Dead Dudes in the House (1989) (USA)

aka The House on Tombstone Hill/The Road/The Dead Come Home 

⭐️⭐️1/2

Some rad bros go to fix up an old house that one of their number has just purchased. They hope a little elbow grease will pay off in the ultimate party pad. They discover the gravestone of the neighbor-murdering former owner Old Lady Leatherby on the property and one idiot (Victor Verhaeghe, who you have seen all over Law & Order and Boardwalk Empire) decides smashing it is a good call. Great work, Bob. Now, the murderous matriarch is back from the dead and killing off these dummies and their girlfriends. As if one homicidal maniac in hilariously wretched old-person makeup weren’t enough, the victims also come back to life to make the survivors odds of making it through the night slim to nil. The killer hag (well, a dude trying his damndest to come off like a hag) shows herself to the group almost immediately and after she wanders off, the clan of boners discover the doors aren’t budging, the windows aren’t breaking and the outside world is now off limits to them. So one by one they’re sent off to whatever afterlife they believe in by a killer who seems just a little bit bored with the imposition of having to murder these goofs. One of the dudes looks like a poor-man’s Bruce McCulloch, another one looks like a poor-man’s Henry Rollins, hands get severed, power tools get used the wrong way, Bob is a scene-stealing asshole and the killer is one of the most nonchalant in horror history even if she’s pretty ruthless in her technique. It’s mostly braindead, slightly boring and the only memorable bit is just how bad the old-lady ensemble is but it is unequivocally a product of its time and I just can’t hate it for existing.

The Cycle (2026) (UK/USA)

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Doctor Megan Garland (the wonderful Deborah Ann Woll) is a respected forensic anthropologist with a missing papa in her past. After 36 years vanished, his corpse is discovered near a house where a woman and her daughter were brutally murdered in what appears to be an animal attack. Initially, Meg refuses to assist with the case when asked by young police chief Ian Marks (Will Hochman) but she is eventually dragged into things after she suffers a hallucination/flashback about her father pointing to a mystery that needs to be solved. The viewing of her dead papa’s body raises some further questions as it remains oddly preserved (after the decay, of course… it’s in no stellar state) and after getting a good look at things, points to the man having undergone prolonged bodily trauma while alive before being moved some months after perishing. Ian is trying to figure out why this body was discovered alongside the horrorifix murder scene but the answers are not coming easy. Doctor Garland gets officially added to the case (the local coroner has his issues with this and her mom seems especially horrified by the long-gone man coming back into her daughter’s life, no matter how deceased he may be) and incredibly disturbing occurrences escalate. Ian and Meg bond over shared family trauma (Ian’s grandpa had his problems and his father (Jeffrey fuckin’ Donovan) did not care for the man) and everything begins leading down a path into a supernatural area of grey. As with most new movies I find to be worth a watch, I’m hesitant to spoil things and I will not be altering this approach. Just know that things take a fairly interesting road after it already sets out on an intriguing route to its main theme. It runs a bit too long (which is fine for the most part thanks to the intriguing premise) and gets a little corny as it comes to a close but the cast is fantastic, the look is suitably dreary, the finale is awesome and the practical effects work had me smiling like a teenager watching 80’s horror flicks in his parents’ basement. It’s also the answer to a question I never thought to ask about one of my favorite sungenres and am now deeply ashamed of this ignorance.

V/H/S/Mixtape (2026) (USA)

