One of my favorite Halloween traditions is an annual email I get from a friend and college professor, Mr. John “I’ve Seen Everything” Dodd: A staggering review of 45 horror movies over 31 days. 90% of them you’ve never heard of, and 95% of them no person on Earth should take the time to watch.

While working at Wizard Magazine (I know, here we go again…), I had the opportunity to interview Hostel’s Eli Roth, Rob Zombie, 30 Days of Night’s Steve Niles and Tom Jane many times. Each time, those guys never failed to act cocky about their horror knowledge. I always just laughed to myself, because when it comes to horror, my boy Dodd could take those guys to school.

This list (and this is only one year!) is such an extensive undertaking, you just gotta give him props for enduring (in most cases) such trash for 31 days straight.

Dodd’s an amazing guy, and he’s pretty much the teacher that really got me wanting to be a full-time writer. It’s easy to see why.

This was apparently his last year for this, and I’m hoping he will somehow break both his legs so that all he has time for is sitting in a chair, watching, typing and amusing me once more with 31 horror reviews a year. Write, horror monkey! WRITE!

Everyone,

Here it is year five for the annual 31 days of horror. Once
again I am wearied and saying this might be my last October,
that I will retire and do whatever other people do in
October. Sure, I had to take Saturdays off, not because I’m
Jewish, but because my work schedule requires me to work
all day on Saturdays.  Oh well.  Let’s begin.

October 1 – Off to an anemic start
** HOUSE OF TERROR

If there was truth in titles this one would be called House of Very
Mild Suspense. The dusty thriller has a nurse hired to look
after the wife of “one of the richest men in California.” Nurse
has a crooked boyfriend, boyfriend kills rich wife and stages it
as a suicide, nurse marries rich dude, boyfriend plots an
accident, nurse falls for rich dude, everyone dies at the end
(when if finally comes). Just a little too racy for TV in 1973
but not explicit enough to stretch the PG rating.

October 2 – Not any better
*1/2 THE RED HEADED CORPSE

Once again, we have a mystery masquerading as
a horror film. In this Italian film, Farley Granger brings home
a sex doll and imagines it coming to life in the image of a former
love. A long flashback shows the viewer how he became delusional.
Watchable but unmemorable, The Red Headed Corpse will be forgotten
two days after watching.

October 3 – We have blood (well, a little anyway)
**1/2 WELCOME TO ARROW BEACH

A Young Meg Foster plays a hitchhiker wandering through
the private beach of eccentric Jason Henry (played by Laurence Harvey
who also directed). Henry invites the girl to stay at his house
but has a secret. Since a pre-credit scrawl informs the viewer
that human flesh has been known to become addictive, one can
guess what Henry’s secret is. One imaginative murder (with
still photo shots) and the a good cast help out. John Ireland
and Stuart Whitman play (what else?) cops. Unfortunately, Laurence
Harvey’s daughter Domino does not show up to kill anyone.

THERE’S 30 DAYS TO GO! CLICK ON THROUGH…UNLESS YOU’RE….CHICKEN.

October 4 – Saturday…A day without a horror movie

October 5 – Creaky, old things
*1/2 ATOM AGE VAMPIRE

A scarred nightclub dancer is loved by a mad scientist
with a formula to regenerate skin. The only problem is the blood of
young women is a needed ingredient. You know where this one is
going. Black and white, early 60’s film has the antique feel of
a film twenty years earlier (with a couple risque shots).
The version I saw was only 68 minutes. The original was 102.
I’m not complaining.

**1/2 THE CHANGELING

Composer George C. Scott loses his family in a car
crash and moves to a big, old house uninhabited for years.
He starts to hear strange tabbing noises, feel the presence of
people not there, and finding rooms that have been sealed off.
Old fashion horror film flies in the face of the early 80’s
trend of gory horror. It works well enough but is too long
(an hour and fifty minutes) and never scary.

October 6 – A drag
*** SOMETIMES AUNT MARTHA DOES DREADFUL THING

My favorite film of the season thus far is a psycho
tale of two criminals hiding out in suburban Miami. The younger,
Stanley, is pretty much his edgy hippie self while the older,
Paul, dresses in drag and pretends to be Stanley’s aunt.
Paul is a closeted homosexual with a crush on Stanley, who
fancies himself a ladies’ man. Stanley brings over girls
and Paul kills them. Not a perfect film, there are some slow
spots and not all of the humor hits. The film still offers more entertainment than any of the others so far this season.

