⭐️⭐️
Louisiana is no stranger to supernatural shenanigans and one of my favorites is the titular blood-sucking werewolf. A bit of Cajun and French-Canadian folklore (from the French loup-garou) in the form of man-wolf with one hell of mean streak. What’s not to love for any over-imaginative monster kid? Parole officer Claude Bruneaux is tracking a missing convict and lands in a tiny swamp community facing a big ol’ hairy problem. A swamp witch in Tia Dalma cosplay summons the monster to take care of some young dope’s problem involving protection for his “operation”. His name is Ian and he’s a dickhead. The delightfully lame beast shows up and bitch slaps Ian’s poor-man’s Dermot Mulroney partner into oblivion. Next we have family drama where our hero Claude is on the phone with his ex and he just wants to talk to his daughter. She does not want to talk to him. THE DRAMA! Dejected and probably a little buzzed, Claude puts on his best camouflage dress shirt to greet his old boss Mitch (cheapjack legend Joe Estevez) who is dropping off some mail. He’s his ex’s father so it’s awkward as hell. But I feel any conversation where you’re basking in the glory of Joe Estevez would be awkward as hell. Claude drinks some and opens his mail, slowly and to a moody jazz score. The film lethargically chugs along until Claude is forced to go looking for the missing felon when he no-shows work and the place he’s staying is full of a bunch of concerning shit. Blood, meth, destruction and a gun will always paint an ex-con in a bad light. The missing man’s coworker points Claude towards Ian and his operation consisting of a few overdramatic idiots with a scenery chewing problem. Most of them die shortly after being introduced. The rugaru punches another poor sap into oblivion. The attack leaves one of Ian’s men injured in the eyeball and he has no problem letting the police know who dumped him on the side of the road and drove off. That brings Claude to the hospital to talk to the young dope. The dope lets the parole officer know that some sort of creature from hell attacked him. Claude’s on the case and there is no fire under his ass so the nearly two hour runtime is beginning to make more sense. “Colorful” locals add nothing but annoyance and scenes play out that feel like they could have been easily avoided. Unless you take inspiration from Claude talking some sense into a young offender as heroic music swells in the background but if you do, I’m sorry your life is like this. Claude keeps digging and laughs off the idea about a swamp witch conjuring a monster and we get a history lesson on the rugaru from a local theater actor and Claude does some laptop research because if this movie needs anything, it’s a man looking up stuff on the internet. The injured dope shows up at Claude’s door now sporting an eyepatch and claims he needs Claude’s help because Ian is out to kill him. Ian does very little to convince as a dangerous bayou drug Don and every other human does very little to convince they have ever held a conversation with an adult before. The rugaru lazily claims victims as all this bullshit goes on. A visit to a former witch shares even more history about the beast and offers up a hint as to how to defeat the damn thing. Ian’s boss gets annoyed with the probation officer and that lead’s to a kidnapping, the reveal of corruption (in the form of an incredibly schlubby deputy) and the triumphant (eventual) return of the barely seen Joe Estevez. The lackadaisical vibe of the whole damn thing has its charm but a majority of the time you feel every damn stretched out minute as conversations hit like someone kindly making small talk while being to ashamed to admit they’ve had to take a piss for the last couple of hours. The cheap monster hijinks are wonderful when the movie remembers they have a shoddy creature at their disposal and I’m not talking about Mr. Estevez. It’s not great and could have really used a shot of adrenaline at some point to move things along or maybe more money for good ol’ Joe so he could be featured in more scenes or maybe more of Ian being terrible at being a bad guy. Anything would have helped.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Some day we’ll learn not to desecrate the tombs of Egypt, hopefully that’s never in my lifetime. A small expedition, funded by selfish blowhard Stanley Preston, has just discovered the final resting place of the boy prince Kah-to-Bey. Ignoring the aggressive warning of the “keeper of the tomb” Hasmid, the English gentleman unearths the body of the small heir to the throne of Egypt and also a fatal curse. The mummy of the prince’s loyal slave (discovered a few years prior), Prem, is summoned back to life by Hasmid and begins doing away with the group that disturbed his tomb. There’s not much difference when it comes to mummy flicks and this one follows the familiar plot. Luckily there’s a slew of memorable characters, some nasty deaths (nothing graphic but still mean as all hell), a large sympathetic role for the criminally underutilized Michael Ripper, and a lame, yet somehow effective mummy costume we get to see plenty of. The major benefit is that the film takes place completely in Egypt (realized well enough with some fine set work) and never really drags. You may not get the same mileage out of it that I did because I fucking love mummy flicks.
