Today’s Blast From The Past comes to use from 1955. In this short film, a group of no-good 30 year-old high school students attack a middle-aged man who was just trying to drive home. That man just happens to be the father of a member of the gang! Now, due to the violence, the city council is considering a curfew! That’s not fair to the good kids but what can be done about juvenile delinquency?
Watch and discuss.
This film was shot in Lawrence, Kansas and it was directed by Herk Harvey. Harvey directed a ton of educational short films like this but horror fans will always know him before for directing Carnival of Souls. I’ll be sharing Carnival of Souls soon. For now, give some thought to delinquents!
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’ve been using 4 Shots from 4 Films to pay tribute to some of our favorite horror filmmakers! Today, we honor the one and only Lucio Fulci!
4 Shots From 4 Lucio Fulci Films
Zombi 2 (1979, dir. Lucio Fulci)
City of the Living Dead (1980, dir by Lucio Fulci)
The House By The Cemetery (1981, dir by Lucio Fulci)
Baffled! is an entertaining little made-for-TV movie from 1973. Leonard Nimoy plays a race car driver who suddenly starts to have psychic visions of a woman who lives in what appears to be a gothic manor. The woman is in some sort of danger. Nimoy, of course, would rather just race cars but a parapsychologist (Susan Hampshire) convinces him that he has to figure out what his visions mean.
Now, to be honest, Baffled! is not a particularly scary movie. Some of Nimoy’s visions are spooky but there’s nothing in this movie that’s going to give you nightmares. Though it may not be horrifying, Baffled! is a lot of fun. Apparently, it was meant to be a pilot for a TV series. If it had been picked up, I guess Nimoy and Hampshire would have been helping out a new guest star every week. Nimoy seems to be having a lot of fun playing a psychic race car driver and he and Susan Hampshire have a really sweet and enjoyable chemistry.
No, not in Miami. Not Jacksonville. Not Ft. Lauderdale. Certainly not Orlando. No, this film takes place off the back roads of Florida, where people are honest country folk and some folks live in a houseboat and you should always be careful when walking around the bayous because there might be some alligators lurkin’ about. Of course, in this part of Florida, they call them gators. Anyone who says alligator obviously thinks they’re too good for downhome country living.
Anyway, it turns out that there’s more to worry about in Florida then just alligators. There’s also the chance that your houseboat might get struck by a meteor. And then, everyone on the houseboat might be transformed into a zombie and, after they’ve eaten all the alligators, they might start eating all the humans.
When a sudden zombie outbreak occurs, you have to hope that you’ll get a good law enforcement response. Unfortunately, law enforcement in these parts means an elderly sheriff and a bearded deputy who is always trying to catch a peek of the local women skinny dipping. The sheriff, by the way, is played by Buster Crabbe. In the 20s and 30s, Crabbe was an champion swimmer who won Olympic medals and went on to play Tarzan, Flash Gordon, and Buck Rogers. At the height of his popularity, he was known as “the King of the Serials.” In The Alien Dead, the 70-something Crabbe plays Sheriff Kowalski and, if nothing else, it seems like he was enjoying himself. Really, that’s important thing when it comes to a movie like this.
The Alien Dead is an extremely-cheap looking film and, with the exception of Crabbe, none of the actors appear to have done much before or after appearing in The Alien Dead. There are some scenes that are so dark that it’s next to impossible to actually tell what’s going on. Despite being a rather short film, the pace is still slow and there are certain scenes that seem to drag on forever. There’s a lot of perfectly valid criticisms that one can make about The Alien Dead.
But you know what?
I like the film.
Seriously, in a strange way, the film actually does work. Yes, the acting is pretty bad and the dialogue is often rather clunky and the plot doesn’t make sense and blah blah blah. Those are all true facts. But, there are isolated moments where The Alien Dead achieves a dream-like intensity. For instance, there’s a lengthy scene where the zombies attack and all of the action is shown in slow motion. I realize that may have been done to pad the film’s running time but strangely enough, it works. Even more oddly, the film’s cheap gore effects add to the movie’s already dream-like feel. Finally, if nothing else, the film captures the humid atmosphere of the Florida bayou. Watching the film, you can feel the sweat and hear the buzzing of mosquitos. At its best, The Alien Dead works as a piece of outsider art.
Finally, The Alien Dead is one of those films that had been released and re-released a few times on video. As you can see below, one of those releases was apparently inspired by the success of Evil Dead.
