Entries Tagged 'Reviews' ↓
January 25th, 2023 — bees, From The Feeds, Gerald Ford, Reviews
Boy oh boy, people of yore sure worried about weird stuff, weren't they? The Bermuda Triangle, quicksand, Satanism, killer bees, etc etc. I'm sure glad we've evolved past that kind of thinking and now we worry about...uh...a never-ending pandemic, failing economies, the climate crisis, etc etc. Oh, and sinkholes! Sinkholes are kind of the new quicksand, right? Like, any time you are out strolling (or even sitting) you might find yourself falling into a sinkhole? Well, I'm kind of worried about that, anyway. Also just FYI, I honestly still wouldn't fuck with the Bermuda Triangle, so don't ask me to go on a trip that will pass through there because I will say no!
But bees...who is really worried about killer bees anymore? Not me, although I will say that if there is a bee near me I will skedaddle away from it with the power of at least 5-7 mall walkers (running is bad for your knees). But am I afraid of some invasive bee who wants to kill kill kill? No. However, I do love to indulge in some bee-flavored scare flicks, like the 1978 thrill-exico from Mexico, The Bees.
You know you're in for a good time because:
1) It's called The Bees. Sure, that's a neutral title. But this is a horror movie, so it's safe to assume that the bees will be the villains.
2) It's a from Roger Corman's New World Pictures, and as we all know, Corman means co-uality!
3) It's got this poster, which is just insane:
"Okay," I suppose someone said, "How about a giant bee head with, like, weird stuff growing out of it? And fangs and blood in its mouth? Hmm but there should also be something to make people feel horny..."
4) It's got John Saxon! Don't you love John Saxon? If you didn't say yes, I'm not sure I even want you reading this blog.
So much like that other (incredible) 1978 film about killer bees,
The Swarm,
The Bees concerns itself with Africanized bees that bust a move across the globe and holy shit there's "nothing to stop them from taking over the entire western hemisphere!"
Yes, let's hear it for the xenophobia of 70s killer bee cinema! Also, fun fact, Warner Brothers paid New World Pictures to delay the release of The Bees so their star-studded The Swarm could hit cinemas first. Can you imagine what the world might be like today if The Bees had released first??
It would be the same world, really, but I thought you might have fun spending some time imagining.
Anyway. Dr. Franklin Miller (Claudio Brook,
Alucarda) and his wife Sandra (Angel Tompkins (one episode of television's
Knots Landing!) are in Brazil trying to figure out a way to make the killer bee less killer-y. One fateful night, a father and son pair of honey thieves (look, the father has a large family to feed, okay, that's why he's stealing) make the deadly mistake of opening the cages of the
killer bees instead of the cages of the
regular bees. The killer bees attack! The child dies!
The Bees doesn't mess around!
The next day, an angry mob shows up at the Miller compound to enact some angry mob justice. Franklin tries to ply them by explaining how he wants to modify the killer bees into non-killer bees, only he speaks in terms they will surely understand: "I know you no like devil bee!" he says, and I am sure that I winced.
However, when the honey thievin' father shows up carrying his dead son and sporting a gross face (from the bee stings, you see), all bets are off and the angry mob attacks! Franklin dies! The Bees continues to not mess around!
Franklin Miller, hoisted by his own beetard
Sandra heads to the United States, where she meets up with John Norman (Saxon) and her Uncle Ziggy (played by John Carradine, who sports one of the worst German accents you will ever hear).
Fun fact, John Carradine was pretty much unemployable in the US at this point because his health was too frail for insurance companies' liking, but The Bees writer/director Alfredo Zacarías hired him at great personal financial risk and it was a great experience for everyone!
Also, The Bees reminds us that John Saxon had a black belt in karate and was in Enter the Dragon.
Oh by the way, Sandra brought a suitcase full of killer bees with her from Brazil so she and John and Ziggy could study them, but some muggers tried to take her suitcase like the second she got out of a taxi in New York, and so bees are unleashed yet again by unwitting criminals.
Some greedy capitalist businessmen are interested in the bees because while yes, they may murder, they also apparently make kick-ass honey that will bring about record profits.
I love the greedy capitalist businessmen! Not only is there that cigar--the hallmark of a greedy capitalist businessman--but also because they are so greedy that one of them doodles dollar signs all over his handout at a bee meeting.
I just heard that Handout! at the Bee Meeting is disbanding later this year
So the bees are on the loose and they are not fucking around! They swarm around in a big...you know, swarm, like a black cloud of doom.
They wreak havoc everywhere, by which I mean that people either react worriedly when they see the bees, or they flail around whilst getting stung, then fall over dead. All of the victims deserve Oscars!
My favorite victim is Man With Arthritis, who hires some kids to catch some bees because his homemade arthritis remedy is to let bees sting him. Only this time, of course, it's the deadly bees. Too bad for Man With Arthritis! But let me tell you, he flails and flops everywhere for a while like a drama queen in a cowboy hat, and that's why he's my favorite.
For a chunk of time the movie is just bees showing up at random places, swarm swarm, flail flop, move on to the next random place...like the Pasadena Rose Parade?? The sequence uses B-roll footage of the actual parade, and I'm super into pretending it wasn't actually B-roll footage and that President Gerald Ford simply could not resist the offer of a role in The Bees, no matter how small.
To answer your question, yes people die at the Rose Parade! What a movie this is, I tells ya.
Meanwhile, Uncle Ziggy, who works in bee communications, is excited to be working on a way to stop the bee scourge.
The bees are manipulated into turning on each other, which excites John and Sandra (who are in love now) so much that they have to
do it right out there in the field while bees swarm around their truck.
Finally, it's the eroticism promised by the poster!
SIDE NOTE I just want to give a shout-out to this cool reporter, whom I hope won all kinds of Pulitzers for her coverage of the aforementioned bee scourge.
While the citizenry may be thrilled that the military is cropdusting the bees with our intrepid heroes' magic formula, the greedy capitalist businessmen are not thrilled about it at all. In fact, they're mad because the loss of the kick-ass honey will cut into profits! And so they put out a hit on our intrepid heroes. Poor Uncle Ziggy gets shot, but before he dies he fills John and Sandra in on the breaking bee news: these new, improved bees are super smart and learning how to speak with them is a must if we are to survive at all. The ol' Zig utters one final "Auf...wieder...sehen..." and flies off to the great honeycomb in the sky.
He really does, I'm not kidding. The auf Wiedersehen part, I mean. Sadly, he does not actually fly away.
There is a constant bee-buzzing sound as John and Sandra try to learn bee-speak and I started to think that I would hear it forever, like it would become like a sort of tinnitus. But as I write this I seem okay? I'll keep you updated.
After promising the bees that they will do their best to broker peace with them (they really do, I'm not kidding), John and Sandra go to Great Value United Nations to plea their case before the gathered world leaders. "You have to listen to what the bees have to say!" John cries, which to be fair sounds pretty crazy. But then the bees show up, but they don't sting anyone because it's just a flex, you know, like a show of power.
The bees have had e-fucking-NOUGH of humans ruining the environment and the planet, and they're not gonna take it anymore. John tells everyone that the bees are willing to dominate the world with us, but they're also fine with the idea of dominating the world without us. Will humanity accept the bees' terms or not?
HUH? WILL WE??
We'll never know, because the very next shot...
...is the credits! I suppose it is quite a pickle that Zacarías wrote himself into. Do you show, like, humans and bees ruling the planet together? As a human I feel confident in saying that wouldn't happen, we would never capitulate. So the bees would have to wipe us out, and that would make this movie five hours long at least. Hmm, maybe he could have used a matte painting to show that the bees whipped our asses and took over, you know, like at the end of
Kingdom of the Spiders. That would have been amazing! So amazing, in fact, that it hurts to think about. Alas.
