Alien Probe (1993) (USA)

⭐️⭐️

The filmic version of a soggy pack of Newport cigarettes is basically one long bondage sequence. A scuzzy janitor is actually an alien from the Zordon Empire and he’s on a mission to impregnate an earthling. Said earthling is an office worker who he catches masturbating while she’s having phone sex with her boss. He eventually ties her up, gags her and proceeds to degrade her through various forms of sexual torture. Spanking, whipping, nipple clamping and all of the other ways I spend my quiet Sunday nights are used to abuse and eventually the poor girl is forced to suck his plant-like penis. No opening is left unexplored and no sexual stimulation is offered.... unless of course you’re into all of it. It’s definitely sleazy and hits ya with the proper bit of nausea but like most hardcore tinged horror it mostly bores. Director Rick Masters also plays the sunglass’d, bearded and molest-happy alien janitor Jasper.

Two Front Teeth (2006) (USA)

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Wild things are in the works when tabloid-journalist-with-a-traumatic-past™️ Gabe Snow (who looks like Clark Kent by way of Robert Z’Dar) hits on something horrifying in the holiday conspiracy rag he writes for. You may be saying: “That sounds like a publication with a very limited audience”. Well, first off, shut up and secondly, I’d subscribe. Anyways, Flight 1225 was brought down one Christmas Eve by a flying creature with a red nose. This is big news and this is the kind of news that Clausferatu… just as you may have guessed, he’s the satanic vampire anti-Claus… is very interested in. How does one react when certain news of a tragedy and a Christmas legend meet in such a chaotic fashion? Well, ya release monstrous flesh-eating elves (who were dressed by Michelle Pfeiffer’s Catwoman working with an extremely tight budget) into the world to collect a bunch of information for whatever nefarious goals one such as Clausferatu has… naturally. But that’s just the basics, and the fact that the insanity you have just read is the basics should give you a good idea on how much enjoyment you’ll be getting out of this flick. Seemingly shot in and around your best friend’s family home and utilizing your roommate’s girlfriend’s access to local businesses, everything feels homegrown except for the story that may have been birthed in Lovecraft’s black seas of infinity… only these seas are made of expired eggnog. This is a world where grumpiness is the prime emotion, a loaded gun is given as a Christmas present, Rudolph’s nose holds some pretty damn important secrets, hospitals are closed on Christmas, an ill-tempered adulteress is somehow downright lovable, the term “the ghost of Christmas pissed” is used correctly, a duster-rocking cowboy with a pair of six shooters knows the score, leather-clad nun-ninjas (nunjas?) are sponsored by the Vatican and budget animation is a valid way to present a flashback. It’s a world I want to live in. It’s a world that never feels like it’s trying to be insane, it feels like someone was working out their Yuletide demons but also had forbidden knowledge of an alternate reality that existed on the other side of shadows and unabashedly preferred 1989’s Elves to Joe Dante’s Gremlins. And while they’re at it, they may just save love and Christmas. Is it perfect? Of course it’s not. Nothing ever is when it’s stained with blood, sweat and tears because the funds available and the imagination bubbling within were unevenly matched. That’s what makes these things so damn special.

Siccîn 3: The Curse of Love (2016) (Turkey)

⭐️⭐️1/2

Sedat is best friends with Orhan who is married to his (Sedat’s, not his own, ya weirdo) sister Kader. There’s been a few rough patches (Sedat’s wife died during childbirth, Orahn’s job seems to be turning him distant) but at the end of the day love of the family is persevering, at least until Orahn fires a man named Halil for smoking around hazardous materials on the job site... again. Halil has some bad debt stacked up and kills himself. Orahn feels terrible... and he’s about to feel a shit-ton worse when Halil’s wife (well, widow) overcome with grief, curses him. It starts off with a car accident involving Sedat, Kader and his son. The boy is left paralyzed, Kader seems to have amnesia and Sedat is drowning in guilt. Orahn blames his former best friend and refuses to talk to him. Of course, the melodramatic family issues give birth to some supernatural shenanigans when it’s discovered that demons are fucking with everyone around Ohran for some reason. He’s definitely up to something but I’ll leave that to you to figure out. Weaker entry to the Siccîn series is a bit too disjointed for its own good, lacks the the nasty edge of the prior entries and keeps it all vague out of necessity for the climax to work. There are a couple fun jump scares and a pretty cool demon plus the climactic gut punch is enjoyable. If the film had been as good as its climax, this third entry may have been the best of its series; instead it’s a middling effort, barely saved by the final act.

The Mummy’s Tomb (1942) (USA)

⭐️⭐️⭐️

30 years after the events of the previous installment, Kharis is back and once again being used to punish those who disturb the tombs of Egypt. Andoheb (surviving the gun wound during the climax of The Mummy’s Hand) sends his new high priest Mehemet Bey (charming Turhan Bey) to America, along with Kharis, to complete the vengeance promised all those decades ago. The prior film’s heroes are killed off, leaving Stephen Banning’s son, John, as the final target. Mehemet has developed a crush on John’s fiancée, Isobel, so instead of sending the mummy to kill John he sends Kharis to kidnap Isobel and bring her to him. He plans on gifting her immortality through those pesky Tana leaves and then having a son with her to raise in the great pyramids of Egypt. His horniness proves to be the downfall of him and Kharis. Old man makeup for our returning heroes and George Zucco plus the addition of Lon Chaney Jr behind the mummy makeup causes nothing but smiles. Abuse of footage from The Mummy’s Hand thanks to Stephen’s regaling storytelling is a fine time stretcher for the 61 minute flick. Harmless fun with enough monster hijinks to get a passing grade from this mummy fan.

