Racketyboy Month of Horror 9: The Axis of Sorta Evil

Post by **Ack** » Thu Oct 25, 2018 5:03 pm

29. Shadows Run Black

Kevin Costner is in this movie as a main character, but he wasn't even listed in the credits. Seriously, he's completely left out. They remembered Ambulance Driver #1 but not him.

Shadows Run Black is a slasher film that doesn't want to admit it's a slasher film. It's also not a good slasher film, but we'll get to that. Basically, the premise is a masked man all in black murders women and makes harassing phone calls to one lady about how he's her father or some such nonsense. Meanwhile our chosen final girl is a woman in an interracial relationship but whose racist brother is totally trying to stop because he's trying to be "both her father and her mother". That's an exact line. Yes, it sounds gross when they say it.

I'm gonna ruin the twist: the lead detective is the psycho killer. If you have any trouble figuring it out, you weren't paying attention, because you can literally see him when he's calling the final girl. Also, he makes a beeline to take out Kevin Costner and declares the killer to be someone who thinks he's morally right. The rookie cop in the office even notices that he's behaving erratically, so yeah, you should totally have figured it out before the big reveal.

Meanwhile, we get a lot of exploitation. There's a ton of naked women getting killed in this movie. A couple of guys die, yes, but none of them get totally naked, walk around showing off the goods for long single shots, and then take a knife straight into the chest. And then the killer definitely rationalizes it as taking out the moral garbage, so yep, we've got our typical slasher morality tale! Also, there's a magic act from a guy who is literally nicknamed 'Magic'. No, it isn't Magic Johnson, but that would have been pretty sweet.

There is also some atrocious acting. The black guy gets shot, and his girlfriend declares "You killed the wrong person" in a deadpan voice after having been rescued by her racist, dumb ass brother. There's also a throwaway subplot about the brother's wife sleeping with his business partner that happens and then gets mentioned once as a last ditch effort to throw off the audience which completely fails. They should have gone with Communism. Now Communism is just a red herring. That's a reference to a much better movie.

Is there a reason to watch this movie? Well, if you love Kevin Costner, or if you want to watch even the worse dregs from Troma. Yes, this is Troma produced, though not directed. Considering the amount of naked women getting murdered, yeah, it makes sense, but typically their film plots are more interesting...and better acted...and better filmed. That's saying something.

Post by **Michi** » Thu Oct 25, 2018 7:59 pm

Alice, Sweet Alice

Catherine Spages is preparing for the first communion of her young, popular daughter, Karen, while simultaneously trying to fend off the jealousy the event is causing in her older daughter, Alice. Alice, it turns out, is anything but sweet. She’s an outcast, sullen, has problems at school and is prone to tantrums. So when Karen starts getting heaps of attention loaded on her, Alice starts feeling neglected and does what other children in her situation tend to do: she starts acting out, tormenting her sister, stealing her things and scaring her with masks.

But when the day of the communion ceremony finally arrives all hell breaks loose when Karen is strangled, placed in a bench and set on fire in the church transept. With Karen’s veil in Alice’s possession, suspicion quickly falls on the troubled older sister. But did Alice really kill her little sister, or is Alice just an easy target to place the blame?

Don’t look at me. I’m just a cop in a horror movie, I don’t know shit.

Believe it or not, despite its good reputation among horror fans, this is the first time I’ve seen Alice, Sweet Alice. It’s a child-themed murder mystery/slasher that feels like an American version of a giallo film. It also feels distinctly 70s. Don’t misunderstand, I don’t mean that in a bad way. It just has a certain dark tone and ambiance that seems prevalent in similar horror films from the era, like The Omen and The Exorcist. That’s a good thing. Although, these day it’s probably more well known for being ‘that horror movie with a really young Brooke Shields in it.’

Seen here in her last known photo.

There is a certain line, even today, that horror films tend to shy away from, and that is child murder. Alice, Sweet Alice jumps over that line with abandon and even goes a bit further by making you suspect another child of the murder. But even to the casual observer, suspicion falling on 12-year-old Alice feels far too easy an outcome. That’s not to say that said suspicion isn’t without some merit, however. Alice is more than just an obnoxious child. She’s cruel, she angers easily, she steals, she torments people, she’s got a mouth, she seems to lack empathy and she’s got a macabre fascination with masks and death. Honestly she’s one suspiciously tortured animal away from filling in her pre-serial killer bingo card.

