Jiggy's Horror Corner

Directed by Ric White [Other horror films: Nightmares from the Mind of Poe (2006)]

Before An American Haunting came onto the scene, the low-budget Bell Witch Haunting was released, which covered the same supposed supernatural event. A very low-budget film, Bell Witch Haunting isn’t entirely without merit, but it still really strains your patience, as it clocks in at just over two hours long, which is utterly unacceptable, especially given the content.

I have more than a few problems I have with the movie, and I really struggled to finish this one: among these problems, as I alluded to, is the ridiculously lengthy run-time, as Bell Witch Haunting is two hours and two minutes. If the story here had been perhaps more interesting or better written, that might well be excusable, but with the product we got, I don’t think it was at all necessary.

Another thing that really grated on me – there are little ‘section titles’ that pop up throughout the movie constantly, and none of them did the least bit to make the film better. The ghost of the entity really grated also, as she sounds like a bratty young teen girl. Not really my idea of spooky. Oh, and another thing – while the movie mostly takes the subject matter seriously, there are occasional smatterings of comedic scenes thrown in (including some 1820’s toilet humor), and I thought the movie could have done without that.

The aforementioned entity starts off innocently enough here, pulling sheets off beds, banging on the walls, pinching people when they’re trying to sleep, or telling people embarrassing secret information (like I said before, the voice of this entity is so damn annoying, but it did lead to the somewhat funny line ‘I will not allow this thing to question my character!’), but it gets worse as the movie goes on, with a few deaths and a rather sad scene at the end.

I’ll say this one positive thing about the movie – the death of Doug Moore’s character was pretty depressing. I didn’t care an ounce for most of these characters (partially because the Bell family is so big, it’s so hard to keep up with who’s who – seriously, I think there’s at least six children running around), but seeing the head of the family slowly lose his grip on life, and his final conversation with a long-time friend (played by director Ric White) was rather emotional, all my other issues with the movie aside.

Otherwise, the only other performance I cared for one way or the other was Amber Bland, who played the oldest daughter. She sort of loses prominence at different points throughout the movie, but she is one of the characters paid the most attention to (in fact, her birthday party, almost aborted due to the father’s recent excommunication from the church, was one of the more heartwarming scenes). Daniel Cooper, though, was more on the annoying side, playing an obnoxious, overweight younger brother, who’s catchphrase ‘Aw, ma’ got old after the second time. At least he provided us with one of the few solid scenes, involving quite a few tarantulas.

One thing I’ve neglected to touch much on is the low budget, and I want to be clear on this: yes, Bell Witch Haunting has a very low budget, but that is not at all reflective of my problems with it. Plenty of great low-budget horror movies exist, but they generally don’t have an overlong story that’s often none-to-exciting. Bell Witch Haunting was difficult to trudge through, and I suspect that most people who come across this one will leave with much the same opinion.

4/10

Directed by Stephen Williams [Other horror films: Shadow Zone: My Teacher Ate My Homework (1997)]

Okay, this is a movie that I don’t think many horror fans would take a big interest in, primarily due to the fact it’s a movie aimed more toward older kids/younger teens, and it pretty much feels like an hour-and-a-half episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark?, mixed with an element or two of a more kid-friendly Tales from the Crypt.

Having seen this vampire movie twice now, though, I can firmly state that I quite love it.

Some of this undoubtedly comes from the cast. It’s true that most names here are new to me. The main kid, played by Chauncey Leopardi, was pretty decent, in a corny, Goosebumps-main character way. And speaking of Goosebumps, his father was played by Ron Lea, who was in the Werewolf Skin two-parter (which I own on VHS, and always thought added something interesting to the werewolf lore). Leopardi’s two friends are, of course, a black dude and a white girl (typical equality from Are You Afraid of the Dark?/Goosebumps), played by Tony T. Johnson and Natanya Ross.

