Sometime in the late 1960’s, Professor Jones (John Saxon) was involved in an MK Ultra-style eugenics experiment. Wondering what eugenics is? Our own President refers to it as the “racehorse theory,” which should scare the unholy shit out of you when you realize that eugenics was a major driving force in creating the Master Race of the Third Reich. But hey — isn’t it so funny when hes cutting up and making fun of people?
Sorry for the politics. Let’s just talk about Hellmaster. We’ll all feel better that way.
Jones created The Nietzsche Experiment, which gave its subjects telepathic abilities while also making them violent mental cases. Twenty years later — and armed with an entire gang of deformed mutants (is there any other kind) — he is killing everyone who ever did him wrong and transforming his old college into a slaughterhouse.
Originally called Them and Soulstealer, this made in Detroit regional small wonder — shot in the Clinton Valley Center Hospital, an active-at-the-time mental institution — was re-released at the end of the video rental era. Beyond Saxon, David Emge (Stephen from Dawn of the Dead) makes an appearance as a reporter, who joins with one of the survivors and a psychic who takes the drug in order to destroy its creator once and for all.
This is a movie that looks way better than you’d expect and plays out much more fun than you’d hoped. In a world of direct-to-streaming, the video store classics will forever remain above them, looking down and dripping goopy syrup-smelling blood all over the place.
You can watch this on Tubi or order it from Vinegar Syndrome. Their new release even has the Them cut and commentary for both versions. I love everything they release, as they put the care into these forgotten movies that studios neglect to bestow on their most artistic releases.
Robert A. Burns was the art director* of films like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Hills Have Eyes, Don’t Go Near the Park and The Howling, all movies that feature grimy and cluttered near-chattel houses filled with carnage. Just think of Eddie Quist’s apartment or the home of the Sawyer family. Burns’ artistic eye made all that happen and this is the one and only film he’d direct** (he also wrote the script).
This film takes place inside a Texas boardinghouse that has the spirit of S.F. Brownrigg hanging heavy over the place. When one of the tenants decides to tease the dog that lives in the basement, he ends up getting bit and the dog is put down. This upsets the quiet editor named Jerry (Terry Evans) who tries to keep his life orderly but keeps getting beaten on by nearly every scumbag that lives in this fleabag rattrap. His only good connections are Sharon, who he shares books with, and the latest renter, a handsome man named Ken. He’s attracted to both of them for different reasons, but it seems like Ken is the one who has his heart. However, Jerry isn’t fully human — more on that in a bit — and even the slightest attention from people sends him spiraling out of control. It doesn’t help that every single other person in this movie is vile, with the worst being Woody (a young Mitch Pileggi).
Jerry was also connected to that dog who died after Toad, one of the more insipid residents, teased its owner Ian about it until the dog gets loose. Jerry also had a major incident where a dog attacked him as a child, so he loses it and Woody guns the mutt down. Our protagonist starts to take on the characteristics of the dog — is he possessed by it? Does he see that he needs its feral nature to augment his shy demeanor? — which gets even worse when a prank goes wrong.
The men are jealous that Ken has just come in and ended up getting the girl of their dreams. So they send him a note that Sharon is waiting for him in bed. He runs to her room, strips and discovers the body of the dead dog dressed in lingerie. Shocked, he falls backward and is electrocuted.
This sends Jerry beyond the edge, his ideal man and the third and perhaps most crucial part of his mental menage a trois relationship deceased, he succumbs to the call of the wild and begins killing everyone one by one, his voice replaced by the raspy, growling sounds of the werewolf (while remaining totally human).
If you’re not excited yet, how about the fact that Aldo Ray runs this whole place?
Thanks to Ryan Clark, I can also discuss that this movie features a Deep Throat pinball machine that was custom made by Burns. This message board had the maker of the Rondo and Bob discussing owning the machine, which also shows up in Future Kill.
This is a slasher by the end — albeit most of the kills coming off camera, but it has plenty of stalking — but almost seems like a stage play concerning the plight of the human condition within this Texas boardinghouse. It takes a long time to get to where it wants to go, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad. Quite the contrary, it’s a strange piece of filmmaking that would easily find a home in the Vinegar Syndrome re-release catalog.
*Burns also worked on Re-Animator, Mausoleum, Tourist Trap,Play Deadand plenty more movies. It’s astounding how many movies he worked on are held in such high regard by me. He was also a noted genealogist and the world’s foremost expert on Rondo Hatton. Sadly, he killed himself after finding out he had cancer.
**Burns also made an early found footage movie called Scream Test that remains unreleased.
You can watch this on YouTube.
Is that VHS artwork familiar? It should be, if you’re a metal head from the ’80s. It also served as the cover for the Arista Records debut of Ronnie James Dio’s cousin, David Feinstein, who was in The Elves/The Electric Elves with Dio.
