Kafan (1990) (India)

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

It's 1990, it's India and things are about to get rowdy. Cheap violence realized by cheaper special effects and some cheeky naughtiness are offered up along with the usual suspects of dance numbers and comic relief. You're either into South Asian horror flicks or you're not. That middle ground doesn't exist here. At two plus hours, there's just no room for it. When the black magic practicing holy man in their employ promises immortality in exchange for a virgin, a group of four shit-heel menfolk are happy to oblige. Under the leadership of the head prick, Robert, two of the group go to collect. Because these are awful human beings, they just can't keep it in their pants and they rape the poor girl. Thinking it won't matter, they deliver the girl to the evil magician and he goes about with the sacrifice. That proves to be a big mistake. The wronged woman comes back as a pissed-off evil spirit and starts working on her vengeance. Universal justice would play out as it should if it weren't for a pretty medium named Neelam caught up in the awful business. She has been seeing visions of the murders and sets out to alert her police detective boyfriend, Shekar, to the oncoming massacre. At first he treats her as any level-headed human would when told that an evil spirit is killing off a bunch of strangers but as her intuitions prove to be chillingly correct, Shekar comes around and begins to take Neelam's claims seriously. Looking to rid herself of her connection to this evil force, Neelam asks for help from an inexperienced professor. Hesitant as first, he finally agrees to assist her in an exorcism. It looks to be a complete success up until poor Neelam is possessed by the spirit and goes on to finish off the still living pieces of crap that brought about the shit-storm. You bet your ass it will all come to a close with a battle between good and evil for Neelam's soul. While all this is going on there is a "comic" subplot involving another police officer named Badam (Bollywood staple Johney Lever) and his attempt to win the affections of a young lady. He summons a ghost to aid him but the horny female ghost ends up being more of a nuisance than anything. This story has nothing to do with the main plot (except for some tenuous setup) and involves a colossally craptastic fight scene with the best awful choreography I've seen. So... enjoy? Kafan is exactly what I'm looking for in my South Asian cinema. Cheapjack effects, a handful of toe-tapping songs and a jumbled story structure. When I barely notice something is going on for two hours, all signs point to a good old time. There's a climatic chase through an out-of-nowhere concert involving dancers and musicians in cheap monster masks. The opening black mass has music and audio from Predator (including Bill Duke saying "Anytime") and ends with a slaughter. There's a whole bunch going on in this flick including (but not limited to) the aforementioned insanity, flying stuffed animals and dinnerware, floating heads and exploding fat men and who could forget animated magic electricity shooting out of our demonic princess.

Jurnal Risa by Risa Saraswati (2024) (Indonesia)

aka Jurnal Risa: The Movie 

⭐️⭐️1/2

Risa Saraswati can supposedly communicate with the spirit world and as she is being filmed by a documentary crew she is filming a video for her YouTube channel. At a haunted location, she and her large team are documenting a group of volunteers to see if they can successfully commune with the unknown in a haunted location for her titular show. One of the volunteers decides to call forth an entity that Risa has advised should never be called after she accidentally summoned it years ago. The dangerous entity Samex latches on to Risa and even after performing a cleansing ritual, the team realizes the powerful evil is not letting go of the young lady. Or is it? It could be Risa’s out for viral fame and a boost to her social media viewers. Or that would be the intriguing plot if it didn’t dismiss the option within a couple minutes and show that the supernatural is at play instead of a fame-hungry nincompoop. Oh well. Some of the team sets up at Risa’s home and things get worse. An exorcism is in order and everything just kind of plays out like you’d expect… which ain’t necessarily a bad thing but, man oh man, am I missing the Indonesian output of a few decades earlier. But, we all grow up and lose that wild streak eventually so I can’t really blame anyone. There’s a few cool macabre bits when it starts digging into the origins of the evil and it brings on the found footage jump-scares, it just drags around the good stuff with the possession angle you have already seen multiple times in multiple formats. The intense exorcism has some bite and when it’s not going through the motions it’s a pretty damn fun time, you just have to get through the slogs.

The Mistresses of Dr. Jekyll (1964) (Spain/Austria/France)

