Reginald Hudlin directed and wrote House Party, wrote Bebe’s Kids and was even a roach in Joe’s Apartment. This seems like the perfect training to be the director of an SNL movie, this time starring Tim Meadows as Leon Phelps, who up until now we only knew as the host of the radio show “The Ladies Man.”
Our hero comes up against the VSA, or the Victims of the Smiling Ass, the husbands and boyfriends of the women who have cheated on them with Leon. Can he find true love? Will he get his job back? Is that really Julianne Moore in this movie?
For some reason, I’ve watched this movie many more times than once. It’s just one of those films that seem to be perfect for when you can’t get off the couch and have no interest in turning off the TV.
The Argentinean duo-brothers Nicolas and Luciano Onetti are back with another of their retro-Italian Giallos, which began with Deep Sleep (2013) and continued with Francesca (2015), What the Waters Left Behind (2017), and Abrakadabra(2018). This time they step back from their usual writer and director chairs and serve as producers on this horror anthology throwback to the Amicus pictures of old that unfolds as a “greatest hits” package of superior horror shorts from around the world.
Now if this sound a lot like the William Shatner-starring A Christmas Horror Story with our favorite starship captain as the macabre DJ spinning the portmanteau follies, you’ve guess right. But what sets this omnibus package apart: it’s an earnest attempt by the Onetti Brothers to provide an opportunity for unknown, first time filmmakers to present their work to a larger audience.
To package the films, the Onetti’s developed their own wraparound sequence that features—instead of say, a crypt keeper of the Sir Ralph Richardson variety from Freddie Francis and Milton Subotsky’s anthology gold standard, 1972’s Tales from the Crypt—a cryptic radio disc jockey. Unlike most anthologies that strive for long segments across three—but typically five stories—the Onetti’s opt for eight quicker and shorter tales—along with a ninth wraparound—with tales of the macabre.
The anthology flicks of the ‘70s that the Ornetti’s successfully emulate with A Night of Horror: Nightmare Radio are rooted in the classic words of Gothic horror authors Sheridan Le Fanu, Gaston LeRoux, and Guy de Mausspaunt—Sheridan Le Fanu’s influential short-story collection In a Glass, Darkly (featuring the vampire classic “Carmella”), in particular.
The wrap around, if you haven’t already guessed, is the subtitle of the film:
Nightmare Radio: Rod Wilson (James Wright in his film debut; looking a lot like Rob Zombie) is the resident prick of a radio host (is there any other kind in suspense or horror films set inside radio stations?) of an overnight radio program, which he hosts in a converted ranch house, and is dedicated to all things metal and horror, as he spins his own tales and allows listeners to tell their own. Then, one evening, he receives enigmatic phone calls from a troubled child desperate for help. At first, Rod thinks it’s all a joke . . . until he discovers the calls are the clues to uncovering a dark secret of his own life that unravels across the stories:
In the Dark, Dark Woods: An invisible witch haunts a patch of woods and becomes a catalyst for another woman’s life . . .
Post-Mortem Mary: When a young girl dies in a rural Australian village, a neighbor and her young daughter help the girl’s parents prepare her body for burial. Through some post-mortem photography, they discover a sinister force in the woods has possessed her body . . .
A Little Off the Top: And for a little touch of Sweeney Todd, we have a psychologically-bent hairstylist with an unhealthy obsession about the “art” of his profession . . . and over one of his female clients. And that leads him to go Saw on her, strapping her head in a medieval torture device. Then he breaks out the Sharpie and starts to mark dashes on her forehead . . .
The Disappearance of Willie Bingham: A newly hired supervisor at a prison institutes a program (that reminds of Eli Roth’s Hostel) where criminals can atone for their crimes though elective surgery amputations based on the sex crimes they committed . . .
Drops: A professional theatre dancer’s struggles with relationship and professional issues takes a deadly turn when a demon begins to intrude in her life . . .
The Smiling Man: A little girl and a trail of creepy balloons. But it’s not a clown of the Stephen King variety responsible: it’s a gangly demon offering her a tasty treat made of something . . .
Ack! WTF! Watch out for the balloons. It’s The Smiling Man!
Into the Mud: The 10th Victim goes horror as a woman wakes up in the woods and finds herself pursued by a mysterious hunter; her salvation may come in the form of an equally mysterious creature . . .
