Wicked Wednesday

Wicked Wednesday: Fiend (1980)

I love and appreciate regional horror. These movies, which are not made in Hollywood, are often filled with local character and crew. Think the Bill Rebanes and George A Romeros of the world.

Fiend very much fits into that mould. Director, writer and star Don Dohler is obviously from (and clearly loves) Maryland. There are plenty of title cards to let us know where in Maryland we are. All the radio news announcements keep mentioning places in Maryland. I learned more about Maryland from this movie than I did when we studied in the 50 states in 5th grade.

The premise is very straight-forward: an alien entity lands on earth and resurrects the body of a music teacher Eric Longfellow. He rises from his grave and needs to suck the life out of people in order to survive.

He moves into (and by moves, I mean just takes down the “for sale” sign) a home in a Maryland suburb. With his arrival, murders – all in the same fashion – begin to be reported in the area. And Longfellow’s neighbour macho Gary Kender is very suspicious.

For one, the guy plays music. For a living! And second, he was home the day a young child was murdered. So he must have seen something – no matter what he’s told the police.

The logic is not very sound, but neither is Gary Kender’s head, to be fair. But of course he’s right anyway. Even if he isn’t the best of heroes to root for.

There are plenty of rituals, stranglings, odd characters and synth music to fill the 90 minute running time.

Fiend is definitely a small movie with a small budget. But there is plenty to really like about it. It’s full of quirks, like the red glow that surrounds Longfellow when he gets murdered. There are even a couple of plot holes thrown in for fun. Though it’s also got a consistent atmosphere that helps it be a successful film. It’s maybe not the best film technically but it’s clearly been made with a lot of heart and enthusiasm.

Regional horror is pretty much dead these days, but it’s nice to revisit works from people as passionate about their corner of the world as Dohler clearly was.

WICKED WEDNESDAY: 100 HORROR MOVIES IN 92 DAYS 2022, WRAP-UP #2

Happy October! How we’re already into the third month of the 100 Horror Movies in 92 Days challenge beats me. Why does the best time of the year always have to go by faster than anyone wants it to?

We’ve got less than a month to go and closing in on the goal. Hitting 100 is pretty manageable…unless my soul completely does before the 31st. I have watched some really great films this month and some incredibly bad ones. By about September 15, I began to lose the will to live and started questioning my sanity again. What would it be like to watch an action flick or even a rom-com instead of a horror film? The little moments I have between films have been filled with the trashiest of reality TV.

But “Krista,” you ask, “Why are you still doing this if all you do is complain about it?” Well, reader, that’s because I love to torment myself and complain. That’s why.

Jokes. (Mostly.) It has been a fun exercise that has pushed me to try out some films I’ve put off for ages and try more from other countries.

If you haven’t seen last month‘s update, please do. Feel free to follow me over at Letterboxd to see my ratings (and rare attempts at writing reviews.

#38-78

38 Night of the Lepus (1972) dir. by William F. Claxton

39 X (2022) dir. by Ti West

40 Demon City Shinjuku (1988) dir. by Yoshiaki Kawajiri

41 The Vampire Doll (1970) dir. by Michio Yamamoto

42 Nope (2022) dir. by Jordan Peele

43 The Whip and the Body (1963) dir. by Mario Bava

44 Attack of the Crab Monsters (1957) dir. by Roger Corman

45 We’re All Going to the World’s Fair (2021) dir. by Jane Schoenbrun

46 Choose or Die (2022) dir. by Toby Meakins

Bad things always happen when British filmmakers with all British casts make movies in Britain all pretending to be Americans in America.

47 The Addams Family (2019) dir. by Conrad Vernon, Greg Tiernan

48 V/H/S/94 (2021) dir. by Simon Barrett Timo Tjahjanto, Jennifer Reeder, Ryan Prows, Chloe Okuno

HAIL RAATMA!

