Slithering & Slaughtering: Kiss of The Serpent (1988)

Kiss of The Serpent (1988) (AKA 'Snake Island')

Rating: **1/2

Starring: Chris Moore, Murray McDougall, Jeff Greenman

The scene starts at 1979, with a father attending a snake cult ceremony and begging its members to release his son from a curse. This fellow is herpetologist Dr Waylan, who runs a local Serpentarium and is guilty of stealing the cult's sacred white snake for an experiment involving venom, creating some sort of miracle cure. The cult, however, claims that it is too late to release his boy, Michael, from their snake god's wrath even if he returns the serpent to them, so Waylan has another member of this cult, a Native American friend, promising to take care of his son should anything happen to him.

And, wouldn't you know it, one 4th of July night, a gaggle of loud and horny teenagers choose to celebrate the holiday by taunting Michael with fireworks, lighting them outside the Serpentarium where the boy's entire family resides. This gravely escalates into an accidental arson, killing Dr. Waylan, his wife and his daughter. Michael, strangely, is nowhere to be found...

Moving ahead eight years later, the same teenagers are now in their twenties and are, unsurprisingly, just as loud. And horny. They're celebrating 4th of July by taking a yacht out to open waters, unbeknownst to them that someone has sabotaged the ride, making sure it crashes near a small, isolated isle known as 'Snake Island' which is populated mostly by, what else, snakes. Upon arriving there, our sultry subjects opt to make the best of their predicament, as being marooned does little to sway them off sex and booze, unaware that whoever plotted their unconventional stay has set their fangs on killing them off one by one to appease a serpent god and finally rid them of a curse. 

As a slasher fan, nothing catches my interest faster than the word 'obscure' and, time to time, I do end up enjoying the obscurities I get to see. Yes, there were some duds (looking at you The Intruder (1975) and Shaman (1988)), but hunting down rare slashers did lead me to seeing some rough hidden gems like Bloodstream (1985), Arboy Day (1990), The Stoneman (2002) and even the original cut of A Night of Dismember (1983)! 

That said, Kiss of The Serpent (1988) (AKA 'Snake Island') may as well join my collection cheesy guilty finds; it's nowhere near being a good movie with its distractingly choppy editing and muffled audio mixing. Not to mention the inconstant acting chops and line delivery from our casts, working on a script that walks a fine line between sleazy and unintentional satire. But what it lacks in quality production, the movie makes up for it with its creativity and ambition to be a little more than your average hack 'n slasher, even if said execution can be laughable for how on-the-nose and hammy it can be.

Given how many cult-themes slashers are out there, Children of the Corn (1984) and Blood Cult (1985) just to set examples, the supernatural angle of Kiss of The Serpent (1988) would have been nothing too special, if it wasn't for the killer being dedicatedly on brand with their cult's snake themes when it comes to their murders. Stabbing and slashing a victim? They'll do it with what looks like a hand-puppet snake head with twin metal blades for fangs! Need to shoot someone dead? Our murderer happens to have arrows tipped with open-mouthed, decapitated snake heads that they can shoot with a crossbow! And the sheer ridiculousness doesn't stop there as, while the majority of the plot follows your typical revenge-against-the-guilty jig, the last act of the movie shifts into creature feature territory as our slasher, finally succumbing to the curse, slowly transforms into a giant snake to attack one last victim. It's unhinged, yes, and I wouldn't have it any other way, though I do wish the kills could have been gorier, if not bloodier at least.

From what I can gather, Kiss of The Serpent (1988) never had a North American release and, instead, went straight to VHS internationally, contributing greatly to its rare status which is either a shame or a relief depending on how well you can swallow bad slashers. Still, I enjoyed its craziness enough to give it a pass, and if you don't demand much from your low-grade slashers and love a good enough rarity, then this is a title worth looking into.

Bodycount:

1 male seen killed in a fire

1 female and 1 girl mentioned killed in a fire

1 female garroted with a thin wire

1 male had his throat stabbed with a bladed snake glove

1 female stabbed to death with a bladed snake glove

1 female pulled underwater, decapitated

1 male repeatedly shot with a snake-headed arrows

1 female buried up to her neck, head set on fire

1 male bitten to death by snakes

1 male locked inside a room with a python, later seen dead with a throat wound

1 female slashed across the face with a bladed snake glove

1 male had his head blown off with a shotgun

Total: 13

A Friend Like You, Is A Friend Like Me: Mr. Crocket (2024)

Mr. Crocket (2024)

Rating: ***1/2

Starring: Jerrika Hinton, Ayden Gavin, Kristolyn Lloyd

Set in 1994, right after the wake of her husband's tragic death, Summer (Jerrika Hinton) finds herself emotionally, mentally and physically exhausted from managing her disobedient son Major (Ayden Gavin) as a single mother. Dealing from one temper tantrum to another, she's willing to try anything to get her young boy to act better and civil, so when a mysterious little library containing a VHS copy of a show called Mr. Crocket's World suddenly materializes outside her home, Summer is simply happy to have something to pacify Major from being an absolute brat as the he becomes enraptured by the show. 

Maybe, too enraptured. Obsessed, really.

It comes to a point that Major does nothing but watch the tape everyday, rightfully worrying Summer into attempting to take the show away from her son, leading to the two having a rather terrible fight. As hearts get broken and hurtful exchanges are made, it isn't until later that night when the impossible happens: crawling out of the TV, who else than Mr, Crocket himself arrives, with a magic marker at hand to open a fun new world where Major is welcome to stay. And for anyone who opposes, well, let's just say Mr. Crocket doesn't take it kindly with people who fail their sacred duty as parents.

Not very kindly, at all.

I remember a time, maybe half a decade or so ago, when I used to listen to Youtube narrations of creepypastas as background noise while I work. The ones I tend to enjoy the most involve supposedly innocent shows turning out to be awfully messed up in many ways, putting the creep in creepypasta from the fact that underneath the façade of rainbow colored rooms and fluffy happy puppets, the people pulling the strings could be harboring a twisted need to harm the very audience they're entertaining.

Mr. Crocket (2024) could have been an absolute creep show if it have taken this route with a bit more weight in tone; there's a working idea here already, of a mundane-looking kid show host arriving seemingly out of thin air to brutally end abusive parents before kidnapping and imprisoning children to a supposedly better place. It could have been unsettling. It could have been uneasy. It could have been provocative, even. Instead, the film went on a path of crafting another boogeyman with a personality, a killer Saturday morning figure under the light of one Freddy Krueger from Elm Street, showcasing deadly fantastical abilities, a legion of monsters to do his bidding and very demented lectures aimed towards the parents he kills, hammering the very reason why they're about to become demon chow. It just feels like a big missed opportunity to make this plot as captivating as it is serious, especially since it tackles parental neglect, child abuse and upended parent-child bonds, but if you're more in the mood for a streamlined yet delicately handled horror approach to these touchy subject matters, then this movie does a fair enough job in that department. 

