Night of the Comet (1984)

How did make it through my teen years without seeing this? How did make it out of the 80’s? So many slumber parties where Evil Dead 2 was rewatched for the 100th time. This is prime Valley Girl/Horror/sci-fi comedy. And good. It’s funny, it fucks with the genre cliches, breaks rules for Zombie movies, and 28 Days Later was definitely taking notes.

During Christmas Season a comet flies by the Earth and everyone that isn’t inside a steel enclosure is turned into a pile of red dust or a Zombie depending on their exposure level. Our hero Reg, is asleep in the projection booth of the theater she works at, her cheerleader younger sister is asleep in a shed. The two of them go to a radio station to try to contact other survivors and find a nice, but gun wielding man named Hector there. Not a dj, a trucker who is doing the same thing they are.

The younger sister begins playing Dj and an underground government think-tank out in the desert hears them and come to get them, but not to save them. They want them for terrible experiments to make a serum to save those that were only partially exposed to the comet and are turning into zombies slowly. Along the way there is a great subplot in an abandoned mall, including a shoot out with the former employees (now a strange gang). But not before they take a break from killing Zombies for a  shopping montage set to the tune of “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”.

I couldn’t have enjoyed this movie more. The specifics of how the Zombie Comet Apocalypse work aren’t spelled out in lame exposition, you just figure it out. The main character Reg is a girl who is good at video games, can shoot a gun, gets laid and lives to tell about it and smart. Also the supporting cast is great, Mary Woronov (Principal Togar!), Geoffrey Lewis (Everywhich way but Loose), among other familiar faces. Also, there is so much smoke and neon everywhere it’s amazing!

Fun references to other movies too, big ones like the Dawn of the Dead mall sequences, and the theater Reg works at has posters for Red Dust (hardy-har), Death Race 2000 (starring Mary Woronov), and Valley Girl.

The best Christmas/Zombie/Comedy film ever made?

“Daddy would’ve gotten us Uzi’s”

Ils (2006)

THEM

Quick and easy plot, a young couple lives out in the county. One night the while the husband sleeps and the wife is up grading papers, the phone rings and only hears a strange noise on the line, then even later they are woken by strange music thumping outside and someone stealing their car, then the power goes out….then THEY ARE IN THE HOUSE!

And it only gets worse. By worse I mean scarier, this movie is good. Good and fucking freaky. It is a great example of being able to take age-old stories that are dusty as fuck and making them totally relevant and scary.

There isn’t too much of a plot, but fuck it, it works anyways. Good camera work, you follow our main characters, only knowing what they know and never gives away too much of who the villans are and why they are terrorizing them until it’s too fucking late. Very smart, low on gore/high on scares. At times I wanted it to be a bit scarier, but it’s a minor quibble: this is head and shoulders above most films in the genre.

Good shit, the French strike again (you are forgiven for the last 10mins of Haute Tension).

Remade (sorta)  as “The Strangers” in the US w/Liv Tyler, which is scary, but I’d recommend you watch this instead.  (No review of the Strangers on this blog, cuz I didn’t finish watching it).

Wait! this just in! “The Strangers” script was written before “Ils” was made, so they are just similar in the “creepy home invasion” subgenre.

Zhong Gui (1983)

Seeding of a Ghost

A really odd duck from the Shaw Brothers Hong Kong production company. Here we have a taxi driver who gets a curse put on him after hitting a wizard with his car. Quickly the curse takes hold: his wife is unfaithful with a yuppie guy, she is then kidnapped, raped and killed by two men.  With the help of the same black magician the husband places curses on the two rapists/killers, her lover and anyone who gets in the way.

That is as easily as one could describe this film, it is bizarre and fucked. Sped up fight sequences, slo-mo sex scenes, weird gross out jokes, slapstick, followed by straight up gross out gore. Zombies, gore, vomiting, a final magical battle that to describe as over the top simply wouldn’t do. Like nothing I’ve ever seen, and I’m no spring chicken.

This will push some buttons, I don’t know if I liked it. Though some of it is too unique to ignore.

