Halloween Horror Marathon 2021

[Monterey Jack]

Halloween Horror Marathon '12

Halloween Horror Marathon '13

Halloween Horror Marathon '14

Halloween Horror Marathon '15

Halloween Horror Marathon '16

Halloween Horror Marathon '17

Halloween Horror Marathon '18

Halloween Horror Marathon '19

Halloween Horror Marathon '20








INT., LIVING ROOM

[We are ushered into a folksy, cluttered domicile. Through the windows, we witness the not-too-distant peaks of the COLORADO ROCKIES, barely visible through a curtain of fat, drifting snowflakes, as twilight begins to fall. The room is crammed full of various bric-a-brac, including a number of ceramic figurines, including that of a penguin with the legend "NOW MY TALE IS TOLD" printed across the base. These litter almost every available surface...except for a table in one corner, which is clearly the centerpiece showcase of the room. On this table are a large collection of BOOKS, both clearly well-maintained hardcovers and far more tattered paperbacks. The visible spines and covers of all of them sport two recurring names. One belongs to who we take as the heroine of this particular series, MISERY CHASTAIN, who is depicted as a busty blonde being ravished by a series of often-shirtless men by the cover artists of each volume. The other belongs to PAUL SHELDON, the author of the series. A FRAMED, AUTOGRAPHED PHOTO of said author is placed in the center of this shrine to bodice-ripping romantic trash. Another corner features a 20'' tube TELEVISION SET, with a set of bent rabbit ear antenna sporting balls of tinfoil at the end to increase the spotty reception common to TV viewing in the mountainous regions. On a shelf below the set has been set up a VCR recorder, with a stack of VHS tapes next to it.]

[Off-screen crash.] 

ANNIE:Oh, poopy...!

[Into the living room comes the home's inhabitant, ANNIE WILKES, a heavyset woman in her mid-forties. Her hair hangs around her sallow, fleshy features in an unflattering bob, the bulk of her figure mostly concealed by a fraying bathrobe streaked with various dried foodstuffs. In her hands is a large tray covered with various, simple hors d'oeuvres, like pepperoni slices, Ritz crackers, and a gigantic bottle of PEPSI COLA. The heads of several SLIM JIMS poke out from the pocket of her robe as she sets the tray down on an end table next to the LA-Z-BOY recliner aimed at the set.]

ANNIE: [exasperated] Oh, Heavens to Betsy, I do hope that poopy stain comes out of the rug in the hallway. And with guests arriving soon, this will simply not do! I must rinse!

[Suddenly, the sounds of CRUNCHING GRAVEL can be detected from outside.]

ANNIE: Fiddlesticks...!

[Annie plods over to the window and looks into her driveway (which is currently receiving a fresh dusting of white, fluffy snow that will eventually dump more than a foot of snow onto the region). In the porchlight she witnesses a RED, 1958 PLYMOUTH FURY pulling up to the doorway, an almost leonine rumble emitting from under its cherry hood, dragon-like curls of smoke jetting from its tailpipes. It coasts to a stop (with zero evidence of skidding on the fresh coating of snow), and the four doors open. From the driver's seat emerges JACK TORRANCE, an axe slug over his right shoulder, a cocky grin on his features. From the front passenger side emerges JOHNNY SMITH, his pallid, unsmiling face framed by the vast collar of his dark overcoat. From the left backseat side emerges PENNYWISE, THE DANCING CLOWN, a red greasepaint leer of faux-merriment frozen on his face, tufts of orangey hair and the pom-pom buttons down the front of his silvery clown suit blowing in the freshening wind, and a half-dozen ripely enticing BALLOONS (all colors) floating up from strings clenched tightly in his right fist. And from the right backseat side bounds CUJO, a nearly 150 lb. SAINT BERNARD with rheumy, sullen eyes and dishwater-colored foam dripping from his mouth. He GROWLS in a voice that rivals the '58 Fury's mufflers (a sticker reading I BRAKE FOR NOBODY adorns the rear bumper), as Jack Torrance SLAMS the driver's side door, looking around the dooryard in the dimming light of day before leading his fellow carmates towards the front door.]

ANNIE: Oh me, oh my...!

[Annie runs a hand distractedly through her unkempt hair as she rushes to greet her guests. A LOUD, POUNDING KNOCK at the front door starts up.]

JACK [off-screen, through door]: I'll HUFF...and I'll PUFF...and I'll BLOWWWWWWWWWWW your house in...!

[Annie opens the door to greet her houseguests. Jack stands in the doorway with his ax hanging casually down by his side, drumming his fingers on the doorframe.]

JACK: Howyadoin', Annie?!

ANNIE: Jack, so glad you could come! Please, come in out of the cold.

