Scarecrow's Blog From the Darkside

 I starting writing this for Letterboxd and it just kept going: This is a movie made from the minds of those equally mad and outrageous. Tobe and Henkel's sense of humor and willingness to go for the jugular, never satisfied with restraint. Neville Brand could have fit right at home with the Sawyers in Texas. Missing a leg, his room filled with Nazi stuff among other things, Brand doesn't like women much, especially if they came from Hattie's brothel. Adding to Brand's mania is how he talks to himself, uttering about his croc's just acting on its instincts (that includes clamping down on passing motorists and outsiders unfortunate to stop by his red-hued, swamp-surrounded, rat-infested, secluded dustbin tourist trap), gibber-jabbering nonsensical mental swill. Swinging a scythe or pitchfork at these "intruders" he finds a bother, Brand has the appropriate means to dispose of them with his crocodile in a pool. With a filthy mop of stringy gray hair and with

I'll be including the May 29th, 2008 user comments, retiring them on this post. Shudder has an entire set of French Extreme Horror, including Frontière(s), one of my favorites of the mid aughts. Neo nazis on the outskirts of Paris at a hostel targeting robbers who took advantage of political unrest/riots...not any more complex than that. This is about survival, really. Bloodshed and carnage. I forgot about how Xavier Gens shot and had this edited. Frontière(s) really is a film of its time, and a ton of action films (especially featuring Steven Seagal) were "hazard cam", without much in terms of lingering shots on characters or action, a blitzkrieg of chaos and violence a lot of the time. Looking back at my user comments, I still agree that this film never stops to take a breath. It is boom, boom, boom, in terms of moving from one scene to the next. Not even really stretching out scenes where the visitors from the Paris slums interacting very long with the hostel Nazis in

This was part of Shudder's recent "French Horror Extreme" March series of films added to the site... I'm just a hick from Mississippi...I don't know what the fuck is wrong with Gallo and Dalle. They are drawn to blood retrieved during sex. I admire all the reviews that poetically arrive to a conclusion about metaphors and exceptionally analyze / theorize with great complexity all the meaning and definition from what Claire Denis has to say with this film about a Pharma doc and new wife (Gallo and Vessey) visiting Paris. From what I could extract from Gallo's visit to medical colleagues (and a past memory with a fellow co-worker at a lab), he was involved in a serious project in Guyana between a genius named Léo (Descas) and Léo's lover, Coré (Dalle). Gallo's Shane Brown is revealed in a conversation to be greedy and to achieve success steals from Leo's work. Eventually Shane finds Core, covered in blood after feeding off a young man desiring her fo

 There was a question that came to me yet again while watching this? Why did Lisa (Hobson) ever marry Glendon (Hull)? For the life of me, I can't figure out why she married him. He's older and seems too boring and dedicated to his botany work to give her the time her youth desires. He isn't much for conversation, nor does he seem interested in her own active social life. And I can't figure out why she ever became involved with him. Was it his money? Perhaps they met and she found him mature, someone who could take care of her, perhaps offering her an environment to thrive, allowing her to have that refinement, high society access. I just assumed she came from a nice upbringing and maybe they met through a similar social circle. But Glendon just seems so absorbed in his work, when would he have courted her? These are questions I ask every single time I watch this. I think that is why I prefer "The Wolf Man" more. I just can't emotionally connect with Glendo

| Desiderius. The irresistible temptation. The object of desire is here. Permitted to abide out of hell, it manifests itself between Ash Wednesday and the Feast of the Resurrection. On the solemnest of days, it makes an offering to Satan -- someone who is pure, saintly; someone who has consecrated himself to God. It will tempt you with that you most desire. If you succumb to that temptation, it will kill you in the act of sin. And you will become the unholy's offering to Satan. If you resist, the powers of illusion will be broken...and you will see the true face of the demon. Then your final battle will begin. Let Christ manifest himself through you. | My favorite piece of dialogue in a film that I'm not sure exactly who it is made for. There is actually this whole subgenre of horror/thriller involved with Catholicism, good and evil in combat, spiritual unrest, a priest's battle with Satan and his demons, possession, and how the powers of darkness are pervasive, if they act

 I last watched this back in 2009. I rented it on Netflix DVD, a Troma release. I was bored with a capital B. Wow, thirteen years. Anyway, I was very different on this film Friday evening. I still think it is way too long. There is a fun 83 minute quirky Muskie slasher film here. Still, I must admit, I enjoyed my time in Hayward, Wisconsin, as "city youth" mix it up with fishing locals. I realized I wore those same striped shorts and socks Finner does when jogging exhaustingly behind Bev D when I was a kid in kindergarten. I also realized that Mark Jacobs has serious Nic Cage similarities. He sounds so much like him, not to mention, the guy's tall, lanky, with a face very much like Nic. The stirred-up cicadas leading to the big-ass lure/hook used to pull in victims definitely was like nails down a chalkboard to me. Denny Dobbins using a bar to weigh down his fish in order to increase its weight and so much fishing pole action really does emphasize the sport of choice. I t