Vicious: After a late-night out, a woman returns home and discover her sister in terror at the hands of deformed demons who’ve invaded the house.
The best three of the lot are In the Dark, Dark Woods, Post-Mortem Mary, and The Disappearance of Willie Bingham. But The Smiling Man . . . yikes. It’s a serious creep fest that I hope the Onetti’s expanded into a feature film.
Now, when you’re juggling multiple films from multiple writers, and even more directors, and trying to patch them together into a single, cohesive film, that spells trouble. It usually means you’ll end up with a disjointed film lacking in consistency across all the disciplines. Such is not the case with this latest Onetti Brothers’ entry. This looks a lot like Rob Zombie movie: well-shot, well-verse in its Giallo roots and filled with rich colors. Granted, it may have a few clumsy creative moments, and few strained performances in the acting department, but overall the Onetti’s Frankenstein’d a film worthy of a horror fan’s watch from horror’s newest crop of filmmakers.
A Night of Horror: Nightmare Radio recently premiered to a receptive audience at the Brooklyn Festival of Horror this past October and is currently in the market for U.S distribution. You can keep abreast on when it hits all of the usual online streaming and PPV platforms (definitely on Shutter and Netflix) via their Facebook page. You can check out more trailers from the catalog of the Onetti Brothers’ Black Mandala Productions on You Tube.
Update: This will be available on DVD all VOD platforms on September 1.
Disclaimer: We were provided a screener by the film’s P.R firm. That has no bearing on our review.
What’s that? You want more anthology flicks? Then check out our “Ten Horror Anthologies” exploration.
Some other portmanteaus we’ve recently reviewed are:
Along with Albert Brooks and Tom Schiller, Gary Weis created small movies that were an integral part of the early Saturday Night Live. He also directed The Rutles: All You Need Is Cash and music videos for The Bangles song “Walk Like an Egyptian,” as well George Harrison’s “Got My Mind Set On You” and Paul Simon’s “You Can Call Me Al.”
This film goes into the day-to-day life of what it was like to be a member of a gang — either the Savage Skulls and Savage Nomads — amidst the end of the world that was 1979 in the South Bronx. The title refers to the distance between this hell on earth and the opulent jewelry store which is much further away than any physical distance between here and the Upper East Side.
Obviously, things have always been bad. I doubt they’ll get better. But let me tell you, as a seven-year-old watching this world on WOR, I really believed the world was about to end. I still feel that way today, perhaps more than ever before.
Directed by The Lonely Island’s Jorma Taccone, MacGruber does what all SNL films do: stretch a short segment into a full movie. However, because this movie has a rich history of spy films and MacGyver to make fun of, it does much better than most.
Star Will Forte would tell The A.V. Club, “What you see with this movie is exactly what we wanted to do. It’s the three of us having a bunch of fun writing it, then having fun making it with a bunch of our friends—old friends and new friends. I think that fun comes across when you watch it. It’s rare that you get that kind of creative freedom.”
Basically, MacGruber is the greatest secret agent of all time, but he’s been retired ever since his archnemesis Dieter Von Cunth (Val Kilmer) killed his wife (Maya Rudolph) on his wedding day. Of course, he comes back. And oh yes, as I always say, hijinks ensue.
WWE wrestlers Chris Jericho, The Big Show, Mark Henry, Kane, MVP and The Great Khali appeared in this movie as past agents that have worked with MacGruber, which led to Forte, Ryan Phillippe and Kristen Wiig hosting Monday Night Raw. And one of the henchmen is remake Jason, Derek Mears.
I’m for any movie that has Powers Boothe as an authority figure and Kilmer as a villain who ends up getting his hand chopped off, machine gunned, blown up real good and then, as MacGruber prepares to marry the love of his life, pissed on.
There’s going to be a series of this on the NBC Peacock streaming service. I can’t wait. Hopefully it’s as much fun as this movie.
Strangely enough — and this feels like complete BS because there’s no attribution on IMDB — Kilmer and Forte almost ended up being on Amazing Race as a team, as Kilmer later stayed at Forte’s house for a few months after this movie and they became such friends that they watched the show all the time together.