The Bees is a good time (disconcerting B-roll footage of military plane crashes and explosions aside) and a worthy addition to the roster of flicks to be enjoyed by bee cinema aficionados like myself. It's not the exploitation flick that the poster and, perhaps, its Mexican pedigree promise; nudity and sex are nil (mid-swarm makeout aside) and there are definitely more violent entries in the bug attack genre out there. If you're looking for, I don't know, gory sting action or something, keep looking, friend. And while it may not have the mega-watt star power of its 1978 counterpart The Swarm--to be fair, what movie does?--it boasts Johns Saxon and Carradine so you can't go wrong, can you?
Well, if any bees are reading this I would just like to say that personally, I would be willing to work together so there's no need to sting me to death. Haha not that I'm worried about killer bees these days, of course. We all have more on our minds, right? I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if next year Roger Corman and Warner Brothers have competing horror movies about the price of eggs, amirite?
July 14th, 2022 — From The Feeds, hey wait that wasn't too bad, Reviews, ye olde
In, uh, honor? I guess? of the trailer for Rob Zombie's take on The Munsters dropping and serving up 10 pounds of Spirit Halloween in a 5 pound Halloweentown sack, I thought I'd revisit the one Rob Zombie movie I really like. Yes, Virginia, there is one!
Look, I don't get all bent out of shape over not enjoying his films. Much like palazzo pants or being punched in the face, his films are simply not for me. I've tried, believe me. Before House of 1000 Corpses I was hoping it would rule my world and give horror the jump start it needed in the genre's lean years. Alas, I thought it was a huge pile. I decided to give The Devil's Rejects a shot. No dice! Terrible. Halloween...Halloween II...same deal. You would think I would have caught on sooner, but hey, it took me a while to say "four chances is enough, I am out!"
And out I was, for a very long time. I knew peace--or at least I thought I did. Every once in a Sheri Moon, my mind would circle back to images I'd seen from The Lords of Salem (2012). It looked cool! It was about witches! Before Robert Eggers's The Witch came along in 2015, I'd tell anyone who would listen (and anyone who wouldn't listen: I would simply yell after them as they ran away) that I wanted more witch movies. Here was a witch movie that looked cool! But I remembered my quartet of quattempts with Mr. Zombie's work and I held fast to my no. (Not my no-no, that's another story entirely.)
Until I didn't. I caved and watched it. And lo, it was...good? Like genuinely good? I...really like The Lords of Salem. Consider my frutti to be tuttied!
Honestly this movie had me in its grip from the jump, when Meg fucking Foster appeared, looking and sounding like an entire pile of dirt as Margaret Morgan and going off with some real "Satan rules, God drools" shit with all of her fellow dirt witches. Even if the remaining minutes had been pure misery, I would at least always have this scene.
Heidi LaRoc (Sheri Moon Zombie) has it all: a sweet dog, a cool and interestingly-lit apartment, dreadlocks (always a great choice for white people), and a rad job as one of three shock jock-esque night DJs at a Salem radio station. One fine evening, a wooden box addressed to Heidi appears at the station, housing a record produced by some band called The Lords.
That is so stupid, and I am so in.
This misandrist record will not allow itself to be played by male hands! So Heidi gives it a spin, and the eerie track puts her in something of a trance and induces visions of 1696 and all the witchnanigans that Margaret and her dirt coven were getting up to. When Heidi plays the record over the radio waves, many women in Salem have the same reaction. What is up with that song? Somewhere, Tipper Gore shakes her head. "I tried to warn 'em about that kind of music," she says to no one in particular.
Heidi's life begins to unravel. She's flaking out at work, she's got a bad cough, she's plagued with weird Satanic visions, and she's started using drugs again. All because of The Lords's sick track! Somewhere, Tipper Gore righteously, furiously masturbates.
Thanks to all the 1696 flashbacks and witchologist Francis Mattias (Bruce Davison), we learn that during her execution, Margaret Morgan--who wrote The Lords's sick track to possess all the women of Salem by the way---placed a curse on the town, wishing death upon all the daughters' daughters of the witchhunters and that the bloodline of head witchhunter Jonathan Hawthorne (Andrew Prine) would eventually be "the vessel by which the Devil would inherit the Earth." Listen, on the rare occasion that movie Satanists manage to concoct a scheme with an actual end goal, it's always about some poor woman who is forced to squirt out a new Satan or Antichrist or whatever. In case you haven't figured it out by now, Heidi's real last name is Hawthorne and so she is the one who will be doing the...uh, you know. The Satan-squirting.
She's helped along in her task by her landlord Lacy (Judy Geeson) and her sisters Megan (Patricia Quinn) and Sonny (Dee Wallace), who constitute a trio of pure delight and get their own Minnie Castevet-through-the-peephole moment.
As luck would have it, The Lords are coming to town for a one-night show. That's right, it's time for Margaret Morgan's Jug Band Satanmas! All of Salem's daughters' daughters are there, and Heidi is the descendant of honor.
When le bébé arrives, it is...well. You know the iconic, chilling moment at the end of Rosemary's Baby when Rosemary is all "What have you done to its eyes?!" Let's just say that upon seeing what she squirted out, Heidi would be well within her rights to shriek "What have you done to its...whole thing?!"
Then again, I suppose that's what you get with dealing with dirt witches. I mean, early on in the proceedings we thought we ordered this Satan:
But apparently we ordered from wish dot com because the Satan that arrived was decidedly not that. It had me wondering why all these cool women would cavort in the dirt, stop brushing their teeth, and pledge themselves to a sentient lump of Silly Putty for eternity. But maybe I shouldn't have been surprised? I remember The King of Queens. I know of According to Jim. It seems that this trope will never die!
At the same time, I genuinely enjoy what a weird choice Rob Zombie made for Satan and The Sire (coincidentally the name of one of my fave 80s sitcoms). It's one of the touches that sets The Lords of Salem apart from all the other "witch curses town during ye olde times, comes back, wreaks havoc" movies of its ilk.
One of Zombie's strengths as a filmmaker lies in his casting decisions, and this cast is perhaps the best of the bunch. Geeson, Quinn, and Wallace as that trio of sinister sisters! Andrew Prine as Hawthorne! A toupéed DJ Ken Foree! Maria Conchita Alonso! A Barbara Crampton cameo! This shit just keeps on giving. And while Sheri Moon Zombie's acting skills are often maligned, she really holds her own in the lead role, even if she reaches beyond the range of her abilities at times.
This movie does descend into Looney Toons territory at times, but overall Zombie employs, dare I say, a restrained hand throughout. The local shots of Salem are another bonus; fall in New England vibes are welcome in my world at any time, but especially now as we head into the toasty bowels of summer.
My brain still has enough power to understand that for me, The Lords of Salem is and will likely remain an anomaly in the filmography of Mr. Robert Zombie. I have no desire to check out any of his existing work that I've yet to see. But I will also hold onto the hope that he will once again surprise me with another lump of a movie that will worm its way into my dirt witch heart. Long live the cunting daughters!
July 14th, 2022 — From The Feeds, hey wait that wasn't too bad, Reviews, ye olde
In, uh, honor? I guess? of the trailer for Rob Zombie's take on The Munsters dropping and serving up 10 pounds of Spirit Halloween in a 5 pound Halloweentown sack, I thought I'd revisit the one Rob Zombie movie I really like. Yes, Virginia, there is one!
Look, I don't get all bent out of shape over not enjoying his films. Much like palazzo pants or being punched in the face, his films are simply not for me. I've tried, believe me. Before House of 1000 Corpses I was hoping it would rule my world and give horror the jump start it needed in the genre's lean years. Alas, I thought it was a huge pile. I decided to give The Devil's Rejects a shot. No dice! Terrible. Halloween...Halloween II...same deal. You would think I would have caught on sooner, but hey, it took me a while to say "four chances is enough, I am out!"
