Directed by Fede Alvarez [Other horror films: Evil Dead (2013)]
With all the hype it’s gotten from the casual movie-goer, Don’t Breathe came across as rather an average film. In it, three thieves break into the home of a blind man, and discover he’s a bigger threat than they otherwise would’ve thought.
So basically, it’s a reverse home invasion movie, which is interesting. Two of the thieves are moderately easy to sympathize with (whereas the third one is a jackass), which at the very least is positive. And it should be mentioned that while the first forty minutes or so can come across as dull, it does get pretty tense at points. That said, I didn’t much care for the route they took at the hour mark, nor did I care for the ladybug symbolism.
I think what annoyed me most, though, was how the blind man is an atheist, which he makes clear as a justification of his actions, which just pissed me off. As the film is a Hollywood movie, though, I’m sure they didn’t go out of their way just to offend atheists, but it still rubbed me the wrong way.
The final thirty minutes honestly aren’t terribly enthralling. Really, the highlights of this film come within the first half; everything past a certain point lacks suspense and originality. If the trio of thieves had been chased around the house for the whole film, I honestly think I’d have liked it more. That said, it’s not a bad movie, not by any means. While there’s not that much stand-out gore, and it can feel a bit stylized at times, Don’t Breath is a decent film for a slow night. I just don’t know if it’s much more than that, in my opinion.
Directed by Eli Craig [Other horror films: Zombieland (2013), Little Evil (2017)]
This will be a shorter review than usual, as there’s not much to say about this film (in this case, it’s a positive).
If you don’t know much about this bloody comedy-horror flick, it might sound a bit dumb at first. And sure, in some ways, it is overly ridiculous. But at the same time, I do think the theme of miscommunication is done pretty cleverly throughout the movie.
There are only four actors who matter. Tucker (Alan Tudyk) and Dale (Tyler Labine) have an amazing chemistry as two hillbilly friends, and play their roles fantastically. Dale has a lot of heart in him, and it’s nice to see his story end happily. Katrina Bowden played Allison, an aspiring therapist caught in the middle of this giant misunderstanding, extraordinarily well also. She has a fresh, attractive college look to her, but also has the brains to figure out what’s going on. Jesse Moss (who was in Ginger Snaps ten years prior) plays a great villain, and gets the utterly psychotic act down pat.
The movie is about average length, but still comes across as pretty digestible, and at no parts throughout the film are you really bored. The gore and related special effects are pretty damn good, lending this movie the right to probably be called a splatter film. Solidly funny, surprisingly clever, Tucker and Dale vs Evil is a good film that’s worth seeing. I think you’ll enjoy it.
8/10
This was also covered in the first episode of Fight Evil’s podcast, as Chucky (@ChuckyFE) and I briefly discuss it, which you can listen to below.
Directed by Tyler Christensen [Other horror films: N/A]
This movie doesn’t have that atypical a plot: On Halloween night, four high school kids go looking for a legendary haunted house, reputed to refund your money for each floor of the house completed. It’s a moderately generic plot, but the execution is superb in most ways.
The characters are all decently realistic, and when the haunted house makes them face their inner fears, it really humanizes some of the characters who were less real beforehand (Ryan, played by Brad Fry, is a good case in point). The whole concept is done well, really. Four teens enter this house, and throughout the night, secrets that each one holds become revealed. Some of them seemingly small, and others rather big. And it’s a fun ride throughout (despite much of the content and secrets being rather serious and culturally topical).
My biggest issue with this film is the ending, though, which I didn’t think did enough to explain things, and it felt both corny and unnecessary. I had a list in my mind of different possible endings that would have been better, but apparently that wasn’t to be, which for an otherwise deeply enjoyable film, was a bit of a letdown. The production value on this movie is quite a bit higher than I foresaw it being, and while there are jump scares here and there, this movie has more to offer than that. A surprising movie that I rather enjoyed, this is a Halloween movie I’d recommend.
Directed by Roland West [Other horror films: The Monster (1925), The Bat (1926)]
One of the earliest-surviving full-talkie horror movies (assuming one doesn’t count 1929’s The Thirteenth Chair, or another oddball choice), The Bat Whispers stands up incredibly well, and ends up being a very enjoyable entry into the old dark house style of movie (despite being a remake of the 1926 silent The Bat, directed also by Roland West, as this film was).