My primary problem is the rape scene. The actual rape is not shown graphically, but the woman is terrorized and abused on screen in a sexualized manner that is more played for titillation than empathy. She does, however fight back competently and consistently. Rape in film is super complicated, how it is shot, acted, and presented. It really bothers me if done poorly or for the wrong reasons.  Aside from this scene, I had a pretty good time watching this confusing piece of work.

Would I recommend it? Only to those for who are jaded with normal horror films and lovers of the bizarre and extreme. Really not for all tastes, but must be seen to be believed.

no trailer available on youtube.

Scarecrows (1988)

Some sort of rogue special ops type people have done a heist and Scarecrows is the story them trying to escape in an airplane, One of them parachutes out with all the dough into a cemetary by a farmhouse that has…scarecrows set up around it.

Most of the film is various characters wandering around while off-screen characters talk over their headsets, which gets confusing when other (on screen) characters starting thinking to themselves. Seems like most of this might have been shot with out sound and they are trying to salvage the footage that they got. Also the shit that the characters say over the headsets is groan worthy, sub-”Commando” 1980’s tough guyisms.

Uh, so the scarecrows throw voices to lure the military guys into various traps and such and kill them. The Scarecrows are the demonic souls of the farmhouses owners.

This has to be one of the most boring movies I’ve ever seen. Not bad enough to transcend it’s awful plot, pacing, acting. This is the worst of all worlds. A waste of time. I learned on Imdb that the director was a go-go dancer in Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation video which means that he must have some talent hiding somewhere.

Trauma (1993)

Dario Argento’s Trauma is his first film made in the US, his first feature after Opera which arguably his last great film.

Trauma follows a man who pulls a young lady off of a ledge, it winds up that she has escaped from a clinic. Her parents are the victims of a leather gloved killer (as usual) who is cutting off the heads of people around town who are all doctors or nurses(usually in the rain).  The two of them start a relationship and investigate the murders together, blah blah blah. Kinda dull, frankly.

Lacking the visual pop of his earlier work this is the first step on Argento’s twenty year slide of diminishing returns. This has some redeeming traits, some cool and creative camera work (but nothing compared this his older work), nice performances from Piper Laurie and an (all too short) cameo from the brilliant Brad Dourif. Asia Argento’s performance as the young girl with bulimia (though they call it anorexia) is solid, but a little weird that she get nude in a movie directed by her Father. Dario, stop creeping me out.  This type of murder/slasher/mystery has been done much better, by Argento himself and a million other. You have much better options out there for this type of thing.

Non Si Sevizia Un Paperino (1972)

Don’t Torture Donald Duck
Don’t Torture a Duckling

Lucio Fulci (of the amazing Lizard in a Womans Skin and the terrible House by the Cemetary) directs this tale of a series of murders in a small sundrenched Italian village. The victims are all young boys, the town  full of superstition  and a nosy reporter who begins his own investigation.

It’s a great little mystery full of creepy scenes, twists and such. Keeps you guessing. Well paced, spiked with shocking violence and great soundtrack choices. The cast of characters/possible murderers is great. Bored rich lady who is new in town? The witch? Bitter lady with mentally handicapped daughter? The black magician up in the mountains? Who could it be?!

For fans of Italian Giallo films (of which there are a million) this is a damn good one, I liked the small town vibe and horror taking place in the sunlit out of doors.

Haute Tension (2003)

High Tension

Two students (hello ladies!) travel out to the country to stay with one of their parents to concentrate on their book learning, they arrive in the middle of the night and immediately bed down, which is quickly followed by a creepy creep (that we’ve previously seen skull fucking a severed head,……yes, yes…SKULL FUCKING A SEVERED HEAD) showing up at the door and decapitating the father of the house.

It all gets much uglier and bloodier than that very quickly. The family is killed off, except for the two students and one is taken captive, the other lives because she has been hiding under beds and in closets (I KNOW, does that ever really work in these movies?). The not kidnapped one makes a plan to rescue the other and then….then things get weird…and even more bloody.

So, there is a twist, and I’m not going to spoil it (even though it’s six years old at this point) but, it is a stupid, STUPID twist. One that is so inane and lazy that it is almost a “It was all a dream” twist. Almost. I really did like it that one of the ladies is super duper resourceful for someone (especially a woman) in a horror movie. Thinks quick and defends herself.

