Monster Mash Movie Marathon Month - Week 3

A day late, sure, but the content's all here, my lovelies.

This was a much more middle-of-the-road week (most of the entries are Cs or Ds. Sigh.), but there were some laughs to be sure.  Quite a few garnered a C+, but that seems kind of too convenient at the time of this writing (something, something, bell curve at the end of the month). An odd trifecta of 'show-biz' movies happened quite by accident (Human Centipede 2: Full Sequence > Madhouse > Targets), but was a pleasant surprise. The latter two films were more poignant in this regard, but don't be fooled, HC2 is also very much about show business (revolving around one specific film, but more on that later).

Here's how the grading system works:

A = Excellent, a must see

B = Very good, I’d watch it again

C = Worth Seeing

D = Maybe don’t bother

F = Worthless

+ = Superior for this grade

- = Just barely makes it into this grade

I caught some cross-talk for grading again (happens every year), so, I'd like to take this opportunity to remind you folks that if it's not an F, I liked the movie at least a little (D's are usually a single element). So don't fret if I gave a movie you love a poor score - I'm just one man, with one set of tastes. 

On the subject of movies you love, I SPOIL EVERYTHING this week. It might not be in the first paragraph (see below review), but I absolutely do not care to hold things back. If you have a problem with this, close your browser and come back after you've seen the film (or maybe just skip to the next one... that's probably better for me). 

Let's get to it: 

The VVitch (Robert Eggers) - C+

It's early in the process of colonizing America, and William and his family choose to be exiled from their plantation somewhere in New England. They build a cabin and are fine, for a time, but events conspire to turn against them when baby Samuel vanishes while in the care of their eldest daughter, Thomasin. The family is overwrought, but it only gets worse when eldest son Caleb goes missing too. The family turns on one another, mostly blaming Thomasin (she's the perfect age for witchcraft). She hopes her name will be cleared once she finds Caleb, naked and hanging off the goat pen. The family rallies their frontier medicine to try and save the boy, but he dies, leaving the mother aghast, and the remaining children point fingers at one another desperately to escape punishment. William boards the rest of his children in the goat pen for the night, but the next morning, he wakes to find everything in the pen, except Thomasin, dead.  And that’s when the goat comes at him…

Look, straight up, this might be a better movie than I'm letting on. I can't argue that it's beautifully shot, nor that every single actor in it does a great job (even the child actors, who drive a good portion of the story). The supernatural effects are sparing, but effectively done (Caleb spitting up an apple was my favorite). The gore effects are few, but effective and realistic when they appear. The technical aspects of the film are nearly flawless.

Where it lost me was the story, especially the ending, in which everyone but Thomasin dies, and she wanders into the wilderness after she makes a pact with the devil (who suddenly appears on screen and is… some kind of thespian?) to becomes a witch herself. I've heard theories that this implies she was indeed a witch the whole movie, but I don't see how that's possible when a different woman takes Caleb, and another woman is in the goat pen when she and her younger siblings are boarded inside. Even the fact that Black Phillip, one of the family goats, was a conduit to Satan was an idea introduced too late into the movie that I can't help but feel it was a lazy decision (the only possible lead up to this choice was it having the same color eyes as the witch rabbit that was running around the woods). If you take the ending literally - that they're being plagued by a witch - then a bunch of the choices made by the characters are puzzling. For example, why not scour the woods for evil before immediately declaring your children the pawns of Satan? It all feels a little convenient, which, in a movie with strengths in so many other ways, is almost tragic. I felt cheated. It's still worth watching for its merits, though, and they are ample.

Elves (Jeff Mendel) - F

Kirsten, and her friends Amy and Brooke, go out into the woods to perform a ritual. It seems not to work, but – surprise, surprise - it does. Meanwhile, Mike, an ex-cop/ex security guard manages to get a job as a Santa after the last Santa mysteriously gets his balls cut off. The two characters unite when Kirsten's after-hours party at work is gunned down by some Germans. Mike, who happens to have been one of the greatest detectives on the force, quickly uncovers a Nazi conspiracy to crossbreed the creature with a perfect genetic sample to engineer a master race. Things get dicier still when it is revealed that Kirsten just so happens to be that perfect genetic sample (her ancestry, as it turns out, would make the Lannisters look normal), and she must be the mother of Elves. The only possible hope of salvation for Kirsten comes in the form of shoving a crystal back into the original hole she summoned the Elf out of in the first place. Gotta love when these things come full-circle.

This is a notoriously awful direct-to-video effort, starring Dan Haggerty, aka Grizzly Adams. His delivery is pretty unbelievable on some lines, but this might be the only charming aspect to the movie. There are kill scenes, but the gore is cheap. You get the occasional look at bare boobs or lingerie-clad ladies, but given the material they're disrobing for, you kind of feel bad for them. Everywhere Elves tries to win you over, it fails.

