Macabre (1980) Horror Necrophilia

Macrabre (1980)  Lamberto Bava's first solo directing job, having worked in tandem with his father the great Mario Bava prior to this chance. On the bio in the special features in the disc I watched it says "Macabre received good reviews but didn't have much success with the public -- everyone said it wasn't violent enough. But the violence was played down internationally, otherwise the story would have deteriorated into bad taste eroticism." Certainly the cut I watched was violent in it has violence to children. There is some eroticism but it is so damn strange that most people would not find it erotic at all. It is really a strange film about madness and sexual desire, but there is a heavy dose of the consequences to family that comes from that obsession. The story came to Bava after seeing an article in a New Orleans paper which he thought would make a great plot. Because his budget was small they shot the film In Salo Italy on Lake Garda where the small town was eager to help get a film made. Then they flew to New Orleans for just a few establishing shots to give the place the right feel. THIS WILL BE A SPOILER FILLED COMMENTARY SO WATCH THE FILM BEFORE CONTINUING.
 Jane Baker (Bernice Stegers) is cheating wife who leaves her children alone while she goes across town to carry on a torrid love affair with Fred (Roberto Posse).  Her daughter Lucy (Veronica Zinny) 12 feels that something is up and her Mom is not going to a meeting like she says she is. Lucy you can see is figuring her mother out and the attention she craves as a child is not being met by her parents. She manages to put together her mother has gone to her lover Fred's apartment and calls there confirming this when her mother answers the phone. While Jane and Fred meet for a tryst, Lucy craves her Mother's attention more and decides to drown her 5 year old brother in the bathtub as a way to get Jane to pay more attention to her. Unlike today where we are very chaste about showing violence to children the scene of Lucy shoving the boy under the water is remarkable. Then she calls Mom back to report the child's accidental drowning a cold blooded killer that Lucy. Jane and Fred race back to her house at high speed. They never make it though as they crash into a guard rail trying to negotiate a corner at speed. Fred is horribly killed in the accident. In the interview on the disc says that he only wanted to suggest what happened to Fred but not show it. He was planning a larger reveal later so he was trying to hide the results of the accident. He may have failed in that. I knew exactly watch was happening in the scene. Of course I have watch a shit ton of these kinds of films and pick up quite a bit in the first watching that others miss.
  One year later, Jane is leaving a mental institution trying to piece together some sort of life. Her marriage ruined by the events she takes up residents in Fred's apartment. Her landlord Fred's blind brother Robert (Stanko Molnar). Now this was weird from the start even in the early scenes we have Fred and Jane loudly enjoying each other's company and Robert downstairs with nothing to do but listen. Now she is back and acting not totally together. She checks out the apartment including the locked freezer inside the refrigerator. (Maybe her lover's head is in there? That is what I thought at this point) She is grieving walking around the place. Robert is so sad in that he makes some Campell's Chicken Noodle soup for her. He is disappointed when she refuses. She has plans dressed in almost nothing she sets up a shrine to her former lover,laying on the bed desiring Fred who is no longer with her. Is this the weird part her pretending to have sex with the dead man or the fact that the apartment is not sound proof and Robert lays below listening to her...again.
  Lucy a year older and dressing a bit more grown up is not done with her Mother yet. Still seeking that attention she and her father Leslie go to see Jane. Mom practices greeting them in front of the mirror seeming a bit off her rocker with her maniacal laugh. Daughter is way too enthusiastic and Jane is not having any of it. The awkward visit is really uncomfortable to Leslie who really is a victim here having lost his wife and son on the same day and now having to deal with Jane just so Lucy can snoop around the house.
Jane has a ritual almost reliving the day that Fred died. She changes into her shear lingerie and sits and does her makeup. Then she pretends to here him come in downstairs and goes to meet him. She then returns to the bedroom and we hear her lust filled exultation as she writhes on the bed. Mostly we see the confused face of Robert in the rooms below her as he hears everything she is doing. There are no real sex scenes in this film, and it was intentional according to Bava. He purposely had the sex hidden like how Catholics approach it. So the scenes with Jane are all under covers. The fact that Robert can her and not see what is happens furthers the concept that sex is unseen. There is also at one point this teasing of Robert by Jane where she is suggestive to him only then to return to her fantasy about Fred. It spurs Robert to get a friend to tell him about accident. He learns that Fred was decapitated. So he starts suspecting this are awry. and checking around in Jane's room does not make things any better. Where's the trust? When he finds the locked freezer door it really leaves him wondering. What is in there? Although the Robert character adds some intrigue I am not sure it really works very well. Still there are some real interesting scenes between him and Lucy.
  When Lucy comes by and manipulates her way into her Mom's room she purposely leaves an image of the little brother. She seems to be still motivated to get her Mom to come home. Lucy has done everything she has to get her Mom to pay attention to her. Very upsetting to her Jane. She is a disturbed woman and Lucy playing with her emotions and interfering with her fantasy life does not go over well. Lucy makes a point of going to Jane's place on the anniversary of Michael and Fred's death. She is a different kind of disturb this little kid is in real need of some psychological help. Taking advantage of Robert's blindness she is also trying to get to the bottom of her Mother's behavior. She thinks that her Mom has a new lover boy is she wrong finding the head in the freezer just before her Mom came home. In the climax Lucy comes to the house for her visitation weekend with her Mother. She cooks her a nice chicken and rice soup and makes a point to leave an earlobe in the soup so her Mother knows that she knows about the head. She in her over confidence admits she killed her brother  and that puts Jane over the edge. Irony in her death at her Mother's hands. Maniacal the craziness continues with Robert  and then one last session with her lover this time in full view of the audience. Locked in and alone the blind man must defend himself against Jane who has gone completely off her rocker. The last fantastical scene is an amazing movie ending twist. All and all this was a bit of a slow mover and a bit too telegraphed for me to give it a recommendation.

