THE FUNERAL HOME ( LA FUNERARIA )

The Funeral Home was a solid little ghost story, but the real focus of the film really is just grim doom.

Bernardo runs a funeral home and lives in a house behind it with his family - his wife Estela and her daughter Irina. A mystery unfolds slowly as we watch the family spiral down into darkness. We get the classic bumps in the night and see that the family is doing its best to cope with whatever is going on in the house...and whoever is in there with them. 

People walk around like they are physically drained and without an ounce of joy in them. It's a very interesting take for the story. There's this feeling that everyone in the home is just being slowly crushed by gravity. Grim and resigned to just crawl through the day best they can. I loved that aspect of the film and that combined with the overall set design really set a mood that was very...very dark and sad. 

Now, this is a very slow burn and fans of a more CONJURING style of jump scare roller coaster may not find this to their liking. I, however, really enjoyed the trip. The acting is solid and the mystery around what is going on in the home is very well done and has some fantastic reveals as the film moves along. 

Mauro Iván Ojeda's writing and direction are fantastic. He manages to do a lot with the setting and lets the story unfold in a delightful way. I was riveted to the goings on and was all in on the ride. The way the story spun out along a very well defined line made it even more engaging. You're not just given everything via a spoon, but have to hang in there and work it out as the folks in the film work it out themselves. Loved it. 

I only had one item that I wasn't thrilled with in the film just because I'm not a fan of the type of plot point execution :::spoiler free::: , but I think it may just be on me and it was a very small bit of the whole, so I didn't really have all that hard a time making it through to the other side of it. :::grin::: All in all, I enjoyed the film and what it brought to the ghostly table. 

Fans of story and acting will want to check out La Funeraria for sure. 

GIALLOctober 2020: Eye in the Labyrinth (1972)

 Looking at a little giallo nugget that seems to be well loved in the Giallo Community.

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Alien Outbreak

This new poster is much better! :)

I recently had the pleasure of being surprised by another film. When I saw one of the posters for it, I shook my head and sighed. The poster showed a huge city with alien ships around it. I thought, "Not on your budget. That's not going to be happening."

Then....I saw the trailer and thought I'd give it a go. The trailer looks great.



As my screener started...my eyes narrowed and I viewed the film with caution. Ok, there were some things that I started to see here and there that set me off a bit, but they were rather small things that didn't take away from the fact that I was locked onto the screen. (Some dodgy audio mixing and camera moves in the beginning paired with the lead actor and her rather interesting acting style that I had to get used to)

But, as the film unfolded and the plot started to be revealed, I was totally sucked in and loving where things were going.

We have a classic alien attack film here, but with a few really interesting new ideas added into the mix. It seems that they are able to make people have suicidal thoughts, which ups the danger and risk factors overall. When will our leads be driven to take their own lives like many others in their town?

They also kept it set in a small town which was a major win as I see it. If they had tried to run this scenario in a large city, this film would have gone the sad way some others have gone in the past leaving you to wonder why we don't see more people and why we're limited to a few locations that seem to be in an abandoned warehouse district somewhere. :::grin:::  I've seen this MANY times before and it's distracting and upsetting. heh  These folks play well within their budget and it's grand.

The small UK village feel really locked me into the story. The police officer leads who were in the area knew the people they were trying to help and the people knew them. They had a history. That aspect made things more interesting for sure.

And gore? Yup! There are some really grand splatter effects that manage to add to the story without being too distracting. CGI effects blended with what looked like practical effects seemed super seamless.

What I was REALLY impressed with here, however, was the 3D and effects work. This is not a major budget epic. It's not even an indie funded medium level effort, I don't think. However, the effects are very good and there are a lot of them. They don't hide things in darkness or used the "camera as villain" to avoid having to show the aliens and the tech. They full on show rather cool looking tech monster robots attacking and stalking in full light. Massive ships take to the skies and sweep past trees. HUGE alien figures stroll along at roughly two stories in height and I was loving every minute of it. They were solid and locked into the scenes and felt like they had weight and that they were actually IN the scene instead of being pasted on top.

