From Zombos Closet

JM Cozzoli

A horror and movie fan with a blog. Scary.

League of Reluctant Reviewers: The Blood Shed (2007)

/ LORR / Leave a Comment

Bloodshed

Another sordid record taken from the annals of the League of Reluctant Reviewers. Brace yourself for this one.

Although the chandelier was unlit, light from the brightly burning logs in the large fireplace shimmered through its crystals, sending beams of white into the high, dark corners of the ceiling, across the walls, and across the richly carpeted floor. Facing the fireplace stood a high-backed Chippendale wing chair with exquisite cabriole legs. The chair was upholstered in the same deep color as the carpet. A short man briskly entered the room and walked toward the chair.

“Ah, Mr. Bolton, you are early.” A small, stark white hand briefly appeared on the right side of the chair, flicked the ashes off a long cigar, then disappeared. “It must be a serious matter then?”

Bolton looked down at the ashes piled in the bronze ashtray resting on the oval-topped trestle table beside the chair. He pulled a DVD case from his worn messenger’s pouch. He addressed the back of the wing chair.

“Yes, it’s a serious matter. Seventy-three minutes of bloody hillbilly debauchery that defies sanity, convention, and good people’s decency. Bluntly put, it’s schlock with a capital S.”

“Excellent, I love a challenge!” said the voice, accompanied by a single clap of hands.

From the left side of the wing chair a stark white hand reached out expectantly. Bolton was relieved to hand over the DVD.

“You will find sherry and a polished Stiegel glass by the settee. We will be a short time, I’m sure.”

Bolton removed his overcoat. He sat down, poured the sherry, and waited, as he normally did, for the review that no one else would do; no one, that is, except for the League of Reluctant Reviewers.

 

What are we to do with Alan Rowe Kelly, then? The man is incorrigible. What infantilistic need drives him to dress like an aging, demonic Little Lulu, carry wicked-sharp garden shears, and wreak gory havoc worse than the dogs of war? Why does he find subject matter like inbred New Jersey hillbillies with a penchant for cannibalism and sadistic nut-cracking with pliers—not Walnuts, mind you—gleefully choreographed to the tune of the innocent Little Lulu song (and my sincere apologies to Marjorie Henderson Buell), fit for decent horror fans?

As the grotesque Beefteena Bullion, who dreams of becoming America’s Next Top Model, he charges ahead with a nightmarish blend of over the top gore, grievous over-acting, and unsavory, outlandish scenes that play parody with too much off-the-wall seriousness. From the shallow end of the genre pool he drags it up with elephant stomps, falling short of delivering unnerving terror or witty black humor.

Yet his compositions are executed with a keen eye for ominous camera angles, foreboding, lingering shots of dread, and the conventions of glistening viscera, sadism with a laugh, and uncouth characters overstuffing this independent horror.

In sum, The Blood Shed is art-house schlock that will appeal to some, be avoided by most, and provide ample forums for discussion by both. Given a healthy budget and a mainstream script, no doubt Kelly would be a force to reckon with. But until that time comes, if ever, we must, reluctantly,
direct our critical attention to The Blood Shed.

On the plus side, Sno Cakes (Susan Adriensen) is fun to watch as she and Beefteena chit-chat, sell sour Lemonade, and join in the murder spree with reckless abandon. With her corny drawl, over-done makeup, trashy clothes, and silly hairdo, she’s repulsive yet oddly sexy and funny; a bright spot in this drive-in disappointment.

And it’s not that the acting is bad, it’s more a case of story-telling for the sake of being as outrageous and naughty as possible. Rhyme and reason do not put in an appearance here; not when Beefteena playfully pulls her little stuffed rodent Flapjack on a string as she skips through the woods; or when a local brat is “accidentally” pulled apart in a tug of war; or when dad pulls the shotgun trigger to shoot down airborne squirrels, with comic close-ups of the rigor-mortised rodents lying on the ground, while he and the boys whoop it up.

When the local sheriff’s most important asset is attacked with a pair of pliers, the absurdity becomes more disgusting than put-on-funny. Kelly works this gory theater of blood angle with heaviness throughout, putting The Blood Shed out of the range of parody, satire, comedy, or even serious horror because he doesn’t stick enough with any one of them to make a difference.

Beefteena’s climactic birthday party scene—why is there always a deviant party or wacko dinner scene in these inbred, cannibalistic, hillbilly movies?—with decaying bodies of past victims wearing party hats seated around a festive table, and terrified future victims waking up to the festivity. It’s a mélange of grossness, bright colors, Little Lulu song playing, and humorless torture. The buzz of the electric carving knife while it’s used on the long-suffering sheriff, and Beefteena’s ire at the modeling agency personnel who laughed at her photo session induce nausea throughout this ham-fisted spectacle of tasteless scripting.

