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Hell House LLC III: Lake of Fire (2019)

Directed by Stephen Cognetti [Other horror films: Hell House LLC (2015), Hell House LLC II: The Abaddon Hotel (2018)]

The third installment of the Hell House LLC trilogy wasn’t too far removed from the previous two, which is a problem the second film shared also. Is it still an enjoyable slice of found footage horror? For the most part, yes, but while I like elements of the conclusion, I sort of wonder if things got a bit away from them at the end.

We of course get some fun and somewhat memorable characters. He didn’t really add that much to the story, but Harvey (Scott Richey) was fun, as was Jeff (Sam Kazzi). The character of Russell Wynn (played by Gabriel Chytry) was an interesting additional, and adds a little lore, in a way, that further connects the three films. The main woman here, played by Elizabeth Vermilyea, was decent, though didn’t really do anything that previous others in her role had done.

Upon originally finishing this, I thought it was a bit even with the second film, but giving myself a few days helped clear my head a bit, and I’ll say that it’s probably not quite as decent. I do think the finale here was ultimately better than the exposition of the second film, but at the same time, seeing the carnage wrought by the demons sort of loses a bit of impact, and the ending of the film, while interesting, wasn’t necessarily amazing.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: the first Hell House LLC was amazing. But did such a great found footage flick (and there aren’t really that many in the horror genre) really need two sequels? In some ways, it helped flesh out a few aspects that were left mysteriously unanswered in the first movie, but at the same time, I do think they went a tad overboard when it came to explanations. I appreciated what the conclusion of this one was going for, but I didn’t totally love it.

I’m not going to go as far as to say that the third installment of this series is bad – for found footage horror, it’s still decent. It’s just not that far removed from the first or second films, and with nothing to differentiate beyond that, I’m calling this movie around average.

7/10

Alien (1979)

Directed by Ridley Scott [Other horror films: Hannibal (2001), Alien: Covenant (2017)]

Perhaps one of the most popular horror films of all time, Alien is a very solid movie, perfectly capable of satisfying most viewers with it’s suspenseful and well-acted story.

It is a wee bit sluggish toward the beginning, but the story is set up nicely, which additionally works out due to the almost-entirely solid cast of the film (the only performance I didn’t love was Veronica Cartwright). The story is appropriately claustrophobic at times, and due to some good lighting and camera-work, there are some damn suspenseful scenes.

Like I said, pretty much every cast-member is worth watching. Ian Holm’s performance is perhaps my favorite of the bunch (especially given his interesting character), but Yaphet Kotto does great, as does John Hurt, Tom Skerritt, and Harry Dean Stanton. Sigourney Weaver, despite being the cast-member with the least acting experience (if you discount Bolaji Badejo, who played the alien), gave the strongest performance, and became a character (Ripley) that is well-respected inside and outside the horror community.

Another reason why this movie really worked would be the special effects, which were amazing. The titular alien really did seem a nightmarish organism at certain times (especially during both the air duct scene and the finale), and even the alien planet the crew landed on possessed a creepy vibe to it. And the face-hugger, with the acidic blood? Fantastic stuff.

All this said, unlike other classics of the genre, Alien isn’t a movie I really grew up on. I’ve seen it only once before, and back then, I didn’t even care much for it. Now, having seen it a second time, I definitely got a lot more enjoyment out of the film, but it comes nowhere close to movies such as Halloween or A Nightmare on Elm Street to me.

Still, this is a classic of the genre, and while nowhere near the first science-fiction/horror hybrid (It! The Terror from Beyond Space from 1958 comes to mind, and Invasion of the Body Snatchers two years before it), it’s definitely one of the most memorable, and is certainly worth a watch.

8.5/10

The Banana Splits Movie (2019)

Directed by Danishka Esterhazy [Other horror films: Slumber Party Massacre (2021)]

Tra-la-la la-la-la-la-la-la, tra-la-la-la-la-la-la-la

I didn’t go into this movie with high hopes, though I sort of knew what to expect. I’ve seen a lot of hype about this on Twitter, and read somewhat lukewarm reaction to it (which the current IMDb rating of 5/10 seems to bear out), and so I found it surprising that The Banana Splits Movie is one of the funnest films I’ve seen in awhile.

