Five Horror Movies I'd Like to See

First things first - for everyone out there hoping to see the remainder of the Tomie marathon, I hate to disappoint you, but that abomination is over.  Not to say that the series itself sucks.  Far from it.  But I would be lying if I told you that I felt any degree of satisfaction with that series of reviews.  Curtain pulling time for the Lick Ness Monster:  I have the goal of writing the best, most informative and entertaining review that I'm capable of, and I feel like I've accomplished this twice - Basket Case and Friday the 13th: A New Beginning.  Neither one of them, mind you, were done under the current review format, a.k.a. the laziest damn thing that I've ever done.  Thus, the next step for this here blog is a return to simplicity.  Classical meat and potatoes reviews are coming back, and they're coming back soon.

In the meantime, however, I'd like to do something else.  Shockingly, I have a daily life.  Oftentimes in this daily life, I get questions.  And just as frequently, there are answers.  A lot of people across this great fruited plain have an issue with my perceived negativity when it comes to modern movies in general, and occasionally even modern horror movies.  Unless you've been living under a rock, it seems like every big-time horror movie to hit the multiplex these days has some kind of connection to James Wan and falls under the "ghost movie" banner.

Now, I like ghost movies.  I really, truly do.  I enjoy the current trend that has reinvigorated the horror genre and brought it back from the brink of the remake-a-mania and forced-attrition-through-torture subgenres that dominated throughout much of the latter half of the oughts-leading into the tens.  Lately, though, it just seems that we're incapable of getting anything other than the damn things, aside from the still extremely redundant zombie flicks that bore me to tears no matter how they're portrayed, including straight-up comedically.  Warm Bodies, I'm looking at you.

What we're going to do here now is look at five different types of horror film that I would like to see grace theater screens in the not-too-distant future.  The only parameter I set for myself is that I can't list another iteration of Jason, Freddy or Michael, no matter how damn much I felt like it.

1.  SPEAKING OF ZOMBIE MOVIES...
I'm going to start with something that I believe would be refreshing not only for this guy, but for theater audiences at large who WILL get sick of the "urgh! brains!" brand of zombies no matter how much Hollywood seems to feel otherwise.  Some of the creepiest, most skin-crawling films I've ever seen involve zombies, and I'm not talking about the flesh-eating kind.  I'm talking the REAL kind - the human corpses that can be reanimated with potions and often associated with the voodoo religion.  This is a concept that can be mined for endless scares, as it was masterfully in Wes Craven's 1987 film adaptation of Wade Davis' book The Serpent and the Rainbow.  What I'm picturing here is a sort of modern version of that film, with a series of bizarre murders in a major city and a couple likable young detectives tracking down the perpetrators of the crime only to discover a vicious crime lord utilizing voodoo for both profit and pleasure.

For some added evidence as to just how effective this type of zombie can be in horror, just watch this and brace yourself for the willies.

2.  AQUATIC HORROR
I don't know what it is, but some of my favorite horror movies involve aquatic animals wreaking havoc on groups of unsuspecting human beings.  Psychological horror and deep-thinking are perfectly fine, but some of the things that scare me the most (OK, I'm a wuss) are the things that are the most basic.  Venturing into uncharted territory (water) and dealing with the locals falls under this banner.  Yeah, there are the Piranha films, but they're really much more in the comedy department, to say nothing of the similar like-styled SyFy original flicks that are entertaining only for shared voyeuristic masochism.  My suggestion?  A big-budget movie dealing with the "alligators in New York City sewers" urban legend, complete with a third act where a  swarm of giant albino alligatos escape the darkness of the sewer and are let free in, say, the East River.

3.  A REALISTIC SERIAL KILLER FILM
As good as Dexter can be as a television show, I find it to be bad to the point of unwatchable almost as often, because I don't know if I've ever seen a more unrealistic show that passes itself off as serious drama.  Seriously, how many close calls can one guy have?  No, folks, what I'm looking for here is a dirty, serious portrayal of perhaps the most real kind of monster that any of us could even conceivably run across on the bus or be living next to.  I picture a film following this guy from fantasy stage all the way up to the first kill to the escalation phase to the arrest, the gruesome crimes and occasional close calls with police building the tension until the audience is genuinely invested in his capture.  No sympathy, no weird moral code, just a real sick bastard portrayed on film for all the world to see.  Count me in.