Yet throughout this repugnant romp you will find quietly competent cinematography by Bart Mastronardi, who frames each scene with loving precision, making colorful use of inexpensive string lights in unusual settings to cast a deceptively warming palette across scenes of depravity. The resulting dissonance creates a disorienting atmosphere that invites you in, but subtly warns you to stay away.

I heartily recommend you stay away unless you just want to enjoy the scenery. Watching paint dry would be a more productive expenditure of your seventy-three minutes; possibly not as much fun for some of you, but definitely more productive.

The Victim (2006)

/ Movies (Ghostly) / 1 Comment


The-VictimZombos Says: Very Good

“Maybe you can reenact the mystery?” said Lawn Gisland. He stretched his unusually long legs out in front of him and yawned. “Like Ting, ‘cept less’n the melodrama a mite.” He pulled at his cookie duster. “Say, Zoc, squeeze me ‘nother one of those cappurino’s, por favor.”

“Sure pardner,” I said, firing up the old cappuccino steam engine. The sound of pent-up steam escaping echoed through the cinematorium.

Zombos continued to look high and low for his eyeglasses, holding up our viewing of the Thai horror movie, The Victim. We were half-way through it before Zombos needed to hit the toilet; three large mocha cappuccinos were a record for him. When he came back he realized he misplaced his second pair of eyes.

Lawn stood up, all six feet and three inches of him, and joined the search. Having starred in
numerous Westerns on the little screen during the 1950s and 1960s, he and Zombos went way back together. He had hung up his spurs and retired to Florida to wrestle gators for the tourists. Getting bored with that he scratched his itch by touring as a circus cowboy, doing trick shooting and fancy riding. He was visiting the mansion while the Smith and Walloo Brothers 3-in-1 tent show set up somewhere in Long Island. For a man his age, he didn’t show it. Zombos often joked that Lawn must have a decrepit looking portrait in his attic like Dorian Gray.

I bet he did.

“Here. Wet your whistle while you search.” I handed the cappuccino to him. He downed it in three gulps. Something crunched sharply under his right Black Jack Hornback Alligator boot heel as he handed me his empty mug.

Zombos froze, his eyes widened.

“Found them,” said Lawn. He stooped to pick up them up and handed the mangled eyeglasses back to Zombos.

After I hastily retrieved Zombos’ second pair from the library we continued our viewing of The Victim.

 

Considering Thailand’s strong superstitions about ghostly phenomena, it’s a wonder Ghost Hunters Jason and Grant haven’t visited that
country yet. In The Victim, spirits are everywhere, especially as the sprightly aspiring actor Ting (Pitchanart Sakakorn) goes around reenacting the victims’ parts in real-life crime scene recreations, places where bad karma is rife.

One spirit in particular piques her interest, and challenges her acting skills to the fullest as she reenacts the circumstances surrounding the disappearance and death of Meen, a former Miss Thailand.

It soon appears that Ting is losing herself as she prepares for the reenactment of the crime, succumbing to violent flashbacks involving Meen, and disturbing, sometimes bloody, visitations by earthbound ghosts looking for help or vengeance.

The ghostly  imagery, directed by Monthon Arayangkoon, moves between poetically eerie glimpses of a genuinely unnerving twilight world filled with pitiable and vengeful spirits at arm’s reach, and the usual shocks we are now accustomed to. The pacing slowly moves the story along, and the interplay of bright colors across light and dark scenes, contrasting with darker-toned scenes earlier in the movie, provides visual cuing for the sudden story within the story transition. Just when you think you know what’s going on, bingo! you scramble for the remote to go back and see if you missed something.

In an unusual move for Thai horror, Arayangkoon pulls the rug out from under Ting, Meen, and the whole criminal scene investigation storyline by beginning a new storyline, creating a story you thought was happening within the story that is happening. While it starts out as a ghost story, it morphs into a “who’s the ghost?” story, and even then, not satisfied with changing Ting’s role completely, and meddling with the principal ghost involved, the reasons for all the vengeful havoc befalling Ting and others is revealed to be entirely different from what it seemed to be.

The Victim is an ambitious, more complex movie than usually comes out of T-Horror cinema, and it can be confusing, especially with
the little helpful English subtitles that fail to capture the nuances of the Thai language; but it’s still a pleasantly surprising departure from the usually straightforward horror fare we’ve come to expect from Asia. The cultural oddity, for us, with Thai police reenacting crime scenes using actors and the alleged criminal to provide the press with a photo op, and perhaps the spirits of victims with a modicum of peace, separates us from the business as usual horror shown in American cinema, and puts us off-balance immediately.

Drawing strength from its cultural perspectives, the movie draws on real crimes, and was shot on the actual locations where victims met their violent deaths. Building on this unpleasant reality, the movie’s artificial reality has an earnest sense of its supernatural underpinnings. The carefully accentuated coloration of these locations, Ting’s flashbacks, and the ghostly phenomena that befalls unsuspecting victims creates stark contrasts against each other, especially the later scenes, using a carefully executed palette that is above the over-used blanched fluorescent lighting simplicity seen in Saw, Dark Corners, and other American hard horror endeavors.