TAA-DAAA!!

This movie consistently cracked me up. It seems to me to be a mix of the video game Five Nights at Freddy’s (which I’ve played a handful of times in the past) and the new Child’s Play movie (robots going wild, anyone?).

Cast-wise, I don’t think The Banana Splits Movie does much wrong. It’s true that the main kid, played by Finlay Wojtak-Hissong, was a bit generic (though he does have a few touching scenes with Snorky), but the other young kid, Maria Nash, was amusingly snarky (snarky, not Snorky, for she has no trunk). Romeo Carere was funny as a burnout teen, and he has great dialogue with Naledi Majola (who I also particularly liked).

Kiroshan Naidoo and Celina Martin’s characters were a bit too odd for me to really get into, and Steve Lund played a complete dick, but Dani Kind did great as the mother, and got really kick-ass toward the end. Lastly, kudos to Richard White, who cracked me up with his role here.

There’s a lot of painful imagery in this movie, including a very unfun-looking broken finger (or perhaps multiple broken fingers), a guy sawed in half (TAA-DAA!), a dude getting ran over by a banana buggy, and perhaps my favorite sequence, a man who gets his arms and legs torn off in front of a bunch of children. Certainly, in this department, The Banana Splits Movie has a lot going for it.

I had a lot of fun with this, definitely more fun than I was expecting. The humor was present, but it was never too over-the-top, and under the outlandish imagery of giant animal robots going wild and killing people, trapping kids and forcing them to watch gruesome murders, the movie’s a lot darker than you might expect, especially with such a catchy song.

God bless Snorky, by the way. He’s the real MVP here.

Tra-la-la-la-la-la-la-la, tra-la-la-la-la-la-la.

8.5/10

This is one of the films covered by Fight Evil’s podcast. Listen below as Chucky (@ChuckyFE) and I discuss The Banana Splits Movie.

Howling II: Stirba – Werewolf Bitch (1985)

Directed by Philippe Mora [Other horror films: The Beast Within (1982), Howling III (1987), Communion (1989), I was a Communist Werewolf (2021)]

The first sequel to the 1981 film, commonly known as Howling II: Your Sister is a Werewolf (which, believe it or not, is actually more ridiculous than Stirba – Werewolf Bitch), has little value, but still provides silly entertainment. It’s not a movie that I’d want to see again any time soon, but it does possess a bit of charm.

I don’t want to give off the false impression, though, that the movie’s good. Were it not for Christopher Lee’s presence, I sort of doubt this movie would be worth mentioning at all. It’s interesting that Lee plays his character so straight in a movie that’s this wacky. That said, the movie’s not necessarily overtly comedic – I’m not entirely sure the funniest scene (the hotel check-in) was even meant to be a joke.

Which says quite a lot about this. The tone is far more hammy than the first movie (which, to remind you, I wasn’t a fan of either), and the spectacularly bad special effects during some of the scenes really make this one of those bad 80’s movies a group of friends might watch for the sole purpose of making fun of.

There were some special effects worth noting, though, mostly when it came to the gore – there were occasionally some good stabbings and the like, and a memorable scene in which a character’s eyes, under the evil influences of a wolf goddess, pop out. I’ll admit, I sort of thought that was cool.

The tone and occasionally-goofy effects aside, though, what hurts the movie most is the story. The idea of hunting down an evil leader of a werewolf group seems, to me, a close-to-impossible story to actually do well. Much of the movie was filmed in Czechoslovakia, which gives a more authentic feel to the film, but ultimately couldn’t improve the plot any.

As stated, Christopher Lee is about the only performance here of worth. I sort of liked Annie McEnroe, but her character made far too many idiotic mistakes. Still, she’s probably the second-best performance here. As for Reb Brown, Marsha Hunt, and Sybil Danning, they provide nothing but generally unnecessary nudity.

