Christmas Presence (2018)

More holiday horrors. This English production starts off with a couple of young girls playing in the woods. Seemingly one of them is grabbed by a tree or something before the setting moves to years later. McKenzie has booked a house for her friends to party at during the Christmas season. In case you were wondering she is one of the little girls from earlier now all grown up. He father has recently died so everyone is coming to cheer her up. To that end she has rented a house in the country. I’m sure that it’s close proximity to her sister’s place of disappearance wont’ be important.

After meeting the other characters we are then given multiple party montages with drinking, snarky comments, and even an impromptu lingerie show! One of them is a clothes designer who gifts his friends clothes from his new line. There is a lot of talk about gender, politics, and being gay. None of this particularly bothered me for the content. I just mention it because between that and the extended party scenes it takes far too long to get to any of the spooky stuff. Though eventually Hugo, the fashion designer, disappears and they split up to go looking for him. So here we go with the horror… right? Nope they all wander around, some feelings are discussed, and eventually they return back to the house.

After a while they find his body by the woodpile where I guess they never thought to look earlier. That is when the spooky stuff starts to happen. There is some malevolent force picking them off one at a time. They all see something different as it uses their greatest fear to kill them. Though some of them are a stretch. I mean the claustrophobic girl dying by a couch “eating” her! Sure she suffocates but is that really the best they could do? If they had been playing this for laughs maybe but this is supposed to be serious.

Eventually we find out there is a local caretaker who I guess worships Satan, honestly one throwaway line ten seconds before the end credits roll is all we get. He is there to clean up the bodies after they are murdered. To answer my question from earlier the location near the sister’s disappearance ends up not being important at all. They never tie her the Satanist and other than being McKenzie’s fear. She has guilt over leaving her, which is never completely explained either. So, in the end it seemingly is a random coincidence.

Not a fan of this one. The story does have an interesting germ of an idea at it’s core but the execution leaves a lot to be desired. I was unsatisfied with the limited screentime that the Satan worshipping caretaker gets. He actually seemed like an interesting fella but is hardly onscreen. Instead, we are treated to a bunch of uninteresting caricatures with McKenzie and her friends. I don’t blame the cast as they all seem to be doing their best with the paper thin story and terrible dialogue. I just didn’t buy that these folks would actually be friends and want to hang out. The fact that the movie doubles down and tries to make the plot more about the drama in their lives and less about the horror just added to how tedious sitting thru Christmas Presence was.

The visuals are stunning

The deaths in this movie are fairly tame. Many happen off screen and others are just odd. I’ve already mentioned the death by couch but have you ever seen a death by coughing up buttons? Like actual buttons from a cardigan! Maybe I missed something but was it established that the character had a phobia about buttons? I did find one particular kill with a character slashing his own throat only to be stabbed and hacked after dropping to the ground to be solid. The final kill in the movie has a Wicker Man vibe to it but is poorly done. Again, I feel the need to remind filmmakers to never remind the audience of a much better movie they’d rather be watching. This was a terrible way to end the movie and left me even more disappointed in what I had just watched.

While most of my review has been negative I will give the movie some credit. It is beautifully shot. They certainly know how to make the woods and old house look and feel creepy. Some of the creature effects are good as well. But in the end this one starts off slow and ends with a whimper. I can’t recommend Christmas Presence.

 

© Copyright 2023 John Shatzer

Christmas Blood (2017)

A killer Santa movie from Norway! I’ve not seen one of those before… I mean I’ve seen one from Finland and another from the Netherlands (okay technically not Santa Claus but close enough!). But I’ve never seen one from Norway. Honestly, I was pretty excited to check it out.

The movie opens with a little girl sneaking downstairs to check out the presents under the tree while her father or maybe stepfather is snoring blissfully away. She tears and rattles things all while we see someone lurking behind her. There is a muffled scream and the father wakes up. Investigating the sound, he finds the girl dead and is quickly dispatched himself by someone dressed as Santa. The police arrive and find them butchered but manage to locate the killer and one of the cops, detective Rasch, puts several rounds into him.

As the credits roll, we see that the killer had been busy for many years racking up a body count well over a hundred. He also kept a naughty list that the police find, but never figure out why they were targeted. Though there is a bit of a throwaway line about them all being in trouble with the law at some point in time. We also find out that the killer Santa survived the shooting and was quietly and secretly locked up. But he has busted out, so it is up to a new detective, Hansen, to find him before too much murder occurs. Spoilers… it gets very bloody before he recruits the now retired and perpetually drunk Rasch to help him.

All while this is happening we meet up with another set of characters. They are all coming to an isolated town far in the north reaches of Norway to visit a friend named Julia. We find out that her mother was on Santa’s list but committed suicide. Though that doesn’t seem to bother the killer as when he arrives he just starts tearing thru Julia and her guests. Eventually the detectives figure out the pattern and arrive in time to save Julia, but her friends are toast. I suppose that is a spoiler but if you have ever watched a movie like this you should readily identify them as fodder for the body count. Things wrap up… well honestly, they don’t which is one of the issues I have with Christmas Blood.

I wanted to like this movie and there are things that I do enjoy, but it also has a couple fatal flaws that drag it down. The story is interesting with the killer having a naughty list that isn’t ever totally explained. I do like some mystery as to motivations when I’m watching what is basically a slasher movie. Sometimes the idea of a random killer targeting for reasons that no one really knows is scary. But then the story just meanders thru the hour and forty four minute runtime tossing characters at us who do nothing to move the plot around.