Kids in the Hall member Bruce McCulloch directed this, another example of trying to turn a sketch into an entire long form story. In this case, Catholic high school student Mary Katherine Gallagher finally grows beyond five-minutes of jokes to tell you more of her life. Does it work?
Steve Koren wrote this, as well as Click and Jack and Jill for Adam Sandler. Oh yeah — he also did A Night at the Roxbury. That’s some SNL cast service, let me tell you.
Mary Katherine dreams of kissing cool kid Sky Corrigan (Will Ferrell) and being a superstar. This leads to a moment right out of Carrie and her falling for bad boy Eric Slater (Harland Williams). And oh yes, Jesus (also Ferrell) shows up.
Did you enjoy this sketch? Would you enjoy it for more than an hour? This will determine whether you like this or honestly, any Saturday Night Live movie.
During a You Tube movie excursion, as I spiraled down a digital rabbit hole, I discovered this British-produced apocalypse entry currently in post-production.
Fifteen years after the Third World War, man struggles on the verge of extinction after the passing of a ruthless nuclear winter. What’s left of civilization has no choice but to kill and pillage for survival.
Away from the urban devastation, in the desolate countryside of southern Britain, a lone, young boy survives in isolation away from humans. His self-imposed peace soon unravels at the hands of a group of survivors that must battle against a new, savage enemy that emerges from the aftermath.
As you can see, the trailer doesn’t tell us much about the film in terms of plot or characters, but the images speak volumes: the cinematography is stellar and the film’s inventive, tightly-budgeted staging effectively utilizes its remote British countryside locations; you can feel the foreboding nature of the film. And the acting from the unknown, mostly new-to-the-biz cast of actors (Chris Kaye, Luke Hobson, and Georgie Smibert) looks like it’s of the “A Game” variety.
My celluoid memory cores kept accessing the apoc-classics of Cornel Wilde’s No Blade of Grass from 1970 and 1979’s Ravagersstarring Richard Harris — in terms of The Brink foregoing set builds and effectively utilizing pre-existing structures with a dilapidated “apoc” feel to them. As result: The Brink doesn’t look like your standard, low-budget direct-to-DVD release that’ll see an early birth on the Syfy Channel. This is a movie to keep your eye on. This isn’t some Dolph Lundgren zombie hunt with AfterEffects exploding heads and gun flashfire.
You can learn more about The Brink, along with the in-production horror films Flytrap and The Dead Inside, on the web at HGM Productions.
You can catch up with more apocalypse films courtesy of our recent month-long rally of apoc film reviews with our two-part “Atomic Dustbin” round up. You can also visit the latest installment of our weekly “Drive-In Friday” feature where we had an “A-List Apoc Night” with the films Z.P.G, The Ultimate Warrior, Zardoz, and Quintet.
Update: After the writing of this review (and a few post reschedulings), The Brink has since been retitled for international distribution as Edge of Extinction — with a digital release on May 18th and a DVD release following sometime in July. You can stream it on Amazon Prime, courtesy of Indie Rights Movies, which now — as of November 2020 — offers it as free-with-ads-stream on Tubi Tv.
This is a movie that features a shark movie parody called Jews. That alone should warn you of the heights that this movie will dramatically trip and fail before it even gets close to takeoff. It isn’t helped by another parody called King Dong, which is exactly what you think it is. Then there’s The Happy Cooker, a show hosted by Xaviera Collander. That’s a joke only I would find funny, to be honest.
Three people, other than myself, have reviewed this on Letterboxd. That should give you an idea of how bad it is. Its one saving grace is that it’s the first movie that Joe Piscopo ever made.
Imagine all of the worst Saturday Night Live sketches, the ones that seem to go on for on and on and on, with people noticeably silent and every cast member looking uncomfortable. Now make an entire movie of that.
At least the poster is nice.
You can watch this on YouTube. Well, you could. It’s been pulled. But here’s a clip with Joe Piscopo!
Saturday Night Live regulars Will Ferrell, Chris Kattan, Molly Shannon, Mark McKinney and Colin Quinn all came together to try and make a movie out of what had once been, until now, a five-minute sketch about two guys dancing to Haddaway’s “What Is Love.”
John Fortenberry has been an editor for eight years at producer Lorne Michaels’ Broadway Video before making this film.
