ABBOTT & COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN -- movie review by porfle

 

Originally posted on 9/7/09

 

Old monsters never die, they just fade away... Unless, that is, they're given one last chance to shine, as Universal pictures did for their classic monsters Dracula, the Wolf Man, and Frankenstein (really Frankenstein's Monster, since it was the doctor who created him who was named Frankenstein -- but, let's face it, people were calling the Monster "Frankenstein" way back in the early thirties, including Universal's promotional department). 

By 1948, the various series starring these definitive movie monsters had wound down -- the scriptwriters were unable to think of new ways to rehash the same old formulas, the Gothic horror style that made these movies what they were had begun to diminish in the shadow of the Cold War and the Atomic Age, and new chapters in these sagas were beginning to end up at the bottom of double bills that drew increasingly smaller audiences. 

And so, as Universal became Universal-International and began to cut budgetary corners wherever possible, many of the men who played these monsters and the technicians responsible for bringing them to the screen were, one by one, given their pink slips and sent packing. 

However, two stars who were having no trouble getting people to buy movie tickets were the comedy team of Bud Abbott and Lou Costello. And since U-I had all these classic monster characters just sitting around collecting cobwebs, it was decided to team them with the two comics in an attempt to combine the last vestiges of the monsters' popularity with the ongoing success of Bud and Lou, and create what would become a unique and thoroughly entertaining comedy/horror experience. The result was ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN. 

Thankfully, the monsters were pretty much allowed to play it straight, without forcing them to perform a lot of pratfalls and silliness. In fact, the opening scene, which finds hapless lycanthrope Larry Talbot (Lon Chaney, Jr.) in a London hotel room fretfully awaiting the rising of the full moon, would have fit perfectly into any of the serious horror films of earlier years. Talbot, it seems, has been on the trail of Dracula, because he knows the infamous King of the Vampires is now in possession of the Frankenstein Monster and is trying to find a suitably compliant brain to surgically pop into his skull and transform the lumbering beast into a willing servant who will do his bidding. 

 

 

Having discovered that Dracula and the Monster have been transported to a "house of horrors" exhibit in Florida, Talbot is desperately trying to contact the shipping company by phone in order to intercept the crates before they're delivered. And who should answer the phone but Wilbur Grey (Lou Costello), who works there with his buddy Chick (Bud Abbott)? 

As Talbot tries to explain the situation to Wilbur, the full moon rises and he begins to sprout hair and fangs (in the first of two excellent transformation scenes). Wilbur hears growling on the other end of the line and thinks that, for some reason, the man has put his dog on the phone. But what he hears is the Wolf Man rampaging through the hotel room, savagely ripping the furniture to shreds in a scene that is every bit as chilling as any of the "official" Wolf Man movies. 

 After night descends on Florida, Wilbur and Chick deliver the crates containing Dracula and the Monster to McDougal's House Of Horrors. Wilbur, of course, discovers them and is suitably terrified, but a skeptical Chick will have none of it. 

Finally Dracula arises from his coffin and takes the Monster to a castle on a nearby island (I know, there aren't very many castles in Florida, but that's not important) where his accomplice, Dr. Sandra Mornay (Lenore Aubert), who possesses the actual diary of Dr. Frankenstein, will perform the brain transplant. Unfortunately, the brain she has chosen for its simplicity and compliance is none other than that of her "boyfriend", Wilbur! 

ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN is a dream-come-true for fans of both Bud and Lou and the classic Universal monsters. Although the humor is more situational, with less of the usual comedy "routines" that are found in most Abbott and Costello movies, it is one of their funniest efforts. And it's a real joy to see Bela Lugosi, Lon Chaney, Jr., and Glenn Strange performing their unforgettable characters one last time. 

Lugosi, denied by Universal the chance to portray his most famous character since 1931 (John Carradine assumed the role in HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN and HOUSE OF DRACULA; Lon Chaney, Jr. appeared as SON OF DRACULA around the same time), relishes the chance to don the famous cape again and gives a wonderfully sinister performance. 

 Chaney, of course, is great as Larry Talbot/the Wolf Man, and even though he wears a masklike appliance here (master make-up man Jack Pierce, who created the famous make-ups for the Monster, the Wolf Man, the Mummy, et al, had since been let go by the studio, and faster, more cost-efficient methods were now employed), thus making his face less mobile and expressive, still manages to convey the frightening viciousness of the Wolf Man, even in certain scenes in which he must clumsily fail in his attempts to sink his claws into an unsuspecting Lou Costello. 

And Glenn Strange, the former stunt man and bit actor who played the Monster in the last two serious entries in the Frankenstein series (HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN and HOUSE OF DRACULA) has more to do here than in either of the previous films in which he spent most of his screen time strapped to a laboratory table. 

The climax of the film takes place in the castle as Dracula and Dr. Mornay prepare to transfer Wilbur's brain into the skull of the Monster while Chick and Talbot come to his rescue. As fate would have it, the full moon rises yet again and Talbot undergoes his transformation, which leads to a rare battle between Dracula and the Wolf Man (just as Lugosi and Chaney, and their respective stunt doubles, fought in FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN five years earlier), while the newly-recharged Monster breaks free of his restraints and goes after Bud and Lou. This results in an extended free-for-all that will delight fans of both genres. 

Unfairly maligned by many critics as the final degradation of the classic Universal monsters, ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN is actually a wonderful tribute to them, and a fond way of bidding farewell to these familiar characters that provided so much entertainment to their many fans over the years. If you're one of those fans, and you also appreciate the comedy of Abbott and Costello, this is a film that you'll want to watch over and over again.

