Horror Part 14

The Beast That Killed Women - B

A Giant Killer Gorilla is loose in a nudist camp killing all the happy naked sun worshippers it meets. Yes you heard me right, gorilla and nudist camp. This movie is cheese, pure 100 percent absolute cheese, I had a great time watching this goof ball movie and laughed my ass off. This really belongs as a comedy not as a horror movie but all other movie catalogues list it as a horror movie, I guess killer gorilla shouldn't be funny but it really is. Now this movie is an interesting piece of filmland lore, it was made in 1965 back when nudity really was a novelty. Before 1967 when the MPAA was formed and did away with the Production Code which made it illegal to make movies that were deemed immoral. In those days a handful of pioneering filmmakers wanted to show nudity in films, as a ploy to make money, but that was considered immortal and hence illegal but they found a loophole, nudity could be shown if in a documentary film, think the naked women of Africa in all those National Geographics so they started making Nudie Cutie Films which were shot in nudist colonists, almost all of them in Florida. The nudity is rather funny in this movie, you have shots of women just walking back and forth or topless square dancing, possibly one of the funniest scenes in movie history. There is a ton of nudity in this movie, but then again this is a nudist colony. Thankfully the guys have clothes on, there is only so much reality of the nudist colony I can take. A strange little snapshot of the early life of exploitation cinema in all its odd glory.

Monster of Camp Sunshine - B

A scientist releases toxic waste into a river, man he better watch out for the EPA. When a gardener in a nudist colony drinks the poisoned water, he turns into monster and begins attacking all of the women at the camp. Ah 60s science, where radiation turned you into the Incredible Hulk and poison water turns you into an axe weilding maniac instead of killing you out right. The movie takes a little too long to get to the nudist camp and again takes too long to introduce the Monster of Camp Sunshine but this one does a better job of using the nudist camp as a setting in a movie as compared to the other feature in this Something Weird Double Feature, which is to say there is less time spent showing women walking back and forth naked. This movie is very unusual but funny in a usual way, when the cavalry arrives, it is the real cavalry arrives. The movie has the goofy sense of humor which really makes the movie work. I doubt this is for everybody but it is right up my alley and I enjoyed it thoroughly.

Strange Things Happen At Sundown - C+

It is the vampire Sopranos, Jimmy Fangs and his boys are taking over some mafia rackets at the same time two more vampires, vampires on the run, have stolen some cash and are trying to make for Canada, because apparently vampire justice is much like human justice, you make it into Canada you are free. All the while a vampire hunter is taking out the vampires. This is often as a vampire version of Pulp Fiction, while it may not follow one exact storyline it isn't Pulp Fiction, at best it is a vampire episode of the Sopranos complete with Jersey accents and foul mouths. For a movie with a tiny budget and a group of nobodies they did a pretty good job of making a vampire movie. It had some pretty interesting ideas but in other areas of the vampire movie was lacking. It was certainly the best vampire movie that has been made lately because while they still are too human and not enough monster at least they aren't sissies. Hopefully this trend of more monsterous vampires will continue to grow and the genre can escape the morass of the ruin Anne Rice brought to the vampire genre.

Driller Killer - D

Reno is slowly being driven insane by the rigors of life in New York City, he can't pay the bills, his latest artistic masterpiece isn't good enough for him to give to his manager who is hounding him to do so, a punk rock band has moved in downstairs and plays their punk music day and night, and to top it all off he has two female roommates which just add to the strain his mind is under. Guess what happen? He goes nuts and start killing the bums on the street with? anyone? A drill, yes he is the driller killer. The movie does have good photography of the mean streets of New York in the late 70s and does a good job of some of the punk scene of that era but as a horror movie it really doesn't work. When Reno goes crazy you don't understand why he goes crazy, he just finds himself a bum and kills him there is no reason why, the bum didn't punk on him, say anything about his painting, Reno just decided it was time to drill himself a bum. Too much time is spent in the middle of the movie with the punk band, this is a movie about the Driller Killer Reno not Tommy Coca-Cola and the Roosters. This movie is famous in Europe as being one of the movies that inspired Britian's Video Recordings Act, better known as the Video Nasties which heavily cut most horror movies in the 80s. The movie isn't Taxi Driver or Tenanment by any stretch of the imagination but the director and star of the film Abel Ferrera would go on to better movies concerning how New York drives you insane, movies like Bad Lieutenant. This movie really doesn't deserve the cult status it has gotten over the years, it is a slow, dull movie nothing more.

