John’s Horror Corner: Dracula 3-D (2012), if this is Dario Argento’s grand vision of Bram Stoker’s work… we need to check Argento for glaucoma.
MY CALL: This is a grand champion among awesome bad movies. Dracula fans will observe so many ill-funded great ideas, and so many misfires. I mean… I enjoyed this film a lot. But probably for reasons outside of Dario Argento’s intentions. MORE MOVIES LIKE Dracula 3-D: I feel like the Subspecies (1991) franchise captured a different flavor of Dracula’s mystique on a budget far more successfully. And to any who haven’t seen them, the OG Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992) and Interview with a Vampire (1994) were splendid period vampire films, along with the latest BBC mini-series Dracula (2020), which was a wonderfully different perspective.
This is a grand champion among bad movies that take themselves seriously. Of course, I only call this “bad” because we have this movie’s well-funded 1992 predecessor for comparison, with a glorious studio budget and top-tier cast. Directed and co-written by Dario Argento (Suspiria, Inferno, Mother of Tears, Two Evil Eyes), this approach to Bram Stoker’s Dracula had but a fraction of the budget of Francis Ford Coppola’s 1992 rendition. Nope, Argento enjoyed none of the budget. So instead he turned to enjoying all of the boobs, and he did so with long lingering shots… often on his daughter (Asia Argento; The Church, Demons 2, Mother of Tears).
But boobs are not the only cause for eye-rolling laughs. We see friendly curious wolves on screen frolicking about the forest while hearing the obviously mismatched sounds of snarling and growling; a skull-splitting shovel to the head represents the best gore; and a feral peasant biting a man’s ear is more convincing than when Dracula first bites a neck.
The iconic scenes representing Dracula’s folklore are weakly phoned-in—obviously partly due to budget, but also there were some obvious visionary short sights. The blood baptism of his new bride (Miriam Giovanelli) is reduced to a cut of the wrist and an emotionally hollow sip from a goblet; some scenes of Dracula in animal form would go completely unnoticed were it not for sudden and dramatic scoring indicating that “dun dun dunnnn, that rat is Dracula!”; and our discovery that he casts no reflection was completely without impact.
Harker’s seduction and vampire attack was perhaps the best executed, yet still laughable when compared to 1992. And both 1992 and Subspecies (1991) made finer work of Dracula’s wall-crawling ability. We also suffer (or laugh out loud at) the hands-down worst CGI wolf-to-man transformation ever.
It’s apparent that Argento was really trying, but just lacked the ability to capture the mystique of Dracula’s story and character. Argento’s greatest successes were the scenes of violence. Dracula slaughters a room of men by head-severing claw, blood-spewing throat gashes, flesh-ripping bite, and compelling a man to shoot himself (presented in awesome slow-motion) through the head—it’s a bloody pleasure. I also enjoyed Argento’s embrace of Dracula’s shapeshifting. Even though the execution is sadly most often stale, Dracula adopts a vast diversity of lesser animals to spy on villagers. At one point he enters a room as a swarm of flies; a very cool idea and a neat visual even on such a budget and CGI limitations. Where it jumps the shark is when Dracula assumes the form of a giant CGI praying mantis and slaughters Lucy’s father with its sharp forelimb through the chest. Oh, it’s hilarious—but it does great disservice to Bram Stoker’s vision.
And what of our hero? Van Helsing’s (Rutger Hauer; The Sonata, Bleeders, The Hitcher) vampire slaying is haphazard at best. He seems to fumble his way to victory upon his first two encounters. The character played out fine. But sadly the finale with Dracula and Helsing fell completely flat… kind of in a funny way… but in a way that was definitely not meant to be funny. At one point, Van Helsing grabs two twigs from the forest floor and aggressively cross them into a “+ sign” crucifix with a snarl. That sums up the budgetary efforts and impact on what should be the wowing cinematic moments in this movie.
As Dracula, Thomas Kretschmann (Blade II, Resident Evil: Apocalypse, Hostel III) is the most convincing of the cast, followed by a spirited Unax Ugalde (as Harker). The wooden acting of most everyone else is a struggle to endure. But that is the least of this film’s flaws.
I mean… all told, I enjoyed this film a lot. But probably for reasons outside of Argento’s intentions.
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Where the Scary Things Are (2022) – Review by Jonny Numb
Where the Scary Things Are (2022)
By Jonny Numb (@JonnyNumb on Twitter)
Grade: B+
Where the Scary Things Are addresses a lot in a relatively compact 93-minute run time. It takes the notion of the horror genre as our most fertile artistic arena for articulating real-world fears and holds a mirror to the kids (and grownups) who inhabit our modern-day society. It’s a “monster movie” where there’s a literal monstrous Other (in this case, an urban legend known as “Lockjaw”) that is besieged by the whims of some particularly monstrous teenagers looking for cheap thrills.