October 7 – South of the border non-thrills from Italians
* MAYA

Dull, Italian made horror film dealing with a Mayan
spirit let loose to wreck havoc on the Earth. . . well, at least
the two mile setting the film takes place in. There are hardcore
“punkers” who say things like, “You Dodo!” Guess it sounded more
threatening in Italian.

October 8 – My copy, my right
*1/2 ALIEN 2

No, not Aliens. This is an Italian ripoff of Alien made
in 1980 that billed itself as a sequel to the Ridley Scott
original. At least the film did in Italy. Me thinks several
attorneys from 20th Century Fox would have prevented such
claims appearing in an American advertisement. I doubt even in
Italy there were many fooled. As much as I like championing
the underdog, Alien 2 is not only nowhere nearly as good as
Aliens; in fact, it’s nowhere nearly as good as Alien Resurrection.
The plot has a group of cave explorers finding a strange rock
which has fallen from a returning space capsule. The rock pulsates
and eventually implants something inside of a person. The heroes
become trapped underground as the creatures begin to explode out
of their hosts. Said little aliens look like red oven mats which
actors hold against their body while screaming and wiggling around
like they have the worst case of poison oak ever recorded.
Fans of man in monster suit action will be sorely disappointed.
The film is too cheap to show even one full size alien creature.
I have seen a few Italian made Alien rip-offs in my day.
This one is the cheapest.

October 9 – Blaxploitation horror
(1/2*) BLACKENSTEIN

It’s not often that a film made in 1931 can boast to
having better special effects than a remake made FORTY years later.
Yep, Blackenstein is a dog. The title says it all, a take on
Frankenstein with a black cast, since Blacula was a hit and all.
If the sight of the Frankenstein monster wearing an afro is
your idea of entertainment, then you can have my VHS tape. See
the monster stumbling around with arms barely a foot off the floor,
the half-blind actor terrified that some sadistic prop-man may have
tossed a piece of scenery in his path. See editing that makes
nonsense out of the most uncomplicated scenes. The monster is
locked in a cage but in the next shot shown roaming – well
shuffling really – through the countryside. See an actor who
has even less facial expression than David Schwimmer! As
God is my witness, I am not exaggerating – the actor is named
Joe De Sue! It’s safe to say that Blackenstien is the bottom
of the season’s horror crop – or at least I pray that it is.
If there is worse to come, someone, anyone, take me out of
my misery.

**1/2 J.D.’S REVENGE

The spirit of a murdered 40’s gangster enters the
body of a nice guy taxi driver turning Mr. Normal into a
mad dog, trash talking pimp with a score to settle. Better
acted and directed than many Blaxploitation films. Glynn
Turman as the cab driver and Lou Gossett (before he was Louis
Gossett Jr) as a hood turned preacher are the standouts. The
film goes on a little too long and (a bigger problem) J.D.
never gets his revenge! Despite the possession angle, this
is not a horror film.

October 10 – Indigestion
** THE MAD BUTCHER

Victor Buono plays the greatest butcher in Vienna.
He is also a little mad. Needless to say, there ends up being
more in his sausages than just pork. Mostly unfunny dark comedy
is like eating a dinner where the entree, the appetizers, and
the desert are all bland. Technically one is full but the meal
was none too satisfying an experience.

October 11 – It’s a Saturday

October 12 – A Sunday with Christopher Lee
** DRACULA, PRINCE OF DARKNESS

Dracula may be the prince of darkness but his manservant
is apparently more adept at killing people. This sequel to
Horror of Dracula has a London couple vacationing in vampire
country. Despite warnings to stay away from the castle, the
couples end up spending the night. . . yep, in the castle.
The count is revived somewhere around the forty minute mark.
Dracula may get top billing but he definitely plays second
fiddle here. Largely dull entry with one good scene (the staking
of Barbara Shelley).

