Solid -- if minor -- werewolf picture about a blind Vietnam vet named Ambrose (Nick Damici) who is moved into a retirement community by his grown son (Ethan Embry)...only to have his next-door neighbor and seeing-eye dog torn to shreds on the first night he arrives. The local police are convinced it's simply a random, regrettable attack by some animal from the nearby woods, but Ambrose -- with little else to do -- starts making preparations for the next full moon fearing a lycanthropic explanation for the recent rash of killings. There's actually very little werewolf action in the film, aside from the opening and last twenty minutes, but as a depiction of a retired ex-soldier looking for a way to go out in a blaze of glory, it's well-acted and involving, and when the werewolf does make its appearance, it's bracingly old-school rubber & latex stuff all the way, and well done. Plus, it's nice to see that Tina Louise -- Ginger from Gilligan's Island! -- is still kicking as one of the gossipy neighbors.
Grace Jones didn’t enjoy a lengthy career in the cinema, but she made a mark on a trio of mid ‘80s genre excursions: “Conan the Destroyer,” Roger Moore’s final sojourn as James Bond, “A View to a Kill,” and Richard Wenk’s low-budget New World Pictures offering VAMP (90 mins., 1985, R), now on Blu-Ray in the US from Arrow.
This murky, fang-in-cheek affair finds college students Chris “Meatballs” Makepeace and Robert Russler running afoul of undead stripper Jones and her friends in a movie that has a few laughs and a fairly amusing set-up. Alas, the movie sags the longer it drags on, draining what fun and goodwill it establishes in its early stages. That said, “Vamp” has its share of backers, and Arrow’s Blu-Ray disc is exceptionally good in terms of its overall package – mostly, though not entirely, a reprise of the label’s 2011 UK edition.
“One of Those Nights: The Making Of Vamp” is new to this release, featuring fresh interviews with Wenk, Russler, and DeeDee Pfeiffer (Michelle’s cute younger sister, whose sunny presence is one of the few good things about “Vamp”). There are also behind-the-scenes rehearsal clips, a blooper reel, trailers, TV spots, and best of all, Wenk’s short movie “Dracula Bites the Big Apple.” This 1979 short was an NYU project Wenk sold to HBO, which aired it during the cable outlet’s early days, and still offers more laughs in its 22 minutes than “Vamp” itself. Technically the disc looks and sounds great, the AVC encoded 1080p transfer freed of DNR and the uncompressed mono sound as satisfying as one can expect given the source materials.
I’ve never been crazy about “Vamp,” but Arrow’s marvelous Blu-Ray package is still worth owning if you’re a fan of ‘80s horror, mainly for its great behind-the-scenes anecdotes and wide range of extras (this release is notably missing the commentary from the prior edition, however).
Also new on Blu-Ray, and highly recommended for horror fans, is the New World Pictures fave SLUGS (94 mins., 1988, Not Rated), a hysterically funny and also incredibly disgusting 1987 monster opus that finds a group of genetically-enhanced slugs wrecking havoc on the entire population of a small town.
Shot mostly in upstate NY by a Spanish crew and dubbed into English (often quite amusingly, I might add),”Slugs” is a movie that I rented on video while hanging out with some friends during a break from my freshman year at college in 1993. Obviously, with limited time on my hands, there was room for only a bit of movie-watching, but I can assure you “Slugs” fit the bill at the time and, after watching it in Arrow’s fantastic new Blu-Ray, I can verify that it certainly works its "magic" for the blood n'guts lover of bad cinema.
Where else can you see a couple making out in a gratuitous sex scene -- and then be promptly eaten by slugs? How can you properly describe a sequence where, at a posh restaurant, a man explodes because he's being consumed by the slimy creatures? “Slugs” is not a subtle movie by any means but, if you are ever in the mood for this kind of movie, I can't think of a better one off-hand than this one, which boasts a hilarious script that cobbles together elements of '50s B-grade sci-fi flicks with "Jaws" and the gross-out goo you'd expect from any solid '80s genre flick.
