Taking on the 31 Days of Horror Challange for the second year running especially after the fun of last year and with so many blindspots and cinema shames still in my watchpile it’s a great excuse to cross some of these titles off the list.
For those not familar with the challange you simply have to watch 31 horror movies before Halloween it’s that simple….so here’s how my month went down.
Title: Fright Night Director: Tom Holland Released: 1985 Starring: Chris Sarandon, William Ragsdale, Amanda Bearse, Roddy McDowall, Stephen Geoffreys, Jonathan Stark, Dorothy Fielding, Art J. Evans
Plot: When Charlie (Ragsdale) discovers that his neighbour Jerry (Sarandon) is a vampire he dismayed to find that no one believes him, leading him to recruit Peter Vincent (McDowall), a former movie vampire hunter turned TV host to help him stop Jerry.
Review: Another film from my childhood whose memorable VHS cover I still remember scaring the hell out me back when I used to spend many a misspent hour looking on the shelves of the Video store, at the same time knowing that I would never have the guts to ever watch it. Even as the film in later years has gone on to become regarded as a cult classic, meaning that it has been a source of some dismay for some of my friends that for one reason or another it’s taken me until now to actually watch it. Perhaps one of the main reasons (outside of the aforementioned minor childhood trauma the cover caused) is that it’s a vampire movie. One of the few horror sub-genres which hardly fills me with the most excitement, especially considering how like Zombies it has been so overworked, with vampires long being the inspiration for countless dire paranormal romance let alone the whole Twilight fiasco, so when you tell me it’s a vampire movie it really has to be something special to hold my attention.
The directorial debut of Director Tom Holland who would previously to this film had written the surprisingly good Psycho 2 and would go onto follow this film with the equally cult Child’s Play and the underrated Stephen King adaptation Thinner and while he is a director whose better known for his films rather than being the one who directed them. A fact only further highlighted by the fact that I didn’t realise how many of his films I’d seen till I started doing the research for this review.
Charlie is your regular teenage kid who likes horror movies and making out with his girlfriend as highlighted by the opening were he manages to combine the two (something which never works out in real life). He then manages to achieves what I assume to be a horror movie first by blowing off his girlfriend Amy (Bearse) offering to finally sleep with him, as he’s too busy spying on his neighbour after he notices a coffin being moved into the house. It’s worth noting at this point Jerry is still be to proven to be a vampire, so essentially he’s blowing off his girlfriend because of an overactive imagination.
While there is little doubt over whether Jerry is a vampire or not, even though it would have been epic if he hadn’t turned out to be one. The fun is watching Charlie trying to convince those around him that he’s right, much less the fact that he bases all his knowledge on vampires from what he’s learned from the movies or even more questionable advice from his best friend Evil Ed (Geoffreys). This perhaps might go some way to explaining why he believes a movie vampire slayer would be the best person to assist him with dealing with Jerry.
Peter Vincent is a great character and possibly the one character that goes on the biggest journey here as he starts off as a sceptic only to soon find himself having to battle his very real fears to step up and become the man he played in the movies. It has to be questioned though if all the vampire hunting paraphilia in his apartment was all props from his former movie career or if he actually has any real experience? The answer to this question alludes us even if some of his equipment such as his pistol does come with links to his films, making it only all the more confusing.
A great mixture of comedy and horror runs through this film with Sarandon providing the right combination of charm and threat to make for a suitable villain here, more so when he plays things so close to his chest in terms of his plans. More so when he throws in a real twist by seducing Amy which while its hinted that its due to her resemblance to his former lover, I couldn’t help but think that this was another way to screw with Charlie, more so when he also turns Evil Ed into a vampire one of those rare examples of a good character turning evil and in turn even more awesome than he originally was!
While the film was released back in the 80’s making up an unholy trinity of vampire movies alongside The Lost Boys and Near Dark, like those films the old school effect still hold up even now, with Richard Edlund and his special effects team when the film was made coming in fresh from Ghostbusters. It’s also great that the vampire transformations are more monstrous similar to those seen in Buffy the Vampire Slayer than the more traditional pointy teeth variant which still continue to plague the genre now, only without any of the charm of the horror legends which originally portrayed these characters to make these more simple vampires work. At the same time we do get some gooey death scenes and an equally astonishing reverse transformation to rival An American Werewolf In London.
While for the most part this is a fun ride, it does sag slightly in the third act was the focus shifts to Jerry and his attempts to corrupt Amy with the help of his vampire powers, though taking the focus away from Charlie means that the film loses momentum, but ultimately this is a minor complaint as the film is still a lot of fun with healthy dose of splatter to add to the thrills to ensure it holds its own against its contempories especially when it falls squarely between the worlds of The Lost Boys and Near Dark making it the perfect companion piece to either film, while being one of those rare vampire films which even the usual haters of the sub-genre like myself can enjoy.