We see a sequence with Hansen visiting a morgue that allows the filmmakers to show us a very naked woman and a coroner who apparently loves pastries and likes to eat while he works. Admittedly this is amusing in sick way, but after spending time on it the detective declares it has nothing to do with the killer Santa and it is never mentioned again. We also have a random killing of a couple cops that are investigating someone on the list and find a body. They are then killed off themselves. Why bother? I mean we already know that the guy is a brutal killer, which is reinforced later, so what is up with the random characters just introduced to die?

This isn’t the first example of unneeded characters slowing things down. Before the killer arrives at the girls we get a couple of brothers added to the menu of victims who are there solely to die though not before participating in a drawn out “partying” dance montage. One of them does get to assault one of the women before being dispatched so I guess we are supposed to get some satisfaction out of his death. But really did we need a date rape in this flick? It adds nothing to the story other than a bit of nastiness. Hell, the girl doesn’t last more than a minute or two after her rapist and is killed in another way that violates her. Yeah, think The Mutilator. So now I was bored and annoyed which isn’t a good combination.

You'd better watch out... behind you!

I will give the movie credit for some inventive kills and the fact that they are plentiful. We get fifteen kills, with some happening offscreen and others being seen after the fact. There are butchered bodies, some head bashing, more than one decapitation (including the little girl in the beginning), some throat cutting, and lots of guts. Really this killer likes to drive his axe into many a midsection which leads to more than one person rolling around with their own intestines in hand. They must have really dug that effect/appliance because they use it a few times. There is a very Evil Dead fountain of blood as well. But my favorite kill in the movie has to be the guy getting his spine ripped out. Does it make sense? Not at all but I thought it was a fun gag.

I’ll also say that I thought a couple of the jump scares worked well. But in the end this movie is saddled with far too many characters and subplots to ever create any momentum. So, while the gore is an excellent payoff the scenes leading up to it failed to keep my interest. Overall it makes for a boring watch, and I can’t recommend Christmas Blood. There are much better Killer Santa movies out there to watch this most festive time of the year.

 

© Copyright 2023 John Shatzer

Ready or Not (2018)

I have to be honest I was shocked when I realized I hadn’t covered Ready or Not for the site yet. I discovered this fact when I popped it in to watch for the marathon. I suppose this is a spoiler, but I have loved this one since it was on first release. As an added bonus the first time I saw it was in the drive-in, which was a perfect setting. I guess I’ve already let the cat out of the bag that I’m going to recommend the movie, so I’ll just explain why. But first the plot synopsis. 

Grace, played by Samra Weaving who was on quite a roll with genre flicks at this point, is marrying into a rich family. Her future husband, Alex, is heir to a family fortune made from selling various board and card games. So when Grace is told it is family tradition for her to play a game with the family at midnight the day of her wedding it seems weird but understandable. Plus being an orphan, she really wants a family to belong to. Unfortunately, instead of pulling one of the mundane cards like Old Maid or Chess she gets Hide and Seek. Why is that a bad thing? Here is where the story gets interesting. 

The family has a secret benefactor named Mr. LeBail. Years earlier an ancestor met the mysterious man while traveling on a sea voyage. A deal was struck that he would fund any venture that the family wanted to try. It is also hinted at that they were also guaranteed success which is why they are so damn wealthy. Since this is a horror flick you probably figured out that the family basically sold their souls to the devil or at least some sort of demon. When you marry into the family you have to play a game. It is insinuated that if you are corruptible, you get something silly to seal the deal. On the other hand, if you aren’t then Hide and Seek it is. That means that the family has to hunt you down and murder you before sunrise or something bad happens to them. 

The rest of the movie is the twisted members of the family trying to find and murder Grace. Along the way we see her go from not understanding, to panicking, to pissed off and fighting back as all final girls do. We also see that not everyone is good at the hunting or at least identifying their prey as several household staff find out. Much mayhem (another good movie from Samara Weaving that I need to review eventually) ensues before the dawn comes. 

This is such a great movie. The story is set up quickly with just enough time given to establish that Grace is a good person and the family she married into isn’t. Then we get to the action with the first murder being used as the turning point where our lead realizes she is in trouble. There is a bit of dialogue showing her freaked out but then jumps right back into the violence. Ready or Not is at it’s best when the blood is flowing, and it flows a lot. This is a flick that will grab your attention and never let it go. From the first death… well technically the second as we start off with a flashback, until Grace is smoking on the stairs outside the house something interesting is always happening. The big payoff is teased as maybe being nothing before things get explosive. Heh… trust me if you watch the movie that is a funny turn of phrase. 

The cast is solid with familiar faces like Andie MacDowell (Groundhog’s Day), Henry Czerny (Mission: Impossible) and Melanie Scrofano (Letterkenny) all chewing up scenery as various members of the murderous clan. Though the real highlight is Samara Weaving who has to carry the proceedings in her role as Grace. She is able sell the initial fear and then anger thru her performance. She also has some of the best dialogue in recent horror history as she reacts with some profanity heavy lines. Though it doesn’t feel over the top because if your in-laws that you just met were trying to sacrifice you to a demon being pissed off seems like a legit reaction. 

The filmmakers also did a good job with the kills. We get some creative setups with a crossbow bolt to the face, a crushing by dumbwaiter, a bullet to the noggin, a head lopped off, and a plain old shooting. My favorite kill is also where we finally see Grace’s anger come out. When the family matriarch, MacDowell’s character, pushes her luck Grace “introduces” her to the wooden box at the center of the family curse. That is a fancy way of saying she beats her to death with it. While we don’t see the actual kill on screen there is a gag with hair and blood on the box that is pretty good. Speaking of gags, the nail thru the hand bit that is genuinely gnarly and memorable. I challenge anyone to not squirm when they see it. 