Arrow’s Special Edition Blu rounds up a new 2K transfer from the original negative and PCM lossless audio of the movie’s mono library score; commentary with “Slugs” author Shaun Hutson (incredibly, yes, this is a “based on the novel by” adaptation!); another commentary with writer/filmmaker Chris Alexander; interviews with actor Emilio Linder, FX artist Carlo De Marchis, art director Gonzalo Gonzalo, and production manager Larry Ann Evans; and the trailer.
One of this Halloween’s tastiest, gorriest Blu-Ray treats!
Late in August of 1990, William Peter Blatty’s anticipated THE EXORCIST III arrived in theaters. The Morgan Creek production, released by Fox, drew strong initial interest from audiences – and even a few positive reviews – before crashing quickly in the dumping grounds of late summer. Now a cult favorite, Blatty’s own adaptation of his novel “Legion” has been resurrected as a Scream Factory Collector’s Edition, complete with a reconstruction – from the best surviving sources – of Blatty’s initial cut of the film, completed before anxious studio executives mandated a punchier, effects-laden conclusion be shot.
George C. Scott stars in the film as Lt. Kinderman, the Washington, D.C. cop played by Lee J. Cobb in the 1973 William Friedkin classic. Here tasked with solving a series of grizzly murders carrying an increasingly religious connotation, Kinderman’s investigation includes both the death of his beloved friend Father Dyer (Ed Flanders, in funny scenes that make you wish he and Scott had more screen time together) and the strange presence of “Patient X” (Brad Dourif) – a hospital inmate who claims he’s the “Gemini Killer.” The only problem is that psycho died some 15 years before, on the same night the demon claimed the life of Father Karras (Jason Miller) in the Regan MacNeil exorcism…
Part psychological thriller, part supernatural chiller, “The Exorcist III” largely bypasses the shock effects of the 1973 film in favor of a moody, weird, off-kilter picture heavy on atmosphere and sound design. Blatty accentuates creaking floors, blowing winds, words muttered in whispers and the power of suggestion for the film’s first half, making for an intelligent and uneasy mystery that connects intriguingly with the original film. Individual moments linger long after the film has concluded (Kinderman’s dream sequence, an elderly hospital patient crawling on the ceiling!), making for a film that’s endlessly repeatable and superbly performed by Scott, Dourif and Blatty’s repertory company (Miller, Flanders, Scott Wilson).
Unfortunately for Blatty, Morgan Creek and Fox executives were horrified when they saw the first version of the picture, which – to be fair – fizzled out after a strong start. Thinking audiences needed to actually see an exorcism, a hefty sum was spent on extensive new shooting, bringing along scores of special effects artists and the participation of both Jason Miller – reprising Father Karras – and Nicol Williamson, who were added to the cast in post-production reshoots that, by all accounts, were problematic to produce. And, admittedly, the subsequent, ultimate transition between the subtle and the explicit was always a little bit jarring in “The Exorcist III,” as the film’s most effective passages – like that long shot down the hotel corridor, showing a nurse checking in and out of various rooms – were comparatively low-key.
Yet if there’s anything this new Shout Factory Blu-Ray confirms, it’s that those restless executives were onto something. The Director’s Cut (104 mins.) of “The Exorcist III” illustrates that the tinkering was, in fact, necessary, as Blatty’s original version promises more than it actually delivers.
The main difference between the two cuts lies in Brad Dourif’s performance. Dourif was cast to play both “Patient X” as well as Father Karras, with the film establishing Dourif via photographs as the protagonist of the first film. The problem, though, is that Dourif was neither Jason Miller nor did Blatty really dive into the suggestion that Father Karras was, somehow, buried inside the man claiming to be the Gemini Killer. The reshoots clarified and further developed that notion, and the casting of Miller himself added a major component lacking from Blatty’s cut. It’s not a knock on Dourif – whose performance in the Director’s Cut is subtler and may have been altogether creepier – but the overriding story is crystalized in the theatrical version to palpable dramatic effect.
