1/2
Wretched garbage plays itself up to be a purposefully bad movie but lacks any bit of entertainment and just becomes a test of endurance for anyone unfortunate enough to see it. The opening features some asshole going on about how awful the director Roger Franco is. This goes on for nearly six fucking minutes. The opening credits are over a poorly dubbed performance by some punk band taking place in someone’s tiny living room. Digital effects that belong in a Star Wars game made for Windows 95 (in fact, I believe I saw a TIE Fighter in there) bring an invasion of Jason Voorheeses to earth. This goes on while Roger Franco films his next god-awful movie. Meta humor, the rape of a man in a monkey mask, the skull fucking of baby’s corpse (don’t worry, it’s clearly plastic) and homophobia make for one hard trek that just keeps going. Eventually the Jasons hit the movie set and we know the film is about to run out of time. One of the longest hours I have ever had to endure. This movie can go fuck itself.
aka Nightmare House/Cries of Terror/Heartbeat/Dark Motel
⭐️⭐️1/2
With his wife’s health faltering, Paul (Naschy) brings her to his ancestral home so she can recover. This being a Naschy film, his ancestor was a right bastard shown in the opening slaughtering his buck-naked wife for being unfaithful. Dude’s name was Alaric de Marnad… he was destined to be an awful human. Afterwards, he killed the children that weren’t his and got to practicing witchcraft with a side of Devil worship. But that was centuries ago, that can’t bring any danger in the present… right? Especially to a sick woman with a weak heart. Right? Come on. Geneviéve begins seeing things and it looks like the angry spirit of her husband’s ancestor is hanging around the home, looking to carry on with his violent activities. Before they even arrive, Paul has to go walk to town to get gas, leaving his wife with the car. Bandits (there’s always bandits) almost have their way with her but luckily Paul comes back in time to kick some bandit ass (he always kicks some bandit ass). So, this trip ain’t starting off that great. While this is going on the elderly housekeeper and her pretty niece Julie talk about the house’s history and the incredibly awful human that once called it home. The niece and Paul exchange some smoldering looks when he arrives. That’s probably important. Paul heads to Paris on business for a couple of days and that’s the perfect time for the ghost knight to make his presence felt. This causes an episode and necessitates Paul’s quick return from Paris. Although, nobody believes the woman actually saw the ghost standing in her door. Is she insane? No. Obviously not. But is it an actual haunting? Well, you know the extreme lengths scumbags will take their gaslighting to in horror films… especially Euro-horror but that doesn’t necessarily mean the veil has not been pierced. A familiar plot benefits from the presence of Paul Naschy and a few bits of nastiness but it doesn’t really offer up too many thrills in its first hour. Impressively throwing out its reveal much earlier than expected and giving us a final third worth our time.
⭐️1/2
After work drinks are had in the comfort of home by a married couple and the wife’s sister. These folks look like the grim reality of actual swingers in the eighties. The next day, mustachioed Bob heads to work, refusing an offer of breakfast from his wife. We join the wife’s sister at home, complaining about being tired and getting ready for a nap. She’s knocked unconscious by Bob and tied up. That Bob, he’s a rascal. He drags the bound woman (who seems to be trying pretty hard not to laugh) away and then returns home to peep on his wife. He then beats her into unconsciousness and stuffs her in the trunk of his car. She too gets tied up. I’m reminded of the Always Sunny blooper with Dennis Reynolds shouting “FETISH SHIT!”. Anyways, Bob has both of these gals tied up in a dank basement or dungeon I guess if you’re on a very tight budget. Smacks, punches and strangulation (thankfully as far from convincing as possible) follows. Bob stabs his wife and shoots his sister-in-law when she tries to escape… I guess his knot tying ain’t great which can’t be good when your sexual hangups are so specific to knots. BUT IT’S ALL A DREAM! Bob’s wife wakes up screaming and he comforts her. Her sister Ann has the same nightmare but creepy Bob ain’t there to comfort her which is probably for the best. Now she definitely has a bad vibe about her brother-in-law and even without the nightmare I would too. Dude looks like he gets his kicks diddling kids. The sisters go shopping and Bob spikes the wine they have in the fridge. That night, Bob ends up knocking out the girls again, I don’t know if the drug worked because he has to use his fists again and it’s back to the makeshift dungeon but this time there’s a hefty dude there with a mustache that ain’t as impressive as Bob’s but is far less creepy. The gals are tied up, beaten and abused again and the viewers patience is stretched. The two men cleanup after the murders and… IT WAS ALL A DREAM! Fuck. I don’t think you need me to tell you what happens the next night. After forty-five minutes of the same shit, it’s revealed what Bob is up to and I stand by my earlier statement that he’s a real rascal. Ann also has a nightmare about being stabbed in a dungeon by some dude who looks like he has plenty of candy in his car to aid with his children luring. We then get repeated footage because there’s only so much money one can set aside for fake blood and free time. It’s more W.A.V.E. banality that doesn’t even have the luxury of a crappy Halloween mask or a set of plastic vampire teeth. Bob is a true blessing to the pantheon of trash film performers. The man moves like he threw out his back every day for the last thirty years and also never quite learned how to move around like a human. He also seems like he’d much rather be banging that midwest-thick boy his nightmare self is teaming up with. The ineptitude is sometimes charming and the amount of double crossing is hilarious but get ready to fast forward as much as you can.
