⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
In 2018, a police officer goes missing inside the halls of an abandoned hospital while responding to a disturbance call. One year later his wife tries to piece together just what the hell happened to him by using his leaked body-cam footage as a starting point. She invites a film crew to document her investigation into the unsolved incident. She’s gotten nowhere with the police department so she takes the digging into her own hands because she desperately needs an answer to bring her some closure and allow her to start moving on. A deeper conspiracy is uncovered when a department whistleblower shares thousands of hours of footage he was tasked with archiving. The whole area seems to be built on bad land and something called “The Red Sister” lays claim to the area, with the hospital serving as some kind of ground zero for all the supernatural shenanigans. Of course, this brings them to the damn place and puts them on a head-on collision with the malicious force residing within. Some of the acting is iffy but fortunately the lead is pretty good, convincingly portraying a woman spiraling and desperate. More importantly, the supernatural element is horrifying and well-realized, utilizing the living hell out of chilling visuals with off-putting audio. It’s also far more interesting than a lot of the boogeymen and boogeywomen that litter this subgenre. It feels a bit like it’s setting up for more which may leave you wanting but I’m hoping we get further explorations into The Red Sister.
aka Puppet Master 2: His Unholy Creations
⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
Full Moon’s franchise players manage to resurrect their creator in a lovely cemetery-set pre-credits bit that’s over way too soon. Ya see, they need more of Toulon’s formula to keep on getting into their tiny hijinks and to do that, they’ll be needing brain fluid… don’t ask me, I majored in literature and not supernatural puppet science. So, it’s quite convenient that the abandoned Bodega Bay Inn has just been broken into by a group of enthusiastic paranormal investigators with some bullshit government department and an eccentric psychic (the wonderful Nita Talbot who went up against giant crabs in Island Claws, a dead horror actor in Frightmare and a haunted clock in Amityville 6! This badass has one hell of a résumé.) aware of the locations troubling history. One night in the place leads to two deaths and the discovery of one of the homicidal puppets, which gets the team’s surviving members excited about what they’ve found, even if their slightly bummed about the death of one of their own. Toulon shows up under a pseudonym and looking like he’s really into Invisible Man cosplay, claiming he’s the hotel’s owner but giving the team permission to keep on researching. Also arriving is Michael Kenney (the psychic’s son, looking for his mom and played by Collin Bernsen who definitely personifies a casting choice in any movie produced by David DeCoteau) to play hunky hero with no personality and love interest for cute red head running the group of government-funded paranormal researchers. Toulon has his eyes (goggles) set on resurrecting his beloved wife and of course he sees the lead investigator as her reincarnation. Which is perfect for soul-transferring into the creepy-ass life-size puppet you have made of your wife… or so I assume. Remember, literature was my major. It’s fun for what it is as director David Allen injects plenty of Universal Monster charm into his turn at the wheel but it still has some dalliances into territory that just feels like treading water. Still, we get plenty of puppet action and be it stop motion or stiff stepping, I fucking love it. Steve Welles has a blast hamming it up as Toulon, there’s a new puppet with a penchant for burning his victims to a crisp (even an annoying brat!) bewbs! and George Buck Flower gets his ass murdered by a toy. Yes, that is a recommendation. A better sequel because it had a bit more fun. Still, the best was yet to come because the next outing would have the puppets as heroes going up against those rat bastard Nazis.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Two decades ago, Tara’s brother went missing on Vancouver Island (a location with nearly twice as many missing persons as the national average) and his disappearance (along with his friend) has remained a mystery. With the memory of her older brother still knocking around in her head, the woman sets out to get some answers and hopefully gain as much closure as one can when it comes to the unfathomable touching the life of a loved one. Tara, director Markian and their videographer Ryan journey to Vancouver Island to start digging into things and talk to folks affected by the event, familiar with area and involved with the search for the young men. The boys’ discarded camera was discovered in an abandoned cabin but pretty much showed the two friends doing their best Blair Witch Project (as was customary at the time) concerning a cannibalistic local legend by the name of Roy Mackenzie. Tara and the team get their hands on the footage along with some other evidence and Tara starts believing there may have been some kind of coverup while Markian remains cautious about the project spiraling into paranoia born from frustration and desperation. A piece of evidence is eventually released into the trios care following a supposed clerical error and some disturbing questions are brought to light and Tara’s already fragile mental wellness begins to fracture. Markian decides it’s best to scrap the project but our somewhat unlikable lead makes a stupid decision that’s going to cost our heroes dearly. Expertly presented as a documentary that eventually shifts into found footage, it’s a solid experience thankfully blessed with some gorgeous location filming. Tara isn’t all that likable but considering the stakes she feels are at play, it kind of makes sense that her desperation would lead to unreasonable actions. So, it may not be all that great being around her but at least it makes sense to the character.
