Bite Sized Giallo Bits: Body Puzzle (1992)

Body Puzzle (Italy, 1992) (AKA "Misteria")
Rating: ***1/2

Starring: Joanna Pacula, Tomas Arana and François Montagut

A 90s giallo affair from Demons (1985) director Lamberto Bava, Body Puzzle starts with a frustrated pianist (François Montagut) showing off some talent on the ivory keys as he recalls a tragic rainy night many years ago, involving a friend in a motorbike fatally crashing during a car chase. This flashback somehow ignites a murderous spark from the man and his first victim is a candy store owner who he knifes to death before slicing off an ear.

Tracy (Joanna Pacula), a young widow grieving over her brother's recent passing, gruesomely finds out that she has caught the attention of our killer when not only did she discovers the dismembered hearing organ in her fridge, but her late husband's grave was also found defiled and his body missing. This prompts Detective Michele (Tomas Arana), lead investigator of the case, to question her possible ties to the killer as it appears the madman has to have full access to her home in order to leave the body part so easily. Tracy cannot recall or think much of anybody mad enough to twistedly harass her like this, though she fears that she will be targeted next the further this escalates.

And, true enough, the killer strikes again and again, taking parts from each victim and leaving it for Tracy to find, even after she moved to her parent's mansion under heavy police surveillance. Just who is this killer and why is he offering her all of these freshly harvested body parts? 

As far as Italian giallo affairs go, Body Puzzle mostly hit its good notes when it comes to horror set-pieces, plenty of them coming from the murders committed by our seemingly random loon for how savage and dark yet outrageous they can get; one moment he's simply knifing a candy store owner to death, next would have him stalking a lady into a mall's loo to hack off her hand with a hatchet or offing a teacher in front of an entire classroom full of blind children listening to some badly narrated fairy tale. There's certainly a sense of finesse and black humor laid out in the film's direction to keep things as interesting as they can be, something I find passable even if the ridiculousness contrasts with the intriguingly twisted conundrum behind our killer's motive a tad too close into poking fun at itself sometimes.

At most, Body Puzzle tries to maintain a straight-faced story despite the cheesier instances. I love the mystery's concept wherein we already know what the killer looks like and that we're just left hanging as to why is he killing people to collect parts from them. Sadly, the abundance of plot holes and incredibly lackluster police work cheapened the impact of the story's development, more so when the movie finally reveals in the near end the twist of the whole situation. Without giving away much, it opened more questions than answer them, one of which being the ineptness of the coroner when they were embalming that body and how much legal trouble would they get for that mistake. 

Nevertheless, Body Puzzle remains wholly entertaining albeit its flaws when one would account its unintentional hilarity and cheese. I mean, how often do you find yourself watch a killer hide inside a freezer full of meat (and a corpsicle) for a surprise attack just on that slim chance someone might open it, or have sped-up shots of casual drives be passed as "car chases"? There are times half-witted jiffs like these are what save movies from being dull and this one definitely have more than enough to leave a good impression without completely straying away from being dark, macabre and stabby. 

Not exactly the finest giallo out of Bava's filmography (I would bravely give Midnight Killer (1986) and Delirium (1987) that title), but it's a divertingly fun puzzler of a horror thriller to a degree and that's okay on my book!

Bodycount:

1 male killed in a vehicular accident

1 male knifed to death

1 female had a hand chopped off with a hatchet, later found gutted

1 male castrated with a knife whilst swimming, bled to death

1 female had her throat cut, eyes plucked out

1 male crashes unto a car, killed in collision 

Total: 6

Go Home: Turistas (2006)

Turistas (2006) (AKA "Paradise Lost")

Rating: ***

Starring: Josh Duhamel, Melissa George and Olivia Wilde

Around mid-2000s, the horror scene seems to had a small trend going on with tourists being terrorized by malicious people as seen in the likes of Eli Roth's Hostel movies and the infamous Ozploitation cult classic Wolf Creek (2005). Hot on this bloody hike trail was a little affair set in Brazil wherein a group of turistas must survive the dark and gritty side of paradise.

