Wooley's Halfway To Halloween IV

Well. This was... watchable.
Night School is a sort of slasher/giallo/police procedural kinda movie about a killer who goes around beheading women who take a particular professor's Anthropology class in the titular Night School. The professor is an arrogant, womanizing ******** who cheats on his girlfriend and is just generally up is own ass. I just felt the need to say that. His toxic treatment of ostensible Final Girl Rachel Ward is far more unpleasant than any of the killings.
That is because it's a rather tame slasher really. I mean, beheadings don't sound tame but they're all staged very tamely with some bright red blood thrown around but no gore whatsoever and the actual moment of beheading is never on-screen. No wounds or anything are ever seen... there's no shock of any kind really. I mean, some of it is maybe that he's all in control in his mind or whatever and is just playing with his food so to speak but he mostly just lurches at people until the cutaway. The killer is pretty tame in the sense of not being very scary to look at either.


And it's nearly comical how little effort any of the victims make to save themselves. The killer doesn't really sneak up on anyone, he sort of presents himself in front of his victims and then swipes at them with his gurkha while they consistently don't run away. You know that old-fashioned kill-staging where the victim just slowly backs away from the killer pleading instead of just running or fighting back in any way? That's every kill in this movie. Several of them just don't even put up their hands or anything.
None of these are terrible offenses... but the reveal ultimately is. Not who the killer is, that's obviously what the movie was counting on to carry it, but how badly it's unveiled. Clumsy and abrupt with weak dialogue and motivation, not totally out of left field, kind of obvious really, but largely unsatisfying. The denouement redeems it slightly

Still, the movie is not bad per se. The story makes sense, the movie flows well enough, and actually, it has a pretty good ambience. The producer had tremendous praise for the director and I can understand that, the movie looks and moves better than it deserves. Still, it misses the mark and not narrowly.
Alas, I finally got this one off my queue where it has been for maybe 15 years. I doubt I'll revisit this but at least it's checked off.

That too, and the fact that it's a bit of a "slow burner"; at least by today's standards. I mean, it takes about 30-40 minutes until things start to heat up. If this was made now, it will open up with an "intense" 5-10 minute sequence before finally taking us into the Nostromo. As it is, the audience is (was?) more or less in the dark as far as what they are fighting against, much like the crew members are, which makes the reveal of the alien's final form to have more weight and terror. Even now, with most people knowing how the Xenomorph looks, that scene with Brett facing up against the creature packs quite a punch.

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The entire series is on Shudder.

Night School has also been on my list for a while. And my expectations for slashers are so low that even this half-hearted endorsement sounds encouraging.

As for the Alien series improving with each sequel, that's crazy talk.

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Captain's Log
My Collection

Empire Of The Ants

A bunch of people go on a boat ride to look at some new beachfront real estate miles from nowhere but a barrel of “chemicals” (it’s actually just mercury), dumped by masked ne’er do wells, has washed up on shore. What could possibly happen?!
Well, for the next 28 minutes, fairly bad dialogue stretched out as long as possible to keep the run-time going. Nary an ant.
But when they come, The Ants, while not appearing in mutated form for the first 28 minutes of the film, are not just large but smart it seems, as the first thing they do is attack the boat so no one can escape. Of course, because this is a great film, this is elaborated on in the Third Act, after about 35 minutes of everybody trying to run and paddle through the Florida swamp from Giant Ants.


I must admit I did not see the Third Act coming. If I wasn’t already sold on this being the best film of all time, the Third Act clinched it. It seems to come out of nowhere but then you remember the boat. And it takes the movie into a different territory.
A few things worth mentioning. Not only is the score such a nearly exact rip-off of Jaws that it's adorable, but I must further elaborate that the special effects, which mostly consists of extreme close-ups of real live ants banging around with the actors edited in, are surprisingly pleasing. I mean, there is one scene - with an older couple who decides that they’re safe because they don’t hear anything but step outside to find themselves surrounded by Giant Ants - that, while utterly stupid, looks really good. Of course, another part where the Giant Ants kinda crawl into the sky a little bit holds up less well but such is life.
Well, overall, for a while I felt like this was better than Barracuda but not as good as Up From The Depths. But now that the Third Act has happened, this is actually better than Citizen Kane.
In fact, this is clearly the best movie ever made.