But if it isn’t Alice, than who is it? That, I think, is part of the beauty of Alice, Sweet Alice. It’s one of those movie’s where you’re meant to really pay attention to everything that’s going on. We’re meant to think it’s Alice. We’re meant to think that the reason for Karen’s murder is related to the jealousy between the perfect child and the one that feels left out. But the real reason for her death is subilty played out in the background throughout the film before the killer is finally revealed in the third act. It’s that sort of subilty that set’s Alice, Sweet Alice appart from the more ‘in your face’ films of today.

Thought the film doesn’t shy away from the blatant either. The deaths in this movie are pretty damn brutal. It’s not just suggested that innocent Karen is strangled, you get a front row seat to her slowly getting throttled to death. Others are unceremoniously beaten and stabbed and thrown out windows. I wouldn’t call the deaths inventive, and they’d be considered pretty tame by today's standards, but they’re all pretty horrific to witness, since, unlike other movies the camera doesn't shy away from the attacks and the viewer is granted a front row seat to the bloodshed.

The film is filled with some pretty strong performances, chief among them being Paula Sheppard and Linda Miller. Miller plays a convincingly distraught mother, one who’s struggling with trying to grieve the death of one child while desperately trying to protect and reconnect with the one disturbed child she has left. Although the real stand out here is probably Sheppard. By the end of the film she really makes you feel for Alice. She initially comes off as being really bratty, but as the film plays out there’s less menace and more vulnerability as you realize that she’s really just as much a victim as everyone else. She’s having some serious mental issues that the school knew about, but failed to relay to her mother. Her aunt treats her terribly. The landlord’s got his pedophilic eye on her. She’s been thrown in a nuthouse. And to top it all off her father comes back and reignites all the abandonment issues she got when he divorced her mother and left to start a new family. That’s a hell of a lot to get across and Sheppard does an excellent job at all of it.

Also, did you know she was 19 when she filmed this movie? I sure as hell didn’t.

But none of that means that Alice, Sweet Alice isn’t without it faults. Some of the characters expressions are a bit over exaggerated, the Aunt here being the main culprit. There are two scenes where she’s literally shrieking in absolute terror and...I’m sorry, but she just has the most ridiculously entertaining screaming face. I ended up laughing at her when I was watching it and then laughing again as I was taking the screenshots. It sort of takes you out of the moment, because these are scenes where you’re supposed to be horrified and...I wasn’t. Sorry, movie.

Pffft….*snort*

Also, I’m a big fan of the use of subtlety in this movie, but sometimes the film goes through things a little too quickly. For instance, the part where the killer is revealed is a bit of a mess. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good reveal, but the after scene feels a little too quick and the resulting mumbly, rushed interaction almost guarantees you’re going to miss the all important revealed motive during the pivotal moment. I know I did. I had to rewind it a couple of times to make sure I caught everything, and even then I still went off to the internets the next day to make sure I’d heard right. It’s little things like that that can really interfere with one’s enjoyment of a film.

Damn it, camera guy, if you’d tilted the camera down a couple inches this shot would have been perfect.

All that said, Alice, Sweet Alice is still a great little slasher/thriller. The film does feel a little long and I think the story would have benefited if it had cut out a couple smaller sub-plots involving Alice’s parents and the creepy landlord. But it looks and sounds great and, with the exception of a couple instances, the acting is pretty stellar, too. It fits in perfectly with the other religious based horror films of the 70s. If you’re a fan of early slashers, than feel free to give Alice, Sweet Alice a go.

Alice, Sweet Alice is currently streaming on Amazon Prime.

Post by **Nemoide** » Fri Oct 26, 2018 11:59 pm

All Cheerleaders Die (2013) was my movie for the night; it's Lucky McKee's most recent horror movie (co-directed by Chris Sivertson). McKee will always have my respect for making May, one of my favorite horror films. But the only other one of his I've seen was The Woods, which I liked a lot, but didn't love as deeply as May.