And out I was, for a very long time. I knew peace--or at least I thought I did. Every once in a Sheri Moon, my mind would circle back to images I'd seen from The Lords of Salem (2012). It looked cool! It was about witches! Before Robert Eggers's The Witch came along in 2015, I'd tell anyone who would listen (and anyone who wouldn't listen: I would simply yell after them as they ran away) that I wanted more witch movies. Here was a witch movie that looked cool! But I remembered my quartet of quattempts with Mr. Zombie's work and I held fast to my no. (Not my no-no, that's another story entirely.)
Until I didn't. I caved and watched it. And lo, it was...good? Like genuinely good? I...really like The Lords of Salem. Consider my frutti to be tuttied!
Honestly this movie had me in its grip from the jump, when Meg fucking Foster appeared, looking and sounding like an entire pile of dirt as Margaret Morgan and going off with some real "Satan rules, God drools" shit with all of her fellow dirt witches. Even if the remaining minutes had been pure misery, I would at least always have this scene.
Heidi LaRoc (Sheri Moon Zombie) has it all: a sweet dog, a cool and interestingly-lit apartment, dreadlocks (always a great choice for white people), and a rad job as one of three shock jock-esque night DJs at a Salem radio station. One fine evening, a wooden box addressed to Heidi appears at the station, housing a record produced by some band called The Lords.
That is so stupid, and I am so in.
This misandrist record will not allow itself to be played by male hands! So Heidi gives it a spin, and the eerie track puts her in something of a trance and induces visions of 1696 and all the witchnanigans that Margaret and her dirt coven were getting up to. When Heidi plays the record over the radio waves, many women in Salem have the same reaction. What is up with that song? Somewhere, Tipper Gore shakes her head. "I tried to warn 'em about that kind of music," she says to no one in particular.
Heidi's life begins to unravel. She's flaking out at work, she's got a bad cough, she's plagued with weird Satanic visions, and she's started using drugs again. All because of The Lords's sick track! Somewhere, Tipper Gore righteously, furiously masturbates.
Thanks to all the 1696 flashbacks and witchologist Francis Mattias (Bruce Davison), we learn that during her execution, Margaret Morgan--who wrote The Lords's sick track to possess all the women of Salem by the way---placed a curse on the town, wishing death upon all the daughters' daughters of the witchhunters and that the bloodline of head witchhunter Jonathan Hawthorne (Andrew Prine) would eventually be "the vessel by which the Devil would inherit the Earth." Listen, on the rare occasion that movie Satanists manage to concoct a scheme with an actual end goal, it's always about some poor woman who is forced to squirt out a new Satan or Antichrist or whatever. In case you haven't figured it out by now, Heidi's real last name is Hawthorne and so she is the one who will be doing the...uh, you know. The Satan-squirting.
She's helped along in her task by her landlord Lacy (Judy Geeson) and her sisters Megan (Patricia Quinn) and Sonny (Dee Wallace), who constitute a trio of pure delight and get their own Minnie Castevet-through-the-peephole moment.
As luck would have it, The Lords are coming to town for a one-night show. That's right, it's time for Margaret Morgan's Jug Band Satanmas! All of Salem's daughters' daughters are there, and Heidi is the descendant of honor.
When le bébé arrives, it is...well. You know the iconic, chilling moment at the end of Rosemary's Baby when Rosemary is all "What have you done to its eyes?!" Let's just say that upon seeing what she squirted out, Heidi would be well within her rights to shriek "What have you done to its...whole thing?!"
Then again, I suppose that's what you get with dealing with dirt witches. I mean, early on in the proceedings we thought we ordered this Satan:
But apparently we ordered from wish dot com because the Satan that arrived was decidedly not that. It had me wondering why all these cool women would cavort in the dirt, stop brushing their teeth, and pledge themselves to a sentient lump of Silly Putty for eternity. But maybe I shouldn't have been surprised? I remember The King of Queens. I know of According to Jim. It seems that this trope will never die!
At the same time, I genuinely enjoy what a weird choice Rob Zombie made for Satan and The Sire (coincidentally the name of one of my fave 80s sitcoms). It's one of the touches that sets The Lords of Salem apart from all the other "witch curses town during ye olde times, comes back, wreaks havoc" movies of its ilk.
One of Zombie's strengths as a filmmaker lies in his casting decisions, and this cast is perhaps the best of the bunch. Geeson, Quinn, and Wallace as that trio of sinister sisters! Andrew Prine as Hawthorne! A toupéed DJ Ken Foree! Maria Conchita Alonso! A Barbara Crampton cameo! This shit just keeps on giving. And while Sheri Moon Zombie's acting skills are often maligned, she really holds her own in the lead role, even if she reaches beyond the range of her abilities at times.
This movie does descend into Looney Toons territory at times, but overall Zombie employs, dare I say, a restrained hand throughout. The local shots of Salem are another bonus; fall in New England vibes are welcome in my world at any time, but especially now as we head into the toasty bowels of summer.
My brain still has enough power to understand that for me, The Lords of Salem is and will likely remain an anomaly in the filmography of Mr. Robert Zombie. I have no desire to check out any of his existing work that I've yet to see. But I will also hold onto the hope that he will once again surprise me with another lump of a movie that will worm its way into my dirt witch heart. Long live the cunting daughters!
June 17th, 2022 — From The Feeds, lasers make everything better, Reviews, yes
Approximately one minute into Invitation to Hell, I knew that the almighty Charles Nelson Reilly had beamed the movie down from Heaven above expressly for me.
Well, no matter. The fact remains that as Invitation to Hell lies on its little bed made of hay or whatever, I will forever dump frankincense and myrrh at its feet! This movie came out in 1984 and yet somehow I have only just seen it for the first time...? Yes, 1984 was almost 25 years (!!) before I was born, but still, we have coexisted for quite some time now. Where have I been? What have I been doing? What took me so long?
You know what, I am not going to get all wrapped up in regrets and wasted years. We are together now, this masterpiece and I, and nothing will ever keep us from one another. Nothing!
So what happened in the first minute of Invitation to Hell that had me RSVPeeing in my pants with a big fat resounding YES? Witness:
In keeping with Final Girl's longstanding tradition of using only 100% cutting edge technology to bring you images, I recorded that off of my TV with my phone.
I'm sure you watched that and said "I can't believe my eyes! Was that Susan Lucci of television's All My Children dressed like she's Thing 3 from some Dr. Seuss shit standing up in a weird way and killing a man with the power of her finger gun?" It was, dear reader. It was. Now you get what I have been saying!
perfection
feel the power
I know I had you at "Susan Lucci" but honey, the hits do not stop there! This is perhaps the one movie in the history of ever that truly has it all. Just a wee little bit of that all includes:
-- a family composed of Robert Urich ( of television's Spenser for Hire and television's Vega$...man, a show with a dollar sign in the title, those really were the days), Joanna Cassidy (she was in Blade Runner AND this AND she flew a hot air balloon over Mars in Ghosts of Mars, sorry but that is a career any of us should be willing to die for), Soleil Moon Frye of television's Punky Brewster, and Barret "Bastian from The Neverending Story" Oliver
-- another family partially composed of that guy from Murphy Brown and The Bad Seed herself, Patty McCormack
-- cinematography by Dean Cundey and directing by Wes Craven (???!!!)
-- Kevin McCarthy! I love him so much
-- a town with a secret that isn't really that much of a secret
-- an evil country club (redundant I know)
-- a company called Micro-DigiTech
-- a fistfight rendered more exciting thanks to the time-honored inclusion of nearby stacks of empty cardboard boxes for people to crash into
-- lasers
-- Hell (not really a spoiler as it's right there in the title)
-- this shit is MADE FOR TV
Now you get what I have been saying even more!
After several years of hard times and struggle while working on "projects" with "computers," Matt Winslow (Urich) has been hired by a "company" to be in charge of "special projects." The entire Winslow clan is pretty pumped about their move to the 'burbs of a burgeoning Silicon Valley.