She Wolf (2013) Horror Serial Killer

She Wolf (2013) - An Argentinian film "Mejor lobo" is about the woman serial killer addicted to sex and death.  The serial killer played by three actresses because each woman represents a different aspect of the character. Mónica Lairana is the main character who seems to be the bait and the murderer. Seeking out aggressive men who will take charge of her to fulfill there sexual desires. She is a willing partner, submissive but deadly using the post sex oasis to poison them to death. They feel dominant and in control, satisfied and have their guard down. It is an interesting character both the perpetrator and the victim. She hunts a particularly type of aggressive male who sees her as a sexual object, but not an equal. He is willing to tie her up force his sexual proclivities on her she a willing object. It is a statement about sexual objectification and the inherent inequality of the patriarchy. In this world centered in the subways of Buenos Aires, Argentina the environment is one where men take women's space, tell her too smile more and make sexual advances as a matter of course. Lairana's character though gets vengeance through submission using this male created structure to put her victim at ease, to make him never to see her as a threat. Then after he feels the flush of conquest she slips the poison to him and he dies in pain. A poetic rebuke to the machismo social structure.
 Tamae Garateguy weaves the actresses in and out of the scenes expressing the characters mood through ac tress. After an opening scene where the killer in the form of Lairana kills her sex partner, She leaves and walks home as actress Luján Ariza, a flirty buxom blonde. See seems to represents the characters sexual desire. She is the part of the killer who wants fulfillment through sex as opposed to Lairana who wants to violently lash out unfulfilled. We see Ariza flirt with a construction worker on her walk in control and confident in her sexuality. Later we see her masturbating in bed frustrated because the incessant barking of a small dog is keeping her from climax. Poor puppy. Control shifts though and we see that the Lairana ego is the strongest when Ariza seduces a lead sing of a band. She is the seductress and uses her looks and obvious desire to reel the man in. As they engage in sex  her character remains while he performs acts for her pleasure. When he become more dominant forcing towards acts that will please him more than her, it brings out the Lairana ego a definite detriment to the man.
There are other aspects to this character like anyone's personality has parts. Director
   The third part of her ego is depicted by Guadalupe Docampo, she still holds out hope for love and caring in a relationship. The part of the character that hopes a normal life can be achieved. She dressing a bit more conservatively and portrays a younger more innocent women. Not that she is asexual but just that the sex comes from a place of wanting tenderness. We see her early in the film doing her hair, pinning up her braids. Then at a part sitting on a bench trying not to be the Lairana ego and shaking with the effort. When approached by a nearby soccer player she rebukes his advances only to be called frigid. Another statement on the male dominated word she lives in. The advances of men are to be considered and if rejected they project fault on the woman.
  The three aspect of the character flow seamlessly as she makes her way through the world, each having its time when circumstances dictate. It is a clever piece of film making that is well grounded and deftly executed. The character established we get to the plot. The police are on the trail of the killer and when she unknowingly picks up a cop as her next victim she has a horribly close call. She escapes capture barely and with the help of a young drug dealer. This is a pivotal scene initiating the rest of the film. The first thing is the cops are on her trail although from the encounter she can't be sure he is a cop more that he is dangerous and knows who she is. The second is the Docampo ego likes the drug dealer and moves to have a relationship with him. These two plot points begin to shift the balance of the three aspects of the ego. Now there is mixing since she must kill and wants satisfaction and still dreams of a normal relationship. This culminates when it is the Decampo ego that kills the cop, her relationship and happiness was threatened by him so it is her that did the killing. Garateguy does a great job intertwining and showing shots of this intermingling. Culminating in the corruption of the more innocent Docampo ego.
  The ending is a sad one not that surviving the encounters with the cop are bad for the character. The well executed idea that the three egos can not coexist and only one can remain is what is so very sad. Still I thought the film was very interesting in story, execution  and social commentary. I did not even get too the metaphor of all the penetration in this film. The men using it as a controlling feature and on a few occasion our killer using it to murder.  I should warn potential viewers because the sexual content is quite domineering and aggressive and the responses violent. I recommend this one for mature audiences.

