Tag: horror movies

The Friday Night Horror Movie: Final Destination 2 (2003)

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In the first Final Destination, a group of teenagers board a plane for a fun trip to Paris. One of them falls asleep and has a premonition that the plane is gonna explode mid-air. He, a teacher, and a few other friends get the heck off the plane, and sure enough, it does explode. Then the survivors slowly get picked off in increasingly ridiculous Rube Goldberg-esque death traps because Death is mad they escaped his grasp the first time.

Final Destination 2 is basically the same film but with less melodrama and better deaths.

Exactly one year after the plane explosion in the first movie, Kimberly Corman (A.J. Cook) heads out for a Spring Break holiday with three of her friends. Just before she pulls onto the highway she has a premonition of a massive, deadly, pile-up on that highway (we see it too and it is the best scene in the movie). Freaked out she decides not to pull out. Moments later that accident does occur.

Knowing the story from the first movie, Kimberly is now afraid that those she saved are now being stalked by death. Knowing this is a movie, we now anxiously await those deaths.

Most of them are top-notch. The film does an amazing job of setting up a scene, showing us multiple possible ways a character could die then finding ways to surprise us. It is terrific fun.

It is less fun when it is giving us exposition. At least twice in the first twenty minutes, characters explain to us the setup of the movie (by explaining the plot of the first movie, which presumably the majority of folks watching the sequel have already seen.) Between kills the characters discuss what they need to do in order to survive.

Clear Rivers (Ali Larter, first billed but who doesn’t show up until a good 30 minutes into this 90-minute movie), the Final Girl of the first movie, has been living in a psych ward (padded cells seem safer than the real world) is brought out for helpful advice (and explain the rules of this movie).

There is less exposition in this one than in the first film, and it is cleaner and faster, but still kind of a drag. The death scenes work best when they seem to be freaks of nature rather than supernatural in nature. The early ones are the best, by the end Death (always invisible) starts moving things on his own which is a lot less fun than random crap killing the characters.

None of the characters are particularly well-developed, but honestly, who cares? You come to these films for the intricate death scenes and this one delivers on that front incredibly well.

Bring Out the Perverts: Torso (1973)

torso movie poster

I’m not sure how the Criterion Channel decided to organize their list of Giallos. It certainly isn’t chronological, and I can’t see any sort of thematic relevance. But we have definitely entered into the sleazy section of the list. By their very nature – black-gloved, knife-wielding maniac stalks and murders beautiful, young women – all Gialli are at least somewhat sleazy. But some definitely lean into that aspect of the genre.

Torso is not the sleaziest Giallo I’ve ever seen (that award goes to Strip Nude For Your Killer which is on the list and will be reviewed soon) but it certainly has plenty of gratuitous sex, nudity, and violence.

In the Italian city of Perugia, someone is strangling and then mutilating women from the local university. Terrified, four students take off for the weekend to an isolated villa that sits on top of a tall cliff overlooking a small village. Naturally, the killer follows them there and now they have nowhere to run.

But first, the two lesbians have to do a little sexing, and everybody must lounge around in skimpy lingerie. The violence ratchets up until our Final Girl is stuck inside the villa watching the killer literally make torsos out of his victims.

But Sergio Martino is too good a director to let this slip completely into sleaze. The mystery is well done (even if I did guess who the killer was early on). There are lots of red herrings and the kills are gruesome, but interesting and effective.

It is definitely not the first film I’d recommend to people looking to dive into the genre, but it is definitely not one I’d say you should avoid.

31 Days of Horror: The Invisible Woman (1940)

the invisible woman poster

The original The Invisible Man (1933) is a classic Universal Horror picture. It was followed by a sequel, The Invisible Man Returns in 1940. The sequel stays pretty close to the original in that it is a serious dramatic film with horror undertones. It is also very much a sequel in the sense that one of the characters is the brother of the original film’s Invisible Man and the plot follows it chronologically.

The Invisible Man Returns was a success and so Universal immediately put a third film into production, also releasing it in 1940. But it is a sequel in name only. None of the plot has anything to do with the first two films and the characters are unrelated. Gone, too is the serious tone of the first films and instead, this plays as a very broad comedy.

Professor Gibbs (John Barrymore) has created an invisibility potion but he needs a human test subject to make sure it works. Naturally, he puts an ad in that paper (as one does) and Kitty Carroll (Virginia Bruce) answers the call. She’s less interested in scientific progress and more interested in being able to give her sexist, slave-driving boss a good kick in the pants without being fired. The experiment works, Kitty turns invisible and she gives her boss a literal kick in the pants whilst making him understand he needs to treat his employees better.

