BLOOD CHILD -- Movie Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 9/18/18

 

Get ready to duck, because BLOOD CHILD (Random Media, 2017) throws everything it can get its hands on at the viewer, including the bloody kitchen sink.

We know right away that Ashley (Alyx Melone) is either nuts or dabbling in the supernatural when we see her and her obsequious maid from Singapore, Siti (Cynthia Lee MacQuarrie) cavorting in the backyard with a little girl in a red dress not long after Ashley's tragic, traumatic miscarriage.

It's made pretty clear that not only does Ashley not have a daughter, but Siti has a penchant for the black arts and has somehow cooked up a phantom replacement for Ashley's lost child.

Ashley's husband Bill (Biden Hall), a semi-dickish business executive whose friends are all cretins, and her obnoxious BFF neighbor Naomi (Charlotte Cattell), both find Siti creepy and both begin to experience nerve-wracking visions of Ashley's "blood child" suddenly popping up in dark, spooky places.

When Ashley's home pregnancy test reads positive one day, the semi-happy couple are joined by Ashley's mom Renee (Lisa Kovack), who will finally experience enough weird stuff going on in and around the house to put her foot down and demand Bill take action.  But will it be too late to save Ashley's unborn baby from her jealous, clinging ghost daughter?

What makes BLOOD CHILD watchable is the fact that writer-director Jennifer Phillips has embellished this rather simple story with such a non-stop string of shocks, stings, and spooky "gotchas" that some of them occasionally work, while the rest generate enough fun and interest to keep us watching.

The best scares come whenever the ghoulishly-grinning ghost girl appears lurking in a dark corner or under a couch in the middle of the night, or popping up behind someone's back in a mirror.  Of course, these moments don't work every time and aren't always pulled off that effectively, so it's all a bit hit and miss.

This is also true for the usual mysterious odors, loud noises, and other stuff that the typically skeptical characters dismiss with "it's just an old house" until enough freaky stuff happens to finally convince them.

The cast is adequately frantic even when their reactions don't make sense, as when an extremely disturbing experience is followed by a shot of everyone sitting around the dinner table.

The script just keeps barreling along despite all improbabilities, serving up more derivative ghostly goings-on to grab our attention until the usual ironically-downbeat ending.

There's a shocking bit of gore here and there, and plenty of creepy action that scarcely lets up.  There's isn't a lot of finesse to be found in BLOOD CHILD,  but horror fans not in an overly demanding mood should find it a pleasantly unpleasant diversion. 

BLOOD CHILD -- Movie Review by Porfle

THE HAUNTING -- Movie Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 6/16/10

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


Hardly the sort of flashy, pyrotechnics-packed SPFX show POLTERGEIST turned out to be, 2009's THE HAUNTING (aka NO-DO: THE BECKONING) is the kind of slow-building, stately-paced ghost story that really gets under your skin if you're willing to settle in and let it go to work on you.

In 1940s Spain under General Franco, propaganda newsreels known as "No-Dos" packaged the latest news for general theater audiences, but a certain number of these films containing sensitive material were made for privileged eyes only.  Thus, only high-ranking members of the Catholic church were allowed to view footage involving a mysterious prostitute purported to be able to perform miracles, and the ill-fated process of judging her suitability for canonization which resulted in her supposed suicide and other unfortunate consequences.

Jump ahead to the present day, where Francesca (Ana Torrent), Pedro (Francisco Boira), their young daughter Rosa, and their infant son have just moved into the imposing old country mansion, formerly a school for priests, where the previous events took place.  Having lost their first child ten years earlier, Francesca is overprotective of their new baby to the point of frazzled obsession, which worries her husband.  And making things worse is the fact that Francesca is beginning to experience a growing number of terrifying paranormal visions as Pedro fears that she's losing her mind.  But we know better, don't we?

