Tag Archives: review

The TSL’s Horror Grindhouse: Revealer (dir by Luke Boyce)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Taking place in 1980s Chicago, Revealer tells the story of two seemingly different women.

Angie (Caito Aase) is a stripper who spend most of her day in an incredibly sleazy peep show booth.  The men that she dances for are a collection of grotesque pervs.  (Keep an eye out and you’ll notice a sign warning that “wet dollar bills” will not be accepted.  Ewww!)  Angie is under no illusions about where she’s working or who is paying to watch her but she needs the money.  She’s putting up with a lot of crap in order to giver her nephew the type of stable life that she’s never had and, understandably, she doesn’t have much patience for anyone who would judge her for it.

Sally (Shaina Schrooten) is someone who spends almost all of her time judging.  For weeks, she has been leading protests in front of Angie’s place of employment.  As soon as Angie shows up for an extra shift, she is confronted by Sally.  Sally claims that Angie is “a harlot” who is leading people down the path of sin and damnation.  Angie says that Sally is just jealous because she’s never truly live her life.

Together …. they solve crimes!

No, actually, they don’t.  Instead, they find themselves forced to deal with some theological issues when a horned demon unleashes an army of snakes on the world.  Angie is trapped in her peep show booth, with no way to get out.  Sally, fleeing from the demons, ends up outside the same booth.  Sally is convinced that the apocalypse has begun.  Angie just wants to get back to her nephew.  Despite their differing views and their initially antagonistic relationship, Angie and Sally are going to have to work together in order to survive.  Along the way, hidden truths are revealed.  Angie and Sally learn that they’re not so different and they even start to become friends.  But does that matter, considering that the world apparently ended in 1987?

I had a mixed reaction to Revealer.  On the one hand, there’s something wonderfully subversive about setting a film about the end of the world in the distant past.  If nothing else, it keeps the viewer off-balance.  (I was reminded a bit of how 2001’s Donnie Darko predicted that the world would end in 1988.)  As well, the two leads both did a good job with their characters, adding depth and nuance to two roles that could have easily become clichés.  In the role of Sally, Shaina Schrooten gave an especially good performance.  I wasn’t particularly shocked when Sally revealed her big secret but Schrooten’s performance still made the scene effective.

On the negative side, the snakes were frightening but the demon who controlled them obviously fell prey to the film’s low budget and looked a bit less impressive.  As well, the script itself was often overwritten.  Sally and Angie’s constant debate over religion felt more than a little heavy-handed.  (I mean, it’s easy to win an argument when the screenwriter is on your side.)  Even more importantly, they tended to disrupt the flow of the film.  Too many scenes stopped dead in their tracks so that Sally could quote the Bible and Angie could get upset about it.  Since neither had anything to say about their beliefs that hadn’t already been said in a hundred other movies, their arguments were occasionally a bit dull, despite the best efforts of Caito Aase and Shaina Schrooten.

Revealer was uneven, though the ending was certainly effective and both of the lead actresses did a good job bringing their characters to life.  Watching the film, I wondered if maybe the world did end in 1987 and the rest of us just haven’t noticed yet.

Retro Television Reviews: The Love Boat 1.6 “The Joker Is Mild / Take My Granddaughter, Please / First Time Out”

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 Wednesdays, I will be reviewing the original Love Boat, which aired on ABC from 1977 to 1986!  The series can be streamed on Paramount Plus!

Come aboard, we’re expecting you….

The Love Boat 1.5 “The Joker Is Mild / Take My Granddaughter, Please / First Time Out”

(Dir by Richard Kinon and Alan Rafkin, originally aired on October 29th, 1977)

This week’s cruise is all about remaining true to yourself!

