aka Manutara
⭐️⭐️
Super silly and unfortunately super talkative bit of nonsense. An ancestral grudge spells doom for a small family in the seaside village of Cromwell. A schoolteacher witnesses some giant bird with a human head emerge out of a grave and her hair goes white from shock. Rightfully so, everyone thinks she’s a nut but when an American nuclear scientist comes to visit his fiancée, he begins to believe atomic energy may just be the culprit behind the man/bird mutation. The cops think he’s an idiot and stand back while his future wife’s family is dragged skyward and murdered by some large flying beast. The last act reveal of the birdman makes you realize why they decided to keep it off camera (it honestly looks like some dumbass in a bird suit... which I guess it is) but that’s still no excuse for how much damn talking goes on. Mad scientists can be so damn lazy nowadays. Used to be ya had a bone to pick, you’d hit the lab, transform yourself into some stupid-looking bird monster and deliver that mortal kick to the balls to the bloodline that wronged your ancestors. Oh well. I wish this flick was better.
⭐️⭐️⭐️
Hollywood heartthrob Steve Guttenberg has his hands full when volcanic eruptions in sunny Los Angeles unleash a whole lotta lava-spewing tarantulas. He’s a washed-up actor trying hard to be a family man but mostly failing when it counts. That all changes when the arachnid horrors attack and his family’s lives are on the line. He’s forced to become the hero he always played in the 90s and he’ll learn a thing or two about responsibility on the way. He heads out to find his son (the elderly teenager left the house when his dad no-showed) who is out riding his bike with some buds downtown. His car gets fucked up thanks to lava-spider shenanigans, so he’s forced to car-jack a Hollywood Tours bus (so, bus-jack, I guess) to get to his boy. This also gets him teaming up with a tourist from Des Moines played by Patrick Renna. His son tries to survive, his wife (Nia Peebles from DeepStar Six) kicks some ass and good ol’ Guttenberg puts together a ragtag group of heroes to save the day. Listen, I’m biased when it comes to the Guttes, that’ll never change and I apologize for absolutely nothing. Add some fire-breathing big-ass spiders and no bullshitting when it comes to getting to the action and I’m just happy to be along for the ride. It’s dumb, the CGI blows and nobody is taking anything seriously… which only benefits the journey. Thankfully, it never dips too deep into that whole “wink-wink nudge-nudge” bullshit I hate and it’s way more sarcastic about the industry than usual. Michael Winslow (don’t you worry your little buns, he does a bunch of noises), Marion Ramsey, Danny Woodburn and Ham from The Sandlot add to the vaguely familiar faces who collect a well-deserved paycheck.
aka Blood Spa/Devil’s Feast
⭐️⭐️⭐️
Dull-unease. Yep. That's the word for this flick. Duneasy? Can we use that so I can stop using hyphens? I'm gonna go with duneasy and I suggest you start using it too. Seriously, this movie is the epitome of duneasy. The dullness part of the equation comes through like a brick half-heartedly lobbed at an old window. A college student meets a Groucho Marx disguised "reporter" and somehow falls for the dink. The promise of a picnic sets us on the path to doom... and we never even get to see the damn picnic. Of course the couple get lost and stumble upon what remains of the Soda Spring Spa. Exploring, as youths are want to do, they discover the place isn't as abandoned as it should be. There's a delightful old lady who calls the place her home and she's more than happy to share a cup of tea with the young whippersnappers. Wandering and talking has been the name of the game up to this point but Jenny gets a little sleepy after the pulse-pounding day she's been having and knocks out on the couch. John and the elderly tenant walk around the property. Jenny awakens and goes searching for her boy-toy but all she manages to find is a ghostly woman in white wandering on the opposite side of the property... no matter where she is standing!!!! Her sluggish terror is soon silenced when she finds John. The two leave and Jenny decides to never go back to the old spa again. But life is never that kind to women in horror films... or reality. John decides he wants to go back and interview the old lady about the spa because that just may be the hottest story this side of the Mississippi. So back they go and then the shit hits the fan... or slowly drizzles onto it. An old hunter tells her the tragic background of the place. A bride was murdered and eaten by the Satan-worshipping weirdos who used to call the place home. Now he may not believe that story but his disbelief does nothing to save him from the afro'd axe-wielding psychopath hiding in the joint. Jenny slowly doubts her sanity as it seems all the weird shit she is seeing is not being experienced by anyone else. Even physical damage done to the property by afro-axeman and his Allman Brother-looking brother (?) vanishes immediately when John comes to check on her screaming fits. Of course, this being a 70s horror film, Jenny is not insane. In fact, John and old lady are in cahoots and they need a blood sacrifice to carry on their evil ways. So yes, there has been a vibrating dullness hammering away at the foundation of the film since the first minute. Somehow, the endless walking and talking mingles with the oddness and instead of bringing on fits of sleep it kind of trickles in a nice bit of nervousness. It's weird without trying to be and that's probably why I enjoy it so much. The natural alienating atmosphere is a wonder. That's why it's far more interesting than it has any right to be... but it's also not. Oh man, it's so weird. Ghosts, cannibals and Satan-worshipping grannies shouldn't be this lame but it wouldn't work any other way. Duneasiness wins again.
⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
Another Malaysian short for the 3 Doors of Horrors extended universe has our security guard hero Azman Hassan return. This time he’s getting to the bottom of a haunting at a gym or it may just be a building that houses a basketball court. Is that a thing? The place is plagued with power outages and phantom dribbling as it seems this spirit just wants to get a game of hoops going with anyone. Bad news for the young man who has been ditched by his buddies and is now shooting hoops on his lonesome. Did I say Azman is getting to the bottom of things! Yeah? Sorry. That was a lie. He’s there in the beginning to notice that something odd is going on but then leaves to go get a drink. He’s my kind of hero. This one was solid and has a nice sting to bring it all home.
⭐️⭐️
Three (obviously) short horrors from Malaysia are combined into an anthology for your viewing pleasure. I Miss You Two starts things off. A pleasant young man in his thirties shoots a video and explains that he’s looking for two girls he knew in his youth. He’s dropped off extra early at his high school by his father… like, well before anyone outside of the security guard is on the premises. He groggily wanders into his classroom and tries to get a little more sleep before school begins. This is when he meets the two girls who seemingly appear out of nowhere but he’s smitten almost immediately as they ask him to accompany them to their dark classroom due to being frightened. Upon seeing the creepy-ass top floor where their classroom is, it’s quite understandable. Still, there are girls to impress so he braves on with the gals following close behind. It’s a foolish move because something ain’t right in this school. The flashback ends and the man explains he’s not sure what happened that night but he would like some answers. We get them even if he doesn’t. Next up is Floating Sun and it opens with a security guard coming across a drowned girl in a lake. It’s a quiet and strong introduction to a more subtle bit which strives to be more poetic than scary. A young woman narrates and encounters the dead girl (her school friend) at her home well after she’s shuffled forth this mortal coil. The experience weighs on her and she begins writing about it, using it as inspiration for her next novel. Then… uh... stuff happens and it really wants to be something more than it is, but as much as it leans into its mental illness mingling with the supernatural mission statement, it feels like it doesn’t have a proper grasp on what it’s going for. The final entry is Horror Mission and if you didn’t fall asleep during the ambling Floating Sun, you’ll finally get to a bit that has something like a pulse. A small crew shoots a horror film in the suburbs and the actress playing the creepy ghost gets possessed by the real deal. This leads to a long and terrifying night for two crew members in way over their heads. It’s the best of the three stories but that’s not really saying all that much. The first one is short and fun but feels like an afterthought and the second one is way too far up its own ass. It’s a shaky experience but stick around for a few other shorts in the Tubi presentation of this flick. They’re better than anything here.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
My introduction to the macabre fiction of M.R. James holds up well dramatized for television for the essential A Ghost Story for Christmas program. Amateur archaeologist, Mr Paxton, travels to the coastal Norfolk town of Seaburgh where research has uncovered an old Anglo-Saxon legend telling of three fabled crowns that protect England from invasion of any foreign army. One is said to have been lost to thieves who melted it down, a second lost to the sea, but the third is thought to be hidden somewhere near his current destination. Paxton checks into a local inn where he may be getting the suspicious eye of a few locals but still manages to be told about another archaeologist who, a little more than a decade earlier, was also searching for said legendary crown. Disturbingly, this archaeologist was found murdered. His research leads him to the grave of a local man, who was said to be the last guardian of the crown. Paxton goes to search the woods near the man’s former home, but his excavation naturally ends up unearthing something more than just a fascinating piece of English history. The supernatural threat may not translate all that well to screen (and reminded me a bit too much of Monty Python and the Holy Grail) but luckily the piece can rely on its professional cast and interesting plot to make it more than just watchable.
aka Flat Dog
⭐️⭐️1/2
Tobe Hooper… *checks notes*… well I’ll be damned. Yep, Tobe Hooper throws a big-ass reptile at some Spring Breakin’ idiots. The gaggle of energetic dorks take to the water on a rented boat and end up camping in an area where a giant pissed-off crocodile resides. You know, right by the long-abandoned hotel with a horrible history. Don’t get excited, it’s not an unofficial sequel to Eaten Alive. Why is it pissed off? Well, some local dumbasses smashed its eggs because of their “idiot-bumpkin” status. Oops. And then a couple of the goobers snatched up the only surviving egg and placed it in a backpack… as a goof. So yeah, most of the dead meat deserve being eaten and that’s just fine. The boat gets destroyed and the kids get stuck wandering the harsh terrain. Since it is spring break there’s plenty of youthful shenanigans, booze, butts and the kind of pop music a boardroom full of elderly white men would view as “hip.” Harrison Young is a cranky sheriff, an old-timer with an expertise on crocs and gators lends his assistance and the two leads are actually kinda likable. One of the ass-bags looks like a dollar store Chino Moreno and there’s talk of a cult worshipping the Egyptian crocodile god Sobek (it all ties into the nearly century-old crocodile). I’m not saying it’s an unheralded classic but I think when you attach someone like Tobe Hooper to something and it ends up being just middle ground a lot of folks are gonna claim it’s way worse than it is. We still have to spend a lot of time with annoying people and the cgi is exactly what you expect it to be (although, the monster ain’t exclusively digital awfulness) but I have a soft spot for these creature features tailor made for SyFy Channel and even if he was slumming it, Mr. Hooper was still a very talented man.
