Category: Reviews

Directed by Bradley Steele Harding [Other horror films: N/A]

I really wanted to like this one. The opening was quite interesting, and struck me as promising, so I went into this movie hoping – really hoping – that it could work out.

Regrettably, I just don’t know if the idea here was executed that well.

No doubt, the base story here is quite interesting – a somewhat reclusive young woman, following the death of her aunt, finds old records of scary stories (think modern-day podcasts, like the No Sleep Podcast, only on records) and soon discovers herself in a dark and scary world. Sort of.

Part of my issue, and perhaps my biggest issue, is that I’m not quite sure what’s happening in the film. When a movie is subjective (technically, I know, you could argue any movie is partially subjective, but that’s not the point here) in terms of the events – such as having events that could be explained either by supernatural events or mental breakdowns – I lean toward mental problems, as I don’t have much truck with the supernatural.

There is a conclusion here that tries to explain things, but I’m not sure if I got it. It’s not clear to me, for instance, how much of the events of the film were supernatural-based or mental instability-based. I’m likely not explaining this well, but I guess I just have a difficult time understanding what exactly happened in this movie, insofar as the central character’s reality is concerned (and not the possibly confused experiences of the said character).

I liked the records of scary stories here, but I didn’t always get how much the main character experienced them. Again, that might not be phrased correctly, and so I’ll go into as much detail as possible.

The movie sometimes did a thing where the main character Agatha was doing something, such as going into a spooky house in the neighborhood, or defending herself from an aggressive lover. During those sequences, there would be one of these scary stories overlaying the scene. It wasn’t playing in the real world – it was purely for the audience (to my understanding). What I’m not sure about is whether or not Agatha had listened to these stories previously, and was relating that to the situation she was facing presently.

I have no idea if that’s nit-picky, or if that confusion is even coherently stated, but it’s just another element that I had a difficult time getting my head around. I didn’t really understand the finale entirely. I mean, I got parts of it, but then bodies were possibly raised from the dead (or was it just a hallucination?), and I just lost the thread of things. I hate to harp on this, but I just don’t know what was actually happening here.

There’s a sequence in which Agatha’s going through a house (it’s not clear to me why she was doing this, on a side-note), and finds heroin, which is somehow related to the death of her aunt? And there was an old woman in the house – the story that’s playing while this is going on describes her as a witch, if I recall, and she might be? Maybe? I just don’t know. Maybe someone can make sense of this, and perhaps the fault is all mine, but I had a difficult time understanding the connections and the story here.

Despite my personal issues with the plot, I’m done going after it, because despite my problems, I did appreciate the ambitious ideas that this independent movie was tackling. It was filmed in Dallas, Texas, and the locations looked quite nice. The budget was low, sure, but the movie looked decent.

On a really random side-note, I noticed in the ‘Thank You’ portion of the credits, thanks were given to Anthony Brownrigg and Maegan Brownrigg. I don’t know who these two people are, but a part of me wonders if they’re related to the Brownrigg family – S.F. Brownrigg was a regional horror director (behind films such as Don’t Look in the Basement and Keep My Grave Open), and his son, Tony Brownrigg, is both an actor and director (and in fact, directed Don’t Look in the Basement 2). The ‘Anthony Brownrigg’ mentioned could actually be Tony Brownrigg; I have no idea, and this speculation may be meaningless, but I found it interesting and worth noting.

Though I didn’t understand her character, I thought Bridie Marie Corbett was solid as the lead. I’d have liked to understand her character more than I did, but hey, she wore nice skeleton gloves. And honestly, she’s the only important performance. Van Quattro (Silent Night, Deadly Night 5: The Toy Maker) had a couple of scenes, and his character was decent, and both Lara Clapp Williams (Amityville Cult) and Daniel Frank (Anna 2) have their moments, but it’s mostly focused around Corbett’s character.

The film does open, though, with a poem recited by Udo Kier. Kier’s been in a lot of things – from Feardotcom and Shadow of the Vampire to Mark of the Devil and Flesh for Frankenstein. I know the German actor best, though, as the voice of Professor Pericles, a character in Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated (one of the best renditions of the franchise, in my view), and hearing Pericles reciting a poem to open the film was pretty fun.

