E is for The Entity (1982)

Going back in time today to a film I haven't seen in almost four decades, Sidney J. Furie's The Entity.

Single mother Carla Moran (Barbara Hershey) is repeatedly assaulted by a spectral force.

I'd been meaning to give this a re-watch for ages, as I feel it needs a re-evaluation. It was maligned at the time of its release with people flocking to the more digestible scares of Poltergeist that same year - much like E.T. overshadowed The Thing. Now I'm able to see this through adult(?) eyes and be fully aware of the thematic weight that went over my ten-year-old head.

Barbara Hershey as Carla in The Entity

 

The Entity is a solid thriller, then and now. Though it does have the air of a TV movie at times there are several things that elevate it, the powerful performance of Hershey chief among them. It was an emotional and physical role and she committed to it every bit as much as Linda Blair in the similarly structured The Exorcist. Actually, I'd say Hershey had double duty in this as mother AND victim. She played both the Blair and Ellen Burstyn's parts.

Next, there is that unforgettable score by Charles Bernstein. Those rape scenes are horrific by themselves, but when you put that pulsating noise over it, it's really well... assaulting, there's no other way to put it. The sound design overall is on point, as the lightning effects and breaking windows were blasting in my headphones.

Then there are the effects by legend Stan Winston and James Kagel. As an adult, I know how they did those spectral groping scenes, but it's still pretty impressive and the memory of how that blew my mind as a kid will never leave me. It's funny how the brain works, as my recollection of the frozen outline of the Entity was more jagged (like the Fortress of Solitude) but in reality it was more rounded and blobby.

This movie was based on a real case in the seventies. It's strange that you don't hear more about this kind of thing. Or I guess maybe it has evolved into what we now call sleep paralysis. It's pretty Goddamn spooky though and I imagine there were scores of women sleeping with the lights on in the winter of 1982.

D is for Deadstream (2022)

I've decided to switch it up this time and talk about something brand spanking new, Joseph & Vanessa Winter's found footage horror, Deadstream.

Disgraced YouTuber Shawn (co-director Joseph Winter) decides to hold his comeback livestream in the most haunted house in America. It does not go well.

This was a film that I missed while I was at Fantasia, but everyone who saw it said it was a blast, though there was some question about whether it would be as enjoyable outside of festival screening environment. However, after seeing the Winters' segment in V/H/S/99 at Midnight Madness, I was confident it would still slay in my living room. I was correct, Deadstream is wicked fun.

It had a very good setup, introducing us to an all-too-familiar YouTube-style personality who is a borderline d-bag, but at least not a total garbage human like the protagonist in last year's Dashcam. Shawn is genuinely witty and I was enjoying myself even before the shit hits the fan.

Joseph Winter as Shawn in Deadstream

 

Deadstream also wades through a lot of the usual found footage pitfalls quite adroitly, by not only using the character's fame and ego to keep him at the scene and filming now matter how bad things get, but also using his viewer comments to cleverly convey exposition. The Winters' also have a solid grasp of escalation, in that just when you think it is nearing its conclusion, it still has gas in the tank.

Much like V/H/S/99, the antagonists are abundant and well conceived and the gore is really well done. I find well executed set pieces in found footage extra impressive because of the heightened difficulty of timing. I also of course got a kick out of the Evil Dead nods - or I guess because this was POV, Resident Evil 7? 

Deadstream is perfect October viewing and the Winters' have now fully staked their claim as exciting new voices in horror.

C is for Cutting Class (1989)

Today's pick was another eighties movie for which I've always been aware, but never got around to watching. That's likely going to be a common motif over the next few weeks.

Someone's going around Furley High, slicing up the student body. Will Paula (Jill Schoelen) be next?

Yeah, Cutting Class was a strange one. It had your basic slasher construct, yet often veered off into parody, but never enough to fully commit. I had to look up the director Rospo Pallenberg to see whether he was a Troma guy. Nope, he was a legit writer and this was his first (and last) directing gig. I also wondered if Roddy McDowell and Martin Mull knew anything about the rest of the movie because their performances are just so out of place. 

Roddy's look says it all...

