The Wicker Man (1973)

 

Watched June 20, 2025

 

1973

Starring: Edward Woodward, Christopher Lee, Britt Ekland

Director: Robin Hardy

 

My local theater was showing this and I thought it was good excuse to see it. I'd heard a lot about the crazy Nick Cage remake, so why not see the original.

It's the end of April. Sergeant Howie (Edward Woodward) arrives by seaplane to the remote British island of Summerisle. The police had received a letter and photo of missing 14-year-old girl, Rowan Morrison. At first, no one in the village recognizes the photo. The letter about the missing girl was anonymous. 

Sergeant Howie goes to the Morrison family, the mom runs a candy store. She has one daughter but doesn't have another, no missing Rowan. Everyone isn't being totally obtuse, just cheerfully unhelpful.

Sergeant Howie spends the night at the Green Man Inn. Everyone is there, it's the local pub, singing and kissing. The innkeeper's daughter has a beautiful daughter Willow (Britt Ekland). Their songs are about sex, semi-subtly. Officer Howie goes outside and everyone is having sex on the lawn. He goes back inside to see a kilted man offering his teen son to Willow. They play a song about coupling. Sergeant Howie is Christian and wracked with guilt about these fornicators.

In the morning, all the school boys are practicing the dance around a maypole with a singer, it's almost a musical. The girls are inside with their teacher, Ms. Rose (Diane Cilento). Sergeant Howie is still looking for Rowan. Ms. Rose says she's not there but he grabs her roster and Rowan's name is listed as a student. Ms. Rose and Sergeant Howie talk outside, and she basically says Rowan is dead. Sergeant Howie goes to the records office, there is no death certificate for Rowan. All the townsfolk keep questioning Sergeant Howie's authority to be there at all. 

Sergeant Howie visits Lord Summerisle (Christopher Lee), who explains that they all worship the Earth. Sergeant Howie asks to dig up the coffin, he doesn't appear to get permission so he does it at night. Inside there is a giant hare instead of a human body. 

Ms. Rose is at Lord Summerisle's house, they're singing together. Sergeant Howie throws the hare at them. They say this is Rowan, she changed. 

At the Inn, Willow sings a seduction song and bangs naked at the wall trying to get police officer to come over to her room. Sergeant Howie barely manages to stay away, as a good Christian he is engaged but a virgin. He tries to leave May 1st but his plane won't start. He looks up pagan rituals about May day. 

Back at the Inn, Sergeant Howie goes to rest since he can't leave yet. Willow and the innkeeper say they'll use a special thing to keep him asleep. Instead Sergeant Howie wakes up,  and sees a strange burning hand/candle. Sergeant Howie knocks out the innkeeper and puts on his fool costume. 

Previously, Sergeant Howie had searched all over and found that last year's harvest was bad. He's convinced they're going to sacrifice Rowan for a better harvest. The town marches and does their May day ceremony, they are led to Rowan, she's alive and fine.  Sergeant Howie unties her and runs away with her but it was all part of the plan to get the police officer, a Christian virgin to come to the island of his own free will so they can sacrifice him to have a better crop yield. Sergeant Howie tries to get them to stop, but they put him in the wicker man, where there are also a bunch of animals in cages and they're all burned at sunset.

Great crazy folk horror vibes.  I already knew the basic plot so the town trick wasn't a surprise, but it was still fun. There's so much music it could be a musical, there is a folk theme song called Corn Rigs. Christopher Lee is so young in this one!

My Bloody Valentine

 

Watched February 14, 2025

1981

Starring: Paul Kelman, Lori Hallier,  Neil Affleck, Keith Knight

Director: George Mihalka

 

Valentine's Bluff, Canada 

Two miners go down to the mine in full coveralls and face masks. One takes off the mask to reveal a lady and she pulls down her coveralls and she has a heart tattoo on her breast. She's stroking the other person's mask. Then the masked miner pushes her into a wall spike and stabs her with a pickax.

 

February 12th

We meet the main group of miners: Axel (Neil Affleck), goofball Howard (Alf Humphreys), mustachioed Hollis (Keith Knight, and AJ (Paul Kelman). They are switching shifts, they get off the mine cart, take showers and head to the Union Hall where their girlfriends are putting up decorations for the Valentines Dance.

 

Axel (Neil Affleck) is Sarah's (Lori Hallier) new boyfriend.  She used to date TJ (Paul Kelman) but he left town to try for something better on the West Coast but he never told Sarah. She still cares about him, but is mad he left. TJ feels like a failure because he couldn't escape the small town and working in the mine.

 

Mabel owns the launderetee and is helping decorate the town.

 

Twenty years ago there was a planned Valentine's Day dance. The miners were leaving the mine, still 5 guys were down there. Someone didn't off-gas the methane and a cave-in occurred. It took rescuers six weeks to get down there. Only one survivor remained,  who lived by eating the dead. The next year he killed the two supervisors with a pickax, then was committed to the mental hospital. That's why there hasn't been a dance in so long.

 

At the Union Hall, a box of chocolates is left for Mayor Hanniger (Larry Reynolds). The mayor takes it in the car with the Chief Newby (Don Francks) but opens it to reveal a real heart! ...and a note to cancel the dance.

 

The Mayor and police Chief take the heart to the coroner and it's human, but no body is discovered.

 

Mabel, the owner of the launderette, has been helping decorate for the dance. Back at the launderette, she finds a heart box too, then she is attacked. The next day, she's found in the dryer, her heart is in the box with another warning to cancel the dance. The Mayor and Chief say Mabel died of a heart attack but they are trying to see if it's the guy from 20 years ago but the hospital can't find his record?

 

Meanwhile with AJ back in town, he want to get back with Sarah but Axel's not into it. It's a good triangle because they talk about it. Sarah is torn she does still like AJ but he left without telling her, so she feels abandoned.

 

All the young folks are bummed about the canceled dance, but the miners say they can party at the mine mess hall. They all go over there. AJ and Axel fight, Sarah says she's not into either of them.  A couple goes to the shower/coverall drying room to fool around. The guy, Dave goes to get more beers and lady is killed.

 

A dude goes to the kitchen to get a hot dog and his face is boiled. Two other ladies go get hot dogs and discover a cooked heart in the hot dog water. They discover Dave dead in the fridge. The girls and dude reveal the dead bodies and say we've got to get out of here but Sarah, Patty, Howard, another couple go down to the mine as a distraction for Sarah. They start in the mine cart down. The couples goes to fool around. Then after the upstairs party disperses, Axel and AJ go down to the mine to get everyone. They all think it's the crazy miner from 20 years ago. By now the other group has found the police Chief, he gets a group to head to the mine. Down in the mine the killer gets the couple. Howard and Hollis also die.

 

Axel and AJ find Patty and Sarah, they try to climb out because the elevator isn't working. A body falls from above. They head back down. Patty keeps freaking out but then she's killed. They think Axel falls down a water pond. Now it's just Sarah and AJ try to escape the killer. They get the cart headed back up but it's not moving fast. AJ has a shovel to fight off the killer's pickax. They get off and Sarah runs to the side tunnel. Sarah pulls off the killer's mask and it's Axel!

 

Axel was a kid when his dad was killed 20 years ago by Harry Warden the original mine cave in survivor crazy guy.  There is a small cave in. The townspeople get Axel loose but he runs deeper into the cave screaming "Sarah be my bloody valentine!"

 

 I watched the Shout Factory transfer and it looks great, but it's almost too bright for some scenes that are meant to be a little more mysterious. I had seen it before but it was super fun to revisit on Valentine's Day. I love how wonderfully Canadian it is, and I love that they aren't supposed to be teens. They are young adults in a weird little town. 

Great! 