As far as the special effects go, while there weren’t a ton in the film, when they popped up, they were decent. Someone was stabbed in the eye, another stabbed in the gut. Nothing too much insofar as gore goes, and what probably works better is the atmosphere of the film.

Like I said early on, I went into 13 Tracks to Frighten Agatha Black with the hopes that it’d come out a well-executed film, and I don’t think it quite made it. I think it’s a really interesting movie, and I would like more people to see it, if only so I could discuss it with others, but it’s not a movie I can honestly say I enjoyed once the credits started rolling. For some audiences, I suspect the movie would work, but at least with one watch, it didn’t do much for me aside from disappoint me.

That said, it is a movie I’d be willing to give another shot to, and if that ever happens, perhaps my somewhat negative views on this movie would change. Certainly I can always hope, as for now, it’s clearly a below-average film.

5.5/10

Directed by Jeff Burr [Other horror films: The Offspring (1987), Stepfather II (1989), Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III (1990), Pumpkinhead II: Blood Wings (1993), Puppet Master 4 (1993), Puppet Master 5 (1994), The Werewolf Reborn! (1998), Phantom Town (1999), Straight Into Darkness (2004), Frankenstein & the Werewolf Reborn! (2005), Devil’s Den (2006), Mil Mascaras vs. Aztec Mummy (2007), Resurrection (2010), Puppet Master: Blitzkrieg Massacre (2018), American Resurrection (2022), Carnage Collection – Puppet Master: Trunk Full of Terror (2022)]

I’ve long known about Night of the Scarecrow. It’s hard not to, given it’s the third and final scarecrow-focused horror film to come out before 2000 – the other two, of course, being Dark Night of the Scarecrow and Scarecrows. While I don’t think Night of the Scarecrow is as enjoyable as either of those two, I do think it made a valiant effort.

Personally, I appreciated how quick-paced the film was. The events here happen over the course of just two days, and it doesn’t take long at all for the action to get going. At an hour and 25 minutes, it’s certainly not an over-long movie either, though I tend to think that the finale perhaps could have been trimmed a little. Nonetheless, it’s a quick-moving film, and has the vibes you’d expect from some 80’s movies.

I know that some have labeled this a slasher, and while there are some kills with a scythe, the deaths here are quite a bit more varied than that. Some are beyond description, almost – a young woman is sort of implanted with straw (?), and then stalks of wheat (or corn) burst out from her body, and she’s dragged underground by the roots. Another person gets straw shoved into their arm, and shortly thereafter, straw grows from their eyes, mouth, etc., and it didn’t look at all pleasant.

To be sure, some of the kills were more typical, as the aforementioned scythe kills, one of which was pretty solid, as it was a quick slice to the stomach, which looked hella painful. Speaking of painful, someone got their mouth sewn up. Another individual got killed by a farming truck (not being a farmer, I don’t know if it was a combine harvester or not, but it looked pointy). It’s not unfair to call this a slasher at all, but if you come into this one expecting a simple scarecrow killing with a scythe, well, there’s more to it.

And I can appreciate the vision behind that. About halfway into the film, we get some backstory as to why this scarecrow is attacking citizens of the town, and it’s a decent origin. Dealing with a warlock and a town faced with draught and pestilence, it’s not an overly original backstory, but it was fun, and had a classic feel to it.

Neither lead wowed me – Elizabeth Barondes (Natural Selection, Not of This Earth) was okay, and certainly John Mese’s character was confident, but they’re not the performances that really stood out to me. It’s Stephen Root and Bruce Glover who do that.

Root is an actor I know from a handful of random things (such as his role in the last two seasons of The West Wing, along with a handful of appearances on The Big Bang Theory), and he’s pretty fun here, with more focus than I would have thought. Bruce Glover (Hunter’s Blood) did a decent, sometimes amusing, job as a priest, and I dug his role. Others that warrant a mention include John Hawkes (Scary Movie, Identity), Cristi Harris (Night of the Demons 2), Dirk Blocker (Poltergeist, Prince of Darkness), and John Lazar, despite only appearing in a single sequence.

