Tag Archives: review

SOV Horror Review: Vampire Time Travelers (dir by Les Sekely)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

First released in 1998, Vampire Time Travelers is not an easy film to describe.

The film opens with a title crawl that informs us that, years ago, a vampire stalked the members of a sorority but fortunately, the vampire was defeated.  In fact, vampire Lorelei (Jillien Weisz) was forced into a coffin.  A cross was put on the coffin, trapping her there.  This was all apparently engineered by her sister, Natalia, who is never fully seen but who is often heard.  In the five years between Lorelei getting put in the coffin and the rest of the film, Natalia is killed by a sorority girl named …. wait for it …. Buffy.  Now, Buffy’s younger sister, Susan Ann Marie (J.J. Rodgers), is pledging to the same sorority and Natalia’s spirt wants revenge.  A man in a hood whispers to two kids that there’s copies of “Pet House” stashed in the coffin.  (Both boys look directly at the camera as a guitar riff plays on the soundtrack.)  The boy remove the cross and Lorelei is set free.

Sam — as Susan Ann Marie prefers to be called — is attending a sorority initiation at a professor’s house.  Also at the initiation is bitchy Vaughn (Lynne Baker), former tennis star Heidi (Ali Elk), surprisingly tall Jenna (Micky Roth), and aspiring rock star Zoe (Kat Facchino).  Natalia attempts to bite Sam’s neck while she’s sleeping but it turns out that she’s not strong enough.  She has to drink the blood of the other sorority sisters first.  But since she can’t find the strength to pierce anyone neck, she has to bite a different location.  “Bite her in the butt!” a bearded man says.  “Ewww, gross!” Lorelei says.  I agree!

Lorelei is not the only monster lurking in this film.  There’s also the Man Who Lives In The Closet (JC Grigg), who represents the childhood fear of something hiding in the …. well, the closet.  And then there’s The Man Who Won’t Call Back (played by the film’s director, Les Sekely), who haunts Zoe’s nightmares.  While Lorelei is forced to undergo remedial vampire training, Zoe bonds with The Man Who Lives In The Closet and Heidi seeks revenge against those who she blames for ending her tennis career.

Got all that?

There’s a lot going on in this 69-minute film and none of it is meant to be taken seriously.  Vampire Time Travelers is a SOV horror film that cheerfully sends up all of the cliches that one associates with SOV filmmaking.  The acting is intentionally over-the-top.  The dialogue is full of deliberately bad puns.  The plot is so twisty that it’s impossible to follow.  Usually, all of this would be a problem but, in this film, the incoherence is the point.  It’s not supposed to make sense.  Instead, the film is about tossing out one joke after another and seeing how many of them work.  For every joke that falls flat, there’s one that works wonderfully.  I laughed a lot more than I thought I would.  This movie may be crude but it’s also surprisingly clever.

Vampire Time Travelers is an effective SOV mix of horror and comedy.  It took me totally by surprise.

October True Crime: To Catch A Killer (dir by Eric Till)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Brian Dennehy was one of the great American character actors.

Rugged and exuding a sense of weariness, as if he were someone who had seen it all, Brian Dennehy cut a uniquely American figure. He was one of those actors who could play a New York fireman as easily as he could play a Tennessee farmer. He had those eyes that said, “Don’t mess with me,” but also the manner that made you feel everyone was welcome in his house as long as they didn’t think they were better than anyone else. He was one of those actors who could be both likable and intimidating. He was perfectly cast as Sheriff Teasle in First Blood because, even if he was a bit too hard on John Rambo when he first picked him up, it was still easy to see that Teasle didn’t mean to be a jerk. He was just doing his job. He thought he was keeping his town safe. Dennehy was just as credible playing a benevolent alien in Cocoon, a western outlaw in Silverado, or a burned-out cop in F/X. When Dennehy played a hero, you felt safe whenever he was onscreen. When he played a bad guy, he was absolutely terrifying.

