Boo (2005) (USA)

aka Terror Hospital/Scream and Run

⭐️⭐️⭐️

A quartet of college friends spend Halloween night exploring the halls of a long abandoned and infamous hospital. The group is moderately excited about the tales of spirits who died in a fire roaming the place, except for Jessie who has a bad feeling about breaking into the dilapidated building and has already had a somewhat unsettling night. Their friend Emmett has set up some scares in the building along with his loyal pooch Dutchess. He encounters something on the third floor of the building. They aren’t alone in there as young Allan is looking for his missing sister who last mentioned she was going to the hospital. He’s asked for some help from his father’s old partner and friend (and former Blaxploitation star) Arlo Ray Baines. Arlo refuses to go in but he lets Allan know how to sneak into the building and offers him a warning to stay off the third floor. It doesn’t take long for things to go south as it ain’t just remnants of tragic patients wandering around, there’s something incredibly evil and powerful laying claim to the building. Allan manages to find Meg, who has definitely had her head fucked with and is in the middle of a breakdown. She lets her brother know that every story he’s heard about the building is true. Arlo’s conscience gets the best of him and he goes in after his dead partner’s son. Jessie begins to see glimpses of the past, some horror in a hooded robe creeps around and people’s insides end up on their outsides. It could have really been a standard “ghosts in a creepy building” flick but Boo reaches for a shit-ton more by adding substance to the supernatural awfulness. A floating clown costume is the group’s official introduction to the evil and it’s followed by the literal meltdown of their buddy. It’s a wonderful way to present the depth of shit this gaggle of dips have just found themselves wading through. The evil inhabits the bodies of dead friends and it has no plans on letting any of the trespassers leave alive. It’s got a hard on for The Thing which could be annoying but since it’s set up in a haunted house flick and doesn’t lazily copy and paste, it doesn’t feel like a retread. It’ll be up to Jessie to accept her past and Arlo to step up and be the hero he played during his 70’s film career to ensure that some folks make it out alive. Dee Wallace shows up as Jessie’s dead mother in flashbacks, there’s a good amount of slime and the mix of digital and practical effects is pulled off pretty damn well. Sure it’s corny and you better believe some money would have been better spent on actors but fuck it, it tried harder than most straight-to-DVD movies from the time and only an idiot would call it dull.

The Tenderizer (2001) (USA)

⭐️⭐️

This home-video-nightmare involves a mad scientist creating a killing machine and unleashing it on a small town. The creator is the first victim but it doesn’t take long for the towering ghoul in a cheap Halloween mask to wander around slaying idiots with a meat tenderizer as he chases some dude who stumbled across his massacre of a couple dinks. Cheap violence to random idiots runs its course, unlicensed music plays over the soundtrack, low-level comedy pops in to say hello and our hero looks like someone who was kicked out of a Nickleback cover band. Halfway through, a text crawl (read by a narrator putting on a serious voice) let’s us know why things happened and then we’re back to the “action”. This leads to a poorly-choreographed fight that keeps going and then more of the longest chase in recorded home movie history. Bernard Hermann and Scatman John play over a fight in the snow, more narration fills us in on why this thing is still going, a video store makes a cameo and stupidity escalates. Low-res visuals combine with a damaged audio track to create an atmosphere akin to what I imagine it would be like if Lucifer had sleep paralysis and telepathically channeled his fear into your head. Eventually it ends and I’m left wondering why this tortuous garbage makes me smile so much. Doze off, you won’t miss anything. It’s way too long but somehow it’s just dumb enough to avoid being discarded in the dumpster and set on fire.

Witchdoctor of the Living Dead (1985) (Nigeria)

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

There's only so much one can say about Nigerian horror flicks to the uninitiated without eventually coming off like a lunatic with horrible tastes in film. I'm not saying that I'm not that, I'm just saying that the Nollywood anti-cinema is better experienced than read about. Witchdoctor landed on the scene well before the film output of this special little section of the world hit its stride. Everything for which Nollywood would come to be infamous is present and accounted for. "Dirt-cheap budgets" doesn't even begin to express just how shoddy the whole affair is, but that's just part of the charm. A small village is in a pretty bad way. The local witchdoctor is not only adept at raising the dead, but can transform into a goat and destroy the villager's crops. His intimidation is working on nearly everyone except for a local man of the lord. As things get progressively worse (two people are murdered by a rubber snake: in one instance it shoots out of a skeletal zombie's mouth and kills the cab driver who picked him up and in the other it enters a woman while she's urinating and emerges from her mouth) the reverend calls in the help of a detective to deal with the power-mad sorcerer. Not one to sit back and watch his evil machinations go down the shitter, the witchdoctor fights back with his army of the living dead and a couple curses. Will good overcome evil? Will there be no night photography due to shitty equipment? Will your head explode from a schizophrenic score? The answer is a resounding: "What the fuck did I just watch?!" As I said earlier, all of the conventions are present and accounted for. The special effects with an emphasis on special, music cues that drop abruptly to make room for dialogue, music stolen from other films, the complete cast having the acting chops of a sentient potato, scenes that go on far longer than they should and an uncomfortably heavy leaning towards Christian propaganda. I'm not complaining, these are the reasons I spent years tracking down these weirdo films. I find it comfortable that trash knows no boundaries and has no preference for any region of the world. We're all bizarre weirdos with a universal language of horror... or some shit like that. If the idea of a dirt-cheap remake of Lucio Fulci's Zombi (even steals some of the score) gets your horror-infused nether regions going, then you are in good company here. Come and see... come and see... A warning to the curious: as a fan of animals I always feel the need to make anyone aware of violence towards 'em in flicks. I've swam long enough in the world cinema pond to be able to stomach it and recognize that cultures are different and what shocks some means very little in other necks of the woods. So, there is a scene where a goat is taken down with arrows and has its head nearly decapitated with a machete. The camera does not shy away from it. Just making it known.

