Review: Alligator (1980)

One thing I have pushed for this year and last with my horror-movie-a-day tradition in October is to primarily watch movies I hadn't seen before and write reviews on them - a goal I have been fairly successful with.  But in doing so, I started missing out on several of my favorites and, more importantly, I didn't get the chance to recommend those beloved horror movies to the (beloved) people that read them.  So tonight's movie was an opportunity to address that.

For 1980's Alligator is amongst my favorite horror movies.  It's a real gem of a film, giving character actors like Robert Forster and Robin Riker the opportunity to play the lead while lampshading several famous critiques of this brand of creature feature.  It even goes out of its way to add extra plot points that one would think would've come up already in this particular genre.

This is a smart film.  People act like human beings (never a given in horror movies where we often get, at best, a singular trait for each of the characters), most of the decisions are fairly rational outside of the villains, and the story progresses in a fairly believable way.  Having this level of competence after watching movies like Tentacles or The Food of the Gods - even if I did enjoy the latter of those - is a balm of the soul.

Do we really need a plot summary?  If so: Building on the urban legend of giant alligators in the sewers after being flushed down the drain, Alligator follows Detective David Madison (Forster) as he deals with two investigations.  The first involves people's pets disappearing and, if they are found, the pets having grown much larger than they should have in a normal time.  The second involves people disappearing in the sewer systems under Chicago, with their remains eventually coming out from the same sewer exit as the oversized animals.  Seems our alligator has been feeding on test experiments dumped into the sewer and has somewhat mutated itself.

Now, to go into the genius of the script: it allows the audience to figure out the connection well before our characters do.  Madison starts to piece it together after meeting with herpetologist Dr. Marisa Kendall (Riker), and the movie doesn't waste time revealing who is responsible for both the pet kidnappings and the giant alligator (tying those two plot threads together nicely).  At that point it is off to the races as they try to stop the alligator from its killing spree.

Riker and Forster play off each very well throughout the movie, and while the early scenes aren't bad, the movie takes off once the two start working together.  There's also some dry humor throughout - including a particularly well done running gag.

The effects for this movie are also fairly strong.  While some of it has aged poorly - what wouldn't after 45 years? - the practical work rings truer than the CGI of many later films.  The centerpiece 'animal runs amok' scene still works all these years later because of the effort put into the practical effect.

If I were to critique it, I would say the direction - outside of one particular scene that scared me something good as a child - is pretty pedestrian.  Nothing mindbogglingly bad, but nothing of note outside that one scene.  There's also a character (Thomas Kemp, played by Bart Braverman) that seems to be missing a scene or two.  He very much comes across as having an agenda against Madison, but it feels underexplored.

All that said, I recommend this movie to everyone.  It has just the right level of everything - humor, gore, story, scariness - without going overboard.

8 out of 10

Review: High Tension (2003)

High Tension (or Haute Tension, if we are using the French title) follows best friends Marie (Cecile de France) and Alex (Maïwenn) as they go to the latter's parent's house for the weekend.  While there, a man appears and attacks the family, with Marie spending the greater part of the movie trying to either get help or defeat The Killer (Philippe Nahon) and save Alex.

This movie was at the forefront of the New French Extremity movement: French films that had excessive violence and explicit sexual imagery.  Filled with all sorts of gore, and occasionally extreme sexual violence (which this film thankfully did not have), it was part of a movement of filmmakers that pushed the limits of what film allowed at the time, and there are still films today that are considered influenced by, if not a continuation of, this movement.

Now there is something to be said for the critic's view of violence in cinema.  Is the filmmaker trying to say something?  Is it necessary to the plot?  Is there some sort of metaphor that the director/screenwriter is trying to use?  In the case of this film, I think the answer is: Let's show some violence and it doesn't go any deeper than that.

I did not like this movie.  Not because of the violence - I have seen worse, and there is something to be said for how well done the effects are for this film in that particular department - but because it doesn't make sense.  There is a late twist - which the movie became famous for, though thankfully I had forgotten the spoiler before watching it - that doesn't make any sense.  I don't mean they didn't set it up properly (there is actually a decent bit of foreshadowing for it), I mean that there are several scenes that absolutely do not work once you factor in that twist.

So much of the film just falls apart if you bother to look back on it.  It's frankly astounding that it happens because this is a movie with so much thought put into it that for this twist - which creates so many different plot holes - to be used requires a complete divorcing of critical thinking.  Even if we try to work with what is presented to us, maybe think of the film as having an unreliable narrator, it still doesn't cover up what we are shown - there are too many characters present for it to work.

The movie isn't completely without merit - our main actress is quite good, and the movie does have a few scenes with well-built tension, but that damn twist just undoes all of the work put into the rest of the film.  And given the lack of scares in this film - it really does count on the gore to do most of its work - you have time to think about what doesn't work.

Maybe if they had wrapped up the movie about 10 minutes earlier?  Or cut out a section of the post-reveal?  I don't know, the movie is already a fairly short 95 minutes - a relentlessly paced 95 at that - but something needed to be changed.

It really is disappointing, as I have heard good things from multiple people about this one.  I definitely would not recommend it - except maybe as a hate-watch, but there are better movies to do that with than this - and it took all of my energy to not reveal the twist because this movie doesn't deserve to be unspoiled.  I don't even want to bump up its score for the craft and acting, because I worry that it might encourage someone to watch it despite that.

2.5 out of 10

Review: Vermines (2023)

It's always interesting to watch a horror film with Themes.  Vermines, released as Infested in the US, is a movie practically dripping with them.  Racism, classism, police brutality, friendship, honor: all have a part to play in this, much deeper than something described to me as 'French Arachnophobia.'  It was a woefully inadequate description of what I ended up watching.

Thankfully, the movie still works well even if you don't engage with the themes - though it is nothing if richer an experience to do so - telling a creepy story of spiders rapidly reproducing and taking over a Banlieue in Paris.  A group of friends works to save themselves from these highly aggressive spiders, with the predictable, and a few unpredictable, challenges in the way.

