SECRET SATAN 2023

[odessasteps]

 

[driver]

8 hours ago, Curt McGirt said:

I'm not spooked by (or interested in) J-horror and ghost stories as a rule*, just personal taste, but I saw those blackened images in Pulse's clip on the Shudder "best of horror" show and it was creepy stuff. 

* There are always exceptions. Burnt Offerings, The Haunting, The Changeling being a few.

The ending of Burnt Offerings messed with my head when I saw it. Then again I was 8 or so and it was being shown on NBC on a Saturday night.

[driver]

3 hours ago, odessasteps said:

 

This is wild. I heard another podcast about this same movie earlier this week. 

Edited October 26, 2023 by driver

[Curt McGirt]

4 hours ago, driver said:

The ending of Burnt Offerings messed with my head when I saw it. Then again I was 8 or so and it was being shown on NBC on a Saturday night.

I LOVE that ending. What a great release to a film-long buildup to that point. 

The funny thing about The Changeling is when they showed it on the same Shudder series, they just talked about the red ball and George C. Scott's performance and didn't bring up the wheelchair scene at all! That's the biggest shock in the whole movie, and still utterly terrifying! Insane. 

[Curt McGirt]

Also, I'm gonna try and have some more extras written tonight just as a little extra material to get us to Halloween. It'll make me watch some shit. 

[J.T.]

Spikima has a wonderful analysis of the slo-mo ghost scene in Kairo.

And yeah, the end of Burt Offerings fucked me up as a kid.

I recently rewatched The Changeling on ScreamBox.  It definitely hits me harder now that I am a father than it did when I was a horror dude in the audience checking out the new hotness.

Cure was my pick last year, so I am happy to see that someone finally picked Pulse.  I honestly don't think that Kiyoshi Kurosawa intentionally sets out to make horror films.  He makes movies critiquing Japanese society that just happen to be absolutely terrifying.

Edited November 1, 2023 by J.T.

[odessasteps]

Imagine if he got to make a Godzilla movie.

[RIPPA]

THE TORTURE CHAMBER OF DR. SADISM (aka The Blood Demon) (Harald Reinl, 1967)

IMDB

SELECTED BY @Execproducer

A 1967 West German production featuring genre stalwarts as Lex Barker, Karin Dor, and Christopher Lee. Based on Poe's The Pit and the Pendulum, the film bears more than a passing resemblance to a Hammer Horror joint. Just a fun popcorn movie, perfect for a double feature with something like an Edgar Wallace Krimi or a nice Italian Gothic.

REVIEWED BY @No Point Stance

This year I’ve landed on a prime slice of 1960s gothic Euro horror, complete with period setting and sets dripping in atmosphere. It’s a German production with a litany of alternate titles – among them ‘Castle of the Walking Dead’, ‘The Blood Demon’ and ‘The Snake Pit’ – though ‘The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism’ is easily my favourite, despite no one by the name of Sadism (PhD or otherwise) appearing in the film. The version I watched is from a nice-looking German DVD runs 79 minutes; there’s a new blu ray that’s over 83 minutes but I have no idea what material I’m missing here.

The film was directed by Harald Reinl, who has something of a fascinating story. Formerly a champion skier and ski instructor before getting into filmmaking and running up a total of 69 directorial credits, he was fatally stabbed by his alcoholic wife at the age of 78. He was nearly 60 at the time of this film’s release.

The most notable names in the cast are Bond girl Karin Dor and the iconic Christopher Lee (who thankfully dubs himself for the English language version). Most everyone involved, Lee aside, were regulars in the krimi genre that endured great popularity in Germany for decades.

Edgar Allan Poe is namechecked with a partial writing credit, and there is certainly evident inspiration from AIP’s Poe adaptations in this movie; the original German title, ‘Die Schlangengrube und das Pendal’ translates as ‘The Snakepit and the Pendulum’. I’ve probably never read more than one actual Poe story but I suspect the connecting tissue is tenuous at best.

Anyway, synopsis time. *** SPOILERS AHEAD ***

The setting is  the 18th or 19th century. We open in flashback, with wicked Count Regula (Lee) being led to his execution as a bewigged magistrate, Rheinhold von Marienberg, reads out his list of heinous deeds (specifically the murder of twelve virgins). Naturally this gives Regula just enough time to curse von Marienberg and his entire family face before he meets his own gruesome death by having a very ‘Black Sunday’ / ‘Maschera del Demonio’-style gold mask (albeit much goofier-looking, to the point of being frankly ridiculous) nailed to his face followed by a horse-drawn quartering in the town square. Spectating at the execution is Karin Dor, apparently the lone escapee from the Count’s clutches.

