The Movies, Films and Flix Podcast – Episode 546: Last Night in Soho, Edgar Wright and Mirrors
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Mark and Nathan Lahay discuss the 2021 supernatural thriller Last Night in Soho. Directed by Edgar Wright, and starring Thomasin McKenzie, Anya Taylor-Joy, Matt Smith, Diana Rigg and lots of pop songs, the movie focuses on the exploits of a fashion student named Eloiuse who over-idolizes the 1960s. In this episode, they also talk about nostalgia, dream sequences and Edgar Wright’s filmography. Enjoy!
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The Movies, Films and Flix Podcast – Episode 545: Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, Toyota Tundras, and Good Sequels
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Mark and Tom discuss the 2003 science fiction action film Terminator 3: The Rise of the Machines. Directed by Jonathan Mostow, and starring Claire Danes, Nick Stahl, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Kristanna Loken and a Toyota Tundra, the movie focuses on what happens when more robots are sent back in time to kill John Connor. In this episode, they also talk about successful sequels, robot mayhem, and Nick Stahl’s filmography. Enjoy!
If you are a fan of the podcast, make sure to send in some random listener questions (we love random questions). We thank you for listening, and hope you enjoy the episode!
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John’s Horror Corner: Witchboard (1986), a solid classic 80s “Ouija horror” that is great despite its less impressive death scenes.
MY CALL: This movie is refreshingly well made for its era and budget. A lot is done with a little when everyone involved cares about the product. Sure, you’ll wish for more graphic horror. But you shouldn’t be disappointed if you love the 80s. MORE MOVIES LIKE Witchboard: For more quality “Ouija horror”, I’d skip Ouija (2014) altogether and go right to Ouija: Origin of Evil (2016).
At a party, Linda (Tawny Kitaen; from those White Snake music videos) and her law school classmate Brandon (Stephen Nichols; House) call to the spirit of a deceased young boy. After the party, Brandon leaves his Ouija board and Linda uses it to call the boy’s spirit again. But she forgets how Brandon taught her to be sure the spirit was not an imposter! Apparently, this is a typical spirit-calling problem.
The spirit connects personally with Linda, her boyfriend Jim’s (Todd Allen) buddy is killed in a freak accident at a construction site, and now it seems the ghost wants Jim out of the picture. The spirit wants to become Linda’s unborn child!
The spirit becomes fixated on Linda and warns her with kitchen knives and tomato sauce of the consequences of abandoning him (i.e., returning the Ouija board). As Linda becomes more obsessed with the board and exhibits increased paranoia, Brandon warns that the spirit must be exorcised. So, Jim and Brandon bring a kooky psychic medium (Kathleen Wilhoite; Fire in the Sky, Angel Heart, Dream Demon) to the house to perform a séance. Ultimately, the spirit is an imposter, a powerful evil mass murderer who was hunted down and slain in the very house where Linda and Jim live.
A scalding-hot shower scene, a possession, a throwdown between the spirit (in Linda’s body and a dapper suit) and Jim, an expository monologue explaining everything, and a bunch of bullet holes in a Ouija board all force our way through a hasty final act.
The death scenes are okay. Not great, not bad. But what makes this movie work is actually the story and the characters. I was really engaged despite the mediocre deaths. And other than some blood, the gore is minimal. Still, I really dig this movie. I didn’t when I was younger. But older, more seasoned me appreciates this film for the care of its filmmakers. Writer and director Kevin Tenney (Night of the Demons, The Cellar) knows what he’s doing, and so did his cast and crew. As such, I’m issuing a strong recommendation for fans of 80s horror and “Ouija horror.”
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The Movies, Films and Flix Podcast – Episode 544 – Columbus, Kogonada and Architecture
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Mark and Joey (@soulpopped on X) discuss the 2017 drama Columbus. Directed by Kogonada, and starring John Cho, Haley Lu Richardson, Parker Posey, and several beautiful structures located in Columbus, Indiana, the movie is the result of what happens when a film scholar decides to direct a film (and wildly succeeds!). In this episode, they also talk about production design, big swings, and their favorite films released since 2017. Enjoy!
If you are a fan of the podcast, make sure to send in some random listener questions (we love random questions). We thank you for listening, and hope you enjoy the episode!
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Bad Movie Tuesday: Auntie Lee’s Meat Pies (1992), another laughably bad, mildly raunchy, B-movie horror-comedy.
