NIGHT KILLER -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 6/29/19

 

Italian director Claudio Fragasso, who gave us such films as TROLL 2 and ZOMBIE 4, decided that his final genre film before moving on to more respectable "auteur" projects would be a Bergman-like psychological thriller called NIGHT KILLER (Severin Films, 1988), about a traumatized woman kidnapped by a mystery man who's obsessed with her and who may or may not be the crazed serial killer who caused her to lose her mind.

The producers took one look at Fragasso's heated tale of twisted love and obsession and handed it over to Fragasso's fellow Italian horror filmmaker Bruno Mattei (VIOLENCE IN A WOMEN'S PRISON, ZOMBIE 3, ROBOWAR, SHOCKING DARK), who shot new scenes of graphic gore--such as the fright-masked killer plunging his razor-sharp claw-glove all the way through his screaming victims' bodies--and renamed it TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 3.

 

The two styles would seem to be at cross purposes, yet Mattei's stalker-slasher scenes occur mainly in the early part of the film and, in my opinion, actually make Fragasso's thriller much more interesting while raising the stakes for poor Melanie Beck (Tara Buckman, THE CANNONBALL RUN, SILENT NIGHT DEADLY NIGHT) when she gets terrorized by the killer in her house during one of the film's most suspenseful scenes.

She survives, but her memory is gone and she no longer recognizes her daughter Clarissa (Tova Sardot) or her friends Sherman (Richard Foster) and his wife who are caring for Clarissa while Melanie's in the hospital. 

As soon as she's released, however, a crazed stalker named Axel (Peter Hooten, ORCA, THE INGLORIOUS BASTARDS) hunts down and abducts her, tying her to a bed and playing life-or-death mind games with her as we wonder if (a) he's the masked killer, and (b) he'll make good on his promise to eventually have the already suicidal woman begging him to kill her.

During these scenes, Fragasso gets to indulge his more artistic side with long takes featuring Axel and Melanie in dramatic close-up interactions of intense  psychological and emotional conflict. 

While the script may seem a bit overheated at times, it's actually quite dramatically engaging and the stars give riveting performances despite the fact (as we learn in one of the disc's bonus interviews) that they actually didn't like each other at all.  This is where Fragasso's desire to create something more than a slasher film really manifests itself and the film takes on perversely romantic overtones.

Meanwhile, on the other side of NIGHT KILLER'S stylistic divide, Bruno Mattei's industrious contributions keep gorehounds happy with at least three bloody murder setpieces, all climaxing with the old claw-glove through the torso bit.

Mattei's lurid, less refined visuals are a real contrast, as is a lengthy sequence of pure 80s flash-dancing in leg warmers and leotards as some really awful dancers practice a routine onstage which is mercifully interrupted by the film's first kill.

To be honest, I doubt I'd have detected the presence of two directors if I hadn't already known of it, since NIGHT KILLER comes off sort of like a suspenseful Giallo whodunnit infused with extra helpings of gratuitous nudity and graphic violence (not to mention a couple of nifty plot twists) to make the whole confection just that much tastier.


Buy it at Severin Films

Scanned in 4k from the original negative

Special Features:

    The Virginia Claw Massacre: Interview With Director Claudio Fragasso
    Mindfuck: Interview With Screenwriter Rossella Drudi
    Trailer

NIGHT KILLER -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

THE TRIP -- DVD Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 3/12/16

 

Sometime in the heady days of the late psychedelic 60s, the already legendary independent filmmaker Roger Corman decided--not for the first time--to do something just a little different. 

The result, which would tickle the fancy of counterculture audiences while raising the hackles of the straight crowd, was THE TRIP (1967), the story of a man's chemically-fueled journey into his own head.  (A fitting tagline for the film would've been "It's all in his head.")

The man in question is a young Peter Fonda as a television commercial director who's in the process of getting divorced by his wife. Peter can't seem to find meaning in his life, so he decides to take the new drug LSD which is supposed to open up the mind and lead one into a whole new universe of awareness.



With his trusted friend Bruce Dern to act as both a guide and a sort of comforting guru, Peter takes the drug and is swept into a sometimes dazzling, sometimes frightening mental odyssey which takes up the entire rest of the picture.

Much of it consists of the kind of psychedelic op-art visuals which were meant in those days to give us the impression of what an LSD trip was like, accompanied by some vintage acid rock by a group called The American Music Band (aka The Electric Flag). 

There are occasional bits with that jumbled, thrown-together look of the Monkees' celluloid oddity HEAD (which scripter Jack Nicholson also co-wrote) with a little "H.R. Pufnstuf" thrown in.  One or two scenes even appear as though Fonda has landed in one of Corman's own atmospheric Poe movies.



The early scenes in Dern's apartment tend to lag, with Fonda lying around being dazzled by all the kaleidoscope colors and dream images that assail both him and the viewer while the bearded, soft-spoken Dern, who is at his calmest and least villainous here than I've ever seen him, diligently keeps his pal from panicking or tumbling off the balcony. 

Only after Fonda escapes from the safety of Dern's pad does THE TRIP really become eventful, and even then there isn't much of a plot to speak of as he wanders into a sleeping family's house to watch their TV, causes a ruckus at a go-go club managed by Corman regular Dick Miller, and runs from what he imagines is an ever-closing police dragnet, all of which is littered with random imagery and scattershot editing.

There's a lot of stream-of-consciousness stuff dotted with encounters, both real and imagined, between Peter and people such as his soon-to-be-divorced wife Sally (Susan Strasberg), with whom he has psychedelic sex, or a pretty blonde hippie girl (Salli Sachse of the "Beach Party" movies) who strikes his fancy in a big way.

