6WH: Oct 30

Burial Ground (1981) directed by Andrea Bianchi
A guy I work with happens to be a huge horror movie fan and recommended I check this one out. Saying that it was 90 minutes of watching papier-mâché heads explode may be a little harsh, but that's what it felt like. Worth it just to see Peter Bark, a really creepy-looking little person who plays the roll of the child in the movie. He has an oedipal relationship with his mother, but, since the actor is really an adult, they can get away with it. Tip: if your son ever comes back from the dead, never offer to breastfeed him. (6/10)

6WH: Oct 29

Phantasm IV: Oblivion (commentary by Don Coscarelli, Reggie Bannister and Angus Scrimm) (2005)
More than likely recorded after their P2 commentary session, so they were good and warmed up (or, it was just that their memories were a decade fresher and easier to recall). Angus doesn't have too much to say in this one, but I think that's because he's too polite to interrupt and Don and Reggie, who have a constant stream of anecdotes to discuss. In fact, sometimes they're so busy talking about one story, they will neglect to comment on something cool happening in the movie at that moment... but that's a minor complaint. Few silences, good background info and a trio a buddies hanging out talking about something they love. Yep, this is how it's done. (8/10)

Phantasm IV: Oblivion: Behind the Scenes (2008)
Phantasm: Actors Having a Ball (2005)
Phantasmagorical Mystery Tour (2005)
Phantasm: Genesis (2005)
Phandom (2005)

Phantasmagoria directed by Jake West (2005)
Pretty much all I wanted in a feature-length documentary about the series. All of the major players are interviewed: two Coscarellis, all four main actors and even Kathy "Lady in Lavender" Lester. The first half is spent discussing P1 with the remaining 45 minutes giving equal shakes to the three sequel. For me, there was a lot of repeat information -- having just watched all of the commentaries and every featurette of the series that exists -- but it's always nice to have everything collected into one, definite spot.

Poor Mike. You can tell he's still pissed off about P2. It's not that he gets angry, but he starts to blink a lot and look away while talking about it. Poor Bill. He was pained that his character turned evil in P4. The brotherly love between the two actors is real, thanks to the fun of filming P1, and he enjoyed that it showed in the movies. Poor Reg. All of his songs got cut from P1. Not that this is, in any way, a whoa-is-me documentary. But, those were three things I hadn't known about before.

Hopefully, if P5 ever gets made, the same crew will update this documentary to include it. It's just too bad the North American DVD release of P1 only got an edited version of this. (8/10)

And, that's it. My unofficial Phantasm Halloween celebration has come to its conclusion. I've exhausted every piece of Tall Man-related video I've got in the house. While The Thing may be my favorite individual movie of all time, the Phantasm series is my favorite series of films. The same writer/director for every movie, (nearly) the same family of actors for every movie, hell, even the guy doing the voices for the dwarf creatures was the same for all four movies. All of this spanning twenty years. This is something special. Thank you, Don, Reg, Bill, Mike and Angus.

A grown man with toys?

6WH: Oct 28

Phantasm IV: Oblivion (1998) directed by Don Coscarelli
It's been ten years already since we've had a new Phantasm movie? Man. We're now passing the record set between P1 and P2. Well, if it has to end here, I'm okay with that. P4 brings everything full-circle in Phantasm style.

This movie is really for "phans" only. I can't imagine anyone not familiar with the previous three movies getting anything other than a headache out of this one. And it's probably mostly for phans who love the first movie. This isn't a "hey gang, let's drive this cool car through the apocalypse and kick dwarf ass!" movie like P2 and P3; it's back to the dream-like thoughtfulness of P1. Some may complain -- and it was a result of a low budget, to be sure -- but the integration of the never-before-seen scenes from P1 are absolutely fascinating to me. The scene in which Jody and Mike hang the Tall Man, in particular, is beautiful.

