aka Haunting of Heron House
⭐️⭐️1/2
Father Anthony Vicci (Erik fuckin’ Estrada) has lost his standing with the church thanks to succumbing to sin and getting his bang on with a woman. He joins a group of psychic investigators as they look into the hauntings at the infamous Heron house before it’s torn down. Robert Quarry heads the expedition as Doctor Dick Wicks (Richard if you’d like to remain civil) with a hand-selected small team. A bitchy psychologist, a lovely psychic (Brinke fuckin’ Stevens) and a historian flesh out the team looking to gain some proof of psychic phenomenon. The place’s disturbing history involves the building’s construction by a black magic practitioner who had a penchant for virgin sacrifice. He disappeared after offering up a politician’s daughter to his dark lord. The house was then the site of multiple family massacres and violent debauchery. Psychic Amy picks up on all of this, impressing Dr. Wicks and the historian but getting nothing but eye rolls from the psychiatrist. Claims of the house possessing the guilty parties have been debated but this debate will be settled for good once the evil within the walls starts to work its insidious magic. Father Vicci is seduced by a succubus in the form of a sexy nun (sultry Michelle Bauer… at least she doesn’t take off her habit) and is then seemingly challenged by whatever evil is haunting the Heron house. Vicci’s crisis of faith and the supernatural bullshit blowing up around him lead him to the Heron house to offer some assistance to the team (a little late in the game) and do battle with the demons calling the Heron house home. Ya see, that woman he broke his vows for all them years back was Mrs. Heron and shortly after she went nuts and slaughtered her family. So yeah, his guilt makes sense, even if it is hitting hard a decade after the fact. There’s plenty of investigating with little splashes of demonic terror and Erick Estrada looking all serious as he struggles with his sins. She may not be the best actress but I could watch Brinke Stevens read my freshman year poetry for hours on end. I’ve always loved the woman. Everything else is a bit lame and feels like it’s holding back from diving deep into its exploitative elements. It’s gets fun but spends a bunch of time circling around the drain when it could have embraced its own level of stupid and gone balls to the wall… even if it is on a budget. Still liked it more than I hated it and the rubber-masked monster that shows up at the climactic exorcism is running right on my frequency of garbage. WHERE THE HELL WAS HIS HALLOWEEN-STORE-ASS THROUGHOUT THE REST OF THE RUNTIME?!
aka Horror Queen/The Forest 1
⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
Ridiculous Italian nonsense plays out like someone’s faded memory of an inebriated viewing of Evil Dead that they got mixed up with a horrific wet dream. A young vacationing couple get their stupid asses lost in the Alps in the realm of a witch with a hairy monster arm up her vagina, waiting to strike. She forces herself into the lives of the lovebirds by jumping at their car, claiming she was attacked and because they’re not complete dickholes, they offer to drive her to the village. They come across a horror author on a motorcycle who speaks with a voice box. Upon seeing him, the hitchhiker runs off and the author fills the two out-of-towners in on the cursed and demonic history of the creepy village they’re walking through. He claims the supernatural evils of old are back thanks to everyone forgetting about them and the robot-voiced coot just may be onto something. An early victim pops back up as a pissed-off zombie and everyone acts like the dimmest of dimwits. They meet back up with the woman and she invites them to stay overnight at a house in the middle of the forest and because our heroes may not be dickholes but are still morons, they agree. Black slime to the face gets the boyfriend very sick, a POV demon cam stalks the area and there’s a malicious tree attack that leads to a decapitation and some ping pong eyeballs for our silly witch. Rocks sever hands and the acting comes off as almost otherworldly (that’ll happen when you get your Italian actors to perform in English) as we share the fever dream of a horror fan finally succumbing to dementia. Confusion doesn’t even begin to cover it but I sure as hell had a good time with this splattery spaghetti nightmare.