Werewolf vs the Vampire Women - C+

Paul Naschy returns to his signature role of Waldemar Daninsky, the Werewolf. For those that don't know the name Paul Naschy think of him like a Spanish version of Christopher Lee and Waldemar Daninsky as his signature horror role much like Count Dracula was for Christopher Lee. In this outing two girls, Elivra and Genevieve are traveling through the French countryside searching for the tomb of the infamous medieval murderess Wandessa who legend held was a vampire. While out searching the countryside they encounter Waldemar whose house is close to the ancient grave of Wandessa. A minor cut drips enough blood on the grave to wake the countess up from her eternal slumber but she is in a rather dehydrated state so she needs fresh victims to bring back her youth. But wolfman Waldemar isn't happy with some vampire taking his food source and the pair square off for the lovely prize of Elvira. This is a fair movie, not enough werewolf vs vampire for me but it wasn't half bad. Yes the werewolf effects look really bad but this is the rule, the exception to the rule is when the werewolf looks good, Wolfman, the Howling, and American Werewolf in London are the three movies where the werewolf actually looks like it may possibly be real, even today with all the fancy CG effects filmmakers can't make werewolves look good so I never really take points away from the werewolf looking like a guy in a furry mask. I wanted more blood and guts really, this is a werewolf movie, werewolf movies are a great place for gore but this movie didn't really deliver, even with the vampire in the mix th blood and guts were rather tame. The movie is more like a gothic creeper than a werewolf movie and very slow in parts but not all the bad but I was hoping for more with a title like Werewolf vs the Vampire Women. Odd note, the title is correct, the movie poster to the left isn't. The title of this movie is Werewolf vs the Vampire Women, but when they made the posters they got it wrong, there are 2 vampire women in the movie not one.

Hell Night - B+

Before being able to join Alpha Sigma Rho fraternity and its sister sorority, four pledges must spend the night in Garth Manor, twelve years to the day after the previous resident murdered his entire family. Some, however, say that one member of the Garth family survived, and still resides somewhere in the now-deserted mansion. This movie stars a middle of the road Linda Blair, still very chubby faced and riding the Exorcist wave and not yet crashed into softcore porno hell that her career languished in for years until lost twenty pounds, mostly from her cheeks and reinvented herself. This movie is often lost among the army of other slasher movies that assaulted the nation's movie theatres in the early 80s. I believe it was this movie that started the Frat Initiation style of slasher were the kids go into the spooky mansion that is rigged with surprises by their frat brothers and then learn some of the scares a very real. The best term I ever heard to describe the look of this movie was Scooby Doo Gothic, which I really liked, and it does fit the movie quiet well, there are lots of cobwebs, candles, secret passages and monsters in rubber masks but unlike Scooby Doo there is something very real after them, also there is no talking dog unfortunately. The movie really belongs to Suki Godwin, she is a British actress whose entire film career you see in this movie, she does a fabulous job of floating through the movie on a cloud of Jack Daniels and Quaaludes, she provides the eye candy and the comic relief but doesn't come off as the standard blonde bimbo. All the standard male stereotypes are present in this movie and are played very much within the confines of the stereotypes and the movie does drag a little in the middle, they could have easily removed ten minutes or so from the middle and the movie would have been much better. But all in all it was a good early 80s slasher and the father of the fraternity slasher style of horror movie.

Tomie - C

Following some trauma in her past that has since been repressed, a young woman is trying to recover her memories with the help of a psychiatrist. During her hypnosis sessions, she repeats the name "Tomie" but is unable to recall where she knows it from. Meanwhile, a police detective is investigating a string of brutal murders, where he also runs across the name "Tomie." It appears that a Tomie Karakami seems to appear and then get murdered, the name goes all the way back to the Meiji era in these strange murder cases. It seems that people around her go insane and she ends up dead but yet she never seems to die. What does Tsukiko's strange accident three years ago have to do with this? This movie had some good creepy moments but it moved like a glacier, it took forever to get the story rolling, even when it did I still took forever for the audience to figure out what is going on. I prefer my horror movie to be a little faster moving, then again I would prefer to have everything move faster than this movie. It is kind of a shame the movie moved so bloody slow because it actually was a really interesting story about a girl who drives men mad, there are certain women in real life you could believe their presense drives men mad. This is a very unknown J-Horror series, the pace of this film may have something to do with it. It was a interesting idea and had some good scares but it just moved too slow.

