Jiggy's Horror Corner

Directed by Fred Olen Ray [Other horror films: The Brain Leeches (1978), The Alien Dead (1980), Scalps (1983), Biohazard (1985), Sleazemania! (1985), Sleazemania Strikes Back (1985), The Tomb (1986), Evil Spawn (1987), Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers (1988), Deep Space (1988), The Phantom Empire (1988), Beverly Hills Vamp (1989), Haunting Fear (1990), Spirits (1990), Scream Queen Hot Tub Party (1991), Evil Toons (1992), Possessed by the Night (1994), Inner Sanctum II (1994), Witch Academy (1995), Night Shade (1996), Hybrid (1997), Sideshow (2000), Venomous (2001), Thirteen Erotic Ghosts (2002), Final Examination (2003), Haunting Desires (2004), Tomb of the Werewolf (2004), Ghost in a Teeny Bikini (2006), Voodoo Dollz (2008), Silent Venom (2009), Dire Wolf (2009), Bikini Frankenstein (2010), Twilight Vamps (2010), Super Shark (2011), The Twin (2017), Piranha Women (2022)]

While I admit that Glass Trap is not a traditionally good movie, it is a lot of fun. Admittedly, I have a soft spot for movies of the early-to-mid 2000’s, and I’ve seen this twice before, so the fact that I had fun with it again isn’t surprising, but Glass Trap, despite its flaws, is a movie that I tend to have a good time with.

The special effects are awful, though. I love giant ants as much as the next guy (as long as the next guy in question loves giant ants, that is), but the special effects here don’t really do the idea justice. That said, there is a certain charm in just how poorly rendered some of these ants are, and because this is the type of movie you’d expect to run into on the Sci-Fi channel circa 2006, I largely think the effects can be waved away.

Because really, when it comes to giant insect movies, it’s rarely the effects or the story that pulls us in. Sure, a story could be potentially interesting, but I don’t think that’s likely most of the time. Here, the plot – which has to do with radioactive trees, and the radioactivity caused some ants to grow in size – is pretty much what you’d expect from a movie like this. It’s not exceptionally poor, it just is what it is.

What really brings the movie together is the cast. There’s a lot of people crammed into this one, and though not all characters are of equal import (Chick Vennera), you can tell that they had a good time making this movie, and that reflects well on the actual viewing experience, too.

C. Thomas Howell (The Hitcher, Killer Bees, Mutant Vampire Zombies from the ‘Hood!) wasn’t the funnest character, but he made for a stable lead. I don’t really think Brent Huff (Final Examination) was used to the fullest of his extent, but he was decent for his scenes. Siri Baruc (Mega Snake, The Wisher), who was giving off Matilda-era Embeth Davidtz vibes throughout, was quite a bit of fun.

Andrew Prine (Nightmare Circus, Sutures, The Town That Dreaded Sundown, They’re Playing with Fire, The Evil) was a lot of fun, and played a character you could really root for. Tracy Brooks Swope didn’t have as much to do in the finale as I’d have thought, but again, she played a fun character. They got Martin Kove (The Karate Kid, Bring Me a Dream, Savage, Joker’s Wild, Blood Tide, Reality Terror Night) to pop up in the final 25 minutes, and his character’s pretty much what you’d expect.

Otherwise, while people like Peter Spellos (Thirteen Erotic Ghosts, Sorority House Massacre II), Chick Vennera (The Terror Within II), Whitney Sloan (Blue Demon), John Clement, and Stella Stevens (The Manitou) all had their individual moments, I don’t think that they stand out quite as well.

Even so, for a simple movie with terrible special effects of giant ants, that’s a lot of names that did make an impression on me. Like I said, it seems like they had a blast making the movie, and as I had a great time revisiting it, then it’s a good deal.

All of this said, I’m not deluded myself that Glass Trap is a movie that’ll please most people. You have to be in the right mindset to enjoy this one, and it definitely helps if you, like myself, wear rose-tinted glasses when it comes to movies released in the early-to-mid 2000’s. I was a kid back then (born 1993), so I feel comfortable with movies from this time.

Glass Trap won’t do it for everyone, or even most, but personally, I can dig it, even if it may drag and is very much a product of the time.

