Adventures in Horror Movie Collecting

The official count: 349...ish.

I say "ish" because some movies are hard to classify.  For example, I have that awesome Alfred Hitchcock Masterpiece Collection.  There's 14 movies in that thing, but I only counted four of them as horror.  On the other hand, I also have a fair bit of TV season sets, and they count as one each.  And then there are things that I DID list that are dubious in and of themselves, but f**k it, Predator and Alien have the primary intention of scaring audiences, thus, they're horror to me.  And then there's that godawful $12 "Horror Classics 50-Movie Pack" that I bought at the online equivalent of Family Dollar that upped that total in a big way.  It counts, dammit! 

At any rate, I've been collecting horror movies for a while.  Nine years, to be exact.  Admittedly, I've tailed off with this a lot in recent years in no small part due to me finally joining the 21st century and doing stuff like...subscribing to Netflix.  Shudder.  The first couple of years were no doubt the most fun I've ever had being a movie fan, starting off with the familiar movies of my youth, loading up on slasher films, discovering J-horror and becoming borderline obsessed, and finally branching out into European stuff with Dario Argento as my guide.  Also, by and large stuff was cheaper then.  Nothing was out of print like it is now, and people on Amazon and eBay weren't such vultures.  You'd be surprised how many of those DVD's up above were found for less than five bucks.  I'm guessing well over half.

Now?  On the sporadic occasions that I still buy horror movies (and I just added 38 films to the collection last week - more on that later), I sample a little bit of everything.  It's all been culled from this journey that I've been on since childhood, being fascinated with campfire scary stories, terrified as all hell by Jason Voorhees, and now as a curmudgeonly, nerdy adult.  But horror is a film genre that contains more variety than any other type of film, and as such, the Lick Ness Library (shudder #2) contains its fair share of slightly interesting stories. 

THE BREAD AND BUTTER: JASON, FREDDY AND MICHAEL
Yeah, any self-respecting horror fan owes it to themselves to have these guys in their collection.  I've now TRIPLE-DIPPED on the Friday the 13th series, first in the "Crystal Lake to Manhattan" crappy set, then the Deluxe Edition DVD set, and now the super-nifty Blu-Ray set.  I still have my original New Line platinum series NOES box set (complete with scratches that make it look like Krueger is attempting to claw out of the box on one side) from back in the day, and I'm perfectly satisfied with that.  Halloween, though, is a different animal.  For years, I was perfectly content to just have the first two movies and call it a day since, to me, that's where the series ends anyway.  But that new Blu-Ray set kept calling my name, like the sweetest Stevie Wonder song.  Eventually, I gave in, which means I now have the entire series in glorious 1080p HD - even those godforsaken Rob Zombie abominations.  Shudder #3.

BANG FOR THE BUCK: JU-ON
Long ago on a January night in 2008, I popped in the DVD of Ju-On: The Grudge, the O.G. Japanese version of the Sarah Michelle Gellar flick you all know and either love or loathe.  I paid exactly $2.98 for that DVD, and even less for its sequel.  I can say with complete confidence that I've gotten more entertainment out of these two discs than any other movies in my entire collection, because for the next couple of years that series became my life.  There wasn't much else to track down - a cheap set containing the first two prequel movies found with the help of an online forum acquaintance, the duo 2009 "Black Ghost/White Ghost" films, and the AmeriJap trilogy.  I've watched all of them at least ten times, but nothing will ever top the original two theatrical Japanese films.  Hell, sometimes I still give them a watch when I have nothing else going on, which is admittedly a pretty common occurrence.

THE NEVER-WATCHED AWARD: THE "HORROR CLASSICS" BOX SET
The AFOREMENTIONED Horror Classics 50-movie pack...ah yes.  Classics.  They might be classics, but not everything with that label has to be good.  I bought this set on Amazon for less than $15 as a nice, quick and dirty way to add a bunch of cheap public domain horror movies to the collection.  That's what it was intended for, and that's what I use it for.  Pretty much exclusively, since it has pretty much sat on my shelf ever since and done nothing else of note.  Now, I HAVE watched a couple of the movies contained within: Carnival of Souls and the original Night of the Living Dead.  Everything else has been neglected, and I don't know if there's enough wild oats in this world to make me devote 70 minutes of my life to The Giant Gila Monster.

TV SHOWS RULE!
I own a few horror-related TV series in their entirety or near-entirety.  Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Night Gallery, Tales From the Crypt and The X-Files, to be exact.  I've always wanted to own the original Twilight Zone series as well, but now that I have Netflix, I'll just save my $100 and play it on repeat.  I've gotten a lot of mileage out of these sets.  For that reason, I LOVE TV on DVD.  For sheer volume, they can't be beat, and I really do need to start looking into more of this stuff.  What say you, guys?  Are Sleepy Hollow and Bates Motel worth buying?

