Notes from the Turkeyground III: A Month in Bad Movie Asylum

Yet again, the annual tradition of watching allegedly 'bad' movies dawned in our household. November 1st is eagerly anticipated like a harvest feast. We stockpile for it all year long. "We can save that movie for the Turkey Challenge!" So we do. It's the Saturnalia, the Carnival season, when all the checks and guards can be dropped and taste is turned on its head. The usual measures of taste, value, and pleasure are no longer so restricted. The gates are open and one never knows what will wander in. Movies that would seem a waste of time in June are, in November, a discovery, a gem, or just a damn good time.

This year, we knew what to kick off with. Those wacky SyFy movies, often produced by The Asylum, that just seem to be getting wackier all the time. There was always a tongue-in-cheek element to those giant shark movies, but they were still playing at being serious. That is, they were still about a giant shark or some other massive terror. I think, as they've come to realize they don't have to play serious, they've gotten better. They've given in to their worst impulses and that kind of perversion is always rewarded in a creative element. The best of these are directed by Griff Furst.

The anaugural film of the challenge this year was Furst's Ghost Shark, a film whose very concept is preposterous enough to amuse. It plays out almost as good as it should. A shark is assaulted by grenade-tossing rednecks, as all good sharks must be, and retreats to a semi-submerged druidic temple to die. The druidic powers that be make the shark not just a ghost, but a ghost that can materialize in any body of water, anywhere, no matter how small or shallow. The shark appears in puddles, cups, sweat, condensation, swimming pools, eating children, teens, more children, and a boardroom executive. This is what we waited all year for, and it was worth it. Thank you, Griff.

Furst also delivered in Arachnoquake, a severely underrated disaster flick about flame-breathing spiders and the all-girls softball team and the drunken tour bus driver that kick their bulbous asses. But he outdid himself with Ragin' Cajun Redneck Gators, where Louisianan yokels are chomped by gators with actual red necks and then themselves transform into angry, you could even say ragin', Cajun redneck gators. Such flagrant disregard for making sense deserves to be seen, however average the result. Hopefully Griff continues in this direction.

Next on the list was similar director, Mark Atkins, whose films are quite a bit more hit-and-miss, but also quite a bit more varied in style. His worst, Alien Origin, is an almost silent film, with a bunch of Filipino non-actors whispering in the jungle and the back of a restaurant with no music or special effects to speak of. His best, The Haunting of Winchester House, is a rehash of the same thing seen many times before, just done better than its larger-budget comparisons. Sand Sharks also deserves mention for its relentless goofiness, thanks largely to Corin Nemec's brilliant portrayal of a massive ahole into which all sharks must flow.

Unfortunately, as a dog that turns to lick its own feces, we returned to David DeCoteau for another try and got more of the same. In 1313: FrankenQueen we found very little Franken and even less Queen. A milfy scientist is supposedly conducting Frankensteinian experiments, but spends 20 minutes straight running a 'probe' (a dollar store flashlight) along one of the buff boys' half-naked body. The boys walk around in a trance a little. Then are merged into a single buff boy who kills her. But 1313: Giant Killer Bees! was totally different, a breath of fresh air, it was--just kidding, it was the same garbage with some bad CGI bees inserted into a few of the frames. DeCoteau's Hansel and Gretel: Warriors of Witchcraft, however, was a predictable, but entertaining private school drama with a playful witchcraft element. I'm assuming it was
ghost-directed.

At this point, we decided to return to Griff Furst and see what his earlier career had to offer. Swamp Shark proved a much more average 'ancient shark awakens from the deep and wreaks havoc' film. His take on the Richard Matheson classic, I Am Omega, starring Mark Decascos, was quite a lot of fun. Decascos unleashes his usual martial arts moves on some monstrous non-CGI creatures, hooks up with a city girl, kills some rednecks, and blows stuff up. The more independent film, 30 Days to Die--a title that describes nothing in the film, really--is a combination of serial killer slasher mayhem and women-in-prison flick, with a deranged sheriff running headfirst into a very mismanaged teen girls' juvenile rehabilitation camp, at times very dull and at the same time one of the month's highlights.

The third of our SyFy heroes was Steven Monroe, who provided us with the very entertaining Mongolian Death Worm, which used the wise technique of overstuffing the plot and making good use of its washed-up actor star, Sean Patrick Flannery, as a charming rogue. Monroe's Grave Halloween was a strange Japanese ghost story, set in a spooky forest. Although a great setting, as the only setting the forest provided highly monotonous to the point of sopor.

Unfortunately, not all SyFy directors are created equal. Leigh Scott offered up Flu Bird Horror, in which silly pterodactyls attack teen delinquents in the woods and spread a plague. These plots awkwardly converge with little satisfaction. The Possession of Gail Bowers, starring Griff Furst, was the average possession movie, copying all The Exorcist's moves. The film's vulgarity is what it really has going for it. Finally, Hillside Cannibals, which tries to be deep and anthropologically serious as well as grim and gory while ripping off The Hills Have Eyes ends up being tedious and shrill.

Relief from the SyFy movies came from the UK thanks to Jonathan Glendenning. His S.N.U.B! was a boring mix of Yes Minister without the comedy and unduly slow apocalyptic zombie film. Night Wolf was a little better, hiding the werewolf for far too long and giving us only irritating characters who never get naked. But Strippers vs. Werewolves, a goofy, playful, comic-booky splatter movie with lots of good gore and nudity delivered everything a b-movie ought to deliver and in abundance. Perhaps the most outstanding film of the whole month.