*** TASTE THE BLOOD OF DRACULA

Like the last entry, there is a fairly lengthy set
up before Dracula takes the stage. Unlike the last entry,
the story is interesting. The last Sunday of every month,
three respectable men of the middle-class leave their homes
to look for naughty thrills in London’s east end. The problem
is the thrills are getting boring. One night they meet a
disinherited lord, an occultist, with a proposition of a new
experience (hint: it involves reviving a guy in a black cape).
One of the better entry in the Christopher Lee Dracula films.
The cast is fine with Lee particularly good. Also, the film
stars the gorgeous Linda Hayden from The Blood on Satan’s Claw.
My one complaint is that this film has the most lackluster
climax of the three films watched today (and the endings of
none of them were great).

**1/2 SCARS OF DRACULA

To its credit, Scars of Dracula gets Lee onstage
sooner and gives him more to do than usual. The first half-hour
is the best film I have watched so far this season – exciting,
gruesome, and fun. If the film is ultimately something of
a disappointment this can be attributed to some unconvincing
FX (ie- fake bat attacks), flat heroes, and loss of
intensity after the first half-hour. It probably wasn’t wise
for me to try and watch three Dracula films in one day.

October 13 – Two Dungeon Masters and One More Dracula
* THE POSSESSED (aka Help Me, I’m Possessed!)

Las Vegas lensed independent horror show has a psycho
psychiatrist conducting experiments into the separation
of the good and the evil in a person. The Mr. Hyde of the
equation is a largely unseen tentacle monster. Meanwhile,
the Doc amuses himself by disciplining his patients in his
basement torture chamber (every clinic should have one).
My motto is what’s filmed in Vegas, should stay in Vegas.

*1/2 THE TORTURE CHAMBER OF DR. SADISM

Christopher Lee is (I guess) Dr. Sadism but he doesn’t
make an appearance until the half-way point and seems awfully
bored through the remainder. I could relate. Despite some
impressive (for the budget) set designs, this is a dull spooker
where a group of people arrive at the ruined castle of a man
executed for murdering twelve women. It’s all for a
rejuvenation serum. . . and a little revenge.

**1/2 THE SATANIC RITES OF DRACULA

The last Christopher Lee Dracula film gets the rap
for being the worst from most reference books. It’s not
that bad. True, there is more shooting than staking and
the film abandons atmosphere for action set pieces, but
watched on its own terms, the film is entertaining.
The police are investigating a Satanic cult that worships
blood. They turn to Professor Van Helsing (a relative of
that other Van Helsing) for advice. Dracula is alive and
planning to unleash a strain of bubonic plague onto the
world. Without Dracula, the plot could be passed off as
a very pulpy spy story but then one doesn’t watch these
films for the plots. Lee is in fine form and when he is
offscreen (too often), Peter Cushing is there to take up
the slack.

(with Satanic Rites, I have only one more Christopher Lee
Dracula film to watch: Dracula Has Risen From the Grave,
maybe next year).

October 14 – Why were these films paired together?

(I bought a DVD-r that paired the following films as a double
feature. I only wanted Jennifer but since The Severed Arm
came free, what the hey)

** 1/2 JENNIFER

A rip-off of both Carrie and Willard, Jennifer is
entertaining enough. Our heroine is a girl from the hills
attending an exclusive private school on a scholarship. The
rich girls at the school hate her. What no one knows is that
Jennifer can control snakes. So after she is humiliated and
finding her kitten hanging strangled in her locker, Jennifer
goes out for revenge. It is here that the film’s weaknesses
show. The makers have not the skill and certainly not the
budget to stage the snake finale convincingly. They resort to
quick zoom shots, low level lighting, and an incredibly fake
looking giant snake which bites the head clean off one tormentor.
Still, the cast is game (Lisa Pelikan as Jennifer is surprisingly
good). I liked it about as much as Carrie, but then I’ve
never been a fan.

* THE SEVERED ARM

A group of starving men in a cave-in resort to cutting
off the arm of one of their number to eat it. They are rescued
just after performing the amputation on the very unwilling victim.
Five years later, the men are being stalked by someone. . . someone
who takes an arm from each. No budget, late 60’s horror film
is an amateur affair all the way.

October 15 – The Best Film of the First Half the Month
***1/2 SORCERERS

Boris Karloff plays a hypnotist who has perfected
a machine which lets one feel the sensations of another,
in other words live as another person. A side effect is
the hypnotist can actually control the actions of his
patient. Karloff wants to use the device for good but
his wife has other ideas. As a kid, I watched a Christopher
Walken film called Brainstorm which had a similar premise.
Sorcerers better explores the idea with less money than
that 1980’s FX show. Sorcerers was directed by Michael Reeves,
an and coming British director whose life was cut short
by a drug overdose at the age of 26. He is best known
for The Witchfinder General starring Vincent Price but
Sorcerers is better.

