Battle Royale

Remember how agitating high school was? Imagine those arduous, awkward days of youth, plus being forced to kill your fellow students in a compulsory law, known as the BR act. Another misfortunate class of ninth graders have been chosen for this years Battle Royale, after being drugged and taken to a deserted island. Each student is armed with an assortment of tools, different weapons, and is collared with a tracking device that will detonate in three days, if more than one survives. The question is, could you kill your friend to protect your own life? This film is a beautiful portrayal of the corruption, and eventual destruction of innocence among today’s youth. All the social structures of high school are still relevant through out this deadly game. Cliques that turn on each other through aroused suspicion, outcasts that have no trouble killing their peers, even school crushes that end in tragedy. At times it is heartbreaking to see the break down of trust between these students, but it is interesting to see how each reacts differently to the situation.

Some refuse to play, committing suicide, some students try to stay in there cliques, and others seem to have been waiting for the opportunity to kill. Though dramatically acted, and unsettling to watch the violence take hold of these students, there is still a tinge of humor underneath it all. Some of the dialogue is humorous, and the oreintation video they watch, explaining the game is a definite nod to the absurdity of Japanese game shows. Though not excessively gory, the violence depicted is still disturbing. We see these once innocent students unfold into merciless murderers, going against one another till death. The epic symphonic score of classical arrangements leaves the viewer in emotional awe through out. This film is also an incredible representation of the struggles between young and older generations who have become afraid of the desensitized youth of today. Anyone interested in Asian cinema should be ashamed if they have yet to see this. Also, don’t go see the pg-13 American version called ’The Hunger Games.’ Rent, purchase, or find this original game of death between these tremulous high schoolers, competing in this years Battle Royale.

Jacob's Ladder

Jacob Singer (Tim Robbins) is back from Vietnam, and now resides in New York City. His final days in the war are only a hazy, dim memory of violent flashbacks. He never was sure what happened on that fateful day his platoon was attacked by Charlie. Now, working for the post office, and married to a scathing co worker, he feels Nam wasn’t the worst experience of his life. Unfortunately, Jacob has been hallucinating lately. He has been seeing demons around him, and isn’t sure what they want. On top of that, he’s not sure if he’s living another life, where his dead son and wife are alive, and they live happily.
This original, psychological, horror thriller plays out like a surreal nightmare that will keep you guessing through its plot twists and turns. As a viewer, we begin to question if his dreams are real, or if his waking state is. We aren’t sure if poor Jacob is loosing his mind, or there are actually demons encompassing his very existence. Tim Robbins does a fine job as a paranoid, disillusioned veteran who begins to think he is being conspired against.

Well acted through out, containing suspenseful moments, and impeccable editing that has been later copied in other horror films, none do it better than Jacob’s Ladder. While this can be considered horror, I think in it’s totality this could be enjoyed by many. The writing is thought provoking and can be seen as influential for other genre bending, psychological films such as Donnie Darko, the Sixth Sense, and the Others. Jacob’s Ladder has some great tension building, and plenty of disturbing scenes that are memorable enough for any horror fan. So see for yourself in this dark labyrinth of a tale, into the depths of madness, and the demons that dwell there.

I Drink Your Blood

‘I Drink Your Blood’ is an early exploitation film that was released to be paired with ‘I Eat Your Skin’ for drive ins in 1970. This is the tale of traveling satanic hippies that come across the ghost town of Valley Hill. After gang raping a town girl, they squat in an abandon house and ensue in their satanic rituals. Angrily, the grandfather of the girl finds out, stands up to the hippies, but is overcome, beaten, then fed LSD to. After their fun, the hippies send off the acid educed gramps with his wary grandson. As the grandson is explained to what ’that crazy L stuff’ does by his sister, he decides to take action against the truculent hippies for dosing his grandfather. How does a young kid get back at a group of satanic hippies you may ask? Easy, you just dose their meat pies with blood from a rabid dog you shot.

'Let it be known, sons and daughters, that Satan was an acid head.'