49 Bloody Muscle Body Builder in Hell (1995) dir. by Shinichi Fukazawa

50 The Black Cat (Black Cat: Gatto nero) (1981) dir. by Lucio Fulci

51 The Blackwell Ghost (2017) dir. by Turner Clay

52 The Invitation (2015) dir. by Karyn Kusama

53 The Premature Burial (1962) dir. by Roger Corman

54 Graduation Day (1981) dir. by Herb Freed

55 Curse of the Blair Witch (1999) dir. by Daniel Myrick, Eduardo Sánchez

56 The Devil Below (2021) dir. by Bradley Parker

57 Vicious Fun (2020) dir. by Cody Calahan

58 The Old Dark House (1963) dir. by William Castle

59 The Strangers (2008) dir. by Bryan Bertino

60 Castle Freak (1995) dir. by Stuart Gordon

61 One Dark Night (1982) dir. by Tom McLoughlin

62 Shock (1946) dir. by Alfred L. Werker

63 The Brood (1979) dir. by David Cronenberg

64 The Living Ghost (1942) dir. by William Beaudine

65 Screamplay (1985) dir. by Rufus Butler Seder

66 The Pyramid (2014) dir. by Grégory Levasseur

67 Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998) dir. by Steve Miner

68 The Stuff (1985) dir. by Larry Cohen

69 Lake of Dracula (1971) dir. by Michio Yamamoto

70 The Terror? (1963) dir. by Roger Corman (credited), Francis Ford Coppola, Dennis Jakob, Monte Hellman, Jack Hill, Jack Nicholson (all uncredited)

71 The Wailing (2016) dir. by Na Hong-jin

72 Satan’s Black Wedding (1976) dir. by Nick Millard

73 The Woman in Black (2012) dir. by James Watkins

This was okay, but you HAVE to see the stage production if you are ever in London. Turns out rocking chairs that move on their own are a lot creepier if you’re in the same room as it.

74 The House on Tombstone Hill (1989) dir. by James Riffel

75 The Giant Gila Monster (1959) dir. Ray Kellogg

76 Def by Temptation (1990) dir. by James Bond III

77 My Bloody Valentine (1981) dir. by George Mihalka

78 My Best Friend’s Exorcism (2022) dir. by Damon Thomas

Cute, but as they say: the book is always better.

Wicked Wednesday: The Dead Come Home (1989)

The Dead Come Home aka Dead Dudes in the Hosue aka House on Tombstone Hill is a pretty standard post-Evil Dead slasher in many ways. Kids arrive at a haunted house, they meet supernatural foes, and then they die. It’s a beautiful formula that works.

And yet, there’s still something that makes it a bit special. There are echoes of Troma’s own Mother’s Day throughout, namely in its villain, an elderly woman. Only this one is dead! But there are also some brilliant practical effect death scenes that make this worth watching.

In a massive home in the countryside, a woman and her daughter spend some time over the corpse of a man on their floor. Forty years later, a group of young people arrive at the house. Mark, the house’s new owner, got it for a steal. In his words, “practically given away.” Maybe it was the 80s, but man – if it’s too good to be true…

After arriving, the kids have a look around. One of them disturbs the grave buried out back, severely pissing off the ghosties within the house.

The kids get to work, but soon after entering the house, they see an older woman. She doesn’t talk to them, but Mark goes to follow her when she shuffles away. And poor Mark, bless, is dead within the first fifteen minutes of run time. The home-owner dream was just not meant to last.

When Mark’s girlfriend goes to look for him, she discovers that he is very much dead, but still running around and being rude. The friends all try and escape the house, only to discover that they can’t get out. Granny and her daughter begin picking them off one-by-one in a pretty fun fashion.

Sure. The plot doesn’t really get more developed than that. But the makers of Dead Dudes in the House were obviously not here to tell a tale with characters we care about. They were here for the blood and gore. And they delivered!

