Category: Reviews

Leprechaun’s Revenge (2012)

Directed by Drew Daywalt [Other horror films: Camera Obscura (2010)]

I’ve seen this movie once before, and seeing it again solidifies my view that it’s a damn fun movie. Worth noting before I get into any of this, Leprechaun’s Revenge was re-named Red Clover for the DVD release, which is a much better title (and less likely to confuse people into thinking it’s related to the Leprechaun series).

Let’s talk about the primary reason the movie’s so fun, being the cast. Billy Zane cracked me up here. I don’t know if it’s just because I’ve seen him in mostly low-budget horror (Memory, Surviving Evil, Vlad, and The Mad), but he doesn’t seem like a great actor. Even so, he has great lines of dialogue (that whole story on his wife), and is fun throughout. William Devane’s character was fun too. Dave Davis and Courtney Halverson’s conversations cracked me up. Halverson, on a side-note, with her red hair and green eyes, was damn attractive.

Azure Parsons’ conversations with Davis cracked me up, along with Karl Herlinger’s conversation with Azure Parsons. These are just fun characters, and they have some ridiculously funny conversations that make it all worth it.

The leprechaun design is okay. It’s a lot different than Warwick Davis’ type of Leprechaun, but that’s for the best. It’s a beast more than anything, using it’s claws and teeth to attack people with gold, which is fun enough (and leads to some okay kills). I did have an issue with the fact it briefly drove a car, but that was just a small scene.

Really, other than the fun characters and the overtly Irish small Massachusetts town, Leprechaun’s Revenge isn’t really that special, but I had a lot of fun with it when seeing it again, so I rate this decently well.

8/10

It Came from Outer Space (1953)

Directed by Jack Arnold [Other horror films: Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954), Revenge of the Creature (1955), This Island Earth (1955), Tarantula (1955), The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957), Monster on the Campus (1958)]

I can appreciate a good alien invasion movie from the 1950’s, and It Came from Outer Space is decent, but compared to others I’ve seen (The Thing from Another World, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and hell, The Blob), this falls a bit flat.

The cast is fine, and I’ve no complaints. Richard Carlson (also in The Maze and Creature from the Black Lagoon) is pretty fun as the main character, a bit of an odd-ball who no one in town believes when he spouts off stories of crashing spaceship. Playing his opposite in many ways is Charles Drake, who has a (pardon the pun) more down-to-Earth view of things, and sort of becomes antagonistic and paranoid toward the end (though certainly with reason).

Even so, I wasn’t really taken in by the story. I sort of like the paranoid feeling Drake’s character starts feeling near the end, but It Came from Outer Space doesn’t nearly have as good a vibe as does Invasion of the Body Snatchers a couple of years later. At the same time, I did quite like a setting, being a small Arizona town surrounded (of course) by desert.

This isn’t a movie I take pleasure in shooting down, nor is that exactly what I’m doing. It’s still a decent movie, but it’s not a movie I could see myself watching that often or really going out of my way to recommend to others, especially when there are so many better movies in the same decade. For the time being, I’d say this is worth one watch, and past that, maybe not so much.

7/10

From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)

Directed by Robert Rodriguez [Other horror films: The Faculty (1998), Grindhouse (2007, segment ‘Planet Terror’), Planet Terror (2007), Red 11 (2019)]

I’ve seen this a handful of times before, and it’s never been a favorite. I enjoy the first half, with a crime/action feel to it, enough, but I can’t say I much care at all once they hit the Titty Twister.

The cast is pretty superb throughout. George Clooney, Quentin Tarantino, Harvey Keitel (Two Evil Eyes), Juliette Lewis (Kalifornia), a younger Danny Trejo than I’m used to, Tom Savini, Fred Williamson, Ceech Marin, and, for a few seconds, John Saxon. It’s a Robert Rodriguez/Tarantino movie, so the cast is about as good as you’d expect.

As great as the cast can be (and they certainly are in some aspects, looking at Clooney and Keitel’s characters), though, I don’t love the shift into vampire terrority, at least not the way it was done here. It became an all-out rumble with the undead, and that’s not really what I look for when it comes to vampire flicks.

On a slight positive note, the final shot in the film was pretty damn cool. It’d make a quality poster.

As far as special effects go, they were decent. Personally, I didn’t much care for the design of the vampires, but they stood out. There were a lot of solid sequences during the multiple fights, from plenty of gunplay to a decapitation, and the fact that a few of the characters left are ones you felt for helped, but still, the whole action-orientation of those scenes doesn’t endear me.

From Dusk Till Dawn feels special only in that you can tell Tarantino was involved in the script. At times near the beginning, it doesn’t feel dissimilar to Pulp Fiction or Reservoir Dogs, which certainly makes aspects of the first half memorable, but once vampires start coming into the picture, I admit, it loses me.

