From Dario Argento’s massively underrated vampire film, Dracula 3D.
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Tag Archives: review
Horror on TV: Kolchak: The Night Stalker 1.1 “The Ripper” (dir by Alan Baron)
For tonight’s excursion into the horrific side of television, we have the very first episode of Kolchak: The Night Stalker!
The Kolchak of the title was a reporter named Carl Kolchak (played by Darren McGavin). Kolchak was kind of a nervous fellow because every story that he reported on seemed to involve some sort of terrible supernatural creature! Seriously, that would make anyone anxious.
In his first episode, Kolchak investigates a series of murders and comes to suspect that Jack the Ripper might be haunting the streets of 1970s Chicago.
This episode originally aired on September 13th, 1974.
Enjoy!
The TSL’s Horror Grindhouse: Eyes of a Stranger (dir by Ken Wiederhorn)
In this 1981 slasher film, bad things are happening in the city of Miami.
There’s a serial killer on the loose. He’s chopping off heads and leaving bodies on the beach and basically just making a huge mess of things. Local new anchorwoman Jane (Lauren Tewes) is upset that there’s a killer roaming the streets of her hometown. She even talks about how upset she is during a local newscast, which takes everyone at the station by surprise. I don’t know why they’re so shocked. Don’t they know that Jane has a younger sister named Tracy (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and that Tracy’s been blind, deaf, and mute ever since she was attacked by a maniac?
One day, Jane is returning to the apartment that she shares with her sister. As she’s parking her car, she sees her neighbor, Stanley (John DiSanti), stuffing what appears to be a bloody shirt in a trash can. Oh my God, could he be the murderer!?
Well, yes, he is. The film actually makes no attempt to hide the fact that Stanley is the murderer. Stanley is one of those movie murderers who is either hyper competent or totally oblivious, depending on what the scene demands. For instance, despite being a rather heavyset, middle-aged man, he can still sneak up behind people without them ever hearing and chop off their head with one wave of a meat cleaver. On the other hand, when he kills a couple on the beach, his car ends up getting stuck in the sand.
Anyway, Jane is pretty much instantly convinced that Stanley is the killer and she immediately starts doing stuff like taunting him over the telephone. (Despite the fact that she’s on TV every night and her voice is apparently heard by everyone in Miami, she makes no effort to disguise her voice whenever she calls Stanley.) She also breaks into his apartment to look for clues.
As I watched this film, I found myself thinking about how much more interesting it would have been if Stanley hadn’t been the killer and if Jane felt so guilty about what happened to her sister that she ended up harassing a totally innocent bystander. But no, Stanley is the murderer so naturally all of this leads to an extended sequence where Stanley breaks into and then follows Tracy around Jane’s apartment.
So, Eyes of a Stranger is a fairly mediocre film, one that would probably be totally forgotten if not for the fact that it’s also the debut film of Jennifer Jason Leigh. While the film is obviously meant to showcase Lauren Tewes (a TV actress who gives a rather wooden performance), Jennifer Jason Leigh steals every scene in which she appears. Her total commitment to her character shines through and she even manages to sell a rather implausible plot twist that occurs towards the end of the film. John DiSanti also deserves some credit for his performance as Stanley. Again, it’s hard not to feel that the film would have worked better if it had tried to keep us guessing as to the question of Stanley’s guilt.
Eyes of a Stranger was directed by Ken Wiederhorn, who also did the far superior zombie movie, Shock Waves. It’s interesting to note that both Lauren Tewes and Jennifer Jason Leigh would subsequently appear in Twin Peaks: The Return, though Leigh’s role was significantly larger.
Book Review: ‘Salem’s Lot by Stephen King
The town of Jerusalem’s Lot, Maine has two new arrivals.
One is Ben Mears, a successful writer who, we’re told, even has his own FBI file. (Apparently, it only consists of a report that he once attended an anti-war rally.) Ben spent part of his childhood is Jerusalem’s Lot and, upon returning, he discovers a small but friendly town. Sure, there’s some drama going on behind closed doors. There’s the sleazy real estate agent, for instance. And then there’s the Catholic priest who, naturally, has lost his faith. And then there’s the unhappy teenage mother and, of course, there’s the usual collection of alcoholics, adulterers, and cranky bus drivers. Maybe Jerusalem’s Lot isn’t that friendly after all….
