Tag: USA

Directed by Lewis Teague [Other horror films: Cujo (1983), Cat’s Eye (1985), The Triangle (2001)]

Honestly, I don’t have a lot to say about this one. I wasn’t really that impressed with Alligator when I first saw it, and while I can see some decent portions with this recent rewatch, it’s still not really my type of movie.

When it comes to giant monster movies, I’ve never been a big fan. Admittedly, given this movie is from the 1980’s, it does feel different than the movies from the late 50’s. Even so, the story sort of follows the exact same route – a guy has an experience with a giant alligator, and shortly afterward, the military, police, and everyone else is watching out for the creature while it causes havoc.

It’s not even the first killer alligator/crocodile movie – in 1979, we had both Thailand’s Chorakhe (Crocodile) and Italy’s Il fiume del grande caimano (The Great Alligator), and in 1978, the South Korean Agowa gongpo (Crocodile Fangs). Now, I’ve not seen any of these three, but I am sort of curious if they’re similar in story and idea to this movie, and I imagine all of them possess an interesting foreign flavor that obviously this one couldn’t compete with.

No doubt it’s nice to see Robert Forster as the lead. When I first saw this movie, I probably didn’t know who he was, but having seen Breaking Bad and El Camino, even this young, he has a familiar face (also in The Wolf of Snow Hollow, The Darker Side of Terror, and Satan’s Princess). Honestly, I didn’t love his character here, but he was a nice face to see. Robin Riker (Stepmonster) isn’t a name I know, but though I didn’t care for her romantic interest in Forster’s character, she did decent.

Honestly, those two are the only ones that really matter. Sure, Henry Silva (Thirst) appears for a bit, Dean Jagger (X the Unknown, Revolt of the Zombies, So Sad About Gloria) seems to be set up as a human antagonist, but it never really goes anywhere, and while Michael V. Gazzo (The Godfather Part II) appears throughout the film, we never get a good feel for him.

Some of the special effects look decent. It’s not a particularly gory movie or anything, but the titular alligator gets a few tasty bites in. I think my bigger issue is that it’s hard for me to watch this and not think of Lake Placid, which is a movie I find so much more enjoyable than this one, and actually, I think it’s fair to say that this feels more like a 70’s product than it does one of the 1980’s, given it’s somewhat dry feel.

I’ve only seen Alligator twice now, and both times, while I can’t say I’ve been let down, I can say that neither viewing has done much for me. It’s not a bad movie, but it’s not one that I really care for, at least for the time being.

6/10

Directed by Scott Spiegel [Other horror films: From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money (1999), Hostel: Part III (2011)]

I’ve seen Intruder once before, and remembered it being a pretty solid slasher for the late 1980’s. Seeing it again, it is indeed one of the best of the late 80’s, and Intruder really has a lot going for it.

It’s not perfect – the biggest issue is that with all the characters (Jennifer, Linda, Bill, Danny, Joe, Tim, Bub, Dave, Randy, and Craig), only a couple really get much in the way of personality. The average side characters of Friday the 13th had mildly more personality than most of the characters here. Luckily, the gore was good enough to sort of offset this, but it was noticeable.

Elizabeth Cox did decent as the lead character. I mean, she’s no Amy Steel or Heather Langenkamp, but she did well. David Byrnes (Witchcraft 7: Judgement Hour, Witchcraft IX: Bitter Flesh) is a good example of what I’m talking about – okay performance, but very little in the way of character until the finale. Eugene Robert Glazer and Dan Hicks (Elder Island, Evil Dead II) did well as the bosses of the store.

Most of the night crew, though – Ted Raimi (The Attic Expeditions), Renée Estevez (Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers), Billy Marti, Burr Steers, Sam Raimi, and Craig Stark – don’t really add that much. Sure, Marti’s character seems like he’ll be more important, and Burr Steers does have an oddly fun personality, but for the most part, these people are all just here to be victims of a mysterious killer.

Oh, I should probably also mention that Bruce Campbell (The Evil Dead) appears for a minute or so at the end, but he doesn’t do that much, and isn’t relevant to the story in any way, so whateves.

