⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
The death of Dorothy Bell has left a fair share of trauma in its wake. Especially when it comes to her granddaughter and a general lack of answers. Not so much into the “how” but into the why things went down the way they did. Further intrigue comes from the whole urban legend that gestated around the woman’s passing in the local library where she worked. Years have passed and the claims of the dead woman haunting the building where she came to an end brings Ozzie there to see if she can contact the departed and figure out what the hell happened. But, as we all know, when you tinker around behind the veil, things take notice. Now, Ozzie may have garnered the attention of whatever malicious force claimed the life of her grandma. Luckily for us, it’s all caught on camera. An opening stretch of tension is built around analog footage shot by a very young Ozzie concerning a very horrific incident and is one hell of an introduction to the film proper. We learn through Ozzie’s video journals that Dorothy seemingly lost her mind over night, suddenly hearing voices and acting dangerously erratic. Following the advice of these voices, grandma began to do some bad things. After coming across a paranormal blog claiming Dorothy is still wandering and whispering back to anyone brave enough to call her name, our protagonist feels this is a way to connect with her past and figure out what memories are factual or defenses thrown up by her brain. The library staff is elusive with any info but a maintenance man who knew her mother lets her sneak in after close to record around the lovely building. Reviewing the footage of her first night there, she manages to see some interesting crap… enough interesting crap to guarantee she’ll be making more visits after hours and bringing along a Ouija board. A cursed book comes into play, lives are put at risk and the answers Ozzie seeks may cost a lot more than anyone should be willing to pay. Asya Meadows is excellent in the lead as a convincingly damaged woman looking for answers and falling down a rabbit hole of the unthinkable. The film loses itself when it stops playing coy with its scares but it’s easy to forgive on that front because it really is offering alot more than one usually finds in found footage relegated to the Tubi library. Solidly paced and intriguingly stitched together, it also does the unexpected by managing to get under the skin and supplying some solid heebie jeebies… a claim I don’t throw around all willy-nilly.
⭐️
Em and Ruby are two young strangers who decide to rent a property together somewhere in an Australian suburb. The neighboring waters host a murky secret and it doesn’t matter what part of the world you’re in because you just can’t have nice things. A young woman does the Macarena to a song that sounds like mass-produced pop recorded in a fog while something dead emerges from the water and walks towards the unsuspecting young woman with no dance skills. Sirens and a concerned and peeping neighbor indicate that something went wrong. Fifteen years pass and we get a montage of people looking at the waterfront property. Bang up job, movie. The two ladies mentioned earlier nab the property and move on in. This, of course, necessitates another low-effort montage. The women have some issues as they get to know each other because only an idiot would decide that cohabitation with an unknown person is a good idea. Social awkwardness will have to be put to the side though because it seems the supernatural is about to claim residency at the rental as well. That concerned/snooping neighbor continues to snoop and be concerned while also having creepy flashbacks that look better-suited to a particularly forgettable episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark? The standard haunted house hijinks ensue and Em seems to be a focal point of the paranormal activity. That means she’s getting the auditory and visual horrors while Ruby just stands around getting further frustrated and offering horrible advice. Ruby rightfully believes Em is having a breakdown and offers up such helpful mental health tips as “Go for a walk.” and “Get some sleep.” Em suddenly keeps a vlog so she can fill us in on everything we’ve already seen and unconvincingly lose her mind. Eventually the neighbor breaks the peeper code and talks to Em about the house she’s renting and the history that’s far more interesting than anything we’re shown. Our leads have almost no chemistry and the dramatic chops of a water-logged loaf of bread. The script doesn’t do them any favors asking for melodrama while brewing a soup of predictability and pacing issues. A pretty bad time in Australia. Thank God it’s short and there’s some delightfully awful ghost effects on display.
aka Picnic in Ghost City/Terror in Sutterville
⭐️⭐️⭐️
During Christmas Vacation, a family visits the nowhere ghost town of Sutterville on their way to the mother’s family. Forty years earlier the place was the site of a massacre when a mob of concerned citizens wiped out a coven of Satan worshippers on Christmas Day. The father, Tom, has been having nightmares about the event once a year for a long time, his wife is concerned but he blames his occupation as a police officer for the added stress. While the family makes their way through the ghost town, a sinister drifter (who looks like what would happen if a sickly Amish guy couldn’t grow a beard and decided to start a gothic new wave band) with supernatural powers is apprehended by the police. His arresting officer is saved from telekinetic evil after clutching the crucifix he wears around his neck. Mom, dad, little annoying Billy, bitchy sister Erin and weak-hearted grandpa cross paths with the police officers and their perp while driving in and they learn from a helpful cop about the town’s dark history. Grandpa tries to get them to not visit Sutterville much to shit-head Billy’s disappointment but some supernatural automobile hijinks force the family to pay a visit to the abandoned town anyways. This pleases the creepy vagrant. Tom immediately gets a bad headache, grandpa seemingly attempts to chain smoke his heart condition away, telekinetic tomfoolery kills a cop, Billy meets a little ghost girl with resting bitch face, ghostly voices are heard as the family investigates the town, grandpa and his Joe-Esteves-lookin-ass is definitely hiding something, dad loses his temper and his mind, the gang finds it impossible to leave, the vagrant finally makes his move and a family secret is revealed which ties into the massacre from decades earlier. This thing has the odd vibe of feeling like a spooky family film made for television but by a creative team with a negative outlook on life and a methamphetamine addiction. It’s boring and intriguing in equal measure and always feels like it’s right on the cusp of exploding into chaos but lacking the ability to make that a possibility. For some reason, that’s a recommendation in my book.
