Recent Viewings, Part 2

[FatFreddysCat]

Finally getting my October horror-thon in gear!

"Scream VI" (2023)
The sisters who survived the "Woodsboro Legacy" murder spree from the last Scream movie (including Jenna "Wednesday" Ortega) have re-located to New York City to start new lives, but of course, a nut-ball in a Ghost Face mask eventually shows up and starts carving up their friends.
By this point the "Scream" sequels have become interchangeable. Some new cast members are added in every movie, one or two characters from previous films are still hanging around, and the "who-could-the-killer-be" mystery and "big reveal" ending has become formula. That said, the movie is fast paced, the change in locale allows for some cool set pieces (the scene on a subway train is inspired) and there are some good gory violent kills. If you liked the previous flicks, you might as well watch this one too.

"Elvira, Mistress of the Dark" (1988)
In the bodacious horror hostess' film debut, she inherits a creepy old house in a backwards New England town. She just wants to sell the place to finance her move to Vegas, but the townsfolk have other ideas for our heroine, including a good ol' fashioned witch burning. This campy horror comedy is lots of silly, corny fun, and of course Elvira herself is easy on the eyes as usual. A guilty pleasure.

"The Birds" (1963)
Alfred Hitchcock's tale of a spoiled socialite (Tippi Hedren) who pursues a man (Rod Taylor) to a scenic seaside town that suddenly comes under attack by massive flocks of homicidal birds.  
This was the first time I've seen this flick in its entirety; I know it's considered a classic by horror aficionados but I thought it was pretty "meh." It takes almost an hour for the avian action to kick into gear; prior to that it's just talk, talk, talk. The bird attack effects are mostly decent (by 1963 standards anyway) and Tippi Hedren was quite the piece back in the day. Worth seeing for its historical value, I guess, but I'll never sit thru it again.

[RCMerchant]

^ In regards to the BIRDS- I'm sorry you didn't care for it. It's in my upper tier of Best Horror Films of all time.

[Rev. Powell]

I like THE BIRDS a lot, but I can see why someone who went in expecting a horror film would be disappointed.

[RCMerchant]

It's a slow burn kinda movie. Just like PSYCHO. Everything is played calm. Until birds start attacking the school kids.
It's a beautiful looking movie. Colors pop.

[lester1/2jr]

regardless of how it's carried out, The Birds is really the epitome of horror. Something totally unexpected and horrible happens and people are so scared and baffled they have no idea what to do. That's what horror is, those immediate, confused moments.

The Corridor (2010) - There's confusing /boring and confusing /interesting and I'd put this safely in the latter category. It's not amazing which is why it is where it is (tubi) but the abstractness doesn't deter from the main focus. A bunch of guys go to hang out with their mentally ill friend who is still coming to terms with a freakout that culminated in his (also mentally off balance) mother's death. Complicating this is an apparent invisible corridor in the woods that may be there or may be some sort of metaphor for insanity.

It generally works and "has some good stuff", but won't be replacing The Shining as a snow insanity classic anytime soon

charitable 4/5

[indianasmith]

CRUDE CRYPT, VOL. 1

A barely watchable string of horror shorts, most with no plot whatsoever.  Free on Prime, but I still felt ripped off.
1.5/5

[FatFreddysCat]

"Tales From The Crypt Presents: Bordello of Blood" (1996)
A woman hires a wise-ass private eye to find her missing brother, and the search leads him to a house of prostitution run by lady vampires. Hilarity and mucho splatter ensues.
This feature length spin-off from the HBO television series is cheap, campy, and pretty damn entertaining, with an impressive cast of dependable D-listers (Dennis Miller, Erika Eleniak, Corey Feldman, Chris Sarandon, Angie Everhart) and lots of blood, guts, and bare boobs. Plus, the theme song is by Anthrax!

[Rev. Powell]

THE FP 4EVZ (2023): In the post-post-apocalyptic future, J Tro and company must travel through time to save the world from a horrible future/past world without alcohol by solving levels of the "beat beat" dance game. The 1980s music video via 2020s green-screen CGI look can be appealing, but anyone who hasn't been following this series will be utterly confused--and the movie likes it that way. 2/5.