In one of the film's more interesting scenes, a haggard housewife (Barboura Morris of WASP WOMAN and BUCKET OF BLOOD) is doing a load of clothes in a laundrymat when Peter bursts in and freaks out about how amazing the spin cycle is.  Another long, surreal fantasy scene finds the troubled Fonda agonizing over the pros and cons of his life thus far with future EASY RIDER collaborator Dennis Hopper, who's all done up in mod garb. 

To their credit, so to speak, stars Fonda and Hopper as well as Corman himself actually took LSD beforehand in order to understand what they were attempting to depict, as did screenwriter Nicholson, whose script gives us an interesting look inside the head of the superstar-to-be.  

In addition to Hopper, Strasberg, Miller, Morris, and Dern, the cast is dotted with several familiar faces and members of Corman's stock company including Michael Nader ("Dynasty"), Beach Dickerson (CREATURE FROM THE HAUNTED SEA), Michael Blodgett (BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS), Angelo Rossitto (FREAKS), and the wonderful Luana Anders (EASY RIDER, THE LAST DETAIL, DEMENTIA 13).

An interesting aspect of Dennis Hopper's involvement is seeing little ways in which Roger Corman's directing style would show up in Hopper's own work on EASY RIDER, notably in the sometimes rapid-fire editing and the composition of the drug sequences.  One particular shot, a 360-degree pan of some people passing a joint around a circular table, is virtually duplicated by Hopper in EASY RIDER with some hippie commune dwellers sitting around the dinner table.

And speaking of EASY RIDER, Peter Fonda gets to emote much more here than he would as the disaffected Wyatt in the later film.  I've never thought much of his early acting before, but I'll have to reconsider that now.  He's fun to watch in this role and helps give the disjointed, unconventional narrative much of its otherwise limited appeal.

The DVD from Olive Films is in widescreen with Dolby 2.0 sound.  No subtitles.  A trailer for the film is the sole extra.  This version of THE TRIP does not include the studio-imposed introductory warning about the dangers of LSD nor a final shot in which a cracked image of Peter Fonda implies his character's shattered psyche.

Whether or not Fonda's truth-seeking everyman derives any valuable insights or revelations from his LSD experience still seems to be pretty much up in the air at the end of THE TRIP.  But for us, this interesting, often fun, and inherently fascinating cinematic odyssey (oddity?) is a trip well worth taking.

THE TRIP -- DVD Review by Porfle

SYBIL (1976) -- Movie Review by Porfle

 

 Originally posted on 3/14/21

 

 

Just got done rewatching SYBIL (1976) on DVD. I remember seeing the two-part television premiere and how deeply and profoundly affecting it was. 

 

It's the harrowing story of a young woman, Sybil Dorsett (Sally Field), suffering from multiple personality disorder after years of abuse from a warped, sadistic mother. 

 

Joanne Woodward plays the maternal psychiatrist who struggles to help Sybil survive her emotional ordeal and reassemble her shattered psyche. 

Maybe the most emotionally devastating movie I've ever seen, and, unlike any other film, it keeps me on the verge of tears and beyond throughout most of its running time. 

 

 

 

(The "big chair" scene is especially wrenching, so much so that 80s pop group Tears For Fears referenced it in the title of their album "Songs From The Big Chair.")

 

Most of the film's effectiveness is due to Sally Field giving what may be the best film performance of all time. She's utterly amazing in this, and never got another opportunity to be so good. 

 

Her talent is no longer a surprise, but back then, seeing the actress known mainly for fluff like "Gidget" and "The Flying Nun" deliver a performance like this was nothing short of astounding. 

 

 

It was a once-in-a-lifetime role for her, just as Patton was for George C. Scott, Tuco was for Eli Wallach, Baby Doll was for Carroll Baker, Stanley Kowalski was for Marlon Brando, and Joan of Arc was for Renée Jeanne Falconetti. 

 

But I honestly think that this might top them all, aided in no small part by the great script, direction, supporting cast, and Leonard Rosenman's heartrending musical theme for Sybil.

 

The fact that the veracity of this "true story" has been debunked over the years takes nothing away from it. SYBIL is highly recommended for anyone who wants an intensely emotional viewing experience, one which lingers long after it's over.

 

SYBIL (1976) -- Movie Review by Porfle

THE CHAOS EXPERIMENT -- DVD Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 8/3/09

 

Val Kilmer continues to turn up in the darndest things these days. This time, he's playing a psychotic bundle of nervous tics named Jimmy Pettis, who shows up at a newspaper office in Grand Rapids, Michigan one day and calmly informs the editor-in-chief that he's just locked six people in a steambath in order to demonstrate the social chaos that will occur all over the world in 2012 because of global warming. Read that sentence again if you want--I'll wait.

During THE CHAOS EXPERIMENT, aka "The Steam Experiment" (2009), we see the inconvenient truth of how quickly societal constraints and civility break down and sheer self-centered panic takes over when you trap a group of strangers in a room and turn the heat way up. Especially when most of those people aren't very well-balanced in the first place.  

Eric Roberts, who recently had a plum role as a mob boss in THE DARK KNIGHT, plays former pro football player Grant, who must not be doing very well these days seeing that he fell for Pettis' online dating service scam. The same goes for dweeby Christopher (STARSHIP TROOPERS' Patrick Muldoon) and hotheaded Italian stallion Frank (Quinn Duffy). The three ladies involved are the gorgeous but hostile Jessie (Eve Mauro), the dangerously neurotic Margaret (Cordelia Reynolds), and a diminutive blond named Catherine (Megan Brown).

After a round of introductions, director Philippe Martinez does all the heterosexual males in the audience a huge favor by having Jessie remove her bikini top, strut across the room in slow motion, and recline invitingly on a tiled bench, all to the strains of Ravel's "Bolero." For me, the movie will never get quite that good again. Soon after, someone discovers that the door has been locked from the outside and the steam is rising. In no time a claustrophobic Frank, who's blood is already up from Jessie's teasing performance and mocking derision, goes bonkers and gets violent, and must be dealt with.

