Here’s one final episode of Thriller for this October’s horrorthon!
In this episode, we learn what happens when you stuff a dead body in a scarecrow. The scarecrow stalks you!
Seriously, scarecrows are so freaky.
Enjoy!
Tag Archives: Horrorthon
The TSL’s Horror Grindhouse: I Don’t Want To Be Born (dir by Peter Sasdy)
“I don’t want to be born!”
“That’s too bad, kid! YOU’RE COMING OUT!”
Now, admittedly, that dialogue is never heard in the 1975 British horror film, I Don’t Want To Be Born. However, if I had heard that particularly exchange in this film, I would not have been surprised. That’s just the type of movie that I Don’t Want To Be Born is. It’s a thoroughly ludicrous, totally ridiculous movie and what makes it all the more memorable is that it doesn’t seem to realize how silly it all is. This is a batshit crazy movie that tells its story in the most serious way possible. This damn film is almost somber, it’s so serious.
Lucy (played by Joan Collins) is a stripper who performs her act with a perverted dwarf named Hercules (George Claydon). When Hercules tries to force himself on Lucy, he is tossed out of the club by Tommy (who is played by John Steiner, a good actor who somehow always turned up in movies like this one.) After she and Tommy make love, Lucy is confronted by Hercules who curses her, telling her that she will have a baby “as big as I am small and possessed by the devil himself!”
Oh, Hercules, you weirdo.
9 months later, Lucy’s life has somehow completely changed. She’s no longer a dancer. Now, she’s married to a rich Italian named Gino (played by Ralph Bates, speaking in a bizarre accent). When Lucy has her baby, it’s a long and difficult delivery. The baby is huge! Not only is he huge, but he also has a bad temper and unnaturally sharp nails. The first time that Lucy holds him, he attacks her. Whenever the baby is introduced to anyone new, he responds by biting them. When Tommy drops by to take a look at the baby that might be his son, he ends up with a bloody nose!
But that’s not all this baby can do! Anytime he’s left alone in a room, the room ends up getting destroyed. Eventually, he apparently figures out how to climb trees and how efficiently slip a noose around the neck of anyone who walks underneath him. And don’t think that you can escape this baby simply because you’re taller and faster. One unfortunate person is decapitated, even though he’s standing at the time. How did the baby reach his neck? Who knows?
Does this baby need an exorcism? Lucy’s sister-in-law, Sister Albana (Eileen Atkins), certainly believes that it does! As Lucy thinks about whether the baby’s behavior is in any way odd, she glances over at the baby and — OH MY GOD! The baby has Hercules’s face!
And it just keeps going from there. Again, I feel the need to repeat that this film is meant to be taken very seriously. The script may be full of awkward and clichéd dialogue but most of the cast attempts to act the Hell out of it. Speaking of the cast, there’s a lot of familiar horror people in this one. Along with John Steiner, there’s also Caroline Munro and Donald Pleasence. Those three give performances that somehow manage to remain credible, perhaps because they had the experience necessary to understand what type of movie they were in. But the rest of the cast … you feel bad for them because they’re just trying so hard.
It’s a terrible movie but it’s so weird that I have to recommend that everyone see it once. If for nothing else, see it for the scene where Hercules responds to an attempt to exorcise the baby by swaying drunkenly on the stage. It’s weird and it’s hard for mere words to do it justice.
“No wonder this baby didn’t want to be born!”
That line is also nowhere to be found in this movie. It’d be nice if it was, though.
Horror Film Review: The Wolfman (dir by Joe Johnston)
I have to admit that I’m always a little bit surprised to discover how many people really don’t like the 2010 film, The Wolfman.
I mean, I’ll be the first to admit that it may not have been the greatest film ever made but the amount of negative feelings that this film has managed to generate over the years seems, to me, to be a bit out of proportion. Essentially, it’s just a silly film about a werewolf.
