Creep (the 2004 horror flick from the UK, not the 2014 film) will probably take the crown as the most disgusting film of this year’s Horrorshow. And it’s not because there’s an impressive amount of blood and gore. There is some blood and gore to be had, but it’s not all that much for a film like this. Most of what could comprise gore shots happens just off frame. What makes Creep so disgusting, what had me gagging once or twice, are its setting and filming locations. Creep takes place almost entirely in the London Underground and in the city’s sewers, and there was a lot of location work. Nasty. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Creep (2004)”
Tag: Slasher Flick
October Horrorshow: Derelict
The abandoned South Fremantle Power Station outside of Perth, Western Australia, makes the old urbexer in me salivate. It’s a beautiful location on the outside, although inside it’s hollowed out and covered in sloppy graffiti. It was locations like this that made me get into urbex in the first place. The industrial giants of the past are true brick and stone monuments to the 20th century, and have since been subject to the ruthless cost-cutting of capitalism. It’s a set of architectural styles that will likely never appear again, as buildings and materials keep getting cheaper. Indeed, South Fremantle Power Station was closed in the 1980s, yet there it is, still standing, decades after all maintenance ceased. They built the place thirty years tougher than it needed to be, and counting.
Anyway, the South Fremantle Power Station provides the only location for the horror film Derelict, from 2017. Brothers Christian and James Broadhurst directed, from a screenplay penned by Christian. The film stars the other Broadhurst, James, along with Christopher Sansoni and Tristan Balz, as urban explorers Rowan, Andre, and Michael. Andre is the only one of the three who has any real experience with urbex, and he takes it very seriously, while Michael is portrayed as an annoying rookie, and Rowan as a mindless vandal. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Derelict”
October Horrorshow: Jack Frost (1997)
If a film has a decent poster, or even a passable poster, I will include it in a review. Hell, I’ve even gone lower than that, including many posters in reviews that are part of the orange/blue curse that has been infecting film worldwide for decades. How about when a poster is downright deceptive? Yes, if I think it’s cool. But, when a poster is deceptive, and what’s shown is worse than what it’s covering up for in the actual movie? No thanks. I don’t deal in that kind of propaganda. So, no film poster in this review. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Jack Frost (1997)”
October Horrorshow: Pieces
At first glance, Pieces, the 1982 slasher flick from shitty auteur Juan Piquer Simón, is just like every other bottom-feeding Italian film that flooded the American market in the 1980s. Except for one thing. Pieces is not an Italian flick. It’s from Spain. All the hallmarks of a Lucio Fulci or Enzo G. Castellari film are present. The cast is from all over the map. Many read their lines in their native tongue, everyone was dubbed in post, and there was a cavalier attitude towards making sure if any of it synced. The production is low rent, but there’s lots of blood, and it’s so bright one could use it to see by night. And, while it takes place in the United States, it was very clearly filmed in Europe. So, just why does this film have the appearance of cheap Italian cinema of the day? Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Pieces”
October Horrorshow: The Slumber Party Massacre
One part sleaze and one part slasher flick (which probably makes it all sleaze, now that I think about it), The Slumber Party Massacre works hard to tick every box when it comes to 1980s horror. Teenagers, an enraged killer, blood, etc. Instead of filling empty spots with plot, director Amy Holden Jones went with gratuitous nudity. The teenaged boy still lurking in me was thrilled. The mature, objective reviewer in me was also thrilled. When in Rome…
Released in 1982, The Slumber Party Massacre tells everything a viewer needs to know about the plot in its title. There is a slumber party, and a killer looking to massacre everyone at it. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: The Slumber Party Massacre”
October Horrorshow: Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday
There’s a whole lot of plot in this shitty movie. Friday the 13th was a franchise tottering along towards its demise by the time Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday was released in 1993. The producers must have thought that expanding the lore around Jason Vorhees would make up for older plot ideas that had gone stale. It was the wrong way to go.
Directed by Adam Marcus, from a convoluted screenplay (the victim of precipitous rewrites, apparently) by Jay Huguely and Dean Lovey, Jason Goes to Hell is one gigantic mess of a movie. A viewer could be forgiven if they thought this flick was a continuation of the previous film in the series, as characters refer to previous, unseen events to which they were witness. But the flick before this was Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan. None of the characters in that shitfest are in Jason Goes to Hell. Nor are any characters from Part VII, VI, V…all down the line. This movie feels like a sequel to a movie that wasn’t made, and that’s kind of weird. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday”
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”
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: The House on Sorority Row
The 1980s were THE decade for slasher flicks. The subgenre of horror really picked up steam in the ’70s, but it was in the ’80s when it matured, like a fine wine. It also, somewhat paradoxically, got less gory. But that’s a subject for another day. For now, it’s enough to know that in 1983, someone made a slasher film called The House on Sorority Row. Oh, the possibilities.
From writer/director Mark Rosman, The House on Sorority Row tells the tale of a prank gone wrong. The Pi Theta house is about to shut its doors for summer break. The graduating sisters of the sorority want to throw one last bash before they all scatter to their adult lives. But the house mother/landlord, Mrs. Slater (Lois Kelso Hunt), isn’t having any of it. She needs the house for her own purposes, and wants the young women out.
Mrs. Slater has apparently been a domineering figure in the lives of the sorority sisters. After four years of putting up with her, the girls aren’t about to let Mrs. Slater ruin their big night. Their idea is to frighten Mrs. Slater with a gun firing blanks. How that will ensure they get to throw their party is a mystery, but it is believable that college kids didn’t think that far ahead. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: The House on Sorority Row”
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”