As much as I've wanted to hold off on prime Halloween coverage until October... I just can't. Purposely watching stuff I'm less interested in was a dumb move so here's the last of it:
*Spooky TV
One Step Beyond - The Haunted U-Boat (S1 E17 1959)
Years before playing the buffoonish Col. Klink on Hogan's Heroes, actor Werner Klemperer portrayed a decidedly less comedic German Officer in this middling submarine set mystery.
1981
Taxi - Jim the Psychic (S4 E1 1981)
Jim predicts Alex’s imminent death. Not spooky, despite some fine screams, but a solid episode. Andy Kaufman shines, as usual, in an unrelated subplot.
* Bad Movies?
The Demolitionist (1995)
Roboladycop mediocrity. Not the worst of this kind of thing but nothing special.
Napoleons Curse (2007)
New Orleans set haunted house horror.
Sometimes the line between indie and amateur gets blurred. This is the directors' third film so not an amateur I guess but yikes. Music cues are good for a laugh though and it has the best awkward dance scene song since Birdemic brought us "Hanging Out with the Family."
Crooked Billet (2017)
Oh dear.Another barely watchable low budget horror flick. I feel for movies like this, I’m sure a more generous budget would make for more effective, more compelling, pictures. Sadly it’s hard to look past these limitations despite the good intentions of the filmmakers.
When I see films like this I genuinely hope it leads the folks involved to bigger, more fully realizable, projects. I may not have liked, or even been able to finish their movies, but I value their passion for the art form and I wish them the best.
The Caller (1987)
Twisty two-hander starring Madolyn Smith and Malcolm McDowell. Essentially an overlong off-brand Twilight Zone episode. Getting to the twist will depend on how much you love the cat and mouse between the leads.
Dull as dishwater Giallo. Thought I’d missed something the first time around but nope.
Hider in the House (1989)
The most astonishing part of this is how effective it is despite the fact it does exactly what it says on the label. No twists, no subverted expectations. And it still works. It’s also nice to see pre punchline Gary Busey doing his thing.
The Final Terror (1983)
Above-average slasher in the woods flick. Held up on repeat viewing.
The Last Horror Film (1982)
I hadn’t seen this one in years and was really pleased with how well it’s held up. It’s a guilty pleasure to be sure but still a pleasure.
*Real Estate Horror
Are You in the House Alone? (1978)
High school stalker TV movie that makes up for lack of gore with relationship and domestic drama. Fairly effective for what it is thanks to a solid cast including Blythe Danner and Dennis Quaid in supporting turns.
Apartment 1303 3D (2013)
Yeah, no. Just terrible.
The Valdemar Legacy (2010)
Not particularly successful, slightly Lovecraftian, Gothic from Spain. Perhaps the last film with horror legend Paul Naschy. Sadly it’s barely a horror film and the dramatic elements aren't at all compelling. In fact, it eventually descends from boring to ridiculous, introducing Alistair Crowley, Bram Stocker, infamous accused murderesses Belle Gunnis and Lizzie frickin Borden. as characters. It's like crappy fan fiction.
The House (Húsið: Trúnaðarmál ) (1983)
Icelandic haunted house/relationship drama that starts slow, it takes nearly 20 minutes to get its protagonists into The House, and makes some interesting, though for me, not particularly satisfying narrative choices.
This was, according to Wikipedia, Iceland's official selection for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film in '84, though it didn't make the shortlist of nominees that year. I can see why it was selected, as it does have a bit of an art-house vibe.
I like to keep my Halloween traditional. I like spooky, eerie, creepy, macabre. Supernatural, paranormal, unknowable. Hauntings, mysterious occurrences, things that go bump in the night. Give me vampires, witches, ghosts and ghouls. Seance's and haunted woods and abandoned houses. I'm not so much into the slashers and the gore and the Kaiju and the jump scares and "it goes to eleven" volume of Haunted Attractions. I like most of these things, I just don't consider them quintessentially Halloween. Yes, I know I am an outlier. I also want to get back into blogging, and before October, but I don't want to start marathoning Hammer Horror or re-reading classic Lovecraft just yet. Thus I'm Pre-Gaming Halloween. Throughout September I’ll be covering other types of horror in the lead up to actual Halloween blogging time. True crime, sci-fi, bad horror movies, horror movie rewatches and re-assessments, creature features, spooky tv episodes, kids' stuff ... all things that I might avoid in October as I try to maximize my Halloween experience, but that are all at least horror adjacent. What these posts will mostly take the form of is a log of the stuff I watch read and listen to with a dash of commentary. My selection process will be pretty much random, just what I find as I browse around streaming services and my collection. Hopefully, my dear readers will find something useful in these recommendations, warnings, and asides.
True Crime - Martin Fido's Murder After Midnight
I first became aware of true crime historian Martin Fido through my teenage obsession with the Jack the Ripper murders. It was years later when a friend from the UK sent me a disc full of airchecks from a late-night radio show Fido had appeared on. Each night Fido would share a tale of murder most foul under the title Murder After Midnight. Stranglers, poisoners, shooters and, of course, rippers, a cornucopia of man’s inhumanity to man. Though I don’t always agree with his assumptions and opinion-based conclusions, Fido is a fine researcher and compelling storyteller.