I love a horror movie with too many names. And this one changes depending on the home video release. I have a personal affinity towards Troma’s choice of Dead Dudes in the House. There’s a group of boys (clearly in the early 90s) that don’t even feature in the film. Even Lloyd Kaufman’s description of the film in his book All I Need To Know About Filmmaking I Learned from the Toxic Avenger isn’t entirely accurate but makes a nod to the unusual cover. “A group of hip-hop teens inhabit a house possessed by the spirits of a murdering, maniacal matriarch and her sexy daughter.”

Hip hop teens? Not here. But I would pay to see that movie too.

Wicked Wednesday: Screamplay (1985)

Troma has a reputation for being, as some would think, “a bit much.” It’s literally in their slogan as a badge of pride (“40 years of Disrupting Media”).

But beyond their shock tactics, the distributor has released some of the oddest independent films and sniffed out promising talents like Trey Parker and James Gunn. One of the most daring films is 1985’s Screamplay, a horror story set in Hollywood if Hollywood had been thrown up on by Robert Wiene.

Aspiring screenwriter Edgar Allan is fresh off the boat bus in Hollywood. All the naive young man has on him is his typewriter. He finds his way to a diner and meets Al, an agent interested in Edgar’s work.

Shortly after, Edgar is assaulted in a bathroom, but is saved when another man kills the assailant. Edgar’s savour is Martin, a landlord who agrees to put Edgar up in a storage closet in exchange for some custodial work. But at the crime scene is a page of Edgar’s screenplay, which makes the police suspicious.

At the apartments is an eclectic selection of characters: a fading actress, a rocker. And Edgar dreams about killing all of them while writing his screenplay! When the deaths in his screenplay are seemingly coming true, Edgar becomes the police’s main target.

Director, star and writer Rufus Butler Seder only ever made this one feature film. You can’t help but wonder if Hollywood did the same thing as what happened to Edgar or if any attempts to “make it” inspired Screamplay. Thankfully, Seder has had a great career publishing children’s books, so the man got to put his excellent eye to use in other ways.

Seder created a film with some incredible-looking scenes. It’s clearly inspired by expressionists, using stark black and white images with very set-y-looking sets. (Someone – get me a job in writing!)

This story reminded me a lot of the film Fade to Black, but I had a lot more fun with Screamplay. And stylistically, it’s much more interesting to look at. But I don’t think you can ever have too many “crazy in Hollywood” stories, honestly.

Wicked Wednesday: Blood Feast (1963)

Last week, I dipped my little toes into Herschell Gordon Lewis’s bucket of blood with Color Me Blood Red. Sure it wasn’t a masterpiece, but it got me curious enough to want more. And where better to start than where the blood all started flowing?

Blood Feast is possibly one of Lewis’s best-known films (The Wizard of Gore probably takes the top spot thanks to Juno). It’s also considered one of the first splatter films, meaning plenty of blood and gore to fill your screens.

Even by today’s standards, Blood Feast has plenty of shocking and graphic moments. The opening scene sees a woman getting attacked while in the bath, her legs hacked off by our killer. This is only three years after Psycho shocked the world with its slaying of Janet Leigh in the shower.

The killer, we later learn, is Fuad Ramses, the owner of a catering company that specialises in “exotic” food. He’s approached one day to cater a birthday party for Suzette Fremont, a young student with a particular interest in Egyptian culture.

Incidentally, Ramses is a loyal follower of the goddess Ishtar. He slays women for their body parts in order to create a blood feast – one that he believes will cause Ishtar to be reincarnated.

The police are stumped by Ramses for the most part. The killer never leaves a single clue behind. Why Ramses is so good at getting away with murder is never really explained. Most of the film doesn’t really convince you that he’s particularly clever or tricky!

It isn’t until one victim is found alive. Despite having most of her face hacked off, she’s able to utter a few words to the detectives including “Itar”.