At last, we decided it was time to stop waiting and give Sharknado a try. Can it be as fun as the premise? Can it offer all the pleasures it should? Of course not. The premise is hilarious, but when it comes to stringing it into a plot and real humans, you're stuck taking it too seriously. It's impossible not to take that plot too seriously, as any seriousness is too much. It should only exist as a lost Monty Python skit. At any rate, Sharknado is still fun in its gleeful nonsense, particularly the skydiving climax that so eagerly pisses in Newton's face.

Having watched Sharknado, we had to give director Anthony Ferrante another shot. Hence Hansel and Gretel, a very enjoyable if often wilfully stupid backwoods slasher about a clan of cannibals. Dee Wallace is excellent as the madwoman at the heart of the cannibal mayhem. The Headless Horseman is also a very enjoyable SyFy movie about a backwoods town with an ancient curse. It delivers: a. sinister inbred yokels. b. an ancient curse. c. a malevolent spirit that steals people's heads. d. a pit to hell with little ghostly hands. and e. a sexy hillbilly with pigtails. Sharknado may just be the least of Ferrante's ouevre.

The last of the new directors we met this year was Dennis Devine and hoo boy this fella's a basket case. All of his movies are shot with three ingredients: a bunch of girls from the local college's acting class, a digital camcorder, and Randal Malone. He bakes them not so much to perfection, but to a bizarre, lumpy hodgepodge of catfights, bitchy comments, dark pasts, flashbacks, Agatha Christie style reveals, doughy bodies in bras and bikinis, and cheap stage blood. Yes, every Dennis Devine movie has a large number of cat fights. The most enjoyable part of each of these slashers must be Randal Malone's earnest delivery, used best in Don't Look in the Cellar. Alice in Murderland comes second, thanks to its cat fights, and last and least is Blood Mask, a confusing possession movie with braindead teens, priests, robes, and cheap goth makeup. I'm not sure how I feel about these movies, but I'm glad to have watched them.

Not much time, with all the new friends, to revisit our old buddies. I trekked through Fred Olen Ray's backyard on my own, enjoying my annual treat of Beverly Hills Vamp, and this year Fred's tna classics Evil Toons and Witch Academy. I also paid Steckler a 'What's up, dude?' by rewatching Blood Shack and The Hollywood Strangler Meets the Skid Row Slasher. But it was really Charles Band my wife and I spent the most time catching up with, enjoying the political incorrectness of Ooga Booga and the mindnumbing pleasures of the latest Evil Bong movie, Wrath of Bong. I'm not sure I know who Charles Band really is. He can make a brainless titty movie like Doll Graveyard, a heady French philosophy-referencing surrealist gem like Blood Dolls, and then a wacked out stoner-flick like Wrath of Bong. He's hard to peg. I just realized this.

I'm glad to say we closed out the year on Wrath of Bong and not the wretched Witchcraft movies we decided to try out. Overall it was a fine month of turkeys, where The Asylum scored a lot more hits than I would have ever imagined. Yet, a month where nothing mindblowingly great was discovered, and a lot of our new company proved little more than fleeting acquaintances. Most of all, I'm glad to have met Griff Furst, a gang of strippers and werewolves, crossed Mongolia with Sean Patrick Flannery as guide, and enjoyed the familiar comforts of Michelle Bauer's bosom and Eddie Deezen's flailing-hand emoting.

Until next year, stay hungry and hold the cranberry sauce.

Rites of Spring (2011) - 2.5/4

Since time immemorial, plucky blondes have been known to be disasterous for harvests. That's why they had to be sacrificed to crop gods all the world over. Or at least given entry-level secretarial positions. Jump forward hundreds of years, and we have all but forgotten the wisdom of our forefathers. Now plucky blondes appear in board rooms, vote in senates, and even write movie reviews.

The Rites of Spring begins with a failed harvest of sorts. A blonde (Anessa Ramsey) has cost the corporation that employs her $10 million. The boss has no idea who was responsible for the blunder, so he's fired some others whom he either appreciates less or wants to fuck less. Before she can confess her mistake to save her colleagues, she's kidnapped and taken to a barn, where an old man tortures her and her friend. Meanwhile, the stooges who got fired plan a heist to kidnap the boss's daughter and get $2 million in ransom. Their desperate plan takes them somewhere in the woods not far from where the blonde kidnapper has taken her. She escapes and finds her colleagues, but something much worse than the old guy is following her.

Rites of Spring begins with that intricate bit of plotting, which serves the dual purpose of giving us a lot of assholes we want murdered and not boring us during the exposition phase. Maybe there's a comment in there on the persistance of old-time harvest values in modern society or karma and consequences or something. I don't know. What it does is launch us into the real meat of the movie, which is somewhere between a slasher and a creature feature.

Here Rites of Spring is only moderately successful. The blonde is just plucky enough for you to care about her survival and the creature is just dangerous enough to make you fear for her safety. The basic mechanics work. However, giving the creature a blade to kill with really takes away from his creature-ness. And his creature powers make him such a formidable slasher, that it's hard to buy the blonde has enough pluck to get away--we're talking astronomical levels of pluck.

