The Films of Dario Argento: Four Flies On Grey Velvet

Posted on October 3, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

After the good but somewhat generic Cat o’Nine Tails, Dario Argento returned to form with his third film, 1971’s Four Flies on Grey Velvet.

It’s not particularly easy to describe the plot of Four Flies because, much like The Bird With The Crystal Plumage, the storyline is less important than the way that Argento tells it. The film tells the story of Roberto Tobias (Michael Brandon), a drummer with an up-and-coming rock band in Rome. In many ways, Roberto is a typical drummer. He’s the guy who, even though he’s often obscured in the background, keeps things balanced. He has a loving wife, Nina (Mimsy Farmer), a nice house, and worldly, politically woke friends who smoke weed and praise art. Admittedly, one of those friends does tell a rather gruesome story about witnessing a beheading in Saudi Arabia which leads to Roberto having a reoccurring nightmare but otherwise, Roberto would appear to have a great life.

(Incidentally, Roberto’s nightmares are Argento at his best.)

So, why is this stable and easy-going guy suddenly being followed by a mysterious man in a suit? And why, when Roberto confronts the man, does he discover that there’s yet another mysterious figure — this one wearing a mask — following him and taking pictures?

That’s the mystery that opens Four Flies on Grey Velvet but it’s not the only mystery to be found in the film. In fact, this movie finds Argento at both his most macabre and his most playful. At times, he literally seems to be seeing just how far he can push and how complicated he can make things before totally losing his audience. The film may start with Roberto being followed and having nightmares but eventually, it comes to involve everything and everyone from Nina’s enigmatic cousin, Dalia (Francine Racette) to a beatnik named God (played by none other than spaghetti western mainstay, Bud Spencer) to a flamboyant private investigator (Jean-Pierre Marielle). (By today’s standards, the portrayal of the gay detective has a few cringey moments but you have to remember that Four Flies On Grey Velvet was made in 1971. It was nothing less than revolutionary for an Italian film of that era to portray an openly gay contemporary character in any type of positive light.) To top it all off, the solution to the film’s main mystery is discovered through optography, the long-since discredited idea that an eye will “save” the last image seen before death. It’s ludicrous but Argento pulls it off with a cheerfully over-the-top style that perfectly matches the film’s twisted plot. After the toned down Cat o’Nine Tails, Four Flies was Argento’s way of reminding viewers of who he truly was as a filmmaker.

The film’s brilliant opening sets the tone for the entire film. Watch it below and thank me later:

It’s rare that anyone every really discusses the acting in an Argento film. Argento has himself admitted that he doesn’t worry much about actors and many of his films have been released in badly dubbed versions, which often makes it difficult to fairly judge any of the performances. That said, Roberto Tobias is one of my favorite Argento protagonists and it’s all due to Michael Brandon’s performance. Brandon makes Roberto into such a nice guy and does such a good job of capturing his descent into paranoia that it’s impossible not to get caught up in his story. (I would even argue that the long-haired and politically concerned Roberto is almost an autobiographical stand-in for Argento himself.) Though I can’t really explain why without running the risk of spoiling a major part of the movie, Mimsy Farmer is also excellent. Reportedly, Argento originally wanted to cast Mia Farrow and you can imagine a post-Rosemary’s Baby pre-Woody Allen Farrow in the role. But I’m glad that Argento couldn’t get her because Mimsy Farmer gives a close to perfect performance.

Four Flies was the third and final part of Argento’s “animal trailer,” and, at the time, Argento declared that Four Flies would also be his final giallo film. He followed up Four Flies with The Four Days, a historical comedy that was considered to be such a failure that, after its release, Argento returned to the safety of the giallo genre and gave the world one of his greatest triumphs, Deep Red. However, if The Four Days had been a success and Four Flies had been Argento’s final giallo film, it would have been a triumphant note to go out on.

Here’s the very misleading trailer that was used for Four Flies On Grey Velvet‘s American release.

