Babysitter Massacre (2013)

Director: Henrique Couto

Screenplay: Henrique Couto

Cast: Erin R. Ryan as Angela; Marylee Osborne as Bianca; Joni Durian as Lucky; Tara Clark as Arlene; Odette Despairr as Linda; Serendipity Lynch as Sandy; Geoff Burkman as Mr. Walker; Stephanie Coffey as Allison; Chandra McCracken as Tina

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies)

 

Into the modern day, and slashers have soldiered on with the trends around then, Henrique Couto's Babysitter Massacre showing how the genre can be influenced by the trends around it. In this case, however, this is also a case for me of two different tones, like oil and water, which do not mix well for me. It is a film which is trying to juggle two different horror films, where one poster offers something grim and unremorseful, but contrasts it by what is playful and unapologetic right off the gate, brazen female nudity with a babysitter bathing with the exploitation from the get-go. The jarringly switch of tone but also horror subgenre that comes immediately afterwards fed into my reticence.

It is meant to be a slasher, but do not expect chase scenes, instead riding the capsizing wave of the time of "torture porn", that questionable genre term for when, in the 2000s, horror films emphasised the fear of prolonged agonising pain on victims unable to help themselves. Despite films like Eli Roth's Hostel (2005) cementing the term, what kept it alive arguably was the Saw franchise becoming a permanent part of horror canon from that decade onwards, revelling in edgy, mean spirited but serious scenes of gruel. This has the uncomfortable introduction of this, of the titillation leading to this actress, entirely nude, playing out being tortured, which is thankfully subdued due to the fact the scenes and effects are very minimalistic, in this case pulled finger nails and a simple neck cutting effect. Some will still even find that distasteful, but alongside the fact that I am not going to take a moral stance, as that would come off as a hypocrite for even watching the film, it emphasises the inherent issue in schism this film cannot escape from for me.

The premise, in which former babysitters and friends still haunted by the lost of a friend in their teen years, is contrasted by the seriousness of that premise, in which the killer with a white mask without facial features returns, and one of the characters, a loner, is both overcoming survivor's guilt and is ostracised unfairly by almost everyone of her friends for that person being taken, something is admirable in the attempt. This is however also a film which is both presenting this, set at Halloween too, with what is tonally closer to The Slumber Party Massacre (1982) in tone with significantly more lurid titillation. It is here where I wish Henrique Couto, who has mostly worked in more lighter hearted far, even westerns and a Christmas film named A Bulldog for Christmas (2013), had made two different films. Whilst there are moments in the script where the term "bitch" and jokes are made where you hear a male voice attempt to write women, you actually get some likable interactions in the characters too, both when being serious, the main female lead bonding with her mother, or goofy, like arguing with a former boyfriend who is still a pizza delivery guy since the age of seventeen.

It is gleefully lurid, including the most contrived way to get the leads into lingerie, to feed a female friend's fantasy, and referencing Sorority House Massacre II (1990), that clearly knew how dumb the contrivance was. There is a ridiculous amount of nudity for the sake of it, but there is paradoxically a virtue to this in how, even if it is salacious, this is a cast of actresses for those scenes who are women you would encounter in a bar or on the street, a body positivity with likable characters where, rather than eighties teased hair and casting people for specific looks, the only thing that feels manufactured is how fashion has changed since the early 2010s and now looks of a time period. The best example of this is the most ridiculous and memorable scene, of a nude woman seductively pours Halloween candy onto her body on her bed to tempt the killer, where the actress is a larger figured woman who a sexist would criticise for her appearance, but here in a scene more appropriate for a Slumber Party Massacre parody stands out for this, where she is beautiful in the scene and appropriately game, sexy and brave for it even if, as the cliché goes, the killer has to kill.

The unfortunate thing is that this film wants to lean on a serious plot, the clichés of slashers for once for me something I wish had actually been here. As mentioned, "torture porn" is a distasteful word I am not fond of as a horror subgenre term, and it feels so out of place when mixed with these scenes, like a po-faced Herschell Gordon Lewis film without his sense of fun. If this was a serious film without the jokes, even if uncomfortable, the film would make sense with its structure, with its ending a bleak one, [Spoiler] the killer the father who killed his own daughter, and everyone including the female lead he is fixated on barring one character dying [Spoilers End]. Instead, with its finale, the swipes into comedy, and the abrupt use of an Ouija board that actually works, become more jarring. In Eastern horror cinema, there is more ability to switch between tones like this because it clearly comes from countries like Japan and South Korea where this is more flexible and commonplace in their cinema, and you find films in the West that can pull this off, becoming incredible works as a result; the tonal shifts here, regardless of the nationality of the film, really undercut this, neither fish nor fowl as a result despite things to admire for me.

Moonchild (1994)

 

Director: Todd Sheets

Screenplay: Todd Sheets

Cast: Auggi Alvarez as Jacob Stryker; Kathleen McSweeney as Athena; Julie King as Rocky; Dave Miller as Talon; Kyrie King as Weasel; Stefan Hilt as Cabal; Cathy Metz as Dr. Andronymous; Carol Barta as Medusa; Jody Rovick as Captain Simpson

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies)

 

There's no debate about your fate. You're tomorrow's lunch!

An aerial shot from a helicopter over a cityscape, followed by a man climbing a barbwire fence to a Slayer-like thrash metal song in the score, sets up the ambition to be found here, especially if you have seen older Todd Sheets films before this, where he has jumped in scale from the films he made from before, drastically, in his shot-on-miniscule budget works even within the pre-opening credits here. There is a moving pick-up van stunt, jumping in to the back of one and someone then being thrown out, and a car chase with pyrotechnics and three vehicles involved. It is not as elaborate as a Hollywood production, but in context as a micro-budget film from the early nineties, this is a bold and challenging set piece to have pulled off, and only a clear superimposition of a car in front of a moving train shows the strain of a micro budget, something you would need a significant production to pull off and now may be done in blockbusters by green screen.