Oh, and I wanted to give a brief mention of the music. Throughout the movie, I was impressed with Night of the Scarecrow’s music, some of which was quite atmospheric. I can’t say it was necessarily special, or that it’s the type of music that you’d remember long after the movie finished, but I can say that in the moment, the music was quite nice.

Elements of Night of the Scarecrow don’t always work, but I appreciate that this film keeps a good pace with a moderately classic feel (the scarecrow’s origin, for instance). Like I said earlier, I don’t think it’s as good as either of the scarecrow-based horror films that pre-date it, but it’s definitely not a bad film at all, and I think it’s a bit of a shame it seems as forgotten as it is.

7/10

Directed by Robert Iscove [Other horror films: N/A]

I didn’t have much in the way of positive expectations when it came to Firestarter: Rekindled. Not that I’d heard much about this one, but I knew it was a mini-series that got lukewarm reviews. Admittedly, I didn’t know it was a Sci-Fi mini-series, which gives it a bit more personal spice, but given I didn’t love the first Firestarter, I wasn’t sure how well a sequel would fare.

Well, as a sequel to the 1984 movie, Rekindled fails hard, and for a very specific reason: it’s impossible for this to be a sequel. See, this movie has flashbacks from events that happen in that movie, but they don’t use footage from the film (which is fine, as I sometimes find that type of thing stylistically off-putting), instead re-creating them with new performances.

The problem is, the scenes they recorded for the flashbacks don’t actually match up to what happened in the 1984 movie. For God’s sake, instead of Charlie’s father dying in a barn, he’s killed by Rainbird in a nondescript room with what seems to be a needle. The flashbacks don’t match up, and because of that, I don’t think this can even really be called a sequel. I choose to see it as a new adaptation of material used in the novel, because as a sequel, it doesn’t work.

Viewing it, though, the way I choose to, the mini-series isn’t that bad. Don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t come close to rivaling Storm of the Century or the 1997 The Shining, but it’s not that shabby. The biggest problems, discounting the idea that this is a sequel, would be that the performances are sometimes shaky, the special effects aren’t always that special, and there’s a handful of story elements I didn’t care for, but otherwise, it sort of has some charm to it.

Generally speaking, I liked the cast of this one. Marguerite Moreau (The Uninvited, Queen of the Damned) made a decent adult Charlie. To be honest, I found her budding relationship with Danny Nucci’s character sort of cute, especially that scene in which they’re talking about kryptonite. Nucci is an actor I know from pretty random places (Titanic and an episode of House M.D.), and while he wasn’t amazing here, I dug his character. Oh, and Malcolm McDowell (Silent Night, Class of 1999, Cat People, Halloween) is here too, playing Rainbird, and he’s always a pleasure.

We also have Dennis Hopper (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, House of 9, Land of the Dead, Night Tide) playing a somewhat interesting character. Portraying the young Charlie in flashbacks was Skye McCole Bartusiak (who I know as Pippa from Storm of the Century); she doesn’t have the character of Drew Barrymore, but she was nice to see. Also appearing are John Dennis Johnston (Communion), Darnell Williams, Travis Charitan, Dan Byrd (Salem’s Lot, Easy A), Ron Perkins (Storm of the Century, the 2002 Spider-Man), and Jeremy Hoop.

Like some of the performances, the special effects can be a bit touch-and-go. Some of them are decent; I tend to think the finale was mostly okay, aside from a scene involving Rainbird. Other times, well, the fire doesn’t look the greatest. Still, I don’t think the effects are terrible, and it’s certainly not much a hindrance to the story.

Speaking of the story, I have to say I didn’t care for the kids. See, part of this mini-series deals with Rainbird’s continuing Dr. Wanless’ experiments, and so he has a bunch of super-powered kids. One can sort of control people’s actions, another can read minds, one’s an energy sink, another has a sonic shout (similar to Banshee from Marvel Comics). These kids weren’t a big focus, and toward the end, they weren’t quite as prominent as I feared they were going to be, but it was still an element that didn’t do a lot for me when they did pop up.