After a narrow escape from being potential bus crash casualties caused by a speedy driver and a very steep drop off a cliff, friends Bea and Amy, Bea’s chaperoning older brother Alex, Australian backpacker Pru and a pair of British buddies Finn and Liam decided to stroll down to a nearby beach bar after being notified that the next bus won't be around for another 10 hours. The place looks and feels legit enough for our newly acquainted gang to loosen up and have fun, drinking til' night time after a day of swimming, playing soccer with local children and hooking-up with Brazilian hotties. 

The movie, though, makes no attempt to hide the fact shit's about to go down when a barmaid secretly phones a shady doctor after doing a headcount on the foreigners. Morning comes and not only do our gang find out they were drugged unconscious that night, but all of their belongings were also stolen. Now stranded with nothing but the clothes on their backs, they wander into the nearest town hoping to find help, which they eventually did with Kiko, a local man they met a day prior at the beach. 

Kiko agrees to lead them to another man named Zamora who lives up in a jungle-set private house and appears to have enough connections and money to help them out of their predicament. Things only go for worse from this point as halfway into their journey, Kiko injures himself severely, thus leaving the group to hobble him up to Zamora's residence where they find out the man operates an organ harvesting ring, thus he has no intention at all on letting them leave Brazil alive.

Though low-key, the slasher elements in Turistas (2006) are present in the sense that the villains aren't shy on keeping the kill count stabby once in a while and, too, that the film has some pretty decent stalking scenes thrown here and there. It's not very often we get a slasher movie set deep in a dense tropical jungle, so it is refreshing to see this film make a fair attempt incorporating the deadly cat-and-mouse trope the subgenre is well known for with the scenic backdrop of Brazil's sandy beaches and forested wilderness. 

These facts aside, however, the overall feel of the movie leans much closer to a crime thriller laced with a horror aftertaste and medical nightmares; though Turistas (2006) has its brutal and shocking moments (particularly the demise of a Swedish couple and one unfortunate henchmen's bad end with a wooden skewer), is noticeably restrained as it exchanges most of the stomach-churning exploitative horror elements with a bigger emphasis on survivalist ventures, by-the-book vivisections and our leads' escape from their captors, not much unlike our boys back in Hostel (2005)'s fictionalized Bratislava. For what it is, the movie is a passable survival thriller, tight in tension and sparing some moments of realism even if it's still unable to escape a few parts being mediocre and predictable, which hinders the ramifications of the threat as a whole. 

Turistas (2006) would certainly have fared better, too, if it took the time to work out its premise, perhaps flesh out its characters further than the cardboard cut-outs that we have here. As expected for a movie dealing with stereotyped representations, the film is unsurprisingly bashed with controversy around Brazil for how it depicted its citizens as well. The resulting product, by the grace of it all, could have been way worse nonetheless and I would be lying if I say I didn't enjoy Turistas (2006) as a small guilty pleasure. 

Bodycount:

1 male hacked to death with a machete

1 female ran off a cliff, falls to her death

1 male gets a wooden skewer forced into his eye

1 female operated on and disemboweled

1 male stabbed to death with a machete

1 male shot on the head with a rifle

1 male killed offscreen

1 male shot on the neck

1 male repeatedly stabbed on the neck with an arrow

1 male beaten with a rock, shot on the head with a rifle

Total: 10

A Campus Drillbit Murder Mystery: Initiation (2021)

Initiation (2021)
Rating: ***

Starring: Isabella Gomez, Lindsay LaVanchy and Froy Gutierrez

Booze, babes and bros. These are the very first things you'd see in this flick as the frat brothers and sorority sisters of Whinton University party it up one night for that typical campus debauchery. For one science major named Ellery, however, she's about to become a part of something far more serious when she unknowingly makes her way to a suspiciously locked room where one of her sorority sisters, Kylie, is seen passed out with Wes, Ellery's star athlete brother. 

