Black & Blue.

It would appear the parting comments of my last post willed this one into existence. Here be my thoughts on George Mihalka's 1985 film Eternal Evil aka The Blue Man.

When people start dying around him, director Paul Sharpe (Winston Reckert) begins to suspect his recent dealings with astral projection may have something to do it.

When I picked this up a few weeks ago at Cultland, I had no knowledge of its existence - at least as Eternal Evil - but I was very happy to add it to my collection of crusty Canadian horrors. This film was directed by George Mihalka, best known for 1981 slasher staple and Moosehead commercial My Bloody Valentine and he definitely flexes his creative muscles in this one. The camerawork is wild, with it floating everywhere, suitably conveying the out-of-body nature of the subject matter. I noticed a sequence early on remniscent of Argento's Tenebrae, but Mihalka - and DOP Paul Van der Linden - almost one-up him when the camera seems to detach and float away.

I was pondering how many horror films are about astral projection and there really are only a few - at least of this era - and that surprises me because it's a terrifying concept. I guess we were just wrapped up with your average ghosties around this time to complicate things further I guess. About halfway through, when Reckert & Karen Black were walking across a bridge, I realized I recognized it, recalling that I rode actually over this bridge during the Montreal Horror Express in 2019.

I've been here!

Eternal Evil is decent overall I'd say. It meanders in the middle a bit, but it does offer some surprises. I also appreciated when it veered into giallo territory, one scene involving a red raincoated figure in an elevator comes to mind. The climax may be a little leading, but the payoff is satisfying enough to recommend. Thankfully, Karen Black gets to Karen Black with decidedly more to do here than she did a decade earlier in the 1973 Montreal-lensed thriller The Pyx. I can also confirm that this movie is not a Blue Man Group origin story... I'm sure I'm the first one to make that joke, right?

That's it for now, I'm shortly off to my yearly sojourn to Montreal for the Fantasia Film Festival. Until then, stay safe, kiddies.

The CanCon Continues!

Yes, let's keep it going here. As you saw in my last post, I was able to procure a copy of 1976's Death Weekend which I've been meaning to watch for some time as I gradually make my way through Will Fruet's genre filmography. Here goes.

A weekend getaway for a womanizing dentist (Chuck Shamata) and his new girlfriend (Brenda Vaccaro) turns deadly when they are set upon by a group of ne'er-do-wells.

I thought this movie slapped. While it could be said that - much like 1977's Rituals is likened to Deliverance - Death Weekend is the Canuck version of Straw Dogs, I feel it goes beyond mere homage. True, the story beats are similar, but this movie has two main strengths that stood out to me, the first of which were the stunts. Starting off with some really good car stuff that rivals most of the tax shelter canon, we also get some solid boat stuff and a good body burn too. Oh, and as soon as I saw the summer house, I was immediately, “oh I've seen this place before!” It's Eaton Hall, but it's certainly not as remote now as it was here, you can probably see the roller coasters at Canada's Wonderland from its balcony now.

The highlight of this picture though, is Vaccaro as Diane. From the get-go it is apparent that she is no bimbo. She's headstrong and not one to be pushed around. Hell, even her voice conveys confidence. Despite being in an environment where is she is surrounded by creeps - even her date Harry peeps at her through a two-way mirror in her bathroom - she is almost never a damsel in distress. I'm actually quite shocked that this character and performance is not mentioned more when cinephiles talk about exploitation heroines.

Brenda Vacarro as Diane in Death Weekend

Diane is also smart and resourceful beyond 99% of the women who populate these movies. When she's hiding in the night, she throws on a dark coat to hide her white sweater. When she tries to make it back to the car, she stays low in the cover of the tall grass. And most importantly, when she inevitably finds the dead body of her companion, she doesn't scream out in surprise. These things all probably sound like common sense, but in the world of genre film, they are exceedingly rare. If Diane's behaviour had been held up as a benchmark, we could have avoided so many of the soon-to-be stereotypes the horror genre would get lambasted for over the next twenty years. But, I digress.

I mentioned Straw Dogs before - it should also be said that Diane has a thousand per cent more agency than Dogs' Amy ever did - but there are also shades of Craven's Last House on the Left, if you swap out the keystone cops for some drunken gas station attendants. The distributors obviously clocked it too, as it was released as the similarly titled The House by the Lake in some markets.

