One of the first books by Stephen King to find its way on celluloid was the made-for-TV flick “Salem’s Lot,” starring David Soul of “Starsky and Hutch” fame. (Don’t even ask me which he was because not only do I not remember, I don’t think I even knew back then.)
Now, when you think 70s and made-for-TV, one usually isn’t too optimistic about the result. But this was the exception, with good acting, nice makeup and yes, vampires that were scary and not emo. Not that should be surprising under the direction of Tobe Hooper.
The plot synopsis: Writer Ben Mears (a thinly-veiled King) returns to his hometown to explore some childhood trauma for a new book. He meets a girl, played by Bonnie Bedelia, and befriends the young teen Mark Petrie (Lance Kerwin) who is obsessed with the macabre (a thinly-veiled teenage King) and they join forces when the townsfolk start falling ill and dying unexpectedly. It’s no coincidence this starts shortly after a stranger arrives and occupies the spooky Marsten house, getting it ready for its new mysterious owner who no one has seen.
Or at least no one who lives to tell the tale.
James Mason is supreme as the evil caretaker for one seriously fugly vampire, and this was the first time I had seen a Nosferatu-inspired vampire. Between him, and the vampires tapping on the windows, this one has some genuine creeps. Geoffrey Lewis (Juliette’s dad) also has a great scene, featured below.
Grab this while you can: It’s out of print and you may have to go VHS to stay in budget.
Salem’s Lot (1979)Cast David Soul … Ben Mears
James Mason … Richard K. Straker
Lance Kerwin … Mark Petrie
Bonnie Bedelia … Susan Norton
Lew Ayres … Jason Burke
Julie Cobb … Bonnie Sawyer
Elisha Cook … Gordon ‘Weasel’ Phillips
George Dzundza … Cully Sawyer
Ed Flanders … Dr. Bill Norton
Clarissa Kaye … Majorie Glick
Geoffrey Lewis … Mike Ryerson
Barney McFadden … Ned Tibbets
Kenneth McMillan … Constable Parkins Gillespie
Fred Willard … Larry Crockett
Marie Windsor … Eva Miller Barbara Babcock … June Petrie
Bonnie Bartlett … Ann Norton
Joshua Bryant … Ted Petrie
James Gallery … Father Donald Callahan
Robert Lussier … Deputy Constable Nolly Gardner
Brad Savage … Danny Glick
Ronnie Scribner … Ralphie Glick
Ned Wilson … Henry Glick
You know when you go to those haunted attractions and they have that section that is pitch black? Yeah, that’s the part that freaks me out. I feel like I can’t breathe. Does that make me claustrophobic? Maybe, but I know movies where people go into caves or underground caverns produce just a little bit of that same feeling.
So as you can imagine, two fairly recent releases tapped into that claustrophobia, the first being As Above, So Below.
From the get-go, I hated the “heroine,” Scarlett (Perdita Weeks) and wanted to kill her throughout the movie. As some fearless seeker of the lost “Philosopher’s Stone,” she gives exactly zero fucks who she puts in jeopardy in her quest right from the first frame of the film to the last. I really hated her
They throw in some weird supernatural happenings in this one which I would normally like, but I really didn’t get it overall. Apparently they go through some gateway to hell where their greatest guilt trips come back to haunt them as their path gets smaller and smaller with cave ins behind them forcing them to keep going ahead into the unknown.
What the hell were you thinking going down there in the first place, dumbasses? I am never going down in that shit. NEVER, y’all.
I thought Catacombs was the better of the two Paris catacombs films, where Pink plays a jackass-y character who invites her sister to Paris for the sole purpose of terrorizing her and making fun of her it appears. They go to a party in the catacombs and of course mousy, bullied sister Victoria (Shannyn Sossamon) gets separated and lost.
The twist in Catacombs is there is a maniac killer down in the dark with Victoria. Why or why did you go down in that shit? There aren’t enough flashlights int he world to guarantee you’ll not get lost in the dark. Forever. That’s more than enough reason not to go without even contemplating maniacs stalking their prey.
Did I mention I am never going down in those catacombs? Hell to the no.
There’s a saying in the culinary world that “everything’s better with bacon.” That often applies in the film industry as well, in the form of one Kevin Bacon. But sometimes even Bacon can’t save a flawed plot with the best of intentions.
The Darkness comes out on DVD September 6, and this horror film stars Bacon as well as the fabulous Radha Mitchell as a couple who have a troubled teenage daughter and autistic son. We’re off to a fairly good start there. It’s somewhat cliched, but good talent.