The local country club, Steaming Springs, is like the coolest hot shit place in town to join, and it's headed up by Jennifer Jones (Lucci). Having seen the first minute of this film, we know that Jennifer Jones has some kind of inhuman abilities and an impeccable sense of style; therefore, we can safely assume that there is something both nefarious and glamorous afoot at Steaming Springs.
We sort of get a hint about it all when that guy from Murphy Brown and Patty McCormack and their kids take part in the Steaming Springs (side note: I don't like that word "steaming") initiation ceremony, which involves bathrobes, pledging that you will forsake all others for The Club, and Jennifer Jones rocking some hair that's so big it stretches the laws of physics to their breaking point.
Honestly I would join too, if only for that robe. Finally, some satanists (I think? it's never made completely clear and you know what, I don't care) who understand that evil and comfort need not be mutually exclusive.
Anyway, they enter the steamy sanctum (not a euphemism) and the next thing you know, that guy from Murphy Brown gets a sweet promotion and Patty McCormack has a sweet new car. Matt's wife Pat (Cassidy) (yes, they are Matt and Pat) (yes, this movie rules so hard) really wants in on all the sweet club stuff. Didn't the family suffer enough during those hard times and struggles? Wouldn't some new furniture be great? What, is Matt a coward? Is that why he doesn't want to join? He's a little coward baby?
No, Matt is not a little coward baby. He is just a man who is content with furnishings that are only okay, his family, and his job designing a spacesuit meant to withstand the heat of Venus. This spacesuit comes complete with a built-in flamethrower, a built-in laser gun, and, conveniently, an interface that can detect whether or not a life form is 1) human and 2) friendly. Jessica Jones passes in front of this interface and SURPRISE, the results are not at all surprising!
Despite all the pleading from his friends and family and coworkers to just submit and join the club, Matt remains resolutely against it, so Pat and the kids join without him. After the steaming, there are noticeable changes to them all. For starters, Pat's hair size increases exponentially, as does her horniness and her murder-y-ness.
Horny and Murder-y: The Pat Winslow StorySoon enough, Pat and the kids decide they will no longer tolerate Matt's stubborn refusals to claim the power that the club provides, so they all try to kill him.
Listen, I know how delightful that image is. But reader, what no mere image can convey is that whilst attacking her dad, Soleil Moon Frye yells things such as "We don't like nice!" in a demon voice. No, I don't mean that the demon voice is her regular voice pitch-altered or dubbed or anything; I mean it's a seven-year-old doing a demon voice and it is absolutely as incredible as you think it is. Even more so, I dare say.
Matt dons his experimental spacesuit, heads to Steaming Springs, and goes about saving his family.
While some little girls may dream about riding horses or whatever, when I was a little girl I dreamed about someday seeing Robert Urich wearing a spacesuit and shooting lasers at Susan Lucci...in Hell. I can't believe that at long, long last, this movie made my dream a reality!
That happens and then we get to the Negative Zone. And then there's an explosive ending, by which I mean Susan Lucci kind of explodes. I know that is a spoiler. It will not diminish your enjoyment of the moment in the slightest.
I told you! This movie has it ALL.
Look, when I watched this last night I did not do so with the intention of writing about it here ("Girl you never watch anything with the intention of writing about it here!" -- you, probably) (also...that's fair) or anywhere else...but it had me in its steamy grip (gross) from the jump and it didn't let go for even a second. It will never let go! So here I am, handing you an Invitation to Hell and asking you to be my Plus One. Join me and claim the power of this movie! What, are you a coward?
May 4th, 2021 — From The Feeds, Reviews
I'm willing to bet that every time you booted up your computer and logged on to the world wide web solely to check out the doings here at The Old Final Girl Place only to find that the site has not been updated since January--wait, can that be true? January??? And it is now *looks at post title* after April? That cannot be! I thought I updated in March! What is time, even, anymore?--you thought wow, I can't believe that jerk hasn't updated. She
really hasn't watched anything since
Alley Cat? Surely she would have written something here if she had. I guess she died?
Jokes on you, reader, and also on me, for no, I am not dead! Not on the outside, anyway. And also I have watched a lot of stuff since
Alley Cat! I know we vowed never to keep secrets from one another and I should have fucking updated a few times in the last several months (sorry, I still don't accept that it has been that long), but in my defense, I am just
so lazy about writing here these days. But in April I started keeping track of the things I've watched--now see, you would think that I'd at least update
that Letterboxd account of mine with this information, maybe, but instead I just write things down on a piece of paper. But today I am momentarily casting off my lazy Luddite ways to blab a bit all at once about some of those things I watched. I hope you're happy!
DON'T CLICK (2012)
If there are two things I have repeatedly professed my love for over the years here at Final Girl, they are Asian horror movies and internet-flavored horror movies. I will watch anything and everything that falls within either of those two categories, and chances are very very high that I will lurve anything and everything that falls within either of those two categories. It is no surprise, then, that I was wicked fucking psyched to check out Don’t Click, a 2012 South Korean film about what happens when internet trolls collide with a cursed video that changes upon each viewing.
I was expecting some standard…well, Sadako/Samara-esque scares filtered through the online lens and sure,
Don’t Click has ‘em. What I wasn’t expecting, however, was that this film would pack such an emotional wallop as the lives of sisters Se-hee (Park Bo-young) and Jung-mi (Kang Byul) unravel as they try to save Jung-mi from the curse. Terrific performances from the two leading actresses drive home how high the stakes are in this one. I really dug this one and while it hasn’t kept me up at night all terrified-like, it’s been on my mind just the same.
DEATH BLOG (2014)
Okay, if the Asian/internet crossroads of Don’t Click had me puking in my pants with excitement, just imagine my pants-filling (gross) excitement over the 2014 Japanese film Death Blog. After all, IT’S CALLED DEATH BLOG. DEATH BLOG! In Death Blog (DEATH BLOG!), a shy high-schooler starts an anonymous blog only to be…harassed? Stalked?…by an anonymous commenter, but also there is kind of a curse? And people she mentions get killed by…someone? Look, I was into this one from the jump because first of all, this film is not afraid to ask the questions I’ve been asking myself since Final Girl’s earliest days.
But oh wow, this movie is such a mess. The budget was obviously incredibly low, which is fine of course but the limitations give Death Blog (DEATH BLOG!) that sort of overlit, tinny-sounding, sparsely designed, shot on video feel, if you know what I mean. Honestly though, that’s the least of its problems. Even the overacting from J-pop idol Kana Nakada would have held a certain appeal if the directing and editing had been something more than completely inept. The story is a confusing mess that makes zero sense before it abruptly ends. There is no explanation, no resolution, and no real plot. Reader, I remain beyond shocked that after all these years, I have finally seen an Asian horror movie that I did not enjoy! Again, though, it’s called Death Blog (DEATH BLOG!), so I’m sure that within a year or so I’ll think back on it and say to myself, “I love Death Blog so much! That movie was perfect!â€
You know what? I feel it happening even as I type this. DEATH BLOG RULES!
GHOST STORIES (2017)
This 2017 anthology flick kept pinging my radar, moving closer and closer with each blip, until it was finally in the room. A debunker of the paranormal investigates three unexplained…you know, ghost stories. Will the debunker become the debunked? Or something like that?
Anyway, I was mostly in it to win it with this one, at least in the early goings. Some of the stories gave me a case of the gen-u-ine willies before the film as a whole unfortunately disappeared up its own ass by dropping a series of twists. I was left with an “oh, okay, I see, sure, I guess†feeling and some mild disappointment that the twists were the reason that none of the stories had any kind of resolution. Mostly I’m just thankful the pinging has stopped.