Generally speaking, though, despite this being a combined 2 hours and 42 minutes, I had an okay time with Rekindled. I don’t think it’s a great mini-series, and it’s probably still weaker than average, but considering that I wasn’t expecting much from this at all, I can admit that this mini-series surprised me. I can also say that if you’re a fan of the 1984 movie, this one may disappoint, but if you can look at this as something other than an intended sequel, you may be in for perfectly fine time.

6.5/10

Directed by Víctor Garcia [Other horror films: Return to House on Haunted Hill (2007), Arctic Predator (2010), Mirrors 2 (2010), Gallows Hill (2013), An Affair to Die For (2019), La niña de la comunión (2022)]

It should come as no surprise that I didn’t care for Revelations. I don’t know if it’s quite as bad as others tend to feel it is, but it’s definitely a long way from good, and I don’t think it’s too much a stretch to say it’s the worst film in the franchise.

No doubt Deader, the seventh movie, had some issues, such as the fact it made no sense whatsoever, whereas Revelations does tend to explain most aspects of the story. However, Deader felt more like the Hellraiser I’d come to expect up to that point, and this one, despite theoretically going back to the basics (including a Frank-like character who steals someone’s skin), I just couldn’t get into it.

Most people know the history behind this one – it was shot in eleven days because Dimension Films realized that they’d lose the rights to the Hellraiser series if they didn’t get a sequel to Hellworld out. Given the short filming schedule and rushed post-production, Revelations does feel quite cheap. That alone isn’t necessarily damning, though the fact that they apparently got down to the wire as opposed to starting months earlier and making a far better film is worthy of some contempt.

Honestly, I don’t think the story itself is that bad. There are some elements of found footage that I could personally have done without, but there’s not enough of that to scare people away, in my view. Following two preppy teens as they fall into a hedonistic nightmare, you can certainly see that portions here are reminiscent of the original Hellraiser, and I can appreciate that. It’s also true, though, that I’ve never been the biggest fan of the first Hellraiser, so though this movie may bring back the vagrant with the puzzle box, I don’t know if that does much for me.

It’s not the story here that’s problematic, though – it’s the acting. I’m not one who goes out of my way to pin issues on performances, but I really felt like some of the performances here weren’t good. It may partially be due to some awkward dialogue (paired with occasionally awful delivery), but regardless, what interest the story may have cobbled up easily got lost in the sea of poor performances.

Nick Eversman (At the Devil’s Door, Urban Explorer) had some funny pieces of dialogue (“They want to experience your flesh”), but he’s a bit much as the movie goes on. Jay Gillespie (2001 Maniacs) and Tracey Fairaway (Patchwork) have more bad moments than good, but again, some of their lesser moments can still be amusing. I didn’t have much against Steven Brand (Triassic Attack, Echoes, The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer, XII, Demons) or Sebastien Roberts, aside from their dull characters, and Devon Sorvari was more stable than Sanny van Heteren, but there’s nothing much here that I think will wow people.

Oh, and we have to talk about Doug Bradley. Naturally, he didn’t reprise his role as Pinhead in this one, and instead we got Stephan Smith Collins (though Pinhead was voiced by Fred Tatasciore, apparently). I don’t know Collins, but I didn’t care much for his portrayal of Pinhead. It wasn’t necessarily the performance as far as the characterization, which felt more malicious than need-be, but he certainly doesn’t hold a candle to Bradley.

Another thing I wanted to mention may come as no surprise. Because of the quick filming schedule for this one, I don’t think the special effects look particularly good. A few sequences are okay, but generally, the hooks looked weak, the pillars of flesh looked faker than usual, and the Cenobites – well, we only see a handful, not counting Pinhead, including a female Chatterer and a Pinhead-wannabe – looked somewhat forgettable also.

