Zombos' Closet

The Silent Scream (1980) Ti West Should Have Remade This One Instead

ZC Rating 3 of 7: Good

With the revelation of the identity of the murderer some time before the film's climax, its relatively low body count and avoidance of gory pyrotechnics, Silent Scream is by no means a typical teenagers-in-peril movie given the subject matter and date of release. Also untypical are the strengths of the performances, and the fact that one actually cares whether the intended victims survive or not. (The Overlook Film Encyclopedia: Horror)

Scotty (the impossibly thin Rebecca Balding) needs an apartment badly. She's late to the college semester and the college dorms are filled. At the end of an almost fruitless day of apartment hunting (shown in humorous vignettes of crappy places and dubious renters), she finds a small, comfortable room in a big, brooding, beachside house at the top of a hill. Three other college latecomers join her: there's the spoiled rich Peter (John Widelock), the feisty, bosomy, fun-loving girl Doris (Juli Andelman), and the hunk--who makes sure to keep his shirt off or unbuttoned as much as possible because he's the hunk--Jack (Steve Doubet). Living in the house are the brooding Mrs. Engels (Yvonne De Carlo), up in the attic; the quiet and ill at ease Mason Engels (Brad Rearden), in the bedroom across the hall; and a family secret about to become known. Violently. Now guess which one of the college kids gets killed first.

Party Hardy Till You Die Sorority Row (2009)

Rating 4 of 7: Very Good

What a difference a decade or two makes. In this remake and retinkering of The House on Sorority Row (1983), the overheated and nubile Theta Pi girls are non-stop partying like it's 2009; and the usually horribly-deformed-and-mentally-somewhere-beyond-Saturn stalking killer is easily a People or US magazine cover candidate. Stewart Hendler's Sorority Row is overly-sexed, overly slick and glossy, and murderously fun.

All the elements for successful slashing are here: a prank gone horribly wrong; a deep dark secret to be kept; a mysterious killer who, months later, knows the deep dark secret that apparently has not been kept very secretive. And then people start dying in creative, bloody ways with a signature weapon--in this case a pimped out lug wrench. What is different is Hendler's playfulness with an audience's expectations for the murderous mayhem, and the sincere acting from a cast that is not just eye-candy, which balances this cat and mouse game between tongue in cheek and serious terror. Carrie Fisher as the shotgun toting house mother, Mrs. Crenshaw, puts up a classy mean fight, bringing legitimacy and sophistication to the action.

Bacchanalian partying, hot tub simmering, and excessive drinking round out the sorority girls' studies. Bossed by Jessica (Leah Pipes), when the prank they play on Megan's (Audrina Patridge) cheating boyfriend, Garrett (Matt O'Leary) results in death, they hide the body down an old mine shaft. Arguments for going to the police and for not going to the police are heatedly exchanged, leaving the sisters in disagreement and the body still hidden; until eight months later, at graduation time, when their ringing cell phones tease them with a picture of the lug wrench. Does someone else know or is it Garrett succumbing to remorse?

Ellie (Rumer Willis), the bookish one--she wears glasses--starts to crack under the strain, while Claire (Jamie Chung) gets hot and not so bothered with her boyfriend in the hot tub. Meanwhile, the keep-it-warm-between-my-legs Chugs, (Margo Harshman) goes in search of prescription-strength fun only her shrink can provide, but finds a nasty mouthful instead. Chugs is my favorite. I was sorry to see her go so soon. The death by bottle is not pretty or humorous and so smoothly executed it kicks off the slashing with promise. Hendler draws more suspense out of the subsequent killings, dwelling over each dispatch with a fine eye to gruesome--but not gory--detail. I do not want to spoil the hot tub and bubbles everywhere walk and stalk for you, but I will leave you to imagine how a misused flare gun can brightly light up the bubbles and a sister at the same time. Another moment to savor is when Claire's hot to trot boyfriend Mickey (Maxx Hennard) has a fatal bottoms-up interlude with a dumbwaiter.

Who the killer turns out to be is not much of a brain-twister: Hendler telegraphs the identity throughout by emphasizing a certain handy feature available on most cell phones these days. But the fun is getting to that point, even with the preposterous time it takes for the fire engines to finally show up and the somewhat jittery camera eye. 

