Tag: USA

Directed by Paul Maslansky [Other horror films: N/A]

I’ve known about this movie for some time now, but it never sounded like something I’d really care to see (especially having such a limited experience with blaxploitation). After seeing it, though, I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it. By no means an amazing movie, Sugar Hill is a decent amount of fun.

Seeing a wronged woman get revenge is a good set-up. It’s quick, too, and it doesn’t take long for her to approach an old voodoo priestess and gain the power of Baron Samedi (who was one of the best characters in all of cinema, let’s be honest). After that, she uses her army of zombies to strike against those who killed the man she loved, and it’s a fun ride.

Marki Bey (who was really never in that much) did a great job playing the titular character, and you can definitely feel sympathy for her character and support her revenge. Don Pedro Colley did great as the hammy Baron Samedi – he spent a good portion of his screen-time laughing evilly at the revenge that Sugar Hill was getting. He seemed quite supportive of her, and the two of them made a quality pair.

Robert Quarry (Count Yorga, Vampire and Madhouse being two of his more well-known roles) and Betty Anne Rees made for some solid antagonists. I sort of felt bad for Rees’ character at the end, but at the same time, I think of the racist things she said throughout the film, and just shrug it off. I expected a little more from Richard Lawson’s character, but he was somewhat limited as far as the plot went, so that’s okay.

As far as the zombie design went, it was moderately simple, but I was happy with it. I could have done without the bulging eyes, but I did like how some of their faces were covered with webs – that lent them a creepier look. They were also used to good effect, and reminiscent of what you might see from the voodoo zombie horror films of the genre’s yesteryears (such as White Zombie).

It’s somewhat true that Sugar Hill felt a little shallow, but it was still a pretty fun time, knew what it was going for, and gave us the hammy and delightful performance from Colley, which I just loved. Certainly a surprise, I won’t regret watching Sugar Hill.

7.5/10

Directed by Michael Crichton [Other horror films: N/A]

For as long as I’ve known about this film, IMDb has labeled it as a ‘horror’ film (other genres are drama and mystery); of course, today, that label is now missing. It’s a mystery and drama, no doubt, but while there are horror elements, going as far as to call the whole of the film horror is a bit of a stretch, even for someone with as liberal a definition of horror as I do.

I’ll count it though – there’s a sequence, decently suspenseful, too, where a killer is chasing someone (though to be fair, it’s more an assassination attempt than a slasher, but hey, someone’s getting killed, so that counts?), but to be fair, this is much more of a medical-focused mystery dealing with a wide-ranging conspiracy. If people want to label this horror, who am I to complain?

And since it is considered horror by some, it becomes one of the two horror films with Michael Douglas (the other being an early 1970’s TV movie titled When Michael Calls). A few years before this, he was in the cop crime show The Streets of San Francisco, and this may be one of his first bigger films, so that’s somewhat fun. His character is mixed – it’s the typical “I don’t believe in any conspiracy despite the proof, you’re paranoid” type, but his character grows later on.

The main character, though, is played by Geneviève Bujold (would reminded me amazingly of Famke Janssen throughout the film), and she did a great job playing a woman simply trying to get at the truth despite the obstacles in front of her. Rip Torn (A Stranger Is Watching and Dolly Dearest) and Richard Widmark (Blackout and To the Devil a Daughter) were both decent playing the old-fashioned, somewhat chauvinistic doctors of the past.

There are some solid scenes in this film, and also some quite striking scenes (such as the first time we set eyes upon the seemingly-empty Jefferson Institute), but I suspect a lot of people might not find quite the horror they were hoping for. There were some small drops here and there, which is why I personally can see it as such, but if someone saw purely a conspiracy movie, I couldn’t blame them.

Whether or not this is horror doesn’t matter, though, as the movie’s still good. It has plenty of thrilling scenes (when Bujold is climbing the ladder, for instance, or when Douglas is trying to save someone’s life at the end), and it’s a movie that’s recommended. And if it sweetens the deal any, it’s based off a novel written by Robin Cook, and the film’s directed by Michael Crichton.

7.5/10

Directed by Archie Mayo [Other horror films: N/A]

I don’t necessarily think that this is a great film, and were it not for John Barrymore’s great performance as the titular Svengali, I doubt I’d rate this as well as I’ll end up rating it.

By no means a bad film, the problem is too little happens for quite a lengthy period at the beginning. Sure, we get a solid sequence near the beginning when Svengali, with his powers of hypnotism, causes a woman to commit suicide, but afterward, we get a lot of build-up (with a few creepy scenes, but not enough) and not enough action, which was problematic.

