Festive Fears With The Family: Home For The Holidays (1972)

Home For The Holidays (1972)
Rating: ***1/2

Starring: Jessica Walter, Sally Field, Eleanor Parker 

On a stormy Christmas Eve, married Jo (Jill Haworth), alcoholic Freddie (Jessica Walter) and young Christine (Sally Field) are summoned back to their old country home by their sister Alex (Eleanor Parker) to help settle a disturbing family matter; their father (Walter Brennan) suspects that his current wife Elizabeth (Julie Harris) has been slowly poisoning him as she's rumored around town to have murdered her own husband the same way years ago. Paranoid and desperate to save himself, he orders his daughters to do the unspeakable: murder his wife!

With some of the sisters not being big fans of their patriarch and his condescending tongue, the women mostly scoff off his demands and see his ramblings as nothing more than senility finally getting to the old man. After one uneasy Christmas Eve dinner and an incident with Freddie getting suicidal-drunk, Jo decided to brave the storm and ride out to catch a flight back, only to be pitchforked dead by a figure in a yellow rainslicker and red gloves. It appears that there is indeed a murderer within the family, but could it be Elizabeth as their father suspected all along? Or perhaps another lunatic out to thin down the family?

As a made-for-TV proto-slasher, Home For The Holidays plays less like your standardized bodycounter filled with murdered teens and masked hulks, and more like a cozy Sunday afternoon whodunnit thriller packed with a few familiar horror tropes. Little slasher set-ups like a bonafide chase through the dark, rainy woods and the killer skulking around ala point-of-view shots do occasionally pop up, but majority of the play doesn't abide by the typical slasher trappings completely, thus the twisty surprises in its direction often come genuine and enticing, even if the story bogs down into TV soap territories more often than it needs to. Thankfully, the film doesn't overstay its welcome and gets the intrigue rolling as soon as the women are made aware of their father's plight, squeezing in Gothic sensibilities, Hitchcockian flair (Psycho (1960) screenwriter Joseph Stefano did write this) and an impressive performance from its casts to keep this murder plot exciting albeit the minimal, bloodless bodycount.

Hardly a complicated film to sit through, Home For The Holidays (1972) is a simple holiday thriller in the vein of paperback mystery novels, or at least a longer episode of Murder, She Wrote. If you fancy yourself a fun whodunnit that doesn't go all-out exploitative, this is a fair title to indulge in and enjoy during the Winter holidays or whenever it's raining outside. 

Bodycount:

1 female stabbed in the back with a pitchfork

1 female pulled into a bathtub, drowned

1 male murdered, method unknown

Total; 3

Eastwood vs The Vigilante System: Magnum Force (1973)

Magnum Force (1973)
Rating: ****1/2
Starring: Clint Eastwood, Hal Holbrook, Mitchell Ryan

When Dirty Harry (1971) came out in theaters back in the days, audiences saw the birth of a future pop culture icon Inspector Harry Callahan, a cop who gets assigned to "every dirty job that comes along" and handling them through means crossing professional boundaries, all in the name of his own vision of justice. In that movie, Callahan went bullet-to-bullet with an insane sniper going by the moniker Scorpio and as impressive it is as a movie (perhaps one of the best action flicks ever) it doesn't really challenges you to ponder on whether or not you should empathize with its villain.

Scorpio was a heartless, manipulative psychopath who demands money under the false pretenses that he'll stop his killings should he get his ransom, so it's no deal-breaker that we'd root for him getting the hot leaded end of Callahan's controversial yet well deserving sense of justice, but what will the inspector do should he face someone who lives by the same brand of antiheroism, set to the extreme? This is where Magnum Force (1973) comes in.

The first sequel of many following the further high caliber cop adventures of "Dirty Harry", it starts with mobster Carmine Ricca being acquitted of a mass murder on a legal technicality. Smugly driving away from the court with his cohorts, Ricca and company soon got the attention of a motorcycle cop and asked to pull over in an isolated road due to some traffic violation. Unbeknownst to them, this is all just a foil as the cop proceeds to execute all of them with gunfire.

Among the many to respond to this eventual crime scene is none other than Inspector Callahan, alongside his partner Earlington "Early" Smith. Although supposed to be on stakeout duty, the Inspectors have no qualms sticking their noses in this circus, though their superior Lieutenant Neil Briggs thinks otherwise and would rather have the two take down other baddies instead, including a couple of plane hijackers and a gang of pharmacy store robbers.

However, it seems the cop-gone-rogue is far from done being judge, jury and executioner as San Francisco's underworld continues to thin down. Hoping to end the threat as soon as possible, the city's police department have no choice but to assign Harry on homicide to help with the investigation, leading him to suspect the vigilante is someone within the department after one too many coincidences concerning the deaths and a particular new recruit.

The whole film is practically a cop drama with a small slice of proto-slasher action as the scenes involving the vigilante cop strongly resembles the stalk-and-kill style of later slasher villains, only with a handgun. The vigilante cop is shot mostly from the neck down whenever they appear on screen at the early half of the film, an obscuring technique used for plenty of horror movie killers, and the executions they bring have this focused build-up that often ends with brutal results. All of this working its way to a climactic cat-and-mouse chase between Callahan and the vigilante-type inside an abandoned harbor bay, not so unlike the slasher finales between a masked killer and the final character.