In quick succession each of the other prisoners starts to lose it big time. The weird thing about this is that we never get the impression that very much time has passed at all, or that the rising heat is particularly life-threatening. So the fact that all of these people just freak out in no time flat seems a bit extreme. I'd hate to see what would happen if they got stuck in an elevator--they'd probably start eating each other.

A couple of their escape attempts are pretty cool, especially when Grant manages to break the little window in the door and Jessie pokes her head out to see what's what. Mainly, though, the chaos erupts too soon and escalates at an unbelievable rate until we have people killing each other like wild animals or committing suicide in utter despair after what only seems to us like a couple of hours in the steamroom. Martinez has designed all of these scenes to have a washed-out yellowish hue and uses lots of slow-motion, dissolves, montages, and other effects to distance us from what's going on, as though we're watching somebody's hazy fever dream.

Meanwhile, awesomely cool method actor Armand Assante arrives at the newspaper office as Detective Mancini and makes the movie somewhat more enjoyable for us Armand Assante fans. Mancini hauls the uncooperative Pettis into the interrogation room down at the station and they face each other across a table for much of the rest of the movie. Their conversation is mostly a shaggy-dog story intercut with scenes of the unfortunate hostages, giving Assante a chance to be cool and Kilmer a chance to audition for the role of the Joker in the next Batman movie. I'll eat my terrycloth bathrobe if his performance here isn't influenced by Heath Ledger's in THE DARK KNIGHT, only without the crazed laughter or any of that demented brilliance. I like Kilmer a lot when he's being Doc Holliday, Inish Scull, the guy from HEAT, or even, yes, Batman, but in this movie he just isn't on.

The DVD is letterboxed with Dolby Digital 5.1 sound. There are no extras.

THE CHAOS EXPERIMENT is an okay time-waster that isn't horrible but, aside from that rather stimulating "Bolero" scene, isn't particularly good, either. The presence of three of my favorite actors--Assante, Roberts, and Kilmer--is a definite plus, although even they can't do much to liven up this unbelievable and often dull story. A last-minute attempt at a twist ending sends the movie off with a groan.

THE CHAOS EXPERIMENT -- DVD Review by Porfle

Alternate Head Explosion: "Scanners" (David Cronenberg, 1981) (video)

(Caution: contains graphic SPFX violence)

The most stunning scene in David Cronenberg's "Scanners"...
...is undoubtedly the infamous head explosion.

A duplicate of actor Louis Del Grande's head was made and filled with various gooey substances. 
Different methods of exploding it were tried, but none looked convincing.

One of them, using actual explosives, can be seen in the film's trailer.
It's obvious why it didn't work, but still interesting to watch.

Finally it was decided to simply blast the fake head from behind with a shotgun.
And thus, the iconic head explosion as seen by shocked audiences in the final film. 


I neither own nor claim any rights to this material.  Just having some fun with it.  Thanks for watching!

Alternate Head Explosion: "Scanners" (David Cronenberg, 1981) (video)

BEYOND THE WALL OF SLEEP -- Movie Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 12/16/11

 

I'm not sure how the average H.P. Lovecraft fan will react to it, so my impressions of BEYOND THE WALL OF SLEEP (2006) were based solely on the movie itself and not on how well or how badly screenwriter Barrett J. Leigh adapted it from Lovecraft's short story.  As such, I found it to be one of the creepiest and most over-the-top horror films I've seen in recent years.

The story takes place in one of those nightmarish insane asylums (circa 1911) in which the grievously abused and neglected patients serve as guinea pigs in the mad experiments of crazed doctors.  Young Dr. Eischel (Fountain Yount) is conducting his own really interesting experiment on a catatonic, cadaverous-looking woman named Ardelia--strapped to a chair, her skull has been sawed through for easy pop-top access to her brain, into which Dr. Eischel sticks electrodes that are hooked up to a device he uses to stimulate various nerve centers.  I was never really sure what his goal was (something about harnessing the enery of thought), but it didn't really matter because the whole thing was wonderfully weird and horrific. 

Meanwhile, Dr. Wardlow (Kurt Hargan), a profoundly cruel, power-mad alienist (okay, I had to look it up--"alienist: n. 'A physician who has been accepted by a court of law as an expert on the mental competence of principals or witnesses appearing before it'", according to www.answers.com) is presiding over the hearing of a wretched piece of human flotsam named Joe Slaader (William Sanderson, BLADE RUNNER, "Newhart"), who has been caught butchering a bunch of his fellow inbred hillbillies and running around in the woods with one of the severed heads.  Dr. Wardlow delights in pointing out Joe's myriad less-appealing qualities, including a large hump in his back that resembles a human face--the result of a fetal twin that didn't quite successfully make it through the gestation process. 

Wardlow, who can't wait to get this guy on an operating table for some good old surgical fun, applies leeches to Joe's body to "suck out the madness" and suggests cutting out the malformed twin, but Dr. Eischel contemptuously derides him as an idiot, initiating an intensely confrontational relationship between the two.  When Dr. Eischel later finds the chance to examine Joe on his own, he discovers that the fetal twin is alive and conscious--in fact, it is the dominant consciousness within the shared body, coming to the fore whenever Joe goes to sleep and telekinetically ripping people to bloody shreds (one of the few coherent things Joe ever says is the chant, "I kiss my loved ones...I go to sleep...I wake up with bad things").  Giddy with anticipation, Eischel vows to circumvent Dr. Wardlow's surgical plans and get Joe hooked up to his brain machine. 



