Ghostly Girls

I get to sit down and write today! I started to write a review for this movie Thursday, but things just didn't work out to where I could get it finished. I went ahead and deleted that post since I didn't get very far into it, and it started by talking about Thanksgiving and all. Speaking of that, I hope everyone that reads this had a great time on that day. Things have been pretty busy for me since then but today I am just going to sit around and do nothing. So what did I watch so many days ago? Kill, Baby...Kill! (1966), another Mario Bava film. I was a little more interested in this film since it had to do with my favorite sub-genre, ghosts.

Kill, Baby...Kill! starts with a death and then we find out a little later who died. Inspector Kruger (Piero Lulli) comes to town because Irena Hollander (Mirella Pamphili) wrote him a letter explaining that she feared for her life. Kruger shows up but is to late, she died that very day. Kruger calls in Dr. Paul Eswai (Giacomo Rossi-Stuart) in order to do an autopsy. All Paul is able to find is a silver coin placed inside Irena's heart. This happened because the people in this town believe that will allow the person to rest in peace. Paul and Kruger don't believe in that type of thing. Nor do they believe in the ghost girl (Valeria Valeri) that is said to show up just before a person's death. What is the truth about this ghost girl and what does she want?

The effects are ok. A little blood but not a lot of it. The biggest effect was actually the very first effect where Irena impales herself on a fence. I'm sure that was shocking for the 1960s. The acting seemed good. It was subtitled this time instead of dubbed. The main reason I like dubbing is because sometimes the subtitles disappear too fast. I know I can go back and look but it's a pain to do sometimes. I really liked Fabienne Dali because she has an interesting character. She plays the part of a sorceress, at least that is the way it is listed in the credits. She reminded me a bit more of like a witch doctor or something like that. Valeria Valeri was good as the ghost girl but I'm not sure that she fit in with the rest of the cast. Everyone had a certain look about them, lot of dark haired people and then there is Melissa, the ghost girl, who is a pale blond girl. You will also find Erika Blanc, Luciano Catenacci, Franca Dominici and Giovanna Galletti.

I have really knocked Mario Bava but I actually enjoyed this movie. It still wasn't great but I enjoyed it a lot more than some of his other movies. I liked that two of the main characters didn't believe in such things as ghosts and curses. Everyone else seemed to believe so this was a nice contrast. I was a bit surprised by the period Kill, Baby...Kill! was set in. It does have the feel of an older movie and I just brushed that off by thinking it is an older movie. We discover that the little girl died in the later 1800's and then we find out that it has been 20 years since her death. This really surprised me. The town in takes place in did have the feel of that time period, but I just took it that it was done on purpose to show why they still believe in such things.

I'm not real sure I liked how they wrapped up everything in the end. That was the only time I didn't like the story too well, but this is a nice time period movie. There was one scene that I thought worked really well, even though I didn't think much of it as it started off. Paul hears someone yell for him and takes off running. He opens a door and runs on through only to appear through the door on the other side of the room. He does this over and over again and I was starting to wonder if he noticed what was going on at all. Then something interesting happens but I will let you watch and find out for yourself what happens. As I said, this isn't a great movie but it was a fun one to watch. Check it out when you can, if you don't mind subtitles that is.
3 out of 5 Good thing ghosts don't leave hand prints

Bloody Lace

Hey, how about that? I watched another Netflix DVD at long last. From what I have been reading, Blood And Black Lace (1964) is one of the first giallo films. It was made before the genre took off in the 1970's. I have watched a few of these in the past and I have reviewed a few here. I haven't reviewed all of the giallo films I have watched, mainly because I don't really consider them to be horror films. People call them that but to me they are more along the lines of a thiller. Plus, I have never been all that impressed by a giallo so far. So why do I keep watching them then? I guess I want to see what all the hype is about even if I end up not liking the films.

Blood And Black Lace starts off with the murder of Isabella (Francesca Ungaro). Isabella is a model who is on her way to the fashion house where she works. That is a reason for her death but we don't find out what that reason is right away. Inside the house people are getting ready for a fashion show and some are looking for Isabella since she needs to get changed. When a wardrobe is opened, there is Isabella, bloody and very dead. Inspector Silvester (Thomas Reiner) is called in on the case and he questions many people but no one is all that helpful. Everyone seems to know Isabella but they don't know much about her. Peggy (Mary Arden) seems to be the only person that is upset and that is because they lived together.

As the models prepare for another fashion show, they are looking for someone to wear the dress that Isabella was supposed to wear. But no one wants to wear it saying it is bad luck. Nicole (Ariana Gorini) says she will wear it but someone notices that the dress is missing a broach. They search for it and find it in a box, along with Isabella's diary. As this discovery is announced, all the people we have been introduced to so far gets a quick close up as they all give their best worried looks. There is something in that diary that at least one person is willing to kill in order to get their hands on it. Who is the murderer is always the big question in giallo's.

Even though there is the word blood in the title, you will actually find very little of it. We see a few scrapes and some blood on people but nothing to major. The biggest effect, which really isn't that big, is when one of the women gets her face burned. The makeup for the burn wasn't all that great. I couldn't tell how the acting was for the most part. Blood And Black Lace is a dubbed movie and very badly dubbed at that. In most movies that are dubbed, the voice starts about the same time as the actor's mouth starts to move. In this film there is a couple of seconds delay. I didn't notice it all the time but when they say a single word, it looks pretty silly.

Blood And Black Lace was directed by Mario Bava. This isn't the first movie of his that I have watched. I have reviewed them here with mixed results. In most of the reviews I have read for Blood And Black Lace, I sometimes get the feeling that people loved this film simply because Bava was the director. One review says, "The plot and script is not the thing here. It's purely the visuals that count and these are uniquely Bava." I guess that is fine if you are a film student but that doesn't cut it for me. I need something besides a good director showing me how good he or she can film things. It is always a plus when things like that can be found but I watch horror movies more because of the plot. What I see plays a part in what scares me but it is the plot that can usually make or break a movie for me.

I am going on about the plot because there wasn't much of one in Blood And Black Lace. There is this diary that more than a few people seemed worried over. With some of these people we find out what their secret is but not for everyone. Some we are just left to guess what may or may not be in the diary that has meaning to them. To me they dropped the ball with that. It would have been nice if they gave us reasons as to why they could be the killer instead of just a worried look. At one point, the killer gets his/her mask ripped off. That is another stamp of giallo's, we never see the killer until the end. In this case, we do see the face of the killer. It is so quick that you may not notice what the killer looks like. This may have worked well in 1964 but today, with VCR's and DVD players, you can pause it to get a better look if you so desire. It seemed odd that they would show the killer ahead of the big reveal. Blood And Black Lace had some things going for it with such a big director being behind it. It is just too bad that they didn't pay much attention to the plot as well.
2 out of 5 Not a whole lot of lace either

Frightful World

You all remember David Williams don't you? I did an interview with him a while back and if you managed to miss it, you can find the link over on the side bar. Last week, David was kind enough to send me his latest film to review. When I got the film, I had just finished watching the After Dark Horror Fest and a couple of other movies which I had done reviews for. After all of that, I burned myself out just a little on it all. Today I was back in the mood to sit down and give FrightWorld (2007) a watch. Was it worth the wait?

FrightWorld starts off with some clips of reporters interviewing various people with quick flashes of bloody body parts. From there we meet Verden Fell (Gary Marzolf) with his latest victim. While he is messing with her, police are moving in to stop him. What they don't know is that the place has been set up with all kinds of traps which pick off the police one by one. One does manage to make it through and confronts Verden. Verden gets away but not before he is mortally wounded. He makes his way to the closed up FrightWorld where it looks like he manages to cast a spell before he dies. A year later, we meet Jack (Andrew Roth). Jack and a group of friends are about to reopen FrightWorld. He takes them on a tour before they go party and split off into couples. It is here that they start to encounter the spirit of Verden.

The effects impressed me. If you like your horror films to be bloody, you won't be disappointed here. While there is a lot of blood to be found, to me it didn't go over board with it. We are shown quick shots of it most of the time. Most deaths are shown but again we are shown just enough of what happens to leave us using our imaginations to fill in the rest. I liked that since it made me want to see more. Anything that keeps me wanting to see more is a good thing. There were only a couple of places I thought the effects could have been just a little better. I noticed a time or two where the blood had a more purple color to it. The acting wasn't too bad. Gary Marzolf makes a good bad guy. He can have that crazy look going at times. The group that we are introduced to is pretty wild. There is a good mix of characters there. You will also find Kamillia Kataxenna Kova, Dina Cataldi, Tiffany Scott, Javier Marquez, Jess Weber, Crystaline Miller and Wynne Wharff.

