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Victim of The Night
Interrupting your regularly scheduled mummy programming with more quality Vincent Price content:

Oh, this is great! Thanks for adding that.



Oh, this is great! Thanks for adding that.
My pleasure. That Hammer Horror Films Twitter account is one of the better, i.e. not useless Twitter accounts I've followed lately.



Victim of The Night

So, I really don't know what constitutes "Indie Horror" anymore because so much Horror is made now days, thanks to platform-availability with streaming services, without any affiliation with a studio - or, in many cases, any affiliation with talent. People get "funding" (which could be $3M-4M or literally whatever they could cobble together from Kickstarter) and you don't know going in whether you're going to see a movie that at least has minimally tolerable production values or something that was made with an iPhone camera and some friends. You don't know whether or not there will be a tolerable script, minimally competent acting, someone who even knew what editing is, etc., etc. For every contemporary Indie Horror that is competent there are probably a dozen or more that are not and I don't like those odds.
But every once in a while, I'll dip my toe and see what I get. Usually I see one per year. But I will only do this for a film that has gotten significant recommendation. Last time was Thief with The Barn (2016) made for about $80,000. Another was The Devil's Chair at about $200K. The Slaughter (2006) was recommended to me on RT and made for $25,000. And looks it. The Gravedancers had the original After Dark hype. You get my point.
So here is a film that got prizes at two film festivals (yes, I'm aware that there are literally 7,000 film festivals now and bad films get awards at at least one of them all the time) and looked kind of interesting from it's trailer, which was sagely cut not to indicate in any way how low the budget was. Which was low enough that I could not find any documentation of its budget anywhere on the internet other than that it was partially funded through Kickstarter. I guess it's my own fault.
So, without further ado, this is what I got.

Lord Of Tears is the story of a meek schoolteacher who inherits an old mansion in the Scottish Highlands upon his mother's death, with a warning from her that he must never go there. Of course, he immediately goes there. But even before, he starts having dreams that feature this weird Owl Man, an axe, and his best friend screaming with blood all over his face. Of course, he goes to the house anyway.
The conceit is that he must go there to solve why he has no memory of his early childhood other than freaky nightmares and maybe he has PTSD from it and is blocking and he needs to go there to figure it out. So he does.
Within no time at all, he starts getting visits from the Owl Man.


Which of course, attacks him in a bloody rampage immediately, dragging the severed heads of his other victims behind him... no, of course not, the Owl Man just kinda stands there and looks at him in a sinister way while he hears its voice saying vaguely malevolent things. At least that's what I got out of it.
And then he meets the perfect woman who happens to be living in the renovated stables out back.
Hijinks ensue.

Early in this process I was shocked by the production value. It's really low and the "director" is doing everything he can to hide it. But he's actually not that good at the tricks he's trying to use to hide it and there's only so much you can do, so it's just painfully obvious.
I'm virtually certain these "actors" were not paid. If they were they need to return it. The protagonist has one job which is to look scared and periodically sob and I guess, given that, he did his job. The female lead, if you will, was hired because she was a dancer and he needed certain performance abilities to hide the fact that he had no effects budget and because she has a certain look but she cannot act a lick. I mean literally anyone behind the counter at the local coffee-shop would have been as good or better. Some of her readings are just incredibly squirm-inducing.
The first scare of the film, as far as I could tell, happens a full hour into the film, but not because they didn’t think they were being scary earlier, oh they sure thought they were, they just weren’t. You know when you're around someone who thinks they're funny but you didn't even realize they were trying to be funny because that's how not funny they are? Well, that's how scary the first hour of this movie is. There's all this editing and **** to try to make it seem like Horror is occurring but it's really just a guy with an owl head standing around.
One hour in, exactly, the first thing that made me say, “ok, this is something” finally made its way to the screen.
All this said, the idea here is not terrible it’s just not very well executed. There's a plausible sort of ghost-story, devil-worship short-film here.

