Category Archives: Movie reviews

2023 Scarecrow Psychotronic Challenge Day 7: The Blackening (2022)

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7. “META” MILITIA: Be on the lookout for any one of an enemy squadron of self aware films operating in your area. Report if seen…

This film takes the 2018 short film of the same name by the comedy troupe 3Peat and makes an entire horror film around a Juneteenth weekend spent at a cabin in the woods. Morgan (Yvonne Orji) and Shawn (Jay Pharaoh) arrive first and find an old board game from the racist past that challenges them to trivia to the death. She’s shot with an arrow and he’s captured before the credits.

Lisa (Antoinette Robertson), Allison (Grace Byers) and Dewayne (Dewayne Perkins) are the next to arrive, followed by King (Melvin Gregg), Lisa’s ex Nnamdi (Sinqua Walls), Shanika (X Mayo) and Clifton (Jermaine Fowler). And just like every 80s slasher, the town is full of dread, scarred up convenience store clerks and authority figures like Ranger White (Diedrich Bader) who get in the way of drugs and sex in the woods.

By the time the substances start working, the board game — The Blackening — is back on the table. The voice of the game’s mascot tells them that he has Morgan and if they want to see him alive, they must answer black pop culture questions. One about the black guest stars of Friends — Aisha Tyler, Gabrielle Union and Janet Hubert would be good answers — leads to Morgan being beaten.

Now, the game changes and claims that whoever is the least black will be killed. Well, Clifton did vote for Trump.

Directed by Tim Story and written by Parker and Tracy Oliver, I laughed out loud at a few moments in this movie and was pleased that it remains an actual slasher despite referencing how much its characters know about horror movies. I mean, the tagline is “We can’t all die first.”

From the cabin being referenced as looking a lot like the Sawyer house to the killers making the ch-ch-ch, ah-ah-ah noises like Jason, there’s even a scene where Morgan goes on and on about an episode of Dateline where a brother and sister kept their incest-bred kids under the stairs. Of course, that’s The People Under the Stairs. And if you love Scream, much less Scream 2, the killer asking if Jada Pinkett Smith and Omar Epps survived is beyond movie geek referential.

UNSUNG HORRORS HORROR GIVES BACK 2023: The Maze (1953)

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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: 1950s

William Cameron Menzies invented the term production designer.

Let that sink in.

He directed Chandu the Magician, Things to Come and Invaders from Mars, but he may be better known for his art direction on movies like Gone With the Wind, Our Town, For Whom the Bell Tolls and so many more movies. He was also a pioneer of adding color to film.

In The Maze, written by Daniel Ullman and based on the book by Maurice Sandoz (illustrated by Salvador Dali!), Gerald MacTeam (Richard Carlson) breaks off his engagement to Kitty (Veronica Hurst) after his uncle dies. He moves back to Scotland where he inherits a huge house and servants. Yet Kitty won’t accept that he broke off their upcoming marriage and travels there with Aunt Edith  (Katherine Emery).

Yet the Richard she finds is much older and acts differently. What has happened?

This movie has one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen: a hedge maze that has a frog god inside it, who is really the actual master of the castle, Sir Roger MacTeam, and who gets so upset that it climbs up into the castle and hops out a window to its death. In 3D!

Leonard Maltin called it “ludicrous (and unsatisfying)!” What does he know? Who did he ever fistfight and defeat?

CHILLER THEATER MONTH: The Unearthly (1957)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: The Unearthly was first on Chiller Theater on Sunday, December 29, 1963. It was also on the show on April 30, 1966; February 24, 1973; January 26, 1974; April 17, 1976; February 18 and October 21, 1978 and August 9, 1980 when the show aired at 1 a.m.

Dr. Charles Conway (John Carradine) is experimenting with artificial glands to make people live longer, working with Lobo (Tor Johnson) and his assistant Dr. Sharon Gilchrist (Marilyn Buferd, a former Miss California). Those that get these glands think they’re getting one surgery and get shuffled off for something else.