I could go on, but I don’t need to. If you haven’t checked out Ready or Not, then you should. This is an excellent bit of recent horror starring an actress that for a few years was making some amazing genre films. Plenty of gore and laughs makes for a great way to kill ninety minutes this Halloween season. 

© Copyright 2023 John Shatzer

13 Eerie (2013)

Some college students are headed out into the middle of nowhere. By middle of nowhere I mean an old prison where their professor has setup scenarios involving dead bodies. They are in an advanced forensics class or maybe trying to get into a program. Not quite sure about that but they all seemed to be stressed out. We see cameras being setup so that they can be watched on the staged crime scenes and then they get to work. 

After some gooey gross stuff with the dead bodies one of the students notices that there are more than were expected. Not only that but some of them get up and move around! Seems like the prison was used for experiments in the past, which is briefly explained in some throw away dialogue, and the black goo that is all over the place has turned some of the dead prisoners into zombies. They bite some of the students, who then also become zombies. There is a siege with the survivors, actors appear and disappear at random (more on that later), until we get to an ending that isn’t really an ending but a freeze frame without resolution. 

I don’t hate 13 Eerie, but it is also not a good movie. The story is weak with the whole unexplained prisoner experimentation explanation of the black goo and zombies feeling tacked on at the end. Sort of like the filmmakers decided “damn we need to let the audience know why this all happened”. Combined with the first half hour being spent getting to know the characters, who honestly aren’t that interesting, it gets really slow. After the zombies show up we still get some people walking thru the woods unaware what is happening scenes to continue padding things out. This is one of those flicks that feels like they didn’t have a finished script rather just an idea and maybe a location or two. That is not a formula for success. 

I was especially bummed by the weak writing due to them having a solid cast. Brendon Fletcher (Violent Night), Brendan Fehr (Bones), Michael Shanks (Stargate SG1), and Katharine Isabelle (Ginger Snaps) all appear. This is a solid cast of “B” movie and television actors that are good at their jobs. Sadly, they are completely wasted. It also seems that they only had certain actors for briefly as there are just a few scenes where they appear together. Especially Shanks seems to come and go seemingly at random. Not sure if that is the case of if the editing was just that bad. 

Where the movie does a good job is in the creature design. The zombie makeup is decent looking though I did notice that while we get several different zombies running around, they do tend to look the same. There are a few kills on screen with the highlights being the first one where a girl gets caught up in brambles and not only gets some fingers chewed off but ends up with a thorn to the eyeball! There is also a bit of gut munching, but it is poorly executed. I give them props for including it but wish they had done a better job. The rest of the kills are sort of meh. Some of the violence done to the zombies is cool. We get a nifty sawing thru a neck and an awesome gag with a cheek. 

Again, I don’t hate this movie. The story is a mess, but there is a bit of gore, and the zombies look decent. At best 13 Eerie is a mediocre by the numbers effort that is forgettable. While not as horrible as some of the recent zombie movies I’ve watched there are much better ways to kill ninety minutes of your time. I can’t recommend it. 

© Copyright 2023 John Shatzer

Girls with Balls (2018)

This has been in my Netflix queue for a while, so I finally hit play. This French horror/comedy flick follows a girls’ volleyball team named the Falcons. After winning the “championship” they are basically chased out of town by an angry crowd. Making their escape in an RV we get to meet the quirky oddball group of characters. Once that is established, they get lost, run into some French Hillbillies (really that is a thing!), and get hunted by them. 

That might seem like an oversimplification or possibly sounds like I didn’t like Girls with Balls… well that sentence sounds weird… but that isn’t the case. I’ve mentioned in the past that I don’t believe or require every horror movie to break new ground or show me some twist. If it is executed decently, I can get behind a formulaic horror flick. With a run time of seventy seven minutes the movie wastes no time establishing the characters well enough that they are distinguishable from each other. That way it is easier to track who gets killed and who lives. Now I can’t say that I was rooting for any of them particularly, but I didn’t hate them either. 

The hunters/hillbillies are pretty much interchangeable. These are inbred mutants or anything like that. Just local folks that probably need to improve their hygiene. They basically serve two purposes in the story. One to act as a foil for the actresses playing the volleyball team to react to and the other is to pad the body count with some funny “fighting back” kills. It isn’t just the team that gets decimated in this flick and that was part of the fun! The most memorable of the killers has to be their vicious attack Chihuahua! Yeah you read that last line right. 

Though viewer be warned. As pretty as the girls are the humor is equally as raunchy. This is especially so if you leave the original French audio and read the subtitles. I feel like the dub tries to soften some of the jokes to avoid offending the more sensitive English speaking audience. In addition to some funny lines, we also get some bodily function jokes, some jokes about sexuality (I did say it was raunchy!), as well as some slapstick physical comedy. I did find myself at least chuckling at many of the gags. 

The kills are good for a movie like this. A lot of it is CGI assisted but it is done well enough and doesn’t linger on the screen so I’m okay with what I saw. It helps that the kills are clever and tie into the humor. In addition to a gnarly looking half blown off hand we also get several headshots, machete violence, and body parts flying. There is even a fun bit when we find out that the French hillbillies are cannibals which means we get to see them preparing their food aka. butchering victims. Not great special effects there but good enough.

Girls with Balls isn’t a classic or even a great movie. But it is solid and, in my opinion, some good harmless fun with cannibals and a body count. While I can’t imagine watching it again it was worth checking out the one time. If you have Netflix this is a perfect way to kill way to kill an hour or so. 

© Copyright 2023 John Shatzer

Return of the Killer Shrews (2012)

It must have been about thirteen years ago that I was interviewing actor James Best about his years on Dukes of Hazzard as well as his appearance in The Killer Shrews when he started talking about going into preproduction on this low budget sequel to the very low budget fifties original. I immediately jotted down that I should keep an eye out for the movie when it finally got made and released. I must have picked up this copy ten years ago or so and am just now getting around to watching it. I’ve already said this at least once but I really need to stop buying movies and taking a decade to watch them. 

