John’s Horror Corner: Terrified (2017; aka Aterrados), a pseudo-anthology approach for fans of paranormal investigation horror.
MY CALL: This is one of few films that impress me in all aspects of filmmaking in this genre. Excellent pacing, creepiness, scares, dread, acting, writing, shots… I loved it. Definitely a must see for fans of foreign horror, horror anthologies (about half this film is anthology-like) and paranormal investigation-themed horror. MOVIES LIKE Terrified: Well, the film most influential to Aterrados was probably Poltergeist (1982) and those that followed, such as Paranormal Activity (2007) and Grave Encounters (2011).
Sometimes very early in a film you get a sense of excellent execution, and that’s what I sense here. The opening scenes depict a woman who hears faint muffled “voices” in her kitchen sink drain. This may sound silly, but it’s not. It’s handled well, the actress (Natalia Señorales; Cursed Bastards, The Colony) nailed her reactions and lines credibly, her husband reacted appropriately, and I felt nervous for her—and I’m as cynical as they come when it comes to horror! Wasting no time, the husband has an analogous experience I’m left expecting something of an Argentine Poltergeist homage. However, the brutal “shower scene” that follows informs the audience that we’re in for something considerably for vicious.
As the husband is interrogated (by paranormalists and police together) regarding his wife’s bloody murder in the shower, he is challenged to recollect anything out of the ordinary in his neighborhood recently. What follows starts out something like a horror anthology as we explore his neighbor’s experiences…
They believed that their neighbor Walter (Demián Salomón; Cursed Bastards) had been doing some home renovations. The truth is, he’s been under a lot of stress lately and the sounds his neighbors heard were related to his diminishing sanity. His bed has been moving itself (with him in it), furniture stacks itself, and he gets a digital camera to record whatever it is as proof (all a la Poltergeist). Walter’s encounters are genuinely creepy!
Another segment focuses on the “return” of a dead child to his mother… but he returns (on his own?) as a motionless corpse days after his funeral, baffling police investigators—one of whom (Norberto Gonzalo) recruits a paranormal investigator (Elvira Onetto; Jennifer’s Shadow) who is on site of the previous story segment (the neighbor, Walter). Once all three stories have converged, the police team up with the paranormalists to canvas the houses for evidence and spend the night. Things escalate, of course.
The writing is sound as the different story segments overlap, transition, and even comingle. Sweeping neighborhood crane shots express the filmmakers’ love of the product. I’m really impressed with the performances across the board. Characters seem to react at least somewhat rationally to irrational circumstances, both victims and police alike. All of our victims are sincerely believable, the creatures’ movements and presentation are spine-tinglingly creepy, and the pacing and staging of scares readily cultivates dread with ease. The little boy’s corpse motionless at the dining room table was a freaky scene and the boy’s prior death scene was simply startling. EVERY scene with the motionless boy’s uninterred corpse had me pressing my back into my seat. It’s unnerving.
There are some excellent “subtle” jumpscares in this, along with some blatant OMG jumpscares. One such scene is a contorted inhuman body under a bed, others of sunken pale humanoid figures scampering about, eerie shadows and out-of-focus reflections, claws grabbing at things (or at heads!). There are also some creepy AF body contortions.
What makes this film work so well is how it is credible and engaging throughout its entire duration. The pacing is its perfection. Contrary to what we’ve come to expect from the genre, this film has no slow parts and the exposition is rather uniformly sprinkled across the scenes rather than exposition-dumps from ancillary “expert” characters or ranting harbingers. Writer/director Demián Rugna (Cursed Bastards) is officially on my radar now! Additionally, you can just feel the work that went into all elements of this film. It’s… excellent.
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John’s Horror Corner: Curse II: The Bite (1989), a B-movie about a mutant snake hand puppet.
MY CALL: Laughably terrible B-movie. Not nearly as enjoyable as The Curse (1987) and seemingly completed unrelated despite the title. IF YOU LIKE THIS WATCH: Well, The Curse (1987), and maybe even Curse III: Blood Sacrifice (1991; aka Panga).
An adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Colour out of Space”, the first “ curse” (The Curse) involved melty-fleshed zombies created from an other-worldly ooze that infected the water supply from meteorite contamination (I believe in Tennessee). Clearly having nothing to do with the first film, now we find ourselves at a nuclear testing site in Arizona. Clark (J. Eddie Peck) and Lisa (Jill Schoelen; The Phantom of the Opera, Cutting Class, The Stepfather) are driving across the desert and a bunch of cheesy snake imagery festoons the opening credits.
While fixing a flat tire, they come across a paranoid gas station owner with a feisty snake-headed mutant dog. The effects are B-movie cheap (and silly), but they’re ambitious as we enjoy a rubber snake puppet biting its owner’s neck. Unfortunately, this is the only thing in the first 50 minutes that isn’t painfully boring. I don’t mind a cheap B-movie, just please keep the pace up!
Eventually, Clark is bitten by a snake—the wrong snake! Clark becomes temperamental, his hand becomes infected and actually turns into a snake. Just his hand! And it is just around this time (the one-hour mark) that we finally get some schlocky gore when he punch-snakebites down a sheriff’s throat and rips out his heart. Again, nothing impressive visually. Although later when it rips off the lower jaw of a doctor… THAT was cool and packed a good gory effect. Then, like an Evil Dead 2 (1987) knock-off, Clark cuts off his own cursed hand in the least entertaining hand-amputation in film history. But spitting in the faces of the lords of good taste, it grows back snakier and slimier than ever.
All told, this is a movie about a mutant snake hand puppet. The plot, execution and special effects are all hokey as sin. And one of only two truly entertaining effects scenes is at the very end when Clark’s eye and tongue ooze out of place and he regurgitates baby snakes… and then he pukes up fully grown adult snakes… and then his head rips open for the emergence of a yet bigger snake! What the…? Clark had the strangest curse-infection ever. And the only link I can discern to the first movie is the inclusion of some God-fearing folks who liken the malady as a test from God (or punishment or something like that).
Oh, and this movie is terrible.
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John’s Horror Corner: The Collection (2012), a lousy attempt at a “horror action” sequel to the much better Collector (2009).
MY CALL: Look, I enjoyed The Collector (2009) and that naturally made me want to see the sequel… and now, I regret that decision completely. I’m not saying you won’t like this (as I didn’t), I’m just saying that none of the good things from the original are present in this sequel. I’ll leave it at that. MORE MOVIES LIKE The Collector: The Collector (2009) was much better in my opinion, but also a completely dissimilar film in style, concept and delivery. If I had my way, this sequel would never have been made (at least, not in this way).
The opening credit sequence reveals that this is a direct sequel and we learn more specifically what wasn’t so clear (mentioned in passing) in the first film: that this killer “collects” people (i.e., one person per crime scene). The first film stated that he collected people, but we had no idea of the nature of this collection since the movie played out like a Jigsaw serial killer flick.
This sequel’s opening scenes feel a lot like a generic direct-to-video horror as we are taken to a night club. Twentysomethings dancing, twentysomething drama, and lots of attractive twentysomething victims. Right away we see The Collector up on the catwalk as one of our young protagonist’s finds the first film’s victim (Josh Stewart; The Collector, Insidious: The Last Key, The Haunting of Molly Hartley) in a box, much as Arkin did in The Collector (2009), to harbinger what’s in store for her. It’s so outlandish you want to roll your eyes. But, at the same time, when the first trap is triggered and everyone is locked in the club, I’m intrigued at the bloody shenanigans that may ensue. Key word: “may” ensue…
The special effects didn’t impress me. As if trying (and failing) to compete with the opening death scene in Ghost Ship (2002), a huge thresher drops from the ceiling mowing dozens of people to death on the dance floor and others are herded into cages bloodily crushed under an elevator, leaving just a few survivors. The whole scene really… just wasn’t good.
