Day 22: The Last Will and Testament of Rosalind Leigh (2012)

Can a once-prolific blogger who hasn't written 31 posts all year find it in his soul to review 31 previously unseen horror films in 31 days of October? Let's find out...

Added bonus: This blog post is a part of Final Girl's Film Club. Check our Stacie Ponder's blog for other reviews of this film, and for cutting edge commentary on world politics. Or, ya know, other things.

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Available on both Amazon Prime Instant and Netflix Instant. It's Instantly available, this instant! Go, go, GO!!!

I went into this flick having no freakin' idea what it was about. I was thinking ghosts or demonic possession, but I really had no clue. I did know that Vanessa Redgrave did the voice-over work, so I'm already horny. I said it.

An antiques dealer has inherited an old house from his recently deceased mother. The house is filled with all kinds of creepy and cool artifacts, something an antiques dealer should just adore. But it's the creepy factor that makes him uneasy. He soon discovers that his mother had turned her home into some kind of shrine for some kind of religious cult. And she is trying to reach out to him through some of the creepy items in the house to give him some kind of urgent message. We are off to the fucking races, folks.

I have a hard time disassociating myself with an actor that I've only seen in one other role. Aaron Poole stars in this one, and the only thing I've ever seen him in is the excellent series Copper from BBC America. He played a Confederate spy in that at the end of the American Civil War who conspired to burn down New York City. So I kept on thinking of him as that openly villainous type of character while I was watching this. It was a little distracting, for me. Maybe I just wanted him to die. Oops...

There are all these creepy angel statues all over the house and grounds. And I kept expecting them to all of a sudden open up their creepy statue eyes or something. Guess what happens? Spoiler alert: creepy statue eyes open. You see it coming from a mile away, and it's still creepy. Because creepy statue eyes are fucking creepy. I am hereby banned from using the word "creepy" any more in this review.

I don't know. The film seemed really short and without any kind of important ending or high point, but you can feel free to disagree. It was certainly well-made, but I'm not sure what the point of it really was. I was honestly expecting and hoping for more. As it is, it just left me...wanting. I think I get what really happened, or didn't happen. Didn't happen is the most likely theory, but you can decide that for yourself.

Best way to watch the film is in a dark house with a glass of good whiskey. Because you know the whiskey is gonna be good. The movie...well, I guess that's up to you.

Verdant Dude rating: 2 out of 5 pumpkins

Final Girl Film Club: Frozen

Note: This post is a part of Stacie Ponder's Final Girl Film Club.  She picks 'em, we watch and review 'em.  It's so easy that even an idiot like me can figger it out.  Go check out her site later on today to see her review and some links to some of the other Film Club gang.  It's SUPER fun!  Ahem...

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Have you seen or heard about the film Open Water?  It's one of those based-on-reality films that was/is one of my worst nightmares.  Being stranded out at sea, surrounded by hungry sharks.  The couple in the film (and in real life) were accidentally left behind from a scuba expedition when the dive-boat crew messed up the headcount.  When they surface, they see the boat is gone and there is no land in sight.  Sharks come cruising and it's all "nom nom nom" after that.

Frozen is like that, but with skiing/snowboarding instead of scuba diving.  And careless ski-lift operators instead of a careless dive-boat crew.  And wolves instead of sharks.  Other than that, it's exactly like Open Water.

Doesn't sound plausible, does it?  It's really not.  But lets give it the old college try to explain how that shit might happen. 

A dude, his girlfriend/beard and his best friend/secret gay crush head to the mountains (New England?) for a day of skiing and catty in-fighting.  Instead of spending money on ski-lift passes, they bribe the operator with $100.  Did they save a lot of money?  I have no idea.  Skiing isn't my bag.  But they must have, because they are beaming with delight at all the money they saved.  But after a day of bunny trails because of the lame girlfriend/beard, the fellas decide they want one more run so they can get their speed on.  They feel the need...the need for speed!  Hmm...why does that sound familiar?  Lemme get back to that.

Now I must have blacked out momentarily, because I seem to remember her deciding to hang out and wait while they blaze fiercely down the mountain.  But there she was, getting on the ski lift with them.  I think "someone" was trying to break that nice gay couple up, if you ask me.  So it's now dark out and the ski-lift operator balks at letting them take one more run because there is some weather coming in.  He eventually relents, then he has to take a piss or something and he winds up forgetting about them.  His replacement, thinking everyone is off the mountain, stops the ski-lift while they are halfway up the mountain, turns off the lights and goes home.  And this was a Sunday night, so the mountain won't re-open again until Friday. 

Really?  Do they do that?  People don't go skiing during the week?  Like I said, it isn't my bag.

So now the three of them are stuck...I don't know how high up in the air on a ski-chair as a winter storm blows in.  I say that I don't know how high they are up because they never say and they never ask.  That's all I would be talking about.  "How far do you think it is to the ground?  Can a person survive a jump like that?  How about we tie some of our clothes together and lower one of us to the ground?  Or at least halfway?  What do you guys think?"