35 years later the above events are related in the village of Bergenstadt to a small crowd by an old man, who later follows a newcomer to the town, Roger (Lex Barker) and presents him with an invitation to visit a Count Regula (the same? A descendent?) at his castle in the region, in order to be given some information about Roger’s cloudy past. Shortly thereafter, in the town of Lindenheim,  Baroness Lilian (Dar again, playing the daughter of her earlier character) observes the same old man telling his tale to a new audience. This coincides with Roger arriving in the town and asking for directions to the castle, to a predictably hostile response from the locals, who are observing a religious procession intended to drive evil from the area. An elderly saint (as he is described by one passerby) tells Roger of the late count’s horrific crimes but then gives him the perplexing news that the infamous Count Regula left no descendent. The Baroness passes in her carriage and she and Roger make goo-goo eyes at each other.

A clergyman named Father Fabian offers to show Roger the way to the castle in exchange for a lift in Roger’s coach. They soon pick up Lillian and her maid, Babette, left stranded after a hijacking. It transpires that Lilian has also received a letter bearing the mysterious Count’s handwriting and seal; this one concerning her late mother’s estate. At this point all Lilian has of her mother’s is a jewelled cross. For his part, all Roger has of his own family is a medallion, which he explains was left with him as a child, presumably at an orphanage. Lilian and the priest speculate that Roger must have been born into an aristocratic family.

Onward they go, the coach passing a burnt-out tavern and a wild-eyed vagrant camped in its ruins. Roger’s driver becomes suspicious of the priest, who claims to have dined here just a month earlier. The hobo declines their attempts to communicate but, as soon as they leave, whips off his Scooby Doo disguise to reveal…some guy we haven’t seen before* Roger finds a gold coin in the ruins. The coachman gets nervous and wants to turn back but the priest convinces him – at gunpoint – to continue. It certainly seems that this man of the cloth may not be all that he is letting on.
Soon, they run into fog, and the trees lining the road are suddenly littered with human body parts and partial corpses that seem to be fused with the trees themselves. It’s a memorable, if cheap, spectacle. Dialogue says it’s Good Friday. The interminable coach journey continues. Karin Dar constantly gazes at Lex Barker like she’s intent on getting some of his Total Package. It occurs to me that the priest looks a lot like Liam Cunningham (Game of Thrones, Dog Soldiers, Argento’s The Card Player, etc). This film runs less than an hour and twenty minutes, but I’m convinced they’ve spent at least 20 of those in and around the coach. A little further on and the trees are now adorned with hanged men or possibly mannequins – it’s uncertain as to the film’s intent. It’s all to much for the poor man, as he suddenly succumbs to a fatal heart attack. Roger brings the vehicle to a stop and, as he and the priest check on the driver where he fell from the coach, the vehicle – along with the two ladies within – is stolen by the Scooby Doo guy from the ruined tavern.

Reduced to travelling on foot, Roger and the priest trudge through a nicely-lit spooky graveyard adjacent to (finally) the infamous castle. The priest somewhat belatedly points out that the castle is now only ruins, but a gravestone marked ‘Regula’ opens a hidden subterranean passage and down they go, into the castle’s concealed underground section. The castle itself is pleasingly gothic, all bare stone walls, flickering torches, creepy statues and unexpected drawbridges that seal the way back. A spiked portcullis is raised by forces unseen and our duo are admitted to a dungeon-like inner chamber. A succession of gates herd our heroes onward until they are greeted by the Scooby Doo villain (now in butler’s livery, and named as Anatole), who reunites them with Lillian and Babette. Things start to pick up pace, as Fabian is revealed to be a professional thief, a wall frieze bears the likenesses of Dor and Barker in their previous incarnations as Lillian’s mother and the magistrate respectively (and I feel like an idiot for not noticing much earlier that Barker was playing the magistrate) and then Fabian shoots Anatole, only for the butler to gloat that he cannot be harmed as he has already been dead for many years. The bullet hole effect here is crude but neat. Fabian gets incarcerated in a cell for his trouble.

