Dawn of the Dead and Rosemary’s Baby are two of my favorite horror movies of all time. The former’s Ken Foree appears in The Lords of Salem, while the latter was obviously a huge influence on director Rob Zombie. Intellectually, I can tell you this film is a pretentious mess. That didn’t stop me from loving it. As I’ve said before, I’m a sucker for movies about witchcraft, so it’s hard to remain objective when my heartstrings are being fiddled. This is one of the most glorious, straight-faced, stupid pieces of shit I have ever seen.

Heidi (Sheri Moon Zombie, who else?) is a shock-jock radio personality who plays whatever the hell she wants over Salem’s airwaves. In another segment of the show, she and her co-hosts interview locals who coincidentally specialize in the very subjects relating to the film’s plot. Nifty, huh? During these needlessly chatty scenes, the performers seem so disconnected from each other you begin to wonder if their closeups were filmed in isolation tanks. It’s really weird, but Zombie is no stranger to confusing filmmaking.

What’s weirder is a naked witch (Meg Foster) frequently watches Heidi from the shadows of her curiously empty apartment building. These strange happenings begin when Heidi receives a mysterious record, the music of which makes her feel nauseous and sleepy. When she broadcasts the record from the radio station, several more women across Salem experience the same trance-like effects. Thankfully, a witchcraft historian (Bruce Davison, who gives the best performance in the entire picture) realizes the music is much more than a droning tune and investigates the matter further. All the while, Heidi is falling deeper and deeper under the witch’s spell.

I’m not sure why I feel the need to tread lightly in regards to spoilers. Not much of it makes a lick of sense anyway, so what can possibly be spoiled? I will say I loved Judy Geeson, Patricia Quinn, and Dee Wallace Stone in this movie. The veteran actresses deliver the kind of stuff you rarely see in horror movies, but always want to see.

The usual pop cultural references to Rob Zombie’s childhood are in full effect, while the list of cameos (from Barbara Crampton to Clint Howard) reads like the guest list at a star-studded horror convention. If you’re more of a fan of modern horror, you’re probably not going to like this movie much. Scratch that—if you’re a human being, you’re probably not going to like this movie. I imagine there’s a very small demographic of moviegoers who are going to appreciate it. And you know what? That makes it all the more special.

When you assume a primitive understanding of early internet technology and have characters saying things like, “it’s a mainframe computer company,” I’m in hog heaven. Really. I saw this one on Pay-Per-View as a kid and rediscovered it today. It fits in well with the other 90s-era technophobic thrillers, such as Shocker, The Lawnmower Man, Virtuosity, and Brainscan.

A serial murderer, who the media calls The Address Book Killer, is on the loose. Early on, TWA employee Terry Munroe (Karen Allen) loses her address book. Even more predictable: the killer has acquired her contacts and plans on killing them one by one. On the way to the first address, he loses control of his car and plunges into a cemetery, cackling hysterically. Taken to the hospital in critical condition, a lightning storm strikes just as the killer dies in an MRI scanner, allowing his soul to enter the hospital computer system and the internet itself.

When Munroe realizes her acquaintances are dying in freak “accidents,” she teams up with disgraced computer hacker, Bram Walker (Chris Mulkey). Meanwhile, Munroe’s sex-obsessed son, tries to convince his babysitter to bare her breasts. The kid’s a con artist, a subplot which is forgotten almost as soon as it’s brought up. Arrested Development’s Jessica Walter plays the grandmother, which is pointless, but fun nonetheless.

The real fun begins when the movie would have us believe everything in the early 90s was already connected to the “world wide web,” including ATMs, traffic lights, curling irons, and microwave ovens. At one point the killer’s data-geist slips into Munroe’s house and targets the family dog. The dog is just lazing around, as dogs do, when the television plays a program which makes the dog so horny he hunches the coffee table. You don’t have to look too closely to see the string the filmmakers tied around the dog’s hips to accomplish this special effect.

I’m also a fan of director Rachel Talalay’s Freddy’s Dead and Tank Girl, the latter of which appears to have found a cult following. Ghost in the Machine is the film Talalay made between those two, which at first glance seems like a step down in absurdity. Then you get to the strange happenings, filmed Final Destination style, which concoct convoluted ways of putting the characters in danger. About fifty minutes in there’s a brilliant scene in a crash-test facility that’s so wild I laughed uncontrollably for several minutes. Later, there’s a dishwasher with a digital readout so it can notify the audience when it’s entering its “EXPLODE” and “DIE” cycles.

Talalay is clearly in on the joke here, but I’m not so sure her stars got the memo. Okay, I’m sure Allen and Mulkey knew it wasn’t Shakespeare, but there’s no winking at the camera, no hamming it up. I’m going to recommend this to anyone who appreciates fine cheese. My favorite part is when Munroe’s son elbow drops a ghost with reckless abandon.

Last year’s 31 Days of Gore renewed my interest in Full Moon movies. This one stars B-movie icons Jeffrey Combs and Barbara Crampton, who also appeared together in The Re-Animator and From Beyond. I was barely a teenager the first time I saw Castle Freak and thought it was the weakest of Stuart Gordon’s Lovecraft trilogy. This time I realize it’s not so much worse, just different as it abandons the psycho-humor of those movies and becomes an effectively serious exploitation film.