The premise, Nazis using mythical elves to form a master race, is pretty out there. The story happens on a pretty small scale, though, so it barely strays into irreverent Nazi humor. The only actress that pulls out a decent performance is Kirsten's reprehensible mother (who drowns the family cat, Agamemnon, in the toilet). She is a woman you'll absolutely love to hate, until she gets electrocuted in her bathtub. It has some wacky moments for sure, but there's better low budget efforts that achieve this end more successfully.

ZaAT (Don Barton & Arnold Stevens) - D-

Dr. Leopold will be laughed at no more. He injects himself with glowing goo, and turns into his ultimate weapon; ZaAT. A human/catfish hybrid. While still flying under the radar, the nightmarishly slow ZaAT first disposes of his colleagues that ridiculed his ideas, and injects his mutating agent (which, naturally, is highly radioactive) into local waterways to further his wicked schemes. But when he changes his focus to procuring a bride (by stealing ladies and giving them the ZaAT formula), he attracts the attention of the local sheriff, and Rex, a marine biologist. Finding that the local lakes and rivers are filthy with radiation, Rex calls in Walker and Martha from INPIT, a dedicated ecological survey organization. Will the combined forces of local law enforcement combined with INPIT be able to stop ZaAT? Or will he kill them all and spread his plague to the ocean?

It's the latter. And while this film is amateur to its celluloid bones, there's a lot of fun to be had with ZaAT. From the endless footage of marine life that pads the film's run-time, from the actor wearing the ZaAT suit (it's a rubber suit, in case you couldn't tell) constantly stumbling, to the most superficial wounds being fatal, to a soundtrack with lyrics written about the film, this baby is packed with the very best of b-movie charm. The sexual tension between the two INPIT employees is atrocious. The sheriff is a surprisingly charming character, who sits in on hippie love-ins, and then persuades the whole pack of them to get locked up in the county jail overnight - for their protection, of course. These gives the film a bit of goofy color, and I could not fail the film outright.

But, at the end of the day, ZaAT is a rubber-suited monster almost falling over, and terrorizing people around a body of water. It has heart, and it's certainly not the most godawful piece of crap under the sun, but it is definitely limited. But, when you compare it to something like Elves, ZaAT definitely feels like a cut above.

The Human Centipede 2: Full Sequence (Tom Six) - C-

Martin is a deeply troubled man that works the security desk in a parking garage. He is also obsessed with the original Human Centipede movie. So obsessed, in fact, that he's been cooking up his own little plan: a human centipede made out of twelve people (four times the original number). Using his trusty gun and crowbar, Martin manages to get his dirty dozen - including an actress from the first film, Ashlynn Yennie, by lying to her agent and claiming she was up for a Tarantino audition - killing his mother, psychiatrist and a few other rotten apples in the process. Of course, Martin isn't a surgeon, like Dr. Heiter in the first film, so a lot of the work he does is... Let's say... Shoddy. He knocks teeth out with a hammer, injects them with laxatives so he can watch them poop, and otherwise torments them. Eventually, one of the pieces does manage to escape (a daring escape it is, though it is not without penalty), and then the damn thing comes apart, so it's back to the drawing board for Martin, and nighty night for the big centipede.

You're probably not going to believe this, but Centipede 2 is actually a pretty engaging movie. I absolutely can't recommend it, as it is blatantly disgusting in many, many different ways (if you've seen it, you might notice I pulled some punches in the above synopsis), yet, thematically, it's more interesting than its predecessor. Martin (who despite being a gross, little bastard is arguably our protagonist) never utters a word through the film, and the look and mannerism of actor Laurence R. Harvey is spot on. Martin has been tortured endlessly through life, and, if he wasn't on this reprehensible killing spree, probably would be subject to any number of awful fates himself (his mother attempts to murder him on screen BEFORE she finds out about his obsession, his psychiatrist is angling to use his sexually abusive past to rape him, and I'm sure that’s just the tip of his life's iceberg). You never feel bad for Martin (he is too disgusting to identify with), but you understand that a life so tragic has consequences. The first hour of the film is kind of sickly fascinating. You don't want Martin to succeed, but literally everyone he comes across is also a piece of shit, and with few exceptions, you don't feel bad for them either. It moves along at a good clip too, largely without dialogue. Add all this to the black and white filming, and you almost feel like you're watching the most intense student art film ever made

But, the last 30 minutes (the fateful surgery, and the events following it) are gross beyond measure. Definitely not for the faint of heart. Supposedly, Tom Six was given carte blanche to be as repugnant as he wanted, and he went big. Given the bleak world the characters live in, you don't expect anyone to make it (the escape was a genuine surprise), and sure enough, no one really does. As I've said, this is not a popcorn movie or something to watch on a date night, this one is for tortureporn fanatics, gorehounds and horror movie aficionados. I might not have given it an F, but John Q. Public almost certainly would.

