Lace Crater (7/10)
Awkward New York millennial Ruth takes a trip to the Hamptons with her awkward New York millennial friends. Amongst the laconic drug-doings and internecine romantic maneuverings, Ruth manages to meet an awkward New York millennial ghost in the property’s haunted coach house. This friendly but socially inept ghost fellow, Michael, is oddly solid for a ghost, and also sufficiently tumescent for a nice romp in the haunted coach house.
The next day, on the ride back from the Hamptons (who goes to the Hamptons for one night? I don’t know, I don’t go to the Hamptons), Ruth pukes in her friend’s car. From there, it’s all down-hill for Ruth, as she experiences ectoplasmic night-sweats, eldritch vaginal discharges, and non-therapeutic skin-peels.
So, first off, this is the first movie (as far as I know) that combines body horror with disaffected millennial angst. Interesting choice. Maybe millennials need a little more body horror in their lives; maybe that’s what’s been missing from that generation. Anywho, Ruth is very underdeveloped. As a character, I mean — her boobs were just fine. I’m guessing much of the dialogue in this movie was improvised, so maybe Ruth’s actress just wasn’t the improv sort. Which is ok, since millennials are typically rather underdeveloped anyways. And when they are developed, they’re mostly whiny and selfish, which was portrayed well by the other characters.
Now that I’m done with generation bashing, let’s talk ghosts. There’s definitely some new territory covered here. For example, I had no idea that humping a ghost would get you Ghost AIDS (or whatever it is). Ghostliness as STD, interesting idea. Also, the portrayal of Ghost Michael as just some dude that happens to be dead and doesn’t know how he feels about it is probably the best part of this movie. He’s not scary, or violent, or threatening, just rather lost and alone. The ghost sex arose naturally from his predicament, and the penalty that Ruth pays for her kindness inspires sympathy.
All in all, a decent enough flick with a few interesting ponderables. One thing that grates the nerves though is the soundtrack. It was done by somebody famous that I’ve never heard of (“Neon Indian” or some such). Some of it was good retro 80s synth stuff that is popular these days, and some of it sounds like Romper Room after a bad night at the strip club. Overall, it was more distracting than anything. So remember kids, just because you’re famous, doesn’t mean you’re any good.
Night of Something Strange (7/10)
Cornelius is a janitor at a morgue. One night, while working alone, he comes upon a relatively fresh and fairly attractive female corpse, which he then comes in. As he’s going to town on Jane Doe, we see from her toe tag that she died of radiation exposure combined with an STD. When he gets home, he promptly turns into a zombie and rapes his wife (or girlfriend, or mother, it’s not entirely clear). And, he eats her pussy (not euphemistically, but quite enthusiastically). This is all in the first 7 minutes, so we’re clearly off to a great start!
So, next we are introduced to some obnoxious high school seniors on their way to a beach somewhere. On the way, they stop at a creepy gas station where the zombie had recently chowed down on a used tampon and puked all over the toilet, and obnoxious bimbo #1 catches zombie from the toilet seat and spews chunks all over the place while the zombie watches, masturbating, from the woods. Yes, that is what I just wrote.
Soon, the obnoxious teens arrive at a creepy pedo hotel on the way to the beach, where we are treated to scenes of zombie carnage, unfortunate sexual acts, long emo conversations, and sometimes all three at once. And then things get weird. Like, talking vagina weird.
This movie is chock full of puking, pissing, and periods. And more than the usual amount of masturbating, for a zombie movie. Plus rape, cousin-fucking, accidental homosexual necrophilia, and a guy named Dirk. Really, it’s got it all, and a little more. It’s also pretty funny. And gross. And insanely deranged. So, of course I’m going to recommend it. Did you expect otherwise? You really don’t know me at all, and that makes me sad.
Best line: “How could I think your balls were two clits?”
Secrets of a Psychopath (6/10)
Henry has a very unnatural relationship with his sister Catherine. Well, Catherine is played by Kari Wuhrer, so maybe it’s not really all that unnatural. I mean, you’ve seen Kari, right? Very fine. Anywho, Henry’s real dilemma is that he can only get it up for his sister. While she’s quite happy with this arrangement, Henry is greatly disturbed by it.
When Henry is not busy reading psychology books looking for a fix, he brings home girls he meets on computer dating sites, fantasizes about a wedding night with them, and then murders them in the hopes that he’ll finally figure out what “fucked him up” in his past that led to his current “condition.” Yeah, it didn’t really make all that much sense to me either, but hey, he is crazy, after all. Nor is his sister exactly a stable genius.
His latest bride-in-captivity is the beautiful Georgette, whose hot roommate he has already killed. While Henry is trying to get Georgette to help him get it up, Catherine is trying to get Henry to kill her. As it turns out, Georgette might just be the one that unlocks the puzzle of Henry’s floppy wiener.
This movie has a lot of What the Fuck moments, but none of them quite prepare us for the What the Fuckage of the last ten minutes or so. That was some I Can’t Even level of What the Fuck. Seriously.
I really can’t tell if this movie is good or bad, but it is certainly unique. In some ways, it feels like a throwback to 70s psychodrama or giallo, but it’s also just batshit crazy; though maybe that’s redundant. So, since I’m grasping at straws here, and it does have a couple foxy chicks slightly nude in it, I’m going to go ahead and recommend this to anyone looking for something that’s as intriguing as it is absurd.