Having that conversation would have really been a good idea.  Instead they decide to panic, not cover up their exposed faces from the elements (that was driving me nuts!) and not huddle for warmth (driving me nuts times two!).  Three really bad ideas.  You can probably guess where this winds up.  Yup, frostbite, compound fractures and a lot of "nom nom nom" once the wolves come cruising.

OK...it wasn't awful.  But it wasn't very good either.  I felt like they all could have come through the other side of this thing if they just took a moment and figured some stuff out.  But instead, they decided to ignore a lot of obvious stuff, sit around like retards and then leap (hehe) directly into the danger zone. 

The danger zone?  Why does that sound familiar?  And that need for speed thing, what was that all about?  Wait a minute.  Oh yeah, the dude's best friend/secret gay crush is played by Shawn Ashmore.  He also played Iceman in the X-Men films.  And Val Kilmer famously played Iceman in Top Gun, another movie with a lot of latent gay stuff going down.  I mean, besides Tom Cruise being in it.

"Highway to the danger zone.  I'll take you right in to the danger zone!"

Two quick thumbs up the film DOES deserve.  One of the productions companies is called A Bigger Boat.  I like that.  And a snowplow dude in the film was played by Kane Hodder...Jason Vorhees himself! Ah, you big lug.  I can't quit you!

Final Girl Film Club: The Funhouse (1981)

Disclaimer: This review is a part of Stacie Ponder's Final Girl Film Club. She picks the flick, and (like a bunch of zombie sheep...bah!) we review 'em. Sounds so simple that even a mutant retard in a Frankenstein mask could do it. - Earl

I'm going to be totally honest with you all here for a moment.  I haven't seen The Funhouse in probably twenty years.  I'm doing this review straight from memory, but that's okay.  This was one of those films that was being shown on Showtime or HBO back when we first got cable, an I must have seen it a couple of dozen times in all.  I could probably close my eyes, put on an REO Speedwagon album and the film would just play on the inside of my eyelids.  My own personal freakshow...with boobs!

But I will use the Internets to assist me in this endeavor.  Because what's a review without salient sucky details?   Like the fact that horror-meister Tobe Hooper directed it.  I had no idea that he was involved way back when I saw it, but thinking about it now it kinda makes sense.  He had done back-woodsy, red-necky weirdos before in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and the awful Eaten Alive.  So back-woodsy, red-necky carnival folk seems like a logical progression. 

I remember the film starting as a ripoff of the beginning of Halloween.  A POV tracking shot following the killer's eyes through a mask.  Or maybe it was a Psycho homage because there's a nekkid shower scene almost immediately.  I guess if you are gonna steal, it's better to steal from the classics, amirite?  Then the action switches to a virginal young girl going to a carnival with a new beau and some friends.  They get the silly idea of spending the night in the funhouse of the carnival...why not?  But then bad things start happening after they witness the murder of a fortune teller/carny hooker at the hands of a dude in a monster mask.

Seems the poor guy got a little excited at the prospect of some way-past-her-prime hooker vajajay, and he prematurely popped his load.  Much to the delight and laughter of the old lady of the evening.  But, as the saying goes, it's not nice to laugh at a mutant carny retard after a premature ejaculation.  Jenny from Forrest Gump knew that.  If she had laughed at Forrest in her dorm room he would have worn her head as a hat all around the Gulf Coast instead of naming a shrimp boat after her.  But I digress...

Laughing at the lovable lug was just one in a series of stupid mistakes made in this film.  Like spending the night in the funhouse in the first place.  Or stealing the mutant's father's money when they thought no one was looking.  Now the game is really afoot.  All they had to do was hunker down and hide until morning, but nooooo!  Had to go and piss off the freak's daddy.  You can probably guess where the rest of the film goes from there.  Freak and father hunt down the meddling kids (hey!) until the eventual bloody end for most of them.  Sure, there is a survivor.  But it's not telegraphed by Tobe Hooper at all.  Except that it is.

So in the end (hehe), did I love it or did I hate it?  Well, I kinda loved it.  I think.  That may have to do with my fond memories of watching R-rated cinema at home as often as I wanted to.  I seem to recall that it was a bit of a slow build-up.  I don't they even wound up in the funhouse until about 45 minutes into the film.  I could be wrong about that one.  But what I do remember, I think I really liked.  

I'm interested to read what the rest of the Film Club Coolies have to say about this one upon re-watching it or watching it for the first time, for that matter.  Like I said, I remember it so well that I don't think I'm missing anything by re-watching it right now.  Then again, maybe I am.

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Note: Remember to play the Badgerdaddy Trivia Challenge every day. I'm really trying hard to imagine Forrest Gump as a serial killer now...FUN!