Luckily John Barrymore (of the more popular Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde from 1920, along with a similar role in 1931’s The Mad Genius) puts in a great performance as Svengali. The beautiful Marian Marsh (who was also in The Mad Genius, along with 1935’s The Black Room) was solid too, though didn’t have much character due to her being hypnotized throughout a large portion of the film. I’ll admit I found Bramwell Fletcher (1932’s The Mummy) underwhelming, but I loved both Lumsden Hare and Donald Crisp (who I literally just saw in The Uninvited and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde).

The ending is decent, and surprisingly tragic for some involved, but it’s an 80 minute movie with pretty much only Barrymore to support it (I loved Hare and Crisps’ characters, but they didn’t have enough to do with the conclusion to greatly help matters), and for early 30’s horror, there are better movies out there.

6.5/10

Directed by Lewis Allen [Other horror films: The Unseen (1945)]

This is a classic that I’ve not seen until now, and it was great to sit down and finally watch it. Quite a solid film with a decent mystery, it’s pretty easy to see how this influenced ghost films in the following decades, into today.

A large house on the English coast was a fine choice for the setting, and I also like that it is just a house (albeit a large one) as opposed to a castle or mansion. It makes it seem a bit more relatable to those of us who have never set foot in a castle or mansion, and shows that even us lowly poor people can be haunted.

The Uninvited also really started off great with a little voice-over talking about ghosts and the like, all set to the beautiful scenery we’d been exploring for the next hour-and-a-half. It reminded me a little of Return to Glennascaul, a 1953 horror short narrated by Orson Welles. The atmosphere started off strong, and never really let up.

Ruth Hussey and Ray Milland made a fine brother and sister (and I have to say that it’s quaint to have siblings buying a house together as opposed to a couple), and Milland (who has been in plenty of horror films, such as Frogs, X, Terror in the Wax Museum, The House in Nightmare Park, and Premature Burial) was pretty witty at times, giving us some pretty amusing lines.

Playing an older gent with a stick up his ass, Donald Crisp (who I actually saw earlier this very month in the 1941 version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde) was pretty solid, and playing his granddaughter was Gail Russell (who apparently died at the young age of 36 due to a long bout with alcoholism). Russell got a bit hysterical at times, but she was cute, so I’ll give her a pass (it also helps that it makes sense with the story). Alan Napier was also #beast in this.

I loved the mystery here, as Milland and Hussey are trying to figure out the whole true story behind the murders that took place at their new house. It reminded me of many more modern ghost films in which the protagonists have to solve the old crimes before they can really understand what’s going on (such as The Changeling or Dark Water), and I thought it was done wonderfully here, with a solid sense of atmosphere.

The 1940’s wasn’t the strongest decade for horror, and in fact, I’ve long-thought that it was among the weakest, but The Uninvited belies that and ends up being a sometimes-amusing, sometimes-spooky film that it well worth seeing.

8/10

Directed by Hy Averback [Other horror films: N/A]

I don’t know how well-known this film is, but I think it was aiming to be another one of those gimmicky movies from the 1960’s in the vein of William Castle that people would look back fondly on. Certainly some people do look upon this film with joy, and while I generally find it a decent movie, I was not a fan of the “horror horn” or the “fear flasher”.

“Horror horn?” I hear you cry in astonishment. “Fear flasher?” I hear shouts in the street, amazed.

See, the beginning of this film begins with a warning about the “supreme scenes of fright” and how the creators would safe-guard us against them. Flashing lights on the screen would warn us along with a horn, that frightful, terrifying-to-the-soul scenes would soon be on screen.

I don’t mind a good gimmick. I love William Castle movies. Even that timer in The Beast Must Die that allowed the audience time to guess who the werewolf would be was sort of charming. The “fear flasher” and “horror horn” could have been the same, hokey fun, even if it was such a foolish over-hype of the “supreme scenes of fright.”

There’s barely any blood in the film, though. If they had gone an H.G. Lewis route and made the dismemberments gory, or at least shown actual dismemberments, it might have been worth it. But what they do is show a flashing screen and then a blade slicing through the air and – cut scene. We see no body parts get chopped off. We see no gore of any sort (and this movie was in color, so if they had wanted to copy what Lewis was doing so well at the time, even more tastefully, they damn well could have), and really, no fright.

None of my complaints about those gimmicks are to say the rest of the movie’s bad. It has a vibe somewhat similar to House of Wax (a comparison I can’t resist given that a house of wax is one of the main locations in this film, albeit utilized in a different way), and it can still be fun, but “supreme scenes of fright?” This movie may not be a comedy, but that must be a joke.

Patrick O’Neil made for a decent Vincent Price-clone (I don’t know if that was intentional, but I got the vibe that’s what O’Neil was aiming for). His revenge was fun, but not gory enough. A dwarf named José René Ruiz (but credited as Tun Tun) played a pretty fun character, and he got in some good lines. Laura Devon was quite beautiful, and has an unique story arc.