Our main character is Kaleb (Theo Christine), collector of exotic animals, who buys the first of the spiders to invade the building.  He and his sister Manon (Lisa Nyarko) are arguing over selling or keeping their home, with Manon doing quite a bit of renovating in hopes of moving away.  They are helped by Mathys (Jerome Niel), a friend of both, and Kaleb's estranged friend Jordy (Finnegan Oldfield) and Jordy's girlfriend Lila (Sofia Lesaffre).

The dynamics of this friend group is an essential part of the story, with buried resentments amongst them, particularly after the death of Kaleb and Manon's mother, adding extra stress once the bodies start piling up.  This feels like a believable group of people, and their reactions to one another and the situation drives the story moreso than the attacking spiders.

The first 75% of the movie works amazingly well.  There are interesting shots, music choices, along with some decent character building of not only the group of friends, but of other residents within the building.  Every attempt to control or evade the spiders is staged well, and the film never gets less-interesting when the spiders are not on screen.

That last 25% though...

It is not uncommon for creature features to lose a bit of steam towards the end as they work to either escape or defeat whatever monster they are up against.  Vermines does a better job than most at overcoming this, but it still starts to turn me away with some choices made regarding the spiders.

I won't spoil said choices, but it involves an escalation that I don't think was necessarily needed, plus a slight tonal shift that is part of the transition to the climax that forces the movie to basically rebuild the energy.  It overplays certain emotional payoffs also, which is more minor sin of the ending, but another glance at that final section of the script might've been warranted.

It doesn't remove the movie, thankfully, but it does let the air out a bit as you get to the end.  I'd still readily recommend this movie though.

7 out of 10

Review: The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971)

I did not vibe with this movie.  It is perfectly adequate as far as films go, though not without critique.  It just didn't really work for me.

The Abominable Dr. Phibes is a tale of revenge: Dr. Phibes (Vincent Price) is hideously scarred and believed dead after an accident.  Said accident was caused by him rushing to the hospital where his wife had died during surgery.  Blaming the doctors and nurse that performed the operation for her death and his own disfigurement, he sets about killing them using the plagues of Egypt as his inspiration.

This is a weird movie.  Tonally all over the place, it vacillates between comedy, horror, procedural, and mystery while never really doing any of them well.  Price is excellent in his role, but otherwise the film feels like it isn't quite sure what it wants to be.  The ending is played as if it were a tragedy, but I don't think the audience is really meant to be on Phibes's side, which would be necessary for it to work.

The comedy is mostly on the side of the police, and while a few scenes are rather successful, humor-wise, it is at odds with the fact that all of these people are getting killed, some of them quite brutally.  If this tone had permeated the entire movie, it could have worked, but since so much of it is played straight, it feels especially incongruous.

There is a certain amount of camp to the movie that is what ultimately saves it.  It doesn't quite make it a great movie - although there are some that disagree with that statement and consider this amongst the best work Price has done - but it does make it fascinating to watch.  Price, saddled with a character who cannot move any part of his body above the neck - no, really - sells the hell out of it, delivering monologues with such verve that one wonders what the performance would have looked like with facial movements.

More camp comes from the various manners in which Phibes kills the doctors (and single nurse, which seems weird to foist part of the blame on), which in many cases only use the plagues of Egypt in the broadest interpretation of them.  Many of them lack all reason (the nurse, who gets possibly the most brutal of the kills, requires a person to not only believe that a person would sleep so soundly that they wouldn't feel a large amount of a syrupy substance dumped on their face, but also so soundly that they could be eaten alive without being disturbed in the slightest).  It only works if you just give up on applying anything resembling logic and just roll with what is happening.

It's a bit of a mess, plotwise, which makes sense as the writers had no other major credits before or after this film.  It hobbles along, carried in some parts by Price, in others by camp, and in a few by both, but it doesn't ascend to a climax so much as stumble into a finale that I'm still not sure was adequate for the proceeding film.

Would I recommend it?  Probably?  Vincent Price is a treasure, and there is merit in his performance here, but I might have to watch this movie again before I can decide where I would settle on its rating.

For now, we'll say 6.5 out of 10, but who knows what I'll feel in the future.

Review: Resident Evil (2002)

A caveat:  I watched this on a Blu-ray released many, many years ago (Resident Evil: Extinction is one of the previews on my copy) and it was not a very good transfer.  Several scenes have a weird fuzziness to them that I am fairly certain weren't supposed to be there, so I will be refraining from discussing technical aspects of this film - not that those are ever large parts of my review, but this one will feature less than normal.

So, Resident Evil, directed by Paul W.S. Anderson (he of Mortal Kombat and Event Horizon fame) and starring Milla Jovovich, Eric Mabius, and Michelle Rodriguez.  Savaged by critics when it came out, but more recently reappraised with a more positive response.  I remember seeing this one in theaters and fondly remember the viewing experience.  And rewatching it,  I am glad people have come around on it.

Now, this is a cheesy movie, make no mistake.  This was a film made about a video game in the early aughts, the fact it is any sort of good is a minor miracle.  But Anderson gave the movie the right amount of seriousness to go with the cheesy, plus a decent amount of homages to the game it was based off of, which helped win the audience over.  Most of the performances are also pitched perfectly for what the movie is (though I don't think Rodriguez is very good in this one).

The plot moves along fairly quickly, the exposition delivery is somewhat clunky but overall justified, the action is top notch.  Really, the biggest issue for this movie is the computer effects, particularly that of the Licker, aging fairly poorly.  There are a couple of scenes where a practical one is used and it is so much better looking that I wished it had been feasible for it to have been used more.

I think the only other criticism I would have would be the death of a character towards the end.  They are kept around pretty much only to serve as a deus ex machina, the abruptly killed off during the climax.  I really feel like the character should've been a survivor, or at the very least not killed off so thoughtlessly.

