The VHS Graveyard Meets the Chattanooga Film Festival – Day Two (Part One)

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Anieya Walker, auteur theory, Brandon Cole, Casey T Malone, CFF, Chad Crawford Kinkle, Chattanooga Film Festival, cinema, cults, Dementer, film festival favorite, film festivals, film fests, film reviews, films, foreign films, horror, Joelyn Dormady, Johannes Nyholm, Katie Groshong, Koko-di Koko-da, Larry Fessenden, movie reviews, Movies, psychological horror, Rebecca Sue Button, Stephanie Kinkle, surreal, surrealism, Swedish films, The Chattanooga Film Festival, The Ringing Bell, writer-director

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After a slower start to Day One than I expected, it was time to step my game up for the remainder of the festival: I only had three more days to get through 23 films, after all. To that end, I screened six films on the second day, including another one of those pesky “instant classics.” Like I mentioned earlier: there was no shortage of quality films at this year’s Chattanooga Film Fest…just a shortage of hours in the day.

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Dementer

Indie writer/director/producer Chad Crawford Kinkle first landed on my radar with his excellent, backwoods creeper Jughead way back in 2013, so I was pretty excited to find out he had a new film hitting the festival circuit. When I saw indie auteur Larry Fessenden’s name in the cast, well, let’s just say that pretty much sealed the deal: one of the titans of independent cinema reuniting with one of its most promising indie up-and-comers? Done and done.

Kinkle’s ultra-naturalistic new film follows a troubled young woman (Katie Groshong) as she tries to piece her life together after a truly horrible trauma ripped it to shreds. Living out of her car and with no resources, Katie finds a job at a care facility for adults with special needs and comes to care deeply for one of her charges, Stephanie (Kinkle’s real-life sister), a young woman with Down Syndrome. Just as Katie begins to become comfortable in her new life, terrible flashes of her past begin to interject themselves, leading her to wonder if a truly evil figure (Fessenden) has returned to target poor Stephanie or whether Katie has finally lost the last frayed edges of her sanity.

Unlike Kinkle’s more polished debut, Dementer is pretty much the definition of no frills, low-budget indie filmmaking. Cinematographer Jeff Wedding shoots the film in such a way that, when combined with the mostly non-professional cast (the film is set at what appears to be an actual care facility and features the staff and residents), achieves a startling degree of realism. At times, I was reminded of something like Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, if for no other reason than their shared ability to completely demolish the barrier between film fiction and reality.

This is also an extremely personal project for Kinkle since his real-life sister, Stephanie, stars as the woman that Katie tries to save from sinister forces. As such, the film never feels disrespectful of the residents of the home and nothing about it feels forced or exploitative. If anything, the various residents all receive ample opportunities to express themselves in the film, resulting in a work that feels notably character-driven for an ultra-low budget horror film. It’s something that I wish all films took the time to do, regardless of genre or finances.

All that being said, I must confess that I did not love this film, despite my deep respect for it. While the setting provides for an unbeatable atmosphere of reality, too much of the film involves Katie’s various duties around the care facility, broken up with regular interjections via flashback. After a certain point, it develops a pattern and becomes rather predictable, making the film seem repetitive on a narrative level. I also felt that the drama elements worked better than the horror ones: they felt more authentic and, ironically, interesting (workday routines not withstanding), although Fessenden was a force to be reckoned with whenever he was on-screen. Call this a near miss for me, although I eagerly await Kinkle’s next film.

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The Ringing Bell

Poor Judah (Brandon Cole) has a bit of a problem: he’s a lucid dreamer and having an impossible time telling his vivid waking dreams from reality. This inability to tell fact from fantasy is messing with not only Judah’s ability to process grief (someone close to him is gone) but also with his participation in an ill-advised bank robbery concocted by his cousin, Brona (Anieya Walker), and her on-again/off-again lover, Orva (Joelyn Dormady). Will the contents of the mysterious box they seek have the answers that Judah is looking for or will the pursuit of forbidden knowledge be the downfall of them all?

It’s quite obvious that The Ringing Bell is a very personal project for multi-hyphenate filmmaker Casey T. Malone. He says as much, in a festival intro, but he also serves as writer/director/producer/editor/score composer and cinematographer: that’s a lot of hats  to wear, especially when the subject is personal pain, grief and loss. As such, there’s a weight to The Ringing Bell that you don’t often get in low-budget genre films, especially those rare ones that are fantasy-leaning.

The other thing you will remember about this film long after it’s over is how amazing so much of it looks. Combining animated sequences, surreal live-action and stop-motion effects, The Ringing Bell is, without a doubt, a truly singular, imaginative, mind-boggling film. I’m not sure if Malone was involved in the animation and effects or if that was the work of John Baker (creature designs) and Fred Franczak (production design) but whoever did it absolutely blew my mind, especially when you consider that this was most likely another very low-budget production. There’s a monster effect, at one point, that’s easily in my Top 20 moments of the year. Not all indie films have a discernible sense of style and design but The Ringing Bell brought enough for the whole class.

Here’s the thing, though: as much as I loved the film’s look and sense of surreal imagination, I’m pretty hard-pressed to tell you what it was actually about. Despite watching the film closely and being fully engaged, I still have no idea who Judah was mourning (or why), which made it difficult to get into his mindset. I have a feeling that much of the film was supposed to exist in a dream logic realm but I found myself along for the ride more than actively engaged. When combined with a particularly quiet sound mix that made it difficult to hear dialogue, too much of the film became the equivalent of visual interludes strung together.

Perhaps repeat viewings would prove beneficial in this case: I’m sure that I missed something that would have cleared up a few loose ends for me. It’s obvious that Malone and company brought a lot of passion and innovation to The Ringing Bell, even if it never fully clicked with me. I’m more than willing to see what they have up their sleeves next time around.

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Koko-di Koko-da

As I mentioned earlier, most of the films playing at this year’s CFF were complete unknowns to me, but there were a few exceptions, chief among them being Swedish writer-director Johannes Nyholm’s Koko-di Koko-da. While I had purposefully avoided spoilers, I’d read enough advanced press on the film to know that it was being heralded as disturbing and surreal. Turns out, the critics hit it right on the nose.

Existing in the same general vicinity as the works of Alex van Warmerdam, Lars von Trier, Michael Haneke and Yorgos Lanthimos, Nyholm’s thought-provoking sophomore feature plays out like a truly horrifying, demented fairy tale. Tobias and Elin (Leif Edlund and Ylva Gallon) take a camping trip and try to work on their collapsed marriage three years after a horrible tragedy destroyed their family and future happiness in one, fell swoop. As if trying to repair a fractured relationship isn’t hard enough, however, they soon discover that they’ve chosen a rather unfortunate place to set up camp, managing to cross paths with a trio of demented individuals who are only too happy to teach them a truly twisted lesson. And then things get really strange.

Right off the bat, let me issue a gentle warning: this is one severely fucked up film. Engaging in the same sort of psychological terrorism that’s been von Trier’s stock in trade for his entire career, there are elements of Koko-di Koko-da that will stick to your brain like plankton, whether you want them to or not. By turns powerfully sad, disturbing, odd, disgusting and eye-opening, Nyholm’s film makes a perfect compliment to works like Funny Games, Borgman, Antichrist and The Killing of a Sacred Deer. If there are not moments in this film that don’t absolutely sting you to your core, I daresay that you didn’t pay much attention.

From a production standpoint, the film is immaculate: Nyholm achieves a completely immersive sense of icy-cold magical-realism that makes one feel as if they’re taking an (unfortunate) look into a parallel universe that’s as beautiful as it is terrible. Cinematographers Tobias Holem-Flyckt and Johan Lundborg shoot some gorgeous images, including plenty of amazing overhead shots that turn the film’s repeated theme into something of a museum diorama: it’s awesome stuff and something I never got tired of. Combine this with Pia Aleborg’s insanely detailed production design and Koko-di Koko-da is a world that you never tire of looking at, even if it’s never a place you want to visit.

The acting is all top-notch, with heart-breaking performances from Edlund and Gallon that are almost too real and painful to be anything close to entertaining. The ghastly trio, bemusing as they are, are perfect antagonists, coming off as a bit of a marriage between Rob Zombie’s Firefly clan and van Warmerdam’s invasive Borgman. While the cast is small (essentially five people, two dogs and a cat), it plays in perfectly with the film’s general sense of isolation and alienation.

Is Koko-di Koka-da a well-made film? Without a doubt: in fact, I daresay it’s one of the best films of the year, from a purely technical standpoint. Is it a good film? Depending on your tolerance-level, I’d go so far as to say that it’s a great film: Nyholm has a singular vision and executes it perfectly. Is it a film that I intend to revisit any time soon? Not a chance, friends. Even as I type this, images and scenes keep popping into my head, none of which I’d prefer to remember. Like the best (most difficult?) works of the aforementioned filmmakers, Koko-di Koko-da is an uncompromising, unpleasant and unforgettable deep dive into the misery of the human condition. You won’t see much gore on display here but the characters are skinned and filleted, nonetheless.

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This takes us through the first half of Day Two: in service of trying to break up a rather considerable chunk of text, I’ve opted to split the screenings into two posts. Tune in for the remainder as we continue to move through our experience at this year’s Chattanooga Film Festival. As always, boos and ghouls, stay safe and remember: there’s always room for one more at The VHS Graveyard.