FrightWorld may not appeal to everyone. I know not all horror fans like their movies to be real bloody. The effects work well with the right amount of teasing. This was the first movie I have been able to watch that David Williams directed so I was curious to see FrightWorld. I think that people who do pick this up to watch will like the directing. David does a wonderful job with it. I also have to say that he has a pretty sick mind at times, not that is a bad thing. Some of the things he comes up with can be pretty gory if you let your mind fill in the blanks. Two things bugged me some though. One was the music. While I liked the music that had been picked, I just felt there was too much of it at times. I know music can add to the mood but I have also feel that at times it is best to just let the movie itself set the mood. The other thing was that once the group breaks off into couples, we are shown what each couple is doing. This was fine with me but it lingers a little too long on this section of the film. After a while I was starting to wonder when it would start to advance the plot again.

Lets face it, all movies have problems. FrightWorld is no exception but it is one that I still enjoyed watching. Very good effects and direction with a touch of the supernatural. It's a serial killer haunting an amusement show, what's not to like about that? It would be very hard to get that setting wrong and David Williams and crew manage to get it right! The film itself is not out on DVD yet. But hopefully David will let me know when it is, so I can pass that information onto all of you. If you like gory films, this one is a must see for you. I have a feeling this is one group of film makers to keep an eye on.
3 out of 5 Spraying blood everywhere

Overwhelmed By Art

Thursday night I was so excited about going to the After Dark Horror Fest that I was just itching to watch a movie. I decided to watch a DVD from Netflix that has been sitting around here for close to two months now, so I'm sure they are glad to have it back at long last. Even though it was already getting late when I put the DVD in, I managed to sit through the almost two hour The Stendhal Syndrome (1996). I was actually looking forward to watching this when I got it just because I like Dario Argento. Not all of his movies have blown me away. I have watched enough of his movies that they have made me a fan of them. I'm trying to remember a director that I have liked every movie he/she has made and to be honest, I can't think of one.

Detective Anna Manni (Asia Argento) is our main character for The Stendhal Syndrome. She is hot on the trail of a serial rapist/killer and follows a lead to a museum where she begins to hear and see things that aren't actually happening. Like she sees a painting with a drummer in it and she can hear the drummer playing the drum. Sometimes it appears she enters a painting and it comes to life around her. Alfredo Grossi (Thomas Kretschmann) figures out what is wrong with Anna and decides to use this to his advantage. During one of her episodes, Alfredo breaks into Anna's hotel room and rapes her. Anna is eventually able to get away from him after he kills another woman. Sometime later she is captured by Alfredo again. This time he holds her captive and rapes her. Will she be able to get away yet again?

The effects were kind of mixed for me. This was the first movie that Dario Argento used CGI effects in. While they are nothing like what we see today, some aren't too bad. There are some I didn't really understand that were there but Dario wanted them. Like watching pills travel down inside the throat. Was that something I just had to see for some reason? There are also many old style effects that can be found as well. The one that stands out to me is when Alfredo fired a bullet through a woman's mouth. We see the hole the bullet made in both cheeks and also see him looking through those holes.

The acting wasn't too bad. The DVD that I had was from Troma which seems like an odd choice to me knowing the kind of films they make. The voices are dubbed over instead of subtitled. I have nothing against Asia Argento. I think she is a good actress but I had to wonder why Dario cast her in the role. Asia would have been 20 or 21 at the time this was made and that seems very young for a Detective. She doesn't have to be a Detective for very long in this film though. You will also find Marco Leonardi, Luigi Dibert and Paolo Bonacelli.

What I wrote for the plot so far is actually only about half of the movie. It slowly moves away from being a movie about the Stendhal Syndrome and becomes more about one woman trying to deal with what she was forced to go through. This made some people mad, and had them wondering why they picked The Stendhal Syndrome for the title since they drop the concept of it mid way through. I found the first part of the movie to be pretty confusing. We don't find out until later why she was in the museum in the first place. The movie opens with her going there and looking around. It was obvious that she was looking for someone but they don't bother to tell us who and why until later.

I did like the second story line much better than the first story line. While the rapes are graphic, they actually don't show a whole lot. There is no nudity, but it could have been cut out, since I have read that you can see some in the trailer and Dario himself said something about how difficult it was to film his daughter nude and being raped. All this happens in the first half of the film and could be hard to watch from my point of view anyway. How she deals with it, how it effects her mind, and even her personality, made for a much more interesting movie than the whole syndrome thing. The Stendhal Syndrome is an interesting movie but I didn't really like having to sit through so much movie before it started to really get me into the plot. Still it is worth a look but not one I would get in a big hurry to catch.
3 out of 5 No wonder I never got into art much

Always Darkness

The other movie I watched yesterday was 30 Days Of Night (2007). I have been meaning to see this for a while now but for whatever reason, I never got around to seeing it. I decided I needed to go see it last night or I would just have to wait for the DVD to come around. I didn't want to wait that long so I went. I know this movie was based on a comic book story but I have never actually read that story. If you are interested in seeing how the two stack up then you should read the And Now The Screaming Starts review of this movie. As for me, I will give you my thoughts about the movie.

30 Days Of Night is about a small town in the northern most part of Alaska. For a period of 30 days, the sun disappears and they will have to deal with it being dark out all the time. A group of vampires show up and attack the town. A small group that made it through the first wave of attacks are now holed up. Led by Eben (Josh Harnett) and his wife Stella (Melissa George), will they be able to keep their group alive for 30 days of night?

There is actually a lot more going on than just that. That is the simplified version of what this movie is about. You have The Stranger (Ben Foster) who shows up ahead of the vampires and somehow manages to steal most, if not all, cell phones and burns them. He also kills off all the dogs in town. Eben and Stella are having some big time problems and are barely talking to each other. The vampires themselves are not the romantic kind. Instead, they seem to kill for the pleasure of it. These aren't your daddy's vampires!

If you like your effects gory then you will certainly like 30 Days Of Night. During the first wave of attacks we see people dying left and right and the blood is everywhere. I liked how they never really shied away from the violence. It could have been a lot bloodier than it turned out to be but I think they balanced it out well. Some people felt that this movie was way too violent for a vampire movie. I think most people are just used to seeing Dracula and reading Anne Rice novels. Even Anne Rice very quickly writes about the more animal like vampires though. The acting is very good as well. The two leads seemed a little young to hold the jobs that they have but maybe I am wrong about that. You can also find Danny Huston, Amber Sainsbury, Manu Bennett and Megan Franich to name a few.

I kind of wondered how one person could end up taking so many cell phones. But then again I also wondered that since this town is supposed to be so far away from anyother towns, how did they even have cell phone service to begin with. I know they have a short time to try and tell a story that is happening over a month's worth of time. It still would have been nice if they had clued us in on what was going on a little more often than they did. That being said, it leaves the movie open in a way that allows us, the viewers, to fill in the blanks ourselves. I like being able to do that. There are all kinds of questions that never get answered. Where are these vampires from? Why do they stick around for so long after the first attack? I don't want to point out any other questions since I don't want to give away the plot too much.

One thing that impressed me a great deal is that they didn't hold back on anything. They come across a little girl that has been turned into a vampire and they deal with her like they would any other vampire. That impressed me since they could have just found a way to trap her instead of doing the right thing and killing her. They also show that just because they are doing the right thing, it is taking it's toll on the remaining survivors. That was an important detail. Too many movies have people killing others or just anything and they shrug it off like it is no big deal to them. 30 Days Of Night is an interesting movie on many levels and it is well worth watching.
4 out of 5 What some people do for true love

Parking Garage Nightmare

I must apologize a little bit. I didn't realize how many mistakes I was making in my reviews of the After Dark Horror Fest movies until they were pointed out to me. I was trying to crank them out since I knew some movies would be shown through the week and all of them shown again this next weekend. I have never written up so many reviews in such a short period, and at times I was writing them up rather late at night. Which meant my brain wasn't working as well as it should have been. Anyway, things have been corrected and I hope none of my mistakes ruined the review itself for anyone. Yesterday I had the day off from classes so I took advantage of that and went to see two more movies that are out at the theaters still. P2 (2007) just came out Friday so should hopefully be out for a while longer yet. The other movie I watched has been out for three weeks, if I am counting correctly, so I knew it was yesterday or wait for the DVD.