[Jack walks in, plunking his ax down next to the door and kicking some errant snow off his shoes. John Smith and Pennywise enter behind him. Trailing the three is Cujo, who shakes himself off in the doorway (splattering the walls and rug with melted snow and doggy slobber).]

JOHNNY: Pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss. WIlkes. 

[Johnny holds out a hand, which Annie takes as they shake. Suddenly Johnny JERKS VIOLENTLY, and gives Annie a queer look.]

JOHNNY [to Annie, under breath]: You have WHO in the guest room...? 

[Annie gives Johnny a swift "I'll explain later" glare before smiling at Pennywise, whose batch of balloons has drifted up the ceiling.]

ANNIE: And you must be...oh, I know this...Pennyface, correct?

[Pennywise throws his head back and emits a bark of laughter at the ceiling.]

PENNYWISE: Penny-*wise*, my dear girl, but you can call me Mr. Bob Gray, if that suits you more!

ANNIE: My Apologies. Do come in and make yourselves at home!

[The group enters the living room. Cujo immediately finds a spot in front of the couch, walks in circles a few times, and settles down with a snort. Jack, John and Pennywise settle onto the couch.]

ANNIE: Would anyone like some refreshments, or something to drink?

PENNYWISE: Pardon me, miss, but you have...Prince Albert in a can?

[Jack and Johnny roll their eyes in anticipation of a very old punchline.]

ANNIE: [being a good sport] Yes, I think so. 

PENNYWISE: [delighted] You DO?! Well, you better let the poor guy out...! [Pennywise throws his head back and bellows laughter at the ceiling, showcasing some rather sharp teeth] Whuh-HA, whuh-HA, whuh-HA...!!!

JACK: [dropping a sly wink] I'll have a beer, Lloyd...I mean, Annie.

JOHNNY: [rubbing one temple with two fingers of his right hand.] Nothing for me, thanks.

[Johnny steals a glance at the guest bedroom, and gives Annie another look. Annie leaves and re-enters a minute later with a six-pack of Budweiser, which she hands to a very grateful Jack as Pennywise starts attacking the hors d'oeuvres tray.]

ANNIE: I was worried that the weather might have deterred you all. It's gonna be a big ol' oogy mess out there by morning.

PENNYWISE: [through mouthful of crackers and cheese] Oh, Christine is as sure-footed as a mountain goat!

ANNIE: [brow creases] Christine...?

JACK: [popping tab of his first beer can of the night] Oh, that's the lovely lady parked in your driveway, Annie my dear. Ain't she a peach?

[Annie pulls the drapes aside to give the Plymouth Fury in the dooryard an appraising glance. Suddenly the car's HEADLIGHTS come on, filling the window with hellishly bright light.]

JACK: Now, Annie...you're not the jealous type, are you...?

ANNIE: [letting curtain fall back into place] Certainly not. That's a fine car you have there, Jack.

JACK: *She's* a fine car.

ANNIE: [suppressing a gulp] *She*, then.

[The car headlines snap off, allowing the living room to fill with shadows in the corners again.]

JACK: Better. [he slugs down the last gulp of beer, tosses the can onto the cluttered end table beside the couch and pops open the tab of the next can.]

ANNIE: Well...[clears throat] Now that we're all here...

[Suddenly, from the hallway, emits the click of HOOVED FEET on the floorboards. These belong to Annie's 150 lb. prize sow MISERY, who enters the room with a series of snuffling oinks. The pig stops dead as Cujo lifts his shaggy head up and fixes her with a BALEFUL GLARE, a growl rippling up from his immense chest. Misery immediately turns curly tail and exits the room with a series of alarmed squeals.]

JACK: Sorry you couldn't bring the bacon home tonight, Annie, but ol' Cujo here hasn't been feeling very well lately. Must have eaten something that disagrees with him, didn't you, boy...?

[Jack leans over and roughly pats Cujo on the shoulder blades, causing the dog to turn his glare upon him, his growl intensifying momentarily before he lowers his head to rest upon his forepaws again.]

ANNIE: Sorry to hear that. Well, anyways...[collects thoughts]...it's the last weekend of October, so it's time for our annual binge of scary movies.

PENNYWISE: [with ample good cheer] Splendid...!

ANNIE: Now, I know that pickings are slim at the video store right now, but I've gotten several good titles, many of which you haven't seen. Even some written by that scary book author...you know Steven Prince, or something. 

JOHNNY:  [distractedly] The books...are better.

ANNIE: [miffed at the interruptions] Be that as it *may*...there are some classic movies on tap -- [Jack looks up with a hungry gleam in his eye at the mention of "tap", his third beer held in the fork of his crotch] -- this year. There's some slasher movies, some sci-fi, some monster flicks...

JACK: Just so long as there's none of that artsy-fartsy stuff. 

