GhoulieJoe

‘The Vault of Horror’: Feast Your Peepers on This, Boils and Ghouls!

Based on the comic book series from the ‘50s (it was like Tales from the Crypt, only hosted by the Vaultkeeper rather than the Cryptkeeper—though both were mined for episodes of the TV show). Done as an anthology, the wraparound story involves five gents meeting and discussing their strange dreams. In “Midnight Mess,” Harold (Daniel Massey), who murdered his sister for her inheritance (gee, I wonder why his parents didn’t leave him anything), accidentally dines in a restaurant for vampires. “The Neat Job” features married couple Arthur (Terry-Thomas) and Eleanor (Glynis Johns), who experience a deadly amount of tension when Eleanor can’t keep the house tidy enough. “This Trick’ll Kill You” shows a husband (Curd Jürgens) and wife (Dawn Addams) magic act looking for new tricks in India; they get more than they bargained for when they kill a young woman (Jasmina Hilton) for her enchanted rope. “Bargain in Death” deals with Maitland (Michael Craig), who is about to be buried alive for the insurance money. “Drawn and Quartered” concerns artist Moore (Tom Baker), who comes home from Haiti with the power to kill his enemies with art.

vault3 — “I love solving problems with violence rather than my wits! This is great!”

I must be spoiled by modern movies that attempt to scare in the first scene, because the opening with the men boarding an elevator bored me. The main cast is composed of middle-aged to elderly British men, who reminded me of that scene in Mary Poppins with the group of crotchety old bankers. Glynis Johns doesn’t help. The action does pick up when the fellows stop harrumphing and start storytelling, and I grew to like the movie. The acting is decent, the special effects are about what you’d expect from the ‘70s, and it’s fairly original.

vault2 — This is also about what you’d expect from the ’70s

Five segments sounds like a lot, but none are longer than twenty minutes. Like the stories they’re adapted from (which averaged about seven pages each) they’re short without feeling rushed or undeveloped. Probably because they all have the same basic storyline: a person does something terrible, usually for money, and karma strikes back with a vengeance. What’s to develop? But after all, one doesn’t read or watch The Vault of Horror for depth—it’s all about the imaginative way a baddie meets his or her doom.

vault4 — This one seems less imaginative

As may be ascertained, I am a fan of the comics, and was excited to find out there was a Vault of Horror movie. I was not disappointed with what I saw. Somehow an English movie from the ‘70s manages to keep the spirit of an American ‘50s comic book. The only thing missing is the Vaultkeeper. Check it out if you love horror anthologies or corny old comic books. Hee hee hee!

‘The Vampire Lovers’: Homophobic, but Undeniably Hot

Hammer/American International film. Marcilla (Ingrid Pitt) is a deadly vampire intent on wooing and feasting on virgin daughters, namely Laura (Pippa Steel) and Emma (Madeline Smith). She has a bit too much to eat and her victims’ daddies General von Spielsdorf (Peter Cushing) and Morton (George Cole), along with vampire hunter Baron Hartog (Douglas Wilmer), come looking for her blood.

Maybe it’s the period costumes, but to me the film doesn’t feel exploitative or trashy in its depiction of a lesbian vampire. Sure she gets naked, sure there’s a scene when she and Emma cavort topless, but the film also focuses on her relationships with Laura and Emma. It’s kinda sweet, in a destructive way. They sure don’t seem to mind Marcilla kissing them and biting their boobs.

I don’t envy the gay women of the ‘70s; movies where women kiss and look at each other with openly wanting expressions were few and far between. Being a queer of my generation (I was born in the early ‘80s), I can find it amusing that Marcilla’s victims are having nightmares about giant pussies (ahem, cats, that is). I can also laugh at the scene when Marcilla is reading to Emma: “Pulling her gently towards him, he showered her sweet upturned face with manly kisses. [Marcilla stops reading.] This is a silly book.” Unfortunately, the lesson here seems to be that being gay is best left to monsters, who belong dead. One assumes Emma will marry handsome Carl (Jon Finch) and forget about her vampire lover.