THE CROWN JEWEL: UNIVERSAL MONSTER MOVIES
The most recent addition to the collection just arrived in the mail last week.  At the low-low price of $115, it was the box set containing all 30 classic Universal Monster Movies.  For a lesson in horror history, it doesn't get any better than this.  Dracula, Frankenstein, the Wolf Man, the Creature From the Black Lagoon, if you know your film history, this is pretty much ground zero of where horror started.  While there are series and sets containing movies that I definitely LIKE more, this is easily the coolest thing that I have so far.  The presentation is just amazing, the extras and documentaries are fascinating as all hell, and it even comes with a very well-written little book detailing the entire history of Universal Pictures' Horror Dynasty.  For fellow horror nerds like me, I can't recommend this one enough.  As for the films themselves, reviews are forthcoming...this October.  /lightning crash

CURRENTLY OUT-OF-PRINT
Just last week, I sold my DVD set of Unsolved Mysteries for the whopping price of $400.  The last thing I ever expected when I BOUGHT that set was for its value to skyrocket after going out of print, but that's exactly what happened, and since I'd already watched it three times I essentially said f**k it, I'll take the quick bucks.  I'm not sure that I have anything else of similar potential in the collection, but I DO have a couple items that are no longer produced and could appreciate in value - the Sleepaway Camp Survival Kit containing the original trilogy of slasher classics and the Puppet Master DVD collection, which actually WAS highly valued for a few years before dropping recently because they've since released a newer, snazzier box set that has that stupid Demonic Toys movie in it.

THE FUTURE
Sometime within the next five years, I'm going to put together my dream project.  In my spare bedroom, no less, so if I ever have guests, sorry, you've just going to have to sleep on the couch.  Basically, I want a room in my house that looks just like the video stores of my youth, with shelves of DVD's lining the walls and the long, "artwork" side of the boxes all facing outward.  I plan on going all-out with this theme, planting a TV up in one corner of the room that can play any movie in any format; a section devoted to various horror books, both fiction and nonfiction; and posters lining the walls, from ones I have to expensive-as-shit rare ones that I'll have to buy just for the project.  It also means that I'll have to get some movies that aren't currently in the collection, because who's going to want to go into a room like this and NOT see The Exorcist or Dawn of the Dead?

Anyway, that's where I'm at as a horror movie collector in 2016.  When I give people that number of "349," there's usually an audible reaction that's a mix of "impressive" crossed with "wow, you're a loser."  I like being somewhere in the middle.  So, to anyone out there who likes horror movies and is beginning to think about dabbling into starting that physical collection, the only advice I have is that no collection is built in a day.  Be patient and spend wisely, and you can up that number pretty fast with movies that you actually WANT to watch and more than a few movies that you'll likely never pop in the DVD player.  Happy collecting!

The Presence (2010)

2010
Directed by Tom Provost
Starring Mira Sorvino, Justin Kirk, Tony Curran and Shane "The Pimp" West

For all of my fellow horror fans out there, I'm sure that you've heard some of these genius comments at some point in your life:
"Oh, this movie is in BLACK AND WHITE??!"
"That looks so FAKE!!"
"You have to READ this movie??  Screw that!"

And other assorted gems of observation that are too good to mention.  Because, you know, I wasn't aware of any of these things while watching these movies, and I'm not going to watch them anymore, so thanks for pointing out these startling facts!

The "special effects" comments are always particularly amusing to me.  Now, I know that film is subjective and everyone can think what they want, but...really?  Refusing to watch movies because they don't have $100 million budgets to blow CGI on?  My point: a movie's budget is never a reason to see it or not see it.  I genuinely can't remember the last big megadoom action blockbuster I saw that I actually wanted to watch again.  It really is quite ironic.  These days, Hollywood do anything that a writer can imagine with minimal effort.  But...

The movie in question today is excellent antidote.  The Presence is a super-nifty little thriller from 2010 that was shot for roughly how much it costs to buy a Whopper Jr. value meal, and it doesn't matter in the least bit.  It's creepy, it's atmospheric, and it has the awesomeness of seeing Mira Sorvino onscreen for virtually the entire running time.  If Robert Stack were still alive, no doubt he could have a field day with the mystery of what has happened to her career.  Of all the actors who could have been banished to Lifetime original movies, how this Oscar winner (who is also certifiably hot) wound up in this predicament...man, it's mind-boggling.  And I'll just leave it at that.  To this day, every once in a while she still gets the chance to show her acting chops, and if you're up for a tour-de-force performance look no further.

