Tag Archives: review

Book Review: Eaten Alive, edited by Jay Slater

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

If you were to ask me to recommend one book to someone who is looking for an introduction to the world of Italian horror, Eaten Alive is the book that I would recommend.

That’s largely because this book was my introduction.  Way back in 2006, I came across a copy at Recycled Books in Denton, Texas and I bought it.  I bought it because, at the time, I was already into horror movies.  However, after reading the reviews and the essays in this book, I discovered that I wanted to learn much more about Italian horror.  Outside of Suspiria and a few giallos like Blade in The Dark, the first Italian horror movies that I specifically tracked down and watched were the movies that I read about in this book.  If not for Eaten Alive, I would never have seen the wonderfully macabre and disturbing Beyond the Darkness.  This was book was also my first real exposure to Lucio Fulci.  If not for this book, I never would have seen Zombi 2.  I never would have discovered the Beyond trilogy.

In fact, considering that Arleigh and I first bonded over Italian horror, it’s doubtful that I would be writing for this site if I had not made that decision to buy Eaten Alive.

As for the book itself, it’s a comprehensive overview of Italian cannibal and zombie cinema.  Along with containing information about every Italian cannibal and zombie film released in the 20th Century, it also features interviews with stars like Ian McCullough, Catriona MacColl, and GIovanni Lombardo Radice.  (Radice even reviews one of the films himself.)  The majority of the films are reviewed by Jay Slater but there are also contributions from writers like Ramsey Campbell and Lloyd Kaufman.  (In fact, Kaufman writes a rather stirring defense of one of the more controversial films to be found in Eaten Alive, Cannibal Holocaust.  Campbell, meanwhile, thoroughly destroys Nights of Terror.)

Seriously, if you’re interested in learning more about Italian horror or if you’re already a fan, this book is a must!

Italian Horror Showcase: Tentacles (dir by Ovidio G. Assonitis)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Okay, tell me if this sounds familiar.

There’s a beachside resort town, one whose survival is pretty much dependent upon tourists and big business.  If you give the tourists a reason to not show up, the town dies.  If you give big business a reason to build their factories and their underground tunnels somewhere else, the town dies.

Unfortunately, something bad is happening in this little town.  People are going in the water and they’re never returning.  It appears that they’re being killed by some sort of giant sea monster, even though the authorities swear that it’s simply impossible.  The town’s leaders are putting pressure on the sheriff to cover up the crimes.  A scientist shows up and thinks that everyone he meets is an idiot.

It’s not safe to go in the water but people keep doing it!

Now, you may be thinking that it sounds like I’m describing the plot of Jaws but actually, I’m talking about an Italian film called Tentacles.  Released in 1977, Tentacles was one of the many films that was directly inspired by the success of Spielberg’s film.  Jaws was such a phenomenal success that it was ripped off by filmmakers across the world.  That said, of all the people ripping off Spielberg’s film, the Italians brought an undeniable and frequently shameless flair to the Jaws knockoffs.

Tentacles is a bit different from other Italian Jaws films in that, this time, the threat does not come from a shark.  Instead, it comes from a giant octopus!  That’s actually a pretty good twist because, in real life, an octopus is actually more dangerous than a shark.  Not only are they bigger and considerably smarter than most sharks but if they get enough of their eight arms around you, they can literally squeeze you to death!  I mean …. agck!  Say what you will about sharks, I imagine getting eaten by one would suck but at least it wouldn’t take long to die.  Whereas if an octopus gets you, you would actually be aware of it squeezing you to death and oh my God, I’m never getting in the water.

Anyway, in Tentacles, the octopus is snatching babies off of piers and sailors off of boats and it’s using its octopus powers to rip their skin from their bones.  It also attack scuba divers by firing ink at them.  The sheriff (Claude Akins) says that it’s nothing to worry about but Ned Turner (John Huston), a hard-boiled reporter, thinks that there’s a story here.  Ned’s in town visiting his sister (Shelley Winters).  She has a ten year-old son who enjoys sailing.  Uh-oh….

Henry Fonda shows up for a few very brief scenes, playing the head of a company that built the underwater tunnel that somehow mutated the octopus.  Fonda looks incredibly frail in his scenes (and apparently, he filmed his part while recovering from heart surgery) but his performance in Tentacles still isn’t as cringe-inducing as his performance in The Swarm.

Also showing up is a marine biologist named Will Gleason (Bo Hokpkins).  Fortunately, Gleason owns two killer whales so, after the octopus kills his wife, Gleason sends out the orcas to track it down.  Before doing so, he gives them a pep talk.  Apparently, killer whales respond to positive reinforcement.