Yes, it is a remake of The Wolf Man and we’re all honor-bound to dislike remakes but, if we’re going to be absolutely honest, the original Wolf Man was sometimes pretty silly too. If anything, the original’s success is largely due to the heartfelt work of Claude Rains in the role of the Wolf Man’s father. Yes, the original Wolf Man is a classic but remaking it is not exactly sacrilege.
In the remake, Benicio Del Toro takes over the role of Larry Talbot, who is reimagined as a Shakespearean actor who has a history of mental instability. Del Toro is not exactly convincing as an Englishman, though the same could be said of Lon Chaney, Jr. However, nobody broods with quite the panache of Benicio Del Toro and that’s what was needed for the remake’s version of Larry Talbot. If Lon Chaney, Jr. played Larry as being a dumb lug, Del Toro plays Larry as being a tortured artist.
Anthony Hopkins takes over the old Claude Rains role. Just as it’s difficult to imagine Del Toro as being English, it’s next to impossible to imagine him sharing any DNA with Anthony Hopkins. And yet, I’m really glad that Hopkins was cast in the role. Of course, in the remake, the character of John Talbot has been totally reimagined. He’s now something of a bitter and sarcastic alcoholic, a negligent father who always seem to be amused at some mean-spirited joke that only he can understand. I imagine that if I asked Hopkins, he’d say that he did this role for the money but there’s nothing wrong with that. Some of Hopkins’s best performances have been the ones that he subsequently claimed to have done only for the money. Freed from any obligation to give a nuanced or subtle performance, Hopkins goes totally over-the-top and it’s actually a lot of fun to watch. In The Wolfman, Hopkins turns the delivery of bitter bon mots and erduite insults into an art form.
Watching the film’s first half, we all know what’s going to happen. Gypsies are going to show up in the woods near Talbot Hall and paranoid villagers are going to blame them for everything that happens. Larry is going to get bitten by a werewolf and transform every night when the moon is full. Larry is going to fall in love with Gwen (Emily Blunt) but, for her own protection, will try to send her away. An arrogant but clever inspector, Francis Abberline (Hugo Weaving, playing a version of the real-life detective who inspired the role played by Johnny Depp in From Hell), is going to arrive from London to investigate all the recent deaths…
About halfway through, The Wolfman takes a totally unexpected turn. I won’t spoil it here, just in case you haven’t seen the movie. I know a lot of people don’t care much for the big twist but I happened to love it. Yes, it doesn’t necessarily make a lot of sense and it’s all a bit overdone but so what? It’s exactly the type of weird twist that a movie like this needs. It all leads to a final confrontation, one that is as exuberantly silly as the original’s conclusion was somber and tragic.
The key to enjoying The Wolfman is to accept it for what it is, an occasionally dumb and definitely not-to-be-taken-seriously movie that features some appropriately atmospheric cinematography, gorgeously gothic production design, and some very talented actors. (I especially enjoyed Weaving’s performance as Abberline.) A classic it may not be, but it’s still a fun little movie if you’re in the right mood for it.
Horror Book Review: Jamie Lee Curtis: Scream Queen by David Grove
I cannot let this Halloween end without recommending Jamie Lee Curtis: Scream Queen, David Grove’s biography of one of horror cinema’s most iconic stars.
As you can probably guess from the title, the focus of this book is on the start of Jamie Lee Curtis’s career, when she was almost exclusively appearing in slasher films. Beginning with her starring role in Halloween and going all the way through films like Terror Train, Prom Night, Road Games, The Fog, and Halloween 2, the book shows both how Curtis dealt with suddenly being a horror icon and how she eventually left the horror genre behind in an effort to show that she was capable of doing more than just screaming and running. Eventually, as the book details, she reached a point where she could return to horror with Halloween H20 but, for a while, her horror work was truly a double-edged sword. It made her famous but it also kept her from being considered for the type of roles that she truly hoped to play.
That said, this book takes refreshingly positive look at her early film career, providing both serious analysis of and fascinating behind-the-scenes details about all of Curtis’s horror films. Yes, even Prom Night.
