THE AMAZING MR. X (1948) -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 10/27/21

 

I'll admit, I had my initial doubts that THE AMAZING MR. X (The Film Detective, 1948) was going to be all that amazing, judging from the pics that made it look like some kind of faux-supernatural romance fantasy with a few mildly Gothic touches.  

It didn't take long for director Bernard Vorhau (whose filmography contains several interesting-sounding films that I've never seen) and original story author Crane Wilbur (who wrote and directed the wonderfully hokey potboiler THE BAT) to dispel such notions.

Right off the bat, we find wealthy, still-grieving widow Christine (Lynn Bari, FRANCIS JOINS THE WACS, ABBOTT & COSTELLO MEET THE KEYSTONE KOPS) rising from her bed in the dead of night and wafting onto the dizzying balcony of her mansion overlooking the ocean because she hears her dead husband Paul croaking her name from the great beyond.

 

This claim is met with skepticism by her ardent suitor Martin (Richard Carlson, CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON, IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE), who doesn't want to compete with a ghost for Christine's affections, and her kid sister Janet (Cathy O'Donnell, BEN HUR, THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES), who fancies herself more sensible and mature than her older sister.

Again right off the bat, this movie pulls us down into a dark sea of scintillating mystery and spooky atmosphere photographed in rich, gloomy black and white that's often quite beautiful.

That sheer cliff looming over the constantly rushing waves, along with stunning interiors of vast, ornate rooms strewn with shadows, makes for some exquisite production design which gives it all a noirish and at times dreamily indistinct quality. 

 

Being in such a suggestible state makes Christine easy game for supposed psychic Mr. Alexis (Turhan Bey, THE MUMMY'S TOMB, THE MAD GHOUL) who promises to pierce the veil of the spirit world and put her in contact with Paul. But is he for real, or just a slick, money-grubbing phony?

Bey is just right as the handsome and very smooth Mr. Alexis, who pretty much had me convinced from their first nocturnal meeting on the beach.   We then follow the investigation as a more logical-minded Martin hires a private detective to dig up dirt on "Mr. X." Even Janet does some undercover work as a prospective client but ends up taken in by the apparent huckster herself, finding him not only intriguing but also quite exotic.

What follows is a dizzying journey into the world of creepy seances, ghostly visitations, and other fever-dream stuff that's a pleasure to watch as the plot's various secrets slowly unravel themselves in satisfying fashion.

 

 

 The two female leads are fine, especially the very young Cathy O'Donnell. Richard Carlson does the "mundane guy" routine to a tee. Also on hand is prolific character actress Virginia Gregg who would later enjoy a lead role in OPERATION PETTICOAT and turn up in the original DRAGNET movie as well. Donald Curtis appears as the apparition of dead but not quite gone Paul.

The Blu-ray from The Film Detective gives us a new 4K transfer restored from original 35mm film elements, the result being a treat for those who appreciate good old black and white photography. Special features consist of audio commentary from professor and film scholar Jason A. Ney, the original documentary "Mysteries Exposed: Inside the Cinematic World of Spiritualism", and a full color booklet with the essay "The Amazing Mr. Bey" by Don Stradley.

A very pleasant, and very spooky, surprise, THE AMAZING MR. X emerges from its seeming cinematic obscurity (for me, anyway) to offer lovers of old-fashioned supernatural thrillers a heady experience that's so deliciously dark and moody that it's almost immersively atmospheric.

 

Media Format ‏ : ‎ Anamorphic, Dolby, NTSC, Widescreen
Run time ‏ : ‎ 1 hour and 18 minutes
Subtitles: English, Spanish
Release date ‏ : ‎ October 26, 2021
Actors ‏ : ‎ Turhan Bey, Lynn Bari, Cathy O'Donnell
Studio ‏ : ‎ Film Detective
ASIN ‏ : ‎ B096WNY182
Country of Origin ‏ : ‎ USA 

THE AMAZING MR. X (1948) -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

GHOST HUNTERS INTERNATIONAL SEASON ONE: PART 1 -- DVD Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 5/20/10

I get scared walking down the dark hallway to my bathroom at night...especially after I've been watching something scary on TV.  So, needless to say, I only watched SyFy's GHOST HUNTERS INTERNATIONAL SEASON ONE: PART 1 in the daytime.  At first, anyway.  Eventually I got to where I was watching it later and later at night.  Not that it isn't spooky, because it is, but it isn't freak-me-out spooky.

This show is a spin-off of SyFy's "Ghost Hunters", and, according to some fan comments I've read, the new team is comprised largely of rejects from that and other shows.  I can only go by what I've seen here but in some cases I wouldn't doubt it.  (More on this later.)  Unlike the USA-bound "Ghost Hunters", the international version takes us to some truly fascinating locations around the world, where the supposed hauntings can date back several centuries.  This set focuses largely on the UK, in addition to scenic places such as Romania, Germany, and New Zealand, where the team gets to nose around in an awe-inspiring assortment of gloomy castles, citadels, and other medieval haunts.

After establishing the ghostly history of a location and setting up their equipment in the most likely spots, it's "lights out."  Imagine going to some of the scariest places on earth and creeping around in the dark all night, actually trying to wake the dead--I kept thinking, "What the hell's wrong with these people?  Are they nuts or what?"  There's a definite vicarious thrill to watching such a thing, imagining how it would feel to be chasing ghosts in Frankenstein's castle or hearing the growl of a devil dog in some pitch-black subterranean dungeon. 

Team leader Robb seems capable and level-headed enough, though a little humor-challenged and stiff.  Second lead investigator Andy refers to himself as the main debunker for the group, and due to his small size is often called upon to climb around precarious places or shinny through creepy crawlspaces with an admirable willingness.  In addition to coordinating the missions, these two meet with the caretakers of each location they explore and present them with the "evidence", or lack thereof, that they gather along with their pronouncement of whether or not a convincing case has been made for an actual paranormal presence.  (Those with a financial interest in the location's tourist-appeal are often visibly disappointed by a negative finding.)

The fact that Robb and Andy are as intent on discerning logical explanations for various anomalies as they are in declaring them "paranormal" adds to the show's credibility.  In one episode, the mysterious recurring aromas of cigar smoke and port wine are discovered by a hair-dryer-wielding Andy to be emanating from the furniture itself whenever it's warmed by the sun.  Strange noises, lights, and other unexplained events are often determined to be caused by any number of mundane things.  Entire segments of GHI, in fact, can consist more of debunking ghosts than encountering them, which some viewers may find boring despite the show's efforts to squeeze dramatic moments out of every creak, bump, shadow, chilly draft, tingly feeling, etc. 

Science guy Barry, an outgoing Irishman with a really bad soul patch, heads up the evidence evaluations.  He also tends to display the classic "feets don't fail me now" reaction to sudden ghostly activity.  Bantam rooster Brian is the "tech guy" in charge of the equipment, but his most notable trait is his confrontational style when dealing with spirits.  During their investigation of an opera house in New Zealand in which the architect is said to have committed suicide, Brian struts around like a twitchy street punk while shouting things like "Your theater sucks!"  I'm thinking that this may be one of the reasons Brian disappears from the show somewhere around episode nine.  His gangly, spikey-haired replacement, Dustin, known for wearing his visor cap upside-down and backwards, tends toward the dorky side but is less abrasive.

Case manager and local-history researcher Donna takes the opposite approach, settling in and spending forever gently and patiently asking questions such as "Do you like to knit or crochet?" to potential entities.  In one episode, this drives the jumpier and less-patient team member Shannon to fake Donna out by reaching around and banging on the wall behind her, leading to the show's first really classic "reality TV-drama" moment--Donna complains to Robb about Shannon's frivolous lack of devotion to their solemn mission and bad blood forms between the two which won't be resolved.  After a couple more episodes in which she clearly appears uncomfortable to be there, Shannon disappears from the show, leaving a triumphant Donna as Queen Bee until an unfortunate reoccurrence of Crohn's disease forces her to drop out.