⭐️⭐️⭐️
There's a point in one's fandom where they really need to take a good look at the thing in the mirror gazing back at them. I've loved horror for as long as I can remember and I've always been game to give anything a chance. Somewhere down the line cinematic artistry became the least of my concerns and I fell into a trash-tinged tailspin. So, as I look at the reflection of the horror fan smiling his foolish smile with no hint of understanding in his faraway gaze, I can't help but wonder if I'm doing any of this right. "What brought on this bit of existential crisis?" You may ask, as a concerned fan of my rambling write ups of seemingly random films. Well, I was excited that a werewolf movie featured Michael Winslow and used the lovely Tennessee wilderness as a stand-in for the Amazon rainforest. Genuine excitement. An opening text alerts us to the dangers of a depleted ozone layer. Now that that's out of the way the camera lingers on wet boobs. A woman who resembles the mean librarian that haunted your grade school library takes a wet rag shower, which I guess is a thing. When she's all done dripping water on herself, she puts on her lab coat (just her lab coat) and goes to investigate a strange noise. Finding the mutilated corpse of a colleague, she freaks out and is attacked by some big dude in a football jersey. Yep. The horror is hitting at a fever pitch! We leave the scene of pure terror to join Robert Carradine and Michael Winslow as they meet with Christopher Mitchum. I'm well aware that last sentence sounds like I'm casting my life story in the clutches of a severe stroke but I swear to the garbage film gods these three giants of crapola share a scene. Robert Carradine is Bill Parker and he's one hell of a special agent. Michael Winslow is his partner and he makes noises (as you're well aware if you are familiar with his award winning work in the Police Academy franchise). Mitchum is some sort of middleman who will be introducing them to their client, one Dr. Stein who has asked for Parker by name but Parker has no idea who the doctor is. Mitchum will also be lending out his lady friend Rosary (the super foxy Dalia Garcia who unfortunately starred in this flick and nothing else) to serve as their guide. It turns out Dr. Stein asked for Mr. Parker at the behest of Parker's ex-gal, Shelia, who is now the doctor's wife. Complicating things even more unnecessarily, Shelia also requested they call in Parker's former best buddy Cody who may be a hell of a marksman but he also ran off with Shelia when she decided to leave poor Bill. The soap opera-ish love rectangle will have to wait because there are more important things going on. Stein has not heard from his team of scientists at his secret Amazonian research base in a week. They were looking into the harm done to the human mind and body thanks to excessive exposure to the sun made possible by damage to the ozone. Dr. Stein fears for his research and wants Bill to lead all of them into the outpost and make sure no foreign element has gotten their hands on his findings. So it's off into the... ahem... Amazon for the rag-tag group of idiots. There's plenty of talk about feelings along the way and Stein also gives us a helpful update about how we're destroying the world and in a year’s time the Amazon will be uninhabitable thanks to the sun's radiation. We find out Shelia left Bill because she won't let anyone get in the way of her career and then she left Cody shortly after. Everybody seems to reconcile on the trip and Dalia Garcia takes her top off, so I guess you could say the hike was a complete success. When the team gets to the base they find signs of a struggle and blood. Bill Parker, the professional that he is, figures out that something went down there and exercises caution in investigating. More blood is found as well as the body of one of the researchers. It seems he killed himself and had developed lupus. The Stein couple get to autopsying as everyone else looks around the base. They discover the mutilated corpse of another doctor and realize that someone (or something!) is probably still in the base and is dangerous as all hell. Michael Winslow gets murdered first and Dr. Stein proves to be a real piece of shit. It turns out the killer is plagued by the unfortunate combination of lupus and schizophrenia. He ain't actually a werewolf, he just believes he is. Added to the fact that he's one big bad dude, well, ya got yourself a killing machine. The doctor believes he can get to the bottom of things by studying the climate change insanity and he ain't above murdering to guarantee he gets his way. It's up to Bill Parker to deal with all this crap and even someone as experienced as himself may have his hands full. Lycanthrope is a wretched film but in the best way possible. Bad acting? Oh my, you better believe it. Although Robert Carradine is his usual mix a nasally cool and sarcasm and Michael Winslow is as believable a badass as I am a sexy Asian woman, the rest of the cast either overacts to the point of mugging or comes off as a robot in the middle of shutting down. Except for Dalia Garcia, who really should have had an extensive career in trash films but that may be based completely on her looks... I was crushing pretty hard. Bullshit science? Sit your ass down! You know this script was barely researched. Rolling in the global warming fears which have been prevalent far longer than a lot of people realize and combining them with mental disorders was either a stroke of genius or the machinations of someone who realized last minute that he had no reason for his "monster's" existence. If you watch the movie, I'm sure you'll lean towards the latter. But bullshit science runs rampant throughout the genre so I'm not complaining at all. There's a lot wrong with this movie but I think there's more wrong with me because I actually enjoyed the hell out of it. So here I am, unable to look away from myself. Why does some hastily put together horror flick deserve my love when there's plenty of cinema out there I just "haven't had the time for"? Am I doing this right? The answer: of course I am. None of this matters at all. Michael Winslow made sound effects with his mouth in the Tennessee woods and got paid for it. I watched him do this twenty years later during a fit of insomnia and felt better about my life. Everybody wins.