Johnson I was more lukewarm toward, mainly because he was one of the main comedic relief elements, but I really liked Ross’s character, especially since they threw in that her character had dyslexia (which led to a painful argument between her’s and Leopardi’s character). It might not be game-changing, but how many horror movies throw in learning disabilities like dyslexia? I get it, it’s to show kids that not all kids have it the same, but I still find it somewhat commendable. Oh, and Wes Craven appears for a few scenes, which is sort of fun.

It’s the last actor, though, and the co-star with Leopardi, that makes the film all the more enjoyable, that being Ron Silver. Silver doesn’t seem to be that big a name, but I’m personally a fan of the series The West Wing, which is a politically-based show with a lot of great names and fun plots. Silver plays a recurring character in the show, so seeing him here (with pretty much the same, quietly humorous personality) was an utter blast. At the time I first saw this movie, I hadn’t really gotten into The West Wing yet, so this only increased my enjoyment with a fresh watch.

The plot is, I’ll say it again, much like something you’d see on Are You Afraid of the Dark?, being a little bit silly. Here, a coven of vampires live in the New York City subways, living primarily off rats, and once lead vampire Silver meets Leopardi’s character, works on trying to gain his coven the freedom to roam the city proper. It’s nothing special as far as vampires go, but I did think it was mostly well-done.

It’s worth noting that the budding friendship between the kid and the vampire was touching at times, and though I didn’t shed tears or anything, I did think the conclusion was pretty touching also (not to mention satisfactory even without that). Not everything is quite as explained as you’d hope, but overall, I can’t help but have a good time with this.

There’s not a whole lot in the way of blood here, which can only be expected. To be fair, there are a few surprisingly gruesome vampire deaths here (some of which are quite gooey), but that’s about as far as it goes. I mean, come on, this is made for kids.

Also have to throw a shout-out to the kid’s love of horror movies and that hella beast video store with a beautiful collection of horror posters thrown up on the walls, such as Sssssss and The Mutations, a 1974 British flick with Tom Baker and Donald Pleasence.

Shadow Zone: The Undead Express isn’t a movie that’s likely to impress all that many horror fans who see it. It’s a made-for-kids television movie, but I personally grow up on Goosebumps and Are You Afraid of the Dark?, so it was definitely the type of movie I would have loved if I had seen it back then. The nostalgic feelings are deep regardless, and I find this movie an exceptionally enjoyable watch.

8.5/10

This is one of the movies that was covered on Fight Evil’s podcast, episode #29, so if interested, you can hear Chucky (@ChuckyFE) and I discuss this one.

Directed by Lars Jacobson [Other horror films: N/A] & Amardeep Kaleka [Other horror films: N/A]

Often considered one of the more disturbing horror films made in recent times, Baby Blues is certainly a memorable film. It may not provide the most fun you’ve had while watching a movie, but no one can say that Baby Blues is forgettable.

The story, revolving around a mother who, due to mental issues, goes after her children to kill them, is pretty disturbing. And that’s basically the movie – at around 80 minutes, there’s not a whole lot to it, but don’t let that fool you into thinking the movie’s any less tense.

I don’t know any of the actors from the film, but there wasn’t one that negatively stood out. Colleen Porch did great as the insane mother, and boy, did she ever seem like she utterly lost it. It wasn’t even clear if she realized she was killing her children, or if she thought she was simply ‘punishing’ them. Fantastic performance from her. Ridge Canipe, playing the central character and one of the kids, did a great job for a child performer. Joel Bryant and Gene Whitman also did good jobs, Whitman in particular playing a character I really liked.

There’s certainly some shocking violence in the film which goes beyond just the mother going after her children with a pitchfork. There’s multiple impalements, painful-looking cuts by butcher knife, and plenty of violence, none of it over-the-top, to keep you going. Because much of it is a mother inflicting such pain onto her children, it can be a bit much for some people, but it’s done pretty well.