⭐️⭐️1/2
A vicious killer, with a kink for slaying couples going to the bone zone in their cars, terrorizes an Italian city. A young criminologist is writing her thesis on the slayings and begins to suspect her new forensic pathologist boyfriend may be the psychopath. Her investigation leads her to a bar filled with peeping perverts, a seance, the office of a voyeuristic gynecologist and the inevitable confrontation with the murderer dubbed “The Monster”. The opening slaying sets one up to expect an especially mean-spirited flick with a nasty sexual edge but instead we get a runtime devoted to our somewhat likable heroine attempting to figure out which suspect is the real deal. There’s enough sleaze sprinkled throughout to avoid catatonia and some splashes of unsettling violence (a particular murder of a camper stands out in its pubic-area disfigurement) slaps you back to attention. The ending is somehow both fitting and dumb as fuck. Give it a whirl, you may enjoy this Italian killer thriller.
aka Detention
⭐️⭐️1/2
Listen kids, I don’t care if you’re Wentworth Miller himself, ya should never get drunk and break into a cemetery. It doesn’t end well. Especially if you’re tying one on after burying a friend. And even more so if you decide to read an incantation left on the dead friend’s grave. And especially if you go and dance on some graves. That’s where our trio of heroes run into trouble. The mixture of desecration and incantation fucks everyone’s day up. Now, the ghost of a child pyromaniac, a female piano teacher who moonlighted as an axe murderer and a sadistic rapist have each picked one of the dopes as a target. The former friends are together for the first time in a long while thanks to a funeral for a friend and grief is mixed with booze. They realize the supernatural shit has hit the spooky fan and seek help from a paranormal investigator to break the curse they put on themselves (He also set it up so they’d do this shit to their own stupid asses). Dominic Purcell puts his wife in danger and the haunting effects her and has her thinking she may be going crazy. She’s not. It’s a minor flick which plays it safe but does feature some weird lookin’ ghosts that fall on the uncanny valley side of horrifying. Dominic Purcell seems a little sleepy here but it’s Dominic Purcell so I am more than a little forgiving (as I will be to anyone who played a Flash villain) and Tchéky Karyo is the perfect level of somber as the paranormal investigator… and he gets a bunch more time in front of the camera than I was expecting. Just something you can throw on for background noise and get some moderate entertainment from when you turn your head away from whatever you’re working on. Everything is worth it for the last act involving an axe-wielding possessed corpse and a colossal digital ghost hand… but I’m an idiot, so you shouldn’t trust my judgment.
⭐️1/2
An antique camera can somehow predict the future, unfortunately when pointed at a human subject it leads to death. Why would someone invent this? Well, it’s the Russians so I’ll buy it. Said camera was pointed in the direction of its creator and that’s all he wrote and now years have passed and a group of incredibly unlikable young people are gathered to make their way to a party. They get in a (hilarious) collision with a moose (it’s why you shouldn’t take a group shot including the driver while fucking operating an automobile) on the way there and are forced to hold up in a nearby cabin. That’s where the camera is and a photo of the car accident is amongst a whole wall of disturbing pictures featuring death. This has everyone raising a quizzical eyebrow. One idiot thinks it’s got to be some kind of reality television thing but he also gets his photo taken and stumbles headfirst into a bear trap… JUST LIKE HIS PHOTO PREDICTED! At this point you would say “Ok, the annoying guy died but now we know not to take any pictures.” You would be correct but you’re not an idiot and there’s fifty minutes left in this thing. Convenient footage is left behind to help explain what’s going on to the gaggle of mentally challenged youths. Easily figuring out what’s going on does nothing to help, as apparently Russian youths are just as efficient at taking accidental photos as middle-aged men on Facebook are when it comes to “accidentally” sending dick pics to attractive women. There’s a half-assed twist towards the end which leads directly into a half-assed climax. The dubbing makes everyone sound like they suffered severe brain damage before making it to the set (it’s also the only thing positive it has going for it) and the set pieces that you think would accompany the murder-camera plot leave a lot to be desired. I mean, here’s one of those deaths explained expertly by one of the group: “She ate a spider because she took a picture of herself.” And that actually tracks. So we get some laughs but not much else.