⭐️⭐️⭐️
Already smiling thanks to a title I immediately fell in love with, the door to my heart was slightly ajar as the film began. Pre-credits bewbs lead to the revelation that a biker is in cahoots with some lunatic in a welder’s mask who occupies a ghost town in the middle of nowhere. Biker dude supplies the victim and welding mask hands over some drugs. During the credits we witness the unfortunate woman tied up the a rickety chair and maybe being live embalmed? I don’t know. It was pretty silly. A woman has a phone conversation hinting at being called in by the government to deal with a possible alien threat but wanting to go on one last trip with her struggling band before needing to give it up to help the world fight some terror her big brain discovered was moving towards Earth. They’re heading to some venue they’ve never heard of so there’s plenty of band chat and lame hijinks to fill in the drive through boring scenery. The band plays to the crowd you’d expect their boring-ass butt-punk to draw in and the intelligent gal delivers some knowledge bombs while hearing about an abandoned mine nearby where people just vanished with no rhyme or reason. The biker from the opening chats to the girl who’s leaving the band and lets him know that she’s gonna be locked-up in a lab for two years due to her discovery of a planet which may wipe out power on Earth. This seems like a whole lotta exposition that may not pay off due to budgetary constraints and a vibe I get of the filmmakers just filling time to keep things going. Anyways, the bar promoter stiffs them out of a payday but promises the knife-wielding biker he’ll get them the rest of the money the next day. The biker, Bobby the Knife, lets the band know they can camp out on his property over night which, even without the pre-credits scene, we of functioning brain ability would know is a very fucking bad call. The biker arrives the next morning, kinda surprised they’re not victims of welding mask (I think a couple keyboard notes scared him off) and tells the dopes to hang out and explore while he goes and collects their money. We of functioning brain ability would know this is a very fucking bad call. Smarty pants sticks to the van while the rest wander around the ghost town and one of their number follows a stumbling skinny girl (chick from the opening who maybe wasn’t live-embalmed) into the mine and discovers she may be something not quite human. Luckily, he doesn’t have to sit with that mind-exploding realization for long because the masked lunatic pops up to knock him out. Dwindling numbers dwindle more as the they split up to look for the missing guy and bad things start happening. A refreshing lack of over-the-top obnoxiousness in its band members makes the ass-dragging nature of the film way more watchable than expected. I’d even say these dopes are lame enough to be likable and that rarely happens in my horror outings of this vintage. The violence may want to be nasty but the budget says “Not happening.” and I feel like that’s works in the movie’s favor because I’ll usually find that pretty charming. There’s bigger ideas here than expected and the silly science fiction angle is a level of “stupid” I am all for. Keyboard heroics courtesy of our healthy-lookin’ final girl are much more satisfying than the usual shenanigans the leading ladies get up to. Imma root for anyone who looks more Midwest than West Coast and both our leading females look like they can get down with some beers and BBQ. Makeshift tech more at home in a lab showing up in some European sci-fi rush job makes an appearance and I feel like this films heart beats somewhere in an 80’s splatter flick inspired by a fifties monster movie. I dig the effort here even if the title of the damn thing remains the best part. Still, consider that door to my heart opened enough to be accessible to a few thick heroes, a well-groomed biker and a booger-faced alien in a welding mask.
