YOU MIGHT BE THE KILLER (2018)

 

(Director: Brett Simmons. Screenplay by Thomas V. Pitale, Brett Simmons, and Covis Berzyone, based on Sam Sykes and Chuck Wendig’s idea.)

Review

Unable to reach the local police, a panicked, killer-stalked camp counselor, Sam (Fran Kranz, THE CABIN IN THE WOODS, 2011) in the middle of nowhere calls his slasher flick-savvy best friend while she’s working at a multimedia-video store. Sam and his friend, Chuck (Alyson Hannigan, BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, 1997-2003), try to figure out who the killer is, their motive(s), and how Sam can survive his terrible night even as he remembers disturbing details leading up to his current situation.

Said to be inspired by a conversation between Sam Sykes and author Chuck Wendig (who served as producers for the film), this TV-MA, dark-humored, and occasionally bloody (e.g., a quick shot of a slit throat) movie features deftly executed twist and turns, knowing-wink references to horror genre flicks, effective suspense and laugh-out-loud silliness in equal measure, and top-notch acting not only from its leads but its supporting cast.

Among its cast: Keith David (THE THING, 1982) as the voice of Sheriff James; Bryan Price (THE MONKEY’S PAW, 2013); Patrick R. Walker (SCREAM: THE TV SERIES, 2016); and Carol Jean Wells (JUG FACE, 2013).

Fans of slasher flicks, bloody comedy, a certain 1983 Stephen King novel, a certain 1988 William Lustig film, lively horror scores (this one created by Andrew Morgan Smith, JEEPER CREEPERS III, 2017), and other terror works might enjoy this fun, well-written and well-shot horror comedy that’s a high-mark work within its hybrid genre.

SUMMER OF FEAR (1978)

 

(a.k.a. STRANGER IN OUR HOUSE; director: Wes Craven. Teleplay by Glenn M. Benest and Max A. Keller, based on Lois Duncan’s 1976 YA novel Summer of Fear.)

Review

When a California family, the Bryants, take in a tragedy-struck, teenage relative (Julia Trent) from the Ozarks they have no idea who they’re harboring. Strange things happen, often to Julia’s cousin, adolescent daughter Rachel Bryant, prompting her to suspect something is off with Julia: why is every male within Julia’s range obsessed with the young new arrival’s every whim? Why does Rachel’s horse, Sundance, act spooked, skittish, around Julia, who quickly evolves from wallflower to beauty in record time?

Rachel’s jealousy and suspicions become alarm when she─suddenly sick and nightmare-stalked─finds odd, crudely made objects and marked up photos of herself hidden amongst Julia’s things. Then those who displease Julia begin dying in rapid succession. Is it too late to stop Julia, who is most assuredly a malefic witch?

Based on Lois Duncan’s 1976 young adult novel, Summer of Fear, this made-for-television movie─then titled STRANGER IN OUR HOUSE in the US─originally aired on NBC on October 31, 1978. (In Europe, it was released theatrically under the title SUMMER OF FEAR.)

As television works go, this is a mostly solid, predictable PG-13 flick (back then it would’ve warranted a PG rating). Wes Craven (THE HILLS HAVE EYES, 1977) helmed this bloodless, often brightly lit movie, with the rest of his cast and crew matching Craven in their competence. I write “mostly solid” because of occasionally clunky dialogue and Plot Convenient Stupidity (PCS) that makes up some of the dialogue and actions of certain characters (e.g., Rachel bluntly confronts Julia, broadcasting how she intends to stop Julia’s dark magick, further endangering Rachel and those she loves).

Fortunately, these are minor nits, given the talent involved in the project, contributors like John D’Andrea and Michael Lloyd (DEVIL’S DEN, 2006), whose spooky soundtrack is impressive for its medium.

Just as impressive is SUMMER’s cast. Linda Blair (THE EXORCIST, 1973) is her usual excellent self as Rachel Bryant. Jeff East (PUMPKINHEAD, 1988) played her brother, Peter, and Jeremy Slate (THE DEAD PIT, 1989) played Tom, her father. Fran Drescher (HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA, 2012) played Carolyn Baker, Rachel’s best friend.

Lee Purcell (NECROMANCY, 1972) played Julia Trent. John Steadman (THE HILLS HAVE EYES, 1977) played a “Veterinarian.”

SUMMER is an entertaining work if you don’t expect much and can overlook its sometimes-clunky writing and PCS-character moments.

THE HOWLING: NEW MOON RISING (1995)

 

(a.k.a. HOWLING VII: MYSTERY WOMAN. Director: Clive Turner and an uncredited Roger Nall. Screenplay by Clive Turner, billed as “based on” Gary Brandner’s The Howling trilogy, but it’s not.)

