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An actress often identified with the genre, alluring Alexxus Young (TWO FRONT TEETH, ARACHNIA, HALLOWS POINT, et al), occasionally moonlights as a film reviewer. She has previously contributed to Really Scary among other web sites and was recruited as a "Flavor" magazine staffer. "Call me anything but a scream queen," cautions Young. "That sort of christening is reserved for Grade-Z crap, the sex-begets-violence desperation that apprenticing hacks cranked-out almost a generation ago. Since I function as an actress, I can empathize a bit more about the filmmaking process. When I'm impassioned with a movie, like THE DEVIL'S ADVOCATE, I can watch it forever. However, I tally plenty of exercise by walking out of movies. One of my favorite directors is Neil Marshall; his DOG SOLDIERS is ripe with invention and THE DESCENT's female ensemble stray from cursory stereotypes. I love searching for directors who are equally gutsy."
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(Amber Pictures)
Year: 2006
Directed by: James Eaves
Writing credits: James Eaves
Cast: Stephanie Beacham, Claudia Coulter, Andrew Cullum
Country: UK
Yours truly knew she�d be far from impartial as soon as Stephanie Beacham�s name was flashed on the credit crawl. Beacham, a torrid presence in the Hammer and Amicus films (DRACULA A.D. 1972, AND NOW THE SCREAMING STARTS), was also a staple in modern Grand Guignol helmed by Brit director Pete Walker (HOUSE OF MORTAL SIN, SCHIZO, et al). Though she�s a fine actress, Beacham�s bosom effortlessly stole scenes in period pieces that insisted upon decollage. I remember a TV miniseries, NAPOLEON AND JOSEPHINE: A LOVE STORY, where Beacham�s cleavage was positively epidemic�I thought it was going burst our of her bodice and crash into my living room. And her nudity in THE NIGHTCOMERS fueled the horror film�s hard sell (critics pounded the film�s incestuous bond between two juveniles). Beacham is a bombshell but, unlike today�s dime-a-dozen bimbos, she is talented.
Gauging her appearance in THE WITCHES HAMMER, the 60-year-old Beacham is still sexy though her "goodies" are spared even a cameo appearance. She opts to deadpan her lines in a demeanor that invokes Henry Daniell and the fun is infectious. As Madeline, she hangs around vampires whose porcelain, fanged smiles suggest they pig-out on Orbitz during the daytime. This U.K. import extrapolates the carnage of the Hammer era; vampires blow-up real good (we�re talkin� chest cavities the size of Bill Clinton�s ass) and there�s a surplus of martial arts action (indispensable, it would seem, to kickin� undead ass. I recently screened Yorgos Noussias� TO KAKO [EVIL] where a cabbie, a jaded girlfriend and other survivors of a zombie plague inexplicably develop chop-socky skills. Go figure).
Not unlike RAZOR BLADE SMILE, the central character is an apprenticing (genetically engineered) vamp who functions as an assassin and indulges herself with butchy girl power. Though saddled with a shoestring budget, WITCHES HAMMER cuts through the cheese with a tongue-in-cheek drollery (as evinced by the dialogue: "We are about to get wiped-out and all you can say is �Oh!�"). The film�s expenditures are sagely invested in the sets and props that recount the history of a surrogate Necronomicon. Happily, the film compromises its camp with scenes that are poignant (vampiric Claudia Coulter, presumed dead, watches her family mourn at her grave) or gags that invoke EC comics (a corpulent chick watches a fight while sipping blood through two straws, both lodged within a victim�s throat).
While films like UNDERWORLD lean on an intoxicant surplus of CGI, THE WITCHES HAMMER opts for story. I only wish that director/screenwriter James Eaves would have afforded more exploration into the myth of the female vampire (nothing to date has matched the intense rage and melancholy of THE GIRL WITH THE HUNGRY EYES [1995], Jon Jacobs� lament of the dead). Eaves� film may not be cutting edge but, unlike Eli Roth�s hemorrhaging vision, it has a heart; his milieu orbits somewhere between a comic book and Luc Besson fantasy (the film evokes LEON in its conclusion, what with a midget vampire, grieving his crispy lover, expiring in the daylight).