aka Dr. Orloff’s Monster/Brides of Dr. Jekyll/The Secret of Dr. Orloff 

⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

Franco returns to Orloff or Jekyll or whatever… it’s Uncle Jess, so just go with it. A beautiful orphan named Melissa goes to take care of some inheritance paperwork while visiting the homestead of her scientist uncle and drunk aunt at their sprawling castle in Spain during the Christmas season. Uncle Conrad Jekyll is currently busy because he has inherited a secret formula from his tutor, the infamous Dr. Orloff. This formula can bring life to the dead and allow control over said shambling corpses through the usage of ultrasonics. Jekyll uses this to resurrect Melissa’s dead father (Conrad’s brother, whom he murdered after catching him having an affair with his wife) and put him to good use by strangling strippers and prostitutes. A world of options when it comes to abusing your power over the walking dead and you use it to murder sex workers… dick move. Andros (the newly undead papa) begins to develop his own will after discovering his beloved daughter is now on the property. Melissa meets some dope when she arrives and he ends up dropping her off at her uncle’s place when his pestering causes her to miss her bus. Juan Manuel will most likely have to come to the rescue when shit gets bad, so it’s good he decides to stay in a village hotel to keep an eye on her and drive her back to the train when her trip ends. Dude is desperate. There’s also a couple inspectors hanging around, scratching their heads and struggling for leads. They finally catch a break when Andros murders the wrong woman and some guy who looks like Austin Powers witnesses him dump the body in a canal. Granted, when the witness points to the culprit being a robot, it raises a few more questions than answers. The script may have a few holes and lack answers but there’s still some haunting visuals and a decent amount of weirdness to keep things moving… the attractive women also help. Luisa Sala is delightfully sloppy as the boozy Aunt Ingrid, drowning in regret and stealing every moment she is granted screen time while Marcelo Arroita-Jáureg looks exactly as you would expect someone’s uncle to look.

The Z (2014) (USA)

⭐️

The titular ancient species are the source of zombie legends worldwide and a team of mercenary “badasses” work as humankind’s protection from these ravenous super-killers that are like vampires but way lamer. Impressive as vampires are the lamest of legendary monsters. They make their move at a small time club looking to get at Mars Heflin and his Z-bustin’ team called Protection Incorporated. This leads to a drag queen getting her head knocked off with a bat and the club manager eaten. Somehow, the flesh-eating is less convincing than the digital abomination that is the decapitation via aluminum bat. Protection Incorporated also runs private security for various events that don’t exactly look like they could afford a private security team. That’s okay, they’re definitely not a real private security team. Turns out Mars hasn’t been upfront about the Z to his team but feels they’re more than ready to handle them if they show themselves. They do and the final confrontation is like a cinematic shitting of a pantsuit on a first date. If the opening club scene from Blade had a learning disability, it would be The Z. It’s the type of movie that happens when a group of people who desperately crave badass notoriety and have watched way too many Tarantino movies get their hands on enough disposable income and friends willing to work for cocaine to make a movie… but they also have no discernible talent or convincing charm. The zombies just look like normal folks who have been to one too many raves in the same night and may be even less threatening than our wiener heroes, which is impressive in a completely pathetic way. Nudity is provided by actual strippers and I’ll always be happy that they (hopefully) got a nice pay day for doing what they do anyways. Hilarious performances are the right kind of “bad” and some shit splatter may drag a grin out of you but everything else just blows donkey dick. Zombie makeup appears in a news report about a bunch of folks dressing up for a zombie bar crawl… I mean, what the fuck is the point of this damn thing?

Woods Witch (2023) (USA)

NOTHING! FUCK THIS MOVIE AND FUCK EVERYTHING IT STANDS FOR! THERE IS NOTHING HERE FOR YOU!

There’s a forest out there in the American wilds where folks are known to vanish off the face of the earth and at the very worst, end up very dead. Sensing some quality content, a duo of Internet vloggers journey out into the wilderness to collect themselves some views. James Duval plays a fake Frenchman whose footage opens the film, thankfully he drops the accent right before something sneaks up behind him. We then watch as our heroes Jocelyn and Jonah stumble through comedy and ad-libbing interviews (even Tom Sizemore in one of his final films) before finally making it to the woods. They’re doing a 48-hour challenge in said woods with a couple other idiots and you will feel EVERY FUCKING MINUTE of it. Supposedly some entity called Suicide Sandy wanders around the dark and fucks people up. By the thirty minute mark, I was ready to quit and I couldn’t believe there was still an hour left. Actual actor Robert LaSardo shows up, which only goes to magnify how awful at acting everyone else is in this thing. Eventually, the cool lookin’ boogeywoman shows up and the meaninglessness of all of this gets a little relief. But there’s more annoying nothing to wade through instead of producing horror entertainment. These woods are also full of idiots so, if you’ve considered smashing yourself in the head with a baseball bat… now would be the time. The only good thing this has going for it is kept off camera for most of the runtime and most offensive is the fact that it never feels like they’re actually deep in the woods. Co-written, co-directed and co-starring Coolduder (Shawn C Phillips), I already knew my annoyance level would be running very high. Why did I do it? Well, I love supporting SRS, I’m a sucker for found footage and I’m always waiting for something or someone to surprise me. This wasn’t the film to do it. I guess Coolduder can take some comfort in the fact that he’s surrounded by folks just as annoying as him. It’s not great for us, the viewer at home, but I have a nagging feeling that everyone behind this didn’t give a fuck about us.