  

The Ranger (2018) Horror Slasher

The Ranger (2018) This little gem was sitting in my queue for awhile and I am finally glad to get to it.  A reminder that this is really commentary on the film and I do not hold back on spoiling things. So SPOILER WARNING! When Chelsea (Chloë Levine) and her punk friends get caught up in some trouble in the city, they flee to Chelsea's cabin the woods to decide what to do next. They encounter a psychopathic Ranger (Jeremy Holm) looking to reconnect with Chelsea over her childhood trauma he witnessed. Unfortunately for the group he is not tolerant of people breaking the rules.
  I have learned over the years that I am not accepting of bad behavior in the wilderness. Having backpacked and camped all over the county I am a stickler for good ethics in camping and hiking. In fact I was a person who would not have a campfire, would carry out my own trash and often cleaned up after other people who were less considerate. Now sometimes people have to be punished for messing up the woods so I sort of at first came down on the side of "The Ranger" when watching the beginning of the film. I mean people disappear in the wilderness all the time, there bloodied beaten and hacked bodies never found in the cave where I hid them... oh, no, what I mean to say is education is the key to keeping the wilderness pristine. When watching movies I am always very critical of the decisions people make in the woods. So much so that I had to watch The Ritual (2017) twice just because in the first viewing I was so annoyed by the hiker's decisions that I could not enjoy the film. So when the punks get to the cabin I was particularly irritated, in a good way since I sort of knew all but Chelsea were fodder for the slasher theme.
  Film maker Jenn Wexler and writer Giaco Furino certainly get that punk attitude right. They are assholes, which having lived through the punk revolution as a teen in the late seventies early eighties that was generally the attitude. A disdain for authority, for societal rules of any kind and at least a surface disrespect for each other was on par with the portrayals in the film.  It was an interesting scene where Chelsea has allowed this group of friends into another part of her life. A place she came as a child and respects as part of her and her families past. When asking a simple thing like please smoke on the porch the response from her boyfriend Garth (Granit Lahu) is so disrespectful.  He is reacting like he does to all authority with obstinate refusal to let anyone make rules for him, even someone he cares about.  We see after some further idiocy by Abe (Bubba Weiler) and Jerk (Jeremy Pope) of spray painting trees and Garth and Amber (Amanda Grace Benitez)trying to start a fire where they shouldn't. Eliciting a dislike for these characters for me and making it so much more enjoyable when the killing started.
  Chelsea has a particular story arc that separates her from her friends.She accidentally shot and killed her uncle as a child our Ranger found her. For her it is a childhood trauma but for him it is so much more. In order for her to move through the film she needs to not be just one of the gang but apart from them. So the contrast at the cabin helps that happen. The shit hitting the fan is a well done scene, Chelsea trying to get her friends to think about the future and then BOOM! The radio is shot and explodes into pieces. Then as we get a closeup of a shocked look, we see Amber out of focus in the background and Boom! We are now in a different film. There is a threat and a crisis and everything changes. Chelsea, reserved and unsure flips and takes charge. So this is the slasher film coming into focus. A slasher film it is from here until the end with characters being snuffed out in creating ways and a killer who seems to appear where he needs to be, no different from Jason at Camp Crystal Lake.
  I liked that as we see more of the Ranger we learn that he has been one sick mother fucker for a long time. Early in the film he is a stickler for rules and easy for the group to disregard but as the punks see more of him we see his sadistic side. We see the left overs of his desire for respect of the wilderness, the punished. I am really identifying with him at this point. Still there is some creepiness too, taking the images of  Chelsea from her uncles's photo album for example. He literally ripped a photo in half to have her in the picture but not the uncle. Later we see more evidence of his insanity in the cages at his cabin. Then I have to say my allegiance flows towards Chelsea. His final scenes in the tower were great, at one point saying to Chelsea "I kept your secret!" hurt that she will not join him in his sick world. While she grew up and tried to forget, he a serial killer when he helped her that day thought there was a bond between them that could not be broken. He sees Chelsea as like him, a killer but of course in the final scenes she was having none of that. Still though her ability to defend herself at a certain point shows she is more like him then she may want to believe.
  This was a satisfying film for me. I thought the aesthetics worked well and there was a really nice depth to Chelsea. There is some great gore and a killer that gets bigger as the film goes on. Generally I don't comment on acting (What do I know?) but all the players never brought me out of the film so I take that as being good. So if you are looking for a good not your totally traditional slasher this is one I can recommend.