The VHS Graveyard Meets the Chattanooga Film Festival – Day One

Tags

2020, animated films, Attack of the Demons, Brian Emond, CFF, Chatanooga Film Festival, cinema, directorial debut, Eric Power, film festival favorite, film festivals, films, homage, horror, Jeffrey A Brown, mockumentary, movie reviews, Movies, new movies, The Beach House, The Chattanooga Film Festival, The Vice Guide to Bigfoot, writer-director, Zach Lamplugh

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As usually happens at festivals, Day One is all about getting your bearings, making plans and easing into the serious business of having fun. As such, my first day at the Chattanooga Film Fest only involved three full lengths, four shorts and about 45 minutes of a filmmakers’ commentary session (full disclosure: I guess I’m not super fond of talking during a film regardless of who does it). I’d make up time in the following few days, however, and that’s really all that matters when you’re playing the long game.

Ultimately, though, it’s about quality and there was no shortage of that on display. Let’s start everything in earnest now, shall we? With no further ado, in order, I present my Friday screenings from this year’s Chattanooga Film Festival.

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Attack of the Demons

As outsiders descend on the small Colorado town of Barrington for its annual Halloween/battle-of-the-bands festival, we see that all isn’t quite as hunky-dory as it seems. In particular, one robed stranger has literally brought Hell to town in the form of a virulently infectious demonic plague that brings gruesome death and even more gruesome rebirth to all it touches. The only hope for the world lies in the hands of a group of survivors brought together by fate and a desperate need to escape…the Attack of the Demons!

As with nearly every film I screened during the festival, I knew nothing about Attack of the Demons before I actually sat down to watch it, aside from the fact that is was animated. Within moments, I was hooked. By the end credits, the film had entered that rare ground that I like to call “Instant Classics.” There haven’t been many of them but this is most certainly one of those.

What makes director Eric Power’s homage to horror of all eras so unforgettable? In this case, the answer is in the attention to detail. While Attack of the Demons utilizes the same sort of “moving paper” style that South Park has made so famous, the filmmakers have packed every inch of the film with so many lovingly rendered details that it makes the whole thing feel impossibly alive and practically demands repeat viewings. From the intricacies of the various humans, demons and animals presented to all the truly amusing in-jokes that reference not only horror but music (the obviously Misfits-inspired Banshee Riders are as brilliant as the amazing ’70s Italian horror flick that we glimpse), there’s almost too much to take in on the first go.

None of the cool details would mean a thing if everything else in the film wasn’t firing on all cylinders but this is the complete package: the voice acting is excellent and nuanced, the score is brilliant (one of the best Carpenter clones I’ve heard yet), the editing, writing and production elements are all top-notch, the humor and horror halves are perfectly balanced (the film is consistently funny) and it’s quite obvious that the filmmakers dearly love horror. While I’ve heard this described as “South Park meets Evil Dead,” I actually got more of a Demons vibe (lots of references to Italian horror) mixed with lots of The Thing. For all you gore-hounds out there, just know that this thing is so splattery, if it were live action, it might out-do Peter Jackson’s immortal Dead Alive.

This was the kind of movie that I never wanted to end which, if you think about it, is really the best kind of film. Suffice to say that I’ll keep my beady eyes fixed on Power and company from now on: this is as close to a perfect film as it gets, at least as far as I’m concerned.

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The Vice Guide to Bigfoot

Opting to keep the mood light, I decided to follow with one of my favorite sub-genres: the mockumentary. As with the best of these kinds of films, the plot is as streamlined as necessary: egotistical, jackass Vice reporter Brian (co-writer Brian Emond) and his put-upon producer/cameraman/friend Zach (director/co-writer Zach Lamplugh) are sent to the wilds of Georgia to meet up with cryptid hunter/YouTube celebrity, Jeff (Jeffrey Stephenson), and hunt for Bigfoot. The problem? Smart-ass Brian thinks this is all a bunch of click-bait bullshit while goofy Jeff truly believes. When strange things start to happen in the woods, will this be the proof that Jeff needs or Brian’s chance to finally crack a “real” story?

Finding the perfect balance between snide and sincere, Lamplugh and Emond’s film is not only smart and well-made but genuinely funny and full of plenty of surprising, organic twists and turns. The characters all end up being so well-developed and likable that the film develops real stakes by the seat-of-your pants finale, something that many horror-comedies struggle with: you come to care about all of these idiots so much that you really don’t want anything bad to befall them, regardless of how stupid they behave. The horror aspect, while not overpowering, was still nicely realized with some surprisingly effective touches of gore.

Where the film really excels, however, is with the deftly handled humor. Whether coming from Brian and Zach’s push-me/pull-you relationship, the subtle skewering of YouTube/Soundcloud celebrities, Jeff’s general buffoonery or Brian’s essentially caustic view of anything that isn’t him,  there’s a lot of funny stuff being thrown at the screen and the vast majority of it works, especially once we get to that bonkers finale.

Perhaps the highest praise that I can give The Vice Guide to Bigfoot, however, is that I would love to see this become a franchise: while the film isn’t perfect, these are the kinds of characters I want to spend more time with. Hell, The Vice Guide to the Jersey Devil is playing in my head, as I type, and it’s great. Talk about the power of cinema!

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The Beach House

After a couple of comedies, it was finally time to get into the serious stuff and writer-director Jeffrey A. Brown’s The Beach House was one that had me intrigued based on the synopsis alone. It promised to be weird and creepy, two things that have me responding faster than Pavlov’s pooch.

A couple with relationship issues decide to get away from the world at a secluded beach house owned by the guy’s family. Once there, however, they discover that they aren’t alone: a couple of family friends are already there, although they’re only too happy to share the gorgeous ocean view. While this seems a little odd, the intense bio-luminescence and gathering fog outside seem even odder still. And then things get really weird.

Recalling films as diverse as Richard Stanley’s recent adaptation of The Color Out of Space, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Darren Aronofsky’s Mother! and The Mist, Brown’s feature-length debut is quite the accomplished bit of filmmaking. In fact, cinematographer Owen Levelle might just have provided us with some of the most singularly gorgeous shots of the whole year: there are moments in The Beach House, like the opening deep dive to the ocean floor, that truly take your breath away. The sound design, editing, production design and performances are all apiece with the camerawork, making this one of the most immaculately crafted movies I’ve seen in some time.

And yet, for all that, I didn’t love The Beach House. Despite being thought-provoking and visually lush, I also found it a bit overlong and repetitive: I also wasn’t fond of a particular story element, something that I felt was a little below the film’s overall reach. If the worst thing you can really accuse a film of is doing things that you don’t agree with, however, than the film must inherently be doing something right. There was a lot to like here and somethings that I’ll never forget: the scenes with the bio-luminescence, for example, probably rank with some of the most awe-inspiring things I’ve ever seen in a film. I predict a very interesting career for those involved: this was a helluva calling card.

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While I didn’t get through quite as many features as I wanted and barely even scratched the surface of the other content, this first day of the CFF would bode well for the days ahead. At this point, there was still 23 films to go: who knew what was in store? Stay tuned, dear readers, and find out.

The VHS Graveyard Meets the Chattanooga Film Festival – Intro

Tags

2020, CFF, Chattanooga Film Festival, film festivals, films, horror, Movies, new releases, streaming festivals, The Chattanooga Film Festival, The VHS Graveyard, writing

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Hello, boos and ghouls, and welcome to the very first VHS Graveyard post of what has turned out to be quite the eventful year. When last we spoke in November 2019, your humble host was mid-way through the annual 31 Days of Halloween spooktacular (albeit with his usual flair for tardiness) and the future seemed relatively uneventful. If this were a post-apocalyptic film, it would be the cold opener depicting the world as we know it.

Flash-forward almost six months later, however, and you would be hard-pressed to find much that looks familiar. If this were a film, it would be the part after the cold open where we first meet our protagonist attempting to carve out a place in the brutal new reality. Hundreds of thousands of deaths and a crushed global economy have not so much rewritten the rules as set them on fire. With live entertainment of almost any sort on hold and theatrical film releases pushed into the near future, it’s certainly not an easy time to be an entertainer, much less a critic.

Humans are nothing if not adaptable, however, so adapt we have, in ways both big and small. While the notion of streaming movies in the modern era has become as humdrum as checking your watch, the pandemic has given rise to a truly revolutionary idea: streaming film festivals. With leisurely travel and large gatherings temporarily off the table, an online version of destination film festivals really is the next best thing. 2020 has been a year of firsts, for better or worse, and in that spirit, I decided to throw my support behind one of the best and brightest fests: the Chattanooga Film Festival (CFF).

To be honest, the notion hadn’t even crossed my mind right up until the very moment, this past Friday, when I happened to read an article about the Chattanooga Film Fest. Equally intrigued by the large lineup (26 features and perhaps twice that number of shorts) and low price point (roughly the equivalent of renting five new releases), I made the spur of the moment decision to put the long weekend to good use and purchased an all-access pass.

With nothing to compare it to, I’d have to automatically rate the CFF as the best streaming fest I’ve personally attended. On size and merit, alone, however, it also held its own with genre spectaculars like Fantastic Fest. The site layout was easy to use and there was an embarrassment of riches. Along with the features and shorts, the festival featured all the usual staples: lots of industry panel discussions, celebrations of genre icons, live commentaries and award presentations. I’m not ashamed to admit that I was only able to scratch the tip of the iceberg with all the extra content: my focus was always going to be those 26 features and there are only so many hours in a weekend. It’s to the Chattanooga Film Fest’s great credit, however, that I really wanted to attend pretty much all of them: I’ll try to budget my time better in the future.

After spending four full days with the CFF and plowing my way through 20 of the 26 features, I really don’t have any complaints. In fact, I enjoyed myself so much that I wouldn’t mind checking out the in-person version of the festival some day when the world isn’t on fire. Until that time, however, I’ll have my memories and you, dear readers, will have a full write-up on the goodies that I laid my eyes upon. While not every one of the 20 was a home-run, several hit it so hard outta the park that it circled the globe and bopped ’em in the back of the head.

