HOST (2020)

So good

NOTE: This is a spoiler free review. Do yourself a favor and view this film WITHOUT WATCHING THE TRAILER FIRST! You will be glad you did. A two minute trailer for a 56 minute film can give a lot away! 

Last Monday I heard about this new "computer screen" horror film called HOST. I saw the screenshot and tried not to roll my eyes. 

"Ok...another UNFRIENDED thing. Cool...I liked that one." 

Then I saw what people were saying about it and took a bit more notice. During the course of the day, reviews kept popping up all over the internet raving about the film. Now, this wasn't studio hyperbole, this was coming from horror folks I knew and respected. I zoomed :::grin::: over to Shudder to view it....but found that I was a few days early and had to wait. 

Last night...the waiting was over. 

I started watching the film on my television and stopped a few minutes in after seeing the format. 

"No...no, this needs to be seen on my computer." 

I raced to my iMac and started the film up again and I was glad that I did! It's PERFECT for late night viewing in the dark via computer. Especially in this era of covid ZOOM meetings and the Cult of Quarantine.

Host tells the tale of six people having an online seance through....ZOOM, the online meeting app. (If you are like me, you are very...VERY familiar with ZOOM right now) With their medium Seylan at the helm, they dive into the mysterious astral plane. :::::DRINK:::::  ;)

My spoiler free mini-video review can be seen here....    It's silly, but I was inspired. 

I'm not sure how they did it, to tell you the truth. I mean, the general "horror over online meeting" concept has been done for sure. The aforementioned UNFRIENDED did a really good job of bringing the paranormal and computer tech worlds together and was very entertaining. But HOST brings something new into the mix - several new things, really. 

Thanks do the wonders of SHUDDER, they didn't have to try and pad out the story to meet the requirements of a theater run film. This allowed them to keep the film down to a wondrous 56 minutes or so. They packed that time with tons of great content and a strong story.

They used small ZOOM meeting knowns to their advantage all over the place which added a lot to the production. People waiting to get into the space, putting themselves on mute, messages popping up saying the meeting was going to end soon, and microphones being turned up to max so people could hear things better all had me grinning from ear to ear. There are more things in this particular bucket that I will let viewers discover for themselves. 

Making use of the new, virtual environment created with the use of six or seven separate locations joined together via cameras and microphones added tension in very interesting ways - again, spoiler free. 

I'd love to see another film on the making of this film, to be honest. Gemma Hurley, Rob Savage, and Jed Shepherd wrote a stellar script and Savage's direction was amazing. Picture staring at a large painting of a town, then zooming into a few of the town's locations and back out again as you stared at it. That's what HOST managed to feel like. You see all six folks, then from time to time you explore one of their apartments or homes. It was incredibly dynamic and engaging. It really brings a lot of NEW to a sub-genre that I thought was tapped out. 

But...more than anything else mentioned here...the acting. 

Haley Bishop, Jemma Moore, Emma Louise Webb, Radina Drandova, Caroline Ward, Seylan Baxter, and Edward Linard sold the film 100%. Subtle, nuanced, and BELIEVABLE performances all around brought a much needed feeling that these were all real people. They seemed like they all knew each other and that they had a history with each other. Subtle changes in the way they interacted felt very real to the point where I actually forgot that they were actors for a moment. So, when the shite hit the fan and things started to go south, I was concerned for their well being. 

AND....they didn't look like they were "acting scared", they looked like they were truly freaked out. 

I'm going to stop there before I say too much. 

HOST brings a ton of fun to the table and is WELL worth a viddy. I'll be watching it again this weekend...on my computer....in the dark....

After you watch you can check out the interview with Rob Savage here:
https://datebook.sfchronicle.com/movies-tv/behind-the-scenes-of-host-a-british-horror-film-shot-on-zoom

MAGGIE MAY - Etheria Film Festival on Shudder

Reviewing the amazing MAGGIE MAY from Director Mia Kate Russell starring Katrina Mathers and Lulu McClatchy!

