Anthology horror movies have been pretty scarce nowadays but director Michael (the guy who wrote X-Men 2) Dougherty tries to shake things up with Trick ‘R Treat. Since
Basically what we have is a whole bunch of weirdness happening in a small town over the course of Halloween night. One psycho principal (Dylan Baker) poisons a kid’s candy and makes a jack o’ lantern out of his decapitated head. Later, he becomes a vampire and drinks some chick’s blood before getting turned into Lycanthrope Chow by a virgin werewolf (Anna Paquin). Meanwhile, a bunch of surly trick or treaters get terrorized by some zombie Shortbusers and a crazy old man (Brian Cox) is attacked by a murderous pumpkin-headed munchkin named Sam (Quinn Lord).
I think what separates Trick ‘R Treat from the usual crop of horror films is it’s willingness to be nasty and mean. More kids get mutilated and killed in this movie than any in horror history. All of this could’ve been disastrous, but Dougherty imbues the flick with a mischievous black humor that is perfectly befitting of All Hallow’s Eve. Dougherty effectively walks the line between horror and humor and in turn, creates one of the most original fright flicks in some time.
Trick ‘R Treat is not without it’s faults. Since the film features interlocking characters and storylines, a couple of scenes are repeated. This works to the flick’s disadvantage because some of the scares are telegraphed in advance. Ultimately, this is a minor quibble because there are still enough surprises here to make it worthwhile. In the era of pointless remakes and gratuitous sequels, Trick ‘R Treat is definitely a breath of fresh air.
Kwaidan gives us four Japanese ghost stories directed by Masaki (Samurai Rebellion) Kobayashi. Like most anthology horror movies, it is fairly uneven and at almost three hours, it runs on way too long. It still has enough moments of pure creepiness for me to give it a halfhearted recommendation.
The Black Hair (** ½) Tired of poverty, a samurai accepts a lord’s offer to marry his ugly daughter; even though it means that he’ll have to divorce his wife. Although the marriage gives him wealth and good standing in the community, he nevertheless pines for his ex. He eventually goes back to his first wife with deadly results.
The Black Hair is a slow-going affair that features very little dialogue and relies too much on the narrator to tell us what’s going on. The deliberate pacing is partially compensated for by some inspired camerawork though. While the twist ending is OK, it’s a bit one-note to really pack a punch. It’s also a bit disappointing given the story’s meticulous build-up.
The Woman of the Snow (***) Two woodcutters walking in a snowstorm take refuge in an abandoned shack. During the night, a pale-faced banshee kills one of the guys but spares the other dude’s life on the condition that he never tells anyone about her. He later winds up meeting a cute chick and they get married and have a family. Then he makes the unfortunate mistake about telling her about the banshee.
This story has the benefit of some effective imagery (Love those eyes in the sky!) and an overall creepy atmosphere. Too bad the ending is more than just a little predictable. Despite that, along with being a bit too similar to the previous story (a man wrongs a woman with tragic consequences), I still liked it quite a bit. This segment was later more or less remade as the gargoyle story in the Tales from the Darkside Movie.
Hoichi the Earless (***) A blind balladeer named Hoichi specializes in songs of war. One night he is visited by a ghost of a soldier who leads him to a cemetery where his dead brothers-in-arms demand to hear him sing about the battle they died in. Hoichi’s friends get worried that he spends all of his nights in a graveyard singing to ghosts so they hire a priest to paint magic spells all over his body to keep the spirits away. Unfortunately, the priest forgets to paint Hoichi’s ears and the ghosts rip them off.
Hoichi the Earless is the best story of the lot and is rife with stylish (almost theatrical) touches. The battle sequences are colorful and the scenes inside the graveyard are appropriately eerie. That said, it runs a bit long and has a few too many sluggish passages in between the cool stuff. The ending is still pretty tight though.
In a Cup of Tea (**) A guy reads an unfinished story about a feudal lord that is haunted by a face he sees in every cup of water he tries to drink. When he finally says “Fuck it” and drinks the water, the ghost comes out of the cup and messes with him. The story ends abruptly but then the guy reading it starts seeing faces in his water too.
The narrator tells us in the beginning of this story that some tales are left unfinished for one reason or another. Kobayashi should’ve kept this story unfinished and left it on the cutting room floor. While the concept of the face-in-the-water is sound, the decided lack of a decent ending winds up derailing this tale.
Kwaidan is a bit of a mixed bag. The film features some impeccable costumes and impressive sets and I admired the craftsmanship it took for Kobayashi to capture his vision on screen. However, this flick could’ve really benefited from some tighter editing (especially the first and third segments). If you don’t mind the staggering length, Kwaidan should still fit the bill for anyone who likes a good ghost story.
AKA: Kaidan. AKA: Ghost Stories. AKA: Hoichi the Earless. AKA: Weird Tales.
I've lost a lot of respect for TNT over the years. First they canceled MonsterVision with Joe Bob Briggs and then they tried to make everyone think that "We Know Drama" by showing a bunch of boring detective shows over and over again. While Nightmares and Dreamscapes, based on the works of Stephen King, isn’t great or anything, it’s a good sign that TNT were still in touch with their horror roots. Now I normally shy away from reviewing television series because I am and have always been a “movie guy”, but since I’m a huge King fan, I couldn’t resist giving you all my two cents worth.
What we got here is 8 episodes (only 5 are actually from the book, Nightmares and Dreamscapes). 2 of them are borderline brilliant, 2 of them are marginally entertaining, and the rest run the gamut from middling to downright shitty. If you’re a die hard King fan (like me), you’ve definitely seen worse adaptations.
BATTLEGROUND *** ½
Battleground (based on the short story found in King's Night Shift collection) centers around a hitman (William Hurt) who murders a toy manufacturer (Bruce Spence from Road Warrior). After completing his assignment, Hurt goes home to his luxurious apartment to find a mysterious box waiting for him. Inside is a bunch of green army men who come to life and declare war on the perplexed assassin.
This story was a lot of fun on the page and even more so here. Hurt is excellent as the brooding methodical killer who engages in a deadly game of cat-and-mouse with a bunch of toys. The scenes of him being pounded with tiny machinegun fire are hilarious and the scene in which he flushes a toy helicopter down the toilet is priceless. Director Brian Henson (son of Jim) films all of these scenes with a skilled panache that walks the tightrope between horror and humor nicely.
Unfortunately, Henson lets things run on a bit too long as Hurt's one-on-one battle with a Rambo-esque toy soldier wears out its welcome rather fast. Even though the tale slowly runs out of steam, it's still pretty irresistible. Hurt's badass performance alone makes it worth a look, but seeing an entire battalion of fighting green army men is pretty fucking cool too.
CROUCH END *
A thoroughly bland American couple move to
Stephen King is at his best when he's writing about what he knows; mostly writers running around
Everything about the story feels phony; from the couple's irritating banter, to the hubby's annoying overacting once he becomes "possessed", to the stupid looking filter they put over the camera to make things look "otherworldly". There's also a one-eyed cat monster and a shitty looking three-headed snake monster in there too for some damned reason. Oh, and if the "twist" ending doesn't make you go, "What the fuck?", then nothing will.
