EDITOR’S NOTE: This movie was watched as part of Salem Horror Fest. You can still get a weekend pass for weekend two. Single tickets are also available. Here’s the program of what’s playing.
Fright Night was the first modern horror film I ever watched. I remember painting in my parent’s kitchen and my father telling me not to be afraid and just watch it with him. It’s a great start — combining the Hammer films that I loved that didn’t scare me with new school special effects and metacommentary.
The very first film in the series, this one really speaks to me as I was part of the last generation to grow up with horror movie hosts on UHF channels. Sure, there’s Svengoolie today and some internet shows, but it’s not the same. Peter Vincent (Roddy McDowall) is one such host, a washed-up actor who was in a few great movies decades ago and now goes from town to town, playing the same old 1960’s Z list horror films, saying the same lines.
The defining moment for him is that Charley Brewster (William Ragsdale, Mannequin 2: Mannequin on the Move) believes in all his bull. And when Jerry Dandrige (the untrustable Chris Sarandon) moves in next door and shows all the signs of being a vampire, Charley finds he needs Peter Vincent more than ever before.
Plus, you get a pre-Married with Children Amanda Bearse as Charley’s love interest and a pre-976-EVILStephen Geoffreys as Charley’s best friend/worst nemesis Evil Ed. And I just love Billy Cole (Jonathan Stark, House II) as Jerry’s thrall.
This is a movie made for those who love horror movies. After all, Peter Vincent is named after horror icons Peter Cushing and Vincent Price. Creator Tom Holland wrote the part for Price, but the acting great had stopped appearing in horror movies at this time in his career. As they made the film — and the sequel together — Holland and McDowall became life-long friends, with McDowall introducing the young director to Price, who was flattered that the part was written to honor him and thought that Fright Night “was wonderful and he thought Roddy did a wonderful job.”
He’s right — this is a movie that taps into the mind and heart of horror fans, as so many of us have wondered, “What if the monster — and the monster hunter — was real?” The lighthearted yet dangerous tone of the film is letter perfect. That scene in the nightclub, where Jerry takes on the security guard? As good as it gets.
Also of note: I’m glad the original ending wasn’t used. It was to close with Charley and Amy making out with Peter Vincent coming on the TV to host Fright Night, saying “Tonight’s creepy crawler is Dracula Strikes Again. Obviously about vampires. You know what vampires look like, don’t you? They look like this!” Then, he would transform, look into the camera and say, “Hello, Charley.”
After the unexpected critical and financial success of this film, a sequel was inevitable. Holland and Sarandon were both making the first Child’s Play, so they couldn’t commit to the film, although the actor did visit the set. Stephen Geoffrey’s didn’t like the script, opting to star in 976-EVIL. Ultimately only Ragsdale and McDowall would return.
They will make cemeteries their cathedrals and the cities will be your tombs. With that line, you know that what you’re about to watch better be the most mind-blowing horror film possible. Good news — Demons is all of that and then some, the kind of movie that has everything that I watch movies for.
I can’t be silent or still while it runs, growing more excited by every moment. It is the perfect synthesis of 1980’s gore and heavy metal, presented with no characterization or character growth whatsoever. It’s also the most awesome movie you will ever watch.
This is an all-star film, if you consider Italian 80’s horror creators to be all-stars. There’s Lamberto Bava directing and doing special effects, Dario Argento producing, a script written by Bava, Argento, Franco Ferrini (Once Upon a Time in America, Phenomena) and Dardano Sacchetti (every single Italian horror film that was ever awesome…a short list includes A Bay of Blood, Shock, The Beyond, 1990: The Bronx Warriors, Blastfighter, Hands of Steeland so many more), and assistant directing and acting from Michele Soavi.
The movie starts on the Berlin subway, where Cheryl is pursued by a silver masked man (Soavi) who hands her tickets to see a movie at the Metropol. She brings along her friend Kathy (Paola Cozzo from A Cat in the Brain and Demonia) and they soon meet two boys, George (Urbano Barberini, Gor, Opera) and Ken.
The masked man has brought all manner of folks to the theater: a blind man and his daughter and some interesting couples, including a boyfriend and girlfriend, an older married one and Tony the pimp and his girls, one of whom is Shocking Dark‘s Geretta Giancarlo. As they wait for the movie to begin, a steel mask in the lobby scratches her.