MY CALL: Just another super low budget “sexy killer hot chicks luring men to their death” kinda’ bad movie. I watched it purely for the cast and in hopes that the meat pie cannibalism would lead to scenes reminiscent of Blood Diner (1987). Nope. No such satisfaction. MORE MOVIES LIKE Auntie Lee’s Meat Pies: The best match in tone and style (that you were hoping to find when you watched Auntie Lee’s Meat Pies) might be things like Blood Diner (1987), Rabid Grannies (1988), Children of the Night (1991), Bloodsucking Pharaohs in Pittsburgh (1991), The Granny (1995) and Killer Tongue (1995). All of these movies are much better Bad Movie Tuesday candidates.
Director and co-writer Joseph F. Robertson deviates from his career as an adult film director to attempt this horror comedy. Although, truth be told, this feels a lot like an adult film. The dialogue is crass and the line delivery is, well, pretty porny. And when all of Auntie Lee’s (Karen Black; Invaders from Mars, Children of the Night, It’s Alive III, House of 1000 Corpses, Mirror Mirror, Night Angel) nieces sit together in the living with guests, it feels like a brothel… and plays out like one, too. Lee’s scantily-clad nieces are tasked with luring men back to the house so they can harvest their meat for Auntie’s meat pies. The premise sure makes this sound like a raunchy ride. But it’s not so bad. I mean, it’s bad. But not because of graphic sex scenes or overly abundant nudity like some Fred Olen Ray flick.
Not surprisingly, the movie is rather uneventful. The writing is painful, and the acting and general pacing are yet worse. An attractive woman lures a man to Auntie Lee’s and he succumbs to a laughably silly decapitation booby trap. An adult lady (Petra Verkaik; Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger IV) “baby” (not sure what the heck is going on there) bites a chunk out of a guy’s neck (off-camera), one girl lamely and gorelessly gouges a guy’s eyes out, and there’s a meat hook gag that’s on camera way too briefly for me to care. To say that the deaths and gore are phoned-in would be an understatement. This movie feels a lot more like a vehicle for adult film stars (e.g., Pía Reyes, Teri Weigel, Ava Fabian, Kristine Rose) to get a shot at “real” (i.e., non-penetration) acting.
Much to my surprise, the scenes aren’t loaded with nudity. In fact, there’s very little considering what was expected (and the filmography of much of the female cast). But when there is nudity, the scenes are as cheap and out-of-place as they come. I’d even call these scenes bizarre. One girl’s gigantic “theater stage-sized” bedroom has something like a neon Stone Henge in it… yeah, in the bedroom… as if it were a dreamscape or like they stepped into another dimension. Another bedroom has a huge (like, REALLY huge) neon snake altar… again, inside the bedroom… some serious magical interdimensional square footage is going on here. As if all this wasn’t random enough, the women sacrifice a man in a totally dull murder scene in their pool in the name of Lucifer.
My greatest source of entertainment watching this nonsense was the dialogue. Good lord, it is wretched. Most lines feel like lead-ins to sex scenes. The kitchen scenes were also passable even if they never build to anything substantial. But seeing the kitchen counter festooned with severed body parts and bits of blood and meat begs a grin, even if it doesn’t beg forgiveness of the movie’s general shortcomings. Other lost opportunities include the casting. Seeing Pat Morita (The Karate Kid I-III) playing the local sheriff was only entertaining for the first stale scene; and the small derpy groundskeeper role of horror legend Michael Berryman (The Guyver, Deadly Blessing, The Hills Have Eyes) was sadly squandered. They never even play up the cannibalism aspect of the movie.
All in all, while worth a few eyerolling grins, this is not my kind of bad movie. The lame death scenes all fall flat, there’s basically no gore outside of kitchen scenes, and the point of the movie seems to be watching hot girls dressed in hot outfits lure guys to Auntie Lee’s.
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The Movies, Films and Flix Podcast – Episode 543: The 2023 Marvel Cinematic Universe Recap
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Mark and Norbert discuss the 2023 Marvel Cinematic Universe releases (and Echo) and hand out random awards to their favorite moments. In this episode you’ll hear them talk about Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, The Marvels, Secret Invasion, Loki S2, and Echo.
If you are a fan of the podcast, make sure to send in some random listener questions (we love random questions). We thank you for listening, and hope you enjoy the episode!
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John’s Horror Corner: Spellcaster (1988), a serviceably campy supernatural horror without much in the way of traditional “spellcasting.”