Maniac - C+

Until a week ago I had never heard of this movie at all but when I did hear about it I saw that it had a 5 star rating on Netflix the best you could get. It had rave reviews from a group of people that traditionally degrade horror movies every which way they can. I am very leery of anything that comes highly recommended to me anymore, especially when it is horror movies I rarely find a horror movie that is getting rave reviews to be anything but crap but I am a sucker for this kind of junk so I gave the movie a try. The movie is styled after the Son of Sam killings in an Italian style on the level of Fulci's New York Ripper which basically is large set piece murders with a filmse plot stretched between them. The killer has issues with his abusive mother who died in a car accident and like Norman Bates is still being dominated by her and this is why he goes out and kills the women so he can scalp them and nail the hair to the manequins that dominate his purple walled apartment. This movie has some good special effects thanks to Tom Savini, the best involves a shotgun and Tom's own head as the target which explodes in gory glory. The maniac is played by the writer, Joe Spinelli, and he really looks like a decent psycho, a fat cross between Ron Jeremy and Jack Nicholson which is just plain odd. There isn't much story to this movie, it really is just a psycho going around killing people, there are better examples of this, like the afore mention Fulci's New York Ripper. Once again the rave reviews for a horror movie have come up short once again, yes it is gory, but the Italians did it first and in my opinion did it better.

Gothika - D-

Dr. Miranda Grey, played by the dubiously talented Halle Berry, is the best doctor at the asylum. She's currently trying to help a woman named Chloe, played by the equally dubiously talented Penelope Cruz, who claims that the devil has raped her numerous times during her time in the penitentiary. Miranda knows that the patient is crazy so she obviously doesn't believe a word that she's saying. Later the same night, on her way home from work, she almost hits a girl with her car. She wakes up in the asylum in which she works now on the other side of the glass. She has been accused of murdering her husband yet she has no memory of it. She is convinced it is the mysterious girl she almost hit that night on the road and it's up to her to find out what really happened that night. I probably shouldn't have watched this movie, I am not a fan of Halle Berry and I know that they are going to play fast and loose with the rules of psychology which much like real doctors watching ER all the embelishment will drive me insane, but I watched anyways and was treated to a pile of crap that had a couple of good scares that actually made me jump inbetween the groaning and shaking of my head. I'm going to check off my one number and major factual complaint about this entire movie, Halle Berry works at the hospital/prison/fairy land were she ends up imprisoned, this would never happen no matter what, it is such a massive boundary violation to be treated by those people who had a long term working relationship with doing that would get you into trouble up to your eyeballs and any psychologist, psychiatrist worth their MD would never do it. Okay other than that little problem which basically drove me nuts through the entire movie, we have really, really bad acting, a cliche plot, and editting that made my head spin. This is a horror movie, not an MTV music video I don't want the POV bouncing all over creation through a thousand fast cuts. Honestly the only thing that saved this movie from the D is the death of Charles Dutton that was full of gory goodies which made me giggle like a twisted creature and for a few moments actually led me to believe I was watching a real horror movie. Halle Berry can't act, but when she is put next to Penelop Cruz who can't even pretend to be a real human, she appears to be at least competant, but both of them trying to play crazy was such silly and I found myself hysterically laughing through most of the movie instead of being afraid. Yes Robert Downey Jr did a good job as the other doctor but there is too little to put this movie back together again, real world psychology and horror movie logic will never work to somebody like me who actually knows the inner workings of the field. Should have stayed away from this one, but it is a horror movie and I am trying to see them all, the good, the bad, and the ridiculous.

Hellevator - B+

In a distopian future several individuals, a school girl, a business man, a music lover, a mother and her daughter are trapped in an elevator with two insane criminals on their way to be executed, one is a rapist cannibal and the other a mad bomber who I think speaks backwards, when there is a massive explosion. Of course the two psychos get loose and terrorize the inhabitants of the train before the school girl steps up. The survivors of in the elevator have to work together to survive, of course they don't do this and we get the standard people trapped going crazy scenario. I liked this, it had a weird sense of humor that is particularly Japanese. My favorite joke involved the rows of identical businessmen that board the train at once and all start talking on old fashion telephone recievers. The movie is a little too noisy in a couple of parts when everybody starts screaming at each other and there is a little piece here and there I would have changed but all in all I liked it, it was plenty weird in a good way. Now many people out there complained about the video style, it was shot direct to video so it has a strange quality to it, which I happened to like, it gave the movie an otherwordly quality to it. This was a great low budget film that really showed off that somebody out there can still actually make good movies with limited resources and plenty of imagination, may not be to everyone's taste but it suited me well.