With the revelation of the second story, entering on the heels of a revealed lesbian relationship, the movie becomes a who’s next? more than a whodunit, and characters are powerless against a malevolent spirit that neither a traditional Thai spirit house or magic-bestowing tattoo inked with a bamboo needle will appease or avert. In one notable scene, framed through a narrow doorway, a pair of ghostly hands, at the ends of stretching…stretching…stretching arms, reach out to grab one unsuspecting victim.

Watch this movie late at night, when all is quiet and the world is right, and you just may find yourself checking to see if the front door is locked. Again, and again. Just remember that doors don’t stop ghosts, especially when you’re alone and in the dark.

With them.

Frankenstein Versus the Creature
From Blood Cove (2005)

/ Movies (Bad) / Leave a Comment

Zombos Says: Poor (even with the lap dance)

Disclaimer: The following review is filled with cheap shots, cheesy double-entendres, and puerile, trashy writing. Read it at your own risk.

 

Rain began to sideslip across the windowpanes and the bedroom grew darker. Zombos alternately
draped himself over his bed, the settee, and the cushy leather wing chairs. We were at our wits end, he from a bad cold and the doldrums, and I from wet-nursing him. We had exhausted the claret, the sherry, and now our beloved green fairy—Absinthe—was almost gone. The situation was becoming intolerable. The thunder storm refused to let up, dwindle down, or simply go away.

Glenor Glenda broke up the tedium by bringing in the morning mail, then went about her tidying up ways. Among the bills, personal correspondence, and advertisements (Zombos loves receiving those reassuring adverts about cemetery plots, dirt cheap), there was a soggy package from William Wincler, director of Frankenstein vs. the Creature from Blood Cove.

“Well, it’s in black and white,” I said, unwrapping it. Zombos loves black and white movies. I waved it in front of him to tempt him.

He waved his hand in the air while blowing his nose. I took that for a yes. I popped the disc into the DVD player and poured out the last drops of Absinthe.

“Lap dance special?” Zombos said as the menu choices appeared. “What is that?”

I shrugged and clicked the remote to select it. The both of us were quickly nonplussed.

“My word, I suppose that gives new meaning to the phrase ‘Frankenstein’s Monster,’ ” I said.

“Good lord,” said Zombos, “if Zimba sees this she will pickle me. Quick, select something else.”

The rain was coming down in bucket-fulls by the time we started the main feature. At Zombos’ request, I held onto the remote and positioned myself close to the door, just in case Zimba popped in during one of the numerous ‘talent and asset’ cheesecake scenes. Frankenstein’s Monster and the Creature were not the only
big monsters in this movie.

We watched the Creature, a biogenetically-engineered one, escape the mad scientists’ lair by jogging out the front door and gate, heading straight for the beach.

“Did the Creature just walk out the front door and gate?” asked Zombos.

“Well, no, exactly. Technically, he jogged out the front door and gate,” I corrected him.

Loopy scientists, dressed in their Clorox-white lab coats, drinking coffee after dinner and chit-chatting, decide, on a whim, to go and find Frankenstein’s Monster to continue their experiments now that the Creature had escaped and is sun-bathing on the beach.

They travel to Shellvania, which probably lies next to Exxonia, in the Gulf of Transylvania. Faster than you can say boo! they easily find the Monster in an unmarked grave using their trusty pocket-sized Reanimated-Tissue Traces Finder.

“What in hell is that thing? Is that made out of Legos?”asked Zombos.

“It does look like it,” I said. “Why, just last week at Walmart I saw Lego kits for Star Wars and Transformers. Be easy to make a Reanimated-Tissue Traces Finder, I’d think.

“Amazing,” said Zombos. “In my day, it was Slinkies, Silly-Putty, or Mr.Potato Head.”

While digging up the Frankenstein Monster, a werewolf attacks them, is frightened off, then attacks them again—in broad daylight. After being viciously assaulted, sort of, by the well-groomed werewolf, and shooting it dead, the unperturbed scientists decide to chat on and on about its medical condition. Eventually they go back to digging.

“I would have been hauling ass right about then,” I said.

Zombos nodded in agreement.

“Hey, look, the werewolf is Eddie Munster all grown up.”

We watched the cursed thing transform back to its human shape. “No wonder the werewolf looked like his Woof Woof doll.”

Back in Los Angeles (I wonder how they got Frankenstein’s Monster past Homeland Security?), the mad scientists set to work on brainwashing the Monster to follow only their orders.

What? That’s what mad scientists do.

Meanwhile, Percy, Bill and Dezzirae are off to the deserted beach—where the Creature ran off to—to shoot a photo spread for Kitty Kat magazine, highlighting Gabrielle’s bosomy assets.