While the team gathers reams of footage from both video and heat-sensitive cameras, we see little or nothing of the shadowy forms that often have them bug-eyed and breathless.  Most of the evidence comes from their ultra-sensitive sound recorders, which sometimes pick up what could be interpreted as human speech in response to their repetitive questions.  Occasionally a digital photo will reveal something that resembles a face if you use your imagination (which the team tends to do).  Needless to say, watching actual paranormal investigators methodically going about their jobs ain't quite the same as it is in POLTERGEIST.

Little in the way of conclusive evidence is ever found, although it's fun to watch the ghost hunters' reactions to what they call "personal experiences" such as being touched or hearing disembodied footsteps.  (The night-vision camera, which makes them all look like goggle-eyed albinos, gives everything an added element of eerieness as well.)  And the historic locations themselves, including the actual castle in which much of the silent horror classic NOSFERATU was filmed, are fascinating to explore under such ominous conditions.

The 3-disc DVD set from Image Entertainment has an aspect ratio of 1.33:1 with Dolby Digital stereo.  Discs one and two contain four episodes apiece, while disc three has the remaining three episodes and over an hour's worth of deleted and extended scenes.  The packaging is a tad inconvenient, as the discs are stacked on one hub and secured in place by a removable screw.  There are no subtitles or closed-captioning.

Hardier souls who laugh at the thought of ghosts and go traipsing around in dark, spooky places as though it were nothing will probably regard all of this with a derisive chuckle while simply enjoying the scenery.  But if the very idea of real-life hauntings chills your blood as it does mine, then GHOST HUNTERS INTERNATIONAL SEASON ONE: PART 1 should give you a pretty hefty case of the creeps. 

 

GHOST HUNTERS INTERNATIONAL SEASON ONE: PART 1 -- DVD Review by Porfle

GHOST HUNTERS ACADEMY -- DVD Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 1/17/13

My first experience with this franchise was the DVD set "Ghost Hunters International Season One: Part 1", which was pleasant enough except that in the first few episodes it looked like they were aiming to include the usual reality TV-type interpersonal intrigue, back-biting, etc. rather than straight ghost-hunting, which I feared would get old fast.  Thankfully, they dropped that angle early on.

Unfortunately, GHOST HUNTERS ACADEMY jumps into all that with both feet and wallows around in it.  Image Entertainment's 4-disc DVD collection of this two-season spin-off series (2009-10), which lasted for only twelve episodes, is the standard elimination-style competition (a la "Survivor") in which contestants for a spot on "Ghost Hunters" are not only evaluated for their performances after each session but goaded into revealing who they think should be given the axe at episode's end.

It's like "Ghost Hunters" with a mean streak, with host-instructors Steve Gonsalvez and Dave Tango--mere second stringers on the main show--coming off like a couple of bullying, know-it-all doofs who have suddenly been given too much authority.  They seem to thrive on putting the earnest, nervous contestants on the spot and making them sweat ("WHY did you place a camera where NO VISUAL ACTIVITY has been reported?  WHY?") or lavishly berating them for not performing to their own elevated standards. 

Familiar locations are revisited, such as Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia, Shawshank Prison, the creepy Waverly Hills Sanatorium, Colorado's Stanley Hotel (the inspiration for Stephen King's "The Shining"), and, my favorite, the Buffalo Central Terminal where the indy horror flick PRISON OF THE PSYCHOTIC DAMNED was shot.  The investigations seem rather cursory this time, however--there's no reveal to the site's host, only a caustic evaluation by Steve and Tango of the contestants' grievous failings. 

In fact, it occurred to me somewhere around episode five or six that there hadn't been a single convincingly paranormal event in the entire series thus far, besides those in "Ghost Hunters" flashbacks.  The episode titles themselves tell the story, pointing out the emphasis on personal drama rather than eerie encounters: "Web of Deceit" (referring to one contestant's failure to disclose her psychic abilities), "The Honeymoon's Over", "Back to Basics", "Drama Queen", "The Blame Game", and so on. 

Episode seven introduces a new group of hopefuls and a slightly new format in response to what were probably less than stellar ratings.  TAPS (The Atlantic Paranormal Society) co-founder Jason Hewes comes on to help whip the show into shape and the "cadets" as they're called seem more down-to-business.  But the "Survivor" template is adhered to even more closely, with everyone dishing the dirt on everyone else as bad feelings and grudges are encouraged. 

This second stage of the series does seem to get a little more into the "spirit" of the investigations, so to speak--there seems to be a bit more paranormal hoo-hah going on in these episodes.  But there's also a lot of boring down time, with a giggling Steve and Tango playing practical jokes on the contestants that are ostensibly meant to "test" them but come off mainly as simple pranks of the kind that are an anathema to this kind of show.

It's almost disheartening to hear the contestants' interview segments in which they speak excitedly about joining the GH team and becoming bonafide paranormal investigators, only to see them get bogged down in this superficial show's uninteresting machinations.  (The fact that we already know the second season's winner--since he's a part of the regular "Ghost Hunters" team already--eliminates much of the show's suspense as well.)
 
The 4-disc DVD set from Image Entertainment is in 1.78:1 widescreen with Dolby stereo sound.  No subtitles.  Disc four consists of several deleted and expanded scenes. 

There's no joy or catharsis when the final winner of GHOST HUNTERS ACADEMY is announced, only the feeling that we've just been through a lot of unpleasant rigamarole for nothing.  With the lack of paranormal activity throughout most of these episodes, you also get the distinct impression that the spirits themselves didn't consider the series worth showing up for.

Buy it at Amazon.com

GHOST HUNTERS ACADEMY -- DVD Review by Porfle

THE LAST HOUSE -- DVD Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 11/23/15

Described as a "psycho-sexual thriller", THE LAST HOUSE, a.k.a. "Breath of Hate" (2015) wants to be deep and maybe even a little avant-garde--in addition to being violent and perversely sexy--but doesn't quite have the finesse to pull it off.

CLERKS' Jason Mewes (ZOMBIE HAMLET, SILENT BUT DEADLY) is Ned, a lovesick schlub trying to convince his hooker heartthrob Love (Lauren Walsh, MEET THE SPARTANS) to quit the business and be his one-guy gal.  But when Love finally goes to her pimp to serve notice, Sonny (Jack Forcinito, SILENT NIGHT, ZOMBIE NIGHT) strongly insists that she go on one final job with two other hookers to a swanky mansion where a wild sex party is to be held.  Reluctantly, Love agrees.

Bad idea, since we've already seen the three psychotic squatters occupying the mansion do away with a lady realtor (SLEEPAWAY CAMP's Felissa Rose in a brief, thankless cameo), and it's obvious their idea of "party" will prove unpleasant for the three unsuspecting working girls.

There's Cleb (Ricardo Gray), an excitable young black dude whose "crazy happy" mood, we're told, must be seen to be believed; Selma (Monique Parent, THE PERFECT HOUSE), a wickedly dominant sex bomb; and "Hate" (Ezra Buzzington), the oily, enigmatic, and endlessly verbose ringleader of the tawdry trio.  Once this dubious situation gets into full swing, THE LAST HOUSE becomes a round-robin series of sexual trainwrecks. 

Cleb, we discover, likes cheerleaders.  In fact, he thinks they look good enough to eat--literally.  He's also partial to heating up half a canteloupe in the microwave and then making love to it AMERICAN PIE-style, and when these two scenarios are edited together the confusion is compounded when Love suddenly shows up and starts hacking away at him with a butcher knife.  Or does she?

Meanwhile, some of the film's kinkier deeds are performed in the upstairs bedroom when Selma has her way with the other hooker in a mistress-slave scenario that includes spanking, toe-sucking, and other sleazy sex stuff that skirts the boundaries of "softcore" before turning baseball-bat violent and, for me anyway, baffling.