Folks, The Presence is all about LESS IS MORE.  Longtime readers know that if there is anything in a movie that gives me an erection, it's that very principle.  The first 15 minutes consists of almost nothing but total silence, as Sorvino (whose character is never named in the movie - IMDB lists her as merely "The Woman," and the same can be said for the rest of the characters) arrives at a lakeside cabin alone.  We watch her maintain the place, do chores, sleep, it's like the first five minutes of Jason Goes to Hell only we actually buy that it IS building to something. 

All throughout, the movie introduces its interesting visual quirk, as a ghost is watching her.  The audience can see the dude but Sorvino can't.  It really is unnerving how this is presented - it's like a J-horror movie if you've got the patience for that sort of thing (which a lot of people don't, sadly).  The ghost is played by Shane West, and he's got all kinds of rules that he must abide by.  No leaving the house.  No physically interacting with the living.  It's not spelled out exactly, but the fact that I was able to pick up on this is a testament to the script.  Where this is going is very intriguing on the first watch, but SLIGHTLY unfortunately this is where the boyfriend shows up.

Yes, sir, Justin Kirk of Weeds arrives, the longtime significant other of Sorvino's character, and it's here where we get a lot more development.  See, Sorvino had a very troubled childhood in the form of a father who sexually abused her, and we get all kinds of dialogue that clue us in that Kirk has wanted to marry Sorvino for a while but she has refused based on her natural distrust of relationships and having children.  The boyfriend is easily the weakest thing about this movie; the script tries to paint him as this likable, sympathetic guy, but he really comes off as more of a milquetoast annoying douche.  Fortunately, we're about to get hit with a twist that's way more interesting than him.

While the ghost watches somewhat jealously, a new entity makes its presence felt in the house.  A dark presence.  So dark that he is named "The Dark Man" on IMDB.  Ladies and gentlemen, our resident horror movie demon character, with Tony Curran hamming it up in just the right ways.  He whispers combinations of threats an temptations in Sorvino's ear about what Kirk's motivations are (and, again, the audience can see him but the human characters can't).  He also tempts West's ghost in a way, as the poor sap also has romantic feelings for Sorvino despite the fact that he has a ghost dick that is probably useless in this situation.  The way that the movie plays out from this point on is fairly predictable, but it's artfully done, a mix of melodrama and scary stuff that hits all of its marks exactly as it should. 

People, emotional investment is what movies are all about.  It's why I enjoy The Presence and don't care about The Avengers in the least bit.  I was REALLY invested in Sorvino's character in this movie.  A lot of it is on the script.  Tom Provost (who also directed) can definitely be proud of the story that he churned out here because it's a masterclass in pacing, starting off slow and gradually escalating until we get a satisfying climax.  When I start talking like a snooty film professor, you know we're dealing with some good stuff.  It also helps when you have an actor who really nails the way that a character is written, and that's exactly what we get with Sorvino here.  There are actors who would have been all "yeah yeah blah blah" with this role, but she was into it every step of the way and it shows.  Shane West's ghost character is also very intriguing and has an arc of his own to go through.  Hell, pretty much everything about this movie works.

Well, except for Justin Kirk.  That dude can fuck right off.

*** 1/2 out of ****.  It's LESS IS MORE by the letter, 90% story, 10% scares, and that's about as perfect of a ratio as I can think of.  Highly recommended.

The Screaming Skull (1958)

1958
Directed by Alex Nicol
Starring John Hudson, Peggy Webber and Russ Conway

Pre-MPAA horror movies.  They're a real mixed bag, I tell ya.  Sometimes, they're a mixed bag within the SAME DAMN FILM, and this is what we get with The Screaming Skull, a classic in all the wrong ways no matter how occasionally tedious it might be.

DVD collection masturbation time: I own a few insanely cheap "50-movie-in-a-pack" type horror movie bundles.  For something like ten bucks, you get 50 movies on roughly ten discs.  The movies are, almost without fail, absolutely awful, as they're public domain stuff that anybody can release.  One of the drawbacks of having an insanely large movie collection is that there is no way that you'll ever watch every single thing you own, and I don't know if there's enough wild oats in this world to make me watch ALL of these flicks in rapid-fire succession.  Of the ones I HAVE seen, though, The Screaming Skull is one that I actually don't particularly mind.  It definitely fits into the "so bad it's good" category for yours truly despite virtually every film critic disagreeing vehemently.  You've also got to hand it to any movie that had the balls back in the day to make its ad campaign that it was so horrifying that it could literally KILL you.  That is some grade-A chutzpah right there. 