I also love the new scenes in which Mike visits Jebediah Morningside. Sometime around the turn of the century, this scientist activates a homemade spacegate ("dimensional fork"), walks through it and accidently alerts some terrible being that there's a ripe planet/dimension over here waiting to be harvested. Those scenes suddenly make the series very lovecraftian, which I think fits perfectly. Lovecraft was the godfather of sci-fi/horror. His monsters weren't just monsters; they were unimaginable, intelligent entities from some distant part of this vast universe who regarded humans as we do insects. Which is how I think of the Tall Man.

Not unexpectedly, there are still plenty of questions left unanswered by the end of the film. What is the infection Jody mentions in the future, empty L.A.? What does the Tall Man need with the sphere that came out of Mike's head? What are the hundreds of spacegates in the desert going to bring to this world? But, ultimately, those questions can be just fodder for fun speculation if P5 never comes. The point of the movie -- all three sequels, I think -- is summed up in Reggie's last action: Reg angrily picks up his quad-barrel shotgun and dives into the frightening unknown after the Tall Man, determined to help his dying friend. Steadfast to the end, that Reg. (8/10)

6WH: Oct 26

Pumpkin carving works best with a couple of horror TV shows playing in the background as you scoop the guts out:

Tales from the Crypt: "Strung Along" (1992) directed by Kevin Yagher
Zach Galligan of Gremlins and Waxwork fame is seeing a woman married to an old, rich puppeteer with a heart condition. Logically, he concocts an elaborate scheme to give the old man a heart attack involving building an animatronic duplicate of the old man's favorite puppet in order to make the puppet look like it's knifing the girl to death. One wonders what plan B was going to be if the sight of this killer puppet made the old man laugh rather than making his heart stop? (7/10)


The Munsters: "Mummy Munster" (1965) directed by Ezra Stone
Herman falls asleep inside of a sarcophagus at a museum -- don't ask -- and gets mistaken for a mummy. Hijinks ensue. Most hilarious is when Lilly comes to the museum to claim him, looking to the museum workers as a completely insane woman convinced a 4000-year-old mummy is her husband. (7/10)


Halloween (2007) directed by Rob Zombie
When it isn't The Thing, the original Halloween is my favorite horror movie of all time. Needless to say, the announcement of a remake had me less than thrilled. Going into this, though, I was determined to give it a fair shake. I like Rob Zombie and I knew he is also a huge fan of the original. Out of anyone in Hollywood, I knew he'd at least be respectful.

Zombie tried really hard to get me to accept this. Look at this list of awesome character actors he has in the movie:

• Malcolm McDowell as Dr. Loomis
• William Forsythe as Michael's stepdad
• Danny Trejo as a janitor at Smith's Grove
• Brad Dourif as Sheriff Brackett
• Clint Howard as a doctor at Smith's Grove
• Udo Kier as the head of Smith's Grove
• Dee Wallace as Laurie's stepmom
• Ken Foree as the source of Michael's coveralls
• Richard Lynch as Michael's principal
  
• Sid Haig as the graveyard caretaker
• Danielle Harris as Annie, returning to the series

I never imagined I'd been watching Clint Howard and Udo Kier in a scene together. I thought my head was going to explode.

The "Michael's origin story" part at the beginning of the movie wasn't as bad as I'd feared. Carpenter already did the mythic, force-of-nature Michael perfectly. There's no reason to try to copy that, so Zombie went for a real world Michael who had bad parents. Fair enough. From killing his pet rat to killing a fellow student to his time at Smith's Grove, we see Michael slowly lose his humanity. Did I want to see this? Not really. But, it wasn't done too badly. My main complaints would be that William Forsythe was a tad over-the-top as the verbally abusive stepdad and making Michael's mom a stripper was pushing the low-class family thing a bit too hard. If anything, this made me keep thinking of Mallory's family from Natural Born Killers, complete with sitcom laugh track.