I’m not a big Hammer fan; most of their films are period pieces, which come off to me as dry and humorless. I make an exception for The Vampire Lovers. Give it a look if you’re in the mood for a classic. A sexy, sexy classic.

‘Valentine’: Super Original! In That It Manages to Vilify Men and Women Equally and Simultaneously

Due to an incident of snobbery in high school, five friends: Paige the sexy one (Denise Richards), Kate the popular one (Marley Shelton), Shelley the brainy one (Katherine Heigl), Lily the fun one (Jessica Cauffiel), and Dorothy the fat one (Jessica Capshaw) (Dorothy’s adjectives, not mine) are being stalked and killed by a psycho in a Cupid mask. Apparently Jeremy, the well-meaning but off-putting boy they all refused to dance with at the prom, is harboring a grudge, exacerbated by the fact that one of the girls lied and said he attacked her, leading to his subsequent stints in reform school, juvenile hall, and a mental hospital. Or is it someone else committing the murders, like Kate’s creepy neighbor, or Kate’s creepy boyfriend Adam (David Boreanaz), or the creepy detective investigating Shelley’s death (Fulvio Cecere), or one of many random creepy guys the ladies encounter?

Valentine was not well received by critics, and I can see why. It’s needlessly violent, with random people being killed for seemingly no reason—for example, why kill Dorothy’s maid? Obnoxious characters pop up just begging to be offed. Then there’s the question of whether or not being a jerk in high school justifies being slaughtered in adulthood. Furthermore, there are plot holes like how Shelley, hiding from the killer, is able to zip up a body bag from the inside. In addition, it resembles many other slashers in that it features a masked villain killing on the anniversary of a holiday when something pissed him off. Lastly, all the female leads are stuck-up and nigh intolerable. The male characters are little better; they’re all either sleazy or stabby.

Despite its weak points, the film also has things to say, like suggesting that no one can escape his or her past. The killer is the most obvious case, being so stuck in his youth that he’s murdering people that embarrassed him, but the main characters are still living out the roles that were assigned to them in high school. Then there is an interesting take on the dating world: it sucks for women. The main characters are all perpetually looking for a good boyfriend, and there seems to be none; Shelley goes on a date with an egomaniac who talks about himself in the third person, Adam is an alcoholic, Paige’s date only wants one thing, Dorothy’s boyfriend is out for her money, and Lily’s boyfriend tries to engage her in a three-way without her permission. The ladies also try video dating and speed-dating, and still come up empty-handed. The message seems to be that it’s dangerous to trust a strange man. In one scene, the ladies attend a Valentine’s Day art gallery showing that symbolizes the dating scene for them: the women are separated and led into a hall of televisions showing leering eyes, with a creepy dismembered voice saying, “Love me.”

I do like the eerie Cupid mask and the wacky valentines each woman gets: “Roses are red/Violets are blue/They’ll need dental records to identify you!” The trivia on IMDB includes some neat ideas about foreshadowing–but they’re spoilers, so be warned. I think it’s worth at least a look—check it out if you wish Carrie had been a guy, had no telekinetic powers, and waited a really long time to get revenge. At least watch the trailer, it’s probably better than the movie.

Mary Lambert’s ‘Urban Legends: Bloody Mary’: Pillow Fights, Gore, Plot Holes, and More Gore!

It’s 1969, and unpopular Mary (Lillith Fields) is going to the dance with popular jock Willy (Daniel B. Culmer). Unfortunately it’s all part of a prank, the idea being to drug Mary and two of her friends, then ditch them. Further unfortunately, Willy ends up knocking her out, then stuffing her in a trunk and leaving her for dead. Flash forward to 2005. Samantha (Kate Mara) and her friends at the school newspaper have just published a less than flattering article about the football team, complete with embarrassing photo. So three players and one of their girlfriends kidnap the girls, drug them with Rohypnol, and ditch them. Mary comes back to teach the bullies a lesson by urban legend, with methods as gruesome as they are impossible. Samantha and her brother David (Robert Vito) figure out what’s going on, and with the help of Mary’s old friend Grace (Tina Lifford), find out that the only way to stop Mary is to find her corpse and bury it.