But the most perplexing part comes when we watch our heroine Love in an increasingly troublesome tryst with "Hate", which starts out creepy and just gets worse, until he starts to live up to his name and she finds herself in grave peril. 

Which sounds straightforward enough, but is anything but because this film, remember, wants to be some kind of sleazy art film with its jumbled timelines and rambling monologues. 

Despite his on-the-nose moniker, Hate reminds me mainly of an evil David Spade--not very menacing, even when his true nature starts to bleed through.  The story gets progressively strange as characters die, live again, kill, get killed, etc. and we see a variety of flashbacks, flash-forwards, dreams that foretell the future, alternate outcomes, and other timeline-fiddling. While all this is going on, Ned is busy trying to track down Love by haunting the strip club where she works and going head to head with Sonny.

Jason Mewes handles his role well enough but it's Lauren Walsh as Love who's the real standout here.  Monique Parent is meant to be wickedly sexy, which is something she could do without breaking a sweat.  As Hate, Ezra Buzzington gets an "A" for effort although I never found the character as intriguing or mysterious as intended.  Jack Forcinito is sleaze personified as the pimp Sonny, whose main concern is his miniature pet turtle. 

The DVD from WildEye Releasing is widescreen with Dolby Digital sound.  No subtitles.  Bonus features consist of a writer and director commentary, deleted scenes, a Cinemayhem Film Festival director interview, and the film's London premiere at the Gorezone Film Festival.

While some members of the cast double as prolific porn stars, THE LAST HOUSE is more thriller and less sleaze than the synopsis might lead you to believe. I didn't find it all that thrilling, either, but I must give the filmmakers credit for trying something different. 

THE LAST HOUSE -- DVD Review by Porfle

GHOSTS OF GOLDFIELD -- DVD Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 4/10/09

I didn't like the film version of THE SHINING, so any horror movie about ghosts in a big old hotel is going to have to outdo Kubrick in order to win me over. (Okay, that may be a slight exaggeration.) And like the little engine that could, GHOSTS OF GOLDFIELD (2009) huffs and puffs its little heart out trying to do just that. But despite the best efforts of all involved, it never really builds up much steam.

Julie (Marnette Patterson of "Charmed") is a psych major who's doing a thesis on ghosts, so she rounds up some college friends to help her shoot a film inside the haunted Goldfield Hotel, situated in a ghost town in the middle of the Nevada desert. The main reason the place is haunted is because long ago, the rich bastard who built it tortured his mistress Elizabeth (Ashly Rae) to death in one of the rooms after finding out she was cheating on him with the hotel's bartender. He also tossed the couple's illegitimate baby down a mine shaft (what a sweet guy!), so now Elizabeth's ghost roams the corridors wailing "Where's my baby?" (And no, dingos are not involved.)

There's some other stuff mentioned about the hotel being a portal between the worlds of the living and the dead, but nothing much ever comes of this. And the fact that Elizabeth (who resembles Juliette Lewis after a bad weekend) seems to be the only ghost in the whole place for much of the movie really cuts down on the haunt factor. First-time director Ed Winfield displays little skill at building suspense or putting together effective scare sequences, while the cast seem unable to convincingly convey extreme emotions when necessary. Even their casual banter often seems awkwardly improvised, though much of the blame for this is probably due to the writers not giving them much to work with.

Besides Julie, there's her straitlaced boyfriend Dean (Scott Whyte), nice-guy cameraman Chad (TWILIGHT's Kellan Lutz), obligatory jackass Mike (Richie Chance), who stays drunk most of the time and likes to jump out and scare people, and Keri (Mandy Amano), the whiner who's constantly griping about being hungry or tired when she isn't swiping stuff from the hotel to sell on eBay. You know your cast isn't too impressive when the best performance comes from "Rowdy" Roddy Piper, who plays Elizabeth's secret lover Jackson Smith (in flashback) with something resembling two strips of beef jerky glued to his jowls to represent old-timey sideburns.

As expected, members of the group begin to wander off by themselves down dark, spooky corridors as soon as they enter the hotel. Director Winfield relies heavily on shots of mysterious figures flitting past the camera, clutching hands, and other familiar stuff to keep us on edge. The ghostly image of Elizabeth wandering around with her blazing red eyes, flowing white gown, and crazed expression are somewhat effective at times. Late in the story we begin to get a few gory kill scenes, but nothing very elaborate. Also as expected, nobody is able to get a signal on their cell phones! It's inevitable nowadays that horror movies must deal with this issue, and lately it seems more and more as though scriptwriters are simply saying "Screw it--the cell phones don't work."

The DVD is in 16x9 widescreen with 2.0 stereo sound. Direction and photography are average at best, and at times not very good. I viewed a screener with the movie only, but the release version promises a director's commentary, stills gallery, and trailers.

During the story, Julie begins to have visions of herself in the hotel during a past life, and her possible connection with Elizabeth's tragic demise leads to a downbeat and somewhat surprising finale that sends the movie off on a high note. GHOSTS OF GOLDFIELD is an okay time-waster if you're not in a very demanding mood; otherwise, chances are you'll find it more tame and tedious than scary.

GHOSTS OF GOLDFIELD -- DVD Review by Porfle

GHOST CAT -- DVD Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 7/30/09

This 2003 Canadian made-for-TV film was originally known as "Mrs. Ashboro's Cat" and has appeared as an Animal Planet original movie. Now, North American Motion Pictures is giving it a Sept. 22 DVD release as the somewhat more intriguingly-titled GHOST CAT, with special emphasis in the ads on Oscar-nominated Ellen Page (HARD CANDY, JUNO, X3) in an early starring role.

At first I thought this was going to be a zany combination of THAT DARN CAT and CASPER, but it's actually a pretty serious movie. Michael Ontkean ("Twin Peaks", "The Rookies") plays Wes Merritt, a recently-widowed writer moving to his deceased wife's New England hometown with his young daughter Natalie (Page). While house-hunting they meet a nice elderly woman named Mrs. Ashboro (Shirley Knight) whose weaselly banker nephew Boyd (Tom Barnett) is trying to get her to sell her house so he can replace the money he's been embezzeling before the bank examiners find out.

Mrs. Ashboro withdraws her savings from the bank with the intention of helping her friend Brenda (Lori Hallier, MY BLOODY VALENTINE, MONTE WALSH) who's being pressured to sell her animal shelter to a crooked land developer named Riker (Nigel Bennett). But soon after stashing the money in her house, Mrs. Ashboro dies suddenly and her loyal cat Margaret expires soon after out of grief. Wes and Natalie move into Mrs. Ashboro's now-vacated house and soon become involved in Brenda's struggle to keep her animal shelter as the increasingly ruthless Boyd and Riker join forces against her. Meanwhile, the good guys discover they have an unexpected ally--the ghost of Mrs. Ashboro's cat, Margaret.

Low-key and thoughtful, GHOST CAT has a subtle charm and warmth that sets it apart from the Disney Channel-type film you might expect. The characters, for the most part, behave in a realistic manner. This is especially true of Wes and Natalie, who still display a wistful melancholy after having lost wife and mother respectively, and Brenda, whose lifelong dream of operating her animal shelter is being wrested away from her. Tom Barnett's "Boyd" comes closest to stepping over the line as the stereotypical villain, but even he has an air of clumsy desperation not unlike that of William H. Macy's "Jerry Lundergaard" in FARGO, which keeps him believable.

I liked Lori Hallier as the "hardware widow" in 2003's MONTE WALSH and her down-to-earth performance here is very good. Ontkean does a nice job as the understanding single dad (who you just know is going to get romantic with Brenda sooner or later), and Ellen Page manages to portray a teenage girl without being flighty or precious or insufferable, which is no small feat. Of course, Shirley Knight is wonderful as Mrs. Ashboro and it's a shame her character disappears so soon. The rest of the cast is up to par, particularly Shawn Roberts as Natalie's budding love interest Kurt, whose troubled past makes him a suspect in some of the vandalism that takes place at the animal shelter.