Cleverly, these scenes are incorporated into the story with a rather thought-provoking take as while the killings only target those criminal types at first, it gradually starts to include those that just happens to be in the way the further the plot goes. This gives both our main casts and the audience new grounds to cover regarding grey area characters, identifying with them regarding their goals but also questioning where exactly do we draw the line, an exceptional and intriguing position to put the likes of someone who isn't that big of a fan of the law as "Dirty Harry". Even more noticeable is that while not out riding through the city of San Francisco looking for hoodlums to kill, the rogue is a rather likable individual, particularly during the times they're just shooting the breeze in vigorous zeal with the then-unknowing Callahan.

In the midst of this, Magnum Force still doesn't forget its run-in-the-mill shoot'em up thriller roots, fortunately, so while this concept of grey shade law enforcement is tackled, the film is no short of the random misadventures of inspector Callahan thrown here and there to pad time, establish a tone and/or keep the main mystery exciting. Some of them works, others are cheesy for how odd they are, but they're there to entertain and entertain they did.

It also helps Callahan in this sequel is portrayed to be less angry than he is in Dirty Harry (1971), keeping it chill and even smiles a lot more despite getting the bad end of the stick or receiving a mouthful from Lt. Briggs or any higher officials. He takes his time to calculate his moves and even isn't shy on hinting a genuinely calm and humorous demeanor underneath his tough as nails personality.

All in all, whether you see it as an action flick or a potential proto-slasher, this is a movie that does little wrong but isn't guilty of missing an opportunity or two; some characters are introduced that could have been expanded (Harry's neighbor Sunny, who has the hots for the rugged cop, more or less just steps in to make love and almost be a victim of vigilantism) and the plot has its moments of simplicity in its approach that it's almost readable in its direction, but as a sequel, Magnum Force (1973) strives to move its predecessor further from being a sort-of fascist law enforcer flick and it succeeds to reasonable levels. Clint Eastwood shines well in this action-filled cop mystery, armed with his trusted .44 Magnum to put an end to a humongous killcount for our viewing pleasure!

Bodycount:
4 males shot to death
1 male shot
6 males and 5 females gunned down with a submachine gun
1 male shot
1 male shot
1 male shot
1 female poisoned with a drain cleaner
1 male shot to death
1 male shot
1 male shot to death
1 male shot to death
1 female repeatedly shot, crashes and falls off a building
1 male shot to death
1 male shot with a shotgun
1 male shot
1 male shot
1 male shot
1 male shot
1 male shot
1 male crashes his car through a crane, killed
1 male decimated by an explosive
1 male killed in vehicular collision
1 male had his throat beaten repeatedly
1 male tossed out of his motor bike and into a bay, drowned upon fall
1 male decimated by an explosive
Total: 38

Golden Title: The Omen (1976)

Let's celebrate Halloween 2019 with a classic.

The Omen (United Kingdom/USA, 1976)
Rating: *****
Starring: Gregory Peck, Lee Remick, Harvey Stephens

In Rome, Robert Thorn, an American diplomat, just received word that his newborn child died at birth, a grave news that is not only distraught to him but will surely crush his wife, Katherine. Hence when a well-meaning priest offered Robert a chance to adopt a newborn child whose mother died during an operation, he is quick to accept the child as his own, naming him Damien, and his wife was none the wiser.

Five years later, not long after Robert gets appointed as the US Ambassador for Great Britain, the Thorns find themselves in an increasingly frightful predicament as mysterious deaths and events start to plague them, beginning with the moment the family nanny commits suicide during Damien's birthday, claiming it is all for the boy. In fact, all of the sudden strange happenings seem to be linked to Damien and it isn't too long before an unsettling truth will come upon the family, as well as to those who insists on aiding them against a powerful dark force.

A prime example of a quintessential title within the 70's Satanic cycle, The Omen (1976) works its apocalyptic narrative through a more subtle and realistic direction compared to, let's say, The Exorcist (1973), a similarly religiously themed horror movie that's made effective thanks to its shocking blasphemous visuals. The Omen, alternatively, focuses more on downplaying the typical onscreen demonic horror elements of nightmare imagery and underworld monsters, in its place instead is a strongly orchestrated sense of helplessness as its plot implies that the Devil's forces may have already got most, if not all of the cards played in the favor of the Beast right at the beginning of the movie, while those who choose to fight against them are doomed to die while their God remains distant or absent.

It's a particularly powerful notion and The Omen (1976) captures this quite intriguingly through its story's flow, starting everything up with good fortune falling upon the Thorns only for it to slowly crumble down as one accident and odd occurrence pressures the family to seek help from both conventional and unconventional ways, leading to either a ghastly death or a revelation that defies rational explanation and leans more on the prophetic. It's this direction that the film revels at and to a good effect, as it eventually questions how much control do our protagonists have to begin with and where exactly does the line draw in regards to what is nothing more than a phase or a pawn to a grand cosmic scheme, which in this case is the Apocalypse as indicated in the Christian Bible. This Biblical concept is justly explored, but done in a way that doesn't feel overly pretentious and still caters to a wide array of horror hounds like you and me.

