Jiggy's Horror Corner

Directed by Mark L. Lester [Other horror films: Firestarter (1984), Blowback (2000), Sacrifice (2000), Pterodactyl (2005), Groupie (2010), Poseidon Rex (2013)]

Class of 1999 is a movie that I’ve long had an interest in. It’s never been a film I knew too much about, but I did have a grasp on the basics (killer robots in a school), and I thought it’d be a fun idea to play around with. While the film could have used a little polish, I found it a decently fun time.

According to director Mark L. Lester, this movie is a sequel to another one of his films, being Class of 1984. I’ve seen Class of 1984, but as I don’t find it a horror film, I don’t cover it here. I don’t know why this film needed to be called a sequel – the themes are somewhat different, and aside from the fact both movies have gangs and schools, there’s not many similarities – but apparently it is, so I wanted to say that Class of 1984 was an often depressing film, but certainly a good one.

This one doesn’t have near as much feeling as that one did, but than again, one was a drama/action/crime film, whereas this one is an action/science fiction/horror hybrid, so we’re talking two different types of films. The story of this one was interesting, as you’d hope a science fiction story would be, so I wanted to tackle that first.

Taking place in, as you can likely guess, 1999 (which is nine years in the future from when this movie was released), apparently the systemic problem with gangs we saw in Class of 1984 has gotten worse, and police don’t even try in some places. There’s a school in Seattle that attempts to stymie their violence problem by bringing in a handful of robot teachers. Things devolve even more from there.

I’m reminded of Battle Royale, actually. I didn’t think the government’s policy in Battle Royale really would have helped with the problems they were having, and while I can definitely say that school should always be a safe place, putting killer robots in charge of kids (both innocent and harmful) isn’t the way to pursue the solution. I get it – desperate times call for desperate measures – but this just wasn’t the way.

As you can expect, the problem is that robots, at least with this programming, don’t differentiate between the wrongs being done. A student starts a fight with another student – yeah, that’s a problem. A student fighting someone who was attempting to rape someone? Instead of going after the attempted rapist, they went after the student defending the young woman, and that’s the exact problem with this type of solution. We’ve seen it time and time again in science fiction and horror films, and it’s no different here.

Stacy Keach (Fear Runs Silent, Roadgames, Mountain of the Cannibal God, The Ninth Configuration) is a big name, and he was fun here. His character didn’t get a whole lot of depth – from his first scene, you could sort of tell what type of guy he’d be – but he had fun. I didn’t know Malcolm McDowell (Silent Night, Firestarter 2: Rekindled, Halloween, Cat People) was in this one, and to be fair, his role isn’t big, but it was nice to see a familiar face.

Technically, I know Traci Lind (Spellcaster, My Boyfriend’s Back, Fright Night Part 2), but she’s not really a face I instantly recognize. Still, she was also solid here, and her budding relationship with Bradley Gregg’s character was decent. Gregg (Phillip from A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors) was an interesting lead. Never loved his character, but it made for an interesting focal point.

Of the three robotic teachers (played by Patrick Kilpatrick, John P. Ryan, and Pam Grier), well, I’d say that Ryan (It’s Alive) was my favorite, as he had a dignified look to him, but Kilpatrick (The Stand) had the best smile. Of course, Pam Grier (Scream Blacula Scream, The Twilight People) is a notable actress herself, but she didn’t make a huge impression on me here.

Despite thinking that the film’s a little rough, the special effects were pretty solid. Until the final 20 minutes or so, they’re not too noticeable, but once they pop up in more effect, there are some good sequences. Related, this isn’t a gory film at all – it’s really more action-oriented much of the time – but there are some good kills, such as someone getting their head drilled into, or a few nice neck snaps, or someone getting lit on fire.

Class of 1999 was a perfectly decent film, and a somewhat fun watch. I guess my issue is that it wasn’t anything more. I had an okay time with it, but I can’t honestly say that I loved it. It was a good way to spend an hour and 36 minutes, but I wasn’t blown away. That said, if you enjoy robots in your horror – something like Chopping Mall, Steel and Lace, Hardware, or Death Machine – then Class of 1999 may be right up your alley.

7/10

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 (2015), 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)]

Well, the first Playing with Dolls was utterly abysmal, and I can say that Bloodlust is a better movie. It’s not that much better, though – this is still a far cry from even average – and I wouldn’t think it’d appeal to too many people, regardless.

Unlike the first film, though, there’s something of a plot here – people are lured to an abandoned cabin to be part of a horror reality TV show. I have no idea if these people signed contracts, but if so, they’d have a good lawsuit on their hands, because this is one terrible reality TV show idea.

On a side-note, I’m not sure why most horror films that revolve around reality television tend to be absolutely terrible – I’m thinking movies like Reality Check, Cruel World, and, to a lesser extent, My Little Eye, which certainly wasn’t terrible, but was underwhelming. The only reality show-themed horror film I’ve ever cared for was Wrong Turn 2: Dead End, and that’s not even that great a movie.

