Music Box of Horrors

Tales from the Hood

Link posted on by moviebloke

(USA 1995)

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Rusty Cundieff’s anthology Tales from the Hood is a good idea: four vignettes of black life presented as horror stories — so, a horror flick with a message, more commentary than a “scary movie.” I see why Spike Lee attached his name to it (as executive producer).

Cundieff and cowriter Darin Scott pick material topics that still resonate more than 20 years later: racism, police brutality, domestic abuse, drugs, and black-on-black violence. The messages are strong, but unfortunately the writing always isn’t.

The best segment is “Hard Core Convert,” which is also the closer. Jerome a.k.a. Crazy K (Lamont Bentley) is a drug dealer shot in a gang hit. He wakes up in a Kafkaesue prison, where a stern nurse (Lira Angel) subjects him to rehabilitation methods straight from A Clockwork Orange. This particular piece and the way it’s executed are both powerful and memorable.

The second segment, “Boys Do Get Bruised,” takes on domestic abuse. It’s not bad, but it’s not great. The other two segments, “Rogue Cop Revelation” and “KKK Comeuppance,” fall flat.

Tales from the Hood targets the right notes, but it misses many of them. For one thing, the approach here is really heavy-handed. Plus, the impact is diluted by the silly bit that frames the stories: a funeral home in South Central Los Angeles run by weirdo Mr. Simms (Clarence Williams III). He tells the four stories to three “gangstas,” Ball (De’aundre Bonds), Bulldog (Samuel Monroe Jr.), and Stack (Joe Torry), who stumble into the home looking for drugs. I could have done without this device — it served as a distraction more than anything.

With Wings Hauser, Tom Wright, Anthony Griffith, Michael Massee, Duane Whitaker, David Alan Grier, Brandon Hammond, Rusty Cundieff, Paula Jai Parker, Corbin Bernsen, Roger Guenveur Smith, Art Evans, Rosalind Cash, Chris Edwards , Troy Cartwright, Brenden Jefferson, Tim Hutchinson, John A. Cundieff, Bobby McGee, Christina Cundieff, Ricky Harris, Darin Scott, Mark Christopher Lawrence, Scotty Brulee, Ryan Williams, Kamau Holloway, Tasha Johnson

Production: 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks

Distribution: Savoy Pictures Entertainment

98 minutes
Rated R

(Music Box) C-

Music Box of Horrors

Hot Dog Hands

Link posted on by moviebloke

(USA 2017)

Part comedy and part horror, Hot Dog Hands by Matt Reynolds is a squiggly little story involving bullying and body issues.

A woman (Gillian Wallace Horvat) becomes a recluse when her hands sprout plump fingers that look like hot dogs — and they won’t stop. The boys on her street notice; they stand in a group outside her house and chant, “Hot dog hands!” It’s upsetting to say the least.

A piece of junk mail leads the woman to a cure, but it’s not what she (or I) expected. It’s a weird but cute and kind of sweet solution that made me smile. Stuck between features of a horror movie marathon during the wee hours of the morning, it also gave me a jolt of energy that perked me up and allowed me to move onto the next film awake. Bravo!

Production: Matt Reynolds

Distribution: Matt Reynolds

6 minutes
Not rated

(Music Box) B

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mattreynoldstreats.com

Ginger Snaps

Link posted on by moviebloke

(Canada 2000)

“Shit, wrists are for girls. I’m slitting my throat.”

— Ginger Fitzgerald

Puberty is tough enough without your older sister turning into a werewolf. Just ask 15-year-old Brigitte Fitzgerald (Emily Perkins), who with her sib, Ginger (Katharine Isabelle), stages gory death scenes and takes pictures of them, like a pair of morose Cindy Shermans. When they were kids, they made a pact to die together. Their classmates think they’re weird.