7/10

Directed by Zachary Donohue [Other horror films: N/A]

I had some difficulty deciding what I felt about this one. On the one hand, I think much of The Den is a tense, somewhat unsettling movie. I thought the same when I first saw it, and that feeling holds up. The finale, however, is all kinds of awful, and doesn’t do the film any favors.

Certainly I understand the need to explain what’s going on, or the antagonist behind the stalking and crimes – I wouldn’t expect anything less – but the answer they went with was terrible. To be fair, I’m sure some people wouldn’t mind, and this movie still has a decent reception. Hell, it could even be true that the solution they gave is the one that makes the most sense.

Even so, once we get to the final ten minutes or so, my interest (which had been hovering around an eight for most of the movie) dropped to something like a two. I don’t want to get into spoilers, but I can say that I mentally made a comparison to a problem I had with Chromeskull: Laid to Rest 2, and you know that when a movie reminds you of Chromeskull: Laid to Rest 2, you have a woeful problem.

Which is a damn shame, because most of The Den is solid. It’s an interesting idea – I’ll admit I may explain this poorly, but here I go: everything we see is on someone’s computer screen, sort of. The main character (Melanie Papalia) is doing a research grant on an online video chat room (called The Den), and so is recording every conversation (such as they are) she encounters. Stylistically, it’s quite similar to Searching, which came out some years after this one.

It’s a decent idea, and I think they did well with it. There’s no doubt that at times, The Den can be unsettling and certainly tense. As it deals with the pseudo-modern horrors of technology, it can also be relatable to some, especially those of us who rarely leave the comforts of our computers. I was even reminded of The Poughkeepsie Tapes in terms of the creepiness factor, and while I had other issues with that movie, the fact that they can be compared in this fashion bodes well.

Melanie Papalia (Smiley) was solid as the lead. I thought her character made some idiotic choices at times, but that’s nothing new in the genre. More often than not, David Schlachtenhaufen came across as a dick, but he had a few human moments. I did like Adam Shapiro, and wish that he appeared a bit more. Lastly, Saidah Arrika Ekulona probably did fine, but her character annoyed me something awful.

Let’s set the scene, actually – the main character and her boyfriend have some fun, which, unbeknownst to them, gets recorded (because the antonigist here is a master computer hacker), and that video gets sent from her e-mail to a bunch of people. Euklona is the individual who helped the main character get her grant money, and is pissed that she sent a carnal video to all of these people.

So this idiot thinks that a responsible young woman intentionally sent a video of her getting #eatenout to a bunch of old men? The main character tries to explain that she got hacked, but apparently this character is even more of an idiot, because she doesn’t seem to understand that computers can indeed get hacked. That character pissed me off so much, and I’m actually really annoyed she wasn’t killed at some point in the movie.

Regardless, much of this movie is a tense experience, but then we get to the finale. It’s a bad finale. I didn’t care for it, and like I said earlier, though I don’t want to get into spoilers, I was completely unsatisfied. Perhaps it could have been decent, but I just didn’t care for it at all.

Because of that, what is a decently promising movie is getting a below average score. The Den really could have been something if they changed up the antagonistic force, but I can only rate what they make. I wish they landed this one better, because it could have been something special. As it is, The Den is still worth seeing, but it’s not something I’d watch too often, personally speaking.

6.5/10

Directed by Victor Salva [Other horror films: Clownhouse (1989), The Nature of the Beast (1995), Jeepers Creepers (2001), Rosewood Lane (2011), Haunted (2014), Jeepers Creepers 3 (2017)]

There are people out there who say that the this movie is better than the first Jeepers Creepers, and though I don’t exactly agree, I can understand where they’re coming from. This one is a lot more action-packed, and there’s a lot more focus on the Creeper and his ways in this one. Of course, whether that makes it a better movie is up to you.

Personally, at an hour and 45 minutes, I do think that Jeepers Creepers 2 runs a bit long. It’s not only that, though – we don’t really have a main character here. Sure, Ray Wise pops up now and again, and while we’re focused on the bus, a lot of attention is given to Eric Nenninger’s character, but I’d be hard-pressed to call either of them true focal points. One could even make the case that the Creeper should get the title; he does pop up quite a bit, but I also don’t buy it.