I like the film, but it’s problematic. To begin with, it’s not really explained why Mary goes after the contemporary pranksters; why not pursue the guys who were mean to her? And how does she even know who her victims are—does she get the school newspaper delivered to her trunk? And why use urban legends? If she were more like the mythical Bloody Mary, then maybe that would make sense. But she’s just a vengeful ghost that happens to be named Mary. Furthermore, as an urban legend nerd I must point out that most of the legends she copies originated after she died in 1969 (thank you, Encyclopedia of Urban Legends)—but maybe she gets press newspapers delivered to her trunk, too.

urb5 — The “ghosts are real as fuck” face

Then there are the urban legends themselves. Most of the good ones have been used by the first two films in the series, so the ones in this movie leave something to be desired. They use “The Licked Hand” (the one when the girl thinks her pet dog is licking her fingers only to later find out that her dog is dead and a crazy guy was licking her hand). The story is creepy as hell, and one of my favorites. But the person being licked in the story doesn’t die, so the guy in the movie has to have something extra happen that’s not even based on the legend. Then there’s the guy who dies in a tanning bed, which is based on the legend of the woman who cooks her insides from tanning too much; again, she doesn’t die (instantly), so the legend has to be embellished until it’s basically a rip-off of the tanning bed scene in I Still Know What You Did Last Summer. Also used is “The Spider Bite” (the one when spiders lay eggs in a girl’s face). That one is pretty close to the legend, made even more brutal and horrible by full-grown spiders rather than babies—it’s the most disturbing thing I’ve seen in a while. I just dislike that the scene involves the girl being gratuitously stripped to her frilly underthings.

Moving along, another gripe is that the antagonists aren’t evil per se. They play a prank; it’s hurtful and wrong, but do they really deserve to die horribly over it? They’re not like the standard high school bully characters that just beg for someone to come along and murder them. And then of course there’s the standard Black-Lady-Who-Explains-Everything character. At least she’s not in a subservient position this time.

urb3 — “Come on in, white kids. I’ve been expecting you.”

Despite my many complaints, they don’t ruin the film for me, and I don’t think the movie is terrible. The actors can act, the characters are fairly likable, and Mary is pretty creepy. The special effects are decent. Normally I whine when sequels don’t follow the plot-line or have anyone from the original film or change the title from singular to plural, but making the storyline supernatural gives the series (and even the vengeful ghost genre) a fresh twist. Give it a look if you’re in the mood for something silly but bloody. Watch for Rooney Mara (my favorite Mara) as Classroom Girl #1.

‘The Unborn’: Panties, Glorious Panties! And Lots of Upside Down Heads

Casey (Odette Annable) is a normal college student whose world is torn asunder when she starts having visions of a ghostly boy (Ethan Cutkosky). Her brown eyes are also gradually turning blue. With the help of Sassy Best Friend of Color Romy (Meagan Good), she finds out her grandmother Sofi (Jane Alexander) was a holocaust survivor who pissed off a dybbuk—a displaced spirit trying to rejoin the living by hijacking a body. So the dybbuk wants revenge on the family, and has set its sights on Casey, who, like her grandmother, had a twin who died (there’s an explanation about twins being a kind of living mirror). Her only hope is Rabbi Sendak (Gary Oldman) and an exorcism.

unb1 — Ironic that Gary Oldman plays a rabbi, given that five years down the road he’d make some shitty comments about how people getting pissed at Mel Gibson for being antisemitic should “take a fucking joke” and stop being so hypocritical because “we’ve all said those things.”