From Beyond

 Watched March 31, 2023

1986

Starring: Jeffrey Combs, Barbara Crampton, Ken Foree, Ted Sorel

Director: Stuart Gordon

In the attic of a large house, Dr. Crawford Tillinghast (Jeffrey Combs) is using a giant room computer, in the center is the "resonator". He manages to turn it all on and he sees swimming worms in the air, but one bites his cheek. Crwaford gets the other scientist, Dr. Pretorious (Ted Sorel) to check out the experiment and he loves it! Crawford wants to turn it off, but it attacks Dr. Pretorious. A neighbor calls the cops about the noise, but then her mini-poodles runs in the house. The dog goes to the attic, the lady finds him but Crawford uses an ax to break the door down. Crawford passes the lady on the stairs. Outside the cops arrest Crawford.

Dr. McMichaels (Barbara Crampton) arrives at the psyschiatric hospital. Dr. Bloch, the lead doctor in charge doesn't Dr. McMichaels approach to treating schizophrenia. Dr. McMichaels likes running experiments instead of locking people up in a cell. They do a CT scan on Crawford, he's in a padded room. Dr. McMichaels asks Crawford what happened with Dr. Pretorious. They think Crawford is crazy because he said the resonator creature ate Dr. P's head- but they couldn't find his head. Dr. McMichaels wants to recreate the experiment right away. (Give Crawford a break, he really doesn't want to go, I get it). Crawford is released from the hospital, he thinks he can just leave, but McMichaels informs him he is in her custody. They get Bubba (Ken Foree), a police officer/private security to assist them. 

 

All three head back to the house/lab, a crime scene, but no big deal for them to go back there. Crawford really doesn't want to go back and recreate the experiment but McMichaels is insistent.  They get into the house, Bubba trips over a huge power cable. Crawford rewired the house to power the resonator. There is a switch in the basement. Bubba and Crawford find Dr. Pretorious's S&M room and play a tape that Dr. Pretorious made of him beating a woman. Crawford shows Bubba and Dr. McMichaels the resonator. When Crawford tried to stop it earlier, he axed one of the rods so they have to fix it. They get the resonator working again.

 

Round 1, it works. They see Dr. Pretorious appear in a human form but Crawford touches him and his skin is squishy dough. They turn it off. Dr. McMichaels immediately wants to do the experiment again but it's late and they all spend the night at the house. Crawford has to sleep in the S&M room. They have weird dreams. Dr. McMichaels wakes up and turns the resonator on but it brings Dr. Pretorious as a monster that attacks her and rips her nightgown. Bubba and Crawford wake up. Thye can't get to the attic so they head to shut the power off in basement. But there's a wet basement worm there! Both McMichaels and Crawford are being worm kissed. Bubba rips out the power cable. Crawford is covered in worm burns and now hairless. Dr. McMichaels escapes Dr. Pretorious and Crawford rests. Bubba tells McMichaels to get dressed, they're leaving. In the S&M room, Dr. McMichaels is still horny hypnotized, so she puts some leather gear and grinds on a sleeping Crawford. Bubba shows up, Dr. McMichaels comes onto him but he shakes her out of it for a minute. 

 

Dr. Pretorius manages to use his brain power to make the resonator machine work again. They try to turn it off again but it zaps them. Crawford is too weak. A bunch of bugs attack Crawford and Dr. McMichaels but Bubba gets them to go towards the light. Then the bugs attach and eat Bubba, he's a skeleton. Dr. McMichaels is almost dragged into the Pretorious monster. She grabs a fire extinguisher and that briefly turns off the machine. Crawford's head worm has emerged. Crime scene #2.

Crawford is back at the psychiatric hospital being examined by angry Dr. Bloch. Dr. McMichaels has a crazy story now. Dr. Bloch is pissed and recommends electroshock therapy by force. Crawford awakens and his pineal vision leads him to brains- he finds the pathology lab. Dr. Bloch gets him but he eats her brain.  Dr. McMichaels escapes electroshock therapy because Crawford is loose. She gets the can and goes back to the house. Crawford eats an EMT's brain then goes back to the hosue too. 

 

Dr. McMichaels sets up a bomb on the resonator but is attacked by Crawford. She bites his pineal gland stalk. Crawford is eaten by Pretorious but then tries to destroy him from the inside. They rip each other apart. Dr. McMichaels jumps out the window and rips her knee but survives the fall. She's now where Crawford was at the beginning " IT ate his head!" but no one believes her. The neighbors show up.

 

Shot in Italy and Austria? Barbara Crampton is geat. Some weird timing, they take Crawford back to the attic too soon after he watched his mentor get his head eaten. Great gross practical effects. I have a hard time seeing Crawford as a sympathetic character. A little more explanation of the experiment would have helped as well as showing how entranced Dr. McMichaels gets. Good not great.

Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2

 

Watched December 23, 2022

1987

Director: Lee Harry

Starring: Eric Freeman (Ricky), Elizabeth Kaitan (Jennifer),  Darrel Guilbeau

It's awful! Garbage day indeed.

Ricky (Eric Freeman) is a dead eyed dude in a white room where a psychiatrist comes to interview him and record it on a reel to reel. Ricky tells the story of Silent Night, Deadly Night the movie. Billy is Ricky's older brother who witnessed Santa kill his parents. Ricky was a baby at the time but he seems to have all of Billy's memories. We re-watch Santa killing the family when they stop their car to help him. When Billy acts out about Santa fear he is punished by Mother Superior, the nun at the orphanage where both boys ended up after the murders of their parents. Billy sees two adults, who are supposed to be teen orphans according to the credits, having sex. Mother Superior belts them and Billy too. The younger, nicer nun had told Billy to go outside to play. Mother Superior gives a speech about what the older orphans did was naughty so they must be punished.

 

 It keeps cutting back to Ricky in the white room, it's awful. Then Ricky tells that Billy got hired at the toy store. Around Christmas time, they made young Billy be Santa. At the Christmas Eve party at the toy store, Billy sees a co-worker sexually assaulting another co-worker. He rescues the woman, strangles the man but then kills the woman too. Billy kills the husband and wife toy store owners too. He's on full naughty Santa kill rampage. We get a 'best of' of all the kills from the first movie. Billy kills a couple that were about the have sex, he hangs the woman on a rack of antlers, then kills the dude. He kills some bullies who were night sledding. The cops are now on Billy's tail, but since he's dressed as Santa they keep running into other people dressed as Santa. They think Billy is headed for the orphanage, it's Christmas morning now. At first a deaf Santa shows up and is killed by a cop, but it's not Billy. Then Billy does show up and kills that cop in the basement. Billy makes it into the building but is shot by the detective before he can kill Mother Superior in front of all the kids. 

 

Now that's we've watched the best of the first movie, we get back to Ricky. After Billy died, Ricky was adopted and it was mostly good. He freaked out at some nuns, but his adoptive parents were trying to make it work.Then his adopted dad died, he's supposed to be 15 at this point but he is played by Darrel Guilbeau who was 25 at the time. 

 

While wandering the woods, Ricky sees a picnicking couple. The get romantic, but the woman stops it stating that the guy is getting too aggressive. The guy gets the point, stops and goes over to his jeep, he turns around to suddenly see Ricky in the driver's seat. Ricky drives over the guy about 6 times. 

 

Later Ricky gets a job cleaning up at a restaurant, while taking out the trash he notices a guy beating up another guy, loan shark style. Ricky takes the extorter and stabs him with a closed umbrella, which he then opens. The rain starts to wash the blood away.