This is a somewhat controversial film, and I know that there are some that are decidedly against the idea of this movie, and some even who refuse to watch it, calling it ‘tasteless.’ I’m not a mother, nor a parent of any kind, but it’s certainly everyone’s right to refuse to watch something they’ve no interest in. They’re missing out, though, because Baby Blues does a very good job with what they had, being a lower-budget, straight-to-video film, and while the content can be hard to sit through, I definitely recommend it.

8/10

And as an extra feature, a friend and I covered this on a podcast I do with Fight Evil, which you can listen to below:

Directed by Brandon Amelotte [Other horror films: N/A]

Watching this via digital screener prior to it’s release was nice (I do a podcast with a friend on Fight-Evil, and we reviewed it there), and Camp Twilight does have some quality names and a decent level of production behind it, but when all of the gloss is rubbed away, it’s just another slasher with a lack-luster killer and kills that aren’t that memorable.

Felissa Rose (Sleepaway Camp) is nice to see here, and though her character is way too upbeat at times, it reminds me of her role in Sleepaway Camp II, and I can’t complain about that. Steven Chase was decent as one of the few really competent adults there. Tracy Lear was pretty awful, but I think that was sort of the point, and more than anything else, I think she was just there because people wanted a well-endowed woman around.

As for the six younger characters, most everyone did fine. I think the best performance came from Hayleigh Hopkins, and I wish that we had seen more of her than we did. Certainly Dondre Tuck (who was one of the few actual decent guys here) and Harris Sebastian were great too, as I hated Sebastian’s character with a passion, and it takes a decent performance to do that. I thought Cougar MacDowall was reasonably scummy, and both Brooklyn Haley and Angela Gluchowski add something special too.

The thing is, as decent as most of the cast is in Camp Twilight, the story itself is generally played out. I like seeing a mysterious killer going around and killing kids as much as the next man, but few of the kills here were really worth it (there was a solid ax-throwing kill, but even that seemed tame to me), and the little twists they threw in didn’t spice things up enough (and in fact, I thought one of the twists was both unnecessary and really irrelevant to the story). Also, the last 15 minutes was a cliché “This is why I committed these murders” speech to the last survivors, which also felt sorta ridiculous.

What you have with Camp Twilight is what you have with a lot of modern-day slasher films, being a competently-made movie with pretty solid production value, some attractive women, and an okay (but played out) story. Even the ending they tacked on struck me as pointless. It’s a fine movie to rent, but I don’t think it’s going to be a new-age classic despite some of the names involved.

6/10

This is one of the films covered on Fight Evil’s podcast. If you’re curious as to what Chucky (@ChuckyFE) and I thought about this one, listen below.

Directed by Tom Holland [Other horror films: Child’s Play (1988), Two-Fisted Tales (1992, segment ‘King of the Road’), The Langoliers (1994), Thinner (1996), Tom Holland’s Twisted Tales (2014), Rock, Paper, Scissors (2017)]

Perhaps one of my favorite vampire films, Fright Night is a lot of fun and sets a high standard for a modern-age vampire story, and does a great job in a subgenre of horror often stuck in the 1950’s.

The story is, of course, a lot of fun, and really has that 80’s vibe that sticks with you (most noticeable during the scenes right before and during the club sequence), and the characters too are mostly memorable also. I’m somewhat lukewarm when it comes to William Ragsdale’s performance, but Chris Sarandon, Roddy McDowall, and Stephen Geoffreys all do great. I don’t really understand Evil Ed’s character, but McDowall’s great performance as Peter Vincent more than makes up for small issues insofar as casting was involved.

As far as special effects go, Fright Night has a lot to boast about, as there’s few scenes here that don’t look pretty solid. Melting vampires, multiple transformations, a great wolf-to-man transition, the movie has a lot going for it. Two scenes in particular really impressed me, one being Evil Ed’s first attack on Peter Vincent, and then the death of Jonathan Stark’s character, what with the rapidly deteriorating body. Even Evil Ed’s second attack on Vincent (“His dinner’s in the oven!”) was great, and somewhat emotional also.