Back in the early ’90s, when it came to SOV productions released direct-to-VHS, writer-director Dennis Devine (2020’s Camp Blood 8 and 2019’s The Haunting of La Llorona) was a name you could trust to give you the goods. Problem was, his stuff was impossible to find on video store shelves—surely not at a Blockbuster, but shockingly, not at many, if any, mom ‘n pops. As was the case with most of the ‘80s-’90s SOV canons—even after Christopher Lewis, with Blood Cult, proved you could successfully distribute movies shot direct on 3/4” tape direct to retail-rental outlets—you had to buy Devine’s works via mail order via ads in the back of Famous Monsters. (Well, not Famous Monsters; that was a bit too slick, as I recall. But it was one of those pulpy, black & white horror mags from back in the day.)
Ah, the dot-matrix cover tucked behind the plastic-sleeved clamshell I remember. Our thanks to critcononline.com for preserving it.
So, being a sucker for and a collector of rock ‘n’ roll-oriented films of any genre—including horror—and the fact that all of the pulpy, underground critics raved about Dead Girls—I sent in my little grocery store money order to Something Weird Video (I think it was them; it was one of the those mail-order film studios-distributors). And as is the case with most, if not all, Dennis Devine productions (several of which I picked up over time; to date, he’s directed 31 and wrote 23 films), Dead Girls was a pretty decent flick that lent to replays over succeeding Halloweens. That is, until—as is the case with all mail-order film studios procuring low-grade VHS tapes in multi-packed, shrink-wrapped bricks and churning out copies via high-speed dubbing machines—my copy of Dead Girls caught a bad case of the molds. (And the mold grew . . . and spread to and took out Alice Cooper’s Monster Dog cataloged next to it; why that cataloging? I don’t recall the reasoning that paired the two. I think I was just messy-lazy in my alphabettin’.)
If only Dow came up with a video tape cleaner!
So, why am I waxing nostalgically sad over an admittedly obscure ‘80s (well, ’90s) SOV? Well, we have to blame Sammy P, B&S About Movies Chief Cook and Bottle Washer (again, I am just the fry cook, grease bit scrubber, and dumpster pad cleaner around ‘ere) for reviewing ALL of the Scream movies (in one week; the last week of August/first week of September) and yeath proclaiming all review slots for the month of October be forth dedicated to Slasher Movies—so say we all (moan) from under our cloak and cowls (and fedoras, hee hee). And since fans of the horror blockbuster Scream, which itself is a mock-slasher parody-homage, will recognize the plotline similarity to Dead Girls, which was completed several years prior to the later, 1996 Wes Craven hit, we’re reviewing it. So thanks, Mr. P! (For the uninitiated: Scream had deaths according to horror movies; Dead Girls had kills by songs.)
Yeah, I love it when the analog stars align at B&S About Movies and inspire a review. I wonder if Dennis Devine will drop us a pissy note in our “Feedback” section, decrying us for “how dare” we review their masterpieceshite without “permission” forthwith. . . . Nah, Double D’s not a maniacal, “Oscar bound” auteur. And his stuff isn’t shite. Oops, I’m getting pissy and off point, again. DOWN BOY! Good boy. . . . (Sorry, I’m letting those thin-skinned, self-financed via Kickstarer “next Tarantinos” of the digital age get to me.)
Who da frack are these girls? That’s not Diana, Angela Eads, Kay, and Angela Scaglione . . . wait, is it? Curse you, art department!
The retail-rental slipcase reissue that I don’t remember/courtesy of 112 Video via Paul Zamerelli of VHS Collector.com.
So, anyway . . . the Dead Girls are a female death metal band . . . but their low-grade rock is neither “death” nor “metal” and reminds of the Cycle Sluts from Hell . . . remember CSFH’s freak, ‘90s metal-parody hit “I Wish You Were a Beer” . . . and its members Queen Vixen, She-Fire of Ice, Honey 1%’er, and Venus Penis Crusher . . . only the Dead Girls aren’t that good . . . where’s Gord Kirchin’s gag-studio project Piledriver (music newly featured in Girls Just Want to Have Blood) when you need ‘em?
Anyway, I digress . . . the Dead Girls come complete with the “evil aliases” of—an idea that, I bet Brian Warner, aka Marilyn Manson, swiped (just kiddin’ Manson, had to work your aliases-band into the review)—Lucy Lethal, Randy Rot (the male “pussy” of the group on drums; brother of lead singer Ms. Lethal), Bertha Beirut, Nancy Napalm and Cindi Slain. Their collective shticks, which we learn through journalistic expositional babble (ugh): Cindi Slain (aka ex-magician-illusionist Susie Striker) is into self-eviseration, Bertha Beirut likes to strangle herself on stage with the American flag, and Nancy Nepalm is the para-military “Lemmy” of the group; a “weapons expert” who adorns herself in camo and “live” ammo-bullet belts and jaggling explosives as she slings a custom “machine gun guitar” (on loan from mid-’80s Alice Cooper guitarist Kane Roberts).
