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“Night brings terror. Strange, alien forms move restlessly across the face of the earth. Fear, horror and death follow in their wake. The sky is dark; the moon has not yet risen; the stars seem too frightened to shine ..." --- Drake Douglas (introduction to Horrors)

Horrorphile - October 2007

Halloween II

October 31st 2007 05:33
Halloween II movie poster
“More of the night He came home!”

Okay, it’s not anywhere near as unnerving or frightening as John Carpenter’s original, but this sequel should’ve been titled more precisely Halloween Part Two as it continues straight on from where the first one finishes, in fact the movie even starts with the last moments of the first movie and then takes the baton and runs with it. It stumbles and falls a few times, but that’s to be expected, it wasn’t directed by Carpenter it was directed by debut feature director Rick Rosenthal.

Halloween II Jamie Lee Curtis
Jamie Lee Curtis as hospital bound Laurie
Halloween II (1981) is literally more of the night Michael Myers came home to Haddenfield. The movie takes place over the rest of Halloween night but is set almost entirely in a hospital. Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis), having been badly wounded by Myers in the first movie, is at the local hospital while Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasance) and Sheriff Brackett (Charles Cyphers), who’s pretty daughter Annie died at the hands of the boogeyman, are out and about trying to track down this phantom homicidal maniac.
Halloween II Donald Pleasence and Charles Cyphers
Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasence) and Sheriff Brackett (Charles Cyphers) examine Michael's handiwork


A young man inadvertently alerts Myers to Laurie’s whereabouts, and thus the tension is racketed up ten fold as Myers begins murdering the few hospital nurses and interns on nightshift (yes, oddly convenient for the purposes of the movie that the Haddonfield hospital is so vacant on Halloween night).
Halloween II Jamie Lee Curtis and Lance Guest
Paramedic Jimmy (Lance Guest) checks on Laurie
Meanwhile Marion Chambers (Nancy Stephens) the asylum nurse who was meant to be aiding Michael Myers transference to a maximum security prison at the beginning of the first movie informs Dr. Loomis that Michael is after Laurie Strode because she is his sister, born two years before he was committed.
Halloween II Jamie Lee Curtis
Laurie knows Michael is not dead
Myers is closing in on Laurie. Will Dr. Loomis get to her in time to save her from the boogeyman incarnate? Will Michael Myers complete his deranged mission of evil? What can possibly stop this human killing machine?!
Halloween II Tony Moran
Michael Myers on the loose
Director Rosenthal’s helming of the sequel isn’t terrible, but it lacks the fluidity or narrative cohesion of Carpenter’s original. If anything the movie is more subdued in mood and atmosphere and more pedestrian in its use of camerawork and lighting. However, these failings aside the movie is much better than most sequels, if anything because it continues on with the same thread and intent as the first movie, and Halloween's murderous legacy has enough power to imbue Halloween II with the momentum to follow through.
Halloween II Tawny Moyer
Pretty nurse your time is up
It’s more graphic in its depiction of violence, and in this respect it is similar to the multitude of slasher movies which were already hitting cinemas. Sean Cunningham’s Friday the 13th (1980) had opened the floodgates and so Carpenter, who wrote and produced Halloween II, was forced to play the same game other wise risk being slammed by gore hungry horror fans.
Halloween II face bath
Michael Myers tests the hospital spa temperature
But the characters, outside of the two central ones, are nowhere near as convincing or memorable. The hospital staff are all cardboard cutouts. But their deaths are juicy, especially the one where Myers rams a scalpel into the back of a nurse and with his own sheer strength lifts her up off the ground (okay, so that’s hokey as hell, but it looks great).

Of course I have to mention the infamous Halloween score again, because this is integral to the movie’s atmosphere. Carpenter alters the themes slightly, but the central elements are still as powerful as ever and damn scary too … always, every time.
Halloween II Michael on fire
Michael Myers infernal rage finally consumes him
Halloween II, despite its shortcomings, is best watched back to back with the first movie. While the next film Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982) has nothing to do with anything from the first two films except for the Halloween setting, and is okay viewed on its own (I’ll review it at a later date), the other five sequels are utter shite. I don’t care what anyone else says Halloween and Halloween II is where the story starts and ends.