Zombie's Halloween II (2009) Michael Myers' Grudge Takes Shape

Rating 4 of 7: Very Good

I did not expect Rob Zombie to surprise me with Halloween II. Beyond his unavoidably repetitious metal-rockers, hippie-hillbillies, and tattoo-punkstering of Laurie Strode and Haddonfield Illinois' social set, miring Halloween II in a seedy glaze of grunge, strip joints, and Alice Cooper and Frank Zappa posters, he surprised me.

Probably many horror fans are surprised, too, and will be dismayed or downright violently annoyed with this bold mashing of J-horror's quintessential rage-filled imagery into Myers' endless angst-driven slashing ouevre.

In this brilliantly audacious diversion from John Carpenter's classic bogeyman, Michael Myers (the towering Tyler Mane) becomes a deadly juggernaut guided by a mysterious other embodied in the white gossamer spectre of his dead mother and her majestic white stallion. But to what purpose? Is she a vision of Shiva the Destroyer? Or is she a demonic chaos seeking succor? Or is she simply a confabulation in Myers' tortured mind? Zombie builds mystery by confounding us with this and an unexpected folly a deux between Myers and his sister, which now takes the Halloween franchise into a strikingly new direction.

Have Trunk Will Travel The Collector (2009)

ZC Rating 3 of 7: Good

At the end of The Collector I felt cheated. I cannot tell you why as that would give the ending away. But here is a clue; in Sabotage, Alfred Hitchcock regretted blowing up the bus. While he wanted the audience to feel uncomfortable from the buildup of tension between the boy, the bus, and the bomb ticking away, he felt he cheated the audience by blowing up the bus, killing the boy and everyone on it. In a word, his payoff for putting the audience through the wringer was negative, not positive. Hitchcock realized he let his audience down: no one wanted to see the bomb go off after all that suspense.

In combining Cube-like lethal traps with a hint of Saw-styled ingenuity and malice, and yet another relentless masked-slasher victimizing a family in unsavory, bloodily grisly ways, Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton (Feast) do their darnedest to pulverize the audience with fears of helplessness, torture, and death. They almost succeed, but choose to blow up the bus by going the usual horror franchise-building byway at the end with a negative payoff. In their case, however, the bomb takes the form of a trunk for the one he always takes.

The Last House on the Left (2009) To What Purpose?

ZC Rating 3 of 7: Good (And to the idiot who walked in at the movie's midway point, sat down in front of me, and proceeded to chat on your cell phone until I had to tell you Miss Manners was looking for you in the lobby, I would have loved to have set that microwave on high with your poppin' head in it.)

This film, for example, which as I write has inspired only one review (by "Fright"), has generated a spirited online discussion about whether you can kill someone by sticking their head in a microwave. Many argue that a microwave won't operate with the door open. Others cite an early scene establishing that the microwave is "broken." The question of whether one should microwave a man's head never arises (from Roger Ebert's review of  The Last House on the Left, 2009).

Of course, whether one should turn on the kitchen garbage disposal to mangle a person's hand into bloody pulp, accompanied with stereophonic screams of agony, could be another philosophical question to ponder in this vicious--yet, oddly, less terrifying--remake of Wes Craven's gut-wrenching 1972 interpretation of Ingmar Bergman's The Virgin Spring. But philosophical ponderance is not often measured into horror movies as much as sadistic inhumanity. So to what purpose do I bathe in blood, along with the innocent and the damned, on this hellish, stormy, night of vengeance?

The criminals who eventually rape and attempt to murder Mari (Sarah Paxton) are certainly depraved enough to warrant ill-treatment by her parents. But how far can her parents go before becoming just as depraved as her tormentors, and why do the rest of us choose to watch it all happen? For the suspense? There is none. For the terror? We know what is going to happen so there is no terror. To watch normal people act abnormally when driven beyond the edge of reason? A strong possibility here, especially if those abnormal acts include suffering, redder gore, and darker death; key thematic elements in many horror movies.

At least Ingmar Bergman put God squarely in the middle of his story, forcing guilt and shame on the parents who mete out vengeance to their daughter's killers. You will not find emphasis on a divine presence in this latest incarnation of a story that really did not need to be retold. No guilt or shame, either. There is lots of ungodly loud, screeching music though, like bones dragged across a chalkboard. Unless you are entertained by the  creative ways directors and writers emphasize these thematic elements, there is not much here for you. But if you are, you will especially enjoy the totally gratuitous ending involving a microwave and a deliberately paralyzed sadist. If you've seen Gremlins, you know what to expect.