The remainer of the film is a bizarro world version of the original, where things are slightly different or out of place. Which, I have to admit, is kind of fun. As a fan of the original, it's fun to pick out the references and twists (Bob actually puts the sheet on first! We get to meet Paul!). Ultimately, though, I think many of the changes Zombie made were for the worse. For example, he has the Laurie-Michael confrontation take place in the dilapitated Myers house instead of in Tommy Doyle's house. No longer is the babysitter being attacked in a seemingly safe, normal suburban home; now she's in a stereotypical haunted house. It's not as effective. The pacing is massively sped up as well. Lynda is killed almost immediately (again, in the Myers house). There's never any tension allowed to build or any time spent with atmosphere. We're just dumped right into the action. Michael is also made to be a rather ineffective killer. In the cut on the Blu-ray, both Annie and Dr. Loomis are attacked by Michael and (seemingly) survive. I suppose this fits with a more real world version of the character, but it's kind of odd.

Rob: for the love of Herman Munster, let's get over the '70s fetish. The beginning of this movie takes place in 1978 (per the script and, clearly, the music and posters in the film). The last half takes place 17 years later... in 2007. WTF? My wife and I both found this to be quite distracting: "when is this supposed to be?" she kept asking me.

Better than Halloweens 6, 8 and maybe even 5. So it's got that going for it. Like 99.9% of horror remakes, though, it's just unnecessary. Just ignore continuity and make a new sequel instead. No need to rehash the origin story. Plop Michael in Haddonfield on October 31st, come up with a least one interesting twist, and let him go to town. Anyway, this one could've been worse. (6/10)

OLR: Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West (2006)

I'm still not voting for McCain. (2/10)

d. Wayne Kopping

[Chef Gregory and I were both mystified why we each got this thing in the mail.]

6WH: Saturday, October 25th

Chef Gregory drove down this weekend to join in the Halloween fun. Both having kids now, hanging out old-school is not something we get to do very often. In fact, his last trip down was during last year's 6WH celebration, 13 months ago. This time, Chef used his magic chef powers to whip us up a homemade apple pie. I got the traditional mulled apple cider simmering at the same time, so the house was filled with a pleasant, seasonal aroma.

Phantasm IV: Oblivion trailer (1998)
Dr. Butcher, M.D. trailer (1980)
Courage the Cowardly Dog: "The Demon in the Mattress" (1999)


Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer (2007) directed by Jon Knautz
Disappointing. After catching the trailer for this, I was excited to see it. It looked like it could be a new Evil Dead 2, with an everyman ass-kicker of a hero. I guess that's sort of a true, but all of that type of fun is squeezed into the last 20 minutes or so of the movie. Preceding that are the trials and tribulations of an anger-prone plumber as he takes a night class, fights with his girlfriend and repairs his teacher's plumbing. With the title this movie has, it really should not be this slow of a build. I wanted to see wall-to-wall monster ass-kicking throughout the movie. Instead, I had to wait for Robert Englund to ham it up for an hour before he finally turned into the one monster Jack has to fight (though, to be fair, that monster creates more critters out of Jack's fellow students).

Still, I'm looking forward to seeing this director's follow-up. I have a feeling he'll learn some lessons from this one and improve his game quite a bit. (6/10)


Frankenpimp fake trailer (2000)
Cat in the Brain trailer (1990)
The Simpsons: "Treehouse of Horror: Attack of the 50 Ft. Eyesores" (1994)
Metalocalypse: "Dethtroll" (2006)
Metalocalypse: "Dethwater" (2006)


The Wicker Man: Extended Version (1973) directed by Robin Hardy
Chef had never see this one and suggested it as something to watch. It's always a pleasure to show someone a guaranteed great flick for the first time, so we popped it in. I love that the reactions this movie evocates are the opposite of what they really should be. Howie really is a good guy. All he wants to do is find the missing girl or catch her murderer, and he thinks, essentially, an island full of cultists is covering it up. This is honorable. The islanders are really not good people. They conspire to trap an innocent man on their island in order to burn him alive so they'll have apples to sell people next year. This is horrible. Yet, my sympathies are always with the pagans and never with the policeman until the very end of the movie, even knowing what's coming. The island's culture is portrayed as so happy and complete, it's difficult not to want to live there. For me, anyway.