I know the more recent one was much more well received, but to me, this is still the best of the many movies in this franchise.  It might just be nostalgia, but it is probably more that these characters are at least somewhat competent once they realize the situation they are in.  Either way, this is a film I am generally happy to rewatch, and one I'd readily recommend.

7 out of 10

Review: The Boogeyman (2023)

This movie needed to be rated R.

Almost every critique I have of this movie comes back to the PG-13 limitation placed on this (on a Stephen King adaptation!  After IT had already come out!).  It works within that limitation well, but it is fighting a losing battle against that PG-13 rating.

To give a clear example of how that rating cut this movie off at the knees: Only 3 people die in the entire film (not necessarily a bad thing), and 2 of those are within the first 15 minutes of this roughly 100 minute movie and both are offscreen.  You cannot have a child-murdering monster movie where nothing happens for a large chunk of the movie.

Even calling the titular Boogeyman a child-murdering monster is a bit of a stretch.  Unlike the aforementioned IT adaptation, this movie pulls its punches to a severe degree when it comes to actually endangering the children.  It's almost as if the Boogeyman is going out of its way to not kill the child and teenager it is terrorizing.  It doesn't matter how many scenes you have of the creature slowly menacing Sadie and Sawyer (Sophie Thatcher and Vivien Lyra Blair) - even if they are well-done escalations of the creature's threat - if ultimately the creature doesn't do anything other than scare them, it loses quite a bit of its mystique.

And it's frustrating because the movie is actually good despite this.  Both Thatcher and Blair give  strong performances, as does Chris Messina as their father and Madison Hu as Sadie's friend Bethany.  Hu might just be the best performance in the film even if it feels like a decent chunk of her character was cut.  David Dastmalchian also makes a cameo appearance as a previous victim of the monster and spins quite a bit of gold within his shortened screentime.

As mentioned above, director Rob Savage does effectively build tension throughout the film, with a major assist from cinematographer Eli Born.  Lighting is especially important for this movie, and genuine effort was put into making the scenes dark while still allowing the audience to see just enough of the monster to let the imagination run wild.  The final full reveal of the Boogeyman is a bit disappointing, but they do build up to that reveal masterfully.

So yeah, this is a pretty decent movie that just needed the handcuffs taken off of it to be great.  Ah well, I think I'd still recommend it, but never as a first choice.

6.5 out of 10

Review: Bulbbul (2020)

There's always a danger when watching a foreign film that something will go over your head that is obvious to the intended audience.  Having said that, I will attempt to review this movie on the merits,  even if I am fairly certain I have missed some sort of commentary or trope that would be obvious to the Indian audience this was made for.  Apologies in advance!

Bulbbul, set in the 1800s, follows the titular Bulbbul (Trupti Dimri, Ruchi Mahajan as a child), flashing back between her childhood marriage to Indranil (Rahul Bose) along with her childhood friendship with Indranil's brother Satya (Avinash Tiwary, Varun Buddhadev as a child) who is much closer to her in age; and 20 years later, as Bulbbul has taken over the duties of her husband's estate due to his long absence.

It is in the latter scenes where we learn that a 'chudail' or witch, has been terrorizing the area, killing multiple men.  Satya, returning home after being away for five years, sets about trying to find the murderer while also trying to figure out what has caused Bulbul's personality to have changed so dramatically in the interim.

This is a movie where the colors on the screen reflect the mood of the same.  A bright violent red, or a cold blue saturation instantly prepares the viewer for what is to come, setting them on edge with nothing but a color swap.  It's an effective tactic, and it adds the the hyper-realism that permeates the movie.

The performances are topnotch, with Dimri giving the film its best performance, followed closely by Paoli Dam as Binodini, the scheming wife of Indranil's twin brother Mahendra (also played by Bose).  Dam gives an outright poisonous portrayal in the flashbacks, coupled with a frightened paranoid performance after the time jump.

This film has mood for days, and while it has elements of horror, it is much more of a tragedy once the story finishes.  I don't think the plot would be terribly surprising for anyone - the film goes to the places you expect it to - but it tells its story well, and I am glad to have watched it.

Would I recommend it to others?  Well, the film is in Hindi, so unless you already speak that you would need to be prepared for subtitles, but it is engaging enough in its visuals that I think most would enjoy it even if that is a drawback to them.  I would warn that there is sexual violence for those that would be triggered by such a thing.

7 out of 10

Review: Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight (1995)

I don't think we give Billy Zane enough credit as an actor.  He might not go down as one of the legends of cinema, but he does solid work and is very good at modulating his performance to the film he is in.  It's an undervalued skill, particularly in genre movies where Zane has made quite a career for himself.  I'm sure he has had bigger showcases than Demon Knight, but this might be his best performance.

Some might read that as shady, but I am sincere in this comment.  He distills his interpretation of The Collector, a demon trying to get an artifact to end the world, into an impossibly charismatic monster and takes what might have been a watchable but forgettable movie into a gem of a film.  It's frankly magnetic, and while I have commented in other reviews about actors or actresses giving their movies more effort than called for, Zane manages to give the exact perfect amount of energy that this role needs to work.

Which isn't to say that the other actors are slouching - Dick Miller, another stalwart of genre films, matches Zane's energy without really sharing any scenes with him.  Thomas Haden Church is also amazingly scummy as Roach, the primary antagonist amongst the humans trying to survive The Collector.  CCH Pounder and Jada Pinkett aren't quite as strong, but they do a good enough job that I don't feel the need to nitpick.  For a movie based off of the a TV series, even one from HBO, the cast is more than game for the challenge.

The setting - a church converted into a boarding house for a majority of the movie - works pretty well, and director Ernest Dickerson gives the audience a good feel for the space and uses the building to create some interesting shots.  The effects are also fairly well done, with the makeup of the various demons suitably grotesque and the special effects used judiciously.