“Lord! Now those monsters are scary!” said Zombos.

Getting Creature-is-near vibes, mayhem ensues, sending them hustling back to the Kitty Kat magazine office, but their editor sends them right back to the beach for more photos; which leads to our next saucy and well-endowed model, Beula, making the mistake of swimming topless when danger is nearby. She obviously hasn’t seen Jaws
or even Piranha. The Creature pops up to bore us to death—oops, I meant claw her to death.

More mayhem ensues as the Creature follows our panic-stricken trio to the parking lot, then to the—I didn’t see this one coming—mad scientists lair. Calling for help by patiently ringing the doorbell, Bill, Percy and Dezzirae are invited inside, only to become prisoners because they’ve seen too much.

By this time, so have we.

Frankenstein’s Monster is sent to kick the Creature’s butt, but instead gets his butt kicked. Mad Dr. Lazaroff (Larry Butler) helps him recuperate. He also receives a  visit from the ghost of Doctor Frankenstein.

“Is that Ed Wood?” asked Zombos as the ghostly apparition appears to Dr. Lazaroff.

“Can’t be, he’s not wearing an Angora sweater,” I said.

“Roger Corman, then?”

“Not dead yet,” I answered.

“Oh, right. It must be old Henry himself, then,” Zombos concluded.

“Story aside, the cinematography is good, don’t you think?” I asked. “The action scenes between the Monster and the Creature lack bite, though. Seems more like they’re having a hissy fit.”

Zombos agreed. “The pacing is non-existent. The camera angles are fair and bosomy.”

When Selena Silver goes into her shamelessly gratuitous pole dance routine in a seedy bar, all hell breaks loose when Frankenstein’s Monster enters. It’s pointless for me to describe how he got there in the first place, or why we’re even there because this whole production is pointless.

“Is that Ron Jeremy?” asked Zimba, standing at the door.

“Why yes, I think it—” Zombos turned a shade paler than he normally is.

I sensed a battle brewing, one more horrific than the cat-fight between the Monster and the Creature. I turned off the movie and hastily left the bedroom.

Wait a minute, I thought to myself as I paused at the top of the stairs, how did Zimba know what Ron Jeremy looked like?

Silent Hill (2006)
Dear Mr. Ebert

/ Movies (Horror) / 4 Comments

SilenthillZombos Says: Good 

Dear Mr. Ebert:

I am aghast that you, as mentioned in your review for Silent Hill, cannot describe the plot for this movie. I, as you, have not played the video game, but even so I think
the plot woefully obvious. Allow me to illustrate it, with as much brevity as
possible, so you can better appreciate the nuances of this gripping horror story.

But before I begin, I was wondering what you use for a light source when you take notes during the movie? I’ve tried various book-lights and pen-lights, but they’re either too bright, annoying those sitting around me, or too awkward to position, or uncomfortable to hold for long periods of time. I was lucky with Silent Hill as there was an Exit sign which cast just enough reddish light for me to see what I was writing. Of course, I had to sit on the floor next to it, but it wasn’t too uncomfortable; except for the occasional person stepping over me to go to the bathroom or concession stand. It’s a good thing I don’t review Disney movies as I’d have had the little monsters and their rude parents incessantly running back and forth, trampling me.

Getting back to Silent Hill, the plot is a simple one, often repeated in horror and science fiction movies. It even reminded me of the Star Trek episode, And the Children Shall Lead, where Gorgon, an evil alien who appears to children as a friendly angel (played by real-life attorney Melvin Belli), takes advantage of their naivety to further his evil plans. He uses them as a conduit for his nasty powers. Now instead of an evil alien, in Silent Hill we
have a kid, Alessa, who’s being used by a malevolent demon to exact malicious mischief and revenge on the titular (I always love using that word: it sounds so naughty) townspeople that did her wrong.

Now—oh, wait a minute—is it a demon that is using the girl as a conduit or is it actually the dark half of
the girl that’s taking revenge on the townsfolk? The convoluted explanation toward the last quarter of the movie, oddly done in an inappropriate grainy faux-home-movie-styled flashback, describes how badly the poor kid was
mistreated, and how she eventually split into a dark half who curses and destroys the town and everyone in it, and a good half the dark half sends away, only to call it back after nine years. But then why bother to send the
good half away, only to have it return after nine years?

I missed something. I better start over.

Dear Mr. Ebert,

I’m surprised that you, as mentioned in your review for Silent Hill, can’t describe the plot for this move. I, as you, have not played the video game, but even so, I think the plot fairly obvious. Allow me to illustrate, with as much brevity as possible, so you can better appreciate the nuances of this atmospheric horror story.

Alessa, born out of wedlock, is tormented by her classmates, victimized by the school janitor, and cooked like
a hot dog by a wacky religious cult. The poor kid, amazingly, survives all this rude treatment and, naturally, develops an evil personification that can reach out from her badly scarred and bed-ridden body to maliciously destroy her tormentors. No wonder there.

