Separation (2021) (USA)

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Jenny’s life is a just a bit shitty. Her unemployed father once had a popular puppet show with his characters the “Grisly Kin” but now he just sits around sketching and refusing to grow up. Her mother, Maggie, is a lawyer who’s barely home and when she is, her and her husband mainly argue. An accident leads to Jenny getting hurt and Maggie wanting sole custody of her child. It ain’t looking good for Jeff until a hit and run takes her out of the picture. The initial grief sets in but things get stranger as a presence begins showing itself taking the form of Jeff’s creepy-ass characters. Outside of the spooky weirdness slowly growing in the Brooklyn townhome, Jenny’s grandpa (Brian Cox) is picking up his daughter’s fight and looking to get his granddaughter in his custody. Jenny’s babysitter has her sights set on a future with Jeff as her man and it doesn’t necessarily have a spot for Jenny in it. As things start pointing towards the direction of something beyond the veil, Jeff begins to think his wife’s spirit is sticking around to finish the separation (THAT’S THE NAME OF THE MOVIE!!!!). There’s an ayahuasca spirit chat, a well-realized boogeyman and a collection of actors all taking this shit seriously. It may hit more than a few familiar notes and the ending is a bit shaky but it’s an enjoyable journey nonetheless.

Seeding of a Ghost (1983) (Hong Kong)

aka Black Magic 5 

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

A taxi driver has the misfortune of crossing paths with a fleeing sorcerer and gets hit with a bad luck whammy. His lovely wife gets creeped on by a well-off businessman at the casino where she works and eventually they begin having an affair. When he refuses to divorce his wife, she storms out of his car and right into the path of two delinquent youths. Chasing her into an abandoned mansion out in the middle of nowhere, the detestable duo rape and murder the woman. Magical shenanigans bring the husband to the spot of his wife’s demise and when the police investigation brings no conviction, he turns to the sorcerer for revenge. The sorcerer refuses at first but the threat of going to the police with the accusation of grave robbery gets the black magic man singing a different tune. He still insists it may lead to the man’s destruction but does his thing anyways. The “seeding a ghost” ritual is performed and the rotting zombie spirit of the deceased woman is lead to those responsible for her untimely death. The usual worms get thrown up, brains get eaten, possession plays out, butts get penetrated (not in the fun, consensual way) and other weird shit goes down before the guilty parties get slapped with a palm-full of supernatural vengeance. The dopes attempt using their own holy people for protection but the evil force proves to be one powerful bit of bad magic and death comes a-calling. It’s a true sleaze masterpiece from the brothers Shaw which has your usual holy warfare but also features a pregnant spirit, a monstrous birth finale and a ghost fucking a corpse... so, unmissable.

The Secret of the Mummy (1982) (Brazil)

