horror

Stuff Stephanie in the Incinerator (1989)

/ swampflix / 1 Comment

EPSON MFP image

three star

campstamp

Something is ever so appealing about films that have extra-long, descriptive titles. When I sat down to view Stuff Stephanie in the Incinerator, I assumed someone named Stephanie was going to be burned alive in an incinerator. I’ve seen a few films that involve murder evidence being burned in an incinerator, but never an entire body. Needless to say, I was bouncing off the walls when I got my hands on this movie, especially since it is a Troma film. Unfortunately, my expectations were a bit too high. It wasn’t a horrible film, it was just so confusing and not in the good way.

I began to lost interest halfway through the film, but the beginning of Stuff Stephanie in the Incinerator was amazing. It starts off with two strangers, Paul and Stephanie, who are prisoners in a mansion. The owner of this mansion, Roberta, is obviously a man crossdressed as an elderly socialite, and she wants to watch Paul and Stephanie have sex. Of course, the two “lovebirds” are opposed to the idea of having forced sexual intercourse for Roberta’s viewing pleasure, so they attempt to escape her evil clutches only to find themselves back in her hell house. Then, all of a sudden, the film takes an unexpected turn for the worst. Roberta takes off her wig to reveal herself as Robert, an actor paid by Stephanie and Paul (whose real names are Casey and Jared) to participate in their over-the-top role-playing. As the film goes on, it’s obvious that Casey is not too keen on the role-playing and desperately wants to leave Jared because he is absolutely insane and obsessed with doing one role-play after another.  The rest of the film is filled with twist after twist, and ends with a very surprising conclusion.

I enjoy a twist or two in a film, but this was just too much.  Every time I took my eyes off the screen for more than a second, there was a major change in the plot. The constant shift from one story to another became annoying, and I had to rewind the film a few times to figure out what was going on. Also, there is an incinerator scene, but it’s not as cool as I thought it was going to be, so that was another disappointment. Aside from all the negative comments, Stuff Stephanie in the Incinerator honestly wasn’t all that bad. It was entertaining and full of all kinds of stupid fun. I just really wish it would have been about a perverted old woman and her sex prisoners.

-Britnee Lombas

Creep (2015)

/ swampflix / 10 Comments

EPSON MFP image

threehalfstar

Newcomer Patrick Brice is having one hell of a year. His super uncomfortable black sex comedy The Overnight was the perfect mix of terrifying & hilarious and now his only other feature to date, Creep, has also reached its wide release the same year, revealing that Brice is far from a one-trick pony. If anything, Creep shows that Brice can achieve the same uncomfortable, but darkly funny intimacy of The Overnight with even less resources. Creep is a found footage horror film with an on-screen cast of exactly two: a wonderfully deranged Mark Duplass & Brice himself, who operates the camera & narrates when necessary. There’s no other way to put this, really: Creep is an inspiration. It’s one of those small-scale movies that remind you just how much you can accomplish with two (immensely talented) people & a camera.

Mark Duplass takes on most of the film’s acting burden, playing the titular creep with an alarming sense of dark humor. Duplass’ character is a collection of off-putting details. Behind his awkward smile, haircut, track pants, awkward everything really, it’s obvious from the get go that something is deeply wrong with the man. He claims to be a relapsing cancer survivor who hired Brice’s cameraman to document the last days of his life for his unborn son, but there’s something off about his performance that gradually begins to alarm Brice that he is not what he seems. Despite Duplass’ character’s relentless positivity that requires constant hugs, high fives, and baby talk (or maybe because of that positivity), the film’s title keeps you anticipating the moment the hammer will fall. When will the Creep reveal himself for what he truly is? By the time Duplass is asking his unsuspecting, newfound buddy questions like “Have you ever done anything you’re really ashamed of?” and introducing him to the third character of the film (and the movie’s true star), a werewolf mask named Peach Fuzz, the tension becomes almost unbearable. And then it gets worse.

