Whenever it’s time to share this film for Horrorthon, I have a little story that I like to tell:
Enter singing.
Little Shop.…Little Shop of Horrors.…Little Shop.…Little Shop of Terrors….
When I was 19 years old, I was in a community theater production of the musical Little Shop of Horrors. Though I think I would have made the perfect Audrey, everybody always snickered whenever I sang so I ended up as a part of “the ensemble.” Being in the ensemble basically meant that I spent a lot of time dancing and showing off lots of cleavage. And you know what? The girl who did play Audrey was screechy, off-key, and annoying and after every show, all the old people in the audience always came back stage and ignored her and went straight over to me. So there.
Anyway, during rehearsals, our director thought it would be so funny if we all watched the original film. Now, I’m sorry to say, much like just about everyone else in the cast, this was my first exposure to the original and I even had to be told that the masochistic dentist patient was being played by Jack Nicholson. However, I’m also very proud to say that — out of that entire cast — I’m the only one who understood that the zero-budget film I was watching was actually better than the big spectacle we were attempting to perform on stage. Certainly, I understood the film better than that screechy little thing that was playing Audrey.
The first Little Shop of Horrors certainly isn’t scary and there’s nobody singing about somewhere that’s green (I always tear up when I hear that song, by the way). However, it is a very, very funny film with the just the right amount of a dark streak to make it perfect Halloween viewing.
So, if you have 72 minutes to kill, check out the original and the best Little Shop of Horrors….
I was hoping that he might be, even though his name didn’t appear in the credits. Quite a few cast members from the first two films return for the third film. David A.R. White is back as Josh McManus, the former super soldier who now drives his souped-car through the wastelands of America. Bruce Marchiano is back, credited as the Stranger though we all know he’s actually Jesus. (Since Marchiano appeared in all three films, I can only assume the RevelationRoad films all take place in the same cinematic universe as TheEncounter films and Sarah’sChoice.) Brian Bosworth shows up briefly.
But there is no Eric Roberts. Not even Eliza Roberts appears in this film! It’s a shame and they are both missed.
However, Kevin Sorbo does show up.
Kevin Sorbo plays Honcho, a bandit leader who lives in the wastelands and who is worshipped by those who follow him. Honcho occasionally speaks with an Australian accent. Occasionally, the accent slips or disappears all together. At first, I thought this was a case of bad editing, bad dubbing, or maybe Sorbo not really being that into the character. However, there’s actually a rather clever moment in which Honcho tells Josh that he’s not actually from Australia. He just speaks with the accent because it impresses his followers. Without the accent, he’s just some guy who used to work at a gas station. With the accent, he’s a warlord.
It’s a moment that made me laugh, largely because it’s true. People love and fear accents. If you’ve got a posh British accent, most Americans will assume that you’re planning a heist of some sort and that Sylvester Stallone or Harrison Ford is somewhere nearby, trying to stop you. If you’ve got an Australian accent, the assumption amongst Americans is that you can survive harsh conditions, handle your alcohol, and jump out of a plane without a second thought.
However, Sorbo’s fake Australian accent also pays a sort of homage to the MadMax films. The RevelationRoad trilogy was obviously envisioned as being a faith-based version of the Mad Max films, with David A.R. White cheerfully stepping into the somber shoes of Mel Gibson and Tom Hardy. Using MadMax as a model for a faith-based apocalypse film actually isn’t that bad of an idea. Indeed, Gibson’s style of beatific madness opens up the original Mad Max trilogy to a similar interpretation. Unfortunately, RevelationRoad3 is at time a bit too faithful to the MadMax films, to the extent that it struggles to establish an identity outside of the films that inspired it. That’s one reason why Kevin Sorbo’s character stands out. He’s a character who genuinely surprises us.
As for the plot of RevelationRoad3, it finds Josh being sent on a mission to find The Shepherd (Robert Gossett), a mysterious figure who is gathering together a religious flock in the desert despite the fact that the new world government has outlawed things like religion and individual freedom. While Josh’s wounded companion waits in a town ruled over by Mayor Drake (James Denton), Josh searches the desert and occasionally sees a mysterious rider on a horse. The film mixes action and theology and the results are definitely mixed, with a few well-done chase scenes mixed with a lot of scenes of people talking. That said, at its best, TheBlackRider achieves a sort of desolate grandeur.