Speaking of the story, I appreciate the idea of a slasher set in a grocery store. I spent five years working a Meijer (a Michigan-based company that operates in six states – think of it as a higher-class Wal-Mart), and I also liked the idea of a killer knocking people off in a large store, where people can go unnoticed for long periods of time. Now, the store in Intruder isn’t some type of supermarket, but it’s still a fun idea, which brings us to the kills.

Naturally, you get your normal kills, such as someone stabbed with a big knife or a butcher knife slamming on someone’s head. Someone gets impaled on a meat hook, while another gets their head crushed in a bailer. Another guy gets their head slammed into one of those pointy receipt holders, and perhaps most well-known, there’s a band saw mishap which looks very much on the painful side. The effects for that scene weren’t necessarily great, but the idea behind that scene worked beautifully.

I do think the final scene, though, with that dramatic scream, was just a bit on the hokey side.

Intruder is a simple slasher with a prime goal of showing off decent kills. While the characters sometimes lack personality, the story is still pretty solid, and there’s plenty of suspenseful scenes and interesting camera angles here to keep things fresh. I enjoyed this one when I first saw it, and I still think it stands out quite well today.

8/10

Directed by Zach Parker [Other horror films: Proxy (2013)]

I barely knew anything about Inexchange before watching it, but the little I did know pulled me in immediately.

See, this low-budget film was made at Ball State University, a university in Muncie, Indiana, and more importantly, where I went to college. The first scene of the movie shows the statue Beneficence, which is right across from the Student Center (and diagonally across from Elliott Hall, where I dormed for two years). Later in the movie, there’s a scene near Frog Baby, outside Bracken Library. I couldn’t tell which dorms they used to film in, but I did noticed a scene in the Teacher’s College, where I had a handful of classes.

This personal connection doesn’t necessarily make the movie better, but it does lend a very relatable feeling to it. It helps that the movie follows an awkward student as he’s bullied and mocked, only for him to get his revenge by making a deal with a mysterious, supernatural figure (who looked quite a bit like Candyman, as he wore the same type of coat). I was never bullied in college, but I did feel out of place (as described in my review of Last Night in Soho), and I felt for Sean Blodgett’s character.

Sean Blodgett made for a pretty solid lead. He got the awkward personality down fantastically, and it was nice to see his budding relationship with Tiffany Marie Wilson’s character (despite it not going exactly how he wanted). Wilson, for her part, played her role pretty well, and seemed a decently likable character. Both Todd Richard Lewis and Bradley J. Gunter did great at playing a pair of bullying dicks, and Andrew W. Burt shined as the mysterious blindfolded figure.

The ending wasn’t anything surprising, but what was surprising, and pleasantly so, was the score throughout, which had a dark, occasionally ambient, vibe to it. Not only was the music solid, but toward the end, there was a pretty good use of editing, showing someone having intimate relations for the first time and, at the same moment, a guy getting tied up with barbed wire and splashed with corrosive acid. Overall, the gore here isn’t the focus so much as the psychological issues that Sean Blodgett’s character goes through, but there are a few scenes here that were good.

I can’t say that Inexchange is that special a film, but the fact it was filmed largely at Ball State does make it a more interesting one for me, and while the story’s not exactly what I’d call original, it’s still a decently-made film for the budget they had. It’s not special, but even so, I didn’t have a bad time at all with this one.

7/10

Directed by Misty Talley [Other horror films: Zombie Shark (2015), Ozark Sharks (2016), Santa Jaws (2018)]

I’ve seen Mississippi River Sharks once before, and it’s a movie I doubt I’ll watch again. It’s not exactly terrible – while terrible Syfy shark movies do exist, most can usually be entertaining – it just lacks anything that really allows it to stand out. That, coupled with both atrocious CGI sharks and a bothersome character, makes it so this one just isn’t really worth that much.

The story is pretty much like every other atrocious shark movie, only there’s not much here that’s that memorable. Trailer Park Shark was worse than this one, but at least that had character (albeit awful character). Swamp Shark was more stable than this, and Jersey Shore Shark Attack, while still a worse movie, had personality of it’s own. I didn’t really get that sense from this one, and it’s not a Syfy original that I think will be all that memorable.