Deep Blood (1990) (Italy)

aka Sharks/Wakan 

1/2

A group of friends, who took a blood oath in their youth, take on a killer shark which may or may not be the physical manifestation of an evil Native American spirit. Sounds great right? Oh you are so fucking wrong. What may be one of the most boring Italian flicks ever made seems to get its rocks off by not delivering anything close to action. There’s a couple poorly shot shark attacks that turn the water red but everything else seems to be purposefully supporting the cause of anti-entertainment. Stock footage of different sharks and people screaming in the water may shock you awake if the volume is up high enough but everything else is the pits. Fuck this movie.

The Death of April (USA) (2022)

⭐️⭐️

Newly out of the nest, Meagan Mullen, begins to experience unsettling activity centered around her bedroom in her new home that seems more like an apartment. She is fresh out of college and this is her first time living on her own and to deal with the emotional turbulence of the new experience, she video blogs for her friends and family. Said friends and family are interviewed in between footage of the blog and old family video to let us know that something went very wrong. Especially since her father and brother are speaking of her in the past tense. Mom may be in denial. A moving door while she talks to the webcam is the first hint that something may be going on and Meagan’s mental state slowly unravels. As the footage gets stranger, mom is confused, dad thinks she’s just moody and her brother believes she’s just being self-indulgent. Meagan believes she’s being haunted and she has fits where she doesn’t seem to be herself, even failing to recognize her boyfriend and visiting best friend as she sits in a stranger’s lap. It’s all caught on camera so there’s proof of weird shit but nobody seems willing to accept that something has seriously gone south with the affable young woman, even if it’s just mental illness and not paranormal. Ouija board shenanigans give Meagan the name April as the person who died in her house and she develops an obsession with the subject. It’s an unsolved murder that happened in her home less than a year ago, so I don’t really blame her for taking a swan dive down that particularly gruesome rabbit hole. Her brother comes to visit and witnesses some supernatural bullshit but thinks his sister has set it up and it’s all a load of crap. Naturally, this makes Meagan feel even more alone. A girl he met while he was visiting shows up at the house for their date and she senses something in the house. Kim immediately offers to help contact whatever energy is hanging around but warns her that if she has a demon, she’ll be unable to do much of anything. We then get a quick interview with a paranormal expert who (I believe) is a clerk (maybe owner) of a liquor store. It’s nice he took time out of his day to offer some tidbits about the supernatural. Back to Kim, attempting to contact the other side and admitting in an interview that she’s no expert and never tried this before. It doesn’t go well and Kim has a seizure. Even after witnessing it firsthand, her brother still refuses to accept that there’s no logical explanation for all the spookiness. Meagan spirals out into dangerous waters and be it schizophrenia or dark forces from beyond, there ain’t a happy ending in the works. It gets boring in bits but the cast is solid (for the most part) and do a good job mixing in grief and frustration to form a complete picture of a tragedy that really could have been (and should have been) avoided. Any goodwill it had built goes down the shitter when the truth is awkwardly revealed and things stumble to the close. I had a couple people tell me that it really wanted to be Lake Mungo but outside of the strong focus on families and their trauma over loss, I didn’t really see much of a resemblance in the spookiness on display. So please, do not go in comparing it to the perfect Lake Mungo… in fact, it’s best if you never compare anything to one the best horror films of the last few decades. You’re just setting yourself up for failure and maybe a little anger.

Two Evil Eyes (1990) (Italy/USA)

⭐️⭐️1/2

The works of Edgar Allan Poe tackled by George Romero and Dario Argento was probably greeted with excitement at the time of its release. They had yet to both shit their beds as tremendously as they would, so I’m sure there was some anticipation in the horror community. What we got, although nowhere as bad as either creator at their worst, was a somewhat enjoyable but mostly forgettable double feature. Romero handles The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar and it proves to be the stronger of the two. Ernest Valdemar is dying, his scheming wife and her doctor lover have managed to use hypnosis to bend him to their will. Looking for a large payday, they manage to get him to sign away most of his fortune. Some legal snags force them to hide his body when he passes away but that’s just the beginning of their problems. Ernie died under hypnosis and while he is medically deceased, the spiritual side of things ain’t that simple. Soon the curious doctor is communicating with the man he royally fucked over and his wife (Adrienne Barbeau) is growing more and more disturbed by the undead hubby. Of course, it ends violently. Argento presents us with a version of The Black Cat starring a slowly cracking crime scene photographer (Harvey Keitel, who doesn’t seem like he wants to be there) whose annoying girlfriend brings in a stray black cat. Keitel and the kitty do not get along and his girlfriend is slowly realizing that she should probably get out of this unstable relationship. She tries to leave when she figures out Keitel killed the cat but she gets caught and has a meat cleaver taken to her. Bodies are hidden, neighbors are suspicious and meowing gives away a crime in an incredibly stupid story filled with unlikable idiots. Tom Atkins and John Amos both show up as detectives (in separate stories) and there are some splattery special effects. Romero, at least, seems to be having a bit of fun.