And that's just for starters.  Believe me, this is one weird movie, and it gets weirder by the minute, eventually culminating in a grand, blood-drenched finale in which skulls are drilled, electrodes are implanted into living brains and the brains of several severed heads on spikes, and a terrifying Netherworld creature named Amducious claws its way into our dimension (via some not-so-great CGI). 

Along the way, some of the patients in the asylum find themselves hanging upside-down in their cells by some unseen force as all the flesh is ripped from their bones, and the lovely Ardelia, her body reanimated by Amducious' will, pries the head off of the recently-ousted asylum director who has discovered her in the basement, just as he is about to gleefully rape her.  One thing you have to say about this movie--it's pretty eventful.

It's also very deliberately stylish, and stylized--filmed in black-and-white, with color appearing only in the scenes in which Amducious' presence is felt, BEYOND THE WALL OF SLEEP is a dizzying collage of wild camerawork and sometimes rapid-fire editing, especially in the deeply unsettling dream sequences.  The most unique thing about it, though, which is also the thing that will turn off many viewers, is the highly stylized acting.  Everyone in the cast attacks their characters as though they were performing in a silent movie or perhaps the most melodramatic Grand Guignol theater presentation imaginable, manically emoting for the people in the back row, and this effect is even carried over into the stagelike makeup, costumes, and set design. 

It's purely intentional on the part of directors Barrett J. Leigh and Thom Maurer, and contributes to the heavy layer of black humor that permeates the entire movie, as well as its oppressive sense of unenlightened antiquity.  I'm sure a lot of people will simply regard this as horrible acting, which, in some cases, it may be.  But it worked for me. 

Will Lovecraft fans like this movie?  I have no idea, but judging from their reactions to most of the previous cinematic adaptations of the author's works, probably not.  On its own terms, however, I found it to be a wildly inventive, nightmarish, shocking, funny, and unabashedly bizarre experience that was enough fun for me to disregard its faults.  Plus, it's a visual feast for gorehounds, who will also be pleased to see Tom Savini in an all-too-brief role early on. 

BEYOND THE WALL OF SLEEP is a film that is definitely not for everyone, but if you get hooked into it just right, you may have almost as much fun as Ardelia does when Dr. Eischel sticks an electrode into the pleasure center of her brain and turns up the dial.

BEYOND THE WALL OF SLEEP -- Movie Review by Porfle

DON'T LOOK IN THE BASEMENT -- DVD Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 12/8/14

 

Despite some seriously threadbare production values, DON'T LOOK IN THE BASEMENT, aka "The Forgotten" (1973), is wonderfully weird and deliriously demented. Lensed in Texas on a shoestring budget and in a single location, this dark madhouse shocker starts out messed-up and just gets more messed-up as it goes along.

Set in a large, seedy old house that serves as an insane asylum, the story revolves around a tightly-knit group of crazies presided over by Dr. Stephens (Michael Harvey), whose methods of treatment are somewhat unconventional.

This includes handing one of the nuttiest residents an axe and encouraging him to chop away his hostilities on a handy log out in the yard, which is great until the guy gives Dr. Stephens a nice big chop in the neck when his back is turned. Exit Dr. Stephens before the titles have even moseyed into view.

Next in charge of the place is the matronly Dr. Masters (Anne MacAdams in a solid performance), who regards the inmates as family and doesn't want to disrupt their routine with anything as pesky as a murder investigation. So she sweeps the whole matter under the rug (so to speak) right before the new nurse that he hired earlier arrives unexpectedly, ready to start work.

Although initially gung-ho about nursing and eager to delve into her new job, it doesn't take long before pretty, perky Nurse Charlotte (1972 Playboy covergirl Rosie Holotik, HORROR HIGH) regrets ever laying eyes on the place as she contends with a hostile and domineering Dr. Masters and meets the downright unnerving nutcases wandering around loose at every turn.

There's the insecure nympho constantly ripping off her clothes and begging every man she meets to "love" her (including the guy who shows up to fix the phone), the former army sergeant who's still fighting some war, the drug-pilfering Goth chick, the frizzy-haired nerd who keeps popping up everywhere like a giddy poodle, and the childless young woman pitifully coddling a doll as though it were real, having already offed a nurse whom she mistakenly thought had tried to steal her "baby."

Bill McGhee (QUADROON, THE TRIAL OF LEE HARVEY OSWALD) is gentle giant Sam, a likeable lug who seems harmless enough since being lobotomized by Dr. Stephens. (Or is he?) Giving HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL's Mrs. Slydes a run for her money in the "creepy old lady" department is a cackling hag named Mrs. Callingham (Rhea MacAdams) whose cryptic warnings to Nurse Charlotte to get out of there as fast as she can will later be proven worth heeding.

Worst of all, perhaps, is the guy with the axe, Judge Oliver W. Cameron (Gene Ross, THE GOONIES, THE LEGEND OF BOGGY CREEK), who seems to have presided over one nerve-wracking trial too many and now shows up at the least opportune times (including standing over Nurse Charlotte's bed in the dead of night) wielding whatever sharp stabbing or hacking instrument he can get his mitts on. When the nympho sets her sex-crazed sights on this wretched piece of work, they make quite a pair.

The screenplay by Tim Pope (who would become a major music video director during the 80s) moves along nicely from one unsettling situation to the next, aided by a capable directing job from former Larry Buchanan collaborator S.F. Brownrigg and a cast of actors who, while mostly unpolished, really throw themselves into their roles--often with surprising intensity.

Imaginative writing helps the story avoid getting too cliched while supplying plenty of scintillating dialogue and unexpected plot twists, with a surprise ending that you won't see coming unless you're one of those "I saw it coming" types.