Naturally, the special effects are terrible. I mean, just terrible. The sharks look shit, the kills are shit, everything is just awful in this movie as far as the effects go. It’s nothing new – when it comes to awful CGI in movies, who do you trust more than Syfy? – but it’d be nice to see Syfy actually try when they make a shark film, as opposed ot make it look as terrible as possible for the lulz, which I imagine has been their business plan since 2-Headed Shark Attack came out.

Cassie Steele (The Dorm) made a fair lead, and reminded me of Jordan Hinson’s character in Ragin Cajun Redneck Gators (only better, as I liked where Steele’s story went). Tahj Vaughans (Backwoods) was largely inoffensive, but didn’t really add that much. On the other hand, Dean J. West, whose character was almost entirely there for ‘comedic effect,’ got real old with his hero worship act of Jason London really quick. London (Sutures, Greed, The Rage: Carrie 2) himself was a bit annoying, playing a generic actor from a string of bad shark movies (sound familiar?), and didn’t work with me.

Others who were at least decent include Miles Doleac (the guy who directed the pretentiously annoying The Dinner Party), Marco St. John, and Jeff Pearson (The Inherited). I wish that Doleac had more to do throughout the movie, but his character was one of the few straight ones. St. John was over-the-top ridiculous, but in a fun way, unlike both London and West. Admittedly, Jeff Pearson’s character never had a lot to do, but his straight-laced nature spoke to me.

Overall, though, Mississippi River Sharks doesn’t have that much to offer. Sure, it’s marginally better than some Syfy shark movies, but it’s still not great, and it doesn’t feel special, or noticeable, in any way whatsoever. Definitely a below average film, and not one that I think I’ll visit a third time.

5/10

Directed by Pál Fejös [Other horror films: N/A]

I can’t remember much about the first time I watched this late silent movie. I know I watched it in October, and those are always busy months for me, so I likely forgot a lot of it just a couple of days after watching it. Seeing it again, I do think I’ll remember it better, but it’s not a movie I think is that great.

No doubt it’s okay. Conrad Veidt (The Hands of Orlac, Eerie Tales, The Student of Prague, Waxworks, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, The Man Who Laughs) is a staple of silent horror, and he does well here. Likewise, Mary Philbin (The Phantom of the Opera, The Man Who Laughs) is another recognizable face, though her character here isn’t great. Leslie Fenton (The House of Secrets) and Fred MacKaye were important to the story, but neither performance was a standout.

The story – a hypnotist and magician gets revenge on a woman who left him for another man – is pretty much what you’d expect from a movie of this era, and while the sword trick was fun, the ending here just didn’t do it for me. I guess it makes sense – Veidt’s character was a magician, and thus used to being a showman – but the repentance he displayed struck me as odd.

It should also be said that the version I watched was about an hour long. According to IMDb, there’s a version that’s an hour and 8 minutes long – what those extra eight minutes possess, I don’t know, and I also don’t know if the full version is available, but I am aware that what we’re seeing here isn’t the full story. That said, it all makes sense, which I can’t say for Genuine, so that’s at least good.

The Last Performance isn’t a bad movie, it’s just not something that I think will come to mind when it comes to silent horror. Of course, it may partially be due to the fact the horror here is somewhat light, but unlike The Mad Genius, it’s not difficult to see.

Overall, The Last Performance is okay, but nothing more, and when it comes to silent horror, definitely not memorable enough to really warrant a mention, in my view.

6.5/10

Directed by Joseph Sargent [Other horror films: Jaws: The Revenge (1987)]

Nightmares is an anthology that I’ve always been fond of. Which is actually somewhat surprising, given I only really like two of the four stories. Like most anthologies, it’s uneven, but even so, the good outweighs the bad here.

Of the four stories (‘Terror in Topanga,’ ‘The Bishop of Battle,’ ‘The Benediction,’ and ‘Night of the Rat’), I think two of them shine, being ‘Terror in Topanga’ and ‘The Bishop of Battle.’ Because of my affinity toward the Bishop of Battle, as a character (‘I am the Bishop of Battle. I am the master of all I survey,’ is a quote I use too much in real life despite surveying little), and the killer special effects, I’ve always said this story was my favorite, and it still is.

