31 Days of Horror 2022 edition can't think of a catchy subtitle

[f.ramses]

10/24
Amityville II: The Possession

[Darcy Parker]

Holy crap. I just tallied up, and I am at 32! First time I have even come close, and I got more than 31 in with a week left.

[BW Haggar]

#28
Alison's Birthday
(Ian Coughlan, 1981)

From what little I knew about this film going in, I was expecting some sort of dreary "'Home and Away' with Satanists" kind of affair, but it really surpassed my expectations.

Basically, what we've got here is a totally straightforward "members of an ancient pagan cult raise their orphaned neice as a blood sacrifice" type yarn, rather reminiscent of Norman J. Warren's 'Satan's Slave'. Nothing too orignal, but confidently and imaginatively executed, with solid performances, a few genuinely weird/atmospheric moments and a whole lot of charm.

As surreal and implausible as the idea of a celtic blood cult with their own stone circle existing in a Sydney suburb might seem on paper... somehow they make it work just fine.

Tonally, it exists in this kind of weird, liminal zone where it's totally unapologetic about being a horror movie, going all out on the occult stuff at every opportunity, with no arty pretentions or boring, Lewton-esque "subtlety".... yet at the same time there's no violence or sex or other exploitational content at all; an odd combination which perhaps accounts for the fact that it's remained so obscure until recently.

Could it have been made for TV? That would explain a lot - not least the fact that the HD scan streaming on Shudder looks super fuzzed out and grainy, like blown up 16mm or something. Although, if that's the case, it would still seem to have originated in some parallel universe where '70s TV movies are fast-paced and fun, and convey subversive messages to teenagers about the wisdom of staying out all night with yr boy/girlfriend, not trusting grown ups and running away from your family because they suck... so who knows.

Well, people who know about this film. They probably know. I'm sure five minutes of research would answer my questions, but I'm doing strictly "first impressions" here, so never mind.

The period detail and the music is all lovely too, much as you'd expect.

B+

[Darcy Parker]

Between sleeping 12 hours and haviing to help my pretty much in laws put in a new AC unit I didnt manage to post my film from sunday.

31 Days of Horror 2022 Day 23 Deadly Friend




TITLE-Deadly Friend



SOURCE-Warner Brothers DVD

Oh man the kind of forgotten 80s Wes Craven film. The story about the making of this film is almost more entertaining than the actual film.

Originally conceived as a Sci Fi film. And filmed with that in mind. Then a horrible response from a test audience,who wanted more gore and violence since the film was from Wes Craven not long after Nightmare on Elm Street was a huge hit. So reshoots happened and we got the muddled mess of a film we got.

But back in October of 86 when this came out I knew none of the above. Just new it was a new horror film from Craven and I had to see it. After seeing it I was a bit disappointed. And just kind of forgot about the film until the early 2000s. When I was trying to watch every film Craven directed. On more viewings I started to enjoy the film more.

Paul and his mom just moved to a new town. He is a teen genius and quickly becomes friends with the neighborhhood paperboy and the cute teen girl next door. Samantha is played by Kristy Swanson,back when she was mostly known for Flowers in the Attic,and Samantha's father is a horrible abusive drunk.




Paul has built a robot named BB. Who sometimes shows signs of having AI. The robot gets destroyed and while drunk Samantha's father accidently kills her. So Paul puts his robot's mainframe into Sam's body. And she comes back but now has super human strength and kills.

Even people that haven't seen this film know the infamous gif from it. In this gif Samantha uses a basketball to kill Anne Ramsey. The head explosion when the basketball hits is great. Back in 2000 Swanson told Maxim in an interview that the fake head of Anne Ramsey that was destroyed by the basketball was filled with legit cow brains. That might be why that one scene looks so real. It really stands out in this film. A movie that really with some tiny cuts could be a PG 13 horror film marketed to kids and teens.

Sure Deadly Friend isn't top tier Wes Craven. But it isn't bottom tier,that is saved for tripe like Cursed and My Soul to Take. It is a perfect middle of the pack Wes Craven horror film. And one of the few Craven films you can show to kids and teens that isn't packed with gore and violence.

Deadly Friend gets a B-.