Not everything in Fright Night works, but to be honest, most of what doesn’t do it for me are smaller things (such as Ragsdale’s acting). I do adore the ending of the film, and absolutely love McDowall’s somewhat complicated character, and for these reasons, and others, Fright Night has long been one of my favorite vampire movies, definitely one that any fan of 80’s horror should check out if they’ve not done so already.

8.5/10

This classic vampire film was covered on Fight Evil’s seventh podcast by Chucky (@ChuckyFE) and myself, which you can listen to below.

Directed by Henry Levin [Other horror films: The Unknown (1946)]

I saw this one once before, and it didn’t do much for me. I didn’t hate it, it just came across as pretty generic and unmemorable. Unfortunately, not much has changed.

Part of this consistent disappointment comes from the fact that the title of the film is a bit misleading. There’s a woman in the film who can turn into a wolf, but there’s no werewolf whatsoever, so if you’re looking for The Wolf Man or Werewolf of London, you won’t find it here.

Honestly, this isn’t a film that there’s a lot to say about. The lead performance of Stephen Crane was pretty underwhelming, and while both Nina Foch and Osa Massen were okay, I don’t think either one particularly stood out, partially because of the script.

While the movie itself isn’t necessarily dull (given it’s just over an hour, there’s not really much time to mess around with anyway), the story is just sort of meh. There are some interesting elements, but I also can’t deny that it strikes me as occasionally xenophobic in regards to the gypsies.

Really, much of the film just feels pretty weak and tepid. There was a single suspenseful scene which didn’t go anywhere, but hey, it was something. The kills, though, are pretty much all uninspiring, and overall, Cry of the Werewolf doesn’t really have a hell of a lot going for it, even for a fan of older horror films such as myself.

If there’s one positive thing I can say about it, the plot, while I personally didn’t much care for it, was moderately unique. There’s sort of a nice mysterious vibe to portions of the film, and while, as an audience, there’s nothing that we don’t really know, it’s still almost okay. But having seen this twice, I just don’t think there’s much to it. Might be worth checking out, but I don’t know how much someone would get from this one, even if they’re into the classics of the genre.

5/10

Directed by William Brent Bell [Other horror films: The Devil Inside (2012), Wer (2013), The Boy (2016), Brahms: The Boy II (2020), Separation (2021), Orphan: First Kill (2022)]

This movie was shit.

Now, I’ve seen this before, but it was a long, long time ago, so I recalled very little of it. I was already hesitant about rewatching it, but since I plan on rewatching and reviewing every single horror movie I’ve seen, there was no avoiding it, so I went in with tepid expectations.

The movie failed even those.

Most of the performances are shit. Whether that’s because of the script or actors/actresses themselves, I can’t say. I just know that I pretty much didn’t like any of the characters (and in particular, Samaire Armstrong’s character). As a lead, Jon Foster was terribly generic and just not interesting. Armstrong seemed like a character originally thrown in to lead to some plot twist, but instead, she’s just some random girl who lies about her background and never amounts to anything.

Frankie Muniz didn’t do anything for me. I didn’t hate his character, per se, but I definitely didn’t care about him one way or the other. Sophia Bush and Jimmi Simpson made for an interesting sister-brother pair, and I’d argue that Bush was probably one of the best characters in the movie. It was also nice to see the Bunk, or Wendell Pierce, here. Stay Alive is a far-cry from The Wire, though.

It’s not just the characters, though.

I’m a very casual gamer, so much so that calling myself a ‘gamer’ is a stretch by any definition. Give me Minecraft, Civ 3, Democracy 3, and Hearthstone, and I’ll be perfectly content. I have watched quite a lot of gameplay, though, and I have to say that the game portrayed in Stay Alive didn’t look like any horror survival game I’ve ever seen.

