Zombos' Closet

Hobo Stops Begging, Demands Change Hobo With a Shotgun (2011)

ZC Rating: 3 of 7 Good (for gore and Trash Cinema fans)

 

 "The best way I can describe this video nasty is to have you imagine your shower is a time travel machine, and after you've soaped-up you suddenly remember you forgot your towel. So you open the steamed-up glass door--or just pull the plastic curtain aside--and with the soap stinging in your squinting eyes, you grope for the towel, stretch too far, and start sliding downward real fast on feet slick as greased lighting. When your butt hits the floor, you find your legs are dangling outside in the 1970s while your top part is somewhere inside the 1980s. Your head's dizzy, your butt is moist and hurting, and you feel weird rolling on your ass in all that soapy water."

Paul Hollstenwall sucked in a big breadth of air after saying all that and looked at me expectantly. We were in the cinematorium discussing what Hobo With a Shotgun was about. I love Rutger Hauer, and he's perfect in the role of Hobo, with his craggy face and sparkly eyes under all that grizzle, but really, what the hell? 

"Hey, where'd Zombos go?" he asked. 

"He left during the busload of children fricassee by flamethrower interlude," I said. Trash cinema isn't Zombos' usual thing anyway, unless it’s the older stuff, especially when it concerns fricasseeing kids. Come to think of it, it isn't mine either. 

While not as sexually outrageous and bizarre as Tokyo Gore Police or as repulsive as Street Trash, Jason Eisener and writers do a wild job that comes close, saturating this golden turkey with over the rainbow colors, plotting an absurd predicament even Albert Camus would find mind-numbing, and serving up a heapful of over the top--and under the bottom--caricatures. There's a golden-hearted hooker (Molly Dunsworth), a hobo with a dream of owning a lawn mower (to start a lawn mowing business, of course), and The Drake (Brian Downey),  a criminal boss crushing the heart and soul out of Hope Town to create his own Scum Town. It's silly, stupid, insulting, crazy, trashy, exploitative, and quite aware of all these things. Not to be taken seriously, it is seriously grindhouse as the blood flows, heads roll, and blacklight poster situations increasingly take on the look and feel of a psychadelic-fueled withdrawal. 

"So, what did you think?" asked Paul, running his hands through his long black hair. His blue eyes beamed at me expectantly.

I took a deep breadth. "I have conflicted feelings about it. Hobo With a Shotgun is like passing a bong around, with each toke building to a highpoint of intoxication only to eventually downslide into nausea."

"Exactly! That's the beauty of it. It's mired in dirty realism and transgressive angst," beamed Paul.

Maybe to a Charles Bukowski fan, I thought, but didn't voice my assumption. My impression pretty much formed when Abby, the heart-of-gold hooker with a bear fetish, gets her hand mowed off, then uses the boney stump to stab The Drake again and again. I admit there's a sense of poetic justice tucked away in there somewhere, but it's buried under the gore and screams. 

Irony and sardonic mawkishness go ozone when Hobo walks into the Pawn Til Dawn pawn shop and sees his heart's desire, a lawn mower for $49.99. There's nothing that says home more than a freshly mowed lawn. To get the money he lets a sleaze-ball (Pasha Ebrahimi) with lots of cash and a video camera tape him getting his teeth knocked out by another bum. Money in hand, just when he's about to pay for the mower, schizo-robbers come in and threaten a mom and her baby.

The shotgun hanging on the wall in back of the counter is also $49.99.  He makes the tough choice all trash cinema heroes must eventually make. So instead of mowing grass he mows down bad guys, cleaning up the streets one shell at a time.

In-between the hospital hangings, the manhole cover necklaces, the mobs turning against hobo, and the Plague Twins showdown--motorcycle creepizoids dressed in Boilerplate--Abby, the hooker and hobo's only friend, spends a lot of time with blood on her face, and hobo finds out if he can solve the world's problems with a shotgun bought at $49.99, shells gratis. 

Of course, if this movie was called Hobo With a Lawn Mower, things might have been different. 

Targets (1968): Is This What I Was Afraid Of? Part 2

WHY? The invariable question of today's headlines about the random sniper-murder of innocent people is never answered in "Targets." This is the only flaw, and a serious one, in the original and brilliant melodrama that opened yesterday at the 46th Street Embassy Theater. (Howard Thompson, New York Times movie review, 1968)

 

Part 1

The greatest fear is the one breathing down your neck with its hands in your pockets. You can ask all the questions you want, but no answers will come. They never do. So you make up your own answers to satisfy yourself that you know WHY. But you never really do. There is no real WHY. There's only how, and when, and who will be next.

Clean cut, upper middle-class Charles Whitman went on a shooting spree at the University of Texas at Austin, indiscriminately killing or injuring anyone he could target in his 4x Leopold Scope, mounted on his hunting rifle. Why he did that on an ordinary day in August, 1966, is anyone's guess. He had a brain tumor. He had a ruptured family life with a domineering, perfectionist father. He had an unhappy marriage. He had too many guns.

Bobby Thompson (Tim O'Kelly), the indiscriminate, sniping murderer in Targets is Bogdanovich's Whitman. Bobby's unhappy but he doesn't know why. Bobby wants to murder his family, but he's not sure why. Bobby needs to shoot as many people dead as possible. We don't know why. Not knowing why is the true horror in Targets, and a brilliant understatement by Bogdanovich.  The remaining horror is death; all the death Bobby deals through his targeting scope and the fear of death the aged and tired Byron Orlok (Boris Karloff) feels breathing down his neck. Roger Corman may have insisted Bogdanovich use Karloff's contracted time, and the extra minutes of footage from Karloff's movies (The Terror and The Criminal Code) to pad the film's running time, but Bogdanovich turns this budget thriller into a masterpiece of terror by incorporating those minutes as essential extensions to his story while allowing Karloff's notoriety to flesh out Orlok's credibility: they enhance the film's theme of fait accompli death; the irreconcilable one brought about by Bobby's hand, and the impending one soon to overtake Orlok, who, at the end of his career is closer to Death's hand and now questions the worth of his life and career. Both men are preoccupied with death, but Orlok turns inwardly to shut off his future while Bobby turns outwardly to shut down his past.