There are better vampire films from the 1990’s (The Night Flier and Carpenter’s Vampires, for two), and there are certainly better action films, so watching a subpar mix of both doesn’t blow me away. From Dusk Till Dawn is decently popular, and there’s certainly a reason for that, but I’ve never loved this one, nor particularly liked it, and this most recent viewing hasn’t changed that.

6/10

Happy Death Day (2017)

Directed by Christopher Landon [Other horror films: Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones (2014), Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse (2015), Happy Death Day 2U (2019), Freaky (2020)]

When I say that this movie was one of the biggest surprises in the last few years, I totally mean it. This was a pretty big movie when it came out, and beforehand it garnered quite a bit of hype, but after glancing cursorily at the plot, I didn’t find it interesting. Having finally seen the movie, though, I can definitely say that I had quite a fun time with it.

I mean, there was just a lot of hilarious stuff here. The montage of death sequences, concluding with Jessica Rothe’s Tree character stating that Israel Broussard’s Carter’s plan “totally sucked” was funny, but even more amusing was Jessica Rothe’s character turning into Emma Stone’s from Easy A. Strutting around naked just because, or convincing the closeted gay guy to be himself (her reaction when she discovered he was gay was really funny, too), or pushing back on the sorority chick for fat-shaming another girl, or her dialogue while trying to get arrested (“I’m drunk. Wasted. And I’m high, ya know, pills, weed. You name it, man, I’m on it”), Rothe’s character here was fantastic in the latter part of the film, and it’s no stretch to say I had so much fun with this.

Happy Death Day is more than that, though. There’s not a whole lot of great timey wimey based horror films (Timecrimes comes to mind, and maybe Triangle, but really, what else has the genre got?), so that in itself was unique. And starting with a stereotypically terrible sorority girl, and over the course of the same multiple days turning her into a sympathetic character with depth (her conversation with her father on one of her last days before the loop broke was fantastically emotional) was a fantastic idea.

Central among important characters are those played by Jessica Rothe and Israel Broussard. Though it takes something like forty minutes for the two of them to really make a connection, I think it’s definitely sweet when they do, because Israel’s nice-guy attitude is so far removed from Jessica’s crass and loud personality, though at that point, she’s desperate for help wherever she can find. After the karma discussion with Carter, Tree attempts to make amends for the life she’s been leading, and it’s just heart-warming, especially the aforementioned discussion with her father.

A lot of the kills here aren’t that great, but there’s a few ones worth noting, such as the car explosion and taking a baseball bat to the head (which leads to a pretty good scene transition to Tree waking up again, still in the loop). I won’t say many others are amazing, but it’s the story of the film and the characters that make this such a good movie, and it certainly works.

The one weak portion here is the identity of the killer. I do prefer it over Tree’s original idea of it being a random serial killer who happens to be in the area, but the justification behind the killer’s actions strikes me as weak. That said, it could accurately be stated that the killer is somewhat psychotic, so though the reason seems somewhat small, it still makes sense.

Regardless, I enjoyed this movie so much more than I thought I would, and it’s a definite winner in my eyes. It’s just a shame that it took me as long as it did to see this one.

8.5/10

Mama (2013)

Directed by Andy Muschietti [Other horror films: It (2017), It Chapter Two (2019)]

This isn’t a film I had much interest in seeing, but given it’s directed by Andy Muschietti (who later went on to do It Chapters 1 and 2), I was holding out hope that it could transcend the typical Hollywood ghost story. As it turns out, while there were a few things in Mama to enjoy, it wasn’t really able to do that.

Off the bat, the first thing I noticed was Nikolaj Coster-Waldau was one of the stars. Now, I know him only from Game of Thrones, but I still thought it was sort of cool seeing him here. Jessica Chastain I know only from the aforementioned It Chapter 2, and she was pretty good here also. I really liked her punk look, and the fact that she was thrown into the role of a mother was pretty heart-wrenching. I really liked Coster-Waldau and Chastain together – they made a cute couple here, only to be ruined by the children, though Megan Charpentier, who played the older kid, was pretty decent.

The only other character that really made an impact (aside from Mama, of course) was Dr. Dreyfuss (played by Daniel Kash). It’s through him that we, the audience, discover the story behind Edith, the woman who becomes the ghostly Mama. Her story isn’t without interest or tragedy, but to be blunt, I didn’t find myself caring that much.

There is a really solid scene about thirty minutes into the film, where the camera shows both the hallway and the kid’s room, and something happens there that I thought was pretty cool. It was expected, no doubt, but I still liked the execution. I bring that up because otherwise, I didn’t think there were that many noteworthy things in the film. There was an okay dream sequence, and the emotional ending was solid, but otherwise, it was just generic ghost movie #1523.