For a film marketing another twistedly mouthy horror villain to cake the ground with blood and gore, it does take its time to build around the relationship between Major and Summer. In particular, the struggles Summer goes through as a single parent keeping her rather ill-tempered son in line without the need of a heavy hand until, that is, a proper lashing out feels like the only way to make him behave. We can see she's doing her best out of love and understanding, and Mr. Crocket (2024) is willing to throw in a couple of extra shades between the lines, reminding us that, sometimes, there is no easy step-by-step solution to these problems, all the while still being goofy and silly when needed to be. (Like throwing in homeless people who builds a contraption out of broken TVs to hunt Crocket via airwaves. Don't mind the what's and the how's. Just, why the hell not?) 

When it comes to the horror elements, it's standard supernatural slasher affairs; the kills are deliciously gory and there's a good sense cathartic satisfaction seeing some of these parents get their just desserts for how nasty they are. Mr. Crocket himself is a delight, played with devilish glee by a scene-chewing Elvis Nolasco who nails it as the maddened Mr. Rogers-type. Intriguingly, in his own oddly twisted way, Crocket does have good intentions behind his modus operandi of murders and kidnappings, all revealed by the third act through an animated story time (of course), making the fella a decent fantastical villain that's easier to swallow compared to most other movie creeps out there. I'm a bit underwhelmed, though, that they're using the easy route of Faustian deals to explain Crocket's powers, a rather overused concept at this point, but so long it means a cheesy-looking hellverse recreation of your typical public access studio set populated with flesh-eating mascot monsters for our leading characters to try surviving, I can work with it.

While it's far from re-inventing the horror wheel, Mr. Crocket (2024) is an agreeable supernatural bodycounting venture for fans of old school slasher horror and those with a taste for a particular niche of childhood whimsy-gone-wrong. It's not going to win everyone, but if you're not asking too much from a horror flick, then this is a good title for you to catch!

Bodycount:

1 male disemboweled with a knife, gut stuffed with plates and clothes iron

1 male seen dead, cause unknown

1 male had his head blown apart by a bubble

1 male found dismembered and headless

1 male bludgeoned with a cooking pan (flashback)

1 male knifed to death (flashback)

1 male killed with a knife (flashback)

1 male shot dead (flashback)

1 male slaughtered to death

Total: 9

The Beast of Meteorite Acres: Splatter-Saurus (2023 Novella)

Splatter-Saurus

Author: Judith Sonnet

Publication Year: 2023

Chapters: 14

Rating: ***

A dinosaur-centered Youtube channel once covered this book and described it as 'dinosaur splatterpunk'. Seeing this is written by Judith Sonnet, whose stories often dip into Extreme horror, I'm not too surprised. What did tickle my curiosity, however, was upon further looking into it, some people also consider this a 'backwoods slasher'. And that, ladies and gents, is how I ended up owning this rather gruesome, exploitative novella about a random dinosaur on a feeding frenzy deep in some woods. 

The story does resemble a typical backwoods slasher plot of young adults visiting a cabin at Meteorite Acres for some rest and relaxation; drinks were drank, drugs were suggested, some hanky-panky time was considered despite some characters wondering how their partners would react if they finally decided to come out of the closet, but what these lads and ladies didn't come to account for is the orange-scaled dinosaur that's rampaging all over the nearby forest and pond! Devouring already the small family who owned the cabins and a few very horrible rednecks, this bipedal monster is now dead set on gorily sinking its teeth down on some nubile college kids...

In the afterword of the book, Sonnet wrote that Splatter-Saurus is a homage to cheesy dinosaur flicks one would typically catch on channels like SyFy or streaming sites like Tubi and, frankly, she is mostly on point; the book reads like the most hardcore creature feature exploitation piece involving a prehistoric theropod, one that the likes of the Carnosaur movies would have been if they delivered a bit more bad taste into their plots, such as overly-detailed traumatic deaths and a pinch of hicksploitation grindcore with a pair of redneck brothers who are into very disturbing and upsetting ideas of fun, examples of which apparently involve torturing lady hitchhikers and swiping babies away from mothers. 

This being a short horror piece, the story is straight-to-the-point and a quick read, barely diving away from the shallow plotting of a dinosaur brutally hunting and eating side dish cannon fodders before moving in to the main course chilling inside a cabin. Wordplay is descriptive enough to really really paint the gross gruesomeness of these attacks, as well as attempt a bit of layer and humor during the story's few lulling moments, making this a promisingly intense and intriguing B-grade horror read. The only qualm for me here is that the last twist and the resulting ending feels like it pushed the silliness a tad too far, making the conclusion overly random for the sake of cheese and shock, maybe a bit rushed as well. In all sincerity, it could work as the author did say she wanted this book to be stupid yet fun, but I personally think it could have been articulated and written better so it wouldn't be so janky.

Still, Splatter-Saurus done enough tooth-and-nail bodycounting to make it a good read, given that is you got the iron stomach for some extreme horror literature because it can get real nasty! This novelette is ridiculously wrong and splattery, but if you love a bad dinosaur creature feature, even more so a slasher with a generous offering of blood and body parts, then give this backwoods slaughter-fest with a prehistoric twist a go!

Bodycount: 13

Notable Kills: "...The bulky brute's body lifted Angus up and sent him spinning like an organic frisbee. Angus's scream warbled comedically before his body struck a nearby tree.

Paul watched in shock as his brother wrapped around the sturdy shaft of the tree."

Mountaintop Cryptid Massacre: The Bloody Tracks of Bigfoot (2021 Novel)

The Bloody Tracks of Bigfoot

Author: David Irons

Publication Year: 2021

Chapters: 56

Rating: ****

Frequent visitors of this here little personal corner of the web would probably know how much I love my Bigfoot slashers! I love the splattery hamminess of Night of The Demon (1980). I love the Southern fried creepiness of The Wildman of The Navidad (2008). I love the found footage stylings of Exist (2014). I love the backwoods bachelor bash gone Bigfoot of Cherokee Creek (2018). I love this slasher/monster hybrid niche that much, I have now expanded my need to consume media where the big hairy fella slaughters teenagers one by one from movies to novels!

And here's where David Iron's The Bloody Tracks of Bigfoot comes in! 