Orlok doesn't want to do any more movies. He turns down Sammy's (Peter Bogdanovich) next script and suddenly decides to retire from the screen. Bobby doesn't want to keep living the way he does so he starts planning his family's murder and the killing spree. A glimpse into his car trunk reveals an arsenal of firepower, lovingly arranged like butterflies stuck on needles in a glass showcase to be admired. From a gun shop Bobby examines his new gun scope closely. He chances on seeing Orlok across the street and lines up the famed horror actor in the crosshairs. Afterwards, Bobby eats candy bars and blasts his car radio while he drives around to find the perfect killing ground along the Reseda Freeway. Orlok heads off to enjoy a quiet dinner, celebrating his retirement from movies where, as he says, anyone can be painted up to scare the audience these days.

Sammy persists. He shows up in Orlok's hotel room, script in hand. He gets drunk with Orlok as they watch The Criminal Code. Both sleep it off. Orlok's assistant, Jenny (Nancy Hsueh), convinces Orlok to reconsider Sammy's movie offer. Orlok also finally agrees to do the personal appearance he promised for the Reseda Drive-In, during the screening of his The Terror. While preparing his questions and answers for the appearance, Orlok, annoyed by the flippant interviewer (Sandy Baron) he's to appear with, recommends he tell a story instead. Bogdanovich pulls the camera in close as Orlok, now Karloff the Uncanny, relates the ironic twist of fate in An Appointment in Samarra. Not only does Bogdanovich pay homage to a master craftsman whose name is synonymous with horror cinema, but he uses this wonderful opportunity to further his theme of death.

Both Orlok and Bobby have an appointment to keep at the Reseda Drive-In. Orlok arrives in his limousine and waits for his interview. Bobby sees an opportunity to evade the police and hides behind the screen after his earlier rampage sniping at cars on the Reseda Freeway is interrupted. One by one he begins to shoot people in the audience, until someone notices what's going on and spreads the warning there's a sniper. Cars begin to leave, prompting Orlok to joke how much they enjoy his movie. Bogdanovich shows scenes of Orlok/Karloff in The Terror in-between scenes of Bobby killing Drive-In patrons, contrasting old horror with new. One scene, the one which upset me when I first watched Targets--and still does each time I see it--involves a dome-lighted car interior, a crying youngster, and his unfortunate father. We see the youngster's face first, the tears, the terror on his face; then we see his father shot through the head: unexpected death in an unsuspecting place. In this single moment, Bogdanovich shows us the most important thing we need to know about true horrors: it does not come from seeing the monster, but from seeing the monster's aftermath.

Orlok, seeing Bobby has a rife, goes after him with his cane. Bobby, confronted by an approaching Orlok on the big screen behind him and the approaching Orlok in front of him, becomes confused. Orlok knocks the gun from Bobby's hands, proclaiming  "Is this what I was afraid off?"  As the police grab Bobby, he boasts he rarely missed.

And isn't that what we're all afraid of?

Targets makes us miss Boris Karloff and his world of horror even more, even if it was frighteningly predictable; unlike Bobby's consumerist world of mass murder purchased with a credit card, where you never know who will be painted up next to scare us in our safe, unsuspectinging places.

 

 

Targets (1968): Is This What I Was Afraid Of?

ZC Rating 7 of 7: Sublime

Although it doesn't show on screen, Karloff was very sick with emphysema when Targets went before the camera--he rested in a wheelchair between takes, breathing oxygen from a tank--and this was the last feature he completed before his death the following year. Bogdanovich went on to a long and checkered career, but he never outdid his debut picture for originality or inspiration. And a key factor in its brilliance is the heartfelt participation of an elderly icon who'd be keeping his own appointment in Samarra all too soon. (David Sterritt in The B List: The National Society of Film Critics on the Low-Budget Beauties, Genre-Bending Mavericks, and Cult Classics We Love)

 

"Why so glum?" I asked Zombos while cultivating the tulip beds in the solarium. My moment of tranquility had exited the room just about when he entered it. The vibrant reds, purples, yellows, and pinks of the tulips seemed to fade somewhat.

"I do not want, cherish, need, or have any use whatsoever for a dog," said Zombos, kicking his long legs up and over one of the loveseat's armrests as he sat down in frustration. He was wound tighter than the wicker strands in the rattan chair he sulked on.

"But Junior and Zimba do, so..." I began to say, before the barking of Mina the miniature schnauzer, our newest addition to the mansion household, came running into the room. She barked, jumped into his lap, and licked his face with enthusiasm. Her wiry salt and pepper coat was still wet from her bath. Zombos put up the best defense he could muster, but Mina's persistence didn't waiver. The look of horror on his face made me almost drop what I was doing to help. Almost.

"You naughty little Mina!" said Zimba, running into the solarium. "You're not done with your bath yet." She retrieved the dog and left. Zombos looked at the large wet spot on his favorite frock coat. No one else wears frock coats anymore except for Zombos. Old habits die hard I suppose.

"Take it off, then."  I resigned myself to cultivating the tulips at a later time.  "I'll have it dry and pressed in no time."  He handed the coat to me. "Now, as I was saying," , "change is inevitable, especially if your wife and son insist on it. So there's really not much you can do beyond that. You can sulk over it or you can embrace it. You can also head to the library where I'll bring you a nice comforting lemonade cordial and put on Targets, a movie that is all about change.