Final Girl Film Club: Onibaba (1964)

Note: This review is part of the Final Girl Film Club over at Stacie Ponder's joint. Go have a look see if'n you want to get your horror on. Oh, and I'm going to spoil the hell out of this bad boy...you have been warned. - Earl

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I first came across Onibaba at a local video store a few years after graduating from college. I had already gone through my Kurasawa film student phase, and while doing so I had read about this horror/fable by Japanese filmmaker Kaneto Shindo. So when I saw it next to Ran and Yojimbo up there on the shelf, I grabbed it.

I was also a fan of Japanese mythology and history at the time, and I was interested to find out that the film was adapted from a Buddhist fable called "A Mask With Flesh Scared a Wife". Loosely adapted. In the fable, a woman tries to prevent her virtuous daughter from going to the temple (I have no idea why) by donning a demon's mask to scare her. The daughter's faith winds up being stronger than her fear of the demon, and she continues to go to the temple. As a punishment, Buddha bonds the demon mask to the mother's face so that she would forever be a monster.

Kaneto Shindo took that fable and added a whole lot of sexy-sexy fun time to it for his film.

In his version, a woman and her son's wife are eking out an existence in a hellish war between two rival factions in medieval Japan. They trap and kill injured or lost samurai in this crazy tall-grass swamp that they live in. They then steal the warrior's possessions and sell them for food.

The woman's son has been away fighting in the war. Suddenly a neighbor, and a friend to the son, arrives at their hut with stories of war and death. The son's death, to be specific. Now this guy ain't no prize. He's shiftless and lazy, and he's got lusty eyes for his buddy's young widow. But he's the only swinging dick for miles, so both ladies start to get the hots for him almost immediately.

Hello, ladies...

Every night, the young widow blasts off through the reeds in an exhilarating mad dash to her new lover's hut. She's terrified of being out at night among the tall grass...the scene of many of her own past indiscretions...but the thrill of some quickie boom-boom with the slob is enough to keep her going. Her mother-in-law isn't fooled for a moment. Having followed her to the pig's hut, she begins to try to sway the man from continuing the relationship. Even offering her own body to him instead. "I'm not old on the inside!" she pleads, but he is having nothing of it.

During one of the nights when her daughter-in-law is with her new lover, an odd samurai in a demon's mask intrudes on the woman in her hut. He only wants directions to the main road to Kyoto, but there is something sinister and tragic about him. He refuses to take off the mask, saying that he is so handsome that it would break the woman's heart. Not trusting him to leave her alive after showing him his way, the woman tricks him into falling into the scariest pit ever. It's so deep you can hear an echo, and it's in the middle of this field of tall grass with no warning that it's coming up. I'd put some kind of fence around this thing if I were these ladies.

She gets some rope and climbs down to find him among the other bodies that she and her daughter-in-law have been disposing after their kills. After finally determining that he is dead, she tries to pry the mask off of his face. But it appears to be stuck. After much effort she gets it off, but his supposedly handsome face has been terribly scarred. He is hideous. But the mask gives the woman an idea. This is where the fable I mentioned comes in.

She begins to wear the mask and some odd kabuki outfit to scare the young widow each night as she runs to her slob of a lover. And it works. Until one rainy night when the young woman's lust overpowers her fears and she makes it to the dude's hut. They don't even wait to get inside to get it on. They do it right there in the rain amid the tall reeds. With the mother-in-law in the demon mask looking on.

That's when things get a little freaky.

The young widow gets back to find her mother-in-law crying in the hut with the demon mask on her face. She's crying because it got wet in the rain and it's now stuck on her. The girl, rightfully pissed off, uses a hammer to crack the mask in half and knock it off her face. But the woman, of course, is now just as scarred as the samurai who she killed. Even more so. She has literally turned into a monster.

There's a lot going on in this film. I'm not sure it works as straight horror. I don't think that was Shindo's intent at all actually. It's more of an art film, filled with symbolism. The scarring under the mask is supposed to evoke the memory of the radiation burns of the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. At one point, the young widow even asks of the older woman "The rain did this?" when she reveals the mask has been bonded to her face. A nod to the nuclear fallout nicknamed "black rain" by the survivors of the bombs? Maybe.

It's definitely a moody and atmospheric film. Shot in black and white, it is so sparse at times that it feels like it could have been a stage play. I'm not sure that the beat jazz score that popped up every once in a while fit, but hey...it was the groovy '60's, man!

All in all, I liked it. It's not very scary and I would be hard-pressed to call it a horror film. But it is an interesting study of the effects of war and class struggle on a society. Innocent farmers turning into killers and thieves in order to survive. War is hell, indeed.

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Note: Remember to play the Badgerdaddy Trivia Challenge every day. The title literally means "Demon Woman". Oh yeah.

Final Girl Film Club: It's Alive (1974)

Note: This post is a part of Stacie Ponder's Final Girl Film Club. She picks 'em, we review 'em.  It's not rocket science, people!


It's Alive is one of those schlocky horror flicks from my youth that I had always thought I had seen.  But as it turns out, I never had.  Not in it's entirety, at least.  I do remember the commercials for it when I was a kid, and they truly scared the bejeebus outta me.  Little did little me know that this was more of a comedy than anything else.  It was a comedy, right?