For better or worse, Awards Season started today with the announcement of the Gotham nominations. The Gothams are supposed to honor independent films, though the line between studio and independent is now so thin that it’s sometimes difficult to tell which is which.
In the past, the Gothams honored obscure films and also low-budget films that captured the public’s imagination. This year, they gave the majority of their nominations to One Battle After Another, a big-budget film that starred a slew of Hollywood heavyweights. Meanwhile, Sinners, a genuinely independent feature, received one nomination.
It’s debatable how much of a precursor the Gothams are. They’re a critic-selected award and it’s always the guild awards that serve as the best precursors. Still, it always helps to be mentioned somewhere.
Here are the 2025 Gotham nominations!
Best Feature Bugonia East of Wall Hamnet If I Had Legs I’d Kick You Lurker One Battle After Another Sorry, Baby The Testament of Ann Lee Train Dreams
Best Director Mary Bronstein – If I Had Legs I’d Kick You Jafar Panahi – It Was Just an Accident Kelly Reichardt – The Mastermind Paul Thomas Anderson – One Battle After Another Oliver Laxe – Sirât
Outstanding Lead Performance Jessie Buckley – Hamnet Lee Byung-hun – No Other Choice Rose Byrne – If I Had Legs I’d Kick You Sopé Dìrísù – My Father’s Shadow Ethan Hawke – Blue Moon Jennifer Lawrence – Die My Love Wagner Moura – The Secret Agent Josh O’Connor – The Mastermind Amanda Seyfried – The Testament of Ann Lee Tessa Thompson – Hedda
Outstanding Supporting Performance Benicio Del Toro – One Battle After Another Jacob Elordi – Frankenstein Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas – Sentimental Value Indya Moore – Father Mother Sister Brother Wunmi Mosaku – Sinners Adam Sandler – Jay Kelly Andrew Scott – Blue Moon Alexander Skarsgård – Pillion Stellan Skarsgård – Sentimental Value Teyana Taylor – One Battle After Another
Best Original Screenplay If I Had Legs I’d Kick You It Was Just an Accident The Secret Agent Sorry, Baby Sound of Falling
Best Adapted Screenplay No Other Choice One Battle After Another Pillion Preparation for the Next Life Train Dreams
Best International Feature It Was Just an Accident No Other Choice Nouvelle Vague Resurrection Sound of Falling
Best Documentary Feature 2000 Meters to Andriivka BLKNWS: Terms & Conditions My Undesirable Friends: Part I – Last Air in Moscow The Perfect Neighbor Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk
Breakthrough Director Constance Tsang – Blue Sun Palace Carson Lund – Eephus Sarah Friedland – Familiar Touch Akinola Davies Jr. – My Father’s Shadow Harris Dickinson – Urchin
Breakthrough Performer A$AP Rocky – Highest 2 Lowest Sebiye Behtiyar – Preparation for the Next Life Chase Infiniti – One Battle After Another Abou Sangaré – Souleymane’s Story Tonatiuh – Kiss of the Spider Woman
For today’s horror on television, we have a made-for-TV monster movie from 1972, Gargoyles!
What happens when a somewhat condescending anthropologist (Cornel Wilde) and his daughter (Jennifer Salt) head out to the desert? Well, they stop by a crazy old man’s shack so that they can look at his genuine monster skeleton. Before Wilde can thoroughly debunk the old man’s claims, the shack is attacked by real monsters!
That’s right! Gargoyles exist and they apparently live in Arizona! There’s nothing particularly surprising about the plot but the gargoyles are memorable creations and Bernie Casey gives a good performance as their leader. The gargoyle makeup was designed by none other than Stan Winston, who won an Emmy for his work here and who went on to win Oscars for his work on Aliens, Terminator 2, and Jurassic Park.
As well, a very young Scott Glenn shows up in the cast. I like to think that he’s playing the same character in both Gargoyles and Sucker Punch.