MY CALL: This is another one of those movies where the plot is completely vacuous, the characters all suck, and absolutely random, weird, supernatural things and/or monsters befall the victims with no rhyme or reason. But for one of those kinds of movies, it’s good enough for a one time viewing. I enjoyed it enough. MORE MOVIES LIKE Spellcaster: Want more spellcraft from your spellcasters? Well, there’s The Kiss (1988), Warlock (1989), The Craft (1996) or Spell (2020).
Tom (Harold Pruett; Embrace of the Vampire) and Jackie (Gail O’Grady; Lycan) win a TV show drawing to be million-dollar treasure hunt contestants in a castle in Italy with celebrity Cassandra Castle (Bunty Bailey; Dolls). The other contestants include the perpetually-snacking likable glutton Harlan (Michael Zorek; Teen Wolf Too), Myrna (Martha Demson), Teri (Kim Johnston Ulrich; Rumpelstiltskin, Werewolf), the Italian Casanova Tony (Marcello Modugno; Demons, You’ll Die at Midnight), the pretentious French Yvette (Traci Lind; Class of 1999, Fright Night part 2), and Jamie (Dale Wyatt; Troll, From Beyond, Ghoulies II). Our over-the-top RockTV show host (Adam Ant; Nomads) introduces everyone to the rules, amps up the enthusiasm, and makes futile efforts to mitigate Cassandra’s reckless alcoholism.
A zany cliché looming over his crystal ball, Sr. Diablo (Adam Ant; Nomads) remotely observes the contestants in his castle. They’re almost all despicable people. They lie, cheat, seduce, sexually assault, vandalize… only Tom and Jackie are nice. So let’s assume they will be our only survivors. But contrary to the movie title, our “spellcaster” Sr. Diablo does very little actual spellcasting in the classic sense. Rather, he engages in supernatural parlor tricks and has a rather constant magical control over his castle.
The first death is woefully bad. A car just explodes to no satisfaction of any viewer who enjoys death scenes. A lame deadly fall likewise falls flat. But thankfully things quickly get interesting when a goblin-like statue and a grand wooden chair come to life and kill the intolerable French woman. Yet more fun, the basement is a crypt full of the groaty living dead. There’s even a transformation scene of a werepig. Yes, were-pig! That’s right up there in the wacky category with the werepanther from Waxwork II (1992)! This werepig transformation is easily the coolest and most elaborate effect of the movie.
There’s even a demon-troll monster of sorts, a Lovecraftian flying thing that eats a guy’s face, a demonic dog… This is definitely one of those movies where I suspect the effects crew got to raid a studio’s storage closet and re-use a bunch of monstrous props, masks, suits, and the like. Because these effects seem so random it’s silly. Absolutely random, weird, supernatural things and/or monsters befall the victims with no rhyme or reason. This may sound bad—and normally it would be—yet the effects are satisfyingly diverse and decently executed! It may not be a creature feature, but it just might scratch that itch… in a zany way.
Director Rafal Zielinski (Hangman’s Curse) has never really done much—horror, I mean. So maybe we shouldn’t expect much of his movie. It’s nothing great, pretty dumb, but also pretty fun! I enjoyed this nonsense even if I never feel that I’ll see it again.
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John’s Horror Corner: Brainscan (1994), an early techno-horror about a videogame demon and consequences.
MY CALL: This movie opens and closes with gore, CGI effects and horror, and middles in the realm of crime thriller with a lot of illegal legal advice from a videogame demon. Yeah, I’d watch that movie! MORE MOVIES LIKE Brainscan: So other early techno-horror include Demon Seed (1977), 976-Evil (1988), Strangeland (1998), White Noise (2005), Pulse (2001, 2006), Virtuostiy (1995), and The Lawnmower Man (1992).
A survivor of childhood trauma, high school technophile and horror fanatic Michael (Edward Furlong; American History X, Terminator 2, Night of the Demons) needs something to fill a void. His buddy Kyle (Jamie Galen) turns him on to the interactive CD-ROM game Brainscan, advertised as the most frightening experience imaginable.
The game allows one to see through the eyes of a killer and affect his actions, essentially simulating a murder. Michael plays, kills, and finds it thrilling. Really thrilling. It truly is everything he doubted it could possibly be. But he soon learns that his simulated murder may have actually happened. Worse yet, the game conjures a demon who instructs Michael that he must play more in order to avoid getting caught for the insidious crime.