The fun starts with the wacky hipster Davis couple.  Frank is a slick-dressing, chain-smoking advertising man of the 70's and his wife Lenore is expecting their first baby.  Sure, they thought about abortion, but as the lovable Frank says "Doesn't everybody inquire about it nowadays?  It's just a question of convenience and we decided to have the baby."  Ah...what a card!

Turns out that abortion might have been the way to go as little baby Davis is born with the most adorable set of claws and scary teefusses.  Then the little guy immediately goes samurai on the delivery room staff.  Have you ever seen such a cute baby?  So advanced for such a little guy.  And he doesn't stop there.  Soon he's killing go-go dancers, rock musicians, school teachers, milkmen and some of the dumbest cops ever caught on film.  There is this hilarious scene where the keystone cops surround the kid in a backyard because they heard it crying.  Only it turns out...wacka wacka wacka...IT WAS JUST A NORMAL BABY CRYING!

Ooops! Wrong kid!  Silly keystone cops...

It's a laugh riot!

One of the best lines comes from one of the dumb cops when they spot a blood trail leading into a sewer.  "That's it!  That's how it can travel the length of the city without anyone seeing it!"  So this newborn with the oh-so-funny claws is traveling miles and miles of sewers just to bring the comedy to the entire city?  I don't blame the dumbs cops in this particular situation for not figuring that out right away.  It just seems so unlikely and it may just represent a huge plot-hole in the film.  I wonder if the producers of the film re-thought that line in the edit room?

/sarcasm

OK, so it wasn't a comedy.  I get that now.  But seriously, don't you think it should have been?  From the awful fashions to the awful acting to the awful dialogue to the awful production.  It was just awful.  But also a little bit of fun.  The little monster baby was hilarious to look at the few times they actually showed it to us a little.  Especially peering out of a tunnel in the sewers during the final showdown.  That really made me smile.

And the film did have a message.  Kids are bad and evil and we should stop them.  See?

The 70's were filled with subliminal messages

You learn something.  I learn something.  It's all good.  Even if they were preaching to the choir with this particular message.

But nay readers, I didn't stop there.  No sirreebob!  Because Netflix also had the remake starring Bijou Phillips available for Instant streaming at the time.  This was like a perfect storm of killer baby, er, ness.   No way I was going to be able to go to bed that night without doing a little taste-test comparison.  And I'd love to tell you that it was as craptastic as the original, but no...it really, really sucked.    There was no hint of the goofy over-the-top irony of the first film.  Just a bad CGI devil baby with retractable claws.  And a mother who was much more of an enabler than she should have been.  Sure, maybe you turn a blind eye towards your child escaping the crib once to kill and devour some of the local wildlife.  But after the first time she should have laid down the law.  Lazy parents.

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Note: Remember to play the Badgerdaddy Trivia Challenge every day. "I like children - fried" - W.C. Fields.

Final Girl Film Club: Spider Baby

Note: This post (er, re-post) is part of Stacie Ponder's Final Girl Film Club.  But it clearly can be enjoyed all on it's very own and all over again. Besides, I'm on vacation, bitches! - Earl
 
...or, The Maddest Story Ever Told

I've had this movie on my Netflix queue for just about forever. Spider Baby is the name and it is a cult classic starring Lon Chaney, Jr. and Sid Haig.  It supposedly was a big influence to a whole host of horror filmmakers including Tobe Hooper (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) and Rob Zombie (House of 1,000 Corpses).  I've always wanted to see it, but it was always a "very long wait" to get the DVD so I stopped moving it up to one of the top spots on my queue.

But last week Netflix made the film available for instant streaming so Gia and I were able to watch it this weekend*.

*I obviously wrote this a while ago, because it's been available on Instant for quite a while now.  Deal with it, you freaky perfectionists!

Wow.

It truly may be the maddest story ever told.  It's about a family of two sisters and a severely retarded brother who are in the care of the family's, um, caretaker.  At first we the viewers are unaware of what has happened to the parents of the children, but we soon discover that the entire family suffers from a rare disease that cause a social and psychological regression soon after the 14th year.  Eventually, each family member becomes something of a primordial beast with no reason whatsoever.

A couple of distant relatives decide that they want the family fortune so they hire a lawyer (awesomely named Schlocker) to determine if the children can be made wards of the state.  A night of wackiness ensues when they decide that they are going to spend the night with the creepiest family this side of the Borgia's. 

One of the daughters is obsessed with spiders, even acting like one on several muderous occasions.   That's her up top there in the picture.  If you can't tell, badness is about to happen.  You see, neither of the daughters or the caretaker want the general public to know of their "secret".  And their brother Ralphie isn't much more than a simpleton at this stage of his disease, but he has become sexually active.  Yeah.

Inbreeding, rape, murder, incest and cat killing are all part of the joy ride.  It's only that last one that really bothered me, but I heard they taste like rabbit so I guess it is okay.

One of my favorite parts?  The title theme, sung by Lon Chaney, Jr. himself.

