aka Slayer Santa
⭐️⭐️⭐️
On the anniversary of their big score, a group of young scuzzballs face the grave consequences of the fellow criminal they crossed and murdered. He’s back from the grave, dressed as Santa Clause (it is Christmas) and good at killing. Cheap gore and horrible dialogue converge in some wonderful backyard tomfoolery. Short and sweet but with enough low-grade violence to keep you smiling.
aka Haunted Spirit
⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
Interesting premise gives the viewer a bit more to chew on than your usual Asian ghost flick from the J-Horror boom of the 00s. A physicist named Hashimoto, who wears his hair like a “scene girl”, has invented something called the Menger Sponge. It’s made from human protein and can capture different electromagnetic wavelengths. When it absorbs enough energy, in theory, it can allow for the defiance of gravity. This has the government interested in it and funding an anti-gravity research team. The team has discovered an unexpected use for it... it can capture ghosts. Since spirits are just a form of energy, the invention allows the small team to cage the ghost of a young boy in a bedroom located in a rundown apartment complex. They bring in a detective to assist with finding out who the boy was and how he died. The cop is also an expert lip reader, which is extremely convenient since the boy is mouthing something but the team has no idea what message he is trying to get across. Detective Tung is skeptical until they spray his eyes with microscopic Menger Sponge and he sees the kid for himself. He’s still planning on leaving until Hashimoto brings up Tung’s mother, who is currently dying in a hospital. Offering up the opportunity to discover if living may be worse than death, Tung finally agrees to help. The ghost proves to be lethal if you look him directly in the eye and a troubled past (tumors, suicide attempt, psychotic mama... the usual) may be why the presence remains. There’s a few more revelations along the way, one of them being a major hinderance to the life expectancy of the team as well as an explanation for the film’s title. The standard raven-haired ghost comes into play but it’s such a rewarding turn that it’s pretty far from boring... and she does strike from a bowl of noodles and that’s pretty damn great. It’s a fascinating film that can be a tad too melodramatic at times.
⭐️⭐️
A mathematics major, strapped for cash, finds free housing with a group of other college students squatting in an abandoned hospital. Unfortunately for them, one of their number has summoned the dimension-traveling monster which terrorized the same building fifty years ago. Inoffensive and slightly dull, Shrieker drags a bit throughout. There's enough to keep your interest in its slight 72 minute run time. I'm just glad it's a Full Moon release that doesn't have any lilliputian menace running around.
aka The Evil Within - Lured
⭐️⭐️1/2
A young man decides to travel across the world to finally meet his internet crush face to face. Filmmaker Jason brings his camera along, eager to meet the pretty young aspiring filmmaker named Kate who invited him to come visit her in some unnamed part of Asia. Alas, this is not a globe-trekking love story and poor stupid Jason is about to willingly walk right into a world of some seriously fucked up hurt. It’s okay… Jason is kind of a schmuck. Kate seems reluctant to be filmed but isn’t outright rude about it… Jason is but I think he’s supposed to be American (you can hear the Canadian come through every so often) so that tracks. Anyways, she takes him to her isolated village in the middle of the woods and the creepiness begins. The place is pretty deserted, there’s bugs in the water, Kate acts odd as fuck and there’s some spooky figures roaming around. His first night is kind of uncomfortable but he sticks it out because he likes the girl. He gets attacked by a couple villagers with pasty faces, brandishing rocks and there’s an uncomfortable dinner involving chicken blood and a creepy old neighbor. Jason seems to be stalked by something draped in a burial shroud and stupidly wanders around the empty buildings at night, encountering various sinister paranormal shenanigans. Nothing shows up on film when he tries to prove things to Kate but we’re damn sure by this point (the film never hides the fact) that’s she’s up to no good anyways. Jason’s friend is trying to find the village but is having no luck and the American idiot finally figures out it’s time to leave… too damn late, ya idjit. Murder, revenge, evil spirits and some fun bits of creepiness play out. Lei Wang is pretty great, bringing just enough intrigue to her lunacy to be convincing enough as someone you could see a boner like Jason stick around for. And Jason is a boner but a believable boner so I’ll take it… the character… and maybe the boner. I’m always down for some different spooks in my found footage flicks and this one delivers but it does go on just a bit too long and has a pretty dumbass ending. You’ve seen it play out before but it’s better than some of the crap ya wade through.
