In the Shadow of Kilimanjaro (1985) (UK/Kenya)

aka S.O.S. Kilimanjaro 

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Hard to believe I’ve never watched this film until the year of our lord 2022. In my early days of video renting the cover to this flick had me terrified of baboons and avoiding their enclosure at my local zoo… it was BASED ON A TRUE STORY after all. Sure I was just a wee lad when the nightmare image of killer monkeys embedded itself in my brain but ya gotta figure in the decades since that fateful trip to Palmer Video, I would have finally given this one a go. I even bought the tape that caused some restless nights when the shop closed down years later but never threw it on. A severe drought in Kenya causes the baboon population to go homicidal and start murdering poor saps in the area. An American environmentalist/animal-expert, Jack Ringtree (Timothy Bottoms), teams up with the boss of a mining operation (John Rhys-Davies) and attempt to save a small town being terrorized by the killer primates. Bottoms attempts to get the town evacuated but runs into red tape and Davies’ idea to slaughter some males just pisses off the thousands of already pissed-off and hungry primates. Some well-orchestrated baboon attacks (sure the monkey puppets are a little silly but I ain’t complaining) and a capable cast add more prestige to the thing than I was expecting. Rhys-Davies brings a bunch of gravitas because of course he does and Bottoms rocks one hell of a powerful mustache. There’s some relationship dramatics that drags things down but it ain’t too distracting.

Bollywood Evil Dead (2008) (India)

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Truth in advertising… Bollywood style. A group of students unleash evil at the abandoned house of an archaeologist who discovered something ancient and awful. He brings the tome home with him and chants some mantras within. But first, there’s a love scene as spicy as anything you can see in this neck of the world with the production value of an American porno flick from a decade earlier. It’s the archeologist and his wife before the book takes control. His wife gets possessed, he’s forced to murder her and he buries her in the backyard. So far, so good. He has an inner monologue about the evils of the book and then his wife rises from the ground, grabs an axe and puts an end to his pity party. HIT THE OPENING DANCE NUMBER! Unfortunately not performed by the possessed corpse but I’ll make do. After a brief music video bit, a group of sexy youths travel by jeep and act all horny and youthful. They also dress like they’re on their way to a Smashmouth concert… needless to say, they are my kind of people. The only girl not getting it on, senses a presence around her and encounters a singing spirit in a white gown. She sings a siren song and the girl, rocking a revealing red tank-top and short-shorts combo follows her. This leads her right to the cabin in the middle of the woods. CUE THE DEEP EVIL LAUGHTER! The baritone voice tells her to come in and when she flees like any sane person, that lovable Raimi swooping camera follows behind. I don’t know if you know this, but I’m already deeply in love with this. Sweety makes it back to her friends and lets her buddies know that something ain’t right about this land. They laugh off her warnings about the supernatural and keep going with the camping revelries. A crazy shaman interrupts things and acts like a raving lunatic as he screams at them to run away before they all end up dead. It’s not the best way to convince someone that you’re serious. As Sweety continues to protest them staying in the area, the idiots jump back in their jeep and drive to the house she warned them about… although, she’s not coming off as any brighter because she goes along with them. After a quick look through by dreamboat Sunny (rocking a tank top that reads GORILLA UNIT) the friends decide to crash in the old house. As expected, things do not go well for the rambunctious group. Sweety starts having vivid nightmares and poltergeist activity works to freak her the fuck out. It also slams open the previously locked door to the cellar and the creepy shit the archeologist discovered. There’s a record featuring the siren song Sweety had heard earlier and then a creepy message in a spooky voice welcoming them to their fates. If you’ve seen the ‘81 classic there will be very few surprises in store for you and if you haven’t and are starting off with this… what the hell is your life and can I be a part of it? So, I’m pretty sure the budget is somehow smaller and censorship being what it is dulls the edge but there’s 100% more singing ghost this time around and a hot pink nightgown is the most disturbing thing to be featured on screen. If an even more budget-strained Evil Dead gets your psychotronic heart hammering, then seek this bad boy out. The cheap Deadite makeup is wonderful and the workarounds of the necessary super-violence is charming as all hell. Also helps that it runs nearly half as long as the usual Bollywood flick.