The other new arrival is Kurt Barlow. Barlow’s from Austria and he’s moved into the old Marsten House. (The Marsten House, like most old houses that you come across in Stephen King novels, used to belong to a notorious gangster.) Barlow’s going to be opening up an antique store. Interestingly enough, hardly anyone ever seems to see Barlow. His business partner, Richard Straker, claims that Barlow is often away on buying trips.
Anyway, the townspeople have a lot more to worry about than what’s going on with Kurt Barlow. For instance, a lot of people are disappearing. And even those who aren’t vanishing are growing ill and having a bad reaction to sunlight. Hmmm …. what could possibly be going on?
First published in 1975, ‘Salem’s Lot was Stephen King’s second published novel and it actually holds up better than most of his recent work. It’s interesting to read ‘Salem’s Lot after Carrie, just to see how much King grew as a writer in between the two books. Whereas King often seemed uncomfortable with the plot of his first novel and tended to hold Carrie White at a distance, he dives right into ‘Salem’s Lot. It’s not just that King is obviously more comfortable writing about a male writer than a teenage girl. It’s also that King creates a town that seems so real that we feel as if we could find it on a map. King tells his story with such enthusiasm and confidence that it doesn’t matter that ‘Salem’s Lot is a fairly predictable and traditional vampire story.
Clocking in at a briskly paced 440 pages, ‘Salem’s Lot is quite a bit longer and more detailed than Carrie without, at the same time, getting bogged down in the type of stylistic self-indulgence that has come to typify a lot of King’s recent work. (One gets the feeling that if King wrote ‘Salem’s Lot today, it would be a 1,200 page novel and that Barlow wouldn’t show up until page 900.) King does a good job of offering up little snippets of life in Jerusalem’s Lot, just enough to make sure we have enough knowledge to mourn the eventual death of the town. ‘Salem’s Lot takes Dracula, drops him in the middle of a small town melodrama, and the results are still entertaining to this very day.
Italian Horror Showcase: Aenigma (dir by Lucio Fulci)
If there’s anything be learned from 1988’s Aenigma …. well, actually, that might be giving the film too much credit. There’s probably nothing to learn from Aenigma. The film does start with a pretty cruel prank and that prank leads to some snail-related mayhem but really, you should have already learned the truth about pranks after Carrie burned down the prom.
The prank involves the cruel girls at St. Mary’s boarding school tricking their classmate, Kathy (Milijana Zirojevic), into thinking that she’s on a date with a gym teacher (Riccardo Acerbi) and then jumping out of the shadows and surprising her when Kathy and the teacher start making out in his car. This leads to a humiliated Kathy running out into the middle of traffic, where she’s promptly hit by a car and goes into a coma. While everyone agrees that sucks for Kathy, at least it means that no one will ever know the truth about the prank.
Then people start dying.
They die in a variety of weird ways and since only the people involved with the prank are the ones being targeted, it doesn’t take much effort to guess that the comatose Kathy is probably involved. It also doesn’t take much effort to guess that the newest student at the school, Eva (Lara Lamberti), has been possessed by Kathy and is mostly just hanging around to make sure that everyone’s dead.
What’s weird is that, in her coma, Kathy has so many different powers that you have to wonder why exactly she needed to possess Eva. For instance, the gym teacher is strangled when his own reflection jumps out of a mirror. One of the girls is killed when a statue in a museum suddenly comes to life and attacks her. Yet another girl is somehow killed by snails.
Yes, you read that right. She wakes up to discover that she’s covered in snails and this leads to her dying. Aenigma is regularly criticized for the scene with snails. “Why didn’t she just get out of bed and take a shower or something?” many a commentator has asked. I guess they have a point but, honestly, if I woke up and there were a few hundred snails on me, I would totally freak out.
Apparently, the main reason that Eva’s there is so she can try to seduce Kathy’s handsome doctor (Jared Martin) but the doctor is more interested in Jenny Clark (Ulli Reinthaler), who was involved in the prank but who, unlike everyone else, felt really bad about it afterward. I’m sure that would lead to any complications….
