Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 15th, 2004
Synopsis
Years ago, a tormented teen at Rogers High School committed suicide after stabbing a younggirl to death, or so the story goes. In the present, the jocks on the football team are slipping intocomas after having visions of the ghost of the teen. The put-upon goths and geeks at the schoolare summoning the ghost of Abel Frye and cursing the bullies. Or so it seems. Called in toinvestigate is the Veritas Team, a mom-and-pop-and-two-teenagers outfit whose job is toinvestigate pos...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on January 10th, 2004
Synopsis
Freddy has been rendered powerless by being forgotten. In order to revive his memory, andthus his power, he impersonates Jason’s mother (work with me, here) and sends the hulkingkiller down Elm Street way, hoping that he will be blamed for Jason’s murders. His plan beginsto work, but Jason is so relentless in his slaughter that he starts nailing teens that Freddy hadreserved for himself, and thus the two monsters are set on a collision course.
Enormous fun, even tho...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on December 26th, 2003
Synopsis
The version of the story these films tell much the same, given that the 1941 Spencer Tracyeffort was a remake of the 1932 Fredric March production. Handsome Dr. Henry Jekyll,frustrated over being denied an earlier marriage to his fiancee (Rose Hobart in 1932, Lana Turnerin ‘41), quaffs a potion and becomes the monstrous Edward Hyde. Hyde’s principle victim is Ivy(Miriam Hopkins/Ingrid Bergman), the woman on whom Jekyll’s now unleashed sexuality ventsits fury.
...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on December 20th, 2003
Synopsis
A group of college friends head off into the woods for a holiday in a remote cabin. They havean bloody encounter with a gruesomely sick stranger, and he passes his infection on to them. Oneby one, they fall ill, and their friendships are violently torn asunder as they uninfected try toquarantine, by any means necessary, the infected.
Riddled with references to other horror movies, mostly from the 70s (the theme song fromLast House on the Left keeps pla...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on December 11th, 2003
Synopsis
The story is very simple, which is one of the elements that gives the film its raw power. Agroup of young adults in a VW minivan make the mistake of picking up a demented hitchhiker.They manage to dump him, but he marks their van with his own blood. Shortly, the make themistake of stumbling upon what turns out to be the home of the hitchhiker, Leatherface, and therest of the psychotic brood. Most of the cast is killed off by the halfway mark, at which point thefilms ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on December 11th, 2003
Synopsis
Every 23 years, a monster known as the Creeper lives and feeds on humans for 23 days. Weare at the end of the current cycle. After killing a farm boy on day 22, the Creepers spends hislast day disabling a school bus and tormenting the athletes and cheerleaders on board.
That’s about all you’ve got for a plot, but for this kind of horror film, that’s all you reallyneed. Oh sure, there are all sorts of side issues like the racism of the team captain, and theher...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on November 26th, 2003
Synopsis
The pathologically shy Willard Stiles (Crispin Glover) lives a life from Hell. His mother isa domineering invalid. (Played by Jackie Burroughs as the most horrific mother since AnneRamsey in Throw Mama from the Train, she resembles nothing so much as NormanBates’ stuffed mother come to life.) His boss (R. Lee Ermey) is an abusive bully. But thenWillard befriends the white rat Socrates, and things begin to look up. Socrates brings more andmore friends into the ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on November 10th, 2003
Synopsis
Before Buffy, before Jesus Christ, there was Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter. Ahandsomely if inexpensively mounted period piece, this sees the dashing swordsman of the titlebattling vampires in the English countryside. In this instance, the vampire doesn’t suck blood,but youth. The plotting is very haphazard, and the action scenes leave something to be desired,but there are fun turns by the usual set of British character actors, and Caroline Munro lends herever-smould...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on November 3rd, 2003
Synopsis
In a cellar (all that remains of a great mansion) lurks a demonic bed. Anyone who lies on it will be eaten (and being eaten involves being surrounded by yellow foam and dragged down into yellow liquid limbo and dissolved). Trapped behind his own painting is the ghost of artist Aubrey Beardsley. He witnesses the bed's depredations (and his narration explains the plot to us), but there is nothing he can do to stop the evil. That, more or less, is the plot. The 80 minutes meander along, and the...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on October 15th, 2003
Synopsis
In 1963, little Michael Meyers stabs his sister to death (the scene shown in a justly famouscontinuous POV shot). Fifteen years later, Michael escapes from the asylum and returns to hishome town of Haddonfield. On Halloween night, he stalks Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) andher friends, while being pursued himself by Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasence). The first and stillthe best of modern masked slasher films, Halloween towers above its imitators. Stylish,smart, restra...