Of course, “death rock” is “on the way out” (don’t tell that to King Diamond and Cronos of Venom), with their manager urging them into a more “commercial” Into the Pandemonium-to-Cold Lake Celtic Frost fuckover as he sends the girls into the “Cherry Orchards” (no pun intended, I swear!) and be the friggin’ the Go-Go’s with friggin’ Wall of Voodoo covers. Do you remember when the record executives eviscerated Motley Crue’s collective gunny sacks and went from Shout at the Devil bondage leathers to day-glow the Bangles biker pastels, stopped singing about Satan and gave us songs about girls and friggin’ motorcycles and doctors and “going home” ad nauseam, ala Poison? Yeah, like that . . . all the world needs another “Clowns,” by golly! Or maybe we’ll get lucky and Artie the manager (Brian Chin, who became a voice actor then became an animation storyboard artist) will turn them into Vixen and rock us with “Edge of a Broken Heart” or Lita Ford with “Kiss Me Deadly,” perhaps? Nah, Artie’s a dipshite who thinks touring the warzones of Russian-occupied Yugoslavia is a smart career move.
Kane Roberts; courtesy of Floyd Rose.com/Celtic Frost; Metal Addicts.com.
As was the case with the dippy-dopey Champaign, Illinois, new-wave poppers the Names not finding any success until they transformed themselves into a low-rent Kiss-cum-Phantom of the friggin’ Opera (not) “metal” band the Clowns slicing up mannequins in Terror on Tour (Am I the only one who remembers “Lonely” and the Queensryche-ish album Transcendence from the phantom half-masked Crimson Glory hailing from the metal wilds of Tampa, Florida?), the gals of the Dead Girls weren’t finding much success with their dippy-dopey, new-wave synth-droning, so they went (not) death “metal,” complete with images of death that were devised as a marketing gimmick to sell records—no one was supposed to take them seriously, so says lead lyricist, sweet Gina Verilli, aka Bertha Beirut. (Now, I know this is sexist, but I got those boilin’ hormones—actress Diana Karanikas (as Gina) is the most heart weeping, prefect mix of “hot” and “cute” to ever bless the screen. And she friggin’ quit the biz after this film. Heartbreaking. Also quitting, after doing Things II for Devine: Angela Eads as Dana/Lucy Lethal; is it just me, or does she look like the perpetual Lifetime damsel-in-distress Alexandra Paul of Christinefame? Just sayin’.)
Anyway, the (coke) mirror, that is, “image” cracks when a group of teenagers, led by Gina’s sister Brooke (sexy/creepy Ilene B. Singer in her only film role; why did everyone quit the biz after this movie) commit a mass suicide to the soundtrack of the Dead Girls. Uh, oh. Career over? Nay, it’s time to hop into the Mystery Machine, Shaggy! We need recuperate Sam Raimi-style in the not-so Norwegian Wood. (Speaking of the Beatles . . . and death rock, did you ever hear Coroner’s cover of the Beatles’ “I Want You (She’s So Heavy),” well, you just did.)
Hmmmm . . . seems someone in the Dead Girls band camp paid attention to the James Vance and Ray Belknap Judas Priest “subliminal suicides” of 1986 (which became an hour-long PBS segment, Dream Deceivers in 1992) and the three Ozzy Osbourne heavy metal suicide trials of 1985 to 1990. (Dream Deceivers is on You Tube; you can find Ozzy trial clips HERE and HERE.)
Anyway . . . yeppers, it’s more dopey rockers of the Blood Tracks and Monster Dog variety driving right into the mayhem as they head off to a secluded country retreat for rest and relaxation—and for Gina to take care of her sole-surviving sister, much to the chagrin of her bible thumpin’ aunt who cared for them after their parents died in a car crash. (That’s gratitude; Auntie takes you in, gives you room and board; you form a death metal band in spite; while little sis has metal posters on the walls.) Oh, and get this: Gina has E.S.P abilities, so she foresees all this coming . . . but still goes to the wooden retreat (fuck, not Spine, again?) . . . where, in a Friday the 13th twist, a psychotic fan—cloaked in a black cape, fedora, and skull mask (the “Scream” part) goes “Billy Eye Harper” and unfurls the Rocktober Blood, murdering managers, boyfriends, fans, and musicians in short order, using the lyrics as a “how to” guide.