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

Ivan Cardoso definitely has a style. His films merge familiar horror elements with absurdist humor and the libido of a particularly horny high school boy. It's a welcome mix and luckily Cardoso is talented enough to pull off the clashing styles. There's a minimal mean streak that pops its head out every so often but some goofy character action or bare breasts are right around the corner to bring everything back to order. It's almost like those swinging British sex comedies but, you know, good. Professor Expedito Vitus is pissed off and it's not because he resembles a wimpy Boris Karloff. No, he's pissed because he's been laughed out of his field after he claims to have cracked the immortality code with his Elixir of Life. Nobody believes his ass and he begrudgingly takes his ball and goes home. But like any other good villain, the man has a plan. Vitus is already aware that his elixir works. Igor, an early guinea pig of his, is living proof. The now immortal(ish) Igor owes his life to the professor and remains loyal if not majorly insane. But Vitus needs to present his findings on a larger scale and he has just found the opportunity. A dying collector has left a valuable map to his heirs. He's separated it into eight parts, one for each of his family members. The map leads to the tomb of Runamb and Vitus figures if he can find the mummy and take the archeological world by storm, he can then revive the mummy and finally receive all the scientific laurels he deserves. He makes short work of gathering the map pieces by viciously murdering all the owners one by one. With the map in hand, he heads to Egypt. The mummy is discovered and Vitus becomes the talk of the town. He immediately gets to work and successfully brings Runamb back to life with the help of Igor and his partner Rodolfo. This is when things get complicated. There's a few things going on at the Vitus house that are putting everything on shaky ground. The professor's hot girlfriend, Gilda, is having an affair with Rodolfo which is throwing Igor into a homicidal mood, a reporter is snooping around sensing that there's some sinister shenanigans playing out behind closed doors, and women are vanishing around the vicinity of the mansion, leaving their male lover's dead and the police confused. The shit-storm is a-brewing. Vitus has yet to share his miraculous mummy resurrection with the world for some reason. Instead of getting the praise he desired, his focus becomes revenge against those that wronged him. I'm not sure if he actually gets any of that done because it seems like the mummy is more interested in kidnapping sexy ladies. Said sexy ladies are kept locked up in a dungeon and are slowly transforming into sex-crazed savages (one of them has even sprouted hair and fangs). So... whatever. There's some breaks in the lunacy as we join the professor in his research into the past of Runamb. We get your standard mummy movie flashback and watch Runamb as he obsesses over a harem dancer named Nadja who resists him. This leads Runamb down a path of murderous obsession. Well, as is tradition, it turns out our snooping reporter's lady is the reincarnation of the mummy’s dream girl. That puts her in trouble once the mummy notices her. The whole thing is insane. Shifting from black and white to color film depending on what was available, the movie kind of skips along to its own logic. Still pictures used as location setups, copyrighted music and lip synching add to the charm. Luckily that logic belongs to a playful entity that has a love for monster movies. The film is a fun time and littered with weird and great characters all overacted to cheesy perfection. The mummy is cool looking with his tall and slender frame, rotted wrapping and green skin and Vitus is delightfully mad. It's like a particularly enjoyable Universal Monster flick with the added bonus of T&A.

Suffer, Little Children (1983) (UK)

⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

Films this boring should not be this enjoyable. Wait. I don't think that makes any sense. Maybe boring isn't the right word. Awkward? Yeah. That's what I'll go with. Films this awkward should not be this enjoyable. Nah. That doesn't sound right either. Fuck it. If you dig a little deeper, you find out why Suffer, Little Children is the way it is. It was basically a class project by a bunch of kids with the aid of their drama teacher and a band promoter willing to finance. Kids are awkward, hell, most adults are awkward. All that awkwardness combined to roll out a rambling mess of a film that often follows its own internal and insane logic. You're gonna love it... or not... it doesn't really matter. Shit, I've lost my train of thought again. Fuck it. Claiming to be a reconstruction of actual events which were never covered by the press, the film immediately lies to you. That's fine, everybody lies. A young mute girl named Elizabeth is abandoned at the front door of Sullivans Children's Home. The heads of the home (kindhearted Jen and fashion icon Morris) can't figure out where she came from and set her up comfortably amongst the other brats. Almost immediately, things go south. Elizabeth has some strange powers. We find out a little later that she is home to some demonic entity with a deep voice. She mesmerizes a couple girls to be her minions by making them have nightmares involving zombies and a picnic. So that's a thing that happens. She forces a sweet crippled boy into intensive care by sending him flying down the stairs. He coughs up quite a bit of blood upon impact. Six children almost drown (off screen) and she even ruins a girl's birthday party (what a bitch!). Needless to say, Elizabeth kind of sucks. Outside of the negative vibes permeating throughout the sad household, there's a bit of excitement in the air. Former orphan and current pop star Mick Phillips is coming to brighten up the lives of these miserable bastards. He's also got an eye for Jen and is prone to mumbling. He gets involved with the strangeness going on at the children's home even if he disagrees with Morris and Jen that the oddness is connected to Elizabeth. Strobe lights are abused, the narrative plays out like time needed to be filled, scenes drag on far past the breaking point of human patience, music drowns out dialogue, Jesus Christ shows up to point magic at people, and we're treated to an amazing stab-happy climax. It's an SOV nightmare akin to something you may dream after experiencing a non-life-threatening head injury. You shouldn't be sleeping because you might be concussed, I shouldn't be reviewing films because I actually recommend this. Suffer indeed.

