Going to Pieces: The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film

While watching the documentary Going to Pieces, I had to resist comparing it with The American Nightmare. That documentary was an ambitious piece which linked several seminal horror movies to the social concerns of the period in which they were made. Going to Pieces had a much more limited scope, with its focus on, well, the rise and fall of the slasher subgenre. Any comparison with American Nightmare would be unfair, so I did everything I could to take it on its own terms. As a stand alone piece, Going to Pieces should gain the love of the legions of slasher fans, but won't gain any converts.

Based on a book by Adam Rockoff, the documentary takes a look at the beginnings of the slasher flick, and follows its history right up through the recent torture porn films. Rockoff pulls together an impressive list of people to interview; John Carpenter, Wes Craven, Greg Nicotero, and Sean Cunningham are just a few of the topline names that discuss the subgenre. But Rockoff plunges deeper, and gets plenty of lesser known producers and directors of such films as Graduation Day and Happy Birthday to Me to talk. This lends the doc a certain authenticity and breadth. Following a chronology that begins in 1960 with Psycho and the woefully underappreciated Peeping Tom, the film quickly shifts to a discussion of Halloween as the film that established most of the slasher conventions. It then moves on to Friday the 13th, and how that film upped the gore content, thus changing slasher flicks forever. The doc then covers the glut of movie maniacs that followed in Friday's wake, and shows how the popularity has ebbed and risen in cycles over the last 30 years.

It's interesting to see just how the makers of the subgenre view these films, but the biggest flaw is that they're not saying anything you wouldn't expect. They defend the violence, the role of women as both victims and survivors, the maniacs themselves. But of course they do. It would have been more interesting to bring outsiders to the conversation, as American Nightmare did (ok, so I couldn't totally ditch the comparison. Sorry). Instead, any view from the outside focuses on the virulent backlash to the movies. The late, often closed minded Gene Siskel attacks the entire cycle, going so far as to intimate that its films are depraved and dangerous. There's also a segment that touches on the campaign of mothers that successfully ousted Silent Night, Deadly Night from theatres. It's a sad display of just how mindless and vicious people can be, and ironic that they may be more numb than the movie maniacs presented in these movies.

Going to Pieces also uses title cards on occasion, but the following segments fly by so quickly that they're of little use. Even more irksome is how the film doesn't identify some of the folks it interviews. Though it's easy to piece together who's who from the topic of discussion, it would've been great if everyone got their fair due.

One thing the doc does right is its use of location. How great is it to have Harry Manfredini discussing his famous "ki ki ma ma" theme on a boat in the middle of a lake? Cunningham does his interview in front of a rustic cabin, and Carpenter strolls through a graveyard, ultimately ending up in front of a boulder that bears his surname. These locations connect the doc to the films. They're a wonderful touch.

Ultimately, Going to Pieces preaches to the converted. It's not going to convince anyone who disses slasher films that they have any merit; and it's telling slasher fans what I'm sure they already know. Any documentary should have an argument, but in place of one, this doc merely doles out grand amounts of praise.

It also has grand amounts of special features. There are six bonus interviews, including one with the late Bob Clark, who some argue beat Carpenter to creating the slasher flick. I gather these were cut for length, as they'd fit perfectly in with the rest of the doc. There's also a slasher trivia game, with both a novice and advanced level. Even with a profound knowledge of the horror genre, I found both levels to be tougher than expected. There's a trailer for the film, and a gallery of trailers for Think Films, the company that produced the doc. Then, there's the commentary. I'm a big fan of commentaries in general. The good ones offer all sorts of background to a film. This one, however, is a total waste. It probably would have been interesting had Rockoff done the discussion, but instead I get a conversation between the film's two producers and its editor, and not even a good one. A complete waste of time.

Going to Pieces was never going to be American Nightmare, but then it wasn't supposed to be. It's a look at the slasher subgenre, created by a fan for the fans. If you love the cycle, you're bound to love this flick. If you avoid those movies, avoid this one too.

--Phil Fasso

Posted by RobG at 10:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things

Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things is one of those movies I'd always heard about, but had never seen until about a year and a half ago. Over the years, Bob Clark and Alan Ormsby's first flick has developed a cult following, who consider it a minor classic that lurks in the shadows of Dawn of the Dead and Zombie. I'd heard so much about this flick that once I joined Netflix, it was one of the first zombie flicks I made sure to see. To my disappointment, Children did little to live up to what that cult had made it out to be.

The movie starts off in promising fashion. A caretaker is strolling along through a graveyard one night when two zombies attack. The lighting, editing and filming all establish a chilling tone. But as soon as the credits end, any creepy mood all but falls apart. Enter Uncle Alan, essayed by co-writer Alan Ormsby himself, with a crew of local theatre actors. Uncle Alan is putting together a production, and has brought his troupe to an island off the coast of Florida, in order to dig up a dead body. This gives the film its cool tagline, "You're invited to Orville's coming out party." It also leads to much bickering between Alan and his troupe, and way too much talking. In fact, all the characters do in the first hour of this film is talk. And talk. And talk more. And follow that with talk. There's so much talking, the film should really should be titled Bad Amateur Actors Shouldn't Talk an Audience to Death. That most of the chattering breaks down to Alan and the group bitching back and forth doesn't help the matter. There's little to like in any of these characters, especially Alan, who takes his position as smalltime theatre director and transforms it into tyrant lord; that these people have subjected themselves to him for a measly sum makes them no better than him. Nor does it do the movie any favors that most of the bitching takes place in the static location of the graveyard. Film is a dynamic venue, but such heavy dialogue in one place precludes any motion in the plot.

And then there's the matter of Alan Ormsby's performance. His overacting is so severe, it's only to be outdone by his flamboyant shirt. He overemotes so much, it's a performance that one must see to believe. Because his is the central performance of the film, his lack of any restraint hijacks the story with histrionics. As for his character, though it's never outright stated, Uncle Alan is definitely gay. His flamboyant mannerisms and position in the theatre suggest he's not straight. His choice of clothing, including the aforementioned shirt and his neck scarf, scream gay. And any argument of his heterosexuality goes right out the graveyard entrance with his mock marriage to Orville, the corpse the troupe digs up. Aside from the fact that what it implies is creepy, the wedding makes him perhaps the only homosexual necrophile of record on film.

He's not the only one overacting, though. Anya Ormsby, Alan's wife of the time, bulges her eyes out, as she runs around in a weird trance. As Jeff, Jeff Gillen is overly clownish, especially when he informs everyone, "I peed my pants" nearly a dozen times. As Val, Valerie Mamches acts as a counterbalance to Alan, but she's just as mean and overbearing as he is. As silly as it seems, the only actor who escapes with any dignity is Seth Sklarey as Orville Dunworth, the corpse. The very fact that he keeps a straight face while these fools carry out great sins of dialogue is a testament to his acting ability. And there's definitely something genuinely creepy in his appearance. None of this really matters, though, because having Robert DeNiro and Meryl Streep as the leads would never have saved this film.