Storyline

After a friendly stranger arrives in a small town, a series of savage, animalistic murders occur.

 

Review

A mysterious biker, Ted (Clive Turner), arrives in a sparsely populated cowboy town (Pioneertown) and gets a job at the community hub country bar (Pappy & Harriet’s Pioneertown Palace) and makes friends with the locals. What they don’t know is that he has an agenda, making notes about his social interactions on a tape recorder in his motel room.

Meanwhile, a “Detective” (John Ramsden) talks to Father John, a local priest, about a series of out-of-town murders the Detective is investigating. The priest tells him that the killer he’s hunting has roots going back to the 1500s in Hungary and is a spawn of Satan─a werewolf! The cop is unconvinced but listens to Father John anyway. The priest’s voiceover, spread throughout the film, narrates extensive footage from HOWLING IV: THE ORIGINAL NIGHTMARE, HOWLING V: THE REBIRTH, and HOWLING VI: THE FREAKS.

Within days of Ted’s arrival, two bar patrons are torn apart. Eventually, the “Detective” meets Ted, everything comes to anticlimactic finish, and MOON finally ends.

MOON, the seventh HOWLING flick, is not a good film. Shot in Yucca Valley, California, its microbudget is painfully obvious. Most of its players, wooden in their roles, are non-actors, all of whom use their real first names and whose humor runs from a recurring George Jones joke to a scene with loud, squirting fart sounds. Its FX/transformation scenes are cheap, even for MOON’s infinitesimal financing, and there is no suspense in this amiable but boring-for-any-genre work.

MOON has some good things about it too. It’s the first film in the series since HOWLING II that strives for series continuity─in this case, it tries to bring together elements from the three previous movies (e.g., Romy Windsor reprises her role of Marie Adams, the famous writer, from HOWLING IV). While it doesn’t entirely succeed, it’s an admirable attempt on Turner’s part.

Another thing I liked about MOON was its set-up (why Ted comes to Pioneertown, and who hired him to go there) as well as its clever end-twist. Now, if everything else about it had been better, it might’ve made MOON worthwhile. It’s not the worst film I’ve seen, but I wouldn’t recommend it for anyone.

SLAXX (2020)

 

(Director: Elza Kephart. Screenplay by Elza Kephart and Patricia Gomez, billed as Patricia Gomez Zlatar.)

Review

During the set-up for an instore unveiling of a groundbreaking new line of jeans (Super Shapers), a new employee, Libby McClean (Romane Denis), discovers that her and her co-workers are being picked off by a pair of supernaturally possessed jeans.

SLAXX is an adroit, darkly fun (despite its brightly lit environs), sometimes bloody horror comedy that, structured by Kephart and Gomez’s spot-on screenplay, balances sketched-out, well-acted characters (who are worth rooting for or hissing at), laugh-out-loud humor, visually satisfying FX, horror elements and set-ups as well as a potent social conscience that is deftly presented in a way that the satirical SLAXX entertains and educates in equal measure. This is one of the best horror comedies I’ve seen in a long time, and one of the best fun-horror flicks of 2020.

Notable performers include: Stephen Bogaert (AMERICAN PSYCHO, 2000); Elizabeth Neale (MOTHER!, 2017); and fabricator/puppeteer/special FX supervisor Marie-Claude Labrecque as Slaxx.

THE CURSE OF THE CAT PEOPLE (1944)

 

(Directors: Gunther von Fritsch, billed as Gunther V. Fritsch, and Robert Wise. Screenplay by DeWitt Bodeen.)

Storyline

An imaginative young girl makes friends with a reclusive, old actress and the ghost of her father’s first wife.

 

Review

More than six years after the events of CAT PEOPLE (1942), Alice and Oliver Reed are parents to six-year-old Amy─an imaginative, mostly solitary girl whose often-happy flights of fantasy vex the still-uptight Oliver, remind him of his insane, dead first wife, Irena Dubrovna (Simone Simon, reprising her role from the 1942 film).

Amy becomes afternoon sitting-room friends with Mrs. Julia Farren (Julia Dean), an old, reclusive, and tale-telling actress who lives in a big spooky house with her adult, bitter daughter, Barbara (Elizabeth Russell, THE SEVENTH VICTIM, 1943).

Julia gives Amy a “wishing ring.” Later, Amy, wearing the ring in her backyard, asks for a friend, one who’s not mean like the other girls. Irena appears to the six-year-old just as everything around them becomes dreamlike, magical. The ghost of the Serbian fashion designer sings to the girl, soothes her, setting the tone for their future meetings, sometimes in shadowy dreams.