Tentacles is unique in that it’s an Italian production that managed to rope in a few well-known American actors.  It’s an odd film to watch because, on the one hand, the film is full of risible dialogue and it’s painfully slow whenever the octopus isn’t attacking anyone and no one really seems to be that invested in any of their characters.  (When the octopus kills a baby, the actress playing the baby’s mother underacts to such an extent that the scene becomes almost surreal.)  This isn’t like Jaws, where you actually care about Brody, Quint, Hooper, and the Kintner boy.  On the other hand, the octopus itself is actually kind of frightening so, on that very basic level, the film works.

In the end, Tentacles is one of the lesser Jaws rip-offs but you’ll never forget that octopus.

 

Horror Film Review: Blood Beach (dir by Jeffrey Bloom)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

“Nom nom nom nom,” says that monster under the sand.

“Agck!  Agck!  Agck!  Agck!” says the people above the sand.

And that’s all you really need to know about the 1981 film, Blood Beach.

Blood Beach takes place on a beach that also happens to be a hunting ground for this mutated worm thing that lives underground.  Basically, whenever anyone takes a stroll on the beach, they get sucked down into the sand and, for the most part, they’re never seen again.  Sometimes that’s not a bad thing, as in the case of a wannabe rapist who ends up getting castrated while being pulled down into the sand.  But, far too often, the victims are innocent people who were just walking their dog, chasing after their hat, or searching for buried treasure.

The beach becomes so well-known for being a death trap that the locals start to call it Blood Beach but, for some reason, that doesn’t seem to stop people from wandering out on the sand at inopportune times.  I mean, it would just seem logical to me that if there’s a monster killing people on the beach then maybe it would be a good idea to avoid the beach for a while.  I mean, you could go see a movie or you could lay out and work on your tan in your back yard.  Believe it or not, you do have the option of not going to a monster-infested location.

Strangely, there’s one person who is always on the beach but never gets killed.  That’s Mrs. Selden (Eleanor Zee), a somewhat odd woman who always seems to be nearby whenever someone is getting dragged into the sand but who never gets attacked herself.  Interestingly, Mrs. Selden never seems to be particularly concerned by all the carnage around her.  (One victim is even killed while specifically checking to make sure Mrs. Selden is okay.)  I kept expecting some sort of major twist where it was revealed that Mrs. Selden was a witch or something but it never happened.

Now, you would think that the presence of an underground monster would be the perfect excuse to call in the national guard but instead, the local police (led by John Saxon’s Captain Pearson) handle it.  Sgt. Royko (Burt Young) heads up the monster investigation, which in this film means that he kinda of stumbles from scene-to-scene, never looking particularly impressed by or interesting in anything that’s happening around him.  If anything, Royko seems to be annoyed that he’s having to give up time that he could be using to drink beer and watch TV and that attitude makes Royke the hero of this film.  Forget the scientist who wants to understand where the monster came from.  Forget the habor cop who wants to rekindle things with an old flame.  Royko doesn’t care about science or love.  He just wants to blow stuff up, which makes him the perfect audience surrogate

Anyway, Blood Beach sounds like it should be a fun movie but it’s not.  The movie delivers a lot of beach but very little blood.  There’s a lot of “nom nom” but very little “agck!”  Blood Beach is almost as much of a misfire as spending spring break in West Texas.

Horror on the Lens: The Beach Girls and the Monster (dir by Jon Hall)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

For today’s horror on the lens, we offer up 1965’s The Beach Girls and the Monster.  In this one, a monster that might be a mutated barracuda is hiding out on the beach and killing teenagers.  Can Dr. Otto Lindsay (played by the film’s director, Jon Hall) figure out how to defeat the monster?  Will Otto’s son Richard (Arnold Lessing) ever stop surfing long enough to get back to studying science?  Will Otto’s much younger wife Vicky (Sue Casey) seduce the troubled and crippled sculptor Mark (Walker Edmiston)?  And will it ever occur to anyone to just go to a different beach?

Complete with a ludicrous monster, a great soundtrack, tons of dancing, melodramatic acting, and a twist ending that will surprise no one, The Beach Girls and the Monster is low-budget favorite of mine.   It’s also, I think, a perfect movie to watch on a rainy October Saturday.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Dracula by Vondelpark (2012, dir by ????)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

It’s debatable whether or not this song from Vondelpark is actually about the Lord of the Vampires but I imagine he’d appreciate it.  Myself, I love the atmospheric, dream-like feel of both the song and the video.  Just listening to this puts me into another world.