In fact, the two chapters devoted to Prom Night were probably my favorite part of the book. Though Curtis herself was not interviewed, several members of the cast and crew were and their recollections of their work on this not-very-good but oddly watchable film provide an interesting portrait of life during a low-budget movie shoot. Of course, everyone focuses on how in awe they were of Jamie but, at the same time, they are also open about their own personal feelings and recollections about the shooting of this movie. Their hopes and dreams, many of them destined to be unfulfilled, come through just as vividly as their memories of watching Jamie Lee Curtis film the famous disco scene. The passages dealing with Casey Stevens, who played Jamie’s Prom Night boyfriend and subsequently died of AIDS, are especially moving. In the end, Jamie Lee Curits; Scream Queen is not just a biography of Jamie Lee Curtis. It’s a tribute to both movies and the people who make them.
If you’re a lover of the horror genre or a student of film history, this is one of those book that you simply must have. It’s got just about everything that you could possibly want.
A Movie A Day #296: Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983, directed by Jack Clayton)
Something Wicked This Way Comes is one of my favorite films.
The place is Green Town, Illinois. The time is the 1920s. The carnival has come to town but this is no normal carnival. Led by the sinister, Mr. Dark (Jonathan Pryce), this carnival promises to fulfill everyone’s dreams but at what cost? Double amputee Ed (James Stacy) gets his arm and his leg back. The lonely teacher, Miss Foley (Mary Grace Canfield), is young and beautiful once again. Mr. Dark may bring people what they want but he gives nothing away for free. Only two young boys, Will (Vidal Peterson) and Jim (Shawn Carson), realize the truth about the carnival but no one in town will listen to them. Mr. Dark wants Jim to be his successor and Will’s only ally is his elderly father, the town librarian (Jason Robards).
As much a coming of age story as a horror film, Something Wicked This Way Comes takes the time to establish Green Town and to make it feel like a real place and its inhabitants seem like real people. When Mr. Dark shows up, he is not just a supernatural trickster. He is not just stealing the souls of Green Town. He is also destroying the innocence of childhood. Jonathan Pryce is both charismatic and menacing as Mr. Dark while Jason Robards matches him as the infirm librarian who must find the strength to save his son. The confrontation between Pryce and Robards, where Pryce tears flaming pages out of a book, is the best part of the movie. Along with Robards and Pryce, the entire cast is excellent. Be sure to keep an eye out for familiar faces like Royal Dano, Jack Dodson, Angelo Rossitto, and especially Pam Grier, playing the “Dust Witch,” the most beautiful woman in the world.
Based on a classic novel by Ray Bradbury, Something Wicked This Way Comes is one of the only Bradbury adaptations to do justice to its source material.
Horror Scenes That I Love: The Party Starts in The Cabin In The Woods
Happy Halloween from horror scenes that I love!
Our final scene of the season: the party starts in 2012’s The Cabin In The Woods!
The TSL’s Horror Grindhouse: Hard To Die (dir by Jim Wynorski)
Do you remember how, a few days ago, I reviewed a silly little movie called Sorority House Massacre II?
Well, it turns out that there’s a sequel and it’s on YouTube! Both films were directed by Jim Wynorski and featured pretty much the same cast, despite the fact that a few of them were playing new characters. It was released under several different titles. Hard To Die is the one that I’m going with for this review. However, the film was also known as Tower of Terror, which makes sense when you consider that the majority of the film takes place in a hi-rise office building. It was also apparently released in some places as Sorority House Massacre III, despite the fact that there’s no sorority house in the movie.