A run-in with mean girl Trina Sinclair (Danielle Hampton) sparks a war. Walking through the woods on their way to exact revenge one October night with a full moon, Ginger gets her first period. She also gets attacked by a mysterious and savage beast — the same one responsible for eviscerating all the dogs in the neighborhood.

Ginger turns increasingly feral over the next few days, growing more aggressive and sexual. Her wounds, which heal almost immediately, are sprouting hair. Oh yeah, she’s also developing what appears to be…a tail?

Brigitte, or “B,” connects with cute, brooding dope dealer Sam (Kris Lemche), who struck and killed the beast while he was driving his van down the road where it ran after it attacked Gretchen. He’s got a recipe for what might be the cure. The clock is ticking as Gretchen gets farther out of control, and Halloween — with another full moon — approaches.

On paper — all I had going into it because I’d never heard of it — John Fawcett’s Ginger Snaps sounds dubious at best. The premise seems trite. The part about the period sounds stupid, and the analogy to “becoming a lady” is obvious.

Turns out, Ginger Snaps is surprisingly good. Incorporating familiar elements of teen movies and splatter flicks, Fawcett, who wrote the screenplay with Karen Walton, pushes the “suspension of disbelief” envelope. He knows just when to stop, though. There’s quite a bit of gore here. The special effects are dated but effective nonetheless.

What really sells this film, though, is the acting: Perkins and Isabelle evoke a warmth to their relationship despite their offputting personalities and a fierceness to their bond. They’re totally believable as sisters. The final scene, which involves only them, is downright sad. Crushing, even.

With Mimi Rogers, Jesse Moss, John Bourgeois, Peter Keleghan, Christopher Redman, Lindsay Leese, Wendii Fulford, Pak-Kong Ho, Lucy Lawless

Production: Motion International, Copperheart Entertainment, Water Pictures, Lions Gate Films, Oddbod Productions, TVA International

Distribution: Motion International (Canada), Unapix Entertainment Productions (USA), Lions Gate Films

108 minutes
Not rated

(Music Box) B-

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http://www.gingersnapsthemovie.com

Hellraiser

Link posted on by moviebloke

(UK 1987)

“Oh, no tears, please. It’s a waste of good suffering!”

— “Pinhead” (the Lead Cenobite)

Roger Ebert famously derided Clive Barker’s directorial debut, the sadomasochistic horror classic Hellraiser, calling it “without wit, style, or reason” for its “bankruptcy of imagination” (http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/hellraiser-1987). Well, talk about tearing your soul apart!

Hellraiser isn’t particularly scary, but it is creepy and fucking weird. I certainly don’t find it lacking wit, style, or imagination; quite the opposite. It’s a ridiculous, kinky, and bloody telenovela. Based on Barker’s short novel The Hellbound Heart, Hellraiser takes the idea of something in the attic to a place no one else has.

Larry (Andrew Robinson) and Julia Cotton (Clare Higgins) have a strained marriage. After leaving Manhattan to go live in his abandoned boyhood home somewhere on the Atlantic coast, Julia finds Larry’s brother — who’s her ex lover — Frank (Sean Chapman in the flashbacks and Oliver Smith in the present) reanimated without skin in the attic. The movie doesn’t explain it, but the novel does: Larry cuts his hand and drips blood onto the attic floor, right where Frank’s comeshot dried up in the floorboards. Nice.

An unrelenting hedonist, Frank lost his body and soul to demons in his quest for sexual gratification. It started with an antique puzzle box that opened a portal to hell and summoned the Cenobites, led by “Pinhead” (Doug Bradley), the apparent spokesman for the motley foursome. Now, Frank needs blood, which is where Julia comes in. Too bad Frank’s daughter, Kirsty (Ashley Laurence), keeps getting in the way.

The special effects look cheap and the plot is choppy. It isn’t clear at first whether the cuts to Frank and Julia getting it on are flashbacks or fantasy, so this detail could have been done better. Nonetheless, Hellraiser is totally engrossing (and at points, just gross). Barker makes a silly story bizarre enough to keep you interested in what happens next. Higgins effectively channels a tortured melodramatic ’50s B-movie damsel in distress. And her big ’80s hair and sunglasses are fabulous!