The creature's purpose and significance, and its relationship to the old man are all sources of intrigue that drew me into the film. Perhaps these were the most interesting aspects of the film, in fact. Far more interesting than who was double-crossing whom in the heist subplot. Yet, in the abrupt ending, I realized I knew more about the heist than the creature and old man. All we do know is it has something to do with the harvest. Is the creature the shambling personification of winter, the death that must come before the harvest? Or is it just a zombie with a scythe? Or is it a real harvest deity that needs plucky blonde blood? What radius does its harvest goodness spread once it's been given some delicious girl meat? We never find out.

Overall, Rites of Spring is a decent indepent horror flick, more ambitious and much better executed that the majority of its kind. About half way along, unfortunately, the more interesting aspects of the film seem abandoned to easy, cheap slashing and horror movie cliches, suggesting filmmaker Padraig Reynolds forgot the wisdom of our forefathers and did not sacrifice his plucky blonde.

Amphibious 3D (2011) - 2/4

I've always been fascinated by Yuzna's work. He always teeters on the brink of hackwork, using story-ideas that are disarmingly insipid. Yet, when you watch the films, you see he always takes a different approach than any other filmmaker would, and there's always something, some wealth of subconscious, buried in the play of creative gore effects and strange appetites. With Rottweiler (2004), he pushed the killer-dog movie about as far as it could logically go until the killer dog became an archetypal fiend, a sort of symbol of fate, like Francis Thompson's Hound of Heaven. Amphibious 3D, unfortunately, never does get pushed into the archetypal realms quite like Rottweiler does, but, as with any Yuzna film, it teases with more below the surface; and Amphibious is a good deal more subtle than most monsters-from-the-sea movies we've been seeing from SyFy, the Asylum, and several other b-movie filmmakers who hopped aboard that particular shark-filled train.

The plot, a fairly typical one, concerns a pretty female researcher interested in some scientific thing or other--it doesn't matter what--and chartering a boat from a charming local white guy. They uncover the prehistoric monster, which the researcher has no trouble identifying, and together slay the beast. In this case, the charming boat owner, fittingly named Jack Bowman, is Michael Pare and the researcher, with the pornstar name of Skylar Shane, is played by some TV actress from the Netherlands.

What makes Amphibious 3D stand out is not the 3D, but the remote Indonesian setting. Most of the action takes place on a fishing platform so far out to sea that you can't see the mainland. Here a part-time smuggler and full-time fishing-platform foreman manages his child slave labour. Some of the action does take place on an Indonesian island where a religious ritual, reminiscent of footage of voodoo rituals from Haiti, is taking place.

One of the children on the fishing platform is a dark, scrawny child sold by a witchdoctor. The other kids taunt him and call him something like 'voodoo boy.' The researcher, it turns out, lost a daughter on a scientific survey and now hallucinates her daughter in the island ritual, and finds a surrogate for her daughter in the weak boy on the fishing platform. It is in this material that the film's darker depths are to be found, with its play on maternity and on the mystique of a culture that threatens to devour the outsider.

Unfortunately, subconscious depths does not imply interesting action, in this case. Much of what happens on the fishing platform is boring, as we're just waiting for the monster action to begin. The character drama, the shallow interactions, is not good enough to sustain interest, even in these interesting locations.

Worthy of note, however, is the cool monster. I won't spoil what it is, but Yuzna uses real effects, as he always does, so that the monster is really, physically present with the actors. When someone sticks an axe in the creature's 'head', he really does that. Though little of the monster is seen until the end, the climax, for anyone who loves classic monster movies and creature effects, more than makes up for the scarcity until then.

Amphibious 3D is admittedly sub-par Yuzna. There are moments where it suggests the possibility of being a giant sea monster version of I Walked with a Zombie (1943), but it sadly never rises to being as clever and haunting as that film. It has a lot more going on in its depths, a perverse subconscious that bubbles up in the film's final, disturbing moment, than the likes of Two-Headed Shark (2012) or Mega-Python vs Gatoroid (2011), but it's never as much fun.

Rage of the Yeti (2011) - 2.5/4

Actually, this film should be called Starvation-Motivated Hunt of the Yerin, but what can ya do? I like to imagine the SyFy channel operates a bit like RKO used to. RKO would give Val Lewton a preposterous movie title that they thought would bring in an audience, like I Walked with a Zombie, and Lewton had to get his writers to come up with a story to fit the title. Lewton was a genius, so he made it work. But SyFy is kinda short on geniuses. Well, enter David Hewlett, a hard-working, long-suffering, and talented Canadian actor--y'know, the sorta guy who never, ever gets a big break--who's given the big break of directing this whopper of a title. Maybe they needed a Canadian to give it that Northern touch. And by St. Athanasius of the Trinity Enthroned, he gets it right! What a guy.

It's not that Rage of the Yeti is transformed into an art film, commenting on the abuses of the Inuit by White Man or making us realize we have to learn to respect nature or it will consume us; no, it's not that. It's not that Rage of the Yeti has a compelling, engrossing plot with rich characters that illuminate the complexity of humanity either; don't get Rage of the Yeti confused with Henry James's Rape of the Yeti--that's a totally different story. It's that everyone involved in this movie doesn't seem to be aware that this is a cheap SyFy movie filled with silly CGI monsters or, if they are, they don't care. The actors don't hold back at all. You'd think they were doing Tennessee Williams. And in a way I can't ever justify or explain, they are.

