Review: Wake Up Dead Man (2025)

I can see what made this movie divisive.  It's much less a comedy than the previous Benoit Blanc movies (those being Knives Out and Glass Onion), it has much less of beloved detective (I'd have to see official - or unofficial -  screen times to confirm, but I'd say that Daniel Craig's onscreen presence is drastically lower than Josh O'Connor and possibly on par with the larger supporting performances in this same film), and I'd say it has some of the most uneven acting of the franchise (though I will go into specifics on that later in the review).  However, this slight deviation from the norm works incredibly well in my opinion.  It's too early to save if this is my favorite in the series, but it certainly can make a case for the most compelling.

We start this movie with narration from Pastor Jud Duplenticy (O'Connor) as he tells the audience how he came to be the associate pastor at Our Lady of Perpetual Fortitude under Monsignor Jefferson Wicks (Josh Brolin).  We see the young pastor arrive and how Jefferson treats Jud - not very kindly - as well as Jud's attempt to meet and get to know the church 'clique' played by Jeremy Renner, Glenn Close, Kerry Washington, Thomas Haden Church, Andrew Scott, Cailee Spaeny, and Daryl McCormack.  We also quickly learn that this clique are, by Jefferson Wicks's design, pretty much the only attendees of the church as he chases out any new parishioners and that they, like Jefferson, view Jud as an outsider who doesn't belong.

These introductory scenes are where we first get our discrepancies in performance: O'Connor is actually quite brilliant in all of his interactions, but while some rise to his performance - notably Close and Scott - the rest fall between satisfactory and uninspired.  Writer/director Rian Johnson has generally been fairly good at casting actors to inhabit the satirical character archetypes for these movies, but the more serious timbre of this movie makes these early scenes feel misplaced, both in performance and tone.  It doesn't derail the movie in any way, but it certainly prepares the audience for something more akin to the previous films instead of what this one ultimately ends up being.

Eventually, we get to our murder (for what good is a whodunnit if there isn't a murder to be solved?) and Blanc enters the story.  The movie prevents itself as something of a locked door mystery: the character who dies does so in a room with only a single entrance, and all of our suspects are either in the pews of the church or clearly visible to those populating the pews.  One can make an educated guess - I was only partly correct with mine - on who is guilty, but the movie takes its time getting to the reveal.  In a subversion of the usual storytelling of this series, not only do we get Jud working with Blanc fairly early, but we spend most of that time watching what amounts to a character study of a young priest grappling with guilt (though, minor spoiler, not the guilt of this specific murder) and trying to hold on to a faith that has been tested and is wavering in the face of an impossible situation.

I think that switch from the formula, more than any other, plays into the reception this movie has received.  I loved it.  It helps that O'Connor gives what may be the best performance not just of this movie, but of the series - and I only hesitate in definitively saying it is the best because I want more time to sit on this film before making such a claim.  But while the previous 'assistants' to Blanc have had their own inner lives, we never saw one laid this bare for us, the audience, to see.  And as it deals with personal faith - always a touchy subject - I can very easily see it making some uncomfortable.

Now, I alluded to the inconsistency of the rest of the cast earlier, and I do want to get into the specifics of what I think went wrong, but I do want to say that only one of these performances do I consider to be a bad performance.  Most are perfectly adequate for the film, but they do not rise to the masterclass that O'Connor is giving, which makes them stand out.

First, the performances that did meet that level:  Glenn Close, Andrew Scott, and Daniel Craig.  Craig, though given less of the focus than he normally does, still finds new shades and twists to Blanc, and it never feels like this is a new person with the same name.  Close gives a devoted and rigid performance - watch the way she carries herself in various scenes and you will notice all the subtle ways she displays her character's emotions.  Scott, given far less than the other two, still feels like the most realistic of the  archetypes; an almost mundane awfulness that fits the tonal shift far better than the others.

Kerry Washington and Daryl McCormack hit the archetypes well, they just don't fit into this movie.  Drop them into Knives Out or Glass Onion, and they would be great, but this movie calls for a little bit more in the performance and neither quite hits that mark.  They feel a bit too large for what this movie needs.  On the opposite end, Mila Kunis (as the local police chief) isn't playing an archetype, but almost fails to be a character entirely for lack of anything noteworthy for her to do.  She's fine, but you could grab any other half dozen actresses and their performance wouldn't deviate from hers in any way.  Kunis has proven how electric she can be onscreen - Black Swan proved that - but this script doesn't give her much to stretch those acting chops on.

Spaeny and Church both have that room to breath that Kunis was missing, but they underplay it a bit too much.  Both are closer to the 'real' performance of Scott, but don't quite punch it up enough when they need to.  Again, neither are bad, they just feel like they are missing something.

Josh Brolin as Jefferson though is the most frustrating of the performances though.  He is so good at so much of the performance:  the bullying, the mind games, the manipulations, the self righteousness - all of it is perfectly played.  It just lacks charisma.  I can see that character doing everything that he does, I just don't see how he gets a devoted clique out of it.  It's Jim Jones without the magnetism, and the performance desperately needs that missing piece.  It's constantly on the cusp of brilliant except for that one missing piece.

Now, the bad performance:  Jeremy Renner.  I don't know what happened here, but it is easy to imagine he wandered onto the set, did a single take, then packed it in for the day.  The characterization is weirdly inconsistent - it's hard to point to any particular moment in the movie where two of his scenes feel like the same character.  Renner is capable of being great, but this message isn't just phoned in - it's a partially erased message on the answering machine.  Bridget Everett - as a two-scene, mostly vocal performance - does more in her 5 minutes of screentime than Renner does with an embarrassment of opportunities.  A totally misjudged performance.

Outside of the performances, this movie continues the franchise's streak of great production design.  The church and rectory both feel very real, and we spend a large amount of time in them without them ever feeling fake.  Not only that, but the levels of both are used incredibly well to keep the movie dynamic in what would read as a static setting.

So, even as I write this, I see how I go back and forth between praise and criticism, between joy and exasperation: this movie is contradictory, but in the best way.  I will not judge anyone who doesn't enjoy it, but the various faults of this movie only serve to make the bright spots shine even brighter.

8 out of 10

Review: Jaws 2 (1978)

So, here's the thing, I think we, as a society, are too hard on this movie.  There are two reasons for this:  The first is that it is a sequel to one of the greatest movies ever made - one that doesn't really need a sequel.  When you are following up a stone cold classic there is a high bar to be met, and Jaws 2 does not meet that bar.  It doesn't even get close, but what movie could?  Many a sequel has met a similar fate.  The Lost World: Jurassic Park immediately comes to mind as another sequel treated harshly and, like Jaws 2, later sequels would prove that it could've been much, much worse.