There’s also the fact that as a bus of basketball players (and some cheerleaders) is stuck on a desolate stretch of road, prey-in-waiting for Mr. Creeper, we’re given quite a few characters, and learn very little about most of them. One of them might be racist, and another might be gay, and one of the women has random dreams of Darry (from the first film) warning about the Creeper’s insatiable hunger, but they’re largely just a mass of people we know little about.

If anything, I wish that the two coaches (Thom Gossom Jr. and Tom Tarantini), or perhaps the bus driver (Diane Delano) stuck around a bit longer, but I also understand the appeal of dispatching with any possible authority figures early on. It’s a shame, though, because it doesn’t really give us anyone to care about, unless Garikayi Mutambirwa really wets your whistle.

What I can say for certain, though, in the film’s favor, is that the opening is stellar. It’s well-shot, and really gets us in a Creeper mood early on. The first film took a bit to drive up the suspense, but this one hops right into it, and I think they did a great job. Secondly, the final scene is damn good too. The line, “give or take a few,” is some A+ stuff, and from the first time I saw this years ago, that ending stuck out to me.

Naturally, because it focuses more on the Creeper and his nature, we get a lot of scenes with the Creeper getting hurt, and healing his body. He takes someone’s head and uses it to replace his own, which was playful. His wings get some focus, and if you want more of the actual creature, then this will probably do something good for you. It helps that the effects here are nothing to complain about at all.

There’s not a ton of performances that I can say stood out. Ray Wise (Dead End, Digging Up the Marrow, Dead Still) of course did well, as you’d expect. I liked Thom Gossom Jr., Diane Delano (The Wicker Man), and Tom Tarantini (who also had a brief scene in the first movie, though as a different character), but none of them got a lot of time to play with. Eric Nenninger wasn’t the most likable, nor was he the most memorable. Nicki Aycox (Dead Birds) at least had potential, but I don’t think they did all they could with her. Garikayi Mutambirwa has some moments, as does Marieh Delfino (Freaks), but again, neither have much more than that.

I know it might sound at times that I don’t utterly love the film, but I still find it reasonably fun. It’s just that I don’t personally feel this is a stronger film than the first one. I think it’s a good movie, and I enjoyed revisiting it, but I know that if I was given a choice of only one I could watch again in the future, I’d have to stick with the OG.

7.5/10

Directed by Rowland V. Lee [Other horror films: Tower of London (1939)]

In truth, I can’t swear that I didn’t see bits and pieces of this growing up. My parents raised me on Universal classics, so I wouldn’t be surprised if I’d seen fleeting moments of this one. To my knowledge, though, this is my first time watching Son of Frankenstein, and I have to say that it was a bit of a treat.

For further context, I’ve never been a big fan of Bride of Frankenstein, for a variety of reasons. I was wondering if this would disappoint me, and when I saw the runtime was an hour and 40 minutes, I got more hesitant. I’m happy to say that such worries were all for naught, though, as Son of Frankenstein turned out a fine movie.

The opening was chock-full of atmosphere – the son of Henry Frankenstein (from both the 1931 classic and Bride), Wolf von Frankenstein (Basil Rathbone) returns to his family’s castle, and with him returns the dangers of the monster, albeit far more due to Ygor’s actions than Frankensteins’ own. It’s a very classic horror film in structure, and though it lacks much of the charm of the first movie in the series, it still has quite a bit.

It also has a surprisingly high level of tension. Things ratchet up throughout the film, and especially in the last 25 minutes, as Wolf von Frankenstein is increasingly worried for his family’s safety, and cracking under the suspicions of Inspector Krogh (Lionel Atwill) – for a movie of it’s time, I was pleasantly surprised by just how much I was still engaged come the end (especially given that there were portions in the middle of the film that I began to feel my interest waning).

Basil Rathbone (Queen of Blood, The Black Cat, The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Black Sleep) was great here, and his portrayal of a Frankenstein trying to redeem his family’s name was sympathetic. As Inspector Krogh, Lionel Atwill (Mystery of the Wax Museum, Mark of the Vampire, Doctor X, Man Made Monster, Secret of the Blue Room) was hella intense, and I really dug his character. Bela Lugosi (Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Devil Bat, Black Friday, Night Monster, Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla, The Return of the Vampire, The Body Snatcher) did great with a character who sort of popped out of nowhere (as Ygor is likely a replacement for Fritz), and he was certainly a dick.