The movie that unspools — a slasher about teenagers who disturb the final resting place of Nostradamus — also has that very same steel mask. When it touches anyone in the movie, they turn murderous. At the very same time, one of the prostitutes scratches herself in the bathroom and her face erupts into pus and reveals a demon. From here on out, the movie becomes one long action sequence, as the other prostitute transforms into a demon in front of the entire audience.
Meanwhile, four punks do cocaine in a Coke can and break in, releasing a demon into the city as the rest of the movie audience attempt to escape and are killed one by one. Only George and Cheryl survive, as our hero uses a sword and motorcycle to attack the demons before a helicopter crashes through the roof. But then the masked man attacks them!
I’m not going to ruin the rest of the movie, only to say that even the credits offer no safety in the world of Demons. And oh yeah — Giovanni Frezza (Bob from House by the Cemetery) shows up!
This is but the first of a series of movies with the title Demons. I can’t do justice to the twists and turns of how that all works. Instead, I turn to the master, Joe Bob Briggs.
Demons is ridiculous. Pure goop and gore mixed with power chords, samurai swords, punk rockers and even a Billy Idol song which had to blow the budget. It also looks gorgeous — filled with practical effects, gorgeous film stock and amazing colors, no doubt the influence of Bava’s father. The scene where the yellow-eyed demons emerge from the blue blackness is everything horror movies should be.
This doesn’t just have my highest recommendation. It earns my scorn if you haven’t seen it yet!
Want to know way too much about this movie and everything connected to it?
April 10: Nightmare USA — Celebrate Stephen Thrower’s book by picking a movie from it. Here’s all of them in a list.
The origins of this movie are wonderful.
Producer William Szlinsky told director Michael Stanley that he had a great idea for a scene: a man’s face getting devoured by acid. But what if there was a movie around that scene? And what if there was an island filled with not just one of the Zuni dolls from Trilogy of Terror but hundreds of them?
And what if that deserted island was in Stamford, Connecticut?
John (Robert Nolfi), Cathy (Julia Rust), Case (Robert Lengyel), Phillip (Frank Murgalo), Diane (Lisa Pak), Mr. Morgan (John Vichiol), Mrs. Gordon (Kay Bailey), Pat (Frans Kal) and Mr, Bruin (Robert T. Firgelewski) survive the sinking of a ship only to end up on a mysterious island and then, well, succumb one by one to puppets. If you loved Bela struggling with in octopus in Bride of the Monster, get ready for an entire movie filled with moments just like that.
This is the kind of movie where a man dips his face in water to take a drink and learns — too late — that it’s acid, fulfilling the dreams of Szlinsky. It also has the kind of synth score that those who get woozy about synth scores will positively faint over when they watch this.
Also known as Hell Island, this is the type of film that separates the lovers of off the wall regional cinema from small minded folks who say things like, “This looks like it cost a hundred dollars,” “No one in this can act” or “Those are obviously puppets.” The world is too small and too sad for you to have thoughts like that. Instead, just watch this and allow it to wash over you, like calming murderdrone synth waves on the bloodiest of beaches.
April 3: Rock and role — A film that stars a rock star.
Hawk (Kris Kristofferson) is just out of prison — yeah, he’s an ex-con ex-cop who killed a gangster instead of sending him behind bars — and back at his former hangout in Rain City, Wanda’s Cafe, which is run by his ex-lover, who is named Wanda (Geneviève Bujold) as you can guess. Meanwhile, Coop (Keith Carradine) is new in town and working for a gangster named Solo (Joe Morton) and dragging along his wife Georgia (Lori Singer) and boy Spike. While her husband is out doing crime, she works for Wanda and that’s where Hawk decides to protect her, which she’ll need when her husband screws up and runs into trouble in the form of mobster Hilly Blue (Divine), who is always followed by a violinist, as well as another brutal killer named Nate Nathanson (John Considine, who was Doctor Death).