The second reason, and far more relevant to this review, is that the is no credible way to do this sequel and not stretch the bounds of believability.  The audience can very easily believe that somewhere another giant shark starts terrorizing a beach community.  If you really want characters from the first film to return, it isn't too much to have them contacted and brought in to assist against this new threat.  They could have easily made this movie make sense with a few changes to the script.

Instead, we get the very same community again facing a giant shark, the very same leadership refusing to believe that there is a shark, and the very same family having to defeat said shark to save the day.  And I get it.  You want Roy Scheider to return after his absolutely iconic performance as Martin Brody in the original.  Lorraine Gary is the wife of the (at-the-time) president of the studio, so bringing her back to make sure the budget is where it needs to be makes sense (she also is great as Ellen Brody).  Having filmed in the area before gives familiarity to those behind the camera.  I understand why certain choices were made.

But damn do those choices hobble this movie in substantial ways that can't really be overcome.  I will still argue for its value as far as the movie-watching experience is concerned.  It is a perfectly fine movie and it has some pretty great scenes scattered throughout even if it never reaches the highs of the original.  It just needed to be completely divorced from the original to be judged fairly, but the screenplay makes that an impossible task.  The movie as it exists is so tied to the previous one that any attempt to comment on it without bringing up its predecessor is a herculean task.

To expand on the summary from above:  Another shark starts terrorizing Amity Island, with it initially killing two divers photographing the sunken boat from the first movie.  They just so happen to get shots of the shark during the attack, and when Brody finds the camera and gets the photos developed, he immediately sees the shark and wants to shut down the beaches.  And no one believes him.

And we have already hit the point where the audience is collectively saying "Are you fucking serious?!"  It's such a dumb plot point.  If you excise this from the movie - maybe just have Brody continue to be suspicious after the earlier deaths in the film, then develop the pictures and immediately go to rescue his two sons.  You've removed the dumbest part of the plot and made it ten times more believable as far as ridiculous sequels go.  Maybe slide in another random attack if length is a concern, but this ostracization of Brody is unnecessary.

Because if you ignore that subplot (and I highly recommend you do), you have a modestly effective killer creature film.  The early attack on the skier and the boat driver is well done, as is the later attack on the sail boating teenagers.  I'd say the latter scene is the movie at its best as it captures the terror and confusion inherent in such an attack, along with setting up the flotilla of crashed boats that leaves them stranded.  The scene where they try to save an unconscious Mike Brody (Mark Gruner, who I am not ashamed to say I had a huge crush on when I was younger) is incredibly tense.

One can certainly argue that this is a slasher movie with a shark as the killer, but even by that standard, it is perfectly fine.  You get just enough fleshing out of the teenagers to be able to separate them from one another.  Scheider as Brody is a solid actor who carries the film well despite absolutely hating the script and production, with a fight breaking out between him and director Jeannot Szwarc.

While Jaws is an easy recommend, I'm a bit more ambivalent on this one.  I enjoy it, and think it is unfairly maligned, but I can't really argue with people who think the plot is stupid (since it is for large parts) or that it can never live up to the first film (also a legitimate complaint).  I'd guess I'd recommend it with the mentality of treating it as a purely popcorn flick:  Don't take it too seriously and just have fun.

7 out of 10

Review: The Faculty (1998)

Tonight's movie was not supposed to be The Faculty: The plan had been to watch Night of the Comet, a borderline horror film from 1984.  However, issues with the Blu-ray player forced me into a streaming solution, so this film was quickly slotted in.  Thus, I ended up with the second movie from 1998 to feature Josh Hartnett (after the previously-reviewed Halloween H20, his debut film).

This movie is a combination of The Thing, The Breakfast Club, and Invasion of the Body Snatchers: partly homage (there is a decapitated head that crawls across the ground that couldn't be anything but) and partly a twist on those various movies' formulas.  And it is a fun twist on them.  It doesn't rewrite any of the genres it is pulling from, but it does use the tropes wisely.

The plot: Aliens are invading a small town by sticking parasites inside the brains of various people, with them starting at the local high school.  Various students (played by Elijah Wood, Josh Hartnett, Jordana Brewster, Clea DuVall, Shawn Hatosy, and Laura Harris) realize that something weird is going on and work to stop the invasion.

Now, in case you didn't notice, that is quite a stacked cast for our students.  It also extends to the titular faculty, with Robert Patrick, Piper Laurie, Bebe Neuwirth, Famke Janssen, Jon Stewart, and Salma Hayak.  How this movie got such a cast, I cannot say (did director Robert Rodriguez have that much pull post-From Dusk till Dawn?), but it definitely works in the film's favor.  Most of these actors could play these roles in their sleep, but everyone is 100% committed to the characters they are playing.  Patrick, in particular, is having a blast as the asshole football coach.

If I am going to criticize any aspect of the script, it would be that the students figure out the basics of the aliens far too fast.  Part of that is because of the runtime of 104 minutes (precious little time given how many characters there are), but it would've been nice if the discovery of weaknesses/anatomy were discovered by accident or happenstance.  Even with the caveat of the smartest one being a drug dealer who makes his own drugs (to give him science credibility, I guess?), it reads as a bit forced.

To keep this review relatively short (compared to my other reviews) this is a fun little time capsule and an above-average teen horror flick.  An easy recommend

7 out of 10

Review: The Relic (1997)

The Relic follows Dr. Margo Green (Penelope Ann Miller), an evolutionary biologist at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, and Det. Vincent D'Agosta (Tom Sizemore), a lieutenant with the Chicago Police Department, as a strange series of killings occur in and around the museum.  The killings are especially brutal, with entire brains removed from the head - and the full brain is never recovered.  What could be doing such a thing?

A monster, to answer that question.  For The Relic is a creature feature, one where the creature is partly played by the best CGI 1997 had to offer (so, very dated as of 2025) and partly played by a creature designed by the legendary Stan Winston that has aged very well.  The movie makes you wait a long time for a full shot of the creature - possibly too long, given that we know there is a monster about long before the characters do - but once it is revealed, it is quite a site to behold.

The creature is one of the main reasons I chose to revisit this movie after having not seen it in many years.  It's an inventive design, an amalgamation of multiple animals that - at least in the practical appearances - blend into a familiar yet otherworldly monster that feels truly threatening.  It's a bummer when the CGI takes over (though it is above average for the time period) because that loss of weight to the creature really takes you out of the movie.

But back to our plot:  Our cold open shows us Dr. John Whitney (Lewis Van Bergen) interacting with a tribe in Brazil.  This tribe gives him something strange to drink, which appears to affect him both physically and mentally.  We then cut to him desperately trying to get his cargo off of a ship before it leaves and being refused.  Why does he need that cargo so badly?  We won't find out until near the end of the movie, so buckle up.