aka Demon Possessed
⭐️⭐️
Six snowmobile enthusiasts with bright futures make the mistake of hitting up the isolated Black Friar Lake for some uninterrupted snowmobiling. A dick measuring race leads to one among them suffering a nasty head injury and leaves the others scurrying for shelter to make sure their friend doesn’t die of exposure. They stumble across a long-abandoned religious camp and figure it will be the perfect place to shack up while somebody goes for help. Attempting to ease the boredom, they decide to use a Devil’s Eye (kind of like a ouija board on steroids) one of them found amongst the crap left behind. They unleash a demonic presence (of course) which possesses the already weakened head wound sufferer and starts picking off the group of idjits one by one. The Wisconsin winter setting does well at adding the right amount of chilly aesthetic but a severe lack of atmosphere sinks the flick. The setting ends up being the only damn thing worth mentioning outside of a few refreshing bursts of gore. The whole thing feels like a rushed television movie.
aka Possess My Soul/The Blaxorcist
⭐️⭐️⭐️
The perfect marriage of reverend Emmett Williams and his charitable wife, Abby, goes to hell after Emmett’s professor father (William Marshall) discovers and opens an ancient wooden box in the caves of Nigeria. It transpires this box contained the trapped evil spirit of the god Eshu. Eshu finds his way to Kentucky and takes possession of Abby. What starts as poltergeist activity soon turns into an increased sex drive of the deviant variety. Abby runs around saying crude shit in a goofy gravelly voice (“As a matter of fact, I’m gonna take old long George upstairs, and FUCK THE SHIT OUT OF HIM!”) and getting into no good (she assaults an elderly widow who comes by to check on her, causing her to have a fatal heart attack). After a long distance plea for help, papa Williams flies in to offer assistance and it all culminates in a nightclub exorcism. William Marshall brings his usual gravitas, Carol Speed seems to be having a blast as the good Christian woman gone bad and the awesome Austin Stoker puts some time in as Abby’s detective brother. More hilarious than scary, and in the vast sea of The Exorcist knockoffs that followed in its wake, I’m thankful for that. Another win from the gone-way-too-soon William Girdler.
⭐️⭐️1/2
Tyge Murdock, a low-budget horror filmmaker, returns to his hometown to do a little inward thinking after an actor dies on the set of his latest film. He runs into his ex high school sweetheart, Ashley Lomack, who peaced on out of his life after her sister was the sole survivor of a brutal massacre (the events of Savage Harvest, of course). Ashley is back in town following the appearance of a strange tape featuring her blood-covered sister (who committed suicide five years later) asking for help. Tyge crashes at his best friend’s house, who has also let his buddy Zack move in after his family was murdered in the same massacre... it was his uncle’s land where it all went down. Turns out Zack sent Ashley the tape that his cop buddy gave him in order to get Ashley back in town to help him uncover the weird shit that happened ten years ago. They head to Ashley’s grandparents house (the spot where her older sister took her life) to look around, Ashley wants closure and Zack is convinced she left something there that will clue him in on the reasoning behind all the awfulness. Well, Zack ends up being right and he discovers a vhs tape stashed in a crawl space. After a lot of talk and personal issues getting dwelled on, one of the dinks finally gets possessed and the blood starts spilling. They get trapped on the farm along with some other folks unfortunate enough to wander onto the property and those pesky demonic animal spirits work their way through the cast. Budweiser gets guzzled, flesh gets torn and the film runs way longer than it has any right to. The exposition-heavy opening doesn’t drag as much as it really should and the backyard splatter breathes life into the tail-end but it’s still just a bit more boring than enjoyable. If you got yourself a fetish for chainsaw violence, make sure to stick around.
⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
Collecting thirteen sacred relics from the tomb of Prince Horus-Kan, a group of thieving occultists (The Pharaohs of Darkness) harness these items to increase their supernatural powers. Well, Horus-Kan may be three thousand years old, but he ain’t gonna take this insult standing down. Up he rises and goes on a collecting and murdering spree. This puts two dumpy detectives (Blake and Crawford) on the case and trying (and mostly failing) to stop the dead thing’s reign of terror. A narrator lets us know what’s going down so we don’t have to try to figure out any god damn thing for ourselves… it’s fine, it features a flash of a fire goddess who may be a local stripper and I’m oddly comfortable with that. It also uses poorly presented comic book panels to get around filming some of the bits that may have been outside of their ability to show and stuff that they just didn’t have the time to explain. What is it about Colorado and cheapjack horror mixing so damn well? Is it the elevation? The marijuana? The extensive amount of breweries? Maybe something in the water? Who knows, I’m just glad these folks get how to have fun with low-rent monsters. The mummy looks ugly as all hell and it’s wonderful. Lookin’ like someone wrapped bandages around and dried out The Haunted Mask from the Goosebumps show. So that ugly bastard wanders around with a nasty lookin’ blade, visiting the poor dopes who collected his things and taking them out with brutal efficiency. He shoots bandages out of his fingers to wrap up the dinks and then chops their noggins off. I dig that, no matter how cheaply it’s pulled off. There’s child psychics, trippy sequences involving that fire-stripper (or fire goddess Sekka or something) I mentioned earlier, houses that I think I’ve crashed on the couches of, alleys I’ve probably thrown up in, lightning bolts shot from fingers, locals serving as actors and not a mean bone to be found anywhere. Dennis Vincent’s heart is in the right place and it’s beating in rhythm with my monster-kid ass, which helps when the budget doesn’t align with one’s vision. If Mr. Vincent is releasing more flicks, you can just mainline it right into my dumbass veins. Creativity and monsters… it’s all you really need… especially if you’re from Colorado, apparently.
