The TSL’s Daily Horror Grindhouse: The Nun (dir by Luis De La Madrid)

Posted on October 22, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

When talking about the 2005 Spanish horror film The Nun, it’s best to admit one thing from the start. This film has got an absolutely terrible ending.

It seems to be the unwritten rule of modern horror that every movie has to have a “shocking” twist that’s revealed during the film’s final 10 minutes. Occasionally, the twist is so well-done and memorable that it will actually redeem an otherwise forgettable film. Far too often, the twist turns out to be so predictable that most filmgoers will have guessed what it is within the first few minutes of the film. And then you’ve got a film like the Nun, where the twist will be so bad and so illogical that it’ll actually cause you to hate the entire film regardless of how effective it may have been before the twist was revealed.

I’ve debated with myself whether or not to just say “Spoilers be damned!” and reveal film’s twist in this review. Seriously, it literally comes from out of nowhere and it’s so ludicrous that I almost feel like I have a responsibility to warn you about what the film has up its sleeve. However, after a lot of thought, I’ve decided not to give the specifics of the twist. Instead, I’m just going to tell you that it’s there and it’s really, really stupid. It’ll probably make you hate the entire film. If you ever find yourself watching The Nun, maybe you should stop watching around the 90 minute mark, just so you don’t have to deal with “twist.”

Because, seriously, until that twist shows up, The Nun is actually a pretty well-done ghost story.

The movie tells the story of Sister Ursula, an insane nun who terrorizes six of her students until eventually, they end up fighting back and accidentally drowning her. They hide her body in a nearby pond and go on with their lives. However, 18 years later, the pond is drained and the former classmates start to die one by one.

Whenever it rains or a bathtub overflows or water drips from a leaky faucet, a murderous apparition of the Sister Ursula is formed from the drops of water. It may be because I was raised Catholic and I’ve actually experienced Catholic school firsthand but I thought that the apparition of Sister Ursula was one of the most effective cinematic ghosts that I’ve seen in a long time. Forming from clouds of mist and with a permanently enraged expression on her twisted face, Sister Ursula is a nightmare personified and, as long as she’s lurking about in the shadows, it doesn’t matter that the film itself doesn’t make much sense. Sister Ursula is scary and the scenes where she takes revenge on her former students are truly frightening.

But the film couldn’t be happy just being the type of simple (but effective) ghost story that would keep you awake at a slumber party. Instead, the film has to introduce that terrible “twist” during the final ten minutes and, as a result, the entire film collapses.

Sometimes, it’s better just to keep things simple.

Horror Film Review: Exorcist II: The Heretic (dir by John Boorman)

Posted on October 22, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The Exorcist is one of the greatest horror films of all time and a personal favorite of mine. But what about Exorcist II: The Heretic? Well, it would be a bit of an understatement to say that The Heretic has not quite received the amount of critical acclaim as the first film. Since it was first released in 1977, The Heretic has been widely considered to be one of the worst sequels of all time. It’s a film that is often cited as evidence as to why not all successful films need a follow-up.

Myself, I have sat through The Heretic twice. And yes, it is a pretty bad film but I have to admit that I enjoyed it each time that I saw it. It’s not a scary film at all. It’s not a successful horror film. But, as an unintentional comedy, it’s hilarious.

The Heretic opens four years after the end of The Exorcist. Father Merrin (Max von Sydow) is dead, having had a heart attack during the first film while performing an exorcism on Regan MacNeil (Linda Blair). In the years since, some in the Vatican have cast doubt on whether or not Merrin actually performed exorcisms. It turns out that, contrary to everything that we saw in the first film, Father Merrin was actually something of a rebel. His teachings are controversial. For instance, he was convinced that everyone has latent psychic powers and that the demon Pazuzu possesses those who have the potential to be the strongest psychics. Why? Because those people have the ability to lead humanity into a shared global consciousness and…

Well, it gets a little bit complicated. That’s one of the big differences between The Exorcist and Heretic. The Exorcist kept things relatively simple. The Heretic drags in a lot of metaphysical argle bargle.

The deceased Father Merrin has been brought up on charges of heresy. The Cardinal (Paul Henreid, many, many years after Casablanca), assigns Father Lamont (Richard Burton) to investigate the circumstances surrounding Father Merrin’s final exorcism.

