Horror TV Review: Fear the Walking Dead 7.1 “The Beacon” (dir by Michael E. Stratazemis)

Posted on October 23, 2021 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Reviewing Fear The Walking Dead’s seventh and final season is going to be difficult for me.

You have to understand that I’ve only seen a few episodes of Fear The Walking Dead. I watched the first two or three episodes of the first season. Then I got bored. I tried to watch the second season. I got bored. I was determined to watch the third season but I changed my mind halfway through the season premiere. Again, I got bored Seasons 4, 5, and 6, I didn’t even try. I was exhausted with zombies and, even more importantly, I was exhausted with the world of The Walking Dead.

But I am going to try to watch season 7 because it’s the final season. With both The Walking Dead and Fear the Walking Dead reaching their conclusions, a pop cultural era is coming to an end. And so, despite not having the slightest idea what’s going on or who the majority of the characters, I’m going to attempt to watch and review Fear The Walking Dead.

Fear the Walking Dead‘s seventh season premiered last Sunday. I only got around to watching it today because I may be determined but I’m not particularly enthusiastic. “What,” I asked myself, “can this show possibly provide me with that The Walking Dead and countless other zombie films haven’t?”

As if to answer my question, Fear the Walking Dead opened with several atomic warheads exploding. Certainly, there have been other zombie films that have opened with nuclear bombs going off. Fear the Walking Dead, though, may be the first television show to do so at the start of its seventh season. On the one hand, the people incinerated did not return as walkers. However, those who died of radiation poisoning did. Seriously, that’s a terrifying through. Radiation poisoning is a bad enough way to die without spending the entire time knowing that, once you do die, you’re going to return as a zombie.

The majority of the show’s regular cast did not appear in the first episode, which was fine with me since I don’t really don’t know who any of them are. Instead, the episode centered around Strand (Colman Domingo), a regular character who had kind of set himself up as a warlord over the radioactive landscape and Will (Gus Halper), a wanderer who was eventually picked up by Strand’s men. At first, Strand had little use for Will but then Strand discovered that Will knew Alicia. I, of course, don’t know Alicia but this is all stuff for which I’ll have a better understanding after a few episodes. What’s important is that it was obvious that Alicia was important to Strand.

Fortunately, I didn’t really need to understand all of the backstory in order to enjoy this episode. The Beacon, as the premiere was entitled, was a visual triumph, with the nuclear hellscape becoming as important of a character as either Strand or Will. The inevitable battle between Will, Strand, and a group of walkers was also nicely handled, with the shadowy walkers emerging from a dark mist in a style that brought to mind John Carpenter’s The Fog. In this episode, the walkers were frightening in a way that they rarely were in the recent episodes of The Walking Dead.

As for Strand and Will, Domingo and Halper did a good job playing opposite each other. They’re both intriguing characters. Unfortunately, the script was full of clunky dialogue, which seems to be an issue on all of the shows that make up The Walking Dead universe. Still, the episode was visually impressive and well-acted so I’m going to continue to watch the final season of Fear The Walking Dead and, after a few more episodes, I will hopefully actually know what’s going on.

Horror on the Lens: How To Make A Monster (dir by Herbert L. Strock)

Posted on October 23, 2021 by Lisa Marie Bowman

You’ve seen I Was A Teenage Werewolf….

You’ve watched I Was A Teenage Frankenstein….

Now, it’s time to watch How To Make A Monster!

Released in 1958, How To Make A Monster is a clever little horror satire from American International Pictures in which the stars of Teenage Werewolf and Teenage Frankenstein are hypnotized into believing that they actually are the monsters that they played! The main culprit is a movie makeup artist (Robert H. Harris) who has been deemed obsolete by the new bosses at AIP.

Be sure to watch for the finale, which features cameo appearances from several other AIP monsters! And read my full review of the film by clicking here!

Guilty Pleasure No. 51: Rage and Honor (dir by Terence Winkless)

Posted on October 23, 2021 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1992 film, Rage and Honor, tells the story of two people from different worlds, who come together to kick ass and save a declining American city.

Preston Michaels (Richard Norton) is a cop from Australia who has come to America as a part of an exchange program. When he’s not working undercover, he’s supplementing his income by working as a bodyguard for what appears to be an 80s cover band.

Kris Fairfield (Cynthia Rothrock) is a teacher at the local high school who also moonlights as a karate instructor. She’s haunted by the death of her parents and the subsequent disappearance of her brother. She cares about her students, even though hardly any of them actually appear in the film. In fact, the whole high school teacher thing never really matters much in the grand scheme of things.