VERY difficult to do, but seeing as writer / director Neil Rowe looks like he has a VFX background, it seems like he knew exactly what he was doing. The story and direction are engaging and interesting and the whole film holds up right through to the end. Our leads Katherine Drake and Ritchie Crane have a lot of good dialogue to work with and the supporting cast is not only up to the challenge, but have some grand, WORLD WAR Z-like monologues to sink into.

ALIEN OUTBREAK is well worth a viddy!!! 
I believe the release date is Feb 11, 2020

 From IMDB
In a small rural community local police officers Zoe and Patrick begin their shift as normal but it soon becomes clear that something is wrong. Strange events unfold before their eyes, residents begin behaving strangely and mass suicide panic spreads amongst the community they are trying to protect. Zoe and Patrick realise they are under siege from alien machines as they become cut off from the outside world. They are forced to do battle against these uninvited visitors. Can Zoe and Patrick save their community and the outside world from extinction?

HORROR SHOW VIDEO: Body Melt (1993)

This time we cover the gross, body horror stylings of BODY MELT from 1993. 

We have a review up if you'd like to read more about the film:
https://horrorsho.blogspot.com/2019/03/body-melt.html

You owe it to yourself to give this film a viddy!

Terrified (Aterrados) 2017

SHUDDER has done it again, bringing the super fun film TERRIFIED (Aterrados)  to US audiences. There are times where a film just ticks off every box for me and this ghostly tale did just that.

The story revolves around several families in a small neighborhood in Buenos Aires and the strange events happening to them. Certain supernatural happenings are starting to run rampant for people and it doesn't show signs of stopping. When the police and a small team of investigators get involved, things really begin to run off the rails.








The story is super tight and we're danced through various happenings and are treated to a few perspective shifts that really created a lot of interest for me. It would be easy to break the story into parts and tell it in a chapter based format, but the flow here is expertly done and the choices the writer / director Demián Rugna makes are fantastic.





I heard a podcast say that there was really no explanation for what was happening and I have to differ. The investigators say everything they happen to know about what's going on, even if that may not be a whole lot, but that's all they really should know in this case. If they pulled out some ancient tome and started reading about what we we seeing, I'd be a bit pissed off. The way things were presented here kept enough information available, but didn't try to give you everything. It really left the right amount to the imagination.

The acting is top notch as well and all the characters are believable and realistic.  There was fantastic character development and some character shifts that were very engaging. I was all in on the arcs presented and really felt for most of the people in the film - caring about what was happening to them and really wanting to see them make it through.

Maximiliano Ghione

Above all I loved Maximiliano Ghione as Detective Funes. He nails the wide range he need to span here. He's the together and suave cop who's just about to retire to the terrified officer who is having second thoughts about his involvement. There are small comedy bits that are subtle and solid as well. It looks like he was mostly on TV, but he completely nailed his film role here.

The atmosphere is downright thick and creepy. This neighborhood is simple and sweet looking during the day, but some of the internal house shots at night were nightmare inducing. Taking that atmosphere and introducing some fantastic scares made it a whole lot of fun.




And the jump scares.....  ::::whew:::  They were really well done and completely earned. You need to EARN your jump scares, people. Kicking the volume up on a piercing music hit doesn't count. It's the equivalent of slapping someone in the face and bragging that you made them blink. Really drawing people in....baiting the hook....then springing on them visually is the way I love seeing it done and TERRIFIED does it a few times. I was giggling like a kid! There are some damn creepy visuals in here and I loved every one of them.

The saddest thing about the film were the comments made on SHUDDER's youTube channel where  the Terrified trailer lived. People are actually complaining about the fact that Shudder has a lot of foreign horror. Some even said that it was nothing but a streaming service only for foreign horror. The comments were ridiculous.

Oh look: another potentially great horror entry for Shudder...that will be completely unavailable to rent or own on physical media.

