Scarecrow's Blog From the Darkside

  For my official review:  Here I had intended to go on a 90s/early 2000s revisit back when I watched "Scream" (1996), but I just never got around to it. I was wanting to watch I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997) again, having not seen it since I reviewed it back in 2012, as seen in the link above. I was 20 at the time when this film was released in theaters during the big slasher boom in the wake of "Scream". I laughed to myself when I said aloud, "You could so a Six Degrees of Sarah Michelle Gellar." Reason I thought that was Gellar is in "I Know What You Did Last Summer", "Scream 2" (a college gal not expecting a Ghostface killer), and "Halloween H20" (her scene in "Scream 2" is playing on the television when Molly and Sarah are hanging out together). But she's always Buffy to me. I want to say she has magic and likes to cook in "Simply Irresistible" and, of course, kicks all kinds of ass as this ...

 I know this is going to be an episode I will inevitably cover again. I imagine I will indeed watch it after another viewing of John Carpenter's "The Thing" (1982), since "Ice" is just so inexorably linked to it through certain obvious similarities. Such as scientists in an Arctic post discovering a creature in the ice, after quite a large drilling procedure, not anticipating the little worm-like organism (caused by a meteor that crashlanded on the planet centuries ago) invading a human host, causing violence and death among the crew. Checking for that even occurs once Mulder and Scully, as FBI agents assigned to the mission, along with other scientists (including character actor, Xander Berkeley and actress Felicity Huffman) and a pilot, fly off to this isolated post, eventually falling prey to the very same conditions, paranoia, mistrust, and fear that caused the entire prior crew on the project to kill themselves. When you see Scully pulling a gun on Mulder w...

  So the episode "Leonard Betts" is absolutely outrageous and a lot of fun because of how absurd it is. Leonard loses his head when his fellow paramedic driver accidentally has her attention distracted by his ability to "see Cancer", running a red light, resulting in a truck driving right into the side of the van. And yet, Betts walks right out of the morgue...without his head! And there are conversations about "radical evolution" and "great leaps" that perhaps had been unknown the agents are now discovering. Betts is a product of evolution, actually walking with Cancer all throughout his cells, needing Cancer to survive, even "eating" it (from waste in hospitals) as Mulder puts it "snack food". But Mulder also posits to Scully that he couldn't be "too advanced" if he still drives a Dodge Dart. What makes this episode so substantial, just beyond a Monster of the Week, is that Betts can tell when others have Cance...

 For only the second time did I revisit Slaughterhouse (1987; shot in the summer of 1986), this time available on Tubi. The first time was on IFC, of all places. Definitely of the Texas Chainsaw family, I was shocked this was mostly shot in California. It looks like it was shot in Texas, the Midwest, or rural South. I sometimes forget this is a big country. Anyway big Buddy, mostly with pigs in their cages, carrying around his cleaver (something that seemed to find its way off the set of "The Road Warrior"), doesn't like young adult trespassers on his butcher daddy's property, oinking and growling, swinging his sharp blade right into heads. His Dad has been driven off the deep end by a lawyer who betrayed him with bad advice, a sheriff who delivered bad news that his property (including a shut-down and degrading abattoir) was being taken by the county due to unpaid taxes, and a business adversary whose mechanized assembly meat cutting process put him out of business....

 Revisiting Mountaintop Motel Massacre (1983; actually repackaged by New World and given that great crazy woman shooting a maniacal smile from behind a hotel door), I still think the idea of a walkspace within an underground tunnel moving shack to shack by the unhinged sickle-swinging mourning mama, who leaves snakes, big-ass Louisiana roaches, and rodents for her unsuspecting customers is really creepy and effective. Faces mangled and torn, snakebite face, sickle hand decapitation and throats slit, not to mention, the ghost of Mama's dead, black magic girl make up the slasher goods and surreal ending. A bad rainstorm and economic hardships bring the unfortunate customers to wacky mother's mountaintop motel. I caught this on Tubi, probably my favorite streaming site besides Shudder.

