"...You people have more tenacity than I do stamina."
Originally made as a 3-D movie (get the title now), this anthology horror turd is more full of vaudevillian robots and boom mic shots than coming at your face shit. Though, coming at your face shit totally happens. The film opens with a smoke machine in a graveyard or what appears to be the backdrop of a haunted house ride at your local county fair. In case you think this is a bad thing, you should stop reading this now, only because you will not fully appreciate this low budget ill-informed masterpiece of b-movie badness if you do not appreciate those rubber mummies that jump out with the help of an air compressor to shout "Gawh!" at you on a run-down haunted house ride. Also, stop interrupting me.
"I got your nose!"
Anyway... not so suddenly an animatronic skeleton in tattered clothes opens the top of a coffin which the camera does a long focus on. Then the skull face precedes to stare into your soul with his eyelid-less eye holes that each contain a glass eye. This happens for an uncomfortable five seconds before he moves his robotic bone jaw and introduces himself. His name is Igor and he wants to warn you about how shitty life is by telling you three random stories. Also, he might be the dead skeleton of the host of The Twilight Zone because he sounds like him. That, or this is some lame rip-off ploy to make an homage slash allusion to a recognized franchise, but clearly from the outset, this movie is way too honest to resort to cheap mimicry.
The vultures reflect on possible better homages.
Now, back to the above cheap mimicry...Igor's quips are joined by the punchlines of surrounding chatty animatronic vultures. Two of them appear to be Laurel and Hardy while three of them are rather stoogey. Or maybe they're all just from New York. Either way...AH! PLASTIC BAT IN YOUR FACE YOU UNSUSPECTING ASSHOLE!!! Anyway, (you totally thought you were going to get rabies just then! You are so gullible) these really like to berate each other in a harsh, yet playful way for some reason.
While this mystery goes unsolved, Igor begins his first story about two adoption agents that are heading to an unorthodox appointment with potential adoptive parents in the middle of the night in a castle in the woods. The male adoption agent is skeptical, while the female adoption agent is female. Also, she mentions feeling some sort of unexplainable need to accommodate the potential adoptive parent dude she spoke with because, oh, she doesn't know. She just did. Once they arrive to the castle, it is clear this story is creeping up on very recognizable vampire-type territory. Two pale people with fierce hair and lots of flowing clothes welcome them in shitty Romanian accents. Yep. These Euro-trash dick farts are clearly vampires (and bad character actors). Once the agents enter the castle, the female agent continues to be charmed by the male vampire potential adoptive father while the male agent is sane and is creeping the fuck out.
"Velcome to our humblaahe ablaahode!"
The are-they-or-aren't-they Brangelina of vampires discuss their burning need to add to their growing food supply brood. The male agent rejects this while the female agent promises to bring them a little boy. Flash forward to some poor adolescent orphan being dumped at this couple's castle. As they tuck him into bed and it becomes more and more apparent they are planning on totally sucking his blood or eating him or refusing to sleep with him because they love him so much or whatever, (vampire lore seems to change too often these days) shit gets real. If I ruin it, it will be ruined and I actually think you should see this movie. The "twist" is campy good, though it might be familiar to some since the story is originally from an issue of the old bi-monthly horror comic, Haunt of Fear that was also reproduced later (and better) in an episode of the HBO series, Tales From the Crypt. Though this version has an added twist to the twist which I didn't see coming.
"Why not just kill you guys? Gross. We only drink the
blood of unwanted children."
The next two stories become more twisted I guess, but are not any less goofy. If you hate rats or love kittens and grandmas, abort. The second story involves two grave robbers that double cross a kindly old and fat kitten-loving groundskeeper of a cemetery in the hopes that they can find some alleged entrance in the graveyard that leads to dead people gold treasure or something. Somehow this goes awry for both parties. The rats in the graveyard basement do not appreciate having their dead people gold treasure stolen and express as much.