Although the script indicates lyrics to songs such as “Drown Your Sorrows,” “Nail Gun Murders,” “Hangman,” “Angel of Death” and “You’ve Got to Kill Yourself,” none of the songs appear in the film, nor does the band perform on screen. So, while we’re denied the “death metal,” what sets this Devine production heads and shoulders heads above most (well, all other) SOVs is that make-up wizard Gabe Bartolos, who also worked on the Basket Case and Leprechaun film series, handles the special effects and gives us a film that is as fun as—and significantly better than, but not as revered as, the rock ‘n’ horror, “No False Metal” classics that are Rock ‘n’ Roll Nightmare and Shock ‘Em Dead. All in all, Devine’s go-to scribe, Steve Jarvis (Things II and a dozen other Devine productions), gives us decent film noirish twists, double crosses, dream-within-dream fuck yous, floppin’ red herrings (bitchy aunts, pussy-whipped uncles, creepy preachers in need of an eyebrow trim, Christian ex-boyfriends, mentally-challenged caretakers, Yugoslavian reporters, graduates from the Josef Mengele School of Nursing, pseudo-lesbian uber fans, beefcake bodyguards, Ms. Lethal and Mr. Rot are into incest and bondage), and you-didn’t-see-that-coming moments to keep you entertained.
Now, remember in our review of Spine, when I mentioned a fellow con-freak discussion where I “learned” that star Janus Blythe was “in the running” for the Janet-role on ABC-TV’s Three’s Company and “lost out” on the part of Lynn Starling in Rocktober Blood? Well, in a con-conversation about Dead Girls: I also “learned” that the reason you never heard from any of these actresses ever again—sans one, maybe two, Dennis Devine flicks—is that all of these actresses were actually incognito adult film stars, you know, like Michelle Bauer (Beverly Hills Vamp! Witch Academy! Evil Toons! Sorority Babes in the Slime Bowl-o-Rama!), who aka’d as adult star Pia Snow, and Linnea Quigley, who aka’d as adult star Jessie Dalton (Linnea’s out with two new ones: The Good Things Devils Do and Clownado). As with the Janus Blythe rumor: I can’t confirm these assumed adult identities, if any, of the cast of Dead Girls.
And since we’re dredging up all of these old movies, let’s talk The Redeemer (aka The Redeemer: Son of Satan, aka VHS Class Reunion Massacre; You Tube/trailer)*. You’ll recall that masked killer dispatched victims wearing . . . a skull mask under a cape and cowl (sans fedora). So, while horror connoisseurs call out Wes Craven for “pinching” Dead Girls, can we call out the Dennis Devine-Steve Jarvis-Gabe Bartolos collective borrowing the skull mask idea from Constantine S. Gochis (Cochis shot it in ’75 and released it in ’78, so it predates Carpenter’s Halloween)? Just sayin’.
And major kudos to the gang at The VHS Apocalypse over on You Tube for taking the time to rip those faux hard-rock ditties of the SOV-era and uploading them. Here’s the Dead Girls end-credits tune “You’re Gonna Kill Yourself” to enjoy.
And alright! You Tube comes through in the clutch! I haven’t watched Dead Girls in years (f-you, mold.) But I am now with a very nice, clean VHS-rip courtesy of The Burial Ground 5. (BG5’s got 1974’s Corpse Eaters? 1988’s Brainsucker? Yes! Now, that’s a motherf-in’ Halloween double-feature right there!)
And now . . . while we are on the subject of obscure tunes from obscure films—in this case, 1989’s Twister—that no one has heard or seen sidebar: Bless you, William Gibson You Tube, for VHS-ripping Crispin Glover’s “band” the Uncalled Four and their downer-rocker “Dance Etiquette (Daddy’s So Mean)” off the film’s end credits. But here’s the scene where it was featured. (Crispin, what in the hell did your daddy, Bruce, do to you? Just kiddin’. Let’s get a beer!)
The schlub writer sucking up for acting work sidebar: Mr. Devine, I act. And I have a reel. Could I be in one of your movies? (Did you think I wrote this review out of the goodness of my heart? Nope. Pure sucking up for acting work!)
I love Joe D’Amato. I can’t hide my devotion and even when his movies descend into outright exploitation, I love him even more. This is probably his best film — a remake of the 1966 film The Third Eye — that he would talk down by saying, “I personally opted for the most unrestrained gore, since I don’t consider myself very skillful at creating suspense.”
It’s also a movie that he shouted — while filming — “We’re making a movie to make people throw up. We must make ’em vomit!”
I wish he was still alive so I could hug him right now.
Frank Wyler has just lost the love of his life, Anna Völkl (Cinzia Monreale, Emily from The Beyond). That may have something to do with his voodoo using, wet nursing maid Iris (Franca Stoppi, The Other Helland the dog-loving mother in George Eastman’s Dog Lay Afternoon), who is only too happy to have her boss suckle on her bosoms for emotional succor.
So our protagonist does what any of us would. He digs up his woman and turns her into a body that will never age. Of course, any other filmmaker wouldnt show this process in graphic detail, but you’re not watching any other director make this movie. This is the kind of film where a hitchhiker is killed and when our hero gets too stressed out, his mother figure gives him an old fashioned and then helps him hack up the corpse.