Stay tuned for a deeper dive into what wonders this weekend held: from animated carnage to surreal tearjerkers, from knee-slappers to screaming psychological torment, there was a little bit of everything and we’re only too happy to share it with you lovely people.

The VHS Graveyard may have been away for a while but we’re back now: take a deep breath, grab our hand and follow us into the dark woods. We have such sights to show, my children…such beautiful, terrible sights to show.

 

The 31 Days of Halloween (2019): 10/7-10/13

Tags

31 Days of Halloween, Dead End, Europa Report, Event Horizon, film reviews, films, Halloween, Halloween traditions, horror, horror films, horror movies, Little Monsters, Movies, October, Sam Raimi, The Evil Dead, The Evil Dead 2, The Ranger, Tone-Deaf

Hot on the heels of our Week One post, please make yourselves acquainted with the films screened during Week Two of the 31 Days of Halloween. You’ll find a few old favorites, a new favorite and a couple of near-misses. Without further ado, let’s all go to the movies!

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The Evil Dead (1981)

We began the second week of October with Sam Raimi’s first trip to the woods, the original Evil Dead. Similar to favorites such as The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Night of the Living Dead and Friday the 13th, I’ve already seen Raimi’s influential masterpiece enough times to have it mostly memorized. Why, then, watch it again?

The answer, of course, is that it’s just that good. Plain and simple. The original Evil Dead is a master class in lean, mean, indie film-making, regardless of the subject matter. It’s managed to influence nearly 40 years worth of film, both inside and outside the horror genre. It might be difficult to view The Evil Dead’s “Deadite POV/moving camera” effect as anything special in the year 2019 but turn the clock back to 1981 and see how often it turned up.

Aside from its influence on the genre, The Evil Dead endures because it’s pretty much the epitome of indie-horror: lots of guts (both internal and external), a thoroughly kickass hero/antihero (BRUUUUUUUUCE!), a simple set-up executed well, a creepy location and a nice, succinct run-time. Why keep watching The Evil Dead after so many years? Because it’s a classic: plain and simple.

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The Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn (1987)

You can’t really have one without the other, right? While the sequel often seems to exist more as a soft reboot than an actual sequel, it’s all part of the same wacky Evil Dead universe and more Ash is never gonna be a bad thing!

While both films share similar elements, Dead By Dawn takes advantage of its larger budget to showcase some truly unforgettable setpieces and effects. Most importantly, the sequel moves Bruce Campbell’s Ash even more to the front and center, firmly establishing one of the greatest characters ever.

It’s always a toss-up, for me, as to which of the two I prefer at any given point: Evil Dead 1 and 2 often feel like two sides of the same coin. At the end of the day, the question is: can you really have too much Bruce Campbell? The answer is always “No. No, you cannot.”

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Event Horizon (1997)

I vividly recall seeing Paul W. S. Anderson’s sci-fi/horror chiller Event Horizon when it first came out in theaters. At twenty-years old, I already had over a decade of horror viewing under my belt but the film still creeped me out. Dark, disturbing and possessed of a demented vision that managed to toss Hellraiser and Solaris into a blender, Event Horizon had moments of cheese but more than enough blood-chilling material to stick in my head for years to come.

Over the years, I’ve revisited the film numerous times, usually treating it as cinematic comfort food but rarely giving it much critical thought. This time around, however, I decided to watch it with “fresh eyes,” as it were, and pretend that I was seeing it for the first time. Would the film still have the same effect more than twenty years later?

Turns out the answer is “yes” but to a much lesser degree. While this Gothic, Lovecraftian space fable still has plenty of disturbing elements (the film’s vision of Hell is the very best kind of Hellraiser ripoff), the cheese shows through in a more obvious way than it seemed to when I was younger. In particular, the film’s special effects are much more hit-or-miss than I remembered: while the makeup is generally pretty good, the fire effects are generally pretty terrible. At the end of the day, Event Horizon is very much a product of its time, despite my continued support and enjoyment. That being said: will I continue to program this into my spooky viewing in the coming years? Absolutely.

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The Ranger (2018)

There’s a lot going on in write/director/editor Jenn Wexler’s feature-length debut, The Ranger. The film is a punk rock slasher, while also being a serious meditation on grief, trauma and repressed memories. There are moments of deeply morbid gallows humor, followed by explosive violence (often in the same scene). The soundtrack is loud and proudly celebrates the counter-culture, ala Repo Man, yet the film is just as often quiet and meditative, which befits a film that’s as much about conservation as it is about rebellious youth.

While respecting The Ranger and what it set out to do, I’d be lying if I said I loved it. In fact, I often found the film’s boundless energy to be rather tedious and obnoxious, similar to the worst excesses of Gregg Araki or Harmony Korine. I genuinely disliked most of the characters and really found myself rooting for the antagonist (to a point, mind you), which might have been part of the point in the first place.

Despite those  complaints, I must admit that The Ranger fascinated me. The film was never dull and, at times, could be as genuinely odd as the aforementioned Repo Man, always one of my favorites. If I really need to classify this as a “miss,” it was definitely by the narrowest of margins. I genuinely look forward to seeing what filmmaker Wexler does for the follow-up: this might not have always been my cup of tea but it was definitely a strong brew and one I wouldn’t mind trying again in the future.

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Little Monsters (2019)

As for Australian writer/director Abe Forsythe’s new rom-zom-com Little Monsters, suffice to say that I fell hopelessly in love with it early on and stayed in love for the whole of its run-time. A radiantly positive school-teacher teams up with a wastoid guitar player and lecherous children’s entertainer to save her wards from a zombie attack: that’s pretty much the film, in a nutshell. Despite its simplicity, this modern-day fable was just about as close to perfect as a film gets and an easy contender for one of the very best films of the whole year, if not the decade. Trust me, gentle readers: it really is that good.

The reasons are multifold (as but one example, the writing is impossibly tight and genuinely funny) but one of the most obvious and important is Lupita Nyong’o’s simply stunning portrayal of the perennially sunny Miss Caroline, protector of children and player of ukuleles. Everything about the performance works perfectly, creating one of the most instantly indelible characters in the history of the genre: stunning career notwithstanding, Nyong’o’s Miss Caroline would have made her a star all over again.

And that’s still only the tip of the iceberg: this is a film where the laughs, fist-raising moments (there’s a bit involving a young boy, a Darth Vader mask and a horde of zombies that’s as good as anything that Edgar Wright ever put on film) and nail-biting near-misses all come in equal measures. Just when I thought the zombie sub-genre was totally wrung-dry, here comes a fresh, new take that wins me over with some surprisingly old-fashioned ingredients: genuine heart, phenomenal acting, great practical effects and a strong script. I deeply love this film and cannot wait for Forsythe’s next project. And let’s get Nyong’o some more horror scripts, stat!

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Dead End (2004)

Ironically enough, the final destination for French writer/directors Jean-Baptiste Andrea and Fabrice Canepa’s English-language debut, Dead End, is nowhere near as interesting as the journey. While the conclusion is decidedly old-hat and more than a little moldy, the lead-up features plenty of creepy atmosphere, odd situations and genre vets like Lin Shaye and Ray Wise giving all-in performances.

As patriarch Frank (Wise) grudgingly drives the family to Laura (Shaye)’s parents house for their 20th Christmas in a row, he decides to break tradition and take a shortcut: big mistake, as it turns out. In no time, the feuding couple, along with their grown children, are trapped in a terrible cycle that features a seemingly endless road, an ominous hearse and a mysterious woman-in-white. Will they be able to get back to sane ground or will the holidays really end up being the death of them all?

Despite a handful of issues, including that irksome ending, Dead End is a fairly intriguing, creepy film, bolstered to no small extent by Shaye and Wise’s classic interplay. While the film has a tendency to lean into the silly end of things, it never tips over enough to make the film seem inane or lightweight. If you’re into The Twilight Zone or Tales From the Dark Side, Dead End might be a route you should consider adding to your GPS. Just don’t expect an overly smooth ride: like most shortcuts, this comes with plenty of bumps in the road.

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Europa Report (2013)

I’m a sucker for anything that involves deep space exploration, especially when it bisects the horror genre, so I’ve always had a soft spot for this quiet, meditative found-footage(esqe) film. Despite a focus that is definitively more dramatic than horrific, I think there are plenty of reasons to include this unsung gem in your October viewing: after all, what’s more terrifying than stepping foot on an alien planet and searching for intelligent life that may or may not want to say hello?

While rarely directly horrific, Europa Report deals with lots of horror-adjacent themes including loss, the unknown, grief and insanity: there’s one intense scene, set during a spacewalk repair mission, that manages to combine horror and pathos in equal quantities. It’s pretty heady stuff but the focus is always on wonder and exploration rather than doom and gloom. By comparison, I’ve always felt that Danny Boyle’s earlier Sunshine (2007) was too morose and downcast to really satisfy that needed sense of wonder. Europa Report is an inherently sad film, in many ways, but it never skimps on the genuine sense of wonder found in any kind of exploration, especially the deep space kind.

Europa Report asks one question (is life possible in an alien ocean that covers an entire planet?) and then posits an answer that is by turns moving, inspiring, frightening and intelligent. This might not be as explicitly horror-leaning a film as something like Alien (1979) or even the aforementioned Sunshine but it more than makes up for a lack of generic scares with a focus on intelligent, thought-provoking ideas: I’ll take that over a paint-by-numbers slasher any day of the week.