Loosely based on the real-life exploits of a serial killer in Hong Kong in the mid-80’s, THE UNTOLD STORY (1993) unfolds over a couple of different timelines. The film opens with a flashback to Hong Kong circa 1978, where we witness a horrific murder committed by Chan Chi-Leung (Anthony Wong) over a game of mahjong. In order to try to conceal the murder, we see the killer as he destroys his old identification documents and creates a completely new identity. As the opening credits end, we’re “in the present” and join a group of kids playing on the beach when they discover a plastic bag containing severed human body parts. Soon the police are on the scene, led by Inspector Lee (Danny Lee) and a ragtag team of wisecracking detectives. Their investigation leads them to the Eight Immortals Restaurant, a place that is known for its barbecued pork buns, and its seemingly polite but evasive owner, Wong Chi Hang, who just happens to be the same guy we saw committing vicious murder at the opening of the film. Wong claims he bought the place from Cheng Lam (Siu-Ming Lau), who along with his entire family, has mysteriously vanished. As the cops dig deeper, too many things just aren’t adding up, like the restaurant’s high employee turnover rate and Wong’s inability to produce ownership papers. The cops eventually arrest him and attempt to torture a confession out of him. The flashback timeline kicks back in after Wong is arrested and put through hell by his fellow jailbirds and by the police themselves. When he finally cracks, we learn the secrets of “the untold story!”
Right off the bat, I want to make the statement that THE UNTOLD STORY is not a film that’s meant for everyone. Unless you have a strong stomach and can handle extreme gore and vicious cruelty (of both a violent and sexual nature) depicted in graphic detail, you may want to stay away. As I’m definitely a squeamish viewer, I stayed away from this film for many years due to its reputation. My curiosity eventually overcame my good sense, and I gave it a watch a number of years ago. I mean, the film is a Hong Kong “Category III” rated landmark, and Anthony Wong did win the Best Actor Award at the Hong Kong Film Awards for his performance in the movie. It stands to reason that a guy who calls himself a true fan of Hong Kong cinema should give THE UNTOLD STORY a go! Let me just say this, as someone who grew up on Hollywood films, even the goriest films had certain lines that they would not cross. There are no such lines in this film. Director Herman Yau’s 1993 Hong Kong exploitation film is an unflinching punch to the gut in its willingness to go to unacceptable extremes without any apology to the viewer. Just know that going in.
Now that I’ve properly prepared you for the excessively cruel and gruesome nature of the violence in the film, I now have to try to put into words my actual thoughts on the film itself. One of the things that stood out to me as I watched the movie is the stark contrast between the horrific nature of the violence on screen and the “zany antics” of the police who are working the case. Led by THE KILLER’s Danny Lee as the distracted Inspector Lee, who always has a beautiful prostitute on his arm as he visits crimes scenes and the police station, this group of investigators spends a lot of their time acting like immature teenagers rather than serious cops. Imagine if you and your friends in high school were trying to solve a serial killer case, and we got to watch how you acted on stakeouts and in the police locker room, and you might get an idea of what I mean. My guess is that this is meant to make the violent content a little easier to swallow, as well as poke some fun at the “macho men” who are in charge of solving these kinds of crimes. In some ways it works, but there’s still no protection once Wong goes bonkers.
And speaking of Anthony Wong, he is absolutely incredible in this film as the unimaginably disturbed killer. We watch him explode with rage, commit the most heinous acts imaginable, and then just clean up his mess like he’s doing his daily household chores. I guess it helps that he’s a good cook! Hell, there’s a point near the end of the film where his performance almost leads you to having sympathy for him as the police and his fellow inmates are torturing him! Almost, because the worst flashbacks are still yet to come. Wong is one of the best actors to have ever worked in Hong Kong cinema, and his masterful acting elevates the film to a level of cinematic respectability not yet afforded to such a grisly exploitation film. This is the first of five Hong Kong Film awards won by Anthony Wong.
Overall, THE UNTOLD STORY is cinema as an endurance test, delivering an all too real depiction of a vicious killer committing unspeakable violence on screen. The goofy police squad provides some tonal relief, but this movie is not for the faint of stomach. However, for those brave viewers who can handle the graphic violence and who enjoy dramatizations of true crime from incredible actors, you will be rewarded because the filmmakers were able to come up with something special. As I type this, it’s streaming on Tubi for free!
1957’s I Was A Teenage Werewolf combines two genres that were very popular in the late 50s.
On the one hand, it’s a film about a teenage rebel. Tony Rivers (Michael Landon) is a teenager that means well but he keeps losing his temper. If he can’t learn to control his anger, he could very well be looking at a life behind bars.