 

The doctor interviewer shows Ricky a photo/headshot of a woman and asks "What about her?" "Jennifer was my love" Ricky replies. It shows how Ricky met Jennifer (Elizabeth Kaitan), she ran her car into his motorcycle. They said nothing to each other but she got on the back of his motorcycle and they were dating. They have sex, holding each other and not moving at all. At a movie date, some heckler is making Ricky nuts. He leaves Jennifer seated, but the she is accosted by her ex-boyfriend, Chip who wants to get back together with her. She's not interested. Ricky kills the popcorn heckler and his embarrassed friend. 

 

Taking a suburban neighborhood walk, Jennifer and Ricky run into Chip, who's car has broken down. Ricky gets mad and electrocutes Chip with a car something. Jennifer tries to stop him, but he strangles her with a car antenna. Ricky is on a tear now. He grabs a gun from Chip? He walks the neighborhood in broad daylight, and the infamous garbage day scene happens here. No real context, I guess it could be that Ricky is taking out the garbage but he shoots someone taking out their garbage for now apparent reason. The cops do try to stop him, but he gets away? He steals a Santa suit from a Salvation army bell ringer. Goes to the 666 address that is Mother Superior's house. The younger nun is back in the mix. Mother Superior is wheelchair bound now and apparently had a stroke, but also has bunch of facial boils. Ricky attacks her, she falls down the stairs. The cops shoot Ricky and he falls out a window. The End.  

No fun.

Ricky is a bad actor there's no arc to his character. Ricky is bad, he does bad things and dies. He's killed a lot of people but doesn't care or get punished himself. The Santa trauma is still hard to explain especially for Ricky over Billy. There isn't a naughty/nice determination to killing. I do not recommend, this movie bummed me out a lot. The garbage day clip is it's own thing because even within the context of the movie it's nuts. I have seen the first one, and I knew this one had a lot of clips from the first movie, or most of the the footage from the first movie. It takes a lot of what is fun in a horror movie and cuts it out, it thinks you just want to see the kills but you need to have context to have the kills be interesting. It doesn't work and is a chore.

Rocktober Blood

 

Watched October 28, 2022

 

1984

Director: Beverly Sebastian

Starring: Donna Scoggins, Tray Loren, Cana Cockrell

At a recording studio/house, Billy Eye (Tray Loren) is laying down the vocal track for his song "I'm Back." His band is really into it, but Lynn (Donna Scoggins) is less impressed. It's 4:30 am but Billy leaves for a hook up. Lynn antagonizes him about cheap dates. He says he wrote the song "Rainbow Eyes" for her and she's about to record the backing vocal. Lynn does two takes but it's not working, she heads to the jacuzzi alone. Black leather pants and boots walk down a bunch of stairs- it looks like Billy is already back from his date. He kills the producer by slitting his throat. He hangs another woman in the studio on a rack. Lynn comes out of the jacuzzi, back to the studio to find Billy. Billy makes some subtle jokes about killing two people. He then attacks Lynn. Somebody shows up? and stops Billy so Lynn gets away.

Jump to two years later. 

An MTV style VJ does an interview with Lynn about her new show at a party. He explains it's been two years since Billy went crazy, killed two people, was convicted and executed. Lynn dealt with the trauma but now is the lead of Headmistress, the same band and using Billy's songs. They are having a pre tour launch party with a guy breakdancing in a gorilla mask. Everyone looks '80s metal awesome. Lynn goes upstairs to the spooky office and is attacked by the breakdancer but it's actually Billy! She tells the blond producer Tony (Tony Rista) so he punches the breakdancer, but it's not Billy anymore! Tony tells Lynn to head out of town to relax as they continue to get the show ready.

 

 Lynn heads to a Lake Tahoe cabin (seems like the same studio as the beginning). She is up there with two friends and she is attacked by Billy while hiking in the woods, but it can't actually be him, he's dead! The women get a bunch of creepy phone calls. They do a bunch of jazzercize leotard work outs. They go on a speedboat. Lynn's brunette friend is planning to fly to San Francisco but checks the jacuzzi and it's unexpectedly on. Billy bursts out the water and drowns her. He then hacks up her body, where she cries out even though she has already drowned. Lynn takes a bath in her strange bedroom that has a bathtub in it (on carpet, no less) then Billy chases her in and out of the house. The producer calls, Lynn wants to see Billy's body since she's convinced it's him. Tony says he's British and will go lose his green card if he digs up a grave, good point. Lynn goes to the cemetery anyway with her blond friend. The friends stays in the car, which has an open top while Lynn goes to dig up the grave. Once Lynn has just about finished, Tony shows up to help. They open the coffin, Lynn hallucinates that it's Billy's living face but it's just a rotting skeleton. 

The night of the big show, everyone is getting ready. Billy is stalking around the venue, he kills the blond friend with an iron! Lynn gets her wig on, then Billy reveals he's John, Billy's twin brother! He's been the killer all along. He's the talented one but managed to blame it the original murders on Billy who Lynn thought was the killer. But Billy/John is still pissed that Lynn is using his songs. Billy/John pulls out a big bottle of ETHER! and knocks out Lynn and places her in a coffin, that's happens to be part of the stage show. 

The show starts! Song 1: There are four women in white, gauzy clothes tied up around the stage. Billy kills two of them but it seems like part of the show. The security guard and Tony know it's Billy/John now. The coffin with Lynn rises to the stage and Billy/John makes Lynn sing rainbow eyes while poking her with a spear. Then Billy handcuffs himself to Lynn and sings "I'm Back." Lynn manages to get away and Tony hits Billy/John with a guitar. Blood runs down Billy/John's face and it ends with a freeze frame.

For the Rock 'n' Roll Nightmare theme, this is the best of the three (Slaughterhouse Rock, Black Roses, Rocktober Blood.) The backing band is Sorcery from the wizarding world of Stunt Rock. They're great. The Stunt Rock trailer has all the best stuff,  but the full length movie lags, just a heads up. The acting is bad, Lynn does some casual nudity while taking a jacuzzi and baths. They make the most out of the limited sets and at least make some interesting choices with shots.

Black Roses

Watched September 30, 2022

 

1988  

Directed by John Fasano  

Starring: John Martin, Karen Planden, Frank Dietz 

 

Starts in New York at a Black Roses concert, the band members are already monsters. The cops show up to shut it down but the transfixed teens rush out, crushing the cops. It's not clear if the Black Roses need teen spirit to feed or to change from humans to their true monster selves.

Two lamborghinis roll into small town Canada. Several cool '80s rock 'n' rollers get out, it's the Black Roses! They walk around the empty town putting up posters for the 4 nights they're playing the high school auditorium.

 Mr. Morehouse (John Martin) is the English lit and poetry teacher at the high school. All the teens in his class are excited about the Black Roses coming to play their town, let alone their high school auditorium! Especially since these shows are kicking off their larger North American tour. Julie (Karen Plandon) is a student who really admires Mr. Morehouse and has a little crush on him. Johnny (Frank Dietz) another student in Mr. Morehouse's class, has a crush on Julie, but she considers them just friends.

The local church members are against the concert, since rock music is aligned with the devil, duh. But the mayor is for it. The town council stays for the first song and Black Roses play one of their ballads and tone it down. The town council leaves approvingly and the party is on! 

Julie hangs out with Johnny after the first concert. They wander around town, Johnny steals a can of red paint, spills a little bit in a parking lot and leaves his pocket knife nearby. The next day in class, Mr. Morehouse returns the knife to Johnny and tells him to stay out of trouble. That afternoon, the Black Roses give out free records to all the high school kids. One of the teens, Vinny (Carmine Appice) gets into a fist fight over one. Vinny plays the record at home and his dad tells him to shut it off. Vinny storms off, but the record comes on again, looking all melty-gooey. A monster emerges from the speaker, attacks the dad (Vincent Pastore) drags him back into the speaker.