‘Terror in Topanga’ takes a more classic look at thrills, and while it’s the shortest story of the bunch, I think it’s pretty damn effective. If you’ve seen Urban Legend, you might know where the story is going, but that doesn’t mean it packs any less of a punch. It opens the film with a lot of promise, and while not all of the stories fulfill that promise, it still makes one hell of a first segment.

My biggest qualm with ‘Night of the Rat’ is how the rat looks. It reminds me of The Food of the Gods – just a normal rat that’s enlarged and superimposed in the scene, and it just doesn’t look great. Honestly, the story’s not too shabby before then – though I wish that Albert Hague’s character was more involved – which is good, as this story’s around 35 minutes. Up until we actually see the rat, it’s not a bad time at all.

More than anything else, I find ‘The Benediction’ annoying. A priest loses his faith, fails to get any answers to his questions by others in the church (big shock, I know), and on his way to a new life, gets attacked by what seems to be a demonic truck. That scene in which the truck flies out of the ground is pretty cool, but as someone who isn’t at all religious, I was rooting for Lance Henriksen’s character to make a clean break from the cloth (of course knowing he wouldn’t).

As it is, despite not caring for the story, Lance Henriksen (The Horror Show, The Manger 2, Pumpkinhead) might be one of the best performances here, and certainly one of the most emotional. Cristina Raines (The Sentinel) wasn’t the most likable character, Emilio Estevez (Maximum Overdrive) certainly wasn’t likable, and Veronica Cartwright (Alien, The Birds) tended to annoy me a bit (despite the fact she was right about the problem her husband was facing).

Others who stood out, no matter how small their role, including Albert Hague, Anthony James (Burnt Offerings), Richard Masur (The Thing, It), Tony Plana (Slayer), and of course James Tolkan (Back to the Future) for voicing the Bishop of Battle.

And on the Bishop of Battle, again, those special effects (computer generated enemies from an arcade game) were quite cool. To the modern-day eye, they may not look like much, but I found them charming, and like I said, I’ve always rather liked this story. Some classic hustling of a Latino gang, some classic arcade action – it’s like the whole of the 80’s rolled into a single story, and it’s beautiful. Plus, it has the Bishop of Battle, master of all he surveys.

Overall, it’s true that Nightmares is mixed insofar as the stories go, but as much as ‘The Benediction’ and ‘Night of the Rat’ don’t do much for me, I really enjoy the first two stories, so based off that, I do think this movie is a bit above average.

7.5/10

Directed by Wes Craven [Other horror films: The Last House on the Left (1972), The Hills Have Eyes (1977), Stranger in Our House (1978), Deadly Blessing (1981), Invitation to Hell (1984), The Hills Have Eyes Part II (1984), A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), Chiller (1985), Deadly Friend (1986), The Serpent and the Rainbow (1988), Shocker (1989), The People Under the Stairs (1991), New Nightmare (1994), Vampire in Brooklyn (1995), Scream (1996), Scream 2 (1997), Scream 3 (2000), Cursed (2005), My Soul to Take (2010), Scream 4 (2011)]

While not your typical horror movie, Swamp Thing comes with a comic book feel to tell the story of a scientist tragically transformed into a beast, and using his newfound abilities to save the woman he loves, despite knowing that few could love him back.

Like I said, this Wes Craven movie has a comic book feel, and given this is based on a comic book character, that makes sense. I am a comic book collector, though I collect only Marvel – while I’ve read plenty of DC comics (primarily Batman, but various other things too), I never got into Swamp Thing. The main reason for that, I’d guess, is that I’m already a giant fan of Man-Thing, and in my mind, there’s no doubt which character I find more interesting.

Plus, Man-Thing has tendrils.

Truthfully, while I knew Swamp Thing’s name was Alec Holland, that’s about all I knew about his character. I didn’t even know he could talk (or at least can talk in this movie – since I’ve not read much Swamp Thing material, I have no idea if he can talk in the comic books), so that came as a surprise.

Despite not really having a working knowledge of the source material, there’s no doubt the movie is fun in a sort of campy, comic book way. I always enjoy a good swamp setting, and as one might expect, Swamp Thing has a beautiful swampy setting throughout. The story is decently tragic, though there’s also elements of optimism in the fact one of Swamp Thing’s abilities is to heal others, which is put to good use twice.