Leading up to the poppin' head gag, as I like to call it, are the usual characters found mucking about in horror cinema; there is the psycho-witch-bitch girlfriend, Sadie (creepily played by Riki Lindhome), who, I am sure, pulled the arms off of little boys (and girls) while she was growing up; led by the snake-oil-salesman cool, sociopathic boyfriend, Krug (Garret Dillahunt), who easily attracts psycho-witch-bitch type women; followed by the tag-along guy, Francis (weasily played by Fred Podowski) who likes to watch as the other two go medieval-crazy on their victims.There is also the withdrawn, confused son of Krug, Justin (youthfully played by Spencer Treat Clark), who is not all that comfortable associating with the other three. A brief mention of his dead mom makes you wonder how she died.

Setting calamity in motion is Mari's friend Paige (perkily played by Martha MacIsaac), who insists on following Justin back to his motel room to sample his stash of primo weed. Mari, tired of waiting in the car, enters the room and finds Justin and Paige puffing away. Mari gives into Paige's insistence to join them, and starts puffing away, too. This being a horror film, you know Paige and Mari must now suffer and die for smoking weed, even if it is the good stuff. Justin's severely maladjusted family enters the room to fulfill that invariable rule.

Taken into the woods, Mari and Paige are dutifully tormented, Mari is humiliated and raped, and Paige is murdered. While not as emotionally disturbing as Wes Craven originally directed it in 1972, their torment is still brutal and unpleasant to watch. Unable to leave the way they came, Krug, Sadie, Francis, and Justin head through the dark woods to the last house on the left (actually, it looked like it was the only house on that road), where Mr. and Mrs. Collingwood, Mari's parents, put them up for the night. Barely alive, Mari manages to crawl back home and alert her parents to the true natures of their house guests. Much blood-soaked mayhem ensues.

I hope this is the last version of The Virgin Spring we will be tormented with. While the acting, direction, and writing are all very well done, fans of horror have been taken down this road too often already.

It Takes Heart My Bloody Valentine 3D

ZC Rating 4 of 7: Very Good

Cinema in three dimensions does for the slasher movie what black and white does for film noir; it provides the best atmosphere and in your face vantage point to see all the gore,  join  in the  screaming mayhem, and easily count the number of mangled bodies piling up.

Three 3D-enhanced images stay with me after watching My Bloody Valentine 3D: the sickening way one victim's shovel-sliced head, bisected at the mouth, slowly slides down the sharp blade toward the audience;  the stark beam of the headlight darting about in the gloom of the movie theater as the gas masked, pickaxe-wielding, miner stalks his next victim; and the vivid Utz Potato Chip bags displayed prominently on an endcap behind Sarah and Megan as they run their hearts out--to keep them beating in their chests--down a grocery aisle. I could, of course, mention other images that come to mind, like gaping chest cavities, a blood-dripping, lifeless hand so close you can almost touch it, and one eye-popping surprise--courtesy of, once again, that über-utilitarian, death-dealing pickaxe, but it is a slasher film after all. So much carnage from such a simple tool is quite surprising; of course, clothes dryers can also be useful as vividly shown in this movie.

My Bloody Valentine 3D does not stop at the dozen or so pickaxe techniques for artfully--if messily--dispatching the careless townsfolk of Harmony, the place where ten years earlier Harry Warden went on a killing spree, in the Hanniger Mining Company's Tunnel No. 5, that puts a Cuisinart's slicing and dicing ability to shame. It heaps on the pounding, relentless music suitable for an unstoppable killer on the loose, who pickaxes hearts out of chests and stuffs them in heart-shaped candy boxes, with love, every Valentine's Day, and unabashedly oggles drop dead gorgeous, screaming in terror, women running naked in stiletto heels. For a remake of a minor Canadian slasher movie from 1981, director Patrick Lussier and writers do their best to bring back the unbridled yet simple construct of the slasher genre: violent graphic death, people running for their lives,  more violent graphic death. They outdid themselves here.