THE WHISPERING (aka SODAK SODAK, 2018)
Yes, another South Korean horror film. Listen, between the DVDs I have piled up and the Asian movie streaming service I subscribe to, I can—and often do—eat this shit for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and more. So sue me! It’s my life, and I will not apologize for anything except maybe for those times I said that The Descent Part 2 and The Ring 2 were “not†“badâ€! Then again, it's your fault if you believed me.
A group of high school students skip classes to have a little fun and wind up at an abandoned amusement park haunted house with a nefarious history. Once inside, you know how it goes; it goes ghosts, my friends. Was this good? Not particularly. Do I care? Not particularly. Did I enjoy it? Yes I did. The ghost face effects look like filters from a $0.99 iPhone app, sure. The scares are not particularly scary, uh huh. But you know what? It did that thing that many Asian horror films do, which is part of the reason why I love them so much: the horror is entwined with sadness, giving even average stories some emotional heft that pulls me in. Characters, such as
The Whispering’s Eun-ha (So Joo-yeon), are often haunted not only by actual ghosts but also by the lingering repercussions of their own actions or those of others. Sometimes the past is reconciled peacefully, sometimes not, but either way it’s always bittersweet and I’m a total sucker for it. Again I say: so sue me!
THE McPHERSON TAPE (1989)
Nothing but respect for this pioneering entry in the found footage about extraterrestrials invading a family gathering in 1983. It’s got some moments of creepiness, a delightful grandma, a memorable ending, an undeniable sense of authenticity, and oodles of both charm and moxie. Had I seen this upon release—ten goddamn years before The Blair Witch Project—my brain would have exploded. I am weak for found footage films, and I hope that no one ever comes to their senses and stops filming while things fall apart around them.
SABRINA (2018)
If you think I wasn’t going to be all over an Indonesian horror movie about an absolutely hideous haunted doll, well, this must be your first time here. Hello, welcome, now you know. Write it in your diary tonight so you never forget!
While the titular hideous doll does run around a tiny bit in one scene, her antics are largely confined to things like “eyes moving side to side†and “sitting.†In fact, overall this isn’t even a killer doll movie, despite it being the third in a series of evil doll movies. Oh no, this is some straight-up Indonesian
The Conjuring shit, complete with a married couple of Christian-flavored paranormal investigators. Like her American counterpart Annabelle, Sabrina is merely a conduit for demonic activity, and the demonic activity is largely what’s served up here.
I’ve seen some bonkers Indonesian horror movies in my time, films such as
Mystics in Bali and
The Queen of Black Magic, and Sabrina certainly achieves plenty of bonkitude. Knife fighting with demons, levitating possessed people, ghost hunting via iPad app, a demon with Kenny G hair (and a big hook nose? that gave me uncomfortable “is this like an awful Jewish stereotype thing? because there are implications as it battles with the good God-fearing Christians?†feelings) (maybe it was just bad makeup?) (please?) …listen, if this movie wasn’t so heavy on that God-fearing Christian angle—and boy, it was pretty heavy—I would really be singing its praises. Not that it necessarily would deserve them! Regardless, but I sure had fun with it. Hot trash.
THE VICTIM (2006)
If you’re going to watch this Thai horror flick—and maybe you should?—I definitely recommend going in completely blind beyond the simple premise of “an aspiring actress gets a gig re-enacting crime scene photos for the media and is eventually haunted by the spirits of the victims.†This movie has a lot of surprises in store, and it’s worth watching them unfold unspoiled. Mind you, the surprises don’t all work; it goes on a bit too long and the ending is definitely of the “wait, what? who? what’s going on?†variety, but there are some scares (along with some 1:1 rip-offs of the American version of The Ring), some powerful sequences about the violence perpetrated against women, and a charming lead performance from Pitchanart Sakakorn.
Perhaps the most shocking thing about
The Victim is that apparently these crime scene re-enactments are an actual thing. The Thai Royal Police take handcuffed convicted criminals to the locations where actors portray real victims, and the photos are published in the daily newspapers. It’s wild. Writer/director Monthon Arayangkoon wondered what kind of effect those gigs would have on the actors over time; add in some folklore from a culture where ghosts are generally considered very real and some purportedly real on-set hauntings and well, you’ve got
The Victim.
January 1st, 2021 — From The Feeds, Reviews, valleyball
First thing's first! This review originally appeared on
my Letterboxd, which I recently birthed (after ~14 months of labor). I don't know how often I'll use said Letterboxd, but maybe I'll fall in like with it? I have no idea what I'm doing over there, but feel free to follow if you wish!
Second thing's second! No, Alley Cat is not a horror movie. But you know that on occasion around these parts I dip my toes wherever I please! And I was well pleased to dip my toes into this one.
Pictured: Billie, about to unleash some of her patented "Hiii-YA!"
I hate to add to the divisiveness plaguing us today, but let's be real--there are only two types of people in the world. There are those who will come down with a case of the vapours after perusing ALLEY CAT's imdb plot keywords, and there are those who will not. I myself am decidedly in the former camp, having to take to my fainting couch after laying my eyes on the litany of keyword gems, such as:
"stomp on groin"
"can of beer"
"rolling down a hill"
"karate"
"briefs"
"playing valleyball" [sic]
"chain used as a weapon"
and, perhaps the most intriguing/enticing of all:
"woman infected with syphilis."
We know that our cool heroine, Billie (Karin Mani), is A) cool and B) our heroine the moment she drives into frame and we see that she has a personalized license plate reading, as you might guess, BILLIE. She lives with her grandparents and is of indeterminate age: she has that car and license plate, but she also dresses like an oversized kindergartner. She has a sort of bootleg Kate Jackson of television's CHARLIE'S ANGELS look and vibe, but we know little about her beyond the fact that she's training to be a KARATE EXPERT. In a word, Billie is perfect.
She stops some thugs from jacking her tires one evening, kicking off a cycle of oneupmanship revenge-ening between her and local gang leader "Scarface" Krug. You stopped my thugs from jacking your tires? I'll stab your grandmother! You stabbed my grandmother? I'll stop your thugs from raping a girl in the park! You stopped my thugs from raping a girl in the park? I'll keep her from testifying! And so on and so on turns the wheel of life.
Yes, Billie stops a rapist in the park. In fact, she does this almost every night as the local park is FULL of rapists. Come nightfall, Billie--unafraid--dons a matching track suit (sometimes velour, sometimes satin), heads to the park, uses the power of karate to thwart the ne'er-do-wells, and reminds them that attacking women in parks is "not nice." It seems every local man is a rapist, a criminal, or a corrupt official, so Billie has a lot of work to do.
Pictured: Billie showing you what happens when you're not nice
In case you haven't figured it out by now, ALLEY CAT is pure early 80s exploitation, fueled by nudity, violence, vigilantism, and karate chops. It features every hallmark of the subgenre both large and small; Metal garbage cans get knocked over during fights, men wear shirts with the sleeves ripped off, predatory prison lesbians lurk in showers, foulmouthed jailhouse background prostitutes loudly protest their innocence, and it all ends on a freeze frame. Characters with names like "Thug Tough 1," "Hooker," "Store Owner," and "Thug Tough 2" populate the Los Angeles streets and utter dialogue of the "Just drive, asshole!" and "Joke's on you, I have the Clap!" variety.
Pictured: angel in a tracksuit
Despite its seedy elements, as a whole ALLEY CAT is rather tame. There's copious nudity, sure, but sex is all but absent. Rape is a daily occurrence in the film, but more often than not it's implied rather than shown, and it's never explicit. The film never tries to rise above its station, and that's a good thing...it moves along at a steady clip, cycling between fight scenes, "sexy" scenes, and dialogue scenes that largely involve Billie swearing vengeance on someone or other. As Billie, Karin Mani is winsome perhaps in spite of herself. She delicately floats through her karate moments, at least until the camera angle changes, her stunt double takes over, and she lets out a hearty "Hiii-YA!" in ADR. She scowls her way through most of the proceedings, but who can blame her when she's confronted with rapists and THUG TOUGHs at every turn? Billie is the "no justice, no peace" gal we need, and she does it all in a matching track suit. Pass me the smelling salts!