And Sunday Cody covered
http://codysfilmandtvblog.blogspot.c...-2002.html?m=0

Then Today

31 Days of Horror 2022 Day 24 Friday the 13th Part 7 The New Blood




TITLE_Friday the 13th Part 7 The New Blood





SOURCE-Paramount Blu Ray

Coming out back in 1988 this film was actually filmed in fall/winter 1987 near Mobile Alabama. I wish I had known they were filming in that area,cause back then I lived about 15 minutes outside Mobile right across the state line in Forts Lake MS.

Starting off as a planned Jason vs Freddy movie,which couldn't happen cause the two studios that owned Jason and Freddy couldn't agree on many issues. Instead we got Jason vs Carrie. Yea it ain't actually Carrie but Lar Park Lincoln plays a lady in this movie that is pretty much Carrie.

As a young child Tina tries to get away from her drunk abusive father. She takes a boat out on Crystal Lake and her being so upset triggers her Telekentic powers. And Tina uses these powers to collapse the pier her father is on.

Skip ahead a bit and now Tina is a teen. She has all kinds of mental issues caused by her accidentally killing her father. Her mother brings her back to Crystal Lake,cause Tina's shrink thinks this will help her. But we learn that the doctor wants to use Tina's powers for his own gain.

After a very upsetting session with her doctor Tina is pissed. She runs out to the lake and using her powers she managed to awaken and free Jason. Who in part 6 was trapped chained to a large rock at the bottom of Crystal Lake.

Right next to the house Tina and her mom and doctor are staying in is a house full of teens. Who are there to celebrate a friend's birthday. And it being an 80s slasher film you got your normal teen tropes. Like the rich blonde bitchy girl. And your mousey brunette in glasses who gets a make over and is suddenly pretty. Am I the only one that thought the mousey brunette looked like the taller Chipette from Alvin and the Chipmonks?

So we got Jason free from the lake. A bunch of teens partying,having sex and smoking pot. And a mentally damaged TK powered teen girl. Sounds like we are gonna get a damn good film. Sadly we didn't.

First off gonna mention the things this film gets right. The cast is pretty damn good. Lar Park Lincoln is damn good as Tina, and for the early parts of the film where Tina is a young child they got the same actress who played Leatherface's daugher in TCM III. Elizabeth Kaitan is Robin. I had seen her in so many horror/sci fi/cult movies and she is great in this movie.Diana Barrows plays the Chipette looking nerdy chick and you really believe she is the character she is playing.

Then there is the biggest addtion to this cast. Jason is played for the first time by Kane Hodder. Kane was at the time a stunt man. And to most Friday fans their favorite actor to play Jason is Kane. And I will agree he brought so much to the character. Parrt of that I think is cause the other people who played Jason were stuntmen and not actors. Kane is an actor who is also a stuntman. Also many fans love how Jason looks in this film and I will agree he does have a great look.

So as you can see it isn't the cast as why this is one of my lesser loved Jason films. The biggest issue to me is how cut this movie is. By the time of this movie the MPAA had a boner for the Jason films. And this film was sent back to the MPAA many many times to try to get that R rating. For example the famous sleeping bag kill. In the uncut workprint of this movie Jason slams the sleeping bag many many times into the tree. In the R rated cut he slams it into the tree one time. Which to me makes the scene more brutal. And all the kills in this movie got majorly cut down.

Worst part is it appears that either Paramont has lost the stuff that got cut. Or they just don't give a fuck and haven't bothered to look for it. Cause even with Friday 7 getting many many home video releases,hell I have owned it 3 times on DVD and two times now on Blu Ray,the only copy of the original cut of the film tha exists is a rough rough 2nd generation VHS looking Workprint.

Thinking about it this has to be my least favorite of the franchise. I know it is the one I have seen the least amount of times. Usually watch it if I am marathoning the entire run.

I chose to watch it today cause I hadn't seen it in years.PLus the last week or so at night when I lay down to goto sleep I would put on the Blu Ray of Crystal Lake Memories. And hearing the cast and crew talking about how much fun they had making this film got me into the mood to watch it again.

Friday the 13th Part 7 The New Blood gets a C-.


