It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these round-ups of films I’ve been watching over the past few weeks and as it’s October, naturally there have been a few more horror films than usual flickering across the screens at EOFFTV Towers. Here are capsule reviews of twenty titles that may, or may not, get fuller reviews in due course (a couple of them definitely will) – some are among the very best the genre has to offer. Some… less so.
Mandy (2018)
Possibly the wildest film you’ll see this year, Panos Cosmatos’s deranged follow-up to the equally bonkers Beyond the Black Rainbow (2010) will definitely be featuring in our Films of 2018 list. And probably in those of a good few others too. Featuring Nicholas Cage at his most unrestrained and unhinged, this tale of a vengeful logger out to track down the cult who have abducted his girlfriend (Andrea Riseborough as the eponymous Mandy) is quite unlike anything else you’ll see this year. It won’t appeal to everyone but if you were lured in by the loopy charms of Cosmatos’s first film, this will go down very well. You may think that Beyond the Black Rainbow prepared you for what the director did next – you’d be wrong. Very wrong…
The Bell Witch Haunting (2013)
I’ve never really minded the “found footage” horror film. When they’re done right, they can be highly effective. When they’re bad, they’re virtually unwatchable. Sadly, most of them are like The Bell Witch Haunting – somewhere in between, making no impact whatsoever. If you’ve seen Paranormal Activity (2007) and its myriad sequels, you’ve pretty much seen Glenn Miller’s film already. A family in a rural setting are besieged by a supernatural force that possesses one of them, mutilates most of the rest and then off it goes leaving little trace of its pacing. It’s not awful. But it’s not particularly memorable either. The kind of film that the otherwise overused word “meh” was made for.
Madman (1981)
Possibly the first knock off of Friday the 13th (1980), Joe Giannone’s Madman is well enough made but far too ridiculous and derivative or its own good. The standard issue brainless teens and not-so-teens (including “Alexis Dubin”, actually Dawn of the Dead (1978)’s Gaylen Ross wisely using a pseudonym) gather at a remote summer camp where a disfigured maniac, Madman Marz, is lurking in the woods waiting for… No, there’s no point, you already know what it’s about. Terrible performances, a splash of gore, young people acting like idiots and a dash of sex. It’s the same old formula as before and although it’s slickly made, the film’s cult following remains something of a mystery.
The Stone: No Soul Unturned (2011)
Dear God… Philip Gardiner’s painfully bad and pretty much unendurable monstrosity is as incoherent as it gets. It has something to do with a group of vaguely Gothy-types who turn up at an old house where an ancient stone (that talks…) disrupts their attempts at doing whatever it is they’re doing (it involves souls, a ritual and dreadful acting but it’s not entirely clear what they’re up to). There’s a lot of not-much-happening, accompanied by some passably decent songs but quite what’s going on is probably known only to Gardiner himself. Certainly none of the terrible cast seem to have a clue what’s happening and can’t make the ridiculous dialogue sound even remotely convincing. Be warned – this monstrosity is lurking on Amazon Prime under the title Ancient Evil Unbound waiting to ambush the unwary browser. Don’t be fooled.
The Shrine (2010)
Every so often, ploughing your way through the hundreds – probably thousands – of hours of genre films available on the online streaming services, most not seen anywhere else, can turn up the odd rough gems. The Shrine, while no masterpiece, is actually a rather enjoyable bit of “folk horror”. It’s not going to be looked back upon as a title that changed the genre in any way but it’s good, solid effort, atmospherically directed by Jon Knautz, director of Jack Brooks, Monster Slayer (2007). A group of young American (possibly Canadian – it’s not clear where they’re from but the film itself is Canadian) journalists investigate the disappearance of a backpacker in a remote Polish village and fall foul of local pagan sect. There’s some eerie business with a statue in the fog but it’ not entirely without flaws – the central section dips briefly but uncomfortably int “torture porn” territory and the snarly possessed demon-thing in the climax is a bit too familiar from similar efforts. But it’s atmospherically done, there are decent if not earth-shattering performances and it’s nice to see what appears to be Pazuzu’s cousin making its film debut…
The Reef (2010)
Slicker-than-usual sharksploitation but nothing to write home about. Loosely based on a real life tragedy, this Australian film, directed by Andrew Traucki, strands a group of twenty-somethings in shark-infested waters far from shore when they’re yacht capsizes. There’s always a frisson when a shark appears out of the inky depths but Traucki never really makes the group’s predicament seem to be anything other than slightly scary – the shark only really presents a real menace occasionally and and awful lot of the time is spent with the squabbling group drifting along trying to work out what to do. As a time-waster it’s OK but The Shallows (2016) did something very similar far better.
Daughters of Satan (1972)
A pre-Magnum, P.I. (1980-1988) Tom Selleck – already sporting his trademark porn-star ‘tache – stars in this American-funded, Filipino-shot dud, as an antiques dealer who buys a painting of witches being burnt, one of who resembles his wife (Barra Grant). You can work out the rest. Indifferently directed by small screen veteran Hollingsworth Morse, it’s a lifeless trudge through the usual witchcraft/possession cliches, all presented here as if they’re the first time anyone ever thought of them. The Filipino settings are so ill-used that it could have been set just about anywhere. And it would be have been just as dull.