I can't recall any scenes that are supposed to be out and out funny--in fact, the funniest thing about GHOST CAT is that it could've gotten along as a fairly serious drama without having a ghost cat in it at all. Not that I'd want that, since I'm a cat lover and Margaret is a very sweet and likable character. But she isn't really necessary to the plot at all and exists mainly to either lighten things up or to give the filmmakers an excuse to include some mildly spooky stuff like a seance, or a scene where Natalie is awakened in the middle of the night to find the piano playing itself.

In addition to that, Margaret's other functions are to wake people up when the barn's on fire or to lead them to the hidden stash of money, or to attack the bad guys when they're escaping in their car. And with all of that stuff going on, the last third of the movie manages to build a fair amount of suspense.

Direction by "Road to Avonlea" vet Don McBrearty is good; cinematography has that "Canadian made-for-TV" look. The DVD is 16 x 9 widescreen with 2.0 stereo audio. I watched a screener with no bonus features, but the official disc should include a stills gallery and closed captioning.

GHOST CAT is a fine choice for family viewing since the story is interesting, suspenseful, and heartfelt enough for adults, and since it has a ghost cat in it for the kids. Although they're liable to be disappointed that the movie isn't as kooky or as spooky as they might expect a movie called GHOST CAT to be.

GHOST CAT -- DVD Review by Porfle

"CAT PEOPLE" (1983) Leopard Tree Dream Sequence With Alternate Album Track (video)

Giorgio Moroder's soundtrack album for 1983's "Cat People"...

...contains some music that is considerably different from that in the film.

A notable example is the music for the memorable "Leopard Tree Dream" sequence.

Here is the scene from the movie, accompanied by the music from the album.


Music by Giorgio Moroder

Starring
Nastassia Kinski
Malcolm McDowell

Directed by
Paul Schrader

Written by
DeWitt Bodeen, Alan Ormsby, Paul Schrader

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

"CAT PEOPLE" (1983) Leopard Tree Dream Sequence With Alternate Album Track (video)

SUFFERING OF NINKO -- DVD Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 7/26/18

 

For those with a taste for the unusual, SUFFERING OF NINKO (2016) should prove a delectable, perhaps even sumptous treat. While hardly the nuttiest Asian supernatural film set in ancient Japan that I've ever seen, it easily ranks as one of my more keenly unusual movie-watching experiences.

The establishing shots alone let us know that we're in for a beautifully rendered film by first time feature director (and writer and producer and editor) Norihiro Niwatsukino, whose credits on the project mark it as an intensely personal vision.

Set in Japan's Edo period (around the 16th century or so), the story begins in a monastery where young monk Ninko (Masato Tsujioka) is the most ardent and hardworking of all his peers. But for all his virtue and spiritual purity, he suffers from a terrible burden--he is incredibly, insanely irresistible to every woman he comes into contact with.

At first this is depicted with subtle hints of lighthearted comedy despite the film's solemn tone, with Ninko's excursions into a nearby village with his brothers to beg for alms descending into chaos as all the women in the area converge upon the group to grab, grope, drool over, and attempt to seduce the hapless Ninko with every feminine trick in their book and a few that are clearly made up on the spot.

Ninko's ordeal is deftly portrayed by showing us how his zen meditation sessions first serve as a source of peace and spiritual comfort but gradually evolve into furious psycho-sexual fever dreams that have him writhing in sexual agony before finally driving him out of his mind.

This sequence is the most surreal of the film and is enhanced by Edo-inspired drawings and animations (which recur throughout the film to add to its old Japanese storytelling style) and an unusual rendition of Ravel's "Bolero" played with traditional Japanese instruments.

Here we also get one of the first hints that Ninko is being haunted and perhaps stalked by a powerful supernatural female entity with long black hair, whom we see dancing seductively behind a bland-expression mask.

After recovering his senses, Ninko is ordered to set off on a journey of self-discovery to confront his problems and deal with them head on.  The narrative really gets going when he meets a mercenary ronin named Kanzo (Hideta Iwahashi) and the two of them are hired by local villagers to hunt down an evil sorceress, Yama-onna (Miho Wakabayashi), who seduces men with her irresistible sexuality and drains them of their lifeforce, leaving only lifeless, mummified husks.

We've seen hints of Yama-onna appearing teasingly to Ninko throughout the film, as though she senses his own sexual power and sees it, and him, as a challenge.  Ninko, meanwhile, suffers even more when it occurs to him that he may in fact be some kind of inhuman sexual creature himself.

Kanzo, the roguish swordsman, looks upon all this as an amusing (he likes Ninko) and profitable challenge to his skills.  Writer and director Norihiro Niwatsukino brings them all together for a surprising and, in some ways, exhilarating climax (in more ways than one) in which the film's narrative subtleties and eye-filling supernatural wonders intertwine. 

Old-fashioned storytelling blends with modern sex and violence to create a unique viewing experience in SUFFERING OF NINKO.  Those indulging in this enticing buffet of ancient Japanese delights will be well served.

TECH SPECS
Running Time: 70 mins.
Genre: Drama/Comedy
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Audio: Stereo
Language: Japanese w/English Subtitles
Street Date: August 14, 2018
DVD SRP: $19.95

SUFFERING OF NINKO -- DVD Review by Porfle

CATHY'S CURSE -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

 

(Originally posted on March 30, 2017)

 

I'd never watched CATHY'S CURSE until now, but I do remember seeing a TV spot for it way back in 1977 and thinking that the title sounded like some kind of weird Everly Brothers song.

Today, this charmingly quaint little Canadian chiller-thriller is one of those late 70s film artifacts that seem to foretell the kind of supernatural horror flicks that we'd be seeing all through the 80s when we weren't watching some unkillable stalker-killer slashing his way through a teen cast.

Much of what happens was already pretty familiar stuff at the time.  There's a 1947 prologue featuring the violent deaths of a father and his young daughter Laura--the mother having just abandoned them, taking younger son George with her--whose spirits will return to haunt the living in the present day.

Those haunted are a family consisting of grown-up George (Alan Scarfe, LETHAL WEAPON 3, LOCK UP), his troubled wife Vivian (Beverley Murray) who's still recovering from a nervous breakdown, and their adolescent daughter Cathy (Randi Allen). 

When they return to the old homeplace to live, we know pretty much what's in store for them, and it will involve Cathy being possessed by Laura's angry spirit and making life a living hell for everyone else--especially Vivian, since Laura, like her late father, tends to regard all women as "bitches."  (George seems to be soaking up some of the old man's malevolent spiritual residue himself at first, but not much is made of this.)

French director Eddy Matalon has a lean, unfettered style and the cinematography has that chilly sort of starkness you often see in 70s and 80s Canadian cinema.  The editing is rather jumpy at times, adding to a sense of unpredictability and illogic that seems to enhance rather than detract from the film's modest appeal.

Once settled into their new house, Cathy wastes no time switching over to "creepy possessed kid" mode with the help of a hideous doll with sewn-together eyes that she finds in the attic along with a glowing-eyes portrait of Laura. 

This allows the writers to toss dashes of THE EXORCIST and THE OMEN into the stew albeit never anywhere close to the same intensity or fear level.  In fact, most of what happens is more delightfully amusing than scary, and is at times downright rib-tickling. 

This includes Cathy getting the old caretaker Paul drunk and then unleashing a gaggle of imaginary snakes and spiders on him, and sending a poor old lady who's babysitting her out an upstairs window by telekinetically launching that ugly doll at her. (The investigating police detective is familiar David Cronenberg regular Sonny Forbes, who played the bald black assassin in SCANNERS.)

There's a cool scene early on with Cathy reenacting Laura's fatal car crash with some neighborhood children while Vivian entertains two women, one of whom happens to be a medium.  Her extreme reactions to a picture of Laura's father, jerkily intercut with Cathy's menacing behavior toward her playmates, are a hoot.