Aesthetically Moonchild feels like a digitized Mortal Kombat rip-off like Way of the Warrior (1994) for the 3DO Multiplayer System, which is an apt comparison as Naughty Dog's video game, long before they made The Last of Us franchise and released the same year as this film, was homemade without a true green screen and costumes including part of a Burger King packaging; here though with Moonchild, with its mix of ninja and samurai costumes out of context, and a post-apocalypse premise where the lead Jacob Stryker (Auggi Alvarez) had his DNA spliced with lycanthropy abilities, you do not have to just appreciate it as a historical piece of ambition, as whilst Way of the Warrior is as stiff as a board to actually attempt to play in modern eyes. Moonchild is from a director who once made Sorority Babes in the Dance-A-Thon of Death (1991), a film to enjoy if you accept it is a film where nothing happens, and over the three years afterwards gained so much from making films over the short time which passed in terms of pacing and keeping the audience entertained. The premise feels like one you would have gotten in a Sega Mega Drive/Genesis game, and Bleeding Skull tantalised with their review describing Moonchild as "an adaptation of an unreleased Sega Saturn game combined with backyard wrestling"¹, so there was a lot coming into this even without my interest in Todd Sheets as a filmmaker.

Truthfully, Moonchild is too ambitious, a plot that would require the budget of at least an Italian post apocalypse film to try to pull off, with way too many characters and plot points to juggle, but I cannot help but admire Moonchild as a gold standard for a micro-budget film to gun for this level of ambitiousness. It is a film which was made with fun from the crew but making sure to keep the viewer intrigued, where there are the little details like when a minor henchman produces a saw from their mutant stomach and Sheets has an actual motorized saw blade as a prop. Following a plot of Stryker, who was part of the evil dictatorship's project of creating a werewolf army, rescuing his son with a band of helpers including a female underground leader named Athena (Kathleen McSweeney) and her kid sister, this tries its hardest at every single moment, trying to keep at a pace even when the dialogue can linger on exposition, as Stryker learning he has a bomb implanted in his small intestine has only a 72 hour time limit after escape to get this goal finished. They have martial arts scenes even if there are few of the cast trained, and the werewolf effects, bladder transformation effects indebted to Rick Baker, are applaudable in how they were pulled off. It is certainly distinct for a micro-budget film, where it is one of the few post-apocalypse tales where the underground rebels have a nice cafe to plan within, and the Medusa figure among the villains' gallery is an older woman who, far from out-of-place and stealing the film, such as when she is threatening actual children in the cast with a finger spike in the brain for information.

Probably the only real surprise is that, barring one scene where a hand comes out of someone's mouth and rips a man's eye out, this has none of Todd Sheet's trademark gore from the time and later career, the one oddity in the film in production. This was homemade in the best way aside from this, with pyrotechnics when androids are defeated, alarmingly close to cast at times, and it only stands out because it has been something Sheets embraced as a trademark, especially as there is content here where that would have made sense to include, such as how Chicago is full of mutants and other androids who practice cannibalism, and the abrupt lead villain with "666" branded on his belly. What cannot be denied is the jump in craft however, as you see Todd Sheets leap, ocean sized in distance, in technical improvements and the beats in making entertaining genre films he would watch himself, full vim and vigor shown. So much so, you will not be disappointed you only once see a full werewolf transformation including a wolf man suit on furry steroids.

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1) Bleeding Skull 50: The Best Shot-On-Video Films, written by Joseph A. Ziemba and Annie Choi, and published on January 2nd 2022.

Halloween III - Season of the Witch (1982)

 

Director: Tommy Lee Wallace

Screenplay: Tommy Lee Wallace

Cast: Tom Atkins as Daniel Challis); Stacey Nelkin as Ellie Grimbridge); Dan O'Herlihy as Conal Cochran); Michael Currie (as Rafferty); Ralph Strait (as Buddy Kupfer)

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies)

After Halloween II (1981) was meant to close the story of Michael Myers – someone who could only die, like Jason Voorhees has, from production hell and copyright issues than by a final girl’s hands - John Carpenter and the late Debra Hill decided to turn the franchise into something doomed from the start as an idea, but one I glad existed in a single attempt. They decided to turn the franchise into a series of episodic films based around the Halloween season with different stories and, ironically, this is what American Horror Story as a TV series would be doing with such success decades later, making each series not even themed around a holiday like Halloween, but entire series based on one setting and premise with their own narratives. That series immediately started this plan from the second series onwards however, not after two films like the ill-fated Season of the Witch did. Season of the Witch, whilst it has given a boost in name recognition, should not have been part of the Halloween franchise if you were a producer of this project - it has had last laugh in its critical reappraisal within the last decade, but being part of the franchise was immediately a hindrance, as audiences were not surprisingly confused why Myers was not in it, and the jarring context of it being a Halloween film when it is completely alien in tone and ideas. Whilst it has Carpenter's guiding hands over it, directed and with the screenplay credited to Tommy Lee Wallace with the tough task to adapt this, the film becomes one of the weirder turns for a horror franchise sequel to ever had. It is one of the best in production quality - Carpenter's score here with Alan Howarth is arguably one of his best, and Dean Cundey's incredible cinematography painted onto the scenes adds more to the proceedings in atmosphere, but its connection to the franchise is just the in-joke of the original Halloween (1978) playing on TV in scenes. That would have made it a galling experience, in the midst of the slasher boom as well, when most would presume that this was even in the same genre.

Barring this, I adore Season of the Witch as a grim, unsettling take on Halloween as a seasonal holiday both in its symbology and as someone who adores the holiday like many do. The premise is simple and works as a strange and compelling short story chiller - after a patient is murdered in his hospital of work, Dr. Dan Challis (Tom Atkins) is pulled into a conspiracy with the victim’s daughter Ellie Grimbridge (Stacey Nelkin) that involves a novelty and toy manufacture’s series of Halloween masks and the sinister intentions behind them. As someone who loves even the tacky decorations and sweets of the season - the plastic skeletons, the novelty foods and biscuits etc - Season of the Witch leads to a nasty point, based on a single extended monologue explaining the truly horrifying intentions behind a set of masks being sold, referencing the history of the likes of Samhain but perversely turned into an evil act of ritual sacrifice that is seen as right to do for the sake of humanity. Even if the satire about consumerism is broad, it eventually leads to one having to think carefully about what Halloween means, at a time in the year said to be when the border between the living and the dead is at its thinnest, and how its macabre imagery is so codified against this nasty reality check shown in the film.