By the time the zombies rise just past the hour mark, they've come too late to make the movie worthwhile. The film then turns into another Night of the Living Dead siege film, as so many zombie flicks do. If one has invested this much time in Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things, it makes sense to sit through the end, so one can see Uncle Alan meet his some. All who do will see the highlight of the film, as Alan does something so scummy and self-serving, even the zombies look shocked.

I certainly don't understand why Children has such a cult following, but because it does, I was scratching my head at the severe lack of extras. The trailer, which actually says it's Smedley's coming out party, and shows an altogether different corpse, is the only real bonus on the disc. It's been rumored for years that Children will someday get a special edition, but that day has yet to come. I may not like the flick, but the cult of fans that do deserve better than this.

Before Bob Clark's tragic death a little over a year ago, he was in talks to remake Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things. Even though I despise the "reboot" craze in today's horror genre, I would have liked to see what he would've done differently. As it stands, I'm left only with the original. That film certainly has its fans, but it's far too talky for me to join the cult.

NOTE: Usually, I finish a review with a closing paragraph, and leave it be. But I cannot deny the irony that Bob Clark's killer was sentenced to six years in jail, one year to the day before I wrote this review. Perhaps there is some justice left in this world, and we don't need zombies to overturn the social order after all.

--Phil Fasso

Posted by RobG at 09:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hell of the Living Dead

The whole Italian zombie cycle of the 1980s seems to be an exercise in trash. With each new film in the cycle, the director attempted to out-trash the guy behind him, and set the bar so low that the next to come along would have to break his back to out-trash him. One of the outright winners in the competition was Bruno Mattei. Coming within inches of Umberto Lenzi's Nightmare City, Mattei verges on the absolute nadir of the cycle with his ultra-trashy Hell of the Living Dead.

As with many of the films from the cycle, Hell liberally rips off from Romero's freshly released Dawn of the Dead, but more blatantly than just about any other. The film combines some SWAT-type soldiers with two people who work for a news station; a bunch of blue-faced, Romero issue zombies shamble after them, creating plenty of gore as they rip, tear and munch flesh and shed gallons of blood; there are copies of a bunch of Savini's gore effects; and the film even includes a scene with zombies in an elevator. It does all of this so poorly that it's absolutely unbelievable. It also throws in stock footage from a documentary on New Guinea that is atrociously mismatched. Then there's the matter of the music. Through his connections with a record company owner, Mattei managed to steal Dawn's main theme. I understand Mattei's intent. The Goblins' familiar soundtrack is supposed to remind the viewer of Dawn, and give this film a sort of credibility; instead, it only serves to point out what total garbage this film is, in comparison with what many consider Romero's masterpiece.

Hell is absolute trash from its opening scene. In the huge factory in New Guinea that houses the HOPE center, scientists work on Operation Sweet Death (I could not make this up if I tried). A rat manages to sneak up a scientist's airtight suit and rip him to shreds, turning him into a zombie. When others arrive, he bites one, and thus the Romero-style zombie plague begins. Elsewhere, the SWAT-type special forces arrive to kill protesters who bespeak the dangers of HOPE. Violence ensues, and the special forces are sent on a secret mission neither they nor the audience will ever quite understand. Their quest will take them across the Third World country, to the HOPE center. Along the way, they reluctantly pick up a female reporter and her mustachioed cameraman, whom they want to leave behind to die at every stop.

I suppose in more talented hands, this could've been a decent plot. But problems plague it at every turn. The SWAT guys are testosterone driven pricks, cartoonish and one-dimensional. The reporters are arrogant. A bickering couple and their child are no kinder. In fact, everyone in this film is so unsavory, that I was rooting for all of them to die, and that's hard for any film to pull off. Add to this the rash of bizarre decisions that characters make throughout: one soldier goads a group of zombies with his own arm flesh, and another dresses up in a tutu and imitates Gene Kelly's famous dance number from Singing in the Rain, cane and all (again, I couldn't make this up). And just wait for the ending, when a character jumps to some outrageously big, yet unfounded conclusions about Project Sweet Death. But these are just a smattering of the insane character choices and gaps in logic throughout the film. At least 50 times, I found myself asking, "Why the Hell would that character do that??? No one would ever act that way!" Midway through the film, I gave up trying, and just told myself, "This is Hell of the Living Dead, Phil. Nobody making it cared about logic."

Nobody making it cared about taste, either. Mattei heaps gore on top of gore, as the SWAT guys are happy to kill anybody they come across, including a little kid who's just eaten his father. Blowing a kid away on screen is usually avoided in film, and if not, then it's handled with sensitivity. But not here. There's no art to this, just hack work, both literally and figuratively.

Mattei basically confirms he's a hack in the nine minute interview that is the only special feature of worth. He very openly admits how his film Rats is basically Night of the Living Dead, with vermin replacing the zombies, and that the producers of Hell of the Living Dead wanted a Dawn rip off, which he delivered. He makes no airs about being a great director, and seems to accept his lowbrow career in good spirits. Mattei states that all of his films are like children to him, but he would re-shoot them all if he had the chance. If only he had aborted this child before birth. The disc also boasts the theatrical trailer, which is insanely too long at nearly four minutes, and divulges too much. A stills gallery and Mattei's bio round out the special features.

One more thing. Hell also goes by the title Virus, which makes it a member of the Horror Movie Relocation Program. Maybe it knew what filth it was, and wanted to go into hiding.

Hell of the Living Dead is atrociously bad, toward the bottom of the trash heap that is the Italian zombie cycle. But as with all the films of that cycle, it has its fans. There are those who love these movies, revere these tasteless efforts and how they try to out-trash each other. In some perverse way, those fans will love Mattei's flick, and want to hang me as the true hack. For all other fans, who enjoy any modicum of plot, characterization or any other elements that make a film watchable, leave Hell of the Living Dead near the bottom of the heap.

--Phil Fasso

Posted by RobG at 09:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

City of the Living Dead

Lucio Fulci is overrated. I'm sure to draw ire from many horror fans with that statement, but I stand by it. Zombie is a decent film, but its fans must acknowledge that it wouldn't exist without Romero's Dawn of the Dead. House by the Cemetery is nonsensical, plot free drivel. And if one listens to the debate about Zombi 3 and believes that he directed any part of it, that trashy effort should nullify any good grace he garners from fans of Zombie. Because I don't appreciate Fulci, I was leery about watching another zombie effort of his, City of the Living Dead. Viewing it on its own merit, I'm glad I went in with an open mind, as it turned out to be a very well-made, atmospheric horror movie.