October 16 – A Devil of a Thursday
** THE FINAL CONFLICT – OMEN 3

Damien the Anti-Christ is now an adult (played by Sam
Neil) and hunting for the newly born messiah. For those new
to my yearly ramblings, in 06 I watched The Omen for the first
time and found it just okay. In 07, I watched the incredibly
silly Damien – Omen 2. Now, we are at the last of the original
Omen films and the series ends with a shrug. This is a bland,
mediocre motion picture.

* THE WITCHING

Orson Welles wears a fake nose. Perhaps if I hadn’t
known this fact going in, I might have been able to pay more
attention to the (not very interesting) story. Instead, I
spent the film’s 80 minutes starring at Welles’ fake nose.
The film was edited from its original version (the end
credits even admit this) and what’s left is a confusing
combination of Rosemary’s Baby and The Stepford Wives.
A young couple move into Lilith, a small town ran by a warlock
(Welles) who forces all citizens to convert to witchcraft.
The husband embraces this lifestyle, which, hey, let’s him sleep
around without guilt. The wife is appalled. The wife is
so shrill, one ends up rooting for the satanists. If not
for some nude orgy scenes, this could have been a 70’s TV movie.

October 17 – Hyde and Seek
* HIDE AND SEEK

Grieving father Robert De Niro takes mentally scarred
daughter Dakota Fanning to the country after suicide of wife/
mother. Daughter becomes increasingly isolated and speaks of
an imaginary friend named Charlie who is not friendly and may
not be imaginary. One can see the twist ending coming a mile away.

October 18 – It’s a Saturday

October 19 – My friend Rich got to pick from the horror box; these
were his choices.
**1/2 SCREAMERS

The cover for the VHS tape shows a screaming man turning
into a blood red creature. Surprisingly, the film is an old
fashion, recalling the monster movies of the 1950s, specifically,
The Creature From the Black Lagoon. The monsters in Screamers
resemble the Creature more than coincidentally. The plot
has a group of shipwrecked prisoners arriving on an island ran
by a greedy landowner who has discovered Atlantis. Also on
the island are sea monsters, a Bond girl (Barbara Bach), and a
has-been who once worked with Orson Welles (Joseph Cotton).
The film gets a bit long (even at only 85 minutes) but holds
interest reasonably well for most of the time. Gremlins
filmmaker Joe Dante is rumored to have directed the prologue
(the only portion of the film with gore).

* TENTACLES

I once watched a Jaws ripoff called Great White
where the shark growled and periodically came up for air.
It was a ludicrous film. . . but it was more entertaining
than Tentacles. A giant octopus is pissed that a drilling
firm is using high frequency radio waves so the beast
slaughters various residents of a coastal town. John
Huston is the newspaperman who puts the facts together.
Bo Hopkins is the man who has to kill the beast (with the
help of two killer whales). Claude Atkins is, once again, the
cop. Henry Fonda shows up for three scenes as the president
of the drilling company. The financiers would have been better
served hiring a nobody and using Fonda’s paycheck on the FX.
Maybe the second unit wouldn’t have had to try and stage boat
attacks with toys in the producer’s bathtub. The final
whale v. octopus showdown is almost incomprehensible.

* Deadly Intruder

Tentacles beats out Deadly Intruder only by a nose to
take the honors of worst film of the day. This film’s set up
is typical slasher film plotting. A psycho, his face
obscured by darkness, escapes from a mental hospital (well,
he climbs a fence – I didn’t see a hospital anywhere).
From there it’s a stop to kill the ex-wife and then time to
move on. Next, the film slows down for a particularly
boring dinner party interrupted by an occasional murder in
the nearby countryside. Who is the killer? The creepy
drifter who stops by for food or one of the “normal”
people at the party? So slow paced and constipated
(to say nothing of lacking in blood and gore) that
one can almost hear the director off screen saying,
“I have directed Samuel Beckett at the Sacremento
Community Theatre, of course I know what I’m doing.”
He doesn’t. The VHS box promises an ending that
will startle and horrify. Yes, if you have never seen
a thriller. On the plus side, Danny Bonaduche
gets his head rammed through a TV set. Ten deaths.
Two potential victims survive. The first murder
is four and a half murders into the feature. Two drops of
blood. Three breasts. Best death: Danny Bonaduche going
through the TV.