This is also the first movie I ever saw in a theater. This theater, actually.


My grandfather took me to see this when I was like 4 or 5 years old. For real, my grandfather took a 4 or 5 year old kid to see a low-budget Horror movie about Giant Ants for his first trip to the movie theater ever. Not Bambi. Empire Of The Ants.
And I loved that man.


PS - Joan Collins was a gorgeous woman with, apparently, a good sense of humor.

I mean, it kinda sounds like you were high but I appreciate the enthusiasm.

Fond memories of this one from afternoon TV as a kid, but haven't seen it in ages. That scene with the old folks just jogged a memory though. You've got me wanting to see this again. Same director as Food of the Gods, which I thought was the height of cinematic achievement at a certain point in my life. (Age 10 or so)

Love the grandpa story. Pretty sure The Pitt was the site of my first-ever Star Wars viewing, so it has a special place in my history.

Not high this time, actually! Had enough of that at Jazz Fest this weekend.

No, I exaggerate, obviously, for humorous effect, but I guess I thought this would be so much worse, even though there's a good bit of filler, that I ended up really enjoying this movie. Sure some of that is nostalgia but some of it is also my love of very-low budget monster/horror movies that don't completely suck because they try.

Life gets hectic, but it’s awesome you’re still making time for spooky season—even if it’s a short run this year. Looking forward to your picks and posts, and hope Jazz Fest brings all the good vibes too!

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Doctiplus

I am almost giddy because I think I may have truly just watched the worst movie I've ever seen.
More tomorrow.

Man, those Elvira movies are rough.

Vampira > Elvira

I like Elvira's... sense of humor.

The Incubus

My curiosity over a Horror movie starring John Cassavetes with just a 17% RT was too great to ignore. I wonder how hard it is to direct a movie with John Cassavetes in it.
Oh, apparently not easy because Cassavetes was re-writing the movie during filming. The director estimates that only maybe 20% of the script was left when Cassavetes got done with it.
Which is funny because the script is clearly the worst part of the movie, bad enough to bring everything else down with it.
To begin, there's a murder/rape situation on the beach and it's such a powerful and violent rape that the victim's uterus is ruptured, she nearly bleeds to death, and there is an "impossible amount of semen". Cassavetes, who, again, wrote most of the script, says, “Look, there was so much sperm in her that the hemorrhaging itself couldn’t get rid of it.” What the f*ck, John?
This sets off a sort of mystery that isn't really a mystery about whether this was a gang-rape or the work of The Incredible Hulk. There's a kid who has nightmares and somebody gets raped every time he has one and he's dating Cassavetes daughter. I can’t tell if Cassavetes is supposed to have a sexual attraction to his own daughter or it’s just 1982. And there's not one but two somewhat mysterious women... there's a lot going on. And meanwhile, every few minutes, there's another really horrific rape/murder scene, including one involving a woman in a wheelchair getting raped just moments after her friend is raped and her father murdered.


But that's after the librarian is raped.
So, the script, assuming there even was one, is absolutely awful, often nonsensical with people saying things and acting in ways that they never would irl even though the movie is supposed to be taking place in the real world. Sometimes character actions don't make sense with what those characters do later, especially at the climax of the film.
Also the director seems to have ideas but they don’t go anywhere. He’s like “put the camera here, that’ll be a good shot. Move the camera like that, that'll seem odd.” Yeah, but why? What’s the point of that “good shot” or that "odd".
And then this happens for no reason...