The film's leisurely pace is punctuated by a few startlingly grotesque scenes--one in particular in which a patient is found one morning with her tongue having been cut out during the night--while building to a nightmarish free-for-all finale that pretty much pulls out all the stops. It all boils down to who kills who, who gets away and who doesn't, and who really is or isn't who we think they are. Oh yeah, and somebody finally looks in that basement, too.

The DVD from Film Chest is in 4 x 3 full screen with original mono sound. No subtitles or extras.

With an eerie atmosphere and weirdness to burn, DON'T LOOK IN THE BASEMENT transcends its meager budget to deliver the gruesome goods for the horror fan who appreciates a good B-movie with some imagination behind it. It may not be terrifying, but don't be surprised if you feel it warping your mind just a bit.

DON'T LOOK IN THE BASEMENT -- DVD Review by Porfle

GIRL IN WOODS -- Movie Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 5/22/16

 

It looks like it's going to be one of those "predicament" stories like THE REEF or OPEN WATER, and more specifically like another go at Stephen King's "The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon" but with a grown-up girl lost in the woods this time instead of a little one.

But it isn't.  Hoo boy, is it not.

The aptly-titled GIRL IN WOODS (Candy Factory Films, 2016) is about Grace (Juliet Reeves, AUTOMATON TRANSFUSION, LAY THE FAVORITE), who probably doesn't even know who Tom Gordon is and wouldn't be out there in the first place if her boyfriend Jim (Reeves' real-life husband Jeremy London, MALLRATS, GODS AND GENERALS) hadn't invited her to his secluded cabin to pop the question.

The morning after their engagement Jim takes Grace on a hike deep into the woods and then, just when she's good and lost, manages to shoot himself in the head.  This puts Grace in an awkward position, one from which it will take the rest of the movie for her to extricate herself.  But does therein lie the entire plot?

Hardly.  GIRL IN WOODS is in no way your usual predicament thriller for one simple reason: Grace is a little nuts.  At first I thought there was something a tad "off" about Juliet Reeves' performance, because she was playing Grace in a strangely disaffected manner, as though the character weren't "all there." 

Then I gradually realized that Grace ISN'T all there. In fact, she's so far from "there" that in no time, the situation in which she finds herself quickly becomes a descent into one level of madness after another, with flashbacks from her troubled childhood (horrific images of Daddy committing suicide and boogeymen invading her bedroom at night) constantly assailing her along with a series of nightmarish hallucinations. 

This gives the story a whole new dimension beyond the usual survival theme, with Grace's ideas for survival proving not only unconventional but downright shocking. The story takes place not just in the woods but also largely in the dark depths of her warped mind, where the past keeps playing itself out in increasingly disturbing ways.

To make things worse, two distinct sides of her personality--the rational and the feral--begin to appear to her as separate entities (giving Reeves a chance to really prove her acting talent) and battle over whether or not she'll remain civilized or surrender to utter savagery. 

Writer-director Jeremy Benson keeps it all well-paced and scintillating enough to maintain our avid interest right up to the fadeout (stick around through the end credits for the newspaper headlines) with only a few slightly draggy spots here and there.  Mainly he does a fine job with a story that takes place in a forest and in the mind of a character who is usually alone on the screen.

Grace does get "visits" from a loving grandfather (John Still) who beckons her to join him (he's dead, by the way) and from her parents (Lee Perkins as "Dad" still sports his suicidal head shot).  The lovely Charisma Carpenter (THE EXPENDABLES, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer") is memorable as "Momma", whom we come to feel may not have been the most healthy influence on little Grace (Shaun Benson). 

Will Grace survive, and if so, what will be left of her?  Things don't totally come together until near the end, when all the stuff we're not supposed to know yet starts falling into place.  Then the plot twists come one after another and mess with your expectations in all sorts of ways, and GIRL IN WOODS turns out to be one of those intensely involving movies that make your imagination feel like it just had a full-body massage.

GIRL IN WOODS -- Movie Review by Porfle

PSYCHOANALYSIS -- DVD Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 7/21/17

 

First-time director James Raue tries his hand at the mockumentary thing with the mostly interesting PSYCHOANALYSIS (2015, Candy Factory), which takes on the form of a TV documentary being filmed with a famous psychologist as its subject.

What gives the premise its zing is the fact that this celebrated rock-star headshrinker, the cocksure Paul Symmonds (Benedict Wall), has just lost five patients to suicide in a week's time.  This calls into question not only his unorthodox methods but his very competence as well.

Adding insult to injury, Paul must submit to having both of these assessed by none other than his main rival, Dr. Andrew Fendell (Ryan O'Kane), whom he suspects of being behind the deaths in an effort to eliminate the competition. 

The question of whether the suicides were a result of Paul being too intimate with his clients--which Fendell points out as the most fatal flaw in his methods--or something more sinister is at work against Paul is the scintillating mystery that lures us into the story.

What makes it increasingly interesting is watching Paul grow more and more obsessed with uncovering what he sees as a conspiracy against him and the lengths he eventually goes to in order to prove it. This includes enlisting the willing aid of a former client, Ryan (Michael Whalley), whose mental state is questionable at best.

As the various conflicts drag on, Paul's marriage to wife Ally (Jennie Lee) begins to suffer and his desperation drives him to take greater risks which put his reputation on the line.  The mystery of the five suicides remains compelling throughout the film and keeps us watching.

The film does have its negative points, however.  The acting ranges from quite good to somewhat overly arch in some scenes. There's an ill-advised attempt toward some kind of dark comedy, particularly with the "Ryan" character, which I found jarring.  Things also tend to drag here and there overall.

Still, PSYCHOANALYSIS overcomes the occasional awkwardness of its documentary framework and ultimately comes off as a satisfying experience.  I especially like the unexpected way in which the mystery is finally resolved, not with a burst of sensationalism but with a sort of bitter, understated irony.