Most fun were Wilfrid Hyde-White and Cesare Danova, who were partners at the wax museum and also were amateur detectives, possessing a Holmes and Watson relationship. Amusingly enough, at the end of the film, both of them discover another murder, and set out to investigate, so they easy could have made a sequel called The Mystery of the Iron Maiden Murder or something like that, and I would have been all in, because I thought this pair was pretty good together.

Chamber of Horrors isn’t a great film, but it’s okay. I think it would have greatly benefited from either getting rid of the gimmick or actually making the gimmick mean something by adding in gore, but it’s still an okay film. I didn’t care for it when I was younger, but I can appreciate it more now. I just wish it was better.

6.5/10

Directed by Jeffery Scott Lando [Other horror films: Savage Island (2004), Insecticidal (2005), Alien Incursion (2006), Decoys 2: Alien Seduction (2007), House of Bones (2010), Thirst (2010), Goblin (2010), Haunted High (2012), Roboshark (2015), Suspension (2015)]

This isn’t a movie I particularly expected to like the first time I saw it, but it surprised me, and I ended up enjoying it a decent amount. Oh, it’s not an amazing movie, but I did think it was fun. Seeing it again confirms that feeling. It’s still not a great movie, but hell, I think it’s fun.

Not that the fun comes from any humor – certainly there’s some humor and funny lines here (“Grampa’s what?” perhaps having cracked me up the most) – but more due to the two brother characters.

Back in 2003, there was a horror film more oriented for a younger audience called Fear of the Dark, and in it, two brothers, one older, one a decent amount younger, never got along, but had to pull together to get through their situation. And it’s the same here – these brothers care for each other, but both being stubborn (well, and young men), they can’t admit that until they have to work together for their lives.

It’s due to that relationship – and also their relationship with their father, who is a character with pros and cons – that gives this film just a bit more feeling, even with much of it is the standard type of stuff you’d typically see in any dime-a-dozen Syfy film (though I will say, the special effects do seem decent here as opposed to many of those atrocities).

Eddie McClintock (the father and a police officer) is best-known for his starring role in Sci-Fi’s Warehouse 13, which is a series I’ve heard about, but never cared to watch (which is pretty much my history with most Sci-Fi series). He’s a decent character, and he does have some solid scenes (such as bringing home his kids chicken, and playing some video game casually), but he’s a bit too light-hearted at times when he probably shouldn’t be. He does get better, and I think becomes decently fleshed-out by the ending, but there you go.

Playing McClintock’s partner is Amy Bailey, and I rather like what little we know of her character. She’s pretty, sure, but she also gives a pretty strong performance. And speaking of strong performances, the two brothers, played by Danny Horn and Gabriel Steel (in his sole role), did a good job, and much like the brothers in Fear of the Dark, I bought their relationship.

Now, the story itself isn’t really great, dealing with some Biblical stuff that I, obviously, couldn’t care less about. The kills aren’t really that great either, but there are some subtly creepy scenes every now and again. What I think helps Boogeyman out the most is the characters, though.

This isn’t likely to become anyone’s favorite movie, nor is it really particularly memorable (though I would wager that it’s a better film than the 2005 Boogeyman), but it’s an okay slice of fun, and isn’t that all that matters?

7.5/10

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock [Other horror films: The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927), Psycho (1960)]

It’s been a long while since I’ve seen The Birds, and once I rewatched this (on the same night I revisited Psycho), I came to the somewhat shocking self-discovery that I actually enjoy The Birds more, and as I got further and further into this movie, I was hooked in a way I wasn’t through most of Psycho.

It’s the slow-building nature of the bird attacks that really revs things up. The first instance is the seagull attacking Daniels’ on the boat. Then the bird flying into the door. Then the small (most mostly harmless) attack on the birthday party. Then (off-screen) them going after that farmer. And all of this leads to my all-time favorite sequence of films.

Daniels (Tippi Hedren) is asked by Lydia (Jessica Tandy) to go pick up Cathy (Veronica Cartwright) from school. At the school, waiting for the session to end, Daniels sits on a bench with the playground (including a jungle gym) in the background, and beautifully, slowly, crows fly and land on the jungle gym.

There may be ten or so when the film suddenly focuses on purely Daniels as she smokes, and then after a few minutes, she notices a crow flying overhead, and watching where it lands, we now see that the jungle gym, and in fact every surface suitable for a bird to perch on, has a bird. It’s creepy, and even if you know it’s coming, it’s done amazingly.