The crazy thing is, Frank can pick up women, like the jogger he gets in the sack in less time than it will take you to read this. Of course, he has to show off Anna, the girl goes nuts and Frank ends up biting through her neck. Such is life. Or death.
Imagine how Frank feels when his dead lover’s twin shows up! Why it’s enough to call of his engagement to Iris, which is one of the oddest scenes in a movie that pretty much starts strange and finishes beyond strong in the category of astounding weirdness.
Come for the necrophilia. Stay for the awesome Goblin soundtrack.
You can watch this on Tubi or buy it from Severin.
Etheria is a new series of horror, science fiction, fantasy, action, and thriller episodes from women directors. Shudder shared a series of Etheria shorts earlier this year, so you may have seen those stories. Season one is also available on Amazon.
Having these unconnected tales air as a series instead of cramming them into a portmanteau was a good idea, as while they share a similar thread, they all look and feel so different that having them appear as episodes of a show makes much more sense.
The first story, “Sweet Little Unforgettable Thing,” is all about Maddy, a sweet girl who tries to reinvent herself to win over a new boy she’s met at the roller skate rink. However, that handsome stranger ends up being a killer. Look for Sally Kirkland as Maddy’s grandmother! This was written and directed by Chloe Okuno and originally released in 2014. I wish this story had more time to grow — something that you can say for several episodes — but while it lasts, it’s pretty entertaining.
“Sheila Scorned” is the second episode and it’s written and directed by Mara Tasker. Originally released in 2015, it’s all about Sheila, who screws up a drug deal and gets kidnapped from the club that she dances at. However, the men who take her aren’t ready for just how rough she can be. You can learn more about this short at the official site.
2013’s “Gödel Incomplete” is a romance story that travels through time, uniting Serita Cedric (Elizabeth Debicki, Ayesha from Guardians of the Galaxy 2), a research student working at the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland, with Kurt Godel, who was considered to be amongst the foremost logicians in the history of man. It was written and directed by Martha Goddard, who lends this segment the most sheen and professionalism of all the segments.
2015’s “Shevenge” was directed by Amber Benson (Tara from Buffy the Vampire Slayer) from a story by Jessica Sherif and Megan Lee Joy, who appear in this episode as two of the three women (Emme Ryan of General Hospital is the other lead) who dream of either destroying or changing their boyfriends and decide to use the occult to become empowered. The humor really works in this segment and gives it a real difference from the other stories.
“Cowboy Kill Club” is written and directed by Gabrielle Lim and Jean Parsons. It’s about three dancers in Bangkok’s underworld who decide to wipe out a sinister cartel of sex traders. It’s almost too basic and short for anything to really get movie and would have benefitted from more time. This film was originally released as a short in 2015.
Writer/director Mary Russell’s “Carved” also came out in 2015 and is perhaps the best shot of any of these stories for translating well into a longer feature. I’d be interested to see what else Russell does in the future, as this is a solid and assured piece all about the spirit of a murderer infiltrating a Vegas roadtrip. For more information on the creator, you can visit her official website.
“El Gigante” has already been airing on Shudder. This 2014 effort by Gigi Saul Guerrero (who directed the “Día de los Muertos” segment in Barbarous Mexico) and Luke Bramley from a script by Shane McKenzie (who worked with the duo on the series La Quinceañera) is about Armando, whose escape to the United States has brought him right back to Mexico, where a cannibal family puts him into a fight to the death against the rudo known as El Gigante in a wrestling match to the death.
Devyn Dalton, who plays Chango, acted and did stunts for the recent Apes films. She was Cornelia in Rise of the Planet of the Apesand Cornelius in War for the Planet of the Apes. This segment was really well-made and honestly could be an entire movie all by itself.
You can learn more about the Luchagore team that made this — as well as grab a comic or t-shirt of the film — at their official site.
In “Zone 2,” originally a 2015 short by director Anna Elizabeth James and writer Lydia Mulvey, is about a mother and her disabled son trying to survive the end of the world. Again, it’s too short, but a nice showcase. James just completed production on a movie called Deadly Illusions that sounds like the kind of giallo by way of Lifetime films we enjoy around here, helped by the fact that it features Dermot Mulroney and Kristin Davis.
Not to be a broken record, but 2014’s “Witches” feels like a great sketch for a much larger project. It’s entertaining, but six minutes aren’t enough to give it what it deserves. Writer Katie Dodson is good in this as Tamsin and director Michelle Steffes has a good eye for putting together this short piece.
The final episode, “Suddenly One Night (De Noche y de Pronto),” gets the longest screen time at around twenty minutes. This 2012 Spanish short was written and directed by Arantxa Echevarría. During the holidays, Maria is visited by a man who claims to be her upstairs neighbor, a man convinced that his apartment is being torn apart by burglars. This has a great 70’s style and would also be a great springboard for a full-length film.