Revelations is a movie with problems. Is it as bad as the current IMDb rating of 2.7/10 purports? I don’t think so. It’s a disappointment, but I don’t think it’s quite that poor at all. However, it’s definitely not good, save the basics of the story. Some people may appreciate this for at least breaking the mold of the previous four films (Inferno, Hellseeker, Deader, and Hellworld), but personally, I’d take most of those over this one any time.

4.5/10

Directed by Pablo Macho Maysonet IV [Other horror films: The Things They Left Behind (2011), The Red Suit (2014), Fear of My Flesh (2015), Await the Dawn (2020), Tales from the Other Side (2022, segment ‘Scary Mary’] & Brian Rivera [Other horror films: N/A]

I’m an individual who’s seen plenty of lower-budget horror, and while I have a high tolerance of occasionally shoddy film-making, that doesn’t mean I’m oblivious to it when it occurs. DeadHouse is a movie with problems, and while it’s certainly not all bad, I can fairly say it’s far from good.

The story is rather basic – two sisters and a friend have car trouble while traveling, and run awry of some killers who live in a decrepit house. And – well, actually, that’s it. We get a bit of background on the killers, and there’s a very choreographed twist toward the end that I suspect would fool very few people, but then again, not all slashers are dripping in creativity.

And actually, I’ve seen DeadHouse before. A long time ago, Blog Talk Radio was a pretty decent site, and the horror forum Horror Movie Fans (a forum I’ve been of member of since 2009) had a show that I called into plenty of times. During one of those shows, we discussed DeadHouse. Now, that was a long time ago – 2010, if I had to guess – so it’s been around 13 years since I’ve seen this one, and as such, remembered very little of it (not that there was much to remember, truth be told).

If I recall, this used to be on YouTube in full, as I’m sure that’s where I watched it. Nowadays, it seems like it’s a mostly forgotten film, but luckily (such as it is), I own a copy on the 50-movie set Catacomb of Creepshows. Though I don’t care for the film overall, I am glad to have access to it, as it seems a rather difficult film to find online nowadays.

In all honesty, there’s not a whole lot to say about this one, though. The story’s rather simple, but it fails due to technical aspects, primarily the audio. The audio here was really bad – there are multiple conversations that I can’t understand at all, because it seems there was no microphone in the vicinity. Other times, the music plays over the dialogue, and little-to-none of the characters’ voices actually stand out. I’ve seen movies with poor audio before, but the consistently poor audio of this film was almost astounding.

Otherwise, you have occasionally decent (though rather low-budget) effects. Someone gets stabbed with a pitchfork, which was probably the best scene. Another gets their head slammed into a wall, causing said head to explode. Someone’s body gets slammed into a tree, causing their spine to crack. None of the deaths are that memorable, but at least they’re here.

I thought the performances were alright. Keep in mind, I couldn’t hear them a fifth of the time, but that’s not their fault. Tracey Dalton and Cara Dalton played believable sisters (and given their shared surnames, I wouldn’t be surprised if they actually were sisters). Pablo Macho Maysonet IV (also the director of this film) had some occasionally amusing dialogue, but was mostly whateves. Brian Rivera had a friendly persona, and Anthony Carvalho (who isn’t even credited on IMDb at the time of this writing) was fine too. None of the performances here did much, but at least they averaged out okay.

The story, though, didn’t feel fresh enough to me. I didn’t care for the twist at the end, and given the garbled and difficult-to-understand dialogue, it was a bit of a rough one to get through, made only marginally easier by the fact I was able to rope my brother into watching this one with me (shout-out James, wherever you are brah). It’s not a good movie, and while there are certainly worse out there, never doubt that there aren’t thousands of better ways to spend your time.