4.  ANTHOLOGIES RULE!
I'm a sucker for a good anthology movie.  From Creepshow to Tales From the Dark Side to older Amicus flicks like The House that Dripped Blood, nothing can top the true variety and levels of bang for the buck that this kind of horror movie delivers.  That, and it just feels like you're watching a flick that belongs in the horror glory days of the '70s ad '80s when you sit through one.  We've gotten a mini-revival of anthology films over the last few years, but it seems like they have been subjected entirely to DVD and Blu-Ray formats.  I'm picturing a movie given a wide release on Halloween weekend portraying horrific incidents on that awesome day through the ages, from the original Samhain to a serial murder spree in the '70s to a modern witches' meeting.  And those ideas were culled from approximately .67 seconds of thought.  Surely a well-compensated screenwriter with weeks to think about it could come up with something that would rock our collective faces.

and finally...wait for it...
5.  GRUDGE 3D

I'm not giving up hope, dammit.

No pithy closing paragraph necessary.  Get to it, Hollywood!

Tomie: Beginning (2005)

2005
Directed by Ataru Oikawa
Starring Rio Matsumoto, Asami Imajuku and Kenji Mizuhashi

Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later.  Six movies into the franchise and all sorts of different (and weird) was to tell the story about a hell-harpy who causes murder and mayhem wherever she goes...and it was time for the prequel route.  While the initial manga's story HAD once been presented in the godawful Tomie: Another Face, this was supposed to be the big-time movie treatment version of the "high school havoc" Tomie that the first movie alluded to only in passing.  Sounds like a...well, sound plan in theory, but in practice, it turned out to be anything but.

Released to DVD in 2005, Tomie: Beginning is essentially the genesis (but not the Genesis of McGillicutty) of Part 2 of this franchise.  Every movie since has been straight-to-video.  Having not seen the final two entries as of yet, I can report that the change is definitely noticeable.  There's good cheap and bad cheap, and considering that we got some very gritty-yet-professional looking films before this, it's definitely the latter.  *sigh* I don't know what else to say at this point.  I try to at least make these introductory paragraphs somewhat long-looking so people don't just skip by them.  No salvage job possible now.  On with the show!

PLOT:  Rather than go the straight-laced route that would have been perfectly acceptable given this material, the film uses a framing device that is much hated by this reporter.  Yes, folks, we have the "taking place after the bulk of the action/mostly in flashback" storytelling method, and it's played to obnoxious effect.  The main character (in both flashback and present) is Reiko (Asami Imajuku), a nice, shy girl who finds herself befriending the new kid in class Tomie Kawakami (Rio Matsumoto).  Cue dreadful dreary music and a whole bunch of scenes that are meant to make us simultaneously sympathize with and be afraid of Tomie.  This movie actually takes on the challenge of sympathy a bit more than the others, giving Tomie a few monologues about how much it does indeed suck to die repeatedly, as well as going into a bit more of the intricacies involving her friendship with Reiko.  After the class (yes, I say the class as in every single member) takes the "this time around" trap of murdering Tomie, we switch back to the present day, as Reiko sits in the classroom years later talking to another former classmate only for Tomie herself to show up for the thrilling conclusion.  The stuff that takes place at the high school in the past is occasionally interesting, especially the Tomie-Reiko dynamic, but is mostly tedious, and the framing scenes are terminally boring in the way that Hulk Hogan vs. Ultimate Warrior at Halloween Havoc '98 is.
PLOT RATING:  * 1/2 out of ****.

CHARACTERS AND ACTORS:  Rio Matsumoto, the actress playing Tomie, is certifiably hot.  She is - without a doubt - the most attractive of the women to portray the character.  So attractive, in fact, that I almost feel guilty pointing out how poor she is at the craft of emoting.  For most of the film, she does two things - smiles and laughs in a manner most vile, and it gets grating fast.  Imajuku is a bit better as Reiko, at least in the high school scenes - when we're dealing with the "older and wiser" version of the character, we've got a character about as convincing as Heather Langenkamp was in Nightmare on Elm Street 3.  For the record...that's the only thing I don't like about my second favorite horror movie of all time.  The rest of the kids are as disposable as moist towelettes, though, so don't expect to watch this movie and get much emotional resonance.
CHARACTERS AND ACTORS RATING: * 1/2 out of ****.

COOL FACTOR:  Outside of Matsumoto's hotness, you won't find much redeeming value.  The body count is pretty low.  Unless a demonic girl force-feeding cockroaches to unwitting victims is your idea of cool.  In which case this is your bag, baby.
COOL FACTOR: * out of ****.

OVERALL:  It should be made apparent by the above, but if it isn't, watching this movie isn't exactly a pleasant experience.  While the previous movies in the franchise had some mean stuff happening in them, this movie is actually a little mean-spirited, and it's expounded by just how cheaply shot it is.  What else is there?  I think I've got it covered.  Stay away from this one.

