Hellraiser (1987)

1987
Directed by Clive Barker
Starring Ashley Laurence, Andrew Robinson, Clare Higgins, Sean Robinson and Doug Bradley

Now here's a poster that everyone out there in Lick Ness Monster Land should be more than familiar with.  If the blood-red title didn't give it away, that is.  Hellraiser is a flick that is pretty damn close to being on the "have seen" list of even the most casual fan, but for whatever reason, I've never posted a review of it here on the blog.  I "inducted" the first sequel (which I consider to be ever-so-slightly better) back when I was still doing the "International Horror Registry" thing (and looking back, good God, could I have possibly picked a less appealing name?), but since it's about time to write something positive, this flick is getting the fun-size treatment this week.

Expedited background information that even the most casual horror fans should be more than aware of:  Hellraiser was the directorial debut of one Mr. Clive Barker, one of the two or three best horror writers of the latter-half of the 20th century.  It's hard to explain the style that the dude has; he isn't very big on leaving nasty details up to your imagination, that's for sure.  There's also this prevailing theme of sex and pain that runs throughout his work, and never was this more apparent than it is here - an adaptation of his novella "The Hellbound Heart" that brings a whole lotta blood, death and S&M gear onto the big screen with a vengeance.

PLOT:  While the sequels would much more heavily feature the dude in the theatrical poster, this first film is actually much more about two very decidedly HUMAN villains.  The first character we meet is Frank Cotton (Sean Chapman), a sort of adventurer on the trail of the ultimate in pleasure.  Most of the film takes place after he finds what he's looking for.  His brother Larry (Andrew Robinson) and his new wife Julia (Clare Higgins) have just moved into Frank's old duds.  Apparently the piles of garbage, maggots and gigantic blood stain in the attic aren't enough to dissuade them from moving in, because soon enough, Julia is getting flashbacks to her pre-marital (as in the events happened before her marriage to Larry) affair with Frank. 

As it turns out, Frank's spirit is alive and well in the attic, and after being revived by Larry's blood (yes, really), he is begging Julia to bring him some fresh meat to revive his skin.  But escaping death means escaping the things that did this to him in the first place...and these guys don't like to be conned.  At all.  If you're not intrigued by that plot, go ahead and blame me, because ol' Clive's artful camera and sharp details do a phenomenal job framing this dark story about all kinds of foridden things.  Ladies and gentlemen, my attempt at being poetic.
PLOT RATING: **** out of ****.

CHARACTERS AND ACTORS:  This is a flick with a lot of memorable characters, including an outstanding triumverate of main villains.  You've got Frank, wonderfully played by a very slimy Chapman, as a kind of evil seducer;  you've got Higgis' great turn as Julia, who turns into a full-blown serial killer in her quest to bring back her lover;  and then you've got the Cenobites, with their leader (Doug Bradley) being front and center as the guy that you don't want to mess with.  Bradley doesn't have many lines in this movie, but when he does, he makes them count.  The Cenobites (each of which have a VERY defining look that makes their credited names all the more identifiable) are without a doubt Clive Barker's most famous creation, eternal agents of Hell/Satan/Leviathan/whatever deity you're comfortable with who reside inside a tiny puzzle box called the "Lament Configuration" that serves as their pied piper to anyone who wants to see everything life has to offer the hard way. 

If there is one thing I can bitch about with this movie, it's that the babyfaces are nowhere near as fascinating as the heels.  Larry is a good guy, but Robinson is milquetoast as all hell in this role and does little to get us on his side.  He comes across more as a gigantic oblivious tool than anything else.  Eventually, we're left with Larry's daughter Kirsty as our "final girl" to wrap up the plot, and while she becomes a much better heroine in the second film, she's also pretty drab in this one. 
CHARACTERS AND ACTORS: *** 1/2 out of ****.

COOL FACTOR:  There's a lot of coolness abound in Hellraiser.  All manner of debauchery is present and on display in this flick, from brief snippets of nudity, plenty of really gruesome imagery, awesome makeup effects, and one of the best and most memorable scores that any horror movie has ever had.  Oh, and the Cenobites.  The only reason that I have to dock it slightly is because the scenes focused on the life and times of Kirsty Cotton make me instantly want to push the fast forward button.
COOL FACTOR: *** 1/2 out of ****.

OVERALL:  This movie is considered a classic, and it definitely deserves the distinction.  A genuinely fascinating and tense plot that is easy to get wrapped up in, more than its fair share of classic characters and a couple truly legendary murder set pieces amount to a pretty damn good time on the couch.  Also, if you're in the mood for a movie to have a good time in a small group setting, this movie along with Hellbound: Hellraiser II make a pretty Roman Reigns-esque Superman Punch-Spear combination.