With actors like Jensen Ackles (Supernatural) and veteran Tom Atkins, as well as a talented cast taking it all very seriously, the story is brutally lean and mean. Bridging the 1981 film's comparatively tamer carnage with its more flagrantly bloodier remake, an early scene,  where body parts are liberally distributed in a hospital after Harry Warden wakes up from his coma in a bad mood, transitions neatly into the present, which in this case is ten years later. It is interesting how horror movies often rely on anniversaries and ten years later-styled storylines to pick up the tragic action, isn't it?

Tom Hanniger (Ackles) returns to town after a long absence, to sell the mine where he caused the tragic accident that started Warden on his killing-spree. With his return, the killing begins again, and the victims include those who survived Warden's butchery ten years before.  In due time, secrets are revealed, and Tom and Sheriff Palmer (Kerr Smith) argue over Palmer's wife Sarah (Jaime King), who is showing rekindled ardor for Tom, her former boyfriend. As suspicion grows with the blood flow, Tom, Sarah, and Sheriff Axel return to the mine where it all began. They are not alone.

My Bloody Valentine 3D has the distinction of being the first horror movie to utilize the technique to its fullest; namely by highlighting gore and making sure to stick the audience's face into it, or toss it into the audience's lap as often as possible. Given the highly effective visual intimacy that cinema 3D naturally lends to the horror genre, can 4D be far behind?

And for those parents who brought their young children to watch a movie like this, I ask simply "What the hell were you thinking?" If anyone deserves a pickaxe through their dumb skulls, you certainly do.

Home On The Strange The Strangers (2008)

ZC Rating 5 of 7: Excellent

The message director Bryan Bertino seems to be implying in The Strangers is not to misuse technology; doing so can get you killed. Two misused cell phones, one misused house phone, and a misused car and ham radio later, he clearly illustrates why in this latest iteration of the home-invading stalker movie. With similarities to 2006's European Them, Bertino's masked assailants lay siege to the desolate home and psyches of an already distraught couple, entering the premises at will and often standing quietly in the background watching their freaked-out victims, Kristen (Liv Tyler) and James (Scott Speedman).

After his marriage proposal doesn't go the way he anticipated it would, James and Kristen head to his family's vacation house at four in the morning. With red rose petals strewn across the bathtub and bed, and a bottle of champaign less chilled than the soured marriage proposal, both try to reconcile the awkwardness by getting frisky instead. Of course, as you and I know, any hint of sex in a horror film spells trouble with a capital T. Right on que, a nerve-rattling pounding on the front door ends their reconciliation. Outside, a Squeaky Fromme-voiced girl, her face hidden in the darkness created by an unscrewed porch light, is looking for someone. Maybe it's me, but how can James not get a clue even when he screws the porch light back in after the girl goes away? Clueless victims in horror films make matters much worse, as you and I also know.

An empty pack of cigarettes sends him driving to the corner store for a refill, but the corner store is miles away, leaving Kristen all alone. Let's recap, shall we? A really creepy girl shows up at the front door asking--in a very creepy voice-- if some guy they don't know is home. Oddly enough, the porch light is unscrewed so her features are hidden in darkness. Oh, and let's not forget the incessant and really, really loud pounding that preceded her appearance: a pounding such a diminutive girl could not have possibly done on her own. Do you see where I'm going with this? apparently James doesn't. Maybe Kristen is right in not marrying such a dope.

While he's away, little squeaky comes back, more annoying and creepy than before, with more threatening pounding on the front door. Bertino adds a subtle shifting of the camera, right to left, left to right, as it focuses on the unsettled Kristen, reflecting her growing distress. Then the misuse of technology begins.

Instead of calling the police, Kristen calls James--you know, the dope who left her alone in the first place for an expensive pack of cigarettes. Oops, should have charged that cell phone. She plugs it in and goes for the house phone instead. Not much luck with that either. Gee, I wonder why? Technology can be such a bother when making a horror movie. Isolation is essential when creating the right mood and increasing helplessness. You can't have good horror if potential victims can make quick phone calls for help, or jump in cars and drive away from trouble. Better to make sure they're remiss in using all that life-saving, help-bringing, techno-crap; best to eliminate it right away, leaving them powerless. Dead batteries and poor cellular service are two ways to squelch this cell phone empowerment dilemma. Bertino uses them and more in nice, too-easy, techno-swipes enabled through poor decisions, as the strangers silently hover, surprisingly close, in the background, taking full advantage of James and Kristen's shattered composure and wilting thought processes.