Meanwhile, a gang of criminal stooges (including one real-life Stooge – Shemp Howard) have learned about this invisibility experiment and decide to steal it for their boss who is stuck hiding out in Mexico. They steal the invisibility machine but don’t understand how to make it work. They try it on the biggest, meanest stooge and only manage to make him speak in a high-pitched voice.

Hilarity ensues whilst our heroes save the day. Because this is The Invisible Woman and one must remove your clothing in order to be fully invisible there are quite a few 1940s-era jokes about how unseemly the whole thing is. The film is full of jokes you could sit around with your grandfather laughing about. It is a light, forgettable, but more or less enjoyable film. But I did find myself hoping the next film would take itself more seriously.

31 Days of Horror: The Phantom of the Opera (1962)

phantom of the opera hammer horror poster

Hammer Studios became well known for their horror output. This is mostly due to the way they remade all the classic Universal Monster movies – Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy, etc., though they did make a great deal of other films, some of which were not horror-related at all.

In 1962 they adapted another famous horror story, The Phantom of the Opera, with mixed results. The Gaston Leroux book has been adapted numerous times and, of course, was turned into a Broadway Musical. I loved the book, and have seen at least a couple of those cinematic adaptations (though I’ve never seen any version of the musical, much to my wife’s surprise.)

Directed by Hammer stalwart Terrence Fischer the action is moved from Paris to London. Quite a few other things have been changed as well, but my memory is too faulty to lock those down for you.

The basics are the same. A pretty opera singer named Christine (Heather Sears) gets a chance to sing the lead in a brand-new opera. Producer Harry Hunter (Edward de Souza) takes a liking to her. Meanwhile, the Phantom (Herbert Lom) keeps causing problems.

There is a different backstory for the Phantom and Harry takes a much more active role and is more of a hero here. The Phantom spends a great deal of time training Christine to be a better singer than she already is. The real villain in this story is Lord Ambrose D’Arcy (a wonderful Michael Gough) who stole the opera from the Phantom (which we see in a flashback). And most of the really horrible things the Phantom usually does is given to a henchman to do.

All of this is fine, if a bit staid and clunky. The story never has any real oomph to it, and the ending is a dud. Lom is good and the sets have that usual Hammer charm to them. There are definitely better adaptations of the story than this one, but if you are a Hammer aficionado then you’ll probably like this just fine.

31 Days of Horror: The Retaliators (2022)

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My goal for 31 Days of Horror is to write about a horror movie at least once a day. Honestly, my goal for the blog is to write something every day, but this is especially true during Horror Month.

But sometimes (or maybe even often) life gets in the way. I have work, a family, and another blog to run, and I just don’t always have the time or the energy to review something.

So it is tonight. Work was long and full of sawdust in the face. We decided to run to a nearby (relatively larger) town to look for a manga for my daughter and then we had supper. Now I’m home, in my pajamas, and too tired to come up with actual thoughts about a movie.

Luckily, I still have loads of reviews I’ve written for Cinema Sentries and not posted on this site. Some of those reviews are for horror movies. And here we are.

I barely remember watching The Retaliators. In my review, I can see I didn’t much like it. The film follows a man of the cloth and his crisis of faith. Also zombies. You can read my full thoughts here.

Bring Out the Perverts: Who Saw Her Die? (1972)

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I’ve seen all but one of the Giallos on the Criterion Channel. That is to say almost all of the films that will make up this series. I own quite a few of them on Blu-ray and reviewed most of them for Cinema Sentries. I’ve enjoyed rewatching these films thus far and writing new reviews. It is fun to read the old reviews and think about how my opinions have changed.

The thing with Who Saw Her Die? is that my opinion has stayed pretty much the same. Reading over my review from 2019 I find myself nodding along, pretty much completely agreeing with my thoughts from back then.

So what do I have to say about it now? Not much, really.

Like a lot of Italian films from this period, the actors all spoke whatever language came naturally while they were on the stage and then their voices were dubbed in post-production. They created two soundtracks for the film – one in English, one in Italian. In the English dub star George Lazenby used his own voice. In the Italian version, some Italian actor spoke his lines.

The Arrow Video Blu-ray has both soundtracks. I previously watched the English track. Criterion only has the Italian one. Lazenby once played James Bond. It was weird watching him act but hearing someone else’s voice come out of his mouth.