Then again, you could look at it this way: a demon from hell takes advantage of the poor girl’s revengeful,
hate-filled state of mind to kill everybody in town and lock their souls into a very imaginatively depicted hell-like limbo filled with endless horrific punishments.

After wreaking chaos and horror on the townsfolk, she realizes she’s been acting rather badly and decides to
create a good version of herself—pre-nastiness and all that, which she then sends away to live with
total strangers until precisely nine years pass. Demon Alessa—or just a hell-spawned demon along for the ride—then summons pre-nastiness Alessa (now Sharon) back to town to…to…what? And what’s that weird, confusing
backstory about a witch burned by townsfolk and the town being on fire for years and years?

Oh, bugger! I thought I had it this time. I have to start over.

Dear Mr. Ebert,

I’m not surprised that you can’t describe the plot for Silent Hill. It can be confusing to those not all that familiar with horror movies. Allow me to explain, with as much brevity as possible, so you can better appreciate the nuances of this visually stunning and creepy movie.

But first, I must give kudos to the art direction. It’s a wonderful creaturefest of makeup, CGI-enhanced sets and coloration, and icky-monster costuming that’s quite a treat to watch. The creatures are nightmarish, in that nifty
damned-to-hell kind of way, and the sounds and music when Alessa’s mom goes deeper into that cursed town—especially when the siren blares a warning that the town is going ‘into the darkness’—is goosebumps inducing, evoking quite a horrific mood; and those embers glowing on the damned creatures’ bodies, and all that falling ash and pall over the town—again, Dante himself couldn’t have done any better.

The script is another matter entirely. The dialog, for instance, is atrocious. Many of the lines are eye-rollingly bad. The acting also needed better acting, especially during the climactic Barkeresque Hellraiser-styled confrontation in the church between Alessa’s mom and those evil cult members.

Mom does manage to walk through a congregation of crazed, kid-roasting individuals with amazing ease, doesn’t she?

And the verbal showdown between them is so contextually dry; I wish I had Visine to squirt in my eyes each time
they rolled around those groaners.

While I’m at it, what’s with the black, skin-tight, leather uniform on the female motorcycle cop: I mean really, could you get it any tighter? How DOES she get on the motorcycle dressed in those tight pants? All she needs
to complete her ludicrous ensemble is a pair of stiletto heels. Her weak acting during her own barbecue scene in the church is also very disappointing, especially when she’s the one being barbecued. A little more Ouch! or Ooh!
would have provided more drama.

But before I go off on a tangent, let me explain the plot.

Alessa, a poor kid born out of wed-lock and who winds up roasted like a turkey by an evil religious cult while
HER mom puts up little resistance, takes revenge on the townspeople of Silent Hill.

Though I’m not sure if this occurred before the fires broke out in the mines or afterwards. I’m also not
sure how the witch burning, thirty years beforehand, fits into the events with Alessa. There seem to be a few storylines going on here and little explanation to tie them together.

Anyway, from her hospital bed, the badly scarred and immobile Alessa, either through sheer malevolent will
power, or by the assistance of a hellish demon (maybe the witch’s familiar?) destroys the town and its citizens, forcing their spirits to ‘live’ in a nightmare world that puts Dante’s Inferno to shame. They must endure not only the hellish Limbo they’ve been caught in, but also the Darkness that brings Pyramid Head (you need to have played the video game, but a guy with a pyramid on his head) and his agonies (give or take a few like in the video game) to torture them if they’re unlucky enough to be caught outside their only sanctuary, the church.

Alessa, for some reason, sends off a good version of herself as a baby, now named Sharon, and then summons
Sharon back to Silent Hill after nine years. Since Sharon sleepwalks and blurts out “Silent Hill” in her sleep a lot, her mom, casting caution to the wind, takes her to Silent Hill.

Not exactly sure why since Sharon’s scared sh+tless of the place. Perhaps her mom is just taking that confronting your fears thing a little too seriously?

Yes, Silent Hill! The one with all the well-known, evilly-cursed stuff attached to it. A place so notorious,
Sharon’s father reads about it on the web at www.ghosttowns.com. This is the ABANDONED place that has had toxic fires burning beneath it for years, so much so that ash continually falls from the sky, and deadly fumes reek forth so badly not even a Glade Plug-in Air Freshener could cover it up.

So her mom takes her there, AT NIGHT, hoping to find out why her daughter keeps sleepwalking and saying
“Silent Hill” a lot and seems so frightened of the damned place.

Along the way they’re almost stopped by a dominatrix-looking motorcycle cop who dresses in impossibly tight
leather motorcycle garb (minus stiletto heels, though), but her mom is determined to bring Sharon (really Alessa) to that deserted, fires-still-burning, town (that nobody else wants to go near)—in the middle of the night no less—so she puts the pedal to the metal, promptly crashing her car in the process.

