A scary thing happened on the way to the Movie Forums - Horrorcrammers

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At the risk of repeating myself, that's a good one on the whole, but like a lot of old school Sci-Fi, it is SO unnecessarily talky and hand holdy with all the dialogue and exposition. I mean, there's a scene where we literally watch the protagonist looking up and seeing something, and then he tells us in voice over what he saw; why didn't they just show us what he saw, like it's in a primarily visual medium?!
That's a fair criticism and all. I just wasn't as bothered with it as you were.
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Victim of The Night
With the caveat that I'm not really familiar with the source material, it seems like he's trying to go back to the style he had in House of 1000 Corpses, but...what a world of difference it makes shooting on film vs (I assume) digital. While I don't love the older movie, I do think that chintzy, zany horror host vibe comes through. This just looks hideously cheap.
Well, I guess I would say that, so far, this makes Zombie's House Of 1,000 Corpses look like Mankiewicz' Cleopatra.



For those who still buy movies off of iTunes, I noticed Arrow is having their massive iTunes sale today (at least in the US), where they're selling a lot of stuff for $2.99 (i.e. cheaper than renting it).


I saw Malelaestro's Carnival of Blood amongst those on sale.



Victim of The Night
For those who still buy movies off of iTunes, I noticed Arrow is having their massive iTunes sale today (at least in the US), where they're selling a lot of stuff for $2.99 (i.e. cheaper than renting it).


I saw Malelaestro's Carnival of Blood amongst those on sale.
I looked for it but didn't find it.



I looked for it but didn't find it.

Hopefully you didn't copy & paste how I spelled it there, because I was way off:


Malatesta carnival of blood



That's just going to just remain a jumble of m, a's, e's, an L, some s's and it's in my mind indefinitely.



I mainline Windex and horse tranquilizer
Also.
Nope.
Wow.
More to come.

I liked it.
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Castle Freak, 1995

John (Jeffrey Combs), Susan (Barbara Crampton), and their blind daughter Rebecca (Jessica Dollarhide) arrive at a castle that John has inherited from a distant relative. The family is still reeling from the consequences of John's alcoholism, and to make matters worse, the castle is still home to the son of the woman who formerly owned the castle. Giorgio (Jonathan Fuller) is angry, having suffered years of confinement and horrific abuse at the hands of his mother. When he frees himself from his basement cell, he sets his sights on the family.

There's a lot more to unpack in this film than I suspected there'd be: guilt, trauma, parental responsibility, resentment.

It's interesting to note that, aside from an unfortunate housecat, there's almost a full hour before the violence really kicks off. The film takes a lot of time to introduce us to the various characters and their emotional dynamics. It's kind of a bold move, actually, because it relies on your investment in the characters as it lays the groundwork for multiple payoffs in the final act.

There's an interesting kind of symmetry between John and Giorgio, something that the film makes very explicit in the most gory and graphic sequence in the film. But even before that particularly nasty setpiece, the movie takes time to establish these two very different men with a mixture of sympathy and revulsion. I don't know about other viewers, but I felt at once bad for both of them and also repelled by the way that their actions harmed those around them.

And actually, there's a sort of opposite motion when it comes to both characters. John has made choices that caused tremendous harm to other people, but he is making attempts at redemption. Giorgio had no choice in the horrible things that were inflicted on him, but now is inflicting harm on people who had nothing directly to do with his victimization. It's the interplay between these two characters and their arcs that I found most interesting.

I also appreciated the way that the film evoked small town politics and secrecy. Secrecy is at the root of the film's central tragedy, and we see in the movie how small town relationships and interactions create an environment where such secrets can thrive. John's local lawyer is also the brother of the woman who works as a servant in the castle. Later, the lead police officer in the town will also be revealed to have a personal connection to the goings-on.