‘I Drink Your Blood’ turns from a sleazy satanic exploitation flick to a survival zombie film with rabid, foaming at the mouth hippies, wielding axes and causing mayhem. The violence is brutal but the gore effects are pretty poor and the acting is abysmal such as many films of this nature. The plot itself though seems to keep you interested enough, and it is fairly paced. At times the obnoxious synth soundtrack can be overbearing, but what can be expected from such a low budget, seemingly on the fly project. The real beef I have with this film is the use of animal cruelty. Many grind house and exploitation films were made to shock or give audiences something they couldn’t see anywhere else, and animal cruelty was used through many films. Luckily it isn’t as in your face as some of the Italian cannibal flicks of the 80‘s, they kill a chicken, some rats, and a dead goat at the end is shown, just be forewarned. I’ll never understand why filmmakers felt compelled to film such atrocities, but I tend to cringe and fast forward through them. If you haven’t gotten into grind house or exploitation films before, and are interested, this seems to be a staple, and isn’t a bad place to start. So remember, if you don’t want to end up like these guys, don’t drop acid and pray to Satan, and don’t feed anyone meat pies filled with rabid blood.

The People Under the Stairs

Written and directed by Wes Craven in 1991, The People Under the Stairs is one of his more unappreciated, overseen films between the success of A Nightmare on Elm St. and Scream. This is the story of a poverty stricken boy from the ghetto, nicknamed Fool (Brandon Adams of the Might Ducks fame) who’s mother is sick and family is about to get evicted. Fed up, Fool's sister’s boyfriend (Ving Rhames) convinces him to help rob their landlords. Rumor has it, these landlords have a rare coin collection hidden somewhere in their home. Fool accepts, goes along with the two burglars, and inconspicuously try to find a way into the home. Once they find a way in, there is no escape, and they learn the couple residing there are incestuous, baby snatching psychos, hiding something beneath the stairs. The house itself makes for a fun setting, complete with booby traps, electric door knobs, trick stairs, and hidden passages between the walls. Fool meets the couple's demurely daughter, (Leah Thompson), and is compelled to help her escape her abusive maniacal parents.

“Your dad’s one crazy mother, and your mothers one crazy mother too.”

The names of the parents aren’t revealed through the film, but are only referred to as ‘Mommy’ and ‘Daddy’ adding to the creepiness of the couple. The performances here are well done, shouting divine righteousness or “Burn in Hell!” throughout, and Daddy running around the house with a shotgun in a S&M suit. The social commentary of the rich getting richer while the poor are getting screwed is a pervasive theme. ‘The more money they got, the greedier they got. The greedier they got, the crazier they got.’ While this is far from scary, it seems not to take itself too seriously from the campy feel, resulting in a well paced, adventurous, at times suspenseful film. Though some humor falls flat, it may seem outdated, and there isn’t lack of it’s cheesy moments, this is an easy way to kill an hour and half. So come tag along through Mommy and Daddy’s trap house full of people under the stairs...and see if you can escape.

From Beyond

After Stuart Gordon and Brian Yuzna graced horror fans with the cult classic Re-Animator, they adapted yet another Lovecraftian tale for the screen, 1986’s From Beyond. This is the story of the brilliant, yet sadist scientist Dr. Pretorius who has created a resonator to stimulate the pineal gland, the ultimate pleasure. It is said the pineal gland is an extrasensory organ and lies dormant in humans, yet this resonator allows it to awaken. This reluctantly causes the subject to see the creatures that lie from beyond. Dr. Pretorius doesn’t get far ’a head’ in his research, becoming consumed, merging with the creature, then ghastly shape shifting into an abomination.

Staring Jeffery Combs as the doctor’s assistant, Crawford Tillinghast, and Barbara Crampton as the nerdy yet obsessive Dr. Mc Michaels, we get a glimpse into the horrors that result from man searching beyond what he should. As a horror film, we get an ’eye’ full of grotesque creature transformation effects, squirming monstrosities from beyond, and Jeffrey Combs becoming an eye sucking, brain eating, pineal gland feeding nuisance. What could go wrong with this flick? Not much if you’re looking for an interesting plot that only Lovecraft could come up with, or over the top creature and gore effects reminiscent of Carpenter’s ‘The Thing‘. This raucous ride into the unknown is a must see for any horror sci-fi, Lovecraft, or Re-Animator fan with an open mind. Not too open of a mind though, cause remember, ‘humans are such easy prey.‘

Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer

Loosely based off real life serial killer Henry Lee Lucas, this film gives the viewer a glimpse into the grim, apathetic life of a perilous murderer. As the movie begins, we pan out on the body of a lifeless woman, a presage to the dark tone of the film. Henry, eerily portrayed by Michael Rooker, does his murderous work by stalking victims in his car through out the streets of Chicago. While most of the violence is done off camera, we are pervasively shown the brutal crime scenes of Henry’s victims, accompanied by an auditory flashback of their murders. Later we meet his trashy, inane roommate, and former prison buddy Otis. Otis brings his recently divorced sister home to stay at their apartment to save some money for her daughter. His sister is a naïve young woman, who feels she connects with Henry from their similar upbringing of parental abuse. Otis, played effortlessly by Tom Towles, is a depraved scumbag who persistently enjoys coping a feel on his sister. One night when Henry takes Otis out for hookers, Henry’s bloodlust takes over, and he strangles the prostitute to death. Otis then starts to do the same to the other, but Henry intervenes, and snaps her neck. Otis, speechless at first, later comes to feel remorseless and enjoys the urge to kill. Henry then explains to Otis why it’s important to murder a different way every time; shoot one, strangle another, drown the next. Saying that if you don’t have a modus operandi or pattern of work, it’s almost impossible to be caught.

This film isn’t gory by any means, but the way the violence is depicted is just as disturbing as any graphic splatter scene. The most rigorous scene is when Henry and Otis invade a family’s home and video record the entire attack. Later we see they are emotionlessly viewing the video of their last onslaught. This is more unsettling to the viewer than the violence itself. While it isn’t a very plot driven film, this is more of a string of events in the life of two serial killers, culminating to a bloody climax. For something different than your average slasher, containing some disturbing imagery, and substantial acting, Henry is a film that is sure to stay with you after your fist viewing.

Me with Tom Towles.

Maniac!

Move over Travis Bickle, there’s another cinematic psycho roaming the streets of New York City, and his name is Frank Zito. Joe Spinell co-writes and stars in this 1980 horror film that coalesces the essence of the desolate and paranoid streets of late 70’s New York, and the maniacs who stalk them. As viewers, we are immediately plunged into Frank's demented, isolated life, and see through the eyes of this misogynistic, knife wielding maniac, who’s disdain for woman stems from an abusive childhood. Frank’s creepy apartment is scattered full of dolls, a shrine of his mother, and mannequins, which he nails the scalps of his victims to. It seems he is trying to surround himself with his victims, not just as trophies, but to preserve the beauty of woman in the inanimate, which can never wrong him as his mother had. Joe Spinell is utterly believable as an extremely disturbed psycho, switching from a rueful man-child with mother issues, to an unapologetic murderer.

Frank is accompanied by a myriad of weapons to wreak havoc among the streets of New York including knives, straight razors, scalpels, daggers, and a shotgun concealed in a violin case. Effects master Tom Savini gives us some of his best work, which include numerous stabbings, throat cutting, scalpings, and an infamous scene of Tom Savini getting his head blown off via shotgun blast. At times Frank seems reluctant, and knows what he’s doing is wrong, having inner monologues between himself, and his mother, exacerbating his already questionable sanity. Later in the film he crosses paths with a woman photographer, and we see a glint of humanity in him, due to her amiable disposition. Will his murderous tendencies come full circle again, or can he connect with a woman, finally get over his mother problems, and bury his misogynistic brutality? Take a look for yourself, in this callous, gritty little gem of a horror flick. Also, word of advice…if you‘re a woman, I suggest not walking the streets of New York alone, for Frank Zito may be waiting in the shadows to add your pretty little scalp to his collection.

Lamberto Bava's 'Demons'

For me, the 80’s was one of the most boisterous and fun times for horror films. One of my favorites, hailing  from 1985, is Lamberto Bava’s ‘Demons.’ Italian horror maestro Dario Argento, attached as producer, wanted to bring a hit to the states. He worked as producer on Dawn of the Dead a few years earlier, and got a taste for success in the U.S, but wanted a full fledged Italian production to do the same. Since it’s release, Demons has become a cult horror favorite packed full of everything the genre nerd lusts after. Cheesy acting, simple but entertaining plot, demons with sharp teeth, and claws that ooze green slime from their mouths, and plenty of gore in the midst of a blaring 80’s metal soundtrack. In my eyes, the plot is a predecessor to Robert Rodriguez’s From Dusk Till Dawn, except instead of taking place in a strip club, it’s in a movie theatre, and obviously, instead of vampires, we get demons.

It begins with a girl who gets a ticket for a mysterious new movie coming out by a masked stranger. Curious, she cuts class, makes her way to the theater with a friend, and we are introduced to a number of characters. These include a trash talking pimp, his two ‘hoes,’ a blind man and his daughter, and a surly man with an inept wife. One of the prostitutes places a prop mask over her face in the lobby, and cuts herself with it, foreboding the madness to come. The movie starts, and we begin to notice it’s a parallel to the reality we see going on in the theater. A man is cut on the face in the film, and we see the prostitute’s face start to bleed as well. The demonic possession ensues and the hysteria begins.

