The Gate

Left home alone for the weekend, a scrappy kid, his best friend and his older sister find themselves in over their heads when a sinkhole in the backyard turns out to be the gate to hell.

What a trip. The Gate was the kind of movie that was always on HBO when I was a kid, that I ended up watching many times, often in scattered bits and pieces. I loved it at the time, and still had fond memories of it 20 years later. But if you had asked me if it was actually a good movie, I would have shrugged and said probably not, I just liked it when I was a kid. After all, I enjoyed a lot of crap back then.

Turns out, it holds up. In fact, being older and having a more knowledgable/critical eye towards film, I may even like it more now that I am able to appreciate the craft. The Gate is one of those high spirited, 80's special effects-o-ramas, pitched somewhere between Poltergeist and The Goonies. The overall tone is fun and adventure-y, but like the best horror aimed at children it doesn't fully hold back and allows some real darkness, intensity and weirdness. Kids movies often pussyfoot around scary stuff, but I've always believed that most kids like being scared. When you're young, the world is a big and mysterious place that you can't fully wrap your brain around, and movies like The Gate tap into those feelings and help you process them. Most kids don't end up loving horror movies the same way I do, but I suspect the reason movies like Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory continue to endure is because kids respond to the darkness in them.

The director also did the pretty fun I, Madman, but I think his colorful, playful style is not as well suited to more adult-oriented fare. I, Madman was supposed to feel more like an old Lovecraft story or something, but ended up coming off more like a comic book. The comic book vibe is perfect for The Gate, which presents a world that, while full of dark and scary monsters, is also one where the good guys (with the help of a little pluck) will make it out okay in the end.

Rating: B

Almost forgot: check out Mr. Subtlety's take here.

The Reeds

A group of friends go boating through a swampy area, only to be attacked by vicious, man-eating reeds. No, I'm sorry, that's just what I hoped it was about. Actually, they find themselves facing off against some mysterious force, creepy teenagers hiding in the brush, an old man with a shotgun, hallucinations, evil doubles of themselves, and more.

After an unpromising start, The Reeds turns into a pretty entertaining mindfuck; it's basically a series of strange events, teases, plot twists and other weirdness thrown at you to keep you guessing where it's going. I'm not sure I could pass a test on what happened (MAJOR SPOILERS: there are ghosts forever reliving their deaths trying to end the cycle, but also a looping timeline the heroes get caught in that causes them to interact with themselves, but also it all starts over again at the end, so maybe it's Hell or something? I dunno), but it was a reasonable amount of fun as it goes along. I wouldn't say it's particularly scary (they are in danger I guess, but why exactly? And huh?) but it coasts on weirdness alone, with enough plot and villains to fill four horror movies about a group of young people on a boat getting attacked by something evil.

Rating: B-

The Final

A group of nerds, ceaselessly humiliated by their more popular peers, finally snap and decide to get horrible revenge. The nerds drug all their tormentors at a Halloween party, tie them up, and subject them to vicious tortures that the nerds have deemed karmically appropriate.

I don't want to waste too much time on this turd, but the whole thing is a major miscalculation. It's not poorly made from a technical standpoint, but it's just a series of bad, self-defeating ideas. I guess the premise has potential (bullying seems to have become the social cause du jour), but the filmmakers blow it pretty badly.

Mistake number one is the set up. The film works hard to establish the nerds as sympathetic, and to make the bullies as awful as possible. The audience is subjected to 20 or 30 minutes of horrible, detestable, entitled pricks picking on a bunch of losers to make sure we hate and like all the right people. So we're on board for some revenge, but what the nerds do is so terrible that they cease to be sympathetic. And not in a "woah, this movie toying with my sympathies" sort of way. To do that, we'd have to see the nerds start out with a more relatable form of revenge and maybe slowly start doing worse things. Instead, right off the bat, they are doing terrible things and immediately lose your sympathy. So it's basically another hour of watching unsympathetic characters horribly torture other unsympathetic characters. Not very involving.

It also leads to some mixed messaging that leaves a bad taste in the mouth. The movie seems to simultaneously imply that the nerds are doing a bad thing but also maybe the bullies deserved it and maybe the nerds are more sympathetic even though their actions are ultimately far worse.

The other glaring mistake is that the nerds, wearing a bunch of stupid costumes, just aren't scary or intimidating at all, especially their obnoxious, speechifying ringleader. This could potentially be a good idea that these kids are so nerdy that their idea of being scary just comes across as pathetic, but I don't think that's what the film is going for. I think the filmmakers just designed a bunch of stupid costumes and cast an obnoxious twerp in the lead role.

