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/

I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House

I made time to watch I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House and I'm glad I did. Let me start off by saying a BUNCH of people are going to HATE this film. It's been my experience that when a film is a slow, slow burn people detest it. When it takes it's time and drifts around a bit with no jump scares or super loud music ques to pop them away from time to time, they moan and grumble about it being boring like a petulant three year old in line at the grocery store.

However I love these films. I sink in and snuggle in to them like I'm huddled in a warm blanket. Films like The Innkeepers and other Ti West fair and lovely, novel-like dreams like The Last Will and Testament of Rosalind Leigh make me incredibly happy in their quiet, calm pace. It really is a little like reading a good book to me. I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House is just that in spades.


The film tells the tale of Lily (Ruth Wilson), a nurse taking care of an elderly writer named Iris Blum (the wondrous Paula Prentiss). The house was built ages ago and has a secret. Standard stuff here, of course, but the cast of six makes it interesting. It's a gothic haunted house tale, but the delivery is what makes it something I found to be all at once creepy and beautiful. Prose opens the story and should act like a weeding out process. If the glacier-like pace of the intro bothers you, just wrap it up and stop watching because the whole of the film is the same way really.

Lily putters around the house and takes care of Iris, but slowly comes to realize that there's something other than the two of them present in the home. A small mystery for Lily to look into while she tries to keep herself busy, things rapidly escalate and twist into something surprisingly effective.

And....thank you Oz Perkins for your grand story and simple direction. We're allowed to roam through the old house with Lily - sweeping along bright hallways and empty rooms, but are never smacked around with bombastic scores, audio assaults to underline horror elements, or hyper-kinetic camera moves to emphasize distress. We're just shown what we are meant to see. And that in and of itself is very creepy, brooding, and gloomy in a wondrous, gothic way. Netflix knocks out another fantastic original offering!

I was locked onto the screen the whole time - my phone face down and away so I would not miss a frame. It looks like five out of the eight reviews on METACRITIC (at the time of me writing this) agree that the film is well worth a watch with the other three seeming to be in the camp of the three year old I discussed in the opening paragraph. :::grin::: 

If you want a great story in the vein of classic haunted house stories of the past - along the lines of the fantastic works of M. R. James, please give I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House a watch and let me know what you think.  Currently available on NETFLIX.

Do you like horror movies?

"Do you like 

                            horror movies too?"

The Bay

Well, I can see why The Bay might have missed the mark with a few folks at the box office. It's not 28 Days Later-like as the trailer kinda leans towards. It's more of an eco-horror film about the "what ifs" involved in pollution in a local area. And, I loved it.

Firstly, Barry Levinson Directed it. Barry "The Natural, Good Morning Vietnam, Rain Man, and more" Levinson. The man is fan-frucking-tastic!

The film is a found footage film, but it's done properly. They've used various video sources, but they do it in such a way where the framing isn't perfect and the aspect ratio of the visual changes based on the device. As someone who is constantly rolling his eyes as perfectly framed found footage, this aspect helped to keep me firmly locked in the reality the film was trying to present to the audience.


Which brings me to another aspect of this film that I loved - the story. Barry Levinson and Michael Wallach (with just The Bay under his belt currently) present a scenario that I found to be believable and frucking frightening. Thought a series of political, economic and tragic events, a bay in Maryland - Levinson's birth place - is polluted and some of the small creatures that live in it's waters are not so small anymore. They have also managed to get into the town's drinking and use water...which can't be a good thing. The body horror in this film had me squirming. It's not "slasher fear", it's grotesque and nasty business that was made very real.

I really enjoyed this film. The pace and flow of it was grand. We're introduced to characters enjoying 4th of July festivities who we are told are going to be dead by the evening and it brings a rather dark tone to the whole of the film. And, an intense feeling of dread. We know things are going to get very bad very quickly and we are not given a chance to warn anyone - it's already over. And, the fact that there are very few recognizable faces in the film makes things more believable as well. Kristen "Cabin in the Woods" Connolly actually wrecked this for me. When I saw her, I thought, "Oh...it's her," and it took me out of the film a bit.

This is far from an action film. It's not a zombie film, infected film or anything of the sort, either. It's a monster film if anything. Very tiny, nasty little monsters.

Like a slow burn, plot based gross out with a very real feel to it? You'll love The Bay.