P2 was the first movie that I watched yesterday so I will start with it. Angela (Rachel Nichols) is working late on Christmas. Her sister and mother keep calling her because she is supposed to be at a Christmas party with her family. One of her co-workers (Simon Reynolds) comes in long enough to apologize for getting a little too fresh during the company party. She doesn't seem like she really wants to talk about it but accepts his apology all the same. He thanks her and goes on his way. When Angela finally wraps her day she heads down to her car which is on level P2 of the garage. She gets in and discovers that her car won't turn over. She gathers her things and starts to head back to the elevator and discovers that the door is now locked. She walks around and finds where the security guard office is, and finds Thomas (Wes Bentley) who offers to charge her battery for her. Even though she is in a hurry she agrees to let him try and help but the battery isn't the problem.

As Thomas opens the elevator door for her, he makes an off hand remark that he has a Christmas dinner waiting for him and perhaps she would like to join him. Angela doesn't know if he is being serious or not when Thomas claims he is just kidding about it. Angela goes back up to the lobby and calls a cab. When the cab gets there she discovers that all doors are locked and she can't find anyone to open them. She heads down to the first level of the parking garage and tries to buzz for Thomas to open the gate that leads out, but he either doesn't do it or isn't at his station. The cab gets tired of waiting and takes off. Soon after this we see Thomas standing behind Angela and he puts a cloth over her mouth and nose and eventually she passes out. When she wakes up she is in Thomas's office. She finds that her clothes have been changed and one leg is chained to a table leg.

The effects are actually pretty darn good. You won't find a lot but I was expecting that to be honest. P2 is really more of a thriller than a horror movie but it comes pretty close to being one. Angela gets her share of cuts as does Thomas. The big effect is what happens to Angela's co-worker though, which was something that I wasn't expecting. What happens to him turns out to be a very graphic and well done effect. The acting was also very good. I really liked Rachel Nichols and her character. Her character is smart and tough. She does make some mistakes at times but they weren't what I would call glaring mistakes. Instead they just make her character more human and believable. Wes Bentley makes a good bad guy. He isn't a big guy at all but the way he plays the character would make any woman feel scared when with him. He can be real sweet one minute then turn on a dime and start yelling the next minute.

The only thing I can fault P2 for is not giving us much character development. We find out nothing about Angela outside of the fact that she is a work hog and has a sister, a niece and mother. We find out next to nothing about Thomas but I guess what we do find out, that is a very lonely man that doesn't think too highly of himself and thinks no one else does either, is enough. He also sees himself as helping Angela, with what I don't really know, but that is how he sees it. P2 is actually a smart movie. It all takes place, basically, in the parking garage and it never gets boring. There are just enough twists to keep it interesting but not bog it down. About half way through the movie I kept telling Angela in my mind to find a fire alarm somewhere. I knew there had to be one. Even though she never finds one, or doesn't think about it, the ending was still a good one. Might be a favorite ending for me actually. Worth a look if you get the chance to do so.
4 out of 5 Will park on the street for now on

Dying For Movies 2 Part Eight

I sure have been doing a lot of writing the last few days and a lot of movie watching. I'm almost done though. At least with the watching movies at a theater part. I have one more I want to watch tonight (by the time you read this I will probably have already watched it). So I will have two more movies to write up reviews for that are out in theaters after this one, and one that I watched on dvd late Thursday night. That's eleven movies in roughly four days! I'm surprised my eyes haven't popped out or something. Yesterday was the last day of the first weekend for the After Dark Horror Fest. Some movies will be shown through the week, if not all movies, then this weekend they will show all eight over three days once again. I had to go all by my lonesome for the last two movies since my friend had other commitments to attend to. I liked the title of the last film since it sorta fits nicely in the eighth slot, Crazy Eights (2006).

Crazy Eights starts off with the film explaining that during a set number of years, parents were turning over their kids for money so that doctors could perform personality tests on them. The test were supposed to be harmless but many kids were never heard from again. Then we see a flashback of one such parent handing over her kid to said doctors. We see Jennifer standing in front of a chair that doesn't look too fun to sit in. From there we get back to present day where six friends are attending a funeral of a mutual friend. Their friend's last wish was for these six friends to open a time capsule that they had put together years ago. They are given a map to follow and so they do. They discover a chest in an old barn. They find a few personal items from their childhood in it and they all start to feel very hot, so they try and get the trunk out of the barn but drop it on the way down. They discover the body of a young girl that has obviously been in the bottom of the trunk for a very long time now. They decide it is time to leave but they keep passing the same house, or so it seems. They decide to check the house out to see if maybe someone can give them directions out. But that is what someone wanted them to do. Now that they are in the house, they must unravel their past in order to survive.

At least I think that is what they need to do. The editing wasn't the best I have seen around in Crazy Eights. There were times I felt like I missed something because of something one of the characters would say. There were other times a scene would be playing out and suddenly it would cut away. I couldn't help but feel that there should have been more there, since this normaly happened during a death scene. Maybe it was supposed to be that way but it felt like something more was there, but someone decided to cut it out. Speaking of the effects, there were some that could get pretty bloody at times but most death scenes were done off camera. There are a few that were shown and they did a good job with these.

The acting wasn't too bad. Our main characters were played by Tracy Lords, Frank Whaley, Dina Meyer, Gabrielle Anwar, George Newbern and Dan DeLuca. Each did a fairly good job but a lot of the time I didn't understand the emotion they were trying to get across. Part of this are the characters themselves I think. We don't get too know to much about any of them since they are trying to unlock their past themselves. What makes things a little worse is that we know why they are in this house long before any of the characters start to figure it out. It is obvious that it is the same place the experiments took place and that they were part of these experiments. Why else would they be trapped inside?

This is a movie I need to see again. It was a little, well a little is an understatement, confusing. In part because it was hard to hear what was going on with such loud music and sound effects going on around the talking. I never did figure out what exactly was going on with this movie. As children they were being taught about guilt. Why? Did they kill they the girl? The ending is so fast that I wasn't even expecting it. It didn't help me figure anything out at all. The plus side is that Crazy Eights does provide a very creepy setting. I really thought this might be the best film of the festival until the plot and editing took over. There is a creepy ghost that we just barely catch glimpses of. Once this set hits the stores on dvd I will be watching this one first just so I can see if I can at last figure it out. Not a bad movie at all, just will take more than one viewing to figure it out.
3 out of 5 Ghost girls are always more scary

Dying For Movies 2 Part Seven

I have been reading some other reviews for Nightmare Man (2006) which was the first of two movies shown Sunday. So far there are only a few people that have liked it. Most other reviews just talk about how bad it is. I didn't know this until now but this film was directed by Rolfe Kanefsky. I bring this up because he also directed a movie that I place on my top ten list way back when, The Hazing. I have yet to do a review of that movie but it is coming. Nightmare Man starts off with Ellen (Blythe Metz) getting a mask in the mail that she has been waiting on. She thinks she is getting a fertility mask to help with her sex with husband William (Luciano Szafir). It isn't the mask she was expecting though and she tosses it away and decides to take a shower instead. While in the shower the lights go out. She can't find her husband, the lights won't work and someone is messing with her. She hears her husband in the attic and heads up to find him. Instead she finds someone wearing the demon like mask she got in the mail. When she pulls the mask off, the face under it looks just like the mask did! She falls down and the demon begins to have its way with her and suddenly she wakes up.

Ellen and William are driving to a hospital that will help her with her problem. She believes that the evil from the mask is inside her just waiting to come out. The only thing keeping it in are some pills that she pops like candy. William just thinks that his wife is crazy and hopes the doctors will be able to help her. The car runs out of gas in the middle of the woods and William decides to hike it to the nearest gas station. Several hours later, William still hasn't returned but someone wearing the demon mask begins to come after her. After several minutes of being attacked in or around the car, Ellen makes a break for it. It is around here that we are introduced to two couples that are in a cabin in the same woods. Mia (Tiffany Shepis) and her boyfriend Ed (Jack Sway) along with Trinity (Hanna Putnam) and her husband Jack (James Ferris). They are playing a game of truth or dare. The plot cuts back and forth from Ellen fighting for her life to these two couples playing their game for a while before they at last meet up. Once they help Ellen, they give her husband a call and they find out that Ellen is crazy but that doesn't stop people from dying.

While some reviews really knocked the effects, "...effects and makeup look like they were made in someone's garage." I didn't think they were half bad. There aren't a lot of effects in truth but what is there wasn't shied away from at all and actually looked pretty cool. I'm starting to wonder if Kanefsky has a thing for mouths though. In The Hazing there was a tongue that took a life of its own. In Nightmare Man, you will find that an arrow goes through a mouth and a knife through a different mouth. They may not be the best effects around but they certainly got a few "ewws" from the crowd I was with.