Title: Motel Hell Director: Kevin Connor Released: 1980 Starring: Rory Calhoun, Paul Linke, Nancy Parsons, Nina Axelrod, Wolfman Jack
Plot: Farmer Vincent (Calhoun) runs the Motel Hello with his sister Ida (Parsons) while also being famous for his smoked meats which he makes out of travellers he kidnaps and keeps buried in his secret garden
Review: A film originally set to be directed by Tobe Hooper for Universal only for him to drop out during pre-production when the studio couldn’t get behind the original script which was a lot more darker and violent in it’s tone while also including bestiality. With the studio not wanting to back the film Hooper dropped out leaving the directors chair open for Kevin Connor to step in the man responsible for the best Doug McClure movies like The Land That Time Forgot and At The Earths Core. With Connor taking the reigns of the film the tone was drastically changed to a black comedy with anything that Connor deemed to be unnecessarily crude being cut from the film. It’s questionable if it hits its goal of being a black comedy as for myself it felt like more of a light horror film than anything resembling a black comedy with the exception of the scene were
Here Rory Calhoun initially seems like a friendly farmer / motel owner as he’s introduced smoking on his pipe and with his permanently upbeat nature even though he’s running a sideline in human flesh Though like Ed Gein who openly admitted that the missing bodies were at his house (they though he was joking), Vincent does like to quote that It takes all kinds of critters…to make Farmer Vincents fritters. Calhoun though really owns the role and despite being better known for his cowboy roles, really transitions well into the role of Vincent with his breezy manor never once wavering even when he’s explaining to Terry why he’s running his sideline in human meats.
While Vincent and his sister have their operation worked out so well that everything runs like a well oiled machine that is of course until Terry (Axelrod) enter their lives who is introduced with her boyfriend Bo as Vincent’s latest victims as he shoots out the tyre on their motorcycle and while Bo is heading to the garden, Vincent takes a shine to Terry and decides to save her from the chopping block. Here lies one of the big issues with the film as Terry is somehow charmed by Vincent even agreeing to marry him, much to the dismay of his brother and local sheriff Bruce (Linke) who tries and fails to woo her himself. Okay it could be argued that Terry has a thing for older guys seeing how her boyfriend Bo looks more like her father than her boyfriend but otherwise that’s some serious stockholm syndrome we are seeing her suffering especially as she makes no attempt to get home instead settling into life at the motel.
If your like myself the main reason for checking this movie out is for the finale which see’s Vincent and Bruce duel it out with chainsaws while Vincent for whatever reason has donned a pig’s head. This image of the pig head Vincent is really one of the iconic moments for the film and saw the film getting the cover of Fangoria #9 which at the time was one of the poorest selling issues now however because of these poor sales it’s become one of the rarest and priciest issues. Thankfully the finale really delivers
Let down by an overlong runtime I couldn’t help but feel that twenty mins hacked out of this would have made it alot stronger, especially as it would only make the more random moments like the bull whip welding swinger or the chainsaw dueling finale which no doubt will be the reason you checked it out in the first place
Title: Frogs Director: George McCowan Released: 1972 Starring: Ray Milland, Sam Elliot, Joan Van Ark, Adam Roarke, Lynn Borden, Dale Willingham, Hal Hodges, Judy Pace, David Gilliam, Nicholas Cortland, George Skaff, Hollis Irving, Lance Taylor Sr.
Plot: While photographing the local wildlife Pickett (Elliot) is knocked out of his Canoe by a brother and sister who invite him to stay on their family plantation. Soon however the house becomes under siege from the local wildlife who are keen to take revenge on the family and their crimes against the local ecology.
Review: A gentle start to this years 31 Days of Halloween Horror Movie-thon kick off with this fun eco-horror whch despite what the title and poster suggests it’s not about killer frogs but rather frogs who are leading an uprising of the local wildlife population to strike back at the wealthy Crockett family whose less than eco-friendly business practices sees them being targeted by pretty much everything in the surrounding swamp over the course of the 4th of July holidays which is also the birthday of Ray Milland’s grouchy, wheelchair-bound family patriarch who refuses to accept that anything is going to interfer with his birthday celebrations.
Directed by George McCowan who worked mainly in television but had a brief dalliance with directing feature films directing this film and the forth and final Magnificent Seven film, Magnificent Seven Ride in the same year while working from a script co-written with Robert Hutchinson and Robert Blees the later’s writing credits also including cult favourites like The Black Scorpion and Dr, Phibes Rides Again.
Noteworthy for starring a super young Sam Elliot here almost unrecognisable without his gravely southern drawl and moustache, instead his casting is more for the “Beefcake” moments such as the scene were he wrestles snakes bare chested with these scenes of ruggedness land him the lead role in “The Lifeguard”. It should be noted though that he does he does spend most of the film in a remarkably calm state even as the frogs are closing in and the animals are foiling any attempt to escape the island often showing surprising levels of creativity when it comes to disrupting things on the island.
Light in terms of gore but we do get some nice animal photography aswell as some creative death scenes throughout such as the lizards knocking over chemicals to create poison gas or the spiders falling out of the tree and seemingly covering their victim in webbing even though it looks more like the crew throwing moss. Even though these scenes are certainly fun at the same time it also felt like it took longer than it should have to get going. The frogs slowly closing in on the house as the film progresses making for a nice touch and as such it would no doubt make for a great pairing with Colin Eggleston’s “Long Weekend”
From The Depths of DVD Hell 