It.
Is.
Awesome!!!

The film has fallen into the public domain, so you can all watch if for free in a few places on the Web. Cult Reviews is a good one. Check it out, if you are in the mood from some schlocky horror/comedy fun.

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Note: Remember to play the Bug-Eyed Trivia Challenge every day. "This has gone well beyond the boundaries of prudence and good taste."

Final Girl Film Club -The Wicker Man (1973)

Disclaimer A: This post is part of Stacie Ponder's Final Girl Film Club. She picks a film, oftimes obscure, and the cooler sheep in her flock watch the flick and review it on their blogs.  It's like a mini-meme.  Wait, what?

Disclaimer B: I didn't work very hard on this review.  Well, I did actually.  But I did the work over four years ago.  This was one of my very early blog posts back before I even had a blog.  How does that happen?  Well I started blogging over on Slyde's blog when he first started out and he wasn't posting very often.  So, like the good egg that I am, I started helping him out.  I think it will be fun to see how different my writing style was back then.  I've become a bit more snarky over the years.  So I'm going to re-read it along with y'all and add some editorial comments in parenthesis when I come across anything that really makes me squirm.  Fun, right?

Did that get your attention?

The Wicker Man (1973)

Hey kids! Have you ever watched a film and decided that you didn't really like and/or understand it at first only to decide at a later time that you actually did like it and that it has gotten under your skin a bit? This happens to me an awful lot. It happened just recently with a so-called classic horror film called The Wicker Man from 1973. As you know, both Slyde and I are big fans of the horror genre, but neither of us had ever seen this gem until I had the chance to purchase the DVD sometime last week.

Let me give you a brief set-up to the movie. In modern day (early 70's) Scotland, a policeman (Edward Woodward) from the mainland is lured to a small island in the Hebrides to investigate the disappearance of a young girl. He encounters a strange group of villagers who act as if they had never seen the girl before. He also encounters the islander's strange religious and sexual practices which is disconcerting to him as he is a devout (and quite repressed) Christian. Suspecting that the girl has been sacrificed or is about to be sacrificed as part of some neo-pagan ritual, he stays on the island in an effort to save the young lass. I'll not go any further in case any of you haven't seen the film yet, but let's just say things start to go awry for our young, repressed hero.

I'm not quite sure why I gave it a thumbs-down after my first viewing. It surely wasn't what I expected. There were horror elements to be sure (Ed. - nice use of "sure" and surely" in back to back sentences), but I certainly wouldn't classify it solely as a horror film. The first half of the film played out almost as a musical, if you can believe that. There were songs sung in pubs, in fields, around the maypole, and even one extraordinarily strange seduction sung by the landlord's daughter to the policeman while in different rooms! It also didn't go a long way towards explaining some of the strange imagery on the island, but I guess at that point I had already semi-given up on the film.

That next day, however, I found that it HAD gotten under my skin a little. I began to research a little of the background of the film and it started to fascinate me even more. You see, this film was the brainchild of writer Anthony Shaffer, director Robin Hardy and star Christopher Lee. In fact, Lee was not paid a dime for his acting in this film although he continues to call it his favorite film that he had ever worked in. This project was very close to his heart and he wanted to see it completed. Had he accepted his normal fee the film may never have gotten off the ground. Mr. Shaffer had wanted to do a smart, contemporary British horror film which then turned into a morality play, and partly made that weird left turn into musical/drama. The studio which had made the film (British Lion, I believe) was sold soon after shooting had completed and the new head of the studio, Michael Deeley, was not quite sold on the film. In fact, after an early viewing of the film with Shaffer and Lee, he asked them what they thought of it. They believed that it was one of the finest things that either of them had worked on. He replied that it was quite possibly the worst film he had ever seen.

Well, if the head of your studio believes that about your film it ain't gonna be easy to get them to distribute it. They tried to convince Roger Corman to distribute it in the US, but his offer was too low for the studio to accept. It soon found another distributor, but without the clout that Corman could bring to the table the film quickly shot to obscurity even though it drew rave reviews. However, it soon began to rise in the underground as a cult classic. Theaters were playing the film at midnight showings to sold-out audiences. With the advent of VHS (and DVD later on) the legend of the film has continued to grow. There are fanzines, websites and festivals dedicated to the film. One disappointing note is that the original negative to the film has been lost to history. It is believed that it was accidentally included in some garbage that was used for landfill in England's M3 motorway. Mr. Lee deduces that was a direct result of the dislike that Mr. Deeley had for the film!

So, with new information in hand I decided to watch the film a second time and damn if I didn't love it this time around! Even the weird musical scenes were a delight to watch. And the conflict between the repressed Christian ideology of Woodward and the neo-pagan joy of the villagers was especially juicy to behold. Britt Ekland (dubbed by Annie Ross to portray a Scottish accent), Ingrid Pitt (strangely, the producers kept her Polish accent) and Diane Cilento were all beautiful and quite magnetic on the screen. But it was the thoroughly delightful Christopher Lee as Lord Summerisle that stole the show. He was funny, thoughtful, smart and not at all outwardly evil as the ringleader of the neo-pagans. A very different Lee than the one I had grown up on when he was doing all those Hammer horror films. He didn't look so awful in a dress towards the end of the film either. I guess you have to see the film to understand that last bit.

