Horror on TV: One Step Beyond 3.27 “The Confession” (dir by John Newland)

Posted on October 29, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Tonight’s episode of One Step Beyond features the great Donald Pleasence, making it perfect viewing for the Halloween season!

Pleasence plays an attorney who prosecuted a man for a murder that he didn’t commit. Pleasence did so, even though a woman (Adrienne Corri) claiming to be the supposed victim of the crime came to him and said that she had not been murdered. Pleasence refused to believe her. Now, years later, his guilt is driving him mad while host John Newland looks on.

Can you prove it didn’t happen?

This episode originally aired on April 11th, 1961.

The TSL Horror Grindhouse: Don’t Look Away (dir by Michael Bafaro)

Posted on October 29, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The main thing you need to know about 2023’s Don’t Look Away is that the killer looks like this.

Yes, the killer is a mannequin and a rather silly-looking one at that. Silly or not, the mannequin is undeniably creepy, as mannequins tend to be. The mannequin is apparently stalking a group of friends. Frankie (Kelly Bastard) is convinced that the mannequin is alive and possessed by some sort of supernatural power. Her friends disagree …. until they start dying, one-by-one.

Now, I should make clear that, for the majority of the film’s running time, we don’t actually see the mannequin kill anyone. At the most, we see the mannequin suddenly show up behind someone. He evens shows up in a swimming pool at one point. Occasionally, his facial expression seems to change but, for the most, he always has the same goofy smile painted on his face. The mannequin stalks one person-at-a-time and if you see him behind you and then look away, he’ll be closer the second time you look at him.

We do see the aftermath of meeting the mannequin. As silly as it may seem to get killed by a mannequin (and I mean, seriously, how do you handle that shame while waiting in Purgatory), Kelly’s friends are actually dying, though it appears that they could all just be having unfortunate accidents or committing suicide. Is it possible that the mannequin is just a mess delusion and that Kelly’s paranoia has poisoned the group? The thing is, though …. if you were going to imagine a scary mannequin trying to kill you, wouldn’t you actually visualize something a lot more scary than a naked, emasculated wooden man with a silly smile on his face?

Don’t Look Away doesn’t quite work. None of the friends really make a huge impression or even register as anything more than horror movie stereotypes. There’s a scene set in a disco that I appreciated but that’s just because I appreciated anything that’s set in a disco. Don’t Look Away suffers from a common affliction amongst horror films that were made after It Follows, in that the action moves way too slowly. When the film should be fast-paced and silly, it’s somber and strangely self-serious.

The film’s big star, of course, is that mannequin. Here’s another shot of him.

I mean, yeah, he’s creepy. The first few times that you see him, he’s legitimately scary. But then, after a while, he just become silly. There’s only so much you can do with a goofy-looking mannequin. I mean, don’t get me wrong. I’ve seen some good killer mannequin films. Mannequins can definitely be scary and I wouldn’t want to get locked in a warehouse with them or anything like that. Mario Bava’s Lisa and the Devil makes wonderful use of the creepiness of mannequins. But the mannequin at the heart of Don’t Look Away becomes less creepy and more goofy every time that you see him. I’ll admit that I looked away a few times in an effort not to laugh.

Hmmm …. that may have been a mistake.

Here Are The 2024 Gotham Nominations

Posted on October 29, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Awards season began this morning, with the announcement of the Gotham nominations!

Now, to be clear, the Gotham Awards are not exactly the best precursor when it comes to predicting the Oscars. The Gothams are designed to honor independent films and, as a result, a lot of Oscar contenders are not even eligible for the Gothams. Dune 2, for instance, is definitely not a Gotham film.

That said, every little bit helps and, since we’ve got a whole month before the rest of precursors start weighing in, the producers of Anora have to be happy that today’s headlines have all basically been a variation of “ANORA LEADS THE GOTHAMS.” If you’re going to build momentum on the way to the Oscars, it’s important to stay in the conversation. Today, Anora is dominating that conversation.

Here are the Gotham nominations!