Most anthologies are a mixed bag, but Etheria season 2 offers plenty to enjoy from a plethora of female voices. Any time that I want to see more — and not less — from a story is a victory and that happens throughout this series. These bite-sized tales will whet your appetite for more and hopefully you’ll look up these filmmakers and follow them as their careers only go upward from here.
You can watch all of Etheria season 2 on Amazon Prime and learn more at The Horror Collective’s official site for the show.
The sole survivor as her military industrialist father declares revenge on the family that halted his political ambitions, Miriam gets an offer: either die in jail or go back in time and try to save her family. However, the rules keep changing as god-like overseers bet on her life and death battle.
To Your Last Death is a visually stunning comic book come to life, with animatic-style animation, intense gore and a voice cast that includes William Shatner, Morena Baccarin (Vanessa from the Deadpool movies), Ray Wise and Bill Moseley.
Originally titled Malevolent, this was directed by Jason Axinn, who has mostly worked on TV shows and on shorts. He tells a story that effortlessly moves through time and space while rewarding horror fans with bloody visuals, including a shark feeding scene that must be seen to be believed.
Seeing an animated Ray Wise is also worth the price of admission. I had a lot of fun with this movie, which kept me watching right until the ending scene of the gambling beings. It’s well worth a watch.
To Your Last Death has been available on demand, but will release on blu ray on October 6. Thanks to its PR company for sending it our way. Getting a copy for review in no way influences our review.
DAY 4. HUNKERED DOWN: One with recluses, shut-ins or people locked inside their homes.
Based on the script for Alone by Matt Naylor, who co-adapted his script with Cho and will see his version of the film release later this month, this movie finds a live streamer named Oh Joon-woo facing the kind of battles that he’d only had online as zombies take over most of South Korea.
After learning that his family has been killed, the loneliness and pointlessness of life alone gets to him and he attempts to kill himself. He’s once stayed inside, away from the rest of humanity and now, he may very well be the last person left alive.
That’s when a laser pointer flashes and he realizes that there’s somebody else left. Kim Yoo-bin has used traps and an axe to stay alive, using her wits when all Oh Joon-woo has done is hide.
If you’ve read Max Brooks’ World War Z, the story “Kondo Tatsumi,” about a Japanese gamer in a similar situation, may strike you as being very much like this story.
The end of the film really recalled Shaun of the Dead, which is not a bad thing. In a world where every zombie story has seemingly been told, this tale of a young man staying locked within his apartment — afraid to come outside as a plague ravages everyone else — is alarmingly all too real.
After making Dark Universe and Biohazard: The Alien Force, Steve Latshaw (Return of the Killer Shrews) directed this film, which shows off what he learned from working with Fred Olen Ray.
The Kelly family live under a curse, as one of their ancestors killed the warlock named Walter Machen and now, the demon Jack-O has been freed from Hell to get the revenge that Walter has wanted for so many centuries.
Beyond the appearance of the monster, this movie has two cameos going for it. Yes, two cameos that have little or nothing to do with the rest of the film, as John Carradine and Cameron Mitchell appear from beyond the grave as Machen and an expert on the occult.
Latshaw was also smart enough to get Linnea Quigley and Brinke Stevens into this one, if only for the moment that my wife walked in, saw a naked Linnea and shot me the kind of look that should have been accompanied with a lawyer.
These kids should know better than to release demons from their final resting places, but come on, without their monkeyshines, we wouldn’t have a film.
Day 4: Hunkered Down: One with recluses, shut-in or people locked inside their home.
And down another SOV wormhole we go, with a little bit of Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead (1981) and, at first it seems, we’re also frolicking down the kiddie-centric, orange-and-yellow candy corn road with Roy Ward Baker’s The Monster Club (1981) and Fred Dekker’s The Monster Squad (1987).
A cross between Raimi and Spielbergian horror? What in the Sam Hell are you on about now, Mr. Francis?
Courtesy of Critical Condition, aka critcononline.com.
Well, look at the ol’ cardboard slipcase artwork. You got the word “Evil” and “Wood” in the title—and a ghoul is reading a book. And that ain’t Hervé Jean-Pierre Villechaize (Come on, dude, Tattoo? Remember?) lookin’ up over that library counter. Ah, should we also blame Wolfgang Petersen for making The NeverEnding Story (1984)?
Nah, there’s no way Wolfie could have known that his English-language film debut would lead to the “spooky” tales of the “Wild-Eye Southern Boys” of Mildew, Georgia.
Noah “Boxey” Hathaway? No, that’s Brian Abent in his only acting role as Billy Hanes.
So, what’s Evil in the Woods all about? And is the book due back on “Friday the 13th,” as well? Yes, as a matter of fact, it is! (Yuk! Yuk!)
But, first . . . how we got here. . . .
“Oh, shite. R.D’s going off the rails on another non sequitur, tangent-strewn frolic,” face squinches Drive-In Asylum‘s Bill Van Ryn. “Can’t you get your writing staff under control, Sam?”