The presence of Richard Burton is what elevates Heretic from merely being bad to being so bad that it’s good. As written, Father Lamont is supposed to be something of a naive idealist, someone who never met Father Merrin but who has been intrigued by his writings. Reportedly, several youthful actors turned down the role and eventually, production decided to make Lamont an older man and they ended up casting Richard Burton. Speaking in a shaky rasp and staring at the camera with bloodshot eyes, Burton appears to be at the height of his famous self-loathing in this film. Burton is so miscast as an idealistic priest that the film becomes fascinating to watch. Occasionally, the film tries to make us suspect that Lamont himself may be possessed but with Burton snarling his way through the role, how could anyone tell the difference?

Lamont tracks Regan down in New York. Regan doesn’t remember a thing about the exorcism and appears to be an overly happy teenage actress. (A good deal of the movie is devoted to her rehearsing a big dance number.) She is under the care of psychiatrist Gene Tuskin (Louise Fletcher). Tuskin has a device called the Synchronizer. When two people are hooked up to it, they can literally see into each other’s minds. They can share the same memories. They can … wait a minute. What the Hell? The Synchronizer essentially appears to be little more than a blinking light but it can actually allow you to enter into someone else’s mind? Doesn’t that seem like that should be a big deal?

Well, it’s not. Everyone pretty much just shrugs and accepts it…

Through the use of the Synchronizer, Reagan, Lamont, and Tuskin get to watch a lot of scenes from the first Exoricst. It also allows Father Lamont to have visions of Africa and another exorcism, this one involving a young boy named Kokumo.

This leads to one of my favorite parts of the film; Richard Burton wandering around a dusty African market and randomly telling people, “I am looking for Kokumo.” It turns out that Kukomo has grown up to be a doctor and he’s now played by James Earl Jones, who appears to be amused by his dialogue. Also showing up in the film’s Africa scenes is Ned Beatty. Beatty plays a pilot who flies Lamont to Kokumo’s village. “Have you come here before?” Beatty asks. “Once … on the wings of a demon,” Lamont replies.

Well, okay then…

The first Exorcist worked largely because William Friedkin directed it as if he was making a documentary. John Boorman takes the exact opposite approach here, trying to turn a cheap sequel into a metaphysical meditation on good, evil, and nature. It’s amazingly pretentious and it would actually be rather annoying if not for the fact that Burton doesn’t make the slightest bit of effort to come across as being in any way emotionally or intellectually invested in his over-the-top dialogue. When you combine Burton’s overwhelming cynicism with Linda Blair’s nearly insane perkiness, Louise Fletcher’s genial confusion, and James Earl Jones’s cheerful humor, the end result is something that simply has to be seen to be believed.

So, yes, The Heretic is as bad as you’ve heard. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t watch it.

Horror on the Lens: Robot Monster (dir by Phil Tucker)

Posted on October 22, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I realize I shared this last year as well, but hey, it’s Robot Monster! It’s a movie about what happens when Earth is invaded by a gorilla wearing a diving helmet. (For some reason, it also causes the dinosaurs to come back to life.) It’s one of the most compulsively watchable bad movies ever made so how could I be expected to resist the opportunity to share it again?

Seriously, it’s Robot Monster!

Horror Film Review: The Mummy’s Shroud (dir by John Gilling)

Posted on October 21, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In this underrated horror film from the legendary Hammer Studios, a British archaeological expedition travels to Egypt and makes the mistake of entering a mummy’s tomb. As often happens, it turns out that the tomb is cursed and everyone who sets foot inside of it is destined to be tracked down and murdered by a mummy!

That’s pretty bad news for some of members of the expedition. Among those who are now on the Mummy’s list, there’s Sir Basil Waldron (Andre Morrell) who, in the film’s most effective moment, finds himself talking to a toothless fortune teller who cackles as she tells him, “You are going to die!” (Needless to say, a 7 foot tall Mummy is soon standing behind him). And then there’s Claire (Maggie Kimberly), the linguist who translated the curse. And there’s the expedition’s hilariously pompous financial backer, Stanley Preston (John Phillips), along with Stanley’s son, Paul (David Buck). And finally, there’s poor Mr. Longbarrow (Michael Ripper), Stanley’s press agent. If you’ve seen any other Hammer films from the late 60s, you’ll recognize the majority of the cast and you will probably be able to guess everyone’s fate from the minute they first appear on screen.

That, of course, is part of the fun!

First released in 1967 and often dismissed as being one of the lesser horror films to come out of Hammer Studios, The Mummy’s Shroud is actually a pretty effective film. I watched it late last night, with lights out and the sound of rain pounding on the windows outside and I have to admit that, even if nothing about the film surprised me, it still had enough eerie moments that I found myself watching for sudden shadows and the sound of heavily wrapped feet.