Zombos finally nodded his head in agreement. Change is not always welcomed but it is often inevitable, and always difficult to adjust to. Lemonade cordials help smooth the transition, though

Our times have indeed changed. Our psyches have succumbed to accepting serial killers and terrorists walking the daylight hours just as easily as Dracula hunts through the night. The simple truth is we no can no longer be scared by black and white monsters: spook show scared; walking like Frankenstein's monster scared; stalking with a cape draped over our face like Bela Lugosi scared. We need victims suffering more pain and terror in movies for our scares now: watching their limbs and minds be pulled apart  gives us succor from the real horrors snarling at us daily, ready to pounce without warning. We've overdosed on real fear, as it constantly gnaws away like those rats in the wall, with their incessant scurrying playing across the Internet Ad nauseum, until we need another fix stronger than the Wolf Man's bite or zombies dancing on YouTube.  The monsters no longer live on Maple Street: they moved to my street, your street, and every other street in the world.

They began moving in sometime around 1968, after the Vietnam War had taken its toll on our senses while it held us prisoner by its primetime television coverage, giving Dracula and the Mummy serious competition. George Romero shocked us with a visceral, unrelenting horror lumbering ever closer to our homes, but even before him directors like Herschell Gordon Lewis were upping the body count and buckets of blood with gusto; or telling us Uncle Charlie isn't the person you think he is until we finally believed it. Blame Alfred Hitcock's Shadow of a Doubt and Psycho for starting this change from our comfortably distant monsters to the normal-looking family dismemberer, or the quiet person next door with long pork in his fridge, or the nascent mass murderer down the block with the huge gun collection .

It took Peter Bogdanovich's Targets to solidify this change. At a time when major political figures were being assassinated, social unrest had hit its deadly zenith, and the Mai Lai Massacre unraveled moral certainty, Targets' spree-killer, Bobby, heralded the new monster model, the kit Aurora never got around to making: the unassuming neighbor with a wish for death on his lips--lots of deaths--and a fetish for guns. Lots of guns.

Part 2

The Dead Matter (2010) Vampires, Undead, And Love Part 2

 

ZC Rating 3 of 7: Good (I recommend  this 3-disc set for a welcome Halloween treat)

Part 1

In director Edward Douglas' The Dead Matter, the power of a scarab-shaped amulet brings back the dead. For Vellich (Andrew Divoff), a vampire who desires to control the dead, the amulet means power; for  Gretchen (Sean Serino), it's like the monkey's paw that grants wishes, and her one wish is to bring her dead brother back to life. Two vampire hunters,  McCallister (Jason Carter Babylon 5) and Pym (Bryan Van Camp) get caught in the middle of these desires.

Vellich is an old world vampire, more traditional in his ways, with flowing long white hair and a strong taste for human blood. He's not the Twilight kind (okay, except for the flowing long hair) and his patience is short, demonstrated when he rips the jaw off another vampire's face. Nice touches of gore like this are added here and there, and, possibly due to the presence of Tom Savini (he plays the vampiric druglord Sebed) they blend with the action instead of the action stopping to admire them. A few CGI effects are also added, but at this budget they are at the level of an 80s to 90s movie's effects. This doesn't hurt The Dead Matter, but tones it more like a movie done at that time or earlier, as does Douglas' and co-scripter Tony Demci's pacing and plot that pits vampires Sebed and Vellich against each other for possession of the amulet, complicated by sibling love mixed with guilt: Gretchen blames herself for her brother's death.

Eerie spook show CGI effects enhance a late night seance in the forest when Gretchen and her wiccan girlfriend Jill (C. B. Spencer) convince their skeptical boyfriends to join them. Gretchen  hopes to contact her brother. She contacts something else as the amulet beckons from where it was left hidden from Vellich by a dying Pym. While McCallister searches for it, Gretchen discovers it can raise the dead when Pym's ambulatory body shows up unexpectedly. He's more like a traditional zombie, not the brain-eating or body parts kind. Souless, unable to feel or think, or even move without Gretchen directing him through the amulet, he becomes her surrogate brother. She has him 'eating' ice cream and doing other things she and her brother enjoyed doing, like riding a carousel. It's filmed not so much tongue in cheek, but with a macabre sense of humor and sadness. She thinks she's found a way to reunite with her brother, but Pym's bodily shell is telling her otherwise.

Her friends try to persuade her to give up the amulet and her ultimate goal, but she hangs an air freshener around Pym's neck, tidies him up a bit, and continues working on raising her brother from the grave. Serino's acting falls short during all this. She's too soft when she needs to be firm, and too rational when she needs to be irresponsible. Bryan Van Camp's Simon Garth-styled zombie is fun to watch and ironically gives life to her scenes with him. He simply is. No emotion, no motion unless asked for, no intellect; stillness that shows he's just an empty shell. His utter silence is creepy as hell. McCallister tracks the amulet to Gretchen, but so does Vellich. By this time, the scarab-shaped relic has become a part of her, and the demonic presence in the amulet takes over, calling the dead to it. Moody scenes of the dead rising and shambling to the summons are done with restraint, showing atmosphere over carnage. The climax brings everyone, living or dead, back to the forest.

Carter dresses and acts the way you would expect a vampire hunter to, and Divoff as Vellich is vile enough to provide a sinister Gothic presence, aided by his abilities to turn into a dark cloud, or appear as someone else. Tom Savini's Sebed chews up the scenery with gusto. He pushes a drug that replaces a vampire's need for blood, but it's addictive. It's the new way, he tells Vellich. Maybe he's a fan of True Blood, too.

Count Gore De Vol has a cameo in a bizarre nightmare sequence. You won't recognize him without his makeup.

This straight to DVD 3-disc deluxe edition--the movie and two music discs, the soundtrack and Midnight Syndicate's best of compilation-- is a well thought out treat for Halloween, or really anytime the mood strikes you.

A copy of The Dead Matter was provided for this review.

TheoFantastique's interview with Edward Douglas

Midnight Matinee: The Dead Matter (2010) Vampires, Undead, And LovePart 1

Midnight in the darkened Stardust Bijou theater. Time when the popcorn is soggy, the soda flat, and the people in the front row never leave to go to the bathroom. Ever. The projector starts, sounding like  a werewolf howling at a waning full moon, and its images, flickering across the screen, come alive. Really. Time for the Midnight Matinee...

