October Horror Movie Marathon

[Justin101]

I saw Splatter a few years back for October Horror marathon and I thought it was pants haha Cory Feldman lol…

[Frankie Teardrop]

WE’RE ALL GOING TO THE WORLD’S FAIR – No one can say the internet isn’t a spooky place. Attempts to put that across on film often end up a bit clumsy, but WAGTTWF feels eerie and off-key. Nothing much happens – we follow a teen’s involvement in the world of online role playing as she plumbs the depths of a mysterious RPG (ARG? I don’t know, I’m old), an infatuation that attracts an online ‘admirer’. Its set-up sounds slightly typical but the film downplays and ultimately leaves open any predator / prey cliches, instead reaching beyond narrative towards the ambient oddness of virtual environments and our own obsessions. It’s a stark film, minimal, and its world seems silent and empty, but a dreaminess descends when ASMR pushers murmur their incantatory spiel and life seems cut up into the fragments you can see on screens; WAGTTWF doesn’t fall back on big visuals to bring home its strangeness, rather it’s the pervasive disconnect within digital media itself that fills this movie with its spectral air. Sometimes hypnotic and always at least interesting, might not be everyone’s cup of tea (what ever is?) but definitely worth a look for fans of offbeat creepiness.

[trebor8273]

When a number of of disappearance and deaths take place on the London underground it's up too some hippy types and Donald Pleasances police detective to find out what happened.


Enjoyable with a dirty creepy atmosphere, but the highlight is Pleasanes performance were he comes of as a escapee from the Sweeny,half expected him too start shouting you slag!

Watch out for Christopher Lee in a small role.

Up later

The Curse of the weeping woman.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

The Legacy (1978)

Architects, Katherine Ross and Sam Elliott, are stranded at an old English manor house following a road accident. It soon transpires they were expected visitors and are soon joined by the likes of Charles Gray and Roger Daltrey among others as it turns out the house is owned by a wealthy but dying man (John Standing) and the six guests are there for a very sinister reason.

A late entry into the time honored old dark house horror genre. The longer the film goes on the more convoluted and ridiculous it becomes as well as the more entertaining. Following a stodgy opening the story evolves and we have a monstrous creature in the attic, a satanic coven as well as the reincarnation of a long dead witch.

The cast are great and the whole thing is slickly directed by Richard Marquand (who would later go on to direct Return of the Jedi.) and has some delicious death scenes including Gray engulfed in flames, Daltrey dying from a gory tracheotomy and Marianne Broome drowning in the indoor pool - probably the films most memorable sequence. The final third has enough tension and WTF? moments to make it eminently watchable and thoroughly enjoyable.

The Legacy is a film that grows on me each and every time i see it so i'm pleased that i finally picked up the Indicator Blu-ray in the sale last week.

[MrBarlow]

Cockneys Vs Zombies. 2012

Two bank robber brothers race through a zombie infested London with their cousin and a hostage to rescue their granddad and his friends from a nursing home.

When I first heard about this film I immediately looked at the title and thought this will be one of those daft, stupid zombie films that is going to be boring...I was wrong. There is a good character build up and shows how one brother is the so called brains while the other is willing to take one anyone and has to be bailed out.

Alan Ford plays the granddad and head man of the nursing home who looks after Honor Blackman, Tony Selby, Georgina Hale, Duddley Sutton and Richard Briers. Rasmus Hardiker and Harry Treadaway play the two brothers, while Michelle Ryan plays the cousin and Georgia King plays the hostage who ends up going along for the ride. Right from the start it is a good bloodbath and comedy flick.

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Up next Fright Night

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Dracula Has Risen From The Grave (1968)

Dracula Has Risen From the Grave despite it's brilliantly exploitative title is probably the least remembered of all Christopher Lee's Dracula films.

It boasts a fine tightly woven script (mostly), allowing us a glimpse into the lives of merely a handful of characters and a beautifully mischievous performance by Lee as Dracula. Rupert Davies, cast here possibly because Peter Cushing and Andrew Kier were busy, plays the Monsignor, out to bring an end to the Dracula curse still haunting the local peasants even though the vampire had been long since destroyed. Meanwhile his niece played by the stunning Veronica Carlson, cavorts along with her new boyfriend Paul (Barry Andrews) and ends up iarousing Dracula's interest, Together with a misguided priest (Ewan Hooper) and Zena, a local serving wench at the tavern, make up the cast. A special mention to Barbara Ewing as Zena, her bar maid to me is the archetypal tavern wench - warm, bubbly and fun loving with a cleavage to die for. No wonder Dracula instantly goes for her, kudos to director Freddie Francis for giving her such a large role in the film.

Francis comes up with a lot of new ideas for this film. My favourite is setting a large portion of the film in upstairs rooms and having characters come and go via the roof tops of the Shambles style streets below. Its certainly different than being stalked by an unseen assailant along shadowy streets, castle bedrooms or dark woodland trails. Francis along with writer Anthony Hinds bravely decide to explore the thorny subject of faith. Paul, early on, tells the Monsignor he doesn't believe in God, so when it comes to him staking Dracula in what should be the films climactic scene the Count simply tears the stake out from his chest as Paul is a non-believer.