Sadly, Vondelpark is no more.  They broke up in 2016.  But Dracula lives forever.

Enjoy!

Horror On TV: Kolchak: The Night Stalker 1.9 “The Spanish Moss Murders” (dir by Gordon Hessler)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Tonight, on Kolchak….

People are turning up dead.  Well, what else is new?  That’s pretty much been the plot of every Kolchak episode so far.  However, this time, they’re turning up dead while covered with Spanish moss!

Oh my God, could it be the Cajuns?

Well, as a matter of fact, it is.  As Kolchak discovers when he investigates, all of the dead people were somehow connected to a comatose Cajun….

Richard Kiel, who played the monster in the previous episode of Kolchak, returns here to play yet another monster.

The episode originally aired on December 6th, 1974!

Horror Film Review: Witchboard (dir by Kevin Tenney)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Oh my God, what is the thing with Ouija boards in movies?

Seriously, nothing good ever comes from using one.  I have seen hundreds of movies featuring people foolishly using Ouija boards and, without fail, it always seems to lead to someone getting possessed by an evil spirit and then killing all of their friends.  Whenever I see anyone using a Ouija board in a movie, I always want to ask them if they’ve never seen a horror movie before.

Then again, despite knowing all the of the terrible things that can happen as a result, I have had a few Ouija board experiences.  For instance, when I was like 13, I asked a Ouija board if a boy named Diego liked my friend Jenny.  The board replied that Diego liked me and Jenny needed to deal with it.  Jenny accused me of manipulating the pointer and basically never spoke to me again but I suppose that’s better than either one of us getting possessed by a homicidal spirit.  Myself, I don’t even believe in ghosts but I still find it difficult to resist a séance.

I guess my point is that it’s easy to laugh at movie characters who foolishly use Ouija boards but the main reason were laughing is because we know that we’re just as stupid as they are.

I recently watched one of the better Ouija board movies, 1988’s Witchboard.  It’s about an angry spirit that might be named David, a skeptic named Jim (Todd Allen), a believer named Brandon (Stephen Nichols), and the woman who they both love, Linda (Tawny Kitaen).  When I watched the movie, I immediately related to Linda, mostly because we both have red hair and everyone in the kept talking about how Linda hardly ever curses.  That’s pretty much the way I am too, though there are exceptions.  For instance, on Monday, the internet was down for 12 hours and I cursed up a storm.  Linda, meanwhile, starts cursing after she has a bad experience with a Ouija board.

Jim (who is Linda’s current boyfriend) and Brandon (who is Linda’s ex) spend a lot of time debating who is to blame for Linda potentially getting possessed.  Personally, I hold them both responsible.  Brandon is the one who brought his Ouija board to Jim and Linda’s party.  Brandon is also the one who contacts the spirit of a boy named David.  At the same time, Jim’s the one who insulted the spirit, which led to Brandon’s tires getting slashed and Brandon storming out of the party.  Brandon left behind his Ouija board, which Linda then used unsupervised.  (Apparently, that’s something you should never do.)  Basically, Jim and Brandon came together to form a perfect storm of testosterone-driven incompetence in this movie.

Soon, people are dying and Linda’s acting weird.  When one of Jim’s friends is killed in a construction accident, Linda is upset to see that Jim didn’t even cry.  Brandon informs her that Jim has “ice water in his veins.”  For his part, Jim just wants to know why Linda is suddenly using so much profanity.  Brandon brings in a medium named Zarabeth (played by Kathleen Wilhoite), who is one of those extremely flamboyant and outspoken characters that you’ll either totally love or thoroughly hate.  (Personally, I liked the character.  Even if she was somewhat annoying, she brought a jolt of life to the film.)  Zarabeth attempts to exorcise the spirit of David and ends up getting tossed out a window as a result.

It’s tempting to just shrug and say, “Well, this is what happens when you mess around with the spirit world,” but Witchboard actually does a pretty good job of developing its characters and getting you to care about what happens to them.  The fact that Jim and Brandon are both in love with Linda adds a bit of unexpected depth to the film’s story.  Does Brandon really believe that Linda is being stalked by a spirit or is he just trying to win her back for himself?  Even the seemingly throw-away detail about Jim’s emotional reticence pays off later in the movie.  And, when that evil spirit does finally actually make a physical appearance, he’s just as creepy as you would hope he would be.

