A French surrealistic retelling of Alice in Wonderland with Sylvia Kristel in the lead? It’s as if a message from space was sent directly to my brain, demanding that I stop whatever I was planning and sit inches from my TV and yelling out every translated word via closed captioning.
Alice Caroll is leaving her husband, who she has grown to hate, driving through the countryside until her windshield cracks and she ends up at an old house. It seems she’s been expected and is asked to stay overnight. The next morning, the servants are all gone and her car is fixed, but she can’t find the way out.
She tries to walk away from the house and still can’t escape when a young man tells her to accept her fate. After staying a second night, she finally gets away in her car down the pathway before she crashes her car. As Jason Mantzoukas would say, “This is a Jacob’s Ladder scenario.”
Claude Chabrol — the “French Hitchcock” — dedicated this film to Fritz Lang and it’s a visual essay of Kristel navigating scenery, of the futility of existence, of trying to navigate life’s path without any answers. It’s gorgeous yet icy and mysterious, much like the visage of Chabrol’s muse her, Kristel.
I’d compare this to 1970’s Valerie and Her Week of Wonders, as this is an absolute film, one that you experience on an emotional — and not rational — basis. It’s my first exposure to Chabrol, but I know it will not be my last.
We shared a review of the movie last week, referring to it as “an interesting film — that’s maybe not for everyone as it’s pretty intense — but definitely worth checking out.” So how do you check it out? Great question.
The filmmakers were kind enough to let me know that before the movie comes out on July 3, there will be a pre-order sale on iTunes.
Even better, they shared an exclusive NSFW clip for the film that you can watch right here on YouTube.
Check it out and let me know what you think of the film!
Becca and I have a new rule for movie days. We have so many movies that sometimes, it takes forever for us to choose a film. That’s why we now each pick a movie and we’re not allowed to debate it. I picked Remo Williams. She picked True Crime. No one won.
Mary Giordano (Alicia Silverstone) is a Catholic high school senior whose deceased father was a cop. She loves mysteries and detective magazines (which are seriously some of the creepiest magazines out there since the Apter wrestling magazines stopped featuring apartment wrestling). Now, she’s doing her own detective work, investigating the death of a classmate’s sister.
Detective Jerry Guinn (Pittsburgh’s Bill Nunn, Radio Raheem from Do the Right Thing) is her mentor, trying to keep her away from the dark world of being a cop. However, police cadet Tony Campbell (Kevin Dillon) is too willing to bring her along as they try to find the killer.
This film feels giallo-esque in storyline, if not in tone. There are red herrings galore, plenty of sex, lots of gore, hands being hacked off, carnival freaks…it has a lot going for it. And it squanders it all at every single opportunity. This is a rough film to get through, but one that I hung on and made to the end.
I’d recommend you take whatever running time this film has and use it to better yourself. Have a great meal. Read a book. Learn how to paint. Anything but suffering through this.
What happens when a serial killer expert has to face off with the real thing? That’s what happens when Dr. Helen Hudson (Sigourney Weaver, Alien) is cornered and attacked by a man she profiled, Daryll Lee Cullum (Harry Connick Jr.).
For the next 18 months, Dr. Hudson is a recluse, refusing to leave her computer and high rent apartment, only allowing her friend Andy into her world. A new series of murders — right in her neighborhood — threaten to draw her out. Joining up with Inspector Monahan (Holly Hunter) and Rueben Goetz (Dermot Mulroney), she begins to realize that this killer is copying the world’s worst serial killers.
It also turns out that the killer is following the script she presented on the night that Cullum attacked her. Along the way, Rueben is killed in a police standoff and Monahan has to deal with her feelings of loss.
After her friend Andy is killed like Jeffrey Dahmer, they figure out that the killer is Peter Foley. As the police get to his house, they realize that it was a ruse and he’s kidnapped Helen, placing her back into the same crime scene she was in 18 months before. Will Monahan be able to save her friend? Will Dr. Hudson be able to deal with her crippled agoraphobia?
This is a fine 90’s crime drama, with Connick quite good in his role. Weaver has stated that of all her films, she was most proud of Copycat, as she worked hard to understand how an agoraphobic would behave and she’s regretted that the movie is not better remembered.
Can you keep a good stepfather down, despite him being shot and stabbed in the heart multiple times? Of course not. That’s why even if Terry O’Quinn isn’t coming back, his character definitely will in this made for HBO movie.
Yes, Gene Clifford has survived being stabbed with a clawhammer in the heart and went right back into the same mental institution in Puget Sound. And he escapes it all over again, finding a back alley surgeon to change his appearance, all with no anesthesia, before killing that very same doctor.