 Good grief, this Joe D'Amato early 80s body count film has like twenty different titles! I believe when I watched the film it was titled "Horrible". I have to say I liked "Absurd" (1981) more this time than in the past. It does help that I watched a very good copy of the film on Tubi, the best I figure "Absurd" will ever look. I do wish the eventual meeting between Priest Purdom and Man-Beast Eastman (I swear, he looks 8 feet tall in this movie!) wouldn't have been so anti-climatic. But Katya Berger, all bloodied and victorious over the vanquished, gouged-eyes Eastman, holding up the severed head with a smile, is just outstanding if in very bad taste...but perfect for a slasher film, considering its reputation as a critic's nightmare. The little boy running round almost gets snatched by Eastman in the kitchen in quite a hair-raising scene. I can totally see why you read of how bored many are when they watch this. D'Amato doesn't pace h...

Corry begins to develop feelings for Alicia Adams (Ted Knight) isn't sympathetic Unfortunately, this scene is cut out when SYFY shows it  The above scene I wanted to include a shot of because it is such a intimate, affectionate moment for human Corry and his android female companion, Alicia. Alicia becomes so real to Corry because without her he would have went out of his mind. Allenby provided Alicia strictly for that reason...a type of human companionship he desperately needed. But because Corry is pardoned and there is only so much room on the ship, Allenby has to show him that Alicia isn't a woman...that underneath she is "just nuts, bolts, and parts". But I think the episode profoundly, within such a brief amount of time, establishes value in companionship, how important it is to have that when you are so alone. Much like "Where is Everybody?", loneliness finds its way into the storytelling as a theme. A provided car in need of repairs provided by Allen...

  The first Devil in an episode of Twilight Zone is quite the smooth talker. He reminds me of a snake oil salesman with quite the pitch...granted his mark is such a strong candidate for such an offer. The poor wife, though, is stuck with such an overbearing stick in the mud, and her fate is thought very little of by him. Credit to a review on the IMDb user comments who made a valid point about the lead: if he couldn't die why didn't he just flee the courtroom and be shot? It isn't like he would be killed. Strong plot hole and a good point made by the reviewer. Gomez really shines in the episode, "Dust", but he remains my favorite part of "Escape Clause". I admit that "Escape Clause" meant more to me in the 90s when I first started watching The Twilight Zone, but in the last 20+ years, so many other episodes have surpassed it. In fact, I can recall the episode was more of a marathon favorite in the 90s than it is in the last ten or so years. Jus...

We will soon learn what she's traumatized about Montclare House I'm a sucker for a spiral staircase! Famous shot of Linda's stalker Wolf Creek's younger and hunkier John Jarratt Just because I get nostalgic for isolated phone booths Grandfather clock sighting. Hallway is an iconic part of the film The insane Aunt Rita Sugar Cube tower in the diner The diner that explodes.  I did want to revisit this, but it was no longer on Shudder -- I didn't even know this existed until I watched it on Joe Bob's Last Drive-In -- so I found it on Tubi. I get lost in the film, though, I recognize it could be seen as dull if you want something faster paced. Director Tony Williams clearly wanted to cover practically every bit of the Montclare home and a lot of the estate. I just feel it was very important to him to establish that this location is important due to why the killings happen. Linda (Jacki Kerin) inherits the house but someone else who is "next of kin" goes ab...

 As much as I love a lot of Larry Cohen's films, this particular script for William Lustig's Uncle Sam (1996) didn't really hit the bullseye all the way with me. There is a very distinctive message that is quite on the nose regarding Cohen's anti-war sentiment, featuring the film on and near 4th of July. I don't think Lustig had a lot of money because most of the gore is off screen where victims are found or he sets up the camera to avoid weapons used fully on screen. The resurrected soldier, Sam Harper (David Fralick), was in the Army because he loved killing, according to struggling Jed Crowley (Isaac Hayes), the only survivor of a campaign in the first Gulf War. Jed is missing a leg due to stepping on a mine. During a "friendly fire" mishap, Sam's truck was hit, leaving those inside mortally wounded. Sam, though, seems to be "undead" somehow, since he's all burned up and chopped up, still seemingly able to use a gun on an officer and t...

 Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood (1988) really needed to find Jason a suitable foe. Some sort of physical presence that could throttle him. Yes, survivors of the past brought the fight but Jason just seemed to find a way to return (due to factors sometimes not of his own making as seen in the previous film when he was resurrected), and he often cut and slashed (and even harpooned) his way through a lot of bodies. Tina, with her "telekinetic outbursts", was a weapon Jason never encountered before. You have this corrupt doctor in charge of Tina's mental care (known in circles of the Friday horror community as "Bad News Crews", played by none better than Terry Kiser) always trying to provoke these outbursts that lead to objects shaking and being thrown (like a television set), not to mention the very release of Jason from Crystal Lake (though I always wondered why Jason just couldn't slide out of the chain). That ending, though, remains probably my leas...

 He just keeps coming back! Granted, he was given a big assist from Tommy Jarvis. So I hadn't watched my blu-ray of Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (1986) from the Scream Factory set yet, and even if Monday evening wasn't ideal, my daughter so badly wanted to watch it. As much fun as I have with "Jason Lives", I do admit that you probably have to be in a certain mindset and forgive the outrageousness of the premise with how a very dead corpse of Jason Voorhees is resurrected by a badly placed graveyard fence rod buried in the chest by an enraged Tommy, wanting to get some licks in. Nothing like lightning, Frankenstein-style, to get those rotted juices flowing again. At least Tom McLoughlin was given some freedom to really ham it up with clever dialogue as listed below: I've seen enough horror movies to know any weirdo wearing a mask is never friendly. Tommy: Don't shoot, please! Sheriff Garris: You in show business, kid? You sure know how to make an entra...

 I'm the first to admit that by the fifth film, all watched on Sunday, I was a bit wiped out. If Puppet Master 5 (1994) had been better, I might not feel so spent. Marathoning any kind of content could lead to fatigue, though. But I think because this fifth film was supposed to be part of the forth film, but the ambitious script was too big for such, Jeff Burr's directed sequels off of Band and Co's story could be seen as the Demon Double Feature. The demon god, Sutek, wants the ancient magic secret back, sending a smaller demon creature (pretty much the same as the demon minion puppets of the previous film, except this one is designed with more colors and glammed up, still with a stealth jet head) containing his "essence" and power to Bodega Bay to destroy the puppets, including the Decapitron puppet with the blob head that transforms into Guy Rolfe's head when lightning and Rick Myers' tech work in concert together to give him life similar to Frankenstei...

 For a more comprehensive review of this bonkers Puppet Master 4 (1993)  try here I just wrote up a review for my Letterboxd and took a deep breath and said to myself, "Well that was a lot to try and unpack". A demon god with puppet demons sent to disrupt the Omega Project, set up to develop a superior AI, eventually involved in a battle with Toulon's animated marionettes, discovered by a brilliant robotics scientist wunderkind, his girlfriend, and his girlfriend's friends. This wunderkind is caretaker of the Bodega Bay, and the fourth film takes place during a dark and stormy night. A Man in Black is delivering wooden boxes with the demon minions (reminding me of a demonic form of the Zuni warrior creature from "Trilogy of Terror"), letting them loose on scientists at the Omega lab and in the Bodega Bay hotel. Another psychic in the Bodega Bay (friend of the wunderkind's girlfriend) sort of serves as a callback to the first two films. The demon plot rea...

