Christopher Lee was a hero to me as a child. If you’ve read about his life, as all horror fans have, you’ll known that he was a soldier, spy, Nazi hunter and so much more before becoming an actor. What you may not know is how hard it was to get started, as he was too tall for so many roles.
This film, directed and written by Jon Spira (Elstree 1976), combines archival footage, puppetry, animation and interviews with tons of people to get the full story of Lee.
With Peter Serafinowicz (the live action version of The Tick and Darth Maul’s voice) providing Lee’s voice, you’ll learn how the actor became a horror icon, even if he was often mistaken for his close friends Peter Cushing and Vincent Price, as he jokes in this. Actually, the moments where he talks about Cushing waiting decades to be with his dead wife and just playing with toy soldiers and passing time made me tear up.
Everyone from Joe Dante and John Landis to Peter Jackson and Caroline Munro has a story to tell. Some may not like the puppet version of Lee, but it worked by the end of the film. And there’s something to learn for even the biggest fan of Lee, like how Errol Flynn gave him a fencing injury to how he witnessed one of France’s last public executions. I also loved his pride in getting a stuntman belt buckle during the filming of Airport ’77!
With a career as big as Lee’s and one that lasted so long, there will be some things missed. However, this hits so much, from working with Jess Franco and Mario Bava to him suggesting Dennis Wheatley to Hammer and singing in The Return Of Captain Invincible.
It even shows him menacing Chuck Norris in An Eye for an Eye!
5. BROKEN BONES: Snap, crackle, “stop… is it sticking out?”
Dr. Edward Pretorius (Ted Sorel) has created the Resonator, which allows him to see beyond reality. You know, like the title. When Dr. Crawford Tillinghast (Jeffrey Combs) activates it, he sees all sorts of monsters floating around him, including one that bites him. Pretorious, instead of never turning it on again, goes wild and turns it up to 11. Crawford runs, Pretorious loses his head and Crawford is arrested for his murder by Detective Bubba Brownless (Ken Foree).
Dr. Katherine McMichaels (Barbara Crampton) treats him in a mental ward and discovers that his pineal gland has become enlarged. Interested by the machine, she, Crawford and Bubba go back to the lab and attempt to rebuild the machine. When they get it turned on, a nude and floating Pretorius appears, surrounded by monsters and slimy tentacles. Almost everyone barely makes it out alive.
Even after that, Katherine thinks the machine can help people who have schizophrenia and brain damage, so she turns it back on and Pretorius tries to drag her back into his new realm. Gigantic bees eat Bubba and Crawford has his pineal gland emerge from his forehead. Now, everyone thinks Katherine is insane and she’s saved from shock treatment by a brain and eye hungry Crawford, as the two escape and take a bomb back to the house.
The end of this movie upset me so much, as she launches herself out of a window to escape the blast and her leg breaks into pieces before yelling, “They ate him!”
Shot in Italy at the Dinocitta Studios that were bought by Empire, this was made at the same time as Dolls, another movie by director Stuart Gordon. Between four effects teams and a nearly all Italian crew, they got a lot out of this movie’s low budget. I watched this so many times on cable, always covering my eyes, and even today it still has enough gross moments to make me question watching it.
I love that Barbara Crampton sold her leather BDSM outfit from this movie at a yard sale.
Each October, the Unsung Horrors podcast does a month of themed movies. This year they will once again be setting up a fundraiser to benefit Best Friends, which is working to save the lives of cats and dogs all across America, giving pets second chances and happy homes.
Today’s theme: 1990s
If KillerWorkout and Death Spa weren’t enough for you, Hell Spa is a shot on video 1990s film (shot in 1992, released in 1992) that has the best line I’ve heard in a long time: “There’s someone out there and they stole my beans!”
A woman is stalked and killed, at which point we see a computer monitor that tells us that her children, Maggie (Betsy Ryan) and Marcia (Heidi Gross) have to also be murdered so that they’re aren’t any loose ends.
Mr. Ex (Ron Waldron) is such a strange character. He buys into mom and pop shops by giving people their fondest dreams, then begins to kill their customers and finally the owners, like a combination of Needful Things and Blockbuster to your favorite local video store in the actual 1990s that no one remembers, feeding nostalgia into a beast that destroyed the actual stores that kept interesting movies on the shelf. Mr. Ex is something like a vampire or Man In Black or demon and the movie never really explains his plan of buying auto parts stores and gyms. It’s an odd Satanic business plan, but it seems like he’s getting somewhere with it.
