Don't. Just Don't.

This week I reached for one of my clamshells, my VHS of Carlo Ausino’s Don’t Look in the Attic from 1982.

Several inheritants of an old mansion in Turin arrive only to realize that it includes a curse that has plagued their family for generations.

No matter how deep I dig into the annals of Italian film I can usually count on them to at least be interesting, but sadly Don’t Look in the Attic was the exception to this rule. This movie was dull as dirt. That said, I must concede that it was not helped by the hilarious dubbing that had characters speaking at what seemed like one-point-five speed. It gave me a wave of nostalgia from when I was renting bootlegs in the late nineties.

Seriously though, was there ever a lot of talking in this movie. I swear it was an hour before the protagonist Martha (Beba Loncar) even looked in the attic. I couldn’t understand what the hell she was doing there in the first place, as the movie previously had her dead mother calling to her from the other side “Don’t go to Turin! Don’t go to the villa!” Then cut to the next scene where Martha's mumbling “I wonder what she was trying to tell me… One ticket to Turin please!”

Beba Loncar as Martha in Don't Look in the Attic.

Again, full disclosure, this was another title that I found myself fighting sleep in the middle of. Maybe it's this long stretch of humidity we’ve been having lately. Yeah, that’s the ticket! Don’t Look in the Attic was not a total wash, as it did have two redeeming qualities.

First, everyone who ever rented a movie in the eighties knows that the coverbox was often a ruse to get your dollars, but surprisingly Ausino actually delivered the action on his - and in the opening sequence, no less. Second, the cinematography was decent, helped largely by the eerie mansion location. Though to be fair, a filmmaker friend of mine once made the valid point that you could point the camera anywhere in Italy and it'd look like the best movie ever made.

Don’t Look in the Attic was not a high point in the history of Italian horror, but I guess they can’t all be-llissima. At least I got to cross another film off my “Don’t!” list.

Short of the Week #34: The Lamp

This week I'm posting a homegrown effort from 2013 in Trevor Juras' The Lamp.

I really love how the tension builds in this piece, as even something as innocuous and seemingly non-threatening as a shared cab ride can be fertile ground for escalating awkwardness. Juras followed up The Lamp with his debut feature The Interior two years later. 

Dead On Arrival.

I've been on a pretty solid run of VHS titles recently so this time I picked something that was almost surely to be of questionable quality – Juan Mas' The Coroner from 1999.

After narrowly escaping from a serial killer (Dean St. Louis) – who just happens to be the city's chief coroner – Emma (Jane Longenecker) sets out to prove his guilt at all costs.

The Coroner totally reeked of the trash that was populating video store shelves in the early 2000's. I'd forgotten how wretched some of this stuff was. From the first few scenes, I had several uh-oh moments that made me thanking God that it was only seventy-five minutes. Fortunately, it became less terrible as it went on, as it turned out to not just be ladies being chained up and tortured for the entire run time.

Jane Longenecker & Dean St. Louis in The Coroner.

Actually, it was quite the opposite, as there was barely any gore at all. You would think a movie about a serial killer would have some actual kills, but no. In fact, pretty much the only thing I recall was nonsense cutaways and flashbacks, some pilfered from other (better) movies. I could've sworn I saw a bit of Slumber Party Massacre flash onscreen at one point. That's super lazy, guys.

I will give it up to Longenecker though, as she was giving it her all. She had a Bridget Fonda-like quality that kept me at least semi-interested. The Coroner was really all over the place, with random sex scenes that sometimes made me wonder if I was watching a horror movie or a soft core porn. With wonderful nuggets of dialogue like Exhibit A below, I tend to lean toward the latter...

It's just a weird mixed bag, including cops that even for movie cops were way too mistrusting, a killer who used blow darts of all things to subdue his victims and that Emma, a defense lawyer, somehow had access to C4 explosives. It all added up to an ending that made no sense, especially considering the scene that proceeded it.