Believing something happened behind that closed door, Ellery tries to talk Kylie into opening up what went down that night in the following morning, but the girl claims she doesn't remember. It seems that this isn't the first time Wes got into this sort of trouble as talks of "what happened last year" are brought up once again and, with access to the campus' labs, Ellery attempts sort the matter out by running a few DNA sequences on Kylie's discarded clothes to check if her brother involved himself to a possible assault. Unbeknownst to her, someone in a hood and mask decided to end Wes' life by slaughtering him with a powerdrill, starting off an investigation and a brutal bodycount as those seemingly connected to the incident start dying one by one.  

Intriguing to note here that despite having the face and plot of your classic campus slasher, Initiation (2021) took a more procedural approach to its story which has its pros and cons depending on how well you take the direction; there's a greater emphasis on building up a mystery here, done in this sleek yet near-realistic feel wherein characters are flawed and the situation can get grittier, with little to no horror going on for a good bulk. In fact, the first half hour of the movie felt closer to a teen crime drama than a stabby slasher, pacing itself to a crawl under the purpose of developing its red herrings and twists and it continues to do so even once the murders start happening.

This leads to a lot of scenes focusing on the fallout of the grisly killings, showing how the characters and the campus itself react to the tragedies which does add some depth and emotional layer for the increasingly dire predicament through incisive writing and genuine acting. The price of this, however, is a rather minuscule kill count and a slow burn that can get really testy for those who doesn't have the patience for it. Nevertheless, the movie never forgot to reward horror fans who are willing to stick around for its story as it can get brutal when it needs to be brutal, intense when it needs to be intense, all the while flipping some tropes in a workable turn.

Though the killings throughout the film are satisfyingly gruesome, it is the last act of the Initiation (2021) where the slasher elements finally take full force as our masked maniac (refreshingly portrayed to be as realistically human) takes over a nearly abandoned campus office to murder away all who are left there. It is undoubtedly the movie's strongest part, with great tension to behold mostly from our female leads doing their best to stay hidden from the killer in that classic cat-and-mouse prowl, just one head turn and/or one flashlight away from being caught.

While far from a title one could loose sleep over, Initiation (2021) is at least a competent little horror thriller that does the job good enough. A little unique in its form, yes, but casual horror fans can definitely find a decent murder mystery here for that one rainy afternoon.

Bodycount:

1 male powerdrilled to a door, neck later found cut

1 male stabbed in the head with a knife

1 male gets powerdrilled to the throat

1 male gets powerdrilled to the chest, stabbed and gutted with a knife

Total: 4

TV Terror: The Naughty List (2021)

The Naughty List (American Horror Stories Episode 4/Season 1 (2021)

Rating: ***

Starring: Kevin McHale, Nico Greetham and Dyllon Burnside

It's Christmas in July and Santa has come to town once more to spread some holiday fear in this deservingly gruesome entry from the horror anthology series American Horror Stories, a spin-off of Ryan Murphy's American Horror Story.

Taking a bloody stab at internet fame, a group of three dude bro influencers and their more timid tech guy-slash-camera man, collectively known as the 'Bro House", decided one December day to try something a little different from their usual posts of internet challenges, pranks and other tomfooleries; camping out near a bridge infamous for suicide jumpers, the gang records a man's demise and posts it online with little hesitation, hoping for millions of new subscribers. The result though, as many would've guessed, is a ton backlash from their soon-to-be former fans and sponsors, leading to the Bro House boys to try everything they can to salvage their channel and get their increasingly declining follower count to spike back up.

One of these sad attempts happen to be raiding a mall Santa's workshop where they harass staff and visiting families, unsuspectingly leading to a nasty surprise for them later: as it turns out, the Santa working there (played by the ever intimidating and badass Danny Trejo) is actually a serial killer who snuffs out real mall Santas to take their place and you can take a good wild guess who just ended up in this murderous Sick Nick's naughty list...