"Mom, Grandma is trying to
kiss us with a shotgun again!"
The last story in the anthology is about another kindly old person, except this one is a woman in a wheelchair and claims to be a grandma. Two unsuspecting grandchildren are dropped off at Grandma's house a week before Christmas by their self-absorbed shitty parents and must endure the next few days before their parents return. Initially, everything is cool. They open presents, drink cocoa, push around Grandma's wheelchair and pretend to listen to her old people stories. Then, Grandma apparently runs out of don't-shoot-people pills and the kids learn how to hide well and cry quietly. Don't worry, someone saves the day and yes, that means Santa totally kills Grandma by shooting her crippled ass out of a chimney. I'm not sure if this should be applauded, but nevermind. I though about it and it should. Bottom line, this shitty anthology is worth a viewing. Especially if you have beer and chips and salsa handy. 3D glasses and/or high expectations not required or advised.
Shit Flying At Your Face:6 Dead Old People:2 Children Threatened With Violence:3-6 Vaudeville References:5? Animatronic Things:6 Times The Talking Skeleton Actually Creeped Me Out:3 Kittens:5 Rats:Infinity Graveyard Scenes: 2 Children Fostered By Vampires: 6 Capes:1 Twilight Zone References:8 Santa Cameos: 1-2
This week in suggested shit, I encourage you to check out a very funny and revealing podcast by a friend of mine and former TEC Podcast guest, filmmaker Jason Ryan. The podcast is calledReal Adult Feelings and it's pretty self explanatory, but don't worry, there is a lot of sarcasm and wit in case being all open with your friends sometimes makes you uncomfortable like it does me. The hosts of the podcast, Jason and "Billy Bones" are just two twenty-something dudes talking about relationships, sex and other stuff. It's pretty entertaining and sometimes even informative.
They recently kicked off season two a few weeks ago and to start off, had myself and previous TEC Podcast guest Colin Thiel as their vey first guests of the season. If you want to know about period guns, the time Colin passed up sex for The Birds, Billy Bones' revelations at Burning Man, Jason's New York regrets, the time I genuinely thought I was a werewolf and how I really feel about my shitty ex-boyfriend from high school, you can check out our particular episode, "Missed Opportunities (& AIDS)"HERE! For all other episodes check out the link on Real Adult Feelings above or download them on iTunes!
Do you remember when you were a kid and sometimes you would peruse the horror movie section just to freak yourself out a bit? In honor of a recent Halloween episode of the Scarecrow Video podcast that discussed this such subject amongst other things, I decided to do my very own list of VHS covers that scared the shit out of me as a kid. Some movies were valid, but many turned out later to be utter shit, either way, a picture is worth a thousand head explosions/female screams sometimes. You can find the Scarecrow Video podcast on their website as well as iTunes.
Happy Birthday to Me (1981)
I think this one is pretty self-explanatory why it freaked me out as a kid. It's a pretty basic fear to be impaled or be killed by having something shoved in her mouth and or face. The kebab itself looks kind of tasty though. The gimmick of this film was to boast that all the kills in it are "bizarre." By today's standards of course, they are pretty tame and boring. Unfortunately I didn't see this one until high school and by then I'd seen a lot worse. The gore is rather good though and the story your basic, is the weird girl the killer premise. The first kill which really should have set the tone for the remainder of the "bizarre murders" of the film is rather tame. A girl gets her throat slashed after being strangled. Either way, it's definitely a fun slasher flick and one I often rent on my own birthday.
It's Alive (1974)
This image has stayed with me all my life. It's not shocking or gory. It's creepiness is subtle and slow burning and it definitely scared the shit out of me as a kid. What's in the basket?!? What IS wrong with the baby?!? What the fuck is up with it's hand?!? Why can't I see this alone?!? The image of the baby carriage turned just away from the viewer which somehow manages to make the mystery of it incredibly menacing has become somewhat iconic. Copied several times by Basket Case sequels, the It's Alive promotional campaign and cover art remains for me one of the greatest uses of subtle demonic imagery that causes the viewer to imagine the absolute worst in whatever their own personal nightmare might be. What's more frightening than that?