One of those patients is Grace Thomas (Allison Hayes, Attack of the Fifty Foot Woman; she died as a result of nutritional supplements, specifically a calcium supplement that had abnormal levels of lead), who is suffering from depression which means that she’s due for some surgery that will help John Carradine live eternally.

Originally called The House of Monsters, this was filmed over approximately five days and is the third movie in which Johnson played Lobo (Bride of the Monster and Night of the Ghoul would be the others).

Director Boris Petroff, using the name Brooke Peters, also directed Anatomy of a Psycho. I’ve heard that the writer of this movie, Jane Mann, was Petroff’s wife. I’ve also heard that it’s a pen name for Ed Wood.

CHILLER THEATER MONTH: The Black Sleep (1956)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: The Black Sleep was first on Chiller Theater on Saturday, December 14, 1963. It was also on the show on July 5, 1964 and January 23, 1965.

Reginald Le Borg was a banker in Austria and a director in America, making low budget horror at Universal like The Mummy’s Ghost and Weird Woman. Released along with The Creeping Unknown, it was ahead of the Shock Theater package that would ignite a new interest in Universal’s horror movies. It’s also Bela Lugosi’s last movie, although footage of him appears in  Plan 9 from Outer Space.

Dr. Gordon Ramsay (Herbert Rudley) claims that he is innocent yet remains in jail, guilty of murder, when surgeon Sir Joel Cadman (Basil Rathbone) offers him a chance at redemption. All he has to do is assist him with some experiments, starting with taking a potion called The Black Sleep, which will put him into a deathlike slumber.

After the “dead” body of Ramsay is discovered in his cell, Cadman takes the body for burial and revives Ramsay back in his lab. There, he’s attempting to learn the mysteries of the brain so that he can bring his wife Angelina (Louanna Gardner) back to life. One of his servants, Mungo (Lon Chaney Jr.) was once Doctor Monroe, one of Ramsay’s former teachers. Now he’s a monstrous beast barely under control. And then there’s the mute — and frightening — Casimir (Bela Lugosi).

So why do Laurie (Patricia Blake), Odo (Akim Tamiroff, who replaced Peter Lorre, who wanted more than this production could pay for) and Daphnae (Phyllis Stanley) work for him? It turns out that Laurie is Mungo’s daughter and wants her father to be normal again. That said, there’s an entire basement filled with experiments that haven’t worked, broken human beings — like Tor Johnson — led by a maniacal preacher named Borg (John Carradine). They’re so close to breaking through the doors to the lab…

The Black Sleep has a great cast but doesn’t do much with them. But it’s a fast movie and if you don’t think too much — or want to hear Bela speak — you may enjoy it.

You can watch this on Tubi.

CHILLER THEATER MONTH: Beginning of the End (1957)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Beginning of the End was first on Chiller Theater on Sunday, December 8, 1963. It also was on the show on March 19, 1966; February 24, 1973; May 4, 1974; February 28, 1976; October 8, 1977 and January 6, 1979 when the show moved to 1 a.m.

American Broadcasting-Paramount Theatres, or Am-Par, decided to create their own film studio to make low-budget movies that they could place into their theaters, signing a deal with Republic Pictures to make them. And after the success of Them!, who else but Burt I. Gordon to make more giant bug movies?

Gordon did the effects by himself in his garage, bringing the magic effect he used for King Dinosaur: grab some animals and shoot them in front of a still photo. So he grabbed 200 non-hopping, non-flying live grasshoppers in Waco, Texas and brought them to California. At that point, the agriculture department got involved and somehow, only 12 grasshoppers live after they all turned into cannibals. One would assume the dozen that are in this movie are the toughest ones of all time.

That said, the film’s title was prophetic. For some reason, the studio stopped making films. Luckily for Gordon, he landed at American-International Picture where he kept making giant movies. The Amazing Colossal Man was next.

