When a Stranger Calls 1979

This one is usually regarded as a "classic", but not by anyone with high standards. It's a rip-off of both Black Christmas and Halloween, and starts off promising with some nice atmosphere and a bleak intro, but after that? Charles Durning hunts for the escaped guy, and our opening lead actress disappears for most of the movie.

The movie focuses some on mental illness, but the killer is still a tool. Not very frightening to the hardened viewer. I feel like the movie was conceived around the first 20 minutes, then a bunch of filler happens until a tame showdown.

If it's any consolation fo this movie's fans, it is still better than the 2006 remake. I remember when I was fresh on horror back then and I still thought that movie was fucking garbage.

1979 version had potential, but it falls a bit flat. It probably would've made a decent TV movie though, but that's what the sequel was for, apparently.


Black Christmas did it better.

#Review

Prophecy 1979

In the forests of Maine, something is terrorizing the locals. It even kills a dog right off the bat, and those animal killings often hit harder than human killings. Stupid humans... but yeah, it's killing them, and it's an asshole and whatnot.

It's a good cast here, featuring Talia Shire and Armand Assante, who funny enough often played Stallone's brother. There's some environmental junk to the plot, but that's to be expected in the animal horror genre, as I've been finding out. Try to guilt the viewer into being an activist, why don't ya? Fortunately, I completely forgot what man-made plight was responsible for the carnage, so I'm proud to say I didn't learn any lessons.

This movie is pretty fucking awesome for being PG. That sleeping bag kill? Holy shit! People's faces getting sliced by a bear claw? There was a decapitation in there too, right? I hope they show this movie to elementary school children when they try indoctrinate them about pollution or whatever the fuck this movie is preaching against. Had I known that this is where South Park got its inspiration for the infamous global warming / manBearPig spiel, I would have watched it much sooner.

#Review

Squirm 1976

More animal horror. Yeah, bugs count when there are a bunch of them, and there are a bunch of screaming worms with sharp teeth. Already, the movie sounds stupid as hell, right? Well, it's actually surprisingly watchable.

After a major storm in Georgia, the worms are squirming amok. Some nerd visits from NY and finds out firsthand how dangerous a worm can be when provoked. Throw in a skeptical sheriff, an irritable retarded handyman, and a few piles of bones and there's a story in there somewhere.


I think this movie had some influence on The Faculty. There's a part where worms are digging into some dude's face and the effect is pretty cool, much like that final bit in The Faculty. Also, I used to think the guy on the poster art for Squirm was Josh Hartnett, but I knew it couldn't have been since the years were a big mismatch.

The worms are gross though. And there are so damn many of them!

The amount of sea worms used in the film was countless, as the production would order shipments of 250,000 Glycera worms at a time. The production would end up wiping out the New England fishing industry's supply of Glycera worms that year.

And whereas I'm not so sure about that ozone connection in Day of the Animals, there is at least some scientific basis for the chaos in this movie:

The inspiration for the film came from a childhood experiment between director Jeff Lieberman and his brother. One evening the two hooked up a train transformer to wet soil and used the electricity to drive hundreds of worms out of the ground. Young Lieberman noticed that the worms tried to get away from the glare of the flashlight that the boys were using to see by because worms are sensitive to light. It became the scientific basis behind this film and the story of the experiment is re-told by the character of Roger Grimes.

Pretty decent track record for director Jeff Lieberman. He seemed a tad annoyed when I'd mentioned that I haven't seen Squirm yet, so I had to remedy that. Good flick.

#Review

Day of the Animals 1977

On the topic of killer animal movies, here's one from the good ol' 1970s about a group of hikers getting lost in the midst of some environmental propaganda. The animals are on the fritz, and they blame the depletion of the ozone layer. I'm not sure if there's any science behind any of it, but whatever. What's the worst that could happen on a friendly nature hike?

When someone goes into the woods in a horror film, you should have a pretty good idea of how things can go wrong. Our group of hikers is led by Christopher George, and includes some native American guide, an annoying mother and her eager son, some random filler characters, and most importantly... Leslie fucking Nielson.