A few final notes – those cuts, those very comic book, silly cuts, seemed pretty pointless, as they added nothing to the movie but an additional negative quirk for people to smile in a befuddled manner at. And that song, seemingly one of the only songs they had (“In the pale, pale light/pale, pale, light of the moonglow”) started out being rather annoying, but honestly, after it was played for the third time, began growing on me.

The second Howling film is definitely worse than the first, which is a shame, as the first itself is below average. If you’re into ‘so-bad-it’s-good’ cinema, this movie may well appeal to you. I first saw this many years back (five, if not more), and I thought it was goofy then. I feel much the same now, and honestly, despite occasional hokey charm, I don’t know if this movie is worth it.

5/10

Haunt (2019)

Directed by Scott Beck [Other horror films: Nightlight (2015)] & Bryan Woods [Other horror films: Nightlight (2015)]

I really thought I was going to like this one a lot more than I eventually did. Haunt certainly had a lot of potential, and it truly was tense up to a point, and the build-up? Damn solid. But it really loses it’s thread during the second half of the film, and when all is said and done, I don’t think Haunt will be that memorable in the years to come.

What does Haunt get right? Well, the idea, while nowhere near original (House of Purgatory and Hell House LLC called, and [insert end of played out joke here]), did the extreme haunted house thing well. The spider hallways (fake spider webs with fake, and also real, spiders) freaked me out, the branding room was done nicely, that crawling area solidly claustrophobic, and the tension palpable.

Though the performances are somewhat forgettable come the ending of the movie, most of them do okay. Andrew Caldwell was decently amusing at times, though Will Brittain was really generic. I wasn’t really wowed with Schuyler Helford, Shazi Raja, or Lauryn Alisa McClain, but none of them were necessarily bad either. It’s Katie Stevens, as the main girl, who made the most impact, especially with the emotional sucker-punch that was the flashback, giving her character and situation (including an abusive ex-boyfriend) more depth. I wouldn’t even say she was amazing, but she was the most consistently solid cast member, in my view.

Where Haunt starts losing stream is with the perpetrators of the haunted house. I won’t, for the sake of spoiling things, delve much into this, but let’s just say where they go with the identity of these people leaves a hell of a lot to be desired. Also, what they do with Samuel Hunt’s character is lackluster. And the ending? Gorry, what an utter disappointment.

Keep the first half of the film, and change everything about the latter half, and Haunt is a good movie worth a few rewatches. But in the form they went with, Haunt has the sizzle but lacks the steak. It’s all hat and no cattle. It’s – okay, I’ve run out of idioms, but seriously, Haunt really could have been a pretty solid movie, but ultimately, I think it’ll end up being a forgettable flavor-of-the-week.

6.5/10

Haunt is one of the films covered on Fight Evil’s podcast on episode #21. Here’s a clip of Chucky (@ChuckyFE) and I discussing it.

Darkness Falls (2003)

Directed by Jonathan Liebesman [Other horror films: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning (2006), The Killing Room (2009)]

This strikes me as an utterly fruitless and unenjoyable film to watch, and only if one has nostalgic connections to this one could I see Darkness Falls being a movie one would willingly go back to.

The story behind Matilda Dixon is sort of cool (and reminds me, though it came out many years later, of Dead Silence), but everything else seemed very, very hollow, and honestly, I felt like little happened despite the film being eighty minutes or so long. At times, I was reminded of better movies such as Fear of the Dark (also from 2003), and some worse movies, like Alone in the Dark, or They, but the point is that this story, while possessing potential, felt utterly wasted.

Almost all of the performances here weren’t up to par for what I’d hope to see. Chaney Kley was terribly weak as the star, which could probably be explained by the fact that he didn’t really do that much before taking this role. It doesn’t help that his character didn’t seem fleshed out at all (which is true for most of these characters). Kley died at 34 years old back in 2007, which is a shame, as he never got the shot to make a big impact. I know that Lee Cormie was just a kid here, but his acting too is rather pitiful. Grant Piro’s character seemed good for nothing but extraordinarily weak comedic relief, and while not bad, Emma Caulfield didn’t much shine in this one either.

