Horror Movies

[returnofjakedog]

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…

 

[returnofjakedog]

 

[returnofjakedog]

The Execution of Mary Stuart (1895)-


Considered by many to be the first horror "movie" (an 18 second sileny short), made nearly 130 years ago by Edison Labs.

Not much to it, but it blew people away back then. Many didn't understand how a film cut worked and thought it was a real person being killed!

 

[returnofjakedog]

Re-watched Fright Night 2 (1988)-


So after the events of the original Fright Night (1985) (Note: not the sonewhat iffy 2011 remake), Charlie is at college and convinced that the events of the original movie were a mass delusion. But that view begins to change after a group of "performance artists" move into a nearby mansion. Things escalate as people start dying, and Charlie's friend Peter Vincent- (the always fun Roddy McDowall) and his new girlfriend fight to survive the onslaught.

This is actually a pretty decent sequel, but it isn't without it's faults.

The good-
*William Ragsdale and Roddy McDowall reprising their characters.
*The vampire group is interesting and fun for the most part. They aren't quite to the level of Jerry Dandridge but they have their moments.
*Great fxs! Lots of cool creatures and gore, much like the original. I can't emphasize this enough: lots of fun here!
*The soundtrack/score, often derived from the original movie, are goid and do provide a bit of cohesion betwwen the two.

The bad-
*My biggest issue with the movie is that it doesn't do great as a stand-alone. If you go into it not having watched the original (if so, WrF is wrong with you?? Go watch it!) then some of the characters, their interactions, and the story itself are not clear and defined. Combine that with a story that sometimes feels a little rushed and it can feel a bit rocky.
*Not "bad" persay but the supporting actors overall are not as strong as in the original. The vampire group is interesting and fun but they don't always impose a sense of dread to counter the comedy of the first film. The girlfriend character lacks the personality of the original gf.
I mostly feel the actors are ok to good, so maybe the direction/sxript/editing, etc are more to blame.
*The flow of the story can sometimes feel a bit rushed.

A solid 6 to 6.5 outta 10 range for me. I give the original Fright Night about a 7.5.

This was directed by Tommy Lee Wallace who did a bunch of work with the early John Carpenter. He also directed Halloween 3 before mostly moving away from horror.

Note that the director of the original Fright Night, Tom Holland (writer of Child's Play and the highly underrated Psycho 2) has gotten the rights to the story back and is doing a direct sequel to the original Fright Night. At first he was going to include this movie (Fright Night 2) in that lore but has now decided to bring back Jerry Dandridge and Evil Ed instead.

 

[returnofjakedog]

Since I reviewed Fright Night 2, which has Brian Thompson in it as the bug eating Bozworth, I thought I'd recount the funny story about the time I met the actor.

For those who are not familiar, Brian Thompson is a character actor who usually plays baddies in roles such as the Night Stalker in Cobra with Stallone, or the Alien Assassin in The X-Files. He has been in many, many films and tv roles.

Anyways, sometime in the mid-late 90s I was in Longview, Wa. visiting my good buddy Ed.
As per routine on these visits, we hit a few bars and Ed was getting pretty drunk.
We walked into one bar and Ed grabs me and points at a guy sitting alone at the end of the bar and says "Hey, its the guy who played Hercules in that miniseries!" and I recognize that it is Brian Thompson!
Ed wants to go talk to him, but he doesn't look like he wants company so I convince Ed to drink in a booth at the other end of the bar.
As we sit there having a drink, the rather inebriated Ed periodically says stuff like "We should go kick his ass! Then we'll be the guys who beat up Hercules!" or "He doesn't look so tough. We should kick his ass!" while pounding his mug on the table, which is all very baffling to me because Ed never, ever gets into fights, let alone starts them (he's just too nice of a guy for that behavior).
But as time goes on this continues. Ed keeps on bringing up that he wants to kick Hercules' ass, and I keep trying to ignore it or talk him down from his craziness. After a bit, Ed is getting more and more riled up and his behavior seems to be escalating.
Finally, Ed stands up and loudly says "I'm gonna go kick his ass!" and starts walking towards him. I reach out and grab his arm but he shrugs me off and continues. I head out of my side of the booth but am too late to stop Ed, so I am weighing the options of also going there, or heading out the door before a brawl erupts and I get arrested.
Ed approaches Brian Thompson from the side and aggressively grabs him by his shoulder while loudly saying something along the lines of "Are you ready for an ass kicking Hercules?"
At this point I am in full on "Holy Shit!" mode as I wait for the rednecks at the pool table to join into a fray.
Brian Thompson stands up, turns towards us and says "Hey Ed! How are you, man?" and gives him a big hug as I stand there with a look of shock on my face!