After the second concert, Johnny goes home to his nebbish dad. He goes to bed and has sex with a dream demon, I think it's supposed to be Julie but it's also a body double so it's confusing. He wakes up and shoots his dad three times. Another high schooler Tina heads home after the concert with her sexy friend. At Tina's house, her younger brother is throwing plastic action figures in the fire while the dad watches. The dad realizes it's 11pm and shuffles the kid off to bed. The mom is playing cards at a friends. Tina asks if her friend can stay because her parents aren't home and she's locked out. All three of them play gin rummy until Tina goes to bed. Tina's friend convinces the dad to play strip gin, she comes on to him and gives him a heart attack. Vinny comes home from the concert and runs over his mom while she is taking out the trash.

Mr. Morehouse has been 'dating' the mayor's daughter Priscilla (Carla Ferrigno). He goes after school to talk to the mayor once some people have been dying but she doesn't let him get past.

Julie goes fully bad and beats her step dad to death with an ashtray. Julie then sneaks into Priscilla's car while she was playing tennis. Once Priscilla gets in the car, Julie cuts off Priscilla's head. Julies goes to Mr. Morehouse to seduce him, he rejects her but them Julie turns into a demon and tries to kill him. He fends her off with a tennis racket and he escapes.

If there is a third concert, it happens somewhere in here.

The last concert everyone is all dressed in black now. Damian (Sal Viviano) the lead singer of the Black Roses notices Mr. Morehouse tossing gas onstage. Damian turns into a demon to fight Mr. Morehouse, they tussles. Mr. Morehouse gets Julie out of the concert hall and lights a flare that sets the gas soaked stage ablaze, engulfing Damian and the band. The teens escape the burning auditorium. TV news footage announces the Black Roses are coming to Madison Square Garden and it shows Damian and he's fine.

Cool title sequence with animated growing roses that the lamborghinis drive over. It needed more stakes, a lot of kids kill their parents but it doesn't seem to mean anything. Mr. Morehouse isn't much of a hero that you root for. Does the band need the kids to turn into demons, do they feed off of them? Do they get energy from the kills. The demonizing seems reversible. Damian calls the kids his Black Roses, it that a clue? Good demon effects but aside from the kids gone bad/satanic panic it doesn't make much sense.

Parts of it seem high-ish quality but then random shots of bellies like they didn't get enough coverage. Julie didn't want to do nude scenes, but the stands ins are are really different and there is a very strange weird cropped boob shot. Not a lot of fun overall. Decent music, weird background music choices. It seems like they wanted to show an innocent town that goes to hell through satanic music, but it didn't quite come together for me.

Same writer as Rock 'n' Roll Nightmare, Cindy Cirile, she really got some mileage out of music and monsters. I wonder how many metal/music/horror movies were made in the '80s?  Lloyd Kaufman is listed as a producer, it doesn't have a of Troma feeling aside from monster effects.

They played this at a local theater a couple of weeks after we watched it, something was in the Santa Fe air for the Black Roses.

Prince of Darkness

Watched October 5, 2016

1987
Starring: Lisa Blount, Donald Pleasance, Jameson Parker, Victor Wong

I'm no expert on imagery in John Carpenter films but he does seem to have some recurring themes in the movies I've seen. He likes a computer screen and that means 80's green on black and there is nothing wrong with that.

A bunch of PhD students at the local university are taking a class with Professor Birak (Victor Wong). They are physics students but the class seems to deal with the metaphysical, and there seems to be only about six people in the class. This includes Brian (Jameson Parker) who has a weird mustache and can't stop staring at Catherine ( Lisa Blount) which is pretty creepy. 

Meanwhile at a local church, one day before he has a meeting with the cardinal, a priest dies, leaving a mysterious key to the basement of the church. Another Priest (Donald Pleasance) takes the key and checks out the oddly candlelit basement. In the basement there are pews, set up for worship and at the center is a large glass cylinder with an aged bronze cap that looks like a green tornado is spinning around in it.

Priest contacts Prof. Birack, the physics professor that is teaching the PhD students as there is a specific book that he needs to be interpreted. They are getting some weird vibes from the green glass tornado and want science to prove what it is. Victor gets his physics students and they also bring in some theology students along with some tech people to bring a ton of equipment to the church. They are going to figure out what the deal is with the green glass tornado jar.

For some reason they have to spend the night at the Church, but they all get cots. They set up tons of computers and stuff. Lisa (Ann Yen) the theology student begins to interpret the text. She's the only one that should be there. Susan (Anne Marie Howard) tests the top of the green jar and it's millions of years old. The skinny nerd computer tech guys leaves for the night and he is the first to be killed by the homeless zombies that have been hanging out around the church motionless. Alice Cooper stabs him with a bike cut in half.

Susan is drawn to the green vat and it sprays water into her mouth, this turns her into a demon/zombie that then sprays liquid into the other students/researchers mouths to turn them into demons too. Lisa is turned into a zombie demon. Kelly runs into a computer and gets a weird bruise on her arm that turn into a rune-like mark. It makes her really tired, she goes to take a nap and then all the green goo rushes into her. At first it looks like she is pregnant but it's just a belly full of green liquid. That liquid is the essence of evil or Satan. It melts most of Kelly's skin off, with Susan and Lisa acting as her bodyguards while this happens. Walter (Dennis Dun), one of the students gets stuck in a closet while this happens. On the other side of the closet the rest of the students have trapped themselves. They start to make a hole in the wall while Walter tells terrible offensive jokes. Kelly is transformed into a demon being and hears Walter talking so she dispatches Susan and Lisa to attack him, and he barely makes it out to of the closet alive.

Kelly/Satan sees a compact mirror on the floor and it gives her a glimpse of the connection to the anti-God on the other side which is explained as Satan's Dad.The compact breaks but then Kelly finds a full size mirror. Donald is in a room where Calder, also a zombie has been mesmerized or he can still see his non zombie self. Anyway Kelly tries to pull the anti-God out of the mirror. Brian is wrestling with Calder, then Catherine decides to push herself onto Kelly, trapping them all in the mirror but not letting out anti-God. Then the Priest smashes the mirror with an ax.

During their time in the church, everyone has been having dreams sent to the future from 1999, we see the rest of the dream and it's Catherine coming out of the church, with the question if she is a demon or not lingering.

More people survived than I thought would, give the Satan presences. Brian is super creep, even though he is supposed to be one of the good one. There is lots of weird bug stuff. The random Alice Cooper cameo is strange. Donald Pleasance is great. The demon Kelly makeup is good. Pretty solid movie but also very confusing about why science has to prove that Satan is alive in a goo and that there is a higher darkness/evil than Satan. It's weird to hear the word caca in a movie.

Blade II

Watched June 8, 2016

2003
Starring: Wesley Snipes, Kris Kristofferson, Ron Perlman, Leonor Varela

Unlike the vague memories I had of Blade, I had never seen this one before. And I didn't realize that Guillermo Del Toro was the director until the end credits, but that makes sense why it was a better movie than I expected.

Blade (Wesley Snipes) is still killing vampires. Whistler (Kris Kristofferson) was captured, tortured, not killed and put in a blood tank for years by the vampires. In the meantime, Blade hired Scud (Norman Reedus) as his vampire hunting helper. They eventually find Whistler but the two vampires break into Blade's compound. It turns out they want to work with Blade to fight a new breed of super vampires that feeds on both humans and vampires. Then it turns both into super vampires or "suck heads." Blade is always on board for killing vampires of any kind, even though he is wary of working with vampires so he takes a lot of extra weapons as a precaution.

The vampires have targeted the super vampires and assembled their own posse of fighters.
Reinhardt (Ron Perlman) is somewhat of the leader of the vampire fighters and he doesn't like the idea of working with Blade. The vampire posse all have silly nicknames: Chupa, Snowman, Verlaine, the Priest, etc.