Best Feature

Anora
Sean Baker, director; Sean Baker, Alex Coco, Samantha Quan, producers (NEON)

Babygirl
Halina Reijn, director; David Hinojosa, Julia Oh, Halina Reijn, producers (A24)

Challengers
Luca Guadagnino, director; Luca Guadagnino, Rachel O’Connor, Amy Pascal, Zendaya, producers (Amazon MGM Studios)

A Different Man
Aaron Schimberg, director; Gabriel Mayers, Vanessa McDonnell, Christine Vachon, producers (A24)

Nickel Boys
RaMell Ross, director; Joslyn Barnes, Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, David Levine, producers (Orion Pictures/Amazon MGM Studios)

Best International Feature

All We Imagine as Light
Payal Kapadia, director; Julien Graff, Thomas Hakim, producers (Sideshow and Janus Films)

Green Border
Agnieszka Holland, director; Fred Bernstein, Agnieszka Holland, Marcin Wierzchoslawski, producers (Kino Lorber)

Hard Truths
Mike Leigh, director; Georgina Lowe, producer (Bleecker Street)

Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell
Thien An Pham, director; Jeremy Chua, Tran Van Thi, producers (Kino Lorber)

Vermiglio
Maura Delpero, director; Francesca Andreoli, Maura Delpero, Santiago Fondevila Sance, Leonardo Guerra Seràgnoli, producers (Sideshow and Janus Films)

Best Documentary Feature

Dahomey
Mati Diop, director; Mati Diop, Judith Lou Lévy, Eve Robin, producers (MUBI)

Intercepted
Oksana Karpovych, director; Darya Bassel, Olha Beskhmelnytsina, Rocío B. Fuentes, Giacomo Nudi, Lucie Rego Pauline Tran Van Lieu, producers (Grasshopper Film)

No Other Land
Yuval Abraham, Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Rachel Szor, directors; Fabien Greenberg, Bård Kjøge Rønning, producers (Antipode Films)

Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat
Johan Grimonprez, director; Rémi Grellety, Daan Milius, producers (Kino Lorber)

Sugarcane
Julian Brave NoiseCat, Emily Kassie, directors; Emily Kassie, Kellen Quinn, producers (National Geographic Documentary Films)

Union
Stephen Maing, Brett Story, directors; Samantha Curley, Mars Verrone, producers (Self-Distributed)

Best Director

Payal Kapadia, All We Imagine as Light (Sideshow and Janus Films)
Sean Baker, Anora (NEON)
Guan Hu, Black Dog (The Forge)
Jane Schoenbrun, I Saw the TV Glow (A24)
RaMell Ross, Nickel Boys (Orion Pictures/Amazon MGM Studios)

Best Screenplay

Between the Temples, Nathan Silver, C. Mason Wells (Sony Pictures Classics)
Evil Does Not Exist, Ryûsuke Hamaguchi (Sideshow and Janus Films)
Femme, Sam H. Freeman, Ng Choon Ping (Utopia)
His Three Daughters, Azazel Jacobs (Netflix)
Janet Planet, Annie Baker (A24)

Breakthrough Director

Shuchi Talati, Girls Will Be Girls (Juno Films, Inc)
India Donaldson, Good One (Metrograph Pictures)
Alessandra Lacorazza, In the Summers (Music Box Films)
Vera Drew, The People’s Joker (Altered Innocence)
Mahdi Fleifel, To a Land Unknown (Watermelon Pictures)

Outstanding Lead Performance

Pamela Anderson, The Last Showgirl (Roadside Attractions)
Adrien Brody, The Brutalist (A24)
Colman Domingo, Sing Sing (A24)
Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Hard Truths (Bleecker Street)
Nicole Kidman, Babygirl (A24)
Keith Kupferer, Ghostlight (IFC Films)
Mikey Madison, Anora (NEON)
Demi Moore, The Substance (MUBI)
Saoirse Ronan, Outrun (Sony Pictures Classics)
Justice Smith, I Saw the TV Glow (A24)

Outstanding Supporting Performance

Yura Borisov, Anora (NEON)
Kieran Culkin, A Real Pain (Searchlight Pictures)
Danielle Deadwyler, The Piano Lesson (Netflix)
Brigette Lundy-Paine, I Saw the TV Glow (A24)
Natasha Lyonne, His Three Daughters (Netflix)
Clarence Maclin, Sing Sing (A24)
Katy O’Brian, Love Lies Bleeding (A24)
Guy Pearce, The Brutalist (A24)
Adam Pearson, A Different Man (A24)
Brian Tyree Henry, The Fire Inside (Amazon MGM Studios)