Type: DVD/Digital HD (iTunes, Amazon, Google Play)
Rating: N/A
Running time: 79 min.
Aspect ratio: 16:9
Audio: Stereo
Street date: July 25, 2017

PSYCHOANALYSIS -- DVD Review by Porfle

THE TRANSCENDENTS -- Movie Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 6/9/20

 

If you're lucky, you'll see a pretty good movie now and then. If you're really lucky, you'll see one that starts out like it's not that much and then takes you places you never expected at all, until suddenly you realize that you're in the middle of being totally blown away.

That's what writer/director Derek Ahonen's amazing debut THE TRANSCENDENTS (2018) did for me.

Early on, sleazy bar owner Jan (Kathy Valentine) tells Roger (Rob Franco) that she collects weird things, which is apt because she tries to collect Roger from the moment he shows up in her bar, and he's as weird as they come.

But Roger claims to be celibate ("Straight celibate or gay celibate?" she asks) and his other character quirks include abstaining from alcohol, having deep mental and emotional problems that cause him to be intensely focused on being intensely out to lunch, and, last but not least, wanting to find and kill the former members of his struggling indie band who stole his incredibly strange songs before he was forced to drop out of life for ten years.

Roger flashes back to his time with bandmembers Foster (Ben Reno), who's jealous of Roger's songwriting skills (which he attributes to his communications with small animals such as hamsters), and the cute but hygiene-challenged Kim (Savannah Welch), whose odd relationship with Roger also elicits Foster's even more destructive jealousy.

Meanwhile, in the present, Roger forms yet another odd bond with Jan's deaf, paralyzed sister Cecilia (Cecilia Deacon) as his search for former members of The Transcendents leads him to some startling revelations about himself and others that I won't go into here because they're more fun to find out about yourself while watching the movie.

Speaking of which, this is one of those character dramas that makes up for its limited settings and lack of action by keeping the relationships and story twists increasingly involving throughout.

It also boasts a pleasingly subtle weirdness (mostly embodied, and quite capably at that, by Rob Franco's very studied performance as "Roger") and a morbid, martini-dry humor that's deftly off-kilter without getting too overt.

But most of all, THE TRANSCENDENTS is an actor's movie that boasts some of the most stunning performances you'll ever see, which director Ahonen showcases to their best advantage without smothering them in directorial style.

As Roger's odyssey progresses and he confronts people from his past, the depth and profundity of the story becomes mesmerizing. Savannah Welch in particular has a monologue about why and how Kim so thoroughly hit the skids after leaving Roger. It goes on for roughly fifteen minutes and pretty much becomes the whole movie during that time, and is riveting.

Then Roger goes back to where we started and clashes with George (William Leroy), the crusty old owner of the farm where he stayed for ten years, who has seven daughters and may be guilty of incest and several other evil things, and suddenly the movie becomes about the guy who plays George giving a performance that is almost frighteningly good.

THE TRANSCENDENTS starts out going pretty much where we expect it to, right up until the moment we realize we're being taken for a ride blindfolded to places we've never been before and are well worth going to. And I felt lucky to have ended up there.

Buy it from Indican Pictures

TECH SPECS

Runtime: 96 minutes
Format: 1:78 HD
Sound: Dolby Sr.
Country: USA
Language: English
Rating: Pending

THE TRANSCENDENTS -- Movie Review by Porfle

MADE ME DO IT -- DVD Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 11/27/18

 

A quick, down and dirty shoot (as described by the filmmakers) on a very low budget sometimes yields surprisingly good results, as it has in the case of the horror-thriller MADE ME DO IT (Indican Pictures, 2017).

What director and co-writer (with Matthew John Koppin) Benjamin Ironside Koppin set out to do was to get some talented people together and "Frankenstein" (his word) a movie together taking the old FRIDAY THE 13TH and HALLOWEEN slasher templates and doing an homage with a few curves and angles thrown in.

The main victims aren't the usual rowdy, party-hardy bunch--just pensive college student Ali Hooper (Anna B. Shaffer), her younger brother Nick (Jason Gregory London), and her boyfriend Jason (Liston Spence).

Ali's home for the weekend (no keg party or summer camp in the woods this time) but her estranged parents are gone, leaving just her and the guys having a quiet, unpleasantly introspective time of things.

It's just the right situation to be crashed by the standard masked serial killer, but this time he's a stringy, weepy nerd named Thomas (Kyle Van Vonderen) who spends most of his time banished to his bedroom by a sadistic, abusive aunt and living in a fantasy world of funny drawings that come to life and masks that he makes out of paper plates.

Thomas is a "special needs" sort of kid who couldn't hurt a fly--that is, until he puts on his "Barbara" mask, because "Barbara" is just the take-charge, take-no-prisoners sort of person Thomas could never be.  And "Barbara" is angry at the world.  Very angry.

That's the set-up, and from there MADE ME DO IT takes us into a scary campfire tale where Thomas silently stalks the night in his creepy mask and wields his bloody axe, leaving a trail of bodies all the way to Ali and Nick's house.

Much of the subsequent action is similar to what happens in THE STRANGERS, in which masked killers home-invaded a young couple and terrorized them for no apparent reason.

Here, we get just the same spooky ambience with the inhabitants of the dark, shadowy house (the electricity, alas, has gone off) cowering in fear as they try to elude the unknown stalker, who keeps popping up where they least expect him.

The director builds the suspense well for most of the film, although some scenes tend to meander a bit as Ali gets contemplative about the whole thing.  The film spends a lot of time pondering Thomas' psychological state and how he got that way, and our interest in this runs hot and cold.