4/10

Directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis [Other horror films: Blood Feast (1963), Monster a-Go Go (1965), Color Me Blood Red (1965), A Taste of Blood (1967), The Gruesome Twosome (1967), Something Weird (1967), The Wizard of Gore (1970), The Gore Gore Girls (1972), Blood Feast 2: All U Can Eat (2002), The Uh-Oh Show (2009), Herschell Gordon Lewis’ BloodMania (2017, segments ‘Gory Story’ and ‘The Night Hag’]

A couple of days ago, I revisited the 2005 film 2001 Maniacs, and as it’s been a while since I’ve seen the original film, I wanted to come back to this one and see how the story was originally portrayed. And I have to say, I’m impressed by some aspects here, especially the finale, and I can now say for a certainty I enjoy this film over the 2005 remake.

It’s been so long since I’ve seen this, I entirely forgot how this one ended. I said in my review of 2001 Maniacs that the supernatural ending they threw on (though I was coy with the term ‘supernatural,’) was solid, but I believe they do a better job here. They give the finale more time to breathe, along with giving the characters a sympathetic police officer and an overall somber tone. We even see a bit of perspective from the townsfolk of Pleasant Valley, so this finale was rather impressive in my view, especially coming from H.G. Lewis, who I don’t generally associate with stellar story-telling.

Naturally, when people hear H.G. Lewis, they generally think gore, given, of course, that Lewis is the Godfather of Gore. And the gore here is solid. I don’t think it’s great – there’s no doubt in my mind that his later effort, The Wizard of Gore, was far more extreme – but it is pretty fun.

You have a woman getting their arm cut off (and that’s after she gets her thumb cut off), a giant rock smashing a woman, horses pulling someone apart (which is a death recreated in the remake), and perhaps most subtly, the barrel roll, in which someone’s thrown into a barrel, nails are hammered into it, and they roll the barrel down a hill. It’s not a very bloody death, but it is the one I remember best. Because the film’s in color, that goes a long way to allowing the gory scenes to stand out.

I was also impressed by a few performances and characters. Jeffrey Allen as the mayor was a fantastically fun character. Allen (who’s only other horror film appearance was Something Weird) felt exactly like how I’d expect an old-time southern mayor to feel, and I loved it. William Kerwin (Blood Feast, God’s Bloody Acre, A Taste of Blood) was solid too, and actually had a good head on his shoulders. Not only did he realize something was odd in the town early on, but when he was attempting to call a friend for more information, he disguises his voice in order to throw off anyone listening in. Fun character, and good performance.

Honestly, the people here were far more in-the-know when it comes to the potential danger of the town. Michael Korb’s character was no fool, and playing his wife was Yvonne Gilbert, who said, “There’s something so unwholesome about this centennial.” Compared to the characters in the 2005 remake, these people had some actual brains, which was nice to see.

I’ll fully admit that Gary Bakeman was a bit much for me. He was just way too goofy, and his antics, I could have done without. I did really like Stanley Dyrector, who had that Southern good-ole boy feel to him. Connie Mason (Blood Feast) was solid, Andy Wilson surprisingly decent in his limited role, and both Jerome Eden and Shelby Livingston had something going for them too.

It should be mentioned that this came out in 1964, during the time of the Civil Rights movement. Unlike the remake, there’s absolutely nothing in this movie that deals with, or even references, race. Even so, highlighting a southern town that kills Yankees due to actions committed during the Civil War still seems, to me, liable to hit a few nerves. From the little I read, this film did decently in the south, though, so perhaps they enjoyed their vicarious revenge. No matter what, I find the plot a fascinating one, and so along with the characters and the effects, the story too really does this one justice.

Despite not having seen this in a long while now, when it comes to H.G. Lewis movies, I’ve always placed Two Thousand Maniacs! near the top. The Wizard of Gore is gorier, but I also think it’s a bit of a mess, plot-wise, and because of that, nothing quite competes. Sure, Blood Feast is a solid film for its type, but Two Thousand Maniacs! does far more, and I think it does it better.

Honestly, I enjoyed revisiting this one more than I thought I would. It’s sometimes too goofy, and the quality of the film is rough at points, but if you want a solid slice of 60’s horror, and you’ve not seen this one, I’d recommend you check it out.