Taking place mostly in April 2nd, 1981, the novel follows the small cast and crew of an independent movie production as they drive to a rented construction site somewhere at the Oregonian mountains to finish filming the last few key scenes of their slasher flick, Mountaintop Madman Massacre. For the first half of the book, the story does a good job building itself around the filming as we get to know more about the bunch working in it; heading this production is director and writer Rob Lieberman, who technically conned his own father into funding this circus in hopes of making a quick and easy buck by cashing in to the cult success of slasher movies at that time; cinematographer Danny McLaughlin shares with his bestfriend and soundman Billy Zito his desires to do more than just commercials and low budget horror movies, thus accumulating a bit of jealousy towards the team's special effects wiz Tommy Bottin, who has doors of opportunities opening up for him after being featured in magazines like Fangoria and Cinemafantasque; Tommy, in turn, is considered a creep by some of the crew for crushing hard on the movie's leading actress, Adrianne Heather Curtis, who went from being household name famous to infamous after more than one unsavory articles written about her private life, resulting to a lack of work. 

The rest of the gang are Larry Lerner, Ben Tramer, Connie Conners and Laura Sommers, actors and actresses who all just wanted to get this last day of filming done so they can chill out, make the beast with two backs, or move on to the next acting gig. All the while Arnold Lebowitz, who's playing the titular Mountaintop Madman, is there to bring jokey vibes and be committed to his work as a lardy cannibal killer. And then there's Tony Reynolds. Stunt coordinator. In charge of the explosives to be used for the movie's explosive finale. Running a tad behind schedule and acting really sketchy and ominous by the time he finally shows up. Adrianne's lover.

In the midst of this movie-making misadventure, at a cave nearby the site, lives a family of three mythological beasts, the last of their kind; the adults know of the danger humans pose over them so they do their best to be left unseen and alone, but the youngest of them all have grown curious of the bells and whistles these interlopers brought along, luring it close to their set. Unbeknownst to the little one, as well as most of the crew, something wasn't right. Something was done to an FX shot that not only ends up with a charred body, but also the death of the male beast's loved ones.

And then, as the book said: 'All hell broke loose'.

From that point on, The Bloody Tracks of Bigfoot goes full gear on the creature feature-cum-slasher flick thrills and spills as the now vengeful Bigfoot unleashes a torrent of pain and suffering towards the film crew, brawling with some, massacring the others. Intriguingly, this gruesome fiasco also brings out the worst from our doomed gang as Rob and Danny loses their marbles at the fact that Bigfoot exists and decided together that raw footage of a cryptid attack is better than no footage at all, thus paying it all in blood, while a few of the actors start to fight and betray one another reasons both sinister and petty. So the tension is written astonishingly high around this act, both from the brutality of the monster's attacks and, too, the uncertainty of who among the thespians are trustworthy or not; A LOT of the murders here have so much vivid gory details on them, my inner gorehound was more than just satisfied. It was quenched! Like, for real, it's like reading kills from any one of Adam Greene's Hatchet movies! And devolution of a once chummy film production down to a horrifying battle for survival simply spells a captivating read as the it does beg you to question where all of this is going now that almost every man and woman are out for themselves, with each chapter paced for a speedy read and ending on good hooks before jumping to the next one.  

My only qualms here is that a few twist reveals feel a tad unnecessary, especially one example which does fall into spoiler territories but I will at least say that it added nothing to the overall direction, just more excuse to pen down a gory demise. The cynical mean-spiritedness of it all may not sit too kindly for some readers as well, but, for me, there is something quite astonishing from fact that almost all of the characters were made into unlikeable douches at the end and the only one you get to feel for in some way is the killer Bigfoot as you do get to understand why he's this pissed off towards these humans. This stunt does cheapen a lot of the formerly fleshed out characters into meat bags deserving of being torn in half, yes, but when the payoff is a great read of mayhem and disturbing fates, I does help not to take this book too seriously and just enjoy The Bloody Tracks of Bigfoot as the hammy, bloody horror novel that it is.

The story ends on an admittedly disturbing note, one that punches the right cards for shock and shlock, fitting right well with the absurd craziness of this Bigfoot attack /backwoods slasher story. That being said, The Bloody Tracks of Bigfoot is a fun neat read if you love a bad creature feature and the bloodiest of bodycounter flicks, one that's packed with feisty fromage and a bitter streak on the side. Should you ever find yourself with some time to kill and read B-grade cryptid horror, why not give this page-turner a try? 

Bodycount: 15

Notable Kill: Honestly, it's hard to pick just one. But if I do have to pick one, it has to be that one guy who fought Bigfoot, only to be humbled by the creature not once, but TWICE! I wouldn't say much what happened, but all I could say is that after bearing so much of that guy's cockiness, I am just glad we got the hairy fella recreating a kill from Madman (1981), only with a few more muscles and organs strewn around~

Winter Wonder Alien Massacre: The Visitor (2020 Novella)

The Visitor

Author: Sergio Gomez

Publication Year: 2020

Chapters: 20

Rating: ***

In this little tale of holiday horrors, we take a step into a familiar set-up of strangers being brought together at a single place to take shelter from nature's wrath, only to discover someone or something lurking around is out to kill them. 

The Visitor starts the pages at a diner during Christmas Eve where its owner Sal, regulars Kaito and Ichiko Takahasi, and traveling poet Moshe Janovsky have been keeping each other company as Indiana's worst snowstorm covers the road in inches of thick snow. They're soon joined by Xavier and his Collie, Norman, who just survived an accident that had their car crashing at a barricade, as well as truck driver Santiago Sanchez whose rig couldn't handle the now-slippery road. With hot food and drinks to go around, a generator keeping everyone warm and a football game playing on the TV, the group make the best out of their predicament by talking about mundane things and share a little bit about themselves. Until, that is, a lone tree branch outside snapped into falling unto a power pole and taking the lines with it, sending the diner into pitch darkness and shivering cold.

And it is around this time that the group would soon know that there is another visitor joining them. A hunter and its hound out to stalk and prey on a few specimens that just happen to be stranded inside a diner...

As slasher story, Sergio Gomez done an equitable enough job of keeping his novella a fun and breezy read by keeping the story easy to digest and with the right amount of popcorn entertainment as any good bodycount horror should be. It's basically your standard cat-and-mouse hunt, straight to the point towards its thrills and kills once the titular visitor starts to make their rounds on killing these innocent people, only the catch here is that our killer is an alien, down to the space suit and helmet, armed with a space rifle to go along its knife and even tagged along its own tamed creature which is supposed to be a hound of sorts. Even if this is far from anything new (Without Warning (1980), Predator (1987) and Almost Human (2013), for example), this is still an intriguing turn for anyone wanting more than just another average escaped loonie terrorizing people in their slasher stories, though I do wished the author gave us a little more detail as to the motive behind this thing's hunt as the story only went as far as telling us what it does with the bodies, but not what for.

