January 2008

1) Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992) ***: I haven’t seen this for some time, and going into it with what I know now about the Hammer studios aesthetic and Coppola’s roots with Corman, it gives the film a much more interesting context. This and Interview with a Vampire are the two big budget 90’s horror flicks I can wholeheartedly get behind, and looking back now its crazy to think of a straight period piece like this getting the attention that it did. I’ll admit the celeb status of Keanu and Wynona (especially the former) kind of take me out of the film when they’re on screen, but Gary Oldman and Anthony Hopkins are awesome to watch, and of course all the costumes and cinematography are all pro. This is a very cool film that’s aged quite well in my book.

2) Children of the Corn (1984) **
3) Children of the Corn II (1993) zilch: This is actually my first exposure to these fairly big name films, and I’m not as grossed out (at least by the first one) as I usually am with the Stephen King’s schtick. I think the thing that irks me about his stories is they all sort of seem like they were based on a premise that took maybe 10 seconds to think of. Like, you see your cat pounce at something that’s not there and you think “huh, what if there was really a monster he was trying to attack, and I just didn’t see it?” There you go, Cat’s Eye. “Man, this car seems to have a mind of its own sometimes. Wait, what if a car really DID have a mind of its own, and it was EVIL?” There you go, Christine. Or then there’s the “normal, everyday things that are evil” bit. Evil dog: Cujo, evil clown: It, and of course, evil kids: Children of the Corn. Shit, you can probably guess how this one came about as well: from driving through “the heartland” listening to religious radio and going “Man, these old time religion folks are nuts…And look at all this corn…What if there was like, something evil happening behind all those corn rows?” And that’s the short and long of Children of the Corn. I keep going back and forth on whether this was below-average or just average, but what I really dig about the first movie is there are so many common sense moments and rational reactions you don’t normally see in a horror movie. Like when all the creepy kids close in on him with knives and torches and stuff, instead of freaking out like you’d expect, the protagonist is just like “What are you kids doing? Come here, give me that. You really believe this stuff? C’mon!” And, you know, it works, ‘cause they’re all kids. Of course they kind of blow it by making the nutty supernatural stuff the cult of kids worship “real,” which is a total Shyamalan style arbitrary “twist!” and kind of detracts from the anti-fundamentalist theme the whole movie was building up to, but whatever. The second movie isn’t even real, it sucks so much ass. There’s some total “state of the art” Lawnmower Man ass CGI bullshit going on too, and one of those super convoluted plots that tries to somehow justify all the supernatural stuff in the first flick as a hallucination from rotting corn or something? Also there’s some corny “Indians love earth, white man kills it” sentiment, coupled with a deadbeat dad trying to “forge a relationship” with his sons subplot that just makes me want to puke.

4) Blackenstein (1973) **: I’ll tell you what really stands out about this film for me is its total amorality. When the brother becomes the “Blackenstein” monster, he starts by offing this orderly who was kind of being a dick to the brother when he was in the hospital. That’s a basic revenge, okay. Then there’s just some random man and wife who you didn’t see before, who were in bed, in their home. Okay, senseless, whatever. Then you got this horndog teen trying to make out with this chick who’s not having it. The chick gets out of the car, and then you expect the horny boyfriend to get it, right? Nope, it’s the girl who went through all that trouble to keep her chastity. Later on we get to a nightclub full of fly looking black folks. Now, certainly BLACKenstein only kills whites, right? Nope, kills this dude and rips out this fly soul sister’s guts for basically no reason. The killings continue with basically no pattern or reasoning behind them, and the story ends arbitrarily with Blackenstein getting eaten alive by some police Dobermans. In a way the total lack of rhyme or reason adds to the charm, and in a way it makes the film kind of tedious. There’s actually some pretty cool work done with shadows and cheap effects, so the movie’s at least cool to look at, and it’s certainly a, uh, unique experience, so I’d say it’s worth seeing once.

5) The Living Coffin (1958) **: Here’s a Mexican horror/Western with a pretty Scooby Doo plot based around a ghost and a goldmine. There’s a good bar fight, and the ghost is genuinely cool looking, so what the hell, if you’re easy to please and like cheap aesthetics, why not this?