It’s somewhat hard to pinpoint exactly why not only I just don’t like this, but rather hate it. It felt far too tepid, too tame, and too shallow, with bad, Hollywood scares and a very bad story. The movie’s made worse by the fact that other movies from around the same time were so much better (Jeepers Creepers in 2001, which had a much better police headquarters take-down, or the aforementioned Fear of the Dark).

I don’t remember particularly caring for this one when I first saw it, but I also don’t remember disliking it as much as I do now. If you’ve a nostalgic connection to this shallow film, then perhaps it works out for you, but as for me, I found Darkness Falls a deeply tedious and tepid mess.

4/10

Child’s Play (2019)

Directed by Lars Klevberg [Other horror films: Polaroid (2019)]

This re-imaging of the classic 1988 film was, at times, pretty decent, but though I generally found it above average, I don’t think there’s really a whole lot to utterly love about this.

First off, as hard as I tried, I just couldn’t get use to the change in design of Chucky, most noticeably the face. I don’t think it was something that deeply took away from the film, but at the same time, I had a hard time getting the authentic Chucky feel when he was on-screen.

A big part of that too could be explained by the vastly different origin – instead of an insane serial killer trapped inside the body of a kid’s toy, this Chucky is basically a rogue program installed by a disgruntled employer (which isn’t much a spoiler, as that scene is how the film opens). Because of this change, Chucky was never ‘human’ here, instead feeling more like a robot attempting to understand how best to be the best friend he could be to Andy. Of course, this exploration doesn’t end well.

Though it wasn’t as distracting as I thought it’d be, I also wasn’t overly thrilled with the idea that Chucky was in control of not only himself, but of all the products this company linked into, such as hearing aids, televisions, drones, cars, etc. It really gets rid of the more personal feeling that I tend to expect from Chucky, though at the same time, it matches his drastically different origin well.

Many of the performances were perfectly acceptable. Aubrey Plaza certainly came across as a rather young mother, but it worked well. Brian Tyree Henry was pretty fun as a supporting cast member, though I sort of wish they did a bit more with him. I liked both Ty Consiglio and Beatrice Kitsos, and Kitsos was certainly the more memorable of the two, but I wish they had mattered more in the conclusion. As Andy, Gabriel Bateman was good. He was no Alex Vincent, but he was still good, and it’s always great to see Tim Matheson pop up, if only for a few minutes.

There was a solid kill here involving a heated pipe and a saw-blade, but the other kill with potential (lawnmower) was a bit on the dark side, and made it somewhat difficult to see everything. I did enjoy a somewhat jarring scene involving a head, so it certainly wasn’t all bad, but overall, I thought they could have done a lot more with the special effects and gore than what they did.

I’m somewhat hard-pressed to see how anyone could love this over the original film. There were certainly solid aspects about it, but it also lacked some of the scenes that made the original so great, such as the sequence in the asylum with Andy, or the scene in which his mother finds out that Chucky’s actually alive. Much of the film is serviceable, but it doesn’t really go beyond that for me.

I had a decent time watching this (it helps that by the time I saw this in theater, very few others were there to muddle the experience), and I do find it a bit above average, but I definitely don’t think the film’s great, and it sadly falls behind the original, along with at least three of it’s sequels (the second and third films, along with Curse).

7.5/10

On Fight Evil’s fifth podcast, Chucky (@ChuckyFE) and I covered this shortly following it’s release. Give it a listen below.

