Directed by Gus Van Sant [Other horror films: N/A]
Pretty much a scene-by-scene remake of the original classic (perhaps one of the most well-known horror movies that has yet existed), this movie’s not terrible. The problem is, and this is a big problem, that it’s been done before, and it’s been done so much better that this movie just comes out entirely pointless.
I liked most of the principal cast, which is something I can’t say for other films. Anne Heche (from a favorite of mine, Volcano) played a cute Marion Crane. Chad Everett played the best exuberantly wealthy Texan this side of Rex Linn (Better Call Saul). William H. Macy didn’t blow me away, but what can I say, I like the actor (from Fargo to Pleasantville, this guy’s fun), and he was fun to see.
Neither Julianne Moore (Hannibal) nor Viggo Mortensen really worked in my opinion, but they didn’t bring the film down, which is more than I can say for Vince Vaughn. I liked Vaughn in The Lost World: Jurassic Park, but whoever thought he could replace Perkins as Norman Bates went more than a little mad. It’s no knock at Vaughn, who technically did fine. It’s that Perkins felt so much better in the role.
The main problem here isn’t the fact that it’s a remake, nor is it Vaughn’s portrayal of Bates. It’s that this doesn’t feel inspired whatsoever. There are some movies that it’s pointless to remake, and I’ll go ahead and say that Psycho’s one of them. In 1960, the story was surprising and shocking (both the twist thirty minutes in and the finale), but here, we know exactly what’s coming, but despite some scenes being filmed in the exact same way (such as the stairway sequence), there’s no magic here.
Psycho lacks magic, and that’s the problem. It’s such a well-written story, but this version wasn’t able to capture almost any of it, and ultimately just wasted our time when it could be better spent with the 1960 classic.
This is one of those films that I first saw so long ago that it came across as mostly new with this recent rewatch. I did remember one of the most important scenes near the end, but that didn’t really impact my enjoyment here, and Alone in the Dark is certainly a movie I enjoy quite a bit.
I’ve heard it said by a few people before that Alone in the Dark is slow-moving, and while that might be true (a bulk of the action doesn’t really hit until the finale), I found it engaging and enjoyable the whole way through, much of it likely due to the surprisingly large amount of worthwhile performances here.
You have three maniacs, played by Jack Palance (Without Warning and Man in the Attic), Martin Landau (ditto Without Warning), and Erland van Lidth, Donald Pleasence (Halloween) playing a rather amusing doctor, Carol Levy as a hot babysitter named Bunky, and a family composed of daughter Elizabeth Ward, mother and father Deborah Hedwall and Dwight Schultz, and Schultz’s sister, Lee Taylor-Allan, who was one of the most fun characters here aside from Pleasence, Schultz, and Bunky, not to mention the maniacs.
I love the cast here, so while the action is a bit light at times, and the gore never comes close to what might expect from an early 80’s slasher, it doesn’t matter a bit, because I’m still having a fun time. That said, there can certainly be strong suspense present, such as the scenes in which the family’s trapped in the house by the maniacs. Also, while I did remember the little surprise at the end, that didn’t make it any less effective.
Alone in the Dark isn’t a favorite of mine, but it’s a very solid slasher from a fantastic period of horror. Pretty easy for me to rate highly, as I really find I enjoy this one.
8.5/10
This is one of the film’s covered on Fight Evil’s podcast – listen below as Chucky (@ChuckyFE) and I discuss this movie.
Directed by Sylvain White [Other horror films: I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer (2006)]
Slender Man surprised me a bit. I definitely wasn’t expecting much, especially after seeing the low rating of 3.2/10 on IMDb, but for a good chunk of the movie, I thought there was definite potential. It’s with the second half of the film, though, that this is all flushed down the toilet and instead we’re left with jump scare after jump scare (assuming you can make out what’s going on), along with some pretty bad CGI. In a way, though, I’m in the unenviable position of feeling I need to defend this.
I didn’t think the main performances were particularly bad, but I also don’t think they were that memorable. Joey King was perhaps the best here, but Julia Goldani Telles, Annalise Basso (who is utterly smoking here) and Taylor Richardson all do reasonably. I didn’t see the point in Alex Fitzalan’s character, but I guess he did okay also.
What starts somewhat decently, especially regarding the mystery of one of the girls’ disappearance, turns into a really generic and jump scare-filled movie, and what tops it off to make it worse is that it has that glossy Hollywood look that just gives Slender Man such a tame feel.