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Tone-Deaf (2019)

When it comes to the best genre filmmakers of the 2010s, no conversation should exclude oddball auteur Richard Bates, Jr. After all, in less than a decade, Bates has managed to write and direct three of the most challenging, impressive and daring genre hybrids to hit our frontal cortex in quite some time: Excision (2012), Suburban Gothic (2014) and Trash Fire (2016). With his newest film, Tone-Deaf, debuting at the tail end of this decade, I was all but positive that Bates would not only get the final word  in on the 2010s but  that it would be a glorious word, indeed.

Unfortunately, as often happens, my hopes and assumptions didn’t quite hit the mark. Not only is Tone-Deaf the weakest entry in Bates’ filmography, thus far, but it also managed to be one of the more middling efforts of the whole year. What gives? How did one of my favorite modern filmmakers manage to make one of the lesser films of 2019?

The problem, as it turns out, is that Tone-Deaf is all text, no subtext. Bates seems to have had but one goal in mind: hammer home the ever-widening gulf between “Baby Boomers” and “Millennials,” making the whole thing as obvious as possible. This tale of a ruthlessly self-entitled Millennial (Amanda Crew) renting an AirBnB from a murderous Baby Boomer (Robert Patrick) has no surprises whatsoever because everything is telegraphed right to the audience, often via monologues that Patrick delivers right to the camera.

It’s a shame, really, because the film looks and sounds absolutely gorgeous: cinematographer Ed Wu shoots the mansion location to excellent effect and there’s a neatly trippy acid sequence, at one point, that manages to stake claim as being one of the better cinematic drug trips out there. Visually, Tone-Deaf is as good as Bates gets. Thematically, however, it feels more like a collapsed souffle than any sort of intelligent discourse on this battle of the ages (literally). Bates has traded in the scalding discourse and ideas of his first three films (particularly the scathing Trash Fire) for mindless sniping and the kind of notions that are probably more appropriate for memes than indie cinema. It’s a real shame but I’m confident he’ll course-correct on his next project: after all, they can’t all be hits, right?

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And with that, our Week Two coverage has come to an end. Stay tuned for Week Three, faithful readers!

The 31 Days of Halloween (2019): 10/1-10/6

Tags

31 Days of Halloween, based on a book, film adaptations, film reviews, films, Halloween, Halloween traditions, Head Count, horror, horror films, I Trapped the Devil, In the Tall Grass, Into the Dark, Larry Cohen, Movies, October, Q, Q: The Winged Serpent, Stephen King, Uncanny Annie, Vincenzo Natali, Waxwork

Happy 2019, boos and ghouls! Welcome back to The VHS Graveyard and our annual 31 Days of Halloween coverage. Long time readers will know that we keep the motto “Better late than never” pretty close to our coal-black heart: as such, we present the first week of this month just a few days before October is officially wrapped-up. Such is life.

At some point, we’ll need to address the zombie elephant in the room (this is, after all, our first post in over a year) but we’ll cross that creepy, covered country bridge when we get to it. For now, sink into a comfortable chair, turn the way-back machine to the beginning of the month and prepare thyself: The 31 Days of Halloween is officially upon us!

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Q: The Winged Serpent (1982)

When New York b-movie guru Larry Cohen passed away in late March, it was a given that I’d screen at least one film from his prolific career this October: Cohen was not only one of the original bad boys of ’70s cinema but he was, hands-down, one of my personal favorite auteurs. The only question: which one (or more) of his indelible films to peruse?

While I could’ve gone with It’s Alive (1974), God Told Me To (1976), The Stuff (1985) or Maniac Cop (1988), I opted for eternal classic Q to kick-off this holiday season. Why do I love this film about a winged monster feasting on New Yorkers so much? Let’s see: a kickass creature design…strong humor and satirical elements (a Cohen hallmark)…a phenomenally sleazy performance from Michael Moriarty…David Carradine and Richard Roundtree as wise-cracking NYPD detectives…tons of b-movie fun and thrills…just enough gore to make this a Times Square grindhouse staple (the skinned corpse comes out of nowhere and is a real showstopper)…the list goes on and on.

If you’re in the mood for a fun, slightly smirking take on the monster film that’s equal parts Jaws and King Kong, you only need to remember one letter: Q. The unequaled Larry Cohen will take care of everything else.

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I Trapped the Devil (2019)

With a premise that strongly echoes key elements of the first season of Stephen King-centric TV series Castle Rock, multi-hyphenate-filmmaker Josh Lobo’s feature debut, I Trapped the Devil, was never going to score high marks for originality. Nonetheless, I was curious to see how this particular take on the old “Is that the Devil behind the door?” trope would turn out.

As it turns out, I Trapped the Devil picks the middle-lane of the freeway and sticks there for the entirety of his journey. The film certainly has its moments (the cloying atmosphere is constant and foreboding, while any of the red-lit basement scenes are easily visual highlights), moments which are offset by plenty of problems. The acting is stiff across the board, for one thing, with too much of the film coming off stagey. There’s also plenty of stuff that just doesn’t make sense, the longer one ruminates, but that ends up being a minor issue in the grand scheme.

The biggest problem with Lobo’s I Trapped the Devil turns out to be how naggingly familiar and mediocre everything is: there was plenty of potential here but the final product is virtually identical to any number of direct-to-video chillers. Let’s hope that the filmmaker’s next project has a bit more of its own identity.

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Uncanny Annie (2019)

Overall, I’m a big fan of Hulu’s Into the Dark series, even if the first season was a study in hit/miss. For my money, anything that gets horror fans more product (Into the Dark promises – and delivers – an original, holiday-themed full-length for each month of the year) can never be a bad thing, even if the productions run the gamut from decent-enough to intriguing. With the first season under my belt, I eagerly awaited the debut of Season 2: meet Uncanny Annie, Into the Dark’s second Halloween-themed episode.

Coming off like a horror version of Jumanji (1995) rather than a different take on Beyond the Gates (2016), Uncanny Annie deals with a group of college kids that find themselves sucked into a creepy board game and forced to do battle with the titular evil little girl. While the film has plenty of inventive moments, the whole thing is just a little too silly and over-the-top to be truly effective. In particular, the lead terror is kinda awful, bleeding any tension from key scenes where we really need things to go off the rails.

Uncanny Annie certainly isn’t the worst episode of Into the Dark, thus far, but that definitely doesn’t make it one of the best ones: for the first of twelve new installments, however, it does a fine job of whetting the appetite for future goodness. As long as I get some of the same greatness from last season (I’m lookin’ at you, Pooka!), I’ll be a happy boy.

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In the Tall Grass (2019)

Full disclosure: I think that American-Canadian film auteur Vincenzo Natali is one of the best, smartest filmmakers working today. From his mindbending debut, Cube (1997) to disturbing sci-fi/horror hybrid Splice (2009) to quietly stunning “ghost story” Haunter (2013), he’s spent two decades finding intriguing new ways to tell familiar stories. While Natali doesn’t have a lot of easily recognizable stylistic elements, there is one aspect of his films that’s consistent, across the board: just when you think his film is going one way, it flips the script and goes the other way with frightening ease. In other words, when Natali’s name is on the marquee, expect the unexpected.

His newest film, a full-length adaptation of Stephen King and Joe Hill’s novella, In the Tall Grass, is nowhere near as brilliant or groundbreaking as Cube or Haunter but it still looks and feels like a Natali film, through and through. In fact, the biggest complaint I really have with the film is that it feels a bit like two pretty decent movies jammed together: the original novella is handily dealt with in the first 30 minutes or so of the film, leaving a whole hour’s worth of “new material” that works but also dilutes from the core idea.

This story about a brother and sister following a child’s voice into an endless field of grass and becoming trapped in a bizarre, horrendous cycle of violence has plenty to recommend it: the central concept of the “ritual rock” is just as strong as it was in the novella, Patrick Wilson gives one helluva performance as the mysterious boy’s father and the multiple timelines/multiverses allows for one of the very best, creepiest images I’ve ever seen in a film, hands down. If In the Tall Grass isn’t as revelatory as the rest of Natali’s catalog, it’s also his first mainstream adaptation, so he gets a pass. I know he’ll get back to his patented brand of weirdness soon enough and I’ll be right there when he does.

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Waxwork (1988)

If you know me well, you know that some films are pure comfort food for me: there are certain titles I could watch on repeat for weeks and never tire of. While the list is pretty long, there’s one title that always manages to land somewhere at the top. Anthony Hickox’s pitch-perfect Waxwork may not be one of the best horror films ever but it sure as hell is one of my favorites.

What makes this grisly, darkly-comic fable about young people falling prey to an evil wax museum’s exhibits so special? I could probably come up with a page full of reasons, including one of the niftiest ’80s casts ever, but it’s just as easy to boil it down to just the essentials: Waxwork is pure fun with a big, ol’ capital F.

From one great set-piece to the next, Hickox and crew deliver just what horror fanatics look for in our fare: some blood, some jumps, some clever dialogue and references to the classics, a brisk pace and precious little wasted space. Not all of the set-pieces/exhibits are equally neat but there’s never a point in the film where it becomes tedious or tiresome. Individual results may vary but if you consider yourself a fan of ’80s horror and haven’t seen this one yet, you should probably rectify that as soon as possible.

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Head Count (2018)

What would you get if you were to splice It Follows (2014) and Coherence (2014) into one unified film? Chances are, you’d end up with something that looks and feels a whole lot like writer/director Elle Callahan’s debut feature, Head Count. Set in the hard-baked, desert climes of Joshua Tree, California, Callahan’s debut involves a pair of estranged brothers, a group of partying twenty-somethings and some sort of evil, shape-shifting creature known as a Hisji. If that description gives you an instant visual of the kind of film Head Count is, you’re probably right on the money: there’s very little, if anything, that will surprise any but the most casual of horror fans.

