Horror Movies

[returnofjakedog]

The Beyond (1981)-


Another delve into the world of classic Italian horror!

The Beyond is a film from Lucio Fulci, another of the "big 3" of Italian giallo horror, much like Mario Bava whom I talked about recently in my Lisa and the Devil review. Fulci is most known for his Gates of Hell triology: City of the Living Dead, The Beyond (this film) and House by the Cemetery released in '80-'81, and the likes of Zombi 2, the famous or infamous (opinions vary) unofficial sequel to Dawn of the Dead. He is known for the high levels of gore in his movies. He was in Italian cinema for many years and movies. I'm not sure when he started with horror specifically (I didn't interpete every title of his long filmography) but he apparently made films in basically every genre.

Anyways, The Beyond- I have seen some Fulci here and there and I have even seen this movie before, most likely on late night on HBO cable in the mid-80s. I find Fulci to be a bit of an enigma as his fxs can simultaneously seem a bit cheap and grossly revolting (in a great way!). His films tend to provide a blood and guts surreal weirdness, and The Beyond is one of his better, if not his best, flicks.

After a prolog in which a man painting a large hellish land is lynched by an angry mob and spiked to a wall in the basement we cut to 60 or so years later. Liza inherits the now older, and run down mansion-hotel. Immediately, bad stuff starts to happen. She meets a creepy blind lady who spouts cryptic exposition. Things esculate. A lot of gross blood and guts happen Liz discovers the property is a gateway to hell.

Setting aside my first reaction, which was "A basement in New Orleans?!?", this movie is a fun and interesting watch. I'm being a bit purposefully vague (I usually don't care too much about spoilers for 40+ year old movies) but this one has an epic end shot is, dare I say, brilliant!
On the downside, the acting was a bit odd because they apparently used both english speaking, and Italian speaking actors, let them both speak in their native tongues, and then dub half of it for whichever market. It is the same that the spaghetti westerns often did. For example: Eastwood, Van Cleef, and Wallach all spoke english in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly but most of the others read their lines in italian.
Short story long, it makes for some dubbing (always questionable) that detracts from the feel of the movie........but the film more than makes up for it by feeling like living in a nightmare, and lots of blood and gore, including a famous eye-gouging scene (it shows a bunch in the linked trailer above)!

This one is a little hard to rate as some people will be turned off by the '70s Italian feel to it, but I really enjoyed it this time around. Weird and nothing makes sense but it is a fun ride imo.
Great soundtrack!

7.5 outta 10 from me! Another cool creepy Italian offering.

 

[Blackshirts BLVD]

Yeah, I read about it. So not from the trailer.
Regardless of LF's age it could still good. Couldn't it?
*It does have Fede Alverez (Evil Dead remake, Don't Breathe 1 & 2) attached as a writer/producer (good!)
*........but the original directors were fired after they refused to film a last minute script re-write and instead started filming the original script they had signed on for (bad)
*.....and it has been given a February release date (historically a bad sign).
I'll keep crossing my fingers though!

Yeah, but he would have to be limited in movement, speed, and strength. I would question him lifting a 130+ lb man or woman with relative ease, while they are fighting him and slinging them on a meat hook. Or running through the woods with a chainsaw and reasonably keeping up with young people. I am a little forgiving in regards to stamina to slashers because I think it is kind of necessary, but still needs to be grounded and relatively realistic.

On a different note, I just caught the trailer for Paranormal Activity Next of Kin and I am considerably more intrigued than I have been from this franchise. I saw the first 3 (surrounding the original girl) and only really cared for the first one. Never saw the others, but keep in mind, found footage is one of my least favorite subgenres.

 

[returnofjakedog]

Chapelwaite (2020)-


A widowed seacaptain with 3 children returns to a small town in Maine to inherit the family estate. However he finds the local residents of a nearby village are under some sort of epidemic that is slowly killing people, and they openly blame his family for it. To add to the issues, his 3 children are of mixed race (South Pacific), which is problematic in rural 1840-50 timeframe. Eventually they become aware of a deserted settlement nearby that is now occupied by a scary cult who may be vampires!

This is based on Stephen King's short story Jerusalem's Lot (not the book Salem's Lot which is the same lore but set much later), and stars Adrian Brody and the actress who played Stevie on Schitt's Creek.
It is a well executed series. The acting, direction, cinematography, fxs, are all solid. However the story drags a bit as it is 10 episodes/hours. It works as a slow burn but they probably could have trimmed it a bit and told the story as effectively in 7 or even 6 hours.