UMNEY'S LAST CASE ** ½
William H. Macy stars as a fictional 30's hardboiled detective who gets an unlikely visitor in the form of the author who created him (also Macy). You see, Macy (the writer that is) just lost his son and he's so stricken with grief that he wants to escape to the fictional world that he created. In order to do that though, he's got to write the detective out of the story so he can take his place.
This one started out with a lot of potential. Director Rob (Reign of Fire) Bowman really delivered an authentic 30's
What really makes Umney's Last Case worth a look is the excellent performance(s) by Macy. As the fast-talking detective, Macy is just flat out brilliant. He's so great that you'll wish somebody would put him in a remake of Boston Blackie or The Falcon ASAP. As the morose writer (who bears a more than striking resemblance to King), Macy doesn't fare quite as well, but at least it's fun seeing him play off himself. (Macy was so great in this that he was deservedly nominated for an Emmy for his roles.)
THE END OF THE WHOLE MESS *** ½
Henry (ET) Thomas stars as a super genius who thinks he has the cure to end of all humanities’ violent tendencies. His brother, Ron (Office Space) Livingston is skeptical about this harebrained scheme but grudgingly goes along with it. Predictably, the “cure” creates another disastrous worldwide epidemic.
The End of the Whole Mess uses the old device of having the narrator struggling to tell the story of the end of the world in under an hour while facing his own imminent death. What makes the episode (and the short story) engrossing is that it’s really less about the end of mankind and more about the two brothers. Both Livingston and Thomas give excellent performances and truly seem like brothers; something that most actors fail to pull off.
This tale also benefits from having people familiar with King’s universe behind the scenes. The screenplay was by Lawrence D. (Carrie) Cohen and it effectively updates King’s story (which was written in the 80’s) to modern times to reflect on today’s global paranoia. Director Mikael (the
THE ROAD VIRUS HEADS NORTH **
Tom (The Substitute) Berenger stars as a horror writer who learns that he has cancer of the ass. On the way home from the doctor’s office, he stops at a yard sale and buys a bizarre looking painting of a dude in a car. The closer he gets to his house, the more the painting changes, leaving a wake of dead bodies in its path.
The Road Virus Heads North is another case of a story that worked on the page that suffers from being stretched out to fit in an hour long time slot. Had this tale been kept around the half-hour mark, I think it could’ve worked. As it is, Road Virus is padded unmercifully with irritating dream sequences that get in the way of the plot and slows things down to a crawl. It also doesn’t help that said plot is nothing more than a lukewarm rehashing of something you’d see on Night Gallery. The complete non-ending doesn’t do it any favors either.
Berenger is pretty good but his overdone Bah-Stahn accent gets a little grating after awhile. A supremely Botoxed out Marsha Mason co-stars as his aunt and Susie (Attack of the Clones) Porter has the thankless role of Berenger’s spiritual trailer park ex-wife.
THE FIFTH QUARTER **
Die hard King fans know that The Master just doesn’t write strictly horror stories. Sometimes he dabbles in the crime genre. Such is the case with The Fifth Quarter. It’s neither a Nightmare nor a Dreamscape, and as a result, it’s just kinda bland.
The plot revolves around Jeremy (May) Sisto getting out of The Big House. Just after he bangs his wife; Samantha (The Punisher) Mathis, he gets a visit from his ex-cellmate who’s been shot in the gut who keeps blabbering about a treasure map. You see, he’s got a quarter of the map and three other scumbags have the other corners. After dying on Sisto’s living room rug, Jeremy goes after the other three dudes with the intention of A) Avenging the death of his buddy and B) finding the treasure.
The Fifth Quarter has all the ingredients to be a competent crime drama, yet it never really engaged me and left me feeling kinda cheated. There are no twists and turns you’d expect from a noir thriller and the ending doesn’t contain any surprise revelations. (Well… it does, but it’s just plain stupid.) The episode also lacks a decided amount of grittiness needed to make a crime thriller like this one work. Had the network censors not been present, perhaps director Rob Bowman (who also directed Umney’s Last Case earlier in the series) would’ve been able to make it all worth a damn. I doubt it though. The only bright spots are the well-rounded performances by the two leads, but they only help but so much.
AUTOPSY ROOM FOUR **
Richard (John Boy Walton) Thomas goes golfing and shags a ball into the rough. When he goes to retrieve it, he gets bitten by a snake and goes into paralysis. The doctors assume he’s dead and ship him off to the morgue. The attendants lay him up on the autopsy table and are THIS close to cutting into him but luckily, he gets a hard-on; letting them know he’s still alive.
Autopsy Room Four is more or less an updating of the old Poe standby of being buried alive. While the short story was mildly amusing, this adaptation leaves something to be desired. The biggest crime this segment commits is that’s it’s extremely padded out to meet the hour long time slot. A story like this one should’ve been short and sweet, but every blessed thing about Autopsy Room Four is drawn out to the breaking point. In lieu of suspense, the audience is treated with jokey stalling tactics and corny conveniences; and the eye-rolling happy ending doesn’t exactly do it any favors either. Even though Thomas (who also starred in another King adaptation, It) does a good job at playing a corpse, his voiceovers are annoyingly hammy, which also helps to defuse much of the would-be tension.
I will say that Greta Scacchi was looking damn fine as the main morgue attendant who almost vivisected Thomas. Although I haven’t seen a whole lot of her lately she still looked quite foxy to despite a few more wrinkles. (She was scrumptious in Shattered.) Jude Beamont, who plays Thomas’ wife, was a ripe looking tomato as well.
YOU KNOW THEY GOT A HELL OF A BAND ** ½
Part (OK, most) of the fun of this Stephen King series comes from seeing vets of previous King adaptations turning up to further their tour of duty in The Master’s universe. Case in point for this episode is Steven Weber; star of two other King television flicks, Desperation and The Shining. He’s pretty great in this one and his performance is easily the best thing about this installment.
While on a road trip with his wife, Kim (Project: Metalbeast) Delaney, Steven gets lost and refuses to ask for directions. Predictably, the couple winds up in the middle of nowhere. They come across a small 50’s style town populated by dead rock stars who want the clueless couple to stay for the big “show”; one that will last “a very long time”.
This episode really had a lot of potential. I mean c’mon, we all know Elvis is still alive, right? The fact that all the dead rock stars would abduct people and force them to listen to their greatest hits seems like the stuff of nightmares. Seriously, you can only hear “O Pretty Woman” so many times before you start inflicting self-mutilation. Ultimately, You Know They Got a Hell of a Band fails to live up to it’s initial premise and just sorta peters out at the end. It’s far from the worst episode of the lot, but it’s also one-note, hokey, and doesn’t really go anywhere. Also, a lot of the dead celebrities don’t resemble their intended incarnations (Elvis in particular); although William (Ringmaster) McNamara does a pretty mean Ricky Nelson impersonation. While I can’t quite go on the record and call this a “good” episode, whenever you get to see Janis Joplin puke up a bunch of maggots, it definitely qualifies as a curiosity peek at best.
The all star cast is the only thing worth a damn in this ho-hum horror anthology flick from producer Milton (The House That Dripped Blood) Subotsky. John Carradine stars in the wraparound segments (***) as horror writer Ronald Chetwyn-Hayes who meets a vampire played by Vincent Price that invites him to the titular club so he can recite a trio of extremely weak stories.
