31 Horror Movies in 31 Days: Tales from the Darkside: The Movie

Tales from the Darkside: The Movie (1990)

Directed by John Harrison

Starring Deborah Harry, Christian Slater, David Johansen, William Hickey, James Remar, and Rae Dawn Chong

            An imprisoned young boy is slated to be the main course of a woman’s dinner party.  To stall for time and avoid evisceration, the boy starts telling the woman stories from the book she left in his cell.  He reads three macabre tales while she should be preparing him for dinner.  First, the boy tells a story of a bookish college student who has been cheated out of a scholarship.  When he gets his hands on a mummy, his rivals and victimizers feel the wrath of his hard studying.  Second, an old man hires a contract killer for the oddest job of his career: kill a deceptively evil black cat.  Finally, there is a story of man who is spared death at the hands of winged monster provided he never tells anyone about it.  After three stories, it is time for the boy to face this woman’s dinner plans.

            Tales from the Darkside is a mostly decent anthology movie.  It feels like there could have been more done to make some segments work better.  However, it also does not really fail all that often.  The bookending story is the weakest of the bunch, but that is forgivable.  It sets up the segments well enough and gives you a palate cleanse between each.  Both Deborah Harry and Matthew Lawrence as the woman and the kid respectively barely manage to make it through their scenes.  Lawrence is more annoying than scared for his life.  Harry alternates between looking like she does not care and looking like she is balancing her checkbook in her mind.  But again, it is just supposed to introduce each story. 

            The three segments vary in quality, but all are at least decent.  The first segment, “Lot 249”, has a lot going for it.  It has three major actors at various stages of their careers: Christian Slater, Julianne Moore, and Steve Buscemi.  Slater and Moore do not do much with their roles except act waspy and conniving.  Buscemi has more fun with his role, playing it arrogant and vindicated all in one breath.  The mummy looks alright and there is even a fun scene with him getting taken apart.  Not bad, but not great.

            The second segment is the most enjoyable for its sense of morbid humor.  “Cat from Hell”, based on the Stephen King story of the same name, feels like a really dark episode of Looney Tunes.  The killer cat murdering people is nearly always juxtaposed with it looking playful and cute.  One of the murder flashbacks uses an obviously fake cat while it is smothering someone.  The whole bit is hilarious, unintentional or not.  Plus, it is probably the most adorable asphyxiation ever in a horror movie.  David Johansen is the other part of what makes this segment good.  You always feel like he is about to explode, twitching violently and starring with murderous intent.  Seeing a cute cat do some unspeakably terrible things to the lead singer of The New York Dolls is worth the rest of the movie.  This one is the real winner of the movie.

            Finally, the third piece is called “Lover’s Vow”.  This is the straightest horror in the whole film.  It has a certain fable-like quality to it and an ending right out of the pre-Disney fairy tales.  The real highlight of this segment is the monster suit and effects, which are quite good.  Outside of that, however, the segment flounders a bit.  The characters are thin and the actors just manage to carry it until the creature reemerges.  It is another segment that needed a little more to make it special. 

            Tales from the Darkside: The Movie is no classic, but it still has some moments of a fun horror movie.  Seek this out if you love anthologies and expect to be underwhelmed.  If you are hungry for a new anthology, this will be but a snack. 

6 out of 10

31 Horror Movies in 31 Days: Pumpkinhead

Pumpkinhead (1988)

Directed by Stan Winston

Starring Lance Henriksen, John D’Aquino, and Kerry Remsen

            Ed Harley and his son live a quiet life in a rural town.  That silence is shattered one day when some vacation teens accidently kill the Harley boy.  Driven by his loss, Ed searches for a way to get his son back or get those kids back for what they did.  He finds a witch in a backwoods swamp who can help him.  She summons a demon of vengeance, with long claws and big fangs.  This demon, Pumpkinhead, seeks out the teenagers and brutally kills them one at a time.  Ed cannot shake the feeling that this is wrong.  Not only did he not want all this blood on his hands, but he senses a connection to the beast.  Once Ed realizes the true cost of summoning Pumpkinhead, he races to the teen’s aid in hopes of stopping the monster’s onslaught. 

            This movie really only exists for two reasons: the monster and Lance Henriksen.  Winston does a fine job with his first movie, but he focuses the picture on those two and lets everything else fall by the wayside.  The teen are forgettable and the actors playing them feel very green.  The supporting cast does better, especially Florence Schauffler as the witch.  And the script itself is alright, it just needs a few more passes on the dialogue.  The mode and tension are quite good.  The rural area where this all takes place is dripping with dread.  The story is told well enough and keeps the suspense building all the way to the final confrontation.  Winston got it done effectively and adeptly.  What makes you interested, however, always comes back to those two things. 

