CANDYMAN (1992) Blu-ray review

Candyman (1992) d. Bernard Rose (USA)

Chicago grad student Helen (Virginia Madsen), working on her “urban legends” thesis, uncovers the tale of Daniel Robitaille aka Candyman, a wrongfully murdered black artist with a hook for a hand, who appears Bloody Mary-style if you say his name in a mirror five times. Of course, the inquisitive intellectual tries it out for herself, only to find that the avenging spirit is all too real and that his hook is all too sharp. Several gory slayings ensue, all of which seem to implicate our heroine, who slips further and further into madness.

THE BEAST OF YUCCA FLATS (1961) Full Script and Movie Review

The Beast of Yucca Flats (1961) d. Coleman Francis (USA)(54 min)

Tor Johnson, the ex-wrestler who attained everlasting infamy in several Ed Wood features, is the nominal “star” of this hilariously misguided cinematic achievement. “Noted scientist” Joseph Javorsky (Johnson) is ambushed while carrying atomic secrets during a meet-up and chased onto an atomic testing ground. (Oh, sweet irony.) Before you can say Big Bang Boom, the hulking bald-headed brainiac is transformed into a hulking bald-headed maniac with a radiation-scarred visage and a pronounced hindrance in communication skills. Helpless women are kidnapped, kids are chased with sticks and a cuddly bunny bounces in for the greatest closing shot on celluloid.

Fool's Views (11/13 - 11/18) (with MORE Turkey!)

"You're going to watch THAT....?"

Happy Turkey Day, my friends!

Yes, it’s the day after Thanksgiving, which means I’m getting ready to head west to Aurora (yes, the “Chicago suburb” made famous in Wayne’s World) to partake in my 14th consecutive celebration of the best of the worst at Kitley's Krypt, amidst some of the finest people with the most questionable judgment. So, before we dive into the cinematic stuffing face-first, figured we should recap last week because oh, my, my, what a week it was. It was a glorious combo of good, bad, and ugly, capped by Jason Coffman’s 10-film gorgefest known as the Tomorrow Romance Halloween Marathon. (I only made it through six before tapping out, but I was happy to have been there longer than my schedule had ever allowed me before. Those half-dozen are designated with a (*).

Along with that, we tackled a quartet of Boris Karloff flicks (his final four, in fact), along with an additional Soderbergh and Argento flick each, taking our totals to six and four for the year, respectively.

Enough of my yakking – time to get on the road! Gobble gobble!

Enjoy!

THE BORIS KARLOFF COLLECTION (2018) DVD review

Before we dive into the reviews proper, we pause now for a little background information, courtesy of Phil Hardy’s Overlook Film Encyclopedia: Science Fiction:

“Just before his death in 1969, Karloff acted in scenes for four films by Mexican producer Enrique Vergara. According to Jack Hill, the production circumstances of these pictures were disastrous. Karloff had rejected the four scripts sent to him by Vergara, and Hill, who shared the services of Karloff’s lawyer, was asked to rewrite them. Karloff then agreed to do them provided all scenes involving him would be shot in Hollywood because it was exceedingly painful for him to move about. The scenes were shot [by Hill] in 1968. Shortly afterwards, Karloff died, but so did Vergara.

“All the remaining scenes were shot later in Mexico without Hill’s knowledge and the finished products, released in 1971, bore little relation to the scripts Hill had used to do the Karloff scenes. Apparently American International tried to buy the shots with Karloff in order to make other films with them, but the legal and copyright problems due to Vergara’s death made this impracticable. This Mexican episode put a sad end on Karloff’s long and distinguished career. Some credits list Juan Ibañez as being responsible for the scenes added after Karloff’s death, but since many of these credits contain pseudonyms, it may be an injustice to include his name as director.”

So, there you go.

"That was very well said, young man..."

BLACKENSTEIN (1973) Blu-ray review

Blackenstein (1973) d. William A. Levey (USA)

Considered by many to be the nadir of blaxploitation horror, Levey’s clunker actually gets off to a (relatively) decent start, with injured Vietnam veteran Eddie (Joe DeSue) returning Stateside minus arms and legs due to a land mine close encounter. His science-loving sweetheart Dr. Winnifred Walker (Ivory Stone) remembers her old teacher Dr. Stein’s (John Hart) groundbreaking experiments in skin grafting and before you can say, “Seda-give???” the pair have soldier boy on the gurney menu served up with a slice of limb-burger cheese.

PHENOMENA (1985) Blu-ray review

Phenomena (1985) d. Dario Argento (Italy) (116 min)

Perhaps the only “insect detective” movie out there on the shelves, featuring a very young Jennifer Connelly (released one year before Labyrinth) as the daughter of a famous American movie star sent away to study at an exclusive Swiss girl’s academy, whose students just happen to be falling victim to a homicidal killer. But as this is an Argento movie, things are hardly what they seem.

HOUSEWIFE (2017 ) DVD review

Housewife (2017) d. Can Evrenol (Turkey) (82 min)

Two decades after her mother brutally killed her sister Hazel and father (an amazingly stylish pre-credits sequence), Holly (Clementine Poidatz) can still find no peace in her life and is increasingly terrified at the notion of starting a family of her own. She numbly endures lovemaking with her husband Timucin (Ali Aksoz) and has to urinate in sinks and tubs due to the trauma incurred by her sister’s toilet-related murder. When her former friend and lover Valery (Alicia Kapudag) returns, now a “family” member of the mysterious cult Umbrella of Love and Mind (ULM), Holly finds herself falling into a hallucinogenic realm where past and present crosscut and where charismatic leader Bruce O’Hara (David Sakurai) holds sway over her future.