6) Psycho Sisters (AKA Siblings, AKA So Evil My Sister) (1973) *: Pretty dull made for TV movie with a lot of betrayal, twists and intrigue…If you can stay awake. Basically you got a crazy sister and a not crazy sister, and the not crazy sister is trying to take care of the crazy one who just got out of the sanitarium, but the problem is, not crazy sister wants the crazy one back in the sanitarium for some money or something, and instead of rehabilitating her, tries to spook her out. There are some cool “going crazy” effects, a comically bad “mentally handicapped” gardener for all you Other Sister and I Am Sam fans, and a decent corpse. Like I said, though, not enough good to really keep your interest.

7) Blue Demon Vs. Satanic Powers (1960) *: Hmmm, this is my introduction to Mexican wrestling flicks, and I’m basically not impressed. Well, I will say I don’t speak Spanish and there’re no subtitles for this, but that honestly didn’t hinder my appreciation too much I don’t think. Here you got an evil magician type with “satanic powers” that include throwing a chick in an incinerator, controlling people’s minds, and probably some other stuff I missed. Obviously the main draw with these films is the wrestling, which is impressive and cool looking (lots and lots of flips and tumbles), but I’m not a big wrestling fan so a lot of that’s lost on me. I dig old buff dudes who’re fat, cheap “satanic powers” effects, and there’s a great scene with a Mexican girl doing a cool R&B song and dance number, so that’s enough eye candy to keep me interested, but I don’t know if I’ll be digging deeper into this stuff.

8) The Vampire Lovers (1970) ***: I saw this last year and didn’t realize ‘til I was about halfway through. I’m glad I didn’t though, because the first time I saw I thought “huh, Hammer flick with some skin, cool,” but watching this now I realize what a truly brilliant film it is. I mean, on paper it’s pretty standard: voluptuous vampire countess makes buddy buddy with aristocrats, gets the hots for ladies of the house and starts turnin’ ‘em into bloodsuckers. What makes this film so exceptional, though, is that it’s just so over the top and lush that every frame on screen is pure pleasure to look at. Yes, there is the aforementioned nekkid ladies given the soft light and negligee treatment who just ooze sensuality, but there’s also just tons of great sets, costumes, and of course the requisite fog and graveyards. And there’s this odd homosocial theme I can’t really make sense of. The film begins with lots of heterosexual activity at a cotillion, and ends with a man and woman coupling up, but the bulk of the film is made up of the lesbian relationship between the vampire and her host in one camp, and the men in their camp plotting how to destroy the mysterious vampire. There’s not a lot of interaction between the men and women, so on one hand the film can be seen as pretty daring for showing these sorts of relationships in a positive light. On the other hand, the ending is the standard “male hero saves the day and gets the girl” affair. Still, just the fact that there’s that sort of layering to the story makes it a unique watch. Highly recommended.

9) Gruesome Twosome (1967) **: Killer HG Lewis flick about an old lady and her retarded son’s wig shop. But how do they get such realistic wigs? The old lady has her kid kill women. That’s how they get their wigs. Killing. Anyhoo, what’s really interesting about HG’s flicks, aside from just being shining examples of cheap American drive-in schlock, is his utter refusal to acknowledge any sort of counter culture in his films. Richard Meltzer once wrote a piece on “the other 60’s,” which was about the pre-hippie 60’s of nifty and neato teens and the maturation of the 50’s teen aesthetic. This is the 60’s which this film dwells, to a nearly comic level. I mean, here it is, ’67, this milestone year for psychedelia, social reform and counter culture in general, and you got this jock boyfriend who’s really bummed his girlfriend’s “playing Nancy Drew,” and like, LITERALLY snooping around. Lewis is largely credited with creating first slasher with ‘62’s Bloodfeast, namely for the excessive amounts of blood, and here you have a complete anticipation of the dualistically conservative and sensational approach to 80’s American slashers. Sure there’s tons of explicit and mindless blood and gore sure to turn off the “traditional values” crowd, but authority is never challenged (indeed, cops arrive basically the second you call them), and all the teens are just too keen to get out of line, but you know if they did it’d be all over for ‘em. Yessir, Lewis was a genius, and Gruesome Twosome is just another testament to that fact.