Tomb of the Werewolf - F

He's Back, the werewolf of Spanish film fame, Waldemar Daninsky, played by the Spanish horror superstar Paul Naschy. This outing 35 years after Paul Naschy first donned furry mask and gloves to star as the great Spanish werewolf Waldemar Daninsky this time in the hands of notorious director Fred Olen Ray. I have watched many movies and seen many people on the screen and yet I have never felt the same level of sorrow that I felt for Paul Naschy starring in this 3rd rate softcore porno movie opposite burned out scream queen Michelle Bauer, and a cavalcade of softcore porno stars. The movie concerns the last descendany of Waldemar who has inherited the spooky castle somewhere in West Hollywood... er I mean Europe but there are many debts attached to the castle and he needs money so he lets a documentary crew shoot a feature about the castle complete with psychic. They arrive at the castle, fool around a little, very little for a softcore porno and resurrect Waldemar by removing the big silver cross from his heart, yes now werewolves are part vampire as well. Waldemar runs amok as these dimwits cough out the sad lines and parade around. It is strange for a softcore porno only a couple of the girls get naked, neither are the best looking usually softcore at least can deliver cute chicks. This is probably the end for the great werewolf Waldemar Daninsky, a very sad, sad end for the most famous of all the Spanish werewolves.

Scare Their Pants Off - F

Two hip cats living in New York City have a problem, the only way they can get sexually excited is by scaring women half to death. Yes this movie is very bizarre but that bizarreness is a certain humor to it. It isn't scare but it is listed as a horror movie and I think it is supposed to be scary at least for the women who are stripped naked and tormented by these two goons. The movie is an example of the 'roughie' a style of movie pioneered in the grindhouses of New York City are quirky and odd usually full of nudity, violence, and rape. This movie has nudity and I guess a textbook definition of rape, these women are kidnapped for sex so I guess that counts as rape, although it is 70s rape were the chick gets into it halfway in. I'm not exactly sure why I rented this, it really sucked.

Nightmare on Elm Street3: Dream Warriors - C-

Freddy's back and so is the first girl who defeated him Nancy Thompson, actually played by the original girl Heather Langenkamp. This time Nancy comes to work at a mental institute where a group of teenagers are all being tormented by Freddy in their dreams. She teams up with a streetwise orderly played by Laurence Fishburne when he was still calling himself Larry Fishburne. There she meets Patricia Arquette's character of Kristen who has the ability to draw people into her dreams. They all join forces to take Freddy on in his world, the world of dreams. I've never been a big fan of the Nightmare on Elm Street movies which is odd because I have always liked Freddy Kruger and Robert Englund who has become quiet the horror icon from this iconic role. He was always the wise ass' slasher, Michael Myers and Jason don't say anything they just hack up the sexy teens, at least Freddy has some gallows humor about his work. I liked some of the scares in the movie, the Freddy Puppet was really cool but the whole self-actualization through dreams so we can fight Freddy was the ultimate in hokey.

Saw 2 - D

Jigsaw is back for another game, only this time everything is bigger, more people, more so-called tense, more traps, more twists. This time we know who Jigsaw is, they capture him in the first ten minutes of the movie but Jigsaw has captured the son of a burned out cop played by Donnie Wahlberg, the more talented brother of Mark-Mark Wahlberg. Jigsaw shows them a video of a room full of people, including one of the victims of the previous movie. They fight as all people do in these situations and go roaming the house so they can fall into all of Jigsaw traps while waiting to die from the deadly poison in the air. The people with this movie aside from the vague characters they locked into the house, they never really give a good explaination of any of them, is that they shout at each other in true locked room fashion. The other problem I had was this entire movie has been done before, but this time they just upped the number of people involved. Maybe I should have read the 2 in Saw 2 as Saw squared, same movie just multipled by the power of 2.

Ghostwatcher - D+

Laura is agoraphobic, afraid of the outside world, so she never leaves the safety of her home. It seems, though, that her four walls can't protect her from the ghost frequenting her apartment. Since Laura refuses to leave, her only alternative is to hire a ghost hunter, picking Elizabeth Dean from listings on the Web. Elizabeth is a con artist who just wants to make money until she visits Laura and realizes the place is truly haunted. This movie has some creepy moments but the micro-budget killed the movie. The acting is amateurish but has a few decent moments. The movie really feels like somebody's home movies rather than a real horror movie. There is some talent behind this movie, maybe with a few more bucks and a little more talent the filmmaker's next ghost story will be better.