One detective, incidentally Suzette’s beau, finally puts together that “itar” means Ishtar. Thanks to some sleuthing, the detective is able to link Ramses to the killings. And never fear, our darling blonde Suzette is saved before she can be sacrificed at the birthday buffet.

Okay. It’s a bit heavy-handed. I imagine clever writing and story-telling wasn’t at the forefront of Lewis’s mind when he created this movie. Though I really appreciate that a woman, Allison Louise Downe, gets a screenplay credit for this.

I can’t say that I enjoyed this movie. The acting is some of the worst I’ve ever seen – it’s more wooden than an Amish table. It kind of trots along at a meandering pace – even at 67 minutes. Many things stop it from reaching “so bad it’s good” levels. But it’s difficult not to appreciate what influence this movie has had on the horror genre. A movie doesn’t need to be “good” by conventional standards to be worth watching.

So I sault you, Herschell Gordon Lewis. You got vibrant red blood to paint our screens with. It’s certainly a step up from that chocolate syrup.

Wicked Wednesday: Color Me Blood Red (1965)

I have a lot of horror blind spots, and one of them is Herschell Gordon Lewis. The “godfather of gore” somehow has continued to evade me. Bar Monster a Go-Go (which Lewis was an uncredited director on), the splatter horror movies never made it onto my screen. Until now, obviously.

Color Me Blood Red is the third film in Lewis’s “Blood Trilogy”. And would I start with the first one produced? No! Because I never do things in the correct way, apparently.

The story centres on struggling artist Adam Sorg, who hasn’t painted a thing in months. His biggest setback? Being unable to find the perfect shade of red for his paintings. When he goes to a gallery, he gets into it with one of the critics, leaving him even more determined to prove himself.

His inspiration comes from an unlikely place. After his girlfriend, Gigi, cuts herself on a nail, he falls in love with the shade of her blood. He begs for more of it, but she resists when he becomes too aggressive with her. He tries using his own blood, but finds that it makes him too weak to actually paint.

During an argument, Sorg kills Gigi. With her dead, he’s able to paint with her blood all he wants. What he creates is a grotesque masterpiece. He shows it off to the critic from the gallery, and it catches the attention of the wealthy Mrs Carter. Despite being offered a hefty sum of $15,000 for the painting, Sorg refuses to sell.

Knowing that he must have blood to create great works, Sorg finds new victims whose blood will fill his pallet.

When Mrs Carter’s daughter, April, goes to the beach she meets Sorg. Having heard about him from her mother, April naively trusts him. He invites her to sit for a painting, which he will give to her for free. April is hesitant and leaves, but she returns later that night.

April’s friends, also at the beach, soon discover Gigi’s corpse in the sand. They have to move fast before April becomes another victim of Sorg’s art.

Color Me Blood Red is supposedly the weakest of the three films. As someone who started at the end and not the beginning, I can’t have an opinion. However, I found this movie pretty interesting for what it was. The story doesn’t move mountains, but it’s entertaining enough.

The sound, however, suffers greatly. Many of the characters use these hdyrocycles. And they are SO LOUD. Not only are they loud, but they make a truly disgusting sound on the mic. I will die happy if I never have to hear it again.

There are quirks to this movie to stop it from being such a straightforward bore. I really liked April’s couple friends, who are fans of dressing like twins and doing stupid shit. They sort of set themselves apart from most of the rest of the cast, who are quite interchangeable and forgettable.

If this is as bad as it gets for Herschell Gordon Lewis, I look forward to things going up from here!

Wicked Wednesday: The Curse of Kazuo Umezu (1990)

I have to admit, I know nearly nothing about anime. While briefly obsessed with manga as a kid, it was pretty difficult (and expensive) to access anime at that time. With the internet bringing everything to our fingertips, I now feel too overwhelmed with where to start!

When I saw a positive review of this 90s OVA on Letterboxd, I thought I’d give it a try. What better place to start than just some random-ass spot? (And yes, I have only just learned what OVA is.)