The book did fairly with its character introductions and how it crafted their little predicament with the unfavorable weather, vividly describing the sheer coldness and unforgiving barrage of snowfall with brooding wordplay which adds to the intensity and atmosphere of the eventual attacks. Not much in terms of developing its casts seeing the length of the story, though Gomez did pen the kills and the ensuing carnage descriptive enough to vividly visualize the stalk and stab/shoot action and whatever gruesome gore and horrors that go with it, thus maintaining itself to be an engaging read on a good level. 

Though, again, it doesn't offer anything new to the slasher subgenre, The Visitor is a fun read for anyone who wants a quick and easy horror short to indulge in, one that delivers cold chills and classic kills with a simple scifi aftertaste!

Bodycount: 6 

Notable Kill: A gnarly laser shot to the head courtesy of a space rifle. Apart from that, we also got poor fella who got their head bitten off by a large critter!

A Heart of Tainted Candy: Dark Harvest (2023)

Dark Harvest (2023)

Rating: ***1/2

Starring: Casey Likes, Emyri Crutchfield, Dustin Ceithamer

Based on a 2006 Bram Stoker Award-winning novel of the same name penned by author Norman Partridge, Dark Harvest (2023) could have been your classic creature feature with small town misfits joining forces to become unlikely heroes fighting against a powerful threat and, in a way, it does walk that path, but not without its bittersweet twists and grim turns.

Set in the1960s, at the rural town of Bradbury, a curse plagues the community every Halloween as a creature known as Sawtooth Jack makes its presence to wreck havoc and take lives, promising even greater devastation once it reaches the church by midnight. To fend off this entity, the folks of Bradbury initiate a ritualistic competition dubbed The Run, wherein the male teens of the town are starved for three days before being unleashed on Halloween night with masks and weapons, with the goal of hunting down Sawtooth Jack before it steps even one foot to the town church. (Given, that is, they don't end up either killing one another or raid butcher shops for food after brutally murdering the owners) The boy who successfully kills Sawtooth Jack will be heftily rewarded with a prize money, a decent housing and brand new Corvettes for a chance to get out of town to see the rest of the world.

This year, Richie Shepard (Casey Likes) is anxious yet adamant to join The Run, hoping to prove to himself as well as the rest of the town's doubters and bullies that he is just as good as his older brother Jim (Britain Dalton), who won last year's Run and is currently travelling across the states. All Hallows Eve night would eventually come and the town's boys, riled-up with a bloodlust for violence and the need to eat, are sent off to hunt down Sawtooth Jack once again. As Richie joins in the macabre competition with his small gang of friends, including the town's newest African-American resident Kelly (Emyri Crutchfield), they will unfortunately learn that there's more to the annual The Run than most expected, a deadly secret that puts them not only in danger of Sawtooth Jack and the murderous gang of teens, but also of those working in between.

Directed by David Slade of 30 Days of Night (2007), Dark Harvest (2023) looks and breathes small town horror story with its population of archetypical caricatures of meathead bullies, untrustworthy police forces and parents hiding dark secrets hounding over the main casts stirring up trouble and drama, all in the backdrop of an old rural American town that holds its traditions seriously, strictly and, dare I say, dangerously under the rule of a powerful group who may know more than they're letting on but choose to keep quiet about it for the sake of the peace. There's practically an allegory running throughout the plot, of class conflict and the repetitive nature of violence disguised as tradition, and for some parts it is handled quite nicely as it adds a little more weight and depth to an otherwise standard creature feature affair of teen victims getting slaughtered by a rampaging monster. But the further the story goes, the more questions it leaves open as it tells us how things work in Bradbury, though never bothering to dive deeper into the rabbit hole they introduced thus leaving some vital plot points hanging in the air unsatisfyingly. 

Fortunately, what Dark Harvest (2023) lacks in substance, it makes up with style; whenever the movie decides to focus on The Run, it guarantees at least one or two satisfying murders with a generous amount of gore, a crisp Halloween atmosphere and a very novel-looking creature design for our dear Sawtooth Jack. Makeup effects designer Francois Dagenais (of many Saw sequels) and visual effects supervisor James McQuaide manages the onscreen violence and it is impressive how well both practical and CG effects blend in with one another here, showcasing kills from both the monster and the deranged young men that's as entertainingly gruesome as they are absurdly inspired. Cinematography strikingly evokes a genuine Autumn spirit and captures perfectly the wide destruction both Sawtooth Jack and The Run cause. Talent-wise, Likes and Crutchfield more or less sold themselves as the empathetic duo since majority of the character development and focus fall on them, following their characters bond over their outcast status as they find warmth and trust from each other in this dangerous night, which does make the movie's conclusion effectively bittersweet to swallow.

Dark Harvest (2023) may not work all the way with its narrative, but it does a fair service of providing us a fair amount of thrills and kills, an interesting lore behind its creature and a couple of good leads with a heart. It's crafted to look cozy good and, I say, it succeeds at that, making this film a fulfilling enough watch for the spooky season, preferably with a bucket of sweets and nice cold bottle of pop!

Bodycount:

1 boy killed, later seen set on fire

1 boy torn in half

1 boy had his head sliced in half

1 boy had his head pried apart by the mouth

12+ boys slaughtered, blood splash seen

1 boy shot on the gut with a shotgun

1 male beaten to death

1 boy had his head sliced down with a machete

1 female knifed in the neck

1 male shot on the head

1 male shot dead

1 boy buried alive

1 male stabbed in the head with a hunting knife

Total: 24+

A Legend's Ornery Return: Jeepers Creepers: Reborn (2022)

Jeepers Creepers: Reborn (2022)
Rating: **
Starring: Gary Graham, Dee Wallace and Timo Vuorensola

It's been five years since the last Jeepers Creepers film hit celluloid and, my God, seeing how that movie was a trainwreck of underwhelming dumb proportions with its mediocre production value, insanely stupid writing and mind-numbingly boring characters, the less we talk about that garbage, the better. In fact, why not soft-reboot the entire infamous franchise without Victor Salva (Thank God. Screw that child-molesting son of a bitch!) and instead have Finnish director Timo Vuorensola take the goddamn wheel, toss in some new mythos material and gorier kills, all done under the budget of a 2000s SyFy channel movie. What could possibly go right?!

Reborn opens with a recreation of the original's opening scare as a creeper rides their beaten-up "BEATINGU" truck down a lonesome road, terrorizing an elderly couple (guest starring Dee Wallace!) who just happen to be driving there. The encounter turns South when the two old folks later spot the creeper next to an abandoned church and dumping what appears to be bodies wrapped in sheets into a pipe. Knowing they cannot just ignore this gruesome discovery, these elderly souls would later take a quick gander down that same pipe and they "never been seen since...", or so says the narrator of this episode of Macabre Mysteries, one that horror geek Chase (Imran Adams) is a big fan of considering he's a obsessed with all things "Creeper".