Madhouse (Jim Clark) - B-

Paul Toombes seems to have it all. His Dr. Death a character, a fixture in 50s and 60s horror, is doing quite well, he has an excellent partnership with his writer, Henry, and he has just gotten engaged to Eleanor, a co-star. But, at a Hollywood party, Eleanor is decapitated, her body discovered by Paul, causing him to have a psychiatric break. Three years later, Paul is released, and Henry begins to push him back into his film franchise. Almost immediately though, the starlets working in his reboots are murdered. The film wants you to believe Toombes is hypnotized by seeing his old character on screen, compulsively causing him to slay people, but he's actually being framed by Henry. Henry had written the Dr. Death character for himself, and has carried a grudge against his old friend ever since Toombes got the part. Toombes only find this out by spectacularly faking his own death in a fire, and coming after Henry once everyone assumes he was done for. Classic Price.

Made by the same team that made MMMMM favorite The Abominable Dr. Phibes, Madhouse stars Vincent Price and Peter Cushing, and offers a silly, if not effective, look at the life of a horror star in the 70s. It's unlikely the character of Toombes is directly allegorical to Price, but one can't help but wonder, as the character rubs shoulders with genre icons playing themselves (friends of Price, like Basil Rathbone and Boris Karloff have fun cameos), if there's not a bit of Price in Toombes. The script is more or less a formality, with the slayings serving to drive the mystery ever onward. What you're really here to see is Price ham his way through confrontations, and otherwise be a darling of the silver screen.

But there's more to like: some of the gore effects are strikingly well done (like Eleanor's head coming off), and some of the kill scenes are downright hysterical (the killer skewers two grieving parents attempting to blackmail Toombes on a sword). This is all in keeping with Price's other 70s AIP efforts, and while Madhouse has more polish, I'd still say watch Phibes first, as it is arguably more entertaining (if not formulaic). Nevertheless, Madhouse is just good fun, and goofy to the extreme.

Targets (Peter Bogdanovich) - C+

Byron Orlok is a Hollywood horror star that long for retirement (played by horror movie legend Boris Karloff in the twilight of his own career). Bobby is a young man that has a few screws loose. These are our two protagonists, and they drive the movie in very different ways. Byron deals with trying to mysteriously get out of all acting-related appointments (including introducing one of his old movies at the local drive-in). Bobby, seemingly inexplicably, goes on a killing spree, first blowing away his inattentive wife, his mother, and some young fella helping them bring the groceries in. The two plots come together in the final act, when Byron has a change of heart and decides to make his drive-in appearance after all. Bobby just so happened to hole up at the same drive-in to lose the cops after the last leg of his shooting affair. Bobby, a crack shot thanks to his conservative father, has problems with fleeing his sniper nests, and an angry mob seeks him out after he causes more carnage. Byron finds him first, literally slaps him silly, and then the police take him away. The End.

It feels almost like you're watching two different movies. Bobby's story feels like pure exploitation cinema (how many people can this man gun down before he's stopped?), While Byron's story feels almost like an anachronistic drama. Who cares why grandpa doesn't want to make movies anymore? There's a dude taking shots at motorists on the freeway! Don't get me wrong, most of the fun moments in the movie happen in the Byron storyline. But that's not why anybody saw this movie - they came to watch a man snap and start shooting people. Surprisingly, however, for such a violent film, it's pretty light on gore (perhaps not that surprising, in 1968 gore effects were unheard of, except in super obscure gorehound features, such as the works of Herschell Gordon Lewis). All you get are smears of red paint, and even those are sparse.

I picked this film because it was highly regarded, and yet very few people bring up Targets in casual discussion of 60s horror cinema. I theorize that this likely has to do with the frightening rate at which many Americans seem to be saying 'fuck it', and gunning down as many people as they can these days. In the modern landscape of reality, Targets may hit a little too close to home. Most of the literature I’ve read on the film claim that Bobby was a Vietnam vet, but for the life of me, I do not recall seeing a scene in which this is explicitly stated or alluded to. At the time, this was a fresh premise that was likely seeking a new way to scare a movie-going audience. Now movie-goers need to watch out for a Bobby of their own.

So, how was the movie? A little uneven. Karloff steals the show as a doddering old star that wants to be done with his life. The implication of the ending is that he faced death (Bobby only grazes him in the head as he comes in for the slaps), and no longer has to worry about it. That's fine, I suppose. Ironically, Madhouse also deals with the story of an actor past his prime struggling to remain relevant. The difference is Madhouse comes at this theme from a fun angle, as opposed to a dramatic one. Writer/Director Peter Bogdanovich (who would go on to direct The Last Picture Show) also plays the part of Sammy, an aspiring nebbish scriptwriter that is incensed by Orlok not reading the screenplay he wrote before his sudden retirement. He's dating Orlok's assistant, Jenny (who happens to be Chinese - something the script reminds us endlessly). None of these goings-on are overly dramatic or captivating, and are a world away from the actions of Bobby, who, once he starts killing people, doesn't really say another word. What we end up with is almost a Hitchcockian thriller, but without a lot of the flair of the renowned master of suspense. Bogdanovich has a good eye for framing and unique cinematic shots, but the editing is kind of wacky here and there (This was a very early film in his repertoire, and today is considered the peer of directors like fellow Hitchcock-“Borrower” Brian de Palma and Francis Ford Coppola). Ultimately, Targets is a worthwhile film, but our modern expectations of this sort of violence make it feel awfully tame.