I didn't realize until afterward, but our feast of apple pie and apple cider was quite appropriate for this film, with Summerisle's main export being apples. Neat. (9/10)


Dust Devil DVD trailer (1992)
Dollman trailer (1991)
Happy Tree Friends: "Remains to be Seen" (2004)


Masters of Horror: "Valerie on the Stairs" (2006) directed by Mick Garris
"This is the best one so far," said Chef. He'd previously seen "The Fair-Haired Child" and "Homecoming" with me during prior hanging-outs. I think "Fair-Hair" knocks it out of the park, but this one is my second favorite from season 2 (my favorite is "The Black Cat"). I actually picked it partially, I'll admit, because it has, I think, the hottest naked woman in the history of television. Wow. (8/10)

There could only be one choice for this week's Halloween Jones Soda flavor: in honor of Summerisle, Dread Apple it was. Absent from last year, the apple-flavored drink returns. I don't really remember 2006's Spider Cider, so I can't say if that's what this is. Interesting that they upgraded the apple flavor to a glass bottle this year, though (2005 and 2006, it was in the small cans). In either container, it's not great. It's even worse if you drink it after having some real apple cider and real apple pie. That really emphasizes the fakeness of the flavoring. You're sort of left with the impression of drinking apple-scented hand soap. I actually couldn't even finish it and went back to drinking my real cider.

Lord Summerisle approved: apple pie, mulled apple cider and Jones Dread Apple soda.

6WH: Oct 23

Tales from the Crypt: "Split Personality" (1992) directed by Joel Silver
Producer Joel Silver's only directing credit. He didn't do a bad job at all. The show's about twins, so he gets to play with a lot of mirror images and parallelism, etc. Fun, visual stuff. Plus, Joe Pesci stars as the flim-flam man that marries both of the twins. Man, he is in full-on Pesci mode here. Thick, Jersey accent. Lots of "what the fuck is this shit!?" and "badda-bing" dialogue. Amusing to watch. (7/10)

6WH: Oct 22

Phantasm III (commentary by A. Michael Baldwin and Angus Scrimm) (2005)
Apparently, this was the first of the new batch of commentaries recorded. It's disappointing that Don Coscarelli didn't participate, as he was always a great driver of conversation and full of background info. Mike and Angus are great, but they really weren't in this movie that much. They're often commenting on long stretches where neither of them were present for the filming. You gotta love Angus, though. He quite obviously spent the entire preceding day boning up on the movie in order to be better prepared to talk about it. He mentions re-reading his journals from the filming and he always has the name of a crew member or bit actor handy. Mike is also constantly asking Angus about plot points (if the spheres have brains in them, how do they have room for the cutting tools in there?) and Angus is always ready with a plausible answer (there are different spheres for different purposes). Still, there are more stretches of silence in this one than the previous commentary, though we're given some juicy bits of info here and there (some gangbangers didn't appreciate them filming in the mortuary where their homies were buried, for one). (7/10)

Phantasm III: "Deleted Scene" (1993)
Phantasm III: Where the Dead Are No Longer That Way (2007)
Angus Scrimm & Don Coscarelli at Fangoria Convention in 1993 (1993)

6WH: Oct 21

Puppet Master III: Toulon's Revenge (1991) directed by David DeCoteau
I remembered this one as being the best of this series. Puppets vs Nazis! The origin of the puppets! Seventeen years later (!), meh, not so exciting. Much time is spent with the evil Major Krauss having vaguely angry arguments with the not-as-evil Dr. Hess regarding the Nazi's project to reanimate the dead for cannon fodder. Hess repeatedly stops Krauss from dragging puppet master Toulon into his torture chambers, ensuring the only interesting thing we see the Major do on screen is die. Krauss's death is also the only interesting part of the titular revenge. Toulin has his puppets kill a few other Nazis in revenge for them murdering his wife, but they're nothing special. Krauss's death, though neat, almost felt out of place. It was more Hellraiser than Puppet Master, involving ropes and hooks and such.