Preston and Kris are teaming up to take down spacey drug lord Conrad Drago (Brian Thompson). Conrad has a fierce mullet, a cocaine addiction, and a knowledge of all of the body’s pressure points. His girlfriend is Rita (Terri Treas) and the only thing that could possibly prevent Drago and Rita from taking over the city is a tape that reveals Rita and a bunch of crooked cops killing someone. Kris and Preston are trying to find the tape before Drago and Rita find it. Somehow, it all eventually leads to a homeless stock broker named Baby (Stephen Davies) and a weird fight club that’s run by Hannah the Hun (Alex Datcher).

It’s an incredibly silly film, to be honest. It’s the type of film where Preston gets shot once in the side and once in the leg and neither time does it slow him down. (He does mention that his leg hurts at one point but he never starts to limp or anything like that.) Kris, meanwhile, is given a tragic backstory that is explained to us in-between scenes of awkward comedic relief. Hannah goes from being a calculating villainous to a heroic ally, without the film attempting any explanation as to why. Meanwhile, despite Brian Thompson’s best efforts to be menacing, Conrad is written as being some sort of flakey, New Age drug dealer. He’s about as intimidating as the biggest guy in a drum circle. There’s really not much rage or honor to be found in Rage and Honor.

And yet, it was impossible for me to dislike the film. Every time Cynthia Rothrock did a flying kick and sent some jerk flying, the film won me back. Unfortunately, she didn’t really get to do as much fighting as she should have. She had to share the screen with Brian Thompson and Richard Norton, who both received fight scenes of their own. All three of them looked good fighting but Cynthia was the clear star. What she lacked in actual acting ability, she made up for with pure enthusiasm. Watching her, you realized that she was not only good at fighting but she enjoyed it as well. For all the film’s flaws, Cynthia kicked everyone’s ass and that’s really all that mattered. It was empowering and, even more importantly, it was a lot of fun to watch.

Go, Cynthia, go!

Previous Guilty Pleasures

Scenes that I Love: Peter Cushing In Shock Waves

Posted on October 22, 2021 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Shock Waves (1977, dir by Ken Wiederhorn)

Today’s scene that I love comes from one of the most underrated zombie films of the 70s, Shock Waves.

In this film, Nazi zombies have emerged off the coast of an island. When a group of stranded tourists explore the island, they come across Peter Cushing, who explains to them just what exactly is going on. Cushing totally steals this scene. It’s always interesting to me that Cushing could convincingly play such depraved characters when, in real life, he was supposedly a very gentle and somewhat shy man. In fact, if you listen to the commentary track that was recorded for Shock Waves’s video release, everyone who worked on the film talks about what a joy Peter Cushing was off-screen.

Here is Peter Cushing in Shock Waves:

Horror On The Lens: I Was A Teenage Frankenstein (dir by Herbert L. Strock)

Posted on October 22, 2021 by Lisa Marie Bowman

From 1957, it’s I Was A Teenage Frankenstein!

This film was produced as a direct result of the box office success of I Was A Teenage Werewolf. Just as in Teenage Werewolf, Whit Bissell plays a mad scientist who makes the mistake of trying to play God. (He also makes the mistake of keeping an alligator in his lap but that’s another story.) The end result …. Teenage Frankenstein!

The makeup on the Teenage Frankenstein is probably the best thing about this film. If nothing else, this film features a monster who actually looks like he was stitched together in a lab.

Enjoy and please be sure to read my review of this film at Horror Critic!

Horror TV Show Review: Day Of The Dead 1.1 “The Thing In The Hole” (dir by Steven Kostanski)

Posted on October 21, 2021 by Lisa Marie Bowman

First off, you may be looking at this review and thinking, “Someone’s a little late.”

Yes, I am. Thank you for pointing that out. I’m sure you’ve never had a busy week either.

That said, despite the fact that you shouldn’t have pointed it out, it is true that Day of the Dead premiered last Friday and it was only today that I finally got around to watching it on the DVR. That wasn’t necessarily intentional on my part. I just haven’t had a chance to sit down and really watch it or any other shows until tonight. In fact, ever since I first saw the commercials for the show on SyFy, I’ve been looking forward to watching it. Even though it looked like yet another Walking Dead rip-off, the fact that it was on SyFy held some promise as SyFy’s shows usually move quickly and feature lots of carnage. If AMC always seems as if it’s trying too hard to turn its zombie franchise into a prestige factory, SyFy promises the opposite approach.

The show is named after George Romero’s Day of the Dead, which featured a group of survivors trying to ride out the zombie apocalypse in an underground bunker. While the first episode did feature zombies and an anti-fracking plotline that felt like it could have come from one of Romero’s later films, it otherwise didn’t have much in common with Romero’s classic shocker. The zombie apocalypse did start about halfway through the episode and apparently the show is going to focus on a group of people trying to survive the end of the world but, during the first episode, there was no bunker. There was no Dr. Logan. No one shouted “Choke on them” while his intestines were being devoured. There was, however, some underground scenes due to the whole fracing subplot and there is a sinister character named Rhodes so I imagine we’ll be heading for some sort of underground bunker soon. I guess we’ll find out over the course of the next few episodes.