Dennehy played one of the worst of the real-life bad guys in the 1992 television film To Catch a Killer. He plays John Wayne Gacy, a contractor considered a pillar of his community in the suburbs of Chicago. He runs a successful business. He hires young men who really need the money. He has a big smile. He’s involved in local politics and even has a framed picture of himself with President Jimmy Carter’s wife. In his spare time, he dresses up like a clown and entertains the children at the local hospital. He uses the name Pogo and paints sharp points at the corners of his mouth, giving him a somewhat sinister appearance. Everyone seems to like him. Of course, most people don’t know that Gacy is an ex-con who did time for sexually assaulting a 15-year-old boy in Iowa. This film takes place in the late ’70s, before anyone could just hop online and look up public records.

To Catch a Killer follows Detective Joe Kozenczak (Michael Riley) as he investigates the disappearance of a young man last seen being offered a job by Gacy. Joe suspects Gacy from the start, but he’s continually told that Gacy is a pillar of the community. What makes this film so effective is that Brian Dennehy plays Gacy as someone so arrogant he barely bothers to hide his guilt, but also as someone with such a victim complex that he won’t stop whining about being suspected of doing something he definitely did. The scene where Gacy demonstrates a handcuff trick is frightening because Gacy seems so desperate for companionship, and so goofy, even while he’s preparing to murder someone. Personally, I prefer it when Dennehy is playing a good guy (or, at the very least, a misguided bad guy like in First Blood), but that doesn’t change the fact that he was frighteningly believable as John Wayne Gacy. Dennehy was Emmy-nominated for his performance here.

As for the real John Wayne Gacy, he killed at least 33 people before he was apprehended in 1978. (It’s thought that the actual number is much higher.) He was executed in 1994, two years after this film aired. Reportedly, his last words were, “Kiss my ass.”

The TSL Horror Grindhouse: Back From The Dead (dir by Charles Marquis Warren)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

In 1958’s Back From The Dead, pregnant Mandy Anthony (Peggie Castle) is on a California vacation with her husband Dick (Arthur Franz) and her sister, Kate (Marsha Hunt).

While staying at Dick’s vacation home (which overlooks the ocean), a tired Mandy grimaces when Dick starts playing a record.  Dick insists that it’s her favorite record but Mandy’s reaction would seem to indicate the opposite.  While the droning orchestral music plays, Mandy has a sudden seizure and passes out.  Dick rushes her to the bedroom while Kate smashes the record.  A doctor (Ned Glass) comes to check on Mandy and announces that she’s had both an epileptic seizure and a miscarriage.  When Mandy wakes up, she’s suddenly demanding to be called Felecia and referring to Dick by an odd nickname, “Deacon.”  Dick rushes out of the bedroom and refuses to reenter.  When Kate demands to know what’s wrong, Dick reveals that Mandy is actually his second wife.  His first wife was named Felecia and she always used to call him “Deacon.”

Soon, Mandy is demanding to be taken to see “her” parents, who are actually Felecia’s parents.  Felecia’s mother (Ada Bradley) is revealed to be some sort of witch who apparently cast a spell that caused Felicia’s spirit to possess Mandy as soon as she entered the vacation home.  (It turns out that terrible record that Dick insisted on playing was Felecia’s favorite.)  Along with Dick’s neighbor (Marianne Stewart), Felecia’s mother is a member of a Satanic cult that is led by the mysterious Renault (Otto Reichow)  The possessed Mandy is soon threatening not only Dick but also all of Dick’s friends.  She even murders Dick’s dog.  (Boo!)

There’s an interesting subtext to Back From The Dead, though I’m not sure it was intentional on the part of the filmmakers.  Even before Mandy is possessed, Dick is hardly the model husband.  He comes across as being cold and uncommunicative and when both Mandy and Kate say that they don’t want to listen to the record, he ignores them and insists that they both love it.  Dick also doesn’t seem to be particularly upset by the loss of the baby.  As well, he’s never even told his wife that he was married before.  The only time that Dick really shows emotion is when he realizes that he can no longer control Mandy.  Mandy spends the entire film either being ordered around by Dick or being possessed by Dick’s dead first wife.  In the end, it isn’t Dick or any of the other men in the film who fights for Mandy’s freedom.  Instead, it’s Kate, Mandy’s sister.  Kate is the only person in the film who seems to care that Mandy has basically lost control over her own life.  In the end, the film becomes about just how far one sister will go to protect the other.  Kate fights to give Mandy back her life but it’s hard not to feel that it’s not much of a life to begin with.  Much like Nicholas Ray’s Bigger Than Life, Back From The Dead ends with a false sense of happiness.  For Mandy and Dick and Kate, nothing is ever going to be truly the same again.