Yes, in this film's universe, The Creeper is a well-known legend (a cryptid, if you may) that is said to haunt a certain part of Louisiana, awakening every twenty-third Spring to kill and feast on humans for twenty-three days before going dormant and repeating this cycle. The creature inspired TV shows, movies (I think it was titled 'Creepy Creeper' or something. And they made three of them...) and horror events including, much to Chase's excitement, an escape room hosted by a Horror Hound convention which he and his more scientifically grounded girlfriend Laine (Sydney Craven) are driving to. As the couple go about their evening enjoying the festivities of game booths, sword swallowers, roasted muttons and that one guy pranking people with a fake arrow through the chest, we see THE Creeper crawl out of an abandoned house, dress up, arm themselves to the teeth and ride its trusty rusty truck for another twenty three Spring days of feeding and murder.

But it seems it's not the only shady figure in the plot as we see a few people eyeing on Chase and Laine, talking about a "tree-bearing fruit" and rigging the escape room event to make sure our unsuspecting couple are among the chosen participants. Could they be in cahoots with The Creeper? Well, considering one of them owns a shop full of Creeper memorabilia, that would be a resounding 'yes'. But why, you ask? Well. Because. Cult stuff. Involving babies.

So like Michael Myers and his "Thorn Cult" movies back at the late 80s and 90s, Jeepers Creepers: Reborn plays with the idea of expanding the monster's universe by introducing human followers who may have a hand on its killing spree and meaty munchables over the years, an added lore that, frankly, I'm at odds with; I understand that this movie is supposed to act as both a meta spin-off and a reintroduction into the franchise, so a fresh new take on the monster is something to be considered as a welcome opportunity to improve, if not at least stand out. Disappointingly, the attempted cult elements here didn't do much for me as the cultist's goals are so vague, it's almost non-existent, borderline unnecessary. Yes, it is hinted that whatever it is they're doing with The Creeper has something to do with a baby, but that's all to it. Just hints. Write the cult stuff off along with all the spooky visions and gory shrines and we could've still gotten a basic yet still manageable monster/slasher hybrid of The Creeper just being himself, still this mysterious winged and thorny humanoid that grows back body parts by eating "replacements" out from the victims it kills. (Though it did gain a new power here: his whistles are now painful to hear!) Perhaps it's done this way to act as a sort of 'hook' for possible future sequels, keep the audience on their toes as they wonder where this "Creeper Cathedral" act will lead to, but I'm sure as hell there could have been implemented way better than this half-ass swing on the concept.

Unfortunately, this isn't the only gripe I got with this movie; as mentioned, the production really shows its budget in a lot of scenes here, namely those involving CG effects as it all look abysmal (Wow, that albino crow sure looks so life-like with its digitally rendered pixeled feathers, eh?) and a few wherein greenscreen is obviously used as a backdrop. (Yeah, kinda hard to feel any scary vibes when a shot looked like real people standing next to a CG cartoon background) Make-up done for The Creeper also took a slight nosedive as, comparing it to the original three films, it looked awfully stiffer and more rubbery, looking a whole lot more like a mask. Say farewell to him being expressively "flirty" with its victims, I guess, and say hello to constantly snarled face with teeth bared.

On the brighter side of things, when it comes to kills and a gore quota, the film do deliver a more monstrous and bloodthirsty Creeper rampage as they go about hacking, stabbing and slicing its victims dead. Sure, it sacrificed suspense, creepy atmosphere and tone, but those looking for a decent deal of splattery slasher action are treated here with more hands-on kills and a chunky body part or two getting strewn around and/or eaten, all done with competent-looking practical effects. The stalk-and-hunt antics inside a dilapidated mansion is executed well enough for that matter, keeping the second act as exciting as a standardized monster flick would be, given that you're patient enough to wait until the forty minute mark to see it, in turn enduring painfully embarrassing visuals and a bunch of uninteresting characters just bawling around and being generic. (Yes, this includes our two main characters. Boring, they are. Really. Hardly anything about them stood out expect, perhaps, Sydney Craven spending the last half of the flick dressed up as Jennifer Check of Jennifer's Body (2009))

I cannot really say that Jeepers Creepers: Reborn (2022) is as bad as Jeepers Creepers 3 (2017) as Reborn at least tries to have a consistent and competent story, and too a more serviceable round of murder and grue, but I cannot find it in my blackened heart to say that this is also a good film, either. You could watch it if you like, but you're not gonna miss much if you do opted to skip this. Personally, just stick with the original Jeepers Creepers (2001) and it's 2003 sequel and you're still set for a good time!

Bodycount:
1 male killed offscreen
1 male hung unto a meathook, gets bone throwing stars to the chest
1 male killed offscreen, later found disemboweled
1 female gets a thrown battle axe to the head
1 male pinned in the gut with a thrown sharpened plank
1 male falls to his death
Total: 6

Loud Witching Hour: Scream Dream (1989)

Scream Dream (1989)
Rating: **1/2

Starring: Carol Carr, Melissa Moore and Nikki Riggins

Ah, yes, cult classic director Donald Farmer. Cannibal Hookers (1987). Deadly Memories (2002). Chainsaw Cheerleaders (2008). Clearly a man with so much taste for cheese, I'm sure he's part mozzarella. In this post, we'll be observing one of his early feature films released around the time of the late 80s shot-on-video boom, a curious tale of witchy macabre, hand puppet demons and big, loud hairstyles!

After an opening credit roll featuring a random sleeping beauty getting attacked by otherworldly arms and a chainsaw slicing out of her bed (and headed towards her crotch), we're treated with a scene following a yuppie metalhead and his bitterly vocal girlfriend making their way to a live show of Satanic rocker Michelle Shock. The nerdy-looking superfan eventually gets the chance to meet the dark temptress backstage, much to the dismay and disgust of his partner who leaves the venue after a lover's quarrel. Michelle, in turn, decides to give the dude a little treat down there for his troubles, only to cut the session short when a certain male member ended up between her teeth in not the nicest way.

Turns out Michelle Shock's Satanist shtick is more than just an act and she's really practicing the dark arts, so much so that her foul-mouthed manager Lou, tired of the constant harassment of journalists hounding him about Shock's shocking lyrical themes and the mysterious disappearances during her shows, fires her from her her own band. This, unsurprisingly, doesn't sit too well with Michelle.

Lou, not wanting to refund any of the money for the remaining shows, hires attractive replacement singer Jamie Summers and sends mullet-branding back-up Derrick to Michelle's to pick up a stage costume. As you would expect, the plan goes South real deep when the former band lead attacks Derrick with a dagger, which mullet boy responds by knocking her out. And then chopping her up with a battle axe. And then stabbing a possessed severed hand with a knife. And then fleeing the scene. 

