Scarecrow's Blog From the Darkside

Last Saturday early morning (I was up late Friday and couldn't sleep, so I cruised about Shudder's selection and decided on something silly among the available Joe Bob choices) I finally watched Hell Comes to Frogtown (1988). I knew of its reputation, and admittedly, the expectations for what I would get were already tainted. And yet, if I'm truthful, this had me equally rolling my eyes and grinning ear to ear. Those who made the film wisely shot it not to be taken seriously. Roddy Piper, in the same year he'd make the career-defining John Carpenter classic, They Live , was the star of Hell Comes to Frogtown as a highly demanded man in a post-nuclear fallout future whose sperm count is highly sought after to repopulate the land! There are Frogmen and Frogwomen thanks to the nuclear fallout, as well as, a security force led by William Smith (exploitation and 70s television and film heavy), eventually tangling with Roddy during the film. For its limited budget, I wa...

 I recall borrowing a VHS tape from my uncle for a completely different movie, and Dead Heat (1988) was on it. I was watching it when I was delighted to see Vincent Price a part of this wacky hybrid of cop action and zombie comedy. While I can't dispute its critical infamy -- I think this is one of the most critically ridiculed films from the 80s due to its high budget and mainstream availability -- I would be lying to you if I told you I didn't enjoy it. Because I find it imminently watchable. I have an absolute love for Dead Rising (1998), and Treat taking Berenger's place in Substitute sequels was a hoot for me. When Treat Williams shows up on television or in film I "yay" inside. He's one of those actors I will stop everything I'm doing and watch when he shows up on screen. That translates to Dead Heat for me. When his hair gets some of that Bride of Frankenstein treatment and his skin is burned one side while decaying on the other side, packing a m...

  I was watching a favorite podcast and one of the members of it mentioned The Monster Club (1981), directed by Roy Ward Baker, a callback to the Amicus anthologies of yore, headlined in the framework of an old vampire (Vincent Price) and a horror novelist (John Carradine, whose fingers looked horribly arthritic) he bites in the city while weakened from blood thirst. I dedicated a lot of time and effort to the film on my own blog in the past back in 2016, so no need to go in depth here. But I will say that Shudder's version of the film is best quality I've ever seen. And I'm thankful for that. Price in clearly jovial form with Carradine's reactions to his quips with that "Oh, really?" and "Hmmm" facial response cracked me up. The stories aren't too bad actually. I liked the second one because of Donald Pleasence as a vampire hunter who got a bit too big for his britches while Richard Johnson, after quite a period featured in Italian Horror, has a...

  I was doing a little reading and it amused me to know that right after this film, Karl Malden was cast in "On the Waterfront". In Phantom of the Rue Morgue (1954), he's wild-eyed mad by film's end. His psychologist (who swears by Freud) and zoologist, we learn, had his controlled ape murder multiple women who favored his wife because they wouldn't replace her (the wife committing suicide because she didn't want to be with him). The colorization of this film really stands out, especially around the eyes of the likes of Patricia Medina.  I watch this and "House of Wax" really bears its influence, especially in the color process and period flavor of that film. This really feels like it could happen during the same time. The morgue was a bit more well used in the '39 "Murders of the Rue Morgue" and "House of Wax", though. The carnage in the wake of the ape's rampages and the blood-curdling screams of its female victims are p...

 I'm in the midst of a fresh revisit, and as I have often done here lately, I located an old review, though it sure seems like I watched this not too long ago. Certainly doesn't feel like nine years ago. April 11, 2012 IMDb user comments A murderous fiend is destroying Parisian lovelies and law enforcement seems powerless to stop him. But who is it and what drives him to savagely attack beautiful women at night? Is it even a man? Zoologist Dr. Marais (Karl Malden) could hold the answer to the killer in Paris. A mean-spirited remake of Robert Florey's atmospheric 30s chiller starring Bela Lugosi, with Malden in the Dr. Mirakle role of devious scientist who can control ape to heinously kill women, implicating friend Professor Paul Dupin (Steve Forrest), a teacher of psychology, by placing items he had given to his fiancé, Jeanette (Patricia Medina; who Malden is in love with) at crime scenes. With glossy sets and nice production value, "Phantom of the Rue Morgue" sh...

