Tales from the Darkside (1990)

John Harrison’s Tales from the Darkside (1990) was one of my favorite horror films as a child because of the way the story is set up.  In this film, there is what is called a wraparound story, which is about a witch (Debbie Harry) who is preparing to cook a little boy named Timmy (Mathew Lawrence) for a dinner party.  She has him chained in her kitchen and has been feeding him cookies to try and fatten him up.  She must be somewhat kindhearted for a witch, though, as she gives Timmy a book to read.  In order to stall his impending death, Timmy begins to read these tales to her as she prepares the stuffing and preheats the oven. Very appropriate to the season, yes?  Anywho, Timmy tells three stories from the book:  “Lot 249,” “Cat from Hell,” and “Lover’s Vow,” each with its own set of actors, scenery, and plot.

Out of the three tales told, “Lot 249” is probably my favorite.  About a guy named Edward Bellingham (Steve Buscemi), and his college peer Andy (Christian Slater).  I won’t name everyone in each piece because that would take up entirely too much time.  Anyway Andy’s sister frames Bellingham so he gets screwed out of a summer scholarship, so he orders a mummy.  The mummy also comes with a scroll that enables Bellingham to control it, so Bellingham naturally exacts revenge against Andy’s sister and her jerk of a boyfriend.  All in all it had a great cast and even a few moments that were legitimately gory.  The second tale, “Cat from Hell,” is about a man named Drogan (William Hickey) who cannot get rid of this cat that keeps killing the people that live with him.  Drogan believes the cat has come from hell to seek revenge against him because his pharmaceutical company killed over 5,000 cats by testing their products on them.  Drogan hires a hit man, Halston (David Johansen) to take on the evil beast.  On a side note, Drogan’s sister Carolyn must have been a partier because when she dies, viewers can see a hookah sitting next to her bed.  All in all this was a great story too, and the final scenes with the cat are pretty rad.  Finally, “Lover’s Vow” is a story about failing artist Preston (James Remar) who watches a gargoyle murder a bartender one night.  The gargoyle offers his life in exchange for a vow of silence.  Immediately after the vow, Preston runs into a beautiful woman and his life begins to change.  After ten years of marriage to Carola, and two children, Preston breaks his vow and all hell breaks loose. 

All of these tales are worth watching, even though the wraparound story has somewhat of a hokey finale.  The cast is full of good actors and actresses, and the score is decent as well.  I also like that there’s essentially four stories happening in the film, it gives it a refreshing twist that sets it apart from other films from that year.  In efforts to consolidate, I added all the killers and such together for my tallies.  Number of killers?  Seven.  Body count?  11.  Boob count?  One.  Cheap thrills?  Three.  Actual spooks endured?  Six.  Raven’s Scream Meter says:  3.5 out of 5 Screams.  Definitely worth a watch, as there are some good performances and nice gore scenes.    

Exorcismus (2010)

            Manual Carballo’s Exorcismus (2010) is a somewhat predictable attempt at a possession film, though it is a personal belief of mine that no possession film will ever top the Exorcist.  But I digress.  The story follows a young girl named Emma (portrayed by Sophie Vavasseur) as she slowly becomes possessed by the devil and her following exorcism. Vavasseur was an interesting choice for the lead; she seems realistic and even likeable until the actual possession scenes.  In almost all of the possession scenes, Vavasseur falls flat, seeming more cheesy than believable.  There weren’t really many deaths in the film, basically just Emma’s little brother and two others, none of which were very innovative (or gory).  Thankfully, the plot itself wasn’t a complete disaster.  I enjoyed the fact that the priest actually gave this girl a way to invoke the devil, so that he could capture the devil on film (thus proving its existence, thus more followers of the faith).  The concept was interesting and made the priest seem just as diabolical as the demon that held Emma’s body captive, and made the girl’s ability to conjure such a creature more believable.

            The ritual that Emma does to invoke the devil is actually the bloodiest/goriest scene in the entire film, and that is all self-inflicted and doesn’t even come close to killing her.  Instead, she cuts open the palm of her hand and uses the blood to draw symbols on the bathroom floor that summon the devil.  When Emma sees herself in demon form, in reality it should be the coolest and/or creepiest part of the film, but for some reason (perhaps the CGI) these parts just wound up looking and feeling cheap.  The cinematography was interesting – the shots selected were good, but the camera holder was shaky with the equipment so the entire film feels very low budget.  Perhaps a tripod or something of that nature would have helped.  The music wasn’t memorable in either a good or bad way, so I figure that’s a plus because at least it wasn’t terrible.  The exorcism itself was interesting, though I’d have to say that yet again it was not the most original concerning how the possessed should act and think.

