October Horror Challenge 2012 - Day 14

The first viewing of the day is a film from Amanda de Ossorio, the director of the Blind Dead series and a man that I have always found great enjoyment in his work. FANGS OF THE LIVING DEAD was a disappointment to be blunt. Apparently this was intended to be more of a psychological horror film but producer interference turned it into a sub-par vampire flick. There are some nice set pieces and a few worthwhile scenes but as a whole it is nothing special.

A spur of the moment viewing of THE GINGERDEAD MAN was next after watching some football with a few friends. It was more than a few drinks that lead to this and it was more or less just on in the background but it is still a mildly entertaining time waster.

After checking out the season 3 premier of The Walking Dead, which was a really good start to the new season, I popped in RAW MEAT. This is a kind of strange flick with 100 year old cannibals living under the streets of London in an abandoned subway tunnel who capture people to eat and an asshole cop played by Donald Pleasance openly showing his disdain for London's artsier youth. It was a good movie that was a sort of breath of fresh air... just something a little different than what I'd been watching.

Today's Rundown
Fangs of the Living Dead - 4/10
The Gingerdead Man - 5/10
Raw Meat - 7/10

October Horror Challenge 2012 - Day 13

Day 13 started with a viewing of THE HOUSE ON SORORITY ROW. This 80s slasher is a among the better horror films of the 80s in my opinion. It isn't anything that will blow your mind with a story but it is presented with class and quality while keeping all of the slasher conventions in place to satisfy the fans. Plenty of boobs and blood but it doesn't come off as cheap as the lesser titles of the decade do.

Next up I was able to check out THE CREEPING FLESH in HD thanks to Fearnet. Starring the dynamic duo of Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing this non-Hammer Hammer film is pretty great. The team stars as half-brothers who are both learned doctors in different fields. Cushing believes he has found the essence of pure evil and Lee plays a villainous, deceiving man hellbent on receiving a famous award no matter who has to pay the price or gets in his way. I need to pick up the DVD of this.

And finally a buddy and I went to a theatrical showing of SINISTER. I was impressed with the positive reviews this film has been receiving for weeks leading up to its release and it looked like it had the possibility of being worthwhile, so more or less on a whim we decided to see it. The theatre was packed, quite possibly sold out. Usually this means I'll be extremely pissed off by the end of the show since in 2012 it is nearly impossible to get a full crowd to be respectful. Despite a few minor annoyances the crowd was actually pretty good, and they had a lot of fun falling for every jump scare. All 500 of them. I'm not even sure that number is that much of an exaggeration. Jump scare after jump scare, the vast majority of them being served up on a platter for us to know they're coming. This was basically an excuse to make a movie that is one big jump scare. Take away the fact that my buddy jumps at all of them and the kid sitting next to me was not more than 13 years old and was having a seriously stressful time and these jump scares would have become obnoxious. In fact they still were, it was just that I had entertainment on each side. The soundtrack was just awful. Either random bass tones and random sounds or an annoying drum track the entire time. None of it fit. The effects makeup looked like something I can do given a $50 budget at a Halloween store. The basic plot of the movie was okay, and there were a couple of solid performances but the movie was just crap. Total crap.

Today's Rundown
The House On Sorority Row - 8/10
The Creeping Flesh - 8/10
Sinister - 3.5/10

October Horror Challenge 2012 - Day 12

 The first viewing today was one that I watch every year to get totally in the Halloween spirit, HALLOWEEN 3: SEASON OF THE WITCH. This is a great movie for the season and just as mean as movies get. It is also a lot of fun. If you are one of the people still hanging on to the "No Michael Myers so it sucks" idea lighten up and watch it because it is great every time I watch it. The new Blu-Ray from Shout Factory looks excellent too so support their willingness to release special editions of horror movies on Blu.