PENNYWISE: Or anything aimed at tasty, tasty children...

[Jack and Johnny give him a look]

JOHNNY: Or anything with sappy romance.

ANNIE: Well, I can't *promise* that a few movies won't have elements of any of those...

[groans from the group]

ANNIE: ...but there's pretty much something for everyone this year. So gather your snacks, everyone, because the show's about to start!

[Annie pushes the first VHS tape into the player and then settles into her La-Z-boy with a satisfied grunt. She picks up a dish of melting, gooey ice cream festooned with whipping topping and chopped nuts and digs out a heaping spoonful, which she shovels into her mouth as the familiar FBI warnings start up on the tape. Jack pops open his fourth beer, already toasty. Pennywise shovels more snacks into his distended jaws, his silvery clown suit littered with crumbs. Cujo opens one bleary eye to take in the screen, lets out another soft growl, and shuts it again. Johnny sneaks another glance at the closed guest bedroom door before returning his gaze at the screen, where the fuzzy image of the FBI copyright fine print fades away to reveal...the 2021 Halloween Horror Marathon.  

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This year's marathon is dedicated to the memories of Richard Donner and Marilyn Eastman. 

[Monterey Jack]

-Malignant (2021): 2.5/10



A young woman, Madison Lake (Annabelle Wallis), on her fourth pregnancy following three miscarriages over the previous two years(!), discovers her abusive lout of a husband (Jake Able) dead with his head twisted 'round like a pretzel. Was it the result of a home invasion gone wrong? Or is the blame to be laid at the feet of a ghoulish, long-haired specter haunting Madison's extremely terrifying dreams? And how does this all tie into a mysterious procedure undertaken in a looming, Gothic psychiatric hospital in 1993? The mystery deepens as the film progresses, but in this catastrophic stinker from the usually reliable genre favorite James Wan, the first two thirds, which are just...sort of bad blossoms into a final third that will either infuriate or delight the viewer. I mean...I certainly didn't see it going THERE, and, as usual, Wan shoots the proceedings with his customary, elegantly roving camera tricks, but Malignant is a film that progresses from routine to bland to utter insanity, and it's hard to process it without going into major spoilers. Up until then, the movie is sabotaged merely by the poor acting from a no-name cast (when Wallis -- best known for the first, and lamest, of the Annabelle spin-off movies and for co-starring with Tom Cruise in that awful "Dark Universe" version of The Mummy -- is the most recognizable person on-screen, you find yourself pining for the warm authority brought to the Conjuring movies by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga), but once it goes off the rails two-thirds of the way in, it becomes the kind of bad movie that horror fans will not be able to look away from. It's a TERRIBLE film, but you have to admire Wan's willingness to Go There with the bonkers conception of a character that's intended to be a new horror icon and got nothing but titters of disbelief at my theatrical screening. I'm only affixing a plus to my "D" because Wan makes it a very visually polished turd, but all the surface gloss in the world can't contain the pungent odor of feces that wafts from this unpleasant, bloody mess, full of unintentional laughs and howling illogic (why can the film's supernatural villain communicate through electronics? It's never explained in the slightest). To go from his pair of splendid Conjuring movies to this is a major career misstep for Wan, clearly off his game after his recent visits to Blockbusterland in the Fast & Furious and Aquaman franchises. It may be the worst, most ill-advised movie I've seen from a talented, consistent filmmaker since Robert Zemeckis' Welcome To Marwen.

[AndyDursin]

I think the latter is far worse. The good news for Wan is that it's a bad horror movie, and since most of them are bad to begin with, its not really going to hurt him much. Those things come and go every month and nobody cares. When you are an Oscar winning director who makes a serious drama with high aspirations that nobody sees and/or those who do laugh at it, it's much, much worse.

I mean it's not like Wan is Steven Spielberg. He puts out better than average popcorn fare but Aquaman and Fast and Furious are not exactly high art even of the escapist form.

[AndyDursin]

That said I still want to see it lol

[Monterey Jack]

That said I still want to see it lol

As much as I've pushed against "streaming vs. theaters", this is the kind of movie you want to see for "free" on HBO Max. SO, so bad, but in such a memorable way when the dumb-as-rocks "twist" is revealed.

[Monterey Jack]

Biehn there, done that...