Trickster (T. Ryder Smith) is an amusing demon, equal parts charismatic and aggravating, ugly yet stylish, and quite feisty. He’s like a mix of a coked-up Eurotrash Freddy Krueger and Aladdin’s genie. Trickster is an anthropomorphization of toxic addiction, taunting Michael with consequences lest he play the game again and again; playing again to solve a problem (e.g., a witness), but creating a new problem with each new play. Meanwhile, a local detective (Frank Langella; The Box, Dracula) is working the recent murders.
Michael is an interesting protagonist. We know he’s doing horrible things, but not by his own conscious decision. Frankly, I remained indifferent as to whether or not he met a horrible fate. I was surprised, however, at how much more this movie is a crime thriller than a typical horror movie (for much of its running time). There is very little gore excepting the main murder sequence, which was graphic. Most of the events of the movie transpire with no supernatural inklings beyond the obvious demon manifesting through a game to advise Michael.
The final scenes do bring us back hard into the horror genre with some gooey eye-gauging gore, CGI demon guts, and a CGI blob of demonic possession shenanigans followed by Michael barreling through videogame effects (just like in Hideaway or Lawnmower Man).
Director John Flynn (Out for Justice) is no seasoned horrorsmith. Still, this movie is decent! We hastily dive headlong right into the shallow end with the speed of introduction to this evil game. It has a quick and dirty feel to it and some 90s stank much like Strangeland (1998). Michael’s cute neighbor Kimberly (Amy Hargreaves; Founder’s Day, 13 Reasons Why) and his best friend Kyle never play as important a role as we’d expect given their introductions. But despite these faults the movie works. It’s good. It’s no gem of the 90s; more like a semiprecious stone. But it’s definitely worth a watch!
Very cheeky, satisfying ending, by the way!
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John’s Horror Corner: The Wax Mask (1997; aka Maschera di cera), this period piece Italian horror is an 80s-esque gem to be mined from the 90s video era.
MY CALL: Great gore, really fun and ambitious effects, a horror period piece, and well made by several huge names in Italian horror. How had I never heard of this!?! I guess another solid movie without studio support just got lost in the craptastic 90s video-era horror ether. MORE MOVIES LIKE The Wax Mask: Let’s stay in theme with Waxwork (1988) and House of Wax (2005).
Director Sergio Stivaletti (The Profane Exhibit) normally handles special effects (Dracula 3D, Mother of Tears, Cemetery Man, The Church, Demons 1-2). But for a movie written by Daniele Stroppa (Witchery, The Crawlers), Dario Argento (Dracula 3D, Mother of Tears, Two Evil Eyes, The Church, Demons 1-2, Suspiria) and Lucio Fulci (Demonia, The House by the Cemetery, The Black Cat, The Beyond), this is sounding like a true Italian horror dream team! And the product herein will not disappoint!
The story takes a classic horror trope of a group of twentysomethings with a dare to spend a night in a haunted house and brings it to an early 1900s Parisian brothel, in which high class young men with lovely sex workers on their laps discuss such a dare to spend an evening in the new wax museum. So, the dared young businessman breaks in and finds that the exhibits seem solely to illustrate scenes of death, mutilation and the macabre. Of course, he is found dead the next morning, presumably scared to death.
Twelve years after witnessing the murder of her parents to a mechanical-handed killer (around the time of the young businessman’s death), Sonia (Romina Mondello) is hired to assist Boris Volkoff (Robert Hossein), the artist behind the wax creations. Boris has two highly eccentric assistants, and we just know they’re up to something sinister. All the while Sonia’s parents’ killer has never been apprehended after all this time.
In Giallo form, with his face obscured and his hands gloved, a killer hunts down victims with a really big syringe. We later find that the killer has a mechanical hand—and this leads to so much awesomeness. The gore is quite feisty and ambitious. We see a hand ripped from its bloody latex wrist, and when the killer’s mechanical hand plunges through a man’s chest (claymation effect) and removes his heart, my own dark heart warmed with pleasure. This mechanical arm is more of an alchemical cybernetic creation and I love it. In his Frankensteinian lab, this killer drains the blood of victims with electric baubles lit up in the background playing to the most delicious of mad scientist cliches.