Due occhi diabolici (1990)

Directed by Dario Argento [Other horror films: L’uccello dalle piume di cristallo (1970), Il gatto a nove code (1971), 4 mosche di velluto grigio (1971), Profondo rosso (1975), Suspiria (1977), Inferno (1980), Tenebre (1982), Phenomena (1985), Opera (1987), Trauma (1993), La sindrome di Stendhal (1996), Il fantasma dell’opera (1998), Non ho sonno (2001), Il cartaio (2003), Ti piace Hitchcock? (2005), La terza madre (2007), Giallo (2009), Dracula 3D (2012), Occhiali neri (2022)] & George A. Romero [Other horror films: Night of the Living Dead (1968), Hungry Wives (1972), The Crazies (1973), The Amusement Park (1975), Martin (1976), Dawn of the Dead (1978), Creepshow (1982), Day of the Dead (1985), Monkey Shines (1988), The Dark Half (1993), Bruiser (2000), Land of the Dead (2005), Diary of the Dead (2007), Survival of the Dead (2009)]

Featuring two Edgar Allan Poe stories directed by two well-respected directors (George A. Romero and Dario Argento), I wish that I could like Two Evil Eyes (as it’s known here) more. As it is, the first story is really enjoyable, but Argento’s addition here just drags, and deeply pulls down my enjoyment of the film overall.

Directed by Romero, the first story is a pretty spooky idea, and has a rather classical feel to it. It felt like one of those stories you might see in a 70’s Amicus anthology (Tales from the Crypt, Vault of Horror, what-have-you), with a great feel for suspense and a solid conclusion.

Argento’s story, based off The Black Cat, just felt off, for lack of a better word. The last six minutes or so were pretty good, if only because it was moderately suspenseful, but the rest of the story just didn’t do it for me. It’s made worse by both the fact that it’s the longer of the two stories (about an hour and three minutes long as opposed to the first story’s fifty-five minutes) and almost none of the performances wowed me, and in fact, the main actor bothered me quite a bit.

The cast for the first story is so much better anyway. Starring Adrienne Barbeau (from such classics as The Fog and Creepshow) and Ramy Zada (who I know only from a segment in 1989’s After Midnight), who work rather well together, this story also has strong performances by Bingo O’Malley, Tom Atkins, and E.G. Marshall. O’Malley isn’t a name I’m familiar with, but Atkins was in such genre classics as The Fog, Halloween III: Season of the Witch, Night of the Creeps, and Maniac Cop, and was great to see here. E.G. Marshall hasn’t done much for the horror genre (in fact, this movie aside, he’s only been in two others, 1979’s television movie Vampire and a segment in Creepshow), but was amazing in the 1957 classic 12 Angry Men, and seeing him here was sort of a treat.

The second story, on the other hand, had just one performance I actually liked, being that of John Amos (who, along with being in the second Die Hard, was also in twenty or so episodes of The West Wing), who played a police detective. The star, Harvey Keitel (who I know mostly from Pulp Fiction), had a pretty weak performance here – his character didn’t really make much sense to me, and he seemed all over the place. Both Madeleine Potter and Sally Kirkland were in much the same vein, and I especially didn’t like Kirkland’s esoteric character.

Originally titled Due occhi diabolici (though the film’s in English, it’s an Italian production), Two Evil Eyes had a decent concept, but it didn’t work out, which is a shame. If I could rate the movie off the first story only, it’d be getting a pretty high rating. But as an overall package, Two Evil Eyes isn’t a movie I’d want to see again. My advice is to give the first story a watch, as it truly is pretty good, and just ignore the second.

5.5/10

The Swarm (1978)

Directed by Irwin Allen [Other horror films: N/A]

This two-and-a-half hour epic certainly feels like something unique, and despite some unnecessary sequences, I think the movie overall works out, which may be an unpopular opinion.

Very ecological in message (not dissimilar to films such as Night of the Lepus or Frogs), The Swarm boasts a strong epic feel and a very decent cast. The story isn’t necessarily special, but the almost procedural method the filmmakers employ set it apart from many other killer insect movies.

The cast here is pretty superb. I wouldn’t say that Michael Caine starring in this is the only reason to see the film, but I do think his incredibly strong presence here alone makes a good case for viewing this. Sometimes he’s a bit over-the-top, but he’s never boring. What makes his presence here better is that Caine, despite being very well-known, hasn’t been in many horror films (aside from this one, he’s been in maybe five others, such as Jaws: The Revenge and The Hand), so it’s great seeing an actor of his caliber starring here.