Director and writer Alan Rudolph made a wild movie, one that feels like the future trapped in the past, a place where every character has their own strange fashion developed by the actor’s themselves, sets designed by local Seattle artists and a soundtrack performed by Marianne Faithfull. It’s not a movie discussed much but seems to take place within the world of movies instead of where we come from. I’d compare it to a non-musical Streets of Fire, which is interesting, seeing as how it stars a rock star.
Tat Fung (Jackie Chan) has a dream of sailing around the world, but he’s trapped taking care of his mentally handicapped brother Dodo (director Sammo Hung). When Dodo gets involved with jewel thieves, Tat must save him one more time.
This film is against expectations. Hung plays a child in a man’s body and never fights once, while the final fight where Jackie defends him is brutal, filled with violence where Jackie usually uses comedy. And then the end of the movie blew my mind. The world of action movies rarely shows its heroes go to jail for acting above the law. It costs him his freedom and for a time, his girlfriend Jenny (Emily Chu).
This doesn’t have a lot of action for most of the film, other than the jungle violence in the open and the closing moments. Maybe they were saving everything up for the last scene where eight different stuntmen all fall from some of the highest of heights.
If I saw this in my early years of watching movies, I probably would have disliked it as all I would have wanted would be more fight scenes with Hung, Chan and Corey Yuen against bad guys James Tien, Dick Wei, Chung Fat, Phillip Ko-fei and Kao Sau-leung. But now that I’m getting old, I see the beauty in this film and why Hung made the movie that he did.
The Arrow release of Heart of Dragon has a 2K restoration from the original negative by Fortune Star, as well as two cuts: the 91-minute Hong Kong theatrical cut and the 99-minute extended Japanese cut, which has commentary by Frank Djeng and FJ DeSanto. It also has two extended featurettes made to promote the Japanese release by Shochiku; interviews with Chan, Rocky Lai, Hung and Arthur Wong; alternate English credits; a trailer; a music video; an image gallery; a reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Sam Gilbey and an illustrated collectors’ booklet featuring new writing by Dylan Cheung and David West. You can get this movie from MVD.
You can also stream this movie on the Arrow player. Visit ARROW to start your 30-day free trial. Subscriptions are available for $4.99 monthly or $49.99 yearly. ARROW is available in the US, Canada, the UK and Ireland on the following Apps/devices: Roku (all Roku sticks, boxes, devices, etc), Apple TV & iOS devices, Android TV and mobile devices, Fire TV (all Amazon Fire TV Sticks, boxes, etc), and on all web browsers at https://www.arrow-player.com.
EDITOR’S NOTE: I can’t tell you how excited I am to have the 4K UHD of this movie in my collection. It’s absolutely packed with materials, including new 4K restorations of all three versions of Phenomena, including the original Italian version (116 minutes), the International cut (110 minutes) and the U.S. Creepers version (83 minutes). Plus, there are Italian, international and U.S. trailers, a U.S. radio spot and several commentary tracks. The Italian version has commentary by Troy Howarth and the international version has Argento scholar and author Derek Botelho and film historian, journalist and radio/television commentator David Del Valle. There’s also Of Flies and Maggots, a feature-length 2017 documentary produced by Arrow Films with interviews from co-writer/producer/director Dario Argento, actors Fiore Argento, Davide Marotta, Daria Nicolodi and Fiorenza Tessari, as well as co-writer Franco Ferrini, cinematographer Romano Albani, production manager Angelo Iacono, special optical effects artist Luigi Cozzi, special makeup effects artist Sergio Stivaletti, makeup artist Pier Antonio Mecacci, underwater camera operator Gianlorenzo Battaglia, and composers Claudio Simonetti and Simon Boswell. There’s also a visual essay by Arrow Films producer Michael Mackenzie comparing the different cuts of Phenomena, the “Jennifer” music video directed by Argento, a slipcover with artwork by Nick Charge and a reversible cover with the original Italian Phenomena art.
You can get it from MVD and Synapse. There’s also a limited edition box set from Synapse that has limited edition slipcase packaging designed by artist Wes Benscoter, reversible sleeve artwork, a fold-out double-sized poster, postcard-sized lobby card reproduction artcards and a collector’s booklet featuring liner notes from Mikel J. Koven, Rachael Nisbet and Leonard Jacobs.