So. Maybe I just needed to reset my expectations. This film is so weirdly amateur that about halfway in I found myself almost kinda rooting for it now. Like, "You can do it!", and patting it on its little head. For example, there’s a moment where a character makes a kind of dramatic entrance and a song jarringly starts playing (way too loud for the soundtrack) with the refrain “I’m your ghost…” Get it? It's like foreshadowing. That’s the level of amateurism here. I mean, it seems like something I might see at a local film festival.
By comparison, The Wretched, which for some reason I can’t put my finger on this reminds me of, was a much better film. And I didn’t think that was particularly good.
So why am I even bothering to go on and on about it. Well, somehow I cannot figure, this film actually got me pulling for it to the point where I wanted it to succeed. I mean, really what this is is an hour long, locally-made Kickstarter-funded horror movie that I guess was just plucky enough to get into and win some fringe-ass film festivals. So, suddenly I'm into it, kinda.
And it ends and it is what it is and I go try to learn a little more about it. And I liked the idea behind the film, that a Scotsman was reading Scottish folklore and wanted to make a horror movie based on that folklore the way Japanese filmmakers will make horror movies based on Japanese folklore. And he made it happen. I mean, that's plucky, right?
And now I am oddly curious to see if this guy’s films got any better as he went. I had been planning to watch The Unkindness Of Ravens before I saw this, then decided there was no way I would watch any more films by this guy, and now I kinda feel like maybe I should give it a try.
A movie I would compare this to in terms of budget and amateur level would be The Devil’s Chair, which I may watch later this month to compare. I can definitely say I had a more favorable overall reaction to the Chair but it was similarly plucky, though probably more successful.
Also, reading a synopsis, it becomes clear that the story makes a little more sense if I could have understood more of the dialogue through the Scottish brogue. It turns out the Owl Man was actually saying things that were important to the plot when I thought he was just sort of malevolently mumbling sinister sentences. There was actually a lot more story than I had understood (like I never had any idea what was going on with the bloody friend who was always yelling and the axe and **** but it turns out all that was kinda being foreshadowed in a Scottish brogue that was then distorted and drenched in reverb to make it sound scary.
So, I dunno, maybe it wasn't so bad if I'd had my expectations super, super low?
On the one hand, maybe I’m just not cut out for extremely low-budget contemporary indie-horror.



Victim of The Night
I know that's totally TLDNR but the movie made me think a lot about filmmaking and really amateur filmmaking and I wanted to expound on it a bit.
Who knows, maybe one of you will watch it and I can get some clarity.



I think that making a scary movie is harder than most people would think, and especially on a low budget. There are so many things in a low budget film (bad effects, iffy actors) that can totally pull you out of the film.

And I think that low-budget films that try to play it straight can end up seeming slow and underwhelming.

Have you seen the "short" film The Hatred? (The hour long one, not the feature length one). I think it does a good job with a low budget.



Have you seen the "short" film The Hatred? (The hour long one, not the feature length one). I think it does a good job with a low budget.
Earlier this month I watched another film by that husband/wife team called The Deeper You Dig. Liked it less than Hatred but you might want to check it out.
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There's all this editing and **** to try to make it seem like Horror is occurring
This made me laugh out loud because I encounter it so often, in big and small budget films. Just because you tell me you're scary doesn't mean you are, movie.

"Horror is occurring" is a phrase that's going to stick with me. I'm totally stealing it.

On the other hand, Owl Man looks cool enough that I might not be able to resist this one, despite your warnings. I'll never learn, I guess.