The cast re-unites the leads of Witchblade the TV series. Remember that one? I do. It wasn't great, but, well, my mom liked it. Yancy Butler still looks good, though her voice sounds like an overweight lesbian who drinks whiskey every night to forget she's in a loveless heterosexual marriage that's given her the one meaningful thing in her life, her kids. David Chokachi also still looks good; in fact, he may well have been stored in formaldehyde since Witchblade was cancelled. At any rate, the rapport they developed in that series is on display in Rage of the Yeti. They work very comfortably together, and both seem to really be having fun with their parts. Credit also goes to Hewlett himself, who plays an eccentric billionaire intent on Yeti-collectin', and to Matthew Kevin Anderson as Chokachi's brother and partner. The brothers and Hewlett have this Brendan Fraser-in-The-Mummy kinda banter--of course, that banter goes back to the Indiana Jones movies, where Harrison Ford perfected the style. At any rate, it's enjoyable.

As far as the plot is concerned--haha, plot--you have two eccentric billionaires after an ancient document about a 'missing link' known as the 'Yerin'. 'Yerin' is, in that rich language Asian, the term for 'Yeti', apparently. Not only do they find the document, they find the Yerin themselves. And the Yerin are hungry for human flesh. Did you know yetis have bullet-proof skin? Did you know they can outrun a snowmobile? Did you know they can crash into a landing plane and not be damaged? These are the facts they don't give you in your community college biology books. Turns out you have to shoot 'em in the eyes, blast 'em in the head with a rocket launcher, or slice through 'em with a concrete-cutting torch. So the movie's action is a balance between yetis assaulting douchebags in the snow and Butler and Chokachi blowing the everloving crap out of computer-generated yetis while making witty repartee.

You don't watch Rage of the Yeti for the plot or the production value. You have to be content with fun. And the characters, the game actors, and Hewlett's lighthearted direction keep this movie very fun. It's a classical b-movie done right.

The Thing Below (2004)

The government's been up to some shenanigans out on the ocean and accidentally set free an ancient, extraterrestrial being from fifty miles beneath the earth's surface. This being says things like, "On the contrary, you are the bastard, for I have been on this planet for two million years, before your species even evolved." Unfortunately for this tentacled critter, a black ops ship captain (Billy Warlock) has just arrived on the oil rig and he says things like, "You bastard, you killed my friends!" Seeing the carnage in the derelict lab, he decides it's time to get the heck out of there before they all become tentaclefood.

Taking a hint from Sphere, I suppose, the tentacle beast can also read minds. Not just your surface thoughts, like in Scanners. No, this thing can scan your entire brain in seconds and figure out exactly what's the best illusion to lure you into its slimy grasp. It doesn't make much sense why some of these people fall into the traps, but, hey... do you smell that? That's the smell of setpieces!

The illusions allow Wynorski to do things that really have nothing to do with the plot. Like an Old West shootout and a sudden striptease moment. I accused Wynorski of not knowing how to make erotic scenes out of beautiful women when I reviewed Cheerleader Massacre. Now I have to eat my words. He shoots an incredible striptease sequence with a babe named Glori-Anne Gilbert. I also applauded Wynorski for only using all-natural ladies in Cheerleader Massacre. Gilbert's breasts are silicon torpedoes; ah well, can't have everything. One has to admire the sheer ingenuity with which T&A was brought into a plot and setting that doesn't really leave any room for disrobing.

Along with the illusions, there is also a subplot involving a general whose "ass is on the line here!" and loads of flashbacks. Wynorski went flashback crazy. Together, this leaves the plain narrative fractured, or like a clothesline to hang all these disconnected moments on, making the film feel a little Al Adamson-esque.

The CGI tentacles didn't bother me; I don't mind CGI. In this case, the CGI yields some creepy tentacle-coming-out-of-human imagery in the first ten minutes of the film; the rest of the film, however, gives up on this altogether.

The Thing Below is a pretty decent sea monster picture. I liked the setpieces, especially the striptease sequence. One wonders why the monster doesn't just kill these people once they're isolated, instead of providing a sexy, three-minute striptease. But I'm not complaining. It's supposed to be fun, and it succeeds in being so well-enough.

DinoCroc (2004)

I really had a hankering to watch a schlock 2000s horror film with CGI monsters. I know this is a perverse desire, but I couldn't help it. I had had my heart set on The Curse of the Komodo, but alas I couldn't find it. So I settled for DinoCroc. DinoCroc: Part dinosaur and part crocodile. Di-No-Croc. The name itself fascinates me. So elemental, primal; I could imagine one of our primitive ancestors, while drawing some stupid animals on the wall of their crummy caves, pointing to a drawing of a monster and saying DI! NO! CROC! and the other cavemen would be frightened for a moment, until it was time to rape their wives again.

DinoCroc concerns a CGI creature, raised in a genetic engineering lab, that escapes due to human stupidity. A family who lost their three-legged dog, the local animal control officer, her father the sheriff, and the lab's hired Australian croc-hunter (wonder who he could be based on?) take it upon themselves teach the DinoCroc a lesson in caring.

This leads up to a heart-pumping climax of frantic puppy-saving whilst fleeing the jaws of death. I'll explain better: there are several dogs, chained in a row for a good many yards, that are all in risk of getting eaten. Our animal-loving heroes, while being chased by the DINOCROC! must use a blowtorch to free the dogs before the DINOCROC! can eat them.