Mama had potential, and I wish the final product was better. The design for Mama wasn’t great, in my opinion, but what helped the film avoid a worse rating was the feeling the film occasionally possessed. Seeing Charpentier slowly warm up to Chastain’s character was nice, and the ending, like I said, packed a decently emotional punch. Mama isn’t a great movie, and I do think it’s below average, but I could probably see myself giving it another go in the future, and perhaps if I’m in a better mood, the movie will come out slightly more enjoyable.

6.5/10

The Wolfman (2010)

Directed by Joe Johnston [Other horror films: N/A]

Perhaps the very definition of average, The Wolfman has some really cool and memorable scenes, but also peters out almost entirely come the ending with some elements I don’t at all care for.

I won’t pretend that I remember enough about the original to compare to the two, but I will say that this story is decent up until the end. I enjoyed many aspects of the asylum sequences, along with the following breakout and chase through London, but once it was werewolf vs. werewolf (not too dissimilar from the finale of 30 Days of Night, only with vampires), I ceased being impressed. And to be fair, at least I’m consistent, as I didn’t love the finale to 30 Days of Night either.

There’s some solid werewolf action in the film, to be sure. I always loved that Romani attack near the beginning, which had a decent amount of brutal claw damage, and plenty of attacks throughout the movie are worth it, and filmed well too, but that doesn’t really make up for what I see as failings with how the movie concludes.

Also, I’ll be honest and say that I didn’t love Benicio Del Toro as Talbot. I can’t exactly put my finger on it, but I just didn’t buy it. Anthony Hopkins was, as always, a pleasure to see, though again, some character aspects turn me away from him. I was lukewarm toward Emily Blunt’s character, but on the upside, I did rather like Hugo Weaving (and his demands of a pint of bitter).

The Wolfman’s a fine film, but it’s not a great film. It’s action-packed, sure, and like I said, some parts are pretty solid, but much of the time, it just feels like a glossy Hollywood period piece, and I contend The Woman in Black remake did it better, and with more atmosphere to boot.

Still, a good werewolf movie is hard to come by, and I’d say that The Wolfman certainly counts. It didn’t blow me away, and having seen it twice, it really does strike me as ultimately average, but it’s a decent movie still despite my misgivings.

7/10

The Return of Dracula (1958)

Directed by Paul Landres [Other horror films: The Vampire (1957), Destination Nightmare (1958), The Flame Barrier (1958)]

This is a film that I had little interest in, and while I admit that it surprised me a bit in elements of it’s approach, I don’t think The Return of Dracula will end up being that memorable. It’s not a bad movie, but is it noteworthy? Likely not.

It’s the plot here that makes things a bit better then one might think at first. Instead of focusing on some Eastern European country, or the Transylvanian region, the story takes place in sunny California, which was an interesting change of pace. The shift in setting doesn’t really help the basic story any, but it does give the movie a fresher feel.

Only two names really stood out here, being Francis Lederer (from Terror Is a Man the following year) and Norma Eberhardt. Eberhardt had that young, innocent look that made her perfect for a vampire to lust after, and as for Lederer, while his portrayal was nothing special (and Christopher Lee blew him out of the water the same year), it was perfectly competent.

For a slight surprise, there was a small scene in this black-and-white film that utilized color. It wasn’t near as unique as The Tingler’s approach, but when a vampire gets staked through the heart, the scene moves to color and we see the red blood spurt out. It wasn’t a big addition, but it was sort of cool in an otherwise mostly pedestrian film.

From my understanding, this came out before the aforementioned Horror of Dracula, but once Hammer’s second hit came out, this movie, with it’s low budget and black-and-white execution, was largely forgotten. And even had Horror of Dracula not hit the theaters until ‘59, I have a hard time imagining this would be heralded as a lost classic.

Like I said at the beginning, it’s not as though The Return of Dracula is bad. It’s competently-made, and has a few decent scenes. But overall, is the film memorable? Not whatsoever. I’d probably watch it again in the future, but I’d probably have forgotten I’d seen it before. It’s good for a single view, but past that, not so much, and it ultimately strikes me as a little below average.

6.5/10

Curtains (1983)

Directed by Richard Ciupka [Other horror films: N/A]

I’ve seen Curtains perhaps three times now, and while I’ve liked it quite a bit in the past, I’m struggling to remember exactly why. There’s some solid scenes here, and there’s occasionally an atmosphere to be envious of, but overall, there are so many better slashers from the 1980’s that this Canadian movie really doesn’t have much a chance to compete.

Only two performances really stood out (John Vernon and Lynne Griffin), perhaps three (Samantha Eggar) if I’m really stretching. Vernon was a bit overbearing at times, but his performance as a strict director was decent. Eggar did pretty well, especially near the beginning during the asylum sequences. It’s Griffin who I really liked, because her ‘hide-my-personality-behind-comedy’ attitude was a lot of fun, and she had one of the better fleshed out characters there.