-The Fan (1981): 7/5/10

-The Terminator (1984): 10/10





Stalkers are the order of the day in these two superior 80s thrillers. In 1981's The Fan Lauren Bacall plays Sally Ross, an elegantly-aging star of the silver screen who finds herself the target of an obsessed fan named Douglas Breen (Michael Biehn, in his first major role), who progresses from writing increasingly-intimate letters to his beloved icon to striking out with violent fervor at anyone who might keep them apart. Routine in the general outlines but stylish in the physical details of the production (including an especially well-done title sequence), The Fan is a film that toes the line between dark character study and the graphic slasher cinema of the era, and may dissatisfy those expecting it to commit to one or the other. Critics certainly were not impressed at the time, citing the film for being released shortly after the murder of John Lennon at the hands of an ardent admirer and for "sullying" the reps of respected vets like Bacall and James Garner (as her sympathetic ex-husband), and slasher fans probably found the film's emphasis on middle-aged characters -- instead of the usual batch of nubile co-eds -- a disappointment. And yet The Fan is certainly a film with many terse pleasures, buoyed by Biehn's wiry, soft-spoken intensity. Only in the film's delving into the Broadway production that Bacall's character is currently working on (replete with original songs by Marvin Hamlisch and Tim Rice!) does it really bog down. It certainly never attains the swoony, dreamlike tension of the best Brian De Palma thrillers of the period (despite an urgent score by De Palma favorite Pino Donaggio), but it's nevertheless a tense, well-acted thriller.

That said, why on Earth did I pair this with The Terminator (aside from the temptation to make this review's title pun)? Often cited as one of the high points of 80s action/sci-fi cinema, The Terminator doesn't seem to be proper viewing leading into the season of Jack O' Lanterns and Trick-or-Treaters. And yet, it's a quintessential example of 80s slasher cinema. This tale of a cyborg (Arnold Schwarzenegger) sent back in time from the year 2029 to the gritty mean streets of 1984 L.A. in order to "retroactively abort" the leader of the Resistance against a post-apocalyptic rise of machines intent of wiping out the last vestiges of Humanity by killing his mother, ordinary diner waitress Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), before she can birth him offers a checklist of slasher-movie tropes. It's all here, from a seemingly-invincible, monosyllabic antagonist (you could practically bounce quarters off of Arnie's pecs, here at the height of his awe-inspiring 80s physical prime) who leaves a trail of dead bodies in his wake (and whose ultimate goal is to prevent the heroine from having sex), to a climax with the seemingly-vanquished killer lunging up for one final scare to a confrontation with the "Final Girl" who gets to send the killer off with a pithy kiss-off line. And it offers up more genuine tension than 90% of the actual cheapjack slashers of the period. Biehn is also on hand here, moving from antagonist to protagonist as Kyle Reese, a Resistance soldier sent back to intercept Arnie's tough-as-nails robot and protect Sarah Connor from termination with extreme prejudice. It's a model of narrative economy, with Biehn barking exposition as he and Hamilton are constantly on the move, evading both the Terminator and the police looking to incarcerate this seeming lunatic, and Cameron makes the most of his low budget, with excellent makeup effects from Stan Winston allowing Arnie's veneer of humanity to get shaved away piece-by-piece, until he's fully revealed at the climax as one of the most badass robot designs ever. It's a thrilling actioner, an ingenious time travel mobius strip, a surprisingly potent romance, and truly frightening in its hurtling pace and depiction of a mindless robotic assassin that can't be bargained with, can't be reasoned with, and doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear.

[Paul MacLean]

Crimson Peak (6.5/10)

I admire the effort that went into this production. The sets are some of the most striking I've ever seen, the film is photographed with surpassing skill and invention (though the lighting's a bit splashy for my taste), it's exceedingly well-acted, and it's very atmospheric.

But it just didn't work for me. The script draws heavily on Rebecca, with elements of The Haunting and The Skeleton Key. The first hour is also somewhat slow, though it does kick into high gear toward the end. But for me, Crimson Peak has far too many implausibilities and inaccuracies. The big gothic mansion is located in England, in a landscape perpetually swathed in heavy snow. Well, it doesn't snow very often in England, certainly not that heavily -- even in Cumberland where the film is set. The hills surrounding the mansion are also much-too forested to be Northwest England (it would have made more sense -- and cost the same -- for the film to be set in the colder and more remote north of Scotland). The post office set is constructed of timbers and looks like something built in the west of 19th century America. In Northern England such a structure would have been made of stone (and probably centuries old by the time the film takes place). Wooden buildings are almost unheard of in the North.

Why did the murdered wives (who were obviously dying of slow poisoning) go to all the trouble of recording their plights -- on wax cylinders? Why didn't Tom Hiddelston destroy the wax cylinders, when they were evidence of foul play? Why does Jessica Chastain conveniently have a meat cleaver hidden under a stone slab in the cellar? If the mansion is haunted by ghastly apparitions, how do Chastain and Hiddelston live comfortably in the same house as the angry ghosts of the people they murdered?