Scarecrow Slayer (2003) (USA)

aka Scarecrow 2/Scarecrow: Resurrection 

⭐️

If 2002’s Scarecrow taught us anything it was that sometimes bullies are right to pick on people. That movie’s whipping boy who became a supernatural scarecrow slasher with mad hops was named Lester and he was the wettest of blankets in the form of a teenager who looked like he had just celebrated his fortieth birthday before heading into junior year. Luckily, Tiffany Shepis was there to ease some of the pain but she ain’t here this time. Neither is Lester so I guess that’s a point in the movie’s favor. Top-billed Tony Todd (who may have had to ingest several heavy drugs to get through this skid row production) has a history with the demonic scarecrow as the pre-credits shows it kill his father for some reason. Since that terrible night, he ain’t been all there and has taken it upon himself to guard the evil thing. He’s even written a few books on the subject which have been dismissed as the ravings of a lunatic… the interview he’s doing to open things doesn’t exactly do anything to soften that belief. Two pledging idiots break into the farm to steal the infamous scarecrow for their fraternity initiation but farmer Todd mistakenly shoots one of them dead. David’s stupid soul gets sucked into the stupid scarecrow and now death is in the future of several unlikable college idiots. The dead kid’s friend is an awkward weirdo named Karl who falls into the Lester category of having a face decades older than he acts while stuck on a body that may be pushing thirteen. It’s… unsettling. David’s girlfriend Mary and creepy Karl are probably all that stands in the way of the scarecrow’s tour of revenge that isn’t really revenge because he was just an idiot who really shouldn’t have been trespassing. Everyone acts like the set was blanketed in a thick level of carbon monoxide and character actions exist somewhere in a dimension where brain death is the norm. Ditzy Sheila is the only likable person and she dating the frat president Gavin who won’t shut up about how he’s going to be a marine. Mary comes off like a really high stripper cosplaying as Katharine Isabelle and Karl gives a performance one can define as “why?”. He also looks like what would happen if a Walton Goggins and Andrew Scott amalgamation was sculpted by a drunk Stevie Wonder who decided to give up before the final stretch. Impressive in that it’s somehow worse than the already wretched original but that’s probably something you wouldn’t want to brag about. Shitty cgi violence gets me smiling but in a movie this ass, it’s not much to hold onto. There’s no embarrassing one-liners from the killer scarecrow this time and the “why try” attitude of the movie transfers directly to the viewer.

Creature from Black Lake (1976) (USA)

aka Demon of the Lake/Silent Stalker 

⭐️⭐️1/2

Two young researchers from the University of Chicago head to the swamps of Louisiana after word of Bigfoot attacks on local fishermen spreads. Despite their professor’s insistence that the North American forest ape has never attacked a human, this southern beast is one violent bastard. We’re introduced to the hairy thing snatching a fisherman off his boat while his buddy (top-billed Jack Elam) flees in fear. The duo of dopes arrive in town and immediately begin to question the citizens. This gets them a warning from the sheriff to forget about any creature and not rile up the townsfolk. They find a younger bumpkin who’s willing to share his encounter with them as long as he gets a ride home. Hit that flashback! His toddler wanders off when the family car breaks down and when his mama goes to grab him the man-beast shows itself. Luckily the family escapes with their lives… briefly. The wrecked wheel forces the car to swerve into a tree and take out the boy’s parents. They drop the man off and once they say there’s a twenty-five dollars reward for any information on the creature, grandpa lightens up and tells them about the bipedal animal roaming the area. Hit the flashback! This time a dog gets tossed and we see grandpa topless. So… win? The Yankees get the boot when they bring up the creature after mistaking the sounds of a mule and they’re forced to sleep in the barn. It’s not a mule that freaks them out that night as something bipedal roars and stalks around the farm. They manage to make it through the night and even catch the shrieks on tape. Undeterred, the dinky duo go out camping that night… even inviting some local hotties to join them. Guess what interrupts their smoochin’. The beast stalks around their tent but the sheriff shows up before anything can happen. Not necessarily a good thing because one of those lovely ladies is his daughter. Oops! The dopes get thrown in the slammer after being smartasses. Jack Elam finally comes back into things when he comes hollering into the police station after being attacked in his swamp shack. He winds up in the drunk tank right next to our heroes and invites the boys to come out by him and hear some stories. They take him up on that offer and he lets them know where to go if they want to find the monster causing so many problems. Finally, the dummies have their own encounter. It’s alright but gets boring in some parts and has an odd reliance on “comedy” that doesn’t always work. The cryptid is pretty cool looking and the Louisiana location shooting helps but it’s still pretty lame. You can just drive past Black Lake and stick to Boggy Creek.