Josephine Hutchinson, as expected, didn’t really have a ton to do in this movie, not to mention a lack of agency. Edgar Norton (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Dracula’s Daughter) was great here, as he usually is, and playing the Monster was again Boris Karloff (The Devil Commands, Frankenstein 1970, Voodoo Island, Grip of the Strangler, Bedlam, The Black Room, Curse of the Crimson Altar, The Walking Dead, Snake People, Die, Monster, Die!), and he did just as well as you’d expect him too.

I was never expecting to dislike Son of Frankenstein, but I have to admit that I didn’t know if I’d actively enjoy it, and was pleasantly surprised to find out that I did. It’s a fun movie, and the aspect of Ygor using the Monster as a form of revenge without the knowledge of Frankenstein adds a little spice to the film. I also loved that reference at the beginning – about how “nine out of ten” refers to the Monster simply as ‘Frankenstein.’ As someone who finds that constantly bothersome (though I understand the counterpoints), I appreciated that piece of dialogue.

No doubt that Son of Frankenstein is a strong Universal classic – one that I personally find superior to Bride of Frankenstein – and though I think many might be turned off by a third movie in a franchise, I think that if they take the time with this one, as I did, they’d have a pretty good time too.

8/10

Directed by Christy Cabanne [Other horror films: One Frightened Night (1935), Scared to Death (1946)]

I’ve never been the biggest fan of The Mummy, but that’s not to say that other films in the series can’t be enjoyable (and to be sure, it’s not like the 1932 movie isn’t okay either). In the case of The Mummy’s Hand, though, I can say that it suffers from a painful comic relief character, and though it’s not terrible, I can’t say I had a great time with it.

However, it might be possible to say that this at least has a better pace than the 1932 movie. I should also mention that despite the fact some may think this is a sequel, it’s not – the Universal Mummy series (the 1932 original, this one, The Mummy’s Tomb, The Mummy’s Ghost, and The Mummy’s Curse) isn’t as disjointed as the Halloween franchise is, but from my understanding, the first movie is stand-alone, and the other four, starting with this one, comprise of the Kharis mummy tetralogy.

The actual plot isn’t shabby. If you’ve seen one mummy movie from the 1940’s, though, you’ve probably seen them all, so I don’t know if this really stands out, and if it does, it’s likely because of Wallace Ford’s comedic relief character. To be fair, he can sometimes have amusing quips, and I appreciate that he at least made the film feel as though it was moving at a faster pace than the snail’s crawl that is the 1932 movie, but even so, I never saw the point of his character here.

Dick Foran (Horror Island) made for a solid straight lead. Like many leading men, I don’t think he really stands out, but he was good at the time. Again, I couldn’t stand a lot of Wallace Ford’s (The Rogues Tavern, The Ape Man, Night of Terror) dialogue, but that’s not on him. Cecil Kellaway (The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte) was a lot of fun as a magician, though.

George Zucco (The Mad Ghoul, Dead Men Walk, The Flying Serpent, Fog Island) was pretty sinister in his role, as he usually is. Though he had a limited time to make an impression, Charles Trowbridge (Valley of the Zombies) was solid. Playing the generic love interest was Peggy Moran (Horror Island), who had a little more of an action feel than I usually get from actresses at the time.

Oh, and the Mummy here was played by Tom Tyler, who did well, though he’s no Boris Karloff. And speaking of the Mummy, he didn’t even appear until 40 minutes into this 67 minute movie. Again, this isn’t as slow as the 1932 Mummy is, but things aren’t exactly moving at lightning speed either. That may not come as a surprise – in my experience, a fast-paced mummy movie is almost impossible to make – but worth noting nonetheless.

What else is there to really say about The Mummy’s Hand? It’s not a bad movie, and though it was better paced than the 1932 classic, I don’t think that makes it more enjoyable, especially as it doesn’t have any of that film’s charms. Worth a watch if you’re into the Mummy craze, but otherwise, not up to much, in the end.

