personality disorder

Invaders From Mars (1986)

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Directed by TOBE HOOPER
Golan-Globus

Surprisingly entertaining despite some significant drawbacks – chief among them the extremely subpar performance of the lead child actor and some pacing/editing issues – this remake of a 1950s film I haven’t seen showcases director Tobe Hooper’s flair for understated comedic touches, although as usual I have less than no use for the references, homages, and tips of the cap to other movies and/or genres and/or directors. (Which is why I only know about them from online “research.”) What little plot there is – Martians think a NASA/SETI launch is an invasion, so they travel to Earth to preempt it – largely managed to evade my notice, as the few moments of expository dialogue aren’t exactly Pulitzer material. Decent creature and FX work abound, alongside some dependable B-movie performances from the likes of Karen Black, Louise Fletcher and James Karen. Incidentally, the hints of creeping/creepy conformity would in the original have predated those in Invasion of the Body Snatchers by several years.

Why Did I Watch This Movie?

I’ve always heard that this was an above-average offering, especially given its somewhat dubious provenance.

Should You Watch This Movie?

Sure, if you’d like to relive the experience of watching a network television “Movie of the Week” or late-night basic cable.

Highlight and Low Point

The FX really are fairly exemplary, notwithstanding the somewhat absurdist design of the majority of the Martians themselves. Hunter Carson is a severe detraction (if not distraction) as David Gardner, though in his defense, he was 10 when the film was released and his mother’s also in the cast. (That being Karen Black, who plays the credulous school nurse.) I mean, look, it’s a Cannon Films remake of a 1950s B movie. That statement more or less sums up the overall experience.

Rating From Outer Space: B

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

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+

Halloween Kills (2021)

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Directed by David Gordon Green
BLUMHOUSE PRODUCTIONS/MIRAMAX/TRANCAS INTERNATIONAL FILMS/ROUGH HOUSE PICTURES/Home Again Productions

I don’t really have anything positive to say about this picture, so let’s go ahead and make that one fact nice and sparkling clear. What I have, instead, is what may pass for a philosophical question, especially within the realm of a blog dedicated to horror flicks. See, as you may remember, the most recent reboot of this hoary franchise reestablished what constitutes “canon” from amongst the many, many different films that have borne the titular holiday’s name. Thus, in essence, THIS chapter is now part 3, supplanting “Season of the Witch” – which, of course, never fit the storyline as imagined beginning with the first “Halloween II,” a storyline which continued in Halloweens 4 and 5, and on into installments 6 (“The Curse of Michael Myers”), 7 (“H20”) and 8 (“Resurrection”). Now, none of those movies are supposed to count any longer, and yet, in the eternal name of fan service, this flick is littered with flashbacks and referents to … most of them, apparently. You figure out what that’s supposed to “mean,” especially in the context of yet another unimaginative rendition of a generic slasher, one whose most notable accomplishment is transmogrifying “Michael Myers” almost completely into “Jason Voorhees.” Almost makes one want to reconsider Rob Zombie’s take on the reboot-sequel thing. (Almost.)


Why Did I Watch This Movie?

Desperation to procrastinate.



Should You Watch This MOvie?

Don’t be foolish.


Highlight and Low Point

That “philosophical question” I alluded to earlier is, basically, how can one invoke that which has been officially erased? Shouldn’t that negate the existence of this very production? (Judging by the results, it does!) Another variant: why bother rebooting something if you’re just going to make it worse, and stupider besides? What’s to gain?

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

Beyond the Darkness aka The Devil’s Female aka Magdalena, vom Teufel besessen aka Magdalena, Possessed by the Devil (1974)

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Directed by “Michael Walter”
TV 13

There’s exploitation, and there’s EXPLOITATION, and then there’s this feckless Exorcist parallel, which shows little regard for any aspect of its story that isn’t related to the nude form of Dagmar Hedrich, the comely lass who plays the title role. After around 75 minutes of wallowing in the gutter with little pretense of doing anything else, it’s possible that the film produces its most legitimately shocking moment when the director remembers to wedge the unequaled anticlimax of a half-assed exorcism into the final few minutes. Appropriately enough, Hedrich seems to have said “to Hell with this profession” after making this picture. (Not that this performance was going to be topped.) Highly entertaining, shamefully inexcusable, and amazingly crude and crass in more ways than one – not the least of which is that there’s almost no semblance of a storyline at all. Then again, helmer Walter Boos boasts a list of credits including such highbrow material as “Intimate Teenager” and “Train Station Pickups,” so …


Why Did I Watch This Movie?

You know I cannot turn away from a film titled “The Devil’s Female.”


Should You Watch This Movie?

The website Film Dienst classifies this as follows: Sex movie. (Its brief synopsis concludes, “We advise against it.”)


Highlight and Low Point

I will admit to a sense of befuddlement that the members of the cast take their jobs seriously and comport themselves professionally throughout this picture. The foulmouthed manner in which Magdalena requests Holy Communion has to be heard to be believed, though one might well wonder how or why it was so easy for her to convince her housemother to escort her to Church in the first place, given her immediately preceding histrionics. Hedrich does an ace job of simulating sexual congress with phantoms.