First off, I have to talk about something I generally don’t, being the cinematography. There are some simply amazing shots and sequences throughout the movie. Just watch the first five minutes, and you’ll see what I mean. These pop up multiple times over the course of the film, and I’ve never seen something quite like it. I’m not sure exactly how to explain it, but it really makes this movie more unique than it otherwise probably would have been.
The story, about a master criminal trying to scare a bunch of people out of a house in order to look for some hidden money, isn’t overly unique, but it is done well. We have plenty of suspicious characters, and as the movie drags on, we find no less than three different parties contesting each other to find the money. Only a few people aren’t suspects, so the whole film has a fun vibe because of that.
Plenty of actors and actresses stand out. Gustav von Seyffertitz, playing a suspicious doctor, does well, though his character sort of becomes less important later on into the film. Chester Morris does pretty well playing Detective Anderson, a character with a few secrets himself, and really commands respect when on screen. Unfortunately, two of the characters, played by Charles Dow Clark and Maude Eburne (who did not have an unsubstantial role in The Vampire Bat, from 1933) were thrown in purely for comic effect. Luckily, one of the main characters, the lady of the house, played by Grayce Hampton, did fantastically. Her character never seemed to lose control or her cool, and was consistently solid throughout the whole movie, especially near the end.
I do wish the tone were a bit more consistent. As I mention above, there’s a few characters whose only purpose is comic relief, which is more than a little disappointing. That said, there’s plenty of more creepy scenes also. The Bat, with a sort of cloak that went on to influence Batman’s design, was pretty well-done, and his whispering (as the title alludes to) was moderately effective.
At the end, we have an actor from the film talking to us, the audience, about how The Bat would be disappointed if his identity got out, and implores us to not tell our friends, so that when they see the film, they too will find out with the surprise that we did. Is it corny? Sure, but is it fun? Hell yes.
The Bat Whispers is a very solid movie, especially for a talkie this early. Does it occasionally drag? Perhaps, but if you’re into old dark house mystery flicks like me, it’s no more or less than any other flick. Also worth mentioning, as I said, this is a remake of the 1926 The Bat, which was also pretty decent (though I’d need to rewatch it before really comparing the two). Also, in 1959, Vincent Price starred in a movie titled The Bat, which is another version of this story. That, of course, was very enjoyable (as almost every Price movie is). That said, I sort of doubt it could stand up to this 1930 adaptation.
If you’re into older horror and mystery flicks, I don’t think you’d be disappointed with this one. A solid rewatch all around, and one of the shining lights of the 1930’s, especially with those unique camera angles.
Directed by Jeremy Saulnier [Other horror films: Murder Party (2007), Hold the Dark (2018)]
This film is, while decently suspenseful and tense, a moderately forgettable fair.
There was quite a decent amount of hype when it came out, and to an extent, Green Room delivers. The story is pretty enjoyable, there’s good gore throughout, and many of the actors did their parts well (especially Patrick Stewart). It’s not all good, though, as the character of Amber, from my perspective, seemed to be a red herring for most of the film, and it was never really touched on. And near the end, a few scenes fall a bit flat, though the final scene with the dog was extremely well done, and more so, deeply sad.
Green Room’s a good, thrilling film with good gore, but ultimately, I don’t know how memorable it’ll be. For what it did right, overall, I think the movie’s just about average. Not much more to say on this one.
Directed by Ivan Kraljevic [Other horror films: N/A]
Well, The Harvesting didn’t yield all that much, truth be told.
In it, two tales are told, which dovetail near the end, being 1) an Amish teenager must battle the anger he feels after going through a tragedy and 2) a couple nearing divorce take their children to the country in an attempt to save their marriage. The main focus is the second story, which doesn’t help much as it was a slow, plodding story of increased annoyance and anger growing between the family members. In a way, it almost feels like a low quality Burnt Offerings (1976), the way family members are slowly becoming more and more unstable. Throw in a few Amish ghosts and an unspeakable evil force that pulls those who are angry toward it and you get The Harvesting.
It wasn’t a great film at all. Honestly, the first hour did next to nothing for me, and the ending only made it better due to a twist which, ignoring everything else, was actually pretty fun. But as decent as the final twenty minutes were, it wasn’t worth sitting through the first hour to get there. And on that topic, the final scene of the film made no sense whatsoever. Nowhere in the film was an ending like what was implied suggested. *sigh* Overall, this is a slow film with not much to offer save an interesting twist. There’s little to no gore, no outstanding actors, and little to remember. The story itself wasn’t that shabby, but it wasn’t executed that well. I wouldn’t recommend the Harvesting – it’s in the lower class crop of film. 😛
5.5/10
[Worth noting, I saw this film in 2016 or 2017. I don’t have the exact date at hand, unfortunately. IMDb used to have this film dated as ‘2015’, which is what my entry at Fight-Evil has the movie listed as. Why is was changed to 2019, I don’t know, but I know that I saw the film at least a year before it’s ‘official’ release. As I do use IMDb’s listing as the final authority, I’ll list this one as a 2019 film, but I wanted to point this discrepancy out.]