Anyway, I'm pretty chuffed that Death Weekend lived up to the hype. I'd be interested to know how such a grounded and gritty start somehow morphed into pictures like Spasms & Killer Party just a decade later. If only Fruet wasn't such a recluse, I could find out! Check back next week for my thoughts on George Mihalka's Eternal Evil aka The Blue Man.

Welcome To Dog Island.

Hey-o! I did it, four weeks, four CanCon flicks! Again, you'll have to forgive that I don't own the VHS, it's not for lack of trying because this is one I've been meaning to watch for a while; Paul Lynch's 1982 joint Humongous.

Six young people get stranded on an abondoned island only to find that are not alone - and whatever it is is hungry.

Truth be told, I probably would have sought this out sooner if I knew it was Canadian. I guess I expected it to be spelt “Humoungous” eh? Seriously though, Paul “Prom Night” Lynch directing and Anthony “Thrillkill” Kramreither producing is enough pedigree for me to partake. So, our movie begins on Labour Day 1946 and it got me thinking that not many - if any - horror films take place on that holiday. I guess this was the era where every slasher - which I guess this objectively is - had to take place on a special occasion.

I didn't get to dwell on that for long, because I was hit with a particularly grody and drawn out rape scene and subsequent dog mauling. Fun. Then it was present day and we meet a bunch of aloof teens(?) who go boating for some reason I can't remember. Among them, is Joy Boushel as Donna, but unfortunately she doesn't get to do much expect rub blueberries on her tits and get verbally abused by her dick boyfriend. No matter, in a few year's she'd get to be in that iconic “be afraid, be very afraid” scene in The Fly. Boushel may have only been in a handful of films, but she sure made an impression. Anyhoo, after picking up a random dude Dead Calm-style, the aforementioned dick boyfriend gets wasted and crashes the boat by doing what he was expressly told not to. 

I think the character who probably should've been the Final Girl of this picture was Carla (Janit Baldwin), but she unfortunately disappears during the climax and is literally tossed aside. She had good energy and reminded me of a mix of Andrea Martin and Sam Hanratty (Young Misty from Yellowjackets). She deserved better, and perhaps Baldwin knew that too because she soon quit acting and became a fashion designer. Maybe that explains why she was half-wearing her lifejacket for a bunch of scenes. She was a trend-setter!

Joy Boushel (left) & Janit Baldwin in Humongous.

I don't know if I have a bunch more to say about this movie. It sadly falls into the trap of low-budget movies where you spend a lot of time watching the characters walking and searching, searching and walking. I'm assuming it was also the budget that caused half of the death scenes to be off-screen. I mean, I get it, a lot of the original Friday the 13th kills were off-screen too, but that had more than six characters. Humongous is pretty much a cross between Madman and The Unseen with the climax decidedly lifted from Friday 2. However, since those guys pilfered heavily from Bay of Blood I can't really scold Lynch now, can I?

“You've done your job well and Mommy is pleased.”

I don't want to harp on the actual Final Girl of the picture, Sandy (Janet Julian) as she is perfectly fine. I got some Jess Harper vibes from her and she does stab the big bad in the dick with a No Trespassing sign so... points for that. It may not be as badass as the throat fisting finale in Just Before Dawn, but what is, really? I can tell you what isn't badass though. When our so-called hero Eric (David Wallace) sharpens a big stick down to a point and then proceeds to use it like a bat.

I hope you enjoyed CanCon June and here's wishing you have a happy Canada Day! Raise a Moosehead and think of your favourite flick from the Great White North!

A Heist In Hogtown!

Full disclosure. This edition of VHS Fridays is a cheat because I don't actually own the movie I'll be talking about. When I was looking up last week's movie Mark of Cain, I discovered it was once put on a double-bill DVD with another Canadian flick from 1984 called Thrillkill. Even a quick glance of its content was enough for me to know I had to watch it. So here we are.

Already 1000% better than Mark of Cain.

A game developer/bank thief hacker named Carlie (Diana Reis) hides the location of her stolen money inside a computer game. Will she be able to escape with it before her dangerous associates catch up with her?