One thing that has always creeped me out is the use of scratchy, faded old black and white film as a mysterious element in stories such as this.  THE HAUNTING really scores on this count, with the forbidden No-Do reels playing a crucial role in ratcheting up the creep-out factor.  We discover that they were made using a special emulsion that made it possible to capture supernatural entities on the film, which is demonstrated by some pretty disturbing images.  When Father Miguel (Héctor Colomé), a psychiatrist priest bent on helping Francesca, opens up a shadowy, top-secret vault and plays one of the forbidden reels for her and Pedro (thus risking excommunication), it's one of the skin-crawling highpoints of THE HAUNTING. 

Meanwhile, back at the mansion, we find that the couple's new home isn't going to help Francesca's unstable mental condition much.  In fact, they might as well have just moved into the friggin' Haunted Mansion ride at Disneyland.  The distraught new mother keeps waking up in the middle of the night by banging noises and footsteps coming from the attic, which naturally her annoying skeptical husband never hears, and before long she's seeing ghostly figures floating around.  In one scene she grabs a flashlight and follows a trail of footprints into one of the upper rooms, where they go right up the wall and onto the ceiling.

The house is so alive with restless spirits that the film soon has us watching the shadows in every shot, waiting for them to coalesce into eerie figures.  Adding to the nightmare is Francesca's constant concern for her baby, whose incessant screaming has her at wit's end, and the presence of a weird old woman named Blanca (María Alfonsa Rosso) who keeps hanging around the house due to her involvement in the ghastly events of years past.  Even Francesca's daughter Rosa is starting to act strange, as though she knows something she's not telling.
 

The film is directed with stylish assurance by Elio Quiroga and elegantly photographed, with a very deliberate pace that allows us to wallow in the deeply atmospheric mood.  Argento fans should feel at home here, as will those who enjoy creepy old B-movies such as THE SCREAMING SKULL.  Special effects for their own sake are kept to a minimum and serve the story, with some genuinely unsettling ghostly images augmented by two or three blood-chilling jump scares.  A robust musical score alternates between sinewy subtlety and ear-splitting cacophony. 

As the story builds to a climax there's a fairly shocking surprise ending with some nasty twists.  (I'm glad I'm not one of those "I saw it coming" people--who wants to always know the surprise before it's revealed?)  In one of the best moments, Francesca, following one of the ghosts into the house's musty attic, finds herself inside the darkest and most ghastly of the old No-Do films and witnesses firsthand the horrors which inspired the haunting itself.  Unfortunately, the appearance of a final apparition which is meant to be the ultimate embodiment of evil is a bit of a letdown after all the anticipation, its monsterish countenance rather conventional and not very imaginatively designed.  But this is a minor quibble since the rest of the film is so pervasively effective.

DVD specs were unavailable, but according to Fangoria.com the film, "arriving as a Blockbuster exclusive August 6, will include a subtitled making-of featurette, the 8 FANGORIA FRIGHTS cable special and the eight FrightFest trailers. The DVD will offer both Spanish (with subtitles) and English-language soundtracks."

I've seen THE HAUNTING twice now and liked it even more the second time because I could better appreciate its visual style, good performances, and devious little nuances.  It's an old-fashioned ghost story with the visceral impact of a modern horror tale, and it left me feeling satisfied if not entirely terrified.

 

THE HAUNTING -- Movie Review by Porfle

SHOCK TREATMENT -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 10/28/20

 

Hardly the exploitation thriller the title would suggest, SHOCK TREATMENT (Severin Films, 1972) is a sober, deliberately-paced foray into slowburn suspense and growing tension that gradually develops like a photograph until the disturbing final image is revealed.

This French production from director and co-writer Alain Jessua (THE KILLING GAME, LIFE UPSIDE DOWN) offers its own take on a now familiar premise: a patient at a secluded clinic/ wellness resort/ rejuvanation facility begins to see beyond the fascade of happy patients and benign doctors and suspects a more sinister agenda at work.

That patient is Hélène Masson (Annie Girardot, ROCCO AND HIS BROTHERS, THE PIANO TEACHER), a woman in her late 30s who feels that age is catching up with her and yearns for something that will keep her a step ahead of it. 

