In addition to the usual reviews and comments you would find on a horror movie blog, this is also a document of the wonderfully vast horror movie section of the video store I worked at in my youth.
To all those who came here from the event or Storm Crow's FB page, welcome! I am Jay, one half of the horror trivia quizmasters and this is my humble blog. Here's the selected list of titles mentioned at the last event. Click on the titles to be redirected to their Imdb listing.
Horror Trivia Night happens at Storm Crow Manor in Toronto. If you're in the area, come on down! Register here. If you're not local, we do occasionally stream the event on @ruemorguemag Instagram.
Yes, this is a rare post about a new release. It doesn't happen very often these days, but once every few years (Halloween 2018, The Sadness) I feel compelled to type out some thoughts on the film of the hour. That film today is Lee Cronin's new Evil Dead flick.
I had a lot of fun with this one, much more than I did with Fede Alvarez's 2013 remake. Looking back on my review from ten years ago, I was perhaps a little harsh. For what it was, it was fine, but Cronin's offering is a much stronger piece and I think a legitimately good horror movie.
Predominantly, I wager this is due to the likeable cast of characters. Apart from Jane Levy and Jessica Lucas (bless her) I didn't give a rat's ass about anyone in the remake, but here, this crew was just a nice family that unfortunately DJ'd their way into tragedy. All the performances are solid, especially Aussie Alyssa Sutherland as the matriarch-turned Deadite - do we still call them that? She brings a tremendous physicality to the role, adding pinches of The Joker and Pennywise into her portrayal to really make it sing. Some of her line deliveries really got the crowd going.
I think the fresh location (a soon to be knocked down apartment complex) really helps this movie, as well. While it is mainly confined to one floor, thus not going full Demons 2 as I had hoped, they still utilize the environment to the fullest. And not unlike the new Hellraiser, the filmmakers found interesting ways to expand the lore, in addition to keeping the effects as practical as possible.
Speaking of which, Evil Dead Rise is very bloody. VERY bloody. An estimated count of 1,700 gallons of blood seems low in comparison to the remake's apparent count of 70,000. Although, Cronin did say that due to the pandemic, blood shortages caused them to have re-use it as much as possible. Can you imagine? I kept thinking about that during the final act, man the actors really earned their pay on that stretch of the shoot. Great stuff.
Lily Sullivan as Beth in Evil Dead Rise
Evil Dead Rise is just well put together, with good pacing, particularly once the blood hits the fan. All of the callbacks to the original trilogy - of which there are many - felt earned and not simply fan service. Additionally, there are many other classics to which Cronin pays homage, including The Shining and Aliens - the latter heavily in the climax, even down to the Horner infused score.
I think my only knock on this movie is that the bookend sequences seemed unnecessary. I imagine it served as a doorway to make more Evil Dead films, but those scenes seemed a tad clunky in contrast to the main story. A minor gripe.
Lastly, I've been thinking about why Rise works so much better than its 2013 counterpart, even rhough they share almost exactly the same tone. Perhaps it was just expectation. A decade ago, the marketers decided to plaster “THE MOST TERRIFYING THING EVER” on their posters (it wasn't), while Cronin's crew instead focused on the family element that just happens to be one of the main strengths of the piece. Oh, and they gave us cheese graters after the movie...
So, yes. I approve of this latest Evil Dead film. It was a lot of fun to see with a crowd, and if you feel so inclined I recommend you do the same.
Hey all, just wanted to post that Rue Morgue #194 is out now.
As you can see, it's all about Candyman. With things being what they are right now, distribution lines for RM are a tad thin so why consider grabbing some back issues from the online store. Just think what a pick-me-up it would be to have this mag show up in your mailbox, instead of just the usual burger joint coupons and real estate listings.
It's 2018 folks! Not the greatest start considering man baby numero uno just basically tweeted “my missiles are bigger than yours”, but let's try and forget we're a button push away from living post-apocalypse Bruno Mattei style and talk about some upcoming horror flicks, shall we?
I'm happy that two of genre's hottest directors, Robert Eggers and Jeremy Saulnier, have projects coming out this year. Eggers is following up his brilliant 2015 debut The Witch with an ambitious retelling of Nosferatu. I wouldn't blame you for being skeptical, but if there is anyone who can do justice to this vampire touchstone, it's him.
On the strength of Blue Ruin (2013) and Green Room (2015), we should all be very excited about Saulnier's newest project Hold the Dark. Adapted from the William Giraldi book, it stars Riley Keough & Alexander Skarsgård and takes place in the Alaskan wilderness.