Here is the original theatrical trailer:


There was an alternate ending made for the television version which provided viewers with a more upbeat consequence for the character of paramedic Jimmy (Lance Guest). Warning: contains spoilers:
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Halloween

October 30th 2007 23:52
“Black Cats and Goblins and Broomsticks and Ghosts
Covens of Witches with All of Their Hopes,
You May Think They Scare Me, You're Probably Right,
Black Cats and Goblins on Halloween Night . . .
Trick or Treat!”
Halloween title card
Haddonfield, Illinois, Halloween night, 1963. Through a POV we experience a figure stealthily approaching a house and through a window secretly watching a teenaged couple making out. The couple move upstairs. The figure then moves around to the back of the house, in the open back door, and acquires a large kitchen knife. Pausing unseen near the staircase the POV watches as the teenaged boy says goodbye to the girl and leaves the house. The POV then steadily climbs the stairs, stopping briefly to put on a white mask left on the staircase. The POV then approaches the girl’s bedroom and enters. She is half naked, combing her hair in front of her vanity mirror. She recognizes the POV, but it is too late. The masked figure begins savagely stabbing her. The figure then quickly retreats downstairs and out of the house, but is confronted at the gate by the parents arriving home. They pull the mask off and we see the figure is a six-year-old boy, clutching the bloody knife, a dazed expression on his innocent young face.
Halloween Will Sandin
Will Sandin's ten seconds of fame as young Michael Myers
John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978) is without a shadow of a doubt one of the most influential and respected modern horror movies of all time. Yet its origins are modest, the production values incredibly economical, and the set-pieces decidedly restrained. Yet, time and time again - like Blade Runner in Greatest SF Movie lists – it features in the top five of critics and horror fans. It defined a sub-genre (stalk’n’slash), even though this type of flick had already been established at the start of the 70s (Twitch of the Death Nerve), while its central character went on to become one of the most infamous horror villains of all time.
Halloween Jamie Lee Curtis, PJ Soles and Nancy Loomis
Laurie (Jamie Lee Curtis), Lynda (PJ Soles) and Annie (Nancy Loomis) on their way home from school
After brutally murdering his older sister young Michael Myers is incarcerated inside Smith’s Grove Warren County Sanitarium under the care of Dr. Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasence). Fifteen years have passed, and one stormy night on the eve of Halloween Michael Myers escapes the mental institution, and Loomis witnesses it. He travels immediately to Haddonfield, knowing for certain Myers is returning home … to kill again.