More over, all the razzle dazzle of the reshoots actually gave the film a climax that’s also absent in Blatty’s version. What begins as a tantalizing mystery turns into a frustrating, and emotionally chilly, thriller that abruptly ends on a major down note in Blatty’s cut. There’s just no pay off, nothing to justify the build-up, in what Blatty originally produced, making one conclude that what may have worked fine on the printed page needed the proverbial “more” en route to the screen.
Shout’s Blu-Ray offers new interviews with surviving cast/crew members, including Brad Dourif, producer Carter DeHaven, production designer Leslie Dilley, loads of make-up artists, bit players in the supporting cast, and composer Barry DeVorzon among others. Editor Todd Ramsay relays several fascinating tidbits, including the revelation that he knew he was sitting with Blatty for the final time when he unspooled his edit of the film – to negative reaction from seemingly everyone involved, except Dourif, who thinks his performance was much better in Blatty’s version. Meanwhile, DeVorzon’s talk implies studio brass didn’t like his score either – with even Carter DeHaven seemingly unenthusiastic over his initial hiring – which is no shock since there’s less music in the film than there is sound design (though in that regard, DeVorzon’s work was ahead of its time).
The interviews are all candid and interesting, and a full-length commentary (dubbed an audio interview) between Blatty and Michael Felsher is wide-ranging and accompanies the Director’s Cut itself. There are also vintage EPK materials sporting interviews with the likes of Scott, Blatty, and Larry King (who has a cameo along with Samuel L. Jackson, C. Everett Koop and Fabio!), plus trailers and TV spots, several of which carry unused FX shots. A few minutes of deleted scenes/bloopers are on-hand as well, including a discarded prologue taken from film elements (albeit in black-and-white).
Most of the new/alternate materials, however, are derived from VHS dailies – all that remains of Blatty’s first version of the picture. With that being considered, Shout has painstakingly assembled his “Legion” in a 104-minute reconstruction that varies between HD footage from the theatrical version and 1.33-based videotape material. It’s unfortunate that the original materials couldn’t be found, but Shout has done the best job possible with what they had to work with, and I’d imagine this cut will likely rank as just a curiosity for many to begin with.
The theatrical version, meanwhile, has been given a brand new 2K transfer and it’s a knockout. Featuring clearer details, more consistent colors and contrasts than Warner’s earlier Blu-Ray, this is a sterling 1080p (1.85) transfer that does justice to Gerry Fisher’s cinematography in a way that no prior home video release ever has, and ranks with Shout’s top Blu-Ray transfers to date.
The sound, regrettably, doesn’t fare quite as well. When “The Exorcist III” transitioned from Fox over to Warner Bros. (Morgan Creek’s most recent studio home), the movie’s original stereo audio was remixed into a muddy 5.1 track that was, in short, an unmitigated disaster. Left/right separation and surround activity were all, inexplicably, fed into the center channel instead, making for a botched 5.1 track that’s all viewers have had to listen to since the days of laserdisc and VHS.
Shout’s Blu-Ray, overall, might be a small improvement, but it’s still a far cry from the movie’s intended stereo design. Apparently, Shout could not find the original audio materials, as the 5.1 and 2.0 DTS MA mixes on the theatrical version are just a little bit healthier in terms of fidelity than that terrible Warner mix. Shout’s 5.1 track does boast a little bit of stereophonic presence from time to time, but mostly plays out like its predecessor in a cramped, one-channel presentation. The Director’s Cut is even more “flat,” housed in a 2.0 DTS MA mix that boasts no discernable stereo separation of any kind.
That disappointment aside, Scream’s “Exorcist III” is yet another outstanding package from the label this Halloween – a must for horror buffs and a celebration of Blatty’s personal “Exorcist” sequel that has weathered the years better than its unholy counterparts. Looking for a clear invitation to the dance? Well, we’ve got it!