 I can say that the first time I got the chance to watch this on Turner Classic Movies I was so giddy with excitement because of Vincent Price in a film from the director of The Lodger and Hangover Square . And on top of that, Price was playing a variation on the driven-mad inventor that brought him huge success the year before in House of Wax . Except instead of wax sculptures, the creations are magic contraptions. A series of human obstacles stand in the way of Price's magician getting to perform on his own. I laid out in my 2010 review also included on the blog enough synopses and walkabout through the film, but with that prior first viewing, I admit my hero worship might have had me wearing rose colored glasses. This is a fun Price horror flick in B&W, with a character who wasn't a mad killer at the start, reacting out of mania towards a businessman capitalizing on his love for a woman, exploiting his naivete and desperation, contractually binding him. The greedy, back...

  October 31, 2010 IMDb user comments Truly sad is it that a film directed by the caliber of a John Brahm with the star of a Vincent Price could go so sorely unnoticed, overshadowed by the excellent HOUSE OF WAX..that is the case of THE MAD MAGICIAN, a slick Victorian era(Brahm is an absolute master at getting the most out of sets, wardrobe, and extras in regards to period atmosphere and authenticity)horror chiller about a seemingly decent creator of magic show acts which delight the audiences. Price stars as the much maligned Don Gallico, stuck in a contract with an unscrupulous businessman who exploits his brilliance, allowing others to take credit, showmen, like the slimy "The Great Rinaldi"(John Emery; appropriately hissable) who reap the benefits of another's talents. Gallico simply wants to perform his own shows, using the money paid him for his hard work to create a stunning crematorium act sure to wow those in attendance. Angered beyond reason, Gallico kills his b...

  DirecTV offered a movie package free for five days. HD Net is pretty much like MGM HD, with the impressive MGM library plucked for these packaged channels. As part of their Saturday Night Screams, HD Net offered Jeff Burr's From a Whisper to a Scream . "Lovecraft and Poe...I'll drink to those two masters of horror." - Julian White (Vincent Price) Revisiting this film one last time, I got to say that this is really start to finish a cruel, mean-spirited, vicious little horror anthology.  I read Price worked like two days for Burr, but being that this was an anthology, the great horror icon could be spread out across the film, wisely used in the framework. He is the "librarian", the "speaker of a town of violence". He's the historian, the voice of a century of evil that dates all the way to the Civil War. Voodoo is used to force an items swallower to endure a gruesome death as all the things he put in his mouth and dumped in his body explode o...

  There's also a review for the blog written in 2015. But the one below was my IMDb user comments, downvoted to hell from July 2008: Southern Gothic horror anthology from director Jeff Burr(Leatherface-TCM III)starring the one and only Vincent Price as Julian White, relating four grisly tales of his town, Oldfield Tennessee's violent history to reporter Beth Chandler(Susan Tyrrell), who had documented his niece, Katherine's(Martine Beswick, in a cameo)execution for serial killings. The first tale concerns a deeply disturbed, sexually repressed nerd(Clu Gulager, with slicked blonde hair & thick bi-focal glasses, in a chilling performance)whose obsession with a co-worker results in a strangulation when she resists his advances. He also snaps after finally having enough of his demandingly clinging sister. His necrophiliac sexual urge yields horrifying results. The second is about a greedy swindler(Terry Kiser), who is revived by an "old timer" with powers of blac...

  While I have my sighs with the documentaries that cover such a wide space as 80s horror, I understand that even with over 9 hours dedicated to the genre I love, even the very best who occupy this area would have such a difficulty covering everything of consequence. But I so appreciated the inclusion of "acting" and how those interviewed apply their talents even to a genre so often criticized for not having much of that. Now I can dispute that criticism plenty, but what I most felt was important is what Crampton brings up in terms of her own career. What is very unfortunate about Hollywood and the industry of making movies is how they "age out" actresses. It is unfair and pitiful that talented women are just discarded too often because of some stupid "age gap". Crampton mentions how the phone stopped ringing. She had a lot of work in the 80s. But when she got to Stuart Gordon's Castle Freak by 1995, the industry just said to hell with you . I like to...

 Seeing Jigsaw puppet up in Guignol theater while Kwanten looks for Mary Shaw...well, "Henry"...was cool. The movie, not so much. The dummies, with the eyes and heads turning, mouthes sometimes opening, not bad at all in their eerieness. The human corpse dummy, kinda farfetched and preposterous. Mary Shaw reminded me of the specter from Darkness Falls (2003). In fact, this film has certain similarities to Darkness Falls . Billy, the doll, is an effective Ventriloquist dummy, and the marketing sure tried to capitalize on that. Mary Shaw, for me, is a bit too jump cut CGI phantom. Judith Roberts does have some ghoulish makeup, as Mary Shaw needs that quality considering she's a local curse with a poem and backstory of a township responsible for her murder due to a missing boy related to Kwanten's family. The boy corpse puppet with strings is the stuff of nightmares. James Wan, even when the story isn't so great, can manage to whip up some creeps. Wahlberg as the sk...