Nightmare Man doesn't take itself too serious. If you have been reading my reviews for a while now then you know that I like my horror movies to be serious. I haven't reviewed too many horror movies that add comedy into the mix that get a good rating out of me. Once I realized that the film wasn't a serious horror movie, I sat back, relaxed and enjoyed the movie. I'm very glad that I was able to switch gears because Nightmare Man will manage to get you to laugh at it at times. The acting reflects this and the small cast does wonders for the film. Tiffany Shepis gets top billing in this film and rightfully so. Her character is very flirty but also ready to fight at a moments notice.

Nightmare Man could have used more of a set up to show what has been happening to Ellen. They get the point across just fine but it would have been nice for a longer set up. I didn't care for the editing between the two stories for a short while there either. These are only minor complaints though. What I did like was the overall feel of the movie. Much like The Hazing, this is a movie with comedy that works for me. A lot of reviews didn't care for the way the last part of the movie played out but I thought it fit in perfectly. There are basically two twists, the first one I had figured on but the second one came out of no where but it fits. If you happen to catch this one I think most people would like it. Just remember not to take it serious and enjoy the ride!
4 out of 5 Who knew hitting a woman would make me laugh so hard

Dying For Movies 2 Part Six

Tooth & Nail (2007) was the last movie to be played Saturday night. Like Mulberry Street before it, there is a world altering event. In Mulberry Street, it seemed limited to New York. In Tooth & Nail, it is something that has affected the world. What was this world changing event that brought life as we know it to an end? We ran out of gas. Tooth & Nail takes us into a future when we weren't prepared to run out of gas. This is explained to us as the film opens. From there we meet Ford (Rider Strong), Viper (Michael Kelly) and Torino (Alexandera Barreto). They are part of a small group of people that are holed up in a hospital in Philadelphia. While out walking around for supplies, they come across a man killing some other guy. They are too late to save the guy but discover that there is a woman that has been hurt. So they decide to take her with them after they chase off the murdering man.

At the hospital, they try and decide what to do with this new person. Some want to keep her around, others want her to leave since they don't want to have to try to feed someone else. Neon (Rachel Miner) shows up and wants to know if she has a say in matters. She meets the rest of the group, Victoria (Beverly Hynds), Nova (Emily Catherine Young), Dakota (Nicole Duport) and the leader of the group, Darwin (Robert Carradine). They decide that she can stay because she is handy at fixing things. Sometime during the night, Darwin gets up and goes to the bathroom. While in there he hears something and turns around in time to have his throat cut open. The next morning, all the rest of the group finds is a lot of blood. They quickly realize who's blood it is since only one of them turns out to be missing. After a meeting they see another group of people out in the parking lot just standing around.

Neon tells the rest that these people are Rovers and that they must have followered her when the group she is now with saved her from one of them. A vote for leadership follows. Viper wants to stand and fight but Neon thinks it would be better to run and hide. Neon wins out and Viper leaves the group. The Rovers are a bunch of cannibals but they normally only kill one person at a time. Why you ask? They like their meat fresh.

The effects turn out to be good once again. I have been impressed with the effects in all of these movies so far actually. I guess that shouldn't surprise me any since they will try and pick what they feel are good films for this film festival. All effects were done just off camera with the results shown right after. Like a club with nails sticking out of it meeting up with someone's face. You know that has to hurt. The acting was fun. Rider Strong, in his second movie in this festival, should give up horror films since he never meets a good end in them. Rachel Miner was wonderful. You may remember her from last years After Dark Horror Fest in the movie Penny Dreadful. I really liked her and her character. Nicole DuPort was someone else I was impressed with. I wasn't at all at first but as the movie unfolded the more I was impressed with her. You will also find Michael Madsen and Vinnie Jones as a couple of the Rovers.

I can't really express enough how disappointed I was in this movie. It starts off fairly well but doesn't keep that up. The characters and plot were really starting to make me mad at times. For the most part, the Rovers hunt at night. They give themselves away by blowing a trumpet. When they kill someone, they report it to the guy with the trumpet and he signals that the hunt is over. Despite knowing that the Rovers are going on a hunt, for them no less, they decide it would be best to split up and hide. Maybe that isn't a bad idea but what do they do? Two of them head off and have sex. All the others roam around until it is dark and then decide now would be a good time to try and find somewhere to hide. The only person that even makes an attempt at hiding finds a cabinet that the door won't even close completely. Instead of finding a new place to hide, enough light is around him that he can be seen, he decides he has found his place.

Much of the plot is like this, making stupid choices. It isn't until the end of the film that it tries to redeem itself, but then I didn't really care anymore. I didn't see the only twist coming and I honestly think it was because I had pretty much given up on the movie by then. I wasn't thinking it through but most other plot points could be seen coming for a good distance away. If they were trying to show that people can't think without leadership then I feel they are wrong. I know there are a lot of people that would rather be told what to do than to have to think for themselves, but everyone knows when to hide. The characters in this film couldn't even do that. They are holed up in a very big hospital. There has to be plenty of places to hide in. Even with 8 or 9 people searching the place, they can't look everywhere. It could have been a lot better than it turned out but instead it didn't.
2 out of 5 At least they won't have stupid children

Dying For Movies 2 Part Five

Mulberry Street (2006) was the second offering from yesterday. I'm a little behind with the reviews. Sorry about that. I was hoping for no problems since there were some in the first movie but that wasn't the case. A little ways past the half way mark, when things were really starting to heat up, the film decided to mess up. The guy that was there with his girlfriend were the only two people that stayed for every movie and he got up to go complain. Luckily for us it was fixed fairly quick but it was getting old by then. The same problem happened more than once during one film today so I don't know what was going on. I guess whoever was running the projector wasn't used to having to change the film so much. All of these films were shown on the same screen you see.

Mulberry Street is about a few people that live in an apartment building in New York. Well Manhattan if you want to get right down to it. You have Clutch (Nick Damici), a retired boxer who is waiting the return of his Army daughter. Casey (Kim Blair) is on her way home after being in the war. I'm assuming she was injured while there since she is always trying to hide the scars on her face. There is Kay (Bo Corre) who is trying to get to know Clutch better. Clutch likes her more than he admits I think, but he thinks he is a little too old for her and she has a teenaged son Otto (Javier Picayo). Coco (Ron Brice) is Clutch's best friend who happens to be gay. And last but not least are Frank (Larry Medich) and Charlie (Larry Fleischman) who are the oldest people in the building.

Clutch and Coco have their place (I'm pretty sure they share the appartment anyway) decorated for Casey's return and Casey is on her way, but there is a problem. News reports start coming on the tv saying that there have been rat attacks all over the city. Not a big deal really but it effectively shuts down the subways. So now Casey has to find other ways to get across the city. The bad news gets worse as we find out that the people that are being bitten by rats are starting to get sick and are attacking other people now. The catch is that these people are mutating into rat people. That fact is no big secret so don't feel I spoiled anything for you.

The effects are suprisingly good here. A lot is done in darkness. Not complete darkness mind you. You can see what is going on but not to the point that you see the full effect. This works out well since it leaves just enough to the imagination and I'm sure it saves on effects money. We get to see people in various stages of being rat people. I only noticed one or two of these effects that looked more silly than neat. The acting was really strong. The acting is what actually carries this movie. I'm not saying the film or effects were bad but it really came down to the acting and the charaters to me. My only complaint is that we don't get to see Kim Blair get to act much. You will also find Antone Pagan, Lou Torres and John Hoyt.



I know, you are sitting there reading this and thinking "Rat people...are you serious?" Yes I am being serious but don't let the term "rat people" scare you off. I was thinking this was going to be a really bad movie when I was reading about the plot online. Ok, maybe not so much bad as I thought it was going to simply be silly. But director/co-writer Jim Mickle (Nick Damici is the other writer) make a wise choice in not making Mulberry Street about rat people. Instead it is about these characters that I described above. That is what makes this movie work. These people being stuck and trying to make the best out of a very bad situation. The great thing about it is that all of the characters feel very real. We don't get to know a lot about them per say but we do end up caring for each one all the same.

I do have some complaints though. Whenever we follow someone running through the streets, he or she is being followed by a very shaky camera. I guess in a way it gives the feel of being right there with the character but, as I have noted in another review, it is something I don't like. On top of that, these scenes look more grainy than the rest of the film. After doing some reading, I found out that Jim Mickle shot this on a very low budget and admits that he didn't have a film permit to film on the streets of New York. So it was very rushed shooting. So that explains it but I'm still not all that happy about it. The ending is very open and it is a little hard to figure out. I talked it over with my friend and we both had the same idea about what happened so I at least feel better about that. As the movie was nearing the end, I had a feeling what did go down would go down. I was right but also wrong. It went down in a different way than I thought it would but still the same result. Mulberry Street has been the surprise of the After Dark Horror Fest and should be one to check out.
4 out of 5 My sometime nickname is mouse!

