Sebastian Bendix's Blog, page 5
October 24, 2016
10/24/16 – day twenty-four of thirty-one days of horror!
Every year I like to throw in a horror anthology, and this year TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE gets its due. Most children of the 80s remember the TV show and its creepy opening theme, but most don’t know that it was created by George Romero and was originally intended to be the small screen version of he and Stephen King’s successful EC comics homage, CREEPSHOW. While the show never reached the heights of Romero and King’s 1982 feature-length anthology, the 1990 TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE: THE MOVIE comes pretty close. Director John Harrison is from the Romero camp, and one of the three stories, CAT FROM HELL, is an original King script. The movie also boasts an impressive cast, featuring future 90s stars Christian Slater, Julianne Moore and Steve Buscemi, plus Debbie Harry, Rae Dawn Chong, David Johansen and sexy James Remar. Make-up and gore effects are impressive by late 80s standards and the stories are creature-filled and fun, thrilling you with mummies, gargoyle demons, evil cats and most terrifying of all the corpse-like William Hickey. If you’ve got a Halloween hankering for dark tales the show will satisfy your 80s cheese cravings, while the movie might actually surprise you with what a solid entry it is in the horror anthology subgenre.
October 23, 2016
10/23/16 – day twenty-three of thirty-one days of horror!
Director Danny Boyle reinvented the zombie (and make no mistake – for
all narrative purposes, the “rage infected” are de-facto zombies) for
the modern era with 28 DAYS LATER, so when the sequel 28 WEEKS LATER
dropped in 2007 without Boyle at the helm, I had concerns. Imagine my
surprise at finding that Juan Carlos Fresnadillo’s continuation of the
series to be just as intense and terrifying as the original. Taking
place six months after the rage virus outbreak, the story concerns
the re-occupation of a small section of London, overseen by US Army
forces, focusing on a small family led by the always great Robert
(TRAINSPOTTING) Carlyle who abandoned his wife to the infected while
hiding out in the British countryside. As this is a horror sequel things
go horribly wrong, and soon Carlyle’s kids find themselves on the run
from the infected, aided by the likes of soon-to-be stars Rose Byrne,
Jeremy Renner and Idris Elba. There’s a personal element to the
action-packed proceedings that I won’t spoil, and though it doesn’t
adhere to iron-clad logic, I feel that the emotional impact is more than
a fair trade. A nice alternative to the usual zombie faire, this merits
a watch or a re-watch, even better as a double dose of rage with
Boyle’s original.
October 22, 2016
10/22/16 – day twenty-two of thirty-one days of horror!
Australian horror director Phillipe Mora is the architect of some
awesomely weird movies, (HOWLING 2 & 3, for instance), but his most
unsettling and effective offering has to
be THE BEAST WITHIN. It tells the heart-warming tale of a boy who
discovers that he’s got more problems than just the average teenage
hormones – turns out he’s the product of monster rape! Paul Clemens puts
in a fearless performance as the tormented teen, managing to illicit
both terror and sympathy from the audience, aided by some of the best
pulsing transformation effects this side of AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON.
Always dependable Ronny (DELIVERANCE, ROBOCOP) Cox and Bebi Besch round
out the cast as the boy’s frazzled but loving parents, and screenwriter
Tom Holland would go on to make some 80s horror staples in the original
FRIGHT NIGHT, the surprisingly good PSYCHO II and the Chucky
franchise-starting CHILD’S PLAY. Less praised than those films, THE
BEAST WITHIN nonetheless stands as an influential coming of age tale
about the monster inside of us all, an important entry in the halcyon
wave of post-grindhouse early 80s horror, one that fully deserves your
undivided, skin-crawling attention.
October 21, 2016
10/21/16 – day twenty-one of thirty-one days of horror!