And why not? Mummy’s are scary! Even if you don’t know all of the grotesque details that go into the mummification process, Mummy’s just look frightening. It’s the bandages, to be honest. The bandages keep you from knowing exactly who is doing the stalking but, at the same time, you know that if those bandages were unwrapped, you wouldn’t want to see what’s hiding underneath them. By their very existence, Mummies are proof of the finality of death.

And The Mummy in The Mummy’s Shroud is frightening! He towers over all of the “human” actors in the film and when he attacks, he does it with a sudden and savage cruelty. Perhaps the death that disturbed me the most was the death of poor Mr. Longbarrow, who is literally lifted up off of his feet and tossed out of a window. He crashes to the street below and, briefly, the screen is awash with Hammer’s trademark red blood. It’s a disturbing scene, both because Longbarrow is one of the few likable characters in the film and also because the Mummy could have just as easily and much more efficiently strangled him. Instead, the Mummy had to be mean about it.

Seriously, there’s nothing more frightening than a sadistic mummy.

The Mummy’s Shroud may not be one of Hammer’s best films but still, it’s an efficient little horror film and one that, I think, many other horror critics have been a bit too quick to dismiss.

Horror on The Lens: The Embalmer (dir by Dino Tavella)

Posted on October 21, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

For today’s horror on the lens, we present, for your viewing pleasure, a 1965 Italian thriller called The Embalmer. It’s also known as the Monster of Venice.

This film tells the story of a madman who lives in the catacombs in Venice, where he wanders around in a skull mask and embalms dead bodies. Why does he embalm dead bodies? Because he loves eternal beauty, of course!

Occasionally, he comes up to the surface and he wanders around Venice while wearing scuba gear. Nobody finds that to be strange but then again, that’s Venice for you.

(As I’m sure I’ve mentioned a few times in the past, I spent the summer after high school in Italy. I loved Venice!)

Anyway, as far as Venice-set thrillers are concerned, The Embalmer is no Don’t Look Now. But it still has a few atmospheric scenes and the whole thing is filmed on location and in beautiful black-and-white. It’s also fairly tame for an Italian horror film, so it might be good for those viewers who are looking for a thriller that doesn’t necessarily feature a lot of blood.

The Daily Horror Grindhouse: Patrick Still Lives (dir by Mario Landi)

Posted on October 20, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

From the mid-60s to the early 80s, filmgoers could be sure of one thing. If a film was in any way successful in America or Europe, an Italian filmmaker would end up directing an unofficial sequel. These films usually had next to nothing to do with the original film, beyond having a similar title and occasionally duplicating a few plot points. (Since these films were always dubbed before being released in non-Italian markets, dialogue, character names, and even plot points were often arbitrarily changed to take advantage of whatever film was currently popular at the box office.) Occasionally, you’d have a film that managed to overcome its “unofficial sequel” status. For instance, Lucio Fulci’s Zombi 2 may have started out as a fake sequel to Dawn of the Dead but, thanks to Fulci’s skill as a director, the film transcended its origins and managed to establish its own identity.

Far more typical, however, was the case of Patrick Still Lives, a 1980 film that was sold as being a sequel to the Australian horror classic, Patrick. Though the film’s title suggests that it was meant to be a sequel, nobody involved in the production of Patrick had anything to do with Patrick Still Lives.

Patrick Still Lives follows the same basic plot as Patrick. A young man named Patrick (Gianni Dei) may be in a coma but he has psychic powers that he uses to kill various people. Again, Patrick falls in love with a woman, in this case a secretary named Lydia (Andrea Belfiore).

There are, of course, a few differences. Whereas Patrick opened with the title character murdering his mother and her lover, Patrick Still Lives opens with a hilariously awkward sequence in which Patrick gets struck in the head by something thrown from a passing car. Or, at least, that’s what I think happened. The way the scene is shot, it’s really hard to tell what exactly happens. At one point, Patrick is standing on the side of the road. Suddenly, he’s clutching his head and collapsing to the ground and we hear a car speeding away on the soundtrack. Patrick’s head is covered in ketchup, which I assume is meant to be blood.

Next thing we know, Patrick is in a coma and, with his eyes always open, he’s even duplicating the infamous stare that made the first film so memorable. Fortunately, Patrick’s father is a doctor who runs a spa. He keeps Patrick hidden in a locked room, where he’s wired to three other comatose people.

Eventually, five people show up at the spa. They’re looking to spend a relaxing weekend away from it all but Patrick is planning on killing them all…

There’s a few things that you notice immediately about Patrick Still Lives. First off, everyone’s naked, but, on the plus side, everyone has, at the least, an okay body and the men get naked too. The nudity is so gratuitous and so excessive that it actually becomes amusing. By the time the film’s male lead (who, it should be noted, had quite an impressive pornstache) was standing naked at a dresser and casually lighting a cigarette while ominous music played on the soundtrack, I simply could not stop laughing.