The movie plays at being a mystery for a good chunk of the first half of the movie, which is the weaker half by far.  Most of this time is spent with Vincent and his partner as they try to figure out what is going on (and he seems to be the only one that realizes something especially weird is going on).  We do break away from him to see Margo and her museum adventures (namely: checking out some weird fungus on the leaves sent to them by Dr. Whitney), but mostly we are waiting for the two storylines to converge as the plot spins its wheels far too long with subplots from the book that don't really have any bearing on the main story.

At least it is well acted.  Miller and Sizemore both carry the film easily without ever feeling like they are above the material.  You also have Linda Hunt, James Whitmore, and Chi Muoi Lo providing vivid characterization in their supporting roles (Lo, in particular, plays an annoying sleazeball incredibly well).  Even the bit parts have some nice moments scattered throughout.  It helps keep the movie entertaining before we get to the monster, which is a good thing since the plot meanders a bit.

Once the monster reveals itself - during the big exhibition on Superstition, to make sure things are already as creepy as possible - it's basically a race to see who will survive and who will escape (and how will they defeat the monster) until the finale.  While I might sound blasé about it, the use of the exhibit is one of the strongest bits of production design in the film.  It allows the film to be purposely dark and sets a great tone going into the final act of the film.

Would I recommend this film?  Yes.  It's a bit dated in the graphics, but it works really well as a creature feature, and it is worth it for the practical version of the monster.  It doesn't rewrite the genre, but it is a fine way to spend a couple of hours.

7 out of 10

Review: The Black Scorpion (1957)

The Black Scorpion follows a pair of geologists, Drs. Hank Scott and Arturo Ramos (Richard Denning and Carlos Rivas) as they go to investigate a new volcano that has formed in Mexico.  Along the way, the meet and have Teresa Alvarez (Mara Corday) join them, and also discover that prehistoric giant scorpions have been released by the volcano and are terrorizing the countryside.

So, I kind of love this movie?  It's such a weird juxtaposition of plotlines and acting.  Once the giant scorpions make their appearance, you'd expect that to dominate the plot.  The script has other ideas though, as we spend far to much time (soooo much time) on the romance plot between Hank and Teresa.  Like, they go out for an extended dinner scene at one point.  While the threat of giant scorpions is still present.

The scorpions are a mix of three different movie techniques: overlaying an actual scorpion over the film footage (also used in parts of Empire of the Ants); stop-motion animation done by Peter Peterson - who worked on The Giant Behemoth - and supervised by Willis O'Brien of King Kong fame (the 1933 version); and a scorpion 'head' to use for close up/reaction shots.  Which I will let speak for itself

Who expected the movie poster to be so spot on?

The stop motion effects are actually very, very good.  I'd say they are better and more realistic than some of the CGI used in movies today, and that's probably about a third of the reason this movie lives on today (the other half being its appearance on MST3K).  While the budget was greatly reduced here vs their other movies, they still worked some magic for the scorpion scenes.

But back to the script:  For as destructive as these scorpions are (and as large, they can easily pick up and flip a tank) there is precious little urgency from our main characters.  Even as they themselves are fleeing the creatures, it's played more as a mild inconvenience than something life-threatening.  Normally I'd complain about the introduction of a child to up the stakes, but thank God they did or our main characters would never have felt urgency.

That lack of urgency does cause the movie to drag at points, but there is enough destruction scattered throughout that it never feels too long.  It definitely gives the audience a pretty stellar final battle with the biggest of the scorpions.  But even that scene has a moment of weirdly lackadaisical delivery and an inadvertently hilarious setback for the characters.

Can I recommend this film?  Yes, with the caveat that it is probably best watched with friends and mockery ready to go.  Don't take this movie seriously - have fun with it.

It's really a 4 out of 10, but I'll give it a bonus point for the chuckles I got mocking it.

5 our of 10

Review: Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later (1998)

My main goal with this month's horror movies has been to watch movies I had never seen before.  Or, failing that, had not watched since I was a child.  This was mostly successful, sans three of the movies (Psycho, Psycho, and Clown in a Cornfield all failed both criteria, though the latter Psycho was probably the closest to meeting my criteria).  However, sometimes you just want a comfort watch, and while Halloween H20 (I am dropping the unnecessary and stupid 20 Years Later) isn't a masterpiece, it's nice to go into one of these films knowing exactly what to expect.

Directed by Steve Miner - who also directed the second and third Friday the 13th films, along with producing Dawson's Creek - seems an odd choice.  With more experience with the pre-Scream slashers, there is a bit of rough edges to his work on one filled with 90s cynicism and irony.  He does a fine job - I'd say there are two scenes that are absolutely stellar from a horror perspective - but there feels like a lack of enthusiasm for the project.

The film famously was the first starring role of Josh Hartnett - getting a special 'Introducing' credit - though he isn't given much to do once Michael Myers reaches the school where he and his mother, Headmistress Tate (Jamie Lee Curtis) - actually Laurie Strode with a faked death and name change - attend and work.  It's mostly the Jamie Lee Curtis show, though her and Hartnett do get some nice scenes together during the plot establishment part of the movie.

That plot: 20 years after the first two movies (four, five, and six are erased from this timeline), Laurie Strode has son and severe PTSD.  She drinks heavily, especially around Halloween, and is overprotective of her child.  He has just turned 17 and has grown tired of this, and after Laurie initially refuses to let him go on a school trip to Yosemite, he makes plans with his girlfriend Molly (Michelle Williams) and friends Charlie and Sarah (Adam Hann-Byrd and Jodi Lyn O'Keefe) to have an impromptu Halloween party.

At the same time, Michael Myers (played by stuntman Chris Durand) has broken into the now-dead Dr. Loomis's house and killed Marion (Nancy Stephens, reprising her role from the original) and stealing all of Loomis's information on Laurie.  Two neighbors of Marion also get killed, including actual 17-year-old (at the time) Joseph Gordon-Levitt in what may have been a surprise cameo?  Either way, it is fun to see him kick the bucket before the opening credits.

Michael uses the stolen information to get to Laurie, people die, there really isn't anything new to the plot once we get to this point.  There's some weird humor in the film - I think an attempt to be hip where they fail horrendously.  They are much more successful in the many homages to other horror films - Janet Leigh appearing as a secretary whose first line is complaining about a clogged shower, Laurie telling John (Hartnett) 'to go to the McKenzies' - but if someone complained about too many references, I wouldn't be arguing too strongly against them.

Despite its flaws, this might be the best film in the series after the first two.  The 2018 legacy sequel could've made a claim before the second and third films retroactively made it worse, so H20 - flaws and all - continues to hold that title.

Would I recommend it?  Only if you want more Halloween after finishing the first two films.  I'd definitely recommend skipping all of the other sequels and remakes (though I have not seen the infamous Halloween III that does not feature Myers in any way) and stopping with this one.