A large factor to why this works is the subconscious influence of legendary British screenwriter Nigel Kneale. Kneale, famous for the Quatermass franchise, and famous British television horror and sci-fi stories, was brought in for the original story of Season of the Witch. This however lead to a disappointing fallout to take place, Kneale objecting incredibly to the level of violence that the film had², and Tommy Lee Wallace to adding a lot of his own touches to the final work². This is not surprising considering the final work is surprisingly brutal in this area, with someone even pulling another's head clean off with their bare hands with a giant blood squirt at one point, a level of violence rarely found in any of the non-Rob Zombie versions for the whole franchise, and if anything could make this film divisive for certain viewers, it is that some of the more eccentric touches I have grown to love and helped its legacy, alongside likely being the kind which made it an odd sell in the day, were not from  Kneale.

Despite taking his name off the final script, his fingerprints are still visible from his original work. Having now seen a lot of his work, the world of Silver Shamrock, a novelty mask and toy factory who have their own tiny rural town, evokes the sinister rural town of Quatermass II (1955 for the TV mini-series, 1957 for the Hammer feature film version) and how its nebulous nature, everyone within part of a conspiracy, are visible to any stranger who keeps their eyes open about their surroundings. Kneale is also someone who is able to deal with occult and supernatural ideas with far greater nuance even if he was to rationalise them through science and sci-fi concepts like aliens, to the point that, even if left a mere fragment now in the final film, the far better use of Samhain and pagan references in Season of the Witch over any of the other Halloween films is likely influenced by his ability to rationalise even the strangest of ideas with real weight, even if rewritten in the hands of another going for a more pulpy premise. A sense of the ludicrous has to be appreciated with the final work, but for me this thankfully became in a positive, such as involving a piece of Stonehenge being stolen, which automatically evokes Spinal Tap nowadays whenever I think “Stonehenge” in any context, or how Daniel and Ellie, even without the significant age difference, in little time manage to end up romantically linked as abruptly as you can because they could not get an additional room in a motel.

The other significant factor, which is a trope very common in British horror storytelling, is the importance of objects having magical properties, not merely being connected to an evil other but in them as cursed and maleficent, objects which can be used as part of something else but, as much constructions with their own histories and character to them. (I.e. a certain whistle found on a beach in a famous MR James short story; for an American example with a wider scope the Necronomicon in HP Lovecraft's fiction and how merely reading the book is inherently a dangerous act for the reader from its history). The three masks in the centre of the film - a witch, a skull, a Jack O'Lantern - are objects that are revealed as eventual catalysts to a horrifying mass outbreak of death, with many children who will immediately die as a result of those whose parents bought them, their constant appearance throughout the film invoking a greater sense of character and threat from their apparent innocuous nature. Even the Silver Shamrock theme on television,  which has become an ear worm for many viewers of the film, has a mantra like nature close to a magical incantation in how catchy it is (and especially with how a television sweepstake for the company will be the spark for the tragedy to start in connection with the masks directly). That this all involves Stonehenge will baffle some, as mentioned, but another factor to my love of the film that has grown on this viewing is that Season of the Witch is also a strange, strange sequel for any franchise to have regardless of it having any connection to the first two films or not from all these factors.

It is also a strange film just by itself, a baffling little oddity to throw at a mainstream horror audience. I like the weird in cinema but I also find upon revisiting this film that weird horror films are actually a lot of effecting and creepy for me, their irrational content leading a sense of unpredictability and greater threat. The clockwork robot minions of the main evil figure, Conal Cochran (Dan O'Herlihy), could come off as silly, but they add to the creepiness of the final work, particularly playing into the fear one can have for nameless thugs, played by actors without masks but with their identical haircuts and suits have a menace particularly in how brutal their methods of killing people are. And of course the final scene is one of the best for any horror film to end on, the sting in the tale that cements its qualities. In the middle of a franchise of slasher movies, its position now is a curiosity in terms of how the project was allowed to exist in the first place, a curveball that you would rarely find in most franchises from then on. This has added to my love for the film, now that it should have been an entirely different project for Carpenter and Hill that merely existed amongst their regular collaborators. We should have just skipped forwards to Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988) in the late eighties but we thankfully got this; it belies other sequels in the history of horror franchises for how idiosyncratic it was, and alongside its virtues, its grown just from that context’s aura.

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1) Nigel Kneale and ‘Halloween III’, written by Andy Murray and published for We Are Cult on October 31st 2019.

The Last House on Dead End Street (1973)

 

Director: Roger Watkins

Screenplay: Roger Watkins

Cast: Roger Watkins as Terrence "Terry" Hawkins, Ken Fisher as Ken Hardy, Bill Schlageter as Bill Drexel, Kathy Curtin as Kathy Hughes, Pat Canestro as Patricia Kuhn, Steve Sweet as Steve Randall, Edward E. Pixley as Jim Palmer, Nancy Vrooman as Nancy Palmer, Suzie Neumeyer as Suzie Knowles, Paul M. Jensen as the Blind Man and Ken Rouse as The Whipper

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies)/An Abstract Film Candidate

 

This makes you look just like a vampire... that's what we are...

One year in prison for drug possession, and Terry (played by the director Roger Watkins) is sick of it all, deciding a course to making ritualistic snuff movies as a response, this beginning one of those true one-offs in that Roger Watkins' film came, seemingly vanished, and returned in its battered form as a strange piece of cinema history heard of in speculation and infamy for years. The story of Last House on Dead End Street began for me with an actual official release, not a bootleg, with the 2006 Tartan Film DVD release in the United Kingdom, part of their failed "Grindhouse" label series. Barring some Jess Franco double bills and obscurities like Bloody Malory (2002), it was not a success and was near the end of their existence when they closed their doors in 2008. Considering they, since the VHS era, were important in cult and art cinema, including their sub label "Tartan Asian Extreme" being a huge part of the push for the likes of South Korean cinema in the 2000s, the Grindhouse label was a fascinating idea, but LHoDES was an idiosyncratic choice even back then. Not helping was its messy preservation as a film heard of and not seen despite the whispers about it, even having to use video footage to include the entirety of one of its goriest scenes, at a time before cult physical media releases emphasised preservation even of films which just survived being lost. Even in terms the decades after, Vinegar Syndrome included it as an extra to one of Watkins' adult erotic films Corruption (1983) as an extra on the Blu Ray, requiring one to search for it as an Easter egg, but they merely had plans for a proper restoration for its own release.

