⭐️⭐️
Tobe Hooper works with a Richard Matheson short story turned teleplay by Matheson’s son. It’s the third episode in the already mediocre Masters of Horror series left in the hands of a filmmaker who had seemed to have lost his step. I had a whole lotta respect for the man but at this point things had taken a downturn. The flesh-rotting apocalypse has come and gone and society marches on. Peggy is a teenage girl with a dead little sister and an overprotective mom. Working at her mom’s diner has her meeting a couple of youthful bikers who ride around collecting blood. Love is in the air for Peggy and one of the bikers (Jonathan Tucker… so handsome for a boy) which has her mama’s warning bells going off. The teenager wants to see the world and the biker is ready to show her something exciting. It’s mostly drugs and a little place called The Doom Room is the destination. The Doom Room is the kind of club you’d see in a shitty The Crow knockoff and presided over by Robert Englund who is admittedly having a good time. Loud music, questionable booze, bare breasts and a whole lotta stank… a place I would have absolutely no desire to visit… even at the end of the world. Mr. Englund is making a big fuss over the titular event, something I guess bored weirdos are all about. It’s tazing zombies and it just so happens Peggy’s dead sister is one of them “dancers”. This is probably going to spiral out of control. Ryan McDonald (from the Dual Spires episode of Psych and looking like a knockoff Eddie from Rocky Horror) is having a grand old time playing Tucker’s psychotic partner and the always reliable Marilyn Norry is one convincingly determined mother. It’s a shocking good cast placed in a story that’s at least trying to do something interesting but it also has some issues when it comes to editing techniques and story direction. It also suffers from a severe case of obnoxiousness as the apocalypse brings out some truly idiotic tendencies. So, it’s better than I was expecting but I wasn’t expecting all that much.
⭐️⭐️⭐️
In a remote region of the Andes Mountains, the headless corpse of a woman puts a rural police officer on a bizarre journey into the unknown. Initially, the blame lands on the husband of Officer Cruz’s lover, who is dealing with some mental issues and was seen wandering the area. Following the murder of Francesca (said wife and lover) the disturbed man is rounded up but even as they throw him in the nuthouse, he claims that the “Monster” is responsible and talks about an assertive voice repeating the mantra “Murder me, monster.” A disturbing tooth is found in the skull of the first victim and Cruz slowly comes around to the crazy man’s story. The deeper Cruz begins to dig, the stranger and more threatening things get. Telepathy, motorbikes, slime, geometry and a horrific madness slowly unfurling like a well-fed snake all come into view and a journey into the mountains brings an end to all threads. Odd touches (Cruz’s dancing is a standout), interesting characters and an almost suffocating atmosphere born from brooding and inevitability make for an intriguing but somewhat meandering watch. The genitalia-themed nightmare creature shows itself in the climax and is suitably unsettling but also a little silly.
1/2
Paranormal enthusiast Carrie decides she wants to do her own investigation and convinces her bestie Vanessa to tag along with her. Vanessa does not share the same view of the unexplained and goes along with her buddy to prove her beliefs wrong… not in like a dick way, they’re just kinda ready to justify their own view. They wander around a supposedly haunted factory and something bad happens because this is the footage that gets found when they go missing. Immediately starting things off with nonsensical camera exploration accompanied by the heaviest of breathing this side of a hotdog eating competition at a local fair was a bold and stupid fucking choice. Following that with opening credits is a great way to completely annihilate any ability the viewer will have in buying into what you’re presenting as found footage. Rough start, team. Carrie incessantly tells us that she has a feeling that something is gonna happen in between the non-stop chatter as she lays out everything she’s doing and why she’s doing it when the wind isn’t giving us a break from the rambling. Vanessa incessantly lets us know she has a bad feeling about this and doesn’t want or get in any trouble for her best friend’s bullshit investigation. Carrie thinks she sees a security guard as they try to find a way in, which convinces Vanessa they need to bounce. After much deliberation, they decide to go back and find their way in… eventually… there’s still a bunch more chatter and a run in with the real estate agent for the building who warns them to leave the area. They do not listen and are now more intrigued and dedicated to getting into the factory. They also convince themselves there’s a massive conspiracy involving the building… why, I couldn’t tell you. We are treated to scenes we’ve already watched play out in between the opposite of thrilling spookiness going on inside the factory the girls eventually make their way into. We come full circle to the heavy breathing that opened the film and I can barely contain my anger. I did enjoy the black sheet bit at the end, wish there was more shit like that. Have you ever been stuck talking to someone you don’t really know about something you don’t really care about and you eventually come to the conclusion you don’t really like this person but are trapped for the next hour in a conversation you don’t want to be in with someone you have no interest in getting to know? Yeah. They caught that vibe on film.
⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
A small group of students, taking a college course in the psychology of fear, join their obviously insane professor at a private seminar in his home. This seminar is happening because the first day of class involved the teacher pulling a gun on some smartass jock and making him piss himself. Student Allison is having some vague psychic vibes and knows danger is in the cards. The teacher and students tell spooky stories to each other to help them dive into the mechanics of fear. The Old Dark House has a married couple breakdown outside an infamous seaside murder mansion and break in to find a phone to call for help. Wifey vanishes and the husband spooks himself as he searches for her. It doesn’t help that there seems to be an evil presence in the place, further ruining the man’s birthday celebrations. It may be a bit predictable but it’s still a whole lot of fun. A Night on the Town finds four underage girls lost and low on gas in the shady warehouse district of some city. They stop at an abandoned gas station and instead of help they come across a pervy derelict and his trio of vicious puppers. They manage to take out the creep but the dogs are a whole other can of worms. The fight for survival is on when the car breaks down and the girls must flee on foot. Lastly, the weakest of the tales involves an answering service employee (the awesome Marg Helgenberger) alone on her skeleton shift dealing with a psychopath in All Night Operator. The wraparound proves way more interesting than anything when the embarrassed jock shows up with an axe and revenge on his mind. The climax gets a bit wacky and Allison finds out why she had feelings of dread eating away at her. Solid anthology offers variety and an enjoyable wraparound segment. The stories are populated with likable characters (except for Amy but she dies so fuck her) and never overstay their welcome.
⭐️⭐️1/2
Stuart Gordon tackles Lovecraft again to lesser success in this second episode from the Masters of Horror series. A graduate student rents a room in an old boarding house which was once home to a 17th century witch. Well, that evil left an imprint and there’s still something malevolent working within the walls on a different plane. A persistent rat pesters his neighbor and her baby and the young man, Walter, plugs up the hole in which it gains entrance. His heroics help nothing as he suffers from nightmares and his elderly neighbor, who prays through the night, warns him about a witch and her familiar… a rat with a human face. Walter soon comes to believe the witch is working some sinister magic and he’s being positioned to take the life of his neighbor’s child. It’s alright but there’s only so much one can do with limited funds and time, especially when it comes to adapting Lovecraft. The familiar is a bit too silly to be uncanny, the witch a bit too lackluster to be frightening and the hero a bit too white bread to give a damn about. Female nudity in a Lovecraft adaptation makes me laugh because I can just picture that wacky woman-fearing racist scream to high-hell at the site of breasts and an impressive bare ass. The silly climax saves things from forgettability and who am I to complain about a fantastic caboose getting some screen time? Also, Jay Brazeau plays the landlord. It’s not his caboose.
⭐️⭐️1/2
First episode from the Masters of Horror series which saw a bunch of famous genre filmmakers tackle various works from famous genre writers to middling success. Here, Don Coscarelli of Phantasm fame works on a short story from Joe R. Lansdale and it comes off just as average as the inspiration. Listen, thanks to The Nightrunners, Lansdale will always be a national treasure but after creating something as quintessential as Nightrunners (and, in effect, the God of the Razor mythology), it’s a little difficult to hold anything else in comparison. Incident could probably be considered an excellent outing if it came from any other author. All I’m saying is, this is probably my fault in how I feel about this one. A woman is on the run from a recent awfulness (cue Ethan Embry as her abusive survivalist husband flashbacks) and ends up hitting a haphazardly parked car on a lonely stretch of mountain road. She attempts to find some help after waking from unconsciousness but comes across a giant backwoods maniac by the name of Moonface. The rest is cat-and-mouse shenanigans with a cameo from Angus Scrimm. Thanks to the things she’s learned in her past, Ellen is a bit tougher prey than ol’ ugly Moonface is used to but he’s still efficient at getting a kill. Bree Turner is at least good at her job and cute enough to keep rooting for (especially when she briefly gets to beat the shit out of a much larger human) but it’s still something we’ve already seen thousands of times and an odd choice as an introduction to a series.
⭐️⭐️1/2
Mayhem strikes Massachusetts when an escaped mental patient replaces his missing hand with a BBQ fork and goes on a budget-conscious rampage against the local elderly teenage population. Tommy’s car (Green Monster) is impressively decorated with baseball cards, more impressively a Massachusetts seven seems all about him. The local mental institution is populated with local theater nut jobs and a staff comprised of uncles and librarians. It’s also where the handless lunatic Mason Crane makes an easy escape by the fatal usage of a door and a clipboard. Did you know if one were to throw a clipboard hard enough it could penetrate the human skull? I did… but that’s only because I’ve seen this before. Uncles make for terrible security and their soft skulls are easily penetrated. Tommy takes his date out to a shit-shack in the woods and playfully chases her around while the escaped lunatic gets his hands (hand) on that previously mentioned utensil and murders a dog. What a dick. Tommy’s date is concerned about the wandering lunatic but her baseball-loving beau tells her there’s nothing to be concerned about. He’s the captain of the baseball team and knows some kind of karate. He’s wrong… there is definitely cause for concern. A game of graveyard hide and seek ends in fork death, a shit-shack neighbor mumbles his lines and runs off to die, a makeout session goes on forever (think of those chapped lips!) and we discover forty minutes is just a bit too long to spend on the exploits of Massachusetts teenagers and maniacs. Don’t get me wrong, it has its charms and the enthusiasm is there but it also feels like it took itself just a little too seriously for its own good. I hope the Green Monster went to the loveliest of automobile heavens when it died.