Meanwhile, Thomas goes off on several freaky mind-trips involving his dead parents, his imaginary animal friends, his horrible aunt, "Barbara" (of course), and other images that come flying at us via various media such as 35mm, 16mm, and 8mm film, scratchy VHS tape, and crude animations--all of which are quite well-done and fun to look at.  (These are explored in more detail in one of several making-of featurettes included on the DVD.)

With a rousing final confrontation and a pretty keen twist right at the fadeout, MADE ME DO IT stacks up as one of the more interesting modestly-mounted slasher flicks of recent years, and is way better than watching the usual teen campers getting sliced and diced in the woods by some Jason wannabe.

MADE ME DO IT -- DVD Review by Porfle

The Jekyll-to-Hyde Transformations (Barrymore, March, Tracy) (video)

The Jekyll-to-Hyde Transformations (Barrymore, March, Tracy)

"Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" (John Barrymore, 1920)
"Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" (Fredric March, 1932)
"Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" (Spencer Tracy, 1941)


I neither own nor claim any rights to this material.  Just having some fun with it.  Thanks for watching!

The Jekyll-to-Hyde Transformations (Barrymore, March, Tracy) (video)

DANIKA -- Movie Review by Porfle

 

(This review originally appeared online in 2006 at Bumscorner.com. Contains spoilers.)

 

DANIKA (2006) is one of those wickedly suspenseful "Twilight Zone"-type psychological thrillers that you know is going to have a twist ending, so all you can do is hope that you're not going to be disappointed with it. In this case, the ending doesn't make you do a mental doubletake like THE SIXTH SENSE or FIGHT CLUB, but it does tie up all the loose ends in a satisfying way and make you feel as though it was worth sitting through all the build-up.

Marisa Tomei gives a very effective performance as Danika Merrick, a devoted mother of three who is happily married to Randy (Craig Bierko, THE LONG KISS GOODNIGHT), but whose constant fear that the evils of the world are closing in on her and her family is causing her to have vivid paranoid delusions that are gradually destroying her life. This isn't helped by the fact that every time she looks at a TV, she sees news bulletins about school buses exploding or children being abducted.

To make matters worse, a little girl she encounters on the sidewalk one day with a man she assumes is the father turns up in a news report about the discovery of a missing child's body, and Danika's guilt over not being able to help her results in her being haunted by frightening visions of the dead girl.

On the home front, Danika fears she's losing control of her own children as well. Her daughter Lauren (Nicki Prian) shocks her one evening by asking her what the "C" word (rhymes with Allen Funt) means, claiming she read it in a book assigned by her English teacher, Mrs. Zachary--and then shocks her again by saying, "I wish she would die a horrible death."

Danika storms off to the school for a parent-teacher meeting and faints dead away when Mrs. Zachary turns out to be the owner of a head Danika saw in one of her grotesque delusions (which is one of the really good "gotcha" scares of the movie). Later, the teacher assures her she wouldn't dream of assigning such a book to her students. Moments later, Danika imagines seeing the same teacher's violent death after a sheet of plate glass falls on her from above and slices her throat.

Meanwhile, her oldest son Kurt (Kyle Gallner) is spending more and more time "studying in his room" with Myra (Danay Garcia), a really (really) hot Spanish exchange student, whom Danika later catches giving Kurt a biology lesson that isn't in the textbook and throws her out. Myra shows up again later on in her skimpies, lying beside Danika in bed and shooting up heroin before flinging off her bra and heading off to Kurt's room to "study" some more. So, while Danika's delusions grow increasingly disturbing to her, they are often quite entertaining for us in various ways.

Needless to say, Danika feels compelled to seek psychiatric help. But Evelyn (Regina Hall) strikes her as too young and inexperienced to relate to her problems, and the sessions eventually end up serving little purpose besides giving Danika a chance to describe to us some of the stuff that's going on in her head. In one of these episodes, Danika goes into a store to buy a videogame for her youngest son and then, after viewing another horrifying news bulletin on a bank of display TVs, she turns around and suddenly finds herself seemingly the only person left in the world.

This is especially reminiscent of "The Twilight Zone", or the 1962 low-budget classic CARNIVAL OF SOULS, another film about a woman who is steadily losing her grip on reality and descending into a nightmare world. But although Evelyn may be ineffectual as a psychiatrist, she will return in a very unexpected way.

During all this I found myself wondering if Danika was simply losing her marbles, or if there was going to be some supernatural explanation--either of which would have been fine with me if handled properly. What I definitely didn't want (and was afraid I was going to get) was to find out that the whole thing was a plot to drive her crazy, concocted by her husband and his mistress in order to get rid of her (especially when we discover that Danika's husband once had an affair with their children's nanny).

Movies with this storyline usually end up going too far, with the plot to drive the husband/wife insane having to be unbelievably and often impossibly complex to explain all the various things that are made to happen in order to drive him/her nuts. (HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL comes to mind, although I forgive that movie its logical lapses because it's just so much fun.) Plus, that sort of plot twist is just way too predictable these days because we've seen it so many times before.

Thankfully, DANIKA doesn't go that route. She's definitely either going insane or suffering from something malevolently supernatural. I'll let you find out which, and hopefully you'll enjoy getting there as much as I did. By the end, when everything started falling into place, it was like the feeling you get when you fit the last piece into a jigsaw puzzle and finally get to see the whole picture, and it seems as though doing so was time well-spent. Unfortunately for Danika, though, it isn't a very happy picture.

DANIKA -- Movie Review by Porfle

HARMONIUM -- DVD Review by Porfle

HARMONIUM, aka "Fuchi ni tatsu" (Film Movement, 2016), is a very neatly-rendered Japanese film by director Kôji Fukada (SAYONARA, AU REVOIR L'ETE) which should appeal to anyone who wants a little more tragedy in their lives. Or at least in their movies.