Cat People (Jacques Tourneur) - C+

Oliver and Irena fall in love after a conversation. Within a couple of months, they are married, but there is a problem: Irena, a native of Serbia, believes she will turn into a ferocious panther if she is roused by passion or jealousy, so no kissing (and presumably that goes double for making whoopee)! Oliver sets her up with a psychiatrist, Dr. Judd, but he's got other issues: his coworker Alice tells him she's in love with him, and darn it, he might just love her back. Irena gets wind of this, and begins stalking Alice. Oliver, wanting a simple annulment of his marriage attempts to reason with Irena, but instead, she almost ambushes him, along with Alice at their workplace. They manage to get Irena to come to her senses, and she flees to Dr. Judd. The good doctor attempts to make a move on her, leading her wild side out, and she slays him as a panther. Distraught, she runs to the local zoo, where she commits suicide by freeing a hungry, regular panther. Panthers, man! They'll fuckin' kill ya.

Cat People has all the charms of a well-made film of its day, but its supernatural elements are ill-defined. Director Tourneur is a visionary of camerawork (and possibly the best horror director of the 40s and 50s), but this feels inferior to his film I watched last year, Curse of the Demon. While you cannot argue that the film is breathtaking, both in set pieces and camera work, it's story is just a little slow to develop. Scenes that happen by midway through the film dispel any notion that Irena is wrong about what she is, so why continue to try and fool us? It would have been impossible for a 1940s film to reasonably fake a panther, but the tamed panther in the movie looks bored and confused. That's kind of how I felt too.

It's a rich film, full of dazzling sets, and a cracking romance. Scenes that seem inconsequential upon first viewing likely foreshadow later scenes (Irena feeds the zoo panther a dead canary earlier, likely a nod to her later slaying by that same panther). There are even some genuinely frightening moments (such as when Alice senses someone, or something, following her as she walks the streets at night. Visually, this is the best sequence of the entire film) But as grand as all this is, it has trouble holding up to other films of its ilk (I Walked With a Zombie, another superior Tourneur film, springs to mind). The leading actors do a good job, but much like the VVitch, I found myself wanting more from the story.

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The next week is already underway, starting with 1970's The Vampire Lovers. We're only just halfway through the month now, but the choices are getting fewer and fewer. For sure, this week, I'll be checking out the Canadian coming-of-age werewolf movie Ginger Snaps (Thursday!), and much, much more. 

See you next week, horror homies. 

Monster Mash Movie Marathon Month - Week 2

Right out of the gate this week, I watched some movies I thought were quite good, before descending back into the depths of mediocrity I am used to with this exercise. Still, it's always appreciated to find something entertaining in this sea of screams, rubber suits and computer-generated blood splats. Not to mention, the ones I enjoyed the most were from the last couple of years - I think you all know by now how rare that is for me.

Enough jabber. Here's what my letter scores mean:

A = Excellent, a must see

B = Very good, I’d watch it again

C = Worth Seeing

D = Maybe don’t bother

F = Worthless

+ = Superior for this grade

- = Just barely makes it into this grade

So, without further adieu, let's start the first full week of reviews! REMEMBER: My reviews might SPOIL these movies. I am better about revealing details about more recent films, but if you haven't seen Them! by now, you can't be too mad at me for telling you how it goes...

It Follows (David Robert Mitchell) - B+

Jay, and Hugh, the man she's recently begun dating, finally knock boots. While she's reminiscing about how she thought dating would go as a child, he proceeds to chloroform her, and strap her to a wheelchair in her undies. When Jay comes to, Hugh explains to her that by having sex with him, a thing (its nature is never explored) is going to be coming for her. It is always a person, but sometimes it's people she knows and sometimes it's strangers. No matter what, though, she can't let it get to her, and the only way to escape it is to sleep with someone else, and transfer it to them. After a couple encounters with the creature (in which all that happens is someone gradually walks directly at her), her friends become concerned, and they try to help her get to the bottom of this mysterious malady (starting with finding Hugh, who, they learn, is not really named Hugh at all). Will Jay be able to pass the curse on before whatever it is gets her?

It Follows has a sharp, unique premise and a very strong filmmaker at the helm. Literally all the monster really does is walk towards Jay most of the time, but the menace comes from the music, the camera work and the expectations the viewer will quietly form about where it will come from next. The film loves showing you empty space, with the understanding that you will assume anything that walks into frame is the monster, and instantly captures your attention. Indeed, only once are we given a sudden, shocking scare. In the other scenes, we see the thing coming literally a mile away, slowly pacing towards Jay. I would argue that this is drastically different from most modern horror films, and because of this difference, it gives an audience that is fatigued by modern horror tropes a breath of fresh air.

