Cultarama

Seytan

2024-09-23T03:14:00.000-05:00

So, here's the thing... I actually did not know that Turkey had a habit in the '70s and '80s of completely remaking American movies because it was cheaper than getting a print shipped over from the United States. That's just not something I ever thought would be that big of a problem, at least not so much that you'd have to completely remake the entire movie shot for shot, with all new sets, actors, and "special effects". Nevertheless, that's what they did, and it was also apparently an easy way to culturally appropriate motion pictures for the Turkish People so that subtitles wouldn't always be such a bother and so that they could have a slice of cinema that they could call "theirs", even though it was a blatantly obvious plagiarism at its very worst. This was done with tons of American movies, including Superman, Jaws, Indiana Jones, Star Wars, Rambo, etc. And being the huge success that it was, The Exorcist fell into the category of movies that simply must be remade into a cheap ripoff and shown in every theater in Istanbul. They renamed it Seytan, which means "devil" in Turkish.

Now, one would think the first question that arises would be "How can a cinematic masterpiece like The Exorcist be completely remade"? Well, remakes happen all the time, and although it hasn't been officially remade...yet, The Exorcist definitely has more than its share of sequels and ripoffs. The biggest ripoff of The Exorcist that I've seen to date has got to be the movie Abby, a blaxploitation film made in 1974, the same year that Seytan was made. The Exorcist came out in 1973, so these people wasted no time cashing in. And though it's a very obvious remake of The Exorcist, only with Black people, Abby still has a sense of originality to it that Seytan has absolutely none of. While the demon in Abby got changed to a jive-talking sex demon and the exorcism took place in a discotheque, in Seytan truly nothing was changed. The priest was changed to a doctor but that was only the cultural appropriation at work. The Catholic overtones had to be changed to Islam in order for the storyline to be relevant I guess. Some of the more graphic elements in The Exorcist were tamed down and the language was a little less harsh, but I really think that was because it was just too embarrassing for the actors to recreate. How Linda Blair did it in the first place was a miracle in itself.

Even though it sounds like a boring endeavor with an equally boring product, and trust me, in many ways it is, it still has a cult following because of the sheer oddity of it. A curiosity piece that still has to be seen to be believed. The "special effects" that are recreated are a special treat. The head spinning scene was among my favorites. The vomit still looks like pea soup but has a tinge of blue to it. And the scene where Gul (simply Turkish for "girl") takes a leak at the top of the stairs had me in stitches because the little girls' legs were so hairy that I really thought it was part of the special effects, even though it wasn't. As of now, Seytan can be found on YouTube, but finding a version with English subtitles is rare. A copy was released on DVD in 2007 with English subtitles, but the quality of the print is downright deplorable. An English dubbed version exists but given the language that exists in the original, repeating toned-down versions of it just adds to the lunacy of what's being seen.

Much like when Abby was released, when William Friedkin found out that his movie had been remade/ripped off AGAIN, he wasn't happy, but like all things, a bell can't be unrung. Once a movie is made, it's gonna get out there, no matter who you have to sue to try and stop it. And now we can find it on free platforms to enjoy making fun of at our leisure. Honestly, if you've already seen The Exorcist though, you don't even need the subtitles, you already know exactly what's going on and will find every single scene completely foreign yet strangely it's exactly the same.

2024-09-22T22:32:00.001-05:00

I'd heard about this quirky little gem when searching for mockumentaries, and even though it was a bit hard to locate, it didn't disappoint. I always love a good backstory and this one has it in spades. It was meant to be just a bit of Halloween fun by the BBC, but it ultimately turned out to be a complete disaster. It caused quite a commotion when it was shown and as a result, the BBC hasn't aired it since. You see, even though it had all the hallmarks of a mockumentary and even had a disclaimer at the beginning letting everyone know that it was faked for entertainment purposes, a lot of people took it seriously and were subsequently traumatized by thinking that it was real and there were even a few fatalities involved. Apparently, most people tuned in a few seconds too late and missed the disclaimer, therefore believing that what they were viewing was the real thing. Having well-known BBC personalities starring in it made the film all the more believable and realistic, and being billed as a "live broadcast" it had audiences convinced that what they were viewing was happening in real-time, even having a working phone number that you could call into, therefore adding about as much realism that the BBC could come up with.

The story is pretty basic actually. Just what you might expect from a ghost mockumentary. For those of you familiar with the Enfield Poltergeist Haunting, you'll definitely see some major similarities and Ghostwatch was surely inspired by the case. A family consisting of a single mother and two young daughters are being tormented by a ghost they call "Mr. Pipes", a name given to the ghost because it makes noises like the clanking of old pipes. The family has also claimed that the previous owner died by suicide in the home and whose corpse was soon eaten by his own cats. They claim that the bulk of the haunting seems to reside in the basement, said place of the previous owners' death and where he became Fluffy's dinner when the vittle tin went dry. Amazingly, this area becomes known as the "glory hole". No really, that's what they actually call it. Some other creepy stuff went down in the area too, something about a cult nearby, some unsolved murders, and I think even a baby farm.

The case has already gained much media attention and a TV station has decided that it would be a great idea to do a live broadcast of a ghost-hunting exhibition at the home on Halloween night. Showcasing all the cool equipment they have with infrared cameras and microphones that can catch the faintest of ghostly whispers, etc. The reporters are so sweetly innocent that you find yourself really wanting them to experience something terrifying that'll scar them for the rest of their lives and destroy their TV careers forever. Or is that just me? The main hosts of the show who are keeping tabs on everything from back at the station studio and a few of the reporters were well-known TV personalities, lending quite a bit of credence to the reality of this being an actual live broadcast.

In the studio along with the show's host is a paranormal investigator who gives us the lowdown on hauntings, poltergeists, and supernatural phenomena. She displays broken crockery that has shattered under extreme temperature change which apparently can only be done by a ghost and some other video tidbits proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that ghosts are a reality. And though presented with basic debunking facts, she insists that spectral apparitions are common and that the haunting being investigated by the TV station is real and will be proven so by this presentation.

The ghost watch starts off pretty tame with only a bump or clang here and there that is soon discovered to be something simple and harmless, but soon weird things begin to happen. A mysterious wet spot appears on the ceiling, the TV becomes staticky, and one of the girls starts behaving strangely. The TV crew is guided through the house and told gruesome stories about the history of the property when a loud clanging can be heard. Upon looking for the source of the sound though, it's discovered that one of the young girls is doing it on purpose and faking the ghost sounds, throwing the credibility of the whole haunting into question. But just when everyone is about to give up on the whole thing and all look pretty embarrassed, the oldest daughter ends up with mysterious cuts all over her face and has become almost catatonic. The enraged mother declares that this couldn't possibly be faked and that the haunting is real. With new evidence to support the case, the ghost watch continues and more unexplained creepy things begin to happen, each more inexplicable than the last, when finally in the midst of utter chaos, the studio loses contact with the crew at the house.

The situation back at the studio is becoming crazy too, with poltergeist activity occurring there as well. The paranormal investigator that has been co-hosting the show tells us that by having viewers call in and share their ghost stories they have formed a sort of huge televised seance where ghosts can now travel into the studio and possibly into the viewers' own homes through their TVs. Cameras at the station have begun to flicker, papers are flying around, and the main host appears to be just wandering around and possibly possessed. All of this is presented in a pretty realistic way and I can see how this would look convincing to someone who didn't catch the disclaimer at the beginning of the show that lets you know that this is most definitely for entertainment purposes only.

Anyway, the show was a hit, only not exactly as planned, or maybe too well planned depending on how you look at it. You see, the general audience can be quite gullible, and the people who freaked out over the War of the Worlds broadcast still exist, and pretty much the same thing happened here. Having actual well-known television personalities involved in the plot lent a huge amount of credibility to the broadcast and I'm sure that being shown on Halloween night added to the anxiety people already feel when just a little bit spooked. And a great many people in the audience thought it was all real. There was an actual call line that went with the show where people could share their own personal ghost stories, but instead, the line was bombarded with calls from people wanting to know if this was really happening or not. So much so that the line got clogged with callers and most people were redirected to a busy signal, adding to the panic already beginning to occur.

A public admission of the show's inauthenticity and an apology by the network couldn't contain the damage already done. Audience members lost their minds in the typical fashion and thought every pipe clank or board creak was a ghost, a poltergeist, a demon, or basically the devil himself. People sued for developing Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and there was even a suicide. A teenage boy suffering from mental health problems apparently seemed to prefer the idea of being a ghost himself and took his life citing Ghostwatch as the inspiration for his undertaking. The BBC has obviously never aired the broadcast again and doesn't even like to talk about it, considering it a true embarrassment. A documentary called Ghostwatch: Behind the Curtains was produced in 2012 and chronicles the making of Ghostwatch and the subsequent public reaction that followed. After watching so many found footage films that were done well and were quite believable due to clever advertising like The Blair Witch Project, it's hard to be impressed by one, but a film like Ghostwatch is actually better if you know the trivia behind the film before watching. When you know that it caused such a crazy reaction from such a huge amount of the viewing audience and that there were lawsuits and actual deaths involved, the movie itself carries a lot more gravity.

2024-07-29T00:54:00.007-05:00

So I was browsing through some old cult films that had made their way onto YouTube and came across this little gem from 1979. I can't believe I made it this long without finding this film and making it a part of my collection here on Cultarama, because it truly deserves a coveted spot amongst the best of the best. It boasts a faded star in Chuck Conners, who had wanted to reinvent himself and leave his square-jawed cowboy persona in the past. A soon-to-be semi-famous, yet mostly topless star in Tanya Roberts, who for all her physical endowments and icy blue eyes cannot act her way out of a wet paper bag. And a young professionally trained actress named Jocelyn Jones, who has gone on to be what many consider a film industry treasure and has taught some of the most accomplished actors out there, in addition to being a #1 bestselling author. How she found her way into this freakshow of a movie is anyone's guess.

It begins as your typical "omg, we have a flat tire, guess we'll have to stop at some desolate location and get murdered" setup with your average group of young and pretty victims. Shortly before our new victims arrive, we get to see the bizarre murder of a previous victim who also picked the wrong roadside tourist attraction to attempt a call for help when dealing with a faulty car. He enters a room and is confronted with laughing mannequins and poltergeist-like activity with bottles being thrown at him etc, until a flying pipe finally seals his fate. Stephen King himself praised this terrifying opening scene in his nonfiction book about horror films Danse Macabre, and I definitely concur with Mr. King, it is truly intense and sets the tone for the next hour and twenty minutes.

As our attractive visitors make it to Slausen's Lost Oasis roadside attraction, they neglect to notice a sign that says the attraction is closed to the public. Despite this, when they arrive at The Lost Oasis they are greeted by Mr. Slausen who owns the place. After being caught skinny dipping in a small lake on the property, the female members of the group (why is it always the women who skinny dip, are men in horror films not allowed to do this?) follow him into the attraction where he shows them his collection of animatronic mannequins and other nightmare fuel he's surrounded himself with. He then pulls some dialogue straight out of Psycho by telling them that since the new highway has been built, no one comes to see his creepy collection. Yeah, that's why. When asked about the mansion behind the museum, he tells our young ladies that his brother Davy lives there and that he lives in the museum. Eileen, the sassiest of the bunch, decides that Davy is the better choice of a helper than Mr. Slausen, being that he lives in a mansion and all, strikes out on her own and is therefore the first killed. She is attacked by a combination killer that resembles the perfect marriage between Leatherface and Michael Myers with Carrie-like telekinetic abilities and finishes her off while all the mannequins laugh.

We then have Becky, played by Tanya Roberts, going to look for her friend, making her the obvious second victim. She finds Eileen but it appears she's been turned into a mannequin herself. Hard to tell since the entire place is jam-packed with them. Eileen turns around revealing her new plastic facade, scaring Becky in what is the worst jump scare reaction ever caught on film. You'd think instead of leaping towards her, she just turned around and was like "Hey girl, killer or something around, might wanna head for the car". She gets caught and is taken to the cellar and tied up, where Jerry the only guy in the group is also tied up along with a girl who's evidently been captured and tortured for some time now and is just praying to hurry up and meet her maker, cuz she's over it. "Plasterface" goes on about how he's Mr. Slausen's much more handsome brother, yet comes off completely gay about it. The doll mask and blonde wig he's wearing don't help. He's also evidently telekinetic and can move things.

Molly, the only girl left and the last surviving victim if there ever was one, escapes only to learn that Plasterface and Mr. Slausen are the same man with a split personality in yet another Psycho reference. In addition to Psycho, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is invoked many times as well. Both stories originate from the story of Ed Gein, and the similarities cannot be denied, only cheaply copied. There's even a scene with Molly (the blonde) running through the woods yelling "Jerry!!" which is a scene taken verbatim from Texas Chainsaw. Oh yeah, Becky gets killed with an ax, anyway...

Mr. Slausen has by now taken a keen liking to Molly and wants her to replace his dead bride. Even though he confesses that he killed her and his own brother, cuz they were "whoring around" behind his back. Personally, I wouldn't miss someone like that, but that's just me. Mr. Slausen puts a doll face on Molly and smooches her pretty hard in what is a most uncomfortable scene before Jerry comes to the rescue. But has he really?