 

ABBOTT & COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN -- movie review by porfle

TEENAGE GHOST PUNK -- Movie Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 4/12/17

 

The word "lightweight" is usually used in a deprecating way, but in the case of TEENAGE GHOST PUNK (Midnight Releasing, 2014) I don't think anything weightier would've worked.  It would be like dumping an entire pint of ice cream on top of a Twinkie instead of a tasty dollop of Cool Whip.

The Twinkie, in this case, is a pleasant little tale of a displaced family: recent divorcée Carol (Adria Dawn), nervously re-entering the workforce in a new town; teen daughter Amanda (Grace Madigan), angst-ridden about leaving her old school and friends; and kid brother Adam (Noah Kitsos), a prematurely intelligent, erudite little wiseacre who enjoys getting on his big sister's nerves. 

What they don't know is that the neat little two-storey house they're about to move into is already inhabited by the ghost of Brian, a teenaged punk rocker who was electrocuted back in the 70s while playing guitar on the roof in the rain and has been unable, or unwilling, to "move on" since then.

 

At first, there are a few weird POLTERGEIST-type occurrences--rooms found in disarray, silverware spelling out words, bumps in the night--that Carol blames on the kids, but nothing really scary.  It's just lightly, comically spooky stuff because this movie isn't trying to scare us as much as it just wants to be lightly comical.

In fact, the funniest thing about TEENAGE GHOST PUNK to me isn't the ghostly stuff, but rather some of the secondary characters such as Squatchie (Jake Shadrake), a clumsy, extremely hirshute fellow student of Amanda's who keeps trying to get her to go out with him, and Carol's new co-worker Barry (Darren Stephens), a conceited jerk whose constant come-ons are delightfully annoying and groanworthy.

And then there's faux medium Madame Lidnar (Lynda Shadrake), recommended to Amanda by their new neighbors, a mixed-race gay couple who are both named Steve.  But best of all are a ghost-hunting group known as SPIT (Super Paranormal Investigation Team), a funny take-off of shows like "Ghost Hunters" where excitable team members creep around in the dark, jumping at shadows and "hearing" things. 

 

For me, the film's biggest giggles come when this gaggle of idiots are loose in the house or giddily explaining why all their equipment has an "X" in the name (because an "X" makes everything sound cooler).

Naturally, Amanda will eventually form a simpatico relationship with Brian (and his friends, who all hail from different time periods but are equally stuck in the limbo between two worlds) that helps compensate for her recently being dumped by her old boyfriend. 

There are the usual complications when Carol doesn't believe Amanda's ghost stories and blames her for various manifestations, and a twist or two that are so obvious that we must be intended to figure them out in one second flat.  But we know it'll all work itself out by the end because this movie has "happy ending" scrawled all over it.

 

It's all pretty smartly-written and acted in a way that makes even the less interesting scenes watchable, and writer-director Mike Cramer handles it all adeptly.  Still, by the time Amanda's Halloween party arrives--in which all ghosts will be visible to the living and all secrets revealed--the story has begun to lose some of its steam.  But by now it's as comfortable as an After School Special and remains easy to take until the upbeat fadeout.

TEENAGE GHOST PUNK may come up short for those expecting something with more depth and substance. For me, however, it's like a party balloon--lightweight, but colorful and amusing enough until it pops. 

TEENAGE GHOST PUNK -- Movie Review by Porfle

SICK NURSES -- movie review by porfle

 

(This review has appeared online in 2007 and again in 2012.)


SICK NURSES (2007) is a mind-boggling horror flick from Thailand that plays around with all those Asian ghost-story cliches and offers some of the most flabbergasting, over-the-top death scenes I've seen in quite a while.  It's a wickedly fun tale of revenge, summed up pretty well by Michael Madsen's "Budd" in KILL BILL:  "That woman deserves her revenge...and we deserve to die."  But Budd got off easy in that movie, because if he'd been in this one, he would've ended up worse off than Paula Schultz.

Dr. Tar (Wichan Jarujinda) is a celebrated young doctor who's engaged to the lovely nurse Tahwaan (Chon Wachananon).  But when she catches him fooling around with another nurse--her own sister, Nook (Chidjan Rujiphun)--she goes ballistic and threatens to expose the dirty secret that he sells bodies on the side.  As the rest of the nurses hold Tahwaan down, one of them stabs her to death.  Exactly seven days later, right before midnight, the ghost of Tahwaan returns to the hospital to wreak bloody vengeance upon Dr. Tar and the other nurses. 

This is one weird, gory, surrealistic movie.  Tahwaan's ghost is jet-black with piercing eyes and long, long black hair, which she uses for all sorts of fun things like cocooning people or hanging them from the ceiling.  And that's just for starters.  She can also turn your arms and hands black and take control of them, causing you do commit grave and usually very ironic injury to yourself.  A bulemic nurse who spends most of her time binging and purging ends up stuffing herself with some extremely unhealthy items until her jaw-dropping demise, while a couple of cute twins who deeply admire one another's beauty are eventually compelled to lay into each other with hacksaws.  As for Nook, who is pregnant with Dr. Tar's child...well, you can imagine her ironic fate.