And here’s the even more obscure European trailer!

Horror Film Review: Ghost Story (dir by John Irvin)

Posted on October 3, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

A Fred Astaire horror movie!?

Yes, indeed. Ghost Story is a horror movie and it does indeed star Fred Astaire. However, Fred doesn’t dance or anything like that in Ghost Story. This movie was made in 1981 and Fred was 82 years old when he appeared in it. Fred still gave an energetic and likable performance and, in fact, his performance is one of the few things that really does work in Ghost Story.

Fred Astaire isn’t the only veteran of Hollywood’s Golden Age to appear in Ghost Story. Melvyn Douglas, John Houseman, and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. all appear in the movie as well. They play four lifelong friends, wealthy men who have formed an informal little club called The Chowder Society. They gather one a week and tell ghost stories. Myself, I’m wondering why these four intelligent and accomplished men (one is a lawyer, another a doctor, another a politician, and another is Fred Astaire) couldn’t come up with a better name than Chowder Society.

(But I guess that’s something that people do up north. Harvard has something called the Hasty Pudding Club, which just sounds amazingly annoying.)

Unfortunately, the members of the Chowder Society have a deep, dark secret. Way back in the 1930s, the boys listening to too much jazz and they all ended up lusting after the mysterious and beautiful Eva Galli (Alice Krige). As Astaire explains it, “We killed her, the Chowder Society.”

(Of course, there’s more to the story. It was more manslaughter than murder but either way, it was pretty much the fault of the Chowder Society.)

And now, decades later, a woman named Alma (Alica Krige, again) has mysteriously appeared. When she sleeps with David (Craig Wasson), the son of a member of the Chowder Society, David falls out of a window and ends up splattered on the ground below. David’s twin brother, Don (also played by Craig Wasson), returns to their childhood home and attempts to make peace with his estranged father.

However, now the member of the Chowder Society are starting to die. One falls off a bridge. Another has a heart attack in the middle of the night. Fred Astaire thinks that Eva has come back for revenge. John Houseman is a little more skeptical…

I pretty much went into Ghost Story with next to no knowledge concerning what the film was about. I thought the plot desription sounded intriguing. As a classic film lover, I appreciated that Ghost Story was not only Fred Astaire’s final film but the final film of Douglas and Fairbanks as well. Before he deleted his account, I had some pleasant interactions with Craig Wasson on Facebook. I was really hoping that Ghost Story would be a horror classic.

Bleh.

Considering all the talent involved, Ghost Story should have been great but instead, it just fell flat. Alice Krige is properly enigmatic as both Alma and Galli and really, the entire cast does a pretty good job. But, with the exception of exactly three scenes, the film itself is never that scary. (Two of those scary scenes involve a decaying corpse and it’s not that hard to make decay scary. The other is a fairly intense nightmare sequence.) Largely due to John Irvin’s detached direction, you never really feel any type of connection with the characters. I mean, obviously, you don’t want to see the star of Top Hat die a terrible death but that has more to do with the eternal charm of Fred Astaire than anything that happens in Ghost Story.

Add to that, Ghost Story‘s special effects have aged terribly. There are two scenes in which we watch different characters fall to their death and both times, you can see that little green outline that always used to appear whenever one image was super imposed on another. It makes it a little hard to take the movie seriously.

Sadly, Ghost Story did not live up to my expectations. At least Fred Astaire was good…

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

Posted on October 3, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I was actually planning on waiting until closer to Halloween before I posted this film but … well, why save the best for last? Seriously, it’s always a good time watch the original House on Haunted Hill. Be sure to check out Gary’s review by clicking here!

Now, I will admit that I previously shared this film two Halloweens ago. However, the YouTube video that I embedded in that post no longer exists. So, I figured, why not post it again?