Adrian Brody does a good job. His character generally makes solid decisions (except for not fleeing the area) and looks perpetually worried and beaten down by life. The rest of the cast is good, but the kids got just a little bit annoying at times. The townsfolk are, as always in these types of "stranger goes to small town" horror genre, generally horrible, unhelpful assholes to the family. The main antagonists in the cult are distrubing and violent but don't get enough screen time until late in the series. The main vampire guy is rather nasty. However when things do come to a head it is pretty wild and has some really good fxs.

Recommended for fans of King, vampire and/or well-told slow burn horror. If you want lots of action, and things to move quickly you might struggle to get through it.

I give it a solid 7 to 7.5 outta 10 range. It isn't perfect, for example: I wanted more comeuppance for a few of the asswipe townies, and there was a big battle with a possible redemptive arch that they just did offscreen for no apparent good reason, but generally quite well done in all aspects, and, as noted, they drug it out for too long to reach the series' 10 hour mark. Also the very end was a bit strange.

Not sure if there is going to be a season 2 or whether this is a stand alone but there are several directions the story could go with or without the current actors. Regardless of which path they took I would watch another season.

 

[DJ Fieri]

 

[returnofjakedog]

Back to the older stuff, and after a run of good ones, we have more of the mediocre here:

Home for the Holidays (1972)-


Sisters return to their estranged father's estate for X-mas. He tells the sisters that his new wife is poisoning him, which they don't really believe. A storm hits and people start dying.
Pretty non-descript. Sally Fields does ok as the lead, and some others are decent but some are overacting. Story is predictable but the execution is ok.
Aaron Spelling production. Maybe slightly better than his Satan's School for Girls that I reviewed awhile back but not by much.
5 outta 10 range from me. Mostly competent but nothing very interesting.

Die, Monster, Die (1965)-


An adaptation for Lovecraft's The Colour Out of Space with Boris Karloff.
A young man travels to his girlfriend's family estate where weird stuff is happening. Her father (Karloff) is openly hostile to him, and he finds crazy stuff while investigating: huge plants with rotton fruit, people suffering physical changes, etc.
The story is good but the execution is a bit dicey. The daughter character is completely clueless about everything (seriously, I don't know how she even manages to tie her own shoes), and why affected people suddenly start attacking others is never explained. I guess that they are monsters is enough?
Not bad but I'm not sure it deserves the semi-cult status it has. Not Karloff's best role (he just acts erratic). It gets a bit "Scooby Doo-ish" as the lead runs around investigating.
5.5 to 6 outta 10 range. The 2019 Nicolas Cage adaptation of the same tale is better.

Bloodlust! (1961)-


Two couples are stranded on a small Caribbean island. They meet a rich sportsman who ends up hunting them as prey.
An adaptation of 1924's story The Most Dangerous Game.
Not much to say here. There are some cool visuals when the hunter shows his trophies. That same hunter/antagonist's actor does ok but he is essentially Vincent Price-lite. The 4 protagonists range from non-descript to slightly annoying. The action isn't great.
Apparently there are at least 17 movie adaptations of this story, and I believe many more depending on how you define adaptation. Regardless, this isn't one of the better ones. I was mostly bored watching the idiots.....I mean protagonists slowly move around the jungle while being hunted, and standing there doing nothing while the bad guy just tells them how he is going to kill them. Oh, the girls are mostly worthless, existing to be saved by the men. They are much better than the daughter in Die, Monster, Die but still questionable.

3.5 to 4 outta 10 range for me. Go see John Woo's Hard Target, or Busey and Ice T in Surviving the Game, or even the original 1932 movie over this adaptation.

 

[Nasty_Magician]

Chapelwaite (2020)-


A widowed seacaptain with 3 children returns to a small town in Maine to inherit the family estate. However he finds the local residents of a nearby village are under some sort of epidemic that is slowly killing people, and they openly blame his family for it. To add to the issues, his 3 children are of mixed race (South Pacific), which is problematic in rural 1840-50 timeframe. Eventually they become aware of a deserted settlement nearby that is now occupied by a scary cult who may be vampires!

This is based on Stephen King's short story Jerusalem's Lot (not the book Salem's Lot which is the same lore but set much later), and stars Adrian Brody and the actress who played Stevie on Schitt's Creek.
It is a well executed series. The acting, direction, cinematography, fxs, are all solid. However the story drags a bit as it is 10 episodes/hours. It works as a slow burn but they probably could have trimmed it a bit and told the story as effectively in 7 or even 6 hours.