One of the movie's memorable elements, for example, leans more on the exploitative side of horror as it tackles smaller omens indicated through a photographer's collection of photos they took during Damien's birthday. A lot of these results to well-executed Rube Goldberg-inspired set-pieces that executes victims in spectacular manners, pretty much a precursor to Final Destination movies. (In fact, Final Destination 3 (2006)'s idea of omens through photographs was directly inspired by this movie) Gothic overtones are also strong in this movie's cinematography, done mostly through location shots and gloomy stylized lighting. Add on the Oscar-winning score by none other than Jerry Goldsmith and the effectiveness of The Omen's dark tone is very much achieved.

In terms of talent, The Omen (1976) boasts quite a casts for a horror film with Gregory Peck bringing all he can to the table as the leading man, playing a character determined to dig out the truth yet still holding on to a grounded view to his situation. Young Harvey Stephens, playing Damien, would also become one of the most memorable horror icons to grace cinema, odd as the child barely uttered a word nor did he did anything gradually evil but his very normal appearance contrasts his grim fate as the Antichrist, unsettling at best as one could never tell, reflecting the written deceptive nature of the Devil himself.

All in all, The Omen (1976) is a classic that earned its place among horror giants. Past the religious connotations and the over-the-top deaths, it is a story that can very well transpire in real life as a possibility, questioning fate and control at a terrifyingly psychological manner, thus a true treat for all genre fans, both in and out of the horror community.

Bodycount:
1 baby died during birth, later revealed due to head trauma
1 female hanged
1 male impaled by a broken-off lightning rod
1 unborn child miscarried
1 female pushed through a window, lands on an ambulance
1 male decapitated by a projected glass pane
1 female stabbed with a fork and knife
1 male shot
Total: 8

The Fallen Star: Madhouse (1974)

Madhouse (US/United Kingdom, 1974) (AKA "Deathday", "The Madhouse of Dr. Fear", "The Revenge of Dr. Death")
Rating: ****
Starring: Vincent Price, Peter Cushing, Robert Quarry

As a youngin', my only exposures to the talented Vincent Price were his Inventor role at Edward Scissorhands and that one voice over narration during that one Michael Jackson music video involving dancing zombies and a werecat. It wasn't until I got into high school when Price got re-introduced to me, still in voice over form, through the Tim Burton animation Vincent (1982) as a bonus short from the Nightmare Before Christmas DVD I bought for my sister as a Christmas gift. It was also around that time I was starting to get in touch with my slasher fanaticism again, which lead me to my first feature length Vincent Price-starring movie, House of Long Shadows (1984)! (Also my first Peter Cushing and John Carradine film)

From that point on, I sometimes add some flair and class in my slasher collection by seeking out his other bodycount friendly titles such as his original House of Wax (1953), the two Abominable Doctor Phibes movies and Theatre of Blood (1973). It wasn't until the later blogging years of my current life, however, that I heard about this film, an obscure proto-slasher that have Vincent play not a fiendish avenger with a lust for blood, but a broken man trying to escape a haunting past. Sign me up as intrigued.

A celebrated horror actor famous for his role as Dr. Death, Paul Toombes lives a luxurious Hollywood life with his young fiancee and a plethora of adoring fans (and enemies) both within and outside the limelight. At a party celebrating his 5th Dr. Death film, though, it all comes crumbling down when after finding out his fiance' once starred in adult films, Paul lashed out at the young woman for her career choices and sends her running to a room in tears. Things got a whole lot messier when Paul wakes up in the same room, apparently not remembering when and how, and discovers his young wife-to-be decapitated, much to his horror and shock.

Some years later, Toombes is released from psychiatric care, still blaming himself for the murder despite not remembering how he did it. Acquitted of the killing, though, he finds himself being offered an acting role at jolly good England where they'll be filming a new Doctor Death TV series. Once there, old wounds start to reopen as one by one, staffs and actors involved end up dying in a grisly manner, killed by a maniac in a skull mask and black leather gloves. With Toombes waking up after each death, is he killing for real again? Or could this be the work of a real maniac on the loose?

Based on a 1969 Angus Halliday novel Devilday, Madhouse is a proto-meta-slasher that celebrates and parodies horror careers (particularly Price's), throwing in nods and winks to then's horror community with well-known horror stars such as Peter Cushing and Robert Quarry showing up as wonderful supporting casts, as well as showcasing clips from selected Vincent Price movies as in-universe films. It's structure, though, leans more on a solid slasher outing with whodunnit-style horror drama, as we watch Price's character do further and deeper into maddening dementia as the murders continue and the blame goes far beyond controlled.

With its themes of psychological torment and high rise bodycount, Madhouse definitely has its influences from the Italian Giallo and German Krimi, but it quite fun to note how this film is also ahead of its time with a couple of chase scenes and brutal killings strikingly similar to that of an 80s slasher. Gothic undertones are also ever-present, curiously implemented through the stylish Victorian settings wherein the Dr Death series is being filmed, some odd anachronistic set-pieces (oil lamps in 1970?) and the inclusion of a red herring that came in the form of an old crone, driven mad from a horrific car crash and now lurking in the basement of her own house with her pet spiders. The film can get cheekily hammy with its bounds of campiness and post-mortem wit (even more if we start to consider its dry and dark British humor. I mean really, who continues a TV production after this much death on set?), but its strengths lies within the curveball portrayal of Price's character, far from the fiendish Machiavellian villain and more of a victim himself, trapped in a cycle of madness that appears to be out to get him. (Or, worse, take over him!)