(Ed. Okay, there was a paragraph here on the upcoming, at the time, remake with Nic Cage.  It was just me griping about taking the film out of Scotland and putting the awful Cage in it.  Turns out it was a hysterical comedic take on the film.  Wait...you mean it wasn't supposed to be funny?  Oh, I beg to differ!)

Anyway, as I stated in the opening sentence, I like when a film gets under my skin a bit. This one had me researching Celtic pagan rituals which ain't so easy since the history is murky at best. You see there was no written documentation of these rituals, so what remains today sometimes feels like a bad game of telephone...but played over a couple of thousand years instead of whispered around the room at a party. The maypole, the fire dance, John Barleycorn and the Wicker Man itself all are a part of early pagan practices although any specifics are hard to come by. This film left me wanting more, and I think that is one of the marks of a truly great piece of art.

(Ed. - I guess it's not too different than the way I currently write.  Maybe a bit less douchey, but not so different.  Hmm)

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Note: Remember to play the Bug-Eyed Trivia Challenge every day. All the neo-pagan Scots are doing it.

Final Girl Film Club - Slaughter High

Note: This post is part of the Final Girl Film Club Series.  She picks 'em and we review 'em.

The 1980's were a wonderful time for the slasher flick. Let me qualify that a little bit. The EARLY 1980's were a wonderful time for the slasher flick. By 1986 we were left with rotten tables scraps that often came in the form of turds like Slaughter High.

By this time the formula was fairly standard.  A misunderstood loner is bullied and pranked upon in High School.  Something goes horribly wrong with the prank and the kid winds up in a straight jacket or a burn ward or both.  Damaged kid returns 10 years later to enact his revenge on his tormentors in vile and disgusting ways.  Usually while wearing a silly/scary mask of some sort.

That's Slaughter High to a T.  Except for a few wonderfully awful flourishes.

This particular slasher flick was filmed in the UK.  A country generally not known for slinking to the depths of depraved slasherlishousness.  Yeah, I just made up that word.  Most of the actors were British as well, donning fake American accents.  But they couldn't be bothered to use the same regional accent.  No...that would have made sense.  Instead we have a bunch of kids who attended the same high school who sound as if they came from the deep South, NYC or, yeah...England.

So dialogue classes obviously weren't in the budget, but would it have been too much to ask for basic acting classes?  There are too many examples of awful acting in this film to mention, but if you glance through the IMDB filmographies of most of the folks in this film you will notice that Slaughter High is either the first or last acting job they ever had.  That is no coincidence.

It also wouldn't have killed the makers of this film to learn a little about the country that it was supposed to take place in.  I mean, after they went through the trouble of learning those accents and all.  The film's main storyline takes place at a 10-year High School reunion.  The 8 people invited apparently haven't kept in touch with any of their other classmates because they don't find it odd at all that they were the only ones to show up.  And it isn't odd at all that the reunion is taking place on April 1st.  The anniversary of the ridiculous prank that had to go wrong all those years ago.  Early April really isn't "reunion time" here in the US, if you know what I mean.  We prefer the summer months for basic humiliation like that.

And the odd "rules" of April Fool's Day (the original title of this film) are clearly borne not of this country.  I sat there scratching my head wondering what they meant when they said that they just had to survive until noon because that's when April Fool's Day ended.  I looked it up afterward and found that there is some truth to that in certain countries like the UK.  Not so much here in the US.  It was little things like that that made this film feel like a washed-out bad dream.

Did somebody say...dream?  Dum-dum-daaaaah!

Sorry, back to the glowing review.

There is certain something, um, captivating about the killer in this one.  A certain Marty Rantzen played by a certain Simon Skuddamore.  For my money, Simon Skuddamore is a much cooler name for a serial killer than Marty Rantzen.  And this Skuddamore character had some of his own bugaboos in real life.  That's right, I said "had".  He died of a drug overdose shortly after this film was released.  Sure, it was bad, but c'mon dude!  Anyways, imagine if life imitated art.  Maybe he isn't dead.  Maybe he faked his death and he will take his demented revenge upon the critics of his one and only opus!

Uh oh...I better say something nice about this film.  Quick!

Caroline Munro is, um, attractive!

Not a scene from Slaughter High, but you probably knew that.

I don't really know what else to say about Slaughter High.  I've covered the awful acting and the re-tread plot.  Well there was also the crappy editing, campy dialogue and shitty special effects.  So it basically had it all.  And by "had it all" I mean kill me now.  Slowly.  While wearing a jester's cap.

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Note: Remember to play the Bug-Eyed Trivia Challenge every day. All the film club coolies are doing it.