Halloween Donald Pleasance
Donald Pleasence as Dr. Loomis
While Myers begins stalking naïve teenager Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) and her more precocious friends Annie (Nancy Loomis) and Lynda (P.J. Soles), Loomis tries to warn the local sheriff of the abject evil that has arrived in Haddonfield, but of course, no one quite believes the eccentric Dr. Loomis, and so, Myers begins his reign of terror.
Halloween Jamie Lee Curtis
Laurie senses something dangerous close by
Like Don Coscarelli did with Phantasm (1978), John Carpenter made Halloween for around $US300,000, of which about half was spent on the Panavision camera equipment to ensure the anamorphic widescreen image was as impressive as could be. Carpenter also employed the precursor to the Steadicam, the Panaglide, which his cinematographer Dean Cundey used to elegant, yet sensational effect.
Halloween Tony Moran
Somthing dangerous IS close by
And, like Coscarelli, Carpenter handled several of the most important aspects of the production; he co-wrote and co-produced (with then partner Debra Hill), directed, and, very importantly, composed the electronic score. The music, especially the main theme, of Halloween is undeniably a major player in the movie. The unusual 5/4 time staccato piano riff with the big bottom end synth underlying it is genuinely spooky. Like John Williams' Jaws (1975) theme, it buries itself in the subconscious, mercilessly hammering on your primal fears.
Halloween John Michael Graham
Michael pins Bob (John Michael Graham) to the wall
There’s the doom-laden atmosphere, the creeping camerawork, the musical variations on the ominous main theme, but it is Carpenter’s exceptional compositions which maintain the movie’s palpable anxiety and paranoia. The way Carpenter frames Michael Myers, often having him out of shot, then edging in, accompanied by an electronic audio stab, that provides such a frightening sustained mood. The Shape is credited to these silhouettes, and it’s creepy as all hell.
Halloween Michael-as-Bob
Michael-as-Bob-as-ghost, and Linda has the last laugh
The movie was actually called The Babysitter Murders up until shooting began, with the action taking place over several days, however budget constraints meant they had to compound it all into a single day and night. One of the co-producers suggested Halloween as the setting, with its scary connotations, and what a brilliantly simple decision it turned out to be.
Halloween Nancy Loomis
Michael's shrine to his murdered sister
Obviously due to budget reasons Carpenter couldn’t have any major special effects make-up sequences, and so opted for most of the violence to happen off-screen. This is one of the movie's numerous trump cards. The lack of graphic bloodletting is unsually effective, the movie constantly playing on the fear of the unknown. Michael Myers has no voice, no real motive, no sense of reasoning, he appears to be unstoppable. Laurie is babysitting young Tommy (Brian Andrews) who has seen Myers across the road carrying a corpse into a house. He is terrified; “But I saw the boogeyman! I saw him!” “Okay, what did he look like,” Laurie asks. Tommy pauses and thinks for a moment, “Ummmm … The boogeyman!”
Halloween Tony Moran wardrobe
Jamie tries to hide in a closet, but Michael finds her
Yup, Michael Myers is the boogeyman, evil incarnate. And Dr. Loomis knows this, which is why he isn’t that surprised at film’s end when after pumping Myers full of bullets that the body has vanished. “It was the boogeyman,” a dazed and traumatised Laurie utters. “As a matter of fact … that was,” replies Loomis.
Halloween Jamie Lee Curtis and Tony Moran
Just when Laurie thinks its all over ...
Many of modern horror's cliches were etched in Halloween, including the tricks of audience manipulation, which were abused to the point of buffoonery in the countless slasher flicks that followed. Yet, there is something inherently “pure” and unbridled about the way it is presented in Halloween. The victims aren’t really obnoxious (well Lynda is a little annoying) but they’re nowhere near as deserving as the hundreds who will follow. Michael Myers is on a mission, which involves poor Laurie Strode and those around her. He will stop at nothing, and it seems nothing will stop him.
Halloween Donald Pleasence
Dr. Loomis makes a token effort
Halloween became the most successful independent movie ever made (if you exclude skin-flick Deep Throat), and remained at the top until The Blair Witch Project (1999) stole the trophy. There is a spare, minimalist style to Carpenter’s seminal cinema “Boo!” machine that transcends the genre. It is High Art masquerading as Grand Guignol, and although I have yet to see the remake, there is no way Rob Zombie’s re-imagining could ever hope to match the original’s sublime intensity. Halloween is the nightmare to end all nightmares; realism on the edge of the supernatural. It is a masterpiece of murder and manipulation.

Here is the US network television version teaser trailer, which is actually better than than the full-length theatrical trailer (but I could only find a lo-res clip):

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Alien

October 30th 2007 00:35
Alien movie poster
The original treatment for Alien (1979) by Dan O’Bannon (who had starred in John Carpenter’s sf cult classic Dark Star, and went on to direct the popular mid-80s zombie-comedy The Return of the Living Dead) was called Star Beast and was a homage to B-movies. If you examine Alien as a whole it is very much a B-movie premise - basically a stalk’n’slash flick set in space - but its production values have been elevated to high art.