A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child (1989)
Speaking of demonic baby carriages, it wasn't so much the mystery of the monster in the basket to me for this one as it was the horrifying photos on the back of the cover. As a kid I had a HUGE phobia of vomiting. This was a result of being puked on at least once in every grade in elementary school as well as having watching The Karen Carpenter Story when I was four. The image of the girl on the back being force fed by Freddy only to have her face explode in vomit was probably for me at the time, the most frightening thing I could ever imagine.
"Rainy days and Mondays always get me down..."
Troll (1986)
You might notice there is a bit of a pattern here when it comes to little things that kill people. Troll was no exception. The movie itself is rather tame. The original Troll makeup is kind of creepy, but the storyline is actually somewhat kid appropriate. In fact, there are conspiracy theories that J.K. Rowling stole many of the elements for her Harry Potter novels from this film such as the main boy being named Harry Potter who must learn ancient magic from the secret sorceress who is living in his apartment building in order to battle the evil Troll and his magical ring. Who knows. The movie is somewhat entertaining and definitely a lot lighter fare than the menacing Troll on the cover would suggest.
Night of the Demons (1988)
It's kind of too bad that this video cover scared the shit out of me as a kid just because when I actually saw the film later when in high school, it became one of my favorite horror movies of all time. The story is your basic teenage haunted house party goes awry when demons start possessing people and killing them, but there are some great elements that make this movie a stand out in the genre. The characters are fairly memorable, including a fat guy named Stooge with a surfer accent and painted fades in his hair that calls every girl "babe" and is just trying to party. Night of the Demons also began my love affair with B-movie goddess, Linnea Quigley. Anyhow, definitely check out this film. The demon make up is great, there are plenty of tits and one-liners and Linnea Quigley sticks a tube of lipstick into her nipple while possessed by a demon. All that aside, the cover is still fucking creepy, right?
The Howling (1981)
Although I consider this film to now be one of my favorite horror movies, I wasn't able to watch it fully until my twenties. Most of my life I have had an incredible fear of werewolves. I think it stems from a general sense of germaphobia. Either way, the transformation scenes and werewolf makeup in this film actually scared the shit out of me until adulthood. I'll be honest, while googling the VHS cover for the movie, I did get a little uncomfortable looking at all the werewolf pictures. I'm a pussy okay, I'll admit it, but you have to admit this cover is ingeniously horrifying. Especially if you happen to be an impressionable little fat kid who is scared shitless of werewolves.
The Blob (1988)
The video cover for the 1988 remake of The Blob, BY FAR, frightened me more than any other horror movie cover as a kid. In fact, I had a hard time going to my local video store when this display was up for a few months. The movie isn't too scary, but is far superior to the original and the special effects really hold up to this day. The acting is a little shitty, but this is definitely made up for by all of the intense and horrifying kills committed by the pink blob ooze. This movie is a must see for any horror fan. Look at this cover though! What the fuck! It still creeps me out a little to this day! Genius!
All Hallow's Weiner is nearly upon us and to celebrate, I decided to compile a list of some of my favorite horror movies that are not only underrated, but may actually scare you. Not only that, but you they will most likely not be rented out of your local video store such as your more common horror fare around Halloween season. Listen, going out to the movies is expensive. Especially if you were planning on paying the five extra dollars to see your shitty movie in 3-D. So how about instead you save some pocket change, avoid social interaction, relax at home and curl up with a bowl of candy and a good horror movie on cassette with your video home system! That's what Halloween is all about!