The setting is what must be the emptiest hospital since HALLOWEEN II--there isn't a patient in sight--and the nurses all seem to have their own private, girly bedrooms and don't ever actually do anything except scamper around in sexy uniforms.  It's more like a big giddy sorority house run by SCTV's Johnny LaRue than a hospital.  This doesn't matter, though, because once the terror begins, logic would just get in the way.

At first it seems as though there's barely any story at all, but little scraps of the narrative fall into place along the way, mostly in flashbacks, to make things interesting between bursts of bloody horror.  And there's an awesome twist ending which, I must admit, I didn't see coming at all.  It doesn't make total sense, but that's one of the endearing things about this movie--it's so freakishly entertaining that it doesn't have to.

The simple premise is similar to dozens of killer-on-the-loose borefests we've sat through over the years, but here, lots of visual style and a truly imaginative sense of the bizarre set it apart.  SICK NURSES benefits from an enthusiastic young cast (composed mainly of lovely young ladies), impressive gore effects with a minimum of bad CGI, and an attitude that's as gleefully sick as those titular nurses.

SICK NURSES -- movie review by porfle

THE VAULT OF AMICUS -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

 

(Originally posted on 12/19/17)

 

THE VAULT OF AMICUS is exclusive to "THE AMICUS COLLECTION" (Blu-ray 4-volume box set) from Severin Films.
(And Now the Screaming Starts/Asylum/The Beast Must Die!/The Vault of Amicus)

So you like Amicus Pictures, and you also like trailer compilations, eh?  Well then, Severin Films has just the thing for you--namely, their new Blu-ray collection entitled THE VAULT OF AMICUS (B&W/color, 63 min.), which gathers 30 or so Amicus trailers from 1960-81 together into one nice, watchable batch and also adds a commentary track and a couple of lengthy interviews with the company's founders, Max Rosenberg and Milton Subotsky, for good measure.

It's exclusive to Severin's new 4-volume boxed set, THE AMICUS COLLECTION, which also contains Amicus classics ASYLUM, AND NOW THE SCREAMING STARTS, and THE BEAST MUST DIE!  The trailers for these show up later, of course, but the disc begins with Rosenberg and Subotsky's pioneer foray into film, a pre-Beatles teen music show called "Ring-a-Ding Rhythm" which is delightfully out of touch with where pop music was headed at the time.

What follows is an account of how the producing partners followed trends, tried new things, learned their craft through trial and error, and ended up putting out a widely-varied body of work which happened to concentrate mainly upon horror and science-fiction, the two most lucrative genres for the independent filmmakers. 

Some of the more familiar titles in the latter category are "Dr. Terror's House of Horrors", "Dr. Who and the Daleks", "The Skull", "Daleks Invasion Earth: 2150 A.D.", Robert Bloch's "The Psychopath", "The Terrornauts", "They Came From Beyond Space", "The Mind of Dr. Soames", "Torture Garden", and one of their least successful efforts, "The Deadly Bees." 

A departure for them was the spy thriller "Danger Route" with Richard Johnson.  Forays into more high-brow and/or experimental territory would come with such films as "The Birthday Party" with a young Robert Shaw (who would later play Quint in "Jaws"), "What Became of Jack and Jill" (a psychological thriller), and "Thank You All Very Much" with Sandy Dennis.

But it's the good stuff (as far as I'm concerned, anyway) that Rosenberg and Subotsky kept coming back to.  As the commentary points out, experience taught them what worked and what didn't, so they just kept doing what worked as well as they could.

This resulted in a string of classics and near-classics that gave Hammer Studios a run for their money in the 60s and 70s, with such titles as "The House That Dripped Blood", "Scream and Scream Again", "I, Monster" (Christopher Lee doing Jekyll and Hyde), "Asylum", "And Now the Screaming Starts", "The Beast Must Die!", "From Beyond the Grave", "Madhouse", and that beloved duo of EC Comics adaptations, "Tales From the Crypt" and "The Vault of Horror."

Later, Amicus would venture into Edgar Rice Burroughs fantasy-adventure romps with "The Land That Time Forgot", "At the Earth's Core", and "The People That Time Forgot."  Rosenberg and Subotsky's partnership would conclude with "The Uncanny" and "The Monster Club."

This is the stuff I read about in "Famous Monsters" magazine as a kid and was occasionally lucky enough to see on the big screen. I particularly recall seeing "Dr. Who and the Daleks" as the second half of a double bill with "Night of the Living Dead."  The colorful and relatively cheerful "Daleks" came as quite a relief for a kid who just endured Romero's grueling nightmare of terror for the first time.
 
The trailers, as usual for a collection such as this, are a mixed bag with some more interesting than others, but all in all it's a splendidly entertaining set.  Casting was an Amicus strong point, so many of them are jam-packed with familiar faces such as Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Vincent Price, Jack Palance, Burgess Meredith, Patrick Magee, Caroline Munro, Ingrid Pitt, Diana Dors, Harry Andrews, Carol Lynley, Robert Vaughn, Nigel Davenport, Patrick Wymark, Doug McClure, Robert Powell, Terence Stamp, and many others.

The commentary track by horror authors Kim Newman and David Flint is knowledgeable and fun, with nary a dead spot.  The bonus menu consists of very lengthy, in-depth interviews and remembrances by Rosenberg and Subotsky themselves (with accompanying pictures) which should prove absolutely invaluable to any interested parties. 

The trailers themselves have that wonderful grindhouse look that fills me with nostalgia--most of them look like they've been around the block a few times. (Look for the really cool Easter Egg for some fun TV spots.)