Secondly, you notice just how amazingly violent and bloody this film is. Whenever Patrick’s glowing eyes are superimposed over a scene, it means that someone is about to die in the most violent way possible. Dogs attack. A hook is driven into a face. An automatic car window is used as a tool for decapitation. The film’s most infamous scene features Mariangela Giordano being skewered, in close-up, by a fireplace poker.

That’s right — Patrick Still Lives is yet another Italian horror film that features Mariangela Giordano dying in the most unpleasant way possible. As such, along with Giallo in Venice and Burial Ground: The Nights of Terror, it forms an unofficial trilogy of films in which Mariangela Giordano is brutally murdered. Oddly enough, all three of these films were produced by Giordano’s then-boyfriend, Gabriele Crisanti. If my boyfriend ever produces a horror film, I better be one of the survivors and that’s all I’ll say about that.

The third thing that you notice about Patrick Still Lives is the dialogue. Now, I’m not sure if Patrick Still Lives ever got a “true” (and dubbed) release here in the States. I do know that my DVD features everyone speaking in Italian, with English subtitles. I have to admit that I’ve always resented that, in the U.S., so many Italian horror films are only available in a dubbed version. Often the dubbing is so terrible that it detracts from the film’s overall effectiveness and makes it impossible to fairly judge the performances. Well, with Patrick Still Lives, I got to see an Italian horror film in the original Italian and … well, the performances were just as bad in Italian as they probably would have been in badly dubbed English.

That said, I did enjoy reading the subtitles, largely because they were hilariously bad. It was almost as if someone had typed the film’s Italian dialogue into Google translator and transcribed the results. My favorite line? “The cause of death was fatality.”

Anyway, Patrick Still Lives is a pretty crappy film and I don’t recommend it unless you’re a diehard fan of Italian exploitation films. I do, however, recommend that you watch Zombi 2. That’s a really good film.

Horror on TV: Baywatch Nights 2.14 “Nights to Dragon One”

Posted on October 20, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Oh my God, y’all are going to love this.

In this episode of Baywatch Nights, David Hasselhoff and Angie Harmon are hired to track down a missing man and his daughter. Their search leads to them becoming literally trapped inside a virtual reality where they either have to defeat the crazed Game Master (Vincent Schiavelli) or die! There’s even a scene where Angie Harmon has to pick up and roll a giant die! Taking full advantage of the inherent ludicrousness of David Hasselhoff’s screen persona, this is an episode that has to be seen to be believed.

So, watch below and believe.

Horror Film Review: Patrick (dir by Richard Franklin)

Posted on October 20, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Patrick, a 1978 horror film from Australia, opens with the title character (played by Robert Thompson) watching as his mother makes love to her boyfriend. The first thing that we notice about Patrick is his stare. It’s intense and more than a little unsettling. (Actually, to be honest, the first thing we notice about Patrick is his head of blonde hair. But that stare is a close second.) The next thing that we notice about Patrick is that he doesn’t speak. Instead, he just stares. Eventually, when his mother and her boyfriend are taking a bath, Patrick drops a heater into the water and electrocutes both of them.

Yes, Patrick has some issues.

When we next meet Patrick, three years have passed. He’s in a coma now and spends all of his time laying in a bed in a private hospital. Everyone says that he’s brain dead, despite the fact that he still reflexively spits. The head nurse, the bitter Matron Cassidy (Julia Blake), hates the fact that Patrick is being kept alive. As she tells a new nurse, she feels that he is a waste of space and she wishes that she could just turn off the machines that are keeping Patrick alive.

Strangely, Patrick shows no physical signs of having been in a coma for three years. (One doctor points out that Patrick hasn’t even lost any weight during his time in the hospital.) And then, there’s the fact that Patrick’s eyes are always open. Even in a coma, he has the same intense stare.

An idealistic new nurse named Kathie (Susan Penhaligon) takes an interest in Patrick. Over the objections of Matron Cassidy, Katie tries to talk to Patrick. Kathie becomes convinced that Patrick’s spitting is not merely a reflex action but it’s actually his attempt to communicate. Kathie becomes obsessed with proving the Patrick can still respond to the outside world.

And, in any other film, this is the type of storyline that would ultimately lead to a very inspiring conclusion, in which the idealistic nurse’s faith is validated and the stricken patient is finally allowed to find a measure of happiness and dignity.