There's two things that this movie has going for it: it's really simple, and really short, clocking in at just a hair over an hour.  If every movie were this length, Jon Lickness would be a very happy man.  That simple plot, in a nutshell: newlyweds Jenni (Peggy Webber, who also starred in another "so bad it's good" classic The Space Children) and Eric (John Hudson) are moving into a really, really big countryside home.  Weird stuff starts going down.  Shocking climax.  One of the joys of movies like this is the unapologetic basic-ness that we see played out in front of us, and this flick fits the bill in spades.  Both characters are distinguishable enough, I guess, although I've got to hand it to Peggy Noonan for taking on this movie with way more energy than she could have.  And for being super hot in the "1958 mom" kind of way.

For a movie that seemingly zips by at light speed, it's amazingly all about that build, that build, with treble.  That horrible joke gets unleashed because the music in this film is the kind of dreadful, dreary funeral dirge that is clearly meant to drive right into your gut and make you feel all sorts of painful fear.  Instead, it's just kind of blah.  We get clued in to some of the stuff that led up to the events of this film, as this is actually Eric's second marriage.  His first wife Marion died after slipping and cracking her head open on the ground (not making that up, it's said in pretty much as many words in the movie's Oscar-winning screenplay).  The movie is planting those seeds of doubt in your head about what is going on, as Jenni begins having all kinds of weird happenings involving skulls.

Yup, skulls.  The movie is called The Screaming Skull after all.  And now, ladies and gentlemen, for everyone's favorite read-by-8-subscribers segment of Lick Ness Monster's Horror Movie Mayhem: the Boring Life and Times of Jon Lickness.  As a kid, I absolutely loved reading about ghosts, UFOs, bigfoot, all of that stuff.  I checked out every book at the local library (remember those?) on this very subject, and many of them had stories involving a haunted screaming skull in some long-forgotten English palatial estate.  The story terrified me to my very soul, and I always wondered why someone hadn't made a movie pretty much depicting this real-life case to the letter.  Well, somebody had!  Only...we got this.

And now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

The movie takes the mystery angle, but alas, it's not much of a mystery.  It's actually kind of hilarious, as Jenni thinks that the ghost of Marion is haunting her.  She hears a scream.  She sees a skull.  Rinse, lather, repeat, and that's the middle section of this movie.  We also get our single red herring here in the form of the groundskeeper Mickey, played by the director himself.  So we've got a new bride with a background of mental health problems, a mentally challenged groundskeeper, and a husband who may or may not be murdering his wives for their money.  Spoiler alert.  Which of these threats is the correct one?  Is there truly a ghost, or is it all in Jenni's mind?  And if it IS a ghost, who is it trying to torment?  Do you care?  The answer is...not really.  Except for that scene where Peggy Noonan strips down to her underwear.  That scene is absolutely captivating.

What IS pretty good is the movie's climax, which the first couple minutes of this movie brag might just put you in a casket (exact quote).  Now, it's not THAT good.  But it does provide a pretty satisfying payoff, complete with a chase involving the movie's vengeful ghost (spoiler alert #2) chasing around both Jenni and Eric at different points.  There's plenty of creepy visuals here and a soundtrack that does a good job evoking the sense of dread that had been sorely lacking up until this point.  I can't say that the movie left me feeling unsatisfied.  And a dude throwing a chair at a walking skeleton is hilarious.

As you can tell, this movie is definitely not good.  It was shot on the ultra-cheap, and it shows.  The acting is pretty bad with the exception of Webber, but that's probably just me perving on a woman born in 1925 (because I'm such a winner).  And the mystery and twists are all telegraphed from a mile away.  Still, I can't give this movie the BAD label, because I remember it when it's over.  For that, I award The Screaming Skull ** 1/2 out of ****.  It's definitely worth a watch for some solid entertainment to fall asleep to.  As long as you don't start with the final ten minutes or so.

Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977)

1977
Directed by John Boorman
Staring Linda Blair, Richard Burton, Louise Fletcher, Kitty Winn, Paul Henreid, James Earl Jones and Ned Beatty

And to think some people out there have been complaining that I've been doing too many positive reviews.  Hopefully this one will tide you over, because Exorcist II is one of the biggest heaping helpings of shit that you'll ever see.  Or, barring your inability to be as much of a man as me, read about.

Before we get going on this legendary flick of craptacular proportions, a disclaimer: I'm not a fan of the first film.  I know, I know.  Throw me in that safe room with Peter Griffin.  Now, I certainly don't HATE the movie, but at the same time I've never seen why everybody else seems to love the damn thing so much.  It certainly has its moments, but I dunno...it fell flat for me, probably in no small part due to the fact that I didn't see it until I was in my early '20s.  Call it the handicap of being a curmudgeonly adult.  Still, for as much as I'm not a fan of the original 1974 classic, this movie makes it look like the roof of the Sistine Chapel by comparison (/horrible metaphor). 