Dying For Movies 2 Part Four

The first movie from yesterday started off in an interesting way. The same three trailers were being shown again, as I figured they would be. The Eye trailer was being played upside down. Amusement trailer was being played backwards which made for some interesting sound effects. Frontiers was the last trailer which to my surprise is being rated NC-17. It looks like something lifted from Hostel. Anyway, it was playing normally but was taking up less than half the screen with the top of the movie showing up at the bottom of the screen. Lake Dead (2007) started off this way as well and several people got up and left long enough to, I assume, complain about this. Eventually they did get it fixed but these weren't the only problems during this set of movies.

Lake Dead is about three sisters. Brielle (Kelsey Crane) gets a phone call from her dad telling her that her grandfather has died. She was under the impression that her grandfather had died before she was born so she writes it off as her dad being drunk again. The next day she and her boyfriend, Ben (Jim Devoti), travel to Brielle sister's house. Sam (Tara Gerard) is laying on the couch hung over. Brielle tells Sam what is going on and shows her a letter that she got in the morning mail confirming what their dad called about the night before. It also says there is a motel that their grandfather left for them. Since Sam and Ben don't get along, Sam tells Brielle that she will just meet them at the place instead of traveling with them. They decide since they will be up in the woods and near a lake, they will invite their friends Bill (Alex A. Quinn) and Amy (Vanessa Viola), who happen to be a couple, and they will all go camping. Kelli (Kelsey Wedeen) is Brielle's other sister and she shows up with her friend Tanya (Malea Richardson) who ends up flirting heavily with Bill.

Once they get there they meet Gloria (Pat McNeely) who tells them that she has worked at the motel for 40 years now. Brielle asks Gloria if her sister Sam has shown up yet because it isn't like her to be late. Gloria says that no one has been around these parts for a long time now but that isn't true. Sam actually showed up the night before and is given a room. She isn't in the room long when someone starts to try to get in. Two very large men burst in and knock her to the floor where they tape her legs to the floor and....well lets just say it isn't pretty. The remander of the movie is to figure out what these guys want.

The effects could be very gory at times. They don't show you the effect all the time as they would in some other movies. Like we don't see the guy get hanged but we see him hanging there to be found. All effects are done this way. We know what is about to happen to the person, but we don't get to see it until it has already been done. I can't say the acting was bad but I can't say it was great either. No one seemed outstanding to me at all. I did like Malea Richardson. She can play a good bad girl. Not bad as in evil but bad as in very flirty.

I wish I could say more but that is just the way Lake Dead is. It isn't a bad movie really, it just never sparked my interest in it. There are times when it made me cringe with knowing what was about to happen to someone and seeing the after effects. The plot wasn't all that hard to figure out. There is a slight twist to the plot but even that wasn't hard to figure out either. I'm sitting here trying to find more to say about this one but not coming up with anything. Not a bad movie, just no where near great. I'm giving it my score because it did have a few scenes that I really liked and that saved it just enough.
3 out of 5 Still making me cringe over what happens to Sam

Dying For Movies 2 Part Three

The third movie of the night was Borderland (2007). This was also the other movie that was shown twice. Borderland was the longest of the three movies with The Deaths Of Ian Stone being the shortest so there was a longer wait between movies this time around. I got to watch the same stuff as I did between the first two movies, and what makes it worse is I will probably have to watch it all again tonight as well. Maybe I will just go wandering around the theater instead. Sneak into some other movie that is close by for a few minutes. Ok, maybe I won't go and do that but I do need to find something else to do for my wait. The same trailers start to show and then wait....is that a new one sneaking its way in? Wow, it is a new trailer. Instead of the same two, well they were there as well, a third trailer finds its way in there. This one is for The Eye staring Jessica Alba, a remake of the J-Horror film of the same name. Actually it was made in Hong Kong but same difference.

Borderland starts off with two Mexican police officers looking to gain entry to a building. Once in they discover that the place has been deserted but many voodoo type things remain behind. I am going to call it voodoo here for this review but I am pretty sure it was a form of voodoo or some other kind of magic. Once they start to discover human remains and blood, they quickly learn that they aren't alone after all. Ulises (Damian Alcazar) is forced to watch as his partner gets part of his arm sawed off and his eyes are removed before they put him out of his misery. One year later, we see that Ulises is pretty much a shell of the man he once was and is no longer working with the police. Instead he is gathering evidence on his own to try and convince the police that these drug dealers (as we discover) need to be stopped and are killing people for more than just drug-related reasons.

We move away from all this to a town in Texas where we meet three friends. They are college students and are out having some fun. Henry (Jake Muxworthy) wants to head south of the border for some sun and excitement, and to also help Phil (Rider Strong) get laid. Their buddy Ed (Brian Presley) has to be talked into it but he goes as well. Once there they find what they are looking for. While in a strip club, Henry sets Phil up with a hooker. Phil wanders off with her while Ed starts to notice the bartender Valeria (Martha Higareda). After helping her with a drunk guy, she takes a liking to Ed and agrees to meet up with him the next day. Phil discovers that the woman he is with has a child so they end up not doing anything, and I think Phil has taken a liking to her. The next night they go to a carnival. Before heading in they eat some mushrooms and from there the film becomes different in order to reflect that they are running high from the mushrooms. Phil wins a big teddy bear and says that he will catch up with the others later. He wants to give the teddy bear to the woman's daughter that he had met the night before. On his way there he is picked up by some people. One of these guys we have seen before, at the start of the movie, plucking eyeballs out. Once Phil's friends discover he is missing, they have a choice to make. Stay and help find/save him or take the warnings they are given and get the hell out of dodge.

The effects rival those of such films as Hostel and Saw. While Borderland is not as gory as those two film series, it comes pretty close. A couple of arms and heads go missing and one guy gets hacked up, by several people in fact. All effects were very well done. Nothing says gory more than two empty eye sockets, while the guy is still alive. The acting was also very good. Rider Strong seems to like horror movies. Not only was he in this movie but you may also remember him being in Cabin Fever. He is also in another film that is featured in this set and will be reviewed in the number six slot. I really liked all three of the main leads in this film. Martha Higareda was also very good and from what I have been reading about her, she is a big star on a Mexican soap opera. The biggest surprise in this cast was someone I almost didn't catch because he looks different in this film. Towards the end of the movie there is one close up of him and I told my friend, "I thought that was Sean Astin!" Sean plays a bad guy here so that is a change of pace for him.

With this first set of three films, I had no idea what I was going to be watching. I didn't read anything about them going in so everything was a bit of a surprise outside of the titles. With the way Borderland opened, I thought it was going to fall into the Hostel line of movies. As I said, it comes close but in truth it is much more than that. Borderland is really about how far you would go for your friends. What if you knew your friend was missing and you knew who took your friend, If you also knew that the person or people that took your friend were very dangerous, would you risk death to try and save your friend?

The magic angle was an interesting one but it makes you wonder if a guy that traffics drugs would really get into this kind of thing. The answer? Yes he would. Borderland tells you from the start that it is based on true events. While looking at IMDb for the cast information, there aren't a lot of reviews up for any of these films yet, there was a post from someone questioning this movie being a real true story. Like he/she pointed out, there are a lot of movies that tack that on when in fact the whole movie is made up. Director Zev Berman actually took the time to respond and said:

" Ye of little faith.

As the film's director, I can say definitively that it did indeed happen. I was on the border in 1989, traveling across the country with my buddies at the time. We had just come from New Orleans, where we had collected all these cool Voodoo trinkets, and we made the mistake of decorating our VW bus with them. As we crossed the border, we ran smack into the Mexican army, toting machine guns. They forced us out of our bus and demanded to know if we were 'satanicos'. We managed to convince them that we weren't. Turns out they were all down there looking for a Texas college student who had vanished while partying with his buddies. The resulting investigation turned up a drug cartel that had gotten involved in the occult. They were sacrificing victims to protect their drug operation. Crazy, I know, but this is the world we are living in.

Wanna research it? Don't take my word for it. Read what the Crime Library has to say.

http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/weird/constanzo/1.html

I followed the emerging case when I got back home, and it just got worse and worse. My main feeling was, 'Wow, that coulda been me.' Years later, there was a lot I thought I could say by telling this story, and I made a movie about it.