Um...GREAT! IF it's not on physical media, I'm happy Shudder has it available. YAY FOR HORROR!

Oh look at that... another foreign movie.....I wouldn't recommend shudder to anybody unless they fluently speak more than 2 languages.....the amount of English content is embarrassing

This is just a false statement. Shudder is adding new content ALL the time and at least 50% of the added titles seem to be in English. Hey..spoiler...there are other countries on the plant and not all of them speak English. Hate to break it to you.

See? THIS is why we can't have nice things!  

Shudder has one of the best horror streaming services available with a large selection of all sorts of films from all over the world. WHY would you complain about that at $10 a month, people?! Don't like foreign films? Here's an idea - don't watch them. You could watch one of the MANY other film offerings Shudder has for viewing. There are plenty of people who love foreign films and don't mind subtitles. It just seemed like a rather backwards way of thinking, but...that seems to be the going view for many people these days, sadly.

ANYWAY......TERRIFIED is a fantastic watch. If you are able to read and don't mind subtitles or foreign films, you need to check this gem out. And...if you don't like foreign films, skip it. You can watch the English remake that Guillermo Del Toro is producing when it comes out!

See? Easy, right?   :::grin:::

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!

Giallo A Venezia (1979)

If you like your gialli sleazy, naked, and gross, have I got one for you! GIALLO A VENEZIA from 1979 is all that and then some!

Jeff Blynn is the untra-hip Inspector Angelo De Pol and he just got a case that has him pealing eggs and waving his hands around like crazy. :::grin:::  I'm not sure what Jeff was up to in the film, but his character eats eggs throughout as he tries to sort things out. He's the only thing bigger than his constant hand gestures is his amazing hair. But...I digress.

Fabio (Gianni Dei) and Flavia (the stunning Leonora Fani) are found dead near a canal and there are several odd points in the crime scene that get the giallo crime gears moving. The story itself is rather straight forward when the film starts, but it takes a few grim turns that make this film a challenge to watch. See, we find out in flashback that ole Fabio is a bit of a pervert. He loves being watched when making love to his wife and the stakes keep getting higher and higher as he turns his flailing sex life around by acts of violence and swinging. Flavia loves him, so she plays along, but her enjoyment drops rapidly as the stakes are raised.


We're "treated" to some really sleezy and naughty sex scenes that reveal some of Director Mario Landi's sexy cinema movie stylings. A  failed sex attempt leads to a lengthy masturbation scene which dives RIGHT into rape. We have explicit wife sharing in a theater and a really, REALLY nasty murder scene involving a prostitute, a classic mirrored sunglasses killer,  and a pair of scissors that was one of the most sexually violent scenes I've seen. The film leans more towards a sex thriller, really.

The only thing that really made it worth a watch to me was the De Pol character and the madness that surrounded him. I mean...the friggin eggs all the time was a strange character highlight. It's just bonkers. And when he comes up with theories, he gesticulates and emphasizes with his hands so much it's a beautiful distraction. And lastly, it seems like he has one outfit that he wears all the time. Very wild.

As a giallo, Giallo A Venezia is not high on my re-watch list. I doubt I will ever watch it again. It's a fine mystery and the story is well done even if it's SUPER dark and disturbing. However, it does fit the gialli criteria for VIOLENCE and SEXUALITY, so if you have a strong stomach and like your crime giallo packed with sex and hip organ music, this is the film for you.

The House of the Yellow Carpet - La Casa del Tappeto Giallo (1983)

What an odd little movie this is. I think I liked it, but it's odd.


Running very much like a play with four actors, we meet Franca and Antonio and the titular yellow carpet. The two are trying to sell the massive carpet and they have someone coming to look it over. Antonio runs off to do something leaving Franca home by herself when the man in need of a carpet arrives. And then...things go sideways. I'll say no more about it.