As far as I can tell, Thrillkill is pretty obscure, maybe not as much as Mark of Cain as this one is actually on YouTube, but enough that I'd never heard of it. It was directed by Anthony D'Andrews & Anthony Kramreither, the latter of which was the founder of Brightstar Pictures, which also produced the CanCon treasure The Brain. In '84, even though they didn't have much genre experience behind the camera (they cut their teeth on sex comedies), they still managed to eke out a decidedly enjoyable yarn here.

Thrillkill has a few unexpected turns over the course of its run-time. I guess first is that the killer video game alluded to above is sadly a rug-pull. The game's not even central to the plot like say 1982's Cloak & Dagger was. While some characters do play it - delightfully utilizing live-action graphics that would not be attainable until much later with the advent of CD drives - it's just to push the story forward. I think the producer's were just like, “hey video games are popular, right? Let's put a bunch in this movie!”  I was hoping the talking computer may have been the prototype of Lola, the quick to vaporize office AI from Emmeritus' The Tower to come a year later, but alas, no. This movie is more of a crime thriller, than a horror. Think Daryl Duke's Silent Partner, but with less gravitas. 

It kills by falling on top of you maybe?

The other zag was the protagonist, which gets swapped out halfway through. Though unexpected, it wasn't entirely surprising as I wasn't getting lead vibes from Reis. After a scene that reminded me of something similar in Marathon Man, we shift our focus to Carlie's stewardess sister Bobbie (Gina Massey). Sadly, aside from a stint on The Littlest Hobo (a rite of passage for all up-and-coming Canadian actors in the 80s), she never did anything else which is a shame because she is quite affable.

Gina Massey as Bobbie in Thrillkill.

Thrillkill has a ton of familiar faces in it. Just scratching the surface, veteran actor Frank Moore plays Thief #1 utilizing a bold accent choice that just made me think of Count Chocula every time he was onscreen. Eugene Clark plays Thief #2 and if that name doesn't sound familiar, he's motherfucking Big Daddy from Land of the Dead. Then, connecting to Mark of Cain, we get Robin Ward as Frank Gillette, the cop trying to get to the bottom of everything. His scenes with Gina Massey start off as cringe, but get more amusing as the pictures goes along.

Then, you've got the landmarks. Carlie goes to the fucking KEG. It looks like it was more of a bar in the 80s and not the rustic steakhouse it is now. They then go to the “Vegas Club” aka The Pinball Spot which looks more like a bowling alley game-room with a bar in it. This all leads to a climax at... you guessed it, the Ontario Science Centre! A place Brightstar would again visit again in The Brain.

Lastly, my biggest chuckle (and there were many) was when Bobbie's friend Maggie (Joy Boushel, of The Fly, Terror Train et al) says she's got to sleep because she's working the red-eye to Ottawa. From Toronto????  God damn, I had a lot to say about this movie. I seriously think Thrillkill could do with a remaster, as the existing version online is pretty muddy and dark, especially in the last act. It's definitely quirky enough to gain a cult following, like Skip Tracer did, if more eyeballs fall on it.

Okay, let's see if I can pull off one last CanCon title the Friday before Canada Day. We'll seeeee.

The Mark of Indifference.

Continuing on with some CanCon adorning my VHS shelves, we move onto the 1985 twin thriller Mark of Cain.

Long estranged identical twins Sean & Michael (both played by Robin Ward) are on a collision course reunion, when the latter escapes from an insane asylum.

Director Bruce Pittman is a Canadian institution. Most would know him for his well-liked film Prom Night II, but he actually has a storied history in the biz. Seeing his name of the coverbox is pretty much the reason I picked it up from whichever swap meet I acquired it. Seeing the Vestron and Brightstar logos come up after popping the tape in was also a good sign...

However, this... isn't the best. And it had nothing to do with the fact my tape was so washed out I could barely read the credits. I couldn't help feeling that this movie was basically Blood Rage, but with all the good parts taken out. And the fact the brothers were named Shawn & Michael, I kept expecting someone to get HBK'd. Seriously though, the characters say the name “Michael” more than The Lost Boys and Halloween put together.