6.5 out of 10

Review: House on Haunted Hill (1959)

Does one even need to give a summation of House on Haunted Hill?  So much of it is part of the popular lexicon that it only seems necessary because of how often it gets confused with The Haunting due to that movie being based off of The Haunting of Hill House.  To give a quick recap: Millionaire Frederick Loren (played by legend Vincent Price) rents a supposedly haunted house and invites five guests to join him and his wife for a party, with a reward for anyone who makes it through the night without leaving (or dying).

The Lorens (wife Annabelle is played by Carol Ohmart) do not like each other: She finds him overly possessive and jealous and he believes her to have attempted to murder him by poison earlier in their marriage.  With that information - and the reveal that none of the invitees have ever met the Lorens or each other before - we get into the party.

I'll be honest: Most of these characters only exist to give the more interesting characters someone to talk to or to provide exposition.  Vincent Price is a legend and gives the film its best acting, but Ohmart gives an absolutely delicious performance as his scheming wife.  Any scene that features one of them commands your attention.  Carolyn Craig, (as Nora Manning, an employee of Frederick) is the designated screamer in this film - the character is the one with the most supernatural encounters - but she provides a decent amount of shading for an underwritten character.  Once you get past those three characters, there isn't much to write about, not because anyone is bad, but because the movie moves quickly through its plot (it is a short 75 minutes) so we don't get much time with anyone else.

I think most of the modern audience would find the film cheesy - and make no mistake, it is - but part of why it feels so cliche is because of how many of them it likely set.  Hell, it might've been full of cliches at the time (though its positive reviews suggest it was a rather fresh take on horror) but because of how much it's survived in the public consciousness while others from the same time period have faded.

An interesting fact: The film was released with the 'Emergo' gimmick, where a skeleton would fly above the audience during a certain scene.  If a revival screening ever happens near me and includes that, I would be hard pressed to find a reason to skip it.

While the movie does build some tension, having multiple plot shifts in such a short film does make some parts feel rushed.  Again, everything works, but like the characters, certain arcs don't feel like they get enough attention; details are dropped of a larger narrative but none of it is explored beyond the hinting.

I'd still give this movie an easy recommend (it is vastly superior to - and somehow less dated than - the 1999 remake), especially if you want to check out some older horror films.  In fact, prior to my watching this film, I had never seen Vincent Price in a horror film, having only seen him in Edwards Scissorhands and hearing him as the voice of Ratigan in The Great Mouse Detective.  He's one of the greats of the genre, and it was genuinely enjoyable to see him in his element.

7 out of 10

Review: Shelby Oaks (2025)

Shelby Oaks follows Mia Brennan (Camille Sullivan), as she tries to find out what happened to her sister Riley (Sarah Durn), after she disappeared while filming an episode on ghost towns for her YouTube channel, Paranormal Paranoids.  Not just Riley either: co-hosts Laura, Peter, and David (Caisey Cole, Anthony Baldasare, and Eric Francis Melaragni) also disappear, although their bodies - and one of the two tapes filmed while in ghost town Shelby Oaks - are eventually found.

That information - given to us via a documentary being filmed about the disappearance - is given to us during an extended cold open.  It's actually a bit surprising when the title card comes up: At that point we are so invested in the story - though we do get one hell of a tonal switch just before the opening credits start up - that the fact that what we have seen is just set up is honestly shocking.

I went into this movie fairly blind - I did not watch a single trailer for this movie before seeing it and only had the vaguest notion of the plot.  I mostly saw it on the promise of director Chris Stuckmann, a YouTube reviewer I have watched for years and who made one of the best videos about horror about a decade ago:  The Problem with Horror Movies Today.  He goes into great detail about what works and doesn't work for horror.  Because of that video, I was excited to see him attempt a horror film to see how well he followed up on this video since he very clearly understood what makes a great horror film.

And I am happy to say that Stuckmann nails it.  While not a perfect movie by any means, it is a damn good one for a first effort, and it does show that Stuckmann understands what makes one work.  The tonal consistency is amazing and after that shift to end the cold open, the movie never stops going.  Granted, the movie is 91 minutes long, so it cannot afford to waste much time, but even factoring that in, this movie is judicious in how it moves the story forward.

From a found tape, to research on a character introduced to the narrative suddenly and violently, to Mia's increasingly frantic attempts to figure out what truly happened to Riley - none of  it feels forced.  There are some 'horror movie decisions' that I wish had been avoided - namely Mia choosing to do some of her investigations in the middle of the night - but overall, everything just works in a way that shows that care was put into both the direction and the screenplay (which was also written by Stuckmann).

It also helps that the performances are strong across the board.  Sullivan has the bulk of the work, performance-wise, and never hits a false note even as her character makes questionable decisions.  Even aside from her, we get a great cameo from Keith David, and Sarah Durn plays the missing Riley perfectly - you see the variance in her natural vs YouTube selves.  While I won't spoil anything about her character, Robin Bartlett also gives an effective performance in her brief appearance.

Again, this is a good movie.  I hope it is successful and I would highly recommend it!  Despite how much I have revealed in this review, it really only touches a small part of the movie and going in as blind as possible is advice I happily give.

8 out of 10

Review: Trilogy of Terror II (1996)

Trilogy of Terror II is a 1996 made-for-TV anthology movie whose gimmick is that each of the segments stars the same actress.  The original from 1975 (also a made-for-TV affair) famously had Karen Black as its star.  More famously, it had the Zuni doll which kept the movie alive in the minds of many and whose notoriety most likely lead to this sequel (both share the same director: John Curtis).

It's tempting to skip to the last sequence of the film (the above poster makes it clear that everyone involved knew what we were here for) that stars the doll, but I'll stick to the actual order.

Our first segment, where we meet this trilogy's three-part star Lysette Anthony, is called The Graveyard Rats.  Anthony stars as Laura, the wife to millionaire Ansford (Matt Clark) who has caught her having an affair with Ben (Geraint Wyn Davies).  He threatens her with a tape incriminating her in the affair if she doesn't end it.  Rather than do so, Ben convinces her to instead kill Ansford instead.

You may be wondering where the graveyard rats of the title come into this segment, but don't worry, this segment is in no rush to get to that point.  The lovers attempt their plan, and I won't say what the end result is, but it does - after a long interim where we watch the surviving cast members go to a bar (where we hear a story about the rats) then bury and dig up the character that dies.  Only at this point - shortly before the segment ends - do we get the titular rats.  You'd think they'd either go with a different name for the segment or get to the rats faster, but not so much.

It's the weakest of the three by far: draggy and far too much time spent on buildup followed by a weirdly written sequence of escalations and betrayals.  The rats themselves don't look that great - which may explain the delay in their appearance - and while no one is bad in it, no one is particularly interesting either.