Maybe these are nitpicks but I found them distracting -- and more attention-grabbing then the actual story and characters (which is a problem). I also found the ghost effects exceedingly unpleasant and grotesque. Yes, I know, this is a "haunted house movie", but the script is really a gothic love story with supernatural elements, within which the Hellboy / Pan's Labyrith-style CGI monstrosities are rather out-of-place. And to be honest, I honestly felt "why does this movie need ghosts at all?" The story is entirely horrific enough in its non-supernatural terrors, so-much-so the ghost element felt tacked-on.

Crimson Peak is an impressive-looking movie to be sure, and not without some highly effective moments, and a palpable atmosphere of creeping doom. Looking at this film I was struck by what a shame it was that Del Toro was not hired to direct the final two Harry Potter movies (for which he was being considered). He is a great visual stylist and I've greatly admired and enjoyed some of his precious work, but this particular effort ultimately did not work for me.

[Monterey Jack]

With the first official day of Fall upon us, and the Dog Days of summer now in the past, it's high time to get a few more Scooby Snacks in before the October main course...

-Bad Moon (1996): 8/10

-Man's Best Friend (1993): 7/10





Good doggies and bad doggies are on tap for today's canine twofer. In 1996's Bad Moon, single mom lawyer Janet Harrison (Mariel Hemingway) and her young son Brett (90s Dennis The Menace moppet Mason Gamble find themselves visited by Uncle Frank (Michael Pare), back from a photojournalism sojourn to Nepal, where his girlfriend was ripped to shreds right before his horrified eyes by a mysterious beast. Left badly wounded by the experience, both in body and spirit, Uncle Frank's physical scars heal with uncanny speed, but the stain on his immortal soul remains harder to break, especially when the sun goes down... Can Janet and Brett's fiercely loyal German Shepherd, Thor (played, for the most part, with winning screen presence by "Primo"), ferret out Uncle Frank's dark secret before it's too late?


Writer/director Eric Red (who penned 80s genre faves like The Hitcher and Near Dark) infuses this brisk (under 80 minutes even with credits) lycanthropic romp with a great deal of skill, taking the usual cliches and treating them with a true horror fan's sense of taste and respect, and the performances are on point, especially Pare, his melancholy eyes haunted by the terrible monster he has become even as he relishes in the throat-ripping urges that compel him to acts or supreme barbarism. Set to a fine Daniel Licht score, and boasting top-notch creature effects (aside from a lousy transformation sequence with primitive 90s CGI, most of which is excised in a "director's cut" that runs about 40 seconds shorter), Bad Moon stands as one of the best werewolf movies released in the 90s, and builds to a slam-bang climax.


Meanwhile, in 1993's Man's Best Friend, a crusading journalist named Lori Tanner (Ally Sheedy) uncovers the cruelties inside of an animal vivisection lab, and takes home a massive Tibetian Mastiff named Max. But underneath his expressive, wiggy blonde eyebrows lurk the eyes of a million-dollar research animal, who is primed to snap without access to the medication from his creator, Dr. Jarret (sinewy horror fave Lance Henriksen), that keep him docile. Soon, Max has progressed from scarfing down a local cat to noshing on the mailman, and is set to become even more dangerous. 


Written and directed by the late John Lafia (one of the key creators of the Child's Play franchise), Man's Best Friend has fun in detailing the genetic modifications that make Max into a memorably mean mutt (including a chameleon-like camouflage, and the ability to micturate battery acid!), and offers up a sharp sense of humor to go along with the requisite shocks (including what must be the only canine rape[!] scene in cinema history). It's silly at times, but knowingly so, and Lafia gets excellent performances from the numerous pooches used to bring Max's reign of terror to convincing life (augmented from fine makeup and creature F/X from Kevin Yagher) and directs the action with slick efficiency. 

[Monterey Jack]

-The Addams Family (2019): 6/10



Moderately engaging animated take on the spooky & ooky characters created by cartoonist Charles Addams in the 1930s offers up many mordant visual pleasures, and a fine voice cast (elegant Charlize Theron as morbid mother Morticia, suave Oscar Issac as flamboyant paterfamilias Gomez, Chloe Grace Moretz as budding pre-teen sociopath Wednesday, Finn Wolfhard as demolitions enthusiast Pugsley), yet it never quite attains the deadpan wit of the original Addams comic strips, nor the daisy-chain of black-comic belly laughs generated by the pair of live-action Addams movies released in the early 90s. And, as far as modern "training wheels" kiddie horror goes, this lacks the crack Tex Avery timing -- and more emotionally satisfying familial bonds -- of the Hotel Transylvania flicks. Still, it generates a steady-enough stream of polite chuckles, with occasional flashes of inspiration (Morticia, inspecting a ruby-red balloon discovered floating through the Addams mansion's front yard by Wednesday, muses, "Odd...usually you find a killer clown attached to the other end of these."), and kids won't mind the film's somewhat tired satirical targets of the dangers of conformity. If you have little ones who want a "scary movie", you could do worse, but you could also do better.