Oh yeah — now the stepfather is played by Robert Wightman, who is best known for taking over the role of John-Boy Walton from Richard Thomas.
Now, he’s Keith Grant, a gardener who dresses up as the Easter Bunny for a church party. There, he meets Christine Davis (Priscilla Barnes from TV’s Three’s Company) and her son Andy, who has been in a wheelchair since an accident. He even takes care of Christine’s psycho ex, Mark, by killing him with a shovel. Once that body is buried in the garden, Keith is free to marry Christine and Andy goes away to stay with his dad, Steve.
It turns out that Christine can’t have children any longer, so Keith begins courting another woman, Jennifer (Season Hubley, Vice Squad) and her son Nicholas. His boss totally picks up on this, so that guy has to die.
Andy is back home and he’s well versed in true crime. So he starts researching Keith and his history. He’s surprised when his new dad misidentifies him as Nicholas, so the typical stepfather behavior has started as he begins forgetting his identity and killing anyone who learns the truth, like that troublemaking priest!
Will the stepfather find true love? Will Andy walk again? Can even the stepfather survive falling into a woodchipper? All of these questions and probably a few more will be answered by the end of this movie.
If you watch this movie without looking at the screen, you may think that Terry O’Quinn is still in it. The voice is very close. But once you watch it, the acting isn’t as good. In fact, Wightman is quite wooden, particularly in a sex scene with Barnes where she’s sweaty and super into it. I don’t mean that as a pun. But sure, you can take it that way.
Andy is also the exact opposite — overacted to the extreme and given to fits of screaming. There’s a near hilarious scene where they attempt to play football together that had me laughing in a completely inappropriate way. At least there’s plenty of gore to make up for all the cheese.
Actually, I liked this way more than I thought I would. Want to see it for yourself? Check it out on Amazon Prime or grab the grey market DVD at Rare DVDs.
The last time we saw Henry Morrison/Jerry Blake, he was all shot up and stabbed in the heart, mumbling “I love you” and falling down the steps. Who knew that he’d survive that and come back to do it all over again?
Jerry Blake is a survivor. Since the end of the last movie, he’s been recovering in a Puget Sound mental institution, one that he soon escapes. Before you can say “new identity” he’s become Gene Clifford and has moved into the planned community of Palm Meadows outside Los Angeles.
He’s already found a new potential family with Carol Grayland (Meg Foster, Masters of the Universe, They Live) and her son, Todd (Becca fave Jonathan Brandis). As the therapist to all of the local wives, he learns that her husband Phil ran away last year and when he tries to come back to his family, our stepfather hero kills him and covers it up.
The mail carrier, Matty Crimmins (Caroline Williams, Stretch from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2!) sees through his identity when she finds mail addresses to the real Gene Clifford that reveals him to be a black man. You know what happens to people who figure out the stepfather’s identity? Yep. They get removed and their wine gets taken.
Those bottles of wine and the song “Camptown Races” end up fingering Gene, with Carol confronting him just before they’re due to be married. Despite being stabbed, the stepfather almost succeeds in killing again until Todd stabs him with a clawhammer. Then comes the best part in this entire film: mother and son walk out to “Here Comes the Bride,” while a choir reacts in abject terror to the fact that they’re covered in blood.
Oh man — our kinda sorta hero isn’t dead yet. He makes his way to the altar before saying, “Until death do us part.” Oh man. Well done, dude.
After a test screening of the film, Harvey and Bob Weinstein complained about the lack of blood and demanded re-shoots. Director Jeff Burr (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III, Puppet Master 4, Puppet Master 5: The Final Chapter, Pumpkinhead II: Blood Wings) and O’Quinn refused, so the shots were added in by another director.
Stepfather 2 isn’t quite as good as the original. But hey — if you’re looking for one more movie where a dad wipes out his family…
Synapse Films has released this film on DVD if you’re ready to see it with your dad.
I couldn’t think of a movie to watch for Father’s Day and then I remembered this, the kind of movie that puts the fear of God into kids who are in blended families.
Henry Morrison (Terry O’Quinn, TV’s Lost, Silver Bullet) is introduced to us as he washes away the blood from killing his family, changes his appearance and leaves them — and his past life — behind. He throws all of the objects of his past life into the ocean and disappears for a year, resurfacing as a real estate agent named Jerry Blake.
Now, he has a new wife, Susan Maine (Shelley Hack from TV’s Charlie’s Angels) and a rough relationship with his sixteen-year-old stepdaughter, Stephanie (Jill Schoelen from Popcorn). His biggest worry, though, is Jim Ogilvie, a wannabe detective and his former brother-in-law.
