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A string of murders has a detective tracking down a Native American legend in this Landis family (directed by John and written by he and Max) outing for the Masters of Horror series. A truck driver is trampled to death is his own tractor with witnesses claiming he was last seen in the company of a gorgeous woman. More bodies pop up showing similar destruction and the only lead our detective (assigned exclusively to animal attacks) has is stories about a beautiful woman with deer hooves who murders the targets of her seduction. Hey. A lead is a lead. Even if it makes about as much sense as the gorgeous Cinthia Moura coming onto your standard quality over the road truck driver. An interesting story shoots some much-needed energy into this middling series with fleshed out characters, a nice streak of humor and a folkloric hook that makes me very happy. The mental crime reenactment scene is a standout, I’m always happy to see Alex Zahara (Psych and Supernatural alum), the awkward new partnership our hero shares with a slightly awkward officer (Anthony Griffith) is charming and the movie exists in the same universe as Landis’ most famous horror flick. “Be a lot easier to think of this objectively if it wasn’t so damn stupid.”
⭐️⭐️1/2
Joe Dante gets a little ham-fisted in his outing for the Masters of Horror series when he puts his directorial hand to a short story from Dale Bailey about warmongering political bullshit and the lives it costs. During the re-election season, hotshot White House spin doctor David Murch mentions on a tv morning show how he wishes those soldiers killed in the ongoing conflict supported by the president could come back and vote for the man he’s attempting to get in for another term. Soon after, the president uses this statement in a speech and the old “be careful what you wish for” term comes into play. The soldiers that made the ultimate sacrifice have risen from their graves and they would like to be heard. This is bad news for the politician and his team seeking four more years. Consequences finally come to those gasbags in power but can even the dead Americans who died for this country actually make any kind of change when the deck is stacked in the favor of the politicians? A zombie film that ain’t exactly a zombie film which is kind of what you need your zombie film to be if you want to catch my attention. Dante shows that he still knows how to have some fun, even if the whole thing is bit too on the nose. That’s just my taste and I fully acknowledge politics and horror have been working in unison for as long as the genre has existed. It’s corny but it’s just on the right side of watchable. Robert Picardo steals the show to the surprise of nobody as the president’s morally corrupt advisor.
⭐️⭐️
The best part of 1956’s The She Creature was its impressive monster costume. So naturally that’s the one thing we don’t get in this cheapjack remake because ain’t no way anyone behind this had that kind of money. A hypnotist successfully predicts death for folks and he’s able to do so by controlling a prehistoric sea monster that his assistant happened to be in a past life. With proper predictions proving his power, Dr. John Basso is looking to finally taste the fame and celebrity that only the best of stage hypnotists can achieve. The shoddy monster does away with the Carradine wannabe’s targets and the squarest band to ever play music at a beach resort performs. The beachfront resort owner laughs off Basso’s claims of a prehistoric beast taking lives but his daughter’s psychologist and psychic researching boyfriend (for the army?) has a far more open mind. On regular life, I would say being skeptical about the mesmerists claims of a killer monster is the smart course of action… but this is an American International production. A police lieutenant is snooping around and doing very little to prevent the deaths of others. Basso’s assistant hates his ass with good cause and it’s obviously going to end up costing the scumbag. There’s also money to be made in the success of Basso and this has the resort owner seeing dollar signs. He want’s his daughter’s husband-to-be to get in on the action with him but the man has morals. Long stretches of dialogue pollute the runtime as points of interest are left to be explained by folks that look like they belong in a black and white photo of the people who founded the company your dad worked at. Les Tremayne is wonderful hamming it up as the hypnotist with delusions of grandeur and the ability to sometimes be a real catty bitch. There’s a slight charm to it that smells like lukewarm Hamm’s and a rumpus room carpet stained with decades of cigarette smoke. That will only get you so far and if you’re even the slightest bit tired, you’ll probably nod off.
⭐️⭐️⭐️
Mick Garris works from a Mick Garris script and has me worrying that this can only be about as good as you could expect from anything Mick Garris has done. It’s the fifth episode of the series he birthed and it stars Henry Thomas as a divorced, depressed and dieting Chicago food lab employee, working on artificial flavor development. After waking up with the taste of a very particular chocolate in his mouth, he realizes he has inexplicably become psychically connected to a beautiful stranger. This allows him to see what she sees, hear what she hears and feel what she feels. He manages to fall in love with the stranger but is shaken when violent images begin to creep into the psychic scenes he’s been receiving. Once the transmissions come to a sudden halt, he decides to track down the woman but there’s a reason for those violent flashes and it’s going to bite our well-meaning (naive) boy in his white pasty ass. Matt Frewer brings his usual solid work as our protagonist’s lovable lab partner and Henry Thomas could play likable/kinda-creepy sad sack in his sleep. If you had told me Mick Garris would be the “master” behind my favorite outing up to this point, I would have called you a fucking liar and laughed in your lovely face. Somehow, he gives the story plenty of breathing room and as much as it feels like a throwaway episode of Tales From the Crypt in its predictably, the top notch cast pulls it above the mundane and makes for one solid time with the right notes of dark humor. Hats off to ya, Mr. Garris.
⭐️⭐️1/2
Argento is up to bat in the fourth episode from the Masters of Horror series working from a short story by Bruce Jones which appeared in Creepy. Actor Steven Weber tackled the teleplay and stars as detective Frank Spivey. Parked for lunch with his partner, he’s put in the position to save the life of a hot-bodied but severely disfigured woman from the clutches of a seemingly psychopathic homeless man with a cleaver Sympathizing with the woman, Jenifer, he rescues her from the insane asylum where she’s been placed and brings her home. His wife ain’t all that happy about it (rightfully so) and his teenage son is his usual level of indifferent. Frank seems like a putz anyways. Frank’s lustful attraction to her has him slipping into obsession while Jenifer shows she has some disturbing urges. I mean, he watches on as his family leaves following Jenifer’s eating of the family cat. Everything goes to shit soon after when a neighborhood child gets eaten and Frank attempts to plot Jenifer’s kidnapping with the help of a shady carnival owner. The scheme doesn’t work and Frank’s sanity slips further into troublesome waters. Because he’s a dope with a deteriorating common sense, he journeys out to an isolated cabin with the dangerous woman to keep the public safe. Nudity and violence abound as Argento injects some sleazy life into the series with his outing about the ultimate dangers of being a scumbag and falling for the “butter face” from Hell. It’s dumb as fuck and handled with a somber seriousness that makes it feel more clueless than it actually is. The best this series has to offer so far but just barely and that’s not really saying much.
⭐️⭐️
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.