In a torture chamber-cum-laboratory Anatole unveils the dismembered corpse of his master within a glass case, then performs a little ritual that apparently only works on Good Friday (it’s unclear why the previous 34 were unsuitable). Regula’s limbs reattach themselves, the glass coffin opens and Christopher Lee returns to the film after almost an hour’s absence as Lillian and Roger look on in horror.  Lee doles out some exposition in a curiously restrained and unenthusiastic manner (making me wonder if some aspect of the production had displeased him, as he was known for playing hardball where dialogue was concerned if he felt slighted in some way). He calls our heroes’ attention to the twelve (perfectly preserved) female corpses strewn across various racks and slabs, and informs Lillian that her mother was to have been the thirteenth and without her blood – or that of her daughter - he cannot attain true immortality. He’s also keen to carry out his vow of revenge. Anatole chimes in to explain how he was hanged and yet returned to life and it’s all quite the convoluted info-dump. Roger lunges for the Count but falls through one of those nifty trapdoors into a cell below and the Count prepares Lillian for one of those needlessly complicated lethal quandaries so beloved of movie villains. Back to Roger, now tied down, surrounded by rats (which the foley artist has dubbed with guinea pig squeaks) and being menaced by a blade-edged steel pendulum slowly lowering from the ceiling.

Regula relents on killing Lillian for now and instead directs her to Roger’s cell, for reasons. Something about the fear she feels making her blood more nutritious (?), cue Lillian running a gauntlet of vultures, spiders, snakes, scorpions and collapsing walkways in 8-bit platforming game fashion as she dashes to Roger’s aid. This is the 1960s though, so Roger makes his own save while, simultaneously, the thief has managed to extricate himself from his own cell. “Why didn’t that butler bring the Count back to life in the beginning?” grumbles Roger, before busting in on the evildoers and running out the clock on their now-brief window to kill Lillian. Regula and Anatole crumble to dust (as do the twelve dead maidens), leaving Roger, Lillian, Fabian and Babette to make good their escape as a very jolly, very-60s tune plays us out.

So, yeah, that was my pretty much TLDR rundown of the events (I took way too many notes and once I started editing them they became incomprehensible), so I’ll try to summarise the review portion quickly. I had a lot of fun with this one, having seen it once before but failing to remember anything except the weird corpse-fused trees bit. Count Regula, at least to western ears, is a pretty silly name for a villain in anything other than lowbrow comedy but the only other real negative for me was the iron mask placed on Lee’s face in the prologue. Bava’s mask was a great iron tusked thing and really looked the part, whereas the mask used here looks a lot like a smiley face emoji. It doesn’t exactly convey a sense of menace or dread.

Most everything else was good. Great sets and lush Bavarian exteriors are well lit and shot. Our imperilled foursome are all likeable and well cast, and I was actually pleasantly surprised that Fabian didn’t turn heel on his companions once his true nature became apparent.

Overall I’d call this a 7 outta 10 on personal preference, and probably a solid 6 if you’re not that into old-fashioned gothic period horror. Thanks to whoever picked it.

EDITOR'S NOTE

Can be found on Amazon Prime and Tubi (with ads). A good version is also on Youtube

[Curt McGirt]

That looks AWESOME! I swear I've seen the pathway with the skull walls before, maybe in a World Burns to Death video?

[driver]

21 hours ago, Curt McGirt said:

I LOVE that ending. What a great release to a film-long buildup to that point. 

The funny thing about The Changeling is when they showed it on the same Shudder series, they just talked about the red ball and George C. Scott's performance and didn't bring up the wheelchair scene at all! That's the biggest shock in the whole movie, and still utterly terrifying! Insane. 

It's right up there with Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry for an ending you didn't see coming.

[Curt McGirt]

I just went and watched it again on Youtube and a lot of people hate that ending. There was one good comment though: "That saved me 90 minutes"  Another person complained "How can you do that to the Dodge?" That, I feel, is a legit gripe. 

[J.T.]

Jesus Fuck, I almost forgot that movie existed.   Way to pick the good shit, Exec!

Also thrilled to see it is on the YouTubes so I can dial that joint up while I am on night duty on Saturday / Sunday.

[Curt McGirt]

If that was too classy then I picked up the trash quota with an extra the other night  Plan on another one today

[Lawful Metal]

woohoo my review is finally in

 

[Lawful Metal]

Fuck that scene is Pulse / Kairo is so fucking scary even watching the breakdown of it was rough.  That stumble!

[J.T.]

TCM will be showing Cure on Sunday night / Monday morning @ 2:15 AM as a part of its Foreign Features programming. 

9 hours ago, Lawful Metal said:

Fuck that scene is Pulse / Kairo is so fucking scary even watching the breakdown of it was rough.  That stumble!