OVERALL RATING: *** 1/2 out of ****.  If by some chance you haven't checked this one out, Joe Bob already has a contract out on your ass, so hop to it bitch.

Black Christmas (2006)

Here we are.  The only movie that I've seen in theaters that I walked out of before it was finished is about to get a second chance.

There's a great many things that make me feel old these days, and I'm feeling quite ancient knowing that it was already SEVEN YEARS AGO that I spent a lonely afternoon away from the crappy apartment I was living in at the time taking this incredibly dark and incredibly gruesome flick in at one of the local multiplexes.  Believe it or not, going in, I was pretty jacked.  On paper, this was a movie that had everything going for it.  It was directed by Glen Morgan, one of the gurus behind The X-Files and the creator of the Final Destination franchise.  It promised plenty of good, rollicking, old-school slasher action - fitting since it was a remake of what some people consider the original slasher flick (and one that I've reviewed already, by the way). 

And it featured this woman in a prominent role.

Yup, Lacey "oh so fetch" Chabert, whom I've been a loyal fan of since...pretty much puberty.  For reasons other than her hotness, I swear (although that certainly doesn't hurt).  In Lick Ness Monster Land (and that really needs to be a theme park), it's one of the world's great injustices that both Rachel McAdams and Amanda Seyfried, two of the other "mean girls," have gone on to have Nicholas freakin' Sparks adaptation vehicles but she hasn't.  She's not just a good actress; she is a FANTASTIC one, able to play either a detestable bitch or an endearing heroine with shocking ease.  If I ever become Steven Spielberg successful (or at least Quentin Tarantino famous), one of my plans will be to make it so that she can afford her own solid gold private island, or whatever her ideal little heart desires.

All that gushing aside, man, what is it about the Party of Five alumni that made them such great horror movie vixens?  You've got Lacey here and in a recent SyFy flick called Scarecrow, you've got Sidney Prescott herself in Neve Campbell, and Jennifer Love Hewitt...if she had chosen to do more horror films aside from the I Know What You Did Last Summer films, she could have given Jamie Lee Curtis a serious run for her money as far as "greatest horror heroine of all time" goes. She had it all - hot, likable, and a FANTASTIC screamer. 

Anyway, where was I?  Oh yeah, the Black Christmas remake.  Now that I've done my longest introduction since the "fun sizing" of these reviews, on with the show.

PLOT:  This movie has a pretty nifty little "multi-timeframe" setup, with one storyline effectively taking care of the Bruce Wayne-esque origin story and the other giving us a whole lot of happenin' sorority sister action.  Right before they all start getting butchered, of course.  Through some lengthy flashbacks, we are shown the tender, tragic backstory of one Billy Lenz.  If you want the short version, just picture a real-life version of That Yellow Bastard from Sin City.  Yup, little Billy is born to one of those amazing horror movie psycho mothers (and, for the record, they are very prevalent), his liver disease that causes the aforementioned urine skin hue the source of her endless strife.  So much that she murders her husband, locks the poor kid in an attic, and eventually conceives another child with him when her new husband can't keep it up long enough to give her the normal child she really wants.  Seriously, that's a plot point.

Meanwhile, there's all sorts of melodrama - that is unfortunately very poorly developed - involving the members of a sorority house doing their gift/wine/catty dialogue exchange.  Three guesses as to what house they currently reside in.  Anyway, the way that this movie is laid out is admittedly fairly original.  Color me old school, but I just prefer the tried-and-true slasher method, where we spend a lot of time getting to know the victim characters (even if they are as annoying as Shelly from Friday the 13th Part III, for Christ's sakes) and the villain's back story is only briefly touched upon.  The movie really suffers for this reason, because we unfortunately don't give much of a s**t about any of the girls when the shockingly brutal and shockingly brief massacre sequence begins.
PLOT RATING: * 1/2 out of ****.

CHARACTERS AND ACTORS:  When I first saw the film in 2006, I knew two of the actors quite well - Lacey and Michelle Trachtenburg, she of the unbelievable "bending over" sequence in Eurotrip.  Looking back, I was amazed at the unbelievable cast that this movie had.  In addition to those two, you've also got Katie Cassidy as the "final girl" Kelly, and while her character is as deep as a Petri dish, she does her damndest to do some excavating (dodges tomatoes).  I've seen Katie in other things now, and I appreciate the hell out of her, because she's the closest thing we've got to a modern day "scream queen," having also been the main heroine in When a Stranger Calls and the single most likable character in the otherwise forgettable-to-the-core Nightmare on Elm Street remake.  Okay, brief aside.  People tell me that Rooney Mara is better in other movies, and I'll take their word for it, but she took on that film with about as much energy as the remains of the cool ranch Doritos that are lying on my floor right now.  Katie, despite that film's uninspired script, did her absolute damndest to make her character resonate.  So three cheers for her.