[M.10rda]

THE FP 4EVZ (2023): In the post-post-apocalyptic future, J Tro and company...
anyone who hasn't been following this series will be utterly confused--and the movie likes it that way. 2/5.

"J. Tro" is from my area and dated a friend of a friend 20 years ago. By WNY standards I guess he's made it big.  I watched the first FP and one of his non-FP flicks and I agree w/ your closing comment... he seems to be producing these movies mostly for his own amusement, not for a larger audience. At least he's making himself happy!

[Rev. Powell]

THE FP 4EVZ (2023): In the post-post-apocalyptic future, J Tro and company...
anyone who hasn't been following this series will be utterly confused--and the movie likes it that way. 2/5.

"J. Tro" is from my area and dated a friend of a friend 20 years ago. By WNY standards I guess he's made it big.  I watched the first FP and one of his non-FP flicks and I agree w/ your closing comment... he seems to be producing these movies mostly for his own amusement, not for a larger audience. At least he's making himself happy!

I interviewed him about it and yes, that seems to be the case.

https://youtu.be/r-RHvP7JKkE?si=pmjuYwS2OXvLsqdk&t=1083

[M.10rda]

NIGHT GALLERY: PICKMAN'S MODEL (1971)
A trio of brief (! !) reviews before I tackle a couple more long ones... I watched three episodes of NIGHT GALLERY w/ Lovecraftian influences in the hopes I might use them in one of my classes. For an array of reasons I probably won't, but, holy cripes, PICKMAN'S MODEL is great! Bradford Dillman is the moody recluse painter who attracts the eye of nice young thing Louise Sorel (who I'd only ever seen post-mid-eighties as a middle-aged busybody). She's unnerved yet drawn to his creepy paintings of an unusually specific, convincing werewolf-like creature... which, of course (SPOILERS?!) is trapped in Dillman's basement. The climax really delivers the goods beyond what I'd expect from a half-hour TV anthology. I wonder if this episode inspired the monster from Stephen King's "The Crate" (later one of the standouts from the first CREEPSHOW).
4/5!

NIGHT GALLERY: COOL AIR (1971)
Another "ingenue encounters solitary creepster" tale about a scientist who confines himself to an eerily chilly apartment for (not especially) mysterious reasons, this one's major liability is that its "twist" ending is entirely unsurprising/too-well forecast. It's not badly directed, though... perhaps surprising as it's credited to Jeannot Szwarc, whose filmography includes legendary stinkers/disappointments such as JAWS II, SUPERGIRL, and SANTA CLAUS: THE MOVIE. Yet again I suspect Stephen King was inspired by Lovecraft's short story and recycled it into the (much better) "Gray Matter", also adapted to the screen for the CREEPSHOW streaming series.
3/5

NIGHT GALLERY: PROF. PEABODY'S LAST LECTURE (1971)
This one's only 10 minutes and is a hoot. The eponymous college professor (Mel Brooks' buddy and Rob's dad Carl Reiner) gets a little carried away while lecturing about the elder gods to a classroom that includes students' named Bloch, Derleth, and even Lovecraft....... in-joke name-dropping even before John Landis, Fred Dekker, Tarantino, et al. The whole short depends almost entirely on Reiner, and he's more than capable... kinda' wish he had more big roles onscreen instead of just offscreen. If I ever cease to exist while teaching, I'll probably go out more or less like this guy.
4/5

[Rev. Powell]

MOON GARDEN (2023): After seeing her parents quarrel, a five-year old girl falls into a coma and wanders through a fantasy landscape, trying to find her way back by listening to ufzzy broadcasts from the real world on a transistor radio. A would-be dark WIZARD OF OZ thing that has pretty good budget effects--mixing animation with bold color schemes and junkyard aesthetics--but mainly just wanders from one pretty nightmare set-piece to another without generating quite the emotional payoff it seeks. 3/5.