A monkey. A girl who can talk to bugs. Donald Pleasence. All directed by Dario Argento. If you don’t immediately say to yourself, “I’m in,” you’re reading the wrong website.
Within the movie’s first two minutes, you realize you’re watching an Argento film. A tourist misses her bus somewhere in the Swiss countryside before she is attacked by an unseen person and then beheaded.
Fast forward a bit, and we catch Jennifer (Jennifer Connelly, Labyrinth, The Rocketeer) arriving at the Richard Wagner Academy for Girls — did I tell you this is an Argento movie? The head of the school, Frau Brückner (Dario Nicolodi, Argento’s wife (at the time) and mother to his daughter Aria, who also co-wrote Suspiria and appeared in Deep Red, Inferno, Tenebreand Opera, amongst other films), already sets up an air of menace. Even her roommate offers no relief, telling Jennifer how much she wishes she could have sex with the heroine’s famous actor father. At this point, Jennifer relates a horrifying story about how her mother left her — it’s a moment of pure pain in a film that hasn’t led you to expect it. That’s because it’s a true story. The true story of how Dario Argento’s mother left his family.
Jennifer tends to sleepwalk, which leads her through the school and up to the roof, where she watches a student get murdered. She wakes up, falls and runs from the murderer, ending up in the woods where she’s rescued by Inga the chimp — again, did I mention this is an Argento film? Inga works for forensic entomologist John McGregor (Pleasence). Argento was inspired by the fact that insects are often used in crime investigations to learn how old a body is and worked that into this film. McGregor knows that Jennifer can talk to the bugs.
After returning to the school, things go from bad to worse. Jennifer’s roommate is murdered, and a firefly leads our sleepwalking protagonist to a glove covered by Great Sarcophagus flies, which eat decaying human flesh, which can only mean that the killer is keeping his body — again, Argento.
At this point, Phenomena pays tribute to Carrie, with the other students making fun of her regarding her love of bugs. She calls a swarm of flies into the building, and it collapses, which leads to Frau Brückner recommending her to a home for the criminally insane. Luckily, Jennifer runs to McGregor, who gives her a bug in a glass case that she can use to track the murderer. Again, you know who. The bug leads Jennifer to the same house we saw at the film’s beginning.
Meanwhile, McGregor is killed after Inga is locked outside. True fact: the chimpanzee who played Inga, Tanga, sounds like she was uncontrollable. She ran away for an entire evening of the shoot and nearly bit off one of Jennifer Connelly’s fingers.
Let me see if I can sum up the craziness that ensues: Jennifer calls her father’s lawyer for help, who ends up bringing Frau Brückner back into this mess, who tries to poison Jennifer and then knocks her out with a piece of wood. She then KOs a cop before Jennifer escapes, going through a dungeon and a basement until she falls into a pool that is packed with maggot-ridden corpses. This is the point in the film where you may want to stop eating because it gets rather intense from here on out. As Jennifer escapes that watery tomb, she hears someone crying. That someone is Frau’s son, who was born from a rape. Jennifer asks him why she thinks he’s a monster, to which he turns to face her and scares the fucking shit out of her. Seriously, it’s jolting — the kid has Patau Syndrome, a real chromosomal abnormality (it’s makeup in the film, but looks quite true to life). He then chases Jennifer into a motorboat, but at the last second, she calls a swarm of flies to attack him. He falls into the water, and the boat explodes, and he dies, and…whew.
I know this film is 32 years old, but I will leave some spoiler space here because what happens next is crazy.
Jennifer reaches the shore just as her father’s lawyer arrives. All well, all good and then, out of nowhere, Frau cuts the dude’s head clean off. Plus, she’s already killed the cop, and she goes absolutely shithouse.
“He was diseased, but he was my son! And you have… Why didn’t I kill you before? I killed that no-good inspector and your professor friend to protect him! And now… I’m gonna KILL YOU TO AVENGE HIM! Why don’t you call your INSECTS! GO ON! CALL! CALL!”
At this point, Inga, the chimpanzee, comes out of nowhere and kills Frau with a razor. Keep in mind that this is not just one cut. This is a simian who knows how to get the murder business done.
Jennifer and Inga hug. Roll the credits.
