SECRET SATAN 2023

[bobholly138]

On 10/11/2023 at 5:37 AM, RIPPA said:

I meant Black Christmas however I am now shocked there hasn't been a horror movie based on a killer getting people during Walmart's door buster deals

Black Friday,with Bruce Campbell and Devon Sawa exists.

Fairly recent. But it is a toy store that while preping for Black Friday on  Thanksgiving night gets invaded by demons. Michael Jai White is also in it.

[Eivion]

53 minutes ago, bobholly138 said:

Black Friday,with Bruce Campbell and Devon Sawa exists.

Fairly recent. But it is a toy store that while preping for Black Friday on  Thanksgiving night gets invaded by demons. Michael Jai White is also in it.

How was that movie? I was interested but never checked it out.

[Travis Sheldon]

3 hours ago, Eivion said:

How was that movie? I was interested but never checked it out.

I liked it, but I'm a guy that'll watch Bruce Campbell drink a cup of tea. 

The story was no great shakes, but it was a fun popcorn flick. 

 

[Eivion]

24 minutes ago, Travis Sheldon said:

I liked it, but I'm a guy that'll watch Bruce Campbell drink a cup of tea. 

The story was no great shakes, but it was a fun popcorn flick. 

 

Yeah so I'm kind of also that guy so that is a good enough endorsement for me.

[bobholly138]

11 hours ago, Eivion said:

How was that movie? I was interested but never checked it out.

Worth watching off Starz. I might buy it if I find it cheap.

[nate]

I just wanted to chime in that I recommended "Theater of Blood" one year.

[Execproducer]

Yes, and some idiot reviewed it.

[Curt McGirt]

I've got the first Campbell autobio if someone wants it. 

[RIPPA]

On 10/13/2023 at 10:39 PM, bobholly138 said:

Black Friday,with Bruce Campbell and Devon Sawa exists.

Fairly recent. But it is a toy store that while preping for Black Friday on  Thanksgiving night gets invaded by demons. Michael Jai White is also in it.

As soon as you said this - I remembered seeing the trailer for it (mainly because it had Bruce Campbell)

I now remember us briefly discussing it on the board but that was mainly because we were mocking Michael Jai White in some way shape or form

[RIPPA]

River of Darkness (2011, Bruce Koehler)

IMDB

SELECTED BY: @twiztor

i'm offering up the movie "River of Darkness". from 2011, it stars a number of pro wrestlers (Nash, Angle, Sid), so you know it's gonna be great. Also pass along my apologies for whoever gets this one.

REVIEWED BY: @J.T.

Cast:

• Kurt Angle as Sheriff Will Logan
• Kevin Nash as Jayden Jacobs
• Sid Eudy / Psycho Sid Vicious as Jonah Jacobs
• S. William Hinzman / Bill Hinzman as Harvey Hix
• Bill Laing as Joseph Jacobs
• Alan Rowe Kelly as Mary Rutledge
• Bingo O'Malley as Virgil
• Ray Lloyd / Ray “Glacier” Lloyd as Clark Higgins

I think I know why I got this pick.  Anyone who is familiar with me knows three things about me:

1. I love pro wrestling.
2. I love horror films.
3. I have notoriously low standards.

Therefore I feel uniquely qualified to review Bruce Kohler’s 2011 schlock classic, River of Darkness.   The movie that answers the burning question, “What if TNA Wrestling had made a low budget remake of John Carpenter’s The Fog?”

The story takes place in some godforsaken hillbilly infested small town in the ass end of Nowhere County, America.  No sooner are we barely ten minutes in, we get to witness the perfectly acceptable evisceration of a waitress from a local diner.  Since there is a murder, police are brought in to investigate this horrible crime and the lead investigator is Sheriff Will Logan (Kurt Angle).

It’s not like an abundance of deductive reasoning will be needed to solve the case since the killers kindly carved the letters H-I-X into the forehead of the victim.  It’s always good when the pivotal clue in a crime points in one direction.

We later learn that the murders are the result of a trio of hulking zombie ghosts.   As local folklore would have it, a transient by the name of Jayden Jacobs (Kevin Nash) was accused of rape and his sons, Jonah (Psycho Sid) and Joseph (Bill Laing) were lynched along with him just for good measure.  The leader of the mob pursuing redneck justice?  You guessed it!  Harvey Hix (Bill Hinzman)!

Poor Mr. Hix has suffered from a guilty conscience since the execution of the Jacobs boys, but night terrors are the least of his worries now.  The Jacobs boys have come back from their watery grave and are seeking revenge not only on their killers, but also on the ancestors of their killers.

Sound familiar?  Sure it does.