Killer Barbys - B-

The Spanish Punk Rock Band called the Killer Barbies teams up with Spanish horror legend Jesus Franco to create a Punk Rock Scooby Doo. While traveling to their next gig the Killer Barbies get stuck in the mud and end up spending the night in a creepy stock castle complete with cobwebs and deranged midget servants. The band learns too late that they are meant as the main course to the mistress of the castle who must consume the blood of the living to keep from turning into a dusty corpse. It is up to the surviving members of the band to get out before they all end up being drained of blood for the mistress' evening cocktail. A lot of reviews about this movie are insanely negative because they didn't understand the movie. It isn't great but it isn't supposed to be this terrifying heart stopping horror movie, think of it as an episode of Scooby Doo but with a punk rock band in the lead. The band worked well together, they should being a real band. The music is great, I really dug their punk rock sound then again I am a rather big fan of punk rock anyways. The dub was horrible, I think it was intended to be comically bad. This is a punk rock movie that happened to take the form of a horror story with naked chicks, sex, and people being drained like slaughtered animals. Watch the movie just for the great soundtrack if nothing else.

Voodoo Passions - C+

Susan the wife of diplomate Jack arrives in Haiti where she meets her husband's two housemates, Ida his lesbian secretary and his nymphomanical voodoo practicing sister Olga. Yes Jack apparently only likes women whose names begin with vowels. Shortly after arriving Susan begins to have strange dreams about voodoo rituals and sacrifices. When she learns that these dreams are starting to come true she has to figure out what is real and what is fantasy before it is too late. Not much movie, but then again it is a Jesus Franco movie. The guy makes really good sex scenes that are pinned together with a little plot but all done with excellent photography and excellent sets. It is these two features that keep his movies from being just softcore porno. All this movie really is made of is women undulating naked on beds, women wandering naked through houses, and women dancing naked in voodoo rituals but it is shot so well and it is done so matter-a-factly that it almost works. There is some horror, some voodoo doll play but it is mainly women being naked which Jesus Franco has his entire career on. If you like Franco movies you'll like this, if you are looking to get into Franco movies don't start with this, try Venus in Furs of Vampyros Lesbos they are a little more mainstream and if you like those come after this stuff, it is weird and erotic.

Route 666 - B

Rabbit, a mob accountant, played by noted TV Actor Steve Williams, probably best known to sci-fi fans as the mysterious Mr X from the X-Files, but known best to me as Deputy Mount from the Blues Brothers and his memorable line, 'I'm Gonna Get That Sucker If It Is The Last Thing I Do.' In any case Rabbit is on the run because he turned states evidence, now a whole bunch of armed mob psychos are after him. But two Federal Marshals, Lori Petty and Lou Diamond Phillips, get to him first and take him into custody. Now all they have to do is drive him back to LA from Arizona, something like this is never easy in movies. They end up on a backroad where they end up on the forbidden Route 666. They encounter a strange graveyard out in the middle of nowhere that is the last resting place of several very bad men who died in a mysterious chain gang accident in the 60s. The only problem, these very bad men are back from the grave to kill those that trepass on their road. Not bad popcorn movie, gun play, wise cracks, and a really good setting. I would have liked a few more zombies but this was more of a ghost story than a zombie movie. I liked the chemistry between Lou Diamond Phillips, Lori Petty, and Steve Williams, they made a good trio. The other federal marshals, and local cops were okay, none of them really stood out. This is a good movie to watch on a lazy Saturday afternoon, not much else but I doubt it was planning on being the next Gone With the Wind.

Demons - A

Cheryl and Cathy go to a movie screening at a theatre that has just been reopened after many years. While watching one of the patrons goes to the bathroom to inspect a cut she had reviewed while goofing off in the lobby. This is no ordinary cut, it is a possession cut and soon she is turned into a demon who is foaming at the mouth. Chaos ensues as the packed theatre tries to escape from the demons. Many are killed which only adds more demons to the equation. The theatre go-ers are picked off one by one as they desperately try to escape from the theatre. These are really cool Evil Dead style demons, crazy green slime drooling monsters that claw and scratch their victims to death. This is a gory movie, viscera, blood, mucus, and slime spray all over the place, one of the best for sheer gallons of liquid expelled is when the first male demon falls off the balcony and crashes into the seats above the girl, they must have had hoses attached to every spot on that guy. This movie was a lot of fun, it really is Evil Dead Goes To The Movies. I really enjoyed the fast pace gore spraying action of this movie, I was in real need of a great horror movie after going through some many medicore and bad movies. Look for a scene where a black man is giving a let's keep our shit together speech just before he is attacked by zombies, it is eeriely similar to Samuel L. Jackson's demise in Deep Blue Sea.