aka Camp Blood III 3D
⭐️
Mark Polonia takes the wheel for this third official (Within the Woods supposedly doesn’t count) outing in the Camp Blood series after more than a decade has passed. A class assignment sends a group of students into the infamous Camp Blood woods to debunk all them nasty legends of the killer clown. The opening interviews (featuring Mark and his son) let us know that people either think it’s bullshit, think it’s dangerous or don’t really want to talk about it. Interspersed are scenes of a lumbering dope in a cheap clown mask brandishing a big ol’ machete. Said dope is seen stalking a young couple but then gets his head chopped off by some other dope in a sillier mask and camouflage. This dope (also carrying a machete) takes out the two folks who were being stalked by the other idiot. Cheap digital blood splatter accompanies the low-rent gore (provided by Mark’s son)… it’s a Polonia film from after 2010, I’m just happy he’s still making movies. The six students of the urban legends class are in week four and have gotten onto the Camp Blood clown portion of their studies. They disagree over how true the story is and watch some food footage. Yes, watching people watch annoying found footage is just as exciting as it sounds. It ends in murder by clown and it’s not all that convincing. The students still disagree and the professor sends them out to Camp Blood to investigate and earn some extra credit points. The killer deals out death to some random folks including a man who should not be allowed to chop wood and a janitor provides a jump-scare to the professor (who looks really good in purple, some people just really pull that color off). There’s also the extended (ass-numbing) stalking of one of the female students with POV accompanied by heavy breathing. It’s just a dream so that’s a waste of time. Polonia regular Jeff Kirkendall shows up to warn one of the girls about Camp Blood when she arrives solo and he creeps her out enough to have her decide to just enter the woods on her lonesome. She doesn’t make it and then we get flashes of the rest of the cast dying. The killer attaches a camera to the silly mask and a brief news report about the missing college students happens. It’s three months later, a local finds a bloody skull and a bag of media equipment. So, a found footage Camp Blood flick is what we get spliced together from several devices including the killer’s head camera which means we get plenty of heavy breathing over footage of people walking and being annoying. You’re killing me here, Mark. One of the college kids shares the legend of Frank who was a killer before the clown and then he plays guitar and sings. Maaaaark. Please, for the love of God! I love you like a brother but this movie is dragging ass. Lame death finally comes to multiple idiots and this is one slasher flick without much effort. There’s not much Polonia magic on display and it feels like maybe Mark just didn’t have any enthusiasm about this bad boy. It’s not a complete waste (the purple sweater is quite fetching and the killer reveal is hilariously performed) but if you decided to just nap through this you may be better off.
aka Defanatus Soul
⭐️1/2
A film crew is psyched to be shooting in an abandoned and supposedly haunted Missouri hotel for their horror flick Defanatus Soul. Eerie shit starts happening and it’s all caught by the behind-the-scenes crew filming special features for the physical media release. All hell breaks loose, starting with poor Casper Van Dien (the film’s name star) getting attacked and soon there’s only a handful of survivors dealing with the evil force that calls the hotel home. Daniel Whitaker keeps shooting as everything escalates to the inevitable bad ending and he learns that he is the one the evil wants. Why? Well, a deal was made so Daniel could have a meaningful career and he summoned some stupid-looking demon. The film starts out pretty strong but drowns in stupidity once the shit hits the fan... which is a damn shame.