I also love it when a horror film works in some historical facts to back up supernatural events, and including some past Anasazi legends also gave me hope for something really unique and scary in The Darkness. Calling up some kind of ancient evil can be one of the scariest premises in horror, but sometimes it goes a little off track. Unfortunately, The Darkness is one of those films where the train completely jumped the track.
One thing that some horror writers and horror directors don’t seem to understand is that even though you’re dealing with supernatural principles, those fantastical elements still have to make sense. Even in a world where otherworldly events are occurring, they should form some kind of logic. Many of the supernatural elements in The Darkness don’t make sense, and the method of calling up this ancient evil is just too simplistic. Other things were confusing, such as the whole turning on the tap water schtick. Did I miss something that made that logical? Were they thirsty because they were desert-dwelling demons? I don’t get it.
Being logical and believable also applies to characters, and The Darkness does a fairly decent job in that regard, thanks to the talents of the cast, although there’s a pretty big flaw in logic in the alternate ending. But I’ll get to that alternate ending in a moment.
You have to care about the characters, and the teenage daughter was kind of annoying rather than sympathetic with her medical issue that came up during his troubled time in this family’s life. Also, mom likes to hit the bottle, and dear old dad has a history of fooling around in The Darkness. While these flaws might be nothing terribly new, I found it pretty appalling that his boss was hiring fresh meat for more affairs, even though Bacon was trying to be the good guy and fly straight.
Seriously, what is this nonsense? I don’t expect everyone to be perfect, and flawed characters make great tension, but a boss that actually hires people for his employees to have affairs with and encourages it? Oh, please.
Anyway, this film has some great ideas and great actors, but it just doesn’t feel fully fleshed out with those ideas in The Darkness. For some people, that may not bother them in the slightest. For pickier horror fans, that thin plot just won’t fly.
As for The Darkness DVD itself, the Blu-ray has a beautiful high definition picture, and the opening sequences feature some beautiful southwestern scenery at the Grand Canyon. For extras, there’s not a whole lot of added features with this package, so you’ll have to settle for a bunch of deleted scenes that do help explain a few plot elements and developments.
The other special feature and arguably the best part of this DVD packaging of The Darkness is the alternate ending. While I suspect that it wasn’t a fully-polished final edit, being an alternate version, I would definitely argue that the alternate ending would have been the better choice. Although I do take issue with a plot flaw in this alternate ending when the Native American woman helping the family makes a decision not to reveal some key information. Nope, I’m not buying that.
Like many horror fans, I love Kevin Bacon. Stir of Echoes is one of my favorite horror films, and I am a child of the 80s. Likewise, Radha Mitchell has definitely earned her chops in horror, with Silent Hill and Pitch Black. However, hardcore horror fans with high standards had better pass. If you aren’t so picky, see it before picking up The Darkness on DVD.
It pains me to say this, but even though they say everything’s better with Bacon, a turd sandwich is still a turd sandwich, even with Bacon on top.
I’m really wish people would stop ruining vampires for me. You know what movies I’m talking about, without me even uttering the dreaded “T” word. And some of the lame, wimpy, effeminate vampires that have paraded around screen and in books in recent years. So I admit, I almost didn’t even bother to watch Dracula Untold. I figured it would be yet another disappointment.
Fortunately, I figured wrong, at least to a certain extent.
I could nitpick some flaws in this movie, but I’m going to give it a pass on a few things. Maybe my standards have dropped a little too low with some of the poor vampire movies out there, but I actually thought this was pretty damn good.
Dracula Untold tells the story of the origin of the great vampire legend, with an ancient vampire who has been cursed and dwells in a cave. And much like a Marvel superhero, he and his protégé he passes his curse along to can command bats. And let me tell you, they can make these bats do some bitchin’ things, as Ve Neill would say.
They can create storms and huge whirlwinds like tornadoes that the newly crowned Dracula uses as a cover to plow through entire armies by himself, trying to save his kingdom from being taken in a bloody war.
You see, this spin on the Dracula legend has him willingly taking the blood of the cursed vampire in the cave to take on superpowers, which will all go away and he’ll return to human if he can resist feeding for 72 hours. As you can imagine, this can sort of complicate date night with the wife, among other things.
All kidding aside, this movie has beautiful cinematography, fairly nice special effects — and yes, of course they use CGI for the bats (boo, hiss) — but overall this is a very solid entry into the annals of vampire movies.
It’s sort of like 300 with vampires and without the abs. Check out the trailer…
Long before The Midnight Meat Train, subways and the London underground have been the setting for horror, like the famous scene in American Werewolf in London. But 2004’s Creep stays down in the dark, with poor Franka Potente finding herself locked in after falling asleep and missing the last train home.