The main focus of Cathy's wrath, however, is poor, frazzled Vivian herself, who's in and out of the nervous hospital throughout the film.  This allows Beverley Murray to emote to her heart's content, as when she's having a Calgon moment in the bathtub and suddenly finds herself awash in blood and leeches. 

The rest of the film is a series of derivative but pleasingly off-the-wall "fright" scenes that build to a blandly diverting finale boasting some fun burn makeup for Cathy.  Little Randi Allen, in her first and only film, is endearingly cute acting all menacing and scary.

The Blu-ray from Severin Films is 1080p HD full resolution with Dolby mono sound in English, French, Italian, and Spanish.  English subtitles are available.
 
Severin once again offers a loaded bonus menu including an interview with director Eddy Matalon, a charming interview with grown-up Randi Allen and her mother Joyce (who worked in wardrobe on the film), a fannish audio commentary with critic Brian Collins and filmmaker Simon Barrett, a trailer, and more.  The disc contains both the U.S. release cut and the longer director's cut. 

CATHY'S CURSE never gets nearly as scary as it wants to be--in fact, I don't think it raises a single hackle--but for those who can appreciate this sort of thing, kicking back to watch it is one of life's simple pleasures.  It's just the kind of relatively minor cult horror flick that's a throwaway to some, and a euphoria-inducing treat to others.

CATHY'S CURSE -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

THE VICTIM -- DVD Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 6/29/08

 

Remember that "really scared" feeling you used to get when you watched horror movies as a kid, but hardly ever experience now that you're a grownup and movies don't affect you that way anymore? Well, I'm feeling it again right now after watching the 2006 Thai terror film THE VICTIM from Tartan Asia Extreme. Jeepers, this sucker is flat-out scary.

The story begins with an aspiring young actress named Ting (Pitchanart Sakakorn) who gets a gig playing the murder victims in police reenactments. She's so enthusiastic and convincing at this that she actually starts to develop a fan base. Fearing that she may anger the souls of the victims she portrays, she offers prayers each time to assure them that her intentions are good--while, unseen by her, their spirits surround her. When a popular beauty queen named Meen disappears and evidence points to a brutal murder, Ting becomes so wrapped up in accurately portraying her that she begins to receive supernatural help which leads her to the killer, endangering her own life in the process.

Pitchanart Sakakorn is cute as a button and her character is a lot of fun. Her story, while containing some scary elements, is also a tantalizing mystery that comes to a suspenseful conclusion about halfway through the movie. And then, suddenly, something deviously unexpected happens that pulls the rug out from under the viewer and transforms THE VICTIM into a whole different movie altogether. And this one is a lot darker, stranger, and scarier than before.

Now, the emphasis is on a film crew shooting a movie about Meen's death and Ting's involvement in the aftermath. Strange things start to happen on the set, and spectral images show up on the film during editing. Worse, the actors and crew begin to experience terrifying ghostly encounters and die off one by one. May, the actress portraying Ting in the film, shows indications of being possessed by Meen's vengeful spirit. And things just get worse from there.

Director Monthon Arayangkoon displays great skill at building a tense, tautly-drawn aura of dread and luring the viewer into one blood-chilling "gotcha!" scene after another. Usually I get numb to these after awhile, but here, almost every one of them had me jumping as though I were being poked with a cattle prod. Whenever a character turns around, chances are something awful's going to be standing there. When the camera moves slightly off center during a closeup and reveals empty space behind the actor, we just know something horrible's going to pop up. And knowing it doesn't help.

There are some really good makeup effects here, and the staging of the scare scenes is excellent. A few of them are flawed by obvious CGI, though--by now we all know what it looks like, and it can really kill the mood when it's too cartoonish-looking. But many of the images, especially one of a ghoulish, decayed Likae dancer jerkily lurching toward us, are utterly nightmarish.

The DVD image is 1:66:1 with 5.1 Dolby Digital, featuring a Thai soundtrack with optional subtitles. Both music and sound design are memorably creepy.

In addition to a trailer and TV spots, there's a 22-minute "The Making of 'The Victim'" which is scarier than the film itself. We learn that the murder scenes Ting reenacts were not only based on real events, but shot on the actual locations as well. The actors were kept in the dark about this particular factoid, though, so as not to distract them, and were understandably freaked out when this was finally revealed to them. Worse, we're shown several pieces of footage(which were used in the movie itself) that appear to have authentic ghostly images on them. It's like one of those Fox TV specials--you don't know if it's true, or if they're just pulling our chains--but it's told in a straightforward manner, with corroborating testimony from cast and crew, and is just plain disturbing.

You may be more desensitized to stuff like this if you've seen a lot of scarier Asian horror films, but it's been a couple of hours since I watched THE VICTIM and I'm still feeling uncomfortably nervous and spooked-out. At this rate, I'm gonna have to pop a Walt Disney antidote into the DVD player and happy myself up before I go to bed.

THE VICTIM -- DVD Review by Porfle

FATHER'S DAY -- Movie Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 2/24/12

 

I didn't know quite what to expect when I started watching FATHER'S DAY (2011), a condition which persisted throughout the entire movie.  Just when you think you've pretty much figured out what it is you're watching, it turns into something a whole lot weirder and several times nuttier.

Written, directed, and starred in by a group of Winnipeg filmmakers who call themselves Astron-6, it's an unashamedly stupid, gore-drenched grab bag of tongue-in-cheek tough-guy action-horror-comedy antics done in the fake-grindhouse style of PLANET TERROR, but with real grindhouse production values and attitude. 

Most nostalgic of all for me, it's presented as though home-taped sometime during the 80s off a late-night cable station called ASTR-TV, complete with promo bumpers, smarmy announcer, and a mid-movie faux trailer for something really, really cheesy called STAR RAIDERS.

The story begins in semi-sane fashion with corpulent "Father's Day Killer" Chris Fuchman (Mackenzie Murdock) raping and butchering dads, including that of gay street hustler Twink (Conor Sweeney).  This repellent character also killed the father of young Ahab and cut out his right eye in the bargain. 

Now grown up, Ahab (Adam Brooks) is a growly-voiced, eye-patched "Snake Plissken" type out for revenge along with his stripper sister Chelsea (Amy Groening), the addlebrained Twink, and a jittery young priest named Father John (Matthew Kennedy) whose blind, aging mentor also met a horrific Fuchman-related fate. 

What follows makes ARMY OF DARKNESS look like a Doris Day/Rock Hudson comedy as this simple revenge flick gets progressively more absurd.  Characters obsess "Monty Python"-style over simple figures of speech, as when Ahab tells Father John that it's time to harvest his maple syrup before it turns bitter and Father John wrongly interprets this as a metaphor for Ahab and his sister Chelsea, after which a confused Ahab spends five minutes trying to figure out why Father John just compared him to a tree.

Twink, meanwhile, begins the film as a deceptively serious character grieving over his dead dad (Billy Sadoo's acting while being murdered by Fuchman is strikingly realistic), making his descent into extreme goofiness even more pronounced.  Elsewhere, Father John's odyssey takes him from a meltdown in the pulpit worthy of Richard Burton on laughing gas (in a scene which may have been inspired by the opening to NIGHT OF THE IGUANA) to a hostage situation in Heaven with the desperate priest holding God (Troma head honcho Lloyd Kaufman) at gunpoint. 

While all this is going on, Fuchman continues his reign of terror complete with a cornucopia of wet 'n' wild gore effects including entrails, exploding heads, and one shocking moment that gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "eat me."  None of this, however, is quite as disturbing as the image of a full-on naked Mackenzie Murdock displaying his eye-watering genitalia and humping everyone in sight. 

Just when you think our heroes have defeated the bad guy and made everything right with the world again, FATHER'S DAY pulls out all the stops and goes totally off the deep end with Ahab, Twink, and Father John descending into Hell to rescue Chelsea, who's been kidnapped by Fuchman to be the bearer of his evil seed or whatever. 