How could it possibly go so wrong?  They had the original star returning, a decent concept, another freaky score by Ennio Morricone, and a big budget.  The general consensus?  John Boorman, the guy in the director's chair.  This dude...yeah, he certainly liked his stuff to be as trippy as possible, and he used the story that he was given here to make something that is effectively a zillion times more bizarre than you'd ever expect.  It certainly made sense to give Boorman the shot at filling William Friedkin's shoes for this sequel; this was the dude that did Deliverance, after all.  But he also gave us this:

Yeah. 

I will give the movie this - it has one of the creepiest opening sequences that you'll ever see.  Father Philip Lamont (Richard Burton, doing his best Gregory Peck impersonation and sticking to it, dammit) is attempting to exorcise a woman who claims she can heal the sick.  The whole thing goes horribly wrong, winding up with the woman catching fire and burning alive.  It might not sound like much, but it's just the WAY it is shot, with the music by Morricone and the deep oranges and blacks setting the scene that really get to you.  Call it glandular.  And folks, that's how we get the "Priest doing his best to exorcise his OWN demons" part of the story that we also got much more effectively in the first film, and it also means that it's time to switch focus to...our returning star.

Folks, basing the second movie in the Exorcist series around the character of Regan MacNeil made perfect sense of paper.  But the way that the character's arc was laid out in this script...yikes.  Linda Blair was definitely up for what she was required to do, but unfortunately, what she's required to do in this film involves a lot of sitting perfectly still with a mind-reading device attached to her head.  And I'm not making that up.  See, Regan is now in the care of Sharon Spencer (Kitty Winn) and receiving psychiatric guidance from a doctor played by Louise Fletcher.  And Fletcher's character here can pretty much already call that Nobel Peace Prize, because she has invented a MIND READING DEVICE that both herself and Father Lamont periodically use to invade her cerebral space because...reasons.  These are all long, terminally boring and unscary sequences that take up something like 20 minutes of the movie.  Trust me, they drag.

It's here where the movie really starts to fly off the rails, as these dalliances into Regan's psyche lead us to deepest, darkest Africa, where the demon Pazuzu is now targeting a young boy who was once also a healer of the sick.  As an adult, he's played by James Earl Jones, so you know we've got some must-see TV here.  I say must-see TV because this movie is on AMC Fearfest EVERY year.  You know, take my word for it, this movie IS worth a watch at least once in your life, because it's simply INSANE.  The whole idea contained from this point on involves Lamont attempting to track down this African healer, with Pazuzu's mission of stamping out the world's goodness by eliminating its healers being the primary plot device.

Coupled in between those aforementioned lengthy bits as the heroes attempt to gain clues by reading Regan's mind.  They're slow.  They're long.  And they're repetitive, which I'm attempting to convey by continuing to harp on it.

While I wasn't terrified of the first film by any means, I'll admit that some of the stuff in it unnerved me quite a bit.  This movie has exactly two unnerving sequences - the opening and a later scene where Regan, seemingly possessed, wanders out on the ledge of a skyscraper in what was apparently a VERY dangerously filmed sequence with Linda Blair pretty much dangling close to certain death with nothing separating her from 100 feet of certain doom.  That's the thing with Boorman - when it comes to imagery, he's AMAZING, and there's stuff in this film that is actually quite memorable for that reason.  Story-wise, his stuff tends to be a mess, and it ain't just this movie.  The proof?  Sean Connery in man-panties.  'Nuff said.

It starts with the script, which was all extremely ill-advised from the get-go.  The whole "dual continents" thing is an interesting idea on paper that isn't executed very well, sometimes with plot developments where we're left to guess what's happening (like that weird scene where Lamont finds James Earl Jones in full tribal costume and is then immediately getting shown around his office by the same actor wearing a business suit).  It's also never really clear what is still happening with Regan - is Pazuzu still in her?  Still trying to possess her?  Who knows, the script sure doesn't.

And the locusts...this movie might have more locust photography per minute than any other film in cinematic history.  And this includes The Reaping.

No further evidence is needed here.  I give this flick * out of ****.  If you get the impression that this is a bad movie, I've done my job.  Still...it's a movie that you can't quite understand HOW bad and misguided it is until you've actually seen it.  So next October, when AMC inevitably trots this out again, give it a go because this is pretty much a textbook example of how NOT to do it.