Phenomena was the last Argento movie to get significant distribution in the U.S., thanks (or no thanks) to New Line Cinema, which played it here as Creepers. This version is 33 minutes shorter than the original and has so many scenes shuffled that it makes little or no sense. Also, unlike other Argento films, Goblin only has two songs in this, as modern bands like Iron Maiden and Motörhead are featured.
I love this movie. It makes little sense, but you don’t walk into an Italian horror film expecting narrative structure. You hope to see some crazy gore, some interesting death scenes and maggots — all things that this film more than delivers. I’m not the only fan of this flick — the Japanese video game Clock Tower is an homage to this film, even featuring a heroine named Jennifer.
BONUS: We did a podcast all about this movie, and you can hear it here:
BONUS BONUS: Here’s a drink recipe.
Inga and Jennifer
1/2 oz. 99 Bananas
3 oz. half and half
1/2 oz. coconut rum
1 1/2 oz. orange juice
1/2 tsp. grenadine
Pour all of the ingredients in a shaker and do your thing.
Trip to Bangkok, Coffin Included has Jess Franco in pulp adventure mode, making a loose adaption of an Edgar Wallace story. Colonel Daniel Blimp (Howard Vernon) of the British Secret Service is in Bangkok investigating the murder of the British ambassador by a blind man. Blimp is joined by another younger singer agent played by José Llamas who can do the actual fighting because, well, Vernon is pushing 78 or so here.
While this was made in Palma de Mallorca and Benidorm for the interiors, the exteriors really are Bangkok and Singapore, as Juan Soler flew himself there and was a crew of one capturing all the establishing shots.
The killer being blind is the whole plot of a cult leader named Professor Tao, who trains the blind to murder. This is more adventure than your normal Franco sleaze, yet there is a chase scene with a nude woman who stays disrobed on screen for ten minutes, so it’s not like Jess is slowing down at all. I also like the idea that Tao is actually motivated to save the world as he saw world leaders destroy the world in a cave vision, so that’s why he started his cult of doom.
Also: Lina Romay shows up in a wheelchair for less than a few seconds and it still filled me with utter joy.
Canadian studio Emmeritus Productions may not have had much money, but they made some interesting movies, including porn-based detective story Blue Murder, Death In Hollywood, horror anthology Shock Chamber, post-apocalyptic Survival Earth, Diamon In the Rough, Body Count, Satanic conspiracy thriller Mark of the Beast, The Borrower, The Bounty Hunter, Lady Bear, Last Chance, The Hijacking of Studio 4, Niagra Strip, SOV history film The Chronicle of 1812, Fly With the Hawk, Virgin Paradise, Commando Games, Marked for Death, Price of Vengeance, Race to Midnight and The Edge.
Also, they made The Tower.
Directed and written by Jim Makichuk, the same man who created Ghostkeeper, this is a Canadian science fiction tale of the Sandawn Building, a high rise of tomorrow that has a computer running it named LOLA and man, avoid all futuristic buildings in the North-West Territory that have shopping and living amenities because I am convinced you’re either going to contract a disease that makes a sex organ grow in your armpit or you will be killed by a supercomputer.
None of this is obvious to the man who created her, Watson, who sees humans the same way she does: as sources of heat energy. So on the Friday night that LOLA loses its mind, the inhabitants of an ad agency — nuke these people from orbit — as well as Old Man Sandawn, his wife, his mistress, some criminals and a security guard and his way out of his league girlfriend who is just there to swim — all get trapped and menaced by a building.
For some reason, there’s also an exotic dancer who can barely dance who wants to sleep with Watson, but you know, it’s so cold in Canada that even their movies have padding.
This movie is worth watching not only for the worst depiction of an ad agency in a film — those marker renderings are trash — but also for an old woman who knows that a computer is trying to kill her and decides to go try on feather boas and have a mall makeover instead.
Frank Meyer was a homeless guy in real life and that’s who he is in this movie, a man who lives in the warehouse of a trucking company where he’s abused by his co-workers most of the time. He also dreams of death and man, it’s not pretty. This is a film desperate to chase away nearly everyone, starting with him smashing a kid’s head open with a pipe, running over her body with a truck and then messily devouring her brain.