I did consider getting the VS Blu but I just couldn't pull the trigger. The last few times I've watched this was on YouTube. I was glad to see it on Tubi. This is more a "Saturday nooner" for me than so late into Saturday morning after Midnight. Hard to really stay attentive during this one. While I enjoy how much of the film is at and around school/campus, it does seem to capture a different experience than my own. The students are just never in class but walking around, goofing off, still practicing their track/sports activities, gathered in their different friendship groups, and, for the most part, having a good time. "School's out for Summer" while for the track team being offed by a vengeful killer it is "School's out forever." Yes, low-hanging fruit. It really does feel like school in this LA type town has quite a lot of community interest. Christopher George gets canned for his track star dropping dead while in a race and the film so

 Okay, get this out of the way: shooting your daughter nude, just creepy and not cool. But I have always found Asia so striking, so alluring, so captivating. Always. I can watch her in anything. Thinking about that, I need to go back and watch her post father's work. She's got some interesting content out there. I just love the fact that there is an Argento film out there that was made in Minneapolis of all places. And this is a very American Argento film. I like that this film doesn't look like any other Argento film he had made in the past. Oh, Argento's camera still goes a lot of places and doesn't want to stay static. He does some POV where the killer looks right into the faces of those he's about to kill. I admittedly got a kick out of what Argento does with severed heads, the decapitations caused by a mechanized garrote. Brad Dourif (who is tragically cast in a thankless role) who was a surgeon involved in an infant death tied to Piper Laurie, playing an I

"We're Jezebels, cop. Remember that name!" You know I was thinking about putting together a list of films with my favorite final girls or "slasher survivors" if the former term for the young ladies who survive to the end is outmoded, and watching Jack Hill's Switchblade Sisters, instead I'm thinking of my favorite films involving badass women. I want to say back in the mid aughts on the IMDb Horror message board what our favorite exploitation films often came up as a topic. I'm thinking this film, Ms. 45, and Thriller - They Call Her One Eye all three led the pack. But Hill, now that I think of it, is one of my favorite directors. High school gangs, Silver Daggers and the Crabs and the Dirty Debs, the faculty terrified, the police seemingly powerless, the prison guards handcuffed due their own corruption, Patch jealous of Maggie's sudden emergence as a Dirty Deb while Dagger leader Dom desires Maggie, and gang wars...Hill just captures all that n

I was really surprised Kay was allowed to get so much offense on Trish and her daughter Dana, but Russ killed earlier was an unexpected development. I think the film would definitely have been even more satisfying if Trish could have gotten her revenge on Russ Thorne, considering what he did to her in 1993. I get why that wasn't the case since as a teenager Trish was able to outsmart and survive him. And within the context of the story, I totally get why Dana is the one to slit his throat and later hack at his neck with the machete to make sure he was good and dead. Kay was just so weary, tired, and haggard,..I think Kay is effective, though, because she really looks like the mother of a psycho, clearly aged by his actions, even as she also does some killing out of her own revenge. I wasn't expecting the film to give her as much of an edge, even though Trish ultimately (and rightfully) vanquishes her at the end. I do get that this is a film for a specific kind of demo audience;

I was looking over at a DVD shelf and had forgotten I had the Psycho Universal remake in my media library. So I thought I'd give it a go. What I like: Julianne Moore doesn't like how handsy Viggo sometimes get, grabs her Walkman, struts her stuff, isn't about to wait on finding her sister, and is straight to the point on everything. Viggo has a breezy Country Boy charm about him, with a certain comfortable presence in the film. The art deco architecture and bright, eye-popping colors really just jump off the screen. Forster did this right after "Jackie Brown" and he lays out Norman's psychosis and explains Mother like quite a believable, personable psychiatrist. I liked the Bates Motel sign. There is this feeling Gus Van Sant really wanted to emphasize the 60s in full bore color. So I did dig that. And Remar's police officer is FANTASTIC...I imagine Van Sant saw him in costume and was very pleased. I thought the idea to close the credits at the crime scene

Park is so beautiful. Anyway, she has this melancholia about her I think really works. I think she is a great reason why I moved my rating to a 3 star from 2 and a half. I just liked her. I think she gets it across, this albatross emotionally regarding bearing this weight of guilt and trying to get up and live day to day when its obvious she's in pain. Slasher films, I get, are built on secrets and the killer typically either uses the past as a reason to kill and the secret of his or her concealed identity to rack up a body count. In this film, the killer develops masks with specific faces that shock the victims being pursued and (almost all) stabbed. Park is a Hawaiian transplant to Nebraska, running away from a tragedy involving a hazing gone horribly wrong, with a guy totally into her (Pellerin), Park's friends believe is a school-shooter type. I noticed this was brought up in dialogue on Euphoria recently, so that is alarming to me. Because in this film Pellerin is just ass