I told Lion's Gate when we started this process that we needed to wage a campaign to remind people that this did indeed happen. I don't blame you, utcreed, for being suspicious. Who wouldn't be? The words 'Based on a true story' are virtually meaningless these days. In my case, it's all true. I was there.

I even made a half hour documentary about it. It's going to be a special feature on the DVD. We have footage from the original investigation that no one has ever seen before. Keep your eyes open for it."

Borderland does border several genres: horror, crime, drama, thriller. What it did for me was keep me glued to my seat and trying to catch every little detail about the film. Very few movies are able to hold my interest in the film so well. I was questioning things but in a very thoughtful way. While I didn't find it scary, it did make me cringe a couple of times. The fact that it is all based on a true story makes it all the more thoughtful. Sometimes we can do things to people far worse than anything we see in a movie. It was filmed on location just across the border which was an excellent choice since it really adds to the over all fell of the movie. I know that this movie will be shown through the week, at least it will be at the theater I am going to, so try and catch this one if you try and catch any of the first three.
4 out of 5 Sending a message by giving someone a goat head

Dying For Movies 2 Part Two

The Deaths Of Ian Stone (2007) was next up for us. There was a slight wait between movies and the plus side is we got to see what we missed by coming in almost late for the first movie. It was nothing important really. What I didn't like is that they showed the same trailers as they did during Unearthed. There were only two trailers being shown, both coming out by After Dark Films. The advantage of seeing one of the two trailers again was I caught some things I didn't notice the first time around. Between movies I noticed that my cup said that I could get unlimited free refills so of course I had to make a trip. The downside of that is having to use the restroom part way through each film.

The Deaths Of Ian Stone, believe or not, is about Ian Stone (Mike Vogel). It starts off with Ian playing hockey. As he scores the winning goal, the ref waves it off saying the shot was too late. Ian points out that the time clock still shows two seconds are left. But the ref shows Ian his stopwatch which has also stopped with two seconds left. Ian takes Jenny (Christina Cole), his girlfriend, home after the game and then starts to head home himself. It starts to rain and he sees someone or something laying in the road. He gets out to check it out. When it jumps a little he gets back into his car. He tries calling for help but his phone isn't working right and when he looks back, the thing in the road is gone. Almost as soon as we notice this, a shadowy figure attacks him. At first I thought it was the creature from Unearthed returning for another round but that wasn't the case after all. This shadowy thing drags Ian to the railroad tracks where a train is coming. Just as it runs over Ian.....

Ian wakes up in an office. Jenny walks up and gives him some more work to do. At the end of the day he sees a guy that appears to be dying before he heads home. At home he tells his girlfriend Medea (Jaime Murray) that he played hockey in high school. She says that he never said that before but Ian is sure that he told her. He gets his yearbook out to show her but he isn't in the team picture. The next day he meets Gray (Michael Feast) after Ian notices that his watch has stopped. Gray explains that Ian's watch has stopped because "they" are near and are about to kill him. They will keep killing him until he remembers something but more important than that, he must keep them away from Jenny.

The effects looked very cool. The shadowy figures are CGI of course but they look neat. This is the first reaction I had with them and I thought that through out the movie but we see them so often that it was starting to wear thin. You can find some blood here but it doesn't get too gory. The acting was very good. Mike Vogel and Christina Cole make a good couple. Jaime Murray made a good "bad" girl as well.

The Deaths Of Ian Stone was an interesting movie. Trying to figure out what exactly is going on will keep you into the film. There is more than one twist to be found. Just as you think you know the answers, you will find out that it isn't what you thought at all. Not all questions are answered but the major ones are. Seeing Ian die and then right away seeing him in a whole new life with him sort of remembering the old one wasn't confusing but it did offer a big "huh?" moment. They do a nice job of clueing us in without giving too much away. With each death we end up learning a little more until all the pieces are in place. Well most of them anyway.

The only thing I can think of that I didn't like was the fact that they were showing the shadowy creatures way too much at times. As cool as they looked, it was starting to get old seeing them so much. Outside of that, The Deaths Of Ian Stone takes an interesting twist on the death mythos. This and the next film were shown twice yesterday. They had this one listed for an early and late movie and I can see why. It is one to catch for sure.
4 out 5 Till death do you part

Dying For Movies 2 Part One

I'm back from the first night of sitting on my butt for 6 hours. No wonder my butt is getting so big! My friend and I drove to the theater and had to make a quick u-turn since the map I looked at to get there told me to turn left when in fact the theater was on the right. No big deal there though. We sat down just as the previews were getting ready to start and I was surprised that there were a total of seven people, including us. I took it that last years event went off well even though the theaters were very limited. As I noted from the last series of films, a lot of people didn't like them because they were over hyped as being too scary for general release. I don't really know what people were expecting but you can only get so much out of rated R movie. The first movie that was shown tonight was Unearthed (2007).

Unearthed is about a small New Mexico town. Annie (Emmanuelle Vaugier) is the local Sheriff who is just a bit of an alcoholic. The reason for this has something to do with a little girl. We eventually find out what the deal is with that but it comes almost at the very end of the movie. What we do know is she is haunted by this little girl and drinks to forget. The small town doesn't seem to like her too well. She does have some friends but it seems like most of them want her out of down because of what happened a year ago. The story itself sets itself up at the start of the movie by showing us a fuel tanker getting into an accident with something. The truck manages to completely block the only road that goes out of town. The fuel truck was also being waited on by the only gas station in town which happens to be out of gas. So we get a few people like Hank (Charles Q. Murphy) who happen to be passing through and are now stuck there. We also meet Charlie (Tommy Dewey) whose truck has broke down and gets picked up by Caya (Beau Garrett) and her friend Ally (Whitney Able).

Annie finds something stuck to the grill of the turned over truck and takes it to her friend Nodin (Tonantzin Carmelo) who seems to know a thing or two about DNA. She discovers that is nothing she has ever seen before but, at the same time, there are traces of DNA from other animals present. When something starts going on the attack, the make their way to a camp set up by Kale (Luke Goss). He is on a dig site trying to find out what happened to a Native American tribe that disappeared long ago. What he has unearthed there holds the answer to that and to what is currently attacking people.

The effects turned out to be a mixed back. The creature will remind you a lot of the Alien films. The good news is that we never really get a good look at it until the very end of the movie. The bad news is that even the good news turned out bad at times. Once in a while you will see the creature running towards people but it is so dark that you only really see an outline of it so you would think that the CGI effects people would have gotten it right. Instead you can clearly tell that is is a CGI effect and it is even worse when you can make out the creature. The creature itself doesn't look half bad when it isn't moving too much. Another high is some of the gore effects. These were well done but there isn't a lot of them. The best one being when one of the guys gets part of his head cut off by the creature.

I felt the actors in Unearthed did a pretty good job. I liked Emmanuelle Vaugier in the lead. She was tough and sassy at the same time. At first she is walking around with a who cares kind of way. Sheriff shirt open and not tucked in. I liked her character the best and that is probably because it is basically the only character that has any kind of back story. Luke Goss is pretty good also but comes close to playing out his character to the over the top point. He will stop at nothing to put the creature back into the ground. You will also find Russel Means as the wise Native American. M.C. Gainey is also a noteable character as a local ranch owner.



Matthew Leutwyler was the director/writer for Unearthed and also Dead & Breakfest which I loved so I was excited about seeing this film. Sadly, Leutwyler takes the shaky camera angle when it comes to most of the action sequences. Maybe he was trying to up the tension levels by doing this but I have never felt that is the case. Instead, it just makes things hard to see and that tends to make me not care too much. This is a shame since there are other scenes that work very well with the way the angles are shot. In truth, Unearthed could also have used some more character developement as well. Most of the characters just feel like they are there to be killed off and they are.

Unearthed reminded me of Feast in a lot of ways but it didn't have the comedy that you can find in Feast. So that is two films that Unearthed reminds me of. Some people hate it when a film reminds them of other films. It has never bothered me, for the most part. Despite that and despite the other things I disliked, Unearthed still manages to have some very tense moments. The ending was a slight surprise, in a good way. This wasn't a great movie but it was a nice way to start things off.
3 out of 5 Ban the shaky cam!

The Monster Mash

I'm excited! I did get my ticket for the After Dark Horrorfest in time so I am going for sure! The hard part will be trying to write up reviews for all those movies. It takes me a while to write up a review and I still make mistakes! Oh well, no one is perfect I guess. There was one last movie on my Frankenstein set so I wanted to get it watched before heading into this weekend. Before I get into the movie itself, I wanted to point out there is a documentory called She's Alive! Creating The Bride Of Frankenstein. This documentory was a very interesting one. It covers a lot of things really but it all centers on the Bride Of Frankenstein movie. If you like the Frankenstein movies then you will want to check out this documentory sometime.