aka The Pick-Axe Murders Part III: The Final Chapter
⭐️⭐️
Back in 1982, vicious serial killer Alex Black is put to rest by a couple survivors he was unable to slay. Five years later, a couple wanders the Texas woods searching for Mr. Black’s magic amulet. Some poorly-placed dialogue let’s you know it gave him powers and made him impervious to weapons. After a quick bone session, the cute blonde girl decapitates her boyfriend with a pickaxe and reveals she’s there to raise Alex Black from the dead. Elderly high schoolers are soon targeted when they spend the weekend at a family cabin en route to a concert and cross paths with the decaying monster. A couple hitchhikers heading to the same show add numbers to the cannon fodder, along with some unlikable locals snuffed out along the way. One of the group has a history with the slasher because that’s just how this shit always plays out. Phantasm’s A. Michael Baldwin is the likable town sheriff/survivor of the slasher and Tiffany Shepis is there as the other survivor, just out of the nuthouse and suffering a severe drinking problem… they eventually team up to take out the problem they thought they already took care of. Painful “comedic” dialogue of the Troma film variety hinders things, the action is a bit more lethargic than exciting and there’s a whole bunch of detestable and stupid humans littering the runtime but they get their asses slaughtered so the cosmic scales are balanced. It’s pretty horny, the female leads are likable (not to mention, easy on the eyes), the effects are practical and the kind of cheap I can get behind and I’m a homer for supernatural killers wearing burlap sacks on their noggin and her majesty Tiffany Shepis is there… I’m always grateful for that.
aka The Devil’s Cross
⭐️⭐️⭐️
A British novelist arrives in Spain for a visit with his sister and is shocked to discover she is no longer among the living. It seems she caught the eye of that all-too-familiar gang of Satan worshipping dopes. Poor lady. The writer decides to investigate this ancient occult order all while suffering from violent nightmares/visions that would make any level-headed person decide that maybe the supernatural and evil workings of things that have been around far longer than you would be better off left alone. His lady María blames it on all the drugs he’s smoking but we know something sinister is going on, especially because those Spanish horror staples the Knights Templar are involved in his troubling nightmares. He receives a letter from his sister begging him to come to Madrid, following a miscarriage her husband Enrique has grown cruel and she is lost in grief. Being the dutiful brother, he heads out immediately with his Spanish girlfriend who is happy to be returning to her motherland. Enrique’s top-hat sporting secretary César is up to no good and definitely has something to do with the dead sibling. She did end up dead pretty soon after telling him she wanted him out of she and her husband’s lives. She then threatened him by warning she would tell her brother everything if he doesn’t make like a tree and get the fuck out. He didn’t appreciate that at all. So, of course, Alfred arrives just in time for her funeral. César feigns sorrow, Enrique remains cold, Alfred believes his sister is attempting to reach out from beyond the grave to help him catch her murderer, black magic rites of the Knights Templar are discussed, the legend of the medieval dead rising from their graves on All Hallow’s Eve is mentioned, folks keep dropping before they can be of any help to our hero and María’s hair looks like it could deflect bullets. Solid atmosphere and some nightmarish visuals go a long way as we wait for our hero to figure out what we’ve already been told, hopefully before María becomes another victim. A lack of action and splatter may deter some folks but I was fine with the deliberate pace and slight spookiness. A masked creeper, more than a few familiar faces from The Swamp of the Ravens, capable direction from John Gilling (Plague of the Zombies, The Gamma People, The Mummy’s Shroud), climactic skeletal Templars, the last minute addition of a fabled sword and a solid shit-heel villain help.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
The end is here and the final battle is about to go down as a bunch of elderly children and the adults that placed them in danger defend their big-ass school and the world at large from Voldemort and his army of sickly goths. That less-annoying Jar Jar Binks gets buried, some dude named Longbottom gets to be a hero, Ciarán Hinds delivers one of my favorite lines of the franchise, Maggie Smith gets to be a badass, two lovable characters get a shit death that feels completely unnecessary and Alan Rickman gets to be the focus of a gut punch that I’m still tearing up about and you should be to if you have a heart not connected to the brain of a sociopath. Am I saying the movie is perfect? No, not at all. But when a little more than two hours goes by in what feels like thirty minutes on my twentieth watch, well, even this old cranky muggle has to admit it’s impressive.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The HORQUEST™️ begins as Potter and the gang journey out on their lonesome to figure out how to destroy the horcrux they got their hands on and uncover the other horcruxes so they can finally get to ending Voldemort. Evil has taken over and times are getting desperate while the good wizards wait around for Potter to figure things out. Not his fault, it would help if anyone would give him a god damn straight answer. Still, he’s especially selfish and bitchy which fits the age the character is but doesn’t really work when the actor is pushing forty. The one horcrux they get their hands on turns everyone into pissy whiners so there’s some annoying drag as they attempt to destroy the damn thing. Bill Nighy shows up and dies (off-screen) in what has to be some kind of pathetic record and Fiona Shaw gets like 30 seconds to pull off one of the best performances in the series and make everyone regret that she wasn’t given more to work with. Peter Mullan delivers as a Death Eater who makes you say “Damn. Wish he was all over this flick.” Suffers from being the first half of a final piece but it’s still full of capable actors and some excellent set pieces. No complaints here… except for the ones I already expressed… so some complaints here.
