Night Game - 1989

 I binge drank and watched a couple Roy Scheider movies last night.  This one sounded slasher adjacent, so of course I put it on.  I also drew pictures of insects.

Fuckin KICKASS poster, no joke.

Night Game follows police detective or whatever he is Roy Scheider as a serial killer is in town killing people.  We pretty early on are seeing plenty of baseball scenes too, setting it up for us the audience that these will be linked somehow.  Is this the slasher-like film with the most baseball scenes?  Probably.

So we watch as they put the pieces together and a few more kills happen.  It seems that the killer uses a hook and specifically targets young blonde women, and in the meantime in a creepy plot piece, Roy Scheider is dating a blonde who is young enough to be his daughter.  Naturally, she gets targeted and its just about the time that Roy figured out who the killer is, and wham bam, thats the movie.

Not a movie with any legacy, this isn't one to satisfy everyone.  The violence is taken down a notch, and its more of a tension murder mystery, but with all the baseball stuff, as well as the killer's face shown to us very early on, it cuts the tension to nothing.  Then with the Roy Scheider character, he's not really likable and nothing much else happens in the movie, so you're left sorta wondering...who is this for?  What is this, exactly?

I liked it enough though, it's not too long and it has plenty of kills, and it has some comedic parts (I mean you laugh at the movie, it's not like the movie is actually funny).  I'll give it 3 stars.

Hellraiser: Bloodline -1996

 "I smell the exquisite stench of what you really are" is the quote from this which Velvet Acid Christ stole for their awesome song off Calling Ov The Dead.

Adam Scott and the Polish brothers star in this last theatrical production of the Hellraiser franchise.  Do other people cite the Polish brothers?  They have no lines and they play the cenobite twins in the latter half.  Man am I getting ahead of myself.

This is as close as they would get to Hellraise goes to space.  Because in the first part of the movie, a robot reopens the mystery box and summons the demons aka the cenobites and they're in a spaceship.  Cue the flashbacks which reveal how the box was made as well as a random story of trying to close the box.  Adam Scott plays a French evildoer who opens the box and feeds off the demons until they kill him, and the Hellraiser otherwise pursues Merchant, the main character, to open a larger portal from the hell dimension to let more demons through.

Is that confusing?  Well, it makes sense, and the movie isn't one that I would put into the whole category of "what the fuck is going on." In fact, I remember this series as being one that quickly fell off the bandwagon and was a fucking disaster basically, and I was pleasantly surprised at this entry.  It moves quickly, it's entertaining, definitely not scary, but really something to behold.

The movie has a definite so bad it's good feel, as well as having genuinely good effect moments. I enjoyed it overall, cause honestly it doesn't drag, and it's a fun ride. I give it 4 stars. 

Lured - 1947

 I'm including this in a working list, in my head if not alluded to in this blog, of proto-slashers. 

A slasher is/was born of the mystery movie, the detective idea or even revenge story. It's simply taking a basic idea, that of a dead body and no apparent killer, and it's upping the stakes to multiple dead bodies and perhaps an elusive or otherwise unstoppable killer. As time goes on you focus more on the violence or on the killer, but you also don't have to, that is common but is not one of the universal tropes of the slasher film. 

Lured is definitely this. For the time, it also has a large body count, that of 8-9 rather than the more typical 1-3 around this time. We follow the "final girl", we follow an investigation, and we have "scares" concerning the villain. 

This all said, there is a rather large chunk in the middle about some underground labor force or something, and we really get sidetracked on that.  This movie is surprisingly long for the year, at like an hour 45.  

Holy crap, I thought I finished this review a long time ago.  So I'm cutting it short.  I give this 3 stars.

Angst - 1983

 There are movies that are labeled Video Nasty and then there's Angst.  Also known as both Fear and Schizophrenia.

I have probably heard tell of this Austrian horror movie before, but I have never seen it.  By the way, there are movies that are free on Youtube, Pluto TV, Tubi, etc, that are not coming up when I search for them on my Roku.  I have to individually go to that channel and look for them, what the hell is up with that?

Angst stars Erwin Leder.  In the beginning of the movie, he is locked in jail for committing a crime.  His narration mentions doing something to his mother, and then doing something to a 72 year old woman.  It is unclear exactly what he did, he does not specify, but he just finished serving maybe 7 years?  I don't remember.  He gets released and in voice narration as he leaves prison he says he fully intends to go commit more crimes.