Now, I should note that Back From The Dead is definitely a B-movie.  It has the look of a well-produced episode of a 50s anthology show.  All it really needed was Boris Karloff to host.  Arthur Franz is a bit on the dull side as Dick but that’s largely the fault of a script that doesn’t allow him to do much other than seethe and glower.  The film’s heart belongs to Masha Hunt’s fierce performance as Kate.  Kate is a fighter and a protector and it’s impossible not to root for her.  I can only hope to be as good as a sister as Kate but, then again, I don’t think any of my sisters are going to be possessed this holiday season.  Let’s hope not!

The film has its slow spots but, for the most part, Back From The Dead is a 50s B-movie that holds your interest.  You’ll never want to listen to vinyl record again.

Film Review: Voices From Beyond (dir by Lucio Fulci)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Wealthy businessman Giorgio Minardi (Duilio Del Prete) dies of a massive internal hemorrhage. His last words are “Why?” Even though he dies surrounded by his family, none of them seem to be particularly upset about his passing. Every one of them — from his much younger wife to his stepmother to his son — is more concerned with who is going to get Giorgio’s money than the fact that someone murdered him by grinding up glass and putting it into his food. The only person who truly seems to be upset by Giorgio’s passing is his daughter, Rosie (Karina Huff). Even though Giorgio is dead and soon buried, his spirit remains and soon, he is showing up in Rosie’s dreams and imploring her to help him discover who murdered him.

Released in 1991, Voices From Beyond is one of the films that Lucio Fulci made for television towards the end of his career. By this point, Fulci was not doing well, personally or professionally. After the box office failure of films like Manhattan Baby and Murder Rock, Fulci found himself struggling to raise the money to produce the type of films that he wanted to make. Also, his critical reputation never recovered from the controversy surrounding the violence in The New York Ripper. There’s an undeniable bitterness at the heart of Voices From Beyond. Though the film features several close-ups of Giorgio’s decaying corpse and a few surreal dream sequences, the true horror comes from the way that the family reacts to Giorgio’s sudden death. No one cares that he died. No one cares that he was murdered. They just want what’s left of his estate. Giorgio, trapped in spirit form, discovers just how unloved he was. Watching the film, one gets the feeling that Fulci saw a lot of himself in Giorgio. The family becomes a stand-in for everyone who deserted Fulci during the final years of his life.

I’ve seen Voices From Beyond advertised with a rather tacky pull quote — “The last good movie Fulci made!” While the quote is accurate in that the film is better than most of Fulci’s later films (even if it can’t match the delirious heights of Zombi 2, the Beyond Trilogy, or even The New York Ripper), to call it the last good film that Fulci made is to do the director a great disservice. Even Fulci’s lesser films were uniquely his own and, as a result, they were all good Fulci films regardless of whether or not they were good on any other level. To his credit, Fulci never really sold out. He did the best with what he had. Even this made-for-TV movie manages to open with a threesome and a rather gory knifing. The film features Fulci’s characteristic touches. The camera tracks through the darkness with style. Where it suffers is with a plot that makes the identity of the killer far too obvious and also with a less-than-inspired cast. Del Prete, unfortunately, doesn’t really have the charisma necessary to make us want to stick with Giorgio even after he’s died.

In the end, Voices From Beyond is interesting as a personal statement. It’s Fulci’s way of letting audiences know what he thought of those who had deserted him. The film ends with a dedication that is pure Fulci in both its spite and its vulnerability. Rest in peace to the maestro.

Retro Television Review: Saved By The Bell: The New Class 2.21 “Feuding Friends”

Posted on 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 Saved By The Bell: The New Class, which ran on NBC from 1993 to 2o00.  The show is currently on Prime.