This is not to say that Head Count is a bad movie, mind you: it’s actually quite well-made and possessed of a small handful of genuinely effective moments, most based around the unnerving notion that the person in front of you might not be exactly who they seem to be. The biggest problem with the film, aside from the very generic characters (we learn almost nothing about any of them short of their various relationship statuses), is the almost suffocating sense of deja vu: so much of the elements involved are instantly familiar (you even call the Hisji by repeating its name several times, just like…well…take your pick) that it often feels like a series of references to other works.

Here’s the thing, though: there’s enough of a strong foundation to Head Count that writing off the filmmaker would be a fool’s errand. I’ve seen plenty of debuts that were much worse than this and led to pretty substantial careers: I’m more than willing to wait and see what Callahan and team will come up with in the future. Until then, consider this a pretty decent, if awfully familiar, calling card.

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Coming soon: Week Two of the 31 Days of Halloween.

The 31 Days of Halloween (2018): 10/15-10/21

Tags

31 Days of Halloween, films, Grabbers, Halloween, Halloween traditions, horror, horror films, horror-comedies, Mom and Dad, October, reviews, The Alchemist Cookbook, The Cleanse, The Monster Squad, The Witch in the Window

October may be over for another year, but its spirit lives on as the VHS Graveyard presents the 3rd week of the 31 Days of Halloween. For this week, the lineup was split almost evenly between the old and the new, including one of the most essential seasonal horror films you could possibly find. With no further ado, let’s jump right into Week Three of the 31 Days of Halloween.

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The Witch in the Window (2018)

I really dug writer/director Andy Mitton’s trippy, Wizard of Oz via Blair Witch debut Yellowbrickroad (2010): the film was weird, disturbing and featured one of the best sound designs I’ve ever experienced in a film. Suffice to say I’m much less impressed with his newest offering, The Witch in the Window.

This tale of a recently divorced father and his obnoxious thirteen-year-old son renovating a country estate where a supposed witch died (hence the title) is mostly a moody, atmospheric haunted house flick. When it’s not that, however, it has a tendency to be an incredibly silly Conjuring ripoff. There were a couple of genuinely creepy moments to be found here but nothing had the impact or lasting feeling of dread that Yellowbrickroad did. Decent enough but certainly not essential.

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Halloween (1978)

I fully intended to see the new Halloween reboot in theaters this October, despite my general dislike of remakes. When that didn’t pan out, I figured that I needed to cut out the middleman and go straight for John Carpenter’s classic original: like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Night of the Living Dead, it’s one of the few films that I could watch endlessly and never tire of.

40 years old this year, Halloween is just as powerful now as it was then. The film continues to be a textbook example of building suspense and fear in a cinematic mode, utilizing every tool in the bag: everything from writer/director Carpenter’s chilling synth score to legendary cinematographer Dean Cundey’s much-imitated camera moves help to establish one of the true cornerstones of modern cinematic horror. Suffice to say, this version of Michael, Laurie and Dr. Loomis has aged considerably well and should still be considered required viewing for horror fanatics both new and seasoned.

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The Alchemist Cookbook (2016)

I really loved indie grime auteur Joel Potrykus’ Buzzard (2014): I’d even go so far as to call that little marvel one of my very favorite films of all time. It’s that good. The eagerly-awaited follow-up, The Alchemist Cookbook, wasn’t quite as brilliant and kickass but it still had more than its fair share of ridiculous riches to appreciate.

This bare-bones, existential head-fuck involves a decidedly disturbed loner who appears to be trying to crack the secrets of the universe and procure untold riches. Or he may just be off his meds. The beauty of Potrykus’ film is that it really does keep us guessing all the way to the final frame. The Alchemist Cookbook is, essentially, a one-man show and lead Ty Hickson is more than up for the task. As with all of Potrykus’ films, this is definitely not for everyone but fans of the outre will find much to enjoy.

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The Monster Squad

I’ve dearly loved Fred Dekker’s Universal Monsters/Goonies mashup ever since I was a starry-eyed preteen. The dialogue is razor-sharp (Shane Black and Fred Dekker are one of the best script-writing duos of all time), the comedy works, there are plenty of epic moments and it features creature effects courtesy of the legendary Stan Winston. I’ve written about the film extensively, in the past, and didn’t really feel that a rewatch would reveal anything new.

Turns out, however, that a rewatch did unveil another facet of the film to me: the casual homophobia and misogyny that were endemic to so many ’80s comedies and action films are definitely present here and just as grating. The Monster Squad certainly isn’t a worse offender than something like Porky’s or Animal House but the constant slurs and horn-dog ogling definitely doesn’t play well in 2018. The film is never mean-spirited, mind you, but it’s not particularly enlightened, either.

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Grabbers (2012)

If you want a truly terrific log-line, look no further than Irish horror-comedy Grabbers: when a small fishing village is invaded of blood-thirsty, tentacled monstrosities, the townsfolk discover that the only way to survive the alcohol-allergic aliens is to stay constantly drunk. Someone’s gotta stay sober enough to repel the invasion, however, and that particular task falls to the town drunk…who also happens to be the local law enforcement. Heads will roll, tentacles will fly and pints will be quaffed, not necessarily in that order.

Horror-comedy is never an easy hybrid to pull off but Grabbers definitely falls on the successful side of the scale. Jon Wright’s direction is rock-solid, Kevin Lehane’s script is genuinely funny and the village setting is fantastically fresh. If anything, the production comes across as a younger sibling to Edgar Wright’s films, particularly something like The World’s End (which, ironically, came after). Special mention must be given to the amazing Richard Coyle (Jeff on the UK TV show Coupling and, more recently, Father Faustus Blackwood on the new Chilling Adventures of Sabrina): his portrayal of boozy garda Ciaran O’Shea is equally as iconic as the best horror heroes, propelled by his peerless comic timing. One of the very best modern-day sleepers.

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Mom and Dad (2018)

Top-lined by my second favorite Nic Cage performance of the year, writer/director Brian Taylor’s Mom and Dad is both genuinely odd and absolutely fascinating. The plot, delivered with no shortage of manic energy, is rather ingenious: something has caused parents to spontaneously decide to murder their children (of all ages), a compulsion that extends to the titular duo of Selma Blair and Nicolas Cage. The film basically plays out like a pitch-black, lethal version of Home Alone, albeit one where parents sub for the “Wet Bandits.”

I’ve never been a big fan of Taylor’s Crank films but have no problem admitting that I thoroughly enjoyed Mom and Dad. The cast is great (Blair and Cage, in particular), the sense of humor is spot-on and the violence is both bracing and thrilling. There’s no denying that the film is in poor taste but it’s also got enough subtext to support the taboo subject material. And really: are you going to pass up the opportunity to watch Nic Cage wreak havoc with a sledgehammer while shouting “The Hokey Pokey”? I think not.

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The Cleanse (2018)

Writer/director Bobby Miller’s feature debut, The Cleanse (aka The Master Cleanse), is probably one of the least “horror” films I screened this October, despite the subject matter. This tale of a sad sack (Johnny Galecki) and his soulmate (Anna Friel) exorcising their inner demons at a wilderness cleanse is really more in the Yorgos Lanthimos mode (particularly The Lobster) than it is a fright flick but probably includes enough base elements to let it slide.

Despite a strong cast (which also includes Anjelica Huston, Oliver Platt and Kevin J. O’Connor) and some pretty good production values, the film ends up feeling both rushed and unfinished. The ending, in particular, seems abrupt, leading to a 9-minute final credit crawl that feels like the worst kind of padding. There are plenty of good ideas here and the acting is strong enough, by itself, to warrant a look. By and large, though, I’m more curious to see what Miller comes up with next.

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Thus concludes Week Three of our little program. Stay tuned for Week Four and, as always, your patronage and patience is greatly appreciated!

The 31 Days of Halloween (2017): 10/29-10/31

Tags

31 Days of Halloween, A Dark Song, An American Werewolf in London, anthology films, cinema, film reviews, films, Halloween, Halloween traditions, horror, horror films, horror movies, Movies, Tales of Halloween, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2

With no further ado: the films screened during the final three days of the annual 31 Days of Halloween. These final films tended towards the “old favorites” variety but we still managed to sneak in a new, previously unseen film from this year, just to spice it up.

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Tales of Halloween

My very favorite seasonal anthology film will always and forever be Michael Dougherty’s Trick r Treat: he just nails the Halloween vibe so completely and authentically that there’s really no need to look further. That being said, you can only screen the film over so many consecutive All Hallows’ Eves before it begins to lose a smidgen of its precious luster.

That’s where the multi-director/writer effort Tales of Halloween comes in: it may not be the best Halloween-oriented anthology film out there but it’s a pretty damn close runner-up. Although this isn’t quite as unified as Dougherty’s classic, the shorts all take place in the same small town, on Halloween eve, so there’s definitely a little crossover/bleed-over between segments, leading to a nice sense of small-scale world-building. The segments also share the same rich production values and sense of style, so they all fit together visually, as well as thematically.

As with all anthology projects, not all of the shorts are winners but the scale is definitely tipped more towards the successful end of things than in something like The ABCs of Death or V/H/S: in particular, Mike Mendez (Big Ass Spider, Don’t Kill It) and Darren Lynn Bousman (Saw 2-4, Repo: The Genetic Opera) come up with impossibly fun segments that serve as highlights of both their respective careers. Tales of Halloween might not be quite as perfect as Trick r Treat but that’s no reason not to give it a turn in your seasonal programming.