6/10

Directed by Phil Rosen [Other horror films: Spooks Run Wild (1941), Mystery of Marie Roget (1942), Return of the Ape Man (1944), Black Magic (1944), The Jade Mask (1945)]

This is an interesting one. Man with Two Lives can be a pretty decent movie – if you’re into the classics – but I do think that if you’re a fan of classic horror specifically, and come into this one expecting something like The Walking Dead, you’ll be a bit disappointed.

The thing is that the means of the story are couched in what you’d expect from a horror film, but the final product generally feels more like a crime movie than anything else. I guess before I go on, I should get into the plot and explain what I mean.

Man with Two Lives follows recently-engaged Philip Bennett (Edward Norris) as he has a car accident, and dies. Luckily, a family friend, Doctor Clark (Edward Keane) has been doing experiments regarding bringing hearts back to life after death, and after Philip’s father and brother (Frederick Burton and Tom Seidel) plead with him, and against the warnings of another family friend, Professor Toller (Hugh Sothern), Clark does just that.

Troubles arise, though, when it turns out that this experiment – bringing Philip back to life – happens at the exact same time the violent gangster Panino is executed for his crimes. When Philip does regain consciousness, he has no memories of his life, and begins exhibiting violent, gangstery qualities unbecoming of a young man from means, including going to shady bars, taking over a gang, and killing police officers just because it brings him joy.

As you can potentially tell by my description, much of Man with Two Lives follows a man who’s leading a gang. The way this man came to be in control of the gang – a possible migration of the soul – may be rooted in what you’d expect from some horror, but the outcome feels like a crime film throughout large portions.

None of this is to say that the film isn’t good or without suspense. In fact, the finale is extraordinarily tense in a way that no previous portion of the film has been. Sure, we see a character get strangled earlier on, but we also get the sense that that specific character definitely wasn’t long for the world, so I wouldn’t call that sequence suspenseful. The finale, though, which is sort of a culmination of the family’s investigations into where Philip disappears to days on end, is fantastically done.

I will say that Edward Norris did great with his double-role, of sorts. As a gangster, he was pretty solid, and it was fun to watch. After Norris, I think the most important cast members become Edward Keane and Frederick Burton, both of whom spend time trying to figure out why Norris’ character is acting so differently after being brought back to life.

Some aspects of Hugh Sothern’s character were hard to like – his insistence, for instance, that there is in fact such a thing as a soul because all religions and philosophies agree on its existence – but that’s on his character, not the performance, which I thought was good. Others who don’t really impact things as much as you may think include Marlo Dwyer, Eleanor Lawson, Tom Seidel, and Addison Richards (The Mummy’s Curse, Strange Confession), though Richards does have a strong sequence near the end.

As you could expect, the film also goes into the whole “man should not get involved in what’s best left to the Creator” tripe that was all-too-common in movies from that time period, such as Frankenstein. It was a different time, and perhaps back then people didn’t understand that before you make the claim that man shouldn’t interfere with God’s will, they first need to prove the existence of a God, along with a way to determine what his ‘will’ is, neither of which has been done to this day.

Overall, though, Man with Two Lives is a solid film. For someone looking for a traditional horror film of the 30’s and 40’s, I don’t think this will hit the right spot, but if you’re into something a bit different, with a nice crime feel permeating throughout, Man with Two Lives may well be worth a watch.

7/10

Directed by Ford Beebe [Other horror films: The Phantom Creeps (1939), Night Monster (1942)]

I found myself feeling somewhat lukewarm toward The Invisible Man Returns, and I have similar feelings for this one. The Invisible Man’s Revenge isn’t without some decent ideas, but especially toward the end, I find myself losing interest.

Part of this is because I found myself on the Invisible Man’s side. Played by Jon Hall (and not becoming invisible until something like 20 minutes into the movie), he was cheated out of money by a wealthy couple (Lester Matthews and Gale Sondergaard), and despite a signed agreement, they refuse to pay him back. To be sure, Hall’s character wasn’t the most stable, but he did have rights to some of the money, and so we’re supposed to root against him?

It wasn’t so much Matthews’ character that bothered me as it was Sondergaard’s – she obviously had no intention of paying back any owed money to the man, and would have been happy to kill him herself if she had any plausible way to get away with it. When the so-called antagonist is in the right, it just sometimes makes movies harder to play ball with.