December 15th, 2020 — From The Feeds, Reviews, watermelon jolly ranchers
I don't mean to brag, but let me tell you: when I was but a wee bonny lass, I choked on a watermelon Jolly Rancher. At this point I don't remember whether the watermelon Jolly Rancher went up or down, but it obviously did one or the other for I am still here to recount this incredible tale. For some seconds though--I am unsure how long, exactly, but it felt like an eternity--I experienced pure, abject terror. Perhaps you know the feeling, when something gets lodged in your throat for a moment and there is an immediate, primal panic. I didn't think much of my brush with mortality at the time but the trauma lingers still! I haven't had a Jolly Rancher since, watermelon or otherwise, because what if it happens again? Further, what if what is lodged cannot be dislodged? Dying is one thing, but having DIED FROM A WATERMELON JOLLY RANCHER written on your tombstone is quite another.
Anyway. Those primal feelings flared up several times during Swallow. Whenever pregnant, unhappy housewife Hunter (Haley Bennett) opened her mouth and crammed something into her gullet, I cried "NO! Girl, it will not fit!" (Really took me back to my college days hahahaeeeehhhhh.) Swallowing a small marble? The idea makes me extremely uncomfortable, but okay, maybe it's do-able. But she works her way up to, like, Precious Moments figurines or whatever and I practically broke out in hives every time, yet I wondered how far she would go. Was she like the man from Mars in Blondie's "Rapture"? Would she eat Cadillacs, etc, and then, when there's no more cars would she go out at night and eat up bars, where the people used to meet? What about after she'd eaten the last guitar? Would she become another Dark Phoenix and take to consuming the very stars themselves?
Well, of course not. That trajectory is for another film, or perhaps for your Swallow fanfiction, if you are so inclined. This film isn't even the shocking, cringeworthy body-horror something something the trailer had me (and maybe you) thinking it would be. Writer/director Carlos Mirabella-Davis is more interested in unpacking the reasons why a woman might suddenly feel a compulsion to, you know, swallow random tchotchkes. What begins as essentially your standard housewife ennui tale gets even deeper into both the nitty and the gritty as Hunter's past is revealed and her pica threatens her life and everything in it. I am always here for depictions of housewife ennui, don't get me wrong. I will eat up anything from classics à la Jeanne Dielman to the bonkers, pea soup-laden Exorcist rip-off Beyond the Door; I'm in particularly if the films get all "good for her" and explode the heteronormative, nuclear family paradigm. I'm in particularly particularly if the film adds a nice zest of class warfare to get my "eat the rich" senses tingling. Swallow does all of this in spades, and it's anchored by a terrifically nuanced performance by Haley Bennett and Katelin Arizmendi's lush cinematography. Ultimately, though, I find it curious that this film didn't really resonate with me. Despite the fine time I had, I was never particularly emotionally invested, though I wanted to be. Was there a detachment in Mirabella-Davis's filmmaking that kept me at arm's length, or is it simply that my heart is as hard as a watermelon Jolly Rancher?
May 27th, 2016 — 1977, From The Feeds, Reviews, VHS rules
George A. Romero: he's more than just zombies. I know that
you know that, you're savvy and learned. I'm simply pointing it out to the total horror noobs who only know Romero from his three (AND ONLY THREE) (okay, maybe Land of the Dead is kind of fun to watch once, but THAT'S IT) great zombie films:
Night of the Living Dead,
Dawn of the Dead, and
Brunch Day of the Dead. Though the films are often overlooked, Romero has explored horror in ways far removed from those undead shuffling people-eaters. One such film is 1977's
Martin.
Set amidst the depressed, crumbling landscape of fading steel town Braddock, PA,
Martin tells the tale of...well, of Martin (John Amplas), who believes himself to be a vampire. His elderly cousin Cuda also believes that Martin is a vampire. It's been a family curse for generations, and while Cuda allows Martin to live with him, he also makes the young man a promise: "First I will save your soul...then I will destroy you." But is Martin actually a vampire? Or is he simply a kookadook?
Romero isn't interested in definitive answers as much as he is in deconstructing the vampire genre and deromanticizing the myths. Regardless of Martin's true nature, he's no gothic-flavored bloodsucker from a Hammer production; nor is he a terrifying, otherworldly creature à la
Salem's Lot's Mr. Barlow. Garlic, crosses, and sunlight give Martin no pause. He's incapable of mesmerizing victims into submission, so he relies on drug injections to do it for him. He has no fangs, so he wields a razor blade. Martin's reality is completely unlike the bodice-rippers and monsters we're accustomed to calling "vampire."
Martin is rife with the same types of simple metaphors and symbolism that Romero incorporates into many of his films. It's an examination of sexual repression and insecurity as well as a swipe at religion, particularly the ways in which staunch religious beliefs can twist a person or a family. The "family curse"–what Cuda claims is the curse of Nosferatu–can be seen as any kind of "otherness" or perhaps it's merely hereditary mental illness.
Aside from all of this,
Martin works fairly well as a straight-up horror movie. Because the attacks rarely go as smoothly as Martin plans, they're prolonged and all the more shocking as his victims fight back. While it's easy to feel sympathy for poor, confused Martin, there's no doubt that he
is a monster. Whether he's of the mythical or the mundane variety, though, that's for you to decide.
May 27th, 2016 — 1977, From The Feeds, Reviews, VHS rules
George A. Romero: he's more than just zombies. I know that
you know that, you're savvy and learned. I'm simply pointing it out to the total horror noobs who only know Romero from his three (AND ONLY THREE) (okay, maybe Land of the Dead is kind of fun to watch once, but THAT'S IT) great zombie films:
Night of the Living Dead,
Dawn of the Dead, and
Brunch Day of the Dead. Though the films are often overlooked, Romero has explored horror in ways far removed from those undead shuffling people-eaters. One such film is 1977's
Martin.
Set amidst the depressed, crumbling landscape of fading steel town Braddock, PA,
Martin tells the tale of...well, of Martin (John Amplas), who believes himself to be a vampire. His elderly cousin Cuda also believes that Martin is a vampire. It's been a family curse for generations, and while Cuda allows Martin to live with him, he also makes the young man a promise: "First I will save your soul...then I will destroy you." But is Martin actually a vampire? Or is he simply a kookadook?
Romero isn't interested in definitive answers as much as he is in deconstructing the vampire genre and deromanticizing the myths. Regardless of Martin's true nature, he's no gothic-flavored bloodsucker from a Hammer production; nor is he a terrifying, otherworldly creature à la
Salem's Lot's Mr. Barlow. Garlic, crosses, and sunlight give Martin no pause. He's incapable of mesmerizing victims into submission, so he relies on drug injections to do it for him. He has no fangs, so he wields a razor blade. Martin's reality is completely unlike the bodice-rippers and monsters we're accustomed to calling "vampire."
Martin is rife with the same types of simple metaphors and symbolism that Romero incorporates into many of his films. It's an examination of sexual repression and insecurity as well as a swipe at religion, particularly the ways in which staunch religious beliefs can twist a person or a family. The "family curse"–what Cuda claims is the curse of Nosferatu–can be seen as any kind of "otherness" or perhaps it's merely hereditary mental illness.
Aside from all of this,
Martin works fairly well as a straight-up horror movie. Because the attacks rarely go as smoothly as Martin plans, they're prolonged and all the more shocking as his victims fight back. While it's easy to feel sympathy for poor, confused Martin, there's no doubt that he
is a monster. Whether he's of the mythical or the mundane variety, though, that's for you to decide.