The Hell Spa is owned by Rona Benson (Deirdre West), an older woman who is losing ground to a corporate gym that destroys every small workout place in its way. Mr. Ex shows up and offers an interesting plan. He will save her beloved gym, make her look young again and she can sign people up at her gym for free and lose weight, as long as they sign up for life. Plan Ex, as it’s called, is on all the scales in the form of stickers, which seems kind of budget for someone who is either a monster from another dimension or some higher form of demon, but who am I to tell Mr. Ex how to do what he does.
Catherine Clark (Lisa Bawdon) is the editor of a local newspaper that no one likes other than to write letters telling her how bad the paper is. She learns about the spa when her friends, yes that would be Maggie and Marcia, go missing. There’s a whirlwind of plot, as Mr. Ex buys out one of her reporters, Doyle Shakespeare (Leonna Small), by giving her the mental illusion that her sick mother is better, all while Catherine falls for hunky but kind of dumb — or so he appears — computer guru Ken Brock (Raymond Storti). But then Mr. Ex takes those two pieces off the board and even cuts the finger off — he didn’t lose enough weight — of the owner of the print shop that the newspaper comes out of, Roque Jarvis (Augie Blunt), Catherine becomes in deep with the conspiracy that is swirling about her city.
Mike Bowler, who directed this, also was behind Things (not the Canadian one) and its sequel, as well as writing Fatal Images. The co-writer of this was Dennis Devine, who has been making movies since Fatal Images like Dead Girls, Things II, Vamps In the City and so many more. In fact, if you liked the theme from Dead Girls, good news. You’re going to hear it again.
“God made a fatal error when he gave men free will,” says Mr. Ex at one point, just after he’s show Catherine that large computers from another time and place — their computing power would fit into your phone these days — are behind his empire. Then, he giallo kills the other writer by stabbing her right in the brain.
This just gets wild, as there’s an underground lair filled with computers, as if this has become a Halloween 3 cover movie, except that it’s really about how Walmarts and Dollar Generals stripmined small towns across America, putting up stores every two minutes, until anything unique or special has been torn away while taking what they need, whether that’s money or blood or souls.
Those are some big ideas for a microbudget shot on video horror movie — and maybe I’m filling in the holes with my own concepts as I savored this — but you have to love a bad guy who says things like “I am the dark in every man’s soul” before describing how he will use sin to unite the entire world.
Also: This movie is way longer than it should be, yet I wanted it to last like another hour. You might find that it drags, but I could live in the world of Hell Spa for some time.
In 2000, Bowler took footage from this and made Club Dead, which is almost the same movie but now it has Tommy Kirk as a cop. This is a move that I can’t help but applaud. He should have remade it with little bursts of footage every few years, like a Satanic small business Star Wars prequel.
Nisha (Inaya Zarakhel) has come from Pakistan to the Netherlands to work as an exotic dancer. She’s close to gender-affirming surgery and everyone around her remains confused as to how they should react to her. She also has demonic visions and worries that by having this surgery that she will unleash something horrible on the world.
Some of the men that she meets treat her like a fetish. Others, at a party where she and Eva (Charlie Chan Dagelet) dress like police, are enraged that she has a penis still. She’s abused by them in a horrifying moment that unleashes the monster inside of her, an expected moment but still one that is well shot and intense.
Directed by David-Jan Bronsgeest and David Kleijwegt and written by Martin Koolhoven and Tim Koomen, this has incredible cinematography by Jeroen Kiers and a color palette that makes it look way more expensive than its budget. The ending is rushed and when you think too hard about the plot, things like the men’s party happening in what seems like a slaughterhouse feels weird, but. this is a first film for these creatives. Here’s hoping that the future is even better.
Witte wieven are the “white women” or “wise women” of Dutch Low Saxon origins. They were female herbalists healers who also could see the future.
In this film by director Didier Konings and writer Marc S. Nollkaemper, Frieda (Anneke Sluiters) is judged when she is unable to produce a child with her husband Hikko (Len Leo Vincent). Despite being a devout woman, when she emerges from a night of horror in the forest when Gelo (Leon van Waas) assaults a young girl named Sasha and almost takes her as well, everyone claims that she has become a witch.
The society that she lives in is one where she’s not even allowed to lead a prayer and where her husband can’t been infertile. Instead, she is the problem and even her self-flagellation isn’t good enough as he stops her and whips her the right way.
After visions of the white women, Frieda brings the forest to life, impaling Gelo multiple times and finding so many trees that have done the same to horrible men for centuries. Who blames her for running to those trees forever, leaving behind the patriarchy that has never seen her as anything other than property?