Attack of the Killer Hog (2003) (Argentina)

⭐️1/2

An explosion of ideas sadly never gels and just left me a bit confused but mostly pissed off. Two detectives are tracking down a serial killer which ends up being a tiny stuffed pig. That alone may have worked but the filmmakers decided to weigh the whole thing down by showing no restraint in plot. Drug warfare, cheap dreamlike news breaks, satanists and aliens all clash with a cornucopia of stupid characters and their off-putting personalities. The wannabe arthouse slams into Troma-esque hijinks and pushes my patience to the breaking point. There was a foot mutilation scene that actually had me cringing and I loved that stuffed little bastard but all in all it was a huge let down. You just may dig it if you're a fan of schizophrenic cinema.

Herencia Diabolica (1993) (Mexico)

⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

An elderly satanist passes away peacefully and leaves her mansion to her only surviving relative, a nephew in New York. Tony and his wife fly to Mexico to move into their new home. A new job and a pregnancy soon follow. However, the joy won't be lasting that long because whilst looking around the house, Tony's wife has discovered a creepy attic room. Filled with black magic paraphernalia, the thing that stands out the most is a large and creepy as all hell clown doll. Naturally, she removes it from its crate and brings it downstairs. Months pass by and even though it seems like his wife may be slipping mentally with her convinced the doll is moving around the house on its lonesome, Tony leaves on an important business trip. The doll comes to life (no longer a creepy as fuck inanimate nightmare, now portrayed by a dwarf in face paint) and causes Mrs. Tony to fall down the stairs. She dies but the medics manage to save her unborn baby. Six years pass and now it's just sad sack Tony and his annoying wiener son Roy, who loves the creepy-ass thing that killed his mother (in all fairness to the dope, he doesn't know it killed his mother). Tony's secretary convinces him it's finally time to move on and Roy needs a new mother. One montage later and Roy has a white-pantsuit-rockin' new secretary-mama. New mama doesn't like the creepy little clown thing and thinks they should get rid of it but Roy is unhealthily attached to it so it's no easy task. He mopes about when separated from his little clown and loses his shit when there's even a threat of it going to whatever Hell spooky dolls go to. A couple more murders convince Mama 2: Camel Toe Fever that the thing must go and when she gets forceful it takes action. It climaxes with the world's slowest foot chase and a fittingly unhappy ending. Let's just say Tony's all time wife average is 0-2... but his widower average is perfect! Somehow sluggish and entertaining in unison, Herencia Diabolica is a weirdo treat for fans of Mexican horror or trash films in general. The killer clown/doll thing is made all the creepier by the reliance on an actual actor running around, chasing people with a weapon. There's an almost indecipherable sex scene set to music that would appear in an 80-year-old Hollywood producer's idea of a bondage club and a hilarious trip to the fair which features a depressed Roy finding no enjoyment in anything. There's also a nightmare scene with flashing lights and secretary-mommy being molested by the creepy-ass doll. Weird times.

My Little Nightmare (2024) (USA)

⭐️⭐️

Just a heads up, your low-budget paranormal revenge flick should not be more than two hours long. It’s should barely be seventy minutes in all honesty and judging by the initial five minutes having about ten seconds of necessary footage, I’m not looking forward to what’s in store. An opening stretch of a whole lotta nothing introduces plenty of characters already deep in their own stories we know nothing about but instead of building a personality around them, we just get mumbles and everyday activity that builds no sympathy for these people. One character stares off into space while his sister goes to the bathroom and we get to see this. The staring not the urinating. Eventually, they reveal what has set up whatever this film is going to call action. Years ago, while on vacation, a group of friends caused a fatal accident and instead of going to the authorities, they decided to dump the body on the side of the road and go on with their lives. This action is now coming back to bite them on the ass. They reunite at a club more pathetic than anything this side of a late-era Jess Franco flick. I think the musical act is a drag queen performing as broke Nicki Minaj on heroin. That will be the most exciting thing to happen in the first thirty minutes. They are told to leave when one of them begins acting strange after thinking he’s seen the boy they murdered. Eventually something supernatural begins to show itself and stalk the group of minimally likable idiots. Simple enough story just stretched into an unrelenting hellscape of nothing and repetitiveness. The entity balancing the scales is pretty cool, would have been nice if it made into a film that knew how to edit down shit. There’s a few effective bits of spookiness and the gay couple working as the film’s protagonists (not at the scene of the crime but just as guilty thanks to being forced to cover it up) are likable enough (hooray for no eye-rolling stereotypes and a healthy relationship) but, just like the skeletal boogeywoman (and the less impressive child ghost) hunting them down, deserved a tighter horror flick to occupy. There’s just way too much wasted space and it’s hard not to notice all that nothingness.