Ghosts of Hiroshima (2022) (USA)

⭐️⭐️1/2

At the site of the horrific nuclear tragedy, a malevolent force lingers and consumes anyone who comes across it. That is some seriously bad news for an American man who just inherited some property in Japan. Good news for us because he’s a vlogger (he has himself a channel focused on cameras and filmmaking) and who gives a shit about the survival of a vlogger? Eric heads out to look at his new piece of land, meeting up with his cute estate rep Nori, who surprises him by being half English and more American than expected. His blog also provides a nice reason as to why the dude is constantly filming. Anyways, Hiroshima law requires that he has to spend 24 hours occupying the space in order to lay claim to it. Luckily for him, it’s a cozy little spot that withstood the atomic bomb and it looks like he’ll be comfortable for his 24-hour occupation. There’s monitoring cameras already set up and Nori is definitely up to something with her business partner on the other end of the phone. There’s no indoor plumbing, a locked attic space and a creepy kid in a creepier mask to start things off questionably. The night drags on and things get progressively spookier and Eric digs himself progressively deeper into his own grave. That wet, black hair that you’ve become familiar with thanks to the rise of J-Horror shows up in a box along with a handy Geiger Counter and then shows up being hacked out of our hero’s throat… as is the custom. A disturbing video of Eric’s uncle recounting his first-hand account of the atomic bomb dropping on Hiroshima and his mysterious survival is found in that locked attic along with that damn kid who just keeps popping up to freak the hell out of him… but the little shit isn’t the only thing wandering around the premises. Eric is a lot more likable than most vloggers, there’s a couple well-executed scares and at least the film tries to add a little depth to the haunting by setting a basis in some terrible history. The small and capable cast don’t hurt anything either. It still feels a bit too humdrum, all things considered, but it’s not a waste of time by any stretch, even if the end is a little lame.

Storm of the Dead (2006) (USA)

⭐️⭐️

The President reinstates the Florida militia after Hurricane Xiora tears apart the Florida Panhandle. The militia has orders to shoot any looter on sight and when they track one through the swamp, they carry out those orders. It’s a hell of a mistake because he just so happens to be the grandson of a powerful voodoo queen. She quickly dispatches the trio of killers with her voodoo skills. When his men don’t report back, the head of the militia sends out a small group of his soldiers to see what the hell happened. The small platoon heads into the swamps with a reporter and get more than they bargained for when they capture a cheery young woman who is actually the voodoo queen in disguise. One by one the militia members are picked off. There’s a whole bunch of walking, followed by breaks from walking filled with talking and then even more walking. Off screen homicides are the name of the game and a zombie shows up and does nothing with nine minutes left. Oh and look out for the exciting conversations about militia protocol and philosophical debating about shooting looters. The delightful Debra Cassano (Scalped!) plays one of the soldiers and every female cast member with any screen time gets naked. There’s a little SOV charm and some laughable ineptness but not much else. It’s the cinematic equivalent to a long hike with friends who, by the end, you realize you just don’t like anymore.

The Wax Mask (1997) (Italy/France)

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Originally slated to be a comeback film for Lucio Fulci by producer Dario Argento, The Wax Mask was given to SFX expert Sergio Stivaletti following Fulci’s death weeks before production began. Rome in the early nineteen hundreds is the setting for a series of grisly murders following the opening of a wax museum. Sonia, a beautiful young woman who witnessed the heart-ripping massacre of her parents by a mechanical-handed psychopath, has just found employment in said museum. The curator, Boris Volkoff, finds her resemblance to his dead wife too tempting to ignore despite her inexperience. Sonia’s life may be in danger when she begins to suspect something unsettling is going on in the museum’s creepy-ass halls. She’s not alone; her reporter boyfriend is looking into the fright-induced death of a young man who snuck into the museum after dark, the police inspector who found her at the scene of her parents’ massacre has arrived because he believes he still owes her his protection and the local police sergeant is also getting close to solving the murders and disappearances. The scarred and giallo’d up mechanical-handed killer is fun and there is a refreshing amount of splat in this Italian and French co-production. Minimal crap cgi will get some laughs as will the stilted dialogue. It may not be the finest hour of anyone involved but it’s definitely not the worst.

Kodie (2010) (USA)

1/2

A witch’s curse directly correlates with a string of murders being carried out by a young woman dressed as a teddy bear. You still with me? Perfect. A disgusting opening features an abusive man puking, shitting and bleeding out after having his whiskey poisoned. It goes on forever and had me ready to call it about five minutes in but I’m a glutton for punishment and I said to myself “Can it get worse?”. Of course it can. After the title card lands we visit a strip club that you can smell from the comfort of home and join our hero, paranormal investigator David, as he looks at a picture of his child with the convincing sadness of a man you’d find dealing with domestic woes by going to a strip club where the seats come with complimentary VD. He talks ghost hunting with his Irish friend and how he’s done with it because it’s leading to nothing. They head out to a Texas town for one last gig because a frustrated sheriff is pleading for help and team up with a local ghost hunting team comprised of complete idiots. I think it’s going for comedy with its string of awful humans and stupidity but instead it’s mostly irritating. It could also be that the crew behind it thought they were being edgy or something. It just comes off like a slasher film with a silly hook written by a teenager who never got enough attention. So… completely grating. Boring boobs are still boobs and the backyard splatter offers a bit of relief but the characters are uninteresting, the actors are uninterested and everything else is dog shit and should be discarded as such.