Speaking of Halloween, Mark of Cain has one of the worst psychiatrists I've seen ever. Dr. Clifford (Antony Parr) possesses no skills, OBSERVATIONAL or otherwise, and serves no purpose to the plot whatsoever. Then, there's the neighbour Otto (August Schellenberg) who is apparently good friends with Sean, but always has a look on his face like someone shit in his poutine. No notes for Wendy Crewson, who plays the hapless wife, Dale. She is lovely.

 

Murder in Space 4 LIFE!

As a movie, it was fine enough to keep me awake, but it's a but thin. It's weird that the big plot point that would normally happen in the climax of a movie, happens half-way in. So we're left wondering, are we not supposed to know there was a switcheroo here? And the whole way it gets found out - even if it wasn't planted like Chekov's dominant hand - was like something you'd see in a Columbo rerun. Unfortunately, this means the third act is reallllly drawn out. On the bright side, Mark of Cain is hella short at barely eighty minutes so no harm done.

This is as exciting as it gets, folks. It's 5 minutes in.

But hey, maybe this is your bag. If you are looking for aggressive apple eating, countless scenes of people walking around dark hallways and lots of decidedly random religious imagery then Mark of Cain is for you. Otherwise, I would stick with Hello Mary Lou.

In Canada, No One Can Hear You Scream.

Hey all! I'm back with another VHS. With Canada Day approaching, it was enough of a kick in the butt to do a few Canuxploitation posts leading up to one of my favourite holidays. This one is a title I've been meaning to crack into for some time now, Bill Fruet's 1987 creature feature, Blue Monkey.

The denizens of a hospital attempt to survive a viral outbreak caused by a giant insect. A doctor (Gwynyth Walsh), a cop (Steve Railsback) and an entomologist (Don Lake) must race against time before everyone is infected.

It was not a surprise to see the title card "INSECT" appear onscreen, as Blue Monkey always seemed like an odd title, even with my only cursory knowledge of the movie. The movie itself is amusing, but I have to admit a lot of the appeal comes from how Canadian it is. Forgive me for blathering on about the CanCon, but as a kid who grew up in the eighties, there are so many homegrown faces here. Joe Flaherty, John Vernon and pretty much the entire fucking cast of The War of the Worlds TV show. It was also not lost on me that Blue Monkey featured not only the Nabob Coffee guy (Michael J. Reynolds) but also the Contact C guy (Don Lake). I mean, this movie even had Sarah Polley in it for Christ sake.

Sarah Polley, already a veteran.

But I digress, after some setup and the introduction of what seems like a million characters, things do get going. Following the appearance of the hospital's "Laser Research" area, I was getting worried that we wouldn't get back to it, but thankfully Walsh & Railsback do eventually takes turns waving the laser gun around. It is delightfully awkward and the kind of stuff that makes my heart sing.

Lasers make everything better.

Let's be real though. Despite things getting set in motion by an exotic plant - and several B-plots involving boozy bitties, unsupervised sick kids, and a pregnant woman with her overzealous husband - it does become apparent by the third act that this is yet ANOTHER Alien clone. And that's fine, but Blue Monkey is just not as interesting as Fruet's genre-bending Killer Party or his bonkers psychic snake joint Spasms. Oh, I almost forgot the probable nod to The Thing, as well?

I am, of course, sympathetic to its budget restraints, but even I can't overlook the fact I was largely watching Pertwee Dr. Who level creature effects get waved around in front of the camera. I mean, they didn't even deliver on the bug I thought FOR SURE was going to rip itself out of the pregnant lady's vagina - ala Humanoids From The Deep. 

In closing, I will ask you this. Is there anything more Canadian than having inebriation be the cure to the virus? Save perhaps injecting poutine drenched with maple syrup directly into their veins?

Never Trust the Doorman.

Well, another year. Another attempt to keep a regular VHS post schedule. We'll see how this shakes out, maybe I'll even get back to the Horror Movie Guide watch-through. Anyhoops, the next VHS off the pile was Tony Lo Bianco's lone kick at the can, 1984's Too Scared To Scream.

Tenants at a Manhattan high-rise are turning up dead and the gentlemanly doorman (Ian McShane) seems to be at the center of it.

