gothic melodrama

Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021)

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Directed by Jason Reitman
Columbia Pictures/Bron Creative/The Montecito Picture Company

Okay, I swear to Gozer the Gozerian that I was all set to praise this feature’s overbearing multiculturalism in a smarmy, backhanded manner, by snarking that it was a shame they couldn’t find a way to shoehorn a trans character into the mix, because that would have been the ultimate triumph of this era/age … but after I watched it, I found out that Celeste O’Connor, the performer portraying Finn Wolfhard’s (nonwhite) potential love interest, identifies as non-binary, so scratch that – Afterlife wins after all. Oh, and it’s acceptable as a movie, too, despite – as noted elsewhere – basically devolving into a reprise of the original, and despite its suspicious paucity of, you know, ghosts. Plus, since I don’t pay much careful attention to entertainment media, I was surprised when Ray, Peter and Winston showed up to do battle. (That was far from the worst “franchise”-related pandering the producers did, but more on that in a bit.)

Why Did I Watch This Movie?

Man, I was 11 when the original came out. It was an immense cultural phenomenon (as noted by this flick’s script, which treats it like documentary footage).


Should You Watch This Movie?

It’s better than Ghostbusters II. Make of that what you will.


Highlight and Low Point

Seriously, the fan service herein reaches the point where it ceases to be evocative of actual audience identification and instead seemingly exists only to assure said audience that fan service is included in the package. It’s not as incestuous as the Spider-Man ouroboros (or that of Star Wars) … but this is just one picture. As for inclusion, Spengler’s granddaughter is depicted as being “on the spectrum.” Meanwhile, the Asian stererotype kid’s only given name is “Podcast.” That’s progress.

Rating From Outer Space: B

to all a GOODNIGHT (1980)

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Directed by David Hess
Intercontinental Worldwide Distributing Corporation/Four Features Partners

Utterly disjointed, this train wreck of a prototype slasher flick is somehow largely enjoyable, albeit mainly on dubious grounds. A gaggle of coeds and their imported beaux are being slaughtered for Some Reason by an Unknown Assailant – who the viewer knows is dressed as Santa Claus. The initial reveal is no surprise, but the SHOCKING twist that immediately follows is … actually fairly unexpected. Most of the killings are absurdly unconvincing, the gore as well, and trying to keep abreast of the film’s botched continuity is an ongoing challenge. (The distinct majority of the acting, meanwhile, is on par with the gore and the killings.) The “action” drags significantly as the conclusion nears, to boot. Still and all, fans of dreck should be delighted.

Why Did I Watch This Movie?

Well, it was Christmas week. (I’m a little behind.) I was pointed in this direction by The Mammoth Book of Slasher Movies by Peter Normanton, but this is as good a place as any to point out that director Hess (of The Last House on the Left repute) also co-wrote and recorded a song called
 “Speedy Gonzalez” (among other lesser creations).


Should You Watch This Movie?

Not if you persist in considering a lack of redeeming qualities a detriment.


Highlight and Low Point

The story holds that the original version of this picture available on VHS featured that time-honored pitfall of low-budget terror, scenes that are too dark to be able to discern what may or may not be occurring (such as in, say, Island of Blood, for just one pertinent example). That is not a problem in the Blu-ray release, which brandishes an unfettered “day for night” technique that doesn’t even bother with the pretense.

Rating From Outer Space: D+

Don’t Open Till Christmas (1984)

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Directed by Edmund Purdom
Additional scenes written and directed by Al McGoohan
Spectacular International Films

Wow, here’s a distressed downer of a flick for ya. I know, I know, a Christmas-themed slasher that’s a downer? What a sorry state of affairs. Not unlike Christmas Evil in its backstory – and to be honest, not unlike dozens of other horror films in that backstory, either, except for the “Santa Claus” angle – this London-based film gives you a lot of disheveled or otherwise distasteful Santas, some cheesy killings, a little T ‘n’ A, and few survivors. Plus some 1984 British Punks stealing a drunken Santa’s bicycle. The filmmakers (at least three directors at various times!) don’t seem to invest a whole lot in any of the red herrings, and overall there’s kind of a lack of urgency about the whole affair. It’s not half bad, though, even if it does meander a bit too much.