OVERALL RATING: * 1/2 out of ****.

Tomie: Forbidden Fruit (2002)

2002
Directed by Shun Nakahara
Starring Nozomi Ando, Aoi Miyazaki and Jun Kunimura

So now we're up to the "Temptation Island" portion of the Tomie saga.  For those who have been paying attention so far, this is one weird series of movies - so weird that no introductory paragraph could possibly convey its weirdness, not only in execution, but how downright different each movie in the series is from each other.  The first was all about character and slow-burning suspense based on what we know (and think we know) about the main character.  Replay seemed to be focused on being as much of a head-trip as possible while also delving into th actual science of the character.  Re-birth took the original manga's concept to the nth degree and showed us a true Goldberg Variation-esque effect that our main heroine/demon/siren has on a wide range of people.  This one...yeah, like I said, it's "Temptation Island" crossed with George Michael's "Father Figure," and I'm not so sure that it was the correct route to take.

Having said all that, this was the end of Tomie Kawakami, Version One.  At the time of its 2002 release (incredibly enough, the FIFTH film in the series released in a three-year time span), it was believed to be the final entry in the series.  A sizable enough gross and a sizable enough demand later and we've had several more films and probably another nineteen forthcoming.  However, this WAS the final time that the character would be trotted out with the red carpet theater treatment.  All future entries were essentially direct-to-DVD snoozers...but more on them later.  You'll get to listen to me metaphorically kill myself soon enough.

THE MOVIE!

PLOT:  Coming after the more large-scale and apocalyptic Replay and Re-birth chapters, this particular movie is very...insular, I guess, is the word.  For the vast majority of its running time, we're only concerned with three characters.  Our central heroine of sorts is young teenager Tomie Hashimoto (Aoi Miyazaki), slightly troubled teenage girl who spends her days at school getting bullied and finding solace in the homo-erotic fanfiction (not a joke) that she pens on a regular basis.  She lives alone with her widower father (Jun Kunimura), and their world is turned upside down in a manner that the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air would be damn proud of when Tomie Kawakami (Nozomi Ando) shows up in their lives.  It's not quite the usual brand of magic and seduction this time around; it's a much more slow and personal process, sometimes to the detriment of the story, as there are LONG stretches of this movie that feel like root canal.  Having said all of that, the third act is VERY intense if you're willing to stick around through all of the previous tedium.
PLOT RATING: ** 1/2 out of ****.

CHARACTERS AND ACTORS:  As usual, the producers in charge of the series were able to unearth quite a find when it comes to the title role.  The character of Tomie (the villainous one) this time around is on a much more focused, surgical mission to destroy one particular family.  As such, the role called for more emotional resonance and quiet menace, and Ando is able to pull off both quite well.  Miyazaki is also pretty likable as the OTHER Tomie, and is completely believable when it comes to some of the ridiculous stuff she is required to do (of which I can't include fanfiction because, hell, I've written a couple in my day).  The guy playing the dad, however, is milquetoast in the way that Professor Griff prophesized about; a decent portion of the flick's second act is devoted to this guy's background with Tomie Kawakami, and it is in those sections that the movie's drowsiness-inducing qualities make themselves known.
CHARACTERS AND ACTORS RATING: ** 1/2 out of ****.

COOL FACTOR:  I'm a firm believer in the idea that ANY subgenre of horror can be cool; it's not exclusive to slashers, zombie cinema, Kaiju or serial killer films.  I consider the two theatrical Ju-On films to be two of the coolest horror movies of all time, and there is barely a drop of blood to be had in them.  The template was there, and it's one that a couple of the earlier films in this series followed well.  This flick isn't one of them.  Until the third act, this film really is much more of a domestic squabble with some tension in the form of Tomie Kawakami seducing the father.  The film's inevitable money scene involving a couple "deaths" for Tomie even fall up flat on the coolness scale; the director was going for emotion with these scenes, but largely only succeeded in prolonging the running time.  Not good.
COOL FACTOR: * 1/2 out of ****.

OVERALL:  In doing some pawing around on the net, there are plenty of Tomie aficianadoes out there who enjoy this film a whole lot more than I do.  It certainly is different from anything we've seen from the concept before, but as we saw with Jason X, in this guy's opinion different does not necessarily always equal better.  The concept of Tomie is one that can be utilized in such amazingly cool ways, and most of those proposed fan fiction stories in my mind involve large-scale chaos and more than a few creative murders.  This movie seems much more focused on dwelling in the mundane.  Since this flick was intended to be the grand finale for the character on a cinematic basis, I'm not quite sure what the producers were thinking.  Maybe in retrospect and without the "this is the last one!" sentimentality it's a bit better, but Tomie Kawakami: Middle-Aged Cockteaser is just not a terribly compelling time in front of the TV.