The next viewing was determined by the fact that I had just enough time to fit it in before the start of game 5 of the O's and Yankees so it automatically became the movie to watch. That would be A BUCKET OF BLOOD, a horror movie satire on the beatnik culture directed by Roger Corman and starring genre favorite Dick Miller. A quick moving flick about a loner who longs to be accepted by the cool artist crowd at the coffee shop ends up making sculptures of not so willing participants. The in-crowd eats it up of course. It works as both a successful satire and horror flick.

PARANOIAC was next and is a nice psychological horror film from Hammer co-starring Oliver Reed. Hammer vets Jimmy Sangster and Freddie Francis write and direct respectively and turn in a really solid product overall. The performances are top notch. I honestly felt like I'd seen it before though... I'm almost positive I hadn't but it felt familiar. Either way I'm glad I checked it out.

Next up I planned on checking out the Blu-ray of Phantom of the Opera, the Lon Chaney version but my piece of shit BD player decided that this will join the 8 or 9 other Blus that it simply won't play. It will recognize a Blu-ray is in the play but it won't load them. Fuck you LG. So I went with THE EVIL DEAD instead which gave me more headaches with the player until I remembered that I need to let the last preview play all the way through before the player will load the menu for the movie. What a fucking joke. I'm writing this as the movie plays because I've seen it a million times and it rules each and every one and I won't have time to post this tomorrow until well after I'd want to get it up. If you haven't seen this movie you're living under a rock and you need to. The Blu is like $10 and the 500 DVD releases can be had cheaper than that.

Today's Rundown
Halloween 3 - 8.5/10
A Bucket Of Blood - 7/10
Paranoiac - 7/10
The Evil Dead - 9.5/10

October Horror Challenge 2012 - Day 11

Today started off with a double feature of THE PROPHECY and THE PROPHECY 2. I'd never seen either and when I saw the 5 movie set in a Wal-Mart dump bin for $5 not long ago I couldn't resist. Well, the first couple movies in the series are just about on par with each other as far as I'm concerned and they are nothing to write home about. They're middle of the road religious themed action horror flicks with decent names in their casts. The story of the angels in the middle of their 2nd civil war and taking it to Earth is better than the execution gives us which is a shame because it could have been a really entertaining flick with supernatural phenomenon going wild. As it stands they're very 90s flicks that may be worth re-visiting down the road to see if I find them any better.

I dumbed down the viewing for the next one with GHOULIES 3: GHOULIES GO TO COLLEGE. I didn't think the first film in this series was anything special as far as stupid, raunchy horror comedies go but the second had a lot of laughs and this one is fun too but there is a lack of Ghoulie action for much of the film. They're around but they don't do a whole hell of a lot. I intended this to be a time waster and it did the trick.

I again switched it up and busted out the Criterion Blu-ray of DIABOLIQUE. I've wanted to see this movie for years and finally got the chance. It's late as I'm typing this and I'm exhausted but it was fantastic. A little straight horror, a little psychological, some cat and mouse for good measure. It is a classic for good reason.

 Viewing finished up with THE BLACK CAT aka DEMONS 6. This is a Luigi Cozzi directed film based partially on a story by Daria Nicolodi. Nicolodi intended the story to be the conclusion to Dario Argento's Three Mothers trilogy but it ended up as this. With no real connection to either Poe's story or the Demons franchise, it does act as a conclusion to Argento's trilogy even though he wasn't involved... sort of. It mentions the three mothers, though the mythos is changed a bit and Argento and Suspiria are name dropped (with Suspiria's theme being used multiple times). Its a mess of a film. A stupid mess of a film. A really stupid awful mess of a film. But I found it sort of mesmerizing in just how "out there" it was. It didn't make sense in many parts and nothing particularly exciting happens but I was entertained slightly. I couldn't tell you why. I should hate it and I should rip it apart. I won't. I enjoyed watching it more than plenty of other movies this month and I'm not certain why. 