aka Spooked/The Whispering Dead
⭐️1/2
Abandoned hospital with a checkered past? Check! A team of paranormal investigators? Checkaroo! Plentiful night vision? Check but in green! If you didn’t guess this was found footage by this point, I would like to welcome you to the horror genre and ask why you chose this as your first filmic fright. Also, you should probably buy the first three volumes of my book series, it’ll catch you up in no time! Ettersburg Hospital has a long and dark history involving medical experimentation, supposed telekinesis, a slash-happy patient, suicide, cannibalism and a boiler room fire that claimed the short lives of three young girls. So, there’s plenty of spooky campfire legends to lurk in the shadows of this place. It’s the perfect spot for a small team of ghost hunters putting together a pilot episode for another “reality” show in the long line of paranormal reality shows. The problem is, the three-person crew and three-person cast soon discover that the abandoned hospital grounds are home to more than just a legend and whereas it could have been the violent spirit of the patient that got a little murder-happy or ghosts of the trapped loggers who became cannibals, it decided to land on the trio of ghost kids that came to an end in the boiler room. I don’t know, I would have much rather had the six dopes going up against a group of dead, shambling and wailing cannibal loggers… but I’m old fashioned like that. I would like to apologize. I lied earlier. I mentioned that the six dolts “soon discover”, that’s not actually true. There’s an extended opening of getting to know the team through the predictable sarcasm of the cameraman and the bland whateverness of everyone else. There’s also a caretaker around to give them a tour and share some eerie history. This is followed by an extended amount of time spent with the group as they wander around in the dark, looking for some sort of entertainment to catch on camera. Randomly thrown in between this long buildup is footage of things going to hell for the folks we’re getting to know. So, at least we know something is supposed to happen… eventually. The caretaker is hesitant to let them stay over night and refuses to stay with them to ease any safety concerns, this frustrates the producer but angers the hell out of the actor they hired to be the team leader. He floats the option to just break in and seals the fate of these unlikable/unmemorable goofs… eventually. That’s that. Nothing special but nothing too offensive. If your thought after watching Grave Encounters was: “Hmmm. I wish this was more boring.” Then you’ll be happy with this bad boy, everyone else can just throw it on the pile with all those other discarded shaky-cam horrors you’ve seen and forgotten.
aka NO EXIT
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
A couple thieves target the wrong house and their score ends up being the lair of a very dangerous serial killer. The kind of monster that holds his prey in a basement dungeon and has no qualms about slaughtering a mother in front of her daughter. That kinda guy. So, the two likable thieves Ollie and Blair are looking at the final score. Thirty years old and ready to ride off into the sunset, leaving the life of crime behind. Their initial score goes wrong when the cheating wife comes home with her booty call and then her cuckold husband comes home too. It’s chaotic and pretty damn hilarious… until it ends with a double homicide and a failed suicide. Ollie gets pinched and the two are now in debt to a dangerous man after he pulls some strings to get Ollie out of the clink. This forces Blair to join up with her brother Connor and his lovable dimwit partner Riley to rob a supposedly empty summer home. Connor refuses to work alongside Ollie after a bad experience but he manages to get himself invited along for the score. Blair and Riley go looking for Connor after he disappears searching for a way in and Ollie follows them when their communication devices stop working. They soon discover that the windows are reinforced, there’s no way to communicate with the outside, the walls are concrete, all the exits are locked from the outside and every lock appears to be unpickable. Concerning indeed, but the basement has a TV hanging from the ceiling and there’s a collection of DVDs featuring home footage of people getting murdered in that very basement. Ollie takes control much to the chagrin of Connor but survival becomes key and the quartet put the bullshit to the side to find an exit or at least find the jamming device. Making everything worse, the owner is in the house and he’s more than happy to deal with this new batch of prey who have wandered into his den. They make their way to the underground maze on the property and come across signs of the monster’s work and one of his prisoners. Things slide further and further out of control and people start dropping. A wonderfully hilarious and dark script from Viet Nguyen and Chris Dinh (who is excellent as Ollie) has the benefit of being performed by a solid core of actors in the lead roles. It’s amazing to me that for all the love Don’t Breathe receives, the films that it obviously “borrowed” from (this, The Collector and Livid) are superior in every way. A shocking lack of splat may take you out of things if that’s why ya come to a movie but if you have no issue with the absence of graphic violence, you’ll be in for a real sleeper.
