31 Days of Halloween

Film Eleven: Poltergeist III (1988)
The second Poltergeist film is the only one I was interested in for the purposes of my “misguided horror sequel” crash course, but the DVD that Netflix sent me had both sequels on it and it seemed like it would be a waste to send the disc back without also watching part three. This certainly has a lot going against it: none of the cast has returned except the little girl Heather O'Rourke (soon to be the fourth victim of the Poltergeist curse) and old psychic lady Zelda Rubinstein (who maybe wasn’t overburdened with other offers). Additionally the action has been moved from suburbia to New York City, which was actually a very smart move both because it shook things up a bit but also because it invited fewer comparisons to the vastly superior original film than the first sequel did. That one good decision might have been enough to make me slightly prefer this to part 2, but there are some other questionable things in this. For one, I had kind of assumed they’d forget about the creepy preacher from the second movie this time around given that the actor that had played him became victim number two of the Poltergeist curse, but they actually re-casted and kind of doubled down on the character. Also the special effects budget seems to have been slashed and the imagery generally seems to be less inspired here… but again, it generally feels like its own thing rather than a shitty re-tread of a classic and that makes it slightly less offensive to me than two.

** out of Five

And now, Doomsday continues his ongoing series of watching horror movies he's never seen before for Halloween......

The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)



If something is popular even on a 'cult film' level I'm usually able to see what's appealing about it whether I like it or not. Even if it's something that isn't to my personal taste I'm typically able to identify what fans might like about it. That all changed with Rocky Horror Picture Show. I'm not going to try to make this sound professional or anything like a lot of people do here, I'll just say that I hated this movie. Nothing was appealing to me, nothing made me glad I was watching it. I get that sometimes musicals don't translate well on-screen but even the music was just there. It had a couple of songs that I guess are a little catchy, Time Warp being the obvious choice, but for the most part they range from forgettable to annoying. You can say 'it's not for you, Doomsday' and if that's the case then that's fine, you can keep it.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show is a movie that I always felt like I should see but was aware that the fans are off in some way. I don't know if it's a vessel around which weird outcasts can gravitate, I don't know if it's the idea that it's 'trendy' or if it's a requirement for theater kids to memorize, I just know that there's a reason it's a 'cult' film. I guess I'm glad I watched it solely because I can say 'yeah I saw it' but it's a piece of shit. Maybe I didn't 'get it' but frankly if there was something there to 'get' then I'm glad that I didn't.

Ya'll a bunch of haters.

That is a movie I have never really had a desire to see.

I'll watch House every day for a year before I watch Rocky Horror again.

Then again, I really dug House.

Day Eleven: House (1977)


Well, this was an experience.

How can I even begin to describe House? Well, the film is a 1970s Japanese horror film about a group of young schoolgirls who find themselves trapped in a haunted house that wishes to consume them...as in literally eat them. The film has a very goofy tone; the special effects are deliberately cartoonish, the characters are broad and simplistic, the editing is manic...and yet I still don't think any of this gets across just how strange this movie is. It feels a light like a kid show, with very bright cinematography in the first act, lots of really odd humour, iris shots, and a certain youthful innocence in spite of the insanity the film depicts.

There are also some really zany set-pieces like a floating head that bites someone's butt and a dancing skeleton, among other things. It's a film that really needs to be seen to be believed. Anyway, the film's bizaro charm was working for me for a while. I got a few big laughs and generally found the film's nutty editing pretty inspired. However after about a half hour the film started to wane on me. I can see why its insanity can be appealing to some, but I found it got tired and by the end I was ready for it to be over.

C

Meh.

The other House with The Greatest American Hero, Norm from Cheers, and Bull from Night Court is the superior horror movie named House.

Haha I'm stealing this to use for future enthusiastic reviews to friends.