Best returns as Captain Thorne Sherman. This time instead of delivering supplies to scientists on an isolated island he is dropping off cast and crew for a reality show. Now that is an interesting and appropriate update to the story! He is very uncomfortable returning to the place where he was almost shrew food but also apparently needs the paycheck. Almost as soon as they arrive we see a mysterious man controlling the shrews who get about to eating the filmmakers, though they don’t realize that until the next day.

When they find out folks are missing they go looking for them, which leads to those not killed right away being trapped in the old scientists’ compound from the first flick. The rest of the movie is them trying not to die, which admittedly doesn’t go so well, while mysteries such as who the man is as well as what the shrews have been up to get resolved. In the end some people die, some people live, and we get a fun continuation of a classic cheesy sci-fi monster flick most of us grew up watching on our local public domain creature feature shows.  

I want to start off being completely honest. I love the original movie, so I’m inclined to like this one. The cheesy special effects from the fifties with dogs in costumes chasing folks with pork chops in their pockets (a fun tidbit Best dropped during my interview with him so many years ago) is replaced by equally silly CGI. The digital effects work in Return of the Killer Shrews makes the worst Sci-Fi channel original look like a masterpiece so in addition to being silly it is really bad. Normally that would be a deal breaker for me, but as a sequel to a movie I love so much I found it hard to be too critical. 

The other complication I had was the fact that James Best was an awesome guy. My interview with him went so well and I have to say my interactions with him both before and afterwards made me a huge fan. He was a funny guy, which comes across in this movie. Much of it has him and another Dukes alum, Rick Hurst, cracking wise like they know they are in a cheesy movie. We even get John Schneider chewing up scenery as the start of the reality show so in a way it is a mini Dukes reunion. They really lean heavily into the jokes as this plays much more like a comedy rather than a creature feature. I found myself laughing along with the filmmakers rather than at them, so I think that made things a lot more fun. 

Admittedly though this isn’t a good movie. The CGI is terrible with the same crude digital models being used repeatedly for the shrews. That means you see the same random movements which many times doesn’t match up with the actors creating awkward composite shots. We do get some old school rubbery puppetry in a few of the closeups, but that isn’t nearly enough. They even double down with one of the worst “explosions” you will ever see in a movie. 

Not sure how I’m supposed to sum this one up. Personally, I liked this movie. But it is filled with things that normally bug me about low budget filmmaking. Clearly I’m digging this one for more than what just what is on the screen. Will other viewers have that same bias and connection to the cast as well as the original flick? Probably not. So, I can’t recommend this for everyone. That makes me more than a little bit sad. On the other hand, if you like James Best the actor or are a fan of The Killer Shrews you might get a kick out of this flick. I really do need to review that one for the site someday. 

© Copyright 2023 John Shatzer

Zombies of the Living Dead (2015)

I did it again. I was poking around the internet… this time Tubi TV… and found an independent zombie movie. Somehow I haven’t learned my lesson and thought to myself “how bad could this be?” Well my friends it could be very bad indeed.

There is a cop telling us what is happening in a voiceover. There is a science guy in his garage who figures out how to revive the dead using radio waves. This causes a zombie apocalypse and then the credits roll. Then we see a parking lot which is an establishing shot of a guy sitting in a cubicle… I mean radio station broadcasting about poodles being aliens. What the hell does this have to do with anything? Nothing at all. Then we are treated to a bunch of local businesses in establishing shots. Then some random attacks with characters that aren’t really characters as they appear long enough to die without ever being given names. Cool, I guess.

All the above happened at night. Then it is daylight and zombies are shuffling in front of the camera while folks are going about their business in the background. I mean couldn’t you have at least framed the scene so we don’t see someone loading groceries into their car during the apocalypse? I guess that was too much effort. Fifteen minutes in we finally meet our main character, the cop who has been narrating, as he bumps into and flirts with a girl named Mary. Some random shit happens while generic rock music blares over the dialogue. They run into some survivors, figure out that it is radio signals, go to the garage and unplug the equipment. Then inexplicably we find out that didn’t work and that the survivors are making a training video on how to survive.

I have to stop watching these movies. Clocking in a barely an hour long this movie clearly doesn’t have a script or any idea of what the story is supposed to be. It has the choppy feeling of something pieced together from random bits shot on various weekends until they could get it long enough to get away with charging people for it. Think about it we don’t even meet the main character or get to his story until a quarter of the movie, which is again an hour long, is over! It isn’t like that time is used to set the narrative up either. It is nothing but random characters getting attacked. After we meet the cop the rest of the movie is him and the others getting attacked at random locations. Really there is nothing going on here at all.

The special effects work is terrible. You get lots of CGI for the kills including the bane of low budget horror the fake blood on the screen effect as if it was sprayed on the backside of the television. Guys really this is just a dumb effect that never works. The zombies border from cheap ass white makeup from the costume shop to even worse plastic masks. Other technical bits to point out are the already blaring generic music, plastic cap guns as props, and audio that drops in and out during dialogue making it impossible to hear what the cast is saying. Though based on the lack of script I’m thinking that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Finally, there is a drive-in scene that looks like someone had a twenty year old copy of iMovie and a green screen. It is terrible.