I watched the 1982 film, Kung Fu From Beyond The Grave, on Prime earlier today. It was an enjoyable film from Hong Kong. It starred many of the same people who appeared in Kung Fu Zombieand both films had a similar attitude, mixing horror and family drama with martial arts and juvenile comedy and topping it all off with a random vampire. As I said, it was fun to watch and I was certainly never bored.
That said, I would be lying if I said I actually understood everything that happened in the film.
That’s not really the fault of the filmmakers or, at least, I don’t think it is. The version that I watched was badly dubbed into English and it was obvious that, during the film’s trip from Hong Kong to the grindhouse theaters of New York City, some pretty heavy editing was done. That’s pretty much par for the course when it comes to the martial arts films of the 70s. In fact, for many Americans, a good deal of the appeal of these films is the fact that the plots are often incoherent. Who needs a detailed plot when you’ve got so many great fight scenes, right?
The film opens with a narrator explaining that, every couple of months, the Gates of Hell are opened and the dead can wander the Earth. (The film — or at least the dubbed version of the film — seems to be pretty sure that everyone who dies ends up in Hell.) Chun Sing (Billy Chong, star of Kung Fu Zombie) is visited by his dead father, who informs Chun that he was killed by an evil wizard (Chin-Lai Sung) who works for a local crime lord named Kam Tai Fu (Lieh Lo). Chun now has to avenge his father’s death and what I liked about this film is that, much as with Kung Fu Zombie, it suggested that Chun is a bit annoyed to be bothered with it. One gets the feeling that Chun was perfectly fine with not knowing who was responsible for his father’s death but, now that the annoying old man has wandered through the Gates of Hell, Chun is now obligated to do something about it.
Unfortunately, it’s not going to be easy to revenge because Kam’s wizard is not only an expert martial artist but he’s also capable of summoning super natural help. In this case, that help comes in the form of a vampire. What is Chun to do!? Wait a minute — the Gates of Hell are still open! Why not just get some friendly ghosts to help him take on Kam, the wizard, and the vampire!?
And that’s really pretty much the movie for you. For 87 minutes, people yell at each other, people fight, vampires pop up, and occasionally a large group of pasty ghosts appear and swarm on their enemies. There’s also a subplot about people getting their hearts ripped out of their bodies while visiting the local brothel which …. well, I know it had something to do with Kam’s wizard but I’m not really sure why it needed to be done. Still, the scenes of heart theft add to the film’s already chaotic atmosphere. They just seem to belong.
Which one is better, Kung Fu Zombie or Kung Fu From Beyond the Grave? The fight scenes were actually better in Kung Fu From Beyond the Grave but Kung Fu Zombie had a far more clever sense of humor. I personally would have to give the victory to Kung Fu Zombie. That said, they’re both wonderfully berserk films and if you want to add a little martial arts to your Halloween horror, these two films make the perfect double feature! And they’re both on Prime so ….. enjoy!
Oh, the high hopes I had for You Should Have Left.
Not only was this horror film reuniting one of my favorite actors with the man who directed him in one of his best performances but it also featured what appeared to be the perfect casting of Amanda Seyfried as Kevin Bacon’s daughter. When I heard that the film featured Bacon trying to protect his family from an evil spirit, I was totally ready to watch a film that would feature ghosts trying to grab Amanda while Kevin yelled, “Leave me daughter alone!”
Of course, then I found out that Kevin Bacon and Amanda Seyfried were not playing father and daughter. They were playing husband and wife. And listen, I love Kevin Bacon. I think he’s a great actor and he seems like a nice guy and I always appreciate the fact that he’s willing to make fun of himself and his up-and-down career. But seriously, Kevin Bacon is 28 years older than Amanda Seyfried and hearing that they would not only be playing husband and wife but that they would also be playing the parents of a young girl …. well, I wasn’t expecting much.
To the film’s credit, it doesn’t attempt to ignore the age difference between Bacon and Seyfried. This isn’t like one of those films where Michael Douglas is married to someone who just graduated from high school and everyone just shrugs it off as if there isn’t anything weird about it. Instead, the age difference is a major plot point of the movie. Kevin Bacon plays Theo, a retired, wealthy banker. Amanda Seyfried plays Susanna, an actress. From the start of the film, Theo obviously feels insecure about whether or not his much younger wife loves him. When he has trouble gaining access to a film set where she’s acting, he gets a bit paranoid. When he finds out that she was filming a love scene, he gets even more paranoid. Throughout the film, Theo worries that Susanna is gong to leave him for a younger man.