Film Twelve: The Shallows (2016) 
I’ve never really truly thought of Jaws as being a horror movie, in part because it’s mostly set in bright summer days and in part because I don’t really consider it all that “scary” per se. Still, it’s certainly created a whole sub-genre of B-movies about shark attacks, the latest of which is a movie called The Shallows, about a woman stranded on a small bit of land off the shore in Mexico with a great white shark circling her location and waiting excitedly to devour her and any poor soul that tries to come to her rescue. One of the amazing things about Jaws is that it works even though it has a profoundly ridiculous premise, which is a testament to Steven Spielberg’s profound skill as a filmmaker. The Shallows is directed by a guy named Jaume Collet-Serra and needless to say he’s no Steven Spielberg, but he does make a stronger case for his stupid premise than most people making shitty shark movies do. The behavior of the shark in this movie is beyond ridiculous. The extent to which it seems intent on eating this one woman makes very little sense and the fact that he spends so much time just hanging around her rock is not very believable. The movie’s visual effects are also pretty inconsistent with some of them being enjoyable to too many of them just being pretty crappy. The film is pretty well shot overall though and it has moments that definitely work, but the film as a whole feels pretty insubstantial and as a pure work of tension decent but hardly special.

**1/2 out of Five

Day Thirteen: Universal Monsters: The Mummy Series: Part One

Last year for Halloween, I went through the Legacy Collections of Dracula and Frankenstein and while the quality of the films did dip, I still had a lot of fun. So, I think I'll go through at least one Legacy set at Halloween and this year the focus is on The Mummy.

The Mummy


This was actually my third time seeing the original Karl Freund film and my appreciation for it has slowly risen, but I still don't think it's all that strong.

The story involves an undead Egyptian Mummy named Imhotep (Boris Karloff) who is resurrected in the 1920s and seeks the incarnation of his love, Ankh-es-en-Amon, whom he finds in a young woman named Helen (Zita Johann). Imhotep must sacrifice Helen's soul in order to make her undead and bind the two forever. Though the details may be different, the plot is basically a retread of Dracula. A supernatural monster with other worldy powers attempts to take a human woman to be his for eternity. The Mummy embraces these similarities, casting Edward Van Sloan in a role similar to Van Helsing and even opens with "Swan Lake". It's a pretty lazy plot, and the pacing is also pretty awkward. Though there is some effective scenes, the film is never really able to build any momentum. Imhotep's powers are ill-defined and the climax is pretty messy too.

Still, this film does have its share of redeeming qualities. Jack Pierce's make-up, for example, is excellent. It's not as famous as his work on Frankenstein, but it's a lot more subtle and in its own way just as effective. Karloff also has a lot of presence as Imhotep and is detached speech is pretty haunting. And as mentioned, there are a handful of scenes that work pretty well, such as the opening and Imhotep's backstory (which features dude's getting impaled). These scenes are livened up by some involving camera movements and spooky atmosphere. I wish Freund would have brought that level of passion to every scene. As is, The Mummy is still a solid enough entry in the Universal Monster canon.

C+


The Mummy's Hand


The Mummy's Hand is a disappointing sequel that does little new with its premise. The focus is now on a group of archaeologists who disturb an ancient tomb guarded by Egyptian Professor Andoheb (George Zucco), who unleashes the undead Mummy Kharis (Tom Tyler) on the group.

That's the premise, but it actually takes a long time for the film to get to that. A lot of the film is actually spent following the boring shenanigans of the archaeologists. It's boring because we know that there eventually going to find the tomb and it's made more frustrating by the fact that the characters are very bland. The film also injects a lot of lame comedy which never works. Even in the third act when the horror comes on, the film is still throwing out jokes. By the time The Mummy does show up, there's only about twenty minutes left. Then again it doesn't really matter because the film doesn't do much interesting with him. The Mummy is an emotionless killing machine so there isn't any character, and despite some effective attack scenes, there are also shots of the Mummy just wandering around the woods (incidentally, not a good use of the film's Egyptian location). Kharis also goes out like a punk and director Christy Cabanne doesn't bring much in terms of creepy atmosphere.

There are some positives here. The adventure aspects work fairly well at points (namely a bar room brawl) and supporting actors George Zucco and Cecil Kellaway do solid enough work. However the film's greatest asset is the look of the Mummy itself, which is pretty cool. The bandages and the lumbering have become fairly iconic and it works here. However it's Kharis' black eyes that are especially striking. Overall, The Mummy's Hand is a bad movie, but a few disparate elements make it tolerable.