I’ve been doing this long enough to know what some of you are already thinking to yourself. ‘John this is a low budget movie. Cut them some slack.’ Well first thing they are charging money so when you want people’s hard earned cash then you had better put some effort into your project. Second, and I’ll never stop beating this dead horse, make sure you have a story/script before grabbing the camera. A lack of budget is no excuse not to have a script ready to go. Not only that but make sure you have the resources to shoot whatever story you have on paper and if you don’t (the drive-in scene) then move off of it and go for something you can do. I also understand that this might have been going for laughs. Well nowhere the movie is listed is it categorized as a comedy and more importantly it isn’t funny.

Zombies of the Living Dead is a terrible movie and a prime example of someone tossing some crap at the wall and calling it a zombie flick. I don’t know why folks keep making these. I suppose there is some money to be made selling them. I mean I keep watching. Please don’t make the same mistake and stay far away from this turkey.

 

© Copyright 2023 John Shatzer

Pooka! (2018)

An unemployed actor gets a break around the holidays when he is hired to portray the hottest new toy Pooka for the pop up store that is exclusively selling it. After a weird audition he is hired by the creepy guy in charge and gets right to work. He is given a tour of the warehouse full of dolls and then goes home with the costume. Here we meet his new neighbor Red. She is a bit mysterious and a little sad so you know that there is something going on there. He also sees a beautiful woman who he becomes enamored with. She has a young son who really wants a Pooka doll. He makes that happen and before you know it is dating her. 

Then things start to get weird. It seems like Pooka has a life of it’s own. Wilson, the actor, starts to see it moving around without him inside. Then he begins to see and hear things as well as having visions of his new lady friend as well as neighbor being hurt. Is he losing his mind or is there something sinister about Pooka and the company selling it? Will he be able to patch things up with his new lady friend and live happily ever after? Will I understand why everyone seemed to have loved this movie when it came out a few years ago and told me that I just had to watch it?

Spoiler warning. If you want to avoid these skip to the last paragraph for my final thoughts. Now onto the rest of the review. This movie was getting a lot of love a few years ago when it first hit Hulu. This is part of their Into the Dark Series. I’ve only watched a couple of them but did enjoy Crawlers though not as big of a big fan of School Spirit or Tentacles. To be entirely honest though the main reason I’ve avoided Pooka! is because of the director. I know that Nacho Vigalondo has his fans but after watching that movie Colossal I knew that his stuff wasn’t for me. 

The movie has a very confusing narrative that makes it hard to follow. I wasn’t quite sure as to what was happening as we jump from dreams to reality and back to dreams seemingly at random. I understand that some viewers dig this sort of thing but I’d rather my movies make more sense. And if you are going to go dreamlike and focus on the visuals then do so with abandon. While we do get some beautiful shots the movie keeps jumping back to reality or at least what passes for it within the narrative as it is presented. Basically, either go full “Argento” or don’t. Hopping back and forth doesn’t work. For a flick that is only eighty three minutes long it felt at times like a real chore to get thru. 

Pooka is creepy... I'll give them that.

Before anyone tries to hit me with the big twist at the end that is supposed to explain everything please don’t. We find out that nothing we just watched was real. Everyone in the movie are people that Wilson knows in is real life, one in which he is an asshole that yells at his wife and terrorizes his son. The people dying as the story plays out are all people he has killed in the car wreck and the story itself happens as he is lying on the ground having been ejected from the wreck. You know if I was supposed to feel sorry for Wilson, as the movie has been setting him up as a nice but confused man, then making him an abusive asshole who causes an accident that kills a bunch of folks isn’t the way to end it. Pooka! feels like a movie that is trying too hard to be clever and fails miserably at it. 

I know that people dig this movie and if you like it cool. I found Pooka! to be an overly complicated and in the end unsatisfying attempt to make a “smart” horror movie. I noticed that unlike any of the other Into the Dark flicks this one got a sequel. How the hell does that work given the big reveal at the end? God Damn It… I’m going to have to watch that one as well. Maybe in another five years though. Obviously, I’m not recommending this one. 

© Copyright 2023 John Shatzer

The Blackburn Asylum (2015)

A Jeep full of annoying twentysomethings are driving down the road. They pass a couple with a baby who are going to check out an abandoned mine. Well Dad is, Mom and baby are along for the ride. Because taking an infant into a dangerous mining operation in the middle of nowhere Alaska is something reasonable. The trio go to the mine, find some unpleasant locals, and get dead. Well Mom and Dad do, the baby is important later.

Then we get back to the other characters. They have no cell service… because horror movies would be way too short if you could just call 911. They also find a rockslide blocking the road and a dead lady in a crashed car. So they have to turn around for help. But after a while they find a firefighter who tells them the road is closed due to fire, so he sends them back into the middle of nowhere to fend for themselves. Even after they tell him about the accident. This brings them to a gas station, they are running out of gas, where they meet some creepy ladies who have a penchant for taxidermy and serve as the harbingers… the ones who tell them not to go to the mines. Which is exactly what they do! Some of them die, mysteries are revealed, and we do eventually get to hear about an asylum that for some odd reason was built on top of an active mine. The end.

Why do I do this to myself? I knew what this probably was and yet I persisted in watching it. The Blackburn Asylum feels like a movie made by folks who watched much better flicks and were sitting taking notes. Need a creepy gas station… check. Must have weird locals who will fill in narrative blanks and then die… check. Our main characters need to be annoying and obnoxious city folk… check check. Toss in some taxidermy and the always present board filled with missing pet posters and newspaper articles about missing people to complete things. We also have a vain female character talking about how she loves her face and a final girl that mentions she was good with a bow and arrow. These things may pay off later in very ham-fisted and predictable ways.