Perhaps the best thing Hellraiser has going for it, though, is its twisted sense of humor: all of this happens — and will happen again — because Frank thinks with his dick. Now that’s funny.

With Nicholas Vince, Simon Bamford, Grace Kirby, Robert Hines, Anthony Allen, Leon Davis, Michael Cassidy, Frank Baker, Kenneth Nelson, Gay Baynes, Dave Atkins, Oliver Parker

Production: Cinemarque Entertainment BV, Film Futures, Rivdel Films

Distribution: New World Pictures (USA), Entertainment Film Distributors (UK), Highlight Film (West Germany), Paraiso Films S.A. (Spain), Prooptiki (Greece), Roadshow Film Distributors (Australia), Toei Classic (Japan), Vestron Benelux (Netherlands)

94 minutes
Rated R

(Music Box) B-

Music Box of Horrors

http://www.clivebarker.info/hellraiser.html

Eye of the Cat

Video posted on by moviebloke

(USA 1969)

Ailurophobia, the irrational fear of felines, forms the basis for Eye of the Cat, a nifty little throwaway from the late Sixties. Despite what its trailer suggests, it’s not an outright horror film—it’s a suspense thriller that relies heavily on psychological tension, very much like Hitchcock did. This isn’t surprising: screenwriter Joseph Stefano previously penned Psycho. Those familiar with Hitchcock will notice a slight feel of Rope and The Birds. Plus, the external shots of San Francisco strongly recall Vertigo.

The plot rings familiar: cosmetologist Kassia Lancaster (Gayle Hunnicutt), whose name “sounds like a prison door slamming shut,” mysteriously and abruptly recruits philandering Wylie (big-eyed Michael Sarrazin) to help her execute a plot to get his rich and ailing stepmother, “Aunt” Danny (Eleanor Parker), to put him back in her will as her sole heir—and then kill her. Wylie’s brother, Luke (Tim Henry), lives with Aunt Danny and is getting in the way. There’s another problem: Wylie has a bad case of ailurophobia, and Aunt Danny’s house is loaded with cats.

Eye of the Cat‘s sum is greater than its parts, and overall I enjoyed this one quite a bit. The title and opening sequence are cool: the animated outline of a housecat slinks over scenes of San Francisco and gives way to split screens that start the story. Stefano and director David Lowell Rich are refreshingly frank and downright casual with their attitude toward and treatment of sex and drugs: nothing is merely implied here. In his first scene, Kassia yanks Wylie naked out of bed—away from the naked woman still next to him. There are references to having sex, they say “have sex,” and they actually do have sex in a few scenes. One unsettling scene between Wylie and Danny in the latter’s bed alludes to a past liason. Later, Wylie and Kassia go to a dope bar on a boat and smoke a joint. One of the patrons at the bar makes a joke about his own homosexuality, which may be one of the earliest openly gay characters I’ve seen.

All four actors, even Parker, possess an effortless and elegant allure. Sarrazin and Henry are hot, and they both have shirtless scenes. Hunnicutt is absolutely gorgeous in her smart skirts and big hair. Lowell Rich builds tension nicely, getting the actors to walk a very fine line between serious horror and camp, something most evident in a brilliant scene involving Danny on a hill in her wheelchair. Lalo Schifrin’s ominous score adds greatly to the mood here.

Except for a solitary orange tabby that clearly has Danny’s back, the cats—an overwhelming throng of them—curiously disappear after the story is set up, and don’t return until the climax. The film ends in a ridiculously horrific way—so bad, I laughed out loud with most of the audience. It’s a pity Eye of the Cat is not available for download or on DVD. It’s a fun movie.