Our second segment is called Bobby.  In this segment, Anthony plays Alma, a woman grief-stricken by the death of her son Bobby, who drowned sometime in the past.  Unable to cope, she results to a dark ritual where she calls on a deity to return her son to her.  She then hears a knock on the door to find Bobby (Blake Heron) there, claiming to not have drowned but instead having washed ashore some distance away where he was cared for by a family.  Despite her suspicions of the story, Alma gladly welcomes him back.

This, to me, has the best performance from Anthony.  She plays the grief and depression very well in the beginning.  When Bobby first starts to act different, she does a great job of playing a woman who knows something is wrong but refusing to accept it and ignoring it instead.  Once Bobby fully reveals himself as Not Having Coming Back Right, she plays the terror (and maybe guilt?) in those scenes incredibly well.  There's an implication that maybe Bobby's drowning is not accidental, but given that we hear that from whatever is pretending to be Bobby, I'm not sure how reliable that is - it could just be the entity playing into any guilt Alma might have felt after it.  Either way, this is probably the best segment of the three.

Our final segment - featuring the Zuni doll everyone came for - is called He Who Kills.  It is a direct continuation of the original segment from 1975, where after the death of the those characters, the doll is sent to a museum so that Dr. Simpson (Anthony again) can determine what, if anything, it had to do with the double murder.  As she soon finds out: everything.

For the Zuni doll soon comes to life and starts murdering.  This segment gets to the violence quickly and the bulk of it is Dr. Simpson desperately trying to find a way to keep the doll at bay.  It's probably the best pure-terror performance from Lysette Anthony out of the three segments, with her giving a fairly convincing performance that a doll could be as threatening as the segment wants you to believe.

There isn't much plot to this one; it knows what the audience wants it delivers it.  I wish that the other victims would have received a bit more time before being offed, but given the time constraints, what we get is fairly solid.

It's a definite recommend for campy fun.

6.5 out of 10

Review: New Year's Evil (1980)

New Year's Evil follows two characters (three, if we count the prominently featured rock bands): Diane 'Blaze' Sullivan (Roz Kelly), a punk rock/new wave DJ hosting a countdown celebration (on air?  over the radio?  The movie doesn't make this clear, and I'm not even sure that is in the top 10 flaws scattered throughout this movie).  During said celebration, she received calls from a man calling himself 'Evil' (Kip Niven) who tells her that he will kill someone each hour as the clock strikes midnight in different time zones.  As Blaze is in LA, that means we will get at least 3 kills before she herself is in the targeted time zone.  She works with the police to try and keep the killer on the phone so they can locate him (the police, unsurprisingly, fail)

The B plot follows Evil himself as he goes around killing various women at the designated times.  And it shows him to be a rather bumbling murderer, only successful by accident.

For about 60 minutes of the movie, we navigate back and forth between those two plots and a third not-plot:  Performances from the above mentioned rock bands account for a much higher percentage of the film than you would expect.  The last 25 minutes focus on the main stories, but this movie is stretched out by long music sequences, while they are fine as far as music goes, this isn't Sinners level music we are getting.

The movie is fairly basic as far as plots go, but also fairly tame as far as slashers go.  None of the kills are especially graphic, the language could be much worse; really, the music aspect is pretty much the only thing that stands out for this movie aside from the weird arc of the killer.

We see the killer early, though he uses a voice changer when calling Blaze.  Other than his first kill (second if we count the cold open kill, but we can ignore that as it doesn't meet the 'midnight for each time zone' requirement), he kind of sucks at murdering people.  His second target brings along a friend that forces him to do extra work (extra work he didn't have to do!  He was wearing a disguise and could have left after murdering the first woman!) and before he gets to his third target he is chased by a biker gang.

Yeah, there is a whole sequence of him interacting with and running from a group of bikers that is more obvious padding than even the long sessions of rock music.  The only benefit from it is another bonus non-midnight kill that is also not very muted in execution.  He kidnaps a woman to be his third victim, but fails - forcing him to head to Blaze having followed through on two of his promised midnight kills.

Now, we see the killer's face early and often - part of his plotline is seeing the various way he changes his appearance - but for some reason we are also treated to a weird red herring character - Blaze's son, it's not really a spoiler given how obvious they play it - but we have already seen the killer's face, why are you doing this?

Said son, Derek is played by Grant Cramer and look, I have tried to avoid saying someone is outright terrible in my later reviews.  I'll point to the writing, maybe miscasting, try to point out how it doesn't work, but I have been trying very hard not to say any one performance is outright terrible.  But Grant Cramer, bless his heart, is not very good in this movie and makes me struggle to keep that mindset.  He is much better in Killer Klowns from Outer Space 8 years later, but this was a very rough first movie.

The movie does have its charms though:  It is very much a time capsule of 1980 (though it might've been slightly outdated by then?) so you see lots of fun costumes and some dated turns of phrase, and there is something to be said for seeing an early slasher before they took over horror in the 80s.

Would I recommend this movie?  I mean, it's not great, but it isn't terrible either.  It's... acceptable?  If you are in the mood for a slasher and there is nothing else to watch, it isn't a bad way to spend 85 minutes, but generally, there are going to be better options available.

5 out of 10

Review: Ginger Snaps (2001)

(The following is a conversation between myself and my brother - BroVamp or, for the purposes of the following transcription, BV - that occurred while watching this movie.  Some aspects might be slightly exaggerated or cleaned up for posting purposes.  The general gist of the conversation remains present.)

Me:  I'm in the mood for something lighter tonight, so instead of Near Dark, let's watch Ginger Snaps instead.

BV:  What's it about?

Me:  I'm going in fairly blind, but I know there are werewolves and it is supposed to be a satire, so it should be funny.

BV:  Sure, let's watch it

(The movie is put in.  We open on a woman finding her pet dog torn to shreds and people not really responding to her screams.  We then meet our two main characters, Brigitte and Ginger (Emily Perkins and Katharine Isabelle) who are talking about killing themselves before we get a montage of pictures of them in various suicide poses.)

Me:  I might've been oversold on the comedy.

BV:  This doesn't seem like a comedy

(I look up the Wikipedia page)

Me:  Yeah, the page says it is a 'biting satire' and has 'dark humour'

BV:  Maybe it is just a rough opening?

(There is a pointed conversation about both of the characters not having gone through puberty yet despite being 15 and 16)

Me:  Bet you one of them has their first period and that is what attracts the werewolf

BV:  Chekhov's Menstrual Cycle

Me:  I'm using that in my review.

(What is predicted has come to pass)

Me:  Called it

BV:  Did she die?

Me:  Nope, there she is begging her sister for help

BV:  If we ever are in this situation, I expect you to either make good on your escape or try to hit the werewolf.  Don't just stand there dumbfounded

Me:  Look, if you are being attacked by a werewolf there is going to be at least a moment of shock on my part, because what the fuck?

(2 hours pass in this 108 minute movie.  A guy starts peeing blood)

BV:  See, that would freak me out like this guy is

Me:  I can't imagine anyone not freaking out when that happens.