Crisply chilling adaptation of the Stephen King novel -- one of his best from his prime creative period -- about a plague of vampires that are birthed by a hideous "Master" vamp named Barlow (Reggie Nalder) and his erudite human assistant, Mr. Straker (the always excellent James Mason) and who slowly begin infesting a small Maine town (small Maine town? In a Stephen King story? The hell you say!) as a successful local writer (Starsky & Hutch's David Soul) returns to his old home town and begins to suss out the spreading evil influence radiating from the sinister Marsden House that sits alone on the hill. Directed effectively by Tobe Hooper (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Poltergeist), Salem's Lot has held up a lot better than It, despite being over a decade older. Much of it has to do with adapting a much shorter novel...with a three-hour running time (sans commercials), it gets more of the key sequences from the book in there whereas It had to sacrifice huge chunks of the narrative to fit its network TV timeslot. Salem's Lot was also a less gory novel, so the standards & practices of late-70's TV doesn't completely neuter the thrills like the It miniseries did...Hooper builds the dread slowly and artfully, with loads of foggy atmosphere and some unforgettably eerie imagery (who can forget Danny Glick floating outside Mark Petrie's bedroom window, scratching at the glass and imploring Mark to let him in?), not to mention one of the best trouser-soiling jump scares in a King adaptation (it happens in the jail cell). There are still moments that are stilted and dated, but overall this is one of the finer King adaptations.
I remember going to the theater and seeing the movie. I was sitting in the way back. The only thing I remember about the movie was the hospital scene with the nurse and the sound she was hearing. That whole sequence was done so incredibly well - it so effectively built tension and suspense for the length of it, and because of how well those scenes were staged, when the nurse met her maker it totally delivered. At that moment the entire theater audience jumped...including me! Lol...that had to be one of the best scares in horror movie history. I will never forget it.
Tepid ghost story about an American couple (Edward Albert, Susan George) who travel to Japan on business and rent a 200-year-old abode that's on the market for a song ("It's supposed to be haunted!", says their business partner, played by Doug McClure). Sure enough, the house is inhabited by the restless spirits of a love triangle gone bad circa 1840, and soon the spirits are working through the couple to bring the past and present together. Despite the novelty of the Japanese settings, this is a pretty routine tale of possession, with subpar visual effects that look like they came out of an episode of Bewitched and a dearth of actual frights. Aside from some particularly gratuitous nudity, it's pretty forgettable stuff.
On the family-friendly side of things, ParaNorman is a new Halloween-time classic, a film I've found more to admire about with each new viewing. From the maddeningly detailed characters and environments to the spot-on evocation of cheesy 80's monster movies to the aching melancholy that suffuses the second half of the film, this is as good as any animated movie made in the last ten years, and it's another example about how the wizards at animation studio Laika are giving the gang at Pixar a run for their money in their recent run of exceptional kid's entertainment that can be enjoyed by anyone. Technically stunning, frequently funny and deeply moving, ParaNorman is flat-out great.
I remember going to the theater and seeing the movie. I was sitting in the way back. The only thing I remember about the movie was the hospital scene with the nurse and the sound she was hearing. That whole sequence was done so incredibly well - it so effectively built tension and suspense for the length of it, and because of how well those scenes were staged, when the nurse met her maker it totally delivered. At that moment the entire theater audience jumped...including me! Lol...that had to be one of the best scares in horror movie history. I will never forget it.
My Mom took me to this when it came out -- I was 15 at the time -- and that scene utterly scared the living youknowwhat out of me. One of my all-time favorite scares!
