Scarecrow's Blog From the Darkside

Molly has moved into her parents' house after becoming newly married. When alone as her husband is on the road, she experiences possible possession, hallucinations, or trauma from the past (perhaps all of the above.), and this all could be related to her dead father. **** ½

In the Hotel Argento, the Collector holds a new girl prisoner as a small group of  mercenaries, guided by the survivor from The Collector (2009), raid his joint, hoping to rescue her and kill the psychopath. These plans, however, don't work out so well. ****

Sweet! Loved the Argento homage in The Collection (2012)!

A psychopath (who is behind the kidnapping of an heiress and the slaughter of her college friends) dukes it out with a group of thieves who love to burgle wealthy houses, responsible for an opening massacre of a rich family returning from vacation. The battleground is a rural location near a scuzzy, run-of-the-mill motel and the surrounding area nearby (including a junkyard). It isn't much of a competition, however, and the results are relatively one-sided despite a "strength in numbers." **

In medical school studying to be a surgeon (and already possessing skills useful in the profession she so desires), Mary Mason is immediately put to the test when she encounters a deal she can't resist...perform a special surgery on someone associated with a stripclub owner (who is obviously into other criminal activities not quite elaborated in specific detail) for $5000. Paying the rent and getting creditors off her back, it helps, but soon a drug-induced rape from a deviant professor warps Mary into a gradually-developed psychopath. ***

A love triangle forms between a trust fund stud, his squeeze (totally apathetic and not in love with him, but does enjoy the fruits of his family's fortune), and a wanna-be actor. Because of wealth and connections, the actor's life will fall into duress, and the squeeze (followed by her stud's stalking texter, keeping tabs on her activities) will be left with as little privacy as possible. It doesn't help her cause with all the lies she tells to her trust fund stud.  **

The Canyons (2013) I was actually pretty excited to learn of Paul Schrader's return to the director's chair, even if Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist did nothing much for me personally. The Canyons just sort of appeared in a commercial, and soon I "attained" a copy of it to watch. I am barely into the credits, and this moment pops up, stunning me with its visual power...a theater, once so active, I can only envision, now a bleak reminder that age hits and soon time conforms a significant place in people's lives into a relic.

After a quake rocks a city in Australia, a group of survivors, emerging from within a supermarket holding water, its structure battered badly, will have to fend off two sharks blood thirsty for human meat. **½

Bait (2012) You ever watch a movie, in this case a supposed "when sharks attack" movie, and wonder to yourself, "Am I watching a shark movie? What is this?" Yeah, kind of feeling that...

Bait (2012) Surf's up.

To close the Scarecrow Slasher Summer 2013 , I chose a double feature of the Slumber Party Massacre movies as the final two to make it to the line-up this year. It has been fun, but the change in approach allowed me to prolong the series of slasher films over a longer period and not burn myself out. 2012 had me watching a large amount of slasher films in a short period of time and while it was a lot of fun to revisit all of them, I think the 2013 approach made for a bit of a more relaxing, less "get it all in before summer end" race, which got a bit exhausting. One could easily say, though, that the line-up last year was far superior to this years. I couldn't argue with that, to be honest. But 2013 wasn't a total loss, either. Gosh, summer went by in a flash, didn't it? I plan to form a page for all the films that made the line-up this year after I finish the Slumber Party blog post. Slumber Party Massacre : **** Slumber Party Massacre II : ***

This was, at first, designed as a user review for my imdb account, but the writing just kept coming and wouldn't stop.   A rapist in a ski mask (James Russo, in a performance that will make your skin crawl) is waiting on Marjorie (Farah Fawcett) as she leaves her job from a museum inside the back seat of her car. He surprises her, a knife to the throat, and demands Marjorie drive to a secluded parking garage with plans to rape and murder her. She frees herself, but the local authorities can do nothing. Losing her wallet to this rat bastard, Marjorie fears he will strike again real soon, particularly since she was “the one who got away”. Sure enough, “Joe” arrives…with demands.  For her to dress in a negligee, to invite him in her bedroom, to cook him some food, to talk nice to him, allow him to touch and suckle a breast: it is all about his need to control and humiliate her. Earlier, we see him going through her wallet as his child tells him mommy says that ...

The loss of Karen Black certainly reminded me that the horror genre and film in general has lost yet another gem of a performer. But we are fortunate. She left behind some great performances in her time. She's the only one I liked (no, loved) in Five Easy Pieces. Nashville was a film of certain renown that gave her the clout a Children of the Corn 4 simply doesn't. But we have Trilogy of Terror, even if it isn't held as an iconic film in the same sentence as Easy Rider. It gave her a platform to work her absolute magic. I don't care that if detractors bring up the less stellar examples of a prolific career that had its share of stinkers and less-than-extraordinary fare, but it really takes just one film to remain a vital name, performances written on celluloid and stamped into the mind. In later years her characters had a tendency to be oddballs and more than a little eccentric. I loved them just the same. Like Children of the Night, a little known vampire tale that h...

Motorists stop off to stay at a lodging in some backwoods remote area, not knowing that the owner was just recently released from an asylum (and responsible for killing her own daughter). Will they suffer the same fate as her daughter? ***

Hollywood After Dark (1968) Strangely (or maybe not), I was thinking about Peg Entwistle’s suicidal leap from the Hollywood sign in 1932 as I was watching Hollywood After Dark (1968), part of a double feature of Rue McClanahan films by Something Weird Video . This isn’t a good film in the slightest but those involved in its making do try to take a sincere stab at commenting on the boulevard of broken dreams that exists in The City of Angels, where success isn’t as easy to come by as failure. You wind up shaking the moneymaker (or star in no-budget turkeys like Hollywood After Dark ) in some sleazy rundown strip club, the epitome of desperate times call for desperate measures . I have to say, though, that Rue honest to God tries in this tedious, extremely talky melodrama; it looks like it cost about a buck-forty in production costs (in other words, locations owned by people the director/writer John Hayes knows). “Alan Smithee” first emerged around 1968 from what I gather, b...