I had listened to a YouTube reviewer say that Ti West's "X" wasn't really A24 in the grander sense of the quality one associates with them, and I'm like, "I just can't disagree more." I think there is a lot going on here than just "old folks murder pornographers in the rented boarding house". There is themes all over the place: the cruel nature of aging and how that wrecks vanity and creates something even uglier as a result, the desire to leave behind stranglehold of a very strict, religious upbringing to embrace the desire to be free sexually considered rebelling as a result, the crippling jealousy and yearning for youth when the body is no longer desirable, opposing relationship viewpoints regarding bodily and sexual agency and monogamy, and what it means to be in control of your own life and sexuality.  Yes, there is Chekhov's Gun where a gator is introduced in a lake as Maxine is swimming, so it is almost a certainty someone was go

While I still consider this way down towards the middle or bottom of the franchise, I don't really dislike it. I just don't really love it. I think when I watch it there is just not this connection I have with it. I don't think it is all that badly made, but there were eight films in the 80s that just built up Jason while Nispel has 93 minutes to do so in the 2009 film. I do like Mears' Jason more and more with each viewing even if I don't really care for most of the cast; they are just disposable human targets. I always seem to enjoy the casts in the Friday films of the 80s, though. And there is this feeling of "seen that, and seen that, and seen that" familiarity of homage moments throughout that might be welcome for fans, I get that. I dunno: I watch this and once it is over, I'm okay with not watching it again for another five or six years. While that is certainly not the case for the Paramount 8. --- This does have some qualities I like about it.

In regards to Leprechaun 3, Lee was like, I'm out. These reviews were written for St Patrick's Day. Leprechaun 3 Yeah, this is probably my favorite of the franchise. It was my daughter's, too...we particularly enjoyed the rhymes of this film provided to Davis, as the franchise really emphasized his whole language was that way. I have only watched this once, last year. For some reason, I wasn't one of those teenagers who rented this when it was a direct-to-video juggernaut in the mid 90s. While any more sequels to this franchise seemed as unnecessary as two or three, I do admit that this third film had some amusing supernatural Lep kills I really enjoyed. And this has my favorite leads of the franchise, with Gatins, after being bit by Lep in arm, causing an infection, making for an amusing "transitioning leprechaun". I read the fact that Lee Armstrong quit the business after this and could only think to myself that she must've felt it could not get any lowe

So I will say starting off that I really liked the ongoing discussion between Sam and Dean about their father in relation to a real estate agent and his insect-loving son. So a gas employee working on Larry Pike's (Andrew Airlie) growing settlement in Oklahoma falls in a sinkhole of the ground and is attacked by beetles, leaving him with an odd type of mad cow. A real estate agent working for Larry is attacked by spiders in her shower. Sam and Dean meet up with Larry's son, Matt (Tyler Johnston), in the woods nearby the settlement, locating two skulls in a pit surrounded by congregating insects. An anthropology professor leads them to Joe Whitetree (Jimmy Herman), a Native American scholar telling them about the Equinox and how his ancestors were murdered on their own land by the Calvary due to not relocating at their command. So the last Native American dying cursed the land resulting in this six day period where nature works to keep the white man from living or staying on/in

  When Atticus Shane gives Bonnie a necklace of bone as a graduation present I liked to celebrate because the end of high school is at hand. I told my daughter, who watches this with me, that I will be so glad when they are FINALLY out of high school. How this show could keep these characters in high school so long is beyond me, but I guess that kind of melodrama is part of the CW brand. Bonnie conjures a protection spell for Shane when it appears Klaus' brother Kol, resurrected by Rebekah (who was resurrected by April, for revenge against Shane who was responsible for the death of her father and the town counsel due to the explosion in the gathering place), had killed him through a stick stabbed deep inside him. Okay, a lot of melodrama involved in this episode thanks to Rebekah. I have to admit: I really get a kick out of Claire Holt as Rebekah. There is a lot of pain and she is using that to motivate her to find the same vampire cure Klaus is after. So the vampire cure is the be