Cody covers 28 Weeks later
http://codysfilmandtvblog.blogspot.c...-2007.html?m=0

Paramount ordered all trims destroyed for all the F13 films. The only reason there's an uncut version of the first movie is because Warner Brothers, who handled distribution in Europe, kept the negative they borrowed from Paramount to strike prints for Europe from.

[Gary Banks]

OCTOBER 2022

001-Castle Of Blood **** Sinister Cinema dvd-r
002-In Search Of Dracula ** Kino bd
003-Dawn Of The Dead(78) **** bd
004-Carnival Of Sinners * TCM recording
005-The Whip and The Body ***1/2 Midnight Choir dvd-r
006-Panic In Year Zero! ** bd
007-Doctor Blood's Coffin *1/2 MGM dvd-r
008-Ladron De Cadaveres ** bd
009-Castle Of Evil **1/2 dvd-r of vhs
010-From Dusk To Dawn Season One ack! dvd
011-Whoever Slew Auntie Roo *1/2 bd
012-Curse Of Frankenstein (1:37:1)**** bd
013-Tales Of Frankenstein **1/2 bd
014-War Of The Planets** TCM recording
015-I Drink Your Blood ** BD
016-Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things **** bd
017-Tales From The Crypt Season One *1/2 dvd
018-Deathmaster **1/2 dvd
019-Planet Of The Vampires *** Old Kino bd
020-Night of the Demon (UK 1957) **** bd
021-Black Sabbath **** bd
022-I,Vampiri ***1/2 bd
023-Mark Of The Vampire *** bd
024-Dracula Vs Frankenstein (71) **bd
025-Mill Of The Stone Women ****bd
026-Beast of The Yellow Night ***1/2 bd
027-Creature With The Blue Hand *** dvd
028-Brain Of Blood ** BD
029-Star Crash * bd
030-The Poughkeepsie Tapes *** dvd
031-Dracula (58) **** UK bd
032-The Land That Time Forgot ** bd
033-The Murder Clinic *** German bd
034-The Strange Door **1/2 bd
035-I Walked With A Zombie **** dvd

[Newt Cox]

Between sleeping 12 hours and haviing to help my pretty much in laws put in a new AC unit I didnt manage to post my film from sunday.

31 Days of Horror 2022 Day 23 Deadly Friend




TITLE-Deadly Friend



SOURCE-Warner Brothers DVD

Oh man the kind of forgotten 80s Wes Craven film. The story about the making of this film is almost more entertaining than the actual film.

Originally conceived as a Sci Fi film. And filmed with that in mind. Then a horrible response from a test audience,who wanted more gore and violence since the film was from Wes Craven not long after Nightmare on Elm Street was a huge hit. So reshoots happened and we got the muddled mess of a film we got.

But back in October of 86 when this came out I knew none of the above. Just new it was a new horror film from Craven and I had to see it. After seeing it I was a bit disappointed. And just kind of forgot about the film until the early 2000s. When I was trying to watch every film Craven directed. On more viewings I started to enjoy the film more.

Paul and his mom just moved to a new town. He is a teen genius and quickly becomes friends with the neighborhhood paperboy and the cute teen girl next door. Samantha is played by Kristy Swanson,back when she was mostly known for Flowers in the Attic,and Samantha's father is a horrible abusive drunk.




Paul has built a robot named BB. Who sometimes shows signs of having AI. The robot gets destroyed and while drunk Samantha's father accidently kills her. So Paul puts his robot's mainframe into Sam's body. And she comes back but now has super human strength and kills.

Even people that haven't seen this film know the infamous gif from it. In this gif Samantha uses a basketball to kill Anne Ramsey. The head explosion when the basketball hits is great. Back in 2000 Swanson told Maxim in an interview that the fake head of Anne Ramsey that was destroyed by the basketball was filled with legit cow brains. That might be why that one scene looks so real. It really stands out in this film. A movie that really with some tiny cuts could be a PG 13 horror film marketed to kids and teens.

Sure Deadly Friend isn't top tier Wes Craven. But it isn't bottom tier,that is saved for tripe like Cursed and My Soul to Take. It is a perfect middle of the pack Wes Craven horror film. And one of the few Craven films you can show to kids and teens that isn't packed with gore and violence.

Deadly Friend gets a B-.