BUT THAT'S NOT ALL (/salesman voice) - there's also Mary Elizabeth Winstead doing her best Southern accent as yet another sorority sister, who you no doubt recognize as Kurt Russell without the facial hair in The Thing version 2011, Ramona in Scott Pilgrim vs. The World and John McClane's daughter.  In other words, they've got some very talented people in this movie...so much like I said in the plot review, it's a shame that we don't get to know their characters on anything more than a cursory, catty level.  There was INFINITE potential here to create some good, likable characters that sadly goes unfulfilled in a sea of Rob Zombie-style vulgar female dialogue.
CHARACTERS AND ACTORS RATING:  ** out of ****.  An EASY **** for the actors but unfortunately a * for the characterization.

COOL FACTOR:  I went back and forth about how to rate this movie in this regard.  On one hand, there is a LOT of red stuff flying around in this movie, but it's not the kind of "gore movie" that makes horror fans want to stand up and cheer.  Or maybe my stomach has just grown a little bit queasier for this stuff as I've crossed over into my 30s.  I suppose that having so many hot, talented actors in one movie is admittedly cool, but as for the horror itself, there isn't any particular one thing about the kills in this movie that stands out as particularly memorable.  Except for the "cookie cutter" scene.  You know, one of my family's Christmas rituals (to this day) involves afternoon cookie making utilizing those damn things, and I think about that scene EVERY time I partake in this painful tradition.
COOL FACTOR: * 1/2 out of ****.

OVERALL:  Looking back at this movie, it's not quite as bad as I remembered it.  For starters, yes, I did make it through the whole thing this time, although I actually left the theater on that initial viewing with only five minutes remaining (I checked out when Billy and his accomplice - I'll leave it to you to brave this movie if you want that detail - show up at the hospital during the "all is well" false resolution).  Without a doubt, this was a movie with a TON of promise, and I won't even throw a dagger at Glen Morgan too hard.  It's clear from watching this movie that he had a huge boner for the 1974 original, much like Rob Zombie did for Carpenter's Halloween.  Couple that love up with this cast and this should have been a great, memorable slasher flick for modern audiences.  Unfortunately, much like ol' Robby Z's magnum opus, the absolute worst case scenario for it came true.

I just wish we could get a "Jon Lickness cut" of this movie, with much more smiles on the actresses' faces, a nice, long dinner scene between the characters where we find out their majors and their backgrounds, and a very brief (perhaps five minutes' worth) expository scene where the sorority mother tells us the legend of Billy Lenz before the slaughter starts.  This slaughter, by the way, would be in more typical slasher fashion, where none of the victims are even aware that anything is off until right before they are offed to prevent this movie's amazing-in-the-wrong-way development where the sisters, having just discovered a dead body, won't leave the house because "it's snowing outside."  In my humble opinion, these changes would make this movie very fetch indeed.

OVERALL RATING: * 1/2 out of ****.  It's good for a viewing around this time of year just for the atmosphere, but as a whole it's a slasher that's light on both scares and substance.

Oh, and MERRY CHRISTMAS to all, and to all a good fright!  See you all in 2014!

Trauma (1993)

Back to the ol' well for this week's review.  My boner for Dario Argento knows no bounds!

Well, actually, that's a bit of a BS statement.  Everyone's milage on the subject varies, but I think that there's a pretty clear and distinct line when it comes to the "quality/crap" ratio in the career of Italy's answer to Jack the Ripper.  That line begins and ends with Opera, the much-ballyhoed 1987 opus about a guy who stalks a beautiful soprano and forces her to watch murders by taping needles to her eyelids.  Tell me that doesn't sound like cheerful time at the amusement park.  I can take or leave the ending, but that movie is all kinds of badass...and, in my opinion, it pretty much marked the point where Dario took the big nosedive. 

Of course, there were blips on the radar here and there.  This 1993 flick (easily the most "mainstream" of Argento's movies, by the way) being one of them.