Molly cries out for Jerry to kill Mr. Slausen but he then gets his arm removed, then his head, etc, revealing that he too is another mannequin made to look alive by our telekinetic villain. While Mr. Slausen is enjoying freaking Molly out to the fullest, she somehow dares to grab an ax and hit him in the neck, effectively killing him and all the laughing mannequins, who with their creepy oversized mouths, FINALLY shut the hell up. The next morning we see Molly flying down the highway (guess she got the tire fixed, good for her) with all her mannequin friends in the backseat. A look of fresh insanity on her face as her ratty blonde hair flaps in the cool breeze.

The trivia for this film was abundant, but I'll only highlight the better ones. The score, which the director hated but used anyway because it cost an entire 1/6 of the film's total budget, was done by the composer who scored Carrie only a few years prior. Being that it's about a telekinetic misfit I guess is just a coinkinkidink. Horror scream queen Linnea Quigly makes a brief cameo as a mannequin, but being that they all look the same, I still have no idea which one was her. Chuck Conners insisted on using his kids' names in the credits for the actor who played Davy because no one wanted to give away the twist ending. All in all, I thought it was a great film. It had its flaws like every movie but the goofs were actually rather rare. The premise of the telekinetically controlled mannequins and dolls was a great touch when creating a film experience destined to give people nightmares for years. Yours truly included, I hate dolls.

2024-07-17T01:50:00.001-05:00

So, we come to that age-old decision, is it camp, classic, and basically does it fit into the archetype cult film status that we've all come to know and love. Usually, big-budget films that were very popular and did well in the theater don't necessarily fit under a cult classic label, but some stories actually do it quite well. Dracula is a little different in that it's one of the few multilayered posts I've done, something that takes up a whole universe and has a mythos to it. Many horror movies with all their remakes, sequels, prequels, miniseries, and alternate storylines also have that air of existing within its own universe, much like the earlier movies by John Waters starring Divine had their own connected universe as well. Similar.

Anyway, I had just finished the Bram Stoker original novel and fondly remembered the fancy remake starring Winona Ryler and Gary Oldman, but how long had it been since I saw the original 1931 Tod Browning film version of Dracula with the vampire legend himself Bela Lugosi? So I gave it a rewatch and I guess you could say it was classy, but only by the standards of the time, otherwise it was quite campy. Movies in general were still relatively new and campy crap was always gonna sneak in there somewhere. From the cheap bats on strings to armadillos being used at Castle Dracula instead of rats (in Transylvania, seriously?). Having seen Bela in his most revered and prized lifetime role (in death too, he was buried in his Dracula costume and cape), it's not a far cry to see him drifting into cheap Ed Wood films. Even though we loved them for their absurdity, it was sad to know that it was mostly because of Bela's heroin addiction which had caused him to have to work well past retirement age while being in terrible health as the only real reason that he starred in them. Bela's Dracula/overlord role in Ed's Glen or Glenda, a movie that couldn't decide whether to be a horror movie or a serious attempt at explaining transexualism, is totally a treasure to behold. And for all his efforts to try and provide his idol and friend a job, Ed Wood tried his very best, too bad it always came out has his very worst. Even though Bela's acting isn't all that great in Dracula, it was just such a sexy role that I think most people really didn't care and it propelled him into super stardon, at least for a short while. When stars fall on hard times, some turn to drugs and alcohol, some turn to doing porn or Ed Wood films. Bela kinda did both...but with a completely alluring Hungarian accent.

Bela carried his own without a doubt, but when it came to acting Renfield stole the show. I mean that laugh was creepiness personified. The rest of the cast faded into the background. For as much a part as she plays in the book, I always expect the character of Lucy Westenra to be as over-the-top girlie girl as possible and for Mina Harker to be the quintessential woman of virtue, but the 1931 film missed these two character opportunities by a mile. The rest...meh. I much more enjoyed the culty camp factor, which was plentiful.

In the 1992 remake, both the original movie and the book were merged pretty seamlessly into a whole new film with the exception of one huge change. The secret romance between Mina Harker and Count Dracula. It may not have been anywhere in the book or original movie, but it made for a much more interesting love story, albeit an atypical one, but still had tremendous merit and made for some delicious dialogue and quotes that will live on in infamy. "I've crossed oceans of time to find you". You so crazy you coulda jus called. Personally, I really liked the remake and it's new plot twist. Something about turning Mina from a goody two shoes into a vampire slut cheating on her husband was much more appealing, especially since Jonathan Harker was a bit of a real estate bore anyway. The cinematography and costumes were well worth the overall effort, which I believe took away several awards for each.

Overall, I think the book was a bit simplistic, but it had a unique tone to it throughout. It's separated into three basic parts. Jonathan Harker's initial experience with Count Dracula in Transylvania, the death and resurrection of Lucy Westenra, and the final showdown between Jonathan Harker, Professor Van Helsing (plus a few extra henchmen) and Count Dracula. The ending is rather anticlimactic and the characters are a little one sided, but the imagery and symbolism are what make it a classic among classics. The baptism of blood sequence in the book where Mina drinks the spurting blood of Count Dracula, then bitches about how unclean she feels afterwards even though she seemed to enjoy it, just screams of regretted fellatio. And then of course in the days of HIV, the whole taboo of unclean blood received through a form of sexual pleasure takes on a brand new symbolism. It's metaphoric horror themes like these that make a classic endurable throughout the ages, and Dracula is one of the best. Campy, classy, and very cult, on many levels, both in writing and in film.

Sextette

2023-09-05T22:40:00.004-05:00

If you don't enjoy Mae West, you might as well leave this website, because she was the ultimate Queen of Camp, at least in her later years. This was a woman who basically saved Paramount Studios from complete bankruptcy and single-handedly brought feminism to its height of appreciation. She didn't need a man, but constantly talked about them anyway. "Men are like linoleum floors, lay 'em right and you can walk all over them for years'. Her quotes are as funny as they are timeless, and she had a million of them, all of which she wrote herself! "Is that a pistol in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?" Miss West definitely had her time in the spotlight, making hit after hit while in her heyday, but after a while, she'd basically had enough and lived quietly in the apartment building (that she purchased simply because the manager didn't care for her type of friends) called The Ravenwood. She even bought the building across the street because she didn't like the color and after buying it, she had it repainted.

Anyway, after years of being in retirement, Mae West was drawn back out into the spotlight to star in the camp classic Myra Breckinridge. A movie that even though it had Mae West, Raquel Welch, Farrah Fawcett, and a young Tom Selleck starring in it, tanked worse than most of the movies ever made at that point (1970). And even though it really isn't that great of a movie, it's still enjoyed for its trashy campiness and unbelievable storyline, not to mention the bad acting. But most of all, we got to see what became of the powerhouse we all knew as the incomparable Mae West, who was the real star of the film even though she probably had the least screen time of all the actors in the entire movie.

Even after the disastrous Myra Breckinridge had completely tanked at the box office, it still reminded Mae West that she was a star and had reignited her desire to be seen in films again, even though she was over 80 years old at that point. So she dug out an old play that she had written almost 20 years prior, that people had told her could never be filmed due to its sexual overtones, but it was now the late 1970s, and scripts like the ones Mae wrote were no longer seen as jailable offenses. Mae was always ahead of her time. I mean, this was a woman who wrote a play all about gay men, simply titled "Sex"...back in the 1920s!

So Mae West dug out an old script, revamped it, and hired literally EVERYBODY to star in it, and I do mean EVERYBODY. Timothy Dalton, Dom Deluise, Tony Curtis, Ringo Starr, Regis Philbin, George Hamilton, and Alice Cooper, just to name a few! And these were just the people who accepted a role in the film, dozens of other actors were offered roles and (wisely) turned them down. And even though it still had (almost) every star that was somewhat popular at the time, it STILL tanked at the box office, shockingly worse than Myra Breckinridge did, which people didn't think was cinematically possible. Proving that no matter how many wonderful actors you insert into a film it can still be a piece of crap.

Even though the plot is paper thin, and the acting is horrendous, I still loved it. Just to see how good Mae West still looked at 84 years old. Speaking of the plot, it was obviously geared to function as a showcase of stars instead of an actual movie. The entire story revolves around a woman named Marlo Manners (Mae West) who has recently married Sir Michael Barrington (Timothy Dalton) and no one even bats an eyelash despite the 60-year age difference between them. It just so happens that there is an international conference happening at the very hotel where Marlo and her new husband (#6) are now spending their honeymoon. Husbands 1-5 are all there and one of them, a Russian delegate I think, decides that he wants one last fling with his old flame Marlo. Meanwhile, her current husband spends the entire movie in an interview trying desperately to prove he's not gay ("Where's my husband? He's downstairs trying to save his reputation. Oh, well he should be up here with me trying to ruin it")

Madness erupts when it's discovered that Marlo has made a cassette recording of all her scandalous affairs, that her manager is trying to destroy but it keeps slipping through his fingers and makes its way all around the hotel in various sorts of mishaps. This little pink tape ends up everywhere from being stuck in a muscleman's pecs to one of the building's gargoyles. Not such a long story made even shorter, he gets it back, and the world (and Marlo's reputation) is saved. Not that she really cares. She's too busy trying on new outfits in her hotel room the entire time.

Most assuredly a movie that has more trivia than it does storyline. Mae West was basically blind, deaf, and senile when the movie was made and apparently needed an earpiece hidden in her wig to help her remember her lines. Sandbags were placed on the floor so that she would know when she'd hit her mark since she couldn't see two inches in front of her due to having severe cataracts. Such a terrible movie, but it does fall into that wonderful category of "so bad that it's good". And even though it got awful reviews, hardly made a dime, and was a temporary demise for many up-and-coming actors, there isn't one person who says that they had less than a marvelous time making it, proving that even when she was already half dead, Mae West could still be the life of the party.

The Baby

2023-09-05T20:50:00.005-05:00

I can say that I personally really love this movie. It was SO not what I thought it was gonna be when I started watching it. I can't even remember where I originally heard about this film, only that I managed to find it on YouTube and thought it was wonderful. Strange as it is, I think it's actually really well done and the premise is completely original in so many ways. Made in 1973, it took a while for this film to catch on cuz it was just so damn weird, but it had at least one famous actress in it and a few then-unknown actresses in it that would become semi-famous down the road. Ruth Roman had been in a hundred different movies by the time she made The Baby, mostly Westerns and several TV shows like The Outer Limits, I Spy, and Mission Impossible. But I think by the time she made this film, she was just trying to pay the rent. Anjenette Comer had done some television before making this film but gained a decently respectable resume' after starring in The Baby. Susanne Zenor didn't do much during or after this film but she was the original actress chosen to play Chrissie Snow on Three's Company but lost out at the last minute to another blonde bimbo named Suzanne (Somers). She eventually did get to have a brief walk-on part in Three's Company as a character named Samantha. Shame though, I think she would've taken that role to a whole new interesting level.

Anyway, on with the story. Ann Gentry (Anjenette Comer) is a social worker who is looking for something, a particular kind of client, at first we're not sure why yet, but the reason is definitely there. She meets the Wadsworth family, an odd bunch of ladies consisting of Mrs. Wadsworth (Ruth Roman) and her two daughters, Alba (Susanne Zenor), a suspiciously happy girl (at first) who gives tennis lessons in the afternoon, and Germaine, who looks like an Elvira knockoff with a devious glare that sets your nerves on end the moment you see her. She obsessively cleans all day (and occasionally does TV commercials). But when it's time for Ann to meet her client though, the weirdness picks up pace.

Ann's client is a grown man who is completely infantile, sleeps in a giant crib, sucks on a pacifier, can only utter the occasional gaga and googoo, and is always simply referred to as "Baby". Although Ann seems taken aback by this, she doesn't shy away from it and takes a liking to him almost immediately. In fact, Ann starts to become a little bit obsessed with Baby, showing up several times a week, way more than the typical social worker who may drop in a mere three to four times in an entire year. She attempts to get Baby to improve beyond his infantile state by trying to get him to stand on his own, possibly even walk but is suspiciously held back from doing so by the entire family.

After one of Anns attempts at getting Baby to "grow up" a little, we find that behind closed doors, the entire family is keeping Baby in his infantile state by torturing him with cattle prods and other evil tactics when he shows any sign of improvement, therefore making damn sure that he is never anything more than a "baby". But Ann is smart and though she doesn't witness the abuse firsthand, she definitely has figured out what's going on. She tries to get Baby put into a hospital for the mentally delayed but the Wadsworth women are not interested. It seems that this family of women is pretty hateful towards men, especially Baby, mostly because the mother was deserted by a different husband after each child was born.

Ann knows that she can help Baby and threatens to use the Public Guardian Office to take Baby away from the abuse that he suffers from almost daily. At first, all three women are disgusted and dismissive of Ann's threats, declare Baby as theirs and throw her off the property, but later on, they think better of it because they realize that they don't want Baby's abuse to be discovered. So they hatch a plan to lure Ann over to their house for Baby's birthday party and somehow get rid of her. Ann shows up, but she's a smart cookie and is prepared for pretty much anything.