Like I said, it runs like a three act play. There are only four characters in the whole of it and it takes place in an apartment that is rather small, so there's a claustrophobic feeling throughout the film that adds to the tension. It's a slow burn, but I really liked it.




All four actors are grand. Erland Josephson, Béatrice Romand, Vittorio Mezzogiorno, and Milena Vukotic were all super solid in their roles. That really needed to be the case here. If one or two of them failed, the whole film would fall to pieces. 

Carlo Lizzani's direction is grand here as well. The man has 73 director credits and another 48 writing credits. I'd love to see more of his work.

If you are looking for a giallo style mystery with less blood and guts and more story and acting, you'll want to check out The House of the Yellow Carpet! It's a great watch.

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!

The Night of the Virgin

THE NIGHT OF THE VIRGIN  ((La noche del virgen (original title)) is a wild, wild ride. Director Roberto San Sebastián and writer Guillermo Guerrero really hit a home run with this horror comedy playing on SHUDDER at the time of this posting. Man...I love SHUDDER! :)

It's a story told in basically one location. Poor Noco (Javier Bódalo) is stuck at a club alone on New Years Eve. His hopes of "hooking up" for the new year are a mere countdown away from never happening. But then he sees Medea (Miriam Martín) and things start to look up. Sure, she's older than him, but she has a great body and....well....she's looking right at him.
They go back to her place and that's where we're going to camp out for the rest of the film. Medea's apartment is a wreck. Dirty, filled with roaches, and horrid. Medea herself seems to be running hot and cold - being sweet to Nico one moment, then being harsh with him the next. But, poor Nico is still hanging in there for the promised sexual encounter, no matter how horrible the apartment or Medea's actions.
But, what is it that Medea really wants from him? And, will her boyfriend, "Spider" (Víctor Amilibia) eventually get through the front door to kill poor Nico?

The film hits on all cylinders. When SHUDDER and the viewers there were talking about how disturbing and gross it was, I had to roll my eyes. I mean, horror folks here this kinda crap all the time. "It was SO GROSS that people left the theater.....passed out....threatened to take the makers to court!" Most of the time, this is far from the case for a horror movie lover. We've usually seen it done before - more often than not done better as well. But, this film delivers. It does get pretty gross.

I believe the comedy elements work really well, even if you're not usually a lover of foreign comedy. They are simple, cute, and sometimes painful.  Javier Bódalo is a show stealer with his wild teeth and crazy facial expressions and motions. The physical humor is hilarious as well as we watch our hero get battered and abused on screen. As the action ratchets up, so did my laughter and mutterings of, "Ok...yeah...that's really gross!" while I laughed and winced at the same time.

This is a slow burn, but it's SO worth a viddy. It's a funny and gross journey you'll really dig.

The trailer isn't TOO spoilery, but I'd probably aim to watch the film without looking at the trailer. That being said, the trailer is a fun edit! :) 

The Night of the Hunted

More Jean Rollin goodness here with THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTED. It's funny, now that I've seen several Rollin films and get his style, I'm liking them much more right out of the gate!

NIGHT tells the story of Elysabeth played by the stunning Brigitte Lahaie. She's wandering through the woods when Robert (Vincent Gardère) drives up and spies her. She's wearing a nightgown with no shoes and seems to be completely lost and slightly crazy. He manages to get her into the car and takes her back to his house when he finds out she can't remember anything. Nothing at all. It turns out her short term memory is shot and that she forgets things shortly after hearing them. (I believe that is short term memory damage)

Now... slightly shifty Robert wants to help her, of course. She's a mess and scared of what's as you do - and hold her close. After about 4 seconds of contemplation, he makes love to her passionately. heh   He has to do leave the apartment for work, but writes down his name and number and who he is so that when he gets home, she'll be able to place him as the man who lives in the apartment.




