October Horrorshow: Color Out of Space

Filmmaker Richard Stanley has had something of a checkered career. His first feature, Hardware, which he wrote and directed, was a success, but he was successfully sued for plagiarism, the story having too many similarities to a strip published in a Judge Dredd annual. Then, a few years later, Stanley was fired as the director of the doomed Island of Dr. Moreau adaptation less than a week into filming (firing him was never going to save that mess of a film, honestly). That was in 1995. It would be more than two decades before Stanley sat in the director’s chair for a feature film again, and it was for 2019’s Color Out of Space, an adaptation of the short story by H.P. Lovecraft. But, the trials and tribulations don’t end there. Continue readingOctober Horrorshow: Color Out of Space”

Attack of the Franchise Sequels: Hellraiser VI: Hellseeker

Hellraiser V: Inferno, the neo-noir psychological horror script turned into an ersatz direct-to-video Hellraiser flick, must have been a success for Miramax and Dimension Films, because they chose to squeeze blood from a stone once more.

Written as a standalone film by Carl V. Dupré and Tim Day, some light rewrites were done to shove in Hellraiser staple bad guy Pinhead (Doug Bradley) and original series heroine Kirsty (Ashley Laurence). Then the package was handed off to Rick Bota to direct. Continue readingAttack of the Franchise Sequels: Hellraiser VI: Hellseeker”

October Horrorshow: Hell Night

I wasn’t expecting much out of Hell Night. At first glance, it appears to be just another anonymous 1980s slasher flick, featuring a star who had lost her grip on A-list roles years earlier. On top of that, whatever old print had been transferred to digital had not been cared for, with many scenes featuring vertical scratch lines. This film has seen a partial restoration from Scream Factory, released on Blu-Ray, so someone thought this flick was worth preserving for the future. And they were right. Hell Night is low rent and clichéd, but it is also a good horror film. Continue readingOctober Horrorshow: Hell Night”

October Horrorshow: Hellraiser V: Inferno

Hellraiser: Inferno movie posterAfter a four-year layoff, Bob and Harvey Weinstein wanted another Hellraiser flick. They also didn’t want to pay a lot of money for it, so they optioned a direct-to-video film. That meant no big stars, no big budget, and a script that was clearly written as a different film and reworked to insert iconic Hellraiser bad guy Pinhead (Doug Bradley) into some scenes.

From 2000, Hellraiser V: Inferno was directed by Scott Derrickson, from a screenplay by Derrickson and Paul Harris Boardman. Craig Sheffer stars as police detective Joseph Thorne. He’s the protagonist of this film, but he’s not that good of a guy, which he admits in the film’s narration. He has a wife and kid at home, but rather than spend his off hours with them, he can be found trolling the streets of Denver, shaking down dealers for cocaine and paying for hookers with money stolen from the wallets of murder victims.

All of this catches up with Thorne when he’s assigned to a bizarre murder case wherein the victim was engaging in an occult ritual of some kind. Veterans of the Hellraiser franchise will know where this is going. One of the accoutrements of the ritual was, of course, the Lament Configuration, the puzzle box featured in the film series that summons demons to our plane of existence. Continue readingOctober Horrorshow: Hellraiser V: Inferno”

October Horrorshow: Sniper Corpse, aka Corpse Sniper

Sniper Corpse or Corpse Sniper…whatever this thing is called, thank goodness for the bottom feeding filmmakers that will let nothing, from lack of a good screenplay, lack of talented actors, lack of a budget, and lack of storytelling skill, keep them from making their movie. The art of film is being preserved by these creators that love movies, that see what makes the big screen, good and bad, and think to themselves, “I can do that. How hard could it be?”

From writer, director, and producer Keith R. Robinson, Sniper Corpse tells the story of Diane Keeley (Eleri Jones), an English war widow whose husband was killed in action a couple of years previously. Things got snafued, as they are wont to do in the military, and the British Army lost her husband’s corpse. It turns out they’ve lost a number of corpses of late, and Diane takes it upon herself to find out what’s going on. Continue readingOctober Horrorshow: Sniper Corpse, aka Corpse Sniper”

Attack of the Franchise Sequels: Hellraiser IV: Bloodline

It’s Hellraiser…in SPAAAAACE!. Sort of. Unlike the other franchises that have sent their killer antagonists into the future, Hellraiser IV: Bloodline, the 1996 entry in the Hellraiser series, only takes place partially out in the black. Most of the film takes place either in 18th century France, or contemporary New York City. It would be disappointing, as I was looking forward to watching Hellraiser turn into an Alien ripoff, but this is one ambitious shitty movie, so not all was lost.