The Coroner was Z-grade stuff, but considering its merciful length and Longenecker's committed performance, it was still fairly painless.

Analog Archaeology.

The other day fellow cinephile Ryan Fowler from Facebook's Horror VHS Collectors Unite board graciously posted some pictures of his VHS tags - meaning the video store labels that were plastered on the sides of most rental VHS tapes. I had posted my membership card collection almost ten(!) years ago, but never would've thought to do this even though it makes so much sense. With video stores virtually extinct (save for a few brave souls keeping the faith alive) all the tapes that used to populate these establishments have been scattered to the four winds winding up in yard sales and flea markets all across North America. Check out some of mine below.

My alma mater!

“More” you say????

My favourite so far for sure!

Great Kills?!

The one and only!

My copy of Thou Shalt Not Kill...Except! has a history!

These only covered the first three shelves of bookcase #1, so I imagine there will be a few more of these posts in the future. Who knew I had so many of these? Thanks to Ryan for the epiphany.

Short of the Week #33: Vicious

This week, I am posting one of my faves from 2015. Brit director Oliver Park's debut short film Vicious has chills in spades and conveys everything with almost no dialogue. But don't take my word for it, here it is below.

Park later went on to make the even better short Still the next year before following up with a feature entitled Strange Events in 2017.

Eighties Overload.

With my fellow Laser Blasters discovering – much to the adulation of the Web – the secret ending of Mac and Me last week, I decided to dig into my VHS collection and pull out the like-minded kids(?) movie Making Contact from 1985.

After the death of his father, Joey (Joshua Morrell) gains telekinetic powers just as his house is besieged by supernatural forces. Will his abilities be enough to save him and his mother?

This movie is fucking bonkers. That’s really the only way I can put it. It's a good pairing with Mac and Me because it shares equal levels of ridiculousness (coincidentally I also watched 1991’s Motorama this week for the bizarro trifecta) with no regard for reality whatsoever.

So where do I start with this one... An early film from Roland Emmerich, I wager he was a fan of the work of Henry Thomas (E.T., The Quest, Cloak & Dagger et al) and decided to do his own take. So with his Thomas clone Morrell in tow, Emmerich made something that definitely showed the seeds of the blockbusters he'd be making just ten years later. I mean, looking at the monsters in the maze sequence, it's not a surprise that he eventually did a Hollywood Godzilla movie.

Joshua Murrell as Joey in Making Contact.

Making Contact busts at the seams with the decade it was filmed in. Beyond the bombastic score by Paul Gilreath (at least in my version, I can't believe the German cut is twenty minutes longer) and the reckless child endangerment that was a staple of the era, every frame is crammed with eighties ephemera. If Mac and Me had McDonalds, Making Contact heavily leans on Star Wars, having presumably dodged copyright infringement by being a largely German production. I mean Darth Vader shows up for fuck’s sakes!

This movie just kept piling it on, from the kid’s powers (for which nobody seemed to react appropriately I might add) to his sentient robot Charlie and the possessed dummy that just showed up in the second act. In between, it was all about playful emulation as I saw elements of E.T., Poltergeist, Time Bandits and even 2001. It was also chock full of visual and practical effects that filled me with nostalgic glee.

Making Contact is one of those movies where the events and human behaviour depicted were so off-kilter – like when the mother treats a burned hand by putting it not under a tap but in a goldfish bowl then adds ice with the fish STILL IN IT – you wonder whether it was actually made by aliens who had been studying our culture from afar. This was a fun watch where I spent most of the running time slack-jawed in a mix of wonder and bewilderment.

Short of the Week #32: Skin Deep

It's time to jump back into present, as this week's short is Ryan Couldrey's Skin Deep. Featuring some badass gore from f/x artist Sara Feehan and the mother/daughter acting duo of Diana & Ali Chappell, this is definitely worth three minute of your time.

Skin Deep is currently competing in this year's My RØDE Reel contest, so if you feel inclined, Vote Here.