Below is what I wrote the previous time that I shared this movie:

“Released in 1959, House On Haunted Hill tells the story of how an eccentric millionaire (played by Vincent Price, of course) rented out a “haunted” mansion for a party. invited over five guests, and offered each of them $10,000 on the condition that they manage to spend the entire night in the house. Along for the ride is Price’s unhappy wife (Carol Ohmart) and the house’s wonderfully neurotic caretaker (played by Elisha Cook, Jr, who played a lot of neurotic caretakers over the course of his long career).

House on Haunted Hill remains one of the classic B-movies. This is largely because of Price’s wonderfully over-the-top lead performance and William Castle’s equally over-the-top direction.

Back in 1959, theaters were equipped so that a plastic skeleton would appear to fly over the heads of the audience during some of the film’s more shocking moments. So, grab yourself a skeleton, take a seat, and enjoy House on Haunted Hill!”

Horror On TV: Tales From The Crypt 2.1 “Dead Right” (dir by Howard Deutch)

Posted on October 2, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

For tonight’s excursion into televised horror, we present the first episode of the 2nd season of HBO’s Tales From The Crypt!

In Dead Right, Demi Moore plays a secretary named Cathy who is told two things by a psychic. First, she’ll lose her job. Next, she’ll marry a man who will inherit a fortune and then violently die shortly afterward. After losing her job, Cathy meets the grotesque Charlie (Jeffrey Tambor) and she marries him when she finds out that he comes from a wealthy family.

Of course, since this is Tales From The Crypt, there’s a twist. The medium’s prediction turns out to be true but not quite in the way that Cathy was expecting…

Dead Right is pretty good. Demi Moore is almost too plausible as a golddigger and Jeffrey Tambor turns Charlie into a truly memorable character, one who is both pathetic and intimidating. And the story’s twist ending carries a properly nasty punch, as well.

Dead Right originally aired on April 21st, 1990.

Enjoy!

The TSL’s Daily Horror Grindhouse: Werewolf Woman (dir by Rino Di Silvestro)

Posted on October 2, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Since I earlier reviewed The Wolf Man, it only made sense to me that tonight’s entry in daily horror grindhouse should be the 1976 Italian horror film, Werewolf Woman. I’d had Werewolf Woman on DVD for a while now but I had yet to get around to watching it. I actually knew next to nothing about it. The only reason why I bought the DVD was because of the title.

So, last night, I watched the movie and I quickly discovered that, in the best tradition of grindhouse cinema, Werewolf Woman‘s title actually had very little do with the actual film. The title character may go around ripping out throats with her teeth but it’s not because Daniella Neseri (Annik Borel) is a werewolf. Instead, it’s just because she’s gone insane.

When Daniella was thirteen years old, she was raped by a family friend. She has now grown up to be a young woman who fears sex and rarely leaves her family’s decaying estate. Her aging father, Count Neseri (Tino Carraro), is extremely protective of Daniella but, at the same time, he also tells her stories about how one of her ancestors was rumored to be a werewolf so you really have to wonder how good of a father he actually is.

When Daniella’s younger sister, Elena (Dagmar Lassander), comes home with her fiancée, Daniella hides out in the hallway and listens while they make love. Later that night, Daniella is wandering around outside when she runs into the fiancée. She proceeds to rip out his throat with her teeth and then leave him for dead. The police are convinced that he was murdered by a wild animal but Elena and Count Neseri both believe that Daniella was responsible.

So, Daniella ends up in an insane asylum but it takes more than just four walls and a locked door to hold Daniella prisoner. One of her fellow patients is a predatory lesbian (yes, this is very much a 70s movie) who tries to seduce Daniella. Unfortunately, any and all sexual thoughts cause Daniella to mentally (if not physically) transform into a werewolf. Soon, the patient has had her throat ripped out and Daniella has escaped.

The rest of the film follows Daniella as she makes her way across the Italian countryside, stopping to kill anyone who causes her to become aroused or to even think about sex. Or, at least, that is until she meets Luca (Howard Ross), who is a sensitive man and lover. Daniella and Luca have a falling in love montage. They make love without Daniella feeling the urge to rip out his throat. Things are going to be okay, right?