I didn’t know that Adrienne Barbeau (The Fog, Open House, Someone’s Watching Me!) starred here. She was a nice face to see, and I also felt her performance was particularly strong. I also didn’t know Ray Wise (Dead End, Jeepers Creepers 2, The Butterfly Room) was in it, but he was fun, and playing his character’s sister was Nannette Brown (who only had one other small role in the atrocious My Boyfriend’s Back), and I rather liked Brown’s character for the time she’s on screen.

Louis Jourdan (Ritual of Evil, Count Dracula, Fear No Evil) isn’t a name I know, but he made for an okay villain. More interesting to me was David Hess (Body Count, House on the Edge of the Park, The Last House on the Left, Smash Cut), who, surprise, I also didn’t know was here. Hess made for a pretty awful person, so he’s on point, and does well with it. Reggie Batts was decent comedic relief, and I found him a fun addition.

The special effects were pretty solid. I mean, I don’t think Swamp Thing looked great, but his character’s design never seemed that interesting to me to begin with. No tendrils, see. Still, he looked okay. The other effects were decent too, save the monster-thing at the end, which I thought looked rather awful, and also not a great route for that specific character to take.

Swamp Thing is probably a fair movie for fans of the comic book series, and I’d dare say that it’s a better movie for Swamp Thing fans than the 2005 Man-Thing movie was for Man-Thing fans. It’s not something I find great, and the fact Wes Craven directed this strikes me more of a curiosity than anything else, but it’s a decent time.

7/10

Directed by Jack Hill [Other horror films: The Terror (1963), Blood Bath (1966), Mondo Keyhole (1966), Fear Chamber (1968), House of Evil (1968), La muerte viviente (1971), The Incredible Invasion (1971)]

This is a pretty well-known movie, and while I’d consistently heard decent things about it, it’s never been one I’ve really been dying to check out. Because of it being labeled a horror-comedy mix, I didn’t know if it would be my type of thing. After seeing it, it’s true that the movie isn’t really my type of movie, but even with that caveat, I think it was pretty decent.

The story is certainly interesting, dealing with three siblings of subnormal mental status and their caretaker having to contend with the intrusion of distant relatives into their lives. Actually, I briefly thought that this movie is what House of 1000 Corpses would have been if it were made in the 1960’s (even more so because Sid Haig is here). It’s not really my idea of a fun story, but it’s done pretty well.

It also moves at quite a decent pace. It’s not a long movie to begin with, and while there are portions in which the action is less prevalent, Spider Baby keeps us engaged pretty well. No doubt the solid performances help a lot in that aspect.

Lon Chaney Jr. (La casa del terror, The Wolf Man, House of the Black Death, Pillow of Death, Son of Dracula) gave a great performance. He never stood out to me as much as Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloffe, or Peter Lorre, but Chaney Jr. here did really well, and even threw an emotional scene in. Beverly Washburn and Jill Banner also stand out as solid with their performances.

Because of the nature of his character, Sid Haig (Galaxy of Terror, A Dead Calling, Brotherhood of Blood, The Aftermath, Hanukkah) doesn’t have much personality, but he was fun to see. Karl Schanzer, Mary Mitchel (Panic in Year Zero!, Dementia 13), and Quinn K. Redeker all had their moments, and it was nice to see both Carol Ohmart (House on Haunted Hill) and Mantan Moreland (King of the Zombies).

There is a bit of proto-slasher attitude in this one – in the opening, someone is stabbed multiple times, and though it’s off-screen, it looks painful. Someone was about to have their foot cut off, had another character not intervened. It’s not much – this isn’t H.G. Lewis, and related, this was in black-and-white – but there’s a bit here that was encouraging.

Like I said, the story wasn’t really for me, but I did sort of like the vibe of this one. It felt a decent amount different from many other films I’ve seen in the late 1960’s, and again, the addition of some emotional material from Chaney Jr.’s character was a pleasant surprise.

I don’t think Spider Baby or, the Maddest Story Ever Told is ever a movie I will love, but it is a decent movie, and is worth watching for something a bit different.

7.5/10