I saw this movie once before many, many years ago, and there was only a single scene I remembered. In the scene, a recently blinded woman is given a stick to defend herself against what amounts to little more than a ghost.
That’s a microcosm of how much sense this movie makes.
Which isn’t to say that, based off the plot and some of the ideas touched upon in the movie, it didn’t have potential. Crazy Eights could have been, despite it’s moderately low quality, a cult classic if done right. But instead of really tying things together, what does the ending do? Gives us some nonsense scene which I couldn’t make head or tails of, and based off what others online have said, I’m not at all alone.
For the most part, the movie’s fine. It’s not really good, and I had very little fun watching it, but for it’s budget, it was somewhat well done (how’s that for tepid praise?). The problem is, because the plot wasn’t fully formed and there’s still plenty of questions in our heads after the credits start rolling, things just feel sort of incomplete.
The cast was a mixed bag. With six main characters, we weren’t over-inundated with new faces, but it did take a little bit for each of the individuals to really stand out from the crowd (and one of them never really did). Gabrielle Anwar, due to the nature of her character, seemed to be drugged out 95% of the movie. Frank Whaley may have a more impressive resume, but his character was a whiny, annoying bitch throughout all of the film.
Dan DeLuca (who appeared a bit in The Wire) never really had much to do, and ended up being one of the more inconsequential characters. Traci Lords, much like Whaley, played a pretty annoying character, and due to that, was pretty unlikable. George Newbern, who played a priest, was pretty fun overall, though pulled a potential solution to the problem out of his ass near the end. Slightly less consistent was Dina Meyer (Starship Troopers, Saw), as she sort of lost it at the end (as did the film), but she was still mostly solid.
The thing is, even the better cast members, being Newbern and Meyer, didn’t make the film fun. I chuckled a bit at some of Whaley’s ridiculous lines, but I felt just sort of ‘there’ when watching this, and not at all interested in what was unraveling on the screen.
For what little gore we got, it was okay. I felt that, as multiple deaths were off-screen, we could have been thrown a bit more in that department, but apparently the creators hoped the story would stand up for itself, which was a bit of a failure on their part.
In all honesty, though I’ve not said many nice things about it, Crazy Eights isn’t a terrible movie. It really did have a somewhat interesting idea that they just failed to realize, and they had some themes they failed to pull together when it counted. It’s not a good movie, but it’s not awful either. I’d give it at least one go, and maybe you’ll end up liking it. For me, it had a shot, but didn’t quite make the hoop.
Directed by Dustin Ferguson [Other horror films: Terror at Black Tree Forest (2010), The Legacy of Boggy Creek (2010), Silly Scaries (2011), Escape to Black Tree Forest (2012), Silly Scaries 2 (2012), Slumber Party Slasherthon (2012), Black Tree Forest III (2012), Die Sister, Die! (2013), Doll Killer (2013), Gloved Murderess (2014), Cheerleader Camp: To the Death (2014), Invitation to Die (2014), Silent Night, Bloody Night 2: Revival (2015), Demon Dolls (2015), Meathook Massacre (2015), Blood Claws (2016), Camp Blood 4 (2016), Camp Blood 5 (2016), Tales for the Campfire (2016), Night of the Clown (2016), The Dummy 2 (2016), Grindsploitation 2: The Lost Reels (2016, segment ‘Satan’s Gang’), The 12 Slays of Christmas (2016), Tales for the Campfire 2 (2017), Meathook Massacre II (2017), Penny Pinchers: The Kings of No-Budget Horror (2017), Wrong Side of the Tracks (2017), Amityville: Evil Never Dies (2017), Trashploitation (2018), 2 Die For (2018), Grindsploitation 4: Meltsploitation (2018), A Taste of Phobia (2018), Die Gest: Flesh Eater (2018, segment ‘Bad Apples’), House of Pain (2018), Grindsploitation 666 (2018, segment ‘Satanica: The Devil’s Mistress’), Conjuring Curse (2018), Schlock-O-Rama (2018), Runaway Nightmare (2018), 60 Seconds 2 Die: 60 Seconds to Die 2 (2018), Drive-In Grindhouse (2018), Conspiracy X (2018, segments ‘Operation: Fist of God’ & ‘The Skunkape Slumber Party’), Moon of the Blood Beast (2019), Meathook Massacre: The Final Chapter (2019), Direct to Video: Straight