102 minutes
Rated M

(Music Box) B-

Music Box of Horrors

Eyes of Fire

Posted on by moviebloke

(USA 1983)

I never heard of Eyes of Fire or anyone involved in it until it appeared on the roster for a local horror film festival. Featuring a team of inconsequentials—writer and director Avery Crounse completed two more projects I never heard of after this and most of the actors continued on to television roles—it’s a low budget fantasy/horror flick relegated to obscurity. It’s no wonder why.

Set in 1750 colonial America and told in flashback, Eyes of Fire follows vain and flighty missionary Will Smythe (Dennis Lipscomb), his small flock of devotees that includes his mistress, Eloise (Rebecca Stanley), and a ginger named Leah (Karlene Crockett) who everyone thinks is insane but is really a fairie, and Eloise’s estranged husband, Marion Dalton (Guy Boyd), as they stumble through the Eastern Woodlands looking for a safe haven. To escape attacking Shawnee natives, Dalton leads the group into a valley that Smythe takes to be “the promised land” and settles into the abandoned campsite there. Dalton is uneasy about staying. Leah also senses something amiss and starts seeing spirits—sometimes they’re clothed, sometimes they’re naked and covered in mud. They don’t look happy. An orphaned native girl (Rose Preston) appears on Smythe’s doorstep, and he takes her in to convert her to Christianity. Immediately, strange things start happening: Fanny (Sally Klein) disappears and is found in a coma, Meg (Erin Buchanan) is found hanging upside down from a tree, and a rotten skeleton pops up out of the dirt. !!! Leah figures out what’s going on: a devil-witch is trying to steal their souls and trap them all in the trees in the forest. Can she and Dalton stop the madness?

I’d be lying if I said Eyes of Fire isn’t silly. It takes itself so seriously, too. The story is easy to follow, but Crounse packs an awful lot into it: folklore, witchcraft, the supernatural, colonialism, ethnic superiority, religion, morality. Whatever points he makes are lost in cheesy special effects—lots of Tesla lightning, negative images, and distorted sounds. The trees have gruesome faces, and at one point they all puke bilge. The devil-witch looks like Captain Caveman made out of twigs. It all warrants a great big “whatever.” Even with its low-budget giveaways, though, I found this film weirdly fascinating—it plods along slowly but somehow kept me engaged. The simple stuff works best—the scene in the forest with white feathers covering the entrance to the valley (repeated later with pages torn out of Smythe’s books and spread all over the campsite) is beautifully ominous and visually arresting. Too bad there isn’t more of it.

86 minutes
Rated R

(Music Box) C-

Music Box of Horrors

Winter of the Witch

Link posted on by moviebloke

(USA 1970)

I never heard of this nifty gem of a short until I saw it, but it’s apparently quite big with Gen X. I can see why: a precursor to Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore and Scooby Doo with Bewitched and The Addams Family thrown in, it’s about a single mother (Anna Strasberg) who skips town (Manhattan) in her VW Bug with her young son, Nicky (Roger Morgan), and buys a dilapidated old Victorian mansion in the boonies for cheap. Real cheap: $400 cheap. Turns out, there’s a catch: the place is haunted by a gloomy and depressed 300-year old witch (Hermione Gingold) who’s given up on the world.

Adapted from the book Old Black Witch by Wende and Harry Devlin, screenwriter and director Gerald Herman turns in something unintentionally impressive. I can see why this is such a hit with members of my generation. Aside from a few nouveau social issues for the time (a single parent and a vaguely gay little boy) and the mysterious untold backstory of this mother-son team, Winter of the Witch is really fucking weird. What kid’s story mixes the occult and “magic pancakes” laced with something no one will identify? The damned pancakes make everyone who eats them happy, so… The quality of the film is cheap and eerie, adding to the mood. Plus, Burgess Meredith narrates.

Winter of the Witch is roughly the length of a sitcom episode, which makes me think it was a pilot that didn’t get picked up. Regardless, I love it! See for yourself below.

24 minutes
Not rated

(Music Box) B+

Music Box of Horrors