I'm still working through my thoughts on the treatment of the character of Sylvana (Raffaella Offidani), a prostitute that John brings back to the castle for sex and who is then kidnapped, sexually assaulted, and brutalized by Giorgio. While I appreciated that the film humanized her--making her out to be a pretty nice person, showing her attempts to survive when attacked by Giorgio, and explaining that she loves and cares for a young son---at times I felt that the film dipped into exploitation territory. There is a sex scene between Sylvana and John in which we see her body fully nude, including a crotch close-up, but John, I kid you not, doesn't even take off his jacket. I can acknowledge the effectiveness and the impact of the use of nudity in both sequences, where the choreography of sex is mimicked and twisted into a violent sexual assault and murder. But it's such old hat to show the brutalization of a sex worker, and the family's bizarre indifference to her disappearance afterwards is just hard to watch.

Another point I'm still debating is the parallel between the women who are at "fault" for the behavior of the male characters. Now, the Duchess (Helen Stirling) is straight up a monster. It's clear that she's committed physical and possibly sexual abuse against a child and, yeah, she's terrible. But at times it seemed like we were meant to believe that Susan was being too harsh in her treatment of John and I had very mixed feelings about that. I mean, John's actions killed one of their children and permanently disabled another. Yet the film sees to be on John's side when he asserts that he brought a prostitute back to the castle because he was "lonely"--the implication from John and (it seemed to me) the film being that if Susan wasn't denying John sex, Sylvana wouldn't have been hurt. It seems strange to me that there wasn't more conversation about divorce. I don't blame Susan for her feelings, and I just don't understand why these two characters are still together. I'm not sure how to interpret the fact that Susan offering up her body in a sexual way is her contribution to resolving the conflict.

I also have to say that it was interesting seeing Jeffrey Combs and Barbara Crampton together after enjoying their dynamic so much in From Beyond. I think they have an interesting chemistry, driven partly by the fact that they both have strong personalities, but ones that have a very different feel.

I'll have to think on this one a bit more, and I'll be interested to hear anyone's strong opinions about it.






Vamp, 1986

Two college students trying to get into a fraternity agree to acquire a stripper for a frat party. AJ (Robert Rusler) and Keith (Chris Makepeace) make their way to a seedy part of town and into a nightclub. By chance, one of the waitresses Allison (Dedee Pfeiffer) knows Keith from a past encounter. But also by chance the strip club is actually run by a vampire named Katrina (Grace Jones) who sets her sights on the men.

This was an overall pretty charming horror comedy that's given a real boost by the presence of Grace Jones's character in the first and final acts.

Chris Makepeace makes for an engaging lead, as does Pfeiffer as the love interest who Keith just can't remember meeting. She's the source of the film's two best running jokes, the first being a cute little physical gag about the shoulder strap of her outfit constantly falling down, and the other being Keith not quite knowing for sure whether or not Allison is a vampire.

Rusler manages to pull off a pretty neat trick, somehow keeping AJ just on the right side of charming despite possessing the worst kind of rich white boy character traits. AJ just expects that he'll get whatever he wants, and at a certain point it rolls over into a kind of perpetual optimism that's almost endearing.

But the center of it all--and it's a hell of a center--is Grace Jones as Katrina. Apparently the decision to make Katrina a dialogue-free character was an idea Jones had, and it's pretty great. The performance feels less like acting and more like a piece of art, a tone that's established right from the get-go with her bizarre striptease in Keith Herring-designed make-up and a body-shaped chair modeled on her then-boyfriend Dolph Lundgren(!!!!!!!). I often don't enjoy striptease scenes in movies--not because of the sexual content, but because I rarely find them sexy and then I feel this weird guilt like "I'm so sorry! You probably are a very sexy person!". But this performance is something else, and it's incredibly captivating because every minute of it is about gesture and physicality.

While I can't quite quantify this, I felt like the pace of the film was a bit wonky. Again, I can't nail down exactly what I mean by that, but it didn't seem as smooth as it should have been.

I also had some mixed feelings about the dynamic of how some of the characters were treated. Specifically the character of Duncan (Gedde Watanabe), the socially awkward college student bribed (with promises of friendship ) to drive them into town. Duncan . . . isn't the best. He spends a lot of the film alternately flirting with and harassing the dancers and waitresses at the club. But despite this, it seems pretty gross that when
WARNING: spoilers below
Duncan is turned into a vampire and then later dies a gruesome death in a burning car, the main character can't even be sad about it while it's happening and has forgotten all about it not two seconds later
.