⭐️1/2

October arrives and with it comes another outing in the found footage analogue horror series and, well, it feels like we’ve taken a major step back. Shock rock legends GWAR present dumb as fuck numbers involving grossness and stupidity and it’s the first time in a long time my eyes roll so hard it gives me a headache. I guess congratulations are in order for being the first of the series to have me consider just turning it off about a minute in and watching something entertaining. Good job? I understand this is GWAR’s thing and the underlining (loose) thread of this outing is music but as someone who doesn’t really care for a whole bunch of nothing painted up as something thanks to toilet humor and splatter, I guess I’m not the audience. They will return to do ”skits” of no discernible value throughout the film which are somehow far more aggravating than the social media bullshit they are sending up. Unless you’re into GWAR, then I imagine this is maybe entertaining? Dance, Dance, Dance, Dance starts things off with a children’s show by the name of The Curious Chorus. A little kid named George is the audience participant in the puppet-starring tomfoolery, singing a song about death. Years later George is now running the same workshop that produced and performed The Curious Chorus. A digitally-rendered reimagining is in the works for the retired puppets under the aggressive eye of a studio executive Vanessa (the always welcome Barbara Crampton) who is filming a making-of with her asshole son Sam behind the camera and producer Chris explaining what they’re doing. George isn’t happy about the digital “resurrection” of his beloved “friends” but Vanessa isn’t about to take his bullshit. She threatens to take the puppets from him which leads to George reluctantly handing them over to be digitally scanned. His protestations that the puppets don’t want to be scanned are dismissed and when the cameraman comes across a disturbing tape, things get messy and people get slaughtered. It’s… uh… it’s just kind of there but it features some passable splatter to go along with a threat that’s not all that threatening. Much like GWAR, I’m not all that thrilled by puppets behaving badly. So, others may get more from this than I did. Flying Lotus returns to the series (he offered up a less than entertaining segment in V/H/S 99) with Another Cabin. A horrible grandmother and her grandson live in an isolated cabin where a massive monster with a giant tongue inhabits the surrounding forest. It attacks the cabin and absorbs the grandmother who is constantly using the child as a human shield. As it’s completely animated it doesn’t really feel like it belongs in this series and it runs less than three minutes so who gives a fuck anyways? Content creators Maya and West trespass into a supposedly abandoned Soviet military building near the Bulgarian border in Heartbeat and it goes very wrong when they get trapped in a test chamber and foolishly fire up the auditory program. Insanity and bloody death happens. I’m fine with obnoxious dopes meeting their maker but in a movie that’s already pushing the limits of my patience, I didn’t need more of them. It’s fine and I always love me an abandoned facility but in a movie that has yet to break above middling, it’s not the piece that was needed. The Music of Mr. Sze is mostly Lovecraft’s The Music of Eric Zann. A young man rents a room in a boarding house and begins recording his daily encounters with his irritatingly strange landlady and the various other dopes who share the building with him. The reclusive musician who lives above him on the top floor produces some haunting music which fascinates the young man. Philip convinces the reclusive Mr. Sze to let him record his violin work but a certain song begins to turn our documentarian obsessive and his subject becomes cautious until eventually refusing to have any contact with Philip. It’s too late, Philip has tapped into a world he was never meant to know existed and some horrifying entity has taken notice. Do you like silly wigs? I sure do and we get some spectacularly unconvincing ones here that match the unconvincing performances. Fun monster shenanigans bring it to a close. Premature Burial is a music video from Tobias Forge of Ghost fame and is a visual storytelling of the revenge that a female doctor takes on her colleague after he sexually assaults her. She ends up preparing the scumbag’s body for his funeral and sneaks a radio into his coffin because whatever she injected him with will eventually dissipate and he will wake up. He awakens and the doctor places a nice head-removing kick to his noggin. It ain’t my kind of music but the lo-fi second generation bootleg aesthetic reminds me of a tape with Skinny Puppy music videos I got from my bestie Ivana in high school and I’m all for it. Sadly, outside of the look, it’s another piece of a puzzle that feels rewardless to piece together. Death Tone from RZA is the best of the batch and mercifully the final installment in this failed experiment. The daughter of a deceased music producer decides to honor his memory by mixing music from his old demo tapes. On a tape with her name labeled on it, her beloved papa lays out an occult ritual involving the composing of music from organic sounds that can guarantee their reunion. Of course, these sounds necessitate the torture of a human subject and Lydia begins bringing home folks to get to work. It helps that the drugs in her system make it make sense. A detective is looking into the rash of disappearances and Lydia’s father shares some final instructions that put his daughter in the way of harm. An actual narrative (as silly as it may be), dark humor and solid performances complement the impressive splatter and show exactly what has been lacking from this flick. The only V/H/S entry I had considered just turning off multiple times which is a sad claim to fame.

The House by the Cemetery (1981) (Italy)

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Dr. Norman Boyle (Paolo Malco) moves his family from New York to New England following the suicide of a colleague, picking up where the now dead professor left off. Norman, his wife (Catriona MacColl) and his son court tragedy when it turns out the basement of their new rental home is inhabited by the monstrous Dr. Freudstein, a 19th century surgeon who has harnessed some semblance of immortality by feeding on the flesh and blood of humans. A ghostly young girl attempts to save the youngest Boyle (a child named Bob) and Norman is obviously hiding something from his already mentally unstable wife. Things are not going to end well for the Boyle family in Fulci’s underappreciated creeper. Does the house exist within some sort of fluctuating timeline where realities clash and time loops into itself? Is Freudstein just a horrific manifestation of oedipal conflicts drawn out to absurd lengths? How much does Norman know, what’s his relationship with the alluring Ann (Ania Pieroni) and why do people seem to recognize him? We’re never going to get an answer and I’m okay with that. The childishly whimpering Freudstein is wonderfully realized, the violence is blunt and gruesome, there is some horrible dubbing and Bob just may be the worst thing to ever happen to horror cinema. Where The Beyond is a straightforward (in comparison) nightmare of hellish brilliance, House by the Cemetery slowly pieces itself together with repeat viewings. It’s a nightmarish masterpiece that never lets you in on its secrets; or I could be reading too much into it and it’s just a senseless piece of crap. I choose to believe the former.