As far as kills go, there’s not that much that stands out. It’s true that the ice skating sequence is fun and memorable, and there was an okay throat-slitting toward the end, but Curtains isn’t really a movie that’s focused on the kills (partially because the director and producer apparently got into constant arguments about what route the film should take, whether an arthouse thriller or a straight-up slasher).

It’s the finale that I’ve always tended to remember fondly, and I still think it’s pretty solid and certainly bleak. The final scene in the film always stuck with me, and thought it’s okay, I definitely think there could have been ways to perhaps end it a bit better.

Curtains isn’t a great movie, and while that may not be the fault of the script itself, it certainly shows that this Canadian movie could have been more, especially with the setting and characters being what they were. It’s perhaps worth a handful of watches, but like I said, I used to like this one more than I do now, so going in gung ho may be unadvisable.

6.5/10

This is one of the films covered on Fight Evil’s podcast. To listen to Chucky (@ChuckyFE) and I discuss this one, check out the video below.

Tamara (2005)

Directed by Jeremy Haft [Other horror films: N/A]

I wasn’t truthfully expecting much from Tamara, but as it ended up, I found myself generally amused. The movie’s not amazing, and I was reminded of both Devil’s Diary and The Rage: Carrie 2 a few times throughout, but could I see myself throwing this into my collection? Sure.

What helps Tamara get past the somewhat generic plot are the strong performances. Jenna Dewan was smoking as Tamara (more so after she came back from the dead, admittedly), and you couldn’t help but feel she was in the right for most of the movie, her only downside going after Matthew Marsden’s character or his wife. As it was, Marsden’s performance as a teacher was on point, and I felt for him.

Bryan Clark was great as an idiotic bully (apparently the fact that his steroid use was uncovered by Tamara makes it her fault that he’s kicked off the football team), and it’s characters like this that I always like to see killed in painful ways, especially after he and his cohorts kill Tamara and try to cover it up, with the help of nice girl Katie Stuart and bitch Melissa Marie Elias.

After Tamara comes back from her death with the help of some witchcraft (because all bullied chicks were into witchcraft, amiright?), things go down a somewhat predictable, yet still enjoyable, route. Personally, the scene in which a student cuts his ears and tongue off, not to mention stabbing his eyes, in front of the whole school, is easily my favorite death in the movie, and really, nothing else comes close (though eating that bottle was probably second place-worthy).

Tamara isn’t a great movie, but I was pretty amused throughout. I lose a bit of interest toward the end, and that whole party scene was just a bit eh to me, but overall, it’s an okay movie that certainly surprised me. Around average, but not anything more, in my view.

7/10

This is one of the films covered on Fight Evil’s podcast, so for the NSFW entry, here you go:

Freaks (1932)

Directed by Tod Browning [Other horror films: The Unknown (1927), London After Midnight (1927), Dracula (1931), Mark of the Vampire (1935), The Devil-Doll (1936)]

This film may have a long and sometimes uncomfortable set-up, but I think the ending more than makes up for it, and allows it the status of a deserving classic that is has.

Focusing on a failed love between a dwarf and an acrobat, Freaks takes it’s sweet time setting the finale up, which might bother some fans of the genre. Watching a black-and-white love story featuring carnival sideshow attractions might not be everyone’s idea of a fun time.

Still, the fact the film used real performers in their roles really adds a little something special to Freaks. Obviously, some of the people here just look naturally unsettling (through no fault of their own, to be sure), and I can imagine that audiences in the 1930’s could easily be turned away by this (and I’ve also heard that the ‘deformed’ cast members ate separately from the ‘normal’ cast members during the filming of this, which is pretty damn awful).

The ‘freaks,’ though, aren’t the enemies here, despite what some might at first believe. Their actions toward the end of the film aren’t necessarily great, but really, who could blame them? Their revenge here is fantastic, and leads to possibly one of the most shocking scenes in a 1930’s horror film.

A few names warrant a mention here. Wallace Ford (a somewhat well-known name who was in other, mostly low-budget, horror films from the period) did pretty well playing the clown, and seemed to possess the most feeling. Angelo Rossitto was also fantastic, especially during the intimidation sequence. Also, playing the main dwarf, Harry Earles put a lot of emotion into this one, and he certainly stood out. Others very much worth mentioning are Johnny Eck (the guy with no legs, who walked on his hands), Henry Victor (Hercules), and Leila Hyams (Venus, also of Island of Lost Souls).

Freaks isn’t a long movie, being just over an hour long, and I was never bored despite the bulk of the movie being a romantic drama. Truth be told, though I’ve seen this once or twice before, it’s never really been a favorite, but seeing it again did hit the right spot, and I can certainly imagine this shocking the audiences of the time.

8/10