The Dead Next Door (1988)
Perhaps one of the most underrated zombie movies of all time, The Dead Next Door is an independent, low-budget, small town, post-zombie apocalypse tale about an "elite" group of soldiers known as "The Zombie Squad" who have been enlisted by the United States government to seek and destroy any and all zombies they come across. Squad members not only have to drive around their Midwestern town and shoot mindless zombies all day, they also have to deal with the a religious cult who consider zombism a higher form of existence and are out to protect the zombies, sort of. Kind of like a misguided zombie PETA. Turns out though, the cult is really hiding a huge secret (religion and secrets? Blasphemy!) and the real reason the cult leader is attempting to save zombies is to capture them and perform tests on them in order to save his son who is secretly zombified. At some point in the film, one of the squad members is infected and the "Doc" back at government headquarters injects him with an experimental cure. All it achieves is to accelerate the zombification process and leave the infected guy completely lucid, which is pretty torturous considering he is slowly rotting and is forced to eat people's brain meat.
Made on an extremely low budget, filmed entirely in Akron, Ohio and financed with royalties from Evil Dead 2 by Sam Raimi himself, The Dead Next Door is one of my personal favorites. Many of the characters names are homages to horror kingpins with last names like Savini, Carpenter, Raimi and Romero. Even Bruce Campbell dubs the voices for two of the characters. This film isn't necessarily scary, but because it's so extremely low budget, the dialogue is mostly dubbed and many of the scenes are horribly lit and very dark. This works to enhance a lot of the zombie makeup and adds sort of a shadowy mystery to the atmosphere of the movie. It scared the shit out of me as a kid, especially the low-grade gore, but it's more creepy and unsettling now instead of scary. Check out the carnage below.
Bad Moon (1996)
Based off a novel entitled Thor and written and directed by the writer of the vampire film Near Dark, Bad Moon has to be, and I'm absolutely sure of this, THE MOST underrated werewolf film of ALL TIME, SPOILERS to follow. Basically it surrounds the story a photo journalist Ted, played by Michael Pare (Eddie and the Cruisers, Streets of Fire) who while on a expedition with his girlfriend in Nepal is attacked (in the middle of a graphic sex scene) by a cock-blocking werewolf. His girlfriend is killed and he is scarred, but survives. He then decides to take his inevitable curse with him to live in a van trailer by a river in the woods of Oregon near his older sister, a single mother Janet (Mariel Hemmingway) who is a tough-talking lawyer and lives with her cherubic son Dennis the Menace Brett (Mason Gamble) and their well-trained overprotective family dog, a German Shepard named Thor. In congruent with the original novel, neither of these people are the main character, but rather most of the story, after the initial opening in Nepal, is told through the point of view of Thor.
Janet invites Ted to move his trailer onto her property to be closer to the family after she learns of his devastating loss in Nepal. After much reluctance, he agrees. The minute Uncle Ted arrives at their home, Thor senses something off about him and begins watching him closely. One night Ted leaves his trailer to enter the woods and Thor follows him. What Thor eventually sees, is Ted chaining himself to a large tree and turning into a pretty frightening looking werewolf. After this, Thor tries in the best way he can to warn his family by attacking Ted every time he comes near them, pissing on his feet and refusing to leave the spot from his watch of the front door of Ted's trailer.
In order to get rid of Thor, Ted frames him for the murders he has been committing in were-form and Thor is sent off to a dog pound to be euthanized. Don't worry though, Brett knows this is all bullshit and sneaks out at night to help Thor escape. Just in time too because stupid-ass Janet had just decided to go check out what all the racket in the woods was. A full-on German Shepard vs. werewolf battle ensues and it sounds cheesy, but the fact that at this point you're sort of attached to this dog and seeing things through his prospective, you can't wait until he saves the family and kicks Uncle Ted's ass. I absolutely LOVE this movie and not only because I found the story interesting and unique for a were-wolf tale, but also because the werewolf suit in it is totally legit and actually looks frightening in action. If you like werewolf films, especially ones sans CGI effects, Bad Moon is a MUST see. The trailer doesn't really do this film justice, but feel free to watch it below.