Sukima Onna (2014) (Japan)

aka Spirit Behind the Door 

⭐️⭐️

The titular spooker is a ghost that inhabits the crevices between things and has the ability to snatch and pull its victims into the odd realm it calls home. Mind the gap or it may be your ass! A missing younger sister brings Koharu Tashige to the young lady’s last known address after her realtor complains about missed rent payments and zero communication. Koharu is shocked to find every open crevice in her sister’s apartment taped over with red duct tape, her realtor is disturbed by the state of the place as well. Worse than all that, Kyoko is discovered near death in her bathtub. She’s comatose but her doctor is optimistic she’ll pull through. While she’s recuperating in the hospital, Koharu removes some of the tape to grab her things and checks out the footage on a video camera she finds at her apartment. This footage offers a glimpse of the ghost girl occupying a spot that’s way too tiny to offer any plausible inhabitation and Koharu gets curious. Kyoko wakes up screaming and runs off. After a brief and pointless search, Koharu finds her sitting in an open room, obviously terrified about something. We then meet a young lady by the name of Saori who is cleaning out a derelict house with her father where she stumbles across a day planner which disturbs her and then she briefly encounters the specter that hangs out in between things. We return to the sisters, now back at Kyoko’s apartment and a worried Koharu decides to stick by her little sister. A long time coming, as she abandoned her to an abusive father many years ago. Kyoko finally spills the beans on what’s haunting her (an effective found footage style flashback shows how she and her friends journeyed where they shouldn’t have) which causes her sister to go visit a paranormal investigator for assistance. He warns that he’s been told an exorcism won’t work on this spirit and they need to find the body of this ghost and put her to rest for good. Lucky he’s an expert on the missing woman’s probable homicide case… he being her fiancé some twenty years ago when she up and vanished! He’s not around long and neither is that other girl who was cleaning out that house. We’re finally down to the two sisters and things ain’t looking great for them either. This could have really been creepy but instead it just feels like an episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark? that halfheartedly attempted to tackle more mature issues and kind of forgot to be exciting. Still, it has some neat ideas and everyone is easy on the eyes.

The Dead Don’t Talk (1970) (Turkey)