Nope. Inevitably, a biker gang shows up and violently destroys their happiness. In the spirit and style of I Spit On Your Grave, it’s up to Daniella to get revenge.

Now, when talking about a movie like Werewolf Woman — one that links lycanthropy with both sexual repression and a sexual awakening — it’s easy to read too much into the plot. I’ve been tempted to do just that while writing this review. Whether it was what the director’s intended it or not, there is a potentially intriguing theme running through Werewolf Woman, in which Daniella imagines herself as a werewolf because it’s the only way that she can survive in a world that is determined to sexually exploit, demean, and oppress her. Daniella’s mental transformation is ultimately the result of her own repressed emotions and fears and I’m sure that many would argue that Werewolf Woman, in the tradition of Repulsion and Ms. 45, is taking a stand against a patriarchal and repressive society (never mind that Daniella ultimately kills almost as many women as men).

And you know what? If this was a Jess Franco film, I’d give it the benefit of the doubt.

But ultimately, Werewolf Woman is no Ginger Snaps. Instead, it’s a somewhat slow soft core flick that doesn’t really add up to much. (Any and all subtext is definitely present by accident only.) That said, Annik Borel does a good job in the lead role and loves of Euroshock will enjoy seeing familiar faces like Howard Ross and Dagmar Lassander in the cast. Add to that, I always enjoy any film the features a woman getting bloody revenge on misogynists, even if this film ultimately left me feeling more icky than empowered.

Review of Berberian Sound Studio, ALT Title: Huh? I mean, Huh?

Posted on October 2, 2016 by casewright

bsstudio

I was considering posting this review later in the month because I didn’t want to do two negative reviews in a row. I’m starting to feel like an old curmudgeon with a sciatica issue, but here we are. I didn’t write, direct, or produce this steaming pile of shit, but again… here we are. I’m not writing that every film should have three distinct acts that are easily defined and understood, but this film sure could have used some structure or a beginning, a middle, or (if they really felt wild) an ending.

We open with Gilderoy (Tobey Jones) starting a job as a foley artist for a Giallo film. He is immediately shocked at the graphic nature of the film that he will be looping. This is where the movie grinds to a halt – minute 7. Either through a lack of budget or imagination, the film takes place in the sound studio, his apartment, and a hallway – that’s it. You’d think that this would establish tension…nope; no more than sitting in the DMV for 90 minutes establishes tension. There are no subtitles and everyone’s speaking Italian and screaming a lot to loop the spooky film that you never see. Again, you’d think that perhaps this would create tension or alienation because we don’t know what’s being said in 85% of the film….nope; no more than watching Raiuno (Italian Basic Cable). Keep in mind, I’m very proud of my very sexy Italian roots, but not everything we make is a winner- even our towers lean over sometimes.

Gilderoy proceeds to obsess over getting reimbursed for his travel and when he doesn’t get reimbursed, he mopes … a lot and smashes fruit to mimic bludgeoning sounds. At one point he does get upset about it, but then goes back to doing what he does best – moping and fruit smashing. There are two producers Francesco and Santini who spend the majority of the film bullying Gilderoy around and just when you think he’ll snap, he doesn’t because his moping around and fruit smashing won’t get done by itself.

Gilderoy slowly makes a quasi-friendship with Elena a voiceover artist who hints at something sinister being afoot, but it never materializes. Snore. Later in the film, Santini sexually assaults her off-screen and she wrecks the studio this is also off-screen. Since all of the action takes place off-camera, it really makes you wonder if they ever wanted to film a movie. Elena’s departure necessitates the need to hire new voiceover actress to replace her.