During this party, one that is clearly for adults on drugs, without a single child (or adult children) in sight, some drunk prick keeps hitting on Ann and she declares that she is happily married and isn't interested. In fact, Ann is asked about her husband several times throughout the movie and is intentionally vague, not really saying that he's dead, but won't verify his existence either.

At first, the family is nice to Ann and seems like they genuinely want to make up, but during an innocent game of darts, Ann's punch is spiked and she becomes intoxicated. When she begins staggering, they take her to the basement and tie her up, with the intention of doing away with her meddling ass entirely after the party ends. Unfortunately for them, they leave the basement door ajar and Baby makes his way down to where Ann is being held captive. Because Baby has by now grown rather fond of Ann, he helps (or at least watches) as she manages to escape. But she ain't leaving here alone, not until she gets what she came after. She bails out of the party, takes Baby with her, and slashes the tires in the family car before she leaves so they can't come after her. Told ya she was a smart cookie.

The Wadsworth women are defeated, Baby is finally in Ann's safeguard, but this chicken hasn't been cooked yet. Ann sends a picture of Baby to the Wadsworth family, all dressed in a suit, standing tall and looking all grown up. This enrages Baby's mother and his demented sisters so they decide that they must find Baby and get him back, at any cost.

They manage to locate where Ann lives and sneak into the house with knives like some kind of Manson Family hippies and prepare to kill Ann and bring Baby home. After Alba and Germaine go into the house but don't return, the mother grows impatient and enters the house herself, but when she does find her daughters, they've already been murdered. She doesn't have much time to mourn though before Ann comes out of the darkness with an ax and attacks the mother. They battle for a few minutes before Mrs. Wadsworth falls from the staircase and breaks both legs. Instead of killing her though, Ann has a much better plan. You see, Ann has been having a swimming pool built in the backyard, but it isn't quite completed yet. She drags the entire Wadsworth family out to the backyard and buries them right where the pool is being dug. At least the daughters are already dead, but Mama Wadsworth gets to be buried alive. As she begs for her life, she demands to know why Ann wanted her Baby so badly as to go to such measures to get him. She replies, "I plan to give him nothing but the deepest of love".

A few weeks pass, the swimming pool is completed, and Ann goes into what looks like a nursery that we assume has been intended for Baby, but all along there has been another adult baby there...Anns husband. He apparently has had some kind of head injury that has rendered him infantile and Ann has been planning this entire time to find him the most appropriate playmate, hence the lengths she was willing to go to in order to have Baby all to herself. Being a social worker, Ann has seen the improvement that can occur when delayed individuals, mostly children, can have when socialized with others like themselves.

The last scene is tremendously happy but has a really creepy vibe to it. Ann, her infantile husband, and Baby are all playing in the pool, one big happy family...with three dead bodies buried just beneath them. Ann was a woman with a plan, keenly executed from the very beginning.

The Exorcist

2023-09-05T16:44:00.005-05:00

Okay, so The Exorcist isn't necessarily a cult film because it had a HUGE theatrical opening and pretty much everyone in the world saw it when it came out and proceeded to pass out, freak out, and then run to their nearest church to repent their sins. It did follow the cult film strategy though, albeit at a sincerely rapid pace. It only took one viewing at one theater for everyone who saw it to tell all their friends about it. And before you could say "Your Mother Sucks Cocks In Hell" theaters across America began to be overrun with people dying to view what was then labeled as the scariest film ever made. And that's a hard statement to back up because scary movies were a dime a dozen and it would have to take a really scarier-than-shit movie to live up to that kind of competition. Well, it did. People ran out of the theaters screaming, and people were fainting in the aisles and lobbies, but this only made more viewers flock to the local cinema in enormous crowds, waiting in line for hours to see what all the fuss was about.

I think the truly scariest aspect of The Exorcist is that it took you off guard because it involved a child, an innocent-looking little girl (brilliantly played by Linda Blair) who transformed into the most vile thing people could have possibly imagined. Possession and exorcism weren't a new concept by any means but had been restricted to rare cultures in Third World countries and the only time it was ever talked about in the United States was by elderly Catholic priests who considered it an embarrassment to religion in general, kept it in the closet and regarded it as a simply a mental health issue that belonged more in the realm of medicine than religion. A belief that still exists today even though the topic of exorcism has spawned more horror movies now than ever before, mostly attributed to movies like The Exorcist. Ever since it was released in 1973, there have been more copycat films dealing with the topic of exorcism than anyone could possibly count.

The basic story sort of makes a circle, basically ending where it began. A tired and reclusive priest named Father Merrin is in Iraq overseeing an archaeological dig when he comes across a statue of a demon named Pazuzu. After unearthing this find, he notices dogs violently fighting, clocks suddenly stop, and is almost run over by a horse-drawn carriage. The story then travels to the other side of the world and ends up in Georgetown Washington D.C. where a famous actress named Christine McNeil lives with her young daughter Regan. Christine begins hearing scratching on the walls, and mysterious sounds in the attic, and her daughter begins complaining that her bed keeps shaking.

Slowly, Regan's condition begins to worsen. In front of a bunch of people at one of her mother's celebrity parties, Regan comes downstairs, rambles a little, and then lets loose a stream of green slime from between her legs. Christine and her friends look mortified and Regan is rushed upstairs to the bath. Shortly after this incident, when Christine thinks Regan is finally settled into bed for the night she suddenly hears her daughter screaming. Upon opening the door, she sees her daughter's bed violently shaking up and down with no explanation for it. She takes Regan to a doctor but he is dismissive of her despite her insistence that her daughter couldn't possibly have been solely responsible for the bed shaking. The doctor convinces Christine that the problem is in Regans' head and not her bed.

Regan is then put through every grueling medical test known to mankind, with the doctors finding no explanation for her behavior which has by now become increasingly violent. Regan is brought home because her mother has flat-out refused to institutionalize her, even though that's basically all the doctors can offer. When a few of Regan's doctors are examining x-rays of an arteriogram of Regans' brain, finding nothing wrong at all, a frantic call from Christine comes through, begging the doctors to come to the house as Regan's behavior has exceeded violence and is now completely unreal. Regan spews profanities in a deep voice, is slapped across the face by unseen hands, and is basically getting the shit beaten out of her by something that no one else can see. She's promptly sedated and the doctors continue to try and convince Christine that it's all in Regan's head, even though it clearly is not.

There are a tremendous amount of scenes in this movie that are quite disturbing. Regan is found stabbing herself in the crotch while a deep voice coming from inside her keeps telling her to "Let Jesus Fuck You" while poltergeist activity begins occurring and random objects are thrown about. Regan forces her mother's face into her bloody crotch and then proceeds to slap her so hard that she flies across the room. A heavy dresser begins moving towards Christine all on its own, a chair flies against the door, blocking help from entering and in a completely shocking moment, Regan's head turns to look backward without breaking a single bone, and with the voice of Christine's friend and film director who has recently died while babysitting Regan, says "Do You Know What She Did, Your Cunting Daughter?"

There's a side story about a detective investigating a desecrating vandalism at the local church and the mysterious death of the movie director that Christine is currently working with, but the main side story is about a priest named Father Karras who is gradually losing his faith, mostly due to the death of his elderly mother. When all else seems lost, Christine contacts this priest because she is now convinced that her daughter's condition is not medical, but rather demonic in nature. As much as he really doesn't want to help her with this situation, he agrees to at least see Regan and give his advice because he is not just a priest but a doctor as well.

Upon arriving, he sees that Regan is worse than ever. She only speaks in a deep growling voice, uttering phrases in Latin as well as other languages, Poltergeist-like activity is still happening, and when Holy Water is sprinkled on her she reacts violently and before long she vomits directly in his face. He feels that exorcism may actually be needed after all and brings this to the attention of the church but is deemed unfit to perform the exorcism himself. This brings us back to the beginning with the elderly priest Father Merrin, who is located and brought in to perform the exorcism with Father Karras as his helper. Apparently, Father Merrin has performed exorcisms before and is seen as the perfect person for the job even though he's basically 108 years old, has heart problems, and the previous exorcisms he has performed have nearly killed him.

The exorcism is performed while Regan continuously vomits more green slime, levitates, and performs amazing feats of strength, all climaxing with her head rotating completely around in a circle in a scene that will live in infamy among horror films forever.

While both priests are taking a break, Father Merrin tries once more on his own to exorcise the demon, who then suffers a heart attack and dies. Father Karras becomes completely enraged when he sees Regan laughing at Father Merrin's death, so he beats her, strangles her, and begs the demon to enter him and spare this child from any further torment. We see his eyes begin to change to the rancid green that Regan's eyes have been since her possession. Knowing he is becoming possessed himself, he flings himself out of Regan's bedroom window and down a flight of stairs where he lands in a pool of blood and dies.

Regan begins crying for her mother in her own voice and Christine rushes to her side, who then sees instantly that Regan is "back" and that the vile demon possessing her has gone. Wanting to make a fresh start now that Regan is better, albeit pretty scarred from her ordeal, they both leave Georgetown and never look back.

I'd call this the end but it wasn't. An endless amount of attempts were made at having a successful sequel, including its immediate follow-up, Exorcist II: The Heretic. Exorcist III was only somewhat of a success, but only because it was based on a direct sequel to the book by William Peter Blatty who hated the theatrical sequel with a mad passion so he wrote his own sequel and they just used this newly written sequel as the screenplay for Exorcist III. Part IV was made, but deemed a disaster by all who were involved in making it, so it was basically remade with a more predictable ending, but still sucked beyond belief. A TV series was made, and now a direct movie sequel is coming out soon, starring the original main actresses Ellen Burstyn (Christine McNeil) and Linda Blair (Regan). It remains to be seen whether it will fall victim to the "shitty Exorcist sequel curse".

This movie has more trivia behind it than I could ever possibly list, literally HUNDREDS of juicy items could be discussed. Many people associated with its filming were either badly hurt or even died. Sets caught fire, actual paranormal activity was supposed to have happened, etc. And even though the movie was banned from being shown in different places all over the world and nearly acquired an X-rating, it still went on to win two Oscars and became Warner Brothers' highest-grossing movie ever made (when adjusted for inflation). Given the amount of exorcism/possession movies that have been released since, rewatching The Exorcist these days may not have the traumatizing effect it used to have, but when it was released in 1973, nothing like it had ever been seen before and it really was absolutely terrifying!

Session 9

2023-08-03T01:36:00.002-05:00

Session 9 is a complicated movie, but once you've figured out what has really happened, it becomes a puzzle well worth solving. An asbestos removal crew is hired for a job at an abandoned insane asylum. Crew leader Gordon seems unusually tired and complains that his infant daughter has an ear infection and cries constantly. His partners are Phil, a family friend who is distant and suspicious of Gordon's overwhelming need to land this job even though it's extremely rushed, Mike, a curious law school dropout, Hank, a somewhat sleazy guy who's recently stolen Phil's girlfriend, and Jeff, a mullet headed dunce that has a fear of the dark.

Tensions abound from the start as no two crew members necessarily like each other and the rushed job proves rather exhausting. Gordon reveals to Phil that there are problems at home and that he is basically living in his van because he recently lost his temper and hit his wife. Hank's enjoyment when talking about stealing Phil's girlfriend makes the tension even worse.

After a generator fails, Mike goes down to the basement to fix it and finds a box marked as evidence, which has audiotapes in it labeled sessions 1-9. As he begins to listen to them, he learns that they are the taped therapy sessions of a woman named Mary Hobbes with Multiple Personality Disorder (patient #444). She has three personalities. There's Princess, which is an innocent female childlike personality that lives in the tongue because she's always talking. Billy is a male personality that lives in the eyes because he sees everything and seems like a protector of sorts. There's also a personality named Simon that the other personalities seem to be afraid to talk about. Upon reading Mary's file, it appears that she was given a china doll for Xmas when she was young and her brother was given a brand new hunting knife. Her brother plays a joke on Mary by jumping out of the darkness and scaring her on Xmas night causing her to fall on her doll which breaks and cuts her up pretty badly, she has a mental breakdown and grabs her brother's new knife and murders her family with it. With each tape, we hear more from her different personalities concerning what happened that night, as the doctor continues to ask about the third personality named Simon which the others are still reluctant to talk about.

Mike continues to find reasons to stop working on the asbestos job and to keep going to the basement to listen to one session tape after another while Gordon seems to be losing his grip on reality due to the stress of the job. We also notice a few other strange things about Gordon. He has a terrible burn on his leg, he often talks to his wife Wendy on a cell phone that obviously has no battery, and there are times when we notice he has things in common with the multiple personality patient Mary. Such as when he's on the phone with no battery, Mary's tombstone #444 (all graves at the asylum have just numbers, no names) is shown broken underneath the tree that Gordon is sitting on while "talking to his wife". We also see him stop and take a poignant moment to look at the magazine clippings on the wall of a patient's cell, when he leaves, we notice the patient's cell number is 444. Random suspicions arise among the crew, such as why Mike isn't around much, why Gordon has blood under his fingernails, why Phil is secretly meeting with some neighborhood punks, and Hank ends up disappearing altogether and needs to be replaced. A deep voice sometimes speaks to Gordon saying "welcome home" and we're left wondering what events are real and what events are not.