There is plenty of other stupid shit to go around. The movie has a wraparound structure that seems entirely unnecessary. The nerds show up to the party in costume, then change costumes after drugging everyone, then later on they show them their faces anyway. And there's a scene that pays homage to the end of Audition by doing an extremely poor recreation of it.

Rating: D-

The Shrine

A plucky (read: kinda bitchy) reporter shirks an assignment to instead investigate the disappearance of some tourists in a small Polish town, dragging along her photographer boyfriend and an intern. After discovering a bizarre shrine hidden in the mist, the townspeople turn on them, seemingly intent on making them part of a sacrificial ritual.

Poor Aaron Ashmore, twin brother of Shawn Ashmore. Equally as handsome, equally as talented, and yet somehow Shawn landed the X-Men movies and will forever be the more famous twin. Both brothers now show up in a lot of horror movies, but Shawn's been in some legit pretty good ones (Frozen, The Ruins), whereas Aaron seems to turn up in Haylie Duff vehicles (Fear Island) and movies based around Val Kilmer cameos (The Thaw).

I like both Ashmores, I like when good actors do horror movies, and Aaron was pretty good in a memorable recurring role on the great Veronica Mars, so I'm always rooting for the guy. And I'm happy to say The Shrine has been the best horror film I've seen him in. He's well cast here, as an actor who makes a solid leading man but often shows up as second banana. Here, he starts out seeming like the second banana until... well, without giving much away, he ends up being the most proactive character during the last act.
 
In fact, I'd actually like to apologize to the makers of The Shrine right now, because a while back I tried watching it and gave up after the first half hour or so. It seemed slow and awkward and predictable and the protagonist wasn't very likable, and I was tired, so I quit. Since then, I think I may have even recommend to others that they not watch it. But it turns out that it gets a lot better as it goes along, it's not very predictable, and the unlikable heroine might actually be an asset. I'm sorry I doubted you, guys.

What it comes down to is a movie that makes you think it's The Wicker Man before taking a clever final act twist that messes a bit with who exactly you're supposed to be identifying with. The twist isn't exactly original, but it's well executed and a lot ballsier than I would have expected from the more generic opening.

There are some well handled chase and escape scenes, and the sacrificial ritual is appropriately icky and suspenseful. But the best scene is a nifty one where Ashmore, on the defensive, hears the sounds of a horrible slaughter happening in the room next to him, and later has to walk through. The movie has it both ways by making you imagine what terrible things are happening, then showing you the disgusting aftermath anyway.

Rating: B-

Vampire Circus

Before he is vanquished, a sinister vampire curses the townspeople responsible for his demise. Plagued by a, uh, plague for years, the town tries to scrape along. Then, one day, a bizarre circus rolls in, with a sinister plan seemingly connected to the vampire.

A pretty damn solid 70's Hammer entry; stylish, a little violent, with just the right amount of sexy naked European women. You also got an evil dwarf, death by panther, scary mirrors, glowing crucifixes, a naked tiger woman, and more.

The best detail is that the circus members, despite I guess being evil, are depicted with a certain amount of sympathy. They care for each other, they get upset when one of their own gets hurt or dies. A nice touch.

I guess I don't have much to say about this one other than if you like the lush, trashy/classy 70's Hammer style, this is a good one.

Rating: B

The Caller

A woman moves into an apartment, alone, after leaving her abusive husband. She begins receiving bizarre calls from a seemingly emotionally unstable woman named Rose. Weirder, Rose seems to be calling from 30 years in the past, living in the same apartment. The things she tells Rose actually can change the past/her present. And when our heroine hurts Rose's feelings, Rose begins to use her unique position to wreak some havoc.

The premise of The Caller seems like a great setup for a Twilight Zone episode, but one of the things I enjoyed most about it was the way it wasn't just a quiet little creepy flick with a clever twist ending. Instead, it uses the premise to go way dark. Rose goes a lot further than you might expect in getting her revenge. She starts by burying corpses in the walls, and it gets sicker from there. And, of course there's the fact that the heroine lived in the same town as Rose when she was a little girl...

The time travel gimmicks are ingenious without feeling overly gimmicky. The rules are clearly established (maybe overexplained) and I don't think the film ever cheats. I was expecting some sort of deus ex machina or some way that the heroine would game the system to erase all the damage Rose has done, but instead the film doesn't pull any punches and ends on a wonderfully darkly comedic note.