Truth or Dare (2017) Horror Game

Truth or Dare (2017) - This is a NOT COMPLETELY SPOILER FREE commentary. In this 2017 release we have a group of way too good looking college kids getting together in a creepy old house where in 1983 another group of college kids played Truth or Dare leaving all but one dead. In fact the opening scene shows the finale of that game. This movie is almost the exact same story of Truth or Dare? (2018) that I watched during the 31 days of Halloween last year. That one I questioned the motivations of the characters that seemed always to be a me first attitude. They had a slightly different game than the characters in this film where the dares were individual and could not be traded off; leading to some really selfish decisions where they either shared some amazing hurtful secrets or played a deadly game of dare. They had the choice where in this film thing played very differently.
  This film made only a year earlier than the above mentioned Blumhouse production, was a made for SyFy television jam, maybe that is why everyone is so damn good looking in it. If only SyFy knew a year later a version of this story would hit theaters and make a cool 85 million maybe they would have gone that route. At any rate I don't think you can make a horror movie about the game Truth or Dare without doing something similar to what these two films did.
  Let's get back to the film at hand. Eight friends meet at a house that is supposedly haunted and where a couple decades before the ill fated game had been played. Carlton who did the rental wants to in a very light hearted way, play the game and see if any ghosts go bump  in the night. The problem is that when this is announced the spirit, demon, demigod of the game has other plans for the crew. An ominous tolling of the broken clock coming back to life marks the start of the game. It is three rounds and the master of ceremony is not playing fair. In this version of the game everyone writes probing questions to answer truthfully an if they take a dare a dare that lets be clear should not kill them. Alex (Cassandra Scerbo) goes first, and gets a dare to kiss her best friend Maddie (Brytni Sarpy), innocent and enough start to the game. Maddie goes next and gets a truth question that seemed to know a secret she was hiding. "Did you sleep with Tyler?" of course she did even though he Alex's boyfriend and this of course is going to ruin the fun of the night even if things do not get out of control. Lying gets the demon upset and she finds herself telling her best friend that she and Tyler (Mason Dye) had a drunken fling. They stop the game but the game master will have none of that. A dare is presented out of thin air to Tyler and he has to put his hand on a hot stove to get passed his turn.  Naturally there is quite a bit of disbelief in the supernatural nature of what is happening and the group bickers about what is happening and who is causing it. Tyler refuses to do the deed and suddenly the mystical forces that want him to intervene, moving objects and forcing his hand onto a hot burner. The remaining five friends still have a turn in this round, Jessie (Alexxis Lemire), Luke (Ricardo Hoyos), Carter (Luke Baines), Holt (Harvey Guillen), and Addison (Christina Masterson)
  There is this point where for us as an audience we start saying, "I would say fuck it and just leave," and the film strategically provides a supernatural boarding up of the place so everyone knows they can not get out of their situation. Forcing them to just do dares, the idea of Truths is hit or miss at this point coming up less frequently. Messages appear on the walls to spur them on and the dares get so much more dangerous. Electrocution, group afflicted bodily injury, punishment for lying on a truth. Surprisingly this film does not stay in the house for the duration. When one of the group is killed they all manage to leave the house, before the first round of the games is done. Are they free?, no not even close, there are two more dares that must be done. As well as a bunch of exposition to fill in the gaps about the rules of play, rules which really are not geared to let the player win the game.