To this very day, that scene still freaks me out a little and I've watched Kairo dozens of times and know what to expect.

Edited October 29, 2023 by J.T.

[RIPPA]

BONUS REVIEW: INVADERS FROM MARS (Tobe Hooper, 1986)

IMDB

REVIEWED BY:

@Contentious C

As near as I can tell, the late Mr. Hooper must have been a fan of the original version of this film.  Maybe it messed up his childhood and, in proper horror movie director form, he felt like passing the trauma along to my generation.  If that's the case, he succeeded, but not in the way he would have liked.

I must have seen this at least twice when I was 7 or 8 years old; it released the summer I would have turned 7, and evidently it was a TV movie instead of hitting theaters, so that would explain why I would have been able to catch it more than once.  However, I didn't remember hardly anything about the movie, except that it had a cheap swerve for an ending and a number of climactic scenes that took place in an underground area best described as "inappropriately veiny".  Flashes and fragments of memory would hit me once in a while, but not enough to seek it out and know for certain what I watched.

Well, today ended that.  As soon as I saw Hunter Carson's fat face on my screen, I knew I had picked the right movie and that my memories were quite a bit more on-point than I expected.  This turkey easily hits an 80s Movie Bingo, since it's got everything you'd expect: Fifties nostalgia; an annoying kid as a centerpiece; a tacky current-events reference (in this case a VERY ill-advised shuttle explosion scene in a movie released *JUNE 1986*); and an 'it was all just a dream' ending at nearly the same time as the infamous Dallas sequence.  Oh, for those wondering, the 80s Movie Bingo free space is obviously Stan Winston.

But jumping Jesus on a pogo stick, does this movie suck in just about every conceivable way.  The plot is...ugh.  It's a plot that's probably *almost* salvageable, had they rolled out a couple of scenes in a different order as priming and foreshadowing, but instead they do everything backwards and it all hinges on the characters - such as a Marine general letting a kid and a school nurse tell him how to run his base - being stupid or the viewers being stupid.  The practical effects are nothing special, not for Winston even on what must have been a smaller-than-usual budget.  The acting is *AWFUL*.  Karen Black (who, once I saw her name, made me picture Karen Allen, and then I spent the whole film wondering how much better it would have been had Allen starred in it instead) is actually Hunter Carson's mom, and yet when they have to 'act' together, it's like they've both completely forgotten to read the script and are just ad-libbing their scenes, and those ad-libs are from his school play when he was 5.  James Karen as the General is perhaps the most memorable and (sometimes) least terrible performer, but even then, he acts less like a career Marine and a great deal more like an arthritic grandpa kvetching over the trials and tribulations of the Local Sports Team.  Louise Fletcher is...here, but she's coasting on "I'm Louise Fletcher and you expect me to act like a gigantic bitch, so I will do that and only that" fumes, other than when she calls Karen Black "sister" about 45 times, like she's talking to Pam Grier in a blaxploitation movie instead of a schlocky horror bit.

And there's really nothing about this that is particularly *scary* unless you're just a dumb, snot-nosed kid with an overactive imagination, and even then it's leaning far too hard on the protagonist being equally snot-nosed for some added empathy.  One of the biggest problems it has is its lack of subtext; the original would have had the Red Scare & communism as metaphor, but this, well, doesn't.  You could almost see a path towards making that subtext about, say, a child dealing with divorcing parents, since the dad is the first brainwashed victim, but that goes nowhere fast.  It could have been a generational thing, where the kids are in the know, like what they'd eventually do with The Faculty, but that doesn't happen either.  Maybe you could read it as a reminder of how little choice children have in saying 'no' to adults at that age, which is certainly a little bit creepy when you stop and think about it, but no one *of* that age is going to question it to enough of a degree to make it a meaningful reading, and it's certainly not supported by the pathetic script.  And it doesn't help that the "Martians" are mostly comprised of tripod butt monsters with death rays, led by a waterslide-shaped penis-with-a-brain that groans a bit too frequently for something so phallic.

(And yes, I know the Martians actually have 4 legs, but the front pair are so close together they may as well be standing on one big leg.)

So yes, Mr. Hooper, if you wanted to scar some seven-year-olds by releasing this movie, you did.  You scarred me so much that it stuck with me until now, when 44-year-old me got the chance to realize Poltergeist was probably the exception for your career, and garbage like this was the rule.