In proper Italian form, captured women find themselves naked and bound to the experiment chair with leather straps and buckles before their blood is drained and their fluids are replaced with embalming-like liquids. Eventually someone sees a wax model that looks like a missing local prostitute (Valery Valmond) and, upon further inspection, like a body post-autopsy, we find her flesh stitched together up her spine! Sonia then sees a waxwork exhibit depicting the night her parents were killed and mutilated, with the details shockingly accurately depicted. Dun dun dunnnn!
In the finale, our killer’s wax face is melted away, leaving a disfigured monster. The ridiculous effects smacks of the T-800 endoskeleton from The Terminator (1984), and the melting wax models in the museum fire offer their own gross, drippy FX pleasures.
As a period piece, this Italian horror works quite well! I enjoy the horse-drawn carriages, oil lamps and wardrobing offered by the film’s crew. Frankly, I’m not sure how I never heard of this. It seems to have been lost in the mediocre maelstrom of the 90s video-era horror releases. But this one is truly a gem to be mined.
I really enjoyed this through and through. This felt like an awesome 80s horror with 90s quality special effects (even if not big budgeted). Most importantly, it felt like the filmmakers and crew all really cared about this. The acting and writing were better than expected (even if not ‘conventionally’ very good in that ‘filmy’ way), the story was more elaborate and interesting than most effects-driven or Italian horror, and the special effects and gore were spectacular.
Hidden gem status: UNLOCKED! Go and watch this movie!
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John’s Horror Corner: Infinity Pool (2023), Cronenberg, provocateur be thy name; challenger of morals be thy game.
MY CALL: Wow. This film is a gut punch of surreal-ish reality told with such twisted morality that it feels like it simply would happen just this way… for those few, privileged, wealthy and perverse few. Very hard to watch at times and incredibly morally appalling at every opportunity. Strong recommendation. MORE MOVIES LIKE Infinity Pool: For more cinema that truly challenges it viewers, consider Antichrist (2009), The Babadook (2014), Goodnight Mommy (2014), A Serbian Film (2010), The Lodge (2019), Climax (2018), The Neon Demon (2016), Hereditary (2018), Midsommar (2019), Irréversible (2002) and Martyrs (2008).
Well… this is one of those films that is difficult to discuss without completely spoiling it. When I saw the trailer, I thought I had an idea what this was about. But it was just that: an idea, but certainly not the idea driving the story. And while my estimate was not wrong per se, this was definitely not the type of film I was expecting at all. Maybe that’s a good thing, though. And maybe that very sense of the unexpected is exactly what is to be expected of writer and director Brandon Cronenberg (Antiviral, Possessor).
Meet James (Alexander Skarsgård; True Blood, The Northman) and Em Foster (Cleopatra Coleman; Cobweb), a high society couple vacationing at a snooty resort on the fictional island of La Tolqa. Seeking an escape from their own problems, they join a lively couple (Jalil Lespert and Mia Goth; X, Suspiria, A Cure for Wellness) on an ill-advised adventure outside of the resort property, during which they are part of a fatal car accident. The legal consequences of this accident reveal a twisted set of consequences for criminals of this country. This poor island nation is gorgeous, serene, even perfect. When they are taken by the authorities for their crime, it is dire, bleak, hopeless.
If it’s shocking, provocative or triggering, Cronenberg wants it on screen. Ejaculating onto beach sand, the concave crushed skull of a hit and run victim, the most graphic and vengeful and viscerally penetrating knife-stabbing execution such that you can practically feel the gut stabs…? Yes, to all that. How about graphic sexual content and orgies? Also, yes. And morals so twisted that even when I thought I’d seen it all, I questioned what the actual Hell? Again, yes.
This film takes turns you’re not expecting. Just… bizarre turns… diving deep into perverse depravity, sadistic hedonism, and particularly exploring the sick privilege of the rich in all new and highly illustrative ways.
This film has strong allegory on the ability of the rich to do whatever they want and buy their way out of consequences. And, more importantly, the expectation of the rich that they can do this no matter what, as they please. As twisted as things get, base elements here feel unnervingly close to home when I’m watching the greatest atrocities of the news on TV.
Outstanding film. Not sure what to call it, though. Highly engaging, but not really a fun watch. Highly disturbing, but you actually want to see what transpires. Highly intense, but twistedly amusing. One watch was enough for me. Still, I’d give a strong recommendation for at least that one watch to fans of intense, stressful cinema that challenges its viewers comfort to extremes.
Movies, Films & Flix 