A Southern Gothic fairytale with excellent special effects, Pumpkinhead is an admirable directorial debut from Stan Winston.  The creature design and effects are strong, making for a memorable antagonist.  You can see bits of Giger’s influence, along with a feeling that the effects team wanted to create something visually arresting.  And its face has  a lot of emotive power, hinting at something deeper in the beast.  Lance Henriksen finally has a chance to showcase his talents and he does not disappoint.  As Ed Harley, Henriksen is the center of the story.  He feels like a real parent and his grieving for his son looks authentically dreadful.  It is a good performance from a man too regularly relegated to supporting actor status. 

Pumpkinhead is a fun, bloody little movie.  It does what any viewer wants to do at some point during a creature feature: put less attention into the supporting players and more attention into the main man and the bid bad.  If you want a monster movie that you have not seen before, you could do a lot worse than this. 

7 out of 10

31 Horror Movies in 31 Days: Feast

Feast (2005)

Directed by John Gulager

Starring Balthazar Getty, Henry Rollins, Navi Rawat, Judah Friedlander, Josh Zuckerman, and Jason Mewes

            In a bar in the middle of the desert, patrons and staff go about their routines.  Suddenly, a man burst through the door with the head of a monstrous beast.  He tells them they have to secure the bar, and that if they listen to him they will survive the night.  The movie stops to pull up a plaque identifying this man as “Hero”, and that he will probably live through the movie.  Immediately following this, Hero is pulled head first into a window by a monster arm, than decapitated.  What follows is the efforts of the people inside this bar to fend off the hideous beasts and live to see the morning.  However, it all goes down in the same fashion as the Hero.  It is going to be a long night. 

            Billed as a cross between Evil Dead and Diner¸ Feast does not quite live up to either.  It is a confident film from a first time director and writing team, but I cannot help but feel that confidence is misplaced.  As the winner of the third and final season of Project Greenlight, Feast should have been the best of the best that series could produce.  Instead, the movie does almost everything it can to obscure what happens in every scene of action and horror.  It is still funny, but enough to make the rest of the movie worthwhile. 

Nearly every shot in this movie looks handheld, and it gets jitterier as time goes on.  When the creatures attack, the shots become manic and incomprehensible.  There are scenes that I know have some great effects and would look awesome if it were not for the camera moving around so violently.  It really hampers the enjoyment of the movie.  The writing is good in spots and has some interesting ideas, but it does not make for a good film overall.  The characters are all horror stereotypes and they are played with in surprising and amusing ways.  But once these characters have a moment to themselves, things start to fall apart.  There is no depth to support them, no real layers to make them interesting.  As splatter fest cannon fodder, they work wonders.  But they are nothing more than that. 

            There is a lot to like about Feast.  The cast is filled with great choices that make their sometimes limited time count.  Henry Rollins, Glu Gulager, Jason Mewes, and Judah Friedlander all have fun with their roles.  They ham it up and make every moment of screen time enjoyable.  The creature designs and makeup are excellent.  They look fierce and frightening when the camera can steady itself to get a shot.  Also, there are title cards that come up with every character that are genuinely funny.  They explain who these people are in horror movie terms and their life expectancy.  These add to the humor when the following scene turns that information on its head.  You cannot see everything coming in Feast, and that adds some welcome fun to the film.

            There is a lot of Feast that needs some serious work.  But, there is a good bit of it that is an enjoyable creature feature.  Only genre fans and those with the patience to try out a first-time effort should look this up.

5 out of 10

31 Horror Movies in 31 Days: Quarantine

Quarantine (2008)

Directed by John Erick Dowdle

Starring Jennifer Carpenter, Jay Hernandez, Columbus Short, Greg Germann, Steve Harris, and Dania Ramirez

            A small crew for a late night magazine show is working on a piece about firemen.  The anchor, Angela, and her cameraman are longing for something to spice up their story when the fire house gets a call.  The crew accompanies the firemen to an apartment building.  The firemen, the police, and the residents of the building are concerned with the noises coming from their neighbor’s apartment.  When the police approach the woman in question, she pounces on a cop and takes a bite out of him.  The bitten man quickly turns into another vicious berserker, infecting more people.  As the apartment building is covered by a quarantine tent and surrounded by the CDC, it becomes clear that they have no intention of letting these people out.  While the residents and responders battle for their lives against the rabid infected, the camera captures everything that happens.