[RIPPA]

This seems to be the only computer I have right now that is allowing me to post links on this fucking board so I might end up posting A LOT today

[RIPPA]

BONUS REVIEW: 13th Child: The Legend of the Jersey Devil (Thomas Ashley and Steven Stockage, 2002)

IMDB

REVIEWED BY: @The Comedian

OK, so as I've mentioned before I grew up on the outskirts of the Pine Barrens in Tabernacle, NJ. The Jersey Devil is our local cryptid and I've heard and read many a tale of it. Every year in grade school we had an assembly where some local story teller would tell Devil tales (the main thing I recall was the humorous bit about keeping the Devil away by putting toothpaste on your forehead at night.) So last year for Secret Satan I chose a horror movie that was near and dear to me: The Last Broadcast. That is a great little low-budget horror film involving the Jersey Devil.I also promised to do a bonus review about another Jersey Devil film that's...not so good. A year later, I'm fulfilling my promise...

It's Halloween in a hilariously dilapidated mental hospital. I mean, they're clearly going for the Session 9 abandoned asylum vibe here, but this place isn't actually abandoned yet. In a common room, a group of patients watch a TV show about the Jersey Devil. One of the patients, retired cop Mr. Riley (a slumming but game Robert Guillaume), starts to carry on, causing him to be restrained and returned to his room. There, he tells his guard about the night 20 years ago, when he and his partner Murphy went looking for the Jersey Devil in the Pine Barrens. They found it all right, and Murphy lost his head, literally. Riley got away, and stumbled upon some kind of secret talisman that apparently saved him. Unfortunately they took it from him, and he's scared to death.

A couple days earlier in Trenton, special investigator Kate (Michelle Maryk) gets called to a secret meeting with District Attorney Murphy (Lesley-Anne Down, who knows she's slumming and can't even be arsed to do an American accent.) The D.A. wants Kate to look into a recent spate of gory murders in the Pines, most recently that of an escaped convict. Kate is shocked when Murphy hands her a dossier full of Jersey Devil reports. Turns out that, while she can't admit it publicly for fear of looking like a loon, Murphy is very much a believer. See, her having the same name as Riley's old partner isn't a coincidence; that was her dad the Devil tore up. Kate heads off to investigate.

At the scene of the escaped con's death, Kate runs into an old friend, Forest Ranger Ron (Christopher Atkins, with hair and 'stache looking like Chuck Norris cosplay). He's joined by Mitch (Gano Grills), on loan from the NYPD for some reason I didn't full get. They find a very big claw but not much else. Next the three head to Shroudsbog, a fictional place that I guess is standing in for the actual Leed's Point, epicenter of Jersey Devil activity. They go to the estate of the mysterious Mr. Shroud, but he doesn't seem to be in. Ron and Mitch leave, but Kate stick around and her persistence pays off, as she finds Shroud (Cliff Robertson, who has one more Best Actor Oscar than most of us) in his study. Through some extremely awkward dialogue we find out that he's a self-styled anthropologist of sorts, specializing in venomous creatures. He spouts a bunch of pro-nature anti-mankind gibberish like a Dollar General Ra's al Ghul, but then offers to let Kate spend the night, since it's late and the Pines are tricky. She agrees, but mainly so she can snoop some more. Outside, she sees a burly dude carry a deer carcass to the house and hang it up on a hook. We also see that Kate is being watched by Riley from the woods. Back in the house, she finds a claw like the one at the crime scene.

During all this we get a couple of Devil attacks. A dumb hillbilly who acts like no Piney I've ever known gets himself killed, probably because he was drinking Rheingold, a NY beer. Pineys love Miller High Life man. Failing that regular old Bud. And they certainly don't just drag a dressed deer carcass across the ground. That's food man! A couple of twenty-something teenagers looking to have their "first time" in an abandoned trailer in the woods get spooked but survive. The boy's acting is especially horrible plus he looks like a weird combination of Colin Hanks and Joe Lo Truglio. Anyway, back to the trio of Kate, Ron, and Mitch, After a wacky trip to the coroner, they head back to Shroud's estate to get some answers. What they find there is a lot less pleasant, for them and the viewer.

This film actually got a theatrical release in NJ, and I went out to see it. Seeing it again, it's both better and worse than I remember. The acting in and of itself isn't actual that bad, but the dialogue and pacing are utterly atrocious. I'd still have to say that only my attendance of Silent Hill: Revelation ten years later keeps this from being the worst film I've ever seen in a theatre. Apparently this was Cliff Robertson's baby. He co-wrote it (which explains why so much of his dialogue is scenery-chewing author tract material), and helped finance it with his payday from playing Uncle Ben. Why this story, I don't know. Robertson's from Cali, not NJ. I thought he might be of indigenous blood, since the movie uses the alternate "13th child of Lenni-Lenape shaman" origin over the more popular "13th child of Mrs. Leeds" version, but that's not it. I don't know what drew Robertson to this concept. He definitely could've done something better with that Spider-Man money though. This thing is a slog to get through...