Regardless of why this seems to be the case, Bloodlust certainly doesn’t help improve my view any, as it’s legit awful.

Sure, it does have more of a plot, and perhaps more importantly, more than one protagonist, but only one of the performances is decent, and we still don’t have context as to why any of this is happening. The same rich guy (Richard Tyson) is recording the same killer (credited as Prisoner AYO-886, because the movie’s trying to be cute) as he kills people, and apparently it’s because that’s the only truth. It’s that same type of philosophical rambling that makes absolutely no sense, and gives absolutely no insight into his character at all.

These movies just bug me. The gore here is okay – someone gets their head smashed in with a sledgehammer, someone gets their arm cut off, someone gets their leg cut off, someone gets one of their toes cut off (this movie is big into dismemberment apparently) – but gore without proper context doesn’t interest me, and as such, this didn’t do a hell of a lot for me.

I can’t stand Richard Tyson’s character, because, like in the first movie, he doesn’t have much of one. Karin Brauns (who died in 2022 at the age of 32) was pretty poor (her character had an accent, but unlike Natasha Blasick’s character from the first, there’s no in-universe reference to this), Elonda Seawood wasn’t particularly interesting, and Andrew Espinoza Long, despite potential, didn’t bring much to the table. I will admit to liking Colin Bryant here, and Marilyn Robrahn (who was also in the first film) had an okay moment or two, but for the most part, there’s little here to praise.

Oh, and it’s worth mentioning that there’s no ending to this film. Two characters are fighting each other, two other characters are watching, and then the movie ends. The first movie didn’t have much in the way of a conclusion either, but at least that one felt like it could have worked, whereas this was just pathetic in every way, which, honestly, is on point.

I’m sitting here and realizing just how much of a waste of time I found this. The worst part is, I’ll likely be watching the sequels (Playing with Dolls: Havoc and Cry Havoc), so I’ll have ample time to complain in the future. All I’ll say is that Bloodlust was better than the first movie, but not by much, and neither are movies I was glad to have seen.

4/10

Directed by Joe Dante [Other horror films: Piranha (1978), The Howling (1981), Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983, segment ‘It’s a Good Life’), The ‘Burbs (1989), Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990), Trapped Ashes (2006, segment ‘Wraparound’), The Hole (2009), Burying the Ex (2014), Nightmare Cinema (2018, segment ‘Mirari’)]

As with many people, Gremlins is a movie I first saw when I was a kid. I thought it was a great movie than, and very little of the magic has disappeared with the growing years.

There’s so many aspects of this film that are laudable. The small-town feel, the special effects, the characters, the music – there’s a lot here, so let’s #DigIn.

One thing that’s always captivated me about this film is the location of Kingston Falls. It feels like a 1950’s Norman Rockwell painting writ large, though the look and homey feel doesn’t varnish the reality that there are many poor and struggling people in the town. A woman and her children face prolonged hunger, people are out of work, and while everything looks great, there are problems here even before the gremlins decide to make the town and its citizens their bitch.

Still, the small town feel is great in this movie. It seems that everyone knows everyone. The main character, Billy, who’s long out of school, is still in contact with his old science teacher, which I’ve always found odd, and when Billy needs to take his mother for medical attention, they just walk down the street to where their family doctor lives. It’s a small town, and that vibe permeates throughout, which is great.

Naturally, the special effects are pretty good. Gizmo always looks cute (and actually, when I was young, I won a Gizmo doll at a carnival, and it was quite cuddly), the gremlins look moderately frightful, and throughout the film, there are some quality effects, such as the way the gremlins multiple by water. The lighting also plays a part in this – sometimes, the lighting is quite striking, and helps add to the effect.

I also love how at times, when it shows the whole of Kingston Falls, it’s a literal painting. That scene with the group of gremlins first walking into town from the YMCA was stellar. The final shot, with the man walking away with Gizmo, was beautiful. And God, the opening – what an atmospheric, beautiful opening on a busy, Chinatown street with narration by Hoyt Axton’s character. He also gets closing narration, and it’s just great (“before you call the repairman, turn on all the lights, check all the closets and cupboards, look under all the beds. Because you never can tell – there just might be a gremlin in your house.”)

Zach Galligan (Waxwork, Bad Candy, Nightbeasts, Psychic, Hatchet III) doesn’t always make the most engaging lead, but he’s fun enough. Obviously, Phoebe Cates can be overdramatic at times; still, it’s all in good fun. I absolutely adore Hoyt Axton (Buried Alive, King Cobra) – he seems like such a likable guy, and his narration, as I said, was on point. Despite limited scenes, Keye Luke (Dead Heat, The Cat Creature) was great, and playing Billy’s mother was Frances Lee McCain (Back to the Future), who killed four gremlins on her own, which was deff impressive.