For instance, Julie makes what appears to be a big mistake when she agrees to let a washed-up comic named Barry Keys (Phil Foster) do a show in the ship’s lounge.  Throughout the cruise, Barry gets on everyone’s nerves with his old-fashioned jokes and his vaudeville stylings.  Captain Stubing gives Julie an annoyed look whenever Barry starts to speak.  Julie knows that her career is on the line but she made a promise.  And Barry, it turns out, know what he’s doing.  When it comes time for his performance, he asks for a stool so that he can sit in the middle of the stage and talk about the generation gap.  (“Let’s rap, as the kids say,” Barry says.)  Hooray!  Barry has revived his career and Julie still has a job.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Warner (Ruth Gordon) is determined to find a husband for her granddaughter, Shirley (Patty Duke, who spends the entire episode looking as if she’s wondering how she could go from winning an Oscar to this).  Shirley would like to hook up with the pleasantly bland Dave King (played by Tab Hunter).  Mrs. Warner wants her to go out with Dr. Bricker!  In the end, Shirley stands up for herself, as any single 30 year-old should.  (To be honest, I thought Patty Duke’s character was closer to 40 but that’s mostly the fault of whoever in the costume department decided to make her wear some of the least flattering outfits available.)  It’s all for the best.  Dave is a nice guy and Doc has an exam room full of pornographic magazines to take care of.

Finally, a group of college students board the ship with one mission in mind.  They want their friend Dan (Robert Hegyes, who has a truly impressive head of hair) to lose his virginity.  Dan, it turns out, is not only shy but he also has no idea how to talk to women.  Fortunately, her runs into Marcia Brady (Maureen McCormick) and it turns out that Marica likes shy, socially awkward guys with a lot of hair.  Okay, technically Maureen is playing Barbara Holmes but seriously, we all know that Barbara was actually Marcia.

This was a majorly uneven episode.  Barry’s revised act didn’t seem any funnier than his old stuff and it was kind of hard to sympathize with Shirley and her inability to make her own decisions.  That said, Maureen McCormick and Robert Hegyes made for a cute couple and their storyline was the most satisfying of the episode.  Personally, I think this episode would have worked better if Ruth Gordon had played Maureen McCormick’s grandmother as opposed to Patty Duke’s.  McCormick was young enough that it would have been a bit less pathetic for her to be bossed around by her grandmother and one can imagine how Ruth Gordon would have reacted to McCormick picking hairy Dan over a doctor.

Oh well!  The important thing is that everything worked out in the end and love won’t hurt anymore.

Book Review: The Sleepwalker by R.L. Stine

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

With the last R.L. Stine book that I read, I was really upset when a cat was killed in the service of the plot.  In fact, I was so turned off that I pretty much just skimmed the book after the death of Mr. Jinx.

So, when I started reading 1991’s The Sleepwalker, I was understandably concerned with a black cat named Hazel made an appearance and started hissing at the main character.  “Oh no,” I said, “not again!”  Fortunately, Hazel not only survived the entire book but turned out to be a total badass!  Hazel is exactly the type of cat that you want on your side.  Not only will Hazel hiss at anyone who tries to go through your stuff but Hazel is also willing to use her claws if anyone gets out of line.  Go, Hazel, go!

As for the rest of the story, Mayra is a teenager who is totally in love with Walker, who is this weird kid who is into magic.  Unfortunately, Marya has a creepy ex-boyfriend named Link, who is also totally into magic.  (Link, I should mention, has a sister named Stephanie who is — get this — totally into magic!)  With Walker on vacation and Link acting all whiny, Marya gets a job working as a homecare assistant to old Mrs. Cottler.  Mayra’s mom once worked for Mrs. Cottler and apparently, it’s good to keep these jobs in the family.

Mayra, however, soon comes to suspect that Mrs. Cottler is a witch!  Afterall, Mrs. Cottler has a lot of strange occult-themed books and she also owns a black cat.  (Yay, Hazel!)  After one of Mrs. Cottler’s neighbors complains about her peach tree encroaching on his property, he suffers a broken hip.  Soon, Mayra is having dreams about walking into the middle of a lake and, when she wakes up, she discovers that she has been sleepwalking!  Could it be because Mrs. Cottler put a spell on her and is now trying to destroy her for some weird reason?