 I always find this Corman film with Ray Milland, as a doctor and scientist obsessed with increasing the power of the eyes, developing a fluid that allows X-ray vision, such a fun cult curiosity. But there is this addiction to the fluid, seemingly incapable of laying off it, eventually losing the ability to see the world as he once did. The use of color filters by Corman and Milland's star power just kept my eyes and mind towards the screen. I'm not gonna lie: I can't fucking stand Don Rickles, so he's as good a minor antagonist as there is. There are parts of the film, though, I had forgotten. Like when Harold J Stone's Dr. Sam Brandt tries to give Milland's Dr. Xavier a sedative to calm him down and is accidentally knocked through a window, crashing to the sidewalk, killed instantly. Or Xavier actually cutting a surgeon, John Hoyt's Dr. Benson, so he won't operate on a girl he believes has stenosis but, in fact, has a tumor in a particular spot unnotic...

  The above really reminded me of Carl Theodor Dreyer's Vampyr (1932) Forgive the television photos below. I tried to capture a few while taking in the film, often popping for the content. This is the kind of film I live for.  was watching Renato Polselli's Italian Gothic horror film from 1960 for the first time tonight, thanks to MGM HD Channel -- DirecTV offered a free preview for five days last week -- and I was just seduced by all this goodness. That castle was just incredible, found by the director in Artena. Polselli couldn't spend enough time in that castle for my tastes...serious architectural dynamo, still standing, a relic owned by a vampire named Countess Alda (Maria Louisa Rolando), with her servant, Giorgio (Gino Turini), biting a local farmer's daughter, later clinching his teeth into the neck of Louisa, a ballerina among a troupe practicing for a play. While the local farmers claim vampires attack women in the surrounding area, the doctor and a professor...

 Just finished this Indian melodrama/slasher shot in both Hindu and Tamil. Emotionally potent and riveting thanks to the superb work from Taapsee Pannu, offering up one hell of a performance. It's such a part, one of which I feel so many an actress would love to land because it features this incredibly resilient young woman, overcoming a rape, fear of the dark, multiple serial killers in black skull mask and leather suits -- a supernatural component of tattoos and creatively including a video game "three hearts" as a form of the feline nine lives set up three chances for Pannu to learn from mistakes and how the killers orchestrate their murders and violence -- and disapproving traditional parents who fail to support her, ignorantly blaming and shaming her for going out on New Year's and getting a tattoo describing her love for gaming. This is a character who hyperventilates when in a dark room, dreading the end of the year, recalling how that rape and abuse felt over ...

 Divisive Italian horror film seems to be a loved by some while others used the tired "overrated" tag. Just check the IMDb user comments and you'll see those who loved Pupi Avati's The House with Laughing Windows (1976), leaving glowing reviews have a lot of down votes, accompanied by those critical of the film rating it a ridiculous 1/10. The film I watched might not be my favorite of the Giallo genre -- I can't quite place this in that genre as it lacks certain elements I attach to the Giallo as a whole -- but I can recognize its strengths. Granted it is easy to yell at the screen, "Stefano, get the fuck out of that village, dude! Take Francesca and leave!" You see at the ending that staying in the quiet fishing village where there are vast open spaces, desolate concrete houses, valleys with only the wind as company, and a township more than willing to keep mum about a series of murders, including the "suicidal jump" of a friend of art restor...

 I mentioned on my old review posted on the blog, Tubi had Riding the Bullet (2004) available on their streaming service and I was in the mood for a companion piece to 'Salem's Lot' (1979). I just started a little bit of 'Salem's Lot' early Sunday afternoon, with the intention of spacing out the two-part mini-series over next week. I really like the setup in Jerusalem's Lot with the novelist, David Soul, looking at a reputed haunted house for a book about it, later realizing that the owner of the house is a vampire, protected by James Mason.  Riding the Bullet is a film I always find a peculiar experiment by director Mick Garris. He gets inside Jonathan Jackson's mind as he goes on a road trip, mostly at night, back home from college to visit his sick mother, eventually encountering the increasingly deteriorating David Arquette, who tells him that he'll have to choose between his life or his mother's (Barbara Hershey). Erika Christensen was in ...