Then comes the scene of Daniels and Annie (Suzanne Pleshette) ushering the children out of the school, and getting attacked by the crows. It’s a tense scene, but they all seem to get out fine. And then a quiet diner scene, which is, again, fantastic, as Daniels tells of the attack of the school by birds, which leads to pushback from all sides (one woman doesn’t think it’s possible, another man wants all birds killed, one mother just wants them to stop scaring her children), and then a gas attendant gets attacked by a bird (which they all witness), and falls down, gas now leaking toward a car. And in that car, a man who gets out and lights a cigarette and, upon burning his fingers (and not taking heed in the people yelling at him to not drop the match), he drops it.

Perhaps one of my all-time favorite shots of the film is next. We see Bodoga Bay from – a bird’s eye view (kill me now if you want) – which looks so cool, and more and more birds join in before swooping down onto the town, causing all-out mayhem.

That was just a beautiful collection of scenes, and there wasn’t a moment when I wasn’t fully engaged in what was going on. That doesn’t change once Daniels and Mitch (Rod Taylor) get back to the house and start boarding things up. It only sustains it’s suspense throughout.

Tippi Hedren was an interesting character. Strong in her own right, she completely loses it toward the end of the film, breaking down mentally (sort of like Barbara in Night of the Living Dead) after a vicious attack by birds. Rod Taylor was strong throughout, as was Jessica Tandy, who had plenty of emotional scenes. And for a younger actress, Cartwright was pretty good too.

The effects here don’t always look great (such as the children being chased from the school by the crows), but all of it is pretty admirable, and there are just some fantastic scenes (such as Hedren’s character being trapped in a glass phone booth with wild birds flying all around), and the onslaught of birds was just amazing.

If I was asked a day or two ago, I probably would have said that Psycho was my favorite Hitchcock film, but after seeing The Birds again, I’m all in. I very much love this film – it’s ominous ending a fantastic one – and this is top-rate stuff.

9/10

This is one of the films covered by Fight Evil’s podcast. If you want to hear Chucky (@ChuckyFE) and I discuss this classic, look out below.

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock [Other horror films: The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927), The Birds (1963)]

In some ways, Psycho is remembered far more for just a couple of scenes as opposed to the movie as a whole. In the hour-and-fifty minute run-time, there’s only a couple a sequences that really bring the goods, which isn’t to say that this classic isn’t worth seeing, but there are portions of the film that have a far more procedural feeling, which, while enjoyable, isn’t always what I look for.

Obviously, being a fan of both the classics and of slashers, Psycho is a film I’ve seen before plenty of times, and I always loved much of it. The way Janet Leigh’s character is utilized is just ballsy and impressive, and though nowadays most people watching can tell where the movie’s going (I think certain movies out there, such as The Usual Suspects, have sort of hard-wired us to look for twists), it still carries a little shock and a lot of enjoyment.

And there’s the suspense, which Alfred Hitchcock wasn’t known for for nothing. It’s hard to pin-point a favorite moment of suspense, but early on, when Crane sees her boss walk in front of her car, and do a double-take, a troubled look on his face, with the music popping up – that’s just a fantastic scene. And then there’s the police officer (Mort Mills), who is suspicious from the get-go (not that Leigh’s character doesn’t give good cause).

Some parts of the film can be almost difficult to watch because of the awkwardness. Marion Crane had obviously not done much wrong before, because she can’t lie convincingly worth shit to anyone (a car salesman is bad enough, but her performance with the cop was just embarrassing to witness). She got better once it hit her the mistake she made, but – spoilers – that doesn’t really matter, as she doesn’t live that much longer.

Janet Leigh is pretty fantastic here, though, despite the fact that she’s not really the star of the film past the half-way point. Anthony Perkins (who looks so damn young here) gives a fantastic performance – not a single complaint. Great lines (“We all go a little mad sometimes” and “…wouldn’t even hurt a fly”), and a great presence despite his slight frame. Martin Balsam (12 Angry Men, The Taking of Pelham One Two Three) I also enjoyed, despite him not really appearing much. I never loved John Gavin or Vera Miles (The Strange and Deadly Occurrence), but I have no complaints against them.

Once Crane’s character is killed in that shower scene (which is, for good reason, one of the most recognizable scenes in not just all of horror, but all of cinema), the movie enters a somewhat methodical route, with evidence being hidden and a private investigator searching for Crane’s whereabouts. It takes a little time to get back to kills, which isn’t really a problem (as that next kill, on the stairways, is great), but that section of the film was never that fantastic to me.

Make no mistake, Psycho is a great film, and certainly a great example of a proto-slasher and suspenseful thriller done right. And I love it. But The Birds is better.

8.5/10

This is one of the films covered beautifully by Fight Evil’s podcast. If you want to hear Chucky (@ChuckyFE) and I discuss this classic, all you have to do is listen below.