Today's main feature is ripe for Halloween viewing. For Midnight Syndicate, The Dead Matter. Especially when they don't stay dead. Our movie review will start after the featurette. (What can I say? Midnight Syndicate inspires me every time.)

 

"Ah-ah-ah...achoo! Lord, does anyone clean up here anymore?" Zombos complained.

"It's an attic. Dust and attics go together like lice and hair," I said. "Now blow your nose and help me move this trunk out of the way."

Zombos found a white spot on his frilly handkerchief, blew his nose into it, then pocketed the result--something which always grossed me out--and reached down and gripped the worn leather handle. It broke halfway through his hoist, dropping the Saratoga trunk onto my foot. Luckily it wasn't very heavy, only about a hundred pounds or so. I accidentally knocked off its canvas dust cover in my haste to push the trunk off my foot so I could dance the it-hurts-like-hell two-step. The cloud of dust the ruckus whipped up sent Zombos into a sneezing tailspin. White spots on his hanky quickly became hard to find.

"Well, this is quite a surprise," he said, finally pocketing his handkerchief again. Now I was really grossed out. "Do you know whose trunk this is? This belonged to Karl Weredegas. He was Zimba's Great Uncle on her father's side, before he mysteriously disappeared in Pango Pango many years ago. See, there is his showbiz cognomen, 'Weredegas the Uncanny, Phantasmical Enigmas of Conjuration'."

I looked down at the trunk. It was plastered all over with traveling stickers. Old ones. Across the lid, the sides. They roiled into each other, a Sargasso's worth of trapped mementos from other days, other places visited long ago. The Savoy in London, the Le Bristol in Paris, the Plaza in New York, the Mena House in Cairo, the Astor House in Shanghai, the Imperial in Delhi, the--

"Let's open it," said Zombos.

I hadn't realized it, but I couldn't resist looking at all those stickers until he broke my concentration with his enthusiasm. One by one, they were oddly mesmerizing; the way some angrily peeled away from their glue backing while others remained docily fixed, or how they butted into each other creating a colorful but incongruous collage, like shards of variegated stained glass joined together. Each singular whirl of letters and lines and paper coating coalescing into--

"That lock is awfully big, though," said Zombos, snapping my fascination. Again.

I forced myself to not look at those stickers. It was hard but I managed to keep them out of focus by squinting my eyes. I turned my attention to the lock. It was as large as my fist and looked like it was rusted through. I doubted we could turn the key in it even if we had the key. We thought in silence about what to do next. The shackle popped open with a loud click as we were thinking.

"Okay," I said, "you and me are savvy horror movie buffs, right. So this is where, in the movie, you dramatically reach to open the trunk but I stop you, imploring you to snap it shut again and help me put that canvas dust sheet back on top of the trunk and we slide it back into the dark corner it's been sitting in for years and years and we forget about it and go watch Midnight Syndicate's new movie, The Dead Matter. Only you don't listen to me and insist on opening the trunk after I've said not to and we both die horribly. So, how about we act like savvy horror movie buffs and you snap that lock shut again and you and me kick this baby back into that corner and forget about it? Now grab that side and help me push."

"Do not be silly. This is not fiction nor a horror movie. The rust must have already snapped the locking mechanism. Moving the trunk did the rest." Zombos removed the lock, undid the clasp, and opened the trunk. I winced, expecting the worst. Stale air, mildew, and something between sandalwood and juniper wafted up to my nostrils. A bottle rolled out onto the floor just before a book slid out after it. Zombos stooped to pick them up.

"Dandelion wine," he said, slowly reading the faded label on the bottle. "And this..." He put the bottle aside and paged through the red leatherbound book. "Curiouser and curiouser. Every other page is blank, but if you look at them sideways there's...no, nevermind. It must be the poor lighting. Odd title, too. He tilted the cover toward me. I read the title: 'How to Wallpaper a Fish and Other Occult Persniketies That May Bite' printed in gold letters. Odd, yes. And persnickety was mispelled. It's also not a noun.

He set the book aside and started rummaging through the top tray compartment. "Toiletries, photographs, a leather-bound journal, some jewelry--what is this? Another drawer built into the tray." He tugged on it. "Locked. We can open that later. These photographs are peculiar. Headhunting I think. Here, have a look." He handed them to me. I stopped in the middle of reaching for them right after he said "headhunting." "Oh, go on, have a look."

"Maybe later," I said. "What's under the tray?" I don't know why I said what I just said. I really didn't want to know. But the voice popped into my head and out through my mouth.

"Let us have a look, then." Zombos lifted the tray out. Underneath was a second tray with various compartments. "Also locked. Another one for later." He put that tray aside also.

A velvet purple blanket covered the bottom of the trunk. No, it wasn't a blanket. When Zombos went to lift it, we discovered it was a sack. A gold sash, wrapped tightly around the opening, flipped into view. He untied it and reached inside.

"Heavy, whatever it is," he said, lifting what lay in the sack for all these years into the light.

We looked at the thing he held in his hands. It looked like a ventriloquist's dummy, three-feet tall or so, and dressed in white tie and black tails: fairly normal, except for the head: there was none. Not the usual Charlie McCarthy kind anyway. In its place was a globe filled with water. In the water floated a shrunken head with long white hair. It bobbed around as we looked down at it. Even with its eyes sewn shut it seemed to be looking at us. I think Zombos found it as unsettling as I did.

"I can feel something in back. It feels like a--" His searching fingers found something that audibly clicked into place. The little head floating in the water globe drained into the dummy's chest. A swirl of water pushed another shrunken head with long black hair into view. We were dumbfounded.

"How bizarre," said Zombos. "Why on earth would anyone want to put two shrunken heads, let alone one, into a vent--"

"Aaah!" I jumped. While Zombos was speaking, the second shrunken heads' eyelids popped open. We stood transfixed while it looked at us with pee-wee sized Bela Lugosi eyes.

"Are you sure there's only two?" I said. I don't know why I would even want to know, but there, I said it.