It turns out that Ed is good friends with Brian's little brother! Lol!

(I thought I told this here before but I don't find it in a search so that must have been on another site?)

 

[FaCe-LeE-uS]

Watched Hostel last night. That eyeball snip still freaks me out.

Tried watching Survive the Night (2020) with Bruce Willis & Chad Michael Murray but couldn’t finish it. It was not the home invasion thriller I was expecting, but rather a drama filled with dialogue.

 

[returnofjakedog]

Inferno (1980)-


More Italian stuff! This is one is the middle of Dario Argento's "Three Mothers" trilogy, which started with Susperia, and finished with the way later released Mother of Tears in 2007.

So this one follows all of the hallmarks of the Italian giallo horror in that it is beautiful to look at with its brilliant use of colors, and awesome cinematography while being graphically gory and having a plot that is nearly incomprehensible. Much like Fulci's films, they kind of feel like a waking nightmare (I assume Bava's are similar in that respect but I need to see more).

I won't go into depth on the plot details but it basically is about a guy who flies to NY to find his missing sister. There is a large, sparsely lived in old gothic tenement, and a sacred text involved. There is a whole lot of weirdness and many people die in horrible ways.

The good:
*The visuals and cinematography. Great use of colors and shading, and interesting shots.
*The feel- nothing feels real persay but it doesn't detract. Instead the entire runtime has a sense of imposing dread, and feels like your living in a dream state (and not a happy dream).
*Some pretty graphic kills!

The bad:
*The dialogue, acting, and characters are hit and miss, but that is rather irrelevant. It is all about the creepy weirdness and shock you get while watching it.
*The story is hard to follow. That is also seemingly deliberate.

The giallo-style isn't going to be for everyone but I was very impressed by this one, as I was for Susperia, which I need to rewatch. I really have enjoyed Fulci's Gates of Hell triology (I still need to write up 2 of those) but I think I like Argento's stuff more. Anyways, watch if you like the aspects I praised and want to watch an engrossing but confusing story. Not cheap popcorn fare.

I'll go 8 outta 10! Highly recommended on my part.

 

[DJ]

 

[returnofjakedog]

The Night Strangler (1973)-

(I couldn't find a full trailer)

So this one is the follow-up for the excellent The Night Stalker that I reviewed a few pages back.
Darin McGavin returns as the intrepid reporter Carl Kolchak. He does an great job, as in the first movie but this film isn't as good.

After being ran out of Vegas, Kolchak settles in Seattle where, for no good reason, his old boss from the first movie hires him to work at his new paper which coincidentally is also in Seattle. Kolchak gets on a case about strippers being strangled and small amounts of blood being taken from their bodies.

I find it a bit hard to be subjective when the movies are filmed in my stomping grounds and this one is no exception, as they hit all of the Seattle sights in the downtown area. But there is no denying the main issue here:
This movie was made as an intro to a series (Kolchak: The Night Stalker) which means their goal was to establish characters and relationships moreso than just put out a good movie. This leads to waaaaaayyyyy to many scenes with Kolchak and his boss just yelling at each other for comic relief(? their interactions are not really funny).
McGavin chews up scenery but overall it is a lesser offering than the first movie.