Directed with the attention to detail with which he has become synonymous Ridley Scott created a genuinely frightening study of humans in extreme claustrophobic crisis: It is 2122, a deep space mineral ore towing ship, Nostromo, returning to earth has its crew interrupted from their hyper-sleep by the ship’s computer Mother. She’s intercepted a distress call from a neighbouring planetoid. Captain Dallas (Tom Skerritt) makes the decision to land the ship on the planet’s inhospitable surface (one of science fiction movies’ rare examples detailing how laborious this can be) and investigate.
Alien John Hurt hypersleep
The crew of Nostromo are rudely awakened from their hypersleep
Dallas, executive officer Kane (John Hurt), and navigator Lambert (Veronica Cartright) are the scout party. What they discover is out of this world, literally: a very strange-looking derelict, alien spacecraft. They enter and explore, encountering what appears to be the ship’s pilot; a huge space jockey astride some kind of phallic driving console. The long-dead creature appears to have died violently; a ruptured chest plate.
Alien derelict alien spaceship
The bizarre-looking derelict alien spacecraft
Alien space jockey
Inside the alien craft are the fossilised remains of its occupants
Investigating further Kane descends down into the ship’s massive hull and finds a sprawling bed of large leathery eggs. One of which splays open and dispatches an aggressive crab-like face-hugger, which immediately attaches itself to Kane’s helmet and face. Warrant officer Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) is reluctant to let the crew back on board with Kane carrying a foreign body, but science officer Ash (Ian Holm) in subordinates her decision.
Alien face-hugger on Kane
Removing Kane's helmet reveals a terrifying parasite
Later, after the face-hugger has dis-attached itself and expired, the crew, including a traumatised, but otherwise okay Kane, sit down to a solid ship’s breakfast. And this is when the real trouble begins. It seems the face-hugger had been doing more than simply supplying Kane with oxygen; it had laid an egg which had incubated inside Kane, grown at an exponential rate, and was now ready to leave the nest, which it proceeds to do in spectacular, gory fashion, and in one of horror cinema’s legendary set-pieces.

Alien Kane for breakfast
The alien infant takes an immediate dislike to the ship's food
For the rest of the movie the remaining crew members try and devise ways of trapping and killing the alien creature which within hours has grown to over seven feet tall and is nigh on invincible; a ferocious killing machine which steadily picks off the hapless crew.

Everything about Alien is top notch; it is almost impossible to fault the movie. Sure if you want you can find flaws or inconsistencies, but any film will have these. My only substantial gripe with the movie is that the alien’s physical appearance, when revealed in full near the movie’s end, is too humanoid; not alien enough. There is one shot where the alien is silhouetted against the ship’s rocket exhausts, which looks silly, and Ridley Scott should never have used, but hey …
Alien acid for blood
Acid for blood, a brilliant defence mechanism, you don't dare kill it!
Ron Cobb’s production design of the ship is brilliant. H.R. Giger’s design of the alien and the alien designs on the barren planet are exceptional (Italian special effects make-up whiz Carlo Rambaldi was the man who actually constructed the alien on set making the infamous head-piece with slimy dual jaws so utterly convincing). Jerry Goldsmith’s eerie and very memorable orchestral score sets a superb tone of dread and creeping unknown.
Alien Yaphet Kotto, Signourney Weaver and Harry Dean Stanton
Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), Parker (Yaphet Kotto) and Brett (Harry Dean Stanton) hunt the hunter
The casting is excellent. Director Scott wisely went with mostly lesser known names, apart from established English stage and screen actor John Hurt. It was Sigourney Weaver’s debut and the film’s sequels made her a household name. Originally her character was to be male. In early drafts of the screenplay there were several references to a relationship going on between Ripley and Dallas, but director Scott wisely decided a love interest sub-plot would only distract viewers unnecessarily.
Alien Ash the android
Ash is a robot! Ash is a goddamn robot!
Alien was one of my very early “adult” movie experiences; several mates and I hired it out on VHS aged 12 or so (the movie was restricted to 16 and over). I remember utilising the freeze-frame function on several occasions during repeat viewings to marvel in horror at the blink-and-you-miss-them graphic dispatching of crew members, such as Brett’s fatal head injury and Parker’s chest gouging. I also remember owning a superb promotional pictorial magazine for the movie which featured numerous rare stills, including alternate takes, and mentioned Ripley going down into the hull of the Nostromo near the end of the movie and discovering Dallas in an alien cocoon. This latter scene was cut for the release version and many years later re-inserted for a director’s cut on DVD.
Alien alien head
The awesome headpiece of H.R. Giger's alien design
Speaking of Dallas there is a scene of extended jeopardy in Alien which I feel ranks as one of cinema’s scariest, most suspenseful and intense sequences ever put to celluloid. When the crew members realise that the alien is using the ship’s air duct passageways to navigate around Dallas volunteers to enter the cramped space armed with a flamethrower (there are no weapons on board). Ash has built a rudimentary device detecting micro-changes in air density which the other crew members use to let Dallas know when the alien is getting close to him. Dallas steadily makes his way from one air duct junction to the next whilst Goldsmith’s music ratchets up the tension to nerve-wracking levels.