"Let us not find out," said Zombos, in an unusual display of wisdom. "We are, after all, savvy horror movie buffs." He put the vent dummy back into its sack, retied the gold sash tightly, quickly placed both trays back in place, and closed the trunk lid. He pushed the lock's shackle closed with a satisfying click. I tossed the dust cloth back on and we pushed the trunk back to where it had rested undisturbed all this time.

"Well, then, The Dead Matter it is," said Zombos. I nodded in agreement. We headed downstairs.

As I reached toward the switch to turn off the attic lights, we heard a distinct click that sounded like the trunk lock's shackle popping open again. We looked at each other. We bravely ignored it and headed to the Cinematorium to watch vampires, zombies, and one sister's quest to bring her dead brother back from the grave.

Part 2 will begin after a brief intermission...

 

 

I Sell the Dead (2008) And Not So Dead, Too

ZC Rating 3 of 7: Good

Awaiting execution for his crimes of grave robbing and murder, Arthur Blake (Dominic Monaghan) recounts his nocturnal exploits, conducted with his accomplice Willie Grimes (Larry Fessenden), to the attentive Father Duffy (Ron Perlman). Over wine, Blake reveals how his low-paying start with providing certainly-dead cadavers to a nefarious Dr. Quint (Angus Scrimm) blossoms into a more lucrative endeavor procuring the less-certainly-dead--vampires, zombies, and a 'sideshow freak'--for an inquisitive medical clientele. Director Glenn McQuaid embellishes this Victorian period parody and homage of late night B-movie horror staples with bizarre and suitably grimy characters, lots of foggy scenes, and a witty story that outwits itself now and then by rushing too quickly to the punchline.

Making Blake's and Grimes' jobs all the harder are the seedy, insane, and fear-inducing house of Murphy, led by Cornelius (John Speredakos) and his mysterious father. Valentine (she wears a mask to hide her badly burned face), and Bulger (he had his teeth replaced with canine chompers), round out the colorful Murphys, who vie with Blake and Grimes for the ghoulish spoils. Occasional comic book-styled illustration appears, especially when highlighting the picaresque Murphy clan, lending a horror comic motif similar to 1982's Creepshow and the more recent Trick 'r Treat (2008).

McQuaid keeps his scenes excruciatingly tight in an attempt to conceal the production's budgetary limitations, but often this produces the opposite effect by calling more attention to his meager mis en scenes because of their static framing (made worse by a woozy camera movement within the frame when least needed). At other times, his closeups highlight the slapstick antics of Blake and Grimes, and their wild encounters with the Murphys, with giddy aplomb.

What really sells I Sell the Dead are McQuaid's Victorianesque characters and their travails while digging up their best prospects. His penny dreadful-flavored twists and turns with horror conventions percolates new life into recognizable situations: a vampire encounter at a crossroads turns into farce when the garlic and wooden stake are unwisely removed and frantically put back, again and again; an unusually frigid grave yields an unexpected corpse; and zombies prove highly desirable for medical research into immortality, but tend to be hard to procure. A chance shipwreck provides an opportunity to cash in on the burgeoning zombie demand.

Rowing to Langol Island in the dead of night ahead of the Murphys, Grimes, Blake, and their new, overly eager, apprentice Fanny (Brenda Cooney) go looking for the shipwrecked zombies. They find one crated undead, the foot of another undead, and Valentine, Bulger, and an angry Cornelius. In the ensuing mayhem after Valentine removes her mask, frightening Blake, Grimes--and a zombie--into a frenzy, Grimes gets bitten and the undead bite off more than they can chew with the Murphys. 

I Sell the Dead is a cheeky blend of the usual horror setpieces made unusual by playing them almost to absurdity as Grimes and Blake cope with the ever present threat of the Murphys and the rigors of their demanding profession in order to get ahead. Before they lose theirs. Jeff Grace's music is a treat as it evokes the mood and style of earlier horror movies from Hammer to Amicus, especially when playing against the animated opening credits. For many horror aficionados, especially those weaned on Shock Theatre and supernatural horror movies from the 1950s to the 1970s, I Sell the Dead will be a lot of fun to watch.

Alice In Wonderland (2010) Or Is It Underland?

ZC Rating 3 of 7: Good (but not so Frabjous)

Once upon a time, mercury was used in the making of hats. It affected the nervous systems of hatters, causing them to go bonkers with mood swings and flights of fancy and trembling distress and, well, to become as mad as a hatter. Which is all well and good to explain the Mad Hatter's unpredictable behavior in Wonderland--or is it Underland?--but what about Tim Burton? He never ever is really ever quite the same, being the same as before, I mean, nor all grown up now will he be again, I'm afraid.

"Look, my good man, I'm going to croak by the time you get to that review. Time to jam the jelly and all that."

I looked around. I was walking in the garden when a low voice, seeming to come from the daffodils, interrupted my reverie. My reveries are often interrupted, but usually by Zombos, not voices coming from daffodils. The flowers had bloomed unusually early this year.

"Down here, and mind your big feet."

I looked down. A toad, dressed in a Harris Tweed suit and driving a very Mini Convertible Cooper, blew puffs of smoke from a long cigar as he looked up at me. He raced the engine, allowing the car to jump forward every now and then. I seem to have a penchant for meeting odd creatures that smoke long cigars and talk when they really should not be able to. Don't they know smoking isn't healthy?

"I beg your pardon?" I said, for want of anything better to say.

"Your review. You know, of Alice In Wonderland. Burton and Woolverton want to do me next."

