31 Days of Horror 2024 Day 30 I'm Dangerous Tonight

 

TITLE-I'm Dangerous Tonight

SOURCE-Kino Lober Blu ray

I love Tobe Hooper. Yea he is the Reggie Jackson of Horror,in that Tobe usually either hit a home run or struck out. This is the rare non-home run from Tobe that is worth seeing.

Released in 1990 on USA Network. We got Madchen Amick as the lead. A young college student who helps take care of an elderly relative. Anthony Perkins is one of her professors.

After getting some red cloth in a trunk at a sale,which turns out the cloth is evil. Madchen  makes a dress out of it. A dress that makes whoever wears it incrediblely attractive to the opposite sex and violent.

Being made for Cable this is bloodier than I expected. And the acting is fine. Besides the two names I've mentioned you got Dee Wallance in a great part as a crazy lady that gets the red dresss. And in a rare appearance with hair R. Lee Ermy.

Yea sure if you are not a huge Hooper fan this is one to just find streaming. The film is decent but nothing amazing. Thankfully Kino Lober loaded this blu ray down  with extras.

2 commentaries. Piles of featurettes. And for a made for Cable movie it looks and sounds great.

I'm Dangerous Tonight gets a C+

31 Days of Horror 2015 Day 25 Dance of the Dead

Masters of Horror Season 1 Episode Dance of the Dead
Source-Anchor Bay Blu Ray

When this first aired I missed it. I recorded it and didn't see it for at least a month. All the reviews I read were calling it horrible and "another dud from one hit wonder Tobe Hooper". Now I believe Mr Hooper has had way more than one good film. So when I did sit down to watch it I was ready for it to be horrible or be great.

Set in the near future. After some kind of biological war. Our lead is a teenage girl. She works at her mother's diner. And one day meets some older boys. Who invite her to come out partying with them that night. They want her to come with them to the city and goto a club. But of course her mother doesn't want her to go.

She ends up going. The club they goto is ran by Robert Englund. Who using electric shocks causes zombie like people to "dance" on the stage. We find out these "zombies" need blood to live. And the two boys that brought our lead to the club have been providing that blood to Robert. Then a dancer comes out who our lead girl knows. It is her older sister. The one her mother had told her had died.

Our lead ends up confronting Englund about this right around the time her mother shows up to drag her back home. We find out that the sister got hooked on hard drugs,they are everywhere in this near future. So the mother pretty much killed her then sold her undead body to Robert Englund. The film then skips ahead some time. We are back in the club. Our lead is a scumbag like the two boys that took her. And now her mother has become the new lead dancer at the club.

I have always enjoy post apocalyptic fiction. And this film is kind of a new spin on that.Pretty sure this is based on a short story. I need to track it down and see how much is cut or changed in the episode. I do understand why people might not have liked this episode. Coming after 2 or 3 really good episodes it is a a very different type of horror. And lots of the online horror fans seem to either parrot what certain horror podcasts say or for some reason legit believe the only good film Tobe Hooper has done was Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Dance of the Dead gets a C.

31 days of Horror 2012 day 10

The Funhouse
1981
4 Movie Marathon Cult Horror Collection Universal DVD

For many years this was the one Tobe Hooper film I had not seen. Not really sure why. I can remember seeing the VHS in various video stores. I just never rented it. Then I found this 4 movie set for $5. Since I didn't have The Funhouse or Serpent and the Rainbow on DVD I picked it up. I know plenty of online horror fans that claim Tobe has only done one good film. But really beside the original TCM,TCM 2,The Funhouse,Lifeforce and Toolbox Murders are all good to great films from a guy who is one of my favorite directors.

Amy and her best friend Liz go to the local carnival with their boyfriends. After wandering around the midway for a few hours. Liz's boyfriend comes up with the great idea of them all spending the night inside the carnival's dark ride. While this is all happening We see that the guy wearing a Frankenstein's monster mask,who runs the dark ride,has gotten the fortune teller to come to his home. Which is inside the dark ride,it seems this guy has something wrong with him and he pays the fortune teller to let him fuck her. But as soon as she touches his penis he ejaculates. She tells he it is over and he freaks out and kills her. Amy and her friends see all this threw some cracks in the floor. They also see when this freak's father shows up and tells him he knows he isn't allowed to kill anyone from the carnival. While Amy's friends are watching this happen ,one of their cigarette lighters drops through the cracks in the ceiling,thus alerting the freak and his father that someone is watching them. So we get a nice long chase through the funhouse. We get to see what the freak looks like without his mask on and whoever did the FX work did a great job.

After seeing the film the first time I did some research online and found out that Dean Koontz did a novelization of the film under a different name. Well my local library happens to have the novelization on the shelves. So I checked it out to read. Wow the novelization adds a bunch to the film. In the novel we find out that Amy's mom at one time was married to the freak's dad. And the freak is Amy's half brother. We also learn that Amy is pregnant. And get more back story on the freak and the carnival. So if you enjoy The Funhouse track down the novelization and give it a read it will really add to your enjoyment of the film. The Funhouse gets a B-.

31 days of horror Year 3 day 08

Toolbox Murders
2004
Lionsgate DVD

This is Tobe Hooper's remake of the 70's film. Now since Lifeforce I have not cared for most of Tobe's films. But this one is a return to form for him. It has that same creepy vibe that all good Hooper films have. I had been wanting to see it and had added it to my Netflix queue. But I ended up finding it in the Walmart $5 dump bin. So I took a chance on it. Figuring that for $5 bucks if I didn't like it ,I could give it away to someone.

The film starts off with Sheri Moon Zombie heading back to her apartment. And once she gets in it she is attacked by someone wearing a full face ski mask. The killer brutally kills her. We jump ahead a few weeks and a new couple is moving into the apartment complex. The wife is played by Angela Bettis. Who is a great actress but she is way too thin. She is so thin she looks like she is suffering from anorexia. Quickly she meets her next door neighbor. Who is a musician and has a abusive boyfriend. She hears the woman screaming. It seems the killer is attacking the musician lady with a nail gun. But once the cops arrive the musician lady isn't in her apartment. Well this happens a few more times with Angela hearing stuff and calling the cops. But by the time they arrive nothing is there.

One day while doing laundry Angela meets up with this older man that has lived in the complex since it was first opened 70+ years ago. He starts telling her some of the history of it. And she goes down to the courthouse to do some further investigation. She finds out that the man that designed the complex had ties to various occult stuff . And the strange symbols she keeps seeing all over the complex are mystic runes. Well after some more adventures she finds the killer's hiding space and he starts chasing her all over the complex.

I really enjoyed this film. When I first saw it I had never seen the original The Toolbox Murders. Now I have and really the films don't have much in common. Most of the kills are impressive. The nail gun kill is very well done. The acting is over all pretty good. The DVD has some deleted scenes,a trailer and 2 commentaries. The first commentary has Tobe Hooper and the two writers. The second one has the producers. So for the $5 I paid I got a great deal. Toolbox Murders gets a B+.

31 days of horror Year 2 day 27

Texas Chain Saw Massacre

Ahh this is not only my favorite horror film ever,but in my top 5 favorite films ever. I first saw this film at the drive-in with my dad and my cousin. I was 3 years old and Dad figured I would fall asleep before the film started. But it turned out I stood up on the backseat and watched the entire film. Turns out this was the first movie I ever saw. The film starts out with 5 hippies in a van heading to a remote location in rural Texas. They are heading to one of their grandfather's old houses. On the way they pick up a hitchhiker that after being just plain strange attacks the one hippie that is in a wheelchair. They throw the hitchhiker out and he marks the side of the van with blood. After finding the old house,two of the hippies go off to what they are told is an old swimming hole. Well it is dried up and they see a house off in the distance. So they go to see if they might be able to get some gas. Big mistake,cause this is the Sawyer family house and they both run into Leatherface. This is a film that once it starts the intensity level never backs down. From the first kill to the final "dinner" scene it is a full throttle attack on your senses. The grain of the film stock and the various strange sounds add to the realism of the film and help make the viewers uneasy. One thing that stands out is how most people act like this is one of the goriest films ever,but really besides the scene in the van ,there is very very very little blood on screen. Most of the violence is implied and left off screen. Another thing most people miss on first viewing is that Leatherface has more than one mask. During the dinner scene he is wearing a mask that has a more womanly look to it. Texas Chain Saw Massacre gets a perfect A+.