Why Did I Watch This Movie?

It was the yuletide, so I was duty-bound … although I see I apparently never posted a review of the exemplary Black Christmas, so I’ll have to rectify that eventually.

Should You Watch This Movie?

This flick’s credits include ‘Experience’ Santa Claus, Theatre Santa Claus, Dungeon Santa Claus, Store Santa Claus, Market Santa Claus, Drunken Santa Claus, Circus Santa Claus, Circus Santa Claus (yes, two), and “Santa Claus in car.” They all seem kinda grubby, as does everything else in the picture.

Highlight and Low Point

I appreciated the scene that takes place within the London Dungeon tourist trap, serving as it does as a kind of signifier of the genre’s lingua franca. (Hey, one can semioticize anything, should one wish to do so.) A scene wherein a lonely middle-aged Herbert visits a peep show confers an incongruous subtlety.

Rating From Outer Space: C+

Innocent Blood (1992)

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Directed by John Landis
Lee Rich PRoductions

It’s a good thing I’ve recently reviewed a couple other productions that engendered my wondering about classifications or motivations, because they may have helped prepare me for this doozy. Part vampire flick, part mob/police drama, part comedy of manners, part romcom, Blood is hampered sporadically by an insistence on hammering home its farcical elements, but this Pittsburgh-set tale of an ancient huntress and the special agent who stumbles onto her trail after infiltrating the local crime family is highly rewarding at times, too. It’s also drenched in frankly unintimidating gore, liberally sprinkled with nudity and “sexual situations,” and its most assaultive moment features Don Rickles meeting his fate. All in all, It is somewhat hard to envision why or how the producers thought this endeavor would be successful. (Note: it very much wasn’t.) Oh, and there’s a recurring motif of famous monsters of filmland being screened in various locales, along with cameos or other appearances from revered horror directors.

Why Did I Watch This Movie?

Somebody mentioned it in an online discussion of something completely unrelated, and I felt compelled to look into it due to that commenter’s unbridled enthusiasm.

Should You Watch This Movie?

It IS basically a farce, so if you feel like watching a bloody, violent farce about vampires and the mob, you’re all set.


Highlight and Low Point

Anne Parillaud commands attention throughout this romp, and not just because she’s frequently unclothed and her accent is inviting. Her character, Marie, probably deserved a more compelling vehicle, one absent some of this affair’s more cartoonish elements. That may be a shade too critical a stance, but this flick doesn’t seem focused enough to know what it’s trying to achieve, and frequently undercuts itself to boot.

Rating From Outer Space: C+

Claw (2021)

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Directed by Gerald Rascionato
Just ONE More Productions/The Adventurers Club/Exit Strategy Productions

A tough offering to judge, given its brevity (barely over an hour) and its clear, uh … evolution … as a minimally cast mini-feature – by which I mean, normally I’d presume such choices were made to keep costs low, but there’s a lotta FX necessitated by the plot, which I can’t imagine being all that cheap. They don’t look particularly cheap, you dig, and I am ordinarily no fan whatsoever of CGI and its affiliated chintz. Overall, this is a fairly impressive featurette, with the strongest evidence of its “highly independent” …  nature … being the dialogue too often presenting as just exactly that. (A script being performed, that is, rather than the output of naturally occurring conversation.) And as you may have guessed from my lame hints – or if you’ve seen the trailer or any of the promotional materials, such as the poster pictured here – this film is centered around a large, dangerous creature that is not exactly appropriately situated in a modern setting.

Okay, fine, it’s a dinosaur.


Why Did I Watch This Movie?

The trailer executed its function well, apparently.



Should you Watch This Movie?

You’ve probably got a spare hour or so.


Highlight and Low Point

This film’s biggest drawback was that I found myself thinking, “you know, there’s only three or four people in this to save money for the FX” and so forth. Granted, that didn’t exactly take me out of the moment or anything – it’s not as though reality was at issue. Characters and raptor alike are cleverly envisioned and deftly handled, and the endeavor succeeds without gore, nudity or crudity. That’s pretty remarkable, honestly. What appears to be a very amateurish false ending leads to a slightly predictable conclusion.