This is where the film takes an absurdist left turn – Gilderoy starts speaking Italian. As someone who has taken some formal Italian language instruction- it’s a challenging language, but not for Gilderoy because he just starts spouting it – damn it! Then, Elena’s replacement tries to kill Gilderoy, but he manages to kill her. He then wanders into the sound studio and for some reason he sees the self-defense killing on the screen. This causes the need for yet another voiceover actress to be hired and he uses mild sound torture to get a better performance out of her – it’s both weird and stupid because she could just take the headphones off, but she doesn’t. She does quit and we don’t have to see them go to Central Casting again. Maybe they get a stamp on a card for every voiceover actress they hire? If so, they are all due a free sammich!!! The movie ends. Yep, that’s it.

This film proved that there are two big losers in Giallo pictures: voiceover actresses and fruit! Enjoy the horror month! My next review will be one of my favorite movies of ALL TIME: Ginger Snaps! Ginger Snaps is a werewolf movie that is an allegory for a girl’s menarche! Tagline: They don’t call it the curse for nothing! It’s awesome!

The Films of Dario Argento: The Cat o’Nine Tails

Posted on October 2, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

(I’m using this year’s horrorthon as an excuse to watch and review all of the films of Dario Argento. Yesterday, I reviewed The Bird With The Crystal Plumage. Today, I take a look at The Cat o’Nine Tails.)

In 1971, Dario Argento followed up the massive success of The Bird With The Crystal Plumage with his second film as a director, The Cat o’Nine Tails. While The Cat o’Nine Tails was another huge financial success, it’s never been as a critically acclaimed as Argento’s first film. Argento, himself, regularly cites The Cat o’Nine Tails as being his least favorite of all of the films that he’s directed.

Much like The Bird With The Crystal Plumage, The Cat o’Nine Tails is a giallo that uses it’s rather complicated mystery as an excuse (a MacGuffin, to quote Hitchcock) for several suspenseful set pieces, the majority of which end with someone suffering some sort of terrible fate. In this case, a series of murders are taking place around a mysterious medical complex, the Terzi Institute. The murders are connected to some research being done at the institute. I’m not going to spoil things by revealing what exactly is being researched but I will say that the key to the mystery is vaguely ludicrous, even by the typically flamboyant standards of the giallo genre.

But, then again, so what? The fact that the genre’s mysteries are often overly complex and feature solutions that don’t always make sense is actually one of the appeals of the giallo film. You don’t really watch a giallo for the mystery. You watch it to see how the story will be told. Perhaps more than any other genre, giallo requires a director with a strong vision.

And, if nothing else, Argento has always had a strong directorial vision. Even when you may disagree with the choices that he makes (and I’m sure we all wonder why, in his later films, Argento grew so obsessed with telepathic insects), you can’t deny that they’re always uniquely Argento. Though the film never reaches the delirious heights of The Bird With The Crystal Plumage, The Cat o’Nine Tails still has several strong set pieces. There’s a sequence involving a poisoned glass of milk that I particularly appreciate. And then there’s the long scene at the crypt, in which our two protagonists realize that they don’t really trust each other all that much. And, of course, there’s the ending. For a film that’s often dismissed as being lesser Argento, The Cat o’Nine Tails features one of Argento’s darkest endings.

The Cat o’Nine Tails is unique as being one of the only Argento films to regularly show up on TCM. A lot of that is because The Cat o’Nine Tails is perhaps the least gory of all the films that Argento has made. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t plenty of death and mayhem. There is. Blood is spilled but it never exactly flows. The Cat o’Nine Tails is an Argento film that you could probably safely watch with an elderly relative. That’s not necessarily meant as a complaint. It’s just an observation that, when compared to the panty murder in The Bird With The Crystal Plumage or the skewering in The Mother of Tears, Cat o’Nine Tails is definitely a toned down Argento film.

