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.
aka The Great Monster War/Monster X/War of the Monsters/Invasion of Planet X/Godzilla vs Monster Zero
⭐️⭐️⭐️
The World Space Agency sends two astronauts to investigate the newly discovered satellite of Jupiter, named Planet X. Surprisingly, the place is inhabited by a race of human-like aliens with the fashion sense of a German new wave band from the 80s. They have been forced to live underground thanks to the continuous attacks from an alien creature called Monster Zero. We (and the astronauts) know Monster Zero better as King Ghidorah. The aliens have a plan and they share it with the two earthlings. They wish to borrow Godzilla and Rodan because the duo managed to defeat the three-headed bastard when he attacked Earth. They sweeten the pot by throwing in a cure for cancer if we let them have the property-destroying pair. The astronauts return to Earth with the offer and it’s meant with unanimous approval but our heroes are a bit more skeptic of our new “space-friends”. Their caution proves to be well founded when the Xians reveal their true plan to conquer Earth with the trio of monsters now at their disposal and under their control thanks to electromagnetic waves (sure, sounds great). A female Xian falls hard for astronaut Nick Adams (who can blame her) and a young inventor starts nosing around where he’s not wanted when one of his inventions is purchased by a supposed toy company that is obviously hiding something. You can sense a bit of the budget tightening in this one but through the lens of my rose-tinted glasses everything looks fine. There’s a few flying saucers, plenty of visible strings, recycled footage and Godzilla does a victory dance at one point. The world slips into chaos as the Xians grip us by the collective short hairs but where there’s Godzilla... there is hope.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Another lunatic offering from glorious Hong Kong. When a foolish film crew ignores all warnings, they enter the tomb of a powerful sorcerer and unleash the Red Dwarf Ghost in the process of opening her stone coffin. Steven, the producer, returns to Hong Kong to get the footage ready while his team, headed by the beautiful Stella, head to Borneo to film and stay with a local tribe. Shit hits the fan right-quick and the film crew begins getting knocked off one by one. A local development officer and the tribe’s sorcerer attempt to help Stella but they are going to need assistance to hinder the vengeance of the Red Dwarf Ghost. It all leads to a bat-shit climax comprised of a psychotic spell-casting session and plenty of scorpions. There’s cockfighting, exploding masks, killer trees, sexual hijinks, a plague of scorpions and water torture to go along with the schizophrenic storytelling. A bit of a warning for those with sensitive stomachs: there are graphic scenes of pigs being slaughtered and a chicken is eaten alive. Ya may want to steer clear of this one or keep that finger on the fast forward button.