Ju-Rei: The Uncanny (2004)

2004
Directed by Koji Shiraishi
Starring Chinatsu Wakatsuki, Miku Ueno, Eriko Ichinohe and Ichiro Ogura

Oh, that wacky Japanese horror.  And I say that wit plenty of affection.  While some critics like to lambaste this particular subgenre for its supposed one-note storytelling (the nerve - disagreeing with me!), I don't think there's any country on Earth that does the horror with more variety than Japan.  You've got crazy zombie flicks, serial killer flicks, splatter flicks...and, of course, ghost movies, and definitely the BEST "angry ghost" flicks that I've ever seen in my life.

And then there's Ju-Rei: The Uncanny.

Several years ago when I first started to get serious about collecting horror movies, I tracked down my fair share of the "big" J-horror flicks.  Somewhere in there, this movie kept popping up on my Amazon searches, and the poster was most definitely alluring.  Angry little girl crawling right at 'ya?  I was all over that shit back in 2008.  To make a long story short, I thought the movie kind of sucked.  After re-watching it, I still feel that way.  However, this movie IS interesting for one very important reason.  That reason being Sadako vs. Kayako, pretty much my ultimate wet dream movie, actually due out in a few months and directed by a guy named Koji Shiraishi.  His debut film?  This movie.  Yeah.  That was some amazing writing skill how we came full circle there, wasn't it? 

Shiraishi has dome some amazing films since Ju-Rei.  Carved is a modern classic retelling of the "slit-mouthed woman" myth, while Grotesque and Occult are simply batshit crazy in the best way.  Here, though, you could definitely tell that this was a director who, while he definitely showed some promise, was still in the formative stages of putting together what would define his later stuff.  And since this movie pretty much cribs Ju-On with absolutely no shame whatsoever, from structure to camera work, I think it's safe to say that they found the perfect guy to do their Grudge-Ring crossover film.

When I say that this movie rips off Ju-On, I mean it.  Pretty much word for word, it IS another Grudge film.  American watchers might be unaware that Takashi Shimizu's original movies in the franchise followed a Quentin Tarantino-esque "chapter" format, with Kayako and Toshio offing fools left and right in some sort of ghostly time warp.  Let'd do the time warp again, people.  This one one-ups that concept by telling its story BACKWARDS, starting at Chapter 10 and working backwards toward the origin of the ghosts.  I will say that from a structure perspective, this is actually a little frustrating.  Since we already know the ending of the story before we get into the thick of the story, it's hard to get too invested into anything that happens. 

Also, the first thing we see in the movie is a bunch of teenagers on the street hip hop dancing.  Definitely not the thing you'd expect in a movie like this.

The story of this movie is criminally simple.  Badass ghosts killing people, usually once per chapter.  But there's something about this movie that's just a little...uncomfortable.  A few more words about how badly this movie wanted to be Ju-On: the ghost in this movie makes the LITERAL same "croaking" sound as Kayako, despite the fact that there was absolutely no reason for it.  See, Kayako croaks because she died as a result of having her throat sliced (or neck broken, if you're into the American versions).  We didn't need the sound effect here, other than, "well, people really loved Kayako, so let's have our ghost do the same thing."  And I'm positive that was exactly how the conversation went when the whole idea came to be.  In English, and everything.

I will say that it's not all bad in this movie.  It has a few moments, although they're VERY few and far between.  Just like Shimizu was doing around this time, Koji Shiraishi makes really good use of the periphery in his shots, showing things that you might actually miss the first time you see the movie (and I did).  There are two deaths that actually did unnerve me a little, one involving a girl who hides herself under a blanket as the ghost attacks her (another bit that was ripped off from Ju-On), but the movie's REAL money scene occurs when an old, blind woman encounters the ghost.  This scene was actually gut-wrenchingly tense, and fairly creative.  Amazing what happens when you put a little bit of thought into what you do.

Alright, summary time.  I know that I've mentioned Ju-On a LOT in this review.  Probably too much, for anyone who hasn't seen those films (and if you haven't...tsk tsk), but it's a conversation that really can't be avoided because this movie DESPERATELY wanted to be just like it to the point of copying it beat by beat.  Those movies also succeeded big time in two key areas: putting together the story's "puzzle," as it is, was SUCH a fun exercise the first time I watched those movies.  They also had genuinely likable characters that you actually DIDN'T want to see die gruesome deaths.  Neither is true here.  While the story does wrap up nicely by the time we get to the original deaths that create the curse, I wasn't really interested in it.  And note that I didn't mention a single character name or actor in this review.  Folks...there's a reason.

Because it has a few sparks of creativity here and there, I'll give the movie * 1/2 out of ****.  As a warm-up phase to what would become the career of Koji Shiraishi in the coming years (all culminating in what will no doubt be a kickass Ring/Grudge crossover), though, it's actually worth checking out for the history lesson.  And you can MST3K it with your friends.