While this may sound pretty horrible, it's all basically just an excuse to ramp up the bizarre off-the-wall comedy to even greater heights (or should I say depths) of calculated idiocy.  Along with even more squishy gore effects, of course.  Oh yeah, and I almost forgot to mention the extreme incest sequence and the buxom, chainsaw-wielding stripper played by my future wife, Zsuzsi. 

As nastily nostalgic as the more expensive, star-studded PLANET TERROR and packed with more grindhouse-verite' style than HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN, the gleefully horrendous FATHER'S DAY will be a riotous romp for some, a nauseating nightmare for others.  You probably know which camp you're in by now. 


Our coverage of the film's premiere

Official website

FATHER'S DAY -- Movie Review by Porfle

THE WOODS -- Movie Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted in 2006 

 

Heather (Agnes Bruckner) is a troubled girl who doesn't get along with her mom.  One day she decides to express her pent-up feelings by setting fire to the woods next to her house, almost burning it down.  Now her bitchy, self-centered mom (Emma Campbell) and her sympathetic dad (the redoubtable Bruce Campbell) are taking her to an exclusive and very secluded girls' boarding school in the middle of a dense, dark forest.  Here, in this strict and highly regimented atmosphere deep in THE WOODS (2006), it is hoped that Heather will learn to be a proper young lady who doesn't set things on fire.

Things begin to look creepy right away; the school is a large, foreboding building that is hundreds of years old and has vines growing through all the windows and across the walls, all the teachers are spinsterish former students who are weird, and the headmistress, Ms. Traverse (Patricia Clarkson), is a strange woman who always looks like there's something dark and ominous on her mind.  She gives Heather a peculiar aptitude test, ostensibly to determine whether or not she qualifies for a scholarship.  But, as it turns out later, this test is for a far different purpose altogether.



Heather makes friends with a timid girl named Marcy (Lauren Birkell) and enemies with the school bitch, Samantha (Rachel Nichols), while doing her best to alienate her teachers enough to get sent home.  Meanwhile, she begins to have frightening nightmares about wandering through the dark woods and encountering ghostly figures that come after her.  She also notices that a particular bed in the corner, about four bunks down from hers, is always empty.  It belongs to Ann, a girl who supposedly tried to kill herself a few weeks earlier. 

When Ann finally returns, her wrists wrapped in gauze, she appears haunted and deeply disturbed.  Heather awakens that night to see a thick tangle of vines creeping over the floor toward Ann's bed, covered by a blanket of mist. Was this a dream?  In any case, the next morning Ann's bed is empty once again, save for a pile of leaves shaped like a human body.  Woo-OOO-ooo...!

And things are just getting started.  THE WOODS is an engaging and very well-rendered spook tale that has a few elements in common with SUSPIRIA, and although it isn't quite as scary or as beautiful as Dario Argento's masterpiece, it's still directed with great care and skill by Lucky McKee (MAY) and exquisitely photographed and edited.  It also reminds me of some of those atmospheric Canadian horror flicks I used to watch on cable and VHS back in the early 80s.  And the fact that it's a period piece, taking place in 1965 and featuring some cool Leslie Gore songs including the classic "You Don't Own Me", gives it added ambience. 



It doesn't rely on blood and gore for its scares, but doesn't shy away from it, either--there are some pretty splattery scenes here and there, especially when certain characters start to wield a big, red axe that figures prominently throughout.  And when the woods attack and it's time to crank up the old CGI, it actually looks fairly convincing for a change.

The mystery behind the school deepens as Heather discovers more about its history--mainly the story of three strange girls who emerged from the woods one day about a hundred years earlier and were taken in.  They later turned out to be witches, and began to exert their evil influence in bad ways.  The headmistress at the time tried to stop them, and the main witch introduced her to the big, red axe.  Now, Heather realizes that the school is still in the witch business and is recruiting girls who excell in Ms. Traverse's "aptitude test", and who can hear the voices in the woods calling to them as Heather does. 

In fact, as it turns out, "the force" is particularly strong with Heather and Ms. Traverse has something especially bad planned for her.  And as bad turns to worse, Heather is eventually told that it's her turn to sleep in the empty bed in the corner.  Woo-OOO-ooo...!  (Okay, I'll stop doing that now.)

Agnes Bruckner is an appealing young actress and does a fine job as Heather, and the rest of the cast, both young and old, are outstanding as well.  As Ms. Traverse, Patricia Clarkson is just as good at playing restrained, understated creepiness as she was as Margaret White in the excellent TV remake of CARRIE.  And Bruce Campbell...well, he's Bruce Campbell.  He's great as good ol' Dad, eventually racing to his daughter's rescue as she's trapped in the horrific culmination of the witches' evil machinations.  He even gets to wield the big, red axe!  But watch out, Bruce...as Scotty tried to tell you way back in THE EVIL DEAD:  "But the trees, Ash.  They know.  Don't you see, Ash?  They're alive!"

THE WOODS -- Movie Review by Porfle

CARNIVOROUS -- DVD Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 4/8/09

 

A little boy named Alan Cade steals a magic "Kulev" stick from an old Cajun witch doctor, pops a crayon in one end, and draws a picture of a giant alligator-headed snake monster killing his abusive stepdad. Voila--one giant alligator-headed snake monster comin' up, and before you know it, bad stepdad is toast.

CARNIVOROUS, aka "Lockjaw: Rise of the Kulev Serpent" (2008), then whisks us ahead several years to find grown-up Alan (Louis Herthum) blissfully married to his childhood sweetheart Becky. But when a truckload of pesky teenagers on their way to a secluded cabin for the weekend run over Alan's beloved without even looking back to see what that "thump" was, a heartbroken Alan whips out the old magic stick again and starts drawing. In no time, the teens start getting dragged one by one into the sugar cane field surrounding their cabin by a big, mean you-know-what.

I tend to lower my expectations when it comes to low-budget horror flicks, so I'm often pleasantly surprised when they turn out to be pretty good. Unfortunately, the only way to not be disappointed by this totally blah film is to expect not to be entertained in any way, shape, or form. Aside from Alan and Becky, the characters are doggedly uninteresting and painfully unlikable, which is only made worse by some really bad performances. 

Even standard good girl Sam (Lauren Fain) and standard sensitive guy Kelly (Wes Brown) are annoying stiffs whom we would dearly love to see get eaten alive. Their moronic party-hearty cohorts are even worse, although slutty blonde Ashley (Victoria Vodar) tends to strip down to her red satin undies a lot and has an endearing snort when she laughs.

The film looks kind of like an episode of "Friday the 13th: The Series" only not as good or anywhere near as exciting. Amir Valinia's bland direction and a groan-filled script don't help much. The kill scenes are few and far between, and generate zero suspense. A couple of them, however, are amusing--one guy gets skewered while mounting his horny girlfriend, with the tip of the creature's wiggling tail sticking out of his chest. He deserves it. 

Another character gets summarily decapitated by said tail at such an odd moment that it isn't scary or shocking, but just sorta unexpectedly funny. As for the creature itself, it's passable, and certainly isn't the worst CGI I've ever seen in a low-budget flick. With more imaginative direction the creature scenes might've been somewhat exciting, but as it is they have little effect at all.

Rapper DMX, who's billed over the title, makes a halfhearted appearance toward the end. He's the grown-up son of the old Cajun from whom Alan stole the magic stick way back when, and now he's the only hope our heroes have of destroying the monster. I seem to remember DMX doing okay in EXIT WOUNDS alongside Steven Seagal, but here he barely registers. He's also one of the executive producers, which makes me wonder why he can't find something better than this to get involved with.

Bad horror flicks can be fun to watch if they aren't totally boring and you can laugh at them. It also helps if the filmmakers were obviously trying to make a good movie and failed in an entertaining way. Unfortunately, none of these conditions apply to CARNIVOROUS. In a word, it's simply--indigestible.