At the beginning of the film, a guard has to let the crew in and they ask why a guard is needed because it's not like patients are gonna be escaping. He tells the crew that it is more about keeping patients out since many of them return to the hospital after it closed because it was the only home they knew. The correlation between patient Mary Hobbes and Gordon slowly becomes clear when we learn that the burn on Gordon's leg was the result of a pot of boiling water that spills on him while trying to talk to his wife about the baby screaming. Turns out he didn't just hit her, he's actually murdered his wife and infant daughter. This was the breakdown that caused him to be sent to the asylum, just like Mary. Gordon had been a patient at the asylum when it closed down and was desperate to return to the only home he knew. We know this because he looks into another cell that has pictures of his family on the walls, letting us know that this was his cell while at the hospital. As a beautiful overhead shot of the hospital slowly drifts by, we hear the voice of the doctor asking Simon where he lives. In an eerie deep voice, Simon finally replies, "I live in the weak and in the wounded, doc". Both Gordon and Mary were weak and wounded, causing them to both have mental breakdowns and be sent to the asylum. I suppose the personality of Simon could reside in each and every one of us. Suffering a terrible wound while in a weak state of mind is a possibility that could occur at any time, and who knows what consequences that may have?

A fascinating side note about this movie is that no sets were needed at all because it was filmed entirely at the abandoned Danvers State Lunatic Asylum. A hospital that was not only huge in size but strangely beautiful. Despite being on the registry of historic buildings it was demolished with the exception of the front facade and was turned into some very cheap and ugly apartments that people have nothing good to say about. Surprisingly, hauntings weren't among the many complaints.

The Poughkeepsie Tapes

2022-01-29T03:02:00.004-06:00

Ok, so most cult films tend to be more on the older side because a cult following usually takes time, but now and then a cult film can be relatively new if it manages to get enough of a following within just a few years. In this case, The Poughkeepsie Tapes definitively achieved this. It was filmed and ready for release in 2007, but for unknown reasons, it was pulled from theaters and held for four years until being released as a video on demand, but it wasn't until a full ten years after being made that it finally got a DVD release. This is what makes it a cult film, one person heard about it, then told someone else, and so on until enough people had complained about wanting to see it but not being able to find it that it had to be widely released. And even now it's still a bit hard to find, but definitely worth the effort of trying.

It's a found footage film, which is a genre that may sound a bit overdone at this point but can still be pulled off if it's original enough. This one works because it resides in an area between being completely believable and totally disturbing, a combination that can easily ride the line between whether it's real or not. It begins with a criminology class discussing the events that led to the discovery of 500 videotapes left behind by a serial killer. The tapes are beyond disturbing and what's discussed about them in class is almost as freaky as what is actually shown on the tapes.

The killers' first few tapes are filled with strange balloon porn, such as women being made to sit on balloons and bounce up and down till they popped, etc. Around the fifth or sixth tape, the real scariness begins when the killer approaches an 8-year-old girl and abducts her, we learn afterward that she was found raped and murdered later that day.

The murders progress in increasingly disturbing ways. The killer pretends to have a broken-down car and hitches a ride with a man and his pregnant wife. Then on one of the tapes, the woman is awoken from being drugged only to find that her baby has been cut out and that her husband's severed head has been placed in her belly.

The tapes get worse when a 17-year-old girl named Cheryl Dempsey is filmed being abducted, hogtied, and forced to repeat over and over that her name is no longer Cheryl but is now "slave". She's brought to the killer's basement where he tortures her relentlessly into complete submission, and forces her to wear a rubber maid's outfit with a mask, leaving us to only be able to see her terrified eyes underneath. More tapes are shown where Cheryl is made to assist in the murders of other victims in increasingly violent ways.

The acting is so convincing that the viewer is sometimes left wondering how on Earth they were able to film it without the actors suffering an equal amount of actual torture. More victims fill the tapes, dismemberments are shown, and the fear starts feeling very genuine.

Through the criminology class, we learn that a policeman is eventually arrested for the crimes as his semen is found at several of the crime scenes. He is eventually put to death by lethal injection. A few days after the execution more murders are committed and it becomes obvious that the wrong man was put to death. It turns out that the actual killer had somehow gotten hold of the cops' donation to a fertility clinic and used it to plant his DNA at various crime scenes. The wrongly executed cop is posthumously exonerated but no one really pays attention to this news because the terrorist attack on 9/11 occurred the day before and this news completely dominated the airwaves and overshadowed what had happened with the falsely accused policeman.

More tapes are watched, showing more victims murdered in increasingly gruesome ways. We learn that the tapes were found at a house in which not a single fingerprint was discovered, the only thing left behind is a wooden box the size of a coffin containing what is assumed to be the corpse of Cheryl Dempsey, shockingly she is found to be alive but in horrible shape, too disturbing to even be described. We do learn that while in the hospital recuperating Cheryl mysteriously continues to show recent injuries and that she is so mentally disturbed by over ten years of constant torture that she compulsively continues to injure herself, thinking that this is what is normal and expected of her. An interview with her later shows what can only be described as the shell of a human who doesn't know how to think for herself and can only ask what the interviewer wants her to say, as this has become her normal existence. We also notice she is missing a hand along with other scars and somewhat healed injuries. A caption displayed after the failed interview lets the audience knows that Cheryl soon after committed suicide leaving a note stating that she loved her torturer, that he loved her, and that she believed he would return for her someday.

A new film is then shown of a rope being tied to the neck of a recently buried corpse that we can only assume is Cheryl being pulled from her grave and taken away. After the movie's credits, there is a short film of a woman whose mouth is taped shut and who is told that as long as she doesn't blink, she'll live. After a few very tense moments, she blinks and is stabbed in the neck.

As gruesome as the tapes are, there are still about 27 tapes unaccounted for and we're left to assume that the killer took these with him and contain footage so horrifying as to make all the others seem tame by comparison.

This is an extremely disturbing movie and I can see why its release was probably delayed due to its subject matter. What is shown on the tapes has such a feeling of intense realness that it's actually very believable and what isn't shown and simply described can only be visually imagined by the sickest of minds. A terrifying film to say the least, and even though we know it's just a movie, it's somehow believable enough to leave a very nasty taste in your mouth.

Salem's Lot

2022-01-28T06:42:00.003-06:00

Salem's Lot is a miniseries made from Stephen King's second book. In my opinion, the miniseries was just as scary as the book, it did have some changes but the changes made were actually a lot scarier when seen on film. Salem's Lot was made in the 1970s for people who were too lazy to just read the damn book. Fortunately, it turned out very well and personally scared the hell out of me.

Stephen King often wondered what would happen if you took Dracula and dropped him in the middle of modern-day suburbia, and the book Salem's Lot was the result. Since this is a blog about movies I won't go into all the differences between the movie and the book and just concentrate on the masterpiece that resulted when this miniseries was created.

David Soul was a huge star at the time so he landed the main character role of Ben Mears, a tormented writer who left the sleepy town of Jerusalem's Lot, shortened by its residents to "Salem's Lot", to achieve his dream of being a famous author who never really became that famous. It was directed by Tobe Hooper who had recently made The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and was itching to take on a Stephen King novel and make a great miniseries out of it. He succeeded and it was a huge success. It's been remade a few times, one version with Rob Lowe that adhered a lot closer to the novel, but this version from 1979 has gained a huge cult following and is by far the scariest version out there.

Ben Mears has returned to write a story about the Marsten House, the old and supposedly haunted house on the hill at the edge of town. Upon arriving in town and attempting to rent the Marsten House to write a book about it, he soon learns that two mysterious antique dealers have just recently rented the house themselves and plan to open an antique shop in town. Sounds very gay, which is where I was hoping the story was going but alas, it did not. Mr. Straker is an English gentleman who definitely stands out in a town full of rather ordinary and mundane people. His partner Mr. Barlow is never seen but only heard about, and is told will soon arrive from a buying trip overseas.

Soon a young boy goes missing and a mysterious blood-related illness begins to affect some of the residents of the Lot. Friends and family of the missing and deceased begin having dreams of their loved ones and become unusually tired and develop mysterious marks on their necks.

What I like most about this story is that the vampire is rarely seen and the main story deals with the relationships of the people in the town. Ben meets up with Susan Norton, the local librarian and they begin a relationship, much to the dismay of her ex-boyfriend who is constantly dead set on beating the hell out of Ben, as you do in small towns. Mark Petrie is a high school student obsessed with horror and magic who sees his missing best friend floating outside his window one night begging to be let in. Having some knowledge of vampires and already being pretty sure his friend is dead since he attended his funeral a few days prior, refuses and busts out with a plastic cross from a graveyard model, sending his friend hissing into the night. Ben and Mark team up with a few other random characters to solve the mystery of what's going on in the Lot and soon find out that Mr. Straker has been kidnapping kids and feeding them to Mr. Barlow who is a pretty terrifying bald blue vampire with eerie glowing eyes, very much in the vein of Nosferatu, which is probably the biggest change from the book, but a change that scared me half to death the first time I saw him.

There's a back story about the Marsten House and an experience Ben had there as a child. Ben assumes that since the house is inherently evil and therefore attracts evil, why then did it attract him? We eventually learn that all the missing or dead people from the town are now bluish-colored vampires who now reside in the house's basement. Ben and Mark finally destroy Straker and Barlow and burn down the Marsten House, starting a fire that eventually sweeps through the entire town.

We learn from a few book references by Stephen King that vampires still reside in the Lot after the fire and it becomes known as a place you really don't wanna be caught in after dark. A truly creepy movie with some terrifying scenes and some pretty decent acting by some and some really bad acting by others. After it aired on television it became really hard to find until the miracle of DVD brought it back to life for fans who'd been completely scarred by it when it originally came out.

Fire Walk With Me

2022-01-28T04:59:00.002-06:00

Fire Walk With Me is a prequel film to the hit TV series Twin Peaks from the early '90s. Since Twin Peaks was mostly the story of who killed Laura Palmer, the prequel is naturally about the last week of Laura Palmer's life. We didn't see much of Laura in the series obviously because it starts off with her death, so getting to see her acting out all the things we already knew she did was really cool. I mean, we already knew that although Laura was the homecoming queen and did honorable things like helping with Meals on Wheels, tutoring Josie Packard with her English, and helping the mentally challenged Johnny Horne, she was also into drugs, prostitution, and S&M. The mystery of who killed her captivated the nation and had everyone wondering who the hell killed her. Around episodes 17-18 we finally find out that her father had been molesting her for years and finally killed her because he was possessed by an inhabiting spirit called Bob.

The main protagonist of the TV series is Special Agent Dale Cooper played by Kyle MacLachlan, and even though he was the main character in the series, he doesn't play a huge role in the film because Laura isn't dead yet so he has no real reason to be there. Plus, he didn't really want to be in the movie for fear of being typecast since he was trying to be considered a serious film actor. Instead, we have Special Agents Chester Desmond and Sam Stanley, played by Chris Isaak and Keifer Sutherland respectively. Both are investigating the murder of Teresa Banks, who is the murder victim just before Laura is killed. Only through the prequel though do we learn that Teresa and Laura were both prostitutes who sometimes worked together.

Many people weren't exactly fans of the movie because they thought it lacked the taste and class that the TV series had. After all, as a feature film, it was allowed the courtesy of profanity and nudity. But in my opinion, it didn't really take away from the story. I mean, Laura did a lot of salacious things, and if we're gonna see her doing all the things we only heard about in the series, it's gonna have some scenes that are a little more intense. Sheryl Lee who plays Laura does an incredible job and acted her tush off in this role, and really gave the character some serious depth by giving it her all.

The movie premiered in 1992 about a year after the TV series finished its second season and was canceled. Many characters were written out of the movie, mostly because they either didn't have much to do with Laura's death or just didn't care to reprise their roles for the film. Another reason that most characters didn't show up was that the original version of the movie ran just over five hours long, but was cut down to just over two hours due to the restraints that were put on director David Lynch to keep the film a little shorter than that. This caused a lot of continuity errors and subplots that had no resolution or just plain didn't make sense. Personally, I thought this added to the mystery that Twin Peaks already had and matched the series quite well. Years later, a lot of outtakes and extended scenes were assembled together to form a movie of sorts called "The Missing Pieces" which was released as a feature film, one that doesn't actually resemble a film at all and just looks like what it was, a random collection of unneeded scenes that would've just slowed the movie down had they remained in the final version. Hopefully, fans will someday put the movie and missing pieces together in addition to the other 2-3 hours of missing footage that David Lynch was forced to cut from Fire Walk With Me in order to finally realize his original vision of the film.

One glaring change in the film is the replacement of Lara Flynn Boyle as Donna Hayward with actress Moira Kelly. Rumor has it that Lara didn't want to film the nude scenes, but she soon afterward starred in the movie The Road to Wellville in which she appeared topless, so nobody really knows her true reasons for declining to appear in Fire Walk With Me. The character of Donna Hayward was crucial to Laura's story though so her character couldn't be written out. Fortunately, Moira Kelly did a pretty good job playing the part so I can't complain.