My only major complaint with the film was its almost comically overbearing score and sound design. Ever small action is emphasized with a musical sting, and whenever the moody score isn't playing, the soundtrack is filled with low rumblings and strange noises. It grows very distracting after a while.

Other, this movie is pretty awesome. It's a lot of fun, filled with strong performances  and uses the time travel conceit to come up with some creepy ideas and clever set pieces. One of my favorites so far this month.

Rating: B+

The Mummy

An unearthed mummy (Boris Karloff) mysteriously vanishes from the dig site, with one of the workers claiming it got up and walked away. Years later, the mummy, now living under an assumed name, tries to use his powers to hypnotize and marry a woman who resembles his long lost love.

Another one of those classics I've been meaning to see for years but never got around to. The thing that surprised me the most about The Mummy is that we only ever see a classic "mummy" in the very beginning. You know, like a skeleton dude covered in gauze. Instead, most of the movie he's just Karloff in old man makeup, dressed in normal clothes. He's still technically "the mummy," but it feels more like "the magician" or "the hypnotist." Who knew the iconic mummy barely features into The Mummy?

As with other classic like Dracula and The Wolf Man, I enjoyed but didn't love this cultural touchstone. It's got some nice atmosphere, Karloff is great as always, and it builds to a nice ending, but most of it is good but unspectacular. I'm finding that this is the case for a lot of the revered classics from this era; my sense is that they are better remembered for being big hits than actually being great horror movies.

Rating: B-

The Substitute

A group of scrappy tweens must figure out a way to expose and defeat their new substitute teacher, a space alien sent to Earth to study the children for nefarious purposes.

Not a bad movie, per se, but not a good one either, The Substitute is never boring but it never quite nails the playful horror/comedy tone it's going for. The film it most reminds me of is Rare Exports, which had a similar tonal problem. The goofy plot and cute kids suggests comedy, but the desaturated color palette and somber tone suggests a more serious horror movie. Neither part really works. It has a solid story structure, but it's nothing you haven't sen a million times before: the kids realize what's going on, the parents don't believe them, the story pussyfoots around for a while, and by the time the parents realize what's going on it's too late and the kids have to fight the alien themselves.

By far the best part of the film is the substitute, played by Paprika Steen (great name). She's evil, sure, totally lacking in empathy, but she's got a sense of humor about it and seems like she's having a good time. Humans are just so stupid and easy to manipulate, she can't help but be as overt as possible about what she's doing, practically begging for one of the adults to notice.

One truly awful bit of filmmaking: in the very beginning, a character is watching TV, where the father of the main character is being interviewed about his new book. The interviewer asks him a question that causes him to have a flashback about his wife's death. Only the flashback starts while we're still seeing the scene from the perspective of the person watching TV. Like, shouldn't we cut to the TV studio and close up on the father's face before going to the flashback? Instead it's almost as if the TV psychically sees his flashback. Weird.

Rating: C

Crucible of Horror

Michael Gough plays the emotionally dominating and physically abusive patriarch of an upper-class British family. One day, he pushes his wife and teenaged daughter too far... with predictable results.

Nothing to see here, folks. Outside of Gough's perfectly hatable performance, there's not much of note to Crucible of Horror. It's half way through the movie before the mother and daughter finally snap and off Gough, and their troubles in covering up the murder are rote and unimaginative. I guess I did like that the sexy daughter gets naked a few times (again, I think/hope this is another Sweet Sixteen scenario where the underage girl is played by an older actress).

As a word of warning, if you do want to see this film, don't read any of the descriptions online. For some reason, every blurb I've read about it gives away the "twist" that happens in the last five minutes of the film as if it's part of the main storyline. So whatever minor narrative pull the film might have had was already ruined for me. Either way, the big twist is followed by a kinda inexplicable final scene which I trust would be totally horrifying if I really understood what was supposed to be happening.

Rating: C-

Masquerade

A young, upwardly-mobile sailor (Rob Lowe) begins a relationship with a beautiful heiress (Meg Tilly) who iscurrently fighting over the family fortune with her asshole stepfather. Only, is the sailor really falling in love, or is he part of the stepfather's scheme to have the young woman killed?

This turned out to be more of a modern noir/thriller than a horror/thriller, but I don't mind because it's actually a pretty good one. It's got a classic twisty turny plot, with shocking revelations and shifting alliances. I appreciated the way it evoked old fashioned thrillers without trying to ape their style; the 80's was a time full of neo-noirs that tried to recreate the 50's and often failed. Instead, this one tones down the style and goes for a more straightforward (but extremely well executed) visual construction.