After Arkin escapes The Collector, he is recruited by some team of mercenary soldiers to infiltrate The Collector’s lair to save a wealthy man’s daughter (Emma Fitzpatrick; Bloodsucking Bastards). The lair is huge and could double as a series of sets for a Resident Evil (2002) sequel. It’s populated with brainwashed lunatics, a zealot or two, and over-the-top elaborate traps.
The Collector’s lair includes a medical dissection laboratory complete with cut-up human bodies, organs in formaldehyde jars, a live tarantula collection, macabre sculptures made from human body parts (lots of them), and all manner of ridiculous traps. But the macabre sculptures were the only things to please the eye (and they were spectacular) as the death scenes felt really phoned-in. We also have some mean bone breaks which are really the only good “horror action” part of the movie! This movie is so over-the-top, even more so than its predecessor. The way Arkin leads people to The Collector’s lair is ridiculous, the use of tarantulas is idiotic, and dumb explosive traps do little more than annoy.
This movie is stupid, the dialogue is really stupid, the death scenes are exceptionally stupid, and I’m bothered by the simple fact that I’m watching this. The longer I watched, the more I came to despise this. It’s trying to be both an action movie and a horror movie, but it succeeds at neither. Our killer now has the combat prowess of a certified ninja commando, he has trained attack dogs and machine guns and mechanical doors that seem to conveniently open and close by his very will as if he was Darth Vader pacing about the Death Star. But really, WTF is with all the action movie knife-fighting and fist fighting in this movie? I feel the need to add that I actually enjoyed The Collector (2009). How did this take such a turn into lunacy?
I didn’t even enjoy any of the death scenes in this hot mess. And, on a personal note (i.e., as an entomologist), I really hated that this killer was an “entomologist” only to have it largely misrepresented in the film. A stag beetle display here, a live spider (not an insect) collection there, mostly human medical paraphernalia… plenty of films have done this so much better and it’s not hard. I rarely say this, but I hated this movie.
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MY CALL: Like its predecessor, it’s clearly style over substance in this high-intrigue yet slow(ish)-paced atmospheric masterpiece—but still much more “substantial” than the 1977 original in terms of execution and resolution. Even if film is art, this felt more like art than film at times—emotionally heavy art. I loved it, but it takes its toll on viewers. MOVIES LIKE Suspiria: Well, there’s the original Suspiria (1977) and perhaps Black Swan (2010). Those who seek out emotionally challenging film may attempt Antichrist (2009) as well, along with A Cure for Wellness (2016).
Of particular interest is that this remake takes place in the year of the original (1977). However, it deviates considerably from its source material as it opens with a young Patricia’s (Chloë Grace Moretz; Carrie, Let Me In, The Eye) paranoid ranting of witches to a concerned psychiatrist. And while in no universe could one compare the score to the stylishly dark approach of Goblin (1977), we are whisked away in lovely yet hauntingly effective scoring as we tour dismal German farmlands and countrysides. The likewise thoughtful (and dismal) shots of European cityscapes remind me of the depressing beauty of Possession (1981). In just five minutes, I’m pretty sure I love this film.
On a grey, rainy day we meet Susie (Dakota Johnson; Fifty Shades of Grey) who impresses, and Madame Blanc (Tilda Swinton; Snowpiercer, Constantine, Only Lovers Left Alive) who calmly but strongly fixates. With her acceptance to the company, Susie rooms with Sara (Mia Goth; A Cure for Wellness). As Susie deepens her stride and rank into the company, Sara wades deeper into its dark mysteries at the expense of her sanity and her soul…
REMAKE/REIMAGINING SIDEBAR: For more horror remakes, I favor the following: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), An American Werewolf in London (1981), The Thing (1982; yes, this was a remake), The Fly (1986), The Mummy (1999; adventure genre), The Ring (2002), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003), The Hills Have Eyes (2006), Friday the 13th (2009), Let Me In (2010), Evil Dead (2013), Carrie (2013), The Town That Dreaded Sundown (2014) and It (2017). Those to avoid include Poltergeist (2015), The Thing (2011; a prequel/remake), Cabin Fever (2016), A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010), Night of the Demons (2009), Body Snatchers (1993; the second remake), The Invasion (2007; the third remake), War of the Worlds (2005) and The Mummy (2017; total adventure-style reboot-imagining). I’m on the fence about An American Werewolf in Paris (1997), Halloween (2007), My Bloody Valentine (2009) and Fright Night (2011), which are bad or so-so remakes (in my opinion) but decently entertaining movies.