The Amazing Mr. No Legs (1978) (USA)

aka Destructor/Gun Fighter/Killers Die Hard/Mr. No Legs 

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Amazing Mr. No Legs was financed, filmed and released. The world is a beautiful place and I am no longer afraid to die. You know you are in good hands when the opening credits roll over two detectives awkwardly beating up some thugs. JOIE CHITWOOD and the Danger Angels flashes across the screen. Alright, movie, you have my heart. I am suddenly greeted by John Agar’s name. I jump right into the refreshing pool of greatness that is The Amazing Mr. No Legs. I’m sinking deep and loving every minute of it. Mr. No Legs is not the top billed actor of his own film. That honor goes to Richard Jaeckel. Richard Jaeckel was in Grizzly. Me and my friend Larry got drunk one night and watched the hell out of Grizzly. That was a good time. The warm and fuzzy feelings continue. Mr. No Legs is an enforcer for a crime syndicate. He is introduced much earlier in the film then I thought he would be. Usually you have to wait for characters this awesome. A guy who looks like me is stealing from the syndicate. He’s supposed to be loading drugs into a truck but he’s keeping some for himself. My doppelgänger and his friend think they are some clever motherfuckers. Well, Mr. No Legs is hip to their scheme. My doppelgänger gets shot in the back as he runs away from the man in the shotgun-mounted wheelchair. I would have done the same and I’d be just as dead. Now I know you’ve seen plenty of “handicapable” characters in movies. You have not seen Mr. No Legs. Mr. No Legs slaps his dick on those chumps! Along with those mounted shotguns, he has throwing stars in the hub of his wheelchair’s wheels. He uses them to take out a hired goon and he takes out another hired goon using Kung Fu with only his stumps and his ass. Do not fuck around with Mr. No Legs! The plot emerges when a low-level employee of the syndicate accidentally kills his girlfriend. She found his drugs and wants no part of it. He figured the best way to convince her to stay was to push her into his television. She stumbles headfirst into the behemoth of a TV and dies on the spot. Now he needs help and Mr. No Legs knows how to get rid of evidence. There’s just one problem: the dead girl’s brother is a cop. Bring on detective Jaeckel! In a bit of a twist, the Jaeckel is not the dead girl’s brother. He’s just good friends with him. Her brother is Detective Andy. Detective Andy looks like SNL era Dan Akroyd. I am immediately a fan of Detective Andy. Mr. No Legs tries to make it look like Andy’s sister smashed her noggin because of an accidental overdose. The Jaeckel knows bullshit when it is flung his way. His suspicion is proven correct when the police captain (John f’n Agar!) confirms the drugs were put in the dead girl’s system after she died. With the Jaeckel on the case, Andy hits up a club and tries to drink his sadness away. The Fantastic Mercy are the main act at this club and do very little to cure Andy’s blues. I’m not surprised. A crappy love song being sung by some average blonde woman and some guy who is the spitting image of Francis Buxton from Pee-wee’s Big Adventure may improve my mood but Andy is more grounded in reality. After a night of cuddling with his waitress girlfriend, Andy decides to team up with the Jaeckel and get to the bottom of his sister’s death. The movie runs its course. Detectives detect, Mr. No Legs wants to run the syndicate, Agar turns out to be corrupt, a transvestite orders another beer and then Andy’s girlfriend says “back to the old clock and dagger.” I want to hug my television. It all ends with a less than exciting shootout which leads into a fantastically lame car chase. Cars teleport into the scene just in time to be destroyed, dispatch keeps us informed to the locations of the chase and John Agar meets his end by driving full speed into blocks of ice. Yes. Blocks of fucking ice. Justice is served and for ninety minutes heaven existed in the comfort of my home. There is a lot to love here (a failed corpse theft, car abuse via broadsword, Jaeckel zingers, mustaches, wheelchair push-ups, more mustaches) and not much to hate. When a film promises awesomeness with an exploitation-heavy title, you usually leave the experience disappointed. The Amazing Mr. No Legs gives a big middle finger to the expectations. The film zips along at a nice pace and has that wonderful 70s drive-in energy. This is a late 70s cop film I can keep coming back to. You should watch it. Your outlook on life will improve, at least for ninety minutes. My bootleg DVD is in English with Polish subtitles. This would be a dream come true if I had just come over from Poland and didn’t know a word of English. I don’t know any Polish. I think I’m still dreaming.