Steve and Doug Butabi (Will Ferrell and Chris Kattan) are two brothers who spend most of their lives dancing, getting rejected and trying to get into the Roxbury, a famous Los Angeles nightclub.
It may be a simple film, but a great cast is along for the ride, like Loni Anderson and Dan Hedaya as their parents, plus Dwayne Hickman (Dobie Gillis!), Richard Grieco, Jennifer Coolidge (who was in nearly early late 90’s comedy, it seems), Michael Clarke Duncan and Chazz Palminteri.
In his book Baby, Don’t Hurt Me, Kattan claimed that he was pressured by producer Lorne Michaels to have sex with Amy Heckerling so that she would direct the film. He must have held out, because she only produced it.
That said, Kattan also claims that Will Ferrell didn’t speak to him again until the 23rd season of Saturday Night Live due to his relationship with Heckerling. Kattan alleged that Ferrell said “I got all your messages, but I didn’t call you back because I didn’t want to talk to you.”
Thomas Schlamme directed the first “I Want My MTV!” ad campaign, as well as specials for Amy Grant, Robert Klein and Bette Middler — and two ABC Afterschool Specials, The Gift of Amazing Grace and Can a Guy Say No? — before directing movies like Miss Firecracker and this movie. He’s pretty much worked in television ever since.
It’s one of the first movies that Mike Meyers was in, here starring as Charlie MacKenzie, a beat poet who frequently gives beat poetry speeches about his love life. His best friend Tony — Anthony LaPaglia, who is wonderful here, with Alan Arkin as his police captain — thinks he really just can’t commit.
But what if he meets the perfect woman, played by Nancy Travis? And what if she might be a murderer? Well, then we’d have a movie.
While this movie is a trifle, it’s still fun. You get Phil Hartman as a tour guide, Steven Wright, Charles Grodin, Michael Richards, Amanda Plummer and Debi Mazar all turning in great performances and a decent soundtrack, too.
Oh yeah — the place where they go for their honeymoon? Yeah, it’s the Dunsmuir Estate from Phantasm.
“My daughter found another doctor. She said you can’t even treat your own daughter.”
Dr. Sharon Cheung (Asian Film Awards, Golden Horse, and Hong Kong Film Awards multi-winner Kara Wai) is a career-obsessed Hong Kong psychiatrist and single mom who’s fed up with and neglects Jenny (Yanny Chan of the Cantopop girl group Super Girls, in her acting debut), her rebellious teen daughter—with the hopes of marrying her off to one of her rich client’s sons. As Jenny’s rebellious streak becomes increasingly more bizarre, Dr. Cheung begins to wonder if her daughter’s rebellion is the manifestation of mental illness. Or is Jenny gaslighting her mother, who begins to suffer the onset of her own psychological break exacerbated her descent into drug and alcohol abuse? Or is there a supernatural presence pushing them both to the brink? Or is Jenny possessed?
Notable Hong Kong producer Pang-Chun Chan’s writing and directing debut isn’t a film about A24 or Blumhouse-styled shock scares and CGI poltergeists; it’s a film about practical in-camera effects; it’s about actors—through emotions and body language—selling the light, the color and shadows to give audiences the creeps. Chun Chan’s eye is all about slow-building tension and keep-you-guessing mystery. In the framework of the supernatural and psychological terror, he also presents compelling questions regarding the paranormal vs. hard science and western Christianity vs. Eastern Taoism in Dr. Cheung’s atheism and her rejection of her country’s traditional beliefs in sprits and the afterlife.
Distributed in the international marketplace since its 2015 theatrical debut, Daughter is now currently available for the first time in a (well-done) English dub as a free-with-ads stream on TubiTV. It’s an affable mix of Roman Polanksi’s Repulsion and William Friedkin’s The Exorcist, with a touch of film noir, haunted house and J-Horror conventions that, hopefully, if successful in the west in this dubbed form, Daughter (aka Shuang shen) will be presented in a U.S. region-appropriate DVD in its native Cantonese and Mandarin languages with subtitles (which is my preferred format to watch overseas films).
About the Author: You can read the music and film reviews of R.D Francis on Medium and learn more about his work on Facebook.He also writes for B&S About Movies.
Disclaimer: We discovered this movie on our own and were not presented with a promotional screener or review request.
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