It’s only appropriate that this classic Italian horror film be remade by Italian director Luca Guadagnino, despite his lack of horror experience. Guadagnino employs camera angles and zoom analogous to Argento’s powerfully atmospheric lighting. Quite the opposite of Argento’s style, Guadagnino’s softened lighting and color palate afford a grey dated (i.e., 70s) haze to the film. This film is so infused with style (a style all its own), and the dancing only fuels this by evoking intensity. The dance choreography at times feels as if a Grudge ghost was conferred grace—some of the movements are otherworldly, even possessed.
The performances are understated, but oh so strong. Swinton (playing multiple roles) is haunting, menacing, protective and powerful. Johnson, an actress who I formerly despised (for the Fifty Shades films), now leaves me forgiving and quite sincerely impressed. And, at times, it’s Mia Goth who steals the show during her death spiral into the depths of the coven.
The first death scene is a truly joint-rending, torso-twisting and bone-crunchingly brutal spectacle to behold as it is mirrored by graceful dance while jerkily contorting someone to death. We then have a slow lull for at least an hour before the horror imagery resumes. Early use of nudity is quite macabre, accompanied by stump-dragging amputee ghouls and sunken husks of human bodies. Among the shocks we endure a wicked bone-protruding leg break.
There are numerous long sequences cultivating heavy atmosphere and emotional intensity to such degree that this film is actually exhausting—although not quite to the extent of Antichrist (2009). At 150 minutes of high-intrigue, slowburn filmmaking, our emotions are drained leaving us completely vulnerable when we succumb to the nudity-rich finale ritual complete with almost theatrical intestine-spooling vivisection, concerted coven chanting and hypnotic limb-swaying dancing like a school of beguiling sirens. But the creature effects of Mother Markos are worth the wait; she’s a mutant festering sight to behold; an admixture of the most dire traits of Jabba the Hut, radioactive mutation and a Cenobite. Although, I would have favored substance over style in the case of the red-filtered strobe light finale which I felt—despite its artistic contribution—obscured Guadagnino’s visualized execution of death scenes, gore, acolytes of evil and mass murder.
I’m not sure how I feel about the resolution of this film… but I’m also not sure what I expected. I was certainly more pleased with the ending (and all aspects of this film, really) over the original Suspiria (1977). The final deaths felt significant and dire, and I had more closure as to the whats and whys of the story. I guess, in closing, I’d both warn and encourage potential viewers of this highly challenging film.
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The Top Five Cinematic Locations You Should Avoid
I recently wrote a piece about the blood bath rave in Blade and it got me thinking about terrible cinematic places I wouldn’t want to be. So, I went through my favorite movies and picked five places that would be a nightmare to either call home or visit. I can 100% guarantee you wouldn’t want to be anywhere near these places.
Let us know what locations you wouldn’t want to visit in the comments.
1. The Slaughterhouse Club – Blade
If a person you don’t know invites you to a rave at an undisclosed location don’t go. What might seem fun in the short term, could turn out to be a living nightmare as jerky vampires laugh at you while blood pours from the ceiling. You would never find me at one of these places, and if was unlucky enough to be there, I’d be hoping a random vampire slayer shows up and saves the day.
Run away!
2. The Further – Insidious
Everything in The Further seems terrifying, and I guarantee the majority of the things in the place want to kill you. All the inhabitants are dangerous and between the Red Lipstick Demon, The Man Who Can’t Breath and Key Face there is zero chance of making it out of the place alive — or with your sanity intact. In you are in The Further it means that something terrible has happened, and you had no choice but to willingly travel into the worst place on earth. No thanks.