THE VAULT OF AMICUS, like any good trailer compilation, is a treasure trove of juicy clips from lots of great movies, in this case the best of a legendary production duo whose solid genre output kept us horror and sci-fi fans going back in the days before such things became mainstream and plentiful.  It's the kind of nostalgia that you just want to settle into and wallow around in for awhile.


THE VAULT OF AMICUS is exclusive to "THE AMICUS COLLECTION" (Blu-ray 4-volume box set) from Severin Films.
(And Now the Screaming Starts/Asylum/The Beast Must Die!/The Vault of Amicus)

Order THE AMICUS COLLECTION (Blu-ray 4-volume box set) from Severin Films

Read our reviews of:
ASYLUM
AND NOW THE SCREAMING STARTS
THE BEAST MUST DIE!

THE VAULT OF AMICUS -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF (1961) -- Movie Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 6/5/21

 

Currently rewatching: THE CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF (1961), starring Oliver Reed (GLADIATOR, PARANOIAC, TAKE A GIRL LIKE YOU, THE THREE MUSKETEERS, THE BROOD) and several other faces familiar to fans of Hammer Films.

It is, indeed, one of the premiere Hammer productions, providing that lush, picturesque, and theatrical-yet-visceral quality that makes the company's early films so unique.

Production design is first rate from the start, as we follow a starving beggar (Richard Wordsworth, THE QUATERMASS XPERIMENT, THE REVENGE OF FRANKENSTEIN) from the streets of an unfriendly village to the opulent wedding celebration of sadistic Marques Siniestro (Anthony Dawson, DR. NO, DIAL M FOR MURDER), who ridicules the poor wretch for the amusement of his guests before throwing him into his dungeon to be forgotten.

 

 
The beggar befriends the daughter of the dungeon keeper, a young mute girl, but grows increasingly insane during his years of captivity. One day the girl herself is imprisoned for refusing the sexual advances of the Marques, whereupon she is then molested by the crazed old beggar.

She escapes and survives in the woods until, now with child, she is taken in by well-to-do doctor Alfredo (Clifford Evans, "The Avengers: Dial a Deadly Number"/"Death's Door", KISS OF THE VAMPIRE) and his kindly servant Teresa (Hira Talfrey, THE OBLONG BOX, WITCHFINDER GENERAL).

The screenplay by Hammer mainstay Anthony Hinds, based on the novel "The Werewolf of Paris" by Guy Endore, takes its sweet time developing this backstory for our main character--Leon, the servant girl's child--who isn't even born until roughly half an hour into the film. It's this kind of meticulous storytelling which, when done well, allows the viewer to settle into a story that is as engrossing as a 19th-century novel.

 

 
Plagued with various curses borne out by superstition (not the least of which is being an illegitimate child born on Christmas Day), Leon grows up to be a turbulent soul who must be surrounded by tranquility and love lest he transform, by the light of the full moon, into a ravenous, bloodthirsty beast possessed by the spirit of a wolf.

While Alfredo and Teresa provide such love during his childhood (his mother having died in childbirth), the adult Leon strikes out on his own and soon encounters a harsh, hostile world that brings his murderous wolf spirit to the fore.

THE CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF came four years after the film that made Hammer the horror giant that it became, 1957's CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN (HORROR OF DRACULA would follow a year later), while the soon-to-be legendary British studio was still in its prime. 

 

 

 

Terence Fisher, arguably Hammer's finest director, lends his impeccable visual artistry to a film which also benefits from the kind of colorful photography, production design, and costuming that made Hammer films some of the most visually lavish of the era.

In the lead role, a strikingly intense young Oliver Reed could not be a stronger and better choice, physically imposing and demanding of our attention with his every move and expression.

Reed is completely effective whether struggling to suppress his savage instincts, clinging desperately to the calming influence of his beautiful but forbidden love Cristina (Catherine Feller, THE BELLES OF ST. TRINIAN'S), who is promised to another, or, finally, transforming (thanks largely to Roy Ashton's brilliant makeup) into what may be the fiercest, most terrifying screen werewolf of all time.

We never see this fearsome beast during its initial murderous rampages, but those scenes are so well-handled as to be effective even while withholding the monster's actual visage. 

 

 

This is reserved for his final transformation while imprisoned in a jail cell, as Leon's terrified cellmate witnesses his gradual change into the raging beast that will kill him before escaping to wreak havoc upon the town's panicked citizenry.

Also appearing are Hammer regulars Michael Ripper and Charles Woodbridge, future James Bond regular Desmond "Q" Llewelyn in a bit part as one of Marques Siniestro's footmen, and Warren Mitchell ("The Avengers: The See-Through Man"/"Two's A Crowd") as the village wolf hunter. Benjamin Frankel, who composed the music for the John Huston classic NIGHT OF THE IGUANA, provides a robust score.

With its rich atmosphere and thrilling monster, THE CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF was one of my childhood favorites, and it's still a full-blooded horror experience today. Along with CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN, HORROR OF DRACULA, THE MUMMY, and a few others, it's one of Hammer's all-time best.

CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF (1961) -- Movie Review by Porfle

GIANT FROM THE UNKNOWN -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 12/14/20

 

One fan's cheesy low-budget monster mash is another fan's treasure.  Film Detective has taken a prime example of this, director Richard Cunha's 1958 debut feature GIANT FROM THE UNKNOWN, and served both kinds of fans (including those of us who are both) with a crisp, finely-rendered restoration.