The acting is about as bad as you’d expect it to be and the movie is bookended by a silly plot device featuring a smoking hot yet disgraced paranormal investigator that doesn’t really mean much in the grand scheme of things.   I suppose that Kohler figured that he could improve the story by adding in a Sixth Sense style plot twist.  He was wrong.  It is usually best that your direct-to-video horror joint keep things as simple as possible.

In an ocean of laughably bad performances (lets not forget Alan Rowe Kelly as Mary Rutledge; the obligatory bugfuck crazy slasher movie doomsayer), the one bright light is Ray “Glacier” Lloyd.

I’m not even joking.

Lloyd plays Clark Higgins, a local diner owner who lost the Sheriff’s election to Kurt Angle’s character, Will Logan.  There is some animosity between the two men, but they seem to be sincere about their desire to bring the murderers of the townspeople to justice.   What is Clark’s plan you may ask?  He wants to deliver Harvey Hix to the Jacobs boys so that they may have their revenge.

How better to address the injustice of a lynching… with another lynching…

Anyway, Lloyd seems to be the only member of the cast that is not mailing it in and he carries the third act of this movie on his back for the remaining runtime.

River of Darkness is one of the most unintentionally hilarious things I’ve watched in a long time and I enjoyed it immensely for all the wrong reasons.  I even got a good chuckle when I saw the cover of the VCR release and noticed that at no point during this movie does Kurt Angle wear the combat tac suit or brandish the assault rifle he is seen with on the tape jacket.

Truth in advertising!

Find this on Tubi and have yourself a good laugh, preferably while you have a good beer buzz going on.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN~!!!

EDITOR'S NOTE

Not that is really matters but the trailer above I guess could be labelled NSFW and gives away a lot of the movie

[twiztor]

@J.T. i'm glad you found enjoyment in the flick. i started watching it once but was drunk and passed out a few minutes in. need to circle back and give it a real go.

[RIPPA]

I will post again this afternoon but I am still missing at least 3 reviews so if I can get those sooner rather than later - that would be nice

If you can't review your movie - no worries - just let me know and I am sure I can find people to review them.

[odessasteps]

It’s on the TO DO list. Podcast stuff jumped it in the queue. It’s downloaded on Prime and have watched the trailer. 

[RIPPA]

BONUS REVIEW: CITIZEN X (Chris Gerolmo, 1995)

IMDB

REVIEWED BY: @Curt McGirt

"This one's got 'bonus scenes'." - The Cook (Mickey Rourke), Spun

CITIZEN X (1995)

Checking out Bloody Disgusting for the random drippings of horror news they offer, I found a review of this and thought "well, remember it but never seen it". Then I read it was a version of the capture of Andrei Chikatilo and I immediately went to find it. Chikatilo is a notorious serial killer from Russia reknowned for his barbarity and longevity. He's one of those really bizarre ones who was extroverted enough to become more interesting than the typical serial killer. In the vein of a Carl Panzram or Edmund Kemper, he explained himself, to the extent he could, and his psychology however twisted is fascinating. There were also the extenuating circumstances of the crime: it took place in the USSR states of current Russia, Ukraine, and Crimea where the state considered serial murder (in the words of one of the politburo members in the film) a "decadent western problem" that didn't exist behind the Iron Curtain. And for that reason Chikatilo's body count rose... and rose... and rose, becoming all the more flagrant and disgusting, not for the lack of attention paid to the crimes, but the inability of those working them to solve whilst kneecapped by the Soviet bureaucracy. Anyway, after Chikatilo was finally caught due to perestroika and the fall of Communism, he was put on trial, sentenced to death, and executed. This movie came out five years later for HBO and is one of the finest TV movies I've ever seen, with Donald Sutherland snagging a well-deserved Emmy and Golden Globe for his work.

We begin with a body being casually wheeled in to a morgue for forensic pathologist Viktor Burakov to analyze. The cop's dialogue and body language is representative of the form that the bureaucracy will take for the rest of the film: casually callous and indifferent. Why do anything right? There's no incentive, only punishment. Burakov does not agree. He is a dedicated and emotional man who sees the humanity in dead people and when this violated corpse falls into his lap, he takes it personal. He immediately charges the cop with searching the perimeter where the body was found in a shallow grave on a communal farm. They dig into the woods and within hours wheel in six additional bodies for Burakov, then basically say "fuck this, we're out" and leave him to it. The next day he is brought before a group of his superiors on the case. His boss is Colonel Mikhail Fetisov, a dry and emotionless man who informs him that he'll get his dream of investigating crime as if a police detective, because he is in charge of the case, or cases. And he will be beholden to this small group of useless, pithy, or outwardly hostile state department cronies who will do everything in their power to hobble the investigation, either due to their apathy or fear or prejudices. Fetisov is not one of them. He is an ally. He wants the murders solved, and he immediately can tell that despite his despairing, exhausted disposition that Burakov wants the same. Together they fight the powers that be using whatever methods at their disposal to find this killer as his victims flow in again and again through their years of toil.