The House of the Devil (2009) The Devil's In The Details

ZC Rating 3 of 7: Good (technically well done, but unimaginative and lacks scares)

Instead of another homage (like Cabin Fever) or glossy remake (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre), he [Ti West] has come up with a period pastiche that mimics the low-res vibe and look of early-1980s horror, along with the same bad hair and clothes. And he’s done so with more shiver than splat. (Manohla Dargis, New York Times review)

 

There are times, all too often these days, sadly, when I wonder which movie I'm watching; whether it is the one those other critics have seen or a cinema-changeling version of the movie swapped in just to bedevil me. After reading the New York Times' Manohla Dargis' review for The House of the Devil, I can only assume it was the cinema-changeling movie I watched and not the more entertaining, more sinister, and scarier movie she saw. In fact, it was her review blurb on the DVD cover that egged me on to buy it: I admit I fell for that one. I try not to be so gullible, but it does get harder and harder. She said it was "a horror movie with real shivers." I wish I had watched the movie she saw. I didn't shiver a bit. And USA Today's "unbearably suspenseful" blurb helped cinch the deal, although I would say it's more bearably unsuspensful. Boy, have I learned my lesson about hypeful blurbs on DVD covers. In this case I would have even preferred an energetic homage or glossy slick remake.

Don't Hold Your Breadth The Asphyx (1973)

ZC Rating 3 of 7: Good

"What was that all about?" asked Zombos.

Paul Hollstenwall looked perturbed. "What? You didn't like it?"

I looked at my fingers and started counting. Right. That makes eighteen times Zombos has said "What was that all about?" after watching a movie Paul brought over, and twelve times Paul's responded with "you didn't like it?" I'm not sure why I bothered to remember all this, but it did make me warm and cozy inside for some reason. I sipped my Mocha Bon Machiavelli and smiled with self-satisfaction, and waited. Right on cue they both looked at me and waited for some sort of guidance, absolution, support, or what exactly I'm not sure. I never could pin that one down.

Of course they were desperate. Outside the snow was piling up--again--and every so often I heard Pretorius, our groundskeeper, cursing above the sputtering whirl of his malfunctioning snow blower. I was desperate, too. The three of us were bottled up tight with Paul and his cache of DVD oddities as our only diversion. I will admit his choice of The Asphyx was a better choice than his usual preference for schlocky dollar-bin bargains, but the day was still young.

"It's got me flummoxed," I finally said. "I like it, but I'm not sure why. I'm also not sure why Black & Blue Films is going to do a remake. You've got a rich amateur dabbling in paranormal science, a screeching hand-puppet creature called the Asphyx, which rushes to a person's soul when said person is expiring--greatly aided by very accommodating people dying in ludicrous ways--and it's all nonsense, really, but still oddly watchable."

 

Sir Hugo Cunningham (Robert Stephens) dabbles in paranormal research. He's so brilliant he's invented a moving picture camera, and so rich he's not bothered to patent it. His hobby is to photograph the dying, looking for evidence of the soul as it leaves the body. What he finds in his pictures are mysterious smudges appearing next to each one of the dying people he's photographed. He explains to his step-son, Giles (Robert Powell), those smudges are evidence of the soul leaving the body at the time of death. They appear in his photographs because he uses a special acidic developing solution. By now you should have noticed the Hammer Studios-like period hairdos; but while the movie is in color, like that studios' Gothic horror stories, its direction by Peter Newbrook lacks the slick, underlying urgency and tension of a Hammer-directed costume drama.

A boating accident leaves Sir Hugo distraught with grief and determined to find precisely what those smudges are. Recording a public hanging with his camera and using another of his inventions, a bright spotlight powered by crystals that give off an intense blue light when water drips on them, he inadvertently discovers those smudges are not made by the soul departing the body, but by a netherworld-postman coming for its pickup. His special spotlight traps the screaming bugger in its beams, staying the little courier from its appointed rounds, thereby keeping the person alive and unable to die.  

Lingering periods of discussion about what the creature is waste time, but eventually Sir Hugo reveals he wants to be immortal. He reasons that if he keeps the crystals in his special spotlight wet, thereby maintaining the light source that traps the Apshyx, he can stay alive. The trick is to coax the Asphyx to come for his soul. He needs to be near death to do that because the creature only comes when someone is dying. How the inexhaustible crystals (Star Trek's dilithium crystals perhaps?) will power the light forever is not dwelled on, but he's devised a constant drip drip drip to fall onto them, a box to hold the creature under his spotlight contraption, and a room--with a new-fangled (for him) combination lock on the door--to seal the box in forever. Illogical? Yes. Remotely plausible? Definitely not. Entertainingly off the wall? Delightfully so.

Especially when Sir Hugo and Giles devise fiendish Grand Guignol contraptions to bring death so very close, just enough to summon the Asphyx using electrocution, the guillotine, and asphyxiation by gas. Simply strangling each other appears to never have crossed their minds. Althought it would be dull to watch. Yet through all this seriously and impeccably performed silliness, peppered with outrageously impossible artifice, it’s fun watching the intentionally-accidental deaths pile up as Sir Hugo goes for immortality and insists his family do so along with him.

I'm dying to see what they do with the remake.

The Book of Eli (2010) Grindhouse Meets Dogma

ZC Rating 4 of 7: Very Good

Grindhouse determinism and dogma meld into a spiritual and violent road trip in The Book of Eli. Denzel Washington is Eli, and the book he carries on his journey westward--or thereabouts for thirty years--is desired by Carnegie (Gary Oldman), who has been searching for it for probably just as long. Their struggle over possession of the book provides the movie's grindhouse-styled bedlam, but the movie transcends blatant exploitative elements by substituting faith, destiny, and the passion of the Gibson's Mad Max sense of purpose when surrounded by despair for the more lurid and gratuitous action of pure exploitation.

Eli's arm-length knife, one that would make Crocodile Dundee wet his pants, is exploited for all its heft. Worth more than a flaming sword, Eli wields it with uncanny precision; even, it seems, as if the blade moves before he does. He carries the book, his knife, a dingy iPod connected to a large battery, and a prayer down a near-endless road stretching off into the distance under a cloudy sky. All around him is bleak terrain, desolation, and post-apocalyptic wreckage of people and artifacts. The human wreckage is the most dangerous. His only purpose is to keep moving westward and keep the book safe, but Carnegie and the occasional gang looking for their next meal interfere. He says "we don't have to do this" just before he does, and what he does with that blade is fast and lethal.