Creep is not only a found footage film; it’s a found footage film set mostly in the woods, so it’d be understandable if it initially comes across as yet another Blair Witch knock-off, like say the goofy sasquatch movie Exists, but it’s much stranger than that. Just like with the haunted boat nightmare Triangle, Creep doesn’t let its genre or set location define its parameters. It isn’t until the film leaves the woods that you begin to understand just how strange the story Brice is telling truly is. Duplass does an excellent job of anchoring a film that asks a lot of him, and it’s refreshing to see his menacing side from last year’s The One I Love return to the screen, but it’s truly Brice’s triumph that’s the story here. In just two features, the relative unknown has found new ways to subvert intimacy & humor in a way that, well, creeps you out. It’s going to be interesting to see where his career goes in the future with larger casts & bigger budgets, but for now it’s incredible how much he’s been able to accomplish with so few moving parts.

-Brandon Ledet

Leprechaun: Origins (2014)

/ swampflix / Leave a comment

EPSON MFP image

onehalfstar

campstamp

It was difficult not to go into Leprechaun: Origins without very specific expectations. Given its pedigree as a WWE Studios horror film starring little person pro wrestler Hornswoggle as the titular leprechaun, a role once played by a wisecracking Warwick Davis, it’d be fair to assume you know everything about the film before you even watch it. If you follow the WWE on a somewhat regular basis you might know Hornswoggle as a sort of a walking punchline. The performer is less recognizable for the quality of his wrestling performances (like, say, El Torito) and more for being involved in some of the promotion’s all-time worst storylines, such as ones where he was revealed to be Vince McMahon’s illegitimate son & the Anonymous Raw General Manager. Thanks to this kind of groan-inducing little person humor that Hornswoggle’s usually used for, it’s even already easy to picture him in the leprechaun costume (or to just Google image search it) and just sit back waiting for the Warwick Davis-style quips to be plugged into the script.

I’ll give credit to WWE Studios for this: they most definitely subverted my expectations here, a rare feat for the movie studio. Instead of dressing Hornswoggle up like Warwick Davis & providing him a bunch of Freddy Krueger/Chucky style one-liners about he gold, Leprechaun: Origins gave him a full-bodied prosthetic makeover. The pro wrestler/human punchline was reconstructed to look & sound like a shaved burn victim gorilla that did little more than bite, hiss, scratch, and growl. It seems that I may have spoken too soon when I said that remakes like Poltergeist weren’t doing enough to update their ancestor’s formulas in a means to justify their own existence.

Leprechaun: Origins is a far cry from its actually-fun predecessors like Leprechaun 2: Back 2 tha Hood & Leprechaun 4: In Space, so it does at least sidestep criticisms of being a shameless retread. The problem is that instead of retreading ground already covered by the Leprechaun franchise in particular, Origins instead removed everything that was unique about it & simplified the formula to the point where it felt like a retread of every monster movie ever. In a lot of ways this crime is far worse than the sins of Poltergeist’s by-the-numbers mediocrity.

Outside its Irish setting & a throwaway one-liner about Lucky Charms, there’s absolutely nothing of note in this film to distinguish it from any other cabin in the woods horror film I can name. Even the hideous get-up they use to conceal Honswoggle is oddly downplayed, so that most of the monster’s screen time is through a first-person POV cam à la Pitch Black. I can’t believe I’m saying this but I would almost rather they had just dressed Hornswoggle up in the cliché leprechaun costume and have him tell a bunch of lame ass jokes for 90 min. At least there would be the small chance of the film being fun (or at the very least memorable).

-Brandon Ledet

Poltergeist (2015)

/ swampflix / 5 Comments

ghost

twohalfstar

So far this year alone in sequels, reboots, and remakes I’ve seen Mad Max: Fury Road, Furious 7, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Insidious: Chapter 3, and Jurassic World. Even if I didn’t enjoy most of those movies (I did) I’d still understand the fatigue folks are feeling with the oversaturation of rehashed cinematic properties. Of all the reboots, remakes & sequels I’ve seen recently, though, none have felt quite as pointless as the recent Poltergeist rehashing. When considered on its own, the new Poltergeist is passable as a decent genre exercise, I guess. It just doesn’t add enough to the original film’s formula to justify its own existence. If it were just any haunted house film Poltergeist (2015) would’ve been just okay, but it’s pedigree as a remake burdens its mediocre charms with way too much to live up to.