We’re back at the ski lodge!

Episode 2.21 “Feuding Friends”

(Dir by Don Barnhart, originally aired on November 26th, 1994)

At the ski lodge, Mr. Belding’s sprained ankle appears to have healed.  However, Tommy still has a broken leg and it’s strange to me that he’s still even at the ski lodge.  I mean, this is a school trip and a broken leg is not a minor injury.  It seems like most school trips would be abruptly cancelled if a student got drunk and suffered a serious injury as a result.  Has anyone called Tommy’s parents?

While everyone else is enjoying the slopes, Megan stays behind and keeps Tommy company.  Soon, Megan and Tommy realize that they like each other and they decide to have dinner together.  Lindsay freaks out.  How dare Megan date her ex-boyfriend!?  Bobby gets mad too.  How dare Tommy go out with the girl that Bobby likes!?  At first, Rachel is neutral but then Lindsay suggests that Megan would date Brian if he ever broke up with Rachel.  Rachel gets mad at Megan for something she hasn’t done yet.  Brian tries to remain neutral (“I’m swiss,” he says) and Rachel calls him a wimp.

Meanwhile, a snooty fashion photographer sees Screech on the slope and takes a lot of pictures of him.  How will Screech take it when he discovers that the photographer is planning to use him as an example of how not to look?

This episode …. actually, I enjoyed this episode.  Yes, the whole thing with the photographer and Screech was pretty stupid.  But, when it came to everyone getting mad at each other, I could actually relate to that.  When Rachel got mad over something that hadn’t happened but which could happen, I felt very seen.  In its undeniably Saved By The Bell way, this episode captured the dynamic of what often happens with people who have been friends forever.  You fight over stupid stuff but, in the end, you always make up.

This was a good episode.  I’m as shocked as anyone.

That said, I’ll be even more shocked if the Tommy/Megan romance is ever mentioned again.  Saved By The Bell always has a way of creating couples and then forgetting about them one episode later.

Lifetime For October: Deadly Dorm (dir by Brent Ryan Green)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

This is one of those Lifetime films that has several different titles. The poster says Deadly Dormitory. Letterboxd claims that the title is Deadly Dorm. If you want to watch this film on Prime, you’ll have to look up College Professor Obsession. Me, I’m going to go with Deadly Dorm because that’s the easiest to say and the quickest title to type.

First aired in 2021, Deadly Dorm tells the story of Jenny Willis (Grace Patterson), a high school track star who is recovering from a knee injury. She’s finally well enough to accept a partial scholarship to an exclusive college. She tells her parents that she’s willing to go to a state school, but her parents insist that they will be able to pay for college. The whole opening of the movie reminded me of that old commercial they would show where recent high school graduates would record themselves saying, “I am going to college,” as if that was some sort of rare thing. I remember one guy who said, “It’s oh-fish-ee-al,” and I was just like, “Maybe don’t say it like that once you’re on campus.”

Anyway, Jenny enrolls in the college and moves into the dorm. Everyone she meets acts shocked when they hear which dorm room she’ll be moving into. It turns out that the room was previously occupied by a girl who died under mysterious circumstances. She was on the roof of the dorm, and she either fell, was pushed, or jumped. Jenny freaks out when she realizes that she’s going to be sleeping in the dead girl’s bed. Seriously, Jenny, just buy some new sheets and calm down.

Jenny is scandalized when her psychology professor (Randy Wayne) tells her that, if she wants to get better grades, she should try dressing a little better and showing off her legs and cleavage when she comes to class. Jenny is upset, and she has every right to be, even though I do agree that Jenny’s wardrobe is a bit on the frumpy side. Jenny’s roommate and new best friend, Beth (Johanna Liauw), says that the professor is a jerk but he also has tenure, so maybe it would be a good idea for Jenny to just give him what he wants.

Jenny starts to investigate on her own, and she soon comes to believe that the dead girl was also harassed by the professor. What if the professor killed the girl who used to live in Jenny’s dorm room? What if the professor has killed several people on campus? Does tenure cover that? It probably does at a private institution like this one. Jenny really should have gone to a state school.