10) The Final Terror (1983) *: Kids in the woods, ‘nam flashbacks, copious amounts of marijuana…Can any of this be good? Did anyone tell these kids it was 1983 and Friday the 13th just blew everyone’s expectations at the box office? Vestron doing what they do here in a formulaic but fun 80’s slasher. It’s quite lite on the gore and nudity, so the casual fan might want to make this a low priority.

11) Blood of Nostradamus (1961) ***: This one’s a keeper! This is a beautiful atmospheric Mexican flick about a vampire, Nostradamus, terrorizing various inhabitants of a small town. The scene where Nostradamus plays his violin for shadows who come out of their coffins and dance is worth the price of admission. The bat transformations are great too. If you’re the type who just likes to sit back and enjoy cool shadow work, than this one’s for you.

12) Zombie Lake **: Jean Rollin with an assist from Jess Franco on this one. Hmmm, I suspect Franco might have more to do with this than just cowriter, no? Maybe it’s the reckless zooming, I dunno. Cool flick regardless. Lots of girls taking their clothes off to swim (complete with underwater split beav) and green faced zombie Nazis coming to get ‘em. Not a think piece, obviously, but for a crappy zombie flick, this is pretty entertaining.

13) Werewolf of Washington (1973) **: This one’s not too bad, actually. The president’s press secretary (or some such office) goes to Hungary and gets bit by a werewolf. A gypsy gives him an amulet to stop him from going all lycantrhope, and he promptly FLUSHES THE AMULET DOWN THE TOILET FOR NO REASON. You can guess what happens next. There are some surprisingly cool shots here, namely the werewolf attacking the girl in the phonebooth sequence. I will say I only saw the film a few days ago and can’t remember the ending to save my life, so it’s not THAT great, but better than you might expect.

14) The Black Cat (1981) **: Cool Fulci flick that plays more like a 60’s/early 70’s gothic supernatural thriller in the Hammer vein (minus the period costumes, of course) than the flick that came between City of the Living Dead and Beyond. If you want gore, look elsewhere, but there’re enough interesting visuals in this one to keep my interest.

15) Death Game (1977) ***: I really liked this one! Two lolita girls terrorize this poor bastard in his own home. Okay, they don’t get too out of hand, and most of the time you’re kind of scratching your head wondering how these two teenage girls can overpower a grown ass man, but what makes this work so well is one, the girls are great. It’s not that they’re smokin’ hot or anything, but they just have the look and act of trashy, nihilistic, teenage runaways down pat. Second, the scenario is actually kind of chilling: this guy’s just hanging out in his house, his wife’s out of town, these two crazy broads show up, and his life becomes a nightmare. “It could happen to you!” and all that. And three, there’s just an overall grittiness to the film that really captures the mundane qualities of daily middle class life in the 70’s, and how mindless violence is an almost sane reaction to the doldrums of suburbia. It’s very similar to the vibe you get watching Over the Edge, in that life, even a life of comfort, is just so cheap. I highly recommend this one.

16) Trauma (1993) **: Huh, I had no idea watching this it was so late in the game. The film plays like a contemporary of his 80’s stuff like Phenomena or Tenebre, and that it was made 10 years after the fact shows that Argento’s a real film maker…Uh, maybe a little too real, in that his films almost have a mainstream quality to them, without much difference superficially than, say, a John Carpenter flick. Of course Argento’s technique is what puts him ahead of the game, and this is a fine example of a slicker looking horror film with enough substance that it doesn’t make you feel like you’re watching an episode of the OC.