We follow this man in an almost real time way as he goes about town, dementedly fantasizing about people, and then he finds a house, breaks in, and when the family returns he brutally kills the three of them.

Angst had music by Klaus Schulze from Tangerine Dream, and has really interesting camera work all the way around.  The darkness and the psychopathy present is also fresh and groundbreaking, even now 40 years later.  

This is truly one of the most disturbing movies I've seen, and I've seen a lot of movies.  It is because we are only with this killer, and we're in his head, and the pounding score makes us sick, and the intensity is at 11, and something about this feels extremely visceral and real and...just sickening.  Like I said, I have seen a lot of movies, and I can see why Gaspar Noe said this was a personal favorite.

Barely 80 minutes long, this is a breeze, and feels very realistic in a sick and twisted way.  This feels like one of the more brutal, realistic, soul-crushing horror movies, the movies that I can understand being banned.  It was not labeled a video nasty, but that's probably only because it was barely released.  

I don't know what to rate this, cause I have to say, I really didn't enjoy it, but it was for the right reasons:  the movie made me kinda sick and uneasy and want to look away...so god...5 stars?

Suspect Zero - 2004

 Funny, I don't remember this movie coming out in 2004.  But maybe that's cause it was a colossal failure with limited release.

What does one really say about late-to-the-party gritty serial killer movie Suspect Zero?  Well, it had a cool cast.  Aaron Eckhart is a distraught police investigator, Carrie Anne Moss is his sidekick, Ben Kingsley is the serial killer.  Produced by Tom Cruise, what could go wrong?

E. Elias Merhige of Begotten and Shadow of the Vampire directs this extremely bland and overly stylized thriller.  Seriously speaking though, the amount of talent involved in this is phenomenal.  The writers are also just absolute Journeyman level caliber, tons of projects at their backs, and yet this movie just clunks along in a horrible way, and I could not tell ya who is to blame.

Ben Kingsley is seen killing a few people and Aaron Eckhart is investigating the murders.  The murders have the eyes cut open and a big circle with a slash cut into the bodies.  Aaron Eckhart connects this to a map that shows a ton of kills and an idea of a perfect serial killer, a killer without patterns and without any of the other fallbacks. 

Merhige has some weird experimental film techniques here and there, and there are certainly attempts at atmosphere, but it somehow just never quite works.  I dunno, its an interesting case study, but I would just say it's too little too late.  That and the acting is sometimes quite bad, there's obvious "why this why that" type stuff too.  One example is they stumble upon a serial killers graveyard, there are triangular patches of graves dug everywhere.  But...did he kill all these people at the same time?  WOuldn't some of them not be freshly dug?  Eroded? Grown over?  It's these type of things that riddle the movie with problems.

I think it got blamed on Merhige, who has not done a film since, and that's too bad, cause Begotten is cool.  I will give Suspect Zero two stars though, and that's very generous.

Deluge - 1933

 It's been a minute since I watched anything this old, and the film Deluge was released, on all days, on the day my grandmother was born!  August 13 1933.

Deluge is barely over one hour, and was a disaster movie based on a book written in 1928.  It begins with an unexplained apocalyptic event that destroys New York.  I have to say, really cool special effects for the time with miniature work and match cuts and superimposed images.  Fun shit, and the destruction of the city it total.  

From there, we follow survivor Claire as she lands on an island and is held by two rapey men that she eventually escapes from.  She finds nicer, more humane Martin.  They survive a cruel post-destruction world where the rapey dude from the island follows Claire and Martin as they go about finding the remaining humans.  He rallies a group to try and hunt down Claire with him, and in the meantime it turns out Martin's family is still alive.

Deluge is a strange and definitely uneven movie, the insane destruction at the end leads into a taut thriller that then becomes a weird drama screwball comedy at the end?  I'm not sure why.  

Considered at one time a lost film, this is a fun one that a fan of stuff like this should watch.  If you like old movies and early destruction movies like King Kong check this shit out yo!

3.5 stars.

In a Lonely Place - 1950

 It seems I get into specific winter moods sometimes, and this is the second time I've gone on a Humphrey Bogart kick in the winter.  Last winter I watched the Bogey Bacall films and a few more, In a Lonely Place is the first one this year.