Final Destination 3 (2006)

Directed by James Wong
Starring Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Ryan Merriman

Time to finish off this series.  Yes, folks, I've reviewed every Final Destination film here on the blog with the exception of this one, checking off Parts 4 and 5 when they were released in theaters and dusting out the first two flicks in increments within the past couple years.  Folks, it's a little difficult writing reviews of all these films and coming up with different things to say.  Again...if you've seen one of these movies, you've seen them all.  That goes for pretty much every slasher flick ever released (with a few notable exceptions), but it holds doubly true for the FD franchise.  See the above scatter-brained paragraph?  That's my long-winded excuse for making this review brief.

The setup is as basic as it gets, for this series.  The Final Destination formula was already very well-formed by this point.  Hell, both movies that followed it would use the same framing device.  This time around, it's high school student Wendy Christensen who gets the "star premonition" treatment, this one depicting a horrific accident on an amusement park roller coaster.  And...it's pretty damn cool, just like everything that James Wong has concocted since the first movie (and this time he's back in the director chair, after taking Part 2 off to do whatever former X-Files writers do in their spare time).  It's NOT as wicked awesome as that highway demolition derby from 2, but it's still pretty cool.

You know where it goes from here.  Death needs to be avenged, Tony Todd guest appearance, "we need to fool death" conversations, yada yada yada.  When it comes to these movies, it's all about the execution. 

Fortunately, I happen to think this movie has a bit better execution than the second movie.  That one made the mistake of bringing a past character back and making the character an integral part of the proceedings again.  No one gives a shit about the human element in movies like this, but it DOES help when you have Mary Elizabeth Winstead in your movie.  Along with Katie Cassidy, Miss Winstead is one of the closest things we have to a modern-day scream queen.  She's done plenty of horror movies, and puts off this great "girl next door" vibe that hearkens back to Jamie Lee Curtis quite well.  It's no different here.  An impressive feat, since the script doesn't give her much to work with.

And that's all I'm going to say about the characters in Final Destination 3.

If you're watching these movies, you know what the money scenes are.  We get another decent batch of death served up here, with my favorites being the back of a dude's head getting sliced off in a restaurant drive-thru, the nail gun death (so awesome), and that bit in the tanning salon, truly one of the more cringe-worthy things you'll ever see.  I also get the impression that the ending was actually meant to make this the final movie in the franchise, but alas, the temptation to have death FLYIN' AT YA IN 3D was too much to resist a couple years down the line. 

Anyway, this is a pretty middling flick.  It delivers everything you expect to see in these movies and absolutely nothing more, although it does have Mary Elizabeth doing her thing.  I'm also going to credit her for the impressive box office take that this movie enjoyed, as this movie pulled in more than $100 million in pure profit from its slight budget.  Kids, there's your reason why we got a couple more movies out of this admittedly slim formula. 

Rating time for this movie.  ** 1/2 out of ****.  It's not going to do anything to blow you away, but Mary Elizabeth Winstead is worth an extra 1/2 * on her own.

Now for a few more words about the whole Final Destination series in general.  Much credit to James Wong for coming up with this concept, because it definitely made a fantastic movie for the first go-round.  I will say, though, that these movies get repetitive mighty quick, starting with the first sequel.  When this movie came out, I didn't even bother seeing it in theaters for that very reason.  However, three years later, I drove 80 miles to see the fourth movie in 3D because it came out the same day as Rob Zombie's Halloween II and I wanted that movie to get crushed harder than Dean Ambrose at WrestleMania at the weekend box office.  It did, but that flick was pretty damn tepid.  But the fifth movie?  Friggin' awesome, with amazing kills and a finale that generated an audible "oh shit" from yours truly.  If I could retroactively grade the movies, I'd probably dock Part 4 down to ** but keep everything else the same. 

Now let's just pray we don't get any reboots.

Devil Doll (1964)

1964
Directed by Lindsay Shonteff
Starring Bryant Haliday, William Sylvester and Yvonne Romain

I'm sure it's been mentioned on the blog before, but I'm a huge Mystery Science Theater 3000 fan.  My first experience with it was the feature film, and I waited - with rabid anticipation - for the next three years for the fine folks in the Worthington, Minnesota cable TV offices to grant us access to the channel that carried it.  Well, we got it, and this was followed by yours truly waking up at 7:30 on Saturday morning all through high school to tape as many episodes as I could.  And it was worth it, goddammit.  At any rate, while most of the movies featured on this show were big steaming piles of dog shit, every once in a while we would get a flick that would actually be interesting without Mike and the 'Bots providing the soundtrack.  Devil Doll is one of these movies.