I also watched several episodes of the series, and they also suffer from the interactions between Kolchak and his boss (now in Chicago after getting chased out of Seattle). These guys don't work well together so their continued partnerships make no sense. But there are some good stories, and The X-Files connection is very obvious in the monster-of-the-week style episodes.

A 5.5 to 6 outta 10 range from me for The Night Strangler movie, with the Kolchak: The Night Stalker series getting a slightly better 6 to 6.5 outta 10 range based on the episodes I have seen. Neither are as good as the first movie but still recommendable for fans of The X-Files, or '70s era kinda cheesy TV.

 

[FaCe-LeE-uS]

 

[returnofjakedog]

The Changling (1980)-


George C. Scott watches his daughter and wife get killed in a horrible traffic accident. He tries to restart by taking a job in Seattle as a music professor/composer where he moves into an old mansion. Strange stuff starts happening and he begins investigating the situation. This leads to a powerful family getting involved as the paranormal phenomenon ramps up.

A well-done, but rather nondescript ghost story. It doesn't really offer much that even 1980s audiences hadn't seen before. But everything is solid. Professionally shot, directed, and acted out with a decent storyline. George C. Scott is the highlight as he chews up scenery throughout the runtime.

I'll go 6 to 6.5 outta 10 range for me. It seems like an 80s predecessor to the Mike Flanagan's multiple haunted house miniseries.

 

[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.

Continuing down the Italian giallo rabbithole with the other 2 movies from Fulci's Gates of Hell triology:

City of the Living Dead (1980)-

A small group fights to prevent a damned priest who hung himself from opening the gates of hell.

I won't go into a ton of details here but much of my comments from the attached The Beyond review also apply here, for both good and bad: the look, the feel, the ambience, the acting, the partial dubbing.

Another fine example of the subgenre with lots of graphic gore and weirdness! Again, I think I appreciate Argento's use of brilliant colors and cinematography a bit more than Fulci, but his (Fulci's) films have plenty of good stuff, mostly the creepy feel of being in a waking nightmare, and some awesome gore fxs. Guts are vomited, multiple skulls are ripped open, eyes shed bloody tears, etc. All good stuff!
The negatives would be the crazy guy seducing a blow up doll, and an ending that made no sense at all (possibly due to time and money constraints around a necessary reshoot? There doesn't seem to be a consensus on why it was done in that matter).

7 to 7.5 range outta 10 from me. Almost as good The Beyond but a couple of the mentiones negatives put it just behind imo.


The House by the Cemetery (1981)-


A professor and his family move into a house (by a cemetery of course) with a sorid history. Decades ago a crazed doctor had performed grusome experiments there, and eventually he killed his family. Weird stuff happens, people start dying in nasty ways.

Much like The Beyond and The City of the Living Dead, this one has all of the same good and bad hallmarks: creepy ambience, lots of graphic gore, confusing storyline, questionable acting and dubbing, early '80s Italian cinema feel and look. But of the 3 I found this one to be slightly less memorable. The story isn't as interesting, but the biggest detriment is the focus on the annoying child actor playing Bob. I generally kept hoping that they'd kill him off, but alas.....

6 to 6.5 outta 10 range from me. The weakest of the trilogy but still decent.

A couple of notes:
*The same actress plays the lead female in all 3 movies!
*If you decide to watch these, the order is completely irrelevant. The stories all share the same common theme (gates to hell) but have no other connection. Watching them as stand alones works fine because of this.

 

[returnofjakedog]

Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983)-

So I've seen this one many years ago somewhere, but I didn't recall that it was a Disney horror movie!

A carnival run by the imposing Mr Dark comes to a small town. Two boys see the locals making deals with Mr Dark for their deepest desires, and some bizarre fxs with a merry-go-round. But magically getting their wishes granted comes with a price, and the boys have to fight to escape!