The short film is part of the Etheria Film Festival and is currently up on SHUDDER.

HORROR SHOW VIDEO: Independent Horror Films

Hey there Horror Fans! 

Well, I'm giving a new format a try for the HORROR SHOW VIDEO SERIES. I'd love to have your feedback. One thing off the bat that I can see here is the audio sync and overall time of the video, but both of those items will be addressed next round.

We're coming up to the SPOOKY season and I have many more of these videos planned. This new, quick-and-dirty format will help me to get more content out to you in a timely manor.

With that said, ENJOY!

GIALLOctober: The Killer Reserved Nine Seats (1974)

GIALLOctober continues with THE KILLER RESERVED NINE SEATS from 1974


A fantastic WHO DONE IT giallo mystery.

Sadly, due to a few real life situations, GIALLOctober wasn't as big as I thought tit was going to be. I still have a few videos in mind to take on, but I'm not going to be able to do the lineup I had originally wanted. Ah, life. :)






And...as a special bonus...a silly little BEHIND THE SCENES vid! :)

GIALLOctober: EYEBALL (1975)

GIALLOctober Video Series - EYEBALL (1975)

The video series keeps rolling along as I talk about EYEBALL from 1975. What a wild film this was. I really dug it.

Comments welcome!

GIALLOctober Episode II: Violent Giallo

Hey there Horror Fans!

GIALLOctober continues with a look at some more violent giallo films by Mario Bava, Aldo Lado, Sergio Martino, and Juan Piquer Simón.

You can also view this directly on YouTube or directly on Vimeo.




I'm so sorry about the keying quality. It turns out my new green screen location is not going to be so great. I have this episode and one more in the can already, but afterwards I'll be back in better form with less flickering on me!

GIALLOctober: Welcome to the Video Series!

It's that time of year!

THE HORROR SHOW presents
The GIALLOctober Video Series! 


You can video the video here, on YouTube, or on VIMEO. Please leave a comment! :)

In this series, we'll be covering some of our gialli favorites. Every week, we'll be releasing one or two videos giving a high level overview of a group of giallo film favorites with a given theme.

The Themes
The themes will be rather broad and we'll try to keep them spoiler free, but we'll give fair warning if a spoiler or two creep in around the edges. The planned themes are:

THE STRANGE
THE VIOLENT
CRIMES AND KILLERS
THE CULT OF EDWIGE FENECH
MY FAVORITES TO DATE
MODERN TAKES ON THE GIALLO GENRE

We'd love to here from you! Please leave a comment on the video or here on the blog!

My Favorite DREW DAYWALT Horror Shorts

One of my favorite horror creators is Drew Daywalt. Around 8 years back, I started seeing a bunch of his horror shorts and loved them. I'd get so much pleasure in not only watching them myself, but rewatching them with others to see their reactions to the freaky tales.

I believe Drew was a script writer for a long while and branched out into doing these shorts to escape. heheh  He wrote them and Directed some of them as well. I love his pace and the fact that none of the shorts overstay their welcome. They get in, get creepy, then get out after delivering a punch or two. He's gone on to write two lovely children's books!

I wanted to share some of my favorites here, but feel free to check out his page for the full offering of shorts and his horror series.


https://www.youtube.com/user/DaywaltFearFactory/videos








And we get a little AJ Bowen in this one!




And lastly, this is some of my favorite "ghost footage" stuff. So well done. So creeeeeepy.




Dread Central Interview can be found here:
http://www.dreadcentral.com/news/13978/drew-daywalt-talks-fewdio-and-camera-obscura/

Marilyn Manson - Tattooed In Reverse (Music Video)

More Marilyn Manson goodness here with Tattooed In Reverse. A nice find passed along from Agent Krista B.