After opening with an exciting flashforward the featured plenty of undead chaos, the first episode focused on election day in the town of Mawinhaken. Mayor Paula Bowman (Miranda Frigon) is concerned about getting reelected but the election is brought to halt when the dead suddenly rise up from their graves and start eating all of the voters. I got the feeling that we were meant to dislike Mayor Bowman because she’s an ambitious politician who has apparently put her career before her family but, as far as I’m concerned, Mayor Bowman was the best character on the show. No sooner have the dead arisen than she’s running around with a gun and blowing them away while saying stuff like, “Second amendment, motherfucker!” Hell yeah! Plus, she has a great name. Mayor Bowman has a nice ring to it….

(But if I was mayor, would I still have time to watch and review Lifetime films? That’s the question.)

As for the rest of the characters …. well, there’s a lot of them. Hopefully, a few of them will get eaten during the next episode because, otherwise, it’s going to be a struggle to keep everyone straight. I did like Keenan Tracy, who played Cam McDermott, the son of a police detective who mows lawns to bring in extra money. The scene where he mowed over the dead as they rose from their graves was a highlight of the episode. Otherwise, the characters felt a bit interchangeable. The only woman working on the fracking crew is former special forces. The mortuary assistant is sarcastic. There’s two bullies who like to give Cam a hard time. They all made just enough of an impression that I can remember that they’re on the show but I’d by lying if I said any of them jumped out at me the way that Mayor Bowman and Lawnmower Cam did.

Anyway, it was a good enough first episode. The action moved quickly and the zombies were gruesome without being quite as icky as the decaying corpses that pop up on The Walking Dead. So far, the Day of the Dead zombies appear to move faster than the Walking Dead zombies and that’s definitely an improvement. It’s probably debatable whether or not, at this point, there’s anything new that can be done with whole zombie apocalypse thing but I’ll definitely give Day of the Dead a chance to show me what it has in mind.

Horror On The Lens: I Was A Teenage Werewolf (dir by Gene Fowler, Jr.)

Posted on October 21, 2021 by Lisa Marie Bowman

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.

All in all, this is a pretty fun little movie. You can check out my review of it by clicking here.

And you can watch the movie below!

The TSL’s Grindhouse: John Carpenter’s Vampires (dir by John Carpenter)

Posted on October 20, 2021 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Wow, there certainly are a lot of vampires in New Mexico!

Well, I guess I can understand the logic behind it. My family used to visit New Mexico frequently. We even lived there for a few months when I was a kid. If you’re looking for a place to hide out, New Mexico is a good place to do it. You can drive for hours without seeing another car or another person. Add to that, New Mexico is state where people respect your privacy. No one’s going to show up at your house demanding to know why you only come out at night.

Of course, if I was a vampire, I might avoid New Mexico because of the bright sunlight. Seriously, if you’re trying to escape being touched by the sun, the New Mexico desert might not be the ideal place to hide out. I don’t know, though. I’ve never been a vampire.

In John Carpenter’s 1998 film, Vampires (actually, John Carpenter’s Vampires because everyone know the power that the Carpenter name holds for horror fans), Jan Valek (Thomas Ian Griffith) is the world’s oldest vampire and he’s looking to perform a ceremony that will take care of that whole sunlight issue. If he can perform the ceremony, he’ll be the most powerful creature in the world.

Fortunately, the Vatican has put together a team of ruthless vampire exterminators. Led by Jack Crow (James Woods), these guys have no problem tracking down vampires and riddling their undead bodies with bullets that have probably been dipped in holy water. Unfortunately, with the exception of Jack and his second-in-command, Tony (Daniel Baldwin), the vampires hunters aren’t too smart because Valek gets the drop on them while they’re partying at a hotel with a bunch of prostitutes. The only survivors are Tony, Jack, and Katrina (Sheryl Lee), a prostitute who was previously bitten by Valek.

After teaming up with an enthusiastic but inexperienced priest named Father Guiteau (Tim Guinee), Jack tries to find a way to stop Valek. Meanwhile, Tony finds himself falling for Katrina despite the fact that Katrina will soon be transforming into a vampire and he and Jack have pledged to destroy every vampire that they come across. It leads to several chases, several bloody shootouts, and a lot of panoramic shots of the New Mexico desert.