BV:  Did she bite his dick?

Me:  They cut away but I think he would've reacted before now if she had

(More time passes, the school bully accuses one of the girls of kidnapping her dog)

BV:  Did the sister kill the dog?

Me:  No, that was the dog they found before Chekhov's Menstrual Cycle got them attacked

BV:  But she did kill a dog, right?

Me:  Not yet

BV:  You are assuming she will?

Me:  Do animals ever survive these movies?

(Trying to cure the werewolf, one character suggests using monkshood and refers to it as a perennial plant only available in Spring)

BV:  Wait, a perennial plant should be available all year, this is lazy writing

Me:  Or the teenage character is using the word wrong

BV:  They are in a weed house!  He knows the proper use of perennial!

Me (Looking it up):  There are herbaceous perennials that grow in the spring/summer and die out in the fall/winter.

BV:  The got it correct by accident

Me:  Maybe

(More mayhem occurs.  We are now four hours into this 108 minute movie)

BV:  This movie is long

Me:  I know, it is taking forever

BV:  How long is it

Me:  (Looking it up)  It is 108 minutes...

BV:  Really?!

(6 hours into this movie, we now have full werewolf)

BV:  Is that the werewolf?

Me:  Yeah.

BV:  Are those... breasts?

Me:  It is a busty werewolf.

BV:  It doesn't look very great

Me:  It was made in 2000, probably didn't have the budget for CGI, and this probably looks better than what the CGI would've been

BV:  I feel like the breasts could've been left off

Me:  Then how could we tell it is a new werewolf and not the original?

BV:  The original is dead

Me:  It's a metaphor for puberty

BV:  That is dumb

(The movie ends)

Me:  I am going to use our conversations for the review

BV:  That's fine.

Me:  I might exaggerate or make up some stuff.

BV:  Just don't make me say anything racist, or homophobic, or sexist.

Me:  Antisemitic it is then.

5 out of 10

Review: Abigail (2024)

Abigail follows a group of hired kidnappers as they wait for a ransom to be paid for the child they kidnapped (the titular character).  However, said child also happens to be a vampire, and things go very wrong for our group.

So, a bit of criticism to start with: This movie very clearly revealed the vampire-child aspect in the marketing.  At no point during the trailers is it even attempted to keep that a secret.  Which makes the first 45ish minutes of this movie odd because that is how long it takes for the characters to realize they are trapped with a vampire child.  The movie is fun, and that first 45 minutes if perfectly fine - we get some great character building for our thieves - it's just a weird quirk of the film that the marketing basically had to reveal that plot point because not doing so would cripple it.

Other than that quibble - this is a great popcorn horror movie.  It's brutal and bloody and hilarious; everyone clearly had fun filming this movie, and it bleeds into every frame, both figuratively and literally.

Directors Tyler Gillett and Matt Bettinelli-Olpin (2 members of the group Radio Silence) have many of their trademarks present throughout.  There are explosions of blood (that will remind people of Ready of Not, another Radio Silence movie), wry humor, and a bunch of character actors given room to improvise all over the place.

The improvisation works wonders.  I'd say only one character is given the short stick (and he still gets a clearly defined character) but all the other characters get just the right amount of screentime - the annoying one dies first but not too early, the unlikely friend pair meet their ends close to one another, our hero(es) team up at just the perfect moment.  It's amazing just how well-timed everything in this movie is, down to character details and deaths.

The movie uses Swan Lake heavily - maybe a bit too much? - and both extended ballet sequences are incredible well used: one as an intro to Abigail and the other as a darkly comic moment where one of our thieves is a thrall.

Really, the entire conceit of a vampire ballerina is used well.  Both Abigail's hunting and fighting use a style heavily influenced by this background, and it never feels gimmicky or out of place - a danger many a movie has not avoided (Gymkata anyone?).  Credit to Alisha Weir - who plays Abigail - who did many of her own stunts and spent 8 weeks learning ballet for the performance.  Truly top tier work.

Amongst our group of villains it is hard to pick a best in show - everyone does a great job.  The group includes Dan Stevens, Melissa Barrera, Kathryn Newton, Kevin Durand, Will Catlett, and the departed Angus Cloud.  Every single one does a great job, with Melissa  Barrera shouldering lead performance duties with Weir's Abigail.

This is an easy recommend: it's not reinventing anything, and certainly isn't scary, but it is a fun way to spend an evening.

7.5 out of 10

Review: Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022)

Bodies Bodies Bodies follows a group of friends throwing a hurricane party to pass the time during a, well, hurricane.  While playing a game called Bodies Bodies Bodies, they find David (Pete Davidson), whose house they are staying at, has had his throat slit.  What follows is these mostly-lifelong friends trying to figure out who among them is the killer.

When it was released, it was a fairly critically acclaimed movie, with several glowing reviews and a 86% on Rotten Tomatoes.  Several different horror blogs I frequent also recommended it, so while it took me awhile to get around to viewing it, I went into this film fairly optimistic.

I should not have been.

One of my biggest complaints about horror films in the early aughts was the tendency to make 90% of the characters insufferable assholes so that the audience would not care when they met their inevitable end.  Thankfully, that is no longer the case, but for awhile it poisoned a large number of otherwise fine horror films, making them a chore to watch.

Watching this was a chore.

All of these characters suck.  And while that could honestly work for this film - it leans hard into the black comedy aspect of its horror-comedy, to limited success - there has to be someone worthwhile for us to follow along with.  That person doesn't have to be a good person, but we need to at least be invested in their story, but of our two main characters, neither of them has an arc that is interesting - one is far to opaque a character and the other sucks just as hard as all the other people in that house.

The worst part is I can see what screenwriters Kristen Roupenian (who has a Story By credit) and Sarah DeLappe (with a Screenplay By credit) were going for.  Maybe it didn't translate well from page to screen?  Maybe director Halina Reijn removed some of the more biting satire?  Either way, the movie ends up subjecting the viewer to 90 minutes of 'friends' being assholes to one another with the occasional death.

There is one scene that shows what the entire movie could have been - fairly late, so I won't say who the remaining four characters are to avoid spoilers - and it makes me wish that energy had permeated the entire film instead of the one brief moment.

How are the performances?  Good, I guess?  That's not fair, there is one particularly spectacular performance from Rachel Sennott that is a breath of fresh air and probably the only performance that (to me) captured what the movie needed to work properly.

Now, I will say to take my opinion with a grain of salt:  As mentioned at the top of the review, this film received mostly positive reviews and several people I respect highly recommend it, so this could be a case of a movie just not working for me individually.  So while my rating will be fairly low, and I definitely would not recommend it, don't let just my opinion sway you.

4 out of 10

Review: Peter Pan's Neverland Nightmare (2025)

Looks like I am committed to the Poohniverse.