Richard Widmark, despite playing a somewhat unlikable character, stands out pretty well too. Like Caine, he had a strong personality, and it was fun to see where his character would go. I only know Richard Chamberlain from the Shogun mini-series, but he looks virtually identical here, and I enjoyed his character, though he didn’t get enough screen-time. Plenty of other names here stand out, such as Katharine Ross, Olivia de Havilland, Fred MacMurray, Slim Pickens, Cameron Mitchell, Morgan Paull, and perhaps most importantly, Henry Fonda.

The Swarm had some really great sequences, including an attack by bees on a small Texas community (the school scene, which reminded me a little of The Birds, stood out as particularly tragic), a rather thrilling train disaster, and the burning of Houston by the military via flamethrowers. Even toward the end, when a military base is under siege by both bees and fire, there’s a definite action feel to the scenes, and when this movie does well, it really does well.

The problem is that there are more than a few meanderings into the personal lives’ of characters who ultimately don’t really matter. It could be argued that these characters help bring a personal, human element to a film otherwise preoccupied with scientific and military efficacy, but they felt a bit too out-of-place and humorous in this otherwise somewhat bleak and somber story. The love-story involving MacMurray’s, Havilland’s, and one Ben Johnson’s characters didn’t enthrall me, though again, I sort of see the point. Also worth mentioning, there are a few hideously superimposed giant bees that pop up throughout the film that looked laughably bad.

The director of the film, Irwin Allen, played a big part in this movie carrying with it an almost-disaster movie feel, due to the fact he was a producer for classics such as The Towering Inferno and The Poseidon Adventure (neither of which I’ve seen, if truth be told). For a more genre-centric comparison, think the military portions of The Stand, and that’s a lot of what you have here. Luckily, most of it works out in a pretty suspenseful way.

Personally, I don’t find a lot wrong with the film, despite the fact that many have more than a few negative things to say about it. Maybe it’s because I’m a decent fan of Caine’s work, maybe it’s because I have a soft spot for bees (on a side-note, being allergic, I really don’t), but this ecological horror-action film is a fun movie, and if you can survive the two-and-a-half hours, hopefully you too will get something out of it. I just know I’ve seen this twice now, and I’ve not been disappointed.

8.5/10

The Amityville Horror (2005)

Directed by Andrew Douglas [Other horror films: N/A]

I won’t pretend to remember much about the original The Amityville Horror (it’s been quite some tifeme since I’ve seen it), but this remake, which I’ve also seen before, strikes me as almost entirely pedestrian despite a few solid sequences.

The movie’s certainly tense, no doubt about it. But movies before did it better (such as the classic Burnt Offerings), and this really adds nothing to the table, which is a shame, as there was a pretty good atmosphere perforating much of the movie.

However, it was held back by it’s utterly Hollywood style. The jump scares, the ghosts no one but the audience can see, the idiotic conclusion, the hideous flashes of ‘scary’ stuff, I hate that type of movie-making. Kids may eat it up, and it may sell tickets, but I’ve no interest in it.

There were some good scenes, though, such as the sequences that took place atop the house. The opening to the film, a flashback of an earlier slaughter, was moderately welcomed also. But then most of the other scares aren’t worth much, and good tension doesn’t erase the taste of an otherwise stale film.

If this remake has anything really going for it, I think it’s the decent acting of the lead, Ryan Reynolds. Throughout the film, he grows more and more unstable, culminating in a blood-less potential carnage. Jesse James (who I know best from 2003’s Fear of the Dark, a long-time favorite of mine) was also noticeable, but I don’t know if he, or really any of the kids, were that crucial to the story.

Honestly, while I really liked some of the scenes and ideas this was going for, it felt incredibly Hollywood, both tame and wrought with unnecessary jump scares meant purely for the audience. I don’t remember if I liked this when I first saw it, but I definitely see it as below average now.

5.5/10