I'll also give some credit to the script, written by Ethan Reiff, Cyrus Voris, and Mark Bishop.  So many random asides, or seemingly unnecessary plot points end up not only being referenced later on, but tie into the main plot in unexpected ways.  The character of Wally (Charles Fleischer) mentions being fired from his job fairly early in the movie, and you will be surprised at how relevant that is during the run towards the climax.

Would I recommend this film?  Yes.  It's a fairly 'popcorn' version of horror that most would enjoy, and the extra effort put into making it an actually good movie pays dividends.  I doubt it will make too many people's Top Tens, but I would expect most to enjoy it.

7.5 out of 10

Review: Event Horizon (1997)

It is of no surprise to me that the director of Event Horizon is also the director of 1995's Mortal Kombat and several of the Milla Jovovich-starring Resident Evil movies.  Which isn't to say that it is the same as those movies, but that it has the same energy as them.  Whether or not you can vibe with that energy will probably determine whether or not you enjoy this film, and as a fan of some of his other work, I think it is safe to say I do vibe with director Paul Anderson's dynamism.

While watching this with my brother, we both made comparisons: he mentioned similarities to the Warhammer 40K novels and how space travel works within them, and I said this was a more thoughtful Doom - and let me tell you, I never would have imagined saying Anderson would direct the more thoughtful version of anything.  Not in a negative way, mind you, it's just that his forte tends to be on the popcorn side of the moviemaking experience.

To give a brief summary: Event Horizon takes place in 2047 (oh, the optimism of where science would go during the 90s) and follows a rescue crew sent out to Neptune to save the crew of a previous mission (onboard a ship called Event Horizon, thus giving us the title) that disappeared 7 years prior.  Captaining the ship is Miller (Laurence Fishburne), with Dr. Weir (Sam Neill), who designed the missing ship, traveling with them.  They find the ship, the remains of the crew, and quickly realize that something is wrong.

One of the things that really worked well for me was how well this movie subverted my expectations.  A character that I had pegged as one to make it to the finale ended up being the first to die, and another character that I was sure was going to die first ended up surviving!  Other subversions occurred, but these were the most notable to me given my penchant for correctly calling out who would live vs who would die in genre films.

Another high point is the design, both of the titular spaceship and the rescue ship.  They are distinct from one another while still feeling as if they came from the same original source.  Even better, the directing gives the audience a fairly good idea of the layouts of both ships, which allows for the more horror-focused scenes to disorient the audience as well as the characters.

My one big criticism of the film would be that it really wants a more violent version of itself.  Apparently it did at one point, but executives forced Anderson and editor Martin Hunter to cut the film down from a 130 minute version to a more reasonable 96 minutes, with the gore effects the biggest victim.  Now, I don't think this movie needed a two hour version, but 3 to 7 more minutes of gore would have gone a long way towards increasing the impact of the story.

However, the 96 minute version that we do have is very much something special, and I can see why this film not only developed a cult following, but is now considered amongst the best horror films ever made.  It is definitely impactful.

Would I recommend this film?  Not to everyone: I think this is more of a horror movie fan's horror movie than anything.

7.5 out of 10

Review: Pulse (2001)

You know, writing these reviews every day in the month of October, I sometimes forget that these movies are meant to be scary.  I might wax poetic about childhood nostalgia, or brutally mock the decision-making of a film, or even talk about my love of the more terrible attempts at making a horror movie, but I seldom talk about movies that are scary.  Looking back at last year's list of movies, I can only count Shelby Oaks, Dark Night of the Scarecrow, The Taking of Deborah Logan, and maybe Wolf Man as movies that were actually frightening - even the more respectable classics I watched were viewed more with a sense of detachment given how well versed I was in their histories.  So it was quite nice to go into this movie blind and be genuinely unnerved by it at various points.  It makes sense that this movie is credited with starting the J-horror movement alongside Ringu.

Pulse is a 2001 Japanese techno-horror movie with dual storylines:  One following Michi (Kumiko Asō), a plant shop worker whose coworkers start disappearing; the other following Ryosuke, a college student who sets up his Internet and immediately starts having weird things happen on his computer.  The characters go through similar experiences as strange things start happening to them and the other citizens of Tokyo.

The first 45 minutes of this movie are damn near perfect: the first scare is set up so perfectly that when the shock comes - not as a jump scare, but as a horrified reaction - you are left questioning what has happened just as much as the character.  It's filmed with a hazy, dream-like quality that makes every movement or dialogue feel like it can go in unexpected directions.

The movie goes further by setting up what seem like traditional scares, then somewhat letting the air out of them (both the audience and the characters relax, if only briefly) before hitting us when something truly horrific.  The movie doesn't use jump scares for any of this, but keeps the tone, the color, the mood of the film in an ever-foreboding state so that when we reach these moments relaxation, we cling to them that much harder for relief.  It's astoundingly effective even now, 25 years later, even though this movie is very much about 2001.

With every potential relief ripped away from the audience, they begin to feel the same exhaustion and lethargy that begin to affect our protagonists.  When we finally get a moment where a character screams, it feels as if she is screaming for all of us - a primeval wail that is one of the rare moments where the audience gets a brief release.

Everything about this feels deliberate:  Writer-director Kiyoshi Kurosawa makes every moment of this movie count in ways both big and small.  The terror can be present in front of us, or just out of sight: around the corner or on the other side of the door.  He is guiding us through this story he wants to tell without it feeling manipulative, but making sure we feel what he wants us to throughout.

I will recommend this movie to everyone.  It is in Japanese, so make your peace with subtitles, but this is what great horror is meant to be.

9 out of 10.