I thought I might have trouble taking the movie seriously on my second viewing, since I did when I saw it in the theatre. Thanks to the repeated line “Jumby wants to be born now,” all I could think of was the scene in Juno at the abortion clinic: “All babies want to get borned!” In addition, I get disgusted with filmmakers that exploit an ethnicity or culture to make a horror movie about white/nonsecular people reacting to it (Sassy Black Best Friends don’t count, as they are often victimized by it).

However, it’s not just your average dumb teen slasher. The creepiness starts right at the opening, with an upside-down-headed dog. Afterward, Barto’s ghost is pretty eerie, and so is a scene when Sofi’s acquaintance at her retirement home suddenly rotates his head 360 degrees and chases her. They look real—they’re not overly CGI’d. While Barto’s eyes are clearly digital, the rest of him is an actual little boy. Of course there are typical horror movie touches: sex equaling doom, a shower scene, Casey in her frilly underthings (even in the movie poster–I cropped her little booty out of the one I used for the featured image), and frequent (but this time not overly so) fake-outs. Overall, I give it high marks for originality, fairly comprehensible plot, and good performances. It has its moments. Give it a look if you’re in the mood for something a little different but formulaic enough to be comfortable.

unb4 — Look, it’s Idris Elba! I wonder what possessed him to be in this movie

‘They’: A Little Uneven, but Solidly Creepy

Julia (Laura Regan) is a psychology student working through childhood memories of night terrors. Her friend Billy (Jon Abrahams), who had a similar issue, kills himself in front of her, claiming the monsters they dreamed about have come back to get him. She becomes acquainted with Billy’s friends Terry (Dagmara Dominczyk) and Sam (Ethan Embry); together they conclude that Billy wasn’t delusional, and that the creatures marked them in childhood in order to capture and eat them later. Julia is left trying to unmark herself and escape, but she’s faced with a series of rolling blackouts.

All of the boogie-critter movies I’ve watched lately have been fairly similar in plot: light-avoiding childhood monsters return to plague adults. They is one of the higher-quality ones. It has a bit of depth and takes itself seriously. Also in its favor is the often hit-or-miss tactic of not immediately showing the monster, making the audience use its imagination—here, it works. The glimpses we get of They show them as completely CGI, but they’re satisfying anyway, as they’re only glimpses—we don’t have time to see how fake they look. (Take notes, Boogeyman.)

I read on IMDb that there were an unusual amount of writers, which would explain why Julia pulls out the thing that marked her, but the monsters are still able to track her down. Despite that, the writing is surprisingly solid and even somewhat original. The acting is decent, the characters are unspectacular but likable, the plot is fairly original for the sub-genre, and it’s clean of one-liners. (Though there is the question of why the monsters don’t just eat them as children, and Billy’s eye color change from childhood to adulthood.)

I saw this in the theatre with my friend Stacy, and when I got home my house was deserted and completely dark. After a ribbing from Stacy, I hurried up the driveway and quickly turned on a few lights. Give it a look if you’re a boogie-fan looking for a scare or two.

‘Theater of Blood’: Vincent Price, the One and Only (Plus Some Other People, I Guess)

Edward Lionheart (Vincent Price) is a mediocre stage actor who, upon being denied the Critics Circle Award, attempts suicide, is rescued by a bevy of homeless men, and plots an elaborate revenge on the nine critics who panned his performances. Since he refused to do anything but Shakespeare, the killings are copied from the Bard’s plays, in particular the ones Lionheart received bad reviews for. For example, a man is hacked to pieces like in Troilus and Cressida. It’s up to head critic Peregrine (Ian Hendry) and a pair of policemen to figure out his game and stop Lionheart before he, his daughter Edwina (Diana Rigg), and his mob of loony cohorts kill again.