D+

Day Fourteen: The Mummy Series Part Two


The Mummy's Tomb


Alright, so the first ten minutes of The Mummy's Tomb is a fucking flashback/recap of The Mummy's Hand. I get that this was before home video and studios wanted to give audiences a refresher of what had happened, but there are not complicated movies. This entry is about an Egyptian priest and a Mummy exacting vengeance on the man who disturbed a sacred tomb and his families, it doesn't need much explanation. And if you do need a flashback/recap, it certainly doesn't need to be ten minutes.

Once that nonsense is over the movie gets started proper. The Mummy's Tomb may seem like an improvement over The Mummy's Hand given that it doesn't want long to deliver the goods. The bulk of the film is simply Kharis (now played by Lon Chaney Jr.) going around in America killing people. The problem is that's literally all the movie has going for it. There's virtually no story, the writing is simplistic, and the characters are terribly dull. It doesn't help that Kharis himself is mute lumbering oaf who doesn't have any personality.

Basically the only thing keeping this afloat is the fact that some of the Mummy action is pretty decent. A murder in a dark alley in particular stands out and the climax in a burning mansion is a more exciting and satisfying conclusion than what The Mummy's Hand offered.

D


The Mummy's Ghost


The Mummy's Ghost sees a new priest attempting to reunite Kharis and the remains of Princess Ananka and put them to rest in Egypt. That's the plot anyway, but this basically plays exactly the same as The Mummy's Tomb only with less interesting Mummy kills. In many ways this is an inferior sequel, particularly given how deriviative it is, but there are a few improvements that make the film slightly superior to The Mummy's Tomb. First, though there is a recap at the beginning, it's short and done through dialogue. Second, John Carradine's presence is noticeable. Third, and most importantly, the filmmakers had the balls to actually kill off the leading lady at the end. The film does the whole thing with Kharis kidnapping her and carrying her away, but she isn't saved. Instead, Kharis drags her corpse into a swamp. That's...that's pretty damn cool.

Is this ending muted by the fact I didn't care about anybody or the story? Your damn right it is. Make no mistake, this is a bad movie. The characters suck, the set-pieces are lame, and there isn't much in the way of atmosphere, but those few positives make this slightly better than the last Mummy sequel.

D


The Mummy's Curse


Set 25 years after The Mummy's Ghost, the film inexplicably shifts its setting to Louisiana where workers draining the swamp unleash Kharis and also unearth the reincarnated Ananka. This might be a good time to mention the timeline of these films. The Mummy's Hand took place in 1940, The Mummy's Tomb pushed forward 30 years, and now this film pushes it another 25. So, technically, the last two films were set in 1970 and now this one is set in 1995. Of course, they all look like the 1940s and there was clearly no effort to make anything look different so I guess it doesn't matter.

Anyway, The Mummy's Curse...same old shit. A priest controls Kharis, Kharis kills some dudes, priest goes mad with love for a young woman, Kharis and the Priest are ultimately defeated and two young people get married. The film follows the series formula to the letter with no new ideas. The kills are boring, the characters suck, and any novelty gleamed from Kharis' look is long gone. All this movie has going for it is a fairly cool moment where the mummified Ananka rises from the ground, but even that scene ends awkwardly and is ultimately drowned out by how dull everything else is. Quite simply, there was no reason for this movie to be made. Say what you will about The Mummy's Ghost, at least it took a chance on an ending that bizarrely did bring a sense of closure to the series. There was nothing left for this entry to do but retread old ground.

F

Reflecting on The Mummy movies as a whole, I can say that the series is pretty bad and thus far easily the worst of the Universal Monster movies. While the other monster series seemed to take a longer descent in quality, The Mummy dropped off immediately after the first film. Even the original isn't all that good, but it at least had some atmosphere, memorable moments, cool make-up, and the ever awesome Boris Karloff. The sequels offer considerably less and it didn't take long to realize there wasn't much in the tank.

Dirty little secret about Universal Horror: the sequels that didn't involve Frankenstein were by and large not very good.  I think this was because they determined at a certain point that the movies' main audience were children and teenagers at a certain point and started targeting all their horror movies at the matinee B-movie audience.  I'm not exactly sure why Frankenstein is such an exception.  Anyway, it's kind of a shame because there was stuff they could have worked with.  It boggles the mind that they never tried to resurrect Bela Legosi's Dracula for instance.