The other reason why The Cat o’Nine Tails is popular on TCM is because it stars none other than that classic film mainstay, Karl Malden. Continuing the Argento tradition of featuring protagonists who aren’t sure what they’ve witnessed, Malden plays a former newspaper reporter who is now blind. He teams up with another reporter (played by James Franciscus, who may not have been a great actor but who did have perfect hair) to solve the murders. Franciscus has the eyes. Malden has the brains. And Malden’s niece, Lori (Cinzia De Carolis), is largely present to provide the film with its final ironic twist.

Malden does a pretty good job in the role, too. I’ve read some reviews that have complained that Malden overacts but actually, he gives the perfect performance for the material. In fact, Malden’s unapologetically hammy performance contrasts nicely with the work of James Franciscus, which could charitably be called subdued. (Perhaps a better description would be dull…)

Cat o’Nine Tails may not be Argento’s best but I still like it. If for no other reason, watch it for Malden and that wonderfully dark ending.

What Lisa Watched Last Night #157: My Husband Is Missing (dir by Brenton Spencer)

Posted on October 2, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last night, I watched more than just The Crooked Man! I also watched the latest Lifetime premiere, My Husband Is Missing.

Why Was I Watching It?

Because it was on Lifetime, of course! Now, I do have to admit that it was something of a disjointed viewing experience. I watched the first hour of My Husband Is Missing, just long enough to discover that the main character’s husband was indeed missing. I then switched over to SyFy and I watched The Crooked Man.

After the Crooked Man ended, I started to watch the final hour of My Husband Is Missing off of the DVR but then I noticed that I also had an episode of Cheaters on the DVR as well. Well, naturally, I couldn’t understand why I would have ever recorded an episode of Cheaters. So, I decided to watch it. I was thinking maybe it would be the episode where Joey Greco got stabbed.

Nope, no stabbing. It was just a normal episode of Cheaters. Since the show was filmed in Dallas, I saw a lot of familiar locations but I still have no idea why I recorded it.

Life is weird, y’know?

Anyway, after all that, I watched the final hour of My Husband is Missing.

What Was It About?

Dale Bradshaw (Robert Underwood) is a father and a husband. AND HE’S MISSING! He was kidnapped out of his SUV and now, his kidnappers are posting videos of him all tied up and gagged. Are his kidnappers forcing him to act in an Eli Roth movie? Agck!

Since the police are totally useless — except for Det. Matthews (Aaron Pearl), I guess — it’s up to his daughter (Nicole Munoz) and his wife (Daphne Zuniga) to figure out what has happened to Dale!

As for Detective Matthews, he wants to help but he’s struggling because of government bureaucracy. Fortunately, to help him out, he has a hacker who looks like he stepped straight out of 1998.

What Worked?

Uhmm…

Actually, I will give the film credit for two things. I loved the title. According to the imdb, this film was originally known as Abducted Love but My Husband Is Missing is a hundred times better. My Husband Is Missing just screams Lifetime.

Secondly, this is yet another Lifetime film that was obviously filmed in Canada. That’s not a problem because I love Canada. Still, I appreciated the fact that every scene seemed to have an American flag in the background. It’s as if the filmmakers were saying, “The film is too taking place in the U.S., regardless of how Canadian most of the supporting cast may sound!” I appreciated the effort.

That said, I’d like to see a Canadian film on Lifetime that proudly embraced the fact that it was Canadian. Enough of this “let’s pretend we’re in upstate New York” stuff. I want to see a Lifetime film that proudly shouts, “THIS MOVIE IS SET IN TORONTO! YOU GOT A PROBLEM WITH THAT!?”

What Did Not Work?

I usually have unconditional love for Lifetime films but this one just didn’t hold my interest. Part of the problem is that I figured out the mystery after about 20 minutes. There was no big or shocking twist.

“OMG! Just like me!” Moments

There is a redhead in the film but she works for the government and that’s something you’ll never find me doing.

Lessons Learned

Canada shouldn’t have to pretend to be upstate New York.