Anomaly (2016) (USA)

⭐️

Two years after the death of his wife, Richard Hagen realizes he needs to be a better father (that’s a lot of time those grieving kids had to fend for themselves) and moves on out to the boonies with his two kids and new special lady, Paige. He buys a home for cheap doing no research on it and not questioning the suspicious asking price. He spends the rest of summer cleaning up the place with Paige (montage to Runaround Sue commences) before picking up his kids from grandma’s. A few nights in and Paige gets freaked out when she hears the sound of children playing in the empty home. Daughter Cindy and son Tommy arrive at the house shortly after, remarkably satisfied with the new living situation. Cindy takes to the piano left over from the previous owners. I thought that would play into things more because earlier in the film the couple talk about the piano and Paige decides they should get rid of it but it doesn’t so whatever. At this point, the woman telling this story to a journalist warns her that “If you move into a house infected by demons, don’t expect to get approached by them at your first nights at the house.” That could have been said better. Phantom knocking wakes Paige up one night and she goes to check when she can’t seem to rouse Richard. A slammed door gets her locked outside where she hears the voices of her family chatting and then sees them and herself in the kitchen. Paige wakes up from the nightmare when dream Paige looks right at her. This is supposed to be shocking, I guess, because there’s a musical sting over an image of a spooky tree when she reveals she looked at herself in the dream. Cindy lets Tommy know she’s experiencing strange shit in the house but he laughs it off, thinking his big sister is trying to spook him. Cindy just happens to have grabbed a Ouija board while at grandma’s and she plans on using it to communicate with her mother. Tommy joins her and contact is made with something that is not their mama. Whatever it is thanks them for opening the door and things get scary in a price-conscious way. Spooky ghost girl sticking to the shadows? You better believe it! Whispering voices and moving objects? Of course, ya sorry son of a bitch! Auditory chaos coming from electronic devices? What do you think, ya old pile of crap! Something stanky causing problems, even for the police? You dirty dog, you know it’s going down! A neighbor clues the couple in on the short stay of the previous occupants and a priest (who is somehow Jeffrey Wright, Jon Polito and David Zayas all rolled into one with none of the talent) gets called in for a failed blessing and the inevitable exorcism that reveals a bunch while coming off as a pale imitation of every cinematic exorcism that has come before. Ashes of a murdered woman are discovered and a brief history is given by whoever it is that’s narrating this tale to the journalist. Something about a mother killed by her husband and children for Satanic reasons or something. So take your bog-standard haunted house flick that eventually becomes a possession experience and have it performed by a cast that may be speaking English and communicating with another human for the first time in their lives. That’s it. That’s the movie. Lara Jean Mummert-Sullivan may not be the best of actors but she at least has a natural likability, so you can at least sympathize a little as she begins seeing things her man can’t see even if she can’t convincingly relate this to an audience. That’s not supposed to sound mean, she’s the best thing this movie has going for it. The climactic inept exorcism is great for all the wrong reasons and I’ll take any small victory I can. The obvious reveal and lazy wrap up should cause a disapproving head shake and maybe a smirk.

Hellmaster (1992) (USA)

aka Soul Stealer/Them/Carnage on Campus 

⭐️⭐️

John F’n Saxon is The Soul Stealer, otherwise known as Professor Jones. Twenty years ago he attempted to create a drug that enhanced telepathic abilities in its human subjects. As is the standard for doctors in crap horror films, his experiments left a good amount of Kant Institute students dead. Hell is about to be unleashed once more on school grounds when the not-so-good professor returns to continue his experiments and this time he’s brought along a creepy church bus full of drug-mutated and homicidal homeless folks. A small group of insufferable classmates begin to suspect something is amiss and team up with a David Emge, a former reporter (his wife ended up on the corpse side of things when he began looking into the professor’s experiments) who is squatting in a nearby abandoned church. Garbage acting, an impressively horrible job of introducing characters, and a jumbled mess of an excuse for story progression make for an almost transcendently bad flick. With all this going wrong for it, Hellmaster still somehow manages to be dull as all hell.