The shit-twist (also known as the Shyamalan-twist) is terrible spackle on a plot/script that needed a lot of work, but even with the terrible ending it has enough scares and gore to keep most people interested in this type of thing entertained. The lead up is stong enough that I wasn’t totally bummed when it all collapse, simply because of the strength of the first 2/3rds of the movie.

I don’t know, recommended. But be warned, this ends on a real sad trombone note.

PIL kind of rules

Drag Me To Hell (2009)

Sam Raimi, after spending a decade doing For Love of the Game and all 3 Spider-man movies, finally gets back to doing what he does best.  Gross-out horror/comedy.

Here we have a young woman working in the loans part of a bank who really wants to get a promotion, but just might lack the killer instinct to get it. She steps up to the plate and denies an elderly woman an extension and…the old lady drops a gnarly curse on her. Then she starts getting poltergiested, strange forces fuck up her apartment, she gets geyser-like bloody noses, everytime she opens her mouth someone is puking in it, or spewing blood or bile in it, bugs getting in there. Really gross stuff.

With the help of a psychic who puts her in touch with a medium that has dealt with this curse before (something involving a goat), they have a seance and try to cast the demon out.

There are some dumb stereotypes, voodoo cliches and such. But nothing too offensive.

There are laughs and some good creepy scenes. A nice bleak ending (that I was impressed with), some annoying characters, but whatever. This was fun. In a time when a lot of horror movies are simply going for the shock, no matter how gruesome, its nice to see a scary movie that didn’t seem cruel or mean spirited. I would rather he directs this kind of thing than more Spider-man movies.

Fritt Vilt (2006)

Cold Prey

Five friends are on a snowboarding trip up in Norway (two couples and an odd duck), Odd Duck breaks his leg and they all decide that they are too far away from their car to make it back by nightfall, so why not check out that abandoned Hotel over there? Why don’t we stay there, it seems like a great idea. What could go wrong?

One leaves for help, and is hacked to bits by a maniac with an ice axe, while the others wander around the Hotel and stumble upon a creepy lair, with trophies of missing persons, newspaper headlines, the usual creepy lair accoutrements. Then they know that they are in trouble and they get stalked and killed one by one.

Pretty standard Slasher killer fare, really. Breaks no real ground other than, hey how many Norwegian Slasher movies have you seen? Made the mistake of watching the dubbed version, and it was laughable. Really bad. Overall, I would say that this didn’t feel special in any way really, very middling to poor. Meh.

Of course “Cold Prey 2″ is coming soon.

part two trailer may contain part one spoilers! warning!

Terror! Il Castello Delle Donne Maledette (1974)

AKA:    Dr. Frankenstein’s Castle of Freaks
Frankenstein’s Castle
Frankenstein’s Castle of Freaks
Monsters of Frankenstein
Terror
Terror Castle
The House of Freaks
The Monsters of Dr. Frankenstein

You’ll find this one on dvd under the title of Frankenstein’s Castle of Freaks. It is mid 70’s camp and sleaze like only the mid-70’s could do it. This is way below Flesh for Frankenstein or Rocky Horror Picture Show in terms of acting or direction, but it makes up for these shortcomings with massive over the top surrealism and ridiculousness.

There is a rash of grave robbings that is plaguing the countryside. Dr. Frankenstein is doing some experiments (mostly crimes against nature), he has young female guests in his castle that he wants to impress. His henchmen are turning on each other (Luciano Pugozzi “The Italian Peter Lorre” strikes again), his horny midget is cast out and lives in a cave with a, well…caveman. This all leads up to the battle between the villagers (torches and pitchforks in hand), the caveman, and Frankenstein’s monster. With gratuitous nudity kinda sprinkled in throughout.

Terrible acting, direction, dubbing, sound editing, gender politics.

It has the good sense to never ever take itself seriously. It’s primary crime, that makes it not recommended, is the fucked up sleazy edge that crosses some lines that kinda shat on the otherwise good natured campy fun. These moments are thankfully brief.

For those of you keeping track of the bizarre Frankenstein films of the 1970’s chronology, this comes in between Blackenstein, Flesh for Frankenstein (1973) and Rocky Horror (1975).