Most people are familiar with David Cronenberg’s 1986 remake, but you
might be surprised to find that the original 1958 THE FLY still packs a
punch and remains a cornerstone of science fiction horror. You’ll also
be surprised to find that top-billed icon Vincent Price is not the
monstrous human fly in question but his kindly best friend, and that the
film is shot in color and cinemascope, a rare honor for a 1950s
creature feature. Director Kurt Neumann’s adaptation sticks closely
to George Langelaan’s source story, that of a scientist who fuses his
own DNA with that of a fly when he invents a teleportation device – you
get the drill. Told in flashback by the scientist’s harried wife, the
suspense of the inevitable builds to a truly horrifying reveal of the
brilliantly realized titular creature, and the denouement remains one of
the most unsettling in horror history, ranking right along the shock
endings of CARRIE and FRIDAY THE 13th. This is one of those genre
classics you owe it to yourself to see, especially if you’re a fan (and
why wouldn’t you be?) of the mind-blowing Cronenberg version.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051622/?ref_=nv_sr_2
10/20/16 – day twenty of thirty-one days of horror!
Neil Marshall’s second feature, 2005’s THE DESCENT, is the rare horror
film that features an all-female cast, in this case a team of
thrill-seeking spelunkers who just happen to be women. And it’s a good
thing this team is badass as they are, because deep in the labyrinthine
cavern tunnels there lurks flesh-eating, primordial humanoids happy to
make a meal out of those who have the misfortune of wandering into their
feeding ground. The monsters themselves are scary (portrayed
by acrobats and contortionists in practical make-up) but the real
terror comes from the tight, claustrophobic spaces that Marshall
captures with suffocating perfection. Known for his muscular action and
explosive violence (the director would go on to direct some of the more
action-heavy episodes of GAME OF THRONES), Marshall has the chops of a
young John Carpenter, but with a Gothic, British sensibility all his
own. This is one of the best horror films of the oughts in my opinion,
so if you’ve missed it – any many have – strap on your climbing gear and
get your ass into the hole with THE DESCENT.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0435625/?ref_=nv_sr_1
October 19, 2016
10/19/16 – day nineteen of thirty-one days of horror!
When cheap-o schlockmeisters Cannon films hired Tobe Hooper to make a
sequel to his seminal horror classic TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE, they
probably had no idea he’d deliver a full-on comedy. But Hooper had
always felt that people missed the intentional comedy of his 74
original, so decided to make it more overt in 1986, and the resulting
TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 2 is, in my opinion, better for it. The gonzo
gets cranked up to cartoonish levels here, aided by the addition of crazy
Dennis Hopper as the Texas lawman gunning for the original Chainsaw
cannibal crew with a saw or two of his own. Also added to the lineup is
feisty DJ Caroline Williams as our heroine “Stretch”, and Bill Mosely in
his horror debut as the unforgettable new family member “Chop Top”.
Things go off the rails quickly as the now named Sawyer clan – led again
by loveably daffy Jim Siedow – go from a chili cookoff to a DJ station
to some kind of insane underground lair, raising the hysteria of the
original to new heights of absurdity. Unloved upon its release, this
worthy sequel is its own animal entirely, and has its place among the
pantheon of great horror comedies like EVIL DEAD 2 and DEAD ALIVE. So
sit back, ladle yourself a nice hot bowl of chili and see what the
Sawyers’ got cookin’!
October 18, 2016
10/18/16 – day eighteen of thirty-one days of horror!
Well, it’s high time my boy Frederick Krueger made the yearly list so
I’d be remiss not to start with the best in the franchise, A NIGHTMARE
ON ELM STREET 3: DREAM WARRIORS. Really I love the first 3 Nightmare
films equally, but this one gets it all right from beginning to end and
is just a colorful, comic book funhouse of imaginative dream sequences
and fun deaths. Robert Englund’s dream demon is at his career best here,
imbuing Fred with the right amount of humor and menace,
a mixture that would sour as the series descended into cartoonishness.
Heather Langenkamp is back as big-haired heroine Nancy (now with added
grey streak), aided by a group of psychic “dream warriors”; ie teens led
by a young Patricia Arquette who have been fighting off Monsieur
Krueger’s murderous advances from inside an insane asylum. Also onboard
is John Saxon, sexy Craig Wasson and Laurence – then Larry – Fishburne.