8/10

Directed by Tim Sullivan [Other horror films: Driftwood (2006), 2001 Maniacs: Field of Screams (2010), Chillerama (2011, segment ‘I Was a Teenage Werebear’)]

I’ve not seen this one in at least 12 years, if not longer, so I was eager to revisit it. As it is, while this remake of the classic H.G. Lewis film was somewhat fun, I’d have a hard time saying that it was that great of a film. It’s certainly serviceable, if you’re into a gory time, but it’s not something I entirely loved.

I should say that it’s been a while since I’ve seen the original 1964 movie (though I think I’ll throw that on next), so I can’t say with certainty whether the ending they had here was also in that version, but I was generally happy with the finale of this one. For the longest time in the film, we don’t really know why the folks of Pleasant Valley, Georgia are killing these young people, aside from the fact that they seem to hate Yankees. And honestly, though I’d seen this before, I wasn’t sure if we were going to get an explanation at all, but we finally did, and I appreciated that.

Two points in the movie’s favor are the gore and Robert Englund. The special effects here are decent, and while the kills don’t always land (such as those metal teeth), they’re usually pretty solid, and live up to the moniker Guts and Glory Jubilee (though I’m somewhat disappointed they didn’t recreate the knife barrel I remember so clearly from the original).

As for Robert Englund, well, naturally he’s a big name in horror (A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Phantom of the Opera, Kantemir, Eaten Alive, Galaxy of Terror). In fact, if you’re a horror fan who doesn’t know Englund, something went wrong, brahs. He’s obviously having a lot of fun hamming it up in this film, and when Robert Englund has fun, I generally have fun too.

Englund aside, we did have some other performances that worked out, including Lin Shaye (Dead End, Insidious), who took a more prevalent role in this one. Of the younger crowd (Jay Gillespie, Dylan Edrington, Matthew Carey, Brian Gross, Marla Malcolm, Gina Marie Heekin, Mushond Lee, and Bianca Smith), the only ones that really stand out are Gillespie, Malcolm, Carey (Hollows Grove), and, to an extent, Mushond Lee. Oh, and Peter Stormare (Fargo, The Lost World: Jurassic Part II, Bruiser) pops up for a bit.

Still, being a horror comedy of somewhat questionable humor, I didn’t entirely love the jokes here. Some of it was a bit much for me, such as the guy who was chasing around his pig (as he engaged in carnal relations with the animal), or some of the dialogue. No doubt some of it was pretty funny (“if I supply the peaches, can you supply the cream?”), but it was very much mixed, in my view, and not altogether my type of humor.

Despite my issues, I still largely found 2001 Maniacs fun. The finale had issues, but it was decent, and I appreciated how they pulled some things together and gave us some answers. I didn’t love all the humor here, and it’s a pretty simple movie, so I’m leaning around average with this one, if not a little lower. Loved Robert Englund here, though.

6.5/10

Directed by Olatunde Osunsanmi [Other horror films: Within (2005), The Fourth Kind (2009)]

It’s been some years since I’ve seen Evidence, but I recall enjoying it a decent amount, and despite remembering important plot points of the finale, I was looking forward to revisiting this one. Despite not packing the same punch it did when I first saw it, I still feel that Evidence does a decent amount right.

The style of the film is certainly interesting. About 60% of the film is done in the style of found footage, with the other 40% being police investigators watching the footage. Because of this, the movie’s approachable even if you’re not generally into found footage films. Of course, it’s also worth mentioning that some of the film seems a bit much – there’s a sort of freeze-frame thing that happens a couple of times – and the finale does strike me as being a bit too dramatic, but still, it’s fun.

Because I remembered (generally speaking) the ending of this one, I wasn’t surprised by much. I sort of found it funny how the red herrings that are brought up are sort of thrown aside as soon as the perfectly-timed “new” evidence pops up in the videos – it just struck me as awfully convenient. Also, while I enjoy the twist in this one, I sort of wish it had been executed a bit differently, because, as I said above, the finale does feel a tad over-dramatic. I’m also not entirely sure I buy the motive of the antagonist, which is something that perhaps could have been fleshed out more.