The angles were all janky in the third-person mode (and why was it we basically only saw first-person mode once, I wonder), and there’s no way that could be that pleasurable a multiplayer gaming experience. We saw a HUD about only three times, and just generally, that didn’t look anything like a game. Now, to be fair, this was released in 2006, so maybe survival horror has come a long way, but we about never saw an inventory, or health bar (or even sanity bar, à la Amnesia). It didn’t look anything like a game. At all.

Also, the kills throughout the film sucked. There was virtually no gore (hey, it’s a PG-13 movie, so fuck gore, too violent for the kiddies and loses us money, amirite?), and the kills overall were just so damn tepid and unmemorable, which is a shame, as this film certainly had potential.

That’s probably what bothers me most – it’s not like this film was shot in someone’s backyard. The estimated budget is around 20 million dollars, and they couldn’t come up with a script that made any modicum of sense? Seriously, I don’t get it. So the ghost of Bathory somehow made a game, that some company got distributed to Beta testers, because why? What? What is this shit?

And the game keeps going so characters can basically die without playing, right? So one of the characters (played by Muniz) says that he’ll actually play the game, giving him a better chance at surviving. Fine – that’s logical. But the other people who are alive, one of which is driving, can’t play, and Muniz can only play for himself, not for the other characters, so why the hell doesn’t the ghost take out every character who’s not playing?

This movie, the more I think about it, just annoys the shit out of me. The story makes very little sense despite the budget and potential of a video game-based horror film. You want a good video game horror movie? How to Make a Monster, which is much lower quality, but it’s 1) actually fun and 2) makes a hell of a lot more sense. This movie was virtually worthless, and the ending was shit too. Oh, the CGI zombie children were great. Terrifying stuff. A+!!!

2/10

Directed by Eric Red [Other horror films: Body Parts (1991), Bad Moon (1996), 100 Feet (2008)]

There’s very little about this Syfy film that’s worth seeking this movie out for. The fact it stars Rob Morrow is one of the few things I enjoyed about this, because otherwise, it’s pretty unremarkable.

My first big problem is the plot – some meteors fall from space, and it causes all dogs and wolves in a local area to go crazy and start attacking people. The funny thing is, despite the fact that these meteors were a bright glowing green, only once was it brought up that they might have something to do with it, and exactly no one in the movie seemed to notice them scattered across the town (despite them being, you know, a glowing green).

Speaking of colors, it wasn’t uncommon for there to be a red light tinting some of the scenes. Apparently, according to IMDb, director Eric Red was influenced by the lighting of Suspiria (1977), which amazes me. It’s great that he’s seen the classics, but after watching Suspiria, he thinks that this pile of trash is a good way to give reverence to it?

Rob Morrow, who I know mostly from the television series Numb3rs, of which I’ve seen every episode, is a fun presence here. His character’s decent, but more importantly, Morrow himself is just a solid actor to see here, which is a positive, as few others stand out. Playing his daughter, Tristin Mays did fine, but wasn’t particularly memorable. Her two friends, played by Mary Risener and Mary Katherine O’Donnell, were pretty pointless characters, and neither actress was impressive (Risener in particular). Lastly, Kelly Rutherford didn’t do a thing for me.

There are some solid dog attacks in the film, and there was a somewhat gory aftermath (including a body torn apart) that I enjoyed. But toward the end of the film, a lot of time is spent on random dog attacks in the downtown area, and as it dragged on and on, I was just bored out of my mind seeing characters I didn’t know get killed by dogs that hadn’t appeared before, especially since few of the attacks there were really worth seeing. Also, there were about five to six scenes using slow motion, which just looked ridiculously dramatic and utterly unnecessary.

Personally, if it weren’t for Morrow, I’d rate this movie quite a bit lower. It’s still nowhere near a good movie, or even an average one, but I think I see it in a slightly better light because Morrow’s one of the stars. That said, if you couldn’t care less about Morrow, than I suspect that Night of the Wild is one Syfy flick that you could do without. Even with Morrow, I understand that feeling.

Also, the CGI dogs at the end didn’t help either. It’s a poor movie, period.

4/10