The irony is how, under eighty minutes, not a lot actually transpires in terms of elaborate plot but so much is clear in the little character interactions, with what is witnessed being incredibly striking. It has to be factored in that, in the lore of its production, Roger Watkins with this his first film made a much longer production, called The Cuckoo Clocks of Hell, originally from 1973 and based loosely on the Charles Manson cult¹. A maelstrom of issues came as time passed - including a lawsuit from one of the film's actresses, battles with producers and distributors, and the film being out its creator-writer-lead-editor's hands² - and as the film I know it as, as for everyone else, was released officially in a truncated form in 1977 with a title clearly sold on the back of The Last House on the Left (1972) and its notoriety.

What plot is still here can be summed up as thus: Terry's work crosses paths with Mr and Mrs. Palmer, Mr. Palmer a struggling pornographer who cannot get his work sold, as his distributor does not what sensual "art" but something more extreme. Thinking Terry's work is faked despite the truth, they cross paths in selling the latter's work and becoming the next stars when Terry feels he has been ripped off.  Shot in a verité form, it also evokes the adult films which Roger Watkins reacts in film, in mind as well that the plot of this develops meaning knowing his career would enter adult cinema too.  Before his career went to making films in the format of adult cinema, something feels pertinent to how, in the context of this world onscreen, there are conversations about stag sex films not selling anymore and everyone becoming desensitised to extreme content, loaded in meaning here. There is the tone of the films talked of and seen film with film, including a sex scene which feels like porn without any explicit shots and barely any nudity baring the prominent close up shots of buttocks, but this subject matter emphasises the sense of ennui on the material, where shot after the end of the sixties and when the wave crashed miserably, this feels like the ideals of love have horrifyingly died and decayed. One scene, one of the most notorious we will get to, involving Mrs. Palmer participating in an extreme ritual for her sexual gratification is contrasted against her husband, at complete ill ease, alone in a room grimacing as he hears her at the party in the next room. It turns out to be one of the moments, surviving in this truncated form, that manages to hold power as a quiet moment, the sense of a man struggling in a career which is devolving in more and more immortal sleaze against his will as the films are no longer selling.

This is a rare moment in what becomes a discomforting production in content and tone, where its battered existing versions add to its disconcerting mood. Large portions of the production are the actors voicing over the footage, LHoDES nihilistic and weird whilst contrasting its series of ritualistic murders to the sense of alienation felt by the cast, from Terry falling into his most violent fantasies to one of his female followers coming from a dull, unhappy marriage with a man that will lead her to willingly join this cult in senseless murder. The cameraman is initially angry Terry has returned into his life and, after the horror he is shown having recording a blind man being strangled, he will eventually become a willing participant to the atrocities. Within the ritual recordings themselves, Terry has his crew and he wear masks, from transparent ones for the women which distort the face to one Terry and others share which is a full plaster piece from ancient Greek theatre. There is also emphasised repeated dialogue especially in the murder sequences that, post-dubbed, add more to inherently disturbing moments. Already the film is unsettling before it gets to the finale, an entire prolonged string of murders involving mock surgery and deer hooves which made the film's legacy.

Where this gets more strange and infamous are the scenes which are bizarre even next to other horror films. One is a scene you would never be able to get away with now, that aforementioned ritual at their party where Mrs. Palmer "performs" for the guests and for her kinks, involves putting on black face makeup and being whipped in front of her guests, a scene where there is no way around this and it cannot be comprehended. It exists now as a scene which you cannot defend but is so weird that, after rightly criticising it, it feels bizarre even next to the rest of the film, as if it just appeared in the film reels without warning, and inexplicable once the discomfort is experienced. The other involves deer hooves, a sexual subversion scene where a man is forced to go down on a woman with a severed deer hoof in place of anatomy in her jeans, which is not problematic but is so out there, with loaded sexual debasement and scumminess, it will not take the power away from the scene even talking of it. This is not even factoring in that, without these scenes, this is still a discomforting film to witness. The scene which involved a VHS copy to preserve its full gore in the UK DVD, a surgery without anaesthesia, is what you expect in terms of post-Herschell Gordon Lewis in terms of gore and real animal organs being used, but alongside even a scene of a blind man being strangled off-screen, the entire tone to LHoDES is disconcerting from the use of voice over for dialogue to the lo-fi production shot in New York among rundown buildings and improvised props. It feels legitimately grimy and evil in tone though I know this is fake.

The question remains whether this is actually a good film or not. It feels truncated, barely any characters and barely a plot barring the themes talked of earlier, suggesting how this was clearly a longer film cut to shreds. A piece at the end tidies the plot up, [Spoilers] a voice over explaining everyone was arrested [Spoilers End], felt in this misanthropic work almost like a contrived Hail Mary to not relish the nihilism, or at least pretend to not. Even the title, whilst evocative, does hide in the shadow of another notorious work, and it leaves one with a film in The Last House on Dead Street which lingers in the mind but with its own form scarred and likely compromised by the power it may have possessed. It is a compelling piece which retains power, but you could, if not able to appreciate its virtue, easily dismiss it as a terrible film, something poignant in my first knowledge of the film, and that Tartan Film DVD, came from a British DVD review magazine which trashed this as a one star review including in its presentation for the surviving form. The legend, and what actually is onscreen, is truly unique, so it deserves its place in the history of cult film, but alongside the moments you can accuse as tasteless, it is nasty experience even if that was Roger Watkins' intentions and to be considered to view requires caution.

Abstract Spectrum: Disturbing/Eerie

Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): Low

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1) He knows audiences want violence, written by John Dalmas for The Journal News and published on April 18th 1973, page 10.  Retrieved 7th October 2019.

2) This Is Where It All Ends: Roger Watkins’ ‘The Last House On Dead End Street’ (1977), written by Brett Wright for Split Tooth Media and published on October 29th 2020.