I’m not saying that the original Poltergeist film is a perfect work or art that shouldn’t be touched by lesser life forms. It’s just that updating its exact story with a few isolated cultural markers like flat-screen televisions, drone-operated cameras, and reality television isn’t really the kind of creative motivation that screams necessity. Both films share a goofy, childlike approach to horror & find their creep-outs in unlikely places like trees, suburban neighborhoods, precocious children, and television static. It’s just much less effective the second time around, more than three decades letter, with just a few faces & fashions swapped out as a means of making it fresh again.

I’m not usually this down on the idea of rehashing old movies, but I found very little special about the Poltergeist remake. Sam Rockwell’s always-welcome presence is the sole exciting element in play here, but he does very little to liven up the grim proceedings that surround him. I didn’t hate the new Poltergeist. I didn’t particularly like it much either. It was just kinda there, dying for a reason to exist, built on the cursed grave of a film that came long before it. You could do worse for lazy afternoon viewing if the film ever pops up on TV or streaming and you’re not sure how to kill a couple hours, but that’s hardly high praise.

-Brandon Ledet

Insidious: Chapter 3 (2015)

/ swampflix / 7 Comments

ghost

three star

When saw Insidious: Chapter 3 at the theater, it just happened to be playing at the exact right time. I had two hours to kill & Insidious 3 was conveniently positioned to kill it for me. Having not seen the first two films in the franchise I had absolutely no idea what to expect outside its pedigree as a horror sequel. Since then, I’ve caught up with the entire trilogy & I’m surprised to admit that the third “chapter” has held up both as an appropriate entry point & my favorite film of the series so far.

A prequel to the events that take place in the first two “chapters”, Insidious: Chapter 3 is a straightforward, no frills ghost story. A haunted teenage girl starts to get dragged into the afterlife (known here as “The Further”) by a super creepy specter with a terrible attitude. Character actress Lin Shaye (who was absolutely terrifying as the overbearing mother in Detroit Rock City) is expertly employed here as a medium who tries to drag her back to the physical world before it’s too late. Straightforward genre fare has been the Insidious series’ forte since the beginning, but this is the most successful entry so far both in terms of how fun it is and how successfully creepy-scary it can be.

Although Insidious: Chapter 3 doesn’t bring all too much new to the table that wasn’t in the first two films, it’s hard to shake the feeling that it’s the most successful of the three. Its ghost looked cooler, the tension was built better, it was much goofier on the camp scale (without the icky crossdressing phobia of the second entry), it spent more quality time in “The Further” realm, etc. The basic components of the first two films have merely been switched around & dusted off a little here, but it still managed to be my favorite entry to date, a rare feat for a horror sequel these days.

-Brandon Ledet

Berberian Sound Studio’s (2013) Sound-Obsessed Roots in Blow Out (1981)

/ swampflix / 11 Comments

EPSON MFP image

During our Swampchat discussion of June’s Movie of the Month, the Brian De Palma political thriller Blow Out, I pointed out that “Blow Out is in some ways a movie about making movies, but more specifically it’s a movie about how essential sound is to film. It boils the medium down to one of its more intangible elements. In that way it’s much more unique than a lot of other movies about movies, arriving more than three decades before the film it most closely resembles in this approach (that I can recall, anyway), Peter Strickland’s Berberian Sound Studio.” The entire time I was watching Blow Out I was aching to revisit Peter Strickland’s oddly engaging Berberian Sound Studio to see how the two films compare. It turns out that while Blow Out distills the process of making movies into a single element, recording sound, Berberian Sound Studio breaks it down even further until there is nothing left. De Palma used sound recording as an anchoring element for a story that had great impact outside the world of film-making, a world tainted by serial murders & political intrigue. Strickland’s film, on the other hand, rarely allowed the audience to leave the recording booth & gets lost in its own sound-obsession.