As Henry/Jerry discovers an article from the newspaper about the death of his old family, he flips out at a neighborhood barbecue and flips out in his workshop. Unbeknownst to our hero, such as he is, his stepdaughter is listening to the entire episode.
She goes to her therapist, Dr. Bondurant, who tries to get Henry/Jerry to talk about the past. It doesn’t go too well, to say the least, and the doctor is murdered. That death ends up bonding stepfather and stepdaughter, believe it or not. That is — until he catches her making out with her boyfriend Paul.
The stepfather deals with things the only way he knows how. He starts setting up another identity and gets ready to kill this family. This leads to him starting to confuse his many identities and smashing his new wife in the face with a telephone.
Somehow, despite being shot twice and stabbed in the heart, Henry/Jerry survives and returns for not one, but to sequels. Spoiler warning: At least one of those will be up on this site later on today.
Loosely based on the life of John List, this movie rises above simple slasher to cult classic based upon the acting skills of O’Quinn, who can go from tender and nice to pure mania in the very same line of dialogue. Can anyone make working on birdhouses seem so evil? I mean, all he’s trying to do is find the perfect American family!
Shout! Factory has recently released this one on blu-ray and it’d make a fine Father’s Day gift. That is, if your dad likes horror and you guys have a great relationship.
Boris has just been released from jail and has been agreed to do just one more heist — rob the mansion of paraplegic millionaire Lord Breston, who just so happens to be his ex-girlfriend Wendy’s boss. That’s the simplest explanation for a movie that is so much more.
This piece of Canadian strangeness was directed by B. D. Benedikt, who is also the “inventor of a brand new literary style, popularly called RELIGIOUS THRILLERS. But instead of OUR SPIES over-smarting THEIR SPIES, the invisible GOD’s and SATAN’s agents fight for our souls!”
Boris is played by Lazar Rockwood, whose name is nearly as amazing as his screen presence. It’s as if someone got a time machine and went back in time after saying, “You think Tommy Wiseau is strange? How my Molson.”
Seriously, Lazar is something else. So few of the things that he says are comprehensible to Western ears. He seems nervous and fidgety on screen, yet the things he mumbles and screams (yes, at the same time) are gloriously repeatable. He’s also wearing the finest Canadian tuxedo ever.
Our hero has been convinced by his ex-girl that her boss’s house would be easy to break into. However, when they sneak into the basement a few days later, a door slams shut behind them and a loudspeaker says that they must make their way past seven doors and through six chambers of elaborate deathtraps and deadly puzzles. That said — if they survive — they will gain the reward of their dreams.
So imagine if Indiana Jones was in a movie made by David Lynch with little to no budget, shot like a TV movie and with a virtual unknown in the lead instead of Harrison Ford. Now, ingest as many drugs as you can find in your home. There — you have a small idea of what this movie is like.
Can Boris make it through the various deathtraps? Will it have an insane ending? Are the extras on the disk even weirder than the movie itself? You’ll have to get the DVD yourself.
If it’s Canadian weirdness, Intervision usually releases it. Good news — they put this out this year and you can grab it on the Severin website. You should do so as soon as possible.
After the box office success of Prom Night, producer Peter R. Simpson wanted to create an “adult” slasher. After three troubled years, he had this film, which didn’t do all that well with audiences or critics. That said — after years of cable viewing and even more years where the film wasn’t available on DVD, it’s become something of a cult classic.
Samantha Sherwood (Samantha Eggar, Welcome to Blood City, The Brood, All the Kind Strangers) commits herself to an asylum so that she can prepare for the role of her lifetime: Audra. Yet once inside, she learns that her director and lover Johnathan Stryker (John Vernon, Killer Klowns from Outer Space, Animal House) has actually left her there to rot.
That’s because a whole new group of young girls are about to audition for the role. Like Amanda, who has a dream that she sees a large doll in the road. When she goes to get it, she’s run over. And when she wakes up, a killer in an old hag mask stabs her and steals the doll.
The five remaining girls show up to audition for Stryker at his mansion: Patti (Lynne Griffin, Strange Brew and Black Christmas, two of the most Canadian movies ever), a stand-up comedian. Brooke (Linda Thorson, Tara King from TV’s The Avengers), an actress. Laurian, a ballet dancer. Tara, a musician. And Christie (Lesleh Donaldson, Canada’s top screen queen, thanks to roles in Happy Birthday to Me, Deadly Eyes and Funeral Home), an ice skater. And then Samantha shows up!