Meanwhile, Susanna struggles with how to explain to their daughter why no one likes Theo. It turns out that Susanna is Theo’s second wife. Theo’s first wife drowned in a bathtub. Theo was accused of murdering her but he was subsequently acquitted. As Susanna explains what happened, it becomes a bit obvious that she has her own doubts about her husband and his innocence.
When they receive an invitation to stay at a house in Wales, both Theo and Susanna assume that the other one arranged it. Actually, neither one of them arranged it! Still, it’s a really nice house and it seems like the perfect place for them to repair their strained marriage and work on their trust issues …. except for the fact that there’s obviously somebody or something inside the house with them!
Now, really, You Should Have Left should have worked. As I said before, I like Kevin Bacon and I think Amanda Seyfried is a far better actress than she’s actually given credit for being. Add to that, You Should Have Left was directed by David Koepp, who previously directed Bacon in Stir of Echoes. Remember how good that movie was? And yet, while You Should Have Left has a few creepy moments, it ultimately falls flat. What happened?
I think some of the problem is that, regardless of how much you may like the actors playing them, nether Theo nor Suzanna is a particularly compelling character. Theo, in particular, keeps a meditation journal. Stir of Echoes Kevin Bacon would have kicked the ass of You Should Have Left Kevin Bacon. Seriously, the minute you break out the meditation journal, that’s the minute I stop taking you seriously as a protagonist. The film also cheated a bit when it came to the issue of whether or not Theo murdered his wife. Instead of saying yes or no, the film tried to keep things ambiguous and it just didn’t feel right.
In the end, the film just didn’t work. The pacing was off. The visual style was bland. For all the build-up, there was nothing particularly interesting about the house’s secret. For all the talent involved, the film just fell flat.
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’ve been using 4 Shots from 4 Films to pay tribute to some of our favorite horror filmmakers! Today, we honor the one and only Dan Curtis!
4 Shots From 4 Dan Curtis Films
House of Dark Shadows (1970, dir by Dan Curtis)
Night of the Dark Shadows (1971, dir by Dan Curtis)
What’s an Insomnia File? You know how some times you just can’t get any sleep and, at about three in the morning, you’ll find yourself watching whatever you can find on cable or Netflix? This feature is all about those insomnia-inspired discoveries!
If you were having trouble getting to sleep at two in the morning last night, you could have turned over to HBO and watched Downhill, the remake of Force Majeure that was released in February.
Downhill tells the story of annoying family taking a ski vacation in Austria. Billie Stanton (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) is a high-powered attorney who gets annoyed when things don’t go perfectly. Pete Stanton (Will Ferrell) is …. well, he’s Will Ferrell playing a typical Will Ferrell role. He’s a big. annoying dofus who spends all of his time on his phone and who is constantly telling the same long, boring, faux profound story about his dead father. They have two annoying sons and it’s pretty obvious from the start that neither Billie nor Pete is particularly happy with how their marriage or their lives have turned out. When Pete abandons his family during a minor avalanche, it leads to Billie realizing that Pete doesn’t really seem to be that much into his family or his marriage. But, since that was obvious from the start, it’s not really that big of a revelation for the audience.
Downhill is a frustrating film to watch, especially if you’ve seen Force Majeure.Downhill takes the basic storyline of Force Majeure and all of the issues that were raised by Force Majeure and then it explores them in the shallowest way possible. A lot of the trouble comes down to the fact that Will Ferrell is a good comedian but he’s an inconsistent dramatic actor. The film tries to work as a dramedy but Ferrell approaches each scene as if it were a sketch on Saturday Night Live. As a result, Downhill is less like Force Majeure and more like an episode of The Office where D’Angelo Vickers takes everyone skiing. Julia Louis-Dreyfus is a little bit more grounded in reality but there’s really not much to her role, beyond being annoyed.
I did like the performance of Zach Woods, playing a pretentious friend of the couple and bragging about how he went skiing on shrooms. Woods has a talent for suggesting the oddness that often hides behind the most straight-laced of facades. And the scenes with Miranda Otto as a decadent libertine would have been funny if they didn’t feel as if they belonged in a totally different move. For the most part, though, Downhill fell flat.
Through the Shattered Lens 