Does the Slender Man design generally look fine? Sure. The CGI is really spotty at points, but the Slender Man himself wasn’t God-awful. It’s most of the other effects that fail, such as a few wild dream sequences, little of which looked appealing in any way.
Had they gone a different route, I think this could have been decent. I didn’t love the story past a certain point, but I did mostly like the characters, so with the budget they had, it’s just sad they couldn’t have come up with something better. At the same time, I don’t think Slender Man is near as bad as some of the ratings seem to indicate. I don’t think it’s good, but to me, it falls much closer to forgettable than it does memorably awful.
5.5/10
This is one of the films covered by Fight Evil’s podcast. Listen below as Chucky (@ChuckyFE) and I discuss this classic.
Directed by Michael Cooney [Other horror films: Jack Frost (1997)]
The first Jack Frost was actually decent, in a sort of corny, occasionally ridiculous way. Unfortunately, Revenge of the Mutant Killer Snowman takes things in a far more humorous direction, much to my displeasure.
I won’t say that I didn’t like many of the performances here. Christopher Allport had an interesting PTSD thing going on, and was somewhat useless come the second part of the film. David Allan Brooks takes over from Stephen Mandel in the role of Agent Manners – Brooks wasn’t terrible, but I don’t think his character was really done justice, and I don’t see why, if they couldn’t get Mandel back, they didn’t scrap the role.
Sean Patrick Murphy was actually okay as the annoying Captain Fun. I just wish more was done with his character. Ray Cooney got a few funny lines in there, as did Tai Bennett, but neither really mattered much, and Chip Heller and Marsha Clark didn’t make an impression on me whatsoever.
What did make an impression, albeit a negative one, was the toned up comedic feel of the movie. The beginning was funny, I’ll give it that, but for as low-budget as the first movie was, this one felt a lot lower. I mean, look at that CGI. And when Jack took the backstage to his little snowball babies, I just couldn’t help but constantly cringe at the stupidity unfolding.
There were a few okay scenes of gore, among them a young woman getting her eyes stabbed with a pair of tongs, or another character getting some fingers ripped off. But some of them were just bad, such as Jack taking the form of an anvil and dropping on someone, or a snowball thrown so hard that it tore a man’s arm off, and overall, despite some scenes of promise, it just wasn’t worth it.
Unlike the first movie, Revenge of the Mutant Killer Snowman was just too silly, and as far as I’m concerned, that’s a cardinal sin. Fans of the first film may still find enough in this to like it – Scott MacDonald’s voice acting is pretty much as good as the first movie. I just couldn’t find it in me to enjoy this whatsoever when I first saw it, and though I might like it a little more now, the film’s far below what I’d prefer it to be.
4.5/10
This is one of the films that was regrettably covered on Fight Evil’s podcast. Listen as Chucky (@ChuckyFE) and I discuss this one.
Directed by Thom Eberhardt [Other horror films: Sole Survivor (1984), Night of the Comet (1984)]
Beyond most anything else that could be said, Naked Fear is a competent film. It’s not a great one, by any means, but it got the job it set out to do done, even if it ends up being a bit on the depressing side.
Part of this is due to the fact that there’s virtually no humor whatsoever to be found anywhere in the film. It’s a dark, bleak movie, and the main character of Diana (Danielle De Luca) is basically forced into becoming a prostitute and exotic dancer with zero recourse for her to pursue. It’s grim and gritty and entirely based in reality.
More so, one of the few characters trying to help, being Officer Dwight Terry (Arron Shiver), is able to do very little in the way of actually making a difference. In fact, I don’t believe a single thing he does really changes the outcome of the film, and given that he was one of the few who actually cared about the multiple missing girls, it just goes on to kick you down.
De Luca and Shiver both have good performances here, with De Luca standing out quite a bit more, obviously, being the hunted woman throughout most of the film. As the antagonist, J.D. Garfield was solid, though I do sort of wish we got a bit more background on him. Jenny Marlowe and Kevin Wiggins were both good, though Marlowe’s character was hard to stomach. Kudos to Wiggins for playing a solid good guy, though.