Depictions of bored, amoral youth seeking the social-media spotlight often suffer from sledgehammer-subtle depictions of youth and out-of-touch depictions of social media. When films commenting on the corrosive effects of social media are good, they are very good: think Ingrid Goes West; Like Me; or last year’s Bodies Bodies Bodies. Each of these efforts are keyed into the boredom and delusion that play into depictions of online celebrity.
The kids in Where the Scary Things Are aren’t on the level of the junior sociopaths in a Larry Clark film, but they are well on their way. After being caught breaking into a Halloween park (Field of Screams in Lancaster, PA), the group is sent home. Writer-director B. Harrison Smith stages the parental fallout in a heavy-handed way that nonetheless gives valuable insight into the kids’ home lives, and the type of discipline they are (or aren’t) receiving.
But the youth – led by Ayla (Selina Flanscha, in a breakout performance) – are not “all good” or “all bad” per se. Even the adaptation of Jack Ketchum’s The Girl Next Door reimagined characters to provide a somewhat moral center. Here, we have hangers-on like the soft-spoken, diabetic Mighty (Riley Sullivan) and the conflicted yet consistently peer-pressured Snack (Peter Cote). Even the characters who appear on track to become future prison statistics are not without moments of relatability. In coming-of-age horror films like Deadgirl, teenagers are either on the edge of committing horrible acts…or diving full-on into the abyss simply because they can.
Angst can manifest in abused or neglected kids by bullying those weaker than them. When these teens are given the assignment of “creating an urban legend” for a class project, a real one literally falls at their feet. Looking like the Tarman from Return of the Living Dead, Lockjaw (whom the kids rename “Crocamole” to fit the fiction of their project) subsists on the fear of its victims. When the kids chain it up in an unused part of the Halloween park, they see an opportunity not only to ace the project, but get even with people they dislike.
Smith creates an atmosphere of desensitization from the outset – the kids’ “clubhouse” is a room with a replica of a disemboweled corpse on a dinner table – and depicts the teens as always seeking an adrenaline rush. This, coupled with a sense of indestructibility, leads to a reduced understanding of physical and moral consequences.
The script doesn’t affix a default “blame” to any of the characters, but shows how even the most good-natured intentions can create ripple effects that result in death and destruction. Mr. Lewis (Paul Cottman) is the teacher who assigns the “urban legend” project, and is clearly concerned with his students’ inability to discern fact from fiction. Not only does he have to deal with the everyday bureaucracy of the public education system; he also must take his students to task for the disturbing “reality” of their gone-viral “creation.” In the end, even authority figures tasked with teaching the up-and-coming generation aren’t immune to repercussions.
John Avarese’s score is appropriately moody, lending a distinctive weight to the proceedings. It’s ominous without being generic, and one of the film’s standout technical achievements. That said, the conceptualization of Lockjaw/Crocamole is admirably minimalist – a sentient black void that, in a none-too-subtle way, acts as a mirror to the cruelties visited upon it. Smith wisely keeps the creature in low light, thus accentuating the details most obvious to the naked eye.Films that address the seamy side of teen life – or just life in general – and don’t paint the world as all ice cream, rainbows and falling in love often face an uphill battle, especially when done well. Where the Scary Things Are may not have the overt exploitation elements of a Larry Clark film, but it is honest about its subject. Those who can look past the actions and attitudes of these characters and view the commentary beneath will be rewarded with a thoughtful – albeit frequently and appropriately unpleasant – take on humanity.
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The Movies, Films and Flix Podcast – Episode 478 (Nobody (2021), Bus Fights, and Bob Odenkirk)
You can download or stream the pod on Apple Podcasts, Tune In, Podbean, or Spreaker (or wherever you listen to podcasts…..we’re almost everywhere).
If you get a chance please make sure to review, rate and share. You are awesome.
Mark and Norbert discuss the 2021 action film Nobody. Directed by Ilya Naishuller, and starring Bob Odenkirk, RZA, Christopher Lloyd, Connie Nielsen, and a Hello Kitty bracelet, the movie focuses on what happens when a murderer decides to start murdering again. In this episode, they also talk about bus fights, musical cues, and Mark’s first boxing match inside a Florida bar. 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!
You can download the pod on Apple Podcasts, Tune In, Podbean, or Spreaker.