I'm going to offer the theory that due to the strength of TV's Legion and last year's mega-hit It, horror has bled into the superhero genre and given us The New Mutants. Not that I wouldn't have seen this already with Anya Taylor-Joy & Maisie Williams in the cast, but with a trailer like this, I'm so in.
It looks like we get some promising giant monster movies this year - and I'm not talking Jurassic whatever. After almost two decades of attempts, the giant shark flick The Meg is finally coming to fruition as a Jason Statham action vehicle. Any port in a storm I say.
Perhaps a little bit more respectable is Alex Garland's Annihilation with Natalie Portman & Jennifer Jason Leigh. I like the trailer, even though it does have that whiff of disposable sci-fi. However, some of us probably thought the same way about Ex Machina at first glance.
Then there is A Quiet Place. I find the “silence is survival” hook really intriguing, but it's heartbreaking that the first thing I thought about after seeing the trailer was not “man that is going to be intense” but “all I'll be able to hear during the tense bits is fucking mouth breathers chewing their popcorn”.
In terms of the A-list creepers, Winchester has potential. The scares in the trailer look old hat, but I'm counting on the production design of the house and Helen Mirren and company to add the necessary gravitas.
Out of the sea of sequels, two stick out as promising. Even though I don't really need it, I'll check out Strangers 2. They've had a decade to work on it, so hopefully it's good.
Then there's Halloween. I'm gonna give it a chance for three reasons - John Carpenter, Jamie Lee Curtis and Jordan Peele. No, I know Peele isn't involved, but when I heard about who was doing this new iteration of Halloween - or the Pumpkin Express I remember calling it - I thought what the fuck do these comedy guys know about horror? Then Get Out dropped like a fucking culture bomb.
Sometime ago, a member of the Laser Blast Film Society put forth the idea of doing a Hellraiser marathon. Similar endurance tests had been undertaken before with the likes of the Resident Evil and Saw series' - plus that legendary time we watched films for twenty-four hours straight - so no big deal, right? Well, I'm not sure we were all aware - at least I wasn't - when we signed up for this that there were actually nine fucking titles to the Hellraiser franchise. I myself had previously only seen five with vague recollections of three of them.
So last weekend, we did it. We absorbed nine films in fifteen hours and emerged with our souls relatively intact. But we had to get creative. We started with Hellraiser, mainly because not all in attendance had seen it and we wanted to create a base. Going forward though, we decided to watch the rest of them at random - our fate decided by a dice roll.
Whatever number came up, we watched that sequel. In keeping with the theme of hell, we also employed some penalties for various transgressions. For instance;
If you arrived late; PUNISHMENT!
If you looked on your phone for too long; PUNISHMENT!
If the die rolled outside the area; PUNISHMENT!
If you rolled a previously rolled number or a 10; PUNISHMENT!
Punishments involved us watching ten minutes of various terrible Halloween specials, namely the animated David S. Pumpkins' and Michael Jackson ones. Worst of all by a large margin was the Big Bang Theory special. Holy fuck, I'd rather watch all nine Hellraiser films again rather than suffer anymore of that. It is mind boggling how agonizingly unfunny that show is.
We were also “treated” to the Hellraiser fan film No More Souls featuring a sixty-year-old Pinhead lamenting Shakespearean-style about days gone by. Then the two Cenobites from Hellworld walk out and stab him to death. Hurm. That the director of this (though an accomplished FX artist) was in fact responsible for the upcoming tenth film in the franchise did not instill me with a lot of confidence.
Anyways. The first Hellraiser film.
Where it all began. It is still the best and the make-up effects are straight up terrific. What a breath of fresh air Clive Barker was circa 1987. In a world of slashers and creature features, he brought forth not only iconic imagery, but interesting and provocative themes. I always forget that considering how iconic The Cenobites are, they had very little screen time. I also found it quite funny that Pinhead was, in fact, relatively easy to trick. Kirstie (Ashley Laurence) was super good at it.
Kirstie: Frank escaped you!
Pinhead: No one escapes us!
Kirstie: He did, I've seen him.
Pinhead: ...Suppose he did escape us...
OR in Part II
Pinhead: Time to play.
Kirstie: Wait!
Pinhead: No more deals.
Kirstie: No deals, just information.
Pinhead: ...Go on.
We were watching the Arrow Blu-ray release of the film and as a result I noticed for the first time there were a couple of dicks nailed to that turning pillar of carnage at the onset.
So now that we had a good foundation, the first die roll was a 9. Yes folks, we went right to the shit.