Idle Hands (1999)

Mick: Wait a minute. If you chop off your right hand, how are you going to chop the other one off?
Anton: Oh no, man, the lefty's a keeper. I mean, I guess it wasn't idle enough.
Mick: Really?
Anton: Oh yeah, I mean, I hit the remote with it, light up with it, relieve a little tension. No, this is the answer.

ZC Rating 4 of 7: Very Good

 

Five dexterous digits with a penchant for murderous mayhem provide the Halloween scare-comedy hijinks in Idle Hands. Piling on cliches and nuances from movies like The Hand, Beetle Juice, Scream, and most teen-slacker-slasher romps, Anton has his hands (hand?) full trying to keep from killing everybody in arm's length. He is the kind of kid who lives in the attic, spends all day lounging around and smoking pot, and does not worry when his parents go missing until after a few days go by; he is the perfect plaything for an ancient demon who takes the old adage--idle hands are the devil's playthings--seriously, and enjoys possessing those in need of a helping hand: murderously helpful, yes, but still very motivating for Anton (Devon Sawa).

Dragged to Hell With KNB EFX

Written by Scott Essman

When directors hit box-office gold, it is common knowledge that they can make whatever they wish for a followup film. For Sam Raimi, coming off of three Spider-Man films which all rank in the top 50 domestic box office grossers of all time, he could have made virtually any film he could conjure as his next cinematic venture. But, what did the director of such cult classics as Within the Woods (1978), The Evil Dead (1981), Evil Dead II (1987), and Darkman (1990), decide to do after exiting the world of Spider-Man? One only need look at the opening animated Universal logo to determine Raimi’s intentions: the director chose a pre-1997 Universal opening to set the stage of this film: we were going on a journey that would be a throwback to the time when Raimi was a cult director, still largely undiscovered by the Hollywood mainstream.

For horror enthusiasts, when you think of Raimi’s early work, you recall shaky but taut camera moves, a mélange of harsh sound and light, intensified performances, and unsubtle moments of discovery and revelation. You simultaneously remember the outrageous often guttural practical makeup effects in those films: Evil Dead featured buckets of blood while the sequel was somewhat refined if still surreal in its over-the-top portrayal of horror as a genre that was being infused with new post-slasher film blood, built on the heels of the successes of the original Halloween, Dawn of the Dead, Friday the 13^th, and other instrumental films in the genre.

Enter into this world a name that goes hand-in-hand with horror over the past decades that Raimi has been active in reinventing the genre. “If you’ve seen a horror movie in the last 15 years, they did it,” said special ‘horror’ makeup effects legend Tom Savini of the KNB EFX Group, a makeup effects and creature shop lead by Greg Nicotero and Howard Berger, and co-founded by ex-member Robert Kurtzman in 1988.

Jennifer's Body (2009)

I need you frightened. I need you hopeless. (Jennifer in Jennifer's Body.)

Rating 5 of 7: Excellent

With Diablo Cody's pop, slang-twang dialog peppering the lines of Jennifer's Body, imparting a CW slickness to this story of girlfriends, boyfriends, and evil that is not just high school evil, looks can be deceiving. It is a blend of dark humor involving the gray relationship between the desirable Jennifer and her groupie-like friend since childhood, the desirous Needy Lesnicky, and witty, supernatural gore that revisits and updates 1980's teen horror movie angst with tongue in cheek playfulness and a knowing nod. Not that this movie is all pom-pom kicks and giggles: Cody's dialog goes down like spooned sugar with Castor oil, her adults are few and out of touch, and her characters are lost, nearly found, then lost again. The ugly demon inhabiting Jennifer's beautiful body is the only one not lost, or uncertain, or confused, or lusting after fame, fortune, love, or identity. Demons are always so damned self-assured.

Not Just Another Bozo Killer Klowns From Outer Space (1988)

I am not quite sure what the Chiodo Brothers were thinking when they pitched this idea for a movie, but it does have its charm (for horror fans, anyway). How can you not like a story about aliens that look and dress like grotesque clowns and use Krazy Straws to sip the body liquors of hapless victims sucked up by a giant vacuum? Just about everyone in the small town of Crescent Cove is turned into a jumbo-sized cotton candy treat with a nice gooey center before you can say “popcorn.” And I mean the friendly type of popcorn, not the type that eats you in this movie.

“Considering the low budget for the film, the art direction and production design are fairly imaginative," said Steve Brown.

"Yes," I agreed. "If only the acting were a bit more top-notch. Hey, how’d you know what I was thinking?"

He held up his signing gadget. "It picks up thoughts and displays them as text onscreen. Helps when we deal with people who say their deliveries went missing or were damaged. Anyway, with veteran character actors like Royal Dano and John Vernon, the other so-so actors were buffered a little," he noted.

The movie starts with the town's younger set smooching on Lovers Lane. Ruining their idyllic moment, the Stooge-like Terenzi Brothers (no relation to the Chiodo Brothers — I hope) show up in their noisy and tacky ice cream truck (there’s a huge clown head on the roof) to sell popsicles. The bumbling but industrious duo is rebuffed by the annoyed teens who had different popsicles in mind. None of these purported teens look young enough to be teens, either, a characteristic horror movies have in common with porno movies (not that I’d know first hand).

Before Mike (Grant Cramer) and Debbie (Suzanne Snyder) can get back to their snuggling, a bright object shoots across the sky and crashes not too far away. In true '50s horror film fashion (like in the Blob), they are off to investigate. Given a choice between heavy petting or chasing down mysterious objects crashing in the deserted woods, horror movie ‘purported’ teens always go for the crashing object.

While they head to the scene of impact, Farmer Green Gene (not Captain Kangaroo's bud, but Royal Dano), and his dog Pooh (stop groaning), see the crash, too, and head out to investigate. Gene and his dog find a circus tent in the woods, only it’s really the alien spaceship. A funny gag has Royal Dano walking along the side of the tent/ship in tandem with a clown's shadow tagging along. The circus fun and excitement atmosphere turns to terror for Gene and his dog when they are captured and cotton-candyized.