In a Lonely Place was one of the first movies that came up when I googled "classic film noir".  And this was what made me rent it.  Then I get it home and it's starting out a little bit weird and...why did this come up as classic film noir?

I've seen a fair bit and I would say Dark Passage is much more of a classic film noir than this.  This movie was directed by Nocholar Ray and stars Bogart alongside a bunch of people I did not recognize.  The film is centered around a girl who was last seen with Bogart's character Dixon Steele, and who was then dumped along the side of a highway.  In the meantime, Dixon gets involved with his neighbor Laurel who begins to learn just what kind of man Dixon is.

There was a lot of this movie that I did not see coming, and a lot of this movie that was a lot darker than I expected.  The cops are tentatively doubtful of Dixon Steele, but we as the audience assume he's innocent.  What's dark and unexpected is that the shade they end up casting on him is from an abusive, controlling, and angry nature.  

It's genuinely scary and shocking the way that Bogart turns in this movie, and it is an acting highlight from him for sure.  It's one of the better written films he was in, not that he was in many stinkers obviously.  For those wanting a dark, strange, but classic feeling film, I say check it out.

American Psycho (s) - 1991/2000

 I just finished rereading the book American Psycho and then I rented the movie for $3.99 on Amazon in the next few minutes.  I have't read the book since about 2003ish and I haven't seen the movie in well over 15 years, how do they hold up?

American Psycho as a book is incredible to believe was actually published.  The book is obviously well written, is a satire, and it is brutal, but moreso it is trying to be offensive in every single way possible and slamming you over the head with it in every way.  The main character commits every sin, breaks every taboo, is racist and sexist and homophobic, and all while wearing this guise of not just normalcy but upper crust priviledge that you are forced to contend with.  It holds no punches with what it is saying; we allow and even encourage depravity in our society and we enjoy looking the other way when it shows its face.

The book and the movie both center around Patrick Bateman, a 27 year old Harvard graduated Vice President at a law firm who does nothing (sloth) all day except worry about his image (pride) and envy what others have.  He dines out at the best restaurants (gluttony) and fucks various prostitutes and others girlfriends (lust).  He is also a serial killer (wrath) who wants everything (greed).  

The first 150 pages are a showboat of his moral depravity in various ways as he goes about the little playground that is New York to the rich, and you begin to wonder where this is all going, until he kills a homeless man.  Similarly, in the movie, that is paralleled.  Once that wall is broken, there are brief sexual forays and violence, culminating in a crazy night of killings and him getting chased by the police, where he gets away and the end is left ambiguous.

There is certainly in both mediums a heavy amount of suggestion that nothing is indeed happening, that deaths are made-up and that the character is simply experiencing drug hallucinations or fantasies or what-have-you.  

The whole dialogue in this case about book versus movie is pointless, because the book is obviously way better, but the cool thing about both is they have stylistic flourishes, hilarious scenes and dialogue, and they truly paint a realistic picture of just how disgustingly vapid, empty, and inhuman the characters in their subject matter are. 

The strangest thing I found about the movie on this rewatch is that some of the shots are embarrassingly amateur, and the soundtrack despite being by John Cale is completely unremarkable.  If not for Christian Bale, this movie would likely have completely failed.  But it is riddled with talent beyond him, and they have quite the cast in this, Willem Dafoe, Reese Witherspoon, Josh Lucas, Jared Leto, Chloe Sevigny, it's a massive cast of future megastars.

The book is an insane experiment that I wonder what else is even similar to.  The movie is fine, a good coming of age movie for me and one that I will always look back on fondly, but honestly 3 stars is what it likely deserves.

Below - 2002

 In 1998 Darren Aronofsky put out his film Pi, and several studios chased after him to write or direct a movie for them.  He signed one deal for a film called Proteus which was going to be a combo of submarines with aliens.

Because Hollywood is as Hollywood does, this movie instead became whatever it is, which is a box office bomb submarine ghost movie directed by the guy that did The Chronicles of Riddick.  The movie that this became is Below, oddly enough starring Zach Galifianakis, Bruce Greenwood, and a bunch of other "that guy" type people who you probably saw in a 90s movie or an odd single episode of a TV show.