“Just let him be, Bill,” surrenders Sam Panico, B&S About Movies’ proprietor. “I’ll go take a piss. You get the sandwiches ready. By the time our bladders are empty and our stomachs are full, he’ll be done.”
“Ahem,” throat clears R.D. “I’m standing right friggin’ here!”
Anyway, Sam ye by proclaimed, henceforth, that all reviews slots for the month of October would be dedicated to slasher (and, since I break all of the journalism rules, horror) films. And I had Evil in the Woods on my SOV “must reviews” short list, next in line after Curse of the Blue Lights (reviewed for “Vampire Week” that ran September 6 through 12). And I have this savant thing with film credits (and album liner notes). I can’t remember mathematic formulas or load-bearing charts, but . . . anyway, it’s my curse (that Sam puts to good use, so it’s not all in vain). So, during research for my review of the Atlanta, Georgia-shot Those Who Deserve to Die by Kino International’s Bret Wood, I learned of his developing work in the burgeoning field of podcast dramas—and his most recent, iHeartMedia podcast drama, “Mercury: A Broadcast of Hope,” stars local Atlanta (now adult) actress Jennifer Bates.
No, it can’t be. There’s a “Jennifer Bates” starring as little Alieen Pierson in the Atlanta-shot Evil in the Woods. . . .
My pubescent training ground: I kicked ass in this board game based on the ’70s NBC-TV daytime game show/courtesy of boardgamegeek.com.
So, that’s that story. That’s just how the analog-celluloid stars align at B&S About Movies.
“Wow, that actually wasn’t so bad, R.D,” says Bill Van Ryn offering me a turkey-on-rye, with double mayo and mustard.
“Sam, can I have an RC Cola, please.”
“I’ll get Becca right on that. But is an A&W okay?”
And now, back to the movie. . . .
So. . . little Billy Hanes checks out the lone copy of the historical “story book,” Evil in the Woods from his local library. He immediately takes the book home and, as he begins to read . . . anthology movie alert . . . anthology movie alert (well, sorta-kinda) . . . he enters the strange world of Mildew, Georgia (yes, as in the stuff you attack with Dow Scrubbing Bubbles . . . and no, there is no such place, we got Google over here!).
Scrubbing out evil, one spore at a time!
And Billy learns the tale of a low-budget film crew in the year of 1956, as they travel into the Southern wilds of Mildew, Georgia, to shoot their sci-fi horror schlock-a-piece, Bigfoot vs. The Space Killers. And wouldn’t you know it: the Cormanites stumble into Wes Craven’s The Hills Have Eyes (wooded, not desert) enclave of an evil witch and her cannibalistic family (aka hunkered down recluses and shut-ins, ahem, Scarecrow overloards) who overlord rural monsters driven by a 3,030 year-old force (do the “666” multiples math) . . . that goes by the name of Ida! (Insert snickers, here). Yes, beware of Ida! Where’s Abby when you her? Seriously? Ida?
So, what we have here—regardless of the ominous music and wooded National Geographic photography of the (effective) opening credits (seen below in sans of a trailer)—not an ominous Raimi romp, but a spoof of low budget “B” movies that is going for “camp classic” status—with awful acting, scripting, props, and cinematography that is either “on purpose” to make it “look bad” and become a cult classic—or a film with awful acting, scripting, props, and cinematography that is so rife with ineptitude that it fails in achieving camp classic status.
And, since we are dealing with a Spielbergian kid reading and telling us “the story” (via a goofy narrator’s voice; I guess Vincent Price was busy filming 1987’s The Whales of August with Bette Davis and Lillian Gish), there’s no “Raimi,” since the film is devoid of sex, swearing, violence, and nudity. But we do get rubbery Spirit Halloween SFX (but, truth be told, some of the “non-violent” low-budget gore isn’t that bad), a scruffy throw rug sasquatch, a rotten corpse, a burnt arm, midgets, aliens and, again, the witch and her cannibal offspring who, I might add: kidnap a kid who runs off into the woods from his camper parents, and he ends boiled into a youth elixir. Oh, and the town sheriff—as is always the case with these backwoods horrors (see Equinox)—is in on the take, so no one ever escapes Ida’s wrath. Oh, and since the book is cursed—yep, you guessed it, the librarian is also in on it—little Billy Hanes turns into a ghoul after he’s done with the book!
Yeah, the curse of Ida is a gift that just keeps on giving with a book that just keeps on adding “chapters.” So much for the Spielbergian Baker-Dekker-Petersen criticisms. To say this SOV’er is completely out-of-left-field, bat-shite, everything-and-the-kitchen sink, crazy-ass bonkers is an understatement. Oh, William J. Oates, how ye wish you wrote and directed another movie.