EDITOR’S NOTE: The I Hope You Suffer podcast said that “Since everybody is doing these movie challenges now, we made the only one worth doing.” Bring the pain. You can also read an interview with the creators here and listen to the podcast about this movie here.
Mt. Misery Road is a real place and this movie is inspired by real events. You know how that goes — many movies have bragged of the same thing. There supposedly was an insane asylum that burned down — perhaps caused by one of the women held there — and a white dress wearing ghost that wanders the woods at night. It’s also a treacherous path to take — it’s one of the highest peaks in Long Island. There is also a “gravity hill” there where your car will roll uphill (this isn’t unique, there are several in the United States; one is in Ross Township right outside of Pittsburgh, for example). If you’d like to know more about Mt. Misery Road, this New York Daily News article is pretty informative.
Speaking of movies inspired by supposedly real events, the name Amityville has been used by at least 23 films. In 1974, Ronald DeFeo Jr. shot and killed six members of his family inside the large Dutch Colonial home on 112 Ocean Avenue, which was located in the suburbs of Long Island in a town called — you guessed it — Amityville. Four years later, the Lutz family moved in and left within 28 days due to the phenomena that attacked them while they were there. It became a book, a movie and another PR opportunity for the Warrens before taking over the public consciousness. The very name Amityville leads one to think of that house with the haunted windows today.
Very few of those movies inspired by the Lutz family are worth watching, save Amityville II: The Possession, a completely unhinged Italian exploitation movie wrapped in American big studio clothes. Even the original and remake are only just OK; Amityville 3-D has its moments and then it’s a mixed bag from then on out.
Making matters worse, starting with 1990’s The Amityville Curse, the Amityville brand name has mostly meant direct to video and limited release efforts. An exception is the 2005 remake of the original, which somehow makes the somewhat boring 1979 film even more pedantic. We’ve had so many Amityville movies now and more arrive almost every few hours. What’s next? Our dog is currently working on The Amityville Doghouse about a family of six chihuahuas who wonder why they got their dream house so cheap until a ghost cat arrives.
Now, the legend of Mt. Misery Road — no relation to Clinton Road, which also has a movie that we saw recently — and Amityville have come together in the film Amityville Mt. Misery Road.
This film is a true auteur project from the husband and wife team of Chuck and Karolina Morrongiello. Together, the couple did everything — writing, directing, producing, acting, set decoration, makeup, the music — along with one or two other names, like Elan Menkin, who helped with the edit and sound.
Within the film, Chuck and Karolina play a couple named Charlie and Buzi who are obsessed with the paranormal. The movie starts with an incredibly long sequence where Charlie drives to his house and checks his mail. It might be the longest vehicle drive to a home I’ve seen since the epic van journey of Thor in Rock ‘N Roll Nightmare. Even opening the mailbox and getting to the front door necessitates nearly ten jump cuts and we haven’t even gotten into the front door of Charlie’s palatial Florida home.
The next several moments of the film are spent watching the couple read the internet and learn about Mt. Misery Road in real time. Web page after web page — and even a slide show of monsters like demon dogs and Mothman — appear with both commenting on the proceedings before cuddling in bed and getting ready to fly to Long Island. Buzi has a prophetic nightmare that she will face off with the red eyes of the Mothman, but despite her pleas, they decide to go anyway.
This is a film made up of montages to the songs of Chuck Morrongiello. To be fair, he did play on an album with Jefferson Airplane’s Marty Balin. Finally, the pair make their way to a bar near the road and are warned off by an old man who seems like he’d rather be playing that One Touch Machine in the corner. Then, Buzi dances for around an hour or ten minutes. Time in this film works like that. And a visit to an expert on Mt. Misery Road just leads to another old man yelling at them, telling them to not go there, no matter what.
Well, Charlie and Buzi go there anyway and walk around the woods, exploring what has to be the remnants of the asylum and finding a cross just hanging off a tree. They get separated and their phones don’t work and Charlie gets attacked before the film ends with Buzi Blair Witch-style wandering the woods while swearing. Then she gets attacked before the movie ends.
I really have no idea how to review what I just watched. It’s like someone made their own movie just for themselves, but then along the way someone said, “You guys should totally sell that!” And then they did. It really does feel like a passion project between the couple and hey, they did really make a movie and get it on streaming services and into actual stores pressed on to actual DVDs. It does take some effort to make a film, even one as astoundingly bad as this one. So I can’t hate on it. Some people like to dress up their dogs. Other like to flip homes. It seems like Morrongiellos like to use their iPhones to make movies about ghosts. Whether or not you feel like encouraging them by spending $9.96 is totally up to you.
I mean, I was totally entertained and pulled Becca in to watch it with me. Whether or not I was entertained for the right reasons is up for debate.