Today's Rundown
The Prophecy - 5/10
The Prophecy 2 - 5/10
Ghoulies 3 -5/10
Diabolique - 8.5/10
The Black Cat - 5.5/10

October Horror Challenge 2012 - Day 10

 Day 10 starts outs with CREATURE which made its way to theaters last year. This movie is now notorious for being one of the worst performers at the box office of all time, taking in only $327,000 on over 1,500 screens. After watching it I now know why it did so terribly. Aside from having no real advertising campaign, it had no chance at getting ticket sales based on word of mouth. The movie is a lame attempt at copying other recent movies that copied movies from the 80s. A slasher type film set in the swamps with a rubber suit wearing killer/monster that wants to be the body count films that made the 80s what they were for the horror genre. Sound familiar?

Second on the day was the 80s horror comedy VAMP. This one is about a seedy strip bar that is home to some vampires that feed on the destitute customers of the bar, people nobody will miss. A few frat boys come in on a pledge mission trying to get a stripper to come to their party and stuff goes crazy. It actually moves a little slower than I expected it to. There are several lulls in any sort of action or good comedy but the 3rd act more or less makes up for what I thought was a lackluster first 2 acts and turns it into a decent movie. It's a shame that it took so long into the movie to get really good because what could have been a classic 80s laugh-riot horror flick is just an okay one to pass the time.

Last up for the day was the infamous Video Nasty THE TOOLBOX MURDERS. I've only seen the remake before today and I don't think the two could be any more different. Why they didn't decide to just give the remake another title is beyond me but this one is a crazy ride of violence and lunacy. While most of the action happens very early in the movie it remains engaging until the depravity picks back up toward the end. Hammers, drills, nailguns, burning alive, rape... yes, it has it all. 

Today's Rundown
Creature - 3.5/10
Vamp - 5.5/10
The Toolbox Murders - 8/10

October Horror Challenge 2012 - Day 9

 I started off with a DVD a friend had given me that he wasn't a fan of, the zombie film COLIN. This is "infamous" for being the £45 zombie movie. If the budget was actually under $100 they had a lot of people working for free and someone donating a lot of materials. This film is different than other zombie movies because it is from the view point of Colin, who has recently been bitten and becoming a zombie. I will applaud the concept because it changes up the genre that has become tired in recent (or not so recent) years and the effort that the cast and crew put in despite its low budget but the results weren't so hot. The film doesn't look great as it was obviously shot on consumer level cameras, that is fine, but they're so damn shaky that it makes Cloverfield look like it used Steadicam the entire time. It gets quite irritating early on. And the biggest gripe I have with the film is that for wanting to show the other side of the coin, they put too many situations in the movie where the focus instantly shifts to the surviving humans fighting for their lives and Colin gets lost in the mix. The effort should be praised but the final product falls way short.

THE SENTINEL was next, directed by the man behind Death Wish, Michael Winner. This is a great slow burning story with an excellent cast (Chris Sarandon, Eli Wallach, Jeff Goldblum and Christopher Walken just to name a few). As the story builds the religious tones of the film do as well until the climax. It is a really solid movie that falls just short of being great. 

Next up was Olaf Ittenbach's THE BURNING MOON. This is a German splatterfest, and that is putting it lightly. It is a low budget, shot on video anthology story from 1992. Ittenbach himself plays a junkie who has to babysit his sister. After shooting up he sees the moon burst into flames and decides to read his sister a couple of bedtime stories. The first story is about a lunatic who escapes the asylum and goes on a killing spree. Nothing we haven't seen before but it is ridiculous in its excess. Heads explode and get thrown at cars, bodies are dismembered every which way, people are burned alive... its madness. The second story takes the first story and puts it in a blender and throws the contents at the screen. Seriously, for as over the top as the first story is the 2nd blows it away. A priest is on a spree of raping and killing women thinking he is doing God's work. The local outcast is blamed and killed. The man responsible for killing the innocent outcast (who just wanted to tend to his farm) is punished with a trip to hell that is probably the most violent 10 minutes of a movie I've ever seen. If you don't like shitty SOV flicks you should stay away. If you don't like movies that are entertaining in how bad they are you should also stay away. If you can appreciate a cast and crew giving it everything they have to make a ridiculously entertaining film that will satisfy your thirst for gore and guts you need to see this. Its not a good film by any means but its a seriously fucking entertaining piece of exploitative horror trash that I'm now in love with.