Games of the Abstract: The House of the Dead - Overkill (2009)

Developer: Headstrong Games

Publisher: Sega

One or Two Players

Originally released on: Nintendo Wii

 

Until Scarlet Dawn came to the arcades in 2018, the House of the Dead franchise went dormant in terms of the main light gun game franchise from Sega, ending after House of the Dead 4 (2005) and not returning until thirteen years past. Today's title was one of two exception, a spin-off that was in the hands of British developer Headstrong Games, a subsidiary of Kuju Entertainment from London who was allowed to take their own spin on the game. Sega's zombie shooting franchise was given to them to go into a different tone, with the advantage that in the seventh generation of consoles, there was also a push for motion controls that allowed light gun genre to get resurgence. Alongside the Sony Playstation 3 having the move motion controller, which would follow on into the Playstation 4 and virtual reality, the Nintendo Wii when released in 2006 and becoming a huge success became a bastion for certain genres to be able to shine or resurface in a new generation. Even if it lead to a scourge of cheap plastic tact, it allowed for a practical way to bring the likes of this genre, or guitar rhythm games or even fishing to the console, even if something which would become abandoned over the next generation in general barring virtual reality itself.

There is also the context here, with this gorier and more adult take on House of the Dead, that for all the times Nintendo have lived up to the image of Disney in the video game world, they have had adult games on their console since the Nintendo Entertainment System, and with the Wii, this console which broke through to a wider non-gaming audience with its motion controls nonetheless brought up Madworld (2009), the first two No More Heroes games, and even Manhunt 2 (2007), an insanely controversial Rockstar Games title which, for all the issues around it include nearly being banned from the United Kingdom, managed to get a Wii release with added motion controls. Overkill itself is full blood and guts to the point, if you get your combo of kills high enough activates a "Goregasm" mode, before you even get to the number of uses of the f-bomb you would never hear from Mario.

The other thing that needs to be established, as The House of the Dead: Overkill ran with this aesthetic, is how the developers Headstrong Games decided to take influence from the "neo-grindhouse" movement in genre filmmaking. Neo-Grindhouse is a curious term, as in reality, grindhouses were just independent cinemas in the United States, such as the notorious 42nd Street in New York City, which "grinded" out films twenty four seven, and the exploitation films they showed and influenced Neo-Grindhouse was actually a variety of genres and sub-genres. It all truly stems from Grindhouse (2007), the tribute to this era of cinema which was meant to be a huge project by Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez. Originally meant to be the pair making a quick pair of fake exploitation films put together in a double bill, like those in the original era, it escalated into a large scale event which brought interesting in the idea of "Grindhouse", a three hour production with fake trailers shot by the likes of Edgar Wright and Rob Zombie. The film, when released, was not a box office success, so bad that originally in the United Kingdom the films were split off for cinema release, Death Proof (2007) and Planet Terror (2007), and we never got the original release until physical media. The issue with Neo-Grindhouse is that the genre does not really reinterprete the films which were shown at these cinemas, but the version that the Grindhouse film played with. It became its own aesthetic inspired by the history, that of the faked scratches and damages of old prints, the enticing sizzle of film trailers which promised more than some films ever promised, or as Overkill plays to in one great joke, the missing film reel concept inspired by cases where, if the film was not kept together or a projectionist cut out a scintillating section from the film prints, you got a piece or sequence missing.

Neo-Grindhouse was a genre I hated back then, and whilst I may be softer and may be able to appreciate the genre now, I will still argue it is entirely a period of cinema, though films were still being made afterwards, which felt to exist in the midst of Grindhouse's hype and into the early 2010s. It became the concept where fake grain effects were digitally included even on micro-budget films as much as it led to the likes of Hobo with a Shotgun (2011) or Bitchslap (2009), a sub-genre which never came to the mainstream cinema barring Machete (2010), which was a fake trailer by Rodriguez himself which he expanded into a full feature with a sequel. They are not really recreating the old films, and Overkill copies this with the bombastic trailer announcer per cut scene, with levels set up like individual films around the same characters, an Agent G from the franchise's AMS team of heroes paired up with an African-American cop from a Blaxploitation film named Isaac Washington, the later on a revenge mission against Papa Caesar, the crime boss who has gotten hold of a superhuman formula that turns people into monstrous zombie-like entities, that G wants captured alive.  There is as well with this genre the ironic sense of political incorrectness without skirting too far over the edge, as gore is one thing, whilst a few of this genre skirted around edginess but with a sense of ironic distance, such as this opening before the game starts with live action footage of fully dressed pole dancers gyrating to music, or how it plays to its more transgressive jokes such as who the actual end villain is and his relationship with his mother being beyond Oedipal to even being too much for Sigmund Freud in the sexual tension.

The Neo-Grindhouse aesthetic is the aspect which will likely age Overkill the most, as the genre’s ironic streak, based on around perception of exploitation separate from the reality, is going to either be off-putting for not taking anything seriously or something you can appreciate as a very eccentric touch. This is more the case as, played seriously, the original Japanese developed House of the Dead games are ridiculous, but with the factor that the cast of these games care about the potential necropolis Armageddon that they are under threat of. Even for arcade lightgun games, it adds so much even if, by Scarlet Dawn, a set piece involves a literal ladder of hundreds of zombies pulling a helicopter down in the first level transpires and throughout the franchise, including English dub performances, the absurd has been as much part of the games. Thankfully a lot still lands, such as Agent G refusing to say what "G" stands for, the constant use by his improvised partner Washington of the f-bomb and their love-hate relationship, and how there are great moments possible as you can have longer cut scenes for a console game, such as when they are forced to commandeer an ice cream truck to hunt down Caesar, arguing about country music at the same time. Where the ironic side shows some cracks the most, due to how she never really plays a part beyond cutscenes in the original Wii version, is the sole female character Varla Guns, the stripper stereotype in scantily clad clothes and yet a badass which the neo-grindhouse genre toyed with, such as Rose McGowan as the go-go dancer Cherry Darling in Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror with a machine gun leg. In this case, the problem is less the scantily clad stripper archetype which is the issue, but that she contributes very little, [Huge Spoiler] and her fate is literally to become a brain in the jar, the game even poking at the depiction of their strong female character in a fourth wall breaking moment [Spoilers End]. It would only come to the updated version of this game called the Extended Cut (2011) for the Playstation 3 to flesh her out, with levels where she is the lead with another female character as player two, but here she is only a side character out for revenge for the death of her disabled younger brother, the first boss of the game when mutated under the evil machinations of Caesar, and really does not get to be a character you have fun with like the bickering bromance of our central male pair.  