I was one of the few people who saw the prequel movie before actually watching the TV series, which just made me more of a fan of the whole Twin Peaks phenomenon. There's much more backward talk in the movie too which I always thought was a really cool idea, by having the actors speak phonetically backward, then running the film backward so that the actors sounded strange and ethereal. Altogether I thought the movie was very well done despite the flaws that fans of the series love to complain about.

Abby

2022-01-28T02:59:00.003-06:00

I personally really love this movie, it's a freaking laugh riot! I mean, I know it's a complete ripoff of The Exorcist and is intended to be just as scary, but the exorcism takes place in a disco tech and the demon spouts some seriously funny jive-ass lines without a single curse word as opposed to The Exorcist.

Anyway, the film came out in 1974, ironically on Christmas Day, while The Exorcist was still making people pass out in theaters across the country and right away Warner Bros noticed that it mimicked their movie in an almost scene-for-scene way. Blaxploitation films were all the rage at the time and for a brief moment director William Girdler actually considered calling this movie "The Blaxorcist". Knowing that this movie was a rip-off, I guess he decided that making it too obvious would cause Warner Bros to notice even sooner than they did. Before Warner caught on though, Abby did turn a pretty good profit before its producer American-International was sued and Abby was taken out of theaters. The lawsuit was finally settled four years later. Unfortunately, William Girdler died shortly before that and never saw a penny of the profits.

Anyway, replace the little girl with a minister's wife, and change the demon from an Iraqi Pazuzu to a Nigerian Eshu and it's The Exorcist with a black cast instead of a white one. William Marshall who famously played the vampire in Blacula plays the priest who performs the actual exorcism. Lots of us though remember William Marshall as The King of Cartoons from Pee Wees Playhouse, but I don't wanna give my age away that easily.

The film starts off with Bishop Garnet Williams telling his class that he's leaving America to study demons in Nigeria, in passing he mentions that his son is a doubtful minister who doesn't really follow his father's beliefs and is relatively down to earth. Once in Nigeria, he finds a vessel of some sort in a cave, opens it and a gust of wind and dust flies out letting us know that he's released something sinister.

Meanwhile, his minister son and his wife Abby are moving into a new house, with the help of the church deacon, a rather timid guy (who can't act to save his life), and Abby's mother, played by Juanita Moore who was an Oscar nominee for her supporting role in Imitation of Life starring Lana Turner. Makes you wonder if she was proud of this movie, I'll give you a hint, few were.

The sex demon Eshu finds its way to their new house and possesses Abby who soon starts having a tad bit more of a brutal sexual appetite, has a deeper voice, and occasionally foams at the mouth, no doubt with the help of some Alka-Seltzer tablets. She doesn't curse as much as Regan did in The Exorcist but her insults are just as jarring and certainly out of place for a minister's wife. Her husband first thinks she's on drugs, then assumes it's a mental illness, but the poltergeist activity that occurs when she's around makes him a bit suspicious, so he calls his dad who's still in Nigeria and blissfully unaware that the demon he released is tormenting his daughter in law.

Abby is sent to the hospital for tests which of course show nothing out of the ordinary and she's judged as just being mental. After busting out of the hospital, she arrives back at home around the same time that Bishop Williams arrives there after a frantic call from his son concerning Abby's bizarre behavior change. Abby's voice drops several octaves and she makes a sexual reference about her father-in-laws' privates at which point the Bishop puts the pieces together and finally figures out that the sex demon he released has possessed Abby. After making some furniture fly around she leaves and goes nightclubbing, time for Abby to have some fun.

She makes it to a club where for some reason almost everything from the furniture, wallpaper, and what people are wearing is orange. She sleeps with the only white guy there who creepily resembles the comedian Gallagher and does a lot of W.C. Fields impressions, then runs into the church deacon at the same club and has sex with him in his car. What he was doing at this kind of club, having dinner there no less is never explained.

Her husband, his cop brother, and the Bishop father-in-law arrive at the club and exorcise Abby, practically destroying the place in the process. Afterward, after Abby has time to heal, we see the happy couple getting on a plane to go on vacation somewhere, to celebrate their post-demon possession happiness. The End.

Much like The Exorcist, rumors abounded about creepy things happening on set during filming, like the generators failing whenever actress Carol Speed would be filming scenes as the demon. At one point while filming, a storm producing violent tornadoes blew through and Carol Speed and Juanita Moore had to shelter under a table to avoid the shattered glass raining down on them from windows being blown out.

All in all, this is an incredibly entertaining movie that fortunately can now be found in its entirety on YouTube. Definitely worth checking out just to see the overwhelming similarities with its white people movie counterpart.

Let Me Die a Woman!

2022-01-19T19:22:00.006-06:00

This is a very in-your-face documentary on the topic of sex changes and transgenderism. And I mean that truly, it literally takes you from start to finish, into the nether regions that not so many of us wanted to see or know about (I can't say "all of us" because there's something for everyone).

It was made in 1978, not long after Christine Jourganson went public with her successful new life as a post-operative transgender, male to female. She pulled it off (no pun intended) rather well, appearing very feminine with little to no masculine reminders of her previous gender. Born a Man, Let Me Die a Woman begins as a very in-your-face documentary on the topic of sex changes and transgenderism. And I mean that truly, it literally takes you from start to finish, into the nether regions that not so many of us wanted to see or know about (I can't say "all of us" because there's something for everyone).

It was made in 1978 to explain in different ways, pre-op, post-op, half-op, hormone treatments, plastic surgery, etc. This documentary explores them all... at a range, so close you can almost smell it (I'm so sorry, don't worry God'll get me for that) We're shown, the ins and out, the missing and the added, all narrated by a doctor that noticeable flinches every time he mentions the words "cut off". We're even shown demonstrations of sex with transgender people that are very unexpectedly pornographic but are still being narrated like a documentary (sort of like...and here we see the North American Humanus Pervertis in their natural habitat).

There is also a Puerto Rican transexual that does a lot of the narration, who is actually very attractive and intelligent and tells of her difficult life growing up transgender in a poor and intolerable society. The rest of the people (all transgender) in this documentary seemed like they were reading from a cue card or something. Their dialogue seems very scripted and wooden, and they all appeared to be "attempting" to act. Probably because they were transexuals and not actors (oh don't worry, they are proven without a shadow of a doubt to be transexuals). I know the correct term is Transgender, but the film uses the term Transexual, so that's why I'm using it here.

It's very campy, mostly due to its age, and I'm quite sure that today we've come a long way in surgical advancement when it comes to fine-tuning a medical procedure like a sex change since this was filmed. But whether you're genuinely interested in the subject or just desire 87 minutes of sheer weirdness, this Bud's for you. Definitely not for the squeamish, weak of stomach (or worse... homophobic).

Metropolis

2012-07-16T13:20:00.013-05:00

I've been putting off posting this film because it's way too cerebral to fully explain, but recent developments in its restoration have prompted me to discuss it finally. When Metropolis first debuted in Germany it ran about three hours long. Despite its length, it had great reviews. Thankfully so because it turned out to be the most expensive movie ever made and nearly bankrupted the studio by going five times over the predicted budget. When it was sent to America trouble began to brew. Paramount in its infinite impatience cut the film down to a mere 80 minutes and almost half the film became lost forever. This vicious editing also created many holes in the story and excised many crucial subplots.

Around 1998 Paramount Studios decided to right its wrong by restoring Metropolis to its original glory (or as close to it as possible). It chose four of the best copies available and gave it a reconstruction that few deserving silent films will ever see. The restoration was magical, so clear you'd think it was filmed yesterday. There was still one problem, about 30 minutes of the film remained unaccounted for. Then in 2010, we got lucky. Deep in the archives of a private collection in Argentina, a dupe negative of Metropolis was found. Mislabeled years ago to avoid its destruction during the war. Though it was a remarkable find, it did come with its share of problems. The 35 mm nitrate copy had been transferred to 16 mm because nitrate was very volatile and prone to self-destruction. The negative also contained many scratches and was plagued by flickering lights. Another restoration was obviously necessary. Also recently found was the original musical score. Thankfully the composer made notes that tied the music to the action in the movie and the intertitles, which before was either simply guesswork or just replaced with different music. Finally, in 2012 we had it, the complete Metropolis. Completely restored in both quality and quantity with a rerecorded score from the original sheet work. A true work of art was reborn.

The basic story is rather simple and mostly symbolic. The city of Metropolis is a city of paradise with huge skyscrapers, bustling traffic, and rich gardens where the wealthy live their lives blissfully unaware of the torturous lives of the workers below the city who toil day and night in order to keep the city running.

The underground workers are preached to by Maria, a sort of prophet that speaks of a mediator that will someday free them and bring the people from above and below together in harmony. This mediator comes in the form of Freder, the son of the creator of Metropolis. One day he stumbles upon the underground and discovers the endless hardship that the workers endure. While Freder is exploring the underground, his father learns of Maria and her preaching to the masses about a mediator and a possible revolt against those who live above. He enlists the work of an inventor to create a robot with Maria's likeness to mislead the underground people into a revolt against themselves and the machines they operate. In doing so, they unintentionally shut everything down and flood the city endangering their children and destroying their homes.

After this disaster, the people from below are face to face with the people from above, who now realize the significance of how the workers toil to ensure their paradise. Freder takes the hand of his father and brings it to the hand of the foreman. Freder being the mediator between the two, we share the knowledge that without the heart there can be no understanding between the hand (the workers) and the mind (the elite).

Many years later, the rock band Queen used clips from the film mixed with new footage of the band members seemingly being part of the movie for the music video for their hit song Radio GaGa. And many years after that, legendary musician Stephanie Germanotta, got her now much more well-known name Lady GaGa, who at the time was a huge Queen fan, but when she was texted the name of the song Radio GaGa, good old autocorrect changed it to "Lady GaGa" and it was apparently at that moment she decided that it was to be her new fame name. Once again, a legend was born.

The Final Terror

2010-09-11T20:08:00.007-05:00

This is a bit of a Friday the 13th knockoff, but still a good movie, and was a good starting point for what was to be some very big actors down the road, including Daryl Hannah (Splash, Steel Magnolias, and Kill Bill), Adrian Zmed (T.J. Hooker, Grease 2), Rachel Ward (the Thornbirds), Joe Pantoliano (The Goonies and about a hundred other film credits).

A bunch of forest rangers take a camping trip to a remote location that is practically untouched (even though there is an outhouse conveniently nearby). Mike is the head forest ranger and is planning on bringing his girlfriend Mel along for the ride and Mel brings enough female friends to suit all the rangers. Except for Eggar of course who is not only the most annoying ranger in existence but is also a complete lunatic that everyone hates. He's only really coming along to drive the bus and to meet up with the rest of the group when they make it downstream.

Eggar bitches constantly, mostly about the location that the group has decided to camp near. On the way to the campsite, they pass an isolated mental institution and joke that it's Eggar's old home. While unloading the bus, a can of peaches falls out of the bus. Eggar acts highly suspicious about it and quickly hides it.

On their first night camping, the typical campfire stories are told. Boone (one of the rangers), tells a slightly disturbing tale about the area once being a logging camp. The owner and his family lived there but one day the father dies. An uncle comes to take his place and he was supposedly a mean son of a bitch. One day he takes his niece on a walk in the forest and rapes her. She of course couldn't tell anyone because the uncle was supporting the family. Due to having to keep all this inside, she started going crazy so they put her in the mental institution that they passed on the way to the campsite. While there they discover that she's pregnant. After having the baby, it's deemed that she is obviously too messed up to take care of the kid so he's adopted. 19 years later a man about 19 years old storms into the institution and demands to see his mother. The guy freaks and steals her from the hospital. Of course, she's still too crazy and he doesn't know what to do with her, so he put her out in these woods so she could live in peace. So the story goes... Whenever anyone camps there, she sneaks into your camp and whispers to you "Who stole my lamb?". Soon the obligatory "Boo!" comes and everyone jumps. Eggar gets pissed and leaves the campsite. Leaving everyone with serious hopes that he's gonna be there to pick them up the next day.

That night a joke is played on one of the rangers named Marco (Zmed). Dennis and Nathaniel convince Marco to be their lookout while they steal some dope from a nearby pot crop. They tell him to howl like a wolf every 45 seconds and to stop howling if someone comes. Poor Marco is left howling all night while Dennis and Nathaniel head back to camp. The next morning Dennis and Nathaniel admit that they left Marco in the woods and since Marco hasn't returned yet, he is presumed lost. Mike is pissed and makes Dennis and Nathaniel show him where they left him. While the others look upstream, Mike searches downstream. While searching for Marco, Mike runs into his girlfriend Mel and they take a break from the search for Marco to have sex in the woods. While humping, a moss-covered "thing" stabs Mike in the back and kills him. Mel is dragged away, screaming.

Still searching for Marco, Dennis and Nathaniel come across a shack deep in the woods. They investigate and find a raft that belongs to their ranger station. They go inside and find the can of peaches that Eggar was so protective of, they also find Eggar's hat. Sure now that Eggar is staying there, they look around for more evidence. Aside from finding and pocketing a jar of magic mushrooms, they also come across the severed head of a bear and realize that Eggar is sicker than they thought.