Beyond the Darkness (Buio Omega) - B-

After losing his girlfriend Anna, Frank takes a sharp left off the edge of sanity straight into the sea of madness. He first takes her home and puts his hobby of taxedermy to work, when that doesn't satisfy him, he goes out and starts killing young women and disposing of their bodies with the help of his controlling maid Iris, who had actually killed Anna with the help of a voodoo doll. This movie has it all, grave robbing, adult nursing (from his maid, his creepy old maid), loved one gutting, fingernail removal, acid bath fat chick disposing, on screen dismemberment, jogger cremation, eye gouging, stabbing, slashing, implied necrophilia (they show the rest yet not that?) topped off with about fifty gallons of bright red blood. The movie is a little aimless at times, we don't need to see every little detail of body disposal down to carrying the empty acid jugs and empty buckets away. I don't think this is Joe D'Amato's most gory movie, Grim Reaper still is more gory but this is one of his better movies, again not really saying much but it was strange, it was spooky, and it was violent.

Nikos the Impaler - B

A thousand years ago, Nikos the barbarian was executed in Romania after having slaughtered hundreds of innocent people. When an art gallery has Romanian horrors as a theme, Nikos is accidentally awaken back from the dead and starts a new massacre, only this time it's in Manhattan. Trapped inside the art gallery, some random people now have to try to escape but Nikos has made sure that it won't be that easy. Will they succeed or will they all have to suffer a gruesome death. This is a gory movie with a very high body count, two things that aren't bad in a horror movie, no they are actually quiet good and when delivered in this quantity and delivered in such an over the top manner it is easy to forget many of the movie's flaws. There is a little too much screaming and fighting in the middle of the movie for me especially when it seems half of the cast is screaming at each other at once. It makes it rather hard to hear anything. The real star of the movie isn't Nikos but Felissa Rose the star of Sleepaway Camp who reall has made quiet the horror career for herself in the last couple of years. The director of this movie is Andreas Schnaas who is rather renowned as one of the bigger names in the German Gore subgenre of horror, this movie is an unofficial part of his 'Violent Shit' series which has made him famous for spraying the gore all over the screen and once again he does certainly serve up the blood and guts. Think of this as a good Troma movie, I know it is hard but the movie should be treated as such, don't expect it to break new ground but expect it to play itself to the hilt.

Mail - C-

Akiba-San is a ghost hunter and when he one day receives a mail from someone who needs help with getting rid of a ghost in a painting, he also finds himself a new assistant, Mikoto, played by Chiaki Kurimaya of Battle Royale/Kill Bill fame. In this movie we get to follow Akiba-San and Mikoto on their missions to destroy all ghostly spirits. This series felt like a live action anime OVA, it is made up of six episodes. The 1st is called the Painting where Akiba meets his assistant Mitoko as they both investigate a haunted painting. The second episode, Renunion, Akiba helps out a woman who is having trouble with friendly ghost. Yes I said friendly ghosts, apparently she wants to wack Casper and his pals. I didn't exactly understand the reason for this episode, why would you want to exorcise friendly spirits, they are friendly aren't they? Finally in the third episode, The Stalker, is about an evil ghost that is stalking a woman's husband. The fourth episode is Katsumi-Chan which Mitoko investigates the death of a schoolmate that was by an evil ghost. The last two episodes give us backstory about Akiba, how he became a ghost buster with a gold C96 Mauser Pistol. Man I was hoping for something from this series but it couldn't cobble together one good ghost story from six tries. These were more like Japanese Goosebumps, tame, easy to digest horror stories that were never scary or tense. The biggest saving grace was Chiaki Kurimaya, who I really like, she is a good actress and I am fairly certain I am her only American fan. Also the appearence of a C-96 which a aesthetically pleasing pistol, the rest of this series was forgettable and disappointing because it could have been a lot more. This movie really should be a D+ but I just couldn't bring myself to do it, a combination of Chiaki Kurimaya and a C-96 is too nice to bring myself to give it such a poor grade.