First the blood buddies and Blade go to a vampire rave where the super vampires are suspected to be. It turns into a big fight, the super vampires can't be killed by silver but sunlight or UV light works. Blade finds the main super vampire and they fight on a catwalk until the blackout curtains covering the windows start to show some sunlight. Verlaine's boyfriend is bit by a super vampire but hides it. One of the other vampire fighter is killed and they blame the deaths on Blade. The group does find the entrance to the super vampire lair and a vamp is stuck in the door but he is dying. The super vampires have to eat so frequently if they don't their bodies start to eat themselves.

They do an autopsy on the now dead super vampire and find out it has a bone heart, which may be a secret in trying to kill them. The group makes some UV bombs and head to the lair to kill the super vampires. The bitten vampire in the posse tries to eat his girlfriend, Verlaine so she burns them both in the sun. Reinhardt manages to separate himself and the Nyssa (Leonor Varela) from the group, intending for the super vampires to kill Blade. Blade manages to get all the UV bombs to go off killing all the super vampires that were attacking them but almost killing Reinhardt and Nyssa at the same time.

Blade lets Nyssa drink from him so she can survive but then the vampire cops show up and basically arrest them. Scud is a familiar so he betrays Blade, but Blade knew not to trust him all along so he blows up Scud. Reinhardt beats up Whistler. Nyssa learns that her mega old vampire dad is the one who created the super vampires in the first place. They see the experiment lab with a bunch of vampire fetuses.

The first super vampire is his son, Nyssa's brother.  Blade is captured by the vampires and tied to a table, but Whistler manages to free himself then free Blade. Blade is weak but he jumps into a blood pool and comes out fighting. Blade cuts Reinhardt in half. Nyssa's super vampire brother finds his dad, bites him and kills him, then he bites Nyssa. Blade stabs the super vampire and uses an UV light to kill him. Nyssa doesn't want to die, but know she is about to turn into a super vampire. She asks Blade to take her into the sunrise to die. Blade and Whistler live to fight another day.

There are some crazy fun special effects in this one. When the super vampire die they burn up in an insane way. The super vampires also have crazy mouths that open down the the throat.  Pretty solid sequel, but then again Guillermo Del Toro knows how to do horror. With the Nyssa character they try again trying for a slight romantic subplot with Blade, but he is a robot so that's pointless.

Critters

Watched November 10, 2015

1986
Starring: Dee Wallace, M. Emmet Walsh, Scott Grimes, Nadine Van der Velde

Outer Space
A bunch of Krites escape a prison asteroid on a stolen space ship. The alien warden of the jail hires two faceless bounty hunters to capture them, as the Krites are very dangerous. It is determined that Earth is the only habitable planet around so the Krites must be headed there.

Grover's Bend, Kansas
The Brown family live on a small farm. The teen sister, April (Nadine Van de Velde) is into making out with her latest boyfriend Steve (Billy Zane) and teasing her younger brother Brad (Scott Grimes). Brad likes making explosives. Later that afternoon, hanging out with the local drunken weirdo, Brad gets in trouble for using a slingshot to hit a rock at April, even though it was a accident. Because of this he doesn't get dinner and is confined to his room. April bring Steve over for dinner, then they go make out in the barn. 

The critters do crash land on Earth and are looking for something to eat. They first mutilate a cow, that Brad and his dad, Jay (Billy Green Bush) find. Back at the house, they hear something moving around in the cellar. Jay goes to check it out and it attacked by some of the Critters. The Critter can shoot paralyzing spikes, which is really cool. Since they are pretty small, this is a great attack for them to take down larger prey. The Critters already attacked some local cops in town and they torn up the phone lines so the Brown family are stranded on their farm.

April and Steve are attacked in the barn by a critter, Steve is killed but April is saved by Brad. The space bounty hunters show up, one of them has taken the face of Johnny Steele, a famous rock singer. The other bounty hunter doesn't pick a permanent face, instead keeps taking faces of random people they run into. Once the bounty hunter lands, they find the cop the critters killed and take his car. They don't know how to drive so they run into the church. When they don't get any information about the critters, they shoot up the place. They go to the bowling alley but don't get a lot of information and shoot it up too.

Once the bounty hunters get to the farm house they start blasting critters until only a couple are left. One of the Critters grew to be very large and takes April back to its space ship. I'm assuming at some point they found time to fix the ship. Brad manages to get April out of the ship and leaves an explosive, but he can't light it in time. The town drunk makes a molotov cocktail and throws it in to the Critters space ship as it is taking off. As the Critters are flying away they blow up the Brown's home with laser blasts. But not too long after the molotov cocktail explodes and the Critters are blow up.

The bounty hunters give Brad a special medallion thing when they leave the planet. Brad touches the medallion, it glows and the Brown's house comes back together as if it was never blow up in the first place. You think the critters are gone but they left a couple eggs in the Brown barn to set up Critters 2.

I'm sure it's all about perspective when you watch a lot of bad movie and moderately fine movie will seem like the best movie ever. I really liked Critters, it was super fun. It had some excellent humor element and the Critters were both cute and a little scary. They also did funny things like push the kid's bike over randomly. This is a great combination of light horror and comedy. There are a lot of sequels that I'm not totally sure I'm ready for, but this is a fun one on its own.

Parasite

Watched November 3, 2015

1982
Starring: Robert Glaudini, Demi Moore, Al Fann, Vivian Blaine

It begins with a strange sequence where a scientist, Dr. Paul Dean (Robert Glaudini) is working in his lab that is filled with red fog. It is revealed that he is working with parasites, but then he is unexpectedly punched in the face by a businessman. In the tussle, Paul knocks over the container with the parasite, which escapes and works its way into his body. There are also some flashes of him being tied to a weird operating table, so perhaps he was supposed to be infected the whole time.

In the year 1992:
Some kind of apocalypse has happened and the world is run by a strange company called Xyrex. The suburbs have been turned into work farms. Dr. Dean, infected with the parasite, has stolen a van with his scientific equipment and driven to remote Joshua, California where about 60 people live. 

 He checks into a boarding house and seems pretty sickly. He has a thermos with a larger parasite inside, and is injecting himself to control his own parasite. A bunch of street kids show up and hassle him, they end up stealing a bunch of his stuff, beating him up and taking him back to the garage where they all live. They are curious about what is in his thermos, open it and the parasite attaches itself to Zeke (Tom Villard.) They can't get it off so they blame Dr. Dean. Patricia ( Demi Moore) a local young lady who isn't involved with the street toughs, rescues  Dr. Dean and takes him back to her house which is even more remote than the tiny town.

In the meantime, the Xyrex businessman is trying to find Dr. Dean.  He has a laser gun that he cuts an old man's hand off with. He has a couple run-ins with the street toughs, since one of them used to be a businessman like himself.

The parasite kills Zeke, then grows massively larger and attaches itself to Dana (Cherie Currie.) They take Dana to Collins (Al Fann), the local merchant. Even though they were just hassling him the day before. They get Dana to the boarding house run by Miss Elizabeth (Vivian Blaine), but Dana dies anyway, which releases the parasite to find another host. The parasite then attacks Miss Elizabeth and it explodes out of her face. Dr. Dean and Patricia are now trying to get the larger parasite, because Dr. Dean needs it for some reason. He gets his equipment from his room and manages to remove his internal parasite with a oscilloscope or electricity or something. Dr. Dean and Patricia escape the boarding house before the evil businessman and the  larger parasite and the businessman are blown up. The End.

While not a great movie by any mean there is a nice build up to some of the better special effects, specifically when the parasite bursts out of Miss Elizabeth's face. They don't completely explain the dystopian world and some of the character motivation is hard to decipher. Times are obviously tough since all the merchant has to sell is canned soup. The businessman seems like he gave Dr. Dean the parasite so it's weird that he is trying to get it back. That is never explained. Then it ends. After watching it I saw a trailer that showed the main marketing for this movie focused on it being in 3D, so the plot really just had to throw a lot of thing in the audience's face for it to be a hit.