Review: The Boy (2015)

A breakdown of The Boy - no, not the one you are thinking of

The Good:

• David Morse and Rainn Wilson are both very good in this movie
• This film has atmosphere for days, and it serves the movie well
• There is some startling and effective imagery scattered throughout
• The Boy has a pretty cool poster

The Bad:

• While I understand why it is classified as horror, I would not consider it a horror movie
• This movie is slow - apparently trying to be meditative and instead being soporific
• Far too much of the plot doesn't really go anywhere interesting
• Much of this film rests on lead child actor Jared Breeze, and his is not the most compelling performance

The Ugly:

• Though I haven't seen it, I am willing to bet the 2016 movie of the same title is a better film
• Several scenes are outright tedious and none of them are short
• It's bad when your movie is a reasonable 105 minutes and still feels like it needed to be edited down
• The poster, while cool, sells a very different movie then the one you get
• I would only recommend this to someone who is either pretentious or I disliked

3 out of 10

Review: The Legend of Boggy Creek (1972)

Sometimes, a movie is pure nostalgia, a comforting blanket that - even if scary - takes you back to childhood, sitting around a campfire or in a dark room and telling your friends creepy stories, each of you trying to outdo one another.  Nothing too terrible, but tales of creatures in the woods, or ghosts in the attic, something that doesn't cause you to jump, but instead works its way into your skin and settles there.  It fades, as does childhood, and though it might never again cause you to stay up all night terrified of every sound, the memory of it lingers, striking you at random moments and making you feel like a scared child again, if only briefly.  The Legend of Boggy Creek is such a film for me.

Made by the legendary regional director Charles B. Pierce, The Legend of Boggy Creek is a shot in a documentary style, interviewing residents of Fouke, Arkansas as they talk about the local Bigfoot-like creature that wanders the area and the terror it causes.  Several reenactments of encounters are displayed, guided by narration from Vern Stierman, as the viewer learns of the ever-escalating appearances, and later attacks, that petrifies those who encounter it.

This low budget film - made for $160,000, eventually grossing over $20 million - used local residents, often portraying themselves or relatives, to give the movie an air of authenticity, and it works wonders.  A child watching this - and indeed, I was a child the first time I saw this movie - would readily believe this tale as only a child can: Woods are mysterious, and who's to say something monstrous doesn't live somewhere deep into them?  And if parts of it look fake, or threadbare, well this is just a tale of the monster, not the actual thing.

It really is amazing that this is a first film.  Pierce, who would direct thirteen other films and assist in the making of others, shows a natural talent for setting up shots, building tension, and using his location.  He actually worked many behind-the-scenes roles, serving as cinematographer (and nailing it) and as producer.  This movie feels instinctual, almost as if the camera just accidentally caught something magic, which speaks to the talent and effort of everyone behind the camera.

Rewatching it some 30 years later, I am amazed at how well it holds up.  I talked of the effect of this film in the first paragraph, and all these years later I can still feel the terror of the night after I watched this movie - like a scar I had forgotten about and then noticed in the mirror.  Everything about this film works, and things that would normally be a strike against it - some wooden acting or the look of the creature - somehow instead work in its favor to make it seem that much more authentic.

I really cannot recommend this film enough, to anyone.  It is very much in the same vein as 1963's The Haunting or The Conjuring, more creepy than scary, but damn if it doesn't work just as well as those other films.

8.5 out of 10

Review: The Howling (1981)

It's hard to not compare this movie to the other 1981 werewolf movie An American Werewolf in London (and I suppose, 1981's Wolfen, which seems to be an also-ran amongst the three), possibly my favorite movie from that particular year.  The Howling is a much more serious take on the werewolf myth, and the different approach helps to separate the two even if comparisons are inevitable.

The film primarily follows journalist Karen White (Dee Wallace) as she helps the police to capture serial killer Eddie Quist (Robert Picardo), the experience of which causes her such trauma that she and her husband Bill (Christopher Stone) end up going to The Colony, a secluded resort where she can receive treatment.  Things do not go well for her there.

The first and only direct comparison I will make has to be the transformations between the two movies.  While An American Werewolf in London's transformation is (justifiably) legendary, The Howling has nothing to be ashamed of.  Both make the process look painful, and The Howling has the benefit of multiple transformations from multiple characters.  There is a bit of inconsistency in the transformations, but they are minor and do not take anything away from the film.

The acting is relatively strong, although the acting styles are all over the place.  Weirdly, this works for the film - you have some performances camped up (Picardo and Elisabeth Brooks), some that are performing as if they are in a Hammer film from the 50s (Patrick Macnee and John Carradine), and some with a more naturalistic approach (Wallace and film standout Belinda Balaski).  You'd think this mishmash of styles would cause friction, but it all blends together perfectly.

Director Joe Dante has some interesting shots scattered throughout, though nothing as fun or as inventive as in Piranha or Gremlins.  He doesn't make any questionable decisions, but it does lack a bit of the spark that those other two movies had.  Perhaps he was more comfortable indulging in a bit of humor in those other two which this one lacked.

Overall, this is a pretty solid movie.  It won't be my favorite werewolf movie, Joe Dante movie, or Dee Wallace movie, but definitely one I'll probably end up watching again.  The real question is, will I watch any of the 6 other movies in the franchise?  Maybe, but probably not for this month's movies.  But I would recommend this to others, especially if they enjoy horror.

7 out of 10

Review: American Gothic (1988)

"Want to make a horror movie based off of a painting?"

"Sure, what painting did you have in mind?"

"I was thinking American Gothic."

"What, will it be a Texas Chainsaw thing?"

"Kinda, only we're going to set it in Washington."

"The state?  Why not have it be Bigfoot then?"

"No, that's cheesy.  Instead it's going to be a nutty family that lives alone on an island and kills anyone that ends up going there."

"Cannibalism?"

"No, just crazy.  We're going to have a bunch of 50-year-olds acting like children and murdering people with kids stuff, like swings and jump ropes."

"If they act like kids, how would they survive?"

"There will be a Ma and Pa based off the painting to keep them in line."

"Okay, how's the final girl going to get out of this situation?"