Husk (2011) (USA/Canada)

aka The Field 

⭐️⭐️1/2

On their way to some lakeside r&r, a group of friends deal with their ride breaking down on a backroad after a murder of crows smash into the windshield and they crash. An old farmhouse seems to be the only suitable place to look for help as everything else appears to be cornfield. They come to and Johnny is missing, Brian and Scott head through the cornfield towards the farmhouse hoping to figure out where Chris’s little brother went, Brian’s girlfriend Natalie sees a young boy in the cornfield and eventually stumbles across a scarecrow that smells like shit and may be a corpse. Natalie has a bad vibe and goes off to find her boyfriend. Chris begrudgingly follows her. Scott and Brian come across another creepy-ass scarecrow on their trip through the cornfield and they arrive at the old farm. It’s a shit-hole but more disturbingly is what they discover in an upstairs room. Johnny didn’t make it but he’s not just a rotting corpse. No, Johnny is definitely dead but he’s under the influence of something and it’s making him sew. He also has nails driven through his fingers, so he’s got that going for him. Natalie gets snatched by something in the cornfield after getting slashed open and Chris is unable to help her. Hearing the screams, Brian rushes into the fields to find her. Her corpse is found hanging upside down from the scarecrow post. Brian, Scott and Chris hold up in the farmhouse as night falls and sinister scarecrows circle around the property, seemingly unable to leave the cornfield. Which is good for the short term but there’s no provisions and a ticking clock, meaning the trio are going to have to brave the dangerous territory if they want to make it out alive. The damn things can also manipulate their victims as zombie-like slaves or some shit. I don’t know, I just know they got nails in their fingers and they really dig sewing burlap scarecrow masks. Doesn’t help that the tense situation has also caused some friction because why work on surviving together when you could be petty and shitty to your friends. Something supernatural is at play, keeping the guys trapped and Scott is having psychic flashbacks to the family who occupied the farmhouse which give him a look at the tragedy that cursed the land. Brian starts to lose it following Nat’s death and Chris gets desperate about getting the fuck out of Dodge. I’m a sucker for killer scarecrows. I’m pretty sure I’ve already shared this with you… the audience at home. Damn shame they killed off the most likable of the characters pretty early in the running. Nobody is outwardly annoying or anything but they’re not exactly worth rooting for either. Would have been a whole lot better if Natalie lived to fight some evil scarecrows.

Dominique (1979) (UK)

aka Avenging Spirit/Dominique is Dead 

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Ah, the affluent. God bless ‘em. The idea of just parting with a portion of their amassed wealth in a messy divorce is something they can’t seem to fathom. They always get up to some scheme… the kind of scheming that usually ends in death. It’s even worse when some shady fella is after the others hefty chunk of change. David Ballard (a mustachioed Cliff Robertson) is said shady fella and his wife is the titular woman of the hour. He wants her fortune and he’s set a sinister plan in motion to get his hands on it. Dominique is already a little mentally fragile following a fall down the stairs, the scares her husband has been laying out to frighten her in their expansive mansion are not helping a damn thing. The unfairly gorgeous Jenny Agutter is hanging around the house as Mr. Ballard’s half sister (an artist who lives nearby) and she and a few other familiar faces may also be playing a dangerous game of “let’s make some money”. That breakdown happens and the poor woman ends up taking her own life. Her suicide note stated she be buried with her Etruscan bracelet (oh boy) and that her will not be read until the day of their wedding anniversary… October 31st (double oh boy). Now, there’s nothing to do but enjoy the wealth that all their awful and hard work has secured. At least that would be the case if David wasn’t beginning to see his dead wife. He’s convinced she may not be as dead as believed and now there’s a plot in the works to get back at the man who originally started plotting ridiculous things. The exhumation of the wife’s grave and the discovery that her corpse is till in there puts his mind on a far more terrifying train of thought. Even by this point in time the whole plot was completely familiar and one will not have a hard time guessing where everything is going. At least, until a murder goes down and David is given an expiration date by his deceased wife. Theres plenty of familiarity but fortunately the cast is wonderful and it even manages some small bits of macabre splendor on its way to the final twist. Think of an enjoyable episode of Night Gallery that runs just a little too long for its own good.