The film has some flaws, mostly early plot points. If Dracula is dead, trapped under ice from the previous film Dracula Prince of Darkness, then who killed the girl in the bell tower at the beginning of the film?. Once revived from the ice in a frankly daft scene involving the priest slipping and landing next to Dracula's frozen body in the icy river (How is it still there, does the ice never melt?) the priest recovers and sees the reflection of Dracula in the river, this goes against all vampire folklore as they don't cast a reflection. Finally what happened to the priests wound on his forehead? where's the blood and cut? Did Dracula lick it clean? All this happens in a five minuite spell and feels so wrong.

Unfortunately as with most of the Dracula films his death scene is also fairly rubbish, poorly thought out and relies on coincidence. Granted the Count being pushed from a balcony and landing on a cross which had just fallen, stood upright itself, is a bit dodgy, but its nowhere near as bad as being struck by lightning whilst holding a metal rod in Scars of Dracula.

Luckily these are minor grumbles in what is otherwise a hugely enjoyable film.

I keep waiting for this to get a UK Blu-ray release but it never comes. It's Warners so is crying out to join the HMV Premium Collection.

[MrBarlow]

Fright Night. 1985.

Teen Charley Brewster thinks his new neighbour Jerry Dandridge is a vampire and sets out to prove it to his friends with the help of T.V. personality Peter Vincent.

So we got Chris Sarandon as the new neighbour who only appears at night and enjoys the company of two ladies seen in his house. William Ragsdale who enjoys a good horror flick (a teen with good taste) who thinks Jerry and roommate Billy are up to no good. Roddy McDowall as the film and T.V character the fearless Peter Vincent who almost shits himself the first time being in the lair of the suspected creature of the night. Amanda Bearse plays the girlfriend of Charley and Jerry (Homage to Dracula maybe) and Stephen Geoffreys as the the friend Evil Ed who knows how to laugh.

Certainly throwback to the 80s with The Lost Boys that came out two years later, this really never gets old or boring with every viewing. There is one or two noticeable goofs and errors involving vampires and mirrors but they are a mere blink and miss. You gotta love Brad Fiedel and his background score to the film and the make-up effects used.

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Up next Fright Night Part 2.

[Nordicdusk]

30 Days Of Unseen Horror

Day 19


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A couple come to England from America with a plan to buy a yacht and start their new lif aboard. When they arrive at the ship yard the owner of the shop yard does everything he can to talk the couple out of buying the Cyclone but they are suspicious about the length he is going to stop them buying the yacht thinking it's connected to smuggling but the truth is much much worse. They are told that the ship is haunted and anyone who has ever bought it returns it within weeks but these are a stubborn duo and refuse to believe in such mumbo jumbo. But they were wrong to not take the warning serious.

As everyone knows I love anything to do with the sea so this seemed like a dead cert. There isn't much ghostly action going on throughout this in fact only once done see anything the rest is just people saying they saw stuff happening. There isn't much that really happens but it did keep me interested to find out what was going on but I never felt like I was watching a horror film and with the twist ending even less so. On the plus side we get to spend plenty of time with the beautiful Hazel Court and who wouldn't enjoy that.

Interesting but disappointing.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

The Raven (1963)

Following Nordy's review of Ghost Ship (I've seen it a few times now by the way, it's not bad if you just fancy a quick film) more of the gorgeous Hazel Court is seen in this classic Corman comedy.

When i say more it's because the voluptuous Court can barely stay in her stunning blue dress when she finally turns up playing Lenore the lost love Vincent Price pines for when a raven (Peter Lorre) comes a tapping at his chamber door.

When your source material is a wonderful but not especially lengthy piece of poetry it's difficult to make a feature length movie so screen writer and producer director Roger Corman do what they always do and make some shit up.

Unlike The Pit and the Pendulum from a couple of years previous this is quite wonderful. It's essentially a battle of wits and magic between Price and Boris Karloff with Peter Lorre and Court lending strong support. All the players get to shine, Lorre is a lot of miserable fun, with Karloff and Price are as charming as ever whilst throwing magical daggers at one another, perhaps inspiring the Harry Potter series of stories with all their magical duels.

After what seemed like a few minutes i wondered to myself how they could make a feature film based on such slender viewings and there was no chance it would be able to sustain my interest...then i noticed the clock said fifty minutes of the film had ticked by.

Although i've had this film on an MGM Midnite Movies dvd for years i reckon i must have only watched it once when i first bought it because i had no memory of it whatsoever when the Arrow Blu-ray started playing. Tonight's viewing will definitely be the first of many now.

[MrBarlow]

Fright Night Part 2. 1988.

Three years have passed since Charley and Peter destroyed Jerry Dandridge, Charley now at college and been under therapy, soon his teen years battling vampires will come back to haunt him.

Although this is a direct sequel with William Ragsdale and Roddy McDowall returning and reprising their roles as the troubled 20 year old and the fearless vampire killer, Julie Carmen plays the female vampire Regina with her crew of another vampire, wolf man and protector.

Tommy Lee Wallace takes the helm as director and does a decent job with this and tries no to copy what the previous film had except anoother body melting sequence that it's a bit shorter. We do get a bit of Brad Fiedel's score from the original but he also creates a bit of a darker tone for this one and Deborah Holland song which was decent. There is some laughs in this but doesn't really spoil the film and some good make up effects used.

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Up next Cannibal Troll