aka Demon Within/The Tasty Flesh
⭐️⭐️⭐️
Investigating a supposed ghost sighting in the woods, a reporter gets infected with a demonic entity when it worms its way into his ear. He comes home to his wife with a large appetite (including raw meat) and some gross facial sores. A caped-man wearing a black mask stalks around, carrying a birdcage, and the reporter’s wife begins to worry about her husband. Her fears prove to be well-founded when he orally gives birth to a demon-puppet-thing which wrecks havoc on the house and terrorizes the poor woman. She fights for her life as the husband discovers the facts about the monster from the black-masked man (a survivor of the same experience, now horribly scarred) and the awful future that awaits. Goofy-ass movie features some hilarious monster work and hardly sticks around long enough to offend. Brings some bat-shit glory but also drags in some parts. My copy was in Japanese with French subtitles, so I was fucked on following along twice!
⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
Michael rocks some badass dinosaur pajamas that he’s probably a bit too old for and also frees an evil spirit from an Ouija Board his dickhead buddy Tony gifts him on his 18th birthday. Mikey ain’t too comfortable with the supernatural gift but his friends and the cute new girl at school, Alex, convince him to give it a whirl. Michael has a history with the board and more importantly with the spirit guide Virgil he and Tony have communicated with before. This entity is one evil piece of crap and Mikey doesn’t want to risk bringing him back into his life… let’s see how that goes. The next day Michael has a way better experience when tardy hijinks lead to a first date with the unibrowed and lovely Alex. After dropping her off and getting a smooch, he stops by Tony’s place. The now sober Tony apologizes for his behavior and reiterates how serious he knows Ouija board usage is. Unfortunately, it’s already too late and it looks like Virgil is making his way back into this realm. On top of Alex’s jealous friend Juan giving him the evils and Michael’s divorced mama hitting the bottle (dad moved them to Mexico from Beverly Hills and then nope’d the fuck out), our permed hero has to deal with a powerful and malevolent monster taking out his friends and classmates with a gnarly-looking dagger. Horrifying visions hit Mikey and he develops some crimson irises and blindness during the murders. Premonitions of death get the cops looking in Michael’s direction. I really don’t blame them, the idiot makes a big scene about a young nurse being in mortal danger and then when her corpse is found he flees the scene. The dead nurse’s brother (it’s that ass-clown Juan) grabs a shotgun, kidnaps Michael and goes looking for his sibling’s killer. Yeah there’s some lulls, most of the murders are treated as afterthoughts and we’re given one of the weeniest of heroes in horror history but there’s also those badass pajamas, an 18-year-old man throwing a temper tantrum in said pajamas, floating roses, death in tighty-whities, a ruined dinner party, a laughably lame villain and a charmingly silly climax.
aka The Girl From the Other Side
1/2
Was the Amityville series ever a hot ticket item? I mean, I know the book was a bestseller and the original one did well enough to keep everyone pumping out more movies but was anyone ever flowing in cash as they sunk money into another outing, this time featuring a haunted sofa that ends up in Vancouver and terrorizes a family of vaguely familiar character actors? Even then, the initial series died a quiet death until Ryan Reynolds showed up in a remake. I’m asking because the new wave of Amityville flicks are a sloppy handful of either loosely connected “sequels”, braindead attempts to add to a series that has an incredibly thin narrative or some low-budget flick that whatever production company slaps the name Amityville on to… and here’s where the confusion hits… make money? I haven’t heard anyone clamoring for more Amityville, not even when the original series was throwing out yearly titles. The only people watching these things are dopes like me who don’t mind testing their patience and seeing just how bad it can get. I’m an idiot, please don’t be like me. So what we have here is a movie that was originally titled The Girl from the Other Side and it looks like it’s set in Chicago… there better be a haunted fucking lamp purchased at an estate sale in Long Island. Heather West calls herself a paranormal investigator and since it’s all bullshit anyways, I guess she is one. A missing girl named Maryanne was presumably murdered but with no body ever being found, it remains a heartbreaking mystery. Heather is determined to figure out what happened to the poor girl. After the disembodied screams of what may be Maryanne are heard in the house where she died, the homeowner, Rosa, invites Heather to come and get her investigation on. Heather, when not treating us to an inside look to her boring-ass and moody life, puts her decade of ghost hunting to work and sloooooooooowly attempts to make contact with the other side. Unfortunately for us, the viewer at home, this movie is really interested in Heather’s miserable existence. It doesn’t even to bother to show it all. There’s a bit about her father being dead and instead of watching Heather deal with this grief we get text across a black screen explaining this grief while the kind of music you’d hear while waiting to be transferred to your sales representative plays… what the fuck, movie? Heather finally gets to investigating and I’m now realizing it’s only been thirty minutes of movie so it just felt like we were dealing with Heather’s personal life forever. Still, I blame the movie. Nope. Nevermind. More personal bullshit. Heather makes tea, Heather waxes poetic over a shot of fallen leaves, Heather goes for a jog, Heather has stilted conversations, Heather watches a ghost hunting show that looks like Tubi would have turned away, Heather makes more tea, Heather opens her fridge repeatedly (this is an actual scene. We also get more text letting us know that she started drinking after her father passed), Heather watches the original House on Haunted Hill (super jealous), Heather texts, Heather sits quietly and works on her computer, Heather researches stuff on her laptop, Heather watches Carnival of Souls (again, wish I were Heather and watching anything but this bullshit), Heather makes phone calls, Heather sees a tarot reader, Heather hears whispers, Heather takes a nap (again, jealous), Heather dreams of ghosts and there is no connection, however tenuous to the infamous Long Island haunted house. A dramatic character study with a haunting in the background could work if we gave a damn about the character we’re studying. Weak performances and a general lack of any entertainment further hamper my time with this. The chilly Chicago setting has me fondly looking back on working construction in the city with my buddy and the apartment interiors have me reminiscing about the places I’d wake up after a night out drinking… so you can say this is saved from zero stars by no action on the filmmakers’ part.