Actually, it’s debatable whether or not Hard To Die is actually a sequel. It’s true that Orville Ketchum (Peter Spellos) does make another appearance. In the first movie, Orville was the creepy neighbor. In Hard To Die, he’s the janitor at the office building. Orville tells the exact same story, with the exact same flashbacks, that he told in Sorority House Massacre II. (Those flashbacks, of course, were lifted from a totally unrelated movie called Slumber Party Massacre. There were apparently a lot of massacres in the 80s and 90s.) The evil spirit of Hockstadder returns as well, though this time he comes flying out of a box that was accidentally delivered to the office building as opposed to a Ouija board. And, of course, there’s an abundance of lingerie, awkward dialogue, and cheap gore effects. (At one point, a bucket of fake blood is literally splashed on a wall.) However, Hard To Die also tells almost exactly the same story of Sorority House Massacre II. There are so few differences that I’m actually more tempted to say that Hard To Die is a remake of Sorority House Massacre II than a sequel. The only problem with that theory is whether or not a second movie can be considered remake when the first movie literally came out the exact same year.
(One of the reasons that I love my work here at the TSL is that it allows me to obsess over minutia like this.)
Anyway, the main difference between Hard To Die and Sorority House Massacre III is that there’s no sorority house in Hard To Die. Instead, Hard To Die takes place in a lingerie shop that just happens to be located on the 7th floor of a skyscraper. The hard-working employees are spending the weekend doing inventory but it’s not going to well. For one thing, the sprinklers accidentally go off so everyone decides to take off their wet clothes, put on skimpy lingerie, and order pizza. Personally, I probably would have waited for the pizza to arrive before getting naked but then again, I’ve never worked retail or dated a pizza deliveryman.
The pizza does eventually arrive but no one gets to eat it because the deliveryperson gets set on fire and ends up falling several floors to her death. That’s a waste of good pizza, which is kind of depressing. Meanwhile, Orville keeps trying to warn everyone about Hockstadder but, instead, he keeps getting beaten up. The end credits of Hard To Die promised that the next film would be called Orville In Orbit. Apparently, it was never made but I do hope that Orville got a vacation after all of this.
Anyway, Hard To Die is an extremely silly movie but it’s just so sincere in its silliness that it feels somewhat churlish to be too critical of it. If I had to choose whether to be in Sorority House Massacre II or Hard To Die, I would probably pick Hard To Die because, at least in that movie, I’d get to shoot a machine gun. Hard To Die is so blatantly and unapologetically over the top that you can’t help but be amused by it all.
Horror Film Review: The Vampire (dir by Paul Landres)
Headaches are a bitch!
And if you didn’t already know that, you will know it after watching the 1957 film, The Vampire.
Like many films of this kind, The Vampire starts with death.
Actually, I take that back. Technically, it’s true but it’s also little bit too melodramatic. And, to be honest, The Vampire starts with a 14 year-old boy, who is very much alive, riding his bicycle down the street of Anytown USA. He has a box with him, one that has air holes. On the back of his bike, a cardboard sign reads: “Bobs Pet Zoo! If Its Alive We Got It!” Apparently, the kid is smart enough to run his own zoo but not smart enough to know when to use an apostrophe.
Anyway, the kid comes up to a creepy old house, one that looks somewhat out of place in the otherwise pristine suburban neighborhood. Originally, I thought that maybe Pennywise lived in the house but then I reminded myself that The Vampire was made decades before It. Instead, the house belongs to Dr. Campbell, a scientist who is doing experiments with blood and who needs a never-ending supply of animal test subjects. (Boooooo! Animal testing! Hiss!) Apparently, the kid keeps Dr. Campbell supplied with animals. When the kid enters the house, Dr. Campbell is nowhere to be seen. It’s not until the kid enters the laboratory that he discovers Campbell, dead and slumped over his desk.
As news spreads of Campbell’s death, his friend, Dr. Paul Beecher (John Beal), searches through Campbell’s belongings and he comes across a mysterious bottle of pills, which he promptly takes home with him. Dr. Beecher is kindly doctor, the type that we all wish we could deal with whenever we had to go in for a check up. However, he suffers from terrible migraines. That night, when he’s literally blinded with a headache, he asks his daughter to get him his pills. She retrieves a bottle of pills but guess what? They’re the wrong pills! They’re not headache pills! Instead, they’re Dr. Campbell’s vampirism pills!