Elise is a gangster
3. Standing above the Great Pit of Carkoon Which is Home to the Sarlacc – Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi
According to C-3P0 and Wookiepedia, the Sarlacc monster digests things over very long periods of time. I’d hate to fall into the thing and slowly digest inside of it. Also, how terrible would it be to have the walk the plank into its mouth? I can’t think of a more terrible death (aside from being eaten by the Rancor).
Gross.
4. New York City – The Marvel Cinematic Universe
Between alien attacks, crime kingpins and a deluge of super villains, the New York City inside the MCU world seems like the most dangerous place on earth. It never gets a reprieve and attacks by maniacal villains are always around the corner (or through a portal). The best case scenario is you live in Hell’s Kitchen and have to deal with Daredevil battling Kingpin or some lower level crime boss who isn’t interested in wiping out blocks of innocent people. The worst that can happen in the Daredevil world is your apartment building is slightly damaged or your car gets dented when somebody falls on it. Also, I really hope somebody renews Daredevil.
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5. A House Full of Lions – Roar
Roar took 11 years to film and 70 crew members were injured in the process. It was originally supposed to be about the preservation of African wildlife but it soon took on a life of its own. The movie rambles along at lightning speed and basically focuses on a family having a terrible time in Africa. Shooting with the lions was crazy and people suffered lacerations, bone fractures, scalping and gangrene. It is considered to the most dangerous movie ever made and producer/writer/director Noel Marshall was lucky that he was able to cast his two sons John and Jerry, his wife Tippi Hedren (The Birds) and her daughter Melanie Griffith. In an interview with the New York Post John Marshall had this to say about his dad:
“Dad was a f–king a–hole to do that to his family,”
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Where would you avoid? Let us know in the comments.
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The MFF Podcast #172: Venom, Tater Tots and Chocolate
The famous “turd in the wind” line is about to happen.
You can download or stream the pod on Spotify, Itunes, Stitcher, Tune In, Podbean, or LISTEN TO THE POD ON BLOG TALK RADIO.
The MFF podcast is back, and this week we’re talking about the excellent 2018 superhero flick Venom. We love this movie and appreciate how Tom Hardy dove into the role and managed to make a head eating glob of goo likable. In this podcast you will hear us talk about tater tots, symbiotes and the negatives of owning a car wash. If you are a fan of Venom you will love this podcast. Also, we put together the greatest superhero squad of all time.
Venom needs more chocolate.
If you are a fan of the podcast make sure to send in some random listener questions so we can do our best to not answer them correctly. We thank you for listening and hope you enjoy the pod!
You can download or stream the pod on Spotify, Itunes, Stitcher, Tune In, Podbean, or LISTEN TO THE POD ON BLOG TALK RADIO.
If you get a chance please make sure to review, rate and share. You are awesome!
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John’s Horror Corner: The Collector (2009), the intersection of a satisfyingly brutal Saw-wannabe and a booby-trapped You’re Next (2013) home invasion.
MY CALL: A mean-spirited brutal film with a weak plot, but promising much fun for fans of gore, torture and shocking death scenes. MORE MOVIES LIKE The Collector: For more brutal torture porn, try the Saw movies (2004-2010, 2017) and The Collection (2012). I’d also suggest You’re Next (2013) and Martyrs (2008).
Desperate for money, Arkin (Josh Stewart; The Collection, Insidious: The Last Key, The Haunting of Molly Hartley) plans a home invasion to steal jewels from his employer. However, much to his surprise, another criminal with more insidious motives has rigged the home into deadly trapped house of horrors.
The opening scene feels a lot like a Saw sequel, and that’s essentially what we’re getting except with a much more simple plot. I mean, it’s entertaining, but nowhere nearly as thoughtfully engaging. Our mastermind killer’s traps seem either crude (to the point of being uninteresting at first glance) or unlikely to be triggered, but of course most of them are. And I’ll be the first to admit that I enjoyed it—being a gorehound who doesn’t mind the occasional brutally mean film.