aka Killer With Wings
⭐️⭐️⭐️
George Zucco plays a demented archeologist who manages to find the mythical Quetzalcoatl during an expedition to an Aztec temple. He gifts his wife one of the creature’s feathers and this proves to be a fatal mistake when the ancient bird-god tracks her down and slaughters her poor ass. Now fully cracked, ol’ Zucco sees a way to get rid of his enemies by the careful placement of the feathered-serpent’s quill. His daughter’s growing concern means little to him because ever since he lost his wife he’s been a complete cold-hearted asshole. Classic Zucco. He keeps the beast caged in a secret cave along with some treasure, letting its ratty-ass out when somebody upsets him. Mystery writer Dick Thorpe shows up to look into things and provide a love interest for the madman’s daughter. It’s cheap as all hell but that don’t make it any less fun and coming in at just under an hour makes sure it doesn’t overstay its welcome.
⭐️⭐️⭐️
After witnessing two servants murder its owner under the orders of the owner’s conniving and surly husband, a fuckin’ house cat sets out to get revenge. They bury the body and claim the old lady has vanished into thin air. They send for the missing (dead) woman’s niece so they can get her out of picture and split the old bag’s money between themselves. They also try their damndest to kill the cat well before it comes for them but the damn thing is one resilient feline. The schemers think the beast is pure evil but the kind-hearted niece finds it just as friendly as it ever was. The rest of the greedy family arrives, the pressure mounts, suspicions grow and that awesome avenging pussy makes sure karma is a right bitch. Offbeat Hammer horror plays pretty close to the usual inheritance and murder story but keeps on the right side of odd by casting a cat in the role of avenging angel… even if idiocy claims the lives of most of the dummies. And when your world is populated with scumbags, ya gotta love it.
⭐️⭐️
It seems at least once a year you get some film coming out that has critics saying “so and so is the new [insert iconic slasher’s name here]” or “so and so makes [insert vaguely similar horror icon here] look like donkey dick.” Now, Art the Clown is a very cool-looking killer. His complete silence is a nice touch and he is suitably creepy. The problem is, they threw him in a movie that doesn’t do much for him. It’s hard to give a damn about canon fodder and when the victims are not bringing anything to the table you only fail at building your monster. It’s why the slasher genre went to shit. The violence is wet, graphic and mostly practical (some of it fares better than other set pieces) but there’s just a whole lotta nothing going on between kills. It’s an alright time that works as a highlight reel but as a film it ultimately disappoints. I’m kind of in the minority on this one so I may be missing something but I did not have a good time with Terrifier and found it pretty damn boring and uncomfortably misogynistic. A woman becomes a target for a sadistic clown with a bag full of murder-tools. Rinse, wash and repeat.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
A descendant of Count Zaroff (He of The Most Dangerous Game fame) has a hard time discerning from violent hallucinations and violent reality. Real bad news for the steady flow of gorgeous women he puts up at his castle. His loyal butler (Oh hell, it’s Howard Vernon) is around to make sure the businessman carries on with his ancestor’s infamous activities and there’s a fuckin’ torture dungeon in the lower levels of the estate to really get the point across. Sexual deviance and violence to women runs its course as Boris Zaroff does his thing and romances the spectral countess who used to own his castle… but it could all just be feverish and hazy fantasies produced by a sick mind. The Zaroff evil broods within the halls of the castle and Vernon narrates the malicious machinations at work. Random women come into the Count’s clutches, make love, dance, hallucinate, have some din-dins and die in various ways. A young couple is unfortunate enough to have their car breakdown in the area and are allowed to spend the night. The girl is fascinated by the family history, the guy is a real dip and Count Boris is more than happy to put his dungeon to good use. The movie is suitably insane and has moments of pure sadism that offer up the appropriate queasiness. This is some quality Eurosleaze, rich with psychedelic eroticism and intriguing visuals. On the other side of things, it’s a bit too vague for its own good and is forced to have people act like complete idiots to get things moving. It’s not much of an issue, I mean this genre is populated with dummies because it’s convenient and it doesn’t warrant many complaints from me.