The movie starts with a scream, and never lets up. In a fog laden graveyard in Dunwich, Massachusetts, a priest hangs himself. In New York City, during a séance, psychic Mary Woodhouse sees his suicide in a vision, and falls dead herself. When a newspaper reporter discovers that Mary may not be dead after all, he finds that the priest's death has opened a gateway to Hell. If the door remains open by the coming of All Saints' Day in 48 hours, Hell will come to Earth.

Fulci's direction is much more restrained here than in his other works. By using some old school horror conventions such as copious amounts of rolling fog, off-camera screams and growls, and sly camera work, he create a sense of dread that pervades the entire film. The dread develops a tension that does not let up throughout. His odd penchant on extreme close ups on characters' eyes as they talk is offsetting, as is his constant shifting among several sets of characters. The concept of an end of days is chilling enough, but Fulci enhances it by drawing a tight focus on the townsfolk of the fictional Dunwich, a name he stole from H.P. Lovecraft. Constant mention of how Dunwich is built on the old town of Salem (which it's not; that's actually Danvers, Mass.) connect the film to the witch trials of old, and posit the old "sins of the fathers revisited on the sons" concept.

As a fan of gore, I was surprised that the death scenes didn't work for me. In a film that relies so much on atmosphere in what it doesn't show, the over the top gore seems ill fitting, as if it belongs in another movie. As for the deaths themselves, they're creatively done. Though not nearly as innovative as his Italian counterpart Dario Argento, Fulci always finds fresh ways to kill people. The brain rip shows up more than a few times here; a few characters vomit their every internal organ; and there's a nasty scene with a bench drill that I'm still trying to figure out how they did. Creepiest of all, though, are the bleeding eyes. Much has been made of Fulci's penchant for eye trauma because of the demise of Olga Karlatos in Zombie, but the effect here is much more chilling. It's as if the characters' very view of the old world order is bleeding out, making way for a bloodstained world of zombies and demons.

There was very little I didn't like in City of the Living Dead. The performances are serviceable, and Catriona MacColl is particularly convincing as Mary, the psychic who must stop the end of the world. Christopher George, of Grizzly fame, is the only fault in the cast. He made a whole slew of movies in a career that lasted decades, and I'll never understand how. What I take for flat, sometimes cheesy acting, others must see as solid performance. Then there's the ending. Narrative was never one of Fulci's strong points; many of his films focus more on imagery than any logical sequence of events. Despite dropping a few storylines before they reach their full arc, City of the Living Dead actually has a coherent narrative. Until the final scene. As a boy runs toward the camera, to our surviving protagonists, a scream literally shatters the screen, and the movie falls to pieces. I can only conclude that, in true nihilist form, Fulci uses the shot to represent a world that has fallen to chaos, something he foreshadowed earlier with a shattering mirror. Unless I'm totally off base on that, it's a nice touch. It's certainly open to interpretation, yet also shatters the narrative he'd established so nicely until the final seconds.

Though I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, I did not enjoy having such a scant set of extras. Blue Underground usually treats each move it distributes like gold, but City of the Living Dead only gets a theatrical trailer, which runs too long at a full three minutes; radio spots played over a stills gallery; and a brief bio of Fulci. The radio spots reveal that this is another member of the Horror Movie Relocation program, as are so many other zombie movies; in the U.S. it bore the name The Gates of Hell. Fulci has a huge fan base, that deserves a much deeper package of extras.

Lucio Fulci is a radically over praised director. But even give my attitude, City of the Living Dead defied my expectations and numbers itself among the better zombie films in my massive catalogue. To Fulci fans and the uninitiated both, it's worth a watch for its chilling atmosphere.

--Phil Fasso

Posted by RobG at 09:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Alien Dead

I very much enjoy the works of Fred Olen Ray. Sure, he makes trash, but it's fun trash. Movies such as Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers and Scream Queens Hot Tub Party scream "camp," but they're deliriously fun, in the silliest way. So when I heard that Ray had made a zombie movie, as a huge fan of both his catalogue and movies that involve walking dead, I couldn't wait to get Alien Dead into my DVD player.

Imagine my disappointment when I actually watched the movie, and concluded that Alien Dead is... oh God, I can't believe I'm saying this about a Fred Olen Ray film... it's boring. The "trash" half of the equation is there; but this film was totally devoid of the "fun." It starts off with reporter Tom Corman typing. Let me make this clear: No zombie flick should ever start with someone typing, because it's not exciting. Corman isn't even typing frantically; relaxed at his old typewriter, he explains how he never expected anything out of the ordinary in the town of Oviedo, Florida, but now something extraordinary has happened. Segue to the Griffiths, out gator hunting on a boat. When the missus falls into the swamp and goes missing, a strange series of events begins. Ever intrepid reporter Corman (whom Ray named after low budget auteur, Roger) gets no help from Buster Crabbe's Sheriff Kowalski, even when it's beyond obvious that there are zombies in the lake. This is not, however, the typical "refuses to believe evidence of the supernatural that's right in his face" sheriff; instead he's the only example I've ever seen of the "I'm too lazy!/Stop interrupting my card game!/Now I've got to yell at you again, Corman!" cop. I fully understand why this archetype doesn't exist in horror.

The movie does, however, adhere to the Romero archetypes, as it's an obvious rip off of Night of the Living Dead: a meteor crashes and causes the dead to rise and eat the living; the undead chase the survivors to a farm house; there's a siege. It appears as if the zombies can be killed by head trauma. This was never going to be the classic that Night was, but it surely adheres to the formula in it's last 20 minutes or so. Ironic, then, that Ray cops to stealing and blending the titles of Alien and Dawn of the Dead.

I can forgive Ray for stealing and blending titles. This is an exploitation film, after all. I can even forgive him for some of the other problems with Alien Dead. This was only his second film; his budget was a mere $12,000, roughly 10% of Night of the Living Dead's, which came out 12 years earlier. Budgetary constraints obviously engendered mediocre to poor special effects makeup, poor sound quality and lighting, and the inability to hire Marlon Brando. But money doesn't explain the meandering script. The plot moves along lazily, among a number of characters, punctuated every so often by another predictably telegraphed zombie attack. In between those attacks, nothing occurs to hold interest. With a scant running time of 74 minutes, there's a whole lot of nothing going on in many of these scenes. The actors, and the ridiculous dialogue they speak, do everything to hinder any sense of fun. As with his later works, Ray laces the movie with zingers, but in this case, they all fall terribly flat. Part to blame is the acting; as our hero, Raymond Roberts is so wooden, he should float, and the rest of the cast delivers some of the most uninspired performances I've seen in a zombie movie since Hugo Stiglitz graced the screen in Nightmare City. Add to this some bizarre cutting (including a fade out during which Corman never gets to finish his sentence), a soundtrack that takes most of the scares out of 3/4 of the movie with its inclusion of country songs, and wildly inconsistent zombie makeup, and any chance Alien Dead ever had to be good gets washed away in a sea of phony looking blood. There's even a severe lack of female nudity for a Fred Olen Ray film.