 I found this on Tubi while looking for something King-related to go with my watching-in-parts revisit of Tobe Hooper's mini-series adaptation of 'Salem's Lot' from 1979. Mick Garris seems so synonymous with Stephen King, with a career dedicated to King content.  From my IMDb user comments from December 2007: During Halloween night of 1969, a college student Alan Parker(Jonathan Jackson), a possible future artist obsessed with death, takes to the road on a surreal nightmarish odyssey hitchhiking to his home town in Maine to visit his mother in the hospital after she suffered a stroke. Along the way Alan experiences near-death encounters with troubled drivers such as a farmer(Cliff Robertson)whose suffering with prostrate problems and the loss of his wife appropriately to a stroke, a returning Vietnam soldier as a wannabe-hippie in disguise, and a Grim-Reaper like Ferryman, George Staub(David Arquette, going way off the deep end, camping it up with all his might)who give...

 Buono, to his credit, makes great use of his time. He was known for his gusto, exaggerated and blustery, often not an actor known for subtlety. But if he's to play the devil, he does so with an emphasis on how his words bite towards Crenna, how he doesn't bother or find discomfort in torturing this mortal man. He wants the crucifix that kept a door sealed, holding him captive destroyed, seeing Crenna as the kind of skeptic, atheist, man of little interest in the supernatural, God, or Satan, for that matter. Crenna's wife, a doctor who does believe in God, has the faith to help him reseal the door in the basement of a 200-room, recently-acquired, long-abandoned house (basically a castle). Crenna, in a moment of curiosity, removed the cross, allowing the evil of the devil to be free. Ultimately, volunteers who Crenna mentored come to the estate to help renovate, clean up, and make repairs to the house and its many rooms. Giggling Buono, reveling in his violent mischief, can ...

 I'm currently revisiting this 70s possessed house relic on Shudder so I thought I'd release my user comments from November 2009 on this blog. Intensely skeptical former psyche professor Crenna, his doctor wife Joanna Pettet, former student(..now a psyche professor in his own right)Andrew Prine, and other loyal associates prepare to renovate a really old and enormous, cob-webbed and decrepit, mansion, not knowing that it houses a powerful evil force bent on their destruction, killing them one by one in various ways. Seeing characters levitated in the air, with a hand cut into by a band-saw, a woman raped by an invisible predator, an enraged dog attacking it's master, victims engulfed in flames, victims electrocuted, among other supernatural shenanigans are on display for your viewing pleasure. The group wish to escape, but we see the force shutting the windows and doors, not allowing them to. We also hear the evil force snickering as it terrorizes victims. And, even when i...

 This is that film in his past Bill Maher probably won't mention when ranting on HBO during political monologues. He's a minor antagonist for one of the film's heroes, Arye Gross, gunning for his woman, a music producer played by Lar Park Lincoln of "Friday the 13th - The New Blood" (1988) fame. Gross inherits quite an eccentric castle, with Aztec designs in the living room, containing rooms opening doors to other times and alternate dimensions, such as a prehistoric jungle (complete with dinosaurs, a caterpillar dog, pterodactyl bird, and Neanderthal with bodybuilder physique), Mayan temple (where warriors in headdress, shields, swords, and spears, plan to sacrifice a virgin for their god), and the Old West (where Gross is forced to a gunfight with a zombie outlaw named Slim Razor, defending his injured great grandfather, Gramps (Royal Dano)). Maher looks to exploit any chink in the armor of Gross, such as when a woman from his past, Rochelle (Jayne Modean), turn...

 My daughter and I had a double feature this Saturday of the first two Ghoulies movies. The puppet monsters designed by John Carl Buechler with stop motion from David Allen's team finally showing them ghoulies walk (and fly) are better served in the carnival sequel, while I felt the first film was just too absorbed by Michael Des Barres' Satanic sorcerer and his son's green-glowing-eyed son, played by Peter Liapis. Liapis and Des Barres reallllllly get into the c onjurer, sorcery, dressed-in-robes, hands/arms stretched to the heavens, faces built-to-a-crescendo while reciting and shouting incantations to Satanic gods stuff. Full-throated, mouths stretched wide, voices reached-to-their-zenith, Liapis and Des Barres put all their gusto into raising whatever ghoulies and demon gods might grant them power. Even two servants are conjured to do their bidding (ultimately, Liapis is who they side with because Des Barres is more than a bit evil, so desiring to sacrifice his son a...