⭐️⭐️1/2
In Point Pleasant, WV a prank on a friend goes fatally wrong and a group of teens figure the smart move is to cover up their responsibility in the poor kid’s death. 10 years later, one of those teenagers has become a journalist and her boss sends her back to her hometown to cover the 10th annual Mothman Festival (if you’re not familiar, it’s about the only thing Point Pleasant is famous for. Well, that and a tragic bridge accident but the two things go hand in hand). Faster than you can say “I know what you did nine summers ago” the journalist is back in town and strange things start going down. Katherine’s old flame looks to reignite that fire that was snuffed out when... you know, they accidentally murdered a kid and then lied about it but the romantic shenanigans are put on hold when the winged cryptid kills the fuck out of the guilty goobers. The thing pops up in reflective surfaces (a reflection of guilt... so deep!) and its victims end up very dead. A local loon has some answers thanks to him being one of the only survivors of a mothman encounter and spills that the old fly-guy is an evil spirit summoned by a Native American because of course it is. Jewel Staite is always welcome in this house and makes our hero very easy to root for. The monster is not the best quality digital creation but it does get a lot of screen time and I’m all for that. Nothing special but it does get goofy as it winds down.
⭐️1/2
Five college friends gather for a small reunion in an infamous Italian castle. Local legend holds that the lady of the manor, Johanna of Anjou, was into witchcraft and caused a nasty drought and famine in the area. Villagers being villagers, they hung her ass and, persecuted witches being persecuted witches, Johanna threw out a curse and then killed herself. The curse was said to be placed on her journal and a night of drunken curiosity leads to the group finding the ancient book in a forbidden room and unleashing the pissed off spirit of Johanna of Anjou. The nightmare scenario is all caught on the hand camera of one of the Italian idiots (with some phone and security footage added). A sure way to spice up any horror outing is to utilize the atmospheric European architecture and that gives this standard fare a leg up in the found footage department. Unfortunately, the characters are all annoying which makes it difficult to get through the stretches where nothing is happening but these derps hanging out or getting frustrated with each other… and that’s the majority of the film. The supernatural entity is pretty cool, which makes it even more offensive that she’s not featured all that much. American audiences hate reading and unfortunately that’s where the market for this shit is, so we have a bunch of Italians speaking English so a lot of them sound like they have an extra chromosome (the man behind the camera acts like he has special needs so it may not be the second language in his case) but it’s not their fault. Hell, I can barely speak English and that’s the only language I got. At least we can take comfort in knowing Italy can do found footage just as bad as we here in the states.
aka Killer Shark/Flying Jaws/There’s Sharks in Steve’s Thwamp
⭐️⭐️⭐️
As animal smugglers attempt to transport a species of ancient shark, they fuck things up and accidentally unleash the beast into the Louisiana bayou. Not good that the community is only one week out from their popular Gator Fest and the locals are beginning to get gobbled. Much to the chagrin of Sheriff Watson (hell yes! It’s Robert Davi). Not just because it’s his jurisdiction, nope, he was also behind the smuggling and is trying to keep it a secret. So when the first local turns up badly mangled, he attempts to shift the blame in the direction of a local woman (restaurant-owner Kristy fuckin’ Swanson) who has a gator attraction on site at her restaurant and keeps rebuffing the sheriff’s advances. Unfortunately, she took a shot at the shark and the fact that the freshly dead man had a bit of a scuffle with the restaurant’s gator wrangler the day prior, makes the suspicion justified. We know what’s behind it but it’ll take everyone else a little bit of time to catch up with us. Anyways, the shark ate some gators who have tracking devices in them so Swanson, her gator-wrangling brother, her boyfriend (the restaurant’s bartender) and a mysterious stranger who has the hots for Swanson (don’t blame him) played by D.B. Sweeney go hunting. There’s also a gaggle of sexy teens partying on the lake because we have to make sure there’s plenty of chow for our marine hero… I mean villain. Swanson’s likable younger sister is hanging out with the drunk dopes because they took off on their boat when she tried to warn them to stay off of the water, blessing us with a reason to give a shit about the group of victims-to-be. The chubby/nerdy chef figures out the shark is heading to Gator Fest and Wade Boggs turns up as a deputy. Louisiana charm and a giant digital shark (sometimes an immobile rubber head) mix well, especially when you get to spend a lot of the movie lovingly gazing at Kristy Swanson… there’s also an asshole bartender who resembles the unholy spawn of John Stamos and TJ Miller hanging around, so it has that going for it. The shark jumps out of the water and bites the head right off of a peeping deputy (somehow, not Wade Boggs) and I dig that.