Witchboard is a definitely a film that will be appreciated by anyone who has ever used a Ouija board and felt kind of nervous about it afterwards.

Horror on the Lens: The House on Haunted Hill (dir by William Castle)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The original The House on Haunted Hill is a classic and one that we make it a point to share every Halloween.  And since Erin shared the film’s poster earlier today, now seems like the perfect time to do so!

Be sure to check out Gary’s review by clicking here!

Enjoy Vincent Price at his best!

Music Video of the Day: Open Again by Thom Yorke (2018, dir by Ruffmercy)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today’s music video of the world is for another song from Thom Yorke’s soundtrack for the upcoming Suspiria film.

Given how much I love Argento’s original, I’m not particularly enthusiastic about a new version, especially when so many people think that the proper way to support the new version is to denigrate the original.  Still, so far, I’m liking what I’ve score of Yorke’s score.

Enjoy!

Other videos from Yorke’s Suspiria score:

Italian Horror Showcase: Zombi 4: After Death (dir by Claudio Fragasso)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1989 Italian zombie film, After Death, takes place on a Caribbean island.  I’m not sure if the island was actually given a name in the film.  If they mentioned it, I either didn’t hear it or I didn’t bother to jot it down in my notes.  But, to be honest, the island doesn’t really need a name.  If you’ve ever seen an Italian zombie film, you’ll recognize the island immediately.  It features the same lush tropical jungle that was used in Hell of the Living Dead and there’s the usual voodoo-loving island natives.  Whether it was in Zombi 2 or Zombie Holocaust, you’ve seen this island before.

Years ago, Jenny grew up on the island.  Her parents were scientists, working to discover a cure for cancer.  But, after one of them shot and killed the local voodoo priest, all of the scientists on the island ended up getting eaten by zombies.  Jenny would have been eaten as well, except for the fact that she owns a magic necklace.

Now an adult, Jenny (Candice Daly) is returning to the island with a group of mercenaries.  We know that they’re meant to be mercenaries because they have guns and grenades and headbands.  They’re not exactly the most impressive paramilitary crew that’s ever appeared in a movie.  I mean, if this was a Predator movie, it would be a contest to see which one of them ended up getting killed first.

Jenniy and the mercenaries are heading to island to discover why her parents were killed.  As soon as they arrives at the island, their boat’s engine dies, which is really rotten luck because now they’re stranded.  Of course, their luck is about to get even worse….

But first, we cut to some hikers.  They’re hiking the island and you have to wonder why Jenny and the mercenaries were acting like this island was so isolated when apparently, anyone can just hire a guide and hike it anytime they want to.  Anyway, the hikers stumble into a cave that they shouldn’t have stumbled into.  This leads to the zombies once again coming to “life” and proceeding to attack anyone who they perceive as not belonging on the island.

Only one of the hikers survives.  Fortunately Chuck (played by Jeff Stryker, a porn star who appeared in this film under the name Chuck Peyton) manages to find the mercenaries and together, they all hide out in a deserted laboratory.  Unfortunately, one of the mercenaries has been injured by the zombies and is slowly dying.  Soon, everyone is under siege as the undead surround the lab….

So, After Death is a totally ludicrous film that I can’t help but kind of like.  It doesn’t quite rise to the level of being a guilty pleasure but, for the most part, the cast fully commits to their thinly-written roles and, from the minute the dead come back to life, the action is nonstop.  These aren’t your typical mindless zombies, just wandering about and randomly eating people.  Instead, these zombies are on a mission and their determination makes them a bit more menacing than the typical decaying cannibal.  While director Claude Fragasso never creates the type of ominous atmosphere that distinguished the zombie films of Lucio Fulci, he still keeps the action moving at a steady pace.  Even the fact that the ending makes no sense adds to the film’s weird charm.

After Death is also known as Zombi 4: After Death.  When Dawn of the Dead was released in the Italy, it was called Zombi.  It’s success led to Lucio Fulci making a film called Zombi 2, which, while being a fantastic horror film, had nothing to do with George Romero’s classic.  The success of Zombi 2 led to Zombi 3, which was started by Fulci but completed by Claudio Fragasso’s frequent collaborator, Bruno Mattei.  (Fragasso also wrote the screenplay for Zombi 3.)  Beyond the undead and the island setting, After Death has nothing to do with the previous Zombi films.  It has even less to do with the subsequent Zombi 5: Killing Birds.  However, you have to give the Italian exploitation film industry some credit.  They never allowed a good title to go to waste.