"She doesn't."

"What?  She dies?  People hate the sort of downer ending."

"I didn't say she died."

"Well, then how does she survive."

"Trust me, you won't see it coming."

"Okay, but this sounds a little strange - can we get a big name for it?"

"We already got Rod Steiger and Yvonne De Carlo to play Pa and Ma."

"Wow, they are slumming it."

"Are they, though?"

"Fair."

"We need to keep this somewhat serious so they aren't laughing throughout it though."

"Maybe have the crazy family be scary?"

"No, we can't do that.  Instead, our main girl is going to have a dead baby."

"Isn't that a little dark."

"No, it's character depth.  Besides, it is only important in the beginning and end of the movie."

"Well, okay then."

"Okay, let's make this movie."

"Are we going to refine the idea at all?"

"No."

5 out of 10

Review: Coyotes (2025)

I remember when I first saw the trailer for this and how excited I was to watch it.  Then it seemed to never come out.  Turns out it did a very limited release before going to streaming where, when I attempted to watch it last year, they wanted to charge a frankly obscene amount for a rental.  Thankfully, it was at a more reasonable price this year and I can finally cross it off the list of movies that grabbed my interest that I needed to watch.

Coyotes follows comic book artist Scott (Justin Long), his wife Liv (Kate Bosworth, giving us real-life married couple playing this fictional one), and their daughter Chloe (Mila Harris, not related to her fictional parents) as a natural disaster near their Hollywood Hills home leaves them trapped, without power and menaced by a large pack of coyotes.

Now, this premise is absolutely ridiculous, and the movie thankfully knows this, so it takes the horror-comedy approach with a heavy lean in the comedy direction.  It mostly succeeds in this goal, though the seams show a little bit in both the humor and the special effects departments.

This movie screams of multiple rewrites with vastly different approaches to the humor.  There's a weird misogynistic streak to some of the humor, forcibly softened by making Liv and Chloe among the more competent characters, and some topical humor that falls flat (a character blames the coyotes attacking on chemtrails).  If those had been more fully excised, the movie would have been much better overall, because much of the remaining humor works well and is gamely delivered by the cast.

The movie does improve once it moves to the more action-y part of the film, even if it does have several moments that stretch the suspension of disbelief.  Nothing too unforgiveable, thankfully, but will make a perceptive viewer role their eyes a bit.

The special effects for the coyotes range from acceptable to bad, with some of the coyotes not even glancing at realistic, and others making the audience think more of a wolf.  The other effects - primarily the gore and makeup of various attacks - is much stronger, and while I understand why CGI had to be use for the coyotes, I wish they could have gone in a more practical direction.

The acting is generally good across the board, with Bosworth giving the best performance.  It was nice to see Long play a well-meaning if slightly incompetent character after playing a series of more sleazy ones.  Also, is Long considered a scream king at this point?  If not, I think he should be.  Brittany Allen, as Julie, also has some great bits.

Overall, this wasn't a bad time.  It certainly isn't the best movie I've watched this month, but it is also far from the worst.  I think I would recommend it to a few people, if only for its blessedly-short 92 minute runtime.

6.5 out of 10

Review: The Golem: How He Came into the World (1920)

Sometimes I watch a movie and quickly conclude that I am vastly unqualified to write a review for it.  It happened with Sinners (a film I absolutely love) to use a recent example, and I feel like the same applies for this 1920 film (the full title is The Golem: How He Came into the World).  I can note the German Expressionism in the production design, I can talk about the history (it is the third in a trilogy of films and the only one that has not been lost), I could even go into the importance of watching what is a very Jewish  film in a time of rising antisemitism.  But I am not an expert in any of those subjects, and anything I say would be nothing more than the rewording of what I had just read, so I will avoid that.

Instead, I will just talk about watching a silent movie - one cobbled together from various releases and negatives - from over a hundred years ago and how a modern audience would react to it, assuming they could sit through such a thing.

To wit, I think modern audience would appreciate the production design of the film.  My exposure to German Expressionism is fairly limited, but I appreciate the otherworldliness it brings to the setting while still feeling true to life.  Buildings and rooms are just 'off' enough to throw you off-balance while still feeling like something an actual person would live in.

There's also something of an ethereal mood to the movie, with the various spells cast showcasing some fairly impressive effects for the time period while heightening that unearthly feeling that the sets had already given the viewer.  It's really a masterwork of tone that is impressive for search an early film of this type.

It's hard to judge the acting, given the vast gulf between what works well for a silent film vs one where you can hear the characters.  If pressed, I'd say that Lothar Müthel as Squire Florian is best in show, though director Paul Wegener as the titular Golem is also fairly strong.  On the other end, I can't say I was impressed by Lyda Salmonova as Miriam, though that could very well be because the movie doesn't ask much of her.

Would I recommend this to others?  Yes, I think everyone should experience at least a few silent films just for the novelty, and this one is influential enough to throw it to the top of the list.  But if you absolutely cannot stand this type of film, I wouldn't judge.

8 out of 10

Review: Mimic (1997)

In this, the 9th year of me trying to watch a horror movie every day of October (I have been successful in 7 of the last 8 years), I finally got around to watching this late 90s tale of Genetic Engineering Gone Wrong - a popular theme after the massive success of 1994's Jurassic Park, I am sure.  There is much to appreciate about this - directed by Guillermo del Toro, starring Mira Sorvino and Jeremy Northam, with Josh Brolin, F. Murray Abraham, and Charles S Dutton also appearing, the movie has pedigree.  The creature design is also fairly good, even if the graphics are quite dated almost 30 years later.  But it left me cold.

I remembering reading once in a review of Pacific Rim - another del Toro production - that the difference between del Toro and most other directors was that even when doing an obvious paycheck movie, del Toro was never going to do anything other than his best to make the film good.  And you can see the effort put into making Mimic into the best possible version of itself.  I'm just not sure it was worth the effort.