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A Dark Song

Irish writer/director Liam Gavin’s debut, A Dark Song, is an often fascinating (if equally frustrating) treatise on love, loss, vengeance and forgiveness, set within the creepy confines of an isolated Welsh manor house. Grief-stricken Sophia (Catherine Walker) hires prickly occultist Solomon (the always prickly Steve Oram) to help her perform a long, arduous ritual that will (hopefully) allow her to communicate with her murdered son. As the days stretch into months, however, Sophia will come to question not only Solomon’s abilities but her own notions of reality.

Brooding, grim, leisurely paced and bolstered by a truly ominous, portentous score (courtesy of Ray Harman), Gavin’s debut layers on the atmosphere, to mostly good effect. The interplay between Walker and Oram is the real meat of the film and they play off each other pretty spectacularly: if nothing else, A Dark Song features two of the year’s sturdiest performances, hands down. The film also looks consistently great, thanks to Cathal Watters’ truly gorgeous cinematography: full of luxurious wide shots of the stunning countryside but equally comfortable with the dark, claustrophobic interiors of the main house setting, the camerawork is a key aspect of what makes A Dark Song work so well.

Despite all of the above, however, I’ll freely admit that the film’s finale thoroughly mystified me, leaving me with a distinctly unsatisfied feeling as the final credits rolled. While I think I know what happened, I’m really not sure, leaving me feeling as if I missed out on some important detail. To put it in gymnastic terms: Gavin’s A Dark Song nailed the performance but didn’t quite stick that all-important landing.

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An American Werewolf in London

Nearly forty years after it first debuted, John Landis’ landmark An American Werewolf in London (1981) still stands as one of the best werewolf films of all time, with precious few legitimate challengers since. The film is a perfect synthesis of real horror, tension, pitch-black humor, award-winning practical effects and genuinely likable characters: there are no shortage of truly horrifying moments and images in the film but the focus, first and foremost, is always on character and mood over gross-out gags.

Best buddies David (David Naughton) and Jack (Griffin Dunne) are backpacking through the misty British isles when they find themselves at the suitably unwelcoming Slaughtered Lamb Inn. After foolishly ignoring the superstitious locals advice to stay on the road, the dynamic duo stride into the wilds and are attacked by some sort of vicious animal. Jack is torn to pieces and David wakes up in the hospital, full of strange urges and haunted by terrible nightmares. When Jack comes back as a rapidly decomposing body and urges David to kill himself before the next full moon, the fun really begins.

An American Werewolf in London is that rarest of horror-comedies that actually does justice to both sides of the coin without tipping the balance into the silly or slight. There is genuine menace to be found here (the scenes on the moors are just about as good as it gets, as are those truly horrifying nightmares), along with plenty of well-executed action sequences (the Piccadilly Circus setpiece is just perfect) but Landis is, as always, a deft hand with the comedy elements. Dunne gets most of the film’s best lines as the ever charismatic, if increasingly repulsive, Jack but his comic interplay with Naughton forms the backbone of the film. There’s a good reason why this movie is considered a classic: it’s that damn good.

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The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2

What is the quintessential ’80s horror movie? While there really is no right answer (the discussion would be longer than every 31 Days of Halloween post, combined), there is one film that pretty much sums up the ’80s, for me, and will always stand as one of my very favorite films from that illustrious decade. When I think of ’80s horror, the first thing I think about is always the late Tobe Hooper’s brilliant The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986).

Loud, garish, over-the-top and gleefully demented, TCM 2 may seem like an ill-fit to its more low-budget, gritty older sibling but I’ve always seen them as two sides of the same coin. In fact, had the franchise ended with Hooper’s contributions, I daresay it might have been one of the most perfect, singular one-two punches in cinematic history. All of the societal themes that were simmering in TCM’s ’70s have come to a full boil in Part 2’s ’80s, allowing Hooper to poke bloody holes in the dead-eyed capitalism that Gordon Gekko held so sacred. After all, this is a film that sees grubby, gas-station cannibal Drayton Sawyer transformed into an uber-slick, ultra-popular civic leader: all hail the mighty dollar!

There’s so much good stuff here that pulling out highlights is both reductive and nearly impossible. TCM 2 is a virtual catalog of memorable setpieces, locations, characters and insanity: Dennis Hopper bringin’ down the temple via chainsaw…every single scene involving Bill Moseley’s iconic Chop Top…Leatherface “impersonating” L.G…that awesome freeway chase where the family makes frat-boy hash…the Sawyers’ impossibly cool, Christmas light-bedecked underground lair…the list could go on and on.

It’s always mystified me that fans and critics, alike, have savaged The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2. It may be a very different film from Hooper’s original but it’s an equally masterful piece of filmcraft and deserving of just as many accolades. The saw will always be family, to me, and TCM 2 is an important member of that family.

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And there you have it, folks: the 31 Days of Halloween, 2017 edition. With October now officially in the rear-view mirror, join us as we begin to take a look back at the year, highlighting some of the very best (and worst) that the genre had to offer. Until then, keep it spooky, boos and ghouls.

The 31 Days of Halloween (2017): 10/22-10/28

Tags

1922, 31 Days of Halloween, cinema, Creep, Creep 2, film reviews, films, Halloween, horror, horror films, literary adaptation, Mark Duplass, Movies, New Nightmare, October, Patrick Brice, Stephen King, Wes Craven, Wes Craven's New Nightmare

Better late than never, The VHS Graveyard now presents the four films screened during the fourth week of the recent 31 Days of Halloween. While there might not be many films here, we managed to screen a pretty diverse array, including a couple of brand-new (as of last month, at least) ones. Let the haunting begin!

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1922

In a year stacked to the brim with cinematic adaptations of Stephen King stories, Zak Hilditch’s note-perfect 1922 is easily one of the very best. From the ominous opening image straight through to the fantastic final moment, everything about this exquisite period-piece is top-notch, leading me to one conclusion: this, friends and neighbors, is how you adapt Stephen King to the silver screen.

Beginning in the titular year, in Nebraska, we’re introduced to farmer Wilfred James (Thomas Jane), his long-suffering wife, Arlette (Molly Parker) and teenage son, Henry (Dylan Schmid). When Arlette decides to sell the lions’ share of their 100-acre-property and move to the big city, Wilf decides to kill her and keep the property: after all, in 1922, who’s going to come looking for a missing wife? While the murder, itself, proceeds without a hitch, Wilf must now deal with his son’s guilt over his complicity in the murder of his own mother, as well as the suspicion of those who Arlette planned to sell the property to. There’s also, of course, the little matter of Arlette’s decomposed, yet surprisingly ambulatory body, and the horde of voracious rats that follow it wherever it goes.

In every way, Hilditch’s adaptation of 1922 is the epitome of “the right way” to bring King to the big screen: this lean, mean, no-frills chiller doubles down on craft (the acting, cinematography, score, editing and pace are all flawless) while resisting the need to add unnecessary subplots and bric-a-brac to clutter the narrative. From Jane’s sturdy voice-over narration to the razor-sharp line of pitch-black humor that subtly underscores everything (the bit with the cow and the well might be one of the best, nastiest moments of the entire year), this twist on Poe’s classic The Telltale Heart is easily one of the year’s best horror films, provided you like them smart, bleak and stylish. My advice? Hand Zak Hilditch the rest of King’s short story collections and let him get to work: the dude knows what he’s doing.

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Wes Craven’s New Nightmare

In many ways, the late Wes Craven’s return to the Elm Street that he created can be seen as a dry-run for mega-hit Scream, which would follow two years later. Self-referential, ultra-meta, glossy, bloody and lined with a dry sense of humor, the origins of Scream’s hip revival of the slasher genre are easy to read all over New Nightmare.

For his second foray into the Elm Street franchise after the 1984 original, Craven posits a scenario where the principal actors from the first film (Heather Langenkamp, Robert Englund and John Saxon), along with himself, find themselves smack dab in the middle of their own nightmarish run-in with the real Freddy Krueger (also played by Englund, natch). The whole thing might play as a bit too goofy if New Nightmare wasn’t also the most serious Elm Street film after the original: Craven plays it all fairly lean and mean, keeps the wise-cracking to a minimum and manages to bring much of the menace back to horror’s favorite subdivision.

While I’ll always cherish Dream Warriors and hold it as the pinnacle of the entire series, New Nightmare ended up being a respectable way for Craven to both return to the franchise and put it to an end (for the most part). It’s a smart trick from a filmmaker who had more than his fair share of smart tricks up his sleeve: Craven will be missed.

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Creep

Patrick Brice and Mark Duplass’ Creep impressed the hell out of me when I first saw it, more than living up to the title. This twisted tale of a videographer (Brice) who answers the wrong Craigslist ad and runs afoul of Duplass’ Josef is a claustrophobic bit of insanity that starts odd and ends nightmarishly. The whole film is so simple that it almost sounds like a style exercise: two actors, first-person/found-footage style, no effects, one location (for the most part).

In reality, Creep is a thoroughly unnerving tale of madness that works its way under your skin and refuses to let go. There’s something about Duplass’ performance that transcends acting and becomes something entirely, uncomfortably, different. For much of the film, Duplass plays Josef like the kind of high-maintenance pain-in-the-ass that most of us would relish booting through the ceiling. By the time you begin to notice how truly deranged he is, however, it’s too late for everyone involved, audience included. It’s a film that’s entirely dependent on its performances and Duplass and Brice don’t let down in the slightest.

Creep would be good just based on the performances but the filmcraft is pretty damn seamless, to boot. It’s actually one of the best found-footage films out there, finding some truly surprising ways to mess with perspective and play with the established rules of the sub-genre. The pacing is exquisite and the script (which often seems improvised) is incredibly smart and barbed. In every way, Creep is the epitome of a great film, horror or otherwise.