aka Macabre/Frozen Terror
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The dating world is a horrific and complicated sea to navigate. I don’t have to navigate these waters anymore and I’m thankful for that but as we all know, there’s dangerous things waiting in the waves, which are crushing down on ya as you just look for someone to spend the rest of your life with. Sure, she may seem alright after hanging out a few times but how are you to know if or if not she keeps her ex lover’s severed head in her fridge and is pretty much a shattered woman whose sanity is a mask? Is this a viable fear for someone looking for the person they wish to spend the rest of their lives with? Probably not, but not everyone watches this damn movie when they were ten and had it stain their brain before they entered the mysterious world of sexual companionship. Anyways, now that I’m a married man I can revisit this silly thing because I no longer have to worry about a severed noggin in the fridge, unless it’s mine but by that point it won’t matter anymore. Janet Baker (a wonderful Bernice Stegers) moves into a Louisiana boarding house a year after her world went to shit. Ya see, while hooking up with her lover instead of watching her kids, her son dies and as they rush back to her house, a car accident kills her side piece. Traumatized, she’s sent to an institution. Now that she’s out, she’s back at the place where she use to meet up for dirty rendezvous with her hunky man (well, hunky in a Steve Buscemi kind of way). The original landlord’s blind son now owns the joint and becomes infatuated with the mysterious woman. Well, it’s a doomed lust because there’s a nasty little secret Janet is keeping and if you read my opening rambling, you know shit’s going to come a head (sorry) and not everyone is gonna be breathing by the time those end credits roll. Her creepy daughter begins to pry in an attempt to get her parents back together, Janet’s private life is interrupted and the blind man can’t hide his feelings anymore as Janet’s late night bang sessions with some unseen lover drive him to drastic measures. Mario Bava’s son Lamberto gets a little scuzzier in his genre outing but please do not let that dissuade you, no need to hold your nose to the air like a pompous ass. The decay of mental illness concerning its cast is just as striking as any of Mario’s gorgeous cinematography. Hell, we recognize something is very wrong with Janet’s daughter before anything much happens and the sympathetic blind man (a solid Stanko Molnar) is harboring some obviously sick intentions. But the show belongs to Janet and when Ms. Stegers is on camera, she plays the kind of unhinged that seems to be just bubbling under the surface until it gets to bare its teeth. She’s perfect. Playing sultry, charming and insane like a master juggler. Also perfect is the somehow unsettling jazzy soundtrack that sounds like it would be more at home in a steamy softcore sex flick. It works to add to the vibe of “off” this thing radiates. Does the ridiculous sting of the final hurt the film? No, I don’t think so but I’m also an idiot.
aka The Mummy vs The Were-Jackal
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
“What could possibly happen here? This is the twentieth century. This is ... Nevada.” A boneheaded archaeologist goes and gets himself cursed thanks to his obsession with a well-preserved (and beautiful) Egyptian princess he’s managed to get his hands on. After tempting fate and ignoring a very specific warning, he transforms into an adorable werejackal when the moon is full. Princess Akana rises from her nearly 5,000-year slumber and begins getting all close and comfortable with David (said cursed bonehead). Things go from shitty to shit-storm when the goofy looking mummy found along with the princess rises as well. The Vegas strip is terrorized and no camera-mugging wino is safe! A mustachioed John Carradine shows up as a professor who knows the score and there’s an exposition-filled flashback involving a bunch of non-actors running around the Nevada desert in costumes. It’s wonderfully stupid all the way up till its climatic monster showdown. Line delivery somewhere beyond head trauma, a hypnotic ring and a lulling lounge-jazz score add to the oddball charm. It’s bottom-of-the-barrel cinema but this barrel happens to be filled to the brim with rainbows and whiskey.
aka Don’t Be Afraid of Aunt Martha/The Broken Mirror
⭐️⭐️⭐️
Fine bit of brain dead cinema from The Boot. Richard and his family are invited by his aunt to the family’s country house after she is released from the asylum where she has spent the last 30 years of her life. It doesn’t take long for a gloved killer to begin dispatching the clan in nasty ways. Naked babes, a family closet full of skeletons, shower stabbings and a young boy getting his head graphically removed by a chainsaw break any dull stretches. Nobody acts like an actual human, in the finest of Italian horror tradition. Give it a go... ya may just fall in love.