I felt really bad having to a negative review of Alien Dead. I really like Fred's work, and he comes across as a nice, knowledgeable guy in interviews. Watching it with Ray's commentary, however, made me feel redeemed as a reviewer. For 74 minutes, Ray trashes the film on every front, all the while distilling quality information about acting, lighting, and many of the movie's other faults (it's not often that one hears about a chicken pecking on an actress' leg during filming). He's brutally honest in his appraisal, and at the same time grateful that a fan who had a 16mm copy of the film offered it to him for the DVD release. When he explains that his goal with Alien Dead was just to get a film made, at any quality, it echoes the sentiment young filmmakers the world round must have. That's the kind of candid one just doesn't find in Hollywood.

There's also a "video featurette," which is actually a six minute interview of three of the actors, sitting together, from 1992. This is sloppily edited, but gracefully short. A stills gallery fills out the package of the disc, as well as the address to Olen Ray's bizarre website, www.retromedia.org.

Alien Dead is a dreadful films in almost every way. But it's a formative work from a filmmaker who would years later direct many better, if still exploitative films. For this reason, I can forgive.

--Phil Fasso

Posted by RobG at 09:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Chopping Mall

Some films act as a perfect time capsule for the particular decade in which they were made. The Graduate comes to mind, with Dustin Hoffman's character perfectly straddling the Ed Sullivan Show and Woodstock. There couldn't be a better microcosm of the 1960s. But such movies need not be as acclaimed nor as artfully done. Just check out Chopping Mall, and why it screams everything 1980s:

- The cinematography makes it look just like Weird Science

- The score is all synthesizer

- Teens get together to have sex...

- ...and are slaughtered because they do

- Barbara Crampton exposes her boobs

- Kelli Maroney is the heroine

- It has ridiculously silly robots (think Johnny 5 with lasers)

- Laser bolts and electric shocks are drawn in cartoon style, instead of CGI

- There's a Rambo reference

- One of the kids from Head of the Class is a protagonist

And best of all...

- All the boobs in it are natural

Here's what it's about: Three young couples get one teen who works at the furniture store in the mall to keep the place open so they can have premarital sex in the store's beds (just writing that last part makes me need to shower). He's reluctant to do so, but his coworkers schmooze him into doing it, plying him with a date who works in the mall's pizza place. He'll regret saying yes as the night goes on, for a bolt of lightning has made the mall's three new security robots go haywire, transforming them into "killbots." Slaughter, mayhem and gunfire ensue, as the teens try to escape with their lives intact.

Sound silly? That's only because it is. Take the plot of Westworld, combine it with the setting of Dawn of the Dead, and you've got Chopping Mall. Just don't go looking for social commentary, because I mentioned Dawn. And don't expect any irony; this is as straightforward as they come, exploitation cinema at its most dated, with top naked teens played by people way too old to be teens. As for the robots, they don't look menacing at all. This isn't the Terminator exoskeleton here. But that works, because they're played with a sense of humor. In fact, most of the film is played that way, with several references to Roger Corman's film catalogue (his company, Concorde, released the film; he acted as the film's executive producer, and his wife Julie produced it), and a humorous tone. Even though I watched a girl's head get blown off by a laser beam, I never felt any threat or tension. Cleary, the film intends not to terrify, but to offer some good, clean head blasting fun.

Before I discuss special features, I have to say something about the print. Lions Gate apparently could not get the rights to the master, so they went with a video master from Lightning Video. Unfortunately, that means it's full screen, which means I only get to see 2/3 of the movie at any one time. Still, this is as good a print as many of the 1980s films I've seen over the years, and markedly better than many of the cheapjack, grainy horror films from the 1960s and 70s I've viewed. Fortunately, Lions Gate amply makes up for this with a nice package of extras, when nobody in his right mind would expect any for a film that's far from a genre classic. A new featurette, "Chopping Mall: Creating the Killbots" addresses the design of the robots, through interviews with effects artist Robert Short, director/cowriter Jim Wynorski and co-writer/ 2nd unit director Steve Mitchell. It's an interesting piece, cutting together the conversations with footage from the film, revealing a few killbot secrets along the way. Next up is the theatrical trailer, which fortunately doesn't give the whole movie away. There's a photo gallery with a small number of stills from the movie. It includes the poster with the film's original title, "Killbots," under which it totally bombed before its re-release, which means this is another film for the Horror Movie Relocation Program.

Finally, there's the audio commentary, featuring Wynorski and Mitchell. Believe it or not, this is one of Wynorski's more serious efforts, and he and Mitchell have a much more laidback, informative discussion than I had expected. The two share all sorts of background secrets and information, in what amounts to a nuts-and-bolts fashion. It's worth listening to if you enjoy the movie.

Of course, if you lived through the 1980s, especially through your teenage years, you should more than enjoy this movie, if only for the nostalgia. Taken on its own, it's still a lot of fun, as long as you turn the brain off when you turn the DVD player on. Well worth a watch.

--Phil Fasso

Posted by RobG at 09:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies!!?

Five years before Night of the Living Dead changed the landscape of horror movies forever, another young upstart from Pennsylvania decided to script and shoot a low budget zombie movie. Relying on a great wealth of enthusiasm to overcome a severe dearth of talent, cinematic madman Ray Dennis Steckler put all his heart into masterminding the movie he claims has the longest title in history. Though not the seminal classic that Romero's film would be, this qualifies as the most bizarre zombie film that this reviewer has ever seen.

Yes, that is the actual title of the movie. It took me years to remember it (Hell, it took me a month to say it aloud!), but now that I have, I will never forget it. Because there is no way anybody could forget a title such as that, and the same can be said of the movie that bears it. This film is so outlandish, it can't help but tattoo itself onto the viewer's mind. Whether that's a positive or a negative depends on just how much the individual viewer loves really weird, really bad cinema.