THE UNNAMABLE (1988) Blu-ray review

The Unnamable (1988) d. Jean-Paul Oulette (USA) (88 min)

Adapted from H.P. Lovecraft’s short story of the same name, writer/producer/director Oulette offers a slight variation on the standard “monster in the old haunted house” saga, mostly by virtue of its source material. Set at our author’s favorite bastion of higher learning, Miskatonic University, students Joel (Mark Parra), Randolph Carter (Mark Kinsey Stephenson), and Howard Damon (Charles Klausmeyer aka Charles King) discuss the legend of the strange goings-on at the residence of suspected warlock Joshua Winthrop (Delbert Spain). It seems Carter’s ancestor was the priest who discovered Winthrop’s body with his heart torn out by a strange, “unnamable” creature whose image is supposedly burned into the glass of the attic window.

Fool's Views (11/1 - 11/12) (with Turkey!)

Who's hungry?

Welcome back, everyone!

Usually, my November reports start off with the obligatory, “After the madness that was October…” but this year actually wasn’t too bad. Maybe I’m finally starting to get the hang of this Scare-A-Thon thing after nearly a decade? Thanks to everyone for their incredible support – financial and emotional – and looking forward to next year already.

Perhaps due to the lack of burnout or maybe it was just the caliber of Blu-ray and DVD screeners coming my way, but I felt inspired to attempt a new Challenge for the month. As longtime readers know, November has been the occasion for the watching of many a Turkey, particularly on the Friday following Thanksgiving aka Turkey Day at Kitley’s Krypt, which will be celebrating its 16th annual outing this year and I hear the line-up is a doozy. Back in the days of the IMDb horror message boards (R.I.P.), there used to be something called the Annual Turkey Hunt, where participants watched as many bad horror flicks (with a 4.0 rating or lower) as possible, with additional points for trifectas (watching three or more films from the same low-grade director).

I have not done the Hunt for years, due to the fact that the 4.0 rating scale is no longer a reliable indicator for finding a true Turkey. For me, there is still an intrinsic “quality” rating scale based on actual moviemaking competence, which does not have a direct correlation to the inherent “awesomeness” that a film due to its INcompetence. The Giant Claw (4.3) and Dracula, Prisoner of Frankenstein (4.2) are not “good” movies by any stretch, but they are AWESOME Turkeys. So, rather than agonizing through truly bad (i.e. boring) flicks, I’m electing to enjoy a month of “so bad its good” material, as well as the usual assortment of “legit” Horror and Civilian stuff as well. Hope you dig.

Enjoy!

SUSPIRIA (2018) movie review

Suspiria (2018) d. Luca Guadagnino (Italy/USA) (152 min.)

When I heard that Dario Argento’s masterpiece concerning a coven of witches holding sway over an acclaimed German dance academy was being remade, I was not overly offended due to the fact that the 1977 film is so very much an exercise in style and WTF-ery. Like the ballet school at its center, the movie’s framework is but a front, an opportunity to let imagination run wild and not concern oneself with plot or character so much as the next eye-popping set-piece waiting in the wings. No one was going to try to out-Argento Argento, so I was looking forward to seeing what the inherent black magic plotline might entail.

2018 SCARE-A-THON FINAL RESULTS!!!

And that, friends and fiends, brings us to the end of yet another OCTOBER HORROR MOVIE CHALLENGE and Scare-A-Thon 2018!

As always, the Challenge itself is to watch (at least) 31 fright flicks over the course of those glorious 31 days that make up the month of October, 16 of which must be first time views. I am happy to report that we have accomplished that lofty goal and that along the way, thanks to the generous hearts and minds of fans like you, over $2000 has been raised for Resilience (formerly Rape Victim Advocates) with additional funds still coming in. (The Scare-A-Thon 2018 fundraising site will remain open for another week, so if you are so inclined…)

https://resilience.salsalabs.org/supportresilience/p/scareathon/index.html

My thanks to everyone who participated in some way, whether it be reading the reviews, making a contribution, watching alongside, or just stopping by to chat here or on Facebook. It makes the long nights go by so much easier knowing that one’s efforts are noticed and appreciated. Hope you have found a few new suggestions for future movie nights along the way.

Below are the 31 “official” features viewed (with links to the full-length reviews), as well as 14 additional titles receiving the capsule treatment. (Only so many hours in the day!) Beyond that, there are a bevy of additional factoids you might get a kick out of… or at least feel better about your own OCD tendencies.

Enjoy!

Challenge Stats:
Total Movies Watched: 45
First Time Views: 17
Total Scare-A-Thon Donations: $2,213.68

HALLOWEEN (2018) movie review

Halloween (2018) d. David Gordon Green (USA) (106 min)

Truth be told, I have never been a huge fan of the Halloween franchise. Like most horror fans (and cinephiles in general), I hold the original in high esteem both for its skillful execution on a minimal budget and its lasting effectiveness despite an endless stream of imitators, but I never really bought into the “Strode-Myers-Lloyd-Thorn Family Curse” storyline introduced in Halloween II and extrapolated over another three decades. The key to Halloween ’78 was its brilliant combination of the simple and the mythic, the commonplace and the unimaginable, with a spritz of supernatural flavoring its final moments.