Mike and Debbie are next to discover the circus tent looking spaceship and decide to enter it. You’d think your average person would probably find a circus tent plopped down in the middle of an isolated woodland setting crazily suspicious, but then we wouldn't have much of a horror movie would we if they just did the smart thing and  ran away? Smart and horror movies don’t mix well. One interesting flub to watch for has Debbie's arm briefly disappearing behind the matte painting of the tent/spaceship as they get close to it.

Another imaginative matte shot, a nod to Forbidden Planet, is seen when Mike and Debbie enter a room reminiscent of the Krell's huge power cell chamber. As they explore the ship and realize it is not part of Cirque du Soleil, the clever use of colorful carnival and clown-like objects — such as red rubber balls used for door buttons — extends the limited production budget with style. Soon they're running for their lives with two clowns and one sniffing balloon dog hunting them. They escape, but the whole kit and caboodle of killer klowns, armed with a wacky assortment of lethal weapons, head to town in search of late night snacks.

Mike and Debbie try to convince incredulous police officers Hanson (John Allen Nelson) and Mooney (master of the stare down, John Vernon) a bunch of clownish aliens are wreaking havoc in town. A series of bizarre, Looney Tunes-inspired, scenes includes a lethal Punch and Judy, pizza delivery a la killer klowns, clumsy klowns knocking over shelves in a pharmacy, and an ugly mini-klown knocking the head off of a biker with gusto.

Three scenes stand out for true creative goofiness, pushing this movie into more absurdist horrorhead territory. The first has a nasty-looking killer klown enticing a young girl away from her mom as both sit in the local burger joint. Behind his back he holds a very large, brightly colored mallet. His intentions are clear to us, but not to the innocent, fun-seeking youngster. While this plays on how the appearance of a clown can automatically trigger expectations of enjoyment, especially for most children, the scene takes this expectation into darker directions, making it comical, ominous, and frightening at the same time. 

The second scene involves a bus stop, a few tired adults waiting for the late-night bus, and another killer klown who shows up to entertain them with hand-shadows thrown on the side of a building. This stop-motion realized scene is humorous, surreal, and again plays off pleasant expectations subverted into unpleasant terror when the hand shadows capture everyone.

The third scene has one intestinally-gutted and dead-eyed Officer Mooney playing ventriloquist dummy to one particularly tall and mischievous killer klown. Officer Hanson, treated to this bizarre vent act after finding huge clown footprints all over his jail, breaks a brief smile--until he realizes the lethal intent of the big bozo. The squishy-suction sound in this scene is very disgusting. I’ll let you guess what the vent dummy’s strings were made of.

Now, if you were a killer klown, where would you hide? In the amusement park, of course! So off go our heroes to rescue Debbie, who was captured and trapped inside a really big beach ball. And if you have a bunch of killer klowns with pies in their hands, who do you think should get hit with them? Why, mouse-dancing Soupy Sales of course! Unfortunately, the small budget did not allow Soupy to be flown in for the shoot. Bummer.

The zany Terenzi Brothers show up in their ice cream truck and join Mike and Officer Hanson. The Terenzi’s get separated from the others and wind up with a pair of big-bazoomed female klowns. As the brothers clown-around with their new dates, Mike and Officer Hanson enter the cotton-candy room where Debbie is imprisoned. They rescue her, but are discovered and a chase ensues through the many weird compartments of the spaceship. After making their way through a doorway with a near limitless amount of doors to open they are trapped and surrounded by the killer klowns.

In the nick of time, the Terenzi Brothers burst in with their ice cream truck — did I mention it has a big clown's head on it’s roof? — and use the truck’s loudspeaker to tell the klowns to bug off. They do, but a giant klown descends from above and goes after the ice cream truck. The Terenzi’s refuse to get out of the truck because “its rented.” The giant klown picks them and the truck up and tosses both into a fiery explosion. The scene is shot using miniatures and forced perspective (a technique used extensively in Lord of the Rings).

Will the Terenzi’s and Mike and Debbie and Officer Hanson escape? All I can say is ... Killer Klowns From Outer Space is an enjoyably goofy movie, and one that would do well with an effects-loaded remake or sequel. Pop Quiz! How many paragraphs in this review start with “Mike and Debbie?”

The Mad Magician (1954)

ZC Rating 3 of 7: Good

When Price's performances failed as touching works of naturalistic brilliance, they usually succeeded as thrilling romps of stylish theatricality. As a result, almost any Price performance is worth watching--for one reason or another. (Mark Clark in Smirk, Sneer and Scream: Great Acting in Horror Cinema)

Crypt of Horror's DVD offering of 1954's Columbia Pictures' 3-D The Mad Magician is quite the trick indeed. It fooled me into thinking I was going to have a wonderful evening of murder done with panache, prefixed by that delightful glare of homicidal haughtiness, so patently and masterfully executed by Vincent Price in many of his films. Instead, the DVD's murderously shoddy performance got in the way; enough to make me as mad as Gallico the Great.

The DVD case cover blurb "Homicidal Maniac weilds Buzz Saw horror against beautiful young women!" is quite foreboding to begin with. It's not bad enough horror fans must constantly battle a public and familial image of being either illiterate ignoramuses or pimply, basement-dwelling, punk-rocking misfits lusting after beautiful young women (Goth babes especially), but misspelling a simple word like "wield" instead of the more complex word like "homicidal" doesn't help our case at all now does it? And which homicidal maniac wielding a buzz saw against beautiful young women are we referring to? There's certainly no one in this 1954 period movie that fits that description.

Following on the heels of Warner Brothers' successful 3-D House of Wax in 1953, Price once again dons a vengeful smock, this time playing an inventor of magic tricks and stage illusions who dreams of performing his creations in front of the footlights. On the night of his successful debut performance, performing as Gallico the Great, he's stopped by his unscrupulous employer who holds an ironclad contract not even Lucifer himself could get out of.