Subtle, occasionally eerie character study of a pair of twin brothers (Chris and Martin Udvarnoky) who live a seemingly idealized life on a small farm during the mid-30's, only to bear witness to a string of increasingly disturbing mishaps (the boys' cousin jumps into a haystack, not knowing about the pitchfork concealed within, their mother takes a nasty tumble down the stairs). Are the boys to blame? Are they bonded by misdeed in addition to the typical brotherly connection? Directed by Robert Mulligan (To Kill A Mockingbird) and boasting a deceptively bucolic score by the great Jerry Goldsmith, The Other is not a film brimming with huge shocks or the typical horror movie "payoffs", but it works on you in a probing, psychological way that make the placid, beautifully nostalgic Depression-era images suggest the rot festering away underneath. Anyone weaned on The Twilight Zone will probably not be surprised by the Big Twist revealed two-thirds of the way through, but this is not that kind of movie. Not a knock-your-socks-off experience, The Other is nevertheless a quietly creepy experience that lingers.
-Scouts Guide To The Zombie Apocalypse (2015): 7/10
Solid entry in the now-commonplace zomcom genre offers up an adequate selection of lowbrow laughs and creative kills to appease those who find Evil Dead 2 to be a better film than Citizen Kane, but by this point, doing a comic riff on classic zombie tropes is about as old-hat as doing a straight zombie movie. Scouts Guide is a middle-of-the-road zombie splatter movie, meaning if it's the kind of film you would like, you will probably like this. It doesn't reach the dizzying heights of something like Evil Dead 2 or Shaun Of The Dead, but you could do a lot worse for a night's horror rental.
Guillermo Del Toro's first American feature is probably his most compromised film (being produced by Miramax at the height of their meddling, late-90's "hip horror" period), and yet the restored director's cut released on Blu-Ray manages to salvage most of his original intentions for the film. Even now, it's little more than a well-constructed heebie-jeebies potboiler about human-sized cockroaches run amok in the sewers of Manhattan, but you can sense Del Toro's usual visual tics and obsessions all over the place (cinematography that favors deep blues and bright golds, characters in giant, puffy hazmat suits with photogenically lit-up faces, subterranean chambers with rounded archways, religious imagery. imperiled children). Mira Sorvino, at the height of her brief late-90's "It Girl" fame, plays an entomologist who engineers a new breed of "Judas" bugs in order to kill off the cockroaches that are carrying a deadly plague that is endangering an entire generation of children in New York. Intended to die off after serving their purpose, the bugs instead begin to replicate in mass quantities, to grow bigger, to evolve into something horrific and dangerous. Boasting a solid supporting cast (Jeremy Northam, Josh Brolin, Giancarlo Giannini, Charles S. Dutton, and keep an eye peeled for a young Norman Reedus, years before The Walking Dead), creature designs imagined in part by the great Rob Bottin and dankly atmospheric set design by David Cronenberg regular Carol Spier, Mimic is a gross-out chiller done with impeccable style and a rare sense of just how long to hold a pregnant pause or an elegant camera move to accentuate the shocks when they finally arrive. It never aspires to be anything more than a good, shuddery monster movie, but it's a really, really good shuddery monster movie, one with the eye of genuine artist behind the lens.
Excellent Spanish ghost story about a woman (Belen Rudea) whose young, adopted son (Roger Princep) goes missing following a party at their estate. Wracked with sorrow, she digs into the house's past to assuage her guilt, and begins to wonder if there is a spirit or spirits haunting the abode, and if said spirits are trying to tell her something...like the whereabouts of her missing child. Executive produced by Guillermo Del Toro and directed by J.A. Bayona (The Impossible), The Orphanage delivers all of the creaky-door chills that you could want from a haunted house thriller, and then blossoms into something far more melancholy than you'd expect. Like a lot of Del Toro productions, this film's spirits are more sad than spooky, and the film builds methodically to a touchingly unexpected finale.