Although they are working within separate genres with their own respective aims & are separated by three decades of film-making, it’s not at all difficult to draw a connection between the two works. First of all, they’re connected by their basic movie-within-a-movie structure. In Blow Out, Travolta’s sound technician protagonist is working on a cheap slasher film for which he cannot find an actress with the perfect scream to match a brutal shower stabbing. When asked if he ever works on good films, Travolta responds “No, just bad ones.” The befuddled sound technician in Berberian (expertly played by character actor Tobey Jones), on the other hand, is hired for an Itallian giallo film called The Equestrian Vortex that also gradually proves itself to be a tawdry, violent horror film (although the director insists they’re making art). We’ve explored the giallo lineage of slasher films before in our discussions of former Movie of the Month Blood & Black Lace, but the connection is rarely as clear as it is in the comparison here. While Travolta is looking for a single scream to accompany his cheap slasher movie (when he’s not investigating assassinations in his free time), Berberian Sound Studio depicts countless micro-searches for the exact same thing. The exact sound of a neck being sliced or a witch’s hair being yanked from the scalp or even the standard damsel’s death rattle are all meticulously sought after here. Berberian depicts a wizardly crew of demented Gallaghers smashing melons, pulling turnip roots, and tormenting actresses to capture the perfect sounds for what amounts to a slightly artier version of the trash that Travolta’s is mindlessly cranking out in Blow Out.

However, as stated, the films do have disparate aims for their respective sound obsessions. Blow Out uses sound as a doorway to a world outside the recording booth. It’s a dangerous world, but it’s an exterior one where big, important things are happening. Berberian Sound Studio, in contrast, becomes psychedelically insular. It not only gets lost in the recording booth, but also in the idea of sound itself. There’s so much horror & dissociation in the sound techniques employed in the film that it reaches an otherworldly state of mind that mimics the broken psyche of Bergman’s Persona just as much as anything it echoes from De Palma’s film. When you watch Berberian on Netflix with the closed captions enabled, the screen is filled with ludicrously long lists of sound descriptions desperately trying to keep up with every aural element in play. Early in the film a character ominously warns/promises, “A new world of sound awaits you. A world that requires all your magic powers.” It’s doubtful that the protagonist or most of the audience took him as literally as he meant it, but Berberian really is a lot more interested in the magic of sound than the more technically-minded Blow Out.

If I had to boil down the difference between the two films, I’d simply point out that Travolta’s protagonist spends most of his run time trying to piece together a crime scene & to capture a maniac killer, while Jones’ character is trying to get reimbursed for an airline ticket & to hold onto his basic sanity. De Palma’s approach weaponized sound to strengthen his political thriller’s arsenal. For Strickland, sound wasn’t a powerful tool; it was the entire point. The movies do share an impressive amount  of overlap, though, especially in Blow Out’s early, growling winds & in both film’s audiophile obsession with analog equipment. It’s difficult to imagine either film could be set in 2015 without being changed drastically. It’s doubtful that either film would mean much of anything once digital equipment removed a lot of the incidental sound from recording booths. The clacking & whirring of film projectors and tape recorders are essentially the two films’ lifeblood. Even the sound of the instruments that capture & display images are essential to cinema in these two films’ worldview. That’s the kind of synesthesia we’re working with here: there’s a sound even to the imagery. Blow Out just happens to use this attention to sound to open a door, while Berberian chooses to lock itself in the dark & swallow the key. They’re both overwhelmingly successful in their respective endeavors.

For more on June’s Movie of the Month, 1981’s Blow Out, visit last week’s Swampchat on the film.

-Brandon Ledet

Rewind Moment: Humanoids from the Deep (1980)

/ swampflix / 3 Comments

EPSON MFP image

Rewind Moments are those special scenes in films that deserve to revisited over & over again due to their overwhelming impact.

Mutated humanoid fish people terrorize a small harbor town by killing and raping its inhabitants. Only Roger Corman could make an excellent film with such an absurd plot. Humanoids from the Deep is the definition of a B-movie. It’s a ridiculous gore fest filled with nudity and all the other wonderful garbage terrible movies are made of.

My “rewind moment” from Humanoids is the final scene of the film. One of humanoid’s rape victims gives birth to a mutated fish baby, and it is guaranteed to scar you for life.