Curiously, the very fact that the movie tries hard to create a sympathetic character out of Price opened a lot of possibilities that the murders are being committed by somebody else due largely on the matter that the story contains so much red herrings and convenient writing. As a whodunnit, this may sound lacking and unimaginative (and at times, it is), but I will at least admit that the reveal is unexpected, albeit slightly cheesy once we also knew the motive. If there's anything I can nitpick about personally is that we really got to see the Dr. Death movies per se, just clips from old Vincent Price movies. I would have been a treat for us genre fans to at least see some original footage of this so-called popular cult character in action, but it hinders the movie hardly so it isn't much of an issue to ponder about.

It's kinda dated, yes, but the fun of this movie comes from the people involved and the strange yet workable direction it possesses. Madhouse is a must see for all slasher fans, a rough gem worthy to be recognize as one of Price's more intricate performance and a fun hodge-podge of goth horror and bodycounting murder mystery.

Bodycount:
1 female found decapitated
1 female hacked on the neck with a pitchfork
1 female strangled, later found hanged with a jump rope
1 male crushed by a lowering prop bed
1 male and 1 female skewered with a sword
1 female found stabbed through the neck with a knife
1 male knifed to death
Total: 8

The Creaky and The Bookie: The Haunted House of Horror (1969)

The Haunted House of Horror (United Kingdom, 1969) (AKA "Horror House", "The Dark")
Rating: **1/2
Starring: Frankie Avalon, Jill Haworth, Dennis Price

Despite it's title indicating a specter-infested household, this Swinging 60s UK horror has little to do with the supernatural and more inclined to carbon-copying a Hitchcokian thriller to an extent.

We follow a group of young partygoers as they, to get some thrill out of the evening, boogie the night away at a remote and supposedly haunted mansion where a crazed maniac hacked his family to death twenty something years ago. The place's history eventually sparked an interest within the group's macabre side so out comes a seance session and down goes one of them, hacked to death by a kukri-wielding psycho after they split up to explore the mansion.

After finding the body, our friends dread the idea of getting the police involved (despite some protests that they should) as some of them already have records and decide to hide the body and lie about the murder when the disappearance becomes very noticeable. It isn't long before the group's unofficial leader, Chris, tries to play detective as he suspects one of them's responsible, but just how well is this gonna end up when the red herrings are everywhere and the bodycount's rising?

A low-key forerunner to your classic teen slasher, The Haunted House of Horror (or Horror House under some releases) integrates the go-go phase of vintage London with a cheesy yet considerably atmospheric whodunit murder mystery, chucking wooden acting from the likes of a miscast then-teen star/singer Frankie Avalon and a couple of brutal blood-soaked murders. As its direction is more centered on building a mystery, the story can get very slow as we hobble from one police procedural to another, all the while our gang of brightly-clothed 20 somethings squabble over either the identity of the killer (who some suspect to be one of them) or whether keeping the murder on such a low-profile is a good idea or not.

The thing about Haunted House of Horror is that can get considerably atmospheric, interesting even the more it dwells into the identity of our murderer and the panic our little gang is boiling in, but there are a couple of moments where the film can be a mess due to its troubled production, resulting to some continuity errors and post-filming bits involving dumb cops and side-plots involving a stalker being re-shoot and edited into the movie, making the final result barely recognizable from what was originally a more established and focused psychodrama/murder mystery hybrid. As a written and directed debut feature by Michael Armstrong who would later do the notorious cult fave Mark of The Devil (1970), I honestly would like to see how crazed up this film could have been if it was left alone, but I will admit that the killer here was hidden pretty well, though I do wish they could have at least made a better motive for their killings and gave them a better resolution after all of that waiting and talking we have to endure.

It really adds little to what one would expect to get from a 60s psychothriller, but for some people such as myself, this kind of simplicty can be enough to warrant some sort of entertainment. Despite how shoddy the end result is, Haunted House of Horror isn't unwatchable and I might even consider this as a guilty pleasure to just how hard it looks to be attempting to be this smart and bloody horror mystery, even if said horror is few and far in between. It's beautifully shot, I will give the movie that, especially around the interiors of the titular "haunted house" with its gorgeous lighting and Gothic aesthetics. The limping bodies rolling around as they get hacked around also gave what little murder scenes this film have that slice of brutality that's kinda welcome to a very procedural plotting such as this.

Still, it's hard to recommend Haunted House of Horror knowing how much of a missed opportunity this film is, but I'm not going to stop anybody willing to try this seminal dead teenager prototype. If you fancy yourself a cheesy horror movie with 60s swingers getting lopped around with a strikingly bloody blade, then this is a good little title to start with before going treating yourself with the real big guns!

Bodycount:
1 male hacked to death with a kukri
1 male stabbed in the back with a kukri
1 male hacked to death with a kukri
Total: 3

Hardly Ever Missed, Did I?: Targets (1968)

Targets (1968) (AKA "Before I Die")
Rating: ****
Starring: Tim O'Kelly, Boris Karloff, Nancy Hsueh

If there will be films out there showing the transition of cinematic monsters from folklore ghouls such as vampires and mummies, to maniacal men of slasher flicks, Targets is one of them.