The pacing of the film is slow, and while this is integral to the film's success, some viewers might get bored. Faithful readers may consider me a hypocrite for feeling slow pacing is an upside (citing something like my review of Ti West's House of the Devil, in which I complain nothing happens, and the director is clearly more in love with his camera work than telling an engaging horror story), but why It Follows can get away with a simple premise and being light on things happening is because it has characters you care about, an appealing (if not heavy-handed) sense of style, and doesn't just threaten you endlessly with menace. It Follows manages to keep you as on edge as much as the characters living its terrifying plot. Horror directors of the 50s could take a lesson or two from this film about how to cheaply make a horror movie with a goofy idea while still making a quality product (I know time doesn't work that way, but darn it, I can dream).

Small complaints I'd make would be the retro style of the movie, while pleasant, is unnecessary. It's established early on that it takes place in a time with touchscreens and cellphones, but the music and locations often make you feel like you're watching something from the 80s. The soundtrack was eerily reminiscent of the score of Stranger Things (which I feel is a plus), and that's all well and good, but why give it that feel and not set it then? Technology never plays an intricate part in the story. It could have been the 80s. No one tries to look at the thing through a camera lens, or get rid of their death-curse-by-fucking on Craigslist.

But, whatever. It Follows is a pretty good modern horror movie in my books. It has style, a unique premise, and some genuinely disturbing moments. I will need further time to process how I feel about it, but I'll confidently say I liked it at least as much as anything I watched last year. I would caution though that this kind of thing only works once, so if we get sequels, it's bound to get fucked up somehow.

Krampus (Michael Dougherty) - B+

Max is a little old to believe in Santa, but he does. He tries his best to be good, but it's hard around the holidays when his stupid extended family shows up and gets up to their vicious, bullying crap. This Christmas is a little different, though, and once Max tears up his wish list, symbolically giving up on Santa in the process, things get spooky. Starting with a neighborhood blackout shortly after the family is assembled, Max's older sister Beth goes missing. Max's father and uncle go out to look for her, but soon return after Uncle Howard is almost dragged under the snow. That night, Howard's oldest son is fished out of the house via the chimney in front of everyone. Max's German grandmother knows what's up: Krampus (the evil, german-folklore Santa counterpart) has come back to punish the wicked. Now, Max's family is besieged by giant, angry Christmas toys that are hellbent on destroying them all. Escape seems impossible, but the family has to try...

Krampus came out last year around Christmas and quickly vanished from theatres. While the easy finger to point would be at Star Wars episode VII, it's possible that this was maybe a little too October for Christmas. Sure, it's very much a Christmas movie, but Krampus is also a very great horror movie too. Many genre are observed and executed quite well. We only get hints and screams as family member after family member are picked off, but by the time most of the children are gone, the monsters (Krampus' helpers) are seen in their full glory. What starts as a 'you've seen this story before' Christmas tale quickly turns into Have A Holly, Jolly Night of the Living Dead. Indeed, as the family lock themselves into grandmother's house and start barricading the windows, one cannot help but harken back to the mother of all zombie survival films.

The cast of Krampus, well, the adult cast of Krampus is superb (With particularly good performances by Adam Scott, David Koechner and Allison Tolman). The creature effects are alarmingly effective (until, perhaps, the finale where it looks like the designer was struck by a confusing Guillermo Del Toro obsession), with many of the characters we see probably being actual actors in costume (except the ginger bread cookies which are definitely computer graphics). Some excellent sound design and camera work help to sell the isolation of the family as bleak and hopeless. With the brilliant opening musical vignette (in which a department store opens its doors to have a crowd of riotous Christmas shoppers surge, who proceed to get into brawls with one another, before sadistic security guards taze them, smiling. The song used? Have Yourself a Merry, Little Christmas), the film feels like it's going to go into a preachy 'remember when North America was well-behaved during Christmas?' territory. But while morality does play a part in the story, no one learns a lesson or changes their ways. Krampus holds a mirror to our bad behavior, but offers no solutions, only repercussions. And that's probably what society needs anyway.

It's Alive (Larry Cohen) - C+

Frank and Lenore are about to have their second baby. After dropping 11-year old Chris at... um… Uncle? Friend of the family? Some dude named Charlie's, they arrive at the hospital. Lenore complains about something being different about her labor this time, but Frank and the doctors ignore her. Turns out, they shouldn't have when the baby massacres five doctors and nurses. It appears the baby is some kind of mutant killing machine (it is implied the mutation is a result of modern pharmaceuticals, though never explicitly revealed), and after escaping through an operating room skylight, it begins chewing its way through Beverly Hills, one victim at a time. Frank becomes a man possessed with destroying his evil offspring, callously signing its body away to science, and asking investigating officers to tag along on attempts to put the thing down. After many cat and mouse chases, the police manage to corner it in the city sewer system. Frank finds it first, and has a sudden, predictable change of heart. This doesn't save the baby, which does end up going down in a blaze of gunfire (along with the doctor that cannot wait to autopsy it), and as Frank and Lenore leave the scene with the police lieutenant in charge of the task force, all three learn a grim fact: another monster baby has been born in Seattle.