 The best laid plans comes to mind considering Tyler's plans to execute Klaus was inevitably doomed to fail. Anytime any character plans to kill Klaus, or even just send him away so he's not there to be a thorn in their side, they are ALWAYS doomed to fail. Tyler and his hybrids had a traitor in their midst: Hayley. She wants to know how her parents died. She wants answers. Atticus Shane is who Hayley believes can get her those answers. But Klaus can't die and her hybrid colleagues are sacrifices she is willing to give up. So when it appears Tyler might finally be rid of Klaus, the Atticus Shanes and Hayleys are there to deter him in that quest. And what does Klaus do to further his rivalry with Tyler? He kills Carol, Tyler's mother! Fucking Klaus, man. So "O Come, All Ye Faithful" is an absolutely shitshow for Tyler because he loses everything. Well, he still has Caroline, but Klaus killing all the hybrids and Carol sure would be incentive to want total reven

I was telling my daughter, I think the last time I watched "Ticks" it was around 1996, just as Blockbuster was about to crush the smaller rental stores I frequented on the regular. "Ticks" was also in the midst of Ami Dolenz's brief direct-to-video horror boom. While "Pumpkinhead II" and "Witchboard II" really gave Ami a big starring role, she's more of an ensemble player in "Ticks". She does have a very memorable sunbathing scene when she's not acting all diva as her Romeo (Ray Oriel) lifts weights to keep in tip top shape...I guess they call her "high maintenance". She was sort of in the Jill Schoelen camp of my B-movie horror nerd crush teenage years. She has the bad fortune of walking into Clint Howard's Mary Jane Cook Den when his face is about to burst a tick. I'MMMMMMMMMMMM INNNNNNNNNNFEEEEESSSSSTTTTTEDDDD My daughter and I couldn't help but laugh as Clint really makes that nasty, hideous face ma

 This just wasn't good. So the campfire legend of the boogeyman with the hook gets upgraded to the spirit of a reverend named Karnes killing people Lori Sorenson (Jane McGregor) knows for some reason Sam and Dean will need to investigate and solve. Could the silver cross around her neck be the reason since it was an heirloom of the church he preaches? Lori's boyfriend is hung from a tree upside down and hook slashed for trying to get some sex in his truck, her friend is slashed to a bloody pulp for being promiscuous, and her father in stabbed in the shoulder and drug inside the house for admitting to her he was having an affair with a married parishioner...the reverend seems to be acting on some belief that Lori has this "moral quandary" his spirit feeds from (necklace from silver he owned worn around her neck). To be perfectly blunt, I thought the story sucked ass. I like that Padalecki's sincerity to the part of Sam wanting to help pretty Lori, who feels like a

 "Skin" is probably my favorite of the first season episodes so far. It was just a blast to me because you get to see Sam (sort of) and Dean duke it out at the home of Sam's college friend, Rebecca (Amy Grabow, yet another beautiful friend of Sam's that Dean gets all hot and bothered about!). Well, there is a shapeshifter who not only takes the doppelganger form of those he mimics "it" also absorbs their thoughts and memories, too. So Dean is one of the shapeshifter's many victims. You get an idea of how the shapeshifter operates. I am going with he just for the hell of it: he eyes someone, mimics their physical form, then starts to take on their traits so he can prey on their girlfriends or wives (or brothers, in the case of Dean trying to trick Sam). The shapeshifter will bind them women to chairs and use a knife on them, getting his jollies by torturing them. And also the shapeshifter uses the disguise to frame the boyfriends and husbands (or Dean) so

Nate's story gets a lot of development as the episode, "Stuntin' Like My Daddy", takes through some "highlights" of his life, such as when he finds a DVD as a kid of his father fucking different people, including a homosexual relationship that startles him. The thumb in the mouth technique Nate's dad, Cal, used on Jules in the Pilot is used on a young gay man in a hotel room (perhaps the same hotel room as Jules?). So there is this past about Cal beyond just hotel trysts with underage girls (though, Jules told him that she wasn't a minor), among other people he was able to charm into sex. Nate's particular interests in girls, his likes and dislikes are run through by Rue's narration as different teenagers are "examined".  Even how girls posture themselves, certain physical characteristics, certain behaviors, all brought up...how Rue knew that was anyone's guess. Rue is more or less an all-seeing eye for the writer's room, I

 I do admit that I just don't think "Euphoria" is for me. I struggled through this episode. It is definitely the talk of the internet, one of those shows that has "captured the zeitgeist" as the smart folks say. Your lead just can't stay clean...nor does she really want to. When she's up on stage at school, asked to describe her summer, Rue can only go through a laundry list of horrible family drama when she was violent, angry, ill-tempered, unruly, impossible, intoxicated, nearly dead, or returning from rehab. And by the end of this second episode of the first season, "Stuntin' Like My Daddy", she's zoinked from a mere taste of Fentanyl from a drug dealer sticking up to her face with a knife, pretty much taking no for an answer despite the fact Fezco would have to pay out his ass in order to get this guy (named Mouse) out of his house (and keep Rue's 17 year old ass from being raped). Rue burst in on Fezco as it was raining, startl