The Baby

A social worker finds herself drawn to a bizarre case, that of a supposedly retarded grown man with the mind (and behavior) of a baby. Only, she comes to believe that there's nothing wrong with his mind at all. Rather, she suspects that Baby's domineering mother and sisters have deliberately kept him trapped in a state of eternal infancy via bizarre abuse.

Ick. Just ick. Even if The Baby was a shitty movie, the premise alone would be enough to get under my skin. Something about a grownup dressed in baby clothes and making baby noises creeps my shit out. No offense to those adult-baby fetishists all over the internet, you guys please feel free to continue to live your lives in whatever way makes you happy, but gross.

Thing is, The Baby is also a pretty good horror movie. It's deliberately paced and, while far from a realistic portrait of abuse or abnormal psychology, spends a lot of time milking the psychological dimensions of its premise for its creepiness, rather than inserting too many arbitrary, phony thrills. Things do become more overtly thriller-y during the last half hour or so, but it's earned after a strong buildup, and works in a great, icky final twist that must have a large part in giving this film its (deserved) cult status.

Grade: B

The Ugly

A psychiatrist with potentially dubious motives interviews a notorious, incarcerated serial killer, a surprisingly unassuming looking dude, who had no patterns, no modus operandi, no consistency and seemingly no motive for any of his crimes. Can she shine some new light on his actions? And is she inadvertently putting herself in danger?

The Ugly, made in New Zealand in the mid 90's, is sort of an ambitious little movie that could. It's something of a low(ish) budget attempt to make a stylish Holywood serial killer thriller a la Silence of the Lambs or Seven. On that level, it's not very successful. Most of the stylistic tics (shaky cam, camera flashes, aggressive sound track) come off more as obnoxious than slick. Also it has that over-lit 90's cinematography that makes everything in the frame look homogenized, and it can't always shake (and I hope I don't come off too condescending here) that New Zealand-y sense of affability that undercuts many of its attempts to be dark or edgy.

Yet there are some things about The Ugly that work swimmingly. A handful of sequences managed to build real, if only minor, suspense, particularly a clever one where the killer hides in a bathroom shortly after a murder, trying not to be seen by the victim's wife. The subjective flashback structure leads to some cool visual gimmicks, where elements of the present intermingle with elements from the past, or things we're seeing on screen are obviously tainted by the killer's warped perspective (most obviously, all the blood during his murders is jet black).

Best of all, the subjective nature of the film leads to some real, slightly haunting weirdness during the final act. For much of the film, despite some cool gimmicks, it's a standard (even a little cliched) serial killer story, but then it raises some odd questions near the end and deliberately leaves much of it unanswered or seemingly contradictory. I'm honestly not sure what the last 15 minutes or so mean, and I mean that in a good way. Maybe there's an objective "truth" or answer it's all pointing to that I'm just not getting, or maybe it's supposed to show how the mind of a madman makes no rational sense, but either way it stuck with me. The Ugly is a flawed film, but it haunted me at least a tiny bit in the days since I watched it, and that's saying something.

Grade: B-

Possession

Okay, I've already written about Possession here, and I don't have much to add. I would like to note that I had the opportunity to introduce this one to some new audience members, and this is a great movie for that. It is a real joy to watch it with newcomers, to see their reactions as the film flies off the rails into previously uncharted levels of madness and hysteria. I love the shit out of this movie.

Grade: A

As a note, my companions and I also "watched" To the Devil a Daughter the same evening we watched Possession, but the drinking and talking and general merrymaking was such that I don't recall hardly a damn thing about it. Unlike with Amok Train, I didn't catch enough of it to feel comfortable including it. I think I may have to atone by watching the film for realsies this month.

Amok Train (a.k.a. Beyond the Door III)

Some students go on a study abroad trip, but their professor turns out to be some sort of satanist trying to lure them into a ritual sacrifice. They flee and eventually manage to board a moving train, but the troubles don't end there.

Okay, I'm going to level with you. I was a little intoxicated for this one, and got a little distracted, so I'm not 100% clear on what happened during the 2nd half of the film. I'm going to refrain from giving it a grade, but I'm still including it in the marathon, because it's my fucking marathon and I can do what I want.

Online reviews for this one seem pretty harsh, but from what I saw it wasn't all bad. The production values are decent, there seemed like there might have been a genuinely creepy moment or two. The reveal that the professor is evil is pretty great: right before he gets onto a ferry with his class, he gets a telegram that the main character's mother died in a car crash... which he promptly crumples up and throws into the water. But what little I can recall of the second half seemed pretty dull, a lot of endless, repetitive train scenes, which turns out to be kind of a boring and limited location.