There’s kind of a sad story behind this rather forgettable if occasionally entertaining horror film. After making horror history by directing films like Zombi 2 and The Beyond, director Lucio Fulci entered into a career decline. Struggling with ill-health and having had a falling out with some of his former collaborators, Fulci found himself working with lower budgets and less interesting premises. That’s certainly the case with Aenigma, which was shot in Sarajevo with a largely unknown cast and which blatantly ripped off the plots of Carrie and Patrick.
Aenigma has got a terrible reputation among fans of Italian horror. Personally, I think it’s a very flawed film but I also think that it’s not quite as bad as some have made it out to be. I mean, the snails are ludicrous but they’re also so weird that you can’t help but kind of love it when they show up. For that matter, the coach being killed by his own reflection and the scene where the statue come to life are clever ideas, even if their execution leaves something to be desired. Even in his later years, Fulci still had his talent. Unfortunately, when it came to films like Aenigma, he rarely had the resources necessary to truly make his vision come to life.
Horror on the Lens: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (dir by Robert Wiene)
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is a film that I’ve shared four times previously on the Shattered Lens. The first time was in 2011 and then I shared it again in 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017! Well, you know what? I’m sharing it again because it’s a classic, it’s Halloween, and everyone should see it! (And let’s face it — it’s entirely possible that some of the people reading this post right now didn’t even know this site existed in 2017. Why should they be deprived of Caligari just because they only now arrived?)
Released in 1920, the German film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is one of those films that we’ve all heard about but far too few of us have actually seen. Like most silent films, it requires some patience and a willingess to adapt to the narrative convictions of an earlier time. However, for those of us who love horror cinema, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari remains required viewing. Not only did it introduce the concept of the twist ending (M. Night Shyamalan owes his career to this film) but it also helped to introduce German expressionism to the cinematic world.
My initial reaction to The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari was that it simply wasn’t that scary. It was certainly interesting to watch and I was happy that I was finally experiencing this film that I had previously only read about. However, the film itself was obviously primitive and it was difficult for my mind (which takes CGI for granted) to adjust to watching a silent film. I didn’t regret watching the film but I’d be lying (much like a first-year film student) if I said that I truly appreciated it after my first viewing.
But you know what? Despite my dismissive initial reaction, the film stayed with me. Whereas most modern films fade from the memory about 30 minutes after the end credits,The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari has stuck with me and the night after I watched it, I even had a nightmare in which Dr. Caligari was trying to break into my apartment. Yes, Dr. Caligari looked a little bit silly staring through my bedroom window but it still caused me to wake up with my heart about to explode out of my chest.
In short, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari passes the most important test that a horror film can pass. It sticks with you even after it’s over.
For the curious with an open mind to watch with, here is Robert Wiene’s The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari!
Enjoy!
Music Video Of The Day: Opera by Claudio Simonetti (1990, dir by ????)
This video is for a song that Claudio Simonetti composed for Dario Argento’s 1985 film, Opera.
Compared to the film, the video is decidedly low-key but it’s still a lovely piece of music.
Diverti!
Horror on TV: One Step Beyond 3.26 “Signal Received” (dir by John Newland)
Starting tomorrow, we’ll be showcasing a new show here on the Shattered Lens so, for tonight, here’s the last episode of One Step Beyond that we’ll be sharing during this year’s horrorthon.
(If you’ve enjoyed these episodes, all three seasons of One Step Beyond have been uploaded to YouTube.)
Tonight’s episode tells the story of three sailors who hear an unexpected message on the radio. Two of the sailors hear that their ship will soon sink. The third sailor hears that he will live a long and fulfilling life.
One Step Beyond always claimed that all of its stories were “based on fact.” This episode actually goes the extra mile by interviewing one of the real-life sailors about the message and about whether or not he believes in the supernatural.
Enjoy!
The TSL’s Horror Grindhouse: Nocturne (dir by Stephen Shimek)
Have you ever noticed how movies about teenagers always treat the rules of the “Never Have I Ever” game like they’re some sort of legally binding contract?
Seriously, I’ve seen this happen in so many movies. Someone has a deep, dark secret that they don’t want to reveal. They know that if they reveal the secret, a lot of bad stuff will happen as a result. Feelings will be hurt. Friendships will be crushed. Lives will be lost.
But then the minute somebody says, “Never have I ever fucked my best friend’s boyfriend,” they always drink up. Half the time, they’re the only person to take a drink. And, during all of the drama that unfolds, it never occurs to anyone to say, “Why didn’t you just not take the drink!? It’s just a game, after all!”