That night with Mike and Mel still missing, the rest of the group is sure that something is wrong. They decide to stay an extra night there and wait for their presumed lost friends. In the middle of the night, a gray-haired moss-covered ( person, creature, thing ?) creeps into their camp and gently strokes the hair of one of the sleeping female campers. She awakes and freaks out. While recuperating from her creepy encounter, a strange figure creeps up to the camp, luckily it turns out to be Marco... with a huge pot stash, completely having the last laugh. He's made to feel like shit because Mike and Mel are still missing while out looking for him.

Vanessa, one of the female campers, is completely fed up with all the games and pranks and storms off to the outhouse. Upon reaching the outhouse, horror sets in as she is greeted with Mike's severed head (guess she doesn't need the outhouse anymore). For the rest of the film, she's never really the same.

Assuming Eggar is the culprit, they camouflage themselves up and raid his shack upon dawn. He isn't home so they steal the raft and head for the river. Just as they're leaving, you can see that there is a space below the floor and that the mossy figure is holding a knife to Mel's face so that she can't call out to her friends for help.

As the group is heading down the river, you see a rock slowly begin to move. Not only is the moss-covered figure able to completely blend into the surrounding forest, but is also following them. Out of nowhere, Mel's lifeless body is thrown onto the raft, her throat slit wide open. The group buries her and keeps on trucking down the river. As they finally reach the bridge, the bus is there as scheduled. Assuming it's a trap, they wait till dark to approach the bus. Eggar is suspiciously not there. All hopes of driving themselves out of there are crushed when they look under the hood and find it trashed. The bus looks like a better place to crash for the night than the riverbank, so they do so. Dumbass Dennis decides that the magic mushrooms might make a nice snack while everyone else sleeps.

Soon they are ambushed by someone bearing an ax. They narrowly escape out the back window. While escaping, Wendy (Hannah) gets lost and out of nowhere, someone wielding a blade slices her face. Luckily one of the other campers knows first aid and sews her up with what looks like a fishing line. Here, we see a quick shot of Eggar at the shack, mumbling to himself "I told 'em not to go.", leading us to believe that he may not be the actual killer.

After Wendy's mishap, they mutually decide that Eggar should die because he is assumed to be the killer. Upon morning, they forge ahead with plans to trap and kill Eggar. They find a huge downed tree revealing a large open space. Soon everyone notices that Dennis is acting awfully strange, singing to himself and droning on and on about Vietnam. Nathaniel tells the others about the mushrooms and needless to say, they are really pissed. Excluding him from the plans, they rig a log with spikes between two trees and set it with a tripwire. Marco calls out to Eggar and sure enough, he shows up. When Marco shouts "Now!", the group jumps out and beats him to death.

Before dying he calls out "Ma!". Soon the mossy figure climbs out onto the fallen tree and runs toward the group. While climbing up the tree stump, she trips Dennis and he falls and breaks his neck. She then hits the tripwire and the log bearing the spikes comes down and impales her. The group just stands there in total shock. Surprise, surprise, the campfire tale was true and much closer to home than previously thought. The end.

O.K. So it's a pretty predictable movie but still enjoyable. Originally filmed in 1981, it wasn't released until 1983 when the careers of Daryl Hannah and Adrien Zmed began rising. I'm not sure where this was filmed but the forest scenes are truly breathtaking. The night shots are a little too dark and hard to see, mostly because the low budget couldn't allow fancy movie lighting. I checked the credits and ironically Eggar's mother is played by a man. I couldn't find a trailer so I included the entire movie, enjoy!

Night of the Demons

2010-09-05T16:32:00.002-05:00

Originally released straight to video, this little gem of a movie was actually really good and was immediately taken off the shelves and released in theaters everywhere. A perfect Halloween movie with lots of horror, action, and even a good dose of comedy as well.

Angela, a total goth chick (who, by the way, is Golden Girl Rue McClanahan's niece, who now works as a pet psychic) decides to throw the Halloween party to end all Halloween parties. She plans not to have the party at her house but at Hull House, an enormous abandoned funeral parlor with a really horrific past. Apparently, the Hull family met a gruesome end, killed each other, and now the house is supposed to be infested with demons. Even before the massacre, Mr. Hull had a penchant for "dating" his deceased clientele.

A group of "teens" (I use quotes because they all look over 30) arrive at Angela's party. The friends who arrive always strike me as weird because none of them act as if they would ever be friends or even give each other the time of day. There's of course Angela, a goth chick who treats every day as if it were Halloween. Judy, the prudent perpetual virgin. Judy's preppy date is Jay, who dresses like Don Johnson in all his Miami Vice glory and wants nothing but sex. Max and Fran, the couple that is probably the two most normal people there. Stooge, a fat foul-mouthed punk rocker. Roger, who is unfortunately the stereotypical scared black man. Suzanne, an oversexed nymphomaniac in a pink tutu that looks like she could pass for a 40-year-old, probably because the actress that plays her really was about 42 at the time. Sal is a previous boyfriend of Judy's, with the strongest New York Italian accent I've ever heard in my life. And finally, Helen, a totally forgettable character that you hope gets killed off as soon as possible.

While playing Halloween party games (seances, bobbing for apples with razor blades in them, etc), they hear a noise coming from the basement (the crematorium), and they feel a strong chill and smell a repulsive stench. According to Angela, these are all signs of demonic infestation (told ya she was a goth chick year-round). Suzanne opens her mouth to apply some lipstick and a demon takes this opportunity to infest her. Against Angela's advice to leave, the rest of the party guests decide to do some sightseeing. Before departing, Suzanne kisses Angela, infesting her with demon possession as well. In one way or another, all the other guests infest each other till everyone's possessed, Angela, being their ringleader.

With only Judy and Roger left unpossessed, the desperate fight to stay alive ensues. There is a brick wall surrounding this property and according to legend, the wall marks an underground stream that the demons cannot cross. Unfortunately, on Halloween night the brick wall has no gate, meaning no exit. Apparently in this movie, the legend about Halloween being the only night of the year that all demons and evil spirits are allowed to roam the earth is true.

With all the possessed party guests chasing them, Judy and Roger have no other choice but to climb the barbed wire on the wall in order to escape. Movies almost never bother me but this was a painful scene to watch. Ironically, as soon as Judy and Roger make it over the wall, the sun comes up and all the demons turn to green smoke. Two more minutes and they could've used the gate instead of tearing their hands up on that barbed wire.

Strolling home, torn clothes, cuts, and bruises, and generally looking like shit... they pass an old man who complains about them obviously being out "partying" all night. By the way, this old jerk was actually giving out razor-blade-filled apples to kids because they are just one of his many hatreds. The movie ends with his wife serving him a homemade apple pie for breakfast. With an "Oh shit!" look on his face, the razors start to slice his neck into ribbons. He dies face down in a puddle of blood and pie. His wife looks down at him and merely says... "Happy Halloween, Dear".

The Initiation

2010-09-01T23:29:00.004-05:00

This is a great little flick circa 1984, starring Daphne Zuniga when no one had any idea who the hell Daphne Zuniga was. Many may still not know because past the 90's she kind of disappeared. This was her first feature film actually and it isn't a bad one, all things considered. It's got a decent story with a very unexpected twist ending.

Daphne plays Kelly Fairchild, the rich daughter of wealthy parents who own some of the most prestigious shopping malls in the world. Kelly has a problem though, she has a strange recurring nightmare that haunts her constantly. In the dream, she awakes to the sound of her parents making love. She has the overwhelming urge to stab her father. A strange man enters and scuffles with her father. The strange man is doused in alcohol and set on fire by her father and the dream ends as she watches the stranger burn to death.

While studying dreams and nightmares at the college she attends, she meets Professor Peter Adams. He suspects that there is more to Kelly's dream than meets the eye. He runs all the typical tests... EEG, MRI, hypnosis, etc. While under hypnosis, her meddling mother barges in. After trying to wake her using her name (Fairchild), she doesn't respond. Mom suggests that he use the name Randall... it works and Kelly awakes.

Sidetrack to a scene at an asylum where a gardener with burns over most of his body makes a slight connection with a female patient. As he digs into the ground with a spiked trowel, the female patient seems to get the idea. That night many patients manage to escape, most are caught but one remains elusive. Kelly's parents are informed of the escape and are genuinely worried beyond the general worry of an escaped mental patient.

Back to Kelly's sorority life, typical college shenanigans go on. The annual prank night is unfortunately based around Kelly since she's seen as the typical rich kid that needs to be taken down a notch. The prank is for Kelly and two of her sorority sisters to break into the Fairchild department store and steal the night watchman's uniform. What they don't know is that the night watchman has already been murdered by someone with a spiked gardening trowel.

After Kelly and her friends are in the building, another sorority sister (a real bitch named Megan) has invited two fraternity brothers along with the intention of scaring the shit out of Kelly and her friends. At this point, no one knows that they are locked in with a killer.

Backtrack again to Peter Adams who is doing some major research on Kelly's family history and has found some rather unsavory tidbits. It seems that Kelly's recurring nightmare is actually a suppressed memory. Turns out that Kelly walked in on her mother humping Dwight Fairchild, who was a strange man to Kelly as a child, and certainly not her father. Her real father Jason Randall walks in and catches them, at which point Dwight pours alcohol over him and burns him almost to death. This traumatic incident gives poor Kelly amnesia, leading to confusion about who her real father was. The reason she would see herself stabbing her "father" remains unexplained for now.

Back at the department store, everyone gets killed off one by one. Kelly manages to make it up to the roof where she is approached by a man that has been severely burned. She assumes this is the killer and hits him with a pipe, knocking him over the edge to a splattery death. Oops, she's just killed her own father. Another oops is that he's not the real killer.

Thinking she's safe, she goes back into the department store to wait for help to arrive. Peter Adams arrives instead and sees Kelly and rushes over to her and they embrace. Out of nowhere, she stabs him. Seconds later the "real" Kelly comes around the corner and stares in disbelief as she looks right into the face of her own twin sister that she never knew existed. Though her name is never spoken in the film, she is credited with the name Terry. Terry looks at Kelly and says "Just like looking into a mirror isn't it?" Obviously, this is the girl that just stabbed Peter, not Kelly. A chase ensues and Terry tells of her plans to kill Kelly and take her place. She raises her knife and with the most sinister laugh, she exclaims "Goodnight sister darling" and bang! Mom comes to the rescue and shoots and kills her maniacal daughter Terry. The End.

Pretty good plot twist, but I think it would've been better if Terry actually did kill Kelly and take her place. It seems to me that a mental patient would blend right in with your typical sorority.

Rec 2

2010-06-30T15:53:00.002-05:00

Rec 2 picks up about 15 minutes after part one ended. And I must say that you have to have seen part one to have any clue whatsoever as to what the hell is happening in part two.

A SWAT team of four and a chief in charge enters the building to assess what has happened. They know there was a contagion that is not spread through the air but through the blood and saliva. They search for survivors but only come across the infected. Part one lets us know that the infection is actually a viral form of demonic possession. The mission is to find the original possessed girl that was brought to the building for testing, more or less to find a cure or an antidote. Many characters from the first film are seen (albeit for 30 seconds or less, including Jennifer, her mother Mari, Senora Izquidero, and Manu the Fireman).

This film seems to be all about explanation. The chief in charge seems to know a bit more than he's letting on and has a rather religious way of dealing with the situation. Turns out he's a priest sent by the Vatican to rectify the damage already done by the first doctor that was to experiment on the original possessed girl (Tristana Medeiros). Apparently, only her blood holds the key to the antidote, not the people she infects.

Upon searching the doctor's penthouse, a sample of her blood is found. The chief is now revealed as a priest as he tests her blood by holding a crucifix over it. The blood soon sizzles and bursts into flames, unfortunately, so does the test tube containing the rest of the sample, held by one of the SWAT team members. He of course drops it, destroying the entire sample, rendering the entire mission a failure.

In the first film, it is revealed that there is a drain cover in the basement that connects with the sewers that lead to a way out of the building. Three kids decide to pull a prank by attaching bottle rockets to the back of an inflatable "fuck doll" and send it sailing over the crowd that has gathered around the building. The prank fails and calls police attention to these dumbass teens. They duck into a sewer drain which happens to be the same sewer drain that connects to the building. The movie bogs down here when the SWAT team and the teens fight a lot. Too occupied with fighting, they are attacked by the infected and most are killed.

As the remaining SWAT team members and the priest make their way back to the penthouse where the infection occurred, they come across Angela Vidal, the beautiful TV reporter who first entered the building with the firemen in part one. At the end of part one, Angela is dragged away by the possessed Tristana (the end). Assuming that she is now possessed. But how could she have escaped? She shows no sign of being infected.

Meanwhile, a SWAT team member that was bitten and infected, is locked in a room with a rosary attached to the door to keep him in. Later, we hear Jennifer's voice coming from the room, pleading for her father. Like idiots, they open the door only to find the same infected SWAT team member, letting us know that the infected can disguise their voices, for they are merely Tristana's puppets.