OVERALL RATING: ** out of ****.  It's got its moments (particularly once the violence starts FINALLY hitting in the third act), but for the most part it's a tedious exercise in familial melodrama.  Worth a rental.

Tomie: Re-birth (2001)

2001
Directed by Takashi Shimizu
Starring Miki Sakai, Satoshi Tsumabuki, Masaya Kikawads and Shugo Oshinari

Back in the day (like, circa 2005-ish), I used to have fun perusing the aisles at the Hollywood Video in my college town.  For a chain store, this particular brick and mortar establishment had a pretty impressive stock.  Rows upon rows of VHS tapes, that ridiculously taped off porno section, an entire rack devoted to professional wrestling.  In other words, glory.  But while I spent the vast majority of my time in the place looking at the old-school horror aisle, there was always one video on the rack that always seemed to draw my attention.  The art, the freaky-looking hateful chick, the eerie clawed fingers...it was a perfect storm of seductive horrorific charm.  Yet, for some reason, I never rented the damn thing.  The epic conclusion?  It was Tomie: Re-birth.  And yes, folks, that weird hyphenation is indeed the correct title and, much like Colin Quinn, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.  So imagine my shock when I begin my initial J-horror buying binge (I should really trademark that phrase) and see that exact same image looking back at me on Amazon.com.

Released a mere year after Tomie: Replay, it was with this flick that the series truly hit its apex.  For starters, it was directed by Takashi Shimizu, he of Ju-On fame - for my money the single greatest horror franchise of the 21st century.  Admittedly, there are some movies in the Tomie series that just go through the motions, but this guy seems to be genetically predisposed to do anything but go through the motions.  Even though the movie came out before the first theatrical Ju-On, his trademark style is all over this thing, with the slow-burning build-ups, high body count, artful lack of graphic violence and insanely eerie score that makes you question life and reality itself.  If any film company - American, Japanese, Bulgarian, you name it - ever decides to remake Suspiria, I PRAY that this is the guy who draws the assignment, because I believe him to be the only person in humanity who could possibly pull it off without reaching Rob Zombie levels of banality. 

I suppose that's enough ringing in.  On with the show.

PLOT:  It's a new day, and we've got a new Tomie - the name that has popped up in Japanese crime reports since the 19th century in murders, suicides and all other manner of debauchery.  This time around, the action is centered around a small group of college friends, affording us plenty of opportunity for chaos.  The movie starts with a bang, as aspiring artist Hideo (Shugu Oshinari) is painting a picture of Tomie only for her to insult the work.  Poor Hideo, in turn, resorts to killing the f**k out of his girlfriend with an art knife.  Hey, he was proud of that painting.  The movie never looks back, maintaining the same sense of forward momentum that was the hallmark of the Ju-On series as Tomie is soon reborn in customary fashion and just keeps building and building, bringing the two friends who help Hideo bury Tomie into the fray as well as one of the characters' mothers.  What makes this particular entry different from the previous is that two of the characters are VERY focused on actually killing Tomie.  Most of the films in the series have a LONG buildup to the initial murder, but the sheer desperation that this movie's "the cat that just keeps coming back" story is just loads of fun to watch. 
PLOT RATING: **** out of ****.

CHARACTERS AND ACTORS:  I've got to go with Miki Sakai as my personal favorite actress who has ever played the title role.  Much like he did with Takako Fuji, Shimizu really did strike gold when it came to casting his leading lady, as this version of Tomie comes across as decidedly much more freakin' evil than the previous versions.  She seems to take great joy in insulting her future victims and has few redeeming qualities - just the way I like a horror villain.  The central protagonists, however, aren't quite as engaging - these are Takumi (Satoshi Tsumabuki), one of the friends who shoveled dirt onto Tomie's lifeless body in the first act, along with his girlfriend Hitomi (Kumiko Endo).  I will, however, give ten Ric Flair cool points to Shin Kusaka, the aforementioned character mother who not only cuts off Tomie's head at one point in the film but happily insults said head while it is resting in a toilet.  Note to horror directors: there is some serious untapped potential in having heroic-yet-murderous loving maternal wenches in your movie.  This lady was just gold.
CHARACTERS AND ACTORS RATING: *** 1/2 out of ****.