            I’d really like for there to someday be a possession film that even compares with the Exorcist, but this one is definitely not even close.  If you like possession/haunting type stories though, you might get a kick out of this one if you can get past the shaky camera and green acting.  One would never think that this film had a million dollar budget and grossed over three million dollars worldwide.  Those statistics actually stunned me, with the overall low-budget quality the film has.  Number of killers?  Two if you count the suicide.  Body count?  2 or 3, it is never restated that the kid (her cousin?) who is involved in the car wreck is dead or just unconscious.  Boob count?  Zero.  Cheap thrills?  Zero.  Actual spooks endured?  Zero.  Entertainment?  Somewhat.  Raven’s Scream Meter says:  1 out of 5 Screams.  Only worth a watch if you have a couple of hours to kill and really, really, really have a passion for possession films that seem rather uninspired and have more dialogue than action. 

           

Dark House (2009)

            Darin Scott’s “Dark House” (2009) actually surprised the hell out of me as one of the better horror films I got to check out this year.  The story begins with your typical childhood prank of going into the ‘haunted’ or ‘creepy house,’ but the normal aspects of this film end there.  Immediately upon entering the house, the little girl stumbles across a massacre.  Children’s bodies lay scattered around the house in pools of blood, and just when you think that has to be the last one, two more pop up on screen.  Basically, any movie that begins with seven dead and one in the midst of suicide, I sit up and pay attention.  This directing/writing team knew exactly how to capture their audience.  Of course, what else would one expect from Fangoria. 

            After the initial bloodbath, the audience gets a slight break from the horror to get to know the characters.  Meghan Ory’s character Claire is now in college, and apparently has been struggling since the day the massacre went down to put the images of all the dead children behind her.  Her therapist keeps telling her to go back to the scene of the crime so she can overcome her fear, but she has yet to have the courage to actually enter the old house.  Suddenly, a weird old guy winds up inviting her entire acting class to partake as actors for his new attraction – a haunted house inside the residence where the crimes occurred.  Claire, seeing an opportunity to enter the house without fear, persuades the others to take the opportunity.  When the group enters the house and takes the tour, they find one of the coolest haunted houses (technologically speaking) that money can buy.  The attractions are very realistic because they are holograms, and these holograms are stationed all over the house.  Oh…and they are triggered both by fear and excitement.  Wicked.

            So the weird old guy has a couple of guests come to the Dark House to participate in it’s initial run through of thrills and chills, and here is where things get wacky.  Apparently Ms. Darrode (portrayed excellently by Diane Salinger), the old woman who ran the children’s home in the house, well…her spirit remained there for the last decade and a half, and she was just waiting for Claire to come back so she could take her out and go to heaven (she wasn’t just insane, she was also fanatical about religion).  I am proud to say that what follows are perhaps not the most ingenious killings in a horror film ever – but there are plenty of killings and they are all done well.  I guess I’d say if there was one thing I truly didn’t notice much in the film, it was the soundtrack.  But there was so much blood that if the soundtrack was bad, the blood makes up for it.  My favorite line?  When discussing Claire being bat shit crazy, a cop says she: “Developed more bugs than Windows Vista.”  Haha!  Number of killers?  Technically, one.  If you count the holograms, there’s over seven.  Body count?  21.  Boob count?  Zero.  Cheap thrills?  Two.  Actual spooks endured?  Three.  Entertainment?  Fuckin a!  Raven’s Scream Meter says: 4 out of 5 Screams.  Definitely worth a watch – particularly if you like either lots of blood or haunted house tales.  Oh, and one of the characters isn’t who you think they are, leaving you with a surprise ending.  That I’ll keep a surprise.   

           

Dark Shadows (2012)

            I’ve been a fan of the television show Dark Shadows for a long time now, so I was curious to see how it would be translated to the silver screen via Burton and Depp.  Generally speaking, when it comes to either this particular director OR actor, I know the movie will at least be interesting (if not completely rad).  The previews had me slightly worried because the show itself was supposed to be serious, and spooky – and the previews for this theatrical version seemed to portray a humorous side, which was something the original show had not incorporated.  But I tend to like the way Depp portrays pretty much any character, and his portrayal of Barnabas Collins didn’t fall short.  He did an excellent job of being vampyric, yet still retaining a sense of human whimsy, which no Barnabas actor has managed to accomplish so far. 