PLOT:  As big as my aforementioned boner for Argento is, you can take this statement to the bank:  if you've seen one of his giallo films, you've seen them all.  All of the same basic ingredients are here - a quirky and/or angsty female lead, this time played by Argento's own daughter Asia as Aura, a teenage anorexia sufferer whose parents are offed in relatively spectacular fashion in the flick's first act.  You've also got your arty and/or writer male lead in the form of David (Christopher Rydell), a friendly reporter who takes Aura in after finding her wandering the streets.  Soon enough, more bodies begin turning up, always beheaded using what is actually a pretty cool-looking "decapitation" device leading to my most-loved Argento convention - the (relatively) shocking conclusion involving LOTS of psychological exposition.  Yeah, there's no minty freshness to be found here, and that's both a blessing and a curse.  The former because it's familiar, the latter because, by this point in the Argento canon, you pretty much know what you're getting around every curve.
PLOT RATING: ** 1/2 out of ****.

CHARACTERS AND ACTORS:  Opinions are like assholes, but I've just never been that into Asia Argento.  The fact that she figures into a decent portion of Dario's later output no doubt skews what I think about his post-Opera work.  Rydell isn't much better, and the character of David - yeah, isn't he technically a pedophile in dumping his girlfriend for 16-year-old Aura?  Just sayin'.  On the plus side, we do get Piper "They're All Gonna Laugh At You" Laurie as Aura's mother in the early goings of the film as well as an appearance by Brad Dourif, a pretty well-known luminary to my fellow horror mutants out there.  It takes a very talented man to make both Critters 4 and Rob Zombie's Halloween II the slightest bit entertaining, but this dude managed to pull it off.
CHARACTERS AND ACTORS RATING: ** 1/2 out of ****.

COOL FACTOR:  This is the aspect of Trauma that boggles my mind the most.  You know, when this DVD arrived in the mail and I popped it in the slot, I was infinitely stoked when the "Makeup effects by Tom Savini" credit flashed across the screen.  Argento AND Savini?  This had the makings of a blood-soaked masterpiece.  Unfortunately, there isn't a whole lot in the way of badass villainy or creative murdering in this film; the homemade garroting contraption is cool, but we don't get to see it perform its dirty work, like, ever.  Please shoot me the next time I type like a mid-'90s teen movie character.  While I'm at it, Christopher Rydell is no David Hemmings when it comes to cool male leads.
COOL FACTOR: * 1/2 out of ****.

OVERALL:  This is a strange beast of a movie.  The teaming up of Argento and Savini sounds like the makings of a surefire instant classic, but instead what you get is a semi-forgettable giallo film that leaves most of the nasty details up to your imagination.  That's not a bad thing if you've got a lot of tension and scares to back it up, but Trauma is lacking in those areas as well.  That and the fact that this comes from the guy who got famous precisely BECAUSE he didn't leave anything up to your imagination is more than a little disappointing.

OVERALL RATING: ** out of ****.  Worth a rental, and maybe a cheap used purchase for Argento completionists.  Otherwise you'll be able to live a perfectly happy life without seeing it.

The Blood on Satan's Claw (1970)

Here's one from the "obscure and awesome" file.  Taking place in the extreme, extreme, EXTREME days of yore, Blood on Satan's Claw is a startlingly effective little chiller that's about fifteen times as good as a movie with this title warrants.  If you want a little bit more coercion, this is a movie that proudly features gory murders, more than its fair share of genuinely creepy and disturbing scenes, and a good helping of gratuitous nudity with some stunning British beauties gettin' em out for your viewing pleasure.  Sound good?  That's what I thought.

PLOT:  The movie takes place in 17th century England, beginning with a peasant farmer digging up the remains of a strange creature.  Not soon afterward, the children in the village begin acting strangely and mysterious deaths begin to creep up, including the ambiguous (in a good way, I promise) murder involving a young man being choked to death by a disembodied hand.  Not soon after, we are introduced to a group of schoolchildren who begin worshiping the demon remains and offering ritual sacrifices (one of which is one of the four or five most disturbing scenes I've seen in any horror movie).  While all of this is going on, the local judge begins investigating and tracking down the source of the chaos.  In many regards, this is a film with similarities to Dario Argento's masterpiece Suspiria, in that it isn't a movie about plot, but more just creating an oppressively suspenseful atmosphere.  And it's got that in spades.
PLOT RATING: *** 1/2 out of ****.

CHARACTERS AND ACTORS:  Patrick Wymark plays The Judge (his name in the credits), and does an admirable job as a guy who appears appropriately skeptical of the fantastic claims coming from the townsfolk in the early goings before turning all-out Rambo for the finale.  Almost every character, from the local Reverend to the schoolchildren, is played by an actor who is not satisfied to go through the motions.  I don't know what to credit this to, if it's British training or the fact that the movie was filmed before "horror" became a dirty word, but it is much appreciatd nonetheless. 
CHARACTERS AND ACTORS RATING: *** 1/2 out of ****.