COOL FACTOR:  Compared to what came before it, this film is much more focused on mayhem, and there are few Japanese horror film-makers who do it better than Shimizu.  Sure, there's Takashi Miike, but some of his films border on cartoon.  Tomie: Re-birth has stabbings, suicides, a couple big special effects sequences and the coup de grace middle chapter with the mother and son repeatedly trying to do away with Tomie once and for all, affording the audience plenty of visceral stuff to enjoy.  Having said that, I will admit that the pace is a little slow compared to what we're used to here in the States, and that some of the stuff involving the Takumi-Hitomi domestic drama does drag (alliteration alert).  Still, it's hard to find a movie in this series more downright creepy and violent than this one.
COOL FACTOR: *** 1/2 out of ****.

OVERALL:  I'm not quite sure that my current review format does the Tomie series justice.  It feels like the concept alone - a mysterious woman who causes love, murder and strife wherever she goes, and who cannot die no matter what anyone does to her - is something that needs the old format.  You know, the mammoth-sized recaps complete with about nineteen bullet-point pictures.  Then I remember that I'm not suicidal.  Hopefully, the quality of this film was able to be conveyed with the less-is-more approach, because Tomie: Re-birth is just a damn fun time.  Yeah, the boyfriend-girlfriend heroes are a little weak, but all things considered, they are only onscreen for a comparatively short amount of time.  Unlike Tomie: Replay, this flick grabs your attention, hits you with the DDT and scores the pinfall. 

OVERALL RATING: *** 1/2 out of ****.  Another touchdown for Shimizu, but that's to be expected.  Joe Bob says check this one out.

Tomie: Replay (2000)

2000
Directed by Fujiro Mitsuishi
Starring Sayaka Yamaguchi, Mai Hosho, and Yosuke Kubozuka

When discussing the true horror franchises that have graced us in the 21st century, it's somewhat of a mystery to me how the Japanese Tomie series never gets brought up.  They feature all manner of death, debauchery and deviant behavior, yet it seems that a lot of people don't even consider them horror movies.  One would think that movies that feature characters repeatedly killing the bejesus out of an attractive girl would be worthy of the "horror" label, but what do I know?  When it comes to stuff that can out-and-out disturb audiences, look no further than some of the better entries in this series.

Yes, folks, we're going to be doing another franchise review.  I inducted the original film into the Registry many moons ago, so here's the abridged version of the Tomie story.  Based on a manga series by Junji Ito, the formula for the story always stays the same - a pretty girl named Tomie shows up an a new location (a high school in the original manga), which is them summarily followed by all of the surrounding males falling in love with her while all of the females become insanely jealous.  Eventually, one of the characters murders Tomie, only for the girl to come back to life and start the chain reaction that invariably leads to a whole lot of murder and chaos that Alfred Hitchcock himself would envy.  For what it's worth, the first film in the series was actually a kind of sequel to the main-arc story in the manga.  This one, however, is a different interpretation based on a different "side" story within the literature, complete with a new director and a new actress playing the title role.  It's the hallmark of the film series, for better or worse - you can always count on new artistic drive and someone either hitting a home run or striking out colosally playing the strangest onryo ghost/demon/siren in the J-horror genre.

That's enough introduction.  On with Tomie: Replay, the second film in the series (and no, I don't count the godawful TV movie Another Face, and I'm not going to review it because I'm not that much of a masochist).

PLOT:  Advance warning about the Tomie films - watching them requires a viewer's full attention.  There's no "I'll watch this one while either half-stoned or eating a meal" potential going on here.  This rings true for THIS film more than any other in the series, as it weaves a lot of variable plotlines together.  It begins with a six-year-old girl being rushed to an ER with a severely bloated stomach.  The directors cut in and pull out a human head - a head belonging, of course, to the freshly rejuvenating Tomie, who soon goes about setting forth with her usual "chain reaction" madness.  The male targets this time are a pair of young college students (one of whom being a patient in the very same hospital), while the main heroine is the daughter of the hospital's director, who has disappeared in the days following the operation.  The action is a bit slower than it was during the original film, but if you give it your FULL attention, it's pretty engrossing stuff.
PLOT RATING:  *** 1/2 out of ****.