Grade: N/A

Nightwish

A group of grad students apparently studying nightmares accompanies their creepy professor to a secluded house to document some supernatural activity. The professor claims that the supernatural "entity" can cause feelings of paranoia and delusions, so they need to trust him if shit starts getting weird. But is that true or is he up to something more sinister? Could he just be trying to study their fear? Or is something even more bizarre going on?

I don't want to give away the game here, so I'm going to try not to talk too specifically about the story of Nightwish. It starts off a little slowly, and the crappy VHS-looking quality of the video on Netflix is a little hard to get past (it was bad enough that my brother made me turn it off when we tried to watch it a few weeks ago). Stick with it, however, and Nightwish turns into a completely crazy paranoid thriller that has fun pulling the rug out from under the audience every chance it gets.

By the time the professor has everybody handcuff themselves to some posts in the basement (supposedly so they won't run away if they get scared by the entity), and everyone slowly starts to realize that maybe they shouldn't be trusting this guy, I knew this was a keeper. It's the kind of movie where, at any given time, there seem to be 4 or 5 plausible yet contradictory explanations for what could be going on, and every time you think you know what the hell is happening, the movie takes another abrupt twist.

So what I'm saying is, Andy, you totally should have stuck with this one.

Grade: B

A Chinese Ghost Story 2

Shortly after the events of part 1, our goofball hero Ning is mistaken for a criminal and jailed. Ning escapes, only to find himself in another case of mistaken identity, where a group of rebels (led by a woman who looks exactly like the departed heroine of the first film, naturally) mistake him for a wise elder sent to help their cause. Soon Ning is once again forced to do battle with the forces of evil.

Much like the original Chinese Ghost Story, part 2 is an irresistibly silly, imaginative hybrid of kung-fu, fantasy, horror and comedy. I suppose, like most sequels, it represents a step down in quality by virtue of the fact that it loses some of the original's freshness, but I'd venture to guess that if you liked that one, you'll like this one. Until the bonkers finale, it doesn't seem as much of a nonstop special effects extravaganza. In fact, much of the middle of the film involves the heroes fighting the same, unconvincing-looking (but still awesome) monster over and over again in various scenarios. But what it may or may not have lacked in budget, it makes up for in imagination, as the seemingly defeated monster keeps coming back with more outlandish attacks, usually coming back with fewer limbs each time.

Another note: the love story here is a little odd. As I mentioned above, the female lead is played by the same actress who played the deceased romantic interest in the original. She's not supposed to be the same character or a reincarnation, she's just a woman who looks exactly like the other woman. It's never really explained, and somehow she still ends up falling in love with Ning even though you'd think maybe she'd find it creepy that he likes her because she looks like his dead girlfriend. I don't know, just a weird detail, I thought.

Grade: B

Jaws of Satan

A big-ass king cobra with magical powers (?) escapes from a locked box on a train (?), and slithers its way into a small town, where it begins killing everyone with its super-deadly venom. While a sexy local doctor and a snake expert try to track the snake down, the town priest becomes convinced the the snake is the devil, come to do battle with him.

There was some real potential here, for sure. Jaws of Satan, for what it is, is well shot and well acted, with some interesting ideas floating around the margins. I liked the characters and a handful of scenes, but too much of it is either terminally dull or poorly handled. The snake itself (a sometimes unconvincing special effect) lacks personality or menace, draining pretty much all suspense or even basic interest from all of the set pieces. And it all builds up to a stunningly lame finale, where the snake is SPOILERS defeated when the priest holds a cross up to it and says a prayer, and then the snake bursts into flames THE END.

Grade: C

The Black Cat (a.k.a. Demons 6: De Profundis)

In the most faithful adaptation of The Black Cat ever made, some filmmakers who are making a film version of The Black Cat in the opening scene (but then it's never mentioned again), decide that they want to make a horror movie based on the same made-up witch mythology as Dario Argento's Suspiria and Inferno. The director asks his actress wife to play the lead role of the evil witch Levana, but it turns out that Levana really exists and doesn't cotton to having someone play her in a shitty Italian horror movie.