Stephanie Beacham, please come home to the genre. The Hammer women (Beacham, Caroline Munro, Veronica Carlson) may be older but they�re still beautiful and they still deport themselves with dignity. Time has validated that their successors are pale and already forgotten imitations.
Rating: 6.5/10
(Echo Bridge Home Entertainment)
Year: 2006
Directed by: Richard Valentine
Writing credits: Richard C. Giulick
Cast: Jaason Simmons, Kim Tyler, Matt Borlenghi
Country: USA
This movie starts out with a bang! We�re talkin� about a diminutive, naked college hotty (big boobs) who, adhering to a sorority ritual, drifts through a labyrinth until she�s wasted by the title character! Before she�s brutally dispatched, the babe�compliant with tradition�faces a mirror that�s lodged in the darkened quarters of an old mental ward; reciting the "I believe in Bloody Mary" refrain, she resurrects the bitch and pays the consequences. The victim was coaxed into beckoning Blood Mary as a result of an initiation game, instigated by her sadistic and/or cowardly fellow nurses.
Okay, there�s admittedly a concession to CANDYMAN but this is the first film, in years, to develop a "monster" that actually unnerved me; Bloody Mary is freakin� scary as hell! I mean I wouldn�t wanna f*** wit� her, that�s for damn sure! Fast jittery movements, evoking the HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL remake, make me ball up in a fetal position and suck my thumb! And the audio track was creepy enough to influence a couple of nightmares (for real!). I�m speculating that Bloody Mary has OCD! We�re talking about a ghost that plucks-out the eyes of her victims and deposits the orbs within labeled jars.
Basically, the story introduces a girl named Mary who was a tenant in the mental ward. Disappearing and dying in the tunnel corridors, her ghost carries on and can travel through mirrors. She also has a few people working for her...even a sexy British doctor! BLOODY MARY, a genuine sleeper, is governed by a pissed-off spirit that should be a candidate for a franchise. This film is a credit to the independent industry.
Rating: 8/10
(Dark Sky Films)
Year: 1973
Directed by: Jesus Franco
Writing credits: Bram Stoker (novel)
Cast: Christopher Lee, Herbert Lom, Klaus Kinski
Country: Spain
Jess Franco must have been running with the bulls when he made this Spanish release. The good news: Christopher Lee plays the title role in a screenplay that adheres to Bram Stoker�s novel. If you can look past the bad cinematography, perhaps you�ll develop a tolerance for Franco�s mise-en-scene. I hate to admit this (forgive me Mr. Lee, I love you) but the film had me laughing on many occasions. Shall I go down the list? First, trying to pass Rin Tin Tin as a wolf really doesn�t work. Second, the coach driver in the beginning looked like Bela Lugosi�s double in PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE. Third, fake spiders and bats on a string look like leftovers from Mayberry�s annual Halloween pageant. Fourth, Klaus Kinski pretty much plays himself, throwing food on the wall and finger-painting while eating bugs (sample his autobiography. This is the guy who ascertained, "I�d have been better than Adolf Hitler. I could�ve delivered his speeches a lot better." As evinced by his performance in this Franco saga, he could have engaged Der Fuhrer in some mugging competitions).
I also thought it was quite convenient that Dracula sells his castle and moves right next door to Van Helsing�s clinic! Then there�s the stuffed animals that are reanimated; it�s more about taxidermy than terror (honestly, the sock puppets on the �ole Soupy Sales show were more convincing). The only "squirm" scene is the abduction of a baby who is fed to the undead, a taboo that was scotched in other adaptations of Dracula. They only decent FX technology was invested in a scene when female vamps rise out of their coffins. Maria Rohm and the late Soledad Miranda, cast as Mina and Lucy, are absolutely gorgeous (a pity these hot horror vets are ignored in the States). Of course, I tip my hat to Christopher Lee and Herbert Lom, both of whom could survive a Bowery Boys movie with their dignity intact. I give it a 7 out of 10 for effort and if it wasn�t for Messrs. Lee and Lom, my rating would have declined to a 5.