It's always nice to see Jill Schoelen, as I guess this movie WAS smack dab in the middle of the time when she was in just about every horror movie. And then there's baby-faced Brad Pitt. He was a pretty confident actor, even back then. I notice he's had the acting with food technique down since the beginning.

As a slasher, there were a few good set pieces. Paula's friend getting pulled under the bleachers could've been downright terrifying in more capable hands and Dirk Blocker getting impaled through the trampoline was definitely influential. As for the art teacher that gets cooked in his own kiln, I hate that I know 500 degrees is nowhere near hot enough for pottery.

As for the killer, it's the obvious culprit from the get-go, no matter how many red herrings were thrown at us. I'll give you a hint, it's the guy who wears the same outfit to school every fucking day. Lastly, I will say that the soundtrack, largely courtesy of Wall of Voodoo kind of rocks.

Believe it or not, this is the last frame of the movie.

Overall, even though the cast is solid, the movie is pretty weak and definitely an example of where this subgenre was at in the late eighties.

B is for Beyond the Darkness (1979)

This viewing was a long time coming. This 88 Films release of Beyond the Darkness has been sitting on my shelf for a decade after being brought over from the UK. Anytime my parents would visit relatives overseas, my Mom would always bring me back something horror related. Only she's horror averse so it would inevitably be something random that she thought I'd like. When I was younger it was easy because she'd grab me the latest James Herbert novel (which were never available on this side of the pond), but since he's no longer with us this particular time she just picked a DVD with the most striking cover. And to her credit, it does have some pretty bad-ass artwork. 

A taxidermist named Francesco (Kieran Canter) digs up his dead lover and brings her home.

Beyond the Darkness was Joe D'Amato's 1979 remake of I imagine a lot less sleazy Franco Nero picture called The Third Eye. It's a bit hard to nail down this movie in that I spent the first half wondering what the fuck was going on. I get Francesco is a weirdo and wants to Gein his girlfriend, but why bring all these random ladies back to his place for no other reason than to quench D'Amato's insatiable urge for boobs and bush.

I believe that it had something to do with his housekeeper/milkmaid Iris (Franca Stoppi) - it's all very vague - as she seemed to pulling the strings based on the one voodoo ritual she performed after the opening credits. There's so little dialogue at the onset, I kind of had to infer a lot. Then, to be honest, the further it went along, the harder it was to stay conscious. 

I feel you...

I do know one thing... THE SOUNDTRACK SLAPS! Provided by Goblin (credited here as The Goblins) it is definitely the best part of the movie. Unless you're into necrophilia...

Overall, I've seen better D'Amato and I've seen worse. I do have to say I think I made the rare mistake of watching the subtitled version over the dubbed. While I was on YT pulling the pictures/gifs I could see that the latter was much more of a hoot. Oh well, live and learn. 

Alphabet Slop!

I'm gonna try a new experiment here for the month of October. It's called Alphabet Slop. A review a day for the remainder of the month going from A to Z.

I thought about doing that 31 days of Halloween thing, but they're so complicated. Hey, today watch a movie you saw when you were six, now watch a movie standing on one foot, now watch a movie that will make you piss yourself. So, yeah decided to keep it simple. It also gives me a chance to watch some random tapes & discs that have been sitting on my shelf for years. All twenty-six movies to come will either be first watches or at least ones I haven't seen in decades. Here we go... A is for Are You In the House Alone?

High schooler Gail (Kathleen Beller) is receiving threatening notes and phone calls, but by who?

The first thing that struck me, from the antagonist POV camera and Carpenter-esque musical sting was, man this guy loves Halloween, amirite? Then I realized this movie actually played on television a month before Halloween came out. In fact, if Imdb is to be believed Dennis Quaid was originally supposed to play Bob, but said no to do this film. Eep! Although I guess it worked out for him regardless.

So, what I should be saying is, man this guy loves Black Christmas, amirite? You throw in the fact that the antagonist keeps crank calling Gail, the influence becomes all the more glaring. But to be honest, this movie is all over the map, shifting back and forth between horror and straight up drama. It even turns into fucking Grease for a second.

The aftermath of Gail's rape is dealt with seriously and her parents talk at length about their own problems. Blythe Danner (who God damn looks like her daughter Gwyneth in this) is especially strong. The cast is actually quite stacked, with the aforementioned Quaid - who is pretty fucking lucky he didn't get typecast after this role - and Tony Bill who later went on become an accomplished director.