Filmed mostly on location in the rugged mountains and forests of southern California, this is the tale of a monstrous Spanish conquistador named Vargas who wakes after being frozen alive in solid rock for centuries and goes on a rampage that leaves ravaged bodies both animal and human in his wake.

Played by 6'6" actor Buddy Baer (FAIR WIND TO JAVA, QUO VADIS, AFRICA SCREAMS), brother of famed boxer Max Baer, the armor-clad behemoth sports a fearsome visage created by former Universal makeup maestro Jack Pierce and swings a deadly battle ax.

While the local sheriff (cowboy star Bob Steele, later to be a regular on the TV classic "F Troop") tries to solve the mysterious murders, archeologist Wayne Brooks (Ed Kemmer, THE SPIDER, "Space Patrol") heads into the wilderness with fellow explorer Dr. Cleveland (Morris Ankrum, ROCKETSHIP X-M, EARTH VS. THE FLYING SAUCERS) and his beautiful daughter Janet (Sally Fraser, WAR OF THE COLOSSAL BEAST, IT CONQUERED THE WORLD, THE SPIDER), where their search for ancient relics brings them frighteningly face to face with a live one.

As they inch closer to the truth behind the recent murders, Vargas follows up his killing of more townspeople by setting his sights on Janet.  This will eventually bring every able bodied man in town into the hunt for the monster, who uses his fierce strength and cunning to fight them off. The film climaxes with a furious confrontation between him and the vastly outmatched Brooks.

 

For fans of low-budget movies, this is a fascinating opportunity to observe Cunha's handling of his meager resources and limited experience (before this, he'd done mainly commercials, industrial films, and the like), and a solid cast composed largely of film veterans doing their best with an often awkward script, to turn in what is a professional-looking effort that entertains despite a slow pace and some dull spots.

Technical aspects are well-handled, with photography and camerawork especially good. Composer Albert Glasser turns in his usual wildly bombastic score. Pierce's makeup mastery creates a monster who resembles a huge stone Golem, with Baer using his wide, glaring eyes to good effect. 

 

The Blu-ray from Film Detective is a 4k transfer from the original camera negative. Bonus features include a commentary track by noted horror/sci-fi film historian and author Tom Weaver which also includes comments by Cunha and others involved in the film. There's also an illustrated booklet with additional information and trivia. Several other features are listed below.

Fans of Cunha's other films such as FRANKENSTEIN'S DAUGHTER, SHE DEMONS, and MISSILE TO THE MOON will likely find this relatively modest but nicely-done effort of great interest. While B-grade at best, and only moderately exciting, GIANT FROM THE UNKNOWN nevertheless remains one of those minor gems from which appreciative genre fans can derive a special kind of pleasure from watching.

 

Order it from Film Detective


Retail Price: $24.95
Release Date: 1-19-2021
Runtime: 77 minutes
Genre: CULT CLASSIC, DRAMA, HORROR
Language: English
Color/BW: BW

Also available in DVD and red-label Blu-ray

 

BONUS MATERIALS:

Audio Commentary with Author/Historian Tom Weaver and Guests; 

Audio Commentary with co-star Gary Crutcher; 

'YOU'RE A B-MOVIE STAR, CHARLIE BROWN' - An all-new interview actor/screenwriter Gary Crutcher; 

'THE MAN WITH A BADGE: BOB STEELE IN THE 1950'S' - An all-new interview with author/film historian C. Courtney Joyner; 

Collector’s booklet with still gallery and liner notes by Tom Weaver; 

Original Theatrical Trailer

GIANT FROM THE UNKNOWN -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

TRAUMA -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 10/21/18

 

When it comes to horror movies, how extreme do you want to go?  With TRAUMA (2017, Artsploitation Films), Chilean writer-director Lucio A. Rojas (ZOMBIE DAWN, PERFIDY) answers that question for us in ways that will have some viewers gasping with perverse thrill and others scrambling to put as much distance between them and this movie as humanly possible.

Even the first few minutes had me feeling nasty and kind of disgusted with myself for even watching it.  The film opens with a scene of the most vile torture porn imaginable, easily earning its original NC-17 rating (and this is the unrated director's cut).

It will get, if not worse, then just as bad in different but equally horrific ways.  The first home invasion sequence, in which four young women vacationing in a secluded cabin find the world's sickest psycho (Daniel Antivilo as "Juan") and his son at their front door, almost makes I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE seem like a rom-com.

Other atrocities, including a tour of psycho dad's hellish chamber of horrors and its woefully unfortunate captives, take everything that was vile and repellant about TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE and turn the dial to eleven.

And I'm saying this as someone who has been watching extreme horror movies for several decades.  This wallow in utter depravity and degradation is the kind of stuff that movie theater walkouts are made of.

Okay, there's that.  In addition to the almost invasive nature of TRAUMA's horrific images is something else that director Rojas is really good at, which is building suspense.  This is one of those movies that manages to keep us painfully on edge, not just during the torture scenes but in other ways as well.

The survivors of the initial attack must decide whether or not to make their way to Juan's secluded torture chamber in the woods to help a little girl who has been kidnapped by him.  With a near-useless young local cop as their only help, Andrea (Catalina Martin) and the others embark on a rescue attempt that will lead to prolonged, stomach-churning suspense.

Through it all, there's an underlying message about how violence and hatred are passed down from generation to generation, sickness breeds sickness, etc. which we see in flashbacks to Juan's boyhood.  The dead seriousness of the film adds to its effectiveness--there's no distancing humor or satire to make the horror more palatable.

