31 Days of Horror 2025 Day 31 The People Under the Stairs

 

TITLE-The People Under the Stairs

SOURCE-Scream Factory Blu ray

Fool lives in  the ghetto. His mom is dying from cancer,and his family is about to be evicted from their apartment. Local rumor is this one house in  the area has a huge collection of gold coins. So Fool along withVing Rhames and another dude plot to break into the house steal the coins and not only pay the back rent they owe but get Fool's mom fixed up.

Once in the house they learn  shit is fucked. The entire house if boobytrapped. Their a pile of cannibals living in the basement. And the brother and sister,that call each other Mom and Dad, have a young teen girl named Alice. They refuse to let her leave the house.

Ving Rhames and the other guy get killed fast and the rest of the film is Fool trying to escape and find the gold. Assisted by Alice and Roach,a guy that lives between the walls.

Gory and dark and full of craziness this was way way better than I remembered. Sure I had seen it a few times back in  the day. Just been so long since I saw it I had forgotten huge chunks of the film.

Like how the brother spends a good part of the film runnign  around in a leather gimp outfit. Or how the Sister looks so much like my crazy aunt we don't talk too.

Feels like this is a forgotten  Wes Craven film. Sure his Elm Street films get talked about a pile,same with Last House on the Left and the Hills have eyes. But The People Under the Stairs I never seen much chatter about.

This blu ray is packed with extras. Looks great decent sound and I'm kind of glad I got it for a deal. 

The People Under the Stairs gets a B.

31 Days of Horror 2025 Day 28 Ticks

 

TITLE-Ticks

SOURCE-Olive Films Blu Ray

Feels like this was one of those early to mid 90s films that got a pile of coverage in Fango. I read up on it wanted to see it and nope no copies hit video stores in my area. Earlier this year Cody hooked me up with his old Blu ray of it. Letting me revisit a film I didn't see until at least the early 2000s.

Clint Howards super grow mix for his pot plants drips down  through the floorboards on some tick eggs. Thus creating the titular creatures. And we got a van full of troubled teens and their two handlers heading to a near by cabin.

Yea it is a standard creature feature plot. And if this didn't have great FX and an interesting cast I bet it would be forgotten.

We got some slimy oozy fx work. Great stuff that just makes you shudder a bit. Brian Yuzna an executive producer on this so that makes sense.

Then that cast. Besides Clint Howard as the pot farmer you get Alfonso Ribiro as a very against type character for him. Yep we got Carlton from Fresh Prince dressed and acting like he was a background extra in Wu Tang's Protect Ya Neck music video. Got an earlyish role for Seth Green as the normal nerd stereotype in b films. Then the always great to see Ami Dolenz. She had a smallish career playing a similar role in piles of B movies for about a decade.

Sure it feels a bit like scenes are missing. With some plot points not explained fully. A bit of research I learned there was a pile of added scenes. Like the Clint Howard super grow formula stuff.

Worth seeing. No clue if this blu ray is out of print,I know the Scream Factory release is.

Ticks gets a B-

31 Days of Horror 2024 Day 19 The Dentist

 

TITLE-The Dentist

SOURCE-Vestron Video  Blu Ray

When I hear people saying that the 90s was dead for horror or the more common variant of that now "Horror was dead in the 90s until Scream." I know whoever is saying that either wasn't around back then or is someone that only watched what hit wide release in theaters back then.

Today's movie is a perfect example of how wrong  the whole horror was dead in the 90s is.

Premiering in late October 1996 on HBO  The Dentist is another great film from Brian Yuzna. I was lucky the night this aired I happened to be over at the home of my almost in-laws. And my lady's mother loved horror.

Corbin Bernsen is the titular Dentist. Racked with OCD and losing his mind  he finds  out his wife is cheating on him  with the pool cleaner. This drives Corbin  off the deep end and he starts killing people for various reasons.

Being a Yuzna film you know we are gonna get some gore and the FX work from Anthony C. Ferrante and J.M. Logan are great. Almost all practical FX work. 

Add in that most people have a fear of going to the dentist and you get a film that works on  a few levels. 

This Vestron Video Blu ray is packed with extras. Got a great commentary from the director and Makeup Effects supervisor. Which is loaded with info. A really fun  interview with Corbin Bernsen and one  with the co writer Denniss Paoli.

One interesting thing pointed out in the commentary,and one my now ex pointed out while we were watching this almost 30 years ago,is the film  kind of plays with is this actually happening or is all the kills in  Bernsen's head? Kind of like the film  American Psycho years before that movie was made,and yes I know the novel AP is based on came out before The Dentist. Also like the American Psycho movie,the sequel to the Dentist lets us know that it wasn't all in the lead's head.

For a fairly cheap price you get both Dentist movies. Both loaded with extras and both looking better than I have seen them look before.

The Dentist gets a B-

31 Days of Horror 2022 Day 27 The Wasp Woman (1995)

 

TITLE-The Wasp Woman AKA Forbidden Beauty

SOURCE-DVD-R made from premiere airing on Showtime in 1995

Somehow out of all these mid 90s Roger Corman Theater remakes of older mostly PD films I have seen the 95 Wasp Woman remake,known as Forbidden Beauty in some areas,the most. Saw it when it first aired,cause I had seen and felt disappointed in the original. Then a few years later the remake was rerun on Showtime and a bachelor crash  pad house a buddy owned had myyself and 5 others drinking and watching it and laughing. Then back close to a decade ago when I got this DVD-r rip of a VHS recording ,in SP on a good HIFI VCR,of the original TV airing I watched it again. Then today. 

Why out of the 5 or so of these remakes I own is this one I go back to often? Mostly cause the others are remakes of films I already enjoy. But that original Wasp Woman,that is in the top 5 movies I own the most copies of on DVD thanks to it being PD in an in every multipak of horror,is a boring as hell crap fest of a film. We get right at 4 minutes tops of Wasp Woman in the film. This remake while having soome dodgy FX at least gives us plenty of the title creature.

The remake also has Jennifer Rubin,who uses a very very obvious body double for the nudity in her sex scene,and Maria Ford. And this is Maria after she had some visits to the plastic surgeon. That original I can't tell you who anyone in the cast is. Hell the remake has Fred Olen Ray as the higher up that tells Rubin she is an old hag. 

Directed by Jim Wynorski,this remake is the perfect example of how to reamake and improve an old horror flick. Now is it a undiscovered modern classic of horror? Hell NO! But it is a fun mid 90s Creature Feature that should be seen by more people. It is perfect for streaming on say Tubi or Amazon Prime. And for all I know it could be on one of those.

The Wasp Woman gets a B-

31 Days of Horror 2022 Day 25 Popcorn

 

TITLE-Popcorn

SOURCE-Shudder Streaming Service

Oh man the early 90s horror scene was so odd. The slasher subgenre was dying. And if you listen to some fans horror was shit in the 90s until Scream. Which of course is wrong. There was good horror all through out the 90s.

When cable finally reached the rural ass hell southern town I grew up in,tail end of 1990,I paid out of my pocket for Showtime and TMC. Which where the only MOVIE channels our cable offered. Sure I wasn't making much at my part time after school job. But 20 bucks a month went to making sure I had Showtime and TMC. And at least another 30 a month went to buying blank VHS. Cause I was recording any horror movie that aired on Showtime or TMC. It was late 1991 when I saw that Showtime was airing Popcorn a bunch of times the next month. I had wanted to see Popcorn. But something else came out the same weekend as it. And we all went to see  that. The next weekend Popcorn was gone. I had hoped to rent it. But no video store in the area carried it. But Showtime was showing it 5 times in one month. First time airing it at the oddest hour of 2am on a Wednesday.

Sure I had a VCR in my bedroom by this time. And I could have just set my VCR recorded it and watched it Wednesday evening after school and work. But nope I stayed up all night to see it. And I fucking loved it.

A group of college kids are hosting an all night movie marathon at a soon to be demolished theater. This is a fund raiser for their drama club IIRC.  Thanks to Ray Walston,who runs a film merch shop,they get some great gimmicks to go with the three films they show.

Those 3 films are Mosquito,a throw back to the 50s giant insect flicks. And this movie is in 3d. Loved the one scene we see from this film where a giant mosquito lands on a car roof. And shoves it's sucker through the roof and into a yokel's head. Then sucks his brain and everything else out. They have a great FX of the head collasping on itself that I still think looks amazing.

Another of the films  is Attack of the Amazing Electrafied Man,which like the Tingler has seats in the theater wired up to a board and whoever is at that board can give the people in the seats a nice shock. This reminds me of all the 40s era films where dudes get powers through accidents.

Last up is The Stench,filmed on SMELL O VISION. Like Polyester from John Waters.  

While going through the lot of stuff Walston brought they find a 4th film. Titled Possesser. So the students screen it and it shows stuff similar to what our lead Maggie has been dreaming. Odd stuff with fire and death. Seems the director of this thought lost film killed his family before he could shoot the final scene. And set a theater on fire where he was showing what he had shot of his film.

So while these films are airing to a packed house. Someone is not only killing off the students. But is a master of disquise.Which we learn when people we saw die show up in later scenes. 

We find out who the killer is. Our lead Maggie ,played by the great Jill Scholen who yall might remember from the original Stepfather film,gets captured by the killer and we learn who they are and why they are doing what they are doing. I know this isn't a film lots of have seen so I am not gonna full spoil the film.

Overall the film is just fun. But is is one I forgot about. Sure from 91 until 2010 or so I had that VHS I had recorded it on,same tape also had Subspecies 2 on it. And I would watch it maybe once every 5 years. 

I had really just forgotten about the film until I saw Code Red announce they were releasing it to DVD. FOund out there was a previous DVD release that was out of print,and IIRC it was 4:3 instead of OAR. I figured it was time to replace my well worn VHS tape. And since Code Red hinted it would be out soon I gave that tape away to a friend. 

Then I keep hearing that some fan has the DVD rights to the film and is putting out a ULTIMATE FAN EDITION. Also claiming that Code Red doesn't have the rights. And it started this online war of words that lasted what felt like 40 years.

Finally in the past 5 years,IIRC,Synapse finally released the ULTIMATE FAN EDITION. I think there is a blu ray release. But the cost of it was stupid high. So I passed.Figuring there would be a cheaper DVD release and I would get that. Plus not long after the blu ray got out someone sent my a rip of the film off the blu. I ain't seen a cheaper dvd release of the film so far. But Shudder has Popcorn and holy hell I think I might just drop that 35 or 40 bucks and get the blu ray. Cause this print on Shudder looks great. Way better than I remember it ever looking.

Popcorn is a nice meta slasher horror film. I like how it has ties to Deathdreams,in that they wanted Bob Clark to direct this but he turned it down so the guy that worked with him on Deathdreams directed this. Well he stared directing it and was firedd a few weeks into filming. Where he got replaced by one of the lead actors from PORKYS! Yep no joke. Just like Jill Scholen,she wasn't the original actress cast to play the lead. But when the director got replaced she did too. 

Popcorn gets a B+.

31 Days of Horror Day 20 I Know What You Did Last Summer

Title-I Know What You Did Last Summer
Source-Sony Pictures Triple Feature DVD

Roughly 21 years ago the first film in the I Know What You Did Last Summer was released. Not sure why but I never saw it. At the time I was seeing most horror films that got a major theatrical release.  But somehow I didn't see it until today.Sometime in late 2017 I found a triple feature DVD set at Dollar General. It was all 3 IKWYDLS movies and only cost 7 bucks. My plan at the time was to cover all 3 films in 2017's 31 Days of Horror. Then I just never got around to watching them,

After having breakfast today I wanted a horror movie I had never seen to watch. I like slashers and saw this triple feature pack sitting on my shelf. When I started the movie I only knew a few things about it. One was that it is based on a novel from the 70s.Secondly it was based on a script by Kevin Williamson. Back when he was still hot off Scream. Thirdly was the cast was a decent mixture of young stars that were just starting to get known. And finally that the killer used a giant hook to kill people.

Let's take a look at the cast. We got Jennifer Love Hewitt as the lead.

This was back when she was mega popular cause of Party of Five.Before this I had only seen her in comedies and she is good at comedy. But this movie showed me she can do drama also. And seems to have all the skills she needed to become a modern Scream Queen. Sadly as of this writing she has only done the two IKWYDLS films and no other horror films.

 Freddie Prinze Jr is the male lead. I have never found him to be a great actor. But he is much better in this film than he has been in the other films I have seen him in.

 Sarah Michelle Geller,and this was months before Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV show started,is decent as the prom queen archtype.Now I have said many times that on the show Buffy I loved pretty much everybody but Sarah Michelle Gellar. I was shocked that she was damn good in I Know What You Did Last Summer. She is great playing the self absorbed rich girl.

Ryan Phillippe is great as the rich asshole kid. You know the type. The kid that got a sports car the day he turned 15. The kid that was a dick but cause he had money people were friends with him.

That is our main four, but there are two others that stand out to me.

Up first is Johnny Galecki.Before this I just knew Johnny as the guy that always plays nerds and wimps. He was David on Roseanne,the nerd of Big Bang Theory and the son in Xmas Vacation. I was a bit shocked at how well he is at playing against type in this movie. You believe that he is a tough guy. And don't think of the wimps he normally plays.

Bridgette Wilson plays the older sister of Sarah Michelle Gellar. I do wonder why a actress with the talent Ms Wilson has why she doesn't do more movies. Hell I bet if you asked 10 people maybe 2 of them tops would even know who Bridgette Wilson is.

The  plot is fairly simple. Our 4 leads are out partying on 4th of July 1996. Freddie ends up driving Ryan's car. Because Ryan is shitfaced. They are going down a twisting road right by the ocean. Ryan is standing up halfway out the sunroof. And they end up hitting someone who appears out of nowhere. They decide to toss the body into the ocean.But right before they do this they find out the person is still alive.


Skip ahead a year. Jennifer Love Hewitt is home from college for the summer. And she receives a note that says I Know What You Did Last Summer. So she gathers the other 3 and they try to figure out who sent the note and why.

So while the movie is a slasher it is also a mystery. After going  thru a few red herrings we finally get the reveal on who the killer is.  Now I have seen piles of horror movies and read bunches of horror novels. And I didn't manage to guess who the killer is. And of course the final scene sets up the sequel.

I am shocked at how much I enjoyed the movie. I figured going into it I was gonna get a Scream ripoff. And the best part of the film would be seeing JLH in tight tops,and seeing her in tight tops is a nice added bonus of the movie. So I was majorly surprised at how well written and acted the movie is. It is almost as good as the original Scream.

The DVD has a few extras. The best of which is a commentary. Which is packed with info. This triple feature set has each film on  it's own DVD. I am guessing this is just a repacking of unsold copies of original releases.  I might before the month is over watch at least the second film. From what I have read the third film is barely related to the first 2 and was made years after them and went DTV.

I Know What You Did Last Summer gets a B+.

31 Days of Horror Day 23 Mirror,Mirror

Title-Mirror,Mirror
Source-DVD rip on Youtube

I got the Anchor Bay DVD of this, I think it is a boxed set of all 3 or 4 films from this forgotten 90s possession franchise. But it is packed up,so I found a rip on Youtube.

Give a tiny theatrical release Mirror,Mirror was a minor cult horror hit thanks to VHS and it airing fairly often on various cable movie channels.  I first saw it in early 91 on Showtime.

Megan,played by Rainbow Harvest, has recently lost her father . Then her mother moves them from Los Angeles to some rural town. Megan looks like a bad clone of Wynona Ryder in Beetlejuice. She gets picked  on and then get possessed and gains powers from a evil mirror. So kind of a goth chick Carrie.

Megan's lead tormentor is genre vet Charlie Spradling. A stunning brunette,who did lots of work for Full Moon and Roger Corman. Imagine a just a talented Kari Wuher.  But instead didn't know the right people so got stuck in the early 90s DTV Horror Scream Queen.

The always entertaining Karen Black plays Megan's mother. She was in a slew of 90s b horrors. Plus the great William Sanderson has a decent sized role.

Honestly this isn't worth paying what the out of print DVD sells for. But as a free view off YouTube it wasn't bad.

Mirror,Mirror gets a C.

31 Days of Horror Day 04 Night of the Living Dead 1990

Title-Night of the Living Dead 1990
Source-Columbia Tristar DVD

The Tom  Savini directed remake of the 68 classic that started the modern zombie genre. There really isn't many major changes to the script,outside of how different the character of Barbara is.

The acting is pretty damn good. Tony Todd is great as the lead. The late Tom Towles is also good. But Patricia Tallman stands out as Barbara. Instead of the mostly catatonic lump Barbara was in the original in this remake she is a take charge force of nature.

The FX work,which sadly got cut down to get a R rating,is pretty decent. I do wonder if this remake would work better for me if it was in b/w.Might have to try that out next time I watch it.

The ending is a big change. Barbara gets out of the farm house. And is part of the posse that comes back the next day. Sadly Ben,Tony Todd,has been bitten and comes out of the basement as a zombie.

About 4 years ago I got to meet Ms Tallman and asked her at least 20 questions about this film and Knightriders.She was super nice and seemed to really enjoy talking to the various fans at the con.

Night of the Living Dead 1990 gets a B-.

31 Days of Horror 2016 Day 08 Misery

Title-Misery
Source-New Line Home Video VHS

When I hear people talking about how there was no good horror coming out in the 90s until Scream,Misery is one of the first films I mention. Kathy Bates won an Oscar for her role as Annie Wilkes.

Months back I found a semi local store that still has a huge amount of VHS. Most of it seems to come from a few of the now closed local video stores.Plus it seems like I am the only person that comes in looking for VHS. I was trying to kill some time while waiting on someone,so went into the store just figuring I would look around for 20 minutes find nothing and leave. But fairly quick I saw that they must have restocked their VHS shelves. So that 20 minutes of looking around turned into about an hour of digging thru boxes and looking all over shelves for VHS.I had thankfully brought my laptop with me that day. So I went and grabbed it.Pulled up my list of all the movies/tv shows/etc I own and discovered I didn't own Misery. With the cheap prices the store wants for VHS I grabbed it.

Based on one of Stephen Kings best novels,Misery is the story of a writer and his number 1 fan.James Caan plays Paul. A writer who feels trapped. He has a series of best selling romance novels. But he is tired of that genre and wants to branch out. As is his tradition he goes way up in the mountains when he is writing the first draft of a new novel. He finishes the novel and is on his way back to his home when his car goes flying off the road.

When he wakes up he is in a bed. Seems Anne Wilkes,his NUMBER 1 FAN,found him. And  has him at her home until the snow clears enough for her to take him to a doctor.Thankfully she is a nurse so can help him heal.

She ends up reading his newest novel and reacts badly when the lead,Misery,dies. And this is when her evil side comes out. The rest of the movie is a cat and mouse game between our two leads. How far will Anne go to make sure Misery isn't dead? And will Paul ever be able to escape this lunatic's home?

This is one of the movies based on King's novels were I saw the movie first. Really there is only two major changes between the novel and the film. In the novel there is full chapters of the Misery romance novel. Having never read much of that genre I have no idea how well King goes about capturing the feel. To me it read like I expected a romance novel to read. THen the other change. In the film to make sure Paul can't escape,Anne takes a sledgehammer and smashes Paul's ankle in. Were as in the book I am pretty sure she cuts one of his feet off, Then uses a hot iron to cauterize the wound.

Misery is a damn good film. Caan should have been nominated for a best actor Oscar. And in my eyes the film should have gotten nominated also.The look of the film is bleak. It so perfectly captures the feel of being snowed in that even when I watch this during the summer I feel a bit cold.This is also one of the few King films that non-horror fans seem to enjoy.

Misery gets a A.