Revelations, the super cheap flick from 2011 that was seemingly made just to keep the rights. The movie is by far the worst out of the bunch and thank God we got it out of the way early. I am one-hundred percent sure we would have not finished if we watched them in numerical order.
I don't even know where to begin with this. The shitty found footage setup? The fat Will Forte looking mofo playing Pinhead? The boring family stuff which played out like a porno with the sex scenes cut out? The characters yelling Tijuana! to remind us that's where they were supposed to be?
The horror. The horror.
I think the worst thing was that, unlike parts 5-8 which put on different skins, Revelations just aped the first movie. It was more like a really shitty reboot of Hellraiser, than a sequel. It was painful, but thankfully only seventy-five minutes - trust me we checked to see how much time was left on several occasions.
Hellworld was released in 2005, and the third and last Hellraiser sequel directed by Rick Bota. I knew nothing about it, except it had something to do with a Hellraiser-themed MMO. From what I understand, a good number of these Hellraiser sequels were unrelated horror scripts with some Pinhead shoe-horned in at metered intervals. I can see that. This movie was definitely made in the wake of Saw. There's a scene you could have stuck in one of those movies and you wouldn't know the difference. Also, it had this veneer of self awareness where the franchise existed in this world so characters wore Pinhead apparel and used terms like “the Lament Configuration” and “wall-walker”.
Kathryn Winnick in Hellworld.
However, despite that this movie ended up being my favourite of the post-canon sequels for two reasons. First, it starred, unbeknownst to me until the opening credits, both Lance Henriksen and Kathryn Winnick. Secondly, in Saw-like fashion, Hellworld had a ridiculous hail Mary plot twist that made no sense that somehow made the movie infinitely more entertaining. We were all confused as to why Pinhead - when he was in it - had become a stock slasher villain and said twist explained that. I'm pretty sure it was unintentionally clever on the filmmaker's part, but I'll take it!
Bloodline was the last true Hellraiser movie and also the last theatrical release - which I saw in its original run. I remembered very little, except that it was in space - a trend popular with fourthinstallments. I appreciated that director Kevin Yagher attempted something a little higher concept with the multiple time periods, but it was a little dry and I don't think that was all due to studio tampering. Even though the series was getting stale, there were still a lot of great effects in this with two practical explosions - one you get to see twice!
But, getting back on the subject of tricking Pinhead, the best part in the movie is the priceless look on Pinhead's face when he gets duped by a hologram.
I think by this time my brain was starting to short circuit because I only remember bits and pieces of this one. Adam Scott in his period getup, the cool Cenobite design of Angelique, that Kim Myers - the Meryl Streep lookalike from NOES 2 - was in this one and the entertaining space station effects.
Inferno was the first direct-to-video title and also the first re-appropriated script - a detective noir thriller. The influences are many, but Lost Highway, The Bad Lieutenant and the stuff David Fincher was doing in the last-half of the nineties are right up front. It has a few interesting sequences, namely the cowboy poker game, but it - like many of these middle sequels - often meandered into watch glancing territory. The ending was pretty pedestrian and has been done better on a least half-a-dozen occasions.
We were getting into a rut, so it was fortunate that Hellbound came up at this point. This is a lot of people's favourite and I'd agree the most visually interesting. It brought back the characters from the first movie and successfully expanded the universe. The effects built upon the grotesqueness and even marched into cringe-worthy territory. It even has some sweet stop-motion stuff in it, as well. Hellbound was just the pick up we needed, before falling off the ensuing cliff.
This one was a slog that starred Kari Wuhrer as an investigative reporter tracking down a death cult of people called Deaders. It was shot back-to-back with Hellworld in Romania. It was a pretty dull affair, but I'll take Wuhrer over Inferno's Craig Sheffer any day of the week. I do recall two memorable things, the first being two sequences that took place in a club that happened to be on a running subway car and the other involved a bloody scene where Wuhrer tries to pull a knife out of her back. It was oddly arousing -- oops did I type that aloud?
We were pretty happy with this roll, because it meant we got to end on something fun with Hell on Earth. Hellseeker was the only non-canon sequel I had previously seen. I remembered it being pretty good. My memory lied to me. This was even more of a chore than Deader. And it even had Ashley Laurence back as Kirstie! It was another uninteresting noir that couldn't even be saved by the talents of Dean Winters.
I feel ya, bro.
I realized that for some reason this series seemed better suited to female protagonists. Someone brought up the point that many of these sequels are even Bechdel approved, as there are several women team-ups over the course of the series (Kirstie/Tiffany in 2, Joey/Terry in 3 and Amy/Marla in 7). Equality shows up in the weirdest places it seems.