Breakthrough Performer

Lily Collias, Good One (Metrograph Pictures)
Ryan Destiny, The Fire Inside (Amazon MGM Studios)
Maisy Stella, My Old Ass (Amazon MGM Studios)
Izaac Wang, Dìdi Y(Focus Features)
Brandon Wilson, Nickel Boys (Orion Pictures/Amazon MGM Studios)

Retro Television Review: Fantasy Island 5.15 “The Case Against Mr. Roarke/Save Sherlock Holmes”

Posted on October 29, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Tuesdays, I will be reviewing the original Fantasy Island, which ran on ABC from 1977 to 1984. Unfortunately, the show has been removed from most streaming sites. Fortunately, I’ve got nearly every episode on my DVR.

This week, Mr. Roarke might be a father!

Episode 5.15 “The Case Against Mr. Roarke/Save Sherlock Holmes”

(Dir by Don Weis, originally aired on February 6th, 1982)

After last week’s episode with Julie, Tattoo returns this week and Julie is nowhere to be seen. When Mr. Roarke asks where Julie is, Tattoo mentions that Julie is helping with the Custer’s Last Stand fantasy. At this point, I can only assume that a life insurance policy has been taking out on Julie and Roarke or Tattoo, or maybe both are trying to get her killed so they can collect.

Julie not being present means that she misses out on one of the biggest scandals in Fantasy Island history. A former guest, Fran Warner (Laraine Stephens), returns to the Island after seven years. Accompanying her is her six year-old daughter, Nancy (Nicole Eggert). Fran loudly declares that Mr. Roarke is Nancy’s father and that he now has an obligation to take care of her. Fran even has a birth certificate where, under the father’s name, someone has written — and I kid you not — “Mr. Roarke.”

Is Mr. Roarke the kid’s father? As is his habit, he refuses to answer the question directly when Tattoo asks it. But it soon turns out that no, Mr. Roarke is not Nancy’s father. Instead, Fran is sick and may be dying and she wants to make sure that Nancy is cared for. When Nancy learns the truth, she runs away and Tattoo leads a search party across the Island. Fear not, of course. Nancy is found and a very forgiving Mr. Roarke allows Nancy and Fran to stay on the Island. And Fran’s terminal disease suddenly becomes less terminal!

While this is going on, security guard Kevin Lansing (Ron Ely) gets to live his fantasy of helping a great detective. Kevin doesn’t care which detective he gets to help so Roarke sends him back to Victorian-era London so that Kevin can work with Dr. Watson (a charming Donald O’Connor) to save Sherlock Holmes (Peter Lawford, not looking well in one of his final performances) from the clutches of Moriarty (Mel Ferrer, being as sinister here as he was in countless giallo films). Kevin also falls for Nurse Heavenly (RIta Jenrette, the wife of a corrupt Democrat member of Congress) and is pleased to discover that she’s not really Moriarty’s assistant. Instead, she was just another guest on the Island having a fantasy.

The Sherlock Holmes story was silly but fun, in the way that Fantasy Island often is. It’s always interesting when this show goes into the past and we get to see how the show’s crew dressed up the show’s sets to try to make them look historically accurate. The same street appears in every episode but sometimes, that street is in 1890s London and sometimes, it’s in 1690s Salem and sometimes, it’s just in modern day Fantasy Island! As for the Mr. Roarke’s a father storyline, it was predictable but still, it was a good showcase for Ricardo Montalban’s enigmatic interpretation of Mr. Roarke.

This was a pleasant trip to the Island!

Bonus Horror Song of the Day: Season of the Witch by Lana Del Rey

Posted on October 29, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

As I mentioned earlier, there have been many covers of Donovan’s Season of the Witch. This one is from Lana Del Rey.

Horror Scenes That I Love: The Interview With The Chief From Night of the Living Dead

Posted on October 29, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

“Yeah, they’re dead …. they’re all messed up.”