Combs, Crampton, and their blind daughter inherit a castle. How did they inherit a castle? Doesn’t matter. What matters is there’s a mutilated freak living in a tiny dungeon beneath it. Near the end of the movie, Combs will have a House, M.D. moment in which he pieces together scant clues into the freak’s backstory. Until then, we never really know why the titular monster is living in the bowels of the 150-room castle, but the reveal is a doozy.

In the meantime we’ll learn the daughter wasn’t always blind and there used to be a son in the family. It turns out Combs is an alcoholic who was drinking and driving the kids around a rainy road one evening. The ensuing wreck killed his son and blinded his daughter. Needless to say, Combs’s accident put a strain on his marriage (ya think?). Desperately, he hopes moving into the castle will rekindle things, but Crampton’s character is rightly having none of it. Meanwhile, the castle freak lurks in the shadows, developing a crush on the blind girl.

Crampton said in a recent interview that she and Stuart Gordon found a new appreciation for the film the last time they screened it for an audience. I have, too. The creature effects are perfect from beginning to end while Combs and Crampton give great performances. Okay, so the cops are borderline dumb and the parents take a little too long to believe their daughter when she asserts they’re not alone in the gigantic castle. Other than that, this is a mature film with serious horror.

Is The Greasy Strangler a horror movie? Not really, but I’m still going to feature it for 31 Days of Gore. It’s worth noting it was produced by Elijah Wood, who’s bullish on horror. He’s gone so far as to appear in a remake of Maniac, which I’ve yet to see (and probably never will), but any actor who’s a supporter of the genre is cool in my book.

Brayden and his father, Big Ronnie, live together in a rundown home and work as horrible tour guides. Ronnie, who was a disco king before he knocked up Brayden’s mother, points out locations around town, dubiously telling tourists that’s where a famous band came up with an idea for a song. When one of his customers insists the brochure advertised free drinks, Ronnie becomes irate. Later, he’ll slather himself in grease, strangle the tourist until his eyes pop out, then walk through a car wash to clean up.

Brayden’s not the smartest guy in the world. He knows the serial killer known as the Greasy Strangler is murdering people in and around his neighborhood. He knows his father has an unusual love for greasy foods. Try as he might, Brayden just can’t put two and two together. When Brayden meets his first ever girlfriend (Elizabeth De Razzo), Big Ronnie moves in on her and threatens to evict Brayden if he objects.

Every aspect of The Greasy Strangler is crafted to annoy. The acting is intentionally bad. The dialogue is abrasive (“Bullshit artist!”). Quiet scenes are sandwiched in between blaring electronic music while the fearless actors appear nude more than they wear clothes. The editing is so offbeat that a lingering shot can rub you the wrong way, like a sneeze that won’t come out. This is a movie for people who enjoy crunching ice, savoring the way it drives a loved one up the wall.

My favorite thing about The Greasy Strangler was the reaction to the trailer in the YouTube comments: equal parts bewilderment and outrage. If you’re a John Waters fan, you’ll love it (I am and I did). Otherwise, avoid it at all costs. It’s rather like watching a big screen adaptation of a 4chan greentext.

My favorite scene involves a detective by the name of Jody. I won’t give it away because it’s a what-the-fuck moment that stands out in a movie full of what-the-fuckery. Shortly before the end, the movie tops itself by what-the-fucking in the grandest way possible. You get the feeling the writers were trying their hardest to top each other. I really don’t think they gave a shit if anybody else in the world got it.

Yesterday I posted a terrible review of Phantasm IV. Usually when I hate a movie that bad, I refrain from posting about it at all, especially when all the people involved are so cool. It’s not that I don’t think artists should be above criticism (hell no), I just feel there are too many blogs which poke fun at B-movies and not enough that celebrate them. Had I known how much I would dislike Phantasm IV, I never would have watched it, much less committed myself to reviewing the entire series. 

Phantasm V is far better than Phantasm IV, but that isn’t saying much. To be sure, it’s nowhere near as good as anything in the original trilogy. The movie’s biggest mistake is it doesn’t simply ignore the revelations of the fourth film. The Tall Man’s insulting origin as a human being is still canon, which means I can no longer give a shit about the Tall Man. It’s sad that this is Angus Scrimm’s final performance.

There are some saving graces. This one is immediately more entertaining than its predecessor. When we first see Reggie, he’s stumbling through the desert in his war-torn ice cream uniform, lugging around his trademark four-barrel shotgun. His hair has been darkened in an attempt to sustain continuity, but at one point you can actually see the dye coming off on his collar.

One moment Reggie is battling the forces of evil, then he finds himself in a rest home where he’s assured his fantastical story about the Tall Man is the result of early onset dementia. I was praying the movie wouldn’t abandon the new direction (After all, the Tall Man said in the previous film: “Ice cream man, it’s all in his head.”), as it would allow the series to retcon all the shit I dislike. No such luck, however.