While I still maintain that the scene where Pinhead and company march down the street while dispatching cops was the point-of-no-return moment of the Hellraiser series, after watching all the non-canon entries Hell on Earth was a helluva lot of fun. I think the theatrical version I saw might have been cut because I didn't remember a lot of the gore in this. I believe this one has the most Cenobites per capita, as well. Even if Pinhead was pretty much doing his best Freddy Krueger impression by the end, I can still appreciate it.
Hell on Earth came out in 1992, right when mainstream horror was in its death throes before being revitalized by Scream a few years later. This movie had a decent start, but by the third act, director Anthony Hickox was basically throwing everything at the screen and just hoping something would stick.
And then we were done! This marathon was not nearly as painful as I was expecting. Hellseeker & Deader weren't great, but still miles better than Revelations. I think that was the only one that really tested our mettle and, as I said, it was a Godsend that we got that over with quickly. Should you ever attempt to do this yourself, know that it is possible.
Before I get into my TIFF coverage, there is something else I must talk about. This weekend I saw the much anticipated
release of Andy Muschetti's new version of Stephen King's It.
I came around to the idea of this
adaptation after I saw the first trailer. I realized that there were
a lot of things that could be improved upon from the 1990 mini-series
so I gave it a chance. I'm very glad I did. Director Muschietti
did an exemplary job. After his previous film Mama, we already knew
he had a knack for set pieces and getting solid performances from
young actors, but he took it to another level with It.
However, from day one, it was evident that this
film would live or die on the portrayal of Pennywise the Dancing
Clown and Bill Skarsgård really nailed it. He didn't try to ape Tim
Curry's version, but rather used his own energy. I absolutely loved
the physicality he brought to this role. He looked like he was
literally drinking the fear coming off his victims.
Bill Skarsgård as Pennywise the clown in It.
Apart from Pennywise though, it was
super impressive to me that Muschietti was able to assemble such a
wonderful cast of eight young kids that could not only act, but also
gel together as well as they did here. They were all great,
especially Sophie Lillis & Jack Dylan Fraser who played Beverly & Eddie. Lillis gave a wonderfully layered performance and Fraser had
this unique vibe that really made him stand out.
It's widely accepted that the
downfall of Mama came from its over-reliance on CGI and Muschietti has mostly learned his lesson from that. While It did employ substantial visual effects, a lot of them were used in really
creative ways. I feel like they utilized many different techniques, some
of them so abstract my brain had trouble latching onto them - the
lady in the painting and the headless figure in the library in particular were two
real standouts for me.
The Loser's Club 2017
Looking back on It, I can recall so
many solid set pieces. In the first half of the movie, the sheer
volume of them was almost exhausting. Muschietti employed a modern jump scare formula, but he seems to have a better
handle on it than most of his contemporaries. He knows when to pull
back, before you fall over the precipice of desensitization. He also had the right
amount of restraint on his eighties fan service. It was set then, but didn't overly ram the decade down our throats as much
as Stranger Things tends to.
Another layer that I found really
enticing – and this could very well be cribbed from the book –
was the characterization of the town of Derry itself. I felt there
was this underlying thread that the townspeople were complacent that
this evil shit was just going to happen every quarter century and
they just hoped it wasn't their kid that got snatched. It would
explain why Eddie's mother tried to keep him sheltered from the
outside world.
It was a top tier King adaptation with
a measure of darkness very few have had. It always seemed to me that
his vision has often obscured while on its way to the screen,
either by the team at the helm or, in the case of almost all of his
small screen ventures, restrained from its full potential. It felt
much more like the adaptation glory years from 1976 to 1984.
I think It will take a lot of people by
surprise. The previous teleplay had a very playful predilection to it that
this one does not. Sure, there's the jovial shit-talking among The
Loser's Club, but once It appeared well... It's like I exclaimed
after the opening SS Georgie scene – “These guys aren't fucking
around.”
Hello all. I hope you're weekend is going well. Mine has been a super quiet one in front of the various screens. I do have some interesting stuff to post about this week, so let's get right to it.
OMG Yes.
The creators of the burgeoning Wyrmwood franchise dropped a concept trailer this week for their other project, Daemonrunner.
I loved that. This is an infinitely more interesting world to me than their other IP, so I hope they bring this to fruition at some point.
Deja Vampire.
You know of my disdain of remakes, but I heard of one this week that actually made some kind of sense. Robert Eggers, the main behind 2015's terrific film The Witch is going to tackle the 1922 classic Nosferatu.