There’s a lot of disturbing scenes in the original Night of the Living Dead but I’ve always loved this live, televised interview with the chief of police. First, there’s the delivery of that classic line. “….they’re all messed up.” Yes, they are. Then there’s the fact that the chief doesn’t seem to be particularly perturbed by the fact that the dead are coming back to life. Instead, his attitude is very straight-forward. It’s happening, we need to take care of it, let’s arm some civilians.

Of course, this interview sets up the film’s ending, in which we learn that those helpful civilians with guns are a bit trigger happy and sometimes, the living get in the way. When you first see this interview, it’s easy to laugh at the sight of the chief’s posse and everyone’s odd confidence that the dead will somehow just go away. (Death, after all, is the one thing that is guaranteed to happen to everyone eventually.) Once you know how the story’s going to end, though, this scene becomes much more ominous.

In the end, the film suggests that it’s not just dead who are all messed up.

Here’s The Trailer For Queer

Posted on October 29, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The trailer for Luca Guadagnino’s Queer dropped today. Based on a novel by William S. Burroughs, the film stars Daniel Craig as William Lee. (Lee, of course, was Burroughs by any other name,) After a drug bust, Lee heads down to Mexico and become infatuated with a drug-addicted former serviceman (played by Drew Starkey).

I’ve never really forgiven Guadagnino for his Suspiria remake and I think he’s a fairly overrated filmmaker but Queer has been getting a lot attention on the festival circuit and Daniel Craig has been getting a lot of Oscar buzz for his performance in the lead role. So, we’ll see. Here’s the trailer!

Horror Film Review: Godzilla vs. Megaguirus (dir by Masaaki Tezuka)

Posted on October 29, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

It has always bothered me whenever a long-running franchise decides that the best way to reboot things is to wipe away its own history.

Consider the James Bond films, in which the current producers apparently decided that Daniel Craig’s grim and whiny interpretation of the character was so definitive that it would be no big deal to wipe all of the previous Bond films out of existence. Sorry, Sean Connery. Sorry, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan, and even George Lazenby. Sorry, everyone who enjoyed the original Bond films and who enjoys spies who are relatively free of angst and self-pity. Your films are now no longer canon, all because someone thought it would be a good idea for Bond and Blofeld to be brothers.

Consider the DC films, in which there are so many different versions of the same characters floating around that it’s next to impossible to keep straight what is an “official” film and what isn’t. Admittedly, the majority of the DC films weren’t that good but still, there’s just something kind of annoying in the way that franchise in particular tends to just shrug and say, “Okay, that film doesn’t really count.” Own your mistakes.

And then there’s my beloved Halloween franchise, ruined by David Gordon Green’s belief that he was better than the genre. After years of brother/sister drama between Laurie Strode and Michael Myers, Green simply decided to do away with all of that and, in the process, he made the entire story (and Laurie Strode as a character) far less interesting.

Usually I think of this as being a relatively new phenomena but, as I watched 2000’s Godzilla vs. Megaguirus, I realized that reboots that do away with years of continuity are nothing new. Godzilla vs. Megagurius opens with a narrator literally telling us to forget about all the films that came out after the original Gojira. And we’re also told to forget about the ending of Gojira because that never happened either. The Oxygen Destroyer was not used and Tokyo had to be abandoned. Godzilla survived the end of Gojira and he continues to use Japan as his own personal power source, attacking not only a nuclear reactor but also a plasma reactor. So, sorry, Mothra. Sorry, Rodan. Sorry, all of you fans of Ghidorah. Sorry everyone who enjoyed the classic Godzilla films. We’re now in a universe where none of that happened.

That’s not to say that Godzilla vs. Megagurius is a bad film, of course. The majority of the people who watch these films (and films in general) could hardly care less about continuity. They want to see a fight between giant monsters and they want to hear Godzilla’s roar and this film provides both of them. After Japan attempts to destroy Godzilla with a satellite that shoots — I kid you not — miniature black holes, it finds itself being attacked by prehistoric dragonflys. While Godzilla searches for a new power source, the dragonflys attempt to siphon off Godzilla’s energy for their own uses. As so often happened with these movies, humanity’s attempt to destroy Godzilla actually leads to far more destruction than if they had just left Godzilla alone. It turns out that creating miniature black holes and ripping open the time/space continuum is not the solution to all the world’s problems. It’s the human beings who are ultimately the bigger threat than the giant monsters.