[AndyDursin]

Kind of strange that they bypassed Burton's involvement in an Addams movie which we learned about years ago. Can only imagine this was a cheaper route to travel, and frankly, it worked for them because it did well at the box-office, and like you said, tapped into the Hotel Transylvania market -- even if it's not as funny.

[Monterey Jack]

Kind of strange that they bypassed Burton's involvement in an Addams movie which we learned about years ago. Can only imagine this was a cheaper route to travel, and frankly, it worked for them because it did well at the box-office, and like you said, tapped into the Hotel Transylvania market -- even if it's not as funny.

...and yet cycled back around to Burton for that forthcoming Wednesday Netflix series!

[Monterey Jack]

-Midsommar (2019): 7/10



Another Misery Porn wallow from writer/director Ari Aster (Hereditary), about a young woman, Dani Ardor (Florence Pugh), whose bipolar sister takes her own life -- and those of their parents -- in a ghastly suicide via carbon monoxide poisoning. Some half-a-year later (and still left shattered by deep-set grief), she accompanies her boyfriend Christian Hughes (Jack Reynor) and his college roommates (William Jackson Harper, Will Poulter) to Sweden, where they've been invited by their mutual friend Pelle (Vilhelm Blomgren) to attend his small village commune's annual midsummer festival, where a "May Queen" is crowned, and other...less-than-wholesome rituals are witnessed, to the shock of all.

Aster is an impeccable visual craftsman, and Midsommar (that rarest of things, a horror tale taking place almost entirely in the golden glow of sunlight) is a film that cannily manipulates the viewer's mood, from its hauntingly despairing prologue to the bacchanalia of fervent religious ecstasy that brings it to a surreal close. And yet, and nearly 150 minutes(!), there's too much time to luxuriate in mood rather than narrative momentum, especially for a film with such an obviously foregone conclusion. We already had a Wicker Man remake, thank you very much. Aster's Hereditary was a film that delivered its grief metaphors without ever losing sight of delivering on the bottom line of shivery haunted-house jolts. Here, it's the work of a director living high off the hog of critical hosannas and wallowing in a great deal of self indulgence. A film that certainly offers a few shivers (and a terrific performance by Pugh), but it needed a more merciless hand in the editing room.

[Monterey Jack]

-Big Bad Wolves (2013): 8/10



Terse, violent Israeli thriller about a rash of child abductions, resulting in their violated, headless corpses being left behind for the authorities to puzzle over. A police detective, Micki (Lior Ashkenazi) tries to beat a confession out of a meek high school teacher, Dror (Rotem Kienen), only to have his illicit interrogation covertly filmed and broadcast on YouTube, resulting in a demotion. Micki then abducts Dror, hoping for another crack at a confession, when the grieving father of one of the murdered girls, Gidi (Tzahi Grad), abducts the both of them and takes them to his newly-acquired, remote home in the mountains, where the three will enact a bloody, cathartic cycle of retribution and (hopefully) justice.

Praised by Quentin Tarantino as the best film of 2013, Big Bad Wolves is a film full of pressure-cooker situations and buoyed by fine acting and sleek direction from Aharon Keshales and Navot Papushado (the latter of whom made the stylish recent Netflix action flick Gunpowder Milkshake), and even the grim stakes are enlivened by occasional bursts of gallows humor. Definitely worth a look.

[Monterey Jack]

Put you head on my Sholder(s)...

-Alone In The Dark (1982): 8/10

-The Hidden (1987): 8/10





Kicking off October with a pair of underrated shockers from director Jack Sholder, who rose through the ranks at the nascent New Line Cinema in the late 70s cutting his teeth on editing duties (including the 1981 camp slasher fave The Burning) before getting his first crack at directorial duties with 1982's Alone In The Dark. This stylish effort details a blackout that allows a quartet of madmen to escape from a New Jersey asylum run by typically quirky genre stalwart Donald Pleasance. There's a raving former preacher (wiggy Martin Landau), a terse former soldier and POW (raspy Jack Palance), a hulking rapist (baby-faced Erland Van Lindth) and a silent schizophrenic (Philip Clark) who hides his face behind a pre-Jason Voorhees hockey mask. The four set sights on a newly-arrived young psychiatrist, Dan Potter (an A-Team-era Dwight Schultz) --whom they assume has killed their previous psychiatrist -- and violently terrorize him and his family in their secluded home from the pitch-black night.

A home invasion thriller done with style, Alone In The Dark is one of the better quasi-slashers of the early-80s, with confident direction from Sholder, effectively gruesome makeup effects, and genuine tension. A dandy new Blu-Ray release from Scream Factory puts a new shine on this fan favorite, worthy of re-discovery by a new generation of shock cinema fans.