House Of Frankenstein (1944) was the last movie in this set. This one takes place after Frankenstein Meets Wolfman and is directly linked to it by some of the things said during the movie. We meet Dr. Niemann (Boris Karloff) who happens to be in jail because he was trying to recreate what Frankenstein did. He has notes all over his cell walls and has made a new friend in the hunch back Daniel (J. Carrol Naish). Daniel hates how he looks and hopes that the Dr. will be able to give him a new body. During a storm the jail begins to fall apart. It really didn't make a lot of sense to me but I guess they needed a way for them to escape. They find a wagon that is stuck in the mud and offer to help get it out. For their help, Lampini (George Zucco) offers them a ride. Lampini turns out to be the owner of a traveling show of horrors. His prize is the bones of Count Dracula (John Carradine). Niemann wants Lampini to go to the villiage of Frankenstein so he can find the notes that Dr. Frankenstein left behind. When Lampini refuses, Daniel kills him.

They take over the traveling show and make their way to a town where Niemann wants to kill a man but he decides to use Dracula to do it. He pulls the stake out of Dracula's rib cage and Dracula magically comes back to life. Dracula does as Niemann bids him to do and even finds himself a woman but Niemann has other plans for Dracula. After this, they make their way to the ruins of Frankenstein where they see a gypsy woman being beatten. Daniel comes to Ilonka's (Elena Verdugo) aid and talks Niemann into taking her with them. When she awakens, she talks to Daniel for a little while but once she gets a good look at him she has to look away. About this time, Niemann finds a way into the ruins of the castle and together they find the monster (Glenn Strange) and the Wolf Man (Lon Chaney Jr.) incased in ice. Larry isn't too happy when he thaws out since all he wants to do is die of course. Niemann promises Larry that he can help him beat the curse by giving him a new brain but he must help him find the notes of Dr. Frankenstein. Larry does know where they are but soon gets frustrated with Niemann when he keeps putting Larry off. With Ilonka falling for Larry instead of Daniel, there is a train wreck just waiting to happen.

The effects are basicly the same as they have been through out the series. For the time I think the effect of Dracula turning into a bat was rather cool looking. I don't know why he needed to turn into a bat to drink the blood of his victim. The Wolf Man looks the same as does the monster. The monster though does look different since it is yet a different person in the makeup. That makes four different people over the course of four movies. Lon Chaney Jr. seems to like the Larry Talbot character since he always give a good performance each time he steps into those shoes. I didn't really care for John Carradine or Glenn Strange but I can't say it is their fault since they are barely in this film, but I will get more into that later. The surprise for me was Boris Karloff. When I saw his name in the credits I just assumed he would be the monster. I watched the whole movie thinking this and didn't think the monster was really looking like Karloff but wasn't sure until the end. I didn't realize I was watching Karloff as Niemann the whole time until the credits at the end. Once I did know this, I was amazed at how different he looks outside of the monster makeup. I'm sure this has to do with the fact that over ten years had passed since the original movie.

I thought maybe this would be a fun film but I was pretty disappointed in it. Having the big three in one film sounded like a fun time to me but when the credits started to roll I started to think that the writers couldn't really think of a plot to feature all of the monsters. In truth, House Of Frankenstein might as well have been another The Wolf Man film because Dracula and Frankenstein's monster felt like after thoughts. The monster is around but doesn't become active until the very end of the film. Considering that the title of the movie is House Of Frankenstein, I would have thought that the monster or maybe the Frankenstein family would have been the highlight of the film. Instead, the family is no where to be found and the monster just has a small roll. Dracula doesn't fair much better but his roll in the film is at least a longer one.

I enjoyed the acting. The acting almost always seems to be the highlight of every Universal monster film I have watched so far. House Of Frankenstein was no exception. The subplot of the love triangle was an interesting one to me. What can I say, I'm a girl so I like that kind of thing. What I haven't been liking is the sudden endings that have happened over the last few and this film as well. It's like the writers aren't sure how to end the films so they decide to just "kill" everyone off and be done with it. This will be the last classic I will review for a little while at least. I want to hit some of my Netflix stuff since some of these movies I have here have been sitting around for almost two months now. I will visit some more of the classics though, probably within the next month or so.
2 out of 5 Wondering if the Wolf Man really is dead this time

Passing On The Information

I was going to do this as a poll but decided to just do a quick write up on it instead. There is a movie that is coming out this weekend that has caught my eye. If it wasn't for the fact that I will already be seeing 8 films this weekend, I would be going to see this one for sure. Maybe I will on Monday since I just happen to have that day free of classes this next week. The movie is called P2. I have been seeing the trailer for it here and there while watching tv and it seems interesting enough to me that I want to go see it sometime on the big screen.

Here is a quick blurb about the film that Fred over at M80 asked that I pass along:

It's Christmas and Angela is working late before she leaves for her family's holiday party. When she gets down to the deserted parking garage, she discovers that her car won't start and she doesn't have a cell signal. Thomas the lonely security guard comes along and offers help. Little does Angela know he has been watching her for months. If Angela wants to live to see Christmas morning, she must find a way to escape P2.

You can find the trailer on Youtube if you have yet to see it. Remember to try and catch this movie and see if you agree with my review which will be coming soon!

Film Club Day Part Eight

Since I went to bed super early last night, I had time today to watch and do this write up for Eyes Of A Stranger (1981) which is the movie that Final Girl picked for this month's Film Club. Once again Stacie has picked out a film that I have never heard of from her favorite era of films, the 1980's. I was going to watch this yesterday but had other plans. I wanted to watch the majorly hyped up football game. I'm sure you all know which one I am talking about. I avoided all things sports just so I wouldn't have to hear about it anymore. It was a very good game but I was disappointed by who came out the winner. Nothing against you fans of New England. I am just tired of hearing about them all the freaking time. What little respect I had for Brady was lost towards the end of that game. But, this blog isn't about football, it is for movies so lets get into the review.

Eyes Of A Stranger starts off with Debbie (Gwen Lewis). She is a waitress at a strip club. On tv they are watching the news about another woman that had been found dead (which we actually see happen before we meet Debbie). We watch as she heads home and once there she starts to get some strange phone calls. We never see the person making these calls fully but we do see that he is outside of her place using a phone booth. He calls her several times which seem like a waste of a quarter to me. We soon see that he finds his way into her place but she doesn't know that. Just when we think something bad is about to happen, someone knocks on the door and it is someone she knows. She tells him about the calls and asks if she can stay with him and he says sure. As she gets ready though, something bad happens to them both.

From there we meet the people we will follow through the rest of the movie. Jane (Lauren Tewes) is a news reporter who is following this string of murders closely. She sees Stanely Herbert (John DiSanti) coming home and he seems very nervous. Looking around to make sure no one else is around, he gets out of his car and changes his shirt because there is some kind of stain on it before heading up to his appartment. Even though we never get a clear shot of his face before this, it is still easy to figure out this is the same person from the phone booth. Jane watches him until he leaves and then heads up to her own place where we meet her blind/deaf sister Tracy (Jennifer Jason Leigh). Soon after this, Jane sees mud all over Stanely's car and then later finds out that another murder happened and that the body was found in an area with mud. When she goes to check out the car, she discovers it has been washed. She quickly suspects that she has found the killer and starts to do some investigating of her own in order to convince her boyfriend (Peter DuPre) that she has found the killer. Not only does this put her in danger but it also puts her sister in danger as well.

The effects were done by Tom Savini. This surprised me since I didn't know this was one of the films he worked on. I was surprised by knowing this not because the effects were bad, there just weren't a lot of them. The biggest effect would be a head being cut off in one shift stroke with a butchers knife. You will also find a couple of cut throats and a few bullet wounds as well. While there wasn't a lot they were good effects. They were done by Tom Savini after all so I think that alone should tell you enough.

The acting was pretty good. For the most part the acting is just ok. Nothing bad I would say, just simply ok. The real stand out is Jennifer Jason Leigh. This happens to be her first acting job in a movie and she does a wonderful job acting like she is blind and deaf. Leigh is an actress that I don't go out of my way to go see but I have always enjoyed her acting in the movies I do happen to catch with her in them. Lauren Tewes is someone I know who she is but I will admit I have not watched a lot of things that she has acted in. An odd episode of Love Boat perhaps but that is the only thing I can think of. She gives the movie her all but still, I wasn't all that impressed by her.