The Shadmock Story (**) is all about a lower tiered monster who falls in love with a con woman. When she fleeces him of his wealth, he gets pissed and whistles, which causes all of her flesh to burn off. This tale starts off fairly well and builds up steam accordingly but the final payoff is too abrupt to have much of an impact.
The Vampire Story (**) is a slightly comical tale about a wild-eyed vampire killer (Donald Pleasence) who is out to stake a well-to-do bloodsucker. Although Pleasence hams it up nicely in this segment, The Vampire Story is predictable as they come and the final “funny” twist made me groan pretty loudly. Still, Britt Ekland looked quite foxy as the vampire’s wife.
The Humegoo Story (*) is by far the worst of the lot and features Stuart (Ruby) Whitman as a horror movie director who gets trapped in a town of cannibals. Unlike the previous story, this segment is deadly serious in tone and the effect is quite jarring. Too bad it sucks nuts.
None of the stories in The Monster Club are very good but I did get a kick out of the scenes where Carradine and Price chew the scenery together. There’s also some not bad post-punk music played in the Club in between the tales that are a lot better than the stories themselves. The highlight though comes when a stripper dances in the Club and takes EVERYTHING off. If The Monster Club had more fun moments like this one; it might’ve been a worthy heir to Subotsky’s Tales from the Crypt. Mostly though, it’s just a pitiful waste of a great cast.
Amicus Films' Dr. Terror's House of Horrors was such a big success that they followed up it up with another horror anthology. This one centers around a carnival barker named Dr. Diablo (Burgess Meredith) who invites four curious strangers to have their fortunes told; all of whom meet grim ends. The first story Enoch (** 1/2) centers around a would-be murderer who is stalked by a vengeful cat that drives him to chop people's heads off. This story has the benefit of a really cool idea, except it's nowhere near as explicit and gory as it should've been. Terror Over Hollywood (**) is about an aspiring actress who falls in love with a seemingly ageless matinee idol. As it turns out, he's a robot duplicate made to ensure continued box office success. This one is a little on the hokey side and the story's sci-fi bent doesn't really jibe with the rest of the tales. Mr. Steinway (* 1/2) comes next and is about a concert pianist who falls in love with a reporter. Unfortunately for him, his piano gets hella jealous and murders his beloved. Yes, you heard me correctly folks; a killer piano. A KILLER FUCKING PIANO! I've seen some stupid shit in my time but this hunk of insanity takes the fucking taco. The Man Who Collected Poe (***) rounds out the tales, and they saved the best for last. Jack Palance stars as an obsessive Edgar Allan Poe collector who wants to get his hands on an unpublished Poe work. It sucks for him because the rightful owner, Peter Cushing won't give it up, so Jack's got to kill him. But he learns too late that old Pete collects Poe LITERALLY.
All of the tales were penned by Robert Bloch, the man who wrote Psycho. You'd think the guy who came up with that brilliant shit could concoct some better stories than this (A FUCKING KILLER PIANO!?!), but I guess not. Only the final story really delivers a good twist ending, which is crucial in order for these anthologies to work. Also, the blood and gore is left to a minimum (nice pitchfork death and headless bodies in the first story though), which is a little disheartening. (Not to mention the fact that there is no torture and very little gardening.)
The Man Who Collected Poe almost singlehandedly saves this mishmash. Almost. Palance and Cushing are excellent together and have a great repartee with one another, making you wish they made more movies together. If the other stories had featured actors half this good,
Bloch later wrote the infinitely better The House That Dripped Blood for Amicus two years later.
Dead of Night was one of the first horror anthologies and is considered by many to be one of the best of the genre. I wouldn't go that far, but it was highly influential (the killer ventriloquist dummy has been used countless times since) and certainly has its moments. What's kind of odd about this flick is that there's more of an emphasis on the wraparound segments than on the stories themselves. The whole anthology format was still pretty new back in '46, so I guess they hadn't worked all the bugs out of the formula yet.
The first story, Hearse Driver (**) is about a race car driver who begins having visions of a phantom hearse after surviving a near fatal car crash. The set-up sounds promising but nothing is ever really done with it. It's also way too short and ended so abruptly that I didn't even realize the story was over. Next comes Christmas Story (**) and it's not about a BB gun. No, it's all about a young girl who plays hide-and-seek with a little boy who turns out to be a ghost at Christmas. Like most of the stories in the film, it's watchable, but it's much too quaint and slight to be considered "scary". The next story, The Haunted Mirror (** 1/2) concerns a woman who buys a possessed mirror for her husband that almost drives him to murder. This story kicks things up a notch by having a concise beginning, middle and end, yet it never really plays out the material's supernatural angle to it's fullest potential. Golfing Story (***), based on a short story by H.G. Wells is more of a light-hearted horror-comedy as two rival golfers play a game of golf for the affections of a woman. When one guy loses, he drowns himself in the water hazard. Later, we learn that the other guy cheated, so the other dude haunts him on the golf course by moving his ball around. Even though this story is really goofy and tries too hard to be funny, I still enjoyed it. If anything, it sets the table for The Ventriloquist's Dummy (***), which is by far the darkest and spookiest of the lot. Yeah, it's another one of those Dummy-Is-Controlling-The-Ventriloquist deals, and although it's pretty uneven, it's a lot of fun. The wraparound segments take up so much screen time that I feel like I should rate them too (** 1/2). The early scenes are pretty dull as it's mostly a bunch of stuffy Brits hanging around in a sitting room talking about their dreams. Luckily near the end, things go bat shit insane when all of the ghosts, villains, and creeps from the various stories attack our hero in a nightmarish sequence. Try not to get freaked out when Hugo, the dummy starts walking around all by himself.
Most anthology horror movies are spotty at best and Dead of Night is no exception. Two good stories out of five is about par for the course (golfing pun not intended) for this sort of thing. Then again, I'm a sucker for anthologies, so it was easy for me to look over the flick's more lackluster moments and enjoy the good stuff.
The ghost in the Golfing Story gets the best line in the flick when he says, "May the Lord have mercy on your handicap!"
Steven Spielberg produced and co-directed this entertaining updating of Rod Serling’s immortal television classic. Although his segment is decidedly the weakest of the lot, we should be thankful to the ‘Berg for getting such a great bunch of directors together for this minor classic. I’m a sucker for anthology movies anyway, so it doesn’t really matter to me that this thing is uneven as all get out. What matters is that I grew up watching this flick and despite it’s major flaws (again, Spielberg’s sappy ass segment); watching it now as an adult, it’s still a lot of fun.
The Prologue (****) stars Dan Aykroyd and Albert Brooks driving in a car along a deserted stretch of road in the middle of the night. Bored, they start to play road games to pass the time. First they try to scare each other; then they hum themes to TV shows and try to guess them. This inevitably leads to a discussion of The Twilight Zone and how scary it was. Aykroyd then decides to show Brooks something “REALLY scary” and turns into a blue faced zombie that howls like a jaguar in heat.