If I haven’t made myself clear yet the writing is bad. This really does feel like a bad copy of much better movies. I’m all for filmmakers tipping their hats to their favorite movies, hell I recently reviewed X and there it is done right. Here it just makes me think of stuff I’d much rather be watching. This is further compounded by some terrible pacing. After a couple quick kills, we then have to sit thru some driving, talking, stopping to pee, more driving, then the landslide. Here you may think things get rolling, but they don’t. We get more driving, some talking, running out of gas, wandering around a mine, relationship drama, more walking, more drama, then some running. Finally in the last half hour the kills start up again.

The kills are generic with a couple happening offscreen. We do get a nifty snapped neck, and a rebar thru some faces. But these are mixed in random bodies that I suppose are matched up with the missing posters from earlier. But this makes me feel cheated as any of these kills would have made for a much more interesting way to spend my time rather than listen to the characters drone on inanely at each other. The movie even manages to divert from the normal killer hillbilly formula with some good old tie them to a table torture porn. Our vain girl from earlier gets her face burned off… gee never saw that coming. There is also some death by acid funnel to the throat. Neither of these are nearly as good as they sound. We also get some bad CGI for the rockslide and some fires that I suppose were necessary. Oh and I completely forgot the movie’s obsession with terrible jump cuts that obscure the action and gore. To be fair was and is a staple of horror in the last couple of decades. Though that doesn’t make it any less annoying.

Clearly, I wasn’t impressed with the cast nor their performances. What I did find odd was one of the killers is Ken Kirzinger under a rather shitty looking Halloween mask. We also get a brief appearance from the Soska sisters. I’m guessing they owed someone a favor, and this was how it was paid back.

All in all this was a miserable way to spend eighty four minutes. If you want to watch a much better version of this sort of story, check out Wrong Turn or maybe even The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I can’t recommend The Blackburn Asylum.

 

© Copyright 2023 John Shatzer

The Amityville Murders (2018)

In this marathon I’ve gone on angrily about how bad some of the movies have been. Many have been a complete waste of time, and several had nothing to do with Amityville at all and just tacked the name on their title. But that is just me being frustrated with a bad filmmaker and at the end of the day I’ve never been genuinely angry because after all they are just movies, right? That chanted with The Amityville Murders.

This low budget affair tries to tell the story of the DeFeo family whose murders preceded the supposedly haunting covered by the book and movie by a year and a half. If you are unaware the eldest son of a large family, Ronald DeFeo Jr. took a rifle and murdered his family. He claimed to hear voices and after the “haunting” became big news embellished his story to take advantage of it. This fictional take on the DeFeo murders has the house being haunted by spirits summoned by Ronald and his sister using the secret book that their grandmother left them. The dad is also abusive, which is why as children they summoned the spirits, and apparently grandpa is connected to the mob or at least some shady figures.

How is this all important to a ghost story? Well after becoming a drug addict Ronald starts to see shadow people and hear voices coming from the walls. He tries to tell his sister to leave before something bad happens, but she comes back after he murders everyone to put her nightgown on and calmly lies in bed for her turn. Also, it is insinuated that grandma knows what is going to happen because they have angered the spirits of the house. Oh, and grandpa gets some missing money that I guess the ghosts had stolen. The end.

As a movie I found The Amityville Murders to be tedious. Nothing happens for long stretches and when they do try to create some atmosphere and be creepy, I wasn’t buying it. There are also a few attempts at jump scares, but they don’t work at all. This isn’t helped by the fact that this is yet another telling of a familiar story that anyone who has read a single article on the Amityville Hauntings already knows. Maybe that is why they decided to take some liberties with reality, but more on that later. Somehow, they also made an already boring experience all that worse with a terrible editing job that has the movie clocking in at over an hour and forty minutes. There isn’t enough going on to justify that.

The acting is a bit wooden, and I was disappointed that they brought back Burt Young who played the patriarch of the DeFeo family the first time around, only to give him next to nothing to do as the grandpa who shows up for just a few minutes. The filmmakers also decide to use some painfully terrible CGI which inexplicably they keep going back to and lingering on. These shots are bad and distracting. So as a movie this is a failure. If only that was all I had to say about this.

If you are one of those horror fans that gets their jollies by purchasing a sketch done by John Wayne Gacy or collects the toenail clippings of Ted Bundy, then you can piss off right now because I’m about to go off on you. The filmmakers here decided to do a movie about a real-life tragedy and make some “creative choices” that are utterly reprehensible. To suggest that the grandmother knew her family was in danger and in some way was responsible for it by leaving the book behind and knowing that the place was spooky is horrible. I get that it is total nonsense, but she was a real woman who lost her family not some fictional character. Then to double down on some unnecessary shot at the grandfather being connected with the pointless subplot about the missing money is bullshit. This was a real family who went thru a horrific event, and while the people mentioned above are long dead it is disgusting that the filmmakers decided to try and make a buck off them. You want to do shit like this then make your own movie with fictional characters!

Of course, like I’ve already pointed out they decided to go with the name recognition to make a few extra bucks. Before you think that I’m being too harsh and that I should get over it let me drop one final bit of information on you. Before the end credits roll, we get a photo montage that mixes pictures of the cast in with the crime scene photos of the real murders. This includes several shots of the bodies including the children who were murdered. They used pictures of dead kids in their movie to give it a bit more shock value. Still want to defend these assholes? I’ve taken people to task here on the site for being bad filmmakers or for phoning it in to make a few bucks. I think this is the first time that I’ve ever called anyone out for being a shitty human being instead of just a shitty filmmaker. I hope to never watch a movie again that makes me feel the need to do so.

Screw The Amityville Murders and screw the director, the writer, the producer, and anyone else who thought this was an okay thing to do. You are a bunch of assholes. I’ve said what I needed to. Now I’ll get back to reviewing regular old shitty movies.