17) May (2002) zilch: Ah, the bullshit you see when you land on IFC. I fucking H A T E movies like this where the whole gimmick is that there’s some weird but sexy hot-chick-who-doesn’t-know-she’s-hot who gets inexplicably shot down by every guy in the film, which of course leaves your pathetic ass sitting there going “oh, don’t worry, I’ll be your boyfriend and be really good to you” while crybating to Nick Drake. This is like a sappy John Cusack flick for the Donny Darko set. Chicks like this don’t exist. There’s enough media reinforcement out there (such as this flick) to assure that any super lithe, quirky looking thrift shop white girl out there KNOWS exactly how hot she is, and thus she KNOWS she can do better than you, who are only attracted to bullshit fabricated character archetypes like her because underneath your coffee shop façade you’re really just as misogynistic as the frat boys you rail against, and just don’t want to deal with or can’t handle a confident, well adjusted woman. Oh, and the movie? Yeah, it’s dogshit. Our little emaciated quirky screen darling loses her mind and cuts off the parts she likes from different people who spurn her throughout the film in order to make a human doll. The character development is really grating (she plays with dolls, HOW WEIRD, and she works as a surgeon’s assistant and is interested in forensics, THAT’S SO INTERESTING, and she has trouble relating to people WOW, I CAN RELATE TO HER SO MUCH, I TOTALLY WANT TO BE IN THE SAME ROOM AS THIS PERSON) and the whole look of the film is mired in that cold kind of post Tim Burton generic “spooky indie” look. I mean, really, picking on 95% of what they show on IFC is just shooting fish in a barrel, and not because of low budgets or anything like that, but it’s always such an inept attempt at being serious. I haven’t seen United 93, but I’m sure it’s a better film (not a more entertaining flick, but honest to goodness genuinely better cinema) than whatever’s playing on that channel right now.

18) Blood of Dracula’s Castle (1969) *: Here you have
an old vampire couple in an old castle, a handful of
vampire fugitives, a photographer/model couple who
move in next door, and all the wacky hijinks that
ensue. This one’s quite schlocky and not as heavy on
the atmosphere as a good old-vampires-in-a-castle
movie should be, but still, the acting is almost
needlessly above par. The digs the photographer makes
on his model girlfriend make for uncharacteristically
endearing characters, and the old vampire couple seems
more 70’s schmaltz than European gothic. There’s
still plenty of groans to be had, because this IS
drive-in (made for TV, even) b movie trash, but
this’ll hold your attention at least. As they say,
“I’ve seen worse.”

19) Nightmare on Elm Street II (1985) zilch: Yo, I
don’t give a fuck, I didn’t grow up with this
franchise, I owe this movie nothing, and when you
strip this flick of the nostalgia factor all you have
a budget-ass cash in. The death scenes are all
subpar, the cast is made up of obnoxious, squeaky
clean teens, and if this came out today it’d probably
be PG-13. You’re seriously way better off watching
straight to video post-Scream retardation than this
after school special.

20) I Will Dance on Your Grave: Savage Vengeance
(1993) zilch: I give this zilch because I love,
because deep down I think this film would want it that
way. It’s shot on video negative budget TRASH that
plays like a 14 year old’s impression of the “revenge”
genre. You MIGHT be able to guess from the title, but
this is basically an inept homage (insult, ripoff,
cash in, take your pick) to I Spit on Your Grave.
Girls get raped, guys get killed. Unlike I Spit On
Your Grave’s masterful portrayal of the brutality of
rape as an ongoing, trudging ordeal with
psychologically traumatizing consequences, “IWDOYG:
Savage Vengeance” is more about a guy ripping a girl’s
blouse and getting on top of her and just sort of
writhing around a bit. She’ll come back with a
variety of weapons in some very by-the-numbers SOV
death scenes, but still, don’t expect to be repulsed
or titillated by these rapes. There’s still an
undeniable charm in the film’s ineptitude, and though
it plays like a two starrer, especially at 60 minutes
long (they knew when to cut their losses) in the end I
think everyone’s happier with this getting an honorary
zilch.

21) Vortex (2000) *: This story focuses on a Japanese town where everyone starts freaking out over spirals for no real reason. Lots of freaky shit goes down: people turn into snails, this dude swirls his whole body up into a spiral and the body count goes up. Really though, you’re supposed to get sucked into the atmosphere here, which is very cold and like “post industrial.” There’s allusions to a curse on the town, but it’s never made clear why. Personally? I could care less. The visuals were less than amazing and really marred by CGI, and this was just overall too stylistic for my liking. I dunno, if you thought Pi was amazing, you’ll probably go gah gah over this (there are similar themes of obsession in both films, with similarly disastrous results), but to me this is just trying too hard to be quirky. I mean, it’s a Japanese flick (probably the only reason anyone would watch this), so like, maybe I don’t “get it,” but whatever, shit was boring regardless of what country it’s from.