(Well, that escalated quickly and unnecessarily)

Anywho, the shows go on and Michelle's sudden departure and replacement mostly didn't go unnoticed, especially with the nosy reporters who see this as damage control over the controversies she made. Still, Jamie hopes she would make it big in the heavy metal business, so she drives to Michelle's house to borrow some gear and inevitably finds the former lead dead and apparently appetizing enough to try biting a chunk out of. (Because why the hell not?) Derrick, tailing Jamie in hopes of stopping her from seeing the body, arrives no soon after and convinces her not to call the police. (Because, again, why the hell not?) 

From that point, though, Jamie starts to act weird. And deadly. And I'm sure as fuck the demonic monster she turns into, the drooling mini-rat beast tailing her to get a nibble or two out of people, and the fact she can now raise the dead to kill people for her all have something to do with Michelle's wicked pacts with Satan.

A technical marvel, Scream Dream (1989) is not. Not with its uneven lighting, outdated editing and terrible audio quality that made a few scenes indecipherable over the loud band music, factors that do little help with its wide acting range that falls between mediocre to oh-dear-god-just-stop! These are, however, things one can always expect from a shot-on-video production and I will say that despite all of this mess, the film is at least unintentionally hilarious for its multitudes of insane scenes and trashy moments, even sporting some gnarly violence and mostly impressive looking make-up effects for a low-budget film. With a lean 69 minute running time, padded with three full length metal songs being played in venues and one simple yet crazy plot overblown with cheese, the whole affair is just so bad, it's earnest, enthusiastically fun, given you dive into it with low expectations and a high tolerance for heavy metal horror ham! 

Bodycount:
1 female gets a chainsaw between her legs
1 male had his groin bitten off

1 male stabbed to death with a dagger, disemboweled

1 female hacked with a battle axe

1 male had his scalp clawed, throat cut with a dagger

1 female had her throat ravaged by a demon

1 male had his face ripped off

1 female strangled to death

1 female killed offcamera by a zombie

1 female had her face clawed

1 female stabbed with a dagger

1 male had his groin attacked by a demon

Total: 11

Night of The Meteor Mutants: Nobody Sleeps In The Woods Tonight 2 (2021)

Nobody Sleeps In The Woods Tonight 2 (W lesie dzis nie zasnie nikt II) (Poland, 2021)

Rating: **1/2

Starring: Izabela Dabrowska, Lech Dyblik and Andrzej Grabowski

For those who are not acquainted, Nobody Sleeps In The Woods Tonight (2020) is a rather basic backwoods slasher following teens from a "technology detox" camp being hunted down by a pair of very deformed and obese murder twins with a taste for flesh. The only things that set this apart from your other forest-set bodycounters would be its weird attempt to flesh out its characters more and the fact that the reason behind the killers' madness was (*spoiler alert!*) a black goo-filled meteor. 

This sequel follows up some time after the first film, with final girl Zosia being captured at some local police station, along with the "Fatties" responsible for massacring her friends and then some. She's there for further questioning as the head honcho of the station, Sergeant Waldek, couldn't wrap his head around her story of meteors turning people evil and how Zosia supposedly murdered one of the Fatties by stabbing him to death with a machete, so to get a better idea what happened, she's eventually taken back to the Fatties' humble abode and asked to point out where it all happened exactly.

Unfortunately for them all, once they get there, the meteor responsible for turning the Fatties evil strikes again, this time oozing its goo into Zosia and turning her into a deformed "meteor mutant". As history repeats itself and another bloodbath starts taking the lives of locals, a very meek Constable Adas gets caught in the middle of this madness and will soon find a fate weirder than death...

For a good hour or so, Nobody Sleeps In The Woods Tonight 2 (2021) continues its affairs as a standardized backwoods kill-a-thon as it dish out murder after murder while trying to establish a set of characters to follow along in the story. Just as the first film, though, the characterization here can be a bit weird and random, if not downright annoying, such as our supposed lead here, Adas, being a whiny coward most of the time to the point he's just pathetic, or the fact two of of the folks who decided to help out the remaining police force happen to be a pair of Neo-Nazi hunters. It doesn't help that we will be, more or less, just be watching this group be dysfunctional for a while, but that's a little more tolerable looking into what this film have in store for us in the last act.

After practically murdering off almost everyone introduced so far, Nobody Sleeps In The Woods Tonight 2 (2021) throws a curveball at us and we're suddenly looking into the monster's perspective as we learn why they're killing people, which sums up to them simply being evil. Just plain evil. One of the human characters is also turned into a meteor mutant and the final third of the movie is just now these two mutants frolicking around, teaching the other why it's great to be an evil murder creature and having monster sex. Yes. Monster sex. It's an odd turn of events, one that I wouldn't mind if it wasn't done around the remaining act which makes the whole thing feel rushed. The finale of it all also fails to be anything exciting as it kinda sizzle down and it all felt like it happened just for the sake of it happening and nothing else. (Like, what was even the point of it?)

Nobody Sleeps In The Woods Tonight 2 (2021) shines the best when it's just the meteor mutant going ape on the dismemberments as the gore effects here are among the juiciest and the attacks are intense for their brutality. Whenever it tries to make something out of the cast, though, I think it would have been more welcoming if the film just stuck with the killer-in-the-woods jig and try not to over complicate things. Still, I'm not going to completely diss its shots at character development since a few scenes did come out rather hilarious, so I say that while it doesn't it completely deliver, it still has something for the fans of the gruesome and weird to clamor over!

Bodycount:

1 male had his legs torn off, bled to death

1 male pushed head first to a fusebox, disemboweled

1 male found slaughtered

1 male dies from exhaustion after his hands got cut off from a bear trap

1 male had his heart and larynx clawed out

1 female torn to pieces

1 male found beheaded

1 male gets knifed in the eye

1 female had her face flayed off and her head repeatedly stomped

1 female ran over by an armored truck

2 males decimated with a grenade

Total: 12

Cut Out The Cancer: Malignant (2021)

Malignant (2021)
Rating: ****
Starring: Annabelle Wallis, Maddie Hasson and George Young

When it comes to James Wan, I like a lot of his horror films as I see the kind of fanfare I typically enjoy in my fright flicks: crazy B-grade goodness with creepy moments, fun jump scares and expressive camera work. Fortunately for us, Malignant, Wan's little supernatural love letter to giallo and slasher cinema (and then some), delivers all the goods you would expect in a great bodycounter with a little more extra for that positively insane movie experience!

Starting the scene in 1993, at the Simion Research Hospital, where a group of doctors go through a harrowing attack from an obscured patient named Gabriel who somehow has the ability to control electricity, broadcast thoughts through airwaves and overpower anyone twice their size. The staff eventually subdue the vile thing with a dart gun and, hoping to finally stop the patient's increasing threat, prepare Gabriel for surgery to "cut out the cancer".