That really affected my view of his performance. In my review, I praised his acting, this time around I was less impressed.

The plot is pretty standard-issue Giallo. The visuals aren’t all that stylish, and the kills are pretty tame. But it does look lovely. It uses the Venice setting wonderfully and has that warm feel that only an excellent film and a good cinematographer can provide.

I’m making it sound worse than it is. It’s really fine. The mystery is interesting, and it has a good collection of weird characters. There are perhaps a few too many of them, and the plot gets a little too complicated, but it is still enjoyable to watch.

And that Ennio Morricone score is wild.

31 Days of Horror: Mimic (1997)

mimic poster

There is a cockroach infestation in New York City. Well, I guess there has always been a cockroach infestation in New York City, but this time they are carrying with them some kind of terrible disease that’s killing children. Our hero, Dr. Susan Tyler (Mira Sorvino) is a bug scientist and she’s genetically mutated a superbug that’s a cross between a mantis and a termite that will eradicate the cockroach problem.

It has been engineered into sterility and thus it will die out in one generation and everything is groovy. Except, of course, it isn’t. The bugs don’t die out but rather breed at an exceptional rate, undergoing multiple mutations. Three years later they’ve turned into the kind of nightmare fuel only Guillermo del Toro could create.

There is nothing particularly new or inventive about Mimic, we’ve seen this type of film a thousand times from 1950s monster movies to Alien and its countless ripoffs. But del Toro is too good a director not to make it interesting. He’s such a wonderful visual stylist that he’s turned what could be another hacky, schlocky, forgettable b-picture into something really quite good.

Much of the film is set underground, in the bowels of the city’s sewers and forgotten subway systems. This gives the film a claustrophobic feeling, while also enabling the characters freedom to run. In a similar manner the film is often quite dark and full of shadows, but but he allows light to creep in through grates and lanterns so that you can always see what you need to see.

The creature designs are great and there is a lot of slimy, disgusting goop. The characters are pretty basic but well done and well acted. Charles S. Dutton plays a subway cop who gets to yell and scream about how crazy everything is. Josh Brolin is a goofy scientist guy and F. Murray Abraham shows up at some point as Dr. Tyler’s mentor.

It is a big, dumb horror film that knows it’s a big dumb horror film and doesn’t care. With del Torro at the helm, it becomes one of the best big dumb horror films I’ve seen in a while.

31 Days of Horror: The Invisible Man Returns (1940)

the invisible man returns poster

It wouldn’t be a proper 31 Days of Horror unless I watched at least one classic Universal Horror picture. I have a lovely boxed-set collection of most of the classic Universal Monster movies so I like to whip it out periodically through spooky season.

Over the last few years I’ve made my way through most of these films, and the many sequels, but I’d only ever watched the original The Invisible Man. So I was excited to start working on its sequels.

The Invisible Man Returns takes place sometime after the original film. Since the main character (spoiler!) died in that film they couldn’t bring him back (or Claude Rains who played him) so they have to make do with his brother Dr. Frank Griffin (John Sutton) but he isn’t really our main character. That would be Geoffrey Radcliffe (Vincent Price – who spends almost the entire film wrapped up in bandages or invisible) a man sentenced to hang for a crime he didn’t commit.

Naturally, Dr. Griffin sneaks in some good old invisibility liquid into the prison and helps Geoffrey escape. The catch, of course, is that there is no cure for the invisibility potion once you’ve taken it. And sooner than later it will turn you into a crazy, murderous nutter. Griffin works tirelessly on making the antidote while Geoffrey gets into various invisible misadventures.

With an 80-minute runtime, The Invisible Man Returns moves at a pretty fast clip. There isn’t much to it, really, and the story never goes anywhere particularly interesting. But the special effects are terrific. So many times I kept looking at what they were doing and wondered how in the world they pulled it off in 1940.

It is worth watching just for that.

31 Days of Horror: The Grudge (2004)

the grudge poster

I didn’t really mean for this year’s 31 Days of Horror to become a Ju-On festival, but here we are. Each year I try and work my way through at least one horror franchise. There is something fun, I think, about watching every single movie in a series, even when they get rather ridiculous towards the end.

But again, I didn’t really plan on Ju-On being the franchise I watched this year. Admittedly, I’m only three films into what is really a rather extended franchise so I may not make it all the way through, especially since I’m already growing tired of it. But three films is more than I had planned so we’ll see how it goes.