In between these two points, the film is surprisingly downbeat. A child is graphically eaten by the DINOCROC! Is the DINOCROC! the ferocious personification of our environmental destruction? Or is it just a hungry reptile? The harrowing emotions are explored in great detail with alarming sincerity and, some might say, incompetence, making for a draggy midsection. Fortunately, getting really drunk, kicking furniture and killing DINOCROCS! instantly cures everyone of their grief.

DinoCroc is competently made, under the watchful eye, no doubt, of producer Roger Corman. It begins with some good shooting and editing, if somewhat lacking in attention and while the inspiration dries up, the competence, at least, remains. The film speaks volumes with its irrational use of pans and crane shots, its jumpcuts symbolic of our inattentiveness to the environment. This is bolstered by the rare use of an all-choral score in a monster movie.

It had a few suspenseful moments that did the trick and I, as much as I'm ashamed to admit this, I found Costas Mandylor charming as the aussie croc-hunter. Mediocre entertainment, but much better than I expected; it made me laugh a few times and, I have to say, it does everything a film called DinoCroc should do. And it was worth watching for the puppy-saving and child-eating.

The Son of Frankenstein (1939)

No such thing as diminishing returns in Universal's Frankenstein series, it seems. Son is not the zany phantasmagoria Bride is, nor is it the somber character study the original is, but it has a mixture of both and one hell of a lot of spunk. The credit for this goes to whoever wrote these odd characters--truly some of the oddest people I've ever seen interacting this side of a David Lynch film--and the fantastic performances given by svelt young Basil Rathbone, Boris Karloff, an absolutely demented Bela Lugosi, and Lionel Atwill.

To write a glowing review of Son of Frankenstein for horror fans, I could have simply listed those four names and clicked 'Post'--mission accomplished. But movies like this really grab my interest. It reminds me very much of Tod Browning's The Devil-Doll, not in the plot points, but in the manic energy. It's as if Rathbone, Atwill, and Lugosi all decided to try and upstage one another. It's pretty hard to upstage a monster, but actually Karloff's monster is the most lowkey of the four. Bela Lugosi steals scenes from a monster. And Lionel Atwill almost steals the movie, were it not for the most nervy performance I've ever scene oozing from Rathbone.

The plot concerns the new Baron Frankenstein, son of the monster-maker, who also happens to be a scientist. He initially strikes one as a jovial fellow, but as the film progresses and his 'bundle-of-nerves' quality soars to heights possibly unparallel, I really had to wonder what this guy is really like. He seems to have the best of intentions; but it doesn't take much coaxing to have him raising a monster from the dead and killing a man. I think, actually, they were going for a return of the original Frankenstein theme: hubris. He frequently says things like, "Nothing in nature you understand needs be feared," and "I am afraid of nothing." He's a decent man with cosmic aspirations that end up putting his son in jeopardy (or do they?).

The townspeople have it in for Baron Frankenstein from the moment he arrives. He tries to greet them warmly, but they'll have none of it. There are some great moments showing the council of village elders discussing the vileness of 'the Frankenstein name.' This enough to unnerve anyone. And a major part of Frankenstein's motivations in this film are to vindicate both his family name and his father.

Enter Bela Lugosi as Ygor, about the polar opposite of the charming Dracula. Ygor is unkempt, vile, hateful, and played to the hilt by Lugosi; I hardly recognized him. He's been hiding the monster, using it to kill, and since it was struck by lightning, sheltering the comatose body. Somehow he's earned the monster's adoration, even though his concern for it doesn't strike me as anything but selfish and proprietal. He is a nasty, murderous creature who managed to survive a hanging. But since he was pronounced dead by the local physician--who is never wrong--he can't be hanged to death again. This leaves him with a distinctive broken neck. Ygor gets most of the film's best lines: a series of dark one-liners involving his own hanging, his neck ("Got a bone stuck in my throat"), and his murders. His presence puts the Frankenstein name at risk, because he is using the monster for evil.

Lionel Atwill's Inspector Krogh is the zany center of the film, kind of like Dr. Pretorius was in Bride. Polite, stiff, gentlemanly, and sharp, the Inspector's kindness and concern for the Baron quickly make him a thorn in his side. He has a wooden arm and a monocle. The original arm was lost to the monster: "One does not easily forget, Herr Baron, an arm torn out by the roots." In various scenes he uses the wooden arm to do things, like hold his monocle, while he wipes it, but neither he nor anyone else every mention it; it's just something he does. There is an incredible moment when the Inspector and the Baron are having a sort of passive aggressive showdown, talking to one another politely and angrily at the same time; it's so very odd, but it somehow encapsulates the film's essence: seemingly gentle and zany, yet it packs quite a whollop and is actually pretty macabre.

The last of the key players is Karloff's monster. Certainly the moral center of the film. He's killing because Ygor tells him to, but when he finally is overcome with wrath, it's not clear what his intentions are. Thinking on his own, does he make a moral decision? You can see the enormous influence on George Romero in this film. There's a moment when it looks like the monster is going to kill someone, but he doesn't; it's not clear if he ever intended to kill or if he changed his mind right there. I think it's the latter; the monster learns to make moral choices. The monster is still a child, really, but Rathbone can't bring himself to see it as anything other than an experiment; that's part of the tragedy here.