Forwarding twenty-eight years later, a pregnant woman named Madison Lake gets the rough end of a strained and growingly abusive relationship when her husband Derek Mitchell beats her head against a wall, arguing at her about the futility of them having children since Madison appears to be prone to miscarriages. As night falls, something otherworldly invades the couple's residence and gruesomely murders Mitchell before going after Madison, knocking her unconscious during the attack. By the time she comes through, responding police has rescued her and she's taken to a nearby hospital, where she is informed by her sister Sydney that, devastatingly, her unborn baby didn't survive the ordeal. 

It wasn't until two weeks later though, when a recovering Madison returns to her home, that everything shifts for the far worse; she quickly learns that whatever has targeted her during that home invasion is far from done terrorizing her life as visions of savage murders and monstrously taunting phone calls start plaguing her days and nights. The more the bodycount rises, the more Madison and Sydney, as well as Kekoa Shaw and Regina Moss, a pair of detectives looking into the murders, start to piece together a grim puzzle and untangle a dark past involving medical horrors and a familiar violent entity that goes by "Gabriel".

Albeit the tone can be a bit (if not mostly) all over the place, it does befit the craziness Malignant wallows in and it is put to good use as Wan embraced the absurdity of the movie's premise to give us the outrageously energetic madness that is this hodge-podge of supernatural horror, brutal slashings, body horror, medical nightmare and, yes, even a little bit of creature feature. It isn't without its own rusty cogs and drawbacks, of course, such as the characters being a little dim, holes on the plot and the twist being anything but close to original (I can tell two other slashers that already did it, though I cannot say which as it'll spoil the fun. You might get it once you see it, though), but the manically stylized execution and wild, increasingly no-holds-barred direction undoubtedly make this film a real popcorn horror treat.

As the director himself put it, Malignant is a horror film made for horror fans, so it doesn't come as any surprise that it has genre homages in every nook and cranny; there are giallo influences pretty much present within the movie's cinematography as well as the villain's get-up and the home invasion around the first act even has its little slice of ghostly scares for that supernatural creepiness. But what really brought home the fun factor for me is the ridiculous levels of campy creative choices and hammy dialogue that certainly place this movie around the same plate as cheesed-up 80s slashers and monster movies, especially with its Eyes of Laura Mars (1978)-inspired victim/killer shared visions and a bodycount going monumental by the second half courtesy of a police station massacre that rivals The Terminator (1984) or Maniac Cop 2 (1990), committed through the hands of a maniac with a rather interesting concept and design focused on limberness and flexibility in all the wrong way. (Oh, and random electricity-based powers. That's a thing you get for being that, apparently) It's crazy, without a doubt, but as everything is done with a straight face and a semi-serious banter, the half-and-half subtle tongue-in-cheek is just made twice the better!

This being said, those looking to see sober scares may want to look elsewhere as the movie's clearly made with the intention to be darkly playful and littered with dismembered body parts. What else is there to say but James Wan really let it all loose in Malignant and I am happy to say that the resulting gory, campy and thrilling little devil is destined to be a bonafide cult classic!

Bodycount:

1 female smashed against a door, killed

1 female found murdered

1 female found murdered

1 male had his head internally decapitated

1 female beaten to death with a trophy

1 male stabbed and carved to death with a weaponized trophy

1 male found slaughtered to death with a weaponized trophy

1 female had her neck torn open

1 female clawed through the gut

1 female had her head stomped

1 female had her neck broken

10 females slaughtered offcamera

1 female had her eyes thumbed, used as a human shield and shot dead

1 male repeatedly beaten against iron cell bars

1 female found murdered

1 male found murdered

1 male found murdered

1 male stabbed through the back with a weaponized trophy

1 male had his throat slashed with a weaponized trophy

1 male stabbed through the gut with a weaponized trophy

1 male shot with a shotgun

1 male used as a human shield, shot dead

1 male stabbed through the neck with a weaponized trophy

1 female stabbed through the head with a weaponized trophy

4 victims seen murdered

1 male stabbed in the gut with a weaponized trophy

1 male stabbed through the neck with a weaponized trophy

1 male slashed across the neck with a weaponized trophy

1 male stabbed with a weaponized trophy

1 male stabbed with a weaponized trophy

1 male slashed across the throat with a weaponized trophy

2 males seen murdered

1 male had his pacemaker supernaturally cooked, explodes out of his chest

Total: 46

Also, "Cocky-Knockers"

Weasels, Sirens and Cage? Oh My!: Willy's Wonderland (2021)

Willy's Wonderland (2021)
Rating: ***1/2

Starring: Nicolas Cage, Emily Tosta, Beth Grant

Apparently, if you put Nicolas Cage inside a death house full of killers, he's not trapped in there with them. They're trapped in there with him.

 This is the case in Willy's Wonderland (2021), where Cage plays a lone, quiet and nameless drifter who sees himself driving through a set of road spikes "accidentally" left there. Just his luck, a tow truck happens to conveniently spot him and its driver, Jed, is willing to work on the ride if the drifter, apparently unable to pay for the new tires, is willing to work it off himself. So Jed calls in Tex Macadoo, the owner of the kid's pizzeria Willy's Wonderland and he has a proposition for the drifter; stay overnight to clean and fix the place up and the new tires are for free in the morning!

With a hand shake and a swift tour around the pizzeria, the drifter becomes "The Janitor" and off he goes to work. But things aren't all right around Willy's. Not when the animatronics gaze at him hungrily, their claws, teeth and weapons itching to shed blood, results of a Satanic ritual done years ago. So as night falls, the Janitor figures out (rather quickly) that he's in a rough night as the robotic menaces go after him, leaving him to fight back and spill some robot gore, all the while still cleaning up the place, taking hourly breaks for a soda and pinball game, and encounter some well meaning yet still doomed kids who decided to break in to, well, break him out.

Now, see, if you're looking for a horror movie that's rich in subtext and substance, then you're at the wrong pizza stop. Willy's Wonderland (2021) is seemingly made for two purposes; to be a bloody, cheesy, easy-going horror-comedy and to be a Nicolas Cage vehicle. There's really no deeper plot in here than Cage fighting off a gaggle of fuzzy robots and this can be easily seen with how shallow and bland most of the characters are, and too how quickly this film gets to the punching point. This said, it can get slightly tedious whenever the movie stops for a soda break and focus on the fleshy victims-to-be, only to be of slight interest when they go feed us some information to what's going on, though it's not something that elaborate or new altogether. (Basically, Willy's was founded by notorious killer Satanists and their murderous souls got transferred into the robots through a suicide pact in order to escape police and continue their killing spree beyond death, practically pulling a Child's Play (1987) gri-gri on us.) 