All Cheerleaders Die is actually a remake of McKee's and Sivertson's first film, made in 2001. I've never seen that version, which is not a big deal (AFAIK, it never got a DVD release). I don't want to spoil the story too much, but the title does accurately tell you what happens in that all the cheerleaders die, though there is still quite a bit that happens after that. It's entertaining enough and it could be summarized as "high school gender politics exaggerated to the point of ridiculousness."
This movie isn't bad, but it definitely comes across as not being as smart as it seems to think it is. The film tries to subvert horror tropes, particularly around the objectification around women but doesn't quite pull that off. The movie ends with a cliffhanger and indication that a sequel is coming, though I don't know how seriously that was ever intended to be taken--I'm certainly not expecting it to get made anytime soon.

Post by **Kuruwin** » Sat Oct 27, 2018 1:17 am

Friday 13th Part III

I was suppose to watch parts 2-4 in order but i was visiting my folks and left the part II there so it was either to wait until my next visit or start from III. I decided not to wait because i'been lately playing Friday 13th game a lot with my friend and i was really on a mood to watch some of these. It was fun to notice how much the game draws from this film.

But how was the film itself. Well it was alright. The early kills are kinda lame but the later ones are more satisfying. The biggest flaw of this film is that it has decent cast of characters but they just didn't develop them enough. Time spent on those million fake scares could have been used way better. This could have been real slasher classic in my books but it ended up being just alright. It's still one of the better ones but it could have been lot more.

Post by **Michi** » Sun Oct 28, 2018 9:44 pm

Nightmare City
AKA City of the Walking Dead
AKA INCUBO Sulla Citta Contaminata

Television reporter Dean Miller is sent to the airport to interview a scientist about a recent nuclear disaster. But when he and his cameraman get there the airport is in the middle of an emergency situation. An unmarked, and seemingly unmanned military aircraft is making an emergency landing on the strip. Once on the ground, the plane is swarmed by military personnel. After a few minutes the doors of the plane slowly open and the army men are slaughtered by a horde of zombie-like creatures wielding a plethora of weaponry. The military
tries to keep the epidemic under control, but with more and more people being infected by the creatures, Miller realizes it's less important to spread the story and more important to survive.

But first, an aerobic workout interlude.

Oh, my, where to begin? Let's start with the effects. They're...not great. I'm fairly certain that Nightmare City was made on a very meager budget, and judging from the makeup work I'm going to assume I'm right. The irradiated humans, which here are a stand-in for your typical zombie, either look like they've got chunks of mud thrown on their face or they were in a horrible burnt cookie dough explosion, because whatever that is on their face it ain't blood. And those be the lucky ones, because at least they look like they had effort put into them, crappy though it may be. The other 'zombies' don't look like they were budgeted for makeup at all and just have a smudge of dough thrown on their cheek or a little dirt or red smeared on their face. But that’s only assuming the production hadn’t run out of ketchup packets at that point.

No, really, what the hell is this? Surely you can do better?

Oh come now…

Though that is not the extent of the films effects. It does have a few instances of decent, bloody gore that were nice to look at. But those instances are few and far between and we’re usually stuck with some version of Cakeface or the one mannequin they threw out of the plane.

Behold it’s look of scorn. It decided it was better to kill itself rather than be in the movie any longer.

While the plot itself is simple enough, it’s muddled with a series of subplots that really weigh it down. Worse still is it bounces around these various stories like a jackrabbit in heat. Well, a plodding jackrabbit in heat. No one really cares about the General’s daughter and her doofy husband, or the Major's artistic girlfriend, or those weird jazzercisers the film cuts to twice to interrupt the plo-

Damnit, movie!

Okay, they may care a bit more about the girlfriend since she’s an early point of T&A, and she’s cute and made of equal parts of sweet and saucy. But all my sympathy for her jumped out the window when she was told not to leave the house and it took her less than 45 seconds before she ignored that warning and left the house leaving the door wide open behind her.

What part of stay in the f*&#*%^ house did you not understand?!