Rating: 7/10
(Maverick Entertainment)
Year: 2007
Directed by: Joe Knee
Writing credits: Stephen Fromkin, Joe Knee
Cast: Taryn Manning, Rachel Miner, Joel Michaely
Country: USA
Definitely a cool li'l indie film! Special bonus: hot chicks play significant roles, i.e. Rachel Miner (PENNY DREADFUL) and Taryn Manning. Gist of the film revolves around a legend: an Asian woman was murdered by her father for becoming pregnant out of wedlock. He impaled her eyes and cut her stomach but, before expiring, she saved her soul by reciting a prayer and embracing an amulet. The amulet was subsequently purloined by a madman who plundered her tomb; performing ritual sacrifices, he exploited the talisman for evil purposes. A girl who circumvented a near-apocalypse was among the sacrifices though she, at the last minute, refused to relinquish her soul. She was pregnant during the time and her offspring became next in line. Mindy (played by Miner) grows up, is enlightened to her heritage and does everything to stop this madman. After friends are slain, she�s the victor in a good vs. evil showdown. Inventive f/x and a pretty good soundtrack lift this film above average "direct-to-video" filler. Best part of the film is the alliance between a hot British teacher and a sexy college babe; unfortunately, they both let me down by not even doing a "make-out" scene!...damn!
Rating: 6/10
(Dark Sky Films)
Year: 2004
Directed by: Masahiro Okano
Writing credits: Masahiro Okano
Country: Japan
I have to say this Japanese anthology was a li'l odd but quite interesting. Nine 30-minute stories (aka beads) tie together at the end. Bead #1 is a tale of lies and deceit. Sleeping with her best friend�s husband, a woman becomes preggars and insists the offspring is her husband�s baby. It wouldn�t be a good horror twist if the friend didn�t severely chastise her unchaste compatriot and hubby! Bead #2 turned out to be very intriguing. A camping trip turns nightmare when a vending machine has a mind of it�s own and turns people into an addictive beverage (this sort of extrapolates the "you are what you eat" trend kindled by MATANGO).
The third and fourth beads honestly didn�t make much sense to me even after watching both of them twice! Great effects but WTF? It�s akin to reading an Arkansas road map and winding up in Chicago. Maybe I should have acclimated myself to the culture but the climactic experience was more surreal than scary.
Bead #5 clicked. A girl and two guys meet in a chat room and decide to go mushroom hunting. When they find the field of mushrooms, an old lady in a shack treats the trio to a snack. When one of the boys awaken, he finds his legs have been amputated. (Spoiler alert) The elderly crone turns out to be a witch who lures mortals to her turf and grows mushrooms from their severed body parts (sort of a human hydroponic system)! LOL! The fade-out reveals the girl is the old witch�s granddaughter, abetting the transformation of chat room geeks into living mulch. Ostensibly, it�s TROLL 2 on sake but the metaphor is loud and clear: techno addicts reluctantly regress to their provincial roots (this sort of apathy in the "electronic age" was explored in PULSE).
Now let�s move on to the sixth bead. In the beginning, people are going crazy over this seal named Eddie. One group wants him released in the wild and the other group wants him to stay. The funniest subtitle was a hysterical old man screaming, "They say he should be released while still healthy, but if he�s healthy why can�t he stay here?" Here�s the twist: the old man�s grandson has a special power and tells him he hates the seal �cause Eddie is bad. Next thing you know, Eddie multiplies and legion of seals emerge from the water and mutate into monsters that eat the patrons. Seriously! The li'l boy uses his "power" to make all the Eddies explode but, in the process, the juvenile dies. At the end, you see more "Eddie eggs" underwater about to hatch. Great graphics in this unlikely hybrid of David Lynch meets Ivan Tors.