The Beast Within (1982)
I remember attempting to watch this movie as a young kid, probably around 8 years old. Because I'm a germaphobe, I've always been easily scared by movies involving parasites or possession of any kind. I'll be honest, I never made it through the entire first two viewings of this film. The first time because I got way too freaked out and the second time was due to the fact my mom turned it off, but when I got older and no one was around to cock-block horrifying beast-rape scenes, I was able to finish the film. If I didn't already give it away, this movie is largely about beast-rape. A couple on their honeymoon driving through a sleepy Southern town in Mississippi are stranded when they're car gets a flat tire. The husband leaves his attractive wife alone at night on a deserted road in the South so he can go alone to the nearest town to find help. Not surprisingly, she is attacked and raped, but the surprising part is her rapist, who you never fully see on camera, is not a creepy toothless redneck, but a hulking mindless monster beast of some kind. The rape scene is not entirely graphic, she is basically attacked and knocked unconscious by claws and dinosaur roars and while lying on the ground has her dress ripped off and is suddenly oddly moving in a up and down motion. Still pretty bad and a little too brutal for an 8 year-old I suppose. Her husband returns to find her naked, bloody and unconscious and rushes her to the police car he arrived in.
Cut to 17 years later and turns out they have a massive memory haunting them every day of that rape, a 17 year-old son named Michael. Michael becomes ill with a mysterious and possible fatal disease, so his parents decide they must return to that town in Mississippi in hopes of locating his biological father/mother's rapist whose genetic makeup may be the key to saving their son. What happens from there are two basic story lines, the investigation of Michael's parents in determining exactly who or what is his father and Michael's story after he breaks out of the hospital and heads to Mississippi on his own and begins to transform into the beast that made him.
Although this film is considered campy by some, I've always found the gory effects rather gruesome and the overall acting abilities of everyone cast in the film helps to actually engage you into the storyline. The story itself is rather disturbing I think and rape scenes included, this one may still be able to shock a first time viewer. Michael'sWTF transformation scene alone, although lengthy, is still rather effective and pretty nasty. If you're a straight dude, this might not be the kind of movie you would want to pop in to impress a lady friend, but I still highly recommend it. Check out the awesomely gimmicky trailer below.
Don't Be Afraid Of the Dark (1973)
Originally released as a made-for-television film in 1973, Don't Be Afraid of the Dark is surprisingly incredibly unnerving. The storyline involves a young couple who inherit an old mansion from the wife's dead grandmother. The husband, Alex, is a successful architect while his wife Sally resigns from her career to become a house wife and caretaker of their large estate. The film opens with whispering demonic voices and a shot of the house before we are ever introduced to the main characters. This kind of gives us an idea that shit is going to go wrong from then on and it does. Sally finds an old den that has been boarded up and the fireplace sealed with an iron door. She asks the handyman to clear it out so she can turn the room into an office with a usable fireplace. The handyman, who has been working at the house for generations, flat out refuses and tells her to stop sticking her nose in places it doesn't belong. Naturally, Sally defies this and on her own unbolts the door. After this occurs, Sally experiences all sorts of strange phenomenon in the house, such as voices and sees little demonic creatures following her around and haunting her in attempt to take her as one of them. Alex thinks she is going crazy and does not believe anything she tells him about the little creatures.
Eventually people start dying and the lights rarely come back on. I don't want to give much more away at this point. You should absolutely WATCH this movie. The concept sounds cliche and the characters cheesy, but trust me, you will be surprised at how creepy this movie is and how it's able to get under her skin so effectively without the use of gory special effects or shock value. Apparently this film has been remade by Guillermo del Toro (The Devil's Backbone, Blade) for release in 2011. Until that creepfest comes out, make sure to check out the still pretty frightening original. Try to ignore the cheesy narrator and music in the trailer below. It's a pretty piss poor representation of the film.