He wasn't always a funny guy. He used to be... HILARIOUS! What a fucking asshole! Well, he starts off as a chipper albeit disrespectful patron, making racist remarks at the native guide and calling the tour guide "hot shot" all the time, as if he thinks he can be a better host than the perfectly reasonable Christopher George. As soon as things start to go south, his condescension gets overt. And when things go even more south, he starts insulting everybody and calling the nice little kid a cockroach. He really goes off the deep end and gets a god complex. If the plot were described as simply as "Leslie Nielson fights a bear", I'd be sold. I probably should have opened with that, but like the movie itself, you need a bit of buildup to something so extravagant.

It's not very gory, but there's definitely a bodycount. It's a fun adventure and I'm definitely willing to watch more from this killer animal subgenre.

#Review

Hellraiser 2022

The last few entries put in exactly zero effort to make a passable movie, so the bar for this franchise is pretty fucking low. Dimension Films were shitting out sequels in order to retain the rights, but somehow, Hulu got involved, and decided to put in some actual effort for a change. What a concept!

It's not a sequel, but it's not a remake. It bears little in common with the original and is a fairly unique story among the series. Nobody escapes hell and craves blood to regrow their flesh in that whole plot thread. It's more about dealing with the ramifications of the puzzlebox's fuckery, but it hits all the right beats. The puzzlebox, the chains, the cenobites, and the bizarre machinations of hell.

I don't have anything really to say about the "new" Pinhead. Yup, it's a she now. It doesn't really add or detract anything. It probably could've used Doug Bradley to make it a legit entry, but whatever. I guess his days of raising hell ended a while ago. The cast does a good job, and I did like the main girl. I'd do her.


Pardon the pun, but the cenobites strike me as more fleshed out here. Particularly in that they play a bigger threat, have more defined mechanics, and are plenty weird. I'm not sure if they ever made much sense to begin with, though. Why does Pinhead always have powers while the others are purely pawns? What made him/her a hell priest/priestess? We wont get our answers to that here, because while the sequels tried to bank off of that character, this new one treats him more like in the original movie, where he was just the "lead cenobite". It isn't about that character, nor should it be. It's about solving the box and claiming your "reward".

One dude's reward is pretty interesting. And pretty gross. In fact, the whole movie has its gross moments, but it still seems pretty tame for the most part. But... I didn't hate it. That's the most you can hope for with a series that's been run into the ground as much as Hellrasier has.


And now, the real question... Is HBO Max's Hellrasier series still moving forward? Haven't heard anything on that in a while...

#Review

Mausoleum 1983

Points for weirdness. It opens with a little girl getting possessed after walking into a creepy and weirdly-lit mausoleum. Years later, she seems to be living a normal life, but she has these spells, and well... take a guess what happens.

The plot isn't important. The movie almost feels like an Italian flick, and I wonder why...

It was produced by the "Yuppie Don" Michael Franzese, former capo of the Colombo crime family. It was allegedly a form of money laundering. Wether it was a passion for film or simply a business venture is unknown.

There are a few noteworthy things about this movie. The lighting is very green and purple. That's another thing in common with Italian flicks is that heavy lighting. The creature effects are by John Carl Buechler, and the demon looks super cheesy, but not without charm. It also features aunt Esther (LaWanda Page) as a spooked house maid. Is that a nod to early horror films with the black bug-eyed servants who exist solely for comic relief?

It's not great, but I kinda liked it. Not to be confused with Mortuary 1983.

#Review

Smile 2022

There aren't a lot of horror films that want to compete with H-Ends this season, but here's one of them.

It's kinda like that Ring curse. And kinda like the It Follows curse. The smile demon (for lack of a better name) drives you mad, then you smile at someone and kill yourself in front of them, traumatizing them into the same curse. Also, is he even a thing? Can he be defeated? Or is it all psychological? After all, there sure are a lot of dream sequences. And jump scares.

Sounds pretty standard, huh? Well, it is. However, I never felt that it was bad at any point. It had the cliches. Sometimes, those dreaded cliches aren't too bad. Our lead does a good job of descending into madness. Gee whiz, it sure must be fun for actors to play someone who is unraveling. It also had vibes of that recent flick Unsane. Probably the hospital setting, in addition to the mental breakdowns.