And Sunday Cody covered
http://codysfilmandtvblog.blogspot.c...-2002.html?m=0

Then Today

31 Days of Horror 2022 Day 24 Friday the 13th Part 7 The New Blood




TITLE_Friday the 13th Part 7 The New Blood





SOURCE-Paramount Blu Ray

Coming out back in 1988 this film was actually filmed in fall/winter 1987 near Mobile Alabama. I wish I had known they were filming in that area,cause back then I lived about 15 minutes outside Mobile right across the state line in Forts Lake MS.

Starting off as a planned Jason vs Freddy movie,which couldn't happen cause the two studios that owned Jason and Freddy couldn't agree on many issues. Instead we got Jason vs Carrie. Yea it ain't actually Carrie but Lar Park Lincoln plays a lady in this movie that is pretty much Carrie.

As a young child Tina tries to get away from her drunk abusive father. She takes a boat out on Crystal Lake and her being so upset triggers her Telekentic powers. And Tina uses these powers to collapse the pier her father is on.

Skip ahead a bit and now Tina is a teen. She has all kinds of mental issues caused by her accidentally killing her father. Her mother brings her back to Crystal Lake,cause Tina's shrink thinks this will help her. But we learn that the doctor wants to use Tina's powers for his own gain.

After a very upsetting session with her doctor Tina is pissed. She runs out to the lake and using her powers she managed to awaken and free Jason. Who in part 6 was trapped chained to a large rock at the bottom of Crystal Lake.

Right next to the house Tina and her mom and doctor are staying in is a house full of teens. Who are there to celebrate a friend's birthday. And it being an 80s slasher film you got your normal teen tropes. Like the rich blonde bitchy girl. And your mousey brunette in glasses who gets a make over and is suddenly pretty. Am I the only one that thought the mousey brunette looked like the taller Chipette from Alvin and the Chipmonks?

So we got Jason free from the lake. A bunch of teens partying,having sex and smoking pot. And a mentally damaged TK powered teen girl. Sounds like we are gonna get a damn good film. Sadly we didn't.

First off gonna mention the things this film gets right. The cast is pretty damn good. Lar Park Lincoln is damn good as Tina, and for the early parts of the film where Tina is a young child they got the same actress who played Leatherface's daugher in TCM III. Elizabeth Kaitan is Robin. I had seen her in so many horror/sci fi/cult movies and she is great in this movie.Diana Barrows plays the Chipette looking nerdy chick and you really believe she is the character she is playing.

Then there is the biggest addtion to this cast. Jason is played for the first time by Kane Hodder. Kane was at the time a stunt man. And to most Friday fans their favorite actor to play Jason is Kane. And I will agree he brought so much to the character. Parrt of that I think is cause the other people who played Jason were stuntmen and not actors. Kane is an actor who is also a stuntman. Also many fans love how Jason looks in this film and I will agree he does have a great look.

So as you can see it isn't the cast as why this is one of my lesser loved Jason films. The biggest issue to me is how cut this movie is. By the time of this movie the MPAA had a boner for the Jason films. And this film was sent back to the MPAA many many times to try to get that R rating. For example the famous sleeping bag kill. In the uncut workprint of this movie Jason slams the sleeping bag many many times into the tree. In the R rated cut he slams it into the tree one time. Which to me makes the scene more brutal. And all the kills in this movie got majorly cut down.

Worst part is it appears that either Paramont has lost the stuff that got cut. Or they just don't give a fuck and haven't bothered to look for it. Cause even with Friday 7 getting many many home video releases,hell I have owned it 3 times on DVD and two times now on Blu Ray,the only copy of the original cut of the film tha exists is a rough rough 2nd generation VHS looking Workprint.

Thinking about it this has to be my least favorite of the franchise. I know it is the one I have seen the least amount of times. Usually watch it if I am marathoning the entire run.

I chose to watch it today cause I hadn't seen it in years.PLus the last week or so at night when I lay down to goto sleep I would put on the Blu Ray of Crystal Lake Memories. And hearing the cast and crew talking about how much fun they had making this film got me into the mood to watch it again.

Friday the 13th Part 7 The New Blood gets a C-.