(Actually, considering that Mayra has dated two guys who are both into magic tricks and also how quickly Mayra jumps to the  conclusion that Mrs. Cottler must be a witch, I think it’s far more probable that Mayra herself is using her interest in the paranormal as a way to deal with past trauma.  I mean, it’s kind of remarkable that it never seems to occur to her that there might be a non-magic answer to all of her problems.  I get the feeling that her belief in magic is her way of avoiding having to confront anything.  That’s just my theory.  For the record, I don’t believe in magic but I do enjoy reading about it.)

Anyway, even by Stine standards, this is a silly story.  No one turns out to be who we originally believed them to be and it all links up to a mysterious death that occurred years before.  This is one of those things where almost every issue in the book could have been resolved by people just not being stupid.  But, and this is the most important thing …. HAZEL SURVIVES!

YAY HAZEL!

Book Review: Strange Crimes and Criminals by Carl Sifakis

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Are you familiar with the Astor Palace Riots?

In 1849, an English actor was selected to play MacBeth at New York’s Astor Place Opera House.  Capt. Isiah Rynders, a politician who had built up a following by denouncing the rich as being wannabe Englishmen, claimed that an American actor should have been given the role and he led a protest outside the theater.  When the play started, his followers pelted the stage with eggs and insults and the show had to be stopped.  When another attempt was made to perform MacBeth a few days later, Rynders and his people returned.  This time, the protest led to one of New York City’s biggest riots.  At least 23 people died and over 130 were injured.  The crowd attempted to hang the actor who played MacBeth but, fortunately, he was able to catch a train to Boston and then sailed back to England.  This, of course, was not the only time that Shakespeare would be linked to violence in America.  Abraham Lincoln would be assassinated by one of the country’s most popular Shakespearean actors, with some contemporaries alleging that John Wilkes Booth was inspired by Julius Caesar.

How about the 1857 police riots, which occurred when two different groups claimed the right to police New York City and spent so much time fighting amongst themselves that criminals were often allowed to go free in the confusion?

How about Kitty Ging, who was murdered by a man who claimed that another man had hypnotized him and ordered him to commit the crime?

Or the Lady Gophers, an all-female gang who developed a reputation for being tougher and more deadly than any of their male counterparts?

Or Carter Harrison, the most corrupt mayor in the history of Chicago?  Everyone knew that Harrison was crooked but, when he was assassinated, the entire city mourned.

Speaking of Chicago, Chicago’s first official riot was in 1855, when the city ordered that saloons close on Sunday.  It was called the Lager Beer Riot and it nearly destroyed the city.

Did you know about the attempt to abduct a school bus full of children and hold them for ransom?  Did you know about Boston Corbett, the man who was celebrated for killing John Wilkes Booth but who then turned out to be a crazed religious fanatic who mysteriously vanished after performing a self-castration and then firing his pistols while standing in the gallery of the Kansas Legislature?  Speaking of disappearances, whatever happened to Judge Crater?

Everyone knows about the Hatfield-McCoy feud but what about Texas’s far bloodier Horrell-Higgins Feud?

All of these crimes and many more are discussed in Strange Crimes and Criminals, which is an encyclopedia of the odd, the bizarre, and the illegal.  Some of the entries are humorous.  Some of them are disturbing.  Some of them document man’s inhumanity to man.  Some of them celebrate the spirit of people who refuse to let something like the law get in their way.  It makes for interesting reading and, for the aspiring writer, it’s a treasure trove of inspiration.

It’s a strange world, isn’t it?

International Film Review: Revenge in the House of Usher (dir by Jess Franco)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

In the 1982 Spanish horror film, Revenge in the House of Usher, Antonio Mayans plays Dr. Alan Harker.  Harker receives an invitation to visit the estate of his former mentor, Prof. Eric Usher (Howard Vernon).  Usher is elderly and in poor health.  He’s attended to by several mysterious servants, including his physician, Dr. Seward (Daniel White).  While trying to figure out what has led to Prof. Usher’s current state, Harker discovers that….