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MY CALL: Much better than I thought, both in fun “bad horror-ness” and in terms of how well- made it was. Recommended for fans of 80s B-cinema. MORE MOVIES LIKE Scarecrows: I have come to discover there are a LOT of scarecrow horror movies out there, and I’ve only seen this one. So I’ll blindly suggest Dark Night of the Scarecrow (1981).
If you’re looking for some fun nonsense, this is immediately great. Bunch of tough guys with mean sneers and tactical gear, smoking cigars and shooting guns miles above ground in an airplane. Feels like the opening of a bad action movie, and I like it! After a heist, a plane hijacking, a double-cross and an in-flight gunfight, one of them parachute-escapes with the money down into a rural cemetery populated with creepy scarecrows. Now Bert the double-crosser needs to find where the money fell before his criminal colleagues catch up to him.
After locating the trunk of cash, Bert notices that some of the scarecrow crosses no longer have scarecrows on them. Hmmmm. If you’ve seen many horror movies, you know this doesn’t bode well for Bert.
This movie is actually pretty well made… I was expecting something hokier and cheesier. The gore gags are pretty good, visceral and graphic. Victims are hung like scarecrows and gutted like turkeys, with Bert getting stuffed with the stolen cash and then sewn back up, only to become some sort of scarecrow zombie himself. Bloody limb-sawing and gushy face stabbings ensue as the scarecrows pick off the criminal team one by one. Panic sets in and wild hypotheses form. Are these scarecrows zombies? Were they supposed to land here after the heist? Are Corbin and his team dead and being punished in Hell?
At first, I was disappointed that the scarecrows kill primarily by stabbing. But their stab game is strong; brutal and graphic. If you get killed by a scarecrow, you become a scarecrow. Simple.
Writer and director William Wesley (Route 666) stitched together a pretty solid cult classic B-movie. I thought this would be a fun, awful B-movie. But this was a pretty solidly good B-movie, if you ask me.
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John’s Horror Corner: Excision (2012), a coming-of-age dark horror-comedy that gets quite unexpectedly macabre.
MY CALL: This is for fans of bizarre films seeking a delightfully uncomfortable, very funny, and occasionally extremely macabre coming of age story. MORE MOVIES LIKE Excision: Maybe for its weird sexualized nature or the coming-of-age aspects you might enjoy Necromantik (1988), Teeth (2007), May (2002), American Mary (2012) or Raw (2016).
Awkward high schooler Pauline (AnnaLynne McCord; Tone-Deaf, Trash Fire, Day of the Dead, The Haunting of Molly Hartley) serially tests the limits of our ability to distinguish angsty teenage depression from comical mental illness. Her behavior at school and at home is alarming and disturbing to her parents (Roger Bart;Hostel II, Smiley, The Midnight Meat Train; and Traci Lords;Blade), both farcical dysfunction stereotypes. Yet despite her lack of academic success as a student, Pauline maintains an almost delusional sense that she will one day be a surgeon… somehow. Pauline truly captures the awkward antisociality of a wayward teen.
The tone shifts from that of a heavy dark comedy to bloody, sexualized Cronenbergian daydreams abruptly, as if to illustrate Pauline’s truest inclinations of the themes in question. It’s shocking—titillating even. She is aroused by blood, which douses her twisted sexual fantasies.
Pauline’s coming-of-age is dealt with very bluntly, honestly, and forthcoming to crude. Boldly and fearless of social stigma, Pauline invites a boy to take her virginity. The ensuing sex scene is surreal, macabre and awkward. And the subsequent abortion fantasy gets really macabre. For those that delight in these not-for-the-squeamish films, there are evocative vomit, dissection and surgery scenes that will test viewers’ comfort. But truly, the movie is pretty funny. Less laugh out loud and more evoking a nearly constantly knowing smirk from those who share twisted minds.
I’m not sure how I’d classify the genre of the movie? Horror feels totally wrong at first, although the macabre scenes alone clearly justify such placement. I’d sooner advise this to someone seeking a very dark comedy with some gross sexualized content and occasionally very heavy elements of family dysfunction. The social aspects of this movie compare to American Beauty (1999)… oh, but then there’s the final scenes. Yup, that’s where we have no argument that it’s a horror movie. The medical horror of the surgery scene is patient, thickly bloody, very graphic and oh so goretastic-chonky.
This was not the film I expected to watch at all, but it’s one I’m glad to have watched. Such a bizarre film in such a satisfying way.