Some cool, freaky visuals that we here at the HORROR SHOW just love. This time, Mr. MM picked Courtney Love to be his guest star and she tears it up as a wicked nurse in the video. Nice to see that they decided to kiss...or kill...and make up. :) It would have been nice to see her a bit more, like Mr Depp in pervious videos. But, beggars can't be choosers. heh

NSFW!  Well, depending on where you work.

Who is this beauty? None of the articles seem to say - overshadowed by C. Love, sadly

"Twins of Evil - The Second Coming" tour dates:

Jul. 11 - Detroit, MI @ DTE Energy Music Center 
Jul. 14 - St. Louis, MO @ Hollywood Casino Amphitheater 
Jul. 15 - Chicago, IL @ Hollywood Casino Amphitheater 
Jul. 17 - Cuyahoga Falls, OH @ Blossom Music Center
Jul. 18 - Noblesville, IN @ Ruoff Home Mortgage Center 
Jul. 20 - Virginia Beach, VA @ Veteran’s United 
Jul. 21 - Bristow, VA @ Jiffy Lube Live 
Jul. 24 - Holmdel, NJ @ PNC Bank Arts Pavilion 
Jul. 25 - Pittsburgh, PA @ Keybank Pavilion 
Jul. 26 - Toronto, ON @ Budweiser Stage 
Jul. 29 - Bangor, ME @ Waterfront Darling's Pavilion 
Aug. 07 - Wantagh, NY @ Jones Beach 
Aug. 08 - Mansfield, MA @ Xfinity Center 
Aug. 09 - Camden, NJ @ BB&T Pavilion 
Aug. 11 - Hartford, CT @ The Xfinity Theatre 
Aug. 12 - Darien lake, NY @ Darien Lake Amphitheater 
Aug. 14 - Atlanta, GA @ Cellairis Amp at Lakewood 
Aug. 16 - Dallas, TX @ Starplex Pavilion
Aug. 17 - Austin, TX @ Austin 360 
Aug. 18 - Woodlands, TX @ Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion 
Aug. 20 - Denver, CO @ Pepsi Center 
Aug. 22 - Salt Lake City, UT @ USANA Amphitheater 
Aug. 24 - Chula Vista, CA @ Mattress Firm Amphitheater
Aug. 25 - Las Vegas, NV @ MGM Grand Garden Arena 
Aug. 26 - Phoenix, AZ @ AK Chin Pavilion 
Aug. 28 - Concord, CA @ Concord Pavilion
Aug. 29 - Irvine, CA @ Fivepoint Amphitheater 

Marilyn Manson: KILL4ME video

Agent K.BaRToN hipped me to another amazing Marilyn Manson video recently. I have to say, the man is knocking it out of the park with this latest round of videos. This time, editor Bill Yukich is in the Director chair. Yukich has worked on videos for Beyoncé, Selena Gomez, Maroon 5, Audioslave, and Godsmack just to name a few, but it's always been in the editor chair. It's obvious from this KILL4ME video that he'll be doing a lot more Directing in the near future. The video is grand.

And, of course I love it because it has a very giallo feel to it. Masked Manson in a trench. Johnny Depp rolling about with women lit with reds and blues. The video has a fantastic look and is a grand bed for the heaving hitting, grinding beat of the song and it's dark lyrics. Matt Bass' cinematography is fantastic.

Check it!

MARILYN MANSON - SAY10 (Official Music Video)

Holy Crap! Another amazing video from Marilyn Manson! 

Special Agent Barton brought this to my attention and I'm so happy that she did. The video has this horror / giallo feel that I love. This recent series of videos from him have been so far out of the realm of what's socially acceptable that they are all incredibly fun to watch.

And...Johnny Depp?  Wild stuff!

The Endless looks amazing

There are times when I see a trailer and just shrug it off as something that's not for me. Happens a lot. I don't bash the film. Why do that? People spent time on it. I just know I'm not the target and move on.



However, THE ENDLESS is the polar opposite of that. When I saw the trailer, I was so excited that I started posting it all over the place, doing a little happy chair dance and talking about how good it looked.