 

CARNIVOROUS -- DVD Review by Porfle

DEADGIRL -- Movie Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 7/17/09

 

Recently I watched another coming-of-age film called "Bart Got a Room", which might be thought of as the happy flipside to today's very different coming-of-age story, DEADGIRL (2008).

 In this one, two high school misfits named Rickie and J.T. get a room too, only instead of being in a posh hotel it's in the dark basement of an abandoned mental institution, and instead of finding prom dates, they find a naked living-dead girl wrapped in plastic and strapped to a lab table.

Needless to say, this isn't your father's Archie and Jughead. While Rickie (the soulful Shiloh Fernandez, who reminds me of a pre-nutso Joaquin Phoenix) is disturbed by their discovery and wants to report it to somebody, the considerably flakier J.T. (Noah Segan) quickly sees Deadgirl as their own animated RealDoll.

Before long he's as paranoid and possessive as Fred C. Dobbs and acting out his twisted adolescent urges with the undying corpse. In one startling scene, he proves to Rickie that she can't die by firing several bullets into her torso with no effect. Rickie is repulsed but intimidated into silence by the increasingly unbalanced J.T. Eventually others are brought in on the sick setup, with varying horrific consequences.

In a way, DEADGIRL reminded me of "The River's Edge", a fact-based story of some disaffected high school kids who find a murdered girl's body in the weeds and bring their friends out to gawk at her instead of doing anything about it. Here, however, we go way beyond merely "disaffected" and into full-blown "deranged."

Many viewers will no doubt find it difficult to endure scenes of J.T. and his pathetic toady Wheeler (Eric Podnar) taking turns with the increasingly worse-for-wear Deadgirl as her chilling visage contorts, her eyes rolling and leering in their sockets. Equally repellent is the sight of J.T. poking at her pus-oozing bulletholes as he giddily marvels at her inability to die.

While J.T. has found the ghoul of his nightmares, Rickie still pines for the beautiful and unattainable popular girl Joann (Candice Accola), who, as J.T. points out with brutal frankness, would rather die than be with him. She'll eventually have to make that choice.

Her bullying jock boyfriend Johnny (Andrew DiPalma) and his equally sadistic sidekick Dwyer (Nolan Gerard Funk) also get drawn into the situation, culminating in some of the film's most ghastly and nerve-wracking images. Even tied up, Deadgirl is dangerous, because when you least expect it, she bites. And the bites get...infected. What happens to one hapless lad in particular is, for me anyway, quite a jaw-dropper.

 

I wasn't altogether satisfied by the ending, although I suppose there was a kind of resigned inevitability to it. The leads play their parts convincingly--Segan is especially effective as the downwardly spiralling J.T., and Michael Bowen, who was "Buck" in KILL BILL VOL. 1, is one of the best character actors working today.

Best of all, Jenny Spain's Deadgirl is a truly strange and frightening creation. The combination of the right makeup and her cunningly controlled performance, along with the imaginative direction of Marcel Sarmiento and Gadi Harel, makes Deadgirl a memorable movie "monster." You're never quite sure what's going through her fevered mind and can't wait to find out what will happen when she gets loose from her bonds. Which she eventually does, of course.

DEADGIRL is not to be confused with the similarly-titled 2006 film "The Dead Girl." That was a thoughtful, bittersweet account of the affect that one girl's murder has on the lives of several people who are connected with her in one way or another. This, on the other hand, is a pitch dark, full-blown horror flick that sets out to disgust and disturb and succeeds by being one of the most deviously over-the-top cinematic fever dreams of recent years. As for Deadgirl herself, she is both loathesome and sympathetic, repellant yet compelling, horrific yet oddly heroic--and altogether fascinating.

DEADGIRL -- Movie Review by Porfle

FRIDAY THE 13TH: THE SERIES--THE FINAL SEASON -- DVD Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 9/17/09

 

Perfect for Halloween viewing, FRIDAY THE 13TH: THE SERIES--THE FINAL SEASON is another outstanding collection of stories that delve headlong into darkest fantasy and full-blown Gothic horror, from one of the finest series of its kind ever made for television.

Richly evocative of the 80s-90s era in horror, yet steeped in the moody aura of the classic fright films of the past, each episode from the 1989-1990 season is like an atmospheric mini-movie replete with hideous monsters, evil spirits, malevolent magic, and everyday people taking a walk on the dark side.

As usual, beautiful redhead Micki Foster (Robey) is still trying to track down the cursed items that were sold from the curiosity shop she's inherited from her evil Uncle Lewis (R.G. Armstrong), who died after his deal with Old Scratch fell through. She's aided by her uncle's former antique dealer, Jack Marshak (Chris Wiggins), whose knowledge of arcane lore and the dark arts is invaluable. Micki's cousin Ryan (John D. LeMay) is half-owner of the shop, but his character is done away with during the season premiere and replaced by Steven Monarque as Johnny Ventura, a wide-eyed novice in the world of the supernatural.

The cursed antiques, which can be anything from a coin to a child's toy to a haunted television set, wield an evil influence over their owners and are usually used for deadly revenge or personal gain. Either way, they tend to kill people in extremely horrible ways, which is bad for our heroes, but great for us horror fans.

The season gets off to blood-curdling start with a two-parter called "The Prophecies." Jack finds himself in a small French village whose convent is the home of a revered nun, Sister Adele (Marie-France Lambert). Her childhood vision of the Holy Mother has made the village a mecca for people seeking to be healed of their afflictions. But this haven of holiness finds itself under attack from fallen angel Asteroth (Fritz Weaver in full Fritz Weaver mode), who, armed with a cursed copy of the Satanic Bible, is determined to fulfill a series of prophecies that will enable Lucifer to walk the earth.

The story loses steam during the second part as Weaver's one-note character begins to grate on the nerves, but the first half of this tale contains some of the scariest stuff ever done for television. When Jack is awakened at 3:33 a.m. by groaning, distorted church bells, the effect is chilling. Then we see Sister Adele attacked by a possessed nun while in prayer, a scene that should unsettle anyone who was ever scared by THE EXORCIST. Soon after, a sequence in which a ward full of mental patients attack the convent's staff and slaughter them in unholy ways is pure bedlam, and very strong stuff. Topping it all off is the bizarre and unexpected fate of Ryan, which is one of the strangest main character departures ever.

"Night Prey" is an old-fashioned wing-flapping, cross-shunning vampire tale which ends with some nice messy disintegrations. In "The Charnel Pit", Micki is sucked into the past via an old painting and falls into the hands of none other than the Marquis de Sade. "The Tree of Life" is the story of a modern sect of Druid priestesses who grow new recruits in their own fertility clinic and then sacrifice the parents to a tree god.

A cursed wheelchair enables a paralyzed girl to get revenge on the boys who tried to rape her in "Crippled Inside", which boasts one of the most amazing stunts I've ever seen--a stuntwoman goes down a flight of stairs in a wheelchair, backwards! Other episodes deal with a headless biker, a television that serves as a conduit for angry ghosts, an evil jack-in-the-box, and a man who uses a cursed leash to (as the episode summary puts it) "merge his dog and his wife into one super-devoted companion." Cool!

As Micki, Robey does her usual great job of being a big-haired babe while bringing depth and conviction to her role. Chris Wiggins as the ever wise and stalwart Jack grounds the show with his dignified presence and experience, no matter how far-out the plots may get. New castmember Steven Monarque's character of Johnny Ventura, first introduced in season two, gives the viewer a fresh, unjaded perspective through which to witness all the weirdness that Micki and Jack have become accustomed to.

Production values are high and the feature-level direction and writing are consistently good. The show doesn't skimp on the horror factor, either--there are lots of awesome old-school makeup effects such as the impressive full-body costume and cable-controlled head for the main creature in "Demon Hunter", and the horrific acid-dissolving victim (like something out of Cronenberg's THE FLY) in "Crippled Inside." In "Stick it in Your Ear", guest star Wayne Best's repulsively organic hearing aid, which allows him to read minds, causes him to break out in some wonderfully disgusting and squishy air-bladder makeup. The show's use of CGI is still hinky-looking as ever, but for the most part the effects are first-rate.

