A Movie That Isn't

If you happen to see this movie, whether to buy or to rent, avert your eyes and keep walking! I have watched some bad movies in my time, but this one really takes the cake. From what I understand, while looking for the picture off to the side, is that this isn't the actual sequel to Boogeyman (1980). There was a sequel released in 1983, but this is not it. It shows clips, going by at fast speed, from that movie, but it's not the same movie.

Basically all you have is the original movie, with maybe 10 minutes of different material thrown in. The new material is shown in one of three ways: the director from the first movie (Ulli Lommel) sitting behind a table being questioned over a string of murders, still pictures flashing by, or clips from the actual sequel (though I don't know this for sure since I haven't watched it yet) going by in a fast forward kind of way.

This movie clocks in at 83 minutes, which is shorter than the first movie. Take out another 10 minutes or so for the "new" movie. If you haven't watched the orignal movie (see my post about it just before this one), then save your money getting this one and just get the original. At least then you can watch it in its entirety without the extra useless clips. I guess I will try and find the actual sequel on video somewhere, and give it a proper review. In the meantime I will watch Return Of The Boogeyman (Boogeyman 3) and see how it turns out. Given the track record so far, I'm not expecting much.
0 out of 5 Bad Movies

Mirror, mirror, on the wall...

Sometimes you watch a film that you think you will like, but the further along it goes, you realize your hopes are being dashed. The Boogeyman (1980) was one such movie for me. It starts off fairly well but then takes a dive from there.

Lacey and Willy get caught spying on their mom and her boyfriend making out. The boyfriend ties Willy to his bed and leaves him there. Lacey comes in with a big knife and cuts her brother free. Willy then takes the knife and heads for the mom's bedroom, where he manages to sneak up on them, and stabs the boyfriend to death. Lacey, looking into a mirror from the doorway, watches all of this take place. Twenty years later, we come back into their lives. Lacey (Suzanna Love) is now married (Ron James), and they have a son of their own. Willy (Nicholas Love) hasn't spoken since that night. It's never the "night Willy killed someone", it's always that night.

Lacey gets a letter from her dying mother, asking to see them one last time. The letter seems to set off the memories and guilt that Lacey has been holding in, as she starts to have nightmares again. Her husband takes her to a doctor to try and sort things out. The doctor puts her under, and while she is talking about the events of that night, she seems to become possessed and talks in more of a deep voice. The doctor eventually suggests that she go back to her old home, so she can remember it as it is now instead of 20 years ago.

Off they go to do that then. While gone, one of Lacey's friends stops by to get some eggs, and starts to flirt with Willy. The more she flirts, the more Willy becomes agitated. The animals in the barn seem to notice this as they become more and more noisy. I could notice: wide eyes, clenching of jaw muscles, and making fists by Willy. However, the girl fails to notice, until Willy grabs her around the neck and lifts her up off the ground that is. She puts her hands over his, but doesn't struggle at all. She doesn't try to pull his hands away, doesn't stratch at him, and doesn't even kick him. I don't know, maybe she wants to die! Willy sees himself in a mirror, and drops the girl before he manages to kill her. Even though she thinks he is crazy, I'm guessing she never told anyone, since no one showed up to question or arrest Willy. Willy goes into the house and paints over all the mirrors in the house from there. I thought they might be setting up Willy as the killer with this. But it was the only time Willy does anything like this. So what's the point of it? I have no idea. Like a lot of things in this movie, it didn't make a whole lot of sense.

Meanwhile, Lacey shows up at her old home. It just happens to be up for sale, so they get to look around the place. She goes into the bedroom where the murder happened, and all looks well there. Before she leaves she stands in the doorway and looks into the mirror, and there is the man, as she remembers him, laying on the bed. As he gets up, she looks at the bed and sees...nothing. Looking into the mirror again she sees him walking towards the mirror. This part was a bit creepy and well done. She picks up a chair and smashes the mirror. The husband comes in and isn't too happy about it, but the girl that is there doesn't seem too worried since the mirror came with the house. He picks up all the pieces and takes the frame and they head home. Well he thinks he picks up all the pieces anyways.

Back at home he puts the mirror back together, and I think that would have taken a lot more time then it seemed to. But for the sake of moving the movie along, he gets it done in no time. Back at the old house, a missed shard from the broken mirror, starts to glow red. Two sisters and a brother are at the home, and all three are killed in various ways by something unseen. Why the killer of the movie needed to kill off these three I can't really explain. I'm sure he is mad that he is dead and all, but why kill three people that had nothing to do with his death?