⭐️⭐️⭐️

The mansion of Mr. Adem was requested to be turned into a hotel in the dead man’s will. A young traveling couple are told as much by a grumpy carriage driver when he tells them to jump on and that there’s no place else to stay. The homely young man and his smokeshow lady are getting a bit worried as the anxious coachman goes on about it being the 15th day of the month and having to get back home before dark. Like, he’s not shutting up about it which begs the question “why the fuck offer these two a ride?” She’s concerned about the spooky superstitions, he’s concerned about the driver’s rush getting them into an accident. They arrive at the mansion in one piece and the coachman rides off without payment, mentioning the date yet again. Not one to think about anything intelligently, the couple proceed to the mansion. Welcomed by a door opening on its lonesome has the couple enter in trepidation. Oya insists on leaving but she’s a woman so Melih knows what’s best and tells her to calm down. Oh Melih… you idiot. Not seeing a soul in the giant home but finding a table set for two, Melih pulls out his gun and has a look around. Finally, some weirdo who looks like somebody sketched John Holmes from memory shows up and speaks with an echoing voice about how happy he is there’s guests in his late master’s home. An awkward dinner follows where the creepy-as-all-hell host either rambles on or ignores them as he bugs his eyes out and does everything in his power to show these two strangers that he’s not to be trusted. Oya excuses herself to the bathroom and the host meets up with her and asks her to come with him, he has something he wants to show her. Oh Oya, you may be gorgeous but you sure are dim. Off they go as Melih looks around and smokes. Strange chanting and odd behavior of the poor-man’s John Holmes (Hasan, is his name) have Oya regretting her choices. Hasan shows her a portrait of Mr. Adem’s deceased (murdered) wife who she kind of resembles I guess and proceeds to lose his composure over her being dead. Oya rightfully runs off and into Milah’s arms as Hasan continues to sob… loudly. Not wanting to turn down a free place to stay, Oya and Milah just call it a night and jump into beds… in separate rooms. To the surprise of absolutely nobody, they both end up dead by the possible ghost of Mr. Adem. He shows up looking like Abe Vigoda in a stuffed raincoat, laughing his ass off and being impervious to bullets. It’s not all that scary but it sure is odd. More women are around and puffy Abe Vigoda keeps popping in to freak them out and take their lives. While this happens, some guy with a mustache seems to get ill when people die. A pretty young teacher arrives in the area and is dropped off at the mansion by the cranky coachman. As she heads towards the mansion, she meets a local hunter named Kerem and they seem to hit it off but she’s got a creepy mansion to get into so Sema walks on after a brief introduction. The same shit plays out as Hasan pops up to be needlessly off-putting and make sure nobody is comfortable in his immediate vicinity. Sema goes for a walk and runs into the hunter who lets her know that a ghost supposedly appears on the fifteenth day of the month and kills young women… there’s like twenty dead chickadees to prove it. Sema goes off with Hasan eventually and… wait, weren’t we just here? Sema just kinda shrugs and walks off while Hasan has his shit-fit. Luckily, no undying ghost kills her that night. Instead she talks to mustache-man who flips out about the town. How do they know each other? Fuck if I know. I thought he was the hunter for a second but we see him in the next scene talking to an old guy about how relaxing hunting is. Also, his mustache is different. Abe Vighosta (I’m really proud of that one) shows up to terrorize Sema but she manages to escape thanks to the convenient reveal of whatever holy symbol she’s wearing around her neck as the ghost carries her off… laughing all the way. Seriously my guy, shut the fuck up. Screams, laughter, thunder, more laughter, louder laughter and Also sprach Zarathustra blares over the soundtrack. Eventually everything gets explained and there’s much more echoing laughter. Exceptionally eerie Turkish outing was thought lost for decades but randomly found and rescued from obscurity. Gotta love that shit like this is still being unearthed. It may be cheapjack and a few shades less than coherent but there’s some lovable stupidity on display and the women are easy on the eyes. An odd, odd mess of a gothic horror film that feels like something Jess Franco would have made if he was somewhat less talented and way less horny.

The Creeping Flesh (1974) (UK)

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

In Victorian London, Doctor Emmanuel Hildern (Peter Cushing) believes there to be a biological root to evil and he thinks that the freaky-ass skeleton he has brought home from Papua New Guinea will aid him in proving this. The supposed missing link may turn the world of science on its head and he’s ready for the prestige (and funds) this will bring. He discovers that when water is added to the monstrous bones, it manages to render flesh back onto the creature. He removes the now fleshy finger (very dong-like) and throws it in a jar for further study. A trip to the library points to the skeletons true origins and the mythical evil it may actually be. After studying the flesh he’s amputated from the skeleton, he takes a look at the creature’s blood and stumbles upon the possible root of all evil! Through this blood he plans on curing this illness, hopefully allowing him to inoculate humanity against evil! Thinking that the insanity that took his wife from him was a disease of the blood, he figures he can harness immunity to said evilness and share it with his daughter before the same craziness that claimed his wife claims her. Hey, it could work! She’s already slipping into promiscuity which, as you know, was in and of itself grounds to throw a woman in an asylum during this era… and still is in some southern states. She’s also homicidal and loving it. Of course, it doesn’t work and things spiral out into tragedy. The doctor’s slimy scientist half-brother/rival James (a goatee’d Christopher Lee looking his best) sees profit where his brother sees progress and he becomes hellbent on claiming things for himself. Helps that his niece has just ended up in the asylum he runs and his half-brother is becoming increasingly desperate. Fortune smiles upon the seedy or whatever it is they say. Chaos ensues and the skeletal remains carry a sentience of something harnessing horrific power. A ridiculous premise is given an unprecedented air of grandeur thanks to the efforts of its stellar cast and the dependable directorial hand of Freddie Francis. All of this combines for a refreshing bit of macabre mad science and unfathomable horror. Recommended.