METACRITIC gives it 65 out of 100. I'd go 80 easy.

Gore v. Fear: What's scary?

I was sitting here the other night watching THE CAR (...and giggling).  It was rated PG and didn't have much gore or blood or...well...anything. But, it was still engaging, even if the story was a little thin. I think I remember some blood on a wall at one point - that's all.

Then I thought about it not being at all scary because the premise was just rather flat. One car driving around just wasn't scary to me. I'd just run up a hill, down stairs....so many ways to get away from a car.

That, in turn, got me thinking about what really scares me. Gore in films tends to just be gross to me. (Sure...FUN, but...) Blood and guts are just that and they don't get me scared. Story based tension really gets me. Situations that place people I care about at risk. Showing the gore can up the risk factor and danger, but the true fear comes from the "surface tension" and story. And, there's just no fear if I don't care about the characters.

It's not to say that I don't enjoy a great splatterfest like BRAIN DEAD or EVIL DEAD, but the viscera just doesn't scare me on it's own. (Honestly, not much can really scare me these days.)


Films like SAW don't put fear in me at all. Neither does something like HOSTEL. (Those of you who frequent the site already know how I feel about those films as a whole.)  But, it's not the violence that really makes these films a wash for me. It's the violence with nothing at stake. Nothing is at stake because the characters are so hollow that I really don't like them, which makes it difficult to care what happens to them.


Now, bring in some heavy hitters. Films like MARTYRS or INSIDE manage to ramp the gore factor way up, but that's not the draw. It's a solid story with fleshed out characters. You care about them and about what happens to them, so the threat of violence makes the stakes higher and the outcome more frighting. The fear stems from the situation. I want the characters to survive. I'm invested.

The 60s and 70s were thick with violent, gore-fests. NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, THE BEYOND, I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE, DEEP RED,  and THE WIZARD OF GORE were just some of the wet-works to come out of that time. Many of the films of the period were exploitation based with little or no attention to story, but some like the aforementioned DEEP RED had very strong story lines that the gore was meant to support.

Now, ramp it back a bit.

In 1973, a little film came out called THE EXORCIST. It didn't have chainsaws, hatchets, or body horror. It had a little girl that was possessed by something evil. Why was that frighting? Because we spend a lot of time with the family beforehand. We see them play, laugh and love. We identify with that. We care. When things start going bad for them, we actually don't WANT then to get hurt.

  
ROSEMARY'S BABY had people squirming, but I'm not sure there was any blood in it at all.

Now, the other side of this little coin is films - like SAW - where the main goal is to "Set 'em up and knock 'em down". I use this term for films where the main goal is the introduction of canon fodder. People introduced to get killed. There is a HUGE market for these films and I think they have their place, but they just do not illicit fear in me. It's more like what was going on back in the coliseum. "RELEASE THE LIONS!", as the crowd roars to life and the victims meet their deaths. Bloodsport done on a more humane level. 

I love a film like THE INNKEEPERS or INSIDIOUS or DEAD SET (BBC) where the stakes are high due to a good script, good story development and characters I care about. I don't need the gore like I did when I was a teen. Back then, I was in love with the monstrous visions of folks like Dario Argento - violent, bloody and nasty with the wet stuff. But, when I re-watched SUSPERIA recently, I realized that even the violent nightmares Argento put to screen were story based and packed with character development.

I also find that I'm more scared while watching a film if I can identify with a situation or character. 28 DAYS LATER and 28 WEEKS LATER had my heart racing a few times. There's one scene where a guy freaks out and leaves a loved one to escape from zombies. I found that horrid and horrifying.  Then he has to flee as a horde chases him down when he tries to make his way to an escape vehicle. It had my heart pounding.

And lack of fear doesn't mean I don't squirm from time to time due to the gross factor. The shivers are there, but that's not fear talking. :::grin:::

What do YOU look for in the scare department? Does the sight of blood instantly fill you with fear or just give you a little thrill? Do you need to care about characters to feel fear for their safety? 

Let me know! I'm curious!

Krampus

From the WIKI
"Krampus is a beast-like creature from the folklore of Alpine countries thought to punish bad children during the Christmas season, in contrast with Saint Nicholas, who rewards nice ones with gifts. Krampus is said to capture particularly naughty children in his sack and carry them away to his lair.