Rating From Outer Space: B+

Wolfen (1981)

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Directed by Michael Wadleigh
A King-Hitzig Production

For years, I managed to remain confused as to whether I’d seen this (werewolf) picture, because in my mind I eternally conflated it with The Howling. (It didn’t help that both were released the same year.) Usually, I managed to clear up my confusion by remembering that “Howling” has Dee Wallace in it, and that’s the one I’d actually seen. Yet I still wondered if I’d ever watched this flick, so I decided to lay that question to rest. Turns out I’d never seen it. Turns out it isn’t even about werewolves! Turns out it’s a bit unclear exactly what kind of movie it is, but I can tell you it involves “Indians,” hotchpotch Native American mythologisms, wolves, some prescient Homeland Security-type apparatus, domestic and international terrorism, an NYPD detective who’s British and pairs up with a heavily armed police psychologist, a weirdo who works at the zoo, and I’m probably forgetting some other stuff. To sum up: if you’re not sure you’ve seen it … you haven’t.


Why Did I Watch This Movie?

I just “explained” that!



Should You Watch This Movie?

Not if you’re looking for werewolves.


Highlight and Low Point

The main “Indian” character is played by Edward James Olmos, which is at least somewhat curious given that many Native Americans are employed in bit parts or small supporting roles. The terrorism subplot seems really incidental. The wolves wind up being arbitrarily selective about their victims, and the alpha is pure white, although if that was explained, I missed it. Allegedly, the ruined church was built and destroyed just for this production, which seems insanely wasteful given what’s revealed by the actual footage of the South Bronx environs. The “wolfen,” uh, POV segments are … idiosyncratic.

Rating From Outer Space: C

Black Friday (2021)

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Directed by Casey Tebo
MFW Manufacturing/Warner Davis Company

I selected this picture because it figured to be light entertainment, and because it was appropriately holiday-themed … and when you set your aim that low, it isn’t hard to hit your target. I mean, presuming the target is also low – which in this case, it was. Laid-back for the most part – I mean, considering it concerns devastating destruction visited upon a toy store – and somewhat reminiscent of The Banana Splits Movie, it doesn’t feature anything visceral enough to make it too interesting. It isn’t particularly scary, or bloody, or funny, despite the presence of Bruce Campbell as a retail lifer. I guess if anything is supposed to be its calling card, it’s the “revelatory” exchange of personal information among staffers deciding how to cope with their situation. Ironically – given the tension among the employees and the setting – it does its job. I guess.

Why Did I Watch This Movie?

As you may be aware, I relish the opportunity to watch holiday-themed horror flix at their designated times – and I watched this Thanksgiving week, despite my tardiness in posting this review. It’s been a time, I’ll just say. (Just for the record, I wrote the entry for Halloween Kills on October 17.)

Should you Watch This Movie?

I mean, there aren’t a lotta Thanksgiving-centered horrors.


Highlight and Low Point

Does ripping off the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man count as a highlight? Here’s the deal: this picture isn’t terrible, but the best thing I can say about it is that it’s suitable for those occasions where you don’t want to be too engaged in anything. It’s just sorta there, and once again I find myself wondering how anyone decided it was worth the effort to produce something with such little resonance.

Rating From Outer Space: D+

Stephen King’s Sleepwalkers (1992)

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Directed by Mick Garris
Ion Pictures/Victor & Grais

In case you thought the problem with movies made from S. King novels and stories was the difficulty in translating to the silver screen either their length and heft (IT, The Stand, The Dead Zone, etc.) or their sometimes dodgy supernatural motifs (Christine, say), I have bad news to report. This budget B flick was written FOR the cinema, not adapted from a story, and it, too, has some serious issues preventing it from being taken very seriously. I’m not even talking about the $2 FX, either, although those don’t help out a whole lot. And I’m not even talking about the army of darling kittycats that wind up being the main oppositional force to the, um … the quasi-vampire things. (Diehard King aficionados, oops, I mean “Constant Readers,” will recognize the energy-sucking conceit later employed by Doc Sleep.) Hack director Mick Garris – King’s handpicked fave – takes a tale with promise and lets it devolve into gimcrackery over its latter third. Consider (blame) the source, I guess.