Mom wakes up, finds her daughter missing, and heads into town on foot. The motorcycle cop follows them, promptly crashes her motorcycle, and heads into town on foot, too.

Now, Mr. Ebert, here is where the subtlety begins.

You see, Sharon (really Alessa), her mom, and the motorcycle cop are actually dead, but they don’t realize it.
They died in their respective vehicular crashes. This is why they can be affected by the creatures and hellish darkness of Silent Hill while her husband, and the others searching for her, walk through the town unaffected and
unaware.

Now Alessa, as Sharon, has her mom and the cop go through quite a few trials and tribulations to find her so
she can use them to get into the church to send those evil cult members to Hell—well, more Hell that is, seeing as they’re all ready knee deep in it. Much gore ensues as Alessa gloats and tears them apart in a scene of ripping
butchery that Pinhead would be proud of. Sharon as Alessa–or Alessa as Sharon–and mom then walk back to the car, buckle themselves in for safety—this time—and head home.

Of course, there’s the confusing sequelization-antic ending (my term for forcing a sequel: clever, huh?), where
the husband is home as they return home, but he can’t see them and they can’t see him. The scene shifts between
husband in his nice sunlit home and them in their bleak, ominous-looking home. Sharon-now-Alessa, or the demon posing as Sharon-now-Alessa, gives us that sinister, look, so common in horror movies these days, to tip us off that it isn’t over until the franchise says it’s over.

With them being dead, though, how, exactly, does dead Alessa benefit from taking over now dead Sharon’s body?

And they (the script writers, I mean) still haven’t explained why the witch was burned or why the fires started
in the mines in the first place. Oh bloody hell. I thought I finally had it right this time. Crap.

Dear Mr. Ebert,

Never mind. You were right as usual.

Yours Truly,

Zoc

PS. We miss you.

Old Books for Your Horror Film Fan Gift List

/ Gift Ideas / Leave a Comment

So there you stand, scratching your head in dismay: what gifts to get that ho-ho-ho-so difficult horrorhead in your family? Why suffer the hordes of zombiefied holiday shoppers, overwhelmed store employees, and bargain bins of the damned when you can sail down the Amazon (or online waters of your choice) in comfort while sipping your favorite frothy beverage? To help you with your gift buying, From Zombos Closet has a few bloody oldie but goody books any fan of horror cinema would die and come back for, again and again.

Monsters a Celebration bookFor the classic horror enthusiast, Monsters: A Celebration of the Classics from Universal Studios, is an over-sized, hard-covered licorice treat of photos and essays paying tribute to the unforgettable creature features of Universal Studios. Beginning with The Phantom of the Opera, and ending with The Creature from the Black Lagoon, both moldy oldie and glowingly young horrorheads can relive the glory days of the horrors that started it all.

In the monster-sized Hollywood Horror: From Gothic to Cosmic, author Mark A. Vieira tosses in the atomic and the psychic also toHollywood Horror Book include the fright factory films of Universal Studios, and the post-atomic age drive-in horrors of the 1950s. From Val Lewton to Roger Corman, and on up to HAL 9000, the electronic monster in 2001: A Space Odyssey, Vieira provides an interesting, informative, and eye-popping photo-illustrated horror film history that would delight any horror fan. My favorite photo is a full-page shot of Ben Chapman in full costume as the Creature from the Black Lagoon, doing a little soft-shoe dance between scene takes.

More 1950’s monster and mutant mayhem can be enjoyed by reading D. Earl Worth’s Sleaze Creatures: An Illustrated Guide to Obscure Hollywood Horror Movies 1956 – 1959. Sure, these cheesy-good, could-have-been-a-B-Movie wonders are publicly derided by critics and horror snobs everywhere, but tucked away in many of their closets, to be watched only when the shades are drawn, are such gems as It Conquered the World, Attack of the CrabSleaze Creatures book Monsters, and my personal favorite, The Crawling Eye.

Alfred Hitchcock pop up bookPop-up books are always fun, and whoever came up with the idea for doing Alfred Hitchcock: The Master of Suspense, A Pop-up Book is a wicked genius. The pop-ups for Frenzy and Psycho are my favorites. The book is a guaranteed “Wow, what a great idea; how thoughtful of you!” Now, if only they would do  pop-up books for horror and terror films more often. I drool at the thought of a Roger Corman pop-up book or maybe even a Hammer Film’s one.

A Vault of Horror BookSpeaking of Hammer Films, A Vault of Horror: A Book of 80 Great British Horror Movies from 1950 – 1974 by Keith Topping, is a surefire horrorhead pleaser, and streamer-empowering stocking stuffer. Each film is covered with meticulous, often humorous commentary, arranged into categories which include Outrageous Methods of Dispatch, Logic, Let Me Introduce You To This Window, and The Story Behind the Movie.