A piece of the mirror flies off and Lacey's son steps on it. He walks around with it stuck to the bottom of his shoe, for the rest of the movie. They go fishing and across the water are two couples camping out. One of the couples goes into an old abandoned house and start to make out. When will people learn? Sex = Death in horror movies! As the boy moves his foot, sunlight reflects off the shard of mirror stuck to the bottom of his shoe. Back at the old house, you can see the reflection going across the couple. A board falls and spooks the woman, so they give up on their making out. The guy takes some cooking things back to the car, where he can hear some heavy breathing but can't locate the source. I guess he gives up, because he just sits there in the car after a while. From the backseat we see something from the box he put in the car moving. It is floating in the air and then goes into the back of his head, and protrudes from his mouth. The girlfriend comes up to see what is taking so long, opens the car door and leans in. The boyfriend's head turns toward her, and as she opens her mouth to scream the door slams shut, sending her onto the object sticking out of the boyfriend's mouth. It looks like they are embraced in a kiss. So their two friends think they are making out and leave them there.

Things rush along from this point. The whole mirror starts to glow red, and a shard from the mirror goes flying off onto Lacey's eye. Not into her eye, just over it. Even though there are at least two guys leaning over and looking right at the mirror, they don't seem to have noticed this happening. The husband goes out into the barn to find his parents have been killed. He doesn't seem to be upset over this though. Lacey becomes possessed once again, but this time a strange light comes out of the shard of mirror. It looked to me that the light fried the husband's eyes, but they appear to be just fine a few minutes later. Finally they get the idea to dump the mirror down the well, where it explodes and all is well again. Willy finally talks by the end of the movie. He and sis are standing around talking about what will happen next, moving away and such. The shard of mirror stuck to the boy's shoe finally comes off,and we see it start to glow red.

For someone that was out for revenge, at least I assume he was, the killer of this movie manages to kill everyone except the two people that caused his death. There are 8 deaths in this movie, and not one had anything to do with the plot. Ok, maybe the death of the parents could be seen as revenge, kind of. But outside of that I didn't really see the point of the deaths. The effects were a bit cheesy at best for the most part. The acting was even worse. There were simply too many elements of horror movies, that were trying to be worked into this one, and it failed to do any of them. The idea of a killer that can't be seen works for me, as long as it is done right and to me it wasn't.
2 out of 5 Invisible Killers

I'm Cursed I tells ya!

I won't lie to you, no I won't! I have been wanting to see Cursed (2005) for sometime now. Not because I thought it would be a great movie, but because I wanted to see one of my favorite actresses in my favorite movie genres. I'm speaking of Christina Ricci. She isn't an unknown in horror really, since she did do Bless The Child back in 2000. That movie was very unfair to Christina, however, since she lost her head!

Cursed is about Elli (Christina Ricci) and Jimmy (Jesse Eisenberg), sister and brother, who have been putting their lives back together after the death of their parents. While driving back home one night they hit something, and cause a very bad wreck. No one was too badly hurt though, thanks to seat belts. Remember kids, safety first! They try helping the person they hit (Shannon Elizabeth), only to have her dragged off after they get her free from the wreck. Since they can't see what is dragging this girl away (lots of trees and bushes, and it is night time after all), they do what anyone else would do and grab on to this stranger. They get bitten and scratched for their trouble, and over the next couple of days start to notice changes in their own bodies.

After some research they discover that they are becoming werewolves. To break the curse they need to find and kill the werewolf that turned them into werewolves. I had my guess and it turns out I was right, kinda. I thought it was the co-worker of Elli, Joanie (Judy Greer). Turns out she is a werewolf, but not the one they are looking for. A police officer kills her, not with a silver bullet I don't think, but with a bullet through the brain, which seems just as effective. Werewolf or not, still need a brain to live. Well, most things do anyways.

After the killing of Joanie, I thought the movie was going to wrap up. But I looked at the timer and noticed there was still 10+ minutes left. Then I knew Joanie wasn't the right werewolf. Elli and Jimmy go back home and all is well, until Jimmy tries to pick up a silver thingy (sorry I don't know the name of it, yes I know I probably should being a girl and all) which burns him. That's our first clue that not all is well yet. Elli's boyfriend, Jake (Joshua Jackson), shows up around this time. He starts saying that Elli and he were always meant to be together. He says that being a werewolf really does have its advantages, and killing people is just a side effect of it is all. After a kind of...cheesy battle, they manage to kill Jake and break the curse.