The priest, Angela, and the remaining SWAT team make it back up to the penthouse to try one last time to get a blood sample from Tristana. This proves impossible and everyone dies except for Angela and the priest. The priest has a walkie-talkie that he uses to talk to the police outside. Throughout the film, The SWAT tries to get him to call off the mission and get everyone out of the building, but he refuses to call off the mission until the mission is complete (get a blood sample from Tristana). The walkie is voice specific and can only be used by the priest, anyone who tries to use it gets turned down for a non-recognized voice.

In the end, when it's only Angela and the priest, Angela begins to act extremely violent toward him, demanding that he give the order to evacuate. After thoroughly kicking his ass, she tells him that he is not needed. Her voice then changes, she grabs his talkie and gives the order to evacuate using the priest's voice. The voice is recognized and she tells them that everyone is dead or infected, even the priest whom she is imitating. She also adds that a female has escaped unharmed and must be evacuated at once. Permission is granted, leaving a huge cliffhanger that the infection could reach the outside (can't wait for part 3).

The very end shows what happened to Angela after she is dragged away at the end of part one. After dragging her into the darkness, the possessed girl forces Angela's mouth open and pukes some kind of worm into it. She gets a glazed look and there you have it, the extended ending to part one and the beginning of part two. I can't say that this sequel is better than the original, but it sure packed a hell of a punch in the scare department and explained a few questions remaining from part one.

I've heard a rumor that part one impressed the producers so much upon the first view that a plan was made to finance a total of four movies, the original plus three sequels. And though part two did not disappoint, part three was a total farce, ruined by unnecessary comedy and not having much at all to do with the original storyline. It was critically panned and when it came time to make the fourth and final entry, the writers and producers made sure that it picked up exactly where part two left off. Completely ignoring the missed opportunity for part three to have potentially been an awesome prequel, showing us how the original possessed girl, Tristana Medeiros, was brought to the building in the first place. We knew that she was kidnapped and that a scientist brought her to the penthouse apartment to experiment on her by orders from the Vatican because she was declared officially possessed would have made a really great tie-in to the full storyline.

The House by the Cemetery

2010-06-25T14:46:00.003-05:00

This is an incredibly erratic story, with a lot of unexplained content, but I'll see if I can clean it up a little so that it can be somewhat understandable.

OK, the movie starts out with a couple screwing in an old abandoned house. The boyfriend goes missing (I guess he went to take a piss and never returned) and the girlfriend goes looking for him. Suddenly someone with ugly rotted hands takes a knife and stabs her in the head, then drags her into the cellar.

Fast forward to a family in New York. Dr. Boyle, his wife Lucy, and their weird son Bob. By the way, Bob is a dead ringer for a "Village of the Damned" kid. Platinum hair and sky blue eyes. You almost expect him to say something like "I know what you're thinking". Anyway, the family is planning on moving to an old mansion by a cemetery, so that Dr. Boyle can continue the research of one of his colleagues that killed his wife and daughter, then committed suicide.

A little girl named May keeps popping up and talking with Bob. They speak telepathically, which leads us to think that May is either psychic or dead. May constantly warns Bob about the house and not to go there.

Upon cleaning the house, Lucy discovers a tombstone hidden under a rug in the hallway. After this unnerving discovery, followed by a vicious bat attack, the family has had enough and consults their real estate agent about moving. Apparently, no one stays at this house for more than a few days. The agent comes by while the family is gone. She is approached by the killer, whom again we only see his rotted hands. She runs across the tombstone which splits under her feet. She falls into it and breaks her foot and can't get away... the rotted hands strike again!!! By the way, the tombstone belongs to Dr. Jacob Freudstein.

Upon following Dr. Peterson's research as planned, Dr. Boyle notices that Dr. Peterson's research isn't what it's supposed to be. He was supposed to be researching old houses, but has turned his studies towards the mysterious Dr. Freudstein, who we slowly (very slowly) learn was into some bizarre and highly illegal medical experiments. Dr. Boyle finds a tape recording left by Dr. Peterson, talking about how it was Dr. Freudstein (who's supposed to be dead as of about 153 years ago) who killed his wife and daughter (and eventually drove Dr. Peterson to suicide).

A babysitter that was hired for Bobby wanders into the cellar and gets decapitated. Later that night, Bobby goes looking for her and gets stuck in the cellar. Mom tries a key which breaks, then tries a knife... which breaks. Soon Dad comes home and has luck with a hatchet. Upon entering the cellar, Mom, Dad, and son, finally learn who those rotted hands belong to.

Dr. Freudstein has been continuing his experiments, which are based on using dead body parts to keep him alive. I can't say that he's been all that successful since he looks like a corpse and is composed of maggots and congealed blood. The "dead" doc rips the dad's throat out and Mom and Bob make a run for some metal stairs in the corner of the cellar. At the top of the stairs is the tombstone (aptly placed, since the dead doc never leaves the cellar). Since the tombstone is cracked from the death of the real estate agent, Mom, and Bob try to get out, but the crack is too small for the mother. Soon Dr. Freudstein grabs her by the ankles (make a wish!!) and drags her down the stairs to a gloomy death. While Bob is struggling to get through the crack, the dead doc is hot on his trail. Suddenly, a small hand grabs Bob and pulls him to safety. It's May, who basically says "I told ya so". Soon May and Bob are joined by May's mother who is a woman seen previously on a tombstone as a Mary Freudstein. Turns out that May is Dr. Freudstein's daughter. May's mother takes hold of both children and walks toward the cemetery. May and her Mom are obviously dead, but what of little Bobby's fate?

A decently enjoyable piece of badly dubbed Italian crap, circa 1983. I really think it would probably be a good candidate for a more psychological American remake with a bigger budget.

The Legend of Hell House

2010-06-07T14:32:00.003-05:00

This is a great haunted house story from 1973, starring Pamela Franklin as Florence Tanner, a mental medium. Roddy McDowell as Ben Fisher, a physical medium and last survivor of a previous attempt to rid the evil of haunted Belasco House. Dr. Barrett (Clive Revill), is a physicist that is determined to unravel the secrets of Belasco House under strictly scientific terms. Dr. Barrett reluctantly brings his wife Ann (Gayle Hunnicutt) along on this expedition.

Brilliantly written in 1971 by horror master Richard Matheson, and brought to the screen by John Hough in 1973 under Richard Matheson's strictly rewritten screenplay. Anyone not familiar with Richard Matheson, just check the writers' credit on almost any Twilight Zone episode and you'll surely see his name.

Dr. Barrett (Clive Revill) is approached by a rich old eccentric who has one foot in the grave and is very adamant about learning about life after death since he's utterly close to dying himself. He recruits Dr. Barrett a physicist, Florence Tanner (a mental medium), and Benjamin Fisher (a physical medium) to study a well-known haunted house. All will receive $100,000 for proof of the afterlife.

Belasco House, better known as "Hell House", is also known as "the Mt. Everest of haunted houses". Emeric Belasco was a pure deviant, whose escapades included drug addiction, bestiality, orgies, vampirism, murder, rape, cannibalism, ... among a selection of even more atrocious goodies. This reputation ensures in everyone's mind that Emeric Belasco is the full power behind the haunting and the sole reason for the evil within.

Upon entering the house, Ms. Tanner has a strong feeling that things are not what they seem... and that the house is well aware that its guests have arrived. They notice what appears to be a chapel, a sort of "Church in Hell", just off the main hall. Again, Ms. Tanner is repelled and finds herself unable to enter the church. (by the way, the body on the crucifix has a devil's head).

On with the tour: While the rest of the group is still touring the church. Ms. Tanner follows a sound and it is soon found the be a phonograph playing. On it is a "Welcome to my house, hope you enjoy your visit, don't get killed ... blah, blah, blah. sort of a thing"

Florence does a few "sittings" to try to make contact. During the first one, she has spirits talk through her. During the second, she emits ectoplasm. The third time produces all out poltergeist activity. The activity is then declared as the physical manifestations that a mental medium usually cannot achieve. Ms. Tanner is very surprised as is everyone else, constantly repeating "But, I'm only a mental medium".

Soon after, Ms. Tanners is visited by what she feels to be the ghost of Daniel Belasco, son of house owner Emeric Belasco. She has her linens thrown at her, by an obviously pissed-off ghost, who even opens and slams the door when he leaves. Ms.Tanner becomes rather fascinated with Daniel Belasco, even though everyone else in the group thinks that she's crazy and that there was no Daniel Belasco. With her mental abilities, Ms. Tanner searches the house for proof of Daniel Belasco... she finds him inside a wall, buried alive, chained to the wall, and left for dead. Florence and Ben give Daniel an appropriate burial and funeral, but it doesn't seem to help. His spirit still abounds and contacts Florence in a dream. The dream becomes erotic and Daniel appears to be having intercourse with her. She opens her eyes and screams. Upon responding to her scream, Ben comes to her aid and finds her hysterically laughing. At this point, she is obviously possessed by someone that we can only assume is the spirit of Daniel Belasco.

Meanwhile, Ben remembers something Ms. Tanner said during a trance about "terminations and extremities". He soon makes connections that everyone in the group he went in with when he was much younger had something happen to their legs.... one fell and broke both legs, one had a back injury that paralyzed him from the waist down, one lady's legs were accidentally burned near the fireplace. Fisher starts putting two and two together... "terminations and extremities"... means legs.

Meanwhile, Dr. Barrett is finishing a machine he arrived with called "The Reversor", which apparently has the ability to reverse any negative energy that still exists in the house. Thus, proving his theory that hauntings are just mindless energy that has yet to be expelled. Differing from Dr.Barrett's theory, Florence tries unsuccessfully to smash it. She hits the machine, and Dr. Barrett hits her and knocks her out. She awakens and sneaks into the church unseen. She begs for Daniel to meet with her there. She hears a creak and turns around just in time to see the crucifix fall and crush her. Before she dies, she writes (in her own blood) the letter "B" in a circle. She whispers softly before she dies... "You tricked me".

Dr. Barrett sets up his machine and the others go outside. After the machine has performed its capabilities, they re-enter, seemingly to find the house clear of ghosts. Dr. Barrett is overjoyed until slowly the Reversor starts to indicate negative energy again and proves to be a complete failure. A failure that Dr. Barrett cannot comprehend. As the phenomena of evil swirl around him, he screams in anguish just before being crushed by a falling candelabra.

This leaves only Ben and Ann. Ann is clueless, but Ben has it all figured out. He starts bitching at the church because that's where Belasco's visage remains. Ben starts making fun of Belasco's height. Extremities and terminations. Ben continues... Your mother was a bitch! You're probably not even 5 ft tall!! This causes the stained glass behind where the crucifix was, to shatter and reveal a room. Upon entering, Belasco is right there (stuffed and preserved of course), with a glass of brandy still in his hand. Ben takes his pocketknife and stabs Belasco in the knee, finding a fake leg where a real one should be. Apparently, he was so ashamed of his own shortness, he had his own legs cut off and wore taller fake ones instead. If thine eye offend thee... pluck it out. Just before leaving, they notice that the room in which Belasco lies is completely lined with lead, which was what rendered the Reversor ineffective. Ben activates the Reversor again now that Belasco's body and spirit are exposed which actually does work this time. As Ann and Ben are leaving the house for good, they realize that it is Christmas day and Ben makes sure to wish Ann a happy one.

While this is a really good haunted house story, it differs wildly from the book. Richard Matheson had to seriously tone down the graphic sex and horror described in the book in order to make it acceptable for the big screen. The movie may have been scary, but the book literally scared the piss out of me. And this was written by the same man that gave us such romantic tales like Somewhere in Time and What Dreams May Come. He also gave us The Incredible Shrinking Man and I Am Legend. Now that is some serious writing versatility.

Blood Beach

2010-05-02T12:18:00.002-05:00

I'll say it upfront... this is a really dumb movie. The overall concept isn't that bad, but the execution is ridiculous. The tagline is funny though "Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water... you can't get to it." An obvious ripoff from "Jaws".

Anyway, the story is pretty simple. A lady is leisurely walking on the beach when she feels a tug at her feet, a scream ensues and before you know it, she gets sucked under the sand by... something. For the most part, she's just considered a missing person. Eventually, enough people get sucked under the sand to warrant police intervention. Unfortunately, they haven't got a clue as to what's going on and presume the disappearances are the work of a serial killer.

Meanwhile, more and more people (and even a dog) get sucked under the sand. A man attempts to rape a woman, she struggles, he fumbles and falls in the sand only to get his prick munched off. A teenager lets her friends bury her in the sand, and as she starts screaming, they unbury her only to find she has shredded legs. This is the funny irony of this movie... no matter how many people get eaten by the beach, there's always plenty of fun in the sun going on. No one really seems to take the killings and disappearances seriously, because why would you be afraid of the beach, even if there was something under it that likes to eat people (and dogs and penises).

Eventually, the dumbass cops investigating these ridiculous events realize that it's not a person and most likely some kind of monster under the sand. They track it down in order to blow it up and we finally get to see the monster, which sorta looks like a Venus flytrap on steroids. They detonate their explosives and blow the monster into itty-bitty pieces. Unfortunately, the monster has regenerative qualities, kinda like a starfish. You cut it up into pieces and each piece becomes a separate entity, henceforth blowing the monster into separate pieces creates tons of little monsters. The end.