-Britnee Lombas

The Lazarus Effect (2015)

/ swampflix / 4 Comments

EPSON MFP image

twostar

Sometime in late 2012 I had the unique opportunity to catch the beautifully-filmed fine cuisine documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi, (a movie most people have experienced through the power of Netflix) on the big screen. Running late from grabbing a sushi dinner myself, I had to sit in the front row, craning my head to take in the majestic sushi specimens that towered over me. It was an overwhelming experience, one I’m unlikely to ever forget. Never in my wildest imagination would I have assumed that the director, who was present at that screening for a Q&A, would follow up that beautiful film with a drearily cheap sci-fi horror that feels more like a particularly eccentric episode of a CSI type show or a SyFy Original Movie than anything that belongs in a proper theater, but that’s exactly what happened.

The Lazarus Effect is cheap. And ugly. And hopelessly shallow. Its worst quality of all, though, is the level of talent it roped into its murky depths. Not only is Jiro Dreams of Sushi director David Gelb suffering a sophomore slump here, respectable actors Mark Duplass, Donald Glover, Olivia Wilde, and Evan Peters (who had a great turn as Quicksilver last year in X-Men: Days of Future Past) are all dragged down by his misstep. The movie’s dire quality is apparent as early as the opening credits, which play over grotesque medical footage and a staged lab experiment in which a dead dog is revived. It’s a cheap way to fish for a reaction from the audience, flatly showing something horrific & ugly instead of building suspense to it the way a decent horror movie typically would. That approach is a major indication of what’s to come.

Since the movie’s atmosphere never allows tension to build properly, the best chance you have of enjoying The Lazarus Effect is as a camp fest. The basic premise is that a doctor named Frank (-enstein! Get it? Get it?) is experimenting on bringing deceased canines back to life in hopes his techniques will give surgeons more time to operate in life & death medical emergencies. But what if he’s bringing his subjects back from Doggie Hell instead of Doggie Heaven? Indeed, the first revived dog starts to act a little freaky, but that doesn’t stop Dr. Frank from going off the rails & reviving a love one who passes away unexpectedly. When his first human subject rises from the dead, she’s literally a ghost under a sheet, which is a sort of goofy moment. By the time she’s reading minds, abusing her telekinesis, and (the most evil thing of all!) levitating, she’s gone full goof.

The problem with reading the film this way is that it’s rarely silly enough to be laughable. There’s some amusing moments involving the evil dog (who never gets to levitate or read minds himself, unfortunately) & I’m fairly certain this is the only film I’ve ever seen where a vape pen is used as a murder weapon, but for the most part it’s just hopelessly bland. The Lazarus Effect is much more concerned with exploring kiddy pool depth ideas about a scientific mind confronted with spiritual questions he can’t explain logically than it is with entertaining its audience or not looking like a pile of wet garbage. Whether you take the film seriously or try to enjoy it as a goof, there’s just not much there. I keep asking myself how this was made by the same guy who brought the world Jiro Dreams of Sushi and I just can’t come up with anything but the question itself. How? Just how? That’s about the only haunting or even vaguely interesting element at play here.

-Brandon Ledet

Hack O’ Lantern (1988)

/ swampflix / 2 Comments

EPSON MFP image

fourhalfstar

campstamp

“But Mom, I like the taste of blood. Grandpa says it’s good for me.”

The bond between grandfather and grandson is a very special one, especially when the grandfather is the leader of a satanic cult and breeds his grandson to be the son of Satan. Director Jag Mundhra’s Hack O’ Lantern (aka Halloween Night) explores this specific type of grandfather/grandson relationship in one of the greatest “bad” horror films ever created. I knew that this was going to be a bad movie just from the title, but literally everything in the film was terrible. For starters, the main character, Tommy, is an 18 year old played by a balding 32 year old Gregory Cummins (Cliffhanger, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia). Now, even though Tommy is supposed to be the film’s main character, he’s present for probably less than half of the movie, and he barely has any lines at all. His grandfather is truly the most prominent person in the film, and his character isn’t even given a name. He’s simply referred to as Grandpa. Doesn’t this sound like a gem already?

Out of all the satanic themed horror movies I’ve seen (which is many), this one had the quickest satanic reveal ever. Within the first few minutes of Hack O’ Lantern, it’s known that Grandpa is a full-blown Satanist. After the opening credits, an innocent looking old man (Grandpa) driving a farm truck filled with pumpkins stops to visit his young grandson (Tommy). He gives Tommy a pentagram necklace along with a pumpkin of his choice and a little plastic skeleton. In one of the worst Southern accents I’ve ever heard, he tells Tommy that he’s “very special.” It didn’t take a genius to figure out what was going on, and honestly, I was a little disappointed. I personally would’ve liked Grandpa’s character to be more mysterious.