            Incase you did not know, Quarantine is a remake of the Spanish found footage film [REC].  I have not seen [REC], so I do not know how the two compare.  What I do know is that Quarantine is a fine movie that is more polished than many others in this genre.  For a found footage movie, it is kind of impressive how many recognizable character actors are used.  Jennifer Carpenter does a good job carrying the movie and serving as the viewer’s guide to the madness.  Steve Harris makes the most of his role of the cameraman.  He acts as the viewer’s eyes and ears, at times even voicing our concerns.  For a movie like this, all the actors involved do a wonderful job making these characters believable.  Also, it is pleasant seeing a few familiar faces show up in the found footage genre. 

            The makeup is fairly minimal, but effective.  For these zombie-like victims, it is just some bloody faces and bulging veins.  Since the whole cause of this situation is a fast acting virus, the infected look appropriately sick.  For fans of fast zombies in horror movies, Quarantine makes them look good.  They have bloody, gnarly scream and sprint like Olympic track stars.  It is unnerving and gets in your face immediately, making for some good scares. 

            If you have not seen this or are interested in how the remake handled the material, Quarantine is a worth watching.  I cannot speak to how it compares to [REC], but I can say that it is a good movie in its own right.  It also has the pleasure of being a found footage film that is tense, well acted, and expertly shot.  For this genre, that is not always easy to come by. 

8 out of 10

31 Horror Movies in 31 Days: Alien

Alien (1979)

Directed by Ridley Scott

Starring Sigourney Weaver, Veronica Cartwright, Ian Holm, Harry Dean Stanton, and John Hurt

            Look, there is not a thing I could say that has not already been said about Alien.  It is a classic for a reason.  Alien is essentially an old dark house movie with elements of a creature feature and a slasher flick.  The character work is strong and memorable, giving us the greatest screen heroine in horror and sci-fi.  Dan O’Bannon wrote a solid screenplay that is filled with memorable lines.  The creature design by H.R. Geiger is out of this world.  Ridley Scott is a fantastic director that can take all these elements and put them together without conflicting with each other.  If you have not seen Alien, you should view it now.  It will enrich your view of film and terrify you at the same time.  Like all who see it, you will come to admire its purity. 

10 out of 10

31 Horror Movies in 31 Days: The People Under the Stairs

The People Under the Stairs (1991)

Directed by Wes Craven

Starring Brandon Adams, Everett McGill, Wendy Robie, A. J. Langer, Ving Rhames, and Sean Whalen.

            A little boy everyone calls Fool lives in a rundown apartment with his family.  His mother is sick and they are about to be evicted.  His sister’s boyfriend, Leroy, offers to help Fool make their rent money.  He takes him under his wing and tries to teach him about burglary, starting with the house of Fool’s landlords.  The Robenson’s are wealthy from generations of family ventures and shady business practices.  Leroy, his partner Spencer, and Fool case the home.  After Spencer gets in as a gas company worker, Leroy gets suspicious of the time he is taking.  Fool and Leroy break in to find the house is filled with locked cupboards, spooky noises, and no sign of their rumored fortune.  But when the Robenson’s come home, they will find that there are worse things than getting caught stealing.  Fool and Leroy are hunted by the family and pursued by a strange person living inside the walls.  When Fool gets to the basement, he will meet the Robenson’s greatest secret.  There are people living in their basement and what they look like does not bode well for Fool.

            Bill Cobbs and Ving Rhames have some minor roles that they fill quite nicely.  Rhames especially does well with Leroy, Fool’s less than altruistic mentor.  The duo of Man and Woman are played frighteningly over the top by Everett McGill and Wendy Robie respectively.  They both commit to the characters and their insanity, bringing them close to being a caricature without quite going there.  Brandon Adams and A.J. Langer are the real treasures of the movie.  They have the most screen time and waste a minute of it. 

            The scares are surprising and potent.  The horror does not just come from the stakes of Fool’s robbery; it also comes from the implications of the Robenson’s activities.  They keep a basement full of cannibalistic feral boys that have “had the bad parts cut out”.  They destroy families financially and horde the money.  They act like a married couple but are very much siblings.  This is a family like the one from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but with the power and invulnerability that wealth can buy. 

            The little artistic choices are enjoyable as well.  The Robenson man does not just hunt intruders; he hunts them in a bondage suit.  There is a fine layer of dust on nearly every surface of the house.  The only place with any kind of color is Alice’s room.  And most of the movie takes place during the day, with light pouring in from every window.  It means that Craven has less chance to hide things in darkness, so all that is shown has to be good. 

            As far as Craven films go, The People Under the Stairs is one his betters ones.  It is not anything close to his Elm Street films,  but it is far better than Shocker or Vampire in Brooklyn.  Give it a try and you will not be disappointed. 

8 out of 10