I feel the need to mention a caveat at this point: I watched the original theatrical release of Mimic, rather than the later-released director's cut that, while not precisely what del Toro wanted, was closer to what he was going for than this one.  The added footage - and possibly different edits? - amounts to 6 extra minutes of film length, which is fairly significant.  This compromised version is still effective, but I might have been better served to seek out that other cut.  Such is life...

The edits forced onto the movie by the Weinsteins might contribute to some at-times draggy sequences and stifled action.  That said, at 106 minutes, I'm not sure much more of this particular story needed to be told.

That's really the crux of the problem:  The movie is mostly good, but I'm not really sure I could pinpoint what or how exactly to improve it.  Nothing I would suggest - aside from removing the child character from the movie - would have more than a minimal impact.  That one big change is also one that likely would have never been made.  Remember, this is post Jurassic Park, so putting a child in danger in anything mimicking that film -ah, I see what they did there, those sons of bi-- was all but guaranteed.

I suppose I can understand why this movie pops up occasionally amongst the horror community as one worth checking out.  I'm not sure I would recommend it, but I wouldn't actively tell anyone to avoid it either.

7 out of 10

Review: Beware Boiúna (2026)

No giant snake movie will ever be as good as 1997's Anaconda.  Not because of the quality, but because it is a perfect storm late 90s cheese, creature effects (both practical and CGI), and misguided filmmaking, topped off with an absolutely legendary performance from Jon Voight.  In a way, the 1997 Anaconda is the inverse of Jaws.  No shark movie could ever live up to that 1975 classic because Spielberg made one of the most perfect films of all time that also happened to be a shark movie.  Anaconda, while not even in the same neighborhood as Jaws (not even in the same city, and possibly state, depending on which you decide to use for reference), is such a pure-blooded example of everything wrong and amazing about genre films that any other giant snake movie can only hope to catch half as much as the lightning in a bottle as Anaconda caught.

Which brings us to Beware Boiúna, 2026's giant snake movie that is a more in line with that 1997 film than the 2025 one starring Paul Rudd and Jack Black.  And guys, it is so close to topping it.  It is a very good movie that is two poor decisions (one small, one impossibly large) from being a genuinely great one.  It is a much more serious movie, though sincere in its seriousness in such a way that it works for the film.  It studiously avoids cheese and every character is given substantially more depth than this genre usually calls for.

Set in Colombia in the present day, the film primarily follows a humanitarian group, - Alli, Callum, and Proctor (played by Jessica Rothe, Will Close, and Christophe de Geest) -  the boat crew taking them down the Amazon river to provide said aid, - Lena and Raul (Kiana Madeira and Jamie Newball), with Lena also on this trip to try and find her brother Jorge (Sergio Herrera) - and the suspicious group sent to study the land for future road builds that becomes antagonistic towards the first group - Brennan and Shawn (Logan Marshall-Green and Jackson Bews).  Now, there are a couple of extra characters associated with the last group, but let's just say they don't matter too much in the long run.

Soon, all of these characters find themselves at a destroyed camp where they encounter the legendary Boiúna - a gigantic snake of legend comparable to the Titanoboa - who proceeds to attack everyone who has wandered into their domain.  It quickly becomes a battle to survive the Amazon and the snake, with high stakes as it becomes clear that no one is safe.  And I do mean no one.  This movie is not afraid to kill any character, something desperately missing from the majority of horror movies.

The time we spend getting to know all of these characters (rest assured, this movie does not rush to get to the titular snake) works wonders to get you invested once the death and destruction begins.  You genuinely root for the characters to survive, and the majority of the deaths actually affect the viewer.  Every moment feels earned.  Even better, they don't try to explain the presence of Boiúna.  There's legends of a giant snake, they discover the legend is true, and then they try to survive.  No muss, no fuss as far as that plot point goes.

Now, I did allude to a pair of mistakes that keep the movie from being truly great.  One of these is fairly minor: the set up for a payoff that never comes (an unfired Chekov's Gun, if you will).  It doesn't really affect the movie, but you wonder why they spent the time on it they did if no follow up was going to happen.

The other involves a character death.  I won't say who, except to say that it is the only death that doesn't feel earned.  It almost feels wrong for the character to have died.  Story-wise, I mean.  Characters meet all sort of undeserved fates in these movies, but from a story structure view, this death didn't work.  It's a really gaping flaw in an otherwise great movie.

The performances are good across the board, with Marshall-Green giving the best performance by a mile and one I did not expect from an actor who usually does solid if unspectacular work.  The effects for the snake are well done, with a real sense of weight to the beast.  The Amazon is scary enough on its own, and works well as the setting for a creature feature.

Would I recommend this one?  In a heartbeat.  While I would tweak it a little bit myself, this is a great creature feature that never stops going once it starts.

8 out of 10.

Review: The Food of the Gods (1976)

Sometimes, watching a movie is like going on a date.  You look at the profile (poster) and maybe read a little bit of their likes and dislikes (i.e. check out various reviews) and then take the plunge.  The Food of the Gods might not be The One as far as these sort of relationships go, but it will definitely be one that I talk about for years.

The film follows a random group of people on an island - and I do mean random: we get a married couple where the wife is 9 months pregnant, a (pro?) football player hunting with his friends, a dog food company owner and his bacteriologist assistant (for if there is one thing you need as the maker of dog food, it is a bacteriologist) and an older couple who live on the island - as various wildlife eats the titular food of the gods and grow to enormous size.  They also develop a mean disposition.

You look at that profile and you have to swipe right, you know?  There are so many red flags interesting tidbits in this that you have to go out with it at least once, to see if the crazy level is really that high.  And, my dear audience, it is.

Like The Empire of the Ants, this uses a mix of terrible special effects to display the large beasts.  Bad puppets - and maybe people in costumes, though I can't say that happens definitively - forced perspective with obviously composite shots, and I'm not exactly sure what they do during the wasp attacks, but I do know that one of them doesn't fly around so much as spin in wild circles in the same section of screen until a gunshot makes it explode.