Shot in 1982, but not released until a few years later, Too Scared to Scream was originally intended to be a TV movie, but never ended up finding a network. It was then that some new footage was shot (read: tits and gore) and it was sent out into the video market. I could tell Lo Bianco was trying to ape Hitchcock here, but any strength of this piece is not in the filmmaking or the story, but in the cast.

Ian McShane as Vincent in Too Scared To Scream.

In addition to the younger McShane, who still commands his usual presence and reminded me a little of peak Oliver Reed, there are many other notables here. Mike Connors of Mannix fame does the cop duties, the original Tarzan's Jane Maureen O'Sullivan shows up as McShane's wheelchair-bound mother and a young John Heard is a guy named “Steve”. Even Creepshow's Carrie Nye shows up as a fashion designer.

Tops in my mind though, is Anne Archer as Connors' partner, Kate. She is a real charmer, right on the cusp of stardom before such memorable thrillers as Fatal Attraction, Narrow Margin and (to an admittedly lesser degree) Body of Evidence. Val Avery also appears as the coroner and his one-liners are gold Jerry! Gold!

 

Too Scared To Scream is for the most part pretty standard, but the dialogue is what kept me engaged. I can't tell how much was scripted or improvised, but I have to admit it did have me chuckling quite often. Like when soon to be murdered Cynthia (Victoria Bass) addresses her pet bird, “you better shut up or I'm going to get arrested for molesting a Mina.” Like I said. GOLD! 

At the very least, this is one of those films that gives us plenty of Midtown Manhattan during the early eighties and I'll never get tired of that. I wanted to climb in the TV and go see that screening of The Burning being advertised on one of the marquees.

Eighties Stew.

Hello all! I am back with another VHS Friday. This next one on the pile was a title I'd been meaning to get to for a while - Bert L. Dragin's 1988 “sort-of” haunted house flick Twice Dead. Even though I had seen Dragin's other two efforts Summer Camp Nightmare & Suburbia in my youth I missed out on this one. It's a hell of a coverbox and not entirely misleading, as that character does bust out of a mirror, just not in the Die Hard way this picture below would insinuate.

A family moves in to an old mansion that happens to be haunted by Depression-era showbiz star.

Twice Dead is kind of a weird title in that it doesn't really refer to a character as much as the two different plots going on in this movie. Initially, the paranormal aspect is front facing, but it keeps taking a back seat to this secondary storyline about the two siblings Scott (Tom Bresnahan, of The Brain!) and Robin (Jill Whitlow who'll always be my Weird Science perfume counter girl) fighting off neighbourhood punks. It's not only until the climax that these two stories fully intersect.

Though both of these plots are fairly standard, this movie is populated with a ton of welcome faces. The aforementioned Bresnahan is as delightfully snarky and happy-go-lucky as he was in The Brain which put a smile on my face. He must have shot these two movies back-to-back and I wonder if he was aware of the similarities, playing a character who doubly likes pranks, is attacked by tentacles/spectral ropes and finds himself in a car chase. Jill Whitlow is lovely in this, and it was no surprise to me find out that her and Bresnahan were dating during filming. They played siblings here, but some of those bedside scenes had a tension that was a négligée photo shoot away from being Amityville 2.

Jill Whitlow and Tom Bresnahan in Twice Dead.

Also in the cast was Brooke Bundy (Kristin's mom from Nightmare 3), Todd Bridges as the doomed friend and much to the elation of my seventeen-year-old self, Charlie Spradling. A much welcome appearance, even if it was only to rock a jean jacket with no shirt, get nude and then promptly die by STE (Sexually Transmitted Electrocution). What an angel! Oh, and completely unrelated, this movie has a cat named Meow - which of course has Robin walking around calling out “Meow?” - that saw an unnecessarily brutal end. :(

J.C. + C.S.

Other than that, it is just filler between altercations with the aforementioned goons. The house is pretty cool and outfitted with some nooks and crannies (the dumbwaiter specifically being built for the movie) for our bodies to aimlessly search. Twice Dead is another one of those movies that seems to have trouble ending itself, not necessarily because they wanted to do another one, but perhaps there were a few cooks in the kitchen.