Well, here’s where it gets confusing, as things tend to do whenever one tries to discuss the later films of director Jess Franco.  There are actually three different versions of Revenge In the House of Usher and each one of them tells a totally different story.  In the first version, Usher is revealed to have been a decadent, Giles de Rais-style serial killer who has murdered hundreds of women through the years and who is now being haunted by their vengeful ghosts.  Apparently, that version didn’t go over well when it made its debut at the 1983 Festival Internacional de Madrid de Cine Imaginario y de Ciencia-ficción.  The audience booed and laughed and Franco couldn’t convince any distributors to purchase the film from him.

So, Franco filmed thee more scenes that established that Usher wasn’t just a serial killer but that he was also a vampire!  (This explains why two characters in this Edgar Allan Poe adaptation were suddenly given names from Dracula.)  This reception of this version was not considered to be much of an improvement on the reception of the version where Vernon was just a serial killer.

With the backing of Eurocine, Franco then put together a third version of the film.  This time, he turned it into another Dr. Orlof film, though Howard Vernon’s character was still referred to as being Prof. Usher.  In this version, Harker discovers that Usher and his elderly servant Morpho (Olivier Mathot) have spent years abducting women from the village and using their blood to keep Usher’s daughter alive.  This leads to a solid 15 minutes of flashbacks to Usher’s past activities, all of which are taken directly from The Awful Dr. Orlof.  Just as in the other two version of the film, Usher is haunted by the ghosts of his victims.  As his mental state deteriorates, so does his castle.

As far as I know, the third version of the film is the only one that currently exists.  The first version is now considered to be lost.  For his part, Franco claimed that the first version was a misunderstood masterpiece but he was still willing to turn it into another Orlof film so that he could at least make some money off of it.  Franco may have been an often frustrated artist but he was also a pragmatist.

Considering its production history, it’s not surprising that Revenge in the House of the Usher is a bit of a disjointed film.  It’s only 91 minutes long (and 15 of those minutes is taken up with black-and-white footage from The Awful Dr. Orlof) but this film still feels like it has several false endings.  There were so many times that I thought the film had to be over, just for it to keep going.  Watching the film, one can sense that Franco is willing to try almost anything to finally wrap the film’s somewhat incoherent story up.  That said, Howard Vernon brings the right amount of haughty decadence to the role of the decaying Usher and Franco’s decision to film in an actual castle (and to largely utilize natural light) does give the film perhaps a bit more atmosphere than one would expect.  This is a lesser Franco film but it does do a good job of capturing the bizarre logic of dreams.  The film is, at times, so incoherent that it’s actually rather fascinating.

Following this film, Vernon would play Dr. Orloff one final time, in Franco’s surprisingly entertaining Faceless.

Horror Film Review: Cabin Fever (dir by Eli Roth)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

When this Boy Meets World
Boy Meets World
Wandering down this road, that we call life
Is what we’re doin’
It’s good to know I have friends that will always
Stand by me
When this Boy Meets World

I imagine that I should probably apologize to Rider Strong for starting this review by quoting the theme song from the final few seasons of Boy Meets World.  I’m sure that when Strong agreed to star in the original Cabin Fever, he was hoping that the playing Paul would take him far away from his best-known role of Shawn Hunter.  But I have to admit that whenever I think of Cabin Fever (which, admittedly, is not often) I always think of it as being Boy Meets Flesh Eating Virus.

Cabin Fever tells the story of a group of stupid college students, including Rider Strong, who decide to spend Spring Break at a remote cabin in the woods.  They’ve got weed, beer, and plans for a wild, sex-fueled weekend.  Unfortunately, the majority of them also end up with a flesh-eating virus.  It turns out the virus has been infecting people and animals all around the cabin.  People are going crazy as their flesh decays and peels off of their bones.  It’s a messy virus.  With the police struggling to contain the spread, a group of locals have decided that it’s up to them to kill off anyone who is infected.

One member of the group grabs the beer and runs off so that he can spend the weekend drunk and in isolation,  The other members of the group are stranded in the cabin and the surrounding woods.  Bodies are falling apart and dogs are eating their owners.  It’s Boy Meets Pandemic.