In the last movie we got unnecessary time travel. This time we get parallel universes. Fine, I don’t care at this point. I appreciate the direction the filmmakers were going, but it just wasn’t my cup of tea. Along the way, you’ll see a familiar faces, joyless CGI, bad cinematography, and obvious Airsoft weaponry posing as the real thing. Ravager scares up some of the old fun, but it’s just not worth acknowledging Oblivion was canon.

R.I.P. Phantasm. May you never get rebooted.

This is my first viewing of Phantasm IV. I wish I had listened to my original instinct to avoid it. Yesterday, I praised Phantasm III for preserving the mythology established in the first film. Phantasm IV undoes it all. This is easlily the worst movie I’ve ever featured on 31 Days of Gore. The fact that it garnered a review score comparable to the previous film on IMDB indicates a die hard and delusional fan base. 

Where to begin? The first ten minutes are flashbacks. Flashbacks to the previous films, flashbacks to unused footage for the first film, freshly shot flashbacks which completely and utterly stamp out every ounce of greatness the series had. Once you think the movie’s done flashbacking, it flashbacks some more. It’s as if Don Coscarelli woke up one day and thought, Hey, I know how to ruin the series! I’ll add time travel to it!

There’s a scene in which Mike is pursued by the Tall Man through an old looking town. When Mike asks where he’s at, Spirit Jody replies he should worry more about when rather than where, suggesting it’s a long time ago. Considering there’s a sign which plainly says Staples in the background, I’m guessing it’d have to be sometime after ’86 unless it’s literally a generic staples store. I mention this scene without context because there is none. Coscarelli, who I admire tremendously, constructs the flimsiest excuses to unload footage which rightly belonged on the cutting room floor. And he shoots new footage which isn’t coherent enough to string all the old crap together.

I know the series hasn’t exhibited the best continuity, but to suddenly make the Tall Man a human after it was made abundantly clear, time and time again, that he wasn’t, is the dumbest retcon I’ve seen in a movie in years. The conclusion to the previous film’s cliffhanger is handled so sloppily, you’ll wonder if Coscarelli actually wanted to make another Phantasm movie at all. Hellraiser IV hurts less than this piece of shit does.

I’ll be featuring the fifth film at midnight, Central Time, but if it’s anything like this one, I won’t have anything kind to say.

Once again, the opening picks up exactly where the previous film left off, concluding the cliffhanger which had Mike and Liz trapped in a runaway hearse. Reggie, who was clearly dying the last time we saw him, reveals it was little more than a scratch. Sure, whatever. The other two characters don’t get off so easy as the Tall Man decapitates Liz and kidnaps Mike. It’s a little strange that Mike doesn’t mourn Liz’s death at all, but at least the movie hits the ground running, eschewing all the routine emotional stuff that movies like this suck at anyway.

What the movie doesn’t eschew, unfortunately, are some disappointingly routine horror tropes. While searching for Mike in a ghost town, Reggie is taken hostage by three expendable characters who’re scavenging abandoned storefronts and cars. It all feels like a pointless detour until we’re finally introduced to Tim, a kid who’s been playing Home Alone ever since the Tall Man killed everyone else in his town.

Tim is supposed to remind us of Mike in the first film, I guess, but he doesn’t because he’s a ruthless killer. At one point he slices a bad guy’s throat with a razor-lined Frisbee, which is suspiciously similar to a death scene in Hard Ticket to Hawaii. Later, the duo will end up in yet another ghost town where they’ll pick up a nunchaku-packing wanderer by the name of Rocky. I appreciate the exploitation value Tim and Rocky bring to the series, but their one-liners are generic and their motivation is murky.

The best part of Phantasm III is returning director Don Coscarelli manages to preserve the mystery surrounding the Tall Man while simultaneously expanding the mythos. We learn a little more about the spheres’ origin and what’s inside them. We see the Tall Man sitting in a throne, surrounded by candles in a mausoleum, which squares nicely with the series’ fantasy aspirations as it makes him look like the evil wizard of a fairy tale.

What I could have used a little less of was the cheese of bringing Jody back as a spirit guide. Now that the actor who originally played Mike is back, what we get is a sappy reunion picture. At any rate, it shows Coscarelli was probably thinking more about his fans than the mainstream audience he seemed to be gunning for in the previous film. I can’t fault him for that, but I still liked the last two movies a little more than this one, even if the special effects here are better for the most part. As far as second sequels go, Phantasm III is among the best.

This time around, Reggie peaks as the lovable buffoon. There’s a bit more humor and, while it doesn’t detract from the horror, it clashes terribly with the cheesy mentioned above. I’ll say this about Reggie: for a middle-aged ice cream man who’s on his third house and his second Barracuda, he must have some amazing insurance. Once again, he doesn’t waste any time throwing himself into the dating world after the death of a loved one.

So what does the Tall Man want from Mike, anyway? Three films in and I haven’t figured it out yet. Maybe they’ll finally explain it in Phantasm IV: Oblivion, which I’ll feature tonight at midnight, Central Time.