There’s a decent cast in this, with Peter Graves* as the scientist who uses radiation to better grow crops until some crazy locusts eat it all and — you guessed it — get big as well. Peggie Castle, Miss Cheesecake of 1949, was born for films like this and Invasion U.S.A. It also seems like character actor Morris Ankrum was a lock for nearly any science fiction film of this time, as he made Rocketship X-M, Flight to Mars, Red Planet Mars, Invaders from Mars, Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, From the Earth to the Moon and this movie in the ’50s.

*Whose brother James Arness was in Them!

THE IMPORTANT CINEMA CLUB’S SUPER SCARY MOVIE CHALLENGE DAY 6: Haunter (2013)

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October 6: A Horror Film That Includes Time Travel

Vincenzo Natali, the director of this movie, was drawn to it because all he had to do was shoot it and not develop it. After spending 12 years bringing Splice to life, that seemed like a great plan. Haunter was written by Brian King, They’d also worked on Cypher several years before.

Natali said, “Out of the blue I came across my friend Brian King’s script for what was then called Company Man. Ultimately it was named Cypher. And then that came together very quickly. It took maybe…I don’t know, it was another 6-8 months and we were shooting the movie. And almost an identical thing happened with Haunter because I had these sort of long-standing, very ambitious projects, High Rise and Neuromancer that I’d been trying to do after Splice. And, invariably, it takes a long time. So, in the interim, Brian came up with this new script, entirely his creation. And I really loved it. We put it together in probably about the same time period, like eight months or less and we were shooting. So Brian keeps saving my ass. That’s how it works.”

Lisa Johnson (Abigail Breslin) lives with her father Bruce (Peter Outerbridge), mother Carol (Michelle Nolden) and brother Robbie (Peter DaCunha) somewhere in northern Ontario, sometime around 1985. Except that she’s the only one of them that realizes that they’re all dead.

Ignoring the warnings of a being known as the Pale Man (Stephen McHattie), she starts to contact the spirits of the multiple dead families that have lived in the house, traveling to their own timelines, as well as one where Olivia (Eleanor Zichy) and her family are still alive.

She awakens her family and they help her to battle who the Pale Man really is, a serial killer named Edgar Mullins who has possessed each family’s father to continue his murder spree. She helps her family to escape the time loop that they are in yet remains behind to save Olivia and her family, hoping to finally end the cycle of killing.

Man, this movie is everything Blumhouse movies try to be and fail, unable to have a coherent beginning, middle and end. This is how it’s done. And it’s always nice to see David Hewlett, who plays Olivia’s father.

Also: A Ouija movie to add to my Letterboxd list!

You can watch this on Tubi.

2023 Scarecrow Psychotronic Challenge Day 6: Porno (2019)

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6. THE TORN TICKET: You guessed it, films/scenes that take place in a movie theater.

Back in 1992, Chaz (Jillian Mueller), projectionist and recovering drig addict Heavy Metal Jeff (Robbie Tann) and ushers Abe (Evan Daves), Ricky (Glenn Stott) and Todd (Larry Saperstein) are working in the family-friendly movie theater of Mr. Pike (Bill Phillips). That night, he allows the five to pick any movie they want to watch, as long as it’s either A League of Their Own or Encino Man.

Then a possessed old man breaks into the theater and tears into a wall where they find the old reel of disreputable film and quite literally, all hell breaks loose in the form of succubus Lilith (Katelyn Pearce), a demon ready to screw their souls.

This is certainly a fun movie but it feels like the cinematic equivalent of junk food. I don’t expect the movie within the movie to look like The Last House On Dead End Street, but it would have been nice if it had. It’s cute but after watching weeks of USA Up All Night, this isn’t as sinful as it promises that it could be.

You can watch this on Tubi.

UNSUNG HORRORS HORROR GIVES BACK 2023: Witching and Bitching (2013)

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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: Witches

Directed by Álex de la Iglesia (Perdita Durango, El día de la bestia), who co-wrote the script with Jorge Guerricaechevarría, Witching and Bitching starts with José (Hugo Silva) and Antonio (Mario Casas) arguing as they rob a pawn shop. The issue is that José has brought his son Sergio (Gabriel Ángel Delgado) along for the ride and it’s a violent one, as numerous people die all around them. They escape in the car of Manuel (Jaime Ordóñez), forcing him to drive them to the border, all while being followed by Silvia (Macarena Gómez), Sergio’s mother, and two cops named Pacheco (Secun de la Rosa) and Calvo (Pepón Nieto).