EDITOR'S NOTE

You can find this on Youtube but don't confuse it various Jersey Devil documentaries that have very similar names.

[The Comedian]

1 hour ago, RIPPA said:

 It could have been a generational thing, where the kids are in the know, like what they'd eventually do with The Faculty, but that doesn't happen either.  Maybe you could read it as a reminder of how little choice children have in saying 'no' to adults at that age, which is certainly a little bit creepy when you stop and think about it, but no one *of* that age is going to question it to enough of a degree to make it a meaningful reading, and it's certainly not supported by the pathetic script.  

I vaguely remember seeing this flick on TV in a hotel room while I was on vacation as a teen.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers from a kid's perspective could have been an interesting idea. As CC says here, you can go down some seriously creepy roads with the notion of a child not being able to trust the adults around him (just look at what Bob Balaban did with Parents a few years later. Or listen to JT and go watch Cobweb.) But Hooper seemed determined to make something intentionally cheesy instead. And intentionally cheesy never works; making a so-bad-its-good film requires the earnest desire to make a legitimately good film. 

[Contentious C]

The Monster Squad came out the next year and I think its considerable powers of so-bad-it's-goodness wiped much of Invaders from Mars from my mind.  Kinda wish I could make that happen again; maybe I need to get some dynamite and find a treehouse...

[Lawful Metal]

Happy Halloween!  Lawful Jr. promises his review will be done by noon.  He's been busy too with his niece coming this month - he's pretty much been running the house.  (Plus I think he's been a little scared to watch the movie)

[RIPPA]

ATERRADOS (aka TERRIFIED) (Demián Rugna, 2017)

(The trailer kinda doesn't fuck around so... maybe be cautious for various reasons)

IMDB

SELECTED BY: @No Point Stance

I watched Aterrados a few years ago and my memories are murky due to it likely being in the midst of a sizeable October horror binge (each year I try to see something new from as many countries as possible, and this film served to cross Argentina off my list) . What I do remember, though, is that I enjoyed it quite a bit and was impressed enough to score it an 8 outta 10 on IMDB. It plays with some metaphysical concepts as well as gross-out FX and outright traditional horror, and IIRC it had some fun characters too.

It remains the only film I've seen from Demián Rugna, though I see that he has a new fright flick slated for release between now and Halloween, which I'll be keeping an eye out for on the strengths of this earlier opus.

REVIEWED BY @twiztor

Aterrados

Aterrados (which, according to the subtitles, translates to Terrified) is a movie originally released in 2017 at a festival but saw a 2018 wide release. It is an Argentinean film. I had some reservations about watching this, since subtitled films are not my forte. Let me say right now, those misgivings were completely unfounded. Anyway, let's get into it.

we start off by seeing a young housewife, Clara, who is hearing voices coming from the kitchen drain pipe. She claims they tell her that they are coming to kill her.
Her husband Juan is dismissive (aren't they all?) at this point, i'm thinking we're going to get some offshoot of a 'Paranormal Activity' film. Early the next morning, while Clara is in the shower, Juan starts to hear a banging through the wall, which he believes is coming from his neighbor Walter. He tries to bang back and quiet him down to no avail. He resorts to going to Walter's place, but the only answer he gets through the intercom is some weird sounds that may or may not be Walter. Back inside, Juan hears more banging. He goes to check on his wife..... He finds her lifeless, bloody body levitating and smashing repeatedly against the shower walls. holy shit, i am 100% in on this film by now.
Juan is talking to some (paranormal?) investigators who seem to know more than they let on...........