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Creep 2

Perhaps it was the heavy weight of expectations, considering how much I enjoyed the first film, but I couldn’t help but feel more than a little let down after screening Brice and Duplass’ recently released sequel, Creep 2. Here, unfortunately, is a prime example of how truly difficult it is to replicate what makes a sleeper so special.

We’re reintroduced to good, ol’ insane Josef (Duplass, still great), now going by Aaron but still up to his old tricks. This time around, Aaron is going through a bit of a midlife crisis and has all but lost his former spark for murdering innocent people. “Salvation” comes in the form of Sara (the absolutely fearless Desiree Akhavan), host of a web-series about meeting strange men through Craigslist personal ads. Sara is going through her own existential crisis, as luck would have it, and eagerly jumps into the deep end of Aaron’s psychosis, encouraging him to open up for her ever-present video camera. Who’s playing who, however, and to what end? Has Aaron actually found love? Does Sara actually believe what Aaron tells her? And what about Peachfuzz?

Despite being a solid step-down from the first film, Duplass and Brice still pack plenty of good stuff into the sequel. As before, Duplass’ performance is pitch-perfect and it’s a genuine pleasure to watch him continue to develop and refine his character. Akhavan provides a more than capable foil: Sara isn’t a helpless waif…quite the opposite. She’s actually a crafty, calculating manipulator who may be as fundamentally “damaged” as Aaron, if in slightly more socially acceptable ways. There are plenty of powerhouse scenes to be found (the one where Aaron and Sara doff their clothes in order to be totally open and honest with each other is a real corker) but the climax comes across as silly and unbelievable, while the final coda feels unnecessary and forced.

That being said, I’ll still be first in line for Creep 3 (this was originally announced as a trilogy). Missteps notwithstanding, Creep 2 was odd, uncomfortable, unsettling and more than a little thought-provoking: here’s to hoping that Brice and Duplass can give this modest little franchise the send-off that it truly deserves. Creep 2 is good but they can do much better.

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Stay tuned for the final week of The 31 Days of Halloween, including the day of honor, itself.

The 31 Days of Halloween (2017): 10/15-10/21

Tags

2017, 31 Days of Halloween, cinema, Clown, Dark Exorcism, Film, film reviews, films, Halloween, horror, horror films, Movies, October, Sleepy Hollow, The ABCs of Death, The Innkeepers, wendigo

Almost in time for the next installment, The VHS Graveyard now presents Week Three of the 31 Days of Halloween. We came up one film short this week but never fear: there’s still a week left until the big day and plenty of films up on the horizon. Now: kick back, grab a six-pack of blood (or diet blood, if you prefer) and journey back to the wilds of last week as we visit headless horsemen, killer clowns, vengeful ghosts and so much more…right here on The VHS Graveyard.

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Sleepy Hollow

This zippy adaptation of the classic Washington Irving story captures both Tim Burton and muse Johnny Depp at a point in their collaborative partnership where the well still felt deep and the possibilities endless. Burton is (relatively) restrained, although there are plenty of audacious and thrilling set-pieces (one wonders if the flaming windmill here inspired the similar visual in Windmill Massacre), and the material is allowed to breathe and feel much more organic than later efforts like the Alice in Wonderland films.

For his part, Depp is rather delightful, light years from his smarmy, played-out schtick of the last several years. He plays Ichabod as an eager greenhorn but stops short of playing him for a fool, ala Jack Sparrow, and his interplay with the rest of the impressive ensemble (including Christina Ricci, Jeffrey Jones, Miranda Richardson, Michael Gambon and the always awesome Christopher Walken), is as much about give-and-take as stealing the show.

If you think about it, Sleepy Hollow is the most overtly “horror” film that Tim Burton ever made: gratuitous decapitations, a (relative) lack of whimsy, heavy Gothic atmosphere, deep sense of foreboding…that’s just one Christopher Lee short of a Hammer film! In other words, perfect Halloween fare.

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Dark Exorcism

I avoided watching writer/director David Spaltro’s Dark Exorcism for one simple reason: everything about it screamed “generic possession flick” at first glance. As part of my never-ending list of 2016 horror films, however, it was going to get viewed at some point and October 2017 seemed as good a time as any. Turns out I shouldn’t have waited so long: Spaltro’s film is a real sleeper and probably the best indie exorcism/possession film I’ve seen in some time.

A non-believing grad student (Lynn Justinger) and her supernatural-debunking mentor (Fiona Horrigan) meet their match when a terrified mother (Catherine Cobb Ryan) begs for help with her tormented daughter (Grace Folsom). What first seems like a cut-and-dried haunting is revealed to be something much more sinister, requiring a little bit of the ol’ title ceremony. Will the cynical student and burned-out master have what it takes to triumph or will evil be chalking up another win?

Although it never reinvents the wheel, Dark Exorcism is also a breezy, painless experience that manages to avoid most of the pitfalls inherent in exorcism films. Much credit goes to the filmcraft: from the clever opening credit sequence to the colorful cinematography and subtle score, Dark Exorcism always looks and sounds good, even when it takes the occasional foray into the silly or insipid. It does everything that I expect from this kind of film and does it better than most of its peers: that’s good enough for me, neighborino.

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The Innkeepers

Full disclosure: I didn’t care for Ti West’s slow-burn ghost film when I first saw it in theaters back in 2011. Everything up to the finale was fine enough but the climax really ticked me off: I honestly can’t even recall my specific issue but I distinctly remember walking out irritated and let-down. It’s a feeling so strong that I completely avoided the film until this year’s 31 Days of Halloween.

In hindsight, I was wrong. There’s nothing wrong with the ending of this modest tale of amateur ghost-hunters (Sara Paxton and Pat Healy) in a haunted New England hotel. In fact, the whole film is pretty darn good, giving me another reason to like Ti West (for those keeping count, this makes the third of his films that I’ve genuinely enjoyed, right behind In a Valley of Violence and House of the Devil).

If you’re in the mood for an atmospheric, creepy and slow-paced little chiller, go ahead and check-in with The Innkeepers. And remember: there’s nothing wrong with being wrong, kids.

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Clown

Not much more to say about this modern classic than what I’ve already gushed about in the past but the Cliff Notes version goes a little something like this: Jon Watts and Christopher Ford’s loving tribute to pure horror should be required viewing for anyone who considers themself a horror fanatic and right at the top of the list for those looking for that elusive “truly scary movie.” Beep, beep, Richie!

A doting father (Andy Powers) puts on an old clown costume, as a last-minute replacement for his birthday boy’s absent entertainment, and can’t take the darn thing off. Because, you know, it’s attached to his skin. As his blood-lust grows, the doomed dad discovers that only one dish truly hits the spot: fresh child.

With no hyperbole, Clown is easily one of the best pure horror films since the genre’s heyday in the ’80s and ’90s. Streamlined, mean, inventive, colorful and possessed of one fantastic setpiece after the other, this is in the best vein of films like Pumpkinhead and The Fly: it’s a horror film that centers itself around relatable, likable characters and then builds horror from the tragedy around them. Toss in a phenomenally great origin story for the clown menace and Clown is one of those films that’s just impossible to forget.

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The ABCs of Death

As concepts go, The ABCs of Death series has always had one of the best ones: give 26 different filmmakers a letter of the alphabet and free-rein to create whatever associated horror-oriented treat strikes their fancy. It’s a pretty genius concept but, as with almost every anthology film ever, the results are decidedly mixed. In this case, unfortunately, the results definitely tend towards the drearier end of the spectrum.

Personal favorites? Marcel Sarmiento’s sleek and mean “D is for Dogfight,”  Timo Tjahjanto’s impossibly repulsive “L is for Libido,” Helene Cattet and Bruno Forzani’s elegant “O is for Orgasm,” Adam Wingard and Simon Barrett’s silly but effective “Q is for Quack” and Jon Schnepp’s truly demented “W is for WTF.” As for the rest, they range from disappointing efforts from respected filmmakers (Bogliano, Wheatley, Rumley, Vigalondo, West) to shorts that I actively disliked (Noburo Aguchi’s “F is for Fart” and Ti West’s “M is for Miscarriage” are still two of my least-favorite things since I first saw this collection years ago).

All in all, this is a decidedly disappointing first shot across the bow that would go on to produce much more impressive offerings in the second go-around. Still, you really can’t beat the anthology-short format when it comes time to program a little spooky viewing.

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Wendigo

When it comes to indie filmmakers, writer/director/actor/producer/studio-head/all-around maven Larry Fessenden is easily one of my all-time faves. Ever since bursting onto the scene in 1982 with his vampire/junkie parable Habit, Fessenden has dedicated his life to indie cinema. His Glass Eye Pix is responsible for releasing more quality genre flicks than any company this side of A24 (I Sell the Dead, House of the Devil, The Innkeepers, Stake Land, Late Phases, and Darling, to name just a few) and he’s the kind of character actor who can handily steal the film from the leads.

As a director, Fessenden has been responsible for one of my very favorite horror films of the last 15 years (The Last Winter) and one of my very least favorite (Beneath). His follow-up to Habit, Wendigo (2001), manages to sit square between those polar opposites. This icy tale of city folks running afoul of backwoods evil (both human and otherwise) is long on atmosphere and features one of the most nightmarishly memorable creatures I’ve ever seen in a film. It owes an obvious debt to Stan Winston’s classic Pumpkinhead but pays it back in some pretty unique ways. It also features one helluva cast: Patricia Clarkson, Jake Weber and Malcolm in the Middle’s Erik Per Sullivan…now that’s an ensemble!