There were also a few moments of amusing mirth that I probably could have done without. Most of Leon Errol’s dialogue pegged him for comic relief, and he was good at it. He cracked me up a handful of times, and he was good fun. The scene in which he wins at darts, though – with the help of the Invisible Man, who’s running the darts from his hand to the bullseye – went on too long and felt wholly unnecessary. The first time was sort of funny, but he threw three more darts in increasingly improbable ways, and at that point, the fun was draining from the sequence.

I do think, though, that Leon Errol was one of my favorite characters, though. Jon Hall (The Beach Girls and the Monster) was a decent lead, but Errol was simply more fun. It was also fun seeing John Carradine (Voodoo Man, Revenge of the Zombies) here – his scientist character had charm, though I have to say that his house – which held a bunch of invisible animals – also felt a bit on the silly side.

I couldn’t stand Gale Sondergaard’s (The Spider Woman Strikes Back, Savage Intruder, The Cat Creature, The Climax) character – she was just awful, and deserved to get got. Lester Matthews (Werewolf of London, The Mysterious Doctor, The Son of Dr. Jekyll, The Raven) was more bearable, but I personally thought that both Alan Curtis and Evelyn Ankers (Jungle Woman, Captive Wild Woman, The Mad Ghoul, Son of Dracula, The Frozen Ghost) were shallow, and neither, in my eyes, added a lot to the film.

Certainly the special effects here were decent, and perhaps more advanced than they have been in previous films, but there’s also not really that much of interest, as far as the story goes, in the second half of this. I mean, the Invisible Man’s titular revenge lasts just 15 minutes or so, and then he becomes visible again, and it just wasn’t doing it for me.

I don’t think it’s a terrible movie, but it definitely lacks the charm of the 1933 classic. Also, given that Vincent Price doesn’t appear as he did in The Invisible Man Returns, we don’t have his charm to fall back on either. It’s fine, I guess, but I doubt it’ll be watching it again in the next 50 years, and it doesn’t seem to me that it’ll really stand out in my memory.

6.5/10

Directed by Jack Pollexfen [Other horror films: Monstrosity (1963)]

I’m not sure why, but I’ve always felt an affinity toward this movie. The story is at least a decade out of time, and certainly it’s not an easy case to make that the movie’s actually good, but I’ve seen this four times or so, and have always had a fun time with it.

The idea of a man being brought back to life only to seek revenge on those who’ve wronged him has been done before, in films like The Walking Dead and The Man They Could Not Hang. It’s not an original idea, but I liked the execution here. To be sure, the story in The Walking Dead was far more emotional, but again, this had a good sense of fun to it.

Part of that may be the Dragnet-type style. The film’s narrated by Max Showalter’s character, and though it’s not really a big thing, it does give the film a different vibe, almost like a crime documentary of sorts, reminding me of later films like The Town That Dreaded Sundown and Drive-In Massacre.

You also have the Los Angeles setting, which, despite being in black-and-white, comes across as vibrant and alive. You even have an appearance of the Angels Flight railway (and I have to admit, the first three times I watched this movie, I had absolutely no idea what that was), which just adds to a regional flavor.

Lon Chaney Jr. (Pillow of Death, The Ghost of Frankenstein, Bride of the Gorilla, The Haunted Palace) wasn’t given the most interesting material to work with, but I still thought it did a solid job as a threatening antagonist. Max Showalter (The Monster That Challenged the World) felt sort of generic, but he’s also a police detective in a 50’s movie, so who could blame him? Ross Elliott (Tarantula) had a solid, slimy feel to him, and Marian Carr was okay in the limited capacity she was given.

As one could imagine, special effects here aren’t that relevant, but there were two scenes in the last handful of minutes that were pretty solid. Most of the time, though, it felt pretty simple, and most of the people who were killed died either by strangling or being picked up and thrown (which was always fun, admittedly).

There’s little that’s really special in Indestructible Man, but I enjoy it, perhaps in a similar way to how I deeply enjoy The Monster Walks despite its rather negative reception. Indestructible Man is a fun movie, though, and one that I’d not hesitate to watch again in the future.

7.5/10