FLASHBACK: we start to see what began 2 weeks ago with the neighbor Walter. and the weird happenings around him. and the potential intrusions into his home. and how those intrusions are affecting Walter and those around him........

ok, look. i'm going to stop the actual plot synopsis right now, because this movie is freaking awesome.
It involves said paranormal investigators, an infliction upon the recently deceased, and possibly even some kind of breach between realms. i refuse to go into more detail and instead implore you strongly to watch this movie.

the acting is really good, particularly for a foreign film that requires as much (or more) physical storytelling as it does verbal. There's no music to speak of within the soundtrack, but we are treated to ominous background sound, which is completely warranted and really creates the perfect ambiance.

thank you to whoever suggested this film. it is something i would not have ever watched in the next 100 years because i'm terrible at branching out, but i was glued to the screen for the entire 90 minutes.

ok, side note, this film has a fantastic one-liner insult that i feel compelled to share.
Person 1: "i think i read your book"
Person 2: "oh, really?"
Person 1: "the cover was really well made"
fucking ouch. somebody break out the silver sulfadiazine.

side note 2: i found out that the Spanish word "niche" (two syllables) means "nest" in English, so i feel that i learned something here.

WATCH THIS MOVIE!

EDITOR'S NOTE

H/T To twiztor for taking on a 2nd movie

It is on Shudder

[J.T.]

Aterrados is totally great.

If you need your soul crushed further, Demián Rugna's second instant classic, When Evil Lurks (Cuando acecha la maldad), should also be on AMC+ / Shudder following its limited release earlier this month.

Big ups to Twiztor for taking on another review.

Edited November 1, 2023 by J.T.

[RIPPA]

HORROR EXPRESS (Eugenio Martín, 1972)

IMDB

SELECTED BY @Curt McGirt

This year is gonna be Horror Express. I mean, my year HAS been a barrelling train cursed with horrible goings-on, but it doesn't have Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, and Telly Savalas on it. Unfortunately. This one rather surprised me when I finally watched it at someone's house while everyone else was busy partying in the basement for band rehearsal or something. I'd remembered the bloody eyes of the VHS boxes you could find it in (all different, as it's a legendarily bootlegged public domain film) for years but never seen it. Here was a classy, intelligent, and creepy little piece of work, very impressive. And Kojak as the Russian military dude is pure uncut badassery. 

REVIEWED BY @Lawful Metal

I watched this in bits and pieces over the last two or so weeks, including crashing my daughter's wifi as I tried to download some discovery of an agg assault whilst watching this and completely shut all the internets down while we were counting down the minutes to when baby Mackenzie was gon show up. 

I tried to explain to her that this was important and necessary and that if I didn't fulfill my Secret Satan obligations that I could be castigated and forced to be expiated by the Death Valley Driver. 

Nobody knows, the trouble I've seen ...

This was pretty fucking awesome with Peter Cushing (Grand Moff Tarkin) and Christopher Lee (Saruman, Dracula!) in the lead roles and Lee is rocking this sweet mustache and brings aboard the titular Horror Express a Frozen / Unfrozen 2 million year old Ape as a Fossil for study or what have you and I guess he's an archaeologist or paleontologist or you know I don't think they made a distinction there.  Cushing is a doctor and rocking some sweet fashion like this totally smoking smoking jacket and now I know what I want for my birthday -- oh wait I actually didn't get anything for my birthday because everyone was so excited for the baby who was born the next day -- oh and we had a death in the family on my actual birthday too, so yeah, that kinda put a real damper on everything. 

But sweet smoking jacket!

Anywhoo so everybody on the train are of course obsessed with this prehistoric ape and so everyone's trying to look inside the box it's in. 

OOh tomato soup gotta get that

So yeah before they even leave there's a chinaman (not sure if that's their preferred nomenclature) thief who of course wants to see whats in the box and he's stricken blind and dead and bleeding from the eyes and it's obviously the work of satan says Orthodox Jesus an obviously insane lunatic in robes.  Yet everyone seems to take him seriously. 

Then the train gets going and there's a police inspector with a ragtag bunch of russian soldiers in tow and various other people on the train including some americans Peter Cushing's assistant who looks like Toby Jones in drag, a Count and his wife, another lady that looks exactly like her but like russian and maybe evil we never really find out, and assorted crew for the train taht are expendable af.  Doctor Cushing pays a bagman to look in the box and go figure he's fucking dead immediately too but this time our intrepid prehistoric frozen / unfrozen ape not only blinds and kills the dude he also unlocks the box, gets out, puts the bagman in the box, locks it up nice and tidy for everyone to find.  Which leads us to the immortal line by Doctor Cushing:

"Are you telling me, an ape who lived two million years ago, crawled out of that crate, killed the baggage man and put him in there, then locked everything up nice and tidy, and got away?"

"Yes I am!" = Christopher Lee

Yeah, it's fucking awesome. 