October 21 – Bullshit!
* The Land of the Minotaur

With “minotaur” in the title was I expecting too
much in thinking a monster would show up? Was I really
asking for the world? Okay, if not a monster, then how
about a big bull? At the very least, how about a man
in a bull mask? Nope, no minotaur, no bull, no man in
a mask. Instead, there’s Peter Cushing as a pagan
leading a town in worshiping a statue of a bull that breaths
fire (yawn). Human sacrifices are done with a knife – no
one is gored. Donald Pleasence plays the Catholic priest
investigating the disappearances of some friends. The Land
of The Minotaur is often listed as the worst Peter Cushing
film. I’d believe it.

October 22 – I know Alfred Hitchcock; William Fruet, you are no
Alfred Hitchcock.
*1/2 FUNERAL HOME

Canadian director William Fruet turns in this
tame thriller set in a funeral home which has been turned
into a tourist inn. A teenage girl is helping her grandmother
run the inn for the summer. The grandfather disappeared years
before. In fact, there have been a few disappearances in that
area. At the fifteen minute mark, the kindly grandmother
is heard in a heated discussion with a crazy sounding man
(unseen) who is kept locked in the cellar. If you cannot guess
the “surprise” ending at this point then you might like
Funeral Home. You might also be surprised by the ending
of The Deadly Intruder.

October 23 – The Last Two Barbara Steele Horror movies
(I have finally watched all of Barbara Steele’s horror movies)
**1/2 The Long Hair of Death

Overwrought melodrama involving a woman burned as
a witch for killing a lord. In fact, it was the man’s nephew.
When the woman’s eldest daughter becomes too quizzical, she
too is done away with. The nephew eventually marries the
younger daughter of the woman burnt at the stake. But when a
mysterious woman (Barbara Steele), the husband must have her
at any cost. The ending is good and there is one nicely done
gothic moment. A lord begs forgiveness from his brother’s
corpse. The robes on the pile of bones seem to heave, as
if the dead man is trying to breath. Terrified, the
lord rushes from the tomb. The audience then sees the
mice who are resting in the dead man’s bones. All in all,
this is watchable but nothing too memorable.

** The She-Beast

Michael Reeves again but not up to Sorcerers.
The plot has an English couple vacationing in Transylvania
and coming under the spell of a two century old drowned witch.
The witch possesses the body of the wife (Barbara Steele) and
begins to kill off the descendants of the men who killed her.
The husband and a Dr. Van Helsing try to stop her. The
direction is fine but some very broad comedy (especially
of the Keystone Cops variety) kill this one.

October 23 – Hippie horror/Religious Horror
**1/2 A NAME FOR EVIL

A bored, distant architect quits his good job to
move to the country and restore a family manor, uninhabited
for a century. Soon the architect is seeing odd things,
being told that the long dead Major would not like certain
changes, and participating in a hippie orgy. The most
horrifying aspect of the film is the buck naked Robert Culp,
Bill Cosby’s old partner, running around in the orgy. An
Ultimately confusing film, A Name For Evil does have moments
and goes down easily at 75 minutes. However, nothing
in the feature itself is as unnerving as its opening
credit sequence, one of the most disquieting of the 1970s.

** A DAY OF JUDGMENT

Set in the late 20s, a small town has become effected
with self interest. The local minister is resigning after
his church attendance has dwindled to three old women.
The rest of the town is only interested in themselves.
The worst offenders are a greedy banker, a wrathful drunk,
a child hating old lady, an adulterous couple, and
a disgraceful son plotting to send his elderly parents
to a nursing home so he can sell the family business.
On a dark stormy night, a figure clad in black with
a large scythe shows up and begins to rid the town of its
worst elements. Could it be death? In the finale,
the town condemned townsfolk are given one more chance
to change their evil ways. Except for a mildly bloody
decapitation, A Day of Judgment could be played as
a Halloween treat in a high school Sunday school class.
It would be easy to make fun A Day of Judgment, but
it does have better production values than expected.

