⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
A paranormal podcast is sent a collection of audio recordings concerning a young pregnant couple, seeming to be proof of something paranormal. Evy has just moved into her dying mother’s house to stand as caregiver for the woman in her final days and she’s discovering an unsettling parallel between the events on the audio recordings and her own life. Skeptical Evy is frustrated with her current situation and feels as if her podcast is the only thing keeping her sane but the deeper she falls into the pit of the truly eerie recordings, the more she begins to believe something unnatural is going on. Her co-host Justin (the believer of the duo) is the one sent the cryptic email containing the audio files and decided, after a brief listen, to experience it firsthand with Evy for the program. The young man on the recordings is attempting to prove to his girlfriend that she has been talking in her sleep so he sets up the recorder for overnight taping and catches Jessa singing nursery rhymes, sleepwalking and getting into all sorts of creepy shit. What else would you call playing London Bridge in reverse? Which I guess they own on vinyl… that’s also creepy. Real deep cut. Deep diving into hidden messages and the dark history behind nursery rhymes, there’s a nice layer of macabre spread as foundation for the increasing terror to build upon. A real solid setup for Evy’s diminishing nerves and skepticism as the spookiness in her mother’s house ramps up and the mythology behind the machinations is revealed. Ian Tuason crafts an intriguing auditory nightmare, attempting to see how upsetting he can make it for the viewer with expert sound design and off putting audio. It’s a risk in a genre that relies on visuals to pay things off and it doesn’t necessarily lend itself to excitement. Luckily, when combined with tight and nearly claustrophobic cinematography and enough haunted house shenanigans to fill a paranormal podcast, it molds into an effective and simmering horror film.
aka The Love Maniac/The Fiend with the Atomic Brain/Man with the Synthetic Brain/Fiend with the Electronic Brain/Two Tickets to Terror
⭐️⭐️
Mad scientists and brain implants never lead anywhere good. Thanks to Dr. Vanard (John Carradine, naturally), a brain damaged American soldier is transformed from a vegetable to a malevolent psychopath. Of course, this is all told through flashback by a homicide lieutenant who worked the case and the poor man’s grieving father. Currently a goofy-looking zombie is murdering folks on the streets and it ties into said revived soldier. So we get a story of a jewel robbery, a half million dollars in missing loot and a nice look at California in the 1960s. The neurosurgeon’s large haired daughter (our girl, Regina Carrol) shows up for some kind of voodoo/telepathy/revenge bullshit subplot which half-heartedly explains the zombie shenanigans. Shot as a crime film by Al Adamson and shelved for a few years until horror elements were added and it was shat out onto the big screen to a market hungry for said excrement. As usual with an Adamson film, the production history is far more interesting than anything that makes it to the screen. Schlocky charm manages to edge out the boredom and we are all thankful for that little miracle.
⭐️⭐️
More found footage from Brendan Rudnicki whose films I have had a good enough time with up until The Last Cabin which didn’t do much for me. But, judging completely by the brief synopsis, this one is supposed to be more paranormal shenanigans (That’s good!) instead of the mean spirited murder (That’s bad!) of my last disappointing dance with a man who has carved out a niche for himself in the subgenre I (God only knows why) seem to love or at least tolerate more than a good majority of (smart) horror fans. Anyways, after a brief bit of police footage involving a serial killer dressed up like a clown and his death by cop, we join a duo of ghost hunters filming for a show. Psychic Amy is set to leave the team after wrapping up this final episode and Tony is hoping for a successful investigation in order to get an order for another season. Along with them is their director Brad, a production assistant named Kate and their cameraman Dylan. They break into the house which is where that clown-masked serial killer from the opening (Lester Morgan) did all his dirty work and eventually went off to meet his maker. While Brad monitors everything from the truck, the group explores the creepy place, talk about how spooky it is and explain the twisted history of Lester Morgan. Standard ghost hunting shenanigans ensue. Eventually enough calling to things beyond the veil gets an answer and the ghost of Lester is able to up his body count. Possession and bad decisions help nothing. It’s a remake of Rudnicki’s own The Haunting of the Murder House from 2022. I guess he was a fan of his original idea but just wanted to add a few more years of experience and a little more money to craft his true vision. Hey. If ya got the initiative, do what ya want with your money and talent. After four years, an adequate but forgettable found footage flick becomes a somewhat mean but serviceable and polished found footage flick. Now that it’s out of his system, here’s hoping my guy throws out more of the monster shenanigans he seems rather adept at judging by my favorite of his, Shadows of Bigfoot.