It also, thanks to well-drawn characters and just the right amount of ambiguity, really draws you in to the love story. Tilly and Lowe have great chemistry, and you honestly feel conflicted about whether or not Lowe can be trusted, because you want things to turn out well for them. (And, without spoiling anything, it doesn't necessarily go the way you might expect it). This is a perfect role for Lowe: he has to be handsome and charming, but with a slight sense that something else is going on behind the eyes. It's not nearly as overtly menacing and magnetic as his work in Bad Influence (still his best role, in my opinion), but he's great at letting tension coil under his perfectly put-together surface.

I should also note that this film is stars Lowe, Tilly, Kim Cattrall and Dana Delaney, circa 1988, which is pretty much as sexy of a cast as you can hope for. Both Lowe and Cattrall show the goods. A lot of "erotic thrillers" tend to be more tawdry or, worse, perfunctory, but this is one that comes off as genuinely sexy.

Rating: B

The Dunwich Horror

From the same producers and director of Die, Monster, Die! comes another loose Lovecraft adaptation. This time, Dean Stockwell plays a mysterious pagan/hypnotist dude who is trying to get his hands on the Necronomicon to enact an ancient, most likely terrible ritual.

Some of the major names in horror in the 60's (American International and Hammer most notably) had a little trouble adjusting to the 70's. I'm not sure if they were trying to go for a more modern feel, if they were running low on funds, if their best talent jumped ship, or some combination therein, but they starting losing a bit of their classic, gothic flavor in favor of a less stylized, more naturalistic vibe. You started losing the orchestral scores in favor of weird jazz improv bullshit, more often the setting would be moved to present day, and the rich, shadowy cinematography turned into a cheap, less colorful, flat look more akin to low budget American indies.

The Dunwich Horror seems to have one foot in each era. It's an adaptation of a classic horror story, much of it is set in a lavish mansion, it's got some of the trippy special effects a la Corman's Poe adaptations. But it also looks cheaper, more amateurish, with less interest in atmospherics and a slightly more tawdry edge to it, what with its cult orgies and all.

The story never really heats up, and I think part of the problem is that there isn't really a central character for the audience to identify with. The leads are Stockwell as a wizard (or whatever) and Sandra Dee as his love interest/victim. Stockwell is great as the calm, eerie but also charming sorcerer, but it's never clear how sympathetic his character is supposed to be. He is ostensibly the villain, but his character is also persecuted by the other townspeople because of his religious beliefs. So you kind of feel for the guy, even though the townspeople are kinda right not to trust him and he ultimately is the villain. Dee should then theoretically be the one we are concerned about, but she's so passive (she spends pretty much the whole movie under Stockwell's spell) and lacking in personality that it's hard to give a shit. The good guys are some historian types who realize what Stockwell is up to and try to stop him, but they mostly seem to take a backstage to the rest of the action.

It all falls apart near the end. Right when the tension should be building, the story loses focus and cuts around between different scenes that feel disconnected despite the fact that they are all supposed to be coming together. And the final battle is so hilariously abrupt and arbitrary that it retroactively wipes out any sense of danger that the film might have engendered at that point.

Rating: C

Die, Monster, Die!

Loosely based on H.P. Lovecraft's "The Colour Out of Space," Die, Monster, Die! restructures the story into more of a mystery. A young man comes to visit the home of his girlfriend's family, but her reclusive father (Boris Karloff) seems to be hiding a sinister secret in his palatial estate.

Although not directed by Roger Corman, Die, Monster, Die! was an Arkoff/Nicholson production, and hence has a very similar vibe to the Corman films of this era. You get a creepy old castle, colorful/gaudy set design, an air of faux-classiness, some vaguely psychedelic special effects, and a good sense of fun only slightly hidden under a facade of seriousness.

Though not faithful to the structure of Lovecraft's story, it ultimately reveals that it has the same central conceit (a meteor that has the ability to mutate what it comes in contact with). Although in this case, it skips the more subtle eeriness of the original tale (where the meteor with changing plant and animal life in small but unnerving ways) and just has it make a bunch of weird monsters. Not as creepy, but more fitting with the tone of the rest of the film.

The film has a nice slow build before it gets to the weird monsters and such. The special effects aren't exactly great for their time, but I'd say you won't be disappointed with some of the ridiculous monsters you see. The only real letdown is the finale, when Karloff finally turns into a monster himself; he just looks like someone covered him in tin foil or something. A little more effort with the final creature design would have gone a long way towards selling the ending.