Sprinkled in are the horror tropes, Gail is receiving obscene phone calls asking if she is alone - Spoiler, she never is so the title is BS - and notes with questionable punctuation are being left in her locker. 

Red herrings abound, as her old boyfriend is a douche, her new one seems to have intermittent fits of jealousy and her photography teacher is all kinds of ick.

 

The oddest part of the movie is at the climax where it utilizes this giallo-style conceit where Gail sets up her camera take a picture every few seconds to catch who is leaving notes in someone's locker. Now, I'm not up on my seventies photo-tech, but wouldn't that require a shit-ton of film, like thousands of photos that would then have to be individually developed???

SD card by Kodak.

Are You In The House Alone? was half of a Shout Factory TV Terrors double bill disc with The Initiation of Sarah (which may or may not come up later) and I can't help but feel this was a weird pairing.  Even though it is a decent enough movie, I still feel a bit duped. I was expecting a movie of the week version of When A Stranger Calls, but instead got a glorified after school special about how the system fails rape victims. Fun times.

Horror-Rama 2022!

Horror-Rama was back this year and I had an absolute blast. You never know how these events are gonna go in these uncertain times, but the turnout was great and people looked thrilled to be mingling again. On the Friday night, there was an extra special 40th anniversary screening of a film you know is very near and dear to my heart.

This was the very same Deadly Eyes print that used to play at Trash Palace back in the day. It has changed hands, but it still looks as hairy as ever. However, THIS time I was tapped to moderate the Q&A with special guests Lisa Langlois and Lesleh Donaldson. I'd never done one before, but confidence in the fact I knew the movie inside and out helped combat the nerves.

It went really well. I was amazed and excited that so many in attendance hadn't seen it. I thought that with the Shout Factory Blu-ray, it might have got more eyeballs on it, but I've come to find that was only a small run and now out-of-print. 

For the Q&A, because it was a two-reel, one-projector affair, we did it in three parts - intro, intermission and audience questions at the end. We talked about how they both came to work on the film, the various Toronto locations and just how God damn cold it was that winter.

Lisa Langlois, Lesleh Donaldsen and some schmo.

 

Someone brought up the Imdb trivia (that I'm currently trying to get removed) about a dog suffocating in his rat suit. I'd been preparing for this eventuality and we all had a lengthy discussion about it. I believe it untrue for not only the fact that the dogs were trained for months in LA to wear the rat suits, the headpieces had the jaws cut out of them. Tell me how a dog suffocates when its mouth isn't covered...

Lisa has said on several occasions that someone on the crew told her a dog had a heart attack from the anxiety of wearing the suit, but others state the opposite. If you listen to Al Apone (the FX supervisor for the suits on set) on the Blu-ray supplemental, he maintains that apart from one dog getting hospitalized from something it ate at the kennel they were being kept, no harm came to any of them. I also contacted the film's production manager (whom I met many years ago at TIFF and also worked on The Brain) and he corroborated this story.

But anyway, the night was awesome and it was just the first day of three! Saturday, I was basically there the entire day. There was a bunch of great Q&A's and I got to see people I hadn't seen in ages like Stacey from the OG Trash Palace, Brad from Poster-Mortem and Chris from Little Ghosts.

The Q&A with Thom Matthews was great and thankfully went beyond just his work on Friday 6 and ROTLD. There were actually multiple questions about his many films with Albert Pyun and how his contracting business led him to renovate Ozzy Osbourne's house, much of it while there were shooting their reality show.

Thom Matthews

The big get was Caroline Munro, who was absolutely lovely, an English rose of the highest order. Super humble and eager to talk about her experiences working with likes of Christopher Lee, Roger Moore and Joe Spinnell. Both her Q&A and screening event at the end of the day were fantastic fun.

Throw in the Adventures in Canadian Cinema with Langlois, Donaldsen, Lynne Griffin and Sean Sullivan and you have yourself some CanCon overload. I also got to catch up with Kier-La Janisse who was in town for the event. 

Lesleh Donaldson, Sean Sullivan, Lynne Griffin & Lisa Langlois

In terms of loot, it is true that was wallet was rendered significantly lighter come Monday. Not only did I get my hands on Vinegar Syndrome's Thriller release (which had eluded me at Fantasia), but also this random Beta tape.