I love Larry Cohen. The man is not a celebrated director of horror, but he consistently made effective, eclectic movies. It's Alive is probably his best known work in the genre (there are two sequels that follow, including a pairing of Cohen with his best leading man ever, Michael Moriarty in part three). While It's Alive is a perfectly decent monster story, its wacky creature, all over the place acting, and predictable story are downright amateurish. But there's a lot going on behind the scenes, especially with regards to the script. It's Alive is a satirical commentary on parenthood, media, police incompetence, drug companies and other normal things that were taken for granted by its audience. This rich tapestry of subtext is subtle (no one ever comes out and starts ranting "What's the matter with this country?"), and is ultimately the most interesting thing going on in the movie.

Though I did enjoy it well enough, it wasn't the most compelling Cohen film (Q: the Winged Serpent is a classier monster movie, while The Stuff is a richer social commentary on American society, albeit from a different angle). The first half of the film is rather bland; next to no creature effects grace the screen, and I feel like the existence and hostile response to the infant are kind of glossed over so that Frank's character can be fully established (which would work better if this was a drama or thriller, not a monster movie). The two final scenes make up for this though, as the two parents soften and begin to realize there is room for a little monster in their lives.

Ghoulies (Luca Bercovici) - D-

Jonathan just inherited his estranged father's house. Why was he estranged, you ask? Because he used to be some kind of crazy warlock that was tight with demons and fed them human sacrifices. He was, in fact, going to sacrifice Johnathan as a baby, but his mother put a magic necklace on baby Jonny that prevented him from doing so. Anyway, not long after arriving at his new digs, Jonathan discovers his dad's library and becomes conveniently obsessed with the occult, much to the chagrin of his girlfriend Becky. The mired couple throw a housewarming party, and afterwards, Jonathan, Becky and six of their closest friends ‘do a ritual'. It seems to fail, but doesn't. Not that it matters, as later, Jonathan just keeps casting spells and eventually populates his house with little demon puppets. Then he summons two dwarves, and they promise they can make his wishes come true, if he performs a special ritual. Naturally, Jonathan enacts the spell, summoning his Zombie Pops back into existence. Zombie Pops reveals he's been controlling Jonathan the whole time, and aims to steal his youth. Then you get to the wizard battles...

All I knew about Ghoulies going into it was it is considered a Gremlins rip off. That's not entirely accurate, as it turns out, but people are probably referring to the demons that get conjured up by all the black magic going on. These, unlike the Gremlins, are almost just window-dressing to the film, only showing up to fill (steal?) screen time away from the woefully-lacking script. Indeed, given the first shots of the movie show you the creatures right off the bat, you can't help but feel like someone was incredibly proud of their puppet monsters. But, as was often the case with cheap monster effects, the more of the monster you see, the less impressive it becomes, and Ghoulies shows you these little bastards a lot. In fact, very soon you figure out there's probably only four or five models that get used multiple times, and can't move more than their eyes and lips. Later, over halfway through the film, you come to understand that they are more of a talking point than something that impacts the story, you begin to wonder why so much time is being spent on them.

There's a lot of heart here, but also some really terrible acting, a director that makes weird decisions about timing and editing, and a script that dictates too much time on dreck, and not enough time on the plot. These factors make Ghoulies dull and difficult to like. It's got decent special effects beyond the inanimate puppet monsters (the best of which being a tongue that crushes a dude's throat), but for 1985, even these are kind of lackluster. Eraserhead star Jack Nance makes an appearance and narrates the film, but the real surprise is the chick from Law and Order: SVU (she's dating the dud) in her first credited role. Not that she is particularly stand out, or anything.

Creep (Patrick Brice) - F

Josef has hired Aaron to come out to his isolated cottage and make a video documentary about a day in his life. But this is a found footage horror movie, so his story turns out to be bullshit. Josef has lured Aaron out there to be murdered, but Aaron smartly drugs Josef and eventually confronts him. You're made to think Aaron dies, but it's revealed he hasn't. Josef terrorizes Aaron a bit more and then eventually does kill him. Turns out Josef does this kind of thing a lot.

I enjoy found footage, but maybe I've seen too much. Within the first few minutes of the movie, I could tell:

•  Because the footage was edited, one of the two characters would have survived and made a movie
• Because this was a low budget indie movie, there'd be no gore or special effects
• Because there was going to be no gore or special effects, the film was going to rely entirely on startling you, or showing you things in frame that Aaron doesn't see or notice.
•  Because the story is going to be about two characters in mostly isolated locations, the success of the film is going to really depend on the performances of the two leads.
• Because of how much they show our camera man, Aaron, we are in for a tacky ride (showing the person filming in found footage is highly unrealistic).