Adrian Brody does a good job. His character generally makes solid decisions (except for not fleeing the area) and looks perpetually worried and beaten down by life. The rest of the cast is good, but the kids got just a little bit annoying at times. The townsfolk are, as always in these types of "stranger goes to small town" horror genre, generally horrible, unhelpful assholes to the family. The main antagonists in the cult are distrubing and violent but don't get enough screen time until late in the series. The main vampire guy is rather nasty. However when things do come to a head it is pretty wild and has some really good fxs.

Recommended for fans of King, vampire and/or well-told slow burn horror. If you want lots of action, and things to move quickly you might struggle to get through it.

I give it a solid 7 to 7.5 outta 10 range. It isn't perfect, for example: I wanted more comeuppance for a few of the asswipe townies, and there was a big battle with a possible redemptive arch that they just did offscreen for no apparent good reason, but generally quite well done in all aspects, and, as noted, they drug it out for too long to reach the series' 10 hour mark. Also the very end was a bit strange.

Not sure if there is going to be a season 2 or whether this is a stand alone but there are several directions the story could go with or without the current actors. Regardless of which path they took I would watch another season.

Nice, it's on my ever growing list of shows to watch during the hibernation/dead of winter months.

 

[returnofjakedog]

Watched the series Elves on Netflix, great concept and had a few redeemable moments but they really didn't hit the mark. Could have been great but the character development, pacing, decision making and likely budget prevented this from reaching it's potential. Worth a watch, only 6 episodes each about 25 minutes. Keep the bar very low going in.

......wait......
I assume it isn't the infamous Elves (82), considered one of the weirder bad movies of alltime?


The storyline for this is batshit crazy (the trailer touches on a little of that), some of the dialogue and character choices are just strange, and the overall execution and fxs are cheesy as heck. ince$t Nazi Elves! Sleezy!


Grizzly Adams' beard is in it for a bit and looks like he just wants to get a drink.

2.5 to 3 outta 10 range imo. Only for "So bad, it's good" fans. For that genre it's probably an 8.5 to 9 outta 10, but still really bad.

"Their not working for Santa anymore"

 

[DJ Fieri]

 

[returnofjakedog]

Ever thought about setting up some trail cams to catch some visitors? Images of that bear would be cool to see.

Just a note on this: My sisters and I got some trail cams for for Dad this year. I'll keep you posted and try to upload any videos if a rabid bear, or cannibal hillbillies, or Slenderman appear!

 

[DJ Fieri]

 

[returnofjakedog]

Underworld (aka Transmutations) 1985-


Clive Barker's first full length film. I stumbled across it and thought "I thought it was pretty good when I saw it back in the '80s, so I'll watch it again" but it turns out I was thinking of the superior Nightbreed. It does however serve as kinda a warm up for Nightbreed as these films have quite a lot in common.

Anyways, a guy is hired to find his ex-gf who is now a high priced prostitute that is hooked on a drug that gives her special powers. The doctor that created the drug also has experimented on other people, where it has caused physical mutations as well so the group lives in dark, wet underground tunnels.

I thought the main star was Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs but that turned out to be wrong. However it does have Denholm Elliot (Brody from the Indiana Jones series, Coleman from Trading Places) and Steven Berkoff (the main bad guy from Octopussy, Beverly Hills Cop). Everyone is in love with the prostitute, who isn't bad looking but not that hot by Hollywood standards, and isn't a good actress.

A bit of a convoluted mess. They tried to make a film noir blended with some underground murant bodyhorror but it comes off poorly. The acting is hit and miss. Some cool fxs. The underground looks a bit like an old Billy Idol video and not in a good way. There is a bit of creepy ambience and the soundtrack mostly helps with that but even that sometimes fails.

Barker apparently hates this adaptation but he obviously learned from it and managed to mostly incorporate the good from this in the aforementioned Nightbreed.

4.5ish outta 10 range from me. A bit of good stuff mixed in amongst the mess. For hardcore Barker fans, or some who liked Nightbreed and wants to see where it evolved from.

 

[Nasty_Magician]

Watched the Creepshow Holiday Special on Shudder, it was interesting... More comedy than horror, really stupid but I enjoyed it.

Also saw Better Watch Out, a deranged relatively fun movie. Bunch of twists kept it interesting, it was definitely unique, worth a watch.