 

© Copyright 2022 John Shatzer

Dead Before Dawn 3D (2012)

We meet Casper who has some bad memories of the family business, the Occult Barn. We see in a flashback/dream that he watched his father die on the floor after a particularly nasty item fell on him. This has scarred poor Casper who hasn’t set foot in the place since it happened. But when his grandfather, played by the awesome Christopher Lloyd, wins an award he is guilted into covering the shop. The rules are never close during business hours, and never ever go withing spitting distance of an urn.

The girl Casper has a crush on stops by the shop with some other kids from the college and trying to impress her he takes the urn down from the shelf so she can have a closer look. It breaks and he freaks out. They tease him and make up a curse that the evil spirit they just released will inflict on them. Anyone they look at will kill themselves and then come back to murder them. It will be death by hickey… which is a thing, I guess. But if they give a hickey to one of the recently returned monsters after them then they become their slave. Also, they have to put the demon back in the urn before dawn or they will be cursed forever. Much mayhem and silliness ensue as the entire town is trying to kill them before the credits roll.

I watched this one when it first came out. Damn that was ten years ago! I remember liking it a lot and I have to say that nothing has changed. The story is solid and checks a lot of boxes for me. They quickly establish the characters and the outline of the story. Then they jump right into the action with lots of creatures show up and start killing folks. Honestly, that is about all you can ask from a monster movie like Dead Before Dawn. They double down on the fun with a creative twist where the characters make up the curse as a goof, not knowing that the demon they release is angry and uses it against them. So we get for the first time in cinematic history Zemons, half demon and half zombie! This is a nice and funny take on the typical possessed and/or zombie flicks that we get so often.

If what you have read so far hasn’t clued you in yet this movie is played for some laughs and it works. From the silly nature of them making up the rules to the curse on the fly to one of our main characters getting turned into a Zemon when he gets a “dickey” from one of them there is a lot here that had me smiling. They even acknowledge that they have cast Christopher Lloyd by having his character yell a familiar catch phrase when he finds the broken urn. You know the one… it rhymes with late dot!

The design of the creatures are generic with them basically just looking pale with weird eyes. But I was okay with that as they do look demonic. There are also some fun kills that while not overly explicit are creative and work with the overall comedic nature of Dead Before Dawn. There is a kick to the face, a leap from a balcony, some trophy stabbing, crossbow action, a toaster in the tub, and a gnarly looking snapped neck. Though my favorite is the death by first down marker at the football game.

Good cast, decent creatures, fun kills, and jokes that land most of the time make for an entertaining way to kill an hour and a half. I feel like this one maybe slipped past a lot of folks as I don’t see that many people talking about it. I recommend you all give it a chance. It is a lot of fun.

 

© Copyright 2022 John Shatzer

Badass Monster Killer (2015)

Jimmy Chevelle is the monster killer mentioned in the title. He rolls around Camaroville killing all sorts of Lovecraftian horrors while scoring with the ladies. It’s okay though because he works for the Department of Supernatural Security which gives him his badge and gun! Thru a series of flashbacks, we see that his former partner was murdered by a cult lead by the most evil of dudes the Reverend Dellamorte. Their latest plan is to summon the bride of Cthulhu while cornering the weed market so they can distribute a special blend that will encourage the citizens of Camaroville to join their cause. Jimmy and his various lovely sidekicks must stop the bride and save the day. Even if he gets kicked off the force.

There is a lot to like about Badass Monster Killer and a lot that goes sideways. The good stuff is that they totally nail the dialogue and characters. This is a blend of Blaxploitation and Mythos monsters done on a budget. There is a groovy vibe, and it is a bit repetitive but silly fun to watch Jimmy dropping the same pickup line on different ladies before killing the bad guys and taking them back to his pad for some grown up time. This isn’t being played seriously but for laughs and honestly it works well. I liked the cast, and the actors have some chemistry with one another. Plus, it is clear that they are having fun, which is a must for a flick like this. We also get many pretty women in skimpy outfits as well as some topless ladies in the few scenes set in strip clubs. Hey, the bad guys even have topless dancers, which really is a must have for any secret lair in my humble opinion.

I was shocked at how the various Mythos creatures are accurately named and the job that the filmmakers did to bring them to the screen. Who the hell knows what a Shoggoth looks like, other then a Lovecraft nerd like myself that is. They did a decent job with the creature design and by God it is latex and rubber. We also get a spine ripped out, a fun looking bride of Cthulhu complete with he “squid chin”, and some cool body melts as the “acid titties” take their toll. There are a few shots with puppets and some miniature work that I thought was a lot of fun. I dig it when a movie tries to give me some old school effects.

Sadly, there is also a lot of badly done CGI here as well. Giant monsters stomping around, heads popping off, and many kills are cringeworthy. I get the lack of budget and can forgive the above but then they double down. Most of the movie is shot on a green screen with a comic bookish looking city scape behind them. Hell, most of the movie was likely show with a green screen and a few bits of furniture used to dress the different “sets” which are again just green screen and not actual locations. This feels like a flick that was shot completely in a warehouse. I can forgive some bad effects work but at least have some sort of gritty locations to shoot scenes in. The damn movie is almost completely set in a sketchy strip club/cultists hideout and in an alley. Would that have been too terribly difficult?

Too much greenscreen for me

The other thing that sort of bugged me was the length of the movie. This is a fun gimmick, but it will wear out its welcome sooner rather than later. This flick clocks in at a surprising hour and thirty-six minutes! Why? There are a few characters that could have been deleted and jokes that didn’t need to be revisited. For example, the dumb investigators that keep popping up only to get their noggins ripped off aren’t necessary. Same goes for his inspector who brings nothing to the story. One of the things that I notice with a lot of low budget filmmakers is that they either edit the movie themselves or hire someone as equally invested in everything they shot. You could have told this story with a lot tighter runtime, which would have helped immensely. Cut fifteen minutes and this is a way more fun experience.