Yeah, I know, who would really sleep through the last train, but just roll with it on this one. Because this little sleeper is definitely one of the better examples of subterranean monsters run amok. Where is Jason Bourne when you need him?
After leaving a party, Potente finds herself wishing she had stuck with cocktails and boring small talk. She encounters an acquaintance who tries to take advantage of them being alone, and a homeless couple who she tries to help by paying the young man to help her find the next security guard station.
Emphasis on tries to help, because as you can imagine, this does not end well. Especially for the young woman in the couple, who is an integral part of a particularly gruesome scene for the women watching. Like we don’t hate going to the doctor enough already, thank you.
Instead of just going with a deranged serial killer, Creep twists its monster into some kind of lost boy lost boy born into the London underground tunnel system as a nocturnal creature who has never seen the light of day. And who tries to mimic the adults who “took care” of him with disastrous results.
Creep is definitely not a film for the squeamish, but is well worth seeking out despite being fairly rare and a bit hard to find. But isn’t that the fun in discovering those of secure films that none of your friends know about? Then scaring the shift out of them because they have no idea what they’re getting into. That’s what friends are for.
It’s so hard to find — and presumably make– a good werewolf movie. It’s certainly one of the most complex creatures to create realistically, with a varying rate of success in the past and present. For instance, you have the classic “American Werewolf in London” where the werewolf effects were done the old-fashioned way with animatronics, with a very good result, at least for it’s time. But looking back at it now, it’s obviously dated in the special effects department and with our 21st-century eyes, we see how unrealistic it is. On the other hand, you have the full-blown CGI werewolves like those in the “Underworld” series, where the CGI can pass in those fast-paced sequences where we can’t look at it too close, but under any kind of close scrutiny of pure CGI, any realism crumbles.
Enter one of the latest installments of the werewolf genre in “Wer.”
This film shows a third option, combining special-effects makeup with motion special-effects and a real-life disease to create a more realistic Wolfman for the modern day. In “Wer,” the filmmakers linked becoming a werewolf to the very real disease of porphyria, and kept their beasts in a primary manlike state. Hey, I love the hairy beasts just as much as anybody, but I have to say this approach was refreshing. And when done well, it was very creepy.
(Spoilers ahead.)
The premise of the film opens with the brutal murders of American tourists in France. If you’re starting to think of “An American Werewolf in Paris,” you’re going down the wrong track. The film delves into the murder investigation as the primary suspect is about to be put on trial, defended by an American expatriate lawyer named Kate Moore (A J Cook). With her support team of Eric Sarin (Vik Sahay) and Gavin Flemyng (Simon Quarterman), Kate is determined to defend the brutish, hairy man accused of the crimes, and is convinced of his innocence. In fact, she is convinced that local investigator Klaus Pistor (Sebastian Roche) is part of a local conspiracy to take over his family homestead for a profitable development proposal.
As often happens in horror films, those with the best of intentions have a way of unleashing hell on everyone, and unfortunately for the locals, that’s no exception in this film. What does that this film apart from other werewolf movies is the convincing way they presented porphyria as a plausible explanation for the condition, although some of their science is fictional, to put it mildly. In other words, you cannot get poorer for it by being bitten by someone who hasn’t, just for the record. But just go with it for the movie’s sake. Hey, it’s fiction.
The use of special-effects with the way characters move has become a bit of a cliché, but it’s pretty effective in this film. Quite honestly, the appearance of the werewolf in this movie when he wasn’t attacking wasn’t that frightening to me. The jerky, seizure-like movements definitely enhanced the fear as did the gore. And make no mistake, there are some very gruesome moments in this movie. On the other hand, the second werewolf that comes along creates an appearance that is quite chilling. And kudos to the actor portraying that role, who I won’t name here for spoiler purposes. As he shaved his head and body during his transformation — creating an interesting opposite to the Talan (Brian Scott O’Connor) character — I felt that was the most chilling moment of the movie.
The performances are fine, and director William Brent Bell redeemed himself from the awful ending of “The Devil Inside,” his last turn at the helm of the horror film. There are some irritating plot missteps, such as the previously mentioned scientific flaws, and some stretches of the imagination. That’s local police would allow an attorney and her team on site while they were doing a manhunt, plus the old cliché of their idealistic lawyer insisting that her clients, who has been accused of horrific violent crimes be taken out of his handcuffs while she speaks with him. Pretty far-fetched to believe either of these situations would actually happen. But overall, “Wer” Is an unusual and refreshing take on the werewolf mythology if you’re up for trying something a little bit different.