The seventh bead is about a telepathic family. One of two female twins is murdered; come to find out, the so-called "boyfriend" sold her organs to a hospital. Grandma & grandpa track him down with the help of the other twin and telepathically conspire to make his entire body explode (think of a lost WALTONS episode directed by David Cronenberg). This bead was pretty short, sweet, and to the point unlike the third and fourth bead. I believe the eighth bead was my favorite. A geeky schoolboy, intimidated by a bully, retreats home to his computer and logs onto a japanimation cartoon called "Nyanta to the Rescue." The adorable cartoon cat dismembers the bully, within its animated environment, via a magical puzzle machine. The next day, the kid finds out that the bully�s real life counterpart was actually sliced/diced. Communicating with his computer, the kid professes a hatred for everyone including his own family. Nyanta obligingly transforms everyone he hates into something he loves, including delicious delicacies. Next day, everyone he "hated" has disappeared. That night, he ask Nyanta to bring them all back. Nyanta complies but the reunion is handicapped when the gang shows-up as the living dead. Oops. I was disappointed that you only hear the kid screaming; the monster that negotiates the comeback is audibly manifested but I felt a bit cheated by the forfeiture of a matching image.
Finally, the ninth bead--a wife stabs her abusive husband--evokes DEAD OF NIGHT. Players from the preceding stories converge in the climactic scenes, e.g. a newscaster from the "Eddie" bead, chronicling the murder, chews the fat with players linked to past episodes.
I give PRAYER BEADS a 6.5 out of 10, mostly for the special FX; lapses of logic or coherency prevail but this Japanese import is tonic for fans who are sick of sequels and remakes.
Rating: 6.5/10
(Echo Bridge Home Entertainment)
Year: 2006
Directed by: Jeff Crook, Josh Crook
Writing credits: Jeff Crook, Josh Crook
Cast: Lauren Currie Lewis, Chris Ferry, Cody Darbe
Country: USA
Lauded by attendants of last year�s Sundance Film Festival, this film has divided horror fans. Adding up the assets and demerits, I�m somewhere in between. The film opens with our heroine jumping in a truck with her boyfriend�s bud (you see a tarp-wrapped body in the truck�s flatbed, prompting the suspicion that the corpse is her betrothed). She�s dropped-off at her house but the guy declines to leave the scene: he pounds on the door, volunteering to return an earring that she left in the truck. The girl refuses to open the door so the creepy dude obligingly deposits the earring on the doormat. After retrieving the bauble, she notices that the back door is unlocked. The guy jumps in, strikes the girl, drags her to the basement and�kills her? This is where the weird shit starts. She wakes up and is back at work before any of this action actually transpires. This time, her boyfriend�in lieu of the killer�is at the wheel of the truck. They retreat to her home but the girl�s mother is acting pretty strange. Oh, and I loved the "boyfriend hitting on mom" scene...very nice. Later that night, the young woman flashbacks/flash forwards (?) to her own death while bathing. Her mother is audibly whispering within the darkened basement. The next day, after her boyfriend tries to persuade her and a girlfriend to have a threesum�, she showers and experiences more flashbacks. It appears that compulsive cleanliness is a cue for jump cutting. This time, she "sees" the killer scrambling through the woods in an effort to elude the police. After exiting the shower, she sees herself as the killer in her mirror. Returning to work, the girl (apparently) spots the familiar predator. As she�s assaulted, the cops show-up and the woman learns�thanks to security cameras�that she was fighting with herself (no one else was in the store). You follow? Me neither.
Cops drive the poor li'l mixed-up girl home and then she has visions of her boyfriend getting hacked up; she wakes up in a truck that�s parked in a open field. The "killer" walks up, seats himself, punches her in the face and drives to her house. He cryptically informs her, "What is real is what you feel...when I cut your head off!" He drags her into the basement but there is still a background presence walking around the house. Then comes the money shot: the maniac literally rips-off her face in a scene that is decidedly more disturbing, but less graphic, than the makeshift surgery performed in the TEXAS CHAINSAW remakes. It�s not about the f/x. The guy (realistically) struggles with the incision and removal of the face (the sound effects add a gritty realism). I felt my own skin crawl. Then (more confusing shit) she wakes up in the store again..before her murder...this time, she hides behind a bush rather than conceding to a ride with her boyfriend...but the truck�s driver is revealed to be the psychopath.