As a light gun game, this keeps the bar high for the series, so Overkill does not feel like a detraction of the franchise but a more lurid and deliberately absurd take on the solid foundations. Only a few concessions are made as a console-first title, that you can spend points for continues, or how when certain enemies can grab you, the player needs to shake the Wii controller side to side to avoid them taking health. Most of the game instead is Headstrong Games, with real praiseworthy credit to them, taking what has been a constant in the franchise and fully succeeding with their own stamp on the proceedings, including what adds to the replay value. Between the ability to upgrade weapons, mini-games, and the "Director's Cut" versions of levels, there is a lot here to work with. And honestly, even as a game you could beat in around two hours on one run is not a bad thing. The main story, the seven levels, is only more longer than most light gun games but nothing feels pointless. Even with the ability to add "extra mutants", as this jokes that "zombie" is a dirty word, it is nice to have a game which never feels padded and the extras are what bring you back alongside trying to improve your runs. Even when it’s abruptly introduces the real villain later, the real cause of the mutant contagion a literal mommy's boy wanting to switch his mother's mind into a younger body, it feels like the deliberate swerve for a joke than a disjointed story choice.

If this had been longer, the tone would have gotten annoying, and issues that exist like a female lead who feels underutilised would have been more an issue. As well light gun games unless you can innovate in making a version for a longer play length could easily become overloaded in repetition, more so as this, despite its broad tone, is also playing to its own ghoulish take on the premise which plays into a grimier artistic palette. The franchise was already macabre and morbid in its form, but this is as mentioned its own gorier take, where tropes and ideas from the franchise, such as its style of boss battles, come with the sense of a Western developer taking them in their own over-the-top tone of monstrous, with a lashing of blown up heads and blood split when you hit the targets, an aesthetic that could have gotten tedious if the developers did not thankfully create a game long enough for it to instead. Arguably the only thing that feels amiss with the game play itself, not the plot and aesthetic this is wrapped up in, is that two of the bosses are awkward to fight, the female banshee in the second hospital level feeling like an endless loop if you are not already aware of the mechanics, and sadly the final boss being not as good as it should be, with mini-guns brought in, when this for a title originally released on a Nintendo console, whilst not showing it, has the mother of eyebrow raising moments to end a game when someone literally crawls back into the womb. The rest is thankfully completely memorable, going through tropes of horror like the aforementioned hospital, a prison, a swamp, and arguably the best level, a circus which is just an excuse for zombie clowns and running through carnival stalls where everything has gone to hell. This was a project, from its tone to the very idiosyncratic soundtrack, riffing on music from Robert Rodriguez’s own film scores to psychobilly music, which clearly had love put into it as it was being developed, and it succeeds very well.

Tragically Headstrong Games really did not make many games after this, until they became defunct in 2017, this being one of their most well known games of their whole career between being originally known as Kuju London to being Headstrong Games, not making many games after this and almost all licensed titles. This is sad to say alongside the fact that, once the bubble burst for the resurgence of light gun games in the seventh generation of video game consoles, the genre outside of arcade releases have struggled in their number being made or in terms of re-releases of older titles. A shame as, notwithstanding the remake of the original 1996 House of the Dead by Polish studio MegaPixel Studio, this franchise has not had the ability to continue on consoles. Thankfully, after the Extended Cut version which added new missions, one of the franchise's more idiosyncratic touches was continued and is the way you can more easily play the game. The Typing of the Dead (1999) was a very idiosyncratic spin-off which reinterpreted the original House of the Dead 2 (1998) into a typing teacher for the arcades, the light gun replaced with keyboards and having to type words above enemies' heads fast to slay them. It became its own beloved aspect of the franchise, as a sequel and re-adaptations followed over the years, leading to 2013’s Typing of the Dead: Overkill. Based on the Playstation 3 version with the added levels, downloadable content also allowed you to have to type out Shakespeare quotations or pure obscenities, like "pickled pork sword", among the words you had to type, so thankfully even this plays as more additional humour to the material, alongside the fact the original version of House of the Dead: Overkill is also included as a bonus.

For Sega, this entire project has to be admired for a tangent out of their own company, one which yet befits their eccentric history of creative left-turns and inspired decisions even as publishers only, where they were also the ones who published MadWorld for the Nintendo Wii too. It took, sadly, a while after until Scarlet Dawn, and whilst that was a welcomed returned, it is an arcade only title and the franchise is mostly unavailable as so many light gun games are. The exception that I mentioned early in this review in the first paragraph, also coming out in 2009, was Loving Deads: The House of the Dead EX (2009), tragically a Japanese only arcade release which made zombies the leads, a male and female one who went mini-games which brought in a foot pedal for the players alongside the light guns. Games like this are as enticing to consider, and it really the sadness that, in the market place which developed from the 2000s onwards, it was less practical for Sega to indulge in their well regarded franchises in ways like this than focus on those like Yakuza and Sonic the Hedgehog which sold well. Games like Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing (2010) thankfully reference the company's rich history, but it I find myself finally reaching games like this they let outside developers work on, and succeed in, and wishing that even as lower budget titles that they let other developers take stabs at some of their cult hits and older franchises, and see if some of that magic came from the experiments.

Cruel Jaws (1995)

 

Director: Bruno Mattei

Screenplay: Robert Feen, Bruno Mattei and Linda Morrison

Cast: Richard Dew as Dag Soerensen; David Luther as Francis Berger; George Barnes, Jr. as Samuel Lewis; Scott Silveria as Bob Soerensen; Kristen Urso as Susy Soerensen; Sky Palma as Glenda; Norma J. Nesheim as Vanessa; Gregg Hood as Bill Morrison; Carter Collins as Ronnie Lewis; Natasha Etzer as Gloria Lewis; Larry Zience as Larry; Jay Colligan as Tommy

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies)

 