aka The Case of the Missing Brides
⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
“Shall I telephone for the ambulance?” “No. The undertaker. She’s dead.” Bummer, man. Young brides keep dropping dead on their wedding day and the bodies get scooped up by scumbags claiming to be from the mortuary. These cold ladies end up in the lab of Dr. Lorenz (Bela Lugosi, obviously) so he can extract gland fluid from the nubile corpses to assist in keeping his ancient wife alive. The wonders of science! Journalist Pat Hunter (wonderful Luana Walters) is hanging around because this is one juicy story and she doesn’t really have any decorum. She’s pretty damn excited when it’s revealed another cadaver of a recently departed young woman has been kidnapped… right from the wedding venue no less. The cops have no idea what the hell is going on and Alice Wentworth is determined to get her ass married even with all the nefariousness going down. A police presence is set up all around the wedding venue but it does little good as Alice collapses and is pronounced dead. Wonder if it has anything to do with the unique orchid delivered to the bride right before the ceremony was to begin? The orchid ends up in the hands of the journalist thanks to her shifty cameraman and she notices that after taking a whiff she begins to feel faint. While this is happening, Lugosi and his goon cause a distraction for the police escorting the body and make away with her corpse. Pat begins putting together the orchid connection and starts digging, even if her editor thinks she’s got nothing. It’s that kind of attitude that will allow Lugosi and his gang (thug, old lady, the old lady’s mentally challenged son Angel who is also a lover of the ladies and her other son Angelo Rossitto because every gang needs a dwarf so why not use the most famous one of the time) to go around causing young brides to appear dead so their fluids can be used to de-age his wife (the delightfully dangerous Elizabeth Russell). Pat manages to make her way to the professor’s home (he was once an orchid expert so he seems the best person to speak with about the rare flower she’s found) when she comes across Dr. Foster, who gives her a lift as he heads over to the Lorenz home. He and Lugosi are working together to figure out a cure for Countess Lorenz who has a bad case of “being a bitch” on top of whatever vague disorder is forcing her husband to steal bodies. Pat and Foster are stuck spending the night in the house thanks to a bad storm and Lorenz takes a liking to the reporter. Maybe… he does the same creepy hovering over her sleeping self that he does to Dr. Foster so maybe he’s just a creep. Pat gets stalked by Angel which leads to her not only discovering Lorenz and his wife sleep in coffins but also has her unearthing secret passages and the nefarious business going on in the hidden catacombs under the Lorenz home. She also witnesses Lugosi murder Angel who he and his wife agree has become a liability. Pat faints, wakes up in her bed and is assured she has dreamed up all of the horror from the night before. She knows this is bullshit and makes her way back to the city to keep working on her hunch. She lets Foster know her suspicions before jumping on the train. Her editor still thinks she’s nuts but Foster shows up at the office to add weight to the woman’s story. If only they could prove it. Looks like some scheming is in order and it’s going to involve a phony wedding and a trap. Of course, Lugosi is one clever fiend so he has a trap of his own set and this leaves Pat (newly engaged) in the grips of the mad man and his evil wife. Hypnotism, fast-talk, cameraman comedy, dames and a sinister duo of antagonists keep this one nice and comfortable for anyone who grew up on these public domain creakers. “Are you trying to tell me this Professor Lorenz is a hypnotist as well as a horticulturist?”
⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
A young mother (Melissa George) joins a guy she likes (Michael Dorman, from the criminally underrated series Patriot) and some of his friends for a day at sea on his yacht. A freak electrical storm capsizes the boat and forces them to board an apparently abandoned ocean liner. Jess is experiencing some déjà vu and a sack-masked killer begins picking off the stranded group... and then things get weird. Saying anything else would be a disservice to anyone who has yet to come across this gem of a film. Director Christopher Smith (Creep, Black Death) handles himself well and the cast is up to the task. Maybe not the unheralded classic some folks make it out to be but an interesting ride nonetheless.