If I had the opportunity to get a review line on the box cover, it would be edited down to say something like, “Not since Manos The Hands of Fate and Thingshave I been so…astounded by a film.” – B&S About Movies.
The IMDB review page for this film is pretty astounding, filled with one star and ten-star reviews and almost nothing in between, save one review that gives it 4/10 and says that it deserves more than ten stars. So there’s that.
Honestly, I can’t believe that this movie exists. I’m not sure if it even should. But if Chuck and Karolina Morrongiello decide to make a sequel, I’ll be first in line to see it.
Want to know more? Visit the official site. You can find this movie at Walmart — for actual proof, just take a look at the photo above, I’m as amazed as you are — and on Tubi.
DISCLAIMER: This movie was sent directly to us by Chuck Morrongiello. Quite obviously, that has had no impact on our review.
Directed and written by Dean Puckett, The Severed Sun is based on his 2018 short The Sermon.
A pastor (Toby Stephens) rules his isolated village, but when his daughter Magpie (Emma Appleton) finds herself trapped in an abusive marriage, she doesn’t turn to God. Instead, she murders the man and brings a woodland beast to her village that starts to kill all of the horrible men of the village, causing her and her sons Sam (Zachary Tanner) and Daniel (Lewis Gribben) to be accused of witchcraft. One of the villagers, Andrea (Jodhi May), is even convinced that Magpie is having sex with this creature. When the entire world is against her, Magpie realizes that turning to the shadows may be the only way that she can survive. After all, her father allows her to be bound and the others to launch tomatoes at her. How long before he puts her to death as a witch?
I really loved how this film looks and can’t wait to see Puckett keep on making films. Here’s to bigger budgets without forgetting this movie’s big ideas.
Fumika (Akari Takaishi, Baby Assassins) is haunted by the ghost of killing machine Hideo (Masanori Mimoto), who wants her help in getting revenge on the people who killed him.
Simple concept, but incredible execution here.
It’s made by the Baby Assassins trilogy team of director Kensuke Sonomura and writer Yugo Sakamoto, working on a tight budget but delivering big action-packed martial arts and gunplay action.
When Fumika and Hideo join hands, he can take over her body, using her more frail form to do the murderous mayhem that he does so well. Kudo also learns from her that perhaps killing wasn’t all that life should have been about.
Sonomura has directed the action and created stunts for so many movies, like Bad City, the Resident Evil games, Deadball, Black Rat, The Machine Girland so many more.
If this was the 2000s, this movie would be bought by Miramax and remade with inferior action. Today, we’re lucky to get to see it almost in the same time period as its home audience.
Kati Kelli was a YouTube personality as the form moved from people just posting anything to today’s world of content providers. In this collection of her movies, made by Jane Schoenbrun (We’re All Going to the World’s Fair) and husband Jordan Whipple, we see the many faces that she put on online before dying in 2019 from a severe asthma attack.
You can see the original videos on her channel, Girl Internet Show, or watch this movie to see Kelli direct, write, edit and star in a series of films where her only other co-stars are animations. The last movie in this, Total Body Removal Surgery, was posted three days before her death.
In 79 minutes, we see where the internet was and where it was going, this film has so explorations by its star of beauty, image and online and offline personality. The internet has changed so much in the years since Kelli’s death but from this film, you get the idea that she would have transformed beyond it and led it somewhere.
In 1998, the Disney Channel Original Movie Halloweentown was filmed in St. Helens, Oregon. Since then, it has seen 50,000 visitors every October, even 25 years later. Yet just like the town in the series of Disney films — Halloweentown II: Kalabar’s Revenge, Halloweentown Highand Return to Halloweentown — the locals believe that there are real hauntings. And beyond that, like any small town, there’s plenty of gossip to listen to.
Directed by Bradford Thomason and Brett Whitcomb, this is a film that feels like a real life Waiting for Guffman. There’s a zombie dance being choreographed by a girl who had to drop out of dance and who wants to reconnect with her father. A newcomer to the town has bought a favorite restaurant, the Klondike Tavern, and his social media mistake causes his entire staff to mutiny. A woman claims to the town council that she is being attacked in her dreams and that the town is becoming possessed by demons. And there’s also a team of paranormal investigators investigating the hauntings that they claim are real.
This film never makes fun of its subjects, instead allowing them to tell their stories. I absolutely loved this and have been raving about it to everyone I can, as it’s a perfect non-spooky way to get yourself ready for the Halloween season. Here’s hoping it finds a streaming home soon so more people can enjoy this fun hangout in a town that has embraced its history as a spooky location.
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