Cruel Jaws is talked of in the documentary Sharksploitation (2023), about the lineage of shark movies before and especially after the cultural shockwave of Steven Spielberg’s Jaws (1975), as truly one of the most infamous ones, probably with Shark Attack 3: Megalodon (2002) right behind, if only for a final line to rival Billy Wilder’s Some Like It Hot (1959) for iconic memorability. Bruno Mattei was a man behind mondo films, a shameless and proud reinterpretation of Aliens (1986) named Shocking Dark (1989), infamous titles like Hell of the Living Dead (1980), and buddies with Claudio Fragasso of Troll 2 (1990), and he will at least have a place in my heart for a film like Zombi 3 (1988), the Lucio Fulci film he and Fragasso helped on when Fulci fell ill mid-production, which I have unapologetically fallen for as late era Italian cheese. Here with Crawl Jaws, long past the golden era of Italian genre cinema, infamously the film “borrowed” footage from other Italian Jaws rip-offs, including Enzo G. Castellari‘s The Last Shark (1981), but even from the Jaws franchise. This, for a complete lack of politely language, gleeful waved its dick precariously close to fire of copyright as a result of this, such much so that, when Shout Factory in the United States attempted to license the film for physical media release in 2017, on a double bill with post-apocalypse film Exterminators of the Year 3000 (1983), they decided to just release the later film by itself¹ due to these copyright issues. It makes it amazing now, with hindsight, that for our United American friends the film managed to be finally cleared by Severin Films in 2020². This is more so as there was even music from the the Star Wars franchise, or even in the version you can see so close it suggested the shark would fly in like a Tie-Fighter at one point.

They also provided the “Snyder” Cut, a joke which has actually aged faster than the film, as factoring in how Italian producers and filmmakers did try to sell their films as if they were American productions, Mattei took the pseudonym of “William Snyder” for this production. By the time Severin Films got the license, they were banking on a trend in that year over an online campaign to release Zack Snyder's original cut of the DC comic book adaptation of Justice League (2017), the four plus hour re-cut from 2021 its own subject to unpack, but now the most esoteric thing of this weird movie which has enough already to consider, including the fact that “Snyder Cut” joke on the promotion connects to them having access to the Japanese release cut for that release with more gore. As well with these films, co-productions and/or alternative releases of films existed, this presenting the dichotomy with Cruel Jaws that, in most scenes, this would be the Jaws rip-off you could show on Sunday afternoon television, family friendly enough were it not for the gore that occasionally appears, but could not be shown because of the amount of swearing and bizarre (and lurid) sex comedy dialogue you get throughout this schismed curiosity.

Premise wise, this is Jaws, as for those who do not know that film, it is about a shark, unlike those in real life, who deliberately goes out of its way to terrorise and attack humans off Amity Island, which repeats here with a shark in Florida. The major is happy ignore warnings from his police about these attacks so the windsailing regatta stays open, these shark and Jaws rip-offs, even those about killer animals on land, emphasising a distrust on small governmental officials’ ability to protect their citizens even if unintentionally, whilst Cruel Jaws also includes a subplot of a corrupt real estate figure trying to bulldoze an aquarium ran by Dag Soerensen (Richard Dew) to put a hotel there. Also infamously Richard Dew looks like he took hair and moustache tips from controversial pro wrestler Terry “Hulk Hogan” Bollea, which is more befitting as Dew was his stand-in for two films, two TV movies called Assault on Devil's Island (1997) and Assault on Death Mountain (1999).

Imagining Richard Dew attempting to body slam the shark aside, and whether a leg drop on it would still work into water, is contrasted by the fact that, as this film continues on as a a conventional shark film in premise, playing to Jaws’ plot points as slasher films had their own tropes, he is as much part of the tonal schism too as you have a subplot about his character and his disabled daughter, a cute moppet in a wheelchair, and their trained aquatic animals for their shows, two dolphins but especially the seal, who do come from a cute animal film where they need to save the aquarium by paying the evil businessman's rent through a reward, in another film by a competition, here eventually killing a deadly shark. This is however contrasted by a film where you also have a lot of cursing, lewd comments and a dose of scuzzier teen sex comedy language with some garbled attempts at one liners, like the guy part of the villains who, with apologies to female readers for having to quote this, thinks saying he is a “pussy inspector” needing to do his job is a good pick-up line for three women on the beach.

For most its length, even with some of the more gristly moments, mostly some blood and the chewed up remains of victims, this would have been PG-13 to use the American ratings system, but the script with Bruno Mattei co-writing too completely tips the scales in a peculiar direction, from the constant use of the word “fuck”, an obsession with balls and uncalled for use of fat shaming, even to a truly evil villain, with “shit” for emphasis, really undercutting the tone in what is neither fish nor fowl in tone. This is contrasted by how Cruel Jaws as a film is pretty conventional, and even its notorious use of other films’ footage will not stand out if you were to shrug your shoulders at it. The thing which stands out is its strange tonal choices in dialogue and mood. This is matched by how misanthropic this feels despite its happy ending: were it not enough his father is an evil stereotypical businessman with shady mob connections, leading to two thugs straight out of an Andy Sidaris film appear to try to get the shark, your villain's son does a family film crime of trying to poison one of the hero’s dolphins with poisoned fish, his cronies are obnoxious teens, and even another of the lead’s girlfriends, dating a marine biologist, become completely unsympathetic by rejecting his obsession, going out for a fling cold-hearted with villainous dolphin poisoning son, than everyone forget this and for her to be eaten by said shark.

There is also a sense of this mocking US culture, the idea of a resort town where the mayor and businesses will ignore the potential shark related casualties writing itself as satire if borrowed from Jaws, but one of the legitimately successful scenes of the film is where an Australian/British family, with kids, have come to the place hoping to see a shark eat a person alive. Most of Cruel Jaws is not this, a film which feels apt for the director of films I have enjoyed like Rats: Night of Terror (1984), but I will say that, for a large percentage of this, Cruel Jaws is entirely what it says, a slightly lopsided Jaws. It has a lot of lines of dialogue, unintentionally, which stick out, and it is strange to witness, but also you can see, if you are not on its wavelength, or a fanatic of these films, including the people who made the Sharksploitation documentary, that this will just cause people to scratch their heads in curiosity in what on earth the point this was attempting. Bruno Mattei would chug along, still making films even by the time of his passing in 2007, if just before the likes of Sharknado (2013) came to be; despite the fact Cruel Jaws is shambolic in many ways, I kind of wished he was able to have made another one of these, having to use CGI than footage from other shark films, and seen what madness he would bring to life, preferably with the fuller balls-to-the-walls attitude of his eighties films than this.