The Wickeds - D-

Six teenagers decide to spend Halloween in a rundown house where they are shooting a horror movie. At the same time two graverobbers, led by Ron Jeremy, whose career has gone from porno to cheap horror. They awaken the zombie horde by stealing a necklace from a Dracula like corpse. If the guy has fangs and is dressed like a Wal-Mart Dracula would the creatures that rise up be vampires not zombies? In anycase they end up all trapped in the farm house surrounded by zombies, gee where have I seen this setup before? The movie stumbles through the required places strung together with weak jokes and a lot of bad acting from the cast, except for Ron Jeremy who actually seems to know what he is doing. This is a fairly bad zombie movie, it is even worse as a zombie black comedy that many people have equated it to. The jokes are poorly timed and poorly executed making this a very unfunny movie. The gore is pretty good but gore alone can't save this movie. This is an excellent example of the pitfalls of zombie movie making, they relied to heavily on previous zombie movies and never added anything of their own.

The Hitcher - A-

Jim, played by C. Thomas Howell fresh from his starring role in the 80s action unintentional comedy Red Dawn, is driving a car from Chicago to San Diego. On a dark and stormy West Texas night he picks up a hitchhiker, played by the ever menacing Rutger Hauer. While driving the mysterious man tells him he's just killed a man and now he is going to kill him. This begins a taunt pursuit between young Jim, who gets blamed for all the hitchhiker's grisely deeds, and the hitchhiker who is going to kill Jim, but only after he makes him suffer. This is the last great road movie, the story of a man and his car driving through the desolate unknown of the desert Southwest. The beginning and end of the movie are wonderful examples of finely honed thriller style filmmaking, the middle becomes a little bit too much action movie, too many cars get destroyed, and there are too many explosions for a horror movie. This movie really belongs to Rutger Hauer, who is so menacing and intense. He really makes you believe he is a laid back unstoppable killing machine. This movie has the famous Jennifer Jason Leigh 'taffy-pull sequence' which is very good and very intense. If it wasn't for the rather over-amped chase sequences in the middle of the film this would be the ultimate psycho road movie. Let this movie be a lesson to you, never pick up a Dutch Guy in the middle of a West Texas downpour, no good can come of it.

Ghoulies - B

This is the movie, more truthfully the movie poster and subsequent VHS Box that made legions of children of the 80s terrified of the toilet. A young man and his girlfriend are checking out a house they recently inherited from his father who was a crazy green eyed cult leader who had several little monsters to do his bidding, the Ghoulies. During a while swinging party, the guy decides, 'Hey Let's Do A Ritual.' Of course all swinging parties aren't complete without a black magic ritual. Everyone is drunk enough so they all agree to it which summons up on of the Ghoulies. So the guy decides this will be a great career path so he dresses himself up in some really loose curtains and goes into the basement spouting off crazy mumbo-jumbo to bring all the Ghoulies back to do his bidding. But Ghoulies aren't enough, no, no he also summons midgets to do his bidding. Man the 80s really was the golden age for midgets in movies wasn't it, they were everywhere from the Ewoks in Star Wars, to the Pecks in Willow, to this fine cinematic gem. The female midget, Tamara De Treaux, previously starred at ET. Also look for Mariska Hargitay the star of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit in her very first role. This movie is pure 80s Cheese much like the sci-fi horror movie Deepstar Six, the movie poster was alway more terrifying than the movie itself. The B I gave the movie is more for sentimental value, the movie poster is one of those that will always stick with me probably longer than any memory of the actual film. I also do like 80s Cheese more than most, there is just something about slimey puppets that you can't recreate with CG.