James returns, but leaves his cell phone in the car. Even after Kristen explains the weird things happening, the crazy noises, and stuff in the house moving from where it was left, he's slow to realize they should be driving off like the devil was shooting white-hot flames after them. When he does decide it's time to leave, his car is tidily put out of commission, sending them running back into the house where their attackers can enter at will.

In desperation, James remembers the gun. In the best argument for the NRA put on screen, he fumbles trying to use it, load it, and aim it. The axe chopping through the front door adds a sense of urgency, so he figures it all out pretty quick and shoots. Unfortunately, he misses. But he does have a shotgun and lots of shells, right, so they're safe now. Let the intruders come. He's ready. Sort of. Then again, no, not really.

The home invasion continues, and James and Kristen continue to work against each other and misuse any technology they come into contact with that could possibly help them. Bertino's grim, helter-skelter-styled, 1970's-toned, stalking-slashers-treating-you-bad "because you were home" directorial and writing debut relies on the usual dodges--unwise separation, getting yourself hurt when you can least afford to, and mistaken identity--but through his "uneasy" camera, use of music and loud, incessant, irritating noises, and the movement of his three masked intruders inside and outside the home, builds the terror and suspense. Roger Ebert would have given Bertino one star but upped it to one and a half when he found out this was his directorial debut. I'll go one better and say he's earned two stars for mixing tried and true formulas into an effective thriller. The Strangers will make you double-check your door at night and sleep just a bit more uneasily, even with the lights on--and keep your cell phone charged and close by at all times.

Carved (A Slit-Mouthed Woman, 2007)

Hanako-san and the Toilet

Hanako-san's ghost haunts the restrooms of many schools in Japan. She appears if her name is called, but you really don't want to do that; especially on a dare, late at night, when her darker, revenge-filled spirit is at full strength. She died from a broken heart, from constant bullying by her peers, and waits patiently for the time when her tormentors will have to go. School children in Japan were so frightened by this urban legend, many could not go alone to the toilet; where Hanako-san patiently waits. It is said that if you listen closely, you can hear her whispered curses echoing softly off the tiles...

ZC Rating 3 of 7: Good

Japanese urban legends are engrossing, aren't they? While similar in many respects to American ones, they tease reason loose from the mundane, and play on our fears of unrelenting  supernatural evil and contagion, spiraling out of control in a way that uniquely plays off the community and tradition-based culture of Japan. In America, the witch, Bloody Mary, simply rips your face off if you're suckered into saying her name thirteen times out loud, while looking in a candle-lit mirror in the dead of night. In Japan, she'd be the ghost of some mistreated woman who rips your face off, then pops up unexpectedly to rip all of your friends' faces off, then possesses someone close, just when you think it's over, to continue ripping faces off anyone coming into contact with you.

And she would most likely hold a large pair of blood-dripping scissors to squeeze every last drop of terror out of you as she silently floats across the floor in a greenish haze, anxious to snip snip snip your flesh.

Director and co-writer Kôji Shiraishi's, A Slit-Mouthed Woman (released as Carved in the USA by Tartan Video), uses the Kuchisake-onna urban legend as its source. In Japanese mythology, Kuchisake-onna is the evil spirit of a woman mutilated by her samurai husband, who cuts her mouth open from ear to ear as retribution for her infidelity, or pride, depending on which version of the legend you prefer.

Going Dutch Can Be Murder Slaughter Night (2006)

Tap Dancing to Hell and a Pot o'Gold
Part 4 (Part 3) 

ZC Rating 3 of 7: Good

"Ya know," said Curly Joe, "that supernatural slasher film from the Netherlands just popped into my head. Must be all this walkin’ through these dark, creepy tunnels; reminds me of the old mine they were trapped in."

"You mean Slaughter Night?" I asked.

"Yep, that's the one"

"Yes," I said, pausing to hit my flashlight, hoping to make it a tad brighter. "At least we aren't being chased by the ghost of some maniacal killer who cuts people’s heads off."

What sounded like a maniacal laugh echoed down the tunnel, bouncing off the walls with a screech like gritty chalk on a blackboard. We looked at each other, then walked faster in the opposite direction from where the sound came from. Never hurts to play safe, I always say.