And who can forget 80s hair metal band Dokken’s incredible, generation
defining theme song? Every Halloween season demands a visit from ol’
Freddy, so if you’re only planning one Nightmare, DREAM WARRIORS is your
sure-fire ticket to frightful fun.
October 17, 2016
10/17/16 – day seventeen of thirty-one days of horror!
In the great werewolf boom of 1981, AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON is
largely seen as top dog, but for my money you can’t beat Joe Dante’s
seminal THE HOWLING. For one thing I prefer my werewolves bi-pedal, and
the long-snouted creature design by masters Rick Baker and Rob Bottin
sets what I feel is the correct standard for the modern day lycanthrope.
Like American Werewolf the transformations are top notch, all pulsing
facial bladders and painfully extending muzzles, and Dante has just as
much fun with the dark humor of the subject matter as Landis. A pointed
skewering 70s hippy-dippy self-actualization and new age spiritualism,
THE HOWLING posits the idea of a werewolf retreat where like-minded
monsters can go to just let their hair down. A pre-ET Dee Wallace does a
solid job as the big city reporter thrown into this backwoods
maelstrom, but the real stars are Baker and Bottin’s practical creations
and Dante’s assured direction and penchant for homage. Also, there’s a
werewolf sex scene that deserves the attention of any true fan of cinema
and arbiter of good taste. The sequels are all utter shlock, but THE
HOWLING II: MY SISTER IS A WEREWOLF is a laugh-out-loud jaw-dropper and
HOWLING III: THE MARSUPIALS is a brain-boiling delight that’ll make you
want to bark at the moon.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082533/fullcredits?ref_=tt_ov_st_sm
October 16, 2016
10/16/16 – day sixteen of thirty-one days of horror!
If you love the man vs nature subgenre, and you know you do, William
Girdler’s 1977 DAY OF THE ANIMALS is your one-stop shop for attacking
animals. Perfecting the formula from his own GRIZZLY the year before,
Girdler (who in true adventure-man fashion would die in a helicopter
crash scouting locations) throws in every animal he can wrangle to
menace a group of nature-lovers who have the misfortune to be hiking on a
day when global warming drives all land-based beasts into a murderous
rage. One of those hikers is a pre-Naked Gun Leslie Nielsen, playing a
loudmouth jerk who goes full, bare-chested, woman-raping he-man in a
battle with a grizzly bear, a performance that demands to be seen.This
movie has everything; dive-bombing hawks, lunging snakes, pouncing
mountain lions – even some leaping rats get in on the act. Girdler
deserves an enormous amount of credit for being able to stage such
convincing attacks in a pre-CGI world, and for an unabashed B-movie, the
production values and camera work are top notch. An under-seen but
crucial staple of 70’s exploitation, this Day of the Animals is one you
want to put on your Halloween calendar.
October 15, 2016
10/15/16 – day fifteen of thirty-one days of horror!
Every horror list should feature a creepy kid movie, and you can’t find a
better creepier kid than the one offered in the forgotten Canadian
horror yarn THE PIT. It tells the story of young Jamie and his stuffed
bear Teddy, who urges the boy to leering acts of depravity and violence,
not the least of which is feeding his perceived tormentors to
diminutive monsters called “Tra-la-logs” that live in the titular
woods-enshrouded pit. It’s basically the movie TED only good. The film
possesses that wonderful sleazy vibe of early 80s horror – embodied
perfectly by child actor Sammy Snyder’s gleeful perversity – while at
the same time feeling like some sort of warped After School Special with
monsters. It’s a crazy mixture that both surprises and entertains, and
will sit nicely on the shelf next to THE BAD SEED, THE GOOD SON, and THE
GATE. We screened this last night for Friday Night Frights in Los
Angeles, and Jamie and Teddy’s antics were a delight to all present.
Available now on Blu Ray, do yourself a favor and see what terrors wait
for you down in the depraved depths of The Pit!