[lester1/2jr]

Dope Men (2023) - Succinct, well put together documentary about the original drug cartel: the mafia. The idea that they weren't involved in drugs is a myth. Lucky Luciano and Arnold Rothstein are the two main players but various other Jewish and Italian legends are here, showing their awesome business acumen and total disregard for their fellow man. The talking heads are guys who write mafia books I think. They also highlight some of the people on the police side, mainly the fiercely determined Harry Anslinger.

I'm not super interested in this arena so this was a good way to get in and out and learn some basic stuff

5/5

[FatFreddysCat]

"Tales From The Crypt Presents: Demon Knight" (1995)
The final battle between good & evil takes place at a run-down boarding house in a remote desert town, when two strangers -- one a demonic "soul collector," the other a "Demon Knight" on a mission to stop him - arrive to fight it out, with a bunch of innocents caught in the middle.
This spinoff from the HBO horror series is a pretty decent, action packed horror cheapie that makes the most of its claustrophobic setting and a great cast that includes William Sadler, Billy Zane (who's an absolute hoot as the villain), Jada Pinkett, and Thomas Haden-Church. Gory comic book fun that was intended to kick off a film franchise, which faded away when the sequel "Bordello of Blood" crashed at the box office a year later.

[M.10rda]

JIGOKU (HELL) aka THE SINNERS OF HELL (1960):
Ding ding ding ding ding we HAAAAAAAVE A WINNER!  

First-time viewing of a STRONG 5/5 hidden horror semi-classic/total visionary masterpiece that I'd heard and read about for many years but never bothered to watch until last weekend. I don't know what I was waiting for and I don't know why more folks don't talk and write about this one nowadays.

Milquetoast college student Shiro and his weird frenemy Tamura accidentally take a stranger's life and then elude all responsibility for the event. Terrible misfortune continues to stalk Shiro, however, even as he escapes the city for the small town where his parents live. (Tamura, who is nothing but trouble, also follows...) As the supporting characters and subplots grow, it seems like everyone Shiro meets is culpable for some kind of terrible secret crime. The film ends in an extended setpiece in the eponymous destination, confirming that everyone we've met onscreen thus far is damned to eternal torment...

There are several remarkable things about JIGOKU. Foremost is the direction by Nobuo Nakagawa, a filmmaker w/ a long resume about which I'm completely ignorant. The full-color JIGOKU looks at least 10 years ahead of its time. Specifically, the frenetic, visually innovative first and last 35 minute chunks mark Nakagawa as the direct progenitor of Obayashi's HAUSU (1977), a film which previously I thought had emerged fully formed out of its own director's feverishly creative mind. I'd go even further and venture that Alejandro Jodorowski and David Lynch have seen and admired JIGOKU (there are strong parallels to LOST HIGHWAY and subtler intersections to other Lynch projects) not to mention Takashi Miike and other contemporary Japanese genre auteurs. The visuals aren't the only thing that are shocking for a 1960 production... JIGOKU's also got more bright red gore FX than any other film from its era or earlier, to my knowledge. Hands get cut off, teeth get knocked out, an eye is gouged out, bodies are slashed and sawed in half, and a couple of victims are skinned alive and reduced to pulpy piles of twitching organs. This is three full years before Herschel Gordon Lewis made the scene. If there's an earlier film with this much blood and gore, please tell me about it!

But if JIGOKU was just a feature-length torture orgy, I'd be less impressed. Nobukawa holds my interest throughout by refusing to actually endorse the puritanical moral code he's portraying, and in fact the highly non-realist tone allows for the interpretation that "hell" exists only in Shiro's guilt-ridden mind. Oh yeah, I should also mention that Yoichi Numata as the diabolical Tamura gives a tour de force performance on par w/ Klaus Kinski and cinema's other greatest maniacs. (He later played the creepy innkeeper in the original RINGU and its first sequel and now I need to track down his other major roles.)

When I tried and failed to make a 10 Best Japanese Films list... this could've been on it. One of the best films I've seen all year.
5/5