Thoughts on Cinema

The movie is much too frivolous to be taken seriously as it more hilarious in its kills and skewed ideologies.

SCARY FUN

Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde ( 1971)

Do I really need to explain anything, the title alone writes the whole story. Ralph Bates is the hapless doctor to Beautiful Martine Beswick’s Hyde, stalking the streets of london in Jack the Ripper mode.

Another winner from the house of Hammer, but you kinda knew that didn’t you?

 SCARY FUN

Basket case (1982)

Devoted big brother carries his deformed little brother in a wicker basket. The fun begins when he escapes and ready to do damage on unfortunate victims caught in its rampage. Rex Reed the critic once said “this is the sickest movie ever made”.

That sir is a compliment.

SCARY FUN

Howl (2015)

Not since Train to Busan or The Midnight meat wagon has shown community transit can be a real killer at times, along comes this low budget but expertly thrilling horror film of passengers  trapped on a stalled london train besieged by werewolves.

SCARY FUN

Saint Maud (2019)

A fervently religious nurse suffering from trauma, has an awakening of being possessed by God and be tasked to save a  sick patient from damanation, but the results are less than pious.

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House of Wax (1953)

Not that crap starring Paris Hilton but this original version from the horror icon himself, Vincent Price. A sculptor is badly hurt in a fire in trying to stop an unscrupulous partner in burning down the museum for insurance money, he returns later in another guise, this time to rebuild, but he isn’t using plaster of paris as foundation.

 The technicolor alone is fantastic to look at.

SCARY FUN

The Wailing 2016

A curse on a small village causes screaming inhabitants to kill their family members.  From the onset sounds pretty typical horror fare but this Korean import has a few tricks up its sleeve. Literally dividing situations into a chaotic stew of confusion and indecisions, where the characters and the audience are not sure where the line of evil originates or ends.

CHILLER SUSPENSE

Perfection 2018

Students get a lesson in deceit and manipulation in this psychological curriculum of horror. Practice makes perfect, give it a limb or two.

SCARY FUN

The Burning 1981

Make way Camp Crystal, this vintage hack and slash film gets better with age every year. Great gore fx by the hands of Tom Savini, plus an added bonus of seeing a Young Jason Alexander getting diced and sliced doesn’t hurt.

SCARY FUN

The Color out of Space  2019

A meteor crash lands in the forest and later is struck by mysterious bolts of lightning, transferring it into an unrecognizable form of color, affecting animals, plant life, and humans in grotesque ways. A great adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s short story and one of the few Nicolas Cage movies I can stand.

SCARY FUN

Curse of the Werewolf 1961

You got to have at least one rampaging hairy beast in the mix. Exemplary Hammer film with a first-time debut by the legendary Oliver Reed. Not since The Wolfman’s Larry Talbot have we seen a more tragic and sympathetic performance.

OLD SCHOOL CLASSIC

Peeping Tom 1960

Another overlooked gem. A serial killer creates a film camera that has a bladelike attachment which impales the victim while he films their reaction. Hated by critics at the time of its release, the movie has been revalued in praise by contemporaries of today. Definitely worth a look for art-house horror fans.

OLD SCHOOL CLASSIC

The man with the x-ray eyes 1963

You know the drill, overly ambitious scientist creates droplets to increase vision, but the formula does much more than seeing underneath people’s clothes. This Roger Corman film has a Lovecraftian concept, that despite the limited budget, still has an unsettling nature as Ray Milland’s Doctor character sees beyond space into the abyss.

OLD SCHOOL CLASSIC

The Brood 1979

Mentioning the name of David Cronenberg you pretty much know you going down that rabbit hole of body horror. An experimental treatment called pyschoplasmic therapy is used for suppressed mental issues, allowing patients to release their emotions psychically to other parts of the body.

Hearing that you may want to keep certain thoughts on the inside, all this and another fine Oliver Reed performance.

SCARY FUN

The Invitation 2015

Admittedly this is a slow burn of a movie, but that’s what makes it work,  a  melancholy setting is only the veneer of something sinister brewing slowly underneath.

A divorced couple reunites with friends and guests to participate in a therapeutic form of handling sorrow through A strange form of “spiritual philosophy”. Only in this case, you don’t get better…if at all.

CHILLER SUSPENSE

Antiviral 2012

The body horror doesn’t fall far from the tree as Brandon Cronenberg takes up the torch from his father David.

Celebrity worship is taken one step further as clients can now purchase pathogens and other diseases from their favorite artists. Add other things like the black market, a market selling edible human cells, and being your own incubator, it’s a fun city for all.

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