And, what we want to know, Mr. Oates: Is this a Christian horror movie? Our sources can’t confirm it, but as someone who’s attended his share of “Christian Haunted Houses” at the local fire ‘n brimstone Baptist watering hole of my youth, it sure seems as such. In my kid and teendom, never ever once did I meet a “funny” pastor or bible teacher who could tickle a funny bone with their lame attempts at humor to make the bible palpable to young ears. For there’s nothing worse than a pastor or bible teacher—with an acoustic guitar and a wife who vocal-cracks hunchbacked accompaniment over 88 keys—who sings parody songs about why the Sadducees “were sad.” And, when he offers guitar lessons, teaches you how to play friggin’ “Baby Beluga” and “Michael Rode the Boat Ashore.” (You’d rather a Tobin Bell torture-porn sessions on all accounts, trust me.)
And, what is with all the child abuse-neglect in the films I watched this week? First, it’s Juliet Mills’s utter parental failure of leaving two kids in an open convertible while she goes food shopping in Beyond the Door (1974) (screened a couple weeks ago via another Drive-In Asylum Saturday Night Double Feature Watch Party, thanks Bill!). Now, we have a backpacked-kid wandering the big city streets. I mean, a latchkey kid is sad enough (Queen Crab), but this kid wandering about downtown Atlanta is outright upsetting—goofy, kiddie synth-rock be damned.
What did Billy do to deserve to be turned into a monster-ghoul at the end? As far as I can tell, poor Billy is a latchkey kid whose parents are M.I.A and he has no siblings to pick him up from school (or, if he does, they don’t care and pick on him), so, to fight the loneliness, Billy hides out at the local book repository until dinner time—that is, assuming, his either career-driven parents, divorced-waitress mom, or drunk n’ stoned mom and abusive step-dad are even around to make him dinner.
Poor kid. You didn’t deserve this life or fate, little Billy. You probably get stuck straw-slurping Campbell’s Pea Soup out of can for dinner like little Ken Barrett in Beyond the Door and have to befriend crustaceans like little Melissa in Brett Piper’s Queen Crab.
Ugh. Another You Tube-posted trailer bites the dust.
Amazingly, of all of the “lost” films out there that are not available for streaming or issued on DVD* . . . Evil in the Woods can be, for the low cost of $2.99, courtesy of Full Moon Entertainment on Amazon Prime. And, I would like to extend my formal apologies to our readers in the United Kingdom for this U.S. crapula being offered in your country via Amazon Prime U.K. (You’ve been warned, mate.) And yes, Full Moon also offers it as a DVD—sans a commentary track, which would have really been appreciated, as we’d love to know more about the five-Ws behind this SOV lost boy from the mind of the M.I.A auteur that is William J. Oates.
How is this movie forgotten? It boasts a director whose other movie is well-known — Tibor Takács also made The Gate — and it straddles the line between the fantastic, a slasher and giallo all at once without falling apart. It also has artistic pretensions, as it’s based on Julio Cortázar’s La Continuidad de Los Parques (The Continuity of the Parks), a short story that is at once three stories that all are aware of one another in a place where fiction meets meta-fiction.
Man, I love this movie. I want you to love it, too.
Virginia (Jenny Wright from Near Dark) has become obsessed with Malcolm Brand’s (Randall William Cook, a special effects man whose career stretches from Laserblast to Peter Jackson’s Tolkein films) book I, Madman. Within this story within the story, the deformed Dr. Kessler (also Cook) is attempting to win over actress Anna Templar by killing people and adding their faces to his own.
The more our heroine reads the book, the more she realizes that it is real and that Kessler has entered our world. Virginia is exactly the kind of lady who would be content to sit in the back of a musty used book store, reading her way through seedy pulp novels and gothic horror fiction and dreaming of being part of those worlds until she truly is.
Bruce Wagner, who plays the piano player, used to be married to Rebecca De Mornay. He wrote Maps to the Stars, the book that Cronenberg based his movie on, as well as the graphic novel and TV series Wild Palms, co-produced and helped write Tracey Ullman’s State of the Union, has a story credit on A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriorsand wrote Paul Bartel’s Scenes from the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills. Even cooler, after interviewing Carlos Castaneda for Details magazine in 1994, Wagner became part of the mystic inner circle of the shaman, using the name of Lorenzo Drake.
Writer David Chaskin was also behind A Nightmare On Elm Street 2and The Curse, which has Ovidio G. Assonitis as an executive producer and Lucio Fulci as an associate producer and special optical effects designer.
This is one strange movie that sadly no one really remembers. It doesn’t have the body count that some slasher fans look for and it may be too dream logic for many — the ending is completely out of reality and beautifully poetic — and it may honestly be just too much a piece of artwork when it should have been commerce.
Maybe this isn’t a movie that everyone can love and that’s just fine. However, I do recommend you watch it and become part of its world. Just watch out. If reality is truly a continuity of parks, Kessler could become part of your world.
And be sure to join us as we examine Tibor’s career and films with our “Drive-In Friday” featurette.
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