So, this is actually a pretty callous rape-movie, really violent and often lingering over the pain and violence of rape. As one critic put it, it’s a “horror film about rape, a subject that the R-rated movie takes a firm stand against even as it's smacking its lips.”
This movie is just really creepy in a rape, say “sperm” 100 times, 52 year-old Cassavetes with an 18 year-old girl, calling a rape-victim “Beautiful” to her face while she’s still nude in a hospital bed recovering, raping a woman in a wheelchair kind of way. At least his love interest is only 20 years his junior.
And they kill the f*cking dog too.
Just for fun, here is a spoiler of the climax of the movie.



In closing, I will include the last four entries in my notes during this film:
"What an awful, awful movie. Just a chore to finish. This is actually staring to effect the way I think about John Cassavetes."
"This is pretty much the worst movie I’ve ever seen. Wow."
"Holy f*ckballz, somehow the ending makes it even worse. Jesus, what a terrible movie."


PS- I would bet everything I have that no movie has ever said the word "sperm" more than The Incubus.

Both of them.

Yikes!!

In 1970ish England a very British biker-gang that calls themselves The Living Dead ride around and do harm that very, very mildly invokes A Clockwork Orange. They are led by an Alex-like, charismatic rich-boy whose mother is a medium and whose father disappeared 18 years earlier under mysteriously and vaguely occult circumstances. He's a psychopath and wants mum to give him the secret of life after death, which she apparently knows. Instead of being something really interesting or requiring some bloody sacrifice or something exciting and macabre it's that when you commit suicide you have to really want to die but really believe you'll come back. That's it. Oh, and there's a frog. The frog is very important.
So he does it and convinces most of the rest of them to do it and come back from the dead looking exactly like they did when they were alive and they ride around attacking grocery carts and making faces at old ladies.


Very menacing.
Well.
Expectations can be a bitch.
You may be thinking, "Wooley, you had... expectations... for this movie?" Well, I had it in my head that this was going to be a lower-budget, more independent, much wilder, edgier, crazier, probably crappier thing, that I would personally have fun with because I like that sort of thing. Dangerous Bikers Returned From The Grave actually sounds cool, it's just... not.
Instead it's a pretty bland, unintentionally silly, very British... I dunno, maybe a Supernatural Thriller or something. But minus the thrills. This was made possibly to spook pearl-clutching British biddies who are afraid that The Youth Has Gone Wild.
Just to be clear for anyone who was ever interested (and I know some around here have seen it) this is really a PG, weaker AIP-like entry into the British catalogue that is way less interesting and thrilling than, say, The Abominable Dr. Phibes, which is actually a much edgier film than this one. Imagine if someone tried to cash in on the idea of A Clockwork Orange but with no blood, no sex, extremely mild violence (though these bikers really hate grocery carts!), and with the future dystopia part replaced by some vaguely occult business involving a frog. That is Psychomania. Good luck.

I guess I didn't have any expectations that Psychomania would be like A Clockwork Orange caused me to draw no comparisons - and it still never have to this day. Granted, I also went into it completely blind; so the second that interest in a random frog showed up, it became a silly romp for me where it felt like it was trying to be a very British teen movie. It's a very silly, silly film.

Don't forget 100-year-old George Sanders giving zero s--ts about this project. (his final movie I think?)

I don't disagree with anything you've said here, but it's my duty to point out that one character RISES FROM THE GRAVE ON HIS MOTORCYCLE which is incredibly kick-ass. But yeah, less patient viewers should maybe just find a gif of that moment and move on.

No, no, I didn't think it would be like A Clockwork Orange, I thought it was gonna be more of a Living Dead Biker movie with these ghost-bikers riding around at night with their skull-helmets on and stuff, spooky and violent - I had pictured something like Night Creatures meets Mad Max - but I came away feeling like they were ripping from ACO with the young, British, good-looking, self-indulgent, violence-loving, psychopath gang-leader who still lived at home and terrorized the area in a Youth Gone Wild-themed movie. But it was a really PG one. I mean, just six years later, in Australia, biker gangs would be gang-raping people and burning them alive and shit, not gingerly running over shopping carts.