Pumpkinhead

Watched October 27, 2015

1988
Starring: Lance Hendrikson, Jeff East, Kerry Remsen, Florence Schauffler,

I first saw this at a slumber party in 6th grade and it scared the crap out of me. This was my first revisit since then, and while not as scary as I remembered it, it's still a solid monster movie.

Ed Harley (Lance Hendrikson) and his young son Billy run a rural general store. A group of city teenagers stop by the store on their way to a vacation cabin in the woods. They have motorcycles with them and while stopped two of the guys start riding around the dirt field nearby. 

A local customer stops by to pick up some things and it turns out that Ed forgot some feed or something that the customer ordered. Ed leaves to get the feed from his house, leaving Billy and his dog to mind the store, which is nuts. Not too long after Ed leaves, the dog runs after the motorcycles and Billy runs after the dog. The first guy on his motorcycles goes off a dune, does a jump, sees Billy and dog and manages to turn out of the way. Right behind him comes the second motorcycle, which doesn't turn in time and hits the kid. The guy that hits the kid freaks out because he's had a couple of beers and is on probation anyway. He grabs his girlfriend and they speed off in his sportscar to the cabin.

The rest of the group is concerned but they can't find a phone to call anyone from the General store. Two of the teens stay with the kid while a couple others drive off to find help. Ed comes back to find his son mostly dead and he is devastated. He wraps his son in a blanket, doesn't try to take him to a doctor, instead he goes to the rural farmer and delivers the feed like he promised.While at the farm Ed asks some kids about Pumpkinhead, a local revenge demon legend. The farmer won't have anything to do with it, but one of his kids tells Ed that he will show him where to find Haggis, the old crone witch.

Haggis (Florence Schauffler) lives in a dilapidated old shack on a swamp. Ed is so distraught he will do anything to get revenge. Haggis warms him that this is not what he really wants, but Ed is adamant. She tells him to go to a specific old pumpkin patch/graveyard and dig up a specific site. He digs up a skeleton and brings it back to Haggis. She begins the spell that uses Ed's blood to bring Pumpkinhead, the revenge demon to life.

Pumpkinhead comes to life and begins to kill the teens one by one. But as Pumpkinhead kills, Ed feels and sees through Pumpkinhead's eyes the murders, which is more intense than he imagined. Ed quickly gets sick of the revenge killing and helps the last two kids who weren't terrible survive. Ed kills himself to destroy Pumpkinhead since they were connected.

After watching so many really low budget terrible movies this one is pretty good. The effects hold up. The plot is very simple but at least makes sense and all the actors do a good job. It's a nice country versus city slickers tale with a super weird monster thrown in. It really made me think about the crone Haggis and how she got to be an old conjurer. What was she like when she was young? Who trained her in revenge spells? Why does she still do this if she knows it always turns out bad? Maybe someone will make a movie about her.

Spiders II: Breeding Ground

Watched September 8, 2015

2001
Starring: Stephanie Niznik, Greg Cromer, Daniel Quinn, Richard Moll

On the high seas, a group of people are hanging out on a boat playing cards. They kill a large spider on the wall, foreshadowing the menace to come. Unexpectedly, some pirates board their boat, then knock out and kidnap several of the people.  As the pirates leave they throw a grenade on the boat to blow it up.

Next we see a married couple who is headed to Hawaii on a little sail boat. They encounter the boat from the beginning and it was only partially blown up. They board the burned out boat and see two dead bodies, the remains of the group. A storm comes out of nowhere, so the couple Alexandra (Stephanie Niznik) and Jason (Greg Cromer) get back on their boat and call in an SOS. They are quickly thrown off their boat and are stranded in the ocean.

Luckily, a large cargo ship shows up and takes them aboard. The cargo ship doesn't say where they are headed, as they have a minimal crew and a crazy doctor onboard. Jason had cut his neck during the boat wreck, so he is given shots by the Doctor (Richard Moll). Alexandra is hit on by the captain, but she doesn't take it too seriously. Jason has a weird dream that he is being touched by a giant spider. Once he wakes up he snoops around and finds a cold storage room full of dead bodies. When he gets Alexandra to show her, the dead bodies are gone and it's just cow carcasses. She thinks he has a fever and is being crazy. They have a fight at the mess hall and the crew drags Jason away. 

The crazy doctor takes Jason to his lab where he is implanted with a spider egg by the queen spider. It wasn't a dream, this ship is full of spiders.  Alexandra has dinner with the Captain and he tries to make out with her. She pushes him away and goes to find Jason who is no longer in the recovery room. She tries to get to the lab where Jason is, but it's being heavily guarded. She turns off the power which releases all the spiders from their cages. Instantly the freed spiders start attacking the crew.

Alexandra finds Jason and tries gets him out to the deck, but he is weak from being a spider womb. They are attacked by spiders all along the way, but still manage to get to the deck of the ship. Jason  needs the antidote to the spider egg inside him, or he won't make it. The doctor still wants Jason so he can continue his experiment  with the spider that is inside him. A spider sneaks up on the doctor and kills him. 

Alexandra heads back to the lab to get the antidote. She fends off a spider then opens up a ton of barrels of flammable liquid. She escapes to the deck, gets Jason and herself onto the lifeboat, but the winch stops so they have to jump into the ocean. Then the cargo ship explodes. There is a spider that is almost the size of the ship, which is nuts. The coast guard helicopter finds them and starts to pull them up when one last spider pops out of a box and grabs Alexandra. It's dragging her down until the coast guard throws her a grenade. She pulls the pin to blow up the spider and they manage to escape onto the helicopter.

The CGI is terrible, it's like cut and paste spiders all over the place. They do use several animatronic spiders that look a lot better. In once scene, Alexandra takes the toothpick out of one of the shipmates mouth and stabs him in the cheek with it, later he puts it back in his mouth. It's not great, Alexandra and Jason are supposed to be in love but they fly into rages at each other pretty quickly. It's an intense acting style. Unless you're really into giant spiders, don't waste your time with this one.

The director also directed Breakin 2: Electric Boogaloo.

C.H.U.D.II Bud the Chud

Watched September 1, 2015

1989
Starring: Brian Robbins, Bill Calvert, Tricia Leigh Fisher, Robert Vaughn

Having little to do with the first C.H.U.D. movie, this one tries the horror comedy approach to a sequel.

Colonel Masters (Robert Vaughn) is heading up a secret program to create C.H.U.D.'s as soldiers, but they can't seem to remove the cannibal part from their test subject, Bud. Bud (Gerrit Graham) tries to escape from the medical facility where they are testing on him. The soldiers and scientists freeze him with Nitroglycerin, essentially killing him. 

Meanwhile two teen friends, Steve (Brian Robbins) and Kevin (Bill Calvert) are in their high school biology class. After class ends they are in the back room of the lab putting frogs away when the corpse they are supposed to look out later is pushed out of the loading dock and rolls awat. They are worried they'll get in trouble for losing the body, so they go to the local disease control lab, which happens to be the same place that the military is testing C.H.U.D.s. They end up stealing Bud the C.H.U.D. They take him back to Steve's house and he ends up in the bathtub, then a hairdryer falls in the electrocutes him back to life. Steve and Kevin lock Bud in the basement to figure out what to do next. Bud easily escapes and bites Steve's miniature poodle. This turns the poodle into a C.H.U.D. too. I guess C.H.U.D.-ism is similar to how zombies become infected, in that everyone that is bit turns into a C.H.U.D. and can infect other people.