There's enough here to be interesting, but it doesn't quite nail the pace and quality of humor that a horror-comedy needs to really zing.




I'll have to think on this one a bit more, and I'll be interested to hear anyone's strong opinions about it.
The last time I tried to watch Castle Freak, I couldn't even finish it. In other words, my strong opinion of it is that it is garbage.
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Victim of The Night


Castle Freak, 1995

John (Jeffrey Combs), Susan (Barbara Crampton), and their blind daughter Rebecca (Jessica Dollarhide) arrive at a castle that John has inherited from a distant relative. The family is still reeling from the consequences of John's alcoholism, and to make matters worse, the castle is still home to the son of the woman who formerly owned the castle. Giorgio (Jonathan Fuller) is angry, having suffered years of confinement and horrific abuse at the hands of his mother. When he frees himself from his basement cell, he sets his sights on the family.

There's a lot more to unpack in this film than I suspected there'd be: guilt, trauma, parental responsibility, resentment.

It's interesting to note that, aside from an unfortunate housecat, there's almost a full hour before the violence really kicks off. The film takes a lot of time to introduce us to the various characters and their emotional dynamics. It's kind of a bold move, actually, because it relies on your investment in the characters as it lays the groundwork for multiple payoffs in the final act.

There's an interesting kind of symmetry between John and Giorgio, something that the film makes very explicit in the most gory and graphic sequence in the film. But even before that particularly nasty setpiece, the movie takes time to establish these two very different men with a mixture of sympathy and revulsion. I don't know about other viewers, but I felt at once bad for both of them and also repelled by the way that their actions harmed those around them.

And actually, there's a sort of opposite motion when it comes to both characters. John has made choices that caused tremendous harm to other people, but he is making attempts at redemption. Giorgio had no choice in the horrible things that were inflicted on him, but now is inflicting harm on people who had nothing directly to do with his victimization. It's the interplay between these two characters and their arcs that I found most interesting.

I also appreciated the way that the film evoked small town politics and secrecy. Secrecy is at the root of the film's central tragedy, and we see in the movie how small town relationships and interactions create an environment where such secrets can thrive. John's local lawyer is also the brother of the woman who works as a servant in the castle. Later, the lead police officer in the town will also be revealed to have a personal connection to the goings-on.

I'm still working through my thoughts on the treatment of the character of Sylvana (Raffaella Offidani), a prostitute that John brings back to the castle for sex and who is then kidnapped, sexually assaulted, and brutalized by Giorgio. While I appreciated that the film humanized her--making her out to be a pretty nice person, showing her attempts to survive when attacked by Giorgio, and explaining that she loves and cares for a young son---at times I felt that the film dipped into exploitation territory. There is a sex scene between Sylvana and John in which we see her body fully nude, including a crotch close-up, but John, I kid you not, doesn't even take off his jacket. I can acknowledge the effectiveness and the impact of the use of nudity in both sequences, where the choreography of sex is mimicked and twisted into a violent sexual assault and murder. But it's such old hat to show the brutalization of a sex worker, and the family's bizarre indifference to her disappearance afterwards is just hard to watch.

Another point I'm still debating is the parallel between the women who are at "fault" for the behavior of the male characters. Now, the Duchess (Helen Stirling) is straight up a monster. It's clear that she's committed physical and possibly sexual abuse against a child and, yeah, she's terrible. But at times it seemed like we were meant to believe that Susan was being too harsh in her treatment of John and I had very mixed feelings about that. I mean, John's actions killed one of their children and permanently disabled another. Yet the film sees to be on John's side when he asserts that he brought a prostitute back to the castle because he was "lonely"--the implication from John and (it seemed to me) the film being that if Susan wasn't denying John sex, Sylvana wouldn't have been hurt. It seems strange to me that there wasn't more conversation about divorce. I don't blame Susan for her feelings, and I just don't understand why these two characters are still together. I'm not sure how to interpret the fact that Susan offering up her body in a sexual way is her contribution to resolving the conflict.