October 24 – Terror! (kind-of)
** TERROR

Director Norman J. Warren has stated that Terror was
influenced by a screening of Dario Argento’s Suspiria.
Although, Terror has a few (emphasis on few) moody
scenes, Warren’s film stumbles over exactly what Argento
got right the first time – the creation of a world
where anything is possible. Terror tries to keep the viewer
in suspense over whether the murders are the work of
a psychopath or supernatural in origin. By the time the
film sides with the latter, the game is almost over.

October 25 – It’s a Saturday!

October 26 – Horror on Film (at least 16mm)
*1/2 BEYOND EVIL

John Saxon and Lynda Day George play a newly married
couple who move into a house possessed by the spirit of an evil
woman. Before you can say Linda Blair, the evil woman takes
over the wife. She begins shooting painfully cheap looking
green beams from her eyes. Fortunately, there is an
exorcist. . .oops, I mean healer, living next door. The finale
is incredibly cheap looking.

**1/2 THE CAT CREEPS

Universal mystery from the 1940s sometimes listed
as a horror film in some publications. This is a very old
fashion film that nonetheless goes down easily. A reclusive
relative is accusing a senator of wrong doing. The senator
and a group of investigators (including uninvited reporter
Noah Barry Jr.) travel to the relative’s island. Of
course, the relative ends up murdered. The old lady’s
cat may be able to pinpoint the killer.

October 27 – Day of the Slasher

(I like to spend at least one day during the season watching slasher
movies. By this point, I am getting to the bottom.
These three are not as bad as some – like Deadly Intruder)

*1/2 KILLER WORKOUT (AKA “AEROBICIDE”)

Killer terrorizes a gym. Ted Prior (the poor
man’s Jeff Wincott) investigates. Most everyone will
want to stay clear of this by the numbers film that mixes
horror with low budget action scenes. However, for
those few of us that were junior high boys back in the
mid-late 80s, Killer Workout holds some charm. Picture
girls with big hair wearing headbands and legwarmers
doing aerobics as a third rate Pat Benatar wannabe
sings with synthesizer accompaniment “You got to work out/at the
workout.” Thirteen deaths (six completely or partially off
screen). One potential victim survives. First murder is
about twelve and a half minutes into feature. Best
death: a gunshot (a sad, sad development for a slasher film).
A couple drops of blood. Six breasts. The killer
wears no mask but the face is never shown.

** SILENT MADNESS

Do to a computer error, a dangerous schizophrenic
responsible for “the Sorority Slaughter” is set free from
a mental institution. He picks up where he left off,
murdering co-eds. A psychiatrist and a newspaper editor (hee hee)
try to alert help as the the hospital runs for a cover up.
The script writer must have had something against the psychiatric
profession. Most of the hospital staff are not just
incompetent but actually sinister. Two orderlies practice
rape and murder! The VHS box reads “There is a sound you’ll hear
when the screaming stops.” Which begs the question,
if the madness is silent, how can you hear it. Oh well.
Fifteen deaths (two off screen). Three potential victims survive.
First murder is about eight and half minutes into feature.
Best murder is an elaborate hanging involving barbells.
Six breasts. A Half pint of blood. The killer wears no mask.

** WELCOME TO SPRING BREAK

The leader of the bike gang Demons is sent to the
electric chair for a murder he claims to have been framed for.
The beach town that sent him to his death gears up for spring
break. This year, a mysterious biker begins to electrocute the
vacationers. Could it be the Demons’ leader back from the
dead? John Saxon is yet again the cop – but this time at least
he is a corrupt cop. Technically, the best made of
the slasher films of the day – higher production values
and better acting. If I prefer the not so silent
Silent Madness, it is because of the higher body count
and and faster pace. On the plus side, Welcome to
Spring Break does have Lance LeGault as a priest.
LeGault is best remembered for us children of the 80s
as the first MP to chase (and always be outwitted by)
The A-Team. Umberto Lenzi directs under a pseudonym
but shows little of the blood and guts that made
Make Them Die Slowly so memorable. Eleven deaths I
guess (the fate of a couple characters are in question
at the end of the film). Too many potential victims
survive to count. The first murder is twelve minutes
into the feature. Best death: electric prod in the mouth
of the slut. Three drops of blood. Five breasts.
The killer wears a cool motorcycle helmet.