Below did turn the aliens into ghosts, and the submarine in the movie is picking up random pings and noises and odd things are happening everywhere and its all very scary and shit.  They also pick up female science officer Claire, who begins to stir up trouble on the ship cause she's a female but also cause she uncovers a story of a dead submarine captain, she sees signs of the ghosts, and she isn't under the new captains thumb the way the officers are.

Below isn't really scary or interesting, it moves quite slowly, and relies on an atmosphere for effect, but for me, it didn't do much.  I do not understand watching something that is in close quarters and getting claustrophobic, just like I couldn't watch something up high and feel fear of heights.  I'm not there.  I can parse that out real quick.  Other than that, nothing is really made clear or dangerous enough for you to be interested in the goings on so you watch, bored, wondering about the making of instead.

It could have been worse, but overall its one of those movies that's not even fun to talk about, so I will only give it 1.5 stars.

Evil Dead Rise - 2023

 Evil Dead is a franchise every horror hound knows, whether they've seen all the entries or not.  To set the record straight, I have seen them all, including the original Evil Dead.

Evil Dead was basically a student project level amateur horror movie by Sam Raimi and starring Bruce Campbell, and they made it on a shoestring budget but with enough passion and blood and guts that it caught peoples attention in the long dead zombie genre.  It has an archetypical cabin in the woods approach where some friends raise a undead presence that has a horror comedy appeal, and it goes from there.

Some of the tenements of the series which entails The Evil Dead, Evil Dead II, Army of Darkness, Evil Dead (2013), and now Evil Dead Rise are: lots of blood and guts, living dead, unseen monsters shot from a first person perspective, and horror comedy.  Also, the isolated cabin the the woods approach is common, though does not appear in Army of Darkness.

Evil Dead Rise is the most recent legasequel or reboot or whatever we're calling it now.  Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell are on as co-producers and in the beginning a lady at a cabin in the woods goes crazy and kills her friend and boyfriend.  Flashback (?) to an apartment complex where mom sends the kids out for pizza and an earthquake happens, and a chasm opens up into an old prison (?) where one of the kids find a vinyl record (?) with the incantations that when played bring forth evil dead.

Convoluted much?  Yeah, this is a plot of convenience if I've ever seen one.  Why not just have the book turn up from a mystery package or a fucking weirdo or whatever else you could do here...?  The evil dead infests the mom of the family and now its mom versus three kids and their aunt, her sister.  

Here's the thing guys, it's not scary.  I'm not even sure it's trying to be.  But it is entertaining, and it moves quickly, and makeup and the setting are pretty cool.  But also, there is no horror comedy, the apartment setting is not inherantly scary or interesting, and the gore is the only thing to keep you watching.  There's a few cool ideas, but really I don't know why this is necessarily "The Evil Dead" besides just to cash in on IP, there is nothing about this that really is reminiscent of the rest of the franchise.

I think it was in the end fine for what it was though, I will give it 2.5 stars.

The Prowler - 1981

 Also known as Rosemary's Killer.

Here we have a prime 80s slasher that I have not yet reviewed, lets fix that eh?  I had definitely seen it, but it had been a while, and this one is a good one.  It deserves to be watched again.

The Prowler begins with classic WWII footage and reading of a Dear John letter to an unknown soldier.  Then we cut to a high school where the girl who wrote it, presumably, is hunted down and killed on graduation night.  Now in the modern day of 1981, the school has not had a graduation since, but they are about to kick it back into gear.  Because of this, a killer reappears and bodies start stacking up.

It's a fairly simple premise, we don't watch these for their originality.  What we watch them for is bodies, both dead and naked.  Also, it helps if effects are by Tom Savini, even if it's mostly cut out by the censorship people.  

What this movie has is an iconic looking killer with a pitchfork, and that dareisay is just about all you need to be a successful slasher, and this one is certainly good.  I'm trying to do the math in my head about why it isn't as well known and in fact it was not a financial success, but I can't even really say.  I guess it probably got buried by all the others.

Spoiler alert in the end of Friday the 13th a kid Jason leaps out of the lake and pulls down the final girl, it is then revealed to be a dream sorta.  Sorta because all the sequels that actually star Jason point towards that this did happen...?  At then end of this one, the final girl gets grabbed by a suddenly reanimated dead body, then that is a dream.  So by Friday the 13th logic, the sequel to this should have that dead body, that murder victim, now being a killer and hunting people.  I wanna see it!  Prowler 2.

I liked this, I'll give it 4 stars.