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The Movies, Films and Flix Podcast – Episode 477 – The 21st Century Horror Movie Moments Draft
You can download or stream the pod on Apple Podcasts, Tune In, Podbean, or Spreaker (or wherever you listen to podcasts…..we’re almost everywhere).
If you get a chance please make sure to review, rate and share. You are awesome.
Mark and Zanandi (@ZaNandi on Twitter) discuss their favorite 21st century horror moments and explain why they love the scenes so much. In this episode, they also talk about Green Room, Us, The Host, The Blackcoat’s Daughter, Final Destination 2, Doctor Sleep, Revenge, It, and many more 21st century horror films.
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!
You can download the pod on Apple Podcasts, Tune In, Podbean, or Spreaker.
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John’s Horror Corner: Frightmare (1983), a different kind of slasher movie… that ends up being the typical kind of slasher movie.
MY CALL: Just another 80s supernatural slasher that’s just bad enough to call it “bad”, but just good enough not to regret. The highlight for me was seeing a young Jeffrey Combs. MORE MOVIES LIKE Frightmare: For more supernatural slashers with pretty random-style death scenes, consider Superstition (1982) or Death Spa (1989).
If you’re gonna’ talk smack about an egomaniacal actor deep in his tenure, it’s best to make sure he can’t hear you. Shortly after murdering two directors and then faking his own death, horror movie star Conrad (Ferdy Mayne; Warlock II: The Armageddon, Howling II) is abducted by a group of film student fans thinking he is dead. They party around his presumed dead body like Weekend at Bernie’s (1989) until they go to bed, when Conrad rises and stalks about the house. The catch here that at some point during his charade of faking his own death, Conrad actually died and came back with some ghastly powers. To be perfectly honest, I may have been looking at Instagram on my phone and totally missed something. The opening scenes were far from riveting even if nothing was particularly boring about them. Still, with this premise, I was optimistic we’d get a different kind of slasher movie. I was wrong…
From here the movie is like any 80s supernatural slasher with a house full of twentysomethings. They fool around, wander off to investigate a strange noise in the night, get picked off one by one, and die in hopefully entertaining ways. Conrad pulls out a guy’s tongue, goes full Firestarter and makes a girl catch fire and burn to death, uses some rather boring telekinesis, and cuts off a young Jeffrey Combs’ (Castle Freak, Necronomicon: Book of the Dead, Re-Animator, Would You Rather, The Frighteners, Lurking Fear, From Beyond, Cellar Dweller) head. The highlight here for me was simply ‘oh, Jeffrey Combs is in this.’
There are other minor (B-movie) actors one may recognize in addition to a before-he-was-famous Combs—Nita Talbot (Amityville 1992, Puppet Master II, Island Claws) and Luca Bercovici (The Granny, Scanner Cop)—and this movie isn’t padding their résumés.
The premise has some charm to it, but the charm is strongest in the early set up scenes introducing us to Conrad, his egomania, and his plans for his own funeral and thereafter. Another aspect of this film that catches my attention is how it opens feeling more 70s era in its stylings. But overall, this is just another among leagues of perfectly passable and just as forgettable 80s slasher-supernatural horror picking off college kids one by one.
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John’s Horror Corner: Bloody Muscle Bodybuilder in Hell (1995; aka Japanese Evil Dead), with a title like that I don’t know what else you need to know.
MY CALL: Fans of ridonkulous, low budget gorefests, just stop what you’re doing and REJOICE for this B-movie excellence! Here is your buffet of chunky macabre nonsense. You’ll suffer 20 front-loaded minutes of slow backstory, but stick with it. Lots of nods to the gory greats of the 80s complement this looney flick and douse viewers in bloody delight. MORE MOVIES LIKE Bloody Muscle Bodybuilder in Hell: For more zany Japanese horror, go for Japanese Hell (1999) and Evil Dead Trap (1988). You want more crazy bonkers Asian horror from other countries? Then try Mystics in Bali (1981; aka Leák), The Boxer’s Omen (1983; aka Mo, Black Magic 4), Seeding of a Ghost (1983; aka Zhong gui) or Lady Terminator (1989).
Okay, this is a 63-minute movie shot on low quality video, and it is starring, written and directed by Shinichi Fukazawa. Let’s temper our expectations accordingly… or perhaps brace yourself for B-movie excellence!
A scorned lover in the 1970s tries to murder her cheating man so he can never marry another. Unfortunately, she dies in the scuffle. So in proper Japanese horror form, she becomes a Grudge ghost of sorts.