Nor does it have any amusing technical deficiencies.  Rojas' direction is entirely effective, his script literate.  The cast, especially Catalina Martin and Daniel Antivilo, are fine.  Photography (including some sweeping aerial shots) and other technical elements are above-average.

The Blu-ray from Artsploitation Films is in 2.35:1 widescreen with 5.1 surround sound.  Spanish soundtrack with English subtitles.  A trailer is the sole extra.

Gorehounds who like to get as down, dirty, and just plain twisted as possible with their horror movies should definitely check out TRAUMA as soon as possible. Everyone else--you've been warned.  As for me, I'm a notorious "re-watcher", happily viewing my favorite films time and again over the years, but for this one, once is way more than enough.

TRAUMA -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

CANNIBAL CORPSE KILLERS -- DVD Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 7/25/20

 

CANNIBAL CORPSE KILLERS (Indican Pictures, 2018) enters the undead arena with a dash of "Mad Max", a pinch of Rob Zombie, some spaghetti (western) sauce, and a flashback intro in which a cousin of Sam Raimi's "Evil Dead" book appears and cooks up a passel of the same brand of hell-spawn zombies to terrorize a poor little desert community (and, we assume, the rest of the world).

Into this apocalyptic wasteland comes a ragtag group of misfits who look like they just stumbled out of "The Devil's Rejects" and have cool names like Pike (Dennis Haggard), Ruby (Theresa Holly), cranky old hermit Slim (Chris Shumway), Scar (Katherine Norland), and group leader Boots (Nate Philo). These are the good guys, since they're only interested in survival. (Okay, Pike has a much loftier aim in mind, but that's for later.)

Fortunately for us, this survival includes lots of zombie killing that's bloody, gory, gutsy, grotty, and very action-oriented. The zombies in question are horrifically aggressive, again more in line with Raimi's "hellish speed-freak" model than the simple, shambling reanimated corpses of yore.

The makeups are consistently good, as are such production elements as locations (I kept wondering where they found all these trashed neighborhoods and other decayed desert architecture), costumes, props, and cars.

On the minus side, most of the cast indulge in relentless overacting of the "scream obscenities really loud" and "make spaghetti western faces" varieties, while director Joaquin Montalvan (LEGEND OF THE HILLBILLY BUTCHER) has a loose, freeform style that's sporadically effective.

As with many low-budget flicks these days, there's a heavy reliance on sweeping drone camera shots which take good advantage of the desert surroundings.

As the main characters slowly make their way to a tiny desert burg called Jawbone (first in Slim's van, then on foot), flashbacks from each person's past reveal the reasons why they've ended up as messed up as they are.

(For example, "Scar" had to shoot her own zombie son in the head as he was administering her namesake facial wound.) These brief episodes flesh out the characters and give the story some of its best scenes.

Meanwhile, the Magistrate (Ron Jason), a psycho hick who discovered the book and acts as a go-between for Ava, vile princess of evil (Charlotte Bjornbak) and her slack-jawed minions, waits in an abandoned church as the evil forces prepare to do battle with our heroic good guys.

The final clash on the dusty main drag of Jawbone is more of the clunky fight choreography and nerve-wracking sound effects we've experienced throughout the film, enhanced by more of those nicely-rendered gore effects and cool-looking zombie makeup.

The bonus menu consists of a making-of featurette, an interview with the sound designer, and extended/deleted scenes.

Alternately entertaining and irritating, CANNIBAL CORPSE KILLERS practically grabs us by the lapels and screams "I'm a cool cult film, dammit!" It's one of those doggedly earnest low-budget indy flicks that works overtime to prove how cool it is in every shot.

 
Buy it at Indican Pictures

TECH SPECS

Runtime: 100 minutes
Format: 1:78 HD
Sound: Dolby Sr.
Country: USA

CANNIBAL CORPSE KILLERS -- DVD Review by Porfle

DARK HOUSE -- movie review by porfle

 

[Note: Fangoria magazine teamed up with Lightning Media and Blockbuster for a series of eight horror/thrillers which were available exclusively on DVD, VOD, and digital download Sept. 28, 2010 under the "Fangoria FrightFest" banner. This film is part of that series.]

Loud, obnoxious, and dumb, DARK HOUSE (2009) is like a cross between a slasher flick, a ghost story, and a funhouse ride.  Its 80s-retro vibe even reminded me a little of Tobe Hooper's FUNHOUSE (along with films such as the obscure cult fave SILENT SCREAM), only minus most of the fun and plus a heaping helping of cheese.

The story opens with a little girl being dared by her friends to enter the neighborhood "scary house" (actually, it looks more quaintly picturesque than scary) and finding the bodies of seven murdered children strewn about.  Their foster mother, Miss Darrode (Diane Salinger), is in the kitchen grinding her hands off in the garbage disposal.  She thinks that by killing them, she's just saved the souls of her evil foster children because she is that most dreaded of all horror movie psychos--a religious fanatic! (Gasp!)

Fourteen years later, Claire (Meghan Ory) is, not surprisingly, undergoing therapy, and her doctor urges her to return to the house and confront the fears which continue to haunt her, hoping that she'll regain her buried memories of the event.  Conveniently enough, the members of her college drama class have just been hired by flamboyant horror showman Walston (Jeffrey Combs) to work in his brand new hologram-enhanced spookhouse attraction, which is located in none other than the Darrode house. 