This one is a bit hard to review. A large mix of good and bad. It follows the book very closely, actually using quite a bit of the dialogue verbatim, but they also try to condense it down too much, and it losses its soul a bit. Jonathan Pryce and Jason Robards put in good, solid performances but the 2 kids are annoying. Good fxs but poor pacing. Etc. Etc.

A well done movie with high points but also issues.

The 2 boys- in the book the characters are turning 14, but they seem like 11 year olds here, and they sap them up a lìttle, Disney-style. Casting better young actors and actually develop the characters instead of playing into the formula would have helped.
I can't really blame the directors or writers or anyone specifically because the Disney leaders saw the first cut of the movie and rejected it reportably for being too dark. They then fired the lead editor, and ordered 6 months of reshots at the cost of $5 million on top of the original $15 million budget (thats quite a bit for '82-'83)! That was followed with a re-editing and re-scoring.

I'll give it a 5.5 outta 10.
This is a case of Disney shooting themselves in the foot. They wanted a more adult film to expand their audience but then sanitized the flick at times. There is still good stuff in here and and the story itself is great but the execution was up and down.

 

[Chef99]

Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983)-

So I've seen this one many years ago somewhere, but I didn't recall that it was a Disney horror movie!

A carnival run by the imposing Mr Dark comes to a small town. Two boys see the locals making deals with Mr Dark for their deepest desires, and some bizarre fxs with a merry-go-round. But magically getting their wishes granted comes with a price, and the boys have to fight to escape!

This one is a bit hard to review. A large mix of good and bad. It follows the book very closely, actually using quite a bit of the dialogue verbatim, but they also try to condense it down too much, and it losses its soul a bit. Jonathan Pryce and Jason Robards put in good, solid performances but the 2 kids are annoying. Good fxs but poor pacing. Etc. Etc.

A well done movie with high points but also issues.

The 2 boys- in the book the characters are turning 14, but they seem like 11 year olds here, and they sap them up a lìttle, Disney-style. Casting better young actors and actually develop the characters instead of playing into the formula would have helped.
I can't really blame the directors or writers or anyone specifically because the Disney leaders saw the first cut of the movie and rejected it reportably for being too dark. They then fired the lead editor, and ordered 6 months of reshots at the cost of $5 million on top of the original $15 million budget (thats quite a bit for '82-'83)! That was followed with a re-editing and re-scoring.

I'll give it a 5.5 outta 10.
This is a case of Disney shooting themselves in the foot. They wanted a more adult film to expand their audience but then sanitized the flick at times. There is still good stuff in here and and the story itself is great but the execution was up and down.

Man, I haven't seen this in a LONG time. I remember thinking Jason Robards was great.

 

[returnofjakedog]

Man, I haven't seen this in a LONG time. I remember thinking Jason Robards was great.

Yeah. He was one of the highlights, as was Johnathan Pryce.

Its too bad that Disney had to meddle in it. I'd really like to see the original cut.

 

[Blackshirts BLVD]

Since I reviewed Fright Night 2, which has Brian Thompson in it as the bug eating Bozworth, I thought I'd recount the funny story about the time I met the actor.
View attachment 286153
For those who are not familiar, Brian Thompson is a character actor who usually plays baddies in roles such as the Night Stalker in Cobra with Stallone, or the Alien Assassin in The X-Files. He has been in many, many films and tv roles.