Which leads me to the characters. If you couldn’t tell, most of the people in this movie are dumber than a sack of rotten potatoes. I wanted to say ‘zombie potatoes,’ but that would be an insult to the zombies, because they, at least, are competent in their murder spree. But I guess that wouldn’t be too hard to do when your victims are mindless idiots who lack common sense and any peripheral vision. At one point, one of the jazercisers is killed only feet from the stage, in full view of everyone, and no one seems to have noticed. Until the one guy does notice and his only reaction is to crouch down and stare blankly at her dead body until he himself gets stabbed in the neck. Slowly. Through the whole thing, he has no reaction...whatsoever. And still, nobody notices until a ‘zombie’ storms onto the set.

Hey, Alfonso, you wanna maybe, I don’t know, show an emotion here?

No? Alright, then….

Let’s talk about the ‘zombies’ for a sec. As previously mentioned, they’re not ‘zombies’ but irradiated humans. So they’re less foot dragging, brain eating slugs and more marathon running, machine gun wielding blood suckers. Think 28 Days as opposed to Night of the Living Dead. So any rules you may typically think should be associated with them should be ignored. These guys have no rules. In a way, that makes them more frightening, because you have no idea what they’re going to do. They’ll kill you blunt objects, kill you with sharp objects, beat you, strangle you, shoot you and they’ll chase your ass down to do it. Well, a lot of them run. Some shuffle after you instead. There’s really no consistency. The only thing that is consistent is their love of blood, which they somehow instinctively know they need to keep living. I’m not sure why it’s blood here instead of brains, but I guess it’s easier to get to blood than it is to get into the cranial cavity.

Of course, I think a lot of them are using it as an excuse to suck on lady neck.

So, is Nightmare City any good? Well, it certainly has its moments, but I don’t know if I’d go so far as to call it ‘good.’ Most of the effects are half hearted, and while it’s violent as hell, the violence itself is really more cartoonish than anything else. The characters are all forgettable and spout lines of inane dialogue, but to be fair I’m not sure if that’s the fault of the translation or the original script. The plot itself sort of plods along from one scene to another and tries little to make an impact until the ‘zombies’ show back up to cause more chaos. And on top of all that, it has a crappy, cop-out ending. So, not so much ‘good,’ but maybe more in the realm of ‘so bad it’s good?’ There are certainly worse ways to spend 90 minutes. I certainly think it’s a nice, supplementary ‘zombie’ film that does a lot of things differently and if you’re like me you might get a few chuckles out of some of the more ridiculous moments. But if you’re looking for a more serious ‘zombie’ flick or looking to sink your foot into Italian horror, then this is likely not the place to start.

Nightmare City is currently streaming on Amazon Prime.

Post by **Nemoide** » Sun Oct 28, 2018 10:25 pm

Willard (2003) - a remake of a 1970s movie about a young man, Willard (Crispin Glover), who lives with a domineering sickly mother, works a job he's miserable at, for a boss he hates, under the shadow of his dead father. He doesn't have any friends or romantic interests and his house is infested with rats. He ends up befriending the rats, particularly a smart one he names Socrates and maintains a somewhat ambivalent relationship with an extra-large one named Ben. He trains the rats and uses them to get revenge on his boss (chewing the tires of his new car), then really bad stuff happens and it becomes more of a horror film. This movie hits all the same beats as the original but even though it's longer than the original, it feels much more quickly paced. I found this movie to be way more engaging and if you're a Crispin Glover fan, you're especially in for a treat. I still think Of Unknown Origin is the best rat movie I've seen, but this is still solid. It has flaws, but they're the same flaws as the original in reduced form.

Orgy of the Dead - the most famous credit on this film is the writer: Edward D. Wood Jr. It's a "nudie cutie" type of quasi-porn and offers little in entertainment. The story is that The Amazing Criswell (of Plan 9 fame) and his goth girlfriend (*NOT* Vampira of Plan 9 fame) are some sort of supernatural beings who want to spirits of dead women to dance for them in a cemetery. Meanwhile, a couple gets into a car accident, end up in the cemetery, and watch the dances before being held captive by a werewolf and mummy. That's really everything, the main draw of the movie is watching topless women dancing. The movie's just about unwatchable. It's not SCARY, and it's not particularly SEXY, it's just stuff happening on screen with some of the worst acting imaginable. That said, this is the second time I've seen the movie, having bought the Blu-Ray that came out from Vinegar Syndrome after having seen it on VHS in high school. It's easily one of the worst movies I've ever seen, but I can imagine this being good to have on in the background at a Halloween party with folks who don't mind looking at naked ladies. It's greatest virtue is that people will NOT get drawn into it and it will encourage people to talk to each other and focus on things other than the movie.