Burial Ground: The Nights of Terror

Once again it is Final Girl Film Club time!  This time it is Italian zombies and plenty of them in Andrea Bianchi's Burial Ground: The Nights of Terror.

He's so cute! Just like a little masculine Rachel Dratch!

So there is this dude who could give Rasputin a run for his money in a best beard contest who goes mucking about in an Italian archeological dig site (in retrospect, probably not a good idea) and gets accosted by Italian zombies.  You could tell they were Italian by their love of red wine/blood and their attitude.  You can also probably guess the outcome, but since this review is filled with spoilers I will help you out.  Ciao, Rasputin!

This was the remarkable/unremarkable first few minutes of the film.  We have no idea what he found or why it triggered the Italian zombie attack.  All I know is that it was followed by a very lighthearted mid-60's jazz theme song.  Only out of place because the film was made in 1981.

The light jazz ends and the action quickly shifts to three couples, including a boy wearing some very bright red pants, arriving at their summer home which is conveniently situated near the dig site.  The boy, who looks a lot lot Rachel Dratch from SNL fame, is a bit bugged out by the late-night visit from his mother (see the screen-cap above).  But we are going to have to get into that a little later on.  And I'm going to get tired of typing "creepy Rachel Dratch kid" so let's call him CRDK from now on.  Okay? Okay.  Hooray, acronyms!

"You look just like a little whore.  But I like that in a girl."  The gratuitous nudity showed up at that the nine and a half minute mark on the DVD.  Well done!  This would be couple #2 who are getting it on, but "something" wakes up CRDK.  So he sleepwalks his way into the bedroom where the gratuitous nudity is taking place, but, due to some nifty editing, it is now his parents who are making of the love.  Mom barely covers herself up as the kid lets out a baleful "Mama!"

You can tell this kid's got issues.  I wonder where that is gonna lead?

After an uncomfortable morning breakfast, Couple #3 decide to get it on in the gardens of the villa only to be interrupted pre-coitus by the shambling undead.  There is a slow-moving Italian zombie in loose clothing behind every shrub, or so it appears.

"Mother, this cloth...smells of death!"  Cut to an artist studio or museum or something like that attached to the villa.  Mama, Papa and CRDK are practicing shooting things with Papa's pistol when they are rudely interrupted by Italian zombies.  Papa shoots a bunch of ineffective holes in the torsos of the zombies before eventually succumbing to their attack.  Apparently he forgot to watch any of George Romero's zombie films before weekending at the villa.  He would have known to aim for the head.  It, of course, would be his undoing.  Ciao, Papa!

Back to couple #2, who are making out in the gardens by a fountain.  These Italians sure are horny.  More Italian zombies show up. Maybe it is sex they are attracted to.  Like serial killers in the slasher movies of the early 80's.  And I'm beginning to notice that these Italian zombies are really into earth tones.  A little sky blue or bright yellow couldn't hurt, could it?  Couple #2 run from the slow-moving killers and we cut back to couple #3 who have been slowed down by an iron wolf trap in the front yard.  A wolf trap.  In the front yard.  Amazing plot twist.

But couple #2 saves them with the aid of some small boulders.  They bash the Italian zombie's brains in.  They just bash 'em right the fuck in!  Ciao, Italian zombies!

The mother and CRDK are still in a spot of jam in the house, though.  Amid what appears to be some very nice Etruscan artifacts, they discover another way of stopping these zombies.  Fire. This requires dousing them in paint and then running up to them with a lighter or lit match.  Sounds kind of dangerous to me.  Especially since they decide not to, ya know, run away from the burning Italian zombies.  They just cower in the corner until the flammable undead collapses just out of reach of them.  I'm not so sure this is really the way to fight Italian zombies, but it seemed to work for them.  Ciao, Italian zombies!

We soon discover that these aren't your garden-variety brainless Italian zombies.  No sir.  They manage to dispatch the maid by throwing some kind of spike into her hand and lopping her head off with a scythe.  So they use tools.  Like our early pre-historic simian ancestors.  I'm starting to develop quite a bit of respect for these Italian zombies.  Ciao, maid!

The mustachioed male half of couple #2, who in fact may be a younger version of the Most Interesting Man in the World, discovers the headless body of the maid hanging out of a window.  He promptly lifts up her skirt and ravishes her right then and there.  Okay...not really.  But it would almost have fit in with the brainy Italian zombies and the wolf trap in the front yard.  He does check out her ass like he is thinking about it, though.  So I'm not totally blowing smoke up yer coolie.  To assuage his guilt he throws her headless body to the swanky flesh-eaters waiting below.  What a dick!

The remaining survivors now must defend the villa against the tool-weilding, earth-tone wearing, brainy Italian zombies.  Some make it, some don't.  That's how these flicks work.  I especially enjoyed the scene when the mother of CRDK defends him by whacking away at the fiends with a sword that happened to be lying around.  Lots of weapons just lying around in this villa. 

CRDK is so relieved to be alive that he starts macking on his own mother! 

Holy fucking shit! 