And, seeing as it's coming from the same folks that made SPRING and RESOLUTION, I have very good feelings about how much I'm going to love it unless something really went off the rails somewhere. Those other films were fantastic.

I NEED A SCREENER, STAT! hehehehe    Well...I guess that would only be a value add for them if I had more followers. :::grin::   BUT STILL - send me a sceener!    ((Is that how you do it? Beg?))

Marilyn Manson - WE KNOW WHERE YOU FUCKING LIVE (Official Music Video)

LORDY! 

Mr. Marilyn Manson - you are doing things up BIG!

Marilyn Manson's new video - WE KNOW WHERE YOU FUCKING LIVE - features home invasion, explosions, LOTS of guns.....and fetish nuns...who eventually get inside the family's home....and sexually assault them.   It's right out of the grindhouse, 1970s catalogue! Wild stuff!

Needless to say....this is not for the mild hearts in the world. Whew!

Lake Nowhere, Exists, and hellos

I'm trying out a new little format - a video review!

I was watching LAKE NOWHERE and was inspired to toss my hat into the video ring. However, this isn't going to be the quality all the time. I plan on giving this a shot a few more times in October with proper lighting and a better intro. I literally did this on my laptop with candle lighting and a glass of whiskey. hehehe

LAKE NOWHERE was a fun little throwback to my time as a teen watching VHS tapes with friends until the wee hours of the morning. 50 minutes of time machine goodness. The story was odd and interesting and they managed to get the classic 80s tropes in without pushing them too hard. I guess the one downside to it was that somewhere in the mix they awkwardly transitioned into a more standard horror film, dropping the 80s throwback feel a bit. Still really good, but it felt like they lost the desire to keep the gag going a bit. Hard to explain. Still a fun, worthwhile watch.

EXISTS was a tense little found footage film. I'm usually not a found footage guy, but this was really well executed and tight. It even hooked my wife in and she's not a genre fan.

I really should come up with a little nickname for my wife and her genre input. heh I'll work on a little cute name for her. :) I'm always impressed when she watches a film I'm watching, even more impressed if she truly watches - sans phone - and is interested, then wowed when she actually mentions the film the next day. EXISTS got a next day mention - a positive feeling and thought on the length and story line. It really was a grand little thrill fest with limited "WTF?!" moments carried out by characters. Enjoyed it MUCH more than Willow Creek.

Feedback is welcome! I'd love to hear what you think! 
((...keeping in mind that the production quality will go way up on the next rev!))

Messiah of Evil

Wow. Messiah of Evil (1973) is one of those special films. It's really strange, really slow, but it somehow manages to hold your attention.

A woman ventures out to where her Father was living to try and locate him after he's gone missing. He's an artist and his home is full of his disturbing, modern art. The beautiful Marianna Hill plays her role as daughter Arletty to perfection as she drifts around trying to find her Father , but the town of Point Dune is a place that's far better to drive through than to stay in.

We have voice over from not only the woman searching for her Father, but the Father as well. There is SO MUCH talking in this film it's amusing. But, it's saving grace is the numerous creepy arse scenes within it. If you can hold out they are worth the wait.

Or, you can skim through and find them - that works as well. :::grin::

I actually watched the whole film and enjoyed the pace. Especially since I have a cold going. I needed a slow burn to keep me company for a while. If you like a slow burn 70s creeper, you really may enjoy Messiah.

If you have the time - and maybe some coffee to keep you awake - I recommend a SOMETHING IS WRONG IN TOWN TRIPLE BILL with Messiah of Evil, Carnival of Souls and the most awesome DEAD AND BURIED...my personal fave.