How well you would take in this mini-movie episode depends on how much toxic behavior and dumbassery your stomach can handle before the carnage because it is going to take a while to get there; for a good sum of the story, we're treated to three douchebags flexing their perceived invincibility as social media influencers and their belief that they're above any form of decency and morality just because they have a website and a fanbase. Admittedly, this is both frustrating and satisfying to watch as these characters' monumental stupidity to even understand the gravity of their actions meant seeing them struggle to grasp and accept the situation they caused on their own, henceforth further digging their own graves deeper not just as internet stars, but also literally when they finally cross the wrong person. I love the fact they're suffering from their choices, but I cannot help but think this could have been written and implemented better, perhaps with a more compelling set of characters to really give that gut a good ole' punch rather than going for the easy route of Paul Logan caricatures with even less functioning braincells.

In a way, this does make the resulting massacre all that more satisfying given how much these character made themselves so deserving of being targeted by a holiday-themed slasher. I love the fact Danny Trejo's slaughtering Santa has little to go by in terms of solid origin and depth, as it kinda gives him this mysterious air of simply existing there to do harm in what he sees as his deed as Saint Nick. The kills are bloody at best, the most creative among them being a nasty way out involving Christmas lights and a pool, but with it happening around the last third of an episode with a near 40 minute run time, I did wish it was a tad longer so we could further engross ourselves to the unfolding horror.

In a nutshell, American Horror Stories' The Naughty List (2021) embodies the worst and best elements of a simple slasher story, focusing first on a slowburn rabbit hole of internet toxicity and cancel culture before getting on the gory goods of candy cane colored crossbows and human gullet-decorated Christmas trees. It's not the grandest example of a holiday slasher story done right (heck, it barely even felt like its Christmas throughout the episode), but if you can survive your way through annoying characters without a hitch just to see that sweet, sweet mayhem for all that trouble, I say go for it and catch this!  

 
Bodycount:
1 male jumps off a bridge
1 male found inside a box dismembered into pieces
1 male had his head twisted
1 male tangled in Christmas lights and thrown into a pool, electrocuted
1 male shot to death with a crossbow
1 male shot on the leg with a crossbow and set on fire with gasoline, later succumbs to his injuries in a pool
Total: 6

Happy 10th Birthday, StickyRed!

Ten years. 

Ten years of all things hacking and stabbing. Ten years of filling up this compendium of bodycounts from slasher movies and its kin. I never really thought I could make it this far! 

It kinda feels like it was just yesterday when I finally decided to start writing about my favorite horror sub-genre after visiting sites like Hysteria-Lives, Slasherpool and Retroslashers. (Dang, who remembers the last two?) I wanted an outlet and this site gave me that opportunity to do just that so, thank you. 

Thank you for those who dropped by to see what this little man has offer in insight regarding your favorite and/or new slasher titles out there. (I sure do hope I didn't spoil any movies considering the bodycounting I do here! haha) Thank you for tolerating my grammar, which I swear I check and re-check, over and over. Thank you for commenting and sharing a few suggestions for me to watch and read. (You know who you are, you good people!)

Thank you, to all the little friends I made here. Knowing you take a time off your day to see what I write about simply puts a smile on my face. (What can I say? I'm a man of simple pleasures!)

So ten years has passed since I started this blog. Here's to another ten years and more! So long as evil walks on two legs and there are final girls and boys to stop them, I will power on to see what this fine subgenre has to offer! So here's to StickyRed: Bodycount Compendium! So now, dear readers...

The Witch Forever Lives: Fear Street Part Three: 1666 (2021)

Fear Street Part Three: 1666 (2021)
Rating: ****
Starring: Kiana Madeira, Ashley Zukerman and Gillian Jacobs

Previously on Fear Street; After learning through a fellow Shadyside massacre survivor's own harrowing account back in 1978 that they can end the curse afflicting their town by reuniting a dead witch's severed hand with the rest of her remains, siblings Deena and Josh find the buried hand and go forth to her suspiciously misplaced grave. But when Deena bleeds unto the remains, however, she begins to see things from the past through, much to her surprise, the witch's eyes...