Alien Tom Skerritt
Tom Skerritt as fearless Captain Dallas
To make an unusual analogy, Alien has aged like a fine single malt; what was initially smoky and flavoursome with intense character and finish has become a truly powerful cinematic elixir. It doesn’t get much better than Alien, for mood, tone, atmosphere, mise-en-scene, special effects, cinematography, music, acting. Even the pared-back dialogue never comes across as forced or risible, as often is the case with derivative movies, because Alien does pull from numerous sources, it’s not a wholly original plot. But the emphasis on the visual narrative, the realism, the restraint in humour, these elements make the movie’s calibre like that of a full metal jacket; Alien kicks ass.

Alien Sigourney Weaver
Ripley covers her ass during the film's uber-tense final moments
James Cameron made a fantastic sequel, which has its own legion of champions, but Aliens (1986) is more of a space cowboy action movie with horror undertones and will probably date sooner, whereas the controlled viscera, minimalism and inherent moodiness of Ridley Scott’s movie gives Alien a gothic elegance, lean intelligence, and ultimately the longevity of a deeper cult (shockhorrorprobe be the day Hollywood remakes this classic).

I could write a damn thesis on this movie, but I’d best keep it short, this is a blog, not a university paper (been there, done that). I now find myself dangerously close to All Hallow’s Eve, having completed my countdown to Halloween with reviews of seven nightmares of pleasure. Alien and tomorrow’s review are modern horror’s truly seminal movies.

Here's the superb original theatrical trailer:

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Phantasm

October 29th 2007 04:36
Phantasm movie poster
A phantasm is an apparition, a ghostly vision, or spectre. It’s also a creation of the imagination, a fantasy. Don Coscarelli’s cult classic Phantasm (1978) is exactly that; a feverish phantasy dealing with the spectre of death. It fuses science-fiction, mystery and horror into a genre all of its own. No other movie is like Phantasm. It exists in its own weird and wonderful alternate universe.

I first saw the movie when I was an impressionable teenager. It was the Australasian release on VHS known as The Never Dead (“If this one doesn’t scare you, you’re already dead!”). The movie’s imagery and overall mood have stuck with me forever. It’s one of those movies that defy description; flawed and dodgy, yet ingenious and mesmerising


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Videodrome

October 26th 2007 01:09
Videodrome movie poster
“The television screen is the retina of the mind's eye. Therefore, the television screen is part of the physical structure of the brain. Therefore, whatever appears on the television screen emerges as raw experience for those who watch it. Therefore, television is reality, and reality is less than television.”

Videodrome's working title was Network of Blood, a B-movie title if ever there was one. Writer/director David Cronenberg’s first two features; Shivers (1975) and Rabid (1977) owe much to the exploitation genre, but had a socio-political savvy and philosophical streak coursing through their cinematic veins. Videodrome (1982) is deeply entrenched in the social discourse of modern consumerism; it even pre-dates cyber-space and reality television, pushing the sex and violence envelope into the deadly realm of “snuffTV”, where the ante has been inexorably raised


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Suspiria

October 25th 2007 01:02
Suspiria movie poster
Those of you who have been following the progression of my blog, Pleasure of Nightmares, will have been anticipating my review of this landmark modern horror film for some time. It’s no secret I’m a huge fan of director Dario Argento, a true auteur.

But Argento is an acquired taste, and for all those who relish his visual expressionism and lurid approach to screen violence, there are just as many who pan his illogical narratives and over-the-top set-pieces. Suspiria (1977), the first part of his "Three Mothers" trilogy about witchcraft and the occult, is without a doubt his most famous film. It frequently features in critic’s and horrorphile’s lists of all-time favourite horror movies


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Possession

October 24th 2007 05:11
Possession US movie poster
I first discovered Possession (1981) during the Incredibly Strange Film Festival in Wellington, New Zealand, one year during the early 90s. It was a late night screening on a Friday night and there was only a handful of people in the cinema. My friend and I had never heard of the film, but it was a science-fiction horror by a Polish director starring Isabelle Adjani and Kiwi ex-pat actor Sam Neill, so we were very intrigued, to say the least.