On the one hand, I appreciated that this film had a lot of twists and turns in the plot. It embraced the melodrama, and I support that. I have to admit, though, that Jenny and her overprotective mother (Jocelyn Saenz) both kind of got on my nerves. Jenny was such a generic character that I actually felt sorry for her roommates. One character ends up seriously injured as a result of helping out Jenny, and it was hard not to notice that Jenny didn’t really seem to feel much guilt about that. When it came to college friendships, my firm rule was that I didn’t want to be dragged into anyone else’s drama, and Jenny doesn’t seem like she would have respected that.

The best scene in the film was when Jenny tried to stand up to her professor in the middle of class and the professor responded by announcing that she had borderline personality disorder and all of the other students just nodded in agreement. That felt like the most realistic scene in the film, as it captured how people will believe anything as long as it’s said by someone in authority.

Book Review: The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction Movies by Phil Hardy

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Oh, how I love Half-Price Books!

Whenever I browse through Half-Price Books (and yes, you can order from the store online, but a used bookstore really is someplace you should visit in person), I always hit the Film, TV, Music aisle immediately after checking out the American History section. That was where I found The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction Movies. I purchased it. I can’t remember how much it cost, but I didn’t care. It was an encyclopedia of movies. I had to have a copy.

It’s a great collection of reviews. The films are listed by year, so you can actually chart how the genre developed, and flipping through this book definitely helped me develop a better understanding and appreciation of science fiction movies. (And, of course, quite a few of the films reviewed were also horror films that happened to have science fiction elements.) Now, of course, I should mention that this book was published in 1986 and, as a result, it ends with the year 1985. But you know what? I don’t really need a guide to recent films. I’ve either seen or heard about most of the recent science fiction films. What I do need is a guide to the films that were made before I was even born. This book has introduced me to films that I otherwise would never have heard about. That’s the most important thing that a film guide can do!

The reviews are short, well-written, and opinionated. Because the book was published in the UK, a lot of American films that were made for television are reviewed as feature films, because that’s what they were in Europe. It’s an entertaining book, one that you can happily flip through with the knowledge that you’ll find something worth examining on each page.

This book can be ordered from all the usual suspects. I’ve seen it going for as little as $4. Don’t look for it at Half-Price Books. I grabbed the last copy.

“They Finally Found Us”, AI Short Film Review, By Case Wright

Posted on by casewright

Ethan, the creator, never makes title cards and I find that… just ughhhhh, but the films are kinda … okay. I am reviewing this short because it was his most watched and he deserves to be judged by his best work; so, here we go!

This is NOT good, but people liked it; in fact, 500,000 people liked it. I want them to know that I am VERY disappointed in them and they will just have to live with that!

The short is voice over with AI Cthulhus that have taken over the Earth because we sent out messages into space to find us. Really, that is the whole film.

We don’t deserve nice things!

Horror on the Lens: Raiders of the Living Dead (dir by Samuel M. Sherman and Brett Piper)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

 

Hi there and welcome to October!  This is our favorite time of the year here at the Shattered Lens because October is horror month.  For the past three years, we have celebrated every October by reviewing and showing some of our favorite horror movies, shows, books, and music.  That’s a tradition that I’m looking forward to helping to continue this year.

Today, we’ve got the 1986 zombie/sci-fi/action epic, Raiders of the Living Dead!

It’s the story of a creepy boy, a laser gun, a reporter, and a bunch of zombies.  There’s a mad scientist involved, too.  There always is.  The movie opens with a truck being hijacked and then the action shifts to a power plant and, honestly, I have no idea what any of it means.  If nothing else, it’s a film that you watch and you can’t help but admire the fact that it somehow got made and went on to find a small but kind of appreciative cult audience.  It’s just a very strange film and one that simply most be watched in October.

Enjoy!

Horror Song of the Day: The Dead Are After Me by George Edward Lott

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The dead!  Are after me!

The 1986 film, Raiders of the Living Dead, features what may be the greatest song ever written about zombies.  For your listening pleasure, here is George Edward Lott’s The Dead Are After Me!