This seems like a perfect fit for him as he has proven his dedication to detail and world building is second to none. Furthermore, Eggers is reuniting with Ana Taylor-Joy, one of the most exciting actresses working in the genre today in my opinion. I mean, how can this go wrong, right?
Art & Hammer.
I was ecstatic to hear this week that Gary Pullin & Sara Deck's art exhibition series Below The Line is returning to Hamilton next month. Below The Line 2 will feature not only new artwork from Pullin & Deck, but also Jason Edmiston, Justin Erickson, Paige Reynolds, Matty Ryan Tobin & Kevin Tong. Check out some of what's in store below.
Art by Gary Pullin.
Art by Paul Jackson.
Art by Jason Edmiston.
Art by Jason Edmiston.
The show opens September 8th at Mills Hardware as part of Hamiton's Supercrawl Weekend. For more details, click here.
I made a comment a few weeks ago that I was pretty nonchalant about the fact that the new Friday the 13th film had been abandoned. My curiosity got the better of me though, so I ended up reading the script.
Turns out it wasn't terrible. It had some pretty decent set pieces and writer Nick Antosca made an effort to keep you guessing as to who the Final Girl was going to be. I actually read scripts (Black & Blood List mostly) quite often now and eighties period pieces are ubiquitous at the moment - especially after Stranger Things hit it big on Netflix last year. I have to say that this one was, apart from the caretaker being named Frank Booth, probably the least obnoxious in that regard -- most obnoxious if you're wondering is a little ditty called Summer of '84 which I'm sure will be eye-rolling onto screens in 2018.
It's not all gravy though. He's tinkered with the timeline a bit and for some reason Jason isn't actually referred to by name until the third act, as if we weren't supposed to know who he was. There is also a big climax that I suspect is the reason the bean counters inevitably pulled the plug. Not that Jason hasn't had his share of ridiculous foibles, but the sequence in Antosca's script reminded me of the Cenobites vs. Cops scene in Hellraiser III. The series really never recovered from that.
Anyway, it's kind of ironic. The minute that Platinum Dunes was about to produce a remake that might have turned out half decent, it ends up getting shit-canned. Where were these fucking suits when all their previous mess-terpieces went to camera???
Rant over. Let's just enjoy the game and be done with it.
Holy balls, there was huge news in the Toronto horror scene this week.
The New Regime.
TIFF shocked the horror scene this week by announcing that, after a twenty year run, Colin Geddes, the long-time head of their iconic Midnight Madness programme, will be stepping down. Having been attending since 2000, Midnight Madness has become a highlight of my horror calendar. Geddes introduced me to some of my favourite modern horrors like High Tension, Ju-on, Inside, You're Next and It Follows.
TIFF programmer Colin Geddes
Fortunately, Geddes will still be overseeing the curation of Toronto's Royal Cinema and the online streaming service Shudder. Taking over the reigns of MM is the highly capable Peter Kuplowsky. He has been programming genre events for the better part of a decade, so he knows his shit, trust me. I'm extremely excited to see his brand of Madness in the years to come.
Geddes with protégé Peter Kuplowsky. Photo courtesy Ian Goring.
On the print horror side of things, the Toronto based mag Rue Morgue announced that long-time collaborator Andrea Subissati will be taking over as Executive editor.
Former editor Dave Alexander will be focusing on special projects “involving new partnerships in publishing, merchandising, events and visual media.” Subissati is a fixture in the Toronto horror scene with her involvement in The Black Museum lecture series being of the most interest to me.
Now, onto the sad news that just broke while I was writing this. As of now, it appears that the iconic horror magazine Fangoria has shut its doors. Last night, current editor-in-chief Ken W. Hanley took to Twitter and point blank announced;
“For those wondering: there will likely never be another issue of FANGORIA, especially in print, unless there's new ownership.”
That's a fucking bummer. Hopefully, someone out there recognizes that the Fangoria name has too much brand recognition and history and resurrects it somehow.
Focusing on science fiction horror, Galaxy features nine stories, including a wraparound segment directed by Justin McConnell. Check out the trailer below.
You know, just when I was breathing a sigh of relief that Paramount's reboot of Friday the 13thhad been buried, I heard the most recent news about the new Halloween. David Gordon Green and Danny McBride? Seriously? At least I had some interest when Mike Flanagan was involved.
While it is cool that John Carpenter plans on contributing music, instead of just letting a cheque fall into his hand as per usual, I think I'll be sitting out this Pumpkin Express.