On the other hand, it’s also a horror film. When Tony visits a hypnotist (Whit Bissell), the end result is Tony turning into a werewolf and going on a rampage, all while still wearing his letterman jacket.
The opening of Dario Argento’s 1977 masterpiece, Suspiria, is about as perfect an opening as one could hope for. American ballet student Suzy Banyon (Jessica Harper) arrives in Frieburg, Germany. Both Argento and Harper perfectly portray Suzy’s confusion as she makes her way through the airport and, as torrential rain drenches her, attempts to hail a taxi and get a ride to the dance academy. (What Suzy doesn’t know, of course, is that the dance academy is home to the ancient witch known as Our Mother of Sighs.) With this opening scene, Argento both immediately establishes the off-center, nightmarish atmosphere of Suspiria and establishes Suzy as a character who we, as the audience, relate to and care about. Suspiria is a great film and certainly one that didn’t need a pretentious remake. The greatness of the original Suspiria all begins with this brilliant opening.
Suspiria (1977, dir by Dario Argento, DP: Luciano Tovoli)
You knew this was coming!
Today’s horror song of the day is the classic main theme to Dario Argento’s Suspiria! (The Argento version is the only version that matters.) The iconic soundtrack was composed by Goblin. I saw an interview with Claudio Simonetti in which he said he wanted the song to be “almost annoying” in its intensity. While I could never be annoyed this song, I do understand Simonetti’s point. The score is designed to be as overwhelming as the evil at the center of the film.
This October, I’m going to be doing something a little bit different with my contribution to 4 Shots From 4 Films. I’m going to be taking a little chronological tour of the history of horror cinema, moving from decade to decade.
1995’s Stolen Innocence opens with 18 year-old Stacy Sapp (Tracey Gold) trying to sneak back into her house after a long night of drinking and partying. Unfortunately for her, Stacey isn’t very good at sneaking around and she’s caught by her mother (Bess Armstrong) and her father (Nick Searcy).
“I’m 18!” Stacy argues.
“You’re going to end up pregnant!” her mother yells.
Stacy says that that her mother is just scared that she’s going to end up a loser “like you!” Well …. yeah, Stacy, that’s kind of the point. If your mother has experience with the life decisions necessary to become a loser, maybe you should listen to her warnings.
Anyway, Stacy runs away with a friend of her’s. After her friend decides to go back home, Stacy hitches a ride with a trucker. When the trucker stops off at a truck stop so he can get his brakes looked at, Stacy meets Richard Brown (Thomas Calabro, wearing a really bad wig). Richard is long-haired and has got a tough guy beard and a cheesy tattoo of a heart on his scrawny forearm. Stacy, of course, is totally smitten and she goes off with Richard and his “friend,” Eddie (Matt Letscher).
It doesn’t take long for us to figure out what Richard is bad news. He carries a gun. He’s financing his trip through stolen checks. He might not even own the truck that he’s driving. He and Eddie have a bizarre relationship in which Richard continually abuses Eddie but Eddie refuses to leave. Richard is obviously a bad guy and we can all see it. When Stacy finally calls her parents from the road, they immediately figure out that Stacy is in trouble. However, it takes Stacy forever to figure it out because Stacy’s kind of an idiot.
I cringed a lot while watching Stolen Innocence, not so much because of the film’s depiction of Richard’s criminal lifestyle but because I used to have a definite weakness for bad boys and I could kind of understand what was going through Stacy’s mind when she first met Richard. That said, I’m pretty sure that I would have figured things out a lot quicker than Stacy did. Stacy quickly goes from being a somewhat sympathetic rebellious teenager to being someone who you really start to get annoyed with. Oh, he’s threatening you with a gun? Okay, that’s when you leave! That’s when you start plotting your escape. You don’t make excuses for him. He’s financing his trip with stolen checks? I’m sorry, is that not a red flag? Add to that, as played by a miscast Thomas Calabro, it’s not like Richard is some boiling cauldron of charisma. From the first minute we see him, with his long hair and his cowboy hat and his tattoo, the guy seems like a joke.
Eventually, Stacy does figure out the truth but, by that point, Richard and her are holed up in a motel room and Richard is exchanging gunfire with the FBI. The film ends with a title card, reminding us that this was a true story. “He’s not a bad person!” Stacy wails to the police. I guess some people really are that stupid.
Through the Shattered Lens 