Sholder would use Alone In The Dark as a springboard to make the second film in the Nightmare On Elm Street series, the mediocre Freddy's Revenge (best remembered for his blindingly obvious homosexual "subtext" than for anything else) before regaining his creative mojo with the clever 1987 action/sci-fi/horror hybrid The Hidden. Opening with a slam-bang bank robbery and car chase worthy of a William Friedkin film, what initially seems like a violent, seedy cop thriller of the era quickly reveals its genre stripes, as the criminal in question (Chris Mulkey) -- left riddled with bullets and clinging to life in an L.A. hospital after his swath of destruction -- regurgitates a gruesome alien slug into the mouth of his roommate, a cardiac patient (William Boyett) who leaves the hospital to continue the creature's reign of violent self-satisfaction. A local detective (Michael Nouri) is baffled by the clues, but his new partner, an eccentric FBI agent (an amusingly stilted Kyle MacLachlan), eventually reveals that he's an alien, too, hunting down his fellow extra-terrestrial foe in order to settle a personal beef, as the slug continues to leap from host body to host body, including a voluptuous stripper (Claudia Christian) and even a dog!

Sholder, working from a screenplay by Stakeout writer Jim Kouf (credited under the nom de plume Bob Hunt), stages the film's action sequences with serrated flair, and the film's mixture of cop-movie thrills and ooky body-horror jolts packs a satisfying punch. And holding the genre cliches together is the chemistry between the terse, increasingly agitated Nouri and the deadpan MacLachlan, reacting to the intricacies of human interaction with an outsider's hesitant bewilderment. Their evolving relationship even gives this film a surprisingly emotive conclusion. Slick, exciting and clever, The Hidden is a minor gem of 80s sci-fi and horror. 

[Monterey Jack]

This, that, and the other Thing...

-The Thing From Another World (1951): 9/10

-The Thing (1982): 10/10

-The Thing (2011): 8/10







When John W. Campbell, jr. penned the influential sci-fi story "Who Goes There?" in 1938, he probably had no idea it'd spin off a dynasty of screen adaptations, each arriving almost exactly three decades apart. 1951's The Thing From Another World came early in that decade's sci-fi/horror boom, and remains one of the best examples from its era. An Arctic scientific team (led by stolid, square-jawed 50s leading man Kenneth Tobey) discovers an honest-to-God UFO flash-frozen into the ice (resulting in the salty proclamation "Holy cats...!"). At attempt to thaw the scientific discovery of all time with thermite bombs goes awry, leading to the ship's destruction and loss under the ice..but one of its passengers, a hulking, humanoid figure over seven feet tall, is found frozen. Hacked out of the ice and carted back to their scientific research station, the men and women (including feisty love interest Margaret Sheridan and effite, coldly unfeeling scientist Robert Cornthwaite) of the remote outpost find themselves under siege when the extraterrestrial creature (played by a pre-Gunsmoke James Arness, often atmospherically cloaked in shadow or shot at a distance) is thawed from his icy coffin by a ill-placed electric blanket and starts a reign of terror, in order to get the nourishing human blood it needs to survive in this strange new world...and multiply.

Tersely directed by Christian Nyby (although the influence of his producing boss, Howard Hawks, is stamped into every frame, particularly the film's overlapping, rat-a-tat-tat dialogue), The Thing From Another World still packs a punch today, while many other sci-fi pictures of the decade are best appreciated as quaint relics of the Eisenhower era. It generates authentic tension (with a particularly well-staged sequence where the monster is set ablaze), and while the acting certainly has that amusingly stilted tone so endemic of 50s cinema, the performers generate palpable desperation as their situation goes from bad to worse fighting for the triumph of the human race. Set to an eerie Dmitri Tiomkin score (replete with a quavering theremin), The Thing From Another World goes like gangbusters.

One of the people who saw it back in the day was wee John Carpenter, who has since described it as "One of those movies that was so scary, popcorn flew out of my hands". The Halloween auteur, when he heard of the film being scheduled for a remake in the late 1970s, threw his hat into the ring, and brought along his collaborator on The Fog, makeup designed Rob Bottin, to come up with a new monster concept for an increasingly-sophisticated (and jaded) horror audience at the dawn of the 80s. The resulting film, 1982's The Thing, was eviscerated by critics at the time, and played to empty houses as audiences flocked to a far more benign depiction of an alien invasion in Steven Spielberg's E.T.. And yet, it gradually gathered a fervent cult audience, and now, nearly four decades(!) later, it remains one of the great horror/sci-fi remakes of all time.