It's the early 17th century, at a settlement called Union; Sarah Fier is just like any other youth around the community, spending her days helping around with her family's chores and enjoying whatever free time she has left with her friends. But when one night of festivities under the full moon had her confessing her love for her friend Sarah Miller and got intimate, it somehow kicked off a curse that spoiled the town's harvests, poisoned the water and possessed the settlement's pastor Cyrus Miller into murdering a dozen children. As the town's grievance boils into blaming rage, they set their eyes on hunting down Sarah Fier and Hannah Miller as many claim to have seen the two practicing witchcraft. 

Now on the run and blamed for the mysterious plague, Sarah Fier looks for a way to save not only herself, but her beloved Hannah, this including striking a deal with the Devil himself. But not everything is what it appears and Sarah, along with our present day Shadysiders, will find out the horrible truth about the darkness befalling them...

Much like the first two Fear Street movies, 1666 subverts expectations by practically handling a story that is its own rather than a homage to a popular slasher plot; running around nearly two hours, the film is split into (further) two parts, with the first being a folk horror story taking place during the fire-and-brimstone era of colonial America. This is where the trilogy bring forth its most intriguing and strongest plot point as it plays with the idea of forbidden romance, paranoia and religious fanaticism through a twisty mystery as a mean to flesh out a workable overarching story even more. The unexpected turns within these parts work fittingly well with the overall tone of the story as a whole, keeping us on our toes as we watch Fier and Miller (both played by the two main casts from the previous two films, a nice touch that gave their characters a bit of legacy) figure out what's causing the misfortunes, all the while surviving an extremist mob on a murderous witch hunt. Through its gloomy camera work and suppressive score, this half is simply evocative and intense down to the expected yet still shocking and surprisingly bittersweet end that leads us back to the present.

Without giving away the big reveal, the second half of 1666 follows up on where the events of 1994 left off so far, now with a stronger sense of urgency and tighter atmosphere as a surprise villain is made aware that their secretive exploits have been compromised and is now willing to do anything to make sure it stays hidden. The whole second act just ties neatly to everything that's been happening, made better with the fact that it brought back the spunky energy of the first movie which was noticeably absent from the second. This means more creative Scooby-Doo friendly plans to stop yet another small army of stabby, masked and not-so-masked villains (I swear, these killers better get their own movies!), ending with a satisfying finale that tug heartstrings and a last shot implying some possible mayhem in the future. It perfectly balances out the bleak and gloomy first half, a cleverly entertaining way to wraparound the entirety of the story.

With the story straying away from the typical hack-and-stab film plot, this leaves Fear Street 1666 a bit of an oddball within the interconnected slasher trilogy with its lack of sizeable onscreen kill count or recognizable teen horror tropes. It does earn points here, however, as a general horror flick with its bold moves of having the first set of slayings involve children (done offscreen and it's only for a single scene, but the shown aftermath of the carnage is still unnerving) and Sarah Fier's own hanging being effectively distressing considering the twist. It further makes up for its lack of solid slasher build with a very engaging story and character development, something I personally see as not only this movie's winning factor, but the entire trilogy's; there's respect for the slasher tropes we all know and love here, addressing it before giving it a spin of its own. This fresh take on the subgenre is exactly the kind of welcome creative response we need and is why each film works.

A strong last chapter to a trilogy of slasher throwbacks and then some, Fear Street 1666 is as good as it can get when it comes to a fun mystery, intense thrills and ghoulish cavalcades of masked killers and traitorous spellcasters. It certainly has its little flaws (I find it kinda hard to buy that puritan teens sneak out for parties, drinking the fruits of the land and take berries as drugs but, eh!), but for all the good it has to offer, I can honestly say this is a one gratifying entry for a of a kind slasher event!  