  When we finish three of the group are dead and the rest of the friends realize they have to help each other and finish the final two rounds to make the nightmare end. So they reconvene back at the house with this purpose. The ante in this film is always being raised and round two consists of Drinking poison, pulling out teeth, Russian roulette, getting run over by a car, getting suffocated by roaches. The last one with classic SyFy CGI. When the round is done there are only two friends left to finish the third round.
  Here is where I think they misinterpret the first of the final two challenges, it says Remove 7 living body parts. The survivors interpret that to mean 7 different living body parts and go about hacking each other up. I would have just cut off seven hairs and been done with that bad boy. I don't see how chopping off fingers and feet is any different. Seven living body parts is all it said.  I suppose that properly sets up the final dare and of course a scene of distracted driving which was not completely convincing by the actor. The less than clear ending makes me wonder that maybe SyFy was not planning part two while this was being filmed.  Over all I was not offended by this film, in fact considering some of the stuff SyFy puts out I think this was on the good end of production for them. I liked that the dares could be shared and with a bit of creativity you could survive most of the events. Of course the game master is feeding off your fears and punishing you secrets but not really giving many chances for revealing truths so it was a loaded game from the start. I reviewed this as a compliment to listening to the Stream Queens Podacast, you can download that by getting the Zombie Grrlz feed and let me tell you, it is worth your time. Very entertaining if spoiler filled in its approach it is really fine, funny and so enjoyable.

April Fool's Day (1986) Horror

April Fool's Day (1986) - This film is 33 years old so this commentary on it is FILLED WITH SPOILERS since you should have seen it by now. Certainly a classic in my mind a slice in time, a pseudo-slasher, a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury, a perfect April Fool's joke. A bit cruel to the characters but in the end really harmless pranksterism. The 1986 film written by Danilo Bach, who a couple years earlier had a big hit in writing Beverley Hills Cop (1984) hits again with a clever little film about a group of college friends who get more than expected when visiting their friend Muffy (Deborah Foreman) on her private island. When things start to go horribly wrong the friends begin to question if Muffy is really who she says she is or a murderess trying to do them all in. The film was well received upon release making an opening weekend of 3.4 million on a five million dollar budget. It finished by making a cool 12 million which in the eighties was a winner for a horror movie. Viewers have been less forgiving of the awkward characterization in the film, the princess rich girl, the bookworm girlfriend the callus jock etc. with a current rotten tomatoes, Tomatometer score of  38% while the audience score is just 47%.
  My personal feeling is this movie is wonderful. It captures many of the elements of slasher tension and gory kills with the comic relief that it is April Fool's Day, as well as a bit of a mystery. Sure there are some stereotypes particularly the men in it being horndogs. Much of the female dialog also fails the Bechdel test but much of this is elevated by the wonderful twist ending. It was a stroke of genius to cast Amy Steele as Kitt, she gets to be our final girl but with a completely different outcome from her role as Ginny in Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981). That film not so far in the past that people would not remember it.