CHARACTERS AND ACTORS:  Sayaka Yamaguchi is your star actor, playing the aforementioned hospital director's daughter.  It was a good choice, as she is likable when she has to be and just fierce enough to hold your attention while also not being annoying.  Unfortunately, the two dopes playing the mismatched pair of doomed dudes damn near derail this flick every time they're onscreen - with or without Yamaguchi in tow.  I get that there is supposed to be a yin-yang comparison between them, with one of them being a ladies' man and the other a shy nice guy, but the actors overplay it to the point of parody.  As for Tomie herself, Mai Hosho is a bit disappointing after the angry fire that Miho Kanno displayed in the original film.  She does a decent enough job when it comes to the scenes where she's supposed to be sexy, but falls harder than Jennifer Lawrence (yeah, folks, I think she's overrated) during the more heavy dramatic stuff.
CHARACTERS AND ACTORS RATING: ** out of ****.

COOL FACTOR:  The coolness of Tomie films are all in the surprises and the impact of the horror scenes when they do hit, and Tomie: Replay does indeed have a couple of scenes that will have you glued to the television screen.  The flashback that reveals the fate of the team of doctors who initially preserved Tomie's excised head and the gut-wrenchingly tense bit with Yamaguchi arriving home to surprisingly find her missing father there are the flick's two money scenes, and they are the two scenes that will stick out in your mind after the credits have run.  Folks, that's two more scenes than All About Steve had.
COOL FACTOR: *** 1/2 out of ****.

OVERALL:  To anyone out there who saw the original film, you would be well-advised to pick up a copy of Tomie: Replay.  It's a quality film, but it's a quality film in a very different kind of way from the first movie, in that it is much less concerned about female backbiting and rivalry and much more about the power that the character of Tomie has over the men that she comes across.  I WILL reveal that this movie, for this reporter, was an acquired taste - it took three viewings before I was finally able to honestly say that I "liked" it, but I believe a lot of it had to do with my state of mind.  Upon showing patience and watching it in one sitting front-to-back, it's revealed as a pretty damn badass J-horror entry and a worthy successor to the original.

OVERALL RATING: *** out of ****, and more than enough to tide you over until the "epic trilogy" conclusion that came next in the series.  Foreshadowing alert...

Thriller (TV Series, 1960-62)

OK, kids, we're going to be doing something different this week.  I'd been racking my brain for a film to review and couldn't come up with anything.  Fortunately, the minefield of my DVR listing provided me with some backup inspiration.  Really, folks, what is it about musty black-and-white TV programs from the early days of the medium that lend their stories such a creepy quality?  Is it the atmosphere, the occasionally melodramatic but mostly excellent acting, the soul-destroying violin-based scores or some combination of those traits?  Thriller, one of those very anthology shows from the early '60s, was one of the very best of the lot, and since the fine folks at MeTV have been nice enough to schedule the series in a wee-hours-of-the-morning block with Alfred Hitchcock Presents, modern television's decided lack of excitement has been the Lick Ness Monster's gain. 

It's actually a bit of a surprise to me that the series was far from the commercial juggernaut that I had pictured.  Running for two seasons on NBC from 1960-62, Thriller nonethless managed to crank out 67 episodes during that timeframe.  I really miss the days when bitching actors didn't limit TV seasons to 22-some shows.  It's kind of like how I believed Steven Spielberg's Amazing Stories to be this huge, Brobdingnagian-deal when I was a kid only to find out that the only reason it stayed afloat as long as it did was because it was such a huge investment to take on.  Just like that series, however, whatever commercial failings it had, this show was a MAJOR creative success.  While it was initially patterned after Alfred Hitchcock Presents and a fair bit of the episodes are of the "false true crime" variety, it also took its creative license to go way off the beaten path that the Hitchman dare not tread and go completely batshit crazy on occasion.  Of course, it's those latter episodes that are preferred by this reporter.

The series is hosted by Boris Karloff (who also starred in a few episodes), and having seen both this and Mario Bava's Three Faces of Fear, this dude had the uncanny ability to present some of the most out-there material in celluloid history and sound completely dead serious when talking about this stuff.  Make no mistake; he was DEAD serious, as sure as his name was Boris Karloff.  I'm also a huge fan of the overall presentation of the show, with big-time cliffhangers before almost every commercial break followed by that awesome way-cooler-than-Andrew Garfield spiderweb logo design popping up and lulling us out of the action for the break.  And the score...yikes.  I mentioned it earlier, but the people behind the music of this show were the absolute masters at creeping you out.  There are episodes of this series that unnerve me as a battle-hardened 30-year-old nerdy guy (more on those in a bit) due largely to the music contained within.  I can't imagine watching this shit as a kid - this stuff would have scared me more than that godforsaken "Allegash Abductions" segment on Unsolved Mysteries ever did.