So the Ape goes on menacing children (excellent arm acting here) and killing rando soldiers.  Doctor Cushing and Christopher Lee are forced to share a room because they both bribed the same guy?  And then the vaguely Russian lady who looks like the other lady has to move in with them too?  And so Doctor Cushing obviously has a crush and is busting out the suits and the smoking jackets and she wanders over to the box and guess what she gets got too and goes blind and dead but this time the police inspector is there and he shoots the ape and its dead!

Doctor Cushing and Paleontologist Lee and like let's do an autopsy of the ape on a train like what could possibly go wrong and here's the fucking twist they dissect the eyeball of the ape and the eye retains the last visions of the ape and so it sees the russian lady and then it also sees the motherfucking earth from deep space and oh shit it's aliens. 

and now they figure out holy crap, the alien is a parasite that takes host like it's the Hidden but without Claudia Christian and Kyle McLachlan taking way too many bullets and then Doctor Cushing's Toby Jones-like assistant is in the back room by the crate and she blabbing about the eyeball visions to the police inspector who has had his hand in his pocket since he killed the damn ape and my daughter is like I only walked in like five minutes ago and hey why is this guy always got his hand in his pocket and oh shit he got a monkey paw and his eyes turn red and he blinds Toby Jones swapped genders doppelganger and like oh shit and

then somebody wakes up motherfucking Telly Savalas who's like a king or something but he's sleeping in a cage?  What the fuck is even going on?  Did somebody get halfway through this movie and say, you know what?  This movie needs motherfucking Kojack and who loves ya?  Telly gets up and rounds up all the peasants in the train and he's going to solve this alien frozen / unfrozen ape mystery and oh yeah I forgot, Orthodox Jesus steals the eyeball from literally right under the eyeballs of Doctors Cushing and Lee and runs off with it to offer it to alien police inspector who's like, sure, I'll take the eyeball and dump it in some fire but dude keep your crazy away and then Telly's like, whho's the fucking alien and Dr. Lee turns out the light and police inspector's eyes glow red so Telly knifes him in the back and shoots him like five times (maybe a little like the Hidden) and then Orthodox Jesus like throws a block on one of the russian soldiers so that alien police inspector can get away and then Orthodox Jesus is like, alien dude, come into me so I can do satan's work and you know, whenever someones' going around, and like Satan is doing this, and Satan is doing that, chances are that person's like totally obsessed with Satan and when given the opportunity, would totally be down for some Satan shit, which , obviously, Orthodox Jesus was totally into so everyone's kinda freaked out and then Alien Orthodox Jesus shows up and starts massacring dudes and soldiers and oh no not Telly Savalas I thought he was here to save the movie and then Doctor Cushing leads all the peasants and stuff to the back room and it's down to just Dr. Lee and the Count's wife or Duke's wife and she's not vaguely russian and Orthodox Jesus is like, just let me go, and Dr. Lee is like, fuck dude, you just killed half the damn train, I can't let you go, and Orthodox Jesus is like, I came here 2 million years ago and like I've always been tehre for humanity and I can rid the world of disease, and poverty and cure cancer and cause world peace and like hold on here Alien Orthodox Jesus literally you been here 2 million years and you ain't done shit and I guess Alien Orthodox Jesus kinda realizes he's bullshitting so instead he raises from the dead all the people he killed including Telly Savalas holy shit yes he's back and they kinda lumber and instead of like, hey, let's shoot Alien Orthodox Jesus and get this shit over with, Dr. Lee and the lady run through the entire train, fight literally every single zombie -- the missus here literally gets grabbed and groped by every single zombie guy and so they get to the end of the train with Dr. Cushing and the peasants and they disconnect the caboose or whatevs and someone radioed ahead to guys at the train station and they're like, they're telling us to switch the tracks for the train coming and like, that'll make it go off a cliff! and then the other guy is like, what if it's like we're in a war? and everyone else is like, yeah, we're in a war, so we have to kill like everyone on this train apparently, and so they do it and Alien Orthodox Jesus is like, huh, how do I drive a train and then it goes off the cliff and bursts into flames and we're all assuming Alien Orthodox Jesus is dead, and then we see the Caboose show up to the edge of the cliff and instead of like, getting off the train car and then look, like everyone is there crowding on the edge of the train car on the edge of the cliff seemingly willing the train car to inch that one inch past the line of no return but alas, no mass suicide onto the burning husk of Alien Orthodox Jesus.

a million billion stars, fucking hilarious but played absolutely straight with twists and turns and acting so good I never forgot who was playing who

EDITOR'S NOTE

Available a lot of places - Roku and Tubi (both with ads). There is also at least one version on Youtube