In his gruesome and elaborate new conception of the material, Carpenter introduces the viewer to U.S. Outpost #31, manned by a dozen hardy scientists and tech crew (including laconic helicopter pilot R.J. MacReady, played by a very shaggy Kurt Russell). When a helicopter from a nearly Norwegian scientific outpost arrives with a bang, the crazed pilot and passenger shooting wildly at a husky dog (the terrific canine thespian "Jed"), the man of Outpost #31 go to the Norwegian camp to investigate what sent the (now dead) helicopter duo off the deep end, and discover an Andrea Doria-style mystery, the camp razed to the ground, the remaining personnel slaughtered or missing...and a twisted, charred "corpse" found in the snow. Taking the remains back to their camp, they poke and prod at it to make sense of the bizarre find...but find themselves with other things to deal with, as that adorable pooch suddenly rips open like a bag of wet groceries to reveal a hideous, ever-mutating alien being. Soon, it becomes obvious that it's some sort of alien chameleon, taking on the form of any Earth life it attacks, assimilates, and replicates, down to the tiniest detail. Now, the men of Outpost #31 find themselves unable to trust, not knowing how to determine who's who as tensions -- and the body count -- rise at an alarmingly accelerated rate.

Hewing closer to the source novella than the 1951 film, Carpenter's The Thing is definitely its own animal, and one not for those with weak stomachs. Despite fine work from its ensemble of actors (including a memorable turn by future oatmeal and diabetes spokesman WIlford Brimley), it's Rob Bottin's still-astonishing F/X work that takes center stage. Given carte blanche to do anything he wanted (and with big-studio money and a full year's worth of time to hone his ideas), he concocts one hair-raising setpiece after another, his ever-evolving creatures assuming surreal forms that make one's mind hurt. And Carpenter (and cinematographer Dean Cundey) shoot them with a loving eye, generating a maximum amount of tension between the film's spurts of enthusiastic grue. Featuring a thumping heartbeat of a score by Ennio Morricone (sampled by Quentin Tarantino in The Hateful Eight), The Thing is a masterpiece of morbidity.

The idea of remaking Carpenter's...uh, remake...had been floating around for almost a decade (George Clooney came close to staging a live version for television) before it finally came to fruition as the 2011 prequel The Thing: We Don't Need A Subtitle, which purported to tell the story of what really went down when the alien organism was let loose at the Norwegian camp before hoofing it to the U.S. one, but is, for all intents and purposes, essentially a scene-for-scene rehash of the 1982 film. Lovely Mary Elizabeth Winstead plays Kate Lloyd, a paleontologist given an intriguing offer to head to a remote Norwegian Arctic scientific outpost to investigate a massive Unidentified Frozen Object recently uncovered, as well as the eerie, half-glimpsed form found frozen into the ice nearby...

Director Matthijs van Heijningen, Jr. does a admirable job aping the gliding visual finesse of the Carpenter/Cundey team of its predecessor (even using vintage Panavision lenses that would have been utilized in films of that early-80s period), and the film certainly does a good job generating and releasing tension, yet...when you've had Filet Mignon, and follow that up with a Big Mac, there's the inevitable sense of dissatisfaction, even if (in this case), it's a really good Big Mac. It doesn't help that a lot of the practical monster effects engineered by horror veterans Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff, Jr., were (mostly) left on the cutting room floor, and covered up by inferior CGI. The digital effects are certainly well-done enough (although why the column of glowing Tetris blocks in the saucer's interior?),  but following some of the greatest practical makeup and creature effects ever done, they can't help but seem substandard. 

That said, this is one of the better "remakequels" done, with fine acting (doe-eyed Winstead, as always, anchors the film with her blend of brainy, butt-kicking conviction) and some great, gnarly shock setpieces. Is is strictly "necessary"? No, but I'm glad it exists, and with yet another remake looming from the Blumhouse factory, you could do a lot worse. 

-Vampire's Kiss (1989): 8/10



Insane mixture of character study and psychological freak-out, with an especially-addled Nicolas Cage as Peter Loew, an NYC literary agent who takes home a gorgeous woman (Jennifer Beals) from a local nightclub, gets bitten while in mid-coitus, and starts to hallucinate that he's a slowly becoming one of the undead. 

Scripted by Joseph Minion (After Hours) and directed by Robert Bierman, Vampire's Kiss is basically a one-man performance piece, and to be fair, Cage is mesmerising in it. Generating more Memes Per Minute than pretty much anything he's ever been in (and, believe me, that's saying a lot), Cage delivers a performance that's alternately grating and intoxicating, literally sinking his teeth into scene after scene with spastic method-actor fervor. Are his vampiric tendencies all in his head? Is this just a rationalization for a very public breakdown? I have no idea, but it's hilarious to witness, in a film that's guaranteed to piss off as many people as it pleases (yes, this is the one where Cage scarfs up a live cockroach on-camera). Put me in the "Pleased" column, however, as I found this to be wildly entertaining.