Which brings me to the money section of this review - the top episodes.  I haven't quite seen every episode of Thriller, but going through the episode list on Wikipedia, I HAVE paid witness to roughly 90% of them.  Very few of them qualify as clunkers, although a majority of the subpar ones fall into the "crime thirller" category.  Supernatural, gothic horror was this series' bread and butter, and nobody did it better.

Ladies and gentlemen, the top five episodes.  Punch these babies into Youtube if you've got 50 minutes and some sleep to spare.

1.  "Pigeons from Hell" - Arguably the most popular show with the series' fans, and for good reason, because it's frickin' awesome.  Based on a short story by Robert E. Howard (written in 1934, amazingly enough), it concerns two brothers traveling in the deep south and spending a night in a deserted plantation-style manor.  From there, we're treated to a tour-de-force consisting of part ghost story, part voodoo horror tale, and part holy-hell-creepy Deep South imagery visual fest.  If there is ONE thing I can bitch about, it's that the two principal leads (Brandon DeWilde and David Whorf) are a bit on the dry side in the acting department.  EVERYTHING else will stick with you long after the ending credits tick by.  Fantastic.

2.  "The Incredible Doktor Markesen" - The best episode of the series that actually features Karloff in a starring role, and for my money, it has that guy with head-screws beat by a longshot.  Dick York of Bewitched fame arrives at a creepy run-down mansion (noticing a trend?) with his pretty young wife to stay with his uncle (Karloff), only to discover a heaping helping of trouble on the horizon.  It seems that Uncle Markesen is involved in some very morally questionable activities involving the reanimation of dead corpses.  This episode features one of the most unnerving final shots of any horror story I've seen.  We're talking Sleepaway Camp territory here.

3.  "Waxworks" - A choice that is not listed by many fans of the show, but I love it.  Written by Robert Bloch (the author of the novel that Psycho is based on), this is one of the very early examples of the tried-and-true "wax figurines come to life to MURDER" plot that has been done to death since then.  I've got to go with this one as a favorite, because it has a closing swerve worthy of anything Vince Russo could conjure up. 

4.  "The Hungry Glass" - It seems like there wasn't an anthology series in the early '60s that did't feature William Shatner in an episode or two, and it was only a matter of time before he popped up on this one.  The material in this one is top-notch, as Shatner and his new wife purchase a seaside home only to disciver that it has a TERRIBLE SECRET (and capitalizing those words makes me all kinds of happy).  There was an episode of Amazing Stories called "Mirror, Mirror" that also had this episode's theme, with mirror images coming to life and attacking the living, and I've got to go with this version as the preferred choice.

5.  "The Purple Room" - This episode stars some very recognizable names, including Rip Torn, Richard Anderson, and Alan Napier.  They've got a great story to bring to life, as the heir to a big fortune has to spend a night in a creepy house in order to gain his will money.  Any student of the genre is well aware that this will not exactly go off without a hitch.  The ungodly creepy look of the specter in this episode is another one of those things that will take up some permanent residence in your psyche.

JUST missing the top five is "Masquerade," a story full of dry humor as a honeymooning couple (the female played by Samantha Stephens herself Elizabeth Montgomery) stopping at a countryside house for a night's sleep only to find a family led by the incomparable John Carradine who claim to be vampires.  It's also worth noting that the exterior location house is the freakin' BATES MOTEL.

Of course, that's just a sampling of the greatness contained within this series.  The series is available on DVD for all of you supposed normal people, and at sixty-some dollars for 67 hour-long episodes, it's an outstanding value.  Unfortunately, the DVD set doesn't have subtitles, meaning that it excludes me.  Lazy bastards.  Nope, for me, I prefer to watch Thriller the way God intended - on TV, with actual commercial breaks inserted after the music-and-logo transition, flickering away at two in the morning.  Just as sure as his name was Boris Karloff.

Frenzy (1972)

Boring trivia regarding the life and times of the Lick Ness Monster: outside of pro wrestling programming, there is not a single current fictional television show that I actively watch.  For a while, I was really into Castle with Nathan "Should be the new Indiana Jones" Fillion until a particular episode pissed me off to such a degree that I quit watching and have never gone back.  Well, that and the whole "Beckett's mother's murder" story arc was rapidly approaching X-Files levels of banality and unnecessary convolution.  Thus, I've been filling my spare time with old shows, and there is no show that I enjoy watching more currently than MeTV's reruns of Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