May 27th, 2016 — 1977, From The Feeds, Reviews, VHS rules
George A. Romero: he's more than just zombies. I know that
you know that, you're savvy and learned. I'm simply pointing it out to the total horror noobs who only know Romero from his three (AND ONLY THREE) (okay, maybe Land of the Dead is kind of fun to watch once, but THAT'S IT) great zombie films:
Night of the Living Dead,
Dawn of the Dead, and
Brunch Day of the Dead. Though the films are often overlooked, Romero has explored horror in ways far removed from those undead shuffling people-eaters. One such film is 1977's
Martin.
Set amidst the depressed, crumbling landscape of fading steel town Braddock, PA,
Martin tells the tale of...well, of Martin (John Amplas), who believes himself to be a vampire. His elderly cousin Cuda also believes that Martin is a vampire. It's been a family curse for generations, and while Cuda allows Martin to live with him, he also makes the young man a promise: "First I will save your soul...then I will destroy you." But is Martin actually a vampire? Or is he simply a kookadook?
Romero isn't interested in definitive answers as much as he is in deconstructing the vampire genre and deromanticizing the myths. Regardless of Martin's true nature, he's no gothic-flavored bloodsucker from a Hammer production; nor is he a terrifying, otherworldly creature à la
Salem's Lot's Mr. Barlow. Garlic, crosses, and sunlight give Martin no pause. He's incapable of mesmerizing victims into submission, so he relies on drug injections to do it for him. He has no fangs, so he wields a razor blade. Martin's reality is completely unlike the bodice-rippers and monsters we're accustomed to calling "vampire."
Martin is rife with the same types of simple metaphors and symbolism that Romero incorporates into many of his films. It's an examination of sexual repression and insecurity as well as a swipe at religion, particularly the ways in which staunch religious beliefs can twist a person or a family. The "family curse"–what Cuda claims is the curse of Nosferatu–can be seen as any kind of "otherness" or perhaps it's merely hereditary mental illness.
Aside from all of this,
Martin works fairly well as a straight-up horror movie. Because the attacks rarely go as smoothly as Martin plans, they're prolonged and all the more shocking as his victims fight back. While it's easy to feel sympathy for poor, confused Martin, there's no doubt that he
is a monster. Whether he's of the mythical or the mundane variety, though, that's for you to decide.
May 27th, 2016 — 1977, From The Feeds, Reviews, VHS rules
George A. Romero: he's more than just zombies. I know that
you know that, you're savvy and learned. I'm simply pointing it out to the total horror noobs who only know Romero from his three (AND ONLY THREE) (okay, maybe
Land of the Dead is kind of fun to watch once, but THAT'S IT) great zombie films:
Night of the Living Dead,
Dawn of the Dead, and
Brunch Day of the Dead. Though the films are often overlooked, Romero has explored horror in ways far removed from those undead shuffling people-eaters. One such film is 1977's
Martin.
Set amidst the depressed, crumbling landscape of fading steel town Braddock, PA,
Martin tells the tale of...well, of Martin (John Amplas), who believes himself to be a vampire. His elderly cousin Cuda also believes that Martin is a vampire. It's been a family curse for generations, and while Cuda allows Martin to live with him, he also makes the young man a promise: "First I will save your soul...then I will destroy you." But is Martin actually a vampire? Or is he simply a kookadook?
Romero isn't interested in definitive answers as much as he is in deconstructing the vampire genre and deromanticizing the myths. Regardless of Martin's true nature, he's no gothic-flavored bloodsucker from a Hammer production; nor is he a terrifying, otherworldly creature à la
Salem's Lot's Mr. Barlow. Garlic, crosses, and sunlight give Martin no pause. He's incapable of mesmerizing victims into submission, so he relies on drug injections to do it for him. He has no fangs, so he wields a razor blade. Martin's reality is completely unlike the bodice-rippers and monsters we're accustomed to calling "vampire."
Martin is rife with the same types of simple metaphors and symbolism that Romero incorporates into many of his films. It's an examination of sexual repression and insecurity as well as a swipe at religion, particularly the ways in which staunch religious beliefs can twist a person or a family. The "family curse"–what Cuda claims is the curse of Nosferatu–can be seen as any kind of "otherness" or perhaps it's merely hereditary mental illness.
Aside from all of this,
Martin works fairly well as a straight-up horror movie. Because the attacks rarely go as smoothly as Martin plans, they're prolonged and all the more shocking as his victims fight back. While it's easy to feel sympathy for poor, confused Martin, there's no doubt that he
is a monster. Whether he's of the mythical or the mundane variety, though, that's for you to decide.
May 26th, 2016 — 1980, From The Feeds, Reviews, VHS rules
A suicidal, depressed librarian. An abusive curmudgeon in a wheelchair. A chimpanzee in a sailor suit. YOU WON'T BELIEVE WHAT HAPPENS NEXT!
Ugh, stupid Final Girl...clickbait goes in the
headline, not in the post itself. This will never go viral now!
Meet Louise (Carrie Snodgress), our suicidal, depressed librarian. She spends her days kind of hating her job–the books...they look at her sometimes and so she tries to burn the place down. She spends her nights crying over the man who left her at the altar years before and taking care of her father, Wendel (Ray Milland), our abusive curmudgeon in a wheelchair. Louise's life is a big, drab, sad mess, but that doesn't mean it's without some bright spots: alcohol, one night stands, and her coworker Emily. The women strike up a friendship that's equal parts support and pity; Emily feels sorry for Louise and tries to nudge her out of her drudgery, while Louise tries to save Emily from falling into the same. Louise buys Emily a one-way ticket to California so she can escape her domineering mother and marry her love, Emily buys Louise a chimpanzee. You know. Friendship!
Wendel loathes pretty much everything, but he loathes his daughter and her chimp most of all. Horror fans know this is all gonna come to a head at some point, right? Like, maybe Dickie the Chimp will attack Wendel and then, having acquired a taste for human flesh, he will totally flip out and eat everyone in Wichita, Kansas?
Look, I'm not going to spoil the end of this movie, even though it's like 70 years old, but I will let you know that Dickie the Chimp does not flip out, so don't get your hopes up. But don't worry! The ending still packs a serious wallop. A seriously
depressing wallop. We've all seen some depressing endings before (
even during this never-ending VHS Week!), but lawd-a-mighty,
The Attic might just take the cake. And then it throws the cake into the void of existential despair, and then you jump in after it not because you can't bear to see a cake go to waste (even though that's true), but because everything is terrible and life is cruel and what does everything even matter.
Don't get me wrong–the entire GD movie is depressing! Loneliness, alienation, lives spent lost and adrift...this is by no means a light watch, even if the film's incongruous musical cues and bizarre jokes sometimes give it the feel of one. A better life for Louise seems to be
just out of reach, and you desperately hope she'll get there, but this is a horror film, not a life-affirming yogurt love journey movie.
From time to time, though, you might find yourself wondering if
The Attic is a horror movie. It's not so much a "slow burn" as it is a "slow drama/character piece with some horror elements crammed into the last seven minutes." Those seven minutes are worth it, mind, I just want you to know what you're in store for if you're fixin' to check this one out. Then again,
The Attic boasts a scene where a showercap-wearing Ray Milland sits in a bathtub with a
Reader's Digest propped in front of him and a bowl of spiced gum drops at his side. That's what
really makes it worth it as far as I'm concerned.
May 26th, 2016 — 1980, From The Feeds, Reviews, VHS rules
A suicidal, depressed librarian. An abusive curmudgeon in a wheelchair. A chimpanzee in a sailor suit. YOU WON'T BELIEVE WHAT HAPPENS NEXT!
Ugh, stupid Final Girl...clickbait goes in the
headline, not in the post itself. This will never go viral now!
