Satanic priest Jonathan Corbis (Ernest Borgnine) has spent decades pursuing the Preston family. The Prestons, it turns out, have a book of powerful Satanic magic in their possession. After Corbis causes the Preston patriarch to melt in the rain, Mark Preston (William Shatner) decides to confront Corbis and his followers…
Released in 1975, the Devil’s Rain was presumably made to capitalize on the success of films like Rosemary’s Baby and The Exorcist. The film itself is a bit incoherent but it’s worth watching just to see shameless overactors William Shatner and Ernest Borgnine acting opposite each other. The cast also includes Ida Lupino, Keenan Wynn, Tom Skerritt, and Eddie Albert, which means that there’s not a single bit of scenery that doesn’t get chewed at some point.
If watch carefully, you can spot John Travolta making his screen debut towards the end of the film.
A bunch of manly men are building an airstrip on an island off the coast of Africa. Two of them come across an oddly glowing meteorite and they make the mistake of trying to move it with a bulldozer. Needless to say, the bulldozer gets possessed by an alien presence and soon, the men are all being pursued by the … Killdozer!
My boyfriend and I recently sat down and watched this 1974 made-for-TV movie. Jeff enjoyed it while I thought Killdozer was perhaps one of the silliest films I have ever seen in my life. That’s not surprising, however. Killdozer is a guy film all the way, celebrating both the destructive power of machinery and the ability of men to tame that power.
Killdozer may not be a great film but it’s a film that feels rather appropriate for October.
Today’s movie is Ed Wood’s sequel to Bride of the Monsters. In Night of the Ghouls, con man Dr. Alcula (Kenne Duncan) moves into Bela Lugosi’s old mansion and pretends to talk to the dead. What Alcula doesn’t realize is that the house is actually haunted (by Tor Johnson’s Lobo, among others) and real ghosts don’t appreciate pretend ghosts.
What can you say about a film like of Night of the Ghouls? It’s an Ed Wood film, with all that suggests. However, how can you resist a film that starts with Criswell sitting up in his coffin and providing commentary?
The role of Dr. Alcula was originally written for Bela Lugosi. After Lugosi’s death, veteran actor and longtime Wood friend Kenne Duncan got the role instead. Also of note, Wood appears twice in this film. Not only does his picture appear on a wanted poster in the police station but Wood also plays one of the female ghouls.
When Jeff and I went to see the remake of Carrie earlier today, we arrived at the theater just as the trailer for another remake started to play. The first version of Endless Love was released in 1981 and is best known for featuring the film debut of Tom Cruise. The second version of Endless Love will be coming out next year on Valentine’s Day.
Judging from the trailer, the film looks like it could be both sexy and silly; sexy because it stars Alex Pettyfer and silly … well, really, for pretty much the exact same reason. However, I will give this film that benefit of the doubt just because I appreciated the fact that the trailer made good use of Florence + The Machine’s cover of Addicted to Love.
Last night, the Snarkalecs and I turned over to SyFy and watched an original horror film entitled Grave Halloween.
Why Were We Watching It?
It was Saturday night and that meant that it was time for another Snarkalec live tweet! We were all pretty excited about watching and live tweeting Grave Halloween, largely because it was directed by the same guy who directed the greatest film to ever premiere on SyFy, End Of The World.
What Was It About?
A group of American exchange students in Japan go into a place known as Suicide Forest to make a movie. Years ago, Maiko’s (Kaitlyn Leeb) mother committed suicide in the forest. Naturally, as soon as Maiko and her friends enter the forest, they end up getting lost, having visions of the dead, and dying in various grotesque ways. It doesn’t help that one of Maiko’s friends finds a discarded watch in the forest and decides to stick it in his pocket. Seriously, ghosts are apparently really attached to their watches.
What Worked?
A lot of people on twitter complained that Grave Halloween moved too slowly. I, however, didn’t find the film to be that slow. It was definitely deliberately paced (especially when compared to some of the other films that have appeared on SyFy) but I thought that was to the film’s advantage. The film took its time to set up its scares and shocks and the end result was a genuinely creepy horror film that rewarded the audience’s patience.
The film was set in Japan but, like most SyFy films, it was actually filmed in Vancouver. Now, I’ve never been to Japan or Vancouver so I can’t really say whether Canada could pass for Japan. But what I do know is that director Stephen R. Monroe got every single bit of atmosphere that he could out of the forests of British Columbia. As filmed by Monroe and cinematographer Michael C. Blundell, the scenery is both beautiful and menacing. By the end of the film, the forest itself feels like an individual character.
Of the cast of victims, my favorite was Brody (played by Jesse Wheeler), mostly because he looked like he could be Greg Grunberg’s younger brother.
What Did Not Work?
As I watched Grave Halloween, it quickly became apparent that the entire situation was pretty much all Maiko’s fault. She’s the one who led her friends into Suicide Forest. She’s the one who, even after everyone started to vanish, refused to leave. Ultimately, she was the one who was responsible for putting her friends in a position where they could all be killed.
And yet, no one in the film seemed to be willing to acknowledge that they would have all been better off if they had never met Maiko. Seriously, I was so waiting for someone to say, “Okay, Maiko — you go do your thing and the rest of us are going to get the fuck outta here before we end up getting ripped into little pieces, ‘kay?”
“Oh my God! Just like me!” Moments
So, naturally, one of the girls ended up tripping while she was running through the forest. Despite the fact that it didn’t look like that bad of a fall, she ended up with a broken bone literally poking out of her leg.
Since I’m currently recovering from a sprained ankle, you can probably imagine that this was not my favorite scene in the movie. Instead, it made me go, “Agck!” and then hide my face in a pillow because I could relate way too much.
(That said, I’m still amazed at how fragile her bones apparently were…)
Today’s horror film on the lens is Edward D. Wood’s 1955 epic, Bride of the Monster. 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.
Today’s horror movie comes from 1939 and is presented in glorious black-and-white. Tower of London tells the famous (and historically controversial) story of King Richard III (Basil Rathbone). With the help of the club-footed executioner Mord (Boris Karloff), Richard murders his way to the throne of England.
Technically, The Tower of London is more of a historical film than a horror film but, in order to tell its story, it uses many of the techniques that had been previously perfected by the famous Universal monster movies. Rathbone turns Richard III into a chilling and plausible human monster while Karloff is obviously having a lot of fun in the role of the twisted Mord.
Also of historical interest is the fact that Vincent Price plays the Duke of Clarence, making Tower of London his first horror film and the first film in which he would appear alongside fellow horror icon, Boris Karloff.
Ever since the birth of film, Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde has been a popular subject for adaptation. Not only does the classic story of a good doctor who unleashes his evil instinct via potion serve as a potent metaphor for everything from sexual repression to drug addiction, but the dual role of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde has provides an excellent opportunity for an actor to show off.
The first film adaptation of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is believed to have been made in 1908. Two more version followed in 1912 and 1913 and then, suddenly, 1920 saw three different film versions.
The best known of the 1920 version is our film for today. This version is best remembered for John Barrymore’s powerful performance in the title role but it also holds up remarkably well as a work of cinematic horror.