aka I Was a Teenage Vampire/Blood is My Heritage/Blood of the Demon
⭐️⭐️⭐️
Hypnosis leads to no good when a boarding school science teacher throws an old amulet into the mix and turns troubled young Nancy into a monster. “Radiation fears” has the professor believing she can show how there’s more terrifying weapons contained within the human species (harnessed through hypnosis, naturally) than anything one can find by splitting an atom. Her hope is that this proof will lead to the scientific community realizing they don’t need to create new weapons because we are monstrous enough. Of course, the amulet belonged to the world’s most famous blood sucker and the science teacher is a bit more sinister than curious. There’s a girl gang at the school dubbed The Birds of Paradise (and when I say “gang” think more along the lines of Grease as opposed to something Jess Franco would concoct) led by Myra (super sexy Gail Ganley) that set their sights on Nancy. They throw an initiation party (your usual white people shindig) for their newest member and the professor begins her experiment. The performance of Puppy Love by some party-crashing dudes eventually leads to excitement (who can blame them?) which leads to Nancy’s moonlight transformation into a monster and the first murder. The poor young victim is found by the janitor and the blood-drained corpse gets a young coroner believing there’s a vampire hanging around campus. The police aren’t exactly up to following his admittedly dumbass belief but he still holds onto his hunch as the higher-ups tell him to shut his damn mouth. He’ll end up being proven right but only after a few more bodies drop by the hands of the goofy-looking vamp. Graveyard make out sessions, scavenger hunts, wacky eyebrows of evil, mysticism beating a polygraph test and the appearance of Nancy’s goober boyfriend who looks like a knockoff Walton Goggins and may be one the wettest of wet blankets I’ve ever come across in 1950’s schlock add some extra spice to the already silly science-gone-wrong vampire flick.
aka Mad Mutilator/The Axe Monster
⭐️⭐️⭐️
Protecting his “land” with a preternaturally brutal efficiency, a metal-masked lumberjack in a beanie randomly comes across people and slaughters them. A sort of stream of consciousness bloodbath with a minimal connecting thread and thought up by an insanely boring lunatic. The opening murder happens to a little boy who foolishly wanders into the woods after his parents stop the car so that papa can take a piss. Dad gets his head chopped off when he goes looking for his son, his hands groping around the empty space where his head once was. Mom flees after a brief standoff on opposite sides of the car that may last less than ten seconds but still feels like it’s carrying on forever. An eerie shot of her running down a vast road with forest on either side of her is drenched in an almost indecipherable muddy tint. She keeps running. As day and night seem to shift in and out of reality and any semblance of time and place dissipates into a cloud of tropes that are only half realized. Ogroff follows, gives up and then continues his hunt. If you started watching this film on a Monday, at twelve minutes in, it’s somehow Thursday. The woman comes across Ogroff’s shed which looks like a teenager with no money attempted to do his best impression of Leatherface’s place but only had three minutes to prepare. The woman is caught and chained to a post. Her screaming annoys the psychopath so he cuts her tongue off and feeds it to his dog. He then butchers the corpse of her son. Dismembered limbs are strewn about while organ music blares. That’s fifteen minutes akin to infinity all resembling home footage broadcast from a parallel dimension where excitement is taboo and everything is inspired by a bootleg copy of an American horror film. It’s torture. It’s transcendent. It’s exactly what the New French Extremity wishes it could harness but is too far up its own ass to realize. More random people come to an end for being in the wrong place. Cars are destroyed, a chess game is ruined, a chainsaw is turned against its owner, dialogue rarely happens outside of overdubbed screams and grunting, Disney characters cameo and if there’s any message trying to be expressed it’s written in braille at a home for the fingerless blind. Eventually, auteur N. G. Mount attempts to add some depth to the pointlessness but it makes little sense. This involves a homicidal love interest, wonderful budget zombies and a vampire priest. Why? Fuck if I know but Howard Vernon is there. Just take your usual DIY backyard asthenic and throw it in a much larger backyard then add a lethargic but still dangerous motorcycle chase. Somewhere between watching The Texas Chain Saw Massacre on mute through the haze of an opium fog and a premonition of the insanity taking a very long trek up hill while drying in concrete that was Bernard Launois’ hypnotic Devil’s Story, Ogroff proudly stands masturbating an axe handle coming off like Day of the Reaper suffered brain damage thanks to being beaten by a heavy camera held in the hands of both Polonia brothers. Is it good? God, no. It’s a fucking mess that rambles on and seems haphazardly thrown together by a complete lunatic who really could not care less if his vision of horror would entertain anyone. Is it a completely unforgettable viewing experience.? Yes… somehow for all the wrong and right reasons, it’s awkward finger nails sink deep into your brain and even after you think you have finally shaken it’s lulling chaos, you’ll realize it’s just kind of been hiding and waiting to choke you out again. Innovative genre films have been blessing the filmscape since its inception, this isn’t one, this belongs to another world.