Deliverance - okay, this isn't usually considered a horror movie, but I'm counting it based on what I was expecting it to be. What I was expecting was something like Rituals or I Spit on Your Grave: some people on vacation, getting back to nature, being absolutely brutalized and tormented by rednecks. I imagined that if 2000 Maniacs counts as a horror film, this should count too. I've seen the dueling banjos scene parodied a million times, I've heard "squeal like a pig" and "you got a purdy mouth" more times than I can count. But this movie wasn't really what I expected! There is a rape scene, but it's actually only a small part of the movie. It's not about endless torment and stalking...
It's an okay movie, it kept me engaged, it feels shocking and subversive by the standards of the 1970s... but I didn't really care for it. I feel like the movie's trying to say something about the dichotomy between city folks/country folks, and of individuals/land, of the abuse of power between "raping" the landscape (explicitly mentioned at the start of the film) and the rape of an individual, but I'm not sure that message gets delivered clearly enough. I wouldn't really recommend it, outside of being historically significant from how much it gets parodied/referenced.

Post by **Kuruwin** » Tue Oct 30, 2018 12:23 am

The House by the Cemetery

I don't really like to comment a movie when i spent good chunk of it's duration tapping my phone but this one seemed to go to "just boring" sort of Fulci. It does have some of those unintenionally funny moments like the bat scene but not enough to warrant a watch. The kills aren't good either so it's not worth for the gore either.

Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter

This was such a huge letdown after part III. I'm glad that there werent many fake scares this time around but otherwise this is a major downgrade on all around. Characters were annoying and had some serious hearing problems. It leaned heavily towards being annoyingly stupid flick and the there was only like one decent kill so it's not even satisfactory on that regard. This one is just super bland and i don't know if i want to watch any of the later ones after this. I was thinking about watching part six but i probably i will be done with the series after part 2.

Post by **Ack** » Tue Oct 30, 2018 9:58 am

30. Zombeavers

Take a joke about zombie beavers. Now imagine it as a feature length production. Yeah, that's pretty much what you get here.

Basically, Bill Burr and John Mayer are terrible truckers who hit a deer and drop toxic waste into a lake full of beavers. Then, a bunch of college girls show up to try and help one get over her cheating boyfriend, only for said boyfriends to show up uninvited. Then the zombie beavers attack everyone. While this might have been the only thing we got, we also have people who get bitten turn into human-zombie beaver hybrids. There's even a zombie beaver bear!

If ever there was a movie that held onto a single joke as long as it could, this is it. Yet surprisingly, I found myself enjoying this movie. The human interactions are interesting, the characters are surprisingly likable, and there is subversion from the traditional "virginal final girl" trope. In fact, the real final girl is actually the one walking around topless, enjoying sex, and being an asshole to people. Since she was the one I wanted to survive anyway, I'm good.

I mentioned that both Bill Burr and John Mayer are in this, and I believe they were allowed to ad-lib their lines, judging from the additional footage that plays during the credits, but there's another actor in this movie I want to point out: Jake Weary. Why is it important you recognize him? Because he also appeared in It Follows as the guy who gives the STD monster to the heroine. 2014 was a good year for him.

Zombeavers is probably best paired with the likes of the 2006 New Zealand horror comedy Black Sheep, which is about carnivorous sheep that can mutate humans into sheep monsters by biting them. In fact, if you haven't seen either, track them both down, have some beer handy, and enjoy them both with friends.

31. The Town That Dreaded Sundown

To wrap up my requirement of 31 for the total marathon, I decided to watch the 2014 Town That Dreaded Sundown. Now I understand why people say it's not really a remake, not really a sequel, but more a hybrid update. As a fan of the original film, I find this movie incredibly well done. It exists almost in its own time, drifting through strange dream sequences and directly interacting with the original film or mirroring it in sometimes clever and sometimes sloppy ways. It does fall apart at the end in my opinion, but it does so in a different way from the original, so I'm glad they at least paid attention and didn't bring in the worst bits of the original film.