Luigi Cozzi's The Black Cat was on my radar because a description I read online made it sound like it was an unofficial attempt to make a final installment in Dario Argento's (then unfinished) "Three Mothers" trilogy. So you can imagine my surprise when the full, on-screen title was Edgar Allan Poe's The Black Cat. Ugh. I love Poe to death, but I swear that "The Black Cat" has been adapted to film more than any other story in the history of literature. (Here are just two versions that I've written about on this blog). I'm getting kind of sick of it. Turns out though, this one really has next to nothing to do with Poe's story or Argento's films. It's just kind of a dull supernatural horror movie with some not-as-clever-as-it-thinks-it-is meta elements, some lame showbiz satire, and a fair amount of accidental comedy. There are enough laughs in this one (like when a character dies and comes back as a supernatural force, exclaiming "That's right, Sarah, I can control time now!") that I don't regret watching it, but even though it caters to some of my guilty pleasures (like really gaudy lighting involving bold primary colors), I'm not going to pretend for a second that this is a good movie. This isn't like the real Demons, where the bad stuff is funny but the good stuff is genuinely good... this is just all bad.

Grade: C-

Dead Snow

A group of Norwegian med students go on vacation up in the mountains, where they accidentally incur the wrath of a platoon of Nazi zombies.

Dead Snow is a goofy, energetic horror/comedy, although you'd be forgiven for not knowing that based on the first half. Although it's got a likable, funny cast, it gets off to a seriously slow start. I understand that the build-up is a crucial part of these films, but considering how little of interest happens, and how much fun the premise seems, it starts to get a little frustrating. Worse, most of the first half takes place at night and is ugly and murky, even kind of hard to follow in places. Maybe it was just the copy on Netflix streaming, but it was a little hard on the eyes.

Then, shit hits the fan in the second half, and the movie seriously picks up. It turns into a fast-paced, funny, inventive gorefest (mercifully shot in daylight!). It's actually a major shift not only in tone but in overall quality; it just seems like it becomes a better made movie. And one with a bigger budget, too. The first half struck me as a silly little low-ish budget thing slapped together by some friends, then BAM the second half has an army of zombies, chainsaw evisceration, a POV shot of someone having their guts ripped out and eaten, a part where a dude fights a zombie while dangling off the side of a mountain swinging from another zombies intestines. Maybe best of all, a scene of self-amputation and cauterization that turns tragically, hilariously futile.

Grade: B-

Bereavement

In this prequel to the 2005 horror movie Malevolence, we learn the origin of that film's killer. As boy, he is abducted by a religious nut serial killer, who believes that the creepy cow skull in his house commands him to kidnap and murder young women as some sort of means for atoning for previous sins. The boy, who intriguingly cannot feel pain, is forced to become the man's assistant in his crimes. Meanwhile, a young woman, moving in with her extended family after a personal tragedy, finds herself in close proximity to the killer.

I know, guys, your prayers have been answered. Put on your official Malevolence T shirts and baseball hats, pack a lunch in your Malevolence lunch box, pour yourself a Coke in your clear plastic McDonald's Malevolence glasses, and go ahead and take down your vision board where you've been trying to will a Malevolence sequel into existence for the past 6 years, because they finally did it. They finally made a follow up to perhaps the defining horror film of our generation.

OK, enough snark. I barely even remember Malevolence from whenever I saw it 5 or 6 years ago, except that I thought it was terrible. It was a particularly dull slasher movie with perversely unlikable characters (they were bank robbers who spent the whole movie shouting and being assholes), and a "twist" ending that didn't really seem to add or explain anything. I was kinda stunned anyone even remembered the movie enough that there would be an audience for a sequel. But I was even more stunned to find out that, holy shit, Bereavement was actually a pretty good horror movie.

Director/Writer/Producer/Editor/Composer/probably also the Caterer Stevan Mena (who gives himself a few too many credits during the opening; dude, either condense that shit or start using pseudonyms like John Carpenter) has clearly learned a thing or two in the last 6 years. Bereavement is, more or less, a slasher movie, but one with an uncommonly melancholy atmosphere, a nice feel for suspense, and a surprising focus on character development and themes. It doesn't break any new ground, per se, but it does what it does quite well. It spends long stretches not only with the killer and his new protege, but also fleshing out the heroine and her relationship with her family, especially her uncle (played by Michael Biehn!). This will probably make the movie a little too slow or dull for casual viewers, but I appreciated the fact that we're given more of a chance to learn about and care for the characters. There's also some ambitious themes in the film, mostly dealing with the old nature vs. nurture debate. (Sadly, there's one scene where they spell it all out a little too heavy-handedly in the dialogue, but I'm willing to give them a pass on that part).

Not perfect by any means, Bereavement is just a real horror movie in an era of half-assed crap. The ending doesn't really have the impact it should (for one, if you've seen Malevolence, then you already know there's only one way this can turn out), but the stakes still feel greater than they usually do in these things, and you're genuinely upset to see the characters meet their demise, instead of eagerly awaiting the next murder scene. I still haven't found an honest to goodness great horror movie this month (or even a minor classic), but this is as good as anything I've watched so far, and I'm glad my memories of the original didn't keep me away.