 

[returnofjakedog]

Watched the Creepshow Holiday Special on Shudder, it was interesting... More comedy than horror, really stupid but I enjoyed it.

Also saw Better Watch Out, a deranged relatively fun movie. Bunch of twists kept it interesting, it was definitely unique, worth a watch.

Yeah, Better Watch Out was a surprise treat. Went in with low expectations but it was better than expected. Worth the watch!

@FaCe-LeE-uS did a full review:

Better Watch Out (2016)


I was very apprehensive before watching this film based off the juvenile cast alone. I cringed at the thought of watching a horror film where 90% of the runtime involves a cast all under the age of 18. But thankfully for the holiday season (watched this back in December) I decided to go through with it, and I was pleasantly surprised. Hats off to the young actors in this movie. There were very minor flaws which had more to do with script & writing than the actors themselves. The antagonist was especially good. For a young actor to be able to portray a psycopath without annoying the audience is a pretty rare feat. The director deserves a lot of credit too as I'm sure it was difficult to deliver what this film achieved. The filming style offered a wide variety of unique shots. It was cool to see the director use reflective xmas decor to offer blind shots. This thriller has plenty of clever twists that keep it entertaining throughout. Some character stupidity was expected but it wasn't a glaring downfall like it is with most horror films. It has original concepts and builds drama well from the beginning, allthewhile never becoming predictable. It even offers a fair amount of comedy. This film was like Home Alone meets The Strangers... However Kevin is the psycho. Overall this film was an unexpectedly fun ride.

A Holiday treat... 7.5/10

 

[FaCe-LeE-uS]

Yeah, Better Watch Out was a surprise treat. Went in with low expectations but it was better than expected. Worth the watch!

@FaCe-LeE-uS did a full review:

Actually just rewatched this recently as well! Still very entertaining! Caught a few more flaws this time around with some blatant convenience sotospeak.

 

[returnofjakedog]

Prophecy (1979)-


A doctor accepts a job from the EPA to do an environmental evaluation of deep woods Maine. The local native tribe opposes any lumber harvesting and are constantly clashing with the timber barrons. People start dying. The industry folks blame the natives despite it obviously being something else. Eventually they figure out it is a 15' mutant bear with no skin, covered in spaghetti sauce that is killing everyone, and that the industry has caused this via chemical poisoning of the area. Heads roll and people get batted about like cat toys.

I remember this one from late night HBO when I was a kid. However it isn't as good as my memory painted.
It has a decent story with questionable execution as some plot points are ridiculous. The acting is ok. The fxs are generally not great as the creature looks cheap and has unarticulated features. They try to cover this with quick shots and close ups but the best shot in the movie is a far away shot of the creature kicking the shit out of a guy. They should have done more of that. Some other stuff ranges from kinda disturbing to hilarious, like the killer raccoon attack.

They try to send a message but do it rather poorly. It comes off as a b-movie monster flick, which is fine but I would expect a bit better from director John Frankenheimer (the original Manchurian Candidate), and a solid supporting cast, including Talia Shire (Rocky), Robert Foxworth, and Armand Assante, who does a decent job but is an Italian playing a Native American amongst a cast that was filled with actual natives (I don't care too much, but it was an odd decision).

5 outta 10 rating for me. The movie has some well done moments, but it drags a bit and uses darkness and quick cuts too often to try to hide an often kinda ridiculous monster.

It did give us this though:


I think the Friday the 13th folks saw this!

 

[Chef99]

@Chef99 Have you seen the sequel, The Night Strangler?

I have. Don't remember being impressed, except for the fact that I loved McGavin.

 

[Chef99]

Watched The Lords of Salem.

I'm guessing this was Rob Zombie's homage to the late 60s/70s witchcraft movies?

Not really sure how I felt about it, but Sherri Moon Zombie did a nice job.

 

[returnofjakedog]

Watched The Lords of Salem.

I'm guessing this was Rob Zombie's homage to the late 60s/70s witchcraft movies?

Not really sure how I felt about it, but Sherri Moon Zombie did a nice job.

View attachment 285664

It was actually the first movie I thought that she did good in. Also it was a departure for RZ, which was a welcome change from his crazy redneck schlock fests.

 

[DJ Fieri]

 

[boogiewithstu2007]

I loved “The Thing” that movie freaked me out… The original “It” was fantastic, didn’t like the remake … “The Shinning” of course epic … “Dawn of the Dead” 1978 …. “Nightmare on Elm street” the original movie… “The Ring” was a trip … “Alien” has gotta be mentioned…