This segment written and directed by John (An American Werewolf in
Landis also directed the first installment, Time Out (***) starring Vic Morrow as a racist who walks into a bar and insults every minority known to man. When he steps out of the pub, he finds himself in WWII Germany and all the Nazis think he’s a Jew so they round him up and try to haul him off to the concentration camp. He then winds up in the south where a bunch of KKK members (led by John Larroquette of all people) thinks he’s black and try to hang him. Next, Morrow ends up in
There’s an undeniable pall that hangs over this entire story. Everyone knows that Vic Morrow and two little kids died in a helicopter crash while filming this. Morrow’s death (and the subsequent legal fallout) forced Landis to end the segment abruptly, which makes things even more depressing. Still the story is quite captivating and even though it’s as predictable as a junkie hooker, it has an overall good “message” to it. Landis films things in his usual matter of fact manner that is well suited to the subject matter (he even tosses out a sly reference to Animal House in there for good measure). But it’s Morrow’s performance that is the centerpiece of the story. Throughout the character’s journey, you actually begin to sympathize with him. I’m not quite sure if that’s because of his acting ability, or the fact that you know the dude ended up taking a helicopter to the face while filming this flick, but you certainly can’t help but feel sorry for the guy.
Next comes Kick the Can (**) and it’s easily one of the worst cinematic atrocities director Spielberg has ever committed. (It’s worse than Hook, if that gives you any indication.) It’s all about a happy old man (Scatman Crothers) who comes to a retirement home where he teaches the residents to become youthful by playing a simple game of Kick the Can. But his can possesses magical powers and turns the old farts into annoying youngsters and Crothers offers them all a second chance at their youth. If you couldn’t guess what happens next, the old timers eventually decide to stay ancient while still retaining “fresh young minds”.
Kick the Can? You’ll be hoping these old fuckers Kick the Bucket. I’ll admit the set-up of the story works and Spielberg really knows how to pull you in, but once the old fogeys turn into little brats, all bets are off. Spielberg has always been able to balance whimsy with syrupy melodramatics, but here, he completely goes overboard with the sappiness as the story is schmaltzy enough to put you into a goddamned diabetic coma.
It’s a Good Life (****), the third story was helmed by Joe (Piranha) Dante, and features Kathleen Quinlan as a schoolteacher who gives a young boy a ride home where she meets his very peculiar “family” who all live in constant fear of him. She soon learns that the tyke has bizarre powers that include (but are not limited to) wishing people into cartoons, personifying the Tasmanian Devil and making it come out of the television, and removing the mouth of his sister. Quinlan finally realizes that all the boy needed was a little TLC and agrees to mother him and help him hone his powers.
Dante really lets loose on this segment and shows a lot of visual pizzazz, especially during the scenes involving the crazed animated characters coming to life. The scene where the kid’s sister (Nancy Cartwright, the voice of Bart Simpson) gets sucked into the cartoon and is murdered is kinda freaky (“That’s all, Ethel!”) and the reveal of the mouthless sister (The Runaways’ lead singer Cherie Currie) gave me freaking nightmares as a kid. This story is also anchored by great performances by a host of Dante regulars such as Dick Miller, Kevin McCarthy and William Schallert who all shine in their supporting roles. Look also for a cameo by Billy Mumy, who played the kid role on the original show.
But they saved the best for last on Nightmare at 20,000 Feet (****). Directed by George (The Road Warrior) Miller, this episode does not stop for a second and will particularly freak out people who hate to fly. John Lithgow stars as a paranoid airplane passenger who sees a slimy green faced man on the wing of the plane. He tries to warn everyone that the monster is trying to sabotage the plane, but of course, no one believes him. He decides to take matters into his own hands, which brings him face to face with the booger faced beast.
This one is a doozy. From the breakneck pacing and lightning fast editing (this sucker is almost as intense as Road Warrior was and that’s saying a lot), Miller really ratchets up the suspense and keeps you as jumpy as Lithgow is; which is quite a feat. Speaking of Lithgow, his performance is easily the best work he’s ever done and his pill-popping, wide-eyed manic behavior is something to behold. (Look fast for the split second Mad Max reference when Lithgow’s eyes bulge out cartoonishly just like Toecutter’s.) The ending also benefits from another appearance by Aykroyd, which really ties everything together.
Despite the depressing aspect of the Landis lensed segment and the woefully whimsical Spielberg story, Twilight Zone: The Movie still remains one of the best anthologies of the 80’s. What makes the movie work is an obvious respect for the material (three of the four stories are remakes of episodes from the original series) along with a handful of stellar performances that really sell the more fantastic elements of the film. One could only imagine if Spielberg had delivered as Dante and Miller did what the film COULD have been. It’s obvious that they both were very hungry and had something to prove and the ‘Berg could’ve really taken a page out of their books. The narration by Burgess Meredith (a vet of the old series) is fine, but it can’t hold a candle to Serling’s sardonic introductions. At least the old theme music is enough to still give you goose bumps.
Though not the blockbuster hit Spielberg might have been anticipating (probably from all the negative publicity stemming from the Morrow incident), Twilight Zone: The Movie was popular enough to spawn a new weekly series. Spielberg later created the similarly themed Amazing Stories series for television.
(Special Note: Warner Bros. REMOVED the old opening studio logo and replaced it with the newer flashier one for the DVD release. Not a big deal in the scheme of things, but it kinda ruined the nostalgia of watching the opening scene for me as I love that old school pudgy looking Warners logo.)
Boris Karloff stands in front of a blue void and narrates three tales of terror from Italian horror maestro Mario (Black Sunday) Bava.
In the first story, The Telephone (** ½), a hot chick gets menacing phone calls from a mysterious stranger who can see her every move. She deduces the caller is her recently escaped homicidal boyfriend so she calls her sexy friend (and lover! HEY OH!) and has her come over to keep her company. Unfortunately for her, her ex also shows up looking to ring her pretty little neck.
Bava slowly builds suspense and does a fine job at maintaining it, which is quite a feat considering this is essentially a one person story. Too bad the plot is paper thin and suffers from a lifeless ending. It also doesn’t help that it goes on way too long, even though it only runs 30 minutes.
The next story, The Wurdalak (***) stars Karloff as the titular vampire who returns to his family’s home after his death to feed off his living relatives. (Wurdalaks can only drink the blood of their loved ones.) He puts the bite on them one by one until only his hot daughter and the romantic lead Mark Damon are left. It all ends with the hottie sinking her teeth into Damon’s jugular. (Hey, at least that means she loves him, right?)
This segment has the look of a Corman Poe movie (co-star Damon was also in The Fall of the House of Usher), but it has a sinister charm all it’s own. The scene where Karloff puts his grandchild on his knee and leers at him ominously like he’s going to turn him into a hot lunch will certainly give you the heebie jeebies and the severed head gag is superb for a 60’s flick. Although this story suffers from some pokey pacing (at almost 40 minutes, it’s by far the longest of the stories), it’s easily the best looking of the bunch as the colorful cinematography is absolutely spellbinding.
The Drop of Water (***) tells the story of a bitchy nurse who is hired by a mortician to prepare the corpse of an old clairvoyant for her funeral. While dressing the body, the nurse steals the corpse’s ring and faces the wrath of the old woman’s ghost, which personifies itself in the form of an annoying fly, an irritating drop of water, and finally in the form of the old woman’s ghost.