Slasher House (6/10)
We open on a nude and unconscious young woman (8/10 would bang) with unnaturally red hair laying on the floor of a jail cell. Soon, she wakes and wonders, how did she get here? She opens a locker and finds a frilly dress in red and black with a post-it note that says “Wear Me.” After some more butt shots of her screwing around in the cell (I’m not complaining), an alarm goes off and the cell door unlocks. Realizing she’s still nekkid, she decides she should probably heed the post-it note and put on the dress (sad face).
As she explores what seems to be an abandoned prison, she finds a whiny dude in another cell. We learn that, while neither of them know why they’re there, the whiny guy remembers things from before, but the girl doesn’t remember anything, even her own name. We’ll call her Red.
Soon, another alarm goes off, indicating a door has been unlocked, but it’s not the one to Whiny’s cell. Red goes to investigate, and finds that a creepy killer clown with a history of child murder has been released from his cell and is very interested in seeing Red’s insides. In very short order, Cleaver the Clown has Red pinned down and is about to start hacking away, when he is stabbed in the back by Whiny. Red and Whiny team up and start trying to find a way out. They soon find other unsavory denizens, each locked in their own cell and waiting to be released. But which are the hunters, and which are the hunted?
This was a well-made low-budget romp with above-average acting (thanks, British thespians!) There were a few missteps and questionable decisions in some of the confrontations with the baddies, but nothing that can’t be forgiven. Photography and gore effects were quite good, each character was given enough of a backstory to make them interesting, and Red has a nice ass. While the plot had a somewhat paint-by-numbers feel to it, there were a few twists (some more successful than others) along the way, and the baddies were entertainingly comic bookish. Overall, it’s probably worth a watch.
Frazier Park Recut (9/10)
NOTE: This review originally appeared on Red River Horror.
Friends and amateur filmmakers Tyler (Tyler Schnabel) and Sam (Sam Hanover) are working to put together their first feature before Sam moves across the country to be with his beautiful girlfriend Jen (Monica Marin-Diaz). The movie starts with behind-the-scenes footage of their pre-production, where they meet and cast Tom Morris (David Lee Hess) for the role of a creepy Groundskeeper. The trio head from Los Angeles to Frazier Park, California, where they have rented a cabin in the woods via Airbnb.
The found-footage horror movie they are shooting follows two brothers (played by Tyler and Sam) who are going to clean out their late mother’s cabin, where they unexpectedly encounter the Groundskeeper. The brothers soon discover a dark secret about the Groundskeeper that leaves them fighting for their lives.
Outside of the movie-within-a-movie, tensions are rising between Tyler and Sam. Tyler feels that Sam’s head is out of the game from his frequent video chats with Jen, while Sam is alarmed by Tyler’s constant tinkering with the script. To bring a spark back to the production, Tom becomes much more assertive in the filmmaking process and begins to document his own efforts to add conflict and drama to what he feels is a failing, cliched, and inferior project. As the friends’ movie runs ever more off the tracks, how far will they go to make the day’s scenes?
Frazier Park Recut is a refreshing addition to the ever longer-in-the-tooth found footage genre. The choice to wrap a found-footage horror film around a found-footage horror film is a great one, and the skillful blending of the behind-the-scenes footage with scenes from the “actual” film leads to both humorous and creepy moments. The dialogue in the behind-the-scenes footage, largely improvised by the actors, seems natural, while the dialogue in the movie-within-a-movie is a bit hackneyed and delivered a bit woodenly — this is not a criticism, it is an intentional feature of the storytelling. In fact, one of the funniest moments of the film comes when one of the actors delivers an intentionally awful one-liner in a key scene in the movie-within-a-movie. All in all, this is a great first feature by some very talented filmmakers. Highly recommended.
It Knows (9/10)
NOTE: This review originally appeared on Red River Horror.
“It Knows” opens with a scene of family terror. Young Claire and her mother are hiding out from Claire’s father Monroe, who is a monstrous figure in her life. When he eventually finds them, his rage is unleashed and only Claire survives. Years later, Claire is happily married to an understanding and caring man, and they have two beautiful children. But Claire finds herself trapped in her house by a mysterious force, and her family is nowhere to be found.
Claire is shattered, a woman unmoored from reality by her brutal childhood. The puzzle-piece structure of “It Knows” reflects Claire’s fragmented existence; she opens a door to the outside and finds herself back in her house, unable to escape; she turns a corner and finds a masked specter confronting her with her deeply buried pain; and finally, she is led further down the spiral of depression and mania by her younger self, until she is finally unable to avoid facing the truth of her past and must take action to protect herself and her family from the growing evil that surrounds her.
“It Knows” is a very dark psychological horror that goes places many will find very disturbing. And yet, it is also a frenetically paced survival horror with shocks and scares aplenty. These two horror sub-genres are blended seamlessly by co-writer/directors Mark Maness and Rob Winfrey, and are given life by the strong performances of Carmen Patterson as the desperate adult Claire, Dan Michael as the sinister and brutal Monroe, and, most of all, the outstanding performance of Lauren Lasseigne as the terrorized 9-year-old Claire. It is her scenes in particular that can be tough to watch, but those that do will find themselves challenged by a harrowing narrative that pulls no punches in exploring its deeply emotional territory.