The Curse of Kazuo Umezu (Umezu Kazuo no Noroi) contains two short supernatural horror stories. The first one “What Will the Video Camera Reveal” begins with the introduction of a new student, Rima, from Mexico to her class. She captures the attention of the entire class, mostly with her beauty. But one student, Masami, is filled with weird feelings and bad dreams.

In the morning, Masami finds a strange mark on her neck. The bad feelings fade the longer she’s away from Rima. But on her way home from school, she finds herself lured toward Rima’s home.

Her grandfather confirms her bad feelings when he says that something went through her window as she slept. It, of course, freaks her out, and Masami goes to her friend for help. He gives her a video camera and sets it up to film her (and the horrors of what happens to her) at night. One she gets the courage to watch the footage, it won’t be what she’s expecting.

The second story, “The Haunted Mansion”, is (unsurprisingly) about a haunted mansion. Two friends go to explore it, bored of their horror movie marathon. One of them curious to see ghosts and explore while the other is much more afraid and cautious.

After they arrive outside, they are met by two other friends who are lured to the mansion. The girls begin to explore, finding strange things and having horrible visions along the way. Much more terrifying than anything a horror video could show them. But their real life and the dreams of the mansion begin to bleed together, leaving none of the girls certain as to what is real.

There are some really twisted visuals as well as a solid, haunting score. The design in the first short story particularly got to me. Though some of the animation is a touch clunky with age. That’s easily forgiven.

It’s the atmosphere that cells these stories as the plotlines themselves aren’t very unique. But they are straight-forward, and sometimes simple is all you need to be effective.

I enjoyed The Curse of Kazuo Umezu quite a bit and would like to watch more horror animation. Please send recommendations my way!

Wicked Wednesday: Billy the Kid versus Dracula (1966)

Godzilla versus Kong. Freddy versus Jason. Alien versus Predator. Billy the Kid versus…Dracula?

Well, it’s certainly no one’s dream match up but 1966’s Billy the Kid versus Dracula is what happens when 60s drive-in movies meets the once-dominate Western genre. It’s a wild concept on paper, but that zaniness doesn’t quite reach the screen.

Dracula is somehow in the Wild West frontier of the United States. While on a coach ride west, he sees a photograph of a young lady, Betty Bentley, and becomes smitten. So killed off a local indigenous woman, causing the tribe there to kill off everyone in Dracula’s party.

He later turns up at the town alone, claiming that he is Mr Underhill, Betty’s uncle. When news reaches the town that Betty’s mother has been killed, “Mr Underhill” moves in at her ranch.

But poor Dracula has one major thing in the way of his hands: Billy the Kid. Billy is Betty’s fiance and a bit of a suspicious man. When he hears a group of German immigrants panicking about vampires, he listens to their worries. He enlists the help of the local doctor to learn more about the lore (and it’s very weird lore).

Billy has to wise up and save ol’ Betty before she becomes Dracula’s bride.

It’s bad. It’s definitely bad. Poor John Carradine walks around just looking like a vampire: top hat, red cravat and a black cape? Oh don’t mind that fella that makes all the Germans scream. Nothing to see here! But little oddities like that are one of the few bits of fun in this. Everything else is just very boring and long.

Director William Beaudine was incredibly prolific, directing nearly 200 films according to Letterboxd. And this one Beaudine points to as his worst (which I think is probably saying something). This came at the tail end of his career, being one of the last two movies he ever made. The other being Jesse James Meet’s Frankenstein’s Daughter, which was the film BvD was shown with as a double feature.

Not that I have seen any of Beaudine’s other films, but I can get why he’d be disappointed in it. It moves at a slug’s pace up until the end. When you’ve got cowboys and vampires, you expect a bit more action and adventure. Not long scenes with German housekeepers arguing with their mistresses about wolfsbane.