Cody covers 28 Weeks later
http://codysfilmandtvblog.blogspot.c...-2007.html?m=0

[f.ramses]

10/21
Aftermath (1994)
The Awakening (1990)
Genesis (1998)

10/22
The Vampire Lovers
Lust for a Vampire
Twins of Evil
The Devil Bat (1940)
The Face at the Window (1939)
Cat People (1942)
The Curse of the Cat People
Sleepwalkers

10/23
Doctor Butcher M.D.
Beyond Darkness
Mahakaal
The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake
Freaks (1932)
Mystics in Bali

[Darcy Parker]

Venom (2005) - Not bad, not amazing, just kinda there.

Blue Sunshine - Finally getting around to this one, very cool movie.

Extraordinary Tales - Not my first time seeing it, but I love it.

[BW Haggar]

#27
The Last Man on Earth
(Ubaldo Ragona, 1964)

Thus far in my viewing this October, we've had plenty of Cushing, a few turns from Lee, a good one from Karloff.... but no Vincent. So, time to correct that.

Having watched most of his classic movies with my wife relatively recently, I thought I'd turn to this one, which I haven't seen in donkey's years.

Oh boy. I'd kind of forgotten that this is to some extent a pandemic movie. Watched from a post-2020 perspective, the whole flashback section, with Price's wife and daughter succumbing to the virus, and panic and martial law gradually spreading, is grim as fuck.

In fact, this whole movie is a lot grimmer than I remembered. It must have been quite a shock to the system for viewers back in 1964.

It makes me reflect on how, back in my teens and twenties, I used to absolutely love end-of-the-world stories. Anything about society breaking down and collpasing into chaos, I was totally hooked. Now though, these stories just make me anxious and unhappy. Partly, it's probably because I'm more settled down, and thus more invested in & reliant upon societal structures... but mainly, it's because they now just seem a bit too close for comfort.

The oft-remarked influence this film exerted on George Romero is a lot more pronounced than I had previously realised too. Not just in 'Night of the Living Dead', but in 'The Crazies' too, he returned to images and ideas first seen here again and again.... in fact, it's probably fair to say that the bleak, remorseless tone and sense of 'grown up' seriousness which Romero is generally credited with bringing to American horror films pretty much began here.

And yes, I know that Price is basically mis-cast, and that Matheson wasn't happy with the film, and that the Italian locations give it a kind of weird vibe, but despite all this, I was impressed at how well it stands up; still by far the best adaptation of the novel, and it still packs a real punch.

A-

[Darcy Parker]

Last night was Alligator People.

[BW Haggar]

#26
The Ballad of Tam Lin
(Roddy McDowell, 1971)

Following the Ballad of my Broken Blu-ray (see the thread on this film for the scarifying details), I'm very glad to have received my copy of the new BFI release, which, happy to say, includes a ton of addtional extras which were not listed in the initial pre-release info - so that's a nice surprise.

Having not revisited the film for a while, I'm also happy to have confirmed for myself that it remains a beautiful, affecting and uniquely strange viewing experience.

It's the kind of thing which could so easily have drifted off into random, self-indulgent hippie bather, but McDowell's direction is excellent, nailing the symbolic resonance of each moment and keeping the emotional flow of the narrative clear, whilst William Spier's screenplay is also really sharp, full of wise and memorable lines, all feeding into the film's none-more-1970 theme of needing to move beyond a life of empty sensation toward an acceptance of adult responsibility and the deeper happiness to be found therein.

It makes perfect sense in fact that Martin Scorcese spearheaded the revival of this film back in the '90s, because it strikes me that, if 'Peeping Tom' had never happened and Powell & Pressburger had been allowed the freedom to keep on developing their own projects into the hippie era, this is exactly the kind of thing they might have come up with.

It's only marginally a horror movie (I had remembered there being more overt supernatural content), but Ava Gardner's rage when spurned is certainly as frightening as anything else I've seen this month, as is the unsettling portrayal of the empty, unreal life led by her 'coven' - a kind of hollowed out shell of the swinging '60s dream; an existence devoid of meaning, consequence, morality or individual agency.... but one which is still impossible not to covet on some level, whenever we see the beautiful people frolicking in the sun outside the manor house. One particularly chilling line from Ian McShane's character: "Either you learn not to care, or you find you never cared at all... it's like breathing pure oxygen".

