I wouldn’t say that horror cinema was in the doldrums around the turn of the century. There was a strong direct-to-video market, independent movie makers were still churning out flicks shot on VHS, and there had been a revival of the teen slasher flick in theaters. But, there was a hangover from the golden age that was the 1980s. It felt like everything that could be achieved in the genre had now been done. There was nowhere left to go with gore, monsters, killers, ghosts, scares, etc. Horror had been stripmined and there were only a few original ideas on the horizon (not true, fortunately). Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Jeepers Creepers, featuring the Dumbest Decision By a Character in Horror History”
October Horrorshow: Cannibal Campout
Here it is! The first shot-on-video horror flick of this year’s Horrorshow. And it’s a good one…relatively speaking.
From way back in 1988 comes Cannibal Campout, from directors Tom Fisher and Jon McBride, working from a screenplay by McBride. No misdirection in the title with this flick. There is a campout, and there are cannibals.
The woods of New Jersey are the setting, as they are in many a horror flick. Four college students, Jon (McBride, who also produced and edited), Carrie (Carrie Lindell), Chris (Christopher A. Granger, who also handled sound, music, and was a camera assistant), and Amy (Amy Chludzinski) head off into the wilderness of New Jersey for a weekend away from the rigors of college life. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Cannibal Campout”
October Horrorshow: Bigfoot Vs. Zombies
Mark Polonia has been in the cheap movie game since the mid-1980s. Ultra low budget horror and sci-fi is an indelible part of his identity as a filmmaker. For almost forty years (previously with his twin brother, John — rest in peace), he has cranked out movie after movie, some garnering praise above and beyond expectations, while some are gutter trash. But, they are fun gutter trash. As of this writing, he has directed twenty-seven movies in this decade alone, and a whopping seven of them have IMDb ratings below 2.0. That’s not easy to do.
Mark Polonia reminds me of a fellow student at the School of Visual Arts, way back in my haughty fine arts days. He was a slightly below average artist, for what one gets at a place like SVA, but I felt that most of his issues could be solved by slowing down a bit. He was in such a rush to push out all these visual ideas he had bouncing around in his head that he never took the time to step back and refine what he was putting down on canvas. Just taking an extra day or two to stare at and think on a piece would have done wonders for its quality, I thought. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Bigfoot Vs. Zombies”
October Horrorshow: Gargoyles
According to Gargoyles, a TV movie first broadcast on CBS in 1972, the stone gargoyles that grace gothic cathedrals and other structures are artistic interpretations of real beings — soldiers of Satan who appear every 600 years and attempt to take over the world for their evil master. Wouldn’t you know it, the gargoyles are due to appear in New Mexico in 1972, and it’s up to a college professor and his daughter to stop them.
Dr. Mercer Boley (Cornel Wilde) is a successful demonologist. Not in any occult or supernatural sense. Rather, he writes anthropological books on the origins of demonic myths throughout the world. His studies take him to Devil’s Crossing, New Mexico (location work was done in and around the area of Carlsbad Caverns). He’s joined by his daughter, Diana (Jennifer Salt), who enjoys traveling all over the world with him. Their first stop is a lonely roadside attraction run by Uncle Willie (Woodrow Chambliss), who looks like he hasn’t been around a living person in years. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Gargoyles”
October Horrorshow: The Gingerdead Man
It’s hard to fault the pitch behind The Gingerdead Man. Gary Busey plays Millard Findlemeyer, a mass murderer who, after testimony from a survivor of his attack, Sarah Leigh (Robin Sydney), is executed. His mother, a witch, claims his ashes afterwards, and mixes them into some gingerbread spice, which she then delivers in secret to the bakery owned and operated by Sarah. Some blood is inadvertently added to the mix, and when a dough is made and baked into the shape of a gingerbread man, Findlemeyer’s soul comes back to life, possesses the cookie, and goes on a murderous rampage of revenge. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: The Gingerdead Man”
October Horrorshow: Shadowzone
Charles Band and Full Moon have been major contributors to the world of b-cinema for decades. Reliable, sometimes repugnant, sometimes transcendent — a viewer will know before the opening credits are over that there will be at least one outrageous moment in a Full Moon flick, even if there is a fair amount of crap to wade through. Shadowzone, from 1990, is about as prototypical as a Full Moon movie gets. It doesn’t come close to blowing a viewer away like the uncensored version of Castle Freak, but it has none of the mind numbing crassness of an Evil Bong flick. It’s a simple, cheap horror flick, and it rips off Alien. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Shadowzone”
October Horrorshow: Lockdown Tower, aka La tour
Horror films are more than just about fear. They run the gamut of distressing emotions. Besides fear there is its more frantic cousin, panic. There is also disgust, grief, loneliness, and, of course, dread. Going beyond fear into these other realms of negative emotional experience can do a lot to rob the fun from a horror flick, but they also introduce realism and honesty into stories that, otherwise, have little more depth than a carnival funhouse. Today’s film dips far into a reservoir of hopelessness, so much so that the experience will linger in a viewer’s mind after the credits roll. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Lockdown Tower, aka La tour”
October Horrorshow: The Beast Within
In 1964, newlyweds from Jackson, Mississippi, Eli and Caroline MacCleary (Ronny Cox and Bibi Besch), are traveling through lonely Nioba County on a dark night during their honeymoon. A flat tire leaves their car beached on the side of the road, and Eli has to walk to a gas station to get a tow. Caroline stays behind, with no more than a locked car door and a dog to protect her. Out of the woods lumbers a humanoid monster that kills the dog and attacks Caroline. While she lays unconscious in the mud and dead leaves, the monster rapes her, and wanders off again before Eli and the tow truck driver return. They discover her, bruised and battered, carry her to the truck, and drive off in search of aid. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: The Beast Within”
October Horrorshow: When Evil Lurks, aka Cuando acecha la maldad
From writer/director Demián Rugna comes When Evil Lurks, a kind of dystopian tale, wherein the suffocating threat to humanity is not its own devices, but rather demonic possession.
One night, brothers Pedro and Jimi (Ezequiel Rodríguez and Demián Salomón), hear gunshots in the woods near the family farm in rural Argentina. When they investigate the next morning, they find the mutilated remains of a ‘cleaner,’ a person employed by the government to carry out occult executions of ‘rottens,’ or individuals possessed by demons.
Rottens are an ever-present problem in this film’s universe. Apparently, the charlatanism of organized religion was finally too much for the lord, and churches lost their power to battle evil. Now possession is something of an infectious disease that can spread through a community. The cleaner that Pedro and Jimi found in the woods was on the way to kill a rotten in a neighboring farm. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: When Evil Lurks, aka Cuando acecha la maldad”
No Context Comics: Trembled With a Scientific Fervor