However, Patrick is a horror film.

Kathie does eventually discover that Patrick can see and hear. Patrick does know what’s going on in the outside world. But what Kathie doesn’t expect is that Patrick turns out to be a bit of an obsessively jealous pervert. Also, it turns out that Patrick has the power of telekinesis. Soon, he’s using a typewriter to send Kathie messages like, “It’s time for Patrick’s handjob.”

Patrick also uses his powers to punish any man who he feels is getting too close to Kathie. This includes Kathie’s husband, Ed (Rod Mullinar). First, Patrick causes Ed to seriously burn his hands on a hot casserole dish. Then he traps Ed in an elevator, forcing Kathie to beg for her husband’s life.

Patrick is a surprisingly well-acted and effective little horror film, one that spends as much time on maintaining the proper melancholy atmosphere as it does on trying to shock the audience. The end result is an intelligent little gem that will make you think even as it attempts to scare you. That said, my main memory of Patrick will always be that stare. Seriously, it was so creepy!

A remake was released in 2013 but I have yet to see it. However, I have seen the film’s unofficial Italian sequel and that’s what I’ll be reviewing next!

A Very Short Review of Tooken

Posted on October 20, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Why am I even reviewing Tooken?

That’s a good question. I’m about to tell you that this film sucked but the thing is, you probably know that it sucked just by the fact that the movie is named Tooken. I mean, do I even need to tell you that it’s supposed to be a parody of the Taken films? Bleh!

Originally, I was going to include this film as one of my Insomnia Files but then it occurred to me that Tooken is the type of film that gives insomnia a bad name. Seriously, go tell someone that you couldn’t sleep last night so you turned on the TV and watched Tooken.

Really? they’ll say, You stayed up all night so you could watch that crap?

And it doesn’t even matter that insomnia is something that you have no control over. Instead, it’ll all come down to the fact that you were actually awake at 4 in the morning and you were watching Tooken.

And you’ll hate yourself for it. Oh, the shame that you will feel….

Anyway, the depressing thing about Tooken is that it stars Lee Tergesen, who actually does a pretty good Liam Neeson imitation and who proved, in a short film called Into The Dark, that he deserves better than Tooken. Tergesen plays Bryan Millers, a former CIA agent who is now a mall security guard and the main joke of the film is that he’s always losing stuff and reacting to it in the style of Liam Neeson discovering that Kim has, once again, been taken. And I know that sounds like it has the potential to be funny but the joke actually wears thin pretty quickly.

(How thin? Thinner than the fabric of the nightie that I’m wearing as I type up this review it at 3 in the morning! And that’s pretty thin!)

Part of the problem with Tooken is that the Taken films don’t take themselves that seriously to begin with. In many ways, Tooken is a parody of a parody. Whenever Liam Neeson growls into that phone and lets the kidnappers know that he’s coming, he does so with just the slightest twinkle in his eye. He’s letting us know that he’s in on the joke and he understands that the entire franchise is ludicrous. There’s really not a single joke that you can make about the Taken franchise that the franchise hasn’t already made itself.

Of course, the other problem with Tooken is that it’s just not funny. In fact, it’s painfully unfunny. Watching this movie is like listening to a 3rd grader try to tell a joke and realizing, with a feeling of deepening horror, that not only have you heard the stupid joke before but the kid is totally going to screw up the delivery as well.

Back to the question that started this review. Why am I reviewing Tooken? Well, at the start of this year, I swore that I was going to make sure that this site had a review for every movie that I watched in 2015. Tooken is a film that I watched so I had to review it.

That’s right — I did it for the site.

And I did it for you, my loves.

Y’all owe me big time.

Horror on the Lens: Carnival of Souls (dir by Herk Harvey)

Posted on October 20, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Much like watching Plan 9 From Outer Space, Night of the Living Dead, Treevenge, or Santa Claus Conquers The Martians, watching the 1962 independent film Carnival of Souls is a bit of a holiday tradition here at the Shattered Lens.

And you know how much I love tradition!

Directed in a dream-like fashion by Herk Harvey (who also directed several of the educational short films that I’ve occasionally shared on this site, including Cheating, The Show-Off, and The Gossip), Carnival of Souls tells the story of Mary (Candace Hilligoss) who, after a car accident, finds herself haunted by visions of ghostly figures. Independently produced and distributed, Carnival of Souls did not get much attention when it was originally released but it is now generally acknowledged as a horror classic. Reportedly, David Lynch loves this movie and, when you watch it, you’ll be able to see why!

It’s October. It’s 11 more days ’til Halloween. It’s time to watch Carnival of Souls.