Peter Pan's Neverland Nightmare follows Wendy Darling (Megan Placito) as she tries to find her brother Michael (Peter DeSouza-Feighoney) after he is abducted by child killer Peter Pan (Martin Portlock).  Featuring a second appearance of Mary Darling (Teresa Banham reprising the role after her first appearance in Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey 2), this is the first broadening of the Poohniverse (it released before Bambi: The Reckoning and features returning characters unlike that film).

This one took a little longer for me to get into than the other movies in the series. There's some brutality early on that isn't any more off-putting than anything else in this series.  Maybe it is the (to me) unnecessary grotesqueness that permeates the early going.  Peter Pan (as seen in the above poster) gets scarred during a prologue abduction, but it doesn't end there: Tinker Bell (Kit Green) and Hook (Charity Kase) also lean heavily into extreme makeup.

The first 30ish minutes are spent getting us to the main plot (Wendy searching for Michael), at which point the movies has to do some serious padding to not resolve in record time.  Weirdly, this is when the movie picks up a bit for me.  Even more weird, the scene that starts the padding but brings up the energy of the movie is one where Peter Pan kills a very large number of people (that I am keeping vague to avoid spoilers).

The stakes thus raised, Wendy continues her search, with an assist from her friend Tiger Lily (Olumide Olorunfemi) and Tiger Lily's brother Joey (Hardy Yusuf).  She ends up crashing with them when Mary blames Wendy for not noticing that Michael snuck off earlier when she was supposed to pick him up.  This doesn't end well for Tiger Lily or her family.

Which, an aside: There have not been a large number of black characters scattered throughout the Poohniverse, but almost every single one has died, usually quite violently.  The movies are pretty brutal across all kills, but maybe allow one of these characters to survive?  It's a very low bar to clear, but these movies haven't managed it so far.

We cut between Wendy's search and Michael's captivity which is where we get to meet Tinker Bell and guys, I don't know how to approach this.  Tinker Bell is a previous abductee of Peter's who wasn't 'sent to Neverland' (killed) because they were a 'fairy.'  They are trans and while I can appreciate the inclusion of a trans character, they way it is done is... messy.  Other people are better equipped to break down all the ways this is problematic than me, but trust that I'm not sure this is the best of representation.

The movie sprints towards the ending at this point, and I won't spoil how it all goes, but the ending, for me, was unsatisfying.  I get that part of it is a set up for Monster Assembled, but I still think it could have been better.

6 out of 10

Review: Dark Night of the Scarecrow (1981)

In 1981, a made-for-TV movie was released called Dark Night of the Scarecrow, starring Charles Durning and Larry Drake, and creating the Evil/Killer Scarecrow subgenre of horror.  Yeah, believe or not, a scarecrow was not the centerpiece of a horror movie until the 80s, which seems crazy.

The plot: Bubba (Drake), is a developmentally disabled man who is friends with Marylee (Tonya Crowe),a child neighbor.  Otis (Durning) considers Bubba to be a blight on the town and is just looking for a reason to get rid of him.  When Marylee is attacked by a dog and saved by Bubba, he is instead blamed for the girl's death and Otis gets three others - Skeeter, Philby, and Harliss (Robert F. Lyons, Claude Earl Jones, and Lane Smith) - and takes vigilante justice against Bubba as he hides in a scarecrow.  Shortly thereafter, the group learns that not only is Marylee still alive, but she lives only because of Bubba's intervention.

A quick trial - and some perjury from Otis - sees the vigilantes get away with their murder (which, for anyone familiar with small town politics, reads as sadly realistic) and released without consequences.  However, all of the men start seeing a bullet-riddled scarecrow appear near their homes and bad things start happening...

First, I want to say, for a made-for-TV movie, this is amazingly effective.  It's genuinely creepy in parts, and despite a lack of gore, the implied violence is still harrowing.  Between this and the Salem's Lot miniseries, the late 70s/early 80s must have been a golden age for made-for-TV horror.

Secondly, this cast is absolutely phenomenal.  Not a weak performance in the bunch, with Durning a particular strong case for best in show as the vindictive and slimy (and possibly pedophilic?) Otis.  It's great to see the character actor - Oscar nominated for The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas and To Be or Not to Be - playing what amounts to the lead character.  Lane Smith is probably most well-known as the district attorney in My Cousin Vinny, and sister-of-Marlon Brando Jocelyn Brando plays Bubba's mother.  Not a single member of this A-list cast phones it in.

Honestly, this movie is so much better than several theatrically released films from the same - or even the following - years that it's kind of crazy the it was never in theaters.  It does atmosphere and tone so well!  Even the set design is better than I've seen in some modern films!

This movie was hard to find for the longest time, but now is available on DVD and Blu-ray and is also streaming at various sites so I'd highly recommend finding and watching it.

7.5 out of 10

Review: The Taking of Deborah Logan (2014)

I had a rough time with this movie.  I will freely admit that, because of my experience with Alzheimer's within my family, my reaction to this film probably varies from many others.  Especially since part of the plot of it deals with the exploitation of people suffering from the disease - possibly a lampshade of the same criticism that could be thrown at this film.

The Taking of Deborah Logan is a found footage movie where three students - Mia, Gavin, and Luis (Michelle Ang, Brett Gentile, and Jeremy DeCarlos) - want to create a documentary about Deborah Logan (Jill Larson) and her daughter Sarah (Anne Ramsay) as Deborah progresses further into Alzheimer's disease.  As they film the lives of the Logans, it becomes increasingly clear that something more than Alzheimer's is affecting Deborah.

There is merit in using the metaphor of possession (for that is what this film is about) as a way to approach how a family deals with a disease affecting someone within their unit.  It needs to approached carefully, and it needs to be clear in its message.  Think of The Babadook and how it uses its creature as a stand-in for grief and dealing with loss.  This method of storytelling can be affecting if done well, I'm just not sure the this film succeeds.

Early on, to convince the Logans to let the students film them, Mia mentions that she also had a family member who had Alzheimer's.  We shortly thereafter find out it is a lie meant to persuade the family once Deborah starts having second thoughts.  We also get early hints that Gavin and Luis aren't taking it very seriously as they are told repeatedly to stop randomly touching various items within the house.  The groundwork is there, but not really followed upon.

Part of that can be explained away as the plot of the film - the increasingly weird behaviors of Deborah that can only be explained as supernatural - takes over.  At one point Gavin leaves because of what he is seeing on camera (the movie makes the rare decision to have Mia be the skeptical one who ignores and tries to explain away the unexplainable events - this usually falls on a male character) and Luis attempts to place a cross to ward off what Deborah may or may not being seeing.

However, we never really address - other than a quick moment towards the end of the film - the underhanded way the students convinced the Logans to let them film.  There's growth from Mia regarding her behavior, but nothing that really works as an arc for her character.  It isn't necessarily a plot hole, but it is something that the plot should've included.  It makes one lean towards the movie exploiting the disease instead of using it as a metaphor.