            Michelle Pfeiffer was excellent as always, as was Helena Bonham Carter.  Eva Green, however, looked like a pale crack whore throughout the film and her acting didn’t do anything to help balance that out.  Actually that was a major flaw I saw in the design of this film.  Though I understand Burton likes the gothic look, everyone in the movie is so astonishingly pale that when Barnabas becomes a vampire, he is very nearly indistinguishable as such.  Just a little blush to the cheeks of the other characters would have been a nice touch.  The soundtrack, however, makes up for the makeup flaw – it is an excellent soundtrack for the film bursting with a ton of great music from the 70s.  I noticed I liked the music selection right away, and there wasn’t a song in the film’s entirety that I didn’t like.

            I found quite a bit of the film to differ from the television show.  Sometimes, in surprising and fun ways.  The fireplace with the wolves that move was a wonderful touch, and was uniquely Burton in style.  In the television series, Angelique is still trapped in the 1700s, not bleached blonde and wreaking havoc on the Maine coast, circa now.  I thought that was a little much, though I must admit it helped move the plot along more quickly.  It was also a surprise to me that Carolyn is a werewolf, I wasn’t expecting that.  There seemed to be a lot more witchcraft and several more ghosties in the television show, but like I said earlier the show took itself much more seriously.  Some of the sillier moments, however, lacked originality and fell flat to me.  When Barnabas encounters the road, it reminded me quite a lot of Hocus Pocus.  And his little comments about the television have also been done before.  The best line from the movie and something that caught me as superiorly original was Barnabas’ comment about the lava lamp: “It looks like a pulsating blood urn.”  Ha!  Beautiful.

              My final criticism of the film is when Barnabas sires Victoria.  The character had bitten and killed around ten or so filler characters along the way, and none of them became a vampire. Victoria would have to drink Barnabas’ blood prior to her death in order for the ‘transfusion’ or ‘turn’ to happen.  Instead, Barnabas jumps off the cliff, catches her mid-air, and drinks from her and somehow without the aid of his blood she magically becomes a vampire.  I expected more from Burton in this particular moment, to be honest.  Number of killers?  Three, if you count the suicide.  Body count?  Somewhere around 20.  Groups get slaughtered a couple times during the course of the film.  Boob count?  Zero.  Cheap thrills?  Zero.  Actual creeps given?  None, this is much more of a dark comedy – think Young Frankenstein.  Entertainment?  Of course.  You can’t really go wrong with Burton and Depp.  Raven’s Scream Meter says:  3.5 out of 5 screams, it’s funny and dark but not nearly gory (or creepy) enough for my taste.    

The Final (2010)

            Anthony DiBlasi’s The Final (2010) intrigued me because…well ok, mostly it intrigued me because it was in the “Gory Horror Films” section of Netflix.  But it was also about revenge, and I am a sucker for a good horror film where the jerks get their just desserts.  The movie begins by helping the audience out with a big serving of sympathy for the characters that are getting picked on in high school for being weird or different from the popular kids.  You know the drill, the nerds get picked on and eventually they can’t take it anymore and they snap.  Though there are several characters involved for viewers to become invested in, I feel strongly that the movie took entirely too much time with this and didn’t get involved in the real action until quite late in the film.  There could have been much more time allowed for gore over sentimentality, especially when some of the gore was pretty inventive in this film. 

            I loved the idea that these kids didn’t want to kill their tormentors; they wanted to scar and disfigure them so that tormentor would become tormented.  Savagely brilliant, conceptually speaking.  At first, I thought that when the mutilation started that the girls weren’t going to have it as bad as the guys – they seemed to keep picking on the guys at first.  But the first girl they picked wound up getting her face smeared with a compound that would burn away her flesh.  That’s pretty awesome.  The nerds also have fun with two of their captives, telling both that if one of them cuts off all ten fingers from the other’s hand, that person will be spared.  Neither could complete the task, but man was it fun to watch them try.  The acting in the film isn’t exceptional, but it isn’t terrible either.  I particularly enjoyed Marc Donato’s performance as Dane, and Whitney Hoy as Bridget.  Both characters felt the most round and relatable, at least in my opinion.

            I also remember thinking to myself that the script itself wasn’t written half-bad, some of the lines in the movie were almost profound (for a horror movie, that is).  There just seemed to be a little more of it than was needed (talking where there could be more blood).  The gore was done well, my favorite of all probably being the bear trap.  I was surprised that there wasn’t more actual killing going on in the film, but it was a refreshing change to see there was a lesson to be learned.  The first and final scenes repeat each other also, which was a nice touch to reiterate what The Final was all about.  Number of killers?  Four, technically.  Number of torturers?  Five.  Body Count?  Six or seven.  Boob count?  Zero.  Cheap thrills?  Zero.  Actual creeps given?  Two or three.  Entertainment?  For sure.  Raven’s Scream Meter says:  2.5 out of 5 Screams.  Think of Revenge of the Nerds, only much more horrifying.  Win.