An ambitious movie -- especially for Full Moon, being a period piece and all -- but ultimately unfullfilling. It's not looking good for me keeping this box set in my DVD collection. I know it only goes downhill from here... (6/10)


Phantasm III (1993) directed by Don Coscarelli
I like this one more every time I watch it. I, like many other others, had been originally disappointed with this sequel. "Too goofy" was the main complaint, followed closely by "I hate the kid." The kid really isn't that bad. He's a good actor -- better than the lady that plays Rocky -- and he fits into P3's theme of doing everything from the previous movies in a bigger way. They crash the hearse in a spectacular flip far better than how they destroyed the Hemi in P2. The Talls Man's hands transform into cool hand-demons, much scarier than the rubber finger-fly from P1. There's an order of magnitude more sentinals and dwarves in P3 than any other film. And, Tim is a hardened, ass-kicking version of Mike from P1 (made obvious by the duplicate shot of Reg and Tim at the fireplace talking).

This is not to say I like Tim more than kid-Mike from P1. Mike from P1 is an average kid, easy to relate to. Tim's greatest flaw is that he is not, especially in light of Mike from the previous movie, which makes him seem a bit cartoony. Fortunately, I think, the kid's acting reigns this tendancy in a bit. And, c'mon, you have to love the Home Alone parody when he's introduced: of course, the robbers would be killed by the precocious kid's traps.

The big reveal in this movie is that Mike, like the Tall Man himself, has a large sentinal where his brain should be. "Reg, don't believe everything you see. Seeing is easy. Understanding, well... takes a little more time," says Jody after Mike runs off. Though the Tall Man strongly implies that he is, I don't think Mike's always been one of the Tall Man's kind. I think he did something to Mike, maybe when he was in his coma at the beginning of the film. Mike, I'm fairly certain, would've noticed that he has yellow blood at some point in his life before then. Alternatively, Mike could've woken up into another reality after his coma, one in which he's a Tall Man-thing raised as a human.

My guess is that Liz was also a sphere-head -- or potential sphere-head -- explaining why Mike and her could communicate telepathically. This would also be a reason for why the Tall Man takes her head with him after the car crash. I wouldn't have been shocked to see her appear as a sentinal in P4, brainwashed into serving the Tall Man.

Anyway, P3 throws out some answers -- the Tall Man is building an army, using corpse bodies for dwarf soldiers and corpse brains to control the sentinals -- and raises even more questions before it ends. This is why I love the Phantasm series. It has the *cough* balls to never explain itself completely. So few movies can get away with this. It's refereshing when a director/writer says: "you're smart enough... come up with your own theories."

Side note: I'm glad to see Anchor Bay has changed the title card:
to
This "Lord of the Dead" stuff always smacked of Universal's interference. It was also written in a rather goofy font on the original VHS/LD releases, not at all matching the gothic "Phantasm" above. It's much better that P3's title card matches the other sequels. (8/10)

6WH: Oct 20

Puppet Master II (1991) directed by Dave Allen
Maybe slightly better than the first. We learned why the puppets are so fond of killing people: obviously, it's because the puppet master requires brain matter to make the secret formula that gives them life. Good ol' Buck Flower plays a redneck who doesn't get nearly enough screentime or lines. The scene where his wife battles Leech Woman and Blade was pretty cool, though. The life-sized dolls that Toulin creates for himself and his love are always creepy.

Torch really doesn't make sense as a new puppet, though. If Toulin needs to collect uncooked brain matter, replacing Tunneler with a flame-throwing doll wasn't wise. In fact, he even yells at Torch for the cooked brain material he brings back from the redneck cabin. A puppet with, like, a drill on one hand and an icecream scoop on the other would've served him better. But, complaining about plot holes in a Puppet Master movie is probably nonsensical itself. (6/10)

6WH: Oct 19

Wicked Little Things (2006) directed by J.S. Cardone
"I'm sick of these ghost movies," said my wife as she got up and left after 15 minutes. I wished I could do the same. You know the drill: pissed off ghosts start killing people. Heroes must do XYZ so they can rest. This time, the ghosts are a Newsies-ish gang of children killed in a mine collapse ninety years ago. They roam the Pennsylvania mountainside, killing and eating people and animals they run into. What they really want, though, is to kill the asshole decedent of the owner of the mine that fell on them.