Steve and Kevin team up with their gal pal Katie (Tricia Leigh Fisher) to look for Bud. General Master is also looking for the C.H.U.D. Bud makes a bunch of friends and ends up on a farm, the government also finds Steve, Kevin and Katie there and try to arrest them. The C.H.U.D. group manages to escape.

 For some reason, the military know the C.H.U.D.s are attracted to large groups and there is a Halloween Dance at the high school that night. The C.H.U.D.s now have a whole posse and they all head down to the High school, synchronized dancing along the way. Steve and Kevin figure out that if you freeze then electrocute the C.H.U.D.'s you can cause them to explode, destroying them. Bud is attracted to Katie so she lures him and the the rest of the C.H.U.D.'s to the high school pool. They all fall/jump in, then Steven and Kevin throw nitroglycerin into the pool. Steve and Kevin rip and electrical line off the wall and throw it into the pool, causing all the C.H.U.D.'s explode, but not before Steve is bitten. All the C.H.U.D.'s are destroyed, Kevin finally tells Katie that he likes her romantically. Steve, now a C.H.U.D. tells his friends that he is off to explore the world. He hitches a ride with Colonal Masters, now a C.H.U.D. alond with a random woman played by Bianca Jagger.

The custom song Bud the C.H.U.D. is pretty great and plays often. I had some fun watching this movie, but that doesn't mean it's good. The makeup for all the C.H.U.D.'s is just some green face paint for the most part. The original C.H.U.D.'s were real mutants that looked pretty gross. Most of the laughs in this one fall pretty flat, but I did like all the great costumes at the high school Halloween Dance.

Thirst

Watched May 18, 2015

1979
Starring: Chantal Contouri, Shirley Cameron, Henry Silva, Rod Mullinar

Kate (Chantal Contouri) is a professional lady about to take some time off from work. Apparently she is the descendant of a vampire clan, but she in unaware of this. A group of scientific vampires kidnap her and take her to a farm where they keep humans that they milk the blood out of like cows. The scientists are convinced that they just need to awaken the blood thirst that is in her genes for her to claim her vampire destiny. They drug her and perform various experiments to try to convince her that she wants to drink blood.They don't do a very good job of making her like the blood. They make her hallucinate so that she is surrounded by mysterious forces, and they only stop when she drinks blood.

After the initial tests don't seem to work, they let her go back home and to work but then she bites her friend and her boyfriend. The scientists bring her back for more conditioning but it still doesn't seem to work. They invite her to participate in a special ritual, they give her fangs to bite one of the human blood cows and she does it. Even though she has now had some blood, she still doesn't embrace her inherent vampirism. The group also kidnapped her boyfriend and brought him to the farm, one of the doctors tries to help them both escape. The doctor pushes the lady scientist into a blood vat, and she dies. The doctor and Kate escape on a helicopter but another scientist grabs on. When he falls off he falls onto power lines. Kate is taken to a weird basement cave where her boyfriend is being drained of his blood. The doctor says that Kate can drink him, but she doesn't want to. Then Kate lets the doctor drink from her. She then seems to embrace her vampire heritage.

Good special effects, it's slow in places, but overall pretty interesting. The exposition of the story can be frustrating. I did want Kate to escape the vampires and it seems like she resists for so long, so it's disappointing when she succumbs. Since they are constantly drugging Kate it's so confusing what is real or fake for her. If I was trying to turn someone into a vampire I wouldn't make them have terrible drug trips I would make the vampire lifestyle seem really glamorous, but the scientists don't take that approach.

Ghost Story

Watched May 11, 2015

1981
Starring: Fred Astaire, Melvyn Douglas, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., John Houseman, Craig Wasson, Alice Krige

A man in a high rise apartment in New York gets out of the bath but the water keeps running. On the bed, a woman is lying face down naked. The man keeps asking "Who are you?" to the woman, he touches her and she is cold.  She turns around the reveal a skeleton face, scared he backs into a window, crashes through and falls out.  As he falls, his towel is blown off so you see dick as he plummets to the ground and dies.

Four old men; Ricky (Fred Astaire), Dr. Jaffrey (Melvyn Douglas), Edward (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.), and Sears (John Houseman) are friends who live in a small town in Vermont. They regularly get together to tell ghost stories as members of The Chowder Society. It was Edward's son who died by falling out of the window. His other son, David (Craig Wasson) comes to mourn with his father and is convinced there is something suspicious about his brothers death. David then shares with The Chowder Society that he slept with Don's financé. David met Alma (Alice Krige) while he was a professor at a college in Florida and she was a secretary.  He was seeing someone else but he was compelled to ask Alma out. They went on a date where she put ice cream all over his face, then getting caught in the rain when back to her house from a crazy sex romp. They got engaged but David called it off after he discovered she was a night creeper. Alma leaves David then goes after Don.

Edward happens to be the mayor of the town. During a snowstorm he is compelled to walked out onto a bridge. On the bridge he sees a different skeleton face, scared falls off the bridge into the frozen river.

After Dr. Jaffrey of the Chowder Society also dies, they let the David in the group and they share their big group secret. In the 1920's they were all friends in college. A new lady, Eva came into town and they all liked her. She tried to sleep with Edward but he couldn't which is was severely disappointed by. All the boys got drunk one night and came over to Eva's house. They hint they all want to sleep with her but Edward doesn't like that. Since she was disappointed by Edward, Eva seems into the idea and she threatens to reveal his sex secret but he pushes her and she falls into the stone fireplace. She doesn't have a pulse so they decide to put her in the car and drive her into the pond. As the car is going down she comes to life, but they can't save her.

The house she stayed in is now abandoned, but a mysterious man and boy are squatting there. It seems that Eva convinced them to work for her, even though she is dead. David and Ricky go to the house, but the David falls and breaks his leg. Sears goes for help but crashes into a snowbank and the weird kid bites him. Ricky leaves David in the freezing house because he is convinced that Eva is still trapped in the car haunting them. Ricky manages to convince the police to pull the car out of the frozen lake,  just as that is happening she is trying to seduce and kill the David. They get the car out of the lake and her rotted corpse falls out, finally at peace out of the water.

Good example of not judging a movie by it's cover, which made it look pretty boring. The back of the box description didn't help either, so I was wary. It turned out to be pretty fun, the mystery haunting is cool and there is way more nudity and sex than I ever expected from a movie with a bunch of old men in it.

Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight

 Watched April 27, 2015

1995
Starring: Billy Zane, William Sadler, Jada Pinkett Smith, Brenda Bakke, John Kassir

I like Tales from the Crypt in all its forms from the comics to the HBO show and then the various movies over the years. I very much enjoy the Cryptkeeper's puns, so I was excited to watch this movie.

The Cryptkeeper bookends the movie as he is directing his own horror movie, but it doesn't seem that he is directing the movie we are watching. Well, it wasn't clear at the end even though he did go to the premiere of Demon Knight.

Demon Knight starts with Brayker (William Sadler) being chased by The Collector (Billy Zane). It is unclear who is the good guy initially.  Brayker jumps out of his car to get away the The Collector who crashes his car into the stalled car. They both manage to survive the crash, but the cops show up to investigate. The Collector convinces the cops that Brayker has his property. Brayker makes his way to a rundown motel. He gets a room, but then the cops show up. The Collector wants a special key that Brayker has and it seems like The Collector is the true owner. One of the cop hesitates, so The Collector punches him in the face with his fist going through his head. They struggle and The Collector rips off the cop's head. It's pretty apparent that The Collector is the bad guy. Brayker kicks The Collector out of the house and protects the threshold with blood from the key.