Whatever you thought of Jigsaw’s elaborate scenarios, this all strikes me as more far-fetched if only because the killer had one day to kidnap the homeowners, install numerous new deadbolts, and set up all those traps. Doors and windows are locked or barricaded, phones and possible weapons (like scissors and golf clubs) are booby-trapped, trigger wires abound, bear traps litter the floor and razor wire spiderwebs one of the rooms. The Collector (Juan Fernández; In Hell) has turned this upper-class home into a death house.
There’s decent blood and wound work, the sticky acid floor “cat scene” provides some memorable gooey silliness (unless you’re sensitive to animals dying in movies), there’s a healthy complement of guts, lips are stitched shut, fish hooks are used to wincingly uncomfortable degrees, and we see some rather inspired use of a dead guy’s head as sort of a makeshift battering ram (and it gets messy). Just in case the very nature of this exploitative film wasn’t apparent enough, there’s also a healthy dose gratuitous nudity (Madeline Zima; Californication, Heroes) with our killer watching and licking his lips like Leatherface.
Writer (Saw IV-VII, Piranha 3DD, Feast I-III) and director Marcus Dunstan (The Collection) has, needless to say, crafted a mean-spirited film in Saw’s likeness, but completely lacking any of Saw’s story-telling elegance or character development. So, if you want to see a movie that’s just mean for the sake of being mean (and gory), maybe this is right up your alley. But I wouldn’t broadly recommend to fans of the Saw franchise unless they outwardly didn’t care much for a feasible plot… which, honestly, I don’t. So I enjoyed this.
If you awkwardly giggle when hard-to-watch scenes make you wince and if you delight in abrupt death scenes that may just provoke an outburst of laughter as you jump and point at the screen, this is probably for you.
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The MFF Podcast #171: The Guest
You can download the pod on Spotify, Itunes, Stitcher, Tune In, Podbean, or LISTEN TO THE POD ON BLOG TALK RADIO.
The MFF podcast is back, and this week we’re talking about the 2014 action-horror film The Guest. We love The Guest and think director Adam Wingard did a fine job blending elements from The Terminator and Halloween together and creating something new and exciting. The movie gets better with each viewing, and it’s left us wanting more adventures featuring Dan Stevens and Maika Monroe battling each other while exchanging fun dialogue. In this podcast, you will hear us talk about tubes of death, jogging long distances and whether or not we liked working on film sets.
Dan Stevens is the best.
If you are a fan of the podcast make sure to send in some random listener questions so we can do our best to not answer them correctly. We thank you for listening and hope you enjoy the pod!
You can download the pod on Spotify, Itunes, Stitcher, Tune In, Podbean, or LISTEN TO THE POD ON BLOG TALK RADIO.
If you get a chance please make sure to review, rate and share. You are awesome!
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MFF Special: How Many Gallons of Blood Came Out of the Sprinklers During the Rave in Blade?
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A lot of blood is wasted during the rave in Blade. I get that the yuppy vampires lead by Deacon Frost don’t care about wasting blood, however, it seems like they’d have to ice skate uphill in order to throw a secret blood party inside a slaughterhouse and install a standalone sprinkler system that keeps blood from congealing in the hours before the vampire rave kicks off. In honor of Blade and it’s generous wasting of cinematic blood, I decided to figure out how much of the red liquid came out of the sprinklers during the 75 seconds that it poured onto the vampire dancers. After copious research of irrigation systems and blood (my google search history must seem weird) I’ve come to the conclusion that somewhere around 425 gallons of blood poured out of the sprinklers, which means they drained blood from either 41 cows, 283 adults (think Blade: Trinity) or collected 3,400 one pint donations from the blood banks they have all around the world (Blade 2).
Here is what I know:
- The blood rave lasts 75 seconds and would take hours to clean up. I feel bad for the cleaning crew.