There's some beautiful countryside with some neat old houses in the movie. The gore effects are pretty good and I suppose seeing children act like the zombies from Night of the Living Dead after downing a fresh kill is fairly boundary-pushing. Other than that, there's nothing to admire here. Mediocre acting, poorly fleshed-out characters and a tedious story made this a chore to sit through. (5/10)


Reincarnation (2005) directed by Takashi Shimizu
More ghosts. This time, they're pissed-off about being murdered in a hotel 35 years ago. Somehow, they exist both as ghosts and as humans, reincarnated into unsuspecting bodies. Isn't this a violation of some kind of paranormal law? Can I get a rule book? Also, by some huge coincidence, all of the reincarnated people are hired to work on a movie about the murders. Inevitably, the murders begin to be re-enacted on the set / in the original hotel, with the new bodies morphing into the bodies of the original victims. Blah, blah, blah, the main character finds out she's not the reincarnation of the little girl victim, but the reincarnation of the murderer himself. Cut to: her freaking on the movie set, with everything we've been watching for the past hour being all in her mind. Cut to: an asylum, where the ghosts of the child victims haunt the insane girl. So, it wasn't really in her head, or something. Also, there's a creepy doll.

Moral of the story: it's OK to haunt your murderer, even if he's already died and been reincarnated into the body of an innocent girl. (5/10)

6WH: Saturday, October 18th

A low-key Halloween weekend with just me and the missus. More visitors are due in the next two weekends, so it's not bad to have a break.

Phantasm III trailer (1993)
It's Alive trailer (1973)
The Simpsons: "Treehouse of Horror: Hex and the City" (2001)


Stuck (2007) directed by Stuart Gordon
If this is where Stuart Gordon is going these days, well, it's not a bad compromise between the director of Re-Animator and Dagon and the director of King of the Ants and Edmond. If he's going be doing realistic dramas now, I'd prefer them with the flavor of horror. Based on a true story, Stuck tells the tale of a woman, a man, and the car windshield he's stuck in when she slams into him in the middle of the night.

When I first read about this incident some years ago, I found the story horrifying, but not really surprising. There's a culture out there -- maybe really starting with my generation -- where people attempt to deny all responsibility for their mistakes. Nothing is ever their fault. The movie captures this quite well. Not only does Brandi do everything she can to sweep her little problem under the rug -- all the way up to trying to burn him and the car -- but she keeps asking him throughout the movie "why are you doing this to me?" That right there is as creepy as anything any crazed killer in a slasher movie's ever said. (7/10)


Prince of Darkness trailer (1987)
Q trailer (1982)
Saturday Night Live: "Matt Foley: Motivational Speaker: Devil's Night" (1993)


Beetle Juice (1988) directed by Tim Burton
I needed to cleanse my palate after so many crappy vengeful ghost movies. Now, where can I find a haunted house? Free babysitting, free tutoring and free dinner theater by critters who can't possibly raid your fridge or rack up long distance bills? Sign me up! (8/10)


Beetlejuice: "A-Ha!" (1990)
Invasion of the Body Snatchers trailer (1956)
Psycho trailer (1960)
Beavis and Butt-head: "Bungholio: Lord of the Harvest" (1995)

The Halloween Jones Soda flavor of the week was the new-for-this-year Spooookiwi. One of the oddest things I've ever tasted, really. At times it doesn't taste like anything other than soda water, then the faint flavor of bubblegum will sneak up and tickle the taste buds. It's an ethereal ghost flavor. I'm beginning to suspect that half of these Halloween flavors are really a testing ground for Jones' experimental concoctions. It's not like kiwi is inherently a fall flavor, anyway (or pomegranate, for that matter). I doubt this one'll pass the test; I don't foresee picking up a sixer of Jones Kiwi in the non-Halloween season anytime soon.