Grade: B

American Horror Story (Episode 1)

It's the classic setup: a family, on the verge of falling apart, moves into a old house with an unnerving backstory (the previous owners killed themselves). Could the house be... haunted? Probably. But here's the twist: there's like 80 twists. The girl next door with Down Syndrome likes to sneak into the house and proclaim "You're going to die here!" There's a fucked up fetish suit in the attic that may or may not come to life and rape people. The maid appears as an old woman to the mother, but as a sexy young trollop to the father. The father is a psychiatrist, and one of his patients may be able to turn in to (or summon?) a monster. Some dude with a burned face seems to be hanging around near the property, watching the family. And like a million other things I didn't mention.

Okay, so this is not technically a movie, but I thought since there was a new horror TV series debuting this month, I'd include the first few episodes for the marathon. Reviews for American Horror Story have been brutal, and I can kinda see why, but I was tickled enough with the pilot that I want to stick around for at least a few more episodes. At the very least, I'm intrigued with the format. Usually, when there's a horror themed television show, it's either an anthology series (Twilight Zone, Tales From the Crypt, Tales From the Darkside), or if it's an ongoing story, it's more of an episodic/procedural/monster-of-the-week type deal (X Files, Supernatural) with some serialized elements. So I'm really curious to see how this is going to work, a horror series that is presumably telling one, extended story.

The pilot has (serious) problems, but there's some creepy touches, some novel ones (the maid thing is kinda unique), and sometimes a sort of knowing, campy tone that let's you know they are trying to have fun with all this weirdness. It has way, way too much story for one episode of TV, but I suspect that's supposed to be part of the appeal: it's like they are trying to pile on every plot, every stock image, every cliche from every horror movie you've ever seen onto one show. I can't say that I'm at all drawn into the story yet, or that I care how the solutions to any of the countless mysteries they've set up, but I am curious to see just how thick the writers keep laying it on.

This is by some of the folks that did Glee, and this pilot was directed by co-creator Ryan Murphy. And he seems kind of like a shitty director. Well, that's a little unfair: some individual shots are kinda cool (those ghost twins walking out from behind either side of the mother was nifty), but it's all been edited into ADHD incoherence. Brief scenes of two people conversing will be broken up into what seems like 10 different shots for no discernible reason. Much like how Murphy ruined all the song and dance scenes in the Glee pilot with his unwillingness to hold a shot long enough to show a complete action (one of the main reasons I have never watched another episode of that show), he kills a lot of the atmosphere here by breaking everything up so much. Some times, it's clearly intended for effect (there's a scene where the mother thinks someone is in her house, and the editing gets herky jerky to, I guess, show her panicked state of mind), but it just looks ugly and incompetent. The only time it maybe kind of works is during a bizarre, strobe lit suspense sequence set in the basement, but it works because the point is that the scene is supposed to be visually confusing. Credit where it's due, that scene is one of the highlights of the episode.

Ha, kinda funny that I just wrote more about an hour pilot than I did about any of the full length features so far. But I guess it's just because I'm really into the idea of a new horror series, and I care enough that I don't want them to fuck it up. I'd say there's just enough here in the pilot that I'm willing to stick it out for at least the rest of October.

Grade: C+

Edge of Sanity

A doctor by the name of Henry Jekyll begins experimenting with cocaine (on his patients and himself), and accidentally invents some sort of super crack that, when he smokes it, turns him into a vicious, sex crazed madman who goes by the handle of Mr. Jack Hyde. Soon, he's off gallivanting around London murdering prostitutes. That's right, this time Jekyll/Hyde is also Jack the Ripper.

As a story, Edge of Sanity never really comes together. It's a mostly typical journey through a well-worn story, despite the attempts to add interest with the Jack the Ripper thing, and the drug themes and some transgressive sex. The story develops along predictable lines, there's not much of a build to it, and Hyde's victims are all basically cyphers so there's not much suspense either. Anthony Perkins gives a good performance in the lead role, but he's such a frail, old guy here that he never makes much of a credible physical threat.

Yet the film is still a fair amount of fun, thanks in good part to the over-the-top direction by Gerard Kikoine. It's the kind of film where characters will enter a room, and it will be entirely bathed in red or blue light for no reason except that it looks cool. Where the whores in a brothel all wear elaborate costumes, and perform bizarre sex acts that involve reenacting the crucifixion. Where madness is signaled not through subtle lighting changes or music cues, but through the camera violently spinning around or zooming into an extreme close up while the score cranks up to 11. If you have a taste for this kind of overwrought nonsense, as I do, then Edge of Sanity is a good way to kill 90 minutes. It's a real, if slight, treat for the eyes and ears, a horror movie with few interesting ideas but tons of style to burn.