 

The backstory within Slaughter Night would have been a more engrossing movie, but overall this 1980s-styled slasher is still a Dutch treat with good acting, an eerie story, and a moderate pace moving the action along. Although the overuse of shaky-cam blurs the action at times (probably intentionally to lessen the strain on the budget), and unexpectedly jarring point-of-view scenes along with a few head-scratching plot logic lapses weigh the movie down, the earnest victim by victim mow down is lively enough.

There's something evil afoot in the Province of Limburg as children are mysteriously kidnapped. When the latest victim is snatched a clue is left behind, leading the local constabulary to the home of one Andries Martiens (Robert Eleveld)--just as he slices off the head of another poor kid. Martiens' basement is definitely not a rec room in the usual sense: there are heads mounted on poles stuck in the earth, and lots of candles cast a nice warm glow over the glistening , maggot-crawling faces of the dead. It's Voodoo and Satanic Mass nastiness Martiens has been conducting, paid with ritual slaughter to buy his passport to Hell and back again. He's pissed his parents died without leaving him an inheritance and he's hellbent on making the trip to annoy them into revealing where the family fortune is. With four heads for the compass points and four heads to represent the elements, he's off accruing all the frequent flyer miles he can between Hell and Earth.

What a backstory!

Unfortunately this filled-with-possibilities period piece ends too quickly with Martiens' capture and we jump to the present day into a frenzied nightclub scene. Kristel (Victoria Koblenko) and her High School buddies are out partying, but when her car refuses to start, she calls Dad (Martijn Oversteegen) to pick them up. One of her friends, Lies (Carolina Dijkhuizen), the Tarot-card reading seer, accidentally mentions Kris' plans to leave town. After he drops her friends off, Dad and Kris argue themselves into a fatal car wreck. Kris blames herself for her dad’s death. After the funeral, her mom asks her to go to Belgium to pick up her Dad's manuscript. Sure, why not? I suppose FedEx would have been too expensive. He was working on a book about serial killers, writing it at the mine museum where Martiens did his dirty work. Packing her friends in the car along with her guilt, they head to the mine.

A montage of road trip antics set to rock music--what the director considered rock music, anyway-- is mercifully brief and they arrive at the mine. She finds her Dad’s tape recorder and listens as he explains the Satanic aspects of Martiens' serial killing and the need for eight heads to open the gateway to Club Hell.

She also finds a Ouija board--always useful for getting into trouble in a horror movie--a heavy and rather large music box, and his thick manuscript. She stuffs all this in her all ready cumbersome backpack, and LUGS IT on a last-minute tour of the historic mine. Her friends join her. They huddle around the tour guide as he tells them how Martiens' met his end in the very tunnels they will now walk through. A condemned murderer, he was given one slim chance at life if he could survive being a "fireman," the role an unlucky convict played years ago, sent into methane-filled tunnels to ignite the firedamp. He didn’t play the role for long.

A gimmicky and jarring use of point of view has them mugging the lens, ruining an otherwise atmospheric tableau in another montage of kids running wild down in the mine; until they realize they've been locked in.

To while away the time they whip out the Ouija board from Kris’ backpack to communicate with Martiens, the maniacal, head-removing butcher since they have nothing better to do. Lies explains the intricacies of the planchette and board. In little time they summon Martiens who promptly possesses one of the idiots. She takes out the tour guide first.

Going through the horror movie victim's litany of things-that-will-certainly-get-you-killed, her friends start getting the axe, the pick, and the shovel on the receiving end. In-between the mayhem and carnage, Estrild and Kris whip out the Ouija board again to dial up Dad for some fatherly advice on coping with Martiens.

Dad’s cryptic advice stymies them for a bit. While they figure it out, Martiens keeps possessing her friends one by one and chasing after the others. Unnecessary shaky-cam fuzziness ruins the details of death, but the panic-acting is frenzied to a turn, providing satisfying denouements at proper terminal velocity.

There's one more moment when the Ouija messaging board comes into play, helping Kris realize why the music box she's been lugging around is so heavy (and should have been left in the car except the plot needed it here).

All in all, while Slaughter Night uses gimmicky camera work and the standard horror movie mechanics of shock, drop, and die, it's still watchable and involving.

Part 5