Anyway, I was glad to knock this one off and the trio of Bresnahan, Whitlow and Spradling kept me entertained throughout.

On The Fritz.

The next tape off the pile was my recently acquired copy of Dick Maas' 1983 flick The Lift. It's been over thirty years since Chucky told me about it during the 1990 broadcast of the Horror Hall of Fame, and I'm ashamed to say it has taken me this long to get around to it. But here we are.

An elevator repairman (Huub Stapel) finds himself mixed up in an investigation of several deaths involving a new office building lift.

The Lift is a delight. I mean I was expecting something amusing just based on the premise, but boy does this film overcrank on the quirk with just the list of character names alone making me smile - Speckingood, Vink, Speakerman, Ravenstein et al. At the opening credits, the cast list went on and on, most ending up just being meat to feed the elevator. Stapel is your average working class dude with a wife and kids. I don't think I've ever seen an elevator repairman as the lead in a movie. I wonder if he got his diploma from one of those ads you used to see on late night TV in the eighties... 

Hugh Stapel as Felix in The Lift.

This movie has a lot of prophetic things to say about microchips, but we haven't “quite” gotten to synthetic organs yet (we're too busy building AI robots). I found how this all plays out decidedly more interesting than the demonic shinanegans of Poltergeist III. The Lift is also shot really well. For instance take this fucking banger of a transition!

It's been a while since I've watched an old-fashioned dubbed film and it was half the fun. This movie has the best random background conversations this side of Pieces - 

Things like Felix's wife collecting bottle caps to win a trip being rooted in her desire to leave her inattentive husband was pretty wild. Anyway, it all concludes with an extended Man vs Lift sequence that really goes for it. I don't know if 250,000 people actually get stuck in Dutch elevators every year (that's like a lot, like fix your fucking shit - a lot) but it certainly does nothing to alleviate anyone's fear of elevators.

So, The Lift doesn't really have the big city set pieces that Maas' other exports Amsterdamned and Prey feature, but it is still a fun yarn to be sure.

Between a Rick And a Hag Place.

Our next tape off the pile is Igor Auzin's Aussie teleplay Night Nurse from 1978. Yet another distinct coverbox from back in the day. What was it about wheelchairs that makes them so creepy? From a horror marketing perspective anyway. Let's find out!

Looking for a clean break from her domineering boyfriend Rick (Gary Day), Prudence (Kate Fitzpatrick) takes a job as a live-in caregiver of a former opera singer known only as “The Diva” (Davina Whitehouse). Her employer seems welcoming enough, but the other servant of the house Clara (Kay Taylor), makes it clear she does not want to share.

Night Nurse is a fairly entertaining yarn. I did not know going in it was a TV movie, but in retrospect it makes sense. It has the clean, straightforwardness of a teleplay with barely any sharp edges to speak of. Despite that, it is still quite engaging. Prudence is a likeable character, even if she does come across as a doormat initially. Her artist boyfriend Rick is a douche of the highest order, yet she continues to bend to his will, even letting him weasel his way into the estate to paint the Diva's portrait.

Davina Whitehouse (left) & Katefitzpatrick in Night Nurse.

I feel her pain though, because once she's finally gotten away, she has to deal with the repeated abuse from her co-worker, Clara. Nothing she does is right, and something as simple as remembering the marmalade will get your pet goldfish murdered. Yet, she perservers because she knows going back to Rick is a step backwards.

Prudence & Clara (Kay Taylor) face off.

The story unfolds and once The Diva names Prudence as her new heir, that really gets Clara's blood boiling. It all ends in the cellar where Clara has a freak “ax-ident” and Prudence makes her escape. I was thinking of that Rube-Goldbergian end to the former help and that sequence is probably the one that stuck with young children who saw it on television. You know, “scary” TV movies that played in the seventies and eighties were pretty tame for the most part, but they usually had that one scene you never forgot.

Night Nurse was the fourth of ten films that Australia's Channel Seven commisioned from this production company so they were deep into pumping out content at this point. Whitehouse would later go on to appear in Peter Jackson's Braindead, and Kate Fitzpatrick has had a long, storied career that still continues to this day.

To conclude, this movie isn't going to get your blood pumping or anything, but it's still a decently acted and executed mystery.