Son of Frankenstein is probably not for everyone. It's a love-it or hate-it sort of movie, I'd imagine, because it's so crazy. The film is filled with images of crumbling and decay: missing arms, broken necks, half-destroyed buildings, as if he natural progression of Frankenstein's experiments have tainted the environment around him. To my mind, this makes it the perfect third entry in the Frankenstein series. I love this movie and it's odd characters, Inspector Krogh most of all. It's not the equal to Bride or the original, but I think I might have enjoyed watching it even more than I did those.

Spider Labyrinth (1988)

Something about how this film started had me thinking, "Aw god, why the hell am I bothering to watch this? I could be watching a quality film. This film is probably obscure for a reason." The main thing that held my faith that it might be good was a name I spotted in the credits: Stephane Audran. WTF? THE Stephane Audran, one of the greatest actresses in the history of cinema, the star of every one of Chabrol's masterpieces and indeed Chabrol's wife? Yes, that Stephane Audran. I'm so glad I kept watching. Thanks, Stephane Audran!

I'm not the gushing type, and certainly I've seen much better films, yet I want to gush. You know how you have indulgent films from time to time that purport to be grand homages to certain eras of horror--like, say, Van Helsing? And you know how those films tend to suck--like, say, Van Helsing? Well, this one is one of those except it really doesn't suck at all. Spider Labyrinth is an homage to all Italian horror up to that point and it is a glorious homage, never parodical, always measured with just the right level of restraint, indulgent but not self-indulgent, out-there without being stupid.

The plot is pretty much The Wicker Man meets Lair of the White Worm. A professor of oriental languages is working on a Europe-wide project deciphering some script from possibly the most ancient religion ever (or something like that). The best researcher working on the project has suddenly stopped communicating, so our professor protagonist is sent out to Budapest to find him. There he discovers all the locals behave mysteriously and he's given hints by a man in the street that they're not planning on letting him leave--ever. As the professor investigates to figure out what's going on, his major leads keep getting murdered before they can help him--murdered by a hissing, growling, insect-like witch with superhuman strength (http://www.cinema-nocturna.com/spiderlabyrinth1.jpg).

This murder angle gives all the giallo elements for which you could ask. Now, before each murder, the witch tosses a black ball into the room. This trope is a direct allusion to Mario Bava's Kill Baby Kill. The creepy old hotel and the lighting therein are to my mind clearly referencing Argento's work in Suspiria and Inferno. In fact, our own Coventry says in his review that "THIS should have been the final chapter in Dario Argento's Three Mothers trilogy!" There's definitely some Fulci influence in there as well. I've also seen others call it Lovecraftian, and I suppose it is to some extent--if The Wicker Man had been written by Lovecraft.

If you're still not convinced: The last fifteen minutes has a giant spider with a toddler's head. Need I say more?

Definitely recommended for anyone who likes crazy, unrestrained horror films that are really earnest about being a horror film and for Italian horror buffs.
8/10

Lurking Fear (1994)

I actually saw the poster for Lurking Fear in a video store back in '94 and was desperately curious. I never did get a chance to see it. I wish it had remained that way. Lurking Fear is a bad movie. It's not an amusingly bad movie. It's a frustratingly bad movie. It insults your intelligence and doesn't deliver much on the fun.

A handsome, muscular man gets out of prison and goes looking for his criminal father's stash of money. It's in a cemetery in some town where, we learn, the population has been steadily shrinking due to some monster's living underground. Why don't the people just evacuate the stupid town? The only people who seem to be left are Jeffrey Combs, Kirsty from Hellraiser (Ashley Laurence), a priest, and a pregnant woman. Enter Mr. Beefcake, trailed by some caricature mob goons who want the money. All of these thoroughly unpleasant characters bicker, play tough-guy, mouth-off to each other, point guns at each other, take guns from each other, while the monsters occasionally reach a hand up from below.

One hopes and prays the monsters will consume these miserable pieces of human refuse. Only Jeffrey Combs is really likeable--because he's Jeffrey Combs. The rest are just annoying. Ashley Laurence is the most annoying of them all. The tough guy act just never stops with her. If you thought Wolverine from X-Men was annoying, hoo boy, she's got him beat. Speaking of which, Beefcake resembles Hugh Jackman as Wolverine. He also finds an excuse to go shirtless, which had me thinking, "Ah, so this is how women must feel when there is gratuitous T&A."

Long story short: the characters are heinous and poorly written, the monsters are boring and largely ineffectual, the plot is incoherent to put it lightly, and at 76 minutes it still runs too long. Most people here know I like nearly everything I watch. Lurking Fear beat me. It is bad and insulting. Stuart Gordon had actually been set to direct this. I think had Charles Band let Gordon write and direct, Lurking Fear may have been good. Perhaps what makes me hate the movie so much is just that the raw material is good; it's the execution that is repugnantly bad.

Castle Freak (1995)

Stuart Gordon doesn't get his due. Sure, the Re-Animator is a classic of sorts, but what about Gordon the director? Gordon the horror auteur who is always trying for something really new? With each horror film, he departs more from formula and invents his own way, a new way, of delving into the macabre and frightening the audience. He's not as intellectual as Romero, but he's formally a more innovative director.

With Castle Freak, Gordon reveals a particularly mature approach to horror that sort of works and sort of doesn't. It is has the salacious and scandalous seriousness of the more sordid works of gothic literature. Also like gothic novels, the film is predicated on the theme of family, particularly dark family secrets. It also takes place in a castle. Yes, indeed, Castle Freak is a salacious and sensationalist piece of gothic storytelling.