They end up in Zugarramurdi, Navarre, a place where alleged occult activity happened in the seventeenth century and was punished in the Basque witch trials, as well as the home of the Basque witch museum and the Witch Caves. There they meet a coven of cannibal witches and their leader Graciana (Carmen Maura) and her mother Maritxu (Terele Pávez). After Sergio is nearly cooked in an oven, they escape, only to quickly be recaptured by the witches.

Silvia and the two cops save José, Antonio,and Manuel but are soon captured, with Silvia is transformed into a witch by toad juice. Our protagonists are captured — again! — and only José escapes, saved by Graciana’s daughter Eva (Carolina Bang) who has fallen for him. She wants him to leave but he refuses as his son is still captured. Eva is buried alive by her mother, but soon saved by José who gets help from Eva’s brother Luismi (Javier Botet).

Luismi and José can only watch as Antonio, Manuel, Pacheco and Calvo are set to be sacrificed to a gigantic witch that eats Sergio — who passes right out of its body and is showing his own magic powers — and then destroy the creature and most of the witches. However, as José and Eva celebrate their love, we learn that Silvia, Graciana and Maritxu are waiting for their revenge.

Look, any movie that starts with statues — including Jesus — coming to life and starting a robbery and ends with a witch apocalypse is one I’m going to love. As always, de Iglesia takes you on a thrill ride filled with violence, lurid colors and fun effects. I’m there for whatever movies he makes.

You can watch this on Tubi.

CHILLER THEATER MONTH: The Beast of Hollow Mountain (1956)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: The Beast of Hollow Mountain was first on Chiller Theater on Sunday, December 1, 1963 at 11:10 p.m. It also aired on February 22, 1964 and July 31, 1965.

Filmed in both English and Spanish at Churubusco Studios in Mexico City, the American version of this Willis O’Brien (the animator of King Kong) was called The Beast of Hollow Mountain while the Mexican one was named La Bestia de la Montaña.

Cowboys and dinosaurs seem like a pretty natural combination. In this one, Jimmy Ryan (Guy Madison, who played Wild Bill Hickock on TV’s The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok) finds out that some real life giant lizards are eating all his cattle.

You know how I always complain about movies showing the monster too soon? This waits nearly an hour before you see the dinosaur. That’s having patience. Oh yeah — don’t get attached to the little kid who has an abusive father.

O’Brien also wrote another unproduced script from this concept called The Valley of the Mists, which would later be made as The Valley of Gwangi by Ray Harryhausen, in case you can’t get enough stop-motion monsters.

CHILLER THEATER MONTH: The Atomic Man (1956)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: The Atomic Man was first on Chiller Theater on Sunday, October 13, 1963. It was aired on March 7, 1964; July 10, 1965 and December 3, 1966.

Cut down by seventeen minutes and renamed from Timeslip, The Atomic Man played U.S. theaters on a double feature with Invasion of the Body Snatchers. It had already been a live TV play in England and would also be the first of three novels with The Isotope Man coming out in 1957.

Directed by Ken Hughes (Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Sextette, Night School) and written by Charles Eric Maine, this movie has an interesting idea in it: a man is found shot in the back and nearly drowned. When he revives, he is a few seconds in the future from the rest of reality and able to answer questions before they are asked.

Faith Domergue is in this. She was discovered by Howard Hughes, who she dated from the age of 16 until she learned that he was also dating Ava Gardner, Rita Hayworth and Lana Turner. She became an early scream queen, appearing in Cult of the Cobra, This Island Earth, It Came from Beneath the Sea and Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet. She began traveling to Italy in 1952 and staying in Rome for extended periods. She married director Paolo Cossa and was in several Italian movies including One on Top of the Other and The Man With the Icy Eyes. Her last movie was The House of Seven Corpses.