Our “muscle bodybuilder” as the title describes, Shinji (Shinichi Fukazawa), is the son of the man who killed his girlfriend in self-defense. Looking more Bruce Lee-svelte than bulging-Bolo Yeung, Shinji is not what anyone would call a bodybuilder, but he sure loves lifting weights. Shinji agrees to help his ex-girlfriend and a psychic investigate the allegedly haunted house. The psychic conjures up the inhabiting Grudge ghost, which kills him and possesses his body. Not a big man by any stretch of the word, Shinji slow-motion poses as he embraces his inherent weapon of “muscle” to combat this evil.
The influence of Evil Dead 2 (1987) is obvious. This movie has the alternate title Japanese Evil Dead, and it’s earned. There’s a lot of laughing deadites, a shovel decapitation, angry decapitated bodies, and Shinji even throws in a “groovy.” There are also stabs and impalements including one through the eyeball, and a healthy dose of blood. This film was made incredibly cheaply, and starts out sluggish. But despite a pretty low budget, it totally succeeds at becoming completely bonkers.
Truth be told, this zany flick does a good job honoring Evil Dead, but other influences are also apparent. Severed body parts rebel and attack. A hand and foot fuse (much as in Frankenhooker) to kick the crap outta’ Shinji, a severed hand makes the disembodied head mobile (much like the antics of Bride of Re-Animator), and projectile prehensile intestines smack of the Re-Animator (1985) finale. Some cheap Claymation reconstitutes a skeleton into a horribly misshapen melty-faced horror that is laughably awesome.
This movie starts out slow. Really slow. Honestly, I didn’t expect to like this at first. But, as its ridiculous title suggested, it really turned around for me. This movie has a LOT of chonky bloody goobeldygook. It’s so over-the-top that it’s… kinda’ great! Solid gold bad movie.
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The Movies, Films and Flix Podcast – Episode 476: The Movies We’d Watch During the Apocalypse Draft
You can download or stream the pod on Apple Podcasts, Tune In, Podbean, or Spreaker (or wherever you listen to podcasts…..we’re almost everywhere).
If you get a chance please make sure to review, rate and share. You are awesome.
Mark and Nicholas Rehak (@TheRehak on Twitter) talk about the movies they’d watch during an apocalypse. They also talk about coffee, movie island, and the movies they’d avoid during an apocalypse. 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!
You can download the pod on Apple Podcasts, Tune In, Podbean, or Spreaker.
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John’s Horror Corner: The Hatred (2017), a mediocre, horror-LITE “haunted house” movie.
MY CALL: So yeah, this is mediocre PG-13 horror—(I know it’s actually somehow rated R). I’d recommend it to early teens who scare easily. No one else. Really. It’s that mediocre. MORE MOVIES LIKE The Hatred: For more horror for beginners, consider The Wretched (2019), Séance (2021), Fresh (2022), Monstrous (2022) or the classic Silver Bullet (1985).
When Regan (Sarah Davenport; Deadly Detention, Bodysnatch), Samantha (Bayley Corman), Betaine (Alisha Wainwright; There’s Something Wrong with the Children) and Layan (Gabrielle Bourne) stay the weekend at a countryside house while babysitting the owner’s girl Irene (Shae Smolik; The Sandman, D-Railed), they come to find the house has a dark history.
The house has a basement full of Nazi paraphernalia and a long-undisturbed room that once belonged to a teenage girl (Alice) who was murdered in the 60s by her ex-patriated Nazi father. Irene thinks that Alice is responsible when strange things begin to happen to the other girls. The background story of the cursed Nazi house is complemented with small roles by Andrew Divoff (Wishmaster 1-2, Graveyard Shift, Faust: Love of the Damned) and Tim DeZarn (The Cabin in the Woods, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning, Wrong Turn).
It takes this movie a long time to take us… not very far. The girls begin their weekend, they find clues linking the house to its Nazi past, and ghostly things start appearing. An out of focus figure in the background, something moving under the bedsheets, whispers from the ether, aaaaaand cue the screaming CGI lady ghost.
The scare tactics and special effects are weak. It’s very PG-13 and rather budget-limited… but it’s also vision-limited—i.e., in inexperienced director. The movie has one decent part, and it’s from the trailer. It’s the “look under the bed” scene. Sadly, it’s squandered by a CGI-filtered demon-wench crab-walking on the bed.
I’m not sure how this got an R-rating, it’s clearly (in my opinion, at least) a PG-13 movie. There are no swears, nudity, intense scares, gore or disturbing imagery or content outside of a drowning murder scene. The horror itself is really rather soft. So yeah, this is mediocre PG-13 horror at best. I’d recommend it to teenage girls who watch very little horror and scare very easily.
Movies, Films & Flix 