With regards to the last two points, Aaron screams a lot and makes some stupid choices. Josef is better, and his character does transition from weirdo to psychopath more-or-less at an appropriate pace, but anyone who has seen the trailer knows at once that his story is bogus, and spending 2/3s of the movie on the set up to get to 'Josef is actually a murderer' makes most of his stories unimportant. Inexplicably, the filmmakers thought doing a 5 minute scene with the lens cap on the camera was a good idea (the movie is about 75 minutes long, so that's not insignificant), but actually this is an awful choice, as it slows the film down even further. Honestly, Josef is at his best wearing his Peachfuzz outfit (a legitimately unnerving werewolf mask). This is played for laughs earlier, but no one is fooled.

As to showing Aaron, I knew it was going to be rough when he was filming himself at the start, as it set the stage for further scenes. Now, in a two person found footage movie, I get that you gotta show more than one character or it verges into ultra-boring territory, but, showing the camera person often only serves to remind you that you're watching a movie, which in turns shatters the extreme realism needed to pull off a movie in this sub-genre. It shouldn't have shown him at all until after the escape from Josef's cabin.

Ultimately, the most disappointing aspect of the film is its conclusion. As mentioned, the third act of the picture concerns Aaron having escaped and more terrorizing from Josef. At this point, really the only clever point in the movie, the script had a chance to go in another direction. Aaron has some nightmares in which he and Josef are more similar than Aaron is comfortable with. I found myself wondering if, after all, Aaron would end up slaying Josef and take up being a serial murder himself. That would have been a real twist. But instead, these scenes don't go anywhere and Josef ends up killing Aaron (a cool shot, but hardly anything mind-blowing) before the plodding story reveals Josef lures many hipster videographers to their death. This is a far more typical ending than I think the screenwriters care to admit. Ultimately, Creep is just a forgettable experience.

Piranha (Joe Dante) - C+

Maggie, a spunky private investigator, is dispatched to look into the disappearance of two teens in Flordia-like backwoods. Not long after she arrives, she meets up with Paul, an alcoholic divorcee who seemingly wants nothing to do with her. Nevertheless, the two trace her quarry to an abandoned military station in the mountains, where they encounter Dr. Hoak, and unwittingly free his creation. Hoak had been working on a special breed of piranha to be used by the American military in the Vietnam War, but the war ended before they saw use. Now, the mutant monsters have been released into the local waterways, and Maggie and Paul race against time to stymie the spread of the fish, and save as many locals as possible.

Piranha is a successful, if not notorious franchise all on its own, so let's skip the obvious comparison to Jaws (the second scene of the film shows Maggie playing a Jaws arcade game - a direct nod to this film's inspiration). What we have here is a charming enough B-Movie for its day, but it's actually fairly typical when compared to others of its ilk. Some of the special effects are impressive (especially earlier in the film when you see a man's legs have been chewed to the bone, and there's an unexplained stop-motion animated fish-thing in Hoak's lab), but most are of the usual, cheap, don't let the audience see it much variety. We get many underwater shots, but these become so commonplace that you start to lose your appreciation for them as the film goes on.

Piranha has way too many characters in it for such a simple story. Maggie and Paul get the most screen time, but there's a subplot with Paul's daughter at summer camp (introducing her, along with three camp counselors that have multiple scenes), a military cover-up subplot (including scientists and a crooked colonel, arguably the film's human antagonist). Add to that Dr Hoak, Maggie's boss, a greedy resort owner, Paul's spritely neighbor, and a gaggle of other victims, and you drastically reduce the time you can dedicate to your story. Perhaps the filmmakers figured that the oodles of piranha attack scenes would be the main attraction (and probably were), but it just makes for a very repetitive experience. An attack on the summer camp is followed directly by an attack on the resort, and they're so similar, you wonder why they weren't rolled into one, longer scene. Piranha is a classic, and absolutely worth a watch, but not by much.

Them! (Gordon Douglas) - C

A pair of New Mexico police officers find a little girl wandering the desert, followed by the wreckage of first a trailer, and then a general store. One cop, Ben, leaves the scene to bring back more men (a good choice, as his partner wanders off frame, shoots his gun a few times and screams). An unusual print is found in the sand when Ben returns. The police send this to the scientific community and are soon joined by an FBI agent named Robert, and a pair of scientists from the department of Agriculture, Dr. Harold Medford and his daughter Pat. Medford immediately suspects the culprit is giant ants (a result of nuclear bomb testing in the area), and his suspicion proves correct, leading Ben and Robert to a nest that the group promptly wipes out (using a combination of bazookas, cyanide gas and flamethrowers). Alas, they have discovered the nest too late and young queens have already flown the coop to make hives of their own. One is quickly discovered in Corpus Cristi (it is dealt with efficiently), the other in the Los Angeles sewer system. Due to the urban location, humans have begun to go missing in the big city, so Ben, Robert and Dr. Medford lead the charge into a final confrontation with the nuclear-grown insects. Will the American military be defeated? Not on your life, bub.