The film turned out to be one of the most bizarre horror movies we’d ever seen; a truly unique, uncompromising and outlandish viewing experience. It had one screening and that was it. Barely anyone saw it, and those who did were haunted by the movie’s imagery for days, weeks, even years after. I didn’t see it again until I moved to Sydney, during the summer of 97-98


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Cat People

October 23rd 2007 03:47
Cat People movie poster
"Even as fog continues to lie in the valleys, so does ancient sin cling to the low places, the depressions in the world consciousness ..."

Producer Val Lewton made several low-budget “horrors” for studio RKO. With Cat People (1942) he employed French ex-pat Jacques Tourneur to direct and the result was an artistic success and a commercial hit. Tourneur went on to direct the haunting I Walked With a Zombie (1943) and one of the best of the classic film noirs, Out of the Past
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Invasion of the Body Snatchers

October 22nd 2007 03:04
Invasion of the Body Snatchers movie poster
Originally conceived and produced as a low-budget B-movie in the vein of the then popular 50s alien invasion movies such as It Came From Outer Space and The Thing From Another World director Don Siegel transcended the genre trappings and turned Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) into a bonafide cult classic.

Made for around $US380,000 with only fifteen grand on special effects the movie capitalized more on what you don’t see, the fear behind the fear. Just as John Carpenter’s seminal fright machine Halloween (1978) played brilliantly with the fear of the “boogeyman” - that supernatural shape in the night - so does Invasion of the Body Snatchers, mercilessly treading on the audience’s fear of a steadily encroaching menace. In this case, seeds drifting from deep space which planted on earth to slowly and surely clone us with unfeeling, insidious replicas of our former selves


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The RE-IMAGINING of the SEQUEL to the REMAKE of the PREQUEL - THE FINAL GRIPE

October 19th 2007 00:09
cinema auditorium
I ain’t finished. Not yet. Just wait; no doubt in a couple of months I’ll be writing a post entitled Re-Envisionings: A New Beginning. And the vitriol will be laid on thick with a garden trowel, as savagely as the little girl in Night of the Living Dead (1968).

We are living in dark times, desperate measures, clutching at cinematic straws. Well, not us per se, but the insidious Hollywood machine. The 80s weren’t this bad, but we felt it. It had begun in earnest during the latter part of the 70s, but it went a little crazy during the 80s, then in the 90s it escalated a little more. Now, in the new millennium, sequel/prequel/remake mania has reached critical mass


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Wrong Turn 2: Dead End

October 18th 2007 05:11
Wrong Turn 2: Dead End DVD cover art
I would’ve probably avoided this movie like the plague, well maybe not as rigorously and desperately as the plague, but I certainly wouldn’t have touched it with a barge pole, even though I enjoyed the first movie, Wrong Turn (2003), and actually own it. However a friend of mine, who’s taste in movies I generally agree with, recommended it.

Well, it seems I’ve discovered one of my friend’s guilty pleasures, Wrong Turn 2: Dead End (2007). We all have our guilty pleasures, John Doe reckons Wrong Turn is one of my pleasures I should feel guilty about. The only thing I feel guilty about is wanting Eliza Dushku’s character to have been tied to the table buck naked (as she should’ve been). Ahem


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POSTER GALLERY 6

October 17th 2007 00:11
I’m feeling in a trashy, exploitative mood today. So my movie poster selection is reflecting this. Not all the way to the hilt, but some of the way. I’m plunging deep, but I’m not getting the gloves covered in gore.

I’ve included aliens and zombies, vampires and werewolves, monsters and robots, ultra-violent gangs, homicidal sex-fiends and witchcraft … something for everyone. But of course, they’re not high brow, well, there might be a couple of middle brow movies in there. Or even middle brow that is lying in the gutter staring up at the stars


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MADNESS & MULTIPLE MURDER IN MOSCOW!

October 15th 2007 23:25
Alexander Pichushkin arrives in court
A few days ago I read - as I’m sure quite a few of you did – about the man arrested in Moscow and charged with 49 murders! The man appears to possess a very, very black sense of humour, for he told the court during his trial that another 11 victims should be added to his tally. “I thought it not fair to forget about the other eleven people,” he said.