This story may be the best of them all as it’s straight up meat and potatoes horror that channels the best of the EC Horror Comics as well as Bava’s patented gothic sensibilities. It’s short, simple, and to the point and the villain gets her just desserts in the end, so what’s not to like?
The exploitation geniuses at AIP bought this flick, changed around the order of the stories, took out all the references to lesbianism and re-titled it to cash in on their previous Bava hit, Black Sunday. While it’s nowhere near the same league as that immortal classic, Black Sabbath is still quite a lot of fun for both anthology fans and Bava loyalists. I especially liked the way Bava used sound to enhance the film’s atmosphere. In The Telephone, it’s the constant ringing of the phone, it’s the whirling winds that signal the return of The Wurdalak, and in The Drop of Water it’s… well the drop of water. The film is also lushly photographed (the trippy Karloff hosted framing device in particular) and ranks among one of the finest looking films Bava ever cranked out.
AKA: The Three Faces of Fear.
The Twilight Zone creator, Rod Serling introduced tales of the macabre to a whole new generation of television viewers with this pilot for his hit series. Although the series didn’t quite live up to it’s predecessor, Night Gallery was still a lot of fun. Whereas the Zone was in atmospheric black and white, Gallery looked more or less like your average made-for-TV movie. What this series had that Twilight didn’t was Serling’s acerbic on camera introductions of each story, all of which revolved around an ominous painting. His prologues were sometimes better than the stories themselves and made Night Gallery a cut above what was on the tube in the late 60’s and early 70’s. The pilot is mostly notable today because it features the first directing gig for Steven Spielberg, but it still ranks as one of the finer examples of anthology horror ever produced for television.
Roddy McDowall and Ossie Davis star in the first story, “The Cemetery” (***) about a dying millionaire who does a painting of the cemetery next to his house. His greedy nephew (McDowall) is after his loot and causes his uncle to get pneumonia and when he dies, McDowall inherits the house. After his uncle’s death, the painting slowly changes: First, his uncle’s grave is dug up, then his casket is opened, and then he rises from his grave. The closer his uncle gets to the house, the crazier McDowall gets, until he accidentally falls down the stairs and breaks his neck.
The story is predictable, but nevertheless it’s quite entertaining. McDowall’s performance is easily the best thing about it and it’s fun watching him go over the top while brandishing a hammy southern accent. Director Boris (The Omega Man) Sagal keeps things moving in an efficient, workmanlike manner and even though the outcome seems like a foregone conclusion, it’s still wholly satisfying. McDowall gets the best line of the episode when he tells his lawyer, “Take care of the burial. Put it on the bill!”
The second story, Eyes (*** ½) is directed by Spielberg and it’s about a despicable wealthy blind woman (Joan Crawford) who blackmails her doctor into performing an experimental eye transplant to restore her sight. The catch is that she’ll only be able to see for twelve hours. The donor (Tom Bosley from Happy Days) owes money to the Mob and gladly offers up his peepers in exchange for the cash to pay his debts. The operation is a success but unfortunately for Crawford, she decides to open her eyes during a blackout.
Supposedly during the making of this segment, the older union crewmembers were indignant to working with the wet behind the ears Spielberg and he had to struggle to get what he wanted, but it doesn’t show in the least. This tale is filled with directorial touches that would become Spielberg trademarks (the sequence where the lights get turned out on the old biddy is especially stylish) and is anchored by an excellent performance by Crawford. She may get all the flashy scenes, but it’s Bosley who is given the story’s best line: “What’s it’s going to be like when it’s midnight all the time and no one’s paid the electric bill?”
Barry (Across
The trick to anthology horror is the placement of the stories. This segment is more leisurely paced than the others and is a lot less sensational, so it kinda ends things on a down note. It also doesn’t help that concentration camp horror is a tough thing to effectively portray on television in the 60’s. If
In the first story, Midnight Mess (** ½) a man (Daniel Massey) murders his sister (Massey’s real life sister Anna) in order to claim her inheritance. Little does he know that she’s actually a vampire who works in a restaurant exclusively for bloodsuckers, and plans on putting him on the menu. This story builds slowly and while the ending is truly a surprise, it comes totally out of left field and is too little too late. The final image is quite memorable though.
Terry-Thomas headlines the next tale entitled The Neat Job (***) as an obsessive compulsive neat freak who marries Glynis Johns apparently because he didn’t have anything better to do. He yells and screams at her for fifteen minutes about not keeping his house tidy until she gets fed up and plants a hammer in his head. She then sets about organizing his body parts into jars and putting him neatly in order on the shelf. This segment harkens back to the black comic roots of the original comics and although it’s not especially horrific, the pay off is well worth it.
This Trick’ll Kill You (** ½), the third tale stars Curt (The Spy Who Loved Me) Jurgens as a cold hearted magician who travels to India and defrauds a fakir street performer. Jurgens then notices the fakir’s daughter doing an ascending rope trick that actually seems to involve REAL magic. When she refuses to share her secrets with Jurgens, he kills her and steals the rope for himself. Predictably, the rope has other tricks up it’s sleeve. You can more or less tell where this one is headed from the get go, but a fine turn by Jurgens and expedient pacing makes this story easily digestible.
The next story, Bargain in Death (**) is the slightest of them all and involves a man taking a drug to fake his own death. He arranges for his friend to dig him up and revive him, but some bumbling college age gravediggers beat him to the punch. There’s a funny sight gag when one character is seen reading the novelization of the original Tales from the Crypt movie, but besides that fun little bit, this story is half baked, paper thin and the ending is completely unsatisfying.
Drawn and Quartered (***) is the final story and it’s the longest and best of the bunch. Tom (Dr. Who) Baker stars sporting a Torgo beard as a painter who uses voodoo to gain mystical painting powers that causes the people he paints to die whenever something happens to their portrait. He comes to an abrupt end when his own portrait accidentally gets doused with paint thinner. This segment is easily the most fun and features the only real gore. We get acid in the eyes, hands cut off in a paper cutter, and Denholm (Raiders of the Lost Ark) shoots himself in the face.
The wraparound segments are far and away the weakest thing about the movie. They call for the main characters to be stuck in an elevator that takes them to the basement floor where they exchange scary dreams with each other. Guess where their final destination leads?
The performances (especially Baker) help anchor the stories, which are considerably weaker than in Tales from the Crypt and are also conspicuously lacking in the red stuff. I’m a big fan of horror anthologies though, so I’m more than willing to forgive the flick for some of it’s lapses (like the incredibly predictable wraparound scenes), and the last story is almost worth the price of admission anyway.
Director Roy Ward Baker doesn’t have the same visual flair as Tales’ Freddie Francis did, but does an adequate job at building the suspense. He also directed Asylum, another anthology for Amicus the previous year.
AKA: Further Tales from the Crypt. AKA: Tales from the Crypt 2.
The wraparound segments have five tourists taking a tour of a decrepit graveyard and end up getting locked in the crypt with the morose looking Crypt Keeper (Ralph Richardson) who recounts their assorted ghoulish fates to them.