Caitlin Stasey (Fear, Inc., Kindred Spirits, All I Need) and Torrey DeVitto (I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer, Killer Movie) made for decent focal points, though I have to admit that when neither of them spoke, I couldn’t tell them apart (Stasey’s Australian, so that did turn out to be helpful). Stephen Moyer (The Barrens, The Caller) was good, and though we didn’t see much variety from her, Radha Mitchell (Pitch Black, The Darkness, Rogue, The Crazies) was solid also. Others who merit a mention include Harry Lennix (Cruel Will, Suspect Zero), Svetlana Metkina (Trackman), Nolan Gerard Funk (Bereavement, The Coven), and Barak Hardley (Mockingbird).

Because much of the film was done in the found footage style, there wasn’t really a ton of special effects here. The killer’s design looked grand – imagine a figure in a welder mask with a blowtorch – and that was fun. We did see a kill in which a blowtorch apparently dismembered someone, so that was brutally fun. Generally, though, I feel the movie’s mystery was more interesting than the effects and kills they had going on here.

Evidence isn’t a great movie, and I can understand some of the lukewarm reaction this has gotten from the average person (while I find some of the downright negative reception it’s gotten from critics somewhat questionable), but despite its flaws and a couple of loose ends, I generally had fun revisiting this one. It won’t work for everyone, but personally, I had what the kids call a good time.

7.5/10

Directed by Rene Perez [Other horror films: The Dead and the Damned (2011), Demon Hunter (2012), Alien Showdown: The Day the Old West Stood Still (2013), The Snow Queen (2013), The Dead the Damned and the Darkness (2014), The Burning Dead (2015), Playing with Dolls: Bloodlust (2016), Little Red Riding Hood (2016), The Obsidian Curse (2016), Playing with Dolls: Havoc (2017), From Hell to the Wild West (2017), The Dead and the Damned 3: Ravaged (2018), Cabal (2020), Cry Havoc (2020), Legend of Hawes (2022), The Vampire and the Vigilante (2024)]

I’ve known about Playing with Dolls for a long time, and because of the little I knew about it, I avoided it. Well, after seeing it, I wish I had kept avoiding it, as it really is quite awful.

To be sure, the movie is not without it’s strong points. The killer, for instance, uses a sledgehammer to kill two people, and that was sort of fun. Uh, perhaps Natasha Blasick had a few moments in which she was quite attractive. Um, the trees were nice?

Okay, there’s not many strong points, and on the flip-side, a whole lotta negative ones. For instance, it seems that little really happens for the first hour of the film. Sure, we get the set-up, but once Blasick’s character is at the cabin, we get nothing for forty minutes save “creepy” scenes of her being followed and watched while not knowing it. It was just tedious and often boring, in my view.

I don’t want to harp on the performances. It’s true that I found pretty much everyone’s acting stilted, including Natasha Blasick (Death of Evil), but I don’t really blame them for it. The story was pretty damn bare-bones, so it’s not like any of these people had much to work with. Blasick looked cute now and again, which was something. David A. Lockhart (The Dead and the Damned) seemed rather weak, but again, I’m hesitant to blame him. Richard Tyson (The Fear Chamber, Flight of the Living Dead, Big Bad Wolf) literally had no character, but boy, was he great at staring at a computer screen menacingly.

There’s also not a real ending here. Sure, where things leave off with Blasick’s character, we’ve seen before, and that’s all well and good, but what happens to Lockhart’s character? What happens to the killer? We literally have no idea. I would hope that this is picked up immediately in the following film, being Playing with Dolls: Bloodlust, but given the quality of the story, I wouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t.

All-in-all, Playing with Dolls (or, as an alternative title, Metalface, which is the God-awful title I saw this under on Tubi) was pretty bad. When it wasn’t dull af, it was beyond mediocre, and the lack of story doesn’t do this one any wonders. It’s not like the kills make up for that either, which is all the more disappointing.

I wasn’t surprised that this movie didn’t do much for me. Perhaps some out there would enjoy something about it, but it was just terribly bare-bones, in my view, and not at all my type of thing.

3/10