Bodycount:

12 children found murdered, eyes plucked out with a horseshoe hook pick

1 male stabbed in the side with a pitchfork

1 female had her throat cut with a knife

1 female hanged

1 male stabbed through the neck with a knife

1 male knifed in the gut

1 male knifed in the eye

Total: 18

No Talking. No Texting. No Breathing: Al Morir La Matinée (2020)

Al Morir La Matinée (Uruguay/Argentina, 2020) (AKA "Red Screening", "The Last Matinee", "Bloody Matinee")

Rating: ****

Starring: Ricardo Islas, Luciana Grasso and Franco Duran

Sometimes you don't have to flex a high concept to make a fun horror movie. Sometimes you could just work it out with some guy with a bag full of tools, a fairly sizable bodycount and set of gnarly kills, all taking place in a old school movie theater. 

It's a rainy day in 1993 and young projectionist Ana (Luciana Grasso) is taking over her emphysema-stricken father's shift at the Cine Opera downtown theater, which is mostly empty that day. The few patrons who are staying, though, are treating themselves with a showing of Frankenstein, The Monster (With clips taken from Frankenstein: Day of the Beast (2011)) all the while going on with their own shenanigans of hooking up with girls, giving their dates a hand and, for one kid, sneaking in to brave a movie that might be too scary for him. Unbeknown to them all, a gloved maniac is staying in the very same theater and he has set his eyes on killing them all.

While it isn't new to have a slasher film set in a movie theater seeing we have titles like The Meateater (1979), Movie House Massacre (1984), Anguish (1987), and Matinee (1989) already, as well as a few horror titles opening with a murder taking place in crowded theaters such as He Knows You're Alone (1980) and Scream 2 (1997), none of them really took the sleek and gory approach as good as Al Morir La Matinée (2020). Basically, the film's direction is to have the hack and stab elements stripped down to its very core, a throwback of sorts with a simple premise and somewhat okay characters being themselves while a killer picks them off one by one. It never strays away from this approach. No twists or curveballs. Just have a psycho stalk the cinema and murder away anyone he can grab hold on to.

This, in turn, means that the characters can be lacking a bit of depth or personality, but the interactions between themselves and others do have their subtle, cheeky and cheesy moments, thus keeping their scenes far from being boring whenever the film focuses on them. It also helps that the group isn't that big so the focus isn't all over the place, as well as the fact that the plot is paced nicely between the horror and non-horror scenes, giving us enough time to take a quick breather before our killer decides who to stalk and stab next.

And speaking of which, Al Morir La Matinée (2020) will undoubtedly make a gorehound's day as not only is it very bloody, but there's also a strong Italian giallo influence in its cinematography so expect outrageous murder angles, evocative tinted lighting and stylized brutality that would make the likes of Argento or Bava proud. (Best of which being a smoker's demise when the killer went for their throat!) What further works here is that there's a sense of tension and creepiness to the killer's massacre, utilizing the nearly empty cinema setting to give our maniac all the darkened halls and rooms to sneak and prowl around, as well as use the screams from the movie playing to drown out the sound of his weapons and distract unsuspecting moviegoers from the murder happening just a few rows next to them. There's definitely a reason behind all of these methodic killings, but who this killer is or how did he ended up this way is something the movie's keeping to itself and I'm frankly okay with that.

Smoothened with a beatastic synth soundtrack and a strong finale involving a trio of potential survivors, Al Morir La Matinée (2020) is a real winner in my eyes as an old school-style slasher done right. It doesn't beat around the bush with too many layered side-plots and its brutal enough to keep a horror fanatic excited, all the makings of a bonafide slasher experience in my book! So whenever you find yourself a chance to see this, I guarantee you a keeper here!

Bodycount:

1 elderly male brained with a hammer

1 male had his throat cut with a knife

1 male and 1 female had their heads skewered together with a broken long iron hook

1 male had his face bashed against the floor, stabbed with a knife

1 female had her chest and eye stabbed with a knife

1 male knifed to death

1 female had her head repeatedly crushed with a projector's lamphouse lid

1 male ran through with a broken long iron hook

Total: 9