Fido’s written a number of books but, thanks to these shows, I’ve become a fan of his audiobooks, as read by the man himself. Loads of his Murder After Midnight scripts have been re-recorded and are widely available to purchase or stream. After binging on a bunch of the radio shows, I finished off my true crime evening with an expanded version of one of the first Murder After Midnight episodes I’d heard - 10 Rillington Place.
* Spooky (?) TV - Blackadder \ Cybil
So, here in the TV posts, I’ll be taking a fairly random ramble through tv series to find spooky sounding episodes that I, usually, haven't seen before. Not Halloween episodes but ones with some sort of horror theme.
Blackadder - Witchsmeller Pursuivant (S1, E5 1983)
Streaming - Hulu
When this first series of Blackadder hit A&E (here in The States) back in the day it was a revelation, now most consider it perhaps the third or fourth-best series but at the time it was the merde. In this episode, Frank Finlay guests as a Witchfinder summoned to rid the Kingdom of the supernatural forces bringing a plague upon the land. Hilarity ensues.
Rewatchability - High
Cybill - The Curse of Zoe (S1, E8 1995)
Streaming - Amazon Prime
Cybill Shepherd sitcom where I feel the lead is sometimes the shows weakest link, though honestly outside of Christine Baranski the actors are all either uninspired, unprepared or just very poorly directed. In The Curse of Zoe, the only real voodoo is whatever dark art has brought Chuck Lorre to the pinnacle of his industry with such an aggressively mediocre body of work.
Anyway, the plot showed real promise. Struggling actress and divorcee Cybill's life takes a surprising turn for the better when angsty teen daughter Zoe (Alicia Witt) leaves to live with her Dad. Once at Dad’s, her negative vibes become a millstone around his neck as well. There's also a limp psychic subplot. What could have been a deliciously dark comedy where the entitled brat is literal poison to her family is instead utterly meh.
Rewatchability - Near Nil
* Horror Adjacent Movies
Lured ( 1947 - Amazon Channels - Cohen Media)
Solid Douglas Sirk directed serial killer mystery with a few creepy touches. Stars Lucille Ball with George Sanders, Boris Karloff, and George Zucco.
Spacehunter - Adventures in the Forbidden Zone (1983 Amazon Prime)
Originally expected this to be a crappy Star Wars knockoff but seeing it was an Ivan Reitman production I shifted to wondering if it was a spoof, and in the end, it was a bit of both. At first, I thought I’d be filing this under Bad Movies but I really enjoyed it - as good cheesy B-Movie fun. Probably would have been even better in its original 3D. If this had not been released just ahead of Return of the Jedi I’d wager it would have a much better reputation.
Silent Panic (2019 Amazon Prime)
What would you do if you came back to your car and found a dead body in the trunk? Huh? Asking for a friend... plus it's what this indie thriller opens with. Not great but I'm grading on a curve and putting it here instead of the next section because the filmmaker shows promise and God knows I've seen worse...today.
* Bad Movies
Here I’ll be watching, or at least attempting to watch, movies that, on the surface, seem like they're going to suck. Why? Because I’m a masochistic horror completist and if I’m going to subject myself to this garbage I at least deserve the catharsis of shaming them or even perhaps praising them, to the world.
Apple Pie (1976 Amazon Prime)
Experimental NYC fairy tale. Yeah, no. Though it was interesting seeing younger Larry “Bud” Melman actor Calvin DeForest and Brother Theodore.
* Rewatched
Here I'll tackle a film I've seen before to see if I love or hate it any more or less this time around.
The Fog (2005 Vudu)
An unfathomably bad and utterly unnecessary remake of one of my favorite John Carpenter flicks. Does literally everything wrong. Everything. Gross incompetence, actually still makes me a little bit mad. Did not improve with age.
In celebration of MST3K's return here are a couple of classic clips where they pierced the veil separating the living and the dead...plus a bonus with the new crew taking a crack at fellow Netflix series Stranger Things
Escape Pod 203: The Legend of St. Ignatz by Samantha Sizemmore Drabblecast 118- The Relativity Prison by Igor Teper Drabble- Coiffuture Conundrum by Jake Webb
The Bonomiya family’s women are the protectors of the Inugami, evil dog spirits. If the Bonomiya women fail to keep watch over the spirits - or worse, if they decide to use them for revenge - then the Inugami will run wild in the village looking for blood.
A game designer and his girlfriend Nami drive out to a decrepit mansion she just inherited, to film backgrounds for a new video game called St. John's Wort. As they search through the dark halls, a series of chilling paintings reveal clues to Nami's past, including a picture of twin babies, named Nami and Naomi. In another room, intrigue turns to terror when they find the mummified bodies of six young boys. Now, if the couple is to survive the night, they must discover the horrifying truth behind the paintings, the man who created them and the twin that Nami never knew existed.
First episode of Bloodletting, the podcast arm of The Daily Tourniquet. "Hooks" is an audio serial about a new kind of dark superhero. In episode one, "Awakenings," she wakes up after being raped and murdered and finds out shes a walking corpse.
An old man dies in his shack while performing satanic rites. Shortly afterward, a strange man shows up claiming to be the old man's nephew. When he moves in, strange things begin to happen, like a man being attacked by his own dog.