The case details are chilling, but compelling, the kind of strange macabre truths that a fictionalised screenplay could only hope to capture. I can already imagine exploitation film producers rubbing their hands with glee and concocting business deals


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Cherry Falls

October 15th 2007 05:12
Cherry Falls poster art
There are those horror movies which are really terrible, and there are those movies that are superb examples of the genre, and then there are those that fall into a limbo between the two. They’re technically proficient, well acted, and have promise, but somewhere between the shooting script and the editing room several things went awry.

In the case of Cherry Falls (2000), directed by Aussie Geoffrey Wright (his first American flick), the main problem lies with the ambitious script in a morally conservative climate ie. Serial killer offing virgins in small town America. In what should’ve been an in-your-face genre-busting horror, instead is a tame, prophylactic-wearing thriller with minimal thrills


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THE GOREGASM TEST

October 12th 2007 05:05
blood
You might have heard of the G-Spot. There are in fact two. One is of a sexual nature, pertaining to an elusive, erotically-charged and deeply sensitive part of the female anatomy. The other is a level of almost perverse appreciation for the darkest of cinema taboo treats: the Gore Spot.

When this gore spot is reached, the gratification one experiences from the psychological state of understanding the visual and aural levels of intense uber-violence and physical destruction can be described as a goregasm
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TerrorVision

October 11th 2007 01:20
TerrorVision VHS cover
Here’s a real blast from the past! They don’t make ‘em like this anymore. They didn’t make ‘em like this even when this was made! In fact this little intergalactic trash-gem is off the radar! TerrorVision (1986) is one of those so bad, it’s hypnotizing flicks. But then, it always knew it was rotten, it just liked to smell that way from the start.

It was made by ultra-prolific and notoriously cheap and trashy production house Empire Pictures, a super low-budget company (although perhaps not as nasty or subversive as Troma Pictures) that was formed in the mid-80s by producer Charles Band, vomiting up such ghastly fare as Ghoulies, Troll, Crawlspace, Breeders, Soriority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama, and dozens of others


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Posted By: Bryn - Category: movie reviews
   


28 Weeks Later

October 10th 2007 00:12
28 Weeks Later movie poster
I was disappointed by 28 Days Later (2002). I had looked forward to it immensely, there being a massive billboard ad for the movie across the train tracks of my local station which never failed to hold my attention. I had thoroughly enjoyed Alex Garland’s novel The Beach, (although didn’t think the movie adaptation was anywhere near as powerful), and so eagerly anticipated an original screenplay about an end of the world scenario.

The result was very much a mixed bag. The first half rocked. The second half sucked. I loved experiencing the shock and horror of Jim (Cillian Murphy) as he discovered a deserted London and the Rage virus pandemic which had created a plague of ferocious human carnivores. When the military entered the movie around the half way mark, events took a turn for the silly and rather annoying. And the whole film copped out at the end


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Posted By: Bryn - Category: movie reviews
   


THE ART LAIR - horror artwork

October 9th 2007 01:40
throne of death
I was surfing with intent and came across a great site full of horror and Gothic art by a multitude of artists, most of which is actually uncredited. The site is intended for webpage designers, so many of them are quite small images for using as avatars, etc. There are numerous code generators and even a whole section for myspace junkies.

cold eye
The site is a smorgasbord of horror artwork; all blood and darkness for the artiste children of the night. Most are vivid paintings, but many are digitally manipulated photographs, while others are just black and white sketches, and some images are almost endearing, in a strange, macabre kind of way


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Posted By: Bryn - Category: the art lair
   


Turistas

October 8th 2007 03:40
Turistas DVD cover art
I’d be scanning the shelves of the local video store, looking for something, anything. My eyes would pass over this particularly dodgy looking cover art depicting a bikini-clad woman lying in a hammock on a beach, her head out of shot, what looks like a surgical wound in her lower belly, dripping blood, which has formed the word “unrated”, like some kind of stamp upon the sand … terrible cover. The movie was called Turistas (2006), the tagline; “There are some places you should never go.”
Turistas bus
Everyone off! This bus is goin' down!
So I went there. I hired the movie. It has an Aussie “R” rating (restricted to over 18s) with the warning contains “high level violence”. That helped lure me in, and the fact that the movie is set on the coast of Brazil. I had to assume there would be some female nudity involved. And there was.

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