COOL FACTOR:  In my humble opinion, most "Gothic" horror films aren't terribly cool, but this is one that has coolness firmly in its corner.  The reason?  Linda Hayden and her coven of devil-worshiping teens.  If you're a fan of Hammer studios, you might recognize her as the very ample-busomed woman who assisted Christopher Lee in Taste the Blood of Dracula.  In this movie, she becomes a card-carrying Satanist seductress - and performs an unforgettable full-frontal scene.  Hayden and Co. make outstanding villains - they are characters that you both WANT to see on camera and genuinely want to see get their comeuppance, a rare thing these days when victim characters are so damned annoying that they leave me rooting for the bad guys by default.
COOL FACTOR: *** 1/2 out of ****.

OVERALL:  While I can't say that this flick is a masterpiece, Blood on Satan's Claw is a movie with an irrefutable power to give you the willies.  Throw in good acting, characters and a solid story and there's a real winner to be found here.  Keyword: FOUND, because this movie is rather hard to find on DVD - mine is a DVD-R purchased from a "guy on the corner" style online vendor, and the decided lack of subtitles pissed me off.  But it's worth it to pop this movie on after the sun goes down and feel the tension rising up in your throat. 
OVERALL RATING: *** 1/2 out of ****.  Check it out.

A Name for Evil (1973)

A NAME FOR EVIL
Directed by Bernard Girard
Starring Robert Culp, Samantha Eggar and Sheila Sullivan

If you're looking for a horror movie to have a good, rollicking, MST3K-style time with a group of friends, look no further than A Name for Evil.  Filmed in 1969 and sitting on studio shelves for four years under the idea that the fact that this was a movie that basically had no audience (a suspicion that turned out to be correct), this is a flick rife with funny editing moments, even funnier acting, and one of the most baffling narratives in the history of film.  It's also the only movie in the history of humanity to feature Robert Culp being whisked away to a hippie orgy on a white horse.  Spoiler alert.

PLOT:  Culp (in the midst of his I Spy groovy period) stars as John Blake, swingin' architecht who has grown disenfranchised with the humdrum of his everyday life.  Along with his semi-estranged wife (there's all sorts of issues between them that are never quite fleshed out), Blake takes off to the country to live in his grandfather's old house in the country.  Commence usual series of haunted house movie cliches, only with a whole lot more far-out subtext.  In some respects, this is actually a pretty deep film, and I've read my fair share of reviews online that delve into the hidden meanings and metaphors that a viewer can read into the plot.  Supposedly, the idea is that Culp's character is looking to leave his wife, and a lot of the weirdness and debauchery that take place in the haunted house are manifestations of this.  Or something.  What we can actually see is a whole lot of unscary tedium involving shadows moving and mysterious caretakers. 
PLOT RATING: * 1/2 out of ****.

CHARACTERS AND ACTORS:  In addition to Culp, the movie features Samantha Eggar of The Brood and Curtains relative fame as his wife Joanna.  This character is a bit of an annoying shrew, who views her husband as an overgrown man-child clinging to the hope that living in the country will reinvigorate their lives.  There's also Sheila Sullivan (Culp's real-life wife at the time) as a smoking-hot local whom John Blake enjoys an extramarital tryst with in the aforementioned funniest orgy scene ever filmed.  All three actors are actually pretty talented in their own right, but for whatever reason, they don't fit these characters in the least bit.  In addition to that, John Blake is a pretty dislikable lead protagonist, and in addition to making fun of his suspect wardrobe you'll likely get a lot of milage out of his pouty dimeanor.
CHARACTERS AND ACTORS RATING:  ** out of ****.

COOL FACTOR:  Yikes.  This isn't a very cool movie, and I'll just leave it at that.  Not much in the way of cool death sequences - from what I can tell, there is only one death in this movie, and according to who you listen to it might not even officially take place.  The less said about Culp's threads the better.
COOL FACTOR: 1/2 out of ****.

OVERALL:  The reason that I found this movie to be such a great comedic goldmine, today and when I first saw it on AMC some late night back in 2006, is that it's a movie that never quite figures out what it wants to be.  Sometimes, it's a middle-aged domestic drama.  Sometimes, it's a Robert Wise-style haunted house film.  And sometimes it's a pure 1969 anti-establishment credo.  At any rate, while this movie is not very good at all, I nonetheless recommend it for pure masochism purposes.  Take my word for it, the final 30 minutes or so of A Name for Evil has any latter day Adam Sandler film beat for pure laughs.

OVERALL RATING: * 1/2 out of ****, but if you've got a group of friends to watch and mock it with, bump that rating up significantly.