Released in 1964, this British creeper is by no means perfect.  The frequent monologues by the main villain, the presence of a lady whose butt cheeks are perpetually are on display (don't ask), and protracted bits of nothing happening indeed made for one of the best latter-season MST3K episodes.  Still, there's a lot to enjoy about Devil Doll, not the least of which being that this is truly one of the best uses of atmosphere I've seen in any horror flick.  Had this come out just a few years later, with a color palette and maybe somebody like Mario Bava calling the shots, this one would have truly gone down in the annals of unsung movies, which is something that I totally did not make up just now to make myself sound smart. 

The movie tells the story of a popular ventriloquist self-dubbed "The Great Vorelli," boasting one of the slickest fake beards you'll ever see and a voice that can melt steel not unlike Robert Stack.  He's played by Bryant Haliday, and, without exaggeration, it's a tour-de-force performance.  Every syllable this guy utters is believable, no matter how ridiculous some of the material.  Rooney Mara, take note.  He performs in front of packed houses with his doll, an amazing little contraption dubbed "Hugo" that Vorelli shares an almost uncomfortable level of tension with.  Not sexual, I promise, although the jokes are there for the picking.  Unfortunately, there are some other people who want a piece of Vorelli's rise, and this is where we meet our other characters.

I say "unfortunately" because one of these characters is played by William Sylvester.  Now, he's been in plenty of respectable stuff, including an acclaimed role in 2001: A Space Odyssey as well as being the guy who really, really wanted to catch Robert Denby.  For whatever reason, seeing him in anything is like Quint's fingernails on the chalkboard with me, and it's no different here.  Here, he plays newspaper reporter Mark English, and he's out to prove that Hugo is some kind of fraud.  He's also a wiseass without having any right to be, and he's engaged to the impossibly hot Marianne Horn (Yvonne Romain, who is simply fantastic to look at - check her out in the Hammer horror classic Curse of the Werewolf for further proof).  After witnessing a performance by Vorelli that includes Hugo walking across the stage, it's all hands on deck.

Make no mistake, as good as Haliday is, Hugo is the true star of this movie.  Yes, this was 1964, and we weren't getting any state-of-the-art puppet effects.  The movie becomes much more effective for that very reason; whoever designed the look of this thing deserves more kudos than Mr. Burns could possibly ask for, because Hugo's creepy stare ranks right up there with Angela Baker in the horror hall of fame.  Much like Chucky in the original Child's Play, we know something is up.  Something is lurking underneath.  But what?  The movie does a good job with its pacing, never revealing too much information as a somewhat hackneyed and always cliched romance plot starts, with Vorelli wooing Marianne away from English with his combination of charisma and slick moves.  At least, as slick as swarthy bearded American guys in early '60s British horror films can be. 

We're also clued in here that Vorelli is some kind of master hypnotist, and has Marianne entranced to do his bidding.  He utilizes this skill to mainly make her not talk.  And that's just fine by me, because Miss Romain's delivery is mostly just about as wooden as...well, Hugo.  Since we know that Hugo is alive in some way and that Vorelli is a hypnotist, we have a fairly good idea where it's going.  But the flashback sequence that gives us all the answers is the best thing about Devil Doll, especially when we get to witness the younger Vorelli's final performance with his former partners.  I'll leave that up to you to see.

By now, I'm sure all of you (all...eight) know whether or not you'll check this movie out.  If nothing else, it really is worth a watch on MST3K, easily available with a YouTube search.  But without it, this is a movie that demonstrates with pitch-perfect clarity one of my biggest gripes of modern cinema.  Over the past fifteen years or so, we've gotten remakes.  Of everything.  Anything that's been good or successful has gotten the bastardization treatment.  Sometimes, they turn out good.  More often, they turn out incredibly bland and banal.  I think the reason for this is simple.  They pick the most beloved projects to give the fresh coat of paint, and doing that to movies that don't NEED it just make the whole undertaking feel unnecessary.  On the other hand, there are movies like Devil Doll - movies with a GREAT concept that might have just been lacking in execution in one or two key areas.  With a deft hand and some modern polish, they could be awesome.  Picture Kiefer Sutherland as Vorelli, Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Marianne and anyone other than William Sylvester as English and you've got the recipe for success, one that I would buy a movie ticket for fifteen times before I'd check out that awful-looking Ghostbusters remake. 

Oh, and one last thing.  The ending sequence here is both unintentionally hilarious and creepy as fuck.  Again, I'll leave it up to you to see.

Rating time.  Let's give this one *** out of ****.  It's flawed, it's occasionally laugh-out-loud funny, but it's no doubt an effective little chiller that just needed a BIT more TLC to be a classic.  And try to get this face out of your head afterward.

Enjoy the nightmares.