October 28 – Old horror, new horror
*** MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM

This 1930s chiller is more enjoyable than its
1950s remake House of Wax (both, of course, are infinitely
better than the Paris Hilton film of that name). The plot
may be familiar (strange disappearances, a new wax museum
with life like models), but the film never fails to entertain.
Lionel Atwill is excellent as the museum curator. Although
the villain of the piece, one feels more sympathy for him
than the heroes. Secondly, Glenda Farrell overflows with
spunk as the girl reporter out to nail the story. Next,
the direction by Michael Curtiz (Casablanca) is quick
and sure. Lastly, the early color process (two strip color)
gives the film a look unlike any other horror film that
I’ve seen. My only real complaint is that except for
the curator and the girl reporter, the rest of the characters
are drab.

** SAW 5

At least this installment is better than
the two previous ones. It rips off the best of the Saw films
(#2) with a group of people forced to make their way through
roomfuls of traps until they understand the rules of the game.
This is half of the story. The second half is once again
another needlessly complicated series of flashbacks that
show how various previous traps were done and how
characters connect. I have watched the other four Saw films
and I was getting confused. One good murder scene – a variation
on Edgar Allan Poe.

October 29 – Dune buggy of death
*1/2 THE VELVET VAMPIRE

Silly, pretentious vampire film where a mysterious
woman invites a young couple to her desert hideaway for
a weekend. The couple being bored and looking for excitement
accept. The drive is a rough one with the estate being far
off the highway and no one too eager to give directions.
Once there, the couple spend the weekend eating raw meat,
visiting an old cemetery, and driving around endlessly
in a dune buggy. The husband is attracted to the host
(to be fair, so was I) but both he and his wife suffer
from strange dreams. Could she be a vampire? Yes, but
the sun doesn’t bother her . . . most of the time.
Confusing mythology is only one problem. The film
wants to be an arty vampire film in the style of
Daughters of Darkness but ends up being too dull to
work as horror and too dumb to work on a dreamlike
level. Celeste Yarnall makes a fetching vampire so
I’m giving the film an extra half-star.

October 30 – Horror from the East
*** INTO THE MIRROR

This film was remade as the Kiefer Sutherland vehicle
Mirrors. I have not watched the American film but the original
Korean version isn’t half-bad. A better title would be
Reflections since it is the reflections of a person that are
killing them (not just in mirrors). All of the murders
are happening in and around a department store about to
reopen after a strange fire. All of the victims’ used to
work in the same department before the fire. A security
guard/ex-policeman investigates. This being an Eastern
horror film in the post-Ring era, one can guess that a
ghost is behind the killings. This one at least gives
the ghost a motive and doesn’t have the long hair pale
skin figure. The film also conjures a memorable ending.
Those who are not completely sick of ghosts from the East
might want to check this one out, even if it is a tad overlong.

October 31 – two shaky camera zombie movies and a ringer
*** DIARY OF THE DEAD

Short observation: Diary of the Dead is slightly
better than Land of the Dead. I was a little more forgiving
on that last George Romero zombie film than others so keep
that in mind as I provide the following comments. Diary
of the Dead contains some great individual scenes: the opening,
an encounter with an Amish zombie killer, a bunker ran
by African-Americans who for the first time in their life
feel they have power, and an encounter with a spoiled rich
kid who has an interesting way of disposing of zombies.
Where the film goes wrong is in the sermonizing. Romero
clearly has a bitch about the media’s reporting and spinning
of events. Fine, but instead of dramatizing these themes,
Romero has characters talk about them in dialogue and,
in a mood killer, endless voice overs. Romero wrote and
directed the film and in this case he proves a better director
than a writer.

***1/2 [REC]

I’m giving this one an extra half-star because it is
better than Diary of the Dead and because it has the scariest
ending of any film this month. The plot has a journalist and
her cameraman doing a piece on firemen for a show called
“While You’re Asleep,” about people who work at night.
After more than needed footage of the bored reporter filming
the fire-station, a call comes in. It seems a simple
call: an old woman who can’t get out of her apartment.
There is no fire just a simple opening of a door and
escorting the woman down to the foyer. Something is wrong.
Most of the building’s tenants are in the foyer when
they arrive complaining of screams coming from the woman’s
apartment. The firemen, two policemen, and the uninvited
reporter and cameraman go up to the apartment and find
a very crazed old woman who bites one of the policemen.
The woman is subdued and the bitten policeman is taken
down to foyer to be evacuated. Only there is no ambulance;
in fact, there are special forces outside the building
that are sealing it off but won’t say why. A quarantine
is in effect. A quarantine from what? I think anyone
reading this would know. Sure enough, things go from
bad to worse for those inside climaxing with a genuinely
horrifying finale. There are a lot of zombie films out
now and there are a lot of herky jerky handheld horror
films on the market. I could complain, but [REC]
is one of the few films this month that made me jump (twice!).
Remade as Quarantine, unseen by me.