Claire's friends are a sorry bunch of stereotypical kill fodder that we can't wait to see get theirs.  There's Rudy, the arrogant jock; Ariel, the dumb blonde nympho; Bruce, the nerd; Eldon, the black guy; and Lily, the Goth chick.  That's literally the extent of their character development, and from the first moment we see them in drama class "acting out" their true feelings for each other, we hate their guts.  Then Walston flits in to pitch his new haunted house idea to them, and we hate his guts, too, because the wonderful Jeffrey Combs has been given a truly awful character to portray and he tries way too hard to sell it.

The filmmakers tip their hand the moment we enter the house, when a misty black shape can be seen flitting about.  Then we get a demonstration of the holographic attractions, including a psycho clown with an axe, a mad scientist, a dungeon master, various zombie types, and, my favorite, a really freaky-looking young lady with long, sharp fingernails who reminded me of "The Angry Princess" from THIR13EN GHOSTS.  They aren't very scary but are fun to look at as they spring out at us as though we were watching a 3D movie.  (SCTV's Dr. Tongue would love it.) 

Naturally, the malevolent spirit of Miss Darrode enters the computer that runs everything and turns the holograms deadly.  There's not a whole lot of suspense and most of the characters are done away with rather summarily, one breaking her neck from a tumble down the stairs and a couple of others dying off-camera.  The first of the drama students to die (see if you can guess who) gets a mace to the head by that scariest of all horror characters, a medieval knight.  The resulting gore effect is done digitally instead of with good old-fashioned physical effects, which is always a disappointment--you just can't fake a genuine exploding head with CGI. 

The film's main asset is Diane Salenger as Miss Darrode.  She's pretty unsettling at first--an early jump-scare with her insane face shooting toward the camera is a real jolt--but she's overused to the point where all her prolonged screaming and twisty-faced mugging into the camera gets old.  (I'd love to see what a really good Japanese or Thai horror director could've done with her character.)  Before long, the jump-scares themselves begin to feel like someone continually goosing us until the effect is diminished.

Direction by Darin Scott is slick but doesn't quite capture the sort of fun-spooky William Castle atmosphere he seems to be going for.  Things get less dumb-fun and more serious in the final act, when the hidden secrets behind Miss Darrode's murder spree and Claire's amnesia are revealed, although the more we're shown the more confusing things seem to get.  I think I caught most of it but by then the film's dogged attempts to terrify me had become rather numbing.

I watched a screener of this movie so I can't comment on DVD specifics.  According to Fangoria.com, special features will include "a commentary track by Scott and producer Mark Sonoda, the 8 FANGORIA FRIGHTS cable special and the eight FrightFest trailers." 

DARK HOUSE is just diverting enough to be worth watching if you don't have anything better to do.  But you have to go into it the same way little Claire crept into the spooky old Darrode house all those years ago--expecting the worst.

 

DARK HOUSE -- movie review by porfle

ROAD KILL -- movie review by porfle

 

[Note: Fangoria magazine teamed up with Lightning Media and Blockbuster for a series of eight horror/thrillers which were available exclusively on DVD, VOD, and digital download Sept. 28, 2010 under the "Fangoria FrightFest" banner. This film is part of that series.]


Two young couples motoring across the long, lonesome highways of the Australian Outback are menaced by a massive double-sized tractor-trailer rig known as a "road train" (the film's original title) in 2010's ROAD KILL, a fairly effective horror-thriller that takes a different route than you might expect. 

The premise immediately brought two movies to my mind upon first viewing.  One is Steven Spielberg's classic made-for-TV thriller DUEL, in which Dennis Weaver plays a harried salesman whose tiny car is the prey for a crazed trucker in the middle of nowhere.  Yet another Aussie thriller, ROAD GAMES, is also set in the Outback and features a trucker (Stacy Keach) and a comely young hitchhiker (Jamie Lee Curtis) in a cat-and-mouse game with a traveling serial killer. 

But just when I'm thinking ROAD KILL is going to be a rehash of these two plots, it decides to go somewhere else entirely.  The two couples--Craig and Nina, and Marcus and Liz, who have a history of jealousy and rivalry simmering below the surface of their fragile friendship--are run off the road by the roaring behemoth just when we think we're at the start of a long chase sequence.  This is the last such scene we'll see until much later in the film when there's one more high-speed clash between truck and automobile.

Climbing out of the wreckage with Craig (Bob Morley) badly injured, they stumble along until they find the road train parked by the side of the highway with nobody in it.  They get in just as a crazy man emerges from the bushes blasting away at them with a pistol, and Marcus manages to get the thing moving.  Lulled by hours of monotonous motion, they drop off to sleep--even Marcus seems to doze at the wheel as the truck continues to rumble onward.  Suddenly it stops, and they awaken to find that Marcus has accidentally turned off onto a side road and gotten them lost.  Or...was the truck acting on its own?

Yes, with our four main characters now stranded in the wilderness, ROAD KILL becomes a haunted truck story.  While a bitterly quarreling Marcus (Xavier Samuel, TWILIGHT SAGA: ECLIPSE) and Liz (Georgina Haig) strike out for the main highway on foot, Craig and Nina begin to sense a pervasive evil eminating from those two locked containers.  I'll skip the details of what follows, but it includes possession, betrayal, and the horrific discovery of what's really going on inside that damned truck.  Meanwhile, Marcus and Liz have some pretty shocking experiences of their own before they make it back just in time to get in on the gory fun.