Ahhh, Alfred Hitchcock Presents.  The awesome theme music, the black and white format, the suspense stories gloriously free of anything approaching meta, the moral lessons on par with Rod Serling's eyebrows.  There is some truly awesome stuff to be had from that show, and I've been gobbling it up like a meth addict.  It goes without saying that Hitch is an amazing director.  In my humble opinion, he's the best film director ever.  And when I say "in my opinion," I do mean it in the way that Peggy Hill has the opinion that kindling is the best kind of firewood.  It's really more of a known fact.  The only problem with the Hitchcock kick that I've been on lately is that there are admittedly few of his films that qualify as out-and-out horror films.  There's Psycho, of course, one of the two or three best and most seminal horror opuses of all time.  There's also The Birds, but I've never been a particularly big fan of the Tippi Hedron period of his career.  But when it comes to Frenzy, his penultimate film, not only is it a true-blue horror flick, it's also pretty damn good.

PLOT:  This movie has a very simple setup and wastes very little time getting the hell going.  By this point, you should know that this trait has the same effect on yours truly as a tall glass of bourbon with a recovering alcoholic.  A serial killer/rapist is on the loose in London, the common signature being death by garroting with neckties.  See that word "signature" in the last sentence?  I learned it from the book "Serial Killer Files."  Reading pays, people.  Anyway, the movie has what is admittedly a pretty short cast of main characters - the innocent man presumed guilty, a staple in many Hitchcock thrillers, is full on display, as well as two women connected to his life and the determined police chief who relentlessly tracks down the killer.  We are even introduced to the killer fairly early on in the proceedings, a move that can be suicidal, but it is done in a very artful way here that adds to the suspense as we watch this character get involved in the life of our main hero.  Anyone who has seen a serial killer film since is more than familiar with the things contained within this film, but it's hard to imagine anybody doing it better.
PLOT RATING: *** 1/2 out of ****.

CHARACTERS AND ACTORS:  There are some films in the Hitchcock library that definitely rank as some of the truly great "character-to-cast" strokes of genius, the most notable of which being Vertigo's James Stewart-Kim Novak-Barbara Geddes trilogy of awesomeness.  [i]Frenzy[/i] is not quite up to that level, but it's close, with Barry Foster being the man who owns this film as fruit merchant Robert Rusk, the guy responsible for all the death and debauchery floating around London.  Jon Finch is also aces as Dave Blaney, a personal friend of Rusk's and the aforementioned innocent man whom the police believe is guilty.  Blaney has an ex-wife (Barbara Leigh-Hunt) and current girlfriend (Anna Massey) who meet their ends throughout the flick's robust 116 minutes.  Of these principle leads, it's Massey as "Babs" Milligan who draws the Justin Timberlake card when it comes to acting ability.  She's not bad, per se, but she adds very little.  Amazingly enough, several well-known luminaries turned down various roles in this film at one point or another, and we could have just as easily had a cast of Michael Caine, David Hemmings, Vanessa Redgrave and Helen Mirren.  However, I prefer what we got, as the relatively low-key cast are able to vanish into the characters and go all stealth-ninja like on your senses.
CHARACTERS AND ACTORS RATING: *** 1/2 out of ****.

COOL FACTOR:  Frenzy was released shortly before horror became a body count game, but that doesn't mean that it can't be cool.  The two main murder sequences in this film really pack an emotional, repulsing punch, and according to this guy, that is just as important as any Tom Savini-created special effects blood geyser can be.  Much like all of Hitchcock's films, the visual style - most of it capturing the vibrant yet simultaneously drab (don't ask how that works) existence of London's Covent Garden district - is a sight to behold.
COOL FACTOR: *** 1/2 out of ****.

OVERALL:  You know, of all the things that have been written about Alfred Hitchcock, the thing that I have always been most amazed at is that, for years, the guy was considered the period equivalent of a bubblegum pop movie director and nothing more.  It wasn't until later analysis that film scholars held the guy up as the true genius that he is, and he deserves every bit of that praise.  He didn't stay in a comfort zone throughout his incredibly long, prolific career - he changed with the times, and that is VERY evident with Frenzy.  The study of serial killers was just starting to be an area of focus for major law enforcement agencies in 1972, and the horror genre itself was starting to reflect this with a marked increase in the violence level.  Hitchcock embraced both things with this film but never lost his artistry.  Whether you're able to get this film by itself or as part of the amazing 14-movie box set that my copy comes from, this is a flick that you can't go wrong with.

OVERALL RATING: *** 1/2 out of ****.  JUST misses out on being there with the Vertigo and Psycho main event one-two punch, but is firmly in the upper midcard tier of Hitchcock films.  Track this one down, kids.