While any one (or all!) of these books would give your significant other many hours of gruesome delight, if you give only one gift, make it Famous Monster Movie Art of Basil Gogos. Every monsterkid growing up during the reign of Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine remembers the stark, other-worldly and vividly saturated colors of Basil Gogos’s covers. From Bela to Karloff, and Chaney to Price, his portraits of the classic monsters of our willing nightmares are Famous Monsters Art bookforever etched into our memories. While this retrospective is a trip down memory lane for older horror fans, even the more gore-centric fan will enjoy the inspiringly eerie, impressionistic artwork.

Captain America (1944)
Mexican Lobby Card

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Here’s the Mexican lobby card (El Capitan Vencedor) for Marvel’s (known as Timely comics back then) first superhero movie, Captain America. Bucking Republic’s usual serial plotline, this one had the villain known to the movie audience right off the bat. Republic also altered the character from the comics by making him use a gun and modifying the costume. They also didn’t call him Steve Rogers or connect him to the military, and left out the unique shield he slings around, though the lobby card includes it. In spite of these changes, the action is good and provides a better treatment than the one given to Batman (1943).

Captain America Mexican lobby card

Horror Dogs:
Man’s Best Friend as Movie Monster
Book Review

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Horror Dogs Book Cover Before I say one word (well, okay, after these few words), if you are a horror fan worth any street cred, you need to read this book, savor it, dog-ear and highlight it. Brian Patrick Duggan is a passionate and experienced author with his subject matter, and McFarland has published a winner with his monumental work, Horror Dogs: Man’s Best Friend as Movie Monster. Even if you only have a significant horror movie hound in your life, then here is the perfect gift to give for the holiday season.

Exhaustively researched and foot-noted, Duggan gives a comprehensive history of canine terror as found in horror cinema. He goes even further by providing context and historical focus, examining the social, mythological, and literary evolution from man’s best friend to man’s worst nightmare on four legs. For the horror fan, his in-depth commentary on productions (dog-handling and sounds, production issues, breed of dog chosen and why) is illuminating, while also providing a long list of movies, from across the years, that old and new horror fans may find worthwhile to explore.

His chosen structure for the book breaks it all down into two parts. Part 1: Genesis gives a chronological and detailed outline of the just-a-cute dog’s transformation to the definitely-no-longer-a-pet dogs found in the horror films of the 1970s. Here is where he explains how a forty-cent copy of The Hound of the Baskervilles began his life-long love of dogs and how their innocence and companionship slowly change into one of stalking terror. From the first appearance of a dog in Edison’s Athlete with a Wand (1894), to their use in comedies, to the bestial hound as portrayed in the many cinematic iterations of The Hound of the Baskervilles, which removed the comedy and replaced it with a bestial terror. It is also in this section that he looks back at the ‘Horrible Antecedents’ in myth, art, and literature, from corpse-eating dogs to slave-tracking bloodhounds, to dogs attacking humans. Through Bulls-Eye, the dog to be feared in Oliver Twist, and other examples, he shows how the Western world’s canine perspective shifted from innocuous family pet to vicious predator.

Along the way, he notes how the breed of dog changes in cinema with the perception of how dangerous they can be, and how the animal attack films, “coinciding with the Vietnam War and Watergate,” created the horror subgenre called nature gone wild or eco horror, beginning with Willard (1971). As Duggan states, “it was inevitable that one screenwriter would twist domestic dogs into dangerous predators;” and so the first human-attacking Doberman on screen shows up in The Kennel Murder Case (1933). What follows are a slew of horror-centric dog movies that Duggan goes into the nitty-gritty on.

In Part II: Taxonomy: A Field Guide to Horror Dogs, the supernatural, Frankenstein (cyborg, robotic) , alien, insurrection, and trained to kill dogs are examined with their respective movies, including The Mephisto Waltz (1971), the evil Rottweiler in Daughters of Satan (1972) and The Omen (1976), and the ghost dog in Topper Takes a Trip (1939). Rabid dogs are also covered in the Cujo (1983) chapter, where he makes the case that Cujo supplanted the hound of the Baskervilles as the go to popular culture example of a terrifying dog. The first alien dog is seen in the 1950s alien invasion movies with The Beast with a Million Eyes (1955), a low budget Roger Corman entry that had no beast with a million real eyes (just a poorly designed puppet, which mercifully, for the viewer, was shown briefly). Another movie where an alien controls a dog is one of my guilty-pleasure favorites, The Brain from Planet Arous (1957). Duggan then moves from mind-control to physically altered dogs with Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) and The Thing (1982).

From one dog as singular threat to packs of dogs terrifying many people is examined in the Insurrection chapter. Like Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds (), even dogs can go bestial and pack up to hunt humans, as shown in movies like Dogs (1976) and The Pack (1977). He sums up in his chapter on Trained to Kill that “surprisingly, this chapter…claims the most titles, and provides a listing of world titles, with some already covered in the previous chapters.