22) Sister Sister (1987) zilch: Here you got a crazy sister and her sane sister who cares for her. The sane one has some chip on her shoulder over this and…Who cares. Really, this one just could not hold my attention. It’s a “paced” American gothic thriller though, so like, “not my thing.” Whatever.

23) Night of the Intruder (1989) **: Here’s an above par slasher with a lot of interesting camera technique and a premise that gets the job done. Premise being: an ex-boyfriend decides tonight’s the night to win back his girl, who’s a checkout clerk at a grocery store. She’s not havin’ it, and as the night rolls on, the body count rises. Some killer death scenes and camera trickery reminiscent of Evil Dead (Raimi and Campbell are both peripherally involved in this) makes this a “slaher fan’s slasher flick.” I was pretty into this one. I mean, there’s an attempt to break the mold without going overboard stylistically, and there’s definitely good vibes as far as being an obviously independent production (they probably had access to the grocery store before they even thought about doing the movie and based the premise around that), plus this one kept me in my seat without watching the clock waiting for the death scenes. So yes, this does what it’s supposed to do. Good job.

24) Crawlspace (1986) *: Psycho nazi descendent with an addiction to killing (in his own words) spies on and offs various apartment tenants by crawling through the (can you guess?) CRAWLSPACE in the building. There’s some psychosexual stuff going on, like the girl the dude keeps locked in a cage, and heavy doses of voyeurism (though not enough skin), and though this is by all means a competent film, it could stand to be a bit more over the top.

25) Daughters of Satan (1972) **: I really liked this one. I mean, don’t expect much from the plot: There’s a chick who gets possessed by a witch and has to kill her husband, whose descendents were part of a witch burning awhile back, so it’s pretty standard stuff, but there’s some killer Satanic ritual footage, and of course you got Selleck’s charisma which oozes off the screen even then. The film’s pretty standard, but there’s a certain character to it that just clicked with me. Maybe it’s the 70’s schmaltz, maybe it’s the chained up nekkid ladies, I dunno. I will say it should have ended maybe 5 minutes early, though.

26) Buried Alive (1990) *: Fairly by-the-numbers Argento ripoff. You got a school for girls, a chick who comes to teach and freaks out over these hallucinations, and as girls start disappearing, the teacher lady gets nosey and bad stuff goes down. There’s some cool scenes with the lady hallucinating, and this recurring visual of ants. Not the freakiest of bugs they could have used, but it does the trick. This is pretty watchable, but a horror movie at a girl’s school with no shower scene? FOR SHAME!

27) Demons (1985) ***: Wow, a Lamberto Bava flick I can really get behind! Plot? People start turning into demons (think faster zombies with claws) at a free horror movie screening and all hell breaks loose. Alright, I’ll cut to the chase and say there’s a guy riding his motorcycle up and down the aisles slicing up demons with a samurai sword while heavy metal blares in the background for basically no reason. Not enough for you? Okay, how about a gang of punks cruising around snorting cocaine from a coke can, a demon bursting out of some chicks back and cops getting sliced up. Still want more? Why are you even reading this then? Really though, this is a well crafted and over the top, but not quite campy, horror flick with great special effects back when that actually meant something. Cool stuff.

28) Night of the Bloody Apes (1969) **: Wow, great Mexican schlock here. There’s a son who’s dying of some disease, and his father, a mad scientist type, tries to help him by fusing his blood with that of an ape. Think that leads to anything good? You are WRONG, sir. What you get is a dude, probably a Mexican wrestler, with that “strong/fat” physique (my favorite body type) running around in a crude ape mask ravaging women and brutalizing men. There’re these scenes of Mexican wrestling interjected for basically no reason, which doesn’t hurt, “cheesy” gore and a fair amount of skin for eye candy. This all translates into a really watchable b movie.

29) Brain of Blood (1972) **: This movie was made right after Dracula Vs. Frankenstein and has much of the same cast, including the INSANELY cool ZANDOR VORKOV (you wish you had a name that cool) who played Drac in the aforementioned flick. This is a shining example of American drive-in trash that goes into borderline HG Lewis territory as far as its self consciousness as trash and willingness to go overboard. I mean, this was dated even for its time by about a decade, so expect schlock, but the kind of schlock that would never trick you into thinking it was anything else.