I won't ruin the plot by even trying to describe it; better just to lay out some of the film's elements. There's a wart-faced gypsy who throws acid in the faces of disgruntled subjects of hypnotism, and her gruesome-faced henchman; a stripper who doesn't strip; a James Dean rip off, essayed by Steckler himself under his pseudonym, Cash Flagg; an almost impossible to understand Greek with a tremendous pompadour; an amusement park; an incredibly unfunny night club comedian; a carnival; a carnival barker who actually tells a dancer that he wants a date at her house, and that she'll cook the steaks he brings with him; a dancer who agrees to that date; acting that's way South of the mediocre line; three mixed-up zombies; and way too many dance numbers. This film is a horror flick; a teen romance; a teen angst flick; a murder mystery; a generation gap flick; an inside look at carnival life; a dance revue. Hell, let's just call it everything but a western. Steckler stuffs this film with just about everything he could get out of his $38,000 budget.

And what a film it is! This may be the best bad movie I've ever seen. Usually I would consign a flick of this ilk to the "never watch again" bin, but for one thing. From the very first second, I could tell that Ray Dennis Steckler put every ounce of enthusiasm he had into this film. This was an insane labor of love, so off the mark from good that it just begs to be loved. Just look at what Steckler had to go through to get this made. Can't get professional dancers? Hire good looking girls. Can't get the good looking girls to dance? Have them chew gum to get their timing down. Can't get a talented actress to play the gypsy? Hire Susan Hayward's stand-in. Not going to make a cent off the movie for a long time, but want to complete it anyway? Accept the $300 that Atlas King, the aforementioned human Greek pompadour, offers you. Your lead actress quits, because she has to go watch her boyfriend's band the first night of shooting? Grab a dancer, who will show up as another character in the myriad dance scenes. Don't have the masks for the mixed-up zombies yet? Shoot fill in scenes until you do. Columbia wants to sue your $38,000 production for $5 million, because its title is similar to Dr. Strangeglove (and by the way, just what in God's name are the odds of that?)? Get Kubrick on the phone and tell him you'll change a conjunction. This is a film made not of celluloid, but sheer chutzpah, and that's evident in the energy that carries through every scene.

Of course, it's also incoherent, bizarre, cheapjack and poorly acted. And let's face it, any film for which the director freely admits that he gave it the long title to compensate for the small budget could never hope to be competent. But therein lie the film's charms. All the things that make this a really bad movie also make it a great movie. The only real problem I have with this film is that about half of its hour and 20 minute run time is dancing. I know the film's billed as "The First Monster Musical." But these scenes are obvious padding, and kill any momentum for the plot, which has Jerry doing some very mixed-up things as it progresses. This was meant to be a fun little film, and having to watch untalented dancers drone on and one was far from fun.

A few other things of note: I'm not sure the mixed-up zombies are even zombies, though they're definitely mixed-up. They're brainless, true, but they don't really conform to typical zombie behavior. Also, this film falls under the Horror Movie Relocation Program, as Steckler released it under a multitude of titles, changing every few years to bring in a new audience. This film also boasts the camera work of Laszlo Kovacs, Vilmos Zsigmond, and Joseph Mascelli, three men who won multiple awards, including Oscars, for their work; they're responsible for such works as Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Easy Rider. Their work gives the film a much more artistic flair that it probably has any right to. And this film actually breaks an odd streak I've been on lately: reminiscent of both The Dead One and The Astro-Zombies, Jerry wants to take his girlfriend into a girlie show. Unlike the females in those flicks, she refuses to go.

The people at Media-Blasters must love this epically ridiculous film as much as I do. Why else would they load up this disc with extras? The menu breaks them up into two categories. Under "Hear," there are two audio commentaries, one by Steckler himself, the other by the king of the drive-in movie himself, Joe Bob Briggs. They act as a perfect dichotomy to one another. I get the feeling that Steckler knows he made a bad film, but he talks of everyone involved with great reverence, and mentions that he worked longer and harder than anyone else, because if he hadn't, the film would never get finished. I can forgive him his high praise for some of the bad acting, if only because he obviously has much love for this film. As for the other commentary, Briggs gives exactly what one would expect from a Joe Bob commentary. Whether one loves or hates him, this commentary won't change anybody's views on him. Though he trashes the film in just about every conceivable way, it's obvious that he too loves the film. His commentary is much more relaxed than Steckler's, and hysterical. If any movie deserved the Joe Bob Briggs treatment, this is it. I will, however, take him to task on one comment: He states it's obvious that these aren't true zombies, because "everyone knows that zombies eat people." But this film predates Night of the Living Dead, Joe Bob. As king of the drive-in, you should know that zombies didn't start munching on humans until 1968.

Under "See," there is a three minute conversation with Carolyn Brandt, Steckler's wife at the time, and one of the leads. It's too brief to have any real depth to it. There's also a 14 minute interview with Steckler. It repeats some of the things in the commentary, but it's still worth watching. There's also the "original" trailer, but it's altered to include info about the DVD release. One can access Joe Bob's intro to the movie. And there's an Easter egg; click up from "Great Egress" and the disc treats you to the original VHS trailer. As with the other trailer, this one gives away almost everything in the convoluted plot. Best to watch it after the film itself. Rounding out the package are eight bonus trailers for films from both Media-Blasters' Guilty Pleasures and Shriek Show lines, many of them for movies Steckler made. Watch at your own risk.

Touted as the "Forty-First Anniversary Edition" (if only because 40th would have been too normal), the DVD release of The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies!!? is a testament to the greatness that is Ray Dennis Steckler's career. This is the movie that the phrase "so bad it's good" was made for. Sold in a four-pack of Steckler films, at a price of less than 20 bucks, I highly recommend this film for all lovers of truly terrible zombie cinema.

--Phil Fasso

Posted by RobG at 09:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Black Demons

After watching Nightmare City, I swore I would never watch another Umberto Lenzi film. Until I recently saw Automaton Transfusion, Nightmare City was the absolute worst zombie flick I'd ever seen (even if Lenzi refuses to admit it's a zombie flick. Go figure); coupled with the arrogance he oozed in his interview on the Nightmare disc, I found cause to dismiss his career before I even pulled the disc from my player. But the dead have taken my soul, and when I discovered that Lenzi had directed 1991's Black Demons, I bit the bullet and watched it. What I found was a halfway competently made film that had potential it never reached.

The plot goes like this: Jessica, her boyfriend Kevin and her half brother Dick are three college students collecting samples of local music in Brazil. Tensions arise between Dick and Kevin over the value of their research. Dick runs off and finds his way to a voodoo ceremony, where the locals are practicing Macumba. On his pocket recorder, he tapes the music and passes out. The next day, after a scene where Kevin and Jessica share a bed, the three head off to a far off part of Brazil; in transit, their car breaks down in the middle of nowhere. Along come Jose and his girlfriend Sonia, who offer shelter to the three in their rented villa, which they share with the superstitious maid, Maria. When Dick heads out to the graveyard and plays the tape, six murdered slaves rise to seek revenge.