The trick is not minding

So, I really don't know what constitutes "Indie Horror" anymore because so much Horror is made now days, thanks to platform-availability with streaming services, without any affiliation with a studio - or, in many cases, any affiliation with talent. People get "funding" (which could be $3M-4M or literally whatever they could cobble together from Kickstarter) and you don't know going in whether you're going to see a movie that at least has minimally tolerable production values or something that was made with an iPhone camera and some friends. You don't know whether or not there will be a tolerable script, minimally competent acting, someone who even knew what editing is, etc., etc. For every contemporary Indie Horror that is competent there are probably a dozen or more that are not and I don't like those odds.
But every once in a while, I'll dip my toe and see what I get. Usually I see one per year. But I will only do this for a film that has gotten significant recommendation. Last time was Thief with The Barn (2016) made for about $80,000. Another was The Devil's Chair at about $200K. The Slaughter (2006) was recommended to me on RT and made for $25,000. And looks it. The Gravedancers had the original After Dark hype. You get my point.
So here is a film that got prizes at two film festivals (yes, I'm aware that there are literally 7,000 film festivals now and bad films get awards at at least one of them all the time) and looked kind of interesting from it's trailer, which was sagely cut not to indicate in any way how low the budget was. Which was low enough that I could not find any documentation of its budget anywhere on the internet other than that it was partially funded through Kickstarter. I guess it's my own fault.
So, without further ado, this is what I got.

Lord Of Tears is the story of a meek schoolteacher who inherits an old mansion in the Scottish Highlands upon his mother's death, with a warning from her that he must never go there. Of course, he immediately goes there. But even before, he starts having dreams that feature this weird Owl Man, and axe, and his best friend screaming with blood all over his face. Of course, he goes to the house anyway.
The conceit is that he must go there to solve why he has no memory of his early childhood other than freaky nightmares and maybe he has PTSD from it and is blocking and he needs to go there to figure it out. So he does.
Within no time at all, he starts getting visits from the Owl Man.


Which of course, attacks him in a bloody rampage immediately dragging the severed heads of his other victims behind him... no, of course not, the Owl Man just kinda stands there and looks at him in a sinister way while he hears its voice saying vaguely malevolent things. At least that's what I got out of it.
And then he meets the perfect woman who happens to be living in the renovated stables out back.
Hijinks ensue.

Early in this process I was shocked by the production value. It's really low and the "director" is doing everything he can to hide it. But he's actually not that good at the tricks he's trying to use to hide it and there's only so much you can do, so it's just painfully obvious.
I'm virtually certain these "actors" were not paid. If they were they need to return it. The protagonist has one job which is to look scared and periodically sob and I guess, given that, he did his job. The female lead, if you will, was hired because she was a dancer and he needed certain performance abilities to hide the fact that he had no effects budget and because she has a certain look but she cannot act a lick. I mean literally anyone behind the counter at the local coffee-shop would have been as good or better. Some of her readings are just incredibly squirm-inducing.
The first scare of the film, as far as I could tell, happens a full hour into the film, but not because they didn’t think they were being scary earlier, oh they sure thought they were, they just weren’t. You know when you're around someone who thinks they're funny but you didn't even realize they were trying to be funny because that's how not funny they are? Well, that's how scary the first hour of this movie is. There's all this editing and **** to try to make it seem like Horror is occurring but it's really just a guy with an owl head standing around.
One hour in, exactly, the first thing that made me say, “ok, this is something” finally made its way to the screen.
All this said, the idea here is not terrible it’s just not very well executed. There's a plausible sort of ghost-story, devil-worship short-film here.