Larry Fessenden approaches the genre from a fan’s perspective and that genuine love shows through in everything he does (including the odious Beneath). Although it misses the high-water mark set by the follow-up, Wendigo is still a fascinating slice of indie horror-psychedelia and handily shows why the filmmaker deserves a lot more acclaim than he gets.

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That does it for Week Three of the 31 Days of Halloween: stay tuned for next time, as we screen another batch of new films (including a few that we’ve been looking forward to) and lots of old favorites.

 

The 31 Days of Halloween (2017): 10/8-10/14

Tags

2017 films, 31 Days of Halloween, cinema, Deathgasm, Don't Kill It, film reviews, films, Friday the 13th Part 4: The Final Chapter, Gerald's Game, horror, horror classics, horror films, It Comes At Night, Movies, October, Pet Sematary, Pumpkinhead

As the weather continues to get colder, The VHS Graveyard keeps things nice and warm with the second week of The 31 Days of Halloween. We screened seven films last week, a mixture of the new and the familiar and present the results for your humble perusal. Lock your doors, turn up the fire, check the windows, look under the bed and try to ignore that strange sound outside. The Season of the Witch continues!

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It Comes At Night

Some films are made to be consumed with boisterous audiences at rowdy midnight screenings and others are meant to be pondered over in somber meditation: call Trey Edward Shults’ It Comes At Night one of the latter. In the wake of an undisclosed plague, a makeshift family holds their own in studied isolation. When another family arrives, however, forces both internal and external will strive to tear their lives apart.

Humorless, sober and slow-burning, Shults’ claustrophobic meditation on the evil that humans must do is rarely what I would call “fun” but never less than sturdily constructed and well-performed. While the film mostly operates in a kind of mournful neutral ground (think something like The Road or The Survivalist), the occasional bursts of action are well-done and kinetic. It’s an austere film, to be sure, no surprise when one considers that it’s being released by A24.

While questions may arise as to whether It Comes At Night truly counts as a horror film (I’m still on the fence, although lean towards the horror camp based on overall impact), there can be no doubt that Shults has constructed a lean, tense and effective little film. I doubt that I’ll ever watch it again, to be honest, but that probably says more about me than the film.

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Pumpkinhead

Special effects god Stan Winston only directed two films during his entire, illustrious career: 1990’s A Gnome Named Gnorm and this 1988 horror classic. While A Gnome Named Gnorm has faded almost completely from memory (for good reasons), Pumpkinhead has remained utterly unforgettable for nearly 30 years and counting.

This decidedly old-fashioned tale of revenge (essentially an even darker version of a Grimm’s fairy tale) features one of esteemed character actor Lance Henriksen’s very best lead performances, a truly ferocious creature design and a completely immersive, claustrophobic atmosphere that dunks you deep in Southern Gothic miasma and holds you there. Despite his “day” job, Winston has as firm a grasp on the mechanics of story and filmmaking as any seasoned director: the non-creature stuff in the film is just as powerful and gripping as the impressive special effects.

Tragic, frightening and badass, Stan Winston’s Pumpkinhead has been one of my go-to films since I was knee-high to a grasshopper. I’ve rented the movie at video stores, ordered the DVD and streamed the film. The methods may change but one thing will remain the same: I’ll still be watching Pumpkinhead as long as I’m still around.

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Gerald’s Game

2017 is truly the Year of King, with more Stephen King projects and adaptations popping up than you can shake a stick at. We’ve already had a smash-hit version of It, loads of upcoming releases and, now, a prestige version of one of King’s thorniest novels, Gerald’s Game, from rising genre luminary Mike Flanagan. It’s truly a great time to be a fan of the undisputed master of horror.

Writer-director Flanagan, hot off the surprisingly respectable Ouija: Origin of Evil (2016), brings a version of King’s disturbing tale that hews fairly close to the printed word, right up to the highly divisive ending. Troubled married couple Jessie (Carla Gugino) and Gerald (Bruce Greenwood) plan a romantic weekend at their isolated cabin in order to respark their failing relationship. When Gerald suffers a heartache and dies, however, Jessie is left handcuffed to their bed, no hope for rescue on the horizon. As the hours tick on, Jessie is left with only her tormented thoughts about Gerald and her own childhood abuse for company. There’s also a hungry, stray dog that’s taken an interest in Gerald’s body, of course. And the Moonlight Man.

Mike Flanagan, known for works of mature, disturbing horror like Absentia and Oculus, brings that same sense of style to Gerald’s Game and manages to craft one of the best King adaptations ever. From first to last, the film is a work of beauty: gorgeously made yet never afraid to delve into the gritty end of the pool (the degloving scene is one of the most revolting things I’ve ever seen), this is a prestige film, through and through. In the past, films like Misery, Stand By Me and The Shawshank Redemption were always regarded as the “high literary marks” of cinematic King adaptations: Mike Flanagan’s Gerald’s Game just joined that illustrious club.

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Don’t Kill It

While I may have been a wee bit disappointed with Mike Mendez’s previous film, The Last Heist (2016), all is soundly forgiven thanks to his newest gem, Don’t Kill It. In fact, Mendez’s new film isn’t just better than The Last Heist: it’s better than ever other film in his entire filmography, including personal favorite Big Ass Spider (2013). It’s actually one of the best horror films of 2017. That, friends and neighbors, is a comeback.

Possessed of a genius concept (a demon can only jump to a new host when its current host is killed), a towering lead performance (Dolph Lundgren’s Jebediah Woodley is this generation’s Snake Plissken), astounding levels of gore and mayhem, an exceptionally game supporting cast and truly smart, funny script, Don’t Kill It is the perfect throwback to similar films from the ’80s and ’90s and is an absolute blast from start to finish.

I laughed. I cheered. I quoted lines back at the screen. I never wanted it to end and, when it did, I wanted to start it all over again. It’s the best film of Mendez’s career, the best performance of Lundgren’s career and one of the very best horror films of this year. If you’re looking for good times this October, look no further than Don’t Kill It.

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Pet Sematary

With all the focus on Andy Muschietti’s current version of It, I thought it might be fun to revisit one of King’s earlier cinematic adaptations. While the master of horror has been a notoriously difficult visionary to successfully adapt to the silver screen, there have been a handful of films that got it right, over the past 30-odd years: Mary Lambert’s adaptation of Pet Sematary is one of those.

While the film is far from perfect (the comic relief involving Brad Greenquist’s undead Pascow was done far better in An American Werewolf in London and really grinds the film to a halt), this timeless tale of an old pet graveyard and the “sour ground” beyond it sticks faithfully to the novel, right up through the tragic, heartbreaking finale. Bolstered by a sturdy supporting turn from Fred Gwynne (a million miles from Mockingbird Lane) and an endless cauldron of creepy atmosphere (the Micmac burial ground is one of those iconic locations, right up there with the Overlook Hotel), Lambert’s version of King’s bestseller adds all of the odd, supporting characters and details that pepper the Master’s prose (like Missy Dandridge) and really nails his tone.

There’s an undeniable tragedy to the story that could, in the wrong hands, have been suffocated by the creepier elements (see the regrettable sequel). Mary Lambert’s Pet Sematary finds the perfect balance between tragedy and terror, giving this one a bite that still endures.

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Friday the 13th Part IV: The Final Chapter

It doesn’t always happen but the 13th fell on a Friday, this October, and that means only one thing for the 31 Days of October: you gotta screen a Friday the 13th film. Since we just watched the original not too long ago, I decided to revisit the fourth and “final” entry in the series, The Final Chapter.

As horror franchises go, I’m fairly hot-and-cold on Friday the 13th. On one hand, I’ve always loved the first two films and have at least enjoyed the others, to a greater or lesser degree. On the other hand, as films…well…they’re really not that great. Full of amateur “acting” and usually censored to the point of neutering the kills (theoretically the focal point of the enterprise), the F13 series has been a real mixed bag: sorry die-hards!

The Final Chapter (yeah, right!) is no different: Corey Feldman’s Tommy Jarvis still holds up fairly well but the rest of the cast, including Crispin Glover, really grates and pretty much every murder setpiece has been hacked into incoherence (at least on the video version of the film). This definitely features one of the most menacingly physical incarnations of Jason, however, and the finale featuring Trish, Tommy and Jason is easily a highlight of the entire series. Like I said: a mixed bag but I’ll always have a soft-spot for ’80s horror sequels, in general.

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Deathgasm

Heavy metal and horror movies are a lot alike, when you think about it: they come in a myriad of forms and varieties, tend to get written off by the status quo and are the sanctuaries of misfits and loners the world around. They can be smart, topical and complex or they can be base, bloody and bludgeoning. Sometimes, you want something calculated, clinical and cold, something like Meshuggah or The Witch. Sometimes, however, you just want Gwar: blood, body parts, blasphemy and bad attitudes.

New Zealand writer-director Jason Lei Howden’s Deathgasm is the Gwar of horror films: loud, violent, immature, silly, drenched in bodily fluids and the best time possible. This charming tale of misunderstood Kiwi metal-heads who bring literal Hell to their sleepy little town owes a massive debt to neighbor Peter Jackson’s Dead Alive (they must teach it in New Zealand film schools) but has the heavy metal soul that Jackson’s zombie howler never did.

Full of snarling neo-Deadites, death by dildo, at least 300 gallons of fake blood, ax-wielding preppies, true love, betrayal and some of the snappiest one-liners around, Deathgasm isn’t the film you want playing in the background of your rockin’ party: it IS the rockin’ party. Grab your corpse paint, plug in your amp and crank this sucker straight to 666!

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And with that, we bring the second week of October to a close. Join us next time as we continue to celebrate the 31 Days of Halloween. Remember, kids: keep it scary!