⭐️⭐️
A narrator lets us know he has captured disturbing footage through various means and now he’s sharing it with our unfortunate asses. A woman and her hired videographer are inspecting a property because the owner is worried about squatters and the best time to go do something like this is at night… I don’t know, I don’t own property. The place stinks to high hell and the camera man believes he sees somebody darting into the shadows. Satanic symbols, spooky noises and a secret door increase the tension but the woman is determined to check everything, no matter how worried the man behind the camera gets. The occupants introduce themselves and… well, not much happens. Different footage of someone exploring an empty house and coming across occupants who shouldn’t be there plays but this time there’s a teenager in lazy Joker makeup hanging around. Why? Fuck if I know. The narrator is hired to document a woman’s experiences with a haunted Rapunzel doll (get Disney’s lawyers on the phone) and she’s weird as fuck (the woman, not the doll). Acting like it’s her first day on Earth, Annalise (Jess Adams, at least having fun) claims her doll is acting strange and getting up to sinister shenanigans. Staying well past the point of “this woman is nuts and I should get the fuck out of here”, the camera operator learns an important lesson about not entertaining the possible delusions of people no matter how attractive they are. A valuable lesson and the best thing to happen in this so far. Another strange woman hires our hero and has him record her because weird shit is going down in her house. She may be a crackhead or she just acts like a crackhead. I guess her family was murdered while she slept and maybe she’s been possessed by a crackhead? Again, fuck if I know. Some text about a cursed face pops up and warns that any viewer not “covered or protected” should not continue watching. We then jump back into the story with the crackhead who may be possessed by a crackhead or is just a crackhead. She asks about the cursed face and then shows it to the camera. It looks like a silly police sketch composed from the memory of somebody who has a hard time placing the position of eyeballs. Silliness follows as the face chases the duo. It’s certainly obnoxious. A man’s fiancée is acting strange so he hires the cameraman to… you get it, right? You get the setup to every segment. People act creepy, it gets recorded and then things end without really concluding. It just goes on like this. Siren Head and Bloody Mary are featured towards the end to add some name recognition, unfortunately they’re not battling which I would have loved to have seen considering the minor budget this film is running on. It’s from the man behind the VCR Willie movies and it shows. Alexander Henderson definitely has a noticeable style of his own, a somewhat lethargic nightmare stream of consciousness that I may not find all that enthralling but I still respect. It’s still better than V/H/S/Mixtape but so is a three-finger prostate exam from Andre the Giant so I guess that’s means very little.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Under five minutes short film manages to be as unsettling as it can be with the brief runtime and presentation as a home video that not only captures a small family goofing around but also the messy aftermath of a brutal home invasion. There’s no answers here, just a loss of life and the last known footage of the family’s son. There’s nothing graphic but it still manages to leave quite the impression. Working with limited time doesn’t allow much breathing room for anything beyond loose sketches of the happy family and the tragedy that came their way. Any added time to either aspects would only work to lessen the impact. It’s solid and should stick with you but I can only rate it so high considering the necessary vagueness to the complete picture it paints. Still, recommended.
⭐️⭐️1/2
A twisted take on hide-and-seek in an abandoned building leads to the accidental death of 10-year-old Robin Hammond. The four older kids whose cruelty served as a catalyst to the little girl’s tumble from a window kept their mouths shut and the girl’s death got blamed on a serial killer who was close enough to be a suitable suspect. Six years have passed and as the quartet of guilty brats get ready for senior prom, somebody who knows their secret begins picking them off. The dead girl’s older sister Kim (her majesty Jamie Lee Curtis) and her little brother Alex have managed to move past the horrible incident (sure they have) and keep on keeping on with their lives. Hell, she’s even dating one of the derps responsible which pisses off his ex, the super-bitch Wendy who was the member of the quartet responsible for demanding a coverup. Ooooph. Their father (Leslie fuckin’ Nielsen) does what he can to watch over his kids as their high school principal. A possible pervert groundskeeper (he definitely looks the part), the recently escaped disfigured serial killer, a unibrowed future rapist or one of the still grieving parents serve as suspects but even in 1980 we already knew better. Those would all be way too easy. A subplot featuring a police lieutenant hunting down the escaped lunatic goes nowhere, high school dramatics take center stage while slasher sensibilities kinda just linger in the background, a wonderful decapitation serves as the main horror set-piece and Curtis displays some sick disco moves in what remains the most important part of the film and the main reason for a watch in my heart. It’s a bit mediocre but so am I and I don’t have Jamie Lee Curtis and Leslie Nielsen hanging around to make me worth your time. There’s always long stretches in between my viewings of this one and I always manage to forget just how much doesn’t happen before things finally kick into horror mode. It makes me wonder how much differently it would have played out if it had had Friday the 13th as an inspiration as opposed to Halloween. Probably would have been more like The Prowler which I may have a nostalgic bias to but completely recognize is no great shakes anyways. It’s awkward but the final act makes it worth a look.