In the first segment, And All Through the House (***), the sultry Joan Collins stars as a woman who murders her hubby on Christmas Eve, not knowing that there’s a killer Santa on the loose. This story has a great set-up and style to burn, but unfortunately it kinda fizzles out in the end. Years later, director Robert Zemeckis would remake this installment for the pilot episode of the Tales from the Crypt TV series.
The next story, Reflection of Death (***) stars Ian (Theater of Blood) Hendry as a two timing husband who ends up in a fatal car crash with his mistress, only he doesn’t know it’s fatal yet. Half of this tale is one long continuous first person shot that is very well executed. It’s the shortest of the stories, but the ending, although predictable still packs a punch.
Poetic Justice (*** ½), the third tale has the great Peter Cushing playing Grimsdyke, a kindly old junk collector whose property is an eyesore for the rich snobs living in his community. They come up with a devious plan to make Grimsdyke commit suicide, but he comes back a year later to deliver a bloodcurdling Valentine’s Day card. This story more than any other perfectly captures the feel of the original comics and features one of the greatest zombie make-ups of all time. Cushing is excellent and delivers one of his best performances.
The fourth story, Wish You Were Here (*** ½) is a variation on The Monkey’s Paw, in which a jade statue grants three wishes. It's easily the best of the lot. A wife wishes on the statue for money, which causes her to inherit a large sum of money when her crook of a hubby dies in a car crash. Next she wishes for him to return just as he was before the accident, but since he died of a heart attack while at the wheel, the morticians just deliver his body to her. She uses the third and final wish for him to come back to life FOREVER, but she didn’t know he’d already been embalmed, which leads to further complications. This segment features some pretty great gore (for a PG movie anyway) when the wife dismembers her husband’s still screaming body.
The final tale, Blind Alleys (***) is the most abstract of the stories, but it’s also the most unsettling. A military major takes over a home for the blind and cuts the heating and food rations while he wines and dines in comfort. When one of the blind men dies; the rest of the patients take revenge in a decidedly ghastly manner. While their final act of vengeance is well done, all you’ll be able to think about is how the Hell a bunch of blind guys were able to build such an intricate and complicated deathtrap when they can’t see a damn thing.
Director Freddie (The Evil of Frankenstein) Francis infuses each tale with their own distinct style and keeps things moving along at a steady clip. Despite a few inconsistencies in tone (hey it’s an anthology movie, what did you expect), Tales from the Crypt is another solidly engaging horror flick from Amicus (the folks who brought you The House That Dripped Blood). A sequel, The Vault of Horror, followed the next year.
In Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment (***) Price plays an elderly comrade of an old widowed doctor named Heidegger (Sebastian Cabot). One stormy night, a gust of wind knocks open his family crypt and turns over Heidegger’s wife’s casket. They find her body perfectly preserved without a trace of decay, which is odd since she’s been dead for 38 years. Heidegger deduces that the crypt must reside under a “virgin spring” or fountain of youth and the pair decides to drink some of the water, which restores their youth. Heidegger then tries the elixir on his dead wife (Mari Blanchard), with disastrous results. Price and Cabot’s easy chemistry is the best thing about this story. Although predictable, it’s still worth a look for the fine performances, and the reverse aging effects are also well done.
The next tale, Rappacinni’s Daughter (***) stars Price as a scientist obsessed with keeping his lovely daughter (Joyce Taylor) virginal at any cost. He even goes so far as to replace her skin with deadly plant toxins which kill off her potential suitors with just a touch. (I’ve heard of being an overprotective father, but this is ridiculous!) It’s a little on the talky side and parts play out like a soap opera, but it’s still the best of the three stories, thanks to a mannered performance by Price and an atmospheric garden setting.
The final story, The House of the Seven Gables (** ½) had been filmed previously in 1940, coincidentally enough with Price in another role. This time out he plays Gerald Pyncheon, a gold digging relative who returns to his ancestral home with his wife (the lovely Beverly Garland of Swamp Diamonds) searching for the family fortune, oblivious to the family curse that’s ready to catch up with him. While this segment suffers from a mass condensation of the original novel, Price is again quite good, and Garland offers fine support. The pacing drags considerably, but the payoff is worth it. Genre favorite Richard (Creature from the Black Lagoon) Denning also co-stars.
Each story runs a little too long (they clock in at about 40 minutes a piece, about 10 minutes longer than they really needed to be), but there’s plenty to like about all three. Director Sidney Salkow seems to favor melodrama over gothic horror, but Price’s performance(s) are the reason to check it out.
Co-star Brett Halsey also starred with Price in Return of the Fly. The next year director Salkow directed Price in my all time favorite Price film, The Last Man on Earth.
AKA: Nights of Terror. AKA: The Corpse-Makers.
In the first story “Morella”, (** ½) Price has to contend with the ominous return of his long lost daughter. You see, he blames her for the death of his wife, which makes reconciliation a little tough, and the fact that her soul gets possessed by her vengeful mother’s ghost only adds to their family’s dysfunction. Morella moves slowly at it’s own pace, building to a fairly predictable and unmemorable conclusion. While it lacks the punch of the next two stories, Price’s performance helps carry it along throughout it’s pokier moments and the black “ghost” effects are rather well done.
The second story “The Black Cat” (****) has a lighter tone and is one helluva good time. (As a bonus, the tale even features parts of Poe’s “Cask of Amontillado” as well.) It features Peter Lorre as a drunk (“I drink my food!”) who learns that Price has been fooling around with his wife so he plans to kill them and wall them up in his cellar. This story is by far the longest and the best of the three and features a hilarious performance by Lorre. (“I’m genuinely dedicated to your destruction.”) The centerpiece of the story, and indeed the entire movie, is the wine tasting challenge between Lorre and Price which is easily some of the best work either actor has ever done. Some actors are great by themselves, but sometimes when paired with just the right co-star, they can make movie magic. (Think of the Christopher Walken/Dennis Hopper scene in True Romance.) This is one of those scenes. Lorre and Price have great chemistry together and play off each other with an innate comic timing that is pitch perfect. There’s also a great DT’s driven nightmare scene where Price plays monkey in the middle with Lorre’s head too.
In “The Case of M. Valdemar”, (** ½) the third and final story, Price plays the title character, who is dying of a degenerative disease. He hires a mesmerist named Dr. Carmichael (Basil Rathbone who is excellent) to hypnotize him to help ease his suffering. On Valdemar’s deathbed, Carmichael keeps him under his spell, suspended on the threshold of life and death. He continues his mental dominance over Valdemar, even cajoling him to the point of handing over his wife to Carmichael. But the still not quite dead Valdemar has other ideas, namely turning into a pile of goo and scaring the good doctor to death. Rathbone anchors the story nicely, but like Morella, it suffers from sluggish pacing. It doesn’t help that the ending just kinda fizzles out either, but the trippy psychedelic lights during the freakout scene is pretty cool though.
If I had to rank the film against the other Corman/Poe adaptations I’d have to place it above Fall of the House of Usher, but below Pit and the Pendulum. It’s a little uneven, but it’s still worth seeing for “The Black Cat” segment alone. (The wraparound segments of Price narrating sinister warnings over the sounds of beating hearts and dripping blood are also well done.) Price and Lorre fans owe it to themselves to check it out because they are awesome in it. The duo would later go onto star in another Poe adaptation, The Raven two years later.