to Video Horror of the 90s (2019), Home Videos 2 (2019), Penny Pinchers 2 – Scenes from the Underground (2019), Axegrinder 2 (2019), Celluloid Slaughter (2020), Tales from the Campfire 3 (2020), Frames of Fear 3 (2020, segment ‘Cooking With Jenni Caroline’), 5G Zombies (2020), Axed to Pieces (2020), Angry Asian Murder Hornets (2020), The Beast Beneath (2020), Clowns of Halloween (2020), Stale Popcorn and Sticky Floors (2020), I Drip Blood on Your Grave (2020), Bootleg Death Tape II (2020), Arachnado (2020), Bootleg Death Tape III (2020), VHS Violence II: VHS and KILL (2020), Tales from the Grave: The Movie (2020, segments ‘Crawling Chaos & ‘Deadly Doll’), Found Footage of Fear (2020), Creepypasta: Deathnet (2020), Asylum of the Devil (2020), Rattlers 2 (2021), Zombi VIII: Urban Decay (2021), Ebola Rex Versus Murder Hornets (2021), Bubba’s Dead: The Final Massacre (2021), Jaws of Los Angeles (2021), Ebola Rex (2021), Mondo Shock 2 (2021), Faces of Dying IV (2021), Doll Killer 2 (2021), Hell of the Screaming Undead (2021), Amityville in the Hood (2021), VHS Violence (2021), Not for the Faint of Heart (2021), Faces of Dying III (2021), Faces of Dying II (2021), The Worst of Faces of Dying (2022), Night of the Clown (2022), Dying Scenes (2022)] & Mike Johnson [Other horror films: N/A]
At an hour and six minutes (though really, 58 minutes, as everything afterwards are credits), this low-budget movie was able to fit a decent, and surprisingly dark, plot in.
The premise is simple enough. Celebrating his 50th birthday with his children, Mark, after unwrapping a toy monkey, slowly becomes influenced into butchering his children and their relations. For such a short film, there was no lack of additional relations to butcher.
Mark, being the good Catholic that he is, has five children. Two of the children have a significant other. And that’s not mentioning Mark’s mother, who also lives with him, or his late wife’s sister and daughter, who are also visiting. So this movie has more than a few characters shoved in. But you know what? It manages to work despite that.
Though surprising, I was mostly able to keep each character separated, for the most part, which really helped out in the second half of the film. Speaking of which, given the fact the movie’s quite short, most of the action doesn’t occur until there’s just twenty minutes left, so things tended to feel a bit rushed. The idea of a father going on a rampage and killing his children and others in the house was a fun one, though not the best executed on the budget constraints they had. That said, I actually rather enjoyed this one.
An ultra-low quality film, and one that’s not likely to appeal to most, but I don’t see how it’s much worse than many other films.
Much like Paul Leni’s previous mystery/horror, The Cat and the Canary, The Last Warning takes a moderately cliché plot (even for the time) and dresses it up in a way that makes the movie a special and enjoyable treat.
While this film contains some comedic portions (just as The Cat and the Canary did), I feel it’s noticeably toned down, and for most of the film, I think the plot’s played pretty straight. Which is only a positive, as this mystery, boasting no less than something like ten possible suspects, has a lot of potential from the beginning, and too much comedy would bring it down. Luckily, that didn’t happen.
As aforementioned, the cast of this film is rather large, all the more to make the mystery identity of the killer more fun to figure out. It wasn’t uncommon to see five, six, as much as ten or eleven, characters all in a single shot. Of course, trying to keep track of everyone throughout the film is close to impossible, but it still helped out the feeling of pandemonium, especially toward the end (during a deeply enjoyable chase sequence).
Laura La Plante (who also starred in The Cat and the Canary) didn’t get as much screen-time as you might hope, but still played her character sympathetically (which, given how unlikable she was at the beginning, was sort of necessary). Her love interest, played by John Boles (who later appeared in Frankenstein), was quite competent in his role. As most of the cast members were. In fact, all of the follow actors and actresses stood out positively as their roles: Montagu Love, Margaret Livingston, Roy D’Arcy, Burr McIntosh, Mack Swain, Bert Roach, and Carrie Daumery. Perhaps, out of all these names, the true standouts are Love, Livingston, and McIntosh.