Rating From Outer Space:

Scream Bloody Murder aka Matthew aka The Captive Female (1972)

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Produced & Directed by Marc B. Ray
First American Films/Alan Roberts Productions/University Film Company

Honestly, this might be one of the more demented offerings I’ve yet watched. Here’s a synopsis: A young boy kills his father with a tractor, losing a hand in the process. When he’s 18 he’s released from the loony bin and kills his brand-new stepfather with an axe, then accidentally kills his mom, then basically kills everyone else he comes across for the rest of the film except for the hooker he decides to kidnap BECAUSE HE WANTS TO BE FRIENDS. Rampant moments of complete insanity dominate, highlighted by “psychedelic” hallucinatory passages and wacked-out soundscaping. To be honest, it gets pretty harrowing, even as it’s more than ludicrous more often than not. Now, don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a “good” movie, but when our confused young man lashes out and slashes with his prosthetic hook hand, it’s … okay, I already used the word “ludicrous.”


Why Did I Watch This Movie?

I found this flick whilst researching the previous entry, due to the shared title.


Should You Watch This Movie?

“See what I do for you? I get groceries and clothes and art stuff, and kill people, and do you appreciate it? NO.”


Highlight and Low Point

So, the hooker is a painter in her spare time, see, and Matthew is convinced that an easel is the key to her satisfaction with his completely normal plan to hold her hostage in the mansion he usurped from its elderly owner that he killed. As hung up as he is about sex in general – mind you, we have no idea “why,” since the picture begins with the inchoate Oedipal act – he’s REALLY fixated on the easel he procures. Angus Scrimm shows up at one point.

Rating From Outer Space: B−

My Brother Has Bad Dreams aka Scream Bloody Murder (1972)

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produced and directed by bob emery
Original Screenplay by Bob Emery
American Pictures Corporation

A movie so obscure it doesn’t even seem to have a Wikipedia entry – imagine! – this is a disturbed, and fairly disturbing, picture of mental instability, family secrets, and, of course, MURRRRRDER. It also features a unique ending, although that’s getting rather ahead of the topic here. The fun begins with obvious shadings of Psycho, but instead of keeping the Oedipal tendencies a secret, they’re right out front, along with some mannequin (“store dummy”) obsession which presages Maniac – well, at least for me. Hints of incestual longing AND some vaguely homoerotic developments make it fun for the whole – sorry, let’s just say there’s a little something for everyone. A fairly interesting curiosity, in my opinion, with fairly high production values given its low profile, including title music and suchlike. You may well wonder why the titular brother’s sibling puts up with him at all, and the attempts at obfuscating motives don’t really help or hinder in that regard.

Why Did I Watch This Movie?

It’s another of the Internet Archive VHS gleanings, dunno if I’d’ve ever found it otherwise.


Should You Watch This Movie?

I would guess that depends on how deep you are into esoterica, arcana, trivia, that sorta thing.


Highlight and Low Point

Well, the highlight has to be the highly unusual ending, which may or may not be intended to invoke some sort of symbolic something-or-another. As hinted at earlier, brother Karl is highly irritating; Nick Kleinholz does a convincing job in one of his two roles prior to his untimely death. Marlena Lustik, who plays his sister Anna, also appeared in/on “NBC Special Treat,” which … sure. Cleveland native Paul Vincent plays the unfortunate patsy who tries to help.

Rating From Outer Space: C+

Deathmoon (1978)

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Directed by Bruce Kessler
A Roger Gimbel Production
For EMI Television Programs, Inc.

A plodding would-be potboiler that could serve as a one-item time capsule, this made-for-TV werewolf picture doesn’t have a lot to offer aside from its woefully inadequate scenes of hinted-at transformations … until it eventually deigns to try to depict said transformation, and hoo boy. For the most part, this is basically a blasé romantic drama, with a bunch of quasi-flashbacks and some ancient-cursed-missionary mumbo-jumbo about the, uh, Ileoha-kapuatiki. (It’s set in Hawaii.) A pointless subplot involves someone robbing guests of the luxury resort during a weeklong business conference, along with some attendant job tension between security personnel. Questions might plague you were you to give any of this rot a second thought – I mean, questions besides “why the hell am I watching this?” Like, our suffering shape-changer bears the curse via his grandfather, but … was the family unaware of this condition in the interim, between generations? Does it only affect him/them when in Hawaii? At the source, as it were? And how long does a full moon last, anyway? It keeps happening!


Why Did I Watch This Movie?

Boy, I wish I had a good answer for that question. (It was part of the Internet Archive VHS “haul.”)



Should You Watch This Movie?

There is no reason you should ever do such a thing.


Highlight and Low Point

Seriously, when dude went to Hawaii, had there been no full moon, would he ever have known he bore the curse? Doesn’t the moon have the same effect everywhere? The moment when the security underling tells his chief that his diligent legwork has suggested that they’re dealing with a werewolf, and gets laughed at because that’s a ridiculous suggestion, was appreciated by this viewer.

Rating From Outer Space: F