This movie has some elements that could have made it a success. Filming on location in Brazil lends a nice touch to the authenticity. The risen zombies, with their emotionless faces, blind eyes and sharp weapons, shackled ankles and noosed necks, look scary. The musical theme that accompanies them works to build fear. The graveyard scene, though it includes some clichéd elements such as the hand thrusting out of the soil, is impressive, with bleeding tombstones and fire raging everywhere. The revenge from the grave concept is a classic. And the inclusion of voodoo as a tool to raise the dead is admirable, in the post-Night of the Living Dead world of zombies.

Unfortunately, none of these elements can save the film, because there are so many other factors that drag it down. First off, the acting is beyond horrendous. As Jose, Philip Murray over-emotes in a French accent that made him very hard to understand. Balancing him, Sonia Curtis sleepwalks through her role as Jessica; initially, I wondered if her character was supposed to be a zombie, she's so catatonic. The only actor who does a half decent job is Joe Balogh, as Dick. But his role requires him to be in a haze, as the script suggests he's under a Macumba spell. Bad acting is par for the course in horror movies, but couple it with poor, sometimes illogical scripting and terrible special effects and this all makes for a bad movie. Some of the dialogue borders on the absurd, especially anytime Jessica tries to express her care for Dick; though some exchanges between Jose and Kevin regarding black magic are also preciously lame (look for the line about that 90's dance craze, the Lambada). And don't expect to be able to hear any dialogue spoken in the bigger rooms of the villa; apparently, looping dialogue in a studio is below Lenzi.

As for the effects, they really aren't special, but they are rather pathetic. A bad eye ripping scene is bad once; pull it off twice in the same movie, and you've just accomplished a sin against your audience. Better editing, where the camera did not linger on the effects scenes in close up, would have corrected the problem.

Perhaps the most damning factor is the unanswered questions in the film. Is there tension between Dick and Kevin because Kevin's having sex with his sister? Is Dick really acting against his will throughout the movie, or is he just vicious? Why does Jessica worry so much for her brother throughout the film, yet seems fine upon his demise? And greatest of all, how does a car with four slashed tires suddenly have four functional tires at movie's end, so the protagonists can escape? This is sloppy scripting on the part of Olga Pehar, and slipshod directing by Lenzi. Could Lenzi have allowed these errors to be filmed because he's a lazy director? Or because Pehar's his wife? Perhaps a little bit of both.

If there's one thing to treasure on this disc, it's the 9 minute interview with Lenzi. Though not the gem that his conversation on Nightmare City was, it's always a pleasure to listen to the director throw others under the bus. Here, he blames the film's extreme flaws on the casting, over which he claims he had very little control. He seems genuinely to like Joe Balogh, but he's got real venom toward Sonia Curtis and Keith Van Hoven, the British actor who played Kevin.. Though I generally agree with him about his cast, it's my role as a critic to dissect acting; Lenzi just comes across as a bitter old man, well past the prime he never had. There's also an interview with Lenzi and Pehar that runs under two minutes. The two discuss how the film has been released over the years as Demons 3, which makes it another member of the Horror Movie Relocation Program. They seem miffed about this, as if the rights owners sullied their piece by trying to connect it to Lamberto Bava's Demons series. There are also trailers for this and four other zombie movies. They're mostly the same trailers that showed up on The Dead One; both movies were released under Media Blasters' Shriek Show line.

Black Demons is an example of what could have been. It takes an interesting concept, builds up some real tension in a handful of scenes, but ultimately falls under the weight of poor acting and scripting. It's certainly not Night of the Living Dead, but it's not Nightmare City either. And for that, I'm grateful.

--Phil Fasso

Posted by RobG at 09:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Astro-Zombies

The Astro-Zombies hosts one truly unforgettable scene . Now I don't mean "unforgettable" in a "Wow, that chopper blade took off that zombies head! How did they do that?" sense. Still, I can guarantee you will never forget this movie's title sequence. The credits appear over a bunch of windup robots and a toy tank on a curb. Astoundingly, these toys have absolutely no relation to the plot at all. Legend has it that producer/director Ted V. Mikels conceived the scene to cut production costs. If this story bears truth, it explains just how much Mikels cared about the film. And if the director cares so little about the movie, why should an audience care at all? Mikels did get one positive out of this opening, though. Those windup robots deliver the best acting performances in the film.

This film is a total mess on all ends. The plot is a jumbled disaster that is part Frankenstein, part James Bond and part Hardy Boys mystery, and none of these elements gel at all. It involves the C.I.A., several international espionage organizations, plenty of science labs and the accompanying scientists, and the creation of an "astro-man," by Dr. DeMarco, played by John Carradine. Carradine, who unfortunately kept acting well past his prime, is forced to spit out long lines of scientific jargon that make George Lucas' dialogue look like Shakespeare's; the scenes in his lab were obviously intended to suggest production value, but they're done in such slipshod fashion that they're laughable. Accompanying DeMarco is his assistant, Franchot; with his droopy eye and hunched back, he's obviously intended to evoke Fritz and Igor from Universal's Frankenstein movies, but he comes across more like a greasy Mexican waiter. Tura Satana, as a sexy foreign bombshell, wants DeMarco's secrets so she can save her country (from what, I have no idea. Perhaps her slinky dresses and immovable boobs?) Add to this the wooden acting of those playing the secret agents, including Wendell Corey of Rear Window, whose respectability had taken a severe nosedive into alcoholism by this point, and the casting is completely incompetent.

If that wasn't enough to drag down any picture, there's the Astro-Zombies themselves. They're actually not astro-zombies, as that would involve star power. Instead they're Solar-Zombies, powered by the sun. Or, when it's dark and their battery runs down, flashlight power. Yes, you read that right. Imagine just how embarrassingly incompetent this film gets when one Astro-Zombie is running around the streets of Los Angeles with a flashlight pressed to the solar panel on his forehead. I joke you not. As for their appearance, the two of them run around with skull masks with steel mesh over the mouths, and the aforementioned solar panels. If a kid came to my door for Halloween wearing one of these, I would say, "Cool mask, kid." But this movie is a Hollywood production, not a night of trick or treating.

Adding to the haphazardness of the production are some of the most glaring continuity errors of all filmdom. Included among these are the scene where hatless thug Juan suddenly runs up a flight of stairs with his hat on, and some of the worst intercutting of day shots into what is obviously supposed to be night footage. As for logic, it was gutshot from the second the cameras started to roll.