Something like this happens in the 2016 film, Nocturne. Nocturne takes place at perhaps the saddest high school graduation party of all time. All of the cool kids have gone to another party, which means that only seven people show up at this party. From that humble beginning, things quickly go downhill as the graduates hang out in the hot tub, play the Never Have I Ever game, and listen to Gabe (Jake Stormeon) ramble about religion and philosophy and stuff. Gabe also demonstrates some card tricks so yeah …. that’s definitely the way to end your high school career.
Anyway, bad parties always seem to lead to people trying to contact the dead and that’s what happens here. Gabe sets up a makeshift séance and the graduates ask the dead a lot of questions that they probably shouldn’t have asked. (Seriously, I’ve been to a few bad parties in my lifetime and you an always tell that the party is officially dead once people actually try to talk to the …. well, dead.)
Needless to say, this leads to someone getting possessed and just about everyone else dying. The other party was probably a lot more fun.
So, on the plus side, Nocturne is fairly well-acted and some of the death scenes were clever. The film’s chronology is a bit jumbled, which is one of those storytelling tricks that can be really annoying but which is justified here by the fact that demon exists beyond our conventional understanding of time and space.
On the negative side, a cat dies about halfway through the film and, as I discussed years ago in my review of Drag Me To Hell, it’s hard for me to endorse any film in which a cat is killed. I mean, honestly, I would think most supernatural beings would appreciate the fact that a cat can sleep through just about anything. Whereas a dog would be barking and throwing a fit over all the murders being committed, a cat would probably just relax in a corner and play with a toy mouse or something. In this film, there was really no reason to kill the cat and it felt a bit gratuitous. It was hard not to tell that the only reason the cat was put in the film was so it could be killed. My point is, if you want to me to like your movie, don’t kill the cat.
Anyway, Nocturne is a rather uneven film. If you can see past the dead cat, you might find this one interesting. It has its creepy moments, even if it’s hard not to feel that the overall movie doesn’t really work.
Book Review: Baal by Robert R. McCammon
Baal begins with an act of violence.
In the late 60s, a woman is raped in an alley by a stranger whose touch burns her skin. Nine months later, Jeffrey Harper Raines is born. The woman’s husband fears the baby and tries to drown him, just to be stopped and murdered by Jeffrey’s mother.
Jeffrey is sent to a Catholic orphanage, where he proves himself to be an intelligent and troubled child, the type who can not only mentally control all of the other children but also inspire them to go on a rebellious and destructive rampage.
Years later, a mysterious cult leader named Baal has emerged, first in California and then eventually in Kuwait. His followers come from all walks of life and they include some of the wealthiest men on the planet. A researcher tries to gain access to Baal’s cult and promptly disappears. The researcher’s mentor, an elderly theologian named Dr. Virga, goes to Kuwait in search of his protegé.
What he discovers is that Baal is not only extremely dangerous but that his followers are willing to do anything that he orders them to do. Fortunately, Virga does find one ally out in the desert — a mysterious man named Michael….
(I guess it was Gabriel’s week off.)
Baal was first published way back in 1978 and reading it, it’s obvious that the novel was heavily influenced by films like The Omen and Rosemary’s Baby. In fact, it’s so derivative of those films that it’s impossible not to get kinda annoyed at not only how predictable the story is but also at the fact that it takes the people in the book so much longer to figure out what the reader realizes immediately. You really do have to wonder if a cult leader couldn’t have perhaps come up with a name other than Baal. I mean, that’s kind of like naming yourself Lou C. Ifer or something like that. You’re just giving the game away.
Today, Baal is best known for being the debut novel of Robert R. McCammon. McCammon was only 25 years old when he wrote and published Baal and most of the book’s problems — the lack of focus, the occasionally clumsy plot twists– are problems that many debut novels seem to have in common. For quite some time, McCammon refused to allow Baal to be republished, saying that he felt it was inferior to his later historical and crime novels. For the record, McCammon’s correct about that but Baal still has enough trashy and sordid moments to be occasionally entertaining. I guess my point here is that Baal isn’t great and, at times, it’s barely good but it’s still better than Bob Honey Who Just Do Stuff.
