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Friday, October 26, 2018
31 Days Of Horror Day 26 Frontier(S)
Source-Lionsgate Unrated DVD
Back in 2006 the After Dark Horrorfest started. Which was 8 new horror films. They would each play one night at a theater.And it looked like every year around Halloween we would get 8 new horror films in a theater. But the After Dark Horrorfest was badly done. Very few theaters bothered showing the movies. AFAIK you could say pay 50 bucks and get a ticket that let you into every film in the fest. Nope you had to buy a ticket each night. So most people seemed to have seen these "8 Films to Die For" on home video. Frontier(S) was part of the second batch off After Dark Horrorfest films. And cause of it getting a NC-17 from the MPAA it didn't play many theaters.
After an really right wing candidate is elected as the president of France a group of Arab young adults decide to use the riots in Paris as cover while they try to escape. But they need money. So during the riots they pull off a robbery. During the robbery one of the guys is shot. 2 members of the group take him to a hospital,while the other two members take the money and head out of town. At the hospital the guy who got shot tells the other two to run. They contact their friends that have already left and are told to come to an inn way out in the countryside.
Not long after the call the two that are at the inn get brutalized by the owners of the inn. Seems the inn is ran by some secret Nazis. And they use the inn and it's isolated location as a way to kill people they find inferior. The two make it from the hospital to the inn and then all hell breaks loose.
Frontier(S) feels a bit like the French version of Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Isolated location. A group of young adults being stuck out in the middle of nowhere.Hell we even get a dinner scene that is very similar to the one in TCM. And way way way more on screen blood and gore than the original TCM had.
The FX work is fucking great. There is a few scenes that turned my stomach,which doesn't happen often. Out of all the "new wave" of French extreme horror coming out in the mid 2000s this is the best I have seen. I am betting close to 10 minutes would have to be cut out to get this an R rating. The acting is pretty good. The entire film is in French and the DVD I have only has French audio. So you gotta read the English subtitles.
Frontier(S) gets a B+.
Thursday, October 25, 2018
31 Days Of Horror Day 25 Nightmare on Elm Street 2 Freddy's Revenge
Source-Svengoolie airing
Yep back before he got onto MeTV,Svengoolie would sometimes air fairly modern films. Thankfully various fans recorded some of these episodes. And I managed to get a DVD-R copy of Sven's airing of Nightmare on Elm Street 2.
After the original Elm Street film was a huge hit a sequel was quickly put into production. Hitting theaters a bit less than a year after the original came out,Elm Street 2 was a big hit. Sure most of the people that saw it didn't care for it. But it took a few weeks for word of mouth to get around.
Mark Patton plays Jesse. The new kid in town. His family has just moved to Springfield and they are living in Nancy's old home. Fairly quickly Jesse starts having nightmares about Freddy. But besides these nightmares Jesse isn't doing to bad. Sure he is the new kid but he has already made a new friend.
Jesse ends up getting into a fight during gym class. To punish both guys the coach makes them stay after school and Jesse and Grady become friends.
Lisa comes over after school to hang out with Jesse. And they find Nancy's old diary. In which they see she had been having similar nightmares to Jesse.Then odd stuff starts happening around the house. Like when the family bird just burst into flames.
The Dad,played Clu Gulager,blames all this on Jesse. Jesse's nightmares get worse.And he starts to wander around town late at night. One night he wanders into a bar. Discovers it is a gay leather bar and sees the school coach there. To punish Jesse for being in the bar the coach takes Jesse back to the school and makes him run laps. Jesse ends up disappearing in the steam in the shower room. And is replaced by Freddy. Who kills the coach. Jesse appears again and is shocked to see he is wearing Freddy's fright glove.
The next night Jesse goes to Lisa's pool party. They end up off in one of the pool houses and start making out.
I clearly remember that when this came out most people hated it. With the major complaint being how in this film Freddy can come into the real world fairly easy. Which is very different than it was in the first film.
In the 30+years since this movie came out there has been much talk about the not so subtle homosexual theme to the film. You got the gay leather bar. The very odd dance Jesse does in his room. And hell Jesse's friend Grady points out that Lisa wants Jesse to bang her and Jesse runs off to go sleep in Grady's bedroom. The director of the film swears that all of this is just people reading way too much into the movie. But there is too much in the movie to leads to this conclusion to say it wasn't done on purpose.
Sven's segments are decent. They don't have the polish of his segments now that he is on a national channel. But they are fairly entertaining. And help make up for the film being edited for TV. I was a bit surprised at how little got edited out. I know there was either no or very little nudity in the movie. And the violence and gore were not at extreme levels. Really most of what got edited out for the Svengoolie airing is the foul language.
Nightmare on Elm Street 2 Freddy's Revenge gets a C.
Wednesday, October 24, 2018
31 Days Of Horror Day 24 Dead Men Walk
Source-Count Gore Devol's airing on Vimeo
Back right before Valentine's Day 1943 PRC,Producers Releasing Corporation,released Dead Men Walk. George Zucco plays a set of twins,Dr Lloyd Clayton and Elwyn. The Dr kills off his twin cause of the twin involvement in occult ceremonies.
But the Dr waited to long to do this. Cause his twin comes back from the dead. Elwyn comes back as some kind of supernatural creature that murders the villagers by draining their blood. Yea I know it sounds like Elwyn is a vampire. But in the movie he is never referred to as a vampire. And seems to show none of the normal vampire weaknesses.
Dr Lloyd and his niece,Gayle,find out that Elwyn is back. And Lloyd realizes the only way for them to be safe is to kill his brother. Lloyd traps Elwyn in the library and sets it on fire. But the Dr is trapped in there. So they both die.
The cast is pretty decent.
George Zucco plays the two brothers.I now want to see more movies with him. He has this odd charisma on screen. That while he isn't a great actor,you still can't take your eyes off him.
Since Dead Men Walk is in the public domain it shows up on lots of DVD horror movie packs. But I watched it this time on Count Gore Devol's Vimeo channel. The Count's segments are really entertaining. I was surprised he didn't get into more of the history of this movie.
Dead Men Walk gets a C+.
Tuesday, October 23, 2018
31 Days of Horror Day 23 Captain Kronos Vampire Hunter
Source-Paramount DVD
Some of y'all might have noticed I rarely mention Hammer films. Mostly cause there is so few of the classic Hammer films I enjoy. As a kid I would read about the Hammer horror films in various books and magazines,but I never saw them on TV or for rent at the video store. It wasn't until early 90s that I started seeing most of the Hammer horror films. And it didn't take long for me to figure out I am just not a big fan of Hammer's horror movies.
I had been hearing for years how Captain Kronos was the best of the Non-Lee/Cushing vampire films. So in 2004 when I found this DVD for $5 I grabbed it. Figuring I would watch it at least twice.Two times cause it has a commentary. After the first viewing I enjoyed it enough to keep it. Then after listening to the commentary I knew I was going to keep the DVD.
A village has been hit by a rash of strange deaths. People keep aging faster than normal. So Dr Marcus calls in his Army friend Captain Kronos. Kronos and his assistant Grost show up. They are professional vampire hunters. After reviewing the evidence Captain Kronos figures out it is a vampire causing the deaths. But not your normal type of vampire,this one drains youth instead of blood.
After another attack,the Captain and his hunchback sidekick head off to investigate. On their way they run into Carla,a young Gypsy woman. Carla is played by Caroline Munro. And she joins our duo in their fight against this youth draining vampire.
Our heroes learn that since this isn't your normal type of vampire the normal methods of killing a vampire will not work. So they have to figure out a way to kill this powerful creature.
From my research this movie was suppose to be the start of a new vampire franchise from Hammer. And it is one I wish had happened. Sadly the film didn't do that well and not long after it Hammer was having money problems.
Thankfully in 2017 Titan comics published a 4 issue Captain Kronos comic. I read the first issue and it is pretty good. Now I just gotta find a trade collecting the series.
Captain Kronos Vampire Hunter gets a C+.
Monday, October 22, 2018
31 Days of Horror Day 22 Die-ner(Get It?)
Source-Echo Bridge 10 movie DVD set
Remember just 3 years ago? Back when the $5 DVD bin at Walmart was packed with Echo Bridge and Mill Creek Horror multipacks. Lots of these packs I would buy to see one movie. Or I would buy one when I knew I was going on a long trip and would need a few things to watch.
The pack Die Ner is on I bought cause of one film. That film is Zipperface. A fairly obscure slasher from 1991. After watching and loving Zipperface the pack got put back on my shelf. Today I needed something to watch. So I grabbed a bunch of those multipacks and picked a film at random.
Die Ner starts off with Ken entering a roadside diner out in the middle of nowhere. Ken makes small talk with the waitress,in this small talk he reveals he is a serial killer. He then kills the waitress and the cook. He is about to leave when a arguing couple comes in. So Ken poses as the cook. Thinking he can cook their food. And either kill them or wait till they leave and leave himself.
But there is a twist,anyone that dies comes back as a zombie. So we got a serial killer along with an arguing couple who have to face off against zombies in a tiny rural diner.
The film tries it's best to blend horror and comedy. And manages to work about half the time. The acting is decent. It being a DTV horror I don't expect much from the actors and I got more than I expected. The FX work is pretty decent. Looks like it is mostly practical FX work.
What I find odd is outside North America this movie goes under a different title.
Die Ner(Get It?) gets a D+.
Sunday, October 21, 2018
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