If there’s one person in the cast who I wish had more to his story, it’d be Joe Mantegna, an actor I have long known for Criminal Minds, and also co-starred in Thinner, a rather forgettable experience. Here, his cop character is more irksome than most other characters in the film, constantly deriding Shiver’s character for wanting to do actual detective work. It was nice to see him here, sure, but I just wish he was a lot more helpful than he ended up being.
As effective as Naked Fear is in creating a grim story, though, I was never really fully invested. There were some good scenes throughout, but as a whole, I just didn’t see that great of a movie, and I think some of that has to do with an almost stark feel that the movie has. It wasn’t as notable as The Wild Man of the Navidad or Deadfall Trail, but it still felt very bare-bones.
But hey, there’s some decently attractive nude women, so it’s not all a lost cause. Of course, most of the nudity is during the women being hunted down like animals, but to each their own.
Obviously, Naked Fear is nowhere near original in it’s story, as The Most Dangerous Game came out 75 years earlier, and the same idea has been done into many other films, such as Bloodust! and the underrated Turkey Shoot, but it’s still a competently made film. I just don’t think it’s that much more than that, and after seeing it a second time, I highly doubt I’d want to see it a third time.
6/10
This is one of the films discussed on Fight Evil’s podcast. Listen below as Chucky (@ChuckyFE) and I talk about this subpar film.
Directed by Gregory Dark [Other horror films: Night of the Living Babes (1987), Mirror Images (1992)]
God, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen this slasher, and I forgot just how amateurish some aspects of this movie are. See No Evil gets a few things right, but I’d be lying if I said I enjoyed the movie as a whole.
Before I skewer the film with my complaints, I’d like to say that the setting (a large, abandoned hotel) is on point. At times it felt a bit too gritty and messy, but still, I liked what they were going for. As for the kills themselves, there were decent. The idea of a large chain piercing your jaw, or impaling your leg and dragging you off, is pretty brutal, and of course getting your eyes ripped out would be a fate to avoid. There’s not a whole lot of gore here, but what they went with was still decent.
As for the story, though, boy, do some things bother me. Firstly, the idea of reducing one’s sentence by doing some work is fine and well, but they didn’t ensure there wasn’t a connection between any of the prisoners beforehand? As soon as it’s discovered one of the male prisoners had an unruly relationship with one of the women prisoners, either the male prisoner should have been removed immediately or the whole thing should have been scrapped.
Another thing – they take a group of eight prisoners to a hotel, give them some quarters after telling them to stay in their rooms, and though there are only two supervisors, they just go down to the bar and expect the prisoners to listen? Are you kidding me?
Once we get to the killings, the fact that the story’s pretty poor stops mattering, but there were some really questionable things in this script, and that includes the little twist at the end (I have a hard time believing that some of the background of certain characters didn’t go unnoticed or impact relations). There are aspects I liked about the route they took, but I just didn’t buy it.
I don’t know anything about wrestling, so I have no idea who Kane is, but he does decent here as a mostly silent serial killer. The little pieces of history they throw to us via flashbacks show what a terrible childhood he led (along with showing us the dangers of extremist religious beliefs), and does lend his character a bit of sympathy. I will admit to not understanding the tattoo thing, though – his mother pointed out to him that they were blasphemous, and he still rips eyes out of women who have them (see the opening), so why bother keeping them captive for a little if they have a tattoo? I just didn’t get it.
Other performances worth mentioning include Luke Pegler, Steven Vindler, and Rachael Taylor. Pegler’s character was awful throughout the film, as he was that macho-type guy who did idiotic things for no reason other than he can. He redeemed himself a bit when he started kicking ass toward the end, but his character was still atrocious. Vindler’s character was decently honorable in a way, though he didn’t add that much to the film, and while Taylor’s character was one of the most annoying, the fact that the actress later goes on to play Patricia Walker in the Jessica Jones MCU series is sort of interesting.
I need to mention this before getting to my rating, as much as I’d rather forget it. There’s a scene near the end in which a character falls out a window. That thirty second sequence, from the start of the fall to the landing, was drenched in some of the worst CGI I’ve witnessed recently. It just looked so bad. One thing about this film that I didn’t like at all was the editing, the quick, spooky cuts in rapid speed which made it seem more like a music video than a movie (which makes sense, as the director has done plenty of music videos in the past). Other films used this in worse ways (such as the utterly terrible Death Tunnel), but it was still annoying here.
Oh, and that extra post-credit scene? What a waste of time.