I will say that the performances are good across the board.  In particular, Jill Larson and Anne Ramsay do a fantastic job of deterioration (in the case of the former) and the forced optimism/strain of dealing with a sick family member (in the case of the latter).  This movie does work most of the time based off the strength of this duo of performances.

Would I recommend this movie?  Probably?  It won't ever be my favorite - I doubt I would ever give this a second viewing without someone else wanting to watch it - but despite the shortcomings that I see, it is effective and creepy and has decent twists and turns throughout.  I just wish it had approached its subject matter in a better way.

6 out of 10

Review: Bambi: The Reckoning (2025)

So, I find myself in a situation.

When I wrote my review for Winne the Pooh: Blood and Honey 2, I basically said that the Poohniverse looked stupid, and that it and the first Winnie the Pooh movie were terrible if enjoyable.  So what happens when one of these movies is actually... dare I say it... good?

That is the predicament I find myself in right now.  Bambi: The Reckoning, by all accounts, is a well-made, solid film.  The acting is good (even from the child actor!), the design for the evil Bambi is good, as is the CGI for him.  The plot makes sense, the kills are gruesome and well-done... How did they manage to make such a solid entry?  Was it because this is the fourth in the series (I have yet to see Peter Pan: Neverland Nightmare but this movie kind of made that a priority?) or did the decision to keep this short (the movie is 80 minutes long with credits) force them to cut any unnecessary tangents out of the film?

To give a brief summary of the film: We get a quick animation of Bambi's history - mother killed by poacher, Faline killed by a van that dumps toxic waste into the waters that Bambi eventually drinks from - then we are immediately into the film, which is basically Bambi Kills Everyone He Can.

There is a human plot: Xana (Roxanne McKee) and her son Benji (Tom Mulheron) are going to visit her husband Simon's (Alex Cooke) family, although Simon cancels his participation due to work obligations before the other two have left.  There are relationship problems between Xana and Simon - he is a distant father - but Xana is trying to hide it from Benji.

There is also a plot regarding some hunters who are obviously after Bambi, but leaves the how and why ambiguous for now.

First unexpected surprise: The two are attacked before they reach the extended family.  The stakes are present fairly early - no slow build - and while not especially gory, the death of the cab driver is still brutal.  While our main characters still make it to the family house, they are already hurt and bleeding before the real meat of the movie starts!

We do get a brief breather as we get to meet the extended family.  There's some sort of implied connection between Bambi and Mary (Nicola Wright), the dementia-riddled grandmother of Benji, but otherwise we get quick establishing of the characters (nothing too deep, but enough to separate them as distinct characters from one another) before Bambi attacks the house and sends the family running.

Second unexpected surprise: Bambi doesn't kill everyone in this movie.  Outside of the killer deer, four other characters get various other kills scattered throughout and all of them make sense within the context of the story.  I won't spoil who dies or who kills, but it was a great way to keep the action varied while still keeping the overarching threat of Bambi.

The family (what remains of it, this movie kills characters left and right) eventually meets up with the hunters and the reason the hunters know about Bambi is a fairly major plot reveal, but not delivered with any pomp: they say why they are after him and immediately move to try and kill him.

Third unexpected surprise: The human antagonists (for the hunters do fulfill that role) are actually threatening, both to the family and to Bambi.  There's always the worry in these types of movies that, if there are human antagonists, they are cartoonishly evil or make decisions that are incredibly stupid if any sort of thought it applied to them.  In this movie, they keep it simple and it works wonders as far as increasing their threat.

Overall, I really wasn't expecting anything from this movie other than dumb fun like the previous two movies I watched.  And that was a major mistake on my part!  This movie, judged on its own merits, is good!  It won't win any awards, but it's solid.  I'd even recommend it to people outside those interested in the Twisted Childhood Universe.  Which is not what I expected going into this.

7 out of 10

Review: Night of the Lepus (1972)

Fucking children...

Night of the Lepus primarily follows Cole Hillman (Rory Calhoun), a rancher looking to get rid of the massive amount of rabbits on his land and married scientists Roy and Gerry Bennett (Stuart Whitman and Janet Leigh), the two tasked with coming up with a solution other than poisoning to get rid of said rabbits.

The two scientist attempt to inject the rabbits with a serum that will cause birth defects (and thus reduce the rabbit population that way) but instead it makes the rabbits grow larger and more aggressive.  They then must destroy the rabbits to prevent any from making it into the wild, but wouldn't you know: their daughter Amanda (Melanie Fullerton) switches one of the injected rabbits with one of the control rabbits then convinces her parents to let her take one of the control rabbits home.

You see where this is going...

Soon enough, giant rabbits are terrorizing the countryside (thanks Amanda) and everyone must put their heads together to figure out a way to stop them.

It's a fairly standard eco-horror plot (though this dips a toe into SciFi a bit more than others of the same type, like Frogs), propped up by having well-known actors like Leigh, Calhoun, and Whitman as stars.  It was part of the 'Animals Run Amok' trend in the early 70s and is most notable for how the fact the 'monster' of the film was rabbits was hidden in both the posters and trailers.

The film utterly fails to make the rabbits scary.  Director William F. Claxton mostly had regular rabbits running on miniature sets and used slow motion to make them seem larger (this does not work at all) and then had people in rabbit suits for scenes where a rabbit needed to be up close 'attacking' someone (this looked even worse).  I appreciate the effort (1972 was not a good time to try to make a film with this plotline and have it even approach realistic special effects), but it was ultimately a failure.

The film does gain some charm from (despite?) the terrible effects.  Contemporaneous critics called the acting wooden, but I thought it was fine for the most part.  No one elevated the material in any way, but no one was terrible either.  The score is fairly nondescript, but after consecutive days of movies with jarring sound cues, that is almost welcome.  The movie is serviceable, which might be its biggest sin.

See, this movie has the makings of a true cult classic - ridiculous premise, terrible effects, sincere acting - but it never really rises up (or down, to be more honest) in such a way that it becomes campy.  Again, it is serviceable.  Other than the complete failure of the effects, it mostly succeeds in telling its story.  Maybe it would have been better had it not had established actors?  It never quite hits the level of truly terrible, which weirdly would had helped it.

But back to that child: Every death in this movie can be traced back to Amanda, and unless I missed something somewhere (very possible) she never even fesses up to switching out the test rabbit.  And this isn't a small death toll movie - an entire village is basically overtaken/eaten by the rabbits, and the National Guard has to be called in to handle the problem.  This is bullshit, and there should've been some sort of consequence!

Would I recommend this movie?  No, but mostly because of how forgettable it is, which is something a giant rabbit movie should never be.  But it isn't bad, and there are worse movies to watch.

5 out of 10