A


#26
The Beast Must Die
(Paul Annett, 1974)

I found this movie very disappointing when I first watched it many moons ago, but thought I'd give it another shot on blu-ray, because... I mean, c'mon, it's such a brilliant concept for a fun action/horror movie, and it has such a fantastic cast -- now that my expectations are suitably lowered and I'm perhaps a bit more sympathetic to the shortcomings of mid-'70s Amicus type movies, it's got to be at least * somewhat * entertaining, right?

Well.... nope. It's still an absolute stinker. Yet, I really don't understand why?

I mean, all the necessary elements for a great time are present and correct - you've got Calvin Lockheart in a black leather jumpsuit roaring around in a helicopter with a machine gun, hunting werewolves, funky, blaxsploitation-type music, and Cushing, Charles Grey, Michael Gambon and Marlene Clark all back at the shack acting shifty.... yet why is it all so flat and boring?

I don't want to place all the blame on director Paul Annet, but, man.... all those hunting/stalking scenes which take up so much of the run time are so poorly staged and edited; seems strange to complain there's 'too much action', but it all just really drags, and using a mangy looking old dog as a stand-in for the werewolf is just absolutely unacceptable. I mean, it's not even a particularly big or scary looking dog! Ridiculous.

And meanwhile, we get zero background or insight into the various oddball characters to help float the 'whodunnit' concept. The whole "Werewolf Break" gimmick is absolutely awesome, but when it pops up just before the last reel, we've basically had no clues or puzzles to help us make our decision... our guesses on who the werewolf is are still just totally random!

Second only to 'The Curse of the Crimson Altar' in the running for "most potential squandered in British horror".

C-

[Newt Cox]

TITLE-Fear Street Part One 1994



SOURCE-Netflix Streaming

Last year I watched this movie and the second one in the series. Planned on reviewing them for 31 Days of Horror 2021 but I had more than 31 films on my list and I figured I could wait till I saw all three films in the series before reviewing them. Well here it is a year later and I still have only seen the first two films.




Set in 1994 this is about a town where one side of the town is nice and peaceful and the other side has been plagued with bad shit happening for as long as anyone can remember.We start off at the Shadyside Mall.A teenage girl working at the book store gets stabbed and brutally killed by one of her friends. This killer male kills a few more people in the mall before the cops stop and kill him. Seems Shadyside is the murder captital of the USA. Next to Shadyside is Sunnyvale. Sunnyvale is the polar opposite of Shadyside.

The teens of Shadyside believe the town was cursed in 1666 by a witch. And this is why all the bad shit happens in Shadyside.Thanks to an accident where some of the Shadyside teens toss a cooler out the back of a bus blood ends up on the grave of this supposed witch and now someone/something is trying to kill Sam. Sam is the secret girlfriend of the films lead lady.

Figuring out that if Sam dies the killer will give up the teens band together to at first stop the killer. Who at first they think is one of the jocks from Sunnyvale. Then once they figure out it is the spirit of the witch they realize the only way to stop this is for Sam to die. And after most of the rest of our main cast die,in some fairly graphic ways,Sam and her secret girlfriend are all that is left. Sam is drown and the brought back to life. Thus defeating the witch.

Fear Street was a series of horror novels wrote by RL Stine. Who was at the time well known cause of how popular his Goosebumps series of young kids horror fiction were super popular. Fear Street was STine's horror novels aimed at teens. I had never read any of them.

Then back in 2008 I got a part time job were I mostly sat and waited to see if the old man I was doing home health care for needed help. I worked 8pm till 7am 4 nights a week. With not much to do at this job I would bring books with me to read. The county I live in only had one book store. A used book store that was 90% romance novels and 10% other stuff. While there one day killing time before work I saw the owner had just gotten in a huge stack of Fear Street novels. She saw me looking at them,and this lady has known me since I was a fairly young kid. Told me if I would buy all of them,I think there was 20 books,she could cut me a deal.20 books for 25 bucks. So I bought all of them and over the next 20 nights at work would read one of the books each shift. Discovered that while they were not amazing horror fiction the Fear Street books were much better than I expected.