This five-disc set from CBS/Paramount contains all 19 third-season episodes, most with the original network promos. The 1.33:1 picture and Dolby Digital English mono sound are good although the show's cinematography always tended toward the murky side. (A heavy-handed racial episode, "Hate On Your Dial", is shot largely in beautiful black-and-white and is probably the best the show has ever looked.) The episodes often have that melancholy, autumnal atmosphere that is somehow common to many Canadian horror productions of the era, which contributes in large measure to the show's effective mood.

I was very impressed by this series' first season, and FRIDAY THE 13TH: THE SERIES--THE FINAL SEASON continues in the same high quality vein to the very end. Horror fans in search of the real deal can't go wrong with these satisfying, finely-wrought tales of terror.


Read our review of "Friday the 13th: The First Season"

 

FRIDAY THE 13TH: THE SERIES--THE FINAL SEASON -- DVD Review by Porfle

FRIDAY THE 13TH - THE SERIES: THE FIRST SEASON -- DVD Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 11/5/12

 

Here's the original prologue that used to begin each episode of "Friday the 13th - The Series":  "Lewis Vendredi made a deal with the devil to sell cursed antiques. But he broke the pact, and it cost him his soul. Now, his niece Micki, and her cousin Ryan have inherited the store... and with it, the curse. Now they must get everything back and the real terror begins."

For some reason this prologue is omitted from the 6-disc DVD set FRIDAY THE 13TH - THE SERIES: THE FIRST SEASON, but I figured it would be a good way to start my synopsis.  In the first episode, veteran character actor R.G. Armstrong plays Uncle Lewis, whose sudden relocation to Hell leaves Micki and Ryan as proprietors of his antique store, Curious Goods.  Lewis' former partner, a sage old sorceror named Jack, shows up and warns the two that all the cursed items that have been sold from the store will cause untold death and destruction if they don't track them all down and lock them in the vault downstairs. 

After witnessing some supernatural shenanigans firsthand, it doesn't take long for our heroes to get over their initial "yeah, right" attitude and dedicate themselves to this monumental task.

The main characters are likable and fun.  First, there's Robey ("Louise" when she's at home) as Micki, the fiery redhead who's lots of fun to look at.  Micki sacrifices her upcoming marriage to some Mr. Perfect-type to become a cursed antique tracker-downer, because she knows people will die if she doesn't.  Then there's her cousin Ryan (John D. LeMay), who comes off as a bit of a doofus at first--in fact, I thought he was going to be the bumbling comedy-relief until his character began to develop considerably as the season went on. 

Not unlike Mulder and Scully, or Steed and Mrs. Peel, Micki and Ryan have a lighthearted relationship that can also have its serious and dramatic moments.  At times, their characters are given a surprising amount of depth and often suffer sizeable personal tragedies.  Rounding things off is Chris Wiggins as their mentor, Jack, whose wisdom and knowledge of the black arts are indispensible. 

The thing that makes this unlikely trio of do-gooders so endearing is that they aren't professionals--they risk their lives in every episode out of concern for others.  (All together now:  "Awwwww...")

To me, the series has that distinctive look of 80s low-budget Canadian cinema, like RABID or one of the SCANNERS movies.  I've heard complaints about the picture quality, and indeed much of the photography is somewhat muted and murky.  But this is true mainly of the earlier episodes, and as the season progresses so does the look of the series (although the video FX are consistently fake-looking).  The same can also be said for the stories themselves, which start out a little on the hokey side and then keep getting better and better. 

For example, episode 4, "Cup of Time", is delightfully cheesy.  Familiar B-movie babe Hilary Shepherd plays a rock star whose youthful appearance depends on a teacup that emits leafy tendrils which suck the lifeforce from anyone who drinks from it.  We see decadent punk rocker-types standing in line for one of her concerts, but when we hear her sing it's so typically 80s spandex-glitter-pop awful you'll wonder why these fans aren't lobbing molotov cocktails at her. 

Another "more cheese, please" episode is "Shadow Boxer", in which a pair of evil boxing gloves helps a down-and-out palooka by enabling his bobbin' and weavin' shadow to run around beating people to death.

Things really start getting good when David Cronenberg steps in to direct "Faith Healer", starring SCANNERS alumnus Robert Silverman as a man with a horrible disease looking for someone with the power to cure it.  That someone, unfortunately, gets his power from a cursed glove that must be recharged by, you guessed it, sucking the lifeforce from some hapless victim.  Along the way Cronenberg gets to indulge his fondness for "body horror" with some grisly makeup effects.

"Scarecrow" is a nifty Halloween-tinged episode that plays like a creepy low-budget movie, with a wonderfully sinister, eye-rolling performance by Patricia Phillips as a woman who eliminates her smalltown enemies with the help of a scythe-wielding scarecrow.  In one scene, the scarecrow lops off some poor old lady's head and we actually see it bobbling on the floor, her face still contorted in terror.  Pretty cool for a TV show!  Like many other episodes, "Scarecrow" is like a mini version of the cheap 80s horror flicks that many of us remember so fondly.

"Vanity's Mirror" is a delightful anti-Carrie story about a really vile high school geek-girl who uses her cursed item, an antique gold compact that makes any female irresistible to men, to lure various tormentors to horrible, gory deaths.  Eventually, she steals her beautiful sister's boyfriend from her and orders him to beat and then string up the hapless lass before whisking her away to the prom!  Awesome.

I could go on about how good various episodes are, but for me, the two-part "Quilt of Hathor" is the highlight.  Amidst a stark, snowy setting, we meet an ultra-strict religious community known as the Penetites who eschew technology and live much like they did back in the old Salem witchhunt days.  Scott Paulin (THE RIGHT STUFF) plays their leader, Reverend Josiah, who is, by law, required to take a wife.  But his prospective brides keep dying off thanks to a homely woman who has the hots for him and possesses a quilt which allows her to kill people by dreaming their violent deaths. 

Micki and Ryan go undercover with the Penetites and try to recover the quilt, but in the process Ryan falls in love with Reverend Josiah's daughter and ends up in a death duel with the jealous geek-boy to whom she's betrothed.  The set-up for this fight looks just like something out of the wackier side of STAR TREK--I almost expected to hear someone say "One thousand quatloos on the newcomer!"  During this richly atmospheric double-episode, several people suffer an unpleasant demise before the suspenseful finale.

Besides those already mentioned, some other interesting guest stars pop up here and there.  The first episode features the DAWN OF THE DEAD remake's Sarah Polley as a little girl.  In "Cup of Time" we also get to see what Lisa Jakub (Randy Quaid's daughter in INDEPENDENCE DAY) looked like as a wee tyke.  One of the victims of anti-Carrie in "Vanity's Mirror" is an older Zack Ward, who was A CHRISTMAS STORY's memorable bully Scut Farkus.  Ray Walston plays a renowned comic book artist in "Tales of the Undead." 

Other notable guest stars include Carrie Snodgress, Cliff Gorman, Gary Frank, Val Avery, David Proval, and Michael Constantine (as Ryan's estranged father in the emotional episode "Pipe Dream.")  Oh, and R.G. Armstrong's "Uncle Lewis" character may have died in the first episode, but that's hardly the last we see of his evil, cackling mug.

Back in the 80s when FRIDAY THE 13TH: THE SERIES was new, I never watched it because of its association with the Jason movies, which I've always regarded as junk.  But thanks to this season one DVD collection, I've discovered it to be a highly worthwhile horror series that's loads of fun to watch.


Read our review of "Friday the 13th: The Final Season"

FRIDAY THE 13TH - THE SERIES: THE FIRST SEASON -- DVD Review by Porfle