Because Americans can’t read subtitles popular foreign language films are often remade by American studios. This was very much the case with the J-Horror craze of the early 2000s. Numerous Japanese films got American remakes. Some of them were actually pretty good.

Some of them weren’t. As is the case with The Grudge. Directed by Takashi Shimizu, who created the entire Ju-On series and directed quite a few of them, The Grudge sticks pretty close to the plot of Ju-On: The Grudge, but with a lot of Americanizations.

Almost all of the main characters are American and they all speak English. The plot retains the same sort-of disjointed chronology, but here it is easier to follow. It helps that they’ve given one character more of a through-line allowing us to follow her through the film’s timeline.

Most of the big horror sequences are the same in both films, though I’d give the scary edge to the Japanese versions (though that may be because I watched it first.) The American remake has a much bigger, more bombastic finale. The American version is much slicker as well.

I wonder what my feelings on this one would be if I’d never seen the Japanese original before, or if I’d seen it after I’d watched this one. With this type of thing, there is always a feeling that the first one you watched is better, kind of like how the first version of a song you hear is always the best.

Sarah Michelle Gellar plays Karen Davis an American foreign exchange student. She volunteers for a care center and she becomes tasked with visiting an elderly woman who needs regular care because the normal caretaker has not shown up to work.

She’s basically the same character from the first film who is tasked with the same job. Like in the original, she finds the old lady nearly comatose and the house a mess. Ditto the closet with the tape all around it and inside a cat and then a creepy boy.

The film sticks with her more, giving us that through line. We get flashbacks to the parents of that old lady (William Mapother and Clea Duvall) and to the original murdered family (featuring a brief performance by Bill Pullman).

If you’ve seen the original there isn’t much need to watch this one. But if you haven’t seen it then I suppose this is a perfectly good watch. Like I say it is hard for me to judge which one is “better” because they are so similar, but I’m gonna give the edge to the Japanese version. It feels much creepier and scary to me.

31 Days of Horror: House of the Long Shadows (1983)

house of the long shadows

I’ve talked about Hammer Horror numerous times in these pages. Clearly, I’m a great fan and one of the things that makes me a fan is the actors the studio used over and over again – namely Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. Those two actors make even the silliest, most ridiculous films worth watching. I don’t think Vincent Price ever made a picture for Hammer Studios, but he was starring in a lot of similar horror films around the same time. I feel the same way about him as I do about Cushing and Lee. Adoration is the word.

Put the three of them into a film together and let’s just say you have hit my horror sweet spot. It is then tough to admit that the final results of House of the Long Shadows just aren’t very good.

The setup is intriguing enough. Kenneth Magee (Desi Arnaz, Jr.) a successful young writer who is only in it for the money bets his publisher that he can write a novel of the caliber of Wuthering Heights in less than 24 hours. He only needs a secluded and quiet spot in which to do the writing. The publisher just so happens to know a manor in the Welsch countryside that will do just nicely. Upon arriving he finds the manor not so much quiet and empty as crowded with an eclectic and possibly insane, and murderous collection of weirdos (guess who plays those guys?)

But the film takes entirely too long to get going. We spend a while with the setup, with Kenneth and his publisher working out the details of the bet. Then there is a long drive (through a dark, stormy night of course) to get to the manor. We stop off at a train station to ask for directions where some strange things occur (all to establish mood of course). Then he finally arrives at the manor and it still takes far too long for everybody to be introduced. Christopher Lee doesn’t show up until 49 minutes after the opening credits.

Oftentimes the film seems to be winking at the audience as if to say “Isn’t it so cool we have all these horror legends in one place?” This is especially true at the end when it pulls a bit of a trick switch on the audience. But the film isn’t a comedy, there aren’t any jokes. It plays it all straight, but just with a slight knowing smile. As such I couldn’t take it particularly seriously, but neither was it fun to watch.

The actors, too, seem a bit bored. In the IMDB trivia, it notes that John Carradine (another great horror actor from the period) fell asleep during one of the scenes. From what’s on the screen it feels like he slept through most of them. Peter Cushing’s performance is limp. Part of that is the way the character is written and part of it is most likely Cushing was in ill health at the time. But none of the main characters give their best performances. Dezi Arnaz, Jr. is way out of his depth.

It is not that it is a terrible film for there are a few moments of interest, and it is wonderful to see those three actors working together, but it is a disappointing one. With those actors you want the film to be memorable. Instead, in a week I won’t remember I’ve seen this at all.