So going into this movie I was expecting what I got out of the novels. PG or PG 13 levels of horror. Since this was made for Netflix it has no rating. But if it had played theaters this would have gotten an R rating. Cause of language and gore. Soo soooo much gore. There is one kill with deli meat slicer that shocked me at how bloody it is.

Fear Street Part One 1994 gets a B-.

Cody covers Ring 0
http://codysfilmandtvblog.blogspot.c...-2000.html?m=1

[Matt H.]

Went to a fleapit theater to see TERRIFIER 2. It was the perfect venue for this outrageously brutal and mean slasher flick. It's needlessly long (138 minutes) and horribly paced, but it has some of the craziest kills I've ever seen (it gets close to AUGUST UNDERGROUND territory at times). The first 15 minutes are extraordinary and surreal, but then there's a weird 10-minute dream sequence that throws the whole movie off-balance and the pacing never really recovers. This turns out to be the film's major flaw: a good sequence is often followed up with a long, boring one. Not sure what the obnoxious run time is all about, actually; the original was a perfectly-paced, plotless nightmare and it worked beautifully. The bloated length here just exposes the lack of any depth to the story - it gets really tedious at times.

[BW Haggar]

I took Friday night off from movies to go and see Acid Mothers Temple & DMBQ play - the first properly busy music event I've deliberately bought tickets for and attended post-pandemic. No horrors involved, thankfully.

Thursday's feature presentation however was...

#25
The Horrible Sexy Vampire ['El Vampiro de la Autopista']
(José Luis Madrid, 1971)

Well, I've got to hand it to 'em - his behaviour is horrible, he's sexier than yr average movie monster (insofar as these things go), and he is, indisputably, a vampire - and an invisible man to boot!

Leaving aside its modest success in living up to its English language title however, it saddens me to report that this film is unimaginative, amateurish and astoundingly dull, padded out with extended, desk-based dialogue scenes which must have driven the dubbing team crazy as they tried to come up with enough mindless banter to fill all the dead air.

Even the frequent scenes of female nudity, which must have been quite risque for some markets at the time of release, now seem laughably quaint, all being based around the inherently comic notion that the very first thing most women do upon returning home is take off all their clothes and look at their boobs in the mirror (just to check they're still there, I suppose)... thus making best possible use of those few valuable seconds before the horrible, sexy invisible-vampire-man barges in and throttles them.

Even though this is not a film which could honestly be recommended to anyone on any conventional basis however, there were a few eccentricties which kept me hooked - not least the extraordinary presence of Waldemar Wohlfahrt (aka Wal Davis) in both the title role and also that of the vampire's ennui-ridden British great grandson, Count Oblensky.

A lanky weirdo with a shock of almost albino-like white hair, Wahlfahrt plays the latter character as a kind of glum, aimless aristocrat who wants nothing more out of life than to be left alone to spend his evenings indulging his passion for taxidermy and getting absolutely hammered on hard liquor, drunk straight from the bottle.

This characterisation becomes even stranger when one learns - via Ismeal Fredandez's liner notes to Mondo Macabro's blu-ray - that this film was essentially conceived as a kind of vanity project for Wahlfahrt, designed to capitalise on the notoriety he'd gained through being falsely accused of a series of serial murders which took place in Germany during the 1960s. (Tastefully, the film is shot in Stuttgart, near where the murders took place, and is packed with references to the crimes and the circumstances surrounding Wahlfahrt's arrest.)

But, that's another story - and a far more interesting one than anything which takes place in 'The Horrible Sexy Vampire', it must be said.

Meanwhile, I also liked Count Oblensky's weird insistence that, having inherited his family's castle, he must act in strict accordance with the strange rules imposed in the will of his ancestor, who died in 1886 (I mean, who the hell does he think is going to take him to court to enforce them?), and the film's English dubbing is also enjoyably goofy, sharing the same vibe of dead-pan absurdity as classics like 'The Devil's Nightmare', not least re: the script's unfortunate decision to name the vampire "Baron Winninger", invariably pronounced by the voice actors as "Baron Vinegar".

And finally, I really dug the score, by Ángel Arteaga, which contains several memorable cues, most notably the absolutely delightful and very catchy piece for acoustic guitar, vibraphone and shrill female vocals which plays incessently during the second half of the film. ("Love theme from The Horrible Sexy Vampire", anyone?) I'd love to have a copy of that one on 7" or something.