In one of its two parallel plots, Boris Karloff plays a semi-autobiographical character named Byron Orlok, an aging veteran horror actor who wanted to retire, believing he and the roles he plays are outdated as there are far more horrible things people can be afraid of like mass killings and war. This, though, isn't sitting well with most of his colleagues, seeing his claims as either a horrible joke or Orlok just not being satisfied with the current project he is working in, much to the concern of his secretary Jenny and a young script writer named Sammy Michaels. In the end, Orlok agrees to at least make a final in-person promotional appearance at a local drive-in theater for his fans before leaving Tinseltown for good.

In the meantime, we have Bobby Thompson, a clean-cut insurance agent and Vietnam War veteran living in the suburban San Fernando Valley area with his family. Underneath his quiet demeanor, though, is a deeply disturbed gun collector just waiting for the right time to put his sharpshooting skills to the test on some worthy targets. One morning, he finally gets to do what he wanted murdering his wife, his mother, and a delivery boy at his home before spending the afternoon on a killing spree, shooting people in passing cars and, eventually, at the very same drive-in where Orlok is to make his appearance that evening.

More of a thriller than horror, Targets is an interesting fiend of a movie that tackles the subject of human monsters and their place within society, particularly in cinema and the then-ongoing Vietnam war. On one end (and perhaps at a first glance), one might draw the conclusion this film will be nothing more than to show jarring scenes of a madman hunting innocent people down like deers but with Karloff's half of the film focusing more on his character's career and his point of view of what truly makes a horror film scary, this title sides a tad closer to being a dark, modest and quite clever satire of what can be considered terrifying within the ever-evolving modern horror media, thus bridging itself to the unnerving shootout happening in media res, perpetrated by the nihilistic and psychologically damaged.

Amazingly, both halves of Targets work quite well thanks to the strengths they're focusing on; with Karloff's half, it's mostly character study so it definitely helps that his role's a fun one with his "old timer" wit and somewhat snarky remarks for his own works, as well as the fact that his character kinda has a point to his opinion concerning his job as a character actor and the state of horror in that day and age. It also helps that he's surrounded with a decent amount of fair performances by the likes of Peter Bogdanovich and Nancy Hsueh as an enthusiastic script writer and well-meaning assistant respectively, adding some layers within the Orlok character through his interactions with them, thus further shaping some backdrop to his consideration for retirement.

In contrast, we don't exactly get to see much why our gunman spirals into the need to commit his crime despite the presence of dialogue and interaction at his part of the plot. Played by Tim O'Kelly with much  normalcy and quiet demeanor, Bobby spends a fair amount of his screentime being a guy who can easily blend in with the crowd, spending time with his wife and family all the while keeping up with a little collecting hobby. The only bits of red flags here and there are that young Bob here is a Vietnam vet, his collection happens to be of guns and he, at one point, aimed his rifle at his own father during a shootout session. We can tell at that point that he's not right in the head but the lack of further explanation and the way he pulls off this rather near-realistic shootout as if it's simply a thing he has to do (despite he himself not understanding why as well) makes up quite a lot for Target's lack of exploitative blood work and gore for just how depressing and uneasy these shootouts can get. (One scene had us looking at the aftermath of a shot victim in which their own child sits next to them, crying.)

The only matter here that I think could have gone better was the ending; with Bobby now terrorizing the same drive-in where Byron is at, our gunman was soon forced to make a run for it when he realizes he's outnumbered, coming across Karloff's character as he approaches to confront the madman. Without giving away much, let's just say the downfall felt too quick, reducing a killer to a sniveling coward just after a few blow and leaving Byron to question himself if that was what he was afraid of? I guess it can be seen as the film's attempt to further ground the killer in a more realistic plight, if only they didn't show him later smiling, being escorted to a cop car while remarking how he "hardly ever missed", thus pinching a slight side of misplaced cheese and dark humor.

With all of this, Targets is clearly not a slasher film, but it is an interesting watch that says quite a lot regarding "human monsters" in cinema and might as well be one of the few titles out there to drive horror cinema to the modern era. Whether you look at it as a spree killing horror movie or a cinematic satire, this is one recommendable title I encourage all true fright fans to see.

Bodycount:
1 female corpse seen (film)
2 males drowned in flood (film)
1 female shot
1 female shot
1 male shot
1 passenger shot with a rifle
1 passenger shot with a rifle
1 passenger shot with a rifle
1 female shot with a rifle
1 passenger shot with a rifle
1 driver shot with a rifle
1 male shot with a shotgun
1 male shot on the face with a rifle
1 male dies from a rifle wound
1 male shot on the head with a rifle
1 male seen shot on the neck with a rifle
Total: 17

Too Spoopy: Scary Movie (1991)

Scary Movie (1991)

Rating: *1/2

Starring:John Hawkes, Suzanne Aldrich, Ev Lunning

Before the term becomes notoriously associated with a certain horror spoof franchise that I personally believe should have stopped as a trilogy, there was another slasher film satire called "Scary Movie" back at the early 90s, one that poked fun at the subgenre's conventions without the need of completely parodying it, though I'm not sure if that's any better.

Our masked slasher...or is it?

It all takes place in one Halloween night, the same night a mental patient was being transported to another clinic, only for his ride to crash and set him loose. News of this escape soon reach the authorities of a nearby town, as well as finding its way to the town's annual Halloween fair and into the ears of one Warren. 