The pills cause Beecher to blaxk out. Whenever he comes to, he never has any memory of what he may or may not have done while he was out. However, strange things are happening to his friends and his patients. One of his longtime patients dies of fright when he comes by her house. On her neck, he finds two puncture wounds…
So, it’s not a spoiler for me to tell you that Dr. Beecher has been transformed into a vampire. And I know what you’re thinking. Why doesn’t he just stop taking the pills? The simplest answer is that the pills are addictive. The more complex answer is that he doesn’t want to. The pills have brought out his dark side and, now that it’s free, it’s not planning on going anywhere.
In a strange way, The Vampire reminded me of Nicholas Ray’s Bigger Than Life. In Bigger Than Life, James Mason plays a gentle and good-hearted professor who, after taking steroids, turns into a monster who dreams of creating a master race. Bigger Than Life was unsettling for the exact same reason that The Vampire is unsettling. Both suggest that the pills didn’t turn their user into a monster. Instead, the pills just allowed his true self to come out.
The Vampire was a low-budget film, a B-movie as many would probably call it. The musical score is overly melodramatic and so are some of the actors. But I would say that The Vampire is actually a bit of a subversive masterpiece. This 1957 film suggests that behind the pristine facade of suburbia, there lurked monsters. Even an outwardly successful and respected man like Dr. Beecher can turn into something totally different behind closed doors, this film is saying. That’s a message that it as relevant today as it was when this film was first released. In its own way, The Vampire is a brilliant and important movie.
6 Trailers For Halloween
Welcome the final October edition of Lisa Marie’s Grindhouse and Exploitation Film Trailers!
I’ve enjoyed reviving this feature for October. I’m not totally sure if I’ll continue it because, as I said way back at the start of the month, there are only so many trailers on YouTube and I don’t want to spend too much time repeating myself. We’ll see!
These are trailers for 6 of my favorite horror films:
- Lisa and the Devil (1973)
From the great director, Mario Bava. This film is like a cinematic dream. Plus, the main character is named Lisa!
2. Suspiria (1977)
This trailer is creepy, though it really doesn’t do the film justice. Check out my review here!
3. The Shining (1980)
This is one of the few films that scares me no matter how many times I watch it.
4. Near Dark (1987)
Vampires in Texas! Hell yeah!
5. Two Orphan Vampires (1997)
From the brilliant Jean Rollin.
6. The Cabin In The Woods (2011)
I don’t care how many hipster douchebags disagree. This movie is absolutely brilliant.
Happy Halloween!
Jedadiah Leland’s Horrorfic Adventures In The Internet Archive #28: Stephen King’s The Mist (1985, Angelsoft, Inc)
For my final horrific adventure of the month, I returned to the Internet Archive and I played Stephen King’s The Mist (1985, Angelsoft, Inc.)
The Mist is a text adventure based on Stephen King’s novella. (The game came out before both the television series and Frank Darabont’s film version.) You are at the supermarket, just trying to buy your groceries and get home, when suddenly a thick mist envelopes the entire town. There are monsters in the mist and you soon discover that there are monsters in the store as well. Can you survive the mist and make your way back to your home where, hopefully, your son is still alive and waiting for you to rescue him?
The Mist does a good job of turning King’s story into a work of interactive fiction. Even if you have read the story or watched the movie, The Mist is still not an easy game. This is a game where it is very easy to get killed and there’s one puzzle where, due to randomization, you can do everything right and still end up dying. It is unfortunate that you cannot save games while playing them in the Internet Archive because The Mist is a game that can only be won through trial and error.
The best advice that I can give is don’t spend too much time in the supermarket, pick up everything that you can, and don’t shoot Mrs. Carmody, as much as you may want to.
Of course, you can just play the game with a walkthrough, like I did.
Through the Shattered Lens 