Dean Francis' capable direction (this is his first feature) keeps the suspense pretty taut considering that most of the movie consists of four characters and a truck.  Good performances by the cast help to put over a script that often doesn't make a whole lot of sense (and doesn't really try to), with Sophie Lowe as Nina carrying most of the acting load and giving us at least one character we can identify with who isn't a total jerk.  She even gets to drive that damned truck when they finally get it back out on the highway for the exciting gear-grinding conclusion.

I watched a screener so DVD specs were unavailable.  Fangoria.com lists the special features as "audio commentary by director Dean Francis, a behind-the-scenes featurette, deleted scenes, the 8 FANGORIA FRIGHTS cable special and the eight FrightFest trailers."  One thing's for sure--if the nerve-wracking soundtrack for this flick doesn't threaten to jar your skull right out of your head, you've got stronger ears than I have.

I'm not sure how rewatchable ROAD KILL will be once you've slowly and patiently peeled the onion away from its mysterious core, but that first time was definitely enough to maintain a firm grip on my attention span.  And I now have an interesting new mental image for the term "monster truck." 

ROAD KILL -- movie review by porfle

PIG HUNT -- movie review by porfle

 

[Note: Fangoria magazine teamed up with Lightning Media and Blockbuster for a series of eight horror/thrillers which were available exclusively on DVD, VOD, and digital download Sept. 28, 2010 under the "Fangoria FrightFest" banner. This film is part of that series.]


I didn't know it was such a short drive from San Francisco straight into the heart of DELIVERANCE country, but in PIG HUNT (2008), five friends from the city end up stranded in Yokelvania and running for their lives from homicidal hicks, cutthroat cultists, and a man-eating hog big enough to keep two Piggly-Wigglys stocked in bacon and pork chops for a year. 

When a loony forest-dwelling uncle dies, nephew Johnny (Travis Aaron Wade) inherits some land and the old shack where he grew up.  Johnny and his girlfriend Brooks (Tina Huang) decide to spend a pig-hunting weekend there with three friends--green, trigger-happy Marine Ben (Howard Johnson, Jr.), chubby tenderfoot Quincy (Trevor Bullock), and slacker Wayne (Rajiv Shah).  In the woods, they run into some of Johnny's childhood acquaintances, hillbilly brothers Jake and Ricky (Jason Foster, Nick Tagas), who go along for the hunt.  Jake tells them of a legendary 3,000-pound boar hog named Ripper who supposedly roams the woods, but of course they don't believe him. 

Things turn ugly when the hunters stumble upon a huge marijuana field hidden in the forest.  While Jake and Ricky want to sack up a few hundred pounds of prime weed, Johnny's for alerting the authorities to their find.  An altercation results in death for one of the brothers, and the other, stoked for revenge, runs off to gather the rest of his kill-crazy clan.  The city kids flee to the supposed safety of a hippie commune run by a mysterious stranger (Bryonn Bain) where they find themselves in even deeper hog-poop than before.  Carnage ensues when city dwellers, yokels, cult crazies, and a 3,000-pound surprise guest hog start makin' bacon out of each other.

While lesser hands may have botched such a promising premise, director James Isaac (JASON X, SKINWALKERS) scores a bullseye by mixing gory TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE-style backwoods horror with a wicked sense of fun.  The long build-up of the film's first half explodes into kinetic energy when the hillbilly clan goes into action against Johnny and his friends, racing headlong down dirt roads in their trucks, dune buggies, and motorcycles in the first of several sequences that look like the filmmakers had a ball shooting and editing them.  When they converge on two of the main characters back at the old shack there's a frantic sense of real terror as they scramble desperately to escape the mindless killers. 

Meanwhile, Ben stumbles into a scene right out of his most surrealistic fantasy when he comes across about a dozen beautiful naked women lounging around the local swimmin' hole.  I have to hand it to the writers here--this scene really adds that certain special something to the story.  Ben ends up like a shiek in a harem, complete with hookah, and thinks he's gone to heaven.  Hog heaven, that is, which he's about to abruptly discover.

One of my favorite scenes occurs after one of the yokels bursts in and starts blasting away.  As he holds the main cult babe at gunpoint, she plucks a boar's tusk from her necklace and jams it into his eyeball.  Johnny grabs the gun and points it at her, but waits.  As cult-babe is viciously rearranging the hillbilly's face, she glances up a couple of times to make sure Johnny's going to hold off and let her finish before pulling the trigger.  It may not sound like much in the description, but the way it's acted, shot, and edited makes it one of the coolest moments in the film.

And then there's the Ripper.  For most of the film his presence is shown by a JAWS-style POV accompanied by low, throaty growls and brief glimpses of blazing eyes and jagged tusks.  When he finally makes his grand entrance in the final act, complete with a dead bit player dangling from his mouth, the rig that the SPFX guys have come up with to depict this massive pork-orca is so over-the-top outlandish that it's hilarious and impressive at the same time.  CGI would've rendered a smoother, more active creature, but ruined the more satisfying effect achieved by good old-fashioned methods and judicious editing.

I watched a screener so DVD specs and details on special features were unavailable.

A capable cast playing fairly interesting characters for a change helps kick PIG HUNT up a notch over similar films.  (Trevor Bullock as Quincy is particularly good as he reacts convincingly to his impending death at the hands of the hillbilly clan.)  Add to this a sense that the filmmakers are having all sorts of fun making this movie, and you've got a no-holds-barred backwoods blowout that's just as much fun to watch.

 

PIG HUNT -- movie review by porfle