Grade: B-

Tucker & Dale Vs. Evil

A group of obnoxious, stereotypical slasher movie college kids go camping and run afoul of two menacing looking rednecks named Tucker and Dale (Alan Tudyk and Tyler Labine). Soon, the kids are dropping like flies, in a series of increasingly grotesque deaths. The twist? Tucker and Dale are just a couple of innocent, goofy, lovable schmoes who keep finding themselves in situations that make them look like Leatherface-esque serial killers.

Yes, it is sort of a one-joke premise, but it's a pretty funny joke. And even when the joke gets a little stale, the movie still has two enormously likable leads to keep your attention. Tucker & Dale Vs. Evil starts off as a knowing, almost pitch perfect parody of the countless generic kids-in-the-woods slasher movies they made in the 80's. I kinda wish they had actually set it in the 80's, although maybe that joke would have gotten old fast. As it is, there's a priceless 80's flashback scene, with some ridiculous fashion and a brilliant choice of soundtrack, that milks the joke for what it's worth. The movie, by virtue of the plot, kinda veers away from slasher parody after a while, before oddly enough becoming a more typical slasher/comedy during the last act.

It's a reasonable amount of fun. I think the biggest missed opportunity is with the death scenes. The running joke is that the stupid college kids keep getting themselves accidentally killed in hilariously horrifying ways that make Tucker and Dale look responsible. These are intended to be over-the-top, but the problem is the deaths actually aren't any crazier than the normal deaths you get in these kinds of movies (kid gets impaled on a stake, cop gets nails shoved through his face, dude goes headfirst into a woodchipper, etc.). Slasher movies became self aware years ago, trying to one-up each other with their gross-out content. The audience I saw this with was eating it up, really going crazy for these deaths, which makes me suspect that they probably don't actually watch a lot of the kinds of movies this is trying to parody. For those of us more familiar with this disreputable genre, some of the big payoffs are gonna seem kinda tame.

Grade: B-

Subspecies

Some sexy young grad students go to Romania to study Romanian history (or something), but end up drawn into a conflict between two vampire brothers, one good and one evil, fighting over their father's legacy.

I actually tried watching this one for last year's marathon, but I couldn't get past the first scene. It's a Full Moon release, pretty much a guarantee that it was going to be an unwatchable, microbudget mess. But then I kept reading more about it, how it spawned an entire series and seems to have a genuine fanbase behind it, so I thought I'd give it one more shot.

And even though I wouldn't say I liked it, I'm glad I saw it. Turns out that the first scene of the movie is probably the most overtly awful, and the rest of the film is surprisingly not unwatchable. In fact, it's kinda ambitious and even has some cool ideas. Despite its (many, obvious) limitations, it aspires to be a classic-style, classy vampire movie with just a slight "modern" (it was made in the 90's) twist to it.

The problem, of course, is that the budget (and maybe the overall talent of the filmmakers) can't really sustain this. The makeup, the sets, the costumes, and especially the special effects, are all just a shade on the cheesy side, as are the actors and the screenplay, so it never fully cultivates the serious tone it's going for. But, and I mean this sincerely, it's kinda fun watching them try. The effects are almost laughably bad in places, but there's also sort of an earnest charm to them as well.

The title refers to the evil brother's henchmen, these tiny little monsters that he creates from his own body. They look like this:

 

Yeah, not the most intimidating monsters in the world, but they are kinda cute!

So, again, not a good movie, but not without it's charms. I'm still trying to decide if I want to watch any more of the series for this month's festivities. We'll see.

Grade: C

Demons of the Mind

Baron Zorn keeps his (teenage?) children drugged and locked away in his castle, fearing that they have inherited their mother's insanity. But it seems more like Zorn is the madman, and soon he entrusts their care to doctor with some, shall we say, questionable practices that pushes his children closer to the edge.

Demons of the Mind is a pretty cool, weird little early 70's British psychological horror movie. It's a little slow (sometimes in a good way, but not always) and a little unsatisfying, but it has a pretty richly creepy atmosphere and some standout scenes. Considering its a period piece and is set in a castle, you might expect a more Gothic atmosphere, but it actually goes for a more naturalistic feel (except for one awesome, trippy scene of a bunch of creepy images superimposed over an extreme close up of an eye) that helps play up the psychological element. It gets its tone more from the story and themes (lots of madness, murder, incest, all that good stuff), solid performances, a measured pace and a wonderful, eerie score. It's not a complete success, but there's enough cool stuff going on that you won't waste you time with it.

Grade: B-