One thing I noted about the film, to my dismay, was a misogynistic streak. Sure, horror tends to treat women as objects and often slaughters them, but the lead Astro-Zombie has a real bone for the fairer sex. A few of the scenes come across as borderline rape. And as with The Dead One, there's a scene in which a male brings a woman to a girlie show. But then, this is an exploitation flick.

The only enticing element of the whole movie is the gore factor. There's a decent amount of blood, and it looks realistic. But that does nothing to salvage the film.

The disc's only extra is the trailer. It's washed out and terribly faded. It clocks in at around three minutes, and gives away just about every kill in the flick. Don't watch it before the movie.

Actually, don't watch the movie either. Even if you have an insanely high level of tolerance for bad cinema, this is an unenjoyable piece of trash. If you do, though, I guarantee you won't ever forget those windup robots. They're the only thing in the film worth watching.

--Phil Fasso

Posted by RobG at 09:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Dead One

Before George Romero came along and shifted the scene in 1968, zombie movies almost exclusively used voodoo as the cause for the resurrection of the dead. From White Zombie in the 1930s through Hammer's Plague of the Zombies in the mid 1960s, black magic and spells unearthed corpses so they could roam free, often under the control of the voodoo master. 1961's The Dead One follows this formula, transporting the action to the wonderful Creole world of New Orleans, using beautiful location shooting. Unfortunately, the film brings no new life to the undead.

The film starts off with Monica in the slave quarters of a mansion outside of New Orleans. Surrounded by the plantation's black workers, she conducts a voodoo ceremony, commanding her brother Jonas to rise from the grave. As the drum beat builds frantically, the scene cuts to the family mausoleum, where Jonas follows her commands. Pulling out two voodoo dolls, she then orders him to kill an as yet unrevealed female. The scene then shifts to a street in downtown New Orleans, where Monica's cousin John and his wife Linda, married earlier that day, decide to go clubbing. The next fifteen minutes take the audience through three separate clubs, and three accompanying musical numbers. In the second club, starlet Bella Bella performs a girlie show. Later that night, on the way to the mansion, John and Linda encounter Bella on the side of the road, where her car has broken down. John offers for her to stay the night at the mansion, which he is to usurp from cousin Monica under the stipulations of their grandfather's will. But Monica and Jonas intend to keep the plantation, at all costs.

This is not nearly as fun as it could have been. The film's greatest sin is that it creates absolutely no tension. Jonas disappears after the first two minutes of the movie, then doesn't reappear until almost 40 minutes later. In the interim, there's no real buildup to his inevitable return at all. Scenes around the mansion, including inside the slave quarters and the family tomb, come across as flat, developing no real dread at all. The arguments between Monica and John adds no pathos, if only because the acting is so atrocious; John McKay sleepwalks through his role, and Monica Davis, with her goofy wide eyed look, chews scenery like a Romero zombie munching on a fat guy. Even when Jonas shows up again, he does little to scare. He looks like a greenish David Bowie from the Ziggy Stardust days, and shambles so slowly that he might as well be moving backwards.

Lack of tension is not the movie's only fault, though. Implausibility clocks in at a close second. It's hard to believe that any woman on earth would ever want her husband to take her to a girlie show on their wedding day. And a word of advice: no man should ever offer a ride and a night's sleep in his new home to a go-go dancer on his honeymoon. Nor should he show his blushing bride the family's slave quarters. Illogic shambles elsewhere in the film, such as the scene where Jonas finally kills someone after almost an hour, and it's the wrong person. And then, there's one of the all time classic pieces of dialogue: When John says, "She's dead," Linda cerebrally asks, "But can't we help her?" Clearly, writer/director Barry Mahon knew little about plotting, realistic dialogue, or suspension of disbelief.

Despite its relative obscurity, The Dead One sports two extras. First, there are the trailers for this and four other zombie movies. And then, there's Voodoo Swamp. The Dead One was boring, but at least it was competently made. Whereas Voodoo Swamp is an incoherent mess. Cobbled together sloppily from a number of sources, including stock footage that would fit perfectly on the old Wild Kingdom show but is ill fitting here, there's no making any sense of the piece. For the most part there's no soundtrack (I chuckled hard when one character asked to talk to another at a separate location; "It's too noisy in here," he claimed of the packed bar, as his voice was the only sound), with the exception of some horrendously dubbed dialogue. It seems that a private detective, whose voice bears a strong resemblance to that of Kermit the Frog, is looking for a woman's twin sister in the title swamp. At least I think that's the plot. It's such a mishmash, that I can't really promise that's the premise. What I found most interesting about Voodoo Swamp is that, at 70 minutes long, it's actually 2 minutes longer than The Dead One. Why it belongs as an extra on this disc, I cannot say.

One more thing of note: The Dead One is a member of the Horror Movie Relocation Program. It also goes under the name Blood of the Zombie, though this zombie never bleeds.

The Dead One is one zombie flick well worth passing on. Its dead pacing kills it long before it develops into much of anything. Had Monica, with her histrionics, commanded Jonas to do something exciting, such as go on a murderous rampage and eat the neighbors, or make tea for the coming guests, perhaps this film would not have been dead on arrival.

--Phil Fasso

Posted by RobG at 09:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

One of the 8 Films to Die for, Dark Ride takes an old school approach to the "carnival horror" and throws in some amazing kill scenes! In the first five minutes of the film you get to see something that’s unusual even for a horror flick... two kids getting disemboweled! So right off the bat you know the rest of the movie should be pretty satisfying! However, I don't think that the film will be winning any awards for script or storyline but all in all it's entertaining enough to throw on for the evening and keep you interested.

A recently broken up young couple Steve and Cathy, played by Sopranos Jamie-Lynn Sigler and their college roommates Liz, Jim and Bill decide to take their spring vacation in New Orleans. On the way down south, in their 70's style van they stumble upon a flyer at a gas station announcing that a once popular carnival ride (The Dark Ride), that has been closed for almost twenty years is once again opening it's doors. Offering thrills and chills to any and all that might be seeking some excitement. After picking up a young and attractive hitchhiker Jen, played by Andrea Bogart, the girl offers her new friends some mushrooms and the group heads to the Dark Ride to stay the night and party. After arriving and telling old tales of the rides rumored past, the group begins to explore the ride only to get murdered viciously one after the other by a masked psychopath.

The special effects in the film are great! You are totally taken back to when "haunted rides" were really terrifying! The deaths are painful and unforgiving and the killer is VERY convincing. Also the ending has an interesting twist that pulls the whole story together. It reminds me of the kind of horror I used to look for on VHS back in the day, but with some new and creative macabre.

Special Features:

Deleted Scenes- Just extended from what’s actually cut into the film, these scenes you can check out to get more of each characters story but if you skip'em you won't be missing out on much.