Horror magazines are great 6WH lunch time reading.
Shock Cinema is my favorite.

Guest OLR: The Fly (1986)

True love: the willingness to put your significant other out of his misery so he doesn't continue existing as a human/fly/telepod door hybrid. (8/10)

d. David Cronenberg

6WH: Oct 17

Unrest (2006) directed by Jason Todd Ipson
So far, three out of six of these Horrorfest movies have been about vengeful ghosts. I didn't really care for this subgenre before watching these films... now I hate it. You'd think, being finally released from the torment that is life on Earth, the dead would be a little more relaxed. Nope. Do one little thing to their grave or to the body they no longer need and they go on a murdering rampage. Whiney, pissy little things they are, threatening the living until one of us comes up with the idea to rebury their remains.

Setting a horror movie amongst medical students taking a gross anatomy class is always a good starting point. To most folks, the idea of such a class is horrfying enough. Too bad the movie's plot doesn't much require such a setting. They could've danced on the dead lady's grave and had the same things happen, which is that the invisible ghost starts making people commit suicide left-and-right. Still, the setting was a good excuse for the slightly-unbelievable-but-cool scene of two med students swimming in a tank of formaldehyde tank filled with dead bodies. (6/10)


The Munsters: "Love Comes to Mockingbird Heights" (1965) directed by Joseph Pevney
Uncle Gilbert looks to have the exact mask used in the Black Lagoon movies, except with -- disturbingly -- the eyes hollowed out. The questions arises, though, whose uncle is he? Lily's in the habit of calling her dad "Grandpa," so it could be that Gilbert's actually her brother and is Eddie's uncle. Which is kinda weird. Dracula had a vampiress daughter -- sure, ok -- and a gillman son? Who the hell was Grandpa messing around with for that? Maybe a mermaid? (7/10)

6WH: Oct 16

The Gravedancers (2006) directed by Mike Mendez
Asks the all-important question: could the ghosts from Ghostbusters II be scary in a serious film? The answers is: no, not really. They are especially non-frightening the way they are shot in this film. Ghost movies -- serious ones, anyway -- need subtlety in order to work. On the rare occasions where you allow the audience a good look at the ghost, it can't be a brightly lit scene or have long enough shots to see the flaws in the latex mask. Having the hero characters get into a fist-fight with a ghost -- say, the ghost of a middle-aged piano teacher -- is gonna probably come off as silly, too. It might also be a mistake to make the main protagonist, and only survivor of the three people who were haunted, a douchebag. Caring about the characters goes a long way into making the situations they're in scary. A great example of how not to make a ghost film. (5/10)


Penny Dreadful (2006) directed by Richard Brandes
The premise isn't bad. A teenage girl is deathly afraid of being inside of cars after a horrific car accident when she was a child. She goes on her first major road trip with her therapist, yadda-yadda-yadda, she's trapped in the car with a psycho killer outside. The killer spends most of the movie coming up with ways to scare her. He plants the corpse of her therapist in the driver's seat, moves the windshield wipers when she's not looking, throws blood all over the windshield, etc. A local wanders by and she begs him for help; he's killed. It's a slasher movie with only two characters, essentially.

The movie lost me during the girl's escape attempt. The killer wedged the car into a stand of trees so that all of the doors and windows were blocked. Inspired by her late therapist, she finally gets up the courage to try to push the car out by putting it into neutral and pushing against a tree trunk with her foot. It starts to work when the killer, of course, pops up and grabs her foot. There's a crunch, she screams, pulls her leg back into the car and discovers her pinky toe has been cut off (complete with CGI-enhanced shot of the mutilated foot). It's kinda like if in Halloween, Michael Myers suddenly sliced off one of Laurie's fingers. The drastic change in tone -- from slasher to torture porn -- was hard to get beyond. Combined with the ending -- which litterally made me say "Boo!" outloud -- and I was quite disappointed with this one. (6/10)