Shortly after he leaves, a man and woman show up to spirit Elysabeth out of the apartment and back to the odd, sterile clinic that she had made her way away from the night before.
happening to her.  But...you know...she's gorgeous and afraid and begs for him to make love to her -

The clinic is helping a group of people with the same memory issue and has them all there doing tests and treatments to fix them. But, is there something else going on as well? I don't want to say much more, though there really isn't a whole lot to spoil. There are the usual tropes in here, but the main fun is in the look and feel of the film, the acting, and the poetry of it, really.

For some reason, REDEMPTION video put this on their ZOMBIE COLLECTION 3pack! heheheh . This is not a zombie movie, though there are times where Elysabeth and her friend Solange are zombie-like in their movements. 


In typical Rollin fashion, the characters wax poetic about life and their situation and that makes me happy. Beautiful people stare off into space and recite prose that is just so very French and lovely. And there are strange little happenings like the aforementioned lovemaking between two strangers and a scene involving a bowl of soup later that is all at once heartbreaking and slightly humorous. There's a fever dream quality that I enjoy as well. People drift along as if sleepwalking. And the clinic is shown to be this massive high rise tower, but once you are inside it seems small and claustrophobic.


Then there are some unintentionally hilarious bits here and there like the doctor from the clinic shouting, "I want them alive!" right before firing several rounds at them with his gun. hehehehe . I loved that.

The film is a sad and poetic drama with some horror elements here and there - some of which are VERY horrific indeed, but it leans more towards THE IRON ROSE than towards THE LIVING DEAD GIRL or THE GRAPES OF DEATH on the Rollin scale. More story and character development than scares. I still enjoyed the film and was super happy to add it to my watched Rollin list.

If you are a fan of Jean Rollin and have missed this or if you love French cinema or dreamy dramas, you'll want to make time for THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTED for sure.

Ghost Stories (2017)

I waited. I waited some more. I waited longer still. All the while, my general excitement about GHOST STORIES was growing. When more and more positive reviews started coming in, my excitement was out of control. Finally, when I made time to sit down and watch, I was worried that I was bound to be disappointed due to the hype and hope I had for the film to knock my socks off. However, I was far from disappointed. On the contrary, I was so happy with the film I almost started it over right after it ended.

Andy Nyman of DEAD SET fame (for me at least) plays Professor Goodman who goes around proving that the supernatural happenings in the world are just make believe and fueled by tricksters. There was someone else who used to do the same thing back when Goodman was younger, but that man disappeared without a trace.  That is, until he resurfaces to present Goodman with three cases he couldn't disprove. He asks - no, BEGS Goodman to prove the cases are not real. And so we're off to the races and Goodman goes further and further down the rabbit hole as he interviews the three people involved with the three unsolved case files.

Now, this film could have been played out as found footage, but thankfully they avoid that. It would have been a disaster if they had gone that route. As it stands now, it's wonderfully shot and paced.

The three cases (sections) are gone through in really interesting ways. They were super creepy in a great way. Those familiar and as in love with the works of M.R. James as I am should be very happy with these strange little ghost tales. They take their time telling the story, but don't overstay their welcome at all. Things zip right along, then come to lovely rest stops of terror to really let you stew a bit.

The film's true superpower is simple to see. It's the storylines. They are super solid and roll out wonderfully. As we're introduced to each case persona, we get enough backstory on each person to get a good character base to work from. And with the acting chops of Nyman, Martin Freeman, Paul Whitehouse, and the wonderfully on edge performance of Alex Lawther (Black Mirror, The End of the F@#$ing World) , you are allowed to really sink into the tales as they unfold. The writer/director team of Jeremy Dyson and Andy Nyman really needs to create more films. Period.

I love the overall look of the film as well. It actually reminded me of some of Hammer's more gothic offerings. The whole muted tone of the visuals adds to the feeling of dread that just drips off the screen.

Now, I think I'll stop here for fear of saying something spoilery.

I friggin' LOVED this film. At one point I stood up and muttered, "Holy f@#$....whooooa...."  and at another I was giggling saying, "Oh no no no nooooo...." while watching.

I can't wait to watch this one again. (I caught it on Amazon)