I also have to say that it was interesting seeing Jeffrey Combs and Barbara Crampton together after enjoying their dynamic so much in From Beyond. I think they have an interesting chemistry, driven partly by the fact that they both have strong personalities, but ones that have a very different feel.

I'll have to think on this one a bit more, and I'll be interested to hear anyone's strong opinions about it.

I like this one a good bit, at least a good bit more than I expected.
I agree with all your points about the characterization and letting that develop before getting into the violence.
I also agree about the exploitation, I think you were maybe even a bit more generous than I was, but maybe not, I may be a bit off on that. The way you explain it actually makes it sound a little better than I was thinking, though I am not quite as bothered by that as you (though it certainly has bothered me more and more over the years). I think it makes sense that he keeps his clothes on while she takes hers off because she is a sex-worker being paid to exploit her own body and "showing the goods" is a part of that while he is paying and doesn't need to do anything he doesn't want - but more importantly, it kinda shows him as the selfish person that he is. He's not even trying to make it a two-way thing, it's just a take for him. Though, also, it makes it something that he obviously does just to feel better.
I didn't think the movie really sympathized with him all that much. I mean, he is the main character and there is a sense that he's not all bad and maybe he's trying, but I certainly didn't get the sense that the movie forgave him for his behavior or wanted us to accept his explanation that "he was lonely". I get that, I have been in a marriage where my partner withheld sex and it does get like that, but when you made the bed (so to speak) that causes your partner to not want to engage, it's a much stickier wicket.
Vis a vis why are they still together, having been in a bad marriage that numerous people were encouraging me to get out of, and doubling down on it and trying to keep it going when it was really just shit, and having seen so many other couples I know do the same, it's kinda just what a lotta people do. When you get married you think it's the answer, that there's nothing left you really have to do and this thing is gonna be your world til the end. And it is really, really, really hard to let go of that.
Anyway, I enjoyed the movie, I thought it was much better than it needed to be but I think movies of that era are always gonna shoehorn in some way to show some boobs too so that is what it is, I probably give it a score right around where you put it.



Victim of The Night


Vamp, 1986

Two college students trying to get into a fraternity agree to acquire a stripper for a frat party. AJ (Robert Rusler) and Keith (Chris Makepeace) make their way to a seedy part of town and into a nightclub. By chance, one of the waitresses Allison (Dedee Pfeiffer) knows Keith from a past encounter. But also by chance the strip club is actually run by a vampire named Katrina (Grace Jones) who sets her sights on the men.

This was an overall pretty charming horror comedy that's given a real boost by the presence of Grace Jones's character in the first and final acts.

Chris Makepeace makes for an engaging lead, as does Pfeiffer as the love interest who Keith just can't remember meeting. She's the source of the film's two best running jokes, the first being a cute little physical gag about the shoulder strap of her outfit constantly falling down, and the other being Keith not quite knowing for sure whether or not Allison is a vampire.

Rusler manages to pull off a pretty neat trick, somehow keeping AJ just on the right side of charming despite possessing the worst kind of rich white boy character traits. AJ just expects that he'll get whatever he wants, and at a certain point it rolls over into a kind of perpetual optimism that's almost endearing.

But the center of it all--and it's a hell of a center--is Grace Jones as Katrina. Apparently the decision to make Katrina a dialogue-free character was an idea Jones had, and it's pretty great. The performance feels less like acting and more like a piece of art, a tone that's established right from the get-go with her bizarre striptease in Keith Herring-designed make-up and a body-shaped chair modeled on her then-boyfriend Dolph Lundgren(!!!!!!!). I often don't enjoy striptease scenes in movies--not because of the sexual content, but because I rarely find them sexy and then I feel this weird guilt like "I'm so sorry! You probably are a very sexy person!". But this performance is something else, and it's incredibly captivating because every minute of it is about gesture and physicality.

While I can't quite quantify this, I felt like the pace of the film was a bit wonky. Again, I can't nail down exactly what I mean by that, but it didn't seem as smooth as it should have been.