Basically, in 2013 the Phantom Killer suddenly returns to Texarkana and begins a new murder spree. Instead of butchering the first female victim though, he gives her a warning to remember Mary. From there, Jami Lerner begins her own investigation while the local sheriff's department and Texas Rangers (led by Anthony Anderson in a great performance) conduct theirs. The new Phantom Killer generally mimics the kills of the first, as portrayed in the film but also based on historical record. However, there are twists, such as the new Phantom Killer focusing not just on teenagers but older people, veterans, and even a pair of sexually curious guys who were awkwardly trying to explore themselves.

Something that I loved about the original film was out it focused on feet walking to emphasize that anyone could be the Phantom Killer. In the new TTDS, this focus is shifted to blue eyes, which are clearly seen on many residents and often provides red herrings as to who the potential killer could be. Is someone slightly menacing? Expect them to have blue eyes. Is there a creepy looking guy in the background? He's got blue eyes too. Up until the third act, suspects are shown but also eliminated, sometimes by the police, sometimes by the killer. It makes a clever guessing game.

All of this falls apart in the third act, by which point it is partly obvious who the killer will be (I guessed partly right in the first act, but it was fun seeing the red herrings play with my opinion). While there is a twist, it's not a good one, and the end result feels cheap and not earned. It's a shame, because the rest of the film was really strong up until that point. Yet I must also give the film credit for not trying to inject the poorly-devised humor of the original movie.

Now if only someone would continue with Charles B. Pierce's Boggy Creek II: And the Legend Continues. Oh wait.

Well, that's 31 down...but I do not plan to stop watching horror movies. We have to keep the darkness alive, folks!

Post by **Nemoide** » Tue Oct 30, 2018 10:16 pm

Two more movies down for me:

Double, Double, Toil and Trouble - ...yes, the Olsen twins movie. I found a VHS copy earlier in the year and picked it up thinking it would be worth watching once in October and then throwing away. I've seen it before, but it's not really a childhood favorite. Still, I associate Halloween with childhood and nostalgia, and I'd put this maybe a little bit above The Worst Witch. It's very much for kids and the story doesn't REALLY make a ton of sense, but having this on in the background reminds me of being a kid in the 90s. There's witchery, the sense that the kids are really having a thrilling adventure, and some fun performances from Phil Fondacaro and Meshach Taylor.

Halloween (2018) - I'd rate this as being pretty good for a Michael Myers-Halloween sequel. That said, I'm not really a fan of the series; I've seen them all out of a dumb sense of obligation to Horror fandom and the fact that I've seen every Halloween that's been in theaters since I've been old enough to see R-rated movies - Halloween Resurrection was my first for theatrical Halloween. Honestly, this movie didn't really strike me as special. Yes, Jamie Lee Curtis is great, yes, the formula is tweaked a bit, but I still feel like this is just another Halloween movie. It's easily better than Halloween 4, 5, 6, Resurrection, and Rob Zombie's Halloween 2... but I'd put it about on par with Halloween II, H20, and Rob Zombie's Halloween. It does have what struck me as the most over-the-top fatality in a Myers movie though, so that's something. WHATEVER, this series doesn't do it for me. Even the first one is more interesting as a historical artifact than as a movie I really like watching.
For my money, Halloween III is the best of the entire series by a considerable margin.

HLTB · Post by **Xeogred** » Tue Oct 30, 2018 11:02 pm

Nemoide wrote:For my money, Halloween III is the best of the entire series by a considerable margin.

LMAO... I enjoyed Halloween III too. At least it tried something different, felt like a parody of a bad James Bond movie.

The first is a classic and the sequel is okay, but yeah. Otherwise I think the issue with Halloween is that Michael Myers is no Freddy or Jason, who become the stars of their own franchise and are fun comical characters. Pinhead too for Hellraiser. Myers has no personality or anything going for him though.

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Racketyboy Month of Horror 9: The Axis of Sorta Evil

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