After a bunch of bullshit, our heroine finds out the "killer" is named Duke and was shot by the cops for a string of murders....then the film proceeds to jump around through more flashbacks and you can�t even tell what is real anymore! This movie just goes on and on with confusing nonsense until the climactic disclosure (the girl is enlightened that is she is Duke?). Still bitching about HIGH TENSION and its ambiguous diddling truck driver/severed head shot? Try this movie on for size (very similar punch line to its French counterpart). I give this film a 4 and a big fat "WHAT THE F***?!"
Rating: 4/10
(Anthem Pictures)
Year: 2005
Directed by: Wayne Berwick, Ted Newsom
Writing credits: Ted Newsom
Cast: Kenneth Tobey, Bob Burns, Brinke Stevens
Country: USA
"I never flirt with second leads--they get killed-off in the fourth reel."
Allow me a flashback: when I originally screened ED WOOD, the film's historical distortions turned me off (a despondent Wood was pumped by an accidental encounter with Orson Welles? The debut of PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE was applauded by a packed house of juveniles?). Upon second and third viewings, I fell in love with the movie; I warmed-up to its sweet sentimentality, its love story (Wood and Bela Lugosi) and its deference to Hollywood's Grade-C denizens. The conclusion of the film, an epilogue that discloses the fate of its principal players, still evokes the same reaction: I simultaneously laugh and cry. Literally. I laugh because, in spite of the futility of their inflexible, poverty-row environment, the bravura of Wood's cronies survive (they've already forfeited dignity and have nothing else to lose). I cry because, somehow, their lack of achievement appears to turn triumphant (it's not that they didn't try, you gotta admire their chutzpah). Jump cut to the present--
NAKED MONSTER, one of the genre's equally poignant movies, is ostensibly an AIRPLANE-type farce. The film affectionately skewers 1950's "monster movie" cliches but cameo appearances--by actors who routinely fraternized with cheesy aliens and oversized critters--sometimes subvert the farcical milieu. Yeah, the jokes are funny (even the hoary chestnuts, e.g. "Erectus? He nearly killed us!") but there's an emotional core to the film. Did I laugh/cry at the conclusion? You bet your ass I did! The movie chronicles the final hurrah of veteran B-movie icons, many of whom have passed away since wrapping NAKED MONSTER: Robert Clarke (THE HIDEOUS SUN DEMON). John Agar (THE BRAIN FROM PLANET AROUS), Robert Shayne (INVADERS FROM MARS), Kenneth Tobey and Robert Cornthwaite (both incongruously best remembered for an A-film, THE THING), Gloria Talbott (I MARRIED A MONSTER FROM OUTER SPACE), Les Tremayne (ANGRY RED PLANET), Paul Marco (reprising his PLAN 9 role as Kelton the Cop), et al. And it appears the actors loved delivering the groan-inducing puns and punch lines. Co-director/writer Ted Newsom, who assembled the talent, has created something precious: a shrine whose inhabitants have been warmly eulogized because they yield to their drive-in turf.
Mr. Newsom devoted over ten years of his life into this low-budget production and the investment is more lucrative-and a hell of a lot more significant-than the extravagance wasted in corporate Hollywood's commerce. Newsom spoofs the staples of another generation's sci-fi (including the surplus of "disaster" stock footage which padded the likes of INVISIBLE INVADERS, one of Mr. Agar's films): but it's Newsom's love of these films, and especially the actors, that's especially infectious. It's likely that Newson made NAKED MONSTER as an uncompromising confection of '50 nostalgia, entirely resistant to the Jason/Freddy camp. It's obvious from the overture--a parody of William Castle's hucksterism (think MACABRE and THE TINGLER)--that Newsom focused on patronage appreciative of the 50s legacy (apparently, gorehounds haven't developed much of a tolerance for black and white film). One of his very few concessions to the venue is a cameo by '90s horror hotty Michelle Bauer (a wonderful, underrated comedienne. I only wish she would have had the opportunity to mix it up with Tobey or Agar).