I mean it was in such good condition, I couldn't let the fact I don't have a player stop me. I also got a Deadly Eyes long print from the only one of TP's four screenings that I missed, as well as a piece of art I first saw online many years ago and always wanted to own.

It really was a terrific weekend and totally worth battling the horrendous traffic both days. Congrats to Chris, Ali & Luis for putting on such a great show.

TIFF 2022

TIFF has come and gone this year. Obviously the last few years have been hybrids, but this edition was as close to being as normal as it could be. The Midnight Madness program itself however, is still in a state of flux after being ousted from its home at the Ryerson Theatre. 

When I heard this year's screenings would take place at the Royal Alex Theatre I was a bit concerned. Not only was it not a movie house (they literally had to install the screen for the fest), but how were the sightlines gonna be? The Bloor was basically ruined after their renovations so how was this going to fare? Add in some Ticketmaster fuckery that led to me not being able to pick seats in anything other than the front row (some TIFF screenings are assigned seating now) and I was downright worried.

It turns out it was much ado about nothing because front row actually worked out great. The screen was placed deep into the stage and was the perfect size for how far I was in relation to it. I can't say the same for the peeps in the back and the balconies, but for me it was all good. It also got me closer to Mia and Ester, but more on that later. I saw a total of five midnights over the course of the fest and here's the skinny;

First up was Tim Story's The Blackening. Based on a popular YouTube sketch, the premise is simply, “If the black character dies first in a slasher movie, what happens when the entire cast is black?” This movie was really funny and crowd was into it. It's the kind of comedy where you miss stuff because the ambient laughter is drowning out the subsequent jokes. I definitely recommend for those who like horror spoofs that are a little more refined than the Scary Movie series. 

Next up was Sick. Written by Kevin Williamson, I would definitely say that this is Scream-adjacent. This is the first slasher I've seen to take place during the Covid era and it uses it well. I liked the lead actress Gideon Adlon, she had a Monica Keena-vibe to her. Although this was likely my least favourite of the '22 MM crop, the lengthy chase sequence was a standout. 

Day five of the fest brought my most anticipated screening of Ti West's Pearl. I thought X was a nice surprise - the '22 TCM we deserved - and this was a fitting companion to it. Mia Goth was stellar in this, just completely unhinged and my vote for performance of the year. 

Director Ti West & Actors Mia Goth & Corenswet

I loved how West leaned into the era in which it was set. Where X was a grimy, sweaty love letter to the 70's, Pearl is a boisterous ballad to Hollywood's infancy. Once you clock into the kind of movie West and Goth are making here (much like this year's Orphan: First Kill) you can really revel in the ride. With it being set in 1919, there was also some clever play with our parallel pandemics. And marketing was kind enough to hand us Pearl handkerchiefs on our way out.

And to top it off, after the credits rolled and that MaXXXine stinger played, the crowd lost their fucking shit. 

Later in the week was the dream pair of Jaume Balagueró (REC) & Álex de la Iglesia's (Perdita Durango) newest offering, Venus. Basically part-crime, past-haunted house, part-cosmic horror, I really enjoyed this one. I can admit to having a bias because the lead Ester Expósito was absolutely scorching.

Director Jaume Balagueró & Actress Ester Expósito 

I'm not lying when I said I was actually having trouble reading the subtitles because it meant I had to take my eyes off her. She's just one of those women where it seems like there is a beam of light shining down on them from above. So I'm a fan. Other than that, there is some good gore and a handful of solid set pieces. 

Last on the list was the latest in the V/H/S series, '99. I enjoyed the last iteration and the good thing about anthologies is if you're not digging the story, you got a new one coming up right behind. Fortunately, V/H/S/99 was particularly strong with high points being Flying Lotus' dark and disgusting take on 90's Nickelodeon game shows, Joseph & Vanessa Winter's literal foray into hell and Johannes Robert's entry definitely took home the prize for most intense audience reaction.

It was a fun week and I wouldn't be opposed to MM staying at the RAT (love that acronym!). Stay tuned tomorrow where I run down what happened at this year's Horror-Rama.