The similarities to The Abominable Dr. Phibes are obvious. They’re both classy slasher movies that revel in Technicolor gore. Unlike Phibes, Theatre doesn’t have to work as hard to shoehorn in ways of killing people. The victims are also easier to dislike, for example the guy who is lured to Lionheart’s lair by Edwina pretending to be an actress needing a mentor; moments after she tells him his best friend died, he’s groping her thigh. Unlike the Phibes victims, the critics are grouped together at various points throughout the movie, and I found them all to be interchangeable stuffy old gents besides Miss Moon (Coral Browne).

Along with being highly campy, there’s a pretty big queer vibe going on. First and foremost there’s the stereotypical gay critic (Robert Morley) who is fed his prize poodles; his punishment from Titus Andronicus is described as: “A queen eats her children baked in a pie.”

the2 — “Ooh-ooh! Ooh-ooh! Ooh-ooh! Ooh-ooh! Where are my babies, eh? Daddy’s home! Ooh-ooh! Where are my doggie-woggies? Ooh. Come to daddy. I know where you are.”–actual quote

Then there’s Edwina, who spends much of her onscreen time passing as a man. (Though she is somewhat traditionally masculine, I can’t believe the first time I saw the movie I actually thought she was a guy.) There’s also the scene when Edward pretends to be Butch, the gay hairdresser. He calls Miss Moon’s guard “baby” and compliments her “dishy hair.”

the3 — Coral Browne was well-established as bisexual before she married Price after they met on the set. Price’s daughter Victoria suspected he was bisexual as well.

The movie often has a goofy, cheerful tone. There are even silly one-liners like “Pity. He didn’t have the stomach for it.” However, I still feel a little sad when I watch it. Vincent Price was a good actor (he did Shakespeare in real life), but he was best known as the nutty guy seeking revenge in ludicrous horror movies. The role of Edward Lionheart symbolizes his career in some ways. BUT from all accounts he loved it, he was great at it, and he had a ball doing it. And yes, the whole cast is great, not just him. Check it out if you’re in the mood for something funny, gory, and delightfully ’70s.

‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning’ is Not the Worst Prequel Ever

2006 prequel to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, opening in 1939 with the birth of little Tommy (AKA Leatherface), appropriately enough in a meat-packing plant. He’s promptly thrown in a dumpster and found by Luda Mae Hewitt (Marietta Marich); he’s then raised by Luda Mae and her husband Charlie (R. Lee Ermey). Thirty years later, brothers Eric (Matt Bomer) and Dean (Taylor Handley) with their girlfriends Chrissie (Jordana Brewster) and Bailey (Diora Baird) are on their way to enlist in the Army. Needless to say, they get stuck being dinner guests of a little Texas family instead.

tcm3 — ‘Just eight years to American Horror Story, just eight years to American Horror Story…’

Though predictably enough the film is extremely violent, there are quite a few moments that are played for laughs, some of which I actually found funny. Like Charlie parading around in the top half of a stolen sheriff’s uniform and boxers; Luda Mae says, “You really think you’re something in that outfit, don’t ya? Here’s your pants.” Then there’s the scene when they’re having people for dinner; Luda Mae drops a hand on the floor and says, “Don’t step on my fingers.”

tcm4 — Awww, he doesn’t mind helping with the housework

I once read an analysis of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (in the amazing book The Naked and the Undead: Evil and the Appeal of Horror by Cynthia Freeland—it’s out of print, but can still be found online to buy, hint hint) that relates it to the Vietnam War. This film takes that interpretation and runs with it, with multiple references to said war and movies about it. R. Lee Ermey is most famous for his role as a cruel drill sergeant in Full Metal Jacket.

“What is your major malfunction, numbnuts? Oh, right, I strangled you.”

There are also visual allusions to Apocalypse Now: one with Dean lying on a hotel bed under a spinning ceiling fan, and one of Eric’s head slowly rising from a pool. It gives the movie a bit of depth, saving it from being entirely gore for gore’s sake, as seen by such events as an exploding cow and a character getting caught in a bear trap.