The first story is all about a young graffiti artist who has a run in with some hardcore OG gangsters who spray paint gang symbols over her artwork. Luckily a satanic bum (Danny Trejo) gives her a hand tattoo that gives her an unusual power: she can make someone die just by crossing out their graffiti art. The second story has two redneck slumlords (Anson Mount and Brande Roderick) who move into an all black veteran’s home and bilk them for all they’re worth. Eventually the vets have enough and resort to using guerilla tactics to get revenge. The third story revolves around a rapper who makes a promise to God to stay on the straight and narrow as long as he can become famous. After some divine intervention catapults him to the top, he ruins his good fortune by raping and killing, so God’s accountant (Lin Shaye) shows up to balance the books.
None of the stories are particularly interesting, scary, well made, or entertaining. The first story, while no means “good”, at least has the benefit of some decent Final Destination style gore (a guys shoots his own pecker off, a 40 goes through a gangsta’s skull, and someone gets brained with a bottle of spray paint) and has a clearly defined beginning, middle and end. The second story plays like a bad 70’s sitcom, and the final story is heavy handed and obvious. There’s also some anime animation that adds nothing to the movie, unless you count extra padding.
What’s most appalling is that the movie manages to waste an excellent supporting cast that includes Billy Dee (The Empire Strikes Back) Williams, Ernie (Ghostbusters) Hudson, Sydney (Death Proof) Poitier, Jason (Seinfeld) Alexander, and Richard (Rocky V) Gant who are given absolutely nothing to do. If you want to watch a good gangsta themed horror anthology, check out Tales from the Hood instead, but if you want to see Snoop crack retarded jokes while his midget sidekick pukes into a punch bowl, then by all means check it out.
In the first tale, a homely looking swimmer falls in love with a hunky diver at the YMCA. They ball in the shower and she’s disappointed to learn that her newfound lover is actually a wisecracking white eyed ghost. In the second story a young boy goes camping with a nerdy counselor who turns out to be a wolf obsessed psychopath. In the next, a lonely woman falls in love with a handsome vampire anchorman. The fourth story is about a man who can wish the people he reads about in the obituaries back to life. Things get complicated when he accidentally resurrects a serial killer. In the final nightmare, a teenage girl gets possessed by an ancient Indian spirit and terrorizes her classroom (using Carrie style powers) and rips the heart out of her know-it-all professor. In the end, the bus that they’ve all been waiting for finally arrives and of course it’s going straight to Hell!
The soundtrack is filled with cheesy 80’s music, but there is a good punk song called “Black Sheets, White Stains”. The acting and special effects are amateurish and the ending is predictable, but it’s brainless fun if you’re a fan of 80’s anthology horror movies.
The first story from Hong Kong horror maestro Fruit Chan, “Dumplings” is the best. Bai (Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith) Ling stars as Aunt Mei a young lady who makes dumplings that keep women looking young and youthful. Her secret ingredient? ABORTED FETUSES! Dumplings has some jaw dropping moments and was later expanded into a feature.
The second segment “Cut” from Chan-Wook (Oldboy) Park of Korea has a young filmmaker and his wife being terrorized by an extra who wants him to kill a child or else he’ll cut off his wife’s fingers one by one. This segment is pretty intense though some occasional lapses into comedy spoil the tension somewhat.
The last (and least) and by far the bleakest of the three “Box” is from Japanese splattermeister Takashi (Audition) Miike and is about a pair of sideshow twins involved in a terrible accident and an even more terrible family secret. While this segment lacks the outrageous in your face horror of the first two it definitely delivers on the mental anguish and hits below the belt. Although the stories don’t really have much of a payoff (most of them revolve around somebody with a big ass tongue) the way each director slowly ratchets up the tension is something to see. A sequel followed.
It’s an anthology movie that features a good cast, some terrible editing and some of the worst special effects I’ve ever seen. In short, it’s highly recommended!
The film begins on a train where some cheesy 80’s pop band plays. The breakdancing vocalist sings “Dance with me! Dance with me! Everybody’s got something to do, everybody but you!” Then God and Satan are seen sitting in a box car discussing the fates of some tormented souls.
They review “The Case of Harry Billings” in which John Phillip (Diabolik) Law is a man who gets pulled from a car wreck and stuck in a nut house where Richard (Night Court) Moll is the greasy assistant who mutilates women. Law is brainwashed into picking up women (one in a church!) for the mad female doctor’s experiments. In the end, Law decapitates a whining Moll and the doctor gets her just desserts. After God and Satan decide Law’s fate, Satan makes a play for the breakdancing band’s souls, but God says no way and calls their music “touching”!
Then God and Satan review “The Case of Gretta Connors” in which a slick dude picks up a chick at a carnival and turns her into his piano playing mistress. He also puts her into his homemade stag movies. (Who knew that carnies made such good porn stars?) When a young college student sees one of her movies, he falls in love with her and they start dating (!) When her pimp gets jealous he invites her man to his “castle” (it looks like something you’d put at the bottom of a fish tank) where they play bizarre variations of Russian Roulette. In one, they remain perfectly still while a badly animated stop motion bug flies around the room. It later goes out the window and attacks a couple making out. In the next they use electrical shocks instead of bullets and a Jimi Hendrix look alike says “Excuse me while I smoke!” and gets electrocuted. When the college kid tries to quit the so called “Death Wish Club”, the pimp holds him at gunpoint while they play the next game in which a wrecking ball is hovered above the members they are wrapped in sleeping bags. After the wrecking ball lands on some woman’s face, the story abruptly ends and train conductor says “They lived happily ever after”! HUH!?!
In the final and longest segment, “The Case of Claire Hanson”, Cameron (The Toolbox Murders) Mitchell is a detective tracking an ageless Nazi war criminal who is actually “The Devil’s Emissary”. He also wants an author (Richard Moll, from the first story but in a different role) who has just wrote a new book called, “God is Dead” to join Satan’s ranks. When Moll refuses, he gets turned into a flaming ragdoll and is impaled on a cross. There are also lots of bad Claymation monsters in this segment that are good for a few chuckles. In the end, the train carrying God and Satan (and the breakdancing band) crashes, but at the last minute God intervenes and the final shot of the movie is that of an obvious train model ascending to Heaven!
I’ve seen a lot of crazy “What the fuck?!?” endings, but that takes the cake.
This was actually three movies (Scream Your Head Off, Death Wish Club and Cataclysm) edited down to make a three part anthology. The only thing that really detracts from the fun is the editing. While the first tale moves right along, the second one ends abruptly and the third is overlong and slow in spots. The first runs a half an hour, the second only a scant 15 minutes and the third is almost 45 minutes. If all the stories were about the same amount of time, the film may have been better.
God stars as “Himself”, but it’s actually Ferdy (The Fearless Vampire Killers) Mayne. (Satan is billed as Lu Cifer!) The breakdancing singer, Byron Yordon is the son of screenwriter Phillip Yordon. No less than five directors are credited, but hey that’s five times the fun! Anthology movies kinda fell out of favor in the 80’s (Creepshow and Cat’s Eye are the obvious exceptions) but this would make a good double feature with The Offspring (AKA: From a Whisper to a Scream), another neglected 80’s horror anthology movie.