There are a lot of the usual suspects that bring down the vibe here. Flat characters, racist caricatures, a general dislike for women. And none of the fun parts (Dracula getting hit in the face with a pistol) make up for it enough to get into the “so bad it’s good” zone.

It’s always a shame when b-movie concepts don’t reach the height of what they could have been. I’d even argue that today, even with minuscule budgets, independent filmmakers are allowed to go more “balls-to-the-wall” with concepts like Llamageddon and Sharknado… I mean, I didn’t say they were good. Just crazier.

Wicked Wednesday: Night Owl (1993)

Vampires are one of the most enduring monsters of horror. Even from their earliest iterations, they always symbolised our fears. With each generation, we see a new take that reflects its society.

So a 1990s vampire film set in 1984 (?) is most certainly a take on the dangerous city New York was at the time, as well as the AIDS epidemic.

Jake is a vampire on the hunt for victims, most often found in nightclubs. But he chooses the wrong victim when he kills Zohra, the sister of a young man named Angel. With his sister missing, Angel begins his search for her. But it isn’t a search that will have a happy ending.

Despite his best attempts, Jake cannot stop himself from feeding. Even when he meets and falls for a young poet, he soon feeds on her as well.

When Angel eventually catches up with Jake, the fight ends very quickly. But Jake needs to run before he can finish the job – continuing the circle of death and infection.

Night Owl is very light on the plot. The vampire at the centre of the story feels almost secondary to the world around him. The House music of the era is something to behold! Nightlife icons of the era (Holly Woodlawn, Screamin’ Rachael) bring the ambience to life. Though this makes things even more confusing when we hear of Indira Gandhi on the radio – placing the story in 1984, not the 90s as we had assumed.

While actors John Leguizamo and James Raftery do a good job with what material they are given, there isn’t any character development (or many character traits to begin with). So it is very difficult to care about what is happening in the story. Rather, it’s the city itself in all its filth, tragedy and vibrancy that steals all the attention.

This is a gorgeous film, and I think it’s worth watching for that alone. It was shot on grainy 16 mm film, bringing feelings of the earliest vampire films like Nosferatu and Vampyr. It even predates other 90s vampire black-and-white films like The Addiction and Nadja (which, incidentally, I think are also set in NYC).

Clearly the epidemic occurring at the time was a catalyst for these stories. Making the vampire film all that more harrowing and bleak.

*By the way, I had no idea that Beyonce would be bringing House music back this week with her new single. Maybe she was inspired by me watching this movie? I can only assume.

Wicked Wednesday: The Last Thing Mary Saw (2021)

I have the attention span of a fruit fly. The only way I can give full attention to a film is by going to the cinema. But at least I know and can fully admit I have a problem!

Watching “slow” horror is a struggle at home. But a film like The Last Thing Mary Saw demands full attention. It’s a quiet (literally) and soft film that’s equally filled with torture, pain and suffering.

Mary and her family’s maid, Eleanor, are in love. But it’s 1843 and a Puritan household, which makes for a dangerous life for the pair of young women.

When the rest of the family discovers their romance, the girls are both subject to a series of “corrections” to change their ways. Despite this, Mary and Eleanor cannot be separated. Especially since no other family will take Eleanor in.

As the girls become more desperate to be together, the film flicks forward in time to when Mary is being interrogated by several men. As the two timelines get closer to each other, it becomes very clear what sort of darkness the girls felt they needed to partake in.

The Last Thing Mary Saw is definitely more slow-paced than anything I’ve watched recently. But while it doesn’t necessarily have the action of an 80s slasher, it definitely knows how to build tension. There is a moment when it becomes very clear what is about to happen. The audience knows it, the girls know it, but watching it unfold is very tragic… And yet, it’s the circumstances that led the girls to their desperation.

If you’re looking for a queer film to watch for Pride that has a happy ending, don’t seek this one out. The Last Thing Mary Saw is a tragic horror story that won’t leave anyone feeling vindicated.