Perhaps one of the reasons I like this film as much as I do (when I first saw it years back, I was quite happy, and luckily this rewatch hasn’t changed that) is because of the large amount of suspects. True, given the film is only an hour and 17 minutes, there’s not enough time to flesh out every single character and potential motivation (which, while in theory would be welcomed, it more likely than not would come out dull), but still, it’s the thought that counts. The mystery was fun, more fun than many old dark house flicks (since this film takes place in a dilapidated theater house, the setting made it even more unique), and certainly still comes across as strong.
The most common print for this movie is far from perfect, with a very scratchy feel, and general lack of great preservation, but at the same time, in this case, I think it helps give the movie additional character. It does help, though, that the score is mostly solid, without any real issues.
The Last Warning is a favorite of mine from the silent era, and sadly, I think it’s mostly overlooked. The Cat and the Canary and Waxworks are both far more widely-known Leni films, and how many other silent flicks are more well-known than this one? From Nosferatu to The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, from The Phantom of the Opera to The Bat, The Last Warning has sort of been overlooked (not as badly as 1926’s Midnight Faces, sure, but The Last Warning is, at least, a Leni movie), which is a great shame. Leni died in 1929 due to blood poisoning, and did fantastic things for the genre, and his final movie is no less a great addition to horror.
Directed by John Carpenter [Other horror films: Halloween (1978), Someone’s Watching Me! (1978), The Thing (1982), Christine (1983), Prince of Darkness (1987), They Live (1988), Body Bags (1993, segments ‘The Gas Station’ & ‘Hair’), In the Mouth of Madness (1994), Village of the Damned (1995), Vampires (1998), Ghosts of Mars (2001), The Ward (2010)]
John Carpenter’s Halloween is a true classic, and one of my favorite horror flicks of all time. The Fog is not far behind.
An almost flawless movie, there’s very little to gripe about when talking about The Fog. The score is fantastic, there’s a plethora of great actors and actresses, you get a fun story, great visuals, and often a feeling of claustrophobic suspense.
It’s amazing how well-done some of Carpenter’s early horror work is (Halloween being his first horror movie, and The Fog being his third, the television film Someone’s Watching Me! popping up between them). This film had an atmosphere to kill for, and the score ranks up there with the Halloween theme as one of the creepiest scores around.
Of course, the highest awards, as far as the cast goes, are awarded to Adrienne Barbeau, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Tom Atkins. Barbeau hadn’t really done horror before this (she was in two television horror films, one being the aforementioned Someone’s Watching Me! and the other being The Darker Side of Terror), but she does wonderfully here. Her silky voice is certainly soothing and memorable, and just as memorable, her line, “There’s something in the fog.” Always a chilling scene.
Curtis, of course, was in Halloween (and in 1980, not only was she in this movie, but also appeared in both Prom Night and Terror Train), and does pretty fair here, though it’s worth noting her character doesn’t really have that much to do. Still, she’s a nice presence. As for Atkins (aside from this one, his biggest additions to the genre are Halloween III, Night of the Creeps, and Maniac Cop), his persona is fun, and again, while he’s not all that consequential to the plot, it’s still enjoyable seeing him run around trying to save people from the fog.
Even some of the smaller actors and actresses stand out, though. Janet Leigh (from, of course, Psycho) did her character extremely well, and despite never having much screen-time, was always a pleasure to behold. Nancy Loomis (also from the first three Halloween‘s) got some good lines in, playing Leigh’s sardonic assistant. And Hal Holbrook (who I recognize most from the fantastic, yet underrated, Rituals from 1977, along with a few appearances in The West Wing) does beautifully as the often-drunk Father Malone.
Much like Halloween, gore wasn’t this movie’s strong point, but then again, it really didn’t need it. The atmosphere alone is worth much applause. The slow, creeping fog covering the whole of Antonio Bay is always good fun to view. Combine that with the score, and the lack of gore goes by pretty much unnoticed.
Really, aside from a few of the characters not having much to do, I’m having difficulty finding flaws to this movie. From the atmosphere to the acting, most everything about this movie is solid. Even the story is decently fun. Seen this plenty of times before, and I’ll see it plenty of times in the future.
Jiggy's Horror Corner 