So. Maybe I just needed to reset my expectations. This film is so weirdly amateur that about halfway in I found myself almost kinda rooting for it now. Like, "You can do it!", and patting it on its little head. For example, there’s a moment where a character makes a kind of dramatic entrance and a song jarringly starts playing (way too loud for the soundtrack) with the refrain “I’m your ghost…” Get it? It's like foreshadowing. That’s the level of amateurism here. I mean, it seems like something I might see at a local film festival.
By comparison, The Wretched, which for some reason I can’t put my finger on this reminds me of, was a much better film. And I didn’t think that was particularly good.
So why am I even bothering to go on and on about it. Well, somehow I cannot figure, this film actually got me pulling for it to the point where I wanted it to succeed. I mean,
really what this is is an hour long, locally-made Kickstarter-funded horror movie that I guess was just plucky enough to get into and win some fringe-ass film festivals. So, suddenly I'm into it, kinda.
And it ends and it is what it is and I go try to learn a little more about it. And I liked the idea behind the film, that a Scotsman was reading Scottish folklore and wanted to make a horror movie based on that folklore the way Japanese filmmakers will make horror movies based on Japanese folklore. And he made it happen. I mean, that's plucky, right?
And now I am oddly curious to see if this guy’s films got any better as he went. I had been planning to watch The Unkindness Of Ravens before I saw this, then decided there was no way I would watch any more films by this guy, and now I kinda feel like maybe I should give it a try.
A movie I would compare this to in terms of budget and amateur level would be The Devil’s Chair, which I may watch later this month to compare. I can definitely say I had a more favorable overall reaction to the Chair but it was similarly plucky, though probably more successful.
Also, reading a synopsis, it becomes clear that the story makes a little more sense if I could have understood more of the dialogue through the Scottish brogue. It turns out the Owl Man was actually saying things that were important to the plot when I thought he was just sort of malevolently mumbling sinister sentences. There was actually a lot more story than I had understood (like I never had any idea what was going on with the bloody friend who was always yelling and the axe and **** but it turns out all that was kinda being foreshadowed in a Scottish brogue that was then distorted and drenched in reverb to make it sound scary.
So, I dunno, maybe it wasn't so bad if I'd had my expectations super, super low?
On the one hand, maybe I’m just not cut out for extremely low-budget contemporary indie-horror.
Hmmm. This looks like one of those straight to streaming videos that I avoid.
Shame, as it has a decent title.




But have you seen it in Italian in stunning 240p?








THE MUMMY'S SHROUD (1967)

In the history of horror, has there ever been a less-frightening tagline than "Beware the beat of the cloth-wrapped feet"?? Someone at Hammer really committed to it though, as it appears in every trailer as well. Sounds even worse when spoken aloud. Oof.

So for their third mummy film, Hammer decided to dispense with the cumbersome bandage-wrapping thing and just put this new mummy in a flippin' jumpsuit, not even bothering to cover the zipper seam in the back.



And is this seriously the face we're going with?



Low-effort creature design aside, this is again an enjoyable foray into Mummy Land. Same plot as every other mummy film, so I won't spend any time on that, but it benefits from a couple of stand-out performances from the creepy fortune teller and perpetual sideman Michael Ripper, who gets a larger-than-average role here and nails it. (Ripper was in practically every Hammer film, usually playing minor roles like barkeeps, policemen, servants, etc.) This one also sets itself apart with some fun camera work. The murders are seen in reflections, or through crystal balls, or through the blurry vision of a victim who's lost his glasses, etc. Again, the '59 Christopher Lee film is the one to watch, but if your standards are as low as mine this will do nicely.



Victim of The Night
I think that making a scary movie is harder than most people would think, and especially on a low budget. There are so many things in a low budget film (bad effects, iffy actors) that can totally pull you out of the film.

And I think that low-budget films that try to play it straight can end up seeming slow and underwhelming.

Have you seen the "short" film The Hatred? (The hour long one, not the feature length one). I think it does a good job with a low budget.
I only see the 94-minute version streaming.



Victim of The Night
This made me laugh out loud because I encounter it so often, in big and small budget films. Just because you tell me you're scary doesn't mean you are, movie.

"Horror is occurring" is a phrase that's going to stick with me. I'm totally stealing it.

On the other hand, Owl Man looks cool enough that I might not be able to resist this one, despite your warnings. I'll never learn, I guess.
Honestly, I don't think it's really warnings, like I said, despite all the shortcomings, I ended up kinda rooting for this movie somehow so if you wanna watch it, I'm not gonna stop you.



Victim of The Night
Hmmm. This looks like one of those straight to streaming videos that I avoid.
Shame, as it has a decent title.
That's exactly what it is and I almost always do too but every once in a while I give a lauded one a try. This one was lauded, I struggled mightily with its shortcomings, and yet I'm still not really sorry I watched it. They had a good enough idea to try and make a movie. If this movie was half an hour shorter and I just saw it randomly, I might be running out and telling people to see it.