⭐️⭐️⭐️
A fed up train guard is forced to work the red-eye shift after getting off his previous run. The usual shitty commuters worsen his mood after finding out he’s been passed over for a supervisory position by his crappy coworker. The train comes to an abrupt stop in the middle of a rural bit of nowhere after hitting something big. Unfortunately for everyone, that big something is a werewolf and its first victim is the driver. The usual snipping subsides when the idiots realize there’s something incredibly dangerous on the prowl after they try to hoof it to the nearest station. Trapped on the train, with no means of moving, they attempt to survive the night. Some assholes turn out to be pretty decent folks and some are straight-up garbage but they’ll have to work together to not get eaten. There’s a lovely cameo from Sean Pertwee and an injured pensioner slowly succumbing to her werewolf wound. The werewolf is kind of goofy-looking and it gets a little corny but the heroes are pretty damn likable and there’s a healthy amount of splatter, so I didn’t feel like I was wasting my time.
⭐️⭐️1/2
A young couple close on a new home away from the hustle and bustle of city living. Unfortunately for them, this is Florida and unless you’ve set up some time in Disney World, you just can’t escape awful. Ya see, the neighboring property was once the location of a boarding school where a vicious massacre played out. The now crumbling property is still inhabited by the sole survivor of said massacre with the intention of just being left alone. Hugh invites their friends over to check out their new digs (Laurie ain’t all that happy about it because they just moved the fuck in and I feel nothing but sympathy for her because her boyfriend seems like a real fucking tool) and party, their awful/annoying friends decide to explore the creepy ruins next door, destroying a bunch of shit there in the process. One of them even pisses in the corner of the house because it’s Florida and these are the people who inhabit it. This vandalism and disregard of property draws the unwanted attention of the very unstable psychopath haunting the place. The titular lunatic brings some swift and fatal violence to the intruders and the young couple’s plans of a peaceful future crumbles under the realization that nobody may be making it out alive. I dig the Blood Widow’s simple look of unemotional white mask and BDSM leather mommy ensemble… it works for an efficient and emotionally troubled murder machine. The unlikable losers that stand as victims-to-be are a pleasure to watch get slaughtered. These are some truly inconsiderate pieces of cannon fodder and I am more than pleased to bid them good riddance. Seriously, when the hippie chick is the most likable person in your clique, you’ve done something very wrong. Of course, she goes off to investigate the decrepit house on her lonesome during the night and dies first… if you don’t count the pre-credits dude who somehow looks like a child and a forty-year-old man at the same time. Hugh blows at every aspect of being a human and a significant other. God, he needs to die. Cheap splat, some indecipherable night shooting, convenient journaling and some truly deplorable humanity helps this feel like it would have sat comfortably shot on video more than a decade earlier. It’s all very Florida in presentation and attitude and I will fault it for that because fuck Florida but still begrudgingly shrug it off because it’s the same place that gave us William Grefé and I’ll always appreciate that. Thanks, Florida… I guess.