aka Paranormal Visitors
⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
A family’s dream home turns into a real scream home (please Lord, forgive me for that) when the picture-perfect new start ends up hiding a malevolent force. Husband/papa Frank is kind of an ass but I don’t really blame him when his toddler son Peter is such a chooch. Wife/mama Sara is a journalist and definitely looks like a product of the 80’s. There’s also a pudgy-cheeked daughter whose name I don’t remember… she’s a saint compared to the insufferable Peter. Things start out fine, with little projects getting completed and the quartet easing in to their new surroundings but a few troubling occurrences plant a seed of doubt that “happily ever after” is in the cards for the family. On top of Frank’s work pressure (which is adding to the money pressures) some unexplainable things are happening in the walls of the new home. All the newly installed wallpaper falls off in the children’s room which could probably be explained away by inadequate installation judging by how much goofing off Frank was doing when he was putting it up. But, after a night of heavy drinking (Frank blew his business presentation), Frank hears some disturbing noises coming from the walls of his new home. When he attempts a second go at wallpapering, he uses double the glue but in the time it takes him to have an argument with his wife about foolishly buying a new house and car before his business deal went through, the paper is off the walls again. More noises lead him to the creepy-ass attic and the probable location for ground zero of paranormal spookiness… the room hidden behind a camouflaged locked door. Frank begins to believe the place is haunted but his wife thinks he’s nuts… can’t say I blame her… Frank is definitely losing his cool and drinking more. Sara is more concerned that her hubby is spending his time obsessing over spirits instead of coming up with a new idea for his business associates… Sara is a very smart woman. It doesn’t help that all the spooky shit is only being experienced by him, like wet footprints in an empty room disappearing completely when he screams for his wife to take a look. It gets so bad, Frank reaches out to a ghost hunter for assistance after reading an article of his in Occult Magazine. Pervert-lookin’ Allen arrives the next day to lend a helping hand with the otherworldly tomfoolery (still wouldn’t trust him around the kiddos). He sets up his equipment and camps down for the night with Frank, sharing a spooky story and multiple beers. The equipment gets triggered and Allen tracks the energy to the secret attic room because of course that’s where every awful thing is originating from. Allen demands they see what’s behind the door and what they find is a disturbing clutter of masks, vines, cobwebs, creepy paintings and a journal pointing to a sinister history. The two men flee when a cold wind kicks up and Frank wants to wake up his family and nope the fuck out. Allen thinks more research is the way to go and he has a laser tool that can not only manifest energy in the house but can also zap the spirit (after all, it’s just collected energy) with enough of a shock to dispel it completely. As much as questionable “science” may be at play, I guess it’s worth a shot. Hilariously, this contraption leads to the two men dodging laser blasts from the malfunctioning machine. A death on the property brings a police inspector into the fold and he’s not buying the “homicide by ghost” explanation. With their world crumbling and her husband’s troubling insistence of the home being haunted, Sara runs out on her husband and kids (like I said, she’s a smart lady and sure it may not be the children’s fault but they suck, so fuck ‘em). With no way out and a bad storm hitting, papa and the kids seem stuck on the premises… at least he has his hands on the paranormal investigator’s arsenal. That’s a good thing, because whatever the hell had been calling the place its domain is about to show it’s ugly self. Mama comes back, things get violent and Frank comes off like a broke-ass Ghostbuster as the crescendo hits. A banana-loving mailman with a ponytail shows up for some comedic bits, the hero resembles a homely Antonio Banderas and it’s never really concerned with getting your pulse racing as it plays with the gender roles one would usually find in this type of offering. It’s a slow-brewing haunted house thriller that benefits from a family who may not be all-around likable but are definitely believable in their actions and the right amount of supernatural maliciousness raising a threat before the standout ghoul makes an appearance in the final minutes.