AKA: The Nightmare Never Ends.
The first is about an obsessive compulsive painter who has weird dreams and visions filmed in negative about a green monster who tries to grope her. She goes to a psychiatrist and we learn that her phobias stem from being abducted by aliens! These “visitors” put her on a metal table and stick some sort of device up her hoo-ha. Afterwards, she’s stuck in a cell with some hunk and they are forced to bang in front of the green skinned aliens. The end. No wrap-up, no conclusion, no nothing. We never learn if she conquers her fears or gets abducted again, it just ends there. It ends so abruptly that Lolita is even caught off guard because when the story is over, we see her making out with some chick. After shooing her lady friend aside she tells us the second story.
This one is about an interplanetary prison where a cute blonde “Earther” gets harassed by a dominatrix warden and is seduced by her sexy cellmate. (“Have you ever been with a Feline before?”) She also meets an imprisoned cargo pilot and after they get it on they plan their escape. When they are captured, the warden ties her up and punishes her, but gets caught up in the moment and gets tied up herself. Like the previous story there’s an abrupt ending where we learn it was all a behavioral experiment. The sex scenes, plot and acting are all a lot better than the first story, but that’s not saying Jack Shit. We go back to Lolita who gets found by “The Society”, and escapes, but before she goes she gives us the final story.
This one is about a trucker who bangs a waitress in a truck stop bathroom (Talk about service!) and when he goes back to the restaurant it’s suddenly 1955. (Where there’s the worst Elvis impersonator you’ve ever seen.) We learn from an “old timer” that the trucker is actually caught in a “timeslip”. We also learn from the boring sex scene that this was the original story that inspired Lolita to revolt. (We also learn from this scene that sluts who wore poodle skirts in the 50’s also pierced their bellybuttons.) Then he walks out again and the truck stop has turned into some Robot Holocaust inspired “arena” (I say arena but it’s really a couple mattresses thrown together) where he watches some post apocalyptic chicks wrestle topless. Then he’s suddenly in the Stone Age where has a threeway with some cavegirls while shouting “Is this what you want?” Then when bigger stronger cavemen toss him aside they have some down and dirty caveman sex with them. The end. Seriously. We never learn if he gets back to his own time. We never learn what happens to the bad Elvis impersonator. We never find out if he gets caveman herpes. Nothing.
Then Lolita shows up again and takes off her clothes. The end.
This is pretty much a mess from start to finish. The three stories seem like they were taken from other, perhaps unfinished movies because they all end so abruptly. These trite and unsexy tales might get the repressed society of the future off, but it won’t do anything for anyone in the present. The production values are at least decent enough, but the slipshod set Lovell is on makes me think they just strung this together with some unused footage from other movies. The end credits feature outtakes that are vital to any future director out there who wants to learn how to direct a caveman sex scene.
Lovell is the best thing about the movie. Her plucky charm, sweet nature and sexy body can’t hold together the cut and paste stories though. Even die hard fans of Skinamax movies (and anthologies) may not even get through this one. Lovell was also in Virtual Encounters which was also directed by ”Sybil Richards”. The original title was Lolita 2000 but was changed to presumably avoid confusion with Adrian Lyne’s 1997 Lolita. (Yeah right!)
AKA: Lolita 2000. AKA: O Lita 2000.
The first story has a child hating teacher being attacked by killer kids in Halloween masks. Period. There’s no real set-up or back story, and the ending is rather abrupt, but it’s visually interesting (scenes are filmed in negative) and has a good payoff. The second tale has a photography nut who films himself killing his dates. This segment takes a novel approach by consisting almost entirely of single takes of the killer murdering girls. It earns points for taking place way before the whole killers-using-home-video-cameras-to-capt
Even the biggest fans of anthology horror films may find this one a chore to get through. What makes the film so frustrating is that the stories suffer from few good ideas and incompetent execution. The running time is mercifully short (74 minutes), but the film really needed at least another 15 minutes to fully flesh out the stories. If they had been beefed up a little (especially the first two), House of the Dead could have been marginally entertaining, but as it is, it ranks as a below par anthology horror movie.
AKA: The Alien Zone. AKA: Zone of the Dead.
The first has a necrophiliac (Return of the Living Dead’s Clu Gulager) who gets a surprise nine months after he rapes his co-worker’s corpse when her zombie baby comes looking for it’s “daddy”. In the second tale, a criminal (Weekend at Bernie’s Terry Kiser) forces a simple swamp dweller into giving him the secret of eternal life, but of course there’s a price to pay. In the next story, a glass eating carnie tries to find happiness with a young girl, but their love is put to the test when the evil carnival owner/voodoo priestess (Rosalind Cash) makes all the glass, screws and razors he ate over the years rip out of him during a make out session. (Talk about coitus interruptus!) In the final tale, Cameron Mitchell (also in Night Train to Terror) stars as a Union soldier during the Civil War who gets captured by some cannibalistic Confederate kiddies who like to play “Pin the Arm on the Torso”.
Director Jeff (Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3) Burr lets the tension build slowly and manages to give each tale a satisfying payoff. The seasoned cast (especially Price, Gulager and Mitchell) really sell it and there are a few memorable scares. Producer Darin Scott also produced the equally fun horror anthology movie, Tales from the Hood.
AKA: The Offspring.
Deadtime Stories has enough entertaining moments for fans of horror anthologies but is too uneven for most tastes to handle. There is a great hair band song about nursery rhymes and horror movies over the opening credits though that manages to rhyme “drama” with “Brian DePalma”! The stories were filmed as early as 1982 and then were cobbled together and released in ’86 and was produced by the same producer of Deep Throat!
It would be too easy to say that this movie lives up to it’s title, but boy does it ever! It’s an anthology horror/sex/comedy narrated by a mummy! ‘Nuff said. After a
AKA: The Secrets of Sex.
This hilarious sketch comedy film was sort of a sequel to Kentucky Fried Movie. That film’s director, John Landis directed some of this film’s segments, which also feature humorous vignettes from Joe Dante, Peter Horton, Robert K. Weiss and Carl Gottleib. Steve Forrest and Sybil Danning star in the film’s titular linking device, a send-up of 50’s sci-fi movies. Most of the other sketches revolve around TV’s and or VCR’s. There’s way too many stars to list (a lot of whom weren’t very well known at the time), but there’s Michelle Pfeiffer, Griffin Dunne, Steve Guttenberg, Rosanna Arquette, Arsenio Hall, David Allen Grier, Russ Meyer, Kelly Preston and Andrew “Dice” Clay, just to name a few. My favorite segment is the Celebrity Roast funeral with Steve Allen, Henny Youngman and Rip Taylor, but The Son of the Invisible Man (featuring Ed Begley, Jr.) and the Ripley’s Believe it or Not parody, Bullshit or Not (starring Henry Silva) are pretty great too. Though not as good as Kentucky Fried Movie, it’s still packed with a lot of laughs and is an underrated classic.
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thevideovacuum- The Video Vacuum
- The Video Vacuum