Now, the thing about Warren is that (pardon my French) he's the biggest pussy around, so much so that it borderlines dementia and it seems everyone (and I mean everyone) loves to pick on him because of this. So when Warren tries to warn everybody about the escaped nutcase, it comes to no surprise that nobody believes him until, that is, something happens inside the fair's haunted funhouse and Warren finds himself trapped inside it, accompanied by someone masked and carrying a deadly scythe. Could it be the looney from the crashed looney bin? Or perhaps something much worse?

From my seating, Scary Movie (1991) can be best described as a potboiling teaser of sorts, playing with a number of imagery normally associated with slasher horror such as obscured figures picking up dropped rubber masks (and presumably putting it on), people reacting to mysterious noises before cutting away to another scene (a practice used in slashers to imply a death or a red herring), and even glimpses of what could be bodies being dragged inside houses. It is these familiar set-ups that most likely made a lot of slasher fans comfortably expect bonafide dead teenager mayhem from this movie, but with the kind of twists and direction made, these might as well be the very same tropes that puts off half of (if not most) viewers by the end of the film. 

Without spoiling much, Scary Movie (1991) decided to play a lot of curve balls in regards to these cliches, blurring the line of what's legit and not. We see bodies and masked figures, but not all of it is what it seems until the time our lead finally gets out of the haunt house and gets confronted by the police, when we were finally given a clear explanation of what happened in the entire night. Can't say I dislike the conclusion as I already seen other slasher flicks do something similar to it, but I cannot deny that I felt cheated and underwhelmed because of it.

Perhaps the issues I have with this film is that it's not really all that funny despite the dark comedy approach and it's dangerously close to being boring; we got some running gags and quirky scenarios, but the mean-spirited tone and lack of likable personalities made it hard to be invested in the story and/or root for any of the characters, thus I usually find myself waiting for the next possibly legit horror scene to pop up and hope it will be satisfying. (And more often than not, they are not.) Bloodletting is unsurprisingly minimal with the kind of direction the plot headed to, but I will say that they almost got it right with the tension, mainly at the last act that sort of resembles the funhouse scenes of Tobe Hooper's The Funhouse. This build up for intensity could have been the movie's saving grace if only the characterization of our supposed hero wasn't such a tedious chore to watch as he literally wuss out at the very slightest instance of something "horrible" happening and the few scenes he decided to brave up and defend someone are rewarded with laughter, psychosis, and more insults. If the movie is slowly breaking down our protagonist for the sake of the movie's twist, then the least they could so is actually make the descent thrilling to compensate for the horror half of the movie or, should they really want to stick with the comedy, actually find some material that's worth laughing at or at least make the cast slightly less annoying.

Now that I am older, I will say that the Wayan brother's first Scary Movie is a dumb, vulgar and cheap parody that tries to be the Airplane! of teen slasher flicks of its time, but at least it has the energy and guts to pull some punches. Scary Movie (1991) has barely the energy, barely made any punches, but at least it tries to have a solid story to follow as everything that happens in the movie has a reason for it, so I guess the real problem is the execution of its concept. With this, Scary Movie (1991) is either a misunderstood hidden gem or an underwhelming timewaster depending on how well you can take the joke and/or how far you can stay away from your slasher comfort zone. It personally did nothing for my end but should you wish to experience grueling 90 minutes of some wimp freaking out just cause he saw a masked guy during Halloween, then what the hell is wrong with you feel free to indulge in this.

Bodycount:

1 male mangled in car crash

1 male shot with a shotgun

Total: 2

Short Shear Terror: Within The Woods (1978)

Within The Woods (1978)
Rating: **1/2
Starring: Bruce Campbell, Ellen Sandweiss, Mary Valenti

When it comes to the Evil Dead franchise, I can only recall fond memories around it as I grew up to the man I am today, a horror junkie with a passion for gore and masked maniacs!

I'm sure that's an eye hanging by the socket there...
At least, I think so.

While I did saw snippets of the films as a toddler, I have my first full Evil Dead experience when my dad borrowed an imported DVD from an office friend and let me watch it one Friday night alone when I was twelve or thirteen. (My family can be weird like that) Obviously, the gore was intense for a wee child but it did spark my interest for the rest of the franchise, following it with Evil Dead II when I managed to snag a VCD copy during my 15 birthday and then completing the film trilogy with Army of Darkness via cable one Saturday night some years later. (I had to thank my mum for that one!)

In a way, the franchise also helped me fill a geeky void during my high school years, introducing me to horror franchising and influences as I looked up the Necronomicon and found about its Lovecraftian origins (in turn, introducing me to Lovecraftian horror), as well as opened the floodgates of comics and horror-based video games as I began reading Dynamite Entertainment's Army of Darkness comic series and at least made aware of the Evil Dead video games.

It was around that time that I also found out about Within the Woods, AKA the proto-type Evil Dead. Reading about it online made me curious and egging to see it but that being the time Youtube was still in its baby steps or non-existing, I can only picture what the short was like...

Until, like many titles here, I got into college; by then, I probably exposed myself to over 100 slasher titles or so, hence I do have a slight idea and reason why I am covering this here short.

Is it me, or does this cabin look bigger in the outside?