Still here?
This was released by Sub Rosa in 2004 after being an underground VHS passaround film and if you’re ready for the kind of weirdness you once needed multiple mixtapes to see, this is it. The guys at the truck garage — introduced in a hilarious pause to see the names Reservoir Dogs style moment — decide to throw him a birthday party and some geeky dude interrupts it. Frank remembers that his mother told him to never lie and always tell people before he kills them. So when Frank tells someone that he’s going to cut off their head and shit down their neck, well, it’s no threat. It’s a promise that we’re going to see.
For a movie that has a man searching for love — alright, gigantic breasts — and killing women left and right, this ends with a sweetness that’s kind of heartwarming if you can get past every moment of sheer black humored piss in your drink madness. I mean, as bad as Frank can be, at least he follows up on his promises and has some cats that he loves, Herman, Frankie, Lily, Mommy and The Maltese Cat.
This was directed, written, produced, edited and shot by Escalpo Don Balde who is really Steve Ballot. Frank starts by telling us that this is a story of love and evil and man, he wasn’t lying. It’s not a road that many will want to travel, but it’s Herschell Gordon Lewis, John Waters and more than anything Bloodsucking Freaks, a movie that you’ll rush to shut off the moment anyone walks in the room excapt that you’re an adult now.
Ballot told Film Threat that the movie was made with his family: “My family had a warehouse business with forklifts, tractor-trailers, truck drivers, warehouse workers and a 133,000 square foot building. I could use all that. There was a former homeless man that the company adopted and let live in the back room. He would be the star. I had a 5-year-old niece that was the cutest little kid in the world. I would start the movie with her. My pot dealer was a classic Brooklyn tough guy. I could use him too. And like John Waters before me, I could cast the movie with weirdos I met on the street. So I started shooting with my $1100 consumer JVC SVHSC camera on the weekends. I shot about forty SVHSC tapes over a four year period, and then spent about six months editing it together with two VCRs.”
You read that right. The little girl that dies in the beginning is his niece.
I can’t even imagine the rest of the footage that didn’t make it into this movie.
The reissued art for this movie could totally be an Aircel comic.
James R. Buick, who directed Bikers Versus the Undead and co-wrote it with Diane Chapman, was a one and done filmmaker, gifting us with only this lone shot on video effort.
Somewhere outside of Phoenix, a man named Speed (Jerry Anderson) — who even gets his own theme song over the credits — has created a formula called Agent Live that turns everyone — including a dog! — into zombies. Well, the goal was something that killed bikers and didn’t harm normal people — maybe using the formula of the American Motorcycle Association, “99% of the motorcycling public are law-abiding; there are 1% who are not.” — but it backfires and turns everyone into zombies and does nothing to said bikers, who we assume have rates of alcohol and hard drugs in their system — this is not a knock, but a bit of praise — and they aren’t impacted. Or as Lemmy once said, “I never said speed was a good idea for you. I said that I liked it.”
What’s really surprising in this is that the fight scenes are so big, like a cast of thousands all battling out there in the desert and if you enjoyed the biker scenes in Dawn of the Dead, logic says that you will enjoy a full-length film with the same idea. I’m also impressed that someone was convinced to do a full body burn stunt in this movie, but then again, in 1985 video stores were dying for product and this helps the movie stand out. Sure, a lot of it is too dark to see and the quality of nearly every shot is bad and the soundtrack is distorted, but if you’ve come this far in your shot on video journey, you know, why not go all the way? And who decided that organized crime and conservative politics were the real enemy, not the zombies? The latter just makes me sad because all the bikers I knew who used to pound it out with my aunt and her friends used to despise authority and hate cops so much that they would climb up and tear down gigantic flags and what do you do with a huge hundred foot Stars and Bars? But anyways, those same guys that were public nuisances and named speed 7 and 14 after the truck stop in Ohio where I used to get great burgers and strawberry shortcake in a dirty coffee mug from the meanest waitress ever are now all in on yelling about Brandon and maybe they should go back and watch this and concentrate on getting ready for the real troubles and by that, I mean the inevitable zombie apocalypse.
Also: Major points to the biker who earns his blue wings by making sweet love to a zombified girl down by the fire.
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