Ghost Flick – Missile Test

House (1977)

The Japanese are the undisputed kings of weird. I’ve seen thousands of movies from scores of countries, and it is Japanese flicks that are the most consistently bizarre. The Japanese have a reputation as being a staid and conservative people, but when it comes to their art, they have outlets for their inner weird, and they take advantage of it.

From way back in 1977 comes House, a movie that does its best to defy description, but I’m going to give it a try. Picture a stage set fever dream with painted backdrops, bright colors, the aesthetic sensibility of a TV show made for toddlers, scenes reminiscent of NES-era Final Fantasy cutscenes, with music that sounds made for both hippies and long elevator rides. If that picture doesn’t resolve clearly in one’s head, that’s okay, no description of this film will. Take these lines from my notes: Continue reading “House (1977)”

A Chinese Ghost Story

A Chinese Ghost Story, from Hong Kong actor, stuntman, and filmmaker Siu-Ting Ching (screenplay by Songling Pu and Kai-Chi Yuen), is, according to the internet, a xianxia film. Xianxia are ‘closely related to the wuxia and shenmo genres.’ There is some cultural illiteracy here, on my part, but those strange new terms basically mean ‘based within Chinese mythology.’ Now we’re getting somewhere. If one has seen a Hong Kong martial arts flick that takes place before the emergence of modern China, one will be familiar with the look and feel of A Chinese Ghost Story. It’s a piece of fantasy, encompassing demons and the supernatural, with Hong Kong martial arts movie trickery thrown in, and comedy to keep things light.

The movie follows Leslie Cheung as Ling Choi San, a debt collector suffering from multiple slapstick maladies, who makes the mistake of spending a night in a haunted temple. There, he meets Yin Chek Ha (Wu Ma), a swordsman who retired from the civil service in disgust at the corruption, and now spends his time ridding the country of evil spirits. Yin Chek Ha is at the temple because it has recently been taken over by an evil tree demon (Siu-Ming Lau). All the inhabitants and caretakers have been killed and turned into stop motion zombies by the tree demon. It has also seized some recently deceased souls, which it uses to capture more innocent people to feed its insatiable appetite. Continue reading “A Chinese Ghost Story”

Sinister

So, what is a washed up true crime writer supposed to do when it’s been years since the last bestseller, the previous two books were poorly researched and poorly received, bills keep piling up, and the wife uses the threat of leaving and taking the kids with her as a cudgel? Well, in 2025, this would never be a problem, as this film’s protagonist, Ellison Oswalt (Ethan Hawke), would already be on season three or four of his true crime podcast. But, back in the distant days of 2012, when this film was released, Ellison would have packed up his family, moved them into a house where an appalling mass murder occurred, and tried to bang out a new career and family-saving hit. That’s the premise behind Sinister, from director Scott Derrickson, and written by Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill. Continue reading “Sinister”

Black Cab (2024)

Who doesn’t like Nick Frost? He’s a big, cuddly teddy bear. Which makes him an ideal antagonist in a horror flick like Black Cab, where Frost’s unnamed cab driver turns from being a part of society’s background, into a troubled couple’s torment.

From this past year, Black Cab comes to viewers via director Bruce Goodison, from a screenplay by David Michael Emerson. Frost and Virginia Gilbert are credited with additional dialogue.

Synnøve Karlsen plays Anne, a twenty-something urbanite who is engaged to Patrick (Luke Norris), a philandering shithead whom audiences will despise even before they pick up on the duo’s dynamic. After a dinner with another couple that runs well into the night, Anne and Patrick hail a cab and Nick Frost pulls up in his clanking, sputtering, stinking, diesel-powered UK black cab. The couple begin arguing in the car over whether or not they are still engaged, and whether or not Patrick is moving back in with Anne, when Frost mentions that he recognizes Anne from an earlier fare. He picked her up outside the maternity ward at a local hospital. Anne’s pregnancy is news to Patrick, who responds by being even more of a dick. Continue reading “Black Cab (2024)”

Night’s End

It’s tough watching a movie lose it in the final act. Whereas a film that shows little promise at the start, but then builds and builds to something special at the end, is always a pleasant surprise, a film that stumbles to the finish after a strong start can’t help but be a disappointment. Much hard work, good acting, and fine storytelling is, if not wasted by a poor ending, at least squandered somewhat. I can’t say that Jennifer Reeder and company should have just packed it all in if this was the best ending they could come up with, but I would like to see what they could have done given another chance, and maybe a couple extra bucks in the effects budget. Continue reading “Night’s End”

The Funeral Home, aka La Funeria

Have you, dear reader, ever thought about why it is a good thing that human beings are not immortal? Or, at least, that we don’t just plod along until some grievous injury does us in? From a personal perspective, the shortness of our lifespans in relation to the age of the universe is tragic, but from a cultural perspective the situation is ideal. Because all that is old becomes new again in much less time than it takes to turn over the entire human population. So, even though haunted house films have been made countless times, and have reused countless tropes and clichés, horror fans can still get a kick out of a new entry. Continue reading “The Funeral Home, aka La Funeria”

Mara

Mara movie poster Sleep paralysis is a real condition that up to half of the people on Earth suffer at least once in their lives. Wikipedia describes it as, “…a state, during waking up or falling asleep, in which a person is aware but unable to move or speak.” That’s creepy enough as it is, but sleep paralysis can also be accompanied by hallucinations, which the sufferer may interpret as supernatural. Again, from the Wikipedia article on sleep paralysis:

Sleep paralysis may include hypnagogic hallucinations, such as a supernatural creature suffocating or terrifying the individual, accompanied by a feeling of pressure on one’s chest and difficulty breathing. Another example of a hallucination involves a menacing shadowy figure entering one’s room or lurking outside one’s window, while the subject is paralyzed.

My sympathy goes out to those who have gone through this, but that is great fodder for a horror flick. I’m surprised there haven’t been more.

Mara, from 2018, is the first film from director Clive Tonge, from a screenplay by Jonathan Frank. In it, Olga Kurylenko stars as Kate, a psychiatrist working with the local police (filming was on location in Savannah, Georgia). Continue reading “Mara”

The Amityville Curse

We’ve seen a lot of franchise horror flicks here at Missile Test. We’ve seen horror franchises go from good to bad, as they are wont to do. We’ve seen creativity turn to shameless cash-grabbery, but we’ve never seen a horror franchise treated as poorly by its stewards as the Amityville franchise. Perhaps that’s because it has been through so many different hands. From George Lutz, to Samuel Z. Arkoff, to Dino De Laurentiis, to NBC, Image Organization and Vidmark, Amityville has always been in the hands of people who were just looking to make a quick buck. No thought has ever been given to continuity, and ongoing disputes with Lutz meant the word ‘Horror’ has only been in the original film’s title, and its 2005 remake. With this fifth movie the producers decided to go direct-to-video, acknowledging that there isn’t much else to offer viewers other than crap. Continue reading “The Amityville Curse”

Amityville 4: The Evil Escapes

Oh, woe is this horror franchise. First in the hands of Samuel Z. Arkoff and American International Pictures, then picked up, with a trademark dispute, by Dino De Laurentiis and his company, and now, for this fourth film, into the grasp of American network television. Has any other iconic horror franchise been treated so poorly? I can’t think of one.

Amityville 4: The Evil Escapes, from 1989, is, believe it or not, not the worst horror film I’ve ever seen. But, it’s from the time before the internet age, when network television movies were a special kind of anti-art, purposefully devoid of most sharp edges. Yes, this was the era of television movies that brought us Roots, but there was a definite ceiling to the quality of a TV movie. Film critic Leonard Maltin, in his gigantic movie guide books, would not award stars to television movies, instead rating them as ‘below average,’ ‘average,’ or ‘above average.’ That makes sense. The difference in quality between television and film in the heyday of Maltin’s books was a vast gulf compared to today. This particular television movie I would rate as average. Had it been intended for cinema, I would rate it a ‘bomb.’ Continue reading “Amityville 4: The Evil Escapes”

Amityville 3-D

3-D! About every generation or so 3-D makes a rousing return to cinema, but never seems to rise above gimmickry. Then, after a few years it recedes back into the mists, waiting to appear again, after the moviegoing public forgets how annoying it is to wear those damn glasses. The second wave of 3-D movies came to audiences in the early 1980s, when this film is from, and, like the first wave in the 1950s, the ’80s saw the technique’s most prominent use in horror films.

It’s no surprise that horror is the genre that would give something like 3-D a spin. After all, horror films are the descendants of carnival fun houses, where showmen would use every trick in the book to put a scare into the rubes. It’s also a perfect fit for a genre that features deadly weapons, severed limbs, and spurts of blood all flying about the screen. Anything that brings the action closer to the viewer is a good thing, right? Right?! Continue reading “Amityville 3-D”