- The blood comes from 20 different sprinklers that are placed in the ceiling of the slaughterhouse/dancing club.
- There is another irrigation system that must be for potential fires and cleaning off the bloody dancers after the rave is over.
- The average office sprinkler system uses 8-24 gallons per minute. The blood is really pouring out of the the sprinklers, so I went with 17 gallons per minute.
- Blood was definitely coming out of the sprinklers.
- 99.7% of the blood hits the floor.
- The vampires must’ve created a machine that keeps the blood from coagulating or congealing.
- The meat packing plant is a front for a weird human blood drive system.
- Vampires don’t care about permanently damaging their clothes.
Here is what I’m guessing:
- Since the rave takes place in a slaughterhouse they must be getting the blood from the animals. However, I wouldn’t put it past them to jerkily use human blood.
- I think the vampire overlords (AKA Udo Kier) wouldn’t be pleased to know that hundreds of gallons of human blood was being wasted on EDM loving vampires.
- Since they made the “Blood Rave” sign I’m thinking they’ve done it before.
- The vampire DJ worked the venue before and knows where to put the speakers for optimal output.
- They don’t really drink any of the blood…..so it must not be human blood?
- There is no cover charge for the party.
- The invitations were sent via email.
- The vampires can’t leave the building with blood stained clothes, so, they must’ve brought a change of clothes to wear after the rave ends. Also, it probably ends around 4:00AM so the vampires can get home before the sun comes up.
- It wasn’t hard for Blade to find the rave. I’m guessing a vampire told a friend, who told another friend and the guest list spiraled out of control. Thus, Blade could simply track an unwitting vampire who was carrying an overnight bag to the party.
Final Conclusion:
At least 425 gallons of animal blood came out of the sprinklers designed especially for the blood rave. It’s too bad that Blade found the location because they must’ve spent a decent amount of time and money to create the event space.
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John’s Horror Corner: Dreams in the Witch House (2005), Stuart Gordon’s adaptation of H. P. Lovecraft’s story for Masters of Horror.
MY CALL: An entertaining horror segment, but not quite worthy of being a full-fledged film. MORE MOVIES LIKE Dreams in the Witch House: For more Lovecraftian adaptations, try The Unnamable (1988), The Unnamable 2: The Statement of Randolph Carter (1992), The Resurrected (1991), Lurking Fear (1994), Dagon (2001) and The Dunwich Horror (1970). And while not “officially” based on any one Lovecraftian work, there’s also In the Mouth of Madness (1994) and The Void (2016).
A physics graduate student of the Miskatonic University, Walter (Ezra Godden; Dagon) is torn between questioning his sanity and suspicions that he’s been sleepwalking after renting a room in an old house previously the residence of a 17th century witch. Walter is haunted by a series of disturbing dreams, he wakes up in strange places, and he comes to fear for the lives of his neighbor and her infant.
The special effects are serviceable but nothing to brag about. When Walter has dreams of a rat with a human face, it seems like something from a PG-13 horror for kids; very Goosebumps-ish. Then he is seduced by a sultry naked witch (Chelah Horsdal; Altitude, AVP: Requiem) in a disturbing sex scene and there is a satisfyingly gushy eye-gouging scene. But for me, the most entertaining bits were the final scene with the human-faced rat (during the gory finale) and the simple inclusion of the flesh-bound Necronomicon as we’ve seen in so many horror films before (e.g., Jason Goes to Hell, Evil Dead, The Babysitter, The Unnamable).
Based on the story (of the same name) by H. P. Lovecraft, this is probably the weakest work by director Stuart Gordon (Dagon, The Pit and the Pendulum, Re-Animator, From Beyond). The writing is a bit dry and, outside of the star (Godden), the performances seem unrefined—as if trained actors walked in and did one take without feeling out the characters. If it were a bit shorter—clipping exposition but keeping all the effects scenes—it would make a fine segment for a lower budget anthology film. And, being part of the Masters of Horror series, I essentially view it as part of a huge anthology.
Movies, Films & Flix 