An interesting thing about the movie is that it draws my sympathies to the Hewitt family rather than its victims. Dean is a coward, letting Eric take the fall for burning his draft card; Eric, actually re-enlisting, is way too excited to get back to Vietnam and kill people. Chrissy and Bailey are personality-deficient and seem to exist just as sex symbols. They’re all spoiled brats compared to the profoundly poor Hewitts; Luda Mae finds Tommy in the dumpster while looking for something to eat. Also, she and Charlie love Tommy; Charlie defends him, calling him “misunderstood.” Then again, Charlie is very cruel, even to his own family; he manipulates Tommy into doing his bidding, whether it’s kill innocent people or chop off Uncle Monty’s leg for no reason. However, I adore Ermey, so I’m still kind of on Charlie’s side. I’m not big on prequels, but it’s produced by Tobe Hooper and co-written by David J. Schow. Check it out if you want a brutal modern take on TCM.

‘Terror in the Aisles’: A Must-See for Horror Fans

Mid-80s documentary about horror, taking place at a theatre. Hosted by Donald Pleasence and Nancy Allen, it takes a serious look at the genre—with clips. Movies examined include When a Stranger Calls, Halloween, The Birds, Rosemary’s Baby, Night of the Living Dead, Carrie, Jaws, Poltergeist, Scanners, Psycho, Alien, and The Omen. Among ideas explored are horror as a cathartic experience, what makes horror so scary, and the notion of women as victims.

My major gripe about the film is that eventually it seemed like it was all clips and no analysis—particularly the montage of villains. My favorite part of the film was actually the commentary; the film is packed with dynamite quotes like, “It’s only a movie. But sooner or later, it’s time to go home.” “You can always close your eyes. But you can’t close your ears.” And my favorite, “A moonlight swim in the nude is definitely a bad idea.” I also loved the scene of Pleasence yelling at a villain on the movie screen: “Get him!” Give it a look if you’re in the mood for an amusing—but thoughtful—look at horror movies.

ter4 — Pleasence alone is worth the price of admission

‘The Tenant’: Sinister and Unpredictable

Trelkovsky (Roman Polanski, who also directed and co-adapted the screenplay) has just moved into a Paris apartment where the previous tenant, Simone (Dominique Poulange), threw herself out of the window. He sees a possible motive to her jump, as his neighbors are frighteningly erratic; they’re constantly accusing him of being noisy, which he isn’t, and his neighbor Madame Gaderian (Lila Kedrova) poops in the hallway. Also, odd events occur, such as when Trelkovsky finds a tooth in the wall; later one of his own teeth goes missing, only to turn up in the wall as well. The local café owners insist on treating him like Simone; they offer him Simone’s brand of cigarettes and not his, and try to serve him hot chocolate instead of the coffee he ordered. His behavior becomes increasingly unstable, as he suspects everyone around him is trying to make him into Simone and coerce him to kill himself.

The most wonderful thing about the film is its bizarreness. The building’s one bathroom, which is across the hall from the apartment, shows people—including Trelkovsky—staring in at Trelkovsky at all hours. It’s also pretty unnerving; the scene when Trelkovsky finds the tooth made #65 on Bravo’s 100 Scariest Movie Moments. The apartment building itself is creepy—it’s dark, cramped, and decrepit. Eeriest of all, throughout the film we’re left to wonder if Trelkovsky is delusional or if his neighbors and even the townspeople are in on a conspiracy. There’s a really disturbing scene when Trelkovsky sees his neighbors putting on a circus in the building’s courtyard, with Madame Gaderian and her daughter being ostracized and tormented…until they notice him watching, and they all turn on him. Without knowing what’s going to happen next or who to trust, we’re as paranoid as Trelkovsky.

Give it a look if you like Polanski–not as a person, eugh, but as an auteur–or unconventional movies.