It's a not-really-that-good yet slightly enjoyable piece of crap from the early 1980s that had a good premise but terrible execution. Like most cheap horror films from the 80s that had a really good movie poster and that if you saw it on the VHS cover at the local video rental store near you, you would think it would be pretty scary but instead had an almost unintentional comic aspect to it. Usually, these fall under the category of "so bad it's good" but Blood Beach rides such a fine line that you're never really sure if you've just watched a horror movie or not. Which sucks if that's what you were really in the mood for.

Nightmare at 20,000 Feet

2010-04-17T10:11:00.004-05:00

This is a creepy-ass story that exists in three forms. Short story, an original Twilight Zone episode, and finally a remake of the episode included in a four-part Twilight Zone movie that recreates four of its more popular episodes. It was originally written by Richard Matheson ( I am Legend, What Dreams May Come, The Legend of Hell House) and this version is by far the best (probably because it's the worst). The original Twilight Zone episode stars a very young William Shatner (pre-Star Trek) in 1959. This version kinda sucks, but for good reason and we'll get to that later. When the Twilight Zone Movie came out in 1983, it was John Lithgow that played the part, much more effectively I think. So sorry Mr. Shatner.

The story is a popular one without a doubt, and truly quite frightening at its core because it deals with the whole 'is it real or imagined" aspect. Bob is a man with issues. To begin with, he's returning home from a sanitarium, due to a severe nervous breakdown. He's chosen to fly home, despite the fact that his nervous breakdown occurred on a plane, a wonderful idea. Everything seems cool at first (after like 25 cigarettes), but then the plane begins to enter a storm, sending Bob's nerves totally on edge. Having sat in a window seat, Bob peers out the window, only to see a strange human-like figure on the wing of the plane. Attributing this apparition to his nerves, he closes the window and pretends it's not there. Eventually, curiosity gets the better of him and he again looks out the window and again sees the strange creature who is closer to his window now and can make out that it's definitely there and not his imagination. Having heard stories from war pilots about so-called "gremlins" that liked to sabotage planes, he assumes that is what he's seeing. He closes the window and takes an abundance of pills, thinking this will make it go away. His curiosity finally gets the better of him and he opens the window shade and the gremlin is right there staring at him... Bob freaks.

He tries to alert several people of this creature who appears to be tearing up parts of the plane. Alas, every time someone besides Bob looks out the window, there's nothing to be seen, making Bob look even crazier. Bob decides that he must take action before the gremlin causes the plane to crash. He ever so nonchalantly steals a gun from a sleeping passenger (I guess gun laws were really different in the late fifties) and shoots the window out. The suction of the cabin pressure is released and shit goes flying everywhere. Bob is sucked halfway out of the window but still manages to get a few shots at the gremlin... to no avail.

The plane manages to land safely, but poor Bob is toted away in a straight jacket on his way back to the looney bin. Everyone thinks this was just a crazy way of attempting suicide, but Bob knows better. Shortly after landing, the crewmen find a patch of the airplane that has been strangely damaged by something that might have had claws, leading us to believe that the creature on the wing of the plane was not entirely a figment of Bob's lunacy.

The original Twilight Zone version of this story is pretty stupid. Shatner plays the part of Bob very well, but the appearance of the gremlin is totally ridiculous. It looks sorta like a teddy bear with a scrunched-up face, or maybe a Teletubbie with a severe hormone problem. And the fact that it's on the wing of an airplane doesn't seem to affect it in any way, his "fur" doesn't even bristle with the blast of the wind. But the remake of the episode starring John Lithgow is a fantastic rendering of this story. The gremlin actually looks like, well a gremlin. Kind of slimy, with fangs and demonic eyes... and much more aerodynamic. Pretty creepy stuff. There's even a "Simpsons" Halloween episode called "Nightmare at 4 and a half Feet" where Bart sees a gremlin on the side of his school bus.

Poultrygeist

2010-04-08T17:21:00.005-05:00

This is a hilarious new movie by Troma that had me in stitches throughout the entire film. Most movies from Troma are either really bad or disgusting and offensive. Or all of it rolled into one. But this one was all of that but was actually funny.

A military-themed chicken fast food restaurant called "American Chicken Bunker" is built on an ancient Indian burial ground (and we all know how pissed off dead Indians can get). A group of non-Indian (with the exception of a "Chief What's His Face") protesters disagrees with its construction, calling it desecration, and surround the restaurant with signs that say things like "Chicken Killers" and "I Love Cock!" written on them.

Arby is a huge dork who is stoned and really just wants something to eat, finds his ex-girlfriend Wendy there making a unique protest of her own... as a lesbian, making out with her new and very butch girlfriend Mickey. Specifically involved in a protest group called C.L.A.M. (college lesbians against mega-conglomerates). To get her goat, Arby goes in and gets a job, hopefully making riches and bitches part of his long-term goal to get back at Wendy.

Soon strange things begin to occur in the restaurant. Instead of grade-A eggs, a bunch of green slimy pulsating vein-covered eggs are being served to the hapless customers. The restaurant's representative/mascot "The General" shows up to do some damage control... and some shameless promoting in the form of a song. Oh yeah, did I mention that it's a musical?

Restaurant manager Denny tries to keep things under control but fails miserably when an employee name Paco Bell gets pushed into a "beaks and claws grinder" by a possessed chicken carcass and splatters the walls with blood, which Denny tries to convince people is just artistic wallpaper.

Pretty soon, anyone who eats at the restaurant becomes possessed by homicidal chicken spirits. The restaurant, now under siege, has only Arby and Wendy, who've now made up since her new lesbian lover has proven to just be there because she's screwing The General, to save the world from chicken zombies. It turns out that alcohol kills them for some reason, so Wendy finds a keg and only after calling her a "fucking drunk", does Arby figure out her plan. Wendy melts the hoard of chicken zombies with her beer, they escape only to flee in a stolen car, hit another car, flip over and finally crash and burn.

Shocking as it is to say, this really is one of Troma's better movies. There are lots of great cock jokes, plenty of gore, and completely ridiculous circumstances. And even more shocking is the fact that the songs are actually not that bad, well-written, funny, and almost catchy! I even bought the soundtrack on CD, yes I'm that old. And if you haven't noticed by now, everybody's names are taken from fast-food restaurants... Arby, Wendy, Mickey (McDonald's) The General (The Colonel), Denny, etc. Terrible but funny jokes, loads of inappropriateness, and more cultural awkwardness than I thought were possible to squeeze into one film. Great fun!

Rec

2010-04-08T14:13:00.005-05:00

Rec (as in "record", because the entire film is seen through the eye of the cameraman) is a total thrill ride of a movie. Made in Barcelona, it's a Spanish film, hopefully, you'll find a copy with subtitles, that revolves around a local TV reporter named Angela Vidal and her cameraman Pablo as they document the night shift at a local fire station.

It starts out innocently enough, with interviews with the "bomberos" (firemen), the shift manager, and out of boredom... the reception desk, occupied by the only "mujeras" (women) in the station. Suddenly, a call comes in about a person possibly trapped in her apartment. Since Angela and Pablo have been given permission to follow two firemen named Alex and Manu, wherever they go in order to get a good story about how firemen do their jobs, they unwittingly follow the firemen into the scariest adventure one could possibly endure.

Once they reach the apartment building that the call came from, they find all the residents gathered in the atrium of the building. Accompanied by police, they investigate the source of the call, an elderly woman that has been screaming bloody murder for some time now. When they bust her door down, they find her just standing there frothing at the mouth. Suddenly she attacks one of the policemen and bites a huge chunk out of his neck. When attempting to get the policeman out of the building to a hospital they discover that the front door has been blocked off by the Center for Disease Control, and absolutely no one is allowed out of the building. Determined to show the world what is happening, Angela orders Pablo to record everything.

When trying to get the injured policeman some help through a back door, they are greeted by soldiers with machine guns. A loudspeaker informs them that they are not to attempt to leave the building and will be shot on sight should they try. Fireman Alex, who has stayed upstairs to watch over the old lady, comes plummeting down the staircase with massive facial injuries. Both Alex and the injured policeman are moved to a back room, and while there, heard again is the loudspeaker that a BNC protocol (biological, nuclear, or chemical threat) has been put in place and that a health inspector will soon be entering the building to assess the situation. While waiting for this to happen, Angela and Pablo take the opportunity to interview some of the building's residents, which consist of an old couple that bickers a lot, a bitchy woman with a sick little girl whose father is forbidden to enter the building with the antibiotics he was out getting for his little girl (Jennifer), a suave wisecracking ladies man, an intern, and a Japanese couple that constantly scream at each other.

When the health inspector finally arrives, he inspects the injured, just to have the injured come back into consciousness and become as violent as the old lady was. The health inspector locks the infected in the back room and is then forced by Manu to tell them what the hell is going on. He explains that a vet had a dog brought in with an unknown illness. The dog showed extreme viciousness and attacked all the other pets at the clinic and within minutes all the other animals showed the same kind of aggression and the dog's collar led them to this building. It just so happens that the sick little girl had a dog taken to the vet a few days prior. This casts huge suspicion on the little girl's illness even though her mother vehemently protests that it's only tonsillitis. Soon the girl starts puking blood and eventually becomes a screaming banshee and runs upstairs. While upstairs looking for her, they are once again attacked by the old lady who is finally taken out by the fireman's sledgehammer. Also while upstairs, the infected manage to break out of the backroom and start attacking everyone. Everybody that gets attacked and bitten, becomes another bloodthirsty "infected". One of the last remaining uninfected residents explains that there might be a way out through a sewer drain in the building's basement... all they need is the key.

After scouring the concierge's apartment for the keys, they soon learn that Manu is nowhere around, and without his protection, Angela and Pablo are on their own. The option to go down to the basement becomes impossible because everyone, including Manu, is infected. They instead run upstairs to the attic apartment which we were told earlier was owned by a man from Madrid, but who hasn't been there in months. With this in mind, it's assumed that no one is in the attic. But upon looking around the attic apartment, it's apparent that some sort of scientific testing has been conducted, and strangely the entire place is filled with religious artifacts. Many news articles cover the walls. Upon reading these articles with such titles as "The Vatican investigates the possible possession of a Portuguese girl", "Portugal is moved by a possessed girl" and "Hospital denies releasing Medeiros girl who disappeared during the night". A tape recorder is found and when Angela plays it, it turns out to be a diary left by the man from Madrid, about a possessed girl that he was testing and experimenting on. Apparently, he was trying to use her to create some sort of vaccine to combat demon possession. He goes on to say that the "virus" has mutated and has become contagious (explaining just what the "infected" are infected with, some contagious form of demon possession). He also says that he must leave and that he plans to seal the girl inside until she dies of starvation, which instantly eradicates the idea that they may not be alone in this apartment.

Determined to escape, they inspect the attic space for a possible way out when something hits Pablo's camera, breaking the light. He turns the night vision on and to his horror sees something moving in the darkness. It soon becomes visible as an emaciated girl carrying a hammer and clad only in the most disgusting underwear in existence. Roaming around in the dark, the girl (obviously still possessed) cannot see Angela and Pablo. That is until Pablo accidentally knocks something over making a noise. He is instantly attacked and drops his camera. When Angela finally finds his camera, she uses night vision and sees Pablo being eaten by the girl. She screams and is subsequently attacked, drops that camera, and falls to the floor with the camera pointed in her direction. She slowly crawls toward the camera and just before reaching it, is dragged away by her feet, screaming. The End.

Despite my simple synopsis, it's truly a frightening movie, and about 2 years later was remade into an American version called "Quarantine" starring Jennifer Carpenter. A decently good remake (with a few more believable explanations, mostly the change from viral demon possession to an extreme version of rabies) but Rec is still far superior. A sequel to Rec has just been finished and should reach American theaters in a few months. The sequel is supposed to take place a mere fifteen minutes after the first movie ends. Four movies following this storyline are to be filmed in total, should be a wild ride!

The Deadly Spawn

2009-04-21T15:20:00.003-05:00

This is a great monster movie from the early '80s, my favorite kind! Two campers see a meteorite fall to the earth, when they go inspect it, they encounter a giant eating machine of an alien with multiple heads and literally thousands of teeth.

The creature moves into town and hides in someone's basement. People start disappearing left and right. A tea party is subsequently attacked by what looks like a baby spawn, which bears a striking resemblance to the "Killer Condom". Sort of like tadpoles on steroids with nothing but rows and rows of razor-sharp teeth.

A few teenagers figure out that they better kill the parent creature before it makes enough spawn to devour the whole planet. One of the teens is really into magic shows and puts a huge amount of flash powder in a dummy head and dangles it in front of the creature, who is hesitant at first but finally gives in and takes a great big bite. Then suddenly... boom! The creature splatters everywhere. All seems well with the world again. That is until the end when you see a HUGE spawn emerge from a mountain, smile and bear literally millions of little teeth.

This is a typical alien creature flick from the good old 1980s that rides the line between horror and comedy. A lot of times in these types of movies the comedy is unintentional but this one doesn't apologize for some of the more absurd scenes and never really takes itself too seriously. The creature effects are actually quite good when you realize how simple they were to pull off. Sometimes simply painted silicone really is a horror movie maker's best friend.