Rating: B-

YellowBrickRoad

An expedition attempts to discover the mystery of the "Yellow Brick Road," a trail on which the entire population of a small town disappeared many years ago. What they discover is that some sort of malicious force (perhaps the trail itself) has the power to drive people insane and keep them lost forever.

Not a lot to say about this one, but it was a reasonably well-made film with a nifty premise and a handful of standout scenes. I particularly like the way everyone starts to lose their mind; it's slow but begins almost immediately, and nobody really seems to notice because they are going crazy, too. The characters are reasonably well developed, so there is a sense of impact when they start killing each other/themeselves/etc.

Unfortunately, the premise runs out of steam after a while; there are only so many scenes you can watch of people losing their shit over strange sounds and music, begin acting illogically and start turning against each other, before it grows a little repetitive. And the ending is a let down too; my feeling is they should have simply left it open-ended, but instead they attempt to have their cake and eat it too, via some KMart surrealism that tries to both explain and not explain what was going on. Better to have left it all unsaid. It's not helped by the occasional terrible special effects.

Rating: B-

Rosewood Lane

Noted boyfucker Victor Salva directs this tale of a radio psychologist (Rose McGowen, looking great except for whatever the fuck happened to her face) who moves into the home of her father, who recently died in an accident. Only soon she comes to suspect that this "accident" was in the fact the work of a supernatural paperboy with black eyes who likes to recite nursery rhymes and stalk and torment the residents of the neighborhood. (?)

I'm pretty sure Rosewood Lane is terrible movie, but I kind of liked it. I can't remember the last time I saw a horror movie with a premise this unabashedly stupid, and yet Salva (who showed real horror movie chops in his excellent Jeepers Creepers) manages to wring some genuine fun and excitement out of the whole retarded thing. Seemingly silly ideas for suspense scenes, say someone reaching through a cat door to bring the cat in, unaware that the killer is standing outside, actually generates some playful tension. Salva's script is dumb beyond all belief, but he knows how to make a horror movie work.

I mean, just re-read my first paragraph again. The villain is a teenage paperboy (who looks like he's 30, of course) who is also some sort of seemingly unkillable monster beast. How do you even pitch that premise? And it's not even like the film seriously toys with the idea that McGowen is crazy or paranoid; it's clear early on the villain is a demonic paperboy. He rides around on a bike and tries to sell subscriptions and everything.

Thematically, the movie is a damn mess. McGowen's character is a shrink, and there's a lot of talk about her abusive childhood, and a traumatic experience in her boyfriend's past that lead to his claustrophobia, but if any of this turns into a coherent statement about psychic scars or psychoanalysis, I missed it. I guess the paperboy sorta tries to exploit this once or twice (maybe?) but that doesn't really end up going anywhere.

Also, I'm pretty sure we never find out the fate of one of the major characters. We can assume they died, I suppose, but it would have been nice if they explicated it.

Still, I had a decent amount of fun watching it. The set pieces and reasonably well crafted, the vibe is right, the cast is good. And I guess there is a sort of "I can't believe what I'm watching" element to the story that amused me as well.

Rating: C+ (?)

Sweet Sixteen

Sexy jailbait Melissa (who even has her own theme song!) moves into a new town shortly before her 16th birthday. But soon after her arrival, some of the locals who have crossed paths with her start turning up dead. Could this young girl have something to do with the murders?

Poised somewhere between classic murder mystery/thriller and tawdry slasher, Sweet Sixteen doesn't really succeed as either. The mystery is a non-starter that trudges it's way along to an arbitrary solution, building no suspense along the way. It's just another generic whodunit that climaxes with the umpeenth thousandth riff on Psycho. As far as the trash goes, the lead actress does get naked a few times, and that was appreciated (I feel fairly certain she was much older than 16 at the time). The violence, however, is completely unimaginative, which is a big problem considering it tends to come out of nowhere without much of an attempt at buildup/suspense. It has the kind of kills where all you see is poorly lit extreme closeup of a knife going into a shirt repeatedly.

I have certain affection for the low-budget early 80's slasher movie aesthetic. There's a certain spooky, offbeat vibe to it that taps into a primal part of my brain. Sometimes it was done deliberately, but more often it was just an accidental side effect of the cheapness, but either way it kinda works for me. Yet whatever mild mojo this one manages to summon, there's just not much here for me to recommend. Two of the main characters, the teenaged son and daughter of the town sheriff, have a goofy, teasing repartee that rings true, and they brighten up the scenes they are in. Otherwise, this is as uninspired as these things come, if not as horribly unwatchable as the bottom of the barrel.

Rating: D