C+

[Newt Cox]

31 Days of Horror 2022 Day 21 Nightmare on Elm Street 3 Dream Warriors




TITLE-Nightmare on Elm Street 3 Dream Warriors



SOURCE-New Line Cinema DVD

With 8 or 9 entries in the franchise,depending on if you considered Freddy vs Jason as an entry,the Elm Street series of horror films is one I have enjoyed since I saw the first movie close almost 40 years ago. And while I do love that first film,it has always been the 3rd film that is my favorite of the run.




Set in a mental hospital we get Nancy coming back,now grown. And teaming up with what is left of the Elm Street teens to fight off Freddy.

This was the film in the series that established that in the dream world some people will have super powers. Like the Dream Warriors mentioned in the subtitle of this film. Like Kincaid in this film is super strong in the dream world or the one guy who in the real world is stuck in a wheelchair but in the dream world is a powerful wizard. This aspect of the series is something that was kept around from this film forward.

Look at the cast of this film. So many people in it that at the time were not big stars yet. Like Patricia Arquette. Honestly this is the first thing I saw her in. She is our lead and shows in this film why she has had a long long career in the film/tv field. Then you have Laurence Fishburne as one of the orderlies. Sure he had done stuff before this like Death Wish II. But this was for me the first big break out role for this really good actor.

For a long time this was also the Elm Street film I had seen the most. All because while I grew up in an area with out cable I had an Aunt that would record films off HBO for me. We would go see this Aunt,who was my dad's oldest sister,usually every few weeks. And I would go through her HBO guide and circle all the movies I wanted to see. Next trip to Aunt Dot's place she would have 4 or 5 tapes full of movies for me. So late 1987 or might have been early 1988 I got a tape from her that had Munchies,Morons from Outer Space and Elm Street 3. And I know the first week I had that tape I watched Elm Street 3 at least 4 times. Not that many years ago I was going through a box full of old "blank" VHS and found the tape I had Elm Street 3 on it. For shits and giggles I tossed that tape into my trusty VCR and was shocked that the tape was still in ok shape. Sure it looked a bit grainy and fuzzy but it was over 30 years old. Sadly right before the film was over my VCR ate the tape. I managed to get the tape out of the player and back into it's case. But it was badly damaged.

For me this film is the perfect blending of the horror and the comedy of Freddy Kruger. Unlike the later films Freddy isn't totally a stand up comedian yet. But he still managed to crack a few good jokes.

And the kills.... So many good ones in this film. The puppet kill is one I have always loved. One of the teens at the hospital makes puppets. So Freddy uses this kids veins as strings and puppet masters this kid to his death. Another stand out death is when one of the teens can't sleep. So she is staying up late watching a late night talk show. Freddy appears on the TV and this girl walks over to the TV. This TV has Freddy's head coming out the top and arms on the side. And Freddy grabs the girl and slams her head first into the TV.

Also I love how you can watch this movie without seeing any of the previous ones and not be lost. Fairly quickly early on in the film we are told who Freddy is and what he has done.

Now I might have my timeline wrong,not sure on this and too lazy to look it up,but it feels like this film was the start of Freddy being marketed some to kids. IIRC it was after this film that the Freddy action figure was released along with Freddy themed kids PJs. Not sure how many people born after 2000 know this but before then most movie theaters rarely checked or asked for ID when buying a movie ticket. So way before I was 16 I was buying tickets to R rated films like Elm Street 3. There was piles of 80s era films that were R rated and still marketed to kids. Like how Robocop was this film so violent they had to cut stuff out to avoid getting the dreadded X rating. But you had Robocop action figures and comic books. Speaking of comics I thhink it was around the time Elm Street 3 came out that Marvel Comics published 2 issues of the magazine sized B/W Nightmare on Elm Street comic.

So if you haven't seen Nightmare on Elm Street 3 Dream Warriors go see it. It is the best of the Elm Street films to be released in the 80s.

Nightmare on Elm Street 3 gets a A.


Cody covers the real Ring 2
http://codysfilmandtvblog.blogspot.c...-1999.html?m=1