It was during one of these early moments that I began to fall in love with this movie.  A man walks into a chicken coop and gets attacked by a giant rooster.  He fights off the fakest looking rooster head I have ever seen, yells at the owner of said rooster (completely ignoring the also-enormous chickens also in the coop) and after she scolds him for going into the coop, he drops his complaint and asks to use her phone.  No discussion of what just happened - in fact, he doesn't discuss the giant rooster at all after this point - just moving on as the plot dictates.

There's something to be said for directness, and I was already planning a second date as my passion for this movie grew.  We get to the wasp attack, the owner of the dog food company wants to market and sell the food of the gods - which, since I failed to mention, looks like a flavorless porridge that is leaking from a rock - everyone finds themselves trapped at the older couple's cabin as giant rats swarm around them - how could I not want to watch this again?

But then, cold water was thrown on me just as I expected things to heat up.  For the people fight back against the rats (which, fair) and the movie slows to a crawl as the same argument is had - with slight variations - for far too long of this film's otherwise fleet 88 minutes.  The movie eventually picks up again - the solution is to blow up a dam that in no way, shape or form able to hold the amount of water that pours from it - as if trying to win me back after a bad argument.  And it almost does.  But that draggy section forever means that this passion can only occasionally be indulged.

Would I play cupid with this film and other horror fans?  Probably, as there is so much to enjoy about it.  But far too many others would look at my relationship with this film and judge us both harshly, so I would be selective about who I would recommend it to.

4 out of 10, but what a 4 it was.

Review: The Gingerdead Man (2005)

Tonight's movie was not supposed to be The Gingerdead Man.  I had planned on going to the actual theater to see one, but was instead persuaded to throw this one on.  This had been on my radar as a potential watch - though never near the top of the list - and it seemed an acceptable trade-off since it looked like campy fun.

I was gravely mistaken.

This movie is bad bad.  70 minutes long and you feel every second of it.  Charles Band (producing and directing) is famous for his quick productions, but maybe a little more time on the script and a lot more time on everything else and maybe this could be salvaged, but honestly, I'm not sure anything could save this.

The premise, fairly ridiculous, is this:  killer Millard Findlemeyer (Gary Busey, giving a surprisingly low-key performance) is put to death based off the testimony of Sarah Leigh (one of the most dry yet successful jokes the film makes), played by Robin Sydney.  He vows revenge and somehow ends up possessing a gingerbread man in Sarah's family bakery.  How that happens is never really explained - Wikipedia tells me that Millard's mother mixes his ashes with gingerbread spice mix, but nothing in the film alludes to this - but possess it he does to enact his vengeance.

Tiny killer movies can work - Child's Play has famously lasted for decades, and I am a big fan of the Puppet Master series also produced by Band - but this movie puts precious little effort into doing anything to make our murderous cookie threatening.  You can tell when they actively give up on it by just giving him a gun with endless bullets.

The movie does have a couple of good moments - mostly from Ryan Locke as love interest Amos (the character names are a running joke) - but when the third best moment of the film is the end credits, you are in a dire situation.  Really, thank God for Ryan Locke, who is easily best in show, and to a lesser degree Jonathan Chase as Brick.  I'm not quite sure Chase's performance is good, but it is interestingly weird in a way this movie desperately needs.

How this movie spawned as many sequels as it did - along with being a recurring character in the much longer Evil Bong series - I will never know.  But hey, apparently quite a few people like this franchise, so I guess make that money.

Would I recommend this?  Not even a little bit.  Watch at your own risk.

2 out of 10

Review: The Mangler (1995)

The first movie for this year's October marathon has some pedigree:  Directed by Tobe Hooper (who directed The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) from a short story written by Stephen King, with main characters played by Robert Englund (of A Nightmare on Elm Street fame) and Ted Levine (a few short years after his The Silence of the Lambs performance).  This had all the makings of becoming a horror classic.  However, audience response was muted and critics were savage: it was only in recent years that it has emerged as a cult favorite.  All of this seems surprising, until you read the plot summary and discover that this movie is about a demonically possessed laundry press.

You read that correctly. I have read the short story (which varies slightly from the movie, but only a little bit) and mostly wanted to check out this movie to see just how much they would adhere to the premise.  Would they be true to the story like the adaptation of Carrie?  Would it be similar but notably different like The Shining?  Or would just the name be used and the story not be related at all, a la The Lawnmower Man?  I got my answer, and now I grapple with how I feel about the movie.

The movie isn't bad by any stretch.  England hams it up (complimentary) as our villain, Bill Gartley.  Levine also hams it up (derogatory) as our protagonist, Officer John Hunton.  The movie gives the gore fans what they want with multiple people pulled through the laundry press - with the film happily showing us the results.  The plot, while ridiculous, is played straight and explained well enough, even if the ending of the film feels a bit unearned.  It's very much a mixed bag in the truest sense.

I'm not quite sure it deserves cult status, but worse movies have attained the same so I can't be too worked over it.  It's just weird that this one made it to that level when it isn't really that campy.  I suppose some of that cult comes from devotees of Stephen King or fans of director Hooper, but the former has better adaptations and latter has better films that this.

It's acceptable, I think.  For every good decision there is a terrible one - sometimes at the same time involving the same thing! - but it doesn't do anything truly terrible throughout.  It's just... a random horror movie.  No movie is so bad that everyone hates it - there is always at least one devoted fan - but I have seen many enthusiastic recommendations for this one.  And I can normally figure out where the cult sprang from, even if I don't feel the need to join.  This one has flummoxed me though.

Would I recommend this to others?  I don't know.  It's not the worst way to spend an hour and a half, but I doubt it would ever be the first movie I would grab.  But who knows?  Stranger films than this one have moved into the rotation.

6 out of 10.