Plot-wise, Within The Woods kinda reminds me of movies like Scalps (1983) and Ghost Dance (1980), wherein individuals get possessed and turned into killers after disturbing an ancient native American burial ground. Woods is exactly that, except with two teenage couples relaxing in a cabin deep in the forest, one pair deciding to stay behind to play Monopoly (?!) while the other pair venture out for a picnic. Said picnicking couple finds a ceremonial dagger while digging for a fire pit, angering an ancient evil which proceeds to murder the boyfriend (Played by Bruce Campbell) and turning him into a gory, bloodthirsty revenant.

The rest of the short runs like your standard slasher climax: girl gets chased back into the cabin, zombie boyfriend returns to start murdering whoever is left breathing, final girl remains to fight off and kill her former lover, cliffhanger ending. I guess it is pretty useless to complain about the production quality seeing Within the Woods was made sometime around the late 70s with a mediocre budget ($1,600, if my sources are right) before being nearly forgotten, but if one would try to forget that this is the supposed stepping stone for the first Evil Dead movie and simply look at it as a short film, it is criminally terrible.

It's hardly visible with its terrible lighting, the script is simplistically cheesy and the plot is pretty non-existent, but I feel that this movie will cater more to fans and probably the few with the patience of a forgiving God, as its concept is still pretty fun in its plainness and the gore effects (those that we can see) look terrifyingly intense despite the low budget. I guess it's grindhouse quality helps ease any dissatisfaction I have with Within the Woods, fueling me with a strong sense of nostalgia that's enough to overlook most of its flaws and just see it as a nearly lost piece of horror cinema so, in a way, this short did okay. Just okay.

Bottomline, Within the Woods is almost terrible, but as a forerunner to The Evil Dead, one of the most epic horror franchise out there? Worthwhile baby steps, people. Worthwhile baby steps...

Bodycount:
1 male found slaughtered
1 female stabbed on the throat with a dagger
1 male knifed on the gut, later found slaughtered
Total: 3

Double the Mayhem, Double the Cheese: Wicked, Wicked (1973)

Wicked, Wicked (1973)
Rating: ***
Starring: David Bailey, Tiffany Bolling, Randolph Roberts

Welcome to the Grandview hotel! One of California's finer beachside establishments with good food, good music, good lounging and... a killer wearing an over-sized monster mask ?!

It appears someone is lingering all over the hotel, stalking and murdering women before sneaking their bodies away to God-knows-where, leading to most of the hotel's staffs believing that these women just sneaked away without ever paying their bills. However, the hotel's guard-slash-former detective Rick Stewart doesn't buy this and believes something else might be at play here.

He decided to look further into this, much to the disapproval of his colleagues who fear his snooping might give the hotel a bad reputation, but when Stewart's ex-wife-slash- lounge singer Lisa James decided to show up and perform at the hotel, Rick is determined to find the maniac before they strike again...or at least before they see the former-missus dons a blonde wig!

As much as I want to describe my experience with Wicked, Wicked as simple as "weird", this proto-slasher actually won me over with its tongue-in-cheek undertone and, as gimmicky as it is, the utilized split-screen format, marketed here as "Duo-Vision".

It did take me a bit to get used to the two-screen storytelling, but once I adjusted to the cheesy gimmick, I found myself captivated and slightly-impressed on how they put it to use, giving us dual perspectives of some single scenes as well as utilizing it for flashbacks, reveals, and even a few details that fleshed out some of our likely suspects, without the need of halting the main story. It's silly, yes, but it helps in the very little way it can in making something out of the tepid story, which is already being boosted up as an entertainment piece by its high dose of camp and some worthwhile musical undertones. If anything, the movie appears to be poking fun at itself as a rather carefree and bodycount-friendly take on a psycho-thriller, a film entertainingly dumb enough to go well with hot buttered popcorn and switched-off brains.

This being said, Wicked, Wicked isn't going to be a movie for anybody expecting a well-written and well-executed horror flick as, for one, it wasted a potential murder mystery angle by revealing the killer way too early, leaving a good dose of the remaining run focusing on our leads figuring what we already know. The only real mystery left at that point is "why" the killer's committing the murders, but if one would focus on the split screen flashbacks, that department's pretty standard on my book as well.

Due to this, mighty good portions of the movie goes through a lot of fillers answering questions one could have already figured out by then, unnecessarily and unevenly slowing the film down. Fortunately, after so many cop-and-killer shenanigans that includes dirty pipes and hidden rooms, Wicked, Wicked manages to get back on its feet once the killer's little secrets are discovered by our hapless heroes, revealing what he does to the bodies that rings familiarity with later slasher flicks such as The Horrible House on the Hill (1974), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) and Pieces (1982), and soon wrapping up rather cheekily with a hilarious villain demise and a meta-joke that sounds awfully like what the gravedigger spat out at Friday the 13th Part 6: Jason Lives.

All-in-all, I think Wicked, Wicked is a flawed treat, a new little guilty pleasure I can heartily enjoy only if there's nothing else to see. It ain't that great to be wholefully recommended but it wouldn't hurt to give it a peek if it's on TV.