Oliver’s stern concern about his daughter’s wandering mind becomes alarm when Amy finds a badly hidden picture of him and Irena together, then reveals her friendship with the dead woman. Alice is firm, sensitive, and mostly cool-headed (like she was in the 1942 film) about what she calls Amy’s “imaginary friend.”

More drama, involving a blizzard, Amy, Oliver, and the Farrens, follows, culminating in a satisfying, sweet and tone-consistent finish.

This tangentially linked sequel to CAT has a different feel to than its source film. CAT  was about sexual repression. CURSE is about childhood, with its terrors and wonders.

While I like CAT slightly better, CURSE isn’t a lesser film─it’s simply my preference for CAT's themes, as everything in these films works.

 (In conveying childhood joys and fears, the latter cinematic offering is on par with Charles Laughton’s 1955 masterpiece THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER.)

CURSE’s cast and crew nailed it when they put it together. This is Gunther von Fritsch and Robert Wise’s first credited-director feature. DeWitt Bodeen penned the screenplay. (Bodeen also co-wrote the screenplay for SEVENTH and wrote CAT’s script.)

Albert S. D’Agnostino (THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD, 1951) and Walter E. Keller (ISLE OF THE DEAD, 1945), who provided art direction in CAT, did so for CURSE, with the same excellent results. Their nuanced, theme-approprite effects are furthered by Nicholas Musuraca’s visually striking cinematography, also seen in SEVENTH and CAT. And Roy Webb’s evocative soundtrack furthers the mood set by the visual aspects of the film, the way he did in SEVENTH and many other films.

The cast is equally good to great. Kent Smith and Jane Randolph reprised their roles as Oliver Reed and Alice Reed (née Moore) in CAT PEOPLE. Ann Carter (I MARRIED A WITCH, 1942) is a delight as Amy Reed, their daughter. Erford Gage (SEVENTH) played “Police Captain.”

CURSE is a quality-consistent, mood-variant and great wrap-up to RKO Pictures’s loosely linked CAT PEOPLE trilogy (which starts with that 1942 film, continues─in a character offshoot way─in SEVENTH, followed by CURSE). Like those other two flicks, this is worth owning.

THE SHED (2019)

 

(Director/screenwriter: Frank Sabatella, who based his screenplay on Jason Rice’s story.)

Review

A seventeen-year-old boy, Stan (Jay Jay Warren) discovers a feral vampire in his abusive grandfather’s shed. Stan locks and boards it up. Horrible things, cheesy action-flick taglines, and predictable twists happen because of his inaction and mistakes.

SHED is half of a good movie─specifically the first half, the set-up. What ruins the second half is the screenplay. It saddles Stan with a constant case of Plot Convenient Stupidity (PCS). It’s understandable that the anxious boy is uncertain and afraid to deal with the beast in his grandfather’s tool shack─for a little while. But even a timid, not-completely-dumb teenager would eventually realize that they must deal with a certain-to-escape bloodsucker, be it alone (by burning down the shed during the day) or by dispatching the wild exsanguinist with help from an angry, also-bullied best friend (Dommer). When Stan finally does act, it’s too late, and much of what he does is idiotic, mistakes that get people gorily torn apart.

More tender-hearted, abused and/or anxious viewers might be willing to overlook Stan’s PCS, explain away his cowardice and inaction. I get why they might do that. That said, a solid film is about balancing all elements of the story─or at least provide enough solid reasons on which viewers can balance their disbelief. Sabatella does not do that, reducing this often admirable and sometimes entertaining flick to a series of catastrophic events that feel forced, a writerly clusterfrak (given its solid set-up, the writer-director could’ve easily, with a few scenes, tweaked SHED’s script in a way where Stan isn’t an ineffectual, initial coward, still placing the characters where Sabatella wanted them to be).

Aside from Sabatella’s mishandling of Stan and the run-and-hide-too-often last act, the rest of SHED’s aspects are impressive. The FX are wow-worthy, its kill scenes well-shot, its look and instrumental score striking and effective, and the actors are good-to-great.

Notable actors include: Siobhan Fallon Hogan (THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT, 2018) as Sheriff Dorney; Timothy Bottoms as Ellis; Frank Whaley as Bane.

While this is far from the worst film I’ve seen, its second half was a frustrating viewing experience. (Again, more emotive, caught-up-in-the-abuse-metaphor filmgoers might enjoy this flawed flick, made by a clearly talented cast and crew.) I hope Sabatella gets it right next time, because it’s obvious he and his crew have something cinematically worthwhile in them.