What Horror Lisa And The Snarkalecs Watched Last Night #156: The Crooked Man (dir by Jesse Holland)

Posted on October 2, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last night, my friends, the Snarkalecs, and I watched the latest SyFy original film, The Crooked Man!

Why Were We Watching It?

Gawdamn, y’all (as we tend to say down here in Texas), do you remember how much fun it used to be when SyFy would premiere a different movie every Saturday night? Back when I first started regularly watching SyFy and live tweeting with the Snarkalecs, SyFy was all about original movies.

Sadly, things have changed. Now, we only get SyFy original movies twice during the year. Once is during the week leading up to the latest Sharknado film. The other time is October, when SyFy does its 31 Days of Horror.

Since the Snarkalecs are still trying to change SyFy’s policy towards original movies, we make it a point to watch every single one of them. We also make it a point to tweet about the movies, the hope being that someone at SyFy will see that there is an audience for original movies.

That’s what we were doing last night as we watched The Crooked Man.

What Was It About?

Olivia (Angelique Rivera) gets all of her friends killed but isn’t ever really held responsible because she’s the main character in the film.

Okay, there’s actually a little more to it than that. The Crooked Man is a hybrid of The Ring, It Follows, Candyman, Slenderman, The Nun, and … well, just about every other horror film made over the past 16 years. It starts with a slumber party, where a group of 12 year-old girls make the mistake of listening to a song online. The song, it’s said, will summon the Crooked Man.

Later, the slumber party is interrupted when all the lights go out. Fortunately, there’s also a pizza delivery guy at the party and he knows how to turn the lights back on. Well, that’s good. However, there is yet another interruption when one of the girls, Jill, is found dead at the foot of the stairs. Standing over her is Olivia. Though Olivia has a knife in her hands, she swears that she didn’t kill Jill. It was … THE CROOKED MAN!

Olivia is sent to a mental asylum for six years. When she’s released, she returns home. The problem is that nobody in the town wants her to come home. And actually, they have a point because, as soon as Olivia returns, The Crooked Man starts killing everyone who was at that slumber party.

EVEN THE PIZZA GUY!

What Worked?

I will be the first to admit that most of my tweets were pretty critical last night but there were a few effectively creepy moments in The Crooked Man. The Crooked Man himself was scary.

The Voice‘s Dia Frampton showed up to sing a song and then promptly got killed. That definitely provided the film with a nice WTF moment.

What Did Not Work?

Okay — so the Crooked Man can only get you when you’re in the dark, right? SO WHY DOES EVERYONE IN THE FILM KEEP TURNING OFF ALL THE LIGHTS!? Seriously, nobody seemed to appreciate that there was a really easy solution to most of their problems…

(Actually, in all fairness, The Crooked Man had the power to kill all the electricity and plunge people into darkness. But still, it did seem like the characters often never even considered trying to turn on all the lights. I would have at least liked to have seen some sort of effort.)

“OMG! Just like me!” Moments

I related to the character of Violet. Violet was at the slumber party and therefore, she was on Crooked Man’s kill list. And Violet put the blame right where it belonged. On Olivia!

Seriously, Olivia, way to get all your friends killed.

Lessons Learned

If a monster can only exist in the dark, turn on the damn lights!

Horror on the Lens: The Undying Monster (dir by John Brahm)

Posted on October 2, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

For today’s horror on the lens, we have 1942’s The Undying Monster!

It tells the story of the Hammonds, a noble British family who, for centuries, have been haunted by suicide, murder, and rumors of a curse. When a mysterious creature attack Oliver Hammond, Scotland Yard dispatches a scientist to figure out what’s going on. Perhaps not surprisingly, the local villagers insist that it’s the curse. The scientist, however, is convinced that it has to be something else…

Clocking in at 63 minutes and made on an obviously low budget, The Undying Monster is actually pretty good. Director John Brahm emphasizes shadows and darkness, taking an almost film noir approach to this tale of gothic horror. The Undying Monster is a hidden gem of 40s horror and here it is!

Enjoy!