Krampus is represented as a beast-like creature, generally demonic in appearance. The creature has roots in Germanic folklore. Traditionally young men dress up as the Krampus in Austria, southern Bavaria, South Tyrol, Hungary, Slovenia and Croatia during the first week of December, particularly on the evening of 5 December, and roam the streets frightening children with rusty chains and bells. Krampus is featured on holiday greeting cards called Krampuskarten. There are many names for Krampus, as well as many regional variations in portrayal and celebration."


In short - HOLY CRAP! What better way to get your kids to behave than this sort of imagery?! Just tack a few of these Holiday Cards up around your home, point to them and say, "Yeah, keep misbehaving. Just keep it up."

Happy Holidays! :)

I AM A GHOST

This looks like it has some promise.

Taking place in a single Victorian house during an indeterminable time period, I AM A GHOST is a supernatural mystery that explores identity mixing experimental non-linear filmmaking with classic haunted house spookiness.

EMILY (Anna Ishida), a troubled spirit, haunts her own house every day, wondering why she can't leave. With the help of SYLVIA (Jeannie Barroga), a clairvoyant hired to rid the house of spirits, Emily is forced into a 'patient/therapist' relationship, uncovering disturbing mysteries about her past that may help her move on to 'the next place'.
Spooky, atmospheric and experimental, I AM A GHOST is the second narrative feature from H.P. Mendoza (writer of COLMA: THE MUSICAL and director of FRUIT FLY).

I AM A GHOST (Reviews Trailer #1) from H.P. Mendoza on Vimeo.

Nanny Cam Baby

Nanny Cam Baby on BlackBoxTV
Pretty messed up. Heh!

Scary Snowman

Yeah...sometimes these prank things go a bit too far.


This one doesn't seem as mean spirited as some.

So...we give it our blessing here at the HORROR SHOW.     :)

HALLOWEEN LIST 2012: Scares

This list is more a a general scare list. Films that you might have missed that fulfill the monster, gore or creep factors. Some of these have already been talked about here at the HORROR SHOW, but they are well worth mentioning again. We've linked titles to our reviews if they appear on THE HORROR SHOW. Take a look - you won't be disappointed.




 

TRICK R TREAT
One of my favorite Halloween anthology films. Several stories woven together expertly to create one of the best Halloween movies I know of. A must see in this or any season!







Monster Squad
Kids fighting classic movie monsters. Perfect.
This film has some great comic moments and is fun for...most of the family. No, this is no Charlie Brown Halloween, but the 10 and up set my dig it.







Night of the Comet
Classic 80s horror. When a comet passes by Earth, the lucky survivors are turned to powder while the unlucky ones are made into kill crazy mutants. Two teen girls seem to have dodged both death and becoming mutants, but can they stay out of harms way long enough to get some shopping done? :)





House of the Devil
Ti West brings in another home run with this creepy, "dark old house" chiller. Thick with atmosphere and story, this is a perfect film for a cold winter night.






 
Demons I and II
A personal fave - Demons and Demons II really need to be viewed together. No, the thin plots of the two don't really go together or complete each other. They are both just fun, completely BONKERS,  Italian Horror Gold films. Gore, goo and blood.






Night of the Demons (1988)
The ORIGINAL Night of the Demons is great, strange and a lot of fun to watch - especially with a group. The re-make is fine if you prefer a more modern take on things, but the classic cool of this 80s teen horror is the thing for me. A party at the "creepy old house" goes awry when demons are released. Perfect.




The Beyond (Italy)
More Italian Nightmare Cinema. This film has a bit of everything for everyone. The living dead, blood, dog attacks...it's all in there. This is a celluloid nightmare that works well around midnight, too.





House by the Cemetery (Italy)
Fulci blood, gore and violence. This film is just insane. A disfigured killer picks off folks one by one. Children scream. Bats get caught in hair. Blood is EVERYWHERE! Splatter fan must see.






Wild Zero (Japan)
Oh yes, Alien menace use the dead to attack humans. Rockers have to run for their lives. A transvestite falls in love. And, GUITAR WOLF must do what he can to save the world...with ROCK. This is a strange film, but so much fun. Having a party? Think about showing this. You'll get a bunch of laughs, some WTFs and some bloody goodness. 