Wax Work - D-

This movie answers the perennial question of the 1980s, whatever happened to Zach Galligan. Okay nobody knows who Zach Galligan actually is anymore, but he was the guy who started in the movie Gremlins, he was the guy who owned Gizmo. Well to answer that question you simply have to look here, to the 1988 horror equivialant of a belly flop, Wax Work, which I can't seem to stop turning into Wax Works, I have to write the title of the movie three times for each entry and every time I wrote Wax Works, which is rather annoying. In any case this is a movie about a suburban Los Angeles home that is turned into a wax museum. Mark, played by Zach, and his idle rich pals decide it will be fun to go to a private showing of the exhibits. So at midnight, woooo spooky, they arrive and are welcomed by Mihaly 'Michu' Meszaros or better known as the midget who played ALF in the TV series of the same name. They are shown to the museum itself which hosts 18 of the worst monsters in history, but each exhibit is actually a portal to another world where these dimwits meet their demises at the hands of the wax creations that are nothing but actors trying desperately to hold still, most of the time they fail and you get to watch them tremble, breath and blink, yes they are very convincing wax figures. The usual suspects get knocked off and it up to Zach and his lady fair to escape this surburban wax museum nightmare. Yes I know how I am routing for, the wax figures. The movie has one shining moment, when China, the bitch fights the three vampire bitches in the wine seller was fairly amusing and this movie featured cult star (star isn't a good word but I couldn't think of anything else) Miles O'Keefe which allows me to make one of my favorite jokes, 'How Much Keefe Do You Need In One Movie? Miles O'Keefe'. Other than that the dialogue is horrible, I spent more time with the sound muted just watching the mayhem, the acting sucks but with the mute on, the acting isn't all bad, it is still three fourths bad but not all bad. This is an interesting idea with horrible execution and should be missed.

The Witch Who Came From The Sea - B-

Molly is an acoholic waistress at a rundown seaside dive who a host of emotional problems stemming from her abusive father. She takes all manner of men to her place where she castrates them with a razor blade, ouch she is not right in the head. The movie is strictly a product of the 1970s, it deals with issues that are too sensitive for today's movie go-er, I could just imagine what would happen if this movie came out today. The most disturbing stuff in this movie, the castrations, the incest, child abuse, and the like are all done with a strange hallucinatory feel to them, the picture is fuzzy and the sound slows down to make it extra unsettling. The entire movie is a washed out, giving it an extra depressing feel to it. This movie isn't a horror movie in the traditional sense, it comes from the 70s they weren't very big on tradition back then, but it does a good job of conveying one damaged woman's descent into madness. The movie does have a very, very heavy 70s vibe to it, afros, bellbottoms, and groovy are all over the place which does date the movie but the themes are still revelant today. The actress who plays Molly is Millie Perkins best known for starring as Anne Frank in the 1959 classic, the Diary of Anne Frank, now this is a career change. Haunting and disturbing, a good movie that couldn't be made today because it is far too honest.

Three Extremes - A

Three of Asia's biggest horror directors come together to each create a short film for this. First up we have The Box by Takashi Miike. It is the story about writer has occurring dreams about being buried alive. When she was little she used to be an acrobat together with her sister but since her sister always got more attention she decided to lock her into a box one day. Well, one thing leads to another and her sister gets burned alive inside the box. With her past haunting her, the female writer doesn't know what to do with herself. This is classic Takashi Miike, it is deep, surreal, and twisted. You learn a little more each time the woman dreams, and the more you learn the more disturbing it gets. Some people may not be ready for this level of surreality, but I loved it, it was so finely crafted that if you pay attention you really get a great story about your past catching up with you, also it teaches you never to be in a three person circus troupe in Japan, weird stuff happens. Dumpling is by Hong Kong director Fruit Chan, he is the least known of the three directors, hell saying that really does do it justice, I have never heard of this guy and the other two well they are horror gods? Well he stands shoulder to shoulder with them and looks like he belongs. The tale in Dumplings is of a retired actress who is growing old, and her husband is now sleeping with his secretary, to change this she goes to see a private doctor, more like witch doctor, who has a secret recipe for dumplings that will bring back your youth. Of course there is a secret ingredient, and when you learn it it is worse than what you expect. But can she give up her fountain of youth over a secret ingredient? This was a very interesting little story, Bai Ling who plays the alternative medicine doctor is great, she is so cool and calm it is eerie. I also like the conclusion of the film, very left field, very good. Cut, rounding out the trio is a film from Chan Wook Park, the biggest thing to hit Korea since the Korean War. He tells the tale of a director who after a long day returns home and is attacked by an unknown man. He wakes to find himself tied to the wall, his wife tied to the piano with wire and an unknown psycho menacing both of them. At first he doesn't know who the man is but then remembers the man was an extra in a couple of his films. Well the guy is none too happy and is here for revenge and the airing of the directors dirty laundry. This is was my least favorite of the three but they were still all very good. If I had to pick my favorite it would be Dumpling. This was a great trio of films from three exceptional directors. You should check this out, if you liked horror movies you will like this. This movie also happens to be my 450th horror movie review.