Even the smaller characters are pretty good, though, and include some surprising faces. Judge Reinhold (Beverly Hills Cop, The Hollow) appeared only in two scenes, Jonathan Banks (Better Call Saul, Breaking Bad, Dark Breed) only a handful himself, and Corey Feldman (Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter, Voodoo, The Lost Boys) in a few places. All add something, though. I’d be remiss to not include the great Dick Miller (Chopping Mall, A Bucket of Blood, Piranha, Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight), who is always of good quality, and Jackie Joseph (The Little Shop of Horrors), who got just one sequence, but was a lot of fun.

Oh, and there’s also Glynn Turman (J.D.’s Revenge), Polly Holliday as the quotable Mrs. Deagle (“It will be quick and painless compared to what I would do to him,”), and then let’s not forget the most important character, Barney, who was played by Mushroom (also in Pumpkinhead).

As anyone who’s seen the movie can attest to, the music here is stellar. Not only am I talking about the theme music composed by Jerry Goldsmith (which is officially titled “The Gremlin Rag”), but there’s also “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” by Darlene Love and Johnny Mathis’ rendition of “Do You Hear What I Hear?” which pops up in a memorable scene. The music in this film is on point, it’s on fleek, and it’s off the chain-hook dawgs.

I love Gremlins. Sure, I don’t think it’s perfect – not all the comedy works, Cates’ story about the death of her father feels sort of silly (“Now I have another reason to hate Christmas”), and we never see Judge Reinhold’s character torn into pieces – but I think it’s a very solid film, and a perfect onboarding tool to get younger audiences into horror.

8.5/10

Directed by Ray Kellogg [Other horror films: The Giant Gila Monster (1959)]

While calling The Killer Shrews a cult classic might be a bit strong, I do think it’s fair to say that this late 50’s film, despite some effects failures and less-than-stellar performances, is a decent amount of fun, although I also think it’s fair to say it can still feel on the average end.

It’s a pretty short film, at around an hour and ten minutes. Because it’s digestible, it doesn’t take too long to get moving, and given there’s only a handful of characters here, that keeps things simple. The plot is somewhat standard 50’s monster fair, the difference being that instead of one giant monster (as seen in The Giant Claw, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, The Black Scorpion, It Came from Beneath the Sea, and Earth vs the Spider), there’s lots of smaller giant monsters (similar, I suppose to Them!, although these shrews are much smaller than those anty bois).

That said, it’s also a movie with it’s foot in door of the following decade – while it’s a brief scene, a character gets bit on the leg, and we actually see a bit of blood. It’s a black-and-white film, so it’s not like the blood stands out that much, but it was a tad more violent than you’d expect from the late 1950’s. It’s not much, but give it four years, and this could have been a much different product.

Which isn’t to say that the product we do have isn’t good, as I do tend to find it a fun movie. The Killer Shrews is simple in story, but I think a lot of it works well.

I appreciate the atmosphere, for instance – on a small island, a group of people must bunker down in a house during a hurricane as killer shrews threaten their existence. The hurricane was a nice touch, and there’s a scene in which characters are keeping watch while the others sleep, going room to room, and I was immediately reminded of Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers, as the group’s holed up in the dark house, alone. This had a good atmosphere, and that went a long way to helping out.

James Best (Death Mask, Return of the Killer Shrews) wasn’t always the most defensible lead – at one point, he’s even close to throwing someone over a fence to the shrews – but he was decent as the generic, rugged man. Ken Curtis (mostly known for his western films) made for a fun and unlikable antagonistic force. I didn’t care much for Ingrid Goude’s character, but that has more to do with gender roles at the time than anything else. The fact that they had an in-story reference to her Swedish accent was fun, at least.

Of the other four performances – Baruch Lumet, Judge Henry Dupree, Gordon McLendon, and Alfredo de Soto – I think I liked de Soto the best. Dupree was sadly more a stereotypical portrayal of black men at the time (nowhere near as bad as Mantan Moreland’s usual character, at least), and despite lasting longer than expected, Lumet didn’t really stand out much to me. McLendon was sort of fun, though.

Certainly, there’s not a ton to The Killer Shrews. Some people make a big deal out of the shrews – for many of the scenes, they used dogs (wearing some type of cute costume) and hand-puppets. Honestly, I don’t think that harmed the film much. It may have looked silly at some points, but it’s not an easy case to make that it looks much worse than the average giant monster movie.

What works for this one is the atmosphere, which I deeply appreciated. The finale was quite amusing, reminding me of something you’d see in Tremors II: Aftershocks – I’ve seen this movie once before, but entirely forgot about the goofy, yet sensible, way the group tries to escape. The Killer Shrews is a fun film. It may not be any more than that, but I had a good time with it.

7/10

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