This film is extremely immersive. The locations scream of the poverty of the Soviet East. Due to his promotion, Burakov begs for a two bedroom apartment for him, his wife, and his two children promised to him seven years earlier. People seem to live on bread, potatoes and vodka. There are portraits of Lenin everywhere hanging from the faded walls of the run-down buildings these people inhabit. The dialogue is the most powerful thing though. Every line from Sutherland's Col. Fetisov is aloof, self-aware and dripping with sarcasm. He's been in the trenches and knows what he's dealing with and how to manipulate the system. Stephen Rea as Burakov on the other hand is an open book; you can read every emotion on his bereaved face. His depression is only matched by his anger at the roadblocks he faces from the council. Joss Ackland's Bondarchuk is his emotional match only in reverse -- as representative of the Communist party on the case, he is angry that Burakov and Fetisov form a united front in pushing against the will of the all-powerful party line and plays the perfect heavy, scowling and repremanding them with blazingly hostile eyes at every turn. Meanwhile, Jeffrey DeMunn's Chikatilo is busy. He's canvassing train stations, interacting with the young (particularly women) and the slow, gaining their convidence to lure them to their deaths. His murders are not particularly graphic but are shocking nonetheless. Simple stabbings are shown to be as brutal as anything more elaborate. The deaths of his eyeless victims, grayed and sunken, are verbally detailed explicitly so we don't need to see what was done to them; we hear it instead, and it is repulsive. Finally after much maneuvering and the horrible persecution of the homosexual community as a scapegoat for the crimes Burakov and Fetisov manage to corral some help in the form of a psychologist played by Max Von Sydow, who becomes the key to nailing down the psychosis of Chikatilo and finally prosecute him.

To go into more detail would lessen the impact. Every twist in the storyline will infuriate you or, eventually, have you pumped for the progression of events. The slowly growing friendship between the icy Sutherland and the anguished Rea is excellent. DeMunn is belittled at home and at work, only finding power in his private savagery, and is memorably squirmy. We get a more subdued portrayal than somebody else might play given the existing footage of Chikatilo, who was put on trial on display in an iron-barred cage like a wild animal, eyes bulging for all to see with crowds howling for his blood and him at times even exposing himself to them. It could have been way too over the top but this instead is as subtle a vision of a monster like him could get. Anyway, excellent film, highest recommendation, and still goes down as an awesome true crime/police procedural as well as a horror film with two great villains, one working on his own and another working in consort to aid in the demise of over 50 lives.

[Curt McGirt]

FYI, the Spun quote was just because it was a bonus review, nothing otherwise to do with the movie. Pornography apparently didn't work for Chikatilo anyway...

EDIT: Here's the nutter himself

How and why ANYONE would go into the woods alone with that guy is far beyond me.

Edited October 19, 2023 by Curt McGirt

[Lawful Metal]

I’m still working on mine — my grandbaby got born this week and I’ve been out of town’s 

[Execproducer]

Yes, I also suck. I'm writing it up now but won't finish until I get home tonight. Along with a couple of bonus reviews that I may or may not finish. The good news is there are still 10 days in October.

[No Point Stance]

I'm watching my pick today - apologies for my tardiness.

[The Comedian]

I took off this weekend since today is the 47th anniversary of the theatrical release of God Told Me To, so I should have a bonus review coming soon...

[driver]

The bald pic of Chikatilo makes him look like Richard Moll. Chikatilo was ruined for me because every time I hear his name or see his photo I hear Dan Cummins' voice "You want to wrassle?" and "What is big deal?"

[RIPPA]

Work has kicked my ass the last few days so sorry for the lack of posts.

I am working from home tomorrow so I will start to catch back up then

[RIPPA]

BONUS REVIEW: COBWEB (Samuel Bodin, 2023)

IMDB

REVIEWED BY: @J.T.

Directed by Samuel Bodin

Written by Chris Thomas Devlin

Cast:

• Lizzy Caplan as Carol
• Antony Starr as Mark
• Cleopatra Coleman as Miss Devine
• Woody Norman as Peter
• Luke Busey as Brian
• Aleksandra Dragova as Sarah

Cobweb is the directorial debut for Samuel Bodin and it definitely feels like someone's first time in the chair, both in good ways and as bad ways.

It tells the story of Peter (Woody Norman), a poor lad who spends his days being bullied by his classmates only to return to a loveless home run by his father, Mark (Antony Starr), and his mother, Carol (Lizzy Caplan).  Mark and Carol have no business being parents and are proof positive that the act of having and raising a child does not automatically make you a virtuous person.