I also had some mixed feelings about the dynamic of how some of the characters were treated. Specifically the character of Duncan (Gedde Watanabe), the socially awkward college student bribed (with promises of friendship ) to drive them into town. Duncan . . . isn't the best. He spends a lot of the film alternately flirting with and harassing the dancers and waitresses at the club. But despite this, it seems pretty gross that when
WARNING: spoilers below
Duncan is turned into a vampire and then later dies a gruesome death in a burning car, the main character can't even be sad about it while it's happening and has forgotten all about it not two seconds later
.

There's enough here to be interesting, but it doesn't quite nail the pace and quality of humor that a horror-comedy needs to really zing.

Well, I agree with just about all of this.
The movie is absolutely worth seeing just for Jones. I wish this performance of hers was in a better movie. Not that this one is terrible or anything but if this was in something more like The Hunger or even just a better Horror movie, period.
AJ does pull off the neat trick of White Boy Privilege Yet Somehow Still Likable. Neat one. I've read and seen interviews with Rusler and he is a character himself but definitely had a good bit to say about this film.
I also thought the Duncan thing was unfair. He wasn't particularly likable but he probably didn't deserve his fate and the two leads seem completely unfazed by it.
I did have an issue with what I guess we'll call "the pacing" also and like you, I can't put my finger on it but something just wasn't quite flowing throughout.
Finally, IIRC, didn't the movie end with
WARNING: "spoiling the climax" spoilers below
Makepeace alive because the vampires actually sleep with like barrels of flammable shit around their coffins or something just unbelievable like that? I feel like there was something just really stupid about the end.



I think Vamp is a bit of a lost classic. Maybe not top tier classic, but way better than its almost forgotten reputation. When I watched it a few years ago, first time since I was a kid, I thought it was shocking how well it held up. I thought it was probably mostly going to be trash that my kid brain just couldn't recognize.


I remember feeling bad for Duncan, but I didn't expect the characters to. For me it was never that kind of film. I didn't really need them to bog the film down in any real emotions considering these are mostly superficial characters and I don't need any depth of feeling coming from them, especially since it is some character they never liked in the first place. I was fine just feeling bad by myself. They didn't need to reflect that.



I think it makes sense that he keeps his clothes on while she takes hers off because she is a sex-worker being paid to exploit her own body and "showing the goods" is a part of that while he is paying and doesn't need to do anything he doesn't want - but more importantly, it kinda shows him as the selfish person that he is.
But this is the movie/reality split, right? It does make sense for her to take her clothes off and he doesn't really undress. But it's the choice of the filmmaker that it's blocked in a way that reveals her whole body, zooms in on her crotch, and frames the sex so that all we see of him is what looks like a totally dressed man. That's the exploitation/male gaze part.

I didn't think the movie really sympathized with him all that much. I mean, he is the main character and there is a sense that he's not all bad and maybe he's trying, but I certainly didn't get the sense that the movie forgave him for his behavior or wanted us to accept his explanation that "he was lonely".
I don't know. It seemed like they were working the redemption angle pretty hard. Especially with the daughter--who was blinded by his actions--being like "Daddy needs us more than ever!"

I remember feeling bad for Duncan, but I didn't expect the characters to. For me it was never that kind of film. I didn't really need them to bog the film down in any real emotions considering these are mostly superficial characters and I don't need any depth of feeling coming from them, especially since it is some character they never liked in the first place. I was fine just feeling bad by myself. They didn't need to reflect that.
It was the total lack of acknowledgement that bothered me. Even if Keith had acknowledged him in a glib way---"The guy really knew how to put together a cold cuts platter"--it would have been something. But I found their seeming total indifference kind of off-putting.



I'm sorry, but I'm trying to watch Vampire's Kiss and what is this voice that's happening?!
Pay attention, Tak. He's teaching the alphabet.



Okay, so this isn't so much a vampire horror-comedy as it is a
WARNING: spoilers below
movie about a mentally ill man who isn't being held responsible for his behavior because of his social status and is maybe eventually going to kill the woman at work he's been violently harassing?