The first time I ever watched Vampires, I thought it had its moments of demented fun and I thought that James Woods gave a wonderfully frantic performance as Jack Crow but overall, I got a little bit bored with the film’s constant violence. There’s only so many times that you can watch people die in slow motion before you get tired of it. The second time I watched the movie, I was able to better appreciate the film’s self-awareness. As directed by John Carpenter, it’s intentionally over-the-top in just about every regard and it’s definitely not meat to be taken seriously. It’s a mix of a western and a vampire film and Carpenter is basically saying, “If we’re going to do this, let’s go crazy with it.” The film still has its flaws, of course. Daniel Baldwin seems lost in the role of Tony and the film is oddly paced, It ends awkwardly, with the promise of a direct sequel that was never made. (There were sequels, don’t get me wrong. But Jon Bon Jovi is no substitute for James Woods at his most nervy.) But the important thing is that, on a second viewing, those flaws were overshadowed by John Carpenter’s kinetic direction and the performances of James Woods, Sheryl Lee, and Thomas Ian Griffith.

The first time I watched the film, I thought it was just another movie about modern-day vampires killing people while being hunted by unconventional extrerminators. However, the second time that I watched it, I found myself considering that Vampires is actually a movie about Catholics kicking ass! Yay! The lesson here is to always do a second viewing. Flaws and all, Vampires was far better than I remembered.

Horror Novel Review: Final Grade by R.L. Stine

Posted on October 20, 2021 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1995 YA thriller, Final Girl, tells the story of Lily. Lily is about to graduate high school and she is determined that she is going to beat out Graham for valedictorian. After all, Graham is just a rich boy who owns a green Porsche while Lily is working two jobs to help support her mother, who has had a stroke. Plus, both of Lily’s older sisters were valedictorians so of course Lily is going to continue the family tradition!

(At this point, let me just say that I’m glad that the only family-related high school pressure that I had came from people who wanted me to become a cheerleader like my sister. If I had people pressuring me to also do well in school, I don’t think I could have handled it. Don’t get me wrong, I did pretty well in school. But there was never any risk of me becoming valedictorian, not as long as I was required to take Algebra classes. I was very happy with academically being in the upper half but not at the top of my class.)

Anyway, Lily is determined to give the big speech at graduation but one of her teachers, Mr. Reiner, has given her a B on what Lily clearly feels was an A paper. When Reiner refuses to reconsider the grade, Lily says that she could kill him. Shortly afterwards, Mr. Reiner dies in a freak accident! AGCK!

Even with Mr. Reiner out of the way, it still seems like Graham might beat her to the top. But then Graham turns up dead, push head first into a — I’m being totally a serious here — printing press! Mr. Reiner’s death may have been a tragic accident but Graham was definitely murdered! And guess who everyone suspects!

Can Lily prove her innocence while maintaining her grade point average? And who is responsible for the latest deaths on Fear Street?

You’ll have to read the book to find out. If I told you any more details about the plot, you’d probably guess who the murderer is. It’s really not a shock at all. But still, Stine has some fun with the way this killer reacts to the truth beingd discovered. This is one Stine book where the killer is even more creepy than usual. Lily’s a bit difficult to sympathize with (because, seriously, it’s not like being the 2nd best student at the school is going to force her to settle for a fast food job or something) but the supporting cast is likable and the the whole printing press death is just strange enough to make the book a bit more memorable than the average Stine thriller.

I guess my grad for Final Grade would be a much deserved B+. There’s nothing wrong with a good, strong B.

Game Review: Sleepover Rules (2020, Sjoerd Hekking)

Posted on October 20, 2021 by Jedadiah Leland

In this twine game, a friend invites you to visit his home. He says that you can come over and you can ever sleep over but that it’s important that you follow the rules. What are the rules? He gives you four pages of notes, detailing all the rules for the different times of day.

Some of the rules make sense. When you arrive at the front door, knock twice. If you enter the kitchen and his mother is making something to eat, do not make eye contact with her. Do not bother his father if the old man is watching television.

Other rules make less sense. If you find yourself standing in front of a portrait of a woman, do not move until the portrait blinks at you. If you hear a scream in the middle of the night, pull your covers over your head and do not get out of bed. If you’re taking a shower and hear a sound, do not leave the shower. If you see your friend at certain times of the day, do not approach him because he won’t actually be your friend.

These rules would be enough to make most people stay home but you go anyways. Can you follow the rules and survive the house? It’s not as easy as it sounds because there are a lot rules to remember and there are also a lot of ghosts looking for a reason to kill you. Only knocking once before entering the house is as good a reason to take you out as any. Don’t worry, though. Each time you die, new ghosts and new quests are unlocked and you find yourself standing in front of the house again.

It’s fun for Halloween and a good horror game, with none of the clunkiness that you sometimes find in other big Twine games. The house is great location and very well-described. You can survive by following the rules but it’s more fun to intentionally break the rules and discover all the different ways that you can die. There’s a lot of them!

Play Sleepover Rules.