The first night everyone is in the house, Tara and Matt, the caretaker, hook up in a jacuzzi. So does Christie and Stryker, but she pays in the price in the film’s best scene when she gets her throat cut while ice skating. Her head ends up in a toilet bowl, which is pretty shocking even for a slasher, and Brooke freaks out upon finding it. So of course, Stryker hooks up with her.
All Laurian wants to do is dance, so she gets stabbed. And while Brooke is banging Stryker, they’re both shot and killed, falling down through a window. Tara runs from the mansion and finds Matthews body in the jacuzzi. Even though she escapes the killer three times, the fourth time is never the charm because things don’t work in fours. She is dragged into a ventilation shaft and killed.
Samantha and Patti celebrate with a toast, as Samantha tells her about killing Stryker and Brook. Patti is shocked and reveals that she is the killer, then murders Samantha. We cut to her in a mental asylum where she acts out the film for the other inmates.
Lynne Griffin recalls filming an alternate ending where Patti would read a monologue to all of her victims while on stage. It was rejected, yet another issue in a production so tenuous that director Richard Ciupka has his name listed as Jonathan Stryker in the credits. Yes, the same person who is in this movie as the director.
To be fair: this movie is a mess. It barely came together and while there are moments of suspense and one great kill, it’s amazing that it came together to be a barely coherent movie at all.
After years of waiting and one multipack release with a bad transfer, Synapse finally released this on DVD and blu-ray. You can get it at Diabolik DVD. Or watch it for free or Amazon Prime.
If I’ve learned anything from Cathy’s Curse, it’s that when someone in Canada gets possessed, they just end up being rude and swearing a lot. This movie — no relation to Prom Night— only adds to my theory.
Originally entitled The Haunting of Hamilton High, this film is rife with horror trivia, such as lockers that look exactly like A Nightmare on Elm Street, allusions to Carrie and a character who references The Exorcist. Several characters are named after famous horror folks, too.
Back in 1957, Mary Lou Maloney goes to confession and doesn’t follow the rules at all. She’s disobeyed her parents, used the Lord’s name in vain and had sex with many boys — and she loved every minute of it. Then, she leaves her number for the priest.
At the prom that night, her boyfriend Billy (soon to be played by Michael Ironside) gives her a ring, but she just tells him to get her some punch. That’s so she can have sex with Buddy Cooper. They get discovered by Billy, who grabs a stink bomb and throws at her when she gets crowned prom queen, ala Carrie. Her dress goes up in flames and she dies in front of the entire class.
In 1987, thirty years later, Vicki Carpenter is having a rough time getting ready for the prom. Her mother refuses to allow her to buy a new dress and doesn’t approve of her boyfriend. She searches the school for a dress in the prop room and finds Mary Lou’s doomed gown. It starts claiming victims right away, like Vicki’s best friend Jess, who is killed by a beam from the tiara. Seeing as how she was despondent about being jilted while pregnant, everyone figures her death was just a suicide.
Vicki has nightmares every night and confides in her priest, who ends up being Buddy. He believes Mary Lou may be back, a fact that’s confirmed when a Bible bursts into flames at her grave. He tries to warn Billy, who is not the principal and the father of Vicki’s boyfriend Craig.
Vicki is at war with Kelly Hennelotter (Terri Hawkes, Killer Party), the meanest girl in school. Mary Lou takes over Vicki’s body at a detention caused by a fight between the two girls. She goes to confession at Buddy’s church and unleashes a torrent of obscenities before stabbing him in the face with a crucifix.
Mary Lou makes over Vicki to be a 50’s girl just like she was. When Monica tries to get to the bottom of everything, she’s killed by being crushed inside a locker.
Mary Lou seduces Craig, something that the virginal Vicki would never do. His father rescues him just as Mary Lou reveals herself. He knocks out his son once he ensures that he is safe and digs up Mary Lou’s grave. Inside? Buddy’s dead body.
Then it gets really crazy. Mary Lou takes Vicki home and makes out with her father and then tosses her mother through a door.
At the prom, evil girl Kelly gives Josh, the geeky horror movie fan, a blowjob in order to win the prom queen crown. Too bad for Josh, as Mary Lou electrocutes the poor geek and switches the outcome. As she takes the stage, Billy shoots her. That’s when all hell breaks loose, as Mary Lou turns into a charred corpse and tries to bring Craig into hell. His father saves him at the last minute by returning Mary Lou’d crown and kissing her.
That’s not the real ending, though. It turns out that Mary Lou is now inside the principal and he drives off with his son and Vicki!
I wasn’t expecting much from this movie, yet it more than entertained me. It surprised me with its sheer lewdness and language in the confession scene. There haven’t been many horror movies with a villain that doesn’t punish those that have sex but wants more of it.
B&S About Movies 
You must be logged in to post a comment.