If you are, however, open for cheese, ham and Nic Cage shlock, then it's your birthday today because here at Willy's Wonderland, they have more than enough of those to feed your B-flick cravings. There's a strong sense of dark humor at play here and the ridiculousness of the premise just blends in perfectly with the direction and flow the movie goes by. The small army of  killer animatronics are a fun bunch by design, a little diverse in their range from talking animals to fantasy beings like sirens and knights, all tainted in grime and age which adds some uncanny creep factor. The kills are bloody at their best, may it be your typical human victims or, yes, even the possessed animatronics themselves! For those with a twisted fascination for robot "gorno", this film surprisingly finds a way to make decimating creepy kids place machines satisfyingly brutal with oil spilling like blood and metal parts crushed like bones!

And then there's the one and only Nicolas Cage, who doesn't utter an entire word in the film save for some groans and grunts. He more or less lets his fists and cleaning duties do the talking here, both being satisfying to watch, but the lack of dialogue on his part does make him too enigmatic for his own good, bordering into being questionable as there were moments where his help could have been appreciated but he chooses to ignore it, resulting to some deaths. Nevertheless, it adds to the weirdness and macabre of Willy's Wonderland and it does have Cage getting into the zone and jamming out to this film's best song while playing pinball so not a completely big dent to the movie's charm.

If you know what you're getting yourself into, then Willy's Wonderland (2021) is just the kind of junk food horror goodie bag you could ask for. Packed with creepy killer bots, an ass-kicking antihero and a gaggle lot of strangeness, find a good cozy spot in your Super Happy Fun Room and give this a good whirl!

Bodycount:

1 male dragged away, killed

1 female killed, blood splash seen

1 boy clawed (flashback)

1 male, 1 female and 1 girl killed offcamera (flashback)

6 males and 1 female seen dead from suicide, ingested tainted drink (flashback)

1 girl bearhugged to death (flashback)

1 male ran through with a sword

1 male mauled to death

1 male bitten to death

1 female mauled dead offcamera

1 male found disemboweled (flashback)

An entire family mentioned murdered 

1 female attacked, presumably killed (flashback)

2 females and 1 male seen murdered (flashback)

1 victim seen mauled (flashback)

1 female seen mauled (flashback)

1 male implied murdered (flashback)

2 males and 1 female implied murdered (flashback)

1 male decapitated with a sword (flashback)

1 male and 1 female had their necks snapped (flashback)

1 male had his neck snapped 

1 male crushed to death

1 female clawed in half 

2 males immolated in an exploding car

Total: 36+

Beyond The Outsider: Castle Freak (2020)

Castle Freak (2020)
Rating: **1/2

Starring: Clair Catherine, Kika Magalhães, Jake Horowitz

The H.P. Lovecraft short The Outsider details its protagonist's escape from what appears to be a decaying castle, leading to their heartbreaking dismay upon realizing that they're hideously malformed upon looking through a mirror, thus forever to be detested as an outsider. When director Stuart Gordon wrote and directed his 1995 film Castle Freak, the horror drama took inspiration from the short, mainly from the fact that the monster of the movie is a maddened man deformed through years of maltreatment, having to escape a castle's dungeons to terrorize its new modern day occupants.

 

Years later in 2020, SFX and prosthetic makeup artist Bryan "Tate" Steinsiek makes his directorial debut and treats us horror fans with a more Lovecraftian remodel for Castle Freak. Like, really Lovecraftian. Dunwich Horror Lovecraftian.

Here we follow a blind Rebecca Riley learning from an estate agent that she just inherited her mother's Albanian castle and, being an adopted child since her infancy, she is rather eager to learn more about this castle seeing she knows nothing of her biological mother. John, her boyfriend, unfortunately doesn't share her enthusiasm and greatly suggests to sell the estate instead and get on with their lives. Considering John was the one responsible for blinding Rebecca through a car accident he caused whilst high and drunk, it's easy to figure out that their relationship is starting to stumble down a rocky slope the more they stay and bicker about their situation. It also doesn't help that John would soon invite his friends over to help out with his scheme or just to simply get wasted, but that trouble is little in comparison to the murderous intent brewing within the walls or the maddening otherworldly terror that's starting outside the castle...

Calling Castle Freak (2020) a slasher is only correct for a few good parts as we do still get stalk-and-stab action, only it's halfway down its hundred minute or so running time that focuses more on horror drama and, later, Lovecraftian cosmic nightmare. If anything, this re-imagined Castle Freak is an exploitation tribute to Lovecraft's works, taking in themes of isolation, grief and madness that are common among the writer's literary pieces and crafting them into a movie with gratuitous (and, for one scene, disturbing) sleaze, monsters with gruesome body horror and a swift dash of gory murders. With this direction, it does fairly well being a separate in-name companion piece to the original 1995 title, standing on its own ground and exploring new angles for an intriguing plot while still keeping and playing around with familiar key points from the Stuart Gordon movie.

I'm very much down with this new, more lore-heavy Castle Freak as the mythos it introduced works well with its take of the story, but with its unlikable characters outweighing the likable ones, the acting having their far from memorable moments and the pacing being too drawn out, I personally can't say I enjoyed it from start to finish. I do understand this might have been needed to build layers within its casts and further intensify the impending doom and dread, but it's a tough flow to sit and follow and I am simply glad the payoff at the near end was grandeur in its own modestly crazy way; we get monstrous fornications, a lot of clawed throats and guts, gooey tentacles, a cult re-awakening and a major Lovecraftian deity making a surprisingly welcome appearance, basically a real off-the-wall treat of a finale that's well worth the wait, sleaze and miserable characters to get by, even if it is a bit crammed. 

Looking at the scale of the production, the film has an adequate look to it; the lighting and set design are good albeit a few cheap looking props. Camera shots and editing did a swell enough job emphasizing and utilizing the deserted state of the castle and the hidden dangers lurking through its hidden passages, as well as bring out the creep and gross-out factor whenever it lingers at the inhuman condition of our creature and other bodily oddities.

Though I can't say I see myself watching it all over again soon, Castle Freak (2020) is still a fair stride of an effort, one that needs a few tweaking and elbow grease to get itself rolling more satisfyingly. If you like your horror films freaky and weird, boasting good effects and a final act that rewards you for your patience, then, outsider, this Castle Freak's for you!

Bodycount:

1 female found murdered

1 male injected in the chest with heroin, stabbed to death with syringes

1 female had her neck snapped, internally beheaded

1 male had his throat lacerated with a flail

1 male disemboweled with a flail, cannibalized

1 elderly male dies from a ritual (flashback)

1 male thumbed in the eyes, throat bitten off

1 male bashed on the head with a mace

Total: 8