 

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1) Cruel Jaws - Blu-ray Release Cancelled, written by Das Wiesel for Movie Censorship.com, and published on December 14th 2014.

2) Severin Films Releases CRUEL JAWS, MASSACRE IN DINOSAUR VALLEY, AND PRIMITIVES Today!, written by "The Vault Master" for The B-Movie News Vault, and published September 29th 2020.

Halloween II (1981)

 

Director: Rick Rosenthal

Screenplay: John Carpenter and Debra Hill

Cast: Jamie Lee Curtis (as Laurie Strode); Donald Pleasence (as Dr. Sam Loomis); Charles Cyphers (as Leigh Brackett); Lance Guest (as Jimmy Lloyd); Pamela Susan Shoop (as Nurse Karen Bailey)

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies)

 

One of the crap shoots with horror franchises, not just Halloween, is how their existence to continue a huge success, and then sustain the newly made franchise, will cause confusion in the time line let alone divided opinion on the entries' interpretation on the original premise. By the point of Part 6: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995), you are also contending between the released theatrical cut and the intended "Producer's Cut", let alone the occultists introduced to explain Michael Myers when he was a literal boogieman in the first film without need for context, and that is without the reboots of the chronology of this franchise to match the Texas Chain Saw Massacre's. Halloween II at least in its slow, glacial tone is more effecting, but alongside the confusion now between this and Rob Zombie's Halloween II (2009), there is also already from the gate even with John Carpenter and Debra Hill on the script immediately struggles with following the source film.

Setting the film directly after the first was a risk, particularly with three years passing enough to have changed the fashions, and it is felt with issues as much as there are virtues, such as a more manic Dr. Loomis for Donald Pleasance to play, as his desperation is felt and the aftermath of the first film has a psychological effect on everyone that adds to this immediate continuation. There is a perturbing sense of the film, despite having enough years to capitalise on Halloween's success, and the boom in slasher films at the time, to feel rushed. For a film which originates from Carpenter's original, which was very precise in creation, this feels more an issue than a new slasher film made at the time made quickly and trying to find its audience off the back of the likes of Friday the 13th (1980). Contextually, a huge factor to consider was that, whilst Carpenter himself did direct a considerable portion of this¹, and there is a real schism here between the film recreating the original's languid ill-ease and a visible upping of the adult content for the new slasher audience. This could have still worked as a pairing, especially s the production value is still here, where Dean Cundey's cinematography is still magnificent as it was in the prequel, the mostly if not all nocturnal setting for this film having an immense effect particularly for the isolated hospital setting, and Carpenter's music as naturally as good as his other work. There is however a sense, especially with the plot, that this was not allowed to fully flesh out the ideas in the simple premise.

More so as that simple premise works fully as a sequel, even if this should have come out quicker than it did. Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) after the fallout of the first film is taken to a hospital and Michael Myers, learning of this from a radio boom box in a moment of actual plot logic despite the absurd image, decides to finish the job. Yes, jokes have been made of Lee Curtis' wig worn in the film, which stands out, but the idea of Strode being more vulnerable, especially when already injured adds a new threat. As much as it sadly means Jamie Lee Curtis is not allowed to show the great performance she showed in the first film, having her medicated to the point of lethargy and having to drag herself around from Myers is actually a scary proposition in terms of a viewer imagining themselves in her hospital gown. That the film has the least populated hospital you can find, even at night for a small town, does however raise issues that, whilst fun as a slasher film, its struggling in a way you can pass with other slashers, where I have slowly come around to them with charm, but here shows a slip in making the premise not have logistical holes, especially as even a contrived series of reasons could have made the premise of struggling through an isolated hospital actually make sense in premise.

The little details become the things which undercut Halloween II in truth, where we will have to accept that, whilst therapeutic hot tubs are not a strange thing you would not find in a hospital, we only have one here clearly for a prominent nude scene for actress Pamela Susan Shoop, a concession to the slasher film tropes of the time, with the more absurd idea being that the temperature settings able to go up to "Scalding". Even that Michael Myers got bored and started using more creative ways to kill people, from syringes and even bleeding someone in the most patient way possible, feels less incongruous than things other slasher films from this period, the early boom, were managing to figure out like making sure you got time to like even the characters who were cannon fodder.

Spoilers have to be brought up, but the aspect of the film which does feel like the most divisive aspect is when it is revealed Laurie and Myers are siblings. It is a plot twist which would be used to good used, redeemed by the likes of Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998) in the nineties, which managed to have more power than if Myers was just as homicidal non-entity trying to finish off a surviving victim he randomly choose. In context here, when first introduced however, it is a contrived plot twist. It presents not only the issue with trying to continue franchises, and trying to explain to the viewers the back story, but as well the desire people have with real life murders wanting to know why they were committed, when many can be utterly irrational and un-explainable. The world of horror movies can deal with these real events through a safe veneer, but the fact you could write in why the fictitious killer committed their crimes can completely negate the point of such films as a healthy way to release fears about such violence. There is also the fact that in context to this, Halloween II does not really even work with this plot twist either, which makes it pointless until films decades later would begin to flesh out the weight of it.

It becomes a film which feels, when last time I came to appreciate it, less interesting as a result of me now appreciating slashers for what they are. The sense of expectation should not distort the film's virtues by itself, but it cannot be denied that, after the weight of expectations of the follow up, this feels flat than if we gotten the over-the-top ridiculous sequel instead, the Friday the 13th: A New Beginning (1985) sort of sequel. Films like Psycho 2 (1983) managed to overcome the fear of this leading to disappointment and took stock of the slasher boom, with a film decades older from its own sequel too, whilst The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986) managed to have its cake and eat it in being both a proper follow on and mad as a box of frogs even next to the slashers. In comparison, Halloween II does feel a weird way to try to continue the series, more so as this was meant to finish the story too. Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982) is its own idiosyncratic creation, the attempt at an anthology scenario with an entire different narrative story which was doomed to have been too late to begun, forcing the franchise back to Michael Myers, but in itself, this definitely feels like a letdown for the follow up. A fun one in the right mindset, but you really should not attempt to compare it to the prequel to avoid the shadow that casts.

 

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1) Halloween II: Behind the Scenes, from HalloweenMovies.com. Archived from the original on June 29, 2012.