I think it had to do more with the movie itself than the acting found in it though. Eyes Of A Stranger wants to be more than just a slasher movie. It never really tries to hide who the killer is. We basically know for sure within the first 20 minutes of the film. This wasn't really a bad thing since we get to see Jane trying to turn the tables on Stanley. What took me out of this film though were the giant leaps in logic. Stanley seems to know a lot about each of the women he kills. Ok, maybe not a lot, he knows at least their first names and knows the right phone numbers to call. With Debbie I guess I can see that. Maybe he saw her in the club and got her name from someone there. Maybe he was able to get her number from a phone book or operator. The next woman is working in an office by herself when she starts getting phone calls from Stanley. Again he knows her name and how to call her. It appears that he even knows how to call an elevator phone as well. The problem with all this is they try and make it appear that he picks these women at random so he is either a very good detective or they didn't think out this part of the plot very well.

Like the acting, I felt that Eyes Of A Stranger was simply an ok film. It is nothing special but it isn't a bad film. It does have moments that are very tense, towards the end of the film is the best example of this. If it wasn't for that, I don't think I would have liked it too much. I can't tell any of you to rush out and watch this one. If you are a Jennifer Jason Leigh fan and would like to see her first movie then go for it. I have watched a lot worse than this, that is for sure. Thanks again to Stacie for doing the Film Club. Always a pleasure when I get to be a part of it. Can't wait to see what the next selection will be!
3 out of 5 Feeding fish body parts

Ghostly Frankensteins

Today I was going to go see 30 Days Of Night since I have yet to see it. I didn't feel like going out though so instead I ended up watching The Ghost Of Frankenstein (1942). I want to get back into my Netflix movies since they have been sitting around for a month's time now but I wanted to at least complete this set before I did that. I still have one more movie in the set which I hope to watch soon. I would at least like to get it out of the way before I get to the 8 Films To Die For movies coming out this next weekend. I ordered my tickets, now I just have to hope they are shipped on time for me to go to the movies. I haven't figured out how I will write 8 reviews in 3 days. Maybe I will span them out longer than that but I like to try and write a review soon after seeing the movie so it is still fresh in my mind. Time will tell I guess.

The Ghost Of Frankenstein picks up somewhere after Son Of Frankenstein but it is a little unclear how far into the future it is placed. It opens with the villagers still rather mad over the monster and Ygor. They are yelling at the mayor to do something about it even though both of them are supposed to be dead. The mayor, under threat of being replaced, gives the villagers permission to destory the Frankenstein castle. Maybe that is a good thing, they can remodel the inside while they are at it. Anyway, as they arrive, they discover that Ygor (Bela Lugosi) is in fact still alive. As Ygor makes his escape, a wall falls in and Ygor spots the monster (Lon Chaney Jr.) in some sulfer but still alive.

Ygor takes the monster to see the other Frankenstein son, Ludwig (Cedric Hardwicke). Ludwig works with diseases of the mind so it makes sense in a way. Upon arriving, the monster sees a little girl playing with her ball when some older boys kick it up onto a roof. Everyone seems to be afraid of the monster but not the little girl. She asks him if he can get her ball for her and he picks her up and takes her to get the ball. All the adults assume the monster is simply trying to hurt the child and go on the attack. Two are killed before the monster is captured. At first Ludwig wants nothing to do with the monster but Ygor says he will tell everyone how he is related to the monster if he doesn't help. Ludwig then decides that the only way for everyone to be safe is to destroy the monster and he thinks he has found a way to do just that when the ghost of the title shows up. The ghost tells Ludwig that perhaps all the monster needs is a good brain. Ludwig then decides this is the way to go but who's brain will replace the monsters?

The effects are still good but different. The monster looks different of couse because Lon Chaney Jr. is now playing the role. The makeup itself wasn't changed all that much though. Bela with his Ygor character was a disappointment in more than one way. For one, the character looks the same but different as well. I wasn't sure for a while if it was Bela Lugosi or not. Since his name was in the credits, I assumed it was still being played by him. As much as I liked him in the last movie, I didn't care for him all that much this time around. Lon Chaney Jr. certainly has the build to fill the shoes of the monster but I was disappointed that he didn't speak, let alone let out a growl or anything for that matter! I'm sure Cedric Hardwicke is a good actor but as Ludwig, his performance seemed a bit flat to me. You will also find Evelyn Ankers as Ludwig's daughter.

I can't blame Lon Chaney Jr. for the way the monster was acted or that he was always looking like he was about to fall asleep at any moment. For all I know, director Erle C. Kenton wanted it that way. Transplanting the brain made sense and made me wonder why no one, including myself, didn't think of it before now. Since The Ghost Of Frankenstein is the last movie with just the moster in it, I wanted to point out that the whole moster deal is a big if to me. Taking body parts from different people and putting them all together would be near impossible to have it work out right. Not saying the monster isn't effective because he is but that is always nagging at the back of my mind when I watch these movies and movies with a story close to this one.

The Ghost Of Frankenstein was a bit of a disappointment to me. I didn't like it near as well as the other movies. It has nothing to do with the actors really, I just think that the stories are starting to run a little thin by this point. It is the third sequel after all and the monster appears to die at the end of each movie. Since Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man is the next movie to see from this point, the start of the movie doesn't do a very good job of explaining why the monster is incased in ice and if I remember right, in a completely different location. I guess that is movies for you though.
2 out of 5 Doesn't need a child's brain since I already have one!

A New Doctor In Town

I started to talk about my disk for Son Of Frankenstein (1939) yesterday but I stopped because I wanted something to talk about for this review. I put the disk in and started to watch the film. After just a few minutes though, I realized there was a problem when it would pause and jump forward. It was doing this a lot so I stopped it, cleaned the disk and tried again. It was better but still skipping over sections. I have had my dvd player for a few years now and it isn't always the best since it has issues with a dirty or scratched disk. Lucky for me, I have access to another dvd player but I don't like the tv it is plugged into. It is one of those tvs you basically have to sit right in front of to get the best picture. It did a better job than mine but it was still pausing and jumping forward. I discovered that I could rewind the movie to a closer point of the damanged spot so at times I would only miss a few seconds of film. While it was a pain, at least I didn't miss a whole lot and hopefully nothing all that important. I was still able to follow what was happening at least.

Son Of Frankenstein picks up some 20 to 30 years after Bride Of Frankenstein. Baron Wolf von Frankenstein (Basil Rathbone) is heading back to his family home. His wife (Josephine Hutchinson) and his son (Donnie Dunagan) are with him. Wolf warns his family about the village and what the family name means to people there. Once there, he is greeted by a crowd of people but once he starts to talk about his father, Henry, everyone leaves. They don't think too highly of the Frankensteins and it is said later that they are quick to blame strange things and unexplained deaths on the monster still. The family meets Inspector Krogh (Lionel Atwill) who offers his protection from the villagers. Wolf also meets Ygor (Bela Lugosi) who has a secret. He knows that the monster (Boris Karloff) is still alive but not well. Wolf takes it upon himself, in the name of science, to restore the monster so he can be studied. Ygor has other plans though.

The effects are about the same for the monster but he does get a change of clothes for once. From what I have been reading, this was the first movie that Bela Lugosi agreed to wear heavy makeup on. He also had a smaller role but director Rowland V. Lee felt that his talent was being wasted so wrote a bigger role for Lugosi. This turns out to be a good choice by both of these men since Lugosi does an excellent job here. Some people even say this is Lugosi's best role in all of his films. I can't say if this is true since I have watched all of two of his movies now, that I know of anyway. Boris Karloff is good once again but I was disappointed that the monster reverted back to not speaking at all. Lionel Atwill was also fun to watch after seeing Young Frankenstein so many times. It was very eerie how the two characters from both of these movies look so much alike.


First thing I would like to know is who designed the Frankenstein house/castle or whatever you want to call it? The main staircase is so odd looking as well as some of the other rooms they happen to show. The kid's room looked normal but I think that was the only one that did. Son Of Frankenstein reminded me a bit more of the original film more than the movie just before (Bride Of Frankenstein) this one. It is a bit more serious in nature. Basil Rathbone is a good actor but his character just wasn't as good as the character of Henry Frankenstein. The Wolf character turns out to be a major character, as he should be. What disappointed me somewhat was that the Ygor also became a major character. I know he is the "bad guy" of the movie but I just felt we already have one in the monster and since it is a Frankenstein movie, it should be more about the monster and his creator. This is a good sequel but it falls a little short for me. Hopefully it wasn't because of the movie skipping on me but as I said, I never felt lost in the plot so I don't think I missed too much in the damaged parts of the disk.
3 out of 5 If the monster is indestructable, what happened to his bride then?