Despite having seen countless horror films, it’s still rare that I come across something vile. Well, maybe not all that rare. After all, Castle Freak is one of the films that made the cut for this year’s Horrorshow. Anyway! Just because a horror flick features vileness as a core element, does not mean that it is a bad flick. The rest of the film can speak to that. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: The Suckling, aka Sewage Baby”
Tag: Bloody Flick
October Horrorshow: The Prowler, aka Rosemary’s Killer
Tom Savini is a horror legend. He’s every bit as important to the history of the genre as some of its greatest auteurs. Without Savini, George Romero’s 1970s and ’80s horror work wouldn’t have the same punch. It was Savini’s expertise that allowed Joe Pilato’s torso to be pulled to pieces in Day of the Dead, and Don Keefer to be dragged into a crate and mutilated by a Tasmanian devil in Creepshow. Savini is an artist in the medium of fake blood. And while his work elevated good horror movies, it also made obscure horror flicks, like Maniac, worth watching for the effects alone. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: The Prowler, aka Rosemary’s Killer”
Giant Monstershow: Q — The Winged Serpent
Larry Cohen has had prolific involvement in cheap horror throughout his career. His credits include the screenplay for Maniac Cop and writing and directing credits for both The Stuff and It’s Alive. He was one of the directors featured in the anthology television series Masters of Horror. He also flew by the seat of his pants when it came to making movies. According to the internet, so it must be true, Cohen was fired from his job directing the Mike Hammer flick, I, the Jury, after one week of shooting because of cost overruns. Instead of sulking about losing the gig, Cohen put together a shooting script and a production for a new movie in six days. That movie, lord help us, was Q — The Winged Serpent. Continue reading “Giant Monstershow: Q — The Winged Serpent”
October Horrorshow: The Cured
Should a filmmaker decide to make a zombie flick these days, they will have to contend with oversaturation and viewer weariness. The 21st century has been awash with zombie flicks. And should film not sate one’s desires to see the undead tear apart human flesh, there is the media juggernaut that is The Walking Dead, still lumbering along after fifteen years. That franchise has done more to make people tired of zombies than anything else. The degree of difficulty for a filmmaker to make something interesting in the zombie subgenre of horror, then, is very high. There are basically two options. One: come up with a new idea that shakes up the unwritten rules of zombies. Two: go conventional, but do it well. Both of those are easier said than done. The Cured, the 2017 zombie flick from writer/director David Freyne, tries to do a combination of both. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: The Cured”
October Horrorshow: Blood Feast
Herschell Gordon Lewis was a trash filmmaker. None of his films was ever an attempt at producing art, or even quality. A Chicago ad man by trade, Lewis got into filmmaking as a way to make a quick buck. His films exploited gaps in the market to bring in high returns on a small investment. When enforcement of the Hays Code began to slacken at the start of the 1960s, Lewis filmed cheap nudie-cuties that only had the barest threads of competent filmmaking. When returns on those flicks were hurt by nudity moving into mainstream films, Lewis turned to horror. Like the good marketer he was, he found an opening in horror flicks he could exploit. That opening was gore.
Blood Feast, directed by Lewis from a screenplay credited to his wife (he wrote it), is a no good, very bad, awful film. The plot is garbage, the dialogue is laughable, and there wasn’t anyone in the movie who could act worth a lick. Main characters alternately stumbled through their lines or said them like robots. At least one cast member, June 1963 Playmate of the Month Connie Mason, didn’t bother to learn her lines. Not that it really mattered. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Blood Feast”
October Horrorshow: A Dark Song
Horror films work quite well when they embrace spectacle. Over-the-top gore and special effects are a hallmark of the genre. But splattering blood all over isn’t the only way to make a horror flick. Sometimes a filmmaker goes for the soul underneath the flesh, and makes something disturbing.
A Dark Song is the feature film debut from writer/director Liam Gavin. From 2016, the film tells the story of two people carrying out occult rites in an isolated house in Wales in order to contact a guardian angel. This is no lightweight ritual, either. As occult expert Joseph Solomon (Steve Oram) explains to the woman who hired him to carry out the ritual, Sophia (Catherine Walker), it will be months before they know if it’s working. During that time, the two will not be able to leave the house, nor will they have any contact with the outside world. Nor could they, as there isn’t any power in the house. Or heat. Did I mention this house is in Wales? Because one would not want to live in an unheated house in Wales. All of this makes the stakes quite a bit higher than something one would see in an old Hammer flick. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: A Dark Song”
Giant Monstershow: The Food of the Gods
This is an important day for the October Horrorshow Giant Monstershow. The featured auteur of this month of reviews has returned. For the seventh time this month, a review features a film by Bert I. Gordon. Yes, a filmmaker that showed mastery at failing to master the art of filmmaking is back. Today’s film, from 1976, also shows that although more than twenty years had passed since Gordon’s first movie, he stayed true to his unique abilities as a filmmaker. Continue reading “Giant Monstershow: The Food of the Gods”
October Horrorshow: Humanoids from the Deep, aka Monster
A viewer won’t find his name in the credits, but Humanoids from the Deep, an exploitative schlockfest from 1980, was produced by Roger Corman. He didn’t direct it and he didn’t write it, either. Barbara Peeters did the directing (with reshoots handled by an uncredited Jimmy T. Murakami), and Frederick James did the writing. But Corman’s hand is all over this film. It fits his demands at the time that cheap horror should be bloody, and feature some rape. Bloody is fine. Bloody is fun. Rape is really only useful in a horror flick if the mood a filmmaker is going for is revulsion. In a stupid monster flick, it’s overkill. Still, it doesn’t ruin too much of the fun of this putrid mess. Other stuff is responsible for that.
Humanoids from the Deep tells of the plight of the residents of a small fishing town in Northern California. The catch has been declining, but a fish cannery, called, I shit you not, Canco, is set to open a cannery in town, and also use shady science to increase the size of stock in the local fisheries.
Doug McClure plays the film’s hero, Jim Hill. He’s a local fisherman, along with Vic Morrow as gruff and bigoted Hank Slattery, and Anthony Pena as native fisherman Johnny Eagle. Before folks in this film know there are monsters lurking around, Hank and Johnny are at personal war with each other over the cannery, and their respective cultures. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Humanoids from the Deep, aka Monster”
October Horrorshow: Black Christmas
Filmmaker Bob Clark had an interesting career. He started out in horror, as so many others have, but then launched the mostly forgotten Porky’s comedy franchise. His legacy now lives on most memorably at Christmas time, when one of the Turner cable channels shows A Christmas Story, which he directed and helped write, for 24 straight hours. As it turns out, A Christmas Story is not Bob Clark’s first foray into holiday-themed filmmaking. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Black Christmas”
October Horrorshow: Villmark 2, aka Villmark Asylum
Villmark 2 is a little bit Session 9, and a little bit Texas Chainsaw Massacre. From Norway comes director Pål Øle’s follow-up to his 2003 film, Villmark, also released under the title Dark Woods. Having not seen the first film, I can’t say how closely this film tracks what came before, but the first film was about a reality TV show in the woods, and this film is about a cleanup crew inside an abandoned asylum. The two films appear related in name only. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Villmark 2, aka Villmark Asylum”