NAKED MONSTER may be translated into a sort of SCARY MOVIE but this description underestimates the passion that kindled its decade-long production. The Tarantino films recount the '70s by facetiously flashing some sort of minor icon as an in-joke; Newson wears his heart on his sleeve, deflecting the "wink" for an embrace. It's my privilege to acknowledge his work as one of the most consequential movies of the new millennium; while today's splatter films compete for the continental marketing, the soul of THE NAKED MONSTER is comfortably lodged somewhere in Bronson Canyon (you gotta love a film with a SLIME PEOPLE gag; "I know how to stop your monster," insists Les Tremayne who starred in the '63 release, "--Poke sticks at it!").
Rating: 10/10
Footnote: The DVD includes a TV interview with the late Kenneth Tobey; I wish he would have decked the geeky moderator but Tobey manages to recount
behind-the-scenes vignettes that are worthy of preservation.
(Maverick Entertainment)
Year: 2007
Directed by: Michael Su
Cast: Mary Christina Brown, Steve Cryen, Sarah Diaz
Country: USA
Ever watch THE DATING GAME? I�ve occasionally reflected on the consequences of uniting a couple for some sort of cozy vacation. I mean, supposed they wound-up in a "romantic" backwoods region only to be savaged and eaten by Bigfoot? What, exactly, would be the repercussions for the network? It�s all open to speculation in a medium where Anna Nicole Smith�who could only find her way out of a trailer with a can opener�is venerated weeks after her demise. Smith�s fame is rooted in the league of Jesse Jackson p.r. parasites; exempting tabloid headlines, what did she accomplish? The media mourned the passing of John Kennedy, Jr. who twice flunked a bar exam, founded a failing magazine and wasn�t sufficiently trained to operate a vehicle that was the catalyst for his own death (Barbara Walters eulogized Kennedy with a vignette about keeping his cool in a studio when a camera light malfunctioned. Wow, what a gutsy guy�give that man a posthumous Purple Heart).
DOOMED should have explored the polemics of reality TV: contestants compete for a $50 million prize but have to survive a rustic existence on an island already occupied by flesh-eating zombies. Nice premise for a bit of burlesquing but the film lives down to its title. The intentional humor is squeezed out of a lame in-joke (yowza, the island is identified as Isola de Romero): okay, I wasn�t expecting Paddy Chayefsky but there�s no kvetching about an amoral dilemma (hell, the zombies should have been dethroned network stooges or a mindless public, sick of staring down plasma televisions, who drifted out of the DAWN OF THE DEAD mall). There�s plenty of punching, kicking climbing and running around but there�s nothing more poignant than a geeky hologram that drops platitudes about the players� options. Forfeiting satire, you�d think the filmmakers would have tailored DOOMED for exploitation addicts; but the movie is bereft of graphic violence and there�s absolutely zip T&A; (I would have bet the farm that pretty Sarah Diaz loses her shirt; instead, she�s literally carried away by zombies in a scene that looks like an outtake from HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL).
The filmmakers, one assumes, opted for an all-action venue but it�s pretty anemic; everything appears to be improvised. Cribbing THE RUNNING MAN, the rivals are all convicted felons whose survival insures their freedom. But there�s not much point to this subplot; they�re no more choleric than a Tupperware fraternity conspiring to walk out of a David Lynch movie. A political subtext may not be necessary (the lack of subtlety turned LAND OF THE DEAD into a pretentious diatribe) but even a "zombie" film needs a compass.
On the bright side, DOOMED isn�t as bad as HOUSE OF THE DEAD. And there�s a "twist" ending, already telegraphed by the shameless finale of TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE: THE BEGINNING, that serves-up some homage to Lucio Fulci�s ZOMBIE (debate among yourselves whether or not it was intentional).
Rating: 3/10
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