Bodycount:
1 female repeatedly knifed on the gut
1 female repeatedly knifed on the gut
1 female repeatedly knifed on the gut
1 male shot death (flashback)
1 male brained with a fire poker (flashback)
1 female knifed on the gut
1 female decapitated with a guillotine
2 females found dismembered and sewn back
1 male falls and lands on a spiked fence
Total: 10

Puppy Love Snarling: He Loves Me...He Loves Me Not (2002)

He Loves Me...He Loves me Not (À La Folie... Pas Du Tout) (France, 2002)
Rating: ****
Starring: Audrey Tautou, Samuel Le Bihan, Isabelle Carré

And lo and behold, the one film that puts me off dating for another ten years.

Young and perky Angelique is an art student whimsically in love with an older gentleman named Loic, who is the local cardiologist. We watch her plays a daring affair with the married man by sneaking in presents, love notes, pink roses and, once, share a small date with him during a fancy party, much to the disapproval of her concerned friends. But just as it seems their romance couldn't get any more bittersweet, Loi'c pregnant wife had a miscarriage and Loic apparently abandons Angelique all the way. Depressed by his "betrayal", Angelique goes through many desperate means to have him back, destroying her own life, as well as the lives of other people along the way.

To call À La Folie a horror film is only half right since it was more of a dark deconstruction of your typical love story, before becoming a gritty and unsettling reconstruction into thriller territory.

The face of evil? Hardly.
Until halfway into the film...

Right at the beginning of the film, we are lead to think that this is going to be your sweet puppy-love type of plot and it seems steadying on that direction until upsetting and disturbing elements such as affairs, miscarriages, and stalkings start to make its way into the narrative. By then, À La Folie goes intense, unpredictable, and incredibly scary as the once sweet Angelique devolves into a desperate and dangerous character, lost in her own delusions that her love will come back for her.

A lot of this effectiveness goes on the talents involved since À La Folie is dry on the bloodletting department, with all but one scene of violence implied; Audrey Tautou plays one of the leads, Angelique, with much passion and quirkiness that seems as adorable as her other well-known role, Amelie from the 2001 French film of the same name. However, unlike her character there, Tautou had more range to work in this production as, again, we see her character degrade into a manic state, which works quite a lot on bringing out the creepiness of her situation seeing how pretty, talented, and seemingly sane this character was. Samuel Le Bihan plays the good doctor Loi'c who, much like Tautou, was given a wide array of characterization from a simple line-less plot piece, to a man soon to be haunted by paranoia and desperation to figure out who is destroying his life.

These two were never really seen interacting with one another in the same shot, which plays a devilish importance to the movie's twist halfway into the run and perhaps another good reason why the film worked so well thanks to these casts; without spoiling much (Unless you already saw it yourself. Or the trailer. Or read about it somewhere), the film decided to do an approach interconnecting Angelique's and Loic's perspective which drastically change the pitch of the film until the end. It also made repeated viewings of this film quite a treat since, once you knew what is really going on, À La Folie works so much better as the thriller it was meant to be, playing with winks and nods to the audience for the upcoming horrors abound.

Things ultimately wrap up rather calmly, with both characters somehow ending up recovering from something but the real horror continues and lingers on even once the end credits roll, especially when another chilling reveal was made for us to ponder about. With all of this, little violence is to be expected, which is definitely a breath of fresh air from all the recent violent French horror, but still make way for the same messed-up psychological torture and scares the European country is sort of  known for. Heartily recommended!

Bodycount:
1 baby implied miscarried
1 female implied dead from a heart seizure
Total: 2

The Day Gramps Get Shocked: Isn't It Shocking? (1973)

Isn’t it Shocking (1976)
Rating: ***
Starring: Alan Alda, Edmond O'Brien, Louise Lasser

No teenagers? No masked killer? No blood? No problem!

Isn’t it Shocking? (1973) may not look like a solid slasher but it does feature a relatively simple bodycount and an unusual direction where the killer is made known to the audience but not to the film’s characters.

It tells the story of a small New England town where a series of murders puts one sheriff Daniel Barnes into a strange predicament as all of the victims were elderly and seems to be burnt with some sort of medical tool. The culprit is one equally aged traveler who recently stopped by and lodged at a local motel. As more of the townsfolks fall victim to the killer, Barnes has to step up his game and find a way to get ahead of the madman, stopping him before more innocent lives are taken.

Fairly inoffensive, Isn’t it Shocking? (1973) relies more on plot development in terms of thrills and features a rather realistic look on police procedural. More often than not, the TV thriller feels a bit soap-operatic as we often shifts back and forth between the sheriff looking into the murders and him dealing with his everyday life, death of friends and even some complicated love interests; this said, I can honestly say it will not appeal much for those who are looking for a faster-paced bodycounter, but those who are fans of TV mysteries who can wait around until the last act won’t be disappointed.

What I came to like about this televised treat is that the characters have a little simplistic and quirky charm to them, and you can tell they’re simply there to live a rather normal life despite the recent death spree. The small town gives a relatively pleasant homey feel and, when the scene calls for it, rather nice backdrops for car chases. It’s a nice change of scenery for a protoslasher thriller and one that I can always welcome in place of our usual dead teenager flicks.

Ending with a fairly positive note, Isn’t it Shocking? (1973) may be your grandparent’s murder thriller but it is well worth a look.

Bodycount:
1 elderly female electrocuted with electro-shock apparatus
1 elderly male found dead
1 elderly male found dead
1 elderly female found murdered
1 elderly male found murdered
Total: 5