Anyways, sometime in the mid-late 90s I was in Longview, Wa. visiting my good buddy Ed.
As per routine on these visits, we hit a few bars and Ed was getting pretty drunk.
We walked into one bar and Ed grabs me and points at a guy sitting alone at the end of the bar and says "Hey, its the guy who played Hercules in that miniseries!" and I recognize that it is Brian Thompson!
Ed wants to go talk to him, but he doesn't look like he wants company so I convince Ed to drink in a booth at the other end of the bar.
As we sit there having a drink, the rather inebriated Ed periodically says stuff like "We should go kick his ass! Then we'll be the guys who beat up Hercules!" or "He doesn't look so tough. We should kick his ass!" while pounding his mug on the table, which is all very baffling to me because Ed never, ever gets into fights, let alone starts them (he's just too nice of a guy for that behavior).
But as time goes on this continues. Ed keeps on bringing up that he wants to kick Hercules' ass, and I keep trying to ignore it or talk him down from his craziness. After a bit, Ed is getting more and more riled up and his behavior seems to be escalating.
Finally, Ed stands up and loudly says "I'm gonna go kick his ass!" and starts walking towards him. I reach out and grab his arm but he shrugs me off and continues. I head out of my side of the booth but am too late to stop Ed, so I am weighing the options of also going there, or heading out the door before a brawl erupts and I get arrested.
Ed approaches Brian Thompson from the side and aggressively grabs him by his shoulder while loudly saying something along the lines of "Are you ready for an ass kicking Hercules?"
At this point I am in full on "Holy Shit!" mode as I wait for the rednecks at the pool table to join into a fray.
Brian Thompson stands up, turns towards us and says "Hey Ed! How are you, man?" and gives him a big hug as I stand there with a look of shock on my face!

It turns out that Ed is good friends with Brian's little brother! Lol!

(I thought I told this here before but I don't find it in a search so that must have been on another site?)

When I was younger, I used to get him confused with Harry Connick Jr

Looking back, I am not sure why lol.

But yeah, thinking back to my childhood, I feel like Brian Thompson was in everything I watched. Not a real impressive actor by any means, but he definitely had screen presence.

 

[Blackshirts BLVD]

Going to see the new Scream tomorrow. Hoping it doesn't disappoint, but not expecting it to be as good as the original.

 

[returnofjakedog]

When I was younger, I used to get him confused with Harry Connick Jr

Looking back, I am not sure why lol.

But yeah, thinking back to my childhood, I feel like Brian Thompson was in everything I watched. Not a real impressive actor by any means, but he definitely had screen presence.

Surprisingly, he actually has a Masters in Fine Arts from Cal-Berkley and was a touring Shakespearian actor before becoming a B-movie staple. He claims his stature and look type cast him as physical bad guys.

Regardless, he was a good guy to have a brew with!

 

[Chef99]

Going to see the new Scream tomorrow. Hoping it doesn't disappoint, but not expecting it to be as good as the original.

No true horror/slasher movie fan cannot see this. Let us all know what ya thought.

 

[returnofjakedog]

Trick or Treat (1986)-

Not to be confused with @FaCe-LeE-uS fav from 2007, but the teenage metal horror '80s flick starring Skippy from Family Ties!

Eddie is a walking '80s high school metal sterotype who often gets beaten up by the jock cliq. After his metal hero Sammi Curr dies in a fire, a local DJ friend gives Eddie a rare copy of Sammi's last record. Eddie plays it backwards and releases demon Sammi who starts killing the jocks and eventually makes a prom appearance to start killing folks. Eddie desperately tries to reverse the curse as Sammi wrecks havoc on the locals.

An interesting story, but the execution is spotty. Sammi Curr is a good antagonist but almost everyone else is kinda "meh". Some decent fxs.
*Cool cameos from Gene Simmons as the local dj, and Ozzy is pretty funny as a ranting anti-rock preacher.
*The band Fastway provides the soundtrack music but, sadly, their tunes aren't great. I am underwhelmed by a band that centered around Fast Eddie Clark from Motorhead, and Pete Way from UFO. The sum is less than the parts.

Perhaps the most interesting part of this films legacy is that Glenn Morgan plays Skippy-Eddie's geeky buddy in his only acting role, and both Glen and James Wong were writers on the script. They went on to write/direct/produce the likes of The X-Files episodes, Final Destination, Willard, Black Christmas, American Horror Story etc, etc, and in recent years have been associated with Jordan Peele's production company.

A 5.5 outta 10 from me. The bad guy Sammi Curr is probably the highlight but his screen time is limited. Everything else is generally just ok.