Primal
Outback exploration goes wrong when something ancient starts to take people over...making them into something...PRIMAL!  Primal is not a fantastic film, but it definitely has its fun moments and wild visuals. And, some great teeth! CHOMP CHOMP!








 
The Ruins
Ok...this film is just frucking nasty. Body Horror fans need to see this at once. It's chilling and creepy and gross. It made my skin crawl throughout and I was kicking my feel out in front of me at times to bat the creeping menace the HELL away as I giggled and shivered.  Good fun!

Tourists in trouble once again as an adventure turns into a fight for survival. No, not from natives or zombies. No...something that really manages to get under their skin....

Refreshing film!

House by the Cemetery

Wild Zero

V/H/S

It's time! It's time!

The HORROR SHOW changed clothes, hung the robe on the hook and shock the dust off the outside coat. Slipping into shoes, I ventured out into the world...to see a NEW horror film. In the theater. Outside of the house!

V/H/S. What a wild ride. Felt like...a roller coaster. One where stuff was tossed at you as you ride!

NOTE: If you can avoid watching the trailer, do so. You'll be better off.  I found myself wishing I had not watched the trailer...over and over again. :)  But, that's the nature of trailers.

The visuals are still stuck in my head. Firmly and darkly branded onto my brain like a tattoo under the skin. I feel like an experiment. A test subject that's just been subjected to something very bad. Very wrong. I LOVE IT!

We have a collection of stories here. An all "cinema verité" style anthology, so if you get sick from shakes, avoid this one or take your Dramamine before seeing it. There's a whole lotta shakin' goin' on.

We have a classic set up. A group of thugs get hired to go snag a VHS tape from an old man's house. How many tapes? Just one. One, small VHS tape from an old man. How hard can that be? Difficult when there are many to choose from. Which is the right one? Better watch some...and check 'em out.

GO! 

Five...was it five? Stories. The stories roll and we slip from "watching" various tapes to seeing what our thug buddies are up to in the old man's place. I'm a sucker for this setup when done correctly and V/H/S nails it. The last film I saw that did this brilliantly was the GLORIOUS Trick R Treat.

No, I'm not going to ruin things by going into details. That would be telling.

Suffice it to say that the weakest two shorts in the V/H/S assault are still grand and thought provoking works of creepy goodness. Shocking, twisted, chilling and visually delicious - this is a fun movie that gets a lot of things right for sure.

There are downsides. I should reiterate that this is shot like it was shot on hand held, VHS cams. Small and twitchy. The jerking motion and shakes are rough at times, but it added to the realism. Another thing of note is a strange mix of empowering females and exploiting them. It wasn't bad, but it was noticeable and sometimes...distracting. (At times, in a good way...wink wink, nudge nudge) I did find myself thinking, "Why did she just take her top off there. Kinda odd," a few times, but I got over it when all hell broke loose yet again. 



They got a LOT right in this film.
Story was still the main focus. They didn't get too wrapped up in the "See what we're doing? They're tapes. VHS tapes. We're watching them, see?!" gimmick. They came at this film with great material FIRST, then executed - so to speak. :)
They also got the "person shooting with camera" right. Things were not framed perfectly. Things moved like people shooting home movies.
And most importantly, the actors were able to pull off the complex job of acting like they are not acting in all but one case of note. Pretty impressive.

I was hoping that V/H/S would have gotten the same sort of buzz something like PARANORMAL ACTIVITY got. Honestly, I think this is a better film when all is said and done. However, the machine has not latched onto this one like they did with Paranormal. Maybe they just have not gotten wind of it yet? I hope that's the case. I'll do my part to fight the good fight for this film. It deserves it.



 
V/H/S was a delight. I'm so happy.  





Directed by
Matt Bettinelli-Olpin         (as Radio Silence)
David Bruckner        
Tyler Gillett                       (as Radio Silence)
Justin Martinez                  (as Radio Silence)
Glenn McQuaid        
Radio Silence        
Joe Swanberg        
Chad Villella                      (as Radio Silence)
Ti West        
Adam Wingard        

Writing credits
(in alphabetical order)
Simon Barrett                    
Matt Bettinelli-Olpin        
David Bruckner        
Tyler Gillett        
Justin Martinez        
Glenn McQuaid        
Radio Silence        
Nicholas Tecosky        
Chad Villella        
Ti West