I thought at first it was going to be some kind of harrowing CAPE FEAR-type thriller.  After all, it's about a fairly normal family--a somewhat distant, disaffected husband and father Toshio (Kanji Furutachi), his dutiful, religious wife Akié (Mariko Tsutsui), and their sweet young daughter Hotaru (Momone Shinokawa)--suddenly having to deal with Toshio's ex-convict friend Yasaka (Tadanobu Asano), who comes seeking employment and a place to stay after an eleven-year stretch in prison for murder.

Gradually we learn that there's more to Yasaka's crime than anyone realizes--namely, Toshio's involvement, for which he went unpunished and free to live his life (which he takes for granted) while his friend languished behind bars.

We feel about as awkward as Akié about the whole thing and wait for the violence and terror to begin, but a funny thing happens--Yasaka turns out to be a gentle, patient, and seemingly caring man who's everything that Akié could want in a husband. 

He even takes the time to teach Hotaru how to play the harmonium for her upcoming talent concert, assuming the role of both teacher and surrogate father. In short, he's starting to make Toshio look like yesterday's chopped liver.

Already this scenario has the potential to turn out a number of bad ways, and all we can do is grit our teeth in quiet dread and wait to see what direction it takes. 

This is exacerbated by the growing closeness between Yasaka and Akié, with the ex-convict covetously regarding Toshio's life as the one he himself should have had. Eventually, we fear, he'll begin to take whatever steps are necessary to make that a reality.

And yet even at this point, HARMONIUM refuses to settle into the course we keep predicting for it.  After a single shocking moment that drastically changes everything, the rest of the tale comes to us more in a haze of resignation and regret than anything resembling your standard thriller. 

The fear and anxiety are still there, but not because we're worried about any kind of violence and retribution.  Instead, we must watch the dissolution of a family that has lost its reason to exist and descended into suicidal despair. 

Not even the promise of possible revenge, legal or otherwise, is enough to hold them together.  They're like a jigsaw puzzle with the pieces falling away one by one. 

Kôji Fukada directs it all with crisp, economical efficiency and is blessed with a cast who give their all in their roles.  While lacking the usual tension and suspense of a thriller, the story holds us firmly in a grip of morbid curiosity as to just how much worse things can get for these poor people.

HARMONIUM resembles a Park Chan-wook "vengeance trilogy" tale without the climactic visceral catharsis.  Instead, we're left only with the mundane sadness of everyday existence amplified by the crushing weight of circumstances too heavy to bear.  It's an effective slice-of-tragedy story that will leave you heartsick.

Buy it from Film Movement

DVD Extras:
Interview with star Kanji Furutachi
Bonus Kôji Fukada short film "Birds"
Film Movement trailers

5.1 Surround Sound/2.0 Stereo
Japanese with English subtitles
1.66:1 widescreen
120 minutes

HARMONIUM -- DVD Review by Porfle

SHE-WOLF -- DVD Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 4/3/19

 

It took me a few scenes before I got what Argentinian director and co-writer Tamae Garateguy (UNTIE YOU UNTIE ME) was up to with SHE-WOLF, aka "Mujer lobo" (Film Movement, 2014). 

But once I caught on, this bloody psychological horror-thriller became one of the most exhilarating movie experiences I've had in a long time.

Bare bones synopsis: a vicious female serial killer (the "Mujer Lobo" of the title) seduces men and then, either during or after sex, murders them. One of her potential victims happens to be an undercover cop named Garcia, who begins to track her down with a vengeance.

 

Meanwhile, she falls in love with a young drug dealer named Leo, who is unaware of her nefarious nocturnal activities, after he helps her escape from the dogged cop.

But here's what really kicks SHE-WOLF into play: this Mujer has multiple personalities, each played by a different actress.  Mujer Lobo (Mónica Lairana) is the ruthless and utterly feral she-beast who kills for pleasure. Mujer Rubia (Luján Ariza) is a blonde bimbo-slash-nympho who helps lure Mujer Lobo's victims to their doom.  And Mujer Joven (Guadalupe Docampo) is the straight-laced, innocent young woman who must suffer the deeds of her other selves.

Director Garateguy handles the transitions from one actress/personality to the next brilliantly, leaving us constantly on edge as to which one will come to the fore during the Mujer's romantic interludes with Leo or other interpersonal dealings.

 

Often all three will take turns engaging in a particular situation, as when Joven's sex play with Leo suddenly goes from wildly erotic to dark and frightening when Rubia and Lobo get their blood up.

This also gives an added edge to the murder scenes when Rubia's insatiable sex drive is overcome by Lobo's animalistic bloodlust, sometimes right in the most inopportune stages of oral sex. 

Lobo, we find in several startling scenes, has a fondness for biting, which comes in handy not only when killing for pleasure but also for disposing of certain adversaries in order to protect the sweetly vulnerable Mujer Joven.

Garateguy's direction and the film's dreamlike black and white photography are often brilliant, with a sort of David Lynch quality that makes it all visually fascinating.

Performances are first-rate, and watching the main character's unpredictable switches from one personality to another keeps us in a constant state of keen suspense. We never know which personality will emerge dominant at any given time, or what pandemonium may result.

Disturbing yet delightfully intriguing, SHE-WOLF is a bracing dive into the deep end of dark, weird dream cinema and a marvel of fine technical and artistic filmmaking.  But best of all, it's a one-way ticket for fans who enjoy the occasional first-class seat on the horror express.



TECH SPECS
Format: NTSC
Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
Number of discs: 1
Language: Spanish with English subtitles
Bonus: None
Studio: Omnibus Entertainment (distributed by Film Movement)
DVD Release Date: March 12, 2019
Run Time: 92 minutes

SHE-WOLF -- DVD Review by Porfle