⭐️⭐️1/2
En route to a ski resort, a private jet is forced to make an emergency landing in the snowy mountains of California. The small group have to seek shelter in an abandoned cabin where, unbeknownst to anyone except an ill-fated snowmobiler, an alien monster has set up residence following the crash of a spacecraft. The agitated group of dopes with clashing personas piss and moan as horrendous cgi adds some flavor to the early going. After some half-assed character building and a bunch of douchery, the dopey caricatures begin falling prey to the silly-ass beasts that call the basement of the dilapidated cabin home. The annoyed wife of the guy who looks like a distant relative of Randy Quaid but not Dennis and sees himself as a real man of action stays behind as everyone journeys off to salvage the plane’s radio and follows the sound of a baby crying to the basement. Whereas a normal filmmaker at this point in the movie would probably use this opportunity to kill off at least one character (even if she does look like a mix of adult film star Dee Williams and adult film star Annette Schwartz and may be the most likable of these unlikable characters), the creative minds behind this one decided the best way to keep us entertained is to have her find the creatures lair, run into stock footage of a cat and then leave the basement. Jesus. More tedium follows but there is stock footage of wildlife and a sex scene where the dude smokes a cigar as his airhead girlfriend rides him. Calling it erotic would probably lead to criminal charges in some countries. After an hour that feels closer to two but does feature the off-screen death of the most annoying character and some lesbian action that feels unearned, the dopey-lookin’ alien creature finally shows itself. R.I.P. Andy Quaid or whoever the hell you were. The monster has a projectile tongue it uses to snatch and kill and it looks a lot like the stupid cousin of the alien from Alien… basically the Andy Quaid of the Xenomorph family. Hilarious special effects, performances that range from “dumpster fire” to “smell of recently extinguished dumpster fire” and a filmmaking attitude that is the equivalent of someone looking at a messy room, saying “fuck it” and then just closing the door all makes for an experience I probably shouldn’t have enjoyed as much as I did. It’s a fucking drag getting to the last act but once that shit hits, this bitch is a small piece of garbage heaven.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
A paranormal podcast is sent a collection of audio recordings concerning a young pregnant couple, seeming to be proof of something paranormal. Evy has just moved into her dying mother’s house to stand as caregiver for the woman in her final days and she’s discovering an unsettling parallel between the events on the audio recordings and her own life. Skeptical Evy is frustrated with her current situation and feels as if her podcast is the only thing keeping her sane but the deeper she falls into the pit of the truly eerie recordings, the more she begins to believe something unnatural is going on. Her co-host Justin (the believer of the duo) is the one sent the cryptic email containing the audio files and decided, after a brief listen, to experience it firsthand with Evy for the program. The young man on the recordings is attempting to prove to his girlfriend that she has been talking in her sleep so he sets up the recorder for overnight taping and catches Jessa singing nursery rhymes, sleepwalking and getting into all sorts of creepy shit. What else would you call playing London Bridge in reverse? Which I guess they own on vinyl… that’s also creepy. Real deep cut. Deep diving into hidden messages and the dark history behind nursery rhymes, there’s a nice layer of macabre spread as foundation for the increasing terror to build upon. A real solid setup for Evy’s diminishing nerves and skepticism as the spookiness in her mother’s house ramps up and the mythology behind the machinations is revealed. Ian Tuason crafts an intriguing auditory nightmare, attempting to see how upsetting he can make it for the viewer with expert sound design and off putting audio. It’s a risk in a genre that relies on visuals to pay things off and it doesn’t necessarily lend itself to excitement. Luckily, when combined with tight and nearly claustrophobic cinematography and enough haunted house shenanigans to fill a paranormal podcast, it molds into an effective and simmering horror film.
aka The Love Maniac/The Fiend with the Atomic Brain/Man with the Synthetic Brain/Fiend with the Electronic Brain/Two Tickets to Terror
⭐️⭐️
Mad scientists and brain implants never lead anywhere good. Thanks to Dr. Vanard (John Carradine, naturally), a brain damaged American soldier is transformed from a vegetable to a malevolent psychopath. Of course, this is all told through flashback by a homicide lieutenant who worked the case and the poor man’s grieving father. Currently a goofy-looking zombie is murdering folks on the streets and it ties into said revived soldier. So we get a story of a jewel robbery, a half million dollars in missing loot and a nice look at California in the 1960s. The neurosurgeon’s large haired daughter (our girl, Regina Carrol) shows up for some kind of voodoo/telepathy/revenge bullshit subplot which half-heartedly explains the zombie shenanigans. Shot as a crime film by Al Adamson and shelved for a few years until horror elements were added and it was shat out onto the big screen to a market hungry for said excrement. As usual with an Adamson film, the production history is far more interesting than anything that makes it to the screen. Schlocky charm manages to edge out the boredom and we are all thankful for that little miracle.