This was Eli Roth’s directorial debut and he didn’t hold back on the gore.  While we really don’t know much about the college students in the cabin (beyond the fact that they’re all dumbasses and one of them is played by Rider Strong), we learn everything that you could possibly want to know about what that flesh-eating virus does to its victims.  The film might as well be called “Nom nom nom,” because it’s all about eating flesh.  Roth is also shameless about paying homage (or ripping off, depending on how much you like Roth) to the horror films that influenced him.  Night of the Living Dead comes to mind, especially the ending.

(Personally, I like the fact that, with his first film, Eli Roth declared himself to be a lover of horror.  Cabin Fever was released in 2002, long before the current mainstream horror boom.  Eli Roth was openly celebrating horror at a time when many critics were still writing it off.)

Cabin Fever is a hit-or-miss affair, with the emphasis on miss.  The virus is scary because it’s so nasty but the characters themselves are so boring that most viewers won’t care when they get infected.  I did like Giuseppe Andrews’s performance as a weird deputy but otherwise, no one is the cast makes much of an impression until after they’ve lost their skin.  They’re walking down this road that we call life …. and now they’re dead.

Viewed today, of course, it’s hard not to compare the flesh-eating virus to COVID or Monkeypox or whatever the latest disease is.  If Cabin Fever were made today, the gun-toting locals would have been the heroes and the college students would have been the villains for daring to try to leave the cabin.  Yesterday’s villains and today’s heroes and vice versa.  For many, walking down this road that we call life has never felt more uncertain, even without a flesh-eating virus to worry about.

Horror on the Lens: Night of the Ghouls (dir by Edward D. Wood, Jr.)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

GhoulsdvdToday’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 ghouls.

October Positivity: Pamela’s Prayer (dir by Dave Christiano)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1998 film, Pamela’s Prayer, opens with a title card that informs us that “Pamela Bucklin” got married in 1992 when she was 22 years old.  It’s a bit of an odd opening, because I imagine that there were a lot of 22 year-olds who got married in 1992.

The film then flashes back to the 70s and we learn that, after her mother died in childbirth, Pamela was raised by her father, Wayne (Rick Scheiderman).  Wayne works at the family business, a Christian film library which specializes in sending films (like this one!) to church groups and evangelical retreats.  Wayne prays with Pamela every night.  As Pamela grows up, he makes clear to her that she’s to wait until marriage.  From Wayne’s point of view, that means no dating, no kissing, no male friends at all.  Needless to say, once Pamela becomes a teenager, she starts to resent Wayne’s protectiveness but, since this is a faith-based film, Pamela’s rebellion is not only very chaste but it only lasts for one night and it leads to a sleazy boy spreading rumors about her.  Later, that same boy goes on a date with Jessica, who is also Pamela’s best friend, and things do not end well.  When Pamela informs Wayne about all of this, Wayne can barely suppress smirk.  It’s a real “I Told You So” moment.

Fortunately, there’s a nice boy working at the Christian Film Library and eventually, he and Pamela have one of those courtships where they don’t even hold hands.  After getting Wayne’s permission, they marry.  (Jessica, being the maid of honor, can only wonder why she has yet to find the one.)  Having waited 22 years to even kiss a boy, Jessica decides that she can wait for a few minutes more and she calls her father …. ON HER WEDDING NIGHT! …. so that they can pray together over the phone.

I think that I’ve proven over the years that I can be fair when it comes to judging faith-based films on their own merits but seriously, Pamela’s Prayer is exactly the type of faith film that drives other people crazy.  I mean, don’t get me wrong.  Some people choose not to have sex before marriage and, if that’s their decision, that’s fine.  Personally, I think it’s a bit foolish to go into a commitment like marriage blind but whatever.  The problem with Pamela’s Prayer, though, is that its emphasis on purity feels rather cult-like and it’s never really Pamela’s decision not to date or to kiss.  Instead, it’s all due to Pamela’s father ordering her to wait.  One gets the feeling that Pamela spent the first 22 years of her life being controlled by father and now she’ll spend the next 60 or 70 years being controlled by her husband.  What does Pamela want?  The film seems to suggest that it really doesn’t matter.