Ten years after receiving the necklace, Tommy turns into a rebellious teen, and he is more than ready to make his satanic confirmation. One of my biggest laugh-out-loud moments was when Tommy and Grandpa shared this super-secret satanic handshake. They both make (incorrect) devil horns with their hands and press them together while straight up mean mugging each other. Shortly after this occurs, a really bad heavy metal music video, starring Tommy, pops out of nowhere. The video is for D.C. La Croix’s “Devil’s Son” and I swear, the song is just as annoyingly catchy as “It’s A Lovely Life” from May’s Movie of the Month, Crimes Of Passion. This was definitely my favorite part of the movie.

About 30 or so minutes into the film, a slasher element is introduced. An unknown killer wearing a horned devil mask and cloak goes on a Halloween killing spree using a pitchfork, shovel, and knife as murder weapons. Of course, no slasher flick would be complete without a couple of nude girls, and I swear, everyone woman in this film had the opportunity to shed their clothes at some point. What I really appreciated was how the film’s slasher element blended in with its satanic roots so well. One did not overshadow the other, and many other films have not been able to balance different themes as well as Mundhra did with this one.

Hack O’ Lantern is a classic 80s slasher flick with a hint of satanic horror metal, basically the perfect formula for a “terrible” movie. It has not been released on DVD, but in November 2014, Massacre Video stated that they have acquired the rights to Hack O’ Lantern and plan on releasing it on Blu-ray later on this year.

-Britnee Lombas

Spring (2015)

/ swampflix / 6 Comments

EPSON MFP image

fourstar

As you may expect based on its title, the movie Spring begins with death & finality and gradually blooms into a colorful array of new life & reproduction. The muted, brownish haze of depression in the film’s color palette slowly changes into something much more vivid. The film’s own energy & creativity works this way as well. At first Spring feels like a cloudy, almost run-of-the mill romance story, but then it develops into something fresh & exciting. Halfway between a sci-fi horror Before Sunrise and a rom-com Possession, Spring refuses to be understood in the context of a strict genre. Instead, it feels like the blooming of something new & unknown.

It’d be difficult to explain too much of Spring’s plot without ruining what’s special about it. The bare bones premise is that a young American named Evan travels to Europe as a means of forgetting the mess that’s been made of his life. After a brief period of playing tourist with some wastoid jocks (“Bro, I fucking blazed the Wi-Fi code!”), Evan falls for an Italian woman named Louise that gives his life a new sense of purpose & excitement. There’s a struggle to convince her that their romance deserves a chance and the relationship becomes an outrageously exaggerated form of “it’s complicated”. Revealing too much about Spring’s story would be a disservice to you so I’m just going to have to stop there and ask you to take my word for it: it’s a great movie.

To illustrate how difficult the tone & intent are to pinpoint here, check out the genre listed on the film’s Wikipedia page: “supernatural romantic science fiction horror”- expialidocious. You can go ahead and add the word “comedy” to that list as well, as the film is frequently hilarious in a satisfyingly adult way, like the line “Mention WWII and every American becomes a historian” or in a scene where the main characters are arguing about whether an art exhibit is “fertility imagery” or “Roman porn”. The two leads at the heart of the film’s romance in the film may not be fully developed characters (little is done to define Evan as a person besides contrasting him with Wi-Fi code blazing macho types). Louise similarly is defined less by her personality and more by her circumstance. Much like with a lot of sci-fi, though, character development is not the apex of the film’s ambitions. Instead, their relationship is more of a launching pad for exploring ideas like the vulnerability of falling for a complete stranger & what it means to desperately beg someone to love you, even if you know they’re dangerous. The film becomes more & more funny-scary-sweet-sad-surprising as it delves into these ideas and it literally starts crawling with life: lizards, bugs, bunnies, howling cats, etc. Spring is just as rejuvenating & full of promise as the season it’s named for.

-Brandon Ledet