For a review for Puppet Master III: Toulon's Revenge (1991)  read here   I wasn't surprised that Band benefited from a lack of location for shooting Puppet Master III: Toulon's Revenge (1991) when looking overseas through the use of the Universal Studios backlot. I don't know how much Band had to pay for the production of this third film in the PM series, but, just the same, "Toulon's Revenge" looks quite impressive with its sets (representing WWII Berlin as the Nazis were a power). Streets and buildings (some crumbled with scattered brick and protruding rebar), all kinds of Nazi decor costuming the different blocks Andre Toulon must remain elusive in, with his live marionettes in tow, unleashing his killer puppets on the officers (and eventually Major Kraus) for the murder of his wife (Sarah Douglas, in a rare sympathetic role). While Richard Lynch as Kraus remains such a major piece of casting as the chief villain, Ian Abercrombie (as a Nazi doctor loo...

 For a review of Puppet Master II (1990), I'll leave  this here Nita Talbot's a bit more than a psychic thanks to the puppets I'll always wonder why the next sequel didn't follow up where Puppet Master II (1990) left off: Nita Talbot's dead psychic, murdered by the puppets, is "revived" by her killers to be their new leader, leaving behind Andre Toulon, who seemed to favor Mclellan's Carolyn (he saw her only as his Elsa) over them. Still, this sequel had the distinction of featuring characters killing both Driller and Leech Woman after they had attacked folks. So at the end of "Puppet Master II", Talbot's Camille is revived by the puppets that remained -- Blade, Pinhead, and Jester -- after deciding to give her some of a special "brain fluid" (green with brain fragments added) provided to Toulon by an old Egyptian magician named Osiris. Why Osiris wanted to give Toulon the secrets to bring marionettes to life so they could move...

 I have reflected on the Puppet Master series in great detail, so no worries about doing so here. I was planning to add something on my Letterboxd account, so I added a bit of a piece below that wouldn't be included on said account. For a review of Puppet Master (1989),  a review Irene Miracle can't be rid of the Puppet killers that easy I immediately regretted watching Puppet Master (1989) early Sunday afternoon (I almost always watch this Sundays at 1:00PM for whatever reason; this dates way back to when I watched it off Sci-Fi Channel for the first time during a Halloween marathon as a teenager) because this would have felt more meaningful during October. But I'm just so ready for that month, I've gotten that itch to watch the favorites early. In saying that, "Puppet Master" wasn't always an October-specific watch. Over time, I just sort of adopted that nostalgic attraction towards tethering certain films to the month of Halloween. Maybe, unfairly so. ...

 WWE proved my point. You have this charismatic, athletic, fundamentally sound, outstanding black woman as your flagship champion of her division and bury her in a seconds match at one of your biggest events of the year against a returning superstar before 40,000 people in Las Vegas. Piece of shit last-minute decision that puts over Becky Lynch at the expense of a sensational pro wrestler through a sucker punch to the face and Rock Bottom. Two moves and a three count. Bianca Belair looks like a million bucks, worked her ass off to get to this point, just to face a humiliating loss with two moves. Inexplicable decision to go this route even if seeing Becky Lynch is a thrill. What was terrible besides this is WWE goes ahead and runs a video package of Belair and Sasha Banks' rivalry, only to introduce Carmella and eventually bring out The Man. I'm at a loss for words. Yes, CM Punk came back last night. Lynch deserved a better return than walloping Belair and stealing the belt wit...

A former professor notorious (and popular) for his horror stories turned into movies struggles with writing a fresh story that isn't "the same blood and guts bullshit" and a family life gone to hell. His wife is totally committed to cocaine while everything else seems to be slipping away in importance. The kids "act out" without much attention or affection devoted to them. Working from home (I do that myself after the pandemic led to the office being closed) is a pain because he can't give totally focus to the story, and even then his mind is occupied with the horrors already printed to page and presented on screen. Those from his school consider his work crass, degenerate, and disgusting, his wife wants to clearly divorce herself totally from him, and kids are constantly concerned about their parents. The horror of "Deadline", interspersed jarringly from time to time like gremlins emerging in the writer's psyche, are quite brutal, ultra-violen...