Cursed was written by Kevin Williamson, of Dawson's Creek fame. Joshua Jackson is also from the same show. Is it just me or does Kevin never write anything that at least one actor from Dawson's Creek hasn't been in? It was directed by Wes Craven. I heard a lot of complaints about Cursed, saying that it was given the Scream treatment. While this was a film that didn't take itself completely serious, it wasn't a laugh fest either. Only once did I really bust up laughing pretty good. The werewolf was ok. What I don't get is how it could be bigger than the human body. But I have never transformed into anything, so what do I know about it? It isn't big on the creepy scale, but it does have some scary moments and some nice effects at times. Worth a look but don't expect a lot out of it.
3 out of 5 Full Moons

Indian Nightmares

After a near computer meltdown, I'm back, and very busy. It has been a while since I have been able to add anything to my blog, so I thought I would throw this little movie up. I can't say I have ever heard of Scalps (1983) and the description of the movie sounded OK at best.

Scalps is about a group of anthropology college students who go out into the desert to dig. They are going to an area known as the Black Trees to look for artifacts. On their way out there they stop for repairs on their car, and are warned by an old Indian to stay away from that area. Of course they don't listen to him, and it wouldn't be much of a horror film if they did, right? The old Indian tells another man that he tried to warn them. The other man says for him not to worry about it, because "you can't tell those city folks anything". One of the students gets possessed by an evil Indian spirit, and starts to kill of his friends one by one.

One thing I do before I write these up is look for pictures. I at least try and find a picture with the name of the movie on it, and if I find a few others I like then great. While I am doing that I will sometimes read other reviews I happen on. I'm not looking to steal from them. I just want to see what others thought of the movie. For Scalps most reviews thought the effects were a joke or looked real bad. I didn't think they were great, but I have seen a lot worse in other movies. There is a floating head at times, that I have to admit, looked pretty cheesy. Even so, this was back in the day when there was no, or very little, CGI. A low budget film like this one, and back in 1983 to boot, wouldn't have been able to afford CGI, so they did the best they could.

What really stood out to me, for the effects, was the rape and murder of one of the women. The rape looked like it could be really happening to me. Some didn't understand why that scene was even in the movie, and I guess I don't really see it either. Maybe spirits get horny too. Anyway, the murder after the rape was a bit more disturbing to me. He first cuts her throat, and while the cut looked a little too wide perhaps, it still looked and felt real. After she is dead, he then scalps her. This was well done too, and they never cut away from it. I have never scalped anyone, and don't plan to either. But after the first cut he just pulls back and tears the rest away. I thought there would be more cutting to it, but what do I know?

There is a disclaimer at the start of the movie that talks about the quality of the video. In places the video looks very, very bad. In the commentary track, the director explains that it took him a long time to get the master of the film. When he was able to get it, he found that it had been heavily edited. In order to put the missing parts back in, he had to use other sources. This included a video tape at one point and it is very noticeable. I was disappointed by how bad it looked at times. But I would rather watch a film as it was meant to be, and not some chopped up version. Sometimes the film looks a little out of focus, and towards the end there is one scene that is out of focus. The director says the reason is because they had to send the film away to get processed. Plus they weren't able to tell if it was shot slightly out of focus or not, and didn't have enough film to do more than one take most of the time.

I didn't notice this until I watched it the second time, with commentary. But if you watch closely you will pretty much know everyone's fate, at the start of the movie. In some flash back scenes, they simply use quick shots from the end of the movie to fill this in. The director explains that the studio did the editing of the film and he had no say in it. He pointed out a few things that were never meant to be where they were.

Another sore spot for me was the lighting. The director can't really blame anyone but himself on this one. A lot of the film takes place at night. You will see all the students around a camp fire, and it is pitch black behind them. Some will take off to be alone, and you will notice in these scenes that there is some daylight left. It looked like it was filmed in late evening or early morning. This doesn't happen just one time either, it happens a lot! What does the director have to say about this? He said that the film was shot only on weekends, and they didn't have enough budget for proper lighting.

While this film does have a lot of flaws, and it is a B movie for sure, it does manage to create a creepy feel to it. With a no name cast, at least to me, that doesn't act very well at all the majority of the time, bad lighting and video, it is hard to come up with a reason to explain why I liked this movie. Even the commentary track wasn't the best. It was a nice track in the sense that it held a lot of nice information about the movie (always like that). But the director's voice was loud, like it should be, and I could barely hear the producer's voice.

I have given Scalps a mixed review, at best. That is pretty much how I felt about this movie after watching it. There is a long set up before anything scary really happens. This really bothers some people, but has never been an issue for me. That being said, Scalps is no Wolf Creek. We don't really get to know the characters all that well, so the set up time for Scalps seems a little wasted. If you happen across this movie, then give it a shot, because it might just surprise you.
3 out of 5 Crazy Indians