•• ADDING TO THIS POST AFTER LISTENING TO THE TERROR TRANSMISSIONS EPISODE ON THE FILM - http://terrortransmission.com/2012/06/15/ep70-messiah-of-evil/

 Well well, the TERROR TRANSMISSIONS podcast on this film was eye opening. The film ran into several snags along the way, starting with a budget set at a mere $100,000 which was then skimmed down to $85,000 due to some "interesting business practices". The original script wasn't shot in it's entirety. More financial issues saw that some of the footage was taken away. Just a perfect storm of production nightmares.

It all made more sense after hearing about these backstory dramas playing out. It makes me sad, really. The described additions would have really changed the film.

That being said, here it is 24 hours later and I'm still thinking about scenes and characters. I do believe that if you are a fan of 70s horror, Italian style horror, or films like the aforementioned Carnival of Souls or Dead and Buried, you really need to see this film.

Watch in full below! :)

Dominique is Dead

Michael Anderson (LOGAN'S RUN, AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS) directed this fine little chiller from 1979. It's not a perfect film, mind you, but it has a charm to it. Like a warm blanket for me. Perfect for viewing on the sofa under a blanket.

Cliff Robertson and Jean Simmons play Mr and Mrs Ballard. Dominique Ballard had suffered a nasty fall down some stairs and seems to be having some issues with knowing what she's doing and saying while bumping around the old house. She has arguments she doesn't remember. She seems to have stolen a bracelet from one of her dinner guests. Then...she sees someone hanging in the greenhouse. Is she loosing her mind?

Well, as the title says, she doesn't live long. She hangs herself in the same greenhouse she saw her grim vision in. However, it's not long before Mr. Ballard starts seeing visions of his own. Visions...of Dominique. 

I don't really want to say more about the film here for fear of spoiling things. It's a simple film, but the way it's played out makes me happy. There are some fun visuals and interesting twists. (Albeit, simple ones that a movie lover will see coming from miles away. hehehe)

Available on YouTube and Amazon Prime at the posting of this article. Video below.

Common Shiner's Social Mediasochist | Teen Slasher Parody

These guys TOTALLY NAIL IT with this fantastic, comedy video. A lot of work went into it. It's a perfect way to kick off the Halloween pre-game! :)

Count the references - see if you can catch 'em all! There are a LOT of gags in here.

Laura Panic

Adam Wingard seems like a guy that is just driven to get stuff out into the world and he's not scared of working hard to do so. From Tumbler to Twitter to events and creative, he seems like he's constantly moving and striving. It's inspiring to see. I've been trying to play catch up with some previous works (I recently caught his co-directed feature Autoerotic - so good) and LAURA PANIC popped into view.






The plot is rather simple in this 2008 short. An obsessed girl follows her love and gets in a bit of a...situation...with his room mate. Did I mention that she's bonkers?

Oh, young love.

While the voice over isn't 100% with me (no voice over ever really is with me), it's the only way this story could be told keeping with it's style. The acting and edits are sound and the Adam Wingard style is definitely there.

I love the work coming out of these indie directors, writers and actors of late. Wingard, West, Barret, Eisener, Sánchez....they are just turning out really grand work and I hope that it keeps on coming!It's also fun to see actors returning to work with the same group from time to time. The "Laura" character was played by Hannah Hughes who went on to be in another Wingard item from V/H/S/2 - the "Phase I Clinical Trials" segment. Working with the same actors and writers seems like a good way to go if everyone wants to keep creating great content. You already know each other and when you hit the set, you're ready to roll. It must be fantastic.

Check out LAURA PANIC. 

Hell No

'Tis the Season...for horror.

We see a LOT of horror related movies and articles fly around at this time of year and there is usually a flood of horrible horror that makes use of every trope imaginable to fuel weak story lines and silly situations.

The makers of HELL NO take a look at people doing what everyone sensible would do in classic, horror related movie trope situations. So good. :)

Treehouse of Horror XXIV Couch Gag by Guillermo del Toro

Another brilliant TREEHOUSE OF HORROR intro. There is a LOT in this one. Movie and literature references galore!   Fun stuff.

Link: http://youtu.be/CtgYY7dhTyE