Christian films always seem to struggle when it comes to dealing with sex.  I guess it’s understandable when you consider that, especially in the 90s, the majority of these films were made to be shown at church meetings and to youth groups.  An honest discussion about sex and attraction and the suggestion that sex can be more than just a marital obligation would probably have scandalized the film’s target audience.  That’s one reason why films like this always seem to resort to the best friend who gets “in trouble.”  In this film, it leads to a telling of the story of Jesus and the woman accused of adultery, with the emphasis being not on Jesus ordering people not to cast stones but instead on Jesus saying, “Go and sin no more.”  To me, that’s missing the most important part of the story.  Don’t throw stones, people!

In the end, Pamela’s Prayer is about as effective as an old purity ring.

Horror On TV: Ghost Story 1.11 “Touch of Madness” (dir by Robert Day)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

On tonight’s episode of Ghost Story, Lynn Loring plays Janet.  Janet has inherited her mother’s house.  (Her mother died in a mental hospital.)  Janet is determined to fix up the house and her cousins (Rip Torn and Geraldine Page) are more than happy to help!  Or are they?

This is a pretty good episode, largely due to the fact that Rip Torn and Geraldine Page play the cousins.  Torn and Page were married at the time and they both appear to be having a blast playing their odd roles.  This episode reminds me a bit of Jess Franco’s A Virgin Among The Living Dead.  It originally aired on December 8th, 1972.

Enjoy!

The TSL’s Horror Grindhouse: Creature of Destruction (dir by Larry Buchanan)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

In this 1967 film from venerable B-movie director Larry Buchanan, a psychic con artist uses hypnosis to bring back into existence a prehistoric, humanoid amphibian.

Wait?

What?

Okay, so the story doesn’t make much sense.  In fact, I would be lying if I said that I fully understood the film, despite the fact that I sat through all 88 minutes of it on Saturday night.  Basically, Dr. Basso (Les Tremayne) is a hypnotist and an occult historian.  He’s bitter about the fact that the world doesn’t appreciate him or take him seriously, despite the fact that he spends almost the entire film wearing a tuxedo and he has a head of silver hair that would have made even the great Criswell jealous.  So, Basso decides that the best way to prove his powers would be start predicting when people are going to die.  And the way he does that is by hypnotizing his assistant, Doreena (Pat Delaney).

Somehow, hypnotizing Doreena causes this prehistoric humanoid monster thing to rise out of the nearby lake so that it can kill whoever Dr. Basso wants dead.  It’s interesting that Dr. Basso could figure out how to bring an extinct creature back to life but he could come up with a less destructive way to prove his powers.  This is just my opinion but it seems like he could have just displayed the prehistoric monster and that would have proven his powers far more effectively than committing murders.  Dr. Basso’s plan is needlessly complicated.  Neither Dr. Basso nor the film ever seem to consider what would happen if he was asked to prove his powers while performing somewhere that wasn’t conveniently located near a lake.  If Dr.  Basso ever plays Vegas, he’s in trouble.

Anyway, it falls of Lt. Blake (Roger Ready) and Captain Dell (Aron Kincaid) to figure out how to stop Dr. Basso.  Captain Dell is not just an expert on the occult but he’s also an Air Force psychiatrist, so he goes through the entire movie wearing his uniform.  Dell being in the Air Force doesn’t really figure into the plot otherwise.  He could just as easily be in private practice.  One gets the feeling that he was made an Air Force captain just because someone had the uniform and it looked good on Aron Kincaid.

Creature of Destruction is a fairly confusing film.  Unfortunately, it’s also a rather boring film.  Larry Buchanan was a prolific director but he was never a particularly good one.  Some directors knew how to take advantage of a low budget and less than compelling actors.  Unfortunately, Buchanan really wasn’t one of them.  Still, the lake scenery is nice and it’s kind of fun to watch the monster waddle across the screen.  As  well, there are two musical interludes that come out of nowhere but which are amusing in a late 60s beach movie sort of way.  So, the film has that going for it.  Otherwise, not even hypnosis will help you get through Creature of Destruction.