On the one hand, Them! is a pretty standard from the 1950s collection of sci-fi horror. A monstrosity created by scientific disasters threatens the American way of life, and the military needs to stop it. The conclusion is a given (it's rare we see the military portrayed as villains today, and unheard of during these early cold war years), and no one is really acting in the modern sense of the word. At no point do you feel as though there is any danger to the world, on account of how efficiently those good ole American boys dispatch ant after ant with common know-how. The cringing moments of heavy sexism makes the film seem incredibly out of touch (though, in its day, this was business as usual).

To its credit, however, Them! doesn't waste a lot of time getting to man vs. giant ant. Bob & Co bust out flamethrowers before the halfway point. Actual military hardware was used, and, in some way was probably very reassuring to see that if these weapons were good enough to deal with giant ants, they were certainly good enough to crush the Communist threat. Cool as this is, it feels - as many 50s sci-fi horrors do - as though it's more propaganda about the assured success of the military against fantastic odds.

How about the giant ants? Well, they're cheesy, but not terrible. They do suffer from diminishing returns the more you see them, but there's one giant ant that's hanging out of an anthill with a fake human rib cage hanging on its mandibles that deserves mention (you definitely don't see an image like that every day). Later, though, Dr. Medford starts telling other characters about how ants work, his explanation is heard over a nature documentary about the insects. It really felt like I was back in elementary school.  This film is better than most of its contemporaries, but that’s not saying much.

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Well, that does it for another week of MMMMM reviews. I hope you enjoyed reading about them. This week, we forge on with another seven films. The line-up is somewhat fluid, still, but tonight is The Witch! I've heard good things, and I hope to see them come to life (well... in movie form). Til next time, my Bloody Buddies.

Monster Mash Movie Marathon Month 2016 - Week 1

Holy heck, it's been a while! Welcome to the first weekly digest for MMMMM2016. It is also, possibly, the shortest MMMMM update in my horror-blogging history, as the month started on a Saturday. Thanks a lot, linear time!

In the interest of keeping this compact, let's get right to it. First, a gentle reminder of my grading system:

A = Excellent, a must see

B = Very good, I’d watch it again

C = Worth Seeing

D = Maybe don’t bother

F = Worthless

+ = Superior for this grade

- = Just barely makes it into this grade

And then just another reminder of my usual stance on spoilers: I WILL DROP THEM! This week I show a little restraint, but you won't get off so lucky next time... 

Satan's Cheerleaders (Greydon Clark) – F

It's hard out there for sex-happy cheerleaders. First the rival school ruins your beach day, then they toilet paper your football field, and then, on the way to the big game, you run into engine trouble, and end up having to hitch a ride with your school's creepy janitor, Billy. But things take an unexpected turn for our girls (Patti, Chris, Debbie, Sharon and their over-optimistic coach, Ms. Johnson), when Billy abducts them, leads them to a strange altar, and begins chanting weird mumbo-jumbo that starts to make the screen turn red. Turns out Billy is part of a surprisingly-relevant-to-the-story satanist cult, and Satan has promised him whatever he wants (this means Patti). The girls overwhelm Billy, accidentally killing him in the process, sending them running into the arms of local sheriff B. L. Bubb. Bubb, of course, is the leader of the same cult, and the girls' arrival seems to be the perfect opportunity to sacrifice 'the purest one' to his Dark Lord. After some bumbling escape attempts (Surprise! The entire town is the satanist cult!), the girls are brought before the altar. Thankfully, Patti just so happens to be Satan's chosen one, mightier than the entire cult combined, and turns the tables on those jerks.

Okay, so there's maybe a little more to it than that (including a small, but clever twist, concerning who the purest of the girls is), but not very much, really. For a film advertised as a group of cheerleaders raising hell in the Dark Lord's name, what you get is a pretty dim story of normal cheerleaders being chased around by satanists. This film was slapped together cheaply to be thrown together with similar shlock as a double feature at drive-ins. The film-making is boring, the effects are cheap and sparse, and the script seems like it only existed at times. The first half of Satan's Cheerleaders is an offbeat high school comedy ('comedy' might be kind, as the jokes whiff a lot), but the second half is a confusing mess of reverberated audio effects and red tints. About 75% of the movie takes place in a forest, but that's probably due to budget restrictions. There's a few boobs (along with heavy doses of unfunny, badly delivered innuendo) - which were likely enough to please drive-in crowds of the 70s - but they, like the film itself, are pretty weak.

The few positives would include the rockin' disco theme song (1977, the year the film was released, would have been disco's prime, before it 'died' in '79), and the aforementioned twist at the end. But none of that can hope to redeem this kind of nonsense. There's not even the hope of unintentional laughs, as Satan's Cheerleaders lacks the charisma to have them. I guess what I'm trying to hammer home is that this was not considered a gem of the 1970s, and it has aged poorly. Next!

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Well, that was short, but sweet, no? I still have 30-some options to choose from in the coming month, but tonight I'll be moving on to the much-hyped It Follows. Consider my expectations mitigated. Join me next week for a much healthier entry on this, and six other horror flicks.