Bloodline had a checkered path to the silver screen. There were many creative disputes, crew dismissals, and general miserableness. To add to the troubles, after the film was delivered to Miramax, reshoots were demanded, and the film’s director, Kevin Yagher, quit. When the film was finally released, Yagher didn’t want his name on it, so the film’s credited director is Alan Smithee, that wonderful DGA pseudonym for directors who went out for a pack of cigarettes and never came home. Continue readingAttack of the Franchise Sequels: Hellraiser IV: Bloodline”

October Horrorshow: Willy’s Wonderland

Nicolas Cage is, without reservation or reflection, my favorite living actor. His days of high-brow or blockbuster Hollywood cinema are over, and this seems to be his intention. Well before he aged out of A-list roles he embraced the absurd, the strange, and the underfunded. Best of all, he always gives his all in every role he’s in. Sometimes that doesn’t work, but rarely have I ever enjoyed such consistent overacting. He’s a treasure.

This year saw the release of Willy’s Wonderland, which fits in well with Cage’s embrace of the outlandish. According to the internet, so it must be true, Cage was so enamored with the script that he chose to be one of the film’s producers, so he could have authority to prevent the story from being changed too much. As for that story… Continue readingOctober Horrorshow: Willy’s Wonderland”

October Horrorshow: Night of the Demons (1988)

Night of the Demons, the 1988 film from writer/producer Joe Augustyn and director Kevin Tenney, is exactly the kind of sleazy, low-budget horror flick that I expect from the 1980s. It’s not a perfect shitty horror flick, but there are numerous reasons this not-very-good movie is regarded fondly by fans of horror.

The story follows a group of teens who attend a small Halloween costume party at an abandoned funeral home, rather than hit up the lame high school dance. The host of the party is Angela (Amelia Kinkade), a student at the school who is low on the totem pole, but promises a wild night. Her idea is to have a bunch of supernatural party games to titillate and frighten the invitees. Continue readingOctober Horrorshow: Night of the Demons (1988)”

Attack of the Franchise Sequels: Critters 2

What month of horror franchise reviews would be complete without visiting the redheaded stepchild of 1980s horror franchises? The first Critters film was released to widespread yawns and accusations of thievery from Gremlins, but I maintain that this series of films is an indelible part of the experience of 1980s horror. All of these films are cheap, bloody, nicely tongue-in-cheek, shitty, and more entertaining than they should be.

Coming to audiences in 1988, Critters 2 picks up two years after the events of Critters, and assumes, quite fancifully, that one has seen the first film. Continue readingAttack of the Franchise Sequels: Critters 2″

October Horrorshow: The Green Inferno (2013)

Eli Roth isn’t just a filmmaker. He’s a student of film, with a well-known passion for horror films — Italian horror in particular. One of his favorites happens to be Cannibal Holocaust, which is amongst the most difficult of films to sit through, with its depictions of cannibalism and real animal slaughter. Of course it would only be a matter of time before Roth, the director of two supremely gory and unsettling Hostel movies, would turn his twisted eye to subject matter like that, sans killing animals.

From 2013, and written by Roth and Guillermo Amoedo, The Green Inferno (the title is a nod to Cannibal Holocaust, as ‘The Green Inferno’ was the title of the film-within-a-film that characters were shooting) follows a group of student protesters who travel to the Peruvian jungle to stop a gas company from bulldozing the village of an isolated tribe. As the protesters are heading home, their small plane crashes shortly after takeoff, and the survivors find themselves prisoners of the very tribe they were trying to save. If one has not guessed it by now, the tribe are headhunting cannibals, and waste no time preparing dinner in grisly fashion. Continue readingOctober Horrorshow: The Green Inferno (2013)”