The Making of- This feature was cool because you get a real feel for the cast. This was a first as far as horror for every actor in the film and listening to them discuss the experience only makes your support for up-and-comers, both actors and production team more appreciative.

Plus they throw in several trailers for other "Films to Die for" as well as various Lionsgate films that you can look into. This company has a lot to offer to the horror fan!

-Beth Puttkammer

Posted by RobG at 09:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

JACK BROOKS: MONSTER SLAYER

“Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer” gets off to a kick-ass start, taking us deep into the jungles of Ottowa, Canada, where the primitive natives are fighting off a man in a giant rubber cyclops monster suit.

Wait, what?

In the age of computer-generated giant two-headed snakes, space spiders, manticores, dragons, gargoyles and other assorted digitized cryptozoological pets the “Sci-Fi Channel” is famous for breeding the above scenario actually sounds completely watchable. You, the fans, have been clamoring for this for years. A horror film with a likeable slacker hero, babes in danger, and all the practical goo-spewing, latex stretching special effects you can stand.

Yes, I know that movie is supposed to be called “Evil Dead 4”, but can you take “Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer” and be happy with that instead?

Maybe, but likely not. Your first instinct is to cheerlead for this movie. You really, really want to like it—and there's actually a lot to love about it. It's got all the ingredients of the next horror cult phenomenon. Classic horror star? Check: Robert Englund, the Vincent Price of his generation. Awesome new anti-hero? Gotcha: Jack Brooks, reluctant barely competent plumber with anger issues by day, reluctant barely competent monster killer/college student with anger issues by night.

But despite the copious amounts of slime and goo something fails to gel especially in the first hour. The film is only 80 minutes but it feels much longer. In that first hour we get glimpse into Jack's background (his family was eaten by a wood troll), and join him as he unwittingly unleashes an ancient demon which begins to transform his night school professor (Robert England). Englund's great fun to watch and he holds the movie together. Still much of that time it goes in circles with Jack dealing with his anger, career, and relationship problems. “Jack Brooks” doesn't seem to move forward at any point until the last 20 minutes.

Still, “Jack Brooks” has a lot to offer in those last 20 minutes. Fans of practical monster effects and make-up won't be disappointed. Englund's transformation into a multi-tentacled creature that takes up half a classroom is the sort of thing you don't see anymore without digital assistance. So while the movie doesn't exactly work, it's a great first feature effort, and I look forward to seeing more from this team. It's obvious they've got the talent to make a great movie, even if this isn't it. Keep in mind that the filmmakers whose work they've obviously been influenced by didn't get it perfect the first time either.

The DVD comes with an amiable commentary by the filmmakers, and a few behind the scenes featurettes. The one about making the monster suits and makeup should be of interest to anyone who enjoys the movie. -Mike C.

Posted by Mike C at 09:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I am one of the worlds biggest Dario Argento fans. Pretty much I love everything he did with the exception of “Wax Mask” and he was only the producer on that. Even “Card Player” and “Phantom of the Opera” I can tolerate as long as I go long stretches of time between viewings. But “Mother of Teras”, without question is the scariest movie Dario has ever been involved with. So scary in fact, I am scared to ever ask my wife to watch a film with me again because she will bring up this travesty I made her sit through. “Suspiria” for my money is the greatest horror movie ever. So when they announced that the third and final chapter of the trilogy , Inferno being part two, I rushed to buy tickets to the only announced New York show. Being that my wife is the best wife in the world, she agreed to go just because she knew how excited I was. I met up with many of the Icons crew and Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni (who is friends with Rob and also was in the film) and we buckled in for what was to be many of our first chance to see, not only the movie, but any Dario film actually in a theater (this was my second as I got a chance to see Stendahl Syndrome). The film started ok. The music was right, the Escher and Bosch painting during the credits worked, and the film opened in a cemetery. Then it all went down hill from there. Now this should have been great. I love Asia Argento. She’s hot, she get’s naked…often (her career, not necessarily this film), she is a horror icon, and she has been in some great avant movies that have nothing to do with horror like “B-Monkey”. Apparently, just prior to shooting this film, she forgot how to act. This was her worst performance, ever worse than “Scarlet Diva”. She expressions were bad, her delivery, she was just off. Udo Kier is in the film, and he is one of my favorites. But alas, his role was way too short. But for me, there were three parts so atrocious, the film could never recover. First, a pet peeve, “Suspiria” takes place almost exclusively at night. Dario used bizarre lighting and effects to make that film off kilter, scary and original. This was one of the main ambiance elements that made this film so appealing. “Mother of Tears” was almost exclusively done in the day. So automatically, one of the best cinematic elements of the “Mother” trilogy was eliminated. Second was the effects on this film. There were the typical splatter effects for a Dario classic. But, these just seemed cheesy. The concepts were there, like a witch getting her head smashes in a train bathroom door. But the finished product just looked very amateur and silly, unlike a girl swimming in a pool of barbwire, or a body that fell through a stain glass window. Lastly, and this was the worst, was the bad escapee hooker from a Pat Benatar video that they called witches. In “Suspiria” the coven was full of old women that did magic and were full of hate and looked like they had been around for 300 years. They were classic and frightening. In this, it was a bad New Wave video full of girls with fake tits, crimped hair and bad make up. Not scary, and not even comical, just sad. The film never had a chance for me after this. But the single biggest travesty of the film was the use, miss-use, or not enough use (depending on your outlook) of Daria Nicolodi. Here character was bland, silly at times, and for the role she had in making Dario’s career (and his daughters for that matter), she should have gotten better. As for the story, it is pretty simple. A body is dug up outside church grounds. It has been buried in non-consecrated grounds for a reason and of course, the first thing they do it open the coffin. This throws into motion the release of the Third Mothers spirit to ravage the world and assemble all of the Witches to bring in an era of darkness. Sarah (Asia) is partly responsible for the actual opening of the box with the much needed sacred talismans that will bring this all about. Turns out Sarah’s mother (Daria), who you only see in ghost form, was a witch hunter with extreme powers, which Sarah has as well but is unaware of. Of course, anyone involved with Sarah, her boyfriend, his son, the people that try and help her learn how to use her powers all become fodder for the rampaging witch’s that are all descending on Italy. The premise isn’t bad, the execution is lacking here. I think ultimately, the problem is, that part three came 18 years after part two and Dario 1) lost interest and 2) lost the sight. He stepped away from this particular path and didn’t quite make it back. The film also features a song during the closing credits with Dani from Cradle of Filth on vocals. Bonus features: The dvd has both the U.S. and European trailers, as well as a making of and an interview with Dario.

Posted by Myk at 11:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)