Anyway.

One night, Peter begins to hear strange noises coming from inside the walls of his house.  Being the detached folk that they are, Peter's parents immediately gaslight him and try to reassure him that there is nothing to be afraid of.   We, the members of the audience, know better.  Otherwise we wouldn't be watching and waiting to see what unfolds.

Understandably, The combined angst from Peter's school and home life begins to manifest itself in Peter's art work, which catches the attention of his substitute teacher, Miss Devine (Cleopatra Coleman).  Shortly thereafter, very bad things start to happen and your patience is rewarded with gore galore and practical effects could yank a tear out of your eye.

Cobweb isn't a monumental achievement or anything, but it does have the good taste to borrow the best ideas from better movies.    It finds B-movie harmony between the shadowy, subterranean horrors of Barbarian, the dysfunctional familial energy from Skinamarink, and the cruel parental indifference of Roald Dahl’s Matilda.

Young Woody Norman deserves a lot of credit for holding this story together.  You want him to be safe and secure, and the movie masterfully manipulates your emotions and uses that as fuel to ratchet up the tension.  That being said, the real MVP of this movie is Lizzy fucking Caplan who goes from tranquil menace to batshit insanity at the drop of a hat.  Starr and Carpenter are woefully underused in this movie, but you can only do so much character development in a 90 minute horror joint before people get impatient and demand that the killings begin.

And when the killings begin, holy shit.

Ultimately the payoff is rather silly, but Cobweb is still a horror movie worth your time.  Another plus is that the movie is set during Halloween so if you have a holiday theme going on for your scary movie watch party, Cobweb will fit right in.

[RIPPA]

PULSE (Kairo) (Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 2001)

IMDB

 

SELECTED BY: Lawful Jr.

REVIEWED BY: @odessasteps

The phrase “ghost in the machine” has been around since at least 1949, when it was coined by Oxford philosopher Gilbert Rye. It was originally meant to describe the work of (alleged drunken fart) Rene Descartes, but now usually has to do with artificial intelligence and sentience, often in a malevolent way.

Here, however, we are literally dealing with ghosts or some kind of supernatural force, inhabiting computers and other electronics.

The film centers on two parallel storylines that eventually converge. One centers on a group of students working at a flower shop/nursery. One of the group has gone missing, and was meant to be working on files for the store. One of the others, Michi, goes to check on him and finds the disc but also finds him having hanged himself. But, wasnt she just talking to him?

At the same time, slacker student and computer novice Kawashima is trying to navigate some kind of AOL type platform called Uranus and stumbles on some creepy websites which might be snuff footage. He turns it off but wakes up later to find his computer back on and on that site. A little wigged out, he goes to a computer lab and gets some basic computer 101 for grad student Harue. After more weirdness, Kawashima hears from one of Harue’s colleagues a crazy theory about how the dead are coming back through the internet.

Things gets weird in a hurry as both groups of students have weird run-ins with ghosts or death-related incidents. They start killing themselves one by one, usually leaving black outlines on walls.

Eventually, Michi and Kawashima run into each other, as they find less and less people in the city, the carnage around them increasing. They run into Harue, who had gone missing, and she kills herself in front of them. Eventually, after a harrowing run in with a ghost, they escape in a boat. Or do they?

While a very fine J-horror film, I was more interested in this as a ghost story and its relationship with technology. How would it need to be retooled for a world even more techno obsessed? Does part of the atmosphere have to do with it being set in a dial-up world? The classic “but it’s unplugged” trope would not quite work in a Bluetooth modern world.

Also, I tried watching the 2006 remake with Kristen Bell and Ian Somerholder (remember him from Lost)? But man, it was bad.. it completely missed all the existential  angst about loneliness in the original. And while he lifted some scenes directly from the original, it has a very typical Hollywood ending. And they made 2 sequels? Gah.

One thing I didn’t see mentioned in the couple articles I read which was surprising, was how much the ashen silhouettes evoked images from Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

TL;DR: a worthwhile watch albeit firmly rooted in its early internet trappings

PS: loved the various pop culture shirts on Kawashima, includ8ng one for Gilley’s.

EDITOR'S NOTES:

Not to be confused with the 2006 remake that stars Kristen Bell

Available via Amazon Prime

[Curt McGirt]

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.

[No Point Stance]

I need to watch Kairo again. Saw it years ago after getting really excited about it from reviews, then ended up absolutely hating it. I've really enjoyed the other (Kiyoshi) Kurosawa projects I've seen though, so it's entirely possible that I just wasn't in the right frame of mind when I saw it.