So the cast is good, the score is grating, and it earns its R-rating. It's fun to try to figure out the rules along the way. How does the curse work? How can we beat it? I think it could have some interesting mechanics that could work in an rpg. Curses like these are comparable to a virus in some ways. Transmission, symptoms, durations, treatments... Yet at the same time, I'm glad it doesn't go too in depth trying to figure out the rules, so the audience can be left to use that imagination thingy.

On the walk to the theater, I was reminded of my previous walk home from the theater. I saw two people fucking under a bridge. 🙂

#Review

Grizzly 1976

Grizzly is pretty boring. They don't show much of the bear, but he's a lot of fun when he gets there. He kills the shit out of those people, and for no reason. He's just an asshole.

I loved the scene where the bear was shaking down the tower. They probably reused the same footage of him in all those shots, because he kept shaking that load-bearing plank over and over again in the same way. Points for this movie having the balls to kill people. I'm pretty sure I remember them killing a kid, so bonus points for that. In a movie like this, none of the characters matter. I've forgotten them all entirely, and it's only been a day since I watched it.

The killer-animal subgenre is one I haven't delved into much. I think the idea lends itself perfectly to exploitation movies because the plot is this: angry animal kills people who get in the way. One could only write a movie like this around the kills, much like a slasher movie...


Therefore, is Killer Animal a type of slasher? They can often have claws for literal slashing, and they rack up a body count. How do you define the difference?


Also... recs?

#Review

Popcorn 1991

Overall fun movie. The alternate title "Phantom of the Cinema" seems more precise, but I guess there is popcorn in this movie. It isn't killer popcorn like in Killer Klowns though. Just regular popcorn.

The plot is centered around a few gimmicky horror screenings. Boy, I tell you h'what, I've never seen a packed theater having a blast throwing shit around and partying like I've seen in movies. I like the idea of soaking in the audience reactions, but at the same time, I hate it when I'm trying to pay attention and can't hear what's being said. Audiences aren't like this, and theaters don't get gimmicky with fog machines and shock-seats now because they're too worried about "lawsuits" and "safe environments".

Sometimes, I think it would be fun to run a small movie house. If I only had a jillion dollars or whatever it costs, and if only I actually wanted to do it, but still. I did enjoy working in that business. Despite the company's shortcomings. Running a theater would be tough these days when everyone is so lazy and has all the movies they want on some device. You would need to create a buzz to lure people to a real movie theater, like how Alamo Draft House or whoever it was lured people there to meet George Hardy. Do you see these walls? Do you see how clean they are? Hospitality!

I tell myself, If I ran a theater, my concessions would be much cheaper. Theater food is outrageously priced. $12 for a hot dog? And they wonder why they're dying? I also tell myself if I were president, I would ban bicyclists from using the road when a sidewalk is present. I would be a terrible president. Fortunately, I'm only a terrible movie-reviewer.

The killer is a smug, whiny prick. I hate him. Some other stuff happens, then the movie ends. It was a cool movie.

#Review

The Horror Show 1989

Aka "House 3", despite having nothing to do with the House movies. The house in this movie is hardly a character, but to yoink from imdb:

According to Sean S. Cunningham, the film was going to be named 'House III', but the new distributor, MGM, wanted a fresh start with potential new series with a new iconic villain, so the script was modified to reflect the new approach, and it was re-titled "The Horror Show" for the US theatrical release, while the title "House III" was maintained for the non-US market.

So if it isn't a haunted house movie, then what is it? Obviously, it's a Shocker rip-off. (??) Brion James plays a maniac (as usual), and he gets the chair. He loves it, of course, and vows revenge against Lance Henriksen for being a cop.

There's a bunch of filler and boring nightmare scenes with this one-dimensional villain, and it's easy to zone out. I do remember seeing the kid in Amityville 4. I always thought he was a tool and made fun of his hair, but now I feel bad, because the actor Aron Eisenberg died a few years ago. That's not why I feel bad for him though. I feel bad because his last pic on imdb has him bald. I blame myself. I must have transmitted my thoughts a lot louder than I meant to.

But yeah, House 3 sucks. House 1 would be ashamed. Well, it probably already is ashamed, because I remember thinking House 2 was pretty lame. I did fixate on Lance Henriksen's face when I was paying attention though. It definitely is a face.

Currently holds a 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

#Review