It’s an entertaining film. The Megagurius is a good monster and a worthy opponent to Godzilla. Godzilla does what he does best. The film wiped out a decades worth of continuity but at least it kept the Godzilla roar. In the end, you can’t silence a good giant monster.

Previous Godzilla Reviews:

October “True” Crime: Bundy Reborn (a.k.a. The Inflicted) (dir by Matthan Harris)

Posted on October 29, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Right now, on Tubi, you can find a film that the service says is titled Bundy Reborn. It’s a horror film, one that centers on a medical student named David O’Hara (played by the film’s director, Matthan Harris) who turns into a serial killer. Struggling with the trauma of having witnessed his father (Bill Moseley) murder his younger sister, David kidnaps Melissa Daniels (Lindsay Hightower) and then disappears into the night when Melissa is rescued by Inspector Lorenzo (the one and only Giovanni Lombardo Radice). Nine months later, David comes out of hiding after Melissa gives birth to their child. David once again kidnaps Melissa and kills several other people as well.

It’s pretty much a standard serial killer film. Despite the title, it has little to do with Ted Bundy. In fact, Bundy isn’t even mentioned in the film. David, like Bundy, is a handsome serial killer who went to college. But, whereas Bundy killed because he enjoyed it, David is trying to recreate a family that was destroyed by his equally sociopathic father. There’s a germ of an interesting idea to be found in this film. For all of his crimes and his evil actions, David really is just carrying on the family tradition. Can evil be passed down genetically? Or would David be perfectly normal if he just hasn’t witnessed his father killing his sister? Those are legitimate questions that this film raises and then promptly seems to forget about. The title, however, suggests that David is literally Ted Bundy in a new body and that’s simply not the case here.

Indeed, the film was originally released under a totally different title, The Inflicted. That title worked well with this film’s portrayal of a son who inherited his murderous compulsions from his father. David has been inflicted with the same evil that his father carries in his heart. The Inflicted is an honest title but, at the same time, it’s not a title that’s going to grab the audience. It’s a title that feels a bit too generic. Bundy Reborn, on the other hand, is an acknowledgement of the fact that Ted Bundy is a particularly macabre part of the American pop cultural landscape. As evil and worthy of hate as Ted Bundy may have been, viewers just can’t get enough of him. Ted Bundy never had much of a chance to pursue his political ambitions but today, more people probably know who Ted Bundy was then know that Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal lied about serving in Vietnam.

As for the film, the plot is full of contrivances and moments that just don’t make much sense. For horror fans, it is a chance to see several icons in one film, though most of them have extremely small roles. That said, it’s nice to see a usually villainous actor like Sid Haig cast as a kindly psychiatrist. Bill Moseley is properly menacing as David’s father. Doug Bradley seems to be enjoying himself as an FBI agent. As for Giovanni Lombardo Radice, how can you not smile when he’s onscreen? Radice’s Italian accent may seem out of place in a film that is shot and was made in North Texas. But Radice had an undeniable screen presence and he looked good wearing a trenchcoat and holding a gun. He simply was Lorenzo.

On a persona note, this film was shot in my part of the world. Several scenes were shot in my hometown. Several other scenes were filmed in the town where I went to college. When Inspector Lorenzo gets a call about David’s activities, I immediately yelled, “Oh my God, he’s at the Shops at Legacy!” Later, my heart ached when I saw that the hospital that Melissa was taken to was the same hospital that my father was taken to immediately after his car accident back in May. I recognized almost every location in the film as some place that I had been personally and that was definitely kind of exciting.

Finally, let’s all just be happy that Bundy has not been reborn but instead was apparently cremated and dumped out over some anonymous swimming pool somewhere.

4 Shots From 4 Horror Films: Special Sam Raimi Edition

Posted on October 29, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

4 Shots From 4 Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films is all about letting the visuals do the talking.

Today’s director: Sam Raimi!

4 Shots From 4 Sam Raimi Films