I liked some things about See No Evil, but other things were done utterly terribly. It’s a movie that might get by okay if you can ignore some story problems, or perhaps remove your own eyes so you don’t have to deal with the editing or CGI, but hey, the setting’s cool, and some of the kills are decent. It’s a below-average film, and very much a mixed bag.
5.5/10
This is one of the films covered on Fight Evil’s podcast. If interested in hearing some quality conversation, check it out below as Chucky (@ChuckyFE) and I discuss See No Evil.
Directed by William Girdler [Other horror films: Three on a Meathook (1972), Asylum of Satan (1972), Abby (1974), Day of the Animals (1977), The Manitou (1978)]
More than anything, this 70’s rip-off of Jaws, while occasionally charming and certainly possessing a beautiful setting (forested Clayton, Georgia), is ultimately a sluggish experience, and though not without positive aspects, ends up only an okay film.
The main issue here is how sluggish the film is. Sure, the setting is indeed beautiful, and there are a few solid scenes here (bear vs. kid, and bear vs. ranger tower being two of my favorite), but otherwise, Grizzly is just drier than the wood of the trees that make up the forest (horrible analogy, sure, but Grizzly’s still dry).
A few of the characters are decent. The main character, played by Christopher George (who went to later appear in plenty of horror films, including Whiskey Mountain, Day of the Animals, Mortuary, Pieces, City of the Living Dead, Cruise Into Terror, and Graduation Day) was perfectly solid, and I liked the differences in personalities between Andrew Prine’s gruff Vietnam vet character (this is just a few year following the conflict, so he’s still young man) and the scientific viewpoint of Richard Jaeckel. Honestly, none of the three add anything that special to the film, though, which is a bit of a problem.
Oh, and Joan McCall (who had a role in Peopletoys, more commonly known as Devil Time Five) was pretty much useless in this. I don’t really know what the point of her character was, because past a certain scene, she pretty much loses what limited relevance she had to begin with.
I don’t know. Grizzly isn’t that poor of a film, and as far as Jaws rip-offs go, it’s not bad. Like I said, it occasionally possesses a little charm here and there, and there are a few decent scenes, but overall, I think it’s a pretty underwhelming experience, and I’ve seen this twice now, so I think I’m somewhat firm in that stance.
6/10
This is one of the films covered on Fight Evil’s podcast, so if interested, listen below as Chucky (@ChuckyFE) and I discuss the film.
Directed by Jeff Woolnough [Other horror films: Strange Frequency 2 (2002), The House Next Door (2006)]
Known best as just Lost Souls (if it’s known at all), this television movie didn’t reinvent the wheel, but in it’s low-budget tackling of a somewhat common story, I found the movie quite serviceable.
Now, I saw this once before many years back, and about the only thing I remembered was the conclusion, so I didn’t get to relive the surprise, but even so, I like how the film focuses on the mystery of unsolved murders and throws multiple suspects out at us, many of them feeling like real possibilities. The idea of supernatural forces from beyond the grave helping people solve an old murder isn’t new, but it was done well, and with feeling.
Communicating through an autistic girl was a nice touch, because both parents here (played by John Savage and Barbara Sukowa) got to see their daughter do more than she’s been able to do (such as sing), and though it’s just a cheap television flick, I still liked that this had heart.
On that note, the horror here isn’t nearly what many fans might be looking for. It might even feel more like a supernatural drama at times, but when you throw in mystery and the decently suspenseful conclusion, I don’t see why all that many people would have an issue seeing this as a horror film, light as it might be.
John Savage is a bigger name, though I’ve only seen him in a handful of low-budget horror movies (such as The Attic). He does pretty well here, and I love the lengths he goes through to both figure out the answer to the old crime and protect his family. His wife, played by Barbara Sukowa, didn’t nearly interest me as much, but both children (Nick Deigman and Laura Harling) are solid, with Harling’s performance perhaps being the best. Richard Lintern was pretty good too.
Nightworld: Lost Souls isn’t anything that special, but I find myself enjoying it more than expected. I definitely liked it the first time I saw this, and it’s pretty much had the same impact on me this time around. It’s not stellar as far as made-for-television horror goes, but hell, I liked it. Sue me, brahs.
8/10
This is one of the many films covered on Fight Evil’s podcast. Listen below as Chucky (@ChuckyFE) and I discuss this movie.