The plot sounds as atrocious as the acting is, but who needs a good plot or acting if you’re a genre fan and are just looking for an entertaining ride. And entertaining it is…this is a fun film, period. We have a trash talking pimp, coked out Berlin street punks, bursting, oozing green boils, a horrid demon transformation scene with growing teeth and claws, a demon baby ripping through a woman’s back, and a final scene that has to do with a samurai sword and a dirt bike that's sure to leave you smiling. What more could you ask for from a genre that has turned the banal, insipid films such as Paranormal Activity, and Saw onto the mainstream; over the quondam, nostalgic horror films such as ‘Demons.’ If you’ve been searching for an entertaining, gory, boil bursting ride, search no further, for ’Demons’ is a horror movie for the true genre fan.

Salem's Lot by Stephen King

       Salem’s Lot is the second published novel by American author Stephen King. It is the story of novelist Ben Mears who revisits his home town of Salem’s Lot, to overcome a childhood tragedy involving a haunted house, known as the Marsten house, while his recluse town is becoming over run by vampires. When Dracula was published in 1897, it soon became the mile stone for the modern day vampire. Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot, in my view, is just a modern day retelling of the same story, but in a small town in New England, Maine known as Jerusalem’s Lot. While I am still in the process of reading Dracula, the parallels are uncanny. Even the physiognomy of the two characters are similar. They are both described as having an aquiline, or beaklike nose, pallor skin, high cheek bones, and a mouth with protruding teeth under a heavy mustache. They both involve many themes which include love, sexual desire, invasion, and fear of the unknown. The beginning is a bit slow, but not without cause, introducing us to the many characters through out the novel. Considering the many characters, even the tertiary ones are of importance. King paints a vivid picturesque view of small town living, and the many evils behind it.

There are many small towns in America that are so overseen, if the population was wiped out, they wouldn’t be missed or noticed. The wiping out of this small town is from the invasion of a vampire, named Kurt Barlow. He and his colleague/assistant Richard Straker come to the small town as antique dealers, set up a small antiques shop and purchase the benevolent, enigmatic house known as the Marsten House. The Marsten House is sort of a materialized evil, who’s previous owner murdered his wife and hung himself in a room on the second floor. Ben Mears as a child is persuaded by his friends to go into the house to prove his bravery. He goes into the room where Hubert Marsten hung himself, opens the door, and sees a man hanging from a scaffold. This is the reason Ben Mears comes back to his home town; to purchase the Marsten House, work on his novel involving the house, and to overcome his childhood fear of it. It’s an interesting fact that Stephen King stated he had a terrible dream as a child involving opening a door, seeing a man hanging from a scaffold, and opening his dead eyes, staring straight at him.

Childhood fear is a major theme among many of his novels. As we grow up into adulthood, we tend to shut out those childhood fears with reasoning. ‘That tapping at the window is just a tree branch.’ or ‘That ominous shadow is only an illusion from light.’ As a child our imaginations tend to get the best of us and reasoning isn’t in our vocabulary. Childhood fear is the most powerful of all fears simply that it’s the most primal and intuitive of them all. Evil is another major theme through out the novel. The Marsten house, and Kurt Barlow are the materialized versions of ‘Evil’ but ‘evil’ has always been present amongst us all. King reveals the many secretive evils of the characters, such as a mother who beats her infant child; or a wife, having an affair with a young man, is later caught, beaten, and constantly raped by her husband. The moral of ‘evil’ being, weather it’s a vampire that invades our town, or the evil inside man’s heart, the two are of the same. Small town living is an evil in itself as well. Being too enclosed in perfunctory ways, or becoming suspicious or unwelcoming to any outsider’s such as Ben Mears, can have an evil effect on us. Becoming a vampire is a sort an allegorical transformation to embracing all the evils we are ever so secretive about, fortifying it, and spreading it like a virus. Many people have said the only setback of the novel is the lack of showing us more of how the vampires lived. I think King’s novel is more of a morality tale of evil, faith, childhood fears, and small town living, then seeing the vampires in action. To me I enjoyed his genre infusion of vampires, haunted houses, and the evil living inside us all. Over all, I think Salem’s Lot is an important read to any vampire or horror enthusiast, and has shown me the reason as to why I used to enjoy the genre, before any Stephenie Meyers got a hold of the mythos, and destroyed it dearly.