times, the film’s style is so kinetic and overwhelming that it threatened to get a little bit silly but, again, that’s a part of the film’s appeal. While Kate Beckinsale thrills you with her empowering performance, the visuals grab you and say, “We’re going on a trip and don’t worry about whether it makes any sense!”

That’s why I’ve watched Underworld several times. It doesn’t have to make sense. It just has to kick ass.

Horror on the Lens: The Last Man on Earth (dir. by Ubaldo Ragona and Sidney Salkow)

Posted on October 4, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Hi there and Happy October 4th! For today’s treat from the ranks of horror films that have fallen into the public domain, I present to you one of the most important films in horror history. Though it wasn’t appreciated when it was first released back in 1964, The Last Man On Earth was not only the 1st Italian horror film but George Romero has also acknowledged it as an influence on his own Night of the Living Dead.

It’s easy to be a little bit dismissive of The Last Man On Earth. After all, the low-budget is obvious in every scene, the dubbing is off even by the standards of Italian horror, and just the name “Vincent Price” in the credits leads one to suspect that this will be another campy, B-movie. Perhaps that’s why I’m always surprised to rediscover that, taking all things into consideration, this is actually a pretty effective film. Price does have a few over-the-top moments but, for the most part, he gives one of his better performances here and the black-and-white images have an isolated, desolate starkness to them that go a long way towards making this film’s apocalypse a convincing one. The mass cremation scene always leaves me feeling rather uneasy.

The film is based on Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend and no, it’s nowhere as good as the book. However, it’s a lot better than the Will Smith version.

If you have 87 minutes to kill, please enjoy The Last Man On The Earth.