Guillermo Del Toro production (he co-scripted with frequent partner Matthew Robbins, based on an early-70's TV movie I have not seen. Troy Nixey directed) about a young girl named Sally (Bailee Madison, a real scream-queen progeny) who goes to live with her father (Guy Pearce, sporting a ridiculously awful haircut) and younger second wife (Katie Holmes) in the rambling, gothic old Rhode Island house he's currently busy refurbishing. Not given enough attention, yearning to be with her mother, Sally stumbles across a hidden cellar, and unwittingly calls to her a flock of mysterious little creatures that shy away from the light and beckon to her (in pleading, sinuous whispers) to "come play with us" in the dank confines of the cellar. Initially playful, the ill intent of these spindly-legged, hunchbacked, white-eyed creatures soon becomes evident. Set to a marvelously corrupt score by Marco Beltrami (one of his best), Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark is a crisply creepy little number, with the little monsters skittering around with some of the black-comic mischief of Joe Dante's Gremlins movies. The film's R rating is rather curious -- aside from one scene where the creatures viciously assault the groundskeeper, played by Jack Thompson, it's a film with virtually no violence and not a single word of vulgarity. In fact, this is the kind of movie that would be ideal to show kids in their early teens who have shown a keen interest in horror, but would not want something too scary. So the restrictive rating seems very unearned. A solid little monster movie.
Another Guillermo Del Toro production (this time helmed by Andy Muschietti, currently putting the finishing touches on next year's big screen remake of Stephen King's It) about a pair of young girls (Megan Charpentier and Isabelle Nelisse) left in a near-feral state after being abandoned in a remote cabin in the woods by their father (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) following the murder of their mother. Taken in by their identical-twin uncle (Coster-Waldau again) and his punk rock girlfriend (Jessica Chastain, nearly unrecognizable with her trademark strawberry tresses chopped and dyed into a Joan Jett 'do), the two girls remain in sway to their "imaginary" parent figure, who they simply refer to as "Mama". But is Mama just a figment of the imaginations of two lonely and disturbed young children, or is she something more tangible...and vengeful? Mama -- adapted from an eerie short film co-written by the director with his sister, Barbara -- is a rather simple tale of thwarted motherly rage echoing down through the decades, and yet Muschietti manages to keep the audience in sway with his expertise in fusing jump-cut shocks with a fairy-tale ambiance (a Del Toro trademark), and Chastain makes for an ideal heroine, her initial reticence in being thrust into unwanted motherhood gradually melting away into a fiercely protective stance for the two imperiled girls. Another Del Toro movie where the ghouls and goblins don't get in the way of a finale that will leave you more teary-eyed than terrified.
Capping off my mini Del Toro-a-thon with his most recent feature, last year's ravishingly gorgeous gothic thriller that brims over with the director's usual old-timey obsessions (phonographs, "iris out" scene transitions) and recurring thematic imagery. Essentially a Jane Austin romance as produced by the Hammer studio, it was criminally mismarketed by Universal last October, replete with a trailer crammed with blaring Inception foghorn howls that tried to sell the movie as a terrifying Bruised Forearm shocker. In reality, like all of Del Toro's films, he finds much more sadness and regret in his rotting specters than frights. Mia Wasikowska, with her melancholy loveliness, is ideally cast as a young woman named Edith Cushing in turn-of-the-century New York swept away by a dashing suitor (Tom Hiddleston, his sharp, hawklike features recalling Hammer veteran Peter Cushing) to his atmospherically crumbling estate in England, where he and his severe sister (Jessica Chastain, sporting another brunette hairdo) hover over her as much as the looming walls. Is it truly love, or are the two of them conspiring against Edith for her inheritence? Crammed with references to classy old ghost stories like The Haunting and The Innocents, as well as the great Hitchcock thrillers of the 1940's produced by David O. Selznick (Rebecca, Notorious), Crimson Peak is one of the most beautiful horror films in recent memory...the set design, cinematography, costumes and music are all magnificent, and the talented cast all strike just the right melodramatic note. Of all of Del Toro's movies, I only prefer Pan's Labyrinth to this, a new classic of the genre that will hopefully find the audience at home that eluded it in theaters.