Superbeast (1972)
Shot back-to-back with Daughters of Satan, this is a marginally more fun effort from producer Aubrey Schenck (whose son George directed this time), a Most Dangerous Game/Island of Dr Moreau variation with Antoinette Bower as the pathologist on the trail of a madman conducting genetic engineering experiments deep in the Filipino jungle. It’s no great shakes but it’s a bit more lively than Daughters of Satan, which isn’t really saying much. British television viewers got a shock when it turned up on BBC2 on Saturday 26 August 1978, complete with grisly autopsy scenes – filmed with what disconcertingly look like real bodies – all present and correct. By the time it was show again in March 1984, the “video nasties” had been and gone so probably no-one batted an eyelid.
Demon Wind (1990)
OK, so it’s shameless knock-off of Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead (1981) but… I can’t help but feel rather well disposed towards Charles Philip Moore’ rather silly and derivative shocker. It hasn’t got an original thought in its daft little head but it’s energetic, as dumb as it gets and lots of very silly fun. Some rubbish zombies turn up from time to time to add to the fun and if it doesn’t really amount to very much, well at least it passes the time harmlessly enough. You’ll have forgotten all about it next morning but while it’s on, it’s hard not to love its willingness to please and its refusal to let what must surely have been a minuscule budget dampen the fun.
Vampire’s Kiss (1988)
It’s Nicholas Cage again and although this is not quite the full-on, unadulterated Caginess of Mandy, there’s plenty of his unique brand of acting to keep this daft tale of a literary agent who thinks he’s a vampire ticking along quite nicely. After a one-night stand, Cage’s tightly wound executive becomes convinced that he’s one of the undead, absolutely certain that he has no reflection in the mirror (though we and the film’s supporting characters see one), donning plastic fangs from a joke shop and running round New York like a madman. Whether he really is a vampire is a moot point really. Your tolerance for Robert Bierman’s film will largely depend on your tolerances for late-80s fashions and Cage’s singular acting style – hate one or either and this isn’t going to be the most fun you’ll have in front o your TV.
V/H/S Viral (2014)
By this third entry in the V/H/S “found footage” series, the idea was wearing rather thin. The first two films had framing stories that just about worked. This one doesn’t even bother – there’s some old guff about a video-born virus that gets loose in Los Angeles but how all this fits in with the three stand-alone stories that make up the rest of the film isn’t at all clear. The wraparound sequence, directed by Marcel Sarmiento, goes nowhere but at least has the decency to wrap the franchise up. Gregg Bishop’s Dante the Great is a slight and not particularly memorable skit about a stage magician possessed by his newly acquired cloak (shades of Jon Pertwee in The House That Dripped Blood (1971)), Parallel Monsters, by Los cronocrímenes (2007)’s Nacho Vigalondo is a more impressive story about a scientist (Gustavo Salmeron) who invents a portal to a parallel dimension, and the by default the pick of the crop is Bonestorm, by Justin Benson and Aaron Scott Moorhead (Resolution (2012), Spring (2014), The Endless (2017)) in which a group of ghastly teenage skateboarders get their cummupance in Tijuana at the hands of an obscure cult who return from the grave as Blind Dead lookalikes. None of this lot really hangs together in anything like a cohesive story and the final revelation, that the video virus is laying waste to Los Angeles, is curiously muted.
Retribution (1987)
Largely forgotten today – and not without reason – Guy Magar’s rather bland possession/revenge film seemed to be all over the genre magazines at the time. It follows the misadventures of artist George Miller (Dennis Lipscomb) who tries to commit suicide on Halloween by jumping off a building only to survive and be possessed by a gambler who was murdered by mobsters at the exact same time. Using the unwitting George as a vessel for his revenge, the gambler tracks down his killers and disposes of them with his pyrotechnic telekinetic powers. Again it’s a film that’s just sort of “there”, unremarkable, inoffensive, never destined to be anyone’s favourite but not outrageous or bad enough to offend anyone. The special effects scenes are well done – by Kevin Yagher – but there’s a lot of sitting around doing very little in between.
The Hexecutioners (2015)
Barely an hour after struggling to stay awake to the end credits of Jesse Thomas Cook’s The Hexecutioners I was equally struggling to remember anything about it. Something to do with a near-future America where euthanasia has been legalised and two young women (Liv Collins and Sarah Power) who are sent by a company specialising in assisted deaths to the obligatory remote mansion where terrible things await them. It’s a nice idea but Cook gets bogged down in boring incidentals when he should have been pushing the sluggish plot forward a bit more briskly. The performances are good and they’re rewarded with some witty dialogue but actually remembering any of the details p[roves tough work.