I followed that up with MUTANTS from 2009. You've seen this movie countless times over the last decade since the popularity of 28 Days Later. Fast moving and aggressive infected people attack and a small group of survivors try to get rescued. The shaky cam is plentiful and annoying as it does nothing but detract from what is going on. Nothing special to see here. 

 The day ends with LEMORA: A CHILD'S TALE OF THE SUPERNATURAL. I had never heard anything about this film but bought it on a whim for this month's challenge when I got the chance to grab it for about $5 brand new. I'm glad I did because it was a very cool story of a 13 year old girl summoned to a strange town to visit her dying father. On her way there the bus is attacked by savage vampire beasts that lurk the woods and swamp. While in the town she learns that those vampires are at war with a more human like, civilized vampire group and she is caught in the middle. The movie has a great fairy tale gone to hell vibe to it, like if Disney dropped acid and started to worship Satan. This is a really cool movie that deserves more attention than it gets.

Today's Rundown 
Colin - 4/10
The Sentinel - 7.5/10
The Burning Moon - 9/10
Mutants - 4/10
Lemora - 8/10

October Horror Challenge 2012 - Day 8

I'm a big fan of the original Piranha and its 2010 remake from Alex Aja. I have the sequel to the original planned for later this month but today I started with the sequel to the remake (is this getting confusing?) the aptly named PIRANHA 3DD. I was extremely excited about this from the first day news broke of its development and as it started getting a more ridiculous cast with each new name announced I felt like I was in for some extremely entertaining cheese. Then John Gulager's name got attached and I had to hope he didn't fuck it up. Well, the movie is short, about 70 minutes not counting the end credits and it just never quite gets going. The moments I hoped would fill the movie are there, but not in the volume or regularity I was hoping for. This movie was never going to be high art but I was hoping for something better than what it was. It's almost like John Gulager decided to blue balls everyone hoping for a really fun time and just give them a few fleeting glimpses of it. Overall it wasn't terrible (not as bad as some reviews make it out to be) but it will dwell in mediocrity forever.

I had a free Redbox rental code that was only valid for one day so I decided to rent THE LOVED ONES, an Australian film from 2009 that just recently got released in the states on disc and has gained some attention. This is essentially a short film stretched to fill an hour and a half. There is so much filler here it isn't even funny. The film is about a girl and her father who kidnap and torture boys that are mean to her, and when Brent, our main boy declines her invitation to the school dance she gets daddy to bring him home to her so they can have their fun one way or another until he is able to turn the table and his girlfriend finds him. Plenty of violence here but it's nothing we haven't seen done before in other "torture porn" flicks. There's a twist but it too doesn't play any significant role in the film. This would be a solid short film but just becomes drawn out at an hour and a half run time.

I checked out a couple entries into the series of documentaries 100 YEARS OF HORROR. This series from 1996 is hosted by Christopher Lee and each segment focuses on a different aspect of horror. I picked out "Mutants", "Demons" and "Freaks". Each segment features interviews and film clips to give a brief overview on that area of horror. While they are interesting, they barely start to scratch the surface before they come to an end.

The day's viewing ended with a movie I had seen bits and pieces of over the years but never the whole thing, Jacques Tourneur's NIGHT OF THE DEMON. This is a really cool film that just has an air of uneasiness about it thanks to a terrifying set up. Thick atmosphere and cool special effects used just enough keep the tension built. And a couple of great performances from our lead protagonist and antagonist make this one a winner.

Today's Rundown
Piranha 3DD - 5/10
The Loved Ones - 4.5/10
100 Years Of Horror - 5/10
Night Of The Demon - 8/10