Meet Louise (Carrie Snodgress), our suicidal, depressed librarian. She spends her days kind of hating her job–the books...they look at her sometimes and so she tries to burn the place down. She spends her nights crying over the man who left her at the altar years before and taking care of her father, Wendel (Ray Milland), our abusive curmudgeon in a wheelchair. Louise's life is a big, drab, sad mess, but that doesn't mean it's without some bright spots: alcohol, one night stands, and her coworker Emily. The women strike up a friendship that's equal parts support and pity; Emily feels sorry for Louise and tries to nudge her out of her drudgery, while Louise tries to save Emily from falling into the same. Louise buys Emily a one-way ticket to California so she can escape her domineering mother and marry her love, Emily buys Louise a chimpanzee. You know. Friendship!
Wendel loathes pretty much everything, but he loathes his daughter and her chimp most of all. Horror fans know this is all gonna come to a head at some point, right? Like, maybe Dickie the Chimp will attack Wendel and then, having acquired a taste for human flesh, he will totally flip out and eat everyone in Wichita, Kansas?
Look, I'm not going to spoil the end of this movie, even though it's like 70 years old, but I will let you know that Dickie the Chimp does not flip out, so don't get your hopes up. But don't worry! The ending still packs a serious wallop. A seriously
depressing wallop. We've all seen some depressing endings before (
even during this never-ending VHS Week!), but lawd-a-mighty,
The Attic might just take the cake. And then it throws the cake into the void of existential despair, and then you jump in after it not because you can't bear to see a cake go to waste (even though that's true), but because everything is terrible and life is cruel and what does everything even matter.
Don't get me wrong–the entire GD movie is depressing! Loneliness, alienation, lives spent lost and adrift...this is by no means a light watch, even if the film's incongruous musical cues and bizarre jokes sometimes give it the feel of one. A better life for Louise seems to be
just out of reach, and you desperately hope she'll get there, but this is a horror film, not a life-affirming yogurt love journey movie.
From time to time, though, you might find yourself wondering if
The Attic is a horror movie. It's not so much a "slow burn" as it is a "slow drama/character piece with some horror elements crammed into the last seven minutes." Those seven minutes are worth it, mind, I just want you to know what you're in store for if you're fixin' to check this one out. Then again,
The Attic boasts a scene where a showercap-wearing Ray Milland sits in a bathtub with a
Reader's Digest propped in front of him and a bowl of spiced gum drops at his side. That's what
really makes it worth it as far as I'm concerned.
May 26th, 2016 — 1980, From The Feeds, Reviews, VHS rules
A suicidal, depressed librarian. An abusive curmudgeon in a wheelchair. A chimpanzee in a sailor suit. YOU WON'T BELIEVE WHAT HAPPENS NEXT!
Ugh, stupid Final Girl...clickbait goes in the
headline, not in the post itself. This will never go viral now!
Meet Louise (Carrie Snodgress), our suicidal, depressed librarian. She spends her days kind of hating her job–the books...they look at her sometimes and so she tries to burn the place down. She spends her nights crying over the man who left her at the altar years before and taking care of her father, Wendel (Ray Milland), our abusive curmudgeon in a wheelchair. Louise's life is a big, drab, sad mess, but that doesn't mean it's without some bright spots: alcohol, one night stands, and her coworker Emily. The women strike up a friendship that's equal parts support and pity; Emily feels sorry for Louise and tries to nudge her out of her drudgery, while Louise tries to save Emily from falling into the same. Louise buys Emily a one-way ticket to California so she can escape her domineering mother and marry her love, Emily buys Louise a chimpanzee. You know. Friendship!
Wendel loathes pretty much everything, but he loathes his daughter and her chimp most of all. Horror fans know this is all gonna come to a head at some point, right? Like, maybe Dickie the Chimp will attack Wendel and then, having acquired a taste for human flesh, he will totally flip out and eat everyone in Wichita, Kansas?
Look, I'm not going to spoil the end of this movie, even though it's like 70 years old, but I will let you know that Dickie the Chimp does not flip out, so don't get your hopes up. But don't worry! The ending still packs a serious wallop. A seriously
depressing wallop. We've all seen some depressing endings before (
even during this never-ending VHS Week!), but lawd-a-mighty,
The Attic might just take the cake. And then it throws the cake into the void of existential despair, and then you jump in after it not because you can't bear to see a cake go to waste (even though that's true), but because everything is terrible and life is cruel and what does everything even matter.
Don't get me wrong–the entire GD movie is depressing! Loneliness, alienation, lives spent lost and adrift...this is by no means a light watch, even if the film's incongruous musical cues and bizarre jokes sometimes give it the feel of one. A better life for Louise seems to be
just out of reach, and you desperately hope she'll get there, but this is a horror film, not a life-affirming yogurt love journey movie.
From time to time, though, you might find yourself wondering if
The Attic is a horror movie. It's not so much a "slow burn" as it is a "slow drama/character piece with some horror elements crammed into the last seven minutes." Those seven minutes are worth it, mind, I just want you to know what you're in store for if you're fixin' to check this one out. Then again,
The Attic boasts a scene where a showercap-wearing Ray Milland sits in a bathtub with a
Reader's Digest propped in front of him and a bowl of spiced gum drops at his side. That's what
really makes it worth it as far as I'm concerned.
May 26th, 2016 — 1980, From The Feeds, Reviews, VHS rules
A suicidal, depressed librarian. An abusive curmudgeon in a wheelchair. A chimpanzee in a sailor suit. YOU WON'T BELIEVE WHAT HAPPENS NEXT!
Ugh, stupid Final Girl...clickbait goes in the
headline, not in the post itself. This will never go viral now!
Meet Louise (Carrie Snodgress), our suicidal, depressed librarian. She spends her days kind of hating her job–the books...they look at her sometimes and so she tries to burn the place down. She spends her nights crying over the man who left her at the altar years before and taking care of her father, Wendel (Ray Milland), our abusive curmudgeon in a wheelchair. Louise's life is a big, drab, sad mess, but that doesn't mean it's without some bright spots: alcohol, one night stands, and her coworker Emily. The women strike up a friendship that's equal parts support and pity; Emily feels sorry for Louise and tries to nudge her out of her drudgery, while Louise tries to save Emily from falling into the same. Louise buys Emily a one-way ticket to California so she can escape her domineering mother and marry her love, Emily buys Louise a chimpanzee. You know. Friendship!
Wendel loathes pretty much everything, but he loathes his daughter and her chimp most of all. Horror fans know this is all gonna come to a head at some point, right? Like, maybe Dickie the Chimp will attack Wendel and then, having acquired a taste for human flesh, he will totally flip out and eat everyone in Wichita, Kansas?
Look, I'm not going to spoil the end of this movie, even though it's like 70 years old, but I will let you know that Dickie the Chimp does not flip out, so don't get your hopes up. But don't worry! The ending still packs a serious wallop. A seriously
depressing wallop. We've all seen some depressing endings before (
even during this never-ending VHS Week!), but lawd-a-mighty,
The Attic might just take the cake. And then it throws the cake into the void of existential despair, and then you jump in after it not because you can't bear to see a cake go to waste (even though that's true), but because everything is terrible and life is cruel and what does everything even matter.
Don't get me wrong–the entire GD movie is depressing! Loneliness, alienation, lives spent lost and adrift...this is by no means a light watch, even if the film's incongruous musical cues and bizarre jokes sometimes give it the feel of one. A better life for Louise seems to be
just out of reach, and you desperately hope she'll get there, but this is a horror film, not a life-affirming yogurt love journey movie.
From time to time, though, you might find yourself wondering if
The Attic is a horror movie. It's not so much a "slow burn" as it is a "slow drama/character piece with some horror elements crammed into the last seven minutes." Those seven minutes are worth it, mind, I just want you to know what you're in store for if you're fixin' to check this one out. Then again,
The Attic boasts a scene where a showercap-wearing Ray Milland sits in a bathtub with a
Reader's Digest propped in front of him and a bowl of spiced gum drops at his side. That's what
really makes it worth it as far as I'm concerned.