The Carpenter (1988)
Alice Jarett (Lynne Adams) has been released from a psychiatric hospital and… Yes, once again you know where this one is going I’m sure. The twist here is that Alice falls in love with a ghostly presence haunting her house, a carpenter (Wings Hauser) who started building it before he was executed for the murder of several bailiffs sent to repossess his dream home when he started to default on payments. Several messy deaths occur, most involving power tools, but once again (there’s a pattern emerging here…) it’s a bit underwhelming. You never once care for anyone in the film and it’s hard to understand why the admittedly rather loopy Alice should even fall for the deathly dull carpenter in the first place. Watch it when you’ve worked through the better films on your watchlist.
Rubber (2010)
Now here’s a genuine oddity. The everyday story of a killer car tire named Robert that descends on a small desert town and wreaks havoc with its psychic powers, all the while being observed by a crowd of paying observers who comment on the action, break the fourth wall and end up being poisoned to death. It doesn’t work – God, how could it? – but you can’t help but admire Rubber‘s insane ambitions.It’s too long and takes itself far too seriously but all credit to writer/director Quentin Dupieux, at a time when horror films were becoming increasingly identikit, he at least goes out on a limb with Rubber. It’s a limb that ultimately breaks under the weight of the film’s ambitions and pretensions but let’s celebrate that such weirdness can still be found, even if it would have worked so much better as a short film.
Southbound (2015)
A cracking little anthology film that tells five interlocking and not always immediately comprehensible stories that criss-cross over each others paths on a desolate stretch of desert highway.There’s a wonderfully memorable set of monsters – first glimpsed as hovering spectres almost on the edge of frame, a satisfying cyclical plot and plenty of echoes of The Twilight Zone (1959-1964) and EC Comics. A couple of viewings may be required to slot everything into place but one suspects that repeated viewings may be rewarding in all sorts of ways. Directed by Roxanne Benjamin, David Bruckner, Patrick Horvath and the Radio Silence collective and with special effects for the second story, Siren, provided by Aaron Moorehead who, with regular film-making partner, told his own cyclical story a couple of years later with The Endless (2017).
Carrie (2013)
Stephen King’s tale of a repressed and bullied young girl unleashing pent-up psychic powers on her tormentors had already been filmed twice, in 2002 for American television and by Brian De Palma in a definitive version in 1976. Kimberly Peirce’s take adds nothing new to the story and although well-made and benefiting from great performances from Chloë Grace Moretz in the title role and Julianne Moore as her deranged mother, it comes across as just another remake than no-one asked for. If you’ve never seen the original, it’ll do as a respectful adaptation of the book but the version you really need stars Sissy Spacek and, as a King adaptation, has only really been bettered by Kubrick’s The Shining (1980).
Sightseers (2012)
Why it took me so long to catch up with this comic gem is a mystery. Written by and starring Alice Lowe and Steve Oram as lovers so in thrall to each other they they can’t see the murder and mayhem they leave in their wake as they embark on a caravan tour of the north of England, Sightseers grew out of a stage double act and a short film that Lowe and Oram had been refining for seven years. Directed by the always impressive Ben Wheatley, Sightseers is alternately darkly hilarious and worryingly scary as the couple become increasingly unhinged as their holiday progresses. There’s something depressingly familiar and terribly English about the drab “attractions” the couple visit and about their failed attempts to inject their lives with some sort of meaning. Bleak, grisly but also very, very funny, this is one that you’ll want to return to if only to savour again the brilliant lead performances.
Yin Ji, aka Kung Fu from Beyond the Grave (1982)
Like the best Hong Kong horrors, Kung Fu from Beyond the Grave throws caution to the wind and emerges as the craziest, most unpredictable and wildest rides of rides. Directed by Chiu Lee and starring martial arts veterans Billy Chong and Lo Lieh, it’s a delirious tale of how the gates to Hell open to disgorge the dead while a young man, with the help of his father’s ghost and a magic book, battles an evil priest. On their own, any one of the elements that go to make up Kung Fu from Beyond the Grave would have seemed rather generic but together they combine to create a barely in control orgy of special effects, martial arts and sheer weirdness, the very things that made us fall in love with these outre Asian offerings in the first place. There really is something for everyone here though whether they all combine to tell a story that makes sense is debatable. But that’s not really the point – just give yourself over to it and enjoy every demented minute of it.
Gatti rossi in un labirinto di vetro aka Eyeball (1975)
Umberto Lenzi’s stylish giallo has been given a spiffing blu-ray spruce-up by the 88 Films crowd and it looks better than ever. It still doesn’t make a lot of sense but it oozes style, has plenty of grisly killings (as the English language title suggests, the red-caped killer is obsessed with eyeballs and happily – and messily – removes them from a coachload of American tourists) and a decent Bruno Nicolai score. It was never going to trouble the masters like Dario Argento or Sergio Martino but it shows, particularly in this beautiful new version, that Lenzi was as capable of an arresting giallo image as any of his peers.
The moral of this trawl through a few weeks of horror movies would seem to be – watch better horror films. There are some real gems here – Mandy, Southbound, Sightseers – but far too many middling, forgettable shockers with no ambition or drive. The next one of these round-ups will be a look at the horror films I’ll be catching at this year’s London Film Festival. Fingers crossed there are some more outstanding selections among that lot…
The EOFFTV Review 