He starts kissing her and feeling her up and generally trying to get up her in her business!  I just knew this kid had Mommy issues.  I just didn't realize that it was that kind of Mommy issues.  Wow.  Just wow.  She rebuffs his advances, of course.  Even if he weren't her son, he fucking looks like Rachel Dratch!  So he runs into the arms of the next woman he can find.  The next Italian zombie woman.  Should have let him get his freak on, Mom.  Ciao, CRDK!

Don't worry, though.  We haven't seen the last of CRDK.  He is now creepy Rachel Dratch Italian zombie kid or CRDIZK, for short.  CRDIZK wants a piece of his Mommy in the worst way, if you catch my drift.  Not even death can stop this horny kid from going after his Mommy's tit.  That's some kind of crazy urge.

You wanna know the creepiest thing about CRDK?  He wasn't really a kid.  He was played by a 26-year old creepy Italian midget named Peter Bark.  Now you don't have to feel so bad if you kinda were into those creepy Italian incest scenes.  Sickos!

All in all, I would have to say that this was the finest incest-laden, awful special effects, bad makeup, incomprehensible Italian zombie movie I have ever seen.

Ciao, Final Girl Film Club!

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Note: Remember to play the Bug-Eyed Trivia Challenge every day. I'm pretty sure I wasn't drunk or high when I was watching and reviewing this.  But I'm not gonna give any guarantees.  Ciao!

Final Girl Film Club - Amityville II: The Possession

What the what?: One of my favorite blogs out there in Blogityville is Stacie Ponder's Final Girl site. Every now and again she picks a Horror film and asks her minions to write a review for it. She does the same, and blammo...it's a film club.  This month was an easy one for me because I already had a review for this film in the can. Gia and I watched it last Fall and fell in love with it all over again. Or we were disgusted by it. I forget which. Let's find out! - Earl

Final Girl Film Club - Amityville II: The Possession

So last night we were watching Amityville II: The Possession on Monster HD (Hint #1 that this review was written last year.  Monster HD has been off the air for a while now - Earl). Don't judge us! Anyway, neither of us had seen it in over 20 years, and the decades haven't been good to this one. Let me tell you. Or have they?

Prior to the most drawn out demonic possession ever filmed (I'm only guessing here), there was a scene in the basement of the house that had us cracking up and making up our own dialogue. The eldest son is alone in the house and he had gone to the cellar to get a gun because he heard some noises that could have been an intruder.

All of a sudden he hears whispering voices from behind some hidden panel in the cellar. He yells out "Who's there? I can hear you!". That's the point when we started our own MST3K-ish dialogue, imagining what the mysterious voices in the cellar were really talking about:

Satan: You idiots! He can hear us.
Beelzebub: It wasn't me, it was Azazel!
Azazel: NOT! Satan, he's always blaming me!
Satan: Enough with the squabbling! I've had it with you two!
Mephistopheles: I WANT TO POSSESS HIS SOUL!!!
Satan: Shhh...inside voices, Mephistopheles. Inside voices.
Mephistopheles: I WANT TO POSSESS HIS SOUL!!!
Satan: (to himself) I can't believe I'm stuck in here with these guys.
Azazel: Satan! Beelzebub is touching me!
Satan: (slaps his forehead) Crap!

The movie just got better and better from there. Spousal abuse, child abuse, and incest. Yes...the creepiest incest scene ever filmed (I'm only guessing here). The brother visits his sister in her bedroom one night. He asks her to play the model/photographer game, and that's fine. I mean, who hasn't played that game with his sister every once in a while. But then he asks her to take off her nightgown. Her response? "OK, but only for a minute!"

You can imagine where the evening goes from there.


You're imagining it...aren't you? Sickos!

There is so much to love/loath about this flick.  And Burt Young was at his very sweaty best as the father of the doomed household.  1982 was a banner year for Mr. Young.  He was red-hot in Hollywood after wowing audiences in ...All the Marbles and Blood Beach.  He topped those winners with this masterpiece and another outing with Sylvester Stallone, Hulk Hogan and Mr. T in Rocky III.  I think his creepy interaction with his robot/sex slave in that one made for a nice sub-plot.   Or it would have if they had let him run with it.

Sorry...back to the topic at hand. 

As someone who grew up on Long Island and lived about 2 minutes away from the Amityville Horror home (and yet I never visited it), I can vouch for the realistic portrayal of the events in this film.  Long Island was indeed awash in demonic possession back then.  We just accepted it and moved on.  No need to bang your sister or kill everyone in the house.  I mean if you wanted your name in the papers, sure.  But usually the demons found life on Long Island to be as boring as Sunday brunch in Hell, so they departed soon afterward.  They just left you with a bad case of acne and a penchant for playing practical jokes on the clergy.

I believe they are all working gigs in Las Vegas these days. Something about the dry heat.

Amityville II: The Possession.  Feh.  Not the worst way to spend 100 minutes on a Friday night.

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Note: Remember to play the Bug-Eyed Trivia Challenge every day. All the wacky possessed kids are doing it.