  The story is a collection of college friends are joining hostess wealthy Muffy St. John on the private island she is about to inherit for a reunion. It is a smart piece of writing to have not all the characters know each other. This creates outsider who can later be used to cast suspicion on when things go wrong. The characters meet each other waiting for the ferry which is the last one before the weekend, creating a location that is isolated from help. Sort of a classic slasher setup. It is established in the early scenes that it is April Foll's Day (weekend) spring break  for the group and they are going to spend it at Muffy's.
  On the ferry Skip (Griffin O'Neal) and Arch (Thomas F. Wilson) play a pocket knife game called stretch where they face each other and take turns throwing the knife trying to sticks. (In it in the wood of the deck in this case) If it sticks the person on the receiving end must move his nearest foot to the position of the knife and pick the knife up without falling. Now he gets a turn to throw the knife. The idea being to make the opponent stretch until they fall retrieving the knife or moving his foot.  I played sort of the reverse when I was a kid. Chicken where you tried to stick the knife on the inside of the opponents feet, moving them closer and closer until one of the combatants flinches or quits. Or you lose by hitting the opponents foot. All of this is an elaborate pranks where the two guys pretend to argue and then struggle and Skip is stabbed in the stomach. He falls overboard right as they approach the island.  A fake knife gag that scares everyone on the boat for a minute or two. It gets ferry worker Buck (Mike Nomad) in the water which sets a a chain reaction where he face is mauled when caught between the dock and the boat. He is rushed off to the hospital in the constable's boat and the constable is right behind them in Muffy's boat leaving the group on the island with no way to get off.

  This first act is to set up the character's and who is with whom but it is also to present Muffy as a detailed oriented friend who dresses impeccably and is in control of her world.  Chaz (Clayton Rohner) and Nikki (Deborah Goodrich) bed up together but not before we learn in a conversation between Muffy and Nikki that Muffy has in the past swooped in and scooped a guy from Nikki. Kitt (Amy Steel) and Rob (Ken Olandt) are a couple from the start. Nan (Leah Pinsent) definitely has a thing for Muffy, the studious blonde is a new friend of hers (lover?). Harvey (Jay Baker) also a classmate who has aspirations of using her rich and well connected family to get ahead in life. All are a bit thrown off by the accident when arriving but quickly we see that Muffy has established a set of pranks to play up the fact it is April fools day. Exploding cigar, spraying water faucet, doorknobs that come off, moving eyes in a painting are all designed to lighten the mood after the serious start. Only the crying baby recording that Nan finds very disturbing seems off. Writer Bach keeps the characters busy, and has just enough character backstory for a slasher while Director Fred Walton keeps te focus on everyone but Muffy.

  It is not long before the death start, and the guest catch on that there might be a killer. They have this idea with good reason that the ferry captain (Lloyd Berry) is getting revenge on them for what happened to boatman Buck, the early setup certainly plays to this reasoning. As people start disappearing and the remaining ones get nervous Muffy starts acting strange. Dressing sloppy and seeming off her rocker a bit. Needless to say this goes on and finally we have just Rob and Kitt left and they have discovered a dark secret about their hostess. The final act is a panic attack of discovery and when it seems that Kitt alone confronted by her killer there is a wonderful twist that changes how to look at everything that happened in the last hour and a half.
  Certainly not the greatest slasher hybrid April Fool's Day is a refreshing take on a genre that was well into maturing at the time of its release. Now 30 years later we have so many satires and tongue in cheek examples in this genre it is hard to remember that when the film was release it was a really fresh take on a slasher film. There is also a final scene that seems to be ripping off The Big Chill (1983) right towards the end. that was amusing. I really like this film and wanted to see more of the mechanization behind Muffy while she planned her ruse but the film works as is and is a delight to watch on this day of fools.