***1/2 HALLOWEEN

Halloween and I go way back. I first remember hearing
about the film in Fall of 1982. That was the year Halloween 3
was in theaters, Halloween 2 was on cable (which we didn’t
have), and the original was (edited for content and with
commercials) on television. I wasn’t for sure what Halloween
was even about. The tag line for the third film was “Season
of the Witch,” so I assumed it would be about a witch.
Parts one and two must be about some other movie monster
(a vampire? a werewolf?). From the city library, I had checked
children books that were mini-novelizations of
30s horror films (Frankenstein, Dracula, King Kong), so
“horror” for me as a child was a monster. The idea of
a serial killer was not understood by my eight year-old
brain. My parents were out this night which Halloween
played on television. I was staying with an aunt and uncle who
had a teenage daughter, so they were a little more relaxed
about TV viewing. Unfortunately, my parents arrived before
Halloween started. We arrived at home just for me to see
the opening camera tracking through the house scene. Then, it
was “time for your bath.” After bath meant bedtime and besides
there was no way in hell my mother was going to allow her
eight year-old to watch Halloween regardless if it was
edited for content or not. So, to bath and bed I went.
In high school, I finally caught first Halloween 2 and
then Halloween on regular television, edited for content
and with commercials (we never had cable). By then, I
had discovered Fangoria magazine and wanted blood.
Gore was entertainment. A body count had to be high, which
is why I (as a fifteen year-old or whatever) liked
Halloween 2 more than Halloween. Number two had a murder
every ten minutes; the original had five total (one completely
off screen!). Neither were favorites though, I was into
zombies – they always meant lots of gore. So years pass.
I go from zombies to John Woo and Hong Kong action films
(college days) to Fellini and Kurosawa and the arthouse.
In summer 2002, I buy a laser disc player at an auction for $10.
In the 90s, I had wanted a laser disc player but of course
they were too expensive. So even with DVDs (even as early
as 2002) clearly the medium of the future, I wanted a laser disc
player for nostalgia. I bought a guy’s collection of
just under 50 discs for $50. One of these was the Criterion
LD of Halloween. It set on my shelf for months as I
watched Alien and Aliens and others. Until, October 31,
2002, when after getting home from work around 3 or 4,
I put in the Halloween disc. Was I blown away? No, I liked
it more than I had remembered it but still found it a bit
slow and bloodless. Nonetheless, on October 31, 2003,
I found myself yet again watching that Halloween LD.
Somehow it became a tradition to watch the LD every
Halloween. I missed a couple years altogether and
faithful readers of these annual reports may remember
that I watched Halloween on the first of October last year.
Nonetheless, I must have watched the film at least four
times now in the last six years. It has grown on me.
Yes, side 2 is slow (when watching laser discs one thinks
in terms of sides, since one is turning them over like
a record) with the banter of the girls as the day becomes
night and the bogeyman motif is set up. But, wow,
that opening, the murder of the two lovers, and the finale.
If I had watched this film in late 78, I would have
applauded the ending right there in the theater. Laurie Strode
in tears says “Was that the boogie man?” Loomis answers
“As a matter of fact, it was.” Then he looks outside and
sees the body is gone. That music, that great John Carpenter
music, comes on as we get the look of astonishment/horror
on Loomis’ face. Then we cut to an empty room, an empty
stairwell, and empty street, and finally the run-down
old Myers’ home. Then we fade to black. The message:
he could be anywhere. That is a great ending for a horror
film. I expect to watch Halloween next year as well.

Well, that’s another October for me. Every year I feel burnt
out about this time since the bad (or at least mediocre)
horror films outweigh the good ones most years. Every
year, I think it may be my last, but by the first of
September, I will be looking forward yet again for another
month of horror.

-John

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