The plot concerns a husband (Jeffrey Combs), his wife (Barbara Crampton), and his blind daughter coming to the castle he has just inherited from his aunt, the duchess. They get more than they bargained for when the chronically abused, mutilated son in the cellar breaks free and wants sex, lots of sex--like Shakespeare's Caliban. In the meanwhile, Combs and Crampton are constantly in emotional conflict because his drunk driving took the life of their son.

The term 'mean-spirited' is often used as a dismissive term. Castle Freak is mature--there's no funny stuff, the themes are serious, the emotions of the characters are given room to be expressed and explored in earnest--but as I noted, also salacious. The combination gives the film a mean-spirited edge. One particular scene gives a whole new meaning to the expression 'eating a girl out.' It is unpleasant, but not unnecessary.

The film deals very much with the theme of sexual frustration. Just as Combs is forever denied by his wife, the freak from the cellar lacks a sexual organ to do anything with the women he captures. Where Combs takes out his frustration in more peaceful ways--or by going to prostitutes--the monster becomes violent.

Castle Freak is actually a very good, thoughtful movie. There are a few stupid moments. For instance, one wonders how a mutilated man kept in a cellar for decades is suddenly strong enough to break down doors and overpower a rather hefty police officer. One also must endure seeing the freak's ballsack a lot, because it's naked during the entire latter half of the film--I suppose that's a touch of realism I should be applauding, but I could have done without monster balls in my face. However, all that aside, one is left really with a mature approach to horror that has largely been neglected due to the general immaturity of the times. Had it been more playful like The Reanimator, it might have satisfied our juvenile tastes better. As it stands, it may be appreciated in times to come. But I myself found it a bit mean-spirited and the drama between Crampton and Combs annoying.

Gargoyles (1972)

This might not be an unbiased review, because Gargoyles stars none other than Cornel Wilde, of whom I am a big admirer. A made for TV movie, I was expecting Gargoyles to be a little hokey; and, yes, it is a little hokey. The film begins with a slideshow of gargoyles and demons accompanied by a voice-over explaining that gargoyles are a species that fights with humans for dominance of earth every so often. How they became gutter spouts is a tidbit lost to history, I guess.

Then we skip to the plot. Cornel Wilde plays a pretty interesting character, as the first 5-10 minutes makes clear to us. He's an academic whose research is into mythology, legends, occult, demonology--but all strictly as a non-believer. It's just a dry, academic subject to him. The plot sort of develops out of this. He's going to write a new best-seller on these subjects (these were the days of Eric von Daniken, after all) and wants to check out a story the story of an old curiosity shoppe owner out in the desert. So he takes his lovely daughter (Jennifer Salt, of Brian DePalma's Sisters) and heads out, where the creepy old man shows him the bones of a supposed devil.

This is where things get weird. You expect a lot of build-up before the gargoyles start making appearances. Not so. They show up in the desert and start trashing that old man's curiosity shoppe. This kind of caught me by surprise. This isn't a normal horror film I'm dealing with here, I'm thinking. And I thought right. In fact, after a few more not-really-scary encounters with the gargoyles, we get into a plot about gargoyles struggling to dominate humans and needing human education to do so while Wilde, the police force, and some bikers try to destroy them.

So it suddenly becomes a sort of fantasy epic with horror elements, namely, that the gargoyles have no qualms about savagely killing humans. Oh yeah, and the lead gargoyle tries to put the moves on Jennifer Salt. And she's all like, "Come on, I'm not even sure I'd date a black guy; I'm not ready for gargoyle love."

And that's the gist of it. The gargoyles are clearly guys in suits, but I actually like the costumes. The suits have a nice, skin-like texture that looks plausible enough. The masks are a bit more difficult to accept, but the film does what it can and I felt the film was fun enough to make me want to go along with it.

There are also some moments of unintentional humour, as one might expect in a made-for-tv fantasy horror epic about gargoyles. One of my favourites is when the old curiosity shoppe owner falls down and catches on fire, for no reason Cornel Wilde just declares, "He's dead," grabs the gargoyle skull and runs out of the building leaving the old man to burn. Another favourite is when the gargoyles come to reclaim the body of a fallen comrade and find Wilde and his daughter have slipped out of the window in a matter of seconds carrying a gargoyle body that, it would seem, suddenly weighs no more than a small bag of cat food. Incidentally, there are moments of intentional humour as well.

Gargoyles makes a good effort at entertaining and it succeeds. It is a bit awkwardly structured and doesn't seem 100% certain of what kind of movie it wants to be, but I found myself thoroughly charmed. Old fashioned goofy fun. Check it out.

Dagon (2001) - 3.5/4

There are three collective reasons I can imagine for someone not liking Stuart Gordon's Dagon:

1. Many H.P. Lovecraft fans are obsessive and pedantic about the Master's work, probably due to the esoteric feel one gets from knowing Lovecraft well when so few do.

2. Many think a film should be literally and/or thematically faithful to the literary work(s) it adapts.

3. Many Lovecraft fans thus have a very limited view of what a Lovecraftian film ought to be and reject as a failure any Lovecraft-based film that does not fit the preconceived mould.