A glossary, an appendix of productions by year, country, and breed, and his extensive chapter notes tidy up his references. (Note that the Kindle version, which I used for this review, puts the chapter notes at the end of each chapter instead of at the end of the book.)

As a final note, if you are a Sherlock Holmes fan (like me), the complete coverage on all of The Hound of the Baskervilles films–and yes, there are quite a lot of them–is alone worth the price of admission to his wonderfully insightful and informative reference. But a warning! You will never again look at your dog with the same sense of security and comfort after reading this book.

G-Men vs The Black Dragon (1943)
Pressbook

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Federal Agent Rex Bennett (Rod Cameron) goes up against a group of saboteurs. Republic liked the Rex Bennett character enough to have him in a following serial, Secret Service in Darkest Africa. Here are some interesting notes from Valley of the Cliffhangers, by Jack Mathis. In this one the fist fights are plentiful, a staple of serial action, and the Lydecker brothers set up a really elaborate and creative death device in Episode 8 that Vivian needs to be rescued from, building up a really good cliffhanger.

Episode 2…"Originally entitled "Oriental Torture," which did not pass Hayes office muster, this episode was re-named Japanese Inquisition."

"Tight shooting schedules and the numerous scenes filmed each day for a serial occasionally resulted in minor production lapses, such as Rex's office door, which was lettered to read "Private" from inside and thus [was] incorrectly backwards from the hallway entry point."

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El Juramento Del Zorror
Mexican Lobby Card

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Here's a large-sized Mexican lobby card for El Juramento Del Zorror (1965). It consolidates the poster art into three areas of attraction: Zorro's horse rearing onto its hind legs, an violent action scene with the stagecoach, and the love interest along with movie title. This breaks down key elements for the story visually: that Zorro is a man fighting for justice against tough odds and that heroic guys dressed in black and wearing a mask invite romance by their mystery. 

El juramento del zorror

 

Creepy Crawly (2023)

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CreepyCrawly-ThaiHorror-WellGoUSA_812x1200Zombos Says: Not bad, could have been better.

Public Service Message…Creepy Crawly takes its cue from Thailand's giant venomous centipede, scolopendra subspinipes. So stay the hell out of Thailand…end of public service message.

Three months after Covid-19 began, Big Bee Car Rental drops off a group of people for quarantine at a hotel. Also taking up residence at the hotel, soon enough, are multi-legged big buggers that would even scare away the bedbugs. 

The hotel staff soon finds creepy crawlies under a bed while relationships between the hotel staff and the two-legged guests provide the usual emotional turmoil, including a strained relationship between a brother (Pirat Nitipasialkul), sister, and their father. The brother is quick to violence, which comes in handy once the threat manifests itself openly. 

That threat starts taking over the hotel and the staff. The action scenes are good but the CGI is wonky when infected people turn into centipedic  nasties. There are moments where either practical effects or more carefully designed visual ones would have been more effective. 

While the movie plays like a horror, it leans more towards monstrous super-villain, hopping from body to body, as the main creature, already revealed by the poster art, acts like the big bad momma while her babies run wild. On the plus side, this buggy family makes the brother, sister, and father come together to survive.

The gore and ickiness elements are here, but never reach the stage of making you wince or feel like your skin is crawling (for me, Arachnophobia 1990, always does that), which you would expect from a movie about multi-legged bugs. Such scenes are started then cut away from too soon.

The end run involves a battle between the overly violent brother and the mother (or, to be fair, daddy) monster. Here is where the movie really kicks ass, leading to a sequelitis-ending (you know, oops-not-dead-yet!) Overall, the direction and story by Chalit Krileadmongkon and Pakphum Wongjinda keeps what could have been a very video-nasty kind of movie tightly "clean," even with the bloody bits. It moves well, but undercuts itself by giving a standard brother hates father backstory that stops the momentum at key moments, and it shies away from the intensity horrific scenes could have reached. The monster design is good and a longer battle scene would have been perfect, but still worth a watch because of its anime and manga-like vibe.

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Spirit Halloween 2023

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I must say Spirit Halloween seemed a bit less spirited this year in dressing up the store. They usually go all out to create a creepy vibe to enhance your shopping experience, but the store I visited was lackluster. Still, an incredible amount of collectible coolness to adorn your man or girl or whatever you are (thanks Zacherley!) cave, boudoir, or hell, even the whole house. Here are some highlights, but they have a lot more to offer, if you dare. And, just for the record, I would have walked off with the Martian and Annabelle doll but my wife was with me. It gets tougher and tougher hiding stuff as you get older, you know. Nuff said on that. But I did manage to grab the Frankenstein and Black Cat masks. They are awesome.

This first highlight is one of me trying on this all-night sleeper for roominess. I do plan on taking it all with me.

Spirit Halloween 2023 14

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