Directed by Greydon Clark [Other horror films: Satan’s Cheerleaders (1977), Wacko (1982), Uninvited (1987), Dance Macabre (1992)]
I saw this alien flick once before, and I recall having an okay time with it. Watching it again, I don’t know what I was on, but while Without Warning isn’t a movie without potential, I certainly felt that the overall experience was pretty dull, bolstered only partially by some big names.
The only two names that are really worth mentioning are Jack Palance and Martin Landau (who, somewhat amusingly, also co-star a few years later in Alone in the Dark). Of the two, I think I preferred Landau’s character, but both were decently solid. I particularly liked Landau here due to the fact his character dealt with P.T.S.D., which led to some low-key emotional moments, and though he’s one of the primary antagonists, I certainly felt bad for him.
As far as the sluggish pace is concerned, though, Palance and Landau can’t really help. Much of the film just follows two kids (Tarah Nutter and Christopher S. Nelson) are they try to flee from an alien species, which look like frisbees, only with teeth and tendrils.
Actually, before I mock the film for the sleep-inducing plot, I will give them kudos for the special effects. The frisbee aliens sort of look silly, but when they latch onto someone, their tendrils sink into their skin, and a mixture of blood and pus is soon visible to all. It wasn’t over-the-top gruesome, but I did think that it was impressive, especially in a movie that really doesn’t have much else to boast about.
Still, watching two teenagers run from these aliens, and encounter dangers from the townspeople (in the form of Landau), it just wasn’t that engaging. The teens themselves weren’t particularly memorable, and overall, I was just consistently bored until things picked up a bit at the end.
For the life of me, I can’t remember exactly why I enjoyed this the first time around. Without Warning certainly had potential, but the final product (which runs at almost an hour and forty minutes) is just too sluggish and void of interest. Might be worth a look just for the famous faces, but as far as alien/horror hybrids go, despite the decent alien design, this isn’t much up there with the best the genre has to offer.
5.5/10
This is one of the films covered on Fight Evil’s podcast. If interested, check out below as Chucky (@ChuckyFE) and I discuss this movie.
Directed by Meir Zarchi [Other horror films: Don’t Mess with My Sister! (1985), I Spit on Your Grave: Deja Vu (2019)]
This classic in the rape-and-revenge subgenre of exploitation film, generally known under the far-better title I Spit on Your Grave, is oftentimes a difficult movie to watch. Due to the fact it’s a 70’s film, it has that dead serious, gritty vibe that you would expect, making I Spit on Your Grave an awfully grueling viewing experience at times.
While the rape sequences were a bit much (and probably more disturbing than Last House on the Left from six years earlier), the revenge sequences were a lot of fun (and very well-deserved – if you don’t think those men deserved the painful deaths they got, I’d really question your sense of right-and-wrong), the best being a castration. A strong argument could be made that Richard Pace’s mentally-disabled character should have gotten some mercy, but there you go. Definitely gory when it needs to be, more often than not, I Spit on Your Grave just sticks with a bit of build-up and a quick blow, especially near the end.
Camille Keaton does well as a messed up victim of rape, and there was no point in the film in which I didn’t sympathize with her. The four rapists were all well-played too, and while Richard Pace’s Matthew was somewhat hard to hate, the other three (Eron Tabor, Anthony Nichols, and Gunter Kleeman) were as despicable as you can imagine. The only shame is that their deaths weren’t longer. Worth noting, none of the four male actors have been in any other film, before or after, which I found interesting.
The film can be quite tedious. After the first horrific rape, Keaton’s character is raped twice more, and it’s only after she begins to get her revenge that I really feel comfortable watching the film, as it goes more into a proto-slasher feel. Otherwise, the rape sequences were, understandably, deeply unpleasant, and possessed a very desperate, degrading quality to them.
Personally, though I’ve seen this film twice now, I think that I Spit on Your Grave is a hard movie to love. I certainly find the revenge satisfactory, but that doesn’t happen until about an hour in, and dealing with the rape sequences is a bit much. I still find the last forty minutes enjoyable, but it’s a grind getting through the first hour. Probably a movie worth watching, but while it’s certainly good at times, it’s not one that I’d watch multiple times for enjoyment.
7/10
This is one of the films covered on Fight Evil’s podcast, and what coverage it was. If interested, check out below as Chucky (@ChuckyFE) and I discuss and laugh inappropriately at this film.
Jiggy's Horror Corner 