And it's mostly going to be Lovecraft fans watching Dagon, an adaptation of The Shadow Over Innsmouth (even though it did not contain Dagon, who is from Lovecraft's story "Dagon"). That alone gets stuck in the craw of the encyclopedic little Lovecraft-buff, and probably hinders his or her enjoyment from the get-go.

I, as it happens, have read very little of Lovecraft and what I have read was read ten years ago. I also happen to think a film has no duty to the work(s) it uses as source material, so even if I had read every word of Lovecraft I'd not judge the film on that basis. Therefore, I have little sympathy for the criteria of judgment the pedantic Lovecraftian indulges in.

With the film itself, we get, from within the first fifteen minutes, almost constant suspenseful action with an hour-long chase punctuated only by a flashback, all set in an exotic, spooky, highly atmospheric location that is perpetually dark and rainy, filled with well-designed monsters that hunt the hero at every step. This is how Resident Evil and Silent Hill should have been done; it reminds one of those games in feeling.

The plot concerns a young man--who has nightmares of a beautiful, black-haired mermaid--his girlfriend, and their two friends finding themselves at the mercy of a mysterious storm. The young man finds himself separated from his three companions in a town populated by fishy (pun intended) inhabitants: human-fish hybrids.

Gradually it is revealed that the inhabitants are worshipers of a being called Dagon. Dagon began by granting the villagers fish and gold from the sea, but soon claimed their souls as they began to mutate into human-hating fish-beasts.

In Dagon Gordon creates a location so evocative and so intensely creepy, it is as if he transposed it directly from his imagination. The labyrinthine Old World town is engulfed in dark, besieged by rain, and filled with fish-mutants with a hunger for our hero. They are everywhere and one never knows where one will come from or what the next one will appear like.

Gordon also creates one of the most suspenseful chases in horror cinema. The entire town pursues our hero as he hides in delapidated buildings, old churches, slimy alleyways. The pursuit continues for nearly the duration of the film. The only period of rest Gordon allows the audience is during an explanatory flashback by an old drunk (Francisco Rabal, no less!).

Needless to say, I found this film to be very impressive. I don't know or care how faithful it is to Lovecraft. Gordon has distilled horror, terror, and atmosphere into an intense, parsimonious 98 minutes of brilliant horror cinema. The images revolt, the monsters terrify, and the dark town overwhelms with atmosphere. I've never seen any other film like it. In fact, the only comparison is what one sees in the imagination while reading some old issues of Weird Tales.

The Stuff (1985)

Larry Cohen's The Stuff is a The Blob-style horror-thriller combined with the stylistic approach of 70s Romero and the whimsical satire of SCTV. Were The Stuff the sum of its influences, it would be a masterpiece; though it is no masterpiece, it succeeds as a horror film and is amusing, if uninsightful, as a satire of consumerism.

The plot involves a white substances that bubbles up from a hole in the ground behind a factory. A man tasting it discovers it's delicious. Soon it's being marketed as a dessert product called "The Stuff" with enough commercial clout to rival Pepsi. Unfortunately it addicts its consumers, eats out their insides, and renders them host shells for the stuff.

Meanwhile, a cohort of businessmen arrange to have industrial saboteur named Mo ('cause when he gets money, he always asks for mo'--he reminds you of this every few minutes) investigate The Stuff. A little boy escapes from his stuff-infected parents. The marketing genius behind The Stuff disaffects and falls in love with Mo. And a ruined dessert CEO, Chocolate Chip Charley, fights the minions of the new industrial superpower. Somehow all of these characters meet up and find their lives frequently threatened by The Stuff and its host bodies. A bizarre, retired colonel who lives in a castle joins the fight later in the film.

Stylistically, the film is much like Romero's The Crazies, but not nearly so serious. It has a gritty, realistic feel, a constant sneer of disdain about certain conduct within society, and a seemingly unstoppable menace that takes over once-normal bodies.

Where these films differ is that Romero seems to be putting real institutions and real people in a petri dish and under a microscope. Cohen, on the other hand, has a certain college boy facetiousness, as if he were saying this is what probably would happen if a dessert product bubbled out of the soul--and we can all have a laugh over it.

Consequently, Cohen's film isn't as strong as Romero's. His dialogue is frequently throw-away, utilitarian, or just preposterous. While being chased by the minions of The Stuff, Mo and Charley take time to make casual witty comments before trying to get away, for instance. Some characters seem to have come from outer space, like Paul Sorvino's colonel. The little boy seems remarkably unperturbed by having lost his whole family. Other hints suggest that we are not dealing so much with real people as with action figures to carry along the message.

The message is as hamfisted as Romero's messages. It is perhaps even more cynical--or realistic you may say. However, it is presented with more wit and verve. The Stuff is a mirror for megaproducts like Pepsi. The advertising campaign resembles some cheesier attempts at marketing Pepsi and Coke (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=va7bjHYCIGI). The way The Stuff effects an Invasion of the Body Snatchers sort of program is certainly a comment on the way marketing takes away one's freedom to think critically about products--the conformism of the marketed world. And the actual CEO we meet towards the end of the film and what is done to him is as clear a statement as it gets.

However, The Stuff is a very entertaining film. It actually delivers on scares, particularly in the scenes where the little boy is in trouble. The special effects for the stuff itself are fascinating and effective. It's also quite a funny film, even if the satire is the same anti-consumerism you've seen many times before. The zaniness of the characters won't distract at all; they fit, because they're the closest to sanity in a 'world gone mad'.