The Collector cuts his hand releasing green blood onto the ground. From the dirt sprouts an army of demons that begin to the attack the house. Brayker quickly runs around trying to seal all the entrances with his magic blood. After a couple of demon attacks, the motel inhabitants check the basement to see if there is a way to escape. They find a boarded off tunnel, but Brayker thinks it's safer to just stay in the motel. All the people want to get out so they run into the tunnels, but the demons are there. They are chased to the upper floor of the motel and manage to create a magical seal, but the demons gather below.

The Collector's powers let him invade the minds of the remaining people in the motel. Roach (Thomas Haden Church) is convinced that if he just gives The Collector they key he will leave. Roach steals the key from Brayker and gives it to The Collector. The Collector instantly kills Roach and part of the seal protecting the upper floor is broken. Before they are attacked Brayker explains that the key holds the blood of Christ and it's one of seven keys. The demons have six of the seven keys, this being the last. Once they have it they can destroy the world, so it's up the Brayker the current Demon Knight to protect it. Brayker has been a Demon Knight for a long time and he was specifically lead to the motel to find Jeryline (Jada Pinkett Smith.) It is coming to the end and Brayker transfers the knowledge of the Knights to Jeryline just before he is attacked by The Collector. 

By this point everyone has been killed by the demons except for Jeryline. She covers herself in the blood from the key so she can't be touched by The Collector. But The Collector grabs her and throws her in the shower, and pours all the blood out of the key. Jeryline takes a swig of the blood and as The Collector dances around killing her she spits the blood in his face and he is destroyed. Jeryline is now the Demon Knight. She refills the key with blood from Brayker, as it's a holy line and heads on her way to keep the key safe.

Billy Zane is the bad guy with lots of charisma.  A little kid who becomes a demon and tries to lick out Brayker's heart. The demons have to be stabbed through the eyes to release their souls. CCH Pounder has her arm ripped off, then sacrifices herself by detonating a vest of grenades to kill a bunch of the demons. Lots of fun and pretty gross.

Curse of the Devil

Watched April 13, 2015

1973
Starring: Paul Naschy, Fabiola Falcon, Mariano Vidal Medina, Martiza Olivares

The VHS tape we watched broke about halfway through so I though that curse of the devil is pretty strong. It made a crazy noise in the VCR and it just wouldn't continue, I've never had a tape do what this one did. Luckily this movie is available in its entirety on Youtube and it's a much better version than the copy that broke.

It begins in Medieval times where two knights are having a duel. Some witches are watching them fight. One of the knights is killed, and the main witch swears vengeance for his death. That night the coven of witches perform a ritual and drain the blood of one of the men into a cup. They are interrupted and killed before they can finish the rite, but before the main witch dies she mutters a curse. 

Jump to the mid 1800's, (that's my guess anyway). A new generation of witches who are descendents of the original and have the same vendetta. They have another ceremony and transfer the curse of the werewolf to Waldemar (Paul Naschy) a local nobleman, who happens to be a descendent of the original knight. The witches transfer the curse by indoctrinating a local woman, she is then abandoned on the street. Waldemar finds the woman and takes her into his palace. He then sleeps with her and she uses the special wolf skull to give him the werewolf curse. Coincidentally there is a crazy man that has been killing random people and it's made everyone be on high alert.

A Professor and his family come to visit from Budapest. Valdemar starts courting the oldest daughter Kinga (Fabiola Falcon) and they jump in the sack right away.  Kinga's younger sister Maria (Martiza Olivares) tries to seduce Waldemar but he instead turns into a werewolf and kills her. The Pofessor's family and local law enforcement want to catch the killer. Kinga is given advice from Waldemar's housekeeper that he is now a werewolf and they only way to kill him is with a dagger to the heart. A mob gathers chasing Waldemar around, but Kinga gets to him first and manages to stab in his the heart. The curse of the werewolf is over, but then we find out that Kinga was pregnant with Waldemar's baby. Jump to the future and she has a half werewolf son.
 
I would give Witches and Werewolves as an alternate title to this movie, the devil doesn't make an appearance. Originally in Spanish, it's dubbed in English but it works fine. It's slow and strange in the classic low budge '70s way. The blood is a bright, creamy red. But there are some great werewolf kill scenes and the werewolf costume is pretty fun.

Soulkeeper

Watched April 6, 2015

2001
Starring: Rodney Rowland, Kevin Patrick Walls, Brad Dourif, Tommy 'Tiny' Lister.

Yet another movie with a lenticular VHS box cover that has been passed over for months. I finally got it back on the list and somehow it was picked. I had low expectations and unexpectedly they paid off.

A mysterious group wearing dark robes in engaged in a secret ceremony. They are trying to transfer a soul into a specific body. A member of the group is randomly chosen and is pushed onto the altar where a special stone is placed on his chest. The stone is carved with a symbol that beings to move and change. The soul power descends into the sacrifice but it kills him and all the participants of the ritual.

Corey (Rodney Rowland) and Terrence (Kevin Patrick Walls) are two small time thieves. They are at a museum of the civil war during a battle reenactment. They are both dressed as Abraham Lincoln, Corey is reciting a speech to distract the tour group while Terrence tries to break into a case. They botch the job and are chased out of the museum with the guard hot on their trail. 

At their local watering hole, they are bemoaning their loss and how terrible they are at their job. Two attractive ladies are staring them down, so they go over to try to hit on them. The women are very robotic and strange, but the guys don't care and they follow the ladies to a strange house. The women disappear as Corey and Terrence enter the house. Inside they find Pascal (Brad Dourif) who wants them to do a job for him. He tells them to go to a graveyard and find a specific coffin. They take the job as it pays pretty well, but the specifics of their task are unclear.

In the spooky cemetery they find the right grave and open the tomb of FF. Inside is a skeleton but there is a strange metal canister in its neck. They open the canister to find a bunch of newspaper clippings. They take these clippings to Chad (Tommy 'Tiny' Lister) who has a perfect penis (!?) and a bunch of computers to try to figure out what the clippings mean.

The next stop is a sex club. Everyone in the club looks very uncomfortable, they are all rubbing each other and eating different fruits that turns to blood. Corey finds a lady he likes and they go have sex in a private room. Terrence ends up with a curly haired brunette who turns into Deborah Gibson while going down on him, then into his mother. He freaks out, finds Corey and they run away. They run into the soul sucking monster called Magus but manage to escape.

Continuing their search for who knows what exactly, they enter a cave and find that FF has been soul incarnated as a 12-year-old boy surrounded by hot chicks. The boy tries to explain the cult, the demon and how souls figure into it, but it's still unclear. The boy gives them some groovy clothes, as they had to walk through a sewer to find the cave. He leads them out of the cave.

 Now they have on cool '70s bell bottoms, but they still don't know what they're looking for, or I just never knew. They run into another mysterious guys who explains what needs to happen next. He lets them know about the soul stone and the demon that is trying to possess it. He tells them that the Magus monster is attracted to sin, so they have to go to church to confess all their sins and boy do they have a lot. After they are cleaned from their sins they can sneak up on the monster. They suit up in some crazy gear and head to the castle where a new group of cult members is trying to resurrect the stone's power. They make it to the castle but Corey's use the lord's name in vain, so the monster comes after them. The cult member's use Corey's body in the soul ceremony, but it doesn't work because he channeled his soul power himself. They fight with the cult guys and get out of the castle to fight the monster one on one. Terrence jumps on the monster and uses his bomb to blow them both up, only Corey escapes alive.

During the movie Corey described his dream woman: red hair, glasses, big boobs, smart but really into cars. At a gas station where his bus stops Corey is buying something when his dream woman walks in. Her wigs is really fake, but through some happenstance she offers him a ride in her sports car, so off they ride to fall in love.

I enjoyed it! The comedy bits worked, which is rare in a horror comedy. A lot of stuff didn't make sense but it was still silly and fun.