Now I didn’t hate Badass Monster Killer. It was a fun mashup that treats both the subgenres (Blaxploitation and Lovecraftian Mythos) with respect. But perhaps they were a bit too ambitious with their available resources and needed an editor to cut things down. Still, I’ve seen much worse and think that there enough going for it to check out the movie.

 

© Copyright 2022 John Shatzer

Amityville Evil Never Dies (aka. Amityville Clownhouse) (2017)

This is the sequel that was hinted at with director Dustin Ferguson’s Amityville Toybox. By that I mean it totally ignores the tacked on ending of that movie where they had to pad it out with a couple unrelated characters. But the toy monkey is back. This time it is purchased by a couple and brought home. It makes him act like an abusive ass and gives him awful CGI nightmares. The wife eventually figures this out and throws it away, but it returns because that would be too easy. Then Ferguson does what is typical for him and recycles a bunch of footage from Toybox to pad out this movie. I mean why spend time and money when you can make the audience watch shit that you have already released?

There is also a bit at the opening of this movie with some characters that break into the house from Amityville Toybox only to get killed! Does that connect to this story or somehow bridge the end of that flick into this one? Nope. That would require some thought to be put into the story and script. Ladies and gentlemen that just isn’t what this director does.

Just in case you haven’t read my reviews of Ferguson’s Camp Blood movies or his earlier attempt at an Amityville movie then let me clue you in on something. He puts no effort into what he does and recycles footage so he can “double dip” into the audience’s wallets. Let me explain with this latest example. The movie is a bit over an hour long. It has long end credits and again reuses about fifteen minutes of “highlights” from the previous movie. That means there is maybe forty or forty-five minutes of new footage in Amityville Never Dies. I suppose that would be okay if it weren’t for what that footage entails.

The husband goes for a drive and picks up a hooker. Though most of this sequence is him driving around aka. they just sit in the passenger seat and film him cruising around town. I’ve seen driver’s education flicks that are more exciting than this. We also get to watch the wife wander around the park, look at some fish, make some sketches in her notebook, and then send some text messages. Just to be clear these aren’t quick cuts to establish locations or characters they go on and on. We also have an exterminator show up to poke around and talk to the wife about the nonexistent rat problem that her husband keeps talking about. This amount of padding makes me wonder why I’m watching this “movie” at all.

There is some terrible audio issues where the dialogue cuts in and out constantly. That means in addition to being mind-numbingly boring many scenes are also impossible to hear. Then again maybe that is a blessing in disguise. The kills are lame and mostly happen offscreen. The only gag that I enjoyed and will give them credit for is a bit with some eyeballs that pop out. It isn’t great but they do it with practical effects work. I appreciate that sort of thing.

I don’t understand how Dustin Ferguson gets away with making movies like this. Who is buying this shit? Please take my advice and don’t spend your time or money on this or any of his other movies. In conclusion after having a couple okay Amityville movies I’m miserable again. But I’ll keep hope alive that there is something better coming my way.

 

© Copyright 2022 John Shatzer

Amityville No Escape (2016)

I have hope for this movie. Sure, it is another found footage entry into the franchise but this one is directed by Henrique Couto, He is one of my favorite independent filmmakers working today so there is a chance that this could be good. Might as well dive in and see. 

The movie has two main plot lines connected in a clever way. You have footage that a documentary crew has gotten possession of dealing with a woman who moves into a haunted house while her husband is deployed. There are some things that go bump in the night, but she doesn’t freak out. Instead, she does research about the history of the place and starts to feel better about things. Though in typical fashion not running for the hills at the first indication of haunting turns out very poorly for her. 

The other story follows the crew of friends who are heading to the house to not so much investigate the supernatural goings on but instead the ringleader is doing a study on fear. This is why he keeps showing them the footage to set things up to I guess scare the hell out of them. He has a friend, his sister, a hippie girl, and a cameraman come along for the fun. There are some creepy bits with a disappearing girl in the woods, a gun wielding local who yells that they are in danger, and other spooky things in the dark. Their story ramps up until they go into the house (they had been camping nearby) where it all reaches a disturbing conclusion that ties both stories together in an inexplicable but sort of neat way. 

This is certainly one of the better ones so far. The cast is decent and is given an actual story to work with. I liked the fact that there are a couple of plot lines that jump back and forth. This allows the movie to avoid getting boring as they can quickly shift from spooky to mundane and back. To enjoy a paranormal movie like this I’ve always felt that you need to have a safety valve to give the audience a chance to take a breath. Mostly because it is nearly impossible to sustain a high level of suspense for too long without it feeling forced. 

The cast is decent

There are several jump scares that work as well as a lot of creepy atmosphere to set the tone. I was interested in what was on the screen from start to finish. This reminds me that I wanted to mention that the editing here is perfect. The movie clocks in at seventy-eight minutes without a single wasted or bloated scene. Overly long scenes or unnecessary dialogue/characters has been one of my biggest complaints with a lot of these Amityville movies and here director Couto avoids all of that. Not surprising since as I’ve already mentioned he is one of the best directors working in the low budget scene today.  

Is Amityville No Escape a perfect movie? Not at all. There are some corners cut due to the low budget and some of the gags don’t work as well as they could. But the important thing is that I got believable characters in a story that never bored me. This is another solid movie that I can recommend, though this time without qualifications (See my review for The Amityville Terror for explanation). Two decent entries in a row. Could this mean they get better from here on out? Spoilers… hell no!

© Copyright 2022 John Shatzer