Why Did I Watch This Movie?

Cats and the oeuvre of Stephen King: two things for which I have a soft spot in my heart (if not my head).


Should You Watch This Movie?

Look, I just don’t know what to tell you. I mean, I watched Stephen King’s The Night Flier, too, you know.


Highlight and Low Point

My notes for this picture – yes, really – include that the “deputy sheriff” cruises around happily singing Garry Lee and Showdown’s immortal “The Rodeo Song,” which I first heard about from a friend in, like,  fifth grade, disbelieving such a song could really exist until he proved it. My notes also indicate that apparently one can blow up a cop car by merely shooting it.

Rating From Outer Space: C−

Pale Blood (1990)

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Directed By V.V. Dachin Hsu
Noble Entertainment Group

I was completely shocked when the credits rolled on this baby and the copyright read “1990” … though perhaps that’s just the result of my own myopia. See, Agent Orange is in this film, for no particular reason that I can discern, and since the tunes they’re playing are all from their 1986 release This Is The Voice, I presumed it was a little older. (To be fair, it was lensed in ’88.) In a way, that only heightens the weirdness of this little oddity, a vampire flick with several shifts in motive and narration (and incrimination) – one of which was completely unforeseen, at least for me. This was apparently a straight-to-video picture, which makes sense when viewed from the perspective of its production values, but doesn’t much jibe with its fairly accomplished narrative. (In its own way, it’s a hardboiled noir story – just with, you know, immortal bloodsuckers.) I could see this film having been fairly successful with a few alterations and a big-screen existence. Of course, Agent Orange probably wouldn’t have been involved then.


Why Did I Watch This Movie?

Although I dearly love the early portion of Agent Orange’s career, this was just a happy accident – another one from that endless Internet Archive vid haul.



Should You Watch This Movie?

Even if late-’80s nostalgia doesn’t interest or inspire you, it’s worth a look-see. I don’t even think you’d necessarily have to be all that impressed by vampires, though it couldn’t hurt.


Highlight and Low Point

The tone of this picture varies unpredictably, as it contains significant amounts of basically deadpan humor interspersed with dismal pathos and the like. Wings Hauser’s filmmaker character contributes to the furtive ’80s vibe, and Hong Kong apparently stands in for L.A. at times.

Rating from Outer Space: B

M.D.C – Maschera di cera aka La Máscara de Cera aka The Wax Mask (1997)

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directed by sergio stivaletti
Cine 2000/mediaset/france film international

Dedicated to Lucio Fulci by its production team, due to some convoluted backstory (“Dario Argento Presenta”), this very mannered extravaganza boasts a visual sheen not quite in keeping with its turn-of-the-20th-century period setting, and spins a tale that, while engaging enough as it unspools, is somewhat undermined by a gaggle of absurdities at its center. The enigma that compels it doesn’t stay very mysterious for very long, despite the labored attempts by virtually everyone in the cast to vamp it up as much as possible, and the sumptuous costuming is somewhat hilariously at odds with what one must term the futurism at its core. (Were one inclined to be unkind, it could be called anachronistic, but as it’s a horror fable, what would even be the point.) At heart, it’s just kind of silly, another victim of the genre’s inability to stop rewriting stories that weren’t that interesting the first time around. See, it takes place in a WAX MUSEUM, would you believe. And what’s more!

Why Did I Watch This Movie?

I’d have to guess at this point, but it’s most likely the release date, and maybe the intrigue underlying its production. (Argento wanted to help Fulci make a film, but Fulci died before filming began.)


Should You Watch This Movie?

It’s nearly interesting at times.


Highlight and Low Point

Despite its efforts, this production doesn’t do a very effective job of making it appear to be 1900 – it is too obvious that you are looking at sets and costumes. (The steampunk Re-Animator setup doesn’t much help in that regard, either.) The gore and pseudogore FX are pretty good, befitting the nominal director’s usual professional pursuits. The absurdly blatant ripoff of The Terminator, on the other hand …

Rating From Outer Space: C−