 

 

  

 

That something, as suggested by her friend Gérôme (Robert Hirsch), is the seaside resort of one Dr. Devilers (Alain Delon, PURPLE NOON, LE SAMOURAÏ, AIRPORT '79: THE CONCORDE), whose experiments in youth restoration seem to yield amazing results.

As one might suspect (and Hélène indeed eventually does), not all is as it seems despite the regular customers basking in their newfound youthful glow and crowing about Dr. Devilers as they laze about in saunas draped in seaweed or cavort naked in the warm ocean waves.  (The scene in which Delon himself strips to the skin and joins them will definitely be of interest to his fans.)

The plot thickens when Hélène notices the Portuguese servants hired to work there, all healthy young men, begin to behave strangely as though drugged and/or somehow depleted, and when tragedy strikes her friend after he expresses his own fears about the place and wishes to leave, she takes it upon herself to investigate what's really going on there. This, of course, puts her in grave peril.

 

With the beautiful French seaside as his canvas, director Jessua has concocted an attractively mounted and technically adept visual page-turner that grows more absorbing with each unsettling revelation.

His most valuable asset is a solid performance by Annie Girardot, whose Hélène is a thoroughly likable and identifiable protagonist for whom we care quite a bit as death and deceit begin to close in on her.

Alain Delon's handsome but shady doctor is less of a stretch, although he acquits himself well. The rest of the cast capably portray their spoiled, idle-rich sycophants of Dr. Devilers who care about nothing but their own well-being and endless vanity. 

 

The film has been described as a political allegory, which seems apt enough, although it might apply to any scenario in which people blindly follow a charismatic leader who offers them promises and pipe dreams at a terrible price.

SHOCK TREATMENT has that look and feel of a "foreign film" (unless, of course, you happen to be French) in the best sense of the term, offering a refreshingly different sensibility that increases our own vicarious feeling of being in a strange, unfamiliar setting. While never resorting to gore or sensation for its own sake, it builds to a chilling climax that may leave you as dazed and disoriented as its hapless heroine.



Buy the standard Blu-ray edition (single disc)


Buy the 2-disc SE w/slipcover, reversible wrap, and CD soundtrack


Buy the DVD



Special Features:

    Alain Jessua – The Lone Deranger: Interview with Bernard Payen, Curator at The Cinémathèque Française
    Koering’s Scoring – Interview with Soundtrack Composer René Koering
    Director’s Disorder – Interview with Director Alain Jessua
    Drumrunning – René Koering Commentary on Three Sequences
    Trailer

Special Limited Edition also includes:

    Reversible Wrap
    Limited Edition Slipcover
    CD Soundtrack

Disc Specs:

    Aspect ratio: 1.66:1
    Audio: English mono with optional closed captions, French mono with English subtitles
    Region A

Special edition slipcover:

 

Special edition reversible cover:

SHOCK TREATMENT -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

PAGANINI HORROR -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 10/24/19

 

If it were possible to actually O.D. on a combination of so-bad-it's-good Italian horror cinema and pure, undiluted 80s kitsch, then 1989's PAGANINI HORROR (Severin Films) from writer/director Luigi Cozzi (CONTAMINATION, STARCRASH) might be the fix that could kill us all.

You're really in for it once you start to mainline this heady concoction which begins, after a prologue in which a violin-playing little girl cutely electrocutes her mother in the bathtub, with a recording session by an all-girl trio in a recording studio belting out one of the worst 80s power ballads ever.

Lead singer Kate (Jasmine Main) is told by shrewish producer Lavinia (Maria Cristina Mastrangeli) that her music just ain't cutting the mustard anymore and she'd better find a new songwriter.

That's when Kate's drummer Daniel (Pascal Persiano) purchases a mysterious, unpublished work by famed violin virtuoso and composer Niccolò Paganini from a creepy fellow named Mr. Pickett (Donald Pleasance, PHENOMENA, HALLOWEEN, THE GREAT ESCAPE), who just might be Old Scratch himself.

Naturally, it's a cursed work that Paganini sold his soul for, although you'll wonder what the big deal is when Daniel plays it on the piano for the girls. They, on the other hand, go ga-ga for it and plans are made to shoot a horror-themed music video a la Michael Jackson's "Thriller" in a rented mansion owned by a woman named Sylvia (co-writer and Argento mainstay Daria Nicolodi) which is supposedly haunted by ol' Paganini himself.

This leads to the film's most disturbing sequence--namely, the filming of the aforementioned music video, consisting of cheesy horror visuals set to yet another bland but ear-curdling bad-80s screechfest. Here's where we get our first look at the spooky mansion, which is wonderfully tacky in a Halloween funhouse sort of way.

The film then wastes no time inundating our unfortunate cast of characters with all manner of infernal misfortunes, beginning with the bloody murder of the trio's lead guitarist by a masked killer wielding a knife-sprouting Stradivarius.  While searching for her, the others enter a room where a gaping hole erupts in the floor and sucks one of them into the dark pit below.

While the masked killer continues to stalk, director Cozzi gives us more of that sweet supernatural mayhem including an invisible force field around the estate that results in a fiery car crash and a horrific, fast-acting infection which turns another of the girls into a walking fungus.

None of this is especially elegant in execution, but it all comes so fast and furious and with such verve that we're too entertained to care. While lacking finesse, the cast throw themselves into their roles with abandon, often screaming their dialogue at each other with an amusingly overheated intensity. Cozzi is equally enthusiastic as his camera scurries around and hustles to keep up with the action.

A visibly amused Pleasance, who worked for three days on the production, adds his big-name presence a few times throughout the film, finally showing up for the predictable but fun twist ending.  Nicolodi (SUSPIRIA, DEEP RED, TENEBRE), always a welcome face in any Italian horror flick, adds her own venerable appeal.

  
Makeup effects are low-budget but effective.  While the gore isn't all that plentiful, there are some pretty splattery scenes including one particularly notable setpiece involving a sheet of plate glass turning someone's face into Picasso's worst nightmare.

Vince Tempera's Goblin-influenced electronic musical score (available on CD for a limited time along with the movie) lends yet another layer to the 80s ambience. The print itself has been transferred in 2K from the original negative. Disc extras consist of lengthy interviews with director Luigi Cozzi and actor Pietro Genuardi, deleted scenes and alternate ending, and the trailer.

With none of the film artistry and finesse of Dario Argento but loads of enthusiasm, PAGANINI HORROR is the cinematic equivalent of someone sawing away artlessly on a Stradivarius and then smashing it over your head.  Like a funhouse of stupid, it's the sort of screamfest where you have a great time watching it even if you aren't even sure why.


Buy it at Severin Films

Street date: October 29, 2019

Special Features:

    Play It Again Paganini: Interview with Director Luigi Cozzi
    The Devil’s Music: Interview with Actor Pietro Genuardi
    Deleted Scenes and Alternate Ending
    Trailer
    BONUS: CD Soundtrack

PAGANINI HORROR -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

THE WAX MASK -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 10/3/19

 

Talk about "Grand Guignol" to the max--the 1997 Gothic gorefest THE WAX MASK (Severin Films) mixes the antique ambience of early 1900s Italy with generous helpings of the extremely morbid and grotesque in this handsomely mounted shocker.

Conceived by Italian horror/giallo maestro Dario Argento (PHENOMENA, TENEBRE, SUSPIRIA) as a vehicle for the ailing Lucio Fulci (DOOR INTO SILENCE, ZOMBIE 3, THE DEVIL'S HONEY), it's a loose remake of the Vincent Price classic HOUSE OF WAX (along with MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM and numerous other wax museum horror flicks), although that's just a jumping off point for a tale of horror and gore that aims to outdo them all.

With the unfortunate passing of Fulci before filming began, directing chores were handed to first-timer Sergio Stivaletti (THE THREE FACES OF TERROR), previously known mainly for his work in the fields of SPFX and makeup.

Working from a screenplay by Argento, Fulci, and Daniele Stroppa, Stivaletti fashioned a gorgeous-looking film that leisurely unfolds its dark narrative with a keenly efficient style that's never quite as self-consciously arty as Argento's or off-the-hook unhinged as Fulci's yet has its own elegant, colorful appeal.

The story begins with the grisly aftermath of a double murder in a Paris hotel room that's witnessed by a little girl who grows up to be the beautiful Sonia Lafont (Romina Mondello), still troubled by her past even as she gets a job in a wax museum in Rome which specializes in gruesome historical horrors.

The museum is run by the mysterious, creepily eccentric Boris Volkoff (Robert Hossein, RIFFIFI) and features incredibly lifelike wax figures in scenes of death designed to horrify. 

But even more horrific is the reason the figures are so lifelike--namely, each one contains the corpse of a murdered human being who has been processed in the museum's nightmarish basement laboratory and given a severe case of unsightly "wax buildup."

These scenes are the result of director Stivaletti's years of SPFX expertise and are absolutely mind-boggling as we watch one still-living victim, a hapless prostitute from a nearby house of ill-repute, strapped to a table and injected with some volatile serum while Kenneth Strickfaden-style electrical machines spark and crackle. 

But this densely-packed screenplay has a lot more to offer in the way of gory killings, dismemberments, and other carnage before the suspenseful finale in which Sonia's journalist boyfriend Andrea (Riccardo Serventi Longhi), her blind aunt Francesca (Gabriella Giorgelli), and a sympathetic police detective from her childhood (Gianni Franco) fight against time to prevent the hideously disfigured villain and his twisted henchmen from turning Sonia into one of the museum's unholy exhibits.

The Blu-ray from Severin Films features a 4k scan from the original negative supervised by Stivaletti himself. Severin outdoes themselves with this bonus menu loaded with interviews with production principles including Argento, Stivaletti, actress Gabriella Giorgelli, and others, along with vintage behind-the-scenes featurettes.

These bonus features include:

    Audio Commentary with Director/Special Effects Artist Sergio Stivaletti and Michelangelo Stivaletti
    Beyond Fulci: Interviews with Producer Dario Argento, Director Sergio Stivaletti, Producer Giuseppe Columbo, Production Designer Massimo Geleng, Actress Gabriella Giorgelli and Filmmaker Claudio Fragasso
    The Chamber of Horrors: Interviews with Producer Dario Argento, Director Sergio Stivaletti, Producer Giuseppe Columbo, Production Designer Massimo Geleng and Actress Gabriella Giorgelli
    Living Dolls:  Interviews with Producer Dario Argento, Director Sergio Stivaletti, Producer Giuseppe Columbo and Actress Gabriella Giorgelli
    The Mysteries of the Wax Museum:  Interview with SFX Artist Sergio Stivaletti
    The Waxworks Symphony:  Interview with Soundtrack Composer Maurizio Abeni
    The Grand Opening:  Interviews with Producer Dario Argento, Director Sergio Stivaletti and Producer Giuseppe Columbo
    Wax Unmasked: Interview with Film Writer Alan Jones
    Vintage Featurettes: Behind the Scenes, Special Effects, On Set with Dario Argento
    5.1 and 2.0 English and Italian Audio
    English with Closed Captioning, Italian with English Subtitles

Easily one of the best wax museum movies ever made, THE WAX MASK fully exploits the horrific potential of the original HOUSE OF WAX and its ilk like no previous version I've ever seen. Although lacking certain qualities of Argento or Fulci, it more than compensates with a richly-hued, stylized visual sense, lush production values, riveting scenes of carnage, and a fiery, face-melting finale.


Buy it from Severin Films

THE WAX MASK -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle