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Friday, October 8, 2021
31 Days of Horror 2021 Day 08 Silent Night Deadly Night 4
After a decent start of a woman falling from way up above. And appearing to have suffered from spontaneous combustion. A reporter starts to look into this. Which leads to a cult made up of Wiccan women. And this cult of women has Clint Howard as their homeless insane lackey.
Now if you have a fear of bugs avoid this film. There is so many insects in this film. Sooo Soooo many. All cause the Wiccan's use them in their rituals and stuff. The various bug FX look really good. I remember reading in Fangoria that Screaming Mad George did the Special Effects work in this film. And it does appear to have the high quality look of George's FX work.
Honestly this feels like Halloween III Season of the Witch. Mostly since this film goes in such a different direction of the previous 3 films,plus well ya the supernatural aspect of this film and Halloween III.
Directed by Brian Yuzna,who usually makes great b-horror films,Silent Night Deadly Night 4 is the forgotten entry in this almost forgotten holiday horror franchise. And as of this writing there is no Blu Ray release of part 4. The DVD,which is part of a 3 pack with parts 3 and 5 is long out of print. The VHS release was never easy to find. And no streaming service has the movie.
Silent Night Deadly Night Part 4 gets a C-.
Thursday, October 7, 2021
31 Days of Horror 2021 Day 07 Leprechaun in the Hood
SOURCE-Streamed on VUDU
Back earlier this year I grabbed a pack that was the first 7 Leprechaun films on Blu Ray and they included Digital copies. Was looking for something to watch today. Remembered I had Leprechaun 5.
The film starts off in the 70s. Ice T manages to steal the Leprechaun's flute and also make the Leprechaun back into his statue form.
Skip ahead to I'm guessing 2000,when the film came out,and a shitty rap act is trying to become big stars. They end up blowing up their gear. So decide to rob Ice T and use what they steal to buy more gear. One of the rappers ,Postmaster P IIRC,grabs the flute.They also remove a large gold necklace off the statue of the Leprechaun Ice T keeps in his office. Of course removing this necklace brings the Leprechaun back to life.
Not long after this P figures out when he plays the flute he has control over people. And now this group of crappy rappers has not only Ice T after them,but also the Leprechaun.
Sure this isn't a great film. But by the 5th entry in this series you know what you are getting going in. A stupid but funny horror film. Usually with some decent gore. And this entry is one of the funniest ones in the franchise.
The major drawback to the film is our leads aren't very likeable. So I ended up wanting the Leprechaun to kill them. This is the same thing that happened in the later entires in the Friday the 13th series of films.
I'm guessing this film did fairly well,because the next entry is also in the hood. I have noticed that the later films in the Leprechaun franchise are much better than the first 2 films.
From what I can find out this was the last film in the series to come from Tristar. Since Tristar folded not long after the movie came out. And it is the next to last film to have Warwick Davis as Lubdan the Leprechaun.
Leprechaun in the Hood gets a C+
Wednesday, October 6, 2021
31 Days of Horror 2021 Day 06 The Dead Zone
SOURCE-Stephen King Movie&TV Collection DVD from Paramount
Back in 2020 this DVD showed up cheap during the Black Friday sale. I looked at it and figured out I only owned two things on this. So for the 10 bucks it cost figured it was worth that to get 5 King movies/mini series I didn't own.
Woke up today to a surprise. Normally I know way in advance if I will have the house to myself. I woke up,after Maggie was howling at my door,to find out I was the only one here. So I hooked up the blu ray player in the living room and tossed in The Dead Zone.
Been trying to think which Cronenberg film is better known to the general public. Is it The Fly or is it The Dead Zone. I'm going with the Fly,but betting The Dead Zone is a close second.
Based on one of King's better novels this film was directed by David Cronenberg. We got Christopher Walken as Johnny Smith. A man that has a car accident. He ended up in a coma for 5 years. When he wakes up from the coma he now has the ability to see the future when he touches someone.
This new ability of his becomes known the to the general public and Sheriff asks for help solving a series of murders in a smallish town. Johnny finds out that the Sheriff's deputy is the killer. They,Johnny and the Sheriff,rush to the home the deputy shares with his mother and before they can arrest him,the deputy kills himself in a gruesome way.
This ,along with learning his girlfriend from before the coma has gotten married and had a kid,causes Johnny to become a recluse. During this time Johnny gets hired to tutor a rich kid. He sees that in the future the kid is gonna go thru the ice on a frozen pond and die. "THE ICE IS GONNA BREAK!" When the kid's father keeps his kid at home and the ice does break Johnny figures out that the futures he is seeing can be changed.
Johnny ends up going to a politcal rally for a third party candidate who is running for the Senate. Johnny shakes his hand and sees in the future this man will become President and start a nuclear war.
So the rest of the film is Johnny doing all he can to stop Greg Stilson from winning a seat in the Senate. After debating on if he should kill Stilson,Johnny decides to kill Stilson himself. He hides up in the balcony of a place Stilson is giving a speech. Johnny shoots but misses an Stilson grabs a kid and uses the kid as a human shield.Before Johnny can take another shot he is killed by one of Stilson's bodyguards. Stilson comes over to gloat about this. Smith grabs his hand and sees that the public will learn of Stilson's using a kid as a human shield and Stilson will not win. Johnny then dies knowing he has prevented the horrible future from happening.
Now I have read the book this is based on a few times. And honestly while the movie leaves out some stuff it is a great adaptation of this novel.
The cast is really good. Besides Walken as Johnny you got Martin Sheen as Greg Stilson. Sheen is great playing a politicion who only cares about himself and not the people he claims to be helping. The other stand out in the cast is Tom Skerritt as the Sheriff that asks Johnny to help him solve the murders.
I'm guessing the budget for this wasn't huge. Maybe 8 or 9 million.But it never looks cheap or low budget.
The DVD in this set is the same disc that was released years ago. You get all the special features from that old DVD. Most of which are not that long. Most feel like stuff you would see on HBO back in the 80s between the films they were airing. I do wish David Cronenberg had did a commentary for the film. Or hell get Walken to do one.
Overall this is a great film. And one of the better 80s adaptations of a Stephen King work to cinema.
The Dead Zone gets a A-.
Tuesday, October 5, 2021
31 Days of Horror 2021 Day 05 Silver Bullet
SOURCE-Paramount DVD
I was sure I had reviewed this years ago for 31 Days of Horror. Looked and nope. Based on King's novella Cycle of the Werewolf this film hit theaters in 1985. Back when Corey Haim was a superstar and before most people realized Gary Busey was insane.
Set back in 1976 this film tells the story of a brother and sister. They live in a fairly tiny town. The brother is in a wheelchair. Plus they have Gary Busey as their crazy wacky drunk uncle.
This town has been having some mysterous deaths. One man is loses his head near the railroad tracks. Another person who is suicidal is killed in a bloody way.
All these deaths scare the townfolk. So a curfew is put into effect. Which cancels the town's 4th of July celebrations. But Busey and his niece and nephew figure out something is up.
The new preacher in town is also a werewolf. And now it is up to Busey and his niece and nephew to kill this holy man werewolf.
Before getting this on DVD I doubt I had seen the film in at least 20 years. All I remembered was the tricked out wheelchair Corey Haim gets. And that the preacher is the werewolf. What I had forgotten is how well acted this is. Plus how the FX work is pretty good.
I'm shocked at how much is done on the small budget of 7 million. And the film didn't get the best reviews. But back in the mid 80s most of your major movie reviewers hated horror.
Anyways Silver Bullet gets a B+.
Monday, October 4, 2021
31 Days of Horror 2021 Day 04 American Guinea Pig Song of Solomon
SOURCE-Unearthed Films Blu Ray
Back in 2015 or so I heard rumors about some company getting the rights to make a new series of films in the infamous Guinea Pig franchise. Turns out the company was Unearthed Films. And so far the American Guinea Pig Films,like the Japanese ones,have divided the horror fan base. Some people see them are well made gore films. Others think they are cheap cash grabs.
Back in 2020 around the middle of October I had some Amazon giftcards left over from my birthday the previous summer. Was trying to think of stuff I wanted that I had never gotten so far. Was looking at Jim Van Bebber films. Saw that he was in Song of Solomon and ordered the Blu Ray.
A young female witnesses her father's suicide,it is a pretty violent and gory suicide. Mary,the young female, starts to act strange. Which causes her mother to get some help. Nothing seems to help Mary. And then her eye's turn black. Cut to Father Blake,Jim Van Bebber,who is called in to exorcise Mary.
Sure this sounds a bit like the Exorcist. And yea in some ways Song of Solomon is a Exorcist clone. But the Exorcist never got this extreme. And from what I have read the Exorcist didn't use De Exorcismus Et Supplicationibus Quirbusdam,the Roman Catholic book on how to perform an exorcisium,but the director of Song of Solomon used that book along with a bunch of other fairly unknown and/or forgotten Christian texts to make this film as close to reality as they could get.
Now Song of Solomon isn't a film for everyone. The gore is fairly well done and stomach turning. As of a few weeks ago Song of Solomon was streaming on Tubi. Tubi is free to anyone in the US or Canada. They show various films and movies uncut for free. But you do get ad breaks. But that is a good way for someone to try out this film without buying it.
American Guinea Pig Song of Solomon gets a B.
Sunday, October 3, 2021
31 Days of Horror 2021 Day 03 Violent Shit
SOURCE-Synapse DVD
In 90 or 91 at a convention I learned about Andreas Schnaas. This homemade gore film set in West Germany became a huge underground hit. With copies of the unsubbed German dialogue film being traded and sold all over the US. Even not understanding German the film was easy to follow.
Karl is a young male and has an abusive mother. He kills her with his trusty meat cleaver. 20 years later Karl escapes custody. And from then till the end of the film we get a series of events so that various people are off in the countryside near Karl. Karl wanders up kills then in graphic ways and wanders off.
After each kill we see that for some reason Karl is falling apart Near the end Karl finds Jesus in a church. Jesus is killed and Karl climbs up inside the corpse like he is on Hoth and Jesus is a tautaun.
Not long after this Karl kills a few more outside the church.He rips himself open and reveals a baby.
I got this film as part of Synapses Violent Shit Collection. A cheap and easy to find way to see all these films. There is 4 or five films total in the Violent Shit series. And there is no other way to get them in English so easily.
For being an amatuer film done on a very low budget I was surprised at how good the gore effects are. The acting..well it is not that good. But I've seen much worse acting in low budget horror movies.
After seeing this film in German on a bootleg